March 2007



In its World Development Report 2005, the United Nations Programme for Development (UNPD) outlines a contrasting portrait of international cooperation.  Behind this portrait of massive human suffering a number of issues can be found that will not leave the defenders of human rights indifferent. 

The advances in human development should not be over-estimated, the UNPD informs us.  With regard to this, since 1990 life expectancy in developing countries has increased by two years; there are three million fewer cases of infant mortality annually and also 30 million fewer children out of school.  More than 130 million fewer people have escaped extreme poverty. 

However the UNPD adds that these advances should not be exaggerated.  Thus, in 2003, 18 countries with a combined population of 460 million inhabitants registered lower scores on the Human Development Index (HDI) than in 1990 – an unprecedented reversal. 

If some progress has been recorded here and there, the chasm between rich and poor is far from being reduced.  The inequalities that result from this can be illustrated by the following rough statistics cited by the UNPD itself: 

  • in the midst of an increasingly prosperous global economy, each year 10.7 million children do not live to see their fifth birthday;
  • one fifth of the world’s population lives in countries where a large number of inhabitants think nothing of spending two dollars a day for a cappuccino;
  • another fifth of humanity survives on less than one dollar a day in countries where children die for want of a mosquito net;
  • the difference in life expectancy figures amongst the most fundamental inequalities.  Today, someone living in Zambia has less chance of reaching the age of 30 than someone born in England in 1840, and the gap is widening;
  • sub-Saharan Africa accounts for a rising share of child deaths, and if it represents only 20% of births worldwide, it registers 44% of infant deaths;
  • the world’s richest 500 individuals have a combined income greater than that of the poorest 416 million.  Beyond these extremes, the 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 a day – 40% of the world’s population – account for 5% of global income.  The richest 10%, almost all of whom live in high income countries, account for 54%. 
  • In India, the death rate for children ages 1 – 5 is 50% higher for girls than for boys.  130,000 young lives are lost each year because of the disadvantage associated with carrying two X chromosomes.  In Pakistan, gender equality in school attendance would give 2 million more girls the chance of an education. 
  • etc.

The UNPD acknowledges that the majority of countries are behind in the majority of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).  Human development is unsteady in some key areas, and inequalities continue to widen.  Various polite and diplomatic formulae can be found to describe the divergence between the progress in human development and the goals outlined in the Millennium Declaration.  Nevertheless none of them can mask a simple truth, UNPD informs us:  the promise made to poor people has not been kept.  However it adds that without a renewed engagement, with cooperation supported by practical action, the MDG’s will not be met and history will regard the Millennium Declaration as yet another unkept promise. 

Three factors explaining these inequalities are at the heart of the UNPD’s reasoning.  Firstly, development aid suffers from two problems:  the chronic under-funding of poor countries and the poor quality of aid.  Secondly, the business practices of rich countries continue to deny to poor countries and to their citizens an equitable part of global prosperity and this, in disregard of the Millennium Declaration.  The third factor is safety.  Violent conflict affects hundreds of millions of people.  For the UNPD, these conflicts constitute a cause of systematic violations of human rights and a barrier to progress towards the MDG’s. 

The world is divided and the extent of the gap, which seems to widen before our eyes, raises numerous questions and brings to mind the ethical and moral weakness of this “international community” of egotistic States, such that one ends up growing tired of unkept promises. 

Reference:

UNPD (2005) “World Development Report”- published in 11 languages

http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/

  • Japanese nationalism

In the previous letter, we commented on the judgement rendered by a Court in Tokyo, which stated that “to force someone to sing the Kimigayo (the Japanese national anthem) constituted a violation of freedom of thought and of conscience”.  Now this judgement has been reversed by the Supreme Court of Japan, by a decision rendered 27 February 2007.  This decision found the obligation imposed on the music teachers of a school by the headmaster to provide piano accompaniment for the singing of the national anthem during school assemblies to be constitutional.  Critics of these assemblies are opposed to the whiff of militarism detected in recent years in the country.   

http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/400206

  • Utopia for all

“Is it possible to imagine a city where overproduction, unemployment, inflation and the lure of profit are unknown?  Where the ability to consume does not determine the superiority of some citizens over others?  Where air andwater are free of pollution?  Where political activity is not a means to power, prestige and personal benefit?    Where one would not know what to do with the police and the judiciary?  At first blush this is a utopian project, however this is what Auroville wants to become!

http://agora.qc.ca/reftext.nsf/Documents/Auroville--Auroville_par_Bernard_Proulx (in French only)

  • Backstage with Human rights

A blog maintained by Stéphane Bussard, Frédéric Koller and Richard Werly, journalists with Geneva newspaper Le Temps.  For its authors, the usefulness of this blog will be obvious during future sessions of the Council for Human Rights, although on the condition that you use it as a platform for debates and exchanges of opinion.  So go ahead and act. 

http://letemps.blogs.com/droitshumains/

  • “Cartooning for peace” : peace drawings of the United Nations

The newspaper “Le Temps” is showing the exhibition of press drawings being by the UN at the Palais des Nations until April 5 2007.  Another presentation of them will take place at the International Festival of Film on Human Rights, at la Maison des arts du Grütli in Geneva. 

http://www.letemps.ch/template/galerie.asp?NLArtID=9058

  • the right to education for children with disabilities

The Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the right to education has just published his report on the right to education for children with disabilities

http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G07/117/59/PDF/
G0711759.pdf?OpenElement

  • Teachers in violence

This is the title of the Winter 2007 edition “Nouvelles CSQ” on violence in schools.  .

http://www.csq.qc.net/index.cfm/2,0,1676,9703,2299,1675,htm (in French only)

  • Resources on the Internet

UNESCO has announced the launch of a platform that makes available online the educational resources developed by organisms throughout the world in a number of areas:  literacy, computers, economics, the environment, community development and a number of other subjects.  

http://topics.developmentgateway.org/openeducation