Articles

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have traditionally been created to recycle excess reserves from natural resource or non‐commodity revenues. However, in recent years funds are being established under conditions of capital scarcity with objectives to contribute domestic economic development, often through the buildout of national infrastructure programs. Such trends in new fund creation represent a fundamental shift in the sovereign wealth fund paradigm and raise serious questions about how these entities are to be capitalized and also the implications of capitalization models on their sustainability. This study examines the recent evolution of SWF models focused on economic development. Its analytic focus is drawn, in particular, to countries that are neither endowed with oil wealth, nor otherwise enjoy export surpluses to be used to capitalize a development‐oriented SWF. While this study is relevant to and expands the scope of the broad literature on SWFs, its specific contribution is as a focused analysis of how SWF funding sources impact achieving long‐term financial and socio‐economic development objectives.

"The rise of nations such as South Korea, Singapore and China as global economic players illustrated the importance of expanding and deepening human competence. A key starting point in the growth process is recognising that building engineering capabilities offered the best opportunity for technological leapfrogging and catch-up in a variety of industries."

Many energy consumers, and even analysts and policymakers, confront and frame energy and climate risks in a moral vacuum, rarely incorporating broader social justice concerns. Here, to remedy this gap, we investigate how concepts from justice and ethics can inform energy decision-making by reframing five energy problems — nuclear waste, involuntary resettlement, energy pollution, energy poverty and climate change — as pressing justice concerns.

Professor Meghan O'Sullivan was interviewed on November 15th, 2015 for a Wall Street Journal special section on energy, discussing the rapid transformation of the American energy sector in light of low fuel prices, new climate policies and other factors.

Providing societies with reliable energy services, fighting energy poverty and mitigating climate change entail a crucial infrastructure component. Both the energy access and the low carbon challenge require more decentralized energy solutions and a change in the energy infrastructure paradigm. Yet, physical energy infrastructure co-evolves with socio-economic institutions, actors and social norms. This may produce inertia against change. The energy challenge also requires solutions at multiple scales and may entail elements of common pool resource problems. Therefore, the governance of energy infrastructure needs to be polycentric. This allows for contextualization, experimentation and innovation. The article concludes by sketching routes of further research into the energy infrastructure governance nexus in social science research.

"In an email interview with Global Ideas, [Calestous] Juma touches on the challenges and opportunities raised by climate change in Africa, the economic drivers behind a rash of innovations, the role of African universities and why dogma is holding back the continent's full research potential."

Africa is yet to adopt full scale technology-led development. Steve Mbogo spoke to the Director of the Belfer Center's Science, Technology, and Globalisation Project and professor at Harvard University Calestous Juma on the opportunities that await the continent as a late comer.

"The challenge is finding an entry point for fostering science, technology and engineering cooperation between China and Africa. An obvious starting point is agriculture. There are two reasons for this suggestion. First, agricultural transformation was one of the first major programs launched by China after the adoption of the 1982 constitution."

"The Rio+20 process is an important reminder of the urgency to guide global production and consumption patterns with sustainability principles. Sadly, there is really no genuine global institution that is championing sustainable development. The vision that inspired Rio has been supplanted by two extreme positions. The first is a group that believes economic growth will have trickle-down benefits for the environment. The environmental camp has successfully replaced the spirit of Rio with a one-sided agenda that leaves little room for recognising the central role that human wellbeing plays in natural resource management."

If African countries can't plant genetically modified crops to produce more and healthier food, vulnerable populations will be at risk, argues Calestous Juma.