A non-profit backed by fellowships engager Arsht-Rock Foundation and microinsurance start-up Blue Marble as well as a trade union, has teamed with ICICI Bank on one of the world's first insurance policies for extreme heat, which has 21,000 self-employed women in Gujarat, India, signed up to it so far. The policies offer a small payout if temperatures rise well above historical averages and stay there for at least three days, with payments being triggered if a predetermined threshold is breached. Reinsurer SwissRe has reported that global sales of parametric products have soared 40% since August 2021, while Allied Market Research estimates the market could hit $29.3bn worth in 2031 up from $11.7bn last year.
Pakistan's development vision, held by the country's elite and international development establishment, warns against a significant crisis, according to Samira Shackle in Al Jazeera. She posits that this vision has remained unchanged for six decades and is a "much bigger crisis" than Pakistan's current standoff between its authoritarian populist Prime Minister, Imran Khan, and its military. Pakistan's goal to become the "next Asian Tiger" is a familiar vision held by the Global South, with both governments and organisations pursuing a top-down, modernising approach which prioritises export production, ever-more intensive energy use and burning of fossil fuels, and high-productivity cash cropping, Shackle explains. However, researchers have noted the environmental and social impact of this trajectory, most notably in Pakistan's recent floods of 2010 and 2022. This can be attributed to hydrological engineering works in the country which have caused increased flood risks and ignored natural flows of water. Shackle believes that breaking the idea that there is no alternative to capitalist industrialisation, mega projects, and consuming the planet for profit and pleasure is essential for Pakistan to achieve a better alternative to its current development vision.
The G7 summit held in Japan over the weekend took a unified approach on China's "economic coercion" and reaffirmed commitment to countering Vladimir Putin's aggression in Ukraine. The G7 agreement marks a step forward in providing a coordinated framework to "de-risk" economic relations with China, rather than "decoupling", echoing the calls of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. With the G20 summit set to take place in New Delhi later this year, economic ties between developing countries and China and Russia remains a major issue.
The Colombian government has announced that it is suspending a ceasefire with rebels whom it accuses of killing four Indigenous people, including minors who were avoiding forced recruitment in the south of the country. The FARC-EMC group will resume being targeted by the military in provinces including Caqueta, Putumayo, Guaviare and Meta, the government said in a statement. FARC-EMC is in fact a group led by former commanders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, who refused to take part in pursuit of a 2016 peace deal with the government, despite over 14,000 of the group’s members surrendering their weapons. Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s administration also committed to continue to maintain a ceasefire with FARC-EMC in other parts of the country where attacks on civilians have decreased, adding that delegates would soon be appointed to lead peace talks with the group.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is in Africa pushing President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's peace plan in a bid to break Russia's influence and win a new market for its grain. Ukraine, which is also hosting peace talks with separatists in the east, recognises that other peace proposals, including those from China and from South Africa, could gain traction and has stepped up its relations with Africa in response. Speaking at the G7 over the weekend, Zelenskiy proposed holding a global peace summit in July to promote Ukraine's formula.
Efforts by the Group of Seven (G7) to contain China's growing influence with emerging economies in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific are unlikely to alter the Global South's deepening economic ties with Beijing or encourage the nations to switch sides, according to former Singaporean diplomat and ex-UN Security Council President Kishore Mahbubani. Despite US attempts to rally countries to the Americans' cause, economic development is the prime concern for most state and ASEAN governments, driving many of them to seek close ties with both the US and China and discouraging them from taking sides, said Mahbubani, now a distinguished fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute. Europe will continue its strong trade ties with China; developing nations do not want to choose sides; Russia and China are not yet a bloc; and the consequence of the US-China trade war could be severe for many of these emerging nations, Mahbubani said.
