Tag: United Nations

Who shoulders the refugee burden?

Another week, another UN holiday commemorating a global social issue. This week we had World Refugee Day on June 20th, a day to “honor the courage, strength and determination of women, men and children who are forced to flee their homes under threat of persecution, conflict and violence.” With the situations ongoing in the Middle …

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The Rise of Brazil: Part 1

Have you noticed lately that Brazil has been in the international spotlight… a lot? It seems like every week I see some new headline about Brazil in relation to:1) a major international convention, 2) a major international sports event or 3) an issue involving development in the Amazon. The attention is good, bad and/ or …

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Women & Water: Why is water such a burden in the lives of so many women?

It hit me recently that I am one lucky person when it comes to water. This may sound odd to you, but it’s true and a lot of us, particularly women, take this for granted. The most it takes for me to get clean water, is the effort to turn on a faucet or maybe …

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International Development through Education, Women, and Social Media

If you’ve had the chance to read my most recent posts, you know that the International Development Conference was held at Harvard earlier this month. I’ve written about some of the key takeaways from the education and women in development panels, but I wanted to write something about the overall conference and what I took …

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Bahraini Activists Gain Steam

It’s pretty easy to forget that the Arab Spring is more than just Egypt, Libya, and Syria; those three countries dominate the news, particularly Syria, while the other countries involved in the movement are largely ignored.  So today I’ve decided to devote a post to Bahrain, which has been mostly out of the media since …

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Education and the International Development Conference

Harvard’s 18th annual International Development Conference was held in Cambridge on Saturday. I had the opportunity to attend and sit in on some great panels about education, women, and corruption- all related to development. Speakers from the UN, the World Bank, USAID, and even one of Time Magazine’s top 100 most influential people in the …

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New Presidency of the World Bank

Recently, the World Bank has received attention from the media because they are about to appoint the new president. This is the first time that the World Bank has been subject to a competitive process. Previously, the U.S. president selected it. There are currently three candidates for the position, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweal, Jose Antonio Ocampo and …

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Separatism in Libya

I’m sure that you were expecting to read a post about the latest development in Syria today, and, to be honest, that’s what I was planning on writing about.  But as I was reading news article about Assad’s latest peace plan and the continued violence, I realized I really didn’t have much to say that …

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¿Quién está en control de agua?: El 6 º Foro Mundial del Agua

Read this post in English Hace dos años viajé a Perú por un trabajo voluntario a través de la organización ProWorld en New York University. El trabajo que nosotros hicimos allí fue construir estufas de barro con chimeneas que salían afuera de las viviendas para mejorar las condiciones respiratorias de las familias.  Sin embargo, lo …

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Rural women: the road towards sustainable development

For the last two weeks the United Nations held the 56th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The CSW is the principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to women’s rights and gender equality. This commission meets annually for 10 working days. The principal outcomes of the commission are the agreed conclusion between member (45 …

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