Category: August 2018

By Jamie Doward, the Guardian

Former White House chief adviser says he wants to rival to George Soros’s influence

Steve Bannon has announced plans to establish a foundation in Europe that he hopes will fuel the spread of rightwing populism across the continent.

Donald Trump’s former chief advisor in the White House told the Daily Beast that he wanted to offer a rightwing alternative to George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, which has given away $32bn to largely liberal causes since it was established in 1984.

“Soros is brilliant,” Bannon told the website. “He’s evil, but he’s brilliant.”

The foundation, which Bannon said would be called The Movement, will offer polling, advice on messaging and data targeting and research to a network of rightwing parties across Europe that are enjoying a significant surge in support.

Bannon has met rightwing politicians across the continent in the past 12 months, including Ukip’s former leader, Nigel Farage, members of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National in France and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

He told the Daily Beast that he envisioned a “supergroup” within the European parliament that could supply as many as a third of MEPs after next May’s Europe-wide elections. He also said he planned to spend half of his time in Europe once the US midterm elections are over in November.

While Bannon has talked up his hopes of matching Soros’s impact, his initial ambitions to rival the financier’s reach and influence appear more modest.

The Movement’s headquarters, which are expected to be in Brussels, is likely to have fewer than 10 full-time staff ahead of the 2019 elections, after which it will expand if its impact is judged to have been a success.

Bannon gave no indication of how much money he intended to plough into the project, nor where funding would come from.

Having been forced out of the White House, he has struggled to carve out a new role for himself. His campaign to replace dozens of Republican incumbents in the Senate with new blood has largely run into the ground.

“People are starting to realise that the anti-establishment thing is kind of a luxury we can’t afford right now,” Bannon told the New York Times in May.

He appears optimistic, however, about his potential impact on the European stage, buoyed by the knowledge that the leave campaign’s victory in the Brexit referendum was achieved on a £7m budget.

He told the Daily Beast: “When they told me the spending cap was £7m, I go: ‘You mean £70m? What the fuck?!’ £7m doesn’t buy anything. It doesn’t buy you Facebook data, it doesn’t buy you ads, it doesn’t do anything. Dude! You just took the fifth-largest economy in the world out of the EU for £7m!”

By Emily Macintosh, EEB

More than three quarters of the world’s food crops depend on pollination and the value of insect pollination has an estimated value of 153 billion euros globally and up to 15 billions euros in the EU alone. Yet numbers of wild pollinators such as bees, bumblebees, butterflies and other insects are plummeting, in part as a result of intensive  agriculture, habitat change and widespread pesticide use.

Today a special bee conference is taking place in the European Parliament – just weeks after a new Commission plan to reverse this trend was dubbed as insufficient by environmentalists.

Sergiy Moroz, Senior Policy Officer for Water and Biodiversity, said: “Given the scale of pollinator decline, only new binding laws and fundamental reform of the Common Agricultural Policy to end nature-harming farm practices and over dependence on pesticides will protect our pollinators, often called ‘the little things that run the world’.”

The IUCN European Red List of Threatened Species showed that 9% of wild bees and butterflies, and as many as 24% of Europe’s bumblebee species are now threatened with extinction.

In April, EU countries voted for a total ban on neonicotinoids – the world’s most widely-used insecticides following a damning report from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that concluded neonicitinoids pose a high risk to both honeybees and wild bees. Last year, the controversial herbicide glyphosate was recently relicensed for five years by EU countries – despite a raft of studies sounding the alarm over its impact on health and the environment.

Beyond the EU, some of the world’s most vulnerable communities are fighting against pesticide products, including some that have already been banned in the EU. Communities in Asia, Latin America and Africa have been affected by the use of ‘nematicide’ to kill worms which destroy banana plantations. Nematicide was banned in the EU in 2009 as it poses a danger to health and the environment.

And the EU’s high consumption levels of animal produce also has a direct impact on human health, the environment, and pollinators in countries like Argentina where environmental activists have challenged the use of glyphosate on monocultures of GM soybean used to grow animal feed destined for foreign markets. An estimated 35 million hectares of land globally is required to supply the EU with the feed it needs to sustain current livestock production levels every year.

This comes as a new campaign from ‘Make Europe Sustainable For All’ – a group of 25 NGOs from across Europe – is warning that inaction on the inequalities arising as a result of global pesticide dependence will mean countries in Europe and beyond won’t achieve the global goals agreed between world leaders in 2015 that aim to end poverty and protect the planet – the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The campaign calls for a move away from pesticides and towards more sustainable farming methods such as agroecology in order to help meet several of these goals, in particular: SDG 1 on tackling poverty; SDG 2 on zero hunger; SDG 12 on responsible consumption and production; SDG 13 on climate action; SDG 14 on safeguarding seas and oceans, and SDG 15 on environmental protection.

The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) is the largest network of environmental citizens’ organisations in Europe. It currently consists of around 140 member organisations in more than 30 countries (all EU Member States plus some accession and neighbouring countries), including a growing number of European networks, and representing some 30 million individual members and supporters.

By Marion Steff, European Disability Forum

The UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) Secretary General Olga Algayerova of Slovakia met with the ECE Regional Civil Society Mechanism (RCEM) on the first day of the High Level Political Forum in New York. EDF is an active member of the RCEM, as we coordinate the Constituency of Persons with Disabilities. We were therefore pleased to have a chance to talk with Secretary General Algayerova as well as Monika Linn, the Chief of the Sustainable Development and Gender Unit in the Office of the Executive Secretary of ECE.

Both were very keen to hear about the progress we made to organise ourselves as a strong and coordinated civil society platform, to ensure all voices are included in the regional processes around sustainable development.

Ms Algayerova explained that the next regional forum will be on 21-22 March 2019, with the CSO Forum the day before. The agenda and content will be decided after the summer, with a first coordination meeting in September, however the focus will most likely be on peer-learning.

The RCEM agreed to organise a working group to support the agenda and make recommendations for an efficient event. For instance, we suggested the possibility to organise parallel sessions for the SDGs under review, with, for instance presentations, by CSO of alternative reports such as EDF’s second human right report on the SDGs and the CRPD. We also asked for CSO speakers to be included in the programme, to have a clear and transparent system to submit side-events co-hosted by countries, and we also insisted on making the event accessible, with captioning for instance.  We also would like to have the possibility to input in any official documents to ensure the expertise and knowledge of CSO is recognised and valued.

The European Disability Forum is an independent NGO that represents the interests of 80 million Europeans with disabilities. EDF is a unique platform which brings together representative organisation of persons with disabilities from across Europe. EDF is run by persons with disabilities and their families. We are a front runner for disability rights. We are a strong, united voice of persons with disabilities in Europe.

By Siamak Sam Loni and Angela Riviere, IB

Today, more than half the population on the planet is under the age of 30 — the largest  generation of children and young people that the world has ever seen. Through their creativity, energy and idealism, young people can bring about generational change, which can challenge the status quo and achieve positive outcomes rapidly. Young people can help build a new system, one founded on sharing knowledge and cooperating across borders. As such, the lifestyles (values, attitudes, behaviours) and capabilities (knowledge and skills) of this generation will come to define the world in 2030 and far beyond. More than ever, young people are becoming aware of the enormous stake they have in defining and addressing global challenges—income inequality, climate change, conflict and poverty. They have an important role to play as a driving force for change.

What kind of world could today’s young people build?

One preferred future is outlined by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These 17 objectives—negotiated and agreed to by all 193 world governments in 2015—envision a future in which we have eradicated poverty, protected the planet and ensured that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. They are considered by many experts to be the most important agenda of the 21st century because they highlight both the challenges and opportunities for the next 15 years.

What are IB World Schools doing to help young people prepare for a future that is filled with both threat and promise?

Sam Loni, Global Coordinator of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (Youth), says: “Education has the power to help overcome many of these complex issues, and IB students are particularly well placed to respond. Their programmes of study equip them with the knowledge required to understand and engage with the SDGs as informed global citizens; they share a philosophy and mission that leads them to care about the SDGs, and a range of engagement activities that encourage them to transform this into action.”

Programme development staff in the IB’s Hague Global Centre recently met with Sam to hear about some of the initiatives being undertaken to engage young people globally in the challenges of sustainable development.

After meeting with IB staff and learning more about the four IB programmes, Sam was not surprised why so many of the young leaders he works with are IB alumni. He said, “The mission and ethos of the IB aligns perfectly with the philosophy of the SDGs. IB World Schools offer their students an education that is global, multidisciplinary and strives for a better world. Similarly, the SDGs are a universal and holistic agenda that aim to create more prosperous and inclusive societies by 2030. With 4,750 schools in more than 150 countries, 1 million students and a massive alumni network, the IB and IB students have the potential to make a significant impact on the SDGs. The innovative programmes and dynamic learning environments of IB World Schools allow for an easy and effective alignment to SDGs.”

“For example, the community project in the Middle Years Programme (MYP) and creativity, activity, service (CAS) and service learning projects in the Diploma and Career-related Programmes, could easily be transformed to explicitly align with the SDG framework. This would also help learning outcomes as it would give student projects a clear framework of action—making it easier for students to choose a project, understand/evaluate its impact on their society and report its outcomes against global objectives.”

Here at the IB, we are continuing our conversation with SDSN Youth (part of Sustainable Development Solutions Network), exploring potential teacher support materials, curriculum development, and guidance for schools. Many IB World Schools are already involved. How is your school helping students understand and engage with the 2030 SDGs? There are lots of ways that you can share your learning stories with us: Post a comment below, email us, start a discussion within the programmes communities via My IB, on Twitter including @iborganization and @SDSNYouth. And we are very excited about the #generationIB event coming up this September, find out more on their website.

The IB offers an education for students from age 3 to 19, comprising of four programmes that focus on teaching students to think critically and independently, and how to inquire with care and logic. The IB prepares students to succeed in a world where facts and fiction merge in the news, and where asking the right questions is a crucial skill that will allow them to flourish long after they’ve left our programmes. We are supported by IB teachers and coordinators who develop and promote the IB’s curriculums in almost 5,000 schools globally every day, in over 150 countries around the world.

By Emily Macintosh, EEB

Countries are not on track to meet global goals on sustainability by 2030. That was the assessment given by the President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council today when she opened a meeting of global political leaders in New York.

Marie Chatardová said that progress was not sufficient enough for countries to be on track to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which were agreed by world leaders from 193 countries in 2015.

The SDGs are widely viewed as the global crisis plan to end poverty and protect the planet.

Today’s ministerial meeting is the political highpoint of an annual UN summit (the so-called ‘High Level Political Forum (HLPF)’) where countries are required to report on their sustainability progress. The HLPF brings together over 1000 representatives from governments, civil society, and the business world.

But while 10 EU countries are reporting this year – Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Greece, Spain, Latvia, Slovakia, Hungary, and Malta – campaigners have highlighted that many EU policies are incoherent with sustainable development objectives.

In a letter sent today to Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans, campaigners from the ‘SDG Watch Europe’ coalition and the  Make Europe Sustainable For All’ campaign said:

“Policy coherence for sustainable development is still a weak point for the European Union. It is crucial to have an assessment report on where we stand with the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and to present that report at the international level for discussion. Unfortunately, the EU has so far not presented any report at the HLPF. In 2019, the EU has the last opportunity to provide a report at international level and not to miss the first reporting cycle.”

‘SDG Watch Europe’ is a cross-sectoral coalition of more than 100 civil society organisations. The ‘Make Europe Sustainable For All’ campaign is ran by 25 partner organisations that advocate for the ambitious implementation of the SDGs across the EU and for the EU to become a true leader of sustainable development.

Last week a delegation of NGOs that sit on the EU’s SDG Multi-Stakeholder Platform met with Commissioner Timmermans to discuss the importance of EU policies not contradicting the SDGs.

The NGO representatives, including Jeremy Wates, Secretary General of the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), called for the EU executive’s forthcoming paper ‘Towards a sustainable Europe by 2030’ to clarify how EU countries will monitor and report on SDG progress in a transparent way.

In today’s letter the campaigners emphasised the need to look at both how the SDGs are being met within the EU and how the EU’s policies influence sustainability beyond its borders. They also highlighted that clarity is needed over where responsibility lies with EU governments and where it lies at the EU level.

Patrizia Heidegger from the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) said:

“It is crucial that the EU does not just cherry-pick the easiest or preferred goals. We must go beyond policy-as-usual by aiming for the highest level of ambition in all the targets, guaranteeing that no-one is left behind and that planetary boundaries are fully respected.“

The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) is the largest network of environmental citizens’ organisations in Europe. It currently consists of around 140 member organisations in more than 30 countries (all EU Member States plus some accession and neighbouring countries), including a growing number of European networks, and representing some 30 million individual members and supporters.