Google Women Techmakers Scholarship Program 2019/2020 for Women in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)

Application Deadline: 6th December 2018 11:59 pm GMT.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Women from Europe, the Middle East and Africa

To be taken at: Universities in Europe, the Middle East and Africa

Eligible Subject Areas: Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Informatics or a closely related technical field

About the Award: Dr. Anita Borg devoted her adult life to revolutionising the way we think about technology and dismantling barriers that keep women and minorities from entering computing and technology fields. She proposed the “50/50 by 2020” initiative, so that women earning computing degrees would be 50% of the graduates by year 2020. However, the percentage of Computer Science degrees earned by women is still far from 50% throughout the world.
As part of Google’s ongoing commitment to furthering Anita’s vision, Google is proud to honor Anita’s memory and support women in technology with the Women Techmakers Scholars Program (formerly the Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship).
Through the scholarship, Google aim to encourage women to excel in computing and technology, and become active role models and leaders.

Type: Bachelors, Masters, PhD

Selection Criteria: Multiple scholarships will be awarded based on the strength of candidates’ academic performance, leadership experience and demonstrated passion for computer science.

Who is qualified to apply? To be eligible to apply, applicants must:

• Currently be enrolled at an accredited university for the 2018-2019 academic year
• Intend to be enrolled in or accepted as a full-time or part-time student in a Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD program at a university in Europe, Middle East or Africa for the 2019-2020 academic year
• Be studying computer science, computer engineering, informatics or a closely related technical field
• Demonstrate a strong academic record
• Exemplify leadership and demonstrate passion for increasing the involvement of women in Computer Science

Number of Scholarships:  Not specified

Value of Scholarship:

• The scholarship recipients will each receive a €7,000 (or equivalent) scholarship.
• A retreat opportunity to connect with fellow scholars and Google mentors, while participating in professional and personal development trainings and workshops.
• An online network with fellow scholars program participants designed to share resources, support the global community of women in tech and collaborate on projects to make continued impact.

How to Apply: The Women Techmakers Scholarship is a one-time scholarship. While past applicants and finalists are encouraged to reapply, unfortunately, past recipients of any Google scholarship, including the Women Techmakers Scholarship and Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship, are not eligible to apply.
Complete the online application and submit all requested documents by 6th December 2018. The following application documents must be in English.

• General background information (includes contact information and information about your current and intended institutions)
• Current resume
• Academic transcripts from your current and prior institutions (if you have earned a prior degree)
• One letter of reference from a professor, instructor, adviser or supervisor
• Responses to five essay questions

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details

Sponsors: Google

UN expert advises Sri Lankan government about social impact of austerity measures

Saman Gunadasa

UN Human Rights Council official Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky ended a nine-day visit to Sri Lanka earlier this month. Bohoslavsky, whose job title is “UN Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and human rights,” offers “advice” to indebted governments in less developed countries.

Bohoslavsky’s visit and his preliminary “end of mission” statement are an indication of international concern about growing popular opposition to Colombo’s implementation of International Monetary Fund (IMF) dictated austerity measures. According to the Central Bank, Sri Lanka will have to pay $4 billion per year until 2022 just to meet its current external debt liabilities.

In the past year, protests and strikes have involved railway, postal, health, power, university and plantation workers for higher wages and improved working conditions. Poor farmers and fishermen have also demonstrated against cut backs and increased fuel and production costs. University students are involved in ongoing protests, in particular against the privatisation of education.

Bohoslavsky called on the government to assess “the human rights impact of both its economic reform policies and infrastructure projects” and warned that “social spending should not be cut to repay growing debts.” Spending cuts, he said, “should at least be compensated through cash transfers targeting those in need.”

The UN expert said recent IMF directed “reforms” slashing energy and farming subsidies, “might have an adverse effect” on the livelihood of fishermen, farmers and rural communities. Electricity prices have been deregulated and the cost of fuel is determined by an automatic market-based formula. He also raised concerns about increases in the value added tax (VAT), which has been lifted to 15 percent on almost all goods and services. He noted that “the cost of such a tax is borne by the poorest part of the population.”

The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government’s fuel pricing formula has resulted in constant increases in petrol, diesel and kerosene prices. In May the government increased diesel from 95 rupees per litre to 110 rupees, and in July lifted it again to 118 rupees (about 73 US cents). The cost of services and products dependent on fuel has increased accordingly, directly impacting on the working masses.

The IMF has also ordered the government not to use the country’s foreign reserves to defend the exchange rate, thus allowing the fluctuations of global money markets to determine the value of the Sri Lankan rupee. As a result, the rupee has depreciated by 7.4 percent against the US dollar since the beginning of the year.

Bohoslavsky also referred to the government’s privatisation program and cautioned against the so-called public-private partnerships, particularly in the health and education sectors. He did not oppose privatisation as such, but declared that “public private partnerships should not replace the government’s primary obligation of ensuring the economic, social and cultural rights equally among everyone.”

Bohoslavsky referred to Sri Lanka’s endorsement of the “International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,” saying these rights should be incorporated into the country’s constitution and protected by the judiciary. Such proclamations are hot air. The equal distribution of “economic, social and cultural rights” is impossible under the capitalist profit system.

Bohoslavsky’s findings on micro financing highlighted the predatory nature of finance capital and its local representatives in providing small loans to the most oppressed sections of society. He said rural women were being particularly targeted in the war-ravaged parts of the country with interest payments as high as 220 percent.

Some women, he said, had three or four outstanding loans from different lenders and were confronted with collectors who visited them on a virtual daily basis and would not leave their homes until they were paid. He learnt some borrowers had attempted to “donate” their kidneys and others were pressured for “sexual favours,” in exchange for outstanding instalments. This problem, he said, “is a state responsibility because the poor cannot be forced to pay for public goods via private microcredit.”

Bohoslavsky called for “human rights impact assessments” on large scale infrastructure projects. He noted that neither international lenders, such as World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the Japanese and Indian governments, nor the Sri Lankan government have carried out such assessments for power plant projects, the Hambantota port, the Mattala Airport or the Colombo outer expressway. These multi-billion dollar projects were initiated by the government in an attempt to attract foreign investment.

The UN expert called on the government to adopt “less harmful policy options” to deal with growing foreign debt. This included renegotiating the debt repayments and “boosting domestic demand through progressive tax reforms, expanding social benefits and increasing minimum wages”—options that will be rejected out of hand by Sri Lanka’s international creditors.

Bohoslavsky noted the government’s high military expenditure, which, more than nine years after the end of the protracted war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, continues to climb. He called on the government to “re-examine military spending.”

Since President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe came to power the defence budget has increased by 29 percent—from 225 billion rupees per year in 2015 to 290 billion rupees in 2018.

Colombo’s spending spree on the armed forces is connected to the ongoing military occupation of the North and East war-ravaged areas and government repression against an increasingly restive working class and the poor. The military and police have been mobilised against striking workers, including their deployment as strike breakers under essential service orders.

The purpose of Bohoslavsky’s mission was to warn the government, and international finance capital, that the worsening social conditions of the working people in Sri Lanka would lead to an inevitable social explosion.

The UN “expert” referred, in particular, to the “lack of unionisation” of the Sri Lankan work force which, he said, had resulted in the trade unions “losing the power to fulfil their traditional role of contributing to redistribution” of wealth.

In fact, the trade unions have been transformed into political control mechanisms that block the working class from defending their social rights, opening the way for escalating government attacks and ensuring that wealth continues to be “redistributed” to big business and the capitalist elite.

Bohoslavsky’s principal concern is that thousands of Sri Lankan workers have lost confidence in the trade unions and that the eruption of struggle outside union control is the real threat to capitalist rule on the island.

Costa Rican public-sector strike enters third week

Andrea Lobo

Costa Rican public-sector workers have begun the third week of their strike, after all the major trade union centrals called for an “indefinite strike” on September 10, for the first time since the 15-day strike against the privatization of telecommunications and utilities.

Following several months of major popular protests in Nicaragua against pension cuts and murderous repression, the persistent strike across the border in Costa Rica reflects a growing militancy of workers in the region against austerity policies and deteriorating living standards.

The strike demonstrates, above all, two developments: the unrelenting internationalization of the ongoing resurgence of workers’ struggles in the United States, South America, Europe and Asia; and the role of the trade union bureaucracies and their pseudo-left backers as the foremost obstacle to unite workers internationally and in the struggle against capitalism.

The trade unions have limited demands to remodeling a new tax bill and have channeled social anger behind “patriotic” and empty appeals to the most right-wing government in the country since World War I.

There was a manifest willingness of the trade union officials to end the strike from the start. Gilberto Cascante, president of the education-sector union ANDE, told the news media at 8 a.m. on September 10, “I hope [President] Carlos Alvarado understands that what people ask is to sit down and negotiate. That we are fighting for the rule of law.” He later added: “In an ideal world, we would be called at any time to talk, and we’ll be there.”

For his part, President Alvarado rejected any negotiations at the outset and sought to crush the strike by violently clearing roadblocks and rationing fuel from refineries, leading to over 40 arrests and at least one death. His government has requested the labor courts to declare the strike “illegal” and to sanction workers if they continue.

“The fiscal reform is a bitter drink, but it’s the only way to save the country,” he declared. To this, a striking garbage collector responded last week to the media: “They are taking from my pocket and my family, to buy rice and beans. While there are people with multi-million salaries, one goes humbly to work.” Polls carried out by the TV stations and the University of Costa Rica show that less than a quarter of the population supports the government in opposition to the strike.

The ruling Citizen’s Action Party (PAC) is now in its second term, leading a “National Unity” coalition with the traditional oligarchic parties and the pseudo-left Frente Amplio. This coalition was created as a calculated maneuver by the ruling class and heavily promoted by the same trade union bureaucracies to derail the opposition expressed in the 2000 protests and the 2004-2007 movement against the Free Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA).

After cracking down on virtually all blockades, the government agreed to negotiations last Wednesday with trade unions and the mediation of the Catholic Church. As shown by the “National dialogue” in Nicaragua, the blessings of the Church are summoned to replace those of workers and to keep negotiations under wraps.

On September 12, the police beat and arrested students, who had set up a roadblock, and invaded the University of Costa Rica. Later that night, two teenagers who were participating in a roadblock with burning tires in an impoverished area of Limón were shot in the back by the police.

Antuán Serrano, 17, died from a wound to the head as neighbors took him to the hospital. According to the only report at the scene made by a major outlet, Repretel, eyewitnesses indicate that, when confronted by angry neighbors, police officers simply said: “This comes from up top, from the Government.”

Isolated incidents of looting, the burning of vehicles and a telecommunications tower and damaging other public infrastructure were used by the government to criminalize all the protesters and escalate the repression.

The minister of security has begun to appear in press briefings next to a silent police chief, Daniel Calderón, whose post and record—training by the post-Pinochet Carabineros, the Chilean police, and giving courses at the US military school WHINSEC—place him as the director of the repression.

Anticipating the repressive measures, the US embassy issued a security warning of possible violence prior to the strike. According to diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks, Washington had trained special units and coordinated closely with Costa Rican police in preparation for the protests against CAFTA.

That weekend, the trade union ANEP, which includes police officers and is leading the strike, conspired with the government and media in a campaign in defense of the police, publishing videos on their harsh conditions and staging pickets on Monday with off-duty cops outside the presidential residence.

The government’s yearly deficit will reach 7.1 percent of GDP in 2018. The fiscal bill being discussed would subtract 1.4 points, only to jump again and rise more rapidly as the dollar strengthens and interest rates rise. More than half of the deficit corresponds to interest payments.

Regardless of the fate of the bill, most government income will continue to come from regressive taxes on imports and consumer goods, meaning that money will continue to flow from the pockets of workers and the poorest layers to the bank accounts of the top 10 percent of richest Costa Ricans and to international finance capital. The bill will only accelerate this transfer of wealth.

Therefore, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have openly backed the plan, and the minister of interior, Rodolfo Piza, declared the first day of the strike that the government would “reassure bondholders that they’ll be paid. … That is what the debate on public employment limits in the bill is about.”

The Alvarado administration insists, nonetheless, that it is a “progressive” bill, citing a small increase in the income tax for the richest layers, despite also introducing a regressive added-value tax, a 1 percent charge on staple foods and other charges on education and health services. The bill also seeks to enshrine in law a series of executive decrees cutting—in some cases by more than half—yearly salary increases and bonuses up for exclusive contracts in the public sector.

The state propaganda insisting that the richest 10 percent will bear most of the cost excludes the enormous tax exemptions for businesses. For instance, the bill states that “goods and services purchased will be exempted if destined to produce goods and services for export.” Capital gains from “selling stocks or other securities” within the same corporate sector will also be exempted.

The bill virtually engraves the evisceration of social spending into the Constitution by imposing limits on total government spending below economic growth, which will depend on the size of the overall debt. Alvarado has already imposed by decree new formulas on private- and public-sector minimum salaries that are not keeping up with inflation, cutting pay for extra hours by half, on top of an increase of 1 percent in workers’ contributions to the IVM pensions fund.

This austerity offensive has continued for decades but it is now accelerating sharply. From almost 20 percent in the mid-1980s, the share of employment in the higher-paid public sector fell to 15 percent in 2010 and 14 percent in 2017, according to ILO data, reverting to 1960s levels. Debt-servicing, on the other hand, has taken a higher share of the budget, from 13 percent in 1980 to 27 percent in 1995, 33 percent this year and 41.6 percent next year.

This recent sharp rise corresponds to an enormous issuing of bonds at increasingly higher interest rates, including $4 billion to foreign markets over four years announced in June (more than 1.5 percent of GDP yearly). Following the trend of most so-called emerging markets, the Costa Rican government took advantage of low interest rates internationally after the 2008 crisis to rapidly expand and militarize the police and carry out limited infrastructure projects. Now, the national and global economies are slowing down, bringing down tax income, while interest rates are increasing sharply.

In other words, the response of the ruling class to the coming economic avalanche has been to prepare the largest economic plundering of the working class in Costa Rican history.

In this international context, the empty demand of a progressive tax or the slogan “make the rich pay” poses no threat to the continuous transfer of wealth from the pockets of the working class into the debt payments for the rich. They pose no threat to the continuous impoverishment of workers and instead represent efforts by pseudo-left layers in the upper middle class to boost the image of the trade unions and the Frente Amplio and to provide a cover for an intensified rate of exploitation.

What lessons can be extracted and what tasks lie ahead for the Costa Rican working class? It requires an independent class response to the crisis, which is only possible by building an authentic socialist revolutionary party—a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (IFCI)— and electing rank-and file committees in workplaces and communities, independent of the trade unions and the entire political establishment, to immediately link their struggles to those of workers across Latin America and beyond.

Trump to intensify economic war on Iran

Keith Jones

US President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton and the other Iran regime-change hawks at the helm of the Trump administration intend to use this week’s opening of the annual United Nations General Assembly as the backdrop for an intensification of Washington’s economic war and military-strategic offensive against Iran.

Washington’s stated goal is to crash the Iranian economy. Starting November 4, the US will dramatically expand the punishing sanctions it imposed on Iran in early August. It is vowing to enforce a complete embargo on Iranian oil exports and Iran’s total exclusion from the US-dominated world banking system, thereby crippling its trade in all other commodities.

The US actions, which in their aims go beyond even the brutal sanctions the US and European Union imposed on Iran between 2011 and 2015, are both manifestly illegal and reckless. Under international law, they are tantamount to an act of war.

It is Washington that has reneged on its commitments under the UN-backed 2015 Iran nuclear accord. All the other great powers that are signatories to the accord and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has the principal role in monitoring Iran’s compliance, are adamant Tehran has fulfilled to the letter all its obligations, including dismantling and mothballing civilian nuclear infrastructure.

And it is Trump, Pompeo, Bolton and their minions who in Mafia-style fashion are threatening countries around the world with retaliatory action, including sanctions, fines and exclusion from US markets, if they do not bow to Washington’s diktats and cease trading with and investing in Iran.

Yet Trump will use the UN as the backdrop to rail against Iran as a “rogue state” and to denounce Tehran as the world’s leading “state-supporter of terrorism.” This from the president of a country that, in pursuit of unbridled domination of the world’s most important oil-exporting region, has waged or fomented a series of ruinous wars since 1991 that have razed entire societies, including Iraq, Libya and Syria, and, in the process, repeatedly supported and armed Islamist terrorists.

Today, nearly one year to the day after Trump used the UN as a platform to threaten to “totally destroy” North Korea, a country of 25 million people, the US president will again go before the UN General Assembly. According to previews of his speech provided the media by administration officials, Trump will combine an “America First” rant about the seminal importance of “national sovereignty”—whose essential content is that US imperialism reserves the right to be a law unto itself—with a litany of denunciations of Iran, many of them lifted from the songbook of his close ally Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

On Wednesday, Trump will chair a session of the 15-member UN Security Council that the US, exercising its rights as chair, has allotted to discussion of nuclear proliferation and weapons of mass destruction. As is his wont, the fascist-minded billionaire gave a cruder, but truer description of his intentions on his Twitter account, declaring, “I will chair a United Nations Security Council meeting on Iran.”

Trump apparently intends to use much of his time in his back-to-back UN appearances to fulminate against Iran’s ballistic missile program, claiming it constitutes an intolerable threat to the region. No matter that Washington has plied its regional allies, including nuclear-armed Israel and Saudi Arabia, with tens of billions of dollars’ worth of advanced weaponry.

Elimination of Iran’s ballistic missile program is among the list of demands Trump and his aides have set out as the ostensible basis for a “renegotiated” Iran nuclear deal. Others include Iran’s acceptance of permanent limits on its civil nuclear program far more onerous than those imposed on any other signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; and an end to Tehran’s “malign activities” in the Middle East, i.e., its military and political support for Hezbollah, Hamas and other regional allies.

In toto, these amount to a demand for Iran’s bourgeois nationalist regime to renounce any opposition to US domination of the Middle East, its effective disarmament and reduction to the status of an American client state.

US military action and threats against Iran

Washington has accompanied its economic war on Iran with increased military action against Iran and its allies and war threats from the Pentagon and top administration officials, including Trump himself. On Friday, Pompeo said that should “US interests” come under attack from “Iranian proxies,” the US stands ready to strike at Iran itself. “Iran will be held accountable for those incidents,” the US Secretary of State told CNN.

In late July, Trump vowed that if Iran so much as threatened action against US forces, it would “suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered.”

American forces in Syria and Israel Defense Forces have repeatedly attacked Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards fighting in support of Bashar al-Assad’s Baathist regime. And earlier this month the Trump administration let it be known that the US military will indefinitely occupy much of eastern Syria, including the country’s main oil fields, so as to push for a “political settlement” in alignment with the US interests in the removal of all Iranian forces from Syria.

All factions of the US political and military-intelligence establishment share the objective of subjugating Iran and ensuring US hegemony over the Middle East, both because of its oil wealth and geostrategic importance as the hinge between Europe, Asia and Africa.

But Trump’s scuttling of the Iran nuclear accord has been sharply criticized by a significant section of the ruling elite who fear it will embroil the US in a Mideast-wide war and undercut what they consider the more pivotal military-strategic offensives against American imperialism’s more substantial rivals, Russia and China.

Last week more than 50 retired congressional leaders, diplomats and generals, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, issued a statement under the banner of the “National Coalition to Prevent an Iranian Nuclear Weapon.” It voiced support for most of Trump’s demands on Iran, but expressed concern the administration was pursuing a policy of “brinkmanship,” emphasizing “coercion and threats of military action” without any “exit ramp to avoid collision.”

The statement deplored the fact the Trump administration’s Iran policy was estranging Washington’s traditional European allies and thereby encouraging “common cause among the Europeans, Russia and China in opposition to the US.”

Many, if not all, of the statement’s signatories have been advocates of a much more aggressive US military intervention in Syria, which they argued was the more effective way of “rolling back” both Iranian and Russian influence in the Middle East.

A further exacerbation of tensions among the imperialist powers

The major European powers, Germany, France and Britain, all deplored Trump’s pullout from the Iran nuclear accord, which has trashed their plans to capture Iranian markets and cash in on Tehran’s offer of lucrative oil and natural gas concessions.

The European powers are all frantically rearming with the aim of pursuing their own predatory interests on the world stage, under conditions of trade war, the erosion of US global hegemony, Washington’s turn to “America First” unilateralism and the rise of new powers.

But the European imperialists fear the explosive consequences of Washington’s reckless belligerence. A military clash between Iran and the US would set the Middle East ablaze, triggering a mass exodus of refugees, sending oil prices soaring, and unleashing a re-partition of the Mideast under conditions where the European powers lack the military means to as yet assert decisive influence.

Yesterday, German, French and British diplomats joined Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and representatives of the other signatories of the Iran deal, China and Russia, to discuss how to prevent its total collapse.

The EU has sought to push back against the US sanctions, including invoking a law first passed in the 1990s to make it illegal for European companies to comply with US extraterritorial sanctions. It has also begun working on a scheme to enable trade with Iran using the euro, in lieu of the US dollar, or even through a barter system.

But European big business has no confidence that the EU will be able to protect them from the reach of US reprisals and are voting with their feet. Scores of major European firms have announced they are pulling out of Iran including Peugeot, Renault, Deutsche Telekom, Airbus, Volvo and Total, the French energy company that was awarded a huge share of Iran’s South Pars natural gas field.

Iran’s clerical bourgeois regime, which came to power by appropriating the mass working class-led revolution that toppled the Shah’s brutal US-backed absolutist regime in 1979, hoped through a rapprochement with the US and European imperialist powers that it could strengthen its hand against an increasingly restive working class and win recognition as a regional power.

Instead, three years after making sweeping concessions to secure the nuclear accord, it faces a rapacious Washington bent on forcing total capitulation, and a growing challenge from a working class angered by rampant social inequality and years of austerity.

In response, it has stepped up repression against the working class, while maneuvering on the world stage. The latter has included a combination of threats, including warnings that if Washington illegally blocks Iran from exporting its oil it will prevent Saudi Arabia and other US allies from shipping their oil via the Strait of Hormuz, and pledges to work with the European powers and to assist in the restabilizing the Middle East.

Yesterday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who has traveled to New York to attend the UN General Assembly, insisted Iran will stick with the nuclear accord and signaled Tehran would be ready to enter talks with the Trump administration if it returned to the 2015 deal.

Google AdCamp 2018/2019 for Graduates and Students in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (All expenses paid)

Application Deadline: Program dates and durations will vary depending on location. Application deadline is therefore rolling

Eligible Countries: Countries in Europe, the Middle-East and Africa (EMEA)

To be taken at (country): Google’s offices – AdCamp programs are offered in multiple regions across Africa, Europe and the Middle East

About the Award:  AdCamp, open to all current or recently graduated university students from across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), gives participants the chance to get a 360-degree look behind the scenes at Google, develop a professional network, gain new skills, experience our culture, and learn more about career opportunities in a fun and inclusive environment.
Online advertising is at the core of Google’s business and we’re thrilled to share the magic of our platforms with university students through Google AdCamp. AdCamp offers a collaborative curriculum focused on Google’s advertising sales and services operations, an overview of Google’s ad products and insight into the industry.

Type: Training

Eligibility: To apply, students must be:

• Interested and have experience in sales, customer support, account management, marketing, or consulting
• Experienced and have proven ability in managing and customizing experience to a customer base
• A proven multi-tasker and able to manage multiple projects at a time while paying strict attention to detail
• Proactive, independent worker with the demonstrated capacity to lead, motivate, and work well with others
• Fluent in English, as all AdCamp activities will be conducted in English
• Be currently enrolled in a final year of BA/BS or master’s program, in any major, at a university in Europe, Middle East, or Africa, or have graduated within the last 12 months

Number of Awards: Up to 50

Value of Award: If a student is selected, Google will cover transport (most reasonable mode) to the programs and hotel rooms if needed for the duration of the program.

Duration of Programme: Within a week

How to Apply: To express interest, please head to this form.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

World Bank Youth Summit 2018 Competition for Young Social Entrepreneurs

Application Deadline: 5th October 2018

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Washington, DC, USA

About the Award: In today’s era of technological change and the need for adaptability, human capital, in some measures, explains up to two-thirds of income differences across the world. Investments in human capital, specifically education, skills, and health, are not only key drivers of productivity and economic growth, but also contribute to individuals’ self-empowerment. The advancement of human capital depends on two main drivers: i) the quality of investment in the early years – covering childhood education, health and nutrition; and ii) maximizing the accumulation of skills, knowledge, and well-being throughout people’ life cycle. The successful combination of these two elements is key to achieving the World Bank’s twin goals of reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity as well as the  United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Do you have an idea that has the capacity to improve human capital and thereby positively impact your community, your country, and/or society at large? If the answer is yes, then the Youth Summit 2018 Competition gives you the opportunity to share your idea, connect with peers and high-level experts, and explore how to bring your idea to the next level.

Contest Title: How would you spur innovations that contribute to shrinking the ‘human capital gap’ and foster the skills and well-being of individuals? This is your opportunity to submit an original idea aimed at increasing human skills, knowledge, or well-being related to at least one of the subthemes listed in either or both pillars below.
Participants should propose an innovative and action-oriented idea on how to boost the foundations of human capital for children and/or enhance the skills, knowledge, and health of adults. The proposed solution (i) can be aimed at business or policy (e.g., product, service, program, policy, course, initiative, etc.), (ii) should solve a specific problem or challenge, and (iii) address at least one of the human capital subthemes in the two pillars below.

Pillar I: Building the foundations of human capital[1] subthemes:
a.      Infant care and/or maternal health
b.      Childhood and/or early youth education
c.       Childhood health and/or nutrition

Pillar II: Maximizing individual potential[2] subthemes:
a.      Life-long learning & training
b.      Adult & elderly health

Type: Contest

Eligibility:

• The Competition is open to individuals or teams of 1-4 people, aged 18 to 35 inclusive as of 11:59 pm EST on 5 October 2018.
• Teams and individuals are limited to one submission each.
• The Competition is open to nationals of ALL countries of the world.
• Active (at the time of the submission up until the closing of the Youth Summit 2018) staff of the World Bank Group, including Consultants and Interns, are not eligible to participate in the Competition.

Number of Awards: 2

Value of Award: Winners will receive in-kind prizes. Details will be announced at a later stage.
In addition to the prizes, the YSOC will make all efforts to feature and promote Finalists’ and Winners’ ideas on the Youth Summit event page and social media platforms, and to provide exposure to Winners at high profile events, including, for example, webinars, workshops, and other events of the World Bank’s development partners globally

Duration of Programme: December 3-4, 2018

How to Apply: 4. Submit your proposal by 11:59 pm EST, 5 October 2018 through the online Competition Submission Form. You will be asked to provide some information about yourself and other team members – if applicable – including a short 200-word bio for each of you, and to upload your proposal.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

United Nations-Nippon Foundation Critical Needs Fellowship for Developing Countries 2019

Application Deadline: 5th October 2018

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): United Nations Headquarters in New York USA

About the Award: The Critical Needs Fellowship was established in 2017 as one of three core activities under the United Nations – Nippon Foundation Sustainable Ocean Programme. The Fellowship aims to assist developing States, particularly least developed countries, small island developing States and landlocked developing countries, to address identified critical needs in the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and related instruments, as well as Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 and other related SDGs.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Nominated candidates must meet all the following criteria:

• Must be between the ages of 25 and 40;
• Must have successfully completed a first university degree;
• Must be Government officials dealing directly with critical issues related to sustainable development of oceans and seas including the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; national and/or regional ocean policy; establishment of maritime zones and the delimitation of maritime boundaries; coastal zone management; conservation and management of marine living resources; maritime transport and shipping; maritime security; the protection and preservation of the marine environment; and marine science;
• The “Nomination and Recommendation Form” must be completed by a Government official who can attest to the nature of your work with respect to the Government’s ocean affairs and law of the sea related activities, and indicate how an Award would directly contribute to these activities;
• The proposed study programme must contribute directly to the State’s formulation and/or implementation of ocean affairs and law of the sea policies and programmes;
• Must be free of all non-Fellowship obligations during this entire period unless otherwise authorized by the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs.

Satisfaction of the above criteria must be clearly demonstrated by the candidate through the application forms and confirmed by a Nominating Authority.
Women candidates are strongly invited to apply, with a view to achieve gender balance in the selection process.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:

• Fellows will be provided with a return air-ticket in economy class for travels from their home country to the United Nations Headquarters in New York, USA.
• Fellows will receive a stipend during their fellowship in accordance with the established United Nations rates for the host Country.

Duration of Programme: 4 Months

How to Apply: The Fellowship application package consists of the following two forms:

1. The Personal History and Proposed Research/Study Programme Form(click to download in MS Word format)

This Form must be completed by the candidate, either typewritten or word processed. Each question must be answered clearly and completely in order to ensure that the application will be processed. While completing this form, candidates should pay particular attention to sections 18, 19 and 20. If necessary, candidates may attach no more than one additional page of the same size.
–> Once this form is completed, it must be submitted by the candidate to the Nominating Authority along with:

2. The Nomination and Recommendation Form(click to download in MS Word format)

This form must be completed and signed by the official nominating entity and must clearly identify the time-sensitive strategic needs of the State and how the candidate will be in a position to directly affect positive change with respect to these needs.
–> Once completed, both the “Nomination and Recommendation Form” and the completed “Personal History and Proposed Research/Study Programme Form” must be forwarded to DOALOS through the nominating State’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York.
DOALOS reserves the right not to process incomplete and/or late submissions.
Applications should be sent to:
E-mail (Preferred): DOALOS@un.org
The United Nations – Nippon Foundation Critical Needs Fellowship Programme
Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea
Office of Legal Affairs
United Nations, Room DC2-0450
New York, N.Y. 10017, U.S.A.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Echidna Global Scholars Program 2019 for Researchers in Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 1st October 2018

To Be Taken At (Country): Brookings Institution, Washington D.C., USA

About the Award: The Echidna Global Scholars Program is a visiting fellowship hosted by the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at the Brookings Institution. The program aims to build the research and analytical skills of NGO leaders and academics who have substantial experience and ties to developing countries. Echidna Global Scholars spend four to six months at Brookings pursuing research on global education issues, with a specific focus on improving learning opportunities and outcomes for girls in the developing world. Upon completion of their fellowship, CUE supports the scholars in implementing an action plan that applies their new skills and expertise in the developing country where they have demonstrated substantial ties.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• Education /Experience Requirements: The program selects professionals with substantial experience in and ties to developing countries, a demonstrated intent to return to a developing country, and a passion and demonstrated commitment to girls’ education. Applicants should have a background in education, development, economics, or a related area, with at least 15 years of professional experience in either research/academia; non-government and civil society; government; or business.  Master’s degree required; Ph.D. or research background strongly preferred.
• Knowledge/Skills Requirements: Strong analytical and writing skills. Successful applicants will have an intimate understanding of education development issues and/or issues related to development and gender.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Applicants selected for the fellowship will receive a living stipend of USD $5,000 a month (subject to U.S. tax withholding), paid housing for the four-and-a-half-month term, and round-trip travel expenses.

Duration of Programme: 

• Tentative Residency Term: June 3, 2019- October 18, 2019

How to Apply: Brookings requires that all applicants submit a cover letter and resume. Please attach your cover letter and resume as one document when you apply. Successful completion of a background investigation is required for employment at Brookings.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Brookings Institution

• Please note that this position is a part- time resident fellowship at Brookings (it is not an employee position).
• Brookings is an equal-opportunity employer that is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive workplace. We welcome applications from all qualified individuals regardless of race, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, physical or mental disability, marital status, veteran status, or other factors protected by law.

Puerto Rico’s Colonial Legacy and Its Continuing Economic Troubles

Lara Merling

When Puerto Rico was hit by Hurricane Maria, the island was ill-equipped to handle the storm that claimed thousands of lives and devastated most of the island’s infrastructure, leaving it in the dark for months. Prior to the storm, Puerto Rico’s economy had already experienced two decades without economic growth, a rare occurrence in the history of modern capitalism. Neither a sovereign country nor a US state, Puerto Rico has had constrained ability to respond to negative economic shocks, while only receiving limited federal support. The island’s prolonged economic failure resulted in the accumulation of an unsustainable debt burden, and Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy.

Puerto Rico became a territory of the United Stated in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War of 1898. While residents of Puerto Rico were given US citizenship in 1917, they still cannot vote in US presidential elections on the island and have no voting representation in the US Congress. The UN officially removed the island from its list of colonies in 1953 after the US Congress approved a new name, the “Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,” along with a constitution that granted the island authority over internal matters.

Despite this semblance of autonomy, Puerto Rico continued to be subject to the Territory Clause of the US Constitution, which grants the US Congress “power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations.” Recent developments have shown beyond doubt that Puerto Rico continues to be a colony, with the island now effectively ruled by a Federal Oversight and Management Board (the Board), created by the US Congress, which supersedes the authority of the island’s elected government.

After Puerto Rico defaulted on its $74 billion debt in 2015, the US Supreme Court struck down a bankruptcy law passed by the island. In 2016, the US Congress then passed the “Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act” (PROMESA), to create a framework for Puerto Rico to restructure its debt. While many attribute Puerto Rico’s accumulation of unsustainable debt to irresponsible government spending, this narrative ignores the fact that much of what led to Puerto Rico’s prolonged economic failure was out of the island’s control.

During the last two decades of the twentieth century, Puerto Rico’s economy more than doubled in real terms as it became an attractive destination for US manufacturing, offering strong legal protections and relatively cheap labor. As the rules of the global economy were rewritten with the creation of the World Trade Organization and the passage of trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, Puerto Rico became much less attractive as a manufacturing hub.

The island’s economy has not registered any growth since 2005. Puerto Rico did not have the policy tools available to sovereign nations that could have allowed it to more effectively address the shifting global trade environment, e.g., by adjusting its exchange rate. Between 2005 and 2016, Puerto Rico’s economy was shrinking at an annual real rate of 1 percent per year. Investment, which was over 20 percent of GDP in the late 1990s, fell to less than 8 percent of GDP in 2016.

Furthermore, Puerto Rico did not receive the same federal support that US states do, meaning that as the economy worsened, its government had to foot the bill for a large share of social programs. Just in terms of health care, it is estimated that the Puerto Rican government has had to spend more than $1 billion per year more than it would have had it received the same reimbursements from the US federal government that states do.

By 2016, before Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico had a poverty rate of 46 percent, and 58 percent for children, and had already lost 10 percent of its population to migration. With higher overall living costs than the mainland US, and lower incomes, many Puerto Ricans have chosen to leave the island and seek better opportunities on the mainland. In Maria’s aftermath, Puerto Rico is predicted to lose another 14 percent of its population by 2019.

As Puerto Rico’s economy declined, so did the revenues of the government, which increasingly financed operations through borrowing. Puerto Rican bonds were part of US municipal bond markets, and carried special tax exemptions that made them sufficiently attractive that buyers ignored the island’s macroeconomic reality ― something explicitly mentioned in Puerto Rico’s credit assessments. The bonds were only downgraded to “junk” in 2014 after Puerto Rico could no longer make interest payments on its debt.

PROMESA established a process to reach a consensus with creditors, and, were that to fail, it created a legal path to access bankruptcy court, where the Board would also represent Puerto Rico. As part of the consensus process, the board was tasked with certifying a 10-year fiscal plan that would keep the government operational, provide essential services to residents, adequately fund public pensions, and set funds aside for debt repayment in agreement with creditors.

The Board has taken an austerity approach that fails to address any of Puerto Rico’s long-term economic problems and is likely to exacerbate the downward spiral of economic decline and out-migration. In the aftermath of Maria, despite inadequate relief, the Board is using the increase in liquidity provided by relief funds to set aside more funds for creditors.

Yet many creditors continue to demand even harsher austerity, and the bankruptcy case is currently being heard by a bankruptcy judge in the New York District Court. Ironically, many of the most aggressive creditors are hedge funds that bought bonds at a steep discount after the default, and in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

To add insult to injury, the undemocratically appointed Board is setting aside $1.5 billion of the island’s budget for its own expenses, including legal and consulting fees for the next five years. Many of the advisors and lawyers now profiting from the bankruptcy process are the same actors who were involved in issuing the unsustainable debt. Meanwhile, island residents face pension cuts, layoffs, benefit freezes, and school closures. Given that the people of Puerto Rico have no democratic representation or say in this process, it is not surprising that their colonial rulers are ignoring their needs.

Iraq’s Prime Ministers Come and Go, But the Stalemate Remains

Patrick Cockburn

An Iraqi joke says that their country must have the most environmental government in the world since the same political leaders are always recycled, however dismal their past performance and low expectations that they will do any better in future.

The biggest change in the next Iraqi government will be that Haider al-Abadi, appointed prime minister after the Isis victories of 2014, is unlikely to be heading it. He has conceded that he will not last in office after protests engulfed Basra in southern Iraq and led to important religious and political leaders withdrawing their support and calling on him to resign.

Mr Abadi’s fate had been in the balance since he did unexpectedly badly in the general election on 12 May when his coalition came in third. Weakened by the result of the poll, he needed to bring on side those who had done better such the nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, but he ultimately failed to do so.

Although Mr Abadi will not be the next prime minister, most of the top political players will be the same as those blamed by many Iraqis for misruling the country in the 15 years since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. A quota system dividing senior posts between Shia, Sunni and Kurds combined with the sharing out of ministries between the parties, favours permanent political stalemate and ensures a complete failure to tackle rampant corruption or to provide essential services such as electricity and water.

Mr Abadi had hoped that the defeat of Isis and the recapture of Mosul after a nine-month siege last year would win voters’ backing. The Iraqi armed forces followed up victory at Mosul by retaking Kirkuk along with territory long disputed with the Kurds in northern Iraq.

Security in Iraq has much improved since the defeat of Isis and over the last six months it has been the best since 2003. But Iraqis did not see Mr Abadi as the sole architect of military success and the low 45 per cent turn out in the election underlined their disillusionment with the entire political elite. Mr Sadr and his Sairoon group got the most seats by campaigning for progressive economic and social policies, followed by the Fatah alliance led by the paramilitary leader Hadi al-Amiri. Mr Amiri has withdrawn from consideration to become prime minister.

Mr Abadi, strongly supported by the US, might have clung on if he had kept the backing of the Sadrists, but they felt that their support had been taken too much for granted in the past. They wanted Mr Abadi to resign from the ruling Dawa party and endorse their reformist programme. Other politicians whom Mr Abadi needed to conciliate accused him of seldom consulting them and operating through a narrow clique of advisers.

Although the main players in Iraqi politics are much the same, the overall political environment has altered radically. Isis had been advancing on Baghdad when Mr Abadi first became prime minister and people feared massacre and displacement. But the defeat of Isis meant less concern for personal security and heightened resentment against the corruption and incompetence of the government, despite oil revenues that in August alone this year were worth $7.7bn. Mr Abadi could claim credit for defeating Isis, but many Iraqis felt that this was almost his only identifiable achievement.

The protests in Basra, at the heart of the area that produces most of the crude oil, were the most widespread and destructive since the fall of Saddam Hussein. They showed grievances boiling over in the majority Shia community. During this summer, which was hot even by Iraqi standards with temperatures rising to 50C, there was an electricity shortage in southern Iraq so air conditioning did not operate and there was too little drinking water.

The breaking point for many in Basra came when there was not only a lack of water to drink but thousands of those who did drink it became ill with diarrhoea and stomach complaints. There were fears of a cholera epidemic. Salt water was mixing with the fresh water because of broken pipes, reducing the effectiveness of the chlorine in killing bacteria. Hospitals said they had treated 17,500 patients, though this was denied by a government official who, showing a lack of sympathy that enraged people in Basra, said that the figures for those in hospital were much exaggerated and “only 1,500 people have been poisoned”.

Peaceful protests grew violent with 27 people killed as government and party offices, with the exception of Sairoon, were set ablaze as well as the Iranian consulate. Mr Abadi went to Basra but could not get a grip on the crisis. This was a final blow to his hopes of remaining prime minister. Mr Sadr withdrew his support and called on him to resign. The vastly influential Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani issued a statement saying that the next prime minister should be a new one.

The parties will eventually choose a new prime minister and a national unity government, in which all the big players will get a share of the political cake, but it is unlikely to be any more effective than Mr Abadi’s outgoing administration.