By api

The journalist interviewing Professor Anyang Nyongo, the Minister of Medical Services gets no time to ask questions. The Minister supposed to be interviewed decides to lecture live on TV after overcoming the journalist.

Listening to the interview, it saddens to note that the journalist is lectured throughout and shouted down.

Anyang Nyongo is also the Secretary General of ODM Party whose leader is the Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

ODM formed the government with President Kibaki’s PNU after losing the presidential elections. Raila Odinga was rewarded as the Prime Minister after calling for Mass action – demonstrations that saw Kenya go in flames resulting in many deaths and dislocation of many people who became IDPs in their own country.

The demonstrating health workers are accusing Minister Nyongo for calling them criminals simply because they are demanding their rights as workers. The workers say the minister got the job because of mass action in 2008, thus should not characterise them as criminals.

The minister had instructed the permanent secretary to sack thousands of workers but was forced to retreat.

The minster finally works out of the interview without a handshake.

End

MIDDLE EAST: Call for educational reform to create “knowledge society”

Photo: Erica Silverman/IRIN

Education reform will help Arab youth join the “knowledge society”, experts say

DUBAI,  – If the Arab Spring is to have any lasting impact, education must top the priority list of post-revolutionary reforms in the Arab world, experts said yesterday at the launch of the 2010-2011 Arab Knowledge Report in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“[Arab countries] will have no alternative but to tackle this issue,” said Amat Al Alim Alsoswa, assistant secretary-general and director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States at the UN Development Programme (UNDP). “If you talk about any kind of reform – political, judicial – education is an integral part of it. Otherwise, it will be an artificial reform,” she told IRIN at the sidelines of the event in Dubai.

The Arab Knowledge Report (AKR), published by UNDP and the UAE-based Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, called for action to better enable the region’s youth to participate in the so-called “knowledge society” and move beyond the poverty and unemployment that led to mass demonstrations and the toppling of several governments last year.

According to some estimates, more than 60 percent of the population of Arab countries is under the age of 25.

But the potential of Arab youth has so far been limited by weak corporate governance, high rates of corruption, weak indicators of freedom, absence of democracy, increasing rates of poverty and unemployment, restrictions on women’s freedom and the failure of economic reforms to achieve social justice and provide youth employment opportunities, the report said.

The report found that the Arab world continues to lag behind, with a “sharp drop” in cognitive skills among youth, including problem-solving, written communication, use of technology, and the ability to search for information. The average student scored 33 out of 100 in these areas.

Other statistics are equally scathing: In 2007, 29 percent of Arabs above the age of 15 were illiterate, compared to 16 percent globally; in 2010, 19 percent of Arab children under 6 had access to public childcare centres, compared to 41 percent globally; and Arab students continued to rank poorly in international exams. The region has seen an exponential growth in internet use, but usage still remains below the global average.

The Arab Spring changed some of that – youth clearly used technology to communicate their message, and in many countries their protests have led to a freer and more democratic environment. (Broadening freedom of thought was one of the main recommendations of the 2009 Arab Knowledge Report.) But this year’s report warns that Arab countries need to do more to take advantage of the openings provided by the Arab Spring.

The Arab world must develop the infrastructure for information technology; encourage innovation; create an investment-friendly environment; focus on social, political and economic reforms; and improve education.

Education neglected intentionally?

For a long time, observers say, many Arab governments intentionally neglected education because they thought that an uneducated public would be less likely to rebel.

Shortcomings in the education system were also due to a “culture of silence”, Hassan El Bilawi, professor of the sociology of education at Helwan Unviersity in Cairo, told the audience at the launch. “We have before us a cultural challenge – we are suffering from cultural backwardness. Many changes took place in the Arab world but they have not been related to the methodology of teaching or the culture of schools. We have to make sweeping reforms,” he said.

Past reforms have been seen as a “technical task” entrusted to bureaucrats in Arab ministries of education, without the support of state policies or civil society, said Moudi Al Homud, former minister of education of Kuwait. “Consequently, we have failed.” She urged governments to move beyond the “cosmetics” of educational reform.

But Ghaith Fariz, director of the report, said the knowledge gap is due to more than just poor education.

“It’s an issue that involves all sectors of the society. It’s much beyond education. Civil society has a role. Family has a role,” he told IRIN. Intellectual property rights is another area, for instance, in which “we, as Arabs, are basically absent.”

Participants at the report’s launch also highlighted the importance of youth being involved in finding solutions.

“If we take the lead, we will destroy what the youth have done,” said one participant from Jordan. “The youth have to define the next steps.”

ha/cb source www.irinnews.org

TIMOR-LESTE: High hopes for post-election prosperity

Photo: Brendan Brady/IRIN

A different type of election fervor this time. Political rally in the capital, Dili, on 10 March 2012

MANATUTU,  – The parade of cars and motorbikes and cacophony of slogans blasted from megaphones were a welcome sort of chaos compared with past election tension in the northern district of Manatutu in Timor-Leste, which on 17 March is holding its second presidential vote since independence.

Attending a recent presidential rally, 32-year-old Araujo Manuel said: “We don’t want a repeat of 2006.” That year, disgruntled soldiers staged a mutiny in the capital, Dili, which left five people dead, caused tens of thousands of residents to flee the city and renewed questions about the stability of the country in its early years of independence after 24 years of violent occupation by Indonesia.

The threat of renewed violence hung over the 2007 presidential election but this year’s has a markedly different tone, one the government is hoping will help the country no longer be classified as “post-conflict” by the UN and a fragile state by donors.

“We have seen a clean campaign that’s been virtually free of violence. Every candidate has committed him or herself to peace,” Finn Reske-Nielson, Deputy Secretary-General of the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT), told IRIN.

The UN peacekeeping and governance-assistance mission, which includes 1,280 police, was set up after the 2006 flare-up and is scheduled to conclude at the end of this year.

As tensions ease, voters say they want leaders to deliver more than peace and stability.

Manuel said recent presidential candidates’ visits to his district were a rare opportunity for him to connect, if only from a distance, with the country’s power brokers. “Usually, there is no access to information about the government in the rural areas.”

Problems plaguing the overwhelmingly rural country, such as poor agricultural assistance, one of the world’s highest rates of chronic malnutrition as well as poor job creation, have been overlooked in favour of higher-profile infrastructure projects, said Augustinho Suares, 30, who was also attending the rally in Manatutu’s district capital, some 60km of crumbling roads away from Dili.

“The government has spent a lot of money but we haven’t seen it here.”

The country earns tens of millions of dollars monthly in oil and gas sales. Almost the entire state budget is drawn from this wealth. Nearly half of this year’s US$1.67 billion budget is earmarked for roads, electricity, and oil and gas infrastructure.

Who’s who

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate José Ramos-Horta is one of four leading candidates in a field of 12. Others include Francisco Guterres, better known as “Lu Olo”, who heads Fretelin, the party with the most seats in parliament; recently retired army chief Jose Maria de Vasconcelos, known as Taur Matan Ruak; and parliamentary speaker Fernando “Lasama” de Araujo.

All four played prominent roles in their country’s independence struggle against Indonesian occupation. Some 180,000 people died under Indonesia’s brutal 1975-1999 rule.

Photo: Brendan Brady/IRIN

Child healthcare lags despite multimillion dollar oil and gas revenues

The presidency was initially designed to be mostly a ceremonial role, but Ramos-Horta, and his predecessor, current Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão, boosted the post’s power to influence domestic and international affairs.

Looking forward

For the country’s young, struggling with poor job opportunities, promises to boost employment resonate. “We like the candidates who talk about jobs,” said 17-year-old Noel Francisco, who attended Lu Olo’s rally in Manatutu. “Any job would be okay but no jobs are available to us now,” he said. Various agency estimates put unemployment at close to 20 percent in cities.

The country’s dependence on oil and gas money – as well as how that money is spent – concerns civil society groups. The state budget has more than doubled from $650 million in 2009 to over $1.67 billion this year.

Less than 11 percent of this year’s state budget is reserved for health and education.

The UK-based NGO Save the Children ranks Timor-Leste among the worst countries worldwide for child healthcare.

Just 1.5 percent of this year’s state budget is reserved for agriculture, which is the main means of survival for most of the population.

bb/pt/mw
source www.irinnews.org

SRI LANKA: Indian boost for IDP housing

Photo: Contributor/IRIN

New permanent housing for war-displaced in northern Sri Lanka

KILINOCHCHI,  – India’s government is set to undertake a multimillion dollar reconstruction of 49,000 houses for internally displaced people in former war zones in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, which almost doubles the number of homes under construction or completed for returnees.

Indian and Sri Lankan leaders signed a memorandum of understanding in January 2012. The Indian government is finalizing its implementing partners and plans to begin construction by the middle of 2012.

“This project has captured the popular imagination and there is a lot of expectation on the ground here,” Anurag Srivastava, first secretary at India’s embassy in Sri Lanka, told IRIN. “Our initial pilot project to construct 1,000 houses is already in advanced stages of completion.”

The total projected cost is US$260 million, which would make it one of the Indian government’s largest humanitarian grants thus far.

The UN Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, estimates 100,000 homes need to be repaired or rebuilt as the conflict-displaced return home.

As of 31 January, 16,400 permanent homes had been completed, with the construction or repair of another almost 10,000 under way or about to start.

Groups working on housing in the north include the Sri Lankan government, the UN, US-based Habitat for Humanity NGO, India-based SEED, UK-based Muslim Aid, Czech Republic-based People in Need NGO; and local groups Community Trust Fund, Youth for Christ and Sarvodaya.

Along the A9 highway running through the north, few homes or buildings escaped unscathed, as fighting between government forces and the defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) intensified in the final months of the war, which ended in May 2009. The LTTE had been fighting for an independent Tamil homeland for more than two decades.

According to Srivastava, this project will be largely “owner-driven”, where the displaced build their own homes with technical assistance and support provided by community implementing partners. There are no out-of-pocket costs for the new homeowners.

Photo: Contributor/IRIN

Where most returnees call home now

“We have a lot of hope for this project. Shelter is our main need. Some of us have been living in temporary shelters for over two years now,” said Koneshwari Veerasigham, 52, who has been in such a shelter in the northern town of Kilinochchi since 2010.

“To have a proper house is like a dream after all we went through during the war. We are very hopeful,” she said.

The construction of 49,000 houses for resettlement and rehabilitation of IDPs in Sri Lanka is part of the overall commitment to build 50,000 houses announced by India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in June 2010.

By the end of January 2012, 456,000 people (138,000 families) displaced at various stages of the three-decade long conflict had returned to the Northern Province, the zone hardest hit by the conflict.

contributor/pt/mw

source www.irinnews.org