By Roger Hamilton-Martin
LONDON, May 9 2019 (IPS)

International aid organisations have reacted positively to the appointment of new UK International Secretary of State for Development, Rory Stewart.

Stewart was appointed by UK Prime Minister Theresa May on 1 May in a cabinet reshuffle that saw him switched out from his position as the UK’s Minister for Prisons. As Secretary of State, Stewart will run the Department for International Development (DfID).

The DfID administers an annual budget of 0.7% of gross national income (GNI), or around £14bn, covering UK international aid for education, health, social services, water supply and sanitation, government and civil society initiatives, environmental protection and humanitarian assistance.

Christian Aid’s head of UK advocacy Tom Viita said that “any modern DfID Secretary needs to understand the issues of climate change, conflict and international diplomacy and thankfully Rory Stewart has an excellent grasp of these crucial subjects.

“The first item on his to-do list must be the global climate emergency that is affecting the world’s poor from Mozambique to Myanmar.”

In remarks on the day of his appointment, Stewart reflected this concern, stating that “of course there is… a “climate emergency.” Ice shelves are melting at ten times their predicted rate. 39 million acres of tropical forests were lost in 2017 alone, and we risk losing more than a third of the species on earth by 2050.”

Stewart said the government “must be radical on the environment because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s popular.”

Brazilian firefighters responding to storm-ravaged Mozambique

“I would argue that spending, not 7%, not 1%, but 0.7% of your GDP on that kind of issue really makes a difference, not just to the planet but to you and me,” he said.

Christine Allen, Director of Catholic aid agency CAFOD, said it was “an incredibly important time” for Stewart to be joining DFID, given the many global crises currently being faced by aid agencies.

“We’re looking forward to working with him to help tackle the fundamental causes of poverty, inequality and climate degradation,” she added.

Meanwhile an Oxfam spokesperson said Stewart “has a strong track record on foreign affairs,” and that the organisation is “hopeful that, as International Development Secretary, [he] will play a key role in maintaining Britain’s world-leading role in the fight to end poverty.”

Stewart brings significant experience in international affairs to the role, in particular the Middle East. The son of diplomat Brian Stewart, he was briefly commissioned as a second lieutenant in the British Army in 1991, before joining the Foreign Office. He served in the British Embassy in Indonesia from 1997-1999, and at 26 was appointed the British Representative to Montenegro.

Between 2000 and 2002, Stewart walked on foot across Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, India and Nepal, a journey of 6000 miles. His walk across Afghanistan shortly after the US invasion is described in his book, The Places in Between.

He subsequently worked for the UK government’s administration of Iraq following the invasion in 2003. Stewart has written in criticism of the Iraq invasion and occupation, noting in 2013 that “I still find the scale of our failure astonishing.”

Stewart lived in Kabul from 2006-2008. There he founded the Turquoise Mountain, a non-profit investing in Afghanistan’s traditional crafts to preserve cultural heritage and create economic opportunities in the country.

He left Afghanistan to return to the UK and enter politics, and was elected the Conservative MP for Penrith and the Border in May 2010 – shortly after Brad Pitt’s film company bought the rights to tell the story of his life in a biopic.

Stewart takes over at DfID from Penny Mordaunt MP, who was given the role of Secretary of State for Defence. The cabinet reshuffle was triggered by the sacking of Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, who was accused by the Prime Minister of leaking information to the press from a meeting of the National Security Council.

The leak, made to the Telegraph, concerned UK government plans to involve Chinese state company Huawei in the UK’s proposed 5G communications network.

Stewart previously served briefly as a Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and as a joint Minister of State for the Department for International Development.

Other UK aid agencies also welcomed Stewart’s appointment. Nigel Harris, CEO for Christian poverty charity Tearfund, told IPS that Stewart is taking on his role “at a pivotal moment – a time when it is vital to strengthen the UK’s relationship with the rest of the world.”

The Director of Islamic Relief UK, Tufail Hussain, said Stewart “is a strong supporter of UK aid.” The charity this week launched its Ramadan Appeal with DfID’s support, which will see £2m of the total funds raised for the appeal matched by the UK Government. The money will go towards helping people in Ethiopia to access water.

While Stewart has stated he is committed to the role, he has expressed even higher ambitions. Only days after his appointment, he said “yes” when asked if he would declare his candidacy to replace Prime Minister Theresa May if she leaves her role as Prime Minister, an eventuality that appears increasingly likely.

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By Roger Hamilton-Martin
LONDON, Mar 29 2019 (IPS)

The UK Government has announced an aid package to support hospitals in Gaza that are “near breaking point”.

The £2 million package will go to the International Committee of the Red Cross’s 2019 Israel and Occupied Territories (ILOT) Appeal. The aid will contribute to surgical equipment, drugs, wound dressing kits, prosthetics, and post-surgery physiotherapy for up to 3,000 disabled people.

The funding was confirmed by International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt, who said the UK was “deeply concerned by the crisis in Gaza and the pressure it is putting on hospitals, which are now near breaking point.”

The UK Department for International Development said its aid package is designed to support Gazan hospitals following a sharp rise in trauma patients. Pressure has built on the system after trauma patients numbers increased month-on-month to more than 29,000 over the last year.

Mordaunt added that previous aid had helped prevent the spread of disease, and given people access to healthcare, clean water and sanitation. The UK government has also recently provided a package of emergency food supplies for more than 62,000 Palestinian refugees at risk of going hungry.

The hospitals have reportedly been struggling to keep up with the large numbers of Palestinians injured at recent border demonstrations.

As well as an economic blockade by Israel, Gaza also is under sanctions imposed in 2017 by the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas. Years of economic decline and conflict have left the health sector across the Gaza Strip lacking adequate infrastructure and training opportunities.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said the Gazan health system has been “severely affected” by the Israeli blockade which has been in place since 2007. The organisation said healthcare in the strip is beset by recurrent power cuts, deteriorating medical equipment and a lack of spare parts.

Mordaunt added that the UK “supports a return to negotiations to find a lasting political settlement for Palestinians and Israelis,” and is working to address the causes of the humanitarian situation in Gaza through an economic development plan which seeks to boost water and electricity supplies to the territory.

In July 2018, the UK government announced it was set to double aid for economic development in the West Bank and Gaza over the next five years as part of its plan. The funding programme is to increase to £38 million. However, this is far short of Israeli estimates of the funds required to alleviate the humanitarian crisis.

At a meeting in February 2018 of the UN Office for the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Israel reportedly presented a US$1 billion list of infrastructure projects designed to relieve the crisis, including a desalination plant and a major project to link Gaza to Israel’s natural gas fields.

According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, over 90% of the water from the Gaza aquifer is undrinkable and around a third of essential medical drugs are out of stock.

The aid announcement comes amid violent clashes between Hamas and the Israeli military, with exchanges of rocket fire in recent days. The violence is part of a long-running cycle that saw protest against the blockade throughout 2018. The border protest, known as the “Great March of Return”, led to a large numbers of casualties.

According to the WHO’s February 2019 report on the health situation in the Palestinian territories, 266 people have been killed and 29,130 injured, since the start of the mass demonstrations in March 2018.

The Israeli government has also come under criticism from human rights organisations for blocking travel permits for Gazans seeking medical treatment outside the territory.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have called for the lifting of movement restrictions after the Israeli government only approved medical permits for 54 percent of those who applied in 2017, a figure which has slowly declined from 92 percent in 2012.

In 2018, the US struck a blow to Gazan healthcare with a pledge by President Donald Trump to cut all funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which services more than 20 health centres in the territory. UNRWA provides healthcare services for the majority of the more than 1.2 million Palestinian refugees in the strip.

The administration decried “the failure of UNRWA and key members of the regional and international donor community to reform and reset the UNRWA way of doing business,” describing its funding practices as “irredeemably flawed”.

UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krähenbühl said in November 2018 that the cuts had caused UNRWA’s worst financial predicament since its founding in 1949. In response the agency launched a global campaign, #Dignityispriceless, reducing the shortfall to $64 million following pledges from Gulf states.

SDGs - Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. A man walks through agricultural land in the village of Mirusuvil, in the northern Jaffna District. Over 122,000 persons have been severely impacted by the drought according to the latest government data. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
LONDON, Aug 13 2015 (IPS)

After 15 years of trying to meet the targets set out to address extreme poverty, the 193 member states of the United Nations have almost reached consensus on a more broad-reaching group of goals.

The only thing left to do is to sign off on the Sustainable Development Goals this fall in New York, when the countries get together for the annual General Assembly at U.N. Headquarters. Seven months of negotiations have produced a document: Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Despite uneven progress on the eight MDGs, the new SDGs comprise 17 goals, with 169 targets. World leaders will set out in New York their visions for achieving these targets, which are hoped to provide a framework to combat poverty, climate change, inequality and hunger.

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
LONDON, Jul 31 2015 (IPS)

The importance of mangroves in protecting coastal areas under threat due to sea level rise caused by climate change may have been underestimated, according to new research.

A joint study between researchers at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom and the Universities of Auckland and Waikato in New Zealand looked at how mangrove forests respond to elevated sea levels.

“Within the mangrove forest, these channels become shallower through organic matter from the trees, reduced sediment resuspensions (caused by the mangroves) and sediment trapping (also caused by the mangroves) and the sea bed begins to rise, with bed elevation increasing a few millimetres per year until the area is no longer inundated by the tide.”

The team predicted what happens to different types of estuaries and river deltas when sea levels rise.

Taking New Zealand mangrove data as the basis of a new modelling system and using cutting-edge mathematical simulations, they found areas without mangroves are likely to widen from erosion and more water will encroach inwards, whereas mangrove regions prevent this effect. This is likely due to soil building up around their mesh-like roots and acting to reduce energy from waves and tidal currents.

In modelling sea level rise in the study, the ability of mangrove forests to gradually create a buffer between sea and land occurs even when the area is subjected to potential sea level rise of up to 0.5 mm per year. Even after sea level rise, the mangroves showed an enhanced ability to maintain an elevation in the upper intertidal zone.

Associate Professor Karin Bryan of the University of Waikato said, “In New Zealand, mangroves have been traditionally viewed as undesirable as they take over areas where there were once sandy beaches. In other countries, this is not the case as they are seen as a buffer for climate change in low level areas.”

Other studies have shown mangroves have the ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere and protect people from hazards such as tsunamis.

Associate Professor Giovanni Coco of the University of Auckland said, “As we anticipate changes caused by climate change, it’s important to know the effect sea level rise might have, particularly around our coasts.

“Mangroves appear to be resilient to sea level rise and are likely to be able to sustain such climatic change. The implications for the New Zealand coastline are considerable and will require new thinking in terms of sediment budgets and response to climatic changes.”

IPS journalist Fabíola Ortiz is the winner of one of four prestigious Dag Hammarskjöld fellowships to cover the United Nations in fall 2015.

The fellowship, named after the former U.N. Secretary-General, gives journalists from developing countries an opportunity to observe deliberations during the first 10 weeks of the U.N. General Assembly (September-November) in New York; and to expand their knowledge of foreign policy, diplomacy and world events.

This year is a crucial one for the international community, with the formulation of the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and important conferences on financing for international development and climate change.

September’s summit will bring U.N. member states together at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to agree on a set of SDGs. If talks are productive and a document is agreed upon, the Goals will become into effect in January 2016.

Seventeen goals have been suggested, with a draft document presented at 2014’s General Assembly. Negotiations have continued in New York on how best to end poverty, achieve gender equality, conserve the environment and reduce inequality.

The fellowship is not supported financially by the United Nations itself, but will be supported by the Dag Hammarskjöld Fund, established in 1961 as a not-for-profit organisation by journalists at the United Nations to honor the second Secretary-General, who was killed in a plane crash while on a peace mission to Africa.

Ortiz is a Brazilian freelance journalist reporting in Portuguese, Spanish and English about human rights, international affairs and sustainable development. She has been a finalist twice for journalism awards for her reports on sustainable development in Brazil. She was also a contributor to the 2014 book “Until the Rulers Obey: Voices from Latin American Social Movements” edited by Marcy Rein and Clifton Ross.

Ortiz will be joined by Doreen Andoh, the Daily Graphic; Karthikeyan Hemalatha with Times of India; and Mercy Juma, with NTV and The Daily Nation of Kenya.

The selections were made following a review of approximately 130 applications from 40 countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America and Caribbean.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

A woman carries a container of water in San Mateo, Guatemala. Credit: UN Photo/Antoinette Jongen

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 10 2015 (IPS)

Ahead of the all-important International Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa, a top water charity has called upon world leaders to prioritise programmes for water, sanitation and good hygiene, so that no one is left behind.

WaterAid’s new report, ‘Essential Element’, identifies 45 high-priority countries which have been left behind in financing for water, sanitation and hygiene programmes.

In a statement, WaterAid Director of Global Policy and Campaigns, Margaret Batty, said, “As government representatives from around the world travel to Addis Ababa, they have a once-in-a-generation chance to tackle extreme poverty and help more children grow up to reach their full potential.

“Safe water and basic toilets create healthier communities, and spare women and girls their long and difficult journeys to fetch water and the indignity and insecurity of having to find a private place to relieve themselves when there is no toilet.”

In each of the 45 high-priority countries identified by WaterAid, half or more of the population does not have a basic, safe place to defecate – polluting the water supply and general environment. As a result their citizens are at high risk of contracting waterborne diseases as well as pandemic illnesses.

The report calls for countries to “look ahead at the challenges that will have a major impact on delivering universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene”, including inequalities between countries, climate change and stress on water resources.

The report demonstrates that for many countries, aid will be a vital international resource to support the achievement of universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene.

When world leaders gather in the Ethiopian capital on Monday, July 13, to hash out the Addis Accord, it is critical they include a strong focus on equity and sustainability of services, says WaterAid. According to the charity, this must incorporate action to address financial absorption and human resource constraints.

The Addis conference will bring together thousands of politicians, lobbyists, policymakers and businesses for five days, in the first of three 2015 summits to work out where money will come from to fund development processes beginning this year. The new U.N. Sustainable Development Goals are to be finalised in New York this September.

Currently, roughly 1,400 children die around the world every day from diseases caused by dirty water and poor sanitation. More than 660 million people are without safe water, and nearly 2.4 billion are without adequate sanitation, or one in three in the world.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Experts investigating the 1961 plane crash that killed former Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld have submitted a report to the United Nations stating they have found significant new information which could indicate aerial attack or interference as a possible cause of the crash.

The panel of experts was tasked in March by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to examine evidence pertaining to the crash on Sept. 18, 1961, in which Hammarskjöld was one of 16 to die. The 56-year-old Swedish diplomat was en route to negotiate a cease-fire for the mining-rich Katanga province when his Douglas DC-6 airliner crashed near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).

The Panel described the new information as “having moderate probative value, sufficient to further pursue aerial attack or other interference as a hypothesis of the possible cause of the crash”. It will likely provoke another investigation.

The information included eyewitness accounts of more than one jet aircraft in the air at the time of the crash, and that Hammarskjöld’s plane was on fire before it hit the ground. There was also a possibility that communications sent from the CX-52 cryptographic machine used by Mr. Hammarskjöld were intercepted, the report stated.

The experts also found new information which upholds the original 1961 post-mortem examination of the 16 passengers on board SE-BDY.

The Panel, consisting of Mr. Mohamed Chande Othman of Tanzania, Ms. Kerryn Macaulay of Australia and Mr. Henrik Larsen of Denmark, also examined and assessed the value of new information relating to the various other hypotheses of the cause of the crash.

Theories relating to a possible hijacking or sabotage were found by the panel to have “nil or weak probative value”, yet new information was found relating to a hypothesis involving “crew fatigue”.

Investigations are likely to continue, with Ban Ki-moon remarking that “a further inquiry or investigation would be necessary to finally establish the facts.”

The Secretary-General is now reaching out to U.N. Member States to declassify and make available specific information, which may have been kept under wraps since the 1960s, relating to the event.

Several Member States, including the United Kingdom and the U.S., have withheld documents from the experts which could prove key in determining the cause of the crash. In a statement introducing the report, the Secretary-General noted that “there is a possibility that unreleased classified material relating to the crash of SE-BDY may still be available.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Global Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in 2014 declined 16 per cent to 1.2 trillion dollars, according to this year’s newly released World Investment Report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The UNCTAD report pointed to the fragility of the global economy, policy uncertainty for investors and elevated geopolitical risks as factors contributing to the drop in FDI. New investments were also offset by some large divestments.

However, FDI rose slightly to developing economies, which extended their lead in global inflows of investment. China is now the largest global recipient of FDI.

Released just ahead of the third international conference on financing for development in Addis Ababa in mid-July, the report concluded that reforming international investment governance is key to building an enabling environment for investment, maximising the chances of reaching ‘financing for development’ targets to be discussed at the conference.

West Asia maintained its downward trend in FDI in 2014 for the sixth consecutive year, decreasing by 4 per cent to 43 billion dollars. The report describes a succession of crises that have hit the region, including the global economic crisis and an eruption of political unrest leading to conflict in some countries, which have contributed to the continuous fall.

Elsewhere in South, East, and South-East Asia, the report was more positive. Inflows to South Asia rose to 41 billion dollars in 2014, primarily owing to good performance by India, while inflows to East Asia rose by 12 percent to 248 billion, and those to South-East Asia experienced a 5 percent increase, to 133 billion. China’s boost was driven by an increase in FDI to the services sector, while FDI fell in manufacturing, especially in industries that are sensitive to rising labour costs.

Developing economies as a group attracted 681 billion dollars worth of FDI and remain the leading region by share of global investment inflows. Among the top 10 FDI recipients in the world, half are developing economies: Brazil, China, Hong Kong (China), India and Singapore.

Developed economies, however, recorded a 28 per cent decline in inflows last year. This figure was greatly affected by the single mega divestment by Vodafone of its Verizon Wireless business in the United States. The Vodafone deal was indicative of a general trend in merger and acquisition activity which saw divestment deals rising to one out of every two mergers and acquisitions.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Although strong gains have been made in some areas of conservation, many species are facing increasing threats to their survival.

According to an update from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Red List of Threatened Species, conservation successes like the Iberian Lynx and the Guadalupe Fur Seal have been overshadowed by more species declines and concerns over the lion, African Golden Cat, New Zealand Sea Lion populations.

“(The update) confirms that effective conservation can yield outstanding results,” said Inger Andersen, IUCN Director General, in a statement. “Saving the Iberian Lynx from the brink of extinction while securing the livelihoods of local communities is a perfect example.

“But this update is also a wake-up call, reminding us that our natural world is becoming increasingly vulnerable. The international community must urgently step up conservation efforts if we want to secure this fascinating diversity of life that sustains, inspires and amazes us every day.”

Aside from successful conservation efforts in southern Africa, the West African lion subpopulation has been listed as critically endangered due to habitat conversion, a decline in prey caused by unsustainable hunting, and human-lion conflict.

Rapid declines have also been recorded in East Africa – historically a stronghold for lions – mainly due to human-lion conflict and prey decline. Trade in bones and other body parts for traditional medicine, both within the region and in Asia, has been identified as a new, emerging threat to the species.

The Red List provides taxonomic, conservation status and distribution information on plants, fungi and animals; cataloguing and highlighting those plants and animals that are facing a higher risk of global extinction.

It includes 77,340 assessed species, providing a useful snapshot of what is happening to species today and highlighting the urgent need for conservation action. Of the assessed species, 22,784 are threatened with extinction.

According to the update, 99 percent of tropical Asian slipper orchids – some of the most highly prized ornamental plants – are threatened with extinction.

Eighty-five percent of species on the Red List are threatened by the loss and degradation of their habitat, and illegal trade and invasive species are also key drivers of population decline.

“It is encouraging to see several species improve in status due to conservation action,” remarked Jane Smart, Director, IUCN’s Global Species Programme. “However, this update shows that we are still seeing devastating losses in species populations.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

A new mother watches over her child at the Ifo 2 Refugee Camp Hospital in Dadaab, Kenya, which is supported by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 18 2015 (IPS)

A horrific year of war, humanitarian crises, human rights violations and persecution has caused a sharp rise in global forced displacement.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNCHR) released Thursday its annual report of global trends on refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons and the internally displaced. The report makes for sober reading two days before World Refugee Day on June 20.

The report states that global forced displacement reached unprecedented levels in 2014, with 59.5 million people fleeing their homes worldwide. An estimated 13.9 million individuals were newly displaced due to conflict or persecution.

High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres noted in a statement accompanying the report, “For an age of unprecedented mass displacement, we need an unprecedented humanitarian response and a renewed global commitment to tolerance and protection for people fleeing conflict and persecution.”

Syria became the leading country of origin of refugees in 2014, with 95 per cent of those fleeing the country for surrounding nations. Turkey, for the first time, became the largest hosting country worldwide, with 1.59 million refugees. One million Syrians registered there in 2014.

Many Syrian refugees fled to Lebanon in 2014, where at the end of the year almost one in four inhabitants was a refugee. In April, Guterres noted that the numbers of refugees Lebanon has absorbed would be unthinkable in most Western countries.

“The equivalent of what we have in Lebanon in the United States would be more than 80 million refugees coming into the U.S.,” he said.

If the United Kingdom received the equivalent influx, it would have to accommodate more than 15 million refugees.

The report highlighted the heavy burden being shouldered by developing regions. Two decades ago, they were hosting about 70 per cent of the world’s refugees. By the end of 2014, this proportion had risen to 86 per cent – at 12.4 million persons, the highest figure in more than two decades.

The 30 countries with the largest number of refugees per one dollar GDP per capita were all members of developing regions. More than 5.9 million people, representing 42 per cent of the world’s refugees, resided in countries whose GDP per capita was below 5,000 dollars.

Rising numbers have stretched resources to the limit, with the World Food Programme suffering acute shortfalls in funding, leaving it unable to feed refugees in desperate need of support.

Executive Director of the U.N. World Food Programme Ertharin Cousin released a statement Thursday saying, “South Sudan is on the verge of a hunger catastrophe, violence is worsening in Iraq and Syria, and there are new trouble-spots in Yemen and Nigeria. Needs increasingly outpace resources and this poses a moral and financial challenge to the international community.”

Data indicate that the number of unaccompanied or separated children seeking asylum has reached levels unprecedented since at least 2006, when UNHCR started systematically collecting data of that kind.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Volunteers are increasingly essential to ensuring government accountability and effectiveness – but their vast potential is untapped and undervalued, a new United Nations report has found.

The State of the World’s Volunteerism Report 2015, produced by the United Nations Volunteers programme, is the first global review of evidence around the contribution of volunteers to better governance, a prerequisite for the success of the new Sustainable Development Goals to be agreed at the U.N. in September.

The report shows how ordinary people are volunteering their time, energies and skills to improve the way they are governed and engaged at local, national and global levels.

Speaking at the launch of the report in New York, United Nations Development Programme Administrator Helen Clark said: “The potential of volunteers to help create truly people-centred development is enormous, but, as yet, far from fully tapped. Volunteers have a critical role to play in representing the voices of those who are often excluded from development decisions, including women and other groups who may be marginalised.”

More than one billion people volunteer globally, most of them in their own countries. The report highlights the work of Brazilian citizens monitoring city contracts for corruption who saved millions in public funds; and the global movement to secure an agreement to regulate conditions for garment workers following the 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh.

The report holds up examples of countries providing a supportive environment for volunteers, including Peru, Mozambique and Norway. These countries have passed laws and set up frameworks to help citizens volunteer.

However, other governments are failing to recognise and harness the potential of volunteers to boost development. The report calls on governments to “go beyond the rhetoric of participation” and take concrete steps to help the world’s volunteers actively contribute.

The report recommends that governments must engage volunteers more actively in the policymaking process, and engaging more volunteer women, youth and marginalised groups in local and national decision making.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

A school girl during a class break at the school run by the by the Hawa Abdi Centre for displaced Somalis. Credit: UN Photo/Tobin Jones

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 2 2015 (IPS)

With thousands worldwide being denied education due to attacks on schools and universities, and the use of school buildings by armed groups, 37 countries have committed to protecting students and their education during armed conflict.

An international Safe Schools Declaration was the result of a process initiated in 2012 by the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, and led by the governments of Norway and Argentina since 2014. The Coalition is a committee of organisations, including the United Nations Children’s Fund and Human Rights Watch, taking action on education in conflict.

“Targeted attacks on education are robbing a generation of the chance to realize their potential, with a huge long-term social cost,” said Diya Nijhowne, the director of the Coalition. “The countries adopting the Safe Schools Declaration are making a commitment to take concrete action to protect students and their education in times of conflict.”

The Coalition called for armed forces to reject the use of school and university buildings as barracks, places to store military equipment, training grounds, or detention centres. The group note that not only do these uses force students out, but they can make the buildings a military target.

The countries including Brazil, Palestine and Jordan have agreed to endorse and use new ‘Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict’.

The Guidelines say universities and schools “should not be used by the fighting forces of parties to armed conflict in any way in support of the military effort.”

Speaking at the conference was Ziauddin Yousafzai, the U.N. special adviser on global education, and the father and teacher of Malala Yousafzai. He applauded the countries that attended the conference for putting the hope generated by education ahead of the despair resulting from violence.

The countries committed to ensuring the continuation of education during armed conflict, and supporting the re- establishment of educational facilities which had been destroyed.

A recent study by the Coalition found schools and universities had been used for military purposes by government forces and non-state armed groups in 26 countries since 2005. Most of these instances were during periods of conflict in the country.

“The countries supporting the Safe Schools Declaration are making it clear that protecting education is a priority and that the work starts here to turn words into action,” said Nijhowne. The declaration is still open to those countries who have not yet joined.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Anders Kompass, Director for Field Operations and Technical Cooperation of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, was asked to resign after handing the report on child abuse by French peacekeepers in the Central African Republic to French authorities. Credit: UN Photo/Violaine Martin

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
UNITED NATIONS, May 29 2015 (IPS)

Leaked United Nations documents show high-level staff knew of abuses by soldiers in the Central African Republic and failed to act, all while planning the removal of U.N. whistleblower Anders Kompass.

Twenty-three soldiers from France, Chad and Equatorial Guinea are implicated in the abuse, according to one of the reports.

The documents, released Friday by the organisation AIDS-Free World as part of their Code Blue campaign, implicate the U.N. in making no attempt to stop the ongoing crimes or protect children, and then scrambling to cover up inaction.

“The documents indicate a total failure of the U.N. to act on claims of sexual abuse, even when they know that U.N. involvement might be the surest route to stopping crimes and ensuring justice,” said Paula Donovan, AIDS-Free World’s co-director, in a statement.

Included in the leak is Anders Kompass’ own account of the events, which shows his claim that he was asked to resign by the High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, who was acting on a request from the head of U.N. Peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous.

Another revelation is an email chain involving Joan Dubinsky, Director, U.N. Ethics Office; Susana Malcorra, Chef de Cabinet, Executive Office of the Secretary-General; Carman Lapointe, Under Secretary General for Office for Internal Oversight Services; and Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, High Commissioner for Human Rights, with the subject “CONFIDENTIAL — Call from DPR Sweden regarding Anders Kompass”, dated Apr. 7-10, 2015, detailing discussions across U.N. departments about Kompass’ case.

AIDS-Free World suggested that the latest documents bring into question the independence of the U.N.’s Office for Internal Oversight Services and Ethics Office, which is supposed to operate at arm’s length from the rest of the U.N. system, to ensure accountability.

The documents show that the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) had evidence of abuse by the soldiers on May 19, 2014. Then, during a June 18 interview, a 13-year-old boy said he couldn’t number all the times he’d been forced to perform oral sex on soldiers but the most recent had been between June 8 and 12, 2014 – several weeks after the first UNICEF interview.

“By agreeing to be interviewed by the UN, the children expected the abuse to stop and the perpetrators to be arrested. When children report sexual abuse, adults must report it to the authorities. A child needs protection and, by definition, does not have the agency to decide whether to press charges. They deserved the protection they assumed they would receive once the UN knew of their abuse,” AIDS-Free World said in a statement.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

A baby cries in his mother’s lap while being inoculated against measles by Vaccinator Joseph Kamara, at Tagweh Town Community Clinic in Bomi County, Liberia. Credit: UNICEF

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
DAKAR, May 4 2015 (IPS)

As Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia work to end Ebola, critical healthcare services damaged by the epidemic are beginning to be revitalised.

Supported by United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the three countries worst-hit by the disease have begun a campaign to immunise three million children against preventable illnesses like measles and polio.“UNICEF trained a former Ebola sensitisation team to go door-to-door explaining to parents that the vaccinations for measles were safe, essential, and not related to Ebola in any way." -- Tim Irwin

The launch of the campaign coincided with World Immunization Week, which ran Apr. 24 to 30. In Guinea, the World Bank has provided funding, whilst in Sierra Leone, funding has come from the Canadian International Development Agency, the European Union and the United States Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance.

Speaking to IPS about the relevance of the campaign, UNICEF West Africa spokesperson Tim Irwin said, “The focus is still very much on getting to zero cases of Ebola, but the reduction in the number of cases has allowed for the resumption of some interventions.

“Immunisations have restarted and UNICEF and partners have supported the governments in the reopening of schools.”

At the end of March, the World Health Organisation said “in light of the decline in Ebola cases, it is urgent to focus efforts on restarting and intensifying immunization activities.”

Currently, the risk of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks outweighs the risk of increased Ebola virus transmission.

In Liberia, a campaign to provide measles and polio vaccinations to over 700,000 children under five years old is planned for May 8-14. There, measles vaccination rates were adversely affected due to the impact of Ebola on the country’s healthcare infrastructure.

Little more than half of children aged under one year received measles vaccines in 2014. Before the epidemic in 2013, measles coverage was 89 percent, while in 2014 it fell to 58 percent.

Meanwhile, Ebola had a significant impact on Sierra Leone’s vaccination regime, with routine vaccinations decreasing by 17 percent during the epidemic. Since the start of 2015, 21 laboratory confirmed cases of measles have been reported. In May, an immunisation drive for 1.5 million children under five will cover measles and polio.

In Guinea, where a measles outbreak was declared in early 2014 – prior to Ebola – the number of confirmed measles cases increased almost fourfold, from 59 between January and December 2013 to 215 for the same period in 2014, according to WHO. There are currently some 1265 suspected cases of measles in Guinea.

Irwin told IPS that in Guinea, one significant challenge is communicating the safety and importance of vaccines to sections of the population which remain sceptical, and in some cases concerned that vaccinations could be connected with Ebola.

“The second phase of measles vaccination campaign was launched in Forest Region which is still recovering from the psychological trauma of the Ebola outbreak,” Irwin said.

“While there hasn’t been a case that region for months, the UNICEF team and partners took the initiative to conduct a social mobilisation campaign ahead of the vaccinations to ensure that the turnout would be as high as possible.”

Health professionals remain vigilant for cases of Ebola, and are required to wear gloves when vaccinating – a practice not routinely required for administering injectable vaccinations in normal conditions.

As part of the community-sensitisation campaign in Guinea, UNICEF has been conducting door-to-door visits to discuss vaccinations with parents.

“UNICEF trained a former Ebola sensitisation team to go door-to-door explaining to parents that the vaccinations for measles were safe, essential, and not related to Ebola in any way,” said Irwin.

UNICEF health specialist Dr. Rene Ehounou Ekpini told IPS that Ebola had highlighted serious problems in Guinea’s health system. “Firstly, it’s a problem of poor distribution, with most health workers in the capital. At the second level, it’s an infrastructure issue.

“It’s important to restore confidence in the health system,” he said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Gender equality in political, economic and social arenas is a matter of human rights, said Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury on Monday to civil society organisations, ambassadors and activists in New York.

Speaking at the Soka Gakkai International’s New York headquarters, the former Bangladesh Ambassador to the United Nations highlighted the ongoing 59th meeting of Commission on the Status of Women, which runs from Mar. 9 to 20 at the U.N. in New York.

“2015 is an extraordinary year for women and humanity,” Chowdhury noted, pointing to the U.N’s post-2015 development goals, which will be finalised later this year, as an opportunity for furthering gender equality.

Chowdhury said that despite some progress, he was disappointed with efforts to implement key measures with regard to including women in political processes, especially Security Council Resolution 1325.

The Resolution, adopted in October 2000, stresses the importance of women’s equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security, and calls on countries to take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence in conflict.

“During this biggest ever gathering, a number of civil society are focusing on 15th anniversary of 1325,” said Chowdhury.

A global study has been commissioned by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to review 15 years of implementation of 1325, before October of this year.

“National action plans are the engines that would speed up the implementation of 1325,” urged Chowdhury. Only 47 member states have managed to prepare national action plans since the Resolution was adopted.

Chowdhury reflected that while national governments must do more to improve gender equality in political participation and peacemaking, the U.N. must also hold itself to a higher standard.

“The U.N.’s own record isn’t something that we can be proud of,” he said. Since the world body was established in 1945, not one of its secretary-generals has been a woman – a fact that may change when Ban Ki-Moon’s term finishes in December 2016.

Chowdhury was keen to emphasise that issues of gender equality are not simply important for women, saying “equality between women and men is a matter of human rights, and a matter for peace and social justice… Today’s slogan should be ‘women and men together, we have the power to empower.’”

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants has criticised European policies towards migrants and asylum seekers, saying “the status quo isn’t sustainable.”

François Crépeau spoke at the end of an official visit to Brussels, warning leaders that if financial and human resources continued to be spent on securing borders, Europe would “certainly continue to lose control of its borders.”

Crépeau noted that migrants and asylum seekers leave their countries due to push factors including war, conflict, natural disasters, persecution or extreme poverty, as well as in response to pull factors such as the unrecognised needs in the labour markets of EU Member States.

These “push and pull factors” are unlikely to change in the near future.

“EU Member States must accept that migrants will continue to come, no matter what, and offer them incentives to use regular channels,” said Crépeau.

At the University of Oxford’s International Migration Institute, research led by Hein de Haas supports this. Rather than having the desired effect, restrictions may compel migrants to try other geographical routes by migrating to or via other countries.

De Haas’ work found that, ironically, one of the strongest effects of immigration restrictions was that they reduce return migration, encouraging migrants to settle permanently once they have arrived at their destination.

The Special Rapporteur called on Europe not “to turn a blind eye to the pull factors for irregular migration,” such as the unrecognized needs for migrant workers in labour markets.

Crépeau underscored that “any attempt at sealing borders – as the nationalist populist discourse stridently calls for – will continue to fail on a massive scale… Sealing international borders is impossible. Migrants will continue arriving despite all efforts to stop them, at a terrible cost in lives and suffering if nothing else is put in place.”

His warning comes at a time when Europe is taking heavy criticism over its policies towards migrants, especially with respect to the Syrian refugee crisis.

The Council of Europe’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks wrote in an article on the Council’s blog on the 3rd February, “Just over a year ago… I concluded that Europe had failed to rise to the challenge and was neglecting this crisis.

“As another year has passed in which more and more Syrians suffered the consequences of conflict in their country, all European states are urged to be more generous and assume their responsibility for providing effective protection to those in need.”

Medical marijuana from a dispensary in California. Credit: David Trawin/cc by 2.0

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
NEW YORK, Feb 4 2015 (IPS)

A bill which will bring medical marijuana to New York State in 2016 will leave the treatment inaccessible to low-income patients, community groups warn.

New Yorkers spoke out about limitations to the draft regulations of the Compassionate Care Act, which should introduce medical marijuana to the state early next year.“I have stage four prostate cancer, so I have access, but I’m trying to broaden this for those who aren’t included. I’m concerned about veterans with post traumatic stress, victims of agent orange, traumatic brain injury from IEDs, and the effects of depleted uranium poisoning." -- Bill Gilson

At a public forum held Tuesday in the Bronx, concerns were raised about the proposed regulations, including access for low income patients, and the small number of illnesses which qualify for the treatment.

“The Department of Health can create incentives for industry,” said Julie Netherland of the Drug Policy Alliance, a drug-reform advocacy organisation that worked with legislators during negotiations.

“One of the things they could weigh as criteria for selecting companies who will produce the strains would be their plan to support low-income patients,” said Netherland.

The bill was signed into law last July, but the programme will likely be implemented in New York State in January 2016. This will be nearly two decades after medical marijuana was first introduced to the United States, with an initiative in California to allow medical cannabis in 1996.

Some 23 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have legalised cannabis for medical use, and four allow its recreational use.

In their current form, the regulations allow treatment for only 10 illnesses: cancer, HIV/AIDS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury with spasticity, epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease, neuropathy, and Huntington’s disease.

The commissioner of health for New York State, Howard Zucker, has the power to include any number of conditions as he sees fit.

To pass the bill, legislators were forced to drastically narrow the eligibility criteria, according to the Alliance.

In the bill’s original form, marijuana was to be prescribed at a physician’s discretion. Partway through negotiations, it was reduced to 25 conditions, then in the final days before being passed, it was cut to just 10.

Those with anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and rheumatoid arthritis would be ineligible for the treatment.

Bill Gilson, president of the New York City chapter of Veterans for Peace, told IPS, “I have stage four prostate cancer, so I have access, but I’m trying to broaden this for those who aren’t included. I’m concerned about veterans with post-traumatic stress, victims of Agent Orange, traumatic brain injury from IEDs (improvised explosive devices), and the effects of depleted uranium poisoning.

“The Department of Health has to broaden the eligibility conditions,” he said.

There is no requirement that insurance cover medical marijuana, raising concerns that the treatment will be inaccessible to low-income groups.

Also under the regulations, as patients are not allowed to smoke the drug, they will be using vaporisers, which range in cost, and a registration fee is needed in order to receive a patient identification card.

The Drug Policy Alliance is calling on the department of health to make companies who want to produce the marijuana come up with a plan to support those with lower incomes who need the treatment.

Another option could be for the state government to divert some of the significant tax money to support those in need. Medicaid will not provide for the treatment.

The small scale of the proposed programme was also criticised. There will be only five producers of the drug and 20 dispensaries across the whole state.

Netherland from the Alliance told IPS, “It’s insufficient to meet patient demand. Also geographically, having just 20 dispensaries across a state 54,000 square miles large isn’t enough.”

Many see the regulations as a step toward full legalisation of marijuana in the state, including New York City Council member Mark Levine, who told IPS, “I’m really excited, but there are many limitations we need to address. I see this legislation as a step towards taxation and regulation.”

Limitations have also been placed on the delivery method the treatment will take – only oils and extracts are allowed, no smoking.

As the 45-day public comment period comes to a close on February 13th, those with concerns are encouraged to submit testimony on the New York State Department of Health website.

Marijuana is still illegal under federal law, although four states have now legalised it for recreational use, and 23 states and the District of Columbia have enacted medical marijuana laws.

Helen Redmond, a clinical social worker for the NGO Community Access, told IPS, “The exciting thing is, for the people who I work with, medical marijuana will help. Some people with mental illness have symptoms that are very distressing, for example, hearing voices, anxiety.

“Marijuana lowers the anxiety that they feel, and can boost a sense of wellbeing. It’s a beautiful thing. There are few side effects.

“Having a registration fee is problematic,” she added. “Also oils and extracts cost more to produce compared to having plant material – people can’t afford that. There are so many people in New York who are at poverty level or below. People who need medicine, their lives matter.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (centre) speaks at the Seventh Ministerial Meeting of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), held on the margins of the General Assembly general debate in September 2014. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 10 2014 (IPS)

Civil society groups are urging the U.N. General Assembly to pass a resolution declaring nuclear strikes on cities to be a clear-cut violation of international humanitarian law.

At the Dec. 8-9 Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, supporters of the proposed resolution argued that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is undeniable that the explosion of a nuclear weapon on a populated area would engender destruction beyond acceptable human limits.“The maximalist demand of a complete ban on weapons, and the 'incremental steps' towards disarmament are both jammed. Will advancing IHL help both of these processes?" -- Jonathan Granoff

“There are over 6,000 cities already members of our campaign called Cities Are Not Targets! declaring it illegal to target cities with nuclear weapons,” said Aaron Tovish, campaign director for Mayors for Peace.

“This initiative to have the bodies of the United Nations explicitly outlaw such conduct is of great value,” he said.

Proponents argue that just raising the issue would bring a dose of reality into the debate about the threat of nuclear weapons, and that a GA resolution calling on the Security Council to affirm the illegality of using nuclear weapons on populated areas under international humanitarian law (IHL) could be a real, practical step to advance nuclear disarmament.

Jonathan Granoff, head of the Global Security Institute, said that other uses also violate international law but there should be no question that destroying a city is illegal.

Granoff told IPS, “Pending obtaining a legal ban, a convention, or a framework of instruments leading to nuclear disarmament, which is required by the promises made by the nuclear weapons states under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the unanimous ruling of the International Court of Justice, this step would make us all a bit safer and downgrade the political status of these horrible devices.”

Is a resolution necessary?

In recent years, it has become apparent that failure to fulfill promised progress on nuclear disarmament has been caused by deeply entrenched security policies that do not seem likely to change.

U.S. President Barack Obama and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon have raised hopes of further nuclear disarmament, yet this has flown in the face of a reality in which nuclear weapons states continue to either modernise or expand their arsenals, or do both.

Nuclear states agree that the warheads are bad (often recognising a legal responsibility to disarm), yet critics note that in an act of impressive cognitive dissonance, these states simultaneously advance that they are good because they are necessary for deterrence purposes and strategic stability, the disturbance of which could be bad.

Thus, while they exist, so these states say, it is good to rely on them.

China, Russia, the UK, U.S. and France have agreed they have a legal responsibility to disarm, based on the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970.

India has called for negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on a universal, nondiscriminatory, treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons and Pakistan has said it would join such a process. Israel has said nothing.

In 2000, 13 steps were agreed upon to move towards disarmament – and then in 2010, 64 additional commitments were made by 188 states.

Yet despite the non-realisation of these incremental moves towards disarmament, the nuclear weapons states maintain that any other attempt to delegitimise, ban, and eliminate the warheads is a distraction.

Proponents of the resolution like Granoff see it as a step forward towards extrication from the situation.

Granoff told IPS, “The maximalist demand of a complete ban on weapons, and the ‘incremental steps’ towards disarmament are both jammed. Will advancing IHL help both of these processes? Will it provide impetus to get a ban on testing, fissile materials, and more cuts of arsenals?”

Criticism of the proposal

The proposal is likely to face robust criticism from nuclear weapons states and those under the “umbrella of deterrence” (those states allied to a nuclear power that claim to be protected by affiliation).

Speaking to IPS, former deputy judge advocate general, U.S. Air Force Major General Charles Dunlap Jr. expressed reservations about the advancement of such a resolution.

Dunlap remains unconvinced on the question of whether there is an authoritative prohibition on the use of nuclear weapons in IHL, saying, “It sounds as if Mr. Granoff assumes that IHL applicable to the use of conventional weapons would automatically apply to the use of nuclear weapons. This is incorrect.

“In fact, even some of the countries which are parties (as the U.S. and some other nuclear powers are not) to Additional Protocol 1 of the Geneva Conventions (which contains targeting rules) made an express reservation to it to the effect that it did not govern the use of nuclear weapons.”

Alyn Ware of the World Future Council disputes the claim that IHL does not apply to nuclear weapons. “The International Court of Justice affirmed in 1996 that the laws of warfare, and in particular international humanitarian law, apply to nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Weapon States accepted this, and reaffirmed in the final document of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference of 2010 “the need for all States at all times to comply with applicable international law, including international humanitarian law.”’

Ware argues that IHL renders any use of nuclear weapons illegal. “A nuclear weapon has a much larger blast impact than conventional weapons. The blast impact can’t be contained to a specific military target. If a nuclear detonation is far away from populated areas, some might argue that such use could be consistent with IHL, even though there would still be widespread impact from radioactive fallout… but you can’t even make this argument when a nuclear weapon is targeted on a military asset in or near a populated area.”

Ware supports the proposal, but adds that there are other complementary initiatives to strengthen the taboo against nuclear weapons-use that are also gaining traction, such as an affirmation of the practice of non-use (advanced by President Obama) and a global agreement prohibiting use.

IPS spoke to former Senior Political Affairs Officer in the Office of Ms. Angela Kane, the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs at the United Nations, Randy Rydell, who said, “The nuclear powers will almost certainly try to deal with this humanitarian campaign by diverting it onto the track of “arms control” — namely, we need to improve the safety and security of nukes and “keep them out of the wrong hands”.

Both arguments divert attention from the risks inherent in such weapons, in anybody’s “hands”.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury chaired the Forum on Nov. 18, 2014 in New York at the Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations. Credit: Roger Hamilton-Martin/IPS

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 29 2014 (IPS)

As politics, economies, conflicts and cultures become increasingly intertwined, will individual identities also begin to transcend national boundaries?

The elusive nature of “global citizenship” was noted by Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Dr. Palitha Kohona, at an IPS Forum on Global Citizenship last week at the Sri Lankan Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York."We should come out of our narrow boundaries, not only of ourselves but of our communities." -- Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury

“The concept of global citizenship has challenged the minds of humans for a very long time although its exact definition has never really crystallised,” Kohona said.

The idea was famously put forth by Tony Blair during a speech in Chicago in 1999. “We are all internationalists now, whether we like it or not. We cannot refuse to participate in global markets if we want to prosper. We cannot ignore new political ideas in other countries if we want to innovate,” Blair said.

Ambassador Kohona said that even after the collapse of the empires spawned by the Westphalian system, the growth of powerful individual states has not encouraged the development of a genuinely global system.

Kohona stressed the importance of the United Nations as an institution in which to hold up the principle of global citizenship.

“The establishment of the United Nations has created the forum for humanity to make an effort to address common issues together from a global perspective. It is the most effective forum available to all nation states. The United Nations and its agencies have been successful in generating sympathy for the usefulness of approaching many of today’s challenges together.”

The Forum was chaired by Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, former representative for Bangladesh and the prime mover of the 1999 General Assembly resolution that adopted the U.N. Declaration and the Programme of Action (PoA) on the Culture of Peace.

“When we speak of global citizenship, certain thoughts come to mind,” he said. “The first thing to understand is spirituality. What are our values, what are our commitments as human beings? The second is the belief in the oneness of humanity. We should come out of our narrow boundaries, not only of ourselves but of our communities.”

Despite challenges, many of the panellists agreed that the promotion of global citizenship is advancing against the headwinds of the purported clash of civilisations, declining resources, and cultural cynicism.

IPS Chair Ambassador Walther Lichem noted that, “Almost to the day 200 years after the initiation of multilateral diplomacy at the Congress of Vienna, we become aware that multilateral diplomacy is increasingly giving way to global governance.”

Lichem noted that global citizenship needs to be seen in the context of a system that espouses norms such as the “responsibility to protect,” a principle that puts the international community above the nation state when it comes to protecting its own citizens.

“Global citizenship is to be understood as a citizenship with human rights as a way of life,” Lichem said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has identified global citizenship as the third priority area in his Global Education First initiative, seeing it as important that students don’t simply learn how to pass exams and get jobs in their own countries, but are instilled with an understanding of the importance of respect and responsibility across cultures, countries and regions.

“Global citizenship is a fight against limbo,” said Erol Avdovic, vice president of the United Nations Correspondents Association. “It is the fight against misconception and against ignoring – or even worse, manipulating – simple facts.”

The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, an entity that explores the roots of polarisation between societies and cultures was in attendance at the Forum, with spokesperson for the High Representative Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, Nihal Saad noting that education for global citizenship “has the power to shape a sustainable future and better world.

“Educational policies should promote peace, mutual respect and environmental care. It does not suffice for education to produce individuals who can read, write and count. Education should and must bring shared values to life.”

Saad’s sentiments were shared by Monte Joffee, Soka Gakkai International’s USA representative, who said, “Our curriculum needs to include more topics of a global nature so our students can develop empathetic resonance with ‘the other’.

“This does not reach to the core of today’s educational crisis. Speaking only of American education, I must say that the inequalities of educational funding, the levels of despair and hopelessness in too many of our communities… are numbing realities and ‘add-ons’ to the curriculum about global citizenship are not the solution.”

Joffee related the story of Anand Kumar, an Indian mathematician who is well known for his “Super 30” programme in Patna, Bihar. It prepares economically disadvantaged students for the entrance examination for the renowned Indian Institutes of Technology (ITT) engineering schools, with great success.

His programme selects 30 talented candidates from disadvantaged, tutors them, and provides study materials and lodging for a year.

Joffee noted that this story provides a great model for Global Citizenship Education. “Educators must say, ‘I will start right here, with the student right in front of me.'”

Ramu Damodaran from United Nations Department of Public Information Outreach Division also spoke of the importance of academics being given more opportunities to have a voice at the United Nations.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

From left, SGI Executive Director for Peace Affairs Hirotsugu Terasaki, IPS Director General Ramesh Jaura, and honoree Jayantha Dhanapala. Credit: Roger Hamilton Martin/IPS

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 19 2014 (IPS)

Jayantha Dhanapala was awarded the IPS International Achievement Award for Nuclear Disarmament Monday at the United Nations in New York.

Dhanapala, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs until 2003, has remained committed to the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world since leaving his post, presiding since 2007 over the Nobel Prize-winning Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. 

“A nuclear weapon-free world can and must happen in my lifetime,” Dhanapala told attendees at an official ceremony sponsored by the Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai International.

“Scientific evidence is proof that even a limited nuclear war – if those confines are possible – will cause irreversible climate change and destruction of human life and its supporting ecology on an unprecedented scale. We the people have a ‘responsibility to protect’ the world from nuclear weapons by outlawing them through a verifiable Nuclear Weapon Convention overriding all other self-proclaimed ‘R2P’ applications.”

The event was attended by U.N. ambassadors including the president of the General Assembly, Sam Kutesa, who said that “the work of organisations such as Pugwash Conferences on Science and World  Affairs – which Mr. Dhanapala presides over – Inter Press Service, our host this evening, or Soka Gakkai International, the sponsor of this award, contributes to raising awareness of the dangers of nuclear weapons and to advocating for their total elimination.”

Kutesa spoke of the importance of upcoming opportunities to make further inroads into global non-proliferation and disarmament. “The 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference will present an opportunity to further strengthen the global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime.”

CTBTO support

Kutesa’s sentiments were echoed by other speakers including Dr Lassina Zerbo, executive secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO). Zerbo noted that Dhanapala was born in the same month (December 1938) that German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann discovered nuclear fission.

“In 1995, Jayantha chaired the landmark review and extension conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. He masterminded the central bargain, a package of decisions that balanced the seemingly irreconcilable interests of the nuclear weapon states and the non-nuclear weapon states.”

The result of this work was that the CTBT, which was being contested in Geneva, was adopted by the General Assembly in 1996. Dhanapala continues to support the CTBTO, as part of a group of experts who work to advance the CTBT’s entry into force.

Zerbo recalled Dhanapala’s criticism of India’s position in opposing the CTBT. India’s criticism of the CTBT has been that it will not move disarmament sufficiently forward. In response to this, Dhanapala has said, “Opposing the CTBT because it fails to deliver complete disarmament is tantamount to opposing speed limits on roads because they fail to prevent accidents completely,” Dhanapala has pointed out.

Collectively known as the “Annex 2” states, India forms part of a group of eight countries that are required to ratify before the treaty before it can enter into force. India, Pakistan and North Korea have yet to sign the treaty, while 5 other states have signed but failed to ratify.

Zerbo also noted the relevance of Dhanapala’s nationality in his advocacy for disarmament and non-proliferation, saying, “Jayantha and I both come from countries in the developing world.

“One of the most persuasive arguments he has consistently made is the opportunity cost a developing country incurs when embarking on a weapons of mass destruction programme. In particular, a nuclear weapons programme requires vast resources that could have been allocated to support development and infrastructure.”

IPS Director General Ramesh Jaura, who read a statement from IPS founder Roberto Savio, spoke of the origins and importance of the award.

“The award was created in 1985 with the idea to provide a link between the action of the U.N. at global level, and actors who would embody that action,” he said.

“The U.N. way is not to recognise individuals, so the award is a recognition of the bridge between ideals and practice.” The award has been resurrected after a six-year hiatus, and will be in place next year again. Additional awards in 2016 and 2017 will focus on the Sustainable Development Goals.

There are several opportunities in the coming months for inroads to be made in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Notably, early next month’s Vienna Conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons.

In the meantime, Dhanapala called on groups to support the ICAN and PAX “Don’t Bank on the Bomb” divestment campaign, saying, “I appeal to all of you present to make your own practical contribution to nuclear disarmament by joining the divestment campaign. The faded rhetoric of President Obama’s celebrated Prague speech in April 2009 about a nuclear weapon free world has little to show as results unless civil society acts.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 10 2014 (IPS)

Ambassador Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser currently heads the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. Between 2011-2012 he was president of the General Assembly, setting the agenda for debate in the assembly during the Arab Spring.

His new book, “A year at the helm of the General Assembly” has just been published by NYU Press.You don’t want to enlarge the Security Council for the sake of representation only. No, (you must enlarge) for the commitment, the contribution.

IPS correspondent Roger Hamilton-Martin interviewed the ambassador on issues central to the book– mediation and U.N. reform. Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: How can we reform the General Assembly to ensure that practical steps are taken to improve implementation of resolutions by member states?

A: I look at the problem from (the perspective of) the mandate of the president of the General Assembly. One year. How can you achieve good results in one year? I was lucky because I was elected in February 2011 and I was still the ambassador of Qatar to the U.N., so it gave me enough time to prepare and organise.

I was ready from June, you know. June 2011. I took over in September. For someone who doesn’t know the system very well, he doesn’t know many people in the U.N… by the time he takes over, half of the year is gone. By the time he wants to discuss and reach agreement or create consensus, the other half is gone.

We need at least two years for the president. At least, if not more. One of the former PGAs tried to, with many countries, to try to come up with an agreement and a draft resolution to amend the charter. They faced great difficulties.

Q: On the Security Council, some say that certain countries are less relevant to global security currently than they were – Britain and France, for example. Should these countries stay as permanent members?

A: It is not up to me to say, “This country is better than that country.” This is a negotiation that must be had amongst the P5. We are looking at this to increase the permanent members not to decrease the current (P5) – they will be there.

We need more, you see many emerging powers around the world and they can also contribute to peace and security. You don’t need them for prestige; you need them for their involvement, for their support, for their role in the regions.

That’s where I am talking about how to reform, not to change the structure. We need a very effective council. How to achieve that? You have to look at what was the problem in the last 60, 70 years and how you can change based on that. I served there, I represented Qatar. If you don’t have consensus, and solidarity on issues, it’s a big problem.

The agreement among the 15 is very important. First among the P5, and then among the 15. So you don’t want to enlarge the council for the sake of representation only. No, (you must enlarge) for the commitment, the contribution.

Q: Is there a reluctance to amend the charter?

A: The P5 will not allow it. The United Nations always been accused by many people, NGOs, governments, but they don’t know, it’s not the fault of the U.N.

The U.N. is a state-driven – if there is consensus, there is agreement, and there is achievement. If there is no achievement, there is nothing. I want here to add a commend to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon – he in his two terms did a lot, but still needs the support of member states.

If there is support you will see a different U.N.  I’m sure in the constitutions of many countries from time to time there is an amendment to deal with issues that weren’t there 100 or 200 years ago. It’s very essential and very important.

Q: In the history of the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA), there have only been three female presidents. What could be done to heighten participation?

A: We would love to see UNGA female presidents. Women who have assumed senior positions at the U.N. in general as under secretary-generals or assistant secretary generals have done remarkable jobs. I am sure they will do great as presidents of the General Assembly as well.

We need to encourage member states who nominate their candidates for this top position to support women candidates.  I am all for women leadership and gender balance.

Q: With the current situation in Iraq and Syria, what role does mediation have to play when it comes to ISIS? Is there a place for sitting down at the table with a militant organisation?

A: Today we always accuse governments that they are not doing enough. But politics and political decisions are not enough.  There is a responsibility on the religious leaders, there is responsibility on civil society, there is a responsibility on academia and university, there is responsibility even on the private sector.

So I think we should work together – religious leaders today can get involved in what’s going on with ISIS. You know young people – lack of education, negative environment, they an easy target for those people (ISIS).

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The United Nations is unable to effectively assess the state of violations in detention centres around the world due to a lack of resources, said Malcolm Evans, Chairperson of the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT).

The Committee was only able to conduct three full visits to assess detention centres during 2013 due to lack of logistical and financial support from an underfunded U.N. Human Rights Office, which supports the SPT’s work.

“The Committee is unlike some other committees within the U.N. system. We have a right to go into places of detention in any of the 74 States Parties to the Convention (Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture) to investigate.

At the moment we are only able to go into three or four per year. At this pace, States will receive a full regular visit only once in 25 years.”

We need more staff support within the Office of the High Commission – It’s intensely frustrating that we aren’t able to use the power at our disposal because of a want for money and logistics.”

After presenting the SPT’s annual report to the General Assembly, the Chairperson spoke about a recent visit to Azerbaijan, which had to be suspended halfway through; noting plans to take “appropriate follow-up action.”

“For the first time, we found it necessary to suspend one of our full visits, to Azerbaijan, due to repeated problems in securing immediate and unimpeded access to places of detention,” Evans said.

Chairperson of the U.N. Committee against torture Claudio Grossman spoke out on protection for human rights abuse whistleblowers , saying, “People who send comments to the committee cannot be the object of reprisal. We are calling for zero tolerance for reprisals against human rights defenders.”

With the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention against Torture coming up on November 4th, Grossman emphasised the importance of States complying with the obligations set out in the Convention.

Evans and Grossman were accompanied by U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan E. Mendez, who reiterated his frustration at not being permitted appropriate access to assess the situation of detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

“When I became Special Rapporteur, I renewed the request (to visit Guantanamo) – but the response was that I would not be able to talk to any inmates there with or without supervision, so I unfortunately had to decline the invitation. I asked them to review the conditions. I am insisting on being invited to Guantanamo.”

Mendez also expressed his desire to visit other detention centres both in Cuba and in the United States.

“My visits to facilities in the United States are pending, and have been pending for quite a long time I am sorry to say… I have insisted on being invited to Cuba, but have not received an invitation.”

Professor Noam Chomsky, a renowned political activist and one of the strongest critics of U.S. foreign policy, called on the boycott movement to penalize the United States for the suppression of Palestinians.

Chomsky suggested that if the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement is going to hold Israel up for repressing Palestinians, it should move to boycott the United States.

“Why not boycott the United States? Take a look at African American history in the U.S., it’s grotesque.”

A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Chomsky was speaking at a meeting hosted by the U.N. Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

Arguably the world’s most famous public intellectual, Chomsky also addressed the U.N. General Assembly, and later spoke to the press.

Chomsky critiqued the tactics of the BDS movement with respect to Israel. “BDS is not a principle, it’s a tactic. For anyone who is involved in any form of activism, it is second nature to ask a simple question about tactics: are they going to work?”

Chomsky spoke about the movement’s effectiveness, saying, “The movement itself has 3 principles – BDS actions against Israel as long as it maintains control of occupied territories, firstly.

Secondly, action as long as there is discrimination against Palestinians within Israel, and thirdly, action until Israel allows the refugees to return.

If you are an activist, you ask yourself one question- what is the effect going to be of these tactics. Actions directed against the occupation have been successful, effective, and have the positive effect of opening up discussion and debate in the western countries so that people come to understand what they are involved in.”

“Actions of this kind have usually led to a backlash which is harmful to the Palestinians. Don’t just say I like this it makes me feel good, it’s right in principle, you have to ask what’s the impact on the victims. That should be the guideline.”

After praising a recent vote in the U.K. parliament, in which a large majority of MPs voted (although symbolically) in favour of a Palestinian state, Professor Chomsky spoke of his desire for the Palestinian leadership to address the American population.

“I think there will be no significant progress in this conflict until pressure from the American population induces the government to take a different stance.”

Responding to a question regarding the Palestinian leadership’s call for a Security Council resolution to end the Israeli occupation within a two-year timeframe, Chomsky replied, “I think the Security Council should take that action and indeed stronger action.”

But it can only do as the great powers permit, and I think the U.S. delegation will seek ways to block the resolution, although I do think it (the resolution) is appropriate.”

U.N. Secretary General’s spokesperson Thursday responded to a question on Chomsky’s comments regarding the diminishing likelihood of two state solution and whether the U.N. should put sanctions on Israel, by saying, “Noam Chomsky is a man of global reputation so I will say this with all respect, obviously he has his own opinion, but the Secretary General’s position is that the two-state solution is the only way to stop this senseless cycle of war.

As for issues of sanctions, those are up to the Security Council and for member states to take.”

In a new book cataloguing the recent history of clandestine exchanges between the U.S. and Cuba, the reliance on secret intermediaries belies the common perception that the two governments rarely communicated during the decades that followed the Cuban revolution in 1959.

Documents detail how Jimmy Carter acted as a secret intermediary for the Clinton administration during the 1994 Balseros immigration crisis and how Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ordered contingency plans drawn up to “clobber” Havana in 1976 in response to Cuba’s military intervention in defence of the Angola’s MPLA government.One of the book’s novel revelations is the role of Jimmy Carter in acting as a secret intermediary between Washington and Havana during the 1994 Balseros crisis.

The new book, “Back Channel to Cuba”, was launched Wednesday at New York’s Pierre Hotel by co-authors Peter Kornbluh, a Cuba expert at the non-governmental National Security Archive, and William LeoGrande, a veteran Cuba foreign-policy specialist at American University in Washington, DC.

“It’s an odd place to hold a press conference, but for a historic reason,” said co-author Peter Kornbluh. “It’s the place where the first secret talks to normalise relations with Cuba were held, during a three-hour meeting here almost 40 years ago.”

The book is filled with a cast of secret intermediaries who have shuttled back and forth between the two countries even during times of intense hostility.

Despite Nixon’s opening to China in 1972 followed by the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, U.S. relations with Havana, which has been subject to a U.S. trade embargo since 1960, have remained antagonistic.

Most Cubans who fled to the U.S. in the decade after the 1959 Revolution – the majority of whom settled in the Florida – have long opposed all attempts by U.S. administrations to engage Havana in any way that, in their view, would serve to legitimise the Communist government there.

One of the book’s novel revelations is the role of Jimmy Carter in acting as a secret intermediary between Washington and Havana during the 1994 Balseros crisis. The crisis saw a flood of so-called Cuban “rafters” traverse the dangerous route to Florida in what the U.S. administration saw as a politically fraught replay of the 1980 Mariel boatlift that helped defeat Carter’s re-election bid.

The former president, writing to Fidel Castro, talked of his “hope of finding common ground on which to resolve the crisis, and to prepare for a future resolution of long-term differences.”

With his support, an agreement was forged between the Clinton and Castro administrations of a “wet feet, dry feet” policy whereby Cubans who fled to the United States would be allowed to pursue residency if they reached shore. Through the Cuban mission at the United Nations, Carter negotiated the numbers of immigrants who would legally be allowed to remain in the U.S..

As president, Carter himself tried hard to normalise the U.S.-Cuban relationship. It was during his tenure that the U.S. and Cuba established Interest Sections in their respective capitals. But the intensification of Cold War tensions during the latter half of his term – in addition to the growing political clout of Cuban Americans opposed to any improvement in ties – significantly reduced his room for manoeuvre.

Even before Carter, Kissinger had himself tried to promote a détente with Havana, sending representatives Frank Mankiewicz and Lawrence Eagleburger to a meeting at LaGuardia airport in January 1975, to “explore the possibilities for a more normal relationship between our two countries,” and “determine whether there exists an equal determination on both sides to settle the differences that exist between us.”

That, in turn, set the stage for the meeting at the Pierre Hotel six months later. Eagleburger was again present, alongside Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs William D. Rogers.

But Cuba’s intervention in Angola as various foreign-backed factions jostled for power in the run-up to that country’s independence from Portugal in November 1975 put paid to that effort. According to the new book, the former national security adviser and secretary of state was infuriated by Castro’s move, which proved decisive in the MPLA’s victory over rival factions backed variously by South Africa, Zaire, the U.S., and China, as well as South African mercenaries.

During a White House conversation with President Gerald Ford, Kissinger argued that Havana’s intervention raised the prospect of a “race war.”

Cuba had intervened in Angola on the eve of the new country’s independence from Portugal in 1975 in support of the MPLA against South African, U.S., and Chinese-backed factions, as well as South African and Zairean mercenary forces.

In the document, Kissinger says “I think we are going to have to smash Castro. We probably can’t do it before the [November 1976 U.S. presidential] elections.”

Kissinger and Ford were concerned that Cuba would repeat “Angola-style” military action in other African nations amidst intensified rivalry between the U.S. and the Soviet Union across the continent in an African version of the “domino theory” that was used to justify Washington’s ultimately disastrous intervention in Indochina beginning in the late 1950s.

“If they move into Namibia or Rhodesia, I would be in favour of clobbering them,” Kissinger said, according to the transcripts published in the new book. “That would create a furor … but I think we might have to demand they get out of Africa.”

Having won in Angola, Kissinger believed that Cuban forces could play a similar role in South-West Africa (now Namibia), Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and ultimately South Africa itself within five years. He thought it would be “easier to bring pressure on Cuba, as the closer and weaker partner in a tightly interwoven relationship, than on the Soviet Union” which supported both Cuba and the MPLA.

Wide discrepancies between public and private relations between Cuba and the United States have long characterised bilateral ties, LeoGrande told IPS.

“At the tail end of the Kennedy administration, there were secret initiatives to open up a dialogue with Cuba and a hope that in the aftermath of the [October 1962] missile crisis, the Cubans were so angry with the Soviets [for promising to never deploy nuclear weapons to the island] that they would be enticed back into the orbit of the United States. The initiative was taken through the Cuban representative at the United Nations to reopen relations.

“At the same time, if you read some of President Kennedy’s speeches on Cuba, it’s as hard-line Cold War as ever. Just the president and a handful of people knew about [the secret initiative], so you didn’t see any reflection of it in the public dialogue.”

A key theme of the book is the common use of these back channels. Cutting through bureaucratic red tape has been attractive to both countries. “Presidents will always use some kind of channel,” LeoGrande told IPS. “Using diplomatic channels but keeping it secret is probably necessary for solving complex diplomatic issues.”

Successive presidents have preferred to use a personal envoy rather than go through the layers of the diplomatic process that increased the risks of press leaks. In fact, every single president has used these intermediaries since the revolution in 1959.

The authors are convinced that there are positive steps that could be taken to open formal channels with the Caribbean island. “If we didn’t have the embargo, and the democracy promotion programmes, we could have a normal and productive relationship with Cuba,” said LeoGrande.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Jim Lobe contributed to this article from Washington.

Ban Ki-moon, Ségolène Royale, Laurent Fabius, Al Gore and Manuel Pulgar Vidal, Jane Goodall and Bill De Blasio link arms in climate action solidarity.

By Roger Hamilton-Martin and Gloria Schiavi
NEW YORK, Sep 22 2014 (IPS)

On Sunday, Sep. 21, at least 300,000 people filled the streets of New York City ahead of the U.N. General Assembly and special one-day Climate Summit Sep. 23 to protest the ongoing lack of political will to cut global CO2 emissions and kick-start a greener economy. They came by bus and bike and train. They came with their kids — some in strollers, others old enough to proudly carry signs. By afternoon, it had become clear that the march in New York was the biggest climate-change gathering in history. Protesters also turned out in more than 150 other cities around the world.

Asked what message participants wished to convey to global leaders at the U.N. Summit, we were told: “Lead!”

IPS correspondents Roger Hamilton Martin and Gloria Schiavi attended the march. Here’s a few of the scenes and famous personalities they encountered.

Presidents from three Sahelian nations met Monday at the United Nations to discuss what may prove to be the only upbeat topic of the week at the General Assembly.

The subject of their meeting was the vast potential for economic growth in the Sahel over the coming decades due to a phenomenon known as a “Demographic Dividend.”

The concept can be explained as such: in the transition from an agrarian to an industrialised economy, it is common to see fertility rates falling, which in turn will lead to a labour force that grows faster than the population that is dependent upon it.

Essentially, the age structure of a country changes as it transitions from high to low birth and death rates.

The strong labour force can then engender powerful economic improvement, as occurred in Southeast Asia several decades ago. Critically however, in order to be realised, the demographic dividend requires strong investment in young people.

If policy is enacted appropriately, demographics can have a positive impact on per capita growth.

Thailand has recently emerged as an economic powerhouse in Southeast Asia, in part due to exploiting the potential of its demographic dividend. In 1960, more than 40% of the population were under age of 15.

Then mortality rates declined, and it became more usual to have smaller families. By the 1990’s, women had around 2 children each on average. Population growth had slowed.

With more workers, alongside fewer young people to support, the country experienced powerful economic growth. Thailand is currently dominated by working age adults.

Speaking to IPS, UNFPA’s senior advisor on Population and Economics Michael Herrmann said, “Economic and social policy have to go together, not just one or the other. It is important that girls benefit from education, and voluntary family planning.

These are the two of the most important factors in lowering fertility levels. Also ensuring a decline in child mortality.”

“Looking at the countries in North Africa, they are in a position to reap the demographic dividend. In addition to these (social policies allowing lower birth rates), the countries have to have the right economic policies in place to create jobs.”

Heads of state Idriss Déby from Chad, Alassane Ouattara from Côte d’Ivoire and Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger expressed similar sentiments at the U.N. today. President Ouattara said, “The health and education of young girls is at the heart of the process.”

“States must make concrete commitments to enable and protect women human rights defenders, so that they can safely and securely carry out their work in support of victims of sexual and gender-based violence,” Amnesty International told the Global Summit on Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict that wound up Friday in London.  “The commitments made during the summit need to be implemented quickly and with adequate resources. The survivors deserve more than empty talk,” said Stephanie Barbour, head of Amnesty International’s Centre for International Justice.

UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie and U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague, hosts of the three-day summit, were joined by several hundred experts, NGOs and government ministers in London, while events were held in several locations around the world to raise awareness.

The summit featured a wide range of artistic creations, film screenings, musical acts and theatrical performances surrounding the experiences of women and men, girls and boys who suffer sexual violence in war.

One of the initiatives launched in London was a network for connecting survivors’ voices to global leaders, bridging the gap between activists on the ground and policymakers at a high level.“UN Women stands ready to support the international community in delivering on the promise of reparations as a means for substantive change in the lives of women and men, boys and girls affected by conflict and to reflect the needs of victims for both courtroom justice as well as comprehensive redress” – UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Malmbo-Ngcuka

The network, known as Survivors United for Action, is the first-ever global network of sexual violence survivors focused on rape and gender violence in conflict. It is supported and funded by The International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict.

The question of how to support survivors was an important focus of the Summit, especially how to alter the culture of stigma that often surrounds them. UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres spoke of “a culture gap, an impunity gap, and a support for survivors gap.”

Among others, he expressed the need for a less male-dominated culture in international organisations, governments, judicial systems and armed forces.

For its part, the United Nations released guidelines on Reparations for Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, advocating a gender-sensitive focus for reparations after conflict.

“Reparations are routinely left out of peace negotiations or sidelined in funding priorities, even though they are of the utmost importance to survivors,” said UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Malmbo-Ngcuka.

“Stronger action is the need of the hour, and sexual violence in conflict is a front line concern for us,” said Mlambo-Ngcuka. “UN Women stands ready to support the international community in delivering on the promise of reparations as a means for substantive change in the lives of women and men, boys and girls affected by conflict and to reflect the needs of victims for both courtroom justice as well as comprehensive redress.”

“We need to move this agenda forward in order to ensure real change in the lives of survivors who have seen the horrors of sexual violence in conflict up close.”

Addressing the summit, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said: “Sexual violence in conflict is one of the most persistent injustices imaginable.”

“There is no place for it in the civilised world,” remarked Kerry, as he reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to end the practice with a pledge of funds for new programmes aimed at tackling impunity, and called for a rejection of peace agreements which provide amnesty for rape.

The U.K. government used the summit to launch its International Protocol on the Documentation and Investigation of Sexual Violence in Conflict. The document provides a best practice for those involved in recording evidence of sexual violence occurring in conflict, to better enable prosecutions to be brought and survivors to be helped.

“We hope this protocol will be part of a new global effort to shatter this culture of impunity, helping survivors and deterring people from committing these crimes in the first place,” William Hague wrote in the foreword to the document.

IPS spoke to Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, former Under-Secretary General for the United Nations, who in the year 2000 was involved with instigating Security Council Resolution 1325, a key international legal document requiring member states in conflict to respect women’s rights and support their participation in peace negotiations and reconstruction after war.

Chowdhury emphasised the importance of including women in peace negotiations and in political discourse to achieve peace and development. “Women play a very key role in promoting the peace process,” he said.

“I have seen everywhere how women contribute not only to the lessening of conflict and reduction of tension in their own communities, but also to the economic and social development of their countries. To them, peace and development is a life and death struggle.”

Chowdhury described the difficulty of generating political will on issues such as the promotion of women’s engagement in politics. “Still only 46 of the 193 member states have completed a national plan to implement Resolution 1325,” he said.

Resolution 1325 requires equal participation of women at all decision-making levels.

William Hague closed the summit by putting pressure on governments to bring more women to negotiating tables and onto parliamentary benches.

“It is clear from this summit that we can bring together a whole army of people from around the globe, united in the common vision of putting an end to sexual violence in conflict. Now that this army has been put together, it will not be disbanded, it will go on to success,” he said.

“When we succeed in the future in returning to peace negotiations in Syria, there is no excuse for them not including the full participation of women.”

Corner of unofficial camp in Calais housing Syrian, Sudanese and Afghan asylum seekers before it was closed on May 28 for health reasons. Credit: Roger Hamilton-Martin/IPS

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
LONDON, Jun 5 2014 (IPS)

Syrian refugees fleeing the conflict in their home country have come up against a less than accommodating “Fortress Europe”.

As of June 1, according to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are more than 2.7 million Syrian people who have sought refuge outside of their home country. Notable host countries include Lebanon (estimated 1.1 million), Jordan (600,000), Turkey (760,000), Iraq (200,000) and Egypt (140,000).

However, after what Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for International Cooperation described as “disproportionate worries” over Libyan refugees reaching Europe during the collapse of Gadhafi’s regime in 2011, the continent has again failed its neighbours during an international crisis.“Some attribute it [current reluctance to receive Syrians] to the economic crisis, but I think there is clearly an Islamophobic element” – Nils Muiznieks, Council of Europe’s independent Commissioner for Human Rights

UNHCR has called on Europe to accept 30,000 Syrians in 2014, and 100,000 during 2015/2016. The European Union’s most generous country has been Germany, agreeing to 10,000, while several states – including the United Kingdom – have refused to accede to the U.N. programme altogether.

Europe is the largest donor of humanitarian aid, and has made it clear that help will be given in monetary donations for the region, but this generosity will not extend to significant resettlement or temporary hosting. Nicosia, the closest European capital to Damascus, is half as far away as the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, yet Iraq has accepted many times more refugees than all of the E.U. states combined.

Explaining Europe’s reaction to the crisis in Syria, Nils Muiznieks, the Council of Europe’s independent Commissioner for Human Rights, told IPS: “When I talk with UNHCR and others, you see that the current reluctance to receive Syrians is in pretty striking contrast with reactions to previous flows of refugees from other countries. Some attribute it to the economic crisis, but I think there is clearly an Islamophobic element.”

The United Kingdom has a long history of resettling refugees in reaction to international crises – the 42,000 Ugandan Asians expelled by Idi Amin in the early 1970s and the more than 22,000 Vietnamese displaced during the Vietnam War are just two examples.

However, after rejecting the United Nations Syrian resettlement plan for Europe, David Cameron’s government set up its own resettlement scheme, known as the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme, which will only permit resettlement for a few hundred Syrians currently located in regional refugee camps. The first few arrived in March.

Those countries that adopted the U.N. plan will be subject to accepting increasing numbers of refugees as the war continues and the U.N. raises its quotas. However, the United Kingdom will not be subject to these increases.

British Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn spoke to IPS about the scheme: “I feel very disturbed that the British government has not taken in many (Syrians) at all, and has decided to run a British programme rather than a U.N. programme, which seems to be a rather dangerous precedent – you end up with a degree of selectivity.”

“I asked a specific question of the Home Office about why we couldn’t be part of the U.N. programme, they kept saying ‘we’d rather do things the British way.’ I don’t know what the British way is on this. This is a global crisis, we should be part of the solution.”

Political feeling has swung to the right during the past year in the United Kingdom, with the rise of nationalist parties such as the U.K. Independence Party, which performed well at the European elections in May. The party campaigned on an anti-Europe, anti-immigration message.

The response of the mainstream U.K. parties to the rise of UKIP has been to pander to an increasingly divided electorate by stepping up anti-immigration rhetoric. Rejecting the U.N. resettlement scheme prevents immigration figures being further augmented, allowing fodder for parties like UKIP to win votes.

A further blow to Syrians attempting to reach the United Kingdom to claim asylum was struck last week, when an unofficial camp in Calais on the French border closest to the United Kingdom was closed for health reasons.

The camp, which also was used by contingents of asylum seekers from Sudan and Afghanistan, served as a launching point to reach the English coast. Many were attempting to reach the United Kingdom to re-join family or find work to send money back to family in Syria.

French police entered the camps flanked with bulldozers after an outbreak of scabies amongst the migrants, who mostly live in small makeshift tents. In a statement, Amnesty International condemned the convictions saying, “Under international law, France must not carry out forced evictions and must protect all people from them, including migrants and asylum-seekers.”

Immigration is also a hot issue in France, with the anti-immigration Front National party making large gains in the European parliamentary elections. It has called for return to full national border controls, and a reconsideration of the Schengen agreement that allows for free movement between European states that have adopted it.

Meanwhile, asylum seekers remain in limbo, caught between a land that they need to escape from and a continent that is reluctant to welcome them.

A refugee in Calais called Abdul, who spoke to IPS, said: “Every time my dad speaks to me he says we don’t have money to eat. I tell him there is no work in France. What I want is to be able to work and send them back some money. I want to go to the United Kingdom as soon as possible so I can save my family from the life they are living.”

Additional reporting (video) by Natasha Tsangarides and Phillip Nye. Arabic translation support by Claire Badawi.

Bangladeshi workers at a Singapore construction site. Credit: Kalinga Seneviratne/IPS

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 11 2013 (IPS)

New international migration figures released by the United Nations Wednesday show that more people than ever are living abroad. Around 232 million of the global population of seven billion are considered international migrants, simply defined as persons living outside their country of birth.

The statistics collected by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs show that despite having been dampened by the international economic crisis, international migration has weathered the storm and is still on the rise – if at a slower rate than in 2008 when figures were last released.

In a statement, Wu Hongbo, U.N. under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs, stressed the positive impact of migration on development, saying “migration broadens the opportunities available to individuals and is a crucial means of broadening access to resources and reducing poverty.”

The U.N. team has been preparing estimates for the last four years, with a majority of the data being drawn from national censuses. When data is missing for a country, estimates are made by extrapolating a trend based on previous censuses. This can be difficult – for example in Lebanon, the last census was taken in 1930. In Afghanistan, the government is currently trying to collect data, but it has been decades since the last census.

The United States is still the world’s most popular destination, with around 45.8 million migrants, having gained around one million migrants per year since 1990. The second largest gain since 1990 has been Saudi Arabia which has received seven million. Europe and Asia are the continents with the largest migrant populations hosting around two-thirds of all international migrants worldwide.

In 2013, 72 million international migrants were residing in Europe, compared to 71 million in Asia. The statistics show that migration is highly concentrated in 10 countries, including the U.S., Russia, Germany and Saudi Arabia.

According to Bela Hovy, chief of the Migration Section at U.N. DESA, a strong trend has been the rise in movement from countries in the Southern Asian region to countries in Western Asia.

“What’s new is enormous construction activity in West Asia, causing movement from developing countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, to move to those areas,” he told IPS. “Saudi Arabia is the biggest recipient, along with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.”

Currently, there are 2.9 million people from India living in the UAE.

This has implications for development in that remittances are becoming a big factor for people in those South Asian countries. “It’s good for migrant families and their countries. The kids staying behind are able to go to school and get healthcare,” said Hovy.

However, there have been issues with rights violations of workers in the West Asian destination countries, notably for domestic workers, often women. Human Rights Watch has expressed concern that workers are especially vulnerable in the Middle East.

“The failure to properly regulate paid domestic work facilitates egregious abuse and exploitation, and means domestic workers who encounter such abuse have few or no means for seeking redress,” the group notes.

A landmark change has been the recent drafting of the International Labour Organisation’s Domestic Workers Convention, which came into effect last week.

Hovy explained the changing face of international migration in terms of population migration from developing to developed countries.

“In 1990, most international migration was global South to global South, but since 2000 this has changed,” he said. “Now, South-North has become as common as South-South. Most international migrants originate in developing countries, but they are settling almost equally in countries of the global South as the global North.”

Nowadays, six out of 10 international migrants reside in the global North.

The population of working-age people among international migrants proved to be significantly higher than in the global population, reflecting the large movement of workers to West Asian countries. Some 74 percent of all international migrants are aged 20-64, compared to only 58 percent of the global population.

In Europe, Germany, France and the United Kingdom host the largest migrant communities. However, as a percentage of their total populations, relative to other European countries their figures were among the lowest.

Worldwide, refugees accounted for a small part of the migrant population, according to the report. The UN-DESA works closely in conjunction with The U.N. Refugee Agency to incorporate accurate figures for refugees in its migration data. Asia hosts the largest number of refugees at 10.4 million, with this number affected in recent years by conflicts and unrest in the Middle East.

One year after the government officially struck down laws obstructing free press in Myanmar, a parliamentary bill could allow previous censorship practices to re-surge.

When Thein Sein’s Union Solidarity and Development party government ended the last of the censorship laws in August last year, many hailed a new era of free expression and an end to the pressures placed on journalists over the previous half century.

Still, many journalists are concerned by the state of media reform in the country. Currently, a publishing bill that critics say gives the Ministry of Information (MOI) overly broad powers to issue and revoke publication licenses has been passed by the lower house of parliament and is set for consideration by the upper house.

Myint Kyaw is secretary for the Myanmar Journalist Network (MJN), which has been protesting the proposed bill, known as the Printing and Publishing Enterprise Bill. He told IPS that the MJN’s main criticism of the bill was in its conception of a printer and publisher registry system, which would essentially allow a ministry-appointed registrar to issue or deny publication licences and thus leave control over these licences in the hands of the government.“[Previously], all publications, private journals and magazines, arts, music, films and TV programmes were heavily censored by the government.”
-- Aye Chan Naing, chief editor of Democratic Voice of Burma

This situation is reminiscent of when the ministry used to control journalists and editors through the threat of license revocation, Myint Kyaw described. Such a possibility, combined with the threat of imprisonment and aggression, would lead to self-censorship, particularly when speaking critically of the military or when investigating corruption, notably that of former dictators and their family businesses.

Myint Kyaw also spoke of the need for a law guaranteeing access to information and ensuring safety for journalists in conflict areas. Earlier in August, MJN also collected thousands of signatures from around Yangon, the country’s former capital city, for a petition that demonstrated the public’s discontent with the state of media reform.

The current parliamentary bill comes at a time when many human rights groups remain critical of Myanmar’s attitude towards the media. In June, the government banned Time magazine after it featured a piece on the radical Buddhist 969 movement.

“It’s a disgraceful decision to ban the issue and indicates recidivism in official censorship in Burma [also known as Myanmar],” David Mathieson, a senior Asia researcher with Human Rights Watch, told IPS.

Benjamin Ismaïl, head of Reporters Without Borders’ Asia-Pacific desk, expressed a similar viewpoint. “The reflex of censoring news has not disappeared, but this is not a surprise since the government is composed in majority by the same persons who were already in power before 2011.”

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), however, did not denounce this case of censorship, telling IPS that the organisation aims to help develop an independent media, but that “[we] usually confine our advocacy to issues around the protection of journalists.”

Myanmar’s Interim Press Council, which is a body appointed by the government, has submitted its own, separate press bill to parliament. However, 17 of the recommendations in the bill have been contested by the Ministry of Information.

Despite possessing the constitutional right to a free press, in practice the media in Myanmar were tightly controlled by the establishment, from Ne Win’s coup of 1962 until August 2012. Censorship reached such levels in those fifty years that many publications were not able to effectively report from inside the country and were forced to relocate outside its borders.

One such organisation is Democratic Voice of Burma, which was set up in Norway in 1992. Its chief editor, Aye Chan Naing, told IPS that DVB was established “to counter one-sided propaganda by the Burmese military government.”

“All publications, private journals and magazines, arts, music, films and TV programmes were heavily censored by the government,” he said. “We were to counter them by airing unbiased and independent news programmes.”

“We could not do our job independently without getting arrested,” Aye Chan added. “There are a lot of difficulties [in reporting on] a country where our journalists can’t be present or work as undercover reporters. As in any closed country, it is hard to verify what is fact and what is rumour while the government refuses to answer any kind of questions or verification.”

Seventeen of DVB’s reporters were put in prison from 2007 to early 2012 for their work for DVB, Aye Chan said, although DVB has made moves to return to Myanmar since the opening up of the media. The organisation has an official office there now and has registered as a media production house.

Many media organisations and their employees are hoping for a positive resolution to the argument over media reform in the country – ideally, a law that would guarantee both protection for journalists and the ability to report without fear of retaliation by the authorities.

“Now that the government has removed the censorship board and allowed our journalists to work freely and independently…we decided to move back to Burma,” Aye Chan said. “As a media organisation, we need to be on the ground where we are reporting and get the firsthand news.”

The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) annual report, released Thursday, emphasizes the importance of medical research in achieving the lofty goal of universal health coverage.

Entitled “Research for Universal Health Coverage,” the World Health report stresses that health care should be accessible for all without breaking the bank. In a statement, WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan explained how “universal coverage is the best way to cement the health gains made during the previous decade. It is a powerful social equalizer and the ultimate expression of fairness.”

WHO member states committed in 2005 to achieving health coverage for all- claiming that this is an expression of the belief that everyone should have access to the health services they need without financial ruin.

The report shows that domestic investment in research throughout BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), which have notably embraced the idea of universal health coverage, has been growing. It is this very domestic research which will lead to positive gains in the future when connections are strengthened between scientific and political communities.

Lead author Dr. Christopher Dye said in a statement: “we need to accelerate the process of bringing scientists and decision makers together to improve health service coverage.”

‘Research’ is a general term, of which the process is defined in the report as “setting research priorities, building capacity, formulating and adopting standards of practice, and translating the results into policy.”

With the goal of universal health coverage in mind, the report shows that although there have been important increases in research commitments by some countries, growth is uneven globally. And it is “certainly not of a uniformly high standard.”

The report notes that a country’s wealth facilitates, but does not guarantee, national research productivity.

The report also describes how “few countries have objectively assessed the strengths and weaknesses of their national research programmes, and few have evaluated the health, social and economic benefits that research can bring.”

The report concludes that all nations would benefit from taking a more systematic approach to the evaluation of their dedication to medical research.

More positively, the report cites the fact that despite the uneven growth, most countries now have the foundations on which to build better research programmes.

The U.N. General Assembly convened  Monday to hear a report by Paulo Pinheiro, Chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry on Syria. Pinheiro exhorted to the international community that there is no military solution to the conflict, and that the war has been “a chronicle of missed opportunities.”

“An untold number of people have disappeared passing through the ubiquitous checkpoints, hospitals have been bombarded leaving the sick and wounded to languish without care and with the destruction of thousands of schools a generation of children will struggle to get an education,” Pinheiro told delegates.

Syria’s statistics are heady; now 4.5 million people have been internally displaced, and the fighting has caused an estimated 60-80 billion dollars of damage to the economy, a third of its pre-war gross domestic product (GDP).

Pinheiro emphasized that Syria’s porous borders have facilitated the involvement of regional armoured actors; according to him “increasingly along sectarian lines.”

A key element to the report was that although there had been human rights violations on both sides, the government was the primary perpetrator. Unlawful attacks by government forces have been documented in almost every governorate, said the Chairperson, most recently in eastern Damascus where shelling is occurring almost every day, as with many other areas.

The outlook remains grim; “both sides are labouring under the illusion that a military victory is possible,” explained Pinheiro. “Crimes that shock the conscience have become a dreadful daily reality in Syria. Over 800 days since the arrests first began, it is apparent that violations against civilians continue with little regard for law or conscience.”

He called on the international community to act decisively, saying it had an obligation to do what must be done to bring the war to a close.

Notably,  the Chairperson did not use the platform to press the United Nations Security Council to make a referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague.

The National Coalition of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces informally met Friday with U.N. delegates and members of the Security Council to discuss changes on the ground and political transition in the country.

The Syrian delegation included former political prisoner and newly instated president of the Coalition Ahmad al-Jarba, who is a respected leader of the Shammar tribe.

Coalition member Dr. Najib Ghadbian told reporters at a United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) press conference that it was a great opportunity to speak to the Security Council.

“We asked three things,” said Ghadbian. “Firstly, to find a mechanism to force the Syrian regime to accept the Geneva Communique. Secondly we asked the Security Council to help us secure access for humanitarian assistance. Thirdly, we spoke of our desire for the Security Council to refer the regime to be investigated by the International Criminal Court.”

Furthermore, Ghadbian said, they had demanded that Russia stop providing political and military support for the regime.

One goal of the Syrian opposition’s trip was to ensure support of the international community in providing weapons to the Free Syrian Army.

Burhan Ghalioun, ex president of the Syrian National Council, explained “We need weapons to defend our people, to defend the liberated areas. We are asking for anti tank and anti aircraft weapons to defend liberated areas.”

After a meeting on Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the Coalition was positive about its relationship with Washington. “They support the Syrian people. Kerry was clear that America will support the Syrian revolution. They will not allow the regime to win.”

“At the same time it was clear that the U.S. is supporting the (proposed) Geneva conference. The revolutionary forces on the ground accept the political solutions offered by the international community. “

“We also think that the U.S. administration’s view of the revolution is better now. They are moving slowly but it is better. We agreed there will be more meetings in the future.”

“With the increase in extremist elements in the country, many in the international community are concerned that any weapons provided may end up in the wrong hands. Ghalioun explained that these fears are mistaken; “the extremists don’t recognise us,” he said.

The Coalition also seemed confident in its expressed wish that the Security Council refer the Syrian regime to the International Criminal Court (ICC), even if that meant the Coalition itself might be investigated.

In response to a question about whether the Coalition would retain any elements of the regime if a new government was formed, the answer was clear- “anyone who hasn’t committed crimes against humanity.” Was there anyone left? “Maybe there is a driver.”

WFP has launched an operation including the use of helicopters to bring urgently-needed food assistance to tens of thousands of people who have fled to hard-to-reach areas to escape violence in Pibor County, Jonglei State. Credit: UN Photo/Martine Perret

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 26 2013 (IPS)

Following fighting in the South Sudan state of Jonglei , the United Nations is trying to coordinate a humanitarian effort to help tens of thousands of people who have fled to the bush. The World Food Programme (WFP) has launched an operation to provide food for those who have escaped the conflict.

“We believe these people need food now and cannot wait for much longer after hiding in the bush for weeks,” said Chris Nikoi, WFP South Sudan country director, in a statement on Tuesday.

The agency is requesting 20 million dollars to fund emergency assistance for 60,000 people through December.

“The Lou Nuer have a longstanding grudge against the Murle, which of course is a two-way street,” Sudan expert Eric Reeves told IPS. “But over the past years these tensions have come to a boil and mutual retaliations are extremely violent.” Retaliation is often in response to cattle looting by neighbouring communities, he said.

It has proven difficult for humanitarian groups to gain access to the large number of people who have been affected by the conflict in the state, South Sudan’s largest, in part because of the fighting and in part due to the lack of passable roads.

The international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières says it has “treated scores of people and is attempting to reach thousands more who are hiding in the bush… [an] MSF emergency team is attempting to reach tens of thousands of people hiding in unsafe, malaria-infested swamps, without access to safe drinking water, food, or medical care.”

John Tzanos, who heads the MSF team in Pibor County, said in a statement, “They [civilians] are afraid to seek medical care in towns so it is essential for us to intervene where they are so that all those in need can access treatment.” With the latest wave of violence over, there is still no word on the number of casualties.

“We don’t have any figures [on fatalities] at all,” the acting humanitarian coordinator of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Jonglei, Dr. Yasmin Haque, told IPS.

“The challenge has been access, and now we have been able to secure additional funding which has improved our air transport capacity. We have also had a strengthening and better communication in getting security clearances and information in getting our flights to those areas.

“The biggest need is going to be food, and getting the amounts required into the areas is going to be many trips over many days,” she said. Haque said U.N. agencies were working with the government, especially the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, and were also coordinating aircraft with the army, the SPLA.

“People have been afraid to return to the more populated areas where they have been [living],” she said. “Fear of insecurity and fighting is keeping people away from the main county locations.”

Another spokesperson for OCHA told IPS, “We have already begun to register the people displaced, and have begun to distribute household items and emergency shelter to people who have been living in the bush, exposed to the elements.”

OCHA has appealed for more resources from the international community, and noted that during the rainy season, which lasts from May to October, up to 90 percent of roads in Jonglei state are inaccessible, so aid must be delivered by air.

There are also allegations that the Sudanese government in Khartoum has been exacerbating the conflict by supplying rebel Murle leader David Yauyau with weapons.

The difficulty in tracking Yauyau’s rebels has made it hard for U.N. agencies to keep the peace and supply civilians with necessary aid. Yauyau’s current rebellion has been running since April 2012, for what he claims to be the rights of the Murle.

In an interview last year, Yauyau said, “This time around, we are fighting for the people of South Sudan, the minority communities like the Murle and the others…They don’t have a voice… they don’t have rights to live on the land. We don’t have a voice in the government. We are struggling together with them and we’ve lost some of our sons.”

There are also allegations of human rights abuses perpetrated by the government.

In an open letter to the government written in June, Reeves and three other signatories said that “over the past several years – but the last six months in particular – South Sudan government security forces have engaged in a campaign of violence against civilians simply because they belonged to a different ethnic group or they were viewed as opponents of the current government.”

The U.N. has also condemned the government for what it calls “serious human rights violations” allegedly committed by elements within the South Sudanese Army in Pibor County.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Tuesday  praised the work of Swiss engineers of a revolutionary solar powered plane. The aircraft recently completed a trans-American journey comprised of six legs taking roughly 20  hours each.

The second leg, from Phoenix to Dallas, set several solar aviation world records. On average, the plane cruises at around 43 mph, and can fly at night, powered by the energy it has accumulated during the day.

“Maybe a future Secretary-General, whoever they may be, will ride a solar powered plane one day,” Ban said at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Jul. 9. The U.N. chief expressed that he would continue to put pressure on U.N. member states for a legally binding climate change agreement by 2015.

This second prototype plane has been 14 years in the making. In 1999, medical doctor Bertrand Piccard completed an around the world flight in a balloon, but was concerned by the fact that the mission was dangerous in its dependence on large quantities of fuel.

He resolved to create a machine which would be free of emissions, and thus the solar airplane was born in Switzerland. Solar Impulse SA was founded in 2004 in partnership with the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, the European Space Agency and Dassault Aviation, and brought out its first solar aircraft prototype in 2007.

Its first flight, a self described “flea hop”, was a 350-metre take-off and immediate landing. Although a seemingly unpromising start, in the words of the Solar Impulse team: “Never before in the whole history of aviation has an aircraft so big, so light and consuming so little energy actually flown.”

Piccard is an ambitious character; when questioned about his inspiration for the project, he said, “The motivation is to fly forever, with no limit.” His co-founder André Borschberg spoke to IPS about the proposed circumnavigation of the globe in 2015:

“The challenge is quite immense, and we are certainly at the limit of technology. We hope with improving technology we can build a third airplane with two people on board, and to complete the trip without a stopover.”