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Episode 8 - MDG 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
Issue 7 - What is the relationship between "Global" and "Local" agendas and responsibilities?
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| Riflessioni Stefano | Località e globalità nell’identità culturale – Verso un’ontologia del dialogo | ||||
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Europe - Policy Makers - Toine Mandres (video)
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Backstage - Brussels 1 - Stefano & Francesco at the EU Offices |
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To be recorded |
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Vrinda |
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Backstage - Brussels 2 - Stefano & Vrinda Outside EC Headquarters |
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AFRICA - Children are the wealth - The fisherman interviewing the journalist |
Our future is based in our children. But what do we live to them ? |
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MDGs - EPISODE 4
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MDGs - EPISODE 4
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Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development |
Although the world economy and
security have become highly interconnected and the well being of each nation
has a quick impact on the others, the nations are little prepared to work as
a team in addressing the global issues. Although nations interact in a
global village, they relate among themselves with inadequate spirit of
solidarity.
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Vrinda explains |
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| Fabio Melloni |
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Every year, landmines kill 15,000 to 20,000 people, most of them children, women and the elderly, and severely maim countless more. Although as many as 110 million land mines are scattered in around 70 countries, they still continue to be used as weapons of war. More recent landmines are most often made of plastic and are smaller and less detectable. These mines are fatal for children who often get attracted by their size, design and colour and pick them up thinking they are toys.
Landmines can be deactivated only by removing them one by one. Although producing a landmine costs 3 to 75 USD, removing a mine can cost from 300 –1000 USD. Mine disposal experts believe that despite the highly professional training they receive, for every 5000 mines cleared, a worker will be killed and two will be injured by accidental explosions.
One of the areas strewn with mines is around the Blue Line that marks the border between Israel and Lebanon. As part of their contribution to restoring international peace and security, the Italian forces of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or the UNIFIL, are responsible for clearing the mines. UNIFIL was established as part of the UN Security Council Resolution taken in March 1978 to ratify the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and to help the Lebanese Government regain sovereignty in the area. In Lebanon, UNIFIL also assists displaced persons and provides humanitarian assistance to civilians in the underdeveloped region of Southern Lebanon.
We went to the Blue Line in Southern Lebanon to meet some mine disposal experts who risk their lives every day so that others can live in peace. We saw how these experts diffused landmines.
Military cooperation among countries, under the UN umbrella, can also help maintain peace along contested borders. What once was a land strewn with mines, is now being cultivated, bringing economic benefit to the local population.
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P. Krishna is the Rector of the Krishnamurti Foundation India, |
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Backstage - Bulgaria - Challenges of public education in Europe |
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Municipalities and villages across the developing world are grappling with the problem of managing and treating the ever growing quantities of solid waste produced by its residents. Here, discarded plastic bags, biscuit packets, tetrapacks are a common horrifying sight along the roadsides. Lebanon is no exception to this hazard.
More than 700 illegal and unsafe dump sites are registered throughout the country. Enormous amounts of waste gets piled up illegally in unsafe dump sites. Some of these large dump sites along the coastline especially pose an environmental threat during heavy rains and stormy weather. Lack of funds among municipalities to manage or treat waste and the insufficient space for landfills, aggravates the waste disposal menace in Lebanon.
Italy is one of the major donors to the water supply, wastewater treatment and solid waste management sectors in Lebanon. Around 65,000 Lebanese citizens from nine municipalities directly benefit from the solid urban waste management project implemented in Lebanon by COSV, an Italian non-profit organisation, as part of cooperation efforts among the Lebanese and Italian governments to achieve the MDG targets. COSV rehabilitated a waste treatment plant in Bint Jbeil, in South Lebanon, and helped nine municipalities move towards differentiated waste-collection, using organic composting technologies. The plant is already treating over 60 percent of waste produced in the area and is preventing their disposal into local dumps. The recyclables and compost are sold locally and contribute to the maintenance of the plant.
Through this project, the technical and administrative personnel of the municipality have been trained in differentiated waste collection and management. Composting techniques have been introduced for recycling. And more important, local people saw the environmental benefits and adopted this project. They are continuing it on their own without further donor support. |
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Reflections |
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Youth in Syria comprise 35% of the working-age population and 61% of the unemployed population. In 2009, 13% of male youth and 49% of female youth (between the ages of 15 and 24) were unemployed. With 56% of the Syrians living in urban areas, a population growth of 2.7%, and literacy rates of more than 90%, youth face stiff competition in the labour market.
It was in this context that in 2010, the Syrian Enterprise & Business Centre (SEBC), the technical arm of the Ministry of Economy, in cooperation with the European Training Foundation (ETF) and funded by the European Union, launched SKILLS, an initiative aimed at training graduate students in diverse professional skills so that their employability is improved and in entrepreneurship skills so that they can start their own businesses. The vision of the SKILLS initiative is to build the national economy by equipping skilled professionals with qualifications and practical experience so that Syrian businesses and institutions have access to better qualified human resources and improve their global competitiveness.
Through the SKILLS courses, both employed and unemployed women acquired specialised skills in fields like journalism, secretarial services, business management, accounting, marketing and other professional fields where demand for trained and skilled staff was on the rise. Skills and knowledge gained through this project has helped women find jobs and/or improve their existing job positions.
Stefano, the director of this documentary, and his colleagues from Armadilla, an Italian non-government organisation, conducted a course on “Media for Development”. Young Syrian journalists and media professionals were trained in what and how to report to television audiences about global cooperation initiatives for development. The course provided both theoretical and practical knowledge and skills. The students learned about development programmes, international cooperation issues, global objectives like the MDGs. In order to see a cooperation project in action, they selected a few projects funded by the European Union in and around Damascus, the capital city of Syria. They did research on each of the projects; they interviewed the teams implementing the projects; and they met the beneficiaries. They understood the challenges and successes of each project and they developed communication stories on each of them. They filmed their research, edited their story, and discussed it in their class.
The students of the journalism course learned a new perspective on how to develop short documentaries on development issues. They all said that they would like to show these stories in televisions abroad so that people, whose governments support Syria, would know that how their money is helping the Syrian people and will continue to support such initiatives. |
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Zulfiquar Haider is the National Programme Coordinator for the Planning Commission (GoI) - UN, Joint Programme on Convergence. |
In India right from the time of Mahatma Gandhi the idea of a village republic, power to the people has been there. Over a period of time in the practice of development both in academia and practice, it has been apparent that once you have planning done locally then people have a better idea of their needs, aspiration and they will have ownership of ideas; and whatever therefore gets done will be much more efficient and effective. There is now a very strong commitment from the Government to get local communities more involved in development activities. There is space being given and if somebody can properly demonstrate how it can happen, it will be honored. This is what the program we are doing is trying to achieve. We want to demonstrate how the bottom up planning will actually function. How there can be convergent action around the people's own plans, how to give information to the communities as to what is happening to their plans and trying to identify the bottle necks of large government schemes at district levels - there is a lot of unspent money at district levels in India which is very sad. Why should we be identified so much with anything. One can have a fluid idea of identity. The danger is when we are so strongly identified that implicitly we are saying that our is the right way and the other is way is either lesser or wrong... and this is one of the fundamental reason of conflict and violence in the world. Honestly i don't think it takes too much intelligence to just observe life around to realize that what we hold on to are nothing more than conditioning. If a person is identified with a religion, it is just an accident of birth. Which would easily reaviel that there is nothing fundamental about it. So whatever perspective we carry are just conditioning based on socialization and the upbringing we had, so there isn't necessary a grand ultimate truth about it. Therefore there is no reason to hold on to it and say this is the only way. You can be flexible and curious about life. How to address this? I think we need
to create spaces and platforms where dialogue can happen, where people
can get relaxed about their identity.... and as child that curiosity
which is innate needs to be foster.
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The Syrian Enterprise & Business Centre (SEBC), the technical arm of the Ministry of Economy, in cooperation with the IBF International Consultancy of Belgium, launched the “Quality Management Programme” aimed at providing technical assistance and equipment to Syrian institutions for increasing the competitiveness of Syrian products in the international markets.
This 12 million Euro programme has now been temporarily suspended by the European Union. It was supporting the Syrian government in establishing a political and institutional environment for Syrian economic operators to adapt to a liberalising trade environment. Through the quality programme, the Syrian quality monitoring institutions were assisted in implementing the government’s new Quality Policy, formulating new legislations, introducing international quality controls on Syrian and imported products, getting international recognition from and associate with organisations like the ISO, and protecting the Syrian consumers. The programme also facilitates standardisation among products (testing results, technical items, services) of different producers. The objective is not only to make sure that products become comparable, interchangeable or fitting (ex: a bolt and nut produced in different factories), but also to facilitate trade.
According to a recently published article, only 500 out of 40,000 companies got their products certified in 2010. One of the sectors that still finds itself excluded from the quality certification processes is the Syrian bus assembly and manufacturing sector. A booming sector in the 70s and earlier certified by the Syrian government, this economic activity today faces serious challenges for survival. Has this happened because countries are now obliged to follow international standards for quality certifications?
Some of the journalists trained by Stefano on media reporting for development cooperation, as part of the SKILLS initiative in Damascus, filmed and reported some of the achievements and challenges of this programme. |
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Montek Singh Ahluwalia is the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Government of India. |
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Europe - Policy Maker - Nirj Deva (video)
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Jean Drèze is a development economist teaching and working in India. |
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Olivier Consolo is the Director of CONCORD, an European NGO confederation for Relief and Development. |
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Rajendra K. Pachauri , Nobel Peace Prize winner, is the Director General
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The Energy and Resources Institute, TERI.
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How can the youth approach studies and work for and inclusive development? Is joining the NGO the only way? Development is not just government, is not just civil society… it involves also the corporate sector. If a young person who is socially conscious is getting an MBA program, then in the course of studying for that MBA program then that person must also understand how he can be responsible towards society in business decision making. In each of our profession there is a great deal we can do, we don’t necessarily have to join an NGO to do good to society, we can do it in whatever profession we are in. Today companies are becoming much more sensitive towards these issues. |
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