Week Ahead at the UN
World Trade Report Focus on the Environment, WHO Considers International Instrument for Pandemic Preparedness, COP26 Commitments Reverberate: The Banking Sector Looks at Sustainable Finance Models
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World Trade Report 2021 Looks at the Role of International Cooperation in the Fight Against Climate Change
The 2021 WTO World Trade Report looked at the role of trade policies on environmental goods and services, ways that trade supports economic resilience, and how international cooperation mitigates climate change’s impact on supply chains.
Geneva was going to host the World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference, MC12, this week, but the virus had other ideas, with a new variant (named Omicron by the World Health Organisation last Friday), putting a stop on travel from several countries in Africa. Ministers from the region would not be able to attend.
To follow Swiss health directives the WTO decided to postpone indefinitely MC12.
Meanwhile, its Director-General, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, held a virtual a meeting with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Managing Director Makhtar Diop. On the agenda: “enhance cooperation between the two organizations in order to explore ways to improve the availability of trade financing for regions in need”.
But back to the World Trade Report.
We interviewed José-Antonio Monteiro, economist in the Economic Research and Statistics Division of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Besides providing economic advice to dispute settlement panels, he conducts research on international trade issues, including sustainable e-commerce, environment and labour.
He also coordinated the joint WTO/World Bank Report on "Women and Trade", and the 2017 and 2021 World Trade Reports.
Before joining the WTO, he worked at the International Labour Organization (ILO) in the Trade and Labour Programme, with a particular focus on labour provisions in regional trade agreements.
He holds a PhD in economics in the area of trade and environment from the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland), as well as a Master on economics and finance from the University of Geneva (Switzerland). Watch.
WHO Calls a Special Session of its World Health Assembly
Today saw the World Health Organisation hosting a special session of its World Health Assembly to discuss pandemic preparedness and the creation of a new international instrument to coordinate prevention measures and a more swift response to future public health events of the magnitude of COVID-19.
Consideration of the benefits of developing a WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic preparedness and response with a view towards the establishment of an intergovernmental process to draft and negotiate such a convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic preparedness and response, taking into account the report of the Working Group on Strengthening WHO Preparedness and Response to Health Emergencies. Source: WHO
In case you missed
COP26 Commitments in the Areas of Restoration, Trade, and Blended Finance
WTO Impact on Climate Policies
Taxes, Tariffs, and Subsidies
Interview with Ambassador Jean-Marie Paugam, Deputy Director-General, WTO
Bamboo Capital
The UN Brief interviews Florian Kemmerich, Partner at Bamboo Capital, an impact investment firm that works with the UN. We spoke about #COP26 and their new partnership with Palladium.
European Commission
We interviewed Matthew Baldwin, who is the Deputy Director-General at the Mobility and Transport Directorate at the European Commission in Brussels.
The EC Mobility and Transport Directorate just announced a new EU Mission, that will be funded by the new cycle of the EU funding program for research and innovation, Horizon Europe, with a seed fund of $350 Million USD allocated to make 100 cities climate neutral, from the roughly $100 Billion USD (that is the total funding for Horizon Europe over 7 years) available through various programs and to finance the EU Green Deal.
The private sector will play a role too, of course, to finance this transition. The delivery of the EU Green Deal will depend on the participation of cities at the end of the day they are the ones that can deliver. A call for expression of interest will be launched by the end of November 2021.
Sustainable Development and the European Space Agency
Interview with European Space Agency Isabelle Duvaux-Bechon, Acting Head of the Foresight, Strategy and Coordination Department (DG-5) and Head of the Strategy and Development Office (DG-5A). We spoke about cybersecurity in space and on land, #innovation, and funding mechanisms in Europe.
UNEP
Interview with Tim Christophersen, Head, Nature for Climate Branch, United Nations Environment Programme
UN Agency for Refugees UNHCR
Interview with Andrew Harper, Special Advisor for Climate Action at the UN Agency for Refugees High Commissioner Filippo Grandi
UN Food Systems Summit at COP26
Interview with Ambassador Martin Frick, Deputy of the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the UN Food Systems Summit. We spoke about what to expect at #COP26, new models of international cooperation, and leveraging indigenous knowledge to reach the #SDGs.
UNICEF and ITU
A $5 Billion Bond proposed by UNICEF and ITU will kick-start the mixed finance layers necessary for delivering connectivity to schools in the Global South. Giga has already reached a milestone mapping-out schools on Project Connect.
One million schools have been identified as potential partners of Giga in the last couple of weeks.
Do you know how many people are still outside the digital economy around the world?
3.7 billion people lack access to the Internet.
Nearly 370 million are under 25 years of age.
Let that sink in.
What is even more troubling — millions of children in the Global South experience poor connectivity at school and at home and leave secondary education with no understanding of how the digital economy operates and the knowing how to use digital tools to enter the workforce. Most lack basic media literacy skills. As in knowing how to evaluate real news and trustworthy sources of information, which are science-based, and how to make the distinction from fabricated stories by dark PR agencies, chaos agents paid for by nation-states, or authoritarian governments.
UNICEF and ITU have a joint endeavor to bring connectivity to remote, post-conflict areas, or urban centers, to accelerate the onboarding of young people to the digital economy, Giga.
In its first phase Giga is mapping infrastructure needs, by collecting data available on schools throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Giga is also advising governments on how to subsidize markets, how to bring the private sector in as a partner, and to adopt country-specific models of sustainable economic development.
That will then serve as catalyst for layering other services down the line with UNESCO and other UN agencies as a partner.
A research paper by the Boston Consulting Group, commissioned by ITU, has shed light on what kind of business models can be used to finance the investments necessary to make connectivity to all a reality.
With case studies of connectivity projects in Brazil, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria Rwanda and Sierra Leone, the BCG shows that connectivity operating models require basic infrastructure that can be laid out only by strong private-public partnerships. And the intervention of the State, as the American economist Mariana Mazzucato shows in her book The Entrepreneurial State. It is how Elon Musk launched SpaceX. It is how the iPhone came to be. Government support for innovation.
$5 Billion bond proposal by UNICEF and ITU to finance connectivity and map out the schools on the Global South
To find out more about financing these ambitious mega-projects, that will require cooperation from the private sector, governments, and UN agencies, we spoke with Alex Wong, co-lead of Giga Connect, and Maikel Wilms, Partner and Director at the Boston Consulting Group. Listen here.
Watch below.
Boston Consulting Group report outlines six ways to boost school connectivity:
1. Optimize locally: Divide countries into homogeneous areas to find optimal funding models.
2. Combine funding models: Apply multiple funding models where possible to minimize funding gaps.
3. Merge electrification and connectivity: Provide Internet and electricity together to increase revenues streams and share costs.
4. Affordability and demand stimulation: Ensure schools (and communities) can sustainably pay for connectivity.
5. NGOs empower communities: NGOs play important roles in training and mentoring communities.
6. Reforms enable sustainability: Reforms are necessary in many countries to promote long-lasting transformation.
The report advises governments and other stakeholders on ways to ensure sustainable school connectivity.
Building on previous ITU and Giga research, BCG helps to expand the initiative’s knowledge, expertise, and global presence. Giga aims to establish a minimum connectivity speed of 10 megabytes per second (Mbps) at every school on Earth by 2024.
Read the full report.
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