Tag: Global

Latin America Is Lagging in Its Homework to Meet the SDGs — Global Issues

A view of the Altos de Florida neighborhood in Bogotá, Colombia. Overcoming poverty is the first of the Sustainable Development Goals, and in the Latin American and Caribbean region there is not only slow progress but even setbacks in the path to reduce it. CREDIT: Freya Mortales / UNDP
  • by Humberto Marquez (caracashttps://ipsnoticias.net/2023/09/america-latina-solo-hace-parte-de-su-tarea-para-cumplir-los-ods/)
  • Inter Press Service

CARACAShttps://ipsnoticias.net/2023/09/america-latina-solo-hace-parte-de-su-tarea-para-cumplir-los-ods/, Sep 15 (IPS) – The Latin American and Caribbean region is arriving at the Sustainable Development Goals Summit on the right track but far behind in terms of progress, at the halfway point to achieve the SDGs, which aim to overcome poverty and create a cleaner and healthier environment.

“We are exactly halfway through the period of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, but we are not half the way there, as only a quarter of the goals have been met or are expected to be met that year,” warned ECLAC Executive Secretary José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs.

However, the head of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) stressed, in response to a questionnaire submitted to him by IPS, that “the percentage of targets on track to be met is higher than the global average,” partly due to the strengthening of the institutions that lead the governance of the SDGs.

The 17 SDGs include 169 targets, to be measured with 231 indicators, and in the region 75 percent are at risk of not being met, according to ECLAC, unless decisive actions are taken to forge ahead: 48 percent are moving in the right direction but too slowly to achieve the respective targets, and 27 percent are showing a tendency to backslide.

The summit was convened by UN Secretary-General António Guterres for Sept. 18-19 at the United Nations headquarters in New York, under the official name High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

The stated purpose is to “step on the gas” to reach the SDGs in all regions, in the context of a combination of crises, notably the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, new wars, and the climate and food crises.

The SDGs address ending poverty, achieving zero hunger, health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, industry, innovation and infrastructure, and reducing inequalities.

They also are aimed at sustainable cities and communities, responsible production and consumption, climate action, underwater life, life of terrestrial ecosystems, peace, justice and strong institutions, and partnerships to achieve the goals.

Drinking water is distributed from tanker trucks in the working-class Petare neighborhood in eastern Caracas. Access to safe drinking water and sanitation is another of the goals that are being addressed with a great variety of results within Latin American and Caribbean countries, and there is no certainty that this 2030 Agenda target will be reached in the region. CREDIT: Caracas city government
Drinking water is distributed from tanker trucks in the working-class Petare neighborhood in eastern Caracas. Access to safe drinking water and sanitation is another of the goals that are being addressed with a great variety of results within Latin American and Caribbean countries, and there is no certainty that this 2030 Agenda target will be reached in the region. CREDIT: Caracas city government

Progress is being made, but slowly

“In all the countries of the region progress is being made, but in many not at the necessary rate. The pace varies greatly and we are not where we would like to be,” Almudena Fernández, chief economist for the region at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), told IPS from New York.

Thus, said the Peruvian economist, “there is progress, for example, on some health or energy and land care issues, but we are lagging in achieving more sustainable cities, and we are not on the way to achieving, regionally, any of the poverty indicators.”

Salazar-Xirinachs, who is from Costa Rica, said from Santiago that “the countries that have historically been at the forefront in public policies are the ones that have made the greatest progress, such as Uruguay in South America, Costa Rica in Central America or Jamaica in the Caribbean. They have implemented a greater diversity of strategies to achieve the SDGs.”

A group of experts led by U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs prepared graphs for the UN on how countries in the various developing regions are on track to meet the goals or still face challenges – measured in three grades, from moderate to severe – and whether they are on the road to improvement, stagnation or regression.

According to this study, the best advances in poverty reduction have been seen in Brazil, El Salvador, Guyana, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay, while the greatest setbacks have been observed in Argentina, Belize, Ecuador and Venezuela.

In the fight for zero hunger, no one stands out; Brazil, after making progress, slid backwards in recent years, and the best results are shown by Caribbean countries.

In health and well-being, education and gender equality, there are positive trends, although stagnation has been seen, especially in the Caribbean and Central American countries.

In water and sanitation, energy, reduction of inequalities, economic growth, management of marine areas, terrestrial ecosystems, and justice and institutions, Sachs’ dashboard shows the persistence of numerous obstacles, addressed in very different ways in different countries.

Many countries in Central America and the Caribbean are on track to meet their climate action goals, and in general the region has made progress in forging alliances with other countries and organizations to pave the way to meeting the SDGs.

Young people in a Latin American country share a vegetable-rich meal outdoors. The notion of consuming products produced with environmentally sustainable techniques is gaining ground, and a private sector whose DNA is embedded in the search for positive environmental and social repercussions is flourishing. CREDIT: Pazos / Unicef

A question of funds

Even before the pandemic that broke out in 2020, Fernández said, the region was not moving fast enough towards the SDGs; its economic growth has been very low for a long time – and remains so, at no more than 1.9 percent this year – and growth with investment is needed in order to reduce poverty.

In this regard, Fernández highlighted the need to expand fiscal revenues, since tax collection is very low in the region (22 percent of gross domestic product, compared to 34 percent in the advanced economies of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), “although progress will not be made through public spending alone,” she said.

Salazar-Xirinachs pointed out that “in addition to financial resources, it is very important to adapt actions to specific areas to achieve the 2030 Agenda. The measures implemented at the subnational level are of great importance. Specific problems in local areas cannot always be solved with one-size-fits-all policies.”

Fernández underlined that the 2030 Agenda “has always been conceived as a society-wide agenda, and the private sector plays an essential role, particularly the areas that are flourishing because it has a positive social and environmental impact on their DNA, and there are young consumers who use products made in a sustainable way.”

ECLAC’s Salazar-Xirinachs highlighted sensitized sectors as organized civil society and the private sector, for their participation in sustainable development forums, follow-up actions and public-private partnerships moving towards achievement of the SDGs.

Finally, with respect to expectations for the summit, the head of ECLAC aspires to a movement to accelerate the 2030 Agenda in at least four areas: decent employment for all, generating more sustainable cities, resilient infrastructure that offers more jobs, and improving governance and institutions involved in the process.

ECLAC identified necessary “transformative measures”: early energy transition; boosting the bioeconomy, particularly sustainable agriculture and bioindustrialization; digital transformation for greater connectivity among the population; and promoting exports of modern services.

It also focuses on the care society, in response to demographic trends, to achieve greater gender equality and boost the economy; sustainable tourism, which has great potential in the countries of the region; and integration to enable alliances to strengthen cooperation in the regional bloc.

In summary, ECLAC concludes, “it would be very important that during the Summit these types of measures are identified and translate into agreements in which the countries jointly propose a road map for implementing actions to strengthen them.”

© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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Youth Rally for Peace Through Climate Justice at the UN — Global Issues

Youth rally at the UN for climate justice. Credit: Abigail Van Neely/IPS
  • by Abigail Van Neely (united nations)
  • Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 15 (IPS) – “What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now!” youth chanted in an unusually lively conference at the United Nations Headquarters.

Earlier on Thursday morning (September 14), almost 500 young people had streamed into the room to a DJ’s upbeat soundtrack. Spirits were high despite the more somber rallying cry of this year’s International Day of Peace youth event: the planet is on fire. Many speakers focused on the idea that there cannot be peace without climate justice.

“We cannot begin to talk about peace without talking about the climate crisis,” environmental justice advocate Saad Amer said after leading the crowd in the kind of chants more likely heard at a protest. Fossil fuel disputes spark wars that disproportionately affect people of color, Amer explained. Youth must take charge to “re-write destiny.”

To 21-year-old Mexican climate justice activist Xiye Bastida, “Peace is the ability to drink clean air and clean water.” Bastida, a member of the Otomi-Toltec indigenous community, spoke of her community’s traditional commitment to living in harmony with the earth. Now, indigenous people are being displaced as regenerative practices are forgotten. Bastida called for a world free of extreme weather and exploitation. The climate crisis reflects a broken system, she said, but peace is the bravery to imagine a better world.

Young people are “creating a youth movement for climate action, seeking racial justice, and promoting gender equality,” the Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, Melissa Fleming, told the audience. In a recorded statement, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated that youth action has power. Still, only four governments have concrete plans to include young people in policymaking, Youth Envoy Jayathma Wickramanyake noted.

As she lived through brutal conflicts in her home country of Sri Lanka, Wickramanayake said she wondered why people around her continued to fight. Today, she told other young activists that the root causes of conflict always run deep – from inequality to poverty. She stressed that peace cannot be differentiated from development.

The event occurs days before the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Summit, a critical opportunity for world leaders to address failures to implement the goals so far.

“Next week there will be an important breakthrough in creating the conditions to rescue the sustainable development goals. I’m very hopeful that the SDG summit will indeed represent a quantum leap in the response to the dramatic failures that we have witnessed,” Guterres said during a news conference.

Meanwhile, youth are left with memories of their chants: “The oceans are rising, and so are we!” “We are unstoppable – another world is possible!”

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Our 5 Asks at the SDG Summit — Global Issues

A protest for women’s rights in Puebla, Mexico. Credit: Melania Torres/Forus
  • Opinion by Bibbi Abruzzini, Marie LHostis (new york)
  • Inter Press Service

The 2023 Special Edition of the SDG Progress Report emphasized that we’re falling short in implementing the SDGs. In April this year, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres deplored that “Progress on more than 50 per cent of targets of the SDGs is weak and insufficient; on 30 per cent, it has stalled or gone into reverse,” disproportionately impacting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable.

As we approach the halfway mark of the 2030 Agenda, we urge world leaders at the UN General Assembly to address the precarious state of SDG implementation. Here’s our 5 asks.

Walk the talk with clear implementation plans and benchmarks for the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals.

“In Guatemala, there are two worlds, one for a small group that benefits from this macroeconomic stability, this weakness of democracy, this co-optation of state institutions, and a large majority of the population that faces poverty and inequality,” says Alejandro Aguirre Batres, Executive Director of CONGCOOP, the national platform of NGOs in Guatemala that recently published an alternative report on the implementation of the SDGs in the country.

Human rights activists in Cartagena, Colombia from the Coalition of Human Rights in Development at the Finance in Common Summit. Credit: Sebastian Barros/Forus

Governments must make specific national implementation plans to advance the Sustainable Development Goals, with clear benchmarks on when to achieve the targets set in 2015. Following the SDG Summit, we call on the United Nations and its partners to ensure that the “National Commitments to SDG Transformation” called for by the Secretary-General are adequately compiled and tracked, including by providing a transparent and inclusive platform for showcasing these commitments, helping to ensure adequate implementation, follow-up and accountability.

All efforts and commitments must focus on breaching the increassing gap in inequalities, healing polarisation and restoring socio-environmental rights at the core of Agenda 2030 implementation as no form of development should come at the cost of environmental degradation and injustice.

Presenting a viewpoint from Asia, Jyotsna Mohan Singh, representing the Asia Development Alliance, emphasizes that while the SDGs look good on paper, their real-world implementation remains far from satisfactory. She explains, “Governments should develop a policy coherence for sustainable development roadmap with timebound targets,” adding that it’s all about creating spaces grounded in equity where civil society and other stakeholders can join discussions and connect with local communities.

In regions like the Sahel, stretching 5,000 kilometers below the Sahara Desert from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, challenges like conflict, political instability, extreme poverty, and food insecurity affect nearly 26 million people. Yet, this region is teeming with opportunities, boasting abundant resources and a young population, including 50% young women and girls.

As civil society leader Mavalow Christelle Kalhoule, Forus Chair and President of SPONG, the Burkina Faso NGO network, puts it, “What unfolds in the Sahel and in so many other forgotten communities ripples across the globe, impacting us all even if we choose to look away.

Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals is vital to unlock a different future. But for global change to truly happen, we need countries to come together, we need solidarity, horizontal spaces, and for world leaders to start listening and acting accordingly.”

Commit to the protection of civic space and human rights.

“Although the state of Pakistan has ratified many global instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the SDGs, the irony is that none of them have been transformed into local policies and regulatory frameworks. Unfortunately, civil rights advocates and organizations have either transformed themselves into humanitarian organizations or practiced self-censorship to avoid state atrocities. Pakistan is failing to achieve SDGs due to disengagement with civil society and other stakeholders.

Ironically, the government is unable to provide reliable data on any of their own priority indicators to measure progress towards the implementation of SDGs, particularly on rights-based indicators,” says Zia ur Rehman, National Convener of the Pakistan Development Alliance. Their newly published Pakistan Civic Space Monitor reveals a generally restricted civic space, including restraints on freedom of speech, assembly, information, rule of law, governance, and public participation, with further deterioration. This rings true for 92% of Forus members – comprising national and regional civil society networks in over 124 countries – who consider the protection of civic space and human rights a top priority.

Fridays for Future activists during a Climate March in Brussels, Belgium. Credit: Both Nomads/Forus

Indeed, over the past decade, thousands of civil society organizations have faced increasing challenges due to restrictions on their formation and activities. Nine out of 10 people now live in countries where civil liberties are severely restricted, including freedoms of association, peaceful assembly, and expression, according to the CIVICUS Monitor. Forus reports confirm that civil society deals with increasing restrictions, involving extra-legal actions, misinformation and disinformation about their work both online and offline.

Research also highlights the insufficiency of current institutional mechanisms to ensure an enabling environment for civil society, including addressing impunity for attacks on civil society and human right defenders, implementing supportive laws and regulations, and facilitating effective and inclusive policy dialogue. A recent ARTICLE 19 report highlights the inadequate integration of crucial elements like freedom of expression and access to information into SDGs, hampering progress.

Journalist killings increased in 2022. Additionally, monitoring access to information mainly focuses on having a legal framework, ignoring its quality and adoption. Strengthening these rights is vital for advancing all SDGs. The growing number of human rights defenders being killed every year – at least 401 in 26 countries were murdered for their peaceful work in 2022 – is another worrying trend that needs to be reversed as the protection and promotion of human rights is the cornerstone of achieving sustainable development. Without human rights we will just move backwards.

Strengthen and Catalyze Robust Financing for the SDGs.

From the recent Summit for a new global financing pact to the Finance in Common initiative, it’s clear that the focus this year has been on increasing investment. But we need quality not just quantity, as expressed in a join civil society declaration aimed at public development banks signed by over 100 civil society organisations from 50+ countries.

While we welcome UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s call for a SDG Stimulus, we remind Governments, International Financial Institutions, public development banks and donors that more efforts must be done to scale up investments for the realization of the SDGs at all levels, including through additional support for civil society and by involving communities in all “development talks”.

The role of the private sector and financial institutions in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda must be talked about openly. It is important to include in all development projects being carried out specific budgets for actions linked to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Discussions about financial reforms that are being repeatedly undertaken by several countries cannot happen behind close doors and in non-inclusive forums such as the G7 and G20. Instead, they should be open, inclusive, and transparent, involving a broader spectrum of protagonists, including civil society, to ensure fairness and sustainability in shaping global financial policies.

“The SDGs are severely off track as we reach the critical half-way point of Agenda 2030. We need a renewed global ambition on financial commitments to make progress on the SDGs. Reforms of global financial architecture are a crucial part of this to ensure we have a fairer, more effective, inclusive and transparent system supporting lower-income countries that are at the forefront of the global climate, debt, poverty, food, and humanitarian crises. It’s not about a lack of finance, it is about political will and getting our priorities right,” says Sandra Martinsone, Policy Manager – Sustainable Economic Development at Bond UK.

Mobilize Transformative Commitments for SDG16+.

Recognizing the vital role of SDG16+ as a critical enabler for the entire 2030 Agenda, governments should come to the SDG Summit with targeted, integrated, focused and transformative commitments to accelerate action on SDG16+.

As developed in the #SDG16Now collective campaign, this includes domestic policies and resources, legal reforms and initiatives to advance SDG16+ at the international, national and local levels, as well as ambitious global commitments to strengthen multilateralism and international resolve to promote peace, justice, the rule of law, inclusion and institution-building.

Additionally, governments must use key moments – such as the 2024 High-Level Political Forum and the Summit of the Future – to advance implementation and delivery of the SDGs through similar commitments to action, and ensure adequate follow-up to these commitments going forward.

Ensure civil society participation and listen to communities, reinvigorate commitments to SDG17.

The 2030 Agenda overall cannot be achieved without building on the role of civil society and fostering a true global partnership. Every year at the fringes of the UN General Assembly, initiatives such as the Global People’s Assembly bring to the ears of world leaders the voices of communities historically marginalised. Governments need to reinvigorate engagement towards SDG17 to trengthen the means of implementing sustainable development goals and revitalising global partnerships for sustainable development.

It’s high time we move away from conducting discussions about the future of development in closed-door settings. Tokenistic participation of civil society, where their involvement is merely symbolic or superficial, undermines the core principles of nclusivity, hurting genuine progress and meaningful collaboration. A more inclusive approach must be embraced that actively involves civil society and communities. Let’s #UNmute their voices and perspectives by bringing about reforms to current participation mechanisms, and giving them a real platform to be heard.

In 2015 every government in the world agreed as a global community on what we want for our comon future for people and planet. So many efforts and work went on to reach such an agreement. Now is the time for governments and world leaders to walk the walk and prioritize people and the planet, delivering the 2030 Agenda, essential to secure our shared future. It is time for world leaders to act decisively and uphold their commitments to the SDGs.

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How a UN General Assembly Meeting is Organized — Global Issues

Meticulous attention to planning detail ahead of the session. Credit: Pixabay
  • Opinion by Kenji Nakano (united nations)
  • Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 15 (IPS) – The General Assembly and ECOSOC Affairs Division has around 40 staff members, with the combined role to facilitate the deliberations and decision-making of intergovernmental bodies such as the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council and their subsidiary organs.

This entails several aspects to assist the presiding officer, Member States and the other participants. For example, we put together the agenda of the intergovernmental body and a programme of work (i.e., calendar) of meetings of that body. We also prepare the presiding officer’s scripts and the list of speakers for the meeting, taking into account rules concerning who can speak and when.

We advise all those involved about applicable rules of procedure, as well as the practices and precedents of these bodies and how these rules are applied. The General Assembly, for example, has the president as well as 21 vice-presidents. Each of the six Main Committees has a chair, three vice-chairs and a rapporteur. We advise them on the proceedings, including how to address unexpected questions or procedural motions from the floor.

We deal with meeting room arrangements and documentation. The latter includes draft resolutions and decisions: we receive those from Member States and have them processed for issuance as an official document in six languages.

This can include draft amendments from other countries that did not agree with the content of the original draft resolutions. We conduct recorded votes if required as well as secret balloting for elections. We also put together a final report of the body.

How the preparations take place

The preparations for a regular session of the General Assembly which starts in September, begin months and months in advance. The document concerning the agenda of the session (normally containing around 170-180 items) is formed in February with what is called a “preliminary list of items to be included in the provisional agenda”.

The list of items for the agenda will continue to grow as new ones are mandated by the adoption of resolutions, so we will keep updating the list and send out what is called the “provisional agenda” in July. The preparation for the list of speakers for the general debate will begin in June, which is where Heads of State and Government and other high-level representatives will speak in the General Assembly Hall in September.

In the meantime, in June, the President of the new session is elected mostly by what is called “acclamation” or without a secret ballot. When there are competing candidates, the election is held by secret ballot cast by Member States. The elected candidate takes office when the new session begins in September, but there is a period between June and September where both the sitting President and President-elect collaborate on handover for the new session.

We put together an information note concerning the High-Level Week in September, as well as a publication called the “Delegates’ Handbook” with practical information on meeting rooms, facilities and services available to delegates. The High-Level Week in September includes, besides the general debate, other meetings on specific topics as mandated by the General Assembly resolutions.

In September 2023, there will be (1) the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development under the auspices of the General Assembly, (2) the High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development, (3) the Preparatory Ministerial Meeting for the Summit of the Future and high-level meetings on (4) universal health coverage, (5) pandemic prevention, preparedness and response and (6) fight against tuberculosis, and also (7) the High-Level Plenary Meeting to Commemorate and Promote the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

The Secretary-General will also convene the Climate Ambition Summit. Many of them will have an outcome document, on which Member States negotiate many months before the adoption in September.

A tale of two halves

Once the High-Level Week is over, we have the rest of the “main part” of the session from September through December. Besides the General Assembly Plenary, the six Main Committees, from the First Committee to the Six Committee, hold meetings during this period, each based on its own “programme of work”.

These Main Committees will have agenda items allocated to them, under which they adopt draft resolutions to recommend to the General Assembly Plenary. In December, the plenary will consider these recommendations from the Main Committees, while it continues to consider its own agenda items.

The subsequent period, from January to September, is called the “resumed part” of the session. That part has no fixed calendar, but consists rather of meetings that the President of the General Assembly holds on his/her own initiative or in response to a mandate given by a General Assembly resolution. Also seen during the resumed part of the session are informal consultations on topics mandated by resolutions adopted during the main part to, for example, negotiate the organizational arrangements and/or on an outcome document of a
future high-level meeting. These consultations are normally led by Permanent Representatives from different regions appointed by the President of the General Assembly as facilitators.

The list of speakers for the general debate

First and foremost, Member States are requested to inform the Secretariat of their three preferred timings. For the morning meeting and the afternoon meeting of each day, there are only a certain number of speaking slots so we can only accommodate speakers up to that number. Speakers for each meeting are listed based on the established protocol, beginning with the Heads of State, Vice-Presidents and Crown Princes or Princesses and Heads of Government.

Media and seating arrangements

Media accreditation is done by the Department of Global Communications, and there is a media booth where the journalists and camera crews can observe what is going on in the General Assembly Hall. There is a similar space established outside of the General Assembly Hall for journalists to hear from leaders entering/exiting the Hall. The Department of Global Communications also puts together a press kit for the session.

Every year in June, the Secretary-General draws a lot from a box containing all names of Member States. The selected country will occupy the first seat in the Hall once the new session begins in September, and from there, the seating arrangement will follow the English alphabetical order. The same seating applies to the Main Committees.

How we ensure inclusivity

This has been a very important issue for the General Assembly, the ECOSOC Affairs Division and Member States. Four years ago, the General Assembly adopted a resolution to introduce an accessible seating arrangement, whereby a wheelchair-accessible seating is made available upon request by a delegation. The General Assembly Hall has a certain number of such seats, so the requesting delegation is moved to such a seat, and other delegations’ seats are moved by one seat.

We currently have two Member States who request accessible seating on an ongoing basis. This summer, further improvement will be made in the General Assembly Hall by installing a lift for the rostrum so that a speaker on a wheelchair can speak from the rostrum.

Benefits of live broadcasting

The General Assembly involves universal participation of all Member States on all matters humanity faces, so it is very important to share information on the deliberation with the people that it will affect. Civil society, businesses, academics and media are getting more and more involved, so it is a natural progression to offer this feature and strengthen the global platform of the General Assembly.

Kenji Nakano is Chief of the General Assembly Affairs Branch

Source: UN TODAY, the official magazine of international civil servants, Geneva

IPS UN Bureau

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The Vast Potential of the Human Spirit — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Gordon Brown (london)
  • Inter Press Service

LONDON, Sep 15 (IPS) – With hope and courage, we must rise to the challenges before us. We must rise to the challenge of a world set afire by climate change, forced displacement, armed conflicts and human rights abuses. We must rise to the challenge of girls being denied their right to an education in Afghanistan. We must rise to the challenge of a global refugee crisis that is disrupting development gains the world over. We must rise to the challenge of brutal and unconscionable wars in places like Sudan and Ukraine that are putting millions of children at risk every day.

By ensuring every single child has access to quality education and embracing the vast potential of the human spirit – especially the 224 million girls and boys caught in emergencies and protracted crises that so urgently need our support – we can rise to this challenge. It’s a chance for girls with disabilities like Sammy in Colombia to find a nurturing place to learn and grow, it’s a chance for girls that have been forced into child marriage like Ajak in South Sudan to resume control of their lives, it’s a chance for refugees like Jannat in Bangladesh to find hope and dignity once more.

As Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies, has successfully completed its first strategic plan period and now enters its second strategic period, we are seeing time and again the power of education in propelling global efforts to deliver on the promises outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and other crucial international frameworks. By ensuring quality holistic education for the world’s most marginalized and vulnerable children in crisis settings, we invest in human capital, transform economies, ensure human rights, and build a more peaceful and more sustainable future for all.

The achievements outlined in ECW’s 2022 Annual Results Report tell a story of a breakout global fund moving with strength, speed and agility, while achieving quality. Together with a growing range of strategic partners, ECW reached 4.2 million children in 2022 alone. It was also the first time girls represented more than half of the children reached by ECW’s investments, including 53% of girls at the secondary level, which is a significant milestone in achieving the aspirational target of 60% girls reached. Now in its sixth year of operation, ECW has reached a total of 8.8 million children and adolescents with the safety, power and opportunity of a quality, inclusive education. An additional 32.2 million children and adolescents were reached with targeted interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are also seeing a global advocacy movement reaching critical mass, together with stronger political commitment and increased financing for the sector. In 2022, funding for education in emergencies was higher than ever before. Total available funding has grown by more than 57% over just three years – from US$699 million in 2019 to more than US$1.1 billion in 2022.

However, the needs have also skyrocketed over this same period. Funding asks for education in emergencies within humanitarian appeals have nearly tripled from US$1.1 billion in 2019 to almost US$3 billion at the end of 2022. This means that while donors are stepping up, the funding gap has actually widened, and only 30% of education in emergencies requirements were funded in 2022.

With support from key donors – including Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, as the top-three contributors among 25 in total, such as visionary private sector partners like The LEGO Foundation – US$826 million was announced at the ECW High-Level Financing Conference in early 2023. Collective resource mobilization efforts from all partners and stakeholders at global, regional, and country levels also helped unlock an additional US$842 million of funding for education in-country, which was contributed in alignment with ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programmes in 22 countries, and thus illustrates strong coordination by strategic donor partners who work in affected emergencies and protracted crises-contexts.

We must rise to this challenge by finding new and innovative ways to finance education. To date, some of ECW’s largest and prospective bilateral and multilateral donors have not yet committed funding for the full 2023–2026 period, and there remains a gap in funding from the private sector, foundations and philanthropic donors. In the first half of 2023, ECW faces a funding gap of approximately $670 million to fully finance results under the Strategic Plan, 2023–2026, to reach more than 20 million children over the next three years.

The investments will address the diverse impacts of crisis on education through child-centred approaches that are tailored to the needs of specific groups affected by crisis, such as children with disabilities, girls, refugees, and vulnerable children in host communities. These investments entail academic learning, social and emotional learning, sports, arts, combined with mental health and psycho-social services, school feeding, water and sanitation, as well as a protection component.

Since ECW became operational, we have withstood the cataclysmic forces of a global pandemic, a rise in armed conflicts that have disrupted social and economic security the world over, the unconscionable denial of education for girls in Afghanistan, floods and droughts made ever-more devastating by climate change, and other crises that are derailing efforts to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals.

Now is the time to come together as one people, one planet to address the challenges before us. Now is the time to embrace the vast potential of the human spirit. With education for all, we can make sure girls like Sammy, Ajak and Jannat are able to reach their full potential, we can build a better world for generations to come.

Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown is United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education

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Six Issues to Watch at the UN General Assembly 78 — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Richard Ponzio (washington dc)
  • Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON DC, Sep 14 (IPS) – Another UNGA (UN General Assembly High-Level Week, September 18-23, 2023) is almost here. Leaders and other senior representatives of the world body’s 193 Member States will gather again for this truly one-of-a-kind annual congregation in New York for high-stakes diplomacy and plenty of domestic political posturing.

While who’s not coming this year has already garnered some headlines (including Presidents Xi, Macron, and Putin, as well as Prime Ministers Modi and Sunak), the international community has rarely faced so many concurrent challenges on a colossal scale requiring global leadership—from extreme poverty, climate change, and unconstrained artificial intelligence to Great Power tensions, destructive conflicts, and a bulging global youth population in urgent need of new skills, opportunities to take initiative, and, perhaps most of all, hope.

In particular, here are six key milestone gatherings and sets of issues to watch during the 78th High-Level Week – in these major civil society-led UNGA side-events:

SDG Summit | September 18-19

Marking the halfway point to the deadline set for achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, world leaders will adopt the SDG Summit’s centerpiece Political Declaration following, at times, tumultuous negotiations.

The declaration seeks to provide high-level guidance on “transformative and accelerated actions” for all countries delivering on the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals.

Regrettably, two anticipated topline messages from the summit are that only fifteen percent of the Sustainable Development Goals’ targets are on track to be reached this critical decade, with over 500 million people likely still to live in extreme poverty by 2030.

For the SDG Summit to succeed, the states people convening in New York must demonstrate renewed political will—combined with concrete actions and backed up by financial resources and other support infrastructure—in the fight to reverse these trends.

Representatives must also push-back against ill-founded, yet lingering concerns among influential developing countries that the Summit of the Future (SOTF) might divert scarce resources and attention away from their core development priorities. At the recent conclusion of India’s presidency (now passed to Brazil for 2024 and South Africa for 2025), the G20 just lent its “full support,” through the G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration, to both the SDG Summit and SOTF.

Summit of the Future Ministerial Meeting | September 21

The Summit of the Future, to be hosted next September 22-23, 2024 in New York, has a stated goal to reaffirm the Charter of the United Nations, reinvigorate multilateralism, boost implementation of existing commitments, agree on concrete solutions to challenges, and restore trust among Member States.

As elaborated in the Stimson Center and partners’ recent Global Governance Innovation Report 2023(section six) and Future of International Cooperation Report 2023(section four), the intertwined nature of the SDG Summit and Summit of the Future has the potential to yield multiple mutually reinforcing dividends, beginning with the SOTF preparatory Ministerial Meeting to immediately follow next week’s SDG Summit.

In a recent decision of the President of the General Assembly, the SOTF will feature a “Pact for the Future” with chapters on: (i) Sustainable Development & Financing for Development, (ii) International Peace and Security, (iii) Science, Technology and Innovation and Digital Cooperation, (iv) Youth and Future Generations, and (v) Transforming Global Governance.

In short, whereas the SDG Summit arrives at a relatively brief high-level political statement that acknowledges global governance systems gaps in need of urgent attention to accelerate progress on the 2030 Agenda, the preparatory process for next year’s Summit of the Future is designed to realize—through well-conceived, politically acceptable, and adequately resourced reform proposals—the actual systemic changes in global governance needed to fill these gaps.

Climate Action Summit | September 20

UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s Climate Ambition Summit aspires to garner new momentum for effective climate action among representatives of governments, business, finance, local authorities, and civil society, as well as “first movers and doers.”

According to leading climate scientists, we may have as few as six to seven years to catalyze the monumental set of actions required to shift course and to avert the worst impacts of unchecked climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change underscores the connections between climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals, and the UN has warned that climate impacts threaten to reverse many of the gains made over previous decades to improve lives.

With the looming potential to overwhelm progress achieved on the wider UN agenda, the climate crisis represents the present era’s quintessential global governance conundrum, making bold and urgent action all the more critical.

Last week’s Africa Climate Summit brought much-needed ingenuity and energy for positive change from many of the countries and communities already experiencing the wide-reaching effects of climate change.

Following just on the heels of this first-of-its-kind climate summit in Nairobi, the UN’s Climate Ambition Summit aims to catalyze action from the private sector, finance, and civil society, as well as local and national governments. To this end, Stimson is also proud to support the Mary Robinson, María Fernanda Espinosa, and Johan Rockström-led Climate Governance Commission, whose Governing our Planetary Emergency recommendations will be released around COP-28 (November 30-December 12, 2023) in Dubai.

Ukraine, Sudan, Afghanistan, and other Hotspots (UNGA General Debate and UNSC Ministerial)

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, attending his first General Assembly High-Level Week in-person since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has landed a coveted speaking slot on the first morning (Tuesday, 19 September) of the Assembly’s General Debate, shortly after the traditional lead-off statements by the new President of the General Assembly (Ambassador Dennis Francis of Trinidad and Tobago), Brazil (President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva), and the UN’s host nation, the United States (President Joe Biden).

Ukraine will also feature again next week on the Security Council’s agenda in a special high-level session, “Upholding the purposes and principles of the UN Charter through effective multilateralism: Maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine.”

General Debate statements by world leaders are also anticipated to speak to other hot conflicts and fragile states – including Sudan and Afghanistan – and the Secretary-General’s recently introduced New Agenda for Peace.

Mr. Guterres’s related Emergency Platform proposal may also garner some attention, building on this month’s Security Council open debate, “Advancing Public-Private Humanitarian Partnership” featuring World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

New UN Youth Office and Assistant Secretary-General for Youth

Further to last year’s adoption of General Assembly Resolution 76/306, the seventy-eighth session of the General Assembly will further be remembered for the establishment of a new United Nations Youth Office, led by a soon-to-be-appointed Assistant Secretary-General for Youth (while bidding farewell and appreciation to the outstanding UN Youth Envoy, Jayathma Wickramanayake, and her office).

Together, they will, inter alia, advance youth issues across the UN agenda, while working to promote “meaningful, inclusive and effective engagement of youth” across the UN system.

Well-timed to coincide with the one-year-to-go preparations for the September 2024 Summit of the Future, a successful UN Youth Office will need, according to my colleague Nudhara Yusuf and Search for Common Ground’s Saji Prelis, to understand the urgency and responsibility to act in upcoming UN policymaking and programming, to coordinate across existing youth engagement mechanisms, and to embrace new forms of leadership suited to a highly interconnected planet.

Financing for Development (September 20), the Bridgetown Initiative, and Global Financial Architecture Reform

On September 20, the General Assembly will convene its second High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development since the adoption of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. Against growing calls for Global Financial Architecture reform and greater climate financing (through Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s Bridgetown Initiative, which she is widely expected to showcase during the 78th High-Level Week), developing countries will likely continue to express concerns that rich nations are still not doing enough to finance the SDGs and other development priorities, while donors will emphasize the importance of Addis commitments on domestic resource mobilization and fighting corruption.

Two related policy ideas to keep a close eye on next week are the Secretary-General Guterres’ recent proposals: (i) for the G20 to agree on a $500 billion annual stimulus for sustainable development through a combination of concessional and non-concessional finance (as mentioned in the recent G20 Declaration); and (ii) for a Biennial Summit on the Global Economy bringing together the G20, World Bank, IMF, and UN for enhanced global economic governance.

Conclusion

As the United Nations enters its seventy-eighth year, questions continue to swirl about the world body’s vitality and its ability to keep pace with fast-changing trends in socioeconomic dynamics, the environment, peace and security, and technology.

If world leaders, together with diverse partners across civil society and the business community, step up next week with genuine pledges of support for concrete actions in the above areas—and on related subjects such as preventing future pandemics and other health crises, bolstering food security, and safeguarding human rights—they can go a long toward quieting critics who consider the UN to be merely a talk shop.

Importantly, doing so will dramatically improve conditions and expand the window of discourse, priming global leaders to seize the generational opportunity to renew and innovate our global governance system in the run-up to next September’s Summit of the Future.

Richard Ponzio is Director of the Global Governance, Justice & Security Program and a Senior Fellow at Stimson. Previously, he directed the Global Governance Program at The Hague Institute for Global Justice, where (in a partnership with Stimson) he served as Director for the Albright-Gambari Commission on Global Security, Justice & Governance.

Source: Stimson Center, Washington DC

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Enhancing Mining Revenue — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
  • Inter Press Service

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sep 13 (IPS) – The commodity boom early this century was mainly driven by mineral prices. Yet, mining’s contribution to developing countries’ revenue has been modest, largely due to massive tax evasion and avoidance.

Less mining royalties

Decades of well-supervised mineral extraction prove resource extraction by accountable and effective states can accumulate more ‘resource rents’ to enhance sustainable development and social welfare.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Well-regulated, progressive resource rent taxation can greatly enhance such extractive industries’ fiscal contribution to public wellbeing and national development.

But mining royalty rates fell significantly at the end of the 20th century to a range up to 30 per cent. Mineral revenue rates must be increased if resource-rich developing countries are to progress.

Those responsible have justified lowering resource rents for host governments and economies. The World Bank’s Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative supposedly seeks to cut corruption associated with mining, and to attract more mining foreign direct investment.

From the late 20th century, Tanzania rapidly became the third largest gold producer in Africa – after South Africa and Ghana, once known as the Gold Coast.

But with negligible royalties and tax revenue, Tanzania – a least developed country – subsidizes the government-provided infrastructure built to attract primarily foreign gold mining investors.

Ten policy proposals

The Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) and the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) have proposed how developing countries can benefit more from their mineral resources.

Their book – The Future of Resource Taxation: 10 policy ideas to mobilize mining revenues – considers policy options available to governments, and offers lessons from how several have successfully implemented the proposed approaches.

Minimum Profit Share for Government

Many governments receive mineral resource rents via royalties and corporate income tax. A few insist on minimum government revenue even when prices fall below thresholds. The book assesses whether such ‘profit sharing’ – in Tanzania, the Philippines and Ecuador – improved on the status quo ante.

Production Sharing Contracts

Many governments get oil and gas revenues via production sharing contracts. Some have been considering whether such arrangements would work well for other minerals. A chapter considers issues arising from executing such contracts.

State Equity Participation

State equity participation enables governments to receive dividends and other benefits from their investments. The volume offers practical guidance in this regard.

Commercial State-Owned Enterprises

Nationalist desires for mineral resource ownership may involve fully state-owned mining enterprises to maximize economic benefits to the nation. One chapter recommends how such companies should be established, expanded and reformed to succeed.

Variable royalties

Variable royalty rates are easier to enforce than profit or cash-flow based taxes. The book offers pragmatic guidance from reviewing variable royalties in 15 countries.

Related-Party Sales

Resource-rich Latin American countries have been using commodity prices from a relevant exchange – such as the London Metals Exchange – to reduce tax dodging involving mineral transactions. Such reference prices are less vulnerable to related-party mineral sales’ tax dodging.

Carbon Pricing and Border Adjustment Mechanisms

The carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) taxes imports from outside the European Union (EU) for presumed greenhouse gas emissions at rates equal to what EU-made products are charged by its Emissions Trading Scheme. The report considers CBAM’s likely impact on mineral-exporting developing countries, and whether they should emulate it.

Community Revenue from a Development Turnover Tax

Some mining tax instruments cater to specific demands from resource-rich countries. One chapter discusses a ‘development turnover tax’ requiring private mining companies to invest in shared public infrastructure. Alternatively, the national revenue authority can collect a development turnover tax for a government-run mining development fund to do likewise.

Competitive Bidding for Mining Rights

Under the correct conditions, competitive bidding can efficiently assign mineral resource extraction licences to private companies. The report describes how countries can increase revenue from allocating mining licences via competitive bidding.

Better Monitoring of Quarrying

In most resource-rich countries, regulatory oversight and mining revenue mobilization tend to focus on precious minerals, ignoring quarried industrial minerals. Remote monitoring can help tax authorities better assess quarried output volumes and sales.

Implementation matters

When mining companies use their power, money and influence to get mining rights, land, water and other resources, they invariably provoke resistance, often local. But better international, national and local regulation can reduce such adverse impacts and related conflicts.

Some proposals in the volume involve incremental changes, while others are more radical. But they all need careful government consideration to ascertain appropriateness. Of course, the likelihood of success also depends on various circumstances.

Governments require human and financial resources to implement the proposed reforms. They should avoid inefficient and ineffective tax incentives as well as enforcement powers undermining government policies and the law.

Effective implementation often needs support for resource-rich developing countries – from international organizations, bilateral and other development partners – to improve mineral resource rent collection.

Generally, mining revenue has fallen short of expectations – largely due to inappropriate laws, poor investment agreements, overly generous tax incentives, tax evasion and avoidance. Some countries also lack the needed expertise, information and means to effectively implement mining taxation, free of corruption.

Intensified competition for mineral resources is worsening rivalries. As demand grows, new alliances and rivalries are emerging, even as circumstances change.

With such uncertainties in a fast changing international situation, developing countries can better advance their national interests by cooperating and staying non-aligned, rather than competing with other mineral producing nations.

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The Perspective of Global Governance for Achieving the SDGs<br>From the viewpoint of sociology of domination. — Global Issues

Sotaro Kusumoto
  • Opinion by Osamu Kusumoto, Sotaro Kusumoto (tokyo, japan)
  • Inter Press Service

TOKYO, Japan, Sep 12 (IPS) –
 

1. SDGs and global governance

Sustainable development is the challenge of how to build a society in which humanity can live with dignity in this global environment. The SDGs set 17 goals and 169 targets to achieve sustainable development. Goals 16 and 17 are aimed precisely at building global governance through the formation of global rules. Goal 16 lists 10 specific targets, while Goal 17 lists 19 targets.

Sotaro KusumotoWhen a society functions with common values, it can be governed by non-verbal rules such as norms, but when the planet Earth, which is made up of diverse values, is regarded as a single society, it becomes necessary to govern it in the form of rules of law by explicit laws as common rules for the management of society. This is the condition for global governance by so-called global rules. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is little research on the nature of these global rules and how they should be constructed.

In order to answer this question, it is necessary to analyse the relationship between the legitimacy that defines the rules of governance in each country and the governance structure in the first place, and based on this analysis, identify issues and make proposals that can overcome these issues.

2. Laws of respective country and legitimacy

In modern societies, national laws are legislated under national constitutions. For example, the pros and cons of the death penalty are debated, but the essential reason why this is controversial is whether the fundamental question of on what grounds a person can deny the life of another person, even if he or she uses the institution of law, exists there. This question becomes clearer in the case of democracy. The epistemological question becomes whether the people, as sovereigns who constitute the sovereignty of the state, can take the lives of sovereigns on the basis of law, even if the law is legislated by parliamentarians elected through the system of elections.

In fact, the institution of the state is the only institution that can legally kill. International law recognises war as the final solution measures to international disputes. It is also regarded as a means of settling disputes over the sovereignty of states, recognised by international law, in the absence of any superior power.

Osamu KusumotoWhat is clear here is that the sovereignty of a state goes beyond the usual logical arguments and forms a value for the people, and the law of each country is founded on the fact that this value is not in question.

And the legitimacy of this rule is, surprisingly, provided for in the preamble of each country’s constitution. Even if there is no such statement in the preamble of the constitution, it is stipulated in the more fundamental texts of the fundamental law of each country, in the case of the UK in the Magna Carta, in the case of the US in the Declaration of Independence, and in the case of France in the Declaration of Human Rights.

The international order to date has made the values of the hegemonic powers, such as Pax Romana and Pax Britannica, the de facto rule. However, in an international community where diverse cultures and values exist, it is not possible to conduct global governance with the values of any one country as the global rules.

3. Possibility of global rules

Even though it is a difficult question how to set values, the legal conditions under which global rules can be established are relatively clear. Fairness, rationality, transparency, stability and predictability are required. A rule of law is established when people understand that the rule has validity.

The question is how to construct transcendental values that correspond to the sovereignty of people’s belief systems as values in the law of each country. The sociology of religion and the sociology of domination shows that the legitimacy of the transcendent rule of law, which forms the basis of the values of each country, is formed from the fact that the survival of the group is possible.

When we consider that humanity is an inhabitant of this fragile planet and that the idea of humanity as a community is at the root of the SDGs, and that our lives and the lives of others have equal value as the very basis of human rights, the legitimacy of global societal domination in the era of the SDGs must be based on sustainability, this means that the legitimacy of global society’s domination in the era of the SDGs must lie in sustainability.

Despite criticisms of idealism, the only logical solution to global governance is to create the conditions for its realisation.

Sotaro Kusumoto, Staff, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan
Osamu Kusumoto, Secretary General, Forum on Future Vison

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World Leaders Offered 15 Minutes of Fame at UNs High-Level Meeting — Global Issues

  • by Thalif Deen (united nations)
  • Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 12 (IPS) – Everyone in this world is entitled to 15 minutes of fame– is a legendary quote mis-attributed to the American pop icon Andy Warhol.

Over the years, the United Nations has laid down its own 15-minute rule for world leaders addressing the UN General Assembly.

And this year is no exception, as the UN readies to host over 150+ world leaders at the high-level segment of the 78th session of the General Assembly, beginning September 19.

In a message to Ambassadors and heads of missions in New York, Movses Abelian, Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management says: “I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize that, in accordance with existing practice at the general debate, a voluntary 15-minute time limit should be observed and the list of speakers has been prepared on the basis of a 15-minute statement by each delegation.”

But as tradition and protocol demands, it is member states, including political leaders and ambassadors, who reign supreme at the United Nations, not the Secretary-General or senior UN officials.

And no president of the General Assembly, the UN’s highest policy-making body, has the right to interrupt or curtail the prerogative of a president or prime minister to speak uninterruptedly—at his or her own pace.

In a bygone era, the UN installed a light on the speaker’s rostrum that kept flashing when a head of state or head of government went beyond the 15-minute limit.

President Ranesinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka, who was apparently alerted about this, pulled out his handkerchief, covered the flashing light and continued to speak.

The following year, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, known for his long-winded speeches, pulled off the same stunt with a dramatic flair waving the handkerchief –as delegates cheered him and greeted his gesture with loud laughter.

The two political leaders had momentarily outsmarted the UN bureaucracy.

The all-time records for speech-making at the General Assembly have continued to be held by Castro, Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union, Sékou Touré of Guinea, Muammar al-Qadhafi of Libya and President Soerkano of Indonesia.

The longest speech was made by Castro at the 872nd plenary meeting of the General Assembly on 26 September 1960. The time listed was an all-time-high of 269 minutes, according to the archives in the UN’s Dag Hammarskjold Library.

Other long speeches at the General Assembly included:

    • Sékou Touré, President of Guinea, 144 minutes on 10 October 1960;
    • Nikita Khrushchev – USSR – Chairman of the Council of Ministers, 140 minutes on 23 September 1960;
    • Dr. Soekarno, President of Indonesia, 121 minutes on 30 September 1960; and
    • Colonel Muammar al-Qadhafi of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 96 minutes on 23 September 2009.

The flamboyant Qadhafi, made a rare historic visit to the UN in September 2009, accompanied by political fanfare—and his usual team of female body guards.

In its report, the London Guardian said he “grabbed his 15 minutes of fame at the UN building in New York and ran with it. He ran with it so hard he stretched it to an hour and 40 minutes, six times longer than his allotted slot, to the dismay of UN organizers”.

“Qadhafi fully lived up to his reputation for eccentricity, bloody-mindedness and extreme verbiage”, said the Guardian, “as he tore up a copy of the UN charter in front of startled delegates, accused the Security Council of being an al-Qaida like terrorist body, called for (US President) George Bush and (UK Prime Minister) Tony Blair to be put on trial for the Iraq war, demanded $7.7 trillion in compensation for the ravages of colonialism on Africa, and wondered whether swine flu was a biological weapon created in a military laboratory.”

Still, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest statement ever made at the UN was delivered by Krishna Menon of India. His statement to the Security Council was during three meetings in January 1957, lasting more than 8 hours.

According to AsiaNet, Menon, “one of the best statesmen India has ever produced”, made that marathon speech, blasting Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

The transcript of the speech ran to 160 pages.

During the speech, Menon collapsed midway and had to be revived. But he returned to the Council chamber and continued to attack Pakistan for another hour.

But in recent years, there were no such dramatic moments either in the Security Council or the General Assembly.

At most international conferences, the host country has the privilege of being the first speaker on day one.

However, a longstanding tradition gives pride of place to Brazil followed by the US as the second speaker for the opening day, this time it would be President Joe Biden.

During an official visit to Brasilia, I asked one of the senior Brazilian officials about the origins of the tradition. And he told me “Even we don’t why we continue to be the number one speaker”

In those days, most countries were reluctant to be the first to address the chamber, according to a published report. Brazil, at the time, was the only country that volunteered to speak first.

Some say that the tradition dates back to 1947, when Brazil’s top diplomat Oswaldo Aranha presided over the Assembly’s First Special Session.

https://www.ipsnews.net/2023/09/un-came-attack-mis-guided-rocket-launcher/

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What Happens in the Arctic Does Not Stay in the Arctic — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Jan Lundius (stockholm, sweden)
  • Inter Press Service

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Sep 12 (IPS) – While climate change is relentlessly progressing, threatening life on earth, world leaders continue to meet while planning for a future where this immense menace to human existence remains a minor item on the agenda.

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