It is a Wrap #4
Summer Solstice is Around the Corner. It is time to #GoOut.
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With travel restrictions slowly lifting up in Switzerland and France, it is time to grab your hats, the picnic basket, sunscreen and venture outdoors. Here at The UN Brief we prefer the countryside or the seaside. Cities, festivals, concerts in closed spaces, and agglomerations of any kind will be not our first choices for traveling in the near future.
This week sees the end of the International Labour Conference, organized virtually for the first time in the 102 years’ history of the ILO. In case you were super busy, and missed it, here is the interview with Janine Berg, Senior Economist at ILO, on their many excellent reports on the world of work, the gig economy, the future of work, and WFH.
Presented by Microsoft
Learn more about Microsoft's engagements with the United Nations.
International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour
I am sure you want your kids and teenagers to pick up the slack at home and help doing the dishes and fold the laundry :), but child labour is a serious issue with youngsters being exploited and deprived of an education all around the globe.
UNICEF, ILO, and the European Union spoke at the event organised by the Permanent Mission of Luxembourg to give you the skinny on child labour during the pandemic, and what private sector and governments can do to reverse the trend that saw an increase in child labour the last year, erasing the gains of the paste decade on eliminating child labour.
ILO and UNICEF are calling for governments to protect children’s rights and to ensure that low-income families can benefit from minimum social protection floors, so children do not have to go to work to supplement their parents income.
ILO will be hosting a conference on what for many is a thorny issue, #RegulatingPlatforms. It takes place from the 6 to the 8 of July and addresses the challenges of enforcing legislation to protect gig workers.
Africa is the big continent where, if their smart government leaders realize, the platform economy can bring decent work, but only if government reins-in unbridled greed from #BIGTech, to make sure they pay minimum wages and provide essential benefits to their workers.
There is all this talk of inequalities, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, with billionaires in the US calling for greater taxation on their wealth, even venture capital investors like Sam Altman calling for Universal Basic Income, but some say they could also start by paying decent, living wages.
ILO has, for the last 102 years, been promoting research on the labour markets. If you do not yet know their excellent reports and quarterly monitors check them out. Follow Janine Berg on Twitter too, she posts frequently links to ILO’s research and articles on the future of work.
WIPO Establishes Partnerships to Educate Creators on Intellectual Property Rights in the Digital Age
WIPO for Creators has welcomed its first partners for their program to support creators to ensure they are rewarded for their work “by increasing knowledge and awareness of their intellectual property (IP) rights”.
IP and Innovation Ecosystems
The UN Brief interviewed Mr. Marco Aleman, WIPO’s Assistant Director-General for IP and Innovation Ecosystems to speak about their programs for 2021 and what is the role of innovation ecosystems in the creation of value and wealth for developing countries.
WIPO for Creators Will Address Musicians First
WIPO for Creators is a public-private partnership launched by WIPO and the Sweden-based Music Rights Awareness Foundation, in 2020, to bring together creators, governments other stakeholders across the globe to promote intellectual property rights in the digital age.
WIPO for Creators members and sponsors:
International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC);
Digital Data Exchange (DDEX);
International Authors Forum (IAF);
International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP);
International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI)
Independent Music Publishers International Forum (IMPF);
International Publishers Association (IPA);
Societies’ Council for the Collective Management of Performers’ Rights (SCAPR)
Source: WIPO Press Office
WIPO for Creators is currently building its network of members, sponsors and friends while developing a Creators Platform - an online rights awareness platform - with the aim of supporting creators worldwide across the many different creative fields.
The Creators Platform will initially target creators in the music industry and will be expanded as a vehicle for educational interactions with creators in all industries, including literature, audiovisual creation and the dramatic and visual arts.
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is on one the UN specialized agencies that addresses intellectual property policy, services, information and cooperation. WIPO assists its 193 member states in developing a balanced international IP legal framework to meet society's evolving needs. It provides business services for obtaining IP rights in multiple countries and resolving disputes. It delivers capacity-building programs to help developing countries benefit from using IP. And it provides free access to unique knowledge banks of IP information.
From The WIPO Archives
Check some of the patents from their archives: quirky and imaginative, they will certainly make you chuckle. Ideas, ideas, ideas, they are worth their weight in gold. Do not let people tell you otherwise. These patents show you how creative humankind is, and you never know, better safe than sorry protecting the darlings of your imagination from cultural predators and copy-cats or jaguars.
Shoes to climb ladders that will grip. You know, just in case you want to climb upside down. 1913, what a year!
Or maybe you fancy animal track soles? To confuse that spy that is keen in following you everywhere when you are trying to explore, incognito, the mountains of the Jura?
Arrivals and Departures
UNCTAD: A New Secretary-General for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres proposed to appoint Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica, for the post of Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development - A/75/909
The UN General Assembly has to confirm her appointment.
UNICEF Leads on Innovation in Educational Tools
We also interviewed Mac Glovinsky UNICEF program lead on the Learning Passport Initiative, and UNICEF’s Global Innovation Director, Thomas Davin, who is based in Thailand, on re-imagining of the innovation function throughout the organisation.