The Open and Rocky Road Post-2015

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 31 2013 (IPS) - What values does a Yemeni journalist who fuelled the Arab Spring hold in common with a former principal of the U.S. National Security Council? And how in turn will they see eye to eye with a Jordanian queen, or the president of Indonesia?

The subjects of this riddle are meeting in Monrovia as part of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s 27-member High Level Panel of Eminent Person’s on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (HLP).

The purpose of the HLP is to lead the discussion around a new framework, the post-2015 development agenda, to replace the expiring Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The HLP’s work will culminate with an advisory report to Ban in May 2013.

The meeting, which takes place between Jan. 30 and Feb. 1, is the third in a series of four. Previous meetings took place in London and New York, and the forthcoming one will take place in Bali.

“This (meeting in Monrovia) is the HLP’s chance to hear the perspectives of a wide range of organisations and individuals in Africa about their priorities for a post-2015 agenda,” said Claire Melamed, head of the Growth and Equity Programme at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

“It’s important those perspectives are reflected in the final report,” Melamed told IPS.

ODI, in partnership with the World Wide Web Foundation and the U.N., developed an online survey to gauge the priorities of the world’s citizens. The survey, conducted through myworld2015.org, inspired a running Twitter conversation on the topic (#post2015). The online platforms sparked international chatter that was absent during MDG discussions.

“As we witnessed in the historic events of 2011 – from the Arab spring to the rise of Occupy – the possibility of mobilising public opinion on a global scale is becoming ever-more urgent and realistic,” Rajesh Makwana, director of Share the World’s Resources (STWR), told IPS.

The airing of new voices does pose a challenge: how will 27 panellists harbour the hopes and concerns of so many people?

“My apprehension is that this process is moving in so many levels (that) there’s no priority on how these different conversations (will) come together in one place,” said Radhika Balakrishnan, executive director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership and professor of women’s and gender studies at Rutgers University.

“There’s consultations happening all around the world… There’s not a clear way to see how these are going to come to fruition at the end,” Balakrishnan told IPS, noting that she is still hopeful, despite the challenges.

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UN Reports That Up To 90% Of Deforestation Is Due To Organized Crime

GREEN CARBON - BLACK TRADE

ILLEGAL LOGGING,TAX FRAUD ANDLAUNDERING IN THE WORLD’STROPICAL FORESTS

Environmental crime and the illegal grabbing of natural resources is becoming an evermore sophisticated activity requiring national authorities and law enforcement agencies to develop responses commensurate with the scale and the complexity of the challengeto keep one step ahead.







This report – Green Carbon, Black Trade – by UNEP and INTER-POL focuses on illegal logging and its impacts on the lives andlivelihoods of often some of the poorest people in the world setaside the environmental damage. It underlines how criminalsare combining old fashioned methods such as bribes with hightech methods such as computer hacking of government websites to obtain transportation and other permits. The reportspotlights the increasingly sophisticated tactics being deployedto launder illegal logs through a web of palm oil plantations,road networks and saw mills.

Indeed it clearly spells out that illegal logging is not on the decline, rather it is becoming more advanced as cartels becomebetter organized including shifting their illegal activities inorder to avoid national or local police efforts. By some estimates,15 per cent to 30 per cent of the volume of wood traded globallyhas been obtained illegally. Unless addressed, the criminal ac-tions of the few may endanger not only the development pros-pects for the many but also some of the creative and catalyticinitiatives being introduced to recompense countries and com-munities for the ecosystem services generated by forests.

One of the principal vehicles for catalyzing positive environ-mental change and sustainable development is the ReducedEmissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation initia-tive (REDD or REDD+). If REDD+ is to be sustainable over thelong term, it requests and requires all partners to fine tune theoperations, and to ensure that they meet the highest standardsof rigour and that efforts to reduce deforestation in one locationare not offset by an increase elsewhere.







If REDD+ is to succeed, payments to communities for theirconservation efforts need to be higher than the returns from ac-tivities that lead to environmental degradation. Illegal loggingthreatens this payment system if the unlawful monies chang-ing hands are bigger than from REDD+ payments.

The World’s forests represent one of the most important pil-lars in countering climate change and delivering sustainabledevelopment. Deforestation, largely of tropical rainforests, isresponsible for an estimated 17 per cent of all man-made emis-sions, and 50 per cent more than that from ships, aviation andland transport combined. Today only one-tenth of primary for-est cover remains on the globe.

Forests also generate water supplies, biodiversity, pharma-ceuticals, recycled nutrients for agriculture and flood pre-vention, and are central to the transition towards a GreenEconomy in the context of sustainable development and pov-erty eradication.

Strengthened international collaboration on environmentallaws and their enforcement is therefore not an option. It is in-deed the only response to combat an organized internationalthreat to natural resources, environmental sustainability andefforts to lift millions of people out of penury. Download Report









Achim Steiner UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director

Ronald K. Noble INTERPOL Secretary General





 





 

 

Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury To Deliver “Peace And Equality”

(Long Island, NY) Ambassador of Bangladesh Anwarul Chowdhury, an expert on current critical issues including peace, sustainable development, and human rights, will speak at Adelphi University as part of the International Leadership Coordinating Committee Ambassador Series on “Peace and Equality—Absolutely Essential for a Better World” on Tuesday, November 13, 2012 in the Ruth S. Harley University Center Ballroom. This event is free and open to the public.

For the past two decades, Chowhurdy has been recognized as a leader in the movement for global peace. Ambassador Chowdhury currently holds the titles of Career Diplomat; Permanent Representative to the United Nations; President of the UN Security Council; and, President of the UNICEF board. From 2002 to 2007, he served as the UN Under-Secretary-General. Chowdhury has also served as the Secretary-General of the two major global conferences convened by the United Nations General Assembly: The Almaty International Conference on Global Transit Transport Cooperation in 2003 and the Mauritius International Meeting on Small Island Developing States in 2005.

Since October 2007, he has held the role as the Honorary Chair of the International Day of Peace NGO Committee. Chowdhury is a member of the Wisdom Council of the Summer of Peace 2012, a world-wide participatory initiative to advance the Culture of Peace, as well as a Board of Trustee of the New York City Peace Museum.

In 2007, he completed his term as the Under-Secretary-General and high representative for the most vulnerable countries of the world. From 1996 to 2001, Ambassador Chowdhury was Permanent Representative of Bangladesh, his native country, to the United Nations in New York. In addition, he served as Bangladesh’s Ambassador to Chile, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela as well as Bangladesh’ High Commissioner to the Bahamas and Guyana.

One of his major accomplishments as the president of the Security Council included an initiative that brought about the adoption of the groundbreaking UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which recognized for the first time the role and contribution of women in the area of peace and security.

Due to his contributions, in 1999 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the landmark “Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace.” He also initiated the declaration by the United Nations General Assembly of the “International Decade for Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World (2001-2010).”

Ambassador Chowdhury is the first recipient of the Institute for Global Leadership Lifetime Service Award which he received at the conference on New Leadership Models for Worcester, United States and the World held in Worcester, Massachusetts in May 2007. In October 2007, the United Nations NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values, and Global Concerns presented its first “SPIRIT OF THE UNITED NATIONS” Award to Chowdhury. Also in 2007, he received the highest honor of The Government of Burkina Faso in West Africa, “L’Ordre Nacionale,” in Ouagadougou for his championship of the cause of the most vulnerable countries. Chowdhury has earned a number of honorary degrees for his global peace efforts from Soka University, in Tokyo, Japan and Saint Peter’s College, in Jersey City, NJ, among others. More


 

Strengthening the Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development (IFSD)

Strengthening the Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development (IFSD)

UNITAR E-Learning Course

5 November – 14 December 2012



Dear Colleagues,



The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) is pleased to announce the delivery of the e-learning course, “Strengthening the Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development”, which will take place from 5 November – 14 December 2012. Participants will learn about the current institutional architecture concerned with sustainable development, emerging policy issues requiring an effective institutional response, and political challenges to advance reform as reflected in the negotiations leading up to, and during the Rio+20 Conference.



Please feel free to disseminate information about this course through your networks, and do not hesitate to contact us (envgov@unitar.org) should you need any further information.



Sincerely,



The UNITAR Environmental Governance Programme Team





Background

Since the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, the institutional framework to address environment and sustainable development challenges has witnessed a steady growth in the number of institutions and agreements, with more than 500 multilateral environmental agreements currently in existence. Yet the continuing deterioration in the natural resource base and ecosystems, global climate change and persistent poverty raise doubts about the capacity of the institutional framework to address these challenges. The 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) reaffirmed the need to strengthen the institutional framework for sustainable development (IFDS) and initiated specific action to foster more effective and coherent institutional responses.



Target Groups

The course targets groups and individuals that are interested in obtaining a general understanding about the theme of international sustainable development governance and latest developments. They include:

• Civil servants in national Ministries, provincial departments and local authorities

• Diplomats from Permanent Missions and Ministries of Foreign Affairs

• Environmental managers in private sector and civil society organizations

• Faculty, researchers and students

• Interested citizens



Learning Objectives

Participants will learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the current institutional architecture concerned with sustainable development, key emerging policy issues requiring an effective institutional response, and the political challenges to advance reform as reflected in the negotiations leading up to, and during the Rio+20 Conference.



After completing the course, participants will be able to:

• Explain sustainable development challenges demanding effective international institutions

• Outline key milestones of developing and reforming international institutions concerned with sustainable development

• Chart and analyze the current international IFSD

• Recognize linkages between international, national and sub-national sustainable development governance

• Analyze key policy issues relevant for the Rio+20 negotiations and beyond

• Assess options to strengthen the institutional framework for sustainable development



Methodology

The course pedagogy is adapted to professionals in full-time work. Participants are provided with the opportunity to learn through various experiences: absorb (read); do (activity); interact (socialize); and reflect (relate to one’s own reality). The total number of learning hours is 40 over a 6 week period. During weeks 1-5 the reading of an e-book is complemented by a range of learning activities and experiences that include interactive exercises, discussion forums, and an applied case study. Week 6 is reserved for wrap-up and completing course assignments.



Course Fee and Registration

The course participation fee is 600 USD. A small number of full/partial fellowships are available for participants from developing countries working in the public sector, academia or non-profit organizations. Priority for fellowships will be given to applicants from Least Developed Countries (LDCs).



Register at: http://www.unitar.org/event/strengthening-institutional-framework-sustainable-development-ifsd



For details please contact the UNITAR Environmental Governance Programme at: envgov@unitar.org



Registration Deadline: 28 October 2012.