Member of the European Parliament for Bulgaria
2007 - 2009
(first direct EP elections in Bulgaria);
LEED to OECD partner (Nanotech)
Artificial intelligence*
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming every aspect of our lives. It influences how we work and play. It promises to help solve global challenges like climate change and access to quality medical care. Yet AI also brings real challenges for governments and citizens alike.
*OECD
The future of work is now*
Through the “I am the Future of Work campaign”, the OECD is seeking to contribute to a positive future of work. We are gathering people’s perspectives and ideas about work and fostering solutions-oriented conversations across sectors and countries. Together, we can build a better world of work for all.
| Have your say http://newsletter.oecd.org/q/143OPr5b44moDuhMZ7iDm/wv |
*OECD newsletter
Going Digital Toolkit*
The Going Digital Toolkit helps countries assess their state of digital development and formulate policy strategies and approaches in response. Data exploration and visualisation are key features of the Toolkit.
*OECD
Tunisia’s integrity challenge*
More than seven years after the revolution that toppled President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia is still beset with numerous tensions. These bubbled to the surface in January 2018 with protests against unpopular tax measures and corruption. As in 2001, Tunisia’s young people embody the revolt and fight against corruption that has become endemic in the country. Their angry slogans express the disappointed hopes of a nation that rose up against a dictator and his abusive regime.
Video of Race to Freedom Project
If Letters cost money… 2018 EYCH event A Short Life Story of Saints Cyril and Methodius
2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage – Our heritage: where the past meets the future
Be inspired! 
Get news and actions for youth's rights: http://theirworld.org/take-action/sign-up
260 million children worldwide are out of school - #WriteTheWrong campaign
Theirworld.org: During 2018, we look at seven key issues for a lasting difference in the lives of youth.
1. Donors to do more for the world’s poorest countries - help raise the $3.1 billion it needs to finance its work.
2. Bigger emphasis on the under-fives - invest 10% of education budgets and aid in pre-primary.
3. Backing education in emergencies - Education Cannot Wait to be fully funded to deliver education in conflicts and other humanitarian crises.
4. Action to make schools safer - sign the Safe Schools Declaration.
5. $10 billion in extra funding unlocked - the G20 countries to ensure the International Finance Facility for Education becomes a reality, helping millions more children into school.
6. Get all Syrian refugees in school - leaders to keep their promise, made two
years ago, to deliver quality education for every refugee child.
7. Bridge the gap between business and youth - the new Youth Skills and Innovation Commission to make recommendations to put young people on a new course for employment and opportunity.
Rohingya crisis in 2018 (see also Events in 2017)
Martin Luther King anniversary: the US Civil Rights Trail
Famine in Yemen could become one of worst in living memory, UN says
People power: Collective intelligence in the new era of international co-operation*
We live in stark times: times when the values of openness, collaboration and global integration are being questioned; times when the notion of citizenship and engagement are being reframed; times when information sharing, meaning and truth take on a new dimension, in a digital, direct and fast paced 21st century. As an Organisation emerging from the rubble of the Second World War, we know only too well that peace cannot be taken for granted. On a daily basis, we live and breathe how dialogue and co-operation can help strengthen a peaceful world and improve people’s lives.
Today, we are communicating in an environment where public opinion is divided based on very different experiences of life. If we want to get through to people, we need to speak a language that resonates with their experiences…
The 10th anniversary of the global financial crisis provides us all with the opportunity to pause and reflect on the distance between classical economic thinking, and the models it was based on, and the reality of people’s everyday lives — lives that are still feeling the effects of the Global Financial Crisis a decade later.
Please follow the article here: https://www.oecd-forum.org/users/40211-anthony-gooch/posts/40876-people-power-collective-intelligence-in-the-new-era-of-international-co-operation.
The changing landscape requires us to broaden the spectrum of our engagement, acknowledging, once and for all, that, in a multifaceted and multistakeholder world, policy making is no longer the sole remit of governments. A plethora of influential voices are rising to the fore, whether organised civil society or spontaneous citizen movements, joining forces to spark creativity, inject disruption and instill sustained change. Such voices are not only helping in designing and implementing global solutions: they play a key role in adapting them locally so they have real impact on people’s lives.
*OECD, Anthony Gooch
Going up?*
“All human beings are born equal. But on the following day, they no longer are,” said French author Jean Renard in 1907. This is because sticky floors and ceilings–or rags to rags and riches to riches–define the bottom and top income distributions. Today, it takes four to five generations, on average, for children from the poorest 10% of the population to reach median income levels. Meanwhile, about 50% of children of wealthy parents will themselves remain rich in countries like Germany and the US.
Worse, every four years, a fifth of the middle class’ poorest fall down to the bottom of the income distribution while its upper half enjoys much greater security, as shown in A Broken Social Elevator? How to Promote Social Mobility.
What’s more, in countries like Brazil and South Africa where income inequality is high, there is a state of “permanent inequality”, with an underlying feeling that social mobility is but a broken promise. Indeed, low upward mobility increases people’s sense that their voices do not matter and that the system is neither fair nor meritocratic.
Still, mobility is not all about money. It can range from jobs to education and health, and it changes when viewed through each of these lenses. These distortions create unique situations within each country: in places like Japan and Korea, educational mobility is higher than income mobility, but it’s the other way around in Norway and Spain. In the US, job mobility is higher than earnings mobility, while in Finland it’s the reverse, with lower educational mobility on top.
Yet there is nothing inevitable about socio-economic status being passed down between generations. Equal access to quality education is one way to enhance social mobility: countries that spend more on public education tend to achieve higher educational mobility. The same goes for health. Moreover, progressive taxation on wealth, inheritance and combatting tax avoidance leads to less sticky ceilings, while money transfers or benefits to low-income families and improving the school-to-work transition unsticks the floors. And as the report shows, policies that address the likes of residential segregation and sudden unemployment, or aim to improve the work-home balance can enhance social mobility across the board.
*The OECD Observer
53 developing nations promised to increase spending
Positive news: “The emerging story from a major education summit in Senegal is about developing countries investing even more in education. Donors such as the UK, US, France and Canada pledged $2.3 billion to help the Global Partnership for Education’s work over the next three years. On the same stage in Dakar, 53 developing nations promised to increase spending on their own school systems by a total of $110 billion. And Senegal became the first African country to become a donor to other developing nations.” (theirworld.org, February’18)
Africa’s Development Dynamics 2018*
What are the major economic and social trends in Africa? What is Africa’s role in globalisation? This new annual report presents an Africa open to the world and towards the future.
*OECD iLibrary
