UN Secretary General Research Articles

Governing Global Digital Finance

Digitalization is reshaping finance, opening new market and development opportunities, and bringing with it new risks. Digital finance, or ‘fintech’, makes a difference by providing access to more, better and cheaper data, removing unnecessary intermediation, enhancing efficiency to reduce barriers and catalyzing innovation. The current crisis has transformed digital finance from a convenience into an existential lifeline. The UN Secretary General’s Task Force on Digital Financing for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlights the potential of fintech, for example, to crowd in SDG-related risk and impact data into financing decisions, reduce financing costs, open opportunities for business innovations particularly those targeting the poor, and enable citizens to have a greater say over their money, as savers, lenders, investors, and tax payers. It also has identified risks that need to be mitigated if it is to be an enabler of financing aligned to the SDGs. One feature of digitalization, and a source of risk as well as opportunity, is that it enables ever-increasing returns to scale, increasing market concentration: ‘network effects’. A small number of digital finance platforms, often arising from ‘BigTech’ particularly e-commerce, social media, and indeed governments, have grown rapidly, a direction of travel likely to accelerate as a result of the crisis. These ‘global digital finance’ platforms, of ‘BigFintech’, will be increasingly impactful across the world, particularly in developing countries with smaller, weaker or under-developed financial systems, economies, and policy frameworks but where also the opportunities for transformation are greatest. With such extensive footprints, there is need, and yet challenges to securing the most appropriate policies, regulations, and broadly governance. Governance considerations of BigFintech are often narrowly focused, setting aside many SDG aspects, risks and opportunities. Moreover, they are likewise often not inclusive, notably of the voices of countries most likely to be directly impacted, particularly outside of the major economies. The Task Force’s ‘Dialogue on Global Digital Finance’ has been established as a complementary and supportive initiative aiming to enhance and rebalance governance debate, innovation and developments with these two factors in mind.

Science Diplomacy and Its Engine of Informed Decisionmaking: Operating through Our Global Pandemic with Humanity

Summary Science diplomacy is an international, interdisciplinary and inclusive (holistic) process, involving informed decisionmaking to balance national interests and common interests for the benefit of all on Earth across generations. Informed decisions operate across a ‘continuum of urgencies’, which extends from security to sustainability time scales for peoples, nations and our world. The COVID-19 pandemic is the ‘most challenging crisis we have faced since the Second World War’, as noted in March 2020 by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, when survival is once again a common interest at local-global levels. This essay introduces common-interest-building strategies with science diplomacy to operate short term to long term, before-through-after the ‘inflection point’ of our global pandemic, as the next step in the evolution of our globally interconnected civilisation.

Adolescent Well-Being: A Definition and Conceptual Framework

In 2015, all the member states of the United Nations signed up to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [1]. SDG 3 aims to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.” Central to this goal are the concepts of health and well-being. This is at least as true for adolescents (10–19 years) as for any other age group. The United Nations Secretary General’s Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health (2016–2030), which aims to “ensure health and well-being for every woman, child and adolescent” within the context of the SDGs, recognizes that adolescents will be central to the overall success of the strategy [2].

Report of the UN Secretary General on Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, U.N. Doc. A/71/364

Summary The present report has been prepared by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights pursuant to General Assembly resolution 70/90. It focuses on Israeli practices affecting the human rights of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, with a particular focus on the use of force by Israel, arrest and detention practices and the application of collective punishment measures across the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The report provides details on how the lack of accountability for such violations feeds the cycle of violence and compromises prospects for sustainable peace and security.

Necessity of Attention to Mental Health of the Front Line Nurses against COVID-19: A Forgotten Requirement.

Today, emergence of infectious diseases has overshadowed many health beliefs and played a greatrole in the history of health development. The United Nations Secretary-General has introduced“Communicable diseases” as one of the challenges of our time. Viruses can be one of the causes ofcontagious diseases. The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, recently launched fromWuhan, China, has spread to more than two-thirds of the world, including Iran, and has reached thepandemic stage.1 In particular, COVID-19 disease further affects the healthcare sector and leads tomany challenges for this important part of society.These challenges include increasing need for medicalstaff; increasing costs for preventive and personal protective equipment for personnel, diagnosticand laboratory costs and treatment costs; increasing the need for Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds andventilators; and increasing mortality.1In the meantime, health care professionals play an important role in managing such crises.Nurses, as the largest group of health care workers, spend more time with patients than otherhealthcare professionals and play an important role in the care, control and treatment of thesediseases. During the epidemic of emerging diseases, all social organizations, even the patients’family members, are distanced from him/her, and it is the duty of the medical staff to take careof the patient despite the potential health risks.2 To understand the significance of the issue, it issufficient to know that about 50% of those who died in the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome(SARS) coronavirus epidemic were health workers who were somehow exposed to patients inthe hospital.3Past studies show that mental disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorders, anxiety,depression, panic attacks, irritability, delirium, mistrust, and even suicidal thoughts, wereprevalent among nurses who cared for patients with SARS. Developed mental disorders can leadto psychological disorders, loss of appetite, fatigue, impaired physical ability, sleep disorders,irritability, apathy, numbness, fear, and hopelessness.4In accordance with the ethical Reciprocity Principle, hospitals have a reciprocal duty towardsthe health care staff. Health facilities should provide the necessary infra-structure to support thestaff in the care of patients with emerging diseases, including communicating with the staff tocontrol infection, providing sufficient support to increase the staff motivation, providing personalprotective equipment, and especially psychological screening for nurses, psychiatric counselingand psychological support.2 According to a recent report by the National Federation of Nurses inItaly, the second Italian nurse has committed suicide after being informed of a positive coronavirus test.5 Therefore, the importance of paying attention to the psychological issues of nursesduring and after caring for patients with COVID-19 is obvious.However, due to the increasing prevalence of the virus and also the increasing number of deathsof nurses, which can be a stressor for other nurses, it is necessary to pay attention to mental healthof nurses. Stress and mental disorders can, like a vicious cycle, weaken the immune system andlead to coronavirus infection, especially where nurses with a history of mental disorders are moreconcerned. Nurses’ mental disorders can also significantly reduce their quality of care. Despitethe major importance of this issue and the findings of previous studies, this issue has not beenaddressed yet. Therefore, it is imperative to pay attention to the mental and psychological issuesof nurses in the care of patients with coronavirus 19 as the current priority of care for nurses.In this regard, experiences and measures can be used in the epidemic of SARS, Middle EastRespiratory Syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS) and Ebola patients, including screening ofnurses for mental health, psychological counseling, or training courses to provide comprehensiveand patient-centered care.

Прогноз стратегических рисков в научном творчестве Н. Н. Моисеева

<p>Выдающийся математик, философ, мыслитель Н. Н. Моисеев предвидел большие перемены мира, о которых в январе 2020 г. заявил генеральный секретарь ООН А. Гутерриш. Опираясь на науку, на разработанную им оригинальную философскую концепцию — универсальный эволюционизм — Моисеев предлагал пути в будущее, алгоритмы развития человечества. Статья посвящена анализу его идей в современном контексте.</p><p>Результаты нескольких лабораторий Вычислительного центра АН СССР, которые курировал Н. Н. Моисеев в 1980-е гг., получили большой общественный, научный, политический резонанс. Они показывали стратегические риски масштабных ядерных конфликтов. Вместе с работами К. Сагана идеи Н. Н. Моисеева до сих пор находятся в центре внимания научного и экспертного сообщества. Ряд исследователей стремятся поставить их под сомнение, полагая, что ядерный конфликт можно будет удержать «в ограниченных рамках». Однако работы Н. Н. Моисеева и его коллектива стали еще более актуальными в контексте стремления США выйти из договоров об ограничении стратегических ядерных вооружений.</p><p>По-видимому, Н. Н. Моисеев был одним из первых ученых, поставивших задачу построения и анализа моделей глобальной климатической системы. Это исследование опередило свое время. Продолжение этих работ под началом бывшего вице-президента США А. Гора было удостоено Нобелевской премии мира. Погодные аномалии последних лет показывают, что быстрые климатические изменения, как и предполагал Н. Н. Моисеев, могут стать одной из самых серьезных опасностей для человечества.</p><p>Работы коллектива Н. Н. Моисеева по моделированию экономических систем и искусственному интеллекту открывали перспективу эффективного использования науки в целях управления развитием общества. После чреды проб и ошибок, сделанных в последние десятилетия в России и в мире, эта перспектива вновь становится актуальной.</p><p>Текст доклада автора на Общероссийской (национальной) научной конференции «Моисеевские чтения. Культура и гуманитарные проблемы современной цивилизации», которая состоялась 4–5 марта 2020 г. в Московском гуманитарном университете.</p>

Comprehensive sexuality education to address gender-based violence

The COVID-19 pandemic has unmasked underlying inequities. Measures such as lockdown and physical distancing have confined many people to isolated, unsafe places that may increase risk of gender-based violence (GBV). If lockdowns or restricted movement continue for just a year, it is estimated there will be 61 million more cases of GBV than what would have already been expected.1 In response to this increase, UN Women launched the Shadow Pandemic public awareness campaign in May, 2020.2 Meanwhile, the UN Secretary-General has called for countries to include GBV prevention as a component of COVID-19 recovery plans.

The Impact of the Coronavirus Crisis is Due to Inequality

The Impact of the Coronavirus Crisis is Due to Inequality Mariano Aguirre (bio) First it was a suggestion and then it became an order: wash your hands and keep your distance. Those two seemingly simple actions represent the world we live in today—a world in which millions of people lack the water necessary for the first order and the space for the second. Later we were told to confine ourselves, something also beyond the reach of many. COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, is highlighting the profound inequality that exists in our global society and our states. As the pandemic spreads, healthcare systems worldwide are finding that they lack the resources necessary to cope with the crisis. It seems that no country had prepared for such a scenario, despite warnings issued by the scientific and economic sectors. The order to wash our hands must have triggered reactions of disbelief among the millions of people living in the shantytowns, shacks, favelas, and outskirts of cities like Johannesburg, Nairobi, Mexico DF, or San Pablo. If there is anything lacking in these places, it is sanitary facilities and water. In fact, water is increasingly scarce in many countries, mainly due to climate breakdown. IMMIGRATION GETS NO SICK LEAVE Until recently, disease outbreaks like this happened in far-off countries of the Global South (think Ebola) or were events of the past (think bubonic plague). But their impacts are now being felt closer to home, [End Page 223] just like the impacts of the climate crisis: heat waves in Europe, cities that lose a few centimeters every year to rising oceans in the coastal United States, fires that rage for months in Australia. In the past decade, the harsh realities that usually affect others have become familiar to us through immigration. Poverty and wars force millions of people to leave their war-torn countries. Border closures, deportations, and pressure on and payments to other countries to stop immigrants from passing through do not address the root of the problem; neither COVID-19 nor Donald Trump's wall will stop people from moving. According to the United Nations, 272 million people worldwide migrated in 2019. Hundreds of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers continue to be trapped between armed groups and traffickers who exploit them sexually and through intensive labor. Have the traffickers adopted a stay-at-home policy? Will they maintain a safe distance from their prisoners? The scenes that take place in the improvised refugee camps set up for those fleeing Myanmar or Syria could also be seen in Italy and Spain: sick people lying on the floors of hospitals that do not have the resources to treat them. WARS AND PRECARIOUSNESS UN Secretary General António Guterres requested that ceasefires be declared for the duration of the coronavirus crisis in the approximately 30 ongoing armed conflicts around the world. It is quite unlikely that this will happen. In many ongoing wars, economic interests overpower political interests. When little value is attached to life, nobody will stop fighting for humanitarian reasons, not even to protect their own health. Organized crime co-opts and coerces communities to work in their illicit production operations, as happens in Mexico and Afghanistan. Maybe the lawyers and politicians who collaborate with organized crime can work from home, but there will be no sick leave or unemployment benefits for those who must produce, transport, and illicitly sell goods in order to feed their families. [End Page 224] COVID-19 is like a blackout that has caught half the world off guard in the elevator of inequality and the myth of a globalization that is supposed to benefit us all. It is true that the virus has no regard for class and may attack the respiratory tracts of the 9.5 percent of the world's population that controls 85 percent of the planet's wealth. But whereas for some people isolation means keeping a safe distance from the domestic staff and making more frequent use of the various home delivery and private healthcare services, for billions of others it implies a series of exponentially growing dramatic dilemmas. Falling ill is always complicated...

Peter Sutherland and the European Project

Peter Sutherland and the European Project Paul Gallagher SC Introduction I am perhaps unusual among Peter Sutherland’s friends in that I only had the pleasure of knowing him for the last nine years of his life. Like many others, I was left with a profound sense of loss on his passing. His friendship was generous, kind and great fun. There was also a sense of Ireland’s great loss. Peter was an immense public figure at an international level, and was greatly admired and respected as a public and private person and he was a great representative of Ireland. The dangers of Brexit for Ireland, which he had campaigned against, made that loss all the greater. His unique expertise and experience at a European and global level would have been of great advantage to Ireland. The thinking and attitude which produced Brexit reflected values and beliefs which were the antithesis of those which defined him. In this article I will explore my understanding of those values and beliefs, and what they were based upon. My explanation of his views is offered, not without some hesitation, but it is based upon my personal insights and conversations over the period of our friendship on matters of mutual interest. I will also consider the challenge to them from more recent events since his untimely death. Peter had many fine qualities which earned him praise and success in equal measure during his lifetime. Those qualities were used to such positive effect in many varied spheres and were underpinned by a great humanity. He believed in people and thought deeply about human values and circumstances. Spinoza said: ‘Those who are governed by reason desire nothing for themselves which they do not also desire for the rest of humankind’. That desire in many ways defined Peter Sutherland. He genuinely desired the best for others. He saw Europe as a means of improving the lives of Irish people and of Europeans generally. This desire was exemplified by what he did as a Commissioner and as Director General of GATT and, most of all, in his work as Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Migration and Development. A striking characteristic of his was that he could combine this worldview with great consideration and kindness not only to his friends but Studies • volume 109 • number 434 150 to everyone he encountered in his daily life. People were very important to Peter and were to be engaged with on a personal level. My only interaction with him prior to 2007 was in late 1982/early 1983, when he approached me one day in the Law Library during his period as Attorney General. Having never previously met him, I was surprised and delighted when he asked me, as a very young and inexperienced junior counsel, to do work developing some new Rules of the Superior Courts. I was struck then by how pleasant and kind he was. He presented the task as if I would be doing him a favour. I later learnt that that was characteristic of him. He was well aware of his ability and his capacity to influence affairs, but in his dealings with individuals he displayed an instinctive kindness, a compassion and a sincerity that I have rarely encountered. Many people have spoken about his great acts of generosity to individuals, some of whom he did not know well, but who had fallen on hard times or had some particular difficulty of which Peter became aware. He never discussed these matters, but he had an extraordinary empathy for people and their situations. This was all the more remarkable from a person whose work and responsibility required him to operate under immense pressure, at a very elevated level. He also had a remarkable and unique capacity to mix with anyone at any level. At the Bilderberg meetings which he attended annually, he mixed with some of the most influential people in the world, and his interaction with those people was no different from his interaction with his friends and, indeed, with people whom he did not know. Commitment to Europe Peter’s commitment to Europe and the European ideal was perhaps not surprising, given his...

Effects of the Global Coronavirus Disease-2019 Pandemic on Early Childhood Development: Short- and Long-Term Risks and Mitigating Program and Policy Actions

Effects of the Global Coronavirus Disease-2019 Pandemic on Early Childhood Development: Short- and Long-Term Risks and Mitigating Program and Policy Actions

Introduction: Communication Rights in the Digital Age

Introduction: Communication Rights in the Digital Age

A new vehicle to accelerate the UN Sustainable Development Goals

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are unquestionably visionary. But with only a decade left until 2030, the UN Secretary General has announced that we are at a crossroads in the achievement of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development,1 and member states have released a political declaration to demand accelerated implementation.2 Yet delivering 169 targets across 17 interconnected goals is a major challenge for any government. For low-resource and humanitarian settings, the challenge is even more acute.

Not a luxury: a call to maintain sexual and reproductive health in humanitarian and fragile settings during the COVID-19 pandemic

Not a luxury: a call to maintain sexual and reproductive health in humanitarian and fragile settings during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Business Law: A Series of Posts from the Oxford Business Law Blog

The COVID-19 Pandemic is the biggest challenge for the world since World War Two, warned UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, on 1 April 2020. Millions of lives may be lost. The threat to our livelihoods is extreme as well. Job losses worldwide may exceed 25 million. Legal systems are under extreme stress too. Contracts are disrupted, judicial services suspended, and insolvency procedures tested. Quarantine regulations threaten constitutional liberties. However, laws can also be a powerful tool to contain the effects of the pandemic on our lives and reduce its economic fallout. To achieve this goal, rules designed for normal times might need to be adapted to ‘crisis-mode’, at least temporarily. Business Laws in particular fulfil an important function in this context. Our livelihoods depend on how well businesses are able to navigate through the current crisis. Beginning in early February 2020, the Oxford Business Law Blog has published posts on how Business Laws could contribute to containing the effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic, and on how they need (or need not) to be adapted to achieve the desired effect. This working paper collects the posts published throughout March in chronological order. Thematically, the focus is on finance, financial regulation and insolvency laws. This is not surprising as the most pressing problem businesses face right now is to manage their cash flow. We hope that the contributions in this paper inspire more work by scholars and help policymakers worldwide to adopt the right measures to reduce the damage caused by the Pandemic.

Standards of Investigation Under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Investigations of Incidents of Historic Significance

Abstract In search of international remedies for the investigation of the Tu-154M airplane crash of April 10, 2010, in Smolensk, Russia, standards of effective investigation under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights are examined. Cases of airplane crashes and terrorist attacks are analyzed. Next, investigations of major international incidents of historic significance are examined. The case of UN Secretary General D. Hammarskjold killed in 1961 airplane crash is analyzed. Also, the investigation conducted by the International Commission of Inquiry for Lebanon on the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri is examined. Based on the above, recommendations are made for the most effective international investigation of the Smolensk crash.

Commentary: Women’s Empowerment and Addressing Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in the DRC

In the last two years, ethnically motivated sexual and gender-based violence rose in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a country marked with ethnic-based tensions and conflict over the control of its extractive industries over decades. According to the 2018 Report of the United Nations Secretary General to the United Nations, sexualized violence cases emerged and spread in several provinces in 2017 with at least 804 cases of conflict-related sexual violence in this period, affecting 507 women, 265 girls, 30 men and 2 boys. Despite progress by the international community actors to end these abhorrent practices, this marks a significant increase from the previous year and the delay in national elections has exacerbated conflict. Both non-state actors and state actors are identified perpetrators of sexual violence, including the Congolese National Police.

The Guterres Disarmament Agenda and the Challenge of Constructing a Global Regime for Weapons

ABSTRACT On 24 May 2018, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres launched his new “disarmament agenda” in an address at the University of Geneva. The UN’s Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) simultaneously released a 73-page “non-paper” that elaborated this new agenda. In October 2018, UNODA issued the agenda’s implementation plan. This article will describe the key themes and specific proposals of this disarmament initiative. It will identify those features that represent both continuity and change relative to past proposals by other Secretaries-General. It will also discuss the agenda’s initial impacts, obstacles encountered, and future opportunities for progress. Finally, it will offer some reflections on the broader role of the United Nations, its Secretariat, and its Secretary-General in advancing global disarmament objectives.

United Nations institutions for the development of digital cooperation

The article presents the results of a study of the characteristics of modern institutions created by the United Nations (UN) in the framework of the direction of activities on digital cooperation. The methodological basis of the research is constructivism as one of the approaches to the study of international relations. The creation of international institutions for digital development can be explained within the framework of the constructivist approach as a manifestation of the priority of values and standards as well as adherence to the logic of public good and societal benefit. For the first time in scientific literature, an analysis of institutions such as the Global Forum on Internet Governance and the UN Secretary General’s High Level Group on Digital Cooperation is presented. The implementation of initiatives for the creation of international institutions considered, and the choice of their institutional design, became possible only with the support of the governments of Member States. The institutional infrastructure that is created significantly increases the oppor- tunities for non-state actors to participate in global politics and exercise direct influence on the UN. The process of preparing the UN Roadmap for Digital Cooperation was accompanied by the creation of unprecedented institutional forms that allowed for the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders. The digital revolution and the subsequent rapidity of communications and transfor- mation of forms of interaction cause and facilitate the new institutional forms and necessitate the developmental policy reforms. The algorithm for discussing the report of the High-Level Group, which ensures a balanced and diversified participation of state and non-state actors in the preparation of international recommendations, is particularly innovative.

The Art of Resistance: Cultural Protest against the Austrian Far Right in the Early Twenty-First Century by Allyson Fiddler

 Reviews Allen’s conceptualization, crucially, supports the established ideas of periodization while also challenging and differentiating the monopoly of these ideas through his selection of case studies and split chapters. Second, the selection of films is a refreshing mix of the canonical and films that so far have received little or no academic attention, organized in well interwoven and thematically cross-referenced chapters. Most of all, Allen appreciates the artistic complexity of these films as the contributions of directors who believed in socialism and socialist art as contributors to a better humanity. is allows him again to prove that reading these films and artworks as merely a reproduction of political ideology or as examples of life under a dictatorship would be to disregard their aesthetic complexity. Instead, he demonstrates that laying greater emphasis on the aesthetic and the struggle to create something entirely new under difficult conditions is the appropriate approach to doing these films justice. Or, in Allen’s words: [T]hroughout its history, East German cultural policy oscillated between two poles: on the one hand, the desire to portray itself as the contemporary embodiment of a long-established tradition of German classical humanism; and, on the other, as the realization of a new kind of political entity that had broken with the bourgeois traditions of the pre-war period and was committed to a modern, internationalist form of socialism. In part, the polemical character of many of the cultural debates that took place over the forty years of the GDR’s existence is a reflection of the impossibility of reconciling two such contradictory projects (p. ) U C D S E e Art of Resistance: Cultural Protest against the Austrian Far Right in the Early Twenty-First Century. By A F. New York and Oxford: Berghahn. .  pp. £. ISBN ––––. Allyson Fiddler’s excellent new book e Art of Resistance, ‘the first large-scale study of the creative work of protest against the ÖVP–FPÖ coalition’ of the early s (p. ), examines the range of artistic and cultural responses to the entry of the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), then led by Jörg Haider, into the Austrian coalition government in , aer the party obtained its hitherto largest ever share of the vote (. per cent) in the  general election (p. ). In , as Fiddler traces, the FPÖ had polled  per cent of the vote and ended up being a very minor coalition partner with the then Sozialistische Partei Österreichs. e much larger share of the vote in  and openly xenophobic policies of the party gave the international community much more cause for concern, leading to diplomatic sanctions against Austria by the EU, Israel, and the United States (p. ). Inside Austria , a wave of protests sprang up almost immediately following the  elections, which persisted until the coalition’s demise in . An important precedent had already been set here with the Waldheim affair of the late s. e generation of artists and intellectuals that protested against the election of former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim to the presidency of Austria in , on account of his deception regarding his Nazi past, is widely regarded as having been instrumental MLR, .,   in the formation of a civil society in Austria (see Dagmar C. G. Lorenz: ‘e Struggle for a Civil Society and Beyond: Austrian Writers and Intellectuals Confronting the Political Right’, New German Critique,  (), –). Indeed, many of the protagonists of the  protests would be closely involved in the protest movements in Austria at the beginning of the twentieth century. Fiddler’s study examines not only works by well-known authors and artists, such as the Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek, Robert Menasse, Christoph Schlingensief, and Marlene Streeruwitz, but also those of others who are less familiar. Fiddler’s book stands out for the range of works in different media that she discusses . ese include acts of everyday protest (demonstrations, speeches, graffiti, dance, etc.), as well as literary texts, films, and dramas. e Introduction and first chapter set the political context in which these various cultural responses to the Austrian Wende occurred, before proceeding to detailed analyses of texts, films, and forms of protest. e majority of the works analysed were...

Leaving no one behind: Is the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals possible without securing the dignity, rights, and well-being of those who are "invisible"?

The persistence of obstetric fistula—a devastating childbirth injury occurring largely among poor, marginalized women and girls—constitutes a human rights violation and a public health crisis. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to “leave no one behind.” Failing to eliminate fistula jeopardizes attainment of several of the SDGs. Member States of the United Nations adopted a UN Resolution on ending fistula in 2018, calling for an end to fistula within a decade. Building upon recommendations of the UN Secretary General's 2018 Report on Obstetric Fistula, the Resolution calls for significantly increased commitments and investments to end fistula. Crucial interventions for eliminating fistula include high‐quality, equitable, accessible health systems; implementing costed national strategies for eliminating fistula; integrating fistula into national plans to achieve the SDGs; strengthening national fistula task forces; and significantly increased, sustained financial support. Fistula elimination necessitates protecting women's/girls’ human rights and addressing social determinants that affect women's/girls’ ability to “survive, thrive and transform,” including social and economic inequities; gender‐based violence; child marriage and early childbearing; and access to education. Enhanced awareness‐raising and advocacy; improved research, data, monitoring and evaluation; holistic social reintegration and survivor empowerment; and community engagement are additional key strategies for realizing this ambitious goal.