Weekending Sunday, 13 January 2008

ALLIANCE OF CIVILIZATIONS TO FOSTER CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING IN MEDIA

8 JANUARY 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The Alliance of Civilizations Forum will bring heads of state, civil society leaders and media representatives together in Madrid next week in a multi-faceted effort to stop crises rooted in cross-cultural misunderstanding before they begin. The Forum will launch several media initiatives, including an online directory of experts that will “provide a platform for voices that can help reduce tensions in times of cross-cultural crises,” Shamil Idriss, Acting Director of the Alliance, told reporters at UN Headquarters on Tuesday. “This rapid response media mechanism will be a tool that we hope media agencies will be able to use should they want to invite commentary from a wide variety of global experts who may help to speak about the issues with expertise and in a less polarizing manner than is often the case,” Idriss said. The Alliance was formed primarily out of concern over an increasing divide between Western and Muslim cultures, the definitions of which, Idriss stressed, were themselves often misleading and unhelpful. The directory will provide a means of linking the media with experts from all over the world. “It will not be a very worthwhile initiative if media producers and editors don’t see it as providing names that they otherwise can’t easily get. And some of those would be from the Least Developed Countries that don’t have as much of a platform,” Idriss told MediaGlobal.

2008 MARKS INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF SANITATION

9 JANUARY 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: A lack of clean drinking water, safe and hygienic toilets and effective waste management systems are at the root of some of the most persistent problems facing the developing world. Poor sanitation has an especially far-reaching impact on children, who are often most vulnerable to waste-borne diseases and may be kept out of school to avoid unhygienic conditions, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) officials said, naming 1 January 2008 the first day of the International Year of Sanitation. Cleaner schools have a particularly important role to play in the economic development of some of the world’s poorest countries. “Improving sanitation and hygiene increases children’s performance at school, enhances teacher recruitment, attendance and retention which benefits the community in the long run,” Clarissa Brocklehurst, Chief of Water, Environment and Sanitation for UNICEF and Coordinator of the UN-WATER Task Force on Sanitation, told MediaGlobal. Affordable and hygienic lavatory facilities and water treatment technologies have already been developed for use in schools and private homes, she said. “The issue is to change mindsets towards sanitation which will prevent contamination of the environment and water sources in the first place. This includes encouraging governments to make it a priority and every family to adopt sanitary practices.” Regional conferences on sanitation will be held throughout the year, with the goal of raising funds and international awareness of the estimated 2.6 billion people in the world without access to proper sanitation.

ECONOMIC GROWTH EXPECTED TO REMAIN STRONG IN 2008 IN THE LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES, SAYS UN REPORT

10 JANUARY 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Even as concerns about a global economic downturn increase, the economies of the world’s least developed countries are expected to continue to show strong growth in 2008, according to a UN report issued this week. The report, titled ‘The UN World Economics Situation and Prospects 2008 Report,’ a joint venture of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and the UN Conference of Trade and Development (UNCTAD), is the United Nations’ flagship economic report, outlining the world body’s official predictions for the coming year. While the report predicts a decrease in growth for developed and developing economies alike in the year ahead, projections show the economies of the least developed countries will continue to gain strength, increasing their growth from 6.7 percent in 2007 to 6.9 percent in 2008. This is well ahead of the world average of 3.7 percent in 2007, which is expected to decrease to 3.4 percent in 2008. This growth is largely attributed to the fact that many of the poorest nations have been able to harness the booming worldwide commodities market to their advantage, profiting from the high market prices of export goods such as oil and other minerals. “It’s an exceptional time for many of the [developing] countries to benefit from a favorable external environment for them,” Rob Vos, Director of the Development Policy and Analysis Division of DESA and lead author of the report, told MediaGlobal. But, he cautioned, this reliance on the commodities market makes these countries vulnerable to shifts in the world economy, including the predicted upcoming stagnation. Developing nations, he argues, should seize this opportunity to invest in the infrastructure that will allow economic growth to continue. “They have to think through new steps to diversify and build a strong economy,” Vos said. “Things need to move quickly in the right direction to move these gains forward.”

RENOWNED ECONOMISTS PRESENT DEVELOPMENT AGENDA

13 JANUARY 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Last month the United Nations received a comprehensive report concerning its development agenda since 1990. Titled ‘The United Nations Development Agenda: Development for All,’ it seeks to make public the complex goals, strategies and commitments that have been agreed to by nations of the world for almost two decades. The report was presented to the UN General Assembly by Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development; Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate and President of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University; and Jagdish Bhagwati, Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations at Columbia University. In a brief press conference following the presentation, Stiglitz remarked, “The last couple of years have been particularly good for developing countries.” However, he indicated, that the prospects for continued growth were not optimistic. Further, the growth of bilateral agreements has been hurting multilateral ones. Delving into a brief history lesson, Bhagwati said he believed that the nations that are faring the best economically are those that took advantage of post-World War II changes in the international markets. Bhagwati explained to MediaGlobal that the current development problem is, “an Africa problem.”