Issue: 48
UNDP’s Telemedicine: Quality Health Service for Poor and Remote Populations project is implemented in partnership with and support of Intel, Turkcell, Turkish Association of Family Physicians and METU Informatics.
At the IT’09 event, the best in the IT sector received awards under the theme “Technology Policies” in their respective categories. Other winners include the Dolmabahce Palace website in visual design, The National Research Institute of Electronics and Cryptology (UEKAE), an affiliate of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey in innovative application, Kocaeli Municipality in Local Administration application the Ministry of Justice in Justice in public application, Türkiye İş Bankası in financial applications and Telecom World in the publishing sector. Votes were open to the public until 13 November at www.tbd.org.tr.
Lying in southeast Anatolia, Adıyaman is one of the cities that ministry of health’s family physician system is currently in operation. Telemedicine is mostly used for patient follow ups. Family physician applications, distant rural areas with high rate of population, negative seasonal and infrastructure conditions have made Adıyaman suitable for telemedicine applications.
A survey was conducted to evaluate the usage of telemedicine applications and attitudes of the care givers and the patients in Adıyaman. Results of the survey indicated citizens cared by telemedicine expressed satisfaction with the application and believed that the installed technology is sufficient enough to make a medical diagnosis. Telemedicine users in the rural areas have stated that they can contact to specialists whenever they want via telemedicine and can consult specialists in all subjects. Healthcare providers are able to benefit from the installed technology to do research on the Internet about their specialties and find the system useful but explain that there is room for improvement. They further suggest that telemedicine applications will be more useful if they are widened to reach all across Turkey and if stable infrastructures and regulatory issues regarding telemedicine applications are established.
Defined as the use of telecommunications technology to send data, graphics, audio, and video images between distant participants for the purpose of clinical care, telemedicine can improve the quality of healthcare and offer a cost effective alternative to current forms of healthcare delivery.
Current telemedicine application efforts in Turkey are small sized, and are operational in few areas such as teleradiology and telepathology only. However, Turkey is aware that integrating telemedicine into its national health care program is an important element of the modernization and restructuring process currently underway. Telemedicine is one of the tasks under urgent action plan of e-transformation of Turkey. Tele-radiology and tele-pathology are main focus points of ministry of health because there are insufficient numbers of specialists in the area of medical imaging, there is a need to meet the second opinion in complex cases and for patient satisfaction, right diagnosis and treatment procedures. Telemedicine pilot project includes 18 state and research & development hospitals in Turkey.
Photo: Hakan Çınar
With reference to comparative examples, international standards and the quantitative and qualitative project results The Organizational and Administrative Review of the Judiciary Final Report and Policy Options, identifies some of the practical implications of potential changes to the current organizational structure in which the HCJP operates.
Based on the April 2009 results of the questionnaire distributed to all members of Turkey’s judiciary, designed to elicit opinions and ideas on the functioning of the HCJP, Court of Cassation and Council of State, the report primarily tries to address issues raised by independence and accountability by referring to examples from EU member states, namely, Poland, Italy, Spain and France.
Currently in Turkey the HCJP operates according to traditional models. When international standards are taken into account, not having an independent budget and personnel structure brings the independence of the HCJP into question. Expanding the mandate of the HCJP or giving the council full inspection authority, ensuring wider representation through allowing all judges and prosecutors to vote, allocating a separate budget for the HCJP and appointing its own personnel are among the policy options presented in the report for the HCJP to reach international standards. Results of the questionnaire also indicate support for the policy options. While 70.3% of the participants are in favor of the HCJP having inspection authority, there is an 84.5% support rate among HCJP members for the council to have its own secretariat and an 83.2% of the members favor an independent budget.
Another opinion shared by many high council members is the need for wider representation. Survey results are supportive of this potential policy configuration as 73.1% of the participants disagreed/strongly disagreed with the statement that “HCJP is representative of the whole jurisdiction with its existing member structure.” However, most still assert that members should be chosen solely by the judges and prosecutors themselves. Thus, 85.9% have indicated new members should be elected by existing council members.
Regarding the transparency of operations in High Councils, the report mentions that open sittings and annual activity reports are all common practices held in comparison countries and that the Consultative Council of European Judges advises high councils to publicizes the appointment criteria and disseminate the post descriptions in the appointment and promotion of judges; be accountable to Parliament and the national audit office for the use of its budget; publish its decisions; publish a periodic report of its activities and measures to be taken to overcome the difficulties it has encountered; and publicize its work to members of the judiciary and in the media.
Responses to the questionnaire with regards to transparency indicate strong support (97.6%) for the statement “The decisions of the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors have to be reasoned”, Those who favor HCJP's appointment and assignment decisions to be adjudicated are 82%.
An important area where there is a lack of consensus among members of the high council concerns the role of the Ministry of Justice in the HCJP. Among comparison countries while there is no representative of the Ministry in the high council in Italy and Spain, the Justice Minister is a permanent member of the high council in France and Poland. Opinion 10 of the Consultative Council of European Judges on the issue of representation of the Ministry on the Council advises: “prospective members of the Council for the Judiciary, whether judges or non judges, should not be active politicians, members of parliament, the executive or the administration.” 47.6% of the participants strongly agreed/agreed with the statement: “The Minister of Justice and the undersecretary have to be on the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors” while 48.5% strongly disagreed or disagreed.
An important area where there is a lack of consensus among members of the high council concerns the role of the Ministry of Justice in the HCJP. Among comparison countries while there is no representative of the Ministry in the high council in Italy and Spain, the Justice Minister is a permanent member of the high council in France and Poland. Opinion 10 of the Consultative Council of European Judges on the issue of representation of the Ministry on the Council advises: “prospective members of the Council for the Judiciary, whether judges or non judges, should not be active politicians, members of parliament, the executive or the administration.” 47.6% of the participants strongly agreed/agreed with the statement: “The Minister of Justice and the undersecretary have to be on the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors” while 48.5% strongly disagreed or disagreed.
In the scope of the Support to Judicial Reform in the Perspective of Organizational Administration project, the UNDP works in partnership with the Ministry of Justice to develop an extensive framework, which will become a basis for defining a road map for further policy recommendations and capacity building programmes in the ongoing judiciary reform process of Turkey.
[BAGLANTILAR]
While singing the famous folk song Uzun İnce Bir Yoldayım (I am on a long narrow path) Şilay, was perhaps reflecting on the difficulties she faces daily as a disabled young woman. No wonder she received the loudest round of applause for her performance at the Social Inclusion Band concert where young artists broke through every barrier at a club in Istanbul. Held in the scope of the Akbank Jazz Festival at the end of October, this alternative and innovative jazz band created a music frenzy attracting jazz lovers from all over Turkey.
In preparing for the performance, young aspiring musical enthusiasts attended Social Inclusion Band (SIB) workshops where they were able to participate in an interactive experience, playing drums and instruments for the first time. After becoming accustomed to the feel of the instruments, these young women and men joined members of the Social Inclusion Band creating unique rhythm and tunes.
The performance on the 25th of October students from the Dreams Academy, as well as musicians from Turkey, Germany and Chile took center stage. Musicians who accompanied the students during the festival were J. Alfred Menhert on percussion, Mehar Tellez on drums, Baki Duyarlar on the piano, Gücüm Sezer playing guitar, Baran Say playing base, and Meriç Demirkol playing the saxophone. Funda Sezer sang vocals. The band will continue to perform throughout 2010.
The Social Inclusion Band is an innovative initiative realized by the Alternative Life Association (AYDER). For the past 10 years, AYDER has been creating art, culture and sports projects to encourage the equal participation of disabled and socially disadvantaged youth in life. Leading musicians from different cultural, social and ethnic backgrounds and talented disabled and socially disadvantaged artists come together to perform under Social Inclusion Band. It is an international social responsibility initiative which voices its motto as “Social Change by Arts”.
A voluntary music group, the common purpose of Social Inclusion Band Members is to promote and encourage social responsibility among society. SIB raises awareness by creating a meeting point where different cultures and countries are linked together by arts. SIB aims to enhance the integration of persons with disabilities and socially disadvantaged youth into the society.
With the Social Inclusion Band, the Dreams Academy aims to establish a performance group which includes talented disabled artists. Developed under the partnership of UNDP and Alternative Life Association (AYDER) to support the disabled youth’s contribution to social life and to encourage employment, the Dreams Academy is funded by the Vodafone Turkey Foundation.
[BAGLANTILAR]
With the Kyoto Protocol approaching an end in 2012, the formation of a new agreement is vital. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (FAR) findings, human influence on the climate is much more dire than assumed. A new and more effective treaty to manage the emission of greenhouse gases is needed urgently. This agreement is hoped to be created in the Copenhagen summit.
The general objective of COP 15 is to create an agreement that will control the increase in the emission of greenhouse gases and keep them within a limit in order to lighten the severity of climate change. In June, G8 countries along with many large developing countries, reached a consensus that the average temperature rise should be limited to 2°C; the agreement that will be formed during the conference will therefore most likely constitute this as an objective. During the conference it is also aimed to form new goals for industrialized countries to reduce their carbon emissions. Adapting to climate change through securing fresh water and crop stocks and building sea defenses will also be central to the COP15. Another key objective of the summit is to help finance developing countries in order to both reduce their emissions and adapt to climate change. Limiting deforestation will also be a part of the agreement. The crucial date for these commitments is likely to be 2020, although some countries are looking at later dates.
So far, considerable public awareness has been generated through the United Nations ’Seal the Deal' Campaign that encourages users to sign an online, global petition in order to galvanize political will and public support for reaching a comprehensive global climate agreement in Copenhagen. The online petition has already been signed by over 390 000 people worldwide serving as a reminder that leaders must negotiate a fair, balanced and effective agreement in Copenhagen, and that they must seal a deal to power green growth, protect the planet and build a more sustainable, prosperous global economy that will benefit all nations and people.
As part of Seal the Deal, a new website has drawn thousands of visitors to register the time they have spent as environmental volunteers since World Environment Day, 5 June, and the time they will spend until International Volunteer Day, 5 December. People around the world are volunteering thousands of hours to tackle climate change and send a message to world leaders that everyone is part of the solution. Since the website started on November 5th, people have registered more than 500,000 hours of volunteer effort.
The website is part of a campaign by the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme to promote a successful outcome at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. “Our climate is changing and everybody needs to get involved to help us cope,” said Flavia Pansieri, UNV Executive Coordinator. “Volunteers started the global environmental movement and we are an essential part of the solution to climate change. So our theme for International Volunteer Day is ‘Volunteering for our Planet’ and we would like you to join us. We can send a strong signal to the Copenhagen conference that people want to help and can be involved as volunteers.”
Volunteers are taking action across many areas, including environmental education in Egypt, agriculture in Kenya, energy in China, waste and pollution in Germany, water and sanitation in Brazil and biodiversity in the United States.
The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference is seen as a milestone in the controlling of emissions and climate change, and is hoped to generate long term global strategies to control the worsening situation of global warming.
Information Communication Technology (ICT) has a vital role in sustainable human development. ICT applied to governmental procedures, more commonly known as e-Governance, aims to enhance government and public institutions’ efficiency, transparency and accountability by providing better public service and information delivery to citizens and stakeholders. More so, e-Governance enables greater interaction between government institutions and citizens, hence giving more voice to the public. To align itself with recent developments in e-Governance, Turkey is hosting the “e-Transformation in Public Administration from e-Government to e-Governance”, International Conference on e-government: Sharing Experiences. The conference will take place in Antalya from 8-11 December.
Objectives of the conference include bringing together senior government officials, academicians, relevant UNDP experts on e-governance from various countries to discuss and share lessons learned and best practices for e-government practices and implementations. By creating a common platform to explore collaboration potentials where practical experiences on e-government project implementations are exchanged, the conference is expected to generate proposals for reasonable e-Government policies and strategies that cope with security and digital divide. In addition, the conference will serve as a venue leading to a permanent network of regional e-government leaders/e-government project leaders (eGOVNet Consortium).
The conference will host a series of panels. The opening panel “Challenges and Opportunities of e-Transformation in Public Administration: Regeneration of eBureaucracy” will take place with guest speakers including the founder and director of the National Center for Digital Government, Jane E. Fountain and the founder and director of e-Government Center (eDEM) of Public Administration Institute for Turkey and the Middle East, Turksel Kaya Bensghir. Following the panel seven sessions on Challenges to e-Government, Knowledge Management, Legal, Security and Trust Issues in e-Government, Measuring e-Government, e-Participation, m-Government (mobile Government) and other topics including e-government standards, e-Learning, Document Management and others will be held. Further discussions will then take place in working groups and country cases/experiences.
Turkey has been following developments in ICT closely. Becoming a party to the E-Europe+ Initiative in 2001 and, the country has launched the “e-Transformation Turkey Project” in 2003. The project seeks to transform Turkey into an information society harmoniously integrating all aspects of society, enterprises and public segments. Participants will include senior decision makers, governmental experts and practitioners, experts and academicians from leading local universities and research institutions and representatives from UNDP from Euro-Asia, Middle East, North Africa and the USA. There will be a total of 200 participants: 2 from each of the 50 invited countries and 100 from the host country, Turkey. The conference is organized by UNDP, Public Administration Institute for Turkey and the Middle East (TODAIE), e-Government Centre (eDem), Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) and the Statistical Economical and Social Research Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC).
UNDP Turkey’s 2004 National Human Development Report titled Information and Communication Technologies suggests Turkey’s e-Government policies are best viewed in conjunction with Turkey’s modernization process to integrate Turkey into global political and economic structures.
In this second term of the CSC programme, the CSC team composed of 15 IBM experts from 9 different countries came to Mersin after three months of preparatory work conducted in their home countries. They worked together with the local institutions such as the Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mersin Chamber of Shipping, Mersin Technopark - Technoscope, Tourism Platform, Logistics Platform, Mersin Tarsus Organized Industrial Zone, ALATA Horticultural Research Institute and Mersin University as well as project partners to come up with sustainable solutions for Mersin.
To promote both economic growth and advancement in information technologies in 5 sub-teams worked on various new initiatives. Among these were developing a strategic plan for Technoscope (Mersin Technopark), providing recommendations on the new Logistics Center IT Infrastructure and implementing a Green Data Center Initiative to complement the current Logistics Master Plan. A business case for developing Mersin Tourism Portal, to attract investment to and promote the tourism industry in Mersin was also initiated. For the development of Agro-food in Mersin, a sub-team worked with Horticultural Research Institute to develop a strategy and an action plan to establish an Agro-food Technopark in Mersin and develop a strategic plan to commercialize and internationalize ALATA’s activities and products.
Jane Jamieson, Vice-President of Global Operations at Digital Opportunity Trust said: "The two CSC teams have contributed significantly to economic growth and innovation in Mersin, drawing on the expertise and experience of IBMers from 9 different countries. The CSC program is an excellent example of corporate social responsibility and also demonstrates the power of partnership -- among the private, public and civil society sectors and between international, national and local levels.”
IBM Turk CEO Michel Charouk also spoke enthusiastically about the project outcomes in Mersin and explained: ‘The works under the Corporate Services Corps project continues… At the end of the process, 22 people working for Mersin between April to November 2009 provided approximately 5.000 hours voluntary service including the pre-service preparations. As a successful example of the collaboration of private sector, public sector and civil society organizations, the project will continue in Turkey in 2010 with 40 experts in Gaziantep and Malatya.”
Expressing her excitement about the positive results of the work of CSC volunteers, UNDP Resident Representative, a.i. Ulrika Richardson-Golinski said: “In this partnership with UNDP, IBM provides its most valuable assets; human capital, knowledge and experience for the benefit of development. IBM sends experts from around the world to Turkey to work voluntarily on projects that will bring solutions to local challenges.” She further implied that this new initiative will continue in other cities in Turkey and that it will hopefully set examples to other private sector companies with regards to corporate social responsibility.
Corporate Service Corps (CSC) is a global employee leadership initiative of IBM. The CSC initiative gathers teams of IBM volunteer executives, drawn from different countries and business units and places them in priority emerging markets to tackle important social and economic issues in collaboration with NGOs, national and local partners around the world. The programme in Turkey, was launched by IBM in partnership with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), State Planning Organization (DPT), Corporate Volunteer Association (OSGD) and Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT) in 2009.
Mainstreaming human rights within the UN system has been central to the series of UN reform efforts since 1997, when the former Secretary-General designated human rights as cross-cutting to the work of the organization.
Implemented as a knowledge sharing tool that allows UN practitioners system-wide to contribute resources of strategic relevance to programming HRBA, the Practitioners Portal on HRBA aims to facilitate the sharing of lessons learned in mainstreaming human rights in programming and practice. By sharing good practices, it is expected that the quality of work in mainstreaming human rights will improve and provide support to evidence-based policy formation.
The initiative grew out of a need to harness the body of knowledge and experience gathered by the UN system in strengthening human rights at the country level, so that these lessons can be applied in the future. The application of this knowledge and learning is vital to improve the quality of human rights mainstreaming work.
The portal will focus on providing strategic and practical tools on integrating HRBA into programming and is designed to complement existing resources on broader human rights issues. Through the portal, practitioners can have access to a database of resources consisting of reports, handbooks and case studies on mainstreaming HRBA. Learning materials such as The UN Common Learning Package on HRBA are also available in the portal. Furthermore, UN members will be able to share experiences, lessons learned and examples of good practices through the Human Rights Policy Network.
The Practitioners Portal on HRBA to programming was developed with the support of the Action 2 Global Programme on Human Rights with the aim of better managing our ‘knowledge assets’ in mainstreaming human rights. The project has been implemented by the UNDP Oslo Governance Centre.
A conceptual framework for the development of human rights, the Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA) helps to make the policy formulation process more transparent and empowers people and communities to hold those who have a duty to act accountable ensuring effective remedies where rights are violated.
One of the most devastating epidemics in the history of man, AIDS has caused the premature death of 25 million people from 1981 to 2007. "Achieving universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support is a human rights imperative. It is essential that the global response to the AIDS epidemic is grounded in human rights and that discrimination and punitive laws against those most affected by HIV are removed” said Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS.
Globally, 33.4 million people live with HIV today, and although there is a 9% increase from 2007, in 2008 only 42% of people needing Antiretroviral Therapy received it. This year’s World AIDS Day is appropriately themed ‘Universal Access and Human Rights’ addressing the need to protect human rights and attain access for all to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. “The Human Rights theme is about us, about communities, about people like you and me and our governments making a commitment to honour and respect the dignity of the vulnerable and to those already living with HIV” explains Allyson Lealock, chairperson of the World Aids Campaign Steering Committee.
With a total of 84 countries that have laws which act as barriers to effective HIV prevention, treatment care and support, the acceptance of HIV treatment, care and support as a human rights initiative is crucial for the global battle against AIDS. The theme therefore urges countries to accept the treatment of HIV as a component of human rights and to remove laws and policies which restrict AIDS response, including travelling restrictions. As Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon stated in his message for World AIDS day, “Successful AIDS responses do not punish people; they protect them.”
In Turkey, since 1985, a total of 3671 cases and carriers of HIV have also been reported. Based on data for the first six months of 2009, 301 cases of HIV have been reported in Turkey, from which 35 are occurrences and 266 are carriers. In 2008, a total of 450 occurrences and carriers had been reported. From the statistics relating to the first half of 2009, the three cities in Turkey with the most HIV cases are respectively Istanbul with 161 cases, Izmir with 23 and Antalya follows with 17 cases.
On the brighter side, according to new data in the 2009 AIDS epidemic update, new HIV infections have been reduced by 17% over the past eight years. Since 2001, when the United Nations Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS was signed, the number of new infections in sub-Saharan Africa is approximately 15% lower, which is about 400,000 fewer infections in 2008. In East Asia new HIV infections declined by nearly 25% and in South and South East Asia by 10% in the same time period. In Eastern Europe, after a dramatic increase in new infections among injecting drug users, the epidemic has leveled off considerably. However, in some countries there are signs that new HIV infections are rising again.
Statistics point to the necessity of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. It is unfortunate HIV infected people are still discriminated against and punished. Ban Ki-Moon has made a call for immediate action towards the ‘Universal Access and Human Rights’ for HIV, which will also work towards the achievement of Millennium Development Goals. In her statement on World Aids Day, UNDP Administrator Helen Clark also explained: "With just six years left to reach the 2015 target date for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, we have learned that effective action on HIV/AIDS is essential to the human rights based and broader development agenda. UNDP is committed to supporting countries and communities in these efforts."
Editor: Aygen Aytaç
Assistant: Ece Ergen
Interns: Begüm Kalemdaroğlu, Ersev Özer
© 2009 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.