Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

Ranger Ruffins joins us on the podcast this week for a wide-ranging conversation about the future of education, working life, and health. We pack a lot into this conversation. Has the COVID-19 pandemic altered education forever? Can AR and VR used in education help address racism and inequality? Is remote work here to stay? What will be the jobs of 2030? What does healthcare look like in a world with telehealth? How do these changes fit within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? Can robots help older people have a more fulfilling life? Will we be healthier and living more sustainably as new technologies continue to transform these crucial sectors? Join us for this week’s episode and find out! Ranger Ruffins is co-author of the new book Tomorrow’s People and New Technology, which we are focusing on in our first seven episodes to imagine what life in 2030 might look like and how the emerging technologies over the next decade fit into the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It...

Development Alternative   warmly invite you to join us in our unique new campaign, ‘Padhegi Wo toh Badhenge Hum’ in collaboration with NDTV.  Roughly, in English: “When She Learns, We All Earn”. The campaign provides a great opportunity for you to support us in helping marginalized women acquire the basic means for a better life – reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic, and life and livelihood skills – and achieve our aim to liberate and empower 4 million women in 4 years. Despite India’s enormous progress, the country is still home to three in five of the world’s non-literate women.   This lack of ability to read and write – or to calculate simple sums -- deprives not only the woman but also her family and community of their fundamental rights to better lives and livelihoods – and the nation of their ability to help build it. TARA Akshar+ is a highly efficient, scientific and hi-tech -- almost miraculous -- learning program that helps adults, particularly women from ...

A new book is out Earth Charter, Education and the Sustainable Development Goal 4.7 : Research, Experiences and Reflections edited by Mirian Vilela and Alice Jimenez, The Earth Charter (EC) is a document with sixteen principles powering a global movement. When you apply it to your business, school or community, you begin turning conscience into action to make all life on Earth thrive. In 1987, the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development issued a call for creation of a new charter that would set forth fundamental principles for sustainable development. The drafting of an Earth Charter was part of the unfinished business of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. In 1994, Maurice Strong, the secretary general of the Earth Summit and chairman of the Earth Council, and Mikhail Gorbachev, president of Green Cross International, launched a new Earth Charter Initiative with support from the Dutch government. An Earth Charter Commission was formed in 1997 to oversee the project....

Signposts to the 2015 new Development Goals Having just attended the Sustainable Development Goals Open Working Group and the consultation with Major Groups held the week before I wanted to share a number of reflections with this blog. Major Group Consultation On Friday November 22 nd what was billed as an “Intersessional Meeting between Major Groups and other stakeholders and the Open Working Group on SDGs” turned out to mostly Major Groups talking to themselves. It was an excellently put together day with four sessions covering: Rights-based SDGs that encompasses all dimensions of Sustainable Development; How the Sustainable Development Goals can eliminate inequalities and poverty; Good governance, enabling environment and institutions at the core of implementing SDGs Designing SDGs that foster human development within planetary boundaries (including climate change and natural resources management). Looking around the room I could see the two Co-chairs of the...