UN Insider

Photo credit: Rafael Murillo, Courtesy Congress SEE

Costa Rica Set to Achieve Carbon Neutrality by 2021

By Fabiola Ortiz

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (IDN) – It has been twenty two years since Costa Rica embarked on its national program of payment for environmental services (PES), the first in the world to start a nationwide scheme for compensating landowners for keeping the forests standing for people and the planet.

Now that the world struggles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit the global temperature rise by the end of the century, this Central American nation of five million people has served as an example of public policies addressing the taxation of fossil fuels in favour of the protection of nature. The country pledges to become carbon neutral by 2021.

: Fabiola Ortiz; THE WORLD; Latin America & the Caribbean; 03 October 2018

Africa Gets Ready for Biodiversity and Climate Change Summits

By Justus Wanzala

NAIROBI (IDN) – African governments have been availing of two conferences at the UN Environment Headquarters in the Kenyan capital in September to gear up for the Biological Diversity Summit in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, and the Climate Summit in Katowice, Poland.

The African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) from September 17 to 19 provided an opportunity to prepare for the 14th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD-COP14) from November 17 to 29, 2018 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.

: Justus Wanzala; THE WORLD; Africa; 03 October 2018

Photo credit: Transparency International

Right to Information a Mixed Success in the Asia-Pacific Region

By Sean Buchanan

LONDON (IDN) – Freedom of information is not only a human right, but also an essential tool to engage and empower citizens to demand accountability from governments and fight corruption.

Worldwide, around 120 countries have a right to information (RTI) act, indicating that most countries consider it important to spell out in detail how this right is exercised and to set obligations for public authorities to promote, protect and implement it in practice.

: Phil Harris; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 01 October 2018

Photo (l to r): President Danny Faure of the Republic of Seychelles, ACP Secretary-General Dr .Patrick I Gomes, Ambassador Peter Thompson of Fiji, the UN Special Envoy for Oceans. Credit: Seychelles Permanent Mission to the UN in New York.

Blue Economy Key to Small Islands' Survival & Prosperity

By Shanta Roy

NEW YORK (ACP-IDN) – When the 79-member African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States – along with the government of Seychelles – sponsored a high-level forum at the United Nations on September 26, the primary focus was the emerging new "blue economy" underlining the protection and preservation of the world's heavily-exploited oceans.

The world's Small Island Developing States (SIDS), who comprise some of the most environmentally-vulnerable countries, are being increasingly threatened not only by climate change, resulting in rising seas and shrinking lakes, but also suffering the negative after-effects of pollution, sea-bed mining, illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing and the unauthorized extraction of marine resources in the high seas.

: Shanta Roy; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 01 October 2018

Photo: María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés (centre right), President of the 73rd session of the General Assembly, listens as Secretary-General António Guterres (centre left) addresses the high-level plenary meeting to commemorate and promote the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (26 September). At left is Izumi Nakamitsu, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs (ODA). UN Photo/Ariana Lindquist

UN High-Level Meeting Reflects Broad Support for Total Nuclear Disarmament

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – The United Nations has pursued the goal of nuclear disarmament since the adoption of the very first General Assembly resolution in 1946. But aware that countries possessing nuclear weapons have well-funded, long-term plans to modernize their nuclear arsenals, in 2013 the UN declared September 26 as the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

Commemorating that Day against the backdrop of a deteriorating global security environment and to mobilize international efforts towards achieving a nuclear-weapon-free world, the General Assembly convened a high-level plenary meeting on September 26 at the UN in New York.

: Santo D. Banerjee; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 30 September 2018

Photo (from left to right): Ms. Kaoru Nemoto, Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Tokyo; Mr. Nobuharu Imanishi, Director of Arms Control and Disarmament Division, MOFA; Ms. Masako Toki, Education project manager at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey; Ms. Mitsuki Kudo, Nagasaki Youth Delegation 2018. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri.

Japan Considers Ways of Shedding the Straitjacket and Go the Whole Hog for Nuclear Abolition

The following is a revised version of the article posted on September 30, 2018.

By Katsuhiro Asagiri

TOKYO (IDN) – Japan's profound interest in the international community's efforts to help usher in a world free of nuclear weapons was underlined in the run-up to the commemoration of the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons on September 26, which was observed first time in 2014 in accordance with a decision of the UN General Assembly.

Two events marked the efforts of Japan's civil society to avail of the day to enhance awareness of the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, and enable the country shed the straitjacket of compulsions imposed by the North Korean threat, delicate relations with China and the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

: Katsuhiro Asagiri; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 30 September 2018

Photo: Karin Landgren, Executive Director, Security Council Report moderates a discussion with UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and Tanya Gilly-Khailany, Co-founder, SEED Foundation and former parliamentarian, Iraq. Credit: UN Women/Ryan Brown

Far from Optimal Progress in Women's Meaningful Participation in Peace Processes

By Jeanette Richter

NEW YORK (IDN) – The UN Security Council Resolution1325 (UNSCR 1325), initiated by Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations as the President of the Security Council in March 2000, drew the focus of a side event on the margins of the 73rd UN General Assembly on September 26 at 'German House' in New York.

The Permanent Missions of Germany, Spain and Namibia to the United Nations, in partnership with UN Women, convened ministers, UN officials and civil society organizations to discuss progress made in the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda and ways to increase women’s meaningful participation in peace processes, as well as protect them from conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence, especially through the WPS Focal Points Network.

: Rita Joshi; UN INSIDER; 30 September 2018

Photo: High-Level Meeting participants. Credit: Kazakh Permanent Mission to the UN

Kazakh Initiated Global Coalition Aims at Terrorism-Free World

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – In the first voluntary political declaration of its kind adopted at the global level, UN Member States have reiterated in the Code of Conduct for the Achievement of a World Free of Terrorism their commitments to strengthen international cooperation to reach the common goal of eradicating a crucial threat to national, regional and international security.

The Code of Conduct, proposed by President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan at the jubilee 70th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015, proclaims the advent at the global level of a broad coalition of countries united in the shared goal of achieving a world free of terrorism.

: J Nastranis; CENTRAL ASIA; 29 September 2018

Photo: Heiko Mass, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany, addresses the general debate of the General Assembly's seventy-third session. 28 September 2018. United Nations, New York. UN Photo/Manuel Elias

Multilateralism and Sovereignty are not Antithetical

Viewpoint by Heiko Maas

With three months to go for Germany joining the Security Council as a non-permanent member for 2019-2020, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas spelt out in his speech at the general debate of the 73rd General Assembly of the United Nations on 28 September 2018 the country's agenda putting the focus on "multilaterism". Following are extensive excerpts from his speech. – The Editor

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – A veteran of UN diplomacy told me the other day that every General Assembly has its own crisis to discuss, its own major topic. So what is the big issue in 2018? Syria? North Korea? The Middle East? Or the dramatic global refugee situation from the Mediterranean to Venezuela?

: Ramesh Jaura; THE WORLD; EU & Europe; 29 September 2018

Photo: Commemorative stamp for the International Day of Non-Violence featuring Mahatma Gandhi by artist Ferdie Pacheco. UN Photo/Ryan Brown.

India Hosts UN Chief on International Day of Non-Violence

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – In the run-up to UN Secretary-General António Guterres' four-day visit to India beginning October 1, a senior official of the world body has expressed "a special thank you" to the Government of India, which is contributing US$1 million to install solar panels and a green roof on the Conference Building of the United Nations Secretariat.

The contribution, according to Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, was received by Under-Secretary-General for Management, Jan Beagle, who said that "India's generous contribution sends a strong message promoting innovation for action on climate change, and to enable greater efficiencies".