Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

In late May a confrontation between Indian and Chinese soldiers in a remote border region of the Himalayas descended into what appears to be a massive fistfight. Most accounts describe a giant brawl between as many as 100 soldiers with no shots fired and no deaths. But soon after the fight, India and China mobilized heavy guns and artillery to the region threatening a major escalation of hostilities between two regional heavyweights. Since then, tensions seemed to have eased between the two countries. Still, this incident underscores the very tense relationship between India and China and the very tenuous situation concerning India and China's border. On the line to explain this mini-crisis between India and China is Michael Kugelman. He is the senior associate for South Asia and Asia program deputy director at the Woodrow Wilson Center. We kick off discussing what exactly happened in Ladakh, the border region where the fight occurred. We then have a conversation about what this incident says about India, China, and the relationship between the two. UPDATE: At least twenty Indian soldiers were killed in the confrontation. https://www.undispatch.com/

The podcast has partnered with CGIAR, the world's largest global agricultural innovation network, around a series of live tapings on the topic of climate security. For today's episode, we are examining the link between food security, climate and conflict. My guests include a leading food systems scientist, Dr. Sonja Vermeulen, Director of Programs, CGIAR System Organization and Dan Smith, the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI. The episode was taped on June 4th. We unpack some of the linkages between climate, climate change, food systems science, conflict and peace building. This is clearly a very big topic, but not one you see often discussed in key policy making circles. The idea behind this conversation was to identify some aspects of that relationship that demand further study by researchers and attention from policymakers. I'll be hosting a total of six of these live tapings in partnership with CGIAR over the next several months. The next will be on June 18th. Register for future events in the climate security series

In the Caribbean, where many country's depend on tourism to sustain their economy, COVID-19 is exacting a particularly heavy toll. Millions of people are out of work, and governments that were already deeply in debt are now in even deeper economic and budgetary distress. My guest today, Geneive Brown Metzger, is the former Consul General of Jamaica in New York. She is also President of the American Caribbean Maritime Foundation. And she is the host of the new Caribbean affairs podcast, Diplomatically Speaking. In our conversation, she explains how COVID-19 is impacting the Caribbean. This includes not only the domestic affairs of the various countries in the region, but also foreign policy. In particular, Geneive Brown Metzger explains how China is using this moment to advance its interests in the Caribbean -- at a time when the United States under the Trump administration has been generally neglectful of the region. www.diplomaticallyspeaking.com. https://www.undispatch.com/

Barbara Saitta is a nurse with Doctors without Borders who specializes in vaccination campaigns, primarily in poorer countries. She tells me that because of supply chain interruptions, a number of countries are running out of routine childhood vaccines. This includes vaccines for measles, polio, and the all-important pentavalent vaccine that protects against five common diseases. What is so alarming about the interruption of routine childhood vaccines is that there is a direct correlation between mass immunization and avoiding mass death. We kick off with a discussion of how vaccine campaigns generally operate in a developing country with poor infrastructure, before having a broader conversation about the impact of COVID-19 on routine childhood immunizations. https://www.undispatch.com/ https://www.patreon.com/GlobalDispatches

Just over 52% of households in Rwanda have access to some form of electricity. This access is not evenly distributed across Rwanda. In rural communities, where most Rwandans live, energy access rates are far lower. Furthermore, the country's geography severely limits the reach of Rwanda's electric grids. This means Rwandans are increasingly turning to off-grid energy solutions, namely solar power. My guest today, Rebecca Klege, is a Ghanian economist whose research focuses on the intersection of clean energy access and female entrepreneurship. She is a researcher at Environmental Research Policy Unit who is completing her PHD studies at the School of Economics, University of Cape Town in South Africa. What makes Rebecca Klege's work so unique is that she flips a common study question on its head. Rather than asking how energy access empowers women, she examines how empowered women can promote energy access, and whether or not they do a better job of it than men. At the center of her research is a for-profit social enterprise called Nuru Energy. This company provides re-chargeable solar lighting to village level entrepreneurs, who then sell the lighting to others in their community. Using sales data from Nuru Energy, Rebecca Klege was able to compare the effectiveness of female salespeople versus their male counterparts. She finds that female entrepreneurs of this solar energy product are significantly more successful than male entrepreneurs. There are broad implications of this finding, which touches on questions around sustainable development, clean energy access, and women's empowerment. These questions and more are being put to the test in an on-going randomized control which Rebecca Klege also discusses in this episode. And on a very similar note, I want to draw listeners attention to a recently concluded Virtual Workshop on Gender & Energy Access, hosted by Duke University and featuring 200 practitioner-scholars from over 30 countries. You can find a link to that workshop and white paper on globaldispatchespodcast.com. Today's episode is the third installment in a series of episodes that will be published over the next few months that showcase the research and work of the Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative. SETI is an interdisciplinary global collaborative that aims to foster research on energy access and energy transitions in low and middle-income countries. Currently, SETI is housed at Duke University, where it is led by Professors Subhrendu Pattanayak and Marc Jeuland. To learn more about SETI, follow them on Twitter @SETIenergy.

My guest today, Dr. Mosoka P Fallah is helping to lead Liberia's fight against COVID-19. He is an infectious disease and public health expert and is the Director General National Public Health Institute of Liberia. Dr. Fallah was a key player in Liberia's successful suppression of Ebola in 2014, for which he was named as one of Time Magazine's Persons of the Year. I mention this because, as Dr. Fallah explains, Liberia's experience with Ebola is very much informative of how both government and society approach COVID-19. I kick off by asking him about the role of regional cooperation in the fight against COVID-19 before we dive into the situation in Liberia. Today's episode is supported in part from a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to showcase African voices in peace and security issues. To view other episodes in this series, please visit GlobalDispatchesPodcast.com https://www.undispatch.com/

My guest, David Kaye, is the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression. He has held this position for the last three years, which has given him a unique vantage point--and unique platform--to monitor trends in the suppression of free speech. Today we discuss a new report to the UN Human Rights Council. In this report, David Kaye identifies and explains the ways in which governments and other entities have used the coronavirus pandemic to crack down on freedom of expression, independent media, and access to information. Among other things, this includes invoking laws to punish "fake news," and broad internet shutdowns. https://www.undispatch.com/

The United Nations turns 75 this year. But rather than have a diamond jubilee, the UN is instead embarking on a listening tour. The UN is seeking feedback from as many people in as many communities as possible, all around three big questions: What Kind of World do We Want to Create? Are We on Track? And What is Needed to Bridge the Gap? In today's interview, I talk to Michelle Milford Morse, who is the UN Foundation's Vice President for Girls and Women Strategy. She explains the significance of a 1995 UN meeting on women and gender equality which resulted in a key document called the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. We discuss progress and the lack there of on gender equality since that meeting, including how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting gender equality. Then, after speaking with her for about 15 minutes, the consultation begins. This involved the audience answering a series of about 10 questions on the future of gender equality. https://www.undispatch.com/

Lebanon is in the midst of an economic free fall, the degree to which is jaw dropping. Inflation is out of control, commodities are hard to come by, and its currency is devaluing at a rapid clip. This all was happening months before the coronavirus pandemic. Now, in the midst of the pandemic, a deteriorating economic situation is poised to turn into a major political and social crisis. This is arguably the worst crisis since Lebanon emerged from a 15 year civil war in 1990. The government of Lebanon signaled that it would seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund. But IMF loans come with conditions and as my guest today Maha Yahya explains, it is entirely unclear right now whether or not the government would be able to accept the kinds of conditions required for an IMF bailout. Maha Yahya is the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center and I caught up with her from Beirut. We kick off discussing the roots of this economic crisis, which she explains can be traced to the political arrangements that ended the civil war 30 years ago. We then have a broad conversation about the impact this economic crisis is having in a country that is already fragile. https://www.undispatch.com/

Today's episode was recorded in front of a live-online audience, and featured an all-star panel discussing how to make the economic recovery from COVID-19 sustainable, just, and resilient. In other words, as governments and institutions prepare their economic rescue and stimulus packages what can they do to ensure that the recovery is a green one? I moderated and guided the conversation which included Isabella Lovin; the Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden and Minister for Climate and the Environment; Rachel Kyte, the Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University ; Henrick Henricksson the CEO of Scania, which is a major manufacturer of trucks and buses; and Michael Lazarus, Senior Scientist Center Director of Stockholm Environment Institute US. The live taping was co-hosted by the Leadership Group for Industry Transition, in partnership with Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). It's members are countries and companies that subscribe to the notion that energy-intensive industry can and must progress on low-carbon pathways, aiming to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. https://www.undispatch.com/