Issue: 12
The report entitled ‘High Priority Social and Economic Policy Suggestions for Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia’ was prepared by a team of independent investigators under the overall coordination of Dr. Orhan Kurmuş and launched on 22 November 2006 in Ankara.
Can Paker of TESEV and Mahmood Ayub, UNDP Resident Representative opened the launch event with key note remarks.
Kurmus presented the report to an audience of government officials, members of parliament and political parties, civil society representatives as well as participants from the business community. (For the power point presentation in Turkish, please click here)
The Report poses a forceful argument: If the country is to end the regional disparities between the east and the west and resolve all the social problems accompanying the current situation of inequalities, then the country must front load on public investments.
This is possible, argues the Report, through public investments in health, education, infrastructure, urban rehabilitation and social policy, including an expanded cash transfer programme to poor households, through an all out campaign for 7 years. The Report is a first step in building consensus on the necessity of such an investment upload, recognizing the social problems in the country’s east and southeast are national problems and cannot be isolated to the populations of these regions. The contributions of such an all out campaign to boosting of solidarity and ties of citizenship are also significant, say the authors.
According to the Report, the costs of such an investment upload are affordable by Turkey, and would not compromise her current fiscal discipline. With less than 1% of Turkey’s GDP allocated to social spending, infrastructure rehabilitation and basic services for 7 years, the country can actually level the playing field in terms of opportunities and potential for local economic growth between the country’s east and west.
A significant new project for the Turkish IT sector, “Youth Movement in Information Technology” aims to engage hundreds of young people from different parts of Turkey in information-based social and economic life. As an important step towards training young human resources who are equipped with informatics and internet web technologies, this projects targets socio-economically disadvantaged people, aged 16-26, from 8 different provinces of Turkey. Conducted under the coordination of ‘Youth for Habitat Association’, which is widely appreciated for its successful social initiatives for young people, the project will be implemented by entirely voluntary work, based on social responsibility approach, on the part of both the sponsoring companies and the trainers. 10 voluntary trainers, who have received their training certificates following courses provided by ITU Training Centre, will teach young IT candidates in classes of 20 in six cities. UNDP and Cisco Systems, which support the project by supplying the funds and the educational materials, aim to create the essential opportunities for these young people to be able to furher educate themselves in information technologies and make future careers.
The pilot cities of the project are Ankara, Hatay, Istanbul, Izmir, Kayseri, Kocaeli, Yalova and Malatya. Training facilities will be designated by Youth for Habitat Association. Kayseri Erciyes University and Gebze Technology Institute also support this initiative on a voluntary basis.
The training programme will continue for two years. In the first year, Foundations of IT and CCNA 1-2 Computer Network Modules will be studied within the framework of Cisco Networking Academy Programme. In the second year, CCNA 3-4 Modules will be taught. Trainees who successfully complete the programme will receive the internationally- recognized CNAP certificates given by Cisco.
According to the outcome of the survey, 16% of the citizens who voted in the General Election in 2002 were not satisfied with policies related to equality and rights of women pursued by the political parties they had supported. The results showed that having a higher number of female candidates as compared with other political parties would increase the tendency to vote for that party among 25% of the voters.
Moreover, 82% of the survey participants want the number of women politicians increase besides the outcome that 77% think that the most important reason of women’s under representation at political decision making is “women are not given a chance”. The demand of the voters for a gender quota is reflected to the survey outcomes as 78%.
UNDP-Turkey Deputy Resident Representative at her opening speech reminded that the percentage of women parliamentarians is aimed to increase to 17% by the year 2015 for women’s political empowerment stated in the Millenium Development Goals of Turkey’s national report (MDGR), and if the required actions are not taken in prior to the 2007 General Elections even this low target is not possible to be actualized. Poole stressed on the importance of the public perception survey which sends important messages to current legislators and leaders of political parties on the urgency of moving in this direction. (Please click for Sarah POOLE’s speech text)
KA-DER Ankara Projects Director Ilknur USTUN considering the outcomes of the survey, stated that, the Political Parties and the Election Law in Turkey should be re-arranged as to incorporate the policies geared towards ensuring equality between men and women, and everyone is responsible for solving the women’s problem as the society’s problem, and whoever takes a serious step among the political parties, lawmakers and decision-makers of our society today will have rendered an important and historical service for development of Turkey. (Please click for Ilknur USTUN’s speech text)
The Director of Konsensus Research and Consultancy Murat SARI who conducted the research in the field brought attention to the results stating that female voters and women's issues can be decisive factors in 2007 General Election especially for the political parties facing the risk of failing to surpass the election threshold. Please click for Murat SARI’s presentation)
The political party representatives, women studies academicians and women’s organizations’ representatives who were also among the participants, also contributed with their opinions of women policies’ important positioning at the 2007 General Elections.
The survey that has been actualized under the Women in Politics Project which is being jointly carried out by UNDP and KA-DER Ankara, was realized in between 29 July-15 August by giving importance to reflect the real representation of women and men population of Turkey and also reflecting the urban and rural of Turkey. The survey, was was realized through face-to-face interviews at households with 1.000 participatory persons aged 18 and above.
The Symposium was organized by the Public Research Foundation (KAV) and sponsored by UNDP, Ministry of Transport, Turkish Telecom, TIKA (Turkish Cooperation and Development Agency), TODAIE (Public Administration Institution for Turkey and the Middle East), Microsoft, Cisco Systems Turkey and TUBITAK (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey). The theme of the symposium was “E-transformation in Public Administration”. On the second day of the event, foreign and Turkish experts held workshops to discuss the issue on a technical level.
Turkish Minister of Transport Binali Yıldırım, World Bank expert Prof. Subhash Bhatnagar, e- Governance Coordinator of UNDP Eastern Europe Yuri Misnikov and Estonian e-State Academy Director Ivar Tallo attended the symposium as speakers.
Representatives from public institutions, universities, private sector, non-governmental organizations and international experts shared their knowledge and experiences relating to e-Transformation and e-State, and discussed the ‘National Information Society Strategy’ which lays out the vision and the main framework of e-transformation for the next 5 years. The concept of “e-transformation in public administration”, which is one of the components for the implementation of the main vision, was also taken up. Relations between public administration reforms and Information Technologies were analyzed both in theoretical context and in terms of concrete projects.
On the second day of the event, international participants held various workshops and shared their experiences and observations on the issue. Technical specialists from public institutions, universities and private sector companies also attended the workshops as listeners.
Providing financing and expertise to a number of initiatives – from infrastructure and sharing cleaner industrial technologies to education and local awareness campaigns about environmentally sound water management – this partnership will help local communities to solve their water related development problems. Projects in four pilot countries (Turkey, Kazakhstan, Romania and Croatia) are slated to start in late 2006, with additional countries joining the fray later next year.
Total budget of the flagship public-private partnership initiative, “Every Drop Counts”, exceeds USD 7m over a 5-year period in a region including 21 Countries. While the UN Development Programme brings its expertise in water governance issues to the partnership; The Coca-Cola Company underlines its commitment to help meet current and future water needs in environmentally and socially responsible ways.
Addressing the press conference held in Istanbul, Coca-Cola Region Manager Ahmet Burak stated that water challenges are among the most critical global issues and almost 6 million people in Turkey face problems in access to safe drinking water, according to official figures.
UNDP Resident Representative in Turkey, Mahmood Ayub, described the water crisis as one of the most crucial components of the poverty cycle and pointed out the significance of “Every Drop Counts” as an example of the increasingly important role played by global companies in finding solutions to development problems.
Access to safe drinking water is one of the world’s key development challenges: some 2 million children die each year for want of a glass of clean water or access to proper hygiene. “Lack of access” is more an issue of water management than actual scarcity—particularly for the countries of the former Soviet Union.
Water issues are particularly critical in Central Asia, where many people live on incomes below the poverty line and a significant portion of the population faces serious challenges to access safe drinking water. Water issues are also a primary concern in Southeast Europe, particularly in the Danube – Black Sea Basin, where wasteful industrial and agricultural water uses are straining local ecosystems.
Because water is integral to Coca-Cola’s business, the company’s competitive position depends on its ability to economise on and manage this resource. The Coca-Cola Company has therefore implemented various initiatives focusing on monitoring water quality in its products, rainwater harvesting in arid regions, waste-water treatment in regions lacking them, and using desalination at plants with access only to salt water.
Through the “Every Drop Counts” initiative, Coca-Cola is committed to bringing its practical knowledge about efficient water use to help solve water-related development challenges in Europe and Central Asia.
Countries covered under the partnership initiative “Every Drop Counts”: Turkey (pilot), Croatia (pilot), Kazakhstan (pilot), Romania (pilot), Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, (FYR of) Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
According to 10-years agreement the two will work to promote development of strategic partnerships between public and private sectors as well as promoting the Global Compact principles.
The Memorandum of Understanding of this cooperation was signed by UN Resident Representative Mahmood Ayub and Beşiktaş Mayor Ismail Ünal on November 3rd, 2006, in Istanbul.
UNDP and Beşiktaş Municipality will conduct activities in close cooperation by engaging Turkish private sector companies and other stakeholders to the maximum effect.
Having recognized the importance of building partnerships with the business community to achieve development goals on a global level and the Turkish business sectors’ involvement in this area, UNDP has been working in Istanbul since 2005. To date, UNDP Turkey has established several private-public partnerships with multinational and Turkish firms in Turkey, with a goal to contribute to Turkey’s development agenda, including the EU accession process and the Millenium Development Goals on a national level. Examples of UNDP’s private sector partners include CISCO, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline Company, Microsoft, Coca-Cola Turkey and Aydın Doğan Foundation.
The “Water Alert Campaign” jointly launched by UNDP and Italy’s leading advertising agency Publicis aims to promote greater world awareness of water issues. A race to confront the world water crisis: ‘Running the Sahara’ is orgaized by three runners and will be documented by LivePlanet, Allentown Productions and the Independent Producers Alliance (IPA) with UNDP’s technical and logistical support to the expedition. Also organized by UNDP, the “H2O Knowledge Fair” (first-ever virtual knowledge fair) supports the efforts to put water and sanitation at the heart of the global development agenda.
Water alert campaign
On 10 November, UNDP and Publicis Italy have launched a campaign to make the international community better aware of the fact that one in every six people in the world lacks proper access to safe drinking water.
The international advertising drive, started in conjunction with the 9 November release of UNDP’s 2006 Human Development Report, “Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis,” aspires to garner support for universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Newspapers and magazines in the developed world were invited to join the water challenge by publishing free of charge the campaign’s four print ads, designed pro bono by the Milan-based agency of Publicis.
Many of the 1.1 billion people deprived of sufficient safe drinking water must make do with as little as five litres a day for all their drinking, washing and cooking needs one-tenth of the average quantity that rich countries’ inhabitants flush daily down their toilets. Some 2.6 billion people lack adequate sanitation. In 2004, diarrhoea alone killed six times the number of people who died annually in armed conflicts in the 1990s. According to the Human Development Report, the US$10 billion investment required to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015 would generate US$38 billion a year in economic benefits.
The Human Development Report argues that poverty, power conflicts and inequalities, not scarcity, are at the roots of the problem, and proposes models of cooperation in water management.
(ADS – Pictures)
A race to confront the world water crisis: ‘Running the Sahara’
To raise awareness of the burgeoning global water crisis and the broader challenges of the developing world, Charlie Engle of the U.S., Canadian Ray Zahab and Taiwan’s Kevin Lin are going for a run--across the Sahara Desert.
Part personal quest and part advocacy campaign, the journey—the subject of a feature documentary film, “Running the Sahara,” directed by Oscar winner James Moll and narrated and executive-produced by Oscar winner Matt Damon—is taking Engle, Zahab and Lin across a continent through villages, oases and nomad settlements, past mosques and mountains and over camel tracks, in one of the harshest climates on earth. For the runners, water is a daily necessity. For the people of the Sahara and throughout the developing world, it is a lifelong concern.
Against the backdrop of the world-wide challenges the water crisis presents to development, the three men left St. Louis, Senegal on an extreme trek through that country, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya and Egypt, and are set to finish the run in Cairo sometime around the end of January. Along the way - while running the equivalent of two marathons a day for 75 to 90 days - they are interacting with the people who live in the 3.5 million square miles of the Sahara and witnessing some of the work in human development being done by UNDP and others in the region. Among the UNDP and Global Environment Facility projects the runners are visiting are water-management, governance and peace-building efforts in Mali and Niger, a conservation project for medicinal plants in Egypt, dam construction in Mauritania and a school in Senegal. The trekkers reached the journey’s approximate halfway point this weekend.
In addition to the 90-minute film, slated for international release in late 2007, a website tracks the progress of Engle, Zahab and Lin, providing information about the people and projects they visit. Web visitors have the opportunity to learn more about the global water crisis and efforts to address it, including UNDP’s 2006 Human Development Report and its Community Water Initiative, which fosters community-based water and sanitation development and management. They can also pledge support on a per-mile basis for water projects through H2O Africa, the charitable component of Running the Sahara.
LivePlanet, Allentown Productions and the Independent Producers Alliance (IPA) are producing the film while UNDP is providing technical and logistical support to the expedition.
Through the eyes of three people embarking on an unprecedented test of endurance in a visually and culturally remarkable corner of the earth, viewers and Web visitors will share in the journey, and better understand the people and problems of the developing world, as well as the crucial importance of more-equitable distribution of global resources.
Virtual Water Fair
UNDP launched its first online knowledge fair on water with the participation of experts on this issue, backing the call to action in this year’s Human Development Report to put water and sanitation at the heart of the global development agenda.
The “H2O Knowledge Fair”, held between 15-17 November, offered on-the-ground experiences of the issues highlighted in the 2006 Global Human Development Report (HDR), Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis. Organized by UNDP regional centres in Bratislava and Beirut for the countries of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and Northern Africa, the three-day event aimed to provide a forum to discuss issues, exchange good practices, and initiate new partnerships. The participant countries were Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Macedonia, Morocco, Romania, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
The interactive fair featured some 40 good practices and experiences in water governance from 18 countries, with multi-media presentations of projects and practices, virtual “booths”, three live discussion forums, profiles of practitioners and experts in the water community, as well as information and useful references and links.
The live discussion forums tackled three main topics: National Planning Processes: Capacity Constraints and Links to Transboundary Water Management; HDR 2006 Findings: relevance and implications for our regions – moving from words to action; and New Approaches for Stakeholder Management in Water Projects.
Funded through UNDP’s Global Knowledge Management Project, the online approach brought the fair directly to the participants and connected them virtually to each other and to a wealth of experience on water issues in the above-mentioned regions.
Transboundary waters and Turkey
As stated in the 2006 Human Development Report, hydrologists typically assess scarcity by looking at the population-water equation. The convention is to treat 1,700 cubic metres per person as the national threshold for meeting water requirements for agriculture, industry, energy and the environment. Availability below 1,000 cubic metres is held to represent a state of “water scarcity”—and below 500 cubic metres, “absolute scarcity”.
H2O Knowledge Fair web site has fact sheets for 13 participant countries. One of them is on Turkey. According to the information provided on the water fair web site, Turkey has 26 key hydrological basins, one fourth of which comes from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.There is an uneven distribution of water availability within Turkey’s regions: the Western part consisting of Marmara, Aegean, and the Central Anatolian regions, is relatively water poor, while the rest of Turkey is relatively water rich. The western region is densely populated and heavily involved in cash-crop production. In order to address the variability of water resources and their uneven distribution, the government has built more than 550 multipurpose reservoirs.
The Water Fair web site states that Turkey’s surface water resources are threatened by point sources of pollution (municipal and industrial waste) and diffuse pollution from agricultural activities. Deterioration in the quality of surface water has been observed in areas where agriculture is intensive, as a result of the use of pesticides. Large volumes of untreated wastewater are dumped into water bodies. The absence of an effective protection zone is adversely affecting the quality of groundwater reserves.
Exhibits: Experieces from Turkey
Three exhibits on Turkey took place at the H2O Knowledge Fair: “A Project Worth its Salt” (from Lake Palas), “Preserving the Pearl Mullet” (from Lake Van) and “Sugar Beet Irrigation” (from Kayseri):
A Project Worth its Salt: Lake Palas is one of the most important natural habitats in Turkey. At the same time, many local inhabitants earn their livelihood by extracting salt from its shores, harming the environment in the process. This project aims to preserve the lake without depriving the local population of its income.
Preserving the Pearl Mullet: Pearl mullet is the only fish species that exists in the salty and highly carbonated waters of Lake Van. Now widespread fishing during reproduction season threatens the future of the species. This project first focused on enforcing the fishing ban, but then switched gears after this largely failed. It is now emphasizing on education, alternative income-generating activities, and the creation of appropriate conditions for fishing outside of reproduction season.
Sugar Beet Irrigation: In the semi-arid lands of Central Anatolia, wetlands have been severely degraded through unsustainable water use, notably for irrigation of large sugar beet fields. The use of modern drip irrigation systems in place of more wasteful surface irrigation can save significant amounts of water. The Global Environmental Facility's Small Grants Programme (SGP) provided financing to the Kayseri Sugar Beet Cooperative to improve its drip irrigation system and disseminate good practices through an awareness-raising campaign.