121–130 of 151 posts
South Africa's case to the ICJ (a UN body) was largely based on presenting to the the judges what other UN bodies had already reported and concluded on Palestinian genocide. As in report after report…
It left the ICJ in a pickle: dismissing the case on a lack of evidence meant concluding that a lot of the UN was either incompetent or dishonest.
A smart legal strategy, regardless of one's political opinion on the matter.
Careers depend on not reading some reports :)
I work in this industry, a few scattered thoughts/explanations of how things work for the uninitiated. These figures are actually pretty decent compared to the World Bank, who did a similar exercise in 2014 and found just under a third of their reports were _never_ downloaded [1]. The article discusses _only_ UN Secretariat reports, which, to my understanding, excludes most agencies (e.g., UNICEF, UNHCR etc.). We're…
> it's best to think about them as a sort of parallel academic system
Doesn't this demonstrate the impotence of the current academic system (which is also very bureaucratic), as it shows that it isn't fit for purpose.
> some of it ... will be used by governments when developing their policy response
And therein lies the rub - gov'ts don't actually read them in order to learn, but to formulate responses that suit any and all biases that are currently in vogue. "Can you make the numbers say we need another coal plant" or "we found the recommendation to not reflect the wider social needs of the population" and so-on and so-forth
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who's done a lot of volunteering at soup kitchens and such as well as things like public policy research, my take is exactly opposite. Typical soup kitchen volunteering is pretty low impact. It's the first thing a lot of people think about when it comes to volunteering, and people like that they get to interact with the less fortunate. So they show up with their church group a few times, ladle some soup an…
Completely agree. The important corollary to that is that policy , in many cases, matters a lot more than boots on the ground (obviously good policy and manpower together are usually required). I've volunteered with a prominent animal rescue charity for over 2 decades. While the work does require a lot of people, after you do it long enough you quickly realize bad policy is a giant contributor. For example, Texas is…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
TFA suggests that the vast majority of UN reports are being downloaded less than 5000 times, and even assuming 1:1 download:read ratio, journalists and reporters are unlikely to be reading them and passing along the contents to you. Whether or not this is a problem is another matter; I took a quick skim through the first few pages of report listings in the UN digital library ( https://digitallibrary.un.org/search?cc=…
The point of a report is to provide a structured process and background for a set of technical or policy recommendations. It’d be perfectly normal for a report drafted by the efforts of 50 people to have an audience of 2-3 major decision makers - the point is the process for generating the recommendations. Further, it’d also be quite normal for a report on a specific topic to be used as an input to another process wh…
I think this is one of those things where you can really overthink it and convince yourself that "the report was read only once, by the one person who had to read it" is an ideal outcome, but really it isn't.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You expect the average person even to be able to read a research paper? Damn.
Not at all, which is why I wonder why the hell you'd ask a journalist!
I work in this industry, a few scattered thoughts/explanations of how things work for the uninitiated. These figures are actually pretty decent compared to the World Bank, who did a similar exercise in 2014 and found just under a third of their reports were _never_ downloaded [1]. The article discusses _only_ UN Secretariat reports, which, to my understanding, excludes most agencies (e.g., UNICEF, UNHCR etc.). We're…
Perhaps impact would be a better metric for assessing whether or not these 1000s of person-hours are well-spent. I suspect the conclusion would be same. > it's best to think about them as a sort of parallel academic system Doesn't this demonstrate the impotence of the current academic system (which is also very bureaucratic), as it shows that it isn't fit for purpose. > some of it ... will be used by governments when…
I wouldn't necessarily say it _demonstrates issues_ with the academic system, but there are definitely big problems with academia it shares. Lots of overlap in terms of its function and dysfunction for sure.
> gov'ts don't actually read them in order to learn, but to formulate responses that suit any and all biases that are currently in vogue
This is where the devil is in the details. So yes, absolutely, governments will chase fads/funding and cherry pick to suit their agenda, but "good" policy transfer does happen via the UN more often than some might think.
I live in a non-OECD country that's the target of a lot of recommendations via "the system". Here are a bunch of things I've seen happen here that I agree with that have been supported by this huge volume of reporting:
- maternity pay,
- permanent housing for internally displaced persons,
- an indoor smoking ban,
- proper driving tests and improved road safety laws,
- minimum standards in education (think, schools should have windows and functioning toilets),
- a land-ownership registry that vastly exceeds what's available in my (European) home country.
That's off the top of my head. It's a mixed bag, over many years, but it don't do nothing.
This is an institutional reflection of the individual tendency to talk about problems rather than solving them. Or, an important variant, where the urge to help those in need is expressed as directing them to "appropriate resources", which are also services that direct those seeking help to other appropriate resources, ad infinitum. The net result is a whole army of people who's expressed goal is to help people but w…
As someone who's done a lot of volunteering at soup kitchens and such as well as things like public policy research, my take is exactly opposite. Typical soup kitchen volunteering is pretty low impact. It's the first thing a lot of people think about when it comes to volunteering, and people like that they get to interact with the less fortunate. So they show up with their church group a few times, ladle some soup an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Completely agree. The important corollary to that is that policy , in many cases, matters a lot more than boots on the ground (obviously good policy and manpower together are usually required). I've volunteered with a prominent animal rescue charity for over 2 decades. While the work does require a lot of people, after you do it long enough you quickly realize bad policy is a giant contributor. For example, Texas is…
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