UN Report Research Articles

Capacity Building as Intervention-Lite: Migration Management and the Global Compacts

ABSTRACT Many states lack the standing capacity – housing, food, medical, or legal assistance – if thousands of people cross their border in one day. In addition, developing countries often lack the administrative capacity, expertise, and legal frameworks to process immigration or asylum applications and issue visas or refugee statuses. In response, the United Nations and other international organisations (IOs) propose to build the capacity of states through direct aid, training schemes, consultancies, twinning programmes, and start-up funds. The 2018 Global Compacts on Refugees (GCR) and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) were in part created with the mandates to ‘build capacity’ in designated states. This article examines how the meaning of capacity building has changed in migration management over the last 70 years. First, we present a brief history of capacity building and theorise capacity building as a form of intervention-lite that relies on the invitation by the host state and reaffirms an absolutist interpretation of sovereignty. The emerging norm of ‘well-managed migration’ asserts that if a state is not able to make migration safe, then the international community has a responsibility to provide resources and training to those national institutions. The article traces this logic of intervention-lite and the norm of ‘well-managed migration’ in the Global Compacts, particularly UNHCR Asylum Capacity Support Group and UN Network on Migration’s capacity building mechanism. Methodologically, we draw on elite interviews, case studies, policy analysis, project workplans, evaluations, UN white papers and reports to examine the concept of ‘capacity building’ as framed in the Global Compacts and its implications for migration management and sovereignty. While the compacts affirm state responsibility for migration management, the GCR and GCM increase the capacity of international organisations to intervene in domestic institutions, rather than increase the capacity of national institutions.

Framing the climate crisis: Dread and fatalism in media and interest group responses to IPCC reports

AbstractWhile UN reports indicate increasingly dire consequences of climate change, the political will to initiate rapid decarbonization is lacking, as nations fail to meet targets set by international agreements. Given these developments, this paper investigates the role of climate dread and fatalism in the discourse about climate science. We examine the treatment of fatalism in major theories of the policy process, noting that climate policy represents a relatively novel situation—in which a problem once deemed solvable is being redefined as an issue outside the realm of human control. Using automated content analysis, we examine how journalists and interest groups framed reports issued by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from 2013 to 2022. We find limited changes in the tone and content of news stories and environmental groups' statements, and we suggest that these findings reflect under‐reaction of the political system to new information.

The Role of Education in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): A Global Evidence Based Research Article

Education under multiple global initiatives has been playing significant role in overall sustainable development in the era of knowledge economy and knowledge society. But, practical evidences have not been well noticed under each sustainable development goal. Accordingly, this paper explored the role of education for sustainable development (ESD) and Education (SDG-4) in achieving the seventeen and sixteen sustainable development goals (SDGs) respectively using qualitative research design and approach supported with quantitative evidences collected from secondary sources such as UN flagship reports from the UN system including the World Bank, compiled by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), publications compiled by Educate a Child (EAC), and other publications identified through internet searches, as well as searches of specific organizational websites. The finding of this paper revealed that education for sustainable development (ESD) can enable the achievement of the 17 SDGs by raising the awareness of the 17 goals in education settings; promoting critical and contextualized understanding of the SDGs; and mobilizing action towards the achievement of the SDGs. It also explored that enough quantitative facts and evidences have not been addressed in the UN reports and other sources about the role of education in SDG-9 (Resilient Infrastructure), SDG-14 (Life below Water), and SDG-17 (Partnership for the Goals). Despite these limited evidences, education primarily planned under SDG-4 plays great role in achieving each of the sustainable development goal. Investing on education is investing to achieve all the SDGs for people to transform themselves, their families, their communities, their nations and the world at large. For more elaborative role of education in achieving each of the SDGs, researchers and global reporters better to invest more effort in compiling facts of education under each sustainable development goal.

Ethical considerations for the use of consumer wearables in health research.

The UN's High Commissioner's request for a moratorium on the use and adoption of specific Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems that pose serious risk to human rights, this commentary explores the current environment and future implications of using third-party wearable technologies in research for participants' data privacy and data security. While wearables have been identified as tools for improving users' physical and mental health and wellbeing by providing users with more personalized data and tailored interventions, the use of this technology does not come without concern. Primarily, as researchers, we are concerned with enmeshment of corporate and research interests and what this can mean for participant data. By drawing on specific sections of the UN Report 'The right to privacy in the digital age', we discuss the conflicts between corporate and research agendas and point out the current and future implications of the involvement of third-party companies for participant data privacy, data security and data usage. Finally, we offer suggestions for researchers and third-party wearable developers for conducting ethical and transparent research with wearable tech. We propose that this commentary be used as a foothold for further discussions about the ethical implications of using third-party wearable tech in research.

Energy Security of Polish Consumers in 2004–2021

Theoretical background: Energy security is one of the most important components of economic security. It is influenced not only by access to energy sources and the economic situation of the state and the individual consumer. The authors adopted the definition of energy security of an individual consumer as included in the UN report. It states that the energy security of an individual consumer is guaranteed when the average consumer has access to energy at all times, in various forms, in sufficient quantity and at a reasonable price, with the simultaneous development of support mechanisms for socially and economically sensitive consumers, and after implementation of independent mechanisms for resolving disputes with the energy company, which eliminate or at least alleviate the economic advantage of the enterprises. Purpose of the article: The main aim of the paper is to present the impact of macroeconomic indicators of the Polish economy on the energy security of Polish consumers with a minimum and average monthly income. Detailed objectives include determining the possibility of purchasing by consumers with such income, diesel oil, Pb95 gasoline, LPG, electricity, heat and present changes in the energy security of individual consumers in the analyzed period (i.e. 2004 – 2021). Methods: The study covered Poland, country which joined the European Union in 2004. The period of the analysis described the years from 2004 to 2021. The source of the collected information was a review of the literature on the subject and statistical data. Descriptive, tabular and graphical methods, constant dynamic indicators were used for the analysis and presentation of the results. Main findings: The last two decades of the 21 st century have brought Poland a number of positive socio-economic changes. The Polish economy noted that inflation remained at the level of National Bank of Poland’s expectations, increased trade, a marked decline in unemployment and rising wages, and thus a general increase in the quality of life as well as energy security of the individual consumer. The authors assumed that in the years of 2004 – 2021 the consumer had good access to energy, heat and other fuels. The supplies of energy resources were ensured by long-term contracts, including the Yamal contract, and the demand for heating coal was satisfied with the raw material largely mined in Poland. Heat, mainly in large clusters of people, was generated by coal-fired power plants. This raw material was also used by power plants. For heating their houses, individual consumers – mainly in the countryside – used gas or oil.

World headed for warming of at least 2.4 °C, UN report says

World headed for warming of at least 2.4 °C, UN report says

Climate headed for at least 2.4 °C of warming by 2100, UN report says

Climate headed for at least 2.4 °C of warming by 2100, UN report says

The United Nations Human Rights Council’s 2017 Report on Financialization of Housing

Financialization of housing has attracted plenitude of divergent reviews and discussions on the subject matter. The termfinancialization of housing has been associated with reduced housing affordability in recent debates. Irrespective of financialization of housing cementing a springboard to augment growth of the financial and housing markets, enhanced employments and deepened international trade and relations, it has also created its own setbacks. The financialization of housing has been reviewed to trigger excessive demerits of capital gains exceptions, rent seeking and disregard to upholding and defense of human rights tenets, provisions and conventions. In support of these demerits, the United Nations Human Rights Council’s 2017 report on the financialization of housing underscore financialization of housing creating an overall negative impact. The UN reports posits that the finacializationof housing is now a means to secure and accumulate wealth. Housing is now dehumanized and sold as a commodity on global markets and hence has lost its currency as a universal human right. The copious reviews and contention on the financialization of housing warrants further inquiry into the compendious scholarship. This paper therefore examined and argued in favour of the UN standpoints though making counter perspectives on the discourse of financialization of housing.

Digital Media's Role in COVID-19 Pandemic: Examining Coverage of Women’s Health Issues

As the report of UN proposes that Evidence from past epidemics, including Ebola (2014-16) and Zika (2016) provide evidence that women have always been at greater risk of exploitation, sexual violence and poor health during pandemics. Coronavirus has wrecked mankind globally. Redefining existing societal, economic, healthcare orders, the previous being proved redundant. With humankind being struck by such a treacherous virus it is vital to embark on journey of combating mechanism which is robust and inclusive of new defined societal, health and communication tools which satisfy needs particularly of the vulnerable population. The vulnerable group this paper particularly talks about is women. Pandemic of such scale leads to ruinous impact on the health of women. Health is a holistic term, it may have different meaning for distinctive individuals, in diverse societies, depending upon the challenges of those societies. The definition of health as propounded by WHO is “health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.

Learning from the Past: Lessons from the First United Nations Report on Problems of the Human-Environment

The 1969 UN Report “Problems of the Human Environment” was a seminal work that first highlighted environmental problems at a global scale. This report underpinned a series of subsequent international summits and conventions of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and the subsequent three global conventions on Biodiversity, Climate Change and Desertification. We assessed the report half a century after its publication to track changes in vocabulary and highlight critical lessons that could have been learned. The assessment contains several strengths and weaknesses that are pertinent to modern global-scale analyses. Many issues of that day have declined in importance or been superseded, and several major environmental problems (including climate change and plastic pollution) were not foreseen. Most of the report’s predictions proved to be much more conservative than proved by reality (a criticism that has also been levelled at contemporary IPCC reports). The report, however, did forewarn of global pandemics and stimulated thinking on a global scale that led to identification of the current climate crisis.

Institutions of the Global Metropolitan Order: The Global Mediator of Metropolises and Megalopolises (The G.M.M.M.)

Taking into account the UN reports regarding the expansion and proliferation of the great cities, we can talk about XXIst century as a century of full urban rise. Urban policy is representing increasingly a field of great interest for the doctrine of global studies, surpassing the limits of the national politics. Within the present paper, approaching the issue in a futuristic method -and after a brief depiction of the main framework (by starting with the second half of the XXIst century) in which metropolises and megalopolises are expected to expand-, we shall offer several definitions for innovative concepts as: metropolization, global order of metropolises and megalopolises, regional/continental metropolitan arches. Also, we shall try to depict the general shape of some specific institutions for this type of global order, based on the main role of metropolises and megalopolises, inclusively to reveal the principal attributions of what we call here the ”Global Mediator of Metropolises and Megalopolises”, and also, to articulate some of ”global metropolitan Charter” principles. The diplomatic relations between such new actors in relations with traditional political actors (states, intergovernmental international organizations) and also the concept of the ”global metropolitan law” are also, approached into the present paper.

The Critical Review of the Discourse of North Korean Human Rights and International Anti-corruption: Focused on the Paradox of Human Rights and Sovereignty

The corruption scandal of North Korea has seen by UN reports said the food and humanitarian aid being diverted to corrupt bureaucrat, whereby requesting to open an investigation. Given int'l inquiry, North Korea has responded by the paradox of human rights and sovereignty, which reflected human security and the principle of nonintervention. That is not, however, only North Korea's assertion in which some way analogous to a long-standing claim of the third world : the issue of North and South, and imperialism versus anti-colonialism. From the sense, the analysis has focused the normative issue of human rights and state sovereignty, and has explored the sphere of the notion in which North Korea engaged the Third World enquiring the justice of the core in line with anti-corruption regime's evolvement. Secondly, it evolved to show what attributes the paradoxical logic to North Korean regime's highly rigid political sense, namely sovereign priority.

THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL’S 2017 REPORT ON FINANCIALIZATION OF HOUSING

Financialization of housing has attracted plenitude of divergent reviews and discussions on the subject matter. The term financialization of housing has been associated with reduced housing affordability in recent debates. Irrespective of financialization of housing cementing a springboard to augment growth of the financial and housing markets, enhanced employments and deepened international trade and relations, it has also created its own setbacks. The financialization of housing has been reviewed to trigger excessive demerits of capital gains exceptions, rent seeking and disregard to upholding and defense of human rights tenets, provisions and conventions. In support of these demerits, the United Nations Human Rights Council’s 2017 report on the financialization of housing underscore financialization of housing creating an overall negative impact. The UN reports posits that the finacialization of housing is now a means to secure and accumulate wealth. Housing is now dehumanized and sold as a commodity on global markets and hence has lost its currency as a universal human right. The copious reviews and contention on the financialization of housing warrants further inquiry into the compendious scholarship. This paper therefore examined and argued in favour of the UN standpoints though making counter perspectives on the discourse of financialization of housing.

The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Economic Growth in the Region

The article studies problems of civilization development, which implies the conflict of interests of business proprietors, big multinational corporations and society urge towards sustainable development. The UN goals of sustainable development include environment protection, improving wellbeing of countries and overcoming poverty. Multinational corporations and regional enterprises stick to principles of corporate social responsibility, which partially comply with goals of sustainable development, but orient towards support of business proprietors’ wellbeing. Trends in global economy show that some multinationals by the level of their profits surpass the majority of countries. Thus, economic giants can render serious impact on state policy of the region, environmental situation and population prosperity. But companies and proprietors are interested only in allocating resources to developing countries, which prevents them from working for the goals of sustainable development. According to UN reports, confrontation and conflict between capital and society resulted in slow and complicated realization of goals of sustainable development. The author put forward a number of steps aimed at elimination of misbalance towards predominance of goals of sustainable development.

Impact of Poor Governance on Deforestation in Africa

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the world loses 18 million acres through deforestation each year. Africa is the only continent in the world where deforestation is on the increase threatening the continent’s scarce water resources, efforts by the region to combat climate change, and exacerbating the vulnerability of rural communities to poverty and effects of climate change. Deforestation over the decades has been blamed on poverty and burgeoning population increase. Demand for wood in Africa which is a source of energy could triple by 2050, straining the continents dwindling forest resources according to UN report. The study based on library research examines the extents to which poor governance and corruption which have been pervasive in Africa and have significantly contributed to the loss of the continent’s forest cover. Thirty published research papers were reviewed with the following objectives; i) analyse the extent of corruption in the forest sector, ii) to examine the extent to which corruption contributes to deforestation in Africa, iii) examine ways in which poor governance and weak institutional arrangements exacerbate corruption in the forest sector, iv) explore the extent to which corruption undermines the effectiveness of Community Forest Associations in combating deforestation in Africa, and v) explore opportunities and challenges of community forest association in combating corruption in the forest sector. The study further evaluated policy documents and frameworks previous researchers have employed to examine forest governance, compared to the emerging recent models of forest governance. From the previous research, it is apparent that corruption has the potential to decimate a nation’s forests. Few studies in Africa have however examined the extent of this phenomenon. There is an urgent need for such studies that provide further explanation on the extent to which corruption plays in the continuing loss of forest cover against the backdrop of all the reforms to improve the performance of the forestry sector. Keywords: community forest associations, deforestation, drivers, governance, corruption, institutions DOI: 10.7176/JAAS/80-04 Publication date: May 31 st 2022

Everything is at a time and in a place

The customary absence of anthropological perspectives in reports and policy recommendations on climate change and diversity loss is again confirmed in the current IPCC report and the recent UN report on biodiversity. This is a severe shortcoming since there is widespread agreement that goals are rarely met in these domains. Anthropology can offer a holistic perspective and local solutions which would make a difference. Policymakers are attracted to figures and universal recipes, but they need prose and diversity.

On Lyric Shame and Extinction

ABSTRACT According to a UN report published in 2019, up to one million species face extinction by 2100. Such a scale of loss outpaces language. Drawing on Denise Riley’s work on the autonomy of language, this article argues that contemplating extinction involves attending to language’s capacity to speak outside its context. Mindful of the 40% of amphibian life under threat of extinction, it examines three poems about frogs, by Paul Muldoon, Kathleen Jamie, and Vahni (Anthony Ezekiel) Capildeo, as instances of Riley’s concept of ‘lyric shame’, where the poet acknowledges the ‘voice of language itself … trying to speak’. Focusing on allusion, apostrophe, and ekphrasis (facets of the poem that involve a clinamen, a turn away from or towards the subject) it argues that the lyric poem – as an occasion where shame gives rise to song – can also be a vehicle for encountering the lament of long-neglected non-human voices.

Research Advances on Passive Knee Joints Rehabilitation Device

Background: After a smooth development of life expectancy per capita and fertility in the nineteenth century, the global population increased in size. Along with the demographic shift in the late nineteenth century, the phenomenon of population aging began to appear in developed countries. A survey from UN reports that by 2050, one in six people worldwide will be over 65 years old (16%), compared to 11 (9%) in 2019. According to another survey, 55% of people over the age of 60 suffer from joint diseases, and the number of people suffering from stroke, arthritis and other knee diseases will also increase accordingly. Objective: An overview of the classification and characteristics of today's knee rehabilitation devices and future developments. Methods: This review discusses the existing knee rehabilitation devices, including various products on the market, patents and some conceptual devices, in the context of the structural characteristics of the knee joint and the rehabilitation requirements of different knee conditions or after knee arthroplasty, and systematically introduces their structural features, differences and the rehabilitation effects achieved. Results: A comparative analysis of three types of passive knee rehabilitation devices according to their use was conducted to summarize the typical characteristics. The problems that exist in today's rehabilitation devices are also analyzed, and their development trends are looked forward to. Conclusion: Knee rehabilitation equipment has a high degree of structural richness, but it does not achieve a good balance of convenience, comfort and functionality, and there should be some room for improvement in the materials, volume of the power source and transmission form of the power system. There will be a good development in the future of knee joint recovery.

Of kin and system: Rights of nature and the UN search for Earth jurisprudence

AbstractSince 2009, the United Nations programme on Harmony with Nature has sought a new philosophy of global environmental governance known as Earth jurisprudence. This paper examines how Harmony with Nature has advanced Earth jurisprudence to unite Indigenous legal traditions, rights of nature, and mounting evidence from Earth system science regarding anthropogenic forcing on the planet. It does so through a policy analysis of annual UN reports, resolutions, and dialogues with international experts. Situating Harmony with Nature in the broader intellectual heritage of Earth jurisprudence and contemporary efforts to address anthropogenic forcing on the Earth system in the Anthropocene, I argue that Harmony with Nature operates at the juncture of two powerful ways of ordering relations, knowledge, and obligation: kin and system. The critical analysis shows how a new geography of global environmental governance has been produced within the constraints of the UN precisely by scaling Indigenous kinship to the planetary diagnoses made by system‐based planetary sciences. The resulting form of Earth jurisprudence in Harmony with Nature holds important, cautionary lessons both for understanding how Indigenous legal traditions are made to comport with UN sustainable development programmes and for contemporary efforts to transform governance to meet the pressing demands of global environmental change.

Toward the emergence of “humane” entrepreneurial ecosystems. Evidence from different cultural contexts

PurposeAdopting more sustainable and social-oriented perspectives is crucial for the emergence of the so-called humane entrepreneurial ecosystems (HEEs), the last ones supporting the improvement of both economic, environmental and social wealth. Entrepreneurs act as keystone players in each entrepreneurial ecosystem, thus the emergence of Humane Entrepreneurship (HumEnt) is crucial in shaping HEEs. Given the role of culture in affecting HumEnt, the relationships between Humane Orientation (HO) – as defined in the GLOBE project – and the basic components of Humane Entrepreneurship (HumEnt) were, particularly, explored in a selected sample of countries. Both Intellectual Capital (IC) and knowledge management (KM) perspectives were adopted in pursuing the research goal.Design/methodology/approachThe study approaches this by the mean of the Ward method with Euclidean squared distance and the k-means method. The GLOBE project, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) and the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) were used as data sources. Correlations between HO “as is” scores and each components of HumEnt were checked for the world sample (N = 36), as well as for the groups of innovation-driven countries (N = 17) and European countries (N = 14).FindingsResearch results show a conditional confirmation of the developed hypotheses, depending on countries cultural levels of HO, with a moderating role exercised by the economic development on the relationship between culture and HumEnt.Originality/valueGiven the increasing pressure of fundamental societal challenges, such as climate change, poverty and increasing inequality within and between countries intensified by pandemic (UN report, 2021), integrating the more traditional approaches to profit seeking with the more sustainable and human-centric perspective is a priority for both scholars and society at large. Previous researches do not provide explanation about the contextual factors responsible for the emergence of more humane-oriented entrepreneurial ecosystems, especially when referring to culture. This article broadens our understanding about the reason why both HumEntr and HEEs differently arise and develop in different cultural contexts.