In the most comprehensive strategy ever put forward for combating global poverty, hunger and disease, a blue-ribbon team of 265 of the world's leading development experts have proposed a package of scores of specific cost-effective measures that together could cut extreme poverty in half and radically improve the lives of at least one billion people in poor developing countries by 2015. The recommendations of the UN Millennium Project, an independent advisory body to the UN Secretary-General, are laid out in the report 'Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals'. The report was presented to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Secretary-General Annan has said the fight against extreme poverty should be the top priority of the world community and the UN system in 2005.

Deadline: 15 March 2005

Digital Vision Fellows are social entrepreneurs dedicated to using information technology solutions. The Reuters Digital Vision Fellowship Program at Stanford University is accepting applications for 2005-06 (September-June).

UK Chancellor Gordon Brown began a week-long tour of Africa on January 12 with his aid project in serious jeopardy because of a failure to win American support. The Chancellor arrived in Nairobi at the beginning of a four-nation tour to promote his ambitious package of debt relief, aid and trade reform. His failure so far to win the backing of the United States threatens his goal of doubling global aid to $100 billion (£53 billion) under his International Finance Facility (IFF). Each of Mr Brown's visits has been carefully chosen to illustrate the benefits of his "Marshall plan", for example in Tanzania he will contrast the success of primary education, which has received a massive boost from debt relief, with healthcare, which is still in a parlous state.

The Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway, in conjunction with the Bank of Ireland is proud to announce a one-year fellowship in Human Rights Law for a scholar of note from a developing country. Applications for this fellowship are invited from academics from any developing country whose research output and teaching focus on the area of human rights.

Shock waves from Asia's tsunami could reverberate across Africa for a long time to come as aid workers fear the crisis will soak up donor funds and leave less help available for the poorest continent. With the tsunami death toll more than 145,000, the crisis is undoubtedly severe. Africa's woes are more long-term. Aid agencies say 6,500 Africans die of preventable diseases daily. And while all eyes turn east, attention is deflected from Africa's own crises, such as Darfur in Sudan. It wasn't meant to be like this -- 2005 was Africa's year. "We're not saying scale down aid for the tsunami, but scale up aid for Africa."

How can we address the issue of the information and knowledge society without first dealing with the fact that almost a sixth of the world's population remains illiterate, and thus excluded from the possibility of effectively participating in a knowledge-driven society? What good are the advantages afforded by the new ICTs for the more than 860 million who cannot read and write? asks this feature on the website of Choike, a portal on civil society.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank recently celebrated their 60th Anniversaries. To the two institutions, writes Douglas Ngwenya in this commentary on the Afrodad website, this was a sign that they are maturing, but to the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC), it was a sign that the Bretton Woods Institutions are growing too "old, devious and irrelevant". "Their mandate to provide a mechanism for the transfer of financial resources from the rich nations to the poor nations and to promote reconstruction and development is visibly vanishing into thin air. The ageing of these institutions has been at increasing misery for the world’s poorest nations." Read the full commentary by visiting Afrodad's website.

The World Bank, after nearly two decades of developing mining sector specific mineral codes, revising and ‘re-revising’ them to make competing mineral-endowed African countries gain ‘the most conforming country’ status, is still not satisfied. Having provided the necessary fiscal incentives, absolute security of tenure of mineral rights and fenced off the state from direct participation in mining activities, the Bank now thinks the only way mineral-rich African countries can remain more competitive is by de-emphasising environmental protection. The result is that most countries have no barriers to where and where not to mine. Forest reserves, protected sites, heritage sites, and ecologically sensitive zones are no longer barriers to mining.

The committee that monitors the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW or the Women's Convention), has two new feminist experts from the international women's movement, Shanti Dariam and Silvia Pimentel. For women of the world this historic success will positively impact the committee's work and the advancement of women's human rights. This article analyzes the committee's work, its political impact, the implications and challenges of the process and the results of the recent elections, especially in relation to the roles played by governments and the international women's movement.

In 1993, the government of Cameroon passed a law allowing private tertiary education institutions to be established in the country. Now, almost a decade later, is this decision still viewed as the right one? That depends on who you ask. For Sammy Beban Chumbow, rector of the government-run University of Yaoundé I, certain private institutions "present a distinct threat to public universities".

Health authorities in Burkina Faso have already admitted they will not be able to meet global goals for providing antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to people living with AIDS, but aid workers say even the government's scaled-down target will be under threat if grassroots groups are not drafted into the fight. Burkina Faso, one of the world's poorest countries, has pledged that 15,000 people will receive the life-prolonging ARV drugs by 2007. That would be a five-fold increase on the 2,700 patients that currently access treatment, but would fall short of the 27,000 people which the World Health Organisation said should receive medication by the end of 2005.

"The debate on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) has until now largely focused on agricultural crops and much less on genetically modified trees. This is understandable, given the fact that there are already several GM crops being commercially grown in many places of the world and given that many of them are aimed at directly or indirectly feeding human beings, whose health is thus potentially threatened. However, that does not mean that GM trees are less dangerous. On the contrary, the dangers posed by GM trees are in some ways even more serious than those posed by GM crops."

UNICEF and the Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA) plan to hold an international conference April 25 through 27, 2005 on poverty in the global context and its effects on girls and boys. The conference in April 2005 will present analytical and policy papers that explore issues and trends related to children living in poverty by examining the concepts and measurements of poverty, as well as the actions needed to secure a protective, harmonious and stimulating environment for family upbringing.

The initial response by the world's richest countries to the earthquake and tidal wave disaster in Southern Asia has been pathetic. While many of these countries have poured billions into invading and bringing misery to the people of Iraq, they cannot seem to find anywhere near enough money to seriously help the mainly poor people who have been made destitute by this natural disaster, according to this article on the website of the Socialist Alliance.
Related Link:
* Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Nuclear Testing
http://www.counterpunch.org/rajiva12302004.html
* Tsunami tragedy blog
http://asiantsunami.blogspot.com/

Aid agencies in Africa are coming under pressure as a declining dollar means their budgets buy less while high profile operations in Iraq and Afghanistan bleed funding from development in the world’s poorest continent. The greenback has hit record lows against the euro and near six-year lows against South Africa’s rand, leaving aid groups, which planned their budgets in dollars seeing their purchasing power slashed. While agencies that get considerable donations from Europe and other non-US donors say they escape the worst of the effects, Africa projects must also fight for funding that is being sucked into rebuilding efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While aid is supposed to reduce poverty, the conditions attached to it have often had the opposite result, write Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, and Louise Richards, chief executive of War on Want, in The Guardian UK. "Donors have commonly required developing countries to privatise their public services and open up their markets in order to qualify for assistance, yet both courses have proved disastrous. The UN's newly published report on the world's least developed countries confirms the evidence on the ground: those states which have liberalised their markets most dramatically have also seen the greatest increases in poverty over the past 10 years."

While some countries have well-developed educational programmes for promoting awareness of and respect for human rights, elsewhere human rights education for children, young people and the general population needs to be strengthened considerably, said Mr Koichiro Matsuura, director-general of Unesco, on the occasion of Human Rights Day on 10 December.

The vision and promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are under considerable strain, the top United Nations human rights official said last Thursday, calling the response to the threat of terrorism "confused". Speaking in Geneva on the eve of International Human Rights Day, Louise Arbour, High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that today, "Few of us are free from fear; many of us are still not free from want. The sinister shadow of terrorism is generating a confused response, unanchored in the principles that have guided us in the search for a proper balance between our desire for collective security and our need for liberty and individual freedom". Mrs. Arbour underlined that the United Nations High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change had captured well the global threats the world faces. "International terrorist groups prey on weak States for sanctuary", she said. "Their recruitment is aided by grievances nurtured by poverty, foreign occupation and the absence of human rights and democracy; by religious and other intolerance; and by civil violence - a witch's brew common to those areas where civil war and regional conflict intersect".

There should be changes in the governance of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, especially in voting structure and representation changes in the governance of the WTO, including more transparency, the elimination of the green room processes and the creation of more representative processes for decision making. There should also be a move away from a focus on the G-8 to a focus on the G-24. This is according to a paper from the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) at Columbia University in the United States. The paper assesses the underlying democratic deficiencies and weaknesses in global governance, and examines the forces that might lead to a meaningful change.

"As signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention, we have a duty to ensure that those to whom we grant protection are able to attain a decent quality of life and are able to reach their full potential. However, refugees and asylum seekers make up some of the most marginalised and excluded groups within society. Integration is a term that can evoke different associations but actually is a two way process. For the refugee, it requires a willingness to adapt to the lifestyle of the host society without having to lose his or her own cultural identity. In return, the host society should be prepared to accept refugees as equals."