UN Insider

Photo: Secretary-General António Guterres speaks during a dialogue with civil society organizations focused on youth and gender empowerment, women leadership, prevention and countering violent extremism and promotion of interfaith dialogue, while visiting the Kamukunji Constituency in Nairobi, Kenya, on 9 July 2019. Credit: UN Photo | Duncan Moore.

Do More to Expand African Counter-Terrorism Networks

Viewpoint by António Guterres

Following are excerpts from UN Secretary-General's remarks to the African Regional High-Level Conference on Counter-Terrorism and the Prevention of Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism, in Nairobi on 10 July 2019.

NAIROBI (IDN-INPS) – I would like to honour the tens of thousands of African victims of terrorism and to express solidarity with African countries that have suffered terrorist attacks that shock with their barbarity and disregard for human life. Kenya itself has endured numerous terrorist attacks. This year alone, terrorists murdered 21 people in the Dusit hotel complex in Nairobi, and in Wajir County, eight police officers were killed and others injured when their vehicle struck an improvised explosive device.

: UN Bureau; THE WORLD; Africa; 12 July 2019

Photo credit: sustainabledevelopment.un.org

Significant Work Awaits US Cities to Achieve SDGs

By Caroline Mwanga with SDSN News

NEW YORK (IDN) – The 2019 US Cities Sustainable Development Report by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s United States Network (SDSN USA) finds that there will be significant work to do across the board if the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 (SDGs) are to be achieved by 2030. This is the SDSN’s third city-level report ranking 105 US cities on progress towards realizing SDGs.

: UN Bureau; THE WORLD; USA and Canada; 09 July 2019

New Report Calls for Breathing Life into Global Goals

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – A new report finds that while the global community talks a lot about sustainability goals, it does not invest enough in implementing them. The industrialized countries play an ambivalent role in their implementation. On the one hand, they come closest to fulfilling the goals, but on the other, they obstruct by incurring environmental and economic costs for third countries due to high living standards and consumer preferences.

: Santo D. Banerjee; UN INSIDER; 08 July 2019

Photo credit: UN | Penny Abeywardena, NYC

New York Brings Global Vision, Urban Action to SDGs

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – As host city to the United Nations, New York is making the most of its position through its ambitious Global Vision, Urban Action (GVUA) platform that uses the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a common framework for building a better city for its people and their environment. This programme links multiple New York departments through shared sustainability objectives—and it has been selected as a good practice in a new UN DESA database of SDG actions, which could be scaled up or replicated around the world.

: Santo D. Banerjee; UN INSIDER; 08 July 2019

Photo: Aid for Trade discussions stressed the need for adapting to evolving needs of least developed countries and the environment. Credit: WTO

Aid for Trade Must Adapt to Needs of the Poor and Environment

By Jamshed Baruah with WTO News

GENEVA (IDN) – Aid for Trade initiatives must keep up with the evolving needs of developing countries and environmental protection to remain relevant and inclusive. Least developed countries (LDCs) will need continued support even as they graduate to a higher economic status, and climate change pressures will require targeted responses as well, says the World Trade Organization (WTO) summing up the discussions during the Aid for Trade Global Review on July 4-5, 2019.

: Jamshed Baruah; SUSTAINABILITY; Reduced Inequalities; 08 July 2019

Promoting Sustainable Development Through Aid for Trade

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) – "Over the past 40 years the ACP and the EU have promoted a unique trade and development cooperation model that inspires global North-South cooperation," said Viwanou Gnassounou, Assistant Secretary-General of the ACP Group of States, at the 'Aid for Trade' Global Review 2019.

"Evidently from the post 2020 EU-ACP trade cooperation, the objective of maintaining inclusiveness while seeking to achieve greater integration into the global economy and promoting sustainable development remains central going forward," added Gnassounou.

: Jaya Ramachandran; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 07 July 2019

Graphic source: sustainabledevelopment.un.org

The Need to Revitalize Global Partnership in Trade

Viewpoint by Mukhisa Kituyi

The following are extended excerpts from UNCTAD Mukhisa Kituyi's Secretary-General blog on UNCTAD Website. In the face of barriers and protectionism, says the writer, the multilateral trade rulebook needs to be revised to ensure that it can deliver its full development potential.

GENEVA (IDN) –The multilateral trading system provides a unique international regime that regulates the conduct of sovereign nations in trade policy. Its norms, principles and institutions have served many of its member countries to overcome the so-called ‘prisoners’ dilemma’ in their strategic interaction with trading partners, where individually rational behaviour leads to collectively inefficient outcomes. This has helped increase international cooperation in multilateral market-opening and rule-making and has boosted trade flows around the world.

: UN Bureau; OPINION; 06 July 2019

Photo: Construction workers at the Trung Son Hydropower project construction site, Vietnam. Credit: World Bank/Mai Ky

World’s Poorest Expected to Suffer Most from Global Warming

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – A spike in heat stress resulting from global warming is projected to lead to global productivity losses equivalent to 80 million full-time jobs or 2.2 per cent of total working hours worldwide and global economic losses of US$2,400 billion in the year 2030, according to a new report from the International Labour Organization (ILO). The poorest countries and citizens will be worst affected. The new ILO report, Working on a warmer planet: The impact of heat stress on labour productivity and decent work , draws on climate, physiological and employment data and presents estimates of the current and projected productivity losses at national, regional and global levels.

: Jamshed Baruah; UN INSIDER; 02 July 2019

Serious Doubts about Sustainable Development Goals being Achieved by 2030

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – Since the international community started implementing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), efforts on some of the Goals have been successful “in a number of areas”, but on the whole “progress has been slow or even reversed”, notes the UN, adding that the most vulnerable people and countries continue to suffer the most and the global response has not been ambitious enough.

: Santo D. Banerjee; UN INSIDER; 01 July 2019

Graphic: Technology Fuels Fast-moving Local Newsrooms. Credit: Dataminr

UN Partners with Dataminr to Keep UN Teams Abreast of Crises

By Felicia Vacarelu

The writer is Communication Specialist of UN Global Pulse – a flagship innovation initiative of the United Nations Secretary-General on big data – on which appeared the following as blog.

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – This is the age of citizen journalism, where anyone armed with a smartphone and a social media account can report from the scene of an incident well before authorities have been notified. Receiving such real-time information in a humanitarian crisis, or in the middle of a conflict zone, can save lives and help keep our UN staff safer.