Hong Joo Hahm is Deputy Executive Secretary and Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 1 2018 (IPS) – Asia and the Pacific needs more women entrepreneurs. Women’s economic empowerment and gender equality depend on it, as does the inclusive economic growth needed to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. This drives a new initiative by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, generously supported by Global Affairs Canada, focused on improving women entrepreneurs’ access to finance in our region.
Hong Joo Hahm
Establishing a business c…
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Feb 18 2019 (IPS) – Roma, a 2018 Mexican film written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón, is currently on a triumphal journey through the world. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, the best director and best foreign language film at the Golden Globe Awards, best director and best picture at the Critics´ Choice Awards, best film, best direction and best cinematography at the British Academy Film Awards. Furthermore, Roma has a record high ten nominations for the upcoming Academy Awards (The Oscars). Not at all bad for a black-and-white movie, which appears to have been directed by a sophisticated cineaste and custom-made for an art-house audienc…
Wendell Balderas is Media & Communications Manager of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA)
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jun 14 2019 (IPS) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision authorizing the sale of Philip Morris International (PMI)’s heated tobacco system, IQOS, in the United States inadvertently puts a foot in the door to increase sales of new tobacco products in the developing world.
In April this year, the FDA authorized the sale of IQOS heated tobacco products in the US. However, it that it has not approved IQOS as a ‘modified risk tobacco product’ (MRTP). But PMI is riding on this ‘US-FDA approved for sale’ of its IQOS as…
Credit: Bigstock.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 5 2019 (IPS) – European and North American countries will take a major stride in cleaning up the atmosphere next Monday, 7 October, through the implementation of an amended legally binding treaty to limit the amount of emissions polluting the air.
With 18 countries and the European Union now having the amended treaty, from a total of 51 who have signed, including many of the countries which are part of the UN Economic Commission for Europe , the official entry into force marks an important step to curb pollutants closely-linked to climate change, ecosystem degeneration, and potentially life-threatening human health.
As the West questions damaging austerity policies, it is becoming the new normal for the rest of the world, risking achievement of sustainable development goals.
WASHINGTON DC and LONDON, Nov 25 2019 (IPS) – After years of austerity, a number of Eurozone countries are now considering fiscal policies. And in the UK, government spending is set to return to levels . But austerity abounds elsewhere in the world, including in some of the poorest countries.
Since 2010, governments around the world have been cutting public expenditure. found that about 75 per cent of the global population, or 5.8 billion people, will be in countries undergoing austerity by 2…
Kenyans register Huduma-Namba. Credit: Reuters/Goran Tomasevic
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 3 2020 (IPS) – A recent opinion piece in the New York Times titled, “” raises an issue that the UN is passionate about: that the pursuit of sustainable development should leave no one behind.
In seeking inclusivity of all in the development narrative. Kenya is making important gains in making the invisible, visible.
The court ruling that gave the Government the green light to continue with digital civil registration- if implemented in an inclusive and non-discriminatory manner, could assist many citizens who have come to be known as ‘invisible’ people – including state…
Credit: United Nations
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 24 2020 (IPS) – When US President Donald Trump repeatedly characterized the fast-spreading COVID-19 as a “Chinese virus” last week, it prompted some white supremacists to resurrect an age old ethnic slur against Chinese and East Asians: the “Yellow Peril” which, in a bygone era, was touted as a xenophobic threat to the Western world.
But Tendayi Achiume, UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia, is highly critical of the racist interpretation to a disease which has claimed over 16,500 deaths worldwide and accounted for more than 378,000 infections, with the epice…
BERLIN, May 13 2020 (IPS) – In public health discussions, it is generally recognized that the social returns to health care investments are greater than the private returns, and much of such investments should be financed by the state.
Also, global benefits from national health care spending are greater than just the national benefits, while the costs of underinvestment in national health care are borne not only by the country in question, but also by the rest of the world.
Vladimir Popov
Extending life expectancy
First, governments have a responsibility to increase the life expectancy of their citizens, at least commensurate with their level of econo…
Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP
BANGKOK, Thailand, Apr 8 2020 (IPS) – The unprecedented public health emergency triggered by the COVID -19 pandemic and its multi-faceted impact on people’s lives around the world is taking a heavy toll on Asia and the Pacific.
Countries in our region are striving to mitigate the massive socioeconomic impact of the pandemic, which is also expected to affect the region’s economic health. In its annual Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2020 launched today, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)expectsgrowth in Asia-Pacific developing economies to slow down significantly this year.
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 28 2020 (IPS) – The Covid-19 pandemic is now widely considered more threatening than any other recent viral epidemic. Most believe that many more have been infected or even died than officially confirmed.
Despite available information, some national leaders believed that the epidemic would not affect them. Others believed that promoting ‘’ would protect populations by exposing them to the virus, triggering human immune systems to produce antibodies.
Flattening the curve?
The principal strategy adopted by most governments is to ‘flatten the curve’, so that countries’ health systems can cope with new infections by tracing, t…