By Fabiola Ortiz SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (IDN) – It has been twenty two years since Costa Rica embarked on its national program of payment for environmental services (PES), the first in the world to start a nationwide scheme for compensating landowners for keeping the forests standing for people and the planet. Now that the […]
Africa Gets Ready for Biodiversity and Climate Change Summits
By Justus Wanzala NAIROBI (IDN) – African governments have been availing of two conferences at the UN Environment Headquarters in the Kenyan capital in September to gear up for the Biological Diversity Summit in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, and the Climate Summit in Katowice, Poland. The African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) from September […]
China-Japan Rivalry Intensifies in Asia’s New Growth Region
By Kalinga Seneviratne SINGAPORE (IDN) – While China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been in the news for a while – thanks mainly to negative reporting by the western media – Japan is slowly funding the building of supplementary trade corridors in the Mekong region projecting itself as not only interested in building infrastructure, […]
Rethinking Mobility – How to Respond to Opportunities in a Changing World
Viewpoint by David Suttie* ROME (IDN) – Rural people often migrate seasonally with their herds, or to join the harvest in other districts. They frequently travel to towns and cities to trade, do temporary jobs, or advance their education. In some regions of the world, nomadic cultures are commonplace. Migration is one of the most […]
Brazil at Another Major Turning Point
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – From the time of its beginning as a nation state “Brazil has been a paradise for some, an endless hell for others, and for the rest, a kind of purgatory on earth.” So write two Brazilian historians, Lilla Schwarcz and Heloisa Starling, in their massive, newly published, […]
Right to Information a Mixed Success in the Asia-Pacific Region
By Sean Buchanan LONDON (IDN) – Freedom of information is not only a human right, but also an essential tool to engage and empower citizens to demand accountability from governments and fight corruption. Worldwide, around 120 countries have a right to information (RTI) act, indicating that most countries consider it important to spell out in […]
Blue Economy Key to Small Islands’ Survival & Prosperity
By Shanta Roy NEW YORK (ACP-IDN) – When the 79-member African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States – along with the government of Seychelles – sponsored a high-level forum at the United Nations on September 26, the primary focus was the emerging new “blue economy” underlining the protection and preservation of the world’s heavily-exploited […]
UN High-Level Meeting Reflects Broad Support for Total Nuclear Disarmament
By Santo D. Banerjee NEW YORK (IDN) – The United Nations has pursued the goal of nuclear disarmament since the adoption of the very first General Assembly resolution in 1946. But aware that countries possessing nuclear weapons have well-funded, long-term plans to modernize their nuclear arsenals, in 2013 the UN declared September 26 as the […]
Japan Considers Ways of Shedding the Straitjacket and Go the Whole Hog for Nuclear Abolition
The following is a revised version of the article posted on September 30, 2018. By Katsuhiro Asagiri TOKYO (IDN) – Japan’s profound interest in the international community’s efforts to help usher in a world free of nuclear weapons was underlined in the run-up to the commemoration of the International Day for the Total Elimination of […]
Far from Optimal Progress in Women’s Meaningful Participation in Peace Processes
By Jeanette Richter NEW YORK (IDN) – The UN Security Council Resolution1325 (UNSCR 1325), initiated by Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations as the President of the Security Council in March 2000, drew the focus of a side event on the margins of the 73rd UN General Assembly […]