Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

TO UN DESA NGO MAJOR GROUP & OTHER STAKEHOLDERS -- PLEASE RSVP BELOW We invite you to participate in a webinar on partnerships to help major groups and other stakeholders to prepare for the ECOSOC Partnership Forum “From commitments to results: Leveraging partnerships for the 2030 Agenda” on 31 March. The webinar will feature presentations made at a retreat on 5-6 February in preparation for the Partnership Forum organized by the DESA Office for ECOSOC Support and Coordination. The webinar will take place on Wednesday,  ​2  March, 9:30 am - 1 ​1 :30 am EST, featuring an interactive discussion with the authors of background papers (that can be requested) : "Multi-stakeholder partnerships: Making them work for the Post-2015 Development Agenda" ​ ​ ​ by ​ Mr. Felix Dodds, Global Research Institute, UNC at Chapel Hill "Multi-stakeholder partnerships: The way forward" ​ ​ by Dr. Marianne Beisheim, Global Issues Division, SWP Partic...

I somehow missed this in early 2015 with the SDGs going on but i post it for those who need some light relief and fun. Published in Oct 19, 2014 From the Bernadette La Hengst album SAVE THE WORLD WITH THIS MELODY released at 2.10.2015 at trikont.de (CD/LP/digital) Lyrics & music written by & produced by:  Bernadette La Hengst Sung by: Nick Nuttall (UNFCCC Bonn) & Bernadette La Hengst (Berlin) Video:  Thomas Arntz Composed for "save the world - ein theatraler Kongress mit Experten, Künstlern & Wissenschaftlern" am 03.- 05.10.2014 im Theater Bonn, in cooperation with UN Bonn and UNFCCC (climate secretary of the UN) and the Beethovenfest. SAVE THE WORLD ist ein Projekt des Theater Bonn in Kooperation mit dem Beethovenfest und gefördert durch die Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung. http://www.theater-bonn.de/schauspiel... http://www. unfccc.int http://lahengst.com Save the world with this melody Es gibt kein richtiges im falschen Klima, ...

The beginning of the media buzz Now that we know who the  the next Executive Director of UNEP and the  Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, will be. Coffee bar talk has moved on to who the next UN Secretary General will be two names it seems are being talked about if they will throw their hats into the ring they are   Ms. Susana Malcorra (Argentina) and  Alicia Bárcena Ibarra (Mexico) Of course, it helps if you know the process of selection a little better before writing the article. For starters, you cannot have a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, UK and USA [P5]) as the UN Secretary General. The New York Times suggested Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. She is unfortunately a French national, therefore she isn’t a possible candidate; nor is the excellent suggestion by Slant of Ertharin Cousin, the US World Food Programme head. The UN is a set of checks and balances – just ...

As some of you may be aware the post of Chief of NGO Branch in UN DESA is vacant but an imminent announcement is expected. There are three candidates and as I don't know all their names I wanted to instead discuss what that position should focus on. Ideally the candidate should come from a stakeholder organization as they would then bring to the post the experience that would enable a positive relationship with the organizations they are servicing. If not then they should show that they are positively inclined to stakeholders . One of the roles they will be playing is to service the Committee on NGOs . The Committee has slowed down or stopped the accreditation of organizations that certain countries don't like. Just because an NGO watchdog organization points out that a government isnt fulfilling its role it shouldn't be stopped from engaging with the UN. If an NGO disagrees with a government then that is part of a good democratic society - embrace it. There is a gro...

Boutros Boutros-Ghali (14 November 1922 – 16 February 2016) was an Egyptian politician and diplomat who became the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) from January 1992 to December 1996.  Prior to that he had been Vice Foreign Minister of Egypt, Boutros Boutros-Ghali oversaw the UN  during the Earth Summit in 1992  which agreed Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration, two conventions on Biological Diversity and Climate Change and the Forest Principles. At the Earth Summit he said that "the route is now marked out," Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said in a blunt farewell to an audience that included several of the 118 heads of state and government who had journeyed here. "Today we have agreed to hold to present levels the pollution we are guilty of. One day we will have to do better -- clean up the planet." During his term he would have to deal with  several world crises. This included the break-up of Yugoslavia and the Rwandan Genocide. In...

The work on a 2016 report builds upon GSDR 2014 and GSDR 2015. The approach will be that of an assessment of assessments, documenting and describing the landscape of information on specific issues or nexuses of issues. Specifically, the reports will keep the ‘science-policy interface’ and ‘SDGs as integrated system’ as main threads. The approach to the different chapters will be similar to that used for the past two editions. Call for contributions to the UN Global Sustainable Development Report 2016 Bring your science issues and solutions to the attention of policymakers and participate in a conversation with them! Preparations for the 2016 edition of the Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR), to be submitted to the fourth session of the HLPF in July 2016, are now underway. One chapter of the Report will cover the contributions received. “Ensuring that no one is left behind”, as the theme chosen for the HLPF 2016, will be a running theme through the report. In addition, a ...

Guest blog from: Lourdes A. Rivera ,  Senior Program Officer, Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice Ford Foundation “The post was originally published on the Ford Foundation’s Equals Change blog ." Forty-three years after the US Supreme Court legalized abortion, the mainstream debate about reproductive rights still rages—and still focuses overwhelmingly on abortion. There is good reason for this: Almost every day brings news of reckless, self-righteous attacks on Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health providers, and on the women from all walks of life who seek these services. But as important as it is to protect abortion rights (especially as they are increasingly under attack), it’s equally important to understand that this debate is about much more than abortion. In fact, it is a proxy for a whole range of issues tied to women’s self-determination and status, in both public and private. That’s why now as much as ever, we need to put the fight for reproduct...