Inside Geneva

Send us a textIt’s been a tough year: Covid as well as crises in Afghanistan and in Myanmar, to name but three."You see the kind of populist rhetoric, and the xenophobia and racism and so on infecting what were supposedly advanced democracies," Rupert Colville of UN Human Rights tells host Imogen Foulkes.Despite the grim events of the past year, Geneva-based aid agencies do have hopes for a better year ahead. "I hope we can see a bit more empathy and compassion from the rest of the world," says Shabio Mantoo of the UN Refugee Agency.They're joined in the show by regular political analyst, Daniel Warner.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textThe Covid-19 pandemic, a Biden-Putin face-to-face summit and record humanitarian crises: Geneva-based journalists reflect on a busy year and offer a glimpse into the future.Podcast host Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by fellow Geneva-based correspondents who work for international news outlets.Covid-19 dominated the news for the second year in a row. As the world prepares to enter “Year Three” of the pandemic, the future remains uncertain.“There is no real perspective on when this is going to end. We had this kind of summer of hope, and then Omicron [variant] comes along and we have this question: where are we going to be in 12 months’ time,” asks Nick Cumming-Bruce, a contributor to The New York Times.All eyes were on Geneva in June when US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin met in the Swiss city for a historic summit. Questions still remain, however, about whether the US has delivered on its promised return to multilateralism.“I didn’t see the loud and clear voice of the USA defending human rights at the Human Rights Council. They were there, but kind of shy,” says Gabriela Sotomayor, a correspondent for the Mexican magazine Proceso.In the meantime, humanitarian needs in crisis-affected countries reached record highs this year.“Geneva’s aid agencies are doing the best they can in these crises – perpetual crises,” says analyst Daniel Warner.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textCovid-19 has dominated our lives for almost two years. Vaccines have been developed in record time, yet nearly half the world’s population has not received a single dose. What has gone wrong?Imogen Foulkes is joined in this podcast episode by global health and policy experts.“How do you solve this in the longer term? You don’t want to be in this situation when this happens again. This could happen next month, if the wrong variant comes out,” says Bruce Aylward, senior advisor to the director-general at the World Health Organization (WHO).The new Omicron Covid variant now threatens to undo earlier progress. Do we need a global pandemic treaty?“We have not managed to ensure equitable access. We have left decisions to narrow national interests and to commercial decision-making,” says Michelle Childs, head of policy and advocacy at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi). “We need to be optimistic. We must be optimistic. It’s in everyone’s interest to get out of this pandemic,” says Federica Zamatto, a medical coordinator at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textDecolonization has become a buzzword of late, especially in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and the toppling of statues of figures tied to a nation's colonial past. Humanitarian work is also being more closely scrutinized. What does it tell us about our colonial history?Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by policy experts and aid workers. "If we were to think of aid as a form of reparation, as a form of social justice for historical and continuing harm," says Lata Narayanaswamy of the Politics of Global Development faculty at Leeds University."Headquarters trusted me to come out and within 72 hours produce a document that will decide the expenditure of several million dollars. But never asked any of the people who have been day in, day out in that hospital," adds Tammam Aloudat of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute Geneva.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textThe increase in extreme weather events worldwide is evidence that climate change is already impacting our lives. The hardest hit of the global population are people in developing countries. Host Imogen Foulkes puts the spotlight in this episode on what humanitarian agencies are expecting from leaders at COP26, the UN Climate Change conference taking place in Glasgow. "Ninety per cent of the world's refugees originate from countries that are on the front lines of the climate emergency. There is a linkage," says Andrew Harper, special adviser on climate action with the United Nations Refugee Agency."We are collectively driving towards a cliff.  There are many people who have already lost their lives at the bottom of that cliff in countries that are already two or three degrees warmer," says Gernot Laganda of the World Food Programme."The fact that Switzerland did not pass a law about CO2 indicates that it's the developed countries that have been more difficult to convince," says political analyst Daniel Warner.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textIn 2015 the world set itself 17 very ambitious targets: the Sustainable Development Goals. To end hunger, eradicate poverty, ensure health and education for all.But are the SDGs over ambitious? And who decides who is meeting them, and who is backsliding? These are just two of the questions that host Imogen Foulkes puts to:Martin Gutmann, Editor of a multi-author research project on the history of the SDGs, and lecture at the Lucerne University of Applied Arts. Claire Somerville, Lecturer and Executive Director of the Gender Centre at the Graduate Institute Geneva. Frederic Perron-Welch, a Junior Visiting Fellow in International Law at the Graduate Institute, and Mukta Dhere, Alumna and Project Coordinator of the Advancing Development Goals Contest at the institute."If nothing else, the SDGs have given us a common vocabulary, and a common framework, and I think that is very powerful in its own right," says Gutmann."They are ambitious and clearly unachievable in terms of the framing of the wording in the targets. I don’t think that’s necessarily a problem," adds Somerville."If everyone is in the tent now, because the SDGs are universal, is everyone being held to the same standards?" asks Perron-Welch.Dhere adds a note of optimism: "We all have this incessant desire to make this world a better place, and I think the SDGs are exactly the tools that we need to do that."This episode was recorded on October 19 in front of a live audience at the Graduate Institute Geneva. The institute is a partner of SWI swissinfo.ch and the Inside Geneva podcast.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textDiplomats and scientists often live in different worlds and don’t have open access to each other’s community.A new foundation known as the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) hopes to bring the two sides together. It took a first step by holding its first summit in the Swiss city from October 7-9.Host Imogen Foulkes went to the event and spoke to Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, former Nestlé CEO, and chairman of GESDA, as well as Fabiola Gianotti, Director-General of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research."Perhaps GESDA is an honest broker between science and politics.  If you look at the declaration of world leaders, you will hear that some of them clearly state that they want their country to be the technology leader worldwide. And the next step is that if two countries want to be the world development leaders in technology and science, there's a certain confrontation," says Brabeck. "I think we must really do more and become more collaborative in all fields of society. The challenges are daunting - societal challenges, planetary challenges, technological challenges - so working together is a must. Science and technology should become tools to reduce the inequities across the world," explains Gianotti.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textCovid 19 has changed the way we work. But has it changed how we value work?Host Imogen Foulkes asks if our old workplace habits and hierarchies are about to become extinct. She speaks to Chidi King, head of gender diversity and inclusion at the International Labour Organisation.  "Re-examining what we deem as a true value of a job has to be one of the outcomes of this pandemic," says King.Cedric Dupont, Professor of International Relations at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, believes "teleworking is challenging the very mode of hierarchy" we are used to, while analyst Daniel Warner wonders who will want "to go back to the office and who would prefer to stay home?"Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textIn Geneva, complex negotiations are underway to decide if a treaty is needed to control, or even ban, lethal autonomous weapons – or killer robots. Imogen Foulkes talks to experts, lawyers, and campaigners."It’s about the risk of leaving life and death decisions to a machine process. An algorithm shouldn’t decide who lives or dies," says Neil Davison, Senior Policy Adviser at the International Committee of the Red Cross. "Do you hold the commander responsible, who activated the weapons system?" asks Mary Wareham of Human Rights Watch. "What if a weapon is used and developed without meaningful human control, what are the consequences of it? How do you ascribe responsibility?" ponders Paola Gaeta, an international law expert at Geneva's Graduate Institute."If we don’t have a treaty within two years we will be too late. Technology is progressing at a much faster pace than diplomacy is doing, and I fear the worst," warns Frank Slijper of Pax, a Dutch peace organization.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textHow have our attitudes to human rights changed since 9/11? What about our laws?Imogen Foulkes is joined by Fionnuala Ni Aolain, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counterterrorism, and Gerald Staberock, Secretary-General of the World Organisation Against Torture. Has it become harder to defend human rights?Fionnuala Ni Aolain: The criminalisation of lawful acts: speech, assembly, political participation, those are all defined, by multiple governments, as terrorism.Gerald Staberock: 9/11 was like an earthquake to human rights. The house and the façade still look good, legally speaking we still have an absolute prohibition on torture. The façade is there, but the cracks in the houses are there.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang