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61. Increasing Aid and Development Financing Volumes for the Advancement of Education in Lower-Middle-Income Countries

Author:
Christian Novak
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University
Abstract:
To advance education in lowermiddle-income countries, official donors and multilateral development banks must increase their financial support to address the financial gap. Specific recommendations: • Expand the use of innovative development financing solutions. • Expand the use of innovative aid solutions. • Multilateral development banks to increase financing volumes and to strengthen efforts to maximize financial additionality and private capital mobilization. • Review the classification of LICs and LMICs. • Increase domestic budget allocation. Implementing the recommendations require coordinated efforts of all stakeholders. In addition, it is paramount that lower-middleincome countries design and fully implement effective long-term education programs and systems. Benchmarking and feedback must be constant, prompting sustained improvement and the adoption of international best practices.
Topic:
Development, Education, United Nations, Foreign Aid, Finance, and Sustainable Development Goals
Political Geography:
Global Focus

62. Ralph J. Bunche – U.N. Mediator in the Middle East and Nobel Laureate

Author:
Renee M. Earle
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the first Nobel Peace Prize presented for efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East between Israel and Arab nations in Palestine. The recipient was Ralph Bunche, an American academic and diplomat with the U.N., who received the Peace Prize in 1950 for brokering the Israeli-Arab armistice agreements in 1949. The agreements ended the official hostilities of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon and established armistice lines between Israeli and Arab nation forces that held until the 1967 Six-Day War. (This same seemingly intractable confrontation yielded two later Peace Prizes: to Anwar al-Sadat and Menachem Begin in 1978 and to Yassar Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin in 1994.)
Topic:
Diplomacy, United Nations, Conflict, and Negotiation
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

63. On Iran: Don’t Snap Back, Step Up

Author:
Alistair Millar
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Fourth Freedom Forum
Abstract:
The Trump administration was handed a resounding defeat in the United Nations Security Council at the end of last week when it offered a new resolution to indefinitely extend the UN arms embargo on Iran… Not only is the outcome of this vote embarrassing for the United States, it was the first salvo in a dangerous game of brinksmanship that is likely to be the biggest test of the Security Council’s resolve in the 75-year history of the United Nations.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Diplomacy, United Nations, UN Security Council, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

64. Reflections of The World during the Covid-19 Pandemic On the Lives of Immigrants

Author:
İlhan Zeynep Karakılıç
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
Abstract:
As the Covid-19 epidemic intensified globally, countries began to implement quarantine measures one after the other starting from mid-March. According to the United Nations, 60 thousand decisions were made concerning travel and mobility restrictions in 220 countries. These decisions cause many difficulties that aggravated conditions under the pandemic for immigrants who earned their living by means of temporary mobility. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) made a statement at the end of March when these measures were just implemented, announcing that the Covid-19 global pandemic would be the biggest economic and social shock of the twenty-first century since the September 11 attacks and the 2008 Financial Crisis.
Topic:
Development, Migration, United Nations, Immigrants, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus

65. Local Bureaucracy in Migration Governance: The Case of Istanbul

Author:
Zeynep Balcıoğlu
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
Abstract:
According to data provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than half of the refugee population of the world lives in non-camp areas, predominantly in cities or city peripheries. Access of refugees to social and public services in cities is more difficult compared to camps where social services such as health, education and shelter are provided centrally by states or humanitarian aid institutions. The most sustainable way of overcoming this difficulty in non-camp settings is integrating refugees into existing service infrastructures.
Topic:
Migration, United Nations, Infrastructure, Governance, and Bureaucracy
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, Istanbul, and Mediterranean

66. TWENTY YEARS AFTER UNSCR 1325: ANY PROGRESS ENDING WARTIME SEXUAL VIOLENCE?

Author:
Robert Nagel, Dara Kay Cohen, and Ragnhild Nordås
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Political Violence @ A Glance
Abstract:
Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the groundbreaking UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women Peace and Security (WPS). Where are we on the road to ending conflict-related sexual violence? There is good news and bad news. When the UN Security Council passed resolution 1325 on Women Peace and Security it was a momentous event. Women’s rights and violence against women had never before been on the agenda of the Security Council. Resolution 1325 emphasized the need for increased participation of women in national, regional, and international institutions, and for women’s inclusion in peace negotiations. Perhaps even more importantly, it acknowledged the agency of women in matters of war and peace, in contrast to the predominant idea of women as merely passive victims. A central component of 1325 was to explicitly call on all parties to armed conflict to take special measures to protect women and girls from violence, particularly sexual and gender-based violence.
Topic:
Gender Issues, United Nations, Women, Gender Based Violence, Sexual Violence, and UN Security Council
Political Geography:
Global Focus

67. THE BIG LESSON OF PEACEKEEPING IN SUDAN: BEWARE OF HOST-COUNTRY OBSTRUCTION

Author:
Allard Duursma
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Political Violence @ A Glance
Abstract:
Every student that takes a class on United Nations (UN) peace operations will be told on day one that, along with impartiality and the non-use of force (except in self-defense and defense of the mandate), the consent of the conflict parties is one of the three fundamental principles of UN peacekeeping. But students will soon realize that the principle of consent is just that—a principle. Which is often compromised. Host-state consent was compromised during the deployment of UN peacekeepers in the Ivory Coast when Laurent Gbagbo was in power. UN peacekeepers in South Sudan also face the challenge of compromised host-state consent. Peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo have occasionally also been confronted by government actors trying to undermine their work. The withdrawal of host-state consent has even led to the termination of peacekeeping operations in Chad, Burundi, and Eritrea/Ethiopia.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, United Nations, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Africa, Sudan, South Sudan, and Ivory Coast

68. IS THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT DEAD? THE VIEW FROM LIBYA

Author:
Lisa Hultman
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Political Violence @ A Glance
Abstract:
World leaders met recently in Berlin to discuss solutions for ending the civil conflict in Libya. The United Nations (UN)-backed government currently lacks control over large parts of the country, while the opposition is backed by several countries—Russia, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, among others. Hundreds of people have been killed in the last year alone, and thousands displaced. This was surely not the anticipated outcome of the NATO-led military intervention in 2011—an intervention authorized by the UN and justified in the name of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a doctrine adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2005, that commits countries and the international community to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. Libya is the only time in history that military intervention has been justified on the grounds of R2P.
Topic:
NATO, United Nations, Humanitarian Intervention, and Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
Political Geography:
Libya

69. The Consequences of COVID-19: Reduced Chances of Achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development?

Author:
International Institute for Strategic Studies
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Institute for Strategic Studies
Abstract:
In the second in a series of papers analysing the ways COVID-19 is affecting stability across the world, this paper explores how the pandemic has affected the implementation of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and undermined progress towards global economic, social and political stability. The COVID-19 pandemic is a major setback on the path towards achieving the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 ASD), making the challenge even greater for international organisations, governments and all relevant stakeholders. Moreover, when the health crisis hit, progress towards development goals was already patchy. The impacts of the pandemic and the consequences of the lack of progress in certain areas are mutually reinforcing, and require a combination of immediate responses to the damage done by COVID-19 and broader, longer-term efforts aimed at increasing resilience to future crises of similar proportions.
Topic:
United Nations, Sustainable Development Goals, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus

70. A reflection on the Responsibility to Protect in 2020

Author:
Karen Smith
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
Fifteen years since the adoption of the principle of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), I would like to reflect on what it is, at its core. R2P is essentially about preventing and protecting people from the most heinous atrocity crimes – genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This essence is sometimes undermined by debates in which criticisms about implementation deficits are used to discredit the entire principle. The disconnect between the UN World Summit in 2005, when UN member states unanimously committed to protect populations from atrocity crimes, and the disparity in its implementation is highly problematic, as it leaves open the door for atrocity crimes to continue to be committed, while effective national, regional and international action is displaced by what are essentially political arguments about lack of conceptual consensus. The grim reality of today’s ongoing crises is a stark reminder of the need to redouble efforts to effectively implement the responsibility to protect.
Topic:
Human Rights, International Law, United Nations, and Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
Political Geography:
Global Focus