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11 December, 2004
 

Table Of Contents

 

Secretary-General: 2005 Critical To Reforming UN To Face HIV/AIDS, Genocide, Terrorism 1

The coming year is critical for the United Nations to make the necessary reforms to deal effectively with a new globalization of threats, from HIV/AIDS, nuclear proliferation and genocide to terrorism capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people, Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the General Assembly on 8 December.

"No country can afford to deal with today's threats alone, and no threat can be dealt with effectively unless other threats are addressed at the same time," he said at the start of informal consultations on the findings of the panel he appointed to look into how the global community could address new security threats, including UN reform.

Praising the report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, Mr. Annan noted that the UN had "done a good job in many instances and is often undervalued," but it needed possibly radical changes.

"It is hardly possible to over-state what is at stake, not only for this Organization but for all the peoples of this world, for whose safety this Organization was created," he said. "If we do not act resolutely, and together, the threats described in the report can overwhelm us.

"Do we want the human cost of HIV/AIDS to accumulate to the point where societies and states collapse? Do we want to face a future cascade of nuclear proliferation?" he asked.

"Next time we are faced with genocide, will we again resign ourselves to watching passively until it is too late? Do we want to raise our children in a world where small groups of terrorists can murder hundreds of thousand at any moment?"

Mr. Annan appointed the 16-member panel of prominent politicians, diplomats and development experts a year ago to assess the current threats facing the world and recommend policy and institutional changes to deal with them.

They came out with 101 proposals for dealing with the six areas identified as being the greatest threats to worldwide security in the 21st century: continued poverty and environmental degradation, terrorism, civil war, conflict between states, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and organized crime.

"They have risen to the challenge _ and now the burden falls on you," Mr. Annan said. "It is up to you, the Member States, to act on their recommendations and to make 2005 the year of change at the United Nations."

He said some of the proposals were in his purview and he intended to take the lead in promoting "a new comprehensive, principled strategy" against terrorism.

He stressed the recommendation urging Member States to support and fully fund a Directorate of Security for implementing a new staff security system in 2005.

"Recent events have taught us, in the most painful way imaginable, how necessary that is _ and rigorous investigation has shown that the losses we have suffered are in large part due to defects in our system," he said in a veiled reference to last year's terrorist bombing of Baghdad's UN headquarters that killed 22 people including Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello.

"Those defects must be remedied. Let me remind you, once again, that UN staff serve in dangerous environments not for my satisfaction, nor yet for their own, but because you, the Member States, have decided that their work is needed there."

In March Mr. Annan is due to submit to the Assembly his review on the implementation of the Millennium Declaration, a pledge world leaders made in 2000 to significantly reduce the world's ills, and he said he would draw heavily not only on the Panel's report but also on members' discussions of it in the coming months.

"I said that 2005 is important," he concluded. "It is, indeed, critical. We must make progress, and come to agreement on the changes we need to in this Organization. It is not simply a matter of making the Organization better. It is a matter of confronting, in the only way possible, the real and present dangers that lie in wait for us."

 

S-G Urges Greater Efforts To Rid World Of Landmines 2

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 3 December welcomed progress in clearing anti-personnel mines in recent years, but warned that these indiscriminate weapons continue to exact a heavy civilian toll.

"Anti-personnel mines still kill and maim innocent people every day, and hold back entire communities in working their way out of poverty," Mr. Annan, who is in New York, told the Nairobi Summit on a Mine-Free World by satellite hook-up. "We cannot rest until all landmines are cleared, and these indiscriminate weapons banished forever."

He hailed the progress made since the adoption, five years ago, of the Anti-personnel Mine-Ban, which has 144 States parties, and pledged the UN's full backing for the Summit's goals. 

The Secretary-General urged pressure on States, "including some of the world's largest," to become parties to the treaty, and called for assistance to help poor countries meet their obligations to clear mined areas. The United States and the Russian Federation have not signed the pact.

Mr. Annan also called attention to the problem of explosive remnants of war, urging all countries to ratify Protocol V to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which deals with that ordnance.

"Today, 14 UN agencies, programmes, departments and funds are working in mine action in more than 30 countries," he said. "We will sustain our efforts, and we will do our best to help improve coordination, since each year, more and more organizations are joining this great cause."

 

Sec-Gen Calls For End To Negative Stereotypes Of Believers In Islam 3

Seeing Islam as a monolith, distorting its tenets and equating Arabs with the entire Islamic world are among the many practices that now make up the prejudice called Islamophobia and must be stopped, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said on 7 December.

"Islam's tenets are frequently distorted and taken out of context, with particular acts or practices being taken to represent or to symbolize a rich and complex faith," he said in an address entitled "Confronting Islamophobia: Education for Tolerance and Understanding," part of a UN-sponsored series on "Unlearning Intolerance."

"Some claim that Islam is incompatible with democracy, or irrevocably hostile to modernity and the rights of women. And in too many circles, disparaging remarks about Muslims are allowed to pass without censure, with the result that prejudice acquires a veneer of acceptability."

No one should underestimate the resentment and sense of injustice that members of one of the world's great religions, cultures and civilizations felt as they looked at unresolved conflicts in the Middle East, the situation in Chechnya and the atrocities against Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, Mr. Annan said. 

"But we should remember that these are political reactions - disagreements with specific policies. All too often, they are mistaken for an Islamic reaction against Western values, sparking an anti-Islamic backlash," he said.

The first seminar in the series, organized by the Educational Outreach Section of the UN Department of Public Information (DPI), took place on 21 June with an opening address by Mr. Annan and fellow-Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel as keynote speaker. It was called "Confronting Anti-Semitism: Education for Tolerance and Understanding."

Like other religions, Mr. Annan said, the Islamic world grouped together modernizers and traditionalists and the most populous Muslim countries are not Arab, but are located in non-Arab Asia, from Indonesia to part-Asian, part-European Turkey.

Despite the ferocity and prevalence of xenophobia, "people are not hard-wired for prejudice," he said. "In some cases they are taught to hate. In others, they are manipulated into it by leaders who exploit fear, ignorance, or feelings of weakness."

Unlearning intolerance was partly a matter of legally protecting human and civil rights, as well as providing relevant education, leadership, social integration and dialogue, he said.

Dialogue should include day-to-day contacts which "can be especially useful in demystifying the `other'," Mr. Annan said.

In his keynote speech, Prof. Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University in Washington, DC, questioned the use today of the suffix "phobia," saying that when Islam rose and covered land from France to China within one century, the Christian West had a fear of Islam that was both religious and political.

By contrast, the non-Islamic world today was very powerful from many points of view. Unfortunately, the reservoir of historical consciousness had been resurrected and Islamophobia was not only a question of fear, but also a matter of hatred, Professor Nasr said.

Muslims were not trying to be aggressive, they were trying to be themselves, he said, but in many areas that effort had led to fanaticism and the fanaticism on one side was feeding the fanaticism on the other side.

In analyzing Islamophobia, therefore, it was important to take into account not only the role of extremism in Islam, but also the role of extremism among Christians and Jews, he said.

 

Sec-Gen: Amidst Great Changes Families Remain Resilient But Need Help 4

Families are resilient to far-reaching changes in their size and structure but governments must do their part to protect society's smallest unit, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on 6 December at the General Assembly session marking the 10th anniversary of the International Year of the Family.

Spurred on by global integration, "where once people lived in extended families, today they live increasingly in nuclear families," he said, citing decreasing fertility rates, increasing life expectancy, delayed marriage and growing numbers of people living alone as contributing factors.

"Traditional gender roles continue to evolve, as more women work outside the home and more men contribute to the work within it."

The AIDS epidemic is creating more orphans and imposing more burdens on grandparents, while migration in search of opportunities could keep family members apart for a very long time, Mr. Annan said.

"In spite of strains and adversity, families are proving resilient, often in remarkable ways," he said. "They are doing their best to pull together, and to continue serving as a source of strength and inspiration for their members."

Governments should integrate family concerns with broader development and poverty eradication efforts, he said. "We must not forget that the family is a vital partner in efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the many other objectives set by the international community during the last decade." The MDGs are a set of time-bound targets for tackling major global ills by the year 2015.

 

S-G: Afghanistan At Risk As Troops Leave Following Successful Presidential Poll 5

On the eve of the inauguration of Afghanistan's first democratically elected President, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan says that despite key political gains, the country faces broad security threats as coalition and other international troops reduce their ranks.

In a new report to both the General Assembly and the Security Council, Mr. Annan cites extremist or terrorist attacks, factional clashes among militia forces and criminal violence often linked to narcotrafficking.

"Without substantial progress in addressing the sources of insecurity, reconstruction efforts and the establishment of viable State institutions will continue to falter, and the economy may well be subsumed by the illicit-drugs industry," he warns.

"The deployment now of additional international forces, with robust and uniform rules of engagement, can provide the critical space in which progress can be made in the mutually reinforcing areas of security-sector reform, anti-narcotics activities, reconstruction, expansion of government authority and imposition of the rule of law."

At the same time, the report notes that for the first time, Afghans have "a directly elected President endowed with a strong popular mandate."

President Hamid Karzai has an opportunity now to select an effective Cabinet that is able to extend government authority throughout the country and deliver basic services, Mr. Annan writes, adding that a competent and diverse administration will be critical for advancing national reconciliation.

He also says that the gradual handing over of functions to the Afghan Government - for example, in the electoral field and in demining - "is a positive indicator of developments" over the past three years, since the Bonn Agreement set up the transitional phase now in place.

Many issues, including social indicators and human rights, remain insufficiently addressed, he adds. But the Secretary-General asserts that "it is a cause for hope and optimism that Afghans have embraced with such enthusiasm the transition to civilian, democratic rule."

 

Sec-Gen Congratulates Karzai As First Democratically Elected Afghan President 6

Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 7 December congratulated Afghan President Hamid Karzai on his inauguration as the country's first democratically elected leader and pledged full support to the completion of the Bonn agenda, which three years ago this month set Afghanistan on the transition to full democracy.

"This election and the recently adopted Constitution the President swore to uphold today are two key milestones inthe building of a strong democratic state in that country," Mr. Annan said in a statement issued by his spokesman.

"The Secretary-General wishes President Karzai and the people of Afghanistan success as they take on the multiple tasks of stabilization and reconstruction, including the preparation of the upcoming parliamentary elections," the statement added. "He is gratified by the contribution that the United Nations has been able to make to the process of transition so far."

The world body helped organize the elections and other reconstruction efforts after sponsoring talks in December 2001, in Bonn, Germany, which set up provisional arrangements pending establishment of a permanent government following the ouster of the Taliban regime by United States-led forces the previous month.

 

ILO: Better Jobs, Fairer Globalization Needed To Halve World's Poor By 2015 7

With half the world's workers unable to earn enough to rise above the $2 a day poverty line, fairer globalization and better jobs are vital to achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the number of global poor by 2015, according to a new report published on 7 December.

Of some 2.8 billion people employed globally in 2003 _ more than ever before _ nearly 1.4 billion _ also the highest number ever _ are living on less than $2 a day, with 500 million on less than $1, although the actual percentage is lower today than in 1990, the UN International Labour Office (ILO) World Employment Report 2004-2005 says.

The share of people working under $2 a day has declined to 49.7 per cent in 2003, from 57.2 per cent in 1990, and may drop to around 40 per cent in 2015.

"The key to reducing the number of working poor is creating decent and productive employment opportunities and promoting a fairer globalization as strategies for poverty reduction," ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said. "It is not only the absence of work that is the source of poverty, but the less productive nature of that work. Productivity growth, after all, is the engine of the economic growth that enables working men and women to earn enough to lift themselves out of poverty."

The report calls for increasing productivity and earnings in agriculture since a large share of workers in this sector are informally employed and living in poverty. Agriculture employs over 40 per cent of developing countries' workers and contributes over 20 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP).

It notes that those regions that have managed to increase productivity in the longer run and to create job opportunities are more likely to be on track to reach the MDG of halving poverty by 2015.

There is a chance to halve the global proportion of $1 a day working poor by 2015 since the global annual GDP growth rate needed would be 4.7 per cent, less than the 5 per cent rate projected between 1995 and 2005. This projection is heavily influenced by rapid growth in China, Southeast Asia and South Asia. Transition economies and the Middle East and North Africa should also meet the goal. But Latin America and the Caribbean most likely will not and sub-Saharan Africa is significantly off track.

The outlook for halving $2 a day working poverty, however, is less promising. Only East Asia has a realistic chance, whereas none of the other regions will succeed unless their GDP growth rates increase considerably.

 

FAO: Minimal Investments Can Boost Efforts To Reduce Chronic Hunger Worldwide 8

Efforts to reduce chronic hunger in developing countries are not on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the number of starving people worldwide by 2015 but that target can still be attained with minimal costs relative to the benefits gained, according to a new United Nations report released on 8 December.

With the number of hungry people rising to 852 million in the 2000-2002 period, up by 18 million from the mid-1990s, the human and economic costs of hunger will only increase if the trend is not reversed, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says in its annual hunger report, The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2004.

More than 30 developing countries have already shown that progress is possible towards meeting the MDG through agricultural and rural development, the report notes.

Hunger and malnutrition kill more than 5 million children every year and cost developing countries billions of dollars in lost productivity, yet the resources needed to effectively prevent this human and economic tragedy are minuscule when compared to the benefits, according to the report.

Without the direct costs of dealing with the damage caused by hunger, more funds would be available to combat other social problems. "A very rough estimate suggests that these direct costs add up to around $30 billion per year _ over five times the amount committed so far to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria," it says.

In addition, there are the indirect costs of lost productivity and income. For example, tolerating the current levels of child malnutrition will result in productivity and income losses over their lifetimes of between $500 billion to $1 trillion at present value.

Yet every dollar invested in reducing hunger can yield from five to over 20 times as much in benefits, it stresses.

"More than 30 countries, representing nearly half the population of the developing world, provide proof that rapid progress is possible as well as lessons in how that progress can be achieved," the report says. These countries _ including Brazil, China, Haiti, Indonesia, Jamaica, Nigeria, Syria and Viet Nam _ have reduced the percentage of hungry people by at least 25 per cent during the 1990s.

The report points to "ample evidence" that rapid progress can be made by applying a twin-track strategy attacking both the causes and consequences of extreme poverty and hunger. Track one includes interventions to improve food availability and incomes for the poor by enhancing their productive activities. Track two features targeted programmes that give the most needy families direct and immediate access to food.

The report recommends that countries adopt large-scale programmes to promote primarily agriculture and rural development on which the majority of the poor and hungry depend for their livelihoods.

 

WFP And India Sign Accord On AIDS Prevention, Treatment 9

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the Government of India have signed a landmark cooperation agreement for addressing HIV and AIDS by using surplus Indian food to improve nutrition.

"WFP is proud to be a partner in this ground-breaking project and I am confident it will fulfill its dual purpose: to bring infection rates in the AIDS pandemic under control and give people living with the disease a longer and healthier life," WFP Executive Director James Morris said on 6 December.

He added that the accord, signed during a two-day conference staged by the Government's National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), was just one example of the growing links between India and WFP.

On a five-day official visit to India, Mr. Morris said the Asian economic powerhouse had both large grain reserves and vast experience in public food security programmes that can be marshalled for the benefit of the millions of hungry poor in Asia and around the world.

"WFP's partnership with India has tremendous potential for identifying innovative solutions to the problems not only of food insecurity but also the rising HIV rates and the natural disasters endemic to the region," he declared.

Sound nutrition is critical for people who are HIV-positive. When a patient develops AIDS, family food supplies often plummet. WFP will supply technical expertise in a three-year project that uses food in a variety of ways to encourage prevention, care and support of people living with HIV and AIDS as well as the treatment of opportunistic infections like tuberculosis.

Mr. Morris noted that the Government of India had agreed to work with WFP to explore ways of applying India's strengths, such as emergency response to natural disasters, food-for-work programmes and communications technology, to the eradication of hunger and poverty, with a special focus on helping children.

The Government is WFP's leading "non-traditional" donor, with its pledge of one million tons of wheat to Afghanistan, delivered through the UN agency.

 

FAO: World Tea Production Hit Record High In 2003 10

World tea production last year reached a record 3.15 million tons, 75,000 tons more than in 2002, largely due to favourable weather conditions, according to a report released on 6 December by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

India accounted for the lion's share at 27.4 per cent, followed by China with 24.6 per cent, Sri Lanka with 9.75 per cent and Kenya with 9.4 per cent.

Despite the record production, prices stood firm. The FAO composite price averaged $1.48 per kilo from January to June 2003 and increased to an average of $1.55 per kilo in the second half of the year as a result of seasonal variation.