SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OBSERVER
A monthly e-magazine produced by INPS Southeast Asia in association with IDN-In Depth News bringing you news and views on achieving the SDGs from the perspective of the Global South and Grassroots Communities.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OBSERVER
ISSUE 16, JANUARY 2023
SDGs AND GENDER EMPOWERMENT
Welcome to our 16th issue of Sustainable Development Observer focusing on Gender Empowerment and the SDGs.
The latest available Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 data shows that the world is not on track to achieve gender equality by 2030. It will take perhaps another 3 centuries to close the global gender gap. Almost 1 in 3 women have experienced physical or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime. While at the higher level of the social and economic ladder 85 % of Fortune 500 CEOs are men.
Shining a spotlight on these issues, UN Women embarked on a campaign aimed at the global corporate and political elite at the annual Davos Economic Forum to engage them on a ‘Generation Equality’ discussion. Under this umbrella an initiative to accelerate investment and implementation on gender equality is being explored. UN Women is spearheading solutions-focused conversations with leaders from across governments, business and civil society organizations. If discussions that have taken place at the UN conferences on women are any yardstick, the 3-century prediction for gender equality may yet be the reality.
While we have tried to bring you a diversity of viewpoints – mainly from women – on gender empowerment and the SDGs in this issue, the crux of the issues are reflected in the graphics we have presented below courtesy of UN Women. I will leave you to grasp the issues through these.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OBSERVER
ISSUE 15, NOVEMBER 2022
COP 27 - AGREEMENT TO PAY COMPENSATION ...... IS IT REALLY?
Welcome to our 15th issue of Sustainable Development Observer focusing almost exclusively on COP 27 – or what is known as the annual UN climatic change conference.
Three decades after small island states introduced the term "loss and damage" to the United Nations, the world has finally agreed to set up a fund to help vulnerable countries cope with climate risks. But who pays, who receives and how much money should be raised are all open questions, to be settled in the next year or so (at COP28?). At this year’s talkfest, rich nations insisted that the payments should not be about liability and compensation.
Thirteen years ago, at COP15 Copenhagen, developed nations made a significant pledge. They promised to channel $100 billion a year to less wealthy nations by 2020, to help them adapt to climate change and mitigate further rises in temperature. That promise, however, was not kept.
Meanwhile, China is one of the main funders of renewable-energy projects in Africa. At last year’s China-Africa Cooperation forum, Beijing committed to ramping up investments in solar, wind, and other renewables across the continent and has made no overseas coal power investments since 2021. It is also one of several nations funding the International Monetary Fund’s $20 billion IMF Resilience and Sustainability Trust on pandemics and climate change resilience.
In comparison, similar accomplishments by the US are very few. The US government has funnelled more than $9 billion into oil and gas projects in Africa since it signed up to restrain global heating in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, a tally of official data shows, committing just $682 million to clean energy developments such as wind and solar over the same period. Two-thirds of all the money the US has committed globally to fossil fuels in this time has been ploughed into Africa, a continent rich in various minerals but also one in which 600 million people live without electricity. European leaders also received criticism from African activists who accuse Europe of using Africa as a personal gas station. Germany has been pursuing development of a gas field in Senegal to plug its energy crisis while demanding that African governments fast-track renewable energy for their own electricity needs.
At a press conference, Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, an energy and climate think-tank, commented: “Having been thrust to the front lines of a climate crisis we did not cause, Africans have long urged rich countries to wean themselves off fossil fuels and slash their greenhouse-gas emissions. But, instead of heeding our calls, the rich have remained addicted to oil and gas - much of which, in Europe’s case, has come from Russia. Now they are taking this insult a step further: in their drive to end their dependence on Russian energy, the world’s wealthiest economies are turning to Africa”.
There will be no issue next month, but we will be back in January 2023.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OBSERVER
ISSUE 14, OCTOBER 2022
COP 27 - ANOTHER COP OUT?
Welcome to our 14th issue of Sustainable Development Observer, a little bit late again as I have been a digital nomad in recent months. This issue is designed to coincide with COP 27 meeting beginning in Egypt on 6th November 2022.
The two-weeks talkfest is expected to be attended by 35,000 participants and will include about 2,000 speaker. The meeting will take place in the southern Egyptian resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh. No doubt, a lot of the participants will stay at posh hotels, travel by air and road transport, eat good food with smorgasbord of western, Asian and Arabic halal food, and leaders will make grand speeches and pledge millions of dollars to mitigate climatic change – which may never come through – while poor nations will blame the rich and beg for more money.
This is the 30th anniversary of COP – Conference of Parties that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – a treaty that came into force in 1994. The COP is the supreme decision-making body of the Convention. The first COP meeting was held in Berlin, Germany in March, 1995. The COP meets in Bonn, the seat of the secretariat, unless a Party offers to host the session. Just as the COP Presidency rotates among the five recognized UN regions - that is, Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe and Western Europe and Others – there is a tendency for the venue of the COP to also shift among these groups.
Throughout the year, the COP Presidencies (current and next) will engage at ministerial, head of delegation and technical levels, as appropriate, on issues critical to the delivery of work and the success of the next COP meeting. Regular multilateral consultations at the level of heads of delegation will provide an opportunity for Parties to engage informally on specific issues and make progress in preparation for next one – in this case Sharm el-Sheikh meeting.
However, in recent years there have been a lot of skepticism of the process and the value of such meetings with critics claiming it's a venue for grandstanding and less for concreate action to save our crumbling planet. However, one hopes that this year’s meeting will treat the issues with urgency because last year saw both rich and poor countries suffering the consequences of climate change with heat waves in Europe and North America, and floods across Asia, Africa and even Europe such as in Germany.
Articles chosen for this issue tries to give a diversity of viewpoints on issues that are relevant to the COP process, and which needs urgent attention such as targeted funding for food production with the current crisis exposing both the dangers of climatic change and dependency on food imports – for food security. The special feature article this month focus on an interesting issue, where the secular nature of the SDGs may be a hindrance to using spiritual or philosophical solution, especially when it comes to SDG 3 of Good Health and Well-being.
In our next issue we hope to dissect the COP 27 meeting with respect to its relevance to the SDGs.
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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OBSERVER
ISSUE 13, SEPTEMBER 2022
WARMONGERING BIGGEST THREAT TO ACHIEVING SDGs, BUT CAN A MULTIPOLAR WORLD STOP IT?
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Welcome to our 13th issue of Sustainable Development Observer, a little bit late this time because I was on assignments in Kazakhstan and India. Anyway it is better to be late than never.
This month we focus on warmongering and sustainable development goals, prompted by an event I covered for IDN InDepth News from Kazakhstan – the 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions – a gathering of over 300 religious leaders representing the Islamic, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu and Jewish faiths.
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Kazakhstan was once the meeting place of traders and travellers from the East to the West, known as the Silk Route. As Pope Francis noted in his keynote address to the Congress:"We are meeting in a country traversed down the centuries by great caravans. In these lands, not least through the ancient silk route, many histories, ideas, faiths and hopes have intersected, may Kazakhstan be once more a land of encounter between those who come from afar." Please read my report in this issue for more perspectives on the issue.
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On a more optimistic note, we bring you 2 articles on the shaping of a multipolar world with two recent meetings of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Eastern Economic Forum. The western global media all but ignored these meeting. The only news worthy item they could extract from the SCO meeting was Indian Prime Minister Modi’s comments that “this is not the time for war” which was interpreted as him warning Putin, but, one may also interpret it a warning to other warmongers as well who are arming the Ukrainians to continue the war.
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“We need to ensure implementation of the roadmap for SCO member states to expand shares of local currency settlement, better develop the system for cross-border payment and settlement in local currencies, work for the establishment of an SCO development bank, and thus speed up regional economic integration,” China’s President Xi Jingping said in his address to the summit. But, these important developments in shaping a global financial artchitecture was not news for the western media.
These are important developments that SDO brings to you in this issue.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OBSERVER
ISSUE 12, AUGUST 2022
WINDS OF DEMOCRATIC CHANGE WILL SHAPE THE FUTURE OF SDGs
Welcome to our 12th and the first anniversary issue of Sustainable Development Observer started with no funding and a lot of passion. The situation has not changed and it is your feedback and encouragement that keeps me (us) going.
This month, we address an important issue that is at the heart of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the state of democracy around the world. Multi-party democracy as a panacea to achieving development that is just - and latest buzzword ‘sustainable” - has been held up for long as a gospel truth. As we become more enlightened and have the confidence to think freely gospels are always questioned and so should be democracy. In recent years we have seen how young people, having been brainwashed to rise up for such democratic change have seen their hopes dashed as soon as jaded (and corrupt) leaders are driven out. A decade ago we saw it with the Arab Spring, in 2014 In Ukraine and also in countries like Thailand and Hong Kong where these uprisings were quickly dosed out.
In this issue we bring you some insights into recent democratic change in different countries with different insights. In Latin American “leftish” democratic change is rising again with the latest being Colombia – would the USA allow “liberty” to flower in the continent this time around, so that SDGs may be achieved with a more social justice framework without American corporate interference?
There are interesting developments in Africa where coups rather than peaceful democratic change have been the norm in the post-independence era. We bring you some interesting perspectives on Kenya and Nigeria, also from Zimbabwe on why women shun politics.
Sri Lanka has been in the news for all he wrong reasons in the past few months and veteran journalist Neville de Silva takes a look at ironies of a failed “democratic” uprising in the island, which may have been precipitated from overseas to serve geo-political needs of powerful nations. Thus, we also bring you a perspective from a Sri Lankan peace activist on why political parties are the problem and democracy could be better served without them.
In the non-IDN story snippets, we alert you to the sad story of Libya where a misguided “democracy revolution” a decade ago has changed a prosperous state into a den of warlords and misery. From Brazil we alert you to how President Bolsonaro who came to power using the judiciary, now facing imminent defeat is trying to undermine the country’s judiciary. A story from Sri Lanka we are alerting you to focus on how the “regime change” uprising is creating a brain drain in a country that was well on the way to achieving many of the SDGs.
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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OBSERVER
ISSUE 11, JULY 2022
LIFE BELOW IMPACTS
ON LIFE ABOVE
BLUE OCEANS AND SDG 14
Addressing the World Oceans Conference in Lisbon, United Nation’s Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that the world is facing an “Ocean Emergency”.
He listed some of the threats facing the Oceans thus: “Low-lying island nations face inundation, as do many major coastal cities in the world. The climate crisis is also making the ocean more acidic, which is disrupting the marine food chain. Ever more coral reefs are bleaching and dying. Coastal ecosystems, such as mangroves, seagrasses and wetlands, are being degraded. Pollution from land is creating vast coastal dead zones. Nearly 80 per cent of wastewater is discharged into the sea without treatment. And some 8 million tons of plastic waste enter the oceans ever year”. Also unsubstantiated fishing practices and over fishing is rampant he added, warning, “we cannot have a healthy planet without a healthy ocean”.
In an article in this issue we focus on the adoption of the “2050 Blue Pacific Strategy” by leaders of the South Pacific Forum this month, and also we look at the pledges made at the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon.
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In another article published in this issue, Dr Palitha Kohona, who co-chaired the UN adhoc Working Group on Biological Diversity Beyond National Jurisdiction address the challenges confronting the Oceans today. “The Oceans cover 71 % of the globe. Over 3 billion people depend on the oceans, directly and indirectly, for their livelihood. There is more biological diversity in a bucket of seawater than in hectares and hectares of dry land” he points out. “Life began in the ocean and the ocean continues to support life. We depend on the ocean for more things than we can imagine. Not only by being the biggest sink for carbon dioxide, but the ocean also provides the protein intake for more than 50% of the world’s population, especially in the poorer countries.But today the oceans are in distress”.
In our special feature focusing on global inequalities, we look at a campaign by a group of Sri Lankan intellectuals and civil society activists for an appeal to listen to “Southern Voices” with a call for Debt Justice, Debt Jubilee and Debt Cancellation
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OBSERVER
ISSUE 10, JUNE 2022
SDGs AND TOURISM
COVID AND WAR DIMINISH ITS POTENTIAL
Tourism is one of a handful of major industries in the world that needs the active participation of human beings for it to function. It is the greatest employer of human capital and when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world at the beginning of 2020 global tourism was one of the fastest growing sectors of the world economy. There was a widespread belief that more community-based tourism development could play a major role in the achievement of the SDGs by 2030.
All these hopes and opstimism came crashing down as Covid-19 started to spread rapidly across the globe with countries rushing to close its borders millions of people from hotel staff, airline employees, tour guides and the biggest lot of them all the so-called “informal sector” like street, beach and market vendors .. almost every one of them loosing their lvelihood basically overnight. It was a devastating blow to the campaign to achieve the SDGs. While the revival of tourism is gradually gaining momentum, there is a long way to go before the levels of 2019 can be achieved and this is also the best time to address some of the shortcomings and accesses of the tourist industry as well.
In the past 2 decades the Asian region with its rapid expansion of the middle classes has been in the forfront of the tourism boom – not only within Asia but also globally with Europe and Australia benefiting greatly from Asian visitors. The perception of tourism as an industry that “serves White races” has been changed – perhaps some may argue reversed – and it has opened up avenues for greater human understanding – though its not always the case.
This issue of Sustainable Development Observer focus on the value of tourism to achieving the SDGs and how the impact of Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine may have an impact on its recovery. We focus on the Asian and the South Pacific region. In the first article we look at how 3 factors are impacting on the tourism revival across Asia, while Pattama Vilailert writes from Bangkok about how Covid may have killed an unique icon of Bangkok; Russians (along with the Chinese) have been fuelling the global tourism boom since the 2008 western economic crisis and our next article looks at how the Ukraine war is impacting on Russian tourism; while from Fiji we look at how the cultural tourism potential of the country’s only World Heritage Listed site is undermined by government indifference. We also have two features written by journalism students at the University of the South Pacific on attempts to revive tourism in Fiji Islands with focus on developing sustainable community based tourism.
We also alert you to some interesting articles on tourism revival attempts from different areas of the world, and also give you leads to some latest reports from international agencies on tourism revival statistics and policy initiatives. Our final feature, though transmitted by IDN in 2020 is publsihed here because of its relevance to the impact of Covid on tourism’s potential to address SDGs – this article is on Egypt a tourism dependent economy.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OBSERVER
ISSUE 9, MAY 2022
ACHIEVING SDGs BY 2020 IN PERIL
After two issues focusing mainly on the impact of the Ukraine-Russia war on the achievement of SDGs, this month we wanted to shift the focus, but, it was not that easy as reflected in the articles published here.
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The United Nations has revised its global growth estimates due to the war, and the Security Council holds emergency session on food security, while Southern Africa feels the pinch of the war because of its widespread economic relations with Russia and food imports from Ukraine. Meanwhile global leaders keep on talking about loss of lives and livelihood but impotent to do anything about it.
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We also focus attention on the global environment problems with a new IPCC report reflecting bad news for the small Pacific Island nations that are facing the impact of climatic change due to “development” policies of richer countries elsewhere over many generations. We reflect on the security concerns associated with environmental crisis, while we also raise concerns about the gender inequality that continues due to lack of adequate funding for girls’ education and women’s health.
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We would like to alert you to a book on late Dr Martin Khor, the Malaysian development economist and activist who for over 3 decades worked tirelessly to bring the voice of the South to global international economic forums. We also raise your attention to the monthly magazine ‘Third World Resurgence’ published by the Third World Network based in Penang, Malaysia – Dr Khor was instrumental in launching this project in the early 1990s and now it is into its 350th issue. It gives a real South perspective on global affairs – especially on the economic order.
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Finally we have two contrasting articles on democracy – one on the Philippines that reflects the weaknesses of the democratic process which has unable to keep the corrupt out of politics for ever; while the other from Fiji shows how governments through affirmative action and sincerity could make a minority – who were initially brought to the country, perhaps without their consent, by the British during the colonial era- to feel that they are now a part of the country’ history and belonging
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OBSERVER
ISSUE 8, April 2022
WAR INDUCED FOOD INSECURITY
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“We have all seen the tragedy unfolding inside Ukraine: cities flattened; people suffering and dying in their homes and in the streets; the fastest displacement crisis in Europe since the Second World War," UN Secretary-General António Guterres pointed out in an address to the UN Security Council on April 5. "But beyond Ukraine’s borders, far beyond the media spotlight, the war has launched a silent assault on the developing world,” he warned.
Yet, the war in Europe continues with no end in sight, with Americans pouring millions of dollars worth of military hardware to help prolong the war, while the Russians show no signs of relenting on their attacks on cities and towns in Ukraine. But, this avoidable and selfish war is taking a heavy economic toll on the world’s poor and the worst is yet to come as reflected by the articles we have presented to you in this issue. It is increasingly becoming clear that the US in particular is involved in an economic war that is creating a lot of collateral damage with no clear vision.
When the world needed sane and compassionate minds to overcome the devastation of the COVID-19 devastation, we are now facing the greatest threat to food security since the second world war and all this would have been avoided if Europe is able to think logically - one hopes it is not too late.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OBSERVER
ISSUE 7, March 2022
WAR AND ARMS TRADE THREATENING SDGs
In this month’s issue we decided to look at how the Ukraine-Russia conflict could impact not only the achievement of the SDGs by 2030, but also on the socio-economic post-pandemic recovery. Two articles by Thalif Deen looks at while world’s arms merchants would be the ultimate winners of the Russia-Ukraine conflicts, many poor communities far away from the theatre of war will be the losers as development aid to the world’s poor will be cut by richer nations. Meanwhile, African countries are concerned by rising farm prices as Lisa Vives reports.
In our viewpoints, Professor Rafiqul Islam points out how the hypocrisy of the powerful has fractured the international legal order, and occupational health specialist Mahinda Seneviratne looks at the fault lines of the COVID-recovery where migrant workers are left exposed to higher health and safety risks.
Two articles on media and SDGs address the challenges of going beyond the mainstream media systems to reflect peoples’ perspectives on development issues. One addresses the role of radio while the other, looking at New Zealand’s experience, ask the question whether the anti-vax movement has hijacked legitimate criticism od the mainstream media?
In our feature focus, Malaysian Islamic scholar Dr Chandra Muzaffar argues passionately for understanding each other for solving today’s conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine war.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OBSERVER
ISSUE 6, FEBRUARY 2022
GLOBAL INEQUALITY INCREASES
In this issue we focus on the theme of Increasing Inequality – a topic the global mainstream media pays lip service to.
From growing threat of food insecurity to increasing poverty and the wealth gap – not only in the countries of the South but also in the North, as seen in recent demonstrations and protests in Canada, across Europe, the US and Australia. All these are described as “anti-vaccine” protests and its socio-economic dimensions are ignored, including placards carried by protestors that address issues other than vaccine mandates. The Western Media often describe such protestors as “conspiracy theories” to justify repressing their voices.
Worried by the increasing wealth gap and its potential to create social chaos across the world, even some 100 millionaires have called for a Wealth Tax on the rich. While the pandemic has devastated the incomes of hundreds of millions of people across the world, the world’s richest billionaires have increased their wealth many times over and most of them avoid paying taxes.
The drift towards online communications during pandemic lockdowns have helped companies like Google and Zoom to make bumper profits, and the big tech companies – that include Facebook and Twitter – have become the world’s unelected censors of information. Our features article (see page 24) on digital colonialism address this issue, which the mainstream media is unable (or unwilling) to address.
While the Western mainstream media in particular promotes vaccines - and especially the Pfizer brand – the ethics of using public funds for research and then benefiting from it to make bumper profits, while driving poor nations into debt is not seen as a “debt trap”. While such traps are being set, the world’s spending on arms has increased and the media is not asking the question “what use was it when it came to fighting the pandemic?”. The media need to promote more investments in public health where the pandemic exposed weaknesses even in western countries.
The articles on how western arms fuel devastating loss of life in the Middle East highlight the dilemma. While the feature on Timor Leste demonstrates a lack of priority given to health issues in a country that could draw on oil wealth, and another feature on Sri Lanka written mainly from the perspective of rice farmers demonstrates how an environmentally sound farm policy could go wrong when farmers are not consulted.
Sustainable Development Observer
Issue 5 January 2022
DEMOCRACY IN PERIL
In our first issue of Sustainable Development Observer for 2022 we focus on the theme of ‘Democracy In Peril”. Unfortunately we cannot avoid taking a dim view of the current state of democracy because the very people who preach it have weaponized it, thus making campaigns for democracy seem hypocritical in nature.
In page 2, we have reproduced a section of an article from the American ozy.com social media site, that gives an unique insight into the practice of democracy in India that reflects the true nature of a democratic society. While it is true that India has a thriving middle class of about 600 million, yet, there is almost an equal number of people who live in abject poverty, which successive Indian governments since independence have failed to address adequately. This is in fact the theme of this issue, where we question whether the type of democracy - India and the West have - need to be embedded with a development rights perspective, that China is advocating at the moment.
In the article by Kalinga Seneviratne on “geo-political battle in Asia” it address this issue, while Simone Galimberti argues that democracy needs a new social order. David Robbie from New Zealand looking at the recent independence referendum in French-ruled New Caledonia looks at how the imperial power manipulated democracy to achieve their objective and deny the indigenous people their freedom. The article on Myanmar, we hope would raise the question whether the political campaign to unseat a military regime could solve the country’s poverty problem? In fact, is it making it worse?
We also have an interesting viewpoint from Dr Ram Puniyani on whether Indian democracy is under threat from the government of Prime Minister Modi. And a view point from America by Albena Azmanova and Marchall Auerback who argues that America is a country ruled by an Oligarchy and it is a disfunctioning democracy, as shown by the Capitol Hill insurrection.
Our focus article in this issue is about the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize – though the two recipients from Russia and Philippines are worthy winners for fighting for press freedom in their own countries - yet, we question whether Wikileaks founder Julian Assange should have been given the award because he exposed much more powerful global forces that are threatening our freedoms by practicing “watchdog” journalism to its core. By giving him the prize, the Nobel committee would have expressed a more powerful message on behalf of global democracy.
Sustainable Development Observer
Issue 4 December 2021
GLOBAL HEALTH CRISIS
This month we focus on global health crisis that has been exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and pharmaceutical industry’s greed – at the cost of peoples’ health. While the world’s media has gone berserk about a new “Omicron” variant of the COVID virus, the World Trade Organisation has quietly postponed a ministerial conference that had as its main agenda item, an Indian and South African initiative supported by over 100 countries to waive patents on COVID vaccines and other medical testing systems and equipment. Meanwhile, Pfizer – which has made billions of dollars out of the pandemic – has gone on a propaganda offensive to sell its “COVID booster shots” even to children as young as 5 years! Any questioning of this is labeled a “conspiracy theory” by the world’s so-called “mainstream media”.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has published a report that argues for less than a dollar a year per person of investments in prevention and treatment for non-communicable diseases by most low to lower-middle income countries, so that close to 7 million deaths could be prevented by 2030. Yet, during the pandemic many countries have increased their military spending to build or purchase sophisticated weapons systems that were absolutely useless in preventing the spread of COVID-19 and saving of lives. In a future issue of Sustainable Development Observer, we hope to do a more detailed analysis of this great myth of “national defense” spending.
We raise awareness in this issue on how destruction to education systems during the pandemic has drawn attention to why higher education should not be seen as a privilege – and why education funding should be seen as development funding not only at primary and secondary levels, but also at university level.
Our special feature article is focusing on the new Laos-China rail link opened this month as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). We present this as an SDG issue where the rail line should be looked at in the broader context of development policies where livelihood opportunities and planning need to be looked at as part of such infrastructure development.
Sustainable Development Observer
Issue 3 November 2021
SPECIAL FOCUS ON COP26
This issue focuses on Climate Change and the COP26 summit in Glasgow this month. We look at issues such as the debate on methane gas reduction from a farming mythology perspective: indigenous people’s call for a stop to ‘war on nature’; and why a Japanese Buddhist group is calling for an annual UN Youth Climate Summit?
Many Pacific Islands are threatened with extinction while the sea levels rise due to global warming. We bring you a viewpoint from the Cook Islands Prime Minister on why rich countries need to deliver on their “Pacific Climate Financing” promises, and also from the Pacific we bring you a report on how Australia is buying “silence” from Pacific nations on climatic change issues.
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Looking critically at the COP26 final communiqué we question why farming and food security have been ignored?
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We have two special features from Asia – one from Thailand on how a Buddhist monk is helping COVID-effected people to embark on a new sustainable livelihood – and from the Philippines on how a group of young people are fighting to save indigenous land from “developers”.
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On the theme of health, our major feature this month focus on the medical brain drain from the Global South with a special look at Nigeria and the Philippines.
Sustainable Development Observer
Issue 2 October 2021
Winners of Asia's "Nobel Prize"
October is the month when there is much hype in the Global Media about the Nobel Prizes announced from Sweden. Not many people outside Asia knows about the Ramon Magsaysay Prizes announced at the same time from Manila. There are normally 5 prizes announced and it is widely seen as Asia’s “Nobel Prizes” and the recipients of these prizes are widely respected across Asia.
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In this issue we feature two outstanding Asians who received this year’s prize – Bangladesh scientist Dr Firdausi Qadri for creating affordable vaccines to combat cholera and typhoid; and Dr Muhammad Amjad Saquib who founded Pakistan’s largest Islamic Community Development Organisation Akhuwat. Both deserve global recognition for outstanding contributions to achieving the SDGs.
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We also take a special look at the UN Food Systems Summit that took place on September 23rd asking the question whether it could help to find solutions to global hunger? In this regard, an article from Bhikkhu Bodhi looking at the root causes of global hunger from a Buddhist perspective offer much food for thought.
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Fiji Island’s outspoken Prime Minister Josaia V Bainimarama in an OpEd makes an impassionate plea to world leaders to acknowledge the link between climate and disease, and look at security threats as a problem of people living against nature and not with it.
Sustainable Development Observer
Issue 1 September 2021
From Sports To Health For All and Global Justice – Path Towards SDGs
With the world slowly recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic – a ‘once in a century’ global health crisis – the realization of the SDGs by 2030 for much of the global population is currently in serious doubt. The achievements of the past decade, first with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and now the SDGs, is being reversed, in many parts of the global South and small island nations face the added burden of climatic change and rising sea levels.
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In this publication – produced with a lot of passion and commitment with no funding – we aim to bring the diversity of issues associated with the SDGs into focus. This is designed mainly for young journalism and development communication practitioners and students to guide them to SDG issues that may not be covered by the mainstream corporate media, especially from the perspectives we offer in this publication.
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While most of humanity suffered, the world’s billionaires, big pharmaceutical companies and tech giants have prospered from the pandemic. To achieve the SDGs by 2030 these inequities have to be at the top of the global agenda. The final article in this issue ‘9/11 killed it, Global Justice Movements are poise to Reincarnate’ draws attention to what is needed.