The Global Gender Gap Report 2014
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Through the Global Gender Gap Report 2014, the World Economic Forum quantifies the magnitude of gender-based disparities and tracks their progress over time. While no single measure can capture the complete situation, the Global Gender Gap Index presented in this Report seeks to measure one important aspect of gender equality: the relative gaps between women and men across four key areas: health, education, economy and politics.
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This Filipino journalist is fighting for press freedom in COVID-19 lockdown
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
On 15 June, journalist Maria Ressa was found guilty of cyber-libel in the Philippines, which could carry a jail sentence of up to seven years.
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How green entrepreneurs can help the Great Reset: Nico Rosberg on this week’s World Vs Virus podcast
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
He won the Formula 1 World Championship in 2016 and then retired. Nico Rosberg had reached the top of motor-racing at 31 and moved on to other challenges: raising a family and seeking out high-tech answers to some of the planet’s biggest problems.
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What is systemic racism, and how can we combat it?
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
‘Systemic racism’. ‘Unconscious bias’. How can we recognise the more insidious forms of racism and counter their very real impact on the employment chances, pay, health and political engagement of ethnic minorities?
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Billions for sustainable investments – Germany’s plan for a green recovery
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
Germany wants to lead the green recovery – and it’s prepared to spend to get there.
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This is the toll that everyday racism takes on black men in America
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
High-profile police shootings and deaths of black men in custody – or even while out jogging – bring cries of racism across the country. The May 25 death of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis and the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia on Feb. 23, 2020 by a white father and son have resulted in outrage and protests in cities across the U.S.
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COVID-19 could shrink Latin America’s GDP by almost 10% in 2020
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
Latin America and the Caribbean have become the new COVID-19 global epicenter. The human cost has been tragic, with over 100,000 lives lost. The economic toll has also been steep. The World Economic Outlook Update now estimates the region to shrink by 9.4 percent in 2020, four percentage points worse than the April projection and the worst recession on record. A mild recovery to +3.7 percent is projected in 2021.
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Farming could empower millions of women across South Asia – here’s how
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
South Asia’s record on gender equality is weak, to say the least. The region has the world’s highest rate of child marriage, and domestic violence against women is pervasive. Women are over-represented in unpaid work, and under-represented in the labor force, even in countries like Sri Lanka, which has invested heavily in girls’ schooling. Yet there is one sector where women are taking over: agriculture. This is an opportunity for women’s economic empowerment that should not be missed.
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How public sector accounting can help in the COVID-19 recovery
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
One effect of the COVID-19 lockdowns this year is that many young adults have returned home temporarily to stay with their parents, subletting their apartments to others in need. For those who have lost their jobs, the rent paid by these tenants has doubtless provided a welcome and necessary safety net. Thanks to the modern gig economy, victims of the downturn can operate like corporations, “sweating” their balance sheets to maximize the income from their existing assets.
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Global oil demand and CO2 emissions may have peaked last year
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
Global oil demand and carbon dioxide emissions probably peaked in 2019 as the COVID-19 pandemic will have a lasting impact on both, energy consultancy DNV GL said on Wednesday.
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Microplastics have been found inside minute animals living in Antarctica
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
King George Island, the largest of the South Shetland Islands, lies 120km, about a day’s sail off the northernmost tip of Antarctica. It’s a rugged place – home to seals, penguins, a few scientific bases and not much else. Though the climate is mild compared to the mainland, temperatures still barely reach above freezing in the summer months and the island is almost entirely covered in ice. If microplastics can enter the food web here, they can probably do so almost anywhere on earth.
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2020 is predicted to be the hottest year on record, according to NASA
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
Data from NASA shows the Earth gradually heating up since the late 19th century. Since the year 2000, this trend seems to have accelerated as shown in the visualization of the data released. May 2020 was about 1.5° C hotter than the average month recorded on Earth since 1880.
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COVID-19: This robot can disinfect a warehouse floor in just half an hour
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
With every droplet that we can’t see, touch, or feel dispersed into the air, the threat of spreading Covid-19 persists. It’s become increasingly critical to keep these heavy droplets from lingering — especially on surfaces, which are welcoming and generous hosts.
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COVID-19: Study shows 40% of cases in Italian town showed no symptoms
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
A study of coronavirus infections that covered almost everyone in the quarantined north Italian town of Vò found that 40% of cases showed no symptoms – suggesting that asymptomatic cases are important in the spread of the pandemic.
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Drones and helicopters are battling India’s fast-spreading locust swarm
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
India have deployed a helicopter and a dozen drones spraying insecticide to stop desert locusts that have spread to nine heartland states of the world’s second-biggest producer of rice and wheat.
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COVID-19: What you need to know about coronavirus on 2 July
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
1. How COVID-19 is affecting the globe
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This is why many young people have no access to proper education
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
More than a quarter of a billion children and young people have been “left behind” and are totally excluded from education systems around the world, and the pandemic has made the problem worse, UNESCO’s 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report shows.While most young people in developed countries treat going to school as a given, many of the world’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged face significant obstacles that prevent them from accessing education.The report looks at rates of participation in education in more than 200 countries. The report highlights deep disparities in access, with poverty identified as the main barrier, ahead of other factors including background, identity and ability. Of the countries analysed, fewer than 10% had legislation in place to ensure children and young people were fully included in the education system.
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Have we finally reached a moment of promise and possibility on race?
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
“While Black”: shorthand for racial profiling so prevalent in the United States that African Americans have almost universally experienced it. The verbs that accompany the phrase represent the most mundane activities of everyday life, but when added to, those two words denote racial profiling that leads to potentially deadly confrontations with police: “driving while Black,” “jogging while Black,” or even “barbecuing while Black.” Ubiquitous cell-phone use and social media have more widely exposed the phenomenon, but it is nothing new. Even to me.
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COVID-19 in Africa: WHO media briefing on 2 July
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
The Forum is hosting a virtual briefing on the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic on Africa, in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) at 13:00 pm CET later today.
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How the post-COVID workplace will change business for the better
Thursday 2nd of July 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced organizations across the globe into a balancing act – protecting the health and safety of their employees while simultaneously continuing their operations. Like all essential businesses, Dell Technologies is working through this challenge to implement the most effective approach for protecting as many stakeholders as possible. And, it’s critical that we partner with customers to put their business continuity, remote working and digital services into practice.
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Here’s how to make public transport safer during COVID-19
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
As people around the world emerge from coronavirus lockdowns and return to work, the question of how to provide safe and sustainable public transport is becoming increasingly urgent. With the virus still circulating, many remain wary of using subways and buses. At the same time, operators need passenger numbers to return to healthy levels to maintain their networks. The only answer is to redesign public transport to make people feel safe. A series of recent surveys give us insight into the safety measures that really matter to passengers and could allow them to travel freely and confidently using public transport.
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Medical data has a silo problem. These models could help fix it.
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
Every day, more and more data about our health is generated. Data, which if analyzed, could hold the key to unlocking cures for rare diseases, help us manage our health risk factors and provide evidence for public policy decisions. However, due to the highly sensitive nature of health data, much is out of reach to researchers, halting discovery and innovation. The problem is amplified further in the international context when governments naturally want to protect their citizens’ privacy and therefore restrict the movement of health data across international borders. To address this challenge, governments will need to pursue a special approach to policymaking that acknowledges new technology capabilities.
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Estonia built one of the world’s most advanced digital societies. During COVID-19, that became a lifeline.
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
In early March, Estonia declared a state of emergency, closed its borders and entered a full lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19. But while other countries scrambled to deal with school closures and the disruption to vital services, Estonia simply continued to use the thriving, resilient digital infrastructure it had spent decades developing. Digital classrooms, online teaching materials and a huge range of online public services were already in place. Even more crucially, Estonians knew how to access and use them.
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Why support for Latin America’s early tech hubs is vital for the region
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
Venture capital investment in Latin America has doubled every year since 2016, reaching an all-time high of US$4.6B in 2019. Despite years of hard work to get to this point, the region now faces unprecedented challenges to maintain it.
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Asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic, symptomatic: what is the difference?
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
Before a vaccine is available, our best hope of combating coronavirus lies in preventing its spread. But how to do this when people may be unaware they have it? And what’s the difference between asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic and symptomatic cases? Here’s a brief explanation.
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Tackling the harder-to-abate sectors: join the conversation on 7 July
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
Heavy industry (cement, steel, chemicals and aluminium) and heavy-duty transport (shipping, trucking and aviation) are together responsible for nearly one-third of global CO2 emissions – and this percentage is expected to double under business-as-usual scenarios. As such, these sectors have a vital role to play in halting global average temperature rises if the world is to meet the Paris climate agreement objective of limiting global warming to well below 2°C by 2050.
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How income-sharing agreements can improve access to education
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
Education is crucial to unlocking better livelihoods. As recent studies highlight, your education impacts your ability to get a job and the income-level of you and even that of your grandchildren.
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South pole warmed ‘three times faster’ than global average over past 30 years
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
The Amundsen-Scott station, located at Antarctica’s south pole, recorded warming that was three times higher than the global average from 1989 to 2018, according to the research.
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Why COVID-19 is a backwards step for gender equality – and what to do about it
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than 400,000 people worldwide and has generated a massive global economic crisis. The world economy is projected to contract sharply by 3% in 2020 (IMF 2020) and poverty is set to rise for the first time since 1998, bringing 40-60 million people into extreme poverty (World Bank 2020). However, unlike previous economic crises, this crisis will negatively affect women more than men, creating a significant blow for gender equality. Policymakers should step up their efforts to reestablish the path towards a more equal society for men and women.
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Welcome to China’s latest ‘robot restaurant’
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
A Chinese business claiming to be the world’s first “robot restaurant complex” officially opened Monday in the southern Guangdong province.
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What is a microaggression? 14 things people think are fine to say – but are actually racist, sexist, or offensive
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
Recent protests over the killing of George Floyd have sparked a nationwide conversation about racism in all areas of American life, including in the office.
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The plastic pandemic is only getting worse during COVID-19
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
There is no denying that single-use plastic has been a lifesaver in the fight against COVID-19, especially for frontline health workers. It has also facilitated adherence to social-distancing rules, by enabling home delivery of basic goods, especially food. And it may have helped to curb transmission, by replacing reusable coffee cups and shopping bags in many cities over fears that the virus could stick to them.
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This is how long people in Europe will work over their lifetime
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
Eurostat have released an interesting forecast about how long a person can expect to be active in the European labour market during his or her life. The data is measured in years and it’s based on someone who was 15-years-old in 2019. On average, the expected duration of working life in the European Union was 35.2 years – 3.6 years longer than in 2000. In individual member states, it ranges from 32 years in Italy to 42 years in Sweden.
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How Sumatra’s forest people are adapting ancient health rules during the pandemic
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
Jangat Pico, a member of the Orang Rimba indigenous people who live on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, was reluctant to say the name of the new coronavirus when he heard it for the first time.
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COVID-19: What you need to know about coronavirus on 1 July
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
1. How COVID-19 is affecting the globe
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Climate change could be making forests shorter – this is how
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
Global warming is causing forests to lose many older trees, leaving the planet’s forests younger – and shorter, according to new research.Using data from 160 previous studies and satellite imagery captured over decades, a team of more than 20 scientists analyzed the state of the world’s forests. The findings, published in Science, show that between 1900 and 2015 more than a third of the planet’s old-growth forests disappeared.
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COVID-19 is the biggest setback to gender equality in a decade
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
• Women around the world are losing paid work and doing more unpaid work as a result of the pandemic.
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This teenager has a plan to mobilize young people everywhere
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
It was a chance conversation in a school hall that gave Melati Wijsen and her sister Isabel the inspiration for their latest social venture.
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How to vaccinate your organization against a cyber pandemic
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed both the physical world and the digital space, where companies and organizations are being confronted with daunting cybersecurity challenges for which few were ready or equipped to face.
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Highly protected marine areas will benefit UK fishing, not threaten it
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
The most destructive way to obtain food from the ocean is bottom trawling. Especially egregious are the ships called ‘supertrawlers’, the largest fishing vessels in the world. Their nets, which are large enough to hold a dozen 747 jets, destroy everything in their paths, including 1,000-year-old deep corals.
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Aluminium can help to build the circular economy. Here’s how
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
As COVID-19 has disrupted lives and economies in an unprecedented manner, societies across the globe are grappling with an immediate need to protect lives and livelihoods, challenging the urgency of the climate agenda. Yet at the same time, some have argued that the pandemic shows how the climate change crisis might affect the global economy. Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva, deputy general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, has said that the pandemic has intensified the need for policy-makers to co-operate on building more holistic approaches to identifying and managing global risks.
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4 ways start-ups can keep raising funds during the COVID pandemic
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Quarantine and lockdown have had an economic impact on small businesses and large corporations alike. However, when it comes to the global start-up scene, the carpet has really been pulled from under these companies’ feet.
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Africa is facing a food crisis due to COVID-19. These seeds could help prevent it
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Sub-Saharan Africa is facing one of its biggest farming crises in living memory. Floods, drought, devastating diseases such as maize lethal necrosis, and pests such as fall armyworm and desert locusts weakened its food supply even before the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures. An even bigger problem is looming on the horizon. All these disastrous factors are not only hurting the current crop, but disrupting the supply of quality seed for future harvests. As a result, seed demand is expected to outstrip supply by nearly twice in the coming seasons, based on expert opinions from seven African countries compiled by the AVISA research project.
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COVID-19 in Asia: WHO media briefing on 1 July
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
The Forum on 1 July is hosting its second virtual briefing on the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic on Asia, in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO).
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These 4 charts show the crisis faced by airlines – and the possible way ahead
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
The COVID-19 crisis has grounded airlines and halted air travel all over the world, with economic consequences that are rippling far beyond the sector. Here are four charts that show the main challenges faced by airlines right now – and the dramatic changes we could see in this vital industry.
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This new programme could hold the key to solving global health challenges
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Despite the dedicated work of tens of thousands of scientists around the world, the novel coronavirus is still mostly a mystery. More than six months after it began infecting people, we do not know very much about how the virus behaves, why so many people seem to be asymptomatic, or why others get so sick.
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Three paths to restart
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
The world is in transition. The COVID-19 pandemic is straining healthcare systems, government fiscal capacity and the ability of many organizations to cope with the changes wrought by the virus and the response to it.
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Italian divers just rescued a whale caught in ‘ghost’ fishing nets
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Just because a net is no longer being used doesn’t mean it can’t continue to catch things. Italian divers have freed a sperm whale entangled in a fishing net off the northern coast of Sicily.
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A new approach to scaling-up renewable power in emerging markets
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Nearly 840 million people live without electricity in the world today, and the global demand for energy is only growing. Without more sustained and strengthened action, 650 million people will have no power within the next decade. With the world going through an unprecedented pandemic, providing affordable energy to the unserved population is even more critical for saving lives, powering health facilities and keeping people connected at home in the short term – and also to enable recovery of the markets in the mid-term.
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We know how to tackle it, but air pollution is still at deadly levels for much of the world’s population
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Vast swathes of the global population are still exposed to dangerous and increasing levels of air pollution, despite initiatives to clean up our atmosphere and an awareness of the dangers.
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‘Pandemic potential’: New flu virus is found in Chinese pigs
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
A new flu virus found in Chinese pigs has become more infectious to humans and needs to be watched closely in case it becomes a potential “pandemic virus”, a study said, although experts said there is no imminent threat.
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Why it is vital to protect start-ups during COVID-19
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Start-ups have emerged as key drivers of economic growth and job creation, and are often a catalyst for radical innovation. Young firms account for about 20% of employment but create almost half of new jobs on average across OECD countries (OECD 2016), and innovation by young firms contributes significantly to aggregate productivity growth, accounting for half of it in the US (Klenow and Li 2020).
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COVID-19 could change the welfare state forever
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Governments across the developed world have responded to the COVID-19 crisis by making welfare states vastly more generous. Historical parallels suggest that this munificence may endure even as the pandemic recedes.
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How Thailand’s social enterprises are helping locals survive COVID-19
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
When Thai travel consultancy Local Alike saw its revenue drop to zero due to the coronavirus outbreak, it started selling products from villages through social media.
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The 8 most powerful supercomputers and where to find them
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Japanese supercomputer Fugaku zipped past all competitors to claim the top spot in the twice-annual ranking of the world’s most powerful computational machines released by research project Top500. Fugaku, which was developed by Fujitsu in cooperation with the federal Riken research lab, was able to perform almost three times as many computations per second as former leader of the list, U.S.-based supercomputer Summit.
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‘Tokunbo’: How African nations are battling with the sale of ‘zombie’ appliances
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
On Nigeria’s bustling streets, stalls selling stacks of well-worn, energy-sucking refrigerators and air conditioners are known as “tokunbo”, a Yoruba word that means “from abroad”.
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Here’s how COVID-19 creates food waste mountains that threaten the environment
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Gluts of food left to rot as a consequence of coronavirus aren’t just wasteful – they’re also likely to damage the environment.
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COVID-19: What you need to know about coronavirus on 30 June
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
1. How COVID-19 is affecting the globe
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Will COVID-19 spell the end for exams?
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Educational reform tends to be a delayed process, and the catalyst is more often than not new technologies.
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Ending Systemic Racism
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Around the world, protesters have gathered in solidarity with the US Black Lives Matter movement as they demand an end to systemic racism. As the COVID-19 crisis continues to aggravate pre-existing structural and social inequalities, how can leaders join communities in effecting change at this historical turning point?
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The best way to rebuild business resilience post-COVID-19? Lean into uncertainty
Monday 29th of June 2020
Uncertainty is my stock-in-trade. For nearly 50 years and most recently as the head of strategic planning at Salesforce, I’ve looked at how the future might play out, identifying critical areas of uncertainty to help businesses and government leaders navigate risk and make better decisions. In all that time, I’ve never seen uncertainty like that arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.
