Weekending Sunday, 6 April 2008

ANTI-RAPE CAMPAIGNS LAUNCHED IN LIBERIA

31 March 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Nearly five years after the end of a brutal civil war that sent sexual violence statistics soaring, Liberia’s rape rate is still shockingly high, Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu, UN Deputy Envoy to Liberia, told a thousand-person crowd that gathered to witness Monday’s launch of an anti-rape campaign in Liberia’s southeastern Grand Gedeh County. “Since 2006 the statistics for rape have not declined,” she said, adding that the majority of the victims are between ten and 14 years old. The campaign is the latest in a series of regional initiatives to combat gender-based violence, led by the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and other UN agencies, NGOs and the Liberian government. The projects follow the government’s announcement last month that it will create a special court for sexual violence. “The rape law has been amended and simplified but challenges still remain in enforcing the law,” UNMIL Spokesman Ben Dotsei Malor told MediaGlobal. “There is a culture of silence and stigmatization” of victims, he said, stressing the importance of continued community outreach on issues of rape and rape laws. “Further, the police [and] magistrates need to be fully trained [and] educated on the importance of instituting justice.” Rape rates are tied to a lack of judicial capacity, Malor said, which in turn traps the country in cycles of violence. “The 14 years of conflict had a devastating impact on girls and women in particular. Women were made sex workers, trafficked, made sex slaves of some of the fighters because of a break down of rule of law,” he said. Even now, a lack of infrastructure and law enforcement has allowed violence against women to continue. “This seems to encourage or fail to deter the perpetrators of these crimes. This lack of confidence causes victims and communities to not report rape for fear of stigma,” he said.

INCREASED COMMITMENT TO COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH SYSTEMS NEEDED, SAYS SACHS

1 April 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The world’s public health crisis demands an integrated approach, said Jeffrey Sachs, economist and special advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, addressing a group of experts on public health at Columbia University. Much of the public health aid community is separated into isolated interest groups, each advocating for an individual disease or area of concern, he added. One need look no further than the United Nations to see this effect, where awareness for health issues ranging from HIV to diabetes are marked by individual days. When it comes to actually implementing public health solutions in the field, however, health care is rarely so easily partitioned. This has led to a great deal of debate over what is known as the “vertical versus horizontal divide.” “I think that these disease advocacy, diagnostic and scale-up groups are very important, but then you need the overarching WHO, UNICEF, Global Fund, Secretary General,” Sachs told MediaGlobal. “They need to be able to do the integrative part.” The key, Sachs said, lies in revising how public health aid for developing nations is funded. “A lot of the financing comes by disease,” said Sachs. “We also need a financing mechanism for health systems, which we don’t have.” To achieve this, Sachs suggests including funding for these kind of integrative programs alongside single-issue funding. “The Global Fund should provide one more window: AIDS, TB, Malaria [and] Health Systems,” he said. This kind of investment in overall health infrastructure would, in Sachs’ opinion, allow the health needs of developing countries to be more effectively met. “You need to build the primary health system, then integrate each of these, use each of these vertical programs to augment the capacity of the primary health system,” he said.

ECONOMIC REPORT ON AFRICA REVEALS UNCERTAINTIES

1 April 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The United Nations released its 2008 Economic Report on Africa this week, outlining progress the continent has made over the past year. Yet considerable challenges remain. While economic growth continues among African nations, it is largely due to high gas and oil prices across the globe. And, while most African states’ currencies appreciated against the dollar over the past year, as the United States economy slows down, there is considerable concern in the least developed countries that increasing economic dependence upon the U.S. will have Africa feeling the impact of a recession. And what positive economic news there is may mask the reality of debt relief. Richard Kozul-Wright, a senior economist with the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said that the good news about aid flow to Africa primarily reflects debts that developed nations have forgiven. He said that although this was an acceptable form of aid, it does not lead to sustainable development within communities. Pingfan Hong, another senior economist with the Department of Economic and Social Affairs told MediaGlobal that although exports from Africa grew by between 30 and 40 percent, 80 percent of that is still based on commodities. Only the other 20 percent represented manufactured goods. A gap, Hong said, which must decrease.

THE BEGINNING OF A NEW WORLD ORDER

2 April 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: In an exclusive interview with MediaGlobal, Parag Khanna, author of the book THE SECOND WORLD, explained the emergence of countries from least developed status, to what he terms ‘the second world.’ “The ‘second world’ is a swath of the world’s most strategic countries around the world that are located between or on the peripheries of the three dominant empires: America, the European Union, and China,” Khanna said. He believes that the countries of the second world now hold the majority of the world’s reserves and a growing share of the total global economy. “In every second world country I have heard people talk about how they will no longer be listening to the U.S. but doing things ‘our own way,’” he said. For Western nations to gain influence in Africa’s least developed countries, Khanna underscored the necessity that Europe and America demonstrate the positive value of partnering. “They must do so through more generous, but also more deferential, aid strategies,” he said.

UNICEF WORKS TO KEEP GIRLS IN SCHOOL IN SOUTH SUDAN

2 April 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Education is the most important investment to make in South Sudan, Ted Chaiban, UNICEF Country Representative in Sudan, said in a statement this week, announcing the progress of UNICEF’s “Go To School” initiative, which is expected to more than triple school enrollment over 2005 numbers. “We need a determination that is unshaken to get every southern Sudanese child into school and receive a quality education,” he said. Of the 1.3 million children expected to enroll this year, a third are girls, a marked accomplishment in an area where, during the recent conflict, less than one percent of female students completed primary school. But keeping girls in school through their adolescence remains a challenge. UNICEF and its partners have established a girls’ education movement, Swangin Bismarck of UNICEF’s Southern Sudan Area Programme, told MediaGlobal. The movement “is composed of school girls, boys, leaders and role models whose main task is to mobilize girls to attend school and provide social support for the girls to stay in school,” he said. Girls may be pressured by their parents or communities to leave school once they reach puberty, in part because of a lack of clean or private toilets. “Provision of sanitary facilities in schools also helps in retention of girls,” Bismarck said. “UNICEF is also developing child-friendly schools, which means a protective fence [and a] rights-based environment for learning so that parents know that their children are secured while in school.”

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICES COULD HELP PROTECT AFRICAN COUNTRIES FROM DAMAGING EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

2 April 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: African countries can be better protected against the damaging effects of climate change and extreme weather events if their national meteorological and hydrological services are strengthened, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said at an African Union Conference in Ethiopia this week. Many of the countries most susceptible to natural disasters and extreme weather events are in Africa. If more is done to develop the observational capacity of their national services, improved weather forecasts, early warnings of imminent natural hazards and climate predictions can be made available to decision-makers and end-users, according to the WMO. “Having access to advanced meteorological and hydrological observing tools is essential for producing the information needed to mitigate against, as well as adapt to, such hazards,” Paul Garwood of WMO told MediaGlobal. “Knowing in advance what the temperature will be, how much rainfall is expected, how long the drought [could] last and when the cyclone or flood will strike is vital information for all decision-makers, from politicians to farmers who need to know which crops to plant and when is the best time to do so,” he added. For African countries facing poverty, food shortages, displaced populations, natural hazards and high unemployment, it can be hard to find the resources to invest in meteorological and hydrological services. However, funding and networks of assistance exist to boost such capacities. The WMO Voluntary Cooperation Programme is one example, where countries with greater economic means provide such equipment to developing nations, Garwood said. “Leaders can promote this by investing in and developing methods that can assess the socio-economic advantages of national meteorological and hydrological weather services,” Jarraud said. “Such work highlights the importance of these services in the context of sustainable development.”

PEACEKEEPING PAVES THE WAY FOR DEVELOPMENT

3 April 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: ‘There is no development without peace’ is a common phrase at the United Nations. Yet while both peace and development have always been considered important pillars of the United Nations’ mission, generally speaking the two agendas are seemingly pursued independently. Speaking this week at UN Headquarters in New York, Paul Keating, Acting Deputy Chief of the Peacekeeping Best Practices section of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), said that limited mandates kept peacekeeping missions from being allowed to engage in direct development, despite the great needs that they often witness. Of the ten least developed nations in the world, there are currently peacekeeping operations in six of them, Keating said. Keating stated that this supposed dichotomy between peacekeeping and development is in fact a false one. “Security creates an environment whereby development actors can return and begin the reconstruction process and begin longer-term development,” he told MediaGlobal. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, remains largely underdeveloped, despite being rich in both natural and human resources. Continued conflict within and between nations has paralyzed development efforts. Peacekeeping operations are often a critical step in enabling countries to emerge from unstable conflict situations and begin economic development. “Peacekeeping operations are [often] very involved in the election process, the idea being that you’re transforming political violence into political process,” Keating told MediaGlobal. “Through that you have the formation of the government, and then the government can begin to engage with external development partners.” Thus, even in their current separated states, peacekeeping and development are inexorably tied. “We’re providing some of the environment that is conducive to development,” said Keating. “That’s our role. It’s a fairly narrow slice, but an important early-on one, I think.”

MEDIAGLOBAL BOARD MEMBER TO RELEASE BOOK ON POLICY LESSONS FOR EMERGING ECONOMIES

4 April 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: This August, MediaGlobal Board member Dr. Noel Tshiani will release a book titled BUILDING CREDIBLE CENTRAL BANKS. As a World Bank professional with a Doctorate in Economics and a specialization in Banking and Finance from Université de Paris IX- Dauphine in France, Tshiani, in his most recent publication, lays out a clear vision to build credible central banks and sound financial sectors, making them useful tools for development in the least developed countries. “My book lays out the parameters of what can be done realistically for emerging democracies to enjoy a strong and stable currency,” he told MediaGlobal.

GLOBAL HAPPENINGS

International Banana Conference 2008 – Mombassa, Kenya (7-11 April 2008): Organized by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, the conference focuses on banana and plantain research across Africa, lessons learned and the way forward. A major objective of the conference is to foster international partnerships. Email: t.dubois@cgiar.org _Website: www.banana2008.org

Unite for Sight’s 5th Annual International Health Conference – Yale University, New Haven, USA (12-13 April 2008): The conference will bring together 180 expert speakers in international health and development, public health, eye care, medicine, social entrepreneurship, nonprofits, philanthropy, microfinance, human rights, anthropology, health policy, advocacy, public service, environmental health and education. Website: http://uniteforsight.org

Prince of Wales’ Business and the Environment Programme - Cambridge, UK (15-18 April 2008): The University of Cambridge Program for Industry, Business & the Environment Program is the premier international forum for executive learning and leadership for sustainability. The six annual Senior Executives Seminars held around the world aim to help a select group of highly influential decision-makers understand the challenges and opportunities. Website: http://www.cpi.cam.ac.uk

The Global Travel and Tourism Summit – Dubai, UAE (20-22 April 2008): Set in a unique format – The Round – the Summit will engage invited participants in real dialogue on issues that affect the industry and the world at large. Invited participants include the Chairs and Chief Executives of the Travel & Tourism industry, heads of government, international experts and the global media. Website: http://www.globaltraveltourism.com/

Africa: International Conference on African Culture and Development – Kumasi, Ghana (21-26 April 2008): The conference is designed to draw attention to a missing link in attempts to develop the African continent – culture. Website: www.icacd.ccoghana.org

Rethinking Poverty: Making Policies Work for Children – Conference and Call for Papers. New York, USA (21-23 April 2008): UNICEF and the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School will jointly host an international conference to review and mobilize the international agenda on ending child poverty and reducing disparities. Website: www.crin.org

NEW: Global Youth Enterprise Conference – Washington, DC. September 15-16, 2008. Call for proposals is open! Deadline: April 18, 2008.
Designed as a participatory learning event, this conference aims to support youth enterprise and entrepreneurship programs and policies achieve greater effectiveness around the world. Website: www.youthenterpriseconference.org

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