Combating Trafficking in Persons: A directory of organisations

This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.ASI_2003_HT_UK_Combating_Trafficking.pdf: 445 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

World Health Statistics 2017: Monitoring Health for the SDGs

The World Health Statistics series is WHO's annual compilation of health statistics for its 194 Member States. World Health Statistics 2017 compiles data on 21 health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets, with 35 indicators, as well as data on life expectancy. This edition also includes, for the first time, success stories from several countries that are making progress towards the health-related SDG targets

Evidence and Policy in Aid-Dependent Settings

This chapter examines how the political dynamics of aid relationships can affect the use of evidence within health policymaking. Empirical examples from Cambodia, Ethiopia and Ghana illustrate how relationships between national governments and donor agencies influence the ways in which evidence is generated, selected, or utilised to inform policymaking. We particularly consider how relationships with donors influence the underlying systems and processes of evidence use. We find a number of issues affecting which bodies or forms of evidence are taken to be policy relevant, including: levels of local technical capacity to utilise or synthesise evidence; differing stakeholder framing of issues; and the influence of non-state actors on sector-wide systems of agenda setting. The chapter also reflects on some of the key governance implications of these arrangements in which global actors promote forms of evidence use – often under a banner of technical efficiency – with limited consideration for local representation or accountability

Wildlife Trade and Human Health in Lao PDR: An Assessment of the Zoonotic Disease Risk in Markets.

Although the majority of emerging infectious diseases can be linked to wildlife sources, most pathogen spillover events to people could likely be avoided if transmission was better understood and practices adjusted to mitigate risk. Wildlife trade can facilitate zoonotic disease transmission and represents a threat to human health and economies in Asia, highlighted by the 2003 SARS coronavirus outbreak, where a Chinese wildlife market facilitated pathogen transmission. Additionally, wildlife trade poses a serious threat to biodiversity. Therefore, the combined impacts of Asian wildlife trade, sometimes termed bush meat trade, on public health and biodiversity need assessing. From 2010 to 2013, observational data were collected in Lao PDR from markets selling wildlife, including information on volume, form, species and price of wildlife; market biosafety and visitor origin. The potential for traded wildlife to host zoonotic diseases that pose a serious threat to human health was then evaluated at seven markets identified as having high volumes of trade. At the seven markets, during 21 observational surveys, 1,937 alive or fresh dead mammals (approximately 1,009 kg) were observed for sale, including mammals from 12 taxonomic families previously documented to be capable of hosting 36 zoonotic pathogens. In these seven markets, the combination of high wildlife volumes, high risk taxa for zoonoses and poor biosafety increases the potential for pathogen presence and transmission. To examine the potential conservation impact of trade in markets, we assessed the status of 33,752 animals observed during 375 visits to 93 markets, under the Lao PDR Wildlife and Aquatic Law. We observed 6,452 animals listed by Lao PDR as near extinct or threatened with extinction. The combined risks of wildlife trade in Lao PDR to human health and biodiversity highlight the need for a multi-sector approach to effectively protect public health, economic interests and biodiversity

The global information technology report 2014

Executive summary When The Global Information Technology Report (GITR) and the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) were created more than 13 years ago, the attention of decision makers was focused on how to develop strategies that would allow them to benefit from what Time Magazine had described as “the new economy”: a new way of organizing and managing economic activity based on the new opportunities that the Internet provided for businesses. At present, the world is slowly emerging from one of the worst financial and economic crises in decades, and policymakers, business leaders, and civil society are looking into new opportunities that can consolidate growth, generate new employment, and create business opportunities. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) continue to rank high on the list as one of the key sources of new opportunities to foster innovation and boost economic and social prosperity, for both advanced and emerging economies. For more than 13 years, the NRI has provided decision makers with a useful conceptual framework to evaluate the impact of ICTs at a global level and to benchmark the ICT readiness and usage of their economies

Recommendation Subgraphs for Web Discovery

Recommendations are central to the utility of many websites including YouTube, Quora as well as popular e-commerce stores. Such sites typically contain a set of recommendations on every product page that enables visitors to easily navigate the website. Choosing an appropriate set of recommendations at each page is one of the key features of backend engines that have been deployed at several e-commerce sites. Specifically at BloomReach, an engine consisting of several independent components analyzes and optimizes its clients' websites. This paper focuses on the structure optimizer component which improves the website navigation experience that enables the discovery of novel content. We begin by formalizing the concept of recommendations used for discovery. We formulate this as a natural graph optimization problem which in its simplest case, reduces to a bipartite matching problem. In practice, solving these matching problems requires superlinear time and is not scalable. Also, implementing simple algorithms is critical in practice because they are significantly easier to maintain in production. This motivated us to analyze three methods for solving the problem in increasing order of sophistication: a sampling algorithm, a greedy algorithm and a more involved partitioning based algorithm. We first theoretically analyze the performance of these three methods on random graph models characterizing when each method will yield a solution of sufficient quality and the parameter ranges when more sophistication is needed. We complement this by providing an empirical analysis of these algorithms on simulated and real-world production data. Our results confirm that it is not always necessary to implement complicated algorithms in the real-world and that very good practical results can be obtained by using heuristics that are backed by the confidence of concrete theoretical guarantees

While Doha Sleeps: Securing Economic Growth through Trade Facilitation

Improving the international trading system does not require new, comprehensive multilateral agreements. Countries can derive large gains from the trading system by engaging in reforms often referred to as trade facilitation. In broad terms, trade facilitation includes reforms aimed at improving the chain of administrative and physical procedures involved in the transport of goods and services across international borders. Countries with inadequate trade infrastructure, burdensome administrative processes, or limited competition in trade logistics services are less capable of benefiting from the opportunities of expanding global trade. Companies interested in investing, buying, or selling in local markets are less likely to bother if there are too many frictions related to document processing or cargo inspection at customs, antiquated port facilities, logistics bottlenecks, or limited reliability of freight or trade-financing services. According to recent studies from the World Bank and other international economic institutions, trade facilitation reforms could do more to increase global trade flows than further reductions in tariff rates. For many developing countries -- particularly those that receive preferential tariff treatment from rich countries -- reducing transportation and logistics-related costs through trade facilitation reforms would be much more beneficial than further tariff cuts. But trade facilitation does not only offer promise to developing countries. All countries can benefit by removing sources of friction in their supply chains. The post-9/11 focus on minimizing the risk of terrorists exploiting porous international supply chains to sneak weapons of mass destruction into U.S. cities -- obviously a vital objective -- could hamper the capacity of Americanbased companies to attract investment and compete for markets. Likewise, U.S. prohibitions against foreign competition in transportation services and the political antipathy toward foreign investment in U.S. port operations raise the costs of doing business and increase the scope for trade facilitation in the United States

The Inclusive Growth and Development Report 2017

Around the globe, leaders of governments and other stakeholder institutions enter 2017 facing a set of difficult and increasingly urgent questions:With fiscal space limited, interest rates near zero, and demographic trends unfavorable in many countries, does the world economy face a protracted period of relatively low growth? Will macroeconomics and demography determine the world economy's destiny for the foreseeable future?Can rising in-country inequality be satisfactorily redressed within the prevailing liberal international economic order? Can those who argue that modern capitalist economies face inherent limitations in this regard – that their internal "income distribution system" is broken and likely beyond repair – be proven wrong?As technological disruption accelerates in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, how can societies organize themselves better to respond to the potential employment and other distributional effects? Are expanded transfer payments the only or primary solution, or can market mechanisms be developed to widen social participation in new forms of economic value-creation?These questions beg the more fundamental one of whether a secular correction is required in the existing economic growth model in order to counteract secular stagnation and dispersion (chronic low growth and rising inequality). Does the mental map of how policymakers conceptualize and enable national economic performance need to be redrawn? Is there a structural way, beyond the temporary monetary and fiscal measures of recent years, to cut the Gordian knot of slow growth and rising inequality, to turn the current vicious cycle of stagnation and dispersion into a virtuous one in which greater social inclusion and stronger and more sustainable growth reinforce each other?This is precisely what government, business, and other leaders from every region have been calling for. Over the past several years, a worldwide consensus has emerged on the need for a more inclusive growth and development model; however, this consensus is mainly directional. Inclusive growth remains more a discussion topic than an action agenda. This Report seeks to help countries and the wider international community practice inclusive growth and development by offering a new policy framework and corresponding set of policy and performance indicators for this purpose