UNData has just launched a new internet-based data service for the global user community. It brings UN statistical databases within easy reach of users through a single entry point. Users can search and down load a variety of statistical resources of the UN system.
The UN-system has accumulated over the past 60 years an impressive amount of information. UNdata, developed by the Statistics Division of DESA, is a new powerful tool, which will bring this unique and authoritative set of data not only to the desks of decision makers and analysts, but also to journalists, to students and to all citizens of the world, says Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.
Vienna Forum to Fight Human Trafficking will be held on 13-15.02.2008
We invite interested representatives from Member States, UN agencies and other international and regional organizations, the business community, academia, civil society organizations and individual experts active in the fight against human trafficking to join us in Vienna in February 2008.
All those who wish to be considered for participation in the Vienna Forum to Fight Human Trafficking should register through our on-line registration form.
Please note that there is no registration/participation fee to attend the Vienna Forum. Funding Criteria: UN.GIFT seeks to provide a means to those who may not have access to the necessary funding to attend the Vienna Forum.
An interesting article of "The Economist" about charities and their effectiveness, with a focus on enterpreneurship. It is also about the key elements to be a successful non-profit organization: 1. Not only service, advocacy can change policies and increase the impact; 2. Not only giving, generating income and good approaches to the business increases the impact and influences the business sector to be socially responsible; 3. Not only use volunteers to work, empower them and create a volunteer community. They are among the most effective advocates of the cause; 4. Nurture non-profit networks. The best non-profits "freely share wealth, expertize, talent and power with their peers" because it is in their self-interest (Cruthfield and Grant book, called "Forces for Good"); 5. Adaptation and innovation, based on listening, learning and modifying the approaches will keep the organization relevant to the situation 6. Sharing the leadership - the leaders of the successful non-profits "share their power, make a habit of empowering others and cultivate strong second-in-command, build enduring executive teams and thoroughly engage their boards.
Materials from the international conference on Community Development, held in Sofia
During the conference researchers, practitioners and experts in the field of community development together made an overview of different community development practices and approaches implemented in the context Central Europe. There were discussions about the concepts and approaches leading to social development. Representatives of NGOs and local authorities searched common understanding about community development and different approaches and regional specifics.
Find information and very interesting presentations from the conference here.
It is a fact that Roma people are subjected to discrimination in many parts of Europe. Hence, it is extremely important that a group of eight NGOs, among which include Amnesty International and the Open Society, is raising awareness on the need of EU-wide strategy on Roma. To get this message across to EU leaders, the NGOs sent a letter to European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso urging for "an EU framework strategy to promote inclusion."
Earlier this month, the NGOs voice was echoed in a joint statement by Italian prime minister Romano Prodi and Romanian prime minister Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, subsequently tragic events occurred in Rome [1].
On Thursday 15 November, the silence within the EU was broken by the adoption of a resolution to create a network of organisations with a two-fold mandate: to promote Roma rights and duties in society to facilitate Roma social inclusion
Within the Commission, a fundamental rights group composed by 10 Commissioners [2] will analyse the issues for further action.
How are Roma people discriminated?
According to Amnesty International experts, Roma people are segregated from cradle to grave. The fact that children are excluded from mainstream public schools and that ad hoc measures are conceived to isolate Roma communities far away from inner cities, underpins the aforementioned assumption.
The promotion of social inclusion into an European free society in which every single citizen has the right of access to facilities regardless of socioeconomic status and origins is a key driver for EPHA. Hence, we embrace the NGOs cause and initiatives as the ROMAin project and raise our voice to better the Roma’s living conditions.
Check Millennium Development Goals achievements online
New York, 1 November - The United Nations, Google and Cisco
today unveiled a pioneering online site that tracks progress towards
decreasing global poverty by 2015, a global campaign known as the
Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs. Visit the website at www.mdgmonitor.org.
International Conference in Community Development, 29 - 30.11.2007, Sofia, Bulgaria
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT APPROACHES AND TRENDS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE 29 - 30.11.2007, Sofia, Bulgaria
Community Development Approaches and Trends in Central and Eastern Europe Conference aims to present variety of community development practices and approaches implemented in the context Central Europe. Overview of concepts, different approaches leading to social development, outcomes achieved and prospects for the future are the focus of the conference. Common understanding about community development will be searched and different approaches and regional specifics will be discussed.
The conference is part of the Workshop for Civic Initiatives Foundation project “Dialogue on Community Development: Discourse and Practice in Central and Eastern Europe” in partnership Romanian Association for Community Development (Romania), Partners for Democratic Change Slovakia (Slovakia) and Allavida (Great Britain). Funded by EC – Networking – CSC 2005.
As participants are invited civil society activists, community development practitioners, researchers, academia representatives and members of local authorities.
ProVentium Consortium and the Disaster Mitigation for Sustainable Livelihoods Programme, University of Cape Town, organised a three-day workshop on community risk assessment, which sought to strengthen capacity and build awareness and information exchange among academics and practitioners active in the field of participatory disaster risk assessment (PDRA).2 This paper is an output from that meeting, and is part of ongoing initiatives to raise awareness of and debate within the community of practitioners engaged in PDRA. It is beyond the scope of this paper to attempt a definitive review of participatory methods employed in disaster risk assessment.3 Instead, it identifies the key challenges that must be addressed if par-ticipatory approaches are to fulfil their potential for integrating the views of multiple stakeholders into disaster risk reduction and contribute to the mainstreaming of disaster risk reduction into development planning.
Transparency & silence: Survey of access to information laws and practices in 14 countries
"How 'public' is public information?
The ability of citizens to request and receive information on the workings of their government is crucial to ensure transparency and accountability. This report provides a snapshot on the state of access to information in fourteen countries. It provides the results of a study undertaken to discover how government offices and agencies respond to specific requests for information."
Macedonia community development: empowerment through targeting and institution building
A case study about one community-driven development project in Macedonia. "This paper illustrates how one CDD project in Macedonia has been able to meet these challenges by serving as a model project in the ECA Region for sustainable development at the local level and as a source of lessons for other projects in Macedonia and elsewhere." Go to the brief overview in the Eldis website. Download the full document here.
Survey on Participatory Democracy and Civic Activism in Croatia-call for contributions
The Centre for Peace Studies, in a partnership with “Ivo Pilar” Social Sciences Institute, conducts a survey of participatory democracy and civic activism in civil society organizations. The survey aims to determine the conditions and obstacles to future development of civil society in Croatia. Contributions and dissemination of the initiative among colleagues, managers, etc. are very much appreciated. Read the whole information here. The questionnaire is available here.
Here is the website of CDA, an USA based organisation dealing with learning from experiences. One of their projects, called LISTEN was designed to help evaluate the effectiveness of international aid. This was expected to make the work of multiple agencies much more effective.
The Listening project itself was quite an interesting approach which required facilitators and very good listening skills to approach beneficiaries, keep silent and learn as much as possible. They did not use semi-structured interviews, trying to let beneficiaries share absolutely everything they want to, so the results are beneficiaries driven and not donor driven. Go here.
10th Meeting of the International Steering Committee of the Decade of Roma Inclusion
On 12-13 June the 10th Meeting of the International Steering Committee of the Decade of Roma Inclusion will take place in Sofia, Bulgaria. The meeting is organized by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy in its capacity as a National Coordinating Body for the Decade of Roma Inclusion under the Bulgarian Decade Presidency.
For more information about the plans and activities regarding the “Decade of Roma Inclusion”, please click here.
Emerging Donors Initiative - new donors countries in Europe
Most states in the region are recipients of official development assistance (ODA). But the new member states of the European Union, as well as Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and the Russian Federation, have recently started to contribute to development cooperation as donor countries. By transferring expertise within and beyond the region, these countries can help the global community to achieve the eighth Millennium Development Goal, which calls for increasing ODA flows to developing countries.
Following extensive preparatory work with the new donor countries listed above, UNDP's Bratislava Regional Centre launched the Emerging Donor Initiative (EDI) in 2003. The goal of EDI is threefold:
* To promote development cooperation between emerging donor countries and recipient countries, with a special focus on Southeast Europe and the CIS; * To strengthen capacities in emerging donor countries to effectively deliver development assistance; * To enhance the role of UNDP, and the UN system overall, as a major partner for donors to provide aid to countries to the east and south.
European Commission publishes study on non-discrimination mainstreaming
The Centre for Strategy and Evaluation Services has, on behalf of the European Commission, produced a new study: ‘Non-discrimination mainstreaming - instruments, case studies and ways forward’.
to promote Roma rights and duties in society