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Alimento para la Salud: De la Avaricia al Cuidado

Nos complace invitarte al seminario web titulado "Alimentos para la Salud: De la Avaricia al Cuidado", programado para el 6 de diciembre de 2023. Este evento promete una exploración profunda de la interacción crucial entre los sistemas alimentarios y de salud, con destacados ponentes y expertos de diversos campos.

Detalles del evento:

• Título: Alimentos para la Salud: De la Avaricia al Cuidado
• Fecha: 6 de diciembre de 2023
• Horario:
  • 11:00 a. m. - 12:30 p. m. ET
  • 5:00 p. m. - 6:30 p. m. CET
  • 6:00 p. m. - 7:30 p. m. SAST
• Enlace de registro: aquí

Oradores destacados:

• Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, Relator Especial de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Derecho a la Salud
• Michael Fakhri, Relator Especial de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Derecho a la Alimentación
• Dr. Ruy Lopez, Vice-Ministro de Salud, México
• Vandana Shiva, Autora y Activista Ambiental
• Isabel Barbosa, Asociada Sénior en el Instituto O'Neill, Universidad de Georgetown Law Center

Moderadora: Nicoletta Dentico, Directora de SID Global Health Justice

El seminario web ahondará en las perspicaces reflexiones resaltadas en el reciente informe de la Relatora Especial de la ONU sobre Salud titulado "Alimentos, Nutrición y el Derecho a la Salud". Este informe enfatiza los intrincados y diversos vínculos entre los sistemas alimentarios y de salud, exigiendo una mayor exploración y priorización a nivel gubernamental para el bien público.

Además, el evento compartirá experiencias de iniciativas a nivel nacional, la academia y representantes de organizaciones de la sociedad civil, ilustrando la implementación práctica de enfoques interconectados.

Interpretación en varios idiomas disponible: Se proporcionará interpretación en vivo en inglés, español, árabe y francés para garantizar la inclusividad y accesibilidad de todos los asistentes.

Únete a nosotros para una discusión interesante y reflexiva que tiene como objetivo impulsar un cambio positivo y dar forma al futuro de nuestros sistemas alimentarios y de salud.

Por favor, regístrate aquí para asegurar tu lugar y ser parte de esta conversación transformadora.

¡Esperamos tu participación!

Nairobi Rome

Register here Food for Health: From Greed to Care Online

We are thrilled to invite you to an enlightening webinar titled "Food for Health: From Greed to Care," scheduled for December 6th, 2023. This event promises a profound exploration of the crucial interplay between food and health systems, featuring distinguished speakers and experts from various fields.

Event Details:

• Title: Food for Health: From Greed to Care
• Date: December 6th, 2023
• Time:
  • 11:00am - 12:30pm ET
  • 5:00pm - 6:30pm CET
  • 6:00pm - 7:30pm SAST
• Registration Link: ow.ly/PsWE50Qc5mb 

Featured Speakers:

• Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, United Nations' Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health
• Michael Fakhri, United Nations' Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
• Dr. Ruy Lopez, Vice-Minister of Health, Mexico
• Vandana Shiva, Author and Environmental Activist
• Isabel Barbosa, Senior Associate at the O’Neill Institute, Georgetown University Law Center

Moderator: Nicoletta Dentico, SID Director Global Health Justice

The webinar will delve into the profound insights highlighted in the recent UN Special Rapporteur on Health's report regarding "Food, Nutrition, and the Right to Health." This report emphasizes the intricate and diverse links between food and health systems, demanding further exploration and prioritization at the governance level for the greater public good.

Moreover, the event will showcase experiences from national-level initiatives, academia, and representatives from civil society organizations, shedding light on the practical implementation of interconnected approaches.

Language Interpretation Available: Live interpretation will be provided in English, Spanish, Arabic, and French to ensure inclusivity and accessibility for all attendees.

Join us for an engaging and thought-provoking discussion that aims to drive positive change and shape the future of our food and health systems.

Please register to secure your spot and be a part of this transformative conversation.

We look forward to your participation!

The Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the G20 aims to reduce harmful tax avoidance and evasion by multinational enterprises (MNEs), which creates large losses in governments’ revenues. In times of multiple crises, many governments urgently seek additional revenue sources to finance public expenditures for sustainable development. In particular, many low- and lower-middle-income countries have tax-to-GDP ratios of less than 15 per cent, which is insufficient to provide basic public goods such as health, education and infrastructure for their populations. This policy brief evaluates the achievements and remaining challenges of the BEPS Project to mobilise more domestic revenues, in particular in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
After the financial crisis of 2009, the G20 mandated the OECD with the design and implementation of the BEPS Project. The goal was to identify and tackle the most pressing issues that led to the erosion of corporate tax bases in their member countries. A key issue is the phenomenon that MNEs avoid large amounts of tax by shifting their profits from affiliates in high-tax countries to affiliates in low-tax countries. In 2013, the OECD presented its 15-point agenda to tackle BEPS in OECD member states. However, global tax avoidance and profit shifting can only be effectively addressed if a large number of countries is on board. Thus, in 2016, the Project opened for non-OECD/G20 countries to join the Inclusive Framework on BEPS and the implementation process of the BEPS Action Plan. However, tax administrations of many LMICs complain about the highly complex rules designed under the BEPS Action Plan that are not adapted to their context-specific capacities and needs.
Today, the Inclusive Framework on BEPS has 145 member countries, and the implementation of the BEPS Action Plan is almost finished. Preliminary academic evidence shows that the overall impact of the BEPS Project in reducing global tax avoidance and profit shifting is indeed limited. According to recent estimates, tax revenue losses due to profit shifting even increased from 9 to 10 per cent in the first years when anti-BEPS measures were implemented (see Wier & Zucman, 2022). Since there is no counterfactual world in which the BEPS Project did not take place, we can only assume that tax avoidance would have increased even more in the absence of the Project. However, the BEPS Project is still considered the biggest overhaul of global tax rules since the last century. Positive achievements include increased awareness of MNEs’ profit shifting behaviour, as well as the agreement on a global minimum tax.
To tackle BEPS challenges more successfully – globally and in particular in LMICs – international tax coopera¬tion needs to become more effective in three dimensions:

• Inclusive decision-making process: Countries should show more political will to combat tax avoidance and stop blocking more comprehensive international tax reforms. Truly inclusive cooperation between OECD and non-OECD countries is needed.
•  Mandatory implementation: Many BEPS Actions were voluntary standards and, thus, not many countries introduced them into their domestic tax laws. To fight BEPS effectively, more mandatory tax rules need to be included in future reform packages.
• Simplified rules: Several BEPS Actions were watered down and became highly complex because individual countries bargained for carve-outs. Future inter¬national tax rules need to be more ambitious and simplified in this regard. Bilateral and multilateral development cooperation agencies should provide low-income countries with capacity building and assistance in implementing tax rules.

The latest round of UN-facilitated climate talks opened on Thursday in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with a warning that the world is taking “baby steps” in the face of a terrifying planetary crisis that requires bold action now.

The world is heating up at an unprecedented pace, new climate data shows, and leaders gathered for the COP28 conference which opened in Dubai on Thursday must get us out of “deep trouble”, UN chief António Guterres said.

Linking trade to environmental goals is gaining momentum. Ever more discussion about trade and climate interlinkages are prevalent in both the trade and climate policy communities. The dedicated Trade Day at the 28th Conference to the Parties (COP28) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) underlines the growing interest in trade and climate interlinkages. Given the urgency of the climate crisis, using the toolbox of trade policies to help tackle climate change should be a priority. Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) are a promising trade policy tool to accelerate the transition toward greener economies and help address the climate crisis. PTAs – agreements that reduce trade barriers among their parties – are mushrooming around the world and they include an increasing number of environmental provisions. These provisions in PTAs can help reduce environmentally harmful subsidies, incentivise the green transition, and favour the diffusion of environmental technologies. But so far, climate-related environmental provisions in PTAs have not been designed in ways that enable them to live up to this potential. Many such climate provisions in PTAs remain vague, weak, and not very innovative. This policy brief outlines why we should use PTAs as a policy tool; discusses pitfalls of their current design; and shows how negotiators should improve the design of climate-related provisions to unlock their full potential. We discuss three types of provisions that have the potential to strengthen climate protection through PTAs:
Fossil fuel subsidies: Climate provisions in PTAs should seek to eliminate or phase down fossil fuel subsidies, provide for Special and Differential Treatment (SDT) for developing countries, and increase transparency on fossil fuel subsidies.
Environmental goods and services (EGS): Climate provisions in PTAs should eliminate tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers for EGS, offer SDT for developing countries in the context of EGS, and should incentivise climate-friendly production through preferential tariffs.
Investment: Climate provisions in PTAs should be designed so as to shield climate policy measures from legal challenges by providing a treaty-wide exception specifically for climate policy measures, reaffirming the right to regulate explicitly in relation to climate policy measures or carving out measures taken to address climate change from the application of Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS).
We also outline five general policy recommendations for promoting the effectiveness of climate provisions in PTAs:
1) Prioritise win-win solutions;
2) facilitate the participation of non-state actors;
3) strengthen capacity-building and assistance;
4) enhance impact assessment, and knowledge diffusion; and
5) promote compliance and enforcement.

To bring our economies on a path to climate neutrality, investments in carbon-intensive production processes have to stop. At the same time, we need to mobilise large amounts of capital for investments conducive to a just transition. Reforming the financial sector in a way that allows this redirection of capital flows to take place is crucial.
As one element of a comprehensive sustainable finance strategy, taxonomies can potentially play a pivotal role in this regard. By providing common definitions for sustainable economic activities, these taxonomies aim to increase transparency on financial markets and help market participants to align their investment decisions with sustainability considerations.
This policy brief presents policy recommendations concerning the implementation of sustainable finance taxonomies based on experiences with the South African Green Finance Taxonomy (GFT). It mainly builds on data collected in semi-structured expert interviews with different stakeholders of the GFT conducted in South Africa between February and April 2023 (Hilbrich et al., 2023).
The implementation phase of the GFT has revealed multiple challenges, including a need for improved regulatory embedding and enhanced capacities on the part of potential users. This has led to a low uptake by market participants. To address these challenges, this policy brief presents four recommendations that are of relevance not only for South Africa but also for many other countries that are currently implementing a sustainable finance taxonomy:

• Voluntary taxonomies are insufficient to facilitate the necessary widespread uptake. Public institutions need to set a credible signal that a taxonomy will indeed become the common standard on the financial market. National regulators should issue guidance notes on taxonomy usage and consider implementing mandatory reporting rules. Regulators or stock exchanges should require issuers of green financial instruments, including green bonds, to align their project eligibility criteria with a sustainable finance taxonomy. In addition, a good coordination and a clear distribution of responsibilities among governance actors is crucial in the implementation phase. A taxonomy can only fulfil its potential if it is meaningfully integrated into an overarching sustainability strategy.
• Taxonomy reporting requires both capacity and expertise. Both market and governance actors need to ensure possibilities for learning and for exchanging specialised knowledge. Pilot studies can help reduce uncertainties and train practitioners on the job.
• A lack of bankable green projects decreases the potential of a taxonomy to redirect capital flows and reduces incentives to adopt a taxonomy. Development banks should provide risk capital and seed funding to help develop green projects.
• Interoperability between different taxonomies is an essential goal. The European Union (EU) should formally recognise taxonomies of other jurisdictions that meet certain standards as equivalent to the EU taxonomy (and communicate under what conditions it is willing to do so). Accordingly, assets shown to align with a particular taxonomy would be recognised as aligned with the EU taxonomy without further assessment.

23-11-30_KfW_Christiane Laibach - Einleitung - S2 dagmar.wolf Thu, 30.11.2023 - 02:00 Good news from the International Energy Agency (IEA): renewable energy capacity will increase by a record amount in 2023. That involves a lot of work, in which KfW is playing its part KfW Rapid further expansion of renewable energy Good news from the International Energy Agency (IEA): renewable energy capacity will increase by a record amount in 2023. That involves a lot of work, in which KfW is playing its part. This contribution was produced in cooperation with KfW. 30.11.2023SDG7 SDG11 SDG12 SDG13 SDG17 Klima, Energie Entwicklungszusammenarbeit Deutschlands Infrastruktur Landwirtschaft, ländliche Entwicklung Nachhaltigkeit Naturschutz, Ökosysteme, Biodiversität

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its consequences have made it quite clear to us in Europe how important it is to have a reliable supply of energy and how alarming it can be when energy is not available in the usual quantities. This is the norm in many developing countries, however. Nearly a billion people still have no access to energy. The countries are therefore trying to build up their production capacities, relying increasingly on renewable rather than fossil energy sources. The IEA’s forecasts confirm that a shift in mindset is beginning to take place. It believes that 2024 could see even more global growth, with the amount of additional renewable energy capacity increasing from 440 to 550 gigawatts in just one year.

Mustafa Shrestha 01.08.2023 The war in Ukraine is fuelling the climate crisis

What was still just a tentative shift two decades ago has now become an irreversible global trend. The benefits offered by renewables are unrivalled: they are environmentally friendly, locally available and now even competitive in terms of price – not to mention their independence from energy imports in an increasingly volatile geopolitical environment. In all parts of the world, it has become impossible to imagine life without renewable energy.

At KfW we have been supporting this worldwide transformation for many years. We resolved early on to kick-start and accelerate a “global energy transition”, always giving due consideration to social justice and balance. The projects we support include the Olkaria geothermal power plant in Kenya and the Ouarzazate solar power complex in Morocco. Power grids in India, wind farms in the Balkans and solar panels on Brazilian football stadiums, among other examples, also bear the KfW logo.

At present we are helping to bring Georgia closer to Turkey and the EU in terms of energy with new electric grids and substations so that the country can become less dependent on Russian energy. In South Africa we are funding the Just Energy Transition programme. Together with the international donor community, KfW is supporting the transition towards a sustainable supply of energy and making sure that the switch happens in a socially compatible manner. These are just two examples from a long list. And we are looking even further ahead – funding more future-oriented technologies such as green hydrogen as one way of helping to decarbonise industry; in Morocco, for example, by building a reference facility for the production of green hydrogen. This can be used as a basic chemical in fertiliser production and to manufacture green steel.

Developing countries often have great potential for renewable energies. This applies particularly, though not exclusively, to Africa, which some people are already calling the “green continent”. African countries now want to take increasing and targeted advantage of this potential, and drew up plans at Africa’s first climate summit in Kenya to become more sustainable and more independent. In future, Africa also wants to export the green energy that it doesn’t need to meet its own demand. We at KfW will continue to support this transformation process, accompanying Africa on its path to becoming a “renewable energy superpower” (UN Secretary- General António Guterres).

Christiane Laibach

Link
KfW: Shaping a sustainable and fair global energy transition.

Sustainability Off Off Christiane Laibach Überall anzeigen

Bonn, 29. November 2023. Zu den Höhepunkten der diesjährigen UN-Klimakonferenz „COP 28“ vom 30. November bis 12. Dezember in Dubai in den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten (VAE) gehört der erste „Global Stocktake“ bezüglich der Umsetzung des Pariser Klimaabkommens. In dieser mit Spannung erwarteten Bestandsaufnahme nehmen die Regierungen den Ist-Zustand ihrer Anstrengungen, die Erderwärmung auf 1,5 Grad zu begrenzen, in den Blick.

Ein Synthesebericht des UN-Klimasekretariats vom September zeichnet ein düsteres Bild: angesichts weiterhin steigender globaler Emissionen sind wir objektiv nicht auf Kurs, während sich das Zeitfenster im Kampf gegen die Erderwärmung weiter schließt. Der Schlüssel zur zielführenden Umsetzung liegt in einer Just Transition (“gerechter Übergang“). Dieses Schlagwort kursiert schon länger und bezeichnet inzwischen ein ganzes Spektrum an Transformationsprozessen zur Nachhaltigkeit, im Energiesektor und insgesamt in der Gesellschaft. Zentral ist die Beschleunigung einer gerechten globalen Energiewende, aber auch die Operationalisierung des auf der COP 27 beschlossenen Fonds für Schäden und Verluste sowie die Förderung einer gendergerechten Klimapolitik und –finanzierung.

Angesichts des überproportionalen Beitrags des Energiesektors zu den globalen Treibhausgasemissionen stellt die COP-Präsidentschaft der VAE eine Beschleunigung der weltweiten Energiewende – bei zugleich drastischer Reduzierung der Emissionen bis 2030 – in den Fokus der COP28. Dabei ist davon auszugehen, dass bestehende und neue Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JET-Ps), die seit der COP26 in Glasgow ins Leben gerufen wurden, im Mittelpunkt stehen. Dies sind plurilaterale Finanzierungsvereinbarungen zwischen Ländern mit hohem Einkommen (einschließlich der EU) und ausgewählten Schwellenländern, deren nationale Energiewenden mit einem sozialverträglichen Ausstieg aus fossilen Energien unterstützt werden sollen. Sie dienen zugleich als Modell für bilaterale Klima- und Entwicklungspartnerschaften, die sowohl Minderungs- als auch Anpassungsinitiativen fördern. Solche Partnerschaften können maßgeblich zu gerechten Übergängen beitragen, indem sie den Bedürfnissen der Länder auf nachhaltige Entwicklung Rechnung tragen und nicht allein auf die Energiewende abzielen.

Ein weiteres zentrales Thema der COP28 ist der Fonds für Schäden und Verluste, ein auf der letztjährigen COP eingerichtetes umfassendes Finanzierungsinstrument, das vulnerable Länder bei der Bewältigung der Folgen des Klimawandels unterstützen soll. Ein von den Vertragsparteien der Klimarahmenkonvention eingerichteter Ausschuss (Transitional Committee, TC) hat im laufenden Jahr Empfehlungen zur Operationalisierung des Fonds erarbeitet, die nun der COP28 zur Entscheidung vorgelegt werden. Der Prozess war von intensiven Debatten bestimmt, insbesondere in den für die Errichtung eines „gerechten“ neuen Klimafinanzierungsmechanismus entscheidenden Fragen, welche Anspruchs- und Vergabekriterien zugrunde gelegt werden und wer in den Fonds einzahlen soll. Der Ausschuss hat in seinen fachlichen Workshops auch den Aspekt der menschlichen Mobilität erörtert, der angesichts der Auswirkungen des Klimawandels auf innerstaatliche und grenzüberschreitende Fluchtbewegungen in den Anwendungsbereich des Fonds fallen soll. Mit der COP28 sind große Erwartungen verbunden, eine endgültige Einigung über die Operationalisierung des Fonds zu erzielen. Dies wird angesichts der gemeinsamen, aber differenzierten Verantwortung für den Klimawandel für eine Beschleunigung von “just transitions“ unerlässlich sein.

Ein weiterer entscheidender Faktor ist die geschlechtsspezifische Dimension der Klimapolitik. Auch sie wird ein zentrales Anliegen der COP28 sein, da im kommenden Jahr die Überprüfung des auf der COP23 beschlossenen Gender-Aktionsplans der UNFCCC ansteht. Frauen haben weltweit weniger Zugang zu Bildung, Ressourcen und Landbesitz. Diese anhaltenden geschlechtsspezifischen Ungleichheiten verhindern ihren uneingeschränkten Zugang zu Finanzmitteln für Klimaschutz- und Anpassungsmaßnahmen. Zudem sind viele Frauen besonders stark von den verheerenden Auswirkungen der Armut im Energie-, und Transportsektor betroffen und bekommen die negativen Folgen des Klimawandels überproportional hart zu spüren. Obwohl diese Probleme schon lange bekannt sind, kommt Forschung des IDOS anhand des NDC-SDG Connections Tool zu dem Ergebnis, dass in den nationalen Klimaplänen bisher nur minimale Fortschritte in Hinblick auf Gender erzielt wurden. Übergänge können aber nicht gerecht sein, wenn sie die Geschlechterdimension nicht berücksichtigen. Die in diesem Jahr rein weibliche Delegation des IDOS wird deshalb die Beratungen zu Genderaspekten am 4. Dezember besonders aufmerksam verfolgen.

Im Zuge der Bestandsaufnahme darf nicht vergessen werden, dass die Umsetzung des Pariser Abkommens und die Verwirklichung von „just transitions“ Gleichheit, Gleichberechtigung und Gerechtigkeit in künftigen Klimaschutz- und Anpassungsmaßnahmen erfordern. Dafür sind die Beschleunigung einer gerechten globalen Energiewende, die Sicherung einer gerechten Klimafinanzierung für Entwicklungsländer und die Durchsetzung einer gendergerechten Klimapolitik und ‑finanzierung von entscheidender Bedeutung. Darüber hinaus ist es wichtig, Einvernehmen in der Frage einer Just Transition zu erzielen. Dieser Frage wird sich unsere IDOS-Delegation auf der COP28 in Dubai gezielt zuwenden und unter anderem gemeinsam mit dem Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) und dem Green Club  eine offizielle Nebenveranstaltung mit dem Titel „Designing Coherent and Equitable Climate Policies for a Just Transitions“ veranstalten.

23-11-29_Hans Dembowski - Edito - Demokratie dagmar.wolf Wed, 29.11.2023 - 02:00 Elections are important, but unless there are independent institutions, liberty will be eroded fast Our View Democracy needs separate branches of government For 20 years, I’ve been the editor-in-chief of D+C, and democracy promotion was always part of our mission. Successive German governments expressed their faith in people’s self-government, the rule of law and reasonable global governance based on – preferably democratic – nation states. 29.11.2023Global Meinung SDG16 Demokratisierung Recht, Verwaltung Amts- und Regierungsführung Menschenrechte Volkswirtschaftliche Entwicklung

The rhetoric has changed, however, so it is now common to speak of defending rather than promoting democracy.

Democracy is indeed under attack. That is so even in prosperous western nations where its roots were believed to be strong. Right-wing populism is on the rise. Its top leaders typically claim to represent “the” nation directly and exclusively. They pretend that it consists of a homogenous community which supports them. Everyone else is accused of being a traitor, elitist, corrupt, criminal, naïve et cetera.

This is an international phenomenon. Donald Trump is the most prominent example. Unfortunately, there are too many others to list in a short editorial.
Once someone like Trump gains power, they try to perpetuate their rule by changing the institutional order. The good news is that populist governments nonetheless sometimes lose elections. Even where that happens, however, the institutional order tends to be damaged.

In the US, there is no evidence of the 2020 elections having been rigged, but Trump supporters believe they were. Fortunately, the judiciary did not fall for the “big lie”. Trump appointed many judges, however, including three on the Supreme Court where the solid right-wing majority is passing judgements – on abortion, for example – that most US citizens disagree with.

Many people believe that democracy is primarily about electing the top leader. They miss an important point. For elections to be fair and take place regularly, a country needs constitutional checks and balances. Otherwise, any incumbent government will be tempted to bend election rules in order to stay in power. An independent judiciary is therefore of crucial importance. Only it can guarantee that elections are not rendered meaningless over time. And that is precisely why it is problematic that the US Supreme Court has become politicised and is losing people’s trust.

Checks and balances are necessary to keep the administrative leadership from twisting everything in its favour. Constitutions must clearly define the roles of separate branches of government – executive, legislation and judiciary but also national and subnational – and spell out people’s unalienable rights. Good constitutions make abuses of power much more difficult, though not impossible.

The separation of powers, moreover, is the basis for what sociologists call functional differentiation. It means that social systems – markets, academic research, civil society, media discourse, technology develop­ment et cetera – are not subjected to the whims of the top political leader.

Anna-Katharina Hornidge Hans Dembowski 23.09.2020 Reconciling diversity and the common good

The systems operate according to their own requirements, which makes them more dynamic. The political system must provide and enforce sensible regulations in a transparent manner to ensure that the systems stay integrated and do not undermine one another. 

Hans Dembowski 21.08.2023 How Xi Jinping is exacerbating China’s economic misery

For example, it should not allow economic growth to destroy the environmental basis of society. Democracies’ track record in this regard is less than perfect – but Trump-like people tend to undo ecological progress if they can. 

Hans Dembowski 27.03.2022 Why the term “plutocrat populism” makes sense

A well-designed democratic order ensures basic liberties at many levels, but it does not grant people in positions of power or great wealth the freedom to simply do as they please. The health of society thus depends on a good constitution. As history shows, dictatorship is rarely benign, but normally unchecked and unbalanced.

Hans Dembowski is the editor-in-chief of D+C/E+Z.
euz.editor@dandc.eu

Governance Off Off Hans Dembowski Überall anzeigen

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed healthcare systems around the world, but in the aftermath it has now sharply focused policy attention. With the crisis being multi-dimensional it has ensured that with the many challenges we face, governments must now map a new way forward on global health. The clearest opportunity to enable this new path is the flagship WHO instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response, currently being negotiated by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body of the WHO and its Member States. Whether the decisions they make affect meaningful change will depend on the extent to which they prioritize achieving equity for the most vulnerable communities, especially those who come into daily contact with pathogens, at the human-animal-environment interface, and across the entire pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response pathway. Prioritizing equity to more effectively prevent pandemics would seem intuitive but truly achieving this goal will require international institutions and governments to embrace a new way of designing and implementing health policy. In this article, we share the paradigm shifts that are mapping this new way forward, of which One Health has become central. We will also elaborate on the changes that the international community needs to make to enable those developments.

Lena Rohrbach dagmar.wolf Tue, 28.11.2023 - 15:08 Lena Rohrbach presse@amnesty.de

is Policy Advisor for Human Rights in the Digital Age and Arms Export Control at Amnesty International Germany. 
Photo: Sarah Eick

By Werner Raza The era of unbridled free trade is over, the new buzzwords are de-coupling/de-risking. What we now see is an erosion of global cooperation. As we confront existential challenges like the climate crisis, a New World Economic Order 2.0 is needed, where the EU could lead the way. Twilight of the gods of …

Continue reading "A Trade Policy for the Future: neither Neoliberal nor Geopolitical, but based on Solidarity!"

23-11-28_Susan Neiman / Hans Dembowski - Interview - Gaza crisis dagmar.wolf Tue, 28.11.2023 - 02:00 Jewish philosopher Susan Neiman on the context of the Hamas pogrom of 7 October, Netanyahu’s government and criticising Israel Gaza war “Focus on what is happening in the present” The Hamas terrorism of 7 October was particularly cruel and atrocious. The perpetrators committed terrible crimes. Many Israelis, however, think their own government bears responsibility for the bloodshed that occurred on its watch. Susan Neiman, a Jewish philosopher, shared her views in a D+C/E+Z interview. 28.11.2023MENA Middle East North Africa High-income countries Hintergrund SDG16 Bürgerkriege, Konfliktmanagement, Peacebuilding Kolonialismus, Entkolonisierung Kultur Menschenrechte Organisationen (international, multilateral) Recht, Verwaltung Amts- und Regierungsführung Religion Terrorismus

What was unprecedented about the attacks of 7 October 2023?

They were intended to be as cruel as possible – and to be perceived as such too. The terrorists filmed their brutal crimes and posted videos online, following the example of ISIS, the Islamist militia that shared videos of executions on social media. Sadly, we don’t really understand how people are capable of such atrocious violence, but we should consider what they wanted to achieve. Hamas leaders are reckless fanatics, but they are not stupid. They knew that Israel would strike back hard with military means. What is happening now is a gift to them. In their eyes, every dead child in Gaza is a propaganda triumph that distracts attention from their own horrendous violence.

D+C/E+Z 12.10.2023 Another terrible war

But mustn’t Israel protect itself?

Yes, of course, but who says that terrorism can be defeated by military means? The US administration tried to do that in Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 attacks on New York City and Washington DC. The wars did not end terrorism. Hamas is seeking a brutal, extensive and long war with as many civilian casualties as possible. That would trigger maximum international disapproval of Israel and might drag other parties into the conflict – Hezbollah, for example, or even Iran. Hamas is not a liberation movement. They aren’t interested in Palestinians’ welfare. They oppress women, silence opponents and deliberately sacrifice their own people’s lives. In their view, the number of supposed “martyrs” cannot become too large. Their goal is not to free the people, but to destroy Israel.

Israel’s founders wanted to establish a state where Jews would never be helpless victims of pogroms. Today, Israel is a strong state with its region’s most powerful military. Nonetheless, coordinated terror attacks proved feasible, with more than 1200 persons killed and about 240 abducted. What responsibility does Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government bear?

Well, there is a lot I could say. Here are some important points:

• In the weeks and months before the attacks, many reservists of the Israeli Defence Forces refused to show up for drills in protest against the government’s judicial reform plans, which are to use its small parliamentary majority to eviscerate the Supreme Court, ending the justices’ power to review government action. The protest movement was broad-based and so strong that Israel was close to civil war.
• Hamas attacked on a Saturday morning. Mobilising the security forces was difficult because, thanks to the policy of orthodox coalition members, there isn’t supposed to be any traffic on Shabbat. When it became obvious what kind of atrocities were being committed, reservists reappeared for service, but they weren’t properly prepared for action and had to improvise without much coordination. In the summer, Netanyahu had actually refused to meet with the military leaders who wanted to warn him that the judicial reform agenda was affecting national security. For a long time, moreover, he had dogmatically been saying that Hamas was to weak to attack Israel.
• Therefore, his government had withdrawn three battalions from the Gaza border in order to provide better protection to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are illegal according to international law. The absence of the troops from the border made it easier for Hamas to attack.
• Netanyahu and his camp have been pitting Hamas against the PLO and the Palestinian Authority for a long time. He has said that anyone who wants to prevent the two-state solution needs Hamas. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has made similar statements. These people turned the word “peace” into a joke in Israeli politics, promised that military dominance would deliver long-term security. They openly supported Hamas while weakening the PLO, which had agreed to a peace process and is running the Palestinian Authority. This approach resembled the US policy of initially funding the Taliban in order to weaken communists in Afghanistan. It failed in Afghanistan, and now has failed in Israel too.

Protest against judicial reforms in Tel Aviv in the summer.  (picture-alliance/REUTERS/Corinna Kern)

And that is why Netanyahu’s support is dwindling in Israel? Less than 20 % currently approve of him in opinion polls.

Views certainly diverge widely regarding some of the points I just made. However, all Israelis now know that Netanyahu’s security promises failed. They also know that he built his coalition with right-wing extremists so his immunity as prime minister will continue to shield him from corruption trials. As befits a democratic nation, Israel’s courts have a track record of sentencing former office holders to prison if found guilty of crimes. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was in prison because of corruption and former President Mosche Katzav because of rape. One reason Netanyahu wants to strip the legal system of its powers is his fear of a prison sentence. At the same time, right-wing extremists long to disembowel the Supreme Court because, though it did not ensure equal rights for minorities, it protected some of their fundamental rights. For instance, it recently ruled that there must not be any blanket prohibition of anti-war rallies. Moreover, it has sometimes protected Palestinians from dispossession.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, two major international non-­governmental organisations, accuse Israel of apartheid. What do you say?

B’Tselem, an Israeli human-rights organisation, uses this legal term as well. It is a very clear concept which simply means that different laws apply to different national groups – and that is definitely the case in the West Bank. Israeli settlers enjoy full civil rights, are protected by the security forces and vote in parliamentary elections. Palestinians, by contrast, live under occupation law. Their freedom of movement is sharply restricted. Their lives are not safe, nor is their land. Before the Hamas attacks, 179 of them had been killed this year, supposedly for security reasons, and violence has dramatically escalated since. Many Israeli civil-society groups oppose the injustice, which is also evident in abject poverty. To make room for new settlements, Palestinians are displaced from villages, which sometimes only consist of tents improvised from garbage bags. I have seen them. Israeli friends of mine who are peace activists have started to stay there overnight to protect the villages, because the settlers have come there threatening to kill them if they don’t leave. There are people in the government who speak happily of a second Nakba, the great displacement of 1948.

What about the term settler colonialism?

It is wrong if applied to the early settlement of Israel. Israel’s history differs completely from South Africa or Algeria, where white people, with the support of their imperialist countries, established huge land holdings and exploited indigenous people. Jewish migration from Europe to Palestine started in the late 19th century and it did not serve this kind of imperialist purpose. It was driven by experiences of marginalisation, discrimination and violence that could erupt anytime. Today, about half of Israel’s population descends from immigrants from Arab countries where they couldn’t stay because of repression and persecution. It is absurd to claim that Jewish Israelis are somehow “white” whereas Palestinians are “persons of colour”. One cannot tell us apart by the colour of our skin. I’m afraid, though, that the term “settler colonialism” will apply to the West Bank, which was set aside for a future Palestinian state, if the settler violence continues.

What is the way forward for Israel/Palestine?

At this point, nobody knows. This is a moment of extreme crisis, in which people react to other people’s actions, and not all of the actors are rational, to put it mildly. I think it is essential to stop seeing things in the terms of a zero-sum game. Israel and Palestine coexist. It makes no sense to keep using terms like “pro-Israel” and “pro-Palestine”, as if it were a football match. We need peace and justice that work for all, but polarisation only serves the extremists on both sides.

I don’t think there can be peace unless masses of Palestinian youngsters see some kind of future for themselves. Will a tiny sovereign state do? It seems that something like an Israeli-Palestinian free trade area would be needed right from the start, with people benefitting from existing links and leveraging synergies.

That would be nice, but we are not anywhere close, and it will not happen without serious international pressure and lots of international money. Israel’s domestic policies will have to change. It wouldn’t suffice to stop building settlements, existing ones will have to be removed in order to make sufficient space for a Palestinian state. That, in turn, means that more affordable housing is needed in Israel. Not everyone who lives in one of the settlements is a fanatic. Some people moved there because the homes are subsidised. With support for settlement expansion and other measures, consecutive Israeli governments over the years did what they could to prevent the two-state solution. They discredited all opponents who expressed an interest in peace and reconciliation as naive dreamers – as if it was wise to believe in permanent military dominance and treat the entire Palestinian population as one big security risk.

But is the Palestinian Authority a potential partner for negotiations? Its reputation is poor due to its corruption, inefficiency and close cooperation with Israel.

Well, the good news is that the majority of Palestinians do not support Hamas either, at least up to October 6, the last time there were polls taken. Only 27 % supported them, because many fear that Islamist outfit, which hardly takes care of its own citizens. The last election was held in Gaza in 2006. For a peace process to work, there must be two willing partners. Neither Hamas nor the current Israeli government is one. The Netanyahu camp deliberately boosted Hamas and weakened the PLO. It made sure there was no partner – and said so explicitly in public.

In view of genocidal Nazi history, Germany bears a special responsibility for Israel. Mustn’t we bear a special responsibility for the occupied territories as well?

Yes, of course. The lesson of Nazi history is not simply that Jews must have a special protected space. It is that violations of human rights on the basis of ethnic backgrounds is wrong. I understand that Germany feels a special responsibility for Jews, and that is a good thing, but the Nazis’ murderous hate targeted other people too – the traveler communities of the Sinti and Roma, people with disabilities, homosexuals and dissidents. A goal of Hitler’s supremacist ideology, moreover, was to enslave the slavic nations, and his war claimed millions of their lives. But the bigger question is: does unconditional support for Israel’s current politics actually make Israel safe? The vast majority of Israelis now say: the security policies that guided Israel since the Oslo Agreement was effectively ended completely failed on October 7. We need something new.

The German consensus is that the existence of Israel must be guaranteed unconditionally. I always wonder how to explain this to Palestinian youngsters who only ever saw Israel’s government preventing a Palestinian state. 

Reconciliation processes are difficult. It is necessary, first of all, to tell as much of the truth as possible. Anyone who emphasises Jewish suffering but ignores what is happening to the Palestinians cannot effectively fight anti-Semitism. The experience of young Palestinians matters. Unbalanced endorsements of Israel reinforce dangerous resentments. That doesn’t mean that Israel’s right to exist is up to negotiation. It must indeed be guaranteed – but so must Palestinians’ human rights.

Who is in the position to define who or what is anti-Semitic? Some recent news has been bizarre. In Italy, people who are close to the right-wing government have accused Moni Ovadia, a prominent kippah-wearing Jewish actor and director, of anti-Semitism because he is a long-standing opponent of the occupation. Like UN secretary-general António Guterres, he recently said that the Hamas attacks did not happen in a vacuum. Ovadia spoke of a “context of oppression”.

Things like that happen in Germany too. Who decides whether something is anti-Semitic, even if it is said or written by Jews? Last year, performances of the award-winning play “Birds of a kind” were discontinued after two Jewish students complained it was anti-Semitic. Its Lebanese-Canadian author worked in close cooperation with the great Jewish historian Natalie Zemon Davis, who, at the age of 94, wrote an op-ed in response. She insisted that the play was anything but anti-Semitic. It basically is an update of “Nathan the wise”, Lessing’s classic play of 1779. Then RIAS, Germany’s supposed anti-Semitism watchdog, said that Davis was a supporter of the boycott-divestment-sanctions (BDS) movement even though she never had anything to do with it and was actively opposed to it. She considered going to court, but was already quite ill. Sadly, she passed away recently.

There was a tendency in Germany to accuse anyone who expresses criticism of Israel of evil anti-Semitism. What is your view?

In a democratic culture, it must be permitted to criticise a government. The German public understands that criticism of Donald Trump during his presidency did not result from anti-American feelings. It does not presume that anyone who speaks out against India’s right-wing Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hates those leaders’ respective nation or faith. There is no reason to treat Israel’s top leader differently, though he will declare any criticism to be anti-Semitic – that has been Israeli policy for a long time. I wish German policymakers would pay less attention to their guilt for past crimes, focus on what’s happening in the present and let scholarship guide their approach to Israel.

Susan Neiman is a philosopher and directs the Einstein Forum in Potsdam. As a professor, she previously taught philosophy at Yale University and Tel Aviv University. She has the citizenship of Germany, Israel and the USA.
www.einsteinforum.de

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Abstract

Indigenous peoples across the world share an intimate knowledge of ecosystems acquired from hundreds of generations of observation. Today, commercial land exploitation, resource extraction and the effects of global warming are destroying these water and land ecosystems exacerbating the climate crisis. The threat to life support systems posed by the ecological crisis we witness is combined with the cultural and ethnic crisis and the erosion of social structures that make cultural diversity and plurality possible as a democratic reality in a decentralized framework. The cosmovision that Indigenous Peoples have always embodied and transmitted across generations opens our understanding to a holistic approach that is essential today to interpret and implement One Health according to the contemporary challenges and needs.

Abstract

Based on colonial capitalist logics, global biosecurity strategies have long relied upon downstream measures of surveillance and control to reduce disease burden and address the rising risk of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). One Health aims to address this through what it describes as a systems approach, yet in failing to grapple with capitalist hegemony, the framework reproduces the microbial and logical diseases it intends to prevent. Calls for a Structural One Health approach embed the principles of agroecology as a pathway toward food sovereignty, joining the calls of peasants, smallholders, Indigenous Peoples, fishers and forest dwellers globally. This paradigm of food production takes a truly ecosystems approach in embedding place-based production systems within political economies centred on human and more-than-human relations rather than on extraction and division. Working outside the standardized monoculture of industrial agriculture, agroecological food producers the world over embrace biodiversity as an effective safeguard against harmful pathology, creating and living the alternative paradigms necessary for unwinding our interconnected planetary crises. One Health without structural integrity is only as strong a framework as status quo production systems and biosecurity measures, serving to reinforce rather than transform the current dominant global system.

Carmen Sorgler dagmar.wolf Mon, 27.11.2023 - 14:53 Carmen Sorgler

World leaders at this week’s climate conference, COP28, must break the deadly cycle of global warming before a “deadly tipping point” is reached, said the UN chief on Monday.

Susan Neiman dagmar.wolf Mon, 27.11.2023 - 12:30 Susan Neiman

is a philosopher and directs the Einstein Forum in Potsdam. As a professor, she previously taught philosophy at Yale University and Tel Aviv University. She has the citizenship of Germany, Israel and the USA.
Photo: James Starrt

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