UN Insider

Photo: The Agadez pilot project: Restoring degraded lands to create jobs for migrant reintegration in West Africa. Source: UNCCD

Global Compact Pays Heed to Migrants Fleeing Degrading Lands

Viewpoint by Mariam Traore Chazalnoël

The writer is a specialist in environmental and climate migration at the International Organization for Migration (IOM)'s Office to the United Nations in New York. She has been working since 2013 on the global governance of environmental migration and regularly publishes on the topic. This article first appeared in UNCCD Science to Policy Weblog on 17 August 2018. – The Editor

NEW YORK (IDN) – The plight of people migrating in the context of environmental degradation, climate change impacts and natural disasters and the potential governance responses to such challenges have received a lot of attention in recent years.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; OPINION; 22 September 2018

Photo: Rice is the staple food in many Asian countries. Weed killers containing Glyphosate are used in rice cultivation too. UN IARC claims Glyphosate as a substance capable of causing disease in living tissue. Credit: www.agrifarming.in

Rounding Up Coca-Colonization – Will the UN Human Rights Council Stand Up For The People?

By Jayasri Priyalal

The writer is the Regional Director responsible for Finance Sector of UNI Global Union, Asia & Pacific Organization - Singapore.

SINGAPORE (IDN) – Regulatory capture and the influence of powerful Transnational Corporations in lobbying the policy makers towards their own advantage is no secret. Putting profits before people and planet is their ordinary course of business.

Now that the first draft of a legally binding treaty in International Human Rights Law has been submitted to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) will they have the courage to stand up for the people against powerful transnational corporations [TNC]?

: Kalinga Seneviratne; SUSTAINABILITY; Food security, nutrition & sustainable agriculture; 21 September 2018

Photo: Vienna Chapter of the Group of 77 celebrates 20th anniversary. Credit: UNIDO.

The Group of 77 at UN HQ in Vienna Celebrates 20th Anniversary

By Reinhard Jacobsen

VIENNA (IDN) – China's Foreign Minister WANG Yi has praised the Group of 77 (G-77) countries in Vienna, one of the four headquarters of the United Nations, along with New York, Geneva and Nairobi, for its important role as a platform for developing countries to engage in multilateral affairs.

The Group of 77 is the largest intergovernmental organization of developing countries within United Nations, designed to promote its members' collective economic interests and create an enhanced joint negotiating capacity. The organization, established in 1964 by 77 developing countries, has expanded to 134 member states.

: Reinhard Jacobsen; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; The Group of 77; 21 September 2018

Photo: The leader of the opposition armed forces, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO), Riek Machar, shaking hands with his chief military and political opponent, the President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir to make a fresh joint commitment to peace for the sake of their people. Credit: UNMISS

South Sudan Moves from Despair to Hope after New Peace Deal

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – South Sudan, caught in brutal civil conflict for years, has engaged the United Nations three times since the South Sudan government and opposition groups signed a Revitalized Peace Agreement on September 13.

The country gained its independence from the Republic of the Sudan in 2011, after two civil wars – in 1955, four months before Sudan achieved independence and in the wake of President of Sudan Gaafar Nimeiry in 1983 declaring all Sudan an Islamic state under Shari'a law, including the non-Islamic majority southern region.

: J Nastranis; THE WORLD; Africa; 18 September 2018

Photo: UNGA73 President María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe.

Upcoming UN General Assembly Promises a Whiff of History

Fourth Woman President in 73 years – 18-year-old Female Activist to Speak at High Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – The 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly opening on September 18 promises to be historic. Not only because its President, María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, the Foreign Minister of Ecuador, is the fourth woman on the top in the history of the UN’s main deliberative and policy-making body.

But also because on September 26, the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, 18-year-old environmental and children's rights activist Kehkashan Basu will address the General Assembly. Espinosa has selected her to speak as one of the two representatives of global civil society.

: Santo D. Banerjee; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 16 September 2018

Photo: UN Women Deputy Executive Director Åsa Regnér speaks at the 12th ODA International Conference session on “the role of inclusive ODA by realizing human rights and gender equality” in Seoul, the Republic of Korea. Photo: UN Women/Younghwa Choi.

Gender-Responsive Investments, ODA are of Vital Importance

Viewpoint by Åsa Regnér

Following are extensive excerpts from remarks delivered by Åsa Regnér, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women at the session on “the role of inclusive ODA by realizing human rights and gender equality” at the 12th Seoul ODA International Conference in the Republic of Korea, on September 14, 2018. – The Editor

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – Gender equality is always a result of political will. Gender equality does not come automatically. It does not arrive with a new generation; we have to actively work towards it. In every country of the world, gender inequality is about an imbalance in power, which normally favours men over women. Achieving gender equality requires negotiations around how society should be and political priorities and positions to change.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; OPINION; 16 September 2018

Photo: The UN Human Rights Council meeting room in Geneva. Credit: ohchr.org

Sri Lanka Apparently Target of an Undeclared War

Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE (IDN) - In June this year, announcing U.S. withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Ambassador Niki Haley said, "We take this step because our commitment does not allow us to remain a part of a hypocritical and self-serving organisation that makes a mockery of human rights."

U.S. is leaving because the council members voted to probe Israeli killing of scores of protestors in the Gaza Strip. However, its labeling of the UNHRC as "hypocritical" and "making a mockery of human rights" would ring a bell in many Asian and African countries.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 15 September 2018

Photo credit: James Gordon. Source: United Nations University.

Climate Change: The Devil Is in the Details

Neither Climate Change Deniers Nor Technology Enthusiasts Hold the Key to Addressing Global Warming

Viewpoint by Franz Baumann

The author is a visiting professor at New York University and a former UN assistant secretary-general, special adviser on environment and peace operations. Dr. Baumann joined the UN Development Program in 1980, began working in the UN Secretariat in 1985, and retired in 2015 after about a dozen assignments under five secretaries-general, in four duty stations and on three continents. – The Editor

NEW YORK (IDN) – United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, on September 10^,2018 spoke eloquently and with urgency about the frightening prospect of a climate catastrophe. "Climate Change is the defining issue of our time, and we are at a defining moment," he said. Everything in his powerful speech was backed by science and evidently correct. Yet, because Secretaries-General cannot say everything, it was incomplete.

: Franz Baumann; OPINION; 14 September 2018

Seychelles and 79-Nation ACP Secretariat to Focus on 'Blue Economy' at the UN

By Robert Johnson

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – The Secretariat of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States and the government of 115-island Seychelles east of mainland East Africa are organizing a joint event at the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York on September 25, 2018 – enabling Small Island Developing States (SIDS) share experiences in harnessing the blue economy and to identify areas of further development.

The event will be taking place one year after Ministers in charge of Fisheries and Aquaculture in ACP countries concluded two days of comprehensive talks in Nassau, the Bahamas on September 21, 2017. They renewed commitment to developing the fisheries and aquaculture sectors in their countries, as well as unlocking the potential of the 'blue economy' through a new 'ACP Blue Growth Initiative'.

: Robert Johnson; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 13 September 2018

Photo: The 'Great March of Return’ demonstrations along Israel's perimeter fence with Gaza took place again on 25 May 2018. Credit: www.ochaopt.org

Gaza Could Become Uninhabitable as Israel Continues Blockade

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) – A new United Nations report has called for completely lifting the ongoing Israeli land, air, and sea blockade which has reduced the Gaza Strip to "a humanitarian case of profound suffering and aid dependency". The blockade is now in its eleventh year.

The report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) calls for reunifying Gaza and the West Bank economically and helping to overcome the energy crisis as a matter of priority by, among other things, enabling the Palestinian National Authority to develop the offshore natural gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea discovered in the 1990s.