UN Insider

Image: Reversing the financial interests in fossil fuels and the nuclear arms race. Credit: nuclearweaponsmoney.org

Moving Money for a Nuclear-Free and Eco Friendly World

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA | BASEL (IDN) – While Fridays for Future protests underline a global dissatisfaction with the continuing failure of governments and industry to protect the climate, the setting of the Doomsday Clock hands to 2 minutes to midnight in January 2019 signifies a continuing high risk of a nuclear clash with disastrous consequences for human beings and the planet Earth.

But devastating climate change and the risk of a nuclear war will not be prevented unless the international community tackles the economic and political influence of the fossil fuel and nuclear weapons industries: this is the crux of the message expected to emerge from an international conference organized by the Basel Peace Office and taking place in Basel, Switzerland on April 12-13, 2019.

: Jamshed Baruah; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 11 April 2019

Call for UN Summit on Digitalization and Sustainability

By Rita Joshi

BERLIN (IDN) – A new report has called on Germany and the European Union to convene a United Nations summit on 'Digitalization and Sustainability' in 2020 – 30 years after the UN Conference on Environment and Development, widely known as the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The central theme of the summit should be reaching agreement on the necessary fundamental steps to be taken to achieve digitally supported sustainable development and to avoid the risks involved in digital change, say the authors of the report entitled 'Towards our Common Digital Future', presented by the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) to Federal Minister of Education and Research Anja Karliczek and Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze on April 11, 2019.

: Rita Joshi; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 11 April 2019

Photo: Participants of the NAM Ministerial Meeting in Baku, Azebaijan. Credit: MEA India.

Think Tank Supports NAM Call for Reform of the UN System

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – Backing the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the International Institute for Non-Aligned Studies (IINS) has called for “comprehensive, transparent, inclusive and balanced” reform of the United Nations.

Recalling the final document of the 2018 NAM Ministerial Meeting held in Baku, Azerbaijan, the think tank emphasizes that the reform should be “pursued in an effective and accountable manner, fully respecting the political nature of the Organization as well as its intergovernmental, universal and democratic character, consistent with the UN Charter”.

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

Photo: President of Angola Joao Lourenco.

Angola Plans Manufacturing Russian Military Equipment

By Kester Kenn Klomegah*

MOSCOW (IDN) – Many African countries are looking for profitable business, investment and trade rather than development aid. Now Angola, a south-central Africa, has announced corporate plans to diversify its state business away from purchasing to full-fledged manufacturing of Russian military equipment for the southern African market, and possibly other regions in Africa – impeding realization of the Sustainable Development Goal 16 calling for peace and justice.

: Kester Kenn Klomegah; THE WORLD; Africa; 07 April 2019

Photo: Group photo of ACP-EU parliamentarians in Bucharest. Source: Website of Jacob L. Oulanyah

Parliamentarians Demand 'Greater Presence' of ACP-EU Compact at the UN

By Robert Johnson

BRUSSELS (IDN) – Parliamentarians of the compact of more than 105 countries of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group and the European Union (EU) are demanding "a greater presence" at the United Nations (UN). As a minimum, an ACP-EU coordination unit should have a seat at the UN, says a landmark resolution of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly held in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. It also pleads for "permanent ACP-EU working mechanisms across UN special agencies and other global institutions to enhance the global visibility of the ACP-EU partnership."

: Robert Johnson; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 06 April 2019

Photo: ESCAP Executive Secretary Dr. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana. Credit: ESCAP

New Study Asks Asia-Pacific to Raise Ambitions Beyond Mere Economic Growth

Viewpoint by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

The writer is United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

BANGKOK (IDN) – Three years of implementation of the transformative 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific shows the region has some catching up to do.

Despite much progress, the region is not on track to reach the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set out in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

: UN Bureau; OPINION; 04 April 2019

Image: Male and female capelin. Credit: The Navigator

Ocean Warming Blamed for Lack of Iceland’s Capelin

By Lowana Veal

REYKJAVIK (IDN) – After five research expeditions in search of capelin, Iceland’s Marine and Freshwater Research Institute (IMFRI) has decided not to recommend a quota for it this year, arguing that global warming is probably responsible for the lack of the fish.

According to Thorsteinn Sigurdsson, head of the Pelagic Division at the institute, capelin (Mallotus villosus) is a cold-water fish and mostly chooses to be at a marine temperature between 1-3°C. “Concomitant with ocean warming north of Iceland before the turn of the century, changes started to appear in the distribution of capelin off Iceland and instead of being spread out to the north of Iceland and the West Fjords, it was mostly found off the east coast of Greenland,” he said.

: Lowana Veal; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 02 April 2019

Photo: Atewa forest. Source: Save Atewa Forest

Bauxite Mining Threatens Ghana’s Crown Jewel of Biodiversity

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK | ACCRA (IDN) – Environmental groups in Ghana are waging an eleventh-hour battle to stop the government of Ghana from opening the Atewa Forest Reserve – a crown jewel of biodiversity and a source of three rivers – to commercial large-scale bauxite mining.

Their resistance conforms to the Fourth United Nations Environment Assembly's resolution on mining resource governance in Nairobi from March 11-15. The resolution stresses in particular Sustainable Development Goal 7 calling for 'affordable and clean energy' and Goal 12 on 'responsible consumption and production', "reminding the important contribution of mining to their achievement".

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 02 April 2019

Photo: Pope Francis addresses participants of an international conference entitled, 'Religions and the Sustainable Development Goals'. Credit: Vatican Media.

Vatican Encourages Faith Communities to Help Achieve SDGs

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | VATICAN CITY (IDN) – Much water has flown under the Tiber bridges since the Holy See declined an invitation in 1923 to join the League of Nations stating that its only competency was in matters of elucidation of questions of principle in morality and public international law.

Forty-one years later, the Holy See became a permanent observer state at the United Nations on April 6, 1964. Since then four Popes have addressed the UN General Assembly: Paul VI in 1965, John Paul II in 1979 and 1995, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in 2008, and Pope Francis in 2015.

: Ramesh Jaura; UN INSIDER; 31 March 2019

Moving the ACP Group to Centre Stage of Multilateralism

Viewpoint by Dr. Patrick I. Gomes

The writer is the Secretary-General of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP).

BRUSSELS (IDN) – In today’s global situation that bears the features of turbulence, fragility and an increasingly precarious balance between peace and possible nuclear annihilation, the role and relevance of the United Nations Organisation has assumed unparalleled importance.

It was a perceptive comment of the late Nelson Mwalimu Mandela, who in his landmark speech to the United Nations on October 3, 1994, posed the question and demanded a response to what he considered to be the enduring imperative confronting the United Nations today, more than ever.