UNDP Favours Temporary Basic Income to Protect the World’s Poorest from The Impact of COVID-19
By Caroline Mwanga
NEW YORK (IDN) – A new report by the United Nations is pleading for the immediate introduction of a Temporary Basic Income for the world’s poorest people, arguing that this could slow the current surge in COVID-19 pandemic cases by enabling nearly three billion people to stay at home.
A United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report estimates that it would cost from $199 billion per month to provide a time-bound, guaranteed basic income to the 2.7 billion people living below or just above the poverty line in 132 developing countries.
UN Chief Makes an Impassioned Plea for Discarding Fallacies and Falsehoods
The Rich and Poor are Not Sailing in the Same Boat
By Jaya Ramachandran
NEW YORK (IDN) – UN Secretary-General António Guterres has in a surprise dramatic move, castigated a series of “fallacies and falsehoods” perpetrated particularly on the deprived of the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed all lies such as the lie that free markets can deliver healthcare for all; the fiction that unpaid care work is not work; the delusion that we live in a post-racist world; the myth that we are all in the same boat”.
Exposing this misleading myth, he says: “While we are all floating on the same sea, it’s clear that some are in superyachts while others are clinging to the floating debris.” ARABIC | HINDI | JAPANESE
The Path Forward for Higher Education After COVID-19
UN Academic Impact Talks to Students from Several Countries
By Santo D. Banerjee
NEW YORK (IDN) – COVID-19 pandemic has forced more than 1.5 billion students in 165 countries out of school, enforcing the global academic community to explore new ways of teaching and learning, including distance and online education, according to UNESCO estimates.
This has proven challenging for both students and educators, who have to deal with the emotional, physical and economic difficulties posed by the illness while doing their part to help curb the spread of the virus, notes United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI). CHINESE | JAPANESE | PORTUGUESE
A Landmark Project Aims at Reforestation in Togo – Income Opportunities for Women
By Ramesh Jaura
BERLIN | TOKYO (IDN) – Togo in West Africa is the venue of a milestone project between Soka Gakkai, a global community-based Buddhist organization and the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO). The two have signed a memorandum to launch a reforestation project offering income opportunities for women’s groups in two rural areas of Togo.
The memorandum involving a donation of 10 million yen (US$93,300) for the initial one-year phase of the project was signed on July 1 at the Soka Gakkai (SG) headquarters in Tokyo. The project will kick off on September 1. GERMAN | JAPANESE | SWAHILI
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