UN Summit for Social Development in Doha

30 years ago, the UN convened a summit for social development, devoted to social justice, decent work, social integration and participation. This November, a – much weakened – UN will convene a review summit in Doha, Qatar, 4-6 November. As Isabel Ortiz, Odile Frank and I argue in our Global Social Justice op-ed, published in…

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Just out: UN Summit for Social Development

A plaidoyer for attention to the UN Summit for Social Development in Doha in November 2025 https://www.ipsnews.net/2025/05/2025-world-social-summit-must-not-missed-opportunity/#google_vignette See ideas and commentaries

Conference Panel on the Challenges of Decent Work and the SDGs

Chair(s): Christoph Scherrer (University of Kassel, Germany)Discussant(s): Nicolas Pons-Vignon (University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland) The panel highlights contributions from The Elgar Companion to Decent Work and the Sustainable Development Goals, edited by Madelaine Moore, Christoph Scherrer and Marcel van der Linden. This reader  critically investigates the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda and how it relates to…

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Very soon

Panel on Challenges of Decent Work and the SDGs at the ILO Conference on Regulation for Decent Work on 3 July in Geneva. RDW 2025 See ideas and commentaries.

A summary of the Hans Singer Symposium

The City of Wuppertal, the Johannes Rau Research Community  and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy convened  a symposium on the legacy of Professor Hans Singer (1910-2006) in early May 2025. Wuppertal is an understated locus of ideas, innovation and social reform. In the industrial revolution, it was a centre of weaving and…

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Symposium zur Aktualität des Werks und Wirkens des Entwicklungsökonomen Hans Singer (1910-2006)

Read a summary  under ideas and commentaries. Bilder: © Johannes Rau Forschungsgemeinschaft © JRF e.V.

May 2025: Remembering the persecuted

80 years ago, Germany was liberated from Nazi fascism, and in this spirit, there are many commemorative events this month. One that touched me deeply was a concert on the eve of 8 May, with a haunting piece composed by Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905-1963). It was one of his compositions dedicated to the concentration camp…

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Some updates on social policy

A coherent analysis of poverty is absent from the 2030 Agenda. While the agenda does address redistribution, social rights, and resource consciousness, and makes important contributions to social protection and care policy, it makes only superficial reference to the need for regulating of the economy. The 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty: New horizons for global…

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Symposium zur Aktualität des Werks und Wirkens des Entwicklungsökonomen Hans Singer (1910-2006)

Monday 5 May 2025 we will discuss the legacy of Professor Hans Singer, who had tremendous influence in uncovering unequalising trade patterns between rich and poor countries, was the first economist to argue for integrating the interests of children into development planning, and together with the Kenyan Minister Philip Ndgewa, Professor Richard Jolly and others,…

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“Feminist foreign policy?”

“Feminism needs tectonic plates to shift, not a trendy make-over” (Bernardine Evaristo) In recent years, a number of countries have re-labelled their foreign policy as ‘feminist’. Sweden introduced the concept 8 years ago. Spain, Canada, France, Luxemburg, Mexico, Chile, and Libya, and others have issued feminist foreign policy statements. Germany has a commitment to feminist…

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