By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Sep 20 2022 – Day after day, the world’s scientific community, based on solid investigations, elaborates dozens of studies identifying the causes of the existing emergencies facing humanity. They also prepare understandable summaries and conclusions and propose feasible solutions to the current crises and ways to prevent major future risks.

Such studies are promptly submitted to politicians, both directly and through hundreds of summits, conferences, forums and meetings.

Are they just unable to read and understand these texts?

In combination, the security and environmental crises are creating compound, cascading, emergent, systemic and existential risks. Without profound changes in approach by institutions of authority, risks will inevitably proliferate quickly

If so, they should probably be added to the shameful finding that up to 70% of children –or nearly 250 million– are illiterate, sentenced to ignorance as revealed by numerous findings, including those of the Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

Unpredictable risks

Meanwhile, the world is “stumbling into a new era of unpredictable risks,” while the ongoing multiple and deepening crises have “pushed 9 out of 10 countries backwards in human development.”

Both facts unveil the failure of the world’s politicians to act for people rather than announcing decisions that end up benefiting big private businesses.

Two major reports have revealed such a stark failure. One of them was released on 8 September 2022 by UNDP–the UN Development Programme’s Human Development Report: “Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives: Shaping our Future in a Transforming World.”

The other one “Environment of Peace: Security in a New Era of Risk” was published on 23 May this very year by the prestigious Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Failure

“World leaders are failing to prepare for a new era of complex and often unpredictable risks to peace as profound environmental and security crises converge and intensify,” highlights SIPRI, the independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament.

Its report paints a vivid picture of the escalating security crisis. For example, it notes that between 2010 and 2020 the number of state-based armed conflicts roughly doubled (to 56), as did the number of conflict deaths.

“The number of refugees and other forcibly displaced people also doubled, to 82.4 million. In 2020 the number of operationally deployed nuclear warheads increased after years of reductions, and in 2021 military spending surpassed $2 trillion for the first time ever.”

Regarding the environmental crisis, SIPRI warns that around a quarter of all species are at risk of extinction, pollinating insects are in rapid decline and soil quality is falling, while exploitation of natural resources such as forests and fish continues at unsustainable levels.

“Climate change is making extreme weather events such as storms and heatwaves more common and more intense, reducing the yield of major food crops and increasing the risk of large-scale harvest failures.”

Uncertain times, unsettled lives

For its part, the Human Development Report warns that the world is lurching from crisis to crisis, trapped in a cycle of firefighting and unable to tackle the roots of the troubles that confront the world.

The report argues that “layers of uncertainty are stacking up and interacting to unsettle life in unprecedented ways.”

Devastating impacts

The last two years have had a devastating impact for billions of people around the world, when crises like COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine hit back-to-back, and interacted with sweeping social and economic shifts, dangerous planetary changes, and massive increases in polarisation, says UNDP.

“Without a sharp change of course, we may be heading towards even more deprivations and injustices.”

For the first time in the 32 years that UNDP has been calculating it, the Human Development Index, which measures a nation’s health, education, and standard of living, has declined globally for two years in a row.

Universal reversal of human development

“The reversal is nearly universal as over 90 percent of countries registered a decline in their Human Development Index score in either 2020 or 2021 and more than 40 percent declined in both years, signalling that the crisis is still deepening for many.”

While some countries are beginning to get back on their feet,it adds, “recovery is uneven and partial, further widening inequalities in human development.” Latin America, the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have been hit particularly hard.

Scrambling

“The world is scrambling to respond to back-to-back crises. We have seen with the cost of living and energy crises that, while it is tempting to focus on quick fixes like subsidising fossil fuels, immediate relief tactics are delaying the long-term systemic changes we must make,” says Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator.

“We are collectively paralyzed in making these changes. In a world defined by uncertainty, we need a renewed sense of global solidarity to tackle our interconnected, common challenges.”

The report explores why the change needed isn’t happening and suggests there are many reasons, including how insecurity and polarisation are feeding off each other today to prevent the solidarity and collective action to tackle crisis at all levels.

Insecurity and political extremism

New calculations show, for instance, that those feeling most insecure are also more likely to hold extreme political views, it also reveals.

“Even before COVID-19 hit, we were seeing the twin paradoxes of progress with insecurity and polarisation. Today, with one-third of people worldwide feeling stressed and fewer than a third of people worldwide trusting others, we face major roadblocks to adopting policies that work for people and the planet,” says Achim Steiner.

To chart a new course, the report recommends implementing policies that focus on investment — from renewable energy to preparedness for pandemics, and insurance—including social protection— to prepare our societies for the ups and downs of an uncertain world.

Climate and armed conflicts

The environmental crisis is increasing risks to security and peace worldwide, notably in countries that are already fragile, explains SIPRI’s Environment of Peace – Security in a new era of risk.

Indicators of insecurity such as the number of conflicts, the number of hungry people and military expenditure are rising; so are indicators of environmental decline, climate change, biodiversity, pollution and other areas, warns SIPRI.

“In combination, the security and environmental crises are creating compound, cascading, emergent, systemic and existential risks. Without profound changes in approach by institutions of authority, risks will inevitably proliferate quickly.”

Evidence shows that politicians are capable of reading and understanding those texts elaborated by economic, financial and markets experts.

Meanwhile, and despite the above and other readable – and understandable texts, they seemingly continue to neglect an essential fact, i.e., ‘By Deliberately Ignoring Risk, the World Is Bankrolling Its Own Destruction’.

By Anisa Ismail and Tan Yen Lian
BANGKOK / PENANG, Sep 20 2022 – Economic recovery since the COVID-19 pandemic has been uneven amidst a cautious loosening of restrictions. But even at the height of the pandemic, it was business as usual for the tobacco industry.

Tobacco companies remain profitable, making US$ 912.3 billion in 2022 and capitalizing on the situation by promoting and selling their lethal products while convincing governments that their industry should not be penalised during the pandemic, claiming tobacco is a good investment.

This is an industry that perpetuates an annual loss of US$ 1.4 trillion in global health costs and lost productivity, amounting to 1.8% of the world’s GDP. 14% of all deaths globally (over 8 million deaths annually) are due to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) directly caused by tobacco consumption and exposure to secondhand smoke.

Yet, total healthcare spending is not prioritized enough and remains scarce in many low- and middle-income countries, leaving precious little funds for health promotion programs to counter the devious marketing tactics of the tobacco industry. In low-income countries, health expenditures as a share of government spending fell to 6.8% in 2016 from 7.9% in 2000.

Low- and middle-income countries must increase their health expenditures to achieve the SDGs. Credit: SEATCA

In addition to its destructive impact on our bodies, tobacco is also horrible for the environment. With about 1.3 billion smokers consuming an estimated 6.25 trillion cigarettes worldwide each year, tobacco smoke releases significant amounts of cancer-causing substances, poisons, and pollutants into the air.

In fact, tobacco causes significant damage throughout its cycle – from cultivation, manufacture, and distribution, to consumption and post-consumption. Cigarettes are reportedly the most pervasive single-use plastic product on Earth, costing about US$ 20 billion per year in ecosystem losses from the plastic waste that enters our oceans.

COVID-19 has been an unshakable constant in our lives for more than two years now, and it is far from over. But we cannot forget that tobacco is a pandemic too.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), investing in tobacco control offers the best returns on investment for protecting public health. The Secretariat of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) has worked with governments, the UN Development Program, and WHO to develop country-tailored investment cases that quantify the economic benefits of implementing tobacco control policy measures.

And on the flipside are the costs of inaction. Aggregated across 25 countries, these investment cases show that urgent action will potentially save 1.4 million lives and US$ 74 billion.

Tobacco control is not only essential for achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 3.4, a one-third reduction in premature mortality from NCDs by 2030, it is also important for the achievement of all the SDGs.

182 countries are Parties to the international tobacco control treaty – the WHO FCTC – and are legally bound to allocate national funds and identify bilateral/multilateral funding sources to support the implementation of treaty measures.

However, governments are only allocating an average of US$ 15 million in annual domestic funding per country for tobacco control, only half of what is required, and mostly in high-income countries. A WHO FCTC Investment Fund was authorized in 2021 to raise additional funds to support treaty implementation as well, but finances remain tight.

Establishing a tax-based health promotion funding mechanism is an innovative way to generate sustainable and transparent financing for health and development. But it is not entirely new.

Health taxes on tobacco, alcohol, and sugar-sweetened beverages are the most cost-effective measure for reducing NCDs. These taxes reduce consumption of these products and their related healthcare costs and are a reliable domestic funding stream for health spending.

In 2021, at least 39 countries reported earmarking a percentage of tobacco taxes to be used specifically for various health promotion programs, in effect making the polluter pay for its pollution instead of cutting into existing government budgets.

Pre-emptively, dedicating tax revenues for health promotion programs can garner public support for regular tax increases. Such taxes can steadily and consistently diminish the investment gap as well as inequitable access to health promotion and disease prevention services.

In Thailand, approximately US$ 150 million in annual revenue from a 2% surcharge on tobacco and alcohol excise taxes is dedicated for the implementation of multiple health promotion plans including tobacco control, alcohol and substance abuse control, road safety, and in recent years, COVID-19 prevention.

This funding is managed by the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, an autonomous government agency formed by the passage of the 2001 Health Promotion Foundation Act.

The ThaiHealth model earmarks revenue collected from alcohol and tobacco tax surcharges for health promotion programs. Credit: SEATCA

Vietnam’s Tobacco Control Law in 2012 established the semi-autonomous Vietnam Tobacco Control Fund (VNTCF) within the Ministry of Health. VNTCF also derives its funding through a 2% compulsory contribution from excise tax levied on tobacco product manufacturers and importers.

These examples show that health promotion funding mechanisms can thrive despite a pandemic. Legislative measures are critical to establish the legitimacy of these funding mechanisms, provide transparency and accountability measures for the proper management of funds, and protect against interference from harmful businesses with vested interests.

Tobacco control makes sense from a health, economic, sustainable development, and environmental perspective. When governments are strapped for cash, dedicated health taxes are an innovative way of ensuring adequate financing for public health.

More info at: https://hpfhub.info/
#ActOnNCDs

Anisa Ismail is the Sustainability Manager & Tan Yen Lian the Knowledge and Information Manager of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA).

About SEATCA

SEATCA is a multi-sectoral non-governmental alliance promoting health and saving lives by assisting ASEAN countries to accelerate and effectively implement the tobacco control measures contained in the WHO FCTC. Acknowledged by governments, academic institutions, and civil society for its advancement of tobacco control in Southeast Asia, the WHO bestowed on SEATCA the World No Tobacco Day Award in 2004 and the WHO Director-General’s Special Recognition Award in 2014.

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 20 2022 – When world leaders, numbering over 150, make their annual political pilgrimage to address the General Assembly in the third week of September, the security at the world body is exceptionally tight.

And this year is no exception.

After two years of on-again and off-again lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the UN Secretariat is back in full swing – but in a virtual high security war zone.

The weeklong high-level meeting is scheduled to take place September 20-26, but civil society organizations (CSOs) have been barred from the UN premises September 16 through 30.

Mandeep S. Tiwana, Chief Programmes Officer at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, told IPS the note (http://csonet.org/?menu=86) issued by the NGO branch of UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) states that “as per standing practice”, access to the UN premises is restricted.

From 16-30 September, says the circular, UN headquarters will be accessible only to UN staff and member delegations.

“Suspension of the annual and temporary grounds passes of NGOs in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) during the UNGA session is not just perplexingly discriminatory but also counter-intuitive as it deprives the international community of the benefits of civil society engagement in times of immense mayhem, disruption and contestation globally,” said Tiwana.

It’s a lost opportunity for the UN and state diplomatic delegations to interact freely with civil society representatives who bring with them a wealth of expertise, on the ground experience and deep commitment to resolving global challenges in line with UN Charter principles, he argued.

“This cavalier attitude of the UN establishment once again highlights the critical need for civil society to have a champion within the system in the form of a UN Civil Society Envoy,” he noted.

Appointment of such an envoy, he pointed out, can help unblock bottlenecks that inhibit civil society engagement at the UN, promote best practices on people’s and civil society participation across the UN and also drive the UN’s outreach to civil society at the regional level.

During an event marking the 75th anniversary of the UN Charter in 2020, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said civil society groups were a vital voice at the San Francisco Conference (where the UN was inaugurated).

“You have been with us across the decades, in refugee camps, in conference rooms, and in mobilizing communities in streets and town squares across the world.”

“You are with us today as we face the COVID-19 pandemic. You are our allies in upholding human rights and battling racism. You are indispensable partners in forging peace, pushing for climate action, advancing gender equality, delivering life-saving humanitarian aid and controlling the spread of deadly weapons”.

“And the world’s framework for shared progress, the Sustainable Development Goals, is unthinkable without you”, he declared.

Still, all CSOs have been barred from the UN building during one of the most politically crucial General Assembly sessions.

Louis Charbonneau, UN Director of Human Rights Watch said: “As you know, the UN Secretariat has an unhelpful policy of barring civil society organizations (CSOs) from UN headquarters during high-level week, so we won’t be in the building. But we will be around to answer questions or do interviews, when possible, outside of UNHQ.”

“We’re also asking member states and the UN secretariat to end the senseless exclusion of civil society during one of the most important weeks on the UN calendar,” said Charbonneau.

In a subsequent email interview, he told IPS: “We have complained publicly about the terms of the UN General Assembly period ban on NGOs in the past, because it is arbitrary and sometimes extends past high-level week, which makes no sense”.

“We are now calling on the UN to end the UNGA period ban altogether.”

He said: “Our experience with the outrageous ban on civil society on the pretext of Covid when everyone else – including tourists – was allowed back in the building made us realize there’s an urgent need for civil society to push back against attempts to marginalize NGOs at the UN.”

“The way Covid was used to keep civil society out of the UN when diplomats, UN officials and journalists were allowed back in confirmed our belief that it is high time for us to push to end the UNGA high-level ban and other senseless restrictions.”

He pointed out that the Secretary-General’s “Common Agenda” is full of language about the importance of civil society.

“Now it’s time the UN made their actions reflect the rhetoric, declared Charbonneau.

Jens Martens, Director, Global Policy Forum Europe, told IPS the behavior of the UN and Member States towards NGOs has often been hypocritical.

“On the one hand, they praise NGOs and declare that engaging civil society in the work of the UN is a top priority. On the other hand, they restrict or even prevent access for NGOs, as just now during the high-level week of the UN General Assembly,” he said.

If Member States and the UN Secretariat are serious about their appreciation for NGOs, they should not treat them as potential security risks, said Martens.

“Instead, they should facilitate access and create better working conditions for NGOs at UN headquarters”.

The UN clampdown triggers the question: Are NGOs deemed security risks?

While visiting heads of state, heads of governments, foreign ministers, ambassadors and other diplomats are permitted to move around freely and avoid security checks, most UN staffers resident UN correspondents and visiting journalists are deemed security risks and their movements curtailed and subject to restrictions— while UN retirees are barred.

Incidentally, the only “terrorist attack” on the UN came from the outside, not from the inside.

When the politically-charismatic Ernesto Che Guevara, once second-in-command to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, was at the United Nations to address the General Assembly sessions back in 1964, the U.N. headquarters came under attack – literally. The speech by the Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary was momentarily drowned by the sound of an explosion.

The anti-Castro forces in the United States, backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), had mounted an insidious campaign to stop Che Guevara from speaking.

A 3.5-inch bazooka was fired at the 39-storeyed Secretariat building by the East River while a vociferous CIA-inspired anti-Castro, anti-Che Guevara demonstration was taking place outside the U.N. building on New York’s First Avenue and 42nd street.

But the rocket launcher – which was apparently not as sophisticated as today’s shoulder-fired missiles and rocket-propelled grenades – missed its target, rattled windows, and fell into the river about 200 yards from the UN building.

One newspaper report described it as “one of the wildest episodes since the United Nations moved into its East River headquarters in 1952.”

As longtime U.N. staffers would recall, the failed 1964 bombing of the U.N. building took place when Che Guevara launched a blistering attack on U.S. foreign policy and denounced a proposed de-nuclearization pact for the Western hemisphere. It was one of the first known politically motivated terrorist attacks on the United Nations.

After his Assembly speech, Che Guevara was asked about the attack aimed at him. “The explosion has given the whole thing more flavor,” he joked, as he chomped on his Cuban cigar.

When he was told by a reporter that the New York City police had nabbed a woman, described as an anti-Castro Cuban exile, who had pulled out a hunting knife and jumped over the UN wall, intending to kill him, Che Guevara said: “It is better to be killed by a woman with a knife than by a man with a gun.”

As a longstanding former UN staffer, long retired, remarked jokingly last week: “This must be the first known instance of gender empowerment at the UN.”

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 20 2022 – Policymakers have become obsessed with achieving low inflation. Many central banks adopt inflation targeting (IT) monetary policy (MP) frameworks in various ways. Some have mandates to keep inflation at 2% over the medium term. Many believe this ensures sustained long-term prosperity.

Anis Chowdhury

The now universal 2% inflation target “was plucked out of the air”. This was acknowledged by Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) Governor Don Brash who first adopted IT. The target was due to NZ Finance Minister Roger Douglas’ “chance remark” of achieving “genuine price stability, around 0, or 0 to 1 percent”.

IT discord
Heads of major central banks – such as the US Federal Reserve Bank (Fed), Bank of England (BoE) and German Bundesbank – committed to keep inflation at 2% soon after NZ. Although typically ‘medium-term’, IT’s high costs are portrayed as necessary, but brief. Worse, promised growth benefits have not materialized.

The Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) never endorsed any fixed inflation target. Article IV states, “each member shall: (i) endeavor to direct its economic and financial policies toward the objective of fostering orderly economic growth with reasonable price stability, with due regard to its circumstances”.

This makes clear much depends on conditions and circumstances. The sensible priority then would be to sustain prosperity with “reasonable price stability”, and not to commit to an arbitrary universal IT at any cost. Yet, many IMF officials promote the 2% target.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

During the 2008-09 global financial crisis (GFC), the IMF Managing Director appealed for more imagination in designing monetary policy, appreciating “just how intricate the global economic and financial web had become”.

For him, “Monetary policy needs to look beyond its core focus on low and stable inflation” to promote balanced and equitable growth, while minimizing adverse spill-overs on developing economies.

An IMF chief economist even asserted low inflation and economic progress was a “divine coincidence”, and insisted a 2% inflation target was too low. After the GFC, an IMF working paper argued for a long-run inflation target of 4% for advanced countries.

A Bank of Canada working paper concluded, “the current state of economic research – both empirical and theoretical – provides little basis for believing in significant observable benefits of low inflation such as an increase in the growth rate of real GDP”.

IT benefits?
Any objective consideration of actual IT experiences would have led to its rejection long ago. IT is clearly inimical to growth and equity, let alone the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Four central bank (CB) experiences offer valuable lessons about IT’s likely consequences.

The US Fed is, by far, the most important CB globally, while the BoE has been historically important. The Bundesbank has been the most inflation averse in the post-war period, while the RBNZ was the world’s IT pioneer.

NZ’s inflation during 1961-90 averaged 9%, more than the US’s 5.1% and the UK’s 8%. Yet, the mighty Fed and the venerable BoE sought to emulate the miniscule RBNZ! Germany’s well-known inflation-phobia is attributed to its inter-war ‘hyperinflation’ and its bloody aftermath. Inflation there averaged 3.4% over 1960-90, i.e., even before IT.

None achieved sustained economic prosperity despite reaching inflation targets of 2% or less. Average per capita GDP growth declined sharply in the US, UK and Germany, while rising negligibly in NZ (Table 1).

Table 1. Pre- & post-IT average per capita growth & inflation (%)

Long-term declines in their growth rates followed declining investments (Table 2). IT advocates claim high inflation causes uncertainty, thus reducing investments, but lower inflation has clearly done worse.

Table 2. Pre- & post-IT investment/GDP (%)

As the investment rate declined with IT, so did productivity growth in the UK, Germany and NZ (Table 3). While productivity growth has risen negligibly with IT in the US, it has trended down in all four economies (Figures 1-4). US hourly output grew at only 1.4% after 2004, “half its pace in the three decades after World War II”.

Table 3. Pre- & post-IT productivity growth (%)

Figures 1-4. Declining productivity growth, 1990-2021

Most advanced economies have experienced productivity slowdowns since the 1970s. With the European Central Bank’s strict IT framework, the euro zone also saw marked slowdowns in productivity growth during 1999-2019.

Declining productivity growth often becomes the pretext for depressing real wages and working conditions, compelling workers to work more to compensate for lost earnings. Productivity and growth slowdowns are seen as “secular stagnation”.

All this has been blamed on inflation. But lowering inflation has not reversed this trend, which has actually accelerated since the GFC. Many explanations have been offered, but the reasons for this failure remain moot.

IT, low inflation, tax cuts and market reforms are supposed to improve economic performance. Weaker investment and economic growth, due to contractionary macroeconomic policies, slowed US productivity growth.

Similarly, The Economist observed, “Drooping demand crimped incentives to invest and innovate”. It ascribed declining UK productivity growth to cuts in innovation investments due to “austerity policies” and “severe reduction in credit”, inter alia.

Concluding “no doubt … the cost … was huge”, it estimated, “Britain’s GDP per person in 2019 would have been £6,700 ($8,380) higher than it turned out to be” had productivity growth not fallen further after the GFC.

There is growing acknowledgement that widespread “unconditional” CB commitment to 2% inflation targets – in the face of the current inflationary upsurge – is likely to worsen slowdowns. This is likely to compound debt crises in many developing countries.

The adverse socio-economic impacts of recessions are well documented. Policy-induced recessions – supposedly to curb inflation – will compound the effects of pandemic, war and sanctions.

Pragmatism, not dogma
Central bankers should not be dogmatic. Instead, pragmatic approaches are urgently needed to address the current inflationary surges. This is especially necessary when inflation worldwide is mainly due to supply shocks.

Western policymakers must consider the adverse spill-over impacts on developing countries, already on the brink of debt crises due to protracted slowdowns. Government debt – with more higher cost commercial borrowings – has been rising since the GFC, Western ‘quantitative easing’ and Covid-19.

Almost all central bankers know it is almost impossible to achieve 2% inflation in current circumstances. Yet, they insist not raising interest rates now will cause much economic damage later.

But such claims clearly have no theoretical or empirical bases. Hence, it is recklessly dogmatic to enforce a 2% target by falsely claiming inaction would be even more harmful.

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By Naureen Hossain
United Nations, Sep 20 2022 – Refugee youth advocate, Mary Maker, called on UN member states to honor their commitments to transform education from the foundation up to the top, starting with those living in the direst and fraught circumstances.

Maker, a South Sudanese refugee who fled her country and found hope while attending a school in Kukuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, chaired a session called “Education in Crisis Situations – A Partnership for Transformative Actions for Learners” on the final day of the Transforming Education Summit (TES).

The session focused on education and learning in crises and the forced displacement that often results from these situations.

“I am really excited about this session because this is my story. This is the story of so many other refugees,” Maker, who also supports the UNHCR, said. “And as we’ve conversed over the last few days, I hope that this Call to Action becomes actually something we can implement after this session.”

She spoke on the significance of the session, “given the increased displacement around the world, and the added need for collective effort to transform the provision and financing of quality education.”

Member states affirmed their commitment to transforming education on the third and final day of the Transforming Education Summit. The TES Leaders Day, September 19, was dedicated to the Heads of State and Government to present their National State of Commitment to the summit’s goals in Leader Roundtables. Concurrently, thematic sessions were hosted with the intent of cross-cutting priorities for transforming education and reaffirming commitments and plans for action from multiple stakeholders, including world governments, UN partners, and civil society organizations.

The session launched “Education in Crisis: A Call to Action,” a commitment to transform education systems so that they can prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from crises and so that all crisis-affected children have access to continuous, inclusive, and safe learning opportunities. The Call to Action asks countries, multilateral organizations, civil society groups, and education partners to work toward the agreement by improving education access and learning outcomes in equality and inclusivity; protecting and improving external financing; working together to build resilient education systems in the spirit of international cooperation; to scale and mainstream high-impact and evidence-based interventions into policy and programme efforts.

“This Commitment to Action is the result of extensive consultations with over 45 crisis-affected countries from five continents, more than 100 civil society organizations, as well as other stakeholders, including youth,” Estefania Giannini, Assistant Director-General UNESCO, said.

UN agencies, represented by its leaders, emphasized the urgency of education in crisis.

Filippo Grandi, High-Commissioner of UNHCR, spoke on the impact of compounding crises, such as climate change, famine, and armed conflict.

“Across all these underlying aspects of crises, forces of crises, you have forced displacement,” he said. “People flee or are obliged to flee their homes because there is fighting. They’re obliged to flee their homes because there is hunger, and they are now increasingly obliged to flee their homes because of climate change. More importantly, all these factors are interlinked.”

He added, “And all these faces of crisis are multipliers for vulnerability…These challenges, or crises as we should see them, challenge education.”

Due to ongoing crises, climate-induced disasters, and forced displacement, 222 million children and youth have experienced disruptions to their education, affecting their learning access or continuity.

Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait, is concerned that the world now has the highest number of displaced people since World War II. Credit: UN

“We have reached a historical – a sad historical – number of forcibly displaced peoples, the highest number of peoples since World War II,” said Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), during a panel discussion.

“Despite the enormity of this challenge, we have to reach every one of these, and we have to make sure they have foundational learning,” said Catherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF.

Appealing directly to Heads of State and Government, Russell asked them to prioritize education, especially its access during times of crisis. “We need your help to deliver domestic and humanitarian funds to education. We need you to help prevent or stop attacks on education. We need your commitment to build resilient education systems so that they can withstand the future shocks that we know for sure are coming. And we need your commitment to safeguard education for the most vulnerable children.”

Member states represented in the session, including Qatar, Ecuador, South Sudan, Pakistan, Norway, Switzerland, the European Commission, and the State of Palestine, affirmed their support of the Commitment to Action, and shared their states’ implementations toward improving access to education.

“We know that education systems must be resilient enough to prevent, prepare, repel, and recover from armed conflict. Our Call to Action will hopefully do that,” said Virginia Gamba, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, as she closed the spotlight session.

“The alignment between national priorities and international commitments is critical to making education systems more resilient and can ensure the protection of children and their rights, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

This spirit of international cooperation across multiple stakeholders will indeed be critical to transforming education on a fundamental level. In the global conversation, this will be revisited with the ECW High-Level Financing Conference, slated for 16 and 17 February 2023. The conference will take place in Geneva, with co-conveners South Sudan, Niger, Germany, and Norway.

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By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Sep 19 2022 – Many people around the world, especially those among the political far-right, do not accept the climate change crisis. Over the years their thinking, behavior, and policies dismissing climate change have largely continued and impaired global efforts to address global warming and environmental degradation.

The unequivocal findings of numerous reports on the consequences of climate change by international and national scientific committees have not been sufficient to counter climate change skepticism. On the contrary, the reactions of skeptics to the climate change reports can be summed up in the phrase “Don’t confuse me with the facts”.

The rise of right-wing populism in many countries also constitutes a potential obstacle to addressing climate change. Right-wing parties and politicians frequently voice climate change skepticism, denials, and opposition to climate change policies, such as carbon taxes.

The nonacceptance of the climate change crisis persists despite its increasingly visible worldwide consequences. It’s indeed difficult to avoid news reports of climate change events, including extreme heat, flooding, droughts, destroyed crops, wildfires, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, smog, pollution, and increasing rates of human morbidity and mortality.

Even the signed petitions to government leaders from thousands of scientists from around the world warning of a climate emergency and the concerns, demonstrations, and protests of younger generations calling for urgent action have not been enough to convince skeptics of the climate change threat, especially among the political right.

In general, the majorities of most populations are concerned about the climate change crisis. A global survey by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) of public opinion in 2021 covering 50 countries and over half of the world’s population found that nearly two-thirds of those surveyed believed climate change is a global emergency.

The proportion of the population believing climate change is an emergency ranged from a low of 61 percent in sub-Saharan Africa to a high of 71 percent in Western Europe and North America. The proportions of the remaining four regions varied from 63 to 65 percent (Figure 1).

Source: United Nations Development Programme.

In addition to the UNDP study, a 2022 PEW survey of nineteen countries across North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region found a median of 75 percent viewing global climate change as a major threat to their country.

However, views concerning the climate change threat differed considerably across political groups. By and large, surveys find that those of the political right are less likely than those of the left to believe in the reality and anthropogenic nature of the climate change crisis.

In the 2022 PEW survey, for example, those on the political right in fourteen countries were found to be consistently less likely to consider climate change a major threat to their country than those on the political left (Figure 2).

Source: Pew Research Center.

The largest difference among those fourteen countries was in the United States where 22 percent of the political right considered climate change a major threat to their country versus 85 percent on the political left. Other countries with a large difference between those on the political right and left were Australia with 47 and 91 percent, Canada with 46 and 80 percent, and Germany with 59 and 83 percent, respectively.

Moreover, the differences in the views of political groups concerning climate change in some major countries have widened over the recent past. In the United States, for example, the difference between Republicans and Democrats has increased substantially over the past quarter century.

Near the start of the 21st century 20 percent of Republicans and 36 percent of Democrats believed that global warming will pose a serious threat in their lifetime. By 2021, the difference between Republicans and Democrats had widened substantially to 11 percent versus 67 percent, respectively (Figure 3).

Source: Gallup Survey.

Also, differing views about climate change are reflected in the statements and policies of political parties and their leaders. For example, the Vox party in Spain dismissed climate change as “a hoax”, the National Front in France promoted climate skepticism, and Sweden’s Democrats described the climate debate as “weird” in budget discussions, arguing that the seriousness of climate change is exaggerated, and scientific evidence is being distorted.

The unequivocal findings of numerous reports on the consequences of climate change by international and national scientific committees have not been sufficient to counter climate change skepticism. On the contrary, the reactions of skeptics to the climate change reports can be summed up in the phrase “Don’t confuse me with the facts”

In Germany the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) challenged the global scientific consensus on climate change, describing it as “hysteria”. In addition, the AfD abandoned the previous cross-party consensus on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

In the United States, the world’s second largest emitter of CO2 producing about 14 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions, the former Republican president said that he was not a believer in man-made global warming, called climate change “a hoax” invented by China, and said scientists were “misleading us” on climate change. Moreover, he dismissed federal scientific reports on climate change and sought to roll back climate regulations, including increasing U.S. coal mining and reconsidering fuel efficiency standards for vehicles.

In China, the world’s top emitter of CO2 producing about 30 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions, some report that the Communist Party’s climate change skeptics are mostly shunned and may chatter in the shadows. After decades of rejecting climate change and its visible consequences, such as choking smog hanging over most of the country, no higher-up Chinese officials are saying that climate change is a hoax and while some may have that view, they won’t say it.

In India, which the IPCC highlights as a vulnerable hotspot, some find politicians denying or ignoring climate change. They note that in the election manifestos of the two leading national parties, the Indian National Congress and the BJP, neither of them mentioned the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Also at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, India reportedly found the IPCC’s recent report too gloomy and requested a section on mitigation be removed.

A preliminary draft of the Glasgow pact called on countries to “accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels”. In the final negotiations, however, India and China, whose coal-fired power stations provide approximately 70 and 60 percent of their electricity, respectively, said they would agree only to “phase-down unabated coal” and the phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.

In addition, when heading to COP26, Australia, Japan, and Saudi Arabia were among those countries lobbying the United Nations “to play down the need to move rapidly away from fossil fuels”. Some wealthy nations also questioned paying more to poorer states to move to greener technologies.

In preparatory meetings for the November COP27 climate summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, African nations pushed back against abrupt moves away from fossil fuels. They stressed the need to avoid approaches that encourage abrupt disinvestments from fossil fuels, which would threaten Africa’s development. For example, Nigeria, Africa’s largest population, indicated that gas was a matter of survival for the country.

The latest report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to rise. The IPCC report also states that current plans to address climate change are not ambitious enough to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which is a threshold necessary to avoid even more catastrophic impacts.

A number of social and psychological explanations have been offered for climate change crisis nonacceptance and skepticism, especially among the right-wing conservatives. In the past, the lack of knowledge about the causes of climate change was believed to play a major role. More recently, political ideology and party identification are believed to strongly influence how people selectively seek and interpret information about climate change.

Political beliefs and motivations have also been found to guide people’s attention, perceptions, and understanding of climate change evidence and mitigation efforts. In addition, some are not willing to accept the climate change crisis and proposed mitigation measures because they challenge their need to protect existing socioeconomic structures and traditional lifestyles, raise their anxieties about declines in living standards, and threaten development efforts, particularly in less developed countries.

In sum, it is certainly the case that the majority of most populations worldwide, especially the younger generations, are concerned about the climate change crisis. However, it is also the case that despite the overwhelming unequivocal evidence, many people, especially far-right conservatives, continue their nonacceptance of the climate change crisis.

Such a political divide with vocal opposition from the political far-right with the continuing support, political lobbying, and extensive efforts of various extractive industries is worrisome and consequential. It undermines global plans to address climate change and thwarts more ambitious efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the goal set in the Paris Agreement to avert the worst effects of global warming

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”

By James Paul
NEW YORK, Sep 19 2022 – The high-level segment of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) is famous for its fiery speeches and the colorful personalities assembled in the GA Hall. But much more goes on beyond the hall itself –the frenzy of the press in the broadcast trucks, security personnel on every sidewalk, military aides in dress uniforms, and an endless round of receptions and parties of every kind.

One of the best-known events in this vast theater is the showy motorcade that brings the President of the United States to the UN. Motorcycles from the New York police department, fifty or more in all, roar along in advance of the main presidential limousines. Police barricades line the streets. The sirens and roar of the engines reverberate wherever they go.

The motorcade makes a great impression as it approaches UN Headquarters. No other leader comes even close to such a mighty entry scene. The UN itself faces temporary paralysis as the Presidential security system takes over.

Once, I was standing on the corner of First Avenue and 45th Street when I saw a high-level UN official hurrying up. A policeman stopped him as he tried to get past the barricade and cross the avenue.

“No one crosses the street now,” said the cop. “But I’m Under Secretary General Peter Hansen,” the man replied, “and I have a meeting in ten minutes with the Secretary General.”

“Sorry, buddy,” said the cop, “I have my orders and no one, not even God Himself, goes across this avenue until I say so.” Hansen had to wait for at least twenty minutes until the US President arrived and disappeared inside. Then the Under Secretary-General was finally allowed to go across and carry on with his business.

The impression made by a grand entry like this is well-known in the world of politics. During the colonial era in India, the British Viceroy famously entered the city of Delhi on grand occasions seated with his wife on an enormous, elaborately-bedecked elephant, accompanied by a whole cavalcade of other elephants, carrying maharajas and senior British officials.

The grandest of these events were reserved for the investiture of the British sovereign and were known as darbars. Today, motorcycles create the awe and the President gets a smooth ride in an armored limousine.

Hundreds of lunches, dinners and grand receptions take place during the high-level period. The most unusual event I ever attended was a reception held in the Central Park Zoo, in honor of Denis Sassou Nguesso, the President of the Republic of Congo.

The Wildlife Conservation Society, operator of the zoo, put on the event to “thank” the Congolese strongman for accepting a large sum of money to “protect” a part of the Congolese rainforest. The reception took place outdoors, around the famous sea lion pool. There were African drums, costumed dancers, musicians playing flutes, bright-colored spotlights and a very restricted guest list.

As I strolled around the pool, chatting with a few of the ambassadors present, I noticed a man standing at some distance from the others, apparently by himself. I walked over to speak to him when suddenly four heavily-armed security guards jumped out of the shadows and confronted me, their automatic weapons pointed menacingly.

I soon realized I was heading towards President Sassou Nguesso himself, in his military dress uniform. His scowl turned to a smile and he waved away the guards, who disappeared again into the trees as I stepped forward. After some pleasantries about protecting rainforests, I took my leave. From Fifth Avenue, as I headed home, I could still hear the drums and see the orange spotlights.

What were the sea lions thinking, I wondered?

Jim Paul was longtime Executive Director of Global Policy Forum, based across the avenue from UN Headquarters. He was founder of the NGO Working Group on the Security Council and the Working Group on Food and Hunger. He was an editor of the Oxford Companion to Politics of the World and his most recent book titled Of Foxes and Chickens: oligarchy and global power in the UN Security Council.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 19 2022 – When the United Nations decided to locate its 39-storeyed Secretariat in New York city, the United States, as host nation, signed a “headquarters agreement” in 1947 not only ensuring diplomatic immunity to foreign diplomats but also pledging to facilitate the day-to-day activities of member states without any hindrance, including the issuance of US visas to enter the country.

But there were several instances of open violation of this agreement by successive US administrations.

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, who has written extensively on the politics of the United Nations, told IPS the U.S. broke its commitment to the UN by refusing to allow Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), to come to New York to speak, forcing the entire General Assembly to convene in Geneva back in 1988.

““And there is the periodic US media obsession with visits by foreign leaders Americans love to hate, such as (Iranian President) Ahmadinejad (while ignoring more moderate Iranian leaders before and since speaking of peace and reconciliation),” said Zunes.

And, of course, there are the bizarre and misleading addresses by various U.S. presidents over the years, he added

The move to Geneva was a first in UN history– but it provided a less-hostile political environment for the PLO leader— as the General Assembly, the UN’s highest policy-making body, stood defiant and delivered a resounding slap to the US, momentarily abandoning its New York city home.

Palestine is one of two permanent, non-member observer states, the other being the Holy See (Vatican).

Arafat, who first addressed the UN in 1974, took a swipe at Washington when he prefaced his statement by saying “it never occurred to me that my second meeting with this honorable Assembly, would take place in the hospitable city of Geneva”.

Meanwhile, there were reports last week that visas for Russian diplomats, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, were either denied or delayed in the run-up to the high-level meeting of the General Assembly September 20-26.

Asked about the complaints by the Russians, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters last week: “This is an issue that we have repeatedly brought up with the Host Country”.

“This is an issue that was raised to us by the Russian Federation. I think the Secretary General feels very much that visas should be delivered to the Russian delegation and to delegations who have business to be done at the United Nations, especially during the General Assembly.”

Asked at what level this was being discussed, he said: “It’s one that we have been repeatedly raising because, as you say, it’s been going on for quite some time. The Legal Counsel is the point person on this”.

“It’s done through our legal office because they support the Host Country committee, but I know this is an issue the Secretary General, I think, has raised in a number of phone conversations with senior US officials, as well, and one that has been raised with him by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, as well as the Russian Permanent Representative Nebenzia.”

During his first visit in 1974, the PLO leader avoided hundreds of pro and anti-Arafat demonstrators outside the UN building by arriving in a helicopter which landed on the North Lawn of the UN campus adjoining the East River.

Arafat was escorted by security men into the UN building and to the Secretary-General’s 38th floor where he spent the night in a make-shift bedroom.

But that bedroom had not been used for years, and the color of water was brown when the bathroom’s faucet was opened. Mercifully, it was not an attempt by Israeli intelligence to poison the PLO leader.

There was also a legendary story of how Arafat, who was on an Israeli hit-list, never slept on the same bed on two consecutive nights – in order to outwit assassins trying to kill him in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory.

But whatever the reason, Arafat spent only a single night in the UN building.

Since Arafat, several political leaders—mostly antagonistic towards the US or heading regimes under American sanctions– have either been denied visas or implicitly declared persona non grata (PNG).

As a result, heads of state from “rogue nations,” including North Korea’s Kim Il Sung, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Syria’s Hafez al Assad, never addressed the UN – and perhaps never tried for a US visa either, which may have been refused.

When former Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, accused of war crimes, was refused a US visa to attend the high-level segment of the General Assembly sessions in September 2013, Hassan Ali, a senior Sudanese diplomat, registered a strong protest with the UN’s Legal Committee.

“The democratically-elected president of Sudan had been deprived of the opportunity to participate in the General Assembly because the host country, the United States, had denied him a visa, in violation of the U.N.-U.S. Headquarters Agreement.”

“It was a great and deliberate violation of the Headquarters Agreement,” he said.

The refusal of a visa to the Sudanese president was also a political landmine because al-Bashir had been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

But the question that remained answered was: Does the United States have a right to implicitly act on an ICC ruling when Washington is not a party to the Rome Statute that created the ICC?

Meanwhile, some of the military or autocratic leaders who addressed the UN in a bygone era included Fidel Castro of Cuba, Col Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, Amadou Toure of Mali (who assumed power following a coup in 1991 but later served as a democratically elected President), and Jerry Rawlings of Ghana (who seized power in 1979, executed former political leaders but later served as a civilian president voted into power in democratic elections).

Libyan leader Qaddafi, made a dramatic appearance at the UN in September 2009.

In its report, the London Guardian said he “grabbed his 15 minutes of fame at the UN building in New York and ran with it. He ran with it so hard he stretched it to an hour and 40 minutes, six times longer than his allotted slot, to the dismay of UN organizers”.

Qaddafi lived up to his reputation for eccentricity, bloody-mindedness and extreme verbiage, said the Guardian, as he tore up a copy of the UN charter in front of startled delegates, accused the Security Council of being an al-Qaida like terrorist body, called for George Bush and Tony Blair to be put on trial for the Iraq war, demanded $7.7 trillion in compensation for the ravages of colonialism on Africa, and wondered whether swine flu was a biological weapon created in a military laboratory.

Incidentally, according to one news report, there were 112 different spellings of the Libyan leader’s name, both in English and Arabic, including Muammar el-Qaddafi, Muammar Gaddafi, Muammar al-Gathafi, Muammar El Kadhafi, Moammar el Kazzafi, Moamer, El Qathafi, Mu’Ammar, Gadafi, and Moamar Gaddafi, amongst others.

The Wall Street Journal ran a cartoon making fun of the multiple spellings, with a visiting reporter, on a one-on-one interview in Tripoli, told the Libyan leader: ”My editor sent me to find out whether you are Qaddafi, Khaddafi, Gadafi, Qathafi or Kadhafi?”

This article contains excerpts from a book on the UN—a motley collection of hilarious anecdotes– titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That,” available on Amazon. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

IPS UN Bureau Report

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