Development

Betting on a Data Revolution to Help Manage UN Development Goals

• April 27, 2015

The United Nations is positioning itself to turn the vast amount of digital data generated by users all over the world into a key source of information to help write and track the goals for the post-2015 development agenda. The aim is to seize for development purposes data generated by individuals through digital networks, …

Development, SDGs

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The Post-2015 Goals: People Around the World Talk Back

Barbara Crossette

• January 25, 2015

Advocates offering some alternative ideas and a few dissenting views on the Sustainable Development Goals on track to be adopted by the United Nations at a special session later this year are convening on Jan. 26 in New York to air opinions from all major developing regions on this critical new proposed set of …

Development, Governance, LGBT, SDGs, Women

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Can Good Governance Become a Global Development Goal?

Bill Orme

• October 28, 2014

British Prime Minister David Cameron had two clear messages when he spoke at a post-2015 global development goals forum on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last month. The first was his emphatic view that the General Assembly panel’s proposal for 17 Sustainable Development Goals with 169 associated “targets” was too unwieldy …

Development, SDGs, Secretary-General

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A Voice From Nigeria Pleads for an Africa Managed by Africans

Barbara Crossette

• October 15, 2014

Preparing for next year, when United Nations member governments will meet to grade the Millennium Development Goals and agree on a new set of benchmarks for 2015-2030, an important part of the discussion is focusing on Africa, the continent recognized as having great unrealized potential that is still unmet. Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu, a former …

Africa, Development, Health and Population

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Where Ecuador Stands on Assange and on a ‘Good Life’

Steven Edwards

• October 5, 2014

Ecuador’s foreign minister says his country will indefinitely host the WikiLeaks co-founder, Julian Assange, at its embassy in London if that is what it takes to spare him from an eventual extradition to the United States. In a wide-ranging interview with PassBlue during the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly in late …

Development, Latin America, Poverty, US Foreign Relations, Women

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How Is the UN’s Development Machinery Perceived? Does Anyone Care?

Stephen Browne and Thomas G. Weiss

• August 22, 2014

One year ago, the report of a high-level panel of world leaders and renowned development specialists proposed 12 goals and 50 indicators for the United Nation’s post-2015 agenda. These were already unwieldy numbers, but after a year and a half of juggling and negotiations, member states in New York on the Open Working Group …

Development

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Human Development That Sidetracks a Woman’s Power of Choice

Barbara Crossette

• August 4, 2014

The 2014 United Nations Human Development Report appeared at the end of July wrapped around the title “Sustaining Human Progress,” a goal that moves beyond meeting the targets that can measure achievement at any given time but cannot promise continuity or permanent improvement. The report’s subtitle, “Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience,” suggests how to …

Development, Women

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The US-African Leaders Summit in Washington Leaves Malians Blasé

Dulcie Leimbach

• August 3, 2014

BAMAKO, Mali — As the first United States-African leaders summit opens this week in Washington, D.C, it is hard to hear Malians in their capital drum up enthusiasm for it. President Barack Obama has invited 50 African heads of state — excluding those from Central African Republic, Eritrea, Sudan and Zimbabwe — to meet …

Africa, Development, Governance, UN Peacekeeping, Women

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Developing Nations Take Aim at the World Bank

Barbara Crossette

• July 16, 2014

In a direct challenge to Western control of two major international financial organizations, the five countries known as the BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — announced on July 15 the formation of a new development bank that they will control. The final plans to establish the bank, to be named …

Development

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Is a Better UN System Possible? Global Experts Respond to an Independent Survey

Barbara Crossette

• May 26, 2014

An unusual survey of 3,400 people worldwide who know the United Nations has found strong support for some basic rethinking over the next decade on the organization’s work in development. Among the recommendations, over two-thirds of respondents suggested adding more nongovernmental representatives to governing bodies and better consolidating both organizational representation and programs in …

Development

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Vijay Nambiar, UN Envoy, Untangles the Problems Plaguing Myanmar

Barbara Crossette

• May 19, 2014

The surprising move in 2010 by a repressive Burmese military regime to begin ceding power to the nation’s people was just the beginning of a tangled story. The new democracy held its first credible election less than two years later — an election that catapulted Aung San Suu Kyi, barely 18 months free of …

Asia, Development, Myanmar

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To End Deep Inequalities, Say Doyle and Stiglitz, Create a Ninth Development Goal

Barbara Crossette

• May 7, 2014

Two leading international policy experts at Columbia University are calling for more action from individual governments to address inequalities within their borders, in effect adding a bold new goal to the eight measurements of progress reflected in the Millennium Development Goals. Their proposal comes as debate swirls around what the United Nations needs to …

Development, Poverty, Responsibility to Protect

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Solving Bangladesh’s ‘Living Wages’ Problem Demands Global Support

Shiwani Neupane

• March 18, 2014

The dialogue on living wages has come a long way since the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,000 people in 2013, but there will be no solution to the living wage problem until all parties involved work together, a diverse group of panelists agreed at a panel on the topic, …

Development, Women

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Women, Girls and Their Sexuality in the Next MDGs

Denis Fitzgerald

• March 13, 2014

The future global development agenda must include a standalone goal for gender equality, and United Nations member states, who will have the final say on the successor to the Millennium Development Goals, should not use culture or ideology as an excuse for failing to include sexual and reproductive rights of women and girls among …

Development, Women

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The UN Has Lost the Aid-Effectiveness Race: What Is to Be Done?

Robert Piocciotto

• March 5, 2014

Recent events have confirmed that the United Nations has a deep reservoir of good will worldwide. But its reputation is undermined by the ineffectiveness of its development assistance. UN agencies could improve their performance by implementing effective evaluations. However, the UN cannot be judged solely on the basis of its development assistance because the …