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WORLDVIEWS

Afghan Women Must Be Central to Decision-Making on Global Aid to the Country

Margot Wallström and Susana Malcorra

• November 4, 2021

The Taliban are back in power in Afghanistan, and the hard-won gains women have made in the country are at risk. The situation is dire for all Afghans. The country is on the brink of starvation, and in recognition of this urgent need, more than $1 billion has been pledged to provide humanitarian assistance …

Gender Violence, Human Rights, Terrorism, WORLDVIEWS

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Good News From COP26: UN Members Agree on a New Enterprise to Transform Global Responses to Climate Change

Petteri Taalas, Achim Steiner and Inger Andersen

• October 31, 2021

Just days before the COP26 environment summit in Glasgow, Scotland, three of the United Nations’ lead agencies on climate and development each published alarming reports. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) produced evidence to show that greenhouse gases reached a new record high in 2020. Concentrations of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the …

Climate Change, WORLDVIEWS

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Bonfire of the Vanities: Afghanistan and the Crisis of State-Building

• October 28, 2021

The Taliban’s dramatic takeover of Afghanistan in August sparked a predictable outpouring of angst and argument as to why it happened despite the massive, two-decade effort to prevent that result. Much of the commentary focused on the supposed failures of nation- and state-building. It is important now to take stock of these concepts and …

Asia, Peace and Security, WORLDVIEWS

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My Work on the Origins of Minurso, the UN Mission in Western Sahara

Joseph Alfred Grinblat

• October 27, 2021

It is now 30 years since the United Nations referendum mission for Western Sahara, known as Minurso, was created, and I was one of the original staff members. Starting in 1971, Sahrawi students in Morocco started a movement for the independence of Spanish Sahara. The Sahrawi are the Indigenous people of the western region …

Africa, Peace and Security, Security Council, UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations, WORLDVIEWS

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From the UN75 Declaration to ‘Our Common Agenda’: Perfecting a World Where No One Is Left Behind

Alya Ahmed Saif Al-Thani and Anna Karin Enestrom

• October 12, 2021

In February 2020, just weeks before New York City and much of the world went into lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, we and our fellow ambassadors at the United Nations began six months of negotiations, culminating in the adoption by all heads of state and government of the “Declaration on the commemoration …

Human Rights, Peace and Security, WORLDVIEWS

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The UN Human Rights Council Dithers While the Earth Burns

• October 5, 2021

GENEVA — It is time for the United Nations Human Rights Council to take climate change much more seriously than it has been and to treat the issue with the urgency, deliberation and action that it demands. The Council has the tools to do so, and it should use them now. The recent Intergovernmental Panel …

Climate Change, Human Rights, WORLDVIEWS

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UN’s Guterres Proposes a 2023 Summit of the Future in ‘Our Common Agenda’ Report

Richard Ponzio and Joris Larik

• September 13, 2021

A year ago, as Covid-19 took its toll on countless lives and livelihoods and presented yet another reminder of how global crises inevitably require global cooperation and solutions, world leaders convened virtually to endorse a declaration marking the United Nations’ 75th anniversary. To achieve progress on the declaration’s 12 commitments, member states requested Secretary-General …

Governance, Peace and Security, Secretary-General, WORLDVIEWS

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Myanmar’s Credentials at the UN

Rebecca Barber et al.

• September 12, 2021

The United Nations General Assembly is due to consider an issue in the coming weeks that will profoundly affect the lives of 55 million people in Myanmar. Its Credentials Committee will debate whether to accept the credentials of the junta which seized power on 1 February, or those of the National Unity Government (NUG), …

Myanmar, WORLDVIEWS

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Unicef’s Next Boss Should Be an Internationalist and a Development Pro

• August 9, 2021

Jockeying for Unicef’s next executive director is well underway, after the July 13 announcement by its current head, Henrietta Fore, that she is leaving before the year’s end. She is going because of a family health emergency and well before her five-year term, which began January 2018, is up. Fore is Unicef’s seventh executive …

UN Agencies, WORLDVIEWS

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The UN General Assembly Must Reject Myanmar Junta’s Attempts to Grab Envoy Seat

• July 26, 2021

The battle is on to grab the Myanmar seat at the United Nations in New York City, a hugely significant prize as the junta wages a campaign for diplomatic recognition. Nonrecognition of the regime is crucial right now, because recognizing it would embolden its “brute force terror campaign” against the people it claims to …

Myanmar, UN Diplomats, WORLDVIEWS

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Does the UN Pension Fund Really Need to Invest in Financial Derivatives?

Lowell Flanders

• July 17, 2021

When the market for mortgage-backed securities — derivatives — exploded in 2008, the investment guru Warren Buffet called them “financial weapons of mass destruction.” The crisis was the worst American economic disaster to occur since the Great Depression. In the United States, the stock market tanked, wiping out nearly $8 trillion in value between …

General Assembly, Secretary-General, UN pension fund, WORLDVIEWS

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Thinking Outside the Box: How UN Sanctions Can Be Used to Bring More Women Into Peace Talks

Sophie Huvé and Rebecca Brubaker

• July 13, 2021

Since 2008, the United Nations Security Council has been integrating part of the women, peace and security agenda into its sanctions regimes — albeit inconsistently and with mixed results. So far, this practice has mostly focused on protecting women and girls against sexual and gender-based violence in conflicts with a twofold approach. In six …

Gender Violence, Security Council, WORLDVIEWS

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Feminist Wanted: Seeking the Next Leader of UN Women

Anne Marie Goetz and Joanne Sandler

• July 8, 2021

UN Women is looking for a new executive director. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, a former vice president of South Africa, is stepping down after eight years at the helm. The appointment comes as the Generation Equality Forum in Paris just ended, with historically high financial pledges by some governments. But it comes at a moment of peril …

Gender Violence, Secretary-General, UN Agencies, WORLDVIEWS

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The German Envoy Did a ‘Good Job’ Shaking Up the UN Security Council

• July 4, 2021

BERLIN — When Christoph Heusgen was appointed Germany’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York City in 2017, there were critical comments by foreign policy experts and journalists in our country. They voiced doubts about whether Heusgen, who had been serving as security and foreign policy adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2005, …

Security Council, WORLDVIEWS

2 Comments

Making the UN More Relevant Is Within Our Reach

Richard Ponzio and Cristina Petcu

• June 21, 2021

Against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change crises, extremist violence and social unrest, the specter of cross-border economic shocks and increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, the UN75 Declaration, adopted by world leaders last September, was an important first step in bolstering the case for the United Nations’ ability to cope with huge challenges …

Governance, Secretary-General, WORLDVIEWS

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