Decent Work & Economic Growth

New Report Sparks Anxiety About COVID-19 Wrecking UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | GENEVA (IDN) – UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi has stressed the need to address the frailties of globalization that led to the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and its uneven economic impacts, gravely wounding the world economy with serious consequences for everyone. He hopes that the situation would prove to be 'course-altering' and a catalyst for change. "We need to reshape global production networks and reset multilateral cooperation for the better," he says.

: Ramesh Jaura; SUSTAINABILITY; Health & Well Being; 20 November 2020

Photo: Maxwell Matewere, addresses a local community in Malawi about the threat of human trafficking. Credit: UNODC

How I am Combating Human Trafficking in Malawi

By Maxwell Matewere

A Malawian crime prevention expert with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Maxwell Matewere, has been active in the anti-human trafficking field for more than two decades. The following is being republished from UN News,

LILONGWE (IDN) – I was a young, recent law graduate when I first experienced the horrors of human trafficking. It was in 1998. I was working for a human rights NGO and attending a workshop in South Africa. A taxi driver told me about two girls from my home country who worked in a bar in Johannesburg. He was very concerned about them.

: Africa & ME Editor; THE WORLD; Africa; 16 November 2020

Photo: A deadly shipwreck off the coast of Senegal have taken at least 414 lives in 2020, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Source: UNDP

Shipwreck Off Senegalese Coast Prods UN to Call for Dismantling Trafficking and Smuggling Networks

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Migrants around the world are continuing their desperate flights for survival even though rescue efforts have slowed, and rich countries are building higher walls against the asylum seekers.

The deadliest shipwreck of the year occurred most recently off the coast of Senegal where at least 140 people drowned after a boat carrying around 200 migrants sank, according to the UN migration agency (IOM).

: Global Information Network; UN INSIDER; 12 November 2020

Photo: Zanzibar. Credit: Kester Kenn Klomegah

Undeterred by Health Warnings, Russians Begin Flocking to Africa's Islands

By Kester Kenn Klomegah*

MOSCOW (IDN) – Despite the worsening coronavirus situation in Russia, at least during the months of October and November, Russian tourism agencies have briskly been organizing group tours to the Indian Ocean islands of Zanzibar, Seychelles and Mauritius.

Obviously, because the islands seem to have the lowest cases of the pandemic and have taken strict measures to halt the spread of COVID-19. And, these islands are favourite destinations for foreign tourists and have closely diverse geopolitical relations with the world.

: Kester Kenn Klomegah; THE WORLD; Russia; 06 November 2020

Photo: Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Source:Twitter

U.S. Upsets Election of African Candidate for Top World Trade Post

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Backed by an overwhelming number of World Trade Organization (WTO) delegates, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was on a fast track to become the head of the global trade group.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala was set to become the first woman and first African to lead the global trade watchdog. A selection panel of WTO trade ministers found she had far more support than a South Korean rival and it was expected that the Asian candidate would be withdrawn because the African candidate would be most likely to attract consensus among the members.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; USA and Canada; 02 November 2020

Photo: Farmer Nurul Haque stands near his 13-year-old daughter in Bangladesh, saying he may have to pull her from school and marry her off to an older man because he has few financial options left. Credit: UNICEF/UN0159775/Nybo.

UN Agency Points to Linkages Between Human Trafficking and Forced Marriage

By Richard Jacobsen

VIENNA (IDN) – A new UN report has documented the interlinkages between trafficking in persons and marriage, and specified steps for governments and other authorities to strike back. Published by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the report points out that across the world, girls as young as 12 are being forced or tricked into marrying men who exploit them for sex and domestic work, in what the UNODC has called an "under-reported, global form of human trafficking".

: Reinhard Jacobsen; SUSTAINABILITY; Gender Equality; 08 October 2020

Photo: The virus highlighted the world’s structural dependence on cheap, exploitable labour. Source: salud-america.org

COVID-19 Highlights the Global Structural Dependence on Exploitable Labour

Viewpoint by Randall Hansen*

TORONTO (IDN) – In November 2019, a federal government official visited the University of Toronto’s Munk School and asked its faculty to delineate coming global threats. We spoke of inequality, hunger, climate change, sanitation, and plastic pollution, among others. No one mentioned a microbe; a discussion of the threat of immunity to antibiotics was as close as we got.

Four months later, everyone in that room was under lockdown. COVID-19 hit the world as a freight train hits a car stalled at a railroad crossing. The virus has shredded the rhythm of our daily lives, and it will reconfigure our economies and politics.

: Phil Harris; SUSTAINABILITY; Decent Work & Economic Growth; 07 October 2020

Photo: Cover the reviewed book. Credit: Amazon

Colonialism Is Not Dead, it has Acquired A New Face

Sri Lankan Author of a New Book Warns

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) – In the 19th century, European powers came to Asia and used gunboats and gunpowder along with doublespeak to intimidate and coerce local rulers to accede their land for the European mercantile elites to establish plantations.

Sri Lankan born American sociology professor Dr Asoka Bandarage’s Colonialism in Sri Lanka: The Political Economy of the Kandyan Highlands 1833-1886’* published originally in 1983 documented extensively how the British used doublespeak to grab land and ultimately the country to establish coffee and tea plantations.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 25 September 2020

Photos (L to R): Manish Uprety F.R.A.S. and Ritesh Tandon. Credit: The authors.

California Needs Low Taxation to Boost Innovation

Viewpoint by Manish Uprety F.R.A.S. and Ritesh Tandon

Manish Uprety F.R.A.S. is an ex-diplomat and Ritesh Tandon is the Republican Party candidate for the US Congress from California’s 17th District. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of IDN-InDepth News.

CALIFORNIA (IDN) – President Donald Trump is nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for the recent Peace Deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. In fact, his pursuit for peace as an official US policy found manifestation earlier in his efforts not to lead US into any war, and to bring reconciliation to North and South Korea.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 15 September 2020

Photo: UN ESCAP Executive Secretary Ms Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana against the backdrop of web slider Regional Conversation Series on Building Back Better. Collage IDN-INPS

Financing Economic Recovery in The Midst Of COVID-19

Viewpoint by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

The writer is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

BANGKOK (IDN) – As the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the length and breadth of Asia and the Pacific, finance ministries are continuing their relentless efforts to inject trillions of dollars for emergency health responses and fiscal packages. With continued lockdown measures and restricted borders, economic rebound seems uncertain.