In this week's UN Plaza, I speak with Oisin Walton of Telecoms Sans Frontieres (TSF).
UPDATE: In recent weeks, TSF has deployed to Haiti after four successive cyclones devastated the island nation, and to Honduras, where more than 200,000 have been affected by heavy flooding. TSF's emergency communications for disaster relief work is supported by the UN Foundation and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership.
Children from around the world showed off both their artistic skills and their awareness of climate change in an exhibit yesterday called "Paint for the Planet," part of the UN Environment Program's "UNite to Combat Climate Change" initiative. This painting comes from 11-year-old Siem Diem Siong of Malaysia, a testament to the importance of reversing deforestation.
The focus on young climate activists is both a moral imperative and a shrewd strategic decision. Children are disproportionally at risk of suffering from natural disasters that stem from climate change, and, with almost half the world's population under 25 years old, youth represents the vanguard of climate activism. Overwhelming percentages of children in surveyed countries attested to the urgent need to combat the threat posed by climate change with major steps in the immediate future -- revealing the extent to which this position has become almost mainstream in a very short period of time.
For those interested in artwork like Siem's above, UNEP is holding an auction of 26 such paintings, with the proceeds going to UNICEF emergency relief programs. The deadline for pre-bidding is midnight tonight, so make a bid!
At a Nothing But Nets event in Atlanta on Wednesday, some amazingly talented students from the Ron Clark Academy offered their take on the presidential campaign. From CNN.Embedded video from CNN VideoUPDATE: Inspired by the kids? Then check out Nothing But Nets, an organization that raises money to send anti-Malarial bed-nets to Africa. Malaria needlessly kills one million people each year, the vast majority of whom are children under five years old. Simple bed nets save lives. One $10 donation buys a net large enough to cover a family of four for up to four years.
Send a net. Save a Life.
Happy UN Day everybody! On this day in 1945, the United Nations officially came into being. 63 years later, what do we have to show for it? Well, a lot.
There are millions of people alive today who did not die from a preventable disease because of the United Nations and its agencies. Some diseases have been basically eradicated from the face of the earth. Consider polio. In 1988, when the UN-sponsored Global Polio Eradication Initiative began, there were 350,000 cases of polio in the world. Today? Fewer than 1,500. This success comes on the heels of the global eradication of smallpox by the World Health Organization almost 20 years earlier. Today, UN agencies are on the front lines on the fight against HIV/AIDS, Malaria, TB and other less well known but equally deadly conditions like obstetric fistula.
The UN is also the last refugee and hope for the world's most vulnerable populations. The United Nations World Food Program fed over 85 million people in 80 countries last year. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees is the only advocate for all of the 67 million refugees and internally displaced. UN Sponsored war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Cambodia are the last only hope for justice for victims of the world's most heinous crimes.
The list goes on.
In a blog post extolling the virtues of celebrity diplomats Nicholas Kristoff recently mused, "Bono knows G-8 poverty policy issues better than I do." Well, it seems that Kristoff will not have to travel too far to glean insights from the U2 frontman. Radar reports
Like Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter before him, New York Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal sees something special in a certain teensy Gaelic man who refuses to remove his sunglasses. That's right, the Timesman announced last night his first acquisition for the paper's Op-Ed pages for 2009: Bono. Yep, Bono. The activist-creator of Zoo TV will pen between six and ten pieces for the Grey Lady next year, Rosenthal told students Wednesday night at Columbia's School of Journalism.
This is a very exciting development. In hiring Bono the most influential paper in the United States has essentially committed itself to consistent coverage of the global poverty beat. I, for one, hope he uses it as a bully pulpit. A new president and congress will face a multitude of pressures stemming from the global economic crisis. And there are already disturbing signs that the global anti-poverty agenda may suffer in light of this crisis.
Also, it is becoming more and more clear that American action alone cannot solve this crisis. International cooperation--particularly among the G-8 -- has already proven to be a necessity. As Kristoff says, there are few on this planet who know as much about the G-8 poverty agenda as Bono. Next time they meet to discuss the economic crisis, we need someone with a megaphone speaking up for those worst affected by it. Bono is our man.
When I poked fun about the difficulty of identifying pirate ships, I was merely being flippant. Because Somali fishermen and Somali pirates use similar boats, though, and as there's typically only about a 15 minute window to act before pirates actually board a ship -- throwing the whole situation into a legal morass -- the job of a pirate-fighter is not easy. Says NATO spokesman James Appathurai: "This is a very, very complicated thing to do...pirates don't identify themselves with eye-patches and crooked-hands, it isn't always immediately obvious that they are pirates."
And I don't see any skull-and-crossbones flying, either. Appathurai also reflects on the potential of the multi-national force working together in the Gulf of Aden.
"There will be a number of very competent and very effective military ships coordinating with each other as appropriate to provide presence, to provide deterrence and where necessary and possible to intervene."
"I don't know how the pirates will react to this."
My guess is, not well. International cooperation may stop the pirates, but it's unclear if it will make them any less popular with the ladies -- even without the hooks and eye-patches.
(Image from flickr user meophamman under a Creative Commons license.)
Last weekend, nearly 117 million people in 131 countries stood up as part of a UN-led campaign to draw attention to the Millennium Development Goals. This year's STAND UP Against Poverty shatters last year's record setting participation. The UN News Center has more on the events:
Over 8,000 events were held around the globe, from Afghanistan and Burundi to Thailand and Uganda, as part of the "Stand Up and Take Action against Poverty" campaign held from 17 to 19 October.
"We are very proud that there has been such a massive citizen response for the Millennium Development Goals and against poverty," Salil Shetty, Director of the UN Millennium Campaign, which initiated the project, told reporters in New York today.
Nearly 117 million people - close to 2 per cent of the world's population - took part in Stand Up-related events, breaking the Guinness World Record for the largest social mobilization ever on a single issue. Another 5 million people took part in events that were not submitted before the Guinness deadline.
This represents a huge increase over 2006, when some 23 million people stood up against poverty, and 2007, when that number grew to almost 44 million.
The photo above comes from an event in Yerevan, Armenia. Check out STAND UP's photo page for more action shots.
Following the war between Israel and Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the Security Council authorized the expansion of the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, UNIFIL. Two years on, the mission has contributed to the maintenance of a ceasefire and has taken on humanitarian tasks like removing unexploded ordinance left over from the war.
This video is the first installment of a ten part series that is meant to explain UNIFIL to a Lebanese audience. (The host is Lebanese actor Rafic Ali Ahmad). To an American audience the video looks a little campy, but it is an interesting example of a peacekeeping mission's efforts at 21st century public diplomacy.
Watch the rest of the series.