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A UN Centered on People, Planet and Shared Prosperity  

Oftentimes, the United Nations is the only bastion of hope for many people around the world in difficult circumstances. The United Nations that the world requires demands innovative, accountable and efficient leadership to guide it in adapting itself to the challenges that lie ahead.

Informed by the foundational principles of the United Nations Charter, my vision calls for a United Nations that is: centered on people, planet and prosperity; driven by issues; and focused on delivering positive impact.

We must make this Organization work for the people and planet in a manner that promotes the greatest prosperity for all. It must be propelled by the need to address the issues at hand and not by organizational arrangements.

An issues-based approach propels us from the silos that divide us to the issues that connect us. Through pursuing an issues-based approach that connects us and is centered on delivering sustainable impact in support of people, planet and prosperity, we are compelled to promote economies of scale, reduce unnecessary duplication, and be more inclusive and effective in our partnerships.

In today's world, the only way to deliver positive impact is by listening carefully to people and working in unison with local, regional and international partners. The Secretary-General must inculcate a culture of humility in the daily work of the Organization in its effort to faithfully implement and support Member States' decisions and their decision-making processes.

Also, it is not enough for the United Nations to effectively respond to existing crises. It must lead with the foresight to anticipate and prevent crises on the horizon.

Our focus on people, planet and shared prosperity must be premised on the guiding principles of sustainability and building resilience. Promoting sustainable development, as called for in the 2030 Agenda, reduces vulnerability in the long-term. Building resilience necessitates considering women and youth as an integral part of our solutions.

Ensuring reliable financing for development is critical to reduce the vulnerability that incites conflict, generates humanitarian need and imperils human rights. We must think in new ways that profit from South-South cooperation, leveraging triangular support and private-sector engagement to foster sustainable and innovative solutions for all.

Our actions must be imbued with respect for the primacy of national ownership. The Organization must enable collaboration with national and local communities and actors to strengthen their capacities as a first resort in all of its responses.

In an era of great interconnectedness, the problems that confront us transcend borders. It is vital that we work to implement a viable and robust strategy for zero tolerance to terrorism together with a reinvigorated focus on disarmament and nonproliferation. The role of climate change and other environmental pressures in igniting humanitarian need and conflict must be considered.

The Secretary-General must galvanize efforts to end conflict through preventative diplomacy and political dialogue, exercising good offices and leveraging regional partnerships.

All our efforts must be underpinned by the promotion of human rights. The Organization must spare no effort to use the tools at its disposal to promote human rights in a manner that is holistic, inspirational, up-front and that recognizes the responsibility that is incumbent upon sovereign states.

Partnership and inclusivity call on us to build on commonality where it exists, but acknowledge that strength emanates from diversity. We must do more to leverage the influence, political and economic weight, and contextual knowledge of regional actors to promote peace, invest in preparedness and disaster-risk reduction, and cultivate prosperity.

This approach demands a Secretary-General with the courage of conviction to listen to, heed guidance from, propose solutions to and work together with Member States, to find common ground, build confidence and cultivate trust.

As Chief Administrative Officer of the organization, it is incumbent upon the Secretary-General to support the stewardship of reform and review processes in close consultation with Member States. It is also the responsibility of the Secretary-General to foster flexibility and nimbleness, and to provide the managerial oversight to hold the Organization accountable to its membership, to the people around the world it aspires to serve, and to the ideals codified in the Charter.

Accountability implies transparency, performance, and due diligence, beginning with senior leadership and cascading throughout the Organization. It requires an organizational culture that is accountable, action-oriented and focused on impact. The Secretary-General must provide the visionary leadership and strong management to steer the Organization toward this culture. Such an Organization is also fully representative of our world, both in terms of gender and geography. I will strive to achieve these objectives, including gender parity at the top, as a key driver of change.

While serving the United Nations for over a decade in humanitarian, peace and security and management sectors, I have seen the Organization and its membership work closely together to devise creative solutions to respond to unprecedented challenges: This must become the rule.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post regarding the selection and appointment of the next Secretary-General of the United Nations. A new Secretary-General will take office on January 1, 2017, and each of the declared candidates for the position was invited to participate in this blog series. The President of the General Assembly noted that, this year, the selection process will have more transparency than ever before. The declared candidates for the position are listed by the UN here. To see all the posts in the series, visit here.

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Ancient supernovae buffeted Earth's biology with radiation dose, researcher says  
Ancient supernovae likely exposed biology on our planet to a long-lasting gust of cosmic radiation, which also affected the atmosphere, new research suggests. This would have had a massive effect on the terrestrial atmosphere and biota of the time.  
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No Matter How Fast They Run, Pamplona's Bulls Are Doomed  
It's cruelty masquerading as celebration. Terrorized animals, thrust into a world of screaming, slick surfaces, physical torment, and, in the end, serial, protracted stabbing.

It's the annual eight-day running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, as four dozen animals are chased down narrow cobblestone streets among thick, taunting crowds. They are funneled toward the bullring in town and later finished off by the picadors and matadors with their cutting swords and knives. It's only by suspending any empathy for the animals that any participant or spectator to this carnage can deem this a joyful experience.

In the run-up to this year's spectacle -- after assembling investigative footage from 2015 -- Animal Guardians and other groups (including Humane Society International) have released a video that tells the real story, stripped bare of the senseless reverie and phony thrill-seeking that accompanies it. You'll see how the whole thing culminates for the animals -- with open-air, unpunished acts of malicious cruelty.

Besides the running of the bulls, thousands of bull fiestas are held across Spain each year where, once again, the animals are tortured and killed. At fire bull fiestas, for instance, bulls' horns are set alight and the animals teased by onlookers while firecrackers explode all around. This week, HSI and its partners won a long battle when we succeeded in putting a stop to this year's Toro de la Vega, which takes place annually in Tordesillas, Castile and in the León region of Spain. The event involves hordes of spear-wielding men on horseback chasing and stabbing a bull to death.

We are zeroing in on the world's most appalling spectacles of malice to animals, including bullfighting. And there's growing worldwide disfavor with this gratuitous violence toward innocent animals. Between 2011 and 2015, there was a 25 percent decline in the number of bull fiestas. A poll commissioned by HSI last year found that 74 percent of Spaniards opposed the Toro de la Vega event. Many of the bull fiestas are partly or wholly funded by public subsidies, and the poll showed that most citizens did not think public funds should be used to support them. Some Spanish cities, such as Calonge, Tossa de Mar, Vilamacolum, and La Vajol, have independently outlawed the practice of bullfighting and, in 2012, historic legislation came into force after politicians voted to ban the outdated tradition in the Spanish region of Catalonia.

Taking on battles to end animal cruelty in foreign cultures can be difficult, as we often find ourselves aligned against apologists who invoke tradition and culture as a defense for cruelty. But with persistence, we can pull back this cloak of culture with the result that sensible people will recognize naked cruelty when they see it. HSI has, over the years, won some pretty impressive battles, like ending the world's largest animal sacrifice at the Gadhimai festival in Nepal, where half a million animals were slaughtered. In Spain, and in other countries, we will continue our fight against outmoded and cruel blood sports, including those that masquerade as tradition.

This article first appeared on Wayne Pacelle's blog, A Humane Nation.

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Interdependence, Sustainability, and a Sense of Place  
The global economy, global trade, global tourism, and immigration are here to stay. The technology of inexpensive communication, GPS, bar codes, cheap computing, containerized shipping, and a host of other innovations guarantee that supply chains will remain global. Global supply chains ensure that the food and other manufactured goods we need are made as efficiently and effectively as possible. We are part of a global economy, and if you want to see the economic impact of isolation all you need to do is look at North Korea and Iran. The market forces that push the global economy have more political potency than the nostalgic nativists pushing in the other direction. That could change, but I doubt it.

That's because in addition to the economic power of the global economy, young people have grown up with inexpensive, instantaneous communication and access to global travel. They find exposure to foreign cultures, foods, and people to be interesting and exciting. Here in America, we also have people like me who are attracted to diversity and immigration. I am delighted to live in a city where 40% of those who live here were born in other countries. If the future belongs to those that are creative, smart and entrepreneurial, drawing on the entire globe for talent seems to be the way to go. The master's programs I direct at Columbia enroll students from all over the country and all over the world, and it is an exciting and successful learning experience for almost everyone.

When I traveled to Europe for a month after I graduated college in 1974, phone calls cost as much as a night in a hotel (and more than the hostels we stayed in) and we communicated with our families with something called post cards and aerograms (lightweight air mail letters). Today, young people use FaceTime, Skype, text, and phone to stay in touch with folks everywhere at any time, and the price of communication is virtually zero. The foreign becomes familiar. Xenophobia can't gain traction when you have friends on every continent. That is a growing reality for many--but not for all, as the Republican presidential race demonstrates. There is little question that the images of foreign people and places can be manipulated for propaganda and political purposes. Many Americans can see the world on the web, but do not have the resources to touch it and experience foreign travel for themselves. But when I weigh the political clout of those who want to build walls against the power of those who benefit from globalization, I believe globalism wins. In addition, the appeal of global interaction for those who can afford it, and the American self-image as a nation of immigrants, is stronger than the tendency toward isolation.

But globalization brings costs along with benefits. Protecting labor from businesses that are highly mobile and multinational is one issue. Another is that with the creation of a global culture, how does one maintain a sense of place, community, and nation against the forces of homogenization? Some of the pushback against global forces derives from appropriate fear of a loss of control and some from a sense that those attributes that made us distinctive can no longer survive. These are real concerns as local culture competes against the shiny new global culture. Food, art, music, and media can reflect distinct local forms of expression. But the forces of homogenization are everywhere. Your Starbucks latte can be purchased in Hong Kong and Hawaii, and it will look and taste the same.

As important as global economic and cultural forces may be, I see the push for distinctive identity and a sense of place ensuring that communities and nation states will maintain their power in a more globally interconnected world. Part of it is expressed in Not in My Back Yard (NIMBY) local politics that resists development by local or global forces. This desire for community control of local land uses is powerful and growing. While part of the force behind the Brexit and Trump movements is racist xenophobia, an element of these movements is caused by a sense of lost control due to foreign forces beyond our reach. Trump, a primary beneficiary of the global economy with his global brand and real estate holdings, is cynically and effectively manipulating this anger and frustration to generate support for his inconsistent and incomprehensible policy positions. His success is in part due to his message that globalization results in loss of control.

It is true that globalization and our modern urban economy reduces independence and increases interdependence. When a rural family moves off a self-sufficient farm to a cosmopolitan city they lose control of their supply of food and shelter. They gain access to higher income, intellectual stimulation, health care and other resources, but they are not as self-sufficient as they were before. Nostalgia is a funny thing, though. When you think of the agrarian past, you might forget about the droughts, storms, pestilence, and other sources of crop failures experienced over the years; the good old days weren't always all that good. Nevertheless, the new global economy presents challenges to those who benefited from America's industrial economy. It is not simply trade and immigration that is reducing the market for labor, however, but also automation. Go to a construction site and watch the number of prefabricated pieces being hoisted by crane into place. Where once skilled construction tradesmen would appear in great numbers, today we see a few people operating machinery. Many modern factories also show the growth of automation. Workers sit in control booths operating machines and workers on the assembly line are often checking that the machines are performing as designed. Not all factories look like this, but the trend line is obvious.

The issue for workers everywhere is how do we protect ourselves from the unseen and unaccountable force of the global economy? Unions and government regulation won't work, because businesses are highly mobile and multinational. The latest trade agreements are built on the premise that in return for free trade, nations must enforce environmental and occupational health and safety regulations along with some form of living wage. It is far too early to see if these mechanisms work. The other forms of protection that younger workers are adopting are to accommodate the brain-based economy and constantly obtain the new knowledge that businesses seek from their employees. This is an insecure existence and, when coupled with the crushing level of educational debt incurred by some of our young people, is a prescription for political instability.

There are no easy answers to the issues generated by the global economy. Ensuring that the planet doesn't get used up and discarded by economic growth is a fundamental challenge. National regulation can control localized environmental problems, but are less effective in regulating climate and global marine impacts. Human labor faces the same challenges. Still, the global economy is constrained by national and local forces. The planet's environment is a precondition for human life, and so there are physical constraints on the global economy. Political stability is required for trade, as are consumers with resources to buy goods and services, and so national employment policy is necessary to ensure the healthy economy needed by global corporations. Finally, local control over the use of land constrains where global corporations can locate. While most localities compete for companies to site facilities, in addition to tax breaks they do so by demonstrating the quality of their community: its natural environment, infrastructure, schools, and political stability. Nations and communities can influence the global economy if they act strategically to defend their interests.

We have entered into a more interdependent global economy with many benefits, but despite its appeal and power, there are political and physical forces that will constrain its power. The need for a sustainable environment requires care in production, consumption, and waste management. The need for stable and growing markets requires a labor force that has meaningful work and is motivated. The human need for community and a sense of place will constrain the tendency toward a mindless homogenization of economic and social trends.

Transitions are painful. New York City's transformation was not easy. We changed from an industrial and commercial city to a global capital of ideas, communication, health care, education, business and tourism. After World War II, the garment industry was our largest business. Today, all those factories are long gone. The transition was so difficult that the city nearly went bankrupt in the mid-1970s. Drugs, crime, grime and decay were everywhere and the city lost a million people. Today, the city glistens; new buildings and parks are everywhere (along with ubiquitous tour buses). But income inequality is growing, and without subsidized housing the working and middle class would already be gone. The problems we face are new and are created by technologies and organizational dynamics new to the world. The old solutions will not work, Trump's nostalgia and racist ranting won't work, and we need to experiment with new solutions to these new problems.

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Meatless Monday: Cheap Eats for Tough Times  
These are challenging days for those of us who eat. Food's expensive. The climate change we're experiencing is killing our crops and is going to make things even worse. The House Agriculture Committee's proposed Farm Bill takes a $16 billion chunk out of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps progam). These are "near draconian cuts," as Wholesome Wave CEO Michel Nischan says. "In its current form the proposal would deny food-assistance to millions of people, many of them children."

"I normally don't consider the price when it comes to food. I buy what I want," says Rory Freedman , author of the mega-bestselling Skinny Bitch. Working with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Freedman took the SNAP challenge, spending $33 for a week's worth of food for her family.

The organic produce she usually gets wasn't an option. Likewise, sweet treats like organic fair-trade chocolate. On a $33 food budget, "there's nothing extra for indulgences." Standing in the checkout line, "holding my breath, wondering, am I going to have enough money for this, or do the walk of shame and put something back on the shelf -- that was an entirely new experience."

According to a new Oxfam America study, eight out of ten American women -- most often the family decision-makers when it comes to meals -- are willing to make changes when they understand the broader impact of what they eat. That includes going meatless once a week. Meat production sucks up 8% of our global water supply. Even a single meal where you swap beans for beef saves gallons upon gallons of water.

Going meatless saves money, too. It's why Freedman was able to meet the SNAP challenge. Her grocery bill came in at a tight $32.55. "I eat a lot of whole foods," she says. Her week's worth of groceries consisted of "fruits and vegetables, whole grains like brown rice, whole wheat pasta, beans."

Every culture has a beloved beany dish that feeds people in lean times, be it Cuban black beans and rice or Middle Eastern mjeddrah, lentil and rice pilaf. The processed food that makes up the majority of what Americans eat, the boxes and cans that clutter our shelves and our diets, the food Tracie McMillan writes about in The American Way of Eating, was not around three and four generations back. Poverty was, whether it was the Great Depression of the 1930s, the recession of the 1970s or the economic collapse of 2008.

When I put my husband through grad school, our weekly food budget was less than you'd pay for a single restaurant meal -- under $25. We did not see many -- or maybe any -- restaurant meals, but a homemade summer corn and tomato stew stands out in fond memory -- cheap, seasonal and local. Otherwise, it was a lot of rice and beans. I still have a real love for them. They're comfort foods that come from the earth, not out of a box. They're filling, nourishing, shelf-stable and cheap. They've sustained mankind for eons. They'll come through for us now.

As Freedman says, "We can eat healthy plant-based food on a very limited budget." Being vegan makes things a little easier. So do initiatives like Wholesome Wave's Double Value Coupon Program, doubling the SNAP dollars at local farmers markets so people can get twice as much fresh, local produce. The program is all the more precious now, with potential SNAP cuts looming.

Nischan and Freedman both believe consumer advocacy can help drive policy change and create a healthy, sustainable food system. I hope they're right. But we can't wait for the government's help. "We all need to take personal responsibility," says Freedman. It begins with what we eat.

Mjeddrah

1 cup brown rice
1 cup lentils
4 cups water or vegetable broth
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion or two small, sliced thin
1 teaspoon cumin, optional
sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Pour lentils into a small bowl. Pick out discard any stems or stones. Cover with cold water. Do the same with the rice, in a separate bowl. Leave 'em to soak for 30 minutes at a minimum, for 2 hours, if you've got the time.

The lentils and rice don't need any fussing with, just let them sit.

Bring water or vegetable broth to boil into a large saucepan. Strain lentils into a sieve. Rinse in cold water. Add to broth. Do the same with the brown rice. Toss in bay leaf. Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, for 30 to 40 minutes, until lentils and rice are soft and fluffy and have soaked up all the liquid. Remove cover, remove from heat and set aside.

Just before serving, heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add sliced onion and cook, stirring, for 3 to 5 minutes, until onions start to soften and turn golden and fragrant. Reduce heat to medium, and cook, stirring, another 10 minutes or so, until onions are brown and tender. Season with sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

Stir lentils and rice together gently. Remove bay leaf and season generously with sea salt, fresh ground pepper and optional cumin.

Serve pilaf lavishly topped with onions.

Serves 6 to 8.

This post originally ran on July 23, 2012,
More at soulfulvegan.com

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Pritam.Chakraborty posted a photo:

Up close and personal with a magnificant cheetah.

 
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Why Partnership is Essential When Solving Global Challenges  


This article has been submitted as part of the Natural Capital Coalition's series of blogs on natural capital by Camilla Toulmin, British economist, former Director and senior fellow of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

While philosophers can create progress in their fields with nothing more than brain, pencil and paper, an objective understanding of complex natural and social systems necessitates more than can be achieved by any single person. What is needed to advance our knowledge and to refine our policy in this field, is collaboration, and partnership.

First, between disciplines, so that the different tools, ideas and perspectives of the social and natural sciences can be more broadly focused on practical problems, much in need of solutions.

Second, between scales, as our world is an inter-locking system; so much so that changes to the troposphere, 12 miles above the Earth's surface, rebound on the prospects of micro-organisms nestled deep in the soil.

Third, between different actors and agencies. While it's true that government sets the wider direction and policy framework, our resources are used and managed by people, individually and collectively - on farms, across hillsides, in the oceans, in fact, on most of the planet's surface.

And, lastly, over generations of thought. You cannot hope to understand a system today, or predict where it might be tomorrow, if you haven't understood where it has travelled from.

My own work neatly illustrates these points. I am currently re-surveying a small village in the Sahel, the place where I first embarked on my doctoral fieldwork 35 years ago. In my work, I combine many different methods and disciplines, and rely on support from people all over the world. Researchers generally like to exchange ideas and new evidence, building a culture of sharing spanning the globe. I rely on this in my own work, as it helps me analyse what can be seen from aerial photos, compare trends in rainfall and crop yields, and learn how similar communities elsewhere have taken their own development in hand.



I have to work at multiple scales, understanding not only how the environment changes people, but also how people change the environment. National decentralisation policy has led to shifts in who exercises power and decision-making locally, while global market forces have turned these wide open sandy plains into a commodity to be bought and sold. For us to succeed in supporting local development, we need this extensive multifaceted understanding, from which to offer partnership to local people.

Gaining a livelihood in these drought-prone regions is uncertain, but people have survived and prospered here for many generations. Local farmers talk knowledgeably about how they play-off risks; by sowing millet with different growing cycles, and diversifying into sesame, maize and groundnuts for instance. I am talking with them about how they see the future, and ways to build greater resilience into their natural resource and farming systems. We apply our shared understanding of the changes they've witnessed over the last 35 years as the backdrop to aid reflections on the future. They're enjoying working with old aerial photos, and taking the black-and-white images in hand. The older men and women can point out who was farming each field as far back as the early 1950s.



The farmers and herders of this region face serious challenges ahead, as fertile land becomes scarcer, and rain falls in evermore intense storms. Even in the face of this, they can do much to manage their land, and diversify how they live in order to cope with this uncertainty. Some families continue to live in enormous domestic groups, made up of 100+ relatives, as a means to gain economies of scale, and share both assets and risks.

Many families here rely on the earnings of young men who migrate away for many months at a time. While a short-term solution, in order to prosper in the long term, people need sensible and supportive government. Government must provide stability though laws and institutions which secure rights for people and for the environment, and by investing in the public infrastructure needed to get goods to market.

I am engaging with people in local and national government, promoting the work that we do, and relaying the voices of villagers; facilitating conversations where they are able to tell their own stories.

This work is particularly important now, as the current government is handing out big areas of land to large scale agricultural enterprise; 20,000 hectares to a Chinese company for sugar-cane cultivation most recently.

However, new legislation is currently being introduced through parliament, bills that offer more secure rights to local people, as well as for local bodies which can both handle disputes, and register land. I am hoping that as farmers mobilise themselves and find common cause with neighbouring communities, they can press for ever-fairer deals when big investors loom large.

I hope to further understand these interlocked systems of natural and social capital, and believe this is possible; by combining disciplines, working at many scales, forging partnerships, and looking back in order to understand future options.

A global approach to learning and sharing is central to all such research enquiry. As we see unfold before us the extraordinary and troubling fall-out from the U.K. EU referendum result, I have ever greater concern for our natural environment, its care and conservation. While political intrigue and jostling for power offer short-lived rhetoric about how to generate jobs and livelihoods, we must keep sight of the longer term assets, on which our ultimate prosperity lies.

Collaboration across boundaries of all forms is vital to our shared understanding of the planet's complexity, where its thresholds and tipping points might lie, and how to manage and monitor change. It's therefore vital to unite and work together, regardless of the regulatory landscape, to solve the challenges that we all collectively face.

Disclaimer: Articles in this series are submitted by people who work in organizations who are part of the Natural Capital Coalition, or people who are involved in the natural capital space more generally, the views expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of The Natural Capital Coalition, other Coalition organizations, or the organization that employs the author.

Follow Camilla on Twitter: @camillatoulmin
Follow the IIED on Twitter: @IIED


Camilla Toulmin is a British economist and former Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Her career has focused on policy research about agriculture, land, climate and livelihoods in dryland regions of Africa. She became a senior fellow of IIED in late June 2015, and is Professor of Practice at the Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University.

On 13th July 2016, The Natural Capital Coalition will launch a standardized framework for business to identify, measure and value their impacts and dependencies on natural capital. This 'Natural Capital Protocol' has been developed through a unique collaborative process; a World Business Council for Sustainable Development consortium led on the technical development and an IUCN consortium led on business engagement and piloting. The Protocol is supported by practically focused 'Sector Guides' on Apparel and Food & Beverage produced by Trucost on behalf of Coalition.

Keep up to date with the Natural Capital Coalition on Twitter: @NatCapCoalition


Keep up to date with our series on natural capital here.

www.naturalcapitalcoalition.org

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Ecological context of mosquito-borne infectious disease  
The resurgence of Zika virus has raised anxieties about the spread of infectious disease by mosquitoes; climate change and species invasions are strong themes on the minds of infectious disease experts.  
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