CODEPINK

This month’s Sustainable Development Goal the Local Peace Economy is working on is Sustained and inclusive economic growth can drive progress, create decent jobs for and improve living standards.

Roughly half of the world’s population, men and women who are working, but they are not earning enough to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. This is not just poor countries. “We should not forget that the majority of poor people do not live in the poorest countries; they live in Middle Income Countries.  If they don’t receive the support they need, the development prospects of heavily indebted Middle-Income Countries will be seriously compromised,” said  UN Secretary-General António Guterres  at a recent High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF). Countries met in the General Assembly Hall to examine how recovery policies can reverse the pandemic’s negative impacts on the common goal of creating a more equitable future for all people and the planet.

The answer is easy to a more equitable future for all people and the planet: business need to profit share and become employee owned. There were records profits for corporations during the pandemic, thanks to government money, yet workers share of the profits wasn’t enough to cover the rising costs of their bills. A report from the Brookings Institute found that while top retailers’ profits have “soared” during the coronavirus pandemic, pay for frontline workers has barely budged.  Continue reading →

The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is celebrated globally on 9 August. It marks the date of the inaugural session of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1982. This year’s theme: “The Role of Indigenous Women in the Preservation and Transmission of Traditional Knowledge”. Indigenous women are the backbone of indigenous peoples’ communities and play a crucial role in the preservation and transmission of traditional ancestral knowledge. They have an integral collective and community role as carers of natural resources and keepers of scientific knowledge. Many indigenous women are also taking the lead in the defense of lands and territories and advocating for indigenous peoples’ collective rights worldwide.

In the San Francisco Bay Area Sogorea Te’ Land Trust an urban Indigenous women-led land trust that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people.

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This month’s Sustainable Development Goal the Local Peace Economy is working on is #4 Quality Education: Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning.  Education enables upward socioeconomic mobility, is a key to escaping poverty and is crucial to fostering tolerance and more peaceful societies.

Over the past decade, major progress has been made towards increasing access to education and school enrollment rates at all levels, particularly for girls. Nevertheless, about 258 million children and youth were still out of school in 2018 — nearly one fifth of the global population in that age group. The global adult literacy rate (aged 15 years and older) was 86 per cent in 2018, while the youth literacy rate (15 to 24 years) was 92 per cent.

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June is national pollinator month and a great time to recognize the importance of pollinators.  NRCS has numerous programs and conservation practices to benefit habitat for many pollinators, including honeybees, native bees, butterflies and other pollinators.  To best support the creation and management of butterfly habitat, it’s important to understand the special needs of butterflies. Plant Materials Centers (PMCs) in western states are actively studying butterfly habitat development practices and producing useful tools for NRCS field offices regarding butterfly conservation.

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