ForUM for Utvikling og Miljø

Telenor in Myanmar:

Telenor’s disengagement in Myanmar facing OECD Guidelines complaint

After the military coup in February 2021, Telenor announced the 8^th of July that the company had decided to end the operations in Myanmar and sell the business to the Lebanese company M1 Group. This incited strong criticism from Myanmar’s civil society, and a complaint was submitted against Telenor at the Norwegian National Contact Point for OECD. This complaint is currently under review, and this article sums up the case.

Global Food System:

Need for action following the UN Food Systems Summit

The United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) was held virtually in September this year and incited new momentum as well as creating a shared understanding of the need for change. Last Friday, ForUM joined a round-table meeting to follow up, which was organised by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the participation of UN Special Representative to the UN Food Systems Summit, Dr Agnes Kalibata. This article summarises the input given.

Sustainable Development Goals:

Progress on the SDGs in Norway

Norway presented its second VNR at the High-Level Political Forum in 2021. The report shows that Norway is making good progress on many of the goals but is still struggling with others. In this article, some of the recent advances in the national work on the SDGs are summed up.

#ForNature:

Nature-based solutions are only solutions if it is not at the expense of nature or human rights

Nature's contribution is an important topic during the ongoing climate summit in Glasgow and will also be important in the negotiations on a new nature agreement in 2022. For nature-based solutions to be a tool in the fight against the climate crisis, they must not be at the expense of neither nature nor human rights, says nature advisor in the Forum for Development and the Environment (ForUM Norway), Ingrid Rostad.

Norway’s Voluntary National Review :

Inspired by Finland, Norway includes civil society’s assessments in the official VNR report

- Civil society’s assessments show that Norway has made efforts to meet the SDGs, but we still have great challenges ahead, says Kathrine Sund-Henriksen, director of Norwegian Forum for Environment and Development.

Human Rights:

ForUMs reactions to the Norwegian due diligence law

Thursday, 10th of June, Norway passed a historic law that will require companies to perform due diligence assessments of their value chains. The law is a massive win for Norwegian civil society organizations, which have campaigned for this law for several years.

World Environmental Day 2021:

Here's what some environmentalists focus on

To mark World Environmental Day, Forum for Development and Environment has spoken to fellow environmentalists around the world about some of the issues they are working on and possible solutions.