Dilma Rousseff, re-elected president of Brazil, "does not have more options than to get closer to the social movements and to the population during her next term”, says the philosopher Jose Antonio Moroni, member of the Board of directors of the Institute of Socioeconomic Studies (INESC). “One option is that Dilma is going to govern with people in the streets supporting her steps in the reform process that the whole world wants or she is going to have people against her", Moroni argues.

Dilma´s first government was „extremely technocratic ", says Moroni, with only few links to society. If Dilma repeats that strategy she will face a difficult time with the current Congress.

‘You don’t understand!’ was World Bank’s Grahame Dixie’s rebuttal of the accusation that the Bank bears heavy responsibility in the grabbing of land and natural resources by corporations in the developing world. Having heard first-hand testimonies on the tragedy of land grabbing and related human rights violations in Africa, Mr. Dixie insisted that his institution was against land grabs but nevertheless the development of agribusiness in Africa was a necessity to feed a growing population, particularly in urban areas.

This discussion took place on October 10, 2014 at the World Bank headquarters in Washington D.C. during an event organized by the Oakland Institute on the impact of the Bank’s business indicators. The panelists from Kenya, Ethiopia and Mali pointed out the role of the institution in shaping policies and programs that lead to displacement and dispossession, destruction of lives and livelihoods, denial of basic human rights and repression for those who oppose the theft of their land by agribusinesses.

In a week, Governments at the United Nations begin their preparatory meetings for the International Conference on Financing for Development(FfD) in Addis Ababa in July 2015. That conference is widely viewed as the last opportunity to agree to a package of proposals on financial, trade and global governance measures before the summit meeting in New York in September 2015 to ring down the curtain on the Millennium Development Goals and raise the curtain on new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). If there is nothing underlying pretty words in the outcome document of Addis, there will be no time to come to meaningful "means of implementation" for the SDGs two months later. That will condemn the global effort to devise SDGs over the past few years to empty rhetoric. Governments at the UN thus recognize that the Addis meeting must be a "success", but does anyone see the Governments of North and South coalescing around any interesting proposals? Well, they have about 3-5 months to find those proposals. Perhaps we can help move the discussion in a fruitful direction.

1 for 7 Billion's NGO partners from across the world have written to all UN Member States to call for an open, fair and inclusive process to select the best possible candidate for Secretary-General of the UN.

Signatories include: Avaaz, Amnesty International, CIVICUS, Equality Now, FEMNET, Forum Asia, Social Watch, Third World Network, Women’s Environment and Development Organization and the World Federation of UN Associations.

There is no job description for the world’s top civil servant, except to solve its messiest problems. There are no campaign rules, nor is there any list of qualifications, except what is left unsaid: He (and it has always been a he) must be palatable to the world powers. Now, as jockeying begins for the selection of the next secretary general of the United Nations, to be chosen in 2016, momentum is building to open up the process. A coalition of nongovernmental organizations, supported by some former United Nations diplomats, is calling for a formal application process, including transparent selection criteria, an official shortlist of contenders and a chance for all member nations to evaluate the candidates.

The effort reflects a growing frustration with the dominance of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, which bargain for influence over every important office within the system, most importantly the post of secretary general. The choice is made largely in secret, in council meetings held privately and in tough negotiations among officials from the five powers.