IDN-InDepthNews

UN INSIDER2016-09-172023-07-10

Almost Every Second Citizen of the World is Now Online

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – India has surpassed the United States to become the world’s second largest Internet market, with 333 million users, trailing China’s 721 million. But a new United Nations report says that six nations – including China and India – together account for 55% of the total global population still offline, because of the sheer size of their populations.

While Internet access is approaching saturation in richer nations, connectivity is still not advancing fast enough to help bridge development gaps in areas like education and health care for those in poorer parts of the world, according to the 2016 edition of The State of Broadband report.

UN INSIDER2016-09-162023-07-10

Why Focus on Women Refugees and Migrants

By IDN-INPS UN Bureau

NEW YORK (IDN) – Ahead of the first-ever high-level summit for refugees on September 19 at the UN Headquarters in New York, UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, has drawn attention to the fact that women represent almost half of the 244 million migrants and half of the 19.6 million refugees worldwide.

The remittances sent by women migrant workers improve the livelihood and health of their families and strengthen economies, says UN Women. In 2015, international migrants sent $432.6 billion in remittances to developing countries – nearly three times the amount of Official Development Assistance, which totalled at $131.6 billion.

UN INSIDER2016-09-162023-07-10

Land Degradation Aggravating Migration, Warns UNCCD Chief

Interview by Ramesh Jaura with UNCCD Executive Secretary Monique Barbut

NEW YORK | BONN (IDN) – “Migration associated with natural resource depletion and climate change is much wider in scale than previously appreciated,” Monique Barbut, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), has warned in an interview.

“Close to 100% of the irregular migrants crossing from the Mediterranean into Europe are from arid regions,” she told IDN, adding: “Climate change will exacerbate land degradation in many regions, with both direct and indirect effects on rural household incomes, increased risks of crop losses and fluctuating commodity market prices. Under these conditions, we can expect an increase in the flow of migrants from drought-prone and degraded areas,” she cautioned.

Africa2016-09-152023-07-10

Tanzanian Women Getting an Upper Hand Over Land

By Kizito Makoye Shigela

VILABWA, Tanzania (IDN) – At a small village south of Tanzania’s largest city, Dar es Salaam, women rarely talk about land issues because customary norms keep them at bay. “We don’t have the voice, its men who decide everything,” said Saada Hassan a resident of Vilabwa.

The 55-year-old farmer is among many women in the village who have long been campaigning against male dominance in land affairs. “They simply don’t believe a woman can be a good leader or make informed decisions,” she said.

Africa2016-09-152023-07-10

Private Sector Key to Attainment of SDGs in Kenya

Justus Wanzala interviews UN Resident Coordinator Siddharth Chatterjee

NAIROBI (IDN) – Kenya held a national official launch of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on September 14 in an event presided over by President Uhuru Kenyatta. A day to the launch, the government and partners in the private sector and civil society finalised a national road map to guide implementation of the SDGs.

This happened just a month after the appointment of Siddharth Chatterjee as the United Nations Resident Coordinator to the East African Nation. Chatterjee coordinates 25 UN agencies in the country and at the same time serves as the Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Before his appointment, Chatterjee was the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Representative in Kenya.

OPINION2016-09-142023-07-10

Impressions of a Visit to Cuba: Will the Colibri Survive?

Viewpoint by Dr Palitha Kohona

Ambassador Dr Palitha Kohona, the former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN in New York, visited Cuba recently.

COLOMBO (IDN) – The ferocious American bald eagle, clutching its array of deadly weapons, has for almost 60 years persistently tried to gobble up the tiny Cuban Colibri. The Colibri, weighing only about two ounces, is the national bird of Cuba.

The plucky little bird, smartly darting around the eagle making careful and, at times, painful choices, has not only successfully avoided the eagle’s fiery talons but, in certain areas, prospered. But now that the eagle has ostensibly mellowed and softened its approach and replaced the urge to devour with endearing embraces, will the Colibri continue to survive?

UN INSIDER2016-09-132023-07-10

South-South Cooperation Continues to Drive Progress

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – South-South cooperation has come to stay as an important element of international cooperation for development – not as a substitute for, but rather as a complement to North-South cooperation.

According to the UN, it offers viable opportunities for developing countries and countries with economies in transition in their individual and collective pursuit of sustained economic growth and sustainable development.

To mark the importance of South-South Cooperation, the General Assembly decided to observe this Day on September 12 every year, commemorating the adoption in 1978 of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries.

OPINION2016-09-132023-07-10

The Russians Go to Israel and Palestine

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Russia announced on September 8 that it has decided to go where angels fear to tread – into the whirlpool of negotiations between Palestine and Israel. Long a preserve of the Americans and the French, the attempt to bring peace between the two and to make a final settlement on boundaries has frustrated them for decades. Can Russia do better?

Russia comes on the scene at a time when the script is perhaps about to be re-written in a radical way. After decades of negotiating around the premise that the only solution was a two-state arrangement with an independent Jewish state and an independent Palestinian state existing cheek by jowl, opinion in Palestine is shifting.

THE WORLD2016-09-132023-07-10

The G-20 Fiddles While Rome Burns

Viewpoint by Somar Wijayadasa*

NEW YORK (IDN) – The G-20 Summit in China took place when our world is more divided than ever before, and multi-millions suffer from wars and other calamities.

One showpiece of the Summit – even before it started – was the decision by United States President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping to ratify the Paris Agreement of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, a significant achievement considering the fact that U.S. and China are world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters that cause global warming.

UN INSIDER2016-09-122023-07-10

Nuke Tests Don’t Qualify North Korea as a ‘Nuclear Power’

By Rodney Reynolds

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) – Despite five nuclear tests by a defiant North Korea, the United States continues to maintain it will not recognize the belligerent and reclusive nation as a legitimate “nuclear power”.

Elizabeth Trudeau, U.S. State Department spokesperson and Director of the Press Office, reiterated the U.S. stance when she told reporters September 9: “We’ve been consistently clear we will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state, nor will we accept North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons.”