Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

Rob Bailis is a senior scientist for the Stockholm Environment Institute. He is a leading researcher on the intersection between energy use, health and the environment in the developing world. This includes the use of household cooking appliances -- cookstoves -- and the impact of the kind of fuel used in cookstoves on human health and the environment. Rob Balis contributed to new research, supported by the Clean Cooking Alliance that demonstrated how a transition away from burning biomass in cookstoves to using stoves powered by liquified petroleum gas or electricity would have a positive impact on combating climate change and sharply deaths and illnesses associated with dirty burning fuels. We kick off discussing the health and climate impacts of dirty burning household cooking appliances before having a longer discussion about his research on the counter-intuitively positive impact that fossil fuels could have in supporting an energy transition around household cooking in the developing world.

The annual Commission on the Status of Women CSW is the second largest diplomatic gathering at the United Nations each year, after the General Assembly in September.  Thousands of delegates from hundreds of countries come to UN headquarters in New York in what is the major moment on the diplomatic calendar centered on the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.  Joining me to preview what will drive the agenda at the 67th Commission on the Status of Women is Michelle Milford Morse Vice President for Girls and Women Strategy at the United Nations Foundation.     

On March 1st Bola Tinubu was declared the winner of Nigeria's sharply contested presidential election. In a three way race, Tinubu received 37% of the votes, enough to win him the presidency.  Bola Tinubu is from the same party as outgoing president Mohammadu Buhari. The election results are being challenged in court by his rivals. But if the results stand, he will be inaugurated in May. Joining me to discuss the results of this election, and the key challenges ahead for the incoming Nigerian government is Amaka Anku, head of the Africa Practice at the Eurasia Group.

Before joining the United States House of Representatives in 2021, Congresswoman Sara Jacobs worked at the United Nations and US State Department. As she explains, this experience gave her unique insights into the valuable role the United States can play at the UN and the value the UN brings to US foreign policy.  Congresswoman Sara Jacobs is a Democrat from southern California who serves on House Foreign Affairs Committee, where she is the top democrat on the Subcommittee on Africa and on the House Armed Services Committee. She is the youngest member of the Democratic party's Congressional leadership team.     

On February 23rd, President Biden nominated former MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga to serve as the next World Bank president. His nomination came as a surprise to many in the international development community, including my guest today Amanda Glassman. Amanda Glassman is executive vice president and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. We kick off discussing the circumstances around the early departure of current World Bank president David Malpass. We then discuss the biography of Ajay Banga, and why he is something of an unconventional pick for World Bank president. We then have a longer conversation about the key challenges ahead for the World Bank this year, including why this may be a make or break year for the World Bank.   

To mark the one year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Global Dispatches has teamed up with the podcast Inside Geneva to bring you a live recording in which host Imogen Foulkes is joined by conflict resolution experts to discuss the prospects for peace – and how it can be won.   “The fact that we’re talking about the possibility of using nuclear weapons, the fact that we’re talking about the possibility of the United States and China going to war over Taiwan; it’s frightening,” says Katia Papagianni, director of Policy and Mediation Support at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. “There is a concept that has been floating around in academia for many years called a hurting stalemate, when the two parties decide that enough is enough. And we are clearly not at this hurting stalemate,” says Keith Krause, director of the Centre on Conflict, Development, and Peacebuilding at the Graduate Institute Geneva (IHEID). What does a lasting peace look like? “Peace is beyond the absence of violence. It’s really about access to justice, economic opportunities, security, and pluralism,” says Hiba Qasas, executive director of the Principles for Peace Initiative. “Sustainable peace needs to include the youth, it needs to inform the youth, and it needs to educate the youth; so inclusion, information, and education,” says Shefali Kaur Nandhra, a graduate student in sustainable development at IHEID. Are there good examples from the past?  “There are, of course, some success stories. I think the Colombian process, we have a lot to learn from that, and not just because it was locally driven,” says Krause. “As someone who grew up in conflict, my concern is not only about the battlefield, but also about all the insidious impacts that come after the guns have been silenced,” says Qasas. Once you listen to this episode, please be sure to subscribe to Inside Geneva wherever you find podcasts.  Inside Geneva is produced by SwissInfo, a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland.  

In April 2019, Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir was ousted in a coup after nearly 30 years in power. The coup followed months of mass civilian protests against his regime.  The transition from dictatorship to democracy has been extremely rocky, but in December 2022 civilian and military leaders entered into an agreement under heavy international pressure.  Guest Hala al-Karib, is a Sudanese activist, research practitioner and director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa. We kick off discussing who negotiated that December 5 agreement and its key provisions before discussing the many layers of challenges to a successful democratic transition in Sudan. 

Humanity is tantalizingly close to killing off the last Guinea Worm. This is a water born parasite that when ingested grows and grows until it painfully exits the body through a lesion in the skin. There is no treatment for it. There is no cure for it. But it can be prevented.  And if prevented everywhere, Guinea Worm Disease will be eradicated.  We are now on the cusp of that moment. In 2022, there were just 13 confirmed human cases of Guinea Worm Disease around the world. This is down from three and a half million cases in the early 1980s.  At the center of the global campaign to eradicate guinea worm disease is the Carter Center. And joining me from Mali is Adam Joseph Weiss, director of the Guinea Worm Eradication Program at the Carter Center.   

Nagorno-Karabakh  is an ethnic Armenian enclave within the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan. In the early 1990s Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a bloody war resulting in Armenia's de-facto control of Nagorno-Karabakh.  For most of the last 30 years this was a frozen conflict with occasional flareups only fitful progress towards a diplomatic and political resolution. Then, in September 2020 Azerbaijan launched an offensive resulting in the rout of the Armenian army and the capture of large swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has shaken up a ceasefire agreement and over the course of 2022, Azerbaijan has expanded its control of key strategic territories in the region.  According to my guest today Olesya Vartanyan there is a high risk that Azerbaijan may press its military advantage and resume a full scale conflict in the region.  Olesya Vartanyan is the International Crisis Group's Senior Analyst for the South Caucasus region. We kick off discussing a worsening humanitarian crisis in parts of Nagorno Karabakh, sparked by a blockade of a key corridor linking Armenia to key parts of Nagorno-Karabakh. We then discuss the trends in the conflict and diplomacy, including a hopeful move by the European Union to approve a civilian monitoring mission.   

The Dadaab Refugee Complex in Kenya hosts about 310,000 refugees, most of whom are Somalis who have fled conflict and drought.  Dadaab has been around for about 30 years. And  over the decades, it has periodically experienced sharp influxes of people.  We are in the midst of one of those moments. In 2022, 51,000 people arrived and it is projected that in 2023 90,000 people will make their way from Somalia to Dadaab. This ballooning population is straining humanitarian agencies' ability to provide basic services to populations in need.  My guest today, Hassan Maiyaki is the country director for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Kenya. He describes a worsening humanitarian situation there, measured in part by a sharp rise in acute child malnutrition. We discuss why the situation is seemingly getting worse and what can be done to help provide for the basic needs of a rapidly expanding refugee population.