Posts

Global Universal Threats

Global Universal Threats
Bujar Nishani, the Albanian President, asserts that crime, poverty, and terrorism are interconnected and that together, they create new global universal threats. The president also said that development, security, and human rights are interconnected. Thus, there is a push for international organizations to shift their focuses to meet the change in global challenges.

In 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established to protect Western countries against the threats of the Soviet Union. However, after the Cold War, these threats shifted as the political environment of Europe changed. The President asserts that the “central role of NATO throughout this process has been strengthened in guaranteeing the security of the Euro-Atlantic zone.” The shift in NATO’s priorities has occurred in recent years due to the new global threats which arose after the Cold War. Some of these priorities included: the Partnership for Peace, separate relations with Russia and Ukraine, dialogue with Mediterranean countries, and more.

In recent years NATO has been involved militarily to fight against terrorism and other new global threats. In order to improve NATO’s abilities to address these threats, the Prague Summit of 2002 established 3 key goals which included establishing a NATO Reaction Force. The U.N. Organization expressed the need for major reform of NATO’s capacity so that new global threats are efficiently addressed. The President also stated that “very powerful countries feel unimmunized and even vulnerable when faced with the asymmetric dangers of global effects,” and thus, countries have been increasingly more cooperative with each other to fulfill their responsibilities of improving security, maintaining peace, and tackling these global threats.

– Leen Abdallah

Source: Hurriyet Daily News

Australia’s Successful Foreign Aid

Tim Costello
Tim Costello, who serves as Chair of the Community Council of Australia and as the Chief Executive of World Vision Australia, recently spoke about Australia’s successful foreign aid. Costello is a prominent figure in Australia, recognized for his unrelenting efforts to raise global poverty awareness and place poverty issues on the Australian national agenda. On Boxing Day of 2004 when the tsunami hit Asia, Costello was able to raise more than $100 million from the Australian public for tsunami relief. Recently, Costello asserted that when it comes to children’s lives and education, Australia’s foreign aid has been “spectacularly successful.”

Overseas development assistance has led to the inhibition of many HIV infections and has treated millions with AIDS. Australian development assistance has also dispensed “insecticide-treated bed nets against malaria,” which globally decreased death rates by half. Thus, Australian foreign aid is deemed quite necessary yielding many successes. The good news is that, for the past two elections, the Gillard government has wanted to lift aid directed overseas by 0.5% of Gross National Income. The U.N. had set up a goal of 0.7% of G.N.I. and so this lift is a step closer to that goal. It also presents the greatest potential of changing many people’s lives and saving people.

–Leen Abdallah
Sources: World Vision, The Australian
Photo:The Sydney Morning Herald

The Unequal Reality

The Unequal RealityThe next global development agenda has been set. The President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, hosted the meeting to determine such an agenda; he also served as the co-chairman to the UN High-Level Panel for the post-2015 plan with an emphasis on eradicating extreme poverty. Despite the general success of the UN Millennium Development Goals which includes pulling people out of poverty since the 1990s, an increasing number of children are attending schools, and much fewer children are dying due to curable causes: “political will and commitment can bring about real change.”

The issue is that the majority of these successes are happening on the surface, on the “aggregate” levels as opposed to on the extremely low levels. A report done by Save the Children evinces the hidden inequality behind improvements arguing that only wealthier parts have been directly affected by these successes. For example, rich women in Indonesia now have a skilled attendant; however, between 2007 and 2010, children in poorer households continued to experience severe malnutrition despite overall nutrition improvements.

“Aggregate targets” are dictating such unequal distribution of improvement vs. worsening because governments are naturally choosing to aid and invest in what is easier to help; “this means that those close to the poverty line experience improvements while the very poorest are left behind.” Children are the most vulnerable group affected by such inequality because they are dependent on others for development and growth. Therefore, price increases affect their meal intakes, health budget cuts could cause deaths, and low-quality schools have the potential of keeping these children in poverty. In order to fight off inequality, there is a need for quality services such as availability and equal access to schools and health facilities to all kinds of people.

– Leen Abdallah

Source: South China Morning Post