Weekending Sunday, 18 May 2008

CEREMONY CELEBRATES CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

12 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: According to the UN Economic and Social Council’s Commission for Social Development, there are 650 million people with disabilities, accounting for 10 percent of the world’s population. Eighty percent of these people live in the developing world. A special ceremony celebrating the recent adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was held today at the UN General Assembly in New York. The Convention was designed to protect persons with disabilities who face discrimination in all sectors of society – such as the workplace, in schools and in government social programs. The Commission states that of those who live on less than a dollar a day, one out of every five will be a person with a disability, and so making sure that the disabled are included in all development activities is crucial to achieving international development goals. Jomo Kwame Sundaram, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, emphasized this, saying, “development policies should be more inclusive for peers with disabilities.” But the implementation of the Convention may present challenges. Prince Ra’ad Bin Zeid of Jordan told MediaGlobal that “we have to change attitudes and it takes time. You have to start at the grassroots and then go up.” However, the Convention has been signed by 128 countries since 30 March 2007 and ratified by 25, itself is a step forward.

MONITORING AIDS TREATMENT BY PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS SHOWN TO BE EFFECTIVE

12 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: When HIV-infected people in developing countries began receiving advanced drug therapies, policymakers feared that long-term patient care would suffer due to the lack of high-tech laboratories available to guide treatments. But according to a new study, such concerns appear to be unfounded, reported the World Health Organization (WHO). When clinicians use simple physical signs of deteriorating health – such as weight loss or fever – doctors can provide therapies almost as effective as those relying on the most advanced laboratory analysis, states WHO in a recent press release. “The study refers to patients who have already started ART [anti-retroviral treatment] and how they can be monitored in a way that does not require close access to high-technology laboratory services that can perform complex blood tests to monitor the effect and benefit of AIDS treatment,” Dr. Charles Gilks of WHO told MediaGlobal. “It does mean that the treatment will be much more widely accessible outside centers where these lab tests are available,” he added. According to the study authors, survival rates for individuals assessed for clinical symptoms alone were almost identical to survival rates for those who underwent laboratory monitoring. “The 5-year survival rate was 83 percent for individuals monitored for viral load, 82 percent for CD4 (a critical immune component) monitoring, and 82 percent for clinical monitoring alone,” WHO reports. This is particularly important for the long-term care of patients on treatment as they can be managed by local clinics with clinicians assessing them by simple symptom checks and clinical examination, said Gilks.

SEA CUCUMBERS HELP SMALL ISLANDS ACHIEVE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

13 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: A popular delicacy and an increasingly valuable aid to medical research, sea cucumbers have the potential to be an important cash crop for the most vulnerable island countries. “The financial viability of sea cucumbers makes it an excellent target crop for small island states,” said Erik Hagberg, CEO and founder of PAC International Inc. Hagberg’s company, which provides integrated sustainable business solutions, has collaborated with the UN Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Partnership to implement new technologies for sustainable development. Due to their size and relative isolation, SIDS have restricted resources, and aquaculture often offers the greatest possibility for achieving sustainable development. As potential major producers of sea cucumbers, SIDS have the opportunity to capitalize on this market. “Research indicated that 1 kilogram of sea cucumbers yields $1,000 in gross revenues,” Hagberg told MediaGlobal. In China, 30 square miles of farmed sea cucumbers grossed $70 million. In the Marshall Islands, there are over 1,000 square miles available for farming, which could allow large industry to develop, profiting from an over $250 a million annual gross market for sea cucumbers. Besides being a culinary delight in Asia and major source of protein, scientists are finding medicinal value in sea cucumbers. These sea creatures have been used to treat arthritis for thousands of years and are currently used in malaria and cancer research. Sea cucumbers even have the potential to treat HIV. PAC International believes biopharmaceuticals are central to the medical industry’s future. “The demand is enormous, there’s never been a greater demand, but the wild population is at an all time minimum,” Hagberg said. To satisfy this demand, the company created a sustainable method of farming sea cucumbers on a large scale. In the Marshall Islands, they began farming sea cucumbers in partnership with the local people, creating jobs and supplemental earnings. Workers train for fifteen minutes, then collect juvenile sea cucumbers for $5 a bucket. Canoes are used to find and redistribute the sea cucumbers in the atoll, maintaining local traditions while lessening fuel costs. In addition to improving islanders’ incomes, the program offers a unique employee cooperative ownership plan. Employees earn shares or employee stock ownership for every day of work. This employee stock ownership plan is important in creating macroeconomic stability and incentives beyond cash income. PAC International and the SIDS Partnership believe this model can be replicated in any island state to serve as a step toward sustainable development.

BUILDING ON SUCCESS OF TREE-PLANTING CAMPAIGN, UNEP ANNOUNCES NEW TARGETS

13 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: After exceeding the goal of planting a billion trees in a single year, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is challenging governments, businesses, civil society and individuals to reach a new target of planting seven billion trees, roughly one for every person on earth. The response to the Billion Tree Campaign, launched in 2006 “completely overwhelmed us,” said Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP. The campaign was conceived “as an expression of popular interest in the issue, but also the popular enthusiasm to do something while the world is engaged in very complex negotiation processes, negotiations that often leave individual citizens quite distant from the issues at hand,” Steiner said. Trees are directly linked to agricultural productivity in a variety of ways, and rather than consuming farmland, planting billions of trees could in fact increase agricultural productivity, Steiner told MediaGlobal. “It’s not a competition. At the simple farmyard level it actually can protect crops from wind damage, it can enhance the fertility of the soil and it produces an additional income for the farmer,” he said, adding, “agroforestry today has developed many techniques and approaches for enhancing the productivity of agricultural land by including trees as part of the system of running your farm.” Trees are vital to maintaining healthy water sources and ecosystems needed produce crops. They reduce erosion and attract pollinators. Even the health of far-off forests is crucial to farmers, Steiner said. “One of the big problems we face today is that deforestation is in many parts of the world killing watersheds in terms of water retention, leading to siltation of dams, which in turn are used for irrigation.” For example, Kenya’s tea farmers are suffering because of deforestation in neighboring areas, which has led to subtle changes in climate and a shift in growing conditions. “Deforestation is destroying the microclimate that has allowed this particular world-class tea farming to emerge there,” Steiner said.

RICE PRICES CONTINUE TO RISE

13 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) stated on Monday that although rice production in Asia, Africa and Latin America is expected to increase this year, in the short term, rice prices will continue to rise. The FAO also reported that the devastation caused by the cyclone Nargis in Myanmar could lead to further increases in global prices. However, FAO rice expert Concepcion Calpe told MediaGlobal that, “according to latest information, the area affected is not so much. We are revising down what was initially reported.” The cyclone hit rice-producing areas and destroyed stocks. “We don’t know how much loss was retained in the stocks, and Myanmar holds lots of stocks,” Calpe said. But even before the disastrous effects of the cyclone, the FAO rice price index shows that between December 2007 and April 2008, prices have been going up. Several major rice producing states such as India, Bangladesh and Egypt have already moved to put limits on the amount of rice exported in order to secure domestic prices and retain a safe amount of rice for domestic consumption. “These measures further restricted the availability of rice supplies in international markets, triggering yet more price rises and tighter supply conditions,” said Calpe. She said that Thailand, the U.S. and Pakistan are the only major rice producing states still exporting rice without barriers.

WATER WASTE UNDERMINES ADVANCES IN AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY

14 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: It takes water to feed the planet—500 to 2,000 liters to produce a single kilogram of wheat, and ten times that to produce one kilogram of beef. Meeting the Millennium Development Goal of halving hunger by 2015 will require double the amount of water currently used, Anders Berntell, Executive Director of the Stockholm International Water Institute said, introducing a new report on water and food waste, launched Wednesday during the sixteenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development. Without proper management of water resources, advances in agricultural technology alone will not be able to fill the planet’s growing food gaps, Pasquale Steduto, Chief of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Water, Development and Management Unit, told MediaGlobal. “To have a plant that potentially can have a good productivity but you don’t associate the [water] management—that is a lost opportunity,” Steduto said. The kind of breakthrough needed to engineer less thirsty crops is still a long way off, he said. Instead, more effective water conservation practices must be used, and not just by farmers. As water resources are taxed to produce food for a growing and hungry planet, food waste translates into massive water losses. In the developing world, poor harvesting technology and delivery systems mean as much as 50 percent of crops are lost before they reach the market. In wealthier countries, huge amounts of food are thrown away by consumers themselves. The report estimates that in the United States, 30 percent of food goes uneaten each year, wasting 40 trillion liters of water. “Curbing these losses and improving water productivity provides win-win opportunities for farmers, businesses and ecosystems,” said David Molden, Director of Research at the International Water Management Institute. “An effective water-saving strategy will first require that minimizing food wastage is placed firmly on the political agenda.”

UNCTAD XII CALLS FOR INCLUSIVE GLOBALIZATION

15 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: In an in increasingly interconnected world, access to the benefits of globalization is crucial to reducing poverty in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), said participants of the twelfth session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD XII), which took place in Ghana April 20 to 25. The outcomes of the conference were reported in New York by Leslie Kojo Christian, Permanent Representative of Ghana to the UN, Cheick Sidi Diarra, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, and other attendees. Diarra explained the purpose and outcomes of the meeting in relation to the LDCs. The main topic was globalization and its various effects on the international community’s economic conditions. “Despite benefiting many, globalization continues to exclude millions. Policies must be made inclusive,” Diarra told MediaGlobal. Diarra’s statement echoes the main objective in the Accra Accord, which was the major result of the UNCTAD XII. The Accord addresses globalization’s opportunities and challenges for development. Developing countries, particularly the LDCs, have not fully participated in the global boom. The introduction of the Accord states that, in the age of globalization, LDCs continue to struggle, noting, “their growth rate did not increase in the period 2000-2006 as compared with 1995-2000, or else it remained below 3 per cent.” This figure illustrates globalization’s halting effect on the already strained economies of the LDCs. The Accra Accord identifies the reasons the LDCs are unable to reap globalization’s benefits, including the impact of economic dependence on only a few commodities, unstable prices and a diversification of production structures. To be able to participate in globalization, the Accord urges developing countries to build productive capacities, ensure access to basic services, and strengthen their legal and regulatory frameworks and institutions. Diarra called for a “shift in development policies.” He said the UNCTAD XII’s mandates intend to extend to work programs, increase trade development, improve technology and address the effects of climate change and migration on the LDCs. These mandates have already begun to be implemented by the Secretariat. “This is an important step in moving the development dialogue forward. It is strengthening the UN,” concluded Diarra.

MIGRATORY BIRD POPULATIONS DROP WORLDWIDE

16 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Migratory bird populations are declining, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) announced last week, citing recent scientific studies. This downward trend is of special concern as experts agree that birds are some of the best indicators of the status of biodiversity and ecosystems around the world. “Plummeting populations of migratory birds give us a strong signal,” Sergey Dereliev, Technical Officer at UNEP’s African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA), told MediaGlobal. “Declining bird populations also mean a decline in or damage to the other elements of the environment on which they depend. However, humans depend on exactly the same environmental elements,” he added. The decline in numbers is being recorded for many of the migratory bird species along all of the world’s major flyways – the main migration systems, or corridors, used by various groups of migratory birds in different parts of the world, reports UNEP. The exact reasons for the decline in populations are said to be complex and vary from species to species. Even so, according to UNEP, “the overall decline in bird numbers may be signaling a wider environmental problem linked to the loss of habitats and biodiversity worldwide.”

HIV/AIDS TAKES SPOTLIGHT IN WORLD’S WORKFORCE

18 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: As organizations continue to fight discrimination around the globe, an obscure prejudice against employees with HIV/AIDS has caught the attention of the International Labour Office (ILO). “Discrimination based on HIV status has been reported in all regions – it may include testing job applicants before hiring, depriving HIV- positive staff of training or promotion opportunities, breaking medical confidentiality about HIV status, and direct or indirect dismissal of staff known or suspected to be HIV-positive,” Susan Leather, an ILO spokesperson told MediaGlobal. Seventy ILO Member States are planning to, or have already adopted laws concerning HIV/AIDS. Only 30 have focused on rules within the workplace. Of the estimated 33.2 million people with AIDS, a majority of them are still actively working and supporting their families. The ILO believes that labor standards would protect and promote the Code of Practice they adopted in 2001 concerning HIV/AIDS-infected employees. “The vast majority of employers, once they understand that an employee with HIV can go on living and working productively for a significant number of years have no incentive or need to mistreat employees with HIV,” said Leather. “[ILO] is currently in the process of developing a new labor standard on HIV/AIDS to strengthen its existing code of practice and give new impetus to workplace responses.”

44,000 CHILDREN FED IN SOMALIA

18 May 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: As Somali citizens continue to suffer massive food shortages, UNICEF has pledged to provide aid to the more than 90 percent of all children among the 300,000 who have been displaced in Mogadishu, the country’s capital. This past week, a supplementary food gruel named UNIMIX – a fortified corn-soya blend – was provided to 44,000 children over a three-day period. Over the course of three months, the organization will allot 10 kilograms of food to each child. “Over 2.6 million Somalis are already food insecure and we expect that by the end of the year, up to 3.5 million people – nearly half of Somalia’s population – may need food aid,” said Unni Silkoset, a nutrition officer with UNICEF in Somalia. Because of rising food prices, rapidly receding food supplies, drought and displacement due to conflict, Somalis are finding day-to-day living increasingly difficult. It has become even harder for organizations outside the nation to provide aid. “All organizations are facing huge constraints when it comes to access. Security is worsening and access [is] limited in the Central South and North East,” Silkoset told MediaGlobal. Beyond food, UNICEF and its partners are chlorinating reservoirs to ensure citizens have access to safe drinking water. Although they are focusing on Somali children, Silkoset said that, while the current plan is not helping mothers of these children, the World Food Programme (WFP) is. “WFP distributes a family ration of cereals, pulses, oil and corn soya blend – a fortified flour – to families in Afgoye,” Silkoset said.

GLOBAL HAPPENINGS

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