Number 20 | 2021

Viewpoint by Simone Galimberti

The writer is Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not-for-profit in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development, and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives. He can be reached at simone_engage@yahoo.com

KATHMANDU, Nepal (IDN) — A life insurance policy for humanity, this is how Audrey Azoulay, the UNESCO Director-General defined the scope of all efforts focused on addressing climate change and the persistent degradation of our biodiversity.

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN) — It was the Americans who helped the long-ago-deposed Shah of Iran start Iran’s nuclear power research. He wanted a bomb. The Americans seemed insouciant about where this might lead.

After the revolution, the research was bequeathed from the wrong pair of hands to another wrong pair of hands—the revolutionaries who overthrew the Shah in 1979.

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — For a while, Africa appeared to be losing the fight to build manufacturing capacity for the production of COVID-19 vaccines as big pharma and rich countries questioned African capacity to make its own vaccines.

Some international companies regard African self-sufficiency as a long-term risk to their business, some fear a loss of influence.

Viewpoint by Franz Baumann*, Former UN Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations.

This article was first published in Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, Volume 63 Issue 3, May/June 2021 and is being republished with the author's permission.

NEW YORK (IDN) — One must thank UNDP for putting together the 2020 UNDP Human Development Report (HDR). It is a magisterial work and could well be an excellent textbook, if a slightly nerdy one, useful more for dedicated teachers than for students new to the subject, not to mention the general public.