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| NADEL Newsletter June 2022 |
Dear NADEL friends and alumni,
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become the new framework for inclusive development and global sustainability. Whereas most, if not all, organizations focusing on global inequality or environmental protection work with the SDGs on a daily basis, more than 50% of the Swiss population has never heard of them. Yet, the Swiss population cares deeply about global inequality as the first Switzerland-wide survey Swiss Panel Global Cooperation of ETH NADEL shows: Seven out of ten people are concerned about the level of global poverty, support an increase in financial support and might even support changing rules, e.g., of intellectual property, corporate conduct and taxation, in favor of people living in other parts of the world. In the fight against global poverty and inequality, Switzerland’s political leadership seems to be expected to be more ambitious, to do more, and to move faster by the population it represents.
For the NADEL team,
Fritz Brugger and Isabel Günther |
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| Survey: Switzerland's commitment to global poverty reduction |
| At the end of 2021, NADEL conducted the first Swiss Panel Global Cooperation survey with 2,800 people to study the opinion of the population towards global inequality and development cooperation. It shows that the Swiss population is concerned about global poverty – and strongly supports Swiss engagement. More than 50% of respondents support an increase in Swiss development cooperation; when made aware of the current spending of 350-400 Swiss francs per inhabitant, which most overestimate, the support increases to around 70%. The survey also shows that the majority of respondents support political measures to combat poverty, such as a temporary waiver of intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines, regardless of the possible economic costs (70%). Most respondents (80%) also report being privately engaged in issues of global poverty – and most often rely on the Swiss media (83%) for information about living realities around the world. The Swiss Panel Global Cooperation will be carried out annually until 2030. All the results can be found here: |
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| Course 12.–16. Sep. 2022: VET between poverty alleviation and economic development |
| In recent years, there has been increasing international interest in vocational education and training (VET). The discussion about the success factors of VET and the extent to which dual VET can offer advantages to low-income countries is still ongoing. Switzerland, with its own unique VET system, has a long tradition of supporting VET programs and systems around the world. From 12.-16.9.2022, an ETH NADEL online course will provide an overview of the systems of vocational education and training, opportunities as well as implications and constraints. At the end, participants will have strengthened their competence in VET management, skills development and labor market policies. |
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| Nature publication: When physical distancing becomes impossible |
| Most countries have responded to the Covid-19 pandemic with a series of public health policies, including recommendations for physical distancing. But is it possible to comply with distancing rules everywhere in the world? Isabel Günther, Kenneth Harttgen, and researchers from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) and the University of Innsbruck tackled this question in an interdisciplinary research project developing a physical distancing index (PDI). Their analysis, recently published in Nature Communications, shows that households often lack the most basic infrastructure – private water, sanitation, transport, communication and space – to comply with distancing rules. However, considerable differences were found between the 34 countries examined as well as within countries. A high-resolution risk map provides insights into which areas of a country are least capable of complying with distancing and thus, may experience a faster spread of diseases. The results can help governments target their investments in certain regions, thus supporting pandemic response and prevention. |
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| NADEL dissertation: Towards responsible gold supply chains |
| Congratulations to Antoinette van der Merwe for her doctoral dissertation and successful defense on the gold supply chain from the miner in Burkina Faso to the consumer in Switzerland. Antoinette’s dissertation offers important new lessons for more responsible gold trading and consumption. She finds that artisanal mines have a large potential to alleviate poverty, but that local gold markets are vulnerable to external economic shocks, like the Covid-19 pandemic. Artisanal mines are dangerous working environments, which Antoinette finds could be improved by giving miners access to proper personal protective equipment and training. For Switzerland, Antoinette collected almost a thousand old mobile phones for recycling in a field experiment, which gave important insights about how to motivate the Swiss to return the estimated 6.5 million unused mobile phones lying around in their drawers. As a next step, Dr. Antoinette van der Merwe will move her research activities from Zurich, Switzerland to Pretoria, South Africa. |
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| Public debate on 22 July 2022: Equitable energy transition in light of global crises |
| From record lows to all-time highs, energy markets have seen it all throughout the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. To close this year’s course on Natural Resource Governance and Energy Transition, ETH NADEL and the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) invite you to an online public debate on 22.July 2022, 2 pm CET, discussing the potential implications of global crises on an equitable energy transition in natural resource-producing countries. What perspectives do state-owned enterprises, civil society and academia share or dispute when it comes to the effects of the war in Ukraine and the Covid-19-pandemic on resource-dependent countries around the world? With Linda Tamakloe (Ghana National Petroleum Company GNPC), Paul Stevens (University of Dundee), Ana Tamborrel (Climate Initiative Mexico ICM), moderated by Ana-Carolina Gonzalez (NRGI). |
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| New NADEL member: Welcome to Dr. Medinat Abdulazeez Malefakis |
In July, Dr. Medinat Abdulazeez Malefakis will join NADEL as a Senior Lecturer, after having been a Research Fellow at ETH Collegium Helveticum and a conflict and humanitarian displacement information analyst at the Norwegian Refugee Council in Geneva. Her focus areas at NADEL will be conflict, terrorism, peacebuilding, humanitarian displacement, and development cooperation in fragile contexts. Medinat’s professional work and academic research have focused, among other topics, on Boko Haram’s terrorism in the Lake Chad Basin of West Africa, Northern Ethiopian conflict, social media and the #EndSARS conflict in Nigeria, as well as reintegration and rehabilitation of conflict victims. In her free time, Medinat enjoys analyzing soccer and baking. You can follow Medinat on
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