Women in Airolo, Timor-Leste, finally get the vote in April 2012 (photo,©2012 UNDP)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Timor-Leste, widely known as East Timor, is slowly but surely making a recovery from the 1975-1999 independence battle that left it badly scarred.
The Geneva-based UN Development Programme this week issued photos taken in the Ainero district, which has remote areas that are difficult to reach, showing women voting for the first time in the second round of the presidential election.
The country became the first newly independent sovereign state in this century in 2002, three years after its long fight ended.
The eastern half of the island of Timor was a Portuguese colony until 1974, but within months Indonesia invaded and declared it part of its own territory. Indonesia, The Netherlands, East Indies and later Indonesia had shared the other half of the island.
East Timor’s independence became an international cause célèbre for the next 25 years, but the toll on the island’s development was very high.
UNDP has been involved in rebuilding the country since 1999, and one of its priorities has been reducing gender disparities.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The numbers of refugees fleeing to five neighbouring countries from Côte d’Ivoire continue to swell as the unresolved political crisis drags on following the December presidential election standoff. The International Organization for Migration reports that “nearly 82,000 people have either been displaced within or outside of Côte d’Ivoire since the crisis began though it is very likely that the true figure is higher.”
The Oslo Conference on Armed Violence poster depicts conflict and hope
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Each year almost half a million people die as a result of armed violence not related to war, while an additional 250,000 die in armed conflicts. Add to these figures the fact that 60% of homicides in the world involve small arms and light weapons and you can see why armed violence is being called an epidemic of global proportions.
Armed violence, according to Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jonas Gahr Store, is a barrier to development, causes human rights violations, fosters impunity and undermines trust in public institutions.
The Minister made the remarks in the framework of the Oslo Conference on Armed Violence. Due to a Europe-wide air travel ban last month, an abbreviated Conference was held in Geneva instead of Norway.
Store joined the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), UN high level representatives, and representatives of 60 countries and civil society, to promote adoption of the “Oslo Commitments,” a set of five actions geared to stop violence and foster progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Armed violence globally poses a significant challenge to achieving the goals outlined by the international community in 2000.
The actions to be adopted by states include a better measurement and monitoring of armed violence, appropriate recognition of victims’ rights, improving international cooperation and assistance, and adopting a comprehensive approach to violence prevention.
El Salvador, a country that has struggled against armed violence during the past three decades is one of many to embrace these actions.
Henry Campos speaking in Geneva about the situation in El Salvador
“We have been affected by civil war, by the repatriation of hundreds of street gang members coming from the US who introduced criminal violence to our streets, and by the spilling over our borders of drug trafficking violence that originates in neighboring countries,” said Henry Campos El Salvador’s Vice Minister of Justice and Security.
This Central American nation has taken steps to, according to Campos, “keep moving this agenda forward regardless of who’s in power.”
Like El Salvador, many nations consumed by daily armed violence do not have the sole means to effectively fight its impact, thus the importance of international assistance.
The history of the Mara Salvatruchas, a transnational street gang responsible for spreading violent crime in El Salvador, is a prime example of how armed violence may impede national development. Firearm violence costs the Salvadorian state 11% of the annual GDP, more than twice the budget for education and health.
Geneva UN and Red Cross groups work on sanitation, health problems
Installing a water reservoir in the women's prison at Petion-Ville. (photo: ©2010 ICRC/M. Kokic/ht-e-00577)
Work for cash, UNDP programme, Haiti 2010 (photo: ©2010 UNDP on flickr)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The arrest of 10 Americans accompanying a busload of children being illegally carried out of Haiti and into the Dominican Republic 30 January by a US religious organization has raised fears that children may be separated from members of their family who survived the 12 January earthquake in the country. Two Geneva-based groups, the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) and the Geneva office of Unicef, are active in the fight to ensure that children do not become victims of a new Haitian disaster, child trafficking, whether they are orphans or not.
The arrests come as fears are reportedly rising among Haitians of the ancient loup-garou, similar to a werewolf but a predator of children’s spirits, according to the Washington Post.
ICRC’s tracing service, usually deployed in times of conflict, is working closely with the Haitian Red Cross to re-establish family links. Working with lists provided by hospitals and first aid stations, the workers collate information to get families back together. ICRC says almost 1,500 people have been able to make “safe and well” phone calls. So far, it has a list of 25,600 names on its site www.icrc.org/familylinks.
The UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) concentrates on reuniting children with their families.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Eight countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus and five in Southeast Asia are implementing early warning systems to protect against weather-related events, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Today 14 October is International Day for Disaster Reduction, and the agency is highlighting how early warning and disaster risk reduction can save many lives when extreme weather strikes. Similar projects were introduced in seven southeast European countries in 2007.
These national and regional cooperation projects are part of a concerted programme that relies on technical expertise and funding provided by the WMO, the World Bank, UNDP and the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).
