Pathways to Sustainable Energy – Accelerating Energy Transition in the UNECE Region

Energy underpins economic development and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and has a critical role to play in climate change mitigation. The recognition of the role that energy plays in modern society is highly significant, however, there remains an important disconnection between agreed energy and climate targets and the approaches in place today to achieve them. Only international cooperation and innovation can deliver the accelerated and more ambitious strategies. Policies will be needed to all the persistent gaps to achieve the 2030 Agenda. If the gaps are not addressed urgently, progressively more drastic and expensive measures will be required to avoid extreme and potentially unrecoverable social impacts as countries try to cope with climate change. This report uniquely focuses on sustainable energy in the UNECE region up to 2050 as regional economic cooperation is an important factor in achieving sustainable energy. Arriving at a state of attaining sustainable energy is a complex social, political, economic and technological challenge. The UNECE countries have not agreed on how collectively they will achieve energy for sustainable development. Given the role of the UNECE to promote economic cooperation it is important to explore the implications of different sustainable energy pathways and for countries to work together on developing and deploying policies and measures

What Can the United States Learn from the Nordic Model?

Some policymakers in the United States and Europe argue that it is possible to enjoy economic growth and also have a large welfare state. These advocates for bigger government claim that the socalled Nordic Model offers the best of both worlds. This claim does not withstand scrutiny. Economic performance in Nordic nations is lagging, and excessive government is the most likely explanation. The public sector in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland consumes, on average, more than 48 percent of economic output. Total government outlays in the United States, by contrast, are less than 37 percent of gross domestic product. Revenue comparisons are even more striking. Tax receipts average more than 45 percent of GDP in Nordic nations, a full 20 percentage points higher than the aggregate tax burden in the United States. This bigger burden of government hurts Nordic competitiveness, both because government spending consumes resources that could be more efficiently allocated by market forces and because the accompanying high tax rates discourage productive behavior. A smaller state sector is one reason why the United States is more prosperous. Per capita GDP in the United States is more than 15 percent higher than it is in the Nordic nations. The gap is even larger when comparing disposable income, private consumption, and other measures that reflect living standards. Notwithstanding problems associated with a large welfare state, there is much to applaud in Nordic nations. They have open markets, low levels of regulation, strong property rights, stable currencies, and many other policies associated with growth and prosperity. Indeed, Nordic nations generally rank among the world's most market-oriented nations. Nordic nations also have implemented some pro-market reforms. Every Nordic nation has a lower corporate tax rate than the United States, for example, and most of them have low-rate flat tax systems for capital income. Iceland even has a flat tax for labor income. And both Iceland and Sweden have partially privatized their social security retirement systems. The Nordic nations offer valuable lessons for policymakers, but they do not fit the traditional stereotype. Conservative critics correctly condemn the large welfare states, but often overlook the positive results generated by laissez-faire policies in other areas. Liberals, meanwhile, exaggerate the economic performance of Nordic nations in an effort to justify welfare-state policies, while failing to acknowledge the role of freemarket policies in other areas

Measuring Women's Economic Empowerment

When women are economically empowered, communities and nations benefit. Yet, there has been a crucial knowledge gap regarding the most effective interventions that directly advance women's economic opportunities. In early 2012, the United Nations Foundation and the ExxonMobil Foundation joined forces, launching a project to address this gap and identify which development interventions best improve women's productivity and earnings.The two foundations, under the technical leadership of United Nations Foundation Senior Fellow Mayra Buvinic, convened a select group of more than 35 development economists and other experts from top universities, international agencies and non-profit organizations. The researchers worked on 17 review and empirical studies that investigated practical, implementable projects aimed at women's economic advancement. Together, the findings, with supporting evidence from more than 135 additional studies, were compiled into a report, A Roadmap for Promoting Women's Economic Empowerment, that outlines which interventions may work best to increase women's productivity and earnings in developing economies. The Roadmap was released in September 2013.In 2014, the United Nations Foundation and the ExxonMobil Foundation invited researchers who developed the Roadmap to help identify outcome measures or indicators for women's economic empowerment programs, informed by the researchers' first-hand experience with rigorous research and program evaluation

Navigating Out of the Crisis: A Trade-led Recovery-A Practical Guide for Policymakers in Asia and the Pacific

The current economic and financial crisis is an unprecedented challenge for policymakers of the Asia-Pacific region. While the region's policymakers have gained considerable experience in responding to national or regional financial crises, they have less expertise in addressing a crisis that originated in the financial sector and then reverberated throughout the real economy. Governments in the region may benefit from considering other countries' experiences in how to react to sharp reductions in trade, employment and production. In addition, as this crisis has spread globally, the solution will have to be based on a global and coordinated response to limit long-term harm, in particular to the most vulnerable economies. This guide outlines short-, medium-, and long-term trade-related policy tools at the international, regional and national level which Asia-Pacific countries may want to consider both mitigate the impact of the economic crisis and to invest in more resilient economies for the future. This book has 7 chapters (1) National Coordination for a Trade-led Recovery, (2) Maintaining the Supremacy of the Multilateral Trading System, (3) Addressing Trade Financing and Trade Development Constraints, (4) Diversifying Products and Markets for Exports, (5) Enhancing South-South Trade and Cooperation, (6) Promoting Asia-Pacific Businesses for Long-Term Competitiveness, and (7) Looking beyond the Crisis: Positioning the Asia-Pacific Region for the Futureeconomic, financial crisis, Asia-Pacific, WTO, international trade, competitiveness, South-South Trade, export, Diversifying products, Multilateral Trading System, Trade-led recovery

Simulation Exercises for the Teaching of Planning: The Example of Ruritania

SUMMARY This article outlines experience with the use of a simulation exercise in teaching development planning. Two years of using the exercise has shown that simulation is an invaluable aid, especially in the teaching of planning, and has revealed what is essentially wrong with most planning textbooks. RESUME Exercices de simulation pour I'enseignement de la planification: exemple de la Ruritanie Cet article est au sujet de l'expérience qui a été faite de l'utilisation d'un exercise de simulation pour l'enseignement de la planification du développement. Après deux années, cet exercice a montré que la simulation est une aide extrêmement précieuse, surtout dans l'enseignement de la planification, et il a servi à mettre en évidence ce qui ne va pas dans la plupart des manuels de planification. RESUMEN Ejercicios simulados para la ensenanza de la planificación: El ejemplo de Ruritania Este artículo esboza la experiencia obtenida por el uso de un ejercicio simulado para la enseñanza de la planificación de desarrollo. Después de usar el ejercicio durante dos años se ha demostrado que la simulación resulta una ayuda valiosa, especialmente con la enseñanza de la planificación, y ha demostrado en dónde se equivocan la mayor parte de los libros de texto sobre el tema

Development Potentials For Palestine

The author discusses issues surrounding the potential economic development of Palestine. He specifically discusses the Palestinian projects of the United Nations Development Programme in Gaza

Report of the Open Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals

This report is an integrated and coordinated implementation of and follow-up to the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits in the economic, social and related fields

Draft Declaration: Women's Economic Empowerment for Peacebuilding

This document presents the members of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission. Assembled at United Nations Headquarters in New York on 26 September 2013, under the chairmanship of Her Excellency Vesna Pusi?, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Croatia, to reaffirm the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and in peacebuilding, as outlined in Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security; and to affirm our commitment to promote the economic empowerment of women for peacebuilding

SEEA Revision: Accounting for Sustainability?

The 1993 United Nations System for integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA) aimed at measuring the - environmental - sustainability of economic performance and growth in terms of produced and natural capital maintenance. To this end it advanced "greened" economic indicators, notably Environmentally-adjusted net Domestic Product (EDP) and Capital Formation (ECF). A revised (draft) version of the 1993 handbook, entitled "Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting 2003" (IEEA), is now available on the web site of the United Nations Statistics Division. Despite its extensive discussion of sustainable development, the IEEA 2003 fails in measuring overall sustainability as it shuns monetary valuation of environmental impacts in a modular framework for physical, hybrid and - selective - monetary accounts. The revision thus missed an opportunity to bridge the persisting dichotomy between ecological and economic sustainability analysis. Future work should explore and test the capability of material flow and environmentally adjusted economic indicators to capture the elusive notions of strong and weak sustainability of economic activity.environmental accounting, sustainability, capital maintenance, dematerialization, green GDP, valuation

The Implementation of Economic and Social Council's Duties as a United Nations Organs

This article will describe the history of the Economic and Social Council based on the documents underlying the establishment of the Economic and Social Council. In addition, the duties and authority of the Economic and Social Council as a committee of the United Nations will also be explained in this article, as well as the roles of the Economic and Social Council in cooperation with the agencies of the United Nations, which not only affect the continuity of the United Nations, but also affect the lives of the subjects of international law. The paper also comes with an analysis of the duties and authority of the Economic and Social Council as a committee of the United Nations. Other than that, analysis regarding the implementation of the role of the Economic and Social Council in cooperation with the agencies of the United Nations others joined outlined in this paper. It is expected that the contents of this paper can be useful not only as a reference for the learning process, but also as a form of contribution to the related sciences Law International and Regional Organizations