Our Perspective

• ‘Post-2015’: Failing to address disaster risk is not an option | Jo Scheuer

  13 Mar 2013

  
  Haitians employed by UNDP-coordinated initiatives clear debris in post-quake reconstruction. The risk of disasters like the Haiti quake should be taken into consideration when development goals are created and implemented. (Photo: UNDP Haiti)

  This week in Helsinki, the global community continues to consult on how it will follow up to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), set to expire in 2015. As we look to the future, one thing is clear: We can no longer afford to ignore disaster risk or the relationship between disasters and development. Disasters set back development achievements. This is obvious when a hurricane washes away a school. However, development decisions can also affect disasters – for example, when houses are built to a standard that doesn’t resist earthquakes. Sometimes the relationship is more nuanced; even an earthquake-resistant highway isn’t much good if it encourages poor people to move into a flood plain. Disasters must be part of the new development framework because it is the poor and marginalized who are most vulnerable to catastrophe. The 2010 floods in Pakistan and earthquake in Haiti, and the 2011 flooding in Thailand are recent clear examples of how, long after the debris is cleared, disasters still affect every single one of the MDGs. The poor are deprived of crops, homes, schools and health centers, and the struggle to escape poverty is reversed, sometimes by decades.   The total global cost of disasters in 2011 Read More

• Public service for a new age | Olav Kjørven

  12 Mar 2013

  
  An example of effective public service, a joint UNDP-GEF programme in Mongolia provides rangers with motorcycles to monitor and collect information on wild habitats. (Photo: Eskender Debebe/UNDP)

  Separated in 1965 from the Federation of Malaysia, with no natural resources other than its people, Singapore set out as a new nation-state a half-century ago. With early support from the UN Development Programme (UNDP), it built an increasingly prosperous society on the basis of farsighted economic policies, stable and capable institutions, and a public service globally renowned for its excellence. Today, the city-state of Singapore ranks among the world’s wealthiest nations, with one of the most disciplined and efficient public sectors in the world. While every nation must walk its own path, Singapore’s experience offers a number of lessons. This week it hosted the first Public Service Dialogue organized by UNDP’s new Global Centre for Public Service Excellence, which will function as a convener and connector of “thinker-practioners” around the globe who aspire to advance public service for sustainable human development. In setting up this global square for advancing public service, Singapore is signaling both its readiness to share its unique experience as well as its openness to learn from others as the practice of public service – and governance more broadly speaking—faces new challenges and opportunities. The Arab Spring highlighted the inadequacies of administrations out of touch with their Read More

• The scarcity of women in peace negotiations | Roma Bhattacharjea

  06 Mar 2013

  
  Women in Liquica District in Timor Leste hold up their voter registration cards as they wait to participate in Timor-Leste's 2012 Parliamentary Elections. (Photo: Louise Stoddard/UNDP Timor Leste)

  Women are often disproportionately affected by conflict and violence; the time has come to give them a greater role in peacebuilding and conflict resolution. I recently had the honor of visiting Washington DC to participate in the launch of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, & Security, an initiative focused less on women as victims and more on involving them integrally in peace-building and conflict prevention. I have worked on these issues for two decades—and these are exciting times. UNSC Resolution 1325, adopted in October 2000, marked a major evolution from a world in which peace negotiations have long comprised men with guns pardoning other men with guns for crimes all sides committed against women. In December 2011, US President Barack Obama issued a US National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security cutting across the executive and legislative branches of the US government, with the aim of accelerating and institutionalizing the women, peace, and security agenda. UNDP is a key player in advancing inclusive governance, inclusive economic recovery, rule of law and access to justice, notably for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. UNDP also works in some 80 crisis countries, where we advance women, peace, and security on the Read More

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