The United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA) and the UN Foundation are planning the establishment of a new alliance. Under the alliance the management of UNA-USA programs will be transferred to the UN Foundation, under the leadership of an Executive Director. Final approval of the alliance is virtually certain to be obtained in the coming weeks.
United Nations Association forms alliance to survive – Jeremy Smerd, Crain’s New York Business.com
First annual UNA-USA/UN Foundation dinner
Human Rights Day 2010 provides an opportunity to honor a Seattle area organization or individual who has advanced human rights locally, nationally, or internationally.
Take a few minutes to think about our local human rights leaders. Is there someone you would like to see honored? Please submit the nomination forms linked below via mail, fax, or email by October 4, 2010. Your participation is vital to the success of this award process.
The Seattle Human Rights Award will be presented at the 15th annual Seattle Human Rights Day celebration on Thursday, December 9, 2010 in City Hall. this ceremony is a powerful way to acknowledge the work of outstanding people who inspire us all.
Past award recipients have included Magdaleno Rose-Avila, Joe Martin, Legal Voice, Northwest Immigrants Rights Project, Casa Latina, Pride Foundation, Somali Community Services of Seattle, YWCA Girls First, Trans Jail Policy Group, the Wing Luke Asian Museum and many others.
Tags: award, city of seattle, human rights, Seattle, UNA
On September 17-19, people across the globe turned up the volume on their call for heads of state gathering at the United Nations on September 20-22 to demonstrate leadership in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Citizens gathered at events across continents to amplify their support for the eight MDGs, a set of targets to eradicate extreme poverty and its root causes by 2015 that marks its tenth anniversary this week. They sang, chanted, blew whistles, played drums, blew vuvuzelas, banged pots and pans and set off alarm clocks. The sounds of these noises emanating from villages, towns and cities around the world as part of the three-day mobilization “Stand Up, Take Action, Make Noise for the MDGs” will make citizens’ commitments to track and support their countries’ achievement of the Goals visible, vocal and impossible to ignore. Below are links to just some of the activities happening around the globe in support of this amazing cause.
“Youth Make Noise Against Poverty” – CathNewsIndia.com
“Across the Globe, Millions Stand Up, Demanding Action to End Poverty” – AllAfrica.com
“How to ‘Make Noise’ for a healthier world” – The Independent
Learn more about the Stand Up events at www.standagainstpoverty.org
On April 28th, 2011, the United Nations Association (UNA), Greater Seattle Chapter will present “When the Wells Run Dry: the Water-Soil Connection,” a discussion of global water and soil conditions today as well as associated challenges in the poorest countries of the world.
University of Washington Professor David Montgomery (geomorphology) and Stephen Gilbert, PhD, DABT (neurotoxicology) will address the critical present status of water scarcity and soil depletion, particularly as it relates to the United Nations Development Goal to ensure environmental sustainability. Professor Montgomery, UW Dept. of Earth and Space Sciences, is author of book, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, published in 2007. Dr. Gilbert, a MacArthur Fellow, is director of the Institute of Neurotoxicology and Neurological Disorders at the University of Washington in Seattle and works in lands such as Gaza where thousands are dying from a lack of water, food, and sanitation. These topics relate to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals that our UNA chapter is helping to implement through education, funding, and outreach.
The event will be held from 7:00 to 9:00 pm at the UniversityTemple United Methodist Church, 1415 NE 43rd Street, Seattle, WA. For information, contact the UNA office at 206-568-1959.
Often important policy developments get lost when the news media continuously shifts its focus to the latest disaster or political brouhaha. Anyone wanting to follow the Obama administration’s approach to national security and how it has changed from the Bush-era’s largely go-it-alone posture must dig behind the headlines and through sometimes long and tedious documents.
This year will see the issuance of four important U.S. government reports that taken as a whole will define the Obama national (and global) security doctrine and its focus on U.N. Millennium Development Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development.
These reports are the Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review Report (QDR), the President’s National Security Strategy (NSS), the (first-ever) State Department’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), and the Presidential Study Directive on Global Development Policy (PSD).
The QDR released in February, sheds a little light on how defense will be integrated into the 3D (diplomacy, development, and defense) approach to national security and global stability. It indicates a supportive role for the U.S. military:
Although the U.S. military can and should have the expertise and capacity to conduct these activities, civilian leadership of humanitarian assistance, development, and governance is essential.
The 2010 NSS, released in May, has much more to say about 3D. Secretary Clinton explained the new strategy and differences from previous NSSs in a speech to the Brookings Institute on May 27. Some excerpts:
“Democracy, human rights, development are mutually reinforcing and they are deeply connected to our national interests.”
“…I know from every bit of evidence we’ve ever done about the connection between development and democracy that women are the key to both, that changing conditions that enable women to attain more influence, more empowerment – through education, through health care, through jobs, through access to credit – literally changes the map of how people think about themselves, what they expect from their government. And we are going to continue to promote that as a very core interest of the United States.”
“We believe that if we’re going to be committed to development, we’re going to have to ask the American taxpayers to help pay for sending somebody else’s child to school or providing somebody else’s mother maternal healthcare, we’d better be able to show results.”
And the President’s National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones had this to say about the NSS and 3D:
“…going forward, there should be no doubt the United States of America will continue to underwrite global security. We will do so through our military advantage and we will do so through our wide-ranging commitments to allies, partners, and institutions. However, we must balance and integrate our military might with a whole-of-government approach. Our diplomacy and development capabilities must be modernized and our civilian expeditionary capacity strengthened to support the full breadth of our priorities.”
“…a detailed plan to use diplomacy, economic development, and engagement to build constructive relations to the Muslim world is an essential feature of our thinking.”
The last two documents have yet to be released, although a 7-page draft of the PSD surfaced on May 3. It addresses how development should involve all federal agencies. An excerpt:
The Obama Administration recognizes that development is essential to our security, prosperity, and values…Our investments in development…can facilitate the stabilization of countries emerging from conflict, address the poverty that is a common denominator in the myriad challenges we face, foster increased global growth, and reinforce the universal values we aim to advance.
Also of interest is how our relationship to the U.N. and other international bodies is being transformed. This will be discussed in a follow-up posting.
Of course, Congress will have much to say, and perhaps the last word, in shaping the U.S. approach to global development. On its agenda are foreign aid policy reform, foreign assistance budgets, and an energy policy that includes technical and financial aid to help developing nations adapt to climate change.
References:
): http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_security_strategy.pdf ): http://foreignpolicy.com/files/fp_uploaded_documents/100503_2010_05_03_10_46_51.pdfTags: Congress, Millenium Development Goals, President Obama, Secretary Clinton, U.S. military
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