The Week With IPS 7/28/17

2017/7/28	Click here for the online version of this IPS newsletter
	“The Time is Now” to Invest in Youth, Girls Tharanga Yakupitiyage The demographic dividend: though not a new concept, it is one of the major buzzwords at the UN this year. But what does it really mean? There are 1.8 billion young people between the ages of 10 and 24 around the world, the most in the history of humankind. In Africa alone, approximately ... MORE > >
	Asian Financial Crisis: Lessons Learned and Unlearned Yilmaz Akyuz Debates are taking place on whether there will be another financial crisis, whether in some part of the world or that is global in scope. Governments draw lessons from financial crises to adopt measures to prevent their recurrence. However, such measures are often designed to address the root ... MORE > >
	Can Economic Growth Be Really Green? IPS World Desk The answer to this big question is apparently “yes” – Economic growth can be really green. How? The facts are there. For instance, in 2016, solar power became the cheapest form of energy in 58 lower income countries, including China India and Brazil. In Europe, in 2016, 86 per cent of the ... MORE > >
	Barbados Steps Up Plans for Renewables, Energy Efficiency Desmond Brown With wind, solar and other renewable energy sources steadily increasing their share in energy consumption across the Caribbean, Barbados is taking steps to further reduce the need for CO2-emitting fossil fuel energy. The tiny Caribbean island is rolling out a project to reduce both electricity ... MORE > >
	Sinking Island Seeks Seat in Security Council Thalif Deen The Maldives, one of the world’s low-lying, small island developing states (SIDS) -- threatened with extinction because of a sea-level rise-- is shoring up its coastal defences in anticipation of the impending calamity. And it is seeking international support for its very survival.—at a time ... MORE > >
	Migrant Contributions to Development: Creating a “New Positive Narrative” Tharanga Yakupitiyage Despite the “undeniable” benefits of migration, barriers including public misconceptions continue to hinder positive development outcomes, participants said during a series of thematic consultations here on safe, orderly, and regular migration. At a time where divisive rhetoric on migration ... MORE > >
	China Seeks to Export Its Green Finance Model to the World Daniel Gutman Hand in hand with UN Environment and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) disembarked in the Argentine capital to prompt this country to adopt and promote the agenda of so-called green finance, which supports clean or sustainable development projects and ... MORE > >
	Alcoholism Cannot Explain Russian Mortality Spike Vladimir Popov and Jomo Kwame Sundaram The steep upsurge in mortality and sudden fall in life expectancy in Russia in the early 1990s were the highest ever registered anywhere in recorded human history in the absence of catastrophes, such as wars, plague or famine. The shock economic reforms in the former Soviet economies after 1991 ... MORE > >
	Tobago Gears Up to Fight Sargassum Invasion Jewel Fraser As Tobago's tourism industry struggles to repel the sargassum invasions that have smothered its beaches with massive layers of seaweed as far as the eye can see - in some places half a metre thick - and left residents retching from the stench, the island's government is working to establish an ... MORE > >
	The Unnoticed Demise of Democracy Roberto Savio Politicians are so busy fighting for their jobs, they hardly seem to notice that they risk going out of business. Democracy is on the wane, yet the problem is nowhere in Parliaments. Common to all is a progressive loss of vision, of long term planning and solutions, with politics used just for ... MORE > >
	Costa Rica’s Caribbean Coast Pools Efforts Against Climate Change Diego Arguedas Ortiz Jonathan Barrantes walks between the rows of shoots, naming one by one each species in the tree nursery that he manages, in the south of Costa Rica’s Caribbean coastal region. There are fruit trees, ceibas that will take decades to grow to full size. and timber species for forestry ... MORE > >
	Local Farmers and Consumers Create Short Food Supply Chains in Mexican Cities Emilio Godoy Víctor Rodríguez arranges lettuce, broccoli, potatoes and herbs on a shelf with care, as he does every Sunday, preparing to serve the customers who are about to arrive at the Alternative Market of Bosque de Tlalpan, in the south of the Mexican capital. Farmers bring their organic vegetables from ... MORE > >