Interview with Dr. Stephen Jackson, UN Resident Coordinator in Kenya | UN Ocean Conference | Interview with the Executive Director of Tara Ocean Foundation
UN Ocean Conference in Portugal, Interview with the Executive Director of Tara Ocean Foundation, Interview with UN Resident Coordinator in Kenya, Interview with Brazil's Deputy Consul in Los Angeles
UN Ocean Conference
In Beautiful Portugal
UN Ocean Conference, 27 June to 1 July
Lisbon, Portugal
The 2022 UN Ocean Conference, co-hosted by the Governments of Kenya and Portugal, will take place on 27 June – 1 July 2022, in Lisbon, Portugal.
It is free to attend. Sign up on the link above.
The theme of the Conference is: “Scaling up ocean action based on science and innovation for the implementation of Goal 14: stocktaking, partnerships, and solutions”.
Top Side Events:
Monday | 27 June
Monday, 27 June 2022 | 14:00 – 14:30 | Altice Arena, SDG Media Zone*
Following the launch of its Ocean Literacy Toolkit for Policymakers, UNESCO has announced an ambitious objective to integrate ocean education into national curricula of all its Member States by 2025. But how can we empower youth, and citizens at large, beyond the classroom to sustain ocean action in this Ocean Decade?
Ms Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director-General, convenes an interactive discussion between UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Oskar Metsavaht and Maya Gabeira, UNESCO Champion for the Ocean and Youth, to highlight the role of ocean education to empower the next generations for creating the ocean we need.
Marine pollution front and centre stage. Zero-Plastics.
Interview with Romain Troublé
Executive Director, Tara Ocean Foundation
Tara Ocean Foundation is first foundation in France dedicated to ocean research promotion, they have launched an ambitious project with the Tara Polar Station in the Arctic.
Source: Tara Ocean Foundation website
Fifteen years after a first 500-day expedition in the Arctic, the Tara Ocean Foundation is preparing to launch a new scientific exploration in the heart of the Arctic Ocean.
This mission aims to strengthen French and international research on this environment, among the most extreme on our planet, to better understand the impact of climate change on biodiversity and adaptive abilities of endemic species.
The Tara Ocean Foundation is about to launch the construction of a new vessel specifically designed to be locked in ice for the purpose of observation and scientific research. The polar station will be dedicated to the in-depth study of the Arctic, from its atmosphere to great depths, to understand the impact of climate change on the unique marine life it shelters.
Tara Polar Station is scheduled to be trapped in the Arctic ice by 2024.
A scientific and human adventure in the North Pole
The drifting scientific polar base entitled Tara Polar Station, designed in collaboration with the architect Olivier Petit, will embark scientists from all over the world on multiple successive drifts until 2045.
Climatologists, biologists, physicists, glaciologists, oceanographers, artists, physicians, journalists and sailors will collaborate and cohabit aboard Tara Polar Station to conduct observations and in situ measurements in temperatures ranging between -20 and -45°C in the heart of the polar night in winter.
This French mission already brings together the CNRS, CEA and CNES (France), the French Polar Institute Paul-Émile Victor, Laval University in Quebec (Canada), the University of Maine (United States), the Swiss Polar Institute, the Alfred Wegener Institute: Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (Germany), and the Arctic Research Centre (Denmark).
These institutions will develop a multidisciplinary scientific approach to explore the many secrets of this environment, still poorly known and yet so decisive in understanding the causes and consequences of climate change. The main lines of research will be:
The migration of marine organisms to the Arctic and their future
The impact of climate change on the functioning of Arctic ecosystems
New discoveries in biotechnology and biomedicine, and the adaptation abilities of life forms in extreme conditions
The mechanisms of climate change in the Arctic.
Tara Polar Station is a project contributing to the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030)
Tara Polar Station and research schooner Tara to advance the knowledge of the Ocean
The Tara Ocean Foundation aims to be present on all the oceans and seas of our planet to contribute to oceanographic exploration and scientific discovery.
In the wake of Nansen's Fram expedition, Tara’s missions and the MOSAiC expedition of German research icebreaker Polarstern, the Foundation is now building a unique tool specifically designed to support extreme conditions and study the North Pole over long periods of time, at controlled costs.
The polar base is designed to accommodate a crew of 12 to 20, on 18-months long missions, and to promote international cooperation essential to our common future.
“This ocean on the edge of the world, covered with ice and difficult to access, remains a mystery for science and, in particular, for biologists.
Many missions took place in summer, but few remained there over several seasons in order to thoroughly study the biodiversity it hosts.
Thanks to this tremendous support from the French government, we have the ambition to extend the boundaries of Arctic polar scientific exploration over the next 3 decades.
Hopefully, this mission will contribute to discovering major knowledge on climate change before its consequences are fully perceptible throughout the world,” says Romain Troublé, executive director of the Tara Ocean Foundation.
United States Mission to the United Nations
Statement by Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Supreme Court Ruling
Source: Office of Press and Public Diplomacy
June 24, 2022
Today, the Supreme Court has taken away the established, fundamental, Constitutional right to abortion from millions of Americans.
This is a cruel, dark, and dangerous decision.
Over the course of my lifetime, our country has sought to bend the long arc of history towards justice, especially when it comes to the rights of women and girls, in all their diversity. I have personally experienced how much it means to have your rights recognized. And I have learned that we must fight for our rights – that we can never take them for granted.
What makes this decision so heartbreaking is that Americans had a clear and unequivocal Constitutional right stripped away. Roe v. Wade not only protected the right to privacy, it also reaffirmed basic principles of gender equality – that all women have the power to control their own destinies and make intensely personal choices free from interference from politicians.
I have traveled the globe advocating for women’s rights. Now, this decision renders my own country an outlier among developed nations in the world.
But as President Biden said, the fight is not over. Let me be clear: the Biden Administration remains committed to protecting and advancing the rights of women and girls around the world, including at the UN and in our foreign assistance.We will keep defending the rights of women and girls both at home and abroad. And we will keep supporting sexual and reproductive health and rights, providing assistance for global health, advancing gender equity and equality, and putting women’s empowerment at the forefront of our agenda.
That is what President Biden has asked us to do, and that is what we will continue to do with vigor and pride.
Interview with Dr. Stephen Jackson
UN Resident Coordinator in Kenya
What is the UN Resident Coordinator's Office? What is the UN Development Assistance Framework? How does one measure success? To answer these and other questions we interviewed Dr. Jackson, Resident Coordinator, in Nairobi, Kenya.
Nairobi is home to the third largest UN office. All UN agencies and bodies of the UN System have an office there, from where they coordinate and deploy their humanitarian services and development programs throughout the continent.
What is the remit of the Resident Coordinator’s Office?
Source: UN website
The Resident Coordinator’s Office supports the work of the UN Resident Coordinator and coordinates activities of the UN Country Team in its engagement with the Government as defined by the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF).
Kenya is currently implementing UNDAF 2018 – 2022, which is the medium-term results framework that describes the response of the UN system to national development priorities. UNDAF describes how the UN country team will contribute to the achievement of development results based on a common country analysis and the UN comparative advantage.
The Resident Coordinator is leading and strategically positioning the United Nations country team in Kenya to respond to the current national priorities, mainly to Kenya’s Vision 2030, Medium-Term Plan III and the Big Four Agenda. The Office has five core functions:
Strategic Planning
Economics
Partnerships and development finance
Data and results management and reporting
Communications and advocacy
UN Resident Coordinator Appointment
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Stephen Jackson of Ireland as the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Kenya, with the host Government’s approval from 1 March 2021.
Mr. Jackson brings close to 30 years of experience in international development, peacebuilding and humanitarian affairs to the position, including more than 10 years in Sub-Saharan Africa.
At the United Nations, he most recently served as Resident Coordinator in Gabon, after holding leadership positions at the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) and with United Nations Peacekeeping.
In DPA, he served as Chief of Policy Planning and Guidance, headed the Secretariat to the High-Level Review of United Nations Peacebuilding in 2015, worked as Team Leader of the Mediation Support Unit, was Chief of Staff of the United Nations Office in Burundi (BNUB), led the Policy Planning Unit as well as the Africa Great Lakes Team, and worked as Special Adviser to the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for the Great Lakes.
With Peacekeeping, he served as a Senior Political Adviser with the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC).
Prior to joining the Organization, Mr. Jackson was the Deputy Director of the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum (CPPF) at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) in New York and served as the Director of the International Famine Centre and a Lecturer in Sociology at the National University of Ireland in Cork after working in humanitarian relief and development in Angola, Rwanda and Somalia.
He holds a doctorate in cultural anthropology and a master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University, USA, as well as a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.
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Brazil: Research and Innovation in Biotech
Science Diplomacy at Work
Interview with the Deputy Consul-General at the Consulate of Brazil in Los Angeles, H.E. Daniel Roberto Pinto
Brazil has started to enhance cooperation in the biomedical research areas. Interview with the Deputy Consul-General in Los Angeles, Daniel Roberto Pinto, to find out what is planned for the coming months, and the focus areas for his jurisdiction.
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