Category: Politics

MIL-OSI USA News: Background Press Call on President Biden’s Engagements at UNGA

Source: The White House

Via Teleconference

5:33 P.M. EDT

MODERATOR: This is Michael Feldman with the NSC press team. Just as a reminder for today’s call, it is on background and attributable to senior administration officials. The call is also under embargo until 5:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time tomorrow morning.

For awareness and not for attribution, on today’s call we have [senior administration official] and [senior administration official]. I will now turn the call over to [senior administration official] to give some opening remarks. Over to you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Excellent. Thank you. And good evening, everybody. We’re very excited for the President’s trip to this year’s U.N. General Assembly, the last one of his presidency.

So, at meetings at the U.N. this week, we’re going to get a lot of business done for the American people. The President, the Secretary of State, other Cabinet officials, and even some members of Congress are here in New York to advocate for our country’s interests and values.

At the General Assembly, the President will do what he has done throughout his presidency: rally global action to tackle some of our world’s biggest challenges. So, for example, he’ll be talking this week about the climate crisis and the environment. We’ll be talking about the need to strengthen our systems for providing humanitarian assistance; to end brutal wars in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan; and we’ll also be talking about the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence.

When President Biden came to office nearly four years ago, he pledged to restore American leadership on the world stage. And given that this is the President’s last General Assembly, it’s a chance for him to talk about how this approach has produced results, real achievements for the American people and for the world.

The President’s engagements this week reflect his vision for a world where countries come together to solve big problems. This stands in contrast to some of our competitors, who have a more cynical and transactional worldview, one where countries interpret their self-interest very narrowly and don’t work together for the common good.

An overarching theme at this year’s General Assembly will be the need to reform and strengthen our global institutions, including the U.N., to make them more effective and inclusive. And that’s been a big theme of the U.N. Secretary-General’s Summit for the Future, the marquee event at high-level week this year.

Last week, President Biden released a video message ahead of the summit. I encourage you all watch it. You can find it on the Web. In the video, the President spoke about using this moment to reaffirm our commitment to the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And he talked about pushing for a stronger, more effective United Nations and a reformed and expanded Security Council. And he also talked about our efforts, investing billions in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and building on the global consensus that we achieved last spring in the United Nations General Assembly on principles for the use of artificial intelligence.

We’re going into a General Assembly this year with the world facing many steep challenges, problems so big no one country can solve them on their own, but that’s why the President feels so strongly the world needs strong and effective global institutions, including an adapted United Nations. This is his vision of countries working together. It has been a theme of his presidency and an important part of his legacy.

Let me just briefly note the President’s key engagements, and then I’ll turn over to my colleague to discuss the major event that he’s hosting on the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats.

On Tuesday morning, tomorrow, he will deliver and address to the U.N. General Assembly. It will have many of the themes that I’ve mentioned here and talk about — again, some of the achievements of his approach to the United Nations and global cooperation.

The President will also meet tomorrow with U.N. Secretary-General Guterres to talk about how the United States and the United Nations are working together to advance peace, safeguard human rights, and help countries develop.

On Tuesday afternoon, the President will host a summit of the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats, and I’ll turn over to my colleague in a second to talk about that.

The President is also giving a major address later that afternoon on the urgent need to combat climate change.

On Wednesday, the President will meet with the President of Vietnam, To Lam. The President of Vietnam just came into office four months ago, and this meeting will be an important opportunity for the two leaders to talk about our shared interest in stability and prosperity in Southeast Asia.

The President will also attend, that afternoon, a meeting focused on Ukraine reconstruction with other world leaders.

And then on Wednesday evening, at the Met, the President will host world leaders and senior U.N. officials for a reception.

This is just a small slice of all the diplomacy and business that we’re doing here at the U.N. General Assembly. There’ll be high-level meetings on the future of multilateral cooperation, sea level rise, antimicrobial resistance. Really, every big, major challenge will be addressed here, and we’ll have senior U.S. representatives at all of these main events on issues such as the impact of emerging technology and specific meetings on global crises such as the difficult situation in Haiti, Sudan, Venezuela, Ukraine, Syria, and the Rohingya refugee crisis.

Other U.S.-hosted and U.S.-attended side events will focus on climate; scaling clean energy for Africa; a major core group meeting of countries committed to LGBTQ rights that was attended by the First Lady; and partnering for a lead-free future.

So, again, this is just a small slice of everything that is going on, plus the countless private sector and civil society events focusing on the great challenges of the 21st century.

So, as I mentioned, we’re going to use this high-level week, the President’s last U.N. General Assembly, to get as much done for the American people in the coming days.

I’d like to now turn over to my colleague who will discuss the President’s summit on the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Great. Thanks so much, and thanks to all of you for joining this call.

I wanted to share with you the exciting news that, on Tuesday, President Biden will, as [senior administration official] already said, host a summit of the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats. This is a coalition that President Biden launched in June 2023 to mobilize international action to tackle the synthetic drug crisis.

In just over one year, this global coalition has grown to include 158 countries and 15 international organizations working together to prevent the illicit manufacture and trafficking of synthetic drugs, to detect emerging drug threats, and to promote effective public health interventions.

With the summit as a motivating force, we now have 11 core coalition countries that will be joining the President tomorrow, and they will be announcing new initiatives that will continue to advance the work of the coalition, including work to prevent, detect, and disrupt the supply chain of synthetic drugs.

It’s important to emphasize that these international efforts complement intensive work that’s already been done and is being done domestically, including an increased focus on coordinated disruption of drug trafficking networks and concerted efforts to make the opioid overdose reversal medication, naloxone, widely available over the counter.

These are just some of a wide array of actions that the Biden-Harris administration has taken to tackle the synthetic drug threats.

And as a result of these efforts, we’re starting to see the largest drop in overdose deaths in recorded history. When President Biden and Vice President Harris came into office, the number of drug overdose deaths was increasing by more than 30 percent year over year. Now we have the latest provisional data released from the Centers for Disease Control, National Center for Health Statistics, showing an unprecedented decline in overdose deaths of roughly 10 percent from April 2023 to April 2024.

But there’s a lot more to be done, and the Global Coalition’s work recognizes that we need a global solution to a global problem.

We are thrilled that we have so many countries coming together tomorrow to celebrate the work of the coalition, and we also will be announcing a new pledge that all of the core coalition members will be announcing — will be signing on to tomorrow, and we will be working over the coming months to ensure that all coalition members sign on to this pledge.

And we truly think that this is a reflection of President Biden’s commitment to work both domestically and globally on the most important challenges that we face, recognizing that we need both domestic action and global action working together.

And with that, I’ll turn it back to [senior administration official].

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks, Michael. I’ll turn it back to you.

MODERATOR: All right. Thank you, [senior administration officials]. All right, with that, we will take some questions.

The first question is going to go to Zeke Miller. You should be able to unmute yourself.

Q    Thanks so much for doing this. You mentioned this is the President’s last U.N. of his presidency. He’s going to deliver remarks to the General Assembly tomorrow. Can you give us a preview, potentially, of what his message will be? And will it be different from his prior remarks, in the sense — you know, obviously, world events have changed, but, you know, with an eye towards his legacy? Or is there some message he’s trying to give on the world stage before he leaves office in January? Thank you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: You know, the themes I — thanks, Zeke. The themes I previewed at the beginning will be really central to the President. So, again, he came into office four years ago with a vision of America returning to the world stage, having a new way of interacting with other countries, bringing countries together to solve some of these big challenges. This will be a good opportunity for him to look at the results that have been achieved.

We live in a world with many problems, with many divisions, but we have a story to tell about what we’ve done to rally the world to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty, uphold principles of the U.N. Charter; what we’ve done to manage responsibly our competition with other countries including China; and also what we’re doing to deal with the ongoing and serious conflicts in our world in places like Gaza, where the President has worked tirelessly to get a hostage ceasefire deal, and conflicts like Sudan, where you have absolutely unprecedented displacement and a really serious crisis that we think needs to get more attention.

So I think that will be the frame, and I’ll leave the details for the President’s speech tomorrow.

MODERATOR: Great. Thank you very much. Our next question is going to go to Asma Khalid. You should be able to unmute yourself.

Q    Yes. Hi. Thanks for doing this. Similarly, sort of on the speech, could I get a sort of broad, I guess, framework or tone that you all are thinking about? I know you say that the President came into office talking about building international coalitions, wanting to rebuild the United States stature on the world, but this is a really different moment than when the President even gave the speech last year, before October 7th. He is now leaving office, and there are multiple sort of intractable problems right now in the world. And can you just kind of give us any sense of tone in how the President is thinking about that and the very limited time he has left to solve them?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks, Asma. Look, I think it’s a good question. The world has changed. The world has gotten more difficult in many ways, as you noted.

But, you know, as I said, the President came into office with a vision of how countries need to work together, how they need to work through institutions, how they need to partner to solve big global challenges. And the fact that we do have these challenges, the fact that we do have Gaza, the fact that we do have Ukraine and Sudan, still serious issues in our world, just underscores the need for that kind of cooperation. And I think you’ll hear that in his speech.

Yes, he’ll talk about the significant accomplishments, achievements of his approach, but also talk about how we need the spirit, we need to continue working together to solve these big challenges, whether it is the wars you mentioned or other challenges such as the climate crisis or managing the implications of some of the new technologies.

So I think this will be an important moment to say: Where do we go and what are the principles in which we’re going to solve these problems? Thanks.

MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Our next question is going to go to Paris Huang. You should be able to unmute yourself.

Q    All right. Hi. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, [senior administration official]. Two-parts question. So, kind of follow up on the questions from Zeke and Asma. So, of course, we know China and Russia have been heavily influencing the U.N. for years. You know, we see all those voting records. And President Biden have been doing a lot of reform during the four years. Does he believe that those changes will sustain after he leaves the White House?

And second question: In last year’s UNGA remarks, President Biden talked about the peace and stability of Taiwan Strait, which was the first time a U.S. president actually talked about Taiwan at the UNGA. So, will he include Taiwan again in his remarks this year? Thank you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks. And I appreciate the question. I think it’s a good question in terms of, you know, have we left the United Nations as an institution better off. I think we do have results, and the President will talk about that. You know, it’s a time of great divisions, and the U.N. has already been — has always been a reflection of the world as it is.

That said, when you look at what we’ve done, including through the United Nations, to, for example, rally the world to defend the U.N. Charter after the Ukrainian invasion, we secured a U.N. General Assembly resolution in which 141 countries stood up and said, “We condemn this, and we stand in favor of the U.N. Charter.”

You’ve also seen a more progressive and forward-leaning position on institutional reform. For example, two years ago, the President announced a shift and a more forward-leaning position in reforming and expanding the United Nations Security Council. And that’s definitely a piece of this well as well.

I won’t get into the details on, you know, specifically what he’ll mention on individual issues, but I will say that an important part of the President’s legacy has been thinking about how we responsibly manage our competition with China, and that includes many facets, economic security, and those will be addressed in the speech.

MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Our next question is going to go to Sheryl Gay Stolberg. You should be able to unmute yourself, Sheryl.

Q    Hi. Thank you for doing this call. You know, this is not a political speech, but it does occur in the context of an election in which one of the candidates has an isolationist vision that is far apart, diametrically opposed to that of the President. And I’m wondering, to what extent can the President use this speech to ensure that his own vision of global alliances survives? Is he concerned that that vision will unravel?

And will this speech be in any way directed to the American people, as much as to world leaders, as a reminder of the importance of America’s place in the world?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Look, as you said, this is not a political speech, but the President, again, he has a vision. He came into a vision — into office. That vision has produced results. And there are many opponents and critics of that vision, not just internationally but at home. It has been the President’s view that he needs to explain why this vision of working together with countries to solve these big challenges actually produces results, and that’s actually how we’re going to be measured.

And when I say “produces results,” that means internationally, in terms of ending war, in terms of tackling challenges like sustainable development, the debt crisis, climate, but it also means that he needs to explain how his vision has produced results for the American people. And that’s where I think there’s a very strong record, and some of it is very, very tangible.

For example, the summit on the coalition on synthetic drugs, that is him bringing together countries, all of whom share a challenge — dealing with synthetic drugs — but convening them here, talking about deliverables, talking about how we’re going to work together. And this is something that directly affects the situation of the American public, as my colleague briefed earlier, in terms of the overall record on issues like fentanyl.

So I think he’ll lay that out tomorrow, and I think it will stand as representing that vision and what it’s achieved.

MODERATOR: Thank you very much. We will go to Danny Kemp. You should be able to unmute yourself.

Q    Thanks very much for doing this. I just wanted to ask about the current situation in the Middle East. I mean, you know, the speech tomorrow is really going to be a bit overshadowed by the events in Lebanon, where we’ve seen nearly 500 people killed in the space of a day. How’s he going to address that? And more particularly, how will the President be seeking to — will he be talking to other leaders about that? What’s he actually going to be doing at the UNGA more generally to try and get this thing sorted out? Thanks.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: This is one of the advantages of the U.N. General Assembly: You literally have the whole world here. So when you do have crises of the day, they’ll be addressed. And I have no doubt that the situation in the Middle East will be an important theme in a lot of the meetings, not just that the President has, but other senior U.S. officials who will be convening to talk about various aspects of the crisis and what we can do to stabilize the situation.

He will address the Middle East, especially this very, very difficult year that we have all gone through. And again, I think it’s an opportunity to talk about what we have achieved and what we still need to do, given a situation that is just heartbreaking where hostages have not been returned, the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and, as you know, just such a sensitive issue, such a delicate and dangerous situation between Israel and Lebanon right now.

Thanks.

MODERATOR: Thank you very much. And unfortunately, that is all the time we have today. Thank you all for joining this call. Thank you to our speakers. And feel free to follow up with our team at the NSC press team with any questions.

And again, this call is under embargo until 5:00 a.m. tomorrow. Thank you all again, and hope you have a great rest of your evening.

5:53 P.M. EDT

MIL OSI USA News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI China: China calls for joint efforts to advance global governance

Source: China State Council Information Office

Wang Yi, special representative of Chinese President Xi Jinping, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese foreign minister, addresses the UN Summit of the Future at the UN headquarters in New York, Sept. 23, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Monday called on the international community to “take good care of our common home” and make joint efforts to advance global governance, as “humanity has only one planet Earth to call home, and we belong to the same world community.”

Facing profound changes unseen in a century, it was highly relevant that world leaders gathered at the Summit of the Future and, together, adopted the Pact for the Future to galvanize their collective efforts for world peace and development, and to map out the future of humanity, said Wang, who is also special representative of Chinese President Xi Jinping and a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, in his statement at the summit.

Wang noted that with this goal in mind, Xi has put forward the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind, advocated high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, and proposed the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative.

These vision and initiatives, he said, have provided new solutions for tackling the common challenges of humanity and drawn a new blueprint for building a better world.

The minister elaborated the four-point proposal put forth by China. First, countries of the world need to build a future of peace and tranquility, and should uphold the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and settle disputes through dialogue, resolve differences through consultation and enhance security through cooperation. And major countries, in particular, should lead by example by breaking geopolitical circles, rising above bloc confrontation, and serving as propellers for world solidarity and anchoring for international peace.

Second, countries of the world need to build a future of development and prosperity, follow a people-centered development philosophy and advocate a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, so as to deliver the fruits of development to the people and ensure common prosperity for all countries.

Third, countries of the world need to build a future of fairness and justice, build an equal and orderly multipolar world, oppose acts of hegemonism such as unilateral sanctions, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries.

Fourth, countries of the world need to build a better future by keeping abreast with the times and making global governance more just and equitable.

“China will work hand in hand with countries around the world to advance the building of a community with a shared future for mankind and create a more peaceful and better tomorrow,” Wang said.

MIL OSI China News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI: Equifax Canada Reports Rise in Automotive Fraud
Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

– Automotive Fraud Driven by ID Theft and Falsified Credit Applications a Significant Area of Concern for Businesses and Consumers –

TORONTO, Sept. 24, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Equifax Canada reports that while application fraud is down in some areas, automotive lenders are seeing a surge in fraud. According to new data from Equifax Canada, automotive fraud is up by 54 per cent year-over-year and is largely driven by falsified credit applications and the continued prevalence in identity theft. Ontario has experienced the most significant increase in auto fraud rates, doubling since Q2 2023.

In addition, first party fraud (fraud in which the borrower knowingly uses their own personal information to commit fraud) continues to be the most prevalent type of misrepresentation in automotive. “Automotive fraud is a significant pain point for both businesses and consumers,” said Carl Davies, Head of Fraud and Identity at Equifax Canada. “Consumers choosing to falsify their income, employment, and financial information to secure credit are a growing concern for lenders. This deceit may provide short-term financial gains for the consumer, but certainly can lead to long-term consequences such as loan denials, damaged credit, and legal ramifications.”

Synthetic Identity Fraud
Overall, the proportion of identity theft in credit applications continues to grow with 48.3 per cent of all fraud applications flagged as identity fraud in Q2 2024, up from 42.9 per cent in Q2 2023, according to data from Equifax Canada. While the proportion of true identity fraud remained the same at 39.4 per cent, there has been a rise in synthetic identity fraud, where criminals combine real and fake data to create new identities. The incidence of synthetic identity fraud rose from 2.8 per cent in Q2 2023 to eight per cent in Q2 2024.

“The rise in true identity fraud along with synthetic identity fraud, underscores the need for enhanced fraud detection across digital platforms where these crimes are increasingly being perpetrated,” added Davies. “The increase in digital transactions has made it easier for fraudsters to exploit weaknesses in current fraud prevention measures.”

Other Notable Trends:
- Identity Fraud: Older consumers with high credit scores are increasingly being targeted. Forty per cent of third-party identity fraud cases involved victims with credit scores above 800 (which is considered excellent), and 76 per cent of these consumers had no prior delinquency on their credit files.
- Mortgage Fraud: Across Canada, mortgage fraud rates have dropped by 16.3 per cent year-over-year. Alberta is the one exception with mortgage fraud on the rise, often involving falsified income and employment documentation.
- Deposit Fraud: Deposit fraud, which occurs when fraudulent transactions or payments are made to recently opened accounts, has also experienced a sharp increase, growing from 27.4 per cent of first-party fraud in Q2 2023 to 41.2 per cent in Q2 2024, much of which was driven by the telco industry.
As fraudsters adapt and refine their tactics, it’s important for businesses and consumers to stay vigilant by using ID theft protection tools that can detect fraud early through timely alerts on credit report changes. Effective fraud prevention includes verifying identities, cross-checking financial documents, and staying informed about regional fraud trends—key measures that can help mitigate the growing threat of fraud for Canadian consumers and businesses alike.

For more information on fraud prevention, visit Equifax Canada’s website and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.

About Equifax
At Equifax (NYSE: EFX), we believe knowledge drives progress. As a global data, analytics, and technology company, we play an essential role in the global economy by helping financial institutions, companies, employers, and government agencies make critical decisions with greater confidence. Our unique blend of differentiated data, analytics, and cloud technology drives insights to power decisions to move people forward. Headquartered in Atlanta and supported by nearly 15,000 employees worldwide, Equifax operates or has investments in 24 countries in North America, Central and South America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. For more information, visit Equifax.ca.

Contact:

Andrew Findlater
SELECT Public Relations
afindlater@selectpr.ca
(647) 444-1197

Angie Andich
Equifax Canada Media Relations
MediaRelationsCanada@equifax.com

The MIL Network –
September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Video: Stopping global trend of violence “is in our hands” – Youth Rep. at Summit of the Future

Source: United Nations (Video News)

Ghanim Mohammed Al Muftah, United Nations youth representative from Qatar and a political science graduate, said that the decisions made today are not just about policies and strategies. They are about shaping a world where all children can thrive in an inclusive, safe and sustainable future.

“As a person with disability, I have learned that true progress comes not from overcoming personal challenges alone, but from how we, as a society, embrace each other’s differences,” he said.

Sadly, there is no choice for children where wars and conflicts cause unnecessary injuries and life-long disabilities. It is in our hands to stop this global trend of violence, in Gaza and around the world.

“The future belongs to our youth and we must ensure that they are prepared to take on leadership roles,” he said.

————————–

The Summit of the Future (22-23 September 2024) is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to enhance cooperation on critical challenges and address gaps in global governance, reaffirm existing commitments including to the Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations Charter, and move towards a reinvigorated multilateral system that is better positioned to positively impact people’s lives.

The Summit of the Future is a high-level event, bringing world leaders together to forge a new international consensus on how we deliver a better present and safeguard the future.

Effective global cooperation is increasingly critical to our survival but difficult to achieve in an atmosphere of mistrust, using outdated structures that no longer reflect today’s political and economic realities.

World leaders will convene at the United Nations to adopt the Pact for the Future, which will include a Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations as annexes.

Screenshot Credit:
UN Photo/Loey Felipe

Website: https://www.un.org/en/summit-of-the-future

Programme: https://www.un.org/en/summit-of-the-future/programme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kILXK5QSNC8

MIL OSI Video –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Europe: Ministerial Discussion on the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel

Source: Switzerland – Department of Foreign Affairs in English

Federal Department of Foreign Affairs

New York, 23.09.2024 – Address by Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis, Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) – Check against delivery

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

This ministerial discussion occurs amid a concerning global backdrop, with over 120 armed conflicts ongoing worldwide.

As a result, millions of people require humanitarian aid and protection, while humanitarian and UN personnel face growing threats, often becoming targets of attacks.

Switzerland is alarmed by the rising violence against humanitarian workers, which is sometimes deliberately directed at them.

A concrete step was taken in May: my country introduced Security Council resolution 2730 on the protection of humanitarian and UN personnel, addressing this alarming trend. The resolution was adopted with the support of 98 UN Member States. I extend my thanks to all these States, especially Brazil for its initial work on the resolution.

This resolution is crucial for three reasons:

1. It reaffirms the obligations of States and parties in armed conflicts to respect and protect humanitarian and UN personnel, including national and local staff.

2. It condemns attacks on these personnel and urges States to ensure accountability for related violations.

3. It mandates the Secretary-General to submit recommendations to the Security Council within six months to prevent and address such attacks and combat impunity.

These recommendations focus on concrete actions. They are currently being prepared, and we look forward to receiving them in November.

Excellencies

Humanitarian personnel are a lifeline for millions of civilians worldwide, risking their lives daily to assist and protect those affected by armed conflict.

We must safeguard their ability to carry out this vital work and reaffirm our commitment to their protection.

With so many conflicts raging and civilians suffering so much, we must step up our efforts to ensure respect for international humanitarian law and strengthen the political will to build a more humane world.

Thank you.

Address for enquiries

FDFA Communication
Federal Palace West Wing
CH-3003 Bern, Switzerland
Tel. Press service: +41 58 460 55 55
E-mail: kommunikation@eda.admin.ch
Twitter: @SwissMFA

Publisher

Federal Department of Foreign Affairs
https://www.eda.admin.ch/eda/en/home.html

MIL OSI Europe News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Europe: WHO and multilateral development banks kick off US$ 1.5 billion primary health financing platform with new funds and launch of first investment plans in 15 countries
Source: European Investment Bank

Execution is starting under the new Health Impact Investment Platform on the first country health investment plans turning original commitment into operational reality. The landmark partnership between Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), the World Health Organization (WHO) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is addressing the critical need for coordinated efforts to strengthen primary healthcare (PHC) in vulnerable and underserved communities to build resilience against pandemic threats like mpox and the climate crisis.

At the high-level roundtable meeting in New York on the margins of the UN Summit of the Future in New York today, new funding was signed, and it was agreed that the partners will sit down and start identifying needs and planning health care improvements in 15 countries*.

The roundtable was attended by the partnership’s three founding MDBs – the African Development Bank (AfDB), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) –,WHO and the heads of state, as well as finance and health ministers from Djibouti, Egypt and Ethiopia. The Asian Development Bank also attended the high-level meeting and announced their intention to join the Health Impact Investment Platform in order to expand the initiative into the regions where it operates.

The EIB and WHO signed an initial contribution of € 10 million to kick start the implementation of these investment plans. The Islamic Development Bank and the African Development Bank are finalizing their contributions for the same amount that will be signed in the near future.

The platform is a key part of an effort to unlock € 1.5 billion in concessional loans and grants to expand and improve primary health-care services in low- and middle-income countries, especially in the most vulnerable communities. The investment plans now being developed in these 15 countries, as a phase 1, are expected to make up a significant proportion of that financing effort.

The platform aims to work in close partnership with governments to develop national health strategies focused on primary health care and on prioritizing investment opportunities that meet national health needs. Today’s kick-off comes one year after the platform was announced during the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact in Paris.

Dr Ibrahima Sy, Minister of Health, Republic of Senegal said, “it’s important to bring in private sector, local communities and different forms of financing to drive health progress. The involvement of WHO, multilateral development banks and countries is critical to guiding the investments from this Platform to deliver primary health care on the ground and develop local vaccine manufacturing capacity.”

Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, Minister of Health of Uganda said, “I congratulate you for coming up with this very important platform. All our issues are actually based at primary health care level, whether it comes to disease outbreaks, whether it comes to health access, everything is at the primary health care level, and our diseases start there and end there.”

“Primary health care is the most equitable, cost-effective and inclusive way to improve health and well-being, helping to keep people healthy, prevent diseases, and detect outbreaks at their earliest stage,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “The Health Impact Investment Platform will be a vital source of new financing to build climate and crisis-resilient primary health care in some of the countries that need it most. WHO thanks the multilateral development banks for their partnership, and we are committed to working closely with the countries to put these funds to work and start making a difference in the communities we serve.”

Nadia Calviño, President of the European Investment Bank, said: “One year ago, we launched the Health Impact Investment Platform, and today we are taking the next steps with our contribution to help countries develop their tailored investment plans. Supporting primary health-care services is the foundation of strong communities. Working closely with fellow Multilateral Development Banks and partner countries, guided by the expertise of the World Health Organization, we are making a difference.”

“The health security of the world is only as strong as its weakest part, and the new funds announced today will help countries improve primary healthcare, which is critical to stopping disease outbreaks in their tracks,” said Jutta Urpilainen, European Commissioner for International Partnerships. “In addition to the funds, the Platform will strengthen partnerships between countries and funders to ensure funds are effectively invested.”

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, WHO estimated that to reach the health-related Sustainable Development Goals, low- and low-middle income countries needed to increase their health spending significantly and require an additional US$ 371 billion annually combined by 2030. This funding would allow populations to access health services, contribute to building new facilities and train and place health workers where they need to be. It has also been estimated that preparing for future pandemics will require investment in the order of US$ 31.1 billion annually. Approximately one third of that total would have to come from international financing.

The new Platform builds on experience gained through cooperation between countries, multilateral organizations and development banks that proved fruitful during the pandemic. For example, WHO, the EIB and the European Commission supported Angola, Ethiopia and Rwanda in strengthening their health systems. Initially launched as stand-alone programmes or as part of the countries’ response to COVID-19, these interventions mobilized technical assistance, grants and investments with advantageous terms to build up or implement primary health care related interventions.

*15 countries identified as part of phase one of the Health Impact Investment Platform are:
- Burundi
- Central African Republic
- Comoros
- Djibouti
- Egypt
- Ethiopia
- Gambia
- Guinea Bissau
- Jordan
- Maldives
- Morocco
- Senegal
- South Sudan
- Tunisia
- Zambia
Background information

About the World Health Organization

The World Health Organization (WHO) is the United Nations’ specialized agency for health. It is an inter-governmental organization and works in collaboration with its Member States usually through the Ministries of Health. The World Health Organization is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.

Media contact: mediainquiries@who.int

About the African Development Bank Group

The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) is Africa’s premier development finance institution. It comprises three distinct entities: the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Development Fund (ADF) and the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF). On the ground in 37 African countries with an external office in Japan, the AfDB contributes to the economic development and the social progress of its 54 regional member states.

About the European Investment Bank

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the long-term lending institution of the European Union owned by its Member States. It finances sound investment contributing to EU policy goals. The EIB’s activities focus on the following priority areas: climate and environment, development, innovation and skills, small and medium-sized businesses, infrastructure, and cohesion. The EIB works closely with other institutions and has provided total financing of more than € 42 billion for healthcare-related projects around the world since it started investing in the sector in 1997.

MIL OSI Europe News –
September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Banking: Derville Rowland: Change and challenges – responding to uncertainty, transforming for the future and driving innovation

Source: Bank for International Settlements

Good afternoon. Many thanks to AFME for the invitation to speak at this conference again this year. Today I will focus on the regulatory outlook for financial services in Europe and Ireland in the context of a rapidly changing, more uncertain and ever challenging world.

The old adage, attributed to Harold Wilson, that “a week is a long time in politics” is equally applicable in many walks of life – but it has often been the case in financial markets. The last period has been no different and week to week we have seen things change rapidly. At the start of August we saw a turbulent trading period following fears of an imminent US recession. More recently, we have seen markets respond to the Fed’s half-point interest rate reduction and the Bank of England and Bank of Japan hold rates steady. While conditions have improved since, significant downside risks remain.

In particular, geo-political events remain potential sources of fragility over the coming months, including uncertainty around electoral outcomes, continuing conflict in the middle-east and Ukraine, turbulent economic conditions. Closely linked to the issue of geopolitical tensions, there is now heightened focus on the centrality of cyber risk and operational resilience. The Crowdstrike cyber incident in July, while contained early and brought under control, caused significant disruption and highlighted the fragilities in the system. Cyber risk, and the link to geopolitical tensions, has been flagged by ESMA, EBA and EIOPA and are increasingly recognised as a significant and likely risk by regulated firms. Positively, we have also seen the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) and the EU Agency for Cybersecurity announce the signing of a multilateral MoU to strengthen their cooperation and information exchange on cybersecurity risk in the financial sector. In light of heightened cyber risks, the importance of operational resilience remains paramount. The implementation of the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) remains a key focus for regulators and firms. Digital operational resilience is a fundamental underpinning of a resilient and well-functioning financial system supporting the economy and serving the needs of citizens. That said, ensuring proportionality has been a central focus of the work to develop the DORA framework. This is an important requirement of all regulation, but is certainly the case with DORA given it is cross-sectoral and applies to almost all financial firms. As implementation work progresses, it will be important for authorities to be mindful of ensuring that smaller firms, in particular, are not disproportionately burdened by the same requirements as larger institutions.

In Europe, we have seen significant institutional change as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen takes up her second term in office and the process is underway to appoint new Commissioners. The broad parameters of the forthcoming European legislative and regulatory agenda have been signalled. International competitiveness remains at the centre of the Commission’s programme, as we have seen from the recent Draghi and Letta reports. It seems likely that there will be a continued focus on reducing and simplifying existing EU law. That is an approach which all policy makers, including national authorities and the European Supervisory Authorities, should be mindful of. However, effective regulation which safeguards consumers, fosters market integrity and supports resilience is key to supporting financial stability. Financial stability and the resilience of the financial sector are prerequisites for sustainable economic growth and promoting competitiveness. In a drive to streamline regulation we must not lose sight of this. It is important to retain the outcomes achieved via legislative and regulatory initiatives enacted since the great financial crisis.

At the centre of policy makers thinking is the need to finance the EU’s ambitious policy agenda. A significant challenge facing Europe is to secure the public and private finance for the economic and other programmes, including the digital transformation and green deal. At the centre of this is the concept of a Savings and Investment Union, building on the progress made under the Capital Markets Union agenda. In April, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen summed this up by saying that “European start-ups should not need to look at the US or Asia to finance their expansion. They must find what they need to grow right here in Europe. We need a deep and liquid capital market. And we need a competition policy that supports companies to scale up. Europe must be the home of opportunity and innovation.”

There is much still to determine – including the level of ambition for this Savings Union and whether it should be a top-down exercise or if the lead should be taken at a Member State level. But I suspect, like most things, the answer is likely somewhere in the middle. While details remain to be worked out, the Letta and Draghi reports likely set out the broad roadmap for how this may be pursued. That said, there will be a need to radically prioritise. Implementing the Letta report alone would require a number of new legislative proposals, in addition to legislative reviews already committed to and implementation work that is required following the last Commission term.

As the Draghi report outlines, Europe must refocus its collective efforts on closing the innovation gap with the US and China, especially in advanced technologies. This is important for many reasons, including that faster innovation will, in turn, help raise the EU’s productivity growth, leading to stronger growth in household incomes and stronger domestic demand. At the Central Bank of Ireland, we recognise the many potential benefits and opportunities that new technologies bring to financial services and consumers in Ireland and in Europe. It is important that these benefits can be realised, whilst also ensuring that the risks are well understood and managed. Regulation plays a crucial role in the safe, and therefore enduring, adoption of innovation into the system.

Innovation has brought in new entrants, new products and new ways of serving customers and the economy. As a result, technological innovation continues to be a focus for the Central Bank. This is one of the reasons why we have enhanced our innovation facilities – with the establishment of an innovation sandbox programme which is due to commence for the first time later this year – so that we can continue to engage, learn and develop a deeper understanding of the ecosystem, the opportunities, the benefits and the risks. Our goal is not to remain stagnant but to evolve and iterate so that we continue to regulate and supervise effectively.

Recent years have seen tremendous innovations in financial services. Amongst the most notable have been the development of blockchain-based technologies. We can see the many areas where the blockchain has significant potential to bring about positive change, even transformation, in how we do things. Whether this be tokenisation of investment products or improvements in post-trade infrastructure and interoperability, there are important positive stories to tell.

The European Commission’s 2020 digital finance package has set Europe up well to take advantage of these developments. The package reflected the EU’s ambition to embrace a digital transition, to help modernise the European economy across sectors, and to turn Europe into a global digital player. Almost 4 years later, we are about to implement the Markets in Crypto-Asset Regulation, or MiCAR.

This is an important step forward in the regulation of crypto activities in Europe while also leading the way on the regulation of the crypto sector globally. The potential for crypto and blockchain to build financial inclusivity or democratise finance has long been a theme of discussion in the sector. Crypto enthusiasts speak readily to how crypto and blockchain technologies, paired with global internet access, can provide easy and immediate access to people across the world to financial services and achieve a level of financial inclusivity that the traditional financial services cannot. While this is an exciting prospect, it cannot be achieved without guardrails. For the first time, MiCAR will introduce a harmonised regulatory framework for the sector that introduces prudential and conduct obligations for issuers of e-money tokens, asset-referenced tokens, and for crypto-asset service providers. There are also obligations for offers to the public of crypto-assets other than asset-referenced tokens or e-money tokens.

There are two priorities I would signal with respect to MiCAR implementation. Firstly, we are working closely with our EU Peers and the ESAs to ensure the necessary coordination and consistency across Europe. The ESAs are, correctly, focused on driving a convergent approach to the implementation of MiCAR in national authorities authorisation and supervision processes. We see this as highly important work. MiCAR, being a first attempt at regulation in this area, is an important opportunity to avoid divergent approaches emerging in different jurisdictions.

Secondly, over recent years, we have been working to continually improve our authorisation process. Through engagement with industry, other public bodies and applicants, we have sought to better explain our expectations, resulting in increased clarity and predictability. Better risk assessment, better communication and better supervisory outcomes have been the output of that work. We have produced new publications, enhanced our internal processes and responded to the changes in the authorisation landscape, including the increase in the number of complex applications. Under MiCAR, you can expect our approach of continuous improvement to continue.

Innovation and new technologies can play an increasingly important role in facilitating retail investors participating in capital markets. As we shortly approach IOSCO’s World Investor Week, which is a global campaign to raise awareness of the importance of investor education and protection, it is timely for regulatory authorities and policy makers to take stock and redouble our efforts to support investor education, investor protection and financial literacy.

Protecting consumers is at the heart of what we do at the Central Bank. We know that consumers who are well-informed and understand financial products and services are better placed to make good financial decisions and to look after their interests. These consumers are less likely to be vulnerable to harm from firms that are not securing their interests, and they are less vulnerable to frauds and scams. This is why high levels of financial literacy empower consumers to make effective and informed choices to safeguard their financial well-being. Irish authorities are currently in the process of developing a national Financial Literacy Strategy for Ireland, something which we at the Central Bank strongly support.

Ireland’s financial sector has an important role to play in supporting the Savings and Investment Union and providing opportunities for retail investors to participate in capital markets. The sector has demonstrated high levels of resilience while continuing provide critical services to households and business in Ireland and abroad. As with the European economy as a whole, over the last decade, the Irish financial services sector has also continued evolve, in terms of its size, complexity and international connectedness. These developments are, of course, a positive for Ireland, and positive for their contribution to European financial markets. We of course must be mindful that an expanding and more complex financial sector may poses risks that need to be managed. This reinforces the importance of effective regulation and supervision – to maintain financial stability and to protect consumers and investors, both within Ireland, Europe and globally.

As I mentioned earlier, we recognise that we too must change to keep pace with the changing world. I would like to finish by outlining some of the work we are doing in this regard.

As you will be aware, we have introduced the Individual Accountability Framework (IAF). The IAF is all about helping underpin sound governance across the financial sector by setting out clearly what is expected of well-run firms. For both firms and the regulator it should be seen as a complement to the wider focus on governance, culture and behaviour. For the Central Bank our hope is that along with wider efforts, the IAF will help make firms take more ownership and responsibility for running their business and addressing any risks or deficiencies they may have. In an increasingly technological and rapidly changing world, the need for effective governance underpinned by a strong ethical culture and robust systems of delivery is becoming more and more essential.

We are also transforming our supervisory approach – to ensure consumers of financial services are protected in all respects in this changing and increasingly complex environment. Building on the strong foundations of our current approach to supervision, we are moving to an integrated supervisory framework where directorates with oversight of banks, insurance companies and capital markets will be responsible for the supervision of all the functions in their respective sectors. Our approach will continue to be risk-based; but the new framework will ensure we are more efficient and effective in our supervisory work. It will make it easier to direct our supervisory resources to the areas of most risk to consumers or the system. Importantly, it will also place consumer and investor protection at the heart of day to day supervision. This change will maximise the benefit of our integrated mandate – enabling us to continue to deliver on our mission and ensure the financial system operates in the best interests of consumers and the wider economy. These changes are not just important; they are necessary – so that in a changing world we continue to deliver in the public interest.

Conclusion

The EU will also need to take a number of very important decisions in the coming years, especially in terms of what elements of the legislative and regulatory agenda to prioritise, the level of ambition to apply in harnessing the EU’s investment potential, and how to navigate geo-political tensions. All of these – to different degrees – will have an impact on financial markets and firms. The speed of these developments – and their potential to cause ripple effects – will not decrease. And so the onus is on us – firms and regulatory authorities alike – to increasingly evolve our approach, innovate and prepare for what the future may hold.

Thank you.

MIL OSI Global Banks –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Banking: Elizabeth McCaul: The future of European banking supervision – connecting people and technology

Source: Bank for International Settlements

Introduction

I’m honoured to welcome you again to this conference, which is already being held for the fifth time.

It’s the fifth anniversary of this conference but we are also celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). Naturally, it is a moment of reflection about what the future holds and how European banking supervision should continue to evolve. And, right now, various societal, political, technological, environmental and economic mega trends are shaping the future of the financial industry. In the tech area, for example, we are in the midst of a fast-paced and unprecedented development which is changing every aspect of the economy.

The ways of working are changing profoundly.

My son is a computer programmer. This weekend while driving we spoke about the possibilities for his future and what sort of work he might do, given the rapid innovation taking place. He told me he uses AI now regularly to produce code for him that he then reviews. Very different from the work he was hired for just two years ago when he graduated!

In the aviation field artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to enhance the safety and efficiency of air traffic control by analysing historical and real-time flight data to predict potential collisions. Predicting accidents before they occur: isn’t that also a goal worthy of banking supervision? And in the health care field, common applications include diagnosing patients, end-to-end drug discovery and development, improving communication between physician and patient or transcribing medical documents such as prescriptions. All of this change in the industries around us are food for thought as we consider in a clear-eyed, realistic and vigilant way the risks and opportunities for us in banking supervision.

Disruptive technologies like AI are playing a growing role in banks’ day-to-day activities, and access to technology is becoming widespread. At the same time, banks are becoming ever more dependent on data, IT platforms and third-party providers.

To keep the banking sector safe and sound in the face of these trends, we need to equip the supervisors of the future with the right tools and skills. And it is this principle that has guided our strategic work on the digital agenda.

Since the inception of European banking supervision in 2014 we have built up and continuously improved a set of core IT systems, launched our suptech efforts and created multiple cutting-edge tools which are already up and running. And now it is time to shape a new common strategy covering both our core IT systems and our suptech tools, as well as, most importantly, their integration.

SSM tech strategy for 2024-2028

The new SSM tech strategy for 2024-2028 builds on two main pillars: people and technology. The strategy not only addresses several critical business needs Any smart strategy developed for the future must have at its foundation the recognition that people and technology are increasingly, even inextricably intertwined.

How have we incorporated that?

We have done so by setting as our goal connecting people and technology so we can deliver “supervision at your fingertips”, This way, human expertise and technological innovation go hand-in-hand. We are structuring our work to ensure efficient, effective and integrated supervision that keeps pace with the trends and structural changes in the banking sector which I touched upon earlier. We are working on several levels to make sure that supervisors can fully use the applications and data available to them and that technology is seamlessly integrated into their day-to-day work. And we aim to consolidate IT to further strengthen European banking supervision, allowing supervisors to work as a single team with shared technology across the ECB and national competent authorities (NCAs).

But what does this mean more concretely for our banking supervisors of the future? What impact will this strategy have on their work? What tools will they use?

To make this tangible, let’s imagine a future supervisor called Pete. The name “Pete” symbolises the two key pillars of our strategy: “Pe” stands for people, and “te” for technology. So, how does our new strategy support Pete?

People

Let me start with the first pillar of our new strategy and the most important asset we have: our supervisors, people like Pete. Under this pillar, we plan to support Pete’s work in the following three ways.

Promoting a user-focused innovation culture

First, we aim to instil a culture that supports the adoption of our suptech tools and embeds advanced technology into regular supervisory processes. We are convinced that having a clear user focus in all our technological activities and ensuring an enhanced user experience will encourage the take-up of our tools.

One way of fostering the adoption of tools is our European banking supervision-wide suptech champions initiative. Under this initiative, Pete and other colleagues at the NCAs and in various business areas across ECB Banking Supervision can become trained experts in suptech tools.

These suptech champions can then provide local and easy-to-access support to users. They also collect feedback and identify user needs in order to further develop the tool. In this way, suptech champions act as ambassadors, both promoting awareness and supporting the use and development of suptech tools. Already, 45 champions across 17 NCAs have reached over 1,000 supervisors through multiple channels, including workshops and providing guidance on the use of suptech tools.

Future-proofing our organisation

Second, we are continuing to make our organisation ready for the future by establishing a steady-state tech function that connects internal tech and supervision experts across business areas and NCAs. We want to cultivate a collaborative approach to shaping SSM technology and enhancing the adoption and use of available tools.

In one of our flagship initiatives, NCAs can become suptech centres, which are at the forefront of developing technology for European banking supervision. They deliver tools that can subsequently be made available to the ECB and other NCAs.

A case in point is that one NCA has developed a new use case for assessing the group structures of banks over time in our network analysis platform, Navi, which benefits European banking supervision as a whole.

Deepening our global partnerships

Third, we seek to tap into the global innovation networks with which we have established strong ties in recent years. For instance, we have been working closely with leading academic institutions to deliver state-of-the-art training to supervisors on machine learning, programming for data analytics, prompting and other topics.

We are also working closely with industry leaders in other areas, such as generative AI, cloud technology and big data, as well as with start-ups to bring the latest and most advanced technologies to banking supervision. At the same time, we are partnering with other authorities across the world to experiment with new ways of solving common problems. Such partnerships mean that Pete has access to knowledge and state-of-the art technology that boost efficiency and improve supervisory outcomes, which brings me to the second pillar of our strategy, technology.

Technology

Through our SSM tech strategy, we want to connect people with technology. In other words, we need to equip Pete with the necessary tools and capabilities.

Working as a single team with shared technology

The first cluster in the technology pillar concerns our core IT systems.

On the one hand we will continue to future-proof our core systems and data infrastructure by making them more modular, scalable and innovation-friendly while keeping them secure. We aim to optimise the IT landscape by integrating and consolidating systems across European banking supervision.

On the other hand, we will decommission legacy systems to maximise the use and impact of existing applications. Working as a single team across the ECB and NCAs with access to shared technology will allow Pete to collaborate more intensively with European central banking colleagues.

Olympus is a notable project in this regard.

Through Olympus, we aim to proactively shape our IT landscape and make it ready for the upcoming challenges and opportunities offered by new technologies. This ambitious project reviews the full IT landscape and sets out a roadmap and action plan for the future of IT in European banking supervision. For this project, we have identified four high-level targets rooted in our supervisory needs that guide all activities.

Our first target is to strengthen our data-driven work. Imagine having easy access to data and efficient processing within a few clicks. This will empower our teams to make informed decisions swiftly and effectively.

The second target is to provide common and connected tools and systems. Using integrated systems to foster collaboration among all European banking supervisors, we will create a cohesive working environment that allows everyone to work together smoothly.

The third target is to ensure seamless access and navigation. By unifying access and identity management, we will make it easier for our staff to find and use the resources they need, free from technical obstacles.

Lastly, we will establish common IT standards and delivery. By adopting consistent IT standards, we will drive rapid and user-friendly digital innovation, ensuring our technology keeps pace with the latest advances.

Under the Olympus project we have set out the concrete action needed to reach these targets.

What does this mean for Pete, though? Let me give you an example.

Pete will be able to use the SSM Cockpit to navigate through supervisory tasks. The SSM Cockpit will provide a user-centric platform integrated with core systems to facilitate access and navigation to various tools and systems. By design, it will be a flexible solution that meets the diverse information and reporting needs of different supervisory roles. The Cockpit will feature advanced, AI-powered capabilities to help supervisors efficiently carry out their core tasks.

Generating new insights through supervisory analytics

Supervisory analytics are the second cluster under the technology pillar. These seek to enhance risk assessment by augmenting analytical capabilities and combining structured and unstructured data. There is also a pressing business need to address emerging risks such as climate-related and environmental risks, as well as IT and cyber risks. To do so, we must explore new datasets and information sources, including social media. Supervisory analytics will give Pete and his colleagues new insights which will help them stay ahead of emerging risks and provide more robust and timely risk assessments.

We have been working on a tool called Delphi which uses natural language processing to integrate market risk-based indicators and information from news items into a single web-based platform with a user-friendly interface. The insights afforded by combining such quantitative and qualitative information mean that supervisors like Pete can adequately assess the underlying risks and better understand the real-time risk development affecting individual banks.

Automating processes by harnessing AI

Our third and last cluster under the technology pillar concerns process automation and collaboration. Think about how the automotive industry is being transformed by smart manufacturing. In a smart factory, machines, devices and systems are interconnected and can communicate with one another, enabling real-time data collection, analysis and decision-making. What can we learn from other industries to become more effective and efficient in our supervision?

We are committed to delivering additional breakthrough solutions that use AI – and more specifically generative AI – to simplify and automate workflows, while improving collaboration within European banking supervision. For a while now, we have been harnessing AI and making it available in some of our tools, such as Athena, which helps supervisors analyse extensive textual information in various formats and languages, and Virtual Lab, a platform for SSM-wide digital collaboration as well as code sharing, cloud computing and the development of generative AI (GenAI) capabilities. We are also planning to deploy AI in the AFM Medusa project which will support our supervisors in drafting, consistency-checking and benchmarking findings and measures. Our vision is for supervisors to be increasingly empowered by GenAI, while remaining engaged in the process since they will be the ones who continue to review and approve work and take the final decisions. This technology will provide suggestions, assist in drafting input and help with analysis.

To this end, we have been collecting use cases and are determining where it makes sense to implement European banking supervision-wide solutions, where specialised applications with narrower scopes and user groups are appropriate, and where off-the-shelf tools are sufficient. One of the solutions we have been working on is AthenaGPT, which complements Athena. Using AthenaGPT, supervisors like Pete are able to interact with several supervisory information sources at once. This boosts efficiency, as supervisors can then focus on the most relevant information. Searching for information in large supervisory repositories has never been easier. And in Agora, we are testing the ability for supervisors to query the data lake in English and use AI to translate into SQL, which is how the data can be accessed. This reminds me of how the work of my son is changing!

Conclusion

As you can see, we have ambitious plans for Pete and all our supervisors. Continuous investment in technology will remain key for ECB Banking Supervision to keep pace with changes in the banking landscape and address emerging supervisory risks.

I am confident that we will be successful in this endeavour and that we will help Pete become a supervisor of the future: a strong SSM collaborator working in a single team with shared technology, an empowered data expert who bases decisions on advanced supervisory analytics and an agile supervisor making use of process automation and the latest technology.

At the same time, I am incredibly proud of what we have already achieved. We have developed and fully implemented suptech tools that harness modern technologies such as AI across Europe. These tools have changed the way we do supervision. We have been surprised at how some of our tools have been received in our supervisory community. For example, we only expected to have around 200 users for Agora, the SSM single data lake. But we already have over 1,200 users, who have made over 1.6 million data queries using the tool. Our top innovation and collaboration tool, Virtual Lab, is being used by around 4,000 colleagues. And our network analytics tool, Navi, has now grown to cover almost a dozen major use cases. We have also trained almost 3,000 colleagues, including leaders, on topics related to innovation and digital transformation. This has helped broaden supervisors’ skillsets and established a mindset within our organisation that embraces technological change. Last, but not least, we have won four global innovation awards in three consecutive years.

While we can be proud of these achievements, I believe that much remains to be done. There is a famous quote by the American sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson that continues to occupy my thoughts of late: “The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.”

You know that I spend a great deal of my waking hours thinking about the implications of the changing financial services environment we find ourselves in today. It’s an increasingly complex landscape, where we are facing geopolitical, climate and operational resiliency risks emanating from third party dependencies and cyber-attacks. We are facing changes to business models incorporating partnerships and responding to competition from and new entrants BigTech and FinTech. And the exponential growth of the global markets since the Great Financial Crisis in the interconnectedness of entities categorized as non-bank financial institutions with banks, especially private credit and equity funds operating outside the regulatory perimeter, is concerning, even worrying as we think about the effects on supervision and financial stability. Successfully connecting our technology and people to empower them in this changing landscape is essential.

I would say that if we want to truly equip Pete for the future, it’s clear that our work has only just begun.

Thank you very much for your attention. I hope you enjoy the rest of the conference.

MIL OSI Global Banks –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Banking: WTO advanced course on trade in services concludes in Geneva

Source: WTO

Headline: WTO advanced course on trade in services concludes in Geneva

The LDCs participating in the course were Bangladesh, Madagascar, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nepal, Tanzania, The Gambia and Zambia. The acceding country was Bhutan. The full list of participating economies is available here.
Over five days, participants engaged in an intensive curriculum designed to deepen their understanding of the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The course covered the economic importance of services trade, domestic regulation, the impact of digital trade on economies’ trade performance, investment facilitation and environmental services. Participants were also able to analyze and formulate effective trade policies by gaining hands-on experience with analytical tools like the I-TIP database and services trade statistics.
The programme included a mix of presentations, practical exercises and in-depth discussions on emerging trade in services issues. Participants were particularly engaged in sessions on the latest developments in digital trade and the regulatory challenges associated with services trade. Interactive sessions allowed participants to apply their know-how to real-case scenarios, reinforcing their capacity to navigate complex trade issues.
Upon completing the course, Mr Hugo Ibarra said: “In my work at the Undersecretariat of Economic Affairs, which reports to Chile’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I am frequently in contact with the WTO for notifications of trade policies and other issues linked to the fulfilment of Chile’s WTO commitments. I also regularly refer to the GATS in our negotiation process for trade agreements. For these reasons, this type of course plays a very important role in our daily work.”
Mr Kutubo Jarju, a participant from The Gambia’s Ministry of Trade, Industry, Regional Integration and Employment, said: “As a trade professional engaged in multilateral and regional trade negotiations, my primary expectation from this advanced course was to significantly deepen my expertise in the evolving services trade landscape. The course provided me with an enriched understanding of the current issues, challenges and opportunities of services trade, particularly in the context of global and regional agreements.”
Ms Lavita Chan from Hong Kong, China’s Trade and Industry Department said: “I highly recommend the Advanced Trade in Services Course for government officials with services negotiation background and experience. Needless to say, the course contents were wide ranging, informative, up-to-date and inspirational. I was particularly impressed by the participants’ enthusiasm in sharing their points of view and domestic experience while the case studies and examples helped enrich our understanding and clarify complicated concepts. The participant-led reviews every morning were a very useful way to consolidate everything we learned and to promote teamwork.”
The course was organized jointly by the WTO Trade in Services Division and the Institute for Training and Technical Cooperation.
List of participants
ARGENTINA
Ms Estefania Donna
BAHRAIN
Ms Meead Alansari
BANGLADESH
Mr Saif Uddin Ahammad
BHUTAN
Mr Choki Tshewang
CABO VERDE
Ms Ludmilde Filomena Celso Silva Fernandes Semedo
CHILE
Mr Hugo Ibarra
CHINA
Ms Yi WANG
C�TE D’IVOIRE
Ms Mariam Deme
ECUADOR
Ms Estefania Anais Mejia Ramos
HONG KONG, CHINA
Ms Mo Ying Chan
JORDAN
Mr Qusai Al-Tarawneh
KENYA
Ms Elizabeth Gathoni Miguda-Alila
LAO PDR
Mr Nongchith Khambounheuang
MADAGASCAR
Mr Fetra Herisoa Ramankirahina
MOROCCO
Mr Othmane Maktoum
NICARAGUA
Ms Yeseila Baca Cuadra
PAKISTAN
Ms Onsia Zafar
PHILIPPINES
Mr Anthony Aguirre
REPUBLIC OF KOREA
Ms Aeseon Kim
SEYCHELLES
Ms Demelza Tanisha Nathalie Valentin
SRI LANKA
Mr Premathilake Jayakody Batagolle Gedara
SURINAME
Ms Urtha Charlane Hoever
CHINESE TAIPEI
Ms Yun-Xuan Lin
TANZANIA
Ms Angelina Stephen Bwana
THE GAMBIA
Mr Kutubo Jarju
TUNISIA
Ms Noura Ben Mohamed
UKRAINE
Mr Vitaliy Kunatenko
ZAMBIA
Ms Mbewe Chikondi

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MIL OSI Global Banks –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Banking: Nicolas Vincent: Monetary policy decision-making – behind the scenes

Source: Bank for International Settlements

Introduction

Good morning. It’s a pleasure to be here with you today.

I’ve done a lot of hiking, camping and skiing in the Eastern Townships. But this is the first time I’ve had a chance to spend time in Sherbrooke. I’m very much looking forward to spending the next two days in your lovely city.

As Bruno mentioned, I’m a professor at HEC Montréal and an external Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada. As an external Deputy Governor, I am a full member of Governing Council. I participate in all discussions related to monetary policy and financial stability.

The Bank’s aim in creating an external, part-time role was to get new perspectives from someone who isn’t from the world of central banks but still knows a thing or two about economics. Thankfully, my teaching experience and academic research have come in quite handy in my role at the Bank, as has my early-career work in the public service. Even with my experience, however, I’ve had to learn a lot since joining the Bank in March 2023, particularly about the process involved in making interest rate decisions.

At the beginning of September this year, in light of recent progress in the fight against inflation, the Bank announced a third consecutive cut of 25 basis points, bringing the policy rate to 4¼%. It will likely come as no surprise to any of you that it’s more pleasant to announce cuts than it is to announce increases. In recent years, decisions by the Bank have been the subject of much attention, interest and debate. This is to be expected. The decisions have an impact on everyone, in many different ways, and we are well aware of that. We know that households are worried about the cost of living, their mortgage loan renewal, house prices, rent and the fact that it is getting harder to find a job. Given the importance of our decisions, they must not be taken lightly. And having been at the Bank for 18 months now, I can confirm that they are not. Interest rate decisions are based on an enormous amount of analysis and reflection.

But how are decisions reached? What does the process look like exactly? Since becoming Deputy Governor, I have often been asked such questions. Generally speaking, there is considerable interest in and curiosity about our work and our responsibilities. That’s why the Bank puts so much effort into making monetary policy understandable for everyone by communicating it in clear and simple terms. You can find detailed information on the Bank’s website explaining our work and our decision-making process. We want people to understand what we do.

Yet, for all our efforts, the truth is that most people know little about how we work and the steps we take in deciding whether to raise, maintain or lower the policy interest rate. That may even be the case for many of you here. And when I think about it, it’s not particularly surprising. Even as a macroeconomist, I knew little about the process before starting at the Bank.

Today I’d like to take you behind the scenes and speak about what happens behind closed doors. What are the steps in the process? What sources of data do we use? How do we make our projections? I’ll also talk about the debates, the differences of opinion and the ways we reach a consensus. As you’ll see, making a decision on monetary policy is much more complicated than pushing a button, and getting a computer to spit out calculations and having everything fall into place. I’ll also talk about my own experiences, what’s surprised me and what I’ve learned along the way.

Analysis and consultations

First, I’d like to start with a quick review of what monetary policy is and does. At its core, the Bank’s mandate is to keep inflation low, stable and predictable, and centred on the 2% target. The Bank’s main tool for doing this is the policy rate. Changes to the policy rate affect several other interest rates in the economy, notably mortgage rates and rates for business loans. If the Bank raises the policy rate in response to high inflation, the cost of borrowing increases. This lowers demand because people have less money to spend on things like eating out or clothing, while businesses defer spending on projects. When economic activity slows, inflation goes down, which shows that monetary policy is working.

While that seems simple in theory, in practice it is rather more complicated because the effects of our actions are not felt immediately. I have been a Deputy Governor for 18 months, which is the period needed to observe the full effects of monetary policy on inflation. And because we are always making decisions about the future, the Bank must rely heavily on economic forecasting.

In addition, the impacts of Bank decisions are complex and uncertain. Much like a business that faces many unknowns when deciding to adopt a new technology, the Bank also must make choices in the face of considerable uncertainty. This is why it’s important to have good information and good advice.

To get the best possible understanding of the economic situation, Governing Council members have access to an extremely large number of datasets, analyses and points of view. When I’m asked to summarize the work of a Deputy Governor, I often say that I am a big aggregator of information. I am part of a team whose job is to put together all the pieces of the puzzle to inform our decision-making. Today, I’d like to explain to you what that means in concrete terms.

Every year, the Bank makes eight monetary policy decisions. That means eight times a year, the Bank must decide whether it will raise, maintain or lower the policy interest rate. Four of the eight decisions are accompanied by the Monetary Policy Report (MPR), published most recently in July. The MPR examines the global and Canadian economies in terms of production, spending, the labour market and, of course, inflation. It also includes the Bank’s projections for growth and inflation and the risks to the projection over a two-year period.

The decision-making process begins about a month before the announcement date, when Bank staff present an economic projection to Governing Council. We call this Case A. It draws on the Bank’s macroeconomic models and surveys, its analysis of various sectors and components of the economy, and its assessment of financial stability and financial market activity. Since we don’t have a crystal ball, we draw on the latest data and use our projection models to look into the future.¹ For several hours, Governing Council members debate the assumptions and risks to the projection as well as alternative case scenarios prepared by staff.

About 10 days later, Bank advisors and economists present Case B, a revised projection incorporating the comments of Governing Council members and, if any, new developments that occurred since Case A. We draw on that projection to make our policy rate decision.

When there is a rate announcement without an accompanying MPR-as was the case two weeks ago-many of the same steps are involved, although staff do not make new projections. They report on new data released since the last policy decision and on how the economy as a whole performed against expectations. Although the amount of information we have access to differs between announcements with and without an MPR, all decisions are equally important.

Throughout the process, Statistics Canada’s data on inflation, gross domestic product and employment are an invaluable source of information to guide our decisions. But they also have limits. First, data tend to be aggregate, which can make it difficult to discern the full range of experiences Canadians are having. That is why we spend a lot of time diving deep into the data to analyze what concerns and affects people on a day-to-day basis: rent, house prices, mortgage renewal, the prices of gas and groceries, how long it takes to find a job, and so on. All these factors help us to predict the path of inflation in the months and years ahead.

Second, hard data draw from the past. That is why the Bank conducts quarterly surveys on consumer expectations and the business outlook. The qualitative and forward-looking nature of these surveys allows us to discover different points of view and obtain a more nuanced portrait of the future path of economic activity. Some of you may even have participated in these surveys; if so, I’d like to thank you for the contribution you’ve made to making monetary policy.

We also engage with the public through outreach activities. The Bank needs to hear from a variety of participants in the economy to understand what is happening on the ground. Meeting with businesses, community groups and other organizations gives us an opportunity to listen, learn and deepen our understanding of their situation. The knowledge we gain helps us interpret the statistical data and contributes to our projections. This outreach also gives us an opportunity to explain the role of the Bank to Canadians.

This is exactly what I will be doing during my time in Sherbrooke. I’ll have the opportunity to participate in a round table with Entreprendre Sherbrooke, speak with university students and meet with local officials. Sometimes outreach activities even have unintended outcomes. Last spring, I took an outreach trip to Rimouski, where I grew up. After I was interviewed by local media, some childhood friends I had not heard from in years reached out and messaged me!

As an aside, I’d like to point out that while the Bank seeks out views from a broad range of stakeholders, it makes monetary policy decisions independently. This protects the Bank from short-term political objectives and pressures from special-interest groups. The independence of a central bank is even more important when difficult decisions must be made, as has been the case in recent years.

The next step in the decision-making process is the risk and recommendations meeting, which takes place about a week before the announcement date. Advisors and staff from economics departments share their points of view and debate the implications of raising, maintaining or lowering the policy rate. This culminates in a round-table discussion where each person puts forward a recommendation and its rationale. As you can imagine, we are never short on opinions. While Governing Council is ultimately responsible for making the decision, the decision is really the product of an enormous team effort.

Once the members of Governing Council have heard from the advisors and studied their analyses and recommendations, they meet in private to evaluate everything they’ve learned and come to a decision. Now, I’ll shed a bit of light on how that works.

Deliberating the decision

Before I talk about the deliberation process, I have to let you in on a little secret. At the Bank’s head office, behind a massive wooden door, there is a room I like to call the Chamber of Secrets. It’s formally known as the Rasminsky Room, after Louis Rasminsky, the Bank’s third governor. All discussions and decisions about the policy rate take place in this room.

It’s a secure room where the blinds are always drawn, and access is controlled. From inside this room, no communication with the outside world is allowed, and the use of electronic devices is strictly regulated. When we say “private” deliberations, we really mean it! The Bank takes security very seriously-and with good reason. A leak could have serious consequences. Many stakeholders-financial market participants, in particular-are very eager to get news of the decision.

Returning to the topic of our deliberations, once all the members of Governing Council are in the room, the Governor opens the meeting. The Governor acts as chair and shepherds the discussions. Each member is given the opportunity to present their views on economic developments in Canada and abroad, and on the outlook for growth and inflation. Another tidbit from behind the curtain: in Governing Council discussions, the Deputy Governors speak in reverse order of seniority, with newer members speaking first. This ensures their views are not influenced by those of more senior members. The Senior Deputy Governor speaks next, followed lastly by the Governor. They express their views, which leads to further discussions. We then go around the table again, with members presenting their opinions on monetary policy and debating the rate decision.

The process is not set in stone. The content and format of our discussions are adapted to the situation and vary depending on our thinking about the economic environment and risk landscape. For example, when I started at the Bank in March 2023, a number of regional banks in the United States had just failed. Questions about financial stability were at the forefront of our discussions. In recent months, an important focus of our discussions has been the stickiness of inflation in prices for certain services, including shelter.

But how is the decision actually reached after all of these deliberations? Unlike other central banks, such as the US Federal Reserve or the Bank of England, where members vote, the Bank of Canada makes decisions by consensus. Members must therefore all agree on the course of action, even if we had different points of view when we walked into the Rasminsky Room. And it might not come as a surprise that we do not always agree on everything.

In fact, it’s completely normal that members have differences of opinion. After all, each member of Governing Council has distinct expertise stemming from their past experiences and educational background. But the diversity of our expertise is exactly what makes it possible to have detailed and constructive discussions that lead to informed decision-making.

So, how do we arrive at a consensus despite our differences of opinion? Here, the organic nature of our deliberations plays a key role. At times, points raised by other members may lead us to fine-tune or rethink the way we’ve interpreted the data. Or a colleague may raise a point or highlight issues that others had not originally considered. In my opinion, the need to arrive at a consensus strengthens our decision-making process. We must carefully consider the diversity of opinions within Governing Council and discuss among ourselves to arrive at a common position.

I should also mention that reaching a consensus does not mean that all members of Governing Council share the same point of view on the economic outlook or the path for interest rates in the coming months. It means that members come to an agreement about the best decision to make at a particular moment in time.² And the truth is that as new data are published and new information comes to light, differences of opinion tend to become less pronounced.

Whatever shape the deliberations take, I can assure you that everyone around the table is always very conscious of the weight of these decisions. I fully felt this weight myself in June 2023 when I participated in my second round of monetary policy deliberations.

In the year before my arrival, the Bank had decisively and forcefully raised the interest rate from 0.25% to 4.5% to combat the spike in inflation. At the beginning of 2023, the Bank indicated it would pause to evaluate the effects of the increases on the economy and inflation. But data released between April and June 2023 showed that the economy had been more robust than expected in the first quarter of the year and that inflation had even increased slightly. Given the situation, we reached the conclusion that we had to again raise the interest rate. But at the end of our Friday afternoon meeting, the Governor said, “Let’s take the weekend and sleep on this decision and come back on Monday with clearer heads to discuss again.”

Over the course of that weekend, I came to fully feel the weight of the responsibility that came with my new role. I’d had countless discussions about monetary policy with colleagues and students over the course of my career as an academic. But as Deputy Governor, I found the discussions were no longer abstract or theoretical. I came to understand that I was one of six people whose decision would directly impact borrowing costs for millions of people like you and for businesses like yours. Believe me when I say that the realization made my head spin a little; it was really quite humbling.

Communicating the decision

One thing that may surprise you-as it did me-is that Governing Council’s work does not end once the decision is made. Communicating the reasons that led to the decision is almost as important as the decision itself. The members of Governing Council work closely with the Bank’s communications team to develop key messages and draft the press release and opening statement for the press conference. If only you knew how much time we spend trying to find the best ways to convey our message and looking for just the right words-in both official languages.

With time, I’ve come to understand that this is not always an easy task. For example, at the July decision, we said downside risks to inflation were becoming increasingly important in our deliberations. Some people interpreted this to mean that we believed downside risks had strengthened. What we intended to communicate, however, was that, with the 2% target in sight, we gave increased consideration to the risk that inflation could fall below the target.

As you can see, differences in interpretation can be very subtle, which makes choosing the right words all the more important. I’d like to think that all the years of explaining complex concepts to my students has given me a lot of practice in this regard.

Even though I’ve been in this role for only a short time, I’ve been able to appreciate how the Bank’s approach to communication is constantly evolving. In the past, press conferences were held only when the rate announcement was accompanied by a Monetary Policy Report. Starting this year, all eight rate announcements now feature a press conference. This gives the Bank the opportunity to share its assessment of the economic outlook with the public and explain the reasoning that led to the rate decision. Following the decision, Governing Council members host information sessions and regularly give interviews with the media.

Since January 2023, a summary of deliberations is published online two weeks after every decision. This document is a record of Governing Council’s assessment of the economic environment and the upside and downside risks to inflation. It also highlights where opinions converged and the topics that generated the most debate among members. The summary of deliberations for the September decision was published yesterday, in fact.

Lastly, the Bank is always looking for new ways to communicate and for new channels to reach the widest audience possible. In fact, the Bank has accounts on YouTube, X, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. Be sure to follow us.

Conclusion

It’s time for me to wrap up. I’ve now participated in 12 rate decisions. Since arriving at the Bank, I’ve always felt my experiences and external point of view have been useful to my work and valued by the other members of Governing Council and the organization as a whole.

I genuinely feel I’m contributing to the mission of a rigorous and conscientious institution that is mindful that its credibility is directly linked to the effectiveness of its actions.

Credibility must be earned. The Bank’s is founded on the trust that Canadians place in us and our actions. Even when those actions are difficult and have direct impacts, Canadians understand that we are always guided by our resolve to keep inflation low, stable and predictable.

We are fully conscious of the responsibilities the Bank has toward all Canadians. To maintain the public’s trust, we must be rigorous, professional, humble, honest and transparent.

It is to contribute to this transparency that I’ve spoken to you today about the Bank’s decision-making process. This process has allowed the Bank to weather many past storms, from recessions to economic crises and even a pandemic. And this process will keep us true to our promise to all Canadians: to bring inflation back to target and keep it there. That will always be the best way for the Bank to support the Canadian economy.

Thank you.

MIL OSI Global Banks –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Banking: Joachim Nagel: Why do we need Europe?

Source: Bank for International Settlements

Check against delivery

1 Global challenges need global answers

We are living in a period of significant change. Many distinct forces are contributing to this change. Examples here include global warming and the switch towards carbon-free energy, progress in digitalisation and AI, as well as geo-economic factors and demographic developments.

What do all the changes I’ve mentioned have in common? They affect humanity at the global level. It therefore does not seem useful to limit one’s attention to national solutions. That said, the European elections have shown us that many voters backed parties calling for greater national sovereignty or even nationalism – as well as less Europe. The Brexit referendum, eight years ago, can be seen as an example of this trend. As, too, can the recent German regional elections.

Why is this? Global changes often lead to global challenges, and sometimes to global crises. This means a lot of complexity. Those who are in charge are responsible for properly explaining this complexity. If we don’t assume this responsibility, simple political messages may trump complex ones. And there is no doubt that politics at the European level are complex. Just think of the legislative process behind the new Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive – a directive that sets rules for firms to mitigate their negative impact on human rights and the environment. Or the slow progress that has been made regarding the capital markets union – a topic I will return to later.

However, as the current major challenges are global in nature, national responses alone will not resolve them. Action is needed on a global scale. Take the pandemic, for example. Overcoming this required unprecedented vaccine research, large-scale production and global distribution. Or consider the climate crisis. While Germany can lead by example in terms of decarbonising its economy, it cannot solve the climate crisis alone. As for European countries, this means that we have to work on European responses to the current challenges. This holds true for Germany, too – despite it being one of the largest economies in the world. Germany should see itself as part of a wider European team – a team that can provide greater stability given the current geopolitical risks. Take the increasing global trade restrictions, for example. Between the two main global players, the United States and China, only a unified European approach stands a chance of defending European interests. This view is shared by almost three-quarters of Europeans surveyed at the beginning of this year.¹

2 Europe is not a weak spot – it is a source of strength

It is true that open democratic societies tend to have complex and cumbersome decision-making processes. The more fragmented the political landscape, the more difficult it becomes. This already holds for the national level – as can currently be seen in the case of France and Germany. At the European level, complexity is even greater. There, agreeing on a compromise is like an art in itself. However, democratic decision-making processes have one great benefit. They integrate the diverse interests and preferences of the people.

In fact, a significant majority of EU citizens are satisfied with the way democracy works in the EU.² And the share of people who have a positive image of Europe is nearly twice as big as the share of people who have a negative one.³ This might well reflect an observation made by the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset at the beginning of the last century. He noted that four-fifths of our intellectual property stem from our common European heritage.⁴ People seem to have a good understanding of what “European” means: the common ground of our liberal, democratic societies and the intellectual achievements we have made.

Once we realise these strengths of Europe, we can use them to move forward, to manage the changes I mentioned at the outset of my speech. Europe does not have an analytical deficit, but a deficit in taking action. For example: A deeper single market could help seize the opportunities of digitalisation more fully. And a unified European approach to decarbonisation could serve as an example and help the formation of larger climate clubs. These clubs derive mutual benefits from sharing the costs of producing less CO2-emissions. The members of such a voluntary club have incentives to adhere to its rules as long as the gains from the club are sufficiently large.⁵

3 What it will take to move forward

And what will it take to move forward? As President of the Bundesbank and as a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, I am doing all I can within my remit. First and foremost, I am striving to restore price stability. This is because price stability is a crucial requirement for economic development and for the welfare of our societies. And I am also supporting measures that help Europe to act. It is in this context that I return to the topic of the capital markets union. The capital markets union can be an important means of providing companies with the necessary funding to manage change. This includes funding for new scientific knowledge and for innovations to help us thrive in our future environment. Europe is relatively good at research.⁶ And research is a crucial basis for innovation. However, a lack of available capital often prevents young innovative companies from growing. A key reason is that capital markets in Europe are still highly fragmented and rather underdeveloped compared to those in the United States, for example. Although market structures are not fully comparable, venture capital investment may serve as an example here. Relative to GDP, its size in European countries is less than one-tenth the size in the US.⁷ A European capital markets union would give firms better access to risk capital in Europe – notably young firms in their start-up and scale-up phase, and it would provide better exit options. By mobilising more private capital, the capital markets union could improve opportunities for economic growth. And it could foster much needed investments in Europe’s digital and sustainability transformation.

It is a real challenge to make progress at the European level and in the 27 Member States on the legal initiatives necessary to realise the capital markets union. But if we agree that the changes we see are global in nature, then we should not try to deal with them at the national level. We should strive for multilateral solutions. Here in Europe, the European Union provides a wonderful opportunity to find common approaches that many around the world can subsequently gather behind.

I am optimistic that the new European Commission will build momentum to move forward – not least with respect to the capital markets union, which was recently given fresh impetus by Member States’ political leaders. We have the potential to rejuvenate the European idea. A thriving research and innovation ecosystem will support that goal – with stable prices, sufficient financing opportunities and steady growth. Let us all do what we can to strengthen Europe at the current juncture.

MIL OSI Global Banks –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: India: Death penalty never the solution to crime and violence against women – Amnesty International

Source: Amnesty International

Responding to the Aprajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill adopted today by the West Bengal state government that introduces the death penalty for the offence of rape when it results in the victim’s death or leaves them “in a vegetative state”, Aakar Patel, Chair of Board at Amnesty International said:

“The authorities must deliver justice and accountability for the horrific rape and murder of the woman doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and hospital in Kolkata in August. However, the death penalty is never the solution, nor it would offer a ‘quick fix’ to prevent violence against women. There is no evidence that it has a unique deterrent effect. Even the Justice Verma Committee that was constituted in 2012 to reform the laws and criminal justice practices relating to crimes of sexual violence, including rape in India and Law Commission of India have opposed the death penalty in cases of violence against women.

“What is actually needed is far-reaching procedural and institutional reform that deals with the root causes of crime and put emphasis on its prevention. Authorities in West Bengal and across India must fully implement recommendations made by the Justice Verma Committee, including police training and reform, preventive measures, and addressing how reports of sexual violence are registered and investigated. These are important first steps that will in the long run make India safer, including for women.

“We urge the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct a swift and thorough investigation into this appalling case and bring those responsible to justice without recourse to death penalty. Undue delays will further the climate of fear, impunity and uncertainty.”

Background

On 9 August, a 31-year-old trainee doctor was raped and murdered at the RG Kar Medical college and hospital in Kolkata, capital city of the state of West Bengal in eastern India. The events sparked a wave of protests across the country.

On 13 August, the Kolkata High Court reassigned the investigation of the case from the police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), citing the lack of significant progress and possibility of destruction of evidence. The court also noted serious lapses on the part of the hospital administration.

Today, the West Bengal government adopted the Aprajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill that amends the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, Bharatiya Nyaya Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 and the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. The amendments tighten the punishment for various rape offences in the state.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases and under any circumstances, regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or the method used by the state to carry out the execution. The organization considers the death penalty a violation of the right to life as recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: Ukraine: 30% increase in ambulance referrals shows ongoing devastation of war in Ukraine – MSF

Source: Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

Kyiv, 3 September 2024. Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) ambulances in Ukraine have transported more than 8,000 patients from hospitals near the frontline between January and July 2024, more than half with burn, blast and other injuries directly caused by the fighting. This represents a thirty per cent increase from the previous six months and shows the alarming and ongoing human impact of the war, warns the medical, humanitarian organisation.

MSF’s 17 ambulances transport patients at the request of health facilities across areas near the frontlines in the east, south and northeast of the country to hospitals that are less overwhelmed or better equipped to treat their injuries. More than 15 per cent of patients transported so far this year were so ill that they needed to be referred in specially equipped intensive care unit (ICU) ambulances. Of those requiring ICU transportation, 38 were children, the youngest just three years old.

“We need ICU ambulances to transport patients with severe injuries and breathing problems, such as head traumas, burns, multiple fractures, and damage to internal organs. They need equipment like ventilators and oxygen,” said MSF deputy medical coordinator Maksym Zharikov. “Sixty per cent of the patients we transport have war-related injuries such as head injuries, trunk and limb injuries, soft tissue injuries, and massive haemorrhages.”

On 6 August, an MSF team in the east transported a 45-year-old man who had suffered burns to 90 per cent of his body, including his internal organs, as a result of shelling. Patients like this require specialised medical care, which is often only available in hospitals far from the conflict areas. MSF has been running an ambulance referral system since April 2022 and currently has 17 ambulances, including five ICU ambulances and three vehicles capable of transporting multiple patients at a time. Multi-patient ambulances can transport up to seven patients at a time, making it possible to transport several patients with varying degrees of severity. Additionally, during intense shelling, making one trip instead of several reduces the risk for patients and staff.

The need for medical transportation by ambulance becomes especially acute during heavy missile attacks when hospitals are overwhelmed by mass casualties. It is difficult to predict how many intensive care or surgical beds will be needed in any given hospital from day to day. Shelling can occur at any moment, and our teams operate in a state of constant emergency. MSF paramedic Dmytro Bilous reports that when he asks civilians why they continue to live near the frontline despite the danger, the most common reply is that they just didn’t have time to evacuate.

“We’re gravely alarmed by the devastating impacts of repeated attacks, including on civilian areas. We see the consequences every day. A recent attack in Kostiantynivka, Donetsk region, on 9 August left 14 dead and over 40 injured. MSF doctors helped to respond, and two severely injured patients were transferred to Dnipro,” said Christopher Stokes, MSF emergency coordinator in Ukraine. “With a constant influx of trauma patients needing referrals, MSF ambulance teams ensure that patients are transferred to hospitals where they can receive the specialised care they require. But as more and more health facilities are destroyed, damaged or closed, and attacks like this continue, the pressure on the remaining hospitals is only going to grow, leaving more and more people without any access to the healthcare they need.”

Notes:

The war in Ukraine, ongoing since 2014, escalated significantly in 2022, with intense fighting in the east, southeast, and northeast.
Civilian casualties and significant damage to medical infrastructure, particularly in Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Kherson regions.
MSF operates 17 ambulances near the frontline, including five ICU vehicles and three multi-patient transport vehicles.
Ambulances are strategically based in Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, and other regions, covering the whole of Ukraine as per Ministry of Health requests.
In 2024, patient transport increased by 30% compared to late 2023, with over 8,000 patients transported in the last six months.
Ambulances cover up to 120,000 km monthly, with 40% of cases being non-traumatic and 60% war-related injuries.
Among those transported, 136 were children, 38 of whom required ICU care. The youngest patient was three days old, and the oldest was 98.
MSF first worked in Ukraine in 1999.

MSF Australia was established in 1995 and is one of 24 international MSF sections committed to delivering medical humanitarian assistance to people in crisis. In 2022, more than 120 project staff from Australia and New Zealand worked with MSF on assignment overseas. MSF delivers medical care based on need alone and operates independently of government, religion or economic influence and irrespective of race, religion or gender. For more information visit msf.org.au

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: Investment Sector – Leo Capital Sets Up Nordic HQ in Helsinki and Launches a €25M Fund Reinforcing Helsinki’s Emerging Role in Attracting Venture Capital Firms

Source: Helsinki Partners

Helsinki’s tech ecosystem continues to attract international venture capital firms, as Leo Capital, a successful Singapore-based venture capital firm, launches its Nordic headquarters to support regional B2B startups. Alongside this strategic move, Leo Capital is launching a €25 million fund specifically targeting the Nordic region, marking its first fund focused on Europe. The 90 Day Finn program, which one of Leo Capital’s founders, Shwetank Verma, was part of in 2022, played a crucial role in choosing Helsinki as the location.

Founded in 2018, Leo Capital has previously managed three funds primarily focused on the APAC region and has actively invested in Europe since 2021. Their successful portfolio includes companies like Apica, Atoa, and Eir. The newly announced fund, Europe Fund I, represents a significant milestone for Leo Capital, as it extends their investment reach into the Nordic startup ecosystem. Business Finland Venture Capital has made an anchor investment in the fund, showing confidence in Leo Capital’s approach amidst challenging market conditions.

“Europe Fund I continues Leo Capital’s successful strategy of investing in the world’s most capable, ambitious, and resilient founding teams. It is these founders that we are looking to partner with, combining their vision and dynamism with our own networks, resources, and years of cross-border experience to help supercharge their trajectory and realize their global ambitions”, said Shwetank Verma, Co-founder of Leo Capital.

Helsinki: A New Hub for Venture Capital

Leo Capital’s decision to expand its operations to Finland came after participating the 90 Day Finn program, an initiative by Helsinki Partners designed to attract international entrepreneurs and investors to Helsinki. Shwetank Verma’s participation in the program provided deep insights into the Finnish business environment, which shares key qualities with Singapore, such as strong government support, a high level of expertise, and a vibrant entrepreneurial spirit.

“For us, Finland is exciting because we see parallels with what we know best in Singapore, for example. We can see that combination of government support, talent, and entrepreneurial zeal. They’re small markets but very dynamic”, Verma noted.

Despite the abundant opportunities, Helsinki’s potential remains relatively underexplored on the global stage. Programs like 90 Day Finn have been crucial in bridging this gap, as they have successfully brought international investors like Leo Capital to recognize Finland’s unique offerings.

“To attract investments, talent, or companies to expand to Helsinki, we need to generate interest and ensure they experience what Helsinki and Finland has to offer. Programs like 90 Day Finn have proven to be incredibly effective. For instance, Leo Capital originally considered another European location for their headquarters but shifted to Helsinki after participating in the program,” commented Johanna Huurre, Business Director at Helsinki Partners.

The Nordic region, known for its openness and global perspective, provides an inviting ecosystem for international funds. However, while early-stage funding is relatively accessible, there is a notable gap in later-stage funding, an area where Leo Capital aims to make a significant impact.

“One of the challenges in Finland is the relatively small and local nature of funds. To elevate Finland’s success stories, we need to attract larger international funds and investors. The entry of Leo Capital, with its extensive network, into Helsinki’s ecosystem is a significant step towards this goal,” Huurre added.

About Leo Capital

Leo Capital is a Singapore-based early-stage venture fund founded by serial entrepreneurs with global experience. The firm’s portfolio spans 60 early-stage companies supported by a cross-border team across three continents. Leo Capital backs founding teams powering a software-enabled world, supporting them in their journey from great start-up to great company. Leo’s “India Advantage” offers founders support in talent acquisition, go-to-market strategies, and access to a robust network of global co-investors.

About Helsinki Partners

Helsinki Partners is the investment promotion agency owned by the City of Helsinki. We have over a decade of experience in helping international companies set up or expand their business, find quality investment opportunities, and expand their network in the Nordics.

About 90 Day Finn Program

90 Day Finn program is an unique initiative run by Helsinki Partners and designed to immerse international business leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators in Helsinki’s business ecosystem and Finnish culture. The program offers participants the chance to explore new market opportunities, network with industry leaders, and experience Finland’s renowned work-life balance. This year, the program welcomed its fourth cohort of participants and took place throughout the entire month of August.

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: Asia Pacific – Governments, tech experts gather to boost regional commitments towards digital inclusion and transformation – ESCAP

Source: ESCAP, United Nations

Policymakers and industry experts today underscored the critical need to bridge the vast digital divide in the region, further calling for breakthrough solutions, more harmonized policy frameworks and increased investments toward scalable innovations with sustainable development impacts.

Organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), in partnership with the Government of Kazakhstan, the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Digital Inclusion and Transformation aims to promote more inclusive digital economies and societies in the region, as well as foster digital cooperation to bridge the digital divide, strengthen digital connectivity, ensure robust digital skills training, and enhance digital trust and security.

“Digital by default has become our norm. It is restructuring our economies, bringing new opportunities for value creation, and reweaving the fabric of society to help tackle some of our most persistent sustainable development challenges. At the same time, digital transformation intersects with economic, environmental and social risks of unseen complexity and uncertainty,” said United Nations Under-Secretary-General and ESCAP Executive Secretary Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana in her opening remarks.

Underscoring the importance of digital transformation, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Olzhas Bektenov shared, “These technologies open new horizons for business, education, and healthcare, ensure economic growth, and expand opportunities for millions of people. We are actively developing these areas. Digital inclusion is also a crucial element, without which it is impossible to achieve the set goals. Only through cooperation, the exchange of knowledge, and best practices can we ensure a sustainable and prosperous future for all. We are ready to share our experience and knowledge.”

While 96 per cent of the population live in areas covered by mobile broadband networks, only one-third productively use Internet services. Up to 40 per cent of people lack access to the Internet, most of whom are from vulnerable and marginalized groups. This significant divide also runs along income, age, education, geographic and gender fault lines.

Zhaslan Madiyev, Minister of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry of Kazakhstan was elected as the Chair of the Conference. “Kazakhstan is firmly committed to advancing a sustainable digital future. Today, digital technologies are key tools for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. We have made significant progress: in 2023, we provided 274 million online services, 93 per cent of which are accessible to our citizens directly from their homes. We are also implementing proactive services automatically provided by the government, with 44 such services already available and used more than three million times. Kazakhstan is proud to rank eighth in the UN’s online services index and is ready to continue introducing innovative solutions for the benefit of society.”

On the opening day, ESCAP also launched its Asia-Pacific Digital Transformation Report 2024 which considers how digital transformations will structurally and irreversibly affect the trajectory of climate change. It presents 27 illustrative case studies demonstrating the power of digital applications for smarter climate actions – across infrastructure, governance, mobility, industry and trade, disaster risk reduction, agriculture and biodiversity ecosystems.

The report reveals that as the use of more advanced digital technologies is scaled up, there is a turning point beyond which carbon emissions tend to decline. Furthermore, the increased use of AI-driven geospatial data analytics is improving the accuracy and timeliness of early warning systems, so that the right information reaches the right people at the right time, thus contributing towards climate adaptation and mitigation measures in many countries.

Policymakers from over 30 countries as well as representatives from the tech industry, start-ups, academia, international organizations, youth, business and civil society are participating in the two-day Conference and its associated events. The Conference is expected to culminate tomorrow with the adoption of the Astana Ministerial Declaration on Digital Inclusion and Transformation.

On the sidelines of the Conference, the Government of Kazakhstan is also hosting the Kazakhstan Tech Solution Day on 5 September, which will highlight the country’s tech companies, start-ups and digital innovations, such as SmartBridge (service showcase), Smart Data Ukimet (smart data government), and eOtinish.

For further information: https://www.unescap.org/events/2024/asia-pacific-ministerial-conference-digital-inclusion-and-transformation

Read report: http://www.unescap.org/kp/2024/asia-pacific-digital-transformation-report-2024-digital-innovation-smarter-climate-action

Watch the proceedings:

www.youtube.com/unescap

The Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) is the most inclusive intergovernmental platform in the Asia-Pacific region. The Commission promotes cooperation among its 53 member States and 9 associate members in pursuit of solutions to sustainable development challenges. ESCAP is one of the five regional commissions of the United Nations.

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: Asia-Pacific governments commit to collaborate on innovative solutions to bridge the digital divide and drive sustainability

Source: ESCAP – United Nations

Ministers and heads of digital technology agencies today endorsed the Astana Ministerial Declaration on Digital Inclusion and Transformation in Asia and the Pacific at the close of a high-level conference organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the Government of Kazakhstan.

(ref. https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/d8files/event-documents/2400314E.pdf )

Among others, the groundbreaking Declaration underscores the critical need to bridge the digital divide, strengthen digital connectivity, address and enhance digital trust, and promote inclusive and sustainable digital economies and societies leaving no one behind.

“The Declaration is an important milestone that reaffirms the necessity of strengthening regional policy-making so that we increase momentum in identifying digital solutions and scaling up to bridge the digital divide,” said Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP.

While 96 per cent of the population in Asia and the Pacific live in areas covered by mobile broadband networks, it is estimated that only one-third productively use internet services. Up to 40 per cent lack basic digital skills.

Endorsing the Declaration, Governments recognized the pressing need to overcome the major impediments that developing countries face in engaging with and accessing new technologies such as an appropriate enabling environment, sufficient resources, connectivity infrastructure and investments.

They further emphasized the importance of enhancing secure and affordable access, and promoting digital literacy and education for all including youth, older persons, women, persons with disabilities, and remote and rural communities.

“We are proud of this unique opportunity to showcase Kazakhstan’s achievements in digital government to the global community. The adoption of this Declaration reflects our shared commitment to creating an inclusive digital future for all,” said H.E. Zhaslan Madiyev, Minister of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry of Kazakhstan, who also served as Chair of the conference.

Ministers at the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Digital Inclusion and Transformation held on 3 – 4 September in Astana, welcomed further consideration of the proposal by the Government of Kazakhstan for a Digital Solutions Center for Sustainable Development. The proposed Centre is expected to strengthen coordination and cooperation among multiple stakeholders in the digital transformation process, as well as share practical digital solutions to advance the region’s sustainable development agenda.

Delegates also reviewed the progress of other regional initiatives on digital cooperation, notably the Action Plan for Implementing the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway Initiative, 2022-2026.

On the sidelines, conference participants had the opportunity to explore a startup alley organized by Astana Hub, the largest technology park in Central Asia, where Kazakhstan’s top startups and major tech companies were showcased.

ESCAP and the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) also signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the conference to enhance institutional cooperation on regional economic integration and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Under the agreement, ESCAP and EDB will carry out joint research and publications, capacity building support to policymakers and analysts in North and Central Asia as well as develop databases and analytical tools for policymakers in Asia-Pacific developing countries.

For further information: https://www.unescap.org/events/2024/asia-pacific-ministerial-conference-digital-inclusion-and-transformation

Read report: http://www.unescap.org/kp/2024/asia-pacific-digital-transformation-report-2024-digital-innovation-smarter-climate-action

Read opinion piece “A sustainable future within reach: The promise of digital transformation”: https://unescap.org/op-ed/sustainable-future-within-reach-promise-digital-transformation

Watch the proceedings:

www.youtube.com/unescap

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: China: Re-detention of activist Zhang Zhan highlights Beijing’s intolerance of dissent – Amnesty International

Source: Amnesty International

Chinese authorities must end their persecution of the citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, Amnesty International said after the activist was re-detained less than four months after being freed from prison.

Zhang Zhan, who is being held at the Pudong New District Detention Centre in Shanghai, appears to have been targeted because she has continued to advocate for human rights since her release from jail on 13 May.

“The depressingly predictable re-detention of Zhang Zhan is the culmination of the government’s ongoing campaign of harassment against her, even after she was ‘freed’ from prison. Since being released, Zhang has been subjected to surveillance that has intensified over the past month,” Amnesty International’s China Director, Sarah Brooks, said.

“This latest detention underscores the Chinese authorities’ intractable intolerance of dissent and of Zhang Zhan herself, who despite being unjustly jailed has continued to raise her voice in solidarity with other human rights activists since being released. She has been re-detained because she refused to be silenced.”

Following her release in May, Zhang Zhan expressed concern that her online speech was being monitored by authorities.

According to information received by Amnesty International, she was regularly and repeatedly taken in for police questioning over the past month, with some interrogations lasting over 10 hours.

In late August, it was reported that she traveled from Shanghai to the northwestern province of Gansu to show solidarity with other human rights defenders. Shortly thereafter, during a visit to her hometown in Shaanxi, she suddenly became unreachable; civil society reported that she had been taken into custody by police from Shanghai, well over 1000km away.

“On 2 September, Zhang Zhan marked her 41st birthday – her first since being released. Yet instead of celebrating this hard-won reunion with her family, she has spent her fifth successive birthday deprived of liberty,” Sarah Brooks said.

“We urge the Chinese authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Zhang Zhan and ensure that she is granted full freedom and protection from any form of surveillance or harassment.”

Background

Zhang Zhan is a Chinese citizen journalist was who jailed for reporting on the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan.

A former lawyer, she travelled to Wuhan in February 2020 to provide on-the-ground information about what was happening there. She posted on social media about how government officials had detained independent reporters and harassed families of Covid-19 patients.

She went missing in Wuhan in May 2020. It later emerged that she had been taken by the Chinese authorities and detained in Shanghai, where she was convicted of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” after a sham trial.

On 13 May of this year, after completing a four-year prison sentence, Zhang Zhan was released. However, since her release, she has been subjected to strict surveillance and continuous harassment by the authorities.

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: World Health – Parliamentarians call for strengthening health workforce in the Asia Pacific – WHO

Source: World Health Organisation

Port Vila, 6 September 2024: The eighth Asia-Pacific Parliamentarian Forum on Global Health concluded today, with parliamentarians from 13 countries in the Asia Pacific region emphasizing the need for a strengthened health workforce, which is essential for achieving health for all.

The Forum was held from 4 to 6 September 2024 in Port Vila and hosted by the Parliament of Vanuatu, with support from the Vanuatu Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO). The participants were speakers, members of national parliaments and ministers from Cambodia, Cook Islands, Niue, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Thailand, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Viet Nam.

Health workforce for a resilient health system

The theme of the Forum was the health workforce. As the host, Honourable Simeon Davidson Seoule, Speaker of the National Parliament of Vanuatu, emphasized the crucial role of a strong health workforce in building a resilient health system: “A resilient health system depends on a well-functioning workforce that includes nurses, doctors, community health workers and specialists. To effectively support our communities and provide the care they need throughout their lives, we must ensure that our health workers are well-supported and equipped,” he said.

He reminded his fellow leaders that, “As parliamentarians, we have a critical role in shaping health policies and ensuring that our health systems are both well funded and well managed. This includes creating and enacting stronger laws and creating support systems that address the needs of our health workers, enabling them to deliver the best possible care to our communities.”

The meeting presented the latest evidence on health workforce in the region and enabled discussion on strengthening health workforce policy, in line with WHO’s Regional framework to shape a health workforce for the future of the Western Pacific. Participants exchanged country experiences on supporting health workforce policy through various system entry points, shared innovations addressing workforce issues, and forged connections with one another at global, regional, national and local levels.

Common challenges across the region

The parliamentarians also had the opportunity to conduct site visits to local health facilities, where they interacted with health workers and discussed the various challenges of providing care across different settings. These highlight the dedication and commitment of health workers and underscore the urgent need for better support and resources for them, especially for those working in rural and underserved areas – issues shared across the Asia Pacific region. A common challenge across all health systems is the need for a robust workforce, without which there can be no functioning health system.

Addressing the challenges faced by Pacific island countries, Minister of Health of Vanuatu, Honourable John Still Tariqetu, said: “Ensuring that everyone in the Pacific has access to quality health services requires bold, new approaches to building and maintaining a well-trained health workforce. In Vanuatu, we are committed to implementing forward-thinking strategies to ensure we have the skilled workforce we need, so that our communities can receive the care they deserve.”

Highlighting the importance of having a well-supported health workforce, Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific, reiterated: “The success of our health systems relies on having a workforce that is well prepared and supported. It is vital for parliaments to use their functions to advance health workforce development to ensure that our health systems can meet the needs of all people in the region.”

Notes

The Asia Pacific Parliamentarian Forum on Global Health is a platform for parliamentarians to exchange ideas, build political will, strengthen capacity and foster collaboration towards sustainable health action. This was the seventh meeting of the Forum, which was themed “Health Workforce”.

Target 3c of the Sustainable Development Goals urges countries to substantially increase health financing and enhance efforts in recruiting, developing, training and retaining the health workforce, particularly in developing countries, least developed countries and small island developing states. Currently, eight countries from the Western Pacific Region (Kiribati, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the Federated States of Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu) are listed in the WHO Health Workforce Support and Safeguards List 2023. These countries face a low service coverage index (below 55) and have fewer health workforce than the global median of 49 doctors, nurses and midwives per 10 000 people. As such, these countries require prioritized support for health workforce development and health system strengthening, including measures to manage international recruitment effectively.

Parliamentarians participating in the eighth Asia-Pacific Parliamentarian Forum on Global Health in Vanuatu this week: Hon. Mrs LORK Kheng, Cambodia; H.E. Ms MOM Sandap, Cambodia; Hon. Ms Te-Hani Rose Alexandra BROWN, Cook Islands; Hon. Dr Jiho CHA, Republic of Korea; Hon. Mr Bounelome KEOBOUAHOME, Lao People’s Democratic Republic; Hon. Mr Vongphet OUDOMLITH, Lao People’s Democratic Republic; Hon. Mr Suhaizan bin KAIAT, Malaysia; Hon. Mr Logopati SEUMANU, Niue; Hon. Mrs Florence Maureen VILITAMA, Niue; Hon. Mr Ciriaco B. GATO, Jr., the Philippines; Hon. Mr Foisala Lilo Tuu IOANE, Samoa; Hon. Mr Aiono Tile GAFA, Samoa; Hon. Dr Paul Popora BOSAWAI, Solomon Islands; Hon. Mr Morris TOIRAENA, Solomon Islands; Hon. Mr Tosaporn SERERAK, Thailand; Hon. Mr Iakoba Taeia ITALELI, Tuvalu; Hon. Mr Tuafafa LATASI, Tuvalu; Hon. Mr Seoule Davidson SIMEON, Vanuatu; Hon. Mr Alick TERRY, Vanuatu; Hon. Mr Blaise SUMPTOH, Vanuatu; Hon. Ms Julia Gloria KING, Vanuatu; Hon. Mr Marc MWELSUL, Vanuatu; Hon. Mr Silas BULE, Vanuatu; Hon. Mr Ulrich SUMPTOH, Vanuatu; Hon. Ms NGUYEN Thi Thu Dung, Viet Nam; Hon. Mr LE Van Kham, Viet Nam.

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: Hong Kong: Government must show progress on same-sex partnership legislation after landmark ruling – Amnesty International

Source: Amnesty International

Government has one year left to deliver alternative legal framework for same-sex couples
Same-sex couples in Hong Kong currently denied numerous rights enjoyed by heterosexual couples

One year after a landmark ruling on LGBTI rights in Hong Kong, authorities should provide a progress update on their plans to recognize same-sex partnerships in the city, Amnesty International said today.

On 5 September 2023, Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal ruled that the government had a constitutional duty to provide an alternative legal framework for same-sex partnerships to be recognized, setting a two-year deadline for its establishment.

While the decision fell short of requiring marriage equality, it did establish a new benchmark for improving rights and recognition irrespective of sexual orientation.

“One year since this memorable legal victory for LGBTI people in Hong Kong, we urge the government to provide an update on its plans to act on the Court’s judgment. The government has one year left to comply with the decision, but in the meantime equality is being denied on a daily basis,” Amnesty International’s China Director Sarah Brooks said.

“The government must heed their own courts’ call to ensure same-sex relationships in Hong Kong are recognized equally – and on the same basis and with the same rights and protections – as those of opposite-sex couples.”

Hong Kong law does not currently recognize same-sex relationships, with same-sex couples not allowed to marry or enter into any form of registered civil partnership.

Same sex couples are therefore prevented from enjoying the rights held by opposite-sex couples (with some exceptions if they married overseas*). Examples can be found in almost every aspect of life.

Currently, individuals in same-sex relationships:

Cannot jointly adopt children
Cannot access assisted reproductive technologies
Cannot inherit their deceased partner’s estate without a will*
Cannot apply for public housing as an “ordinary family”*
Cannot enjoy the potential benefits of filing income taxes jointly*
Cannot extend medical benefits to their same-sex partner if they are employed by the government*
Cannot object to the removal of their deceased partner’s organs for medical research or education
Cannot receive immediate notification if their partner dies in prison
Are not protected against less favourable treatment by their employer as a result of caring for a terminally ill partner.

“The absence of a legal framework for same-sex partnerships in Hong Kong means couples face structural discrimination. It is time for the Hong Kong government to provide a transparent update on progress on this framework, including how much of it has been drafted, how they are consulting LGBTI people, and when it will be submitted to the city’s Legislative Council for discussion,” Sarah Brooks said.

“Time is ticking. This one-year anniversary should be the impetus for accelerating the government’s work to comply with the Court’s ruling; to review and overhaul laws, policies and practices that discriminate based on sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status, and to uphold its rights obligations to all, however they identify and whomever they love.”

Background

On 5 September 2023, Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal handed a partial victory to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) activist Jimmy Sham. The Court set a two-year timeline for the government to provide an alternative framework for same-sex partnerships, meaning the process must be complete by 5 September 2025.

Sham, who married his partner in the USA in 2013, began his campaign for Hong Kong to recognize same-sex marriages performed overseas in 2018, arguing that the current laws in place are unconstitutional.

Currently, Hong Kong only legally recognizes “marriage” as being between a man and a woman and does not recognize same-sex marriage or civil partnership or any other form of legal union.

The authorities have not taken sufficient steps to combat discrimination against LGBTI persons more broadly, despite a clear recommendation arising from the 2022 review of Hong Kong by the UN’s Human Rights Committee, tasked with monitoring the government’s implementation of obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

However, in recent years, the Court of Final Appeal and lower courts in Hong Kong have held the blanket denial of partnership rights for same-sex couples to be discriminatory, opening the door to limited progress such as accepting the right of some same-sex couples to spousal dependant visas, employment benefits, joint tax assessment and public housing.

Amnesty International opposes discrimination in civil marriage laws on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and calls on states to recognise families of choice, across borders, where necessary.

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: Nigeria: One out of every four children in Shinkafi and Zurmi is malnourished – MSF

Source: Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

MSF is urging immediate action after screening results reveal a catastrophic malnutrition crisis across Northwest Nigeria.

Abuja,10 September 2024: One out of every four children under the age of five is malnourished in the Shinkafi and Zurmi areas of Nigeria’s Zamfara state, according to a mass screening conducted in June by Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the Ministry of Health.

Of the 97,149 children screened in 21 different urban and rural locations, 27 percent were found to be suffering from acute malnutrition, with five percent having severe acute malnutrition.

These concerning figures far exceed the ‘critical level’ threshold established by the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding malnutrition prevalence. MSF urges health authorities, international organisations, and donors to immediately intensify their efforts to tackle the escalating malnutrition crisis in Zamfara state, as well as whole of Northwest Nigeria – a region not yet included in the United Nations Humanitarian Response Plan.

The mass screening held in June in the Shinkafi and Zurmi areas further revealed that about 22 per cent of children screened are moderately malnourished. Currently, the nutritional supplies essential to treat such children, also known as ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), are unavailable, as UNICEF halted its supplies at the start of the year. This current lack of humanitarian response to treat those who are moderately malnourished in Northwest Nigeria risks the lives of these children who, without immediate care, will progress to severe acute malnutrition that threatens their survival and compromises their long-term health.

“The screening results from Shinkafi and Zurmi are nothing short of alarming, revealing a catastrophic malnutrition crisis across Northwest Nigeria,” declares Abdullahi Mohammad, an MSF representative in Nigeria. “The response to this overwhelming disaster is grossly insufficient. With malnutrition rates soaring beyond critical levels and no immediate treatment available for moderate acute malnutrition apart from at MSF facilities, we’re effectively letting more children fall into life-threatening conditions. It is crucial we ensure every child receives the medical care they desperately need.”

MSF currently runs four inpatient and 17 outpatient facilities in Shinkafi, Zurmi, Gummi and Talata Mafara in Zamfara – a state badly affected by malnutrition. Across all four inpatient facilities, MSF teams have treated over 7,000 children from January to July 2024. These figures for admissions are 34 per cent higher than for the same period in 2023. In Shinkafi and Zurmi, where MSF conducted the recent malnutrition screening, the increase in admissions is 50 per cent more than the same period last year. At the medical facility in Gummi, admissions in July 2024 were almost double compared to the same month last year.

Alongside the significant increase in malnutrition admissions, MSF teams are seeing high numbers of children with vaccine preventable diseases such as measles. In Zamfara, they have treated at least 5,700 measles cases so far this year. Infectious diseases like measles, malaria, and acute watery diarrhoea, severely compromise the nutritional status of children. In turn, malnutrition makes them far more susceptible to these illnesses, with a higher risk of death.

“When I first brought my son into the hospital, I didn’t know if he would survive,” says Hafsat Lawal, a mother whose child is being treated for malnutrition at an MSF facility in Zamfara. “Back at home because of the insecurity we don’t have food. The prices of food have more than doubled. If we had money, we would have bought some grains, but we cannot.”

Communities are facing high levels of violence in Zamfara and have told MSF teams that they are scared to move around the state, taking huge risks to reach functioning healthcare facilities. It is estimated by the health authorities that as of 2023, only about 200 out of 700 healthcare centres in Zamfara are accessible, and the rest are non-functional. One of the reasons being that healthcare workers struggle to reach them.

Despite the ongoing humanitarian crisis and facing high levels of insecurity, communities in the Northwest have long been excluded from coordinated humanitarian response. It is essential that health authorities in this area, alongside international organisations and donors, urgently scale up their response. Immediate expansion of health facilities is needed to treat malnourished children to ensure that more hospitals can offer the type of inpatient care desperately needed to save lives. Moreover, UNICEF, as the primary supplier of RUTF, must ensure the consistent and sufficient delivery of these essential therapeutic foods to prevent more children from falling victim to this crisis.

MSF Australia was established in 1995 and is one of 24 international MSF sections committed to delivering medical humanitarian assistance to people in crisis. In 2022, more than 120 project staff from Australia and New Zealand worked with MSF on assignment overseas. MSF delivers medical care based on need alone and operates independently of government, religion or economic influence and irrespective of race, religion or gender. For more information visit msf.org.au

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: Tajikistan: Pamiri minority facing systemic discrimination in ‘overlooked human rights crisis’

Source: Amnesty International

The Tajikistani authorities are perpetuating systemic discrimination and severe human rights violations against the Pamiri minority, according to new research by Amnesty International.

The Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) in East Tajikistan is home to several ethnic groups forming the Pamiri minority, mostly practicing the Shia Ismaili branch of Islam.

Denied official recognition as a minority and regarded as ethnic Tajiks by the central authorities, Pamiris face systemic discrimination, suppression of cultural and religious institutions, political oppression, and brutal reprisals for defending their rights.

“The ongoing persecution and human rights violations against the Pamiri minority in Tajikistan reached an alarming scale years ago. But there is almost no one to ring the alarm bell.

The Tajikistani authorities stifle virtually all information from the region, while the international community has largely overlooked this serious human rights crisis. It demands immediate attention and action from the international community to safeguard the rights and dignity of the Pamiri people,” said Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Tajikistan: Reprisals against Pamiri minority, suppression of local identity, clampdown on all dissent highlights the violations of economic, social and cultural rights resulting from: the crackdown on Pamiri languages, cultural practices, and identities; the heavy presence of security forces from other regions of Tajikistan; violent repression of protest and widespread arbitrary detention; and socioeconomic marginalization faced by the Pamiri Ismaili community in Gorno-Badakhshan.

Discrimination and securitization

The central authorities have promoted a culture of prejudice against Pamiris. A state-sponsored narrative depicts them negatively, particularly Ismailis, leading to widespread discrimination. This policy manifests in repressive practices, including suppressing the use of Pamiri languages in media, education, and public life, excluding Pamiris from influential positions within the state administration and security apparatus, and extortion and destruction of local employment opportunities and Pamiri businesses.

The heavy presence of security forces from other parts of Tajikistan reflects the authorities’ contempt for the Gorno-Badakhshan population. “The word ‘Pamiri’ [for the security forces] means […] separatist, oppositionist, main enemy,” said one of the interviewees.

The presence of security agencies, including the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) and the State Committee for National Security (SCNS), has significantly increased in GBAO. Security forces have set up armed cordons on roads and in city squares, including the capital city of GBAO, Khorugh, patrolled by heavily armed police and military. “The security forces in Khorugh behave like wolves looking after sheep. ‘You should not walk like this; you should not laugh!’” said one of the interviewees.

Security operations in GBAO include surveillance, intimidation, and the excessive use of force — often justified as combating terrorism and organized crime — accompanied by arbitrary arrests and prosecutions of local informal leaders and ordinary Pamiris, despite a lack of credible evidence.

“The heavy-handed securitization in Gorno-Badakhshan is beyond any scrutiny. The local population is perceived as hostile by the central government, and people are harassed and discriminated against on a daily basis,” said Marie Struthers.

2021-2022 crackdown and its aftermath

Mounting tensions erupted after the killing of prominent Pamiri figure Gulbiddin Ziyobekov in November 2021. Officially described as the result of a shootout with law enforcement, evidence points to an unlawful killing of an unarmed man, which may amount to an extrajudicial execution. In response to a four-day protest in Khorugh, security forces used firearms against a crowd that had been peaceful until that point, killing two protesters and allegedly injuring around a dozen.

“We escorted the women away […] to a safer location. At that time, a bullet hit me. They were shooting from the entrance of the building, wearing uniforms. Some of them were standing directly in the entrance, some of them were on the second or third floor,” said one protester, describing the indiscriminate use of lethal force by law enforcement officials.

After false promises to effectively investigate, the authorities instead persecuted informal community leaders, harassed civil society, and intimidated and prosecuted ordinary Pamiris.

A second outbreak of violence occurred in May 2022 when authorities violently dispersed peaceful protests in Khorugh and Rushan, resulting in the deaths of dozens of Pamiris, including informal leader Mamadbokir Mamadbokirov, shot by unidentified gunmen in a pickup — a likely extrajudicial execution. According to independent reports, 24 civilians died, some during the crackdown and some in alleged retaliatory unlawful killings.

A subsequent crackdown on civil society followed with the arbitrary detention of more than 200 human rights defenders, dissenters, and influential figures such as journalist and activist Ulfatkhonim Mamadshoeva and lawyers Faromuz Irgashev and Manuchehr Kholiknazarov. In December 2023, they received 21, 29 and 15-year sentences respectively, in secret trials, with the details of the charges made public only six months later.

Arbitrary detentions and torture

The Tajikistani authorities routinely arbitrarily detain, allegedly torture, and engage in other ill-treatment of Pamiris, with reports of coerced confessions and fabricated charges of crimes against “public safety,” “fundamentals of the constitutional order” or “order of administration.” Legal proceedings lack transparency and due process, with many trials lasting only a few days. During the 2021-2022 crackdown, reports of torture and other ill-treatment were common.

One of the detainees in the aftermath of the May 2022 protests said he was deprived of sleep for two days, beaten with fists and batons and hit on the head with a thick book.

“When they asked and I did not answer, they wrapped wet tissues around my fingers, then [fixed it with] tape. They put clips and switched something on. The [electric] current was strong. They did it with different fingers. They did it twice every day, four times in all,” he said.

“After the 2021-2022 protests in Gorno-Badakhshan, the systemic discrimination against the Pamiri community has become ever more entrenched, resulting in fear, harassment and violation of human rights. The international community must urgently raise concerns about the human rights violations faced by Pamiris with the Tajikistani authorities, in all possible fora not the least international fora, stand in solidarity with the Pamiri people, give protection to those who seek it abroad, and take decisive action to oppose this vicious system in Tajikistan,” said Marie Struthers.

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: MSF calls for quick response and unrestricted access as cholera poses latest peril in Sudan’s war – MSF

Source: Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

Port Sudan, 11 September, 2024. A cholera outbreak is gripping central and eastern Sudan bringing more, death and misery to people already suffering under the country’s brutal war. Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)’s emergency teams are supporting by treating patients and providing water and sanitation services.

Ongoing war, floods and now cholera

In August, Sudanese authorities declared a cholera outbreak, which is currently heavily affecting the states of Kassala, Gedaref and River Nile, Al Jazirah and Khartoum. According to the Ministry of Health, over 5,000 cases of cholera and 191 deaths have been reported. In the second half of August the weekly cases of the disease multiplied by four.

Cholera cases are not uncommon in Sudan, but this is the second time since the start of the war in April 2023, that the country is faced with outbreaks of the disease. For the past two years, our teams have been actively engaged in emergency responses to mitigate the spread of cholera.

“The mix of heavy flooding and torrential downpours, combined with the terrible living conditions and inadequate access to drinking water that people, particularly in crowded displaced camps are facing, have created the perfect storm for the spread of this often deadly disease,” says Esperanza Santos, MSF emergency coordinator for Sudan.

In Kassala, heavy rains and river floods have destroyed water and sanitation infrastructure and left both internally displaced communities and Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees living in even more appalling living conditions.

“People are dying from cholera right now; and we are pleading on the UN and international organizations to fund and scale up activities, particularly water and sanitation services, which are crucial to stop the lethal spread of cholera,” says Frank Ross Katambula, MSF medical coordinator.

Cholera adds yet another challenge to the crisis in Sudan and to the decimated health system, already struggling with increasing child malnutrition, high numbers of war wounded and regular cases of preventable diseases. The humanitarian response, frequently obstructed by both warring parties, remains far below what is needed.

Case management and water and sanitation

MSF teams in Khartoum, River Nile, Kassala and Gedaref have mobilized to support the Ministry of Health to respond to the situation, by setting up and running cholera treatment centres and units (CTCs and CTUs) and providing support to existing treatment facilities, in some of the most affected areas and hard-to-reach places. Between the end of August and 9 September, MSF teams treated 2,165 patients in our supported facilities.

Caused by a water-borne intestinal infection, cholera is transmitted through contaminated food , water, or through contact with faecal matter. Cholera can cause severe diarrhea and vomiting, and rapidly proves fatal, within hours, if untreated. But cholera is very simple to treat – rehydration is key.

“One adult male was unconscious [upon arrival to the facility]. Dehydration causes the body to go into shock. Doctors were resuscitating him, squeezing liters of fluids in his veins for about five minutes,” recalls Angela Giacomazzi, a Human Resource coordinator in Tanedba, about a patient who fortunately survived.

MSF teams are setting up oral rehydration points, trucking drinking water, constructing handwashing points and latrines, distributing hygiene kits and doing health promotion in the affected communities.In Darfur, where no cases have yet been registered, MSF teams are helping to improve cholera preparedness.

Unrestricted rapid access for staff and supplies

After nearly 17 months of challenges and obstructions around the provision of humanitarian assistance in Sudan, MSF calls on the warring parties to allow unhindered access for medical staff and supplies, to all the areas in need across Sudan, to enable a quick and coordinated response and prevent avoidable deaths.

“There is a risk of running out of essential supplies such as cholera kits in a moment when scaling up the response is urgently needed. We call on the authorities to fast-track and facilitate the delivery of supplies and drugs, as bureaucratic obstacles remain a major challenge,” says Katambula, MSF’s Medical Coordinator.

MSF Australia was established in 1995 and is one of 24 international MSF sections committed to delivering medical humanitarian assistance to people in crisis. In 2022, more than 120 project staff from Australia and New Zealand worked with MSF on assignment overseas. MSF delivers medical care based on need alone and operates independently of government, religion or economic influence and irrespective of race, religion or gender. For more information visit msf.org.au

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: Australia – CPSU MEDIA RELEASE: CPSU says IPSC Bill must be passed without delay

Source: Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU)

The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), which represents workers in Commonwealth Parliamentary workplaces and Members of Parliament staff, has called on Parliament to pass the legislation establishing the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission (IPSC).

The creation of the IPSC is one of the key recommendations of the Set the Standard report by former Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins.

The IPSC Bill will put in place an independent investigations and sanctions body to enforce consequences for bad behaviour from parliamentarians and staff.

Quotes attributable to CPSU National Secretary Melissa Donnelly:

“The CPSU is calling on the Federal Parliament to throw their full support behind the IPSC Bill.

“The establishment of the IPSC is essential to achieving safer parliamentary workplaces free from bullying, harassment, sexual harassment and assault, and discrimination.

“CPSU members have made significant contributions throughout this process – in speaking out on serious issues, and in shaping proactive measures to address them.

“The Set the Standard Report laid bare horrific instances of bullying, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and discrimination; it set out clear and practical measures to address unacceptable gaps in protections for staff in Commonwealth Parliamentary workplaces.

“The IPSC is the last big piece needed in the implementation of recommendations to make Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces safer, more respectful and professional.

“There needs to be real accountability for both parliamentarians and staff for bad behaviour.

“Workers in parliamentary workplaces have waited long enough for the IPSC to be established and there should be no more delays. Pass the Bill, let’s get this done.”

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: Economy – GlobalData raises global economic growth projection for 2024 to 2.52%

Source: GlobalData

The global economy is navigating through a complex landscape marked by persistent geopolitical tensions. Nevertheless, easing inflationary pressure, central bank rate cuts (including by the ECB), and stronger consumer spending are mitigating these issues.

Against this backdrop, GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, has revised the global economic growth forecast for 2024 to 2.52% in its Q3 2024 update, marking a slight increase of 0.05 percentage points (pp) from earlier projections in Q2 2024.

In the “Global Macroeconomic Outlook – Q3 2024 Update,” GlobalData has revised economic growth projections for the Americas and Europe upward. The Americas’ forecast increased by 0.11 pp to 2.16%, driven by strong consumer spending, easing inflation, and rising real incomes. Increased private domestic business investments are also expected to support the region’s economic resilience.

Europe’s growth projection rose by 0.21 pp to 1.38%, supported by higher real disposable incomes from stable wage growth and lower inflation, along with the recent ECB rate cuts, which are expected to stimulate the economic activity.

Conversely, forecasts for the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region and the Middle East & Africa (MEA) were reduced by 0.08 and 0.25 pps, respectively, to 2.59% and 3.57%. In MEA, the ongoing conflicts, oil market volatility, and shipping disruptions hinder the growth. For APAC, China’s economic slowdown, domestic challenges, and geopolitical tensions contributed to the downward revision.

Arnab Nath, Associate Project Manager, Economic Research Team at GlobalData, comments: “The slight upward revision in the global growth forecasts for 2024 reflects cautious optimism amid persistent geopolitical tensions. The resilience of key economies, including the US, which witnessed economic growth of 3% on an annual basis in Q2 2024 up from 1.4% in Q1, and the Eurozone, which achieved its strongest expansion in over a year at 0.6% in Q2 2024, contributes to this positive outlook.

“Gradual recoveries in the emerging markets will further bolster the projections. The major central banks, including the ECB, have commenced rate cuts, with the US Federal Reserve anticipated to follow suit, which may stimulate investments. However, central banks must tread carefully to avoid reigniting inflation or creating financial imbalance to ensure a balanced economic recovery.”

GlobalData forecasts the global inflation rate to decrease from 5.8% in 2023 to 4.5% in 2024, with a further decline to 3.7% anticipated by 2025. In 2024, the inflation rate is expected to decrease in all regions: the Americas, excluding Argentina and Venezuela (dropping to 5% in 2024 from 7.5% in 2023), Asia-Pacific (decreasing to 5% from 6.9%), Europe (declining to 4.3% from 7.8%), and the Middle East and Africa (falling to 22.1% from 27%).

Easing price pressure boosted the economic sentiment in major economies. According to GlobalData analysis using data from OECD, between January and June 2024, consumer and business confidence have risen considerably compared to the average of the previous six months in major economic groups, including the G20 and G7 countries. The rise in consumer confidence indicates robust consumer spending potential, which could bolster domestic demand and economic resilience.

Meanwhile, global political shifts indicated by the 2024 election cycle will have economic implications, including changes in trade policies, regulatory frameworks, and market stability. Far-right gains in Europe could result in protectionist measures, affecting international trade.

In South Korea and the UK, liberal victories may bring reforms that encourage foreign investment and market liberalization. Declining support for ruling parties in India and South Africa suggests potential instability, while voter dissatisfaction in Russia and Bangladesh signals economic uncertainty in these regions. These changes are likely to test global economic resilience.

Nath concludes: “While global growth is expected to remain stable, varying regional dynamics and persistent risks from geopolitical tensions may significantly shape the economic outlook for 2024 and 2025, necessitating careful observation of policy shifts and market trends.”

Notes

Quotes provided by Arnab Nath, Associate Project Manager, Economic Research Team at GlobalData
The information is based on GlobalData’s latest report: Global Macroeconomic Outlook – Q3 2024 Update (ref. https://www.globaldata.com/store/report/global-pestle-macroeconomic-analysis/?utm_source=cision&utm_medium=press%20release&utm_campaign=gd_press%20release_cision_bf_global%20economy_report )

About GlobalData

4,000 of the world’s largest companies, including over 70% of FTSE 100 and 60% of Fortune 100 companies, make more timely and better business decisions thanks to GlobalData’s unique data, expert analysis, and innovative solutions, all in one platform. GlobalData’s mission is to help our clients decode the future to be more successful and innovative across a range of industries, including the healthcare, consumer, retail, financial, technology, and professional services sectors.

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: Asia Pacific – Singapore contributes to regional health emergency readiness through achieving Emergency Medical Team classification

Source: World Health Organization (WHO)

SINGAPORE, 12 September 2024 – Singapore’s Emergency Medical Team (EMT), known as SGEMT, today joined the ranks of quality-assured EMT, prepared for self-sufficient and high-quality response to a wide range of health emergencies. This builds on years of work by Singapore’s government to support emergency response regionally and globally. The classification followed two days of intense evaluation by a team of expert peer reviewers from EMTs in China and Thailand, along with EMT experts from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Ensuring that Singapore is now able to deploy emergency responders to outbreaks or emergency events anywhere in the world, reflects the country’s commitment to advancing health security. SGEMT’s operational readiness reflects a whole-of-government effort that involves collaboration across multiple departments: health services, crisis strategy and operations, foreign affairs, military and civil defence forces.

WHO’s EMT Global Classification is a quality assurance mechanism, using external peer review to assess compliance against international principles and standards. The process ensures that emergency medical teams are composed of trained team members, have appropriate equipment, are fully self-sufficient, and are well-integrated within national health systems when deployed for emergency response. This mechanism enables safe and high-quality medical care to be provided during public health emergencies are well-integrated within local health systems. This quality assurance mechanism enables the highest quality of medical care to be administered during any public health emergency.

Enabling a network of emergency workforce across borders

Members of classified emergency medical teams form an integral part of the global health emergency workforce, comprising a network of trained and equipped emergency responders that can surge when required and requested by affected countries. The EMT Initiative, hosted by WHO, aligns with global efforts to standardize quality and enhance interoperability between national, regional, and global emergency workforce capacities.

EMT classification advances WHO’s Global Health Emergency Corps (GHEC) vision of a trained health emergency workforce centred in countries and coordinated regionally, as well as globally. GHEC provides a uniformly trained and globally connected emergency workforce corps that can effectively respond, as one cohesive unit, during a health emergency.

Reiterating the value of global health emergency corps, Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific, noted: “In our interconnected world, efforts to build national emergency workforce capacities, simultaneously advance global health security. Initiatives like Emergency Medical Teams, ensure that countries are ready to respond with their own national emergency workforce during an emergency, and that they can access trusted networks of emergency responders across borders, when required.”

The COVID-19 pandemic drove home the need for all countries to have emergency response capacities, a highly trained national workforce and access to essential technology and equipment. Through the Global Health Emergency Corps (GHEC) collaborations between surge capacities such as emergency medical teams and rapid response teams, and other emergency response networks such as the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) expand countries’ capacities to diagnose faster and treat quicker.

With the classification of the Singapore EMT, the Western Pacific now hosts 13 of 41 internationally classified EMTs, and national teams have been developed in nearly every Member State across the Region, from Mongolia in the far north to New Zealand in the south, and in both the largest and smallest countries. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, WHO Representative to Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, and Singapore, who attended the EMT verification process shared: “EMTs form a crucial resource for countries in the Western Pacific and the world at large that require deployable clinical capacity to reach remote and emergency-affected communities.” EMTs in the Region have supported multiple emergency response efforts, including for COVID-19, measles outbreaks, cyclones, earthquakes and even a volcanic eruption and tsunami.

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: Australia – Tools, ties and taverns: early Father’s Day boosts household spending in August – CBA

Source: Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA)

The CommBank Household Spending Insights Index saw the impact of energy rebates lower spending on Utilities, while university and school fees drove up Education spending.

The CommBank Household Spending Insights (HSI) Index rose by 1.8 per cent in August to 154.3 as consumers splurged in the lead-up to an early Father’s Day.

Ten of the 12 spending categories rose in the month, with Hospitality (+5.2 per cent) and Household Goods (+4.4 per cent) leading the way as consumers spoilt Dad at hardware stores, department stores and men’s clothing stores. Restaurants, pubs, taverns and bars and event hire saw a jump in spending in August.

University and school fees paid in August led to a jump in spending on Education (+3.6 per cent), while Food & Beverage goods (+1.2 per cent), Household Services (+1.8 per cent), and spending on Motor Vehicles (+1.4 per cent) also rose.

The annual pace of spending in the year to August remains subdued at 3.7 per cent for the year.

“An early Father’s Day boosted spending in August as consumers appear to have lifted spend on household goods, while hospitality venues also saw people open their wallets during the month. The last time Father’s Day fell so early in the year spending retreated in September, which is worth keeping in mind as the annual spending rate still suggests a relatively weak consumer,” CBA Chief Economist Stephen Halmarick said.

The biggest spending falls in the month were Utilities (-0.3 per cent) and Transport (-0.3 per cent) as government rebates on electricity and lower petrol prices offered some relief to consumers. This led to notable shifts in spending across home ownership status as renters saw an uptick in the annual rate of spending to 1.3 per cent, while those with a mortgage (+2.8 per cent) and outright owners (+1.8 per cent) saw a slowdown in spending compared to July.

“For the first time in August we saw the impact of the various government electricity rebates on wallets which can be seen by the decreased spending on utilities. This, coupled with increased education spend, impacted spending across home ownership categories as we saw a jump in spending by renters likely due to university fees, while outright owners benefited from reduced spend on utilities as this is typically a larger share of their wallet,” Mr Halmarick said.

“While the earlier timing of Father’s Day has added some complexity to the data, we still anticipate that softer economic conditions, easing inflation, and rate cuts by other central banks will prompt the RBA to lower interest rates later in 2024. However, there is a possibility of delays pushing this into early 2025.”

The CommBank HSI Index tracks month-on-month data at a macro level and is based on de-identified payments data from approximately 7 million CBA customers, comprising roughly 30 per cent of all Australian consumer transactions.

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: African Youth Urged to Embrace Engineering to drive development

Source: Media Fast

“Africa’s future depends on its youth embracing engineering, which lies at the core of solving the continent’s most pressing challenges” – Eng. Maureen Mwaniki, Director of Public Affairs and Policy at Huawei Kenya.

September 13, 2024 – Africa’s youth have been called upon to embrace engineering as a key driver of development and innovation across the continent.

Speaking at the 10th annual UNESCO Africa Engineering Week – High-Level Workshop held in Nairobi – Kenya on September 12, 2024, Eng. Maureen Mwaniki, Director of Public Affairs and Policy at Huawei Kenya, said the shortage of engineers in Africa, and the rest of the world was a cause for concern.

“There has been declining interest in the profession from the youth, with the enrolment of young people, especially women in the profession dwindling. The continent is facing a situation where there are a lot of older more experienced engineers, but not enough young candidate engineers entering the profession. Our ability to sustain the profession lies in the number of young people choosing engineering as a career,” Eng. Mwaniki said.

She noted that Africa’s future depends on its youth embracing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education, particularly engineering, which lies at the core of solving the continent’s most pressing challenges.

“The growing need for infrastructure, clean energy, and climate resilience offers a unique opportunity for engineers to shape Africa’s path toward sustainable growth. But more efforts need to be put in attracting younger people, especially women, to the profession,” Eng. Mwaniki said.

“Women, in particular, need to step out of their comfort zones and grab the opportunities that are offered by companies such as Huawei. Programs like Seeds for the future, ICT Competition, Women Collaboration programs with our partners, etc will help expose the Women Engineers to advanced technologies that can enable them to create solutions for their country.”

The Africa Engineering Week provides a platform for government representatives, industry leaders, and academia to discuss policy frameworks and partnerships that can accelerate engineering education and innovation on the continent.

Celebrated across the region every year, UNESCO Africa Engineering Week promotes engineering solutions and awareness among students, society and policy-makers. It aims to inspire and educate youth and the public on the vital role of engineers in societies.

This year’s edition is hosted by the Ordem dos Engenheiros de Angola in Luanda, Angola, and organised jointly by UNESCO, the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) and the Federation of African Engineering Organisations (FAEO).

It will include the 8th Africa Engineering Conference, the 7th Africa Women Engineers Forum, the Young Engineers Forum and a Business-to-Business (B2B) session. These events will focus on sustainability and innovative infrastructures; engineering and acceleration of African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) implementation; and engineering education and capacity building.

“This year’s theme, ‘Engineering and for Sustainable Development’, highlights the urgent need for technical solutions to address challenges such as climate change, infrastructure development, and digital transformation,” Eng. Mwaniki said.

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: Sudan – Catastrophic situation in Zamzam camp, Sudan: every effort must be made to finally deliver food, medicines and essential supplies to blockaded and starved communities

Source: Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

16 September – As the results of a nutrition screening carried out by the Sudanese health authorities and Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) earlier this month in Zamzam camp, North Darfur, indicate a catastrophic nutritional situation that is only getting worse, MSF urges the UN and international stakeholders involved in negotiating broader humanitarian access to consider all options to quickly deliver food and essential supplies in the area, including by airdrops.

“Not only do the results confirm the disaster that we and other stakeholders have been observing and alerting on for months, they also indicate that every day things are getting worse and we’re running out of time” adds Michel Olivier Lacharité, head of emergency operations for MSF. “We are talking about thousands of children who will die over the next few weeks without access to adequate treatment and urgent solutions to allow humanitarian aid and essential goods to reach Zamzam”.

Despite announcement that gave hope for positive developments, for instance following the Geneva peace talks, no significant amount of humanitarian relief has reached the population in the Zamzam camp and the nearby, war-stricken city of El-Fasher since the IPC Famine Review Committee concluded that famine conditions were prevalent in the area on 1 August this year. Most supply roads are controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who have made it all but impossible to bring therapeutic food, medicines and essential supplies into the camp since the intensification of fighting around El Fasher last May.

There’s no more time to waste if thousands of preventable deaths are to be avoided. Among the more than 29,000 children under five years old screened last week during a vaccination campaign in Zamzam camp, 10.1 percent suffer from severe acute malnutrition (SAM), a life-threatening condition, while 34.8 percent suffer from global acute malnutrition (GAM), which will evolve into more severe form of malnutrition if not treated effectively and in timely fashion.

“The malnutrition rates found during the screening are massive and likely some of the worst ones in the world currently. It’s even more terrifying as we know from experience the results are often underestimated in the area when we use only the mid-upper arm circumference criteria like we did here instead of combining it with measuring weight and height” explains Claudine Mayer, MSF medical referent.

An MSF mass screening carried out in March 2024 had revealed an 8.2 percent SAM rate and a 29.4 percent GAM rate, which was already twice as high as the 15 percent alert threshold of the World Health Organisation.

The only food available is from pre-existing stocks, which is not sufficient for people living in the area, and food prices are at least three times as high as in the rest of Darfur. Fuel prices are soaring as well, making it very difficult to pump water and run clinics that rely on generators for electricity. Our staff on site report that for many, it’s impossible to rely on more than one meal per day.

“In such a dire situation, we should be scaling up our response: instead, running critically low on supplies, we are reaching breaking point and were recently forced to reduce our activity to focus solely on children in the most severe conditions” says Claudine Mayer. “This means we had to suspend treatment for the less severe forms of malnutrition, who represented an active cohort of 2.700 children, and to put an end to consultations provided to adults and children over five years old, who represented thousands of consultations every month”.

Zamzam camp is estimated to host between 300.000 and 500.00 people, many of them displaced many times over, who are trying to flee the war that has been tearing up their country since last year. In El Fasher, where many of the displaced used to live, only one hospital remains partially standing after the others were damaged or destroyed in the conflict.

“Due to these unconscionable blockages on supplies, we feel like we are leaving behind an increasing number of patients who already have very few options for getting lifesaving medical care” adds Michel Olivier Lacharité. “If the roads are not an option for getting massive quantities of urgent supplies into the camp, the United Nations should look at every available option. Delaying these supplies meaning causing more deaths – thousands of them, among the most vulnerable.”

MSF Australia was established in 1995 and is one of 24 international MSF sections committed to delivering medical humanitarian assistance to people in crisis. In 2022, more than 120 project staff from Australia and New Zealand worked with MSF on assignment overseas. MSF delivers medical care based on need alone and operates independently of government, religion or economic influence and irrespective of race, religion or gender. For more information visit msf.org.au

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: Russia – MSF-Netherlands is instructed to deregister in the Russian Federation and consequently has to close its programmes in the country

Source: Médecins Sans Frontières/ Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

Moscow/ Amsterdam, 17 September 2024: Thirty-two years after starting work in the Russian Federation, Médecins Sans Frontières/ Doctors Without Borders (MSF) had to close its operations in the country.

“It is with a heavy heart that we have to close our activities in the Russian Federation,” says Yashovardhan, head of MSF programmes in the country. “Our organisation’s work is guided by the principles of independence, impartiality and neutrality and medical ethics, we provide assistance based on the needs.”

In August this year, we received a letter from the Ministry of Justice of Russia, with the decision to withdraw the affiliate office of the non-profit association ‘Médecins Sans Frontières’ (Netherlands) in the Russian Federation from the Register of affiliate and representative offices of foreign NGOs.

The international humanitarian medical organisation had been present in Russia since 1992. For more than 30 years, we successfully implemented dozens of programmes, ranging from assistance to the homeless to emergency response to the collaborative work with the Ministry of Health in the innovative tuberculosis treatment. We worked in various regions of the country: in Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Kemerovo region, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan and – more recently – in the Arkhangelsk and Ivanovo regions as well as in the south of Russia in Belgorod and Rostov-on-Don.

A significant part of the history of MSF in Russia and the region was linked to the implementation of advanced approaches to the treatment of tuberculosis. MSF has collaborated with medical academic community of Russia and other countries in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia to extend effective, innovative treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR TB) to patients in penitentiary and civil sectors across the region.

In 2004-2017, we worked in close partnership with the Chechen Ministry of Health (MoH), providing technical and advisory support to the local health authorities in the treatment of drug-sensitive and drug-resistant tuberculosis in the Chechen Republic. The programme covered different aspects of TB diagnostics, treatment, laboratory services and health education, as well as adherence counselling and psychosocial support for patients and their families. In 2014, MSF supported MoH in introducing new treatment regimens for patients with extensively drug-resistant TB which yielded impressive results giving hope to patients who previously had no treatment options left.

In 2021, MSF and local health authorities of the Arkhangelsk region in the north of Russia started successful implementation of a nine-month all-oral course of treatment for DR TB. 173 patients were enrolled on this treatment regimen. And later, in 2023, we started enrolling patients on an even shorter – just six months-long – all-oral treatment course that was recommended by the World Health Organization in the updated treatment guidelines in late 2022.

In Arkhangelsk and starting from 2024 in Ivanovo, MSF was providing expertise and technical assistance to health authorities with a special emphasis on implementing new treatment regimens and enhancing patients’ adherence and integrating person-centred care. To date, 41 patients in the Arkhangelsk and Ivanovo regions started treatment for DR TB within this joint programme. The aim of the collaboration was to contribute to the evidence base for more effective – less toxic, person-centred – treatment with a view to scale up these scientifically proven treatment protocols in Russia.

In Moscow and St Petersburg since 2020, MSF partnered with two community-based NGOs to support access to general healthcare, as well as testing and treatment for infectious diseases, for people living with HIV and other vulnerable groups, such as migrants, who otherwise struggle to obtain medical assistance. Over 14,000 medical consultations were supported for patients from these vulnerable groups.

Since the escalation of the armed conflict in Ukraine in 2022, many people have sought safety in Russia, and MSF in partnership with local NGOs in the Belgorod and Rostov regions in the south of Russia started providing assistance to those who crossed into Russia from Ukraine and later – with the development of the situation – internally displaced people. Since the start of our response in 2022, more than 52,000 refugees and displaced people were provided with humanitarian aid and more than 15,400 received free medical, mental health and psychosocial support.

As part of this partnership, we were also planning to respond to the humanitarian and medical needs of the internally displaced people in the Kursk region. MSF continues to stand in solidarity with people impacted by this conflict and remain steadfast in our commitment to provide humanitarian assistance to those in need, irrespective of what side of the front line they are on, should the necessary conditions for our work be provided by relevant authorities.

“We would like to take the opportunity to thank all our colleagues in Russia for their hard work and commitment to humanitarian values we hold high as an organisation,” says Norman Sitali, MSF Operations Manager responsible for programmes in Russia. “We are very sad to conclude our programmes in the country as many people in Russia in need of medical and humanitarian assistance will now be left without the support we could have provided to them. MSF would like to still work in Russia again if and when possible”.

MSF Australia was established in 1995 and is one of 24 international MSF sections committed to delivering medical humanitarian assistance to people in crisis. In 2022, more than 120 project staff from Australia and New Zealand worked with MSF on assignment overseas. MSF delivers medical care based on need alone and operates independently of government, religion or economic influence and irrespective of race, religion or gender. For more information visit msf.org.au

MIL OSI – Submitted News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Submissions: Business and Tech – 25 Disruptive Technology Startups Join Morgan Stanley Inclusive Ventures Lab’s 10th Cohort
Source: Morgan Stanley

Tenth Lab cohort includes 25 disruptive technology and technology-enabled startups from the Americas and EMEA

Five-month accelerator program to provide founders with $250,000 (£250,000) investment, as well as mentorship and business-growth resources

117 companies have participated in the Lab to date.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) today announced the 2024 global cohort of the Inclusive Ventures Lab, with 25 companies selected from the Americas and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Over the next five months, the companies will participate in an in-house accelerator program designed to further develop and scale technology and technology-enabled startups in the seed to Series A funding round stage.

Chosen from thousands of applications, the 25 startups represent a range of disruptive technologies across industries such as Climate Tech, Retail, Healthcare, FinTech, SaaS, Enterprise Software, Consumer and Travel – with many incorporating AI and sustainability into their products and services. Cohort companies will receive a $250,000 investment (£250,000 in EMEA) from Morgan Stanley, as well as a variety of mentorship opportunities, a tailored entrepreneurship curriculum and business-growth resources from the firm’s ecosystem of internal and external partners.

“In today’s challenging venture capital environment, we are proud to welcome our largest cohort of groundbreaking startups to the Inclusive Ventures Lab and are eager to support them as they scale their innovations and work to build a better world,” said Selma Bueno, Global Head of the Morgan Stanley Inclusive Ventures Group. “Each year since the Inclusive Ventures Lab’s launch in 2017, we have expanded our efforts to ensure that more entrepreneurs around the world can succeed – and this year is no different.”

The companies selected to participate in the 2024 cohort include the following:

Agri-Trak digitizes small farm operations with a smart platform for real-time labor, crop yield and cost tracking to optimize productivity, sustainability and profitability (US)

Beta Financial provides a transparent and comprehensive small business credit scoring solution, fostering financial inclusion and access to capital through innovative AI-driven technology (US)

Blip Energy is building a drop-in distributed energy resource to mitigate surging peak demand, optimize energy costs for users and reduce operating costs for utilities (US)

Compare Ethics is an AI-powered sustainability compliance platform that reduces costs by helping retail brands simplify, streamline and scale the way they make accurate green claims (UK)

Darent is a vacation rental marketplace platform in Saudi Arabia for travelers to search for properties with a focus on local experiences, a secure payment system and property insurance for hosts (Saudi Arabia)

For The Creators is an omni-channel circular fashion marketplace where women can rent and buy high-quality clothing for each stage of motherhood (UK)

GroceryList is a marketplace connecting immigrants worldwide with local merchants across Latin America and the Caribbean, enabling them to purchase groceries and essentials for their loved ones back home (US)

HANX is a consumer platform bringing together medically designed women’s reproductive health products, prescription treatments and community-focused content (UK)

Hire Ground is a B2B software platform that enables enterprise buyers to source and manage third party vendors while optimizing their procurement process (US)

Infinite Giving is a fintech platform that enables nonprofits to raise money, manage their cash reserves, and conservatively invest and grow (US)

Juniver is a health company leveraging AI technology to provide personalized digital interventions for lasting eating disorder recovery (UK)

KSI Vision uses existing AI on store and shopping center security cameras to generate real-time customer data and increase sales conversion (Uruguay)

Mavity is an AI-powered operating system for design and marketing teams that connects companies with on-demand creatives to streamline asset creation (US)

MyARC is a platform that enables fitness content creators to train their fans at scale (UK)

NÜWIEL provides electric mobility solutions for the cities of today and tomorrow (Germany)

OVUM is a one-stop shop for fertility wellness, providing educational resources, products and services for improving fertility outcomes (UK)

Research Grid is an automation engine for admin-free clinical trials (UK)

Revere is reinventing how allocators manage their alternative asset portfolios through AI, workflow automation tools and custom reporting (US)

Route is a platform of business management tools for commercial cleaning companies to automate sales, streamline operations, build contractor relationships and connect the entire cleaning industry (US)

Sanarai connects the Latino community to mental health professionals in Latin America and the US to offer culturally sensitive, Spanish-language emotional support at accessible prices (US)

Soralink leverages AI and smart sensors to assist manufacturers in preventing critical machine failures (Canada)

Sortile provides the textile industry with a system that enables the identification, traceability and recycling of textiles (US)

SWYE360 Learning is a data analytics company that uses machine learning and AI in education to measure software efficacy and detect students at risk of dropping out (US)

Tendo Technologies addresses the challenges faced by aspiring online retail entrepreneurs in Africa by connecting independent resellers to suppliers (Ghana)

Zest Equity is digitizing private market transactions, building tools to streamline and ensure greater transparency in how entrepreneurs, funds and investors transact (UAE).

Programming will culminate in February 2025 with a global Demo Day, when participating companies will present to potential investors, business partners and customers. The investment firms in attendance at the last showcase represented over $40 billion of dry powder and indicated a high level of interest following the event.

About the Morgan Stanley Inclusive Ventures Lab
The Morgan Stanley Inclusive Ventures Lab (MSIVL) is an intensive five-month in-house accelerator program designed to help further develop and scale startups, culminating in a showcase presentation and Demo Day to the investor community. Morgan Stanley launched MSIVL, formerly called the Multicultural Innovation Lab, in 2017 in order to address inequities in funding of startup founders, which our research shows equals over four trillion dollars in unrealized returns.

About Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) is a leading global financial services firm providing a wide range of investment banking, securities, wealth management and investment management services. With offices in 42 countries, the Firm’s employees serve clients worldwide including corporations, governments, institutions and individuals. For further information about Morgan Stanley, please visit www.morganstanley.com.
MIL OSI – Submitted News –
September 29, 2024