by rfa42 | Nov 18, 2023 | Uncategorized
Imagine the little Smurf village we all grew up with, the precious community of tiny blue creatures, each distinguished by a special trait. Some of these traits are arguably better than others. Indeed, the village could maybe do without Brainy Smurf’s long lectures, and some Smurfs may find affinity in being spared of some of Jokey Smurf’s exploding presents. These collective peculiarities however have always been directed at the best interest of the village, all under the fatherly supervision of our beloved Papa Smurf. That being said, an entity lying deep inside the forest constantly threatens our friendly family, and even though Gargamel is only one person, his size and abilities pose a serious concern to the village as a whole.
Now imagine a group of little countries united for the best interest of their people, constantly working on nullifying their negative impact on nature by investing into renewable energies in an effort to ditch such polluting sources as combustible fuels. Their effort is met with success, however the quest for power seems to be a bigger concern for an entity lying thousands of miles away. An entity whose size exceeds that of all our little countries combined: Enter the conflict of power and sustainability between the EU and China.
Since my mother’s middle school years, otherwise known as the early 80s, the EU, represented by France and Belgium witnessed a considerable increase in alternative and nuclear energy use, offset by a similarly acute decline in fossil fuel energy consumption. One can hardly say the same about China.
To put it into perspective, instead of listing numbers, we will ask for the help of another icon, Mr Pac man, at the bottom of the dashboard. Watch how he increasingly consumes our little Smurfs as years go by (applicable from 1990 to 2020), soon enough, his mouth will have closed entirely and our tiny blue friends will be a thing of the past.
What to do then? Surely we cannot let this happen! Well, the best way to stop this direction of development is to make its products worthless. How so? Here are a a few options:
- Impose tariffs on Chinese goods to offset their traditionally lower prices and drive them out of the market
- Incentivize multinational companies through subsidies to bring operations outsourced to China back to countries compliant with SDG goals
- Raise awareness about the issue through media campaigns highlighting the harm caused by China’s quest for power to the international community
Such measures coupled with other sanctions have been successful in putting enough pressure on various entities to induce them into making a change, with plenty of examples to refer to.
We call upon the governments who have the longer term in mind to come together along with their people and recommend that they apply the measures above so that our Smurfs can be saved from the fearsome grip of Gargamel the evil wizard.
by Charles Wakim | Apr 15, 2022 | Visualization
Sustainable development goals are set by the United Nations for countries to reach by 2030. And as you’re getting closer and closer to the deadline, I decided to dig deeper into it and check the WDI dataset to see where we stand right now.
One particular goal I looked after, since it’s the easiest to achieve, is gender equality, the fifth goal set by the UN (SDG 5.5.2).
One way to gauge the progress made by the countries in order to reach these goals was so take a look at women’s employment share in senior and middle management. Precisely in the European Union (EU), a rather advanced community when it comes to human rights.
Surprisingly enough, the EU, a utopia of ours (us, Middle Eastern), is not as perfect as we might think. The birthplace of human rights, the nest of gender equality and the one that found the solution for a better living still struggles in achieving perfect gender equality, especially in high positions. And even though we could always argue they’re doing better than us; they’re still not doing enough!
The EU’s average in women’s share of employment in senior and middle management falls around 30%, far away from the 50% target. Even worse, some countries like Italy have their average around 22% without any considerable increase these last few years.
Fortunately, other countries like Latvia reached records of 45% women employment in middle and high management. Even better, this particular country showed a significant increase in numbers in this area between the year 2009 and 2010 due to some regulations taken at that moment without any huge drop afterwards.
Italy could get some inspiration from the Latvian regulations created in order to increase women’s share and middle and senior management and try and fix their low numbers by applying easy to implement solutions and monitor their effectiveness over time.
Once we finish observing Italy, we could use this pilot experiment to try and generalize the process. Then try to implement it in other countries and turn gender inequality in managerial positions to history.
by Ghida | May 5, 2020 | Dashboard, Visualization
Females in the Arab World are always faced with discriminatory situations in a ‘professional environment’. From personal questions in an interview to on-the-job obstacles, something always has to remind us of who we are and how anchored we are to it. It is not very different around the world, however, females have only recently started to break through the notions of the ‘working man’, proving that the only professional difference between them is inside the minds of those who believe it exists.
When I started exploring the World Development Indicators data on Tableau, I could not but stop at the Employment to Population Ratio. So I developed a dashboard visualized below.
As seen on the map, there are big differences in Female Employment to Population Ratios around the world. Looking deeper into the ratios of 2 adjacent but very different cultures, the European Union and Arab Countries – the line graphs to the right -, we can notice the difference in the gaps between female and male ratios. While the Male Employment to Population Ratio is almost the same across both areas, there is a big difference in the female’s numbers, of course affecting the total ratios.
I believe the needed change starts in education – not only that of little girls who need to be equipped by the time they can join the workforce, but also of societies to be welcoming, and supportive of those girls. Many forces enter in this journey, in many cases education is an unaffordable luxury, which is why the intrusion of governments and NGOs is highly needed.
The featured image is from Aptology.
