UNESCO membership for Palestine

01.11.2011-the hindu

In a historic vote, UNESCO on Monday granted full membership to Palestine which, until now, enjoyed only observer status at the U.N. agency for education, science and culture.

The demand for full membership was made by the Palestinian Authority and won the approval of 107 member states with 14 votes against and 52 abstentions at the organisation's General Conference. A 185 of UNESCO's 194 member states were eligible to vote.

There were celebrations in the Palestinian Occupied Territories and to a smaller extent in Gaza as news of the vote spread. Full membership of UNESCO is a small but significant step forward for the Palestinians in their attempts to gain international recognition and statehood. The vote took place with the backdrop of increased Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Despite desperate lobbying efforts, the U.S. failed to obtain a rejection of the Palestinian application for membership. Israel, too, had engaged in a media blitz against the Palestinian move and the Israeli delegate, Nimrod Barkan, on Monday described the vote as “a tragedy and a great disservice to international law”. Mr. Barkan said: “UNESCO deals in science, not science fiction. They forced on UNESCO a political subject outside its competence and brought about a drastic cut in contributions to the organisation.”

The U.S. representative to UNESCO, David Killion, called the vote “premature”, saying it would “complicate” American efforts to support the agency.

The U.S. and Israel are scheduled to withdraw their funding for UNESCO, which will result in a budget shortfall of 22 per cent. U.S. law prohibits Washington from funding any U.N.-affiliated body that accepts Palestinian membership.

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova warned the U.S. against “disengagement” from the organisation, arguing that it supported “core U.S. interests” in a number of key countries, including Afghanistan and Iraq.

The U.S., which attempted to put pressure on its allies and several smaller states, voted against, as did Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, Australia and the Czech Republic. At 52, the number of abstentions was surprisingly high and included many island nations in the Pacific and the Caribbean as well as major players like Britain and Italy.

India, as Chair of the “Group of 77 and China” within UNESCO, played a “crucial, contributory yet constructive role in response to a legitimate demand on the part of the Palestinian people”, Vinay Sheel Oberoi, India's Permanent Representative to UNESO, told The Hindu just minutes after the vote at the organisation's headquarters in Paris.

Keeping Mahatma Gandhi's maxim in mind, that in true victory you do not revel in someone else's defeat, the Palestinian delegation did not gloat over its victory which was greeted with tremendous applause.

European nations such as France, Ireland, Austria and Norway which broke with tradition to vote for the Palestinians were also strongly applauded. France had abstained in an earlier vote in UNESCO's Executive Board.

Palestinian officials say they will call on UNESCO to recognise key monuments in the occupied Palestinian territories as world heritage sites. These include the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built over the place where Jesus is believed to have been born.

In Ramallah, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki, had said on Sunday: “If we win with a large majority, our success will give our efforts to obtain U.N. recognition added momentum.”

Asked if member states were aware that such a vote could result in the loss of over one-fifth of UNESCO's funding, one delegate who wished to remain unnamed told The Hindu : “There is a feeling that UNESCO should return to its original function, that of a crucible of ideas. Ideas matter, not money. And in any case 70 per cent of UNESCO's budget goes towards staff salaries. And over 70 per cent of that staff comes from the developed world. So this could be a blessing in disguise, forcing the organisation to rethink its role in the U.N. system, not as a funding agency or for projects but as an ideas bank.”

It is not just the UNESCO: The Palestinians' top envoy in Geneva on Tuesday said he believed that joining the U.N. agency for culture, education and science would “open the door” to joining 16 other U.N. agencies within weeks.

Ibrahim Khraishi, the top Palestinian envoy at the U.N. in Geneva, told The Associated Press that Palestinian diplomats were planning to capitalise on Monday's landslide vote to allow the Palestinians into the UNESCO by preparing papers to join the other U.N. agencies and a variety of other international organisations. “Now we are studying when we are going to move for full membership on the other U.N. agencies,” said Mr. Khraishi. “It's our target for [us to join] the international organisations and the U.N. agencies.”

He said the UNESCO vote set a precedent to allowing such broad memberships.

The Obama administration cut off funding to UNESCO after Monday's vote, and U.S. officials warned of a “cascade” effect at other U.N. bodies that follow UNESCO's lead. — AP

Banki-moon With the U.S. snapping finances to UNESCO following a vote on Palestinian membership, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has said member states will have to look for “practical solutions” to preserve the Paris-based agency’s financial resources as the vote could have implications.

“This step could have potential implications for funding provided by some Member States. This is a decision by the Member States,” Mr. Ban said at a press conference here in response to a question on Palestine becoming UNESCO member and the U.S. cutting aid to the cultural agency.

He said while it is up to the U.N. member states to ensure that the “United Nations system as a whole (has) a consistent political and financial support, as such, we will need to work on practical solutions to preserve UNESCO’s financial resources“.

He emphasised the “urgency” of a negotiated solution to the Middle East peace process.

“The two-state solution is long overdue. We will all need to work harder for its realisation,” he added.

The U.S. has announced it will stop financial contribution to UNESCO after the U.N. body voted to admit Palestine as its full member, which the Obama Administration termed as regrettable and premature.

UN SESSION WORLD FOOD SECURITY

Chairperson of the Steering Committee of the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, at the opening session of the U.N. Committee on World Food Security (CFS), in Rome, on October 17, 2011.

37th Session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS)

Rome, October 17, 2011 - Opening session (14h30-17h30)

Mr Chairman and Members of the Committee Bureau

Excellencies,

UNSG Special representative Dr David Nabarro

Director-General of FAO, Dr Jacques Diouf

Madam the Executive Director of WFP, Dr Josette Sheeran

President of IFAD, Dr Kanayo Nwanze

Members of the Advisory Group

Honourable Delegates and Observers,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honor for me to address the Committee as the Chair of the Steering Committee of the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, after its first year of activity.

Reports of the HLPE are demand-driven. Last year CFS had requested HLPE to provide it with analytical reports, with science and knowledge-based analysis and advice, on the following four topics, all in relation to food security:

• Price Volatility

• Land tenure and international investments in agriculture

• Social protection

• Climate change

As agreed when we met with the CFS Bureau in December 2010, we have prepared for this 37th session of the CFS, our reports on the issues of price volatility and on land tenure and international investments in agriculture. We have initiated work on the other two topics, on Social Protection and on Climate Change and the reports will be ready for your consideration next year.

At the outset, I must compliment and thank CFS for choosing these topics of great importance to the eradication of hunger and to the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goal No.1 relating to hunger and poverty by 2015.

In the preparation of our reports, we attached as much importance to the process as to the product. Thus, the HLPE operates with very specific rules, agreed by the CFS, in order to ensure the scientific legitimacy and credibility of the process, as well as its transparency and openness to all sources of knowledge. These two reports have been produced by two Project Teams appointed by the Steering Committee, and working under its oversight. The process adopted gives opportunities for a diversity of views, suggestions and criticism: the terms of reference, as well as the first drafts (V0) prepared by the Project Teams, have been submitted to open electronic consultations. Final versions of the reports have been reviewed each by three independent eminent experts, on the basis of which the reports were finalized by the Project Teams. These reports were discussed in detail and approved by the HLPE Steering Committee in our meeting in Amsterdam in July 2011. They are now in the hands of the Members of CFS, in all the official languages.

The importance of price volatility in relation to food security is clear from the fact that many international organizations, including FAO, have analyzed this issue. It is also on the top of the political agenda of the G20 this year. It is the theme of this year’s World Food Day. Different causes of price volatility such as demand–supply gap, cost of petroleum products and non-renewable energy, and climate variability, all need to be considered both separately and together. Our report deals with these issues from a global as well as regional and national perspectives. Action at the international level has to be taken by CFS, while national governments should lose no further time in preparing and implementing a comprehensive national food security strategy, wherever this is not in place already.

I would like to summarize briefly the package of measures which we consider to be important

1. Revisiting international trade rules, in order to promote a “food security oriented” trading system

2. Creating a better market information system, inclusive on the level of stocks, to help restore confidence in international markets

3. Tightening up speculation on the futures market to avoid price manipulations.

4. Reviewing support to biofuels, except when there is a win-win situation for both food and energy security

5. Reducing food waste and post-harvest losses and ensuring food safety

6. Increasing investment in ever-green agriculture and in agricultural research so as to promote sustainable food production

7. Giving greater attention to the net income of smallholder farmers, through the concurrent enhancement of farm and non-farm income, and through a small farm management revolution designed to provide them with the power and economy of scale both at the production and post-harvest phases.

At the national level, it is important to draw lessons from successful efforts in hunger elimination. Several countries like Brazil, Mexico and India are in the process of making access to food a legal right, in order to insulate the economically under-privileged sections of the society from the adverse impact of price volatility and food inflation. The draft Indian Food Security Bill places emphasis on a human life cycle approach beginning with attention to maternal and child nutrition, particularly during the first thousand days of a child’s existence. It recognizes women as the head of the household from the point of view of legal entitlements to food. It also gives great importance to the widening of the food basket to include along with rice and wheat, a whole series of nutri-cereals like millets and other underutilized crops. A simple combination of millet and moringa (drumstick) will help to provide all the needed macro and micro nutrients.

I have been referring to productivity improvement without associated ecological harm as evergreen revolution. At the national level it is also important to ensure genetic variability among crops and varieties. Anemia in agrobiodiversity will also lead to anemia in human beings.

This is why we, HLPE, argue that the preparation or refinement of National Food Security Strategies is important for ensuring food for all and forever, without compromising on human dignity.

31-10-2011-The Hindu

Environmentalist, lawyer and former Union Minister, Mohan Dharia, has been selected as the winner of the 26th Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration.

The 86-year-old Padma Vibhushan awardee, who currently runs the Vanrai NGO in Pune, was selected for the 2010 award, which carries a citation and cash prize of Rs. 5 lakh. It will be presented by award committee chair and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on October 31, the anniversary of Indira Gandhi's death.