Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
The global policy debate on multilateralism has taken an intriguing turn during recent months and its focus has been widene, raising the question of how, under the current global geopolitical realities, a reinvigoration of multilateralism could realistically be achieved.
At the 74th UN General Assembly meetings, Jeremy Konyndyk and I held a high-level side event at the Rockefeller Foundation headquarters focused on a vital but inadequately addressed aspect of the humanitarian system and humanitarian reform in particular: who has power, who lacks power, and how to change it.
World leaders and policymakers are in New York this week for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to discuss key global issues, including global education. Here, we round up the big announcements at UNGA related to education.
Ministers are gathering at the UN this week to discuss the financing needs to meet the Global Goals—with the challenge that resources will clearly fall short, not least because most high-income countries are still failing to meet their financial commitments. We reviewed the pathways taken by the countries that agreed to the UN 0.7 percent target on overseas development assistance as a share of national income, and find that—perhaps unsurprisingly—aid as a share of the economy rises with per capita income.
On the sidelines of the 74th annual proceedings of the UN General Assembly, one recurring idea caught my attention: interconnectedness.
Today, the UN and Canada are launching the Elsie Initiative Fund for Uniformed Women in Peace Operations. The fund will accelerate the deployment of trained and qualified women in peacekeeping. It is a fantastic goal and the fund has an exciting design.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said gender equality at the United Nations is “an urgent need – and a personal priority. It is a moral duty and an operational necessity.” Guterres was quick to meet his goal of gender parity in UN senior management. But 18 years past an initial 2000 target date for gender parity in the UN system as a whole, there is still a long way to go. The organization remains off track to meet the new target for parity at all levels by 2030. There is also evidence that the rate of change will be hard to boost without a new approach.
Country efforts on the SDGs since 2015 are off-track, say Amanda Glassman and Liesl Schnabel. As the second UN Data Forum kicks off in Dubai, they call for a greater focus on the completeness, accuracy, and availability of data.
CGD experts explain how the BRICS—home to 40 percent of all cases last year—could provide much-needed leadership on the global TB agenda.
It’s crunch time for the Global Compact for Migration. There has been progress. But greater advance on dialogue can mean greater deadlock on content. Several challenges now face the co-facilitators—Mexico and Switzerland—in charge of drafting the text. They echo the challenges from the start of negotiations earlier this year.
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