The sixtieth UN General Assembly opens on September 14, 2005, with a three-day summit of heads of state and government to conduct the five-year review of the Millennium Declaration of 2000. Institutional reform of the United Nations will also be on the top of the agenda. One substantial outcome...

During World Water Week in August 2011 - entitled »Water in an Urbanizing World« - UN agencies, experts, and donors will once more be promoting transnational public-private partnerships as a promising and innovative instrument for the effective provision of water and sanitation. In reality,...

At the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), the UN institutions that deal with sustainable development are to be restructured. This offers an opportunity to implement long overdue reforms. The planned restructuring should follow the objective to improve the...

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 20-22, 2012. While the outcome document of the conference responded to most of the demands of the developing and emerging nations gathered in the Group of 77 (G-77), the...

The next G20 Summit will take place in Hamburg on 7/8 July 2017. Under the Chinese Presidency, the G20 adopted the Action Plan on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the 2016 Summit in Hangzhou. The 2030 Agenda had been signed by heads of state and government during the United Nations...