UNREPORTED: News on the United Nations System at Work
Reported by Pauline Karakat for the Chronicle
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| The Oldest International Organization … The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has established a Youth Education Scheme (YES) to provide scholarships to students pursuing a career in this field. "Every unfinished degree in telecommunications spells the loss of a capable mind to the sector", said Hamadoun Toure, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau. YES will support needy and deserving young people who want to carve out a career in communications. The oldest international organization, founded in 1865 and based in Geneva, ITU will partner with leading companies to provide scholarships to outstanding students who need financial assistance to complete their degrees.
People all over the world rely heavily on mail services, even in today's electronic world. The Universal Postal Union celebrated World Post Day highlighting the crucial role of the postal network to global communication. UPU—the second oldest international organization, founded in 1874 with headquarters in Berne, Switzerland—and other postal agencies use this day to organize philatelic exhibitions and introduce new products. Mail services deliver an estimated 445 billion letters every year, while taking advantage of the latest forms of communications, in particular electronic transactions. Companies which sell products over the Internet still rely on mail services to deliver purchases to their customers. While the Internet is making it easier to access postal information in developed countries, it is still not available in many developing countries. This fact reaffirms the continued importance of physical mail services to the majority of the world's population.
Launching the LennonOno Grant for Peace program, Yoko Ono awarded the first grants to two Israeli and Palestinian artists. On 9 October, at a ceremony attended by Secretary General Kofi Annan and 300 ambassadors, government officials and artists at the United Nations headquarters in New York, Ono presented the $50,000 awards to Palestinian Khalil Rabah and Israeli Zvi Goldstein. Inspired by the late John Lennon's famous song "Give Peace a Chance", Ono created the program to reward artists who transcend politics in their art to promote peaceful dialogue and build mutual understanding. First Mahbub ul Haq Award President Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil will be the first recipient of the Mahbub ul Haq Award for Outstanding Contribution to Human Development, created by the United Nations Development Programme. Named for the late Pakistani economist who founded the global Human Development Report, the award will be presented biennially to Heads of State or Government who successfully place human development at the heart of their political agenda. During President Cardoso's two terms in office, the percentage of children not attending school dropped from 10 to almost zero. The unemployment rate in Brazil decreased to 7 per cent, and 8.9 million jobs were created. Between 1995 and 2001, some 588,000 agrarian families were successfully resettled and 20 million hectares of land were given to landless Brazilians. In 2001, the President launched the Alvorada Programme, an anti-poverty project providing health care, running water and education in the country's 2,361 poorest municipalities. Mr. Cardoso is one of six recipients of excellence awards. New UN Web Site on War-affected Children The United Nations has launched a new web site (Children and Armed Conflict) which aims to promote awareness and mobilize action to protect children victimized by war. The site, created by the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, includes statistics that shed light on the stark realities facing children in war-affected areas worldwide. In the last ten years, millions of children in conflict situations have been killed or made orphans. Many more have been seriously injured, permanently disabled and have suffered severe psychological trauma. The site also offers a look into the gradual progress being made in protecting these children, recounting how violations are systematically reported, war crimes against children prosecuted, and how warring factions are increasingly committing themselves to observing children's rights and international humanitarian law. |
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