Monthly Archives: October 2017

The Rohingya crisis is getting more pertinent and is a pressing matter that needs to be sorted out quickly. The purpose of this brief is to briefly analyze how this crisis escalated to the level it has.

To a large extent, it can be said that the Rohingya crisis has risen due to foreign policy failure, of key states. The Rohingya’s have been classified as an ethnic minor in Myanmar for a long time and have been persecuted. Even though, the international community noticed that they were victimized under the Buddhist-majority there was no call to action made.

Foreign policy towards Myanmar from the international community should have considered having significant pressure on Myanmar, to include the Rohingya with proper status and respect into the system. The refugee problem that has risen has also shown the weakness of the neighboring countries as well. As they are not able to and/or want to deal with the influx of people within their borders. The issue of providing shelter, food etc arises, the more complex and stringent the neighboring countries will get.

Additionally, “Washington already had restrictions on its engagement with Myanmar’s armed forces, as well as a long-running embargo on all military sales, and the withdrawal of military aid serves to reinforce that position” (The Guardian). Having said that, the US also needs to apply pressure to the regional actors in order to instigate action in dealing with the refugee crisis.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/24/us-withdraws-assistance-from-myanmar-military-amid-rohingya-crisis#img-1

The Sustainable Development Goal 16 aims to “promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive societies for sustainable development” (Sustainable Development). This goal targets a lot of different themes and relates them to sustainable development. The complexity of this goal is that it is trying to tackle important themes all within the same sphere. For the purpose of this blog, there would a focus on the security and peace implications all the above listed themes provide, and vice versa.

In the past few decades security threats, particularly with regards to terrorism has been the key to the hindered growth of the developing world. I will take the case for Pakistan as a prime example for this blog post. Security threats, whether they are sectarian or terrorist have undermined Pakistan’s ability to grow at the rate it has potential for. Additionally, poor institutions and governance levels lead to corruption, which in effect manage to undermine the society’s ability to prosper as corrupt politicians and civil service do not provide the services they are hired for. This leads to the question of accountability, which usually is push back and forth between different institutions and levels in a hierarchy. In the case of many developing nations it can be seen that power resides in the hands of a few, who are for the sake of maintaining power will not let institutional reforms take place. This prevents their power from being questioned and undermined. Therefore, it can be said that for the SDG 16, the key challenge is to break the current norm and structure in many societies so that they may become cohesive and effective, particularly with regards to the judicial system.  It is noted, “progress with respect to the rule of law and access to justice is mixed” (Sustainable Development). This indicates that more focus needs to be placed on actively working on respecting and implementing the rule of law.

Having analyzed the different elements of SDG16 it can be said that the goal is trying to accommodate a range of different issues into one. By doing so, the challenge is of effectively working on every aspect. The UN needs to make sure that they can effectively assess the success of the signatories of the SDG.

The implications of UBC’s transportation program are quite apparent. As a new student and resident at the campus, I have noticed that a large proportion of the people walk, bike or use transit to get around UBC and Vancouver. As someone who is new to using public transport on a daily basis, it is refreshing to see how it is actively encouraged. Moreover, having a student U-Pass program has further assisted in reducing the traffic and has encouraged students to take the public transport.

Having said that, there are certain elements of transportation that UBC should further look into and evaluate. One of the imperative elements that the university needs to look into is parking spots for commuters. Despite having a few parkades around campus, there are still not sufficient spots. What further adds to the struggle for parking is that students need to fee for parking. There is an understanding that having few parkades and a fee on parking spots should encourage the use of public transport. However this is not practical for people living in greater Vancouver area, as the commute time via use of transit is significantly longer. In addition, other modes of transportation such as carpooling are not preferred as it is not as convenient as it sounds.

(Source: UBC Vancouver Transportation Status Report Fall 2016 – Campus and …)