The United Nations Organization brings food, medicines, provisions and hope to situations where before there was little or no hope. Its employees risk their lives saving the elderly, defenceless women and children, the homeless, the dislocated, the starving, the frightened. Yet this does not protect them, for there are those who blackmail, kidnap or even kill UN staff doing their best just to help. Now as a result, the lives of nearly two million people are at risk.

Somalia is an example of chaos, a failed State where the rule of the gun substitutes the rule of law, where in a good year only 40% of the population is fed through internal production and where in the last five years, this only fed a third of the population. All the more reason for the help of the UNO.

Despite having worked tirelessly to save millions of people - including many women and children - from starvation, disease and violence, despite having set up networks of food distribution amid the utter chaos, despite having saved the lives of some 1.8 million people, this is obviously not enough for the evil marauding gangs.

To put a name to these: the Al Shabaab opposition group ("The Youth"), a radical Islamist group which has created instability in 95% of the territory where the UN's World Food Program operates. Recent violence has reached such a level whereby it is unsafe for the WFP to operate, which in turn places at risk the lives of the close to two million people it helps.

To date and before the latest violence against the Organization, Al Shabaab has demanded that the WFP remove women from operations and has demanded payments of 20.000 USD every six months to allow the food distribution program to be carried out. The result of the upsurge in "inhumane attacks" against humanitarian workers is that it has become "virtually impossible" to continue helping those most at need, according to the latest statement issued by the WFP.

However it is not only in Somalia where humanitarian workers become targets. In 2009, no less than 28 UN staff members were murdered while on duty, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza and Darfur. Stephen Kisambira, UN Staff Union President, declared in a statement yesterday explaining that "Once again, UN personnel had to pay with their lives for their effort to assist populations in distress".

For Stephen Kisambira, the way forward is the ratification of the Convention and Optional Protocol on the Safety of UN and Associated Personnel by Member States so as to create responsibility and accountability for States to protect these aid workers.

After all, they are part of an impartial, non-political humanitarian agency which simply does what it can to help those most in need.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

PRAVDA.Ru

This afternoon, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Special Envoy President Bill Clinton launched a joint appeal for international donors not to forget Haiti, as the rebuilding and aid efforts enter their second month. While the media circus has moved on, the World Health Organization singles out Cuba for its fundamental contribution towards the healthcare and well-being of Haiti's citizens.

The figure PRAVDA.Ru gave for the casualties just days after the earthquake was 200,000 while other international media outlets were speaking of 50 to 100,000. Today, the official figure is over 200,000 dead and a further 300,000 injured, over 1 million homeless and over 2 million dependent upon aid. 1.2 million are living in temporary camps and extreme weather conditions are about to strike. Right from the beginning, Pravda.Ru has stayed on the story, knowing that the media circus would soon get bored and drift away to find a new two-week adrenalin fix for the viewers and readers addicted to a drum-beat fix of hard and fast stories to pep up their lives.

However, for the sake of the people of Haiti, a massive reconstruction program is under way, which will take years, not months, to complete. As attention moves away from this devastated island, UN Secretary-General, Special Envoy President Bill Clinton and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, launch a joint appeal this afternoon, reminding the international community of the pledges given after the UN called for a 575 million USD package in emergency aid three days after the January 12 quake.

The World Health Organization stated in its latest update that the Haitian Health Ministry was virtually decapitated by the earthquake, due to the fact that over 200 ministry staff members died when the building collapsed, apart from many healthcare professionals. "Haiti's entire health system, from its infrastructure to the very staff and system that operated it, has been deeply affected by the Earthquake", the WHO reports.

Today, the main structural needs to be addressed are providing shelter, the removal of rubble and the creation of basic sanitation networks, while healthcare has to be focussed around the post-operative phase, providing follow-up for patients who underwent surgery, rehabilitation services and rendering facilities and services in overcrowded situations.

Cuba praised

The WHO report highlighted the tremendous help offered by Cuba, which apart from training (gratuitously) 80 Haitian doctors per year, every year, sent 1,300 doctors, in addition to the hundreds of healthcare workers already providing assistance in Haiti. The WHO Representative for Haiti, Henriette Chamouillet, stated that "They are absolutely important" for Haiti. Praise which is well deserved, but hardly ever referred to in the international media.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

PRAVDA.Ru

Thursday is the UN World Humanitarian Day, in which the United Nations remembers the heroic efforts of those who risk their lives, and sometimes pay the ultimate price, in the most devastated and dangerous corners of the globe to bring assistance, hope and a life to the victims. A noble precept...but are opposing forces not at play here?

How many of those States which sign Humanitarian Conventions and Protocols and pledge aid and assistance, dropping bags of grain with their country's flag or initials stamped visibly and boldly on the side, are not also making billions out of producing or selling weapons systems?

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UN report points towards education reversal trends due to the world financial crisis, while the rich countries found 3 trillion USD to bail out the banks. The reason? The world's "haves" have failed to live up to their promises to deliver financing for the "have nots" many of whom are in their current plight because they were held back for decades. Worse, the "haves" are lying about how much aid they give.

The UNESCO Education for All - Global Monitoring Report 2010, "Reaching the Marginalized" states that "While rich countries nurture their economic recovery, many poor countries face the imminent prospect of education reversals". UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova considers "We cannot afford to create a lost generation of children who have been deprived of their chance for an education that might lift them out of poverty".

According to Kevin Watkins, Director of Global Monitoring report,  "Rich countries have mobilized a financial mountain to stabilize their financial systems and protect vital social and economic infrastructure but they have provided an aid molehill for the world's poor".

It is a telling comment on where Mankind is today and where the priorities of the governments of the world's leading nations lie, that three trillion USD were suddenly readily available to bail out the banks after their own greed and inefficiency led the citizens of the world to the brink of economic catastrophe and that nearly one trillion USD has so far been spent on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Worse still, the report accuses the rich nations of lying about how much money they provide in aid. "Smoke and mirrors" have been used to exaggerate how much aid is actually provided to poorer nations, it claims.

The report states that if current trends are continued, the number of children of primary-school age out of schooling will be 56 million by 2015, while today 71 million adolescents are out of school, girls accounting for over half this number. Moreover, the report points towards overly optimistic figures presented by schools and claims that the reality is very possibly 30% worse than the official figures.

Gender inequality is also clearly visible in figures on adult illiteracy, where little progress has been made in recent years and which accounts for 759 million people worldwide. 66% of these are women. Today 178 million children are under-nourished in the first five years of their lives, affecting their progress at school later on. Instead of progress being made, the situation is worsening.

While spending is evidently not cut for the banks and for the gray and unelected arms lobbies which control foreign policy, cutting back on education is likely "to create a lost generation at a tremendous cost to society," according to Irina Bukova.

While highlighting the great progress made from 2000 to 2010, especially when compared with the 1990s (the number of children out of school has fallen by 33 million since 1999 while the enrolment rate in sub-Saharan Africa has risen fivefold), the report concludes that the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015 remains "far off track".

As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon pointed out at the presentation of the report in New York, education "should never be an accident of circumstance, nor is it a privilege to be distributed on the basis of wealth, gender, race, ethnicity or language".

Yet to all intents and purposes, it appears that this is so. Do those who govern our international brotherhood of nations have a collective responsibility or not? And if so, why are they not held accountable for such shocking inequalities and violations of fundamental human rights?

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

PRAVDA.Ru

Four point seven million people are at risk of starvation in Northern Africa due to a harvest failure caused by scarce rainfall in 2009, yet the story, as well as the funds, are nowhere to be seen in an international media worried about Tiger Woods' personal life.

The United Nations Organization's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has launched an urgent appeal for more funds (133 million USD) from aid agencies and partners to finance the distribution of food aid in Niger, where 5.7 million people are affected by malnutrition and food shortages after last year's harvest failed in vast areas of the country due to insufficient rainfall.
 
The situation is sufficiently bad to merit the use of the term "emergency humanitarian action plan" to describe the calamitous position faced by these people, who are in urgent need of food security, food aid, safe water, sanitation and hygiene networks and infrastructures, according to OCHA.

The UNO office has issued the following statement on the crisis in Niger: "Inadequate or poor distribution of rainfall has caused large deficits in Niger's agricultural and fodder production. Poor harvests have created a cereals deficit of more than 410,000 metric tons, while fodder shortfalls have been estimated at more than 16 million metric tons or 67 per cent of the national livestock needs. Many water sources have also dried up, adding to the hardship pastoralists are facing".

For Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the situation in Mali has become "a major humanitarian challenge" despite the fact that her Programme has doubled food aid to Niger in recent months.

The ruling authorities in Niger, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSRD), which came to power after a coup d'etat on February 18, have appealed for international assistance.

This is not the first time that the people of Mali have been let down by the international community following a disastrous crop, due to lack of rainfall or to the scourge of swarms of locusts. Yet the same international community turns a blind eye, because Mali is in Africa and because Africa has been stamped as a disaster area. Period.

"Where is Mali and anyway, who the Hell cares?" is the unspoken soundbite from the first decade of the new millennium, in which trillions of dollars are spent on wars to kill people and a paltry 133 million USD cannot be raised to feed hungry kids.

As you read these lines, spare a thought for NATO and question yourself exactly what has this Organization done to develop the world? Why does this Organization control its member states' foreign policy? And why does it siphon off cash which the majority of informed and thinking citizens of its member states would rather donate to a cause such as Mali than to bombing Serbia or wedding parties in the Hindu Kush?

Is this really the world we are happy to live in? And what role does the international press play, mis and disinforming people, shaping public opinion away from the truth and focussing on banalities and trivia such as the private life of Tiger Woods?

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

PRAVDA.Ru

Monday the United Nations opened its world food summit by saying that a December's climate change deal in Copenhagen is crucial to fighting global hunger as rising temperatures threaten farm output in poor countries Pravda.Ru reports.

Government leaders and officials met in Rome for a three-day U.N. summit on how to help developing countries to feed themselves, but anti-poverty campaigners were already writing off the event as a missed opportunity.

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The words of a 15-year-old girl, forced to become a child soldier, forced to shoot dead another child, given a month's military training and then sent into battle against hardened government troops in Uganda. However, the countries using child soldiers include Israel, the United Kingdom and the USA.

The 15-year-old girl quoted above who was forced to become a child soldier in Uganda was forced to fight Government troops after just 35 days' training, was shot at because she dropped a water container, was forced to shoot dead another child who was trying to escape and saw another comrade literally hacked to death.

Children as young as nine years of age are kidnapped, forced or coerced into combat, used as sex slaves or else to do mine laying, often treated with brutality, denied healthcare. However this is not just an African phenomenon: children are used in conflict in Asia and Latin America, by the Israeli Defence Force, by the armed forces of the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the USA, these countries claiming they cannot raise the age of conscription to 18 due to manpower shortages.

Tens of thousands of children are still actively engaged in armed conflicts across the globe although many other tens of thousands have been released in recent years in part due to the activities of Child Soldiers Global Report and are subsequently involved in DDR programs (Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration).

However, from 2004 to 2007, child soldiers were actively involved in conflicts in Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Yemen (Asia); Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, DR Congo, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda (Africa) and

Colombia (Latin America).

The British Armed Forces deployed under-18s to the combat theatre in Iraq (2003/5) (but removed most of these from the active combat zone after a week) and the Israeli defence forces used Palestinian children as human shields on numerous occasions. Ill-treatment and torture were common practice on children held under military provisions by the IDF according to Child Soldiers Global Report.

Children were recruited and used as auxiliary forces in a further 4 countries: Iran (Asia).

Libya and Zimbabwe (Africa) and Peru (Latin America).

While trillions of dollars were found to bail out the banks, while a trillion dollars have been spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is not enough money for the international community to put into development programs?

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

PRAVDA.Ru

The United Nations Organization has launched an awareness campaign regarding the infringements of human rights caused by major sports events. If Soccer is the opium of the people, could these mega-events not go one step further and support global causes?

The United Nations Organization calls them "mega-events" referring to major sports venues such as the Olympic Games and World Cup Soccer Championships, where the eyes of half the world are glued to the TV screen.

While these events do have a theme and a logo, it often has nothing to do with global issues, but rather abstract eye-catching economic marketing soundbites such as "With Glowing Hearts", "It's Possible" or "Gateway to the Future".

Raquel Rolnik, the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, considers that mega-events such as these can have negative social effects: "I am particularly concerned about the practice of forced evictions, criminalization of homeless persons and informal activities, and the dismantling of informal settlements in the context of mega-events," she states in a new report released by the UNO this week.

For Ms. Rolnik, "the importance given to the creation of a new international image for the cities, as an integral part of the preparation for the Games, often implies the removal of signs of poverty and underdevelopment through reurbanization projects that prioritize city beautification over the needs of local residents".

The results, in practice, she notes, are displacement, quoting as examples the 48,000 buildings in Seoul torn down for the FIFA World Cup in 2002 and the forced removal of 15% of the population from their homes and the Atlanta Olympics, in 1996, in which 1,200 social housing units for the poor were destroyed. She warns that plans for hundreds of thousands of low-cost homes in South Africa may be affected by the holding of the FIFA World Cup this year.

While the Olympic games have a wide variety of sports modalities which cater for the interests of practically everyone, whether a practiser of sport or a viewer, Soccer holds all the ingredients for a ready-made social communicator of prime importance, which is why it has become the opium of the people.

Mention a country and the first thing people say in response is to list the names of soccer players they know. "I am from Liberia". "Ah! George Weah!" "Portugal? Cristiano Ronaldo!" It matters not that the majority of the players spend their time kicking each other, swearing, spitting and blowing their noses with their hands and are unable to communicate effectively in their own language, apart from ridiculous stayed clichés and referring to themselves in the third person, demonstrating the mental development of a three-year-old.

Take soccer away from many of these prima-donnas and they would probably be unemployed, or unemployable. Indeed, the fact that even these creatures can become mega-stars emphasizes further the power of the game. Yet who can remember the global social theme behind one single mega-event? Who refers to South Africa FIFA 2010 as anything other than "The World Cup", "the Soccer Championship" or at most "It's Possible"?

Why not, then, attach these events to global socio-economic themes which give people more to think about than whether a penalty should have been awarded or whether a goal was offside? Or is that the whole idea in the first place, getting people to swarm in a sea of banality to give them an easy adrenalin fix to stop them worrying about important issues?

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY
PRAVDA.Ru

An alarming truth coming out of the XVIII International AIDS Conference in Vienna is that women's voices are not being heard, women are not participating at the same level as men in decision-making processes to find sustainable solutions. Gender exclusion norms were mentioned as the main reason by almost 80 per cent of those polled.

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The United Nations Organization recognizes that in post-disaster scenarios, the most effective way to protect human rights and the most vulnerable members of society is to involve women in the relief process, due to their natural capacities and capabilities - despite recognizing that they are also most in need at such times.

The United Nations Organization recognizes that in post-disaster scenarios, the most effective way to protect human rights and the most vulnerable members of society is to involve women in the relief process, due to their natural capacities and capabilities - despite recognizing that they are also most in need at such times.

CEDAW, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, recognizes that after disasters occur, the natural capacities of women as caretakers of children, the elderly, injured and disabled affords them a critical role in early recovery and in implementation of long-term sustainability mechanisms.

Naela Mohamed Gabr, head of CEDAW, stated yesterday that "The needs and capabilities of women must be taken into consideration in all sectors and clusters of the emergency response" however, the UNO must provide them with the protection they need to perform the task, because "whilst the strength and resilience of women are in high demand following such emergencies, they cannot adequately fulfil these roles if their basic needs are unmet and if decision-makers ignore them".

Ms. Gabr recognized also that at times of increased stress and lawlessness, women are also the most vulnerable members of society.

The UN's World Food Programme has also launched a new scheme focusing on women in food distribution operations, providing them with vouchers which are coloured and dated and which can be exchanged for food on determined days and at certain places. Natasha Scripture, WFP spokesperson in Port-au-Prince, claims that "WFP generally targets female heads of household with food assistance. Distribution to women tends to be more orderly and calm," while stating that "women are often the first ones pushed out of line".

Where such policies have been implemented, the UNO has noted that distribution is far more orderly and proceeds without the frantic scrambles which often turn violent.

The out-going Chilean President Michelle Bachelet will now be working alongside UNIFEM to advocate for the needs of Haitian women. UNIFEM is the women's fund at the United Nations. It provides financial and technical assistance to innovative programmes and strategies to foster women's empowerment and gender equality.

Throughout her Presidency, Michelle Bachelet highlighted women's issues and has committed herself to providing a leading role in engaging international cooperation, especially in Latin America, for the women of Haiti and in formulating a common strategy to "include the voices and perspectives of Haitian women in the recovery efforts" (UNIFEM).

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

PRAVDA.Ru

The recent meeting of the United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI) in Lisbon, Portugal was focused on a new role for women and the media in solving problems in facilitating dialogue and breaking down social barriers, such as hate-fuelled stereotypes as a first step towards meaningful dialogue with practical results.

UN Security Council Resolution 1325 taken one decade ago this month stressed the urgent need for women to be given equal participation and full involvement in matters of peace and security, due to the fact that women and children are frequently the victims of conflict and because of "the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and in peace-building".

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The Earthquake devastated Haiti last Tuesday afternoon. On Sunday evening, five days later, only 60% of the disaster area has been covered, water is not reaching those most in need, heavy lifting gear is bottled up at the airport and the people are understandably getting desperate.

For those who claim that the UNO had no contingency plans, it is a pity that international media can print or broadcast not only half-truths but also blatant lies. The United Nations Organization has been drawing up contingency plans for years, holds workshops regularly and constantly updates and upgrades its humanitarian relief capacity. Moreover, the Force 7 earthquake which hit Haiti was equivalent to an explosion of 400,000 tonnes of TNT.

How the UN Contingency Plans are drawn up and implemented

The department responsible for this area is OCHA, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which implements its policies through UN Resident Coordinators and Humanitarian Coordinators in Regional Offices, Field Offices and Natural Disaster Response Advisors. There are three steps:

Assess and monitor vulnerability and risks

Set up or enhance early warning systems

Build an efficient response capacity

"The United Nations Resident Coordinators and Humanitarian Coordinators are

responsible for ensuring the development and maintenance of contingency plans for

humanitarian emergencies in their areas of assignment" states the UNO.

The Hyogo Framework for Disaster Relief was drawn up by the UNO and is geared towards "minimizing the impact of a disaster by strengthening the capacity to provide a timely and appropriate humanitarian response to the needs of affected populations".

So, with all this in place, how to explain the fact that fundamentally important materials, five days after the disaster struck, are piling up at the airport? Especially in the light of the following statement by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2001: "A recurring theme of [UN] evaluations is the need for strong contingency planning, strengthened national disaster management capacity and disaster response coordination mechanisms, which include information management as well as regional cooperation. (2001 Report of the Secretary-General to ECOSOC [Para 3])

The challenge

The UNO has described this crisis as its worst ever humanitarian disaster relief effort, estimating that 562 million USD are needed to help 3 million people over 6 months, 2 million people needing emergency relief right away. OCHA spokesperson Elisabeth Byrs states that "Fuel is the key issue" and it needed "to bring in supplies and carry the wounded". There are 1,739 workers from 43 countries working in Haiti with 161 sniffer dogs.

Scenes of chaos

The first thing that should be pointed out is that not all of Haiti has been affected, but the part that has in the south, center and west of the country, has been utterly devastated. While the capital city, Port-au-Prince, has been the focus of attention, other cities to the south and west, such as Leogane (80-90% destroyed, population 134,000), Jacmel (50-60% destroyed, 34,000), Carrefour (40-50% destroyed, 334,000) and Gressier (40-50% destroyed, 25,000) have been just as seriously affected. Leogane, for instance, has lost all of its Government infra-structures and has lost between 20,000 and 30,000 people.

Official estimates issued by the Haitian Government and backed by the UNO indicate a figure of between 50,000 and 200,000 deaths with a further 250,000 people injured, although Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive stated that 100,000 seems to be "a minimum". The Pan-American Health Organization postulates a figure of 50 to 100,000 and other reports, based on a death rate of 20% of the population affected, indicate that 200,000 plus could be the real figure.

1.5 million people are homeless and with an absence of aid, five days on, looting has finally begun, two looters being shot dead by the police in Port-au-Prince today.

Only 60% of the affected areas are covered

The scale of the disaster is massive and eyewitnesses state that it is difficult to comprehend the magnitude of the destruction, which has left the country with a serious shortage of infra-structures.

However, if the UN has had access to the finest minds in the world to draw up contingency plans, how to explain the fact that aid has been turned away from the airport? How to explain that 40% of the worst affected areas have still not been covered? How to explain that two French aircraft, one with a field hospital, were denied access to the airport? How to explain that two Prime Ministers of Caribbean nations were not allowed to land? How to explain that a British aircraft with heavy lifting gear was turned back from the airport not once, but three times?

The British team's commander, Mike Thomas, declared to Sky News that the heavy lifting equipment "has been in the air three times to land here and refused permission to land, so it's been mostly frustrating for us because we're having to borrow kit from other teams". His equipment? It is still across the border in Santo Domingo.

Dea Leahy, a lay missionary from St. Louis, Missouri, USA claimed today: "I don't know how much longer we can hold out. We need food, we need medical supplies, we need medicine, we need vitamins and we need painkillers. And we need it urgently".

The Lessons

In October 2008, Patrick Charles, former Professor at the Geological Institute of Havana stated that "conditions are ripe for major seismic activity in Port-au-Prince. The inhabitants of the Haitian capital need to prepare themselves for an event which will inevitably occur...". His statements were printed in Le Matin newspaper, Haiti. Professor Charles added that "science has provided instruments that help predict these types of events and show how we have arrived at these conclusions." Nothing was done.

As Fidel Castro recalls, why is Haiti so poor, poverty being the cause of the insufficient infrastructures, in the first place? "Why does almost 50% of its population depend on family remittances sent from abroad? Why not analyze the realities that led Haiti to its current situation and this enormous suffering as well?"

It is evident that five days later, people should not be dying of thirst. It is obvious that the immediate needs were lifting equipment, field hospitals and water. Why then is the equipment at the airport, why are field hospitals turned away and why has the water not been efficiently distributed? It is unacceptable that people are writhing around in pain without painkillers or medicines.

One thing however is clear. Haiti showed that the world can come together, that Humanity is beautiful, that actions of extreme generosity and courage take place readily and selflessly to help our sisters and brothers. And the spirit which saw the first uprising of slaves against colonial masters on the coffee and sugar plantations is still alive today. This spirit will see the Haitians through, together with the love, help and support of the rest of Humanity.

The United Nations Organization needs to draw up better and flexible contingency plans for all regions of the globe, designating more streamlined plans as to who is responsible for what and when, so that in any such eventuality, the mechanisms are in place to cater for the needs of 50,000 people, 500,000 or 5 million. Because too many voices shouting at the same time, too many aircraft arriving in a disaster zone together...too many cooks spoil the broth.

Lisa KARPOVA

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

PRAVDA.Ru