Issue: 55
The Advertising and Promotion Study Group, which was established by local stakeholders within the context of the UN Joint Programme on Alliances for Cultural Tourism in Eastern Anatolia, organized a “Kars Promotional Tour” in June with a view to presenting Kars’s potential in culture, nature and winter tourism to Turkey’s leading tourism agencies and the media. Sarıkamış, Kuyucuk and Çıldır Lakes, Kars city center and Ani Antique City were among the tourist attractions visited during the tour. Participants agreed that Kars’s rich cultural and natural assets equip the city with the undisputed potential to become attract tourists not only from Turkey but also worldwide.
The group consisting of 40 people from tourism agencies around Turkey and journalists from the national press began their visit to Sarıkamış, which is gaining more and more significance as a hot-spot for winter tourism. Climbing to the top of Sarıkamış, where the scene under the shining June sun was as inviting as its snowy atmosphere in the winter, the participants received detailed information about the mountain and its ski facilities. The group then visited the Katerina Chalet, a wooden chalet built by the Russian Tsar Nicholas II as his command headquarters, is now becoming planned to become an important part of Sarıkamış tourism as a result of private sector investments.
On the second day of the tour, participants visited Kuyucuk Lake, one of the few lakes accommodating a variety of birds in Turkey, and were informed about natural life, bird population, and flora in the Kars-Iğdır region. The participants also found the opportunity to watch birds through special binoculars installed at the edge of the lake. The next stop was to Çıldır Lake, whose fully frozen waters during the winter make it an attractive place for horse-sleighs and fishermen. The participants finally visited the Kars city center hosting some of the most elegant pieces of Seljuk, Ottoman and Russian architecture walking along streets full of historical buildings and stopping by the Kars Museum that exhibits samples of the city’s rich cultural heritage and richness. Kars Culture and Tourism Director Hakan Doğanay and professional tour guide Ali Canip Olgunlu accompanied the group throughout the visit, informing the participants in detail about the history and culture of the city as well as continuing works and planned activities to encourage tourism sector in the city. Moreover, representatives of tourism agencies had the opportunity to visit hotels in the city.
The participants welcomed the third day of the tour in Ani, covered in poppies and daisies. They encountered a unique architectural and cultural richness reflecting the impressive heritage of numerous centuries-long cultures in the antique city, which nestles some of the most beautiful pieces of Medieval architecture.
Students promote Kars
Researcher-writer, Turcologist and professional guide Ali Canip Olgunlu, who has gone around every inch of Turkey with domestic and foreign tourists for 21 years, shared the details and specificities of his occupation with young guide candidates studying at the Department of Guiding at Kafkas University Tourism Vocational School on 10 June 2010. Originally from Kars, Ali Canip Olgunlu, gave a seminar titled “Anatolia’s Cultural Heritage and Essentials of Guiding” and talked comprehensively on topics such as the essential features that a guide should possess, what should be avoided and the possible improvements. Over one hundred students actively participated in the seminar by asking questions and providing comments about tourism and guiding.
"Ani inhabited since Bronze Age until the beginning of New Age, exhibits all the richness and variety of the development of urbanism, architecture and art of Middle Age, is one of the first entrance points of Turks at their arrival to Anatolia on the Silk Road. Furthermore, Ani hosts the first ever Turkish Mosque in as well as the first Seljuk Tablet” was defined as the cultural importance Ani as one of the results of the second workshop held between 29 May - 2 June in Kars.
The meeting was focused on the participatory approach and definition of stakeholders’ role with the full attendance of locals, authorities, NGO’s. The workshop consisted of two parts, the first part was a two days scientific meeting including a visit in the field for the definition of the cultural value of Ani Site. This technical meeting was discussed by the academicians, particularly, members of the Site Management Board of Ani, archaeologists, experts with the effective participation of the Director of Kars Museum. The result and outcomes of this meeting was shared with local participants in a follow-up two days workshop and took its final version. The workshop concluded with a press conference headed by the Deputy Governor of Kars explaining officially that the process of the Management for Ani Site launched. Within this context, he urged everybody to contribute and take responsibility for the management.
The workshop was prepared under the coordination of UNESCO (one of the UN agencies in the joint programme) and the General Directorate of Cultural Assets and Museums of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The workshop’s final outcome was publicly announced through a press conference on June 1st, 2010.
A site management plan entails the protection of the field, benefitting from the socio-economic potential without damaging the area’s cultural and natural assets and developing a vision, identifying targets and defining policies. As part of site management, a locally-owned participatory partnership model should be developed, annual and 5-year decisions should be reviewed and budget and responsibilities need to be outlined.
The first of the series of wokshops took place on 4-9 December 2009 in Kars and Ankara. The workshops aim to guide local stakeholders, national and local organizations and institutions responsible for the preparation of the Ani Site Management Plan.
Home to numerous cultures and civilizations throughout history, Kars’ rich “intangible cultural heritage” consisting of oral traditions and expressions, performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe, and traditional craftsmanship has trickled down from generation to generation. Through this research, a significant increase in the quantity and quality of inventory forms for the definition of national intangible cultural heritage inventory in the target area together with use and registration of field research results in the Folklore Documentation and Information Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism are also expected.
The research covered 80 villages, and 50 students were involved and trained. Following the completion of the research, Kafkas University presented the collected data comprised of approximately 7000 pages of data transcriptions, 2000 photographs, 260 video recordings. Accordingly a specific joint meeting was held in Ankara UN House; with Ministry of Culture Tourism, Kafkas University and UNJP in order to evaluate the report and the research outcomes. During the meeting, the details of the final report and the realisation of a possible publication on the research were also discussed in the scope of theUN Joint Programme Alliances for Cultural Tourism in Eastern Anatolia.
In this context,a preparatory training was organized on September 8-9, 2009 in Kars where a team of experts from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism realized a seminar to demonstrate how to run a field research to map out the intangible cultural heritage within the province of Kars to the students of Kafkas University.
The research aims to support the identification and safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage in theprovince of Kars. In this respect, measures to ensure the viability of the intangible cultural heritage, including the identification, documentation, research, preservation, enhancement, transmission, particularly through formal and non-formal education, as well as the revitalization of the various aspects of such heritage will be taken. of MoCT are the assumptions.
The United Nations Joint Program “Alliances for Culture Tourism in Eastern Anatolia” (UNJP) aims at developing and enhancing cultural tourism in Kars, contributing to social cohesion and reducing income disparities between the people of Kars and the rest of Turkey. The UNJP is funded by the MDG Achievement Fund entrusted to United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) by the Government of Spain, in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and United Nations Organisations UNDP, UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization), UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) and UNWTO (United Nations World Tourism Organization).
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A total of 200 women from the women and youth councils joined forces and voiced their opinions on the way ahead for their institutionalization, following the June 2009 by-law legislative change for the formal recognition of the women and youth councils under the City Councils. The event formed part of LA-21's 5th phase entitled: “Training and Capacity Building for Strengthening the City Councils as Local Democratic Governance Mechanisms”, coordinated by the United Cities Local Governance-Middle East and West Asia (UCLG-MEWA), the Ministry of Interior-General Directorate of Local Authorities and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Turkey office.
Following the 2006 Ürgüp Women’s Summit on women’s participation in politics to call for special measures to enhance women in politics prior to the 2007 Turkey’s General Elections, the Summit of 2010 convened with a more than doubled participation in the number of cities and with an agenda that covered the topics of inclusiveness and representativeness, responsiveness and accountability, sustainability and institutionalization. UNDP Turkey Democratic Governance Programme Manager Leyla Şen, opened the Summit sharing some of the findings of the MDG+10 Regional Conference held at the same time in Istanbul. Şen drew attention to the fact that some countries in the region, Turkey in particular, are still behind in achieving MDG3 on empowering women and reaching gender equality.
Bonnie Bernström, former member of Swedish Parliament and co-founder of the Swedish NGO, Springboard, met with women councils and shared examples of women who exemplify role models around the world, on the first day of the Summit. In her presentation, Bernström shared some of the strategies and the process of feminization in politics that have made Sweden the world’s second highest ranking country in terms of women’s representation in the parliament, after Rwanda.
National coordinator of the LA-21 Programme Sadun Emrealp, proposed alternatives for a national scale women council’s cooperation model and presented the current issues of institutionalization. Emrealp stressed that the processes of LA-21 have found their real meanings with the works of the women councils, and that’s why women councils shall remain as pioneers for democratic governance on the basis for equality between women and men. Aslı Şahin from UNDP Turkey shared women organizational models with local and global experiences of women’s empowerment work by stressing the importance of a horizontal way of communicating, monitoring mechanisms for the national and local gender policies, and coordination work with the institutions doing advocacy work for equality.
The following sessions which focused on three main themes that all form the core of governance, aimed at initiating immediate actions for sustainability of local governanceplatforms, inclduding the women's councils, in terms of being partners in decision-making of city management jointly under the City Council, and bringing the voice of the City Council to the Municipality Council. Strengthening the women councils through sustainability will lead in bringing knowledge to policy formulation at the local and inclusiveness for gender equality measures at both the local and national levels. As a result of the Summit, a roadmap to overcome current challenges with an updated vision and mission based on the core concepts of governance, is being drawn up at nation-wide online platforms based on the challenges raised during the Summit.
The Turkey Local Agenda 21 Programme - recognized by UNDP in 2002 as a good practice for local governance - facilitating a local governance model in Turkey where public institutions, local authorities and civil society organizations form the triangle of the local decision-making processes, through the City Councils. The City Councils function as democratic platforms where development priorities and pressing problems of the city are identified and discussed. Since the legislative amendment of the Municipality law in June 2009, the City Councils have been formally recognized and incorporated in the Article 76 of the Law. The Women Councils aim at representing all women in the city, from the organizations to the individual level. Considering the low representation of women in local decision making, women councils have proved to be a successful mean to raise gender equality in the political agenda of the city management.
With the “Development of Preventive Justice Programs for Legal Empowerment of the Citizens and Increased Access to Justice for All in Turkey” implemented jointly by the Ministry of Justice with support from UNDP Turkey, citizens in Turkey will now be well informed about their basic legal rights and practices.
The Launch Conference was held with high level participation from the relevant units of Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of National Education, Ministry of Culture, Union of Bar Associations, Institute for Social Services and Child Protection, General Directorate of Security, Ankara Bar Association, Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey and Prime Ministry Human Rights Presidency. There was also considerable interest to the event from the civil society organisations and academia mainly working for disadvantaged groups consisting of women, youth, children, disabled and the elderly.
Referring to government efforts in the field of judicial reform, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Justice Ahmet Kahraman emphasized that the measures for better access to justice were taken to a great extent through the legislations made and provision of required personnel and judges and prosecutors at the court houses. However, he also underlined the fact that unless citizens are well informed about the progress made in this field, such measures will not meet the expectations: “It is not possible to talk about the success of a justice system, which does satisfy the citizens. Therefore, the vision of the Ministry of Justice is based on a justice system that inspires confidence among the citizens themselves”. Kahraman also pointed to the importance of close cooperation and collaboration with the relevant stakeholder institutions and the public at large for the realization of the project activities.
In line with the statements of the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Justice, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative Shahid Najam also underlined that access to justice must not only be defined in terms of improving an individual’s access to courts or guaranteeing legal representation but also for ensuring just and equitable legal and judicial outcomes.
The Head of the Strategy Development Board of the Ministry of Justice Murat Cevher, introduced the scope and rationale of the poject. Cevher defined the aim of the project, to suppor ongoing efforts of Government of Turkey within the scope of the justice reform to achieve a status where the Turkish citizens are legally empowered and have effective access to a fair, inclusive and equal judicial system. To this end, the project‘s main activities revolve around upstream level activities for institutional and individual capacity development in the justice sector and downstream level activities for public awareness on legal rights. The project is expected to address the needs and gaps with regard to legal empowerment for better access to justice and contribute to increased legal awareness and enhanced efficiency of the justice system in Turkey.
The project’s senior international consultant , Andrejs Berzins, introduced the Canadian model for legal empowerment access to justice. The representatives of different stakeholders also contributed to the discussions and shared their opinions about the challenges and opportunities regarding the current practices for better access to justice in Turkey.
In Turkey, 180 administrators and police were trained and more than 800 people were familiarized with the notion of “civilian oversight” in workshops and conferences held in the scope of Improvement of Civilian Oversight of Internal Security Sector project which was successfully completed through a conference held with the participation of representatives from the Ministry of Interior, EU Delegation and UNDP, academics and the Project team on May 28, 2010 in Ankara. According to UNDP Turkey Deputy Representative Ulrika Richardson-Golinski, the Improvement of Civilian Oversight of Internal Security Sector project touches upon one of the core issues of Turkey’s reform process, and will be an integral part of the efforts towards democratization and strengthening the rule of law. In this regard, the project has a distinct approach that supports the efforts in identifying legal gaps, bottlenecks and solutions.
Since its launch in November 2007, 79 reports on civilian oversight and its practices were published, and a Directive derived from the “Handbook of Civilian Oversight of Internal Security Forces for Governors and District governors” which describes the duties and powers of governors over the internal security forces and provides a check list to be sent to all governorates was finalized in cooperation with the academia. The project is expected to provide Turkey with a far more effective oversight mechanism, contributing to the country's attempts towards acquiring a more democratically, transparently and securely functioning civilian oversight.
The point raised by Güngör Azim Tuna, Deputy Undersecretary of Ministry of Interior, and commonly agreed by the participants was that the project has considerably achieved its goals and is to play a significant role for Turkey’s further integration to the European Union and its becoming a more secure country in its region. The significance of the project was identified as the valuable outputs yielded through the project and their expected contributions to making the implementation of laws much more efficient.
"Considering that the implementation of laws and regulations is as crucial as their enactment, making laws should be complemented with changes in mind", said Deputy Undersecretary Tuna. Since Turkey has carried out significant legislative changes in line with its EU candidacy, this project is expected to provide Turkey with much more effective mechanisms to enforce laws in a more proper and desirable fashion.
As mentioned by Muhsin Altun, the Head of Central Finance and Contracts Unit, since this Project is sponsored under the title of civil-military relations of the Copenhagen political criteria, the output and experiences gained are also expected to make important contributions to Turkey’s adaptation process in this field.
Involved in the project from the very beginning, Sector Manager of the EU Delegation Banur Özaydın, said this Project can be perceived as a contributor to the efforts towards achieving greater democracy, transparency and accountability of the Turkish institutions and strengthening the confidence of the Turkish public.
In the coming decades, it is predicted that the winter months in the eastern parts of Turkey will receive rainfall instead of snowfall and the rising temperatures will lead to snow melting earlier than usually is the case and leading to an increased runoff. This prediction can cause serious problems for meeting the water needs of cities and rural areas especially in the summer as well as for regions that depend on snow cover which gradually feeds the water system. The consecutive number of days without rainfall is also expected to increase starting from the south of the country and moving toward the north. The results were obtained by Istanbul Technical University Eurasia Institute of Earth Sciences in the scope of Enhancing Turkey’s Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change UN Joint Programme.
Climate models show how changes in climate parameters such as precipitation and temperature can occur. The training seminars aimed to provide experts working in the fields of agriculture, water resources, field and urban management along with other areas of expertise, with information on how to use and interpret these outcomes in the context of adaptation efforts in order to reduce the impacts of climate change.
At the seminars where 45 people from various institutions participated, the Director of Istanbul Technical University Eurasia Institute of Earth Sciences Prof.Dr. Nüzhet Dalfes and Dr. Ufuk Utku Turunçoğlu introduced the concept of climate change, how to model climate change and provided information on how such models can be used in agriculture and water resources management.
The UN Joint Programme Regional Project Coordinator Alper Acar said “The fact that the impacts of climate change differ according to geographical or socio-economical characteristics of the region, indicate a need for using regional or local climate models in that region to determine adaptation efforts in order to reducing the impacts of climate change. Climate models can be used as a guiding tool for decision makers and in academic research to take the necessary steps and understand the climate risks on issues related to climate change adaptation such as agriculture and food safety, public health, infrastructure, natural resources and ecosystem services.”
Particularly in the past 5 years, the Istanbul Technical University Eurasia Institute of Earth Sciences has been carrying out studies on how to adapt foreign research institutes’ climate change projections obtained from global climate models to a local scale. Within the scope of “Enhancing the Capacity of Turkey to Adapt to Climate Change” UN Joint Programme, the Institute provides some of the basic statistics and data products from regional model outcomes on web-based system. The web-based system, established in the framework of the UN Joint Programme, allows users to carry out basic functions on their own. Please visit http://agora.itu.edu.tr
The web-based system also provides a temporal dimension where information on the impacts of climate change can be reached on the country, province and basin levels.
The UN Joint Programme on Enhancing the Capacity of Turkey to Adapt to Climate Change, is funded by Spain through the Millennium Development Goals Achievement Fund, and aims to establish necessary strategies to combat and manage the effects of climate change in Turkey and enhance capacity in order to manage climate change risks that threaten Turkey’s rural and coastal area development. The joint programme is implemented by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry in cooperation with FAO, UNDP, UNEP and UNIDO.
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