Conferences

Italy and the Dubious Honor of Chairing the G20

By Roberto Savio
For 2021, Italy has been given chairmanship of the Group of 20, which brings together the world’s 20 most important countries. On paper, they represent 60% of the world’s population and 80% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While the shaky Italian government will somehow perform this task (in the general indifference of the political system), the fact remains that this apparently prestigious position is in fact very deceiving: the G20 is now a very weak institution that brings no kudos to the rotating chairman. Besides, it is actually the institution which bears the greatest part of responsibility for the decline of the UN as the body responsible for global governance, a task that the G20 has very seldom been able to face up to.

Are We Going from San Francisco?

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Seventy-five years ago, on 26 June 1945, before the Japanese surrender ending the Second World War, fifty nations gathered at San Francisco’s Opera House to sign the United Nations (UN) Charter.

Crisis Hits Oil Industry and Energy Transition Alike

By Emilio Godoy
While it attempts to cushion the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the Latin American and Caribbean region also faces concerns about the future of the energy transition and state-owned oil companies.

Chinese Academic Defends Country’s Role amid Covid-19 Crisis

By Ehtesham Shahid
Global crises need global solutions yet some adjustments will have to be made if the world has to adopt a multilateral approach toward tackling the Corona pandemic, a senior academic said on Tuesday, March 31.

Harness Youth to Change World’s Future

By IPS International Desk
Vanessa Nakate of Uganda may have been cropped out of a photograph taken at the World Economic Forum, but she along with Swedish activist Greta Thunberg have made the climate crisis centre stage.

TRENDS E-Symposium to Address Post-Corona Globalization Challenges

By Ehtesham Shahid
TRENDS Research & Advisory is organizing its first-ever E-Symposium to discuss the global impacts of the COVID-19 crisis and offer insights on the steps needed to mitigate its negative effects worldwide. This will be the first online symposium of its kind to be organized since the outbreak of the coronavirus in the Gulf and Middle East region.

Seeds&Chips – The Global Food Innovation Summit 2020 postponed

By PRESS RELEASE
In light of the ongoing public health emergency and in observance of the decree signed by the Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, on Monday, March 9th - enacting forced quarantine for the whole Italian country, while banning all public events until April, 3 – we have taken the tough decision to postpone the Sixth Edition of Seeds&Chips – The Global Food Innovation Summit which would have been taking place on May 18-20, 2020 at MiCo, Milano Congressi.

Preserving World’s Biodiversity: Negotiations Convene at FAO Headquarters

By Maged Srour
“The world out there is watching and waiting for results,” Elizabeth Maruma Mrema warns while talking to IPS regarding the preservation of biodiversity of our planet.

Coming Down the Davos Mountain with a Gender Lens

By Nayema Nusrat
In a recent report by World Economic Forum (WEF) shows women suffer a “triple whammy” in the workplace. Without drastic action, gender parity will take more than a lifetime to achieve. This is the challenge that Katja Iversen, President and CEO of Women Deliver is staring down.

Inclusive Education Still Evades People with Disabilities

By Stella Paul
Neema Namdamu, 42, grew up in the village of Bukavu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where children with disabilities were considered a curse. As a child Namdamu contracted polio, leaving her paralysed from the waist down. Her neighbours advised her mother to do what they felt was the "right thing": to leave the child alone in a hut until she died of starvation.

Addressing the Low Female Representation in STEM Education

By Joyce Chimbi
Dr. Anne-Maria Brennan loved science as a young girl. But instead of encouraging her, those around her made attempts to steer her in the "right direction". “The right direction was in nursing, teaching and secretarial courses. I was told that girls do not study physics,” she tells IPS.

Balanced and Gender-Inclusive Education is a Smart Investment

By Joyce Chimbi
Fihima Mohamed’s mother never attended school and until two years ago she could not read or write. Mohamed’s mother had been born in neighbouring Somalia but was sent to Djibouti as a young girl to live with her aunt. The expectation had been that she would have a better life by escaping the ongoing conflict in her home country at the time.

“For Generations, We Have Been Nominating Men Just Because They are Men”

Marlène Schiappa, Minister of State for Gender Equality and the Fight against Discrimination in France, attended the 25th year Regional Review Meeting of the Beijing Platform for Action for the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Region last month. She highlighted why this meeting is key for advancing the gender equality agenda and the priorities for the Generation Equality Forum in 2020, a global gathering for gender equality, convened by UN Women and co-chaired by France and Mexico.

2020 Is the Decade of Action & It Has to Be a Sprint

By Siddharth Chatterjee
Happy New Year, Kenya. 2020 marks a decade of action towards the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Peace and development are inextricably linked, with each making the achievement of the other far more likely. This puts the conflict-prevention and development work of the UN at the heart of the agenda in East Africa, but in a multi-agency and programme environment, making meaningful progress is challenging.

Carbon Markets Can Provide a Crucial Part of the Solution to the Climate Crisis

By Fenella Aouane
One of the main discussions at the COP25 climate change talks was Article 6, which is designed to provide financial support to emerging economies and developing countries to help them reduce emissions by using global carbon markets. Carbon pricing is an essential piece of the puzzle to curb emissions. Without a value on carbon, there is less incentive to make positive changes, especially in the private sector. The most efficient way to carry this forward is to allow trading of carbon both nationally and internationally, which will ensure the lowest cost of mitigation for participants globally.

Arab Region’s Largest Youth Gathering Focuses on New Tech

By Stella Paul
On late Monday morning, a motley group of more than a thousand youth gathered in a hall in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to listen to Sophia — a humanoid robot capable of displaying humanlike expressions and interacting with people. Yahya Elghobashy, a computer science engineering student from Cairo, sat excitedly in the audience. A few meters away from him, also in the audience, was Abdel Fattah el-Sisi — the President of Egypt.

Mainstreaming Leprosy-affected People a Big Challenge in Bangladesh

By Rafiqul Islam
When Feroza Begum was first diagnosed with leprosy in 2006, it felt as though she had been struck by a thunderbolt due to the deep-seated prejudice in her society that the disease is a curse from Allah (God).

Sasakawa Vows to Continue Support for Fighting Leprosy in Bangladesh

By Rafiqul Islam
Chairman of The Nippon Foundation, Yohei Sasakawa, has assured Bangladesh of continuing support for the Zero Leprosy Initiative announced by the country's Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, aimed at eliminating leprosy by 2030.

Taking Bangladesh to Zero-Leprosy, One New Case at a Time

By Stella Paul
Sandhya Mandal has never felt so vindicated. For the past four years, the 36-year-old community health worker from Meherpur – a rural district bordering India – has been traveling 50 km every day along dusty roads on an old motorbike, searching for leprosy patients who needed urgent treatment. But in her community, instead of compliments, neighbours and relatives raised questions about her work and her character. “They ask why I come home so late and what is this ‘work’ that I really do. Some even imply that I might be doing something like prostitution,” Mandal tells IPS.

Nippon Foundation Announces US$ 2m Support for the Education of Rohingya Children in Bangladesh

By Rafiqul Islam
In the light of limited access to education for displaced Rohingya children, the Nippon Foundation has announced US$ 2 million support to BRAC to launch a project to ensure educational facilities to both Rohingya and local community children.

Bangladesh Can Be Leprosy-Free by 2030 Says Leprosy Activist

By Crystal Orderson
Despite its efforts to eliminate leprosy as a public health threat, Bangladesh's leprosy burden ranks fourth-highest in the world. Four thousand new cases are detected annually – an average of 11 to 12 cases per day over the last 10 years.
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