Weekending Sunday, 11 May 2008

HIGH FOOD PRICES IMPACT FOOD AID

5 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Mounting food and gas prices have adversely affected food assistance, according to CARE, an aid group that fights global poverty. “Food and gas prices affect aid worldwide. When buying food in response to an emergency, less can be bought because food is more expensive,” Alina Labrada of CARE told MediaGlobal. Somalia, a country rocked by famine and disease, has now suffered from a reduction in food aid. According to Reuters, CARE has cut the size of rations to the 660,000 people it provides food assistance to. World Vision, another aid group tackling poverty, has also cut its food aid due to higher food and gas prices. The organization reports that food aid could decline by 23 percent. Dean Hirsch, President of World Vision International, said that “despite our best efforts, more than a million of our beneficiaries are no longer receiving food aid. At least a third of these are children who urgently need enough food to thrive.” One of the areas most affected is South Sudan. “Food assistance is a vital part of rebuilding war-torn Sudan. Feeding programs in schools protect children from malnutrition and motivate families to educate their daughters. Food-for-work programs enable roads to be built in a region that lacks critical infrastructure,” says Seth Le Leu, World Vision Program Director in Juba, South Sudan.

CONFLICT IN SUDAN GREATLY AFFECTING WOMEN

5 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: As the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan rages on, women continue to be one of the most greatly affected populations. Human development issues such as reducing maternal mortality and increasing literacy, economic empowerment, political wherewithal and productive asset security for women are of particular concern. “If you cannot have an education, you cannot be able to work, earn money and income,” Miriam Jato, Senior advisor on gender in UNFPA’s Africa Division, told MediaGlobal. In decision-making forums, national ministries do not have enough resources to promote women’s rights. Importantly, it is Sudanese women who have brought these problems to the forefront of discussion. They are insisting that female leadership take steps to bring about a 25 percent allocation of public office positions. Beyond human development, they are lobbying to tear down barriers that limit their capacity to be influential within the judicial sector. For example, women have called for reforms in Family Law, but their outrage has so far produced no result, and the fight to eliminate violence against women continues.

UNEP TELLS POSTAL SECTOR IT’S TIME TO GO GREEN

5 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: If everyone else is going green, then why not the postal sector? The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has teamed with the Universal Postal Union (UPU) to cut carbon emissions generated by postal services. The UPU’s International Bureau is set to collect nation-by-nation emissions data. The timeframe for gathering this information has not been established, but it should be completed between one to two years. In cutting greenhouse gases, the UN partnership will have a “suite of options from alternative fuels and engines, to perhaps looking at the virtue of cycle deliveries and even the kinds of mail delivered, frequency of services and carbon offsets,” Nick Nuttall, a UNEP spokesman, told MediaGlobal. Among the techniques explored to cut down automobile pollution are training staff in “eco-driving” and using bikes for delivery. “In addition, we will encourage postal operators which transport all mail by road to use or re-use railways,” Laurent Widmer, Communications Program Expert for UPU, told MediaGlobal. Estimates show that the world postal sector boasts five million staffers, 660,000 postal buildings, 250,000 motorcycles and 600,000 automobiles. “We are bringing the issue of sustainability to one of the major global networks, the postal service, which has a massive responsibility to connect the world but which also has a significant footprint,” said Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP.

FERTILIZER SUBSIDIES ONLY PART OF SOLUTION TO AFRICAN FOOD SHORTAGES

6 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: As a net importer of food, increasing sub-Saharan Africa’s agricultural productivity is vital to feeding the continent, particularly as global food prices rise. “Africa is using the least amount of fertilizer in the world, and yields of major crops are also flat,” in large part because of the high cost of agricultural inputs, John Pender, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), told MediaGlobal. Lack of fertilizer results in smaller harvests, which in turn means lower profits for farmers, reducing the amount of fertilizer and other inputs they can buy and trapping them in cycles of low productivity and poverty. “Part of the reason farmers don’t use fertilizer in Africa is because in many cases it’s not profitable,” Pender said. Nearly all inorganic fertilizer must be imported, further raising costs. Many agricultural organizations have championed government fertilizer subsidies. But subsidies on imported inputs can also cripple emerging domestic markets. “You come in with cheap fertilizer [when] people are just starting to develop a fertilizer market, traders are going into business—and then a big load of subsidized fertilizer comes in and it completely undermines that market development,” he said. “There are smarter ways to do subsidies.” A program Malawi that gives smallholder farmers vouchers to buy seed and fertilizer from private distributors has been particularly successful, turning a country that was once dependent on food aid into a net producer, while helping develop local markets. Ultimately, fertilizer subsidies alone are not enough. “One needs to look at using fertilizer and other inputs and other land management practices more wisely, combining small doses of fertilizer with organic sources of nutrients, with water harvesting measures and other approaches that achieve synergy between the different technologies,” Pender said.

CREATIVE INDUSTRIES HELP DIVERSIFY COMMODITY-DEPENDENT ECONOMIES

7 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Often dependent on revenues from just one or two commodities, many of the least developed countries (LDCs) are struggling to diversify their economies. The creative industries, ranging from traditional crafts to filmmaking, are an increasingly viable option, said Edna dos Santos-Duisenberg, Chief of the Creative Economy and Industries Program of the United Nations Convention on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in an interview with MediaGlobal. Lacking essential infrastructure, skilled labor and start-up capital, “it’s not so easy to diversify the economy through the traditional development strategies,” she said. “When you talk about the creative industries and the creative economy, what is important is that the main inputs are creativity and ideas.” Every country has something unique to offer the global market, and in the least developed countries, development constraints can sometimes produce marketable innovations. “It is this combination of the economic with the cultural and the social that really brings the creative economy as an option,” dos Santos-Duisenberg said. Yet while such economies develop differently than agricultural or extractive industries, they still require significant investment, particularly in education and marketing mechanisms. And as the information and entertainment sectors are dominated by increasingly advanced technology, developing countries must look for new ways to finance the work of their artists and craftsmen. Some cities are forming “creative clusters,” dos Santos-Duisenberg said, “in which you usually have a big space, and you can invest in one medium—for instance equipment, and this equipment can be shared by different artists.”

AID SLOWLY REACHING CYCLONE-HIT MYANMAR

8 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Foreign aid is making its way into Myanmar, where the cyclone Nargis has left more than 22,000 people dead. Even as they wait for aid workers’ visas to be granted, the UN and neighboring countries such as India, Thailand and Indonesia have sent planes transporting supplies. In other developments, the UN’s World Food Programme has dispatched an extra four planes carrying supplies including high energy biscuits. John Holmes, the UN’s humanitarian chief, said that 24 countries had committed to assistance worth $30 million and that there had been progress on restoring electricity and water supply. But the focus is on distributing food first. “We are not primarily focusing on electricity restoration, but on shelter and water instead,” Michael Schulz, spokesperson for the International Red Cross and Red Cross Societies’ Delegation to the United Nations, told MediaGlobal. However, many problems remain, complicating efforts to deliver enough aid to reach a million people who have been left homeless. Myanmar has refused to issue visas for many aid workers, and because of blocked roads, the aid workers who have been given permission to enter the country or were already there will find it difficult to reach people. This has serious consequences for the Irrawaddy Delta, the region hit hardest by the cyclone. Despite these problems, Mr. Holmes ruled out the possibility of using force to deliver aid. He said that cooperation from the Myanmar authorities was “reasonable and heading in the right direction.” However, Holmes expressed his frustration over the failure of the national authorities to issue 40 pending visas, saying that this is an “increasingly desperate humanitarian situation” and that that he is “disappointed with the progress I’ve seen.”

CHILD SOLDIERS RELEASED IN BURUNDI

9 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: After eight months of negotiations, 232 child soldiers have been released in Burundi, the result of an agreement between the government, civil society, UN agencies and other players and the Palipehutu-FNL, a militant political faction, according to reports by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF). The children, whose ages range from 15 to 20 and include at least one girl, were received by government officials in Bujumbura. “Everyone involved in the release of the children paid specific attention to the case of girls and women and continue to monitor the situation. Factual information indicates that the vast majority of identified child soldiers are boys,” Olalekan AJIA a Communication Specialist for UNICEF told MediaGlobal. “As far as we can tell, there are no more children with the dissident faction,” AJIA added. But UNICEF has no hard facts about how many children are being held in other parts of the country by the main branch of the Palipehutu-FNL group, led by Agathon Rwasa, and there are reports that advocacy is ongoing for the immediate release and demobilization of an unknown number of children who may remain with the rebel group. Since 2004, 3,000 former child soldiers have been demobilized in Burundi. “The majority of them have been reintegrated into their former homes and communities and many of them are receiving other services to assist them,” said a UNICEF statement.

OVER 100 RURAL PRESCHOOLS LAUNCHED IN NIGER

9 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have joined forces to bring early education services to children in rural Niger. The agencies have agreed to support the creation of 100 community preschools in two of the country’s regions with the lowest enrollment rates. “Preschools make an enormous difference in the quality of education for Nigerien children, as well as their parents. Preliminary evaluations show that preschools support school readiness as well as basic life skills and competencies, like hand washing, hygiene, respect for self and others, peaceful conflict resolution, gender equality and more,” Gaëlle Bausson of UNICEF told MediaGlobal. These community preschools make a substantial contribution to bringing children into the school system earlier, reports UNICEF, increasing their chances to enroll and perform well in primary school. In addition to the creation of the schools, UNICEF and JICA will also support teacher training, curriculum development and help communities to set up management structures, putting in place the tools and mechanisms needed to ensure sustainability.

GLOBAL HAPPENINGS

Project for Nuclear Awareness’s Conference
Philadelphia, PA (10 May 2008): MediaGlobal is co-sponsoring a one-day, multidisciplinary conference together with the Project for Nuclear Awareness and a dozen partner organizations to “connect the dots” on the environment, security, and global health. Experts, advocates, and interested citizens will be brought together at the Sheraton University City Hotel Ballroom in Philadelphia, PA for a discussion on engaging more people in these critical issues.
For tickets information, click: www.projectfornuclearawareness.org/news.aspx/pub/4/id/45

International Workshop on HIV/AIDS 2008
Varadero, Cuba (4-9 May 2008): Organized by the Cuban Society for Immunology and Latin American Association of Immunology, it will explore latest experiences in HIV/AIDS.
Email: tapanes@ipk.sld.cu or Rolando.tapanes@gmail.com
www.sci.sld.cu

First Global Business Conference and Competition for Off-Grid Lighting in Africa
Accra, Ghana (5-8 May 2008): The World Bank Group and its partners are proud to announce Lighting Africa 2008, the first global business conference and development marketplace competition for off-grid lighting in Africa. The conference is designed for investors, financiers, private firms, end users, and development agencies to showcase and expand business opportunities targeting low-income populations in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Website: www.lightingafrica.org

Fashion Africa 2008
Nairobi, Kenya (8-11 May 2008): This exhibition is the place to discover the latest ideas and attract a whole new audience. FASHION AFRICA will be the international meeting point for fashion designers / companies to showcase their new fashion and style products, innovations, equipment and concepts from the fashion industry.
Website: www.arabianexposition.com

International Conference on ICT for Development, Education and Training
Accra, Ghana (28-30 May 2008): The 3rd International Conference on ICT for Development, Education and Training is the premier gathering place for all experts and stakeholders engaged or interested in ICT-based projects in Africa.
Website: http:// www.elearning-africa.com

SOURCE: South-South Solutions http://tcdc1.undp.org/enews/index.html