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How big is too big? When it comes to corporate concentration many observers raise concerns about the tech industry. However, in the new book, Titans of Industrial Agriculture: how a few giant corporations came to dominate the farm sector and why it matters, political economist Jennifer Clapp draws attention to the overwhelming shadow a small handful of transnational corporations cast over the global agricultural sector. Professor Clapp argues that these corporations hold concentrated power over the agricultural sector that keep industrial agricultural practices entrenched in patterns of production, despite the concerns of the social, ecological and health impacts to society. She explains how we got to this point and what it might take to make changes. Jennifer's work at the intersection of the global economy, food security, and food systems, and the natural environment, looks specifically at issues of global governance. She is currently a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub.  Interview Summary Norbert - Jennifer, let's just jump right in and I'd love for you to help our listeners understand a little bit more about your book. You write about corporate concentration in the agricultural input sector. Can you explain what this involves and what products are we really talking about?    Yes. The book is about what we call the agricultural inputs industry. And that's really four different product types typically, and maybe a fifth that we can talk about. So, one of them is farm machinery, and that's really referring to things like plows and tractors, harvesters, etc. That kind of machinery on the farm. The second industry is the fertilizer industry, which is all about, you know, the nutrients that we bring to the soil through fertilizer products like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash. And the seed industry. That's another industry that is a key input for farmers. And then also pesticides. And when we talk about pesticides, we're referring to things like insecticides, chemicals that kill insects, but also chemicals that kill weeds and fungus. And so those are the four sort of big inputs that I talk about in the book. But also, the book covers a fifth input, an emerging input, which is data. And this is, especially as we're seeing the datafication and digitalization of farming. Increasingly data has now become a commodity that is bought and sold as an input into farming. Norbert - Great. I have to ask, what drew you to the input industry? I mean, let's be honest, that's not the thing that most people get excited about. Why should we be concerned? Yeah, that's a great question. I've actually had a very long interest in the seed in chemical industry. That goes way back to the start of my career because I did studies in agriculture for my PhD dissertation. But then I got quite interested in toxic waste and then that sort of drew me to this question of the global pesticide trade. And when I learned that, you know, oftentimes, like in the US there might be a banning of a pesticide that's no longer in use. But it was still being traded globally. And this, I found this very fascinating and how that industry worked. And that kind of drew me into understanding the connections between seeds and chemicals. And then when the digitalization of farming came along and in recent decades it became really clear that it wasn't just chemical and seed industry involved in that digitalization. It was also the fertilizer and the farm machinery sector. It made me want to understand the interconnections between these industries. I know it's like, maybe a bit specific, but they have huge consequences in terms of the way our food systems look like. And so that really drew me to understand where did these inputs come from? And why are they controlled by just a few large companies? Erika - Jennifer, I want to ask you a question about why this sector, especially related to the inputs, is so important when we're talking about food systems. And especially their social and ecological dimensions. And specifically in the book, you tease out many of the social and ecological costs of inputs such as pesticides. Also the social and ecological consequences of even farm machinery. So it would be great if you could elaborate on their importance.  Thanks, Erika. That's a great question and that's part of the reason why I was really drawn to study these inputs. Because I'm in a school of environmental studies, I'm very interested in these interconnections between food systems and environmental outcomes. I was really interested in learning more about where these industries came from, and as I was teasing out where they came from. And how they became dominated by such large companies, I also learned in much more depth about the ecological consequences of these inputs. I can just say a little bit about some of them because these consequences are so big that we almost forget to talk about them. They become embedded in the product itself. And so, one example is farm machinery. Farm machinery was originally seen as quite revolutionary and that it allowed farmers to harvest their fields much more quickly than they used to be able to before. But that also meant then that to make the equipment efficient and pay for them they might as well extend the size of their farm. And as farmers extended the size of their farm, in the US anyway, they moved west and displaced its indigenous people from the land, in terms of taking that land for farm production. But also, as farms began to consolidate and get larger, as mechanization continued, it also displaced others from the land. Poor farmers, black farmers, those who were renting land and didn't have access to their own. And so, people who were marginalized and we still considered marginalized in society today, were really being displaced from the land as a direct consequence of farm machinery. It's not that farm machinery is like necessarily something that we want to do away with today, but I think we need to recognize those historical connections. And really understand that when, you know, you see a book for a small child about farming and there might be a picture of a farmer and it's usually a white guy sitting on a tractor. We can forget that image has a lot of baggage associated with it in terms of displacement and inequality. And I think we need to recognize that. But it does not just stop there. There's also plowing disturbs the soil, heavy machinery compacts the soil so it can harm fertility of the soil as well. And the machinery part of the equation has long been a source of inequality in terms of being very expensive for farmers. It's been one of the main reasons farmers have often been driven into debt. Farm machinery might have been liberating in one sense to allow increased production, but it did come with costs that we should acknowledge. We also need to recognize the ecological and social costs associated with the fertilizer industry. And this industry goes way back to the 1840s and we saw the rise of the guano trade. And we can think immediately of the working conditions of the workers who were digging the guano in the Chincha islands of Peru. And often they were coming from Asia and facing really harsh working conditions. But then when we saw the rise of synthetic nitrogen in the early 20th Century, the cost shifted in a way towards the cost of fossil fuels. The huge amount of natural gas used in the synthesis of nitrogen. And also, the climate consequences of the nitrous oxides that come from the application of synthetic nitrogen into the soil. So again, there's like enormous ecological and social impacts from that particular input. Similarly, when we talk about seeds, the hybridization of seeds in the 1920s and 1930s also raise huge concerns about plant genetic diversity. And we know that in the last century or so we've lost around 75% of plant genetic diversity for crop genetic diversity. And this is because of the way in which we started to see the uniformity of the genetic makeup of seeds. The monocultural planting of seeds really reduced that kind of diversity. And then intellectual property protection on seeds that came with the hybridization of seeds also led to a decreased ability of farmers to save their own seed and exchange their own seed with their neighbors. So again, social ecological costs. And finally, when we talk about pesticides, we have seen enormous issues with respect to pollution runoff. This kind of bioaccumulation of these toxic chemicals that have enormous health consequences. So, all of these inputs have very large impacts in terms of their social and ecological costs. And we can even extend that to the issue of data today. There's a lot of concern about data platforms for digital farming where farmers are signing away the rights to the data that are coming from their own farms. And they don't have the kind of interoperability with other data sharing systems. And there's also a lack of clarity about who owns that data. So again, there's big issues with respect to these inputs and how they are affecting both social and ecological dynamics within the food system.  Erika - Thank you for helping us understand the social and ecological impacts of these inputs into the farming industry. Norbert - This is a really rich conversation and I want to understand a little bit more. There's a big part of your text that's about the concentration in the input sector. What does it look like today and was it always this way? That's a great question because it's almost a trick question because we tend to assume that this high level of concentration that we see today is something that's new. But what I found in my research is that the high degree of concentration actually has a long history that goes back about a century or more in some cases. And when we're looking at each of these sectors, the farm machinery, for example, is controlled. Most of the market is controlled by about just four firms. And they control around 50% of the global market. But when you look specifically at national markets in the US, for example, John Deere, you know, the largest company that makes farm machinery, it controls over 50% of the tractor market. So that's just one firm alone. It's similar dynamics when we look at fertilizer, seeds and pesticides and fertilizer, for example. Just two firms control a hundred percent of North American potash production. The four key companies control a large amount of the global fertilizer trade. In seeds, it's also very similar and in pesticides. In the seeds and pesticides that's especially interesting because since the 1980s and 1990s, the seed and pesticide companies actually merged with each other. We can't even say there's a set of seed companies and a set of chemical companies. It's actually seed and chemical companies. That's one set. And they control around 60% of the global seed market and around 70% of the global pesticide market. And that's really what prompted me to want to work on this book is that after 2015, there was a set of mergers in the seed and chemical sector that concentrated those firms even further. They used to be dominated by six firms. We used to call them the Big Six, and then they had major mergers where Bayer bought Monsanto, Dow and DuPont merged and formed Corteva. Syngenta group was bought by Chem China, and then bought by Sino Chem, a big Chinese chemical company. And then BASF bought up all the bits that the other companies were forced to sell to pass regulatory hurdles. And so, we ended up with a Big Four. And these companies produce both seeds and chemicals and have a quite an enormous impact in terms of their market dominance. Norbert - Wow. This is really important and I think it's a topic that many of us who look at the food industry aren't paying attention to. And I'm really appreciative of you laying out this concentration that's taking place. Jennifer, when reading the book, I was really struck by the fact that this is not just a book about the farmers themselves and the farming industry and the companies that provide the inputs. But you also touch upon the role of universities and university science and scientists; and also the role of government in helping to fuel or seed innovation in this sector. And, you know, here I was hoping you could talk about this important role for universities and also the government given that we're in a current moment where we're seeing a retrenchment from investments by government, and also the ability of universities to continue to seed innovation. So I was hoping you could share some of your insights.  Yes, it's certainly an interesting time on the landscape of spending on innovation and with a retrenchment of state pulling back away from supporting technological innovation and other innovations. And that's certainly true in the farm sector, and that's very different from the situation if we go back to the 1800s and see, as you mentioned, the role that the state played in terms of really trying to support innovation in these sectors. And what I argue in the book is that these firms, they got big in the first place, and they were able to consolidate in the first place, through a series of what I call market technology and policy factors. And it's kind of messy. I put them in these three big categories. But in terms of these market factors, that's what most people tend to think about when they think, 'oh, a firm got big. Maybe it's just more efficient. It's able to produce products more cheaply and therefore it just grew to be big.' And that's much more complicated than that of course. And that's because, as you said this role of technological change in which universities have played a really important role. And government support and throughout history in the US, a lot of the book focuses on the US because we have good information and data there. And the US set up the land grant college system really to support development in the agricultural sector. And that gave us, you know, a lot of the innovations that led to, for example, the hybridization of seeds. And the corporations that took up that innovation that the state supported through university research, those firms also work directly with universities in many instances, to have these kinds of collaborative relationships, to develop, herbicides, to develop seeds, to develop further farm machinery, etc. So that role of technological innovation is really important, and that innovation doesn't just come from nowhere. It doesn't just pop up. It doesn't just show up one day. Right? It comes from investment. Investment in universities and research and development. And so that has been a really important strand to develop this kind of industrial agriculture. And now we know from university research, etc., that there are some problems associated with it. Yet it's proving hard to get that kind of funding to spur a new transformation towards a more sustainable agriculture because we're not giving that kind of state support, and support to universities to do that research and innovative work to lead us towards more sustainable agriculture. So, I think there's a lot there that we need to work on. And that's some of the recommendations that I make at the end of the book. Is that we need to shore up that kind of public investment in innovation, in alternative systems to address some of the problems. So just let me tag on another question from that. Just what are the consequences then for having just a small number of firms dominating this sector and no longer having these investments in innovation? Yeah, so what we're seeing increasingly as the state has pulled away from supporting agricultural research, is that most of that agricultural research now is being done by private corporations. And the big concern there is that as you have a smaller and smaller number of very large firms dominating in the sector, their incentive to innovate actually weakens. It weakens because if there's not a lot of players in the marketplace that are doing innovative work, there's just not a lot of competition. And so why would you innovate if you don't have to? If you're already a monopoly and you're able to sell your product, there's not a lot of incentive to innovate in a way that might then decrease the sales of your old products. And so, what we're seeing is a shift in innovation from the private sector, away from these kinds of transformative innovations and much more towards what we call defensive innovations. They're innovating in ways that actually enable them to sell existing products. And many would say that the rise of agricultural biotechnology was actually that kind of a defensive innovation. It was modifying seeds to make them resistant to the application of existing herbicides. And so there was innovation, but it was actually spurring further sales in an existing product. And part of the reason for that was that it became very expensive for these companies. The regulatory hurdles became quite expensive for them to develop new herbicides. And so, they were like, 'oh, it's cheaper and faster to work with seeds. Why don't we do it this way and then we'll continue to sell the herbicides.' Which by the way, got them a lot more profit than selling the seeds. So that's why they bought up a lot of the seed companies and really consolidated in that period. And there's a longstanding concern among competition regulators, the regulators that try to prevent a huge concentration in the economy, about this question of innovation. And it's very relevant in the agricultural sector. There's this sense that if you allow too much concentration to happen, it can dampen that innovation and that takes away that dynamic, innovative spirit within the sector. It's definitely a big concern. Norbert - Jennifer, I really appreciate this. Earlier in my career I was a part of some research related to biotechnology and innovation that happens there. And one of the things that I learned about is this idea of building thickets. These sort of patent thickets where you create a series of patents that actually make it difficult for others to be able to innovate in that same way. There are these real challenges of this kind of defensive innovation. And that's just one of the challenges that you bring up in the book. And I am interested in understanding, as sort a last question, what are some of the recommendations? You mentioned public sector funding of agricultural research and many of my colleagues in my discipline have said we need more research for agriculture. Are there other areas of recommendation to address some of the concerns you raised in the book? Thanks, Norbert. Yes, definitely. And I definitely do call for greater public support for agricultural research. And that's something within the agricultural sector. And I think there we really need to focus efforts on alternative agricultural production methods. For example, agroecology, which tries to reduce the amount of external inputs, not to increase them, by using nature's own processes to achieve the same functions of diversity and pest control, etc. And what's troubling is that when the firms don't have that incentive to innovate, you know, they're definitely not going to innovate in ways that would reduce their profits. They're not going to do that. The public sector has to step in if we want to see that kind of research done. But we also need measures outside of that food and agriculture system that will benefit food and agriculture. One area is stronger antitrust policies. Policies that would prevent further mergers and acquisitions that would allow those firms to continue to get bigger and bigger. Those antitrust policies are used largely, we've got merger guidelines, for example, in North America. And in Europe, when two firms want to merge, they have to get regulatory approval to do so. And those merger guidelines really walk the regulators through what would be a merger that might dampen competition, that might weaken innovation, you know, that kind of thing. It's important that we make those rules stronger. They had become progressively weaker after the 1980s. There was this move in the regulatory space that was this kind of idea that maybe it's okay if firms get really, really big because they can benefit from economies of scale. Maybe they can bring down consumer prices and maybe we shouldn't worry so much about these other areas of control. And there's been a bit of a shift in view around this in recent years where we've seen the rise of concern about these very big companies, especially with what we see with the big tech companies taking control over all these aspects of our lives. And people are saying, wait a minute, maybe we don't want to have this just a few companies controlling so much of our lives. And so, you know, we need to think about other ways to enforce antitrust policies to make them stronger so that we foster more competition and not just focus on whether something's more expensive or not. And that's, I mean, it's a bit of a hard thing to explain to some people. Obviously, people want to see lower prices. But the idea that we have to get across is that when competition dies, when it's not there, that's when the monopoly can really raise prices. And so, we need to have that competitive marketplace in order to spur innovation and also to bring prices down. That's really important and that's a kind of agenda item that's involves food and agriculture, but it's outside of the food and agriculture sector. It encompasses more. And another area where I think we can do more is to reign in the kind of undue corporate influence on the policy process. And that's arising out of a concern that as we're seeing fewer and fewer dominant companies in the food sector, and in other sectors as well, they tend to gain more political power to influence the policy and governance process. And so, what we're seeing is heightened lobby activity. Sponsoring of scientific studies and yes, coming back to the question about universities. But as corporations get bigger, they can shape science in ways that can help them win regulatory approval for their products. We need broader policies on conflict of interest to prevent large companies from taking over the policy process. And I know that's a really salient topic in the US right now, given what's going on in the broader politics. And I think it is a broader politics issue that needs to be seriously addressed if we want to support a more transformative form of food and agriculture. These kinds of policies like stronger antitrust, better conflict of interest policies, and also support for public agricultural research are all really important steps. I don't think any one of them on their own is going to do the trick in terms of spurring this desperately needed transformation in our food systems. But together, I think, they can bring us closer to that goal. Bio Jennifer Clapp is a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability and Professor in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Dr. Clapp is currently a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) and a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub. From 2019-2023, she was a member of the Steering Committee of the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) of the UN Committee on World Food Security, and served as Vice-Chair of that body from 2021-2023. Dr. Clapp has published widely on the global governance of problems that arise at the intersection of the global economy, food security and food systems, and the natural environment. Her most recent research projects have examined the political economy of financial actors in the global food system, the politics of trade and food security, and corporate concentration in the global food system. She has also written on policy and governance responses to the global food crisis, the political economy of food assistance, and global environmental policy and governance. Her most recent books include Food, 3rd Edition (Polity, 2020), Speculative Harvests: Financialization, Food, and Agriculture (with S. Ryan Isakson, Fernwood Press, 2018), Hunger in the Balance: The New Politics of International Food Aid (Cornell University Press, 2012), Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment, 2nd Edition (with Peter Dauvergne, MIT Press, 2011), and Corporate Power in Global Agrifood Governance (co-edited with Doris Fuchs, MIT Press, 2009). Her forthcoming book, published with MIT Press (2025), is titled Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters.

Lecture summary: At a time where questions abound about the state and future of international cooperation and compliance across the international legal system, this lecture will consider the new partnership of countries established in 2019 to promote and protect media freedom globally – the Media Freedom Coalition of States. The Coalition offers a new paradigm that seeks to answer some of the systemic challenges to State cooperation and compliance today, here in the area of freedom of expression, and one that puts independent experts in international law at the very centre of its institutional and operational framework.The lecture will chart the establishment and work of the Coalition, through the perspective of its independent panel of legal experts, the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, and the Panel's work advising States and international organisations across a broad panoply of media freedom issues, and answering requests by international courts and tribunals to intervene in cases of public importance engaging Article 19 of the ICCPR and UDHR. It will focus on examples of areas where specific recommendations by legal experts have already been turned into State policy and practice (for instance, with the creation and implementation of an emergency visa for journalists at risk), and areas where the progress towards implementation has been altogether more challenging.Five years on from its establishment, the Media Freedom Coalition finds itself at a crossroads, while its tri-partite structure of States, legal experts, and civil society is already being replicated by States in other areas of international legal cooperation and compliance.Speaker Biography: Can Yeğinsu is a barrister practising from 3 Verulam Buildings in London where he practises in commercial litigation, international commercial and investment arbitration, public law and human rights, and public international law.Prof Yeğinsu is also a long-standing member of the Law Faculties of Georgetown Law, Columbia Law, and Koç University Law School where he teaches courses on public international law, including courses on international dispute settlement, international human rights, and international investment law. He is a Senior Fellow at Columbia Law School's Human Rights Institute, and serves on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law.In 2022, Prof Yeğinsu was appointed by the Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, with Catherine Amirfar, to succeed Amal Clooney as the Deputy Chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, having served as a member of the Panel since its established in 2019.

Lecture summary: At a time where questions abound about the state and future of international cooperation and compliance across the international legal system, this lecture will consider the new partnership of countries established in 2019 to promote and protect media freedom globally – the Media Freedom Coalition of States. The Coalition offers a new paradigm that seeks to answer some of the systemic challenges to State cooperation and compliance today, here in the area of freedom of expression, and one that puts independent experts in international law at the very centre of its institutional and operational framework. The lecture will chart the establishment and work of the Coalition, through the perspective of its independent panel of legal experts, the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, and the Panel’s work advising States and international organisations across a broad panoply of media freedom issues, and answering requests by international courts and tribunals to intervene in cases of public importance engaging Article 19 of the ICCPR and UDHR. It will focus on examples of areas where specific recommendations by legal experts have already been turned into State policy and practice (for instance, with the creation and implementation of an emergency visa for journalists at risk), and areas where the progress towards implementation has been altogether more challenging. Five years on from its establishment, the Media Freedom Coalition finds itself at a crossroads, while its tri-partite structure of States, legal experts, and civil society is already being replicated by States in other areas of international legal cooperation and compliance. Speaker Biography: Can Yeğinsu is a barrister practising from 3 Verulam Buildings in London where he practises in commercial litigation, international commercial and investment arbitration, public law and human rights, and public international law. Prof Yeğinsu is also a long-standing member of the Law Faculties of Georgetown Law, Columbia Law, and Koç University Law School where he teaches courses on public international law, including courses on international dispute settlement, international human rights, and international investment law. He is a Senior Fellow at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute, and serves on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law. In 2022, Prof Yeğinsu was appointed by the Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, with Catherine Amirfar, to succeed Amal Clooney as the Deputy Chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, having served as a member of the Panel since its established in 2019.

Lecture summary: At a time where questions abound about the state and future of international cooperation and compliance across the international legal system, this lecture will consider the new partnership of countries established in 2019 to promote and protect media freedom globally – the Media Freedom Coalition of States. The Coalition offers a new paradigm that seeks to answer some of the systemic challenges to State cooperation and compliance today, here in the area of freedom of expression, and one that puts independent experts in international law at the very centre of its institutional and operational framework.The lecture will chart the establishment and work of the Coalition, through the perspective of its independent panel of legal experts, the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, and the Panel's work advising States and international organisations across a broad panoply of media freedom issues, and answering requests by international courts and tribunals to intervene in cases of public importance engaging Article 19 of the ICCPR and UDHR. It will focus on examples of areas where specific recommendations by legal experts have already been turned into State policy and practice (for instance, with the creation and implementation of an emergency visa for journalists at risk), and areas where the progress towards implementation has been altogether more challenging.Five years on from its establishment, the Media Freedom Coalition finds itself at a crossroads, while its tri-partite structure of States, legal experts, and civil society is already being replicated by States in other areas of international legal cooperation and compliance.Speaker Biography: Can Yeğinsu is a barrister practising from 3 Verulam Buildings in London where he practises in commercial litigation, international commercial and investment arbitration, public law and human rights, and public international law.Prof Yeğinsu is also a long-standing member of the Law Faculties of Georgetown Law, Columbia Law, and Koç University Law School where he teaches courses on public international law, including courses on international dispute settlement, international human rights, and international investment law. He is a Senior Fellow at Columbia Law School's Human Rights Institute, and serves on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law.In 2022, Prof Yeğinsu was appointed by the Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, with Catherine Amirfar, to succeed Amal Clooney as the Deputy Chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, having served as a member of the Panel since its established in 2019.

Lecture summary: At a time where questions abound about the state and future of international cooperation and compliance across the international legal system, this lecture will consider the new partnership of countries established in 2019 to promote and protect media freedom globally – the Media Freedom Coalition of States. The Coalition offers a new paradigm that seeks to answer some of the systemic challenges to State cooperation and compliance today, here in the area of freedom of expression, and one that puts independent experts in international law at the very centre of its institutional and operational framework.The lecture will chart the establishment and work of the Coalition, through the perspective of its independent panel of legal experts, the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, and the Panel's work advising States and international organisations across a broad panoply of media freedom issues, and answering requests by international courts and tribunals to intervene in cases of public importance engaging Article 19 of the ICCPR and UDHR. It will focus on examples of areas where specific recommendations by legal experts have already been turned into State policy and practice (for instance, with the creation and implementation of an emergency visa for journalists at risk), and areas where the progress towards implementation has been altogether more challenging.Five years on from its establishment, the Media Freedom Coalition finds itself at a crossroads, while its tri-partite structure of States, legal experts, and civil society is already being replicated by States in other areas of international legal cooperation and compliance.Speaker Biography: Can Yeğinsu is a barrister practising from 3 Verulam Buildings in London where he practises in commercial litigation, international commercial and investment arbitration, public law and human rights, and public international law.Prof Yeğinsu is also a long-standing member of the Law Faculties of Georgetown Law, Columbia Law, and Koç University Law School where he teaches courses on public international law, including courses on international dispute settlement, international human rights, and international investment law. He is a Senior Fellow at Columbia Law School's Human Rights Institute, and serves on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law.In 2022, Prof Yeğinsu was appointed by the Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, with Catherine Amirfar, to succeed Amal Clooney as the Deputy Chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, having served as a member of the Panel since its established in 2019.

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Sima Samar about her life and work for women's rights. They discuss her reasoning for writing her memoirs, history of modern Afghanistan, impact of Islam, and the rule of the Taliban. They talk about her work in medicine and human rights advocacy, women's rights in Afghanistan, becoming Vice President and Minister of Women's Affairs of Afghanistan. They also discuss her work on the human rights commission, being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, women's rights around the world, the future of Afghanistan, and many more topics. Sima Samar is a human rights advocate, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and global influential female figure. She received her MD from Kabul University Medical College. Since 2002 she has been the Chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) which holds human rights violators accountable and sets the human rights agenda in Afghanistan. She is also the Chairperson of the Commission for the Prevention of Torture and was the Chairperson of the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions (APF).Prior to her appointment as the chair of AIHRC, she was the Vice President of the Interim Administration of Afghanistan and the first Minister of Women's Affairs. She served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Sudan between 2005 and 2009 and has been appointed as a member of the United Nation's Secretary-General's High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation. Samar also served as member of High Level Panel for Internal Displacement.Her commitment to her community is evident through her NGO Shuhada Organization's work in operating 55 middle and high schools for girls and boys in Afghanistan, and three schools in Quetta, Pakistan for Afghan refugees. In addition to this Shuhada operates 12 clinics and three hospitals in Afghanistan and one hospital in Quetta for refugees, dedicated to providing education and healthcare, particularly focusing on women and girls. Website: https://shuhada.org.af/ Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

Today is Wednesday, September 20th and it was a very busy day at the United Nations. Of all the days this week, today was arguably the most packed with high level consequential meetings. Throughout the day today was the Secretary General's Climate Ambition Summit. We will bring you full coverage of that in tomorrow's episode. Also today, the Security Council held a meeting on Ukraine, which featured Zelenskyy's first time addressing the Security Council in person since Russia's invasion. There were two key meetings on Global health, one on Pandemic Preparedness and Response, the other on Universal Health Coverage. I will be speaking with Kate Dodson Vice President for Global Health at the United Nations Foundation about those meetings as well as a key meeting on Tuberculosis later in the week during our second segment.  Our first segment features Vera Songwe, Chairwoman and Founder of the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility and Co-Chair of the High Level Panel on Climate Finance who discusses the crucial topic of Financing for Development.  The Global Dispatches podcast is teaming up with the United Nations Foundation for a special daily series during the 78th United Nations General Assembly.  Get our newsletter

In his address to the IIEA, Amandeep Singh Gill, the United Nations (UN) Envoy on Technology, discusses the UN's work in relation to the digital transformation and how digital technologies can affect peace and security, human rights and sustainable development. Mr Gill also discusses plans to create a Global Digital Compact at the UN Summit of the Future that is scheduled to take place in September 2024, which would outline shared principles for an open, free, and secure digital future for all. About the Speaker: Mr. Amandeep Singh Gill was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General as his Envoy on Technology in June 2022, and he joined the Secretary-General's senior leadership team as Under-Secretary General in mid-July 2022. Before this, Mr. Gill was the Chief Executive Officer of the International Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence Research Collaborative (I-DAIR) project, based at the Graduate Institute, Geneva. In 2018-2019, Mr. Gill was Executive Director and co-lead of the United Nations Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation. Between 2016 and 2018, he was India's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3mqxHz9 Governments today are much less persuaded that subsidising the burning of biomass to generate low-carbon electricity represents good value for taxpayers – let alone a good deal for our Net Zero targets. Elsewhere, in the world of controversial technologies, Carbon Capture and Storage is still struggling to prove it will ever live up to the promises made on its behalf over the last 25 years. So what happens when you bring the two together, as Drax is now planning to do with its huge new BECCS investment at its Selby plant in Yorkshire? Is it possible to envisage ‘BECCS done well'? If so, on what terms? Speaker: Jonathon Porritt is an eminent writer and campaigner on sustainable development. In 1996 he co-founded Forum for the Future, a leading international sustainable development charity, working with business and civil society to accelerate the shift toward a sustainable future. In 2022 he chaired the High Level Panel on BECCS Done Well, which reported in November 2023: Read the report Jonathon is President of The Conservation Volunteers, and is actively involved in the work of many other NGOs and organisations. He was formerly Co-Chair of the Green Party (1980-83), Director of Friends of the Earth (1984-90), a Trustee of WWF-UK (1991-2005), a member of the Board of the South West Regional Development Agency (1999-2008), and a Trustee of Ashden. He stood down as Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission in 2009, after nine years providing high-level advice to Government Ministers. Jonathon served a ten-year term as Chancellor of Keele University (2012-2022), and was a Non-Executive Director of Willmott Dixon until 2022. In 2017, Jonathon received Ethical Corporation's Lifetime Achievement Award at the Responsible Business Awards. He was awarded a CBE in January 2000 for services to environmental protection. His latest book, Hope in Hell (Simon & Schuster, 2020) is a powerful ‘call to action' on the Climate Emergency.

"You are the only driver of your life" Fiza Farhan is a changemaker, social entrepreneur and global leader. She was featured in the US Magazine Forbes “30 Under 30 List of Social Entrepreneurs” twice in 2015 and then in 2016, in addition to becoming the youngest member of the UN Secretary General's High-Level Panel on Women Economic Empowerment, Future Energy Leader at the World Energy Council, and Chairperson to Chief Minister Punjab's Task Force on Women Empowerment.  In the episode, she discusses her journey and the work she is doing the domain of social entrepreneurship to empower women.

In this KEEN ON episode, Andrew talks to INVISIBLE TRILLIONS author Raymond W. Baker about how financial secrecy is imperiling both Capitalism and Democracy in America today. Raymond W. Baker is a businessman, author, and internationally respected authority on corruption, money laundering, and foreign policy issues. He has conducted business around the world, buying and building companies, consulting on anticorruption strategies, and advising on economic matters at the highest levels of government. These experiences confirm his observation that standard business practices, both legal and illegal, funnel money unseen and unrecorded across borders, heightening inequality and weakening democracy.  Baker received a MacArthur Foundation grant to support in-depth research on illicit financial flows as a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. This research culminated in his first book, Capitalism's Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free-Market System, cited by the Financial Times as one of the “best business books of 2005.” Baker founded Global Financial Integrity in Washington, DC, to focus on issues surrounding harmful economic practices. He serves on the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa and is a co-founder of the DC Forum, which advocates for financial transparency and accountability to strengthen democracy and capitalism. Baker is a graduate of Harvard Business School and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Name as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

H.R. McMaster in conversation with Vera Songwe, Chair of the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility and co-chair of the High Level Panel on Climate Finance, on Wednesday, January 18, 2023 at 9:00am PT. In this episode of Battlegrounds, H.R. McMaster and Vera Songwe discuss the future of the United Nations and security, economic growth, and development on the African continent.

Natasha Bajema joined the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction in October 2008. Dr. Bajema currently serves as Director of the Program for Emerging Leaders (PEL). From 2010 to 2013, Dr. Bajema held a long-term detail assignment serving in various capacities in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics, Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs and in Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. Dr. Bajema is a subject matter expert in nuclear nonproliferation, cooperative threat reduction and WMD terrorism. Prior to joining the Center, Dr. Bajema was a Research Associate at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, where she supported research staff of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change established by the UN Secretary-General. She has also served as a Junior Political Officer in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Branch of the Department for Disarmament Affairs at the United Nations. Her publications include two co-edited volumes entitledTerrorism and Counterterrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism, both of which were published by McGraw Hill. She holds an M.A. in international policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a PhD in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/evinweiss/support

What is being done to stop marine biodiversity loss? Marine ecosystems are essential for all life on earth, providing benefits ranging from food to economic and recreational opportunities and more – with 3 billion people depending directly on marine and coastal biodiversity for their livelihoods. However, it is being lost at an alarming rate. COP15 in Montreal saw governments from around the world take a step towards addressing this threat to nature by agreeing ‘30 by 30', effective conservation and management of at least 30% of the world's lands, inland waters, coastal areas and oceans by 2030. In this podcast, we learn about the cost of marine biodiversity loss in Mexico, a megadiverse country and home to almost 70% of the world's diversity of species. We hear how Mexico are working to go above and beyond ‘30 by 30', to manage 100% of the ocean under national jurisdictions, as part of their role on the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy. Global Director of WRI's Ocean Program, Kristian Teleki sat down with Martha Delgado and Andrew Rhodes from the government of Mexico during COP15, to discuss what these targets mean and what happens next for the future of our ocean.

Minister Somsak Thepsutin praises former massage parlour boss and politician Chuwit Kamolvisit for his work in pursuing corruption concerning this unfolding case. Mr Chuwit has promised not to keep the 5% of the billions seized that the minister says he's entitled to but has expressed concern about the limited charges brought against Mr Du Hao or Mr Chaiyanat Kornchayanant and his most senior associates including the absence, as of yet, of money laundering charges. https://www.thaiexaminer.com/thai-news-foreigners/2022/12/11/top-immigration-bureau-officers-investigated/ Carla Boonkong reports from Bangkok.

The world needs to look at every option to stop dangerous climate change, but some potential approaches—like solar radiation modification—are undeveloped and could bring significant risks and unintended consequences, says Per Heggenes, CEO of the IKEA Foundation during a C2GTalk. That is why it is important to support broad-based discussions now, involving every part of society, in order to prepare for the tough governance challenges ahead. Per Heggenes is the CEO of IKEA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Stichting INGKA Foundation, the owner of the Swedish home furnishings company IKEA. Since becoming CEO in 2009, he has presided over the Foundation's evolution into a global, independent, strategic philanthropy focused on fighting climate change and improving livelihood opportunities for the poor. He serves on numerous advisory boards for humanitarian and development organizations and has taken a special interest in helping reform the way the global community works to embrace the rights of refugees and migrants. In 2019, Heggenes was appointed by the UN secretary general to join the High Level Panel on Internal Displacement with the goal of developing durable solutions to protracted internal displacement. For more, please go to C2G's website.

ep. 110: Henk Ovink · World Water SuperAgent  Forces of Nature is a talkshow miniseries featuring dynamic leaders from across food & environmental movements. Tune-in for a dose of optimism.   QUARTERBACKING A WATER SMART PLAYBOOK w/ host: Aaron Niederhelman   Water is a fundamental part of all aspects of life. Yet, today, 40% of the world's people are affected by water scarcity; 80% of wastewater is discharged untreated into the environment, and more than 90% of disasters are water-related. And despite all of these real concerns – we still suck down 70% of available freshwater to lavishly manage antiquated cropping systems chock full of chemical externalities. The long and short of it – we need awareness of the problems and more solutions for the vast water crises enveloping the planet. So, to find out what should be done to manage water better in the future – we've turned to the guy that the United Nations has asked to quarterback their big 2023 Water Conference. We welcome Henk Ovink. How we all decide to consume will play a major role in eradicating pressing water concerns. Spurring on more awareness and incentivizing change in stakeholder behavior is ultimately what's needed to evolve our relationship with nature. Food seems a logical place to begin taking action, and from my POV it's all about good storytelling that'll be the remedy here. Tune-in to hear what this Force of Nature has to say about the future of water and our shared future.   - Aaron  – BIO: HENK OVINK Henk Ovink was appointed by the Dutch Cabinet as the first Special Envoy for International Water Affairs in 2015. As the Ambassador for Water, Henk is responsible for advocating water awareness around the world, focusing on building institutional capacity and coalitions among governments, multilateral organizations, private sector and NGO's to address the world's stressing needs on water and help initiate transformative interventions. Ovink is also Sherpa to the High Level Panel on Water, installed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and President of the World Bank Jim Kim with 10 Heads of State / Heads of Government including Prime Minister Rutte from The Netherlands, in a effort to catalyze change in water awareness and implementation. Henk is Principal for REBUILD BY DESIGN – an innovation competition that would forever change how natural disaster clean-ups look at resilience. Ovink is also a founding father of the Dutch-founded public-private partnership “Water as Leverage”. – SUPERSTORM SANDY REBUILD: In 2012, Henk Ovink was appointed by President Obama and the Secretary of HUD, Shaun Donovan, to become the special envoy of Water to the US. He was directly responsible for launching the HUD & Rockefeller funded program REBUILD BY DESIGN – a global crowdsourcing initiative of top designers and planners to pool the best ideas which would rebuild using federal resources after Hurricane Sandy. The program was such a success it reformulated the approach the US government used for federal payouts on natural disasters, and became the linchpin for commitment to “resilience” in infrastructure rebuilds following future incidents.  

The war in Ukraine has sparked a food price crisis with devastating impacts being felt around the world - but while Russia lit the touch paper, this crisis was predicted and could have been avoided. ffinlo Costain is joined by Professor Jennifer Clapp, Thin Lei Win and Margot Gibbs. Jennifer is an expert for Brussels-based IPES-Food and the Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo in Ontario - she's also Vice Chair of the High Level Panel of Experts on food security and nutrition of the UN Committee on World Food Security. Margot and Thin are food system reporters for Lighthouse Reports, a non-profit investigative journalism group, which is based in the Netherlands. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/farmgate/message

There are fewer challenges bigger than trying to transform the global food system to make people and the planet healthier, but for Dr Gunhild Stordalen it's a challenge worth taking on. In this episode of the Table Talk podcast, Stefan Gates meets the founder of non-profit organisation EAT to discuss what motivates her, and how she stays driven to achieve her goals in the face of stiff opposition and vested interests. Gunhild started her career with a PhD in pathology/orthopaedic surgery - so what took her from being a doctor to taking such a keen interest in making the global food system sustainable? She says that whilst she was on the board of one of Scandinavia's biggest hotel companies, she tried to change the menu to be good for people and good for the planet. But her research turned up very little in the way of research and, crucially, no forum where all key stakeholders could meet. That led to her forming EAT, the non-profit platform for food system transformation. It held its first forum in 2014, with Bill Clinton taking to the stage, and has continued to grow since. But there have been, and continue to be, great challenges. Not least the war in Ukraine, which Dr Stordalen says has shifted national food policies to self-sufficiency over sustainability - to the detriment of climate change targets. Listen to the full episode to find out the actions Dr Stordalen would like to see governments taking, her ambitions for COP27, and learn more about EAT's Planetary Health Diet. Dr Gunhild Stordalen, Founder and Executive Chair, EAT Dr Gunhild A Stordalen, a physician who holds a PhD in pathology/orthopaedic surgery, and is the Founder and Executive Chair of EAT, a global, non-profit platform for food system transformation.  She sits on several boards and advises on councils including the United Nations Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement Lead Group, the World Economic Forum (WEF) Stewardship Board on Food Systems, and the UNICEF Advisory Group.  In addition, Gunhild is an ambassador for Friends of Ocean Action, a member of the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (HLP) for the Blue Economy, and part of the International Leadership Committee for a Net Zero NHS.  In 2019 she was the recipient of the UN Foundations' Global Leadership Award, and was the Chair of the 2021 UN Food System Summit's Action Track 2: Shifting to Healthy and Sustainable Consumption Patterns. 

In episode 4, Andrew talks to Paul Polman, one of the world's leading proponents of sustainable capitalism, about using business to drive positive global transformation. Paul has been called one of the standout business leaders of his generation. For ten years as the CEO at Unilever, he helped revolutionise corporate thinking. He proved that putting purpose and sustainability first was the right way to run a business – Unilever's profits went up while simultaneously ranking number 1 for sustainability. Paul was also a member of the UN Secretary General's High-Level Panel, which developed the Sustainable Development Goals, and as an active SDG Advocate he continues to work with global organisations and across industry to push the 2030 development agenda. He is Chair of the B Team and Saïd Business School, Vice-Chair of the UN Global Compact and honorary Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce, which he led for two years. In 2019 Paul co-founded IMAGINE, whose mission is to support business leaders in a “courageous collective” to build a sustainable future. In conversation with Andrew he reveals everything he's learned about moral leadership, and talks about his new book – Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take.Says Paul: I've always felt that business should profit from solving the world's problems not creating the world's problems. Featuring:Dr Andrew White, Senior Fellow of Management Practice, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.Paul Polman (@PaulPolman), Co-Founder and Chair, IMAGINE. Resources:Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take• Subscribe to Andrew's Leadership2050 Newsletter on LinkedIn• Discover more articles, podcasts and videos from Saïd Business School on the challenges business leaders of the future need to consider on Oxford Answers • Follow us on Twitter @Oxford_AnswersSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Anne C. Richard, distinguished fellow and Afghanistan coordination lead at Freedom House, will lead a conversation on refugees and global migration. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Welcome to the final session of the Winter/Spring 2022 CFR Academic Webinar Series. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. Today's discussion is on the record, and the video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org/academic. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We are delighted to have Anne Richard with us today to talk about refugees and global migration. Ms. Richard is a distinguished fellow and Afghanistan coordination lead at Freedom House. She has taught at several universities including Georgetown, University of Virginia, Hamilton College, and the University of Pennsylvania. From 2012 to 2017, Ms. Richard served as an assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration, and before joining the Obama administration she served as vice president of government relations and advocacy for the International Rescue Committee. She has also worked at the Peace Corps headquarters and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and is a member of CFR. So, Anne, thank you very much for being with us today. With your background and experience, it would be great if you could talk from your vantage point—give us an overview of the current refugee trends you are—we are seeing around the world, especially vis-à-vis the war in Ukraine, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, et cetera. RICHARD: Thank you so much, Irina, for inviting me today and for always welcoming me back to the Council. And thank you to your team for putting this together. I'm very happy to speak about the global refugee situation, which, unfortunately, has, once again, grown yet larger in a way that is sort of stumping the international community in terms of what can well-meaning governments do, what can foundations and charitable efforts and the United Nations (UN) do to help displaced people. I thought we could start off talking a little bit about definitions and data, and the idea is that I only speak about ten minutes at this beginning part so that we can get to your questions all the more quickly. But for all of us to be on the same wavelength, let's recall that refugees, as a group, have an organization that is supposed to look out for them. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees is the title of the number-one person in the organization, but the entire organization is known by that name, UNHCR, or the UN Refugee Agency. It also has a convention—the 1951 Refugee Convention—that came about after World War II and was very focused on not allowing to happen again what had happened during World War II where victims of the Nazis and, as time went on, people fleeing fascism, people fleeing communism, couldn't get out of their countries and were persecuted because of this. And there's a legal definition that comes out of the convention that different countries have, and the U.S. legal definition matches very much the convention's, which is that refugees have crossed an international border—they're not in their home country anymore—and once they've crossed an international border the sense is that they are depending on the international community to help them and that they're fleeing for specific purposes—their race, their religion, their ethnicity, their membership in a particular social group such as being LGBTQ, or political thought. And if you think back to the Cold War, these were some of the refugees coming out of the former Soviet Union, coming out of Eastern Europe, were people who had spoken out and were in trouble and so had to flee their home countries. So what are the numbers then? And I'm going to refer you to a very useful page on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees website, which is their “Figures at a Glance” presentation, and we're going to reference some of the numbers that are up there now. But those numbers change every year. They change on June 20, which is World Refugee Day. And so every year it hits the headlines that the numbers have gone up, unfortunately, and you can anticipate this if you think in terms of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. It's usually June 20, 21, 22. So June 20, that first possible day, is every year World Refugee Day. So if you're working on behalf of refugees it's good sometimes to schedule events or anticipate newspaper articles and conversations about refugees ticking up in—at the end of June. So if you were paying attention last June for World Refugee Day, UNHCR would have unveiled a number of 82.4 million refugees around the world, and so this upcoming June what do we anticipate? Well, we anticipate the numbers will go up again and, in fact, yesterday the high commissioner was in Washington, met with Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and they met the press and Filippo Grandi, the current high commissioner, said that he thinks the number is closer to ninety-five to ninety-six million refugees. So, clearly, a couple things have happened since last June. One is that so many people are trying to flee Afghanistan and another is so many people have fled Ukraine. So if we went back to that $82.4 million figure that we know we have details on, we would find that this is the figure of people who are displaced because of conflict or persecution around the world. The ones that count as refugees who have actually crossed an international border is a smaller number. It's 20.7 million people that UNHCR is concerned about and then another close to six million people who are Palestinians in the Middle East whose displacement goes back to 1948, the creation of the statehood of Israel, and upheaval in the Middle East region as Palestinians were shifted to live elsewhere. And so—and they are provided assistance by a different UN agency, UNRWA—UN Relief Works Administration in the Near East—and so if you see a number or you see two sets of numbers for refugees and they're off by about five or six million people, the difference is the Palestinian, that number—whether it's being counted in, which is for worldwide numbers, or out because UNHCR cares for most refugees on Earth but did not have the responsibility for the Palestinians since UNRWA was set up with that specific responsibility. So what's the big difference then between the eighty-two million, now growing to ninety-five million, and this smaller number of refugees? It's internally displaced persons (IDPs). These are people who are displaced by conflict or are displaced by persecution, are running for their lives, but they haven't left their own countries yet. So think of Syrians who, perhaps, are displaced by war and they have crossed their own countries and gone to a safer place within their own country but they haven't crossed that border yet. Others who have crossed into Lebanon or Turkey or Jordan or Iraq or have gone further afield to Egypt, those would be considered refugees. Who's responsible for the IDPs then? Well, legally, their own countries are supposed to take care of them. But in my Syria example, the problem is Syria was bombing its own people in certain areas of the country, and so they were not protecting their own people as they should be. People can be displaced by things other than war and conflict and persecution, of course. More and more we talk about climate displacement, and this is a hot issue that we can talk about later. But who's responsible then when people are displaced by changing climactic conditions and it's their own governments who are supposed to help them? But more and more questions have been raised about, well, should the international community come together and do more for this group of people—for internally displaced persons—especially when their own governments are unwilling or unable to do so? What about migrants? Who are the migrants? Migrants is a much broader term. Everyone I've talked about so far who's crossed a border counts as a migrant. Migrants are just people on the go, and the International Organization for Migration estimates there's about 281 million migrants on Earth today—about 3.6 percent of the world population—and one of the big issues I've pushed is to not see migrants as a dirty word. Unfortunately, it often is described that way—that migratory flows are bad, when, in fact, lots of people are migrants. Students who travel to the U.S. to take classes are migrants to our country. The secretary general of the United Nations, António Guterres, who was himself for eleven years the high commissioner for refugees, he says, I am a migrant, because he's a Portuguese person working in New York City. People hired by Silicon Valley from around the world to work in high-paid jobs, legally in the United States, they are migrants. More concerning are vulnerable migrants, people who are displaced and don't have the wherewithal to, necessarily, protect themselves, take care of themselves, on the march or where they end up, or also if they're seen as traveling without papers, not welcome in the places where they're going, that can be a very, very dangerous situation for them. So be aware that migrants is a really broad all-encompassing term that can include travelers, businesspeople, as well as vulnerable and very poor people who are economic migrants. Finally, immigrants are people who set out and migrate because they intend to live somewhere else, and when we were talking about the Trump administration's policies to reduce the number of refugees coming to the U.S. we also see that immigration to the U.S. also was decreased during that administration as well. So both the refugee program and a lot of the immigration pathways to the U.S. are now being examined and trying to be not just fixed, because a lot of them have needed care for quite some time, but also put back on a growth trajectory. And then asylum seekers are people who get to a country on their own, either they have traveled to a border or they pop up inside a country because they have gotten in legally through some other means such as a visitor visa or business visa, and then they say, I can't go home again. It's too dangerous for me to go home again. Please, may I have asylum? May I be allowed to stay here and be protected in your country? So that's a lot of different terminology. But the more you work on it, the more these terms—you get more familiar using them and understand the differences between them that experts or legal experts use. So ninety-five to ninety-six million people, as we see another eleven million people fleeing Ukraine and of that four million, at least, have crossed the borders into neighboring countries and another seven million are internally displaced, still inside Ukraine but they've gone someplace that they feel is safer than where they were before. When we looked at the eighty million refugees and displaced people, we knew that two-thirds of that number came from just five countries, and one of the important points about that is it shows you what could happen, the good that could be done, if we were able to push through peace negotiations or resolutions of conflict and persecution, if we could just convince good governance and protection of people—minorities, people with different political thought, different religious backgrounds—inside countries. So the number-one country still remains Syria that has lost 6.7 million people to neighboring countries, primarily. Secondly was Venezuela, four million. Third was Afghanistan. The old number from before last August was 2.6 million and some hundreds of thousands have fled since. And the only reason there aren't more fleeing is that they have a really hard time getting out of their country, and we can talk more about that in a moment. The fourth are Rohingya refugees fleeing from Burma, or Myanmar. That's 1.1 million, and the fifth was Southern Sudanese, 2.2 million, who have fled unrest and violence in that country. So we know that we have not enough peace, not enough solutions, and we have too much poverty, too, and dangers. In addition to the Venezuelans, another group that has approached the U.S. from the southern border that were in the paper, especially around election times, is from the Northern Triangle of Central America, so El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. These are people who could be fleeing because of economic situations and could also be fleeing from criminal violence, gangs, warfare, narcotraffickers. And so if they are fleeing for their lives and approaching our southern border, we are supposed to give them a hearing and consider whether they have a case for asylum, and the—unfortunately, that is not well understood, especially not by folks working at our borders. The Customs and Border Protection folks are more and more focused on, since 9/11, ensuring that bad guys don't come across, that terrorists don't come across, that criminals don't come across. And we heard in the Trump administration conversations about Mexicans as rapists, gang warfare being imported into the U.S. from Central America when, in fact, some of it had been originally exported, and this sense that people from the Middle East were terrorists. And so really harsh language about the types of people who were trying to make it to the U.S. and to get in. Some final thoughts so that we can get to the question and answer. The U.S. government has traditionally been the top donor to refugee and humanitarian efforts around the world. The bureau at the State Department I used to run, the Population, Refugees, and Migration Bureau, was a major donor to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees—UNRWA—the International Committee of the Red Cross, and also the International Organization for Migration, which used to be an independent organization and is now part of the UN since 2016. We were also the number-one resettlement location, the formal program for bringing refugees to the United States, and when I was assistant secretary we brought seventy thousand refugees per year to the United States, invited them to come through a program that took eighteen months to twenty-four months, on average, to get them in because they had to be vetted for security reasons. They had to pass medical tests. Their backgrounds had to be investigated to see that they were who they said they were. And that number went higher in the last year of the Obama administration to eighty-five thousand refugees and, in fact, the Obama administration proposed some very strong additional measures to help refugees. But the Trump administration threw that all into reverse with a completely different set of policies. So the numbers then became reduced every year—fifty-three thousand in the first year of the Trump administration, 22,500 the next year, thirty thousand in 2019, 11,814 in 2020, a similar number in 2021, and slow numbers coming today, this despite bringing so many Afghans through an evacuation exercise last summer. Many of the people who were evacuated were American citizens or green card holders. Afghans who had worked for the U.S. but did not have their formal paperwork yet were brought in under what's called humanitarian parole, and the problem with that program is that it's no guarantee for a longer-term stay in the United States. So there's a bill in Congress right now to address that. A lot of the people who worked on that, especially within the U.S. government, are proud that they've scrambled and brought so many people so quickly—120,000 people brought from Afghanistan. At the same time, those of us who are advocates for refugees would say too many people were left behind and the evacuation should continue, and that's a real concern. In terms of resettlement in the U.S., it's a program run—public-private partnership—and we've never seen so many volunteers and people helping as there are right now, and initiatives to help welcome people to the United States, which is fantastic. I would say the program should be one of humanity, efficiency, and generosity, and that generosity part has been tough to achieve because the government piece of it is kind of stingy. It's kind of a tough love welcome to the United States where the refugees are expected to get jobs and the kids to go to school and the families to support themselves. So let me stop there because I've been just talking too long, I know, and take questions. FASKIANOS: It's fantastic, and thank you for really clarifying the definitions and the numbers. Just a quick question. You said the U.S. government is the top donor. What is the percentage of DVP? I mean, it's pretty— RICHARD: Tiny. Yeah. FASKIANOS: —tiny, right? I think there's this lack of understanding that it may seem like a big number but in our overall budget it's minuscule. So if you could just give us a— RICHARD: Yeah. It's grown in the last few years because of all these crises around the world to ten to twelve million—I mean, ten billion dollars to twelve billion (dollars) between the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department, which was bigger. It was around seven or eight billion (dollars) when I was the assistant secretary five, six years ago. But the important part of it was it provided the whole backbone to the international humanitarian system. Governments, some of them, saw Americans sometimes as headaches in terms of we, Americans, telling them what to do or we, Americans, having our own ideas of how to do things or we, Americans, demanding always budget cuts and efficiencies. But the fact is the whole humanitarian enterprise around the world is based on American generosity, especially the big operating agencies like World Food Programme, UNHCR, UNICEF, UN Development Program. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you. So now we're going to go to all you for your questions. Hands are already up and Q&A written questions. So I'll try to get to everybody as much as I can. I'm going to go—the first question from Rey Koslowski, and if you can unmute yourself and give us your institution that would be fantastic. RICHARD: Hi, Rey. Q: All right. Rey Koslowski, University at Albany. Hi, Anne. Good to see you. I'd like to pick up on the use of humanitarian parole. So, as I understand it, it's being utilized for Afghan evacuees, Afghans, who you mentioned, who didn't—weren't able to get on the flights and were left behind, but also for Ukrainians. You know, President Biden announced a hundred thousand Ukrainians. I mean, a very—we're using other channels but we've had, I believe, three thousand at the U.S.-Mexican border and, I believe, they're being paroled for the most part, right. As I understand it, we're—one DHS letter that I saw said that there were forty-one thousand requests for humanitarian parole for Afghan nationals. But I'm wondering about capacity of the USCIS to handle this, to process this, because, you know, normally, I think, maybe two thousand or so, a couple thousand, are processed, maybe a couple of people who do this, and also in conjunction with the challenges for processing all of the asylum applications. So, as I understand it, back in the fall there was some discussion of hiring a thousand asylum officers—additional asylum officers. I was wondering, what are your thoughts about our capacity to process all of the—the U.S. government's capacity to process the humanitarian parole applications and the asylum applications, and if you have any insights on new hires and how many— RICHARD: Well, you know, Rey, at Freedom House now I'm working on a project to help Afghan human rights defenders and— Q: Right. RICHARD: —the idea is that they can restart their work if we can find a way for them to be safe inside Afghanistan, which is very hard with the Taliban in charge right now, or if in exile they can restart their work. And so we're watching to see where Afghans are allowed to go in the world as they seek sanctuary and the answer is they don't get very far. It's very hard to get out of the country. If they get to Pakistan or Iran, they don't feel safe. They have short-term visas to stay there, and the programs that might bring them further along like resettlement of refugees are—take a much longer time to qualify for and then to spring into action, and so they're stuck. You know, they're afraid of being pushed back into Afghanistan. They're afraid of becoming undocumented and running out of money wherever they are, and so they're in great need of help. The humanitarian parole program sort of—for bringing Afghans into the U.S. sort of understood that our eighteen- to twenty-four-month refugee resettlement program was a life-saving program but it wasn't an emergency program. It didn't work on an urgent basis. It didn't scoop people up and move them overnight, and that's, really, what was called for last August was getting people—large numbers of people—out of harm's way. And so when I was assistant secretary, if we knew someone was in imminent danger we might work with another government. I remember that the Scandinavians were seen as people who were more—who were less risk averse and would take people who hadn't had this vast vetting done but would take small numbers and bring them to safety, whereas the U.S. did things in very large numbers but very slowly. And so this lack of emergency program has really been what's held us back in providing the kind of assistance, I think, people were looking for the Afghans. I was surprised we even brought them into the United States. I thought after 9/11 we'd never see that kind of program of bringing people in with so little time spent on checking. But what they did was they moved up them to the front of the line and checked them very quickly while they were on the move. So it was safe to do but it was unusual, and I think part of that was because the military—the U.S. military—was so supportive of it and U.S. veterans were so supportive of it and we had, for the first time in a while, both the right and the left of the political spectrum supporting this. So the problem with humanitarian parole is I remember it being used, for example, for Haitians who had been injured in the Haitian earthquake and they needed specialized health care—let's say, all their bones were crushed in their legs or something. They could be paroled into the U.S., get that health care that they needed, and then sent home again. So we've not used it for large numbers of people coming in at once. So what refugee advocates are seeking right now from Congress is the passage of the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would give people a more permanent legal status. They would be treated as if they were—had come through the refugee resettlement program and they'd get to stay. So you're right that the numbers being granted humanitarian parole at one time is just not the normal way of doing things. You're also right that the—this is a lot of extra work on people who weren't anticipating it, and more can continue with the hundred thousand Ukrainians who the president has said we will take in. And so the thing is when we have these kind of challenges in the United States one way to deal with it is to spend more money and do a better job, and that seems to be an option for certain challenges we face but not for all challenges we face. With these more humanitarian things, we tend to have tried to do it on the cheap and to also use the charity and partner with charities and churches more than if this were sort of a more business-oriented program. So we need all of the above. We need more government funding for the people who are working the borders and are welcoming people in or are reviewing their backgrounds. We need more assistance from the public, from the private sector, from foundations, because the times demand it. And it's very interesting to me to see Welcome US created last year with three former U.S. presidents—President Bush, President Clinton, President Obama—speaking up about it, saying, please support this, and people from across the political aisle supporting it. I wish that had existed in 2015 when we were grappling with these issues at the time of candidate Trump. So the needs are greater. Absolutely. But that doesn't mean we have to just suffer through and struggle through and have long backups like we do right now. We could be trying to put more resources behind it. FASKIANOS: I'm going to take the next written question from Haley Manigold, who's an IR undergrad student at University of North Florida. We know that the war in Ukraine is going to affect grain and food supplies for the MENA countries. Is there any way you would recommend for Europe and other neighboring regions to manage the refugee flows? RICHARD: The first part of that was about the food issue but then you said— FASKIANOS: Correct, and then this is a pivot to manage the refugee flows. So— RICHARD: Well, the Europeans are treating the Ukrainians unlike any other flow of people that we've seen lately. It goes a little bit back and reminiscent to people fleeing the Balkans during the 1990s. But we saw that with a million people in 2015 walking into Europe from Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan—mix of economic migrants and real refugees—that Europe, at first, under Angela Merkel's leadership were welcoming to these folks showing up, and then there was a backlash and the walls came up on that route from the Balkans to Germany and to Sweden. And so in the last few years, Europeans have not been seen as champions in allowing—rescuing people who are trying to get to Europe on their own. You know, especially the Mediterranean has been a pretty dismal place where we see Africans from sub-Saharan Africa working their way up to North Africa and trying to get from Libya across the Mediterranean to Europe. These are mostly economic migrants but not solely economic migrants, and they deserve to have a hearing and, instead, they have been terribly mistreated. They get stopped by the Libyan coast guard, the Europeans push boats back, and they are offloaded back into Libya and they are practically imprisoned and mistreated in North Africa. So that's a terribly inhumane way to treat people who are trying to rescue themselves, their families, and find a better life. And another point to the Europeans has been, couldn't you use these young people taking initiative trying to have a better life and work hard and get on with their lives, and the answer is yes. Europe has this sort of aging demographic and could definitely use an infusion of younger workers and talented people coming in. But, instead, they have really pushed to keep people out. So what's happened with Ukrainians? They're seen as a different category. They're seen as neighbors. There's a part of it that is positive, which is a sense that the countries right next door have to help them. Poland, Moldova, other countries, are taking in the Ukrainians. The borders are open. If they get to Poland they can get free train fare to Germany. Germany will take them in, and that's a beautiful thing. And the upsetting thing is the sense that there is undertones of racism, also anti-Islam, where darker-skinned people were not at all welcome and people who are not Christian were not welcome. And so it's probably a mix of all the above, the good and the bad, and it's potentially an opportunity to teach more people about “refugeehood” and why we care and why it affects all of us and what we should do about it and that we should do more. FASKIANOS: Thank you. All right, I'm going to take the next question from Kazi Sazid, who has also raised their hand, so if you could just ask your question yourself and identify yourself. Q: Hello. So I'm Kazi. I'm a student at CUNY Hunter College and I happen to be writing a research paper on Central American and Iraq war refugee crises and how international law hasn't changed the behavior of a state helping them. So my question is, how does confusion and ignorance of migration and refugee terminology by state leaders and the general populace impact the legally ordained rights of refugees such as having identity documents, having the right to education, refoulement, which is not being sent back to a country where they are danger? One example is like Central Americans are termed as illegal immigrants by the right wing but the reality is they are asylum seekers who are worthy of refugee status because gang violence and corruption has destabilized their country and the judicial systems. I think femicide in El Salvador and Honduras is among the highest and—so yeah. RICHARD: Yeah. Thank you for asking the question, and I have a soft spot in my heart for Hunter College. Only one of my grandparents went to college and it was my mother's mother who went to Hunter College and graduated in the late 1920s, and as we know, it's right down the street from the Harold Pratt House, the home of the Council on Foreign Relations. So I think a lot of what you—I agree with a lot of what you've said about—for me it's describing these people who offer so much potential as threats, just because they are trying to help themselves. And instead of feeling that we should support these folks, there's a sense of—even if we don't allow them in our country we could still do things to ease their way and help them find better solutions, but they're described as these waves of people coming this way, headed this way, scary, scary. And if you follow the debates in the United States, I was very alarmed before and during the Trump administration that journalists did not establish that they had a right to make a claim for asylum at the border. Instead, they talked about it as if it were two political policies duking it out, where some people felt we should take more and some people felt we should take less. Well, the issue that was missed, I felt, in a lot of the coverage of the Southern border was the right to asylum, that they had a right to make a claim, that we had signed onto this as the United States and that there was a very good reason that we had signed onto that and it was to make sure people fleeing for their lives get an opportunity to be saved if they're innocent people and not criminals, but innocent people who are threatened, that we'd give them a place of safety. So I agree with you that the lack of understanding about these basic principles, agreements, conventions is something that is not well understood by our society, and certainly the society was not being informed of that by a lot of the messengers describing the situation over the past few years. FASKIANOS: Thank you. So I'm going to take the next question from Lindsey McCormack who is an undergrad at Baruch—oh, sorry, a graduate student at Baruch College. My apologies. Do you see any possibility of the U.S. adopting a protocol for vetting and accepting climate refugees? Have other countries moved in that direction? And maybe you can give us the definition of a climate refugee and what we will in fact be seeing as we see climate change affecting all of us. RICHARD: I don't have a lot to say on this, so I hate to disappoint you, but I will say a couple things because, one, I was on a task force at Refugees International, which is a very good NGO that writes about and reports on refugee situations around the world and shines a light on them. I was part of a task force that came out with a report for the Biden administration on the need to do more for climate migrants, and so that report is available at the Refugees International site and it was being submitted to the Biden administration because the Biden administration had put out an executive order on refugees that included a piece that said we want to do a better job, we want to come up with new, fresh ideas on climate migrants. So I don't know where that stands right now, but I think the other piece of information that I often give out while doing public speaking, especially to students, about this issue is that I feel not enough work has been done on it, and so if a student is very interested in staying in academia and studying deeper into some of these issues, I think climate migration is a field that is ripe for further work. It's timely, it's urgent, and it hasn't been over-covered in the past. I admire several people, several friends who are working on these issues; one is Professor Beth Ferris at Georgetown University who was, in fact, on the secretary general's High Level Panel on Internal Displacement and she made sure that some of these climate issues are raised in very high-level meetings. She was also part of this task force from Refugees International. Another smart person working on this is Amali Tower, a former International Rescue Committee colleague who started a group called Climate Refugees and she's also trying to bring more attention to this; she's kind of very entrepreneurial in trying to do more on that. Not everybody would agree that the term should be climate refugees since “refugees” has so much legal definitions attached to it and the people displaced by climate don't have those kind of protections or understandings built around them yet. But I think it's an area that there definitely needs to be more work done. So I think the basic question was, did I think something good was going to happen anytime soon related to this, and I can't tell because these crazy situations around the world, the war in Ukraine and Taliban in charge in Afghanistan—I mean, that just completely derails the types of exercises that the world needs of thinking through very logically good governance, people coming together making decisions, building something constructive instead of reacting to bad things. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to take the next question from raised hand Ali Tarokh. And unmute your—thank you. Q: Yes. OK, I am Ali Tarokh from Northeastern University. I came here in the United States ten years ago as a refugee. And I was in Turkey—I flew Iran to Turkey. I stayed there fourteen, sixteen months. So this is part of—my question is part of my lived experience in Turkey. So one part is humanitarian services, helping refugees move into the third country, OK? The one issue I—it's my personal experience is the UNHCR system, there is many corruptions. This corruption makes lines, OK, produce refugees—because some countries such as Iran and Turkey, they are producing refugees and there is no solution for it, or sometimes they use it as—they use refugees as a weapon. They say, OK, if you don't work with me—Turkey sent a message to EU: If you don't work with me, I open the borders. I open the borders and send the flow of refugees to EU. Even some—even Iran's government. So my question is, how can we in the very base on the ground—the level of the ground—how can we prevent all these corruption or how can we work out with this kind of government, countries that are—I named them the refugee producers. And by the time there is two sides of the refugees—one is just humanitarian services, which is our responsibility, United States playing globally there; and other side it seems refugees issue became like industry. In Turkey, the UNHCR staff, some lawyers/attorneys, they take money from people, they make fake cases for them. Even they ask them: Hey, what country—which country would you like to go, United States, Canada, Scandinavian countries? So what is our strategy? What is our solution to help real refugees or prevent produce refugees? RICHARD: Well, there's several things that are raised by your question. Turkey and, now we see, Russia have both been countries where we have seen instances where they can turn on the flow of refugees and turn it off. And Turkey was watching people walk through Turkey, cross the Mediterranean is very scary, dangerous trip between Turkey and Greece in these rubber boats in 2015, 2016, and then they would make their way onward, and then, because of this big EU-Turkey deal that involved 3 billion euros at the time, all of a sudden, the flow stopped. And then in further negotiations going on and on, Turkey would say things that seemed like it came right from a Godfather movie, like, gee, I'd hate to see that flow start up again; that would be a real shame. And so it was clear it was sort of a threat that if you didn't cooperate it could play this very disruptive role on the edges of Europe and deploying people, as you said, which is so cruel not just to the people who are receiving them but to the individuals themselves that they're not being seen as people who need care but instead as a problem to be deployed in different directions. And we saw that also with Belarus and Poland and now also it may have been part of the thinking of Vladimir Putin that by attacking Ukraine, by going to war with Ukraine that there would be exactly what is happening now, people scattering from Ukraine into Europe and that that would be a way to drive a wedge between European countries and cause a lot of not just heartache but also animosity between these countries. So what the Russians didn't seem to appreciate this time was that there would be so much solidarity to help the Ukrainians, and that has been a bit of a surprise. So you've also talked about corruption, though, and corruption is a problem all over the world for lots of different reasons, in business and it's embedded in some societies in a way that sometimes people make cultural excuses for, but in reality we know it doesn't have to be that way. But it is very hard to uproot and get rid of. So I find this work, the anti-corruption work going on around the world, really interesting and groups like Transparency International are just sort of fascinating as they try to really change the standards and the expectations from—the degree to which corruption is part of societies around the world. So UNHCR has to take great care to not hire people who are going to shake down and victimize refugees, and it's not—there's never a perfect situation, but I know that a lot of work is done to keep an eye on these kinds of programs so that the aid goes to the people who need it and it's not sidetracked to go to bad guys. And the way I've seen it is, for example, if I travel overseas and I go to someplace where refugees are being resettled to the U.S. or they're being interviewed for that, or I go to UNHCR office, there will be big signs up that will say the resettlement program does not cost money. If someone asks you for money, don't pay it; you know, report this. And from time to time, there are mini scandals, but overall, it's remarkable how much corruption is kept out of some of these programs. But it's a never-ending fight. I agree with you in your analysis that this is a problem and in some countries more than others. FASKIANOS: So I'm going to take the next question from Pamela Waldron-Moore, who's the chair of the political science department at Xavier University in New Orleans. There are reports in some news feeds that African refugees from Ukraine are being disallowed entry to some states accepting refugees. I think you did allude to this. Is there evidence of this, and if so, can the UN stop it or alleviate that situation? RICHARD: We saw before the Taliban took over in Afghanistan that some European countries were saying it was time for Afghans to go home again, and the idea that during this war it was safe for Afghans to go back—and especially for Afghans who are discriminated against even in the best of times in Afghanistan, like the Hazara minority. It's just—I found that sort of unbelievable that some countries thought this was the right time to send people back to Afghanistan. And so at the moment there's a weird situation in Afghanistan because it's safer in some ways for the bulk of the people because the active fighting has—in large parts of the country—stopped. But it's deadly dangerous for human rights defenders, women leaders, LBGTQ folks—anyone who tries to stand up to the Taliban—you know, scholars, thinkers, journalists. And so those are the folks that, in smaller numbers, we need to find some kind of way to rescue them and get them to safety while they are still inside Afghanistan or if that's outside Afghanistan and in the region. The borders—the border situations change from time to time. For a while they were saying only people with passports could come out, and for most Afghan families, nobody had a passport or, if they did, it was a head of household had a passport for business or trade. But you wouldn't have had passports for the spouse and the children. And so this has been a real dilemma. We also see a whole series of barriers to people getting out; so first you need a passport, then you need a visa to where you're going, and then you might need a transit visa for a country that you are crossing. And what has come to pass is that people who are trying to help evacuate people from Afghanistan—a smaller and smaller number as the months go on; people are trying to make this happen because it's so hard—that they will only take people out of the country if they feel that their onward travel is already figured out and that they have their visas for their final-destination country. So the actual number that's getting out are tiny. And the people who have gotten out who are in either Pakistan or Iraq are very worried. And they're afraid to be pushed back. They're afraid they will run out of money. They are afraid—I think said this during my talk before—they're afraid that there are people in Pakistan who will turn them in to the Taliban. And so it's always hard to be a refugee, but right now it's really frightening for people who are just trying to get to a safe place. FASKIANOS: And in terms of the discrimination that you referenced for refugees leaving the Ukraine, I mean, there have been some reports of EU—discrimination in European countries not accepting— RICHARD: Well, like African students who are studying in Ukraine— FASKIANOS: Yes. RICHARD: —who were not treated as if they were fleeing a country at war— FASKIANOS: Correct. RICHARD: —but instead were put in a different category and said, you know, go back, go home. FASKIANOS: Yes. RICHARD: Yeah, that's—that is quite blatant— FASKIANOS: And there's— RICHARD: And that was happening at the borders. FASKIANOS: Is there anything the UN can do about that, or is that really at the discretion of the countries—the accepting countries? RICHARD: Well, the—yeah, the UNHCR has these reception centers that they've set up, including between the border of Poland and Ukraine, and I think the other neighboring countries. And so if one can get to the reception center, one could potentially get additional help or be screened into—for special attention for needing some help that maybe a white Christian Ukrainian who spoke more than one language of the region would not need. FASKIANOS: Great. So let's go to Susan Knott, who also wrote her question, but has raised her hand. So Susan, why don't you just ask your question? And please unmute and identify yourself. KNOTT: OK, am I unmuted? FASKIANOS: Yes. KNOTT: OK. I am Susan Knott, University of Utah, Educational Policy and Leadership doctoral program. I am also a practicum intern at ASU, and I'm also a refugee services collaborator. And I'm engaged in a research project creating college and university pathways for refugees to resettle. I'm just wondering what your feel is about the current administration efforts in seeking to establish the pathway model similar to ASU's Education for Humanity Initiative with Bard, and is there helping lead the Refugee Higher Education Access program that serves learners who require additional university-level preparation in order to transition into certificate and degree programs. And I just—I'm not just—and all of this buzz that's going on since all of terrible crises are occurring, I'm not seeing a whole lot that—based on my own experience working with refugee education and training centers at colleges—on the college level, and learning about the Presidents' Alliance on Higher Ed and Immigration. I'm just wondering—and they're saying let's have this be more of a privately funded or partnerships with the university scholarships and private entities. What about a federally-funded university sponsorship program for refugee students given that the numbers or the data is showing that that age group is the largest number of just about every refugee population? RICHARD: That's a really fascinating set of issues. I'm not the expert on them, so I'm going to disappoint you. but I appreciate that you took a little extra time in how you stated your intervention to add a lot of information for this group, which should very much care about this. I get a lot of questions every week about university programs that Afghan students could take advantage of. I don't have a good handle on it, and I'm trying to do that with—I'm overdue for a conversation with Scholars at Risk in New York. Robert Quinn is the executive director of that, I believe. And so I'm glad you raised this and I'm not going to have a lot of extra to say about it. FASKIANOS: Anne, are there—is there—there's a question in the chat in the Q&A about sources for data on U.S. initiatives toward refugees. Where would you direct people to go to get updates on the latest programs, et cetera? RICHARD: Sometimes I'm embarrassed to say the best summaries are done by not-for-profits outside the government than by the government. The best source for data on resettlement of refugees to the U.S. is a website that is funded by the U.S. government called WRAPSNET.org—WRAPS spelled W-R-A-P-S-N-E-T dot-O-R-G. And in double-checking some of the things last summer, I felt that DHS had better descriptions of some of the programs than the State Department did, and that's my bureau that I used to—run, so—but they are responsible for determining who is in and who is out of these different programs, so maybe that's why they do. So there's a lot on the DHS website that's interesting if you are looking for more information. And one of the things the Council does, it has done a number of these special web presentations: one on refugees that I got to help on a couple of years ago, and I think there's one up now on Ukrainians. And this is the type of public education function that the Council does so well I think because they fact-check everything, and so it's very reliable. FASKIANOS: Thank you for that plug. You can find it all on CFR.org—lots of backgrounders, and timelines, and things like that. So we don't have that much time left, so I'm going to roll up two questions—one in the Q&A box and one because of your vast experience. So what role do NGOs play in refugee crises and migration initiatives, particularly in resettlement? And just from your perspective, Anne, you have been in academia, you've worked in the government, you worked at IRC, and now are at Freedom House. And so just—again, what would you share with the group about pursuing a career in this—government, non-government perspectives and, what students should be thinking about as they launch to their next phase in life. RICHARD: Yeah, that we could have a whole ‘nother hour on, right? That's—(laughs)— FASKIANOS: I know, I know. It's unfair to, right, do this at the very end, but— RICHARD: NGOs play really important roles in both the delivery of humanitarian assistance overseas and the help for resettlement in the United States. In the U.S. there are nine national networks of different groups; six are faith-based, three are not. They are non-sectarian, and they do amazing work on shoe-string budgets to—everything from meeting refugees at the airport, taking them to an apartment, showing them how the lights work and the toilet flushes, and coming back the next day, making sure they have an appropriate meal to have, and that the kids get in school, that people who need health care get it, and that adults who are able-bodied get jobs so they can support themselves. The other type of NGO are the human rights NGOs that now I'm doing more with, and I guess if you are thinking about careers in these, you have to ask yourself, you know, are you more of a pragmatic person where the most important thing is to save a life, or are you an idealist where you want to put out standards that are very high and push people to live up to them. Both types of organizations definitely help, but they just have very different ways of working. Another question for students is do you want high job security of a career in the U.S. government—say, as a Foreign Service Officer or as a civil servant where maybe you won't move up very quickly, but you might have great sense of satisfaction that the things you were working on were making a difference because they were being decisively carried out by the U.S. or another government. Or do you prefer the relatively lean, flatter organizations of the NGO world where, as a young person, you can still have a lot of authority, and your views can be seen—can be heard by top layers because you're not that far away from them. And so, NGOs are seen as more nimble, more fast moving, less job security. Having done both I think it really depends on your personality. Working in the government, you have to figure out a way to keep going even when people tell you no. You have figure out—or that it's hard, or that it's too complicated. You have to figure out ways to find the people who are creative, and can make thing happen, and can open doors, and can cut through red tape. In NGOs you can have a lot of influence. I was so surprised first time I was out of the State Department working for the International Rescue Committee one of my colleagues was telling me she just picks up the phone and calls the key guy on Capitol Hill and tells him what the law should be. That would never happen with a junior person in the U.S. government. You have to go through so many layers of bureaucracy, and approvals, and clearances. So, really, it depends on the type of person you are, and how you like to work, and the atmosphere in which you like to work. I can tell you you won't get rich doing this type of work, unfortunately. But you might be able to make a decent living. I certainly have, and so I encourage students to either do this as a career or find ways to volunteer part-time, even if it's tutoring a refugee kid down the block and not in some glamorous overseas location. I think you can get real sense of purpose out of doing this type of work. Thank you, Irina. FASKIANOS: Thank you very much. And I have to say that your careful definitions of the different categories—and really, I think we all need to be more intentional about how we explain, talk about these issues because they are so complex, and there are so many dimensions, and it's easy to make gross generalizations. But the way you laid this out was really, really important for deepening the understanding of this really—the challenge and the—what we're seeing today. So thank you very much. RICHARD: Thank you. Thanks, everybody. FASKIANOS: So thanks to all—yeah, thanks to everybody for your great questions. Again, I apologize; we're three minutes over. I couldn't get to all your questions, so we will just have to continue looking at this issue. We will be announcing the fall Academic Webinar lineup in a month or so in our Academic Bulletin, so you can look for it there. Good luck with your end of the year, closing out your semester. And again, I encourage you to go to CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research analysis on global issues. And you can follow us on Twitter at @CFR_Academic. So again, thank you, Anne Richard. Good luck to you all with finals, and have a good summer. (END)

This month on Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman talks with Dr. Sima Samar about the situation in Afghanistan, the status of women and girls in the country, and the role and responsibility of the international community. Dr. Samar is a member of the UN Secretary General's High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement and has held the positions of Special Envoy for the President of Afghanistan, State Minister for Human Rights and International Affairs, Chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commision, and Minister of Women's Affairs as one of only two women in the transition government. She is a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and a Scholar at Risk at Harvard.

Natasha Bajema joined the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction in October 2008. Dr. Bajema currently serves as Director of the Program for Emerging Leaders (PEL). From 2010 to 2013, Dr. Bajema held a long-term detail assignment serving in various capacities in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics, Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs and in Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. Dr. Bajema is a subject matter expert in nuclear nonproliferation, cooperative threat reduction and WMD terrorism. Prior to joining the Center, Dr. Bajema was a Research Associate at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, where she supported research staff of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change established by the UN Secretary-General. She has also served as a Junior Political Officer in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Branch of the Department for Disarmament Affairs at the United Nations. Her publications include two co-edited volumes entitledTerrorism and Counterterrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism, both of which were published by McGraw Hill. She holds an M.A. in international policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a PhD in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/evinweiss/support

On today's episode,  we are joined by Mr. Paul Polman.  Business leader, campaigner, Co-Author of “Net Positive: how courageous companies thrive by giving more than they take”, recently published October 2021.  I loved the book so please go check it out on Amazon here: Net Positive Book on Amazon. To learn more about Mr. Polman and what he is trying to accomplish regarding ESG please check out his website here: Net Positive Website.Paul Polman works to accelerate action by business to tackle climate change and inequality. A leading proponent that business should be a force for good, Paul has been described by the Financial Times as “a standout CEO of the past decade”. Being named Investor Magazine CEO of the Year 3 years in a row from 2010 to 2012, as well as being named European Business Leader of the year by The Wall Street Journal.As CEO of Unilever (2009-2019), he demonstrated that a long-term, multi-stakeholder model goes hand-in-hand with excellent financial performance. Paul was a member of the UN Secretary General's High-Level Panel which developed the Sustainable Development Goals and which he continues to champion, working with global organizations and across industry to advance the 2030 development agenda.Paul's new book, “Net Positive”, is a call to arms to courageous business leaders, setting out how to build net positive companies which profit by fixing the world's problems rather than creating them. He Chairs IMAGINE, a social venture dedicated to systems change, and Saïd Business School, and he is Vice-Chair of the UN Global Compact as well as a B Team Leader. Paul isHonorary Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce, which he led for two years.In part 2 of today's discussion we hit on topics such as  what it takes to be successful in the corporate world, what makes a great ceo, how people are at the heart of business, and what Paul thinks are a leaders most important attributes. Mr. Polman is a once in a lifetime CEO… please enjoy this episode. This one was my favorite podcast and I hope you guys enjoy.To learn more about our podcast, follow us on Instagram @The_Finanze_podcast to receive updates on new episodes and our podcast's future, or subscribe to our youtube channel at The FinanZe Podcast. To receive updates about our podcast episodes, join our emailing list at the.finanZe.podcast@gmail.com. Enjoy the episode!

Influencer, business leader, campaigner, Co-Author of “Net Positive: how courageous companies thrive by giving more than they take”, recently published October 2021.Paul Polman works to accelerate action by business to tackle climate change and inequality. A leading proponent that business should be a force for good, Paul has been described by the Financial Times as “a standout CEO of the past decade”.As CEO of Unilever (2009-2019), he demonstrated that a long-term, multi-stakeholder model goes hand-in-hand with excellent financial performance. Paul was a member of the UN Secretary General's High-Level Panel which developed the Sustainable Development Goals and which he continues to champion, working with global organizations and across industry to advance the 2030 development agenda.Paul's new book, “Net Positive”, is a call to arms to courageous business leaders, setting out how to build net positive companies which profit by fixing the world's problems rather than creating them. He Chairs IMAGINE, a social venture dedicated to systems change, and Saïd Business School, and he is Vice-Chair of the UN Global Compact as well as a B Team Leader. Paul is Honorary Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce, which he led for two years.

And we're back! In this year's first podcast, we are speaking with Tina Fordham, Partner & Head of Global Political Strategy at Avonhurst, a London-based advisory business. Tina is one of the most veteran players in the political risk industry, beginning her career at Eurasia Group where she launched Eurasia Group's financial markets business, including leading the Lehman Brothers-Eurasia Group index—the first political risk index on Wall Street. While there she also led the roll-out of Eurasia Group's European business. Since then, Tina's career has included roles as Managing Director, Chief Global Political Analyst at Citigroup (the first position of its kind on Wall Street), as well as Member of the High-Level Panel for Women's Economic Empowerment—the first-ever UN High-Level Panel dedicated to promoting Women's Economic Empowerment. She also created her own framework for processing political risk, Vox Populi, which was born in the post-Arab Spring era that we will talk about in-depth. Today we will discuss Tina's impressive career, her risk framework, and some specific forecasts she has made in her many roles as well as her thoughts on quantified forecasting and much more. We are very excited about this interview, and we think you will enjoy this one!

Koen Davidse is the World Bank Group's Executive Director from the Netherlands since 2018. He represents a group of countries that also includes Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Israel, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, and Ukraine. Previously, he served as the Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Mali and held senior positions in the Netherlands' Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the beginning of our conversation, Koen shares his reasons for choosing a career in diplomacy and development, with stints in India, Sudan, Mali, and also at the World Bank and UN. We then talk about why security sector reform (SSR) that builds effective but also affordable militaries, police, and justice institutions is essential to make progress on economic development in fragile states. Next, we delve deeper into his work in Sudan and Mali. We discuss the challenges of being an honest broker in the implementation of the peace agreement leading to South Sudan's independence in 2011 and what it's like to lead a peacekeeping mission aiming to bring stability in Mali. Throughout the episode, Koen shares his insights about why we need peace entrepreneurs to make lasting change, what it takes to achieve better coordination between peace, development, and humanitarian actors, and how to put vulnerable people at the center of global efforts to help fragile states. This episode was recorded on June 18, 2021. Mihaela Carstei, Paul M. Bisca, and Johan Bjurman Bergman co-host F-World: The Fragility Podcast. Twitter: https://twitter.com/fworldpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/fworldpodcast/Website: https://f-world.org Music: "Tornado" by Wintergatan . Many thanks to Wintergartan for allowing us to use their wonderful music! This track can be downloaded for free at www.wintergatan.net. Free License to use this track in your video can be downloaded at www.wintergatan.net.  EPISODE RESOURCES:Paul Collier, 2007. “The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It.” New York: Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-bottom-billion-9780195311457?cc=us&lang=en&#Security and Development in Fragile States: The Netherlands Strategy (2008-2011) https://www.government.nl/binaries/government/documents/reports/2011/12/23/strategy-setting-out-the-principles-governing-dutch-policy-on-fragile-states-for-2008-2011/english-version-fs-strategy-02-03-2009.pdfUnited Nations, 2006. Delivering as One: Report of the Secretary-General's High Level Panel. New York: United Nations https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/publications/Delivering-as-One.pdfNew Deal for Fragile States (2011),  https://www.pbsbdialogue.org/en/new-deal/about-new-deal/World Bank. “World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security, and Development.” Washington, DC: World Bank https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/4389Bernard Harborne, William Dorotinsky, and Paul M. Bisca (eds). “Securing Development: Public Finance and the Security Sector.” Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017 https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25138Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (2005) https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/SD_060000_The%20Comprehensive%20Peace%20Agreement.pdfUnited Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission In Mali (MINUSMA), https://minusma.unmissions.org/enCalin Trenkov-Vermuth and Paul M. Bisca. 2021. “Global Fragility Act: A Chance to Reshape International Security Assistance?” Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace                                                                                                                           https://www.usip.org/publications/2021/01/global-fragility-act-chance-reshape-international-security-assistanceFood and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2020. “Visualizing the P in the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU45k07s70I

On today's episode,  we are joined by Mr. Paul Polman.  Business leader, campaigner, Co-Author of “Net Positive: how courageous companies thrive by giving more than they take”, recently published October 2021.  I loved the book so please go check it out on Amazon here: Net Positive Book on Amazon. To learn more about Mr. Polman and what he is trying to accomplish regarding ESG please check out his website here: Net Positive Website. Paul Polman works to accelerate action by business to tackle climate change and inequality. A leading proponent that business should be a force for good, Paul has been described by the Financial Times as “a standout CEO of the past decade”. Being named Investor Magazine CEO of the Year 3 years in a row from 2010 to 2012, as well as being named European Business Leader of the year by The Wall Street Journal. As CEO of Unilever (2009-2019), he demonstrated that a long-term, multi-stakeholder model goes hand-in-hand with excellent financial performance. Paul was a member of the UN Secretary General's High-Level Panel which developed the Sustainable Development Goals and which he continues to champion, working with global organizations and across industry to advance the 2030 development agenda. Paul's new book, “Net Positive”, is a call to arms to courageous business leaders, setting out how to build net positive companies which profit by fixing the world's problems rather than creating them. He Chairs IMAGINE, a social venture dedicated to systems change, and Saïd Business School, and he is Vice-Chair of the UN Global Compact as well as a B Team Leader. Paul isHonorary Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce, which he led for two years.In part 1 of today's discussion we hit on topics such as  the consumer goods industry, private labeling, how a consumer goods company buys a new brand, how he turned Unilever into a more ESG company, the most important points of his Book: Net Positive, the greatest challenge when it came to turning the company into a more net positive business, the idea of being driven and motivated, and role of consumer goods companies.Mr. Polman is a once in a lifetime CEO… please enjoy this episode. This one was my favorite podcast and I hope you guys enjoy. To learn more about our podcast, follow us on Instagram @The_Finanze_podcast to receive updates on new episodes and our podcast's future, or subscribe to our youtube channel at The FinanZe Podcast. To receive updates about our podcast episodes, join our emailing list at the.finanZe.podcast@gmail.com. Enjoy the episode!

As IBM Z's Chief Penguin, Dr. Melissa Sassi created her own IBM job title, job description, and leads Student & Entrepreneur Experience worldwide within the IBM Z division of IBM. This role includes being the Founder & Global Head of IBM Hyper Protect Accelerator, an IBM program focused on empowering early-stage startups to build and scale via business and technical enablement. Dr. Sassi has 100 startups in her existing portfolio with 40% early-stage fintechs. Dr. Sassi's Accelerator also includes celebrity Producer & multiple-Grammy award winning startup – Beatclub – Timbaland's latest music startup.Dr. Sassi is also a Call for Code Judge – a tech4good hackathon, startup competition, and coding camp rolled into one – focused on solving the world's wickedest challenges such as climate action via tech innovation. Prior to IBM, Dr. Sassi was an impact investor at Microsoft focused on building and scaling internet and energy access solutions and bringing digital skills to the newly connected.As Founder & CEO of MentorNations, Dr. Sassi created a youth-led digital skills movement teaching tens of thousands of youth changemakers to code in twelve countries. Dr. Sassi is Chair of IEEE's Digital Skills & Readiness Working Group and Founding Member of Coalition for Digital Intelligence with WEF, OECD, IEEE & DQ Institute. She holds several Board positions in digital inclusion nonprofits.Dr. Sassi's doctoral research is on the digital inclusion of underserved and underrepresented communities and the tie that access, skills, and utilization of technology play to make meaningful use of the internet. She serves on a UN Round Table for the High-Level Panel for Digital Cooperation, chaired by Jack Ma and Melinda Gates with advisory leadership from Vint Cert – the Father of the Internet.  Dr. Sassi is an avid speaker on startup innovation, digital skills and inclusion, tech entrepreneurship, tech4good, community building, youth empowerment, imposter syndrome & personal branding. You can find Dr. Sassi on Twitter at @mentorafrika.

This week, we speak to Lord David Neuberger about the rule of law and the role of courts and judges. Together with Helen Mountfield QC and Murray Hunt, Richard Hermer asks what are the essential ingredients that determine whether a judicial system is able, or willing, to protect the rule of law and fundamental rights? What role, if any, have judges to play when the rule of law is at risk and what are the principles that should govern the behaviour of judges in such circumstances? Lord Neuberger was the second President of the Supreme Court having previously served as Master of the Rolls and in both capacities delivered very many landmark judgments concerning the rule of law and the protection of fundamental rights. Since retirement from the English judiciary his varied activities have included chairing the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom and serving as a non-Permanent Judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal.

In the seventh webinar of the 2021 Development Matters lecture series, which is supported by Irish Aid, Ambassador Peter Thomson, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Ocean, addresses the importance of the Ocean and of the Sustainable Blue Economy for Small Island Developing States in the context of the COP26 summit in Glasgow. He also reflects on opportunities for Ireland to act as a catalyst for Ocean action. Ambassador Peter Thomson is the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Ocean, in which role he drives global support for Sustainable Development Goal 14, to conserve and sustainably use the Ocean's resources. He served as President of the UN General Assembly from 2016-2017. He was the Permanent Representative of Fiji to the UN from 2010-2016, during which time he was also elected as President of the International Seabed Authority's Assembly and Council. Ambassador Thomson is a founding Co-Chair of the Friends of Ocean Action and is a supporting member of the High-Level Panel for Sustainable Ocean Economy.

Season two of 'Bariscope - critically curious conversations' is starting off with a stellar guest : Professor Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, international history scholar and Chair of the 'International History and Politics Department' at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies here in Geneva. An expert in transnational terrorism and democratization in Africa and the Middle East, Prof. Mohamedou has spent many years in the US at Harvard University, the City University of New York, at the International Council on Human Rights Policy, prior to becoming Deputy Director and Academic Dean of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. Between these academic appointments he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Mauritania from 2008 to 2009 and is since 2017 a member of the High Level Panel on Migration set up by the UN and the African Union. We couldn't hope for a more qualified guest to walk us through two major events in the 21st century: 9/11 and the Arab Spring, both events Prof. Mohamedou has published extensively on. Furthermore, we'll be discussing why it's important to understand terrorism in a historical context and not reduce it to radical Islamism, why we are seeing the election of authoritarian quote on quote strong men in Brasil, Hungary, the Philippines and so many other countries, the rising securitization and surveillance in the aftermath of 9/11 and why we as young people need to be courageous and call out injustices even if we are not directly effected by them. For further information on Prof. Mohamedou check out his profile on the Graduate Institutes website. This November, his book “State-Building in the Middle East and North Africa - one Hundred Years of Nationalism, Religion and Politics” will be published. We hope this conversation gives you some food for thought! Do send us any feedback you have on Instagram @bariscope_ccc. As always: thank you for your time and interest! Lea & Lukas -------------------------------- Minutes: (2:50) - the Untold Story of IR (6:55) - understanding transnational terrorism (12:40) - the political framing in the post 9/11 of terrorism = extreme islamism (15:40) - understanding 9/11 as more than a security question (20:50) - on the securitization of our societies, the breeding of fear and the creation of dichotomic discourses (good or bad) (26:40) - disenchantment in «liberal democracies», the anti-terrorism law in Switzerland and the electoral success of «strong men» (35:00) - the impatience after democratization, the impact of economic instability and social inequalities (39:20) - the responsibility of academia and us as individuals to name injustices and be more courageous when facing populists, racists and sexists… (43:05) - can the constant of global challenges being a crisis be problematic? (47:50) - social media &social movements and understanding the Arab Spring (54:40) - 3 tips from Prof. Mohamedou to his 20-year-old self

One in three people in the world suffers from malnutrition of one form or another. The world's most prominent intergovernmental body for addressing this challenge, the UN Committee on World Food Security, has its own science advice service made up of experts from around the world. In this episode, Professor Jennifer Clapp gives Toby Wardman a whirlwind tour of the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, the challenges of making policy in such a complex topic as global food systems, and what it's like to give high-profile science advice at a global level. Resources mentioned in this episode Committee on World Food Security High-Level Panel of Experts: http://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe 

Professor Kwasi Appeaning Addo is a coastal processes specialist with vast experience in the West Africa coastal region. He is the Director of the Institute for Environment and Sanitation Studies (IESS) in the University of Ghana. Recently he has focused his research on developing an integrated approach to sustainable port development, which embraces the three perspectives of engineering, ecosystem services, and governance, as well as sargassum in West Africa. He is a member of the Expert Group of High-Level Panel for Sustainable Ocean Economy, who provide advice to the High-Level Panel of 13 Heads of Governments. Listen to the episode to hear about: Introduction (3:10) What sargassum is to Professor Kwasi (4:10) Sargassum in Ghana (5:42) Health impacts of the sargassum in Ghana (9:46) SARTRAC (10:45) Professor Kwasi's role in SARTRAC (13:46) Why a Sargassum Network is needed (16:50) Setting up a Sargassum Network (22:09) Climate change in Ghana (24:50) Projects to mitigate the effects of climate change in Ghana (29:16) Debrief (34:10) Episode transcript Learn more about Professor Kwasi Appeaning Addo: ֍ University of Ghana, Department of Marine and Fisheries Sciences ֍ Proposal To Set Up the Gulf of Guinea Sargassum Network (GGSN) We love to hear from you, feel free to drop us an email to SargassumPodcast@gmx.net, and connect with us on social media: Facebook, twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. Can't get enough? Become one of our patrons for as little as $1 a month. Patrons get to submit questions to us prior to the interviews that we will then ask our guests. We are grateful for each supporter and look forward to connecting with you. Like our music? This song is called Them Ah Prey by Drizzle Road Ranna. Follow him on YouTube and Spotify

Today's motivation is for those in pursuit of it all! Audio Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUHSE_9YCOs More about Jordan: Raised and toughened in the frigid wastelands of Northern Alberta, Dr. Peterson has flown a hammer-head roll in a carbon-fiber stuntplane, piloted a mahogany racing sailboat around Alcatraz Island, explored an Arizona meteorite crater with a group of astronauts, built a Native American Long-House on the upper floor of his Toronto home, and been inducted into a Pacific Kwakwaka'wakw family (see charlesjoseph.ca). He's been a dishwasher, gas jockey, bartender, short-order cook, beekeeper, oil derrick bit re-tipper, plywood mill laborer and railway line worker. He's taught mythology to physicians, lawyers, and businessmen; worked with Jim Balsillie, former CEO of Blackberry's Research in Motion, on Resilient People, Resilient Planet, the report of the UN Secretary General's High Level Panel on Global Sustainability; helped his clinical clients manage the triumphs and catastrophes of life; served as an advisor to senior partners of major Canadian law firms; penned the forward for the 50th anniversary edition of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago; lectured across North America, Europe and Australia in one of the most-well attended book tours ever mounted; and, for The Founder Institute, identified thousands of promising entrepreneurs, in 60 different countries. Quote of the Day: “You're going to pay a price for every bloody thing you do and everything you don't do. You don't get to choose to not pay a price. You get to choose which poison you're going to take. That's it.” ― Jordan B. Peterson Review Us on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/motiv8-the-motivation-and-inspiration-podcast/id1505213616 Join me on Discord: https://discord.gg/YwuaacY9 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/motiv8/support

This year's UN Food Systems Summit is being seen by many as an opportunity to define the future of food. The summit may also be the launch pad for a new science & policy interface - what's being described as an 'IPCC for Food'. But do we really need an IPCC for Food? Shouldn't we simply better fund and better utilise the mechanisms we already have? ffinlo Costain is joined by food systems experts from IPES Food. Jennifer Clapp, from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, is part of the UN's High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition. Molly Anderson is a specialist in hunger, food systems, and multi-actor collaborations for sustainability from Middlebury College in Vermont, USA. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/farmgate/message

Today on Extraordinary Women Radio, I am so honored to introduce you to Rebeca Grynspan, the Ibero-American Secretary General, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Secretary General and a former Vice President of Costa Rica. In this Episode: The conception of Ibero-American, and how it continues to bind seventeen countries of Latin-American descent, and the discourse of sustainable development goals for 2021. Rebeca recalls her experience of being the only woman in a state-sponsored “meeting of minds” and her first connection to a life of governance. She shares her journey as the person occupying the second-most top position in the government and how it impacted her life as a mother. Discussing the most exciting initiatives that she consistently works on from her day of vice-presidency until now. Rebeca tackles Covid-19 strategies from vaccination rollouts, aid, and recovery processes. Rebeca's nuggets of wisdom especially for women wanting to start a sustainable change in their respective communities. Rebeca inspires everyone to find unity in diversity and she explains how this progression will positively impact women's rights. Rebeca Grynspan was born in San José, Costa Rica. She was unanimously elected as Ibero-American Secretary General at the Extraordinary Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs held in Ciudad de Mexico, on 24th February 2014.  She took office on 1st April 2014 and in 2018 her mandate was renewed for a further four-year term. She has since coordinated the 22 member state Iberoamerican Conference and led four key summits of Heads of State and Government in Mexico (2014), Colombia (2016), Guatemala (2018), and Andorra (2020-2021). In 2010 she was named Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) and Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). From 2006 to 2010, she was UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean. Prior to joining the United Nations, Ms. Grynspan served as Vice-President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998.  She was also Minister of Housing, Minister Coordinator of Economic and Social Affairs, and Deputy Minister of Finance. In addition, she has been a member of the High-Level Panel on Financing for Development, convened by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2001. She is a renowned advocate of human development, who has helped to focus the world's attention, and also that of Latin America, on relevant issues such as the reduction of inequality and poverty, gender equality, South-South cooperation as a tool for development, and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), among others. She was also a delegate to the United Nations Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti, a group consisting of the Haitian government, the former President of the United States Bill Clinton, and other prominent international partners. In June 2014 she was appointed Chair of the Board of Trustees of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), a leading global organization at the forefront of development and environmental policy research. Ms. Grynspan is a member of the steering committee of the UNICEF Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement; member of the Governing Council of the Society for International Development (SID), a global network of individuals and professionals at the forefront of development; member of the International Labour Organisation's Global Commission on the Future of Work; member of the Advisory Board of the Expansión International Economic Forum 2021 and in 2021 became a  member of the G20 High-Level Independent Panel on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. In addition to her experience as a conference lecturer and advisor to a number of international organizations and institutions, she has been actively involved in key United Nations initiatives, such as the Millennium Project's Task Force on Poverty and Economic Development and the High-level ...

Our interview with Kristian Teleki, the global director of the Ocean Programme at WRI, head of the Friends of Ocean Action for the World Economic Forum, and head of the secretariat of the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy. On our radio show aired 6/18/21, we discuss international ocean environmental problems with Kristian and how remediation would benefit all humanity. Planet Philadelphia, is a radio show about our shared environment on 92.9FM WGGT-LP in Philadelphia and streamed at gtownradio.com 4-5:00 PM ET the 1st and 3rd Fridays per month. For more information go to: www.planetphiladelphia.com| @planetphila --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/kay-wood9/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/kay-wood9/support

This is a special World Ocean Day podcast that was orginally for the WRI Ocean program and the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy. It's with Carlos Manuel Rodriguez of the Global Environment Facility, and it's about what he's learned about the ocean from his decades of surfing, especially off the coast of Costa Rica. Go to oceanpanel.org or @oceanpanel on Twitter if you're interested to find out more.

Elizabeth A. Vazquez is the CEO and Co-Founder of WEConnect International, a global network that connects women-owned businesses to qualified buyers around the world. She is a world leader in women's economic empowerment and global supplier diversity and inclusion. As the head of WEConnect International, Ms. Vazquez is responsible for mission delivery and measurable impact. WEConnect International identifies, educates, registers, and certifies women's business enterprises that are at least 51% owned, managed, and controlled by one or more women, and then connects them with member buyers. The WEConnect International WECommunity supports and promotes women-owned businesses based in over 120 countries, including local support and certification in almost 50 countries across the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The organization also helps to develop the capacity of large buyers to source more products and services from underutilized suppliers, including women-owned businesses globally. Ms. Vazquez is the co-author of the book, “Buying for Impact: How to Buy from Women and Change Our World.” She sits on several boards of directors and councils including the Procter & Gamble Supplier Diversity Advisory Council. She “rang the bell” at the New York Stock Exchange in 2019 in support of women business owners around the world and is a W20 Representative to advance G20 commitments. She also served as a member of the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Women's Economic Empowerment from 2016-2017. Ms. Vazquez is an advisor to a long list of corporate, government and multilateral leaders, including WEConnect International members with over US$1 trillion in annual purchasing power. She has served as a trainer and guest lecturer on international trade and gender inclusive growth to graduate students at several business schools and universities such as American University, Arizona State University Honors College, Brown University, Georgetown University, Harvard University, MIT, Oxford University, Tufts University, University of Johannesburg, University of Ottawa, and more. She was born in Mexico, has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Arizona State University, and was honored by the Barrett Honors College as an Inspiring Alumni for making significant contributions in her career and community. She has a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University where she studied development economics and international negotiation as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and is the recipient of the 2018 Fletcher Women's Leadership Award for outstanding graduates who are making a meaningful impact in the world. She also completed graduate seminars at Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School of Government, the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University, and Sookmyung Women's University in South Korea. https://weconnectinternational.org/

 Dr. Natasha Bajema, is a subject matter expert in nuclear nonproliferation, cooperative threat reduction and WMD terrorism, and currently serves as Director of the Converging Risks Lab, at The Council on Strategic Risks, a nonprofit, non-partisan security policy institute devoted to anticipating, analyzing and addressing core systemic risks to security in the 21st century, with special examination of the ways in which these risks intersect and exacerbate one another. The Converging Risks Lab (CRL) is a research and policy development-oriented program designed to study converging, cross-sectoral risks in a rapidly-changing world, which brings together experts from multiple sectors of the security community, to ask forward-thinking questions about these converging risks, and to develop anticipatory solutions. Dr. Bajema is also Founder and CEO of Nuclear Spin Cycle, a publishing and production company specializing in national security, entertainment, and publishing. Prior to this, Dr. Bajema was at the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction at the National Defense University, serving as Director of the Program for Emerging Leaders (PEL), as well as serving long-term detail assignments serving in various capacities in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics, Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs and in Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. Prior to joining the Center, Dr. Bajema was a Research Associate at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, where she supported research staff of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change established by the UN Secretary-General. She has also served as a Junior Political Officer in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Branch of the Department for Disarmament Affairs at the United Nations. Dr. Bajema's publications include two co-edited volumes entitled Terrorism and Counterterrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism, both of which were published by McGraw Hill. She has also published the novels Bionic Bug, Rescind Order, Genomic Data, and Project Gecko. Dr. Bajema holds an M.A. in international policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a PhD in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. 

Peter’s editorial focuses on World Endangered Species Day. To commemorate the occasion, the Shannon Elizabeth Foundation will be raising funds for Munu, the blind black rhino.The results of The New Big 5 are in! Has your favourite animal made the list?Big cats make the news - a tiger escapes in Texas and lions in a Hyderabad Zoo in India test positive for COVID-19.A mixed bag of rhino news - poaching is up in Botswana, more arrests and convictions in South Africa, Dr William Fowlds leads a team of international experts to insert isotopes in rhino horn and Kevin Pietersen collaborates with Hublot to help Care For Wild.Simon rants about the misinformation in media about the fall-out of Minister Barbara Creecy’s High Level Panel.An up and down week for the Galapagos Islands - Darwin’s Arch collapses but the newly rebranded Re:Wild along with Leonardo di Caprio invest US$43million in preserving this crucial wilderness.

BioSharan Burrow has been the General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation since 2010. In her role she represents 200 million workers in 163 countries and territories with 331 national affiliates and is the first woman to have this position. Sharan Burrow has been the person behind some of the biggest union negotiations regarding labour rights and economic reforms both in Australia and internationally.Before becoming the General Secretary of the ITUC, Sharan held other leadership positions in the organisation. She also led the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) from 2000 to 2010. Her role as President saw the introduction of Paid Paternal Leave in Australia, a huge win for women’s rights. As an advocate for the environment, labour rights, and women’s rights, Sharan’s career has taken her to important positions including a Board Member of the UN Global Compact, Panel Member of UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment, Vice Chair of the B Team, Commissioner for the New Climate Economy, Ambassador for the Food and Land Use Coalition, the Wellbeing Alliance, the World Benchmarking Alliance, Chair of the Just Transition Centre and Member of the WEF Global Future Council on the Future of Production. Moreover, she was also the co-chair of the inaugural WEF Global Technology Governance Summit in 2021. Sharan Burrow was born in New South Wales to a family very active in the labour movement. She graduated from the University of New South Wales in teaching.Further reading: Official Bio https://www.ituc-csi.org/sharan-burrow-6329?lang=en How to fix a broken labour market (March 2021) https://www.top1000funds.com/2021/03/how-to-fix-a-broken-labour-market/ As the World Economic Forum convenes this week will people and their environment be centre stage? (January 2021) https://sharanburrow.medium.com/as-the-world-economic-forum-convenes-this-week-will-people-and-their-environment-be-centre-stage-80ee39612d96 Summary of the debate between Max Roser and Jason Hickel (December 2019) https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/2/12/18215534/bill-gates-global-poverty-chart The ILO Centenary Declaration https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_norm/@relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_711674.pdf

A very good morning to you and you're listening to the Migration & Diaspora Podcast, one of the fastest-growing podcasts on migration and diaspora issues in the world... probably. I'm delighted to welcome to the show, Almaz Negash, the Founder and Executive Director of the African Diaspora Network (ADN), an exciting network, based in Silicon Valley, that I've just joined as a member of the ADN Executive Leadership Council. Almaz has been named one of the 100 outstanding Silicon Valley Women of Influence for her work in social innovation. In 2010, she founded the ADN, whose mission is to inform and engage Africans in the diaspora and facilitate direct collaboration with social entrepreneurs, innovators and business leaders to invest and improve the lives of everyone on the continent and the communities where they live. Under her leadership and vision, ADN is now the home of the annual African Diaspora Investment Symposium (ADIS), Builders of Africa's Future, Impact & Investment Forums, and Builders of America's Future. The latter is a new programme developed to provide access to capital for black-led startups. Almaz has also contributed to the UN Economic Commission for Africa's High-Level Panel on Migration and has served as an Executive in Residence for the School of Global Innovation & Leadership within the Lucas College and Graduate School of Business at San Jose State University. And this is in addition to her long career in the US spanning the trade, innovation and educational arenas, following her move from Eritrea via the Netherlands. I'm excited to share with you both Almaz's own fascinating migration and diaspora story, as well as some of ADN's brilliant work and Almaz's many insights gained from founding and growing the network. I was particularly keen to talk to her about the merits of such pan-African diaspora networks, their work with African-Americans, and how ADN has managed to broker some very interesting partnerships with the types of organisations that we haven't talked about on this podcasts, such as Facebook and MasterCard. As ever, I'd like to thank you for tuning in and I hope you enjoy the show. Useful links Connect with Almaz - https://www.linkedin.com/in/almaznegash/ https://twitter.com/almaznegash?lang=en African Diaspora Network - https://www.africandiasporanetwork.org/ https://twitter.com/AfricanDNetwork African Diaspora Investment Symposium (ADIS) - https://www.africandiasporanetwork.org/what-is-adis/ Accelerating Black Leadership and Entrepreneurship (ABLE) - https://africandiasporanetwork.org/able/

Minister Barbara Creecy from South Africa’s Department of  Forest, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) surprised many conservationists with a bold move to ban the captive breeding of lion and rhino. Creecy delivered the long awaited report  during a press conference this past Sunday.Having convened a High Level Panel in 2019, the ministry has examined all available data and accepted the panel’s recommendation to dissolve the captive lion breeding - a deplorable industry fuelling the lion bone and canned hunting industries. The Minister also accepted the recommendation to no longer pursue the international trade in rhino and to uphold the CITES ban.Conservationist and the co-founder of Blood Lions, Ian Michler, has been one of the instrumental figures in achieving this victory for conservation. Having dedicated over 20 years to this campaign, we spoke to him about what this news means and what work still needs to be done.Ian joins Peter Borchert, Shannon Elizabeth and Simon Borchert in an exclusive interview.For Minister Creecy’s full speech, please click here.To read the full report by the High Level Panel, please click here.

All captive lions or lions bred for commercial use must be ethically and humanely euthanised. This is one of the recommendations of the High Level Panel appointed by Forestry, Fisheries and Environment minister Barbara Creecy. The panel investigated the management, breeding, hunting, trade and handling of five of South Africa's iconic animals - namely elephant, lion, leopard and white and black rhino. The panel also recommended that the status quo of South Africa not trading internationally with rhino horn, remains.

Thomas Stelzer is the dean of the international anti-corruption academy (IACA) and panelist of the UN high-level panel on international financial accountability, transparency & integrity (FACTI). Thomas outlines how his extensive experience going back to being closely involved in the process of drafting and implementing UNCAC led him to his current position and his work for FACTI. The two discuss the overall purpose and goals of the recently released Report of the High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency & Integrity for Achieving the 2030 Agenda (links to full report and summary can be found below). They also touch on a few concrete points in more detail, such as the standardization of foreign bribery legislation mentioned, what type of beneficial ownership registries are most effective, and the challenge of achieving fairness in international asset recovery. Thomas reiterates the demand voiced in the report for more academic research to substantiate policy-making. Finally, he outlines the next steps to make sure that the report is implemented. References: FACTI report and summary can be found here: https://www.factipanel.org/ The (Anti-)Corruption Corpus for Corruption Researchers & Practitioners https://library.globalintegrity.org/

Elizabeth Vazquez is a world leader in women’s economic empowerment. Through her role as CEO and Co-Founder of WEConnect International she is on a global mission to increase supplier diversity and inclusion. To say that Elizabeth is well connected and influential is an understatement. She advises the likes of Walmart, Proctor and Gamble and the UN – including being part of the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment from 2016-2017. The title of the book that Elizabeth co-authored arguably sums up her mission: “Buying for Impact: How to Buy from Women and Change Our World.” During our conversation Elizabeth shares with us why she thinks we should join her on the mission to include women owned businesses in the supply chains of large businesses and Governments - only 1% of corporate supplier spend is on women owned business. Elizabeth’s insight on why the pandemic lockdown might be helping smaller women owned businesses. If you are thinking about how a business can make a bigger positive social impact this podcast provides one very simple step that could make a real difference. Elizabeth encourages you all to rise to the challenge and commit to supporting women owned businesses. Links below. Links: WEConnect International: https://weconnectinternational.org/ COVID survey results: https://weconnectinternational.org/covid/ Rise to the Challenge: https://weconnectinternational.org/rise2thechallenge/ Scaling Women Owned Business: https://weconnectinternational.org/about-women-owned-businesses/council-on-scaling-women-owned-businesses/

Stefan and Michael interview Henrik Österblom. Henrik is the Science Director of the Stockholm Resilience Center and a Professor at the University of Stockholm in Sweden. He has a PhD in Marine Ecology from the Department of Systems Ecology at Stockholm University, and a Master's Degree in Behavioural Ecology from the Department of Zoology at Uppsala University. He is interested in marine ecosystems and ways to improve ocean stewardship. Starting as a seabird ecologist, with a particular interest in social interactions between alcids, he has worked on understanding how the Baltic Sea is managed, how international collaboration emerged to address non-compliance in Southern Ocean fisheries, and how transnational corporations shape the present and future ocean. Ongoing work is focusing on the role of science in society and the cultural evolution of global prosocial behavior. He has worked at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, and as Special Advisor to the Swedish Government in the Secretariat for the Environmental Advisory Council. Österblom has facilitated the Keystone Dialogues, a global co-production project including major private actors in global seafood, which has resulted in the establishment of the Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship (SeaBOS) initiative, aimed to transform global seafood towards more sustainable practices. This project is funded by the Walton Family Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. He is also principal investigator of project New solutions to marine problems, aimed at accelerating marine ecosystem knowledge through the use of autonomous drones and artificial intelligence and funded by the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation. Österblom is a member of the Expert Group for the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy and member of the IMBER Human Dimensions Working Group. He serves on the international advisory board of the South American Institute for Resilience and Sustainability Studies (SARAS²), as board member of Race for the Baltic, and as chairman of the SeaBOS Fundraising foundation. He is subject editor for Ecology and Society, and PLOS One. Henrik's SRC page https://www.stockholmresilience.org/meet-our-team/staff/2008-01-09-osterblom.html Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship project https://seabos.org/   Unsustainable science (extended pdf also includes a Spanish version of the paper): https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(19)30017-X?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS259033221930017X%3Fshowall%3Dtrue SARAS work on connecting science and art: https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/issues/view.php?sf=112 The keystone actor analysis:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127533 Developing SeaBOS and its initial results: https://www.pnas.org/content/114/34/9038 The “Ocean 100” analysis:  https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/3/eabc8041   Give us a rating on your podcast app!   Twitter https://twitter.com/InCommonPod   Instagram https://www.instagram.com/incommonpod/   www.incommonpodcast.org   https://www.patreon.com/incommonpodcast  

Acting State Securtiy Agency Director General Loyiso Jafta says the SSA has suffered from selective adherence to the law, employees being given illegal instructions as well as corruption and theft. Jafta, who was testifying at the State Capture Commission, was appointed in 2018. He confirmed the payment of money to members of the judiciary and the use the SSA for political as well as factional struggles within the ANC. This was earlier outlined by Former Chairperson of the High Level Panel of Review into the SSA Sydney Mufamadi who testified on Monday

With guest Cathy Mulligan on how cryptocurrency enters the debate about digital cooperation at a UN panel? Sustainability in 2030 when 30% of the world's energy will be taken up by cloud computing, thought experiments like “do you actually need a central bank?”, what does universal connectivity mean?If you're being forced to use particular technologies because you're a developing country, are you being colonised by digital means? “If you want people to think about ethics, you have to talk to them before they start coding”Dr Catherine Mulligan is a Visiting Researcher in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship group with a joint appointment to the Department of Computing where she is Co-Director of the Imperial College Centre for Cryptocurrency Research.  Cathy delivers research in technical, economic and policy applications of digital technologies and digital transformation.  In addition to her theoretical research, she also has extensive experience of translating her research into real-world solutions for multi-national corporations and start-ups alike.Cathay is VP and Region CTO of North and West Europe at Fujitsu. She is a Fellow and an Expert of the World Economic Forum Blockchain Council through the GULF and a member of the United Nations Secretary General's High-Level Panel on Digital Co-Operation.  Until December 2017, Cathy served as standardisation lead for the Open and Agile Smart Cities (OASC) Task Force and Vice Chairman of the ETSI ISG on Context Information Management.  She was also a Visiting Fellow at the Glasgow School of Art Institute for Design Innovation (INDI)“My aim in life is to deliver on the promise of digital technologies in a fair and equitable manner for everyone in society. I do this by providing a unique combination of research skills and real-world industrial experience in both technology and digital economics. I started programming when I was 10 years old and never looked back - I've had the privilege of helping various technologies take off - including mobile networks, IoT and blockchain.”GARI is a research institute that uses advanced technology, such as AI with Big Data, to visualise, understand and create the ability to manage globalisation.

Dr Ifesinachi Okafor-Yarwood, is a lecturer in sustainable development at the University of St. Andrews and gained her PhD from the African Leadership Centre at King's College London in 2019. Her research focuses on maritime threats, governance and security in the Gulf of Guinea. Ifesinachi has consulted for different international and regional organisations on issues relating to ocean governance, peace, and security in the African continent. She is the lead author of the Stable Seas: Gulf of Guinea report, and a contributing author to the Blue Paper 16, titled: Organized Crime in the Fisheries Sector, commissioned by the High-Level Panel on Sustainable Blue Economy, a global initiative led by 14 Heads of Governments. In this episode of the podcast, we learn how Ifesinachi discovered this research area and why she wanted to become an academic. She shares what helped her to get to where she is now, and how her presence on LinkedIn and Twitter has been crucial to her public engagement work and to diversify the narratives and expertise in her field of research. Ifesinachi is a co-host of AfriCan Geopardy '....a fun, witty, and authentic way of talking about the ocean, and African geopolitics, with an added twist of bursting stereotypes about Africa.' Do check it out! If you're a member of research staff or a PGR student at King's College London, you can book a 1-1 careers appointment (for application reviews and focused conversations about your career thinking) via King's CareerConnect. Search for 'PhD and Research Staff' under appointment type.

Erna Solberg on fisheries, fossil fuels and the future of the oceans.This week, world leaders are announcing a series of pledges to protect and sustainably use the world’s oceans. The pledges form the crowning achievement of the ‘High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy’ a multinational group formed back in 2018. The panel has sought to bring together research, published in a number of so-called ‘blue papers’ and special reports by scientists, policy- and legal-experts from around the world – all with the ear of 14 participating world leaders.Erna Solberg, the prime minister of Norway, co-led the Panel. In this podcast, she speaks with Springer Nature’s editor-in-chief Philip Campbell about the panel’s work.The ocean in humanity’s future: read all of Nature's content on the Ocean PanelWorld View: Science can boost ocean health and human prosperitySubscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the margins of the public health and economic crises with which the world has contended through 2020, COVID-19 ultimately looms as a long-term, far-reaching global protection emergency. Where some of the world’s best-resourced countries have tracked a staggering increase in demand for protection services, people in nations with pre-existing humanitarian crises are grappling with unprecedented compound protection threats and even fewer resources to help mitigate them.Protection Clusters are reporting heightened risks of forced displacement, a rise in xenophobia and stigmatization, a dramatic increase in gender-based violence, and discrimination in access to health, food, water, education, and legal services for vulnerable and marginalized groups. The largest economic shock the world has experienced in decades is not and will not be felt equally; countries, communities, and individuals at greatest risk must have enhanced access to protection services.Together with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Global Protection Cluster, and with support from PHAP, the Norwegian Refugee Council brought together a High-Level Panel that reflected on the state of protection in the COVID-19 era. The event drew on findings from a new NRC-Global Protection Cluster report on the current state of play in protection financing, and brought to a close the Global Protection Forum.This event presented a critical discussion on the place of protection within humanitarian response and the commitments needed across the humanitarian community to address major needs and challenges in 2021 and beyond.Read more about the event at https://phap.org/30nov2020

This week, Rick is joined by the political jack of all trades, John Podesta. Among serving as special counsel on climate policy to President Obama; he was the Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton; was a member of the U.N. Secretary General’s High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda; and chaired Hillary Clinton's 2016 Presidential Campaign. Listen in as Rick and John discuss the origin of polarization in the U.S., the work of the Center for American Progress, and John's thoughts on the role of the White House Chief of Staff.

The search for durable solutions is at the heart of policy debates on internal displacement, but gender is still frequently sidelined from those conversations. Displacement affects all aspects of life – security, access to services, housing, social and political engagement – with implications felt in distinctive ways by people of different genders. With the establishment of the High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement and increased focus on humanitarian development efforts, there is renewed focus on durable solutions. However, this will not be possible without understanding and addressing gendered inequalities. Our expert panel explores these issues, challenges assumptions about what internal displacement means for men, women and gender minorities, and addresses how humanitarian actors should respond.

Political Affairs Officer and Gender Focal Point at the Department of Political & Peacebuilding Affairs at UN Secretariat HQ Laura Bologna speaks on #HerStories of her over 20 years of experience in diplomacy, international relations in the field of peace and security, intergovernmental processes, mediation, elections and gender and her wide network of contacts especially in Africa. She spoke of her time in Sudan in the Office of the Secretary-General's High-Level Panel for the Sudan Referenda, and in Nicosia in the Office of the Secretary-General's Special Adviser on Cyprus where she assisted during the negotiations in 2016.

Namibia has a small population with a high GDP per capita. This makes it a lucrative investment destination. Martin Kaali Shipanga takes us through some important lessons with regards to doing business in Namibia and his Intra African trade experience in Namibia.

This week on World Ocean Radio: part four of a multi-part series entitled "BLUEprint: How the Ocean Will Save Civilization". In this episode--Ecology, Ocean and Equity--we share findings from the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy and assert that the sum of an equation of ecology to ocean to equity is the total of inclusion, connection, and justice. "BLUEprint: How the Ocean Will Save Civilization" is a multi-part series outlining a new and sustainable way forward for civilization, with the ocean leading the way. This series will run through the end of 2020.

This week on World Ocean Radio: part three of a multi-part series entitled "BLUEprint: How the Ocean Will Save Civilization". In this episode, WHAT IS OCEAN EQUITY?, we dive into the High Level Panel for Sustainable Ocean Economy and their series of Blue Papers and subsequent report entitled "Towards Ocean Equity" released in August 2020. The Report highlights nine key points on which any future discussions of ocean equity should be based.

How - and why - do you build a sustainable ocean economy? WRI's Andrew Steer asks 4 experts affiliated with the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (@OceanPanel on Twitter) what the transition to this would look like, and why it is so important for livelihoods, ocean life and the planet's climate. The speakers are Peter Thomson, Jane Lubchenco, Mary Ruckelshaus and Vidar Helgesen. 14 national leaders are part of the Ocean Panel. Together their countries account for 30% of the world's coastlines, 20% of the world's shipping fleet and 20% of the world's fisheries, and they are building momentum toward a sustainable ocean economy, where effective protection, sustainable production and equitable prosperity go hand-in-hand. The Blue Paper featured is 'The ocean transition: what to learn from ocean transitions' - please go to oceanpanel.org for more.

While solutions and efforts to reduce carbon emissions continue to build and expand, they are primarily land based. Guest Mansi Konar of the World Resource Institute shares how the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy analyzed ocean based solutions to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing the "emissions gap" while at the same time providing co-benefits for sustainable development goals.

Jane Lubchenco is one of the world's foremost ocean ecologists. Formerly the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, she is now a co-chair of the expert group for the High Level Panel for the Sustainable Ocean Economy. She's interviewed on this podcast by Lawrence MacDonald, vice president of communications at WRI.

Welcome to the second episode of 2020! In this recording for our Book Talk series, the Director at the Library, Francesco Pisano, speaks with Ambassador Amandeep Gill about his book published in 2019, called Nuclear Security Summits: A History. This book looks at how nuclear security has developed over the period from 1945 to 2006, as well as how it has evolved in practice in more recent years through the Nuclear Security Summits between 2010 and 2016.   Ambassador Gill has a range of experience in this field and in others, having taken part in 3 of the summits. For this conversation he shares what his book is about and why he thinks the Nuclear Security Summits changed the domain of nuclear security, through driving what he calls nuclear learnings and knowledge-making. He touches upon ideas around collective intelligence, and the role of leadership but also knowledge communities springing up around the topic, and how such negotiations can also be translated to other multilateral domains such as climate change or artificial intelligence negotiations.  Ambassador Amandeep Gill is currently Director of the Global Health Centre project on International Digital Health & AI Research Collaborative (I-DAIR). He was Executive Director and co-Lead of the Secretariat of the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation until August 2019. He previously served as India's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. You can find out more about his experience here: https://graduateinstitute.ch/academic-departments/faculty/amandeep-singh-gill  You can find Amandeep Gill on Twitter @gioasempre: https://twitter.com/gioasempre, and his book at Palgrave Macmillan: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030280376.   The UN Library Geneva also has 8 research guides on disarmament topics, including one on Nuclear Weapons. You can find out more about them here: https://libraryresources.unog.ch/?b=s.     Content: Speakers: Amandeep Gill & Francesco Pisano. Host: Natalie Alexander. Editor & Sound Editors: Natalie Alexander. Image: Graduate Institute Geneva. Recorded & produced at the UN Library Geneva.

Friday night Q&A with Dr. Peterson where he answers a wide variety of questions collected from the audience. Dr. Peterson is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto. He’s taught mythology to lawyers, doctors and businessmen, consulted for the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Sustainable Development, helped his clinical clients manage depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and schizophrenia, served as an advisor to senior partners of major Canadian law firms, identified thousands of promising entrepreneurs on six different continents, and lectured extensively in North America and Europe. With his students and colleagues, Dr. Peterson has published more than a hundred scientific papers, transforming the modern understanding of personality, and revolutionized the psychology of religion with his now-classic book, Maps of Meaning, the Architecture of Belief. He is regarded by his current University of Toronto students as one of three truly life-changing teachers. Links: Website: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/jordanpetersonvideos Podcast: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/podcast Conference: https://www.TruthinSeattle.com Foundation: http://nwcatholicconference.com/

Dr. Peterson debunks false and malevolent characterizations of masculinity in modern culture and sets forth a vision of how to rediscover true masculinity; an authenticate masculinity where strength is allied with a strong moral vision, courageous, virtuous and honorable. Dr. Peterson is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto. He’s taught mythology to lawyers, doctors and businessmen, consulted for the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Sustainable Development, helped his clinical clients manage depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and schizophrenia, served as an advisor to senior partners of major Canadian law firms, identified thousands of promising entrepreneurs on six different continents, and lectured extensively in North America and Europe. With his students and colleagues, Dr. Peterson has published more than a hundred scientific papers, transforming the modern understanding of personality, and revolutionized the psychology of religion with his now-classic book, Maps of Meaning, the Architecture of Belief. He is regarded by his current University of Toronto students as one of three truly life-changing teachers. Links: Website: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/jordanpetersonvideos Podcast: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/podcast Conference: https://www.TruthinSeattle.com Foundation: http://nwcatholicconference.com/

Part 1 of 2 where Dr. Jordan B. Peterson expounds upon the structure of meaning and existence as expressed in Mythology and the broader Christian Tradition. Originally intended as two talks, the first on the Truth in Mythology and the second on the Truth in Genesis, Dr. Peterson felt the topics were so enmeshed the topics would be best be covered in a single talk. Dr. Peterson is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto. He’s taught mythology to lawyers, doctors and businessmen, consulted for the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Sustainable Development, helped his clinical clients manage depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and schizophrenia, served as an advisor to senior partners of major Canadian law firms, identified thousands of promising entrepreneurs on six different continents, and lectured extensively in North America and Europe. With his students and colleagues, Dr. Peterson has published more than a hundred scientific papers, transforming the modern understanding of personality, and revolutionized the psychology of religion with his now-classic book, Maps of Meaning, the Architecture of Belief. He is regarded by his current University of Toronto students as one of three truly life-changing teachers. Links: Website: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/jordanpetersonvideos Podcast: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/podcast Conference: https://www.TruthinSeattle.com Foundation: http://nwcatholicconference.com/

Part 2 of 2 where Dr. Jordan B. Peterson expounds upon the structure of meaning and existence as expressed in Mythology and the broader Christian Tradition. Originally intended as two talks, the first on the Truth in Mythology and the second on the Truth in Genesis, Dr. Peterson felt the topics were so enmeshed the topics would be best be covered in a single talk. Dr. Peterson is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto. He’s taught mythology to lawyers, doctors and businessmen, consulted for the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Sustainable Development, helped his clinical clients manage depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and schizophrenia, served as an advisor to senior partners of major Canadian law firms, identified thousands of promising entrepreneurs on six different continents, and lectured extensively in North America and Europe. With his students and colleagues, Dr. Peterson has published more than a hundred scientific papers, transforming the modern understanding of personality, and revolutionized the psychology of religion with his now-classic book, Maps of Meaning, the Architecture of Belief. He is regarded by his current University of Toronto students as one of three truly life-changing teachers. Links: Website: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/jordanpetersonvideos Podcast: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/podcast Conference: https://www.TruthinSeattle.com Foundation: http://nwcatholicconference.com/

Prof. Rob Vertessy, Enterprise Professor at University of Melbourne and Principal, Global Change Advisory speaks about: - His perpective on leadership not just from a personal level but from an institutional level in terms of affecting change and implementing global policy. - His past and opportunity working in so many different roles leading to CEO of Bureau of Meteorology. - The model that Australia has experienced can possibly be transferred to other countries - Supporting data initiatives in India with the Australian Water Partnership - His work with the High-Level Panel on Water to support the international data initiatives - The future of young water professionals Visit www.kini.org.au for more interviews with leading water practitioners.

In this 3rd follow-up interview Tony shares the latest updates to the High Level Panel on Water that has taken place Visit www.kini.org.au for more interviews and updates.

The Association for Rural Advancement says it supports recommendations made by a parliamentary High-Level Panel that wants 3 million hectares of land owned by the Ingonyama Trust Board to be transferred to the state. The panel chaired by former president Kgalema Motlanthe found that the Ingonyama Act of 1994 must be repealed or amended because the majority of people on that land do not benefit from revenue generated by leases. Cassandra Zungu compiled this report.

In this follow-up interview, Tony shares updates to the High Level Panel on Water that has taken place snice his last Kini interview. The key updates involve: - The publication of a video to promote global awareness about SDG6; - The HLPW statement on Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene and its significance; - The Water Innovation Engine, and funds made available to support innovation in the urban water sanitation sector; - Progress with the World Water Data Initiative; and - Work with the Netherlands Government to support the process of Valuing Water. If you have been tracking the initiatives and progress of the High Level Panel on Water, it would be worth your time to have a listen. As with the first interview, Tony highlights the opportunities for individual action and involvement with these priorities. Visit Kini (www.Kini.org.au) to listen to other great interviews with leading water practitioners.

http://www.kini.org.au Welcome to the eighth interview in the Kini Interview series. Today we talk to Tony Slatyer, the Special Advisor for the High Level Panel on Water for the Australian Government. Tony’s previous roles include having been head of the Water Division and its predecessor Divisions of the Commonwealth Government for over nine years. Prior to this he was directly involved at the Division Head level in the making of the National Water Initiative, the Living Murray and other national water reforms of that time. In this interview, we discuss: - What is the High Level Panel on Water, and what its mandate is - Why SDG 6, the SDG focused on water, is important for achieving the other SDGs - Australia’s initiative as a part of the High Level Panel on Water: the World Water Data Initiative Please enjoy this far insightful, and inspiring discussion with Tony Slatyer. Acces additional resources and interview with other leading water practitioners at http://www.kini.org.au

Intercultural dialogue and global citizenship - LAW AND INTERCULTURAL COEXISTENCE: the social role of lawyers in the development of legal education (Bologna, June 20th, 2017 - Aula Magna Santa Lucia, via Castiglione 36)Commenti, Interviste, Video e molto altro ancora, tramite la Radio dell'Avvocatura, con: Pino Gallo - Andrea Pontecorvo - Elia Barbujani***PROGRAMMA***:1) 9.30-9.40WELCOME ADDRESS: Andrea MASCHERIN, President, Consiglio Nazionale Forense2) 9.45-11.00HIGH LEVEL PANEL: EDUCATION AND GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP- Valeria FEDELI, Minister of Education, University and Research will preside over the High Level Panel composed by Andrea MASCHERIN, President, Consiglio Nazionale Forense:- Patrizio BIANCHI, Emilia-Romagna Region Council Member- Alberto MELLONI, Secretary, Fondazione per le scienze religiose Giovanni XXIII- Mark Aaron GOLDFEDER, Director of the Emory Law and Religion Student Program, Emory University- Dina PORAT, Director of Yad Vashem- Chryssanthi VAGENA, Expert Minister Counsellor, Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs2) 11.00-11.30KEYNOTE SPEECH, Valeria FEDELI, Minister of Education, University and Research3) 11.30-13.001st Session - LAW IN INTERCULTURAL AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUEChair: Mario RICCA, Professor of Intercultural Law, University of Parma - Guido ALPA, Professor of Civil Law, Sapienza Università di Roma and past President of Consiglio Nazionale Forense - Michal ROZBICKI, Director, Center for Intercultural Studies, St. Louis University - Peter PETKOFF, Director of Law, Religion and International Relations Programme, Centre for Christianity and Culture, Regent’s Park College, Oxford - Antonino COLAJANNI, Professor of Social Anthropology, Sapienza Università di Roma

Fiza Farhan, is a young women entrepreneur, featured in the US Magazine Forbes 30 Under 30 List of Social Entrepreneurs for 2015 and again in Forbes Asia List of 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneurs in 2016. Furthermore, she represents Pakistan on the United Nation's Secretary General's first ever High Level Panel on Women Economic Empowerment along with global leadership in addition to advising the Government of Punjab, as Chairperson to Chief Minister Punjab’s Task Force on Women Empowerment. Fiza shares what it takes for her to be the successful entrepreneur that she is today. She also shares how constantly breaking the glass ceiling has helped her become more confident and see that there's always an opportunity to do something great. Check out her episode as she shares her story. Check out thetaoofselfconfidence.com for show notes of Fiza's episode, Fiza's website, resources, gifts and so much more.

Dr. Suerie Moon is director of research at the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and a member of the U.N. panel’s expert advisory group. Stephen Morrissey, the interviewer, is the Managing Editor of the Journal. S. Moon. Powerful Ideas for Global Access to Medicines. N Engl J Med 2017;376:505-7.

Development writer and international negotiations watcher Biraj Swain speaks to Claire Melamed of Overseas Development Institute and UN Secy General's High Level Panel on Data Revolution, Ex-Health Secretary cum Census Commissioner- Dr AR Nanda, Govindraj Ethiraj, Founder Editor of IndiaSpend and Factchecker, Prof Ramanan Laxminarayan of Public Health Foundation of India and Princeton University and Rakesh Reddy Dubuddu, Founder FACTLY and pro-disclosure champion on the buzz around data revolution for sustainable development. They discuss the many facets of data, the need for citizens’ engagement in data generation, consumption and accessible indicators. They discuss the capacity, financing challenges and lack of autonomy of statistical commissions. They also discuss the trend of censorship of inconvenient public survey findings by Indian government and others and the constant shrinking of pro-disclosure, RTI spaces. They take a close look at the need for data journalism and why much more needs to be done. They conclude with mapping options and calls to action on what could and should be done to democratise data and enable citizens to claim it as a public good.Produced by Kartik Nijhawan See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, we begin by talking to Hilde F. Johnson, who came into the department on Monday 12th, October to hold two talks on UN Peace Operations. In 2014, Hilde completed her three year tenure as Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) and Head of the UN Mission in South Sudan. Hilde F. Johnson also served most recently as Member of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel for the Review of UN Peace Operations. Later on, we speak to Dr Samir Puri, who has joined the War Studies Department as a lecturer in International Relations. He has come back to the Department after having done a Masters in War Studies in 2004. He recently returned from a year as part of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Eastern Ukraine. Jayne Peake provides details of next week's events. Presented by Bradley Murray and Xenia Zubova. DISCLAIMER: Any information, statements or opinions contained in this podcast are those of the individual speakers. They do not represent the opinions of the Department of War Studies or King's College London.

The High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa has warned African governments to urgently establish transfer pricing units within their revenue authorities to help combat the practice. The Panel, appointed in 2012, has made various findings and recommendations to retain capital in the continent. More than 50 billion US dollars is lost annually through commerical, criminal and corrupt practices. Head of the Panel, Former President Thabo Mbeki says countries with mineral resources are the most vulnerable..