Daily Archives: March 27, 2022

Press Releases

03/22/2022

(HARTFORD, CT) Governor Ned Lamont today announced that the Connecticut State Bond Commission is anticipated to approve an allocation of $1.3 million in state funding to support the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut in its creation of the Thames River Innovation Center, which will be located at 92 Eugene ONeill Drive in New London and will provide businesses and workers in the region with an innovation center and co-working space.

The center will be used for entrepreneurial training, technical apprenticeships, and business development, as well as advising entrepreneurs, including immigrants, of existing state and local permit requirements for forming a new company. It will be operated by the chamber in partnership with its 1,400 member businesses.

The State Bond Commission will vote on the item at its next meeting on Thursday, March 31, 2022. Governor Lamont serves as chairman of the commission.

The needs of businesses and our economy are constantly evolving, and having a business incubator like the one being proposed in New London will provide workers throughout the region with a resource to build their skillsets and become matched with prospective employers, Governor Lamont said. By partnering with the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut and its many members, we can help ensure that the region continues to grow with the needs of the business community.

The chamber is modeling the center after similar efforts across the country, including the Center for Innovation at UMass Dartmouth, the Berkshire Innovation Center, Foundry 66 in Norwich, the District in New Haven, CURE Innovation Commons in Groton, and the Westerly Education Center.

When fully operational, the chambers goals for the center are to support the creation of approximately 100 new jobs annually and launch more than 100 new businesses during the next decade, at least 20% of which will be minority and immigrant owned.

I want to thank Governor Lamont and the chambers board of directors for their support of this important development, Tony Sheridan, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut, said. The center will focus on entrepreneurial training, technical apprenticeships, and business development, as well as advising entrepreneurs, including immigrants, of existing region and local permit requirements for forming a new company. The governor made a commitment to work on revitalizing our inner cities and this project along with the states and private investment in the redevelopment of the state pier begins to address this commitment.

The Innovation Center in New London is critically important for economic development, especially support for new small businesses and job training, Dr. Stephen Coan, board chair of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut, said. Governor Lamonts support for this project underscores his commitment to building a strong and vibrant economy for the future of New London, Eastern Connecticut, and the state.

The proposed location for the center is within an enterprise zone and a federal opportunity zone at the gateway to the citys downtown area. It will be easily accessible by public transportation, has ample parking, and is close to several of the regions largest employers, as well as historically underserved neighborhoods.

The chambers board of directors, which will serve as the fiscal agent and manager for the center, has approved moving the chambers headquarters to New London to accommodate this project. Additionally, the chamber will be an anchor tenant and will commit annual resources for the operation and management of the center, all of which will provide much needed synergy for the revitalization of New London and the region.

Bringing the Chamber of Commerce back to its historic home in the heart of New Londons downtown business district has been an integral part of the vision for the citys rebirth as the economic center of Southeastern Connecticut, Mayor Michael Passero said. I deeply appreciate that Governor Lamont shares the citys dream and is committed to making it a reality.

Entrepreneurial training at the center will include a ten-week curriculum-based program designed to help emerging entrepreneurs formulate their business or service ideas and to develop a basic understanding of how to start a business. A four-month accelerator program will provide opportunities for mentorship, guidance, resources, and assistance during a businesss first two years of operations

The chamber, along with key partners such as the Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board, will provide support services for retiring members of the military community by helping match their skillsets with prospective employer needs. Additionally, the center will provide a welcoming support system for incoming service member spouses, making connections with local businesses, mentoring, and job training. The chamber will also serve as a liaison between educational institutions and local businesses to help educational institutions understand the skillsets required for emerging blue tech careers in the region.

Read more:

Governor Lamont Announces $1.3 Million in State Funding To Create a Business Incubator Focused on Job Growth in the New London Region - CT.gov

Three years after the end of World War II, diplomat George Kennan outlined the challenges the country faced this way:

We have about 50% of the worlds wealth, but only 6.3% of its population. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.

That, in a nutshell, was the postwar version of U.S. exceptionalism and Washington was then planning to manage the world in such a way as to maintain that remarkably grotesque disparity. The only obstacle Kennan saw was poor people demanding a share of the wealth.

Today, as humanity confronts a looming climate catastrophe, whats needed is a new political-economic project. Its aim would be to replace such exceptionalism and the hoarding of the earths resources with whats been called a good life for all within planetary boundaries.

Back in 1948, few if any here were thinking about the environmental effects of the over-consumption of available resources. Yet even then, however unknown, this countrys growing wealth had a dark underside: the slow-brewing crisis of climate change. Wealth all too literally meant the intensified extraction of resources and the production of goods. As it happened, fossil fuels (and the greenhouse gases that went with their burning) were essential to every step in the process.

Today, the situation has shifted at least a bit. With approximately 4% of the worlds population, the United States still holds about 30% of its wealth, while its commitment to over-consumption and maintaining global dominance remains remarkably unshaken. To grasp that, all you have to do is consider the Biden White Houses recent Indo-Pacific Strategy policy brief, which begins in this telling way: The United States is an Indo-Pacific power. Indeed.

In 2022, the relationship between wealth, emissions, and climate catastrophe has become ever clearer. In the crucial years between 1990 and 2015, the global economy expanded from $47 trillion to $108 trillion. During that same period, global annual greenhouse-gas emissions grew by more than 60%. Mind you, 1990 was the year in which atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) first surpassed what many scientists believed was the level of safety 350 parts per million, or ppm. Yet in the 32 years since then, more CO2 and other greenhouse gases have been emitted into the atmosphere than in all of history prior to that date, as atmospheric CO2 careened past 400 ppm in 2016 with 420 ppm now fast approaching.

Growing global wealth is closely associated with growing emissions. But the wealth and responsibility for those emissions are not shared equally among the planets population. On an individual level, the wealthiest people on Earth consume and emit far more than their poorer counterparts. The richest 10% of the worlds population, or about 630 million people, were responsible for more than half of the increase in greenhouse-gas emissions over the last quarter-century. On a national level, rich countries are, of course, home to far more people with high levels of consumption, which means that the larger and wealthier the country, the greater its emissions.

In terms of per capita income, the United States ranks 13th in the world. But the countries above it on the list are mostly tiny, including some of the Persian Gulf states, Ireland, Luxembourg, Singapore, and Switzerland. So, despite their high per-capita emissions, their overall contribution isnt that big. As the third largest country on this planet, our soaring per-capita emissions have, on the other hand, had a devastating effect.

With a population of around 330 million, the United States today has less than a quarter of either Chinas population of more than 1.4 billion or Indias, which is just under that figure. Four other countries Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Pakistan fall into the population range of 200 to 300 million, but their per-capita gross domestic products (GDPs) and their per-capita emissions are far below ours. In fact, the total U.S. GDP of more than $19 trillion far exceeds that of any other country, followed by China at $12 trillion and Japan at $5 trillion.

In sum, the United States is exceptional when it comes to both its size and wealth. Im sure you wont be surprised to learn then that, until 2006, it was also by far the worlds top CO2 emitter. After that, it was surpassed by a fast-developing China (though that countrys per capita emissions remain less than half of ours) and no other countrys greenhouse gas emissions come close to either of those two.

To fully understand different countries responsibility, its necessary to go past yearly numbers and look at how much theyve emitted over time, since the greenhouse gases we put in the atmosphere dont disappear at the end of the year. Here again, one country stands out above all the others: the United States, whose cumulative emissions reached 416 billion tons by the end of 2020. Chinas, which didnt start rising rapidly until the 1980s, reached 235 billion tons in that year, while India trailed at 54 billion.

Having first hit 20 billion tons in 1910, U.S. cumulative emissions have only shot up ever since, while Chinas didnt hit that 20 billion mark until 1979. So the U.S. got a big head start and, cumulatively speaking, is still way ahead when it comes to taking down this planet.

The U.S. Climate Action Network (USCAN) argues that excessive emitters like the United States have already used up far more than their fair share of this planets carbon budget and so, in fact, owe a huge carbon debt to the rest of the world to make up for their outsized contribution to the problem of climate change over the past two centuries. Unfortunately, the 2015 Paris Agreements voluntary, non-enforceable, and nationally determined limits on emissions functionally let rich countries continue on their damaging ways.

In fact, nations should be held responsible for repaying their carbon debt. The worlds poorest people, who have contributed practically nothing to the problem, deserve access to a portion of the remaining budget and to the sort of aid that would enable them to develop alternative forms of energy to meet their basic needs.

Under the fair-share proposal, its not enough for the United States just to stop adding emissions. This country needs to repay the climate debt its already incurred. USCAN calculates that to pay back its fair share the United States must cut its emissions by 70% by 2030, while contributing the cash equivalent of another 125% of its current emissions every year through technical and financial support to energy-poor nations.

Bernie Sanderss Green New Deal proposal adopted the concept of the fair share. True leadership in the global climate fight, Sanders has argued, means recognizing that the United States has for over a century spewed carbon pollution emissions into the atmosphere in order to gain economic standing in the world. Therefore, we have an outsized obligation to help less industrialized nations meet their targets while improving quality of life.

On this subject, however, his voice and others like it sadly remain far outside the all-too-right-wing mainstream. (And if you doubt that, just check Joe Manchins recent voting record.)

In 2018, the U.N.s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a special report on our chances of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees centigrade the goal that the countries involved in the Paris Agreement, including the United States, accepted as their baseline for action. It concluded that, to have a 50% chance of staying below that temperature increase, our future collective emissions couldnt exceed 480 gigatons (or 480 billion tons). That, in other words, was humanitys remaining carbon budget.

Unfortunately, as of 2018, global emissions were exceeding 40 gigatons a year, which meant that even if they were flattened almost immediately (not exactly a likelihood), we would use up that budget in a mere dozen years or so. Worse yet, despite a Covid-induced decline in 2020, global emissions actually rebounded sharply in 2021.

Most scenarios for emission reductions, including those proposed by the IPCC, rely optimistically on new technologies to enable us to get there without making substantive changes in the global economy or in the excessive consumption of the worlds richest people and countries. Such technological advances, its hoped, would allow us to produce as much, or possibly more energy from renewable sources and even possibly begin removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, theres little evidence to support the likelihood of such progress, especially in the time we have left. No matter how much new technology we develop, there seems to be no completely clean form of energy. All of them nuclear, wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, biomass, and perhaps others still to be developed rely on massive industrial operations to extract finite resources from the earth; factories to process them; facilities to create, store, and transmit energy; and, in the end, some form of waste (think batteries, solar panels, old electric cars, and so on). Every form of energy will have multiple dangerous environmental impacts. Meanwhile, as the use of alternative forms of energy production increases worldwide, it hasnt yet reduced fossil-fuel use. Instead, its just added to our growing energy consumption.

Its true that the worlds wealthiest countries have achieved some gains in decoupling economic growth from rising emissions. But much of this relatively minor decoupling is attributable to a shift from the use of coal to natural gas, along with the outsourcing of particularly dirty industries. Decoupling has, as yet, made no dent in global greenhouse gas emissions and seems unlikely to accelerate or even continue at a meaningful enough pace after these first and easiest steps have been taken. So almost all climate modeling, like that of the IPCC, suggests that new technologies to remove CO2 from the atmosphere will also be needed to counter rising emissions.

But negative emissions technologies are largely aspirational at this point. Instead of counting on what still to a significant extent remain technological fantasies, while the wealthy continue their profligacy, its time to shift our thinking more radically and focus, as I do in my new book Is Science Enough? Forty Critical Questions About Climate Justice, on how to reduce extraction, production, and consumption in far more socially just ways, so that we can indeed begin to live within our planets means. Call it post-growth or degrowth thinking.

Make no mistake: we cant live without energy and we desperately do need to turn to alternatives to fossil fuels. But alternative energies are only going to be truly viable if we can also greatly reduce our energy needs, which means reconfiguring the global economy. If energy is a scarce and precious resource, then ways must be found to prioritize its use to meet the urgent needs of the worlds poor, rather than endlessly expanding the luxuries of the wealthiest among us. And thats precisely what degrowth thinking is all about: scaling back the mindless pursuit of production, consumption, and profit in favor of human wellbeing and ecological stability.

In April 2021, President Biden made a dramatic announcement, setting a new goal for U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions to reduce them 50% from 2005 levels by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050. Sounds pretty good, right?

But given that this countrys CO2 emissions had hit a high of 6.13 billion tons in 2005, that means by 2030 wed still be emitting three billion tons of CO2 a year. Even if we could reach net-zero by 2050, our country alone would, by then, have used up one quarter of the entire remaining carbon budget for the planet. And right now, given the state of the American political system, theres neither a genuine plan nor an obvious way to reach Bidens goal. If we stay on our current path and dont count on that if the Republicans take Congress in 2022 and the White House again in 2024 we would barely achieve a 30% reduction by 2030.

At this point, theres no guarantee well stay on that path, no matter the political party in power. After all, consider just this:

And lets not even talk about the military-industrial-congressional complex and war. After all, the Department of Defense is the single largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels and emitter of CO2 in the world. Between its worldwide bases, promotion of the arms industry, and ongoing global wars, our military alone produces annual emissions greater than those of wealthy countries like Sweden and Denmark.

Meanwhile, in the run-up to the climate-change meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, in the fall of 2021, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry insisted repeatedly that the United States must work to bring China on board. Joe Biden too kept his attention focused on China. And indeed, given its greenhouse gas emissions and still-expanding use of coal, China does have a big role to play. But to the rest of the world, such an insistence on diverting attention from our own role in the climate crisis rings hollow indeed.

A 2021 study shows that almost all of the worlds remaining coal, not to speak of most of its gas and oil reserves, will need to stay in the ground if global warming is to be kept below 1.5 degrees centigrade. Back in 2018, another study found that even to meet a 2-degree centigrade goal, which its now all too clear would be catastrophic in climate-change terms, humanity would have to halt all new fossil-fuel-based infrastructure and immediately start decommissioning fossil-fuel-burning plants. Instead, such new facilities continue to be built in a relentless fashion globally. Unless the United States, which bears by far the greatest responsibility for our climate emergency, is ready to radically change course, how can it demand that others do so?

But to change course would mean to abandon exceptionalism.

Degrowth scholars argue that, rather than risking all of our futures on as-yet-unproven technologies in order to cling to economic growth, we should seek social and political solutions that would involve redistributing the planets wealth, its scarce resources, and its carbon budget in ways that prioritize basic needs and social wellbeing globally.

That, however, would require the United States to acknowledge the dark side of its exceptionalism and agree to relinquish it, something that, in March 2022, still seems highly unlikely.

Read more:

The United States Is Exceptional Just Not in the Ways Any of Us Should Want - Truthout

March 24, 2022

NEW YORK New York City Mayor Eric Adams today announced the appointment of Abby Jo Sigal as executive director of the Mayors Office of Talent and Workforce Development. In this role, Sigal will help deliver on the mayors workforce vision to prepare New Yorkers, particularly those from underserved communities, for the jobs of the future, in sectors including the life sciences, clean energy, and 21st-century manufacturing, among others. Sigal will also work in partnership with members of the New York City Workforce Development Board to oversee federal investments under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act into strategic adult and youth workforce development initiatives.

As my economic blueprint makes clear, investing in our citys workforce is critical to an equitable recovery, and having a leader at the helm of the Office of Talent and Workforce Development with the knowhow to Get Stuff Done will be essential in helping our city grow. Abby Jo Sigal is that leader, said Mayor Adams. For too long, far too many people in our city primarily those living in Black and Brown neighborhoods have been left behind. Equipping them with the skills they need to compete in our modern economy and burgeoning industries will be a top priority for my administration, and Im so proud to have a proven leader like Abby spearheading that effort.

Abby Jo Sigal is a proven leader, and I am excited that she is joining our team at this critical moment for New York City, said Deputy Mayor for Economic and Workforce Development Maria Torres-Springer. The Office of Talent and Workforce Development will play a leading role in realizing our vision for a workforce development system that is better integrated with our economic development efforts, and which will yield real results for New Yorkers.

I am humbled and honored that Mayor Adams and Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer tapped me to work in the administration on behalf of the people of New York City, said Abby Jo Sigal, incoming executive director, Mayors Office of Talent and Workforce Development. New York has the opportunity to build back its economy stronger and more equitably than before the pandemic and through strategic investment and alignment of resources, together, we can transform how we, as a city, develop our talent and position all New Yorkers for lifelong career success.

Sigal will lead the citys effort to connect New Yorkers to quality jobs, as outlined in the recently released plan, Rebuild, Renew, Reinvent: A Blueprint for New York Citys Economic Recovery. She will work with stakeholders from the public and private sectors to reimagine the citys talent development system so that it promotes the economic security of every New Yorker, meets the talent needs of employers, and contributes to a robust and inclusive economy.

At the head of the newly renamed Office of Talent and Workforce Development, Sigal will work across multiple agencies, launching, convening, and staffing the Future of Workers taskforce, a working group of industry experts including higher education, job training providers, research institutions, labor, and employers to develop a citywide, early-education-to-adult talent development vision to address short-term recovery needs and long-term structural challenges. The office will seek out opportunities to streamline and improve coordination among the more than two dozen city and state agencies that manage workforce programs, as well as The City University of New York (CUNY), the New York City Department of Education (DOE), nonprofits, intermediaries, and employers.

An equitable recovery for our city starts with meaningful investments in our most valuable resource: New Yorkers, said Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives Sheena Wright. Abby Jo Sigal has been a tireless champion for uplifting New Yorkers across the five boroughs and building pipelines to good-paying jobs, and I especially look forward to working with her on youth workforce development initiatives to expand on our administrations efforts to help young people thrive.

Every student who graduates a New York City public school should be ready to get a good paying job or go to college, and Abby will be a vital partner in realizing this goal, said New York City Department of Education Chancellor David C. Banks. Abby is a tireless advocate for creating quality career pathways for young people that blend academic and work-based learning and has a keen sense for how to create a citywide culture amongst community and business leaders that will foster the expansion of this work. I look forward to working closely with Abby to benefit all of our young people.

As a nonprofit leader, Abby Jo Sigal has served as a powerful voice for creative and collaborative policies and programs that expand economic opportunities for low-income New Yorkers, said David Fischer, executive director, Mayors Office of Youth Employment (MOYE). The team at MOYE is delighted that she will bring her knowledge, energy, and idealism to the Mayors Office of Talent and Workforce Development, in service to its vital mission of economic mobility and empowerment.

In appointing Abby to lead the Office of Talent and Workforce Development for New York City, Mayor Adams has underscored his commitment to prioritizing equity, inclusion, and market-driven solutions in strengthening the citys position as a top global city for talent in the 21st century, said Judy and Jamie Dimon, co-founders, HERE to HERE Foundation. Since 2015, we have worked closely with Abby to partner with key stakeholders, including employers, educators, and students, to create a shared vision that is helping young people pursue family sustaining careers and employers to hire the talent they need to prosper. This is central to the citys economy and future. And it is a role Abby is well equipped to take to the next level. We applaud the mayor and his administration for tapping her to assume this important position at this critical time.

The appointment of Abby Jo Sigal as executive director of the Office of Talent and Workforce Development comes at a critical time where bold leadership is absolutely necessary, said Joshua Poyer, vice president of student voice and hub, HERE to HERE. Abbys unwavering commitment to communities like the Bronx, combined with her ability to mobilize industry leaders, will help propel the city into an exciting future where all local talent will be able to thrive and prosper.

We are thrilled for Abby. But we're equally excited for the New York City, said Carlos Moreno, co-executive director, Big Picture Learning. In Abby, they're getting a true, seasoned champion of equity and workforce development. Her commitment to New York and her experience building career pathways for the city's young people make this an exceptional match.

Abby Jo Sigal is a tireless and proven leader, who will marshal the cross-sector resources and best thinking needed to deliver on the mayors ambitious vision for a talent pipeline worthy of our great city and its thriving industries, said Saskia Levy Thompson, program director, Carnegie Corporation of New York; and chair, Mayor Adams Education Transition Committee. Carnegie Corporation has invested in career pathways for a quarter of a century because we believe all young people should experience the rigorous education, real-world learning experiences, and professional networks necessary for long-term success and economic mobility. We were an early supporter of HERE to HERE a Bronx-based youth-serving coalition that, under Abbys leadership, demonstrated what is possible when K-12, higher education, and employers partner to expand opportunities for young people, and cultivate the brilliant, home-grown workforce that will build our future.

Having worked with Abby over the years that she served as executive director of the James and Judith K. Dimon Foundation and founding CEO of HERE to HERE, I know her solid commitment to ensuring opportunities for CUNY students to enter the citys workforce and build rewarding careers, particularly during theongoingpost-pandemic recovery, said CUNY Chancellor Flix V. Matos Rodrguez.Abby has been a key ally and advocate for our students; she understands thetalent that CUNY students bring to the table, along with the benefits of a truly inclusive workforce that mirrors the diversity of New York City. We congratulate Abby on her appointment and look forward to working with her to foster the continued growth the citys thriving economy and economic prosperity of CUNY students.

JobsFirstNYC is pleased to congratulate Abby Jo Sigal as the inaugural executive director of the Mayor's Office of Talent and Workforce Development, said Marjorie Parker, president and CEO, JobsFirstNYC. Ms. Sigal's history as a dynamic, transformational leader is well-suited for this job. We are encouraged to see someone who has years of on-the-ground experience with young adults, employers, educators, and diverse community stakeholders assuming this role. New York City has a complex workforce development system spanning numerous agencies and programs and at JobsFirstNYC, we are most interested in a seamless alignment of youth workforce development services across these agencies. Her record as a leader and visionary will undoubtedly galvanize strategies to align and strengthen how agencies work together to create a strong talent development infrastructure that attracts economic investment and prepares New York City for the future of work. As a youth workforce development advocate, JobsFirstNYC is committed to significantly expanding partnerships with employers and industry groups to create employment and career pathway opportunities for young adults in New York City. We believe under Ms. Sigal's leadership, the Mayors Office of Talent and Workforce Development will serve as a leader in advancing talent development and opportunities for both young adults and residents of New York City seeking more and better opportunities to get on the ladder to economic wellness.

New York City is the engine of economic growth and vitality for the state of New York and the nation, and I am beyond encouraged by the recent appointment of Abby Jo Sigal to her new position within Mayor Adams's administration as executive director of the Office of Talent and Workforce Development for the City of New York, said Jesse Jackson, head of firmwide learning, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Abby has consistently illustrated her understanding of the importance of cross-sector collaboration required to foster a climate of inclusive job and skill expansion as she has operated across New Yorks diverse communities for years. Her proven ability to innovate and coordinate with institutions both large and small within the city and elsewhere will further support an agenda of transformational growth and quality job creation.Abbys appointment serves as yet another catalyst for the reemergence of New York City from the impacts of the pandemic.

I have known Abby Jo Sigal for more than 20 years and we have worked side-by-side. I believe Abby Jo will do for the City of New York what she has always done lead, shape opinion, build consensus, and transform lives, said Kirk Goodrich, president, Monadnock Development; and chairman, New York State Association for Affordable Housing.The mayor could not have made a better choice to lead the Office of Talent and Workforce Development for all New Yorkers.

Abby Jo Sigal is a unique leader who focuses on doing no less than transforming an entire system without ever losing sight of listening to and engaging young people directly, one person at a time accounting for their strengths, aspirations, and potential, said Angie Kamath, dean, New York University School of Professional Studies. The city has exhibited incredible foresight by entrusting the workforce strategy and transformation of New York City in the hands of Abby Jo Sigal.

Abby Jo will bring deep knowledge and experience to the challenge of integrating the citys public education and workforce development initiatives into a coordinated system with seamless connectivity to employers, large and small. This is an important appointment, said Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO, Partnership for New York City.

About Abby Jo Sigal

Abby Jo Sigal will serve as executive director of the Mayors Office of Talent and Workforce Development. For over 25 years, working in various roles and types of organizations, Sigal has been committed to revitalizing New York City neighborhoods to better serve local residents. As the founding CEO of HERE to HERE, Sigal currently leads a diverse Bronx-based team committed to aligning with key stakeholders around the goal of career success for New York City students demonstrating best practices and translating those best practices into common practice.

She also serves as the executive director of The James and Judith K. Dimon Foundation. Sigal has extensive experience in community development, public/private partnerships, real estate finance, impact investing, and working with community-based organizations.

Prior to HERE to HERE and the Dimon Foundation, Sigal was the senior vice president of Innovation at Enterprise Community Partners, a national housing organization, where she provided leadership across the multiple business lines and markets for strategy, new product development, knowledge management, and impact investing.

Prior to that role, she ran the Enterprise New York market, deploying $200 million annually in equity, debt, and grants; developing and implementing programs; and enacting policy. Early in her career, she oversaw the design and development of New York Citys Hudson River Park along the westside and launched its first summer youth program.

Sigal holds a bachelors degree from Yale in Philosophy and masters degrees from University of California, Berkeley in Business Administration and City & Regional Planning.

Sigal will report to Deputy Mayor for Economic and Workforce Development Maria Torres-Springer.

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Read more:

Mayor Adams Appoints Abby Jo Sigal Executive Director of Mayor's Office of Talent and Workforce Deve - nyc.gov

SHANGHAI In terms of geopolitical impact, nothing could be more important than the United States shift from strategic cooperation to strategic competition with China.

This change has darkened many observers views of Chinas economic prospects, as indicated by a Bruegel report released late last year. The assumption, it seems, is that China has no choice but to retreat from its successful development path and embark on a less prosperous path toward self-reliance, with the state exercising complete control over the economy to hedge against geopolitical shocks. But Chinas efforts to bolster its self-sufficiency in some areas are a reasonable response to external pressures and they hardly spell doom for its economic model or prospects.

In recent years, the U.S. has ramped up its effort to contain Chinas rise. Beyond employing tariffs and nontariff barriers on imports from China, it has been limiting Chinese investment, such as by blocking Chinese companies from acquiring firms in some high-tech sectors in the U.S. It has also continued to add Chinese firms to its so-called Entity List, thereby restricting their access to U.S.-controlled critical technologies like semiconductors, barred U.S. capital from entering some of Chinas strategic industries, and forced Chinese companies off U.S. stock exchanges.

As my co-author, Shuo Shi, and I show in a 2020 paper, these policies could only carry escalating strategic costs for the U.S. And, contrary to popular belief, their lasting impact on the Chinese economy could be very limited, let alone enough to stop Chinas economic rise in its tracks.

An even more important point is missing from this discussion. China has already crossed a crucial threshold in terms of technological strength as measured by the stock value of physical- and human-capital accumulation. It is now only a matter of when, not if, China catches up with the U.S. technologically.

Chinese leaders have been clear that the country must move faster toward global technological parity to better mitigate the risk from geopolitical impact. In recent years, the government has boosted spending to strengthen Chinas capabilities in basic and strategic sectors, including education, science and technology, agriculture, and renewable energy. It has also implemented policies aimed at supporting the rapid development of cutting-edge high-tech industries, such as big data, cloud computing, 5G, and artificial intelligence.

Similarly, in accordance with its Five-Year Plans, China has been expanding its digital infrastructure system. According to Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China has already established 1.4 million 5G base stations more than 60% of the worlds total with over 650,000 built last year alone.

Such efforts are largely a response to the endogenous need to shift to a more advanced stage of economic development, not simply to U.S. containment policies and geopolitical shocks. Given this imperative, perhaps the greatest impact of the U.S. effort to contain China has been to clarify Chinas weaknesses and spur more progress in addressing them.

Chinese authorities do not believe that U.S. containment policies will force China out of the existing global economic system, let alone lead it to embrace an inward-looking, state-controlled development model. Predictions that U.S. policies will have such an effect underestimate the competitiveness gains that have driven Chinas economic rise over the past few decades and the profound impact it has had on the global economy.

China has built the worlds second-largest economy, and accumulated vast physical and human capital. It is also deeply embedded in and central to global production, and has formed complementary relationships with advanced economies. China is thus highly unlikely to be pushed out of global supply chains in any comprehensive way.

In fact, even as China has sought to build resilience at home, it has continued to pursue economic liberalization, such as by improving its business climate, creating a more open financial sector, and establishing many more free-trade zones. And the government remains committed to liberalizing the domestic market in order to maintain its linkage with international markets.

Setting aside geopolitical challenges, China must confront its own domestic issues, beginning with an accelerating fertility crisis. Though the Chinese government has eased its overly restrictive fertility policies, East Asias experience suggests that fertility may well continue to decline, albeit at a slower rate.

To stem the decline of the working-age population, China is likely to raise the retirement age soon. At the same time, to hedge against the impact of population aging on future economic growth, the government will continue to increase investment in education, thereby upgrading worker skills and raising labor productivity in the long term.

To increase and realize the economys growth potential, China urgently needs to commit to productivity-enhancing structural reforms. Here, China should draw lessons from the East Asian economies, where a slowdown in total factor productivity growth has almost always followed a period of high growth.

One such lesson is to resist political pressure to allocate resources to less productive regions. Another is to avoid capital over-investment in areas, such as real estate, that do not contribute much to productivity growth and that cause macroeconomic instability.

That is why Chinas government must pursue challenging structural reforms that correct resource misallocation and enable productivity growth, the scope for which remains large. For example, China should open up more of its economy to private capital. This would help to channel additional resources toward more productive, entrepreneurial sectors, which will use them more efficiently and creatively than state-owned enterprises.

Chinas growth and productivity potential is far from being tapped out, and U.S. containment policies and geopolitical shocks will not stop that. But, in order to meet its potential, China must accelerate its structural-reform efforts, as it did in the late 1990s, and improve the allocation of resources by fostering a more equitable, competitive, and market-oriented system.

Zhang Jun, dean of the School of Economics at Fudan University, is director of the China Center for Economic Studies, a Shanghai-based think tank. Project Syndicate, 2022

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Beijing is hedging its bets against geopolitical shock - The Japan Times

Central government programmes on water emphasise groundwater management by the community in a decentralised manner but, by and large, these schemes are silent on the availability, training and deployment of a skilled workforce for this task, especially in rural areas.

Water management at the most decentralised, local levels is often a part-time, volunteer or unpaid activity. This neither helps cultivate water security nor does it help cultivate meaningful livelihoods to manage precious water resources, found an analysis by the global research organisation, the JustJobs Network, with Bengaluru-based Arghyam, working for safe and sustainable water.

Over 80% of Indias urban and rural domestic water supplies are served by groundwater. India has 18% of the worlds population but only 4% of global renewable water resources within its territory. Over 250 of 700 districts have critical or over-exploited groundwater levels, according to the most recent Central Ground Water Board data from 2017.

There are several programmes for water supply and management in India, with the goal of water-secure villages, including one for delivering good quality piped water supply to villages through the Jal Jeevan Mission, for groundwater management through the Atal Bhujal Yojana and for water and sanitation under the Swachh Bharat Mission.

Workers in these programmes should be from the community, have knowledge of the science behind groundwater and surface water, have the skills to support their community to plan water usage based on its availability, and build, operate and maintain structures and systems to ensure water security.

Rural unemployment was at 8.35% as of February, as per data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. On World Water Day, our story highlights the urgent need for skilling and upskilling local workers in water management so as to address the challenges of managing limited resources. This can help India solve two crises: one of greater water insecurity as resources deplete, especially with a warming climate and the second of a lack of gainful employment for the countrys large labour force.

JustJobss Jal Kaushal project, supported by Arghyam, tries to map the landscape of the management of rural water commons, jobs and skills at the village, district and state levels. With no government body with the mandate to map this skills gap or to create job roles for water management, train or employ frontline workers, Jal Kaushal also hopes to create a blueprint for action on water security through sustainable livelihood and skills.

India is the worlds largest user of groundwater, drawing 25% of global groundwater. Water security is key for Indias continued socio-economic development. Nearly 62% of Indias irrigated agriculture is dependent on groundwater, while some 85% of rural Indias drinking water supply depends on groundwater. Groundwater, important for both lifeline and livelihood activities, is a common resource and requires adequate conservation and management.

Indian villages are served by surface water sources such as rivers, ponds, lakes and groundwater sources such as wells, tube wells, bore wells, piped water through bore wells and handpumps.

There are multiple agencies and government programmes on water, which often do not have convergence on the ground. Further, many of these schemes recognise the need for a skilled water cadre for efficient and effective implementation of the schemes, but most schemes are silent on how to ensure the availability of this skilled cadre.

We reached out to the Ministry of Rural Development and to the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation on Thursday, March 17, but did not hear back from them. The story will be updated when we receive a response.

Even though there could be an estimated cadre of 5 lakh to 10 lakh skilled personnel in the country (assuming that at least two-three people per village have been trained) to undertake various water-linked activities, these workers are largely invisible, and they have no job security beyond the period of the programme.

Further, there are no data at the village, gram panchayat or district level of this skilled cadre, nor does a mapping of what skills are required for adequate water management exist. Every time a new programme is launched, new personnel are trained, resulting in a multiplicity of efforts. There are also insufficient data to understand the effectiveness, sustainability and demand and supply gap of all such people working on rural water issues.

Through these government schemes and civil society initiatives, community members do get sporadically trained and engage on a voluntary basis on aspects of water management in the village. The tasks and responsibilities of these trained workers range from a worker digging wells, mason or a plumber for laying and maintaining of pipelines, a pump operator, bhujal jankaars as para-hydrologists, jal sahelis responsible for desilting ponds, dhara sevaks for spring shed management and other community resource persons.

But even in flagship programmes, tasks of these skilled personnel are not defined as job roles and responsibilities and there is no clear mobilisation, upskilling and associated remuneration, an analysis of the guidelines of the Jal Jeevan Mission and the Atal Bhujal Yojana show. As a result, even if civil society groups do mobilise and train these workers, they have to sustain their interest in undertaking water management without a path to income and job progress.

There have been some attempts to mainstream skilled cadre through full-time jobs such as Jal Surakshaks in Maharashtra, who have been trained and certified to monitor the groundwater situation, and to handle water-level measuring instruments, identification of wells, and digitally share information with the Ground Water Survey and Development Agency at different block and district headquarters.

Through livelihood missions such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the National Rural Livelihoods Mission and State Rural Livelihoods Missions, workers have been engaged at the village level for the construction, operation and maintenance of waterworks on a contract basis. Swacchagrahis and Accredited Social Health Activists, are engaged in testing water quality, in addition to the other tasks that they perform, on a part-time or on an incentive basis.

In a few states, traditional jobs of water managers such as kollalus in Garhwal, and chowkidars in the Kumaon hills in Uttaranchal, or havaldar, jagliyas or patkaris in Maharashtra, have been formalised with roles, responsibilities and remuneration defined. However, despite efforts being taken in the direction of creating jobs, most community resource persons continue to engage on a voluntary or shramdaan (donation of labour) basis.

Government-formed sub-committees, such as Village Water and Sanitation Committees and Water User Associations at the gram panchayat level, need to play a significant role to ensure adequate planning and implementation of water management. However, the capacity of these bodies is inadequate and they often require hand-holding, such as for tasks like mapping water resources and even in holding regular meetings, from other non-profits or civil society groups, found researchers from JustJobs Network in conversations with nonprofits working on water management.

This article first appeared on IndiaSpend, a data-driven and public-interest journalism non-profit.

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Indias water management programmes havent cultivated water security or meaningful livelihoods - Scroll.in