wealth distribution

Parents’ Role in Fostering the Financial Literacy of Their Children

The NGO Committee on the Family invites you to join their first fall event of the year, in which attendees will hear from Susan Beacham and a New York banker about educating parents on how to raise financially responsible children.

This event will be held virtually via Zoom. Register here!

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CoNGO Notes: The NGO Committee on the Family/NY is a Substantive Committee of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations. Likewise, for more information on the NGO Committee on the Family/Vienna, please visit viennafamilycommittee.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Education, Learning, and Literacy, please visit facebook.com/NGOCELLatUN. For more information on the NGO Committee on Children’s Rights/NY, please visit childrightsny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Social Development, please visit ngosocdev.org.

UNCTAD Trade and Development Board 32nd special session

The thirty-second special session of the Trade and Development Board will start on Monday, 6 September 2021 in hybrid format. The session will open at 10 a.m. in room XVIII of the Palais des Nations, Geneva. The provisional agenda for the session, together with the secretariat’s annotations thereto, will be contained in document TD/B(S-XXXII)/1.

Nominations and participation

Registration should be completed online and is required in order to be included in the list of participants. To register, please use the following link: Thirty-second special session. Other participants (i.e. representatives of members of UNCTAD that are not members of the Board and representatives of specialized agencies, non-governmental organizations and intergovernmental bodies wishing to attend as observers) are also eligible to participate in the session as observers and should register online by the same date using the link above. Any enquiries concerning registration should be sent to the UNCTAD secretariat, Intergovernmental Support Service, Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva 10; email: meetings@unctad.org.

Logistics

Preparations to organize the meeting through a remote simultaneous interpretation platform with the six official languages of the United Nations are at an advanced stage. The link to the formal virtual meeting will be sent to the email address used for registration one day in advance of the start of the session.

Further information and contact details

Questions on preparations for the thirty-second special session of the Trade and Development Board should be addressed to Lisanne Losier, Deputy Secretary of the Trade and Development Board, Intergovernmental Support Service, email: correspondence@unctad.org; tel.: 41 22 917 4054.

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Education, Learning, and Literacy, please visit facebook.com/NGOCELLatUN. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-Vienna, please visit ngocsdvienna.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY, please visit ngocsd-ny.org

World Autism Awareness Day

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and heightened glaring inequalities around the world, especially when it comes to income and wealth distribution, access to health care, protection under the law, and political inclusion. Persons with autism have long faced many of these inequalities, which have only been further exacerbated by the pandemic. It’s a problem made worse by long  recognized discriminatory hiring practices and workplace environments that present major obstacles for persons with autism; all of which contribute to the unemployment or severe underemployment of a large majority of adults on the autism spectrum.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by world leaders at the United Nations in 2015 provide a blueprint for addressing the major challenges facing the world, including strategies for reducing inequalities that hinder prosperity for people and the planet. One of the aims of Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDG 8) – Decent Work and Economic Growth – is to promote full and productive employment and decent work for all, including persons with disabilities. Article 27 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities also recognizes “the right of persons with disabilities to work, on an equal basis with others,” and to a “work environment that is open, inclusive and accessible to persons with disabilities.”

Some employers have recently launched inclusive employment programmes, which  accommodate people with diagnoses of autism and related conditions, such as ADHD, OCD, etc., often referred to as neurodivergent persons. Based on the experience gained from these programmes, and motivated by the desire to both be socially responsible and to gain a competitive advantage by benefitting from the skills and abilities of a more diverse talent pool, an increasing number of employers are now creating  models to make the workplace and hiring practices more inclusive generally.

The pandemic has undoubtedly impacted the efforts of companies to implement these new models, at a time when the international economy is undergoing the worst economic recession since the great depression, with the loss of hundreds of millions of jobs. At the same time, new ways of working, including remote working and the use of new technologies, have created opportunities for employees on the autism spectrum that previously found it difficult to thrive in traditional workplace environments.

The 2021 World Autism Awareness Day observance will address these issues through a virtual event that will include moderated panel discussions with individuals on the autism spectrum who have themselves experienced the challenges and seen these new opportunities in the employment market.

The event is organized by the UN Department of Global Communications and UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, in collaboration with the Specialisterne Foundation.

As presented at the 2015 UN observance of World Autism Awareness Day, the mission of the Specialisterne Foundation is to leverage knowledge gained from the employment of autistic persons to support the creation of meaningful and fulfilling employment for one million persons, in a world where there are equal opportunities for all in the labour market.

Inclusion in the Workplace: Challenges & Opportunities in a Post-Pandemic World

Thursday, 8 April 2021
10:00 -11:00 a.m. EST/16:00 – 17:00 p.m. CET

Register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdCe1tiFE7QlebOFoN97jT3okXKM6ZzDT13ZzxWTh6w8WekJQ/viewform

Click here to view the full event program and past events commemorating World Autism Awareness Day.

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Education, Learning, and Literacy, please visit facebook.com/NGOCELLatUN. For more information on the NGO Committee for Rare Diseases, please visit ngocommitteerarediseases.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Human Rights, please email the co-chairs at bknotts@uua.org or bobbinassar@gmail.com.