Helmut Sorge
| Posted : February 03, 2022
His message was one of reassurance, just as a great leader has to react in a crisis. The concerns about Covid 19 was nothing but “a frenzy and psychosis”. The President knew the secret to defeat the virus: vodka, sauna, tractor. Didn’t a US president named Donald Trump suggest that toilet cleaning disinfectants chase the virus out of infected lungs on national television? (New York Times, April 24, 2020) That was Trump-speak, sure, but the man who uttered the tractor/vodka/nonsense was not Trump, but Alexander Lukashenko, 67, President of Belarus, a former Soviet republic neighboring Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania.
Helmut Sorge
| Posted : January 31, 2022
It has been more than 100 years since Germany manifested colonial power, a dark period of history indeed. Political and military leaders, supported by its ruler, Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia, committed crimes against humanity on African land. The first genocide of the 20th Century, mass killings of 65 000 Herero in Africa, today known as Namibia. Between 1904 and 1908, Germany suffocated humanity in concentration camps like Shark Island, forcing them into deadly labor camps.
Otaviano Canuto
| Posted : January 31, 2022
On January 28, both Argentina’s government and the International Monetary Fund staff made announcements about an understanding on new support program. Meanwhile, in addition to the payment of an amortization due on January 28, another payment is also expected in the first week of February. Both payments relate to the previous package, approved in 2018 and substantially disbursed thereafter. Non-payment could sour relations at a critical moment for a new program to be approved by the IMF's board of executive directors in time for disbursements to cover larger obligations due in March.
Morten Seja* , Charlie Knight , Hadley Hilgenhurst , Amlan Banerjee , Omair Azam
| Posted : January 31, 2022
Setting the Scene for the Current State of Inclusive Green Finance
Climate change is one of, if not the biggest, challenges facing the world. The challenge extends to banking regulators, who, in addition to other responsibilities, are now tasked with ensuring financial inclusion and climate change mitigation. However, central banks realizing how important inclusion and climate change are is only the first step. As part of this process, they need to understand how to define Inclusive Green Finance (IGF), design regulations, and determine what the focus areas should be. Accordingly, they need to develop IGF taxonomies and monitor their constituents to ensure that the financial system plays its part for a more just, climate-friendly and resilient society. While there is a growing body of knowledge available to central banks on how to improve green and inclusive practices, there are currently no guidelines on what supply-side data should be gathered by institutions to design effective regulations.
This article focuses on supply side sex-disaggregated data collection, providing an overview of existing research on the topic, gender considerations, and how these relate to developing guidelines for measurement frameworks to gather and use IGF relevant supply-side data.
Otaviano Canuto
| Posted : January 26, 2022
The year began with simultaneous signs of a slowdown in global economic growth and a reorientation toward tightening of monetary policies in advanced economies. In its latest Global Economic Prospects released on January 11, the World Bank forecasts that, after a global growth surprisingly at 5.5% last year, it should moderate to somewhere around 4.1% and 3.2%. % in, respectively, 2022 and 2023.
Helmut Sorge
| Posted : January 26, 2022
Time was running out. The invisible, enemy combatants floated into the capital like ghosts. Unopposed, ready to take power, twenty years after they were chased out of town by American military might. August 15/16, 2021, historic days for the Taliban known for severe military and humanitarian abuses.
Morten Seja* , Hadley Hilgenhurst , Charlie Knight
| Posted : January 25, 2022
Why Green Finance Taxonomies?
The increasing effort to mitigate climate change has caused more and more individuals, governments, and companies to shift away from traditional financial investments and activities, and towards more environmentally-friendly alternatives. However, until recently, there has been a lack of consensus on what green finance and its environmental impact is. Thus, green finance taxonomies are needed to provide classification systems that identify how environmentally-friendly and sustainable economic and financial activities are.
Francis Perrin
| Posted : January 24, 2022
En janvier 2022, deux sociétés pétrolières, Chariot Limited et Predator Oil & Gas Holdings PLC, toutes les deux basées au Royaume-Uni, ont annoncé de bonnes nouvelles sur deux permis au Maroc. Ces découvertes de gaz naturel ont fait couler beaucoup d’encre. De façon générale, ce n’est d’ailleurs pas très étonnant, et ce pour plusieurs raisons : une découverte d’hydrocarbures (pétrole et gaz naturel) est un événement important en soi au regard de la place des hydrocarbures sur la scène énergétique (le pétrole et le gaz naturel représentent ensemble environ un peu moins de 60% de la consommation mondiale d’énergie), économique et géopolitique mondiale ; une découverte crée des attentes et des espoirs, parfois des déceptions ; et une découverte peut aussi susciter des controverses, soit parce que certains concepts techniques de base de l’industrie des hydrocarbures ne sont pas bien compris, ce qui peut entraîner des interprétations erronées, soit parce que la ou les sociétés concernées ont une communication discutable sur l’ampleur de cette découverte.
Francis Perrin
| Posted : January 24, 2022
في يناير/كانون الثاني 2022، أعلنت شركتا التنقيب عن النفط والغاز، شاريوت ليمتد وبريداتور أويل آند غاز هولدينغ، المستقرتان معا في المملكة المغربية، أخبارا سارة حول رخصتين من رخصهما في البلاد. وقد أفاضت اكتشافات الغاز الطبيعي المذكورة الكثير من المداد. غير أن هذا الأمر ليس بالمفاجئ عموما، وذلك لعدة أسباب. حيث يعتبر اكتشاف الهيدروكاربونات (النفط أو الغاز الطبيعي) حدثا مهما في حد ذاته بالنظر إلى مكانة الهيدروكاربونات على الساحة الطاقية (يمثل النفط والغاز الطبيعي مجتمعين أقل من 60 في المائة تقريبا من الاستهلاك العالمي للطاقة) والاقتصادية والجيوسياسية العالمية. كما يتمخض عن هذا النوع من الاكتشافات تطلعات وآمال عريضة وأحيانا إحباطات. وقد تثير الكثير من الجدل، إما بسبب عدم فهم بعض المفاهيم الفنية الأساسية في صناعة الهيدروكاربونات، مما تتولد عنه تأويلات خاطئة، وإما بسبب التشكيك في تواصل الشركة أو الشركات المعنية حول حجم هذه الاكتشافات.
Francis Perrin
| Posted : January 24, 2022
In January 2022, two UK-based oil companies, Chariot Limited and Predator Oil & Gas Holdings PLC, made positive announcements on two gas fields in Morocco. These natural gas discoveries generated considerable attention. This is often not surprising for a number of reasons: a hydrocarbon discovery (oil and natural gas) is an important event in itself given the prominence of hydrocarbons in global energy (oil and natural gas together account for around 60% of global energy consumption), and in world economic and geopolitical affairs; a discovery creates hopes and expectations, and occasionally leads to disappointment; and a discovery may also generate controversy, either due to a misunderstanding of basic hydrocarbon industry technical concepts, which can lead to misinterpretation, or due to questionable communication on the magnitude of the discovery by the company or companies involved.
