Relatório de Desenvolvimento Humano 2006

Já foi publicado o mais recente Relatório de Desenvolvimento Humano pelo Programada das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento (PNUD).

Para além das comparações entre os rankings que os países ocupam actualmente, nos diferentes indicadores de análise do relatório, este ano o tema de fundo é a água.

Segundo o relatório, toda as pessoas deveriam dispôr de pelo menos 20 litros de água potável por dia e as pessoas carenciadas deveriam obtê-la gratuitamente. Se uma pessoa no Reino Unido ou nos Estados Unidos manda 50 litros para o esgoto diariamente simplesmente puxando o autoclismo, muitas pessoas carenciadas sobrevivem com menos de cinco litros de água contaminada por dia, de acordo com investigações do RDH.
O Relatório recomenda a todos os governos que não se detenham em vagos princípios constitucionais na promulgação de legislação que garanta o direito humano a um abastecimento de água seguro, acessível e a preços razoáveis.

Aceda ao Relatório em português aqui ou em inglês aqui

Presentes que transformam vidas

A Fundação Evangelização e Culturas procura, com esta campanha, transformar a vida de inúmeras pessoas que vivem em situações precárias nos países de língua portuguesa.Imagine a diferença que estes presentes solidários podem fazer na vida de tantas famílias vulneráveis e comunidades carenciadas.
Acredite que este seu gesto pode fazer a diferença nas famílias que tiverem a sorte de contar com a sua generosidade.

Catálogo de Presentes

Mais informações aqui

A Partilha do Indivisível - Imagens dos Objectivos do Milénio a partir de Cabo Verde

A exposição fotográfica A Partilha do Indivisível e o respectivo livro, estão inseridos no trabalho de sensibilização da opinião pública portuguesa, em complementaridade com as iniciativas de cooperação para o desenvolvimento. Sob o tema dos Objectivos do Milénio e a partir de exemplos concretos em Cabo Verde, este projecto pretende alertar para a responsabilidade comum de contribuir para a realização de direitos humanos essenciais - sem fronteiras e sem discriminações. Leão Lopes (Cabo Verde) e António Valente (Moçambique) são os autores das fotografias - que são também o ponto de partida para o livro, que inclui textos de escritores e jornalistas, portugueses: Ana Paula Tavares (Angola), Fátima Bettencourt e Mário Lúcio (Cabo Verde), Teresa Montenegro (Chile), Alexandra Lucas Coelho, Carlos Narciso e Pedro Rosa Mendes (Portugal), David Gakunzi (Ruanda). A criação gráfica é de Levina Valentim.

APRESENTAÇÃO DIA 24 DE NOVEMBRO, ÀS 18H30,
NO ARQUIVO FOTOGRÁFICO DE LISBOA
(R. DA PALMA, 246 – METRO: MARTIM MONIZ

Mais informações aqui

Associação Cais assinala Dia Internacional para a Erradicação da Pobreza com um jogo interactivo

Mais um material interactivo muito útil para abordar o tema da Pobreza e suas causas.
A Associação Cais, em colaboração com o grupo de Teatro da Universidade Lusíada, construiu um jogo interactivo de identificação de causas da pobreza numa praça do nosso país, e dá-nos dicas para estarmos mais atentos a esses sinais de pobreza no nosso quotidiano.
Uma excelente iniciativa... lamentável não estar em versão Playstation...

Para jogar, clique aqui

Novo jogo educativo "A Ilha das algas mágicas"

A Ilha das Algas Mágicas é um jogo de aventuras destinado a crianças e jovens entre os 8 e os 14 anos. Este software educativo aborda de forma lúdica e didáctica o tema dos Direitos Humanos.
Toda a acção se desenvolve num ambiente de ilha deserta no qual o jogador é convidado a vencer vários obstáculos e vários desafios.
Para poder superá-los e terminar a sua aventura, será essencial a sua tolerância, a sua compreensão para com os outros e o espírito de entreajuda.
O jogador é convidado a assumir o papel de Laura, uma rapariga simpática, divertida e corajosa, sempre pronta a enfrentar novos desafios. No papel de Laura, o jogador tem ao seu dispor diversas ferramentas e formas de dialogar com as várias personagens que encontra ao longo da ilha. Dessas escolhas dependerá chegar ou não ao fim do próprio jogo.

Este jogo integra-se na estratégia de Educação para os Direitos Humanos da Amnistia Internacional Portugal, de produzir materiais de trabalho para todas as faixas etárias.

Mais informações aqui

Africa On the Rebound, Says World Bank

After decades of setbacks, an increasing number of African countries are lifting a good fraction of their citizens above the poverty line and sending more children to school.
But the region still needs help from wealthy nations to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by improving governance, accelerating and sustaining growth and job creation, delivering services, and fighting poverty, according to a World Bank report released on Monday.
The good news, according to the report, is that primary school enrolment is up, HIV/Aids prevalence and child mortality rates are falling and the gender gap has started to shrink in several countries.
The institution said many African countries have lifted significant percentages of their citizens above the poverty line and might well be on course to the MDG target of halving poverty by 2010.
The annual World Bank publication, African Development Indicators (ADI) 2006 identified countries leading in this turnaround race as Senegal, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Uganda, Ghana and Cape Verde.
"Africa is today a continent on the move, making tangible progress on delivering better health, education, growth, trade and poverty-reduction outcomes," Mr Gobind Nankani, the World Bank Vice President for the Africa Region said in the report.
Mr John Page, the World Bank's Chief Economist for Africa noted that gross primary enrolment rates as a share of the relevant age group - a standard indicator of investment in the poor - shot up to 93 percent in 2004 from 72 percent in 1990, contributing to a rise in literacy rates from 50 percent in 1997 to 65 percent in 2002.
He, however, regretted that successive increasing primary enrolments from 70 per cent in 1991 to above 90 per cent in 2004 has not been mirrored in secondary and tertiary education.
The report depicts a diverse continent, with several countries making remarkable progress, some stagnating and others doing poorly in the race.
It gives the full spectrum of achievers and laggards as stretching from Zimbabwe, which recorded a negative growth rate of 2.4 per cent - the only country with a negative growth rate in 2004 on the continent - to Equatorial Guinea, which recorded a 20.9 per cent growth rate.
The report also confirms that 16 African countries have sustained annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates in excess of 4.5 per cent since the mid-1990s. Inflation on the continent is down to historic lows and most exchange rate distortions have been eliminated.

Brazil And India Join Senegal for Biofuel Production

In a bid to decrease its dependence on oil and produce environmentally-friendly energy, Senegal will cooperate with Brazil and India to launch a biofuel production programme by 2007.
Through public-private partnerships, Brazil will provide scientific and technological know-how, Indian entrepeneurs will supply the capital, and Senegal will offer land and labour.
Biofuels, such as bioethanol, biodiesel and biogas, are renewable fuels generally produced from agricultural crops or organic matter.
The project is part of a plan by the Senegalese government to regenerate its rural economy through investment in biofuels to eventually replace the country's daily consumption of 33,000 oil barrels.
It was announced on 27 October by Farba Senghor, Senegal's minister of agriculture, rural hydraulics and food security in a meeting with a delegation of Brazilian biofuel experts in Dakar, Senegal.
"The issues are enormous for our country, as biofuel will help us diversify our energy sources and reduce the increasing oil bill, while protecting the environment from pollution," Senghor said to AngolaPress.
"Senegal has considerable advantages to develop the biofuel sector, because the country presents good climatic and geological conditions necessary for the increase in plants used as raw materials for ethanol or diethyl ether production," José Neiva Santos, head of the Brazilian delegation, said.
In an initial pilot project to reduce Senegal's oil imports by 10 per cent, jatropha plants will be grown on 4,000 hectares of land in Touba.
The extracted oil will be transformed into biodiesel in production units to be set up in Khelcom, some 100 km from Dakar.
The pilot project also aims to provide a knowledge hub from which other plantations could develop, according to Biopact, an organisation working for cooperation in biofuel and bioenergy between Europe and Africa.
Senghor indicated that Senegal will carry out an experiment of growing castor oil plants, sunflowers or jatropha over an area of 50,000 hectares in Kolda and Tambacounda, in southern and eastern Senegal.
This will help determine costs and the optimal conditions for biofuel production -- examining the best way to extract the oil, as well as finding out what crop produces better biofuel at minimum cost.
News of the biofuel investment programme, which is part of a government plan called 'retour vers l'agriculture' ('back to agriculture'), comes ahead of the green power energy conference BiofuelsMarketsAfrica scheduled for 30 November in Cape Town, South Africa.

Humanitarian Aid: Commission allocates €4 million for victims of floods in India and Bangladesh

The European Commission has adopted a €4 million decision in emergency humanitarian aid for victims of floods in India and Bangladesh. Food and shelter, water/sanitation, and livelihood rehabilitation interventions will be provided through this funding for the most vulnerable people living in rural regions in southwest Bangladesh and urban and rural areas in India. Funds are channelled through the European Commission Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO) under the responsibility of Commissioner Louis Michel.
The 2006 monsoon season in India and Bangladesh began in June and by the end of July, a serious flooding situation had developed in southwest Bangladesh and districts in western and eastern India. Damage from the floods includes loss of standing crops, serious erosion of farmland and property, destruction of livestock, food and tools, as well as the contamination of surface water supplies, open wells, tube wells and latrines. In September, 500,000 people in India were living in emergency makeshift shelters and public buildings, while in Bangladesh 3,000 families were living in such shelters and up to 15,000 families were in need of emergency shelter support.
This emergency decision will provide the most vulnerable people living in the flooded areas with the supply of food, shelter, water/sanitation facilities, as well as assistance in the recovery of livelihoods and in the rehabilitation of damaged housing. Medical support will be provided, together with hygiene education and water purification to help avoid disease outbreaks from contaminated water supplies.
Projects will be implemented through the Commission's operational partners already present in the targeted districts, such as NGOs, UN agencies and the Red Cross. The European Commission Humanitarian Aid department will continue to monitor the evolving flooding situation and will adapt the programme accordingly.
Since 2004, the Commission has given a total of €3.8 million in humanitarian aid to Bangladesh for victims of floods and communal violence and €7 million to India for victims of floods and those affected by the Jammu and Kashmir conflict.For further information:
http://ec.europa.eu/echo/field/index_en.htm