Japan and UNDP Highlight Need to Build On Adaptation Achievements in Africa

Japan and UNDP Highlight Need to Build On Adaptation Achievements in Africa
AllAfrica.com
In their opening addresses at the event, Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré, Japan's Parliamentary Senior Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Masaji Matsuyama and UNDP Administrator Helen Clark said they would like to see progress made under the ...

UNDP wants to be your "disaster management partner" - it fails to explain how - but calls for funding on your behalf (rest assure your money is safe with Helen Clark)

Click here to read this in full @ UNDP: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/speeches/2012/10/13/helen-clark-development-committee/

Helen Clark: Statement to the Development Committee

13 October 2012

Statement by Helen Clark Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and Chair of the United Nations Development Group
to the Development Committee
Tokyo, October 13, 2012
A Challenging Global Context
Decent work is a key vehicle for achieving development goals and translating economic growth into poverty reduction. It is therefore highly appropriate that the Development Committee is giving specific attention to the importance of job creation during these Annual Meetings.
The global economic slowdown has made employment generation more difficult. The sovereign debt crisis in Europe and the slow recovery in the global economy led to millions of job losses in both developed and developing countries. The austerity plans adopted by many developed countries have exacerbated the deficiency in demand, further depressing the labour market.

SCANDAL: UNDP assures preferencial business access for Japan's UNICHARM CORP - claiming their products "are better and cheeper for African poor"

Click here to read this in full @ 4-traders.com: http://www.4-traders.com/news/UNDP-United-Nations-Development-Programme-Japan-s-Unicharm-Corp-to-bring-affordable-hygiene-pro--15324979/

UNDP - United Nations Development Programme : Japan’s Unicharm Corp. to bring affordable hygiene products to 36 million low-income women

10/11/2012| 06:23pm US/Eastern
11 October 2012

New York/Tokyo -Japanese consumer products giant Unicharm Corp. has pledged to bring affordable diapers and sanitary products to 36 million low-income women in the Middle East/North Africa and Asian regions as part of the Business Call to Action (BCTA), a global initiative to reduce poverty and promote sustainable development through the development of inclusive business models.
Unicharm's international expansion is expected to more than triple the company's annual production of diapers and feminine napkins from 10 billion and 12 billion by the year 2020. Forty percent of Unicharm's total hygiene products are expected to be manufactured and sold to low-income consumers in the Middle East/North Africa and Asia.
As part of its localization strategy, the company will also employ an additional 8,000 underemployed women throughout Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt-nearly doubling its female workforce in these countries.
"Through this initiative, we will expand our reach while alleviating poverty and supporting and empowering millions of women across the Middle East/North Africa and Asia," Unicharm Corp. CEO Takahisa Takahara said. "We are delighted to contribute in this way to sustainable and inclusive development, and to further demonstrate that good business practices and good global citizenship complement each other." 
By localizing production, streamlining manufacturing, and simplifying packaging, Unicharm will offer feminine napkins and diapers to low-income consumers previously unable to afford them. Access to sanitary napkins will allow women to remain active throughout their menstrual cycles.
"This is a great example of a company proactively contributing to the third Millennium Development Goal (MDG), promoting gender equality and empowering women," Sahba Sobhani, BCtA Acting Program Manager, said. "By creating hygiene products that are affordable to the poor and employing women in areas where full-time jobs are scarce, Unicharm is both expanding its business and enhancing quality of life for women in the Middle East/North Africa and Asia."
The 50-year-old company makes personal care products for the disposable diaper, feminine hygiene, and adult incontinence markets. Other divisions include health, wet tissues products, pet care, and household cleaning products, as well as food packaging, with most of its business in Asia. As of March 31, Unicharm owned 40 consolidated subsidiaries and two associated companies, with nearly 10,300 employees.
BCtA is a global initiative that encourages companies to develop innovative business models that combine commercial success and sustainable development. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is one of its supporters and hosts the Secretariat of the Initiative.

Click here to read this in full @ 4-traders.com: http://www.4-traders.com/news/UNDP-United-Nations-Development-Programme-Japan-s-Unicharm-Corp-to-bring-affordable-hygiene-pro--15324979/

How the United Nations Can Help Japan

by Claudia Rosett at PajamasMedia.Com

Utterly undeserved hell is being visited upon Japan. Aftershocks continue from the monster quake. The tsunami has devastated the northeast coast. Hundreds of thousands have fled their homes, thousands are missing, and hundreds are already reported dead. Japanese officials fear a meltdown at the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

And now, here comes the United Nations, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon voicing sorrow and promising, as summed up by a UN press release, that “the UN would do all it could to mobilize humanitarian assistance and disaster risk reduction teams as soon as possible.” This comes with the usual UN offers of staff on standby and inventories of high-energy biscuits.

Here’s the real favor the UN could do for Japan: Back off.

There’s no need to doubt the sorrow of Ban and his colleagues, or the good intentions of many members of the UN staff. But the UN’s history of dealing with disaster relief is, itself, a saga of disaster. In the relief operation for the tsunami that struck Southeast Asia in December, 2004, the UN trumpeted itself as the only outfit fit to lead and coordinate such an effort. As events actually played out, it was the U.S. Navy that arrived first to do the emergency heavy lifting, while the UN was still getting organized. In collecting funds for the multi-billion dollar relief effort, the UN promised complete transparency, but with its usual welter of confusion, delays, obfuscation and bureaucracy, the UN delivered nothing of the kind. A Financial Times investigation a year later found that as much as one-third of the tsunami relief funds were swallowed by “salaries and administrative overheads” — roughly triple the cost of relief provided more swiftly and efficiently by private charities. Similar problems have dogged one UN relief effort after another, from cyclone relief money effectively handed over to pad the pockets of Burmese officials, to the lavish “love boat” and staggering overhead involved in Haitian earthquake relief efforts.

Of course, Japan is a wealthy democracy, with far fewer of the potential pitfalls of sending aid to Indonesia, or Burma, or Haiti. But by the same token, Japan is far better equipped to handle this disaster, and within hours of the tsunami had already mobilized its own troops and ships for a massive rescue effort. Japan has well-equipped allies, such as America, which are already offering help. There’s no need to launder any of this through the “coordinating efforts” or high-overhead red tape and delays of the UN.

Ban, in his remarks on Friday, noted that Japan is one of the world’s strongest benefactors. Japan certainly is, and, not least, it is spectacularly generous to the UN — where it is the second largest donor after the United States. But for the UN to now rush to the aid of Japan would hardly qualify as an act of unmitigated gratitude. Big UN relief efforts involve big UN overheads and a UN bureaucracy both opaque and devoted to its own brand of multilateral affirmative action — in which the first priority is to serve the grand collective of the UN, rather than its suffering clientele. For Japan and its wealthiest allies to cycle their relief resources via the UN — which is what a UN relief effort in this case would amount to — would be to add a layer of mess and expense that nobody needs right now. Except maybe the UN. Japan has enough problems to deal with. Don’t add the UN to the mix

Japan Deserves a UN Permanent Seat Before India

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS STORY ON HUFFINGTONPOST

Richard Grenell

Longest serving U.S. Spokesman in the history of the United Nations

Posted: November 12, 2010 09:31 PM

President Barack Obama arrived in India this week with a large gift in hand. After just a few short hours, Obama announced to the world that America would support India as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The support from Obama was a huge coup for the Indians but took diplomats at the UN by surprise. India, after all, was being rewarded despite the fact that it has done very little to help reform the UN. Ironically, it has been India that has stood in the way of the very sweeping reforms that will now be needed to ensure its ascension to a permanent Security Council seat. India has refused to support UN budget reforms that would remove outdated mandates and programs, refused to support tough new standards for the human rights council and has consistently worked to keep intact the outdated way dues are assessed on member nations. India, too, has paid just $11.2 million in regular 2010 UN dues but receives millions more in UN assistance due to its status as a developing nation. Rewarding India without first demanding support for basic U.S. reform efforts at the UN seems naïve at best. And agitating Pakistan while at the same time dissing Japan, which is also in the running for a permanent Security Council seat, seems to increase American security concerns in Afghanistan and North Korea.

Obama's announcement was another blow to the real UN reform he has never sought. The Indians, after all, have led the resistance to it and Obama has validated their behavior. The Bush Administration worked hard to reform the UN and its budget process but received only scant support from other countries. While India worked hard with other developing nations to thwart most reforms proposed by the Bush Administration, Japan worked hard to implement many of the reforms the U.S. was pushing. In fact, India voted 11% of the time with the United States on issues important to the U.S. while Japan voted 86% of the time with the U.S. Obama rewarded the country working against us and dismissed the country working with us. President Bush ended up announcing the U.S.' support for Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the Security Council only after it supported UN reform and other good governance policies. Bush's support for Japan was a reward for good work. Obama's support for India's bid signals his desire to keep the UN as is. Japan pays 12.5% of the UN's regular budget while India pays 0.5% (only a few years ago Japan was paying 19.5% signaling their growing frustration with the world body). That means India pays $11.2 million in regular UN dues compared to Japan's $264.9 million. Further, India is a net beneficiary of the UN and its programs in that it receives more than $200 million a year from just peacekeeping payments and the UN's World Food Program to help feed its people. A full tally of UNDP, UNHCR, UNEP and other UN programs will surely show that India's participation in the UN is a financial boon.

Supporting India for a permanent seat on the Security Council comes at an even greater cost to the war on terror by unnecessarily upsetting Pakistan at a time when controlling the borders and mountainous regions of Pakistan is key to rooting out al-Qaida. Almost instantly after Obama's announcement on India, government spokesmen in Pakistan issued statements pointing out that India has not lived up to its responsibility in the disputed territory of Kashmir and that it wasn't qualified to be a global leader sitting on the UN's most prestigious body. Pakistan's political class has roundly criticized Obama for his decision to support India at a time when the U.S. needs Pakistan's stalwart support. And Japan, the second most generous funder of the UN behind only the United States and one of our closest allies at the UN, was left wondering if it would get the same endorsement from Obama when the president visits Tokyo.

The Obama team's short-sightedness in dealing with difficult international issues in exchange for quick bursts of popularity while traveling abroad has made it more difficult to make progress on U.S. priorities at the UN. Obama has shown that he is all too willing to sacrifice American security for his personal popularity as was the case with Obama's announcement that the U.S. would no longer seek to put a missile shield in Eastern Europe while negotiating with the Russians and his flip-flop on promising to remove troops from Iraq as a candidate and telling military leaders to continue the course as President.

When President Obama arrives in Japan he should tell the Japanese taxpayers that they deserve to have a permanent seat at the UN table. President Obama should also be unambiguous that reforming the UN is the first condition for U.S. support for any nation seeking a permanent Security Council seat - even though it won't be a popular position. He should also make clear that India hasn't earned its seat yet.

Follow Richard Grenell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/richardgrenell