INTERNATIONAL & GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT - YEAR IN REVIEW 2010

PREAMBLE: This is our 4th annual review of topics that we covered over the year. We lead off with praise (“flowers”) and criticism (“fertilizer”) within three categories: global stewardship, international development, and human rights. Then follows a synopsis of each of the 12 blog themes throughout the year.

1. Global Stewardship
This year our pick of flowers for world leadership must go to South Africa for its enormous success in hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup of Football with evident warmth, safety and competence. This nation, much more than most, symbolizes the universal striving for world peace. So much is evident in its peaceful overthrowing of apartheid, and efforts to seek truth and reconciliation in its internal affairs. A standard is set for others to follow - we can all learn from South Africa. The blog itself celebrates the role of sport in the cause of world peace.

Our pick for the Fertilizer Prize is the recently concluded UN Climate Conference in Mexico. Its not that it was a complete failure, but that it – thanks to countries like our own (Canada) that have been foot-dragging their way forward (some would say backward) in finding ways (not) to meet this challenge – fall far short of what the world community should be doing.

We want to remain positive about the progress in Cancun, but it is very obvious that more fertilizer (this time in a positive sense) is needed. For those interested in examining an authoritative assessment of the outcome, we recommend visiting http://climateprogress.org/2010/12/02/un-climate-summit-in-cancun-mexico/

2. International Development
We make a post-humus gesture of flowers on this occasion to Frank Fenner who passed away at the ripe old age of 95. Fenner, an Australian, was a giant in the field of international and global health, most notably leading the WHO smallpox eradication certification effort, achieved in 1980.

Our choice of Fenner for flowers in this category is doubly relevant, given the poor progress achieved by the world on climate change (see: 2nd paragraph above, under Global Stewardship), as he is recently famous for the following quotation:

“Homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within the next 100 years” he told the Australian newspaper in June. “A lot of other animals will too. It’s an irreversible situation. I think it is too late.” Surely we must do more now than simply hope that he is wrong about this.

The Fertilizer award in this category, now in negative sense, goes collectively to the G8 group of countries, for their continuing dismal performance, especially when set against their continued failure to live up to a UN agreement in 1970 that committed rich nations to allocating 0.7% of their GNP for this purpose. Although Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg, Denmark and the Netherlands comfortably meet this target, no G8 nation gets close to it (range = UK 0.52, Italy 0.16). In fact, when compared with other nations monitored by the OECD, the G8 whose brief meetings cost billions of dollars, perform even less well than the rest.
Really now, with a G8 like this, who needs it?

3. Human Rights
We offer flowers to the International Criminal Court (ICC) the permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression (although it cannot currently exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression). The creation of the ICC is commonly viewed as the most significant reform of international law since 1945, giving teeth to the two bodies of international law that deal with treatment of individuals: human rights and humanitarian law. The court came into being on 1 July 2002 and can only prosecute crimes committed on or after that date. The official seat of the court is in The Hague, Netherlands, but its proceedings may take place anywhere.

We take this opportunity to draw attention to the ICC’s recently launched Outreach Report 2010 and related video, which presents the ICC Outreach Unit’s work from 1 October 2009 to 1 October 2010. The English-language version of this report, the video, and previous annual reports are available on the ICC website.

And we close our awards section this year with a very big pile of very smelly Fertilizer for French President Nicholas Sarkozy for his treatment of the Roma. We agree with the findings of EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, who, in September, likened the recent deportation of almost 1,000 Gypsies to Romania and Bulgaria to Vichy France's treatment of Jews in the second world war. No amount of histrionic pirouetting by the perfidious Sarkozy can allow his decision to stand as other than another blow to France’s patchy record in the annals of human rights.
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/14/roma-deportations-france-eu-disgrace].

2010 AS WE RECORDED IT...

January: FOOD 2030 - A NATIONAL REPORT WITH GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS
This issue highlighted the British Government’s new Food Strategy, released January 5th, 2010. It is a timely document, with implications for both the UK and the rest of the world. Here are some of the key findings:

Demand for food and energy will jump 50% by 2030 and for fresh water by 30%, as the world population tops 8.3 billion. Climate change will exacerbate matters unpredictably. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) predicts widespread water shortages across Africa, Europe and Asia by 2025. The amount of fresh water available per head of population will decline sharply during that time. The issue of food and energy security rose high on the political agenda last year during a spike in oil and commodity prices, but then slipped in priority with falling prices. At present, 30-40% of all crops are lost due to pest and disease before they are harvested, and future droughts and increasing salinity will affect growth and produce.

February: CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE BY PRIESTS AND COVER-UP BY CATHOLIC CHURCH
In this issue, we posted verbatim, a CNN report that outlined a decades old cover-up of child sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests in Ireland. The actions of Irish priests and the inaction of their church hierarchy represent the height of hypocrisy and flagrant criminal behavior, and bring into disrepute the entire edifice of organized Catholicism.

Although the action now being taken came about as a result of a commission of inquiry put into motion by the nation of Ireland, one then had to ask why this took so long and why no criminal charges have ever been laid.

The world has since learned from a leaked US diplomatic cable that the Irish government was forced to grant Vatican officials immunity from testifying.

[Reference: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/10/wikileaks-vatican-child-sex-abuse-investigation]

In our view, this clearly does not absolve the state itself from some share of the responsibility and the consequences. Clearly it does not absolve the Vatican, which now appears to have used its enormous influence to engage in obstruction of justice.

March: OVER A BILLION HUNGRY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD - IMF AND FAO REPORT
This issue gives space to the text of an International Monetary Fund report entitled “Hunger on the Rise” developed by David Dawe and Denis Drechsler, and based on The State of Food Insecurity in the World, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2009 (full citations provided in the blog).

In summary, world hunger spiked sharply in 2009, significantly worsening an already disappointing trend in global food security since 1996. The combination of food and economic crises has pushed the number of hungry people worldwide to historic levels.

April: DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE FOR HEALTH – NEW IMPLICATIONS ABOUT COMPARATIVE AID EFFECTIVENESS OF GOVERNMENT VS NON-GOVERNMENTAL FUNDING
This issue extracted from a report recently distributed by the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, referring to work jointly published in the Lancet by Harvard University, and the University of Washington, revealing that investment in the non-government sector may result in more favourable health spending by government than by investing directly in the government sector itself.

Specifically, the study found that debt relief, and development assistance for health (DAH) to government had a negative and significant effect on domestic government spending on health such that for every US$1 of DAH to government, government health expenditures from domestic resources were reduced by $0•43 (p=0) to $1•14. However, debt relief, and development assistance for health DAH to the non-governmental sector had a positive and significant effect on domestic government health spending.

May: MATERNAL MORTALITY – AN INTEGRITY TEST FOR POLITICIANS
For the lead item of this month’s blog, we presented the polite but authoritative view of the Lancet on Canada’s G8 Leadership, emphasizing the inadequacy of Canada’s approach to maternal health as a global public health issue, and followed this by the first good news in many decades, that maternal mortality globally is finally being reduced.

This issue was labeled “an integrity test for politicians” because many of (what Canadian Conservative politicians like to refer to themselves as) the “political class” appear intellectually challenged by scientifically sound evidence regarding the nature of the problem, and what works or doesn’t. It is also an ethical test… whether our ruling party is in it for cheap political gains among their home base, or whether higher reasoning will prevail in the interests of the health of millions of women around the world.

Postscript: Canada’s eventual funding commitments to address maternal and child health (MCH) excluded access to safe abortion, and made only weak provisions for family planning. (This observation was further elaborated in the September blog).

June: THE GAZA FOG OF ASYMMETRICAL VIOLENCE Need for International Inquiry
This issue presented verbatim, a recent report by Amnesty International, outlining the desperate situation of the people of Gaza due to the Israeli blockade. While this seemingly archaic military tactic continues to be excused by Israel as an act of self-defence, independent analyses have revealed this to be capricious in terms of the range of prohibited items, and it is obviously counter-productive to the peace effort although apparently good politics in Israel itself. On the ground however, the situation is nothing less than a humanitarian disaster, especially as over half the Gaza population are children.

July: FOOTBALL WORLD CUP PROMOTES SPORTS AS A FORCE FOR WORLD PEACE
We took the opportunity of the World Cup as a timely moment to take note of initiatives to bond international sport to the cause of world peace. Interestingly, this particular issue turned out to be the most frequently visited issue of our blog since it commenced in 2006!

August: HISTORIC UN RESOLUTION ON WATER AND SANITATION AS HUMAN RIGHTS
On 28th July, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling on States and International Organizations to provide financial resources, build capacity and transfer technology, particularly to developing countries, in scaling up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all. The Assembly, in a text on the human right to water and sanitation, highlights that 884 million people lack access to safe drinking water and more than 2.6 billion are without access to basic sanitation.

Regretfully a full consensus was not achieved and the resolution was approved with 122 votes in favour, none against and 41 abstentions. We noted disappointment in our own Canadian government, which abstained from the vote, giving no adequate explanation.

September: MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS – OUR UNDERACHIEVING “LEADERSHIP”
Under United Nations auspices, from 20 to 22 September, a Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was held in New York. With five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the MDGs, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called on world leaders to accelerate progress towards these goals, the overall aim being to reduce World Poverty.

Despite the dire need of over a billion people living in poverty around the world, it is increasingly clear that few if any of the MDGs will be achieved by the target year of 2015. Clearly there is a crying need for a strong reaffirmation with donor policies and resources to match.

Unfortunately, recent years have witnessed a track record littered with false promises and broken commitments and in some instances shallow comprehension of what is needed to resolve on the major issues underlying world poverty. All too often, “world leaders” have pandered to their domestic political bases rather than genuinely taking on these issues.

October: CANADA LOSING ITS INFLUENCE IN THE WORLD – FOREIGN POLICY FAILURES AND "MAPLE SYRUP DIPLOMACY"
On October 12th, 2010, Canada lost in its bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Despite Canada’s tradition of global leadership, and having gained this seat on every prior bid for it, impoverished Portugal (pop 11.6 million) beat Canada by a virtual landslide. It is no exaggeration to say that, approaching the vote, Canada’s Conservative government revealed a sense of entitlement to the seat, being 7th largest donor of the UN, and hosting this year’s G8 and G20 meetings. Besides Prime Minister Stephen Harper making two appearances before the General Assembly during the run-up (having otherwise mostly ignored the UN), as a bizarre gesture, Maple Syrup gifts were given to representatives of UN members before the vote.

The juxtaposition of these events suggest that a combination of clumsy leadership and diplomatic ineptitude may lie at the root of this foreign policy failure. While Canada’s stated principles do create positive images, when you look closely at how they are interpreted under the Conservative government, the reality reveals a narrow vision that is too often arrogant, ignorant and ignoble.

November: CHINA SHAMES ITSELF - IMPRISONS MAN FOR PUBLIC HEALTH ADVOCACY
In this issue we draw attention to how China is persecuting a man following his advocacy on behalf of public health, especially the health of children.
This is the first time we have given space to the issue of human rights in China. Like many other observers, we are impressed by China’s material advances and recognize its growing importance on the world stage. However, until human rights are elevated in importance, it will fall short of global expectations as a potential world leader.

December: INTERNATIONAL & GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT – YEAR IN REVIEW 2010…
This Issue!

AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!We extend to readers our best wishes for 2011, with hopes that the global challenges of recent years will be better understood and more humanely managed going forward. For this to happen we need more enlightened world leadership. PacificSci will continue to offer an independent view.

FOOTBALL WORLD CUP PROMOTES SPORTS AS A FORCE FOR WORLD PEACE

PREAMBLE: We take the opportunity of the World Cup concluding today, to issue our blog a few days earlier than usual. This is a timely moment to take note of initiatives to bond international sport to the cause of world peace.

Congratulations are due to South Africa for its success in hosting this year’s event with evident warmth, safety and competence; this nation, more than most, symbolizes the universal striving for world peace, in its peaceful overthrowing of apartheid, and efforts to seek truth and reconciliation in its internal affairs. A standard is set for others to follow - we can all learn from South Africa.

We congratulate Spain as winners, and all other countries who competed, even those not selected to play in south Africa. We are sufficiently old-fashioned to think that participation lies at the heart of all sport; after all, without participants, there will be no ultimate "winner". With participation, at a more fundamental level, everyone is a "winner".

Our selection of this topic is not a new idea, but reflects a growing reality over many years that sports can be a force for international relations. Historically, this force has been used in various ways, from negative to positive. However, taking the high road, we note the following development in 2006:

In July 2006, the European Commission and the Fédération Internationale de Football Associations (FIFA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to promote football as a factor for development in Africa, in the Caribbean and in Pacific countries. According to the Commission, around 50 million people across Africa play football regularly and for many of these people, football is "an act of survival" and a means of rebuilding confidence and promoting tolerance and solidarity. It believes that linking football with development programmes can help make a difference to the lives of millions of people.

The Commission-FIFA MoU covers areas ranging from development cooperation and humanitarian aid to racism, post-conflict reconstruction, nation-building, health and education.

This background is extracted from the webpage cited below for the article which we showcase as this months blog topic.

SPORT FOR DEVELOPMENT PLAN ADOPTED
Ahead of the football World Cup in South Africa,... the United Nations (UN) together with the International Olympic Committee (IOC)... adopted a series of recommendations on harnessing the power of sport as a tool for development. The 19 recommendations cover humanitarian assistance, peace-building, education, gender equality, the environment and the fight against HIV/AIDS. They were adopted on 21-22 May during the first joint UN-IOC forum, entitled 'The Importance of Partnership', in Lausanne. The participants, including NGOs and academic experts, stressed the need to embed sport in national development policies to leverage its instrumental potential in the field. The forum also underlined the need to avoid creating parallel structures between the various different players and duplicating activities.

2010 FIFA World Cup
In the forum, the UN stressed that this year's football World Cup, which kicks off in South Africa on Friday (11 June), presents the country and the rest of the continent with a unique opportunity to build peace and development. "The World Cup in South Africa is a unique occasion to transform the African people's pride and enthusiasm into a positive dynamic of solidarity, tolerance and development," said Wilfried Lemke, special adviser to the UN secretary-general on sport for development and peace. A number of UN funds, programmes and specialized agencies are making use of the World Cup as a platform for outreach and collaboration to leverage the power of the event. Last October, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution urging the international community to harness the World Cup for the development of the whole African continent.

Action plan on development through football
Earlier this spring, representatives of 63 development NGOs, football clubs, players' unions, sport organisations, academic institutions and governmental bodies gathered at an international conference on “Development through Football” in Vienna to adopt an action plan on football for development. The action plan calls for football governing bodies to support initiatives in the area of development through sport, especially at grass-roots level, and assign at least 0.7% of total revenue to social responsibility initiatives, for example. It further suggests the establishment of a strategy to raise media awareness of development through sport and using football as a tool for preventing violence, gender inequality, ethnic tensions and war.

Source: United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace (UNOSDP) http://www.euractiv.com/en/sports/sport-development-plan-adopted-ahead-world-cup-news-494939 07 June 2010

RECOMMENDATIONS
1. To recognise the honour accorded to the IOC through the
granting of UN Permanent Observer Status and the historic
milestone which this represents in giving an authoritative voice
to the sporting movement within the international community,
with the power to act as an advocate for the role of sport in the
service of peace and development.

2. To resolve to maximise the opportunity afforded by the granting of Observer Status to build on the IOC’s relationship with the UN and to sustain and complement the UN’s efforts to shape a peaceful future. Furthermore, mindful of the need for close cooperation with government authorities, to leverage this unique and seminal opportunity to interface with and influence national governments in the formulation of their development policies and to entrench sport within those policies by emphasizing its enormous power as an indispensable tool for peace and development.

3. To emphasise that it is incumbent on the Olympic Movement to
fulfil its collective responsibility and moral duty, in accordance
with the principles and values of Olympism, by identifying and
implementing best practice in the use of sport to promote
economic and social development; and further, to recognise the
need to think beyond the competitive character of sport to
maximise its contribution to development.

4. Mindful of the fact that the IOC will need to be proactive in its
relationship with the UN, to prioritise a dialogue with the UN on
the mainstreaming and embedding of sport within UN
programmes for humanitarian development and to seek the
UN’s active support and specific proposals with regard to this
undertaking.

5. To acknowledge and harness the power of partnership in sport
at all levels, from local, regional, international and sectoral, in
order to translate the vision of a peaceful, healthy society into
reality; and to recognise the need for a collaborative, sharing,
networking and learning approach which engages all key
stakeholders including the private sector, civil society and the
military. Furthermore, to facilitate all such partnerships by
building new alliances, defining new areas of co-operation,
creating fresh synergies and identifying the organisations and
institutions with whom the Olympic Movement can most
effectively collaborate to further our common goals, while at the
same time mindful of the need for a co-ordinated approach,
which complements ongoing initiatives and avoids the creation
of parallel structures and the unnecessary duplication and
overlap of activities.

6. To develop the IOC’s working relationships with the Other
Entities who have Permanent Observer Status at the UN in
order to realise our common goals, in particular the Red Cross
Movement, given their similar structures and shared objectives;
and to encourage the national affiliates of the International
Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and
the NOCs to work together, particularly in areas where they
have joint programming activities, such as in the field of
HIV/AIDs, disaster prevention and disaster response.

7. To underline the commitment of the Olympic Movement to
continue its efforts to combat HIV/AIDs, including the
dissemination of the ‘Tool Kit for the Sports Community:
Together for HIV and AIDS Prevention’, as widely as possible.

8. To recognise the contribution that the IOC has made in support
of the UN Millennium Development Goals to date and to stress,
on the occasion of this UN-IOC Forum, the Olympic Family’s
continuing commitment to engage with all of the MDGs and to
accelerate efforts to facilitate their delivery specifically through
the medium of sport and education by the 2015 target date,
including appropriate IOC participation in the UN Summit on
MDGs in September 2010.

9. To recognise the responsibility of the sporting movement to
strive for environmental protection and sustainability at all times:
and to commit the Olympic Family to the promotion of
environmental sustainability in all aspects of its work.

10. To acknowledge the unique contribution of the forthcoming
Youth Olympic Games in the promotion of Olympic values to
young people, including peace and development, and to
recognise the importance of outreach to young people in
tackling social challenges, by taking steps to connect with them
effectively, making full use of digital communications, the
internet and social media. Furthermore, in recognition of the
fact that the education system is the most comprehensive way
of reaching young people, to work with all relevant partners and
stakeholders, in particular national and local government
authorities, to ensure that the promotion of participation in sport
and physical activities is included in school curricula worldwide
in view of the contribution of sport to health, wellbeing and
education.

11. To commend the achievements of the International Olympic
Truce Foundation in its endeavour to encourage the study of
world peace and the creation of progress in its pursuits; and in
addition, the achievements of the World Taekwondo Federation
Sport Peace Corps in its successful outreach to young people
and its aims of building a better and more peaceful world; and
to advocate the consideration of its global expansion, in close
cooperation with key stakeholders, including the IOC, the UN,
national and international sports federations and NOCs, firmly
believing that together, we have the ability to promote global
peace and harmony through sport.

12. Mindful of the priority given to gender equity and the
empowerment of women in the UN Millennium Development
Goals, to affirm the importance of sport as a vehicle for the
achievement of gender equality and to continue to strive for
equal opportunities for women in and through sport, both at
grass roots levels and in leadership positions, while avoiding
generalised, one-size-fits-all approaches. Furthermore, to give
full recognition to the high-quality female role models in sport
and to increase the target number of women in leadership
positions and decision-making structures within the Olympic
Family and in the wider sporting world.

13. To ensure a fully inclusive approach, additionally by making
it a priority to include girls and women with disabilities in sport
for development and peace initiatives.

14. To resolve to promote more health-enhancing initiatives, in
particular to tailor and develop activities designed to reach
inactive groups and to forge new alliances with all stakeholders,
including public health authorities and the WHO for the purpose
of promoting healthy lifestyles and addressing the challenges of
obesity, poor nutrition and ill health.

15. To recognise that while sport alone cannot prevent the evils
of society and solve the world’s political socio-economic
problems, it can contribute to a climate of peace and to the
making of improved life for its citizens. That being the case, to
reflect on how to implement the UN Secretary-General’s
request for the IOC to consider organising more activities on the
ground in conflict or post-conflict situations and to identify
appropriate partners in this endeavour, both with UN agencies
and elsewhere, while remaining humble and realistic about the
contribution that the IOC and sport can make to peace-making,
peace-building and peace consolidation efforts.

16. To consider the creation of a web-based informationsharing
network for sport in peace and development, through
which information, expertise and know-how on local, national
and regional initiatives, case studies, research, best practice
and impact measurement and evaluation of projects can be
shared by all members of the Olympic Family.

17. To explore further the vast potential of ‘healing through
sport’, both in post-conflict situations and in equipping
communities to cope with the profound trauma caused by
natural disasters, recognising the need to customize sports
interventions according to the situation on the ground and the
need for collaborative efforts with established local community
development networks including coaches and volunteers, as
well as with UN agencies and NGOs, to build resilience and
create durable, sustainable change within devastated
communities.

18. To recognise the enormous contribution of volunteers to
efforts to advance peace and development through sport and to
encourage the IOC and the Olympic Family to participate in the
celebrations during 2011 to mark the 10th anniversary of the
International Year of Volunteers.

19. To recommend the holding of further UN-IOC Forums and
the continuation of the Working Party of the International Forum
on Sport for Peace and Development established by the
President of the IOC, whose remit would include the provision
of full assistance with all aspects of the preparation of the
second International Forum on Sport for Peace and
Development as well as a comprehensive review of the
outcome of the 2010 UN-IOC Forum.

Source: United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace (UNOSDP). UN-IOC FORUM: THE IMPORTANCE OF PARTNERSHIP Lausanne 21st-22nd May 2010. http://www.olympic.org/Documents/Development_through_Sport/Recommendations_UN-IOC%20Forum.pdf