March 16, 2013 marks the one year anniversary of Kofi Annan's presentation of his six-point peace plan for Syria at the United Nations. In an article in the journal Stability , Richard Gowan takes this opportunity to reflect on Annan's role as mediator and the effect that uncertainty has in conflict resolution.
In late 2011, the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, the Center for American Progress, and the Stanley Foundation formed a study group of US and Chinese experts, including CIC Director Bruce Jones, to evaluate the role of the G-20 in the US-China bilateral relationship as well as how the relationship influences the G-20. After meeting for two conferences over the course of 2012, the group reached consensus on a set of recommendations to improve the efficacy of this important body.
After the discovery of a covert nuclear program in Iraq in 1991, the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) role transformed from promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy to verifying compliance with nonproliferation agreements. Over the next decade, the nuclear programs of three other countries - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, South Africa, and Libya - further tested the IAEA's ability to locate nuclear weapons and dismantle them.
During the January 2013 meeting of the High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda in Liberia, CIC released an options brief by Senior Fellow David Steven on the role that global goals can play in a new development framework.
CIC's Political Missions 2012 highlights the activities of political missions deployed by the UN and other regional organizations over the year and provides mission-by-mission data on UN-led special political missions. The report also provides analysis on the operational and political implications of deploying political missions to unstable environments.
The ascendency of the Global South is reinforced in the United Nations Development Programme’s 2013 Human Development Report aptly titled The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Dive
If you take any interest in the Syrian war and international diplomacy, you may well experience a disturbing sense of deja vu this week. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is heading to Moscow.
On April 15, 2013, Norway's Minister of International Development, Heikki Eidsvoll Holmås, spoke at the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute. Mr. Holmås' lecture focused on issues of development, income inequality, and global poverty.
On June 7, 2012 a high-level panel shared their personal experiences in strengthening rule of law during highly complex political transitions as well as their past work with international agencies such as UNDP.
The future of the development agenda is the subject of intensifying debate, with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) due to expire in 2015. Reaching agreement looks increasingly challenging, with the potential for sharp divisions between key actors on the scope and depth of the post- 2015 agenda. In this context, CIC's Emily O'Brien and Richard Gowan examine a series of international agreements across three other policy areas – environmental policy, financial regulation and human rights.
Over the past decade the United States and the international community have funded an unprecedented private security industry in Afghanistan. Matthieu Aikins argues that with the expected decrease in international aid and changes in the national economy, future stability of Afghanistan depends on ensuring a political settlement among the country's diverse powerbrokers and networks.
Recent months have seen increasing interest in the idea that Rio+20 could be the launch pad for a new set of ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs). But what would SDGs cover, what would a process to define and then implement them look like, and what would some of the key political challenges be? This short briefing sets out a short summary of current thinking on the issue, followed by thoughts about the way forward.
A sequel to two editions of CIC's Review of Political Missions the 2012 report highlights the activities of political missions deployed by the UN and other regional organizations over the year and provides mission-by-mission data on UN-led special political missions. The report also provides analysis on the operational and political implications of deploying political missions to unstable environments.
More and more of the world's poor live in places affected by chronic violence and conflict. These changing dynamics have profound implications for the way that development agencies and other international actors approach their work. Development in the Shadow of Violence: A Knowledge Agenda for Policy, by Bruce Jones and Molly Elgin-Cossart ; is part of a new Center on International Cooperation program, Securing Development.
Diplomatic Fallout: The Next Phase of U.N. Engagement in Somalia
In late-April, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon tapped Nicholas Kay, a former British ambassador and Africa director at the U.K.