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At the United Nations in mid-July officials gathered for an annual checkup on progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. The SDGs, as they are known, are a set of 17 anti-poverty, health and environmental goals that in 2015 the world agreed to achieve by 2030.
We are now two and a half years into these goals, and this gathering at the United Nations, which is known as the High Level Political Forum, is a moment in which top officials take stock of both global and domestic progress towards these goals.
On the podcast today, we ask the question: how are we doing? We examine how far we have come and how much more the world needs to do to achieve the goals it set for itself three years ago.
On the line with me to discuss this all is John McArthur, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and senior adviser to the United Nations Foundation." We kick off discussing areas where progress has been most pronounced and most lacking. We then discuss the High Level Political Forum itself, and also what comes next for the SDGs.
Sunitha Krishnan literally rescues girls from sex slavery. She is the founder of the Indian NGO Prajwala which both physically removes girls from sexual bondage and provides social, medical and psychological support for their rehabilitation.
She's been beaten. She's been jailed. But nevertheless she persists. And as she tells me in our conversation what motivates her in this dangerous work is anger. And that anger stems from her own experience with sexual assault at the age of 15, when she was the victim of a gang rape. I met Sunitha Krishnan in June in Yerevan, Armenia where she was being recognized for her heroic work by the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative. She was one of three finalists for the 2018 Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. And though she did not end up winning that award, it went to a Rohingya human rights lawyer named Kyaw Hla Aung, her work in the slums of of India gained wider attention. Sunitha Krishnan is a true hero and it was an honor to get to know her.Nicaragua is in the midst of a deepening political and security crisis. Over the last three months the government has been increasingly violent in its response to a growing protest movement.
Over 240 people have been killed since April, when protests against a social security reform measure began. Those protests have morphed to a broader political challenge against the longtime Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega.
On the line with me to discuss recent events in Nicaragua and explain why the country is facing its most profound crisis in decades is Jason Marczak, Director, Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council. He explains the roots of the current crisis and offers some suggestions for how some key players in the region, including the United States, might use diplomacy to prevent this crisis from escalating further, All in all, this is a useful conversation about a crisis that is not getting the attention it deserves, but is one that could most certainly have big implications across the region--including the United States. Nicaragua is not currently a large source country of migrants and asylum seekers at the southern US border, but if things continue as is, Nicaraguans could start to flee in large numbers.Parfait Onanga-Anyanga is the Special Representative of the Secretary General in the Central African Republic. This makes him the top UN official in CAR, which includes overseeing a UN Peacekeeping mission of over 14,000 personnel. That mission is known as MINUSCA and in recent weeks it has suffered a series of casualties as armed groups vie for control of the country's natural resources. The peacekeeping mission was first deployed in 2014 as part of an international effort to prevent CAR from sliding into deeper conflict that, at the time, experts warned could descent into genocide. Thanks in part to this international intervention, a genocide was averted, but much of the country remains unstable. The central government I caught up with the SRSG, as the position is known in UN lingo, just as he was leaving New York to return to the Central African Republic.
The World Health Organization estimates that around 7 million people die every year from the air they breathe. Air pollution is a major killer around the globe and one that disproportionately affects low and middle income countries. There are two kinds of air pollution. The first is called ambient air pollution, and that is basically the air we breathe when we are outside. The second is called household air pollution, and this is air pollution driven by the use of dirty burning stoves inside the home. The WHO recently released a report about the global burden of air pollution, and what communities around the world are doing to combat it. Here to discuss that report and the challenge of air pollution more broadly is Dr. Maria Neira, director of the department of public health, environment and social determinants of health at the WHO. We talk through some of the big data and root causes of air pollution and have a longer conversation about global and local strategies to improve air quality around the world.
Something truly remarkable in African history and global affairs occurred on June 26 when Eritrean leaders flew to the capitol of Ethiopia for peace talks.
In the late 1990s the two countries fought each other in a brutal war, and despite a peace agreement they have remained actively hostile to each other. But that seems to be changing. And quickly.On the line with me to discuss this detente between two previously irreconcilable foes is Michael Woldermairam, an Assistant Professor of International Relations and Political Science at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University
We discuss the roots of the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia, and why this easing of tensions appears to be happening now.Mary Robinson was the first female President of Ireland, serving from 1990 to 1997. She then served as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and has since undertaken a variety of roles at the UN system, focusing on human rights, gender equality and, as is the focus of our conversation today, climate justice.
Mary Robinson and I have an extended conversation about what climate justice means and what it entails--and this was a concept, I admit, that I was unaware of until Mary Robinson began to champion it. We spoke a couple of weeks ago in Yerevan, Armenia, where Mary Robinson was serving as part of the jury pool to select the winner of this year's Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. This is an honor that was bestowed on a Rohingya human rights lawyer named Kyaw Hla Ang. And if you want to learn more about the Aurora Prize and the Aurora humanitarian initiative, i'd encourage you to visit AuroraPrize.org. And I should say, I'll have an interview with one of the finalists coming up in the next few weeks. Mary Robinson and I had a tight 15 minutes between panel sessions at the conference--and I was glad she made time for this interview. I think you'll like it.My guest today, Kari Hong is an assistant professor at the Boston College law school and an expert on US asylum policy and law. As you can imagine, we have an extended conversation about the tragedy unfolding at the Southern US border, where the Trump administration has mandated the separation of migrant children from their parents in order to deter them from claiming asylum and expedite their removal from the country.
This is inhumane, barbaric and as Kari Hong explains, not in compliance with both the laws and tradition around seeking asylum in the United States. She does a good job of putting this new family separation policy in the context and history of how the US has typically handled claims of asylum. And a little more than halfway through this conversation we get to what I think is the heart of the matter: that separating children from their parents at the border is designed to force parents to enter a guilty plea to a misdemeanor offense which cuts off their ability to claim asylum.For many years Tom Catena was the only doctor in the Nuba Mountain region of Sudan. This is an area on the border between Sudan and South Sudan. In 2011 it was the site of intense fighting between government forces and local groups aligned with the South.
Throughout this fighting, which lasted for years, Tom Catena ran the Mother of Mercy Hospital. He saw thousands upon thousands of patients every year under the most difficult of circumstances. His hospital was bombed, his house was targeted, but Tom Catena never left. And he is still working there to this day. I caught up with Tom in Yerevan, Armenia where he was on hand to participate in events around the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. Last year, Tom won this prize, which is conferred by the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative. This is a group established by Armenian and Armenian-American philanthropists in honor of the survivors of the Armenian genocide. The idea behind the prize is to honor individuals who are standing up for human rights, often without much recognition and in extremely difficult circumstances. The winner this year was a Rohignya human rights lawyer named Kyaw Hla Aung. I had the honor of participating in events around Yerevan last week and collecting some great interviews with fascinating people that I look forward to sharing with you in the coming weeks.When I last spoke with my guest today, Kelsey Davenport, the saber rattling between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un had reached a fever pitch. North Korea was launching nuclear and missile tests; the United States was undertaking aggressive military drills, with Donald Trump routinely threatening war via Twitter.
Then this meeting in Singapore happened.
Now things look much different, so I invited Kelsey Davenport back on the show to help explain the significance of this meeting and what we may expect next from this diplomatic opening between the United States and North Korea.
Kelsey Davenport is the Director for Non Proliferation Policy at the Arms Control Association and a longtime analyst of the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
She does a very good job explaining both what happened in Singapore -- beyond the optics. She also offers some helpful analysis to help us understand how this diplomatic process may shake out in the coming months.
If you have 20 minutes and want to learn what comes next in high stakes diplomacy with North Korea then have a listen.
Before we begin, I wanted to let you know that I have just released a new bonus episode of the show that is exclusively for premium subscribers to the podcast--these are the amazing people who make a monthly recurring contribution to the show via the Patreon platform. The bonus episode features Samantha Power and the activist John Prendergast, who was the co-founder of the Enough Project. I participated in a short but sweet press roundtable with them last week and decided to share with premium subscribers part of that conversation. You'll hear Samantha Power talk about examples of democratic renewal around the world in the context of democratic backsliding; and you'll hear John Prendergast address questions about being perceived as a "white savior." It was quite and interesting conversation and I am glad to be able to serve it to my premium subscribers, who really do help keep the lights on around there. If you want to become a premium subscriber to unlock this episode and other bonus episodes, and also receive a complimentary subscription to my daily email news clips service then please sign up. I'll post a link in the description field of the podcast and you can also find a link at GlobalDispatchesPodcast.com https://www.patreon.com/GlobalDispatches
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