Information Management in Disaster and Humanitarian Response: A Case in United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

To guarantee a unified response to disasters, humanitarian organizations work together via the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Although the OCHA has made great strides to improve its information management and increase the availability of accurate, real-time data for disaster and humanitarian response teams, significant gaps persist. There are inefficiencies in the emergency management of data at every stage of its lifecycle: collection, processing, analysis, distribution, storage, and retrieval. Disaster risk reduction and disaster risk management are the two main tenets of the United Nations’ worldwide plan for disaster management. Information systems are crucial because of the crucial roles they play in capturing, processing, and transmitting data. The management of information is seldom discussed in published works. The goal of this study is to employ qualitative research methods to provide insight by facilitating an expanded comprehension of relevant contexts, phenomena, and individual experiences. Humanitarian workers and OCHA staffers will take part in the research. The study subjects will be chosen using a random selection procedure. Online surveys with both closed- and open-ended questions will be used to compile the data. UN OCHA offers a structure for the handling of information via which all humanitarian actors may contribute to the overall response. This research will enable the UN Office for OCHA better gather, process, analyze, disseminate, store, and retrieve data in the event of a catastrophe or humanitarian crisis.

Following the Charter of the United Nations: The Basic Guarantee for the Realization of the Right to Development——From the Perspective of Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

This study discusses the basic guarantee of the Charter of the United Nations to realize the right to development from the angle of Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The concepts regarding the people as the focal point, the dignity, the worth of the human being, as well as larger aspects of freedom, and other basic concepts within the Charter of the United Nations, guide the right direction of action for the realization of the right to development. The purpose and principles of the United Nations establishment in the Charter constitute the basic legal protection of the right to development. Values of peace, international dialogue, and international cooperation show the right path to the realization of the right to development.

Travel-Limiting Disabilities in the United States: Why Accessibility Matters?

This study evaluates the distribution of travel-limiting disabilities across genders and geographic locations in the United States. This study aims to describe and compare the socioeconomic and demographic variables of the people with and without travel-limiting disabilities across geographic locations and gender. The study further evaluates the trip purpose and impact of Covid-19 fourth wave pandemic on the use of public transit and travel to physical workplace for the people with and without travel-limiting disabilities across gender and geographic locations. The study uses the 2022 weighted National Household Travel Survey dataset and employs descriptive statistics. Results reaffirm the findings from previous literature that there are more people with travel-limiting disabilities in urban areas and among women. Over 50 percent of people aged 65 and above have a form of travel-limiting disabilities. The most trip for people with travel-limiting disabilities is made for shopping and medical purposes. Across all categories, rural areas, urban areas, male and female for the people without travel-limiting disabilities, COVID-19 fourth wave did not change the pattern of trips made to physical workplace as pre-COVID-19 era. This pattern is also observable for the people with travel-limiting disabilities in rural and urban areas. Females with travel-limiting disabilities reported making less trips to physical workplaces while male reported doing the same as before COVID-19 era. The study concludes that the quantification of travel-limiting disabilities across geographic location and gender is vital in disability study and could drive policy implementation for improved accessibility for the vulnerable population.

The 2 ℃ Global Temperature Target and the Evolution of the Long-TermGoal of Addressing Climate Change-From the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change to the Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement proposed to keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 ℃ abovepre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 ℃ above pre-industriallevels. It was thus the first international treaty to endow the 2 ℃ global temperature target with legal effect.The qualitative expression of the ultimate objective in Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Conventionon Climate Change （UNFCCC） has now evolved into the numerical temperature rise target in Article 2 of theParis Agreement. Starting with the Second Assessment Report （SAR） of the Intergovernmental Panel on Cli-mate Change （IPCC）, an important task for subsequent assessments has been to provide scientific informa-tion to help determine the quantified long-term goal for UNFCCC negotiation. However, due to involvementin the value judgment within the scope of non-scientific assessment, the IPCC has never scientifically af-firmed the unacceptable extent of global temperature rise. The setting of the long-term goal for addressingclimate change has been a long process, and the 2 ℃ global temperature target is the political consensuson the basis of scientific assessment. This article analyzes the evolution of the long-term global goal foraddressing climate change and its impact on scientific assessment, negotiation processes, and global low-carbon development, from aspects of the origin of the target, the series of assessments carried out by the 1PCCfocusing on Article 2 of the UNFCCC, and the promotion of the global temperature goal at the political level.

The Trump Administration's Policy toward the United Nations

A far-reaching revision of US policy instruments toward the United Nations has been underway since Donald Trump took office. The policy, featuring a pronounced inclination toward unilateralism and pragmatism, is closely linked to the domestic trend of thought and will add to the uncertainty in the development of global governance.

Integrating Sustainable Development into Global Institutions:Reforming the United Nations

This article will briefly outline the origins,structure and functions of United Nations Environment Program and the Commission on Sustainable Development in the context of the goals of ecologically sustainable development(ESD).Economic development,social development and environmental protection form the three interconnected parts of ESD.The achievements of the key UN environmental institutions and programs in opening up the global system to civil society,the private sector and a diversity of actors and interests,promoting the role of poverty alleviation as part of ESD through the Millennium Development Goals,and facilitating important Multilateral Environmental Agreements should be recognized.However,with these notable exceptions,organizations such as United Nations Environment Program and the Commission on Sustainable Development have become weak in scientific and technical leadership,global policy,co-ordination(inside and outside the UN) and has few achievements in the international and national implementation of obligations and standards in Global Environmental Governance-including enforcement,compliance and effectiveness.This article will outline the key reasons for this inadequacy.Attention will also be focused on the way forward through of a new United Nations Environment Organization.This will require a clarification of purpose and function(within the UN system and as part of global governance structures) as well as consideration of whether it depends on system-wide UN reform.It is recommended that medium and long term strategies for reform are necessary.

Five Points on the Participation of Social Organizations in the activities of the United Nations

On June 30,2019,on behalf of the Beijing Zhicheng Migrant Workers Legal Aid and Research Center(hereinafter referred to as the Center),I went to Geneva to attend the 41st Session of the UN Human Rights Council.This is my third time to participate in the activities of the UN Human Rights System.

The Analysis of Human Development Index (HDI) for Categorizing the Member States of the United Nations (UN)

To categorize the nations to reflect the development status, to date, there are many conceptual frameworks. The Human Development index (HDI) that is published by the United Nations Development Programme is widely accepted and practiced by many people such as academicians, politicians, and donor organizations. However, though the development of HDI has gone through many revisions since its formulation in 1990, even the current version of the index formulation published in 2016 needs research to better understand and to gap-fill the knowledge base that can enhance the index formulation to facilitate the direction of attention such as release of funds. Therefore, in this paper, based on principal component analysis and K-means clustering algorithm, the data that reflect the measures of life expectancy index (LEI), education index (EI), and income index (II) are analyzed to categorize and to rank the member states of the UN using R statistical software package, an open source extensible programming language for statistical computing and graphics. The outcome of the study shows that the proportion of total eigen value (i.e., proportion of total variance) explained by PCA-1 (i.e., first principal component) accounts for more than 85% of the total variation. Moreover, the proportion of total eigen value explained by PCA-1 increases with time (i.e., yearly) though the amount of increase with time is not significant. However, the proportions of total eigen value explained by PCA-2 and PCA-3 decrease with time. Therefore, the loss of information in choosing PCA-1 to represent the chosen explanatory variables (i.e., LEI, EI, and II) may diminish with time if the trend of increasing pattern of proportion of total eigen value explained by PCA-1 with time continues in the future as well. On the other hand, the correlation between EI and PCA-1 increases with time although the magnitude of increase is not that significant. This same trend is observed in II as well. However, in contrast to these observations, the correlation between PCA-1 and LEI decreases with time. These findings imply that the contributions of EI and II to PCA-1 increase with time, but the contribution of LEI to PCA-1 decreases with time. On top of these, as per Hopkins statistic, the clusterability of the information conveyed by PCA-1 alone is far better than the clusterability of the information conveyed by PCA scores (i.e., PCA-1, PCA-2, and PCA-3) and the explanatory variables. Therefore, choosing PCA-1 to represent the chosen explanatory variables is becoming more concrete.

The United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service(UN-NGLS)

Civil society is the'third sector'of society,along with government and business.It comprises civil society organizations and non-governmental organizations.The UN recognizes the importance of par tnering with civil society,because it advances the Organization’s ideals,and helps support its work.

On the Parliament Participation in the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations Human Rights

Whether, and if so how, parliaments should participate in the Universal Periodic Review mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council is emerging. Due to their unique contributions to human rights protection and promotion, parliaments should participate in the process. Furthermore, some parliaments are already involved in this mechanism, including drafting national reports, engaging in interactive dialogues, and the implementation of review recommendations. In the past two rounds of reviews, China’s National People’s Congress has a positive record in this regard, but it should play a more active role in ratifying or acceding to international human rights conventions.

Global Human Rights Governance in the United Nations Arena:China's Participation and Contribution

This paper expounds how China participates in and contributes to global human rights governance from the perspective of its participation in United Nations’ human rights affairs. For more than 70 years since the United Nations was founded, it has done a good deal of work in establishing the principles and standards for human rights, developing the connotation of human rights, setting up the international human rights treaty system, and reforming the specialized United Nations’ body on human rights, and so on. Since the United Nations was founded, China has been an active participant in and made important contributions to global human rights governance under the framework of the United Nations’ human rights conventions. It has contributed to the establishment of the principles and standards for human rights and the connotations of human rights. It has also actively joined international human rights treaties and conscientiously fulfilled its obligations.

Characteristics and trends of integrated ocean management under the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

As the international community place high value on the ocean,protecting the marine environment and promoting the sustainable development of the ocean have become the consensus of all countries around the world.Integrated ocean management,as an important part of the ocean governance mechanism within the framework of the United Nations,have approached to the scene view of human gradually.Taking the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea as the framework,the current international integrated ocean management is summarized and the future development trend of ocean management is analyzed,providing reference for China to build a maritime power and a maritime community with shared future.

United Nations Environment Programme’s 2018 Observer Activities Report to the Arctic Council

I. The Organization’s contributions to the work of the Arctic Council’s Working Groups, Task Forces, and/or Expert Groups The United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) has been active as an Observer to the Arctic Council since 1996, taking part in the Council’s Ministerial, Senior Arctic Officials meetings and, together with its collaborating centre GRID-Arendal in Norway and the UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) in the UK, has engaged actively in the efforts of most of the Council’s scientific and technical working groups. As the United Nation’s organization setting the global environmental agenda and along with the Multilateral Environmental Agreement (MEA) it administers—including those on biological diversity, hazardous waste, chemicals and mercury—UN Environment has facilitated global outreach for some of the Council’s work. Notably, UN Environment continues to provide technical support on a number of assessment and monitoring activities as described below.

Village Elementary School Affecting the United Nations

EDITOR＇S NOTE： ＂Left-behind children＂ are children who have one parent or both parents working in another city while the children stay in the village. These children usually live with either one of their parents, relatives or family friends. Research shows that there are over 58 million left-behind children in China; 57.2 percent of them have one parent working in another city, 42,8 percent of the children have both parents working in another city,

United Nations and Human Rights

Charter and Universal Declaration Human rights problem has aroused serious concem from the international community. It was originated in the Second World War. Fascists of Germany, Italy and Japan committed genocide and crimes of killing innocents and it became a matter of worldwide concem to defend the right to life. The war between the anti-fascist alliance against the axis powers including Germany and Japan was in fact a war of protecting the dignity and rights of humanity and a war to defend human rights and for national independence. The programmatic document Charter of the Atlantic of the alliance during the war and the Declaration of the United Nations all clearly put forward the idea that defending human rights is

Du Yuzhou Art Exhibition Will Open in the United Nations

From June 5th to 15th 2007,the headquarters of the United Nations will enjoy a show time of Du Yuzhou works,where works of photograph and painting will be exhibited. Mr.Yuzhou Du,President of the China