Results for Op-Ed Global Development

International Women’s Day (IWD) puts a spotlight on the achievements of women and girls everywhere. It is the day of recognition and celebration of the strides which have been made to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment. It also provides an opportunity for self-reflection on our actions (or lack thereof) as leaders, institutions, and governments, to enhance the lives of women through opportunity, inclusion and equality. Excluding women incurs massive costs.

Today, over 5000 competitors from nations as far afield as Malaysia to Jamaica converge on Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games. The Games is perhaps the most visible aspect of the Commonwealth for many of our 2.5 billion citizens. Less visible, and appreciated, is the potential of the Commonwealth to bolster trade, business and investment between our 56 members. Tonga could win every year through the Commonwealth advantage. We must also work collectively to overcome perceived investment risks within some of our developing countries. - Lord Jonathan Marland of Odstock, Chair of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council.

Humanity is drifting into increasing danger. Climate change is accelerating; biodiversity is plummeting; hunger and extreme poverty are rising; and the gap between rich and poor is widening. These trends threaten not only human health and livelihoods, but also global peace and stability. Reversing them will require a shared effort to rebuild, and even upgrade, the systems on which we all depend – beginning with the global food system. By Gilbert F. Houngbo

For much of its life, the United Nations has hidden behind the comfortable maxim that, “If we didn’t have it, we would have to invent it.” Now at the venerable age of 75, the organization still enjoys widespread approval in global opinion polls. But beneath the surface, the UN faces difficulties that cannot be ignored. The Security Council will remain ineffectual until it is reformed, which is a distant prospect. But there are ways around this paralysis. By Mark Malloch-Brown.

At the start of the year, when COVID-19 was ravaging Wuhan, China, and beginning to envelop the West, I warned that the crisis would likely be replicated across much of the developing world, with significant long-term consequences for us all. Sadly, this prediction was correct....At the global level, the challenge is to ensure that vulnerable people everywhere are protected. Failing that, we will be entering a much more dangerous world, and the prospects for a robust global economic recovery will be severely diminished. By Kevin Rudd

The COVID19 pandemic has upended economies the world over, while there is financial pain there is also an opportunity for the reorganisation of national and global economics. Fiji's economic fault lines have been exposed under the pressures of COVID-19, exposing the gaps through which people and communities are falling. As governments continue to act to support economies undone by the pandemic it's important to see that any community relief that is being offered also has an eye to the future. By Maureen Penjueli.

Today’s leaders must not bequeath a dangerously destabilized planet to future generations. This is why the Nobel Foundation is hosting its first-ever Nobel Prize Summit, with the theme “Our Planet, Our Future,” in Washington, DC, from April 29 to May 1. The summit – supported by the US National Academy of Sciences, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and the Stockholm Resilience Centre/Beijer Institute – will bring together more than 20 Nobel laureates and other experts from around the world to explore the question: What can be achieved in this decade to put the world on a path to a more sustainable, more prosperous future for all of humanity? By Johan Rockström, Lars Heikensten, and Marcia McNutt.

In a profoundly volatile world riddled with fractures, the temptation to embrace a seemingly reassuring path of withdrawal or isolation may be strong. In fact, avoidance of potential hazards seems only natural. For lack of a better alternative, we may be instinctively inclined to look inward in order to circumvent or at least mitigate the risks of a world that feels like end times, in which children are telling us the truth. By Rémy Rioux.

A key challenge for the Forum is to maintain its solidarity as staunchly pro-Blue Pacific...where we are custodians of some of the world’s richest biodiversity and marine and terrestrial resources. Leaders have articulated a desire for a shift in the development trajectory for the Pacific, through the Blue Pacific narrative and through it the opportunity to exercise our will. This is the strategic lens through which any conversation over China, and the associated geopolitical and geostrategic environment we find ourselves in, must occur. Our political conversations and settlements must be driven by the well-being of our Blue Pacific continent and its people, not by the goals and ambitions of others. By Dame Meg Taylor.