Satchit Balsari (Fellow/India, Class of 2010) writes to request members of the network for input on a project he's currently working on with Harvard's FXB Center for Health and Human Rights and UNICEF.
The earthquake in Haiti has left the country in a dire situation from which it will undoubtedly require years to recover and rebuild. Reports estimate 250,000 people dead, 300,000 injured and 1,000,000 homeless. In relation to Haiti’s children, tens of thousands have experienced heightened levels of insecurity including separation and loss, abuse and exploitation, interruptions in education, food insecurity, and profound levels of psychosocial distress. Moreover, the damage the earthquake left behind to both buildings and infrastructure presents the Haitian Government with a formidable challenge to address.
Haiti’s leaders are of the view that the post-earthquake experiences of other countries would be helpful in informing the planning and strategy of Haiti’s rebuilding and reconstruction. Linked by commonalities in the challenges they face, countries from the “global south” can share their learned experience to help build upon previous successes and avoid previous mistakes. Policymakers and stakeholders from other earthquake affected areas have important stories to share and lessons to convey, so that the “building back better” of Haiti could be undertaken in the context of what has worked best elsewhere.
To support the re-building efforts of the Haitian authorities and to promote the potential of shared knowledge from other countries, the FXB Center plans to facilitate a three day, South-South Conference that could enable translation of the best practices in post-disaster recovery from the “Global South,” with a specific focus on responses to the needs of children. The Conference will address those issues that Haitians identify as the most central and problematic in their reconstruction. The participants will be from countries that have experienced a significant earthquake in the last 10 years, including possible representation from Pakistan, Algeria, China, Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Indonesia, as well as Chile. Invitees will be selected by a conference steering committee of Haitian officials, UNICEF and FXB leadership. International organizations, such as WHO and PAHO, will also be invited. The conference would take place in June or July of 2010 at a location still to be determined.
The conference will aim to have immediate and practical application. Its focus on best practices will highlight the efforts that have been working in Haiti, as well as identify additional strategies that might help meet complex ongoing challenges. The conference will serve as the launch of a longer-term action undertaken by the Haitian authorities in collaboration with the UN and non governmental stakeholders to create an agenda for mapping need and measuring the interventions that are taking place.
In terms of addressing the needs of children post-disaster, conference participants will explore the vital components in protecting children, which necessarily include human security issues facing their families and communities. The conference will discuss different approaches and models to be used in ensuring protection, shelter, and care for orphans and vulnerable children. Participants will also investigate how livelihood protection and sustainability, women’s access to personal and financial security and access to land have fitted in with child protection programs in other earthquake settings. The conference will also examine best practices in dealing with child rights, legal identity, registration and tracing.
Friday, April 30, 2010
The Greening of the Food Service Industry
Pat Gallardo (Fellow/Philippines, Class of 2008) was featured in the Inspiration Profile section of F&B World's March-April 2010 issue.
Friday, March 5, 2010
One small step for Kennedy, one giant leap for Obama
by Thom Woodroofe (Delegate/Australia, KL Summit 2009
As a boy I wrote a detailed seven-page letter to President Clinton outlining why he should send a child into space. Coincidentally I suggested the child should be me.
Today, it is a dream that not even in my most fanciful of moments can I still consider a reality.
Last month, Barack Obama unveiled his new budget which abruptly cut NASA’s ambitious Constellation program.
It was an endeavor that would have seen us return to the moon before the decade was out and then set our sights on Mars.
Now, with that single stroke of the pen, he has destroyed whatever speck of moon dust there was of my grandest dream ever becoming a reality. Alabama Senator Richard Shelby rightly observed it was the “death march for the future of US human spaceflight.”
Announced by the Bush Administration in the wake of the 2003 Columbia disaster, the Constellation program was a healthy injection of Obama’s favorite home remedy at a time it was most needed: hope.
But now the magic and romance of grand idealism in the politics of space travel is well and truly dead.
It is hard to imagine President Obama channeling the Camelot era of Kennedy and committing the nation to an unquantifiable and almost unimaginable goal by the end of the decade on any issue. Or perhaps even more importantly, rallying the nation across the aisle towards it.
In these days of stark and bitter partisanship coupled with a vicious media cycle of shock jocks and pundits it would be one of the most dangerous political moves in history. Health care is the closest he has come to such idealism, but it has been so diluted by the political process you would hardly call it visionary stuff. Or to use an appropriate pun: the right stuff.
By most estimates, the cost of launching a manned mission to Mars would total around US $40 billion. Not much really when you think of the size of the bank bailouts and stimulus packages steamrolled across the developed world in the last eighteen months.
Imagine if simply a small part of the Obama stimulus package was used to invest in the vision of a manned mission to Mars, or building a base on the moon. An investment of that size in a sector so diverse that every Congressional district is linked to launching the shuttle in some way would have been phenomenal.
The perplexing reality is that on two of the most traditionally liberal stalwarts of policy: spaceflight and foreign aid, President Bush has actually beaten President Obama thus far.
There is little doubt the Apollo space program cost more than could be afforded at the time. At its peak, NASA’s direct funding alone totaled 5% of the federal budget. This was against the backdrop of a country gripped in the bipolar struggle of a Cold War with the USSR and struggling economically to sustain a rising insurgency war in Vietnam.
But Apollo was more than just a goal.
The prospect of landing on the moon raised people’s spirits. Bank bailouts or some dodgy home insulation in the Australian example have hardly done that.
The benefits were much wider too.
Advances in medicine, technology and energy efficiency have saved lives and increased our overall quality of life. If it wasn’t for Apollo, we may well not have yet developed lasers sufficiently to conduct heart and eye surgery, and solar systems might too be a thing of the future.
With India, Japan and China each successfully conducting manned space missions in the last decade, now is the time for the US to be bolstering rather than booting the sector to the ground. At times it seems like the best thing for the US space industry might just be China’s power becoming a rival to the US. Either that or the effects of climate change accelerating rapidly or the discovery of intelligent life somewhere in the universe.
Sometimes I still catch myself looking up there at the moon and wondering when we will be going back, and who that will be. My astronaut-idol Jim Lovell once proclaimed: “Imagine if Christopher Columbus had returned from the New World and nobody returned in his footsteps?”
Under President Obama it seems like one giant leap away.
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/one-small-step-for-kennedy-one-giant-leap-for-obama/#comments
Thom Woodroofe, 20, is the 2009 Young Victorian of the Year and founder of Left Right Think-Tank. He is currently living and studying in the USA overcoming his lifelong desire to become an astronaut.
As a boy I wrote a detailed seven-page letter to President Clinton outlining why he should send a child into space. Coincidentally I suggested the child should be me.
Today, it is a dream that not even in my most fanciful of moments can I still consider a reality.
Last month, Barack Obama unveiled his new budget which abruptly cut NASA’s ambitious Constellation program.
It was an endeavor that would have seen us return to the moon before the decade was out and then set our sights on Mars.
Now, with that single stroke of the pen, he has destroyed whatever speck of moon dust there was of my grandest dream ever becoming a reality. Alabama Senator Richard Shelby rightly observed it was the “death march for the future of US human spaceflight.”
Announced by the Bush Administration in the wake of the 2003 Columbia disaster, the Constellation program was a healthy injection of Obama’s favorite home remedy at a time it was most needed: hope.
But now the magic and romance of grand idealism in the politics of space travel is well and truly dead.
It is hard to imagine President Obama channeling the Camelot era of Kennedy and committing the nation to an unquantifiable and almost unimaginable goal by the end of the decade on any issue. Or perhaps even more importantly, rallying the nation across the aisle towards it.
In these days of stark and bitter partisanship coupled with a vicious media cycle of shock jocks and pundits it would be one of the most dangerous political moves in history. Health care is the closest he has come to such idealism, but it has been so diluted by the political process you would hardly call it visionary stuff. Or to use an appropriate pun: the right stuff.
By most estimates, the cost of launching a manned mission to Mars would total around US $40 billion. Not much really when you think of the size of the bank bailouts and stimulus packages steamrolled across the developed world in the last eighteen months.
Imagine if simply a small part of the Obama stimulus package was used to invest in the vision of a manned mission to Mars, or building a base on the moon. An investment of that size in a sector so diverse that every Congressional district is linked to launching the shuttle in some way would have been phenomenal.
The perplexing reality is that on two of the most traditionally liberal stalwarts of policy: spaceflight and foreign aid, President Bush has actually beaten President Obama thus far.
There is little doubt the Apollo space program cost more than could be afforded at the time. At its peak, NASA’s direct funding alone totaled 5% of the federal budget. This was against the backdrop of a country gripped in the bipolar struggle of a Cold War with the USSR and struggling economically to sustain a rising insurgency war in Vietnam.
But Apollo was more than just a goal.
The prospect of landing on the moon raised people’s spirits. Bank bailouts or some dodgy home insulation in the Australian example have hardly done that.
The benefits were much wider too.
Advances in medicine, technology and energy efficiency have saved lives and increased our overall quality of life. If it wasn’t for Apollo, we may well not have yet developed lasers sufficiently to conduct heart and eye surgery, and solar systems might too be a thing of the future.
With India, Japan and China each successfully conducting manned space missions in the last decade, now is the time for the US to be bolstering rather than booting the sector to the ground. At times it seems like the best thing for the US space industry might just be China’s power becoming a rival to the US. Either that or the effects of climate change accelerating rapidly or the discovery of intelligent life somewhere in the universe.
Sometimes I still catch myself looking up there at the moon and wondering when we will be going back, and who that will be. My astronaut-idol Jim Lovell once proclaimed: “Imagine if Christopher Columbus had returned from the New World and nobody returned in his footsteps?”
Under President Obama it seems like one giant leap away.
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/one-small-step-for-kennedy-one-giant-leap-for-obama/#comments
Thom Woodroofe, 20, is the 2009 Young Victorian of the Year and founder of Left Right Think-Tank. He is currently living and studying in the USA overcoming his lifelong desire to become an astronaut.
Earth Hour 2010
On the 27th of March 2010 at 8:30 PM, cities and towns across the world will turn off their lights for one hour – Earth Hour – sending a powerful global message that it’s time to take action on global warming.
For the past two years Earth Hour has brought together about one billion people around the globe, in more than 1000 cities from businesses, governments, and communities sending a message to world leaders in the lead-up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen. We needed to commit to reducing green house gas emissions to prevent catastrophic climate change impacts especially on the most vulnerable communities and to ensure the survival of our planet.
The United Nations Copenhagen Climate Change Conference 2009 was a historical gathering that brought together world leaders, to tackle the most challenging crisis of our time. We needed a deal, we needed commitments, and we needed the political will to be able to initiate action against climate change. However the outcome of Copenhagen was unable to fulfill the objectives of keeping global warming below the widely agreed 2ยบ C high-risk level.
This year Earth Hour is even more important and significant. This year, Earth Hour 2010 will empower individuals to commit to the challenge of finding the courage to solve the climate change crisis. It will continue to send a strong message to our world leaders for change by calling upon individuals, communities, and governments to turn out their lights for an extra hour.
In what we hope will be the world’s largest mass participation event, Earth Hour 2010 will be the culmination of over one billion people around the globe, in more than 6000 cities, towns and municipalities from business, government and the community turning off lights for one hour on one night. Earth Hour 2010 aims to send a message to world leaders that we, the citizens of the planet, demand commitment to actions that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the benefit of the planet. 2010 is the ultimate year for humanity to address the problem.
Last March 2009, the Philippines ranked first amongst all nations who participated in Earth Hour 2009. From Luzon, Visayas to Mindanao, 647 local government units and communities switched off their lights, and iconic buildings and landmarks went dark. This year WWF is aiming for the support of at least 15 million Filipinos nationwide. In the midst of the darkness, the Philippines will shine again.
Earth Hour is a message of hope and action. Imagine what we can do if we act together.
Join us on March 27 at 8:30pm for Earth Hour 2010.
For more information, visit www.earthhour.org. You may also sign up at http://greenarmynetwork.net/earthhour2010.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
THE CHANGE AGENT
(Feature article on Vivian Liu, Delegate/Singapore, KL Summit 2009, in the December 2009 issue of Her World)
QIFANG: STUDENT LOANS MAKE FAMILY ABOUT LOVE, NOT FINANCIAL SECURITY
by Timothy Chen (Delegate/US, Singapore Summit 2007)
The Chinese are known to take a long view on everything. Story has it that in the 1970s, when Zhou Enlai was asked by Henry Kissinger what he thought about the French Revolution, Zhou responded, "It's too early to tell." Likewise, traditionally most Chinese parents would gladly give everything they have to their children-to invest in the next generation-with the expectation that 40 or 50 years down the road, those children would "repay" the parents by taking care of them in their old age.
In a China steeped in Confucian mores with less in-country migration and deep ties to family and home communities, this was an investment that parents could count on. Parents could also spread their risk by having several children with the hopes that at least one would be there to provide for them in the future. Previous generations had done the same.
But in today's China, with a migratory workforce, looser connections to traditions and most families with only one child, seniors must either trust in the country's limited social safety net, or live with the uncertainty that investments in their children will pay the types of returns that will allow them to retire with financial security.
And what if your family's financial means are limited and you don't have the family savings to invest in your child now when they are pursuing their education? There is a small window of time during which you must have the money to pay to keep your child in school. Some majors at universities in the East might cost as much as four times the annual salary of a worker in a poorer, Western province. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, most Chinese families already spend more money on education than on anything except food. And other expensive items, like computers, have become educational necessities.
For many, government support has been the principal option. Government support for tertiary education is growing, but focuses on those who can demonstrate the greatest need. What's left is a tremendous gap between those for whom school fees are not a problem, and those who receive public sector support. Families in the gap have tried to find informal means to borrow for school, from friends or extended family, or their children had to drop out.
This is where formalized borrowing and a robust set of options for education finance can relieve a tremendous burden from so many Chinese middle and lower income families. With the expansion of education finance, educational decisions about where to go to school and how long to stay in school can be removed from the realities of financial resources. Young people with potential can use their talent as collateral to make sure they stay in school and realize that potential.
Shanghai-based Qifang is facilitating this development. Qifang is an online service for Chinese students to find a way to pay for their education by connecting them with individuals, companies and organizations that can support their educational dreams. Working like an eBay auction, sponsors can bid and compete to help, and lenders can offer internships and job opportunities as well as provide funding to pay bills. Qifang manages the transaction and repayment and is a communication tool for borrowers, lenders and peers. This has helped students learn about related topics like financial literacy too. With nearly 2500 loans on the site, Qifang's model is gaining early traction. In 2008, the World Economic Forum recognized Qifang as a Technology Pioneer for its innovative model and positive social impact.
Importantly, with models like Qifang, parents can still support their children's education according to tradition-helping with any money they can-but there is a subtle but important shift in responsibility to the child. It's their name on the loan and their credit at risk. It's this credit that the child will need to be in good standing to later borrow for a house, a car or to start their own business. And parents can still also depend on their children's improved career prospects to provide for their retirement and golden years, but they can also use some of the money that would have gone entirely to pay for education today to invest for retirement, buy insurance products or otherwise build up their own nest eggs.
Ideally then, family members become somewhat more financially self-reliant, but remain there for each other in times of need and emergencies. Family relationships are freer to become more about emotional and spiritual fulfillment and less about economic necessity.
The Chinese are known to take a long view on everything. Story has it that in the 1970s, when Zhou Enlai was asked by Henry Kissinger what he thought about the French Revolution, Zhou responded, "It's too early to tell." Likewise, traditionally most Chinese parents would gladly give everything they have to their children-to invest in the next generation-with the expectation that 40 or 50 years down the road, those children would "repay" the parents by taking care of them in their old age.
In a China steeped in Confucian mores with less in-country migration and deep ties to family and home communities, this was an investment that parents could count on. Parents could also spread their risk by having several children with the hopes that at least one would be there to provide for them in the future. Previous generations had done the same.
But in today's China, with a migratory workforce, looser connections to traditions and most families with only one child, seniors must either trust in the country's limited social safety net, or live with the uncertainty that investments in their children will pay the types of returns that will allow them to retire with financial security.
And what if your family's financial means are limited and you don't have the family savings to invest in your child now when they are pursuing their education? There is a small window of time during which you must have the money to pay to keep your child in school. Some majors at universities in the East might cost as much as four times the annual salary of a worker in a poorer, Western province. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, most Chinese families already spend more money on education than on anything except food. And other expensive items, like computers, have become educational necessities.
For many, government support has been the principal option. Government support for tertiary education is growing, but focuses on those who can demonstrate the greatest need. What's left is a tremendous gap between those for whom school fees are not a problem, and those who receive public sector support. Families in the gap have tried to find informal means to borrow for school, from friends or extended family, or their children had to drop out.
This is where formalized borrowing and a robust set of options for education finance can relieve a tremendous burden from so many Chinese middle and lower income families. With the expansion of education finance, educational decisions about where to go to school and how long to stay in school can be removed from the realities of financial resources. Young people with potential can use their talent as collateral to make sure they stay in school and realize that potential.
Shanghai-based Qifang is facilitating this development. Qifang is an online service for Chinese students to find a way to pay for their education by connecting them with individuals, companies and organizations that can support their educational dreams. Working like an eBay auction, sponsors can bid and compete to help, and lenders can offer internships and job opportunities as well as provide funding to pay bills. Qifang manages the transaction and repayment and is a communication tool for borrowers, lenders and peers. This has helped students learn about related topics like financial literacy too. With nearly 2500 loans on the site, Qifang's model is gaining early traction. In 2008, the World Economic Forum recognized Qifang as a Technology Pioneer for its innovative model and positive social impact.
Importantly, with models like Qifang, parents can still support their children's education according to tradition-helping with any money they can-but there is a subtle but important shift in responsibility to the child. It's their name on the loan and their credit at risk. It's this credit that the child will need to be in good standing to later borrow for a house, a car or to start their own business. And parents can still also depend on their children's improved career prospects to provide for their retirement and golden years, but they can also use some of the money that would have gone entirely to pay for education today to invest for retirement, buy insurance products or otherwise build up their own nest eggs.
Ideally then, family members become somewhat more financially self-reliant, but remain there for each other in times of need and emergencies. Family relationships are freer to become more about emotional and spiritual fulfillment and less about economic necessity.
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