Globalisation

What Does it Really Mean to “Leave No One Behind”? 

By Aruna Dutt
Although “leave no one behind” has become a central rallying cry around the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, more needs to be done for it to be put into practice, civil society said during a review conference of progress made on the Post-2030 agenda here this week.

The Future of Food in Cities: Urban Agriculture

By Aruna Dutt
Habitat III, the UN’s conference on cities this coming October will explore urban agriculture as a solution to food security, but here in New York City, it has shown potential for much more.

International Is out and National Is Again Back

By Roberto Savio
A sign of the time is that Germany is raising a revolt against the President of the European Commission, Jeam-Claude Juncker, whom Chancellor Angela Merkel imposed in 2014 after a strong fight with David Cameron, then a powerful British PM. The group of Visograd, , formed by Poland, Hungary, Slovaquia and the Czech Republic, which resurged from ashes, to become an anti Brussels voice, has requested to bring back the Commission under the authority of the States. When Merkel organized a meeting of the leaders of the six original founders of the EU, in Berlin, she invited Donald Tusk, the President of the Council, but not Jean-Claude Juncker, who is the President of the Commission. And Wolfgang Schauble, the German minister of Finance, has launched an appeal: “it is time to bring back Brussels under the control of the states. “

The UN and Global Economic Stagnation

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
When the financial crisis preceding the Great Recession broke out in late 2008, attention to the previously ignored UN Secretariat’s analytical work was greatly enhanced. This happened as the UN and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) had been almost alone in warning, for some years, of the macroeconomic dangers posed by poorly regulated financial sector developments.

How Russia Will Use Brexit to Fight Sanctions

By Editor, The Manila Times, Philippines
FORECAST EU sanctions against Russia are all but guaranteed to remain in place through 2016, but Moscow will work in the second half of the year to get them eased in 2017. Russia will capitalize on divisions in the European Union, which will only widen in the wake of Brexit, to oppose sanctions. Moscow will step lightly, however, to avoid provoking its European rivals ahead of the next sanctions vote.

The Geography of Poverty

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
World leaders agreed in 2000 to halve the number of people living in poverty by 2015. The poverty line was defined as the purchasing power parity (PPP) equivalent to a US dollar a day, later adjusted to the 2005 PPP equivalent of $1.25 daily in 2008 to the 2012 PPP equivalent of $1.90 daily in 2015. As the cost of living rise unevenly across the world, the World Bank periodically updates the global poverty line to reflect these changes. Nevertheless, there are many concerns about how the line was defined and has been revised over the decades.

Post-Brexit blues

By Mahir Ali
AGITATED markets, a tumbling pound-sterling, a downgraded credit rating: none of these should have been an unexpected outcome of the British electorate’s decision last weekend to opt out of the European Union.

The Case for Cash in Humanitarian Emergencies

By Phillip Kaeding
Currently only six percent of humanitarian aid worldwide comes in the form of cash handouts, yet many aid organisations believe that cash transfers should be seen as the rule, not the exception.

Little England

By Zarrar Khuhro
Sometimes you just have to lie back and think of England. But how can one think of England without thinking of Shakespeare? And when you think of Shakespeare, how can you ignore Macbeth, his most Scottish of plays, and in particular the line: “we but teach bloody instructions, which being taught, return to plague the inventor”.

From Grexit to Brexit: Eurosceptics Claim their -Exit

By Editor, Sunday Times, Sri Lanka
AFP - It started with “Grexit” -- the long trumpeted but never realised axing of Greece from the European Union. It was then reborn as “Brexit” as Britain started down the -- this time voluntary -- path of leaving the bloc.

Will Brexit Have Political Ramifications at UN?

By Thalif Deen
The much-ballyhooed British exit (Brexit) from the 28-member European Union (EU) is likely to have political ramifications at the United Nations – both in the short and the long term.

Brexit – Perceptions and Repercussions in the Americas

By Joaquín Roy
The hopes of many of those who confidently expected the British electorate to vote, by a slender margin, for the country to remain in the EU have been dashed. All that is left to do now is to ponder the causes and background of this regrettable event, and consider its likely consequences, especially for relations with the United States.

The Brexit Shock – Now All Is Up in the Air!

By Jan Oberg
The UK, Europe and the rest of the world will be affected. But there has been no planning for this anywhere. It’s now all up in the air what this Brexit vote will be the starting point of. All we can safely predict is that we are in for interesting times!

Brex’it, So Be’it; And Then What?

By Johan Galtung
The vote turned out like the two referenda held in Norway in 1972 and 1994. And much for the same reason: Protestant break with Rome–Catholic, imperial–Henry VIII made himself head of the Anglican Church in 1534.

Making Sustainability Part of the Corporate DNA

By Phillip Kaeding
Companies, governments and non-profit actors agree that economic growth and sustainable development have to go hand in hand to shape our increasingly globalised world in a fair way.

Brexit and EUexit

By Roberto Savio
The Europeans went to bed Thursday night, with exit polls giving a comfortable margin of victory for those who wanted to Remain. The following morning they awakened to find that the real result was the opposite. Specialists in polling say that this happens when electors do not feel comfortable to say how they will rally voters because they are not comfortable, on a rational level, with what they will do. In other words, voters act because of their guts, not because of their brain.

Least Developed Countries’ Vulnerabilities Make Graduation Difficult

By Ahmed Sareer
Last month, over two thousand high-level participants from across the world met in Antalya, Turkey for the Midterm Review of the Istanbul Programme of Action, an action plan used to guide sustainable economic development efforts for Least Developed Countries for the 2011 to 2020 period. The main goal was to understand the lessons learnt by the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs) over the past five years and apply the knowledge moving forward.

Rethinking Fiscal Policy for Global Recovery

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Global economic recovery is being held hostage by the ideological dogma of the last three and a half decades. After long contributing to neo-liberal conventional wisdom, in its October 2015 World Economic Outlook, the IMF identified the vicious circle undermining global recovery and growth. Low aggregate demand is discouraging investment; slower expected potential growth itself dampens aggregate demand, further limiting investment.

Worldwide Displacement At Levels Never Seen Before

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
Displacement has increased to unprecedented levels due to war and persecution, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has found.

Xenophobic Rhetoric, Now Socially and Politically ‘Acceptable’ ?

By Baher Kamal
“Xenophobic and racist rhetoric seems not only to be on the rise, but also to be becoming more socially and politically acceptable.” The warning has been heralded by the authoritative voice of Mogens Lykketoft, current president of the United Nations General Assembly, who on World Refugee Day on June 20, reacted to the just announced new record number of people displaced from their homes due to conflict and persecution.

Is globalization the death knell of branding?

By Ben D. Kritz
SPEAKING to his company’s investor conference last Tuesday, Alibaba founder Jack Ma made a controversial, and entirely valid, observation: “The problem is that the fake products today, they make better quality, better prices than the real products, the real names,” Ma said, according to a Bloomberg report. “It’s not the fake products that destroy them, it’s the new business models.”
« Previous Page — Next Page »
*#*