SUSTAINABILITY Archives - Page 127 of 134

Gender Equality2016-07-292023-07-10

In Brazil, Girls Build Self-esteem Through Sport

What does being a winner mean? For 12-year old Adrielle Alexandre, who is carrying the Olympic torch, it’s not only about becoming an Olympic rhythmic gymnast, but to make her community a place free of violence and full of respect. She is among 400 girls who are participating in a programme in Brazil that empowers girls through sport and by creating safe spaces.

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – “I’ve learned from sport that we have to make efforts to succeed. We get nowhere if we stay at the same place doing nothing,” says Adrielle Alexandre, a 12-year old young athlete from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Gender Equality2016-07-282023-07-10

Jordan: Football Camps Plant Seeds of Friendship

For Syrian refugees in Jordan, integration into the Jordanian society is fraught with challenges. Mistrust and rumours taint how each group perceives the other. A project by UN Women organized football camps for adolescent girls, where Jordanian and Syrian girls built friendships and social cohesion.

UN Women News Feature

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – Rawan and Samah have much in common. They are about the same age; they live in the same city – Mafraq, in northern Jordan – just a short drive from the Syrian border. They are loving, dedicated mothers to daughters who go to the same school. They share similar responsibilities, joys, and struggles in their daily lives. But one crucial difference sets them a world apart.

Gender Equality2016-07-272023-07-10

Scoring for Gender Equality Through Sport

UN Women News Feature

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – Sport has the power to transcend boundaries of sex, race, religion and nationality. It promotes health and wellness, improves self-esteem, and teaches leadership, team skills and perseverance.

Women in sport defy gender stereotypes, make inspiring role models, and show men and women as equals. Seeing is one step closer to being.

Women are more visible in sport now than ever before: Of a total of 997 athletes, only 22 women competed, for the first time, at the 1900 Games in Paris. The London 2012 Olympics was the first Games in which women competed in every sport of the Olympic programme. In Rio, approximately 4,700 women – 45 per cent of all athletes – will represent their countries in 306 events.

DEVNET2016-07-222023-07-10

Development Cooperation Critical for Asia-Pacific Countries

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – A high-ranking United Nations official has stressed the need to translate the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development into national planning and budgetary processes.

This is particularly important in countries with special needs, declared the head of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) on the sidelines of the fifth biennial high-level meeting of the Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) in New York on July 21. GERMAN | HINDI | SPANISH

Peace & Justice2016-07-212023-07-10

Behind Turkey’s Failed Coup and its Puzzling Aftermath

Analysis by Jacques N. Couvas

ANKARA (IDN) – The fourth and latest military coup in the history of the Turkish Republic ended at 8:02 p.m. on Saturday, July 16, less than 24 hours after it had begun. It was bloody. And it failed.

Hardly a week later, the state of emergency has been declared, tens of thousands of state and military personnel have been dismissed and three million servants recalled from holidays.

As the Turkish people recover from the psychological shock following the events, questions and all kinds of theories fill the discussions in the squares, cafés and social media. They are wondering “why” and “why now”? And then, “what is next”? All this on the assumption that everyone agrees with the answer to the question “who did it”?

Decent Work & Economic Growth2016-07-202023-07-10

Reforestation in Oxapampa: Peru’s Challenges and Priorities

By Fernando Torres Morán

LIMA (IDN) – Oxapampa is a province in the Pasco Region, in the high jungle area of Peru, which is home to the Oxapampa-Asháninka-Yanesha Biosphere Reserve that was recognised by UNESCO in 2010.

The reserve houses a number of protected natural areas such as the Yanachaga Chemillen National Park, with an area of 122 thousand hectares (spread over the districts of Huancabamba, Oxapampa, Villa Rica and Pozuzo) and the San Matías-San Carlos Protection Forest, with an area of 145,818 hectares (spread over the districts of Palcazu, Puerto Bermudez and Villa Rica).

Over the decades, the area has suffered forest depredation, and Peru’s non-governmental Pronaturaleza foundation for the conservation of nature has recently condemned the illegal felling of trees in the Yanachaga Chemillen National Park, including the extraction of one hundred thousand planks of wood from trees such as thyme, cedar and fig.

Health & Well Being2016-07-192023-07-10

UNICEF Needs Funds to Keep 244,000 Nigerian Children Alive

GENEVA (IDN) – The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF appealed for $55.5 million early 2016 to respond to the humanitarian crisis in north-east Nigeria, but has so far only received 41 percent or $23 million.

Now that the scale of the humanitarian crisis caused by the Boko Haram emergency continues to unfold, and UNICEF finds that nearly a quarter of a million children are severely malnourished in Borno state, northeast Nigeria, and face a high risk of death, it expects the appeal to increase significantly.

Out of the 244,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition in Borno, an estimated 49,000 children – almost one in five – will die if they are not reached with treatment, UNICEF said on July 19, and urged all partners to join the humanitarian response and donors to urgently provide resources.

DEVNET2016-07-172023-07-10

Japan Needs ‘Crime of Conspiracy’ to Prevent Terrorism

Viewpoint by Katsuei Hirasawa *

TOKYO (IDN) – The world is now shaken by the terror of Islamic extremists and Japan is not unrelated to this terrorism.

Japan is an island nation that does not have a direct border with another country. We do not accept many immigrants as in Western countries and, therefore, we do not take enough counter-terrorism measures because of our peace of mind as a unified nation.

Some of us even regard large-scale terrorist attacks in many parts of the world as the opposite bank of the fire. In the past, the Asama-Sansō hostage-taking case and JAL plane hijacking by the Coalition Red Army occurred, which were theatrical crimes and were reported live on TV. Most Japanese people may have not recognised them as terrorism. SPANISH | GERMAN | HINDI | JAPANESE

DEVNET2016-07-112023-07-10

UN Spurs Sustainable Development in North and Central Asia

By Devinder Kumar

NEW DELHI (IDN) – Within days of being elected as non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for two years beginning January 1, Kazakhstan has affirmed its “commitment to work in partnership to address the critical social and economic development needs of the people of North and Central Asia”.

An agreement for the purpose was signed on July 11 in Bangkok between the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the Government Kazakhstan. GERMAN | HINDI | JAPANESE | SPANISH

Climate Action2016-07-082023-07-10

New Partnership to Implement Paris Climate Change Agreement

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN (IDN) – Many developing countries have made their first ever commitment to complying with climate targets with the adoption of the Paris Agreement endorsed in December 2015. A new partnership – initiated jointly by the German Ministry for the Environment and that for Economic Cooperation and Development together with the World Resources Institute (WRI) – now aims to help them transform these targets into specific strategies and measures.

The initiative aims at supporting developing countries in specifying and implementing their nationally determined contributions and help them unify existing climate and development goals with a view to achieving greater harmonisation of various donor programmes. The partnership will be officially launched at the Marrakesh climate conference (COP22) in November.