#policy makers

First, policymakers should act more cautiously when their interventions are designed to nudge people towards making the choice desired by the policymaker, rather than to just make better choices overall. Designs that leverage cognitive biases or impose mental costs to achieve behavioural change are particularly likely to generate welfare losses, because they infringe on people’s autonomy to make the choices that best suit themselves. The best interventions are those that preserve the autonomy to choose as far as possible, while using behavioural insights to help people make choices that are better for society as a whole.

Second, policymakers should evaluate behavioural interventions to consider the broader impacts on societal welfare, rather than just the narrow question of whether the policy ‘works as intended’. Societal welfare can be improved if policymakers use willingness-to-pay estimates to help to quantify the implicit costs of behavioural interventions, and use advances in analytics to target interventions on those who are the most likely to change their behaviour. For example, a more efficient method of implementing social norms interventions may be to focus on households or individuals who value conforming more, and reduce efforts to reach out to those who dislike conforming, and who would not conform in any case.

Over the last 30 years, emerging markets such as China and India experienced higher growth due to their increased participation in the global economy. Immigration, free trade, and global investments have played a huge role in lifting over one billion people out of extreme poverty since the early 1990s.

However global integration of emerging economies may have faltered due to the rise of populism in Western Europe and the United States, and with it a renewed focus on curbing immigration, overseas investments, and outsourcing.

Facing growing protectionism, will policy makers of emerging markets turn inward as a response?

International human rights law provides a clear and universal framework relating to detention, enshrined by the following rule:

United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (“Bangkok Rules”)

Bad food and medical care and even worse problems make prison reform a must.

The Bangkok Rules give guidance to policy makers, legislators, sentencing authorities and prison staff to reduce the imprisonment of women, and to meet the specific needs of women in case of imprisonment.

After opening remarks of the co-conveners of World Teachers’ Day, the event will present critical data on the appeal of the teaching profession, highlighting teacher voices on what they find attractive and challenging in the profession. An open conversation will be organized with the co-conveners, decisionmakers, and experts from the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession, who will present what they see as the priority actions needed to make the profession more appealing in the years ahead. Register here to attend online.

A two-hour workshop co-convened by the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 (TTF) and Education International (EI) will explore national and regional policy responses and programmes to improve the appeal of the teaching profession in response to the global shortage on teachers. There will be a plenary session with presentations by TTF members on initiatives and evidence on improving the attraction and retention of qualified and motivated teachers, followed by regional breakout sessions for participants (policy makers, teacher unions, TTF members, teachers) to explore localised challenges and responses in more depth. Register here to participate online.

Global pathways to an attractive teaching profession. 6 October 3 – 5 p.m. (Paris time), online event.

The event will provide a platform to exchange good practices, that can guide Member States, the private sector and civil society in the implementation of Objective 20 of the Global Compact for Migration.

The meeting has four main objectives: 1. To exchange practical examples and strategies of successful initiatives at national, regional and global level aimed at maximizing remittances and migrant investment for sustainable development and promoting financial inclusion for migrants and their families. 2. To explore the role of private sector entities involved in the remittance market as well as central banks in promoting the implementation of relevant goals and targets of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, the SDGs as well as Objective 20 of the GCM. 3. To promote multi-stakeholder partnerships to develop practical solutions for implementing the 2030 Agenda and the GCM. 4. To "explore options for policy makers at national and local levels to enhance positive and mitigate negative effects of migration and remittances in the transformation of rural areas" in response to the 2019 GFMD Roundtable 3.2 Goals (SDGs).