Issue: 100
The United Nations Development Programme again mobilized its team of top football players to compete against a European football club to raise both funds for and awareness of the extreme poverty challenges facing the world.
This year, two thirds of the match proceeds will be used to bolster recovery efforts in the Philippines, where more than 5,000 people lost their lives to Typhoon Haiyan, with almost 1 million people displaced and an estimated further 11.8 million affected.
To bolster the local economy UNDP has already begun a cash-for-work project clearing debris in Tacloban, and will continue its efforts to help those who have lost homes, businesses and jobs as a result of the typhoon.
Brazilian female football legend and UNDP Goodwill Ambassador Marta Vieira da Silva joined the all male team for only the second time in the Match’s history, calling attention to the plight of women and noting that this Saturday, 8 March, is International Women’s Day. “When women are lifted out of poverty, families are lifted out of poverty, and the world has more hope.”
“This latest chapter of the Match against takes us back to Switzerland, where we started out 11 years ago”, noted Zinédine Zidane.
“I am very happy to be in a position to be able to contribute to the important cause championed by UNDP,” said Ronaldo, speaking to a press conference an hour before the Match. “All three of us footballers up here on the podium grew up in poverty. If our lives and our game can contribute to its reduction then the beautiful game will truly be beautiful.”
Hakan Şükür, who is a Turkish football legend, also took part in the match and scored one goal for Ronaldo, Zidane and friends team.
The first edition of the UNDP Match Against Poverty was held in Basel in 2003. Since then the match has taken place in Madrid, Dusseldorf, Marseille, Malaga, Fes, Lisbon, Athens, Hamburg and Porto Alegre, Brazil. Each match, which is televised around the world, has supported specific projects in different countries facing difficult challenges.
Although a friendly match, the players competed with passion as though it were a World Cup playoff match, ending 8:6 for the team of all-stars from UNDP.
Organic Cotton Stakeholder Consultation in GAP (Southeastern Anatolia Project) Region Workshop was held in March 14, in Şanlıurfa.
A group of fifty people which consists of representatives of managements that carry on a business in the fields of organic cotton and organic textile, representatives of quality and certification bodies, public institutions, civil society organizations and academics that provide technical and financial support attended the workshop.
Problems and possible solution suggestions related to organic cotton production and its utilization in industry were identified with the participation and contribution of stakeholders.
During the workshop, subjects like organic cotton, national and regional policies concerning organic textile value chain, regulation, supports and incentives, contracted agriculture practices, financial sources, access to market, raw material procurement, mechanization and logistic were discussed.
Also, prominent subjects of National Cotton Summit of 2014 were reviewed in the workshop.
Outputs of the workshop will be delivered to relevant agencies and institutes in the second half of 2014 and developments will be followed.
Organic cotton report and workshop
The workshop held in Şanlıurfa was organized as a result of GAP Organic Agriculture Cluster.
Organic cotton is taking place within the priorities of GAP Organic Agriculture Cluster project which is implemented in partnership of the Southeastern Anatolia Project Regional Development Administration and UNDP.
In order to expand the production of organic cotton and its use in industry in the region, a work was conducted in coordination of Textile Working Group which was established within the scope of the project, in 2013.
Current situation in organic cotton and textile sector was evaluated with the given work.
Main encountered problems were identified and possible solution proposals were determined in a prepared report.
Report was submitted to executives of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock by a committee involving members of Textile Working Group under the chairmanship of GAP Regional Development Administration in December 2013.
The given work was described as a crucial step in the identification of problems and solution proposals in this field by the Ministry.
In consequence of consultations with the Ministry within the context of work and prepared report, GAP Regional Development Administration decided to expand the extent and comprehensiveness of the work by means of participations and contributions of all textile value chain actors.
For this reason a broad participation consultation workshop was held in the second phase of the work.
Turkey comes in second in organic cotton production
Recently, organic cotton production is one of the prominent agricultural activities in Turkey as it is in many countries.
According to data of the Textile Exchange of 2012, Turkey comes in second in organic cotton production.
Throughout Turkey Aegean Region and Southeastern Anatolia Region come to the forefront in organic cotton production.
According to data of 2012, as of today, %75 of the total produced 31 thousand tone organic cotton is being produced in Southeastern Anatolia Region in Turkey and Şanlıurfa is in the leading position in the region with its share of %85.
Southeastern Anatolia Region aim to increase organic cotton production by means of suitability of its climate and soil conditions, rareness of agricultural disease factors and harmful populations, historically use of less chemicals, the existence of employable young population and the quality of cotton types.
We are working to expand the UN Secretary-General’s initiative on Sustainable Energy for All, which was launched in 2011. It consists of three primary goals that we are hoping to reach by 2030:
1. Ensure universal access to energy
2. Double the share of renewable energy
3. Double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency
When we gather together in May with prominent business leaders from around the region, we will be trying to find answers to some tough questions:
· How can we leverage investments in sustainable energy solutions across the region?
· How can we scale up existing activities?
· An investment of $48 billion per year globally will be needed to provide universal energy access by 2030. How are we going to leverage the necessary resources to ensure this happens in our region?
We are hoping to attract strong private sector participation and provide an open space for networking and idea sharing for groups from all sectors: from private companies and financial institutions to international organizations and governments.
One of our main focuses will be identifying new investment opportunities and partnerships. It is a key goal for this conference to serve as a forum for announcing new and exciting public-private partnerships and investments in sustainable energy.
We’ll be bringing you more information as the event gets closer but in the meantime, we’d like to ask you these same questions and we’d love to hear your answers:
What are some promising ways that the private sector can be a part of bringing sustainable energy to the region?
We’d also kindly ask you to share this post with anyone you know who might be interested in coming to the sustainable energy conference.
>> Register for the conference on sustainable energy, or find out more information
Stay tuned, looking forward to seeing you in Istanbul!
* This article is written by Christoph Henrich and originally published on Voices from Eurasia blog
Applications continue for Future Lies in Tourism Sustainable Tourism Support Fund which provided fund for three sustainable tourism projects in October 2013. The deadline for applications is 11 April.
Future Lies in Tourism Sustainable Tourism Support Fund is implemented in cooperation with Anadolu Efes, Ministry of Culture and Tourism and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Support fund aims at enhancing local tourism actors and civil society organizations’ capacities by developing cooperation with public and private institutions and increasing best practices in the field of sustainable tourism.
Non-profit civil society organizations, non-governmental Organization and chambers, unions, cooperatives, professional associations, federations, foundations constituted by them and universities and research institutes/centers that have a legal entity and are registered in Turkey can apply to the Fund.
The total amount of a grant agreement to be signed by a single legal entity as a beneficiary cannot be less than 15.000 TL and exceed 90.000 TL Sustainable Tourism Support Fund will cover by 100 percent of the project expenses.
What kinds of projects are supported?
The Sustainable Tourism Support Fund will support small scaled initiatives of local actors and non-governmental organizations, adopting the principles of sustainable tourism development and may provide support to local economic development.
The reason for supporting these local actors and non- governmental organizations is that their potential to ignite larger scale economic developments with national impact in a given sector and region.
The aim is to create awareness on the importance of sustainable tourism in the local economic development and enhance the cooperation among stakeholders and public private partnerships in the field of sustainable tourism in Turkey by supporting projects that will create tangible impact and models.
Deadline for pre-applications is 11 April 2014.
For more information and application guide please visit www.gelecekturizmde.com website.
You can reach to frequently asked questions about application from here.
Every Drop Matters (EDM) announced its Water Awards which is a new competition with cash prizes for innovative ideas for water projects. Application deadline for the Awards extended to 31 May.
The competition is open to Masters students and PhD candidates registered at Turkish universities, and the deadline is 31 May, 2014.
The competition looks for ideas for novel projects that will help tackle the urgent need to supply water and sanitation to communities, to help them adapt to climate change, and to raise awareness about using water responsibly.
The project ideas should be well thought out and clearly presented in the format outlined in the Guidelines.
Prizes will be awarded for the best ideas. The awards are not expected to fund the implementation of the project idea.
For application guidelines and further information, please click on this link.
“Science Heroes come together” Ankara Local Tournament was held in Hacettepe University Sıhhiye Campus between 22-23 February.
Young inventors presented their innovative solutions for disaster preparedness with the theme of ‘Power of the Nature’ where Birce Albayrak Coşkun was a jury member.
“First LEGO League” tournaments that included more than 230 thousand children from 80 countries around the world are organized annually by Science Heroes Association under the name of “Science Heroes come together” in Turkey.
The aim of tournaments organized annually with a social theme is to encourage children and youth to find solutions to world’s real challenges.
FIRST Lego League (FLL) was shaped as a result of cooperation between LEGO firm and FIRST Foundation (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) which was established by Dean Kamen in 1989 to inspire youth in the field of science and technology and to encourage them in this field.
FIRST Lego League tournaments have been organized all around the world for 15 years and in Turkey for 10 years.
This year, during tournaments in which 166 teams participated from 29 provinces, 9- 16 years old young inventors produced innovative solutions that would facilitate disaster preparedness, safety during disasters and disaster recovery with the theme of “Power of Nature”.
Teams who were outstand in local tournaments such as Izmir, Gaziantep and Istanbul came together for National Tournament in Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in March 24.
The champion of the tournament became “The Avengers” from Bahçeşehir Anatolian Highschool.
The Avengers is entitled to participate FLL World Festival that will be organized in April 23-26, 2014, in the USA.
Other 5 teams awarded in the tournament will also represent our country in Canada and Spain.
30 young participants joined this meeting to discuss the future of project which was organized between 7-9 March.
Workshops were held on social media training and new training content was introduced to participants.
‘Empowerment of Youth for the e-transformation of Turkey’ project is implemented by partnership of UNDP, Ministry of Development, Habitat Development and Governance Association, and Microsoft.
Project aims to strengthen the ICT use capacities of local youth platforms that are established through Turkey’s Local Agenda 21 (LA-21) as well as the rest of the community; to create employment opportunities for those who have received IT literacy training for the national digital inclusion and to efficiently contribute to the implementation of the information society strategy of Turkey.
Trainings which aim to develop capacities of participants about financial risks were held in the context of ‘Manage Your Future Now’ project implemented with the partnership of UNDP, Experian Turkey, Credit Breau of Turkey (KKB) and Habitat Center for Development and Governance.
597 young people and 86 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) joined the eleven trainings in March.
The trainings developed by young trainers are about financial risks and credits.
In March, the number of trained people within these set of trainings increased to 3539 during two years of project time in topic of financial risks.
In the meantime, the last part of SMEs session which is about developing capacities about financial risks take place in Samsun on 3 March.
In this session SMEs got trained by Kasım Akdeniz, General Manager of Credit Bureau of Turkey, in order to reduce risks of credit and cheques to minimum.
With this session 86 SMEs trained in Samsun. With this training 208 SME trained in total.
During Global Money Week, an international event that was initiated by World Economic Forum in 2008 to increase financial literacy, 24 trainings were held where 1287 young participants from 14 different cities attended to.
Trainings were given in the context of ‘I Can Manage My Money’ project which is run by Habitat Center for Development and Governance with the partnership of UNDP Turkey, Ministry of Development and Visa Europe since 2009.
This year during ‘Global Money Week which is marked between 10 – 17 March, 1287 new young people met with the ‘I can Manage my Money’ project.
Startup Weekend was organized in Samsun between 28 February and 2 March in collaboration with the ‘Empowerment of Youth for the e-transformation of Turkey’ project and International Centre for Entrepreneurship.
‘Empowerment of Youth for the e-transformation of Turkey’ project is implemented by partnership of UNDP, Ministry of Development, Habitat Development and Governance Association, and Microsoft.
International Centre for Entrepreneurship opened in 2012 in partnership with the UNDP, the Ministry of Development, Habitat Development and Governance Association, Vodafone Turkey Foundation.
Startup Weekend Black Sea was also supported by Samsun Chamber of Commerce, TOBB Young Entrepreneurs Council, 19 March University, KOSGEB (Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization), and Viveka.
The activity comprised of nine teams with 10 mentors, for 48 hours.
As a result of hard work and with the support of the mentors, innovative ideas are brought from being a concept to sample product stage.
17 business ideas were created
Nine teams continuously worked for 48 hours on technology-based, mobile application and the web project ideas and proceed to the phase of sample products, which are delivered to the jury.
Coveply mobile application, an acoustic performance sharing platform, which brings the music lovers around the world together via the website and enable them to produce new performances, was awarded the first place by the jury.
The main partner of the event, Microsoft, awarded all participants with free access to DreamSpark software for one year.
Additionally, the winner of the weekend, the team of Coveply, was granted the right to participate in “Innovation4Good”, a Computer Training Project in the concept of Empowerment Through Teaching, which will be held in May and involve round table discussions with Microsoft experts.
Fethiye –Göcek SEPA is among the Marine and Coastal Protected Areas (MCPA) in the context of “Strengthening the System of Marine and Coastal Protected Areas of Turkey Project”.
Like a heaven for marine species
Fethiye-Göcek SEPA is like a house of fertility for the marine species.
There are 1,545 marine species including Caretta caretta, 220 species of algae, 4 species of sea grass and 150 species of fish.
Fish stocks under protection at the protected areas
Fishing generates 720,000 TL annual income.
Sea grass provides 1.8 million TL by carbon capturing and 872,000 TL by erosion control functions.
16 million from waste water treatment, 378 million from tourism
The marine area generates 16 million TL from waste water treatment.
The tourism income of the area is also very high which is 378 million TL and this is equal to 95% of the total revenue of the area.
‘I Have a Word' Award organized in the context of International Day of Forest is given to those who are working to preserve the nature.
In addition to institutional and personal contributions, Board of Foresters’ Association of Turkey has chosen Gökmen Argun with her word “Nature conservations never come to the expected success without civil society contributions”.
The award was presented to Argun by İhsan Kaya, Head of Retired Forester’s Society in traditional “Green Night” event of International Day of Forest 2014.
In January 2011, UNDP Turkey pioneered the New Horizons Podcast which intended to share the many development stories of UNDP with a wider audience in Turkey.
Each New Horizons Podcast episode features selected stories on the activities of the UNDP which strives for a more productive, greener, healthier and more aware future.
The premise of the New Horizons podcasts was not only to raise awareness of UNDP's work but also to stimulate debate on development issues of local and global significance.
Radio İlef hosted the recordings of many episodes of New Horizons Podcast since the beginning, which released its 100th episode in the third week of March.
The episodes, broadcasted in Turkish, are available in podcast format on iTunes Store, Soundcloud, Pure Connect, Tunein and Audioboo.
New Horizons Podcasts can be listened on Açık Radyo, Police Radio, on MYCY radio from Cyprus as well as on university radios on its broadcasting network.
With the help of its radio network, the New Horizons Podcasts reaches over 1 million people in Turkey.
For more information and episode archive: http://www.bit.ly/brandnewhorizons
100th issue of UNDP Turkey’s eight years old e-magazine
New Horizons e-magazine was started as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP Turkey office.
Since then it aimed to share the work of UNDP in Turkey with its short news stories.
Now, the e-magazine is developed into the tablet and smart phone (iOS/Android) friendly version.
It is much user friendly, visually appealing, functional, new media focused and content oriented.
The 100th issue is disseminated at the beginning of April 2014.
To read the 100th issue please click here: http://yeniufuklar.info/en/100/1
[BAGLANTILAR]
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared in his message for the Day that ‘Countries with more gender equality have better economic growth; peace agreements that include women are more durable; and parliaments with more women enact more legislation on key social issues such as health, education, anti-discrimination and child support.’
He noted that a baby girl born today will still face inequality and discrimination, no matter where her mother lives.
As such, the international community has a common obligation to ensure her right to live free from the violence; to earn equal pay for equal work; to be free of the discrimination; to have an equal say in the decisions that affect her life; and to decide if and when she will have children, and how many she will have.
“I have a message for every girl born today, and to every woman and girl on the planet: Realizing human rights and equality is not a dream, it is a duty of Governments, the United Nations and every human being,” said Mr. Ban, similarly adding: “I also have a message for my fellow men and boys: play your part. All of us benefit when women and girls – your mothers, sisters, friends and colleagues –can reach their full potential.”
To mark the International Day, the United Nations agencies in Turkey have launched a social media campaign on 8 March with the hashtag of #sözümsöz, which means promise is promise.
During the day, striking statistics about gender equality has shared and the campaign attracted heavy attention on the social media.
The concept of ‘water and energy’ can conjure up thoughts of large cooling towers in power stations and the hefty power needs of industrial-scale water-treatment plants.
But on a much smaller scale, within communities, water and energy also go hand in hand – as is happening in the community water projects of ‘Every Drop Matters’, an innovative partnership between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and The Coca-Cola Company.
“Solar power is a hugely promising option for pumping clean water from depth in rural areas, where it is too expensive to install mains systems, or where grid power supplies are unreliable” says Dr Andrew Hudson, Head of the UNDP Water & Ocean Governance Programme.
He also adds that “This option is also more sustainable – not just environmentally, but because communities have control over it, which helps build their ownership of the system.”
UN agencies are keen to tackle inequalities in water and energy supplies, especially for the ‘bottom billion’ who survive without access to safe drinking water, adequate sanitation, food and fuel because they live in impoverished rural areas or in slums.
But there are tried-and-tested options available: “We’ve shown in Every Drop Matters projects in Bangladesh that small-scale solutions like rainwater harvesting and decentralised wastewater treatment systems can really work for people in the slums of the capital city Dhaka” says Every Drop Matters Global Programme Manager Bogachan Benli.
The projects in the Baunibad slum area are installing rainwater-collection systems on school roofs, which rely on gravity, not electric pumps, to take the water to the schools’ new drinking-water taps.
The area’s sewer system only served a quarter of the residents, so the small wastewater treatment facilities were much-needed, fitted well in the densely populated neighbourhoods, and have made a big difference in reducing the pollution of local ponds.
The treatment systems also have airtight ‘bio-digesters’ which produce biogas that local people can use as fuel.
“The interesting thing here is that communities have set up bio-digester management committees, and they have already raised around USD 3000 to keep the new systems maintained” said Benli.
In addition, community lectures, public events and social media reached more than 10,000 other people.
“These projects have been very successful in reaching many thousands of people with messages on saving water, which exactly aligns with The Coca-Cola Company’s mission to encourage the responsible use of water” said Dr Kadri Ozen, Public Affairs Director, Coca-Cola Eurasia and Africa Group.
Editor: Faik Uyanık
Assistant: Nazife Ece
Intern: Dilara Zengin
Contributors to this issue: Birce Albayrak, Bülent Açıkgöz, Ceyda Alpay, Deniz Tapan, Gökmen Argun, Mustafa Özer, Pelin Kihtir Öztürk
© 2014 UNDP Turkey
All rights of New Horizons are reserved to UNDP Turkey. Any use of information should be accompanied by an acknowledgment of New Horizons as the source citing the URL of the article.