The UN Pact for the Future needs something old, new, borrowed and blue
17/4/2024: UN member states will gather in New York in September to negotiate a Pact for the Future, a possible blueprint for multilateral cooperation in the 21st century. The initial “zero draft” of the Pact is a timid text that lacks many of the sensible ideas proposed by the UN Secretary-General.
Source: PassBlue
How the Myanmar regime is surviving
3/4/2024: Despite some major wins by insurgent groups, the junta remains strong due to its control of arms and air power. International sanctions on aviation fuel supplies to Myanmar appear to be ineffective to date.
Source: The Interpreter
Time is running out amid escalating crises in Haiti
6/3/2024: The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has called for the urgent deployment of the Council-mandated multinational security support mission in Haiti. This follows a mass prison breakout of more than 4,500 inmates, including prominent gang members.
Source: UN News
As conference ends in stalemate, does the WTO have a future?
4/3/2024: The 13th World Trade Organization ministerial conference has failed to resolve any issues of significance, raising the inescapable question of whether the global trade body has a future. The US appeared largely disinterested in the proceedings, with its representative leaving early.
Source: The Conversation
The World Social Forum: counterweight to the World Economic Forum
23/2/2024: The 2024 annual meeting of the World Social Forum has been held in Nepal, attended by fifty thousand participants from over 90 countries, exchanging strategies to address the multiple global crises, from climate catastrophes to unfettered capitalism, inequality, social injustice, wars and conflict.
Source: Inter Press Service
The Zero Draft to create a Pact for the Future has landed
7/2/2024: A draft agreement to seal September’s much-anticipated Summit of the Future has been released by the co-facilitators, Namibia and Germany. Built on the proposals made in Secretary-General António Guterres’s Our Common Agenda, the draft commits member states to the principles of human rights and to "fill critical gaps in global governance, and accelerate efforts to keep our past promises and agreements.”
Source: PassBlue
A new order for global trade is taking shape
15/1/2024: The World Trade Organization was established to pursue the idea of unfettered global trade without distortions of subsidy by national governments. This model of globalisation is crumbling as major economies deploy subsidies to gain control over resources and technologies for the future green economy.
Source: DownToEarth
A human rights economy is key to sustainable development
17/1/2024: The UN Summit of the Future scheduled for September 2024 may be the final opportunity to stimulate real momentum to the Sustainable Development Goals. An alternative economic model that enables the realization of human rights within planetary boundaries has support from many development agencies.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Report card: Half-way to the global goals deadline
29/12/2023: Launched in 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development set out a 15-year plan to realize 17 interconnected targets, known as the Sustainable Development Goals. What progress has been made at the halfway mark?
The second part of this UN progress update.
Source: UN News
IMF rules continue to be rigged against the world’s poorest
19/12/2023: Two development economists explain why they believe that the latest review of quotas that determine the IMF's decision-making powers shows exactly how unfair the rules are for developing countries. It is now over ten years since the richer countries committed to rebalance the formula.
Source: Devex