Promoting inclusiveness in international relations
Inclusiveness means working together,. The partners, board members, team players, interns and dear friends are all part of the networks of the Global Social Observatory and the Council for Multi-stakeholder and Multi-sectoral Diplomacy. Thanks to them all!
Group Photos from All Around the World Continue reading “Group Photos”
Various meetings of GSO and CMMD in Geneva, Paris, Rome, Moscow, Warsaw, Accra, Capetown, Nairobi, San Salvador, Djakarta and Many Other Places
Distinguished Speakers and Guests
Learning can come through reminders about what you knew in the past but had long forgotten. This happened to me the other day as I followed my curiosity to see why a memorial exhibit for Martin Luther King, Junior entitled “MLK Après 50” was being featured on 17 to 24 October 2018 at the Palais de Congrès in Grasse. Why would the City of Grasse be hosting such an exhibit on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his death? It was odd, too, for this to happen in October since MLK’s birthday was in month of January and he had been assassinated in the month of April,. But maybe there was something more to this exhibit than an MLK memorial. Could this mean something about the crosscutting and broader impact of MLK’s legacy for today’s world of racial and ethnic divisions? Even in Grasse?
“The Comedy of the Model” is a strange choice of words for someone who is used to using the word “comedy” in the prosaic context of stand-up comedians and shows that make one laugh. One can’t exactly say that the recent exhibit at the Matisse Museum in Nice comparing Matisse and Picasso from the perspective of “The Comedy of the Model” was supposed to make one laugh. So one does need to stretch it out a bit – as in “The Divine Comedy” referring to a poem, for example, or encompassing the idea of “play-acting” in a sort of light-hearted way. To amuse, so to speak, rather than to laugh uproarously. Continue reading “Another Look at Matisse and Picasso”
From Kofi Annan” the team player” to John McCain “the maverick” would seem like quite a jump. And in many ways it is. Calm versus flamboyant temperament. Collaborator versus boat rocker. Global citizen versus national patriot. Progressive (i.e. more to the left) versus conservative (i.e. more to the right). But both were “greater than life” figures who aspired to do more than their self interest. Each has been eulogized for rather different reasons. In this commentary, however, I reflect on the impact both of them had in one area of commonly shared concern, migration policy. Continue reading “Mavericks and Team Players on Migration Policy with Reflections on Kofi Annan and John McCain”
Kofi Annan was a team player. How lucky to have been a part of his entourage. I remember the first time I met him. It was in Toronto shortly after he had assumed the position of UN Secretary General. As with so many others who came to know him, I was entranced by his soft-spoken style. And as Deputy Director-General of the International Labour Organization, I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to benefit from his inclusive leadership style.
In these days when the American political scene is deeply divided, even when it comes to foreign policy, there comes along an issue that is often misconstrued because of this divisive atmosphere. And that is the issue of opening the doors to multi-stakeholder collaboration in the area of nutrition. It is regrettable that the US role in advancing this collaboration has been miscronstrued, specifically in the context of US leadership in opposing a particular resolution at the most recent World Health Assembly that was updating global health policy on infant and young child feeding. As reported by Andrew Jacobs in The New York Times on 8 July, 2018 (available here) and picked up in numerous other media outlets), I believe that the US leadership has been incorrectly described as being opposed to breastfeeding because of its opposition to this resolution. The headline even suggests that the US action “Stuns World Health Officials”.
The article, which was widely circulated, describes US intervention on a resolution that was ultimately adopted at the annual gathering in May 2018 of the World Health Assembly (WHA), the chief governing body of the WHO. My personal view is that this effort to condemn the US actions has actually been influenced largely by opponents of an inclusive multi-stakeholder platform for infant and young child nutrition. Whatever the rationale might have been for the US to do what it did, I believe that the critics have misrepresented the impact of the US position.
Continue reading “Open Doors – Not Fences and Not Walls, Either – Nutrition and the WHO”
Vallauris has been a favorite haunt of ours for as long as we can remember. Famed for its pottery, the town has had its ups and downs. The walk along its main street, starting with Picasso’s famed statue “L’Homme au Mouton”, his powerful “War and Peace” panorama and a collection of his ceramic works in a museum at the top of the hill, and our personal favorite pottery shop Ardéco owned and operated by Gilbert and Martine Azéma at the bottom of the hill, is a nostalgic one these days. The town seems to be more “down” than “up”. Without being too disheartening, however, we were “re-inspired” by what we learned from our latest visit (27 June 2018). At the one end, we took in the special exhibit of “Picasso’s Vallauris Years” that is part of a two-year “Picasso-Mediterranée” project running from 2017 to 2019. At the other end, having been saddened last year by the demise of Gilbert Azéma and the closing of his famed Ardéco, we were thrilled to come across the reopened Ardéco under new management.