UN / PAKISTAN 2006 - A weekly Newsletter, published by the UN Information Centre (UNIC) in Islamabad on behalf of all Agencies of the United Nations System in Pakistan
Weekly Issue No. 16/2006 (18 April 2006)
|
UN / PAKISTAN 2006 - A weekly Newsletter, published by the UN Information Centre (UNIC) in Islamabad on behalf of all Agencies of the United Nations System in Pakistan |
| For questions related to the content of this newsletter, call (92-51) 227.0610 or 282.1012. If you want to submit the name of an additional recipient to the email list, please send his/her address to unic@dsl.net.pk. Should you wish to be deleted from the list, please send a message to the same address with the simple mention "unsubscribe". |
Wendy Chamberlain, the deputy high commissioner of the United Nations' High Commission for Refugees, started her six-day visit to Pakistan with a visit to Muzaffarabad, where the pace of returns is picking up six months after the earthquake.
Addressing journalists at Thori Park camp in Muzaffarabad, Chamberlain said, "UNHCR has been in your country for over 26 years, helping refugees from Afghanistan. With this quake, it was Pakistani people who needed our help. UNHCR was privileged to assist with all of its resources, the Pakistani people who have been so kind to their neighbours, working with us to help Afghan refugees. UNHCR was one of the first agencies on the ground responding to the quake. Relief supplies were brought in from our regional warehouses and airlifted to the country from NATO."
Six months on, with winter coming to an end and following the Pakistan authorities' announcement that relief camps would start closing in March, quake survivors have begun returning home. More than 80,000 camp dwellers have already gone back to rebuild their homes in the last month, including more than 25,000 from Muzaffarabad alone.
As the leading agency for camp management in the operation, UNHCR has been supporting the Pakistani government in the running of the temporary relief camps set up for earthquake survivors. With 132 emergency staff, and 55 mobile team units funded by the European Commission for Humanitarian Affairs (ECHA) and UK's Department for International Development (DFID), the agency is currently assisting Pakistani authorities in 112 relief camps for over 73,000 quake survivors.
"What UNHCR wants is what the quake survivors want for themselves. They want to go home to their villages," said Chamberlain after talking to several families in the relief camps. "We are working with various agencies like IOM to facilitate transport and return. UNHCR will continue to assist in the transitional phase, however, the long-term response will fall in the charge of other agencies."
Chamberlain, a former US Ambassador to Pakistan, is making her first visit to Pakistan since becoming UNHCR's deputy high commissioner in 2004.
She began Muzaffarabad's trip on Sunday by visiting the Neelum Valley, commonly referred to as the "crushed valley", where she got a first-hand look at the level of destruction caused by the quake's landslides.
14 April 2006 - In response to questions about the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) investigations into the Secretary-General's Special Representative in Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, the Spokesman made the following statement:
"We have been informed that the OIOS report will be finished during the course of next week and transmitted to the Secretary-General. However, the work is sufficiently close to completion that OIOS has been able to assure us that Qazi will be cleared of any wrongdoing. The Secretary-General has expressed his full confidence in Qazi throughout this difficult process and he reiterates that today.
Fuller comments would not be appropriate until he receives the report."
17 April 2006 - Afghan women related to ex-combatants will be trained as teachers under a new United Nations-supported initiative aimed at educating women while facilitating the reintegration of former fighters and their families in the war-ravaged country into civilian life.
Training will take place throughout Afghanistan under the five-month programme, which began yesterday following the signing of an agreement between the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Ministry of Education with the support of the Afghanistan's New Beginnings Programme (ANBP).
ANBP regional offices have registered and selected candidates before referring them to the provincial Departments of Education. Although some provinces, like Parwan, Kapisa, Takhar, Baghlan and Gardez, did not have the requisite 10 candidates to start a training session, the project has already proved its success with 563 candidates for only 340 places.
The project will also serve as a useful capacity-building exercise for the provincial Departments of Education working with ANBP as they will have to undertake logistical organisational activities such as preparing monthly salary lists and student attendance sheets.
It is just one of the multiple initiatives UN agencies are undertaking to improve the country's stability and advance programmes across a vast spectrum of activities.
Later this month UNDP and the Ministry of Communications will host the first-ever national Information and Communication Technology (ICT) conference in Afghanistan with hundreds of participants from the ever-growing sector.
The two-day conference will provide information for high-level government officials and the private sector as well as representatives from the provinces, academics and civil society groups. It will include discussions, technology exhibitions, investment opportunities and the launch of top-level Internet domains and online registration for the country's '.af' website addresses.
14 April 2006 - Joining a chorus of United Nations officials calling for action to stem violence in Nepal, the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) today voiced concern about the increasing attacks against democracy and freedom of expression in the country.
"The announcements that more than fifty journalists and publishers have been attacked, beaten up and arrested by the Nepalese Army and the Armed Police Forces represent attacks on freedom of expression, which UNESCO has a mission to defend," said Koïchiro Matsuura in a statement released in Paris.
In recent weeks, national and international media as well as human rights organisations and journalists' associations have reported extensively on how media professionals all over Nepal have been harassed and arrested for no other reason than reporting on the ongoing public meetings and demonstrations, according to UNESCO.
The agency recently took part in a visit to the country by the International Press Freedom and Freedom of Expression Mission, which produced a critical report about the conditions for press freedom in Nepal.
Mr Matsuura warned that hard-earned democratic progress in the country faces a "serious risk" of being destroyed. He strongly encouraged the authorities in Nepal "to re-establish the conditions for free and independent media in the country."
The statement by the UNESCO chief echoes similar concerns voiced by UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan as well as other officials from the world body, including the High
Commissioner for Human Rights and a number of humanitarian agencies, calling
for a return to stability, protection of human rights, and safe passage for
relief aid convoys.
Following meetings in Tehran with senior officials, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has called on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment activities.
Speaking to the press in Teheran on 13 April 2006, Mohamed ElBaradei emphasised that Iran needs to take confidence-building measures, including suspension of uranium enrichment activities and the clarification of all outstanding issues related to the verification of its nuclear programme.
He also noted that IAEA safeguards inspectors are continuing verification activities in Iran.
Mr ElBaradei met with Gholamreza Aghazadeh, Vice-President of Iran and Chairman of the country's Atomic Energy Organisation and with Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.
The Director-General is scheduled to report to the Security Council at the
end of April on the Iranian nuclear issue.
An IAEA report was requested by the Security Council on 29 March. On that
occasion, in its first official action after the matter was referred to it
by the Agency, the Council called on Iran to re-establish full and sustained
suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including
research and development.
This action followed Iran's decision to resume its efforts to produce enriched
uranium, a substance that can be used for peaceful purposes, such as generating
energy, or for making nuclear weapons. The Tehran Government denies claims
by the United States and other countries that it is trying to develop nuclear
weapons.
17 April 2006 - The United Nations has launched a new broad based initiative in West and Central Africa to increase girls' access to quality education in an effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of universal primary education and gender equality.
"The challenges we face in terms of access to education for girls in this region are enormous, but they are achievable when we join all our efforts," UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Goodwill Ambassador Yvonne Chaka-Chaka, the South African singer said at the launch in Dakar, Senegal, of the UN Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI), a wide partnership of UN agencies, national and local governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
Girls' education and quality education in the region face many challenges, from emergencies and HIV/AIDS, to deepening poverty and persistent gender disparities. The result is that about one child out of two is out of school, most of them girls from poor rural areas.
Over 80 per cent of children out of school have mothers with no formal education, and region-wide only 86 girls are in school for every 100 boys.
"There is so much at stake, economically and politically for this region, that we simply cannot trifle with the contribution of women and girls," UNICEF acting interim Regional Director Theophane Nikyema said.
"The sooner we give more attention to gender equality and equity, to prepare the foundation for girls through a quality, empowering education, the better for both the region and the continent as a whole," he added.
The complexity of the issues preventing girls from accessing school requires a diverse group of partners to address them with the goal of moving girls' education forward at every level and in every setting, UNICEF said.
To reach the MDGs related to girls' education by their target date of 2015, countries in the region must increase the enrolment rate by 3.5 per cent per year, but the annual increase observed between 1980 and 2001 has been only 1 per cent. The NGO Oxfam predicts that "at the current rate of progress, gender parity will not be reached until 2038."
UN agencies participating in UNGEI include UNICEF, the UN International Labour Organisation (ILO), World Bank, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Other key partners include national and local governments, ministries of education, grass-roots organisations, local and international NGOs and donor governments. Partnerships already struck with the African Union (AU) and the Economic Commission for West African States (ECOWAS) are critical in mobilising country action for UNGEI objectives
12 April 2006 - The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has praised Saudi Arabia for the humanitarian assistance it has given to both global and regional emergency and relief operations, including almost $4 million for health and education projects for Palestinians and $2 million in reconstruction aid after last year's devastating earthquake in Pakistan.
Speaking at the launch of UNICEF's Arabic Humanitarian Action Report 2006 in Riyadh on 11 April, the agency's Deputy Executive Director, Rima Salah, shared details of the annual funding appeal totalling over $805 million for crisis countries, and also paid tribute to the Saudi Arabian vision of cooperation in the field of disaster management and technical assistance.
Highlighting one such area of cooperation, Ms Salah thanked Saudi officials for an agreement signed in 2005 between UNICEF and the Saudi Committee for the Relief of Palestinian People that committed $3.6 million towards crucial health and quality education projects, the agency said in a news release.
Since its foundation in 2000, the Committee has provided cash and in-kind assistance in addition to funding educational and medical activities and reconstruction schemes in the occupied territory.
The Saudi Relief Committee, which hosted Tuesday's launch of the report, manages and allocates funds contributed by the public towards humanitarian activities and emergency responses throughout the world, and also committed $2 million this year towards UNICEF-supported reconstruction efforts after October's deadly earthquake in Pakistan.
Saudi funding has also helped alleviate the plight of children in tsunami-ravaged countries in Southeast Asia, and played a part in the recent achievements towards polio eradication in Egypt and support to the humanitarian situation in Sudan, the agency said, while pointing out that more funding is still needed in countries facing difficulties.
"Underfunding in crisis countries means that key projects and activities have long remained unimplemented, with the dramatic consequences of children not being vaccinated, not having access to potable water, no schools, access to health posts or feeding centres," Ms Salah told the senior government and other officials gathered for the launch.
14 April 2006 - The special needs of thousands of Iraqi children held in juvenile institutions and detention centres were the focus of a just-concluded, five-day workshop aimed at improving conditions for young people who have come in conflict with the law, officials with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) based in Baghdad and Amman have reported.
"Juvenile justice and protective institutions must take the particular developmental needs of Iraqi children who do not live with their families into account," stressed Roger Wright, UNICEF's Special Representative for Iraq. "We know that children can be taught the difference between right and wrong, and go on to lead productive lives that contribute positively to their communities and society."
Twenty government representatives from orphanages, reformatories and ministries in Baghdad and northern Iraq learned more about international standards of juvenile justice and child rights during the five-day workshop, according to UNICEF.
Mr Wright said that improving juvenile justice was, however, only one element of a complex and interrelated scenario. "While it is critical to address how children in detention are being treated, it is also crucially important to focus on reducing the vulnerabilities and circumstances that push children to the edge and into lifestyles which often result in law-breaking and criminality," he added.
The workshop sought to foster a deeper and broader understanding that will guide approaches towards juvenile justice and institutionalisation, upgrade and strengthen the existing system as well as provide more child-friendly services, according to UNICEF. The agency plans to provide follow-up training to other personnel, including social workers involved in Iraq's juvenile justice system, all for the benefit of children in conflict with the law, those in juvenile reformatories as well as in detention, and their families.
UNICEF said Iraqi officials have pledged to bring Iraq's juvenile justice law, as well as the regulations for related institutions, in line with the new Iraqi constitution, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and other international treaties.
14 April 2006 - The Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) appealed on 14 April for international support to Iraqi academics and intellectuals and called for measures to protect them from a "heinous campaign of violence."
Koïchiro Matsuura's appeal followed a meeting he had in Paris with Muhyi Alkateeb, Iraq's Ambassador to UNESCO, and representatives of two international networks of intellectuals advocating the protection of Iraqi academics who described the impact of threats, kidnappings and killings on the educational community.
According to the Center for the Arab and Mediterranean World, some 180 academics have been killed in Iraq since 2003 and thousands more have been driven into exile.
Many are prevented from carrying out their work and are considering leaving the country at a time when their contribution to the reconstruction of Iraq is badly needed, participants at the UNESCO meeting said. They further pointed out that deteriorating security on campuses was undermining academic life for students as well.
"I call on the international community," the Director-General declared, "to show solidarity with Iraqi academics and intellectuals who are subjected to a heinous campaign of violence."
During the meeting, the Ambassador asked Mr. Matsuura for assistance in raising awareness and international support for Iraqi academics. The UNESCO chief responded positively, noting that Iraq "has long been at the forefront of thought and learning in the Middle East" and pledging the agency's commitment "to doing all it can to help in the reconstruction of its educational system and the development of its capacities."
UNESCO said its Office for Iraq has been increasingly engaged with the Iraqi authorities to create an international network of solidarity between Iraqi and foreign universities. UNESCO has also been channelling material and logistical help for the reconstruction of Iraq's educational system.
In another development, UNESCO's Executive Board ended its session in Paris yesterday with the adoption of a decision urging mutual respect for cultural diversity, religious beliefs and religious symbols. "For the first time in many weeks, a consensus has been achieved within an intergovernmental forum on an issue that has seriously troubled efforts of dialogue and rapprochement among cultures and civilizations," the Director-General said in a communiqué.
13 April 2006 - A pioneering family planning doctor from Bangladesh and a major reproductive health foundation in Haiti have won this year's United Nations Population Award, the lead agency on the issue (UNFPA) announced on 13 April.
Dr Halida Hanum Akhter is the Director-General of the Family Planning Association
of Bangladesh, one of the world's oldest Planned Parenthood affiliates. She
also chairs the Board of Directors of the Program for Appropriate Technology
in Health. In 1986, she founded the Bangladesh Institute of Research for Promotion
of Essential and Reproductive Health and Technologies.
The Fondation pour la Sante Reproductive e l'Education Familiale, is a private, non-profit organisation devoted to reproductive health and the promotion of family life in Haiti. Formed in 1988, it provides reproductive health care for more than 1.2 million people through a network of 26 centres. The Fondation has provided basic training on reproductive health to 500 teachers and 6,500 young workers, and created a network of 30,000 young volunteers who disseminate information on reproductive health, including HIV/AIDS.
The Award goes each year to individuals and institutions for their outstanding work in population and in improving the health and welfare of individuals.
The winners were chosen from 27 nominees, including top-level policy makers, researchers and health workers from around the world by a committee consisting of 10 UN Member States supported by UNFPA. Each winner will receive a diploma, a gold medal and an equal share of a monetary prize. The awards will be presented on 7 June at the United Nations, New York.
13 April 2006 - The United Nations tourism agency today announced a multi-partner initiative to respond to bird flu and prepare for a possible human pandemic that could wreak havoc on an industry that was worth $622 billion in 2004, hosted more than 763 million travellers and is projected to expand at an annual rate of nearly 6 per cent.
The UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) said at the launch of the Tourism Emergency Response Network at a travel summit in Washington that there is currently no threat to the industry from the H5N1 virus and no case for restricting travel, but visitors to infected areas should avoid contact with live birds of any variety.
Agreeing that planning for the potential evolution of H5N1 to a human pandemic is a common concern, participants committed to work closely with UN System Influenza Coordinator David Nabarro, the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) and other UN agencies, share real time information and ideas, and give clear, concise and geographically specific public messages.
The Network includes UNWTO, International Hotel & Restaurant Association, Pacific Asia Travel Association, International Federation of Tour Operators, United Federation of Travel Agents Associations, Airports Council International and the International Air Transport Association.
"Huge cross-border disasters have had an increasingly global impact and continually necessitate coordinated action by international bodies who are members of the UN family, with implementation by nation States," UNWTO Secretary General Francisco Frangialli said.
"We have seen this in SARS, the tsunami and now with avian flu and preparations for a human pandemic," he added, referring to the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed 774 people, infected more than 8,000 worldwide, the vast majority of them in China, and led to a slump in Asian tourism.
After the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December, 2004 devastated many resorts in Thailand, Sri Lanka and other countries, UNWTO quickly appealed to the world's media to help promote a resurgence of the industry, stressing that the return of tourists was the best way to help local communities recover from the tragedy.
There have been 192 human cases of bird flu since the current outbreak started in December, 2003, 109 of them fatal, ascribed to contact with infected birds. But experts fear H5N1 could mutate, gaining the ability to pass from person to person and in a worst case scenario unleashing a deadly human pandemic.
"The uncertainty of mutation of avian flu to a human pandemic means measured contingency preparation without overreaction, across the international community and with a focus at the national level," said Geoffrey Lipman, Mr Frangialli's special advisor coordinating the Network.
"The tourism sector is an important stakeholder in the total global preparedness effort. The Network will help us play that part responsibly and more effectively."
In a related development, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the inter-governmental World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said today cats do not seem to play any discernable role in the transmission and spread of H5N1.
Epidemiological findings and experimental studies have shown that some mammal, particularly cats, may be susceptible to the virus, but based accumulated data the two organisations confirmed a WHO statement of 28 February that "there is no present evidence that domestic cats can play a role in the transmission cycle of H5N1 viruses."
The species involved in the transmission and spread are essentially domestic
and wild birds. But in view of the susceptibility of certain felines, they
recommended that cats in infected and surveillance zones set up around bird
flu outbreaks be kept indoors.
For more information on the United Nations and its activities, please visit the main UN website at www.un.org or the UN Pakistan website at www.un.org.pk