Issue: 21
9 fashion designers (Arzu Kaprol, Hatice Gökçe, Alex Akimoğlu, Özlem Süer, Ceren Erten, İdil Tarzi, Hakan Yıldırım, Ümit Ünal and Bahar Korçan) are visiting 9 regions in the context of the “9 Designers to 9 Cities” Project executed jointly by the SouthEastern Anatolian Project (GAP) and UNDP in the GAP regions and are exchanging ideas with the women in these regions and are now trying to produce using weaving techniques and embroidery specific to the regions.
The priority goal is to create new income sources for women and the protection of cultural heritage in South Eastern Anatolia. Through the project products that can be marketed that are specific to Adıyaman, Batman, Diyarbakır, Gaziantep, Kilis, Mardin, Siirt, Şanlıurfa and Şırnak will be produced with their special motifs and embroidery. Each designer is assuming the responsibility of one city. Through the project, Turkey’s cultural heritage will be claimed thus maintaining its sustainability and local values belonging to Turkey will be presented abroad, and a sale network will be established thus contributing to Turkey’s presentation abroad. The project will also help to create means for entering national and international markets.
Weaving techniques, motifs and fabrics specific to these 9 cities will be used in the project. For example “Siirt blanket” in Siirt, products with special motifs and imprint techniques in Mardin, felt products in Şanlıurfa where there is wide production and use for felt and fabrics used by Urfa weaving method will be produced.
Turkey’s leading fashion designers who are the members and founders of the Fashion Designers Association paid field visits to the region. Following the field trips, the designers will realize their products and will revisit the regions in September for trainings regarding their products. With the completion of the trainings the first sample products will be ready. The exhibition of these products is then planned for October-November and with all these processes complete, sale links will be created.
With the support of the Batman Governorship the management of the café in Batman Airport was given to the women within the Batman Multi-Purpose Community Centre (ÇATOM).
The interior and exterior decoration of the café was realized by two voluntary young artists from Mardin with the support of the GAP-UNDP project. Moreover, in investing the café’s infrastructure, studies to establish a Batman Multi-Purpose Women Cooperative were initiated again through the support of the GAP-UNDP project. The establishment of the cooperative is expected to be completed in one month.
The income that will be earned from the airport’s café in which there are flights to Batman every day and two flights a week from Batman to other destinations, will be tranferred to the account of the women cooperative that will be established and with the accumulated capital new job opportunities in different fields will be created for women.
The café’s official opening that already started its operation on 12 August is expected to be held in mid September. It is possible to find all kinds of cold and hot drinks, sandwiches, cakes and souvenirs made in Batman Multi-Purpose Community Centre.
The report touches on the problems youth – that make up a large proportion of Turkey’s population – faces in their individual lives and in the society and brings suggestions for solutions as well as aiming to present the “good examples” of projects that have contributed to the change and development of youth. In this context, in order to determine these “good examples” UNDP Turkey is organizing a “Good Examples in the field of Youth” event.
The goal of the event is to determine innovative projects among hundreds of others that contribute to the development of youth and strengthen their skills and capabilities and to make these projects heard not only in Turkey but in the world... In this context projects that serve to boost the living standards of youth are very valuable.
The deadline for the “Good Examples in the field of Youth” is 15 September 2007. Those who wish to apply need to send in their applications to the United Nations Office in Ankara before this date. In the assessments that will be made by an evaluation committee on 15-25 September, 10 of the projects that receive the most votes will be elected and on 4 October 2007 successful project owners will be awarded at an award ceremony that will be organized in Ankara.
All expenditures for attending the award ceremony will be compensated by UNDP. Projects that have been rewarded will be presented to youth by project owners during an Information Fair that will be organised on 17-18 November 2007 in Ankara.
Women councils from all over Turkey came together in Bursa-Uludağ for a national coordination meeting on 6-9 August 2007. They readied themselves to ask local authorities for more women friendly programs - a request that is largely being ignored so far. The Şişli Municipality hosted the event which convened 55 women from 27 different cities across Turkey. The United Cities Local Governments - Middle East West Asia (UCLG-MEWA) and UNDP coordinated the event. The participating women also prepared for the national Women’s Summit to be held in Antalya in coming months and analyzed the results of the General Elections.
Following the General Elections of past July, there are now 50 women parliamentarians out of the total 549. This is far from the ideal which the women councils demanded going into the elections. The 50 elected women in the parliament representing half of Turkey’s women population is clearly not enough but it may be a good start for women in politics that is currently being dominated by men. The women’s councils have high expectations from these 50 women in parliament: “we are all ready to support these 50 women, but we want them to represent women and to voice our demands in parliament,” said one member of the women’s council.
Today’s 9% representation of women is the highest in the history of Turkish Republic will not yet change the image of the Grand National Assembly (TBMM) in the eyes of the women’s movement which calls it the “Grand MOUSTACHE Assembly.” The target set by the government of Turkey for women’s representation in parliament by 2015 is 17% as expressed in Turkey’s Millennium Development Goals Report (MDGR) of 2005. There is move towards this target: 100% increase from 24 women in the previous assembly to 50 now. But this advancement is hardly close to equal representation.
Women Councils are well aware of the fact that the representation in the parliament is just one aspect of gender inequality in Turkey which affects the whole gender equality policies to be taken. The further democratization of Turkey’s parliamentary politics and its party system are at the root of lack of women’s representation, say many of the women’s activists.
To this end, the women’s movement is increasingly partnering with the demands for amending Turkey’s Political Party and Election Laws. Women councils have requested de facto quotas from the political parties for the election lists. Now, at their national coordination meeting in Bursa they are calling for democracy within the parties and a gender quota so women won’t continue to be placed at the non-electable ranks of the election lists.
LA21 women are strong-minded. They won’t stop asking for gender equal policies from legislators. In welcoming the 50 women to the parliament, they also decided to support and monitor them. They will partner with their new friends in parliament acknowledging that there is a long way to go.
The International Youth Day that is being celebrated in many countries around the world gives the world the opportunity to notice youth’s potential, celebrates their achievements and gives the opportunity for youth to develop their own lives and the soceties they live in. Moreover the celebrations aim to bring stakeholders together thus encouraging youth to participate into decision-making mechanisms in all aspects of life. The theme of 2007 was selected in order to remind the importance of youth’s social, economic and political participation to communities’ progress and their sustainable development.
In the context of the celebrations held this year, the United Nations organized two competitions. One of them was a photography contest called “Shoot Nations”. 1500 contestants from 85 countries participated to the competition that was open to all youth and 48 of the award-winning photographs related to the meaning of the day were exhibited at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The photographs that will be exhibited in London, Delhi, Berlin and Burkina Faso next will be open to visits until November 2007. The aim of this contest was to enable youth to question the rights and wrongs in the places they live. The second contest was “Global Youth Wave”. With this contest, youth were asked to convey a message regarding their participation for development through 5-10 seconds video shoots. Following the submission deadline of the video clips that was due on 17 August 2007, the videos will be put together into a short movie and will then be broadcasted via the internet.
This special day was celebrated in many other countries around the world such as Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Northern Ireland, Kenya, Nepal and Russia with various activities supported by the United Nations. In these activities, youth groups discussed the solutions for problems of youth in their societies as well as what they can do for global problems.
There are also other establishments and programmes regarding the International Youth Day as well. One of these are the Youth Delegations formed by youth representing various countries and that have been included into the official country delegates of the UN General Council... Youth who come together every year since 2000 in the context of these delegations discuss social, economic, cultural issues and issues related to human development and publish declarations. “The Tackling Poverty Together”, “Voice of Youth” (UNICEF), and “Youth Participation and Youth-Adult Partnership” (UNFPA) projects are also included among the programmes implemented in this context by various agencies of the UN.
In a speech he made for the 12 August International Youth day, UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon expressed his feelings as such: “It is time that we stopped viewing our young people as part of the problem and started cultivating their promise and potential... We need their participation more than ever. Their energy and idealism can help make up for lost ground and achieve our development goals in full and on time.”
Today there are more than one billion youth in the world. In the developing world, half of the population is below the age of 21 and most of them face extreme poverty... In this context the UN General Council declared 12 August as International Youth Day on 17 December 1999 so that the “World Programme of Action for Youth to the Year 2000 and Beyond” that was prepared to combat these problems and to make communities more conscious of these problems can be convened every year on a specific date.
Photo: Mesut Bilgin
Sustainable Development Training was realized in the context of the ‘Integration of Sustainable Development into Sectoral Policies Project’ financed by the European Union and implemented by United Nations Development Programme with the coordination of the State Planning Organization. The training that was realized on 30 July-10 August 2007 in Ankara was given by the Nature Association and Golder Associates.
The training illustrated the differences of the sustainable development concept from the existing sustainable development understanding. In the training in which issues such as energy, forestry, urbanization, science and technology, natural resources and fishery were stood out, it was emphasized that society, environment and economy need to be taken into consideration as a whole rather than only economic elements. The importance of the dialogue between sectors and institutions were emphasized. While implementations in education throughout the world were evaluated, the most applicable methods, indicators and tools for Turkey were discussed for sustainable development.
Canadian expert Karen Whistler who has a 20 year experience in sustainable development said: “Turkey has an experienced expert team who can realize national approaches that consider the welfare of future generations in this valuable geography as well. Energy policies, climate change, water resources and natural disasters such as drought that are being discussed in the printed media, academic environments and in the streets show us how right the timing of us being here today is and how much we need a concept for sustainable development”.
Villages were selected based on poverty rates; deficiencies in village sanitary sewage infrastructure; and number of potential benefiting households. Installation of the sanitation systems is expected to be completed by November 2007 and will result in improvements in health and sanitation, dissemination of better hygiene practices and enhanced village living standards for approximately 1,000 households. In the first month since the launch, notable progress has already been achieved in the villages of Gürpinar, Yağdonduran, Karacalar and Mutubey in Sivas.
The need for the sanitation systems was determined through a series of village-wide meetings since late 2006, between field Project staff and the existing Muhtar-Village Councils. Indications of the positive impact of the investment are already apparent from feedback received in the villages: most families have moved their toilet facilities, previously in unhygienic external sheds, inside their homes, in preparation for linkage to the sanitation system. There is also increased community interest on better sanitation and hygiene practices, especially from women, who are traditionally family leaders and educators on these issues. Discussions among women farmers in Gürpinar have been animated by the anticipated long-term health benefits of the sanitation infrastructure for their families and children.
Addressing the gender dimensions of rural development is integral to SERDP’s activities, and mainstreaming gender-specific issues is a deliberate Project strategy. Project staff has found that aside from structured discussions with women; most times, ‘on-the-spot’ and informal chats during project site visits are especially responsive and helpful in encouraging women’s input on priority issues in the village.
UNDP recognizes that the need to raise living standards in rural areas calls for measures targeting rural infrastructure development. Access to sanitary infrastructure is a fundamental starting-point for broader-based rural development; and SERDP’s initiative is directly linked to the UN Millennium Development Goal 7 to Ensure Environmental Sustainability and Target 10, which aims to “Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.”
Despite the evidence of improved sanitation on broader development objectives; globally investment in sanitation remains low and levels of improved sanitation remains significantly behind those for water supply. Globally, the scale of the sanitation backlog is appalling, more than 2.4 billion people lack access to proper sanitation facilities. A study of sanitation coverage in 2000 estimated that globally, 86% of urban dwellers had access to sanitation compared to 38% of rural inhabitants. Overall, approximately 60% of the world’s population had access to sanitation in 2000. Global data from the 2006 UNDP Human Development Report points to the gap between water and sanitation provision—“In all regions and in almost all countries sanitation provision lags far behind access to water—and there is no evidence that the gap is narrowing.” HDR emphasizes that countries that allow sanitation coverage to lag are destined to see the benefits of progress in water diminished as a result.
The employees working within the Sivas-Erzincan Rural Development Project are not only bringing innovations to the Sivas-Erzincan region thus helping the region to develop but are also developing their visions through the trainings they attend. The training organized in Hungary for the field staff of the Sivas-Erzincan Rural Development Project is a good example of this.
Capacity-building Training on Rural Development
Field-based staff of the Sivas Erzincan Rural Development Project (SERDP) recently attended a week-long international capacity-building training in Hungary on the management of internationally financed rural development projects. The training was coordinated by UNDP Turkey and provided by a training institute globally recognized for its expertise in rural-based project cycle management. The training event highlighted the global shift towards adopting human-development centered rural development strategies and served as a platform to discuss lessons learned on large-scale rural development and infrastructure projects financed by UNDP and the World Bank; rural development strategies from the perspective of new EU member states; and opportunities and challenges facing Turkey during the EU accession period.
The purpose of the training was to support institutional capacity-building of SERDP’s provincial Project Management Units (PMUs) and the Provincial Directorates of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in Sivas and Erzincan both from a technical and policy-level perspective. Essentially, the trainers emphasized the strategic value of an integrative approach to rural development policy-making, with the understanding that the challenges of rural areas can be overcome through multi-stakeholder partnerships that consider rural areas to be not only agricultural production zones but also social units, encompassing environmental issues; decentralized local governance; gender concerns; improved access to basic social services in education; health and sanitation.
Murat Demirbük and his colleagues are agricultural engineers and Project staff seconded from the Provincial Directorates of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in Sivas who attended the training and shared their feedback. Topics that they found most useful included tools to encourage beneficiary participation at the village-level; local capacity-gap analyses; and developing measurable pro-poor indicators. Murat noted that an on-site visit to a Kozard village, a rural development project success story was especially beneficial towards seeing first hand what can be done on the ground to encourage economic empowerment of farmers and small-business owners.
The training emphasized a cornerstone of UNDP’s approach to tackling rural development challenges—supporting participatory and gender sensitive models for development at the village level to ensure that project activities set realistic targets with measurable impact. When asked how the training contributed to his own learning, Murat had this to say: “Attending an international training course gave me a sense of personal confidence, and this leads me to believe that the work we will do in Sivas from now on will benefit from what we have taken away from the training. Until the training event, I had not fully understood the value and responsibility of being a part of an international development project. I was impressed with what is achievable at the provincial and village-level through effective planning and information-sharing of experiences from other countries; institutions and partners.”
The Sivas-Erzincan Rural Development Project was launched in 2005, and is nationally executed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and partnered by UNDP and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. The second phase of the project will be extended until 2012 and will have a total budget of approximately USD 32 million.