Tomorrow marks the 15th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), adopted 31 October 2000. For the first time it recognised the unique impact of wars on women, and their role in peacekeeping and peacebuilding. Yet a renewed focus on ‘hard security’ now threatens to exclude more women from peace processes worldwide. Fifteen years on, how much has the resolution achieved? PhD fellows Ortrun Merkle and Tamara Kool investigate. Above all, UN Security Coun...
Today marks 23 years of peace and democracy in Mozambique. The country has made impressive progress in economic growth, stability, regional cooperation and democratisation. While concerns remain over future development, efforts to build resilience have improved. Ayokunu Adedokun, PhD fellow, takes a closer look at Mozambique’s hard road to peace and democracy, and provides insights for other post-conflict societies. On all development indicators, Mozambique was not an obvious candidate for peace...
Ahead of International Day of Peace, 21 September, fear and conflict are returning to Burundi, warns migration expert Dr. Sonja Fransen. Her research shows that conflict and forced migration have long-term effects — effects that trickle down to post-war generations. The International Day of Peace, 21 September, was pushed through the 1981 UN General Assembly with a view to “strengthening ideals of peace, both within and among all nations and peoples”. Yet now, in 2015, the prospects for wo...
This article is part of UNU’s “17 Days, 17 Goals” series, featuring research and commentary in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit, 25-27 September 2015 in New York City. Goal #1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere On 25th September, 15 years after the Millennium Summit, world leaders will reconvene to decide a new set of global development targets: the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Their primary objective, or Goal 1, will be to ‘end poverty in all its forms...
GLOBALLY each day almost 1000 children under 5 die from diarrhoea caused by contaminated water. More than 2.4 billion people – a third of all humanity – have no access to sanitation. And as populations grow, water is set to become a new source of danger, of conflict, given the rapid urban expansion of Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, as climate change accelerates, we are likely to see more extreme and frequent droughts, floods and typhoons. Again, people in emergi...
UNICEF’s latest report on the ‘State of the World’s Children’ says there are 150 million 5-to-17-year-olds caught up in the world of work. Ahead of ‘World Day Against Child Labour‘, 12 June, Dr. Sepideh Yousefzadeh looks at the essential context with a case study from Iran. I walk on the streets of Tehran after five years away, this time with my daughter. Everything is different. Tehran is more relaxed, peaceful and happy. The municipality is doing a great job in providin...
Dr. Franziska Gassmann was made Professor in the Department of Social Security Studies at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Science (HBRS), Germany, on 28 May 2015. She was welcomed and confirmed in the role by University President Prof. Hartmut Ihne, in a signing ceremony attended by Dr. Esther Schuring, a PhD alumna who now works as a lecturer and researcher at HBRS. Prof. Gassmann will remain based in Maastricht, but teach occasional Master courses at HBRS. These will cover a broad ra...
In a seminar on 26 May 2015, Ewen MacLeod, Head of the Policy Development and Evaluation Service (PDES) of the UN Refugee Agency, focused on the impact of emerging global trends – population growth, climate change, urbanisation, and migration – on current arrangements for the management of forced displacement. MacLeod highlighted the changing nature of war, conflict and violence since the end of the Cold War as an explanation for the growth in internal displacement and protracted refugee situati...
Nepal was struck by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake on 25 April — a disaster that killed thousands of people. Many more were injured or displaced, including countless children. PhD fellow Vincenzo Vinci, who works for UNICEF Nepal, sent this update as part of a Q&A with GPAC² Director Dr. Mindel van de Laar. UNICEF’s first priority is to protect children. Has the recent disaster changed the needs of children in Nepal? How has UNICEF responded? VV: Obviously the recent earthquake has c...
The World Bank’s goal of cutting extreme poverty to less than 3% by 2030 is not achievable, says poverty expert Dr. Richard Bluhm. Development goals should be more realistic and policies should aim to build up institutions that promote inter-ethnic trust and long-term economic growth. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim says we can eradicate extreme poverty worldwide. In the last quarter of a century, the number of extreme poor has fallen by two-thirds: in 1990, 36% of the world’s population had t...