By Witada Anukoonwattaka and Preety Bhogal
BANGKOK, Thailand, Aug 12 2024 – The rapid growth of digitalization has fundamentally altered commerce, impacting production and facilitating the movement of goods. The 2023 Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report (APTIR), has pointed out that although digital trade revenues of Asia and the Pacific account for a significant share of global trade, this growth is uneven, with trade concentrated in a few areas, leading to disparities across the region.

Studies show a positive relationship between digital trade and progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These linkages among digital trade policy and the social and economic pillars of the SDGs may appear more indirect, but they do manifest through economic channels.

Various facets of the relationship between sustainable development and digital trade are evident, such as the impact of digital trade on wealth inequality in the region, the role of the Internet in export expansion, how e-commerce facilitates small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and how digital trade can help achieve the ambitious agenda behind the SDGs.

However, better digital infrastructure does not necessarily engender competition and instead requires active measures from the government to promote linkages between export superstars and domestic suppliers.

Additionally, robust regulatory frameworks on digital trade can help eliminate “monopolistic and restrictive” trade policies, contributing significantly to a more equitable distribution of wealth.

Examples of good practices

Different policy measures to establish an inclusive digital trade and e-commerce landscape have been used across the region. For example, research on internet courts in China showed how such public and digitized judicial systems benefit smaller and medium-sized firms compared to private dispute resolution mechanisms, which are highly costly.

Similarly, research on the Pacific Alliance’s trade policies, particularly its binding agreements and work instruments, provided a framework to incorporate net neutrality in the promotion of equitable digital development.

Indonesia’s introduction of single submission for freight transport applications and its impact on sustainability in supply chains was another case study. This policy instrument has had significant impacts across multiple domains, such as increasing time effectiveness, reducing costs, and increasing transparency in shipping and port clearances.

Lessons learned and the way forward

There is a need to understand the specific digital trade policy instruments that promote sustainable development. It is critical to acknowledge key differences and similarities between trade and digital trade policy to strategically leverage their interlinkage to achieve the SDGs. Social development works in tandem with economic progress.

A key concern is the lack of data on cross-border e-commerce in the Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions, which hinders the implementation and evaluation of programs designed to promote the participation and productivity of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

More concerted efforts to improve data measurement through private-public partnerships could be a possible policy intervention to address this issue. States should establish effective monitoring systems by improving the availability of economic statistics and third-party evaluations for measuring the progress and impact of SME support programs.

However, given the diversity in operations of SMEs across sectors, it is essential to devise and tailor policies that cater to their specific needs and realities.

There is also a need for sharing real-world examples of successful government initiatives and SME support programs so neighboring countries can draw lessons from them. There are doubts about the long-term usefulness of stand-alone Digital Economy Agreements (DEAs) due to the lack of stringent legal provisions for possible breaches, unlike market-access free trade agreements (FTAs).

Lastly, the United States, which has played a pivotal role in advocating for an open global trade environment, gradually step back from its position, it is time to rethink the leadership that would guide the establishment of digital trade provisions in the future.

This involves showcasing how digital trade rules will be established and enforced moving forward. Who will provide such public goods for digital trade is a major question facing the global economy.

Given its rapid digital-economy growth, significant market size, and increasing influence in global digital trade, should that leadership come from the Asia-Pacific region?

Witada Anukoonwattaka is Economic Affairs Officer, Trade Investment and Innovation Division, ESCAP; Preety Bhogal is Consultant, Trade Investment and Innovation Division, ESCAP.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Aug 12 2024 (IPS-Partners)

We live in a divided world of the haves and the have nots. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. There is learning poverty, technology poverty, healthcare poverty, and food poverty. When you think about the dynamics of the world today, there is even empathy and humanity poverty.

This divide gets greater for young people living on the frontlines of the world’s most pressing humanitarian crises in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gaza, Haiti and Sudan, where the remarkable potential of youth is eviscerated by brutal armed conflicts, forced displacement, the climate crisis and other horrific, compounding challenges.

To empower today’s youth, we must urgently address this growing divide. It starts with quality education, skills training, and a broad collection of supportive life-long learning measures fit for purpose, activating an entire generation of future leaders.

As UN Secretary-General António Guterres points out: “Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals requires a seismic shift – which can only happen if we empower young people and work with them as equals.”

This year’s International Youth Day calls for us all to look at the power of digital pathways to enhance sustainable development. Indeed, digitization, artificial intelligence and other technological advances are transforming our world and offer unprecedented opportunities to accelerate sustainable development.

But in a world where 250 million children cannot read – or do not have access to a school meal or mental health – how can we leverage the potential of technology to accelerate our efforts to deliver on the goals outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development?

Education Cannot Wait – the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises within the United Nations – puts youth first in everything we do. This starts from the highest levels of ECW’s governance, which includes two inspirational youth leaders, Mutesi Hadijah and Hector Ulloa, who are activating a global youth movement through the #Youth4ECW campaign.

Through ECW investments, we are working to bridge the digital divide, extend remote learning, enhance skills training, and provide young people with the tools, training and knowledge they need to thrive in the fast-changing world of the 21st century.

In Moldova for instance, ECW investments focused on refugee children from Ukraine and host community children – and delivered by UNICEF and the Refugee Education Working Group – have established 98 EduTech Labs across 32 regions. In countries like Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger and Nigeria, ECW supports vocational education programmes for adolescents who have been pushed out of school.

These collective actions offer an essential first step in bridging the divide for the millions of children pushed into learning poverty by emergencies and protracted crises. But more needs to be done and we urge private sector donors, high-net-worth individuals and philanthropic foundations to provide urgently needed funding as we race to mobilize an additional US$600 million to deliver on ECW’s three-year strategic programme.

Together, through the power of inclusive education, digital pathways and lifelong learning, we can bridge the divide and create a world united through a wealth of humanity.

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Excerpt:

International Youth Day Statement by Education Cannot Wait Executive Director Yasmine Sherif

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 2024 – The growing number of killings of Palestinian journalists in Gaza has triggered a demand for a cut-off in US arms supplies to Israel.

A letter addressed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken—and signed by scores of reporters, news outlets and journalist unions— says Israel has killed more than 165 Palestinian journalists since October 7 last year.

Initiated by three international organizations — Defending Rights & Dissent, the Courage Foundation, and Roots Action— the letter says: “This is the largest recorded number of journalists killed in any war.”

While Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of the densely populated Gaza means no civilians are safe, Israel has also been repeatedly documented deliberately targeting journalists, says the letter.

“Israel’s military actions are not possible without U.S. weapons, U.S. military aid, and U.S. diplomatic support. By providing the weapons being used to deliberately kill journalists, you are complicit in one of the gravest affronts to press freedom today”, says the letter, currently in circulation, and addressed to Blinken.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), told IPS despite pleas of the international community to suspend arms to Israel in the face of its unprecedented atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza, including the killing of over 165 Palestinian journalists, it beggars the imagination that Biden is now seeking to sell Israel new weaponry to facilitate even more slaughter.

On August 9, the U.S. State Department officially notified Congress of its intent to proceed with a new authorization for weapons to Israel, including 6,500 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) guidance kits to Israel, despite extensive evidence documenting the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) use of U.S. weapons to carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity, said DAWN, in a press release Friday.

This “is a slap in the face of humanity and all the values we hold dear,” Whitson said.

Blinken also announced his decision not to sanction the IDF’s notorious Netzah Yehuda battalion, despite credible evidence of its systematic and gross human rights violations in the occupied West Bank, in violation of strict U.S. laws requiring the imposition of such sanctions.

“It is mind-boggling that despite the overwhelming evidence of the IDF’s unprecedented crimes in Gaza that has shocked the conscience of the entire world, the Biden administration is greenlighting the transfer of additional lethal weapons to Israel,” said Whitson.

“It is hard to comprehend how the Biden administration can justify rewarding Israel with new weapons, despite Israel’s persistent defiance of every single plea the Biden administration has made urging a modicum of restraint, and despite the very apparent fact that such sales violate black letter U.S. laws prohibiting weapons to gross abusers like Israel,” she pointed out.

Meanwhile, as of August 9, 2024, preliminary investigations by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) showed at least 113 journalists and media workers were among the more than 40,000 killed since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.

Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict during the Israeli ground assault, including devastating Israeli airstrikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages, and extensive power outages, CPJ said.

This has meant that it is becoming increasingly hard to document the situation, and CPJ is investigating almost 350 additional cases of potential killings, arrests and injuries.

Dr Ramzy Baroud, a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle, told IPS Israel has killed, as of last week, 168 Palestinian journalists, the same way it has killed over 200 aid workers, hundreds of doctors, medics and people from every category and background. None of this is coincidental.

A simple proof that Israel deliberately targets journalists is the fact that it habitually produces and promotes stories that justify their murder, often accusing them of terrorism. Israel is yet to provide a single set of credible evidence against any of the killed journalists, he said.

On October 11, Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog had said “there are no innocent civilians in Gaza”. This disturbing Israeli logic applies to all Palestinians in the Strip, including journalists.

“Israel must be held accountable to its ongoing murder of journalists. But a huge responsibility falls on the shoulders of journalists and media organizations around the world, who often ignore the very murder of their colleagues in Gaza, let alone circulate Israeli’s unfounded accusations often without questioning its credibility or merit,” he said.

The fact that Gazans continue to report on their own genocide by Israel is heroic beyond words. But they must not be disowned, and must not continue to report and die alone without a true international solidarity that could hold their murderers to account, said Dr. Baroud, who is also a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA).

Dr. James Jennings, President, Conscience International, told IPS the heroic martyrs of the free press in Gaza deserve to be honored by all humanity, at the very least with the Nobel Peace Prize. Standing under the bombs, reporting the truth, then paying with your life is a superhuman act of courage.

The job of journalists is simply to journal–to shine a light on the truth by writing down or telling what they see on the battlefield. Killing the messengers is a sign that the perpetrators fear them and their influence, he pointed out.

Deception and lies are major part of war. How else could people slaughter myriads of others and do it with impunity?, he asked.

But truth has two sides–sending and receiving. Refusing to credit honest reporters means that we really don’t want to hear what they are saying anyway. Choosing to believe lies because we want them to be true is what enables wars to continue.

“Even worse than lying to the enemy is lying to yourself. Attempting to cover the plain truth by denying facts or looking the other way is tantamount to insanity. When will Americans stop lying to themselves and start believing their own ideals?”, asked Dr Jennings.

Ibrahim Hooper, National Communication Director at the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said: “The only thing that can explain the shocking silence of American and international media professionals about the mass killing of their Palestinian colleagues is the decades-long and systematic dehumanization of the Palestinian people, in which the lives of Palestinians have lesser or no value. Journalists worldwide must begin to speak out about these killings and about the Israeli genocide in Gaza.”

In a press release last week, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said it is monitoring attacks and threats against journalists.

The agency noted that in recent months, multiple journalists covering protests in different parts of the world have been subjected to various forms of attacks, including killings, injuries, arbitrary detentions, and confiscation of their equipment, while exercising their rightful duties as journalists.

UNESCO recalls “that all authorities concerned have the duty and responsibility to ensure the safety of journalists covering protests around the world, in accordance with international norms and human rights obligations”.

The joint letter to Blinken says Israel has gone to great lengths to suppress media coverage of its war in Gaza, imposing military censorship on both its own journalists and international reporters operating in the country; and, with Egypt’s help, blocking all foreign journalists from Gaza. Israel shut down Al Jazeera, raided its office, seized its equipment, and blocked its broadcasts and website within Israel.

The world relies only on the Palestinian journalists in Gaza to report the truth about the war and Israel’s widespread violations of international law.

“Israel’s deliberate targeting of these journalists seems intended to impose a near blackout on coverage of its assault on Gaza. Investigations by United Nations bodies, NGOs, and media organizations, have all found instances of deliberate targeting of journalists.

In a joint statement, five UN special rapporteurs declared: “We have received disturbing reports that, despite being clearly identifiable in jackets and helmets marked “press” or traveling in well-marked press vehicles, journalists have come under attack, which would seem to indicate that the killings, injury, and detention are a deliberate strategy by Israeli forces to obstruct the media and silence critical reporting.”

Meanwhile, under international law, the intentional targeting of journalists is considered a war crime. While all governments are bound by international law protecting reporters, U.S. domestic law also prohibits the State Department from providing assistance to units of foreign security forces credibly accused of gross violations of human rights. Israel’s well-documented pattern of extrajudicial executions of journalists is a gross violation of human rights.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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