Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The Kochi Declaration 2024 (resulting from the International Leadership Summit of Medical Associations) marks a significant step in global TB elimination efforts. By emphasising private sector engagement, it addresses critical gaps in TB care delivery, particularly in high-burden countries where 60%–80% of patients initially seek care from private providers. This initiative aligns with the WHO’s public–private mix approach, enhancing case detection, treatment quality, and global health equity. It underscores the potential of collaborative strategies to accelerate progress towards a TB-free world by 2030, aligning with United Nations High-Level Meeting targets and broader global health goals.

This best practice brief presents Component 6 of the Data-to-Deal (D2D) framework, which addresses how to strengthen the enabling environment for investment. This component focuses on the coherent policy, regulatory, and institutional reforms needed to reduce risk, create clear routes to market, and build investor confidence in clean energy and sustainable transport systems. Stable legal frameworks, predictable pricing and incentive structures, and transparent procurement processes are essential to mobilise capital at scale. Component 6 on successful enabling environments comprises three sub-components: (i) operationalising cross-cutting enablers; (ii) identifying and designing policy reforms; and (iii) developing an implementation plan to prioritise and sequence reforms. These sub-components are embedded across the D2D pipeline, linking political commitment, technical planning, and finance mobilisation into a coherent reform agenda. The brief draws on case studies from Zambia, South Africa, and the UK to illustrate how targeted reforms can expand renewable energy, reduce costs, and create investor-ready markets, while also highlighting the role of domestic capital market reforms in unlocking long-term sustainable financing. By operationalising this approach, countries can develop integrated, context-specific reform packages that advance development priorities, meet climate commitments, and strengthen resilience.

An output of the EdTech Hub, https://edtechhub.org/

This article offers an in-depth analysis of India's "Neighbourhood First" policy, exploring its regional diplomatic efforts alongside notable achievements and persistent challenges. Using game theory, international relations frameworks, and case studies, it identifies key obstacles hindering India’s pursuit of regional leadership. These include internal constraints such as political instability, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and limited funding; external challenges like China’s expanding influence, cross-border terrorism, and unresolved historical disputes; and strategic shortcomings characterized by reactionary diplomacy, over-reliance on hard power, and underutilization of soft power tools. The study concludes by advocating for a recalibrated regional approach, focusing on confidence-building measures, cooperative frameworks to address shared challenges, and strategic use of soft power to strengthen India’s leadership in South Asia.

Energy systems modelling plays a pivotal role in understanding and optimizing complex energy systems. By integrating various factors such as energy demand, supply, infrastructure, and environmental considerations, energy systems modelling provides valuable insights for policymakers, industry stakeholders, and researchers. This can be key to informing stakeholder and policy decisions and facilitate the mobilisation of capital and market development to support the development of the energy sector. This article presents the data, assumptions, and related calculations used for the development of a national scale power system model for Sierra Leone. The focus of the model was a techno-economic analysis of specific hydropower expansion plans. Where possible, this data has been collected from publicly available sources such as scientific literature, feasibility studies, international databases, data from existing modelling efforts in Sierra Leone, and local stakeholders. The collection of the data, development of the model, and creation of scenarios was done in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy in Sierra Leone and verified by a broad range of stakeholders. The following paper outlines the key data presented in the full database which can be accessed through the URL found in the Specifications Table. The URL also contains the Reference Energy System (RES) used in this study.

Developing nations encounter significant challenges in accessing the necessary finance to meet climate goals. The emerging ‘Data-to-Deal’ approach is a collaborative effort by 60 specialists, which aims to addresses this by providing a flexible framework of options, tailored to individual country circumstances, aiming to enhance core functions and capabilities; it serves as a basis for concrete action, informing capacity building, technical assistance, and research. This paper argues for the mainstreaming of a holistic approach to accessing climate finance by outlining the components of the Data-to- Deal pipeline and showing the effectiveness of Data-to-Deal through the demonstration of its successful implementation in Costa Rica.

There is increasing evidence that fossil-fuel burning, and consequential global heating of 1.1°C to date, has led to the increased occurrence and severity of extreme environmental events. It is well documented how such events have impacted society outside Antarctica through enhanced levels of rainfall and flooding, heatwaves and wildfires, drought and water/food shortages and episodes of intense cooling. Here, we briefly examine evidence for extreme events in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean across a variety of environments and timescales. We show how vulnerable natural Antarctic systems are to extreme events and highlight how governance and environmental protection of the continent must take them into account. Given future additional heating of at least 0.4°C is now unavoidable (to contain heating to the “Paris Agreement 1.5°C” scenario), and may indeed be higher unless drastic action is successfully taken on reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by mid-Century, we explain it is virtually certain that future Antarctic extreme events will be more pronounced than those observed to date.

This new edition of a textbook first published in 2000 provides a comprehensive account of the law of treaties from the viewpoint of two experienced practitioners. It draws on the combined experience of Anthony Aust, the original author, and Jeremy Hill, until recently Legal Counsellor in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, London. The book provides a wealth of examples of the problems experienced with treaties on a daily basis. The authors explore numerous precedents from treaties and other related documents, such as non-legally binding instruments. Using clear and accessible language, the authors cover the full extent of treaty law, with both practitioners and students in mind. Modern Treaty Law and Practice is essential reading for officials in governments and international organisations, lawyers practising in international law, and teachers and students of law, political science, international relations and diplomacy who have an interest in treaties.