Articles
Where's the missing part, Naomi Klein?
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The latest book by Naomi Klein is essentially a call to share the world’s resources, but its thesis on social transformation is missing a crucial factor: a profound awareness of the reality of hunger and life-threatening deprivation. While Pope Francis’ recent encyclical calls on us to prioritise this global emergency in our efforts to combat global warming, Mohammed Mesbahi proposes a people’s strategy for how we can finally end the moral outrage of extreme poverty amidst plenty.
United Nation's expertise needed ...
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1. More than 30 organizations comprise the UN Development System (UNDS). Virtually all are members of the UN Development Group (UNDG), but comprise a ‘system’ in name only since each operates autonomously. Many, therefore, set aside the word ‘system’ in favor of ‘family’, because the UN is, in that sense, a bit dysfunctional. Each organization guards its independence fiercely, even though most report to the General Assembly and many are under the authority of the Secretary General. Funding patterns are the prime cause of atomization. As core resources have stagnated, all UN organizations have pursued ‘extra-budgetary’ funding for operational activities, often from the same donors, in reality thus chasing what, in reality, are earmarked (specifically assigned) monies.*
Human Rights Groups face global crackdown
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Laws affecting funding, requiring registration and prohibiting protest are among controls that are making it difficult for NGOs and other campaign groups .
The problem with saving the world
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The United Nations’ new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are about to replace the previous Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), are getting a lot of hate these days.
The Economist recently called the 169 proposed targets “sprawling and misconceived,” “unfeasibly expensive” at $2–3 trillion per year, and so unlikely to be realized that they amount to “worse than useless” — “a betrayal of the world’s poorest people.” An article in the Humanosphere reports that the SDGs were ridiculed as “No targets left behind” during a high-profile meeting of Gates Foundation partners. One development expert I know likens the SDGs to “a high school wish-list for how to save the world.”
These critics accuse the SDGs of being vague and aspirational, and of trying to cover too much ground; they prefer the old MDGs, which were more focused on absolute poverty.
No Aid, no Tax, no Development
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The Addis Ababa Action Agenda is widely seen as a major disappointment for developing countries as well as others hoping for adequate means of implementation to realise national development ambitions and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
It has become clear that the South, including the least developed countries, should not expect any serious progress to the almost half century old commitment to transfer 0.7 percent of developed countries’ economic output to developing countries. But to add insult to injury, developing countries cannot expect to participate meaningfully in inter-governmental discussions to enhance overall as well as national tax capacities.
