USAID/OFDA Assistance to Somalia - $47,077,637
USAID/FFP(2) Assistance to Somalia - $197,415,500
State/PRM(3) Assistance to Somalia - $20,100,000
Total USAID & State Humanitarian Assistance to Somalia:
$264,593,137
Click here to retreive the full report by the USAID, et, alt.
Source:......
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PRESS RELEASE 0020/2008
Nairobi, 13 August 2008 – The United Nations Special Representative for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said he was very pleased that the two main Committees in the Djibouti Agreement are being convened this weekend. After consultations with the Transitional Federal Government and the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia, it was agreed that the Joint Security Committee (Article 8.) and the High Level Committee (Article 9) will meet in Djibouti from 16 – 18 August.
The two sides will have delegations attending each meeting. The Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein as well as the leaders of the ARS, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan plan to attend.
The international community, including diplomats from several countries and regional...
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from the Digital JournalBy Bob Ewing The United Nations rural development arm announced today that it is providing up to $200 million for poor farmers during the upcoming cropping season.UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is providing up to $200 million for poor farmers during the upcoming cropping season as it tries to alleviate the suffering of hundreds of millions of people facing hunger and malnutrition due to soaring food prices.“The capacity of the world’s 450 million smallholder farmers to respond by growing more food is at risk because of spiralling energy and fertiliser prices,” said Lennart Båge, President of the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).“Poor farmers are not reaping the benefits of higher food prices because they...
Human Security Research, no. 38 (Feb. 2008) [text]
- Reviews recent studies on human security-related topics.
Monday Developments, vol. 25, no. 12 (Dec. 2007) [info.]
- Focus is "Tackling Accountability"; online version coming soon.
Programme on Conflict and Peacebuilding Monthly Newsletter, no. 23 (Jan. 2008) [text]
- Includes feature article on Kenya.
Refugee Rights News, vol. 4, no. 1...
from All AfricaUN Integrated Regional Information NetworksDakarExperts put the lack of progress on children's development in West Africa down to pervasive poverty, chronic malnutrition in many countries, piecemeal aid responses, and health systems broken by protracted conflicts.Nine of the 12 countries with the world's highest rate of child deaths are in the region, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) State of the World's Children 2008 which was released on 22 January.According to the report, the region is the only one in the world showing "no progress" on reaching the Millennium Development Goal to reduce under-five mortality by two thirds by 2015.While the number of children dying before their fifth birthday has declined by almost a quarter globally since 1990, in West and...
from All AfricaUN Integrated Regional Information NetworksDakarExperts put the lack of progress on children's development in West Africa down to pervasive poverty, chronic malnutrition in many countries, piecemeal aid responses, and health systems broken by protracted conflicts.Nine of the 12 countries with the world's highest rate of child deaths are in the region, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) State of the World's Children 2008 which was released on 22 January.According to the report, the region is the only one in the world showing "no progress" on reaching the Millennium Development Goal to reduce under-five mortality by two thirds by 2015.While the number of children dying before their fifth birthday has declined by almost a quarter globally since 1990, in West and...
from The Associated Press via GoogleBy FREDERIC J. FROMMER WASHINGTON (AP) — A United Nations anti-poverty program in North Korea paid $50,000 to a company with ties to North Korean weapons sales and left itself open to exploitation by the communist-led country, according to a Senate investigation released Wednesday.The report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations takes issue with the operation of the U.N. Development Program in North Korea, which was suspended last year. The report alleges that the UNDP made itself open to abuse by, among other things, paying the salaries of local staff directly to the government without verifying how they were disbursed, even though the agency suspected that the government was "skimming" money from the payments.Citing wire transfers...
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“Halo, halo” from Kuta Bali! The Australian Youth Climate Coalition has officially landed in beautiful Bali, Indonesia, on the verge of the steepest learning curves of our lives. We will attempt to navigate our way through 2 weeks of UN climate change negotiations at COP13, the conference where the Bali Mandate – that is, the future of our planet - will be decided upon. After months of phone-link-ups, the ‘AYCC Delegation to Bali’ finally came together for the first time 2 days ago. Still struggling to realign our perceptions of our phone-link-up friends with their actual physical selves, we are over the moon to finally be together. Now our adventure has officially begun – the team is together, we’ve traipsed through crowded market streets to find our little Kuta bungalows,...
It’s always a pleasure to report some good news from this patch, albeit with some obligatory qualifications. The Congolese and Rwandan governments have - once again - agreed to deal with the threat posed by Rwandan armed groups in the DRC, and in particular the mostly-Hutu FDLR.*
Yes, half-a-dozen previous neighbourly agreements and millions of unimpressed citizens and refugees attest to the tiresome political truisms that words are far cheaper than deeds, and promises are only as good as the collective will and capacity to implement them. Nevertheless, people who specialise in monitoring the risk of conflict tend to pay quite close attention to what is said as well as what is done. Words do count for something, and these ones have been negotiated, signed, witnessed and publicly...
(Clears voice, adopts serious newsreaderish tone.)
This morning, rebel leader Laurent Nkunda preempted a Congolese government ultimatum to disarm by 15th October by declaring a resumption of hostilities, leading to an immediate intensifying of armed clashes in Masisi, to the west of Goma, including the use of artillery.
The ceasefire had always looked provisional, as neither side seemed ready to negotiate in good faith and both took steps to reinforce their positions, while accusing each other of continuing hostilities. The past few weeks have seen an ongoing failure to find common ground for a political route out of the crisis. Nkunda remained unprepared to commit sufficient numbers of his troops to army integration or disarmament, and Kabila – who made a brief visit to Goma – has...
from The Associated pressBy CARLEY PETESCHUNITED NATIONS (AP) — World leaders repeatedly warned the U.N. General Assembly that rich countries' failures to fulfill their pledges of aid are keeping poor nations from meeting U.N. goals of reducing poverty and achieving environmental stability.At Wednesday's closing session, General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim said there was "overwhelming support" from leaders from all regions to make quicker progress to meet the U.N. goals, which include cutting extreme poverty by half, ensuring universal primary education and halting the HIV/AIDS pandemic, all by 2015."Many of the goals are off-track, but in sub-Saharan Africa we may not achieve a single goal by 2015. This is indeed an emergency situation," he said.Eight industrialized nations make up...
from The Houston ChronicleBy SLOBODAN LEKICUNITED NATIONS — The U.N. General Assembly's ministerial meeting that saw an international outcry over military repression in Myanmar, new killings in Darfur and Iran's nuclear program, closed on Wednesday with a call for global action on climate change, poverty and terrorism."The General Assembly is the only forum where we can tackle many of these issues comprehensively," the assembly's president, Srgjan Kerim of Macedonia, said at the closing session.The annual meeting, which opened on Sept. 25, was preceded by high-level sessions on Darfur, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mideast and climate change.The eight-day meeting drew President Bush, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, France's new president, Nicolas Sarkozy — along with nearly 100 other...
from the BBC By Steve Schifferes As the United Nations (UN) General Assembly begins meeting in New York, little is being heard about the Millennium Development Goals.The eight internationally-declared goals, on reducing poverty and improving life chances in developing countries, were set in 2000 for achievement by 2015.But the UN says that halfway to the deadline, sub-Saharan Africa is unlikely to meet any of the poverty-busting goals - nor the benchmarks on education, health, and women's empowerment.This failure was declared a "development emergency" by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the UN in July. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called an emergency meeting to discuss the issue next year.But why is Africa falling so far behind in the fight against poverty? And is there the will...
from UN News Center A new Marshall Plan is needed to simultaneously tackle global warming and poverty, the environmental activist and former United States Vice-President Al Gore told an audience at United Nations Headquarters in New York today.“We now face a global crisis that makes it abundantly clear that increased carbon dioxide emissions anywhere are a threat to the integrity of this planet’s climate everywhere,” Mr. Gore told a luncheon event called “Global Voices on Climate Change.”The event, hosted by Denmark, Indonesia, Kenya and Poland, was held on the sidelines of the largest-ever gathering of world leaders on climate change.Increased emissions are responsible for rising temperatures and rising sea levels, which combine to elevate both food and water insecurity...
from The Malaysian StarUNITED NATIONS (AP): Grammy award winner Nile Rodgers is taking on a new crusade -- fighting global poverty. The Grammy Awards producer and lifetime achievement winner will produce a festival in June featuring international celebrities and entertainers that will culminate an educational campaign to galvanize people around the world to help achieve U.N. anti-poverty goals by 2015. "It is my great honor to be involved in this project,'' Rodgers told a press conference Wednesday at U.N. headquarters. "This is a very difficult goal to achieve, but ... I can't believe that it's going to be anything but positive and fantastic.'' The goals include cutting in half the number of people living on $1 (euro.72) a day or less, ensuring that every child has a primary school...
Aerial view of paddy fields on Kinshasa’s outskirts
After a visit to the DRC last week, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes warned the Security Council of “the potentially catastrophic humanitarian consequences of further fighting“, recommending “strong, urgent and concerted political and diplomatic action, by the DRC Government, by the concerned governments of the region and by the international community as a whole… The climate of virtually total impunity for such horrendous crimes must be reversed.”
The Security Council duly expressed its usual “deep concern“. (The quaint revolver with the twisted barrel on United Nations Plaza should be replaced by a sculpture of a furrowed brow.)
John Holmes is right. The current ceasefire...
from the Voice of AmericaBy Lisa SchleinGenevaA new United Nations report says the world's 50 poorest nations will not be able to reduce poverty unless they acquire the knowledge and technology needed to catch up with the economic achievements of the rest of the world. The U.N. Conference on Trade and Development or UNCTAD says the Least Developed Countries can reduce poverty by narrowing the technology gap. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva. The report says science, technology, and innovation are necessities, not luxuries. It says the world's 50 least developed countries will not emerge from poverty until they learn to use the technologies that have enriched industrialized nations. UNCTAD economists say most of the poor countries are economically integrated with the rest of the...
Had more hard questions been asked about the legitimacy and proportionality of the use of lethal force in August in Kinshasa and February in Bas-Congo, might this have led to greater restraint and fewer deaths last week?
I don’t know, but here’s the puzzle:
Nurturing and coaxing a political process through the challenges of an unstable post-conflict environment is no easy task. Compromises need to be struck. Dialogue requires good access to powerful people who don’t like criticism, so what do you do if they break the rules and do bad things to the people you (and they) are supposed to protect? You want to give people faith that things are improving, to avoid starting riots, and to maintain a good working relationship with your host government. But if you downplay...
7.20pm: Somebody get me out of here before I start spewing melodramatic headlines. Oops, too late.
About ten minutes before dark, we heard that evacuation efforts have stopped for the night. Confronted with the uncomfortable choice of driving unaccompanied across town to take refuge in our embassy or a colleague’s house, or staying put and hoping the people who looted our parcelle last night don’t return for seconds, we chose to stay at home, preferring the devil we know to the carjackers we don’t. So we’ve locked all the doors, closed the curtains, turned off the lights, and are ready to make soup and think of England.
Our neighbour is still stuck next door, so we may need to pass him more food and a perhaps a DVD, if he asks nicely. Pity we don’t have Panic...
MONUC has released a strongly-worded statement which I will reprint in full :
‘MONUC welcomes the restoration of order in Kinshasa by Government forces. However, MONUC also deeply regrets the fact that force was used in order to resolve a situation that could and should have been settled through dialogue. MONUC was an active participant in that dialogue right up until the moment hostilities erupted yesterday morning.
‘MONUC also deplores the loss of life, the damage to property, the looting and the serious risks caused to civilians living in the capital. The immediate losses and damage are plainly evident. However, the long-term effect on the attitude of the Congolese people, the international community and the donor and investment community has yet to be determined....
The international International Women’s Day website.
The National Women’s Council of Ireland launched their manifesto for Election 2007 yesterday.
Only 22% of principal officers and 33% of assistant principals in the civil service are women.
Lucinda Williams has a new album out.
Sign Trócaire’s petition for equality and get yourself a house in the virtual global village.
Read some of Red Mum’s posts about Great Irish Women.
OpenDemocracy’s blog from the Commission on the Status of Women (the 51st follow-up meeting to Beijing).
A housewife is worth $120,900 a year, apparently. A lot more if you allow for inflation.
See what other bloggers are saying about today.
Give a mimosa to a woman you love.
And on that note, I’m off to buy some flowers....
from News BlazeImmediate urgent action and increased aid, especially financial support, from the international community are necessary to improve the humanitarian situation in Haiti which is at a "crossroads in its history," a United Nations envoy to the country said today in New York."We've seen statistically that countries that are coming out of a long period of tension or conflict have a strong tendency to relapse" without "strong and coherent support from the international community," Joel Boutroue, the Secretary-General's Deputy Special Representative for Haiti, told reporters at a press briefing.He called for an intensification of actions such as those currently underway to reform the police and justice system in Haiti.Mr. Boutroue cited positive gains the country has made recently,...
from The Hindustan TimesKumkum Chadha In 2006 the rate of economic growth in the Asia Pacific region rose to over seven per cent but performance was poor in the areas of infant mortality, HIV prevalence and access to basic glitation in urban areas.• The same year Latin America and the Caribbean showed positive economic performance yet 60 percent of the rural population lives below the poverty line. The region also shows a high-level of income disparity.• Although a third of the countries in eastern and southern Africa have projected economic growth rates of over five percent, the number of people living on less than $1 a day continues to increase.The solution: To stem the flow of people from the countryside to cities and halt the erosion of rural economies, the focus must be on...
from The GuardianBy MARJORIE OLSTERAssociated Press WriterUNITED NATIONS (AP) - Top-ranked women's tennis player Maria Sharapova was named a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Development Program Wednesday and immediately donated $100,000 to aid recovery from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which touched her own family.The Russian-born Sharapova, 19, told a packed news conference at U.N. headquarters that her work for the poverty-fighting agency will have a special focus on helping the area affected by the world's worst nuclear accident.``I still have family that's affected,'' said Sharapova. ``This definitely means a lot to me.''On April 26, 1986, a reactor at the electricity-generating plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded during a pre-dawn test and spewed radioactive clouds over the...
The Seventh Summit on the Safety and Security of United Nations Staff and Associated Personnel is scheduled for tomorrow (January 16). More details...
from The HeraldLAGOS. — Nigeria needs to take steps to tackle growing urban poverty in the country, a senior UN official has said.Anna Kajumulo, UN under-secretary general and executive director of the UN Habitat was quoted by local media yesterday as saying that Nigeria had 46 million slum dwellers in 2005, by far the highest number in Africa."If drastic measures are not taken to tackle the scourge of urban poverty in Nigeria," she said, "it is projected that the number of slum dwellers will reach 55 million in 2010, 66 million in 2015 and 76 million in 2020." The main development challenge for Africa, especially Nigeria, over the next two decades was to manage urbanisation successfully, she said.As the world entered the new urban age, there was proof that within just one generation,...