Sustainable Development

HRC60 Side Event, 8 September 2025

Sustainable Development with an Unsustainable Investor – State Dispute Settlement Mechanism?

Side Event to the 60th Session of the Human Rights Council

Co-organized by the South Centre, Permanent Mission of Honduras in Geneva and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development

Date: Monday, 8 September 2025, 2-3 PM

Venue: Concordia 1, Building A, Palais des Nations

Is the current ISDS mechanism undermining human rights & sustainable development?

Join our HRC60 side event to discuss the impacts and explore fairer alternatives.

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SouthViews No. 292, 29 August 2025

Global South’s Aspirations for Inclusive Human Development

By Sudheendra Kulkarni

China’s epoch-changing success in complete eradication of extreme poverty by the end of 2020 has many lessons for other developing countries, including India, that still have a large burden of poverty. India and China, as the only two nations with populations over one billion, should expand all-round cooperation based on mutual learning. Without any doubt, this will prove highly beneficial to inclusive Global Development.

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SC Statement – FFD4 DRM Seville Declaration Side Event, 1 July 2025

Domestic Revenue Mobilisation at the Heart of Sustainable Development: the Seville Declaration

Side-event at the Fourth Financing for Development Conference (FFD4), co-hosted by the South Centre, EU Commission, Germany and Nigeria

High Level Statement by Dr. Carlos Correa, Executive Director of the South Centre

Addis Tax Initiative (ATI) member the South Centre co-organized an event with fellow members the EU Commission, Nigeria and Germany at FFD4 on ‘Domestic Revenue Mobilisation at the Heart of Sustainable Development: the Seville Declaration’. Here are the remarks of Dr. Carlos Correa, Executive Director of the South Centre at the event.

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South Centre Statement at FfD4, 30 June – 3 July 2025

South Centre Statement on the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development

Seville, Spain, 30 June – 3 July 2025

The international financial architecture continues to reflect a global order that existed eight decades ago. An urgent, comprehensive reform is needed to make such order responsive to the financing needs of developing countries in the 21st century.

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SC & IDEAs FfD4 Side Event, 2 July 2025

Reform of the International Debt Architecture: A Developing Country Perspective on Credit Rating Agencies and Financing for Sustainable Development

FfD4 Side Event Co-Organized by IDEAs and South Centre

2 July 2025, 12:30 – 14:00, Room Side Event 17,

FIBES Sevilla Exhibition & Conference Centre, Seville, Spain

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SC Statement at the Council of the Global South Research Center, 28 March 2025

Statement of Carlos Correa, Executive Director of the South Centre, on occasion of the Council of the Global South Research Center

Beijing, March 28th, 2025

We welcome the creation of the Global South Research Center with the Secretariat of the Center for International Knowledge on Development (CIKD), and look forward to the opportunities to cooperate on themes of particular relevance for the Global South.

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SouthViews No. 285, 28 March 2025

Advancing International Cooperation under the Global Digital Compact

By Danish

Bridging the global digital divide in new and emerging technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence, will require developing countries to strongly leverage international cooperation to build digital skills, knowledge and gain access to these technologies which can accelerate their digital transformation and sustainable development. This emphasis on international cooperation is also deeply embedded in the Global Digital Compact, which was adopted as part of the Pact for the Future. This paper therefore looks at how international cooperation modalities have been included in the GDC across the different issue areas, how developing countries are already engaging with the GDC through their national initiatives, and provides some useful considerations going forward.

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South Centre Annual Report 2024

South Centre Annual Report 2024

The South Centre carries out multiple activities to support developing countries with policy-oriented research, inputs and advice for negotiations and capacity building. The Report summarizes the South Centre’s activities in 2024 and highlights the contexts in which they were conducted as well as the objectives that were pursued with their implementation.

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Research Paper 216, 27 February 2025

Will the Pact for the Future Advance a Common Global Agenda on the Challenges Facing Humanity?

By Viviana Munoz Tellez, Danish, Abdul Muheet Chowdhary, Nirmalya Syam, Daniel Uribe

At a time when multilateralism is needed more than ever to address the global challenges and rising geopolitical tensions, paradoxically, the capacity and delegated power of the United Nations (UN) to uphold a rule-based order to keep peace and security is being weakened. Even in an increasingly multipolar world, a retreat towards unilateralism by world powers masked as national sovereignty is dangerous and highly unfavourable for developing countries. In this light, the United Nations Pact for the Future, a new forward-looking agenda of commitments adopted by consensus by UN Member States in September 2024, is a welcome initiative. The Pact for the Future, nonetheless, is short in delivering commitments on transformative changes in global governance and solutions to the most pressing global challenges. This document briefly examines some of the actions and high-level commitments in the Pact of the Future to strengthen multilateral cooperation and provides recommendations for their implementation.

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SC Inputs to the Expert Mechanism on the RtD Study, February 2025

Inputs to the Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development Study on Climate Justice, Sustainability, and the Right to Development

February 2025

The South Centre inputs to the Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development Study on Climate Justice, Sustainability, and the Right to Development makes a call for upholding Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDRRC) in ensuring a just transition, protecting the human rights of the most affected populations and reforming Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms that threaten climate action.

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Policy Brief 133, 2 December 2024

South Centre Inputs to FfD4 Elements Paper – Debt Sustainability, Business and Finance, Taxation

By Yuefen Li, Danish, Abdul Muheet Chowdhary

The upcoming 4th conference on financing for development (FfD4) represents an important opportunity for developing countries to achieve a deep reform of the international financial architecture so that it meets their sustainable development needs and enhances the scale of development finance to fully realize the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Based on the inputs provided by the South Centre to the FfD4 process, this policy brief highlights some of the key messages, problem statements and policy solutions in the areas of sovereign debt, private business and finance, and international tax cooperation that should be considered by the countries of the global South in their deliberations towards achieving ambitious outcomes at FfD4.

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SC Statement at FOGGS event, 24 October 2024

A RAFT FOR THE FUTURE: Can the Pact for the Future Deliver the Multilateral Titanic?

South Centre Statement

24 October 2024

The South Centre participated in the Foundation for Global Governance and Sustainability (FOGGS) event evaluating the Pact For The Future. The Pact is a crucial step but needs a concrete roadmap with clear actions & timelines to find solutions central to developing countries.

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