Decent Work & Economic Growth

A Nobel Peace Laureate Calls for Slashing Military Spending and Investing in Healthcare

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN (IDN) – The world's oldest peace NGO, the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Peace Bureau (IPB), is calling for a "dramatic reduction" of military spending in favour of healthcare and meeting social needs. A petition launched on March 27 and signed by all interested will be submitted to the United Nations General Assembly on the first day of the next session opening on September 15, 2020.

"The world spends 1.8 trillion dollars on military expenditure every year and is scheduled to spend 1 trillion dollars on new nuclear weapons in the next 20 years," notes the IPB in the petition and a statement earlier from its headquarters in Germany's capital city, Berlin.

: Jutta Wolf; SUSTAINABILITY; Health & Well Being; 28 March 2020

Photo: South African Finance Minister Tito Mboweni. Source: Sunday Times

South Africa Cancels Promised Wage Increase, Angering Unions

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — Promises promises. I’m all through with promises promises.

That's the Diane Warwick tune South African public servants will be singing bitterly if a three-year wage deal signed in 2018 is headed for the recycling bin. The promised wage hike was due to start next month, April 2020.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his weekly newsletter, said that cutting the government’s wage bill was a better deal than trimming state spending.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 03 March 2020

Collage credits: Swift Postal (left) and Catherine Oshotse from Africa Renewal (right).

Africa Is Joining the Burgeoning World of Digital Economies

By Yun Shi

SAN DIEGO, CA, USA (IDN | Africa Renewal) — Catherine Oshotse, a 27-year-old entrepreneur from Lagos, Nigeria, has the internet to thank for her growing business. Selling hair extensions and women’s handbags online to customers across Africa and abroad has grown her client base from 10 in 2015 to more than 1,000 currently. Of these, 70% are in Africa and 20% in the United Kingdom and the United States.

“You just go to my website and click on the item you want to buy. I receive an email that somebody has placed an order, then I deliver the package. Very easy!” Ms. Oshotse tells Africa Renewal in an interview.

: Africa & ME Editor; THE WORLD; Africa; 28 February 2020

Photo: François-Auguste Biard, Proclamation of the Abolition of Slavery in the French Colonies, 27 April 1848 (1849). Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Slavery Not a Crime in Almost Half of the World’s Countries

Viewpoint by Katarina Schwarz and Jean Allain, with Andrea Nicholson*

NOTTINGHAM (IDN) – “Slavery is illegal everywhere.” So said the New York Times, repeated at the World Economic Forum, and used as a mantra of advocacy for over 40 years. The truth of this statement has been taken for granted for decades. Yet our new research reveals that almost half of all countries in the world have yet to actually make it a crime to enslave another human being.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 15 February 2020

Photo: Santosa island and Singapore harbour one of the busiest ports in the world. Credit: Kalinga Seneviratne | IDN-INPS

Globalization of Job Market Riles Singapore Locals

By Kainga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE (IDN) – The small Southeast Asian island republic of Singapore has been praised by both global business leaders and the international media for its openness to global trade and professional talent movements. It has made this nation of just over 4 million people – 1 million of who are foreigner – one of the richest nations in the world on a per-capita basis.

But, the open economic policy that has led to this may have run its course with locals becoming increasingly resentful of having to compete with “foreign talent” for jobs.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 19 January 2020

Photo: Ola Henrikson, IOM’s Regional Director for the EU, has asked Croatia – which assumed the six-month rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) – on 1 January 2020, to encourage any discussion on migration policy as a positive contribution of migrants for inclusive growth and sustainable development, including within the EU. Credit: European Union

New Research Pleads for Recognizing Contribution of African Migrants To Sustainable Development

By Reinhard Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (IDN) – A new set of European Commissioners has taken office in Brussels. The main migration focus of the previous cabinet of Commissioners was halting migration – which led to deals with third countries on stopping and returning refugees and migrants. People evacuated from Libya, for example, are brought to Niger and Rwanda, where they are processed before those successfully registered as refugees are taken to Europe – often after long processes filled with uncertainty.

: Reinhard Jacobsen; THE WORLD; EU & Europe; 18 January 2020

Ghana’s Year of Return Brings Call to Broaden Scope

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – When Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo pronounced 2019 as the Year of Return, his words resounded with warmth and joy to all people of African descent.

So began a year-long calendar of events including concerts, art shows, visits to heritage sites, fashion shows, movie premieres and creative economy and trade conferences, organized on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of African slaves in America.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 15 January 2020

Photo: A child stands in front of his house in Cayapas, Ecuador. In this area community schools have been set up by UNICEF in partnership with the local Catholic church, to provide basic quality education to children living in this remote area, where the vast majority of the population is Afro-descendant. Credit: UNICEF | Donata Lodi.

UN Working Group Condemns Racial Discrimination of Ecuadorians of African Descent

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) – Independent experts of a UN Working Group are “deeply concerned about the human rights situation of people of African descent” in Ecuador. After an official visit, a follow-up of a similar mission in 2009, the experts said, despite the progressive provisions of the Constitution, recognition of the collective rights of people of African descent and several other positive measures, “there has not yet been effective implementation and enforcement of laws and policy to protect the rights of people of African descent”.

: Jaya Ramachandran; THE WORLD; Latin America & the Caribbean; 26 December 2019

Photo: Child labor in the mines of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Credit: UNICEF

Five Tech Giants Linked To ‘Cruel and Brutal Use of Children’ In Congo Mines

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Do kids work in coal mines?

In 1910, an estimated 2 million American children under the age of 15 were working in factories and mines for low wages and long shifts. Photographs by Lewis Hine of New York revealed the depraved exploitation of children, some as young as 8 years of age, in fields and in mines. Child labor was finally outlawed in 1938.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 17 December 2019

Photo: Youth activists occupied on December 11, the plenary hall in a symbolical act aimed to make clear that the climate negotiations are falling drastically behind what science demands be done to avoid the worst-case scenarios of the climate crisis. Credit: Nina Cordero / LatinClima.

Youth Call for Human Rights to Be at The Core of Climate Talks

By Fabíola Ortiz

MADRID (IDN) – The youth and human rights activists have been emphasizing since the start of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) on December 2 the pressing need of placing people in the centre of climate action. Spearheaded by the social movement ‘Fridays for Future’ initiated by the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, the youth been calling for social participation in the decision-making process and the re-shaping of national climate commitments to align with youth’s aspirations.