Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

  Dear Friends   The link to leave your reflections and stories is here.   We are remembering Michael Strauss, who recently passed away. Michael fought for social justice, democracy, and sustainable development. For those who knew him, he was a unique character in the UN world who will be missed but remembered for who he was, a non-conformist, a unique person with integrity, not afraid to take on people or causes who at first seemed bigger than him. His heart was with civil society, and few felt and understood the English language better than him; he was a sought-after editor and writer for the small NGOs that came to New York to participate in UN affairs. During the Commission for Sustainable Development (1993-2013), he was the go-to person for media outreach within the Major Groups community. Michael became the media spokesperson for the NGO community at the UN, organizing press conferences or events to help governments understand that they needed to fulfil ...

Welcome to 2026 and the need for an even more  impactful stakeholder engagement in the UN processes. Chris Spence and Felix Dodds will be running a  two-day Zoom workshop on Environmental, Climate, and Sustainable Development  Lobbying at the United Nations ,  8:00 AM–2:00 PM  (New York time),  January 26 and February 2, 2026 . Although focused on the sustainable development world, most of what we cover is also relevant to any issue you are engaging in at the UN.  $589 Developed countries and $240 Developing Countries and Students. A lot of organizations  waste a considerable amount of funds  sending their staff to a UN meeting without being prepared in understanding how the meeting operates, how to influence policy before, during, and ensure an effective follow-up. This workshop is designed to help your  staff be effective from day 1  – actually, well before day 1!!! A small investment  NOW  will pay huge d...

Reproduced from the FAO website here. FAO’s  80th anniversary   was also a pivotal year for the teams working under the Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment.   From Biodiversity and Climate communities convening in Rome to COP30 in Belém, and from  Sahelian rangelands  to  Cambodian rice fields , OCB worked across FAO to make the case that food and agriculture are not only affected by climate change and biodiversity loss; they are central to solving them.   Agrifood systems in the global spotlight  The year opened with the  resumed session of the Biodiversity COP  at FAO Headquarters. Bringing together the biodiversity world at FAO HQ sent a clear signal that biodiversity goals cannot be met without transforming agrifood systems. This includes the vital...

A guest blog by Homi Kharas who is a Senior Fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution, and co-founder of World Data Lab. An economist by training, Kharas is a pioneer in the study of the global middle class.  He has over four decades of experience working in or writing about international financial institutions and contributed to the shaping of the U.N.-brokered global agreement in 2015 to pursue Sustainable Development Goals in every country and region of the world. Key points From a growing global middle class to expanding trade and faster, market-driven clean energy adoption, 2025 delivered tangible progress for developing economies despite a difficult global backdrop. Inflation and food price increases are being held in check, and advances in digital public infrastructure, nutrition, and weather forecasting improved everyday resilience for hundreds of millions of people. These gains show that, even amid crisis, targeted investments and multil...

   If you have trouble reading this e-mail, please click here .    Your January Briefing   Get the latest on the outcomes of the seventh session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, read up on the most comprehensive report on the state of ...