The United Nations Academic Impact
Academic institutions have an invaluable role to play in strengthening the work of the United Nations. From research laboratories to seminar rooms, from lecture halls to informal gatherings in cafeterias, the search for innovative solutions to global challenges often begins on campus.
Civic Education and Inclusion: A Market or a Public Interest Perspective?
In recent years, we have constantly been reminded that we are living in a knowledge economy. Societies that invest most heavily in training their citizens will therefore be in the best position on the global chessboard. Thus, education is being given a new role in the concept of competition. Not only is this concept of competition encouraged within society, whether in the North or South, the implication is that the primary benefit of an education is economic.
National Identity and Minority Languages
How far do we go in implementing language policies into the education system so as to integrate a nation's peoples? Nearly all nations identify and determine at least one language as the official language, and some include another as the national language.
Education for All: Rising to the Challenge
Imagine a school that changes location every forty-five days -- a school that comes to the child, instead of the other way around. This is happening on the steppes of Mongolia where the government provides mobile tent schools for nomadic herder communities. Further north, in the extreme conditions of Siberia, or further south, on the hot, dusty plains of Kenya, other nomadic children are enjoying more educational opportunities than their parents ever did.
Education as a Means to Promote Sustainability
One of the myths current today, spread by media events such as Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, is that everyone will be equal in facing the ecological and human catastrophe of climate change. This is simply not true. Clear thinking about climate change and its likely impact on cultural integrity, transmission, and diversity requires that one take note of the glaring differences today among people on the planet.
Developing Global Public Health Links
The short twentieth century, as defined by Eric Hobsbawm in 1995, was marked by important economic, social, and technical-scientific advances that improved the quality of life and health for millions of people around the world. However, as an age of extremes -- a phrase also coined by Hobsbawm -- the process of globalization began to create not only large international disparities, but also huge social and health problems, especially in countries excluded from the central axes of the global economy.
Photo Essay: Documenting my Culture in its Truest Form
Being one of the very few professional Indigenous photographers in Australia, I find it my responsibility to record and document my culture in its truest form. My social documentary work focuses on health and education, as I believe that if our communities have the necessary levels of health care, only then are we able to concentrate on developing the appropriate educational skills that will allow us to be who we are. Aboriginal Australia is a progressive modern community that continues its link with the Earth and traditional practices whilst evolving and adapting to twenty-first century culture.-- Wayne Quilliam
Malaria: Blood, Sweat, and Tears
Photographer Adam Nadel and illustrator Kako collaborated to create a graphic novel depicting the process of malaria transmission. The photo series Malaria: Blood, Sweat and Tears was created by Adam Nadel for the Malaria Consortium. The series won an award of excellence from Pictures of the Year International. An exhibition, sponsored by the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, was on view at the United Nations through 26 May 2010. The graphic novel was part of the award winning collection.
Policy Trends in Advancing Safe Motherhood
It is a startling and sobering fact that every minute of every day, a woman dies in pregnancy and childbirth somewhere in the world. This equates to more than half a million women dying in pregnancy and childbirth every year, with 99 per cent of these tragedies occurring in developing countries.
Australia's First People - Their Social and Emotional Well-being
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians make up 2.5 per cent of the Australian population and continue to suffer disproportionately from the consequences of European settlement. The life expectancy for Indigenous Australians is 10 years lower than that of other Australians; the death rates for Indigenous people are twice as high across all age groups; and intentional self-harm was the leading cause of death from external causes for Indigenous males between 2001 and 2005. Although definitive national data about the incidence and prevalence of mental health disorders among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians is not available, it is clear there are enormous disparities in mental health outcomes for Indigenous people.
Why No One Talks about Non-Communicable Diseases
Infectious disease control was at the top of the agenda during the sixty-third session of the World Health Assembly, which took place in May 2010 in Geneva. With much attention given to progress towards achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals, polio eradication, the implementation of the International Health Regulations, the regulation of counterfeit drugs, and influenza preparedness, there was little time to discuss one of the largest killers: non-communicable or chronic diseases.
Global Health: Then and Now
How the world changes! Nearly a generation ago, in 1994, I served as co-author of a major World Bank study, Better Health in Africa. Now I have the privilege to observe health issues around the world as President and CEO of the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA). These experiences give me perspective on changes in global health institutions, policies, and funding.
Much Cause for Satisfaction
Message on World Malaria Day, 2010
Two years ago, I called for malaria prevention and treatment programmes to be made universally available to at-risk populations by the end of 2010. This World Malaria Day brings much cause for satisfaction. In a very short time, the world has gone from simply trying to hold malaria at bay to the realistic goal of delivering effective and affordable care to all who need it. Furthermore, the scientific community has set a research agenda for developing the tools and strategies that will eventually eradicate malaria for good.
Indigenous Children - Their Human Rights, Mortality, and the Millennium Development Goals
The first effective attempt to promote children's rights was the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, drafted by Eglantyne Jebb in 1923 and adopted by the League of Nations in 1924. On 20 November 1959, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a much expanded version as its own Declaration of the Rights of the Child, with ten principles in place of the original five. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights, describing child-specific needs and rights. These human rights included civil, cultural, economic, political, and social rights, as well as aspects of humanitarian law.The UNCRC was signed in 1989, and entered into force in 1990. As of May 2010, it had 193 parties which had ratified, accepted, or acceded with stated reservations or interpretations, including every member of the United Nations except Somalia and the United States, which have only signed.
HIV/AIDS: Will We Win and When?
It is very apt that the evolution of the HIV/AIDS epidemic should be considered in the context of global health. One of the critical aspects of global health as a field of study and practice is that it seeks not only the general improvement of health in the world, but more importantly seeks to reduce the inequalities between peoples -- inequalities that in essence represent inequities. There will be no substantial improvement in global health unless there is concomitant international health in the sense of nations and their component actors working together. Success in addressing the problem of HIV is, and indeed will be, a marvellous test case of the ability of nations to work cooperatively, and the characteristics of the infection bring out clearly the inequities that exist within and between countries, which must be eliminated.