tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/ban-ki-moon-12493/articlesBan Ki-Moon – The Conversation2018-04-24T13:21:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/943312018-04-24T13:21:14Z2018-04-24T13:21:14ZClimate change is not a key cause of conflict, finds new study<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214265/original/file-20180411-549-1vn9u0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=822%2C0%2C3864%2C2700&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Piyaset / www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“The Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis”, wrote the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/15/AR2007061501857.html">then-UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon</a> back in 2007, about an ongoing war which arose, he said, “at least in part from climate change”. Since then the idea that climate change has caused and will cause human conflict and mass migrations has become more and more accepted – just look at the claimed effects of droughts in Syria and Ethiopia.</p>
<p>The media has even started using terms such as “climate refugees” and “environmental migrants” to describe people fleeing their homes from these climate-driven conflicts. But it isn’t clear whether there is much evidence for this link between climate change and conflict – there certainly seems to be no consensus within the academic literature.</p>
<p>In our recent <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0096-6">paper</a>, my student Erin Owain and I decided to test the climate-conflict hypothesis, using East Africa as our focus. The region is already very hot and very poor, making it especially vulnerable to climate change (in fact neighbouring Chad is by some measures the single <a href="https://theconversation.com/chad-is-the-country-most-vulnerable-to-climate-change-heres-why-78423">most vulnerable country</a> in the world). </p>
<p>As the planet warms, East Africa’s seasonal rains are expected to become <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/">much more unpredictable</a>. This is a particular problem as recent economic development has been concentrated in agriculture, a highly climate-sensitive sector that accounts for more than half of the entire economy in countries like Ethiopia or Sudan. One study led by the European Commission found that declining rainfall over the past century may have <a href="https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/rest.2010.11212">reduced GDP across Africa by 15-40%</a> compared with the rest of the developing world. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214473/original/file-20180412-543-awxi8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214473/original/file-20180412-543-awxi8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214473/original/file-20180412-543-awxi8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214473/original/file-20180412-543-awxi8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214473/original/file-20180412-543-awxi8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214473/original/file-20180412-543-awxi8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214473/original/file-20180412-543-awxi8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214473/original/file-20180412-543-awxi8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Chilling in North Darfur.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Albert Gonzalez Farran, UN/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>East Africa also has a long history of conflict and human displacement, which persists in some countries to this day, such as the civil wars in Sudan and Somalia. The <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/globaltrends2016/">UN Refugee Agency reports</a> there were more than 20m displaced people in Africa in 2016 – a third of the world’s total. The <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/03/19/climate-change-could-force-over-140-million-to-migrate-within-countries-by-2050-world-bank-report">World Bank</a> predicts this could rise up to 86m by 2050 due to climate change. </p>
<h2>Is it really because of climate change?</h2>
<p>To test the climate-conflict hypothesis, Erin and I therefore focused on the ten main countries in East Africa. We used a new <a href="http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscrdata.html">database</a> that records major episodes of political violence and number of total displaced people for the past 50 years for each of the ten countries. We then statistically compared these records both at a country and a regional level with the appropriate climatic, economic and political indicators.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216134/original/file-20180424-57601-7rntx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216134/original/file-20180424-57601-7rntx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216134/original/file-20180424-57601-7rntx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216134/original/file-20180424-57601-7rntx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216134/original/file-20180424-57601-7rntx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216134/original/file-20180424-57601-7rntx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216134/original/file-20180424-57601-7rntx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216134/original/file-20180424-57601-7rntx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Lower levels of conflict are associated with economic growth and stable politics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0096-6">Owain and Maslin, 2018</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>We found that climate variations such as regional drought and global temperature did not significantly impact the level of regional conflict or the number of total displaced people. The major driving forces on conflict were rapid population growth, reduced or negative economic growth and instability of political regimes. Numbers of total displaced people were linked to rapid population growth and low or stagnating economic growth. </p>
<p>The evidence from East Africa is that no single factor can fully explain conflict and the displacement of people. Instead, conflict seems to be linked primarily to long-term population growth, short-term economic recessions and extreme political instability. Halvard Buhaug, a professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, looked at the same questions in 2015 and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcc.336">his study</a> reached much the same conclusion: sociopolitical factors were more important than climate change.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214268/original/file-20180411-566-ixe3e0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214268/original/file-20180411-566-ixe3e0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214268/original/file-20180411-566-ixe3e0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214268/original/file-20180411-566-ixe3e0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214268/original/file-20180411-566-ixe3e0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214268/original/file-20180411-566-ixe3e0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214268/original/file-20180411-566-ixe3e0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Fetching water in Ethiopia, 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Melih Cevdet Teksen/Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>But refugees are linked to climate change</h2>
<p>Things were different for “refugees”, however – those displaced people who were forced to cross borders between countries. Refugee numbers were related to the usual demographic and socio-economic factors. But in contrast to total displaced people and occurrence of conflict, variations in refugee numbers were found to be related significantly to the incidence of severe regional droughts. And these droughts can in turn be <a href="https://theconversation.com/droughts-in-east-africa-some-headway-in-unpacking-whats-causing-them-75476">linked to</a> a long-term drying trend ascribed to anthropogenic climate change.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216133/original/file-20180424-57611-1u5ke77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216133/original/file-20180424-57611-1u5ke77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216133/original/file-20180424-57611-1u5ke77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216133/original/file-20180424-57611-1u5ke77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216133/original/file-20180424-57611-1u5ke77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216133/original/file-20180424-57611-1u5ke77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216133/original/file-20180424-57611-1u5ke77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216133/original/file-20180424-57611-1u5ke77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As droughts have become more severe, refugee numbers have increased.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0096-6">Owain and Maslin, 2018</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>However, it is important to consider the counterfactual: had there been slower population growth, stronger economies and more stable political regimes, would these droughts still have led to more refugees? That’s beyond the scope of our study, which may not be a definitive test of the links between climate change and conflict. But the occurrence of peaks in both conflict and displaced people in the 1980s and 1990s across East Africa suggest that decolonisation and the <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/02/11/africas-forever-wars/">end of the Cold War</a> could have been key issues. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, while conflict has decreased across the region since the end of the Cold War, the number of displaced people remains high. We argue that with good stable governance there is no reason why climate change should lead to greater conflict or displacement of people, despite the World Bank’s dire predictions. Water provides one reason to be optimistic. The <a href="http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/transboundary_waters.shtml">UN reports</a> that, over the past 50 years, there have been 150 international water resource treaties signed compared to 37 disputes that involved violence. </p>
<p>What our study suggests is the failure of political systems is the primary cause of conflict and displacement of large numbers of people. We also demonstrate that within socially and geopolitically fragile systems, climate change may potentially exacerbate the situation particularly with regards to enforced migration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94331/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Maslin is a Professor at University College London, Founding Director of Rezatec Ltd, Director of The London NERC Doctoral Training Partnership and a member of Cheltenham Science Festival Advisory Committee. He is an unpaid member of the Sopra-Steria CSR Board. He has received funding in the past from the NERC, EPSRC, ESRC, Royal Society, DIFD, DECC, FCO, Innovate UK, Carbon Trust, UK Space Agency, European Space Agency, Leverhulme Trust and British Council.</span></em></p>We looked at ten countries in East Africa and found poverty and politics were much more important drivers of conflict and displacement than climate change.Mark Maslin, Professor of Earth System Science, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/763972017-05-08T06:25:46Z2017-05-08T06:25:46ZSouth Korea’s new president will face challenges from all directions<p>On May 9, South Koreans will vote for their next president. Whoever wins the election will have to face serious domestic and international challenges.</p>
<p>It’s been almost six months since a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37820112">political scandal engulfed</a> then-president Park Geun-hye and three months since the Constitutional Court made the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/10/south-korea-president-park-geun-hye-constitutional-court-impeachment">decision to impeach her</a>. Because Park was not able to complete her term, which was supposed to end in February 2018, this election has had a hasty campaign and transition schedule. </p>
<p>The new president’s tenure will start immediately from May 10. </p>
<h2>Domestic factors</h2>
<p>The country’s conservatives have become fragmented because of Park Geun-hye’s impeachment and loss of the ruling party’s political legitimacy. This is a new feature in the country’s 30-year-old democracy. </p>
<p>Traditionally, conservative candidates have been able to garner <a href="http://asiafoundation.org/2017/03/15/snap-election-south-korea-need-know/">more than 45% of votes</a>. Other than the ten years from 1998 to 2007 when the progressive Kim Dae-jung, of the National Congress for New Politics, and Roh Moo-hyun, of the Millennium Democratic Party, were in power, the country’s conservative party has dominated national politics, despite a number of name changes. </p>
<p>But Park’s impeachment has split it into two factions. They comprise those who were <a href="http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/south-koreas-struggling-ruling-saenuri-party-changes-its-name-to-the-liberal-korea">against Park’s impeachment and remained</a> in the newly named Liberal Korea Party, and those who <a href="http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2017/01/24/0200000000AEN20170124000951315.html">voted for the impeachment and created</a> the Bareun Party. </p>
<p>This implosion of the ruling party has left many conservative voters confused about which party and candidate to support.</p>
<p>This support has wandered from Ban Ki-moon (the former UN secretary-general who was regarded as one of the strongest conservative candidates but who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/world/asia/ban-ki-moon-president-south-korea.html">decided against running on February 1</a>) to Hwang Kyo-ahn, the acting president, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/world/asia/south-korea-election-park-geun-hye.html?_r=1">who also chose not to run</a> in spite of his popularity among conservatives.</p>
<p>Support then shifted from a centrist left Ahn Hee-jung (governor of the western province of South Chungcheong), who <a href="http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Policy-Politics/Centrist-Ahn-quickly-gaining-support-in-South-Korea-election">lost his party’s primaries</a>, to Ahn Chul-soo (the centrist People’s Party’s candidate) and Hong Jun-pyo (the Liberal Korea Party’s candidate). </p>
<p>Conservative voters have thus become an unpredictable variable in the election.</p>
<p>In what is – theoretically, at least – a positive for Korean democracy, this election also has an unusually large number of candidates. In all, <a href="http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2017/04/14/0200000000AEN20170414002552315.html">15 candidates had registered</a>, and 13 are now running. But only the five candidates from parties that already have multiple seats in the National Assembly are regarded as contenders. </p>
<p>Their ideological spectrum is very wide: from far-right Hong Jun-pyo (Liberal Korea Party) and conservative Yoo Seung-min (Bareun Party) through to centrist Ahn Cheol-soo (People’s Party), moderate left Moon Jae-in (Minjoo Party) and left Shim Sang-jung (Justice Party). </p>
<p>Other than <a href="http://time.com/4749915/south-korea-moon-jae-in-polls-election/">Moon’s consistently high approval rating</a> since Park’s impeachment, the other candidates’ approval has fluctuated, especially <a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-04/13/c_136206646.htm">after heated television debates</a>. </p>
<p>One of the most challenging tasks for the new president will be how to effectively govern the fragmented country. Korean society is divided into those who want fundamental political and economic reform, and those who remain sympathetic to Park. And whoever wins the election is likely to prevail with a small margin. </p>
<p>What’s more, the National Assembly will remain divided until the next legislative election in April 2020. None of the major candidates’ parties has more than 150 seats (the total number of seats is 300 and, under the National Assembly Advancement Act, even the majority party cannot force through legislation without <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2014/09/the-tyranny-of-the-minority-in-south-korea/">agreement of 60% of the house (180 votes)</a>. </p>
<p>Front-runner Moon Jae-in’s Minjoo Party has only 119 seats. So even though he looks likely to win the election, he and his party will have to negotiate with other parties to pass legislation.</p>
<h2>International implications</h2>
<p>And then there are the myriad international challenges. </p>
<p>The first will be managing the country’s alliance with the United States and its unpredictable new president. When the Park Geun-hye administration announced the deploying of the anti-missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system in July 2013, it <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-thaad-protest-idUSKCN10Q0U0">triggered a major backlash</a> in the local community.</p>
<p>The announcement also <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-usa-thaad-china-idUSKBN16709W">hurt the historically good relations</a> with Beijing, which <a href="http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2017/03/06/Economist-South-Korea-vulnerable-to-China-retaliation-for-THAAD/2171488822054/">retaliated with economic measures</a> targeting Korean businesses. Moon’s stance toward THAAD has been <a href="http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/top-south-korean-presidential-candidate-moon-jae-in-would-review-thaad-process">lukewarm and ambivalent</a>, so if he wins the election, Beijing might push his administration to review the decision. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Trump Administration <a href="http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170418000713">wants to review and reform</a> the Korea-US free trade agreement. Ratified by both countries in 2011, it was the largest trade deal for the US since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993. What the US administration wants to change is unclear, but it is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbrinkley/2017/04/18/pence-tells-koreans-us-wants-to-reform-korea-us-free-trade-agreement-but-theres-nothing-to-reform/#632fc8f37d11">causing anxiety among South Korean businesses</a>, especially as the country’s <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/49dafdec-0b5d-11e6-b0f1-61f222853ff3">economy is slowing</a>. </p>
<p>Last but not least, there’s North Korea. Threats from the reclusive regime have been on the rise in recent months, <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/3/north-korea-missiles-can-defeat-us-defense-systems/">with regular missile tests</a> and its continuing development of nuclear weapons. The prospects of <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/13/north-koreas-sixth-nuclear-test.html">the nation’s sixth nuclear test</a> and of a US pre-emptive strike are <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/13/risk-of-miscalculation-on-korean-peninsula-could-unleash-fatal-consequences.html">causing worry in the southern part</a> of the Korean peninsula.</p>
<p>Kim Dae-jung’s Sunshine Policy, which emphasised inter-Korean cooperation and <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2000/dae-jung-facts.html">won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000</a>, has <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/19/south.korea.sunshine.policy/">been criticised</a> because it’s thought North Korea earned time and capital as a result and used both for its missile and nuclear program.</p>
<p>Moon Jae-inis widely expected to win the election. His Minjoo Party, following the convoluted splitting and renaming of political parties in South Korea, is related to Kim’s. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/south-korea-president-north-korea-relations-2017-3">Conservatives are worried</a> that Moon may try to restart inter-Korean dialogue or rapprochement in spite of tough sanctions facing North Korea for its arms programs. </p>
<p>South Korea’s new president will have much on his plate come May 10. Balancing domestic expectations and delicate relations with the country’s neighbours while trying to deal with North Korea’s race to become a nuclear power will make for a challenging five-year term.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76397/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eunjung Lim does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Balancing domestic expectations and delicate relations with neighbours while trying to deal with North Korea’s race to become a nuclear power will make for a challenging five-year term.Eunjung Lim, Lecturer, Johns Hopkins UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/698282016-12-02T17:22:46Z2016-12-02T17:22:46ZUN finally apologises for bringing cholera to Haiti – now it must match its words with funds<p>The United Nations Secretary-General has announced a new approach to cholera in Haiti. Six years after the organisation introduced cholera into the country, with at least 9,200 people dead and 800,000 people sickened since that time, the UN has, at long last, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-38176288">apologised</a>.</p>
<p>It has also taken a major stride by agreeing the need for remedies to be made – both to communities and individual people.</p>
<p>Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon switched into Creole, Haiti’s national language, to apologise for what happened and to ask forgiveness from Haitian victims. For many years the UN denied its role in the outbreak and epidemic, refusing to accept any type of responsibility for the suffering that resulted from the disease.</p>
<h2>The outbreak</h2>
<p>In 2010 the UN sent additional peacekeepers to its mission in Haiti to assist with rebuilding the country after an earthquake. And some of those peacekeepers <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-the-un-finally-admits-role-in-haiti-cholera-outbreak-here-is-how-victims-must-be-compensated-64140">brought cholera with them</a>. The UN did not screen its peacekeepers for cholera, nor did it build adequate toilet facilities in its peacekeeping camps. As a result, raw faecal waste carrying cholera flowed directly into a tributary that feeds Haiti’s main river. Cholera quickly spread around many parts of the country.</p>
<p>Initially the UN refused to acknowledge any of this. Even when confronted with scientific proof of how and why the outbreak occurred, it continued to refuse to accept responsibility. The UN response to cholera was woefully inadequate, and very simple efforts could have prevented the disease for relatively <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/14/haiti-cholera-epidemic-un-prevention">small sums of money</a>.</p>
<p>Representatives of the victims launched a long fight for justice. What makes the apology so important is that throughout the battle to secure accountability, the UN battened down its hatches. It refused to engage in any discussions about compensating victims, despite the grave harms suffered.</p>
<h2>Compensation</h2>
<p>But this is not the end of the story. The question remains as to who will fund compensation for the victims. The new plan for cholera includes two tracks: one to support the prevention and eradication of cholera, the other for the material compensation of victims and for the support of community-based projects. The aim is to get US$200m for each track. The Secretary-General has appealed to member states for donations but many are suffering from <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=55694#.WEGjJUvCQb8">donor fatigue</a> – particularly when it comes to Haiti.</p>
<p>The recent appeal for donations to assist with rebuilding after <a href="http://www.unocha.org/hurricane-matthe">Hurricane Matthew</a> has not met its target, with the pot of money required woefully underfunded. </p>
<p>Some may argue that, since the UN caused the outbreak, it should provide the funds itself. But the United Nations is a group of member states. The organisation may have a Secretariat (of tens of thousands of staff) to support, but it is funded, directed, and driven by its member states. And when the UN causes harm – in this case by deficient policies and practices – the responsibility for remedying that harm must be assumed by all of its members.</p>
<p>There is a simple solution here. The UN has a regularly assessed budget to which all countries contribute according to their different abilities. The funds for remedying cholera victims’ suffering caused by the UN could, and arguably should, come from that budget. In that way, all UN members would contribute to addressing the consequences of the UN’s actions.</p>
<p>But of course there are some countries that do not want the budget to be used in this way. Even though there is a reserve account into which spare money is placed – when there is an underspend on a project – some countries are railing against the idea of collective responsibility for an organisation to which they belong as a member. And those same countries do not want the UN peacekeeping underspend (of nearly US$300m) to be used to compensate to Haiti cholera victims. Those states prefer to have an appeal for donations from countries that feel an affinity with, or responsibility towards, Haiti and the cholera victims.</p>
<p>This position simply is not good enough. Cholera in Haiti is the responsibility of the entire United Nations. As Ban Ki-Moon stressed, it is a stain on the reputation of the entire UN. The outbreak and suffering have harmed the legitimacy and credibility of UN peace operations.</p>
<p>The apology represents huge progress. Now we must push for the final obstacle to be overcome, and for the UN to match its words with actions by using UN funds to compensate cholera victims.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69828/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosa Freedman has received funding from AHRC, British Academy, ESRC, Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, and Society of Legal Scholars.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicolas Lemay-Hébert receives funding from the ESRC and the AHRC. </span></em></p>After admitting that its peacekeepers brought the disease to the country, the organisation must make financial amends too.Rosa Freedman, Professor of Law, Conflict and Global Development, University of ReadingNicolas Lemay-Hébert, Senior Lecturer, International Development Department, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/687622016-11-14T17:47:08Z2016-11-14T17:47:08ZCyprus edges towards reunification after landmark talks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145846/original/image-20161114-5064-1qu4tpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C29%2C998%2C568&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-505578361/stock-photo-nicosia-cyprus.html?src=hborFmTBrSpYQAb8lFsPwQ-5-64">Andrei Tudoran/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For many, the decades-long conflict between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots over how they can live together is a graveyard of diplomatic effort. The issue dates back to the 1950s, when the demise of British colonialism in the island raised questions about power-sharing in the two communities. Since then no solution has managed to offer long-term stability for a country split down the middle. </p>
<p>This could be about to change. Talks encouraged by outgoing United Nations secretary general Ban Ki Moon have sparked optimism that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/05/antonio-guterres-next-un-secretary-general">his successor Antonio Guterres</a> might the first to be free of the headache that is the “Cyprus problem”.</p>
<p>This optimism is not unfounded if we look at who is at the helm of this effort. This new round of negotiations commenced when <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/28/mustafa-akinci-solve-cyprus-problem-turkey-election">Mustafa Akinci was elected leader</a> of the Turkish Cypriots last April. Akinci is by far the most pro-solution leader the Turkish Cypriots have ever had. His Greek Cypriot counterpart, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/24/cyprus-votes-new-president">Nicos Anastasiades</a>, is also a committed moderate when it comes to the resolution of the dispute. He was in fact leader of Democratic Rally, the only major Greek Cypriot party to have supported <a href="http://www.hri.org/docs/annan/Annan_Plan_Text.html">the Annan Plan</a> – the 2004 UN proposal for a Cyprus federation that was eventually rejected by the Greek Cypriots in the polls. </p>
<p>When the two leaders and their teams met in <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyprus-conflict-un-idUSKBN132146">Switzerland’s Mont Pelerin recently</a> to intensify peace talks on issues like the economy and governance – but especially on the issue of territory – the UN special adviser on Cyprus, Espen Barth Eide, praised the commitment and bravery of the two leaders and <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/significant-progress-cyprus-reunification-talks-mediator-201148937.html?ref=gs">signalled that “significant progress”</a> had been made. The leaders have agreed for one more week of talks starting November 20 in Geneva. </p>
<h2>Territory is important</h2>
<p>If an agreement is achieved on the territory front, then one of the biggest challenges is sorted. The issue has material as well as emotional significance. Greek Cypriots in particular are looking for a return of some of the territories now under Turkish Cypriot control, which will allow their refugees to return to their properties.</p>
<p>But, while the UN wants the two Cypriot communities to remain “owners” of the talks, there is no question that Turkey is a major player. Turkey has always supported the Turkish Cypriots in the north of the island, first with mostly diplomatic assistance to promote their aims – for example, when the Greek Cypriots led the anti-colonial movement and tried for union with Greece. </p>
<p>Since the division of the island, which started in the sixties and was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/20/newsid_3866000/3866521.stm">finalised with the 1974 war</a>, Turkey’s involvement has been far greater. It has essentially subsidised the unrecognised state in the north and stationed forces there. So, one of the big questions is if and how Turkey will leave the island should a federation be established. Turkish Cypriot insecurities about being a minority, rooted in years of conflict with the Greek Cypriots, leaves many in the north seeing Turkey’s military as somehow a protection. But this is anathema for the Greek Cypriots.</p>
<h2>Political games</h2>
<p>On the other hand, while Ankara is officially supporting the talks, it is really difficult to predict the role they could play in the crucial weeks and months ahead, given the instability in the country. Often, troubles at home have pushed the Turkish leadership to be constructive in Cyprus so as to improve their international reputation but whether this will be the case again remains unclear. We are, after all, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/07/turkey-government/491579/">watching unprecedented events</a> in Turkey at the moment. </p>
<p>Turkey’s role in Cyprus has always been linked to the country’s relation to the European Union. For years, Ankara has been relatively flexible on the Cyprus problem, the resolution of which is a condition for its EU accession. But with the process of accession practically dead – and <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-germany-idUKKCN1021CL">amid calls</a> from EU diplomats to kill it officially – Turkey might have less incentive to contribute to a resolution. </p>
<p>The recent European Commission <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/countries/detailed-country-information/turkey/index_en.htm">annual report </a>on Turkey’s accession progress was very critical of its domestic situation and this has reportedly made Greek Cypriots think their hand in the negotiations is strengthened. To them it is now even easier to argue that Turkey should not be a “guarantor power”, an idea that comes from the post-independence institutional set-up in bi-communal Cyprus and which is used as an argument for stationing troops there. </p>
<h2>The People Decide</h2>
<p>Ultimately, the fate of Cyprus will be decided by its people, who will approve or reject at the ballot box any potential agreement that the leaders of the talks might secure. It is for that reason that this week’s break in the negotiations might be welcome. </p>
<p>The Greek Cypriot leader Anastasiades says he wants to discuss with the rest of political forces in his community before negotiations move forward. He might also seek to consult with Athens, which is soon hosting outgoing US President Barack Obama. Despite frustrating some Turkish Cypriots, who are eager for a solution sooner than later, this pause could be crucial for a successful resolution. </p>
<p>Keeping the communities in Cyprus at the heart of the process, especially in the south where political forces are too sceptical of a solution, is essential for gain eventual support. Turkish Cypriot civil society is getting organised in favour of reunification, just like they did in 2004, when they successfully mobilised people to support the resolution plan. But, as before, things are much slower in the south. As the leaders will start preparing their suitcases for the new round of talks in Geneva, Greek Cypriots who want reunification might need to start organising too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68762/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Kyris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Greek and Turkish Cypriots may get to vote again on whether to end 40 years of division.George Kyris, Lecturer in International and European Politics, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/655342016-09-19T19:29:33Z2016-09-19T19:29:33ZSpeaking truth to power: The killing of Dag Hammarskjöld and the cover-up<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138147/original/image-20160918-17029-miljht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has courageously pursued an enquiry into the mysterious death of Dag Hammarskjöld.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Tiksa Negeri</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty-five years ago, shortly after midnight on 18 September 1961, an <a href="http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/dag/bio.htm">aircraft crashed</a> on its approach to Ndola airport in the British colony of Northern Rhodesia, which is now Zambia. On board were 16 people: the UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, the members of his mission, and the Swedish crew. The sole survivor, who spoke of “sparks in the sky” and said the plane <a href="http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=a/5069">“blew up”</a>, died six days later.</p>
<p>Suspicions were voiced about the crash because of the strange details that quickly emerged. For instance, the British high commissioner, who was at Ndola, showed no concern that Hammarskjöld failed to land and insisted that he must have decided <a href="http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=a/5069">“to go elsewhere”</a>. </p>
<p>It took four hours after daybreak to start an official search. This in spite of local residents, policemen and soldiers reporting a great flash in the sky shortly after midnight. There were also witness accounts of a second, smaller plane trailing and then dropping something that “looked like fire’ upon the larger one”.</p>
<p>The Prime Minister of the Congo, Cyrille Adoula, who had met with the Secretary-General just hours before the crash, believed he had been murdered. According to the 1961 Montreal Gazette he had commented: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>How ignoble is this assassination, not the first of its kind perpetrated by the moneyed powers. Mr Hammarskjöld was the victim of certain financial circles for whom a human life is not equal to a gram of copper or uranium.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There were several inquiries into the crash in 1961-2, all of which failed to take seriously the testimonies of Zambian witnesses. A <a href="http://www.hammarskjoldcommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Report-of-Rhodesian-Commission-of-Inquiry.pdf">Rhodesian Commission of Inquiry</a> identified pilot error as the cause of the crash. This was solely on the basis of an elimination of the other suggested causes. </p>
<p>A UN inquiry, however, reached an open verdict and stated that it could not rule out <a href="http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=a/5069">sabotage or attack</a>. This led the UN General Assembly to pass a <a href="http://www.hammarskjoldcommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/General-Assembly-Resolution-1759-XVII.pdf">Resolution</a> requesting the Secretary-General</p>
<blockquote>
<p>to inform the General Assembly of any new evidence which may come to his attention. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>More than half a century and many inquiries later, the search for the truth about what happened that September night continues. On 17 August 2016, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the 71st UN <a href="http://www.un.org/en/ga/71/meetings/">General Assembly</a> to appoint an “eminent person or persons” to review the new information on the crash. He urged member states to release relevant records for review.</p>
<p>Ban Ki-moon’s statement ended on a moving and powerful note: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This may be our last chance to find the truth. Seeking a complete understanding of the circumstances is our solemn duty to my illustrious and distinguished predecessor, Dag Hammarskjöld, to the other members of the party accompanying him, and to their families.’ </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hammarskjöld, as second Secretary-General, sought to shape the UN as an organisation devoted to peace. He developed the strategy of <a href="http://www.stiftelsendaghammarskjoldbiblioteket.se/dag-hammarskjold/dag-hammarskjold-the-peacemaker/">“preventive diplomacy”</a>, which defused the Suez Canal crisis in 1956. His prevailing commitment was to the UN Charter and he <a href="https://dagtoday.org/testi/melber-1-en/">refused to act in the interest of any particular state</a>. </p>
<p>In 1961, the UN was only 15 years old and was undergoing a dramatic shift as European decolonisation gathered pace. The Afro-Asian bloc now provided 47 UN members out of 100. For these new states, said Hammarskjöld, the UN was their <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/NL6/100/02/PDF/NL610002.pdf?OpenElement">“main platform”</a> and protector.</p>
<p>For decades, the former colonial powers have written the history of the night in which Hammarskjöld and his companions died. But a new history is about to be written if the recent momentum to find the full truth is anything to go by. </p>
<h2>New quest for the truth</h2>
<p>Hammarskjöld was on the way to meet <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/gah/tshombe-moise-kapenda-1919-1969">Moise Tshombe</a>, leader of the Belgian-backed secession of Katanga province from the newly-independent Congo. Mineral rich Katanga was of geostrategic importance, not least because of a mine in Katanga which produced the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/10416945/Tracing-the-Congolese-mine-that-fuelled-Hiroshima.html">richest uranium</a> in the world. </p>
<p>The UN’s declaration that it could not rule out sabotage or attack and the request for any new evidence emerged in 2011 as a crucial point of reference in the book <a href="http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/who-killed-hammarskjold/"><em>Who Killed Hammarskjöld? The UN, the Cold War and White Supremacy in Africa</em></a>. The book drew on a mass of evidence that had been available for many years but had been dismissed by the early inquiries, and presented many new findings. </p>
<p>The disturbing compilation of evidence includes the testimony of Commander Charles Southall, a naval officer working for the US National Security Agency listening station in Cyprus in 1961. Southall heard the recording of a pilot shooting down Hammarskjöld’s plane.</p>
<p>British peer Lord Lea of Crondall read the book and resolved to set up a new inquiry. Interest was growing. <a href="http://www.teol.lu.se/person/KGHammar">Professor K.G. Hammar</a>, former Archbishop of the Church of Sweden, went to Zambia with Hans Kristian Simensen, a Norwegian researcher, and called on Sweden to get the <a href="http://www.hurstpublishers.com/i-am-convinced-hammarskjold-did-not-die-in-an-air-accident/">case reopened</a>. In 2012 the <a href="http://www.hammarskjoldcommission.org/hammarskjold-inquiry-trust/">Hammarskjöld Inquiry Trust</a> was formed, including <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/pebble.asp?relid=7736">Chief Emeka Anyaoku</a> of Nigeria. </p>
<p>The Trust set up the <a href="http://www.hammarskjoldcommission.org/">Hammarskjöld Commission</a>, an international group of <a href="http://www.hammarskjoldcommission.org/team/index.html">four distinguished jurists</a>, chaired by a former British Lord Justice of Appeal. </p>
<p>After a rigorous examination of the available evidence and interviews in Ndola with witnesses who were still alive, the commission concluded: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is persuasive evidence that the aircraft was subjected to some form of attack or threat as it circled to land at Ndola … (and) was in fact forced into its descent by some form of hostile action. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It recommended that the UN conduct a further investigation and seek access to relevant records held by member states. The commission’s <a href="http://www.hammarskjoldcommission.org/report/">report</a> was made public on 9 September 2013. On the same day, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that he would closely study the findings. </p>
<h2>Ban Ki-moon takes the lead</h2>
<p>In March 2014, the Secretary-General asked the General Assembly to <a href="http://www.dag-hammarskjold.com/blog/LINK%201%20-%20Sec%20Gen%20to%20General%20Assembly%2021%20March%202014.pdf">pursue the matter further</a>. This was welcomed by the growing worldwide campaign that had by now developed, which urged the creation of a <a href="http://blogs.sas.ac.uk/2015/02/17/from-a-book-to-a-united-nations-resolution-yes-we-can/#more-3838">new inquiry</a>. The movement was supported by sympathetic journalists, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/justiceforhammarskjold/">social media campaigners</a>, individuals, and organisations, largely coordinated by the United Nations Association Westminster <a href="http://www.hammarskjoldinquiry.info">Branch</a> in London. </p>
<p>http://www.hammarskjoldinquiry.info/</p>
<p>The Swedish government submitted a draft Resolution to the UN General Assembly in October 2014, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/14/un-inquiry-1961-dag-hammarskjold-air-crash">calling for a new investigation</a>. This was strongly supported by Zambia.</p>
<p>On 29 December 2014, the UN General Assembly adopted the <a href="http://www.dag-hammarskjold.com/blog/general-assembly-investigation-document.pdf">Resolution</a>, authorising the Secretary-General to appoint an independent Panel of Experts to examine the evidence. Fifty-five nations joined Sweden to co-sponsor the resolution, which was adopted by the consensus of all 193 Member States.</p>
<p>On 16 March 2015, Ban Ki-moon appointed a <a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/03/u-n-panel-to-investigate-dag-hammarskjolds-death/">Panel of Experts</a>, which was headed by Mohamed Chande Othman, Chief Justice of Tanzania. <a href="http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/70/132">Its report concluded</a> that there was, indeed, significant information to warrant further inquiry into a possible aerial attack or other interference as a cause of the crash. It also introduced new areas to investigate, such as the possibility that Hammarskjöld’s communications were intercepted.</p>
<p>On 2 July 2015, Ban Ki-moon circulated the report among member states and expressed the view that “a further inquiry or investigation would be necessary to finally establish the facts.” He <a href="http://www.dag-hammarskjold.com/upload/N1517807-sm.pdf">urged</a> member states </p>
<blockquote>
<p>to disclose, declassify or otherwise allow privileged access to information that they may have in their possession’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Following Ban Ki-moon’s recommendations, the Swedish Permanent Mission to the UN circulated a <a href="http://www.swedenabroad.com/en-GB/Embassies/UN-New-York/Current-affairs/Statements/Agenda-item-129-Investigation-into-the-conditions-and-circumstances-resulting-in-the-tragic-death-of-Dag-Hammarskjold-and-of-the-members-of-the-party-accompanying-him-sys/">draft Resolution</a> urging all member states to release any relevant records in their possession. The draft Resolution was supported by 74 other states – but not the UK or the US. </p>
<p>When the Secretary-General in August 2016 called on the forthcoming General Assembly to appoint an eminent person or persons <a href="http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/70/1017">to take the inquiry forward</a>, he attached as annexes to his statement the responses by several member states to the UN’s earlier call for documentation. These show a readiness by South Africa to search for lost records relating to an alleged plot by mercenaries. They also reveal the uncooperative nature of the responses by the US and the UK.</p>
<p>Ban’s courage, dignity and humanity in this matter have been followed with heartfelt appreciation by those who care about justice and about the principles enshrined in the UN Charter, which were advocated so vigorously by Hammarskjöld. It is to be hoped that Ban’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/21/un-security-council-to-take-first-vote-on-ban-ki-moons-replacement">successor</a> will follow the same path, and with the same integrity and determination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65534/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber is affiliated with The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation. He and co-author Susan Williams would like to acknowledge the assistance provided by David Wardrop, Chairman of the United Nations Association Westminster Branch, UK</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fifty five years and many inquiries later, the search continues for the truth about the cause of the plane crash in which the UN secretary general and 15 others were killedHenning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaSusan Williams, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/632522016-07-29T03:11:28Z2016-07-29T03:11:28ZNo Kevin ‘17: Turnbull opts not to back Rudd for the UN’s top job<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132428/original/image-20160728-12125-cly8i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kevin Rudd had been hoping to succeed Ban Ki-moon as UN secretary-general.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dean Lewins</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/turnbull-government-wont-nominate-kevin-rudd-for-un-secretarygeneral-role-20160728-gqg9qx.html">has confirmed</a> the Australian government will not nominate Kevin Rudd to be United Nations secretary-general. Rudd, a former prime minister and foreign minister, had been hoping to succeed Ban Ki-moon, whose eight-year tenure ends later this year. </p>
<p>Rudd was aiming to become the first Australian to hold the world’s most senior diplomatic position. The failure to secure the Australian government’s support has delivered a fatal blow to Rudd’s campaign. </p>
<p>While Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had been <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-27/bishop-says-kevin-rudd-qualified-for-un-top-job/7663412">publicly supportive</a> of Rudd’s candidacy, several senior government ministers had <a href="https://theconversation.com/morrison-flags-opposition-to-nominating-rudd-for-un-post-63059">voiced their concerns</a> about Rudd’s suitability for the role. Even Turnbull was somewhat dismissive of the whole affair, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-27/kevin-rudd's-bid-to-be-un-boss-set-for-cabinet-consideration/7665096">commenting that</a> Rudd’s candidacy “isn’t the most important issue confronting the cabinet”. Ultimately, federal cabinet agreed to leave the decision to Turnbull alone. </p>
<p>Even if Rudd had secured the government’s nomination, he still would have faced a difficult campaign. So how does one go about nominating for UN secretary-general? And who needs to be on your side to get the top job?</p>
<h2>How will the process take place?</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/">UN Charter</a> sets out the requirements for the appointment of the secretary-general. It provides that the General Assembly appoints the secretary-general on the recommendation of the Security Council.</p>
<p>The process of getting that recommendation is quite involved. First, a prospective candidate must, by convention, be put forward for the position by their own government. However, a candidate securing the support of their own country is only the first step. </p>
<p>Once the list of candidates is finalised, the Security Council then meets to adopt a resolution, putting forward its recommendation to the General Assembly. While there is nothing stopping the Security Council from putting forward a number of candidates, it has been accepted practice since 1946, almost the beginning of the UN, that the Security Council will put forward only one candidate. </p>
<p>If there are a number of candidates, the Security Council will conduct ballots before adopting its final resolution. The process is also subject to the Security Council veto. Any one of the five permanent members of the Security Council – the US, UK, France, China and Russia – can prevent the council adopting the resolution that puts forward the chosen candidate. </p>
<p>Gaining the Security Council’s support is thus paramount. This is most often achieved through behind-the-scenes diplomacy by the candidate, as well as by the candidate’s own country.</p>
<p>In addition to these procedural requirements, convention dictates that the position of secretary-general is “rotated” on a regional basis – that is, if a previous secretary-general was from, say, Africa, the next one should be from Asia, or South America. </p>
<p>The position of secretary-general has been held by nationals of Korea, Ghana, Egypt, Peru, Austria, Myanmar, Sweden and Norway. Accepted wisdom would put Eastern Europe as the likely region for the next secretary-general.</p>
<p>The current candidates include nationals from Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Serbia, the Slovak Republic and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which would seem to give credence to this accepted wisdom.</p>
<p>And the UN has made it clear that a female secretary-general would be a welcome development. In a <a href="http://www.un.org/pga/70/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2015/08/15-Dec-2015_Appointment-of-Secretary-General-15-December-2015.pdf">December 2015 letter</a> soliciting candidates for the position, the presidents of the General Assembly and Security Council encouraged member countries “to consider presenting women, as well as men” as candidates, in order to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… guarantee equal opportunities for women and men in gaining access to senior decision-making positions. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Six of the current 12 candidates are women, including former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark.</p>
<p>So, even if Rudd had the government’s full backing, he would still have had to win over the Security Council, including the five permanent members, and somehow convince the UN to choose him over someone from Eastern Europe and to select him rather than give the job to an equally qualified woman.</p>
<p>Australia has a long and impressive history of engagement with the UN. The most recent, its 2013-14 tenure on the Security Council, is considered a great success for Australian-led diplomacy. </p>
<p>It is likely Australia will eventually call the office of the secretary-general home – however, it won’t be in 2017.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63252/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Crawford is the daughter of Judge James Crawford, currently serving on the International Court of Justice, the judicial organ of the United Nations.</span></em></p>How does one go about nominating to be UN secretary-general? And who needs to be on your side to get the top job?Emily Crawford, Lecturer and Co-Director, Sydney Centre for International Law, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/623072016-07-18T19:53:56Z2016-07-18T19:53:56ZLGBTI vote at the UN shows battle for human rights is far from won<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130414/original/image-20160713-12358-zm87op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/John Vizcaino</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world has edged closer to placing the same value on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people as it does on human rights. Sadly, not all states, including many African countries, are on the same page. </p>
<p>The 47-member Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council has adopted a <a href="http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/HRC/32/L.2/Rev.1">landmark resolution</a> on “Protection Against Violence and Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity”. For the first time an independent monitor will be appointed with the mandate to identify the root causes of discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation and gender identity.</p>
<p>The expert will, like other special rapporteurs, be tasked with talking to governments to protect LGBTI rights. She or he will have the power to document hate crime and human rights violations. The monitor, however, will not have a mandate to recommend sanctions.</p>
<p>The main initiative was taken by a core group of seven South American states – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Uruguay. Forty-one additional countries co-sponsored the text. A record 628 nongovernmental organisations from 151 countries supported the effort. Notably, some 70% were from the global South.</p>
<p>But the resolution was adopted by a narrow margin: only 23 member states voted in favour, 18 against. Six abstained. African countries remained opposed or reluctant to take a stand. Ten of them voted against the resolution and four <a href="http://webtv.un.org/watch/ahrc32l.2rev.1-vote-item3-41st-meeting-32nd-regular-session-of-human-rights-council/5009164455001#full-text">abstained</a>.</p>
<p>The strongest resistance to the resolution came from the Muslim and African member states of the council. After all, half of the more than 70 countries that still criminalise same-sex relationships and behaviour are in <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-anti-gay-sentiment-remains-strong-in-much-of-africa-42677">Africa</a>.</p>
<h2>Champions and villains</h2>
<p>The final text was considerably softened and watered down after a controversial and, at times, <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20220&LangID=E">heated debate</a>. A last-minute amendment stressed that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the resolution also states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is the duty of States, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As the International Commission of Jurists <a href="http://www.icj.org/hrc32sogi/">stressed</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Although a number of hostile amendments seeking to introduce notions of cultural relativism were adopted into the text by vote, the core of the resolution affirming the universal nature of international human rights law stood firm.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Voting in favour were: Albania, Belgium, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Georgia, Germany, Latvia, Macedonia, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, Panama, Paraguay, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Slovenia, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Venezuela, Vietnam. </p>
<p>Voting against were: Algeria, Bangladesh, Burundi, China, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Morocco, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Togo, United Arab Emirates. Abstentions were from: Botswana, Ghana, India, Namibia, Philippines, South Africa.</p>
<p>While ten of the African council members voted against, the other four abstained. Those that abstained argued that the resolution – despite several far-reaching amendments curbing the power of the expert – remained divisive and would impose cultural-specific (read Western) values. </p>
<h2>The puzzling case of South Africa and Namibia</h2>
<p>Ironically, South Africa was the first country in the world to include protection on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/science-alone-cant-shift-anti-gay-prejudice-in-africa-43007">grounds of sexuality</a> in its constitution. It championed gay rights in a lead role when the Human Rights Council adopted a first resolution in <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G11/148/76/PDF/G1114876.pdf?OpenElement">2011</a>. It remained committed to the cause when voting for the next <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G14/177/32/PDF/G1417732.pdf?OpenElement">landmark resolution</a> adopted by the Human Rights Council three years later.</p>
<p>But even then it was beginning to show <a href="https://theconversation.com/behind-south-africa-reluctance-to-champion-gay-rights-on-the-continent-44321">signs of reluctance</a>. South Africa’s abstention this time sent shock waves through the LGBTI communities, not only <a href="http://www.mambaonline.com/2016/07/04/watch-south-africa-sell-lgbt-people-un/">at home</a>.</p>
<p>As a South African legal expert has <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2016-07-04-south-africas-great-lgbti-failure/#.V4Itt65Q87C">observed</a>, South Africa’s approach</p>
<blockquote>
<p>was focusing on maximum unity within the council. … Thus, our lives as gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, intersex and transgender people are less important to the government than maintaining maximum unity within the UN Human Rights Council. … it appears as if our government believes that our lives are pretty worthless. Who cares about LGBTI people being assaulted and murdered across the world if caring about it will upset the unity within the Human Rights Council?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As he pointed out, homophobia, rather than free choice of sexual preferences, has been historically a construct of (19th century) Western imperialism and missionary zeal in Africa. This was imposed and legally codified in the colonised societies.</p>
<p>Put differently: while those opposing the freedom of sexual preferences argue these are Western values and a form of ideological imperialism, true decolonisation would actually – just as in the case of South Africa’s constitution – require them to abandon homophobic legislation. After all, countries voting in favour of the resolution – such as Bolivia, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela and Vietnam – can hardly be classified as neo-colonial agencies of the West.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130418/original/image-20160713-12389-1w9i14p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130418/original/image-20160713-12389-1w9i14p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130418/original/image-20160713-12389-1w9i14p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130418/original/image-20160713-12389-1w9i14p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130418/original/image-20160713-12389-1w9i14p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130418/original/image-20160713-12389-1w9i14p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130418/original/image-20160713-12389-1w9i14p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shutterstock.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similar criticism was articulated against <a href="http://www.namibian.com.na/Namibia-and-Human-Rights/42721/read">Namibia</a>. The country’s abstention was already some progress compared with its outright “no” vote in 2014. (Then, South Africa – albeit reluctantly – voted for the adoption of the Human Rights Council’s <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G14/177/32/PDF/G1417732.pdf?OpenElement">second resolution</a> on “Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity”.) </p>
<p>Namibia defended its stance to abstain this time on the grounds that any kind of discrimination against any person in Namibia is regarded as unconstitutional. Thus, it was in full compliance with the intentions of the resolution. </p>
<p>But, instead of voting “yes” based on such an understanding, in a kind of 180-degree turnaround, Namibia bemoaned that, in the absence of international human rights law, it remains questionable what would guide the independent expert when assessing the compliance of states. Therefore, this mandate would allow interference in sensitive issues at national level. Hence Namibia would abstain.</p>
<p>The abstention was motivated more drastically by South Africa than Namibia. Despite its constitutional principles, <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20220&LangID=E">the explanation of its vote</a> declared that the draft resolution would – despite the significant compromises watering down the mandate – be unnecessarily divisive and “an arrogant approach. Recklessness and point scoring would not take anyone anywhere.” </p>
<h2>The battle for rights has always been divisive</h2>
<p>Divided lines seem to be by nature an integral part of the battle for human rights and dignity. After all, the promotion and protection of human rights has been divisive throughout history.</p>
<p>Take the campaign to abolish the slave trade. Or the ongoing fight for the adequate recognition of equal rights for women and the promotion of children’s rights. And campaigns for indigenous minorities.</p>
<p>Fighting racial and other forms of discrimination, including the fight for religious freedom, remains divisive. Advocating human rights and dignity will remain a contested matter.</p>
<p>But states have to make choices. Abstaining from the promotion of human dignity is a choice too, but a bad one.</p>
<p>As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon <a href="http://www.un.org/press/en/2010/sgsm13311.doc.htm">once declared</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As men and women of conscience, we reject discrimination in general, and in particular discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. When there is a tension between cultural attitudes and universal human rights, rights must carry the day.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62307/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber is a member of SWAPO since 1974. </span></em></p>The strongest resistance to the United Nations resolution to promote LGBTI rights came from Muslim and African states. Many of these countries still criminalise same-sex relationships.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/612272016-06-26T13:53:30Z2016-06-26T13:53:30ZWhat can be done to stop the United Nations abusing its immunity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127700/original/image-20160622-19777-vj4qrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Outgoing UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's successor faces the challenge of making the organisation more accountable.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">UN</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The passage of time can play cruel tricks on noble intentions. The person selected as the new United Nations (UN) <a href="http://www.unelections.org/?q=node/71">Secretary-General</a> later this year should keep this in mind as he or she evaluates how effectively the UN is responding to the challenges of the 21st century.</p>
<p>When the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/index.html">UN</a> and its specialised agencies were created after the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/sections/history/history-united-nations/">Second World War</a>, their founders were concerned that they would not be able to perform their assigned functions – to promote peace and security, international economic and social cooperation, economic development and human rights – if they were vulnerable to legal pressure from their member states. For example, the organisations would not be able to perform their assigned functions if a member state could threaten to arrest the officials of these organisations or to confiscate the materials they had collected when they were on official missions to the state. </p>
<p>To minimise this risk, the founders bestowed “<a href="http://legal.un.org/avl/ha/cpiun-cpisa/cpiun-cpisa.html">functional immunity</a>” on these international organisations. This ensured that they would not be subject to the jurisdiction of the member states or their courts when performing the functions for which they were created. This is different from diplomatic immunity, which protects accredited diplomats from the jurisdiction of their host states for all purposes. Thus, an off-duty UN official who is involved in a car accident can be sued for causing the accident, while an off-duty diplomat who causes an accident cannot. </p>
<p>At the time, this made good sense. The organisations were expected to primarily function as intergovernmental bodies. As such they would only interact with the governments of their member states, who would decide whether and how to use their services in their domestic affairs. There did not seem to be any need for them to engage directly with the citizens of their member states or for them to be directly accountable to those citizens.</p>
<p>But, over time, the scope of operations of these international organisations have expanded due to a mix of factors. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the end of colonialism;</p></li>
<li><p>changes in the international economic system;</p></li>
<li><p>our evolving understanding of the development process;</p></li>
<li><p>the evolution of international human rights law; and </p></li>
<li><p>our greater awareness of the environmental consequences of our actions. </p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Changed roles of international organisations</h2>
<p>Today these organisations play important roles in the governance of some of their member states. Their decisions and actions directly affect the citizens of these states. For example, the UN took over some of the functions normally performed by governments during political transitions in <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/untagFT.htm">Namibia</a>, <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/unmit/">Timor-Leste</a> and <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/unmibh/background.html">Bosnia</a>. It also did so in the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/">refugee camps</a> for people from countries like Afghanistan, Sudan and Iraq.</p>
<p>This expansion in the international organisations’ missions did not cause them or their member states to revise their functional immunity. This meant that their immunity expanded together with their expanding functions. </p>
<p>The result is that international organisations, contrary to the human rights and good governance principles that they espouse for the governments of their member states, are not accountable to those individuals who are adversely affected by their decisions and activities. Instead, they can use the immunity that was intended to shield them from interference by their member states as a sword to ward off claims by those they are alleged to have harmed.</p>
<h2>Acting with impunity</h2>
<p>Two recent examples demonstrate the gravity of this problem. First, in March 2016, Haitian plaintiffs argued to a US court that it should, despite all the legal precedents to the contrary, overturn a <a href="http://www.ijdh.org/2015/01/topics/health/united-states-district-court-southern-district-of-new-york/">lower court’s decision</a> denying their request to lift the UN’s immunity. That would allow them to sue it regarding its negligent actions in Haiti. </p>
<p>They allege that in 2010 the UN mission to Haiti <a href="http://www.ijdh.org/2016/03/topics/law-justice/unofficial-transcript-from-oral-argument-in-georges-v-united-nations-312016/">introduced cholera</a> into the country, which had been free of cholera for about 100 years. The evidence indicates that the cholera was brought to Haiti by infected soldiers who, contrary to good practice, had not been tested for the virus before leaving their home country, where cholera was widespread. Since 2010 approximately 8% of the Haitian population has had cholera and thousands have died from the disease.</p>
<p>The UN, however, relying on its immunity, has not even deigned to appear in the court, which has not yet ruled on the matter. It has also refused to accept any responsibility for the Haitian cholera outbreak, despite overwhelming evidence that the outbreak was caused by the arrival of the UN mission.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127701/original/image-20160622-19777-1r70b1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127701/original/image-20160622-19777-1r70b1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127701/original/image-20160622-19777-1r70b1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127701/original/image-20160622-19777-1r70b1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127701/original/image-20160622-19777-1r70b1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127701/original/image-20160622-19777-1r70b1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127701/original/image-20160622-19777-1r70b1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman infected with cholera receives treatment in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Keith Bedford</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, it has recently been reported that the number of claims of <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/un-peacekeeping-allegations-sexual-exploitation-abuse-20-year-history-shame-1547581">sexual abuse</a> of women and children brought against UN peacekeepers last year increased by 25% over 2014. This should not surprise the UN because for many years it has been slow to deal with <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-un-isnt-winning-its-battle-against-sexual-abuse-by-peacekeepers-52866">such allegations</a>.</p>
<p>In fact, despite a recent <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53430#.V2f5trh97IV">Security Council resolution</a>, it is not clear that those responsible will be held accountable. This situation, in effect, encourages UN peacekeepers to feel that they can act with impunity. This impression has possibly been reinforced by the fact that in 2010 the UN relied on its immunity to block a UN staff member from suing the organisation for the unfair way in which she was treated after she complained about being <a href="http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca2/08-2799/08-2799-cv_opn-2011-03-27.html">sexually harassed</a> by the head of her UN agency. The allegation was subsequently substantiated by his forced resignation.</p>
<h2>Making the UN walk the talk</h2>
<p>The UN and its agencies can solve the problem created by their reliance on their immunity to avoid their responsibilities. They must establish a reasonable alternative to a court, such as an independent tribunal, to hear the claims of those who allege they have been harmed by their actions.</p>
<p>They should empower the tribunal, when applicable, to award appropriate relief. This action would be consistent with their responsibilities to respect human rights and to comply with international law.</p>
<p>An independent tribunal would achieve two objectives:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>provide the remedies that those harmed by the actions of international organisations like the UN are entitled to; and </p></li>
<li><p>protect the limited functional immunity that the organisations need to perform their mandates. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Setting up a tribunal would not be unprecedented. Many international organisations, including the UN, already have <a href="http://untreaty.un.org/UNAT/main_page.htm">administrative tribunals</a> to deal with <a href="http://untreaty.un.org/UNAT/UNAT_Judgements/Judgements_E/UNAT_01495_E.pdf">employment cases</a>.</p>
<p>Likewise, multilateral development banks have <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/inspectionpanel">independent mechanisms</a> that can investigate the claims of people who allege they have been harmed by the failure of the banks to comply with their operational policies and procedures.</p>
<p>The UN and its agencies can build on these precedents. They can offer those they are alleged to have harmed a chance to have their claims adjudicated in a fair hearing before an independent decision-maker. If they do not, the courts in UN member states should follow the example of <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-58912&sa=U&ei=9GFQU_Y2kPvSBZHzgPAP&ved=0CCYQFjAC&usg=AFQjCNEr0RkRxgik5wAjypvFSjrwYD7exA#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-58912%22%5D%7D">a number of European courts</a>, and strip them of their immunity in appropriate cases.</p>
<p>Establishing this new tribunal should be a priority for the new UN Secretary-General when he or she takes office in 2017.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61227/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danny Bradlow receives funding from the National Research Foundation</span></em></p>The ‘functional immunity’ granted to UN officials made good sense when the body was founded after World War II. But as its organisational functions have expanded, so has this immunity.Danny Bradlow, SARCHI Professor of International Development Law and African Economic Relations, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/590992016-05-23T05:32:43Z2016-05-23T05:32:43ZWhat does the UN want to achieve from the first World Humanitarian Summit?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123196/original/image-20160519-30565-1kubgfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jordan's Zaatari refugee camp: home to nearly 80,000 people in May 2016. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/14342976031/in/photolist-nRrv5c-fHGCQk-fHZdPh-djS7m6-djS7qT-fHZec3-djS7oa-fHZdxb-nzffww-fHZe1s-fHGDC8-cMmfEb-fHGESk-dCKpQU-fHGCX8-djS7U3-djS7ne-jqCZFp-fHZeLC-djS7ZU-fHZdHY-fHGEz8-e391Ft-fHGEc6-fHZeoj-fFpfyP-djS7sT-fHZf9w-fHGEoK-fDvBBk-fHGE6H-esBH71-fHGDMR-fHGD8P-fHZfdQ-e3eG8s-qYCfGr-fFG193-fHGDYk-dWc2LY-dCKqgq-dWc23f-qDHNs7-eq12gH-rAHmp6-i32oyJ-e3eFTN-nRAmXo-rABNMW-q2LVXY">World Bank Photo Collection/www.flickr.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2016, nearly one in five of the <a href="http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/">7.4 billion people</a> on our planet live <a href="https://consultations.worldhumanitariansummit.org/bitcache/08bdfad0e0cda79e690a608ae7b84d51a2d95809?vid=571412&disposition=inline&op=view">in fragile situations</a>. This represents the highest level of suffering since World War II – and numbers are set to increase as conflict, violent extremism and natural disasters continue to cause massive global disruption.</p>
<p>In response to the escalating crisis Ban Ki-moon, United Nations secretary-general, has convened a <a href="https://www.worldhumanitariansummit.org">World Humanitarian Summit</a> in Istanbul on May 23. This is the first event of its kind in the 70-year history of the UN, making a direct call to world leaders to rally together and commit to end human suffering by addressing our most urgent humanitarian challenges.</p>
<p>The summit will bring together heads of state and government, community leaders, businesses and humanitarian organisations to debate how we can improve our response to major humanitarian challenges and be better prepared to meet challenges of the future. </p>
<p>Ban Ki-moon has proposed an “<a href="https://www.worldhumanitariansummit.org/learn">Agenda for Humanity</a>” – five key responsibilities to be at the heart of all decision-making at the global level:</p>
<ol>
<li> Prevent and end conflict</li>
<li> Respect rules of war</li>
<li> Leave no one behind</li>
<li> Work differently to end need</li>
<li> Invest in humanity</li>
</ol>
<h2>Shift in thinking</h2>
<p>Point four in the Agenda for Humanity is possibly the most provocative. It urges a paradigm shift in the aid and development sectors, as global development partners increasingly argue that many crises are predictable and should not be seen as unique events. </p>
<p>In the simplest terms, a traditional aid response to an emergency focuses on providing food, water, shelter and medicine to meet basic human needs. Development, meanwhile, addresses the systemic levels of education, agriculture and healthcare, when a country is considered stable enough to engage with long-term planning. The two are rarely coordinated on the ground or at any level of governance or politics – even within the same organisation.</p>
<p>But “emergencies”, especially those caused by war, can now last decades. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/feb/01/dadaab-somalia-home-cannot-leave-refugees">The world’s largest refugee camp</a>, in Kenya, has accepted refugees from Somalia for nearly 25 years and there is widespread concern about where thousands of camp dwellers will live if Kenya follows through with <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53888#.Vz2mPWaPDm0">plans to close the camp.</a> <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-26116868">The Syrian crisis</a>, which began in 2011, shows no sign of ending any time soon. </p>
<h2>Taking control</h2>
<p>Arriving at a camp when you are desperate and hungry brings the promise of shelter and relief. Living in one to raise a family is a different – and miserable – scenario. Continuing to provide a repeatedly short-term response to displaced people denies them the opportunities to educate their children, provide for their families, be politically empowered and live full and productive lives. </p>
<p>There can be no argument that displaced communities need a long-term, coordinated approach to support their needs and it’s promising to see that this is now being reflected by global donor partners. For example, the UK Department for International Development’s upcoming fund on <a href="http://www.spheir.org.uk">Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education Innovation and Reform</a> will call specifically for innovative solutions to provide tertiary education for communities displaced by the Syrian crisis. </p>
<p>Just as we can plan for the longer-term effects of conflict, so we can prepare communities for some elements of natural disaster. <a href="http://blog.worldhumanitariansummit.org/entries/core-responsibility-4/">A blog published ahead of the summit</a> tells the story of Ranh Nguyen, a 35-year-old farmer in rural Vietnam. Climate change is making Vietnam’s rainy season increasingly extreme and erratic, regularly destroying homes and killing people and animals. With help from the Women’s Union and UN Women’s work to strengthen the role of women in disaster risk reduction, Ranh and her neighbours have taken control of their situation:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Last year … we prepared better for our families and our village before the storm came … Thanks to good preparation and detailed mapping that we developed in the meetings before each storm, nobody in the village was killed or injured severely in last year’s storm season. Crops, fowl and cattle were saved.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Not urgent enough?</h2>
<p>Collecting better data on risk, acting early and working with communities to make them robust against their vulnerabilities could reduce risk and vulnerability on a global scale. But the call to blend humanitarian and development action has also attracted criticism, most notably from the charity <a href="http://www.msf.org/en/article/msf-pull-out-world-humanitarian-summit">Médecins Sans Frontières</a> which has withdrawn from the summit after an initial period of engagement. </p>
<p>MSF called the summit a “fig-leaf of good intentions”; it suggested that the focus on bringing together humanitarian assistance and development meant that the summit would fail to address urgent political issues that are impeding immediate humanitarian action on the ground. In the past year, 75 hospitals managed or supported by MSF have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-kunduz-hospital-strike-a-war-crime-dont-jump-to-conclusions-48626">bombed</a> and political intervention is vital in order to protect humanitarian response efforts in conflict situations. It warned of the challenges in trying to blend the essentially apolitical nature of humanitarian response with the national policy approach of development, and how this will be received in fragile states.</p>
<p>Between <a href="http://worldhumanitariansummit.org/learn">2008 and 2014, 184m people were displaced by disaster</a> – the equivalent of one person per second. There is no doubt that we are witnessing the biggest humanitarian crisis in our lifetime. No organisation is better placed than the UN to bring together those who have the most power and potential to achieve transformational change, but there is a mountain of work to do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59099/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Childs does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Calls to stop division between emergency and development aid will be heard at UN’s first ever humanitarian summit.Anna Childs, Academic Director of The International Development Office, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/528662016-01-13T04:35:18Z2016-01-13T04:35:18ZWhy the UN isn’t winning its battle against sexual abuse by peacekeepers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107887/original/image-20160112-6988-45hjcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some UN peacekeepers stand accused of sexual offences against children in the Central African Republic. An overhaul of the UN's peacekeeping operations is needed to tackle the problem.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Media Coulibaly</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The fact that recent <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=52941#.VpJSiJN9634">allegations of sexual abuse</a> of four young girls in the Central African Republic by United Nations peacekeepers were not more widely publicised suggests, perhaps, the frequency of such allegations.</p>
<p>Sexual exploitation and abuse within UN peacekeeping missions is certainly nothing new: <a href="http://www.unicef.org/graca/a51-306_en.pdf">a 1992 report</a> shows that soldiers attached to the United Nations Operation in Mozambique recruited girls aged 12-18 years into prostitution. </p>
<p>The report also found that in half of the 12 country studies conducted on child sexual exploitation and abuse in situations of armed conflict, the arrival of peacekeeping troops was associated with a rapid rise in child prostitution. Almost 25 years later, the UN Secretary-General still refers to it as </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a cancer in the [UN] <a href="http://www.un.org/sg/statements/index.asp?nid=8903">system.</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>So is the UN unable to tackle this heinous practice, or simply unwilling? Perhaps it is both.</p>
<h2>Where responsibility lies</h2>
<p>UN peacekeepers are not - despite their name - employed directly by the UN but rather are <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/resources/statistics/contributors.shtml">members of their own national services</a> seconded to work with the UN. This has important legal consequences.</p>
<p>Civilian staff of peacekeeping missions, who are also drawn from contributing countries, are liable to prosecution by the host state; military peacekeepers are not. Under article 47(b) of the <a href="http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=a/45/594">Model Status of Forces Agreement</a>, countries that contribute soldiers to UN missions have the responsibility to investigate and prosecute criminal conduct by their own soldiers. This document is used, with necessary modifications, as the basis for all peacekeeping operations. </p>
<p>This means that, technically, the UN is powerless to bring about criminal charges against them, despite the fact many of the charges are brought against them: 37 of the 61 sexual abuse allegations <a href="https://cdu.unlb.org/Statistics/AllegationsbyCategoryofPersonnelSexualExploitationandAbuse/AllegationsbyCategoryofPersonnelPerYearSexualExploitationandAbuse.aspx">made in 2015</a> were against military personnel.</p>
<p>It is not difficult, then, to imagine how and why states may be able to avoid potential embarrassment by simply ignoring the allegations. Despite recent improvements, historically member state <a href="https://cdu.unlb.org/Statistics/UNFollowupwithMemberStatesSexualExploitationandAbuse.aspx">responses to UN follow-ups</a> on prosecutions of the crimes has been abysmally low. </p>
<p>One solution put forward in a recent <a href="http://wps.unwomen.org/%7E/media/files/un%20women/wps/highlights/unw-global-study-1325-2015.pdf">UN report</a> calls for the creation of </p>
<blockquote>
<p>an international tribunal, created under a treaty between States, with jurisdiction to try UN staff in the field and all categories of peacekeepers. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But we have been here before: in 2002, UN Security Council [resolution 1422](http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1422(2002) granted temporary immunity to peacekeepers from international criminal prosecution at the insistence of the US.</p>
<p>States are not generally willing to give up control over prosecuting their troops, but they also typically seem unwilling to pursue criminal cases themselves. Senior UN mission officials have <a href="https://oios.un.org/page/download2/id/13">noted</a> delays in instigating procedures in numerous cases. They saw these as stemming from attempts by contributing countries to avoid sexual exploitation and abuse allegations, and the resulting motivation to exonerate personnel.</p>
<p>Even in cases where individuals were prosecuted and convicted by the contributing countries, the sentences were grossly disproportionate to the severity of their crimes: take the example of two Pakistani men <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-haiti-un-idUSBRE82C06C20120313">sentenced to a year in prison</a> for the rape of a 14 year old boy.</p>
<p>Whether the culprits are convicted or not, justice for the victims appears to be an illusion.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107694/original/image-20160110-8731-1dk7ow6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107694/original/image-20160110-8731-1dk7ow6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107694/original/image-20160110-8731-1dk7ow6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107694/original/image-20160110-8731-1dk7ow6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107694/original/image-20160110-8731-1dk7ow6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107694/original/image-20160110-8731-1dk7ow6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107694/original/image-20160110-8731-1dk7ow6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UN peacekeepers remain troops of the contributing country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">U.S. Navy photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>UN is not absolved</h2>
<p>But this inability of the UN to prosecute does not entirely absolve the organisation. The strong condemnations of the sexual crimes by former UN Secretary-General <a href="https://cdu.unlb.org/Portals/0/PdfFiles/PolicyDocI.pdf">Kofi Annan</a> and current head Ban Ki-Moon’s threats of <a href="http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2015/682">“naming and shaming”</a> the countries from which the offending troops come from need to be backed up with action, which has been lacking.</p>
<p>The UN as an organisation must do everything in its power to push for prosecution by states.</p>
<p>Despite more than <a href="https://cdu.unlb.org/Policy/EvolutionofInitiativestoAddressSexualExploitationandAbuse.aspx">15 initiatives</a> since 1998 to address sexual crimes committed by peacekeeping troops, a huge shift in attitude is still needed. An investigation recently <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/18/un-criticised-for-failure-to-pursue-allegations-against-staff">found</a> that only two-thirds of the sexual exploitation and abuse cases identified by the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services in 2013-14 were actually referred to the national authorities that held criminal jurisdiction. </p>
<p>The assertions of whistle-blower <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/29/un-aid-worker-suspended-leaking-report-child-abuse-french-troops-car">Ander Kompass</a> that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights ignored a report detailing rape and sodomy of young boys by French peacekeeping troops in the Central African Republic in 2014 are even more damning. This led to sharp criticism in <a href="http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/centafricrepub/Independent-Review-Report.pdf">an independent report</a>.</p>
<p>Shockingly, too, the UN’s Misconduct Tracking <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/issues/cdu">System</a> does not extend to peacekeepers. </p>
<p>In short, the UN has no way to vet for past misconduct among peacekeepers, so offenders could potentially return to abuse again. This lack of accountability is a huge loophole that must be closed. </p>
<p>As the body that issues peacekeeper mandates, the UN Security Council must also step forward to set an example. A statement in all relevant resolutions outlining both the expected conduct of peacekeepers and supporting the sanctions outlined by Ban Ki-Moon would present a unified front. So far, the Council’s support of the UN’s Zero Tolerance [policy](http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1983(2011) has been incidental and piecemeal.</p>
<h2>A long way to go</h2>
<p>The UN certainly appears to have a long way to go if it is to match action to rhetoric. If the problem is to be eliminated, states cannot hide behind excuses of “a few rotten apples” as the price to pay for intervention. As chief of the UN mission in the Central African Republic, <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/minusca/mandate.shtml">MINUSCA</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/05/un-peacekeepers-in-central-african-republic-face-fresh-abuse-claims">Parfait Onanga-Anyanga noted</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[it] is absolutely unacceptable for even a single peacekeeping soldier to be involved in these awful acts. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unfortunately, without serious overhaul of the peacekeeper system, the door remains open to sexual abuse by peacekeepers with a propensity for it: the risk of being punished by the UN or back home is simply too low.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sherif A. Elgebeily does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A UN report has found that in half of 12 country studies done on child sexual exploitation during armed conflict, the arrival of peacekeeping troops resulted in a rapid rise in child prostitution.Sherif A. Elgebeily, Research Officer, Lecturer, University of Hong KongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/515362015-11-30T18:47:32Z2015-11-30T18:47:32ZNew ‘vulnerable nations’ bloc looks set to redraw the climate politics map<p>Vulnerable states have featured prominently on the first day of Paris Climate talks. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon unveiled a <a href="http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2015/11/un-secretary-generals-initiative-aims-to-strengthen-climate-resilience-of-the-worlds-most-vulnerable-countries-and-people">new initiative</a> to strengthen the resilience of the most vulnerable people and countries to the effects of climate change. </p>
<p>But it is the emergence of a <a href="http://aosis.org/">bloc of 44 vulnerable countries</a> calling for <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/nov/30/paris-climate-talks-vulnerable-countries-demand-15c-warming-limit">much stronger climate action</a> that may be the real game-changer in international climate politics.</p>
<p>While the so-called North-South divide has long characterised international climate deliberations, there are signs it may be on its last legs in that forum. And that’s a good thing.</p>
<h2>Ending the North-South divide?</h2>
<p>The first major international environmental conference was the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972. By most accounts, the conference – already undermined by the status of environmental concerns as “fringe” global issues at the time – was devastated by the scale of a divide between rich and poor countries. </p>
<p>While the Cold War raged and the clash between East and West dominated strategic thinking and international relations, it was the North-South divide that presented the yawning chasm between participants. Some nations, most notably Brazil, raged publicly about how impoverished states were being asked to make sacrifices to address environmental issues. </p>
<p>Brazil’s ambassador to the United States argued forcefully, just months before the conference, that “any ecological policy, globally applied, must not be an instrument to suppress wholly or in part the legitimate right of any country to decide about its own affairs”.</p>
<p>It is no coincidence that the next major international environmental conference 20 years later – the 1992 Rio summit which saw the birth of the<a href="http://newsroom.unfccc.int/about/"> UN Framework Convention on Climate Change</a> (UNFCCC), the agency under which the current negotiations are carried out – was held in Brazil, and officially titled the UN Conference on Environment and Development. In the framing and rationale for the conference, its organisers were acutely aware of the need to address global development inequality if the environmental agenda was even to be heard, much less practically addressed.</p>
<p>In many ways, it is a divide that has endured since through the UNFCCC process. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol compelled only the “global North” to commit to emissions reduction targets. Subsequent difficult deliberations around technology transfer and climate finance also centred on the rich-poor divide. These debates, which may still play out in Paris, emphasised the different responsibilities and capacities of developed and developing states to address climate change. </p>
<h2>A new view</h2>
<p>This is precisely why the announcement from 44 vulnerable countries that they are breaking ranks with other developing states to call for more substantial global emissions reductions, and a warming limit of 1.5°C rather than 2°C, is so significant. Of course at the most obvious level, it complicates the simple application of the North-South divide to global politics. </p>
<p>But more importantly for the international politics of climate change, this new “vulnerable country” alliance’s challenge to the old divide is significant for two key reasons. </p>
<p>It limits the extent to which an international debate about managing the global problem of climate change might descend into a debate about global inequality. The latter is of course central for coming to terms with levels of responsibility and vulnerability, but climate change is too pressing a problem not to be addressed in its own right. </p>
<p>What is needed instead is a focus on this global problem that is sensitive to differentiated development without being subsumed by it. Indeed, the need to be sensitive to developmental differences while focusing on the shared problem of climate change was already recognised in the 1992 <a href="http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?documentid=78&articleid=1163">Rio Declaration</a> commitment to the principle of “common but differentiated responsibility”. </p>
<p>This challenge to the North-South divide could also deal a fundamental blow to the broader determination of some to cast environment and development imperatives as mutually exclusive. Economic growth in a number of states that have shifted towards renewable energy already, of course, illustrates how problematic this narrative is. But it is one that clings to life. The split in the global South suggests a challenge to it in ways that may effect debates beyond negotiations.</p>
<p>In Australia, for example, strong measures to address climate change have traditionally been denigrated for their impact on jobs and the economy, including as recently as the eve of the conference, when the government <a href="http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2015/11/30/Paris-update-Anticipation-and-hyperbole.aspx">dismissed</a> the opposition’s calls for more ambitious emissions targets. </p>
<p>Despite the facts that such assertions consistently rely on dubious or selective economic modelling, it is a narrative that seems to have traction. But when genuinely poor states call for strong climate action, it suggests limits to the idea of these goals as mutually exclusive. At very least, countries like Australia may find it far more difficult to sustain this argument for minimal action in international deliberations, as it did in Kyoto in 1997. </p>
<p>There is reason to be optimistic, then, that one of the most enduring and problematic impediments to action on climate change – its adverse economic effects – is being systematically undermined. The emergence of this bloc of vulnerable countries, combined with the development of renewable energy capacity and a commitment by developed states to finance climate mitigation and adaptation in the developing word, is seriously threatening the logic on which the environment-development narrative is based. </p>
<p>For the sake of the environment, future generations, vulnerable populations and even long-term economic growth, that’s a good thing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51536/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt McDonald has received funding from the UK's Economic Social and Research Council.</span></em></p>A new bloc of ‘vulnerable’ countries has emerged at the Paris climate talks - perhaps heralding the end of the old rich-poor geopolitical divide.Matt McDonald, Associate Professor of International Relations, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/497922015-10-28T10:09:46Z2015-10-28T10:09:46ZWhy can’t the UN protect civilians in places like Syria?<p>To many Americans, it feels as if the world is becoming a more violent place. Besieged nightly with video of conflicts across the Afghanistan, Nigeria, the Middle East and Ukraine, it would be easy to draw that conclusion.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, perhaps, the opposite is true: fewer people die in wars than ever before. </p>
<h2>The world is getting more peaceful</h2>
<p>The newly released [Positive Peace ](http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=529ead4d8fb93358f778bcbbe&id=463e8ac2ce&e=e3c9e6653e](http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=529ead4d8fb93358f778bcbbe&id=463e8ac2ce&e=e3c9e6653e)report from the <a href="http://economicsandpeace.org/">Institute for Economics and Peace</a> (“measuring and communicating the economic value of peace”), for example, documents conflict in 162 countries covering 99% of the world’s population. It defines positive peace as </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the presence of the attitudes, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies. Well-developed positive peace represents ‘the capacity that a society has to meet the needs of citizens, reduce the number of grievances that arise and resolve remaining disagreements without the use of violence.’ </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Using a variety of measures, the report’s authors conclude that things have consistently improved in the last decade. This is especially true in what they term “the developing world.” In that time, 118 countries improved, only 44 got worse.</p>
<p>Of course, many of those 44 places have gravely worsened – like Syria. </p>
<p>The situation there is now so fluid that it is hard to pin down precise figures. But the numbers are staggering.</p>
<p>The United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, <a href="https://hiu.state.gov/Products/Syria_DisplacementRefugees_2015Apr17_HIU_U1214.pdf">said earlier this year</a> that 12.2 million people there were in need of assistance, 7.6 million having fled from their homes but still in the country. This is what UNHCR calls internally displaced persons, or IDPs. </p>
<p>Almost another four million refugees were living in neighboring countries in the spring. The Russian intervention in Syria has only made things <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/borzoudaragahi/syrias-refugee-crisis-is-about-to-get-worse-as-people-flee-r#.qgG8pkLlOY">worse.</a> And as a <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/562a16326.html">UNHCR report</a> published last week made emphatically clear, things are about to get even more grave, with winter approaching and the resources needed to clothe, feed and heat these people stretched far beyond the UN’s capacity. </p>
<p>But what can the UN do about it? Do we expect too much of the UN when it comes to establishing peace?</p>
<h2>The United Nations complains</h2>
<p>Faced with the calamity in Syria, it is no wonder that even Ban Ki Moon, the demure and ever diplomatic secretary general of the United Nations, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/24/world/calls-grow-at-un-for-security-council-to-do-its-job-keep-the-peace.html?ref=world&_r=0">reportedly</a> berated government officials from the major powers at a recent meeting in New York. </p>
<p>Moon reputedly asked the members of the five permanent members of the Security Council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the US – to stop vetoing proposals for the UN to act in crises areas like Syria, South Sudan, Ukraine, Yemen and, yes, even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He pointedly requested that they allow investigations into mass atrocities to proceed in cases where war crimes might have been committed. </p>
<p>But in this reputed age of <a href="http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/name-and-shame">“naming and shaming,”</a> where the wide publication of reproachable acts through social media is supposed to persuade the guilty parties to change their behavior, Moon’s call fell on deaf ears. </p>
<p>France and the UK have <a href="http://home.bt.com/news/world-news/we-wont-block-un-action-on-genocide-uk-and-france-pledge-11364012659014">pledged</a> not to veto such proposals. But the other three Security Council members refused to make such a promise.</p>
<h2>Impediment number one to UN action: the veto</h2>
<p>Although <a href="http://www.wfp.org/emergencies/syria">underresourced</a>, UN agencies will certainly continue to provide humanitarian assistance in crisis areas like Syria. But there are two problems when it comes to discussing the prospect of independent investigations into atrocities or humanitarian interventions carried out by UN peacekeeping forces.</p>
<p>As Moon’s comments suggest, in part the problem is that one or more of the five permanent members of the Security Council have a vested interest in many of these crisis areas. It’s one that isn’t served by UN meddling.</p>
<p>The Russians don’t want investigations about Syria if it might turn up any evidence of their cooperating with the Assad regime in bombing civilians. And they don’t want any investigations about anything at all in Eastern Ukraine for fear it’ll substantiate claims about their presence.</p>
<p>The same is true of the Americans – either in Syria, where the US reputedly has no boots on the ground, or in Afghanistan, where it is not supposed to be bombing hospitals.</p>
<p>Although they are not fighting on behalf of the government there, the Chinese have nixed investigations into atrocities in <a href="http://www.southsudannewsagency.com/opinion/analyses/a-looming-and-revealing-spectacle-of-un-impotence">Sudan</a> and, like Russia, in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/22/russia-china-veto-un-draft-resolution-refer-syria-international-criminal-court">Syria</a>. </p>
<p>The British and French, it should be noted, haven’t vetoed anything since 1989. But the obstinate refusal of the other three members to let even the worst cases move ahead with investigations has generated a backlash. </p>
<p>Other governments are now <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/09/syria-war-veto-wielding-powerplays-150930064603153.html">arguing</a> for the UN’s institutional reform to get rid of the veto altogether. </p>
<h2>Impediment number two to UN action: the ‘safe zone’</h2>
<p>The second problem when it comes to discussions about actually committing forces to protect civilians concerns the creation of what are often called <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/10/26/451858258/calls-for-a-safe-zone-in-syria-raise-concern-for-refugees">“safe zones.”</a> </p>
<p>In part, the problem is that we have come to expect much more from the UN than we used to. </p>
<p>We have come to believe that the UN can establish the peace where the local inhabitants don’t want it, even if the UN Security Council gets its act together and approves that action be taken. </p>
<p>That’s because over the last four decades or so, the actual function of a UN peacekeeping force has changed dramatically.</p>
<h2>Changing numbers, changing missions</h2>
<p>Between 1948 and 1988, the UN carried out only 13 peacekeeping operations. Simply stated, these entailed lightly armed UN troops being stationed between local belligerents who had fought themselves to a standstill. The role of the UN troops was <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/early.shtml">symbolic.</a> They just created a thin blue line between adversaries. They didn’t fight.</p>
<p>In the four decades that have followed, there have been <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/resources/statistics/factsheet.shtml">58 more</a> peacekeeping missions, with 16 currently in operation. That’s more than in the first four decades combined. </p>
<p>But it isn’t just the number of operations that has mushroomed. What is expected of them has also changed. </p>
<p>Dating from the 1990s, the UN mission evolved from peacekeeping to “peace enforcement.” Encouraged by the initial efforts of Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and <a href="http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/CPR%20S%202001%20574.pdf">then developed </a>by Kofi Annan, the UN’s leadership increasingly saw the organization’s role as being to aggressively and proactively protect civilian populations from annihilation by <a href="http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/about/bgresponsibility.shtml">genocidal governments</a>, either domestic or foreign; not to wait to act in the aftermath of atrocities.</p>
<p>This initiative became known as the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/adviser/responsibility.shtml">Responsibility to Protect</a> doctrine, or R2P. </p>
<p>R2P has had a rocky road. </p>
<p>Many smaller countries were initially worried that an initiative meant to protect human rights in the most extreme of circumstances would be used to justify UN action being taken against them. In their view, the US invasion of Iraq gave substance to that <a href="https://www.ridgway.pitt.edu/Portals/1/pdfs/Publications/Reich.pdf?ver=2013-08-19-214627-847">fear.</a> They worried that a UN authorized army would become an tool to justify invasions around the world in the protection of human rights. It wouldn’t just act in cases of genocide.</p>
<p>A great deal of political wrangling ensued. Nonetheless, after a few setbacks, major southern regional powers like South Africa agreed to throw their political weight behind R2P and others got on board. The UN’s members states then <a href="http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/adviser/">reaffirmed</a> their commitment to the principle of protecting civilian populations under threat of genocide at a <a href="http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/adviser/pdf/World%20Summit%20Outcome%20Document.pdf#page=30">2005 World Summit:</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The most explicit use of R2P as a <a href="http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1973%282011%2">justification</a> for humanitarian intervention to date was in Libya in 2011. </p>
<p>The subsequent chaotic fragmentation of the country has been a setback for advocates of R2P. It has allowed critics to once again question the role of the UN’s peacekeepers. Are they supposed to rubber-stamp an already existing stalemate like their early years? Or are they supposed to pursue a new war-fighting doctrine that <a href="http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/10/12/the-end-of-the-responsibility-to-protect/">they argue</a> is, in effect, a form of imperialism led by the great powers? </p>
<h2>The current state of play</h2>
<p>The consequences of the Libyan invasion leave the UN’s leadership in a difficulty situation when it comes to supporting peacekeeping operations around the world. </p>
<p>It can try to use its forces to maintain a shaky peace in various places. It mostly does so now <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/current.shtml">in Africa and the Middle East.</a> It can even unseat a few weaker despots around the globe. But it lacks the resources to fight major wars or the leverage to negotiate diplomatic solutions. </p>
<p>In Syria’s case, for example, both Lakhdar Brahimi and Kofi Annan, two renowned statesmen, tried and <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/05/brahimi-syria-mission-2014522102733125140.html">failed.</a> </p>
<p>We are still in an age when great powers can veto negotiated settlements, even if they can’t create them.</p>
<p>We haven’t reached a point where all five powers have an interest in establishing a durable peace. Until then, the best that Ban Ki Moon can do is to expose the truth about who is betraying the civilians caught in the crossfire across the Middle East and beyond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49792/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
To many Americans, it feels as if the world is becoming a more violent place. Besieged nightly with video of conflicts across the Afghanistan, Nigeria, the Middle East and Ukraine, it would be easy to…Simon Reich, Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/494502015-10-23T03:13:23Z2015-10-23T03:13:23ZLessons in refugee hospitality from the Horn of Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99190/original/image-20151021-15449-7dvsav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Yemeni girl holds a baby in a temporary shelter at the port town Bosasso in Somalia's Puntland after fleeing war in Yemen. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Feisal Omar T</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The unique response of the Horn of Africa region to Yemeni refugees could offer lessons to countries and regions dealing with similar influxes elsewhere.</p>
<p>Escalating internal fighting and Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen have led to an estimated <a href="http://www.unocha.org/aggregator/sources/80">21.4 million people</a> – more than 80% of its population – being in need of humanitarian protection or assistance. </p>
<p>More than one million people have been <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-situation-regional-refugee-and-migrant-response-plan-october-december-2015-0">forced</a> from their homes. Of these, <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-situation-regional-refugee-and-migrant-response-plan-october-december-2015-0">approximately 100,000</a>, both Yemenis and foreign nationals, have fled to seek safety elsewhere. The majority – about 70,000 – have <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-situation-regional-refugee-and-migrant-response-plan-october-december-2015-0">crossed</a> the Gulf of Aden, seeking refuge in countries such as Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti.</p>
<p>Access to territory and protection has been swift for Yemeni refugees arriving in the Horn of Africa. This provides a lesson in hospitality that would be well heeded elsewhere.</p>
<h2>Unique reversal of roles</h2>
<p>Yemeni displacement to the Horn of Africa is in some respects unique. Africa is a continent familiar with large-scale refugee crises. However, it is uncommon for those seeking protection in the region to arrive from elsewhere.</p>
<p>With the possible exception of South Africa – which receives a small number of applications for asylum from persons outside the <a href="http://www.lhr.org.za/publications/queue-here-corruption-measuring-irregularities-south-africa%E2%80%99s-asylum-system">continent</a> – those seeking refuge in African states tend to come from within the region itself. </p>
<p>What is even more striking is that the countries of asylum themselves – including Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia – are among the chief refugee-producing countries in the region. Prior to the outbreak of conflict, Yemen was itself host to some <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-situation-regional-refugee-and-migrant-response-plan-october-december-2015-0">250,000 refugees</a>, mainly from Somalia.</p>
<p>The Horn of Africa is a region beset with poverty and insecurity. So how has it responded to this influx of refugees from outside? The Yemeni crisis provides a unique perspective on refugee protection in a region where refugee policies and practices have largely not been analysed. </p>
<p>The protection afforded to Yemenis arriving on African shores is far from perfect. However, several features of the African response would be worth highlighting to those in charge of refugee reception and protection elsewhere.</p>
<h2>Sound foundation for generosity</h2>
<p>The legal framework for refugee protection in Africa is one of the most advanced in the world.</p>
<p>The vast majority of African states are party to the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/3b73b0d63.html">1951 Refugee Convention</a>. In addition, Africa’s 1969 <a href="http://www.au.int/en/sites/default/files/Convention_En_Refugee_Problems_in_Africa_AddisAbaba_10September1969_0.pdf">Organisation of African Unity Convention</a> provides even more generous protections to those displaced from their homes.</p>
<p>The African Refugee Convention has been widely praised for its liberal approach to protection. It expands the definition of a refugee, broadens the principle of non-refoulement and endorses the principles of voluntary repatriation and international burden-sharing.</p>
<p>Implementation of the African Refugee Convention has been far from comprehensive. A lack of resources, legal capacity and political will continue to severely undermine protection in many parts of the region. Nevertheless, the convention’s humanitarian spirit reflects the often inclusive and welcoming approach of African states in times of crisis.</p>
<p>The Horn of Africa response to Yemeni refugees has been open, even welcoming, when compared with the reception of refugees elsewhere.</p>
<p>Access to territory has not been an issue. Horn of Africa countries have kept their borders open to those arriving across the Gulf. A representative of the government of Somaliland, himself hosting two refugee families, has expressed sympathy and messages of <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/yemenis-fleeing-somaliland-struggle-survival-150521100540616.html">welcome</a> for Yemeni refugees.</p>
<p>This reception of refugees stands in stark contrast to the blatantly <a href="http://budapestbeacon.com/public-policy/viktor-orban-immigration-must-defend/18191">defensive response</a> to migration of some European governments. </p>
<h2>Pragmatic approach</h2>
<p>Regions such as Europe have crafted specific and detailed mechanisms for dealing with refugee protection in situations of mass influx. In contrast, African states by and large have adopted a more pragmatic approach. Recognising the need for protection, many African states simply confer refugee status on a group basis to all those fleeing the affected zone. </p>
<p>Rather than closing their borders until a regional agreement on protection can be found, the governments of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan have all granted <em>prima facie</em> refugee status to Yemeni asylum seekers. This facilitates quick registration and the provision of assistance to those arriving with nothing.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99313/original/image-20151022-8013-1ixazny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99313/original/image-20151022-8013-1ixazny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99313/original/image-20151022-8013-1ixazny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99313/original/image-20151022-8013-1ixazny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99313/original/image-20151022-8013-1ixazny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99313/original/image-20151022-8013-1ixazny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99313/original/image-20151022-8013-1ixazny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mounted policeman leads a group of migrants near Dobova, Slovenia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Srdjan Zivulovic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Role of customary norms</h2>
<p>State-based laws and policies are only one aspect of African regional responses to displaced persons in need. In practice, customary norms of hospitality and the generous responses of host communities may have even more of an impact on refugees’ safety. </p>
<p>A large proportion of Yemenis displaced to the Horn of Africa are living with local communities, relying on their generosity and hospitality to survive. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, acknowledged this in a recent <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/56122bd76.html">address</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In a world where more than two-thirds of all refugees are Muslim, it is important to recognise that there is nothing in the 1951 Convention that is not already present in ancient Islamic traditions and legal texts.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Lesson for the world</h2>
<p>Displacement crises in Africa are generally considered less newsworthy than those in Europe. But they are no less devastating. In some cases, they provide an opportunity to reflect on how we might better manage such crises at the regional level.</p>
<p>Protection for Yemeni refugees arriving in the Horn of Africa is far from exemplary. Profound challenges remain. The lack of safe legal avenues means that the vast majority of those fleeing conflict in Yemen face perilous journeys.</p>
<p>Once they arrive, instability within many host countries means security is far from guaranteed. The lack of appropriate reception arrangements and a fear of removal or detention mean many refugees do not access formal protection channels. The shortfall of funding for protection and assistance in the region remains chronic. In countries where humanitarian resources are stretched beyond their limits, the regional response to the Yemen crisis remains only one-fifth funded. </p>
<p>Despite this complex and challenging protection environment, the response of many African states has been swift, generous and practical. The sense of solidarity expressed by governments and local communities stands in stark contrast to the responses to refugee crises being witnessed elsewhere. </p>
<p>Perhaps it is time to recognise Africa not just as a source of refugees but also as a (tentative) champion of principles of humanity and hospitality. These are principles frequently lacking when those forced to flee their homes and lives come looking for protection.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49450/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tamara Wood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Although Africa is familiar with large-scale refugee crises, it is uncommon for it to host people seeking protection from outside the continent, as is the case with thousands of Yemeni refugees.Tamara Wood, Doctoral Candidate, Andrew and Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/481032015-09-29T20:09:17Z2015-09-29T20:09:17ZIs Kevin Rudd the very model of a modern UN secretary-general?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96401/original/image-20150928-21348-1kri3f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kevin Rudd is reportedly campaigning to take over as UN secretary-general when Ban Ki-moon's term expires in 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Peter Foley</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s second term expires at the end of 2016. Candidates are already lining up to compete for the position, including – <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/foreign-minister-julie-bishop-boosts-kevin-rudd-bid-for-un-job/story-fnihsrf2-1227545755880">reportedly</a> – Australia’s former prime minister, Kevin Rudd. </p>
<p>But what does it take to become secretary-general? </p>
<h2>Formal and informal rules</h2>
<p>The UN’s formal rules are quite vague. The <a href="http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/">UN Charter</a> says only that “the Secretary-General shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council”. A General Assembly <a href="http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/032/62/IMG/NR003262.pdf?OpenElement">resolution</a> passed in 1946 said that it “would be desirable for the Security Council to proffer one candidate only”. This means that the vote of the General Assembly – composed of all of the UN’s member nations – is only a formality. </p>
<p>The 15-member Security Council really makes the decision. Its five permanent members – China, France, the UK, the US and Russia – all have the <a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-be-too-quick-to-condemn-the-un-security-council-power-of-veto-29980">veto power</a>. This has meant that past secretaries-general have needed to be acceptable to all five countries and, in particular, to not have made enemies. </p>
<p>But there are also two informal rules that govern the selection. First, no secretary-general has ever come from the Security Council’s permanent members – with the exception of the first, the UK’s Hubert Miles Gladwyn Jebb, who acted in the role for three months.</p>
<p>Second, the position rotates through the UN’s five regional groupings of countries. This time, it is seen to be Eastern Europe’s turn, given it has never had a secretary-general. Australia is in the “Western European and Others Group”, which has already produced three secretaries-general – Norway’s Trygve Lie, Sweden’s Dag Hammarskjöld and Austria’s Kurt Waldheim.</p>
<h2>Lessons from history</h2>
<p>Because of the permanent members’ veto power, the position doesn’t tend to go to international high-flyers. None has been a former head of state or government. </p>
<p>Hammarskjöld, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/dag-hammarskjold-statesman-century/">praised by</a> US President John F. Kennedy as “the greatest statesman of our century”, had been a bureaucrat and minister in the Swedish government. Gladwyn Jebb only put him forward because two other candidates – Canadian Lester B. Pearson and Indian Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit – were vetoed. </p>
<p>The veto power also affects their reappointment. Lie, who had been the head of the Norwegian delegation to the UN, resigned from the position after the Soviet Union made it clear that it would no longer support him. Boutros Boutros-Ghali failed to receive a second term entirely due to American opposition. Waldheim sought a third term but the Chinese vetoed him 16 times.</p>
<p>This led to a change in practice. The Security Council now conducts straw polls, where members indicate their encouragement or discouragement for a candidate. Since 1991 the polls have been conducted with red ballots for the permanent veto-wielding members and white for the elected members. </p>
<p>Most secretaries-general have come from either the UN’s diplomatic corps or their country’s foreign service. Beyond Lie, Burma’s U Thant and Waldheim had been their countries’ permanent representatives to the UN before their elections. Javier Pérez de Cuéllar had been Peru’s permanent representative before becoming the special representative of the secretary-general in Cyprus. Boutros-Ghali had been Egypt’s minister of state for foreign affairs. Ban was South Korea’s foreign minister. </p>
<p>The real exception was Kofi Annan, who was the only secretary-general to emerge from within the UN Secretariat.</p>
<p>Others have not been lucky. Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, who served as the UN high commissioner for refugees for 12 years from 1965 until 1977, tried three times to be elected secretary-general, but the Soviet Union vetoed him twice, and then he could not secure a majority of votes the third time.</p>
<p>India’s Shashi Tharoor, who was serving as the UN under-secretary-general for communications and public information, lost to Ban after the US vetoed him. He then left the UN to return to Indian politics.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96543/original/image-20150929-30967-16qj7ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96543/original/image-20150929-30967-16qj7ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96543/original/image-20150929-30967-16qj7ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96543/original/image-20150929-30967-16qj7ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96543/original/image-20150929-30967-16qj7ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1230&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96543/original/image-20150929-30967-16qj7ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1230&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96543/original/image-20150929-30967-16qj7ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1230&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Miroslav Lajcak could be a contender to be UN secretary-general.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Dado Ruvic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Who will it be?</h2>
<p>If history is a guide, the next secretary-general will be from Eastern Europe, working in their national government, and with strong foreign service experience.</p>
<p>Foreign Policy reporter Colum Lynch has <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/14/the-race-for-u-n-secretary-general-is-rigged/">suggested</a> a few possible candidates. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Slovakian Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak; </p></li>
<li><p>Jan Kubis, Slovakia’s former foreign minister and now the UN’s special representative for Afghanistan; </p></li>
<li><p>Danilo Turk, Slovenia’s former president, a former permanent representative to the UN, and the former UN assistant secretary-general for political affairs; and</p></li>
<li><p>Vuk Jeremic, a former Serbian foreign minister and former permanent representative who also served as General Assembly president in 2012-13.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>But there is one last issue: no woman has ever served as secretary-general. There is clear pressure for a female to be elected. As a former UN high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/world/after-70-years-of-men-some-say-it-is-high-time-a-woman-led-the-un.html?_r=0">argued</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Whatever the selection process for the next secretary-general is, historically there’s been no attention paid to the representation of half the world’s population.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96560/original/image-20150929-30976-78quau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96560/original/image-20150929-30976-78quau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96560/original/image-20150929-30976-78quau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96560/original/image-20150929-30976-78quau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96560/original/image-20150929-30976-78quau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96560/original/image-20150929-30976-78quau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96560/original/image-20150929-30976-78quau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Could Dalia Grybauskaite be the UN’s first female secretary-general?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Carlo Allegri</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are strong female candidates from Eastern Europe, including:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, who was previously a European commissioner; </p></li>
<li><p>Bulgarian Irina Bokova, the UNESCO director and her country’s former foreign minister; and</p></li>
<li><p>Bulgarian Kristalina Georgieva, a European commissioner who previously worked with the World Bank.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>If the Security Council does go against precedent and nominates a secretary-general from outside the region, there is a former Oceania prime minister who has a shot. But it is not Rudd – it is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jan/27/will-helen-clark-be-first-woman-to-run-united-nations">Helen Clark</a>, New Zealand’s former leader and now the head of the UN Development Program.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48103/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phil Orchard receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>If history is a guide, the next UN secretary-general will be from Eastern Europe, working in their national government, and with strong foreign service experience.Phil Orchard, Senior Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies and International Relations; Research Director at the Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/471202015-09-07T05:28:46Z2015-09-07T05:28:46ZInternational aid budgets could go twice as far – here’s how<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93915/original/image-20150904-14632-1ldm285.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Could aid be better played?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/s/international+aid/search.html?page=2&thumb_size=mosaic&inline=233480212">Chris Warham</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The clock has struck 12 on the goals that the United Nations <a href="http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/goals/">agreed</a> in 2000 to further international development. From the time of the UN summit of that year, which took place between September 6 and 8, the world was given 15 years to meet the eight Millennium Development Goals. These included eradicating extreme poverty, combating HIV/AIDS and reducing child mortality. </p>
<p>In his report on progress Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary-general, <a href="http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202015%20rev%20(July%201).pdf">said that</a> the goals had helped over one billion people out of extreme poverty but great challenges remained. He wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In 2011 nearly 60% of the world’s one billion extremely poor people lived in just five countries. Too many women continue to die during pregnancy or from childbirth-related complications. Progress tends to bypass women and those who are lowest on the economic ladder or are disadvantaged because of their age, disability or ethnicity. Disparities between rural and urban areas remain pronounced.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This set the scene for the <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=51791#.VemVQCSJmFI">summit in New York</a> later this month where the UN will adopt 17 new Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, a broader slate that includes ending all poverty, ensuring quality education and protecting the environment. </p>
<p>Once the eyes of the world media move elsewhere, a new wave of donor funding will hopefully be in the offing. Most donors would agree they have a moral responsibility to disburse the aid as efficiently as possible, to improve the lot of the intended beneficiaries to the greatest possible extent. </p>
<p>Yet we think agencies need a different approach when it comes to giving aid to countries that at least have some budget to spend on development goals, which applies to all but the failed states (the World Health Organization publishes <a href="http://www.who.int/health-accounts/en/">figures here</a> that show what proportion of different countries’ health spending derives internally). Traditionally they make investments based on cost effectiveness and proceed down the list until the budget is exhausted. But this is inappropriate for the countries we have in mind. It takes the pressure off the domestic government to contribute its own resources to achieve the intended benefit. </p>
<h2>Introducing country C …</h2>
<p>Consider the following example. The government of low-income country C has the opportunity to invest in a variety of HIV prevention activities, as shown in the table below. The table ranks the total cost and number of infections averted from each activity, starting with the cheapest (we roughly base our figures on <a href="http://www.healthsystemsevidence.org/one-page-summary.aspx?A=19341&T=Prioritiza&L=EN">this research</a>). </p>
<p><strong>Cost of HIV prevention activities in country C</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93899/original/image-20150904-14617-sb8flf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93899/original/image-20150904-14617-sb8flf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93899/original/image-20150904-14617-sb8flf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93899/original/image-20150904-14617-sb8flf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93899/original/image-20150904-14617-sb8flf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93899/original/image-20150904-14617-sb8flf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93899/original/image-20150904-14617-sb8flf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93899/original/image-20150904-14617-sb8flf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First imagine that country C is spending only its own resources to combat HIV infection. We assume the government makes its investment decisions following the standard cost-effectiveness advice, based on the opportunity cost of spending on other sectors. In this case, it considers that spending more than US$300 to avert a single HIV infection is not good value for money as it can achieve equivalent or more benefit by investing the money in some other sector. On this logic, country C would implement the first two activities on the list only – educating sex workers and safe blood transfusion. It would spend $89,575 and will prevent 3,068 infections.</p>
<p>But now suppose there is a donor D which can supply $1m to country C to prevent HIV infections. If it allocated funding to activities in cost-effectiveness order until the money was exhausted, it would mean implementing the first three activities completely and then 35% of the fourth (condom marketing). Since country C remains of the view that spending anything over $300 per infection averted is bad value for money, its government will now spend no money on HIV prevention. Under this scenario, $1m will be spent by donor D and 4,779 infections will be averted.</p>
<h2>Two rules</h2>
<p>Clearly this $1m is being spent well in the sense that many HIV infections are being averted. But in our example, donor D is taking the place of spending by country C, which is now free to spend resources on other, possibly undesirable, activities. We propose two rules to ensure that donor D gets more value for money. </p>
<p>First, D should fund only interventions which have a cost-effectiveness worse than $300 per infection averted. Country C would then spend $89,575 (on the top two activities) and prevent 3,068 infections, freeing up donor D to fund the peer education of young people and 44% (rather than 35%) of the condom marketing, preventing 1,878 infections. Using this rule, a total of $1,089,575 would be spent by both C and D to prevent 4,946 infections.</p>
<p>But then we add a second rule: D should only partly fund interventions by subsidising the costs down to $300 per infection averted. In other words, D brings down the costs to the level at which it is cost-effective for country C to invest. Here’s what happens:</p>
<p><strong>Costs of HIV prevention with donor subsidies</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93907/original/image-20150904-14625-mghpmp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93907/original/image-20150904-14625-mghpmp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93907/original/image-20150904-14625-mghpmp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=141&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93907/original/image-20150904-14625-mghpmp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=141&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93907/original/image-20150904-14625-mghpmp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=141&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93907/original/image-20150904-14625-mghpmp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=178&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93907/original/image-20150904-14625-mghpmp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=178&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93907/original/image-20150904-14625-mghpmp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=178&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this example D will ignore the two best-value activities (educating sex workers and safe blood transfusion). It will spend $995,000 to subsidise educating young people, condom marketing and educating high-risk men. Country C will spend £1,228,500 on these three activities, plus $89,575 on educating sex workers and safe blood transfusion. The total amount of investment is now $2,313,075 and the total number of infections averted is 7,163. We have now more than doubled the amount of investment into HIV prevention and come close to doubling the number of infections averted, compared to the standard cost-effectiveness model. </p>
<p>This approach raises a number of issues. There are clearly practical questions in assessing the cost-effectiveness of different interventions in country C, which may depend on the scale of investment required to meet a particular policy target (work <a href="https://www.york.ac.uk/media/che/documents/papers/researchpapers/CHERP109_cost-effectiveness_threshold_LMICs.pdf">published here</a> by the University of York provides a model for assessing cost-effectiveness). </p>
<p>It also raises policy questions for donor D and the extent to which it wishes – explicitly or implicitly – to influence the investment made by country C in its own domestic policy priorities. But these questions aside, this is hopefully food for thought for donors. As they plan how to spend their money to help achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, it can perhaps go further than they imagine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47120/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alec has previously consulted for the Global Fund. He receives funding from the European Commission and the Chinese government. He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Science and Technology of China.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ashwin Arulselvan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the UN gears up to unveil the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, here are two new rules for development funding to help it go as far as possible.Alec Morton, Professor of Management Science, University of Strathclyde Ashwin Arulselvan, Lecturer in Management Science, University of Strathclyde Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/434012015-06-19T04:19:20Z2015-06-19T04:19:20Z‘Very loyal’ productive workers: the same people we fear as refugees<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85671/original/image-20150619-32102-1qna8rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Brotherhood of St Laurence's 'Given the Chance' program enables asylum seekers and refugees to demonstrate their skills and loyalty as employees. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://giventhechance.bsl.org.au/media/">Brotherhood of St Laurence</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you scan Australia’s media headlines you might notice that the words “refugee” and “asylum seeker” rarely feature positively in mainstream news stories. This week’s front-page headlines were no exception with news that people smugglers were reportedly paid to <a href="https://theconversation.com/boats-secrecy-leads-to-bad-policy-without-democratic-accountability-43324">turn around asylum seeker boats</a> and, in doing so, fulfilling the federal government’s 2013 election promise to “stop the boats”. The message from Prime Minister Tony Abbott is deliberately a very negative one about asylum seekers coming by boat:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What we do is we stop the boats by hook or by crook, because that’s what we’ve got to do and that’s what we’ve successfully done, and I just don’t want to go into the details of how it’s done.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iV592dBm0Jg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Tony Abbott is interviewed by 3AW host Neil Mitchell about claims people smugglers were paid to turn back.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A global tribute to refugee resilience</h2>
<p>Saturday is World Refugee Day, and it is meant as a day of celebration and commemoration. UN Secretary-General <a href="http://www.un.org/en/events/refugeeday/">Ban Ki-moon</a> is urging member nations to ponder the generosity of countries and communities that have helped the “forcibly displaced”, including both <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c125.html">refugees</a> and <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c137.html">asylum seekers</a>. </p>
<p>Celebrities from across the globe have recorded 30-second messages on the <a href="http://webtv.un.org/search?term=World+Refugee+Day+2014">UN website</a>. These pay tribute to “the strength and resilience of the millions of people around the world forced to flee their homes due to war or human rights abuses”. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JKw2LLTvOSU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Cate Blanchett is among the celebrities recording their support for the world’s refugees.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These are positive messages about the more than 35 million people living in dismal circumstances. Ban makes the point that most displaced persons, 86%, flee to the developing world and the proportion in poorer nations is increasing. It was 70% ten years ago.</p>
<h2>Reporting fuels negative public attitude</h2>
<p>While Australia is among the developed nations that accept a capped number of refugees each year, recent studies show Australian news stories about asylum seekers – those claiming refugee status – are overwhelmingly negative, often promoting damaging stereotypes and fear.</p>
<p>This is no great surprise. Much of the political discourse about asylum seekers is negative. Neither is it surprising that successive public opinion polls reflect these negative attitudes about asylum seeker boat arrivals.</p>
<p>One study showed the mainstream media’s role in shaping Australians’ perceptions of asylum seekers through its use of “dehumanising” distant images of asylum seeker boat arrivals. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10361146.2013.840769">Roland Bleiker and colleagues</a> argued that these depictions serve to reinforce the political debate not as a humanitarian issue, but as a security and border control threat. </p>
<p>Other <a href="http://www.academia.edu/8696564/Genuine_refugees_or_illegitimate_boat_people_Political_constructions_of_asylum_seekers_and_refugees_in_the_Malaysia_Deal_debate">researchers</a> over the <a href="http://us-and-them.com.au/research/2012/7/21/arabic-and-muslim-people-in-sydneys-daily-newspapers-before-and-after-september-11">past decade</a> have studied the <a href="http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=010310700909939;res=IELLCC">pejorative language</a> used within, and by, Australia’s media to <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/37616187_The_Tampa_Wedge_Politics_and_a_Lesson_for_Political_Journalism">report on asylum seekers</a>. Common negatively framed expressions have included: “floods”, “waves”, “tides”, “queue-jumpers”, “illegals” and <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-those-fleeing-persecution-and-impoverishment-so-very-different-42320">“economic migrants”</a>. </p>
<p>Together, these studies find that mainstream media’s repetitive use of dehumanising images and negative language about boat arrivals can serve to promote public anxiety about a perceived threat to the Australian way of life. </p>
<p>This includes a public view that asylum seekers arriving by boat exploit Australia’s humanitarian processes and systems, as identified by <a href="http://ro.uow.edu.au/sspapers/229/">Fiona McKay</a> and colleagues. Their 2010 survey of 585 Australians about asylum seeker issues found that most people do not know asylum seekers first-hand – they rely on news media for information about them. </p>
<h2>Political control frames the story</h2>
<p>Before pointing the finger at the media for promoting negative attitudes about asylum seekers, it should be noted that recent Australian governments, on both sides of politics, have denied journalists access to asylum seekers. The result is that the asylum seekers are not able to tell their own personal stories.</p>
<p>A veil of secrecy about boats at sea – the government refuses to discuss anything deemed to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-it-an-offence-if-australians-pay-people-smugglers-to-turn-back-43054">“operational matters”</a> – is another technique, as is <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/quiz-which-politician-said-what-about-people-smugglers-20150616-ghp2aw.html">politicians’ choice</a> of language on the boat journeys asylum seekers make.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2247142">study</a> of federal politicians’ comments recorded in Hansard found:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… a continued prevalence of populist rhetoric through the Gillard government’s discourse on asylum seekers, although it was less overt than the language of the Howard era.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A more sympathetic understanding of how the public acquire sometimes thin understandings of complex political issues could be explored through the demands of the contemporary fast-paced media cycle. British academic Aeron Davis <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=SRLGBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT114&lpg=PT114&dq=Aeron+Davis+pseudo+expertise&source=bl&ots=MXKBszYG0L&sig=F7yYn3Bf-FQB4lgmPPUVWjq2g5E&hl=en&sa=X&ei=SGiDVbbuA4SV8QXll77YDw&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Aeron%20Davis%20pseudo%20expertise&f=false">finds</a> that the insatiable demand for news leaves time-pressured journalists, and also politicians, gathering “pseudo” rather than substantive forms of expertise. This serves to weaken key components of the democratic process. </p>
<h2>A ‘good news’ story from Melbourne</h2>
<p>Yet there are positive stories to be told about asylum seekers and refugees and their relationship with the Australian community. One is the work of the Brotherhood of St Laurence with Australian employers and asylum seekers and refugees from 19 countries.</p>
<p>A very generous donation from a 30-something businessman, who does not want to be named, enabled the Brotherhood to set up the <a href="http://giventhechance.bsl.org.au/media/">Given the Chance</a> program to get asylum seekers and refugees with work rights into paid work. </p>
<p>The program has been running almost two years and has exceeded its targets. It has found 232 jobs so far for asylum seekers, with a range of qualifications, across diverse industries (see below). To help asylum seekers into work, the program provides mentoring, life and job-readiness skills and English classes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85503/original/image-20150618-23263-2dh5kf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85503/original/image-20150618-23263-2dh5kf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85503/original/image-20150618-23263-2dh5kf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85503/original/image-20150618-23263-2dh5kf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85503/original/image-20150618-23263-2dh5kf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85503/original/image-20150618-23263-2dh5kf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85503/original/image-20150618-23263-2dh5kf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Given the Chance’ job outcomes by industry, May 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brotherhood of St Laurence</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Brotherhood has strong relationships with employers and has signed up major companies, including the ANZ Bank, to give asylum seekers and refugees a chance at engaging in reputable and sustainable work. Small businesses have also said yes to giving asylum seekers a chance. One small-business employer said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I find that I get very loyal employees, which help me to reduce my staff turnover, and it’s just a lovely thing for our business to be involved in, you know, welcoming refugees and asylum seekers into our workplace.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The success of the program, which started in Melbourne, has enabled it to expand to regional Victoria. Now that is something to celebrate on World Refugee Day.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43401/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Carson is a non-paid member of the advisory committee of the Brotherhood of St Laurence's 'Given the Chance' work program for asylum seekers and refugees.</span></em></p>Seeking asylum from persecution is a right and people who do so are not “illegals” under the law. Yet refugees are portrayed in negative and threatening terms in Australia, while positive stories are ignored.Andrea Carson, Lecturer, Media and Politics, School of Social and Political Sciences; Honorary Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism , The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/426022015-06-04T20:09:20Z2015-06-04T20:09:20ZGlobal progress on poverty is slowest for the poorest of the poor<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83494/original/image-20150601-17839-125gn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The gulf between the world's poorest people and the rest of us is, if anything, widening despite global gains in lifting millions out of poverty. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Children_and_open_sewer_in_Kibera.jpg">Wikimedia Commons/hris1johnson</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On launching the 2011 <a href="http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/reports.shtml">Millennium Development Goals Report</a>, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon <a href="http://undesadspd.org/Poverty/WhatsNew/tabid/1347/news/133/Default.aspx">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The poorest of the world are being left behind. We need to reach out and lift them into our lifeboat.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This view is heard quite often. Yet other observers appear to tell a very different story. They use aphorisms such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_rising_tide_lifts_all_boats">“a rising tide lifts all boats”</a>, or they point to evidence that <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/feastandfamine/2013/09/poverty-growth-and-world-bank">“growth is good for the poor”</a> and that the poor are <a href="http://books.simonandschuster.com/The-Great-Surge/Steven-Radelet/9781476764788">“breaking through from the bottom”</a>.</p>
<p>Can we reconcile these seemingly conflicting views? In <a href="http://www18.georgetown.edu/data/people/mr1185/publication-79678.pdf">my paper</a>, I draw on the results from household surveys for developing countries spanning 1981 to 2011. I find that there has been considerable progress against poverty when one counts the numbers of people living below a wide range of poverty lines, including lines well below the international line of <a href="http://wber.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/2/163.short">$US1.25 per person per day</a>. Each line is fixed in real value over time and across countries.</p>
<p>The evidence indicates falling incidence and depth of absolute poverty in the developing world over recent decades. That is good news. But does it mean that Ban Ki-moon and others are wrong?</p>
<h2>What’s missing from the picture of poverty?</h2>
<p>This paper argues that something important is missing from the numbers generated by counting poor people over time. If overall economic progress is not to “leave the poorest behind” then it must, in due course, raise the lower bound to the distribution of permanent consumption levels in society. That lower bound can be called the consumption floor.</p>
<p>There are good reasons to look at what is happening to the consumption floor. An important school of moral philosophy has argued that we should judge a society’s progress by its ability to enhance the welfare of the least advantaged, following John Rawls’ proposed <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/#JusFaiJusWitLibSoc">principles of justice</a>. By this view, a higher floor is not only preferred, but is the main criterion of distributive justice – subject to other criteria of liberty, as identified by Rawls.</p>
<p>The Rawlsian approach of using success in raising the consumption floor as an indicator of social progress has not been favoured by economists, but it has deep roots in thinking about development and social policy. In a famous example, in 1948 Mahatma Gandhi was asked:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>How can I know that the decisions I am making are the best I can make? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Gandhi <a href="http://www.mkgandhi.org/gquots1.htm">answered</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The spirit of Gandhi’s talisman was echoed (in somewhat drier terms) 65 years later in a report initiated by the United Nations on setting new development goals. The report<a href="http://www.un.org/sg/management/beyond2015.shtml"> argued</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The indicators that track them should be disaggregated to ensure no one is left behind and targets should only be considered ‘achieved’ if they are met for all relevant income and social groups.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Endorsing this view, Kevin Watkins at the <a href="http://www.odi.org/">Overseas Development Institute</a> in London refers explicitly to Gandhi’s talisman and <a href="http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/8638.pdf">argues</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As a guide to international cooperation on development, that’s tough to top.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Social policies across the globe have also emphasised the need to raise the consumption floor.</p>
<h2>Assessing progress for the poorest</h2>
<p>Estimating the level of the consumption floor is difficult. I have proposed two methods of doing so. Both can be implemented with readily available data, although they make very different assumptions. </p>
<p>Both methods suggest a consumption floor today that is about half of the international poverty line of $1.25 a day. This is probably close to the consumption of essential foods for those living on around $1.25 a day.</p>
<p>My principal empirical finding is that, while the counting approach shows huge progress for the poorest, the Rawlsian approach of focusing on the floor does not. The distribution of the gains among the poor has meant that the expected value of the consumption floor has risen very little over the last 30 years.</p>
<p>The figure below gives the estimated level over time for the developing world as a whole. Very little progress in raising the floor is evident despite the progress (accelerating since 2000) in raising the overall average consumption.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84161/original/image-20150606-8706-1fdswdw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84161/original/image-20150606-8706-1fdswdw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84161/original/image-20150606-8706-1fdswdw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84161/original/image-20150606-8706-1fdswdw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84161/original/image-20150606-8706-1fdswdw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84161/original/image-20150606-8706-1fdswdw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84161/original/image-20150606-8706-1fdswdw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84161/original/image-20150606-8706-1fdswdw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another perspective is shown below. This gives the absolute gain in consumption in the developing world over 1981-2011 by percentile, from the poorest (on the left) to the richest (right). Consistent with the lack of progress in raising the floor, we see that the gains are close to zero for the poorest, but rising to quite high levels. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84162/original/image-20150606-8692-wnjmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84162/original/image-20150606-8692-wnjmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84162/original/image-20150606-8692-wnjmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84162/original/image-20150606-8692-wnjmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84162/original/image-20150606-8692-wnjmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84162/original/image-20150606-8692-wnjmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84162/original/image-20150606-8692-wnjmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84162/original/image-20150606-8692-wnjmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is also consistent with what we know about rising absolute inequality in the developing world, as I recently <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6186/851">discussed</a>.</p>
<p>While policymakers would be ill-advised to look solely at the level of the floor in a given society, it does have normative significance independently of attainments in reducing the numbers of people living near that floor. The argument here is not that progress against poverty should be judged solely by the level of the consumption floor, but only that this should not be ignored as we think about development goals and social policies going forward.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is based on the keynote address to the ACFID 5th University Network Conference at Monash University in Melbourne on June 4-5 2015. Follow the conversation @ACFID and @Monash_Arts #EvidencePractice.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42602/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Ravallion does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite progress in lifting people above poverty lines around the world, the picture is bleaker for people at the very bottom of the ladder. They have largely missed out on the gains of recent decades.Martin Ravallion, Professor of Economics and inaugural Edmond D. Villani Chair of Economics , Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/319492014-09-23T16:24:46Z2014-09-23T16:24:46Z7 things you need to know about the Climate Summit - live from New York City<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59801/original/r42b9j6z-1411486425.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59801/original/r42b9j6z-1411486425.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59801/original/r42b9j6z-1411486425.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59801/original/r42b9j6z-1411486425.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59801/original/r42b9j6z-1411486425.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59801/original/r42b9j6z-1411486425.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59801/original/r42b9j6z-1411486425.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">United Nations</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Groundbreaking pledges of funding from the French, 120+ heads of state attending, famous faces calling for greater action and less talk. It’s all happening this week in New York City, where I join the UN <a href="http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/">Climate Summit</a>. Hosted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon today, it has been a ‘hit the ground running’ week leading up to this unprecedented event - with building expectation (some would say desperation) that this is where we might see major commitments from governments and an uprising of the public in favour of real climate action.</p>
<h2>Update.</h2>
<p>Tuesday morning in New York City and here is what we have seen so far:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>More than 310,000 people took to the streets of the Big Apple calling for real action on this global threat on Sunday;</p></li>
<li><p>Barack Obama, David Cameron and Dilma Rousseff are among leaders in NY today - Australia is a conspicuously absent;</p></li>
<li><p>France pledged US$1B towards a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/live/2014/sep/23/un-climate-change-summit-in-new-york-live-coverage#block-54216e94e4b04df407ad436c">Green Climate Fund</a>;</p></li>
<li><p>Strong words from Austria, calling for a “universal, binding agreement” on climate to come from before the 2015 Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, Paris;</p></li>
<li><p>Chile has committed to a 20% reduction of CO2 by 2020 in addition to renewable sources already contributing 45% of national electricity and having a tax on CO2 emissions;</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59804/original/wky8syqf-1411487250.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59804/original/wky8syqf-1411487250.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59804/original/wky8syqf-1411487250.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59804/original/wky8syqf-1411487250.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59804/original/wky8syqf-1411487250.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59804/original/wky8syqf-1411487250.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59804/original/wky8syqf-1411487250.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Climate March, New York City</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<ul>
<li><p>Japan’s prime minister says that his country has delivered the US$16bn in ‘climate aid’ that it promised over three years;</p></li>
<li><p>Leonardo DiCaprio sported a hipster beard to call governments on meaningless climate rhetoric and denial - <em>“none of this is rhetoric, none of this hysteria, this is fact”</em>.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Climate and Health.</h2>
<p>But importantly, climate change is not just about polar bears, this is about you and me too. An important message emerging. </p>
<p>With the world watching, the rhetoric on climate is rapidly changing from one solely focused on the environment, to one firmly focused on global human health too. Hence my attendance.</p>
<p>Leading a charge in this space, the <a href="http://www.climateandhealthalliance.org/">Global Climate and Health Alliance</a> (GCHA) provides thought leadership regarding the overlap and interdependacies between climate with health - I have <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-climate-is-our-health-but-can-we-have-both-16598">covered this before</a> . But importantly, they also outline three actions for the health and public health communities for co-mitigation on climate and health. </p>
<p><strong>1. Climate change must become a mainstream public health concern.</strong></p>
<p>“Put simply, we will have no health on a dead planet” - says the Stockholm Resilience Centre’s Johan Rockstrom. A hotter, more polluted world in which food scarcities, weather extremes, polluted air/water/land and greater geopolitical instability poses a major risk to global and local public health.</p>
<p>We must continue to work to make these links known.</p>
<p>The World Health Organization head states <em>“climate change, and all of its dire consequences for health, should be at centre-stage… whenever talk turns to the future of human civilizations. After all, that’s what’s at stake”</em>. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59803/original/dp24ynzp-1411486784.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59803/original/dp24ynzp-1411486784.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59803/original/dp24ynzp-1411486784.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59803/original/dp24ynzp-1411486784.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59803/original/dp24ynzp-1411486784.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59803/original/dp24ynzp-1411486784.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59803/original/dp24ynzp-1411486784.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr / bjaglin</span></span>
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</figure>
<p><strong>2. Clean energy and active transport can save lives, carbon and money.</strong></p>
<p>“Dramatic health benefits and associated cost savings would result from a global transition to clean energy, avoiding millions of early deaths each year through improved air quality” says GCHA. Urban areas are home to half the world’s population, but generate around 80% of global economic output, and around 70% of global energy use and energy-related greenhouse emissions. Air pollution is a growing burden to human health and already kills an estimated 7 million people each year. </p>
<p>Rapid transition to active transport and cleaner energy alternatives will be a major focus of the Summit this week - hopefully with commitments and actions.</p>
<p><strong>3. We need to make investment choices which benefit health.</strong></p>
<p>Following an historic announcement by Hesta in Australia last week to pull any coal investments from their $26B retirement fund, this is a hot topic this week. Divestment is the concept of pulling invested funds away from companies or stocks which contribute to environmental damage - think big oil, gas and coal burners. Using investments as a political tool for change. The American billionaire family, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/us/heirs-to-an-oil-fortune-join-the-divestment-drive.html?_r=0%20last%20night">Rockefellers</a> joined more than 180 institutions — including philanthropies, religious organisations, funds and governments — pledging to sell assets tied to fossil fuel companies from their portfolios. This is seen as a momentous move and a powerful tool for forcing innovation and private-sector change.</p>
<h2>Following live.</h2>
<p>Combined with the United Nations General Assembly week here in New York City, this is set to be a very big day for climate change. We can only hope that it is. </p>
<p>To <a href="http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/2014/09/press-briefing-preparations-climate-summit-2014/">follow live</a> from home or your smart phone, use #climate2014.</p>
<p>Above all - get involved, stay informed… this is our future.</p>
<p>-</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52906/original/z8trs7kk-1404332644.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52906/original/z8trs7kk-1404332644.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52906/original/z8trs7kk-1404332644.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52906/original/z8trs7kk-1404332644.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52906/original/z8trs7kk-1404332644.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52906/original/z8trs7kk-1404332644.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52906/original/z8trs7kk-1404332644.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/SandroDemaio">Alessandro</a> on Twitter via <a href="https://twitter.com/SandroDemaio">@SandroDemaio</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31949/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Groundbreaking pledges of funding from the French, 120+ heads of state attending, famous faces calling for greater action and less talk. It’s all happening this week in New York City, where I join the…Sandro Demaio, Australian Medical Doctor; Postdoctoral Fellow in Global Health & NCDs, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.