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Posted 2:03 PM by Mary

ICRC on Iraq's Healthcare crisis

Very sick, and not getting better, By Alexander Casella

GENEVA - Five years after the American invasion of Iraq, the humanitarian situation is one of the world's most critical, according to a recent report issued by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva.

Currently, about 1 million Iraqis are reported missing and are considered as having either been killed or abducted. Some 2 million have fled to neighboring countries and an additional 2.5 million have been internally displaced - this in a population estimated at 27.5 million people. But the greatest level of deterioration had been the virtual collapse of the health care system. This was a process that started well before 2003.

From the early 1980s, the Iraqi health care system did not keep pace with the country's population growth and existing facilities became increasingly strained. Sanctions imposed after 1990 further compounded the problem and forced health authorities to shift their emphasis towards the provision of emergency services at the expense of public heath and infrastructure maintenance.

Thus, at the time of the American invasion, the Iraqi health care system was already under considerable stress. Rather than contributing to redressing the situation, the occupation and ensuring resistance only precipitated the crisis and brought the system close to a total collapse.

According to official Iraqi figures, of the 34,000 doctors registered in 1990, at least 20,000 have left the country. Since 2003, more than 2,200 doctors and nursed have been killed and more than 250 kidnapped. There are currently 172 public hospitals with 30,000 beds, well short of 80,000 beds needed, plus 65 private hospitals. Practically all are in sub-standard condition and are short of equipment and drugs. Interventions such as open-heart surgery are no longer practiced and the only choice, for those who can afford it, is to seek treatment abroad.

Lack of qualified staff, and in particular midwives, has had a direct impact on infant mortality rates in particular and on the level of care in general. Lack of medical facilities is compounded by the poor security situation. In many areas road checkpoints and curfews have restricted movements to the point in which access to a hospital in the event of an emergency has become impossible.

While private clinics provide marginal better services and security than public hospitals, most of the population can't afford the cost. A private sector doctor charges between US$2 and $7 for a consultation, a fee beyond the means of the average Iraqi who earns on average $5 a day when not unemployed.

Compounding the effects of the health care crisis is the lack of sanitation. Inadequate treatment of sewage, constant breakdown of water treatment plants due to equipment failure and electricity shortages, outdated piping and illegal connections have resulted in a major shortage of drinking water.

Restrictions on chlorine, essential for water sterilization but also an ingredient on the making of explosives, have further hampered efforts at water sterilization. With most Iraqis no longer able to rely on public services for clean water, the only alternative is bottled water at a cost of some $50 per month per family. It is an alternative that most can't afford, and the cholera outbreak of 2007 was directly attributed by the ICRC to the combination of a collapsing healthcare system and the increasing lack of sanitation.

The ICRC, as a matter of policy, has left the finger pointing to others and has chosen to focus on the facts rather than on their cause. Thus, the report not once refers to the "United States" and the invasion is qualified as the "outbreak of the war". This restraint, however, is only a matter of cosmetics and it is not even necessary to read between the lines to view the report as a damning indictment of the consequences of the US invasion of Iraq.

Labels: health, Iraq, Red Cross

Posted 3:38 PM by Mary

Communicating for the Future: ICTs and the UN
28 February 2008

In the spirit of technological advances at the United Nations, the briefing looked at the application of new media in the daily work at the Organization, more specifically the Department of Public Information (DPI). With the vision of “a stronger United Nations for a better world”, the Secretary-General appointed Mr. Choi Soon-hong to become the first Chief Information Technology Officer for the United Nations Secretariat. Mr. Choi immediately followed suit and offered his vision for "stronger ICT for a better United Nations" and is now developing an Organization-wide ICT strategy and leads its implementation. The briefing examined how this strategy applies to DPI, and more specifically to the Outreach Division and the NGO Section. With the upcoming Capital Master Plan and the uncertain future of the NGO Resource Centre, a Virtual Resource Centre may be one way to outreach and connect with clients in the future.

Speakers included Ms. Nathalie Leroy, Chief, Knowledge Sharing Section, Dag Hammarskjold Library, Outreach Division (OD), DPI; Ms. Sasa Gorisek; Information Officer, NGO Section, Civil Society Section (CSS), OD, DPI; Mr. Robert Pollard, NGO Committee Education; Mr. Juan Carlos Brandt, Chief, NGO Section, CSS, OD, DPI, moderated the briefing.

Ms. Nathalie Leroy discussed the efforts taken by the Secretariat to use new technologies more effectively and efficiently, and more specifically in its relations with the NGO community. Ms. Leroy noted that “one size does not fit all” and various needs had to be taken into consideration. She stressed the need for strategy first, and technology later: “we know who sends the message, we just need to know how to disseminate it and that’s how technology comes into play.” She introduced various outreach tools, including social networking websites and blogs, and noted the recent media accreditation of the Inner City Press blogger by the United Nations. She also noted the growth of mature populations using social networking websites and cited a senior UN official’s blog as an example of blogging at the UN (UNODC’s “Costa’s Corner). Ms. Leroy also spoke about “citizen journalism”, which encouraged freedom of expression and allowed members of the general population to create original content at no cost. Additionally, she discussed trends in the virtual community, such as the rise in usage of mobile devices to access the Internet; and the fact that one billion people worldwide will access the Internet from a mobile device in 2008. She also mentioned that one half of the world population was under the age of 25, which had an enormous effect on the use of new media.

Ms. Sasa Gorisek started by quoting Juan Carlos Brandt’s concept of “technology is like a sandbox and we’re inviting you to come and play.” She discussed the proposal for a Virtual Resource Centre during the upcoming Capital Master Plan and with an objective to reach a wider audience both geographically and demographically through the use of new technologies. She stressed that the Virtual Resource Centre would be in addition to and not instead of the existing ways of disseminating information to DPI NGOs. Furthermore, she discussed the usage of the Internet and social networking sites worldwide and showcased some examples of these tools, such as Delicious and Digg. She briefly mentioned podcasts and vodcasts. In conclusion, Ms. Gorisek encouraged the NGOs to go out and try out some of these tools, such as Facebook, as they offered countless opportunities to establish and maintain worldwide networks and thus influence public opinion in their area of work.

Mr. Robert Pollard began by noting the global transition to an information economy and mentioned the cost for generating information nowadays to be zero. Mr. Pollard then presented the temporary website for the annual DPI/NGO conference, a tiddly wiki, which is available at http://www.ngo-framework.net/. He noted the dramatic advances in technology to transcend national boundaries and discussed moving beyond PDF formats and creating visually enhancing documents specific for the Internet. In addition, Mr. Pollard spoke about the abundance of websites available for networking purposes, such as Google Groups. He concluded by noting the profound revolution of the freedom of the press in which free market mechanisms import and export in abundance.

During the question-and-answer period, a question was asked with regards to the rise of new media being a factor in decreasing personal meetings between people. In response, Mr. Brandt stressed that nothing could replace the importance of the eye-to-eye contact and the necessity of this human contact. Ms. Gorisek added that in the case of the proposed Virtual Resource Centre, the new media were not replacing any former means of communication, but building upon and complementing what was already in use. In answer to another question related to accessing UN documents, Ms. Leroy confirmed that the UN budget was public information that could be accessed online. Related to another question, Ms. Leroy noted the importance of managing email and said that only 15 per cent of emails sent through UN email accounts were actually related to official UN business. In conclusion, Ms. Leroy acknowledged the need to make information and resources more readily available to NGOs and stated the hopes of opening the UN more to the civil society.

Posted 3:34 PM by Mary

Global Witness pushes the issue of conflict resources up the international agenda

The UN should put in place systems to quickly close down natural resource extraction operations that profit from conflict and human rights abuses

Throughout our twelve years of investigative work, Global Witness has repeatedly illustrated how poor natural resource governance can precipitate and exacerbate conflict. We have recently begun an over-arching campaign to advocate for the international community to integrate good natural resource management mechanisms into all post-conflict development plans, which will put in place policies to ensure future natural resource revenues benefit ordinary citizens rather fuel corruption and political.

Our campaigning efforts paid off when 14 of the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council called for a Secretary General's report on the issue. Global Witness is continuing to work alongside key member states to prompt a UN Secretary General's report, ensuring that the UN addresses the issue of natural resources in conflict more systematically and effectively. Such a report would help the UN to assess its achievements, lessons to be learned and gaps in how it deals with this issue, making recommendations on how to improve its performance.

GLobalWitness.org