Articles
Contesting Mainstream Parties
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In countries with contested elections, there are usually two mainstream parties considered as being somewhere in or near the center of the views of the voters in that country. In the last few years, there have been a relatively large number of elections in which a protest movement has either won the election or at least won enough seats such that their support must be obtained in order that a mainstream party govern.
MDGs to SDGs: Have we lost the plot?
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In September this year, world leaders will meet in New York at the United Nations General Assembly. Top of the agenda will be the passage of a resolution laying out global development goals for the 15 years to 2030, covering progress in areas from poverty reduction to forestry preservation. They will follow on from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which have become a common yardstick of global progress over the past decade and a half.
The MDGs, born out of the Millennium Declaration agreed to at the UN General Assembly in 2000, are widely seen as a considerable success of the international system. And they may well have played a role in speeding global progress toward better health and education outcomes over the last few years. That alone might justify coming up with a new set of global goals for the post-2015 period.
The power of the original MDGs to motivate was in their simplicity and clarity.
The Hypocrisy World Cup: FIFA sponsors must tell Qatar to respect human rights
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62 workers may lose their lives for each game played during Qatar’s 2022 World Cup, a tournament likely to be sponsored by FIFA partner companies Coke, VISA, McDonald’s, Adidas, Kia and Hyundai. Without sponsorship, this multi-billion dollar tournament couldn’t take place.
Most sponsors commit themselves to respecting the UN Declaration of Human Rights – which guarantees the right to join a union - and have specific policies banning forced labour and slavery in their supply chains. However, none of them seem to have considered that paying FIFA to host a tournament built on slave labour goes against everything they claim to believe in.
As a customer or potential customer of these multinational companies, can you help us pressure them to live up to their own ethical standards in how they spend their sponsorship funding?
We know money talks in FIFA. If one of these sponsors were to speak up it would be hugely influential in guiding FIFA and Qatar into ensuring that labour standards for people preparing the country to host the World Cup meet international standards of safety, decency and human rights.
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A people's social agenda for ASEAN
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nequality and poverty levels remain high in ASEAN, with Gini coefficients ranging from 35.6 to 46.2.[1] In some countries in the region, inequality and poverty levels are escalating despite economic growth. And while in some ASEAN countries a smaller proportion of the workforce is now living in poor households (i.e. living on less than $2 per day), their absolute numbers have risen[2].
Inequality is eroding the economic gains from market integration and economic progress.“Inequality may lead to the misallocation of capital and hamper poverty reduction and growth, possibly eroding social cohesion, and institutional stability. It also runs counter to the AEC’s [ASEAN Economic Community] overarching goal of equitable growth with reduced development gaps between and within Member States.”[3]
Yet, the commitments of governments of the ASEAN Member States to the social dimension of regional and global integration remain lukewarm. But the people of ASEAN aspire for and demand a Social ASEAN. Therefore, the people of ASEAN and their organizations collectively took the initiative to frame an Agenda for a Social ASEAN.
The Agenda for a Social ASEAN is the condensation of the aspirations and demands of the people of ASEAN for a strong social dimension in the current process of integration in the region.[4]It is an instrument that embodies the necessary components of an alternative regional development paradigm that seeks to construct a truly caring and sharing ASEAN community. The Agenda for a Social ASEAN –
Why it would be good for the IMF if Greece stopped repaying its IMF loans
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The creditor community has another shock and awe moment this week, as more and more influential actors argue that Greece should stop repaying the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans and rather use scarce public resources to tackle its economic and humanitarian crisis. While Prime Minister Tsipras still tries to ease the creditors, the idea is here to stay. And it is a good one: Greece should not just postpone loan repayments but default on them – stopping payments to the IMF for good. This would help to finally reform the IMF from the political puppet that it is now into a real and effective crisis response instrument.
Read more: Why it would be good for the IMF if Greece stopped repaying its IMF loans
