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Development e -Brief

October 22, 2004: Issue 16

Women. This will take place on November 25, and is sponsored by the United Nations with the theme of “Not a Minute More,” to raise awareness and explore issues related to violence against women. http://www.unifem.org/campaigns/november25/

The Lorenzo Natali Prize 2004.
Nomination deadline: 31 October 2004. Created by the European Commission in 1992, the Lorenzo Natali Prize for Journalism is awarded each year to “journalists from the written and on-line press who stood out for their remarkable understanding and particular involvement in reporting on Human Rights and Democracy. In 2004, the EC will award a prize for each of the five world regions: a) Europe, b) Africa, the Arab world, Iran and Israel 3) Asia and the Pacific, 4) Latin America and the Caribbean. All the nominated journalists will be the EC's hosts of honour at the awards ceremony in Brussels in December 2004. Winners will receive a Trophy and Euro 10,000”. http://www.nataliprize.info/

NEWS

Lead: “After forced evictions, the Egyptian Government authorities threaten further eviction of homeless families from their Relief tents. The Egyptian Centre for Housing Rights (ECHR), HIC-MENA and HIC-HLRN are calling all concerned organizations and individuals to send protest letters to the Egyptian authorities insisting on the protection of the 18 vulnerable tent-dwelling families in al-Wahayid. The letters should also denounce the official policy and practices of forced evictions, house demolitions and further dispossession of impoverished citizens. ECHR also urges respondents to protest the Egyptian authorities’ official refusal to provide legal assistance and gratuitous physical violence carried out against the citizens especially in al-Duwiqqa.”For more info and/or sample letters write to
echr@echr.org or urgentactions@hlrn.org see http://www.hlrn.org

Bank Computer Donation Program.
The Bank has launched a program that will donate over 12,000 computers to needy groups around the world. “The machines, from more than 100 Bank offices, will be distributed over the next nine months to non-government organizations, community and non-profit groups that are primarily involved in health care, education, social services, youth and job training. Each computer will be loaded with a new operating system as well as software, donated by ‘Teachers without Borders’ that can help users earn a Certificate of Teaching Mastery. World Links, a nongovernment organization that specializes in working with

youth, will receive approximately 5,000 of the computers to use in their world-wide educational programs.”

IRIN News article: "The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Kyrgyzstan has teamed up with the State Commission on Religious Affairs and local Muslim clergy to launch a unique campaign against HIV/AIDS that aims to educate religious leaders”.

Agreement to Build and Repair Schools in Iraq. Lead: “The Bank signed a $60 million grant agreement with Iraq’s Ministry of Education to finance construction of new buildings for over 100 schools and to make urgent repairs to140 primary and secondary schools across 18 governorates. Financed by the Iraq Trust Fund, a multi-donor trust fund administered by the Bank, the project focuses on schools that are overcrowded or housed in unsafe buildings. The Emergency School Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Project was signed during an international donors meeting in Tokyo”.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:20267584~menuPK:34464~pagePK:64003015~piPK:64003012~theSitePK:4607,00.html

REPORTS & BOOKS & ARTICLES

Eye to Eye - Women Practising Development across Cultures. Edited by Susan Perry and Celeste Schenck, this publication by Zed Books, is a “collection of articles/essays that spans economics, politics, law, education and literature - examining the role of culture in the development process. The

focus is on seven crucial debates within the field of gender and development”.

http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do~1022825~intcmp=00001

Gender, Conflict and Development. Lead: “This volume is organized around major themes such as female combatants, sexual violence, formal and informal peace processes, the legal framework, work, the rehabilitation of social services and community-driven development. For each theme, it analyzes how conflict changes gender roles. It also offers policy options that might be considered to build on positive aspects while minimizing adverse changes.”

Gender and Migration in Arab States: The Case of Domestic Workers. This publication is written by Esim, S.and Smith, M. (ed), 2004. It presents an ILO regional review in addition to four country studies from Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon and United Arab Emirates. For this publication perform a search at; http://www.siyanda.org/search/

Learning from Experience: Strengthening Organisations of Women with Disabilities. This case study analyses the experiences and lessons learnt from the Disabled Women's Programme in Nicaragua. For this publication perform a search at:

Domestic Violence Resource Manual and Leaflets. “Domestic violence is the most prevalent form of violence against women. Help & Shelter in Guyana has involved a public education strategy which involves a series of activities to raise awareness - ranging from five minute sermons to five

Gender and ICTs: Cutting Edge Pack. This pack produced by BRIDGE (2004) answers questions such as who benefits from ICTs? Who is dictating the course of ICTs? Is it possible to harness ICTs to serve larger goals of equality and justice? Lead: “Dramatic changes brought about by ICTs have created new economic and social opportunities the world over. Their use, however, continues to be governed by existing power relations. Amidst this inequality are individuals and organisations that are working tirelessly to use these technologies to further gender equality and social justice” http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/reports_gend_CEP.html

Building knowledge societies: the Renewal of Democratic Practices in Knowledge Societies. This paper looks at the “political consequences of knowledge societies (social groups using ICTs to communicate knowledge), in particular the policy implications for promoting democracy and good governance. It examines the evidence for the relationship between use of the Internet and indicators of civic engagement”.Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC15657

ICT as an Enabler for Growth, Development and Competitiveness: Implications for national and International policies and actions. Summary: "An interactive debate among Governments, private-sector representatives and civil society on the role of ICT as an enabler for growth and competitiveness in developing countries”. Included in the site is a summary of the conclusions of the session.

A Year in Iraq. This is a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) report that highlights emergency relief and reconstruction aid delivered to Iraq by USAID and the Coalition Provisional Authority during the 12 months since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April, 2003.

NGOs v the World Bank: who is the real champion of the poor? This paper by Sebastian Mallaby asks whether “NGO advocacy groups are acting against the interests of the poor and of international development through unreasonable criticism of the World Bank and similar agencies”. Lead: "The Bank designs a reasonable project, which inevitably has flaws. NGOs seize on these flaws and add a large sprinkling of inflammatory rhetoric. The World Bank pulls out, but the project goes ahead anyway, without the Bank's social and environmental safeguards". http://www.eldis.org/questioning

Health Status Statistics. These statistics derived from the UN are ones for the MENA region. They particularly highlight statistics for Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. The statistics not only reveal trends in health but also trends related to technological consumption i.e. the amount of internet users, television sets per thousand etc. http://www.comminit.com/pdf/MENATrendsTheDigitalPulse.pdf

Civil Society Budget Monitoring For National Accountability. This report covers the key lessons learnt and conclusions following a three day budget tracking workshop held in Malawi in February 2004. The prime objective of the workshop was “to bring together individuals and representatives of organisations involved in budget monitoring, or developing monitoring processes and tools, with a view to developing a supportive community of practice of those

Bartering for Food: The Connection between Culture, Famine, and Poverty. Lead: “A close relationship exists between culture and blocked access to food. When people face hunger, particularly when they face famine, they frequently turn to cultural traditions in search of a safety net. A good example is the use of barter, which increases in breadth and intensity as food supplies grow shorter. Barter is still used under normal circumstances by some indigenous groups in rural areas. But for most people, especially in urban and semiurban settings, barter is a last resort, a falling back on traditions of the past in order to survive a crisis in the present”.

The Global Trade & Technology Network. This article relates the the Global Trade & Technology Network (GTN) which is a USAID program that promotes economic growth in developing countries through trade, investment, and technology transfer. ‘GTN assists small- and medium-sized enterprises to build trade linkages, identify investment’. http://topics.developmentgateway.org/trade/rc/ItemDetail.do~1012837~intcmp=00001

Risk Instability and the Pattern OF Foreign Direct Investment in the Middle East and North Africa Region.

This publication is from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Lead: “The need to account for stability in investment risk is particularly important for countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which historically have a higher level of instability associated with investment risk than developed countries. This paper presents an empirical analysis of risk instability of foreign direct investment (FDI) within the MENA region, in addition to recommending possible ways of reducing risk instability. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2004/wp04139.pdf

ESCWA published a study on “Responding to Globalization: “Responding to Globalization: Connecting Stock Markets to Achieve Regional Integration in the ESCWA Region”. It was commissioned by its Member states as part of the commission’s agenda for 2002-2003. The “issues and challenges facing Member States in connecting regional stock markets were designated, with special emphasis given to all manner of technical details, be they in relation to companies, legislation and organization, and needed infrastructure”.http://www.escwa.org.lb/

A New Highlight on the Development Gateway Discusses Intra-household Gender Disparities and Access to Food. By visiting the Gender and Development page on the development gateway a series of articles and research can be found about gender and its related topics.

GENIA Toolkit for Promoting Gender Equality in Education. This is produced by UNESCO. The GENIA toolkit provides a collection of practical resources for gender focal points in Asian Ministries of Education (MoE). For this report perform a search at; http://www.siyanda.org/search/

The International Volunteer Programs Association. According to its website IVPA is, "an alliance of non-profit, non-governmental organizations based in the Americas, that are involved in international volunteer and internship exchanges. IVPA encourages excellence and responsibility in the field of international aid”

Millennium development goals Internet Portal. The UNNGLS (United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service), an interagency programme of the United Nations that promotes cooperation between the UN system and Non-Governmental Organizations on economic and development issues, has

Working with a new league of virtual volunteers. Lead: “Volunteers from around the world are helping organizations that serve communities in developing countries - without leaving their own communities. These online volunteers translate documents, write articles, research data, build websites, mentor young people, design logos, and engage in many other projects to benefit organizations serving people in the developing world”. Online volunteers are volunteers without frontiers. www.onlinevolunteering.org/why_volunteer.htm

The International Volunteer Programs Association. IVPA is, according to its website, "an alliance of nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations based in the Americas, that are involved in international volunteer and internship exchanges. IVPA encourages excellence and responsibility in the field of international volunteerism”

Involving the Community: A Guide to Participatory Development Communication. This guide introduces “participatory development communication concepts, discusses the effective two-way communication approaches and presents a methodology to plan, develop, and evaluate effective communication strategies”.

Toolkit: Proposal Writing and Fundraising. Providing “practical suggestions for applying for funding and proposal writing, this toolkit is based on interviews with experienced research fundraisers in both developing and developed countries”. http://www.gdnet.org/online_services/toolkits/proposal_writing

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