by Eurodad
G20 leaders met in Rome last weekend (30 and 31 October) to address what they termed “today’s most pressing global challenges”. In the end they took no meaningful new decisions. The photo opportunity with G20 leaders throwing a coin into the Trevi fountain was a potent symbol of what the Summit turned out to be: wishful thinking without any action.
Beyond the health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected economies and people’s
livelihoods around the world. Experts forecast an additional 250 million people in extreme poverty by
20301, while the consequences of the pandemic are resulting in a 10th of the global population suffering
from hunger, amounting to 720 to 811 million people worldwide.
Many political leaders and decision makers now realize that well-designed social protection systems have a transformative effect on people living in poverty.
Read the Policy Brief of the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors
ETC Group / Silvia Ribeiro will be tracking events at UNFCCC’s COP 26 in Glasgow over the next two weeks, both in person and on-line, and aim to keep you informed about events as they unfold!
We’ll be watching out for and speaking out about three key traps we see lurking at COP 26:
Lees verderIf someone were to spontaneously ask you where your food comes from, would you know the answer? Do you know who grows it and how? The steps taken and the ingredients used to turn your food into meals? How it reaches markets and stores before it finally finds its way onto your plate?
Food is our lifeline, yet we are largely disconnected from it. Instead, we are trapped in the illusion that we have the freedom to buy and consume products that we supposedly want and need, but know little about.
This year’s edition of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch – Not Our Menu: False Solutions to Hunger and Malnutrition – attempts to connect the dots surrounding the food that we eat.
Read the new report of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch
We know what is needed, but do we know how to get there?
On the importance of a lacking strategy:
Strategies for sustainability | Wall Street International Magazine (wsimag.com)
In the present report, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human
rights, Olivier De Schutter, observes that children born in disadvantaged families are
denied equal opportunities: their chances of achieving a decent standard of living as
adults are significantly diminished by the mere fact that their parents are poor.
The Special Rapporteur examines the channels through which poverty is
perpetuated, in the areas of health, housing, education and employment. The growth
of inequalities itself is an important contributing factor: the more unequal societies
are, the less they allow for social mobility, and wealth inequalities are particularly
corrosive in that regard.
Read the report of Olivier De Schutter
Despite urgent climate and development needs, geopolitics and deference to private finance rule the day
Read the analysis of Bretton Woods Project
Poverty and inequality are critically linked. Poverty occurs when sections of society have insufficient resources to be able to afford a minimal acceptable contemporary living standard. Its scale is ultimately determined by, as the key architect of post-war prosperity, John Maynard Keynes, put it, on how the ‘cake is cut’. History cannot be clearer: high levels of poverty and inequality have gone hand in hand. It is no coincidence that over the last four decades, poverty levels have more than doubled, while the share of national income accruing to the top one per cent has surged.
The prize was awarded to David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens for real-world research in the 1990s that demonstrated, empirically, that the idea touted by conservative economists that higher minimum wages mean fewer jobs is not based on fact.
ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow said: “These Nobel Prize winners have demolished the unproven, yet influential, theory that ensuring that workers have a decent minimum wage somehow means job losses.
Read the article
Lees verderBlog by Dorothy Grace Guerrero, Global Justice Now:
The organisation of our economies has driven two of the biggest global crises the world faces: pandemics, of which Covid-19 will not be the last, and the climate and ecological breakdown. On top of actual infections and deaths experienced by families, Covid-19 is also affecting every person and community due to lockdowns, prolonged workplace closures, suspension of classes, travel restrictions and general economic impacts. However, it does not do so equally. The pandemic has exposed and exacerbated existing inequalities and injustices and the structural inequalities play a significant role in determining who lives and who dies.
Experts say Covid-19 survivors may go on to develop long Covid, creating a generation left with chronic health problems and disability, the personal and economic impacts of which might be felt for decades to come. The UN has already acknowledged that Covid-19 has also wiped out years of progress in the 15-year global work on the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, which was already off track in 2019.
Read more:
Vaccine apartheid, a strategy of social murder – Global Justice Now Global Justice Now
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