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The classic speculative fiction story, "The Long Rain" by Ray Bradbury, tells the story of astronauts who visit the planet Venus, where it is always raining and a few special domes provide a place for people to rest and recover. The crew members desperately travel from one shelter to another to find that they have all been completely destroyed and no longer provide protection. One by one they die or go insane under the bombardment of the rain.
Globalization failing to create new, quality jobs or reduce poverty
Global economic growth is increasingly failing to translate into new and better jobs that lead to a reduction in poverty, according to a new report issued by the International Labour Office (ILO). In the report, the ILO points out that within this global trend, different regions show mixed results in terms of job creation, productivity results, wage improvements and poverty reduction.
UNCTAD XI – A Missed Opportunity?
UNCTAD XI has shown that developing countries continue to stand together and demand fair trade policies from developed countries. However, it has to be seen whether the agreed language (e.g. on ‘policy space’) will also find its way in the ongoing WTO negotiations. In that sense and taking into account that - especially Northern governments and civil society actors - did not have high expectations towards this conference, UNCTAD XI can not be seen as a missed opportunity. Still, UNCTAD was not able to claim a strong leadership role in ensuring that international trade structures are supportive to developing countries in achieving poverty eradication, sustainable development, gender and social justice. UNCTAD XI stays – to say it with other words – a toothless tiger.
Social, Economic and
Environmental Sustainability From a Gender Perspective:
At the major UN conferences of the nineties, the governments committed themselves to sustainable development, to combating poverty and environmental degradation and to respecting human rights and women’s rights. In 1992, the central message of the Rio de Janeiro Agenda 21 was the concept of sustainability. Development can only be 'future compatible' if it embraces ecological, social and economic issues. But the message from Rio has also been that sustainability without a qualified participation of women, i.e. participation also in decision making, will not work.
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