Reduced Inequalities

Graphic: Housing affordability is most problematic in EU cities. Credit: World Bank

'Growing Economic Divides' Trouble Europe

By Robert Johnson

BRUSSELS (IDN) – A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Growing Economic Divides, which threaten to create tensions not only between the young and the old but also between employers and employees as well as between the low- and high-income earners. At the heart of the growing divides is housing, and these often play out across regions within countries, says a new World Bank report. High-productivity jobs are concentrated in metropolitan regions where housing prices are inflated and rents are high.

: Robert Johnson; THE WORLD; EU & Europe; 10 November 2018

Photo: The first migrants from the Aquarius ship arrive at the port of Valencia on an Italian ship, the Dattilo, June 2018. Credit: UNHCR

Migration a Major Issue in EU's Relations with 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific States

By Reinhard Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – As the United Nations Global Compact fractures, migration has become a key issue in negotiations between the European Union (EU) and 79 countries from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) which kicked off in September 2018 to hammer out a successor to the Cotonou Partnership Agreement set to expire in 2020.

The ACP-EU Partnership Agreement, signed in Cotonou, Benin, on June 23, 2000, was concluded for a 20-year period from 2000 to 2020. It is the most comprehensive partnership agreement between developing countries and the EU. In 2010, ACP-EU cooperation was adapted to new challenges such as climate change, food security, regional integration, State fragility and aid effectiveness.

: Reinhard Jacobsen; UN INSIDER; 09 November 2018

Photo credit: Human Rights Defenders World Summit.

World Summit Pledges To Protect Human Rights Defenders

By Jamshed Baruah

PARIS (IDN) – A diverse group of 150 human rights defenders from around the world, who gathered for a three-day summit in Paris, have agreed on a landmark action plan which will be presented to the United Nations in December.

The plan focuses on how to protect and promote the work of activists fighting for rights, 20 years on from the first UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.

: Jamshed Baruah; SUSTAINABILITY; Reduced Inequalities; 01 November 2018

Photo: Berlin Wall on Potsdamer Platz, June 1988. CC BY-SA 3.0

Tear Down Walls, Those Manifestations of Superficial Thinking

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – At first I was a bit surprised to find that the English admonition, “Good fences makes for good neighbours” exists in many other languages. I shouldn’t have been taken aback. A moment’s reflection should have told me that fences and walls to divide off peoples have been going on for millennia.

There’s nothing in particular new about the fence between the U.S. and Mexico, the Cold War wall between East and West Germany or the one between Israel and the Palestinian West Bank. Look at the Great Wall of China.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 30 October 2018

Photo: Kalpana Saroj. Crdit: kamanitubes.com

An Indian Woman Rises from the Downtrodden to a Socially Aware Multimillionaire

By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE (IDN) – In 2013, Kalpana Saroj, Chairperson of the Mumbai-based Kamani Tubes Ltd. (KTL), was awarded the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest honour for civilians, for her achievements in the fields of Trade and Industry.

Saroj was successful in turning around the fortunes of KTL, a manufacturing company producing quality copper and copper alloy pipes and tubes. She succeeded where others, including well-networked, male corporate honchos, failed.

What makes her accomplishments all the more impressive is the fact that she is a Dalit (formerly 'Untouchables', the lowest caste in India's millennia-old caste hierarchy) and a woman too. "Her rise to the top is, without a doubt, a function of her personal fortitude and grit," Christina Thomas Dhanaraj, consultant for #dalitwomenfight, told IDN.

: IDN-INPS Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 12 October 2018

Rethinking Mobility – How to Respond to Opportunities in a Changing World

Viewpoint by David Suttie*

ROME (IDN) – Rural people often migrate seasonally with their herds, or to join the harvest in other districts. They frequently travel to towns and cities to trade, do temporary jobs, or advance their education.

In some regions of the world, nomadic cultures are commonplace. Migration is one of the most debated topics and policymakers are fully aware of how much people move around. What is lacking is reliable data – movement is very difficult to capture in official statistical systems.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 02 October 2018

Photo: The Agadez pilot project: Restoring degraded lands to create jobs for migrant reintegration in West Africa. Source: UNCCD

Global Compact Pays Heed to Migrants Fleeing Degrading Lands

Viewpoint by Mariam Traore Chazalnoël

The writer is a specialist in environmental and climate migration at the International Organization for Migration (IOM)'s Office to the United Nations in New York. She has been working since 2013 on the global governance of environmental migration and regularly publishes on the topic. This article first appeared in UNCCD Science to Policy Weblog on 17 August 2018. – The Editor

NEW YORK (IDN) – The plight of people migrating in the context of environmental degradation, climate change impacts and natural disasters and the potential governance responses to such challenges have received a lot of attention in recent years.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; OPINION; 22 September 2018

Photo: Sweden's third largest city Malmö, All sorts of wild ideas are now floating around about murder and rape. One of wild ideas now floating around is that because of immigrants the murder rate has gone up over the last two years. Photo source: Wikimedia Commons.

Sweden's Political Balance Threatened by Immigration Debate

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The arrival in Sweden of 163,000 refugees, mainly Syrians, in 2015 – making for a higher proportion of Sweden's population than almost any other European country – has been used by the far right to drum up broader fears about immigration. A recent spate of shootings, grenade attacks and burnt-out cars has made many Swedes feel afraid of what is going on. This is despite international surveys showing it's the best nation at everything from economic competitiveness to doing good for humanity to achieving happiness.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 04 September 2018

Empower Indigenous Women, Strengthen Communities

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) - August 9 is International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. On this occasion, UN Women calls on each of us to commit to making the voices of indigenous peoples, and indigenous women, louder and more impactful than ever before: http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2018/8/statement-un-women-international-day-of-the-worlds-indigenous-peoples.

At a time of unprecedented human mobility, indigenous women are on the move too, often fleeing violence, environmental disasters and land encroachments that have eaten into their sources of food, water and way of life. The positive economic spin-offs of migration don’t always reach them. Theirs is a move also for justice, as they mobilize to make their voices heard, demand punishment for perpetrators and reparations to restore their dignity.

: Ramesh Jaura; SUSTAINABILITY; Gender Equality; 09 August 2018

Humanitarian Hypocrisy Helps the Criminals Behind Migrant Embarkations

Viewpoint by Roberto Massari*

This article and the previous one entitled 'The Trafficking of Human Beings' by Fred Kuwornu deal with the phenomenon of human trafficking from an Italian point of view – Editor.

ROME (IDN) – I start from the premise that I am in favour of the maximum welcoming of migrant flows provided these take place in a human and legally planned way according to the traditions and values of Western secular (that is, illuminist) civilisation.

Here I am not concerned with the phenomenon of immigration or "landings" as such, but rather the international trafficking of human beings and therefore of the crime against every principle of humanity represented by "embarkations", the terminal point of an international criminal network.