An ad campaign, endorsed by the Norwegian NGO Rainforest Foundation, encourages Norwegians to recycle drinking cartons in order to save the tropical rainforest. The campaign’s overly-simplified message is misleading because it belittles the economic and political costs of “avoided deforestation".

A World Bank report estimates the cost of compensating governments for not cutting down forest to be thousands of times more expensive.

Recycling campaign too good to be true?
The message is: recycle one drinking carton and save 6.5 square metres of rainforest.

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Gaza crisis crushes Norway’s Palestine policy

The Hamas military victory in Gaza has dismantled Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre’s ambitious go-it-alone aid policy in the Middle East.

Norway used the money weapon to force the UN’s Population Fund to change its plan to locate a new regional office in Ethiopia. Norway, UNFPA’s third largest donor, wants the fund to co-locate with other UN agencies, in accordance with principles proposed by a UN reform panel led by the Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

The issue of how to finance avoided deforestation is about to land in donors’ laps.

Development Today has surveyed the top executive positions held by Nordic citizens in the UN System. Nordic governments use different strategies to secure posts for their nationals. Read the full overview in this issue.