Tag: Sustainable Development Goals
Can Businesses Play a Role in Peace and Sustainable Development?
The role of business in society is as contested as ever. Business can help grow local communities, or they can exploit them. Economic growth can bring states together as it did the European Union, or it can help trigger conflict if the benefits are not distributed equitably, as we have seen in Myanmar, Sudan, and Sri… Read more »
Eid, Islamic finance and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
Muslims all over the world are celebrating Eid-ul-Adha, the ‘festival of sacrifice’ or the Greater Eid. The other Eid, Eid-ul-Fitr is the festival which marks the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting. This is when many Muslims pay their annual zakat – a religious tax equivalent to 2.5 percent of a person’s wealth each… Read more »
Producing Reliable Data for SDG 16: The Case of Conflict Data
In 2015, the United Nations stated unequivocally in the last progress report for the Millennium Development Goals that “conflict remains the largest obstacle to development”. Yet, reducing conflict and violence in the world was never a target in and of itself under the MDGs. This changed with the inclusion of Goal 16 as part of the Sustainable… Read more »
No Peace Without Women!
The recent #MeToo campaign was a watershed moment that has brought global attention to the issue of violence against women and has shown us how women continue to be objects of exploitation. Violence is manifested in so many different ways, from intimate partner violence, domestic violence, rape, honour killing to dowry and to sexual harassment… Read more »
War is Development in Reverse
The UN’s new Sustainable Development Goals are ready for adoption. For the first time, the UN will measure the incidence of one of the most controversial, but important, development indicators: the amount of armed conflict in the world. On 25 September this year, a UN summit will adopt the new Sustainable Development Goals. These will… Read more »
The Reality of Firearms Trafficking
The film The Lord of War and high profile trial of Victor Bout helped to seal in the public imagination the image of an illicit arms trafficker as being someone who smuggled planeloads of Kalashnikovs around the world and into war zones. Such characters do exist, but the reality of firearms trafficking (especially outside war zones) is… Read more »