The World of International Organizations Explained
European and Asian leaders attending the world’s foremost security conference in Munich criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s enmity for international organizations and multilateral solutions, saying his isolationist approaches put the world at greater risk of conflicts and war.
U.N. counterterrorism experts reported that Islamic State militants remain a “covert” global threat, despite their recent losses and shifts in tactics. The U.N. Office of Counterterrorism warned the extremist group still has between 14,000 and 18,000 militants in Iraq and Syria.
When an underwater cable became severed in the South Pacific last month, Tonga lost all internet access for nearly two weeks, in an incident that illustrates some of the risks that a U.N. expert group is examining.
The idea of affordable, quality health services for everyone is backed by major international organizations — including the global pharmaceutical industry. Universal health coverage, or UHC, could improve health care systems especially in low to middle income nations.
Never mind their private jets, luxury hotels and lavish parties. The world’s richest and most powerful leaders say the natural world is paramount. Some notable absences at Davos left oxygen in the room for others to put the environment and climate change on center stage.
The pace of economic growth globally is expected to slow to 3.5 percent due to rising trade tensions and U.S. interest rates, the International Monetary Fund said. IMF’s forecast is down from the 3.7 percent growth rate from last year that had been expected to continue in 2019.
A top strategist at the International Monetary Fund suggests more documentation and transparency could avert potential financial disaster from the “growing problem across the globe” of indebtedness.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres spelled out his priorities for 2019, calling for greater emphasis on overcoming “deeply corrosive” effects of armed conflict, climate change, hunger and rising inequality. He urged more diplomacy, climate ambition, focus on technology, anti-poverty work and dedication to U.N. values.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas took over as chairman of the Group of 77, an international organization representing a major bloc within the United Nations. In a ceremonial handover in New York, Abbas took on the new role at the G-77, which was created in 1964 and includes 134 mainly developing nations and China.
Threats from rising temperatures, inequality and attacks on international governance will form the backdrop to the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in Davos. Efforts to deal with climate change and to increase global integration and inclusiveness are the main topics.
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim’s surprise departure at the start of February sets up an unexpected test for a pinnacle of the international development community. The ball is in U.S. President Donald Trump’s court to name a replacement due to Kim leaving his post three years early.
After a year of sustained political turmoil, international organizations enter the new year buffeted by populism, trade wars and tensions among great powers. Their efforts to connect nations for common goals must navigate a power structure frozen in time since the end of World War II that may now be shifting.
Global talks among nearly 200 nations kicked off in the coal mining city of Katowice, Poland to decide how to carry out the 2015 Paris Agreement’s goal of preventing the planet from dangerously overheating. The United Nations’ annual climate talks last through December 14 and involve more than 26,000 participants.
Amid growing calls on the U.N. secretary-general to order an independent investigation into Jamal Khashoggi’s killing, a review by Arête News found just eight previous instances of a secretary-general issuing such an order since 1963. The last was in 2010, in the wake of Sri Lanka’s civil war.
An independent review of whistleblowing at the United Nations finds nearly half its global staff witnessed misconduct or wrongdoing at work in the past five years, but most of those who did were afraid to report it. Many fear retaliation, job loss and no confidentiality.
While Russian interference in U.S. elections is capturing the headlines, the two major powers both have a history of meddling in foreign elections — in contrast to the “legitimate” election aid that is a key plank of Western-led international development. Some international organizations and nations promote election assistance in the service of spreading democracy around the world.
The beleaguered 2015 nuclear deal made possible Iran’s economic opening to the West based on an agreement with six world powers, but its survival may now depend more than ever on cohesion among major powers and the involvement of international organizations. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is in serious doubt with the reimposition of U.S. sanctions on Iran.
Trade wars and tensions sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump administration’s tariffs against China, the European Union and others threaten to undermine the work of international organizations trying to lift the world’s poorest out of poverty.
Globalization has more staying power than the din of populism which is being met with rising resistance, the World Economic Forum found in a global survey. WEF released a poll of 10,000 people around the world that found 76 percent favor cooperation among nations.
Yemen, Afghanistan and tensions between the United States and China topped International Crisis Group’s watchlist of conflicts for 2019. The U.N. secretary-general, meantime, warned “these are anxious times for many, and our world is undergoing a stress test.”
One in four people worldwide say they had to pay a bribe to access public services in the past year, Transparency International said on International Anti-Corruption Day. The United Nations has marked the day on December 9 each year since the 2003 passage of the U.N. Convention Against Corruption, a universally legally binding treaty.
America’s foreign policy, including its bedrock financial support for international organizations, is becoming a new battleground in the newly divided US Congress. After eight years in the minority, Democrats vow to redirect, block or investigate US President Donald Trump’s domestic and foreign programs and priorities.
The stigma of tobacco may have a new public relations rival: air pollution. The World Health Organization is calling attention to 7 million deaths a year that it says result simply from breathing. As much as 91 percent of the world’s population breathes unhealthy air, the WHO said, explaining why it is holding its first global conference on air pollution and health this week.
For two decades, the International Space Station has been a hub for living and experimenting in space — and an example of how science can help nations to rise above political rivalries. As a platform for experimentation, it could itself become another form of experiment: an orbiting international organization that is privatized.
The United Nations’ atomic watchdog agency issued two reports in a week this month that, taken together, capture nuclear power’s incongruity: its uncertain economic appeal but relative advantages in fighting climate change. The picture is further complicated by a continuing debate over safety and environmental concerns and by the U.N. agency’s dual roles as a watchdog and a promoter.
Two major international organizations believe a 23 percent increase in global funding is needed to fight AIDS among less-developed nations. The U.N. agency focused on AIDS estimates $26.2 billion will be needed in 2020, up from $21.3 billion for the response in 2017.
The U.N. General Assembly adopted a new global treaty to spread responsibility for those helping refugees flee from war and persecution. The vote was 181-2; only the United States and Hungary were opposed.
Immunity rules for international organizations are widely accepted on the basis that staff need protection from courts to fulfill their missions independently. A case before the U.S. Supreme Court could change that. Justices are deciding if the International Finance Corporation has the same immunity as nations.
When the Western Front’s guns fell silent exactly one century ago, 10 million soldiers had died in World War I, the 20th century’s first global catastrophe which nonetheless seeded modern conceptions of a liberal international order after a second global war.
Corruption erodes governance, yet fighting corruption can have unintended consequences. Shining a light on the shortcomings of democracies and international organizations can fuel the polarized politics of populism, extremism, racism, injustice and violence. That was one of the major themes being explored this week at an anti-corruption conference in Denmark.
The United Nations’ Nobel Prize-winning panel on climate change put to rest any remaining sophistry over whether a “safe” temperature guardrail exists: It’s life or death for much of life on the planet. Nothing can protect the world against all of the most dangerous projections for human-made global warming, the panel reported.
Depleted fish stocks from illegal and under-regulated fishing. Deep seabed minerals targeted in a boom of company licensing. Deep sea genomes hunted by food and drug makers seeking new products. Diplomats, experts and international organizations are rushing to craft a treaty to protect the biodiversity of the world’s oceans threatened by commercial pressures on the high seas.
