FEAST OR FAMINE

  This year 2023 marks the sixth Global Recycling Day held annually on 18 March. In 2018, the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) recognized Global Recycling Day (or World Recycling Day) as an official United Nations day.   Every year, recyclables (recycled materials), called the Seventh Resource, save over 700 million tonnes in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, says a BIR study. This is projected to increase to one billion tonnes by 2030.     The theme for the 2023 Global Recycling Day is Creative Innovation. It celebrates being proactive and creative in finding new ways to reduce, re-use, recycle, and upcycle products, food waste, and everyday items.   One of the creative ways I saw in Siem Reap, Cambodia, was the recycling of plastic bags into sturdy containers and floor mats in a shop called Rehash Trash.         MARTINA NICOLLS MartinaNicollsWebsite Rainy Day Heali...

  World Wetlands Day is celebrated on 2 February annually. With 35% of the world’s wetlands having disappeared in the last 50 years, and nearly 90% degraded since the 1700s, the theme for the 2023 World Wetlands Day is Wetland Restoration - ‘revive and restore degraded wetlands.’ Wetlands are important  ecosystems that contribute to biodiversity, climate mitigation and adaptation, and freshwater availability.   Wetlands are areas of land that are saturated or flooded with water either permanently or seasonally. Inland wetlands include marshes, lakes, rivers, floodplains, peatlands, and swamps. Coastal wetlands include saltwater marshes, estuaries, mangroves, lagoons, and coral reefs. Human-made wetlands include fishponds, rice paddies, and salt pans.   The first  Convention on Wetlands was held on 2 February 1971, and on 30 August 2021, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 75/317 that established 2 February as World Wetlands Day. ...

  I contributed towards a survey on city-led initiatives and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2015-2030. The results of the Devex survey have been published in May 2021 in a special report called Cities Can: Accelerating progress toward the SDGs through city-led initiatives.    The report details the importance of city-led initiatives using data-driven approaches to understanding the local on-the-ground needs, and leveraging local expertise. It also examines working across sectors in a whole-of-system approach to city-led initiatives.    The Cities Can report provides 5 case studies: (1) Harnessing data in multidisciplinary health care, (2) Co-creating safe, inclusive public spaces with Minecraft, (3) Coordinating multiple stakeholders through local champions, (4) Peer-to-peer learning and resilient food systems, and (5) Building long-term results and global impact for climate action and sustainable development.   The Devex report...

  World Television Day is celebrated annually on 21 November. It commemorates the United Nation’s first World Television Forum on this day in 1996. The television was recognized as a symbol of communication, education, and information.   In 1927, Philo Taylor Farnsworth was 21 years old when he invented the world’s first electronic television. His idea was of a system that could capture moving pictures, change them into a code, and them move those images with radio waves to different devices.    Phil Farnsworth (1906-1971) was born in Utah in the United States of America. His greatest moment was in 1969 when he watched the moon landing on his own television in his own home. NASA’s Apollo 11 landed on the moon on 20 July 1969 when Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, and Michael Collins remained in the shuttle. It was televised in real time to millions of viewers all over the world.    In July 2020, IMDb, the Internet Movie Database, ...

The plane leaving the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, bound for the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, took off at 8:44 am local time on Sunday 10 March, losing contact with air traffic control at Bole International Airport just six minutes later. The plane had crashed, killing passengers from more than 35 different countries.  I am in Paris, working for the United Nations, specifically with UNESCO, and their flag flew at half-mast today in remembrance of 19 UN staff that were killed in the plane crash. According to the UN Department of Safety and Security in Kenya, 19 UN staff died in the crash. The World Food Programme (WFP) lost seven staff, the Office of the High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) lost two, as did the International Telecommunications Union. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Sudan,  World Bank and UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) each lost one s...

MARTINA NICOLLS   is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author   of:-  Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom   (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).