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Women at the forefront of peacebuilding
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War and conflicts are ravaging communities across the world today. The recent years have also seen wide-spread targeting of women and girls in conflict zones and a marked pushback on women’s rights. Sixteen years since the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 1325 in 2000, the women, peace and security agenda remains relevant and critical in the face of rising violence, extremism and deadly conflicts.

Even as women continue to bear the brunt of war, there is increased recognition of their pivotal role as peacebuilders. For example, in 2015, 7 out of 10 peace agreements signed included gender specific provisions [1]—a vast improvement compared against the analysis showing that only 73 out of 664 agreements produced between 1990 and 2000 included a reference to women. More security sector personnel are now trained to prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based violence, and more countries are implementing national action plans or related strategies.

When women are included in peace processes, there is a 20 per cent increase in the probability of an agreement lasting at least 2 years, and a 35 per cent increase in the probability of an agreement lasting at least 15 years [3]. There is a growing momentum for fulfilling the women, peace and security agenda: at the 2015 High-Level Review of the implementation of resolution 1325, more than 180 political, financial and institutional commitments were made by Member States and regional organizations.Resolution 2242, which was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council during the 2015 Open Debate, together with the seven previous resolutions and related policy commitments on women, peace and security, provide a strong common agenda for action.

Yet, implementation of policies and international commitments on the ground remain unfulfilled. Much more needs to be done. For example, women make only 3 per cent of UN military peacekeepers [4]. In conflict-affected countries, women’s share of seats in parliament is four per cent lower than the global average of 22.7 per cent [5]. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently urged all actors, including governments, to earmark 15 per cent of peacebuilding funds to projects that directly advance gender equality, which would not always require new funding, but rather, a prioritization within existing funds. 

On 25 October 2016, the UN Security Council will convene its annual Open Debate on Women, Peace and Security, with a focus on how Member States, regional organizations and the UN have followed-up on commitments and recommendations from the 2015 High-level Review and the related Global Study on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000). The Debate will also consider future steps to advancing the agenda, taking into account new threats and emerging challenges, including the rise of violent extremism, the protracted nature of displacement and the impact of climate shocks.

The new report of the UN Secretary-General on women, peace and security (S/2016/822) brings forth information on recent trends and highlights latest development and results. It also provides an update on the status of implementation since 1 January 2015 and draws attention to areas of stagnation and regression and other concerning developments. The report features initiatives such as the new mechanism in the Security Council, the Informal Experts Group on women, peace and security, designed to ensure greater flows of quality and actionable information to the Council; the new Global Acceleration Instrument on women, peace and security and humanitarian action, aimed at catalyzing new funding for commitments on this agenda and country-level progress in a range of areas from implementation of National Action Plans to increased women’s leadership in institutions responsible for peace and security. It further notes that the priority areas identified last year continue to require urgent action. 

On the 16th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, UN Women spotlights women’s leadership and the critical role they play in preventing conflict, sustaining peace and shaping more effective responses to today’s complex crises.


Read personal, unique and powerful stories of women around the world.

This blog post was originally posted here.

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The Global Gender Gap Report 2016
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Through the Global Gender Gap Report, the World Economic Forum quantifies the magnitude of gender disparities and tracks their progress over time, with a specific focus on the relative gaps between women and men across four key areas: health, education, economy and politics. The 2016 Report covers 144 countries. More than a decade of data has revealed that progress is still too slow for realizing the full potential of one half of humanity within our lifetimes.

Download the report.

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The invisible lives of the girls who get left behind
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The economic empowerment of women is vital to global development. If gender gaps in labour markets were completely closed, as much as $28 trillion could be added to global annual GDP by 2025.

This would make a critical contribution both to economic growth and to poverty reduction. But women’s economic empowerment is also the key to achieving gender equality and building the inclusive and prosperous societies that are at the heart of the global ambition reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Those goals, and particularly SDG 8 on good jobs and economic growth, will only be achieved if women around the world are able to take a full and equal place in the economic life of their countries.

That’s why the Global Gender Gap report remains so important: by capturing trends in some of the most important aspects of women’s economic empowerment - in terms of participation, remuneration and advancement - the Index gives us the tools we need both to understand the barriers and to track our progress in overcoming them. Of course, data alone will not deliver the kind of global development we all want to see. But without it, we will act as if we are blindfolded.

Girls and young women left furthest behind

For girls and young women, economic empowerment is vital to improving not only their future work prospects, but also their long-term health, their self-confidence and their social status. Crucially, empowering girls and young women can be pivotal in preventing poverty being passed on from one generation to the next.

Yet despite the evidence of the benefits of investing in girls - for themselves, for their families and for their communities - girls and young women around the world continue to face widespread discrimination.

Young women face particular problems in the job market and they lag behind onvirtually every labour force measure, including participation, earnings, productivity, job quality and career mobility.

In sub-Saharan Africa, 42% of young women are not in education, training or employment. Where young women in the developing world are in work, their jobs are likely to be vulnerable, informal and unprotected. They may be underpaid, or not paid at all.

Yet, for all we do know about the plight and potential of girls, the specific problems they face are often missing from the official figures. In most countries, data are not regularly being collected for more than half of the official indicators for the Global Goals.

We don’t count how many girls’ educations are cut short by early marriage, pregnancy or violence; we don’t even know exactly how many give birth before they turn 15, let alone what kind of work they do, for how long, and whether they get paid for it. It will be vital to understand the position of the next generation, and the barriers they face, if real change for women and the world is to be achieved.

Complex problems call for new alliances

Real change also needs collaboration, often between unlikely allies: new partnerships, with businesses working with NGOs and governments alike, which can break down silos, such as those that stand between education systems and labour markets.

The World Economic Forum’s ‘Shaping the Future of Education, Gender and Work’ illustrates how deep-seated disadvantages can be overcome if all parties come together to find new ways to nurture talent, rethink education and develop skills in order to bring us closer to gender parity and boost employment opportunities.
 


This blog post was originally posted here.

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Economic gender parity nearly two centuries off, WEF finds
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Progress in closing the global workplace gender gap is slowing dramatically, according to a World Economic Forum study, with a notable exception in Rwanda, a country still emerging from the aftermath of genocide that has become the world's leader on equal pay.

The Geneva-based body pushed back its projection for economic parity between women and men by 53 years after finding chronic imbalances in salaries and workforce representation had reversed the pace of progress since a peak in 2013. It now projects economic equality to be reached in 2186, another 170 years off.

"Progress towards parity in the key economic pillar has slowed dramatically with the gap now larger than at any point since 2008," WEF said when releasing its 2016 Global Gender Report on Wednesday.

Last year, women around the world earned just over half as much as their male counterparts despite working more hours, and participated in the labor market at two-thirds the rate of men, its authors found.

While high-income countries showed the narrowest gender gaps, low-income countries on average performed just as well as their upper-middle-income peers. Differences were more pronounced on a regional basis, with even high-income nations from the Middle East and North Africa scoring low.

NORDIC COUNTRIES MOST SUCCESSFUL

Nordic countries once again topped the list -- with Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden ranked highest on gender equality.

Rwanda -- a low-income country -- moved up to fifth place, with more women than men in its labor force and the world's highest share of female members of parliament at 64 percent.

Rwandan women earned 88 cents to men's dollar for similar work, WEF said, making it the country with the highest degree wage equality.

While gender gaps in education as well as health and survival have nearly closed overall, the Swiss non-profit group said inequalities in economic participation and political empowerment remain "wide open" around the world. Women have less than a quarter the political representation attained by men and 59 percent of the economic participation and opportunity.

"The number of women in senior positions also remains stubbornly low, with only four countries in the world having equal numbers of male and female legislators, senior officials and managers, despite the fact that 95 countries now have as many - if not more - women educated at university level."

Each year the Geneva-based body gathers politicians and business executives at a week-long summit in the resort town of Davos. With a host of factors holding women back from top positions worldwide, WEF has said female representation in Davos remains too low.

This year just 18 percent of participants were women.


This article was originally posted here.

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5 ways to help the Arctic as the planet warms
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The Arctic—home to diverse wildlife and many cultures—is changing faster than any other part of the planet in the face of climate change. Melting sea ice is already contributing to rising ocean levels worldwide and opening up new areas of the ocean for risky oil drilling. And polar bears, which depend on that ice to hunt seals, rest, and breed, are now more vulnerable than ever.

The Columbia Climate Center, in partnership with WWF and Arctic 21, published a new report that asks experts to consider the effects on the Arctic in light of an international agreement that aims to limit climate change to between 1.5° and less than 2° s C. Unfortunately for the Arctic, even that limited increase could mean a change of roughly 4°C and even up to 5°C.

Already, the changes are impacting not only Arctic residents, but billions of people living in other parts of the world.

But there’s still time left to help the Arctic and the impacts of climate change. Ultimately, experts agreed on five important ways we can take action:

1. We need to fund research to help us all better understand what the Arctic might look like in the near future. That research should prepare us for multiple scenarios.

2. We need to develop technology to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Once we find out what works, that technology should be put to work immediately and on a large-scale.

3. We need to immediately help people who live in the Arctic to adapt, which may include relocating communities. Right now there’s little policy and infrastructure to help these people adapt so they’re going it alone.

4. We need to give scientists the tools to help us effectively understand and adapt to a changing Arctic. We should support an emerging pan-Arctic observing system, along with early warning components and development of Arctic system models to track Arctic change.

5. We need to create a unified voice for Arctic action with continued global talks and decision-making, especially when that work is forward-looking.

When the White House hosted the first ever Arctic Science Ministerial, leaders from around the world agreed to work collaboratively. Keeping that commitment will be important. The Arctic needs the best in science to create the most effective policy, and no one is going to be able to do it alone.


This blog post was originally posted here.

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Two-thirds of US students are taught climate change badly, study finds
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Just 38% of US schoolchildren were taught that climate change is linked to fossil fuels, with many teachers spending less than an hour a year on the subject.

Nearly two-thirds of schoolchildren in the US are taught lessons on climate change that do not rise to the level of a sound science education, according to new research on Thursday. The finding provide new evidence on the source of the confusion and denial surrounding global warming in American public life.

In the first national survey of classroom science teachers, researchers found there was short shrift given to the teaching of climate change in public middle and high schools in all 50 states.

The survey of 1,500 teachers, published in Science on Thursday, found most pupils spend only an hour or two in the course of an academic year learning about climate change in middle and high school – and much of what they are taught is confusing or simply wrong.

Only 38% of American schoolchildren were taught lessons that adhere to the scientific consensus that climate change is largely the result of the burning of fossil fuels, the researchers from Pennsylvania State University and the National Centre for Science Education found.

Some 30% of teachers spent less than an hour on climate change during the last academic year, the researchers found. In higher grades, much of that time was spent going over old material without introducing more advanced material.

Some 7% attributed recent warming to natural causes – which is simply wrong – while 4% of teachers avoided talking about the cause of climate change. Another 22% said their lessons mentioned the scientific consensus – but also that there was significant disagreement among scientists, which is also incorrect. 

The findings suggest that younger generations – those most likely to experience the havoc and stress of climate change in their lifetimes – are not getting the education to best serve their needs.

Eric Plutzer, a political scientist at Penn State, and a co-author of the study, said: “We don’t think that is good preparation for citizens to be effective in advocating for policies that are going to be critical to their own generation and their children and grandchildren.”

The lack of teaching and the mixed messages about climate change leave schoolchildren more susceptible to disinformation about climate change spread by political or corporate interests once they enter adulthood, the researchers said.

The energy industry has spent millions funding climate denial and supporting Republicans in Congress who deny global warming is occurring.

Indeed, the researchers found that many of the teachers themselves were confused about the causes of climate change. Only 30% of middle school teachers and 45% of high school teachers said that human activity was the main driver of climate change, the researchers found.

Their findings are in line with other studies which have found systemic failings in the teaching of climate change. A Stanford University study of science textbooks used in California public schools last year found misleading material.

Unlike other, more informal surveys, the researchers did not give much weight to the idea that the teachers faced political and parental pressure to avoid teaching the science. But politics remained a factor in how teachers decided to teach the material, Plutzer said. 

“Politics intrude in the same form it takes in the public debate, with teachers whether consciously or not aligning in much the same way as political groups do outside the classroom.”

However, the researchers said it would be unfair to heap the blame on teachers.

Climate science was not yet part of the testable curriculum for many schools – which means there were fewer guidelines available to teachers.

That also meant that teachers were inclined to spend more time teaching other material that students would encounter on standardized tests.

Some of the teachers were also caught out by the rapid advances in climate science. Fewer than half of teachers reported receiving any training in climate science at university, said Josh Rosenau, policy director for the National Center for Science in Education and a co-author. “The scientific community has not made sure that teachers are kept up to date with those advances,” he said, adding that there should be continuing education programs on climate change for teachers.


This article was originally posted on the Guardian.

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Our kids learn their ABCs in school. But why not climate change?
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The classroom is the right place to start educating our citizens about the greatest challenge they will face.

The reality of climate change is here, and the science behind our warming planet is clear. July and August 2016 were the hottest months in recorded history. And last year was the hottest on record. Wildfires have scorched California. Thousand-year floods have devastated Louisiana. Temperatures are soaring. Sea levels are rising. Weather is more extreme. Greenhouse gases have been steadily increasing for decades.

But the trove of research and resulting evidence for human-caused climate change still leaves us with questions. Many of us don’t know how climate change will affect us, collectively and individually. We aren’t certain how we are responsible or what can we do about it.

With nothing less than the future of our planet at stake, the teaching of facts and promotion of understanding must be the order of the day. That is why we introduced the Climate Change Education Act in the US House and the Senate. The legislation would require the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) to create a Climate Change Education Program geared towards teaching students and others about climate change.

In much the same way we teach our children the ABCs as a foundation for a lifetime of learning, we must encourage a national discussion, especially with our youth, about how we can reduce our carbon footprint and serve as stewards of our environment.

This Climate Change Education Program would explore climate change solutions, the dangers we face in a warming world, and the small changes in daily routines that can have a profound global impact. It would promote education about national strategies for resilience to the effects of climate change, including extreme weather events and rising sea levels. It would look at how to make sure our infrastructure is safe and reliable. The program would also incorporate the latest scientific and technological discoveries and provide formal and informal learning opportunities to people of all ages.

The legislation would establish a grant program to support public outreach programs, improve quality and access to education for green-collar jobs, and build capacity so local communities can address climate mitigation and adaptation issues.

We can feel, see and hear the impacts of climate change every day. Here in the United States, families are already preparing to leave their homes as they gradually become submerged, as in the case of Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana.

California has been particularly hard hit by the most dire consequences of climate change: droughts, wildfires and air pollution. Record-breaking drought now running five years has yielded wildfires that have burned up millions of acres. Climate change has led to the first extinction of a species of mammal, the Bramble Cay melomy in Australia. It is also expanding the risk of outbreaks of diseases such as Lyme disease, West Nile fever and water-borne diseases.

The historic Paris agreement signed last year and adopted this month by the United States has united the countries of the world in action on climate change. To achieve the objective of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change of avoiding dangerous global warming, all countries of the world will need to do more individually and collectively.

If the United States is going to lead this international coalition, it must begin its commitment at home. And that must include educating our people, especially our students and young people, about what we all can and must do to implement solutions to the climate crisis, including the deployment of clean energy and the expansion of energy efficiency. The US must demonstrate how people working together can achieve even greater carbon pollution reductions, grow our economies and create jobs.

There is a trove of science behind climate change but there is still much more to learn, especially about the consequences of climate change. It is time we began to learn together, as families, as communities and as a country. If only because we are truly in this together.
 

This opinion article was originally posted on the Guardian.

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Morocco Lets Nothing Go To Waste
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

- Morocco looks at waste as a resource which can be better managed to fuel the economy and reduce environmental impacts.

- Supported by the World Bank, Morocco aims to increase the rate of recycled material to 20 percent by 2022, while improving the conditions of waste-pickers.

- Oum Azza, the Maghreb’s largest modern landfill facility, derives value from organic waste by tapping into biogas from decomposition.

Scavengers have always known there is value to be found in trash.Twelve years ago, when Milouda Haimar’s elderly husband became too ill to work, she turned to the trash mountain near her home. At night, when her six children were in bed, she would strap a flashlight over her headscarf and join other scavengers picking through the refuse of Rabat, the capital city of Morocco. The most valuable finds were copper, followed by aluminum, hard plastic containers and cardboard. Milouda says she could make about 120 to 250 Dirhams* a night, barely enough to provide for her family.

But the trash heap was unsafe. Men, women, elderly people and children competed for the best finds and went through the trash without gloves, in the rain and blinding sunshine, day and night. Moreover, the trash was located in an old quarry that operated without regulations or oversight from 1980 to 2007.

“It used to smell terrible, with streams of toxic leach flowing into the Bouregreg (the river that runs through Rabat). There were walls of black or white foam blocking the road at times” remembers Gerard Prenant, Director of the private operator that manages the Oum Azza waste management site.  

Today, the Bouregreg estuary which discharges to the Atlantic Ocean, is clean enough to attract fishermen and tourists. And Milouda and her fellow trash-pickers have been relocated to a modern facility, the Oum Azza waste management site, where they operate a one-of-a-kind recycling cooperative. This is partly thanks to Morocco’sProgramme National des Déchets Ménagers, through which the Government intends to increase the rate of material collected and recycled from 5 percent today to 20 percent by 2022 while improving the conditions of waste pickers. This Program has been supported by four consecutive World Bank Municipal Solid Waste Development Policy Loans (DPL).

The private operator that runs the Oum Azza site says it is the largest modern sorting and landfilling facility in the Maghreb area, taking in about 850,000 tons of refuse per year. It sponsored the creation of a cooperative and built a sorting facility to help people like Milouda who used to work at the makeshift site, continue earning money but in safer and more organized conditions. About 150 people belong to the cooperative, of which 22 are women.

The members are organized in teams that pick out different types of recyclables on a conveyor belt. “Everyone is paid the same monthly salary of 2,620** Dirhams a month,” explains Yassine Mazzout, President of the Cooperative At-Tawaffouk (which means Success in Arabic), and any excess profit is shared once a year according to the number of hours each one has worked. “Although I make a bit less money than before, there are other advantages,” says Milouda. Cooperative members receive health insurance, access to a bank account and a low mortgage.

The trash pickers also contribute to the business model. The on-site recycling plays an important role:  by extracting about 2,200 tons of solid trash per year for resale and turning about 100,000 tons of green garden waste into compost, the cooperative reduces the volume of trash that needs to be buried and prolongs the site’s life expectancy.  Yassine would like to recycle more waste and help trash pickers in other cities, like Agadir, get organized.

" What Morocco is doing is exemplary. They are looking at waste as a resource rather than trash. The Oum Azza site is a promising model of what other landfills can and should look like with the roll out of the government program. Combining recycling, value chains and jobs is a good recipe to make the dump story a success story. ", Maria Sarraf, Lead Environmental Economist at the World Bank

The Oum Azza landfill is also set up to derive value from organic waste, which represents a large share of the trash in Morocco (about 60%, compared to 30% in Europe), by tapping into the biogas that results from the process of decomposition. Tubes and spigots will one day convey gas to a nearby cement factory furnace. At the time of the site visit, in October 2015, the operator running Oum Azza was waiting for the adoption of a decree that would allow it to sell excess electricity generated by the biogas to the national grid. Shortly after, the decree was adopted as part of a package of reforms supported by the World Bank Inclusive Green Growth DPL.

For now, the gas is flared, converting methane, a gas that has a very high greenhouse warming effect, into carbon, which is relatively less polluting for the earth’s climate. Oum Azza will be the first landfill in Morocco to sell Carbon Emission Reductions through the Clean Development Mechanism program supported by the World Bank. During its lifetime, the site will generate about half a million tons of CO2 emission reductions through the capture of landfill gas and its use to generate electricity on site.

The landfill operator also has plans to create green compost from garden waste and to sell dry and pulverized trash to cement makers. “Our job is to manage waste, and our interest is in having the least possible trash to bury,” says Prenant.

“What Morocco is doing is exemplary. They are looking at waste as a resource rather than trash. The Oum Azza site is a promising model of what other landfills can and should look like with the roll out of the government program. Combining recycling, value chains and jobs is a good recipe to make the dump story a success story” says Maria Sarraf, Lead Environmental Economist at the World Bank.


This blog post was originally posted here.

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Reducing Food Loss and Waste
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About 24 percent of all calories currently produced for human consumption are lost or wasted. This paper examines the implications of this amount of loss and waste, profiles a number of approaches for reducing it, and puts forth five recommendations for how to move forward on this issue. "Reducing Food Loss and Waste" is the second installment in the series that forms the foundation of the “World Resources Report 2013-14: Creating a Sustainable Food Future.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that 32 percent of all food produced in the world was lost or wasted in 2009. This estimate is based on weight. When converted into calories, global food loss and waste amounts to approximately 24 percent of all food produced. Essentially, one out of every four food calories intended for people is not ultimately consumed by them.

Food loss and waste have many negative economic and environmental impacts. Economically, they represent a wasted investment that can reduce farmers’ incomes and increase consumers’ expenses. Environmentally, food loss and waste inflict a host of impacts, including unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions and inefficiently used water and land, which in turn can lead to diminished natural ecosystems and the services they provide.

Big inefficiencies suggest big savings opportunities. We estimate that if the current rate of food loss and waste were cut in half―from 24 percent to 12 percent―by the year 2050, the world would need about 1,314 trillion kilocalories (kcal) less food per year than it would in the business-as-usual global food requirements scenario described in The Great Balancing Act, the first installment of this World Resources Report working paper series. That savings--1,314 trillion kcal--is roughly 22 percent of the 6,000 trillion kcal per year gap between food available today and that needed in 2050. Thus, reducing food loss and waste could be one of the leading global strategies for achieving a sustainable food future.

In this paper, we profile a subset of approaches to reducing food loss and waste that experts suggest are particularly practical and cost-effective, that could be implemented relatively quickly, and that could achieve quick gains. We also recommend a number of cross-cutting strategies to further galvanize commitment to reducing food loss and waste.

Reducing Food Loss and Waste is the second in a series of working papers that we’ll roll out over the course of a year. Each subsequent paper will take a detailed look at a potential solution that could help achieve a sustainable food future. These installments will set the foundation for and culminate in the World Resources Report 2013-2014: Creating a Sustainable Food Future. To learn more about the series and sign up to receive updates, visit the World Resources Report website.

Read the report.

This blog post was originally posted here.