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World Citizens Highlight 2013 as the International Year of Water Cooperation

In Environmental protection, Human Development, Solidarity, United Nations, World Law on January 6, 2013 at 11:32 PM

WORLD CITIZENS HIGHLIGHT 2013 AS THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF WATER COOPERATION

By René Wadlow

 

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly by Resolution A/RES/65/154 has declared 2013 as the UN International Year of Water Cooperation with UNESCO as the lead agency for the Year. The objective of this International Year is to raise awareness both on the potential for increased cooperation and on the challenges facing water management in the light of the increase in demand for water access, allocation and services. The Year should build on the momentum created at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio plus 20) in which the Association of World Citizens played an active role.

The Association of World Citizens (AWC) has in the past stressed the important role of trans-boundary lake and river basins, including reservoirs of fresh water that move silently below the borders in underground aquifers. While there is much trans-frontier cooperation among States to which we can justly point as “Best Practices”, there are also trans-frontier tensions related to access to fresh water.

There are conflicts at the national level concerning the use of water in urban areas and water for irrigation within rural areas. The main causes of urban water conflicts are characterized by complex socio-economic and institutional issues related to urban water management. The debates about public water services versus private water suppliers are frequently associated with conflicts over water price and affordability. Likewise, the issue of centralization verses decentralization of water utilities is also discussed in the framework of institutional aspects of urban water management. A critical and interdisciplinary examination of the socio-economic and institutional aspects of national water management is important and one in which both government and civil society needs to be involved.

 

A Jewish proverb says, "No water, no life". Who wants to live a dried-up planet?

As the Jewish proverb goes, “No water, no life”. Who wants to live on a dried-up planet?

 

However, it is on trans-frontier cooperation that the AWC will put its emphasis as the dangers of trans-boundary conflicts over water use, the creation of dams, and modification of river courses are real world issues in which world citizens have a role to play.

In one of the early presentations of world citizen proposals on economic issues, Stringfellow Barr called attention to the multi-purpose efforts of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for water management, farming and industrial development. Citizens of the World (New York: Doubleday, 1952, 285pp.) Barr cited Herman Finer’s analysis The TVA: Lessons for International Application published by the ILO then displaced from Geneva by the Second World War (Montreal: International Labor Office, 1944). The TVA was proposed as a possible model for an Indus River Valley Authority and a Jordan Valley Authority. Both the Middle East and Asia continue to present real challenges for trans-frontier water management. The Association of World Citizens will propose during 2013 new avenues for action and multi-State cooperation.

 

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

Supporting Young Syrians who Say “Stop the Killing!”

In Conflict Resolution, Current Events, Human Rights, Middle East & North Africa, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, United Nations, World Law on May 26, 2012 at 3:07 PM

SUPPORTING YOUNG SYRIANS WHO SAY “STOP THE KILLING!”

By René Wadlow

 Image

In early May 2012, there were particularly deadly explosions in Damascus, the capital of Syria, an escalation of a conflict which began over a year ago with nonviolent protests but which spilled over into violence, refugee displacements, and ever deeper division among the people of Syria.

For the moment, the efforts of the League of Arab States and the United Nations have not been able to establish good-faith negotiations or even a permanent ceasefire. Therefore a group of young nonviolent Syrians have created a movement “Stop the Killing,” not related to a political party or a confessional religious group, but which wishes to unite those of good will to stop the violence and to develop a society in which all can contribute.

Therefore, we who are outside Syria, send our support and willingness to cooperate.

I believe in you, and I believe in your destiny.

I believe that you have inherited from your forefathers an ancient dream, a song, a prophecy which you can proudly lay as a gift of gratitude to  those working for a just resolution of the current conflicts.

I believe that it is in you to be good citizens.

And what is it to be a good citizen?

It is to acknowledge the other person’s rights before asserting your own, but always to be conscious of your own.

It is to be free in word and deed but it is to know that your freedom is subject to the other person’s freedom.

It is to know that killing will never bring a society of justice and harmony. A just and nonviolent society is the fruit of wisdom and love. Therefore let love, human and frail, command the coming day.

 

 

Rene Wadlow, a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and of its Task Force on the Middle East, is President and Chief Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva of the Association of World Citizens.

Kunlabora Spirito kaj Ĝiaj Multaj Elmontriĝoj

In AWC Esperanto Division, Environmental protection, Human Development, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, United Nations, World Law on January 25, 2012 at 10:20 PM

KUNLABORA SPIRITO KAJ ĜIAJ MULTAJ ELMONTRIĜOJ

de René Wadlow

esperantigite de Bernard Henry

 

 

La Ĝenerala Asembleo de Unuiĝintaj Nacioj (UN), en ĝia Rezolucio A/RES/64/136, konsekris 2012 kiel Internacia Jaro por Kooperativoj, celante antaŭenmeti la larĝan rolon kiun kooperativoj ludas en ekologiema disvolvo kaj malapliigo de malriĉeco. Kiel diris UN-Ĝeneralsekretario Ban Ki-moon, “Kooperativoj estas rememorigilo al la internacia komunumo, ke eblas ja celi al kaj ekonomia kaj sociala respondeco”. La kooperativa movado ludas larĝan rolon en ambaŭ la produkado kaj la disdono de komercaĵoj kaj servoj tra la mondo. Kvankam malpli videblaj ol private posedataj, transnaciaj korporacioj (kiuj havas larĝajn reklambuĝetojn kaj tiel igas siajn komercaĵojn neĉirkaŭpaseblaj), kooperativoj estas grava parto de la monda ekonomio kaj meritas la atenton kiun la UN-jaro kapablas alporti (1).

Tamen, malantaŭ kooperativoj de produkado kaj disdono, loĝas unuavice “Kunlabora Spirito” kiu elmontriĝas laŭ multegaj manieroj, kiuj estas ĉiuj bazitaj sur kunlaboro sed ne ĉiuj nomiĝas “kooperativo”. Kunlabora Spirito substrekas renoviĝon, kunlaboron, mutualan helpon, kaj komunecon kiel “tagordo” je la surloka, nacia, kaj monda niveloj. Kunlaboro estas nepra neceso por la venontaj paŝoj en homa evoluo.

Kunlabora Spirito aperas en multaj formoj. Homoj tra la mondo pli kaj pli ekkonscias, ke ĉiuj el ni estas interligitaj kun aliaj personoj, per la aero kiujn ni spiras kaj akvosistemoj, la grundo kaj ĉiuj vivoformoj. Ju pli ni povas plipovigi unu la alian por ekflori sen noci al aliaj, des pli ni kreas mondan kunlaboran socion. Tial ĉiu ago de la individuo – aŭ neago – povas havi forserĉajn konsekvencojn ambaŭ por ĉiuj homoj en la mondo kaj por la naturmedio je kiu ni ĉiuj dependas.

Kunlabora Spirito evidentiĝas en la kreskaj zorgoj de Verda – ekologiema – Ekonomio. Eŭropo subtenas komercan kaj kunlaboran disvolvon de karbonmalpliigaj teknologioj kun miksaĵo de registara investado, impostosenpezoj, pruntedonoj kaj leĝoj. Ekzistas agnoskata neceso ŝirmi la naturmedion, investi en puran energion kaj krei daŭripovajn laborpostenojn, sed multo restas por fari en la tuta mondo.

Tra la mondo, ni ĉiuj estas enirantaj periodon de ŝanĝiĝo por kiu estas neniaj antaŭplanoj. Tial nepras ke ni scipovu kunan laboron. La formoj de kunlabora agado fontas el historiaj cirkonstancoj, surloka kulturo, kaj ekologiaj kondiĉoj. Tamen ekzistas komuna zorgo pri kunlabora uzo de naturvivrimedoj, komercaĵoj kaj servoj. Kunlabora agado loĝas en la koro de la ekonomia kaj politika alturno al mondnivela disvolvo de vivrimedoj kaj pli bona vivokvalito.

Ekzistas multaj formoj tradiciaj de kunlaboro, de mutuala helpo en periodoj de manko. 2012 devas utili kiel ŝanco alrigardi la multajn manierojn laŭ kiuj Kunlabora Spirito elmontriĝas en la mondo. Tial 2012 devas esti nia ĉefa interesocentro koncerne al la plifortigo de la konvinkoforto de Kunlabora Spirito.

 

(1)  Bv vidi la UN-retejon pri la Jaro: http://social.un.org/coopyear

 

Prof. René Wadlow estas Prezidanto kaj Ĉefreprezentanto ĉe UN en Ĝenevo de la Asocio de la Mondcivitanoj.

Bernard Henry estas la Oficisto pri Eksteraj Rilatoj de la Oficejo ĉe UN en Ĝenevo kaj la Ĝenerala Direktoro de la Esperanto-sekcio de la Asocio de la Mondcivitanoj.

The Cooperative Spirit and its Many Manifestations

In Human Development, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, United Nations, World Law on January 25, 2012 at 10:07 PM

THE COOPERATIVE SPIRIT AND ITS MANY MANIFESTATIONS

By René Wadlow

 

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly in Resolution A/RES/64/136 has designated 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives in order to highlight the large role that cooperatives can play in ecologically-sound development and poverty reduction.  As Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said “Cooperatives are a reminder to the international community that it is possible to pursue both economic viability and social responsibility.”  The cooperative movement plays a large role in both the production and the distribution of goods and services worldwide.  Although less visible than privately-owned trans-national corporations (which have large advertising budgets so their products become household names) cooperatives are an important part of the world economy and merit the attention that the UN Year may provide (1)

However, behind production and distribution cooperatives, there is first a “Cooperative Spirit”, and it manifests itself in a multitude of ways, all of which are based on cooperation but not all are called “cooperatives”. The Cooperative Spirit stresses renewal, cooperation, mutual help, and community as the ‘order of the day’ at the local, national, and world levels.  Cooperation is an absolute necessity for the next steps in human evolution.

The Cooperative Spirit takes many forms. People throughout the world are increasingly realizing that each of us is interconnected with every other person through the air we breathe and the systems of water, soils and life in all its forms.  The more we can empower one another to flourish without harming others, the more we create a cooperative world society. Therefore every action taken by an individual — or not taken — can have far-reaching consequences both for all the people of the world and upon the environment on which we all depend.

This Cooperative Spirit manifests itself in the growing concerns with a Green — ecologically-sound — Economy.  Europe has encouraged commercial and cooperative development of carbon-reducing technologies with a mix of government investment, tax facilities, loans and laws.  There is a recognized need to protect the environment, to invest in clean energy and to create lasting jobs, but much more needs to be done worldwide.

Throughout the world, we are all entering a period of change for which there is no blueprint.  Therefore it is essential that we learn to work together cooperatively.  Cooperative action takes its forms due to historical circumstances, local culture, and ecological conditions.  However, there is a common concern with the cooperative use of resources, goods and services.  Cooperative action is at the heart of an economic and political shift toward a worldwide development of livelihoods and greater quality of life.

There are many traditional forms of cooperation, of mutual help in times of need. 2012 should serve as an opportunity to look at the many ways in which the Cooperative Spirit manifests itself in the world. Thus 2012 can be our focus to strengthen the impact of the Cooperative Spirit.

(1)   See the UN website for the Year: http://social.un.org/coopyear

 

René Wadlow is President and Chief Representative to the United Nations, Geneva, of the Association of World Citizens.

The Horn of Africa: Refugees, Famine, Conflicts

In Africa, Conflict Resolution, Current Events, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, United Nations, World Law on July 31, 2011 at 11:24 PM

THE HORN OF AFRICA: REFUGEES, FAMINE, CONFLICTS

By René Wadlow

 

Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change.  When the crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.  That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, and to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.

– Milton Friedman

 

Heavy fighting started again on July 28, 2011 in Mogadishu, the capital of what was once Somalia, in a battle between the African Union peacekeeping force (Amisom) and the Islamic insurgency al-Shahab. The fighting prevents aid from reaching the tens of thousands of refugees who have arrived in Mogadishu fleeing famine. The United Nations (UN) World Food Program says it cannot reach some two million people in need in areas controlled by al-Shahab which had expelled Western nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) who were providing relief.

The Horn of Africa, in particular Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, faces a deep crisis, a combination of refugee flows, famine in part linked to drought, and persistent conflicts.  There is a broad consensus in the UN system that radical measures are needed to deal with the Horn of Africa crisis and that these measures will have to be taken in a holistic way with actions going from the local level of the individual farmer to the national level with new government policies, to measures to be undertaken by the African Union and the UN system, in particular the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome.

Combatants with Somalia's al-Shabab Islamist militia.

Today, cooperation is needed among the UN family of agencies, national governments, NGOs, and the millions of food producers. There is a need for swift, short-term measures to help people now suffering from lack of food, inadequate distribution and situations of violence. Such short-term action requires additional funding for the UN World Food Program and the release of national food stocks. However, it is the longer-range and structural issues on which world citizens have focused their attention. The world requires a World Food Policy and a clear Plan of Action.

While constant improvements in technology, mechanization, plant breeding and farm chemicals have steadily increased food production per acre in much of the world, African food production per acre has stagnated, and in some areas has gone down. Likewise, the portion of development assistance in Africa dedicated to agriculture has declined from 15 per cent in the 1980s to 4 per cent in 2006.

As a July 11, 2011 UNCTAD study Economic Development in Africa stresses “One of the major challenges which African countries currently face is to generate productive jobs and livelihoods for the 7-10 million young people entering the labor force each year. This is difficult to achieve simply through commodity exports but rather requires a complementary process of agricultural productivity growth and development of non-agricultural employment opportunities in both industry and services.”

Carcasses of dead sheep and goats in the drought-stricken region of Waridaad, Somaliland.

Thus, the first need in Africa is to develop the local economies: currently, poverty, lack of adapted technology, population pressure on ecologically fragile areas, a growth of urban slums due to rapid rural to urban migration is the lot of many Sub-Saharan African countries.

Increased action to improve rural life needs to be taken quickly.  As the recent UN-sponsored Millennium Ecosystem Assessment warns “Human activity is putting such strains on the natural function of Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystem to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted. It is becoming ever more apparent that human society has a rapidly shrinking window of opportunity to alter its path.”

The Horn of Africa is an extreme case. The Horn possesses all the resources needed to make it one of Africa’s major economic centers, and yet there seems to be no halting the environmental decay and political insecurity it engenders. In fact, when one looks at the Horn’s problems, one must conclude that urgent and well-directed international action is needed to prevent a mega-disaster. Due to an often unenlightened management of the environment, its willful mismanagement to extract short-term economic gain, and confrontational rather than conciliatory policies, the squandering of the region’s resources has gathered speed.

A map of the ongoing famine in the Horn of Africa. The facts speak for themselves.

Environmental degradation is part of a cycle that upsets the traditional balance between people, their habitat and the socio-economic systems by which they live. Insecurity leads to strife; strife results in inter-clan feuding, civil war, cross-border raiding and military confrontation. Environmental degradation and insecurity continue to interact, swinging back and forth like a pendulum of destruction. A shrinking resource base breeds insecurity; insecurity spreads conflict, and conflict causes environmental destruction.

It is hard to know how to improve the situation. There is a long-term need for people to modify their living patterns to bring about a better quality of life, with increased security.  There is a need to break the cycle of chaos so that people can transform insecurity into confidence. Yet social change is slow, and the necessary limiting of the birth rate can take generations. Agricultural patterns also change slowly. There is no political leadership within the area, and there is no cooperation among the states of the Horn. The African Union’s conflict management structures do not function, and the UN has hoped that the African Union could take the lead in the area’s conflict resolution. This was a hope based on an unwillingness to get involved rather than a realistic evaluation of the situation.

The cycle of chaos is likely to speed up, and more refugees will be on the move.  However, as Milton Friedman noted only a crisis produces real change. Just as the “Arab Spring” brought a new generation of leadership into action — though not yet into power — the Horn of Africa might see a new generation of non-governmental leadership coming to the fore. The older political and clanic leadership has failed and is discredited. However, they have guns and plan to stay in control. Yet what is politically impossible today in the Horn may become politically inevitable.

 

René Wadlow is Senior Vice President and Chief Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva of the Association of World Citizens.

See also Somalia: Signs of Danger (https://awcungeneva.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/somalia-signs-of-danger/)

June 17: A UN Emphasis on the Wise Use of Dry Lands

In Africa, Environmental protection, Human Development, Solidarity on June 17, 2011 at 7:30 PM

JUNE 17 : A UN EMPHASIS ON THE WISE USE OF DRY LANDS

By René Wadlow

 
The World Day to Combat Desertification, June 17 each year, was proclaimed by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in resolution A/RES/49/1995. The day has been observed since 1995. However United Nations efforts on Desertification began in 1977 with the UN Conference on Desertification held in Nairobi. The desertification conference was convened by the UN General Assembly in the midst of a series of catastrophic droughts in the Sudano-Sahelian region of Africa. The conference was designed to be the centerpiece of a massive worldwide attack to arrest the spread of deserts or desert-like conditions not only in Africa south of the Sahara but wherever such conditions encroached on the livelihood of those who lived in the desert or in their destructive path. The history of the conference is vividly recalled by James Walls in his book Land, Men and Sand (New York: Macmillan, 1980).

At the conference, there was a call for the mobilization of human and financial resources to hold and then push back the advancing desert. “Attack” may have been the wrong word and “mobilization” too military a metaphor for the very inadequate measures taken later in the Sudano-Sahelian area. Today, in 2011, there are real possibilities of famine in West and East Africa on the edges of the desert. Niger and Mali and parts of Senegal and Chad in the Sahel belt are facing the consequences of serious drought as are parts of northern Kenya and Somalia.

The most dramatic case is that of Darfur, Sudan which partakes of the Sahel drought but which also faces a war in which the conflicts between pastoralists and settled agriculturalists have become politicized. It is estimated that 300,000 have been killed since the start of the war late in 2003. Some two and a half million people have been uprooted. The agricultural infrastructure of homes, barns and wells has been deliberately destroyed. It will be difficult and costly to repair this destruction. The Darfur conflict highlights the need for a broader approach to the analysis and interpretation of active and potential armed conflicts in the Sahel region. This analysis needs to take into consideration the impact of environmental scarcity and climate variation in complex situations.

A settlement in the semi-desert north of El Fasher, Northern Darfur.

Earth is our common home, and therefore all, as world citizens, must organize to protect it. It is up to all of us concerned with ecologically-sound development to draw awareness to both the dangers and the promises of deserts. What is the core of the desertification process? The destruction of land that was once productive does not stem from mysterious and remorseless forces of nature but from the actions of humans. Desertification is a social phenomenon. The causes of dry land degradation include overgrazing, deforestation, agricultural mismanagement, fuel wood over-consumption, and industry and urbanization. Thus, by preventing land degradation and improving agricultural practices, action to combat desertification can lead to increased agricultural productivity and alleviate poverty. Humans are both the despoiler and the victim of the process. Increasingly, populations are eking out a livelihood on a dwindling resource, hemmed in by encroaching plantations and sedentary agriculturalists, by towns and roads. Pressure of population upon resources leads to tensions which can burst into violence as we see in Darfur and which spilled over into eastern Chad.

Desertification needs to be seen in a holistic way. If we see desertification only as aridity, we may miss areas of impact such as the humid tropics. We need to consider the special problems of water-logging, salinity or alkalinity of irrigation systems that destroy land each year. The value of UN-designated Days is the creation of a process of identifying major clusters of problems, bringing the best minds to bear on them so as to have a scientific and social substratum on which common political will can be found and from which action will follow.

Desertification is a plague that upsets the traditional balance between people, their habitat, and the socio-economic systems by which they live. Because desertification disturbs a region’s natural resource base, it promotes insecurity. Insecurity leads to strife. If allowed to degenerate, strife results in inter-clan feuding, civil war, cross-border raiding and military confrontation. Yet dry land communities have great resources that can be put to fighting poverty and desertification, provided they are properly empowered and supported.

In China, desertification spreads 1,300 square miles per year.

Only with a lessening of insecurity can cultivators and pastoralists living in or near deserts turn their attention to adapting traditional systems. There can be no reversion to purely traditional systems. But for insecurity to abate, a lengthy process of conciliation must begin and forms of conflict resolution strengthened. People must be encouraged to understand that diversity is a crucial element of ecologically-sound development. Judicious resource management breeds security and an improved quality of life for everyone. We can see what efforts can be made to encourage reforestation and to slow the unwanted advances of deserts.

The contrast between widespread rural poverty and environmental degradation, on the one land, and the opportunities which can be created on a small scale through community empowerment, access to groundwater and sustainable land management, defines the ideals of the Day. The Day is not about fighting deserts, it is about reversing land degradation trends, improving living conditions and alleviating poverty in rural dry lands. Thus, the World Day to Combat Desertification can be a Day during which we can learn more of the lives of the people in and on the edge of the deserts.

Even trees can grow in the desert ... A sign of hope indeed. Now let's act on it.

Deserts can also have a positive image. There is a significant role in the literature and mythology of spirituality — the 40 years in the desert before entering the “Promised Land” of Israel, the 40 days in the desert before starting his mission for Jesus, the life in the desert of the early Christian church fathers. Today, there are an increasing number of spiritual retreats in the desert chosen for its silence and for the essential nature of the landscape. Thus, during this Day our emphasis must not be on “combat” but on wise and ecologically-sound use of dry lands.

René Wadlow is Senior Vice President and Chief Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva of the Association of World Citizens.

Let My Children Go: World Efforts to Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labor

In Children's Rights, Human Development, Human Rights, Solidarity, World Law on June 11, 2011 at 11:52 PM

LET MY CHILDREN GO:

WORLD EFFORTS TO ELIMINATE THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR

By René Wadlow

 

June 12 is a red letter day on the United Nations (UN) agenda of events as the World Day against Child Labor. It marks the June arrival in 1998 of hundreds of children in Geneva, part of the Global March against Child Labor that had crossed 100 countries to present their plight to the International Labor Organization (ILO).

“We are hurting, and you can help us” was their message to the assembled International Labor Conference which meets each year in Geneva in June. One year later, in June, the ILO had drafted ILO Convention N° 182 on child labor which 165 States have now ratified — the fastest ratification rate in the ILO’s 89-year history.

The ILO is the only UN organization with a tripartite structure, governments, trade unions and employer associations are all full and equal members. All the other UN bodies are governments-only with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) playing a “fifth wheel” role. Yet NGOs within the UN system as a whole played an important role in highlighting children working in circumstances that put their physical, mental and social development at risk, children working in situations where they are exploited, mistreated and denied the basic rights of a human being. Today, millions of children, especially those living in extreme poverty, have no choice but to accept exploitive employment to ensure their own and their family’s survival. However, the ILO is the UN agency most directly related to conditions of work. Thus the ILO has often been an avenue for ‘unheard voices’ to be heard, usually through the trade union representatives; more rarely the employer representatives have played a progressive role.

The flag of the International Labor Organization.

Child labor and the increasing cross-frontier flow of child labor did not have a high profile on the long agenda of pressing labor issues until the end of the 1990s. At the start of the 1990s, there was only one full-time ILO staff member assigned to child labor issues; now there are 450, 90 percent in the field.

Child labor was often hidden behind the real and non-exploitive help that children bring to family farms. However, such help often keeps children out of school and thus outside the possibility of joining the modern sector of the economy. The ILO estimates that of the some 200 million child laborers in the world, some 70 percent are in agriculture, 10 percent in industry/mines and the others in trade and services — often as domestics or street vendors in urban areas. Globally, Asia accounts for the largest number of child workers — 122 million, Sub-Saharan Africa, 50 million, and Latin America and the Caribbean, 6 million. Young people under 18 make up almost half of humanity, a half which is virtually powerless in relation to the other half. To ensure the well-being of children and adolescents in light of this imbalance of power, we must identify attitudes and practices which cause invisibility.

The grim faces of child labor: In El Salvador, a 4-year-old girl and her 6-year-old brother working to fill coal bags.

But statistics are only one aspect of the story. It is important to look at what type of work is done and for whom. The image of the child helping his parents on the farm can hide wide-spread bonded labor in Asia. Children are ‘farmed out’ to others for repayment of a debt with interest. As the interest rates are too high, the debt is never paid off and ‘bonded labour’ is another term for a form of slavery.

In Africa, children can live at great distances from their home, working for others with no family ties and thus no restraints on the demands for work. Girls are particularly disadvantaged as they often undertake household chores following work in the fields. Schooling for such children can be non-existent or uneven at best. There is often a lack of rural schools and teachers. Rural school attendance is variable even where children are not forced to work. Thus, there is a need for better coordination between resources and initiatives for rural education and the elimination of exploitive child labor.

There is still a long way to go to eliminate exploitive child labor. Much child labor is in what is commonly called the non-formal sector of the economy where there are no trade unions. Child labor is often related to conditions of extreme poverty and to sectors of the society where both adults and children are marginalized such as many tribal societies in Asia, or the Roma in Europe or migrant workers in general.

Thus, the task of both governments and NGOs is to understand better the scope of exploitive child labor, its causes, the possibility of short-term protection of children and the longer-range efforts to overcome exclusion and poverty.

 

René Wadlow is Senior Vice President and Chief Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva of the Association of World Citizens.

Rio Plus 20 – UN Desert Decade

In Current Events, Environmental protection, Solidarity on May 20, 2011 at 8:30 PM

RIO PLUS 20

By René Wadlow

    

The United Nations (UN) Conference on Sustainable Development will take place in Brazil on June 4-6, 2012 to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. Thus the popular name of the upcoming conference: “Rio plus 20”. The Conference will be an opportunity to bring together all the UN-designated efforts underway or the protection and wise use of Nature. As humanity, we are at the mid-point of the UN-designated Water for Life Decade (2005-2015). We are at the start of the International Decade of Deserts and Desertification (2010-2020) and nearly halfway into the UN-designated 2011: Year of Forests.

UN-designated Years rarely make newspaper headlines, and most governments limit themselves to voting for the Year in the UN General Assembly and then go on as before. The designated Year or Decade gives some legitimacy and support to the UN and the UN Specialized Agencies which are already working on the issue. However, successful years are always the result of non-governmental organization (NGO) activities. The most successful UN-designated Year was 1975: The International Year of Women.

In 1975, there were already, worldwide, women’s organizations, often well-structured, and which were prepared to use the designation of the UN Year as a platform to present their work, to network among themselves and to reach out to new partners. Moreover, 1975 fell into a period of intense discussion in Western Europe and the USA on the role of women, on relations between women and men, and what was generally called “consciousness-raising” among women. The emphasis was on the ways – sometimes subtle and often less so – that women were hindered in their full development as persons.

Deserts have no such already-organized supporters. Thus it is more difficult to draw attention to issues of desertification and the livelihood of people living at the edge of deserts. However, there are important issues related to deserts. World citizens are making an effort to highlight the Decade as in the following essay:

   

UN DESERT DECADE

By René Wadlow

God created lands filled with water as a place for man to live; and the desert so that he can discover his soul.

  

The decade 2010 to 2020 has been designated by the UN General Assembly as The International Decade of Deserts and Desertification. It is estimated that dry lands cover approximately 40 percent of the world’s landmass. The Decade marks the efforts begun in 1977 with the UN Conference on Desertification held in Nairobi. The desertification conference was convened by the UN General Assembly in the midst of a series of catastrophic droughts in the Sudano-Sahelian region of Africa. The conference was designed to be the centerpiece of a massive worldwide attack to arrest the spread of deserts or desert-like conditions not only in Africa south of the Sahara but wherever such conditions encroached on the livelihood of those who lived in the desert or in their destructive path. The history of the conference is vividly recalled by James Walls in his book Land, Men and Sand (New York: Macmillan, 1980).

At the conference, there was a call for the mobilization of human and financial resources to hold and then push back the advancing desert. “Attack” may have been the wrong word and “mobilization” too military a metaphor for the very inadequate measures taken later in the Sudano-Sahelian area. In 2010 at the start of the Decade, there are real possibilities of famine in West and East Africa on the edges of the desert. Niger and Mali and parts of Senegal and Chad in the Sahel belt are facing the consequences of serious drought as are parts of northern Kenya and Somalia.

The most dramatic case is that of Darfur, Sudan which partakes of the Sahel drought but which also faces a war in which the conflicts between pastoralists and settled agriculturalists have become politicized. It is estimated that 300,000 have been killed since the start of the war late in 2003. Some two and a half million people have been uprooted. The agricultural infrastructure of homes, barns and wells has been deliberately destroyed. It will be difficult and costly to repair this destruction. The Darfur conflict highlights the need for a broader approach to the analysis and interpretation of active and potential armed conflicts in the Sahel region. This analysis needs to take into consideration the impact of environmental scarcity and climate variation in complex situations.

Earth is our common home, and therefore all, as world citizens, must organize to protect it. It is up to all of us concerned with ecologically-sound development to use the Decade to draw awareness to both the dangers and the promises of deserts. What is the core of the desertification process? The destruction of land that was once productive does not stem from mysterious and remorseless forces of nature but from the actions of humans. Desertification is a social phenomenon. The causes of dry land degradation include overgrazing, deforestation, agricultural mismanagement, fuel wood over-consumption, and industry and urbanization. Thus, by preventing land degradation and improving agricultural practices, action to combat desertification can lead to increased agricultural productivity and alleviate poverty. Humans are both the despoiler and the victim of the process. Increasingly, populations are eking out a livelihood on a dwindling resource, hemmed in by encroaching plantations and sedentary agriculturalists, by towns and roads. Pressure of population upon resources leads to tensions which can burst into violence as we see in Darfur and which spilled over into eastern Chad.

The Sahara (in Arabic, الصحراء الكبرى‎, "Aṣ Ṣaḥrā´ al Kubrā", "The Great Desert" in English) is the world's largest non-polar (hot) desert.

Desertification needs to be seen in a holistic way. If we see desertification only as aridity, we may miss areas of impact such as the humid tropics. We need to consider the special problems of water-logging, salinity or alkalinity of irrigation systems that destroy land each year. The value of UN-designated decades is that the process of identifying major clusters of problems, bringing the best minds to bear on them so as to have a scientific and social substratum on which common political will can be found and from which action will follow.

Desertification is a plague that upsets the traditional balance between people, their habitat, and the socio-economic systems by which they live. Because desertification disturbs a region’s natural resource base, it promotes insecurity. Insecurity leads to strife. If allowed to degenerate, strife results in inter-clan feuding, civil war, cross-border raiding and military confrontation. Yet dry land communities have great resources that can be put to fighting poverty and desertification, provided they are properly empowered and supported.

Only with a lessening of insecurity can cultivators and pastoralists living in or near deserts turn their attention to adapting traditional systems. There can be no reversion to purely traditional systems. But for insecurity to abate, a lengthy process of conciliation must begin and forms of conflict resolution strengthened. People must be encouraged to understand that diversity is a crucial element of ecologically-sound development. Judicious resource management breeds security and an improved quality of life for everyone. We can see what efforts can be made to encourage reforestation and to slow the unwanted advances of deserts.

An overview of global desertification: Now is the time to take action.

The contrast between widespread rural poverty and environmental degradation, on the one land, and the opportunities which can be created on a small scale through community empowerment, access to groundwater and sustainable land management, defines the ideals of the Decade of Deserts. The Decade is not about fighting deserts, it is about reversing land degradation trends, improving living conditions and alleviating poverty in rural dry lands. Thus, the Decade of Deserts can be a decade during which we can learn more of the lives of the people in and on the edge of the deserts.

Deserts can also have a positive image. There is a significant role in the literature and mythology of spirituality – the 40 years in the desert before entering the “Promised Land” of Israel, the 40 days in the desert before starting his mission for Jesus, the life in the desert of the early Christian church fathers. Today, there are an increasing number of spiritual retreats in the desert chosen for its silence and for the essential nature of the landscape. Thus, it is a Decade in which we can all usefully participate.

René Wadlow is Senior Vice President and Chief Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva of the Association of World Citizens.

Painting by Lona Towsley.

Note: The UN website for the Decade is http://unddd.unccd.int

Le Kef, Tunisie: Il suffit d’une ville pour soutenir une révolution

In Current Events, Democracy, Human Development, Middle East & North Africa, Solidarity on March 4, 2011 at 1:19 PM

LE KEF, TUNISIE: IL SUFFIT D’UNE VILLE POUR SOUTENIR UNE REVOLUTION

Par Cherifa Maaoui

Je suis une Citoyenne du Monde, membre de l’AWC depuis 2007, mais je suis aussi, au départ, une Tunisienne.

Pendant la révolution, une partie de ma famille était en visite chez moi, dans la banlieue de Paris, pour les Fêtes de Fin d’Année, et le matin même de la chute de Zine el Abidine ben Ali, ils étaient là, avant de prendre quelques heures plus tard le vol du retour …  C’est du moins ce qu’ils pensaient, que nous pensions tous. Après la réouverture de l’espace aérien tunisien, quand ils sont revenus là-bas, ce n’était plus le même pays, du moins sur le plan politique. Car chez nous, dans la ville de nos racines, malgré la révolution, rien n’avait vraiment changé.

Je suis née dans une ville du nord-ouest de la Tunisie, El-Kef, ou plutôt, pour les Français, « Le Kef ». L’Algérie n’est pas loin, à quarante kilomètres seulement, plus proche que Tunis qui se trouve à 175 kilomètres de chez nous. C’est une ville de montagne, perchée à 780 mètres d’altitude, une ville qui conserve les traces de la colonisation romaine entre les anciens remparts qui l’enserrent. Là-bas, les trois religions abrahamiques ont bâti chacune un ou plusieurs lieux de culte, entre le mausolée Sidi ben Makhlouf et la mosquée El Qadriya pour l’Islam, la synagogue de Ghriba pour le judaïsme et l’ancienne basilique romaine pour le christianisme. Nous avons des écoles supérieures et la ville est aussi, excusez du peu, un chef-lieu de gouvernorat, ce qu’on appellerait en France une préfecture. Bref, il y a tout chez nous pour faire penser que nous avons de la chance par rapport au reste de la Tunisie.

Et pourtant, c’est loin d’être le cas. Le Kef est une ville où règne la pauvreté, une de ces villes où, sous Ben Ali, les uns et les autres ont été forcés de partir vers les villes plus grandes ou les zones côtières pour trouver un travail, souvent avec peu de succès. Tous les gens qui ont eu entre leurs mains le destin de la Tunisie nous ont oubliés, tant le protectorat français qu’Habib Bourguiba puis Ben Ali, comme si notre sort n’intéressait personne.

A l’hôpital du Kef, il existe une salle de jeux où les enfants peuvent s’amuser, mais ce n’est que depuis trois ans tout au plus, parce que, grâce à l’aide de mes amis ici en France, j’ai pu y faire installer une climatisation. Avant, la salle était trop froide l’hiver, cet hiver montagnard rigoureux que, depuis l’étranger, l’on n’imagine pas possible en Tunisie, et trop chaude l’été. Mais derrière ce problème résolu, il en reste bien d’autres en souffrance. Nous avons beau avoir des écoles supérieures, cela ne nous empêche pas d’avoir aussi chez nous des quantités de jeunes gens diplômés qui, parfois jusqu’à l’âge de quarante ans, restent sans travail malgré leurs hautes qualifications, ce qui est particulièrement vrai des diplômés du supérieur en langue et littérature arabe.

Le Kef, ville oubliée de l'histoire.

Déjà sans aller jusqu’à ce niveau, dans le lycée local, il n’y a pas de salle informatique, le seul cybercafé de la ville étant privé et facturant des sommes exorbitantes aux usagers. Il en faudrait peu pour trouver sur place de quoi équiper chaque écolier d’un cartable et le lycée d’une salle informatique digne de ce nom, la seconde opération pouvant être réalisée pour moins de 300€. Mais je ne peux pas le financer toute seule, d’où ma frustration et ce sentiment d’impuissance qui sont les miens.

En comparaison de l’avenir d’un pays tout entier – le premier pays arabe à avoir évincé son dictateur dans une révolution populaire – le sort d’une seule ville, une ville perdue dans la montagne, peut paraître insignifiant. Mais c’est justement là, dans ce genre d’endroits oubliés de l’histoire, que se jouent les destins des révolutions. C’est lorsque des villes comme Le Kef se sentent soutenues, incluses dans le changement et non exclues de celui-ci, que ce changement qui affecte donc tout un pays est vraiment possible. Sinon, cela donne des violences comme celles qui ont frappé Le Kef début février dernier, des morts, des immeubles brûlés, et la peur, celle qui, s’ajoutant au désespoir, vous tue.

L’ancienne Première Dame américaine Hillary Clinton, aujourd’hui Secrétaire d’Etat, a écrit en 1996 un livre qui s’intitulait Il faut tout un village pour élever un enfant. Moi, je suis convaincue qu’il suffit d’une ville pour soutenir une révolution, et cette ville, je suis bien persuadée que c’est Le Kef.

Cherifa Maaoui (maaoui.cherifa@yahoo.fr) est Officier de Liaison pour le Maghreb du Bureau de Représentation auprès de l’Office des Nations Unies à Genève de l’Association of World Citizens.