Farmworkers in the Fair Food Program, the award-winning initiative of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers based in southwest Florida, have negotiated heat-safety rules on FFP farms that are judged to be the best in American agriculture. Under this scheme, “every worker takes a 10-minute break every two hours during the hottest part of the year.…(Read more)
Category: News
CAIDP Conference 2024 A Success
The 2024 conference of the Canadian Association of International Development Professionals in partnership with the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University was held from February 20 to 22 in Ottawa and online. The theme of the conference was Development Cooperation in a Time of Geopolitical Instability. The event featured excellent keynote addresses…(Read more)
Financial Solutions to the Marine Plastics Crisis in East Asia and the Pacific
A recent post by the International Finance Corporation highlighted an investment by Circulate Capital, a Singapore-based climate fund, in Union J Plus in Thailand, “a women-owned and led company that collects and recycles large volumes of domestic plastic waste in Thailand and converts it primarily into premium, food-grade polyolefin plastic”. The injection of capital “will…(Read more)
International Women’s Day 2024
UN Women’s theme for International Women’s Day 2024, on March 8, 2024, is Invest in Women, Accelerate Progress. Key areas of action, the agency says, include investing in gender equality as “the greatest human right challenge”; ending poverty; implementing gender-responsive financing; shifting to a green economy and care society; and supporting feminist changemakers. For more…(Read more)
Just Transition Finance: Pathways for Banking and Insurance
At COP 28 in Dubai, the Finance Initiative of the United Nations Environment Program and the International Labour Organization released a new report entitled Just Transition Finance: Pathways for Banking and Finance. Among other things, this guide for financial institutions to: “Tailor products to support place-based just transition priorities and invigorate local economies; promote investments…(Read more)
Sarah Thatcher is the 2023 Jackson Family Scholar
Sarah Thatcher, a student in the Masters in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership at Carleton University, has been named the 2023 Jackson Family Scholar. Established by Ted Jackson and Magda Seydegart in 2021, the Jackson Family Scholarship in Community Engagement supports recipients to carry out an impactful community-based project during their studies. Ms. Thatcher has launched…(Read more)
Disrupting Trust Fund Madness
In this opinion piece, Ted Jackson argues that multilateral development banks incentivize their staff for continuous and relentless fundraising to fill the coffers of their ever-increasing number of trust funds. Instead, MDB staff should be rewarded for reducing poverty and making communities fairer, cleaner, and safer on the ground in the Global South. Access the…(Read more)
Community Scholars Fund Launched to Recognize Budd Hall’s 80th Birthday
On October 20, 2023, the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria hosted a successful fundraiser to launch its new Community Scholars Fund. The event was held to celebrate the 80th birthday of Professor Budd Hall, who literally invented the term participatory research 50 years ago in Tanzania. The Community Scholars Fund will…(Read more)
US Department of Agriculture Prioritizes Worker-Driven Social Responsibility
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced its new Farm Labor Stabilization and Protections (FLSP) Pilot Program to address human rights violations against migrant farmworkers and to maintain a stable agricultural workforce. Under this pilot, employers that improve conditions in their supply chain through the protections of a worker-driven social responsibility program—like the Fair Food…(Read more)
Plastics Circularity Investment Tracker Identifies $160B in Private Investments
In early November 2023, The Circulate Initiative, a US non-profit, published the key global findings of its Plastics Circularity Investment Tracker, an online tool for investors. For the period 2018-2023, the tracker identified 3,700 investment deals around the world and USD 160 B worth of investments in upstream and downstream products and services, including materials,…(Read more)