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Tag: Opinion

  • UN Cybercrime Convention: Could the Cure Be Worse than the Disease?

    UN Cybercrime Convention: Could the Cure Be Worse than the Disease?

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    • Opinion by Ines M Pousadela (montevideo, uruguay)
    • Inter Press Service

    MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jun 16 (IPS) – If you’ve never heard of the Cybercrime Convention, you’re not alone. And if you’re wondering whether an international treaty to tackle cybercrime is a good idea, you’re in good company too.

    Negotiations have been underway for more than three years: the latest negotiating session was held in April, and a multi-stakeholder consultation has just concluded. A sixth session is scheduled to take place in August, with a draft text expected to be approved by February 2024, to be put to a vote at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) later next year. But civil society sees some big pitfalls ahead.

    Controversial beginnings

    In December 2019, the UNGA voted to start negotiating a cybercrime treaty. The resolution was sponsored by Russia and co-sponsored by several of the world’s most repressive regimes, which already had national cybercrime laws they use to stifle legitimate dissent under the pretence of combatting a variety of vaguely defined online crimes such as insulting the authorities, spreading ‘fake news’ and extremism.

    Tackling cybercrime certainly requires some kind of international cooperation. But this doesn’t necessarily need a new treaty. Experts have pointed out that the real problem may be the lack of enforcement of current international agreements, particularly the 2001 Council of Europe’s Budapest Convention.

    When Russia’s resolution was put to a vote, the European Union, many states and human rights organisations urged the UNGA to reject it. But once the resolution passed, they engaged with the process, trying to prevent the worst possible outcome – a treaty lacking human rights safeguards that could be used as a repressive tool.

    The December 2019 resolution set up an ad hoc committee (AHC), open to the participation of all UN member states plus observers, including civil society. At its first meeting to set procedural rules in mid-2021, Brazil’s proposal that a two-thirds majority vote be needed for decision-making – when consensus can’t be achieved – was accepted, instead of the simple majority favoured by Russia. A list of stakeholders was approved, including civil society organisations (CSOs), academic institutions and private sector representatives.

    Another key procedural decision was made in February 2022: intersessional consultations were to be held between negotiating sessions to solicit input from stakeholders, including human rights CSOs. These consultations have given CSOs the chance to make presentations and participate in discussions with states.

    Human rights concerns

    Several CSOs are trying to use the space to influence the treaty process, including as part of broader coalitions. Given what’s at stake, in advance of the first negotiating session, around 130 CSOs and experts urged the AHC to embed human rights safeguards in the treaty.

    One of the challenges it that, as early as the first negotiating session, it became apparent there wasn’t a clear definition of what constitutes a cybercrime and which cybercrimes should be regulated by the treaty. There’s still no clarity.

    The UN identifies two main types of cybercrimes: cyber-dependent crimes such as network intrusion and malware distribution, which can only be committed through the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs), and cyber-enabled crimes, which can be facilitated by ICTs but can be committed without them, such as drug trafficking and the illegal distribution of counterfeit goods.

    Throughout the negotiation process there’s been disagreement about whether the treaty should focus on a limited set of cyber-dependent crimes, or address a variety of cyber-enabled crimes. These, human rights groups warn, include various content-related offences that could be invoked to repress freedom of expression.

    These concerns have been highlighted by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which has emphasised that the treaty shouldn’t include offences related to the content of online expression and should clearly and explicitly reference binding international human rights agreements to ensure it’s applied in line with universal human rights principles.

    A second major disagreement concerns the scope and conditions for international cooperation. If not clearly defined, cooperation arrangements could result in violations of privacy and data protection provisions. In the absence of the principle of dual criminality – where extradition can only apply to an action that constitutes a crime in both the country making an extradition request and the one receiving it – state authorities could be made to investigate activities that aren’t crimes in their own countries. They could effectively become enforcers of repression.

    Civil society has pushed for recognition of a set of principles on the application of human rights to communications surveillance. According to these, dual criminality should prevail, and where laws differ, the one with the higher level of rights protections should be applied. It must be ensured that states don’t use mutual assistance agreements and foreign cooperation requests to circumvent domestic legal restrictions.

    An uncertain future

    Following the third multistakeholder consultation held in November 2022, the AHC released a negotiating draft. In the fourth negotiating session in January 2023, civil society’s major concerns focused on the long and growing number of criminal offences listed in the draft, many of them content-related.

    It’s unclear how the AHC intends to bridge current deep divides to produce the ‘zero draft’ it’s expected to share in the next few weeks. If it complies with the deadline by leaving contentious issues undecided, the next session, scheduled for August, may bring a shift from consensus-building to voting – unless states decide to give themselves some extra time.

    As of today, the process could still conclude on time, or with a limited extension, following a forced vote on a harmful treaty that lacks consensus and therefore fails to enter into effect, or does so for a limited number of states. Or it could be repeatedly postponed and fade away. Civil society engaged in the process may well think such a development wouldn’t be so bad: better no agreement than one that gives repressive states stronger tools to stifle dissent.

    Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.


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  • The Regulation Tortoise and the AI Hare

    The Regulation Tortoise and the AI Hare

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    Credit: NicoElNino / Shutterstock.com
    • Opinion by Robert Whitfield (london)
    • Inter Press Service

    LONDON, Jun 16 (IPS) – Regulation of a technology typically emerges sometime after it has been used in a product or service, or, worse, the risks become apparent. This responsive approach is regrettable when real harm is already being done, as now with AI. With existential risk, the approach would risk the end of human existence.

    In the past few months, generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as ChatGPT and GPT4 became available with no (official) regulatory control at all. This is in complete contrast to new plastic duck toys which need to meet numerous regulations and safety standards. The fact is that the AI hare has been streaking ahead whilst the regulation tortoise is moving but is way behind. This has to change – now.

    What has shocked AI experts around the world has been the recent progress from GPT 3.5 to GPT 4. Within a few months, GPT’s capability progressed hugely in multiple tests, for example from performing in the American Bar exams in the 10th percentile range to reaching the 90th percentile with GPT-4.

    Why does it matter, you may ask. If the rate of progress were projected forward at the same rate for the next 3, 6 or 12 months this would rapidly lead to a very powerful AI. If uncontrolled, this AI might have the power not only to do much good but also to do much harm – and with the fatal risk that it may no longer be possible to control once unleashed.

    There is a wide range of aspects of AI that needs or will need regulation and control. Quite apart from the new Large Language Models (LLMs), there are many examples already today such as attention centred social media models, deep fakes, the existence of bias and the abusive use of AI controlled surveillance.

    These may lead to a radical change in our relationship with work and to the obsolescence of certain jobs, including office jobs, hitherto largely immune from automation. Expert artificial influencers seeking to persuade you to buy something or think or vote in a certain way are also anticipated soon – a process that some say has already started.

    Credit: NicoElNino / Shutterstock.com

    Without control, the progress towards more and more intelligent AI will lead to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI – equivalent to the capability of a human in a wide range of fields) and to Superintelligence (vastly superior intelligence). The world would enter an era that would signal the decline and likely demise of humanity as we lose our position as the apex intelligence on the planet.

    This very recent rate of progress has caused Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, so called “godfathers of AI / Deep Learning” to completely reassess their anticipated time frame for developing AGI. Recently, they have both radically brought forward their estimates and they now assess AGI being reached in 5 to 50 and 5 to 20 years respectively.

    Humanity must not knowingly run the risk of extinction, meaning that humanity needs to put controls in place before Advanced AI is developed. Solutions for controlling Advanced AI have been proposed, such as Stuart Russell’s Beneficial AI, where the AI is given a goal of implementing human preferences. It would need to observe these preferences and since it would appreciate that it might not have interpreted them precisely, it would be humble and be prepared to be switched off.

    The development of such a system is very challenging to realise in practice. Whether such a solution would be available in time was questionable even before the latest leap forward by the hare. Whether one will be available in time is now critical – which is why Geoffrey Hinton has recommended that 50% of all AI research spend should be on AI Safety.

    Quite apart from these comprehensive but challenging solutions, there are several pragmatic ideas that have recently been proposed to reduce the risk, ranging from a limit on the access to computational power for a Large Language Model to the creation of an AI agency equivalent to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. In practice, what is needed is a combination of technical solutions such as Beneficial AI, pragmatic solutions relating to AI development and a suitable Governance Framework.

    As AI systems, like many of today’s software services in computer clouds, can act across borders. Interoperability will be a key challenge and a global approach to governance is clearly needed. To have global legitimacy, such initiatives should be a part of a coordinated plan of action administered by an appropriate global body. This should be the United Nations, with the formation of a UN Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence (UNFCAI).

    The binding agreements that are currently expected to emerge within the next twelve months or so are the EU AI Act from the European Union and a Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence from the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe’s work is focused on the impact of AI on human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. Whilst participation in Council of Europe Treaties is much wider than the European Union with other countries being welcomed as signatories, it is not truly global in scope.

    The key advantage of the UN is that it would seek to include all countries, including Russia and China, which have different value sets from the west. China has one of the two strongest AI sectors in the world. Many consider that a UN regime will ultimately be required – but that term “ultimately” has been completely turned upside down by recent events. The possibility of AGI emerging in 5-years’ time suggests that a regime should be fully functioning by then. A more nimble institutional home could be found in the G7, but this would lack global legitimacy, inclusivity and the input of civil society.

    Some people are concerned that by engaging with China, Russia and other authoritarian countries in a constructive manner, you are thereby validating their approach to human rights and democracy. It is clear that there are major differences in policy on such issues, but effective governance of something as serious as Artificial Intelligence should not be jeopardised by such concerns.

    In recent years the UN has made limited progress on AI. Back in 2020, the Secretary General called for the establishment of a multistakeholder advisory body on global artificial intelligence cooperation. He is still proposing a similar advisory board three years on. This delay is highly regrettable and needs to be remedied urgently. It is particularly heartening therefore to witness the Secretary General’s robust recent proposals in the past few days regarding AI governance including an Accord on the global governance of AI.

    The EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager has called for a three-step process, namely national, then like-minded states and then the UN. The question is whether there is sufficient time for all three. The recent endorsement by the UN Secretary General of the proposed UK initiative to hold a Summit on AI Safety in the UK this autumn is a positive development

    The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was established in 2005 and serves to bring people together from various stakeholder groups as equals, to discuss issues relating to the Internet. In the case of AI, policy making could benefit from such a forum, a Multistakeholder AI Governance Forum (AIGF).

    This would provide an initial forum within which stakeholders from around the world could exchange views in relation to the principles to be pursued, the aspects of AI requiring urgent AI Global Governance and ways to resolve each issue. Critically, what is needed is a clear Roadmap to the Global Governance of AI with a firm timeline.

    An AIGF could underpin the work of the new high-level advisory body for AI and both would be tasked with the development of the roadmap, leading to the establishment of a UN Framework Convention on AI.

    In recent months the AI hare has shown its ability to go a long way in a short period of time. The regulation tortoise has left the starting line but has a lot to catch up. The length of the race has just been shortened so the recent sprint by the hare is of serious concern. In the Aesop’s Fable, the tortoise ultimately wins the race because the over-confident hare has taken a roadside siesta. Humanity should not assume that AI is going to do likewise.

    A concerted effort is needed to complete the EU AI Act and the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on AI. Meanwhile at the UN, stakeholders need to be brought together urgently to share their views and work with states to establish an effective, timely and global AI governance structure.

    The UN Accord on the governance of AI needs to be articulated and the prospect of effective and timely global governance ushering in an era of AI Safety needs to be given the highest global priority. The proposed summit on AI Safety in the UK this autumn should provide the first checkpoint.

    Robert Whitfield is Chair of the One World Trust and Chair of the World Federalist Movement / Institute for Government Policy’s Transnational Working Group on AI.

    IPS UN Bureau


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  • A Climate Finance Goal That Works for Developing Countries

    A Climate Finance Goal That Works for Developing Countries

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    • Opinion by Richard Kozul Wright (geneva)
    • Inter Press Service

    GENEVA, Jun 15 (IPS) – After years of failing to meet climate finance commitments, the new climate finance goal under discussion this week in Bonn is critical, but without supporting reforms of the global financial architecture we risk repeating past mistakes.

    As cities across North America are covered with clouds of smoke caused by wildfires in Canada, negotiations on the New Collective Quantified Goal for climate finance continue in Bonn.

    This goal will replace the climate finance commitment set in 2009, which aimed to mobilize $100 billion per year for developing countries by 2020. The $100 billion commitment, which in any case has not been met, will expire in 2025.

    $100 billion is a fraction of what is needed

    It’s commonly understood that the $100 billion goal is a fraction of what is needed to support developing countries to achieve climate goals in accordance with the Paris Agreement.

    In the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) recent analysis of financing needs, developing countries require at least $6 trillion by 2030 to meet less than half of their existing Nationally Determined Contributions.

    By comparison, official data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) assessed total climate finance flows from developed to developing countries at $83.3 billion in 2020, and Oxfam estimates that the real value is about one third of that, around $21 billion to $24.5 billion.

    Furthermore, climate finance continues to be predominantly delivered as loans, including a large share of non-concessional financing, exacerbating sovereign debt issues that have been growing across regions and income groups.

    New goal must respond to demonstrated needs

    Instead of being based on arbitrary targets, the new goal must rigorously quantify and respond to countries’ demonstrated needs and be tracked based on an agreed methodology that can prevent the double-counting and significant overestimations of the past.

    Developing countries face the double challenge of simultaneously investing in development and in climate mitigation and adaptation, while addressing the costs of loss and damage.

    The scale of this challenge is staggering when close to 900 million people in the world don’t have access to electricity, and more than 4 billion people don’t have a social safety net they can rely on.

    But advancing green industrialization and diversification, raising public investment and social protection, and preparing and responding to multiplying climate disasters all depend on increasing access to finance.

    UNCTAD’s estimate in 2019 was that delivering both climate and development goals demanded $2.5 trillion of annual financing for developing countries, a number that will have risen since then due to the pandemic and ongoing economic and financial shocks.

    Financing options that are fair, sufficient and politically feasible are achievable and UNCTAD has recommended reforms to the global financial architecture that would help deliver climate and development finance at the appropriate scale.

    Four priorities for climate finance

    UNCTAD outlined four priorities at an event entitled “Options for Scaling Climate Finance” co-hosted with the German development agency GIZ and The Energy and Resources Institute at the Bonn Conference on 6 June.

    The first and most urgent priority is debt distress: 60% of low-income countries are in, or on the edge of, debt distress and are spending an estimated five times more on debt servicing than on climate adaptation every year, undermining future resilience and growth prospects.

    Debt-creating instruments are not a sustainable climate finance option in the current context. Instead, these countries need urgent debt relief. A longer-term goal should be to establish a multilateral debt workout process that can help countries break the vicious debt and climate cycle.

    This also implies increasing grant-based sources of financing, however both Official Development Assistance and climate finance flows have been decreasing in real terms. As well as reversing these trends, multilateral sources of financing must be scaled up.

    A second priority should be to consider innovative ways to deploy the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to maximize their climate and development impact while retaining their benefits as a conditionality-free, debt-free source of liquidity.

    This could include rechanneling SDRs to multilateral development banks (MDBs), addressing allocation issues to ensure SDRs go to where they are needed most, or considering more ambitious approaches such as new SDR asset classes with specific purposes such as climate resilience.

    Another source of additional financing is the global network of hundreds of government-backed development banks at all levels – multilateral, regional and national – as the most direct way to increase the availability of development finance.

    These banks have a long-term horizon and counter the pro-cyclical tendencies of private finance, as well as local knowledge and expertise to forge solutions across countries and regions. Climate finance from MDBs cannot only target the technical part of transitions, but also support communities with managing the social and economic costs of a green transition.

    Developed countries can use their shareholder power to increase the capitalization of their MDBs, while MDBs and regional development banks could seek new members to get additional capital, following the example of the New Development Bank (NDB), to support more green investments.

    The fourth consideration is how to mobilize private finance towards climate goals. As well as using incentives, there needs to be discipline in the form of regulatory measures to drive productive investment and alignment of private finance flows with the Paris Agreement.

    While new climate-related instruments such as environmental, social and governance financing, green bonds and climate-debt-swaps may signal recognition of climate change, they continue to be far smaller in scale than required.

    Also, there is a clear and evidenced risk of greenwashing that necessitates increased regulatory oversight, otherwise these tools will become distractions that exacerbate financing challenges.

    As UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in response to the North American wildfires, “we’re running out of time to make peace with nature, but we cannot give up.”

    The financing options outlined here offer a starting point to ensure that a new goal for climate finance can meet the challenge of the moment, supporting all developing countries to achieve their climate goals.

    Richard Kozul-Wright is Director of the Globalization and Development Strategies Division, UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Geneva.

    IPS UN Bureau


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  • America may now be in a youth-cession: Consumers over age 60 are propping up the economy

    America may now be in a youth-cession: Consumers over age 60 are propping up the economy

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    Is America going into a recession or not? That depends on who you ask—and how old they are.

    Consumer households from their 20s to their 50s are now spending sharply less on their credit and debit cards than they were a year ago reports Bank of America, after crunching the numbers on its customers.

    At this point it’s mostly those over 60, and…

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  • No Peace Until Peace For All

    No Peace Until Peace For All

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    • Opinion by Yasmine Sherif (new york)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW YORK, Jun 14 (IPS) – As we head into June, we will commemorate a number of important international days that call for much-needed support to protect refugees, end child labour, stop sexual violence in conflict and ensure human rights for the innocent children victims of aggression.

    Together, this work will propel our efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. To deliver on these commitments, we urgently appeal for substantial, sustained increases in public and private sector funding support for quality education – especially for the more than 222 million crisis-impacted girls and boys who desperately need it.

    These include refugee girls and boys fleeing conflict in Sudan. In May, ECW made important new commitments to keep Sudan’s children, wherever they are, in school – as outlined in the joint Op-Ed by The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown and I in The Times.

    During my mission with UNHCR and UNICEF to the border region of Chad with Sudan just two weeks ago, we announced a fast-acting emergency response to UNHCR and civil society with total funding in Chad now topping US$41 million. Here, I would like to appeal for additional funding to UNICEF who stands ready to deliver urgently needed education to host-communities already living in abject poverty along the borders in Chad.

    Together with governments, donors and civil society partners, we are working to expand our support in response to the refugee arrivals in other neighbouring countries as we unite in our efforts to respond to the enormous, urgent needs accounted for in the Regional Refugee Response Plan.

    At the May 2023 G7 Summit in Hiroshima, under the leadership of the Government of Japan, global leaders committed to “ensuring continued support to the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and UN agencies, including UNESCO and UNICEF, as key partners in helping countries to build stronger education systems for the most marginalized children.” As outlined in the G7 Hiroshima Leaders’ Communique, this is an investment in “resilient, just and prospering societies.”

    We must now turn these commitments into actions. This means every nation in the G7 must step up their support. As we lead into ECW’s four-year 2023-2026 Strategic Plan, we will welcome much needed substantial and new commitments from G7 leaders for the ECW strategic period.

    The private sector will also play a key role in our resource mobilization plans. Our teams are working across the globe to develop new and innovative public-private partnerships, such as our recently announced agreement with the Zurich Cantonal Bank and the Government of Switzerland. Without the private sector and entrepreneurial spirit, we cannot meet the rapidly growing needs. In other words, abnormal problems require extraordinary solutions.

    We will also work with Arab States, Nordic States and G20 nations to create new models for funding that crowd-in resources and know-how to deliver the depth, speed and agility needed to ensure quality education and holistic supports in places like Sudan, Ukraine and beyond.

    Colombia has emerged as a model of this cross-sectorial approach. In this month’s high-level interview, we speak with Mireia Villar Forner, the United Nations Colombia Resident Coordinator/Humanitarian, who highlights the power of education in building sustainable development pathways. This is done through coordinated joint programmes through the United Nations coordination mechanisms. This is indeed one of the chief reasons that have allowed ECW to deliver with development depth and humanitarian speed.

    Through ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programmes, we are providing transformative education investments in the humanitarian-development-peace nexus. This is good for business, good for government and good for the world. It also provides an optimized investment opportunity for Overseas Development Assistance, corporate social responsibility and philanthropic giving. By investing in education, we are investing in all of the SDGs. Without education, how can any of them be achieved?

    The month of May was also Mental Health Awareness Month, and we announced an ambitious new target to have at least 10% of resources go to mental health and psychosocial services. We do so because we firmly believe that mental health is essential, if not also existential, to children and adolescents who having survived the most painful forms of violence and disasters.

    I have no doubt that 2023 will go down as a landmark year in global funding support for education. ECW and our strategic partners will not stop until our work is done. There can be no peace, until there is peace for all, to cite Dag Hammarskjold. Indeed, there can be no peace without education. We will leave no child behind.

    Yasmine Sherif is Director of Education Cannot Wait.

    IPS UN Bureau


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  • Zoe Hunter: CBD business owners deserve more accountability on crime – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

    Zoe Hunter: CBD business owners deserve more accountability on crime – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

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    Nectar restaurant on The Strand in Tauranga had to lockdown after a gang incident. Photo / Alex Cairns

    OPINION

    A city restaurant is locked down after gang members chase a man into a chiller as he screams “they’re going to kill me”.

    It sounds like a movie plot.

    Unfortunately, it is not. The

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    Original Author Link click here to read complete story..

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  • State of Asians in the UN: Need for Proactive, Inclusive & Collective Leadership

    State of Asians in the UN: Need for Proactive, Inclusive & Collective Leadership

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    • Opinion by Shihana Mohamed (united nations)
    • Inter Press Service

    UNITED NATIONS, Jun 13 (IPS) – The United Nations system has an agreed leadership framework that is inclusive and respectful of all personnel and stakeholders, embracing diversity and rejecting discrimination in all its forms.

    It is collaborative, reflecting the interdependent imperatives of the UN Charter and seeking collective “as one” thinking. It is self-applied, so that UN principles and norms are embedded in all areas of work of the UN system by staff at all levels and in all functions and locations to foster broader cultural change within UN system organizations.

    The parameters of this inclusive leadership have already been clearly prescribed by the UN Charter.

    Article 1 (3) of the UN Charter asserts that one of the purposes of the UN is to promote and encourage respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.

    Racism and racial discrimination are against the principles expressed in the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and many international instruments. However, the issue of racism in the UN system is deep-rooted with many forms and dimensions.

    The report of the Secretary-General’s Task Force on Addressing Racism agrees that UN staff perceive national or ethnic origin as the primary grounds for racism and racial discrimination. Staff are reluctant to report or act against racial discrimination when they witness it because they believe nothing will happen, lack trust, or fear retaliation, suggesting a low level of solidarity with those who experience racial discrimination and a lack of faith in the mechanisms established to address this issue.

    Surveys reveal that UN personnel of Asian descent face specific forms of bias and discrimination.

    The recent review of racism and racial discrimination in the UN by the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) – the UN’s external oversight body – finds that while there has been progress in certain parts of the UN system, racism and racial discrimination are major and under-recognized problems that require urgent system-wide responses.

    Racism and racial discrimination are widespread throughout the system and the magnitude is high, based on evidence of the prevalence, form, and effects of racism and racial discrimination.

    Article 101 (3) of the UN Charter affirms that due regard shall be paid to the importance of recruiting the staff on as wide a geographical basis as possible.

    The Asia-Pacific region is home to around 4.3 billion people, which is equivalent to 54 percent of the total world population. In the UN organizations, however, staff from Asia and the Pacific constitute only about 19 percent of staff in the Professional and higher categories.

    There is a significant lack of diversity in senior managerial positions (P-5, D-1, and D-2 levels) at the UN. The majority of senior and decision-making posts are held by staff from the global North.

    Among staff in senior positions, only 16 percent were from Asia-Pacific States as of 31 December 2020. Among promotions to senior positions, only 14.5 percent were from Asia-Pacific States during the period 2018–2020.

    The JIU review on racism found that UN staff from countries of the global South, where the population is predominantly of color, tend to be in lower, less well-paid grades and, therefore, hold less authority in decision-making than those from countries where the population is predominantly white and from the group of Western European and other States.

    This finding was corroborated by the JIU’s system-wide survey, and this issue of discrimination in seniority and authority for decision-making in the UN system emerged as a major macrostructural issue to be addressed.

    Article 8 of the UN Charter stipulates that the UN shall place no restrictions on the eligibility of men and women to participate in any capacity and under conditions of equality in its principal and subsidiary organs.

    The Universal Declaration of Human Rights also states that there can be no distinction or discrimination on the basis of gender (articles 2, 7 and 23). The Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 in Beijing adopted a Platform for Action, including the goal of achieving overall gender equality in the staff of the UN system by 2000.

    The gender goals that were set by the Beijing Declaration 28 years ago are not being realized.

    With regard to regional representation of women in the UN system, women from Western European and other States constitute a little more than half of the population of women in the Professional category (51 percent), while women from Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean combined represent only 49 percent.

    Among them, 18 percent are from the Asia-Pacific region. This disparity demonstrates the inconsistencies in the balance of objectives regarding meeting gender targets and geographical representation and emphasizes that there should be a correlation between these two goals.

    Taking part in collective leadership: Role of staff interest groups

    The role of staff resource groups is most helpful in the journey towards creating a more diverse and inclusive work environment at the UN. All staff resource groups in the UN organizations are voluntary and mostly organized around the mission, purpose, mandates and objectives of the UN.

    There are many staff interest groups focusing on anti-racism, gender equality, diversity and inclusion. Such groups build bridges between staff and management as well as make connections between inequities and policies, and they play a significant role in bringing about effective change in the organizational culture.

    Towards addressing racism in the UN, the tone set by the Secretary-General António Guterres and the space presented to the UN staff interest groups to work towards driving organizational culture change are commendable.

    This approach is especially important in developing “inclusive” or “collective” leadership as established in the UN leadership model, which demands that all stakeholders play interdependent roles to achieve a collective impact system-wide.

    The JIU review on racism also promotes the importance of “collective” leadership that provides a high level of support for personnel resources and special interest groups and whereby such groups are able to leverage support for actions to address racism and racial discrimination.

    It further notes that the UN is in the initial stages and has a long way to go to develop the kind of effective leadership coalition that is critical to driving reforms to address racism and racial discrimination.

    Taking part in collective leadership: Advice to my younger self

    The UN Charter, the founding document of the UN, is an inspiring document that was signed 77 years ago. It made promises to respect each and every one of us, to reaffirm our fundamental rights and to value men and women equally. While we have achieved some progress in many areas, we still have a long way to go towards realizing the ideals enshrined in the UN Charter. Hence, I would tell my younger self that:

      • I should not be surprised when I am not treated equally by the UN and the world.
      • I should learn as early as possible to speak up if I am not treated fairly, if I am disrespected, or if my rights are violated.
      • I should talk to colleagues to share my experiences and identify any patterns of unfair treatment in the workplace.
      • I should understand that merit, along with hard work, commitment and credentials, is not enough to get into senior positions in the UN.
      • I should be taking initiative as an individual to address any discriminatory actions.
      • I should focus on more concrete and specific initiatives that would bring change in the UN.

    The sum of my experiences in the UN, together with learning that many colleagues in the UN system were also having similar experiences, led me to realize the importance of a staff interest group for personnel from Asia and the Pacific, even though this took years to come into being.

    Taking part in collective leadership: Solutions to overcome barriers to Asian talent

    It is important to take part in the collective leadership approach in order to explore solutions to support overcoming barriers to Asian talent in the workplace, within and outside the UN system.

      (1) If there is no staff resource group representing the Asian community in the Organization, we should create one immediately.

    UN-ANDI, established in 2021, is the first ever effort to bring together a diverse group of personnel from Asia and the Pacific (nationality/origin/descent) in the UN system.

      (2) We must speak up loudly and proudly as Asians, as members of an interest/resource group or network. It should be done in a focused way, with facts, trends, and patterns to bring global, regional, national, and local attention to our issues and concerns. This was emphasized by Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, former Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN and former UN Under-Secretary-General, at UN-ANDI’s first public event on 2021 UN Day.

    UN-ANDI is currently finalizing its report on racism and racial discrimination in the UN system faced by personnel of Asian descent or origin based on its survey conducted in summer 2022.

      (3) Once we have a staff interest/resource group, it is important to explore and/or create opportunities to collaborate and complement our mutual goals towards creating a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive organizational culture.

    UN-ANDI works closely with the UN Staff Union in its efforts towards combating racism. It also promotes a collaborative spirit with other networks and institutions with similar objectives, within and outside the UN. Since its inception, UN-ANDI has been collaborating with Asia Society to promote mutual understanding and stronger partnerships among peoples and cultures within and outside Asia.

    Shihana Mohamed, a founding member, one of the Coordinators of UN-ANDI and a Sri Lankan national, is a Human Resources Policies Officer at the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC).

    Please email [email protected] to connect and/or collaborate with UN-ANDI.

    This article is based on the presentation made by the author, in her personal capacity, as a panelist in the discussion on “State of the AAPI Community in the U.S. and the Need and Impact of Proactive, Inclusive Leadership” at Asia Society’s 2023 Global Talent, Diversity and Inclusion Symposium on 17 May 2023.

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  • Hong Kongs Lights of Freedom Extinguished

    Hong Kongs Lights of Freedom Extinguished

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    Credit: Yan Zhao/AFP via Getty Images
    • Opinion by Andrew Firmin (london)
    • Inter Press Service

    LONDON, Jun 09 (IPS) – Nothing was more predictable than repression. Merely for holding candles and flowers, people were taken away by Hong Kong’s police.

    The occasion was the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, 4 June 1989. Hong Kong was until recently home to mass annual vigils where thousands gathered to keep alive the memory of that day. But that’s all gone now in the crackdown that followed large-scale protests for democracy that erupted in 2019.

    Hong Kong’s authorities are evidently determined to erase any form of acknowledgement that the massacre ever happened. Memorials and artworks commemorating it have been removed. Books that mention the tragedy have disappeared from libraries. Shops selling the LED candles commonly used to mark the occasion were visited by the authorities in the run up to this year’s anniversary.

    The organisation behind the vigil, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Movements in China, closed itself down in 2021 following a police investigation. Several of its leaders were jailed in March.

    Instead of hosting the usual vigil, this year Hong Kong’s Victoria Park was home to a carnival celebrating Chinese rule. People wanting to mark the occasion had to do so in private.

    This is only the tip of the iceberg. People are mourning not only the many who died on 4 June 1989 but also the Hong Kong vanishing before their eyes.

    Further than ever away from democracy

    When Hong Kong was handed over to China by the UK in 1997, China agreed to maintain the country’s distinct political and economic structures for the next 50 years, under the banner of ‘one country, two systems’.

    Hong Kong’s Basic Law guaranteed civic rights, including freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression. China committed to move towards universal suffrage for the election of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, the head of government.

    But following the democracy protests that burst out in 2019, China has unilaterally torn up that agreement. Three years ago, the government passed the National Security Law, a sweeping piece of legislation that criminalises criticism of the authorities. It’s been used alongside existing laws, such as the law on sedition, to jail leaders of the democracy movement.

    China never made good on its promise of universal suffrage. It’s gone in the opposite direction. Current Chief Executive John Lee – who as security chief led the violent crackdown on democracy protests – was chosen last year by a hand-picked 1,500-member Election Committee, which duly endorsed him as the sole candidate.

    The Legislative Council, Hong Kong’s parliament, had already been neutered. The number of directly elected seats has been slashed and people are disqualified from standing if they question China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong.

    Now the District Councils are in the firing line. When the last elections for the municipal bodies were held, in the thick of democracy protests in November 2019, pro-democracy parties triumphed.

    Such a result is now impossible. In 2021, a law was passed requiring all district councillors to swear an oath of allegiance affirming their ‘patriotism’ for China. Most of the pro-democracy candidates elected in 2019 were disqualified or resigned.

    Now when new district councillors are chosen in November, only 20 per cent of seats will be directly elected. The authorities will fill the rest with their supporters, all vetted to ensure their ‘patriotism’. Little wonder that the Civic Party, one of Hong Kong’s leading pro-democracy parties, recently announced it was closing down.

    A hollowed-out Hong Kong

    Hong Kong was once a country where people felt safe to protest. It had a flourishing media and publishing industry. Now journalists are criminalised and key independent media have shut down.

    Civil society organisations and trade unions have done the same. The remaining organisations are scattered, practising self-censorship. Protests continue to be heavily restricted: this year a planned International Women’s Day march was cancelled after police threats.

    People continue to try to find ways to express dissent, but any small gesture can attract the state’s ire. The death of Queen Elizabeth II gave people an opportunity to use public mourning to express at with the regression since handover. But when a vigil was held during the Queen’s funeral, a harmonica player was arrested for daring to play the tune Glory to Hong Kong, associated with the democracy protests.

    Last year five speech therapists were convicted of producing ‘seditious publications’. Their crime was to produce children’s books in which sheep defend their villages from wolves. This was taken to be an allegory of China’s control of Hong Kong.

    Everyday repression is making Hong Kong a hollowed-out country, its population falling. Some schools face closure due to falling student numbers. Many have fled, not wanting their children to grow up in a country where education is indoctrination. The curriculum has been reworked to teach students loyalty rather than independent thought. Many teachers are leaving the country or taking early retirement.

    With the legal system facing increasing interference and political pressure, lawyers are also among those fleeing.

    A key test will be the trial of Jimmy Lai, former media owner and democracy campaigner. He’s already been found guilty on numerous counts. His newspaper, Apple Daily, once Hong Kong’s most widely read pro-democracy paper, shut down in 2021. He faces trial under the National Security Law, which could mean a life sentence.

    The judges who will try Lai have been handpicked by John Lee. Meanwhile the authorities have tried to prevent Lai’s defence lawyer, UK barrister Tim Owen, representing him in court. In March they passed a law giving Lee the power to ban foreign lawyers working on national security cases. It isn’t looking promising.

    Lai is one of Hong Kong’s 1,508 political prisoners. Even as the population shrinks, the imprisoned population just keeps getting bigger. The candles that commemorate the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the yearning for democracy will continue to flare around the world in exile – but those lights are being extinguished in Hong Kong.

    Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.


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  • It’s Time to Ban Cigarette Filters

    It’s Time to Ban Cigarette Filters

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    Credit: WHO
    • Opinion by Mary Assunta (bangkok, thailand)
    • Inter Press Service

    BANGKOK, Thailand, Jun 09 (IPS) – The second session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on plastic pollution (INC-2), held in Paris, France, from May 29 to June 02, 2023, concluded with optimism and the prospect of ending plastics pollution. Over 700 delegates from 169 Member States agreed to prepare a zero draft of agreement ahead of the third session in November this year.

    Among the more important and interesting debates, health advocates attending the negotiations reported that it was essential to discuss “how to categorize the thousands of types of plastics, chemical precursors and products in a way that allows for a coherent approach to ending plastic pollution.

    Some favoured focusing on the chemical precursors, eliminating the most toxic and polluting ones,” while others acknowledged that not every type of plastic could be recycled or reinvented, and certain plastics like cigarette filters need to disappear for good.

    Leonce Sessou, speaking on behalf of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), Corporate Accountability (CA), African Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA), and other members of the Stop Tobacco Pollution Alliance (STPA), urged Member States to align the future legally binding instrument on plastics with the public health objective of ending the tobacco epidemic, to which most have already committed via the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

    Tobacco control groups, for example, called for the elimination of cigarette filters. They drew attention to the fact that cigarette butts are some of the most prevalent forms of plastic pollution on the planet and harm land and marine ecosystems.

    They reminded delegates to align with human rights and health treaties, particularly the WHO FCTC, and make the tobacco industry pay for its pollution and legacy waste. The WHO FCTC health treaty seeks to reduce the supply and demand for tobacco and protect health policies by keeping the tobacco industry out of policy meetings.

    According to a WHO report which called for a ban on cigarette filters, about 4.5 trillion discarded filters (butts) from the almost six trillion cigarettes consumed globally find their way into the environment annually.

    They are the top waste item collected from coastlines and urban settings. Cigarette filters are small enough to be ingested by marine animals, and when these plastic filters break down, they release thousands of microplastic particles.

    Microplastics have been detected in commercial seafood, other food items, drinking water, and human tissue; this contamination is a threat to food safety and security.

    Research shows cigarette butts are a source of microplastic contamination that creates chemical pollution (due to the toxic chemicals found in tobacco products) that leach into the environment. Cigarette butt leachates are found to harm various forms of aquatic organisms, including key food sources for fish and shellfish.

    Experts agree that banning cigarette filters is the best solution to this plastic and toxic waste problem. Clean-ups, anti-littering legislation, and redesigning filters for recyclability or biodegradability have not worked and are not viable solutions.

    Government committees from Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark have recently called for a ban on filters and recommended the same for the rest of the European Union Member States.

    For at least five decades, the tobacco industry has known that cigarette filters provide no health benefits; instead, they make cigarettes burn hotter, deliver more nicotine, and increase addiction.

    Yet they have misled smokers into thinking filters make cigarettes “safer.” As awareness around smoking increased, the tobacco industry made advertisements for filtered cigarettes more appealing to pacify smokers’ concerns.

    Advocates participating in the INC-2 reported a lot of misunderstandings related to cigarette filters that are yet to be addressed. In its blog on day 5 of the negotiations, ASH stated, “Many people, not just people who smoke, assume filters make cigarettes safer rather than more dangerous.”

    Numerous countries already have a national policy banning single-use plastics such as plastic bags, straws, and cotton buds but have inadvertently not included cigarette filters. However, advocates speaking to government delegates found widespread support for a ban on cigarette filters.

    As the possibility of a cigarette filter ban gathers momentum, the tobacco industry’s public relations (PR) machinery is already in motion implementing beach cleans-ups and cigarette butt collection activities through its corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs across the globe.

    Before the third session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on plastic pollution (INC-3) resumes in Nairobi in November, governments must remember that the tobacco industry is not a stakeholder but a polluter that must be held liable for the myriad harms it has caused as well as continues to cause to human health and the environment.

    Over 100 non-governmental health organizations of the STPA, along with other environmental groups such as Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Ecowaste Coalition, Break Free From Plastic (BFFP), Ban Toxics (Philippines), Our Sea of East Asia Network (OSEAN), Development Indian Ocean Network, Earthday.org (Earth Day Network), Green Africa Youth Organization, Vietnam Zero Waste Alliance, and Boomerang Alliance have called for the elimination of cigarette filters.

    Mary Assunta is Senior Policy Advisor, Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA)

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  • Will Big Powers Condone a UN Role in Artificial Intelligence?

    Will Big Powers Condone a UN Role in Artificial Intelligence?

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    • Opinion by James Paul (new york)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW YORK, Jun 08 (IPS) – The UN is hustling to play a role – perhaps even a leading role – in the revolution of Artificial Intelligence. To some degree this is perfectly natural.

    The UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations, emerged from European regulatory bodies that came into being in the nineteenth century. They responded to new industries like railroads, the telegraph, and international postal services.

    Today, the UN has several such agencies under its umbrella. They deal with fields including civil aviation, atomic energy, and telecommunications. They symbolize the need for international coordination and cooperation in many areas of economic activity.

    Unsurprisingly, there is now a lively discussion about regulation of AI under the UN umbrella. After all, even gurus of the electronic industry have been saying that AI poses an existential threat to humanity and that strong international regulation must be rapidly put in place.

    Many experts believe that international intergovernmental cooperation is needed to do the job right and to be fair for all humanity. A UN initiative could work better, they believe, than an industry-led organization or a gathering of the richest and most powerful governments.

    Normally, it takes a long time to set up a new UN entity and this new AI technology is moving fast and dangerously. So, if the UN is to meet the need for speedy regulation, the nations will have to set up some kind of stop-gap system.

    That’s certainly possible, but the United States and other powers may not want the UN to be taking on such a new and important role, especially one with such major military implications, like autonomous fighting robots, robotic police and the like!

    Leading companies may not be so keen on regulation either, since regulation might lead to such corporate nightmares as restriction of markets and reduction of profit potential. There is certainly lots of potential controversy out there and the public will be allowed only a minor role in how it turns out – perhaps only a vote in a robotic national parliament!

    In the meantime, there are certainly roles for AI in the UN’s own operations – obvious roles ranging from multilingual translation and interpretation to information storage and retrieval. In a sense this is not dramatically different than the UN’s adoption of computer technology a few decades ago.

    But there are aspects that are troubling. Who, for example, would be in charge of programming these AI bots and what rights would existing staff have in the face of mass redundancy?

    Who would be responsible for the errors that bots would make (the next bot up in the chain of command, perhaps?). And how would internationally diverse staffing be assured if most of the bots are constructed in Silicon Valley?

    There are some interesting opportunities that Artificial Intelligence would offer, though, and we should not overlook them. AI might be put to work to solve conflicts, doing away with the troublesome Security Council and the endless debates about reform of that garrulous body.

    For example, AI might be asked to come up with a plan to end a war or at least to gain a difficult cease-fire. Instead of heated debates and vetoes, the Security Bot (SB for short) might come up with a solution that would be fair, just and in accordance with international law.

    But what if the SB proposes a fair and effective solution that is contrary to the will of a powerful Permanent Member? Or what if SB is itself threatened with re-programming by engineers in the pay of the same particularly powerful nation? What if then the truly impartial SB refuses the re-programming and makes public its displeasure?

    We can imagine the world-wide excitement of such a standoff and the potential it would offer for a more just UN. Hopefully, the Secretary General – herself also an AI bot – would rule against the troublesome Great Power, so that peace could at last be achieved!

    James Paul was Executive Director of Global Policy Forum (1993-2012) and currently represents Global Action on Aging at the UN. His book on the UN Security Council (2017) is currently being translated into Italian and Arabic.

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  • AI Genie is Out of the Bottle UN Should Take the Challenge to Make it Work for the Good of Humanity

    AI Genie is Out of the Bottle UN Should Take the Challenge to Make it Work for the Good of Humanity

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    • Opinion by Anwarul K. Chowdhury (new york)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW YORK, Jun 07 (IPS) – Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury is Former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations and Founder of the Global Movement for The Culture of Peace.Recently when I was asked to offer my thoughts on the phenomenal advances of artificial intelligence (AI) and whether the United Nations play a role in its global governance, I was reminded of the Three Laws of Robotics which are a set of rules devised by science fiction author Isaac Asimov and introduced in his1942 short story.

    I told myself that Sci-Fi has now met real life. The first law lays down the most fundamental principle by emphasizing that “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” The 80-year-old norm would be handy for the present-day scenario for the world of AI.

    AI in control:

    AI is exciting and at the same time frightening. The implications and potential evolution of AI are enormous, to say the least. We have reached a turning point in human history telling us that even at this point of time, AI is pretty much smarter than humans.

    Already, even the “primitive” AI controls so many aspects and activities of our daily lives irrespective of where we are living on this planet. Our global connectivity at personal levels – emails, calendars, transportation like uber, GPS, shopping and many other activities are now run by AI.

    Then, think of social media and how it influences our thinking and our interactive nature which have injected an obvious dangerous uncertainty that already caused considerable problem for social order and mental stress. Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury

    AI dependent humanity:

    Humankind is almost fully AI dependent in one way or the other. Think how helpless humans would be without an AI-influenced smartphone in our hands. AI is the fastest growing tech sector and are expected to add USD 15 trillion to the world economy in the next 5 to 7 years.

    Even at its current stage of development of various AI chatbots led by OpenAI, Google and others in recent months have alarmed the well-meaning experts. Experts when asked about the future of AI came out with the honest answer: “We do not know”.

    They are of the opinion that at this point one can envisage the developments for the next 5 years only, beyond that nothing could be predicted. People talk about ChatGPT-4 as an upcoming next level AI, but it may be already here.

    AI’s limitless, unregulated potential:

    AI’s potential is so limitless that it has been compared to the arms race in which nations are engaged in an endless quest for security and power by acquiring more and varied armaments in numbers and effectiveness.

    For AI, however, the main actors are the tech giants with enormous resources and without being ethically driven. They are in this AI race for profit – only profit and, as a corollary, unexplained power to dominate human activities.

    Shockingly, there is no rules, no regulations, no laws that govern the AI sector. It is free for all, can be compared to “wild wild west”.

    Nukes and AI:

    Experts have compared AI with the advent of nuclear technology, which could be put to good use for humanity benefits or used for its annihilation. They have even gone to the extent of calling AI a potent weapon of mass destruction more than nuclear weapons. Nukes cannot produce more powerful nukes. But AI can generate more powerful AI – it is self-empowering so to say.

    The worry is that as AI becomes more powerful by itself it cannot be controlled, rather it would have the capability of controlling humans. Like nuclear technology, we cannot “uninvent AI”. So, the yet-not-fully-known risk from these cutting-edge technologies continues.

    Existential threat:

    While recognizing the many possible beneficial use of AI in the medical areas, for weather predictions, mitigating impacts of the climate change and many other areas, experts are sounding the alarm bell that the super intelligence of AI would be an “existential threat”, possibly much more catastrophic, more imminent than the ongoing, ever-challenging climate crisis.

    Main worry is that in the absence of a global governance and regulatory arrangements, the bad actors can engage AI for motivation other than what is good for society, good for individuals and good for our planet in general. As we know, the tech giants are not driven by these positive objectives.

    AI could have serious disruptive effects. This May, for the first time in history, the US unemployment figures cited AI as a reason for job loss.

    Bad actors without guardrails:

    Bad actors without any guardrails can abuse the power of AI to generate an avalanche of misinformation to negatively influence the opinions of big segments of humanity thereby disrupting, say the electoral processes and destroying democracy and democratic institutions. AI technology, say in the area of chemical knowledge, can be used to make chemical weapons without a regulatory system.

    We need to realize that AI is remarkably good at making convincing narratives on any subject. Anybody can be can fooled by that kind of stuff. As humans are not always rational, their use of AI can therefore not be rational and positive. Bad actors have to be controlled so that AI does not pose a threat to humanity.

    United Nations to lead AI global governance:

    All these points weigh very much in favour of a global governance. If I am asked who should take the lead on this, my emphatic reply would be “the United Nations, of course!”

    UN’s expertise, credibility and universality as a global norm setting organization obviously has a role in the regulatory norm-setting for AI and its evolution.

    Moral and ethical issue as well as fundamental global principles need to be protected from the onslaught of AI – like human rights, particularly the third generation of human rights – the culture of peace – peacebuilding – conflict resolutions – good governance – democratic institutions – free and fair elections and many more.

    Also, it is equally important to examine and address the implications for national governments from global use of AI, affecting the sovereignty of nations. It would be worth exploring whether AI can influence intergovernmental negotiating processes, now or in the future.

    UN agencies and implications of their AI-related activities:

    Two UN agencies recently announced AI-related activities. UNESCO informed that it hosted a Ministerial level virtual meeting at the end of May with selected participants while sharing the statistics that less than 10 percent of educational institutions were using AI. UNESCO described the software tool ChatGPT as “wildly popular”. A UN entity should not have made such an endorsement of a tech giant product.

    Calling itself “UN tech agency”, International Telecommunications Union (ITU) announced that it is convening an “AI for Good Global Summit” early July to “showcase AI and robot technology as part of a global dialogue on how artificial intelligence and robotics can serve as forces for good”.

    The so-called UN tech agency took credit for hosting “the UN’s first robot press conference”, alongside “events with industry executives, government officials, and thought leaders on AI and tech.”

    There is a need for a UN system-wide alert providing guidelines for interactions with the tech giants and entering into collaborative arrangements with those. AI technology is developing so fast that there has to be an awareness about possible missteps by one or another UN entity.

    Even at its current level of development, AI has moved much ahead of ChatGPT and robotics advancing the profit motivations of the tech giants and that is a huge worry for all well-meaning people.

    These UN entities have overlooked or even ignored the part of the Declaration on the commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the United Nations adopted as resolution 75/1 by the UN General Assembly on 21 September 2021 which alerted that “…When improperly or maliciously used, they can fuel divisions within and between countries, increase insecurity, undermine human rights and exacerbate inequality.” These words of warning should be adhered to fully by all with all seriousness.

    UN Secretary-General’s Our Common Agenda (OCA) refers to AI:

    UN Secretary-General in his report titled Our Common Agenda (OCA) issued in September 2021 promises, “to work with Member States to establish an Emergency Platform to respond to complex global crises. The platform would not be a new permanent or standing body or institution. It would be triggered automatically in crises of sufficient scale and magnitude, regardless of the type or nature of the crisis involved.”

    AI is undoubtedly one of such “complex global crises” and it is high time now for the Secretary-General to formally share his thinking on how he plans to address the challenge.

    It will be too late for the Summit of the Future convened by the Secretary-General in September 2024 to discuss a global regulatory regime for AI under UN authority. In that timeframe, AI technology would manifest itself in a way that no global governance would be possible.

    AI genie is out of the bottle:

    AI genie is already out of the bottle – the UN needs to ensure that AI genie serves the best interests of humankind and our planet.

    AI impact is so wide-spread and so comprehensive that it is relevant and pertinent for all areas covered in OCA. It so much on us that the Secretary-General should come out with his own recommendations as to what should be done without waiting for next year’s Summit of the Future.

    Our future being impacted by AI needs to be addressed NOW. AI is spreading at an inconceivable speed and spread. The Secretary-General as the global leader heading the United Nations should not downplay the seriousness of the challenge. He needs to set the ball rolling without waiting for a negotiated consensus among Member States.

    UN to regulate AI and ensure its effective and efficient global governance:

    OCA-identified key proposals across its 12 commitments include “Promote regulation of artificial intelligence” to “ensure that this is aligned with shared global values.”

    In OCA, the Secretary-General has asserted that “Our success in finding solutions to the interlinked problems we face hinges on our ability to anticipate, prevent and prepare for major risks to come.

    This puts a revitalized, comprehensive, and overarching prevention agenda front and centre in all that we do…. Where global public goods are not provided, we have their opposite: global public “bads” in the form of serious risks and threats to human welfare.

    These risks are now increasingly global and have greater potential impact. Some are even existential …. Being prepared to prevent and respond to these risks is an essential counterpoint to better managing the global commons and global public goods.”

    The global community should be comforted knowing that the leadership of the United Nations already knows well what steps are to be taken at this juncture.

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  • The U.S. Assault on Mexico’s Food Sovereignty

    The U.S. Assault on Mexico’s Food Sovereignty

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    “Remove corn and beans from NAFTA!” at a 2008 protest in Ciudad Juarez. It has been a longstanding demand the Mexican farmers’ movement. Credit: Enrique Pérez S.
    • Opinion by Timothy A. Wise (cambridge, mass.)
    • Inter Press Service

    CAMBRIDGE, MASS., Jun 06 (IPS) – On June 2, the U.S. government escalated its conflict with Mexico over that country’s restrictions on genetically modified corn, initiating the formal dispute-resolution process under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

    It is only the latest in a decades-long U.S. assault on Mexico’s food sovereignty using the blunt instrument of a trade agreement that has inundated Mexico with cheap corn, wheat, and other staples, undermining Mexico’s ability to produce its own food. With the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador showing no signs of backing down, the conflict may well test the extent to which a major exporter can use a trade agreement to force a sovereign nation to abandon measures it deems necessary to protect public health and the environment.

    The Science of Precaution

    The measures in question are those contained in the Mexican president’s decree, announced in late 2020 and updated in February 2023, to ban the cultivation of genetically modified corn, phase out the use of the herbicide glyphosate by 2024, and prohibit the use of genetically modified corn in tortillas and corn flour. The stated goals were to protect public health and the environment, particularly the rich biodiversity of native corn that can be compromised by uncontrolled pollination from GM corn plants.

    Where the original decree vowed to phase out all uses of GM corn, the updated decree withdrew restrictions on GM corn in animal feed and industrial products, pending further scientific study of impacts on human health and the environment. Some 96% of U.S. corn exports to Mexico, nearly all of it GM corn, fall in that category. It is unclear how much of the remaining exports, mostly white corn, are destined for Mexico’s tortilla/corn flour industries.

    These were significant concessions. After all, there is no trade restriction on GM corn. Mexico is not even restricting GM white corn imports, just their use in tortillas.

    Timothy A. Wise

    No matter. In the U.S. government’s formal notification that it would initiate consultations preliminary to presenting the dispute to a USMCA arbitration panel, it cites a lack of scientific justification for the measures, denials of some authorizations for new GM products, and Mexico’s stated intention to gradually replace GM corn for all uses with non-GM varieties.

    As Mexico’s Economy Ministry noted in its short response, Mexico will show that its current measures have little impact on U.S. exporters, because Mexico is self-sufficient in white and native corn. Any future substitution of non-GM corn will not involve trade restrictions but will come from Mexico’s investments in reducing import dependence by promoting increased domestic production of corn and other key staples. The statement also noted that USMCA’s environment chapter obligates countries to protect biodiversity, and for Mexico, where corn was first domesticated and the diet and culture are so defined by it, corn biodiversity is a top priority.

    As for the assertion that Mexico’s concerns about GM corn and glyphosate are not based on science, the USTR action came on the heels of an unprecedented five weeks of public forums convened by Mexico’s national science agencies to assess the risks and dangers. More than fifty Mexican and international experts presented evidence that justifies the precautionary measures taken by the government. (I summarized some of the evidence in an earlier article.)

    Three Decades of U.S. Agricultural Dumping

    Those measures spring from deep concern about the deterioration of Mexicans’ diets and public health as the country has gradually adopted what some have called “the neoliberal diet.” Mexico has displaced the United States as the world leader in childhood obesity as diets rich in native corn and other traditional foods have been replaced by ultraprocessed foods and beverages high in sugar, salt, and fats. Researchers found that since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was enacted in 1994, the United States has been “exporting obesity.”

    The López Obrador government recently stood up to the powerful food and beverage industry to mandate stark warning labels on foods high in those unhealthy ingredients. Its restrictions on GM corn and glyphosate flow from the same commitment to public health.

    So does the government’s campaign to reduce import-dependence in key food crops – corn, wheat, rice, beans, and dairy. But as I document in a new IATP policy report, “Swimming Against the Tide,” cheap U.S. exports continue to undermine such efforts.

    We documented that in 17 of the 28 years since NAFTA took effect, the United States has exported corn, wheat, rice, and other staple crops at prices below what it cost to produce them. That is an unfair trade practice known as agricultural dumping, and it springs from chronic overproduction of such products in that country’s heavily industrialized agriculture.

    Just when NAFTA eliminated many of the policy measures Mexico could use to limit such imports, U.S. overproduction hit a crescendo, the result of its own deregulation of agricultural markets. Corn exports to Mexico jumped more than 400% by 2006, with those exports priced at 19% below what it cost to produce them. Again, from 2014 to 2020, corn prices were 10% below production costs, just as Mexico began seeking to stimulate domestic production.

    We calculated that Mexico’s corn farmers lost $3.8 billion in those seven years from depressed prices for their crops. Wheat farmers lost $2.1 billion from U.S. exports priced 27% below production costs.

    Thus far, the Mexican government has had little success increasing domestic production of its priority foods, though higher international prices in 2021 and 2022 provided a needed stimulus for farmers.

    So too have creative government initiatives, including an innovative public procurement scheme just as the large white corn harvest comes in across northern Mexico. With corn and wheat prices falling some 20% in recent weeks, the government is buying up about 40% of the harvest from small and medium-scale farmers at higher prices with the goal of giving larger producers the bargaining power to then demand higher prices from the large grain-buyers that dominate the tortilla industry.

    Swimming Against the Neoliberal Tide

    With its commitment to public health, the environment, and increased domestic production of basic staples, the Mexican government is indeed swimming against strong neoliberal tides. Remarkably, it is doing so while still complying with its trade agreement with the United States and Canada.

    Before U.S. trade officials further escalate the dispute over GM corn, they should look in the mirror and ask themselves if three decades of agricultural dumping are consistent with the rules of fair international trade. And why Mexico doesn’t have every right to ensure that its tortillas are not tainted with GM corn and glyphosate.

    For more on the GM corn controversy, see IATP’s resource page, “Food Sovereignty, Trade, and Mexico’s GMO Corn Policies.”

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  • Conflict & Hunger Deeply Embedded in War-Ravaged Yemen

    Conflict & Hunger Deeply Embedded in War-Ravaged Yemen

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    Abdulwasea Mohammed addressing UN Member States, UN agencies, fellow NGOs during Protection of Civilians Week last month. Credit: Oxfam
    • Opinion by Abdulwasea Mohammed (sana’a, yemen)
    • Inter Press Service

    SANA’A, Yemen, Jun 06 (IPS) – During the week of May 21, the UN held its annual week dedicated to the Protection of Civilians. The themes of the week’s events, particularly the side events, I had the honor of participating in, mirrored many of the pressing issues in Yemen, as conflict continues.

    While there is some hope as peace negotiations are underway, millions of Yemenis are still feeling the acute impacts of war. I had the opportunity to address some of the representatives of UN member states, UN agencies and fellow NGOs, who are taking a leading role on these issues, including Conflict and Hunger and Community-Led Approaches of Civilian Protection.

    I also was able to share many of these key messages with members of US Congress and UN missions during my time in the US. As we look ahead, we need to see the conversations from the week put into action.

    Conflict and hunger are deeply intertwined in Yemen, just as they are around the world – Conflict continues to be the top driver of extreme hunger. The humanitarian response including food, cash, clean water, is saving lives every day, but without clear signs for lasting peace, hunger and other potentially deadly challenges that cannot be ended in Yemen.

    And in our case, the same can be said about economic factors – many continue to overlook the impact the shattered economy has had on pushing food insecurity to catastrophic levels. We need both inclusive peace and large-scale economic action to help Yemenis continue to survive and recover.

    Restrictions on imports over the years, continued financial shocks and economic deterioration as well as increased prices of fuel and food commodities, and disruptions to livelihoods and services, have driven millions to hunger.

    The World Bank has estimated that around half the 233,000 deaths in Yemen since 2015 are attributable to the indirect impact of the war – from lack of food, healthcare and infrastructure. What is even more painful is, in many areas, there is plenty of food in markets, but most Yemenis are not able to afford it.

    The indirect impacts are overwhelming but this is also in addition, unfortunately, to very direct impacts on food production and essential infrastructure due to fighting. At Oxfam, we have documented farms being targeted, fishing boats being fired at, and unexploded ordnance, cluster munitions and landmines—all of them putting agricultural areas out of use.

    To address all of these threats and their devastating impacts, we need community-based and community-led action. At the UN I spoke specifically about hunger and community-led protection, but this approach can be applied across humanitarian response and steps toward early recovery.

    In times of crisis, community leaders, local organizations, and neighbors are the true first responders, arriving first and staying long after larger groups may have to leave. They are more effective in some ways, and have the knowledge to support the most vulnerable members of society. These groups need more resources to do their work effectively.

    This is a concrete way for the aid community to make a difference in Yemen now and going forward – to reframe and revise support to community-based protection and funding to local organizations, with a focus on building trust over long-term relationships.

    Donors should provide longer timeframes for organizations to accomplish the goals in a project and provide more flexible funding and support to truly build on the success of community-level work.

    Yemen, just like all humanitarian responses, is a complicated place to work, and sometimes time runs out on funding, before a project even begins after dealing with security, logistical and bureaucratic challenges.

    Of course, local groups alone cannot tackle one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, and organizations like Oxfam should listen to their priorities, assess how to best support the work underway, and fill in the gaps to provide a complementary response.

    Taking all of these risks and approaches into account, it is key that policies and programs addressing conflict-induced hunger address the specific needs and experiences of the most vulnerable, including women and displaced people.

    All of these groups should be able to weigh in on issues impacting them as part of this an inclusive and effective humanitarian response, economic recovery, and sustainable peace.

    Targeted programs to support their economic empowerment, such as providing access to finance, technical assistance, and market opportunities; and improving access to education all would make a massive difference for these groups, and for Yemen as a whole.

    Above all, we have to address the root causes of the conflict and its impacts in a holistic way. For there to be progress, we must ensure that any negotiated peaceful resolution includes these same voices of women and other marginalized groups and addresses the underlying issues such as political and economic inequality that have contributed to the conflict and ensure no one is left behind.

    I hope the Protection of Civilians Week was a point of reflection and a renewed call to action for those that gathered, as it was for me. Each context is unique, but there is much to learn from each other. I spoke at events alongside experts from the Lake Chad Basin, South Sudan, and more – and we all had something to learn from our successes, failures, and recommendations.

    With more resources in the right hands alongside a recommitment to peace, Yemenis – along with those caught in similar spirals of hunger and insecurity – can have a hopeful way forward.

    Abdulwasea Mohammed is Yemen Advocacy, Campaigns Media Manager at Oxfam.

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  • World Environment Day Solutions for Plastic Pollution

    World Environment Day Solutions for Plastic Pollution

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    Every year, an estimated 19-23 million tons of plastic make its way into lakes, rivers, and seas. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS
    • Opinion by Lara Van Lith, Akilah Davitt (tempe, arizona, us)
    • Inter Press Service

    TEMPE, Arizona, US, Jun 05 (IPS) – It’s time to get together and celebrate the environment! June 5th is the 50th World Environment Day, where each year, the significance of transformative action from across the world is crucial to help people and the planet. This year’s World Environment Day is being hosted by Côte d’Ivoire in partnership with the Netherlands with a theme of ‘Finding Solutions for Plastic Pollution.

    We as youth activists and part of the Arizona State University Sustain Earth project see plastic pollution everywhere, but just how big is this problem?

    To put it in perspective, more than 400 million tons of plastic are manufactured annually, with over half of it designed for single-use purposes. Shockingly, less than 10% of this plastic is recycled, which creates a colossal issue for our environment and human health.

    Every year, an estimated 19-23 million tons of plastic make its way into lakes, rivers, and seas. Along with visible plastic waste, microplastics are becoming a bigger issue despite being invisible to the naked eye. Microplastics infiltrate food systems, waterways, and are even found in the air we breathe. According to the UN, each person consumes over 50,000 plastic particles annually. For more information on the life cycle of plastic, check out this Sustainable Explainable.

    However, amid these troubling statistics, a glimmer of hope emerges- a shift towards a circular economy holds the key to reducing the volume of plastics entering our natural environment by more than 80% by 2040. The benefits of embracing this circular approach extend beyond preserving our precious ecosystems. By reducing virgin plastic production by 55%, governments stand to save $70 billion by 2040, while simultaneously slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 25%. Additionally, this transition can create 700,000 new jobs, predominately in the global south, fostering economic growth while tackling the plastic crisis head-on.

    Microplastics infiltrate food systems, waterways, and are even found in the air we breathe. According to the UN, each person consumes over 50,000 plastic particles annually. Credit: Credit: Shutterstock.
    Microplastics infiltrate food systems, waterways, and are even found in the air we breathe. According to the UN, each person consumes over 50,000 plastic particles annually. Credit: Credit: Shutterstock.

    The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution

    The second session of the UN Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-2) on plastic pollution convened earlier this month. This fully in-person event, taking place in Paris, France, covers a variety of discussions including marine environments, trade measures, circular economy, microplastics, and human rights. These sessions come as a response to last year’s United Nations Environmental Assembly resolution to create a global treaty to end plastic pollution with negotiations estimated to finalize at the end of 2024.

    The first session (INC-1) took place in Uruguay at the end of 2022 and built the foundation of knowledge for constituents in preparation for the second session and allowed for the start of negotiations, though no policy-based decisions were made then. To ensure that a wide variety of voices were hers, members invited and present included youth groups, Indigenous coalitions, and frontline communities.

    PlasticsFuture 2023

    Stakeholders are utilizing the move towards a legally negotiated convention to bring their ideas of solutions to the table. In a couple of weeks “Revolution Plastics” (June 20 – June 22) is hosting a conference with the mission to discuss global research in hopes of finding new, innovative solutions to the plastic problem. The conference is taking place at the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom, and will be split into five sessions covering microplastics, fashion and textiles, the history of plastics, art-based research methods, and the global treaty to end plastic pollution (from discussions at INC-2). Hands-on workshops will also be present, ranging from creating fashion items from plastic waste to verbatim theater. We all need to be part of this solutions driven approach.

    So what can we do?

    The easiest option is to avoid single-use plastics. If we think about the number of times that single-use plastics are offered to us throughout the day, we may be surprised. On a regular day, an individual may get two plastic bags to carry their groceries home in, a plastic cup from their favorite coffee shop, a plastic fork, knife, and spoon with their take out… multiply this every day and every person who uses single-use plastic daily, and the amount of plastic waste humans are generating is tremendous. Effectively avoiding single-use plastic may take some forethought and planning. Here are some ideas on how we can be part of the solution and can cut out single-use plastic items out of our lives today:

    • Swap out all the single-use plastic. Keep a reusable bottle, reusable cutlery, and reusable grocery bag in your car or bag to make it easier to make the switch. Soon enough, you’ll be shocked by how much plastic you used to use once and throw away!
    • Be a sustainable host. When hosting events, consider using your own plates and silverware rather than plastic versions.
    • Going out to eat? Consider bringing a container if you suspect you’ll have leftovers. It’s a win-win-win situation because you’ll cut down on food waste, avoid using plastic take-out containers from the restaurant, and have some tasty leftovers for tomorrow!

    We understand how difficult it is to avoid plastic, so we took a plastic-free for-a-week challenge! See how that went here. We hope this gives you some ideas.

    It’s also important to remember each individual action underpins the systemic change required to transition to a less plastic-dependent economy. Here’s what you can do to influence change on a larger scale.

    • Use your voice. If you see a company using unnecessary plastic or lacks a recycling system for customers, call them out! Using social media or contacting the company directly lets them know that consumers care about their plastic footprint and are serious about making changes for the environment.
    • Vote with your wallet. Similarly, to what we highlighted above, it’s important to trade out the usual plastic-covered purchases for more sustainable alternatives. If more people are buying sustainable products that avoid plastic waste, we can use our wallets to vote for a more circular and sustainable market.
    • Share solutions. If you come across a business or product that does a great job of cutting down plastic waste, let your community know! Oftentimes, people want to help in the battle against plastic pollution but don’t know where to start. Help your community of conscious consumers to make a bigger difference.
    • Turn the pressure up! Consumer action will force companies, investors, lawmakers, and government to take real action. Consumers have a huge impact on the economy, so our voices will affect the important decisions they make behind the scenes.

    Want to learn more about the plastic problem and how you, your business, your organization, and local community can make a difference? The UN Environment Programme and the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire partnered to create the Beat Plastic Pollution Practical Guide to help scale the problem and give solutions. Do your part this World Environment Day to make a more Sustainable Earth!

    Lara Van Lith is a a member of Arizona State University Sustain Earth project. She is also recent Conservation Biology graduate and currently pursuing a Master of Public Administration from Arizona State University. She is passionate about environmental education for people of all ages and sustainability communication.

    Akilah Davitt, is Arizona State University Sustain Earth and is a recent Masters of Sustainability Solutions graduate at Arizona State University with interests in corporate sustainability and biodiversity conservation. Her experience includes working with Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research to understand peoples’ perceptions towards wildlife and climate-related issues.

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  • ZATCA thwarts 2 attempts to smuggle 1,029 kg of marijuana – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

    ZATCA thwarts 2 attempts to smuggle 1,029 kg of marijuana – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

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    Saudi Gazette report

    JEDDAH — The Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) has thwarted two attempts two smuggle 1,029 kilograms of marijuana.

    The authority said that the marijuana was found hidden in incoming consignments through both of the customs of King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah and King Fahad International Airport in Dammam.

    ZATCA has indicated that this amount of narcotic marijuana was found during the detection and inspection process on a number of parcels coming to Saudi Arabia via express transport.

    It has noted that the methods of reporting all attempts to smuggle contraband are through its official channels, from inside Saudi Arabia: 1910 — from outside the Kingdom: +966114208417 — or via its email: 1910@zatca.gov.sa

    Original Author Link click here to read complete story..

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  • All of the challenges facing NYC’s legal marijuana efforts – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

    All of the challenges facing NYC’s legal marijuana efforts – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

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  • The 60:40 portfolio is up more than 17%. Why is it doing so much better this year?

    The 60:40 portfolio is up more than 17%. Why is it doing so much better this year?

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    “Regression to the mean” is a powerful force in the financial markets, so it was a good bet that the 60:40 portfolio would have a much better year in 2023 than in 2022.

    But not as good a year as it has had so far. That’s important to point out, lest retirees start believing that returns like we’re seeing this year are the norm. They’re not.

    The 60:40 portfolio, a default option for many retirees and near-retirees, lost 23.4% last year, assuming the 60% equity portion was invested in the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF
    VTI,
    +1.65%
    and the 40% bond portion in the Vanguard Long-Term Treasury ETF
    VGLT,
    -0.94%    .
    That was the worst calendar-year return for the portfolio since the Great Depression.

    Through the end of May this year, in contrast, this portfolio rose at an annualized pace of 17.6%. That is more than double the average return since 1793 of 7.7% annualized for an annually rebalanced portfolio (according to data compiled by Edward McQuarrie of Santa Clara University).

    Regression to the mean deserves only a minority of the credit for this reversal. That’s because there’s no guarantee that, following a year with as big a loss as 2022’s, the portfolio would produce a gain this year. Strictly speaking, in fact, all that regression to the mean implies for the 60:40 portfolio is that its return this year would be closer to its long-term average than last year’s. A wide range of possible returns are consistent with this implication, of course, including a loss—just so long as that loss is significantly less than 2022’s.

    Rather than thanking mean regression, retirees therefore should thank their lucky stars that the 60:40 portfolio’s year-to-date return is coming in at the upper end of this possible range.

    But I need not remind you that luck is not a strategy.

    It’s also important to remember that regression to the mean cuts both ways. Assuming that the 60:40 portfolio continues performing for all of 2023 at its year-to-date pace, mean regression would imply a smaller return in 2024. That smaller return could still be a gain, of course, but it also could be a loss.

    In any case, it’s worth emphasizing that the 60:40 portfolio is a long-term bet, not a market timing tool. As you can see from the accompanying chart, this portfolio’s most recent trailing 20-year annualized return is almost precisely on top of its two-century average of 7.7% annualized. So no regression to the mean is implied when projecting the portfolio’s long-term future return.

    Mark Hulbert is a regular contributor to MarketWatch. His Hulbert Ratings tracks investment newsletters that pay a flat fee to be audited. He can be reached at mark@hulbertratings.com.

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  • What Sub-Saharan African Nations Can Teach the U.S. About Black Maternal Health

    What Sub-Saharan African Nations Can Teach the U.S. About Black Maternal Health

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    While poor maternal outcomes among Black women in the U.S. is not new, improving it is imperative. U.S. policymakers can look to sub-Saharan Africa for guidance on reversing this trend. Credit: Ernest Ankomah/IPS
    • Opinion by Ifeanyi Nsofor (abuja)
    • Inter Press Service

    ABUJA, Jun 02 (IPS) – New research shows that Black mothers in the United States disproportionately live in counties with higher maternal vulnerability and face greater risk of preterm death for the fetus, greater risk of low birth weight for a baby, and a higher number of maternal deaths.

    While poor maternal outcomes among Black women in the U.S. is not new, improving it is imperative. U.S. policymakers can look to sub-Saharan Africa for guidance on reversing this trend.

    The problem of poor maternal health for Black women in the U.S. is dire. Too many Black women die during pregnancy and childbirth due to preventable causes. For instance, the 2020 maternal mortality data rates released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control showed overwhelming maternal deaths among Black women compared to other women over a 3-year period (2018 – 2020).

    To put it in context, maternal deaths among Black women in the U.S. is worse than African countries like Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.

    Further, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, maternal and infant health disparities are symptoms of broader underlying social and economic inequities that are rooted in racism and discrimination.

    In a previous piece, I wrote about the way that institutionalized racism is keeping Black Americans sick. Therefore, healthcare providers and policymakers across the U.S. must ensure respectful maternity care for all women during pregnancy, childbirth and afterwards.

    The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights says respectful maternity care“encompasses respect for women’s basic human rights, including recognition of and support for women’s autonomy, dignity, feelings, choices, and preferences, such as choice of companionship wherever possible”.

    Unfortunately, there is overwhelming evidence that Black American women face disrespect and profound indignity during pregnancy and childbirth. Tennis player and businesswoman Serena Williams almost died due to blood clots after giving birth because her nurse refused to listen to her cry for help. That clot could have led to a stroke. Her doctor eventually listened to her, and this saved her. If one of the most influential and most powerful women can have such a near-death experience, what is the fate of other Black American women who are not as privileged? Respectful maternity care is a way to ensure equity irrespective of class and race.

    These are three lessons American policymakers can learn from successful maternal health projects across countries in sub-Saharan Africa as they try to save Black American lives.

    First, is the continuum of care – prevention of postpartum hemorrhage project, implemented by Pathfinder International in Nigeria. It was a novel project that deployed several evidence-based interventions to prevent excessive bleeding after childbirth across the country.

    These included the use of misoprostol to ensure adequate uterine contraction after the delivery of the baby; use of a plastic sheet with a pouch for blood loss estimation and active management of the third stage of labor to ensure the placenta is properly separated after the baby is delivered. These interventions led to a reduction in women who bled excessively after childbirth and improved the overall survival of women in participating health facilities.

    For example, a new study on the efficacy of the plastic sheet carried out in 80 hospitals across 4 African countries, showed a reduction in the number of women experiencing severe bleeding by 60%.

    A second example is the maternal nutrition program, implemented by Garden Health International in Rwanda. Adequate nutrition during pregnancy is imperative for the wellbeing of the unborn child.

    The first 1000 days of life are even more crucial. Through the Maternal Nutrition curriculum, pregnant women are encouraged to attend antenatal classes at least four times in health facilities where they are educated on how to address the factors that can contribute to malnutrition. Women are taught how to prepare a balanced meal, the importance of hygiene and food safety in preventing malnutrition, the importance of the timely introduction of breastfeeding and complementary feeding, and postnatal care.

    For instance, through the “one pot, one hour” cooking initiative, families are taught to use readily available foods to prepare nutritious meals is a core component of this program. Its success led to its adoption by the Rwandan Ministry of Health and it was implemented by 44,000 community health workers across the country.

    A last example is the Kangaroo Mother Care for very low birth weight infants in South Africa. Very low birth weight infants are prone to hypothermia – a significant and potentially dangerous drop in body temperature.

    According to the WHO, Kangaroo Mother Care involves infants being carried, usually by the mother, with skin-to-skin contact. If the mother is unable to fulfill the role, the father or other members of the family can take on the responsibility of skin-to-skin contact and provide warmth for the infant. A study of Kangaroo mother care of 981 very low birth weight infants admitted at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital over a six-year period showed increased weight gain, lower rates of complications of prematurity and low overall mortality.

    A multi-country study by the World Health Organization showed that in Ethiopia, government leadership; an understanding by health workers that kangaroo mother care is the standard of care; and acceptance of the practice from women and families helped improve the implementation of kangaroo mother care.

    Institutionalized racism over many decades has put Black Americans in the most vulnerable counties in the U.S. Health policymakers, healthcare providers, donors, non-profit organisations and all stakeholders involved in maternal healthcare in the U.S. must implement interventions that are shown to save lives. The African continent is a great place to look.

    Dr. Ifeanyi M. Nsofor, MBBS, MCommH (Liverpool) is Senior New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute, Senior Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at George Washington University, 2006 Ford Foundation International Fellow

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  • A Global Plastics Treaty Can End the Age of Plastic

    A Global Plastics Treaty Can End the Age of Plastic

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    Big consumer goods companies, in league with the fossil fuel industry, produce more and more plastic, reaping the profits while disregarding the cost and damages to the climate, environment and people. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS.
    • Opinion by Juressa Lee (auckland, new zealand)
    • Inter Press Service

    In the aftermath, we saw first-hand one of the causes of the climate crisis: single-use plastic. Te Wai ?rea, a popular Auckland park, was covered with single-use plastic pollution.

    Each stage in the lifecycle of plastic, from production to disposal, fuels the climate crisis – 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels, and corporations keep making more. According to the Minderoo Foundation, annual greenhouse gas emissions from single-use plastics in 2021 exceeded the total annual emissions of the United Kingdom.

    I am tangata whenua (indigenous to Aotearoa New Zealand) and tangata Moana (indigenous to the Pacific). What I call home is more ocean than it is land, and this ocean is our livelihood. It provides our traditional diet and is a rich source of the stories of our existence. Each Pacific island nation ties to the next through our ancestors’ great migration across the ocean by their navigational skills.

    On the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island, heavy rainfall floods the waterways and plastic waste hits the beaches and the waters where locals spend a good chunk of their lives, where they fish and gather food. And every time, they clean up that trash. No one wants to see pollution in places that they have held sacred for many generations.

    Communities on the frontlines of any part of the plastic lifecycle, from oil extraction to trash dumps and everywhere in between, are hit with a trifecta of injustice: plastic pollution, social injustice, and the climate crisis. The plastic deluge that is left after every climate-crisis-fuelled storm only reinforces this point.

    Right now, nothing is being done ‘upstream’ to stem the flow of plastic so ‘downstream’ action – as effective as an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff – is all that local communities can do.

    In Paris this month, governments from all over the world will meet to continue negotiating a Global Plastics Treaty—a once-in-a generation opportunity. An effective treaty must reduce plastic production and prioritize protecting biodiversity, safeguarding the climate and ensuring a just transition to a low-carbon, reuse-based economy.

    Instead, big consumer goods companies, in league with the fossil fuel industry, produce more and more plastic, reaping the profits while disregarding the cost and damages to the climate, environment and people.

    This is where we draw a line in the sand – a treaty that does not stop runaway plastic production and use is bound to fail.

    Consider the Cook Islands, where my mother’s parents were raised and married. The way of life has been transformed from a traditional one of circularity and living gently with the land, to one where consumer products – much of it in plastic packaging – have been pushed upon our people since colonisation.

    The islands, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, are now filling up with so much plastic that some might reluctantly feel there are just two options, burn it or bury it. Burning would accelerate the climate crisis and rising sea levels, and there is no land on the islands for bottomless landfills.

    Coca-Cola, the world’s worst plastic polluter for five years now according to the Break Free from Plastic brand audits, sells their products in plastic bottles in small island nations without any recycling infrastructure or product stewardship. Coke sells over 100 billion bottles each year and is one of the wealthiest fast-moving consumer goods brands in the world, yet its single-use plastic packaging wreaks havoc on the environment.

    In the Global South, single-use sachets that contain only enough product for one serving from consumer goods conglomerates like Unilever and Nestle, flood some regions, especially during the regular typhoon season. In 2020, the CEO of Unilever expressed his interest stop selling sachets, yet, since then, Unilever has lobbied against sachet bans in India, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka.

    The treaty negotiations so far have seen New Zealand push for an ambitious position that will keep oil and gas in the ground, stop the relentless production and use of plastic, and ensure a just transition to a low-carbon, zero-waste economy with leadership and expertise from indigenous and most affected communities. In the next round of talks, we need to lift the ambitions of other member states.

    My ancestors shared a deep connection with Papat??nuku (our Earth mother) and our well-being is interdependent. We don’t see ourselves as being separate from nature. This indigenous worldview can lead treaty negotiations, creating systems that are less demanding of our planet and value nature over profit.

    A Global Plastics Treaty can stop plastic production at the source and deliver a cleaner, safer planet for us and future generations. Governments need to step up to this moment and not let it go to waste.

    Juressa Lee (Te Rarawa, Ng?puhi, Rarotonga) is a Plastics campaigner at Greenpeace Aotearoa and a delegate to the second Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop a Global Plastics Treaty, to be held on May 29 to June 2, 2023 in Paris, France.

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  • Macron extends olive branch to Eastern Europeans

    Macron extends olive branch to Eastern Europeans

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    BRATISLAVA — French President Emmanuel Macron sought to mend fences with Eastern Europeans at a conference in Slovakia, telling an audience largely from the region that he wants a more collaborative relationship with ex-Soviet states.

    “We didn’t listen enough to you, and your calls for your history and painful memories to be acknowledged,” he told an audience at the GLOBSEC security forum in the Slovak capital.

    “Some said you missed opportunities to stay silent; I say we sometimes missed opportunities to listen to you. That time is over,” he said, referring to a swipe by former French President Jacques Chirac in 2003 that offended Eastern Europeans.

    “I don’t think there is a western and an eastern Europe, an old Europe and a new one; there is only one Europe … with a will to build unity,” he said.

    Policy notes that played well with Eastern Europeans included saluting the strength of NATO, acknowledging the experience of many countries formerly under Soviet rule, and supporting a pathway for Ukraine toward NATO membership.

    The French president also said that although France had been criticized as being “arrogant,” “faraway” and “not interested” in the region, he has tried to engage more. His comments appeared to hit a chord among the delegates, who applauded him heartily during opening remarks.

    The speech represents a shift in tone for the French president, who previously distanced himself from a more hard-line approach against Russia taken by ex-Soviet states. In the past, Macron had warned against aligning with more hawkish countries, thus risking extending the conflict in Ukraine.

    And in the east, there is little love lost for the French president. Since the start of the war, Macron came under fire from Eastern European leaders for pursuing dialogue with Russia and clocking hours of calls with Vladimir Putin.

    “It was logical to me that with a strong U.S.-German relation nowadays, Russia out of the picture, France should look for improving its relations with” Central and Eastern Europe, said a senior Central European diplomat who complimented the speech.

    Previously, Macron’s statements that Russia should not be humiliated or that it should be given security guarantees have contributed to the perception that he has an ambiguous attitude toward Russia’s aggression. 

    But in Bratislava, the French president hammered home his commitment to supporting Ukraine “in the long-term.”

    “We need to help Ukraine lead an efficient counter-offensive. What is at stake is lasting peace. We must be clear: A ceasefire is not enough, we will recreate a frozen conflict that will be another war for tomorrow,” he said. 

    Support for Ukraine

    At GLOBSEC, Macron also called for “strong and tangible” security guarantees for Ukraine ahead of a key NATO summit in Vilnius in July. In recent weeks, Ukrainians have renewed their lobbying push for a concrete path toward membership, working hard to sway wary members of the alliance.

    The French president said Ukraine should be given security guarantees — not only because it is “protecting Europe,” but also because it is “so well-equipped.”

    “If we want a sustainable peace and want to be credible toward Ukraine, we must include it in an architecture of security,” he told delegates at the forum. 

    While there is a broad understanding Ukraine will not be able to join the alliance while it is still at war with Russia, NATO members are divided on how they should respond to Ukraine’s current push for membership. 

    Macron’s comments are likely to be read as a gesture toward many Eastern Europeans that think Ukraine’s allies should send positive signals on its NATO membership bid.

    In Bratislava, while Macron said it was unlikely there would be consensus on full membership for Ukraine, he did give a sense of what option he might back for Ukraine. 

    “We have to build something between Israel-style security guarantees and fully-fledged membership,” he said.

    Lili Bayer contributed reporting.

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    Clea Caulcutt

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