Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

Guest blog by Stephanie Hodge: UN Partnerships Specialist is a globally recognized leader in strategic evaluation, systems transformation, and cross-sectoral program design, with over 30 years of experience in 140+ countries. She is a go-to evaluator for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and a trusted advisor to the UN system, World Bank, ADB, AfDB, and Ro me-based institutions, known for evaluating what truly matters: systems, coherence, and catalytic impact. originally published here. In the UN system, overlapping mandates aren’t a mistake—they’re baked in. When UNICEF, UNFPA, and UN Women all show up with a stake in adolescent girls’ futures, the overlap isn’t the issue. The real challenge is what we do with it. Too often, the result is duplication, confusion, or competition dressed up as coordination. But as someone who’s evaluated more joint programmes than I can count—from gender equality to climate resilience to education and governance—I’ve come to one conclusion: joint p...

As some of you will know i am a huge comics fan and am very jealous of my good friend Sean Southey of PCI Media Impact and the project Comics Uniting Nations. He is working with UNICEF and the World's Largest Lesson which is a collaborative education project to support the announcement of the United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development . One of the first comics to come out is Chakra the Invincible created by the great Stan Lee and Gotham Chopra and drawn by Sharad Deverajan and Ashwin Pande. The comics will cover the 17 global goals for sustainable development and hopefully help get the message out to a larger audience. “There are a lot of goals – 17 in all – but there is a way to make these understandable and accessible to people of all ages…and make them fun to learn about – through the powerful entertainment medium of comics”, said Olav Kjørven, Director of Public Partnerships at UNICEF speaking at a  panel within a fully-packed New York Comic Com at the...

UN at 70: Tea Party discussion on:What has the UN ever done for us? (A parody of Life of Brain‘s “What have the  Romans  ever done for us?”) Imagine a group of Tea Party activists sitting in a bar. Dylan The UN they are everywhere Jacob I think I saw a black helicopter the other day Dylan Yes……..and have you seen those black drones too ---- Jacob The UN has black drones? Dylan All right, Jacob. Don't labour the point. And what have the UN ever given us? Ian Well there is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 that has ensured human rights for loads of people Dylan Oh yeah, yeah they gave us that. Yeah. That's true. Masked Activist: Then they set safety standards for sea and air travel.  You remember how bad it was before the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) contributed to making air travel the safest mode of transportation Jacob Oh yes... that was very good, Dylan you re...

As many of us know Save the Children Fund were less than positive about the move from an MDG agenda to a Sustainable Development Goal agenda.  Now they find themselves on the wrong side of another issue Tony Blair. Last week they gave an award for his humanitarian work -The Global Legacy Award at the Save the Children Illumination Gala 2014.  I did chair a meeting with Tony Blair just after he was elected Prime Minister in 1997. I was positively surprised by him and very impressed by his knowledge of many issues. Though  it has to be said not very good on gender when the Executive Director of WEDO Susan Davis asked him about the different opportunities for his daughter and son he did not think there were any. So in 1997 we had high hopes after 17 years of conservative rule of a progressive Labour Administration. The sad thing is it wasnt as progressive as we hoped though it did some great things - it also took away the financial controls that would have protected the...