Saturday, October 22, 2011

CHAMPIONING RISK PREVENTION: SHOWCASING PAKISTAN’S PREX

CHAMPIONING RISK PREVENTION: SHOWCASING PAKISTAN’S PREX

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Disaster risk reduction is among the buzzwords circulated by development stakeholders worldwide. The phraseology has caught up with the chief execs of nation-states, among which is President Asif Ali Zadari of Pakistan.

Excessive risk levels of whatever kind can be very taxing on the investment climate. Risk management is among the entrepreneurial paradigms and tools of the day, with ‘best practices’ already in the works among market players. High-risk prone areas such as the Kashmir, where both politico-military risk and geo-hazards converge, will suffice enough to serve as ‘barriers to entry’ of eager market players there.

Below is a reportage from the DevEx regarding the subject.

[Philippines, 23 October 2011]

Source: http://www.devex.com/en/articles/pakistani-president-pledges-to-champion-disaster-prevention?source=ArticleHomepage_Center_2

Pakistani President Pledges to Champion Disaster Prevention

By Ivy Mungcal on 10 October 2011

With his country still reeling from the effects of massive floods that inundated Pakistan for two consecutive years, President Asif Ali Zadari has pledged to become a “champion of the process of disaster risk reduction.”

Zadari made this commitment during a meeting with U.N. Disaster Risk Reduction Chief Margareta Wahlstrom, during which the president also pledged to scale up efforts to improve Pakistan’s early warning system.

“Pakistan wants to be safe, resilient and able to respond to any type of disaster. We want to take ownership of disaster risk reduction and to empower our people to be able to respond to the risks and threats posed by natural hazards,” Zadari said.

The Pakistani president’s remarks come as an international organization warn it is unlikely for governments to meet the commitment they made to ensure the world’s safety from natural hazards and reduce overall disaster losses by 2015.

The Hygo Framework for Action is a 10-year plan adopted by U.N. member states at the World Disaster Reduction Conference in 2005.

Citing poor implementation of the plan, the international non-governmental organization Oxfam urged governments to step up their efforts to meet the HFA’s goals of improving people’s resilience to natural disasters, the Tribune reports. In particular, Oxfam urged the Pakistani government and its partners to address the growing crisis in the country and invest in efforts to prevent similar situations in the future.

“Everyone is aware of how disasters have taken their toll in Pakistan and how they are continuing to put people at the brink of desperation. Until we start preparing for these events and develop a system, the vicious circle of suffering will continue to affect millions of people,” Neva Khan, Oxfam’s director for Pakistan, said.

Read more development aid news online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive top international development headlines from the world’s leading donors, news sources and opinion leaders – emailed to you FREE every business day.

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AFRICAN COUNTRIES BEWARE OF ANTI-GAY POLICIES, AID CUTS COME!

AFRICAN COUNTRIES BEWARE OF ANTI-GAY POLICIES, AID CUTS COME!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Gracious day from Manila!

Tough anti-gay African bureaucrats and tyrants beware! Your politically incorrect mindsets will cost you an enormous lot in terms of aid cuts from donor countries. This is the message being brought forth to politically incorrect Africans by the bureaucrats of the UK, and if pursued by the donor the move will be precedent-setting.

The issue involved here is not exactly anti-gay versus pro-gay, but rather that of human rights. The equal rights of marginal sectors, such as paraplegics, senior citizens, women, gays & lesbians, children and small planters is the core issue involved.

Below is the reportage on the subject coming from the DevEx.

[Philippines, 23 October 2011]

Source: http://www.devex.com/en/articles/uk-to-cut-aid-to-african-countries-with-tough-anti-gay-policies?source=ArticleHomepage_Center_3

UK to Cut Aid to African Countries With Tough Anti-gay Policies

By Ivy Mungcal on 10 October 2011

The United Kingdom plans to reduce its official development assistance to African countries that persecute homosexuals, the country’s international development secretary has announced.

U.K. Secretary for International Development Andrew Mitchell noted the U.K. has already suspended 19 million pounds ($29.67 million) in budget support to Malawi earlier this year over governance and related concerns. Mitchell said the U.K. government is now considering aid-related sanctions on Ghana and Uganda for their tough anti-gay and lesbian policies and stances, the Daily Nation says.

“We only provide aid directly to governments when we are satisfied that they share our commitments to reduce poverty and respect human rights,” the Daily Nation quotes a spokesperson of Mitchell, who emphasized the U.K. government is “committed to combating violence and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in all circumstances, in this country and abroad.”

Ivy Mungcal
Ivy covers international development breaking news for The Development Newswire, Global Development Briefing and other Devex publications, focusing in particular on U.S. aid reform as well as the Americas and Caribbean.

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Friday, October 21, 2011

ARE SOUTHERN AFRICANS TURNING INTO CITIZEN-LESS ZOMBIES?

ARE SOUTHERN AFRICANS TURNING INTO CITIZEN-LESS ZOMBIES?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Citizenless or stateless? Whichever is right, the situation in southern Africa seems to point to the compass of common folks sandwiched in terrifying conflicts ending up without clear citizenship status.

Maybe the better phrase is “their citizenship has turned fluid due to political thermodynamics.” Tragic! We can only but commiserate with our brothers and sisters in southern Africa who have been caught in the maelstroms of the south, whose very own entitlements have disappeared on account of statelessness or citizenlessness.

The affected folks are forced to eke out a living that is very uncertain, much like those fiction zombies that have turned into foul carcass walking listlessly in search of fresh flesh and blood.

Below is a situationer about the subject coming from the UNHCR.

[Philippines, 22 October 2011]

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/4e8d6de26.html

Statelessness: Falling through the cracks in southern Africa

News Stories, 6 October 2011

Rosalind Elphick, a lawyer with UNHCR's statelessness project in Musina, South Africa, counsels Luwizhi on developments relating to his case.

MUSINA, South Africa, October 6 (UNHCR) – Luwizhi has been on a paper chase for the last four years – not as a student pursuing higher education, but as someone seeking documents while bouncing between being an asylum-seeker, migrant worker and stateless person.

Luwizhi was born in 1975 to a Zambian father and a Malawian mother who had met and married in Zimbabwe as migrant workers decades ago. He grew up in Zimbabwe and had a Zimbabwean identity card with the word "citizen" stamped on it. For a while, he worked at a mine in Mashonaland East province and headed the worker's committee.

A charismatic speaker, he was courted by two political parties to increase grassroots support ahead of the 2008 elections. But the attention soon turned ugly, with one party following and visiting him at odd hours.

In mid-2007, he fled to his mother's village south of Harare, Zimbabwe's capital. When he arrived, she told him a group of men had come to the homestead looking for him. A quick description confirmed that these were the same men who had sought him out the night before at his work place. He then escaped to Musina, South Africa's northernmost border town with Zimbabwe, crossing illegally in the dead of night.

As an asylum-seeker in South Africa, Luwizhi worked as a gardener. In 2010, the South African government started the Zimbabwe Documentation Project to regularize the status of thousands of qualifying Zimbabwean migrants. It also allowed asylum-seekers to change their status and obtain work, business or study permits valid for four years.

Luwizhi's employer insisted that all his workers change their status and obtain work permits. Luwizhi didn't argue with this as he saw it as a chance to explore better job opportunities in the mines surrounding Musina. Soon after, he decided to apply for a passport with the Zimbabwean authorities in South Africa.

"I got the shock of my life when they told me that I ceased to be a Zimbabwean citizen in 2002, with the implementation of the 2001 Citizenship of Zimbabwe Amendment Act," he said in disbelief. The law forbids dual citizenship in Zimbabwe and requires people with a claim to foreign citizenship – even if they are not aware of it – to renounce it in order to keep their Zimbabwean status.

"The law on citizenship in Zimbabwe has become increasingly restrictive," said Rosalind Elphick, a lawyer working in Musina for UNHCR's partner, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), on the agency's regional statelessness project. "The only claim Luwizhi has is that he was born on the territory. In Zimbabwe, he doesn't qualify at all for citizenship because the Constitution requires him to have at least one blood relative who is Zimbabwean as a parent or grandparent – and he has neither."

Luwizhi lamented, "So who am I? Where do I belong, because Zimbabwe is the only country I have ever known as home? That my parents were from other countries is meaningless because I know of no family in Zambia or Malawi."

By this time he had also surrendered his asylum application, rendering him undocumented and stateless in South Africa. He could have been arrested for breaking immigration laws, but luckily his asylum-seeker status was reissued after LHR appealed to the Musina Refugee Reception Office.

South Africa is not party to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons or to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. However, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation appears to have taken an interest in the issue.

'They have given LHR an audience on the matter and have really been cooperative, interested in the statistics we have and wanting to hear our stories," said Elphick. "Separately, we've managed to uncover several groups of people who are stateless or at risk of becoming stateless in this country."

LHR is working hard to present its findings to South Africa's Department of Home Affairs, the ministry charged with managing immigration as well as handling refugees and asylum-seekers.

In the meantime, Luwizhi is grateful that he can approach LHR for counselling and advice. "They're really interested in my situation and I have every confidence that somewhere along the line, they will help me overcome this problem," he said.

By Pumla Rulashe
In Musina, South Africa

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FUND HIV RESEARCH FIRST!

FUND HIV RESEARCH FIRST!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Smug! Arrogant! Sadistic! One may quip at the title which makes HIV funding as mandatory.

Let’s all face it, fellow global citizens: HIV is tearing down populations, and the reversal towards an HIV-free environment just isn’t around the corner yet. The contingency of the moment HIV-wise is to make HIV research as tops in terms of funding.

“Cease not the lab researches till the vaccine for the ailment be found, disseminated and effectively curb the ailment!” would be Ceasar-like directive aimed at shoring up resources for the dreaded disease. Maybe we need such directives sometimes in order to get things moving fast and get over with the pandemic.

Below is a reportage from the scidev.net regarding the subject.

[Philippines, 22 October 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/health/hiv-aids/news/vaccine-research-is-top-hiv-aids-funding-priority-.html

Vaccine research 'is top HIV/AIDS funding priority'

Source: Nature

6 October 2011

Vaccine research and development should be the top funding priority for HIV/AIDS, if global organisations are able to raise US$10 billion over the next five years, according to a panel that included Nobel laureate economists.

A US$100 million per year boost to vaccine research funding — relatively modest, the panel said, and about ten per cent above current levels — could speed up vaccine development, a meeting heard in Washington DC, United States, last week (28 September).

"Even though the vaccine is elusive and we do not have it yet, it's clear that this research has led to an understanding that has enormously improved our ability to fight this disease," said Nobel economist Vernon Smith, of Chapman University, California, United States.

The panel was convened by the RethinkHIV project — funded by the Copenhagen Consensus Center (CCC) — which aims to help policymakers and donors find the most cost-effective ways to tackle the disease in Sub-Saharan Africa.

It commissioned researchers looking at the economics, epidemiology and demography of AIDS to identify a series of cost-effective interventions and then asked the panel of economists, which included three Nobel laureates, to review the researchers' findings and rank them in order of priority.

At last week's meeting, the panel presented its findings to advocacy groups including the Global HIV/AIDS Program of the World Bank, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, the US Department of State and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and an international economic advisor, who was not involved with the project, is skeptical of the validity of the Copenhagen Consensus process.

"This … process of evaluation has been misguided and inaccurate from the start on just about every issue. This kind of question, US$2 billion over a year over 5 years, posed in an artificial way to a group of people who may be Nobel laureates but who have no expertise on these issues, has just come up with one misleading issue after the other," said Sachs.

But Bjorn Lomborg, director of the CCC, said some of the world's top economists had showed that there were a lot of "amazing opportunities" to help people have better lives. "HIV/AIDS is not a done crisis," he said.

Link to full article in Nature News Blog

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Thursday, October 20, 2011

SECURING HAITI’S RAPE SURVIVORS POST-CATASTROPHE

SECURING HAITI’S RAPE SURVIVORS POST-CATASTROPHE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

In case people think that Haiti has already recovered from the catastrophe it encountered just over a year ago, think again. There are still too many tent relief centers in the country, most of which are run by the IOM or International Organization for Migration.

Tent centers are deteriorating as update reports have revealed. Worst, girls normally get raped right inside their own tents. Sex trade might just rise across the coming weeks as a way to daily survival.

What happened to the global enthusiasm that was demonstrated in support of Haiti at the height of the catastrophe there? Is this a sign of the ‘bushfire reflex’ or ningas kugon, where peoples’ interest in helping out calamity victims soon wane, revealing a subtly superficial show of compassion?

Below is an update report on pro-active response in aid of rape victims in Haiti.

[Philippines, 21 October 2011]

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/4e8d98856.html

Haitian group offers safe house for rape survivors

News Stories, 6 October 2011

The KOFAVIV safe house offers business training to survivors of rape and forced prostitution in Haiti.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, October 6 (UNHCR) – Shirley* seems like a typical young woman – energetic, excited and hopeful. Her smile is contagious and her voice clear and strong. However, when she begins to share the horrors she has experienced, her voice drops and her gaze turns downward.

The 20-year-old lost her mother and aunt in the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti. With no place to go, she moved into one of the sprawling tent camps in the capital, Port-au-Prince. One night she came back to her tent to escape the rain. A man approached her and asked to go inside. She said he hit her and pushed her into the tent: "He threw me to the ground and raped me. After that I was haemorrhaging for a month."

Explaining further, she said, "The tents are not secure. Anyone with a razor or knife can cut the tent and come inside. There are no walls and no protection and before you know it someone is there in your tent."

Her ordeal is not unique. Twenty months after the catastrophic earthquake, conditions in Haiti continue to deteriorate. Today, there are nearly 1,000 makeshift camps across Haiti and approximately 600,000 internally displaced people.

The International Organization for Migration manages most of the camps, but fading international interest has affected the humanitarian community's ability to provide assistance. Women are particularly vulnerable in the camps, where there is little to no privacy, security or lighting. UN reports indicate sexual violence against women is occurring at alarming rates.

"Sixty-five per cent of the victims are minors," said Jocie Philistin, a director of a local non-governmental organization known as KOFAVIV (Commission of Women Victims for Victims). "Since the earthquake we have been seeing more children, minors and babies aged one to 17 months who have been raped." The NGO's findings reflect a recent Amnesty International study that showed 50 per cent of rape victims were young girls.

In addition to having to live in unsafe conditions, Shirley had no way to pay for her basic expenses. She said her only way to make money was to become involved in survival sex. "After the earthquake there was a system where you could get food but you had to sleep with the guys who were in charge of the food, even though it had been given out by the government. So a lot of young women were forced into prostitution to survive," she said.

As one of several organizations supporting the humanitarian efforts in Haiti, UNHCR interviewed women from 15 camps. They all reported that survival sex was a serious but invisible problem in their camps. With no gainful employment opportunities and widespread despair, Haitian women often feel there is no other option to access the food and water they and their children desperately need.

One woman living in a camp near the airport noted, "There was a girl who lived near me. She was raped. She had no parents and no one to defend her. That girl had no place to stay because she came from the provinces. She begged for money, but no one gave her what she needed. She had to turn to selling herself, and that was a form of sexual violence."

To help combat widespread sexual violence in the camps, KOFAVIV has trained dozens of community outreach workers to locate victims and provide them with much needed services.

UNHCR is working with KOFAVIV to run one of the few safe house projects in Haiti for survivors of rape and forced prostitution in Port-au-Prince. Over the course of three months, the women receive shelter, health training, psychological support and business training. After they start to earn their own money, they will be moved to longer-term housing and supported as they continue to get back on their feet. This month (September) UNHCR chief António Guterres visited the safe house project and encouraged the local staff to continue their efforts.

Shirley is one of 15 women chosen to take part the project. Her nightmare ended in June when she finally moved out of the camp into the safe house. For the first time in over a year and a half, she has a bedroom door with a lock.

"Now I have a safe and secure place and a new family," she said, smiling at the thought of returning to school and starting a small shoe business. Grateful for the help she's received, she is also working with KOFAVIV to provide support to other rape survivors.

* Name changed for protection reasons

By Charity Tooze in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

With field reporting by Sarah Ahmed

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GREEN ECONOMY, POOR NATIONS: COMPATIBLE?

GREEN ECONOMY, POOR NATIONS: COMPATIBLE?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Is development ‘take off’ of poor nations compatible with the green economy goal?

Poor nations refer to economies with per capita income of below US $1,000 per year. At least 30% of their families subsist in incomes of less than US$2 per day. Can its policy makers and market players even think of greening—energy sources, manufacturing, services—when their scarce resources must be used for providing jobs to the poor folks?

China, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam have ceased to be poor nations, as they have all graduated to middle income economy status. They are the ‘emerging markets’ of today, the growth drivers and saviors of the global economy. They are tops with regards to crafting enabling policies for green economy, investments in green energy and greening other sectors of their respective economy. Will poor nations be able to follow their paths?

Below is a discussion on the subject matter, culled from the SciDev.net.

[Philippines, 21 October 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/climate-change-and-energy/news/poor-nations-need-to-find-own-path-to-green-economy-.html

Poor nations 'need to find own path to green economy'

T.V. Padma

6 October 2011

[NEW DELHI] Developing countries should be given 'policy space' to tailor policies on the transition to a green economy that match their development priorities, an international meeting has heard.

There is no 'one size fits all' solution and national priorities should define each country's strategy for environmentally friendly growth, environment ministers and senior officials of more than 40 countries told a meeting organised by the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) and India's Ministry of Environment and Forests in New Delhi this week (3–4 October).

The Delhi ministerial dialogue — one of several events feeding into a major UNCSD conference on sustainable development, Rio+20, to be held in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — focused on the issue of creating green economies in the context of poverty eradication, sustainable development and inclusive growth in developing countries.

Delegates from developing countries expressed several concerns, such as the varying interpretations of what 'green economy' means for different stakeholders. For developed countries it implies a low-carbon growth model, even if it involves high-end, costly technologies, whereas developing countries view green economies as sustainable, natural-resource based livelihoods.

"There is a fuzzy concept of green economy and the near- to medium-term implications for developing countries and least-developed countries to transition to a green economy," Tariq Ahmad Karim, Bangladesh's high commissioner in India, told the meeting.

A second concern centred on integrating food and energy security with green economy strategies, especially against the backdrop of climate change. Moving to greener models of agriculture depends on the transfer of, and financial support for, green technologies to enhance productivity, improve resilience and diversify production systems, delegates said.

Similarly, moves to a green economy should address the issue of increasing access to clean energy for the poor and achieving universal electricity access by 2030, they said.

A third concern was that developed countries should not resort to 'green protectionism' or impose trade barriers such as high tariffs on goods whose production is based on technologies with high carbon emissions.

Another area of concern was the transfer of affordable, sustainable technologies from developed countries when developing countries do not benefit from technologies for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Sha Zukang, UN's under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs and secretary-general for Rio+20, said afterwards that delegates had "not resolved all issues" or achieved consensus on the costs and benefits of moves to green economies.

One unresolved issue is a proposal by delegates from Colombia and Guatemala that the Rio+20 conference should develop 'sustainable development goals' along the lines of the UN Millennium Development Goals.

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Wednesday, October 19, 2011

CAMBODIA DEVELOPMENT THRU INFRASTRUCTURES ON THE GO!

CAMBODIA DEVELOPMENT THRU INFRASTRUCTURES ON THE GO!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Cambodia is no longer Khmer Rouge country, though there are indeed old habits that die out so slowly in the minds of other peoples such as the thought that Cambodia is so fearsome a place to live in.

Economic development is pursuing at a normal rate in the war-torn country. Thanks to the high presence of international aid groups and agencies, the decimation of the country’s intellectuals by the Khmer Rogue—who were Manchurian Candidates of evil operators of Elites based in Washington, DC—was filled up with noble substitution.

Below is an update report about a new bridge in operation in the hinterlands of the once miserable land. As a fellow from ASEAN, I watch with sympathy and commiserate with Cambodians over their willful efforts to build a modern, prosperous nation.

[Philippines, 20 October 2011]

new_bridge_improveslinkslivelihoodsforcambodianvillages.html

New bridge improves links, livelihoods for Cambodian villages

When 26-year-old So Phorn gave birth to her first child three years ago it took her two strenuous hours on a motorbike, a ferry and a rickshaw to get to the nearest health centre in the neighbouring commune of Beoung Preav, in south-western Cambodia.

Following completion six months ago of a joint international project that built a concrete bridge crossing the 40-metre wide Kampong Sdam River, So Phorn now has a 30-minute trip to deliver her second child at the same hospital.

The new bridge—a partnership between the two local governments, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the European Union—is directly improving the lives of 10,000 residents of the Chroy Svay and Boeung Preav communes, separated by the river.

Highlights

The Inter-Commune Cooperation project is working to strengthen local governance in Cambodia and better serve rural communities.
The ICC grants US$1.8 million each year to fund projects that cross commune boundaries and has implemented over 260 projects since 2006.
ICC projects have built roads, bridges and schools in remote communities and respond to women's needs and environmental issues.

“It used to be very difficult without a bridge,” said Neng Chhun, a 31-year-old father of six who runs a home-based grocery store in Chroy Svay and regularly crosses the river to the neighbouring village where he replenishes his stock.

Chhun and other residents recalled that a preceding bridge had fallen into a state of disrepair and was so unstable that few locals would take the risk of mounting the rickety structure even when it was urgent that they reach the other side.

Two boats joined together by a wooden platform acted as the quickest alternative for motorcyclists and pedestrians. The ferry charged a one-way fee equivalent to US$0.12, a price out of reach of many in a country where the poverty line is just about US$0.60 a day.

“A new bridge was the highest demand,” said Hay Sin, Chroy Svay’s commune chief, who initially said there was nothing he could do about the problem due to the limited budget available through his office.

In 2010, Hay Sin invited his counterpart in the neighbouring commune to pool resources and draw up a joint proposal to win funds from the UNDP/EU Inter-Commune Cooperation, an agency functioning in 12 provinces to ensure development projects of highest benefit to residents.

“We can work together to bring benefits for all the people,” said Sin after the communes received US$40,000 to build the bridge. “As commune council leaders, we should not think only about our own communities.”

UNDP in Action

People-centred Development

UNDP's annual report for 2010/2011 looks back at progress over the past fiscal year and looks ahead as the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals approaches.

See all Annual Reports

Publications

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MAD BOMBINGS OF UN WORKERS WON’T STOP DEVELOPMENT WORK

MAD BOMBINGS OF UN WORKERS WON’T STOP DEVELOPMENT WORK

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Mad bombings in Abuja won’t stop social development work by the UN agencies notably the United Nations Development Programme o UNDP. This is surely a most welcome move, as UN workers involved in social development have brought home results based on our experiences in PH and Asia.

I still recall the blog I published earlier about the Abuja bombing. After posting it, so-called ‘liberal’ in a blog site retorted that “the UN is an evil agency.” Liberalism and conservatism are two sides of the same coin, and the dividing line between the liberal-conservative domain and fascism is a thin one. Political partisans are of the Herd mind or morons who are in fact being orchestrated from Above by the ideological operators of global Elites to continuously foment global anarchy or ‘synarchy’ and polarization.

True, the United Nations is being maneuvered by the Rockefeller section of the global elites, the same Rockefellers who donated the UN estate in New York. But to say that the UN is an instrument to make morons out of the non-Western participants (the global Elites are centered in the West) is to reveal the partisans’ ridiculously substandard to subhuman minds.

Killing social development personnel of the UN agency isn’t justified at all by the maneuverings being done by the Elites within the UN. Only Demoniacs or sociopaths would feel glorified by the deaths of true professionals and community servants in the hands of terrorists.

[Philippines, 20 October 2011]

Source: http://www.beta.undp.org/undp/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2011/10/05/nigeria-un-work-continues-after-bombing-says-undp-chief.html

Nigeria: UN work continues after bombing, says UNDP chief

05 October 2011

UNDP chief Helen Clark lays a wreath at the damaged UN headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria Tuesday on the first day of her three day official visit to Nigeria. The August 26 bomb blast killed 23 people, including 11 UN staff, and injured more than 100. (Credit: UNDP)

Abuja – UNDP Chief Helen Clark met with UN staff and toured the damaged UN headquarters in Abuja yesterday on the first day of her three day official visit to Nigeria.

“These were unarmed civilians who had dedicated their lives to helping the people of Nigeria,” said Clark after she laid a wreath at the site of the bombing. “This senseless attack will not stop our critical development work here.”

The August 26 bomb blast killed 23 people, including 11 UN staff, and injured more than 100.

“I have been very shocked, and to see the scale here today is very sobering indeed.”

Later in the day, Clark met with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan who expressed condolences to the UN and lauded UNDP’s work globally. Speaking after the meeting, Helen Clark thanked the President for his support and pledged continued support to Nigeria’s development priorities, including the President’s job creation scheme.

“Nigeria has a tremendous role to play in the continent, and overcoming its challenges can be a lesson for other countries,” she said. “With the threat of global recession, times are tough, and we will also focus our efforts on the imperative of employment, so as to fulfil the aspirations of young people.”

The President acknowledged that youth unemployment remained a challenge in Nigeria, and that by November of this year, 56% of the 166 million Nigerians will be under the age of 35.

“These young people have to acquire skills, find work, proper housing, and a place in society,” said President Jonathan. “We want every young person to create employment for 5 other young people, and thus develop a multiplier effect. We are launching a major youth entrepreneurship program this month, and we welcome our partners’ assistance in this initiative.”

Helen Clark also met with the Minister of the National Planning Commission Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, Minister of Foreign Affairs Olugbenga Ashiru, and Minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo Iweala. She is accompanied by Assistant Secretary General and Director of UNDP Africa Bureau, Mr. Tegegnework Gettu.

Contact Information

In Abuja:
Anthony Dioka
UNDP Nigeria Communication Associate
Anthony.dioka@undp.org
Tel: +234 803 291 3085

In Dakar:
Maimouna Mills
UNDP Regional Communication Adviser
Maimouna.mills@undp.org
Tel: +234 706 860 2318 // +221 77 529 1298

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TRANSFORMING EDUCATION VIA ICT

TRANSFORMING EDUCATION VIA ICT

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Gracious day from the idyllic boondocks of Antipolo PH!

Education demands greater reform than ever. Behavioral research across the world has shown problematic aptitude scores of basic education pupils in the sciences, math and language. Pedagogy (methodology) that was inherited yet from mass production industrial era just don’t seem to work anymore.

The Information Age has come, an age that was accelerated by the coming of knowledge-intensive technologies such as computers, fiber optics, and laser. Such technologies congeal in ICT whose applications in educational instruction and pupil studies have somehow been transformative.

In aid of our understanding of the ICT revolution in education, the UNESCO recently released a book on education policies. The report is shown below.

Source: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/transforming_education_the_power_of_ict_policies-1/

Transforming Education: The Power of ICT Policies

©UNESCO

The Education sector recently published a new book “Transforming Education: The Power of ICT Policies”. The result of a programme of studies, consultation and exchange on policies, this publication aims at providing useful information on contemporary challenges for and approaches to public policies in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in education.

Indeed, ICT in schools are seen by education policy-makers as an opportunity. Yet, once policy-makers consider making significant investments in ICT, a host of questions emerge, from how many computers are needed in a school to how teachers can use them. While such questions represent important implementation issues, they should not frame ICT policy. ICT can have a greater impact when the policies and programmes designed to implement them are crafted in the broader context of social and economic goals and aligned to a vision of economic development and social progress - in other words, when ICT policies and programmes support educational transformation.

This book reviews policies, programmes, and experiences in a range of regional and developmental settings – Jordan, Namibia, Rwanda, Singapore, and Uruguay. Each brings a unique historical, cultural, political, social, and economic context to bear on policy and its formulation. These case studies provide models and lessons that can help other countries in formulating their own policies regarding ICT in education. In addition, drawing on the analyses of the findings across case studies, the book considers their implications for educational policy, change, and transformation.

Transforming Education: The Power of ICT Policies

06.10.2011
Source: Education Sector

[Philippines, 19 October 2011]

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POPULATION IMPACTS CROPS LARGER THAN CLIMATE CHANGE

POPULATION IMPACTS CROPS LARGER THAN CLIMATE CHANGE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

I have no fondness for Malthusian bogey perspectives about population outstripping food production. And I do scorn such fear-mongering neo-Malthusians as Paul Erlich’s nauseating ‘population bomb’ thesis.

Albeit, there is indeed validity to the pressure exerted by burgeoning population on limited arable lands. A study done in Africa shows the demographic factor as having greater impact on crops than the much ballyhooed climate change. However, the study didn’t go to the extent of prescribing genocide and population decimation strategies in order to return the food security situation of the past, as such mad prescriptions belong more to the Malthusians and the eco-fascists hiding under the rubric of ‘environmentalists’ or ‘greens’.

Below is a special report on the subject coming from the SciDev.net.

[Philippines,

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/farming-practices/news/population-has-bigger-effect-than-climate-change-on-crop-yields-study-suggests.html

Population has bigger effect than climate change on crop yields, study suggests

Bernard Appiah

4 October 2011 | EN

Climate change and population hike might mean smaller maize yields in the future

Population pressure will be as significant a factor as climate change in reducing crop yields — and thus increasing food insecurity — in West Africa, according to a modelling study.

The authors inserted different climate change, land use, and demographic change scenarios, into an internationally validated model to estimate maize yields in Benin from 2021–2050.

They found that, as the population increases, farmers frequently cultivate cropland without allowing adequate resting periods for the soil to regain its fertility — thus reducing crop yields.

Overall, they found that various land use scenarios reduced maize yields by up to 24 per cent over the period, whereas climate change scenarios reduced them by up to 18 per cent.

But beyond 2050, "climate change is most likely to be the predominant driver for crop productivity", they concluded.

"Our main assumption [before conducting the study] was that the low-input fallow systems (which allow resting periods for ploughed, but un-seeded land) in Benin and other West African countries would not change in the near future," said Thomas Gaiser, lead author and a researcher at the University of Bonn, Germany.

"If governments in the region introduce policies such as the promotion of the use of mineral fertilisers, then the decrease [in the amount of land left fallow] will not be as serious as that without fertilisers," he added.

Gaiser said farmers should use mineral fertilizers or intercrop with leguminous crops to promote soil fertility and increase yields.

He added that the findings are relevant to many Sub-Saharan African countries relying on leaving land fallow for soil fertility, like Ghana, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

"I am not surprised by the findings," said Brian Keating, the director of Sustainable Agriculture Flagship of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), based in Australia. "It is important to look at all the factors that contribute to agricultural productivity output, and not just on climate change."

But Keating told SciDev.Net that many farming systems in West Africa yield only 20–30 per cent of what would be possible if better practices and technologies were adopted.

Temi Ologunorisa, director of the Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Research at Osun State University, in Nigeria, said African governments should adopt climate change adaptation strategies.

"Agriculture in Africa is about 80 per cent rain-fed, and this must change given the declining amount of rainfall," Ologunorisa said.

The study was published in the August edition of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology.

Link to abstract in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology

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Source: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/transforming_education_the_power_of_ict_policies-1/

Transforming Education: The Power of ICT Policies

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/farming-practices/news/population-has-bigger-effect-than-climate-change-on-crop-yields-study-suggests.html

Population has bigger effect than climate change on crop yields, study suggests