By William Camacaro

New York

One of the casualties of Washington’s get-tough immigration policy is the plight of children separated by U.S. authorities from their parents. The political party of “family values” has caused needless trauma for these migrant children and round the clock anxiety for parents desperately waiting to be reunited with their loved ones. 

The Venezuelan government, which has a longstanding policy–vuelta a la patria–of assisting the repatriation of their citizens– has reported that at least 66 children have been illegally held  in the United States since their parents were deported to Venezuela. At this writing the author has been unable to obtain information as to their circumstances or whereabouts. 

The most well-known case of a Venezuelan child held in the U.S. after her mother was deported is that of a two-year-old girl, Maikelys Espinoza. After an international campaign brought her plight to light, the United States repatriated Maikelys to Caracas on May 14, 2025 returning her to her mother’s embrace. Today, families’ pleas for the return of their children recall her story and have stirred the sympathy of the Venezuelan public.

This situation recalls the case of Cuban citizen Elián González, who, as a child, was known as “the raft boy,” and found himself at the center of a major international incident in 2000. He was found adrift on an inner tube after the boat carrying him, his mother, and other migrants en route from Cuba to the United States capsized. The child’s custody became the subject of a dispute between his father in Cuba (who was offered money by the U.S. to come and live here) and his relatives in Miami. The case caused an international uproar, filled with legal and media battles between Cuban and North American authorities. He was finally reunited with his father on June 28, 2000. Today Elián is a leading voice for resistance to more than a half a century of economic warfare waged by Washington against the Caribbean island.

The present case is also fraught with political complications. Given Washington’s antipathy toward the Bolivarian revolution, President Maduro’s administration has been under relentless attack since 2013, having to endure threats of direct military intervention, fanciful accusations of drug trafficking, and a previously unheard-of bounty of $50 million for the arrest of  Venezuela’s president. Despite these threats, Caracas has remained steadfast in defending Venezuelan migrants and seeking the return of all of the children who are being held in the United States against the will of their families.

So far, 21 children have been repatriated to Venezuela. This is in addition to the 252 Venezuelan migrants who were deported by the United States to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador and released on July 18 after a humanitarian exchange. According to government official Camilla Fabri Saab, Deputy Minister of International Communication of the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry and leader of the campaign to bring the children home, more than 10,631 Venezuelan migrants have been repatriated so far this year.

Each day that these children are separated from their families robs them of parental love during their formative years. For both the minors and their families time is of the essence. Accordingly, Caracas persists in demanding that they be reunited with their families, calling demonstrations and orchestrating a broad media campaign across official outlets.

A group of parents has issued the following open letter addressed to the First Lady, Melania Trump

Open Letter Page 1

Open Letter Page 2

Open Letter Page 3

William Camacaro is a  Senior Analyst for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA). He is a co-founder of  the Venezuela solidarity network and holds a Master’s Degree of Fine Arts and a Master’s Degree in Latin American Literature from City University of New York. He has published in the Monthly Review, Counterpunch, COHA, the Afro-America Magazine, Ecology, Orinoco Tribune and other venues. He has organized delegations to Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela.

Banner Photo: Credit – María Isabel Batista/Ultimas Noticias

Photo: Elián González, Reunited with his father in Cuba. Credit – Granma

By William Camacaro

New York

The Bolivian political landscape is currently characterized by a deep, self-inflicted crisis within the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) which has culminated in a devastating electoral defeat yesterday. As the country approached the crucial presidential elections of August 17, 2025, the party’s leaders—specifically former President Evo Morales and President Luis Arce Catacora—engaged in a series of personal attacks and internal conflicts that paved the way for their own defeat. This political irresponsibility, driven by ambitions and factionalism, has enabled the return to power of the very right-wing forces that the MAS struggled for years to overcome.

This right-wing victory poses a significant threat to progressive governance, both in Bolivia and regionally. The presidential race featured prominent opposition figures such as Samuel Doria Medina, a billionaire businessman and member of the Socialist International. He immediately conceded defeat in the first round and endorsed Rodrigo Paz Pereira, a Social-Christian senator and son of former Bolivian President Jaime Paz Zamora. The senator has since mentioned the possibility of reforming the Plurinational Constitution, which has been a bedrock of the long process of decolonization. Another candidate, Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, who finished second, has vowed to continue to the second round on October 19 in his quest to become president. He is a neoliberal ally of former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, as well as an associate of prominent right-wing figures in the region, including María Corina Machado of Venezuela, Daniel Noboa of Ecuador, Dina Boluarte of Peru, and Javier Milei of Argentina, forming a broad front against the Latin American left.

The left’s defeat was self-inflicted. On one side was Andrónico Rodríguez, an indigenous leader of the Chapare coca growers’ movement. Despite being a protégé of Evo Morales, he was branded a “traitor” by some Morales supporters for launching his own presidential candidacy with his fledgling political party, Popular Unity, following Morales’s controversial disqualification of his candidacy. The other leftist candidate was Eduardo del Castillo, the official candidate of the MAS, a former minister favored by the Arce government. The nomination of Del Castillo, a white man, in a country with an indigenous majority was a political mistake that made him an unviable candidate for the party’s core demographic.

The political consequences of this electoral loss are likely to be dire. Candidate Samuel Doria Medina has already stated, when endorsing the first-round winner, that political prisoners must be released. This paves the way for the resurgence of figures like Jeanine Áñez, whom Bolivian prosecutors charged with  command responsibility, during her interim presidency, for the murder of dozens of  indigenous people during protests in defense of democracy, and Luis Fernando Camacho, who was the architect of the coup d’état and responsible for the brutal repression of indigenous people during their resistance against the Áñez dictatorship in 2019.

A central factor in this crushing defeat is the dramatic division within the MAS itself. Just five years ago, the party secured 55% of the votes; today, divided, its two main candidates obtained a combined 11.3% of the electoral vote. This leaves indigenous communities facing three far-right parties, all of which are more or less neoliberal. All of them seek to reform the constitution and privatize state-owned enterprises, and indigenous people are very likely to lose the social gains they have achieved in recent years. Candidate Quiroga has already stated that “land is not communal; land always has one owner,” and some leaders of the opposition have announced the possible political persecution and imprisonment of some MAS leaders. Rodrigo Paz and Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga will be running in the second round. The right-wing victory in Bolivia is not simply a change of government; it heralds a return to colonial hierarchies of domination.

This internal conflict is especially tragic given the historical importance of the MAS. The party’s rise to power under the leadership of Evo Morales represented a revolutionary “process of change” that, for the first time in Bolivian history, allowed indigenous people to access the highest levels of government. Before this change, indigenous people suffered systemic discrimination, including being prohibited from entering official state buildings, such as Congress, while wearing their traditional clothing or speaking their native languages. The MAS was more than just a political party; it was an instrument of political and social liberation for a long-marginalized population, founded on a progressive agenda and led by indigenous peoples.

As Evo Morales was disqualified from running for office and expelled from the MAS, the infighting among party  leaders managed to undermine the party’s prospects of remaining in power. Evo Morales’s former vice president, Álvaro García Linera, stated to the BBC that the parties were “looking for ways to gain advantage in their battle against the other. Luis Arce is fighting to prevent Evo Morales from being a candidate. Evo Morales seeks to weaken Luis Arce to enable his candidacy.” 

In addition to the mutual accusations between Evo and President Arce, the leaders of the MAS in the Plurinational Congress, worked to torpedo the economic management of the president’s government. And of course, Evo Morales’ call to his followers to vote null was politically suicidal. It must be made clear that this is not a defeat for socialism; it is a defeat caused by divisions within the revolutionary ranks and instigated by the Bolivian mainstream media and elements of the corporate sector in Santa Cruz and the United States.

It is likely that Washington took advantage of  the divisions within MÁS leading up to this electoral disaster. The U.S. had backed the coup against Evo Morales in 2019. In 2024, a leaked audio recording of the chargé d’affaires of the U.S. embassy in La Paz confirmed the existence of a U.S. plan to intervene in Bolivia’s political affairs to undermine the process of change (proceso de cambio). Minister Counselor of the U.S. Embassy in La Paz,  Debra Hevia said: 

“We have been working for a long time to achieve change in Bolivia. Time is of the essence for us, but for it to be a real change, Evo and Arce have to leave power and close that chapter. From now on, we are going to get more involved with our embassy to strengthen our allies, organizations, and collaborators. For example, our government has always offered scholarships in Bolivia, and now we are going to offer even more because young people are our agents of change and are very, very important.” 

Despite foreign meddling, it was internal divisions within the MAS that led to the alienation of the base and the resulting electoral outcome. María Soledad, a sociologist and activist from Cochabamba, affirms that what happened is a real tragedy:  

“Evo Morales and Luis Arce Catacora dedicated themselves to squandering and exhausting in three years all the strength accumulated over decades of political work by thousands of Bolivians. Now, a very long period of reconstruction will begin in a country where indigenous people are despised for their condition. The only positive thing is that this is not a start from scratch, because this country will never return to what it was before the process of change.”

The only way for the Bolivian left to recuperate the path of decolonization and the democratic participation of indigenous peoples is to re-establish the unity among the progressive grassroot movements. 

On December 8, 2012, in his last live televised speech, President Hugo Chávez spoke to the Venezuelan people. Shortly after this event, Chávez traveled to Cuba for medical treatment and passed away on March 5, 2013. In that speech, President Chávez said:

“Patriots of Venezuela, men and women, with a knee to the ground – Unity, Unity, Unity of the patriots. There is no scarcity of those who want to take advantage of difficult junctures to continue their efforts to restore neoliberal capitalism and to destroy the homeland. They won’t be able to succeed. No matter how great the difficulties that face us, no matter how serious, the responsibility of all patriots, revolutionaries, those who feel the homeland to the core . . .  is unity, struggle, battle, and victory!”

Banner Photo Credit: Radio Kawsachun Coca

William Camacaro is a  Senior Analyst for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA). He is a co-founder of  the Venezuela solidarity network and holds a Master’s Degree of Fine Arts and a Master’s Degree in Latin American Literature from City University of New York. He has published in the Monthly Review, Counterpunch, COHA, the Afro-America Magazine, Ecology, Orinoco Tribune and other venues. He has organized delegations to Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela.

By John Perry and Roger D. Harris

Migration, Drugs, and Tariffs.

With Donald Trump as the new US president, pundits are speculating about how US policy towards Latin America might change.

In this article, we look at some of the speculation, then address three specific instances of how the US’s policy priorities may be viewed from a progressive, Latin American perspective. This leads us to a wider argument: that the way these issues are dealt with is symptomatic of Washington’s paramount objective of sustaining the US’s hegemonic position. In this overriding preoccupation, its policy towards Latin America is only one element, of course, but always of significance because the US hegemon still treats the region as its “backyard.”

First, some examples of what the pundits are saying. In Foreign Affairs, Brian Winter argues that Trump’s return signals a shift away from Biden’s neglect of the region. “The reason is straightforward,” he says. “Trump’s top domestic priorities of cracking down on unauthorized immigration, stopping the smuggling of fentanyl and other illicit drugs, and reducing the influx of Chinese goods into the United States all depend heavily on policy toward Latin America.”

Ryan Berg, who is with the thinktank, Center for Strategic and International Studies, funded by the US defense industry, is also hopeful. Trump will “focus U.S. policy more intently on the Western Hemisphere,” he argues, “and in so doing, also shore up its own security and prosperity at home.”

According to blogger James Bosworth, Biden’s “benign neglect” could be replaced by an “aggressive Monroe Doctrine – deportations, tariff wars, militaristic security policies, demands of fealty towards the US, and a rejection of China.” However, notwithstanding the attention of Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, Bosworth thinks there is still a good chance of policy lapsing into benign neglect as the new administration focuses elsewhere.

The wrong end of the telescope

What these and similar analyses share is a concern with problems of importance to the US, including domestic ones, and how they might be tackled by shifts in policy towards Latin America. They view the region from the end of a US-mounted telescope.

Trump’s approach may be the more brazen “America first!,” but the basic stance is much the same as these pundits. The different scenarios will be worked out in Washington, with Latin America’s future seen as shaped by how it handles US policy changes over which it has little influence. Analyses by these supposed experts are constrained by their adopting the same one-dimensional perspective as Washington’s, instead of questioning it.

Here’s one example. The word “neglect” is superficial because it hides the immense involvement of the US in Latin America even when it is “neglecting” it: from deep commercial ties to a massive military presence. It is also superficial because, in a real sense, the US constantly neglects the problems that concern most Latin Americans: low wages, inequality, being safe in the streets, the damaging effects of climate change, and many more. “Neglect” would be seen very differently on the streets of a Latin American city than it is inside the Washington beltway.

Who has the “drug problem”?

The vacuum in US thinking is nowhere more apparent than in responses to the drug problem. Trump threatens to declare Mexican drug cartels to be terrorist organizations and to invade Mexico to attack them.

But, as academic Carlos Pérez-Ricart told El Pais: “This is a problem that does not originate in Mexico. The source, the demand, and the vectors are not Mexican. It is them.” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also points out that it is consumption in the US that drives drug production and trafficking in Mexico.

Trump could easily make the same mistake as his predecessor Clinton did two decades ago. Back then, billions were poured into “Plan Colombia” but still failed to solve the “drug problem,” while vastly augmenting violence and human rights violations in the target country.

A foretaste of what might happen, if Trump carries out his threat, occurred last July, when Biden’s administration captured Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. That caused an all-out war between cartels in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

Sheinbaum rightly turns questions about drug production and consumption back onto the US. Rhetorically, she asks: “Do you believe that fentanyl is not manufactured in the United States?…. Where are the drug cartels in the United States that distribute fentanyl in US cities? Where does the money from the sale of that fentanyl go in the United States?”

If Trump launches a war on cartels, he will not be the first US president to the treat drug consumption as a foreign issue rather than a concomitantly domestic one.

Where does the “migration problem” originate?

Trump is also not the first president to be obsessed by migration. Like drugs, it is seen as a problem to be solved by the countries where the migrants originate, while both the “push” and “pull” factors under US control receive less attention.

Exploitation of migrant labor, complex asylum procedures, and schemes such as “humanitarian parole” to encourage migration are downplayed as reasons. Biden intensified US sanctions on various Latin American countries, which have been shown conclusively to provoke massive emigration. Meanwhile Trump threatens to do the same.

Many Latin American countries have been made unsafe by crime linked to drugs or other problems in which the US is implicated. About 392,000 Mexicans were displaced as a result of conflict in 2023 alone, their problem aggravated by the massive, often illegal, export of firearms from the US to Mexico.

Costa Rica, historically a safe country, had a record 880 homicides in 2023, many of which were related to drug trafficking. In Brazil and other countries, US-trained security forces contribute directly to the violence, rather than reducing it.

Mass deportations from the US, promised by Trump, could worsen these problems, as happened in El Salvador in the late 1990s. They would also affect remittances sent home by migrant workers, exacerbating regional poverty. The threatened use of tariffs on exports to the US could also have serious consequences if Latin America does not stand up to Trump’s threats. Economist Michael Hudson argues that countries will have to jointly retaliate by refusing to pay dollar-based debts to bond holders if export earnings from the US are summarily cut.

China in the US “backyard”

Trump also joins the Washington consensus in its preoccupation with China’s influence in Latin America. Monica de Bolle is with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a thinktank partly funded by Pentagon contractors. She told the BBC: “You have got the backyard of America engaging directly with China. That’s going to be problematic.”

Recently retired US Southern Command general, Laura Richardson, was probably the most senior frequent visitor on Washington’s behalf to Latin American capitals, during the Biden administration. She accused China of “playing the ‘long game’ with its development of dual-use sites and facilities throughout the region, “adding that those sites could serve as “points of future multi-domain access for the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] and strategic naval chokepoints.”

As Foreign Affairs points out, Latin America’s trade with China has “exploded” from $18 billion in 2002 to $480 billion in 2023. China is also investing in huge infrastructure projects, and seemingly its only political condition is a preference for a country to recognize China diplomatically (not Taiwan). Even here, China is not absolute as with Guatemala, Haiti, and Paraguay, which still recognize Taiwan. China still has direct investments in those holdouts, though relatively more modest than with regional countries that fully embrace its one-China policy.

Peru, currently a close US ally, has a new, Chinese-funded megaport at Chancay, opened in November by President Xi Jinping himself. Even right-wing Argentinian president Milei said of China, “They do not demand anything [in return].”

What does the US offer instead? While Antony Blinken proudly displayed old railcars that were gifted to Peru, the reality is that most US “aid” to Latin America is either aimed at “promoting democracy” (i.e. Washington’s political agenda) or is conditional or exploitative in other ways.

The BBC cites “seasoned observers” who believe that Washington is paying the price for “years of indifference” towards the region’s needs. Where the US sees a loss of strategic influence to China and to a lesser extent to Russia, Iran, and others, Latin American countries see opportunities for development and economic progress.

Remember the Monroe Doctrine

Those calling for a more “benign” policy are forgetting that, in the two centuries since President James Monroe announced the “doctrine,” later given his name, US policy towards Latin America has been aggressively self-interested.

Its troops have intervened thousands of times in the region and have occupied its countries on numerous occasions. Just since World War II, there have been around 50 significant interventions or coup attempts, beginning with Guatemala in 1954. The US has 76 military bases across the region, while other major powers like China and Russia have none.

The doctrine is very much alive. In Foreign Affairs, Brian Winter warns: “Many Republicans perceive these linkages [with China], and the growing Chinese presence in Latin America more broadly, as unacceptable violations of the Monroe Doctrine, the 201-year-old edict that the Western Hemisphere should be free of interference from outside powers.”

Bosworth adds that Trump wants Latin America to decisively choose a side in the US vs China scrimmage, not merely underplay the role of China in the hemisphere. Any country courting Trump, he suggests, “needs to show some anti-China vibes.”

Will Freeman is with the Council on Foreign Relations, whose major sponsors are also Pentagon contractors. He thinks that a new Monroe Doctrine and what he calls Trump’s “hardball” diplomacy may partially work, but only with northern Latin America countries, which are more dependent on US trade and other links.

Trump has two imperatives: while one is stifling China’s influence (e.g. by taking possession of the Panama Canal), another is gaining control of mineral resources (a reason for his wanting to acquire Greenland). The desire for mineral resources is not new, either. General Richardson gave an interview in 2023 to another defense-industry-funded thinktank in which she strongly insinuated that Latin American minerals rightly belong to the US.

Maintaining hegemonic power against the threat of multipolarity

Neoconservative Charles Krauthammer, writing 20 years ago for yet another thinktank funded by the  defense industry, openly endorsed the US’s status as the dominant hegemonic power and decried multilateralism, at least when not in US interests. “Multipolarity, yes, when there is no alternative,” he said. “But not when there is. Not when we have the unique imbalance of power that we enjoy today.”

Norwegian commentator Glen Diesen, writing in 2024, contends that the US is still fighting a battle – although perhaps now a losing one – against multipolarity and to retain its predominant status. Trump’s “America first!” is merely a more blatant expression of sentiments held by his other presidential predecessors for clinging on to Washington’s contested hegemony.

The irony of Biden’s presidency was that his pursuit of the Ukraine war has led to warmer relations between his two rivals, Russia and China. In this context, the growth of BRICS has been fostered – an explicitly multipolar, non-hegemonic partnership. As Glen Diesen says, “The war intensified the global decoupling from the West.”

Other steps to maintain US hegemony – its support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the regime-change operation in Syria and the breakdown of order in Haiti – suggest that, in Washington’s view, according to Diesen, “chaos is the only alternative to US global dominance.” Time and again, Yankee “beneficence” has meant ruination, not development.

These have further strengthened desires in the global south for alternatives to US dominance, not least in Latin America. Many of its countries (especially those vulnerable to tightening US sanctions) now want to follow the alternative of BRICS.

Unsurprisingly, Trump has been highly critical of this perceived erosion of hegemonic power on Biden’s watch. Thomas Fazi argues in UnHerd that this is realism on Trump’s part; he knows the Ukraine war cannot be conclusively won, and that China’s power is difficult to contain. Accordingly, this is leading to a “recalibrating of US priorities toward a more manageable ‘continental’ strategy — a new Monroe Doctrine — aimed at reasserting full hegemony over what it deems to be its natural sphere of influence, the Americas and the northern Atlantic,” stretching from Greenland and the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego and Antarctica.

The pundits may not agree on quite what Trump’s approach towards Latin America will be, but they concur with Winter’s judgment that the region “is about to become a priority for US foreign policy.” His appointment of Marco Rubio is a signal of this. The new secretary of state is a hawk, just like Blinken, but one with a dangerous focus on Latin America.

However, the mere fact that such pundits hark back to the Monroe Doctrine indicates that this is only, so to speak, old wine in new bottles. Even in the recent past, an aggressive application of the 201-year-old Monroe Doctrine has never seen a hiatus.

Recall US-backed coups that deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya (2009) and Bolivian Evo Morales (2019), plus the failed coup against Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua (2018), along with the parliamentary coup that ousted Paraguayan Fernando Lugo (2012). To these, US-backed regime change by “lawfare” included Dilma Rousseff in Brazil (2016) and Pedro Castillo in Peru (2023). Currently presidential elections have simply been suspended in Haiti and Peru with US backing.

Even if Trump is more blatant than his predecessors in making clear that his policymaking is based entirely on what he perceives to be US interests, rather than those of Latin Americans, this is not new.

As commentator Caitlin Johnstone points out, the main difference between Trump and his predecessors is that he “makes the US empire much more transparent and unhidden.” From the other end of the political spectrum, a former John McCain adviser echoes the same assessment: “there will likely be far more continuity between the two administrations than meets the eye.”

Regardless, Latin America will continue to struggle to set its own destiny, patchily and with setbacks, and this will likely draw it away from the hegemon, whatever the US does.

Nicaragua-based John Perry is with the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition and writes for the London Review of Books, FAIR, and CovertAction.

Roger D. Harris is with the Task Force on the Americas, the US Peace Council, and the Venezuela Solidarity Network

Featured image courtesy of Cornell University/Wikimedia Commons

First published by Popular Resistance: https://popularresistance.org/whether-biden-or-trump-us-latin-american-policy-will-still-be-contemptible/

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) has signed onto the following letter urging respect for the electoral process underway in Venezuela and opposing outside interference.

July 27, 2024

On July 28, millions of Venezuelans will go to the polls to choose between ten presidential candidates, including incumbent Nicolás Maduro and main opposition challenger Edmundo González. The campaign has seen energetic participation all across the country and vigorous, democratic debate over the future direction of the country. However, a Western media narrative is already being spun to present the election as inevitably fraudulent – and pave the way for a new regime change operation if the right-wing opposition does not prevail at the ballot box.

According to this narrative, support for the opposition is overwhelming and the only possible way supporters of the government could win is through fraud. That way, if the vote does not go according to Washington’s wishes, yet another effort to remove Maduro from power by force can be initiated on the basis of the supposed illegitimacy of the results.

We reject this cynical, self-serving logic. Since the process of change called the Bolivarian Revolution began under President Hugo Chávez, Venezuela has held over 30 elections that have been conducted professionally and impartially. The electoral system includes multiple layers of fraud protection, including an extensive auditing process where representatives of all candidates are involved. For years, this system was recognized as fair and democratic by all outside institutions. What changed was that after the 2018 election of Maduro, the Trump administration made a clear decision to discredit the elections and withdraw recognition of Venezuela’s legitimate government so as to overthrow it.

The Venezuelan people have suffered greatly from all this. The crushing weight of U.S.-imposed sanctions caused misery across the entire population and was designed to create an explosive situation that would result in the unconstitutional removal of the government. A study by the Center for Economic Policy and Research found that these cruel sanctions have cost the lives of over 40,000 Venezuelans.

Washington failed in their political aim of instigating regime change. The economy is now in a period of recovery. Instead of turning a new page, the U.S. government has returned to using false election fraud narratives to create their desired crisis. We demand respect for Venezuela’s independence and the sovereign right of the Venezuelan people to elect their own leaders without outside interference.

Banner Credit: The People’s Forum.

Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions.

The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says:

The Fulbright programme was established in 1946 as an initiative of US Senator J. William Fulbright, to promote mutual understanding through educational and cultural exchanges between the US and other countries. Informed by his own exchange experience as a Rhodes Scholar, Senator Fulbright believed the programme could play an important role in building a lasting world peace in the aftermath of World War II.

The Fulbright Programme has been described as one of the largest and most significant movements of scholars across the face of the earth and now operates in over 155 countries, funding around 8,000 exchanges per year for participants to study, research, teach or present their work in another country.

In Senator Fulbright’s words, the programme aims “to bring a little more knowledge, a little more reason, and a little more compassion into world affairs and thereby to increase the chance that nations will learn at last to live in peace and friendship.” This goal has always been as important to the programme as individual scholarship. (ref. https://fulbright.org.nz/ )

My next question was: If Senator Fulbright really did say that, why isn’t the international Fulbright community in an uproar over the anti-Palestinian war-mongering being pursued by the USA, Israel, Germany and the UK? They’re all Fulbright countries, but instead of working for peace they’re faciliating genocide by supplying arms and ammunition for the war in Gaza.

After finding no answer to that question, my inner protester told me to speak out, and my inner editor told me to check my sources first. So after scrolling through scores of unsourced quotes, I took my search for reliable sources to Dunedin second hand bookshops – and found a treasure.

The Arrogance of Power by J. William Fulbright, Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was published by Jonathan Cape in 1967. Here are some quotes:

Having done so much and succeeded so well, America is now at that historical point at which a great nation is in danger of losing its perspective on what exactly is within the realm of its power and what is beyond it. Other great nations, reaching this critical juncture, have aspired to too much, and by overextention of effort have declined and then fallen.

The causes of the malady are not entirely clear but its recurrence is one of the uniformities of history: power tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is peculiarly susceptible to the idea that it’s power is a sign of God’s favour, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations — to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image. Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence. Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God’s work. The Lord, after all, surely would not choose you as His agent and then deny you the sword with which to work His will. German soldiers in the First World War wore belt buckles imprinted with the words “Gutt mit uns [God is with us].” It was approximately under this kind of infatuation — an exaggerated sense of power and an imaginary sense of mission — that the Athenians attacked Syracuse and Napoleon and then Hitler invaded Russia. In plain words, they overextended their commitments and they came to grief.

The stakes are high indeed: they include not only America’s continued greatness but nothing less than the survival of the human race in an era when, for the first in history, a living generation has the power of veto over the survival of the next.

When the abstractions and subtleties of political science have been exhausted, there remains the most basic unanswered questions about war and peace and why nations contest the issues they contest and why they even care about them. As Aldous Huxley has written:

There may be arguments about the best way of raising wheat in a cold climate or of reafforesting a denuded mountain. But such arguments never lead to organised slaught. Organised slaughter is the result of arguments about such questions as the following: Which is the best nation? The best religion? The best political theory? The best form of government? Why are other people so stupid and wicked? Why can’t they see how good and intelligent we are? Why do they resist our beneficent efforts to bring them under our control and make them like ourselves?

Many of the wars fought by man — I am tempted to say most — have been fought over such abstraction. The more I puzzle over the great wars of history, the more I am inclined to the view that the causes attributed to them — territory, markets, resources, the defence or perpetuation of great principles — were not the root cause at all but rather explanations or excuses for certain unfathomable drives of human nature. For lack of a clear and precise understanding of exactly what these motives are, I refer to them as the “arrogance of power”— as a psychological need that nations seem to have in order to prove that they are bigger, better, or stronger than other nations. Implicit in this drive is the assumption, even on the part of normally peaceful nations, that force is the ultimate proof of superiority — that when a nation shows that it has the stronger army, it is also proving that is has better people, better institutions, better priciples, and in general, a better civilisation.

Evidence for my proposition is found in the remarkable discrepancy between apparent and hidden causes of some modern wars…

The United States went to war in 1898 for the stated purpose of liberating Cuba from Spanish tyranny, but after winning the war — a war which Spain had been willing to pay a high price to avoid — the United States brought the liberated Cubans under an American protectorate and incidentally annexed the Philippines, because, according to President McKinley, the Lord told him it was America’s duty “to educate the Filipinos and uplift and civilize and Cristianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as fellowmen for who Christ also died.”

Isn’t it interesting that the voice was the voice of the Lord but the words were those of Theordore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Admiral Mahan, those “imperialists of 1898” who wanted America to have an empire just because a big powerful country like America ought to have an empire? The spirit of the times was expressed by Albert Beveridge, soon thereafter elected to the United States Senate, who proclaimed Americans to be “a conquering race;” “We must obey our blood and occupy new markets and if necessary new lands,” he said, because “In the Almighty’s infinite plan . . . debased civilisations and decaying races” must disappear “before the higher civilisations of the nobler and more virile type of man.”

Ten years ago, the Asia-Pacific region came together and designed the world’s first set of disability-specific development goals: the Incheon Strategy to “Make the Right Real” for Persons with Disabilities. This week, we meet again to assess how the governments have delivered on their commitments, to secure those gains and develop the innovative solutions needed to achieve fully inclusive societies.

Ministers, government officials, persons with disabilities, civil society and private sector allies from across Asia and the Pacific will gather from 19 to 21 October in Jakarta to mark the birth of a new era for 700 million persons with disabilities and proclaim a fourth Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities.

Our region is unique, having already declared three decades to protect and uphold the rights of persons with disabilities; 44 Asian and Pacific governments have ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; and we celebrate achievements in the development of disability laws, policies, strategies and programmes.

Today, we have more parliamentarians and policymakers with disabilities. Their everyday business is national decision-making. They also monitor policy implementation. We find them active across the Asia-Pacific region: Australia, Bangladesh, China, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Türkiye. They have promoted inclusive public procurement to support disability-inclusive businesses and accessible facilities, advanced sign language interpretation in media programmes and parliamentary sessions, focused policy attention on overlooked groups, and directed numerous policy initiatives towards inclusion.

Less visible but no less important are local-level elected politicians with disabilities in India, Japan and the Republic of Korea. Indonesia witnessed 42 candidates with disabilities standing in the last election. Grassroot disability organizations have emerged as rapid responders to emerging issues such as COVID-19 and other crises. Organizations of and for persons with disabilities in Bangladesh have distinguished themselves in disability-inclusive COVID-19 responses, and created programmes to support persons with psychosocial disabilities and autism.

The past decade saw the emergence of private sector leadership in disability-inclusive business. Wipro, headquartered in India, pioneers disability inclusion in its multinational growth strategy. This is a pillar of Wipro’s diversity and inclusion initiatives. Employees with disabilities are at the core of designing and delivering Wipro digital services.

Yet, there is always more unfinished business to address.

Even though we applaud the increasing participation of persons with disabilities in policymaking, there are still only eight persons with disabilities for every 1,000 parliamentarians in the region.

On the right to work, 3 in 4 persons with disabilities are not employed, while 7 in 10 persons with disabilities do not enjoy any form of social protection.

This sobering picture points to the need for disability-specific and disability-inclusive policies and their sustained implementation in partnership with women and men with disabilities.

One of the first steps to inclusion is recognizing the rights of persons with disabilities. This model focuses on the person and their dignity, aspirations, individuality and value as a human being. As such, government offices, banks and public transportation and spaces must be made accessible for persons with diverse disabilities. To this end, governments in the region have conducted accessibility audits of government buildings and public transportation stations. Partnerships with the private sector have led to reasonable accommodations at work, promoting employment in a variety of sectors. 

Despite the thrust of the Incheon Strategy on data collection and analysis, persons with disabilities still are often left out of official data because the questions that allow for disaggregation are excluded from surveys and accommodations are not made to ensure their participation. This reflects a continued lack of policy priority and budgetary allocations. To create evidence-based policies, we need reliable and comparable data disaggregated by disability status, sex and geographic location. 

There is hope in the technology leap to 5G in the Asia-Pacific region. The implications for the empowerment of persons are limitless: from digital access, e-health care and assistive devices at affordable prices to remote learning and working, and exercising the right to vote. This is a critical moment to ensure disability-inclusive digitalization.

We live in a world of volatile change. A disability-inclusive approach to shape this world would benefit everyone, particularly in a rapidly ageing Asia-Pacific region where everyone’s contributions will matter. As we stand on the precipice of a fourth Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities it remains our duty to insist on a paradigm shift to celebrate diversity and disability inclusion. When we dismantle barriers and persons with disabilities surge ahead, everyone benefits.

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Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

Most of the 2.1 billion strong workforce in Asia and the Pacific are denied access to decent jobs, health care and social protection but there is an array polices and tools that governments can use to remedy these deficiencies and ensure that the rights and aspirations of these workers and their families are upheld and that they remain the engine of economic growth for the region. 

A new report released today, the Social Outlook for Asia and the Pacific: The Workforce We Need, offers tangible solutions to immediately address alarming trends that both preceded the new coronavirus and were exacerbated by the pandemic. 

While 243 million new people were pushed into poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic, half of all people in our region already had been surviving without cash, a third without necessary medicine or treatment and a quarter had gone without enough food to eat. This can lower productivity, which has fallen below the global average, but also tax revenues and future economic output. 

With two-thirds of all workers in the region being employed informally, often with low wages, in hazardous working conditions and without a contract, half of our workforce are at the brink of poverty. People in our region are also at a higher risk of being pushed into poverty by health spending than anywhere else in the world, causing inequalities to further widen. With more than half of all people being excluded from social protection, pandemics, disasters economic downturns, or normal life events, such as falling ill, becoming pregnant or getting old often have detrimental impacts on households’ wellbeing and life prospects.

The reality is harsh: our workers are generally ill-equipped to unlock new opportunities, fulfill life aspirations for themselves and their families but also to face ongoing challenges emanating from megatrends of climate change, ageing societies and digitalization. 

Climate-induced natural disasters cause businesses to relocate and jobs to disappear, disproportionately affecting rural communities. Digital technologies are bringing disruptive change to the world of work and the digital gap is intensifying inequalities in opportunities, income and wealth. Population ageing means that the number of older people will double by 2050, making policies to support active and healthy ageing ever more urgent.

None of these vulnerabilities are inevitable. With the right policies, our region’s workforce can become more productive, healthier and protected. 

First, active labour market policies, through life-long learning and skill development, can support a green and just transition into decent employment and improve access to basic opportunities and adequate standards of living. Harnessing synergies between active labor market policies and social protection can help workers upgrade their skills and transition into decent employment while smoothing consumption and avoiding negative coping strategies during spells of unemployment or other shocks.

Second, extending social health protection to all can significantly improve workers’ health, income security and productivity. COVID-19 demonstrated the weakness of a status quo in which 60 per cent of our workers finance their own health care and receive no sickness benefits. A focus on primary health care as well as curative health protection is needed, also to support healthy and active ageing. People who are chronically ill or live with a disability must be included in health care strategies. Given the large informal economy across the region, extending social health protection is the key policy instrument for achieving universal health coverage in our region.

Third, building on the ESCAP Social Protection Simulator, a basic package of universal child, old age and disability social protection schemes, set at global average benefit levels, would slash poverty in our region by half. Our analysis also shows that social protection helps increase access to opportunities particularly for furthest behind groups. This income security would improve the workforce’s resilience. Extending social protection to all means increasing public spending by between 2 and 6 per cent of GDP, an investment well-worth its cost. The Action Plan to Strengthen Regional Cooperation on Social Protection in Asia and the Pacific can guide action towards broadening social protection coverage. 

With this information at hand, there is a long overdue need for action. The policy recommendations set out in the Social Outlook are a priority for most countries in the region. These require bold but necessary reforms. For most countries these reforms are affordable but may require a reprioritization of existing expenditures and tax, supported by tax reform. Decent employment for all and an expansion of social protection and health care should form the foundations of a strong social contract between the State and its citizens. One where mutual roles and responsibilities are clear and where our workforce is given the security to fulfil their potential and be the force for achieving the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific.

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Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

Asia and the Pacific is the most digitally divided region of the world, and South-East Asia is the most divided subregion. The Covid-19 pandemic detonated a “digital big bang” that spurred people, governments and businesses to become “digital by default;” a sea change that generated vast digital dividends. These benefits that have not been distributed equally, however. New development gaps have emerged as digital transformation reinforces a vicious cycle of socioeconomic inequalities, within and across countries.

Bridging these divides and ensuring advances in technology can benefit everyone will be a key challenge as the region seeks to achieve a more inclusive and sustainable post-pandemic recovery. A new ESCAP report, Asia-Pacific Digital Transformation Report 2022: Shaping our digital future, identifies five key “digital divides;” fault lines that separate those who can readily take advantage of new technology from those more likely to be left behind. These divides are related to age, gender, education, disability and geography. 

Typically, those most comfortable with technological innovation are younger and better educated people who have grown up with the Internet as ”digital natives”. Older persons may be more distrustful, or slower to acquire the necessary skills or suffer declines in aptitude. But at any age, poor communities – especially those in rural areas – are most at risk as they may be unable to afford electricity or digital connections or lack the relevant skills, even if the necessary infrastructure and connectivity are there.  

The most significant driver of digital transformation is business research and its development and adoption of frontier technologies. Another major component is e-government; the delivery of public information and services via the Internet or through other digital means. This has the potential for more efficient and inclusive operations; especially when linked to national digital ID systems. However, because e-government services often evolve in complex regulatory environments, providing appropriate levels of accessibility for older generations, the disabled, or those with limited education has become more challenging. 

It is clear that digital technologies are enabling the delivery of previously unimagined services while enhancing productivity and optimizing resource use that helped reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants. These technologies also helped track and contain pandemic spread. Social networks are fostering and diversifying communications among people of all ages sharing common interests, irrespective of location. This helps them stay in touch, broaden their experiences, continue education or deepen subject knowledge. This provided a veritable lifeline that has continued as we enter the post-pandemic era. 

At the same time, the risks have also proliferated. Social networks also created social ”echo chambers” and generated torrents of misinformation and hate speech. New cryptocurrencies have opened the way to speculative financial bubbles, while cybercrime increased alarmingly as it assumed prolific variations. In addition, digital gadgets and the Internet are thought to contribute to more than 2 per cent of the global carbon footprint. The manufacture of electronic hardware can also exhaust supplies of natural resources such as rare-earth elements and precious metals like cobalt and lithium. 

Moreover, digital transformation has led to the creation of an immense amount of digital data which become an essential resource to understand digital transformation. However, it raises concerns about the ethical and responsible use of data for privacy protection. A common understanding among countries on the operationalization of such principles has yet to evolve. 

The Asia-Pacific Digital Transformation Report 2022 highlights the importance of digital connectivity infrastructure as “meta-infrastructure.” 5G and other high-speed networks can make all other infrastructure – such as transport and power grid distribution – much smarter, optimizing resource use for sustainable development. To contribute to these needs, the Report recommends three pathways for action, which are not mutually exclusive and are aligned with the ESCAP Action Plan of the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway initiative for 2022-2026. 

The first pathway focuses on the supply side and provides relevant policy practices for the development of cost-effective network infrastructure. The second addresses the demand side and recommends capacity-building programmes and policies to promote uptake at scale, of new, more affordable and accessible digital products and services. The third involves improving systems and institutions that are related to collecting, aggregating and analysing data in a way that builds public trust and deepens policymakers’ understanding of the drivers of digital transformations. 

Finally, in a world where digital data can flash around the globe in an instant, the report highlights the importance of regional and global cooperation. Only by working together can countries ensure that these technological breakthroughs will benefit everyone; their peoples, economies and societies, as well as for the natural environment, in our new “digital by default” normal. 

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Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

On the evening of July 15, 2016, the “Fethullahist Terrorist Organization” (FETO) launched a bloody coup attempt against the people and the government of my country. Their aim was to establish a radical, fundamentalist regime, loyal only to their ringleader Fetullah Gülen.

As FETO affiliated army units left their barracks to occupy key locations, such as the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul and fighter jets and attack helicopters bombed strategic targets including the Parliament, Presidential compound, army and police headquarters; thousands of civilians took to the streets to stop this unprecedented heinous coup attempt. The plotters killed 251 innocent civilians and left thousands injured. On that night the Turkish people defended democracy with their lives. This heroic response was something the conspirators did not foresee.

To understand what transpired, one has to understand the true nature of FETO. FETO was established in the late 1960’s as a so-called “religious movement”. In the guise of promoting education and inter-religious dialogue, it managed to cover its malign intentions.

The well-planned and wide-spread infiltration by FETO members and converts into the army, law enforcement, judiciary and numerous government institutions, including my Ministry, was carried out for decades clandestinely for an overarching plan, of which the final phase was unleashed on July 15, 2016.

Had the coup attempt succeeded, there would have been a very different Türkiye today. Democracy would not have existed and fundamental rights and freedoms would have been suspended indefinitely. The nation would have fallen in the hands of an extremist government. 

FETO not only controlled a significant portion of educational institutions, but also owned numerous financial institutions. Their bank accounts were fed by prominent FETO members in industry and commerce, as well as by officials and members of the public. Many innocent civilians were also lured into contributing to FETO’s finances as their piety was manipulated. The enormous income driven from their schools around the globe was channeled into these accounts clandestinely waiting for their ultimate move.

Following the bloody coup attempt of July 15, 2016, a resolute cleansing of the public sector, including government institutions and the military, as well as of the private sector from all FETO affiliated persons and companies was initiated.  Some prominent conspirators have been apprehended. Others escaped justice and found refuge in foreign countries. The head of the FETO terrorist organization, Fethullah Gülen, still resides in the United States. Our government has been requesting the extradition of Gülen to Türkiye from the United States as well as that of FETO members from European countries for years. Unfortunately, these requests have not been fulfilled yet. 

On the other hand, elsewhere in the world, an increasing number of governments understand the danger this terrorist organization also poses to them and are taking the necessary steps. FETO is also engaged in illegal activities such as visa fraud, money laundering and arms trafficking. Consequently, FETO members are being cleared from public and private sectors in many countries. Many schools affiliated with this terrorist organization abroad have been transferred to the Turkish Maarif Foundation after 2016. Today, Maarif Schools are functioning in many countries and are providing excellent education worldwide.

The nature and scope of Türkiye’s fight against FETO is no different than that exercised by other countries against organizations which had terrorized officials and civilians alike, and endangered democratic values, fundamental rights and freedoms. Türkiye is doing what the respective countries in their fight against terrorism have done in the past. All procedures are in compliance with law.

Terrorism does not have a nationality, ethnicity or religion. This menace threatens humanity as a whole. Therefore, the response to this threat must be united and determined. No state has the luxury to differentiate between terrorists and no terrorist organization can be classified as “useful” according to preferences. FETO is responsible for the loss of hundreds of lives as well as other grave crimes against the Turkish people. Six years after July 15, 2016, Türkiye continues its resolute fight against FETO, just as it continues its fight against other terrorist organizations such as the PKK, PYD-YPG, DHKP-C and DAESH.

We expect the international community to stand in solidarity with Türkiye in the fight against terrorism.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The opinions expressed in this OP-ED do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher, but are and should be read as an unedited account as submitted by the writer.

OP-ED by Armida Alisjahbana, Woochong Um and Kanni Wignaraja

The start of the “Decade of Action” to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has also marked the start of an unprecedented period of overlapping crises.

The Covid-19 pandemic and crises of conflict, hunger, climate change and environmental degradation are mutually compounding, pushing millions into acute poverty, health, and food insecurity. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has further disrupted supply chains and brought spikes in food and fuel prices. 

A region at risk

The devastation caused by efforts to control the spread of Covid-19 across the Asia-Pacific region is now well documented. At least 90 million people have likely fallen into extreme poverty, and more than 150 million and 170 million people are under the poverty lines of US$3.20 and $5.50 a day, respectively. 

The pandemic drove home the consequences of uneven progress on the SDGs and exposed glaring gaps in social protection and health-care systems. The dynamics of recovery in Asia and the Pacific have been shaped by access to vaccination and diagnostics, as well as by the structure and efficacy of national economies and public health systems. 

Yet for all the economic contraction, greenhouse gas emissions in the Asia-Pacific region continued largely unabated, and the long-burning climate crisis continues to rage.

The positive effects of producing less waste and air pollution, for example, have been short-lived. Action lags, even as many countries in Asia and the Pacific have committed to scale up the ambition of their climate action and pursue a just energy transition. The political and economic drive to move away from fossil fuels remains weak, even with soaring prices of oil and gas across the region.

As the Ukraine conflict drives greater uncertainty and exacerbates food and fuel shortages, leading to surging prices, security is increasingly at the center of economic and political priorities.

This confluence of issues is adding to the shocks already dealt with by the pandemic and triggering crises of governance in some parts of our region. Again, the poorest and most vulnerable groups are the most affected. 

Price pressures on everyday necessities like food and fuel are straining household budgets, yet governments will find it more difficult to step in this time. Government responses to the previous succession of shocks have reduced fiscal space while leaving heightened national debt burdens in their wake. 

It has never been more important to ensure that the integrated aspects of economic, social, and environmental sustainability are built into our approaches to recovery.

As our joint ESCAP-ADB-UNDP 2022 report on Building Forward Together for the SDGs highlighted, despite important pockets of good practice, countries of Asia and the Pacific need to act much more decisively – and faster and at scale – on this imperative. This redefines what progress means and how it is measured, as development that promotes the well-being of the whole – people and planet. 

Extraordinary agenda for extraordinary times 

All this is a sobering backdrop for achieving the ambitious agenda of the SDGs. But these interlocking shocks are also a result of a failure to advance on the SDGs as an integrated agenda.

We need unconventional responses and investments that fundamentally change what determines sustainable development outcomes. Rather than treating our current looming crises of energy, food and human security as distinct, we must address their interlinkages. 

To illustrate, a determined focus on fiscal reforms that deliver environmental and social benefits can generate big wins. Asia and the Pacific can lead with action on long-standing commitments to eliminate costly environmentally harmful subsidies, including for fossil fuels.

Some countries took advantage of reduced fossil-fuel consumption during the Covid-19 lockdowns and mobility restrictions to increase taxes on fuel to raise funds for recovery programs and provide health insurance and social protection for those least protected. 

There are also opportunities to repurpose the estimated US$540 billion spent each year on global agricultural subsidies to promote more inclusive agriculture, and healthier and more sustainable systems of food production.

Better targeting smallholder farmers and rewarding good practices such as promoting shifts to regenerative agriculture can help transform food systems, restore ecosystems, and protect biodiversity. 

Just transitions 

For our part, as UN agencies and multilateral organizations, we are committed to supporting countries to pursue just transitions to rapid decarbonization and climate resilience. Scaling up the deployment of greener renewables will be key to meeting energy security needs. 

Similarly, the current food crisis must be a catalyst for an urgent transition to more sustainable, locally secure food production and markets. Agricultural practices that foster local resilience, adopt nature-based solutions while increasing efficiencies, and support climate mitigation practices can strengthen long-term food security. 

The SDGs test resolves and require us to address the difficult trade-offs of recovery. To emerge from interlinked crises of energy, food and fiscal space, we must accelerate the transformations needed to end poverty and protect the planet.

We must ensure that by 2030 all people, not just a few, enjoy a greater level of peace and prosperity.

The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the Asian Development Bank and the UN Development Program will host a side event at the High-Level Political Forum for Sustainable Development on July 12, 2022, that will explore these themes further. 

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Armida Alisjahbana is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

Kanni Wignaraja is Assistant Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Woochong Um is Managing Director General of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Older persons are highly visible across Asia and the Pacific: they work in agricultural fields producing our food supplies, peddle their wares as street vendors, drive tuk-tuks and buses, exercise in our parks, lead some of the region’s most successful companies and form an integral part of our families.

Indeed, population ageing is one of the megatrends greatly affecting sustainable development. People now live longer than ever and remain active because of improved health. We must broaden the narrow view of older persons as requiring our care to recognize that they are also agents of development. With many parts of the Asia-Pacific region rapidly ageing, we can take concrete steps to provide environments in which our elders live safely, securely and in dignity and contribute to societies.

To start with, we must invest in social protection and access to universal healthcare throughout the life-course. Currently, it is estimated that 14.3 per cent of the population in Asia and the Pacific are 60 years or older; that figure is projected to rise to 17.7 per cent by 2030 and to one-quarter in 2050. Moreover, 53.1 per cent of all older persons are women, a share that increases with age. Therefore, financial security is needed so older persons can stay active and healthy for longer periods. In many countries of the region, less than one-third of the working-age population is covered by mandatory pensions, and a large proportion still lacks access to affordable, good quality health care.

Such protection is crucial because older persons continue to bolster the labour force, especially in informal sectors. In Thailand, for example, a third of people aged 65 years or over participate in the labour force; 87 per cent of working women aged 65 or over work in the informal sector, compared to 81 per cent of working men in the same cohort. This general trend is seen in other countries of the region.

Older persons, especially older women, also make important contributions as caregivers to both children and other older persons. This unpaid care enables younger people in their families to take paid work, often in metropolitan areas of their own country or abroad. 

Older persons should also have lifelong learning opportunities. Enhanced digital literacy, for example, can close the grey digital divide. Older women and men need to stay abreast of technological developments to access services, maintain connections with family and friends and remain competitive in the labour market. Through inter-generational initiatives, younger people can train older people in the use of technology.

We must also invest in quality long-term care systems to ensure that older persons who need it can receive affordable quality care. With the increase in dementia and other mental health conditions, care needs are becoming more complex. Many countries in the region still rely on family members to provide such care, but there may be less unpaid care in the future, and care by family members is not always quality care. 

Finally, addressing age-based discrimination and barriers will be crucial to allow the full participation of older persons in economies and societies. Older women and men actively volunteer in older persons associations or other organizations. They help distribute food and medicine in emergency situations, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, monitor the health of neighbours and friends, or teach each other how to use digital devices. Older persons also play an active role in combatting climate change by sharing knowledge and techniques of mitigation and adaptation. Ageism intersects and exacerbates other disadvantages, including those related to sex, race, and disability, and combatting it will contribute to the health and well-being of all.

This week, countries in Asia and the Pacific will convene to review and appraise the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA) on the occasion of its 20^th anniversary. MIPAA provides policy directions for building societies for all ages with a focus on older persons and development; health and well-being in old age; and creating enabling environments. The meeting will provide an opportunity for member States to discuss progress on the action plan and identify remaining challenges, gaps and new priorities.

While several countries in the region already have some form of policy on ageing, the topic must be mainstreamed into all policies and action plans, and they must be translated into coherent, cross-sectoral national strategies that reach all older persons in our region, including those who inhabit remote islands, deserts or mountain ranges.

Older persons are valuable members of our societies, but too often they are overlooked. Let us ensure that they can fully contribute to our sustainable future.

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Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

As the Second Global Ocean Conference opens today in Lisbon, governments in Asia and the Pacific must seize the opportunity to enhance cooperation and solidarity to address a host of challenges that endanger what is a lifeline for millions of people in the region.

If done right ocean action will also be climate action but this will require working in concert on a few fronts.

First, we must invest in and support science and technology to produce key solutions. Strengthening science-policy interfaces to bridge practitioners and policymakers contributes to a sound understanding of ocean-climate synergies, thereby enabling better policy design, an important priority of the Indonesian Presidency of the G20 process. Additionally policy support tools can assist governments in identifying and prioritizing actions through policy and SDG tracking and scenarios development.

We must also make the invisible visible through ocean data: just three of ten targets for the goal on life below water are measurable in Asia and the Pacific. Better data is the foundation of better policies and collective action. The Global Ocean Accounts Partnership (GOAP) is an innovative multi-stakeholder collective established to enable countries and other stakeholders to go beyond GDP and to measure and manage progress towards ocean sustainable development.

Solutions for low-carbon maritime transport are also a key part of the transition to decarbonization by the middle of the century. Countries in Asia and the Pacific recognized this when adopting a new Regional Action Programme last December, putting more emphasis on such concrete steps as innovative shipping technologies, cooperation on green shipping corridors and more efficient use of existing port infrastructure and facilities to make this ambition a reality.

Finally, aligning finance with our ocean, climate and broader SDG aspirations provides a crucial foundation for all of our action. Blue bonds are an attractive instrument both for governments interested in raising funds for ocean conservation and for investors interested in contributing to sustainable development in addition to obtaining a return for their investment.

These actions and others are steps towards ensuring the viability of several of the region’s key ocean-based economic sectors, such as seaborne trade, tourism and fisheries. An estimated 50 to 80 per cent of all life on Earth is found under the ocean surface. Seven of every 10 fish caught around the globe comes from Pacific waters. And we know that the oceans and coasts are also vital allies in the fight against climate change, with coastal systems such as mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass meadows at the frontline of climate change, absorbing carbon at rates of up to 50 times those of the same area of tropical forest.

But the health of the oceans in Asia and the Pacific is in serious decline: rampant pollution, destructive and illegal fishing practices, inadequate marine governance and continued urbanization along coastlines have destroyed 40 per cent of the coral reefs and approximately 60 per cent of the coastal mangroves, while fish stocks continue to decline and consumption patterns remain unsustainable.

These and other pressures exacerbate climate-induced ocean acidification and warming and weaken the capacity of oceans to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Global climate change is also contributing to sea-level rise, which affects coastal and island communities severely, resulting in greater disaster risk , internal displacement and international migration.

To promote concerted action, ESCAP, in collaboration with partner UN agencies, provides a regional platform in support of SDG14, aligned within the framework of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). Through four editions so far of the Asia-Pacific Day for the Ocean, we also support countries in identifying and putting in place solutions and accelerated actions through regional dialogue and cooperation.

It is abundantly clear there can be no healthy planet without a healthy ocean. Our leaders meeting in Lisbon must step up efforts to protect the ocean and its precious resources and to build sustainable blue economies.

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Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

The Asia-Pacific region is at a crossroads today – to further breakdown or breakthrough to a greener, better, safer future. 

Since the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) was established in 1947, the region has made extraordinary progress, emerging as a pacesetter of global economic growth that has lifted millions out of poverty. 

Yet, as ESCAP celebrates its 75^th anniversary this year, we find ourselves facing our biggest shared test on the back of cascading and overlapping impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, raging conflicts and the climate crisis.  

Few have escaped the effects of the pandemic, with 85 million people pushed back into extreme poverty, millions more losing their jobs or livelihoods, and a generation of children and young people missing precious time for education and training. 

As the pandemic surges and ebbs across countries, the world continues to face the grim implications of failing to keep the temperature increase below 1.5°C – and of continuing to degrade the natural environment. Throughout 2021 and 2022, countries across Asia and the Pacific were again battered by a relentless sequence of natural disasters, with climate change increasing their frequency and intensity. 

More recently, the rapidly evolving crisis in Ukraine will have wide-ranging socioeconomic impacts, with higher prices for fuel and food increasing food insecurity and hunger across the region.

Rapid economic growth in Asia and the Pacific has come at a heavy price, and the convergence of these three crises have exposed the fault lines in a very short time. Unfortunately, those hardest hit are those with the fewest resources to endure the hardship. This disproportionate pressure on the poor and most vulnerable is deepening and widening inequalities in both income and opportunities. 

The situation is critical. Many communities are close to tipping points beyond which it will be impossible to recover. But it is not too late. 

The region is dynamic and adaptable.

In this richer yet riskier world, we need more crisis-prepared policies to protect our most vulnerable populations and shift the Asia-Pacific region back on course to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals as the target year of 2030 comes closer — our analysis shows that we are already 35 years behind and will only attain the Goals in 2065.

To do so, we must protect people and the planet, exploit digital opportunities, trade and invest together, raise financial resources and manage our debt. 

The first task for governments must be to defend the most vulnerable groups – by strengthening health and universal social protection systems. At the same time, governments, civil society and the private sector should be acting to conserve our precious planet and mitigate and adapt to climate change while defending people from the devastation of natural disasters. 

For many measures, governments can exploit technological innovations. Human activities are steadily becoming “digital by default.” To turn the digital divide into a digital dividend, governments should encourage more robust and extensive digital infrastructure and improve access along with the necessary education and training to enhance knowledge-intensive internet use.

Much of the investment for services will rely on sustainable economic growth, fueled by equitable international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI). The region is now the largest source and recipient of global FDI flows, which is especially important in a pandemic recovery environment of fiscal tightness. 

While trade links have evolved into a complex noodle bowl of bilateral and regional agreements, there is ample scope to further lower trade and investment transaction costs through simplified procedures, digitalization and climate-smart strategies. Such changes are proving to be profitable business strategies. For example, full digital facilitation could cut average trade costs by more than 13 per cent. 

Governments can create sufficient fiscal space to allow for greater investment in sustainable development. Additional financial resources can be raised through progressive tax reforms, innovative financing instruments and more effective debt management. Instruments such as green bonds or sustainability bonds, and arranging debt swaps for development, could have the highest impacts on inclusivity and sustainability.

Significant efforts need to be made to anticipate what lies ahead. In everything we do, we must listen to and work with both young and old, fostering intergenerational solidarity. And women must be at the centre of crisis-prepared policy action. 

This week the Commission is expected to agree on a common agenda for sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific, pinning the aspirations of the region on moving forward together by learning from and working with each other. 

In the past seven-and-a-half decades, ESCAP has been a vital source of know-how and support for the governments and peoples of Asia and the Pacific. We remain ready to serve in the implementation of this common agenda. 

To quote United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, “the choices we make, or fail to make today, will shape our future. We will not have this chance again.”

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Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

It’s been over ten years since Forrester initially coined the term ‘Zero Trust’. The cybersecurity concept has surged in popularity in recent years, becoming the choice approach to protecting remote and hybrid workers from the growing cyber threats and data breaches brought on by the pandemic.

The National Cyber Security Centre recorded a 15% increase in attacks towards Aotearoa New Zealand’s nationally significant organisations in its 2020-21 threat report, including major banking and financial organisations and healthcare providers.

This is an upward trend that is common across the region. According to recent Cloudflare research, 44% of IT and security leaders in APAC said the pandemic had a significant impact on how their organisation approached IT security, leading them to increase their investment in IT security measures like Zero Trust. For 77% of respondents, IT security was one of the core areas “keeping them awake at night”.

The study further revealed a majority (86%) of organisations are aware of Zero Trust. In fact, 66% of respondents had implemented a Zero Trust strategy, and of those without, 58% planned to implement such an approach within the next 12 months.

However, while local IT and security leaders are clearly seeing the benefits of the Zero Trust approach, challenges in getting employees’ buy-in often prevent successful implementation. To overcome this hurdle, there are several steps organisations can take to enlist employees on the Zero Trust journey.

No longer just a concept—what does Zero Trust mean in 2022?

Zero Trust is a security model based on the principle of maintaining strict access controls and not trusting any user by default, including those already inside the network perimeter. If a malicious actor managed to gain access from the outside of an organisation, or a current or ex-employee with access posed an insider threat, with traditional IT network security measures, they would be free to move laterally and wreak havoc from the inside. However, Zero Trust frameworks assume there are attackers both within and outside of the network, so no users or machines are automatically trusted.

This inherent lack of trust is effective in safeguarding an organisation against ransomware attacks that have rattled Aotearoa New Zealand organisations of late, like the Waikato District Health Board, and unauthorised access and malware attacks, which increased by 32% and 372% in Q3 2021 respectively.

Employing values and practises from CERT NZ’s list of top critical controls, like multi-factor authentication, micro-segmentation and least-privilege access only grant access once the identity, context, and policy adherence of each specific request is verified. Logins and connections time out periodically once established, forcing users and devices to be continuously re-verified.

While the security benefits are clear and proven, it is possible to take a Zero Trust approach too far and isolate workforces. If employees aren’t educated on its purpose, they might begin to view such frameworks as indications that their organisations cannot or will not trust them. Or, perhaps, they might see the related protocols as inconvenient processes that prevent productivity. Such sentiment risks disengaging employees from the Zero Trust journey, opening an organisation up to vulnerabilities.

How can businesses enlist employees on the Zero Trust journey?

First, engage employees in Zero Trust from the beginning. Not only does onboarding talent present the first opportunity to get effective role-based access control in place, but it also provides the chance to set expectations, answer questions, and establish best practices around employee engagement with the organisation’s security approach.

Day one adoption is particularly essential as 85% of APAC enterprises’ IT and cybersecurity decision-makers agreed workforces would be more mobile in the future. Moreover, amid staffing shortages, the ‘Great Resignation’ and increased turnover, a Zero Trust approach to offboarding with clear expectations is far smoother for all involved.

Cyber attacks are becoming increasingly costly for businesses of all sizes—with Aotearoa New Zealand organisations losing, on average, $4.1 million every three months. No longer can cyber security only be seen as the IT team’s problem; it must be recognised as a critical function that all employees at all levels are responsible for. Continued and accessible education is paramount. An effective Zero Trust experience works for and empowers every employee.

The industry needs to get comfortable with the idea that trust and education must be extended beyond the IT and security team to include the actual constituents we are trying to support and secure. This means that all employees should be continuously educated on the rationale behind Zero Trust security measures. Explaining that the measures taken are to protect, rather than monitor, means employees are less likely to feel distrust and instead be empowered to work with them.

Shifting to Zero Trust access for every application is the only way to secure today’s human and network resources. Zero Trust is a journey, and while our research indicates that the intent is there, many Aotearoa New Zealand and APAC organisations have only just begun to roll out this approach to IT security.

To progress on this journey, businesses must first overcome the challenges in getting employees’ buy-in and commitment to Zero Trust frameworks through continual engagement and education.

2022 marks the second anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, and while an end to the pandemic is in sight, it is far from over and the consequences will be felt for decades to come. At the same time, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is becoming increasingly distant. The region must use the 17 Sustainable Development Goals as a roadmap to a fairer recovery.

This year’s edition of the Asia and the Pacific SDG Progress Report published by ESCAP reveals three alarming trends. First, the region is losing ground in its 2030 ambitions. In addition to our slowed progress, human-made crises and natural disasters have also hampered our ability to achieve the Goals. We are seeing the gaps grow wider with each passing year: at its current pace, Asia and the Pacific is now only expected to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2065 – three-and-a-half decades behind the original goalpost. The region must seize every opportunity to arrest this downward trend and accelerate progress. 

Second, while headway on some of the Goals has been made in scattered pockets around the region, we are moving in a reverse direction for some of them at a disturbing rate. Although the climate crisis has become more acute, there has been regression on responsible consumption and production (Goal 12) and climate action (Goal 13). And the news is marginally better for targets dealing with industry, innovation, and infrastructure (Goal 9) and affordable and clean energy (Goal 7) as they fall short of the pace required to meet the 2030 Agenda. 

Lastly, the need to reach those who are furthest behind has never been greater. The region is experiencing widening disparities and increased vulnerabilities. The most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups — including women, children, people with disabilities, migrants and refugees, rural populations and poorer households — are the victims of our unsustainable and non-inclusive development trends. Some groups with distinct demographic or socioeconomic characteristics are disproportionately excluded from progress in Asia and the Pacific. Understanding the intersection of key development challenges with population characteristics such as age, gender, race, ethnicity, health, location, migratory status and income is critical to achieving a more equitable recovery. We must work together as a region to ensure that no one or no country falls behind.

Although these trends are extremely worrying, there is some good news that helps our understanding of them: The number of indicators with data available have doubled since 2017. Collaboration between national and international custodian agencies for the indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals has significantly contributed to enhancing the availability of data. We must, however, continue to strengthen this cooperation to close the remaining gaps, as 57 of the 169 SDG targets still cannot be measured.

The sole focus on economic recovery post-pandemic is likely to hinder progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, which was already lagging to begin with. As the region strives to build back better and recover, the 2030 Agenda can serve as a guiding mechanism for both economic and social development. We – the governments, stakeholders and United Nations organizations that support them – must maintain our collective commitment towards a more prosperous and greener world.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)