GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

Photo: Women at the main fruit, flower and vegetable market in Vanuatu’s capital, Port Villa. ©FAO/Zarfia Amoa

Intensified Efforts to Ensure Food Security and Nutrition in Small Island Developing States

79-Nation ACP and UN's Food and Agriculture Organization Collaborate

By Jaya Ramachandran

NEW YORK (IDN) – Wrapping up the ministerial segment of the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on July 19, Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) President Inga Rhonda King said the session had contributed significantly to advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. But she urged governments to "reinvent themselves” and be more agile in finding "ways to engage the poorest and most vulnerable in the decisions that impact on their lives”.

: Jaya Ramachandran; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 19 July 2019

Photo: Kulangsu, a Historic International Settlement World Heritage site (China). © Cultural Heritage Conservation Center of THAD / Qian Yi

World Heritage Committee Stresses Need to Enhance and Preserve African Heritage

By Krishan Dutta

PARIS (IDN) – The World Heritage Committee has inscribed a total of 29 new sites on the World Heritage List – one in Africa, two in the Arab States, ten in the Asia Pacific region, 15 in Europe and North America and one in Latin America. The List now features 1,121 sites in 167 countries.

The Committee approved the removal from the List of World Heritage in Danger of the sites of Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works (Chile) and Birthplace of Jesus: the Church of the Nativity and Pilgrimage Route, Bethlehem (Palestine). One property has been added to the List of World Heritage in Danger: the Islands and Protected Areas of the Gulf of California (Mexico).

: UN Bureau; ARTS & CULTURE; 16 July 2019

New Data Illuminates Inequalities Among the Poor Worldwide

By Caroline Mwanga

NEW YORK (IDN) – A new report released at the UN High-Level Political Forum challenges the traditional concept of poverty and sheds light on the number of people experiencing poverty at regional, national and subnational levels, and reveals inequalities across countries and among the poor themselves.

Findings from the 2019 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) and the publication "Illuminating Inequalities" – jointly developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), and released on July 11, 2019 – offers data for 101 countries, covering 76 percent of the world population.

: UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 15 July 2019

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: 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

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

Four Anti-Corruption Takeaways from the 2019 G20 Summit

Viewpoint by M Emilia Berazategui

The writer is Global Advocacy Coordinator at Transparency International. This article first appeared on Voices for Transparency – a collection of articles, stories, analyses and opinions from the anti-corruption movement curated by Transparency International. All views and statements represent those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect those of Transparency International.

BERLIN (IDN) – After 11th-hour negotiations at last week’s [June 28-29] G20 summit in Osaka, the assembled leaders reached consensus on a communiqué through which they sought to identify shared solutions to some of the most pressing challenges faced by the global community.

: Europe Editor; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; The Group of Twenty (G20); 05 July 2019

EU-Mercosur Trade Deal Worries 79-Nation ACP Group

By Robert Johnson

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – The 79-nation ACP Group of States and the Least Developed countries (LDCs) are concerned about the free trade agreement (FTA) between the European Union (EU) and the South American trade bloc Mercosur announced on June 28, 2019. The agreement has been concluded after 20 years of negotiations.

The agreement is perceived as a thorn in the flesh of the ACP Group and LDCs, which includes 180,000 metric tonnes of tariff-free access for sugar in the under the existing 334,054 tonnes CXL quota at 98 €/t for Brazil. In other words, the first 180,000 tonnes of access would be duty-free each year, and also an additional 10,000 tonnes duty-free quota for Paraguay.

: Robert Johnson; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 30 June 2019

Photo: Youth Group members with the CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo in the centre in the second row. Credit: CTBTO

How Youth Can Help Entry into Force of the CTBT

Viewpoint by Ilya Kursenko

VIENNA (IDN) – For the first time, the youth had a strong presence at the five-day CTBT: Science and Technology 2019 Conference (SnT2019, seventh in a series, in which scientists, industry leaders, policymakers, civil society and academia participated. They gathered in the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, to exchange knowledge and share advances in the monitoring and verification technologies relevant to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in a state of limbo for 23 years.