Engaging Global Power | María Fernanda Espinosa & Meena Raman

In the early 1980s there was a slogan: think globally, act locally. Behind the slogan was the idea that, irrespective of the issue we were trying to address at the local or national level, we needed to better understand how global discourse, global processes and global power had the ability to impact what you could or could not achieve at the local or national level.

In the 1990s, a feminist organisation from the global South called Development Alternatives for Women in a New Era (DAWN) said that perhaps what we need to be doing is thinking locally and acting globally: to think in terms of what is needed at the local level and then advocate at the global level if that’s where real power resides. In reality, it’s not a question of choosing one or the other but about getting the right balance.

In this episode Kumi explores the different avenues of global engagement to understand the pitfalls and opportunities of such engagements.

Our Guests:

María Fernanda Espinosa is an Ecuadorian diplomat, politician, poet, linguist and academic with more than 30 years of experience in international organisations, the Ecuadorian government, NGOs and academia.

She served as President of the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly (2018-2019). She has held no less than three different senior ministerial positions in Ecuador’s government. She has also served as ambassador and permanent representative of Ecuador to the United Nations in New York (2008-2009) and Geneva (2014-2017). As of January 2023, she sits on the board of trustees of the International Crisis Group.

Follow María’s work:

• Twitter: @mfespinosaEC 
• LinkedIn

Meena Raman is the President of Sahabat Alam Malaysia (Friends of the Earth Malaysia), an environmental NGO based in Penang, Malaysia. She is the Legal Advisor to the Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP), a Malaysian NGO that has been advancing the rights and well-being of consumers. Since 2007 she has also been head of programmes of Third World Network

An expert on climate change, especially on the global negotiations including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement and the Green Climate Fund (GCF), she monitors and reports on the negotiations and provides analysis and support both to developing country governments as well as to civil society participants.

Follow Meena’s work:

• Sahabat Alam Malaysia website: https://foe-malaysia.org/

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Power, People and Planet is produced in association with the Green Economy Coalition, the world’s largest movement for a green and fair economy:
https://greeneconomycoalition.org

Additional support for the podcast was provided by the Robert Bosch Stiftung:
https://www.bosch-stiftung.de/en