13 results for tag: United Nations


Impact:Peace is Reducing Violence Through High Impact Peacebuilding

People think about lethality and they think about conflict zones. They don't think about countries and places with very high levels of violence that exist outside of conflict. For example, many people don't realize that Brazil and Mexico constitute two of the most lethal countries in the world.  If we're going to be talking about evidence-based solutions to address violence, we have to start with knowing—where is the violence, and what's the kind of violence that we're talking about?

Tools Against Corruption and Human Trafficking

Human trafficking, also known as trafficking in persons (TIP), is a multibillion-dollar criminal industry surpassed only by drug trafficking and arms sales. The 2017 data by the International Labor Organization (ILO) revealed that there are more than 40 million victims of human trafficking worldwide. Under federal and international law, TIP is considered a crime, but there have been many challenges in enforcing this. Ambassador Luis C.deBaca (retired), a Robina Fellow of Modern Slavery at Yale’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, shared with VantagePoints his thoughts about public policy mechanisms and the ...

The Value of Peacekeeping

This year, the United Nations (UN) celebrates 70 years of peacekeeping. Since 1948, more than one million UN peacekeepers from over 100 countries have served to stabilize some of the world’s most volatile conflict zones. Studies have shown that peacekeeping makes a huge difference in terms of preventing the resurgence of conflict when sufficiently resourced and equipped. But with recent budget cuts to several UN Peacekeeping missions, there is a growing concern about the future of the institution.  VantagePoints recently spoke with Chandrima Das on this issue. Ms. Das serves as the Peacekeeping Policy Director at the United Nations Foundation. She ...

Addressing the Animal Origins of Infectious Diseases

"We’ve found over the past few years that about 70 percent of new and reemerging infectious diseases have an animal origin. We have found that these diseases are spilling over into humans, and we think a lot of that has to do with humans encroaching more and more into animal spaces."

Economic Empowerment is a Civil Right

"Operation HOPE is the first nonprofit banker in the United States. Our programs serve as a model for economic empowerment that have been acknowledged by President Bill Clinton, Oprah, the United States government, and other leaders and partners around the world. "

The Impact of Private Funding and Research on Lupus

"In the lupus community, we’re all driven by the same goal - improving the lives of people with lupus - but there are silos. The culture of research and collaboration around drug development and working with industry doesn’t yet fully exist."

Bridging the Gaps Between Intentions and Outcomes

"Structures are the organizing components of how you’ll work together. Without a structure, you have people doing things, but cohesion is missing. This makes it hard to prototype and move forward from failure or to the next success. Without a structure, the odds are high that you’ll be unable to do what you said you would do."

Combating Tropical Diseases and Poverty in Nicaragua

"Tropical diseases and conditions in the area are especially dire for the local people given the level of poverty in the area. Nicaragua is the second most impoverished area in the western hemisphere, and according to the World Health Organization, only 6.3% of Nicaraguans have health insurance."

Institutional Memory at the United Nations

"One of my goals was to maintain an institutional memory for the UN because everything that’s going on in the world comes through the Secretary-General’s office. You might assume that much of this material has already been digitally captured through email or other sources, but it hasn’t."

UN SECRETARY-GENERAL CANDIDATE NATALIA GHERMAN

"Whether we are talking about peace, or about sustainable development, we will be guided by an all-embracive slogan: we will leave no one behind. Leaving no one behind means including, informing, and empowering all the categories of people in our society to feel ownership over processes that are important for them."