By Celia Sudhoff
For several weeks now, Germany has been engaged in an intense debate about the welfare state. This was triggered by a statement made by Chancellor Merz at the CDU's North Rhine-Westphalia state party conference in Bonn at the end of August: “We simply can no longer afford the system we have today.” Specifically, he wants to cut welfare payments and relieve the burden on the pension funds by making it more attractive to work into old age.
We have just launched our four-part weekly podcast series 'Global Finance Rewired', which explores the future of the international finance architecture (IFA). Hosted by our Managing Director Bodo Ellmers, the series features expert voices from the Global South to examine how global finance must change to meet today’s challenges.
From 30 June to 3 July 2025, the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) took place in Sevilla, Spain. According to the United Nations (UN) Member States, the conference was designed to assess progress and obstacles in implementing the decisions of the three previous conferences in Monterrey (2002), Doha (2008) and Addis Ababa (2015), as well as agreeing on measures and initiatives to overcome the obstacles and address new challenges in light of current global crises. The main goal was to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable [...]
From 4-6 November 2025, the United Nations (UN) will hold the second World Summit for Social Development (WSSD2) in Doha, Qatar. The first summit on social development took place 30 years ago in Copenhagen. The initiative for a new World Social Summit came from UN Secretary-General António Guterres. He had already spoken out in favour of a global summit in his 2021 Our Common Agenda report. At the time, he took up an initiative from the Club de Madrid. This association of former heads of state and government had pointed out that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic had exacerbated the global [...]
