At COP30 in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025, a significant new commitment took shape on the global stage. Backed by over 40 countries and international organisations, the Belém Declaration on Global Green Industrialisation was formally launched at a leaders’ roundtable on industrial decarbonisation — signalling that the world’s industrial transformation is no longer a side … Read more
Report from the EU Food Justice Forum, Brussels, 9 June 2026 In a world where multinational agribusinesses increasingly treat food systems as financial markets, smallholder farmers from Zimbabwe, rice breeders from the Philippines and EU parliamentarians gathered in a Brussels conference centre on 9 June 2026. The civil society-organised EU Food Justice Forum placed one … Read more
Series Evaluation Insights for Policy and Programming ReACT4UA / EU4Business — Central Project Evaluation GIZ, Commissioned by BMZ | Co-financed by the EU and Norad | Ukraine | 2020–2025 Context Ukraine’s path toward EU accession has unfolded against the backdrop of one of the most severe crises in contemporary European history. The ReACT4UA / EU4Business … Read more
Europe’s latest Foreign Affairs Council in its Development configuration on 18 May 2026 marks a quiet but significant shift: EU development cooperation is being recast as a geopolitical tool, with Kaja Kallas openly calling for aid, trade and security partnerships to be more tightly aligned with Europe’s strategic interests. A development council in a new … Read more
Karsten Weitzenegger is a member of Europa-Union Hamburg e.V. — the non-partisan association that has championed a united Europe for 75 years and counts approximately 17,000 members across Germany. As an international development consultant who works daily with European institutions — from the European Commission to EU Delegations worldwide — this membership is not a … Read more
Maritime trade and security in times of geopolitical crises Reporting from the World Trade Dialogue 2026, Hamburg The waters of global commerce have fundamentally darkened. For decades, the European Union’s economic model relied on a simple premise: a rules-based order where maritime trade flows unhindered and cheaply across the globe. But at the World Trade … Read more
Reporting from the World Trade Dialogue 2026, Hamburg For decades, the European Union’s economic engine has hummed to the predictable rhythm of a rules-based global trade order. But at the World Trade Dialogue 2026 today in Hamburg, the message from leading economists and industry giants was stark: the era of pure economic efficiency is over, … Read more
Building Competence Across Borders: Karsten Weitzenegger and I.M.M.A. Effective consulting in international development goes hand in hand with rigorous, practice-oriented capacity building. That is why Karsten Weitzenegger is registered as an Individual Expert with the International Management & Marketing Academy (I.M.M.A.) — a Hamburg-based institution with decades of experience developing professional competencies across sectors and … Read more
The Global Gateway (GG) Investment Climate Reform (ICR) Facility is one of the most strategically interesting instruments at the interface of investment, reform and sustainable development. It connects Global Gateway initiatives with the often underestimated institutional side of economic transformation: rules, procedures and incentives that determine whether investment actually translates into growth, jobs and local … Read more
The following references reflect a track record of Karsten Weitzenegger built over more than 30 years of consulting and evaluation work across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Trade Integration & Economic Policy Ukraine: Assessed the implementation of trade-related provisions of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement as Lead Evaluator, funded by BMZ, EU, and NORAD via … Read more
Key Takeaways from the 4th DC dVET BarCamp On 24 February 2026, practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and development partners gathered at the 4th BarCamp co-hosted by DC dVET and the International Labor Organization (ILO) to address a pressing question: how can we build resilient and sustainable financing models for dual vocational education and training (VET) in … Read more
(tl;dr) East Africa’s startup scene is booming – but many incubators and accelerators are stuck in a cycle of donor dependence, generic programmes and weak investor trust. A new William Davidson Institute study maps these system failures and, more importantly, presents 25 concrete solutions: from revenue-generating “acceleration as a service” and sector‑specific support, to venture … Read more
