IDN-InDepthNews

Global Partnerships2016-05-202023-07-10

South Pacific Seeks Action to Solve Climate ‘Terror’ Not of Its Making

Analysis by Kalinga Seneviratne

BANGKOK (IDN) – Pointing out that three tiny South Pacific nations – Kiribati, Tuvalu and Marshal islands – are “destined to slip below the waves altogether”, feisty Fijian Prime Minister Josaia Bainimarama has appealed to the international community to help Fiji and the other South Pacific island states build resilience to the impact of climatic change, which he described as the “terror of the extreme weather events”.

Addressing the opening of the 72nd UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) sessions (May 17-19) as outgoing chair, Bainimarama said: “History will judge the industrial nations very harshly if they leave small and vulnerable nations to their fate without extending the appropriate helping hand. We have not caused global warming. They have.”

He told ministers and senior officials from over 65 countries in the Asia-Pacific region that the industrial nations “must use a portion of the wealth they have derived from the carbon emissions of their industries to assist those of us who aren’t as wealthy as they are and are bearing the brunt of the crisis they created”.

UN INSIDER2016-05-202023-07-10

Closing the Gender Gap in Humanitarian Action

By UN Women

ISTANBUL (IDN-INPS) – Disasters kill more women than men, and hit women’s livelihoods hardest. According to UN reports, 60 per cent of all maternal deaths take place in humanitarian settings and all forms of gender-based violence against women and girls spike during disasters and conflict.

Experience and research show that when women are included in humanitarian action, the entire community benefits. Despite this, women and girls are often excluded from decision-making processes that shape the response strategies that affect their ability and that of their community to recover from crisis.

Ahead of the World Humanitarian Summit, UN Women and Oxfam brought together more than 50 refugee advocates from 15 countries in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa to formulate a joint position on how to respond to the challenges faced by refugee women and girls.

Asia-Pacific2016-05-192023-07-10

Asian UN Body Calls for Paradigm Shift in Development Thinking

Analysis by Kalinga Seneviratne

BANGKOK (IDN) – The major United Nations agency overseeing development in the Asia-Pacific region has called for a major rethink in the development paradigm for the region.

In an ‘Economic and Social Survey’ of the region presented to its 72nd sessions here from May 17 to 19, the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) says that while the centre of global economic gravity continues to move eastwards, the time has come for the Asia-Pacific region to adopt a development model that relies more on domestic and regional demand.

Arguing that it is futile to continue the exclusive reliance on export-led development, ESCAP is also calling for more rural agriculture and industrial development, with better rural-urban connectivity via transport and communication links.

Latin America & the Caribbean2016-05-192023-07-10

IFAD Strengthens Partnerships with Central America

By Ronald Joshua

ROME | SAN SALVADOR (IDN) – Family farming accounts for about 50% of Agricultural Gross Domestic Product in Central America. It employs a huge percentage of agricultural working force, ranging from 36% in Costa Rica) to 76% in Honduras.

According to the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN agency dedicated to rural development, about 2.3 million families in the region work in family farming.

It is estimated that 6 in 10 family farmers face food insecurity and 65% live in poverty. Family farms’ heads are, in 85% of the cases, male. Their average age is 49. Family farms’ average extension is 1.13 ha.

With this in view, IFAD has joined hands with PRISMA-OXFAM-RIMISP Consortium to launch in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, a Regional Rural Dialogue Programme (PDRR), a network of family farmers’ organizations, focused on Central America and the Dominican Republic.

UN INSIDER2016-05-192023-07-10

Leadership in Disarmament Will Benefit Canada at UN

Viewpoint by Paul Dewar

* This article is being reproduced courtesy of The Toronto Star. The writer is a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. He was the New Democratic Party (NDP) Member of Parliament (MP) for the riding of Ottawa Centre. He served as the Official Opposition Critic for Foreign Affairs, until he left the post in October 2011 to run for the leadership of the NDP.

OTTAWA – If Canada is to win a seat on the UN Security Council, we need a campaign that is bold, global and pertinent. Leading a global effort on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament should be a cornerstone of that campaign, and the upcoming G7 meetings in Japan represent a perfect opportunity to set the table for serious progress on the issue.

UN INSIDER2016-05-182023-07-10

Making Nuclear Arms Race Come to Its End

Analysis by Anastasia Shavrova *

This article appears in cooperation with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), as part of the initiative ‘Youth for CTBTO’. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the CTBTO. – Editor

MOSCOW (IDN) – The year 2016 is an important milestone for the international nonproliferation regime. It marks the 20th anniversary of opening for signature of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Back in 1996, after two years of intense negotiations, the then UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali announced that the opening for signature of CTBT could unleash a new era. And the Treaty, regardless of many differences that arose among States during the negotiation process, “meets the demand of the great majority of the world’s people for a clear signal that the nuclear arms race is coming towards its end”.

ARMAMENTS2016-05-172023-07-10

Obama’s Nuclear-Free World Vision Has Come to Naught

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – During the Cold War barely a week went by without some reportage or debate on nuclear weapons. Not today. Yet most of the nuclear weapons around then are still around.

It would be alright if they were left to quietly rust in their silos. But they are not. When in 2010 President Barack Obama made a deal with Russian President Dimitri Medvedev to cut their respective arsenals of strategic missiles by one-third the Republican-dominated U.S. Congress, as the price for its ratification of the deal, decreed that Obama and future presidents be made to spend a trillion dollars on updating and modernizing America’s massive arsenal.

Now that chicken is coming home to roost – and a few other chickens too.

President Barack Obama’s unexpected legacy is that he has presided over an America that has been at war longer than any previous president. Moreover, of recent presidents, apart from Bill Clinton, he has cut the U.S. nuclear weapon stockpile at the slowest rate.

Health & Well Being2016-05-172023-07-10

Antibiotics Threatening to Become Useless

Viewpoint by Martin Khor *

Antibiotics – also called antibacterials – revolutionized medicine in the 20th century. Their effectiveness and easy access led to overuse, especially in livestock raising, prompting bacteria to develop resistance. This has led to widespread problems with antimicrobial and antibiotic resistance, so much as to prompt the World Health Organization to classify antimicrobial resistance as a “serious threat [that] is no longer a prediction for the future, it is happening right now in every region of the world and has the potential to affect anyone, of any age, in any country”. – Editor

GENEVA (IDN | SOUTHNEWS) – Antibiotic resistance – a process by which antibiotics no longer work because bacteria have become resistant to them – has climbed up the global agenda because of growing awareness of the immense threat this poses to human health and survival.

Africa2016-05-162023-07-10

Behind Eritrean Diaspora’s Attacks on the Dutch Media

Analysis by Martin Plaut *

BRUSSELS (IDN) – “I have never experienced anything like it,” says Philippe Remarque, editor in chief of De Volkskrant. The paper – the Netherlands’ largest broadsheet – has been taken to court by a man Remarque describes as an “operative working for the benefit of the awful Eritrean dictatorship”. On May 13 the newspaper received a verdict in the second case in which the court ruled once more in favour of the newspaper.

There is a large, and growing, Eritrean community in the Netherlands. Eritreans flee their country at a rate of 5,000 a month – the largest number of refugees crossing from Libya to Italy. More than 38,000 made the dangerous voyage in 2015, according to the European border agency, Frontex.

Those who arrive in the Netherlands seek refugee status. They discuss their cases with the Dutch immigration agency, only to confront a problem. According to a Dutch based website, Oneworld, refugees found that they were speaking through official translators who had close links with the Eritrean government.

UN INSIDER2016-05-162023-07-10

Kazakhstan Vows to Fight the ‘Virus of War’

Analysis by J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed. This argument remains pertinent 70 years after the UNESCO Constitution came into force. Because “the virus of war is still prevalent in the minds of people”, said Kazakh Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov, quoting President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Representing Kazakhstan at the high-level forum titled Religions for Peace at the UN General Assembly on May 6, Idrissov said: “In the 21st Century, which is considered to be the most advanced century, with the most advanced achievements of human kind in its entire existence we still face the danger of global annihilation. . . As my president has formulated it, it is unfortunate that this virus of war is prevalent among many political elites.”

Kazakh President proposed such a forum at the 70th session of the General Assembly in September 2015, and at a meeting with UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova in Paris in November 2015. In doing so, he wanted to boost UN efforts to combat violent extremism and promote peace and security.