Belgium's world-renowned chocolate could be linked to the murky world of child labour and slavery, according to a leading consumer watchdog. Belgium's Test-Achats warned that it was often unclear where chocolate-makers got their cocoa beans from and whether their suppliers treated their workers ethically.

For a large part of its history, UNHCR became involved in the response to Internal Displacement in an ad-hoc case-by-case manner, focusing especially on those situations where IDPs were mixed with, or in close proximity to refugees or returnees and shared much the same needs and vulnerabilities. It has now agreed to take on global lead responsibility for ensuring adequate and effective responses to situations of conflict-induced internal displacement in the key areas of protection, camp management and emergency shelter. This approach was endorsed on 12 September by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, the main international humanitarian coordination body, and is expected to be tested in two to three major new emergencies starting in 2006.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres called on the international community to join forces to fight intolerance, preserve the institution of asylum and bridge the gap between humanitarian relief and long-term development so that millions of uprooted people can rebuild their lives without fear of renewed conflict and displacement. Guterres said combating intolerance is perhaps the most difficult challenge faced today by UNHCR and its partners.

By the end of the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society this November in Tunis, the role to be played by civil society in bridging the digital gap and democratising communications will be clearly defined. But many activists are less than optimistic about the eventual outcome. Until now, governments have included civil society and the private sector in discussions on all of the themes addressed, including the most controversial ones, like the issue of Internet governance. Nevertheless, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have doubts about whether this cooperation will be maintained in the future.

Since 2000, the United Nations has launched four global initiatives, all of which focus on education. A new publication explains the common values and ideals of these initiatives. The four initiatives are the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Education for All (EFA), the United Nations Literacy Decade and the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. UNESCO is the coordinating agency for three of the four goals. While the initiatives are distinctive in many respects, they have common traits: a concern with the improvement of the quality of life and the promotion of human rights, a commitment to education (especially primary education), and an emphasis on the importance of the participatory role of each human being in education and development.

"At the Monterrey and Millennium summits governments worldwide pledged to achieve a series of important poverty-related goals by 2015. Among other important measures, the industrialized world promised to increase aid flows to enable increased social investments by those countries that are struggling to guarantee a future to their citizens. While it is encouraging that a number of governments have announced increased aid levels in recent years, we are very concerned that many governments are falsely inflating their aid figures by including debt write-offs. Export credit debts alone increase the stated aid total of many countries by one quarter of their real amount."

Bantubonke Biko once said, "it is better to die for an idea that will live than to live for an idea that will die.” In the noughties/zeroes/post-nineties  I believe the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) is that idea. It is what the Anti-Apartheid Movement was to the eighties. While no-one is calling on anyone to die (since enough people are dying because of poverty anyway), the Call is certainly an idea that should bring all global citizens, across the economic barriers, to action. While there is no doubt that GCAP is a brilliant idea, there definitely have been some questions on whether GCAP as a campaign should continue.
 
Like all great revolutions in recent memory, GCAP is an idea that was articulated by the middle class. Using the very minimalist Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), GCAP activists have pushed so that the upper classes, as personified by the global political and economic leaders, can make the end of poverty a reality. However, GCAP is in danger of becoming just another cool thing for the middle class symbolized by the very cool-looking white band unless and until we get the lower classes and the people affected on a day to day basis by poverty involved. The poor people, do, after all, constitute the majority of the world’s population.
 
It is true that coalitions in countries such as Bangladesh and Kenya have managed to take the MDGs to the people but much more needs to be done globally. Again to give comparison to the Anti-Apartheid Movement, being an anti-apartheid activist at that time meant death, jail time, or constant watch by the Special Branch and therefore a sacrifice of one’s self or freedom if one was in South Africa. To those that were elsewhere it meant being in constant danger of receiving a parcel bomb and boycotting the very tasteful South African wine (and other South African goods)  in order to bring the South African economy to heel. It was the combined actions in South Africa and abroad together that managed to bring about the end of apartheid. Somehow I do not see the same sacrifices being made by GCAP activists and yet I feel that, if GCAP is to be successful and to continue, we need to do the same. It is true that many of us have participated in marches globally but when one marches and places their feet in a  foot spa at the end of the march, they cannot really relate to a woman who has to walk ten miles back and forth to fetch water daily and feed her family. 
 
Granted we live in a different world than the one that existed two decades ago yet it seems that much more was done then and more needs to be done now. We need to sensitise ourselves to poverty through working with the poor and thereafter we can better appreciate this very noble cause that we claim to be working for. For instance my comrades in the north can volunteer an hour at the soup kitchens or be a mentor to some child in a children’s home while we in the south can take time to volunteer with the ground organisations in the tents of Manila, the favelas of Sao Paolo, or the mkhukhus of South Africa. That way, when we tell Bretton Woods institutes to cancel the debt, when we tell them that 1.2 billion people are living on less than a dollar a day, we will be saying it with conviction because we would have walked the talk. An additional bonus is that we will no longer be talking for the poor people. They will be able to talk for themselves when they have been politicized to their poverty. As it is, while we sleep in five-star hotels and ask for an increase in aid on their behalf – they have absolutely no idea what the MDGs are and probably could not care because nobody has cared to communicate with them and show them their importance to the cause.
 
It is up to us, we who are living in these times to become that great generation that is revolutionary enough to ensure that the Global Call to Action against Poverty becomes, “an idea that will live." Together, across the economic barriers, we can!

The adoption of an international treaty against forced disappearances at the United Nations is a great step forward in the fight against this crime, said Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists, the International Federation of Human Rights and Human Rights Watch. The four human rights organizations called on all U.N. member states to ensure that the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance is quickly adopted by consensus in the U.N. General Assembly. All countries should ratify the treaty as soon as possible.

The first millenium development goal - to halve global poverty by 2015 - has become an unlikely prospect. If poverty is to be significantly reduced, its terms of definition, measurement, explanation and resolution need to be re-examined and reformulated. The new human rights instruments need to play a vital role in this process. They can have a huge impact on the measurement of poverty, deprivation, exclusion, and development.

As European Union trade chief Peter Mandelson prepares to kick off a new phase of trade negotiations in the Caribbean this week, trade groups are asking the bloc to shelve regional agreements in order to avoid a "development disaster". The Britain-based Traidcraft and the Kenya-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) EcoNews Africa say the bloc's current proposals would require developing countries to open up their markets rapidly to European corporations, threatening jobs, industries, government revenues and public services in some of the poorest countries in the world. Both organisations are members of a 'Stop EPA' campaign launched in October last year.

Frauds and forgeries in banks between April and June 2005, rose sharply by 48 per cent or 107 cases to 329 cases compared to 222 cases recorded in the preceding quarter. Vice Chairman/Chief Executive of Intercontinental Bank Plc Dr Erastus Akingbola citing reports from the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) said the amount involved went up by 25.6 per cent, from N1.15 billion to N1.47 billion.

The paper describes a trend toward including "unheard voices" and diverse groups in international development. Learning "is increasingly recognised as an active and ongoing process....This contrasts with traditional notions of teaching that emphasise the 'transfer' of technology or knowledge." Furthermore, partnerships no longer revolve around discrete project funding; social and economic life is organised through "global flows of information, financial resources, and power in a 'network society'."

Based on analyses of case studies, this report explores research partnerships between institutions in high-income countries and those in middle- or low-income countries. The claim is that the impacts of these relationships extend beyond scientific advancement to include "attitudinal changes", capacity strengthening, and impacts on society or on decision-makers. Participation is considered key in successful partnerships, which "should be based on mutual interest, trust, understanding, sharing of experiences, and a two-way learning process."

This paper produced by DFID argues that social exclusion deprives people of choices and opportunities to escape from poverty and denies them a voice to claim their rights. This policy paper describes how DFID intends to build upon the work it has undertaken tackling social exclusion in Latin America and Asia, and ways it can enhance the work it has recently begun in Africa. The paper looks at the challenges posed by social exclusion, and the ways governments, civil society and donors can help to tackle them.

This paper seeks to show how donors from the UK can support policy leadership in developing countries without imposing their own views. The contention is that, when donors and developing country governments agree on the purpose of the aid, both parties will have a shared understanding of how aid will help reduce poverty, and how they can be held publicly accountable for delivering on their commitments.

While development aid is often vital for combating poverty, is it really being invested in local communities to change the circumstances of the poor? OneWorld concludes this month's "IN-DEPTH" series from its new treeless magazine, Perspectives, which
offers more background and context on the issue, viewpoints from non-profit organizations, and ways for individuals to get involved.

National campaigns and coalitions in Senegal, Australia, the UK, India, Germany, Ireland, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and many other countries are mobilising to lobby their ministers and parliamentarians ahead of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial meeting in Hong Kong this December. Plans include a European lobby in Brussels, and mobilisations at the Summit of the Americas in Argentina and at the WTO General Council meeting in Geneva.

On 28 September 2005, free expression advocates in dozens of countries around the world will mark the third annual International Right to Know Day to call attention to the importance of access to information in democratic societies. Founded by the Freedom of Information Advocates (FOIA) Network, an umbrella group of 90 civil society organisations, International Right to Know Day aims to raise awareness about the need for governments to respect the right of citizens to access information held by public bodies. Access to information, or freedom of information, is seen by many as the key to strengthening participatory democracy and ensuring people-centred development. Thanks largely to the efforts of civil society organisations, more than 60 countries have enacted access to information laws, more than half of them in the last decade.

A decade ago, Ubuntu was a word that shook apartheid South Africa. Today, it is a word that may be keeping Bill Gates awake at night. Ubuntu is an African word that is one of the founding principles of the new South Africa, and it also is the name of a new computer operating system developed by South African Mark Shuttleworth and his company Canonical. The word "Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language," writes Archbishop Desmond Tutu in "No Future Without Forgiveness." It means "you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have." Ubuntu Linux calls itself the "Linux for human beings.

From Thursday, 29 September until Wednesday, 26 October there will be an on-line Global Forum involving the Global HRE listserv and six regional listservs. The topic will be the position of human rights education (HRE) vis-à-vis other "educations", such as education for democratic citizenship, peace education and global education.