SCANDAL: United Nations Secretary General Advisor calls for Wall Street demonstrators to continue their protest until they bring CHANGE

undpwatch undpwatch

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@JeffDSachs a #UnitedNations paid advisor who's #earthinstitutereceives millions from @UN calls for #ArabSpring in #NewYork is this legal?

Is Columbia University's Earth Institute channeling the Soros contribution thru UN/UNDP illegal?

George Soros gives $27 million to Africa project

George Soros pledge for Millennium Villages project will help 500,000 people in 10 countries meet UN development goals. George Soros gave $50 million when the project launched in 2006.

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George Soros has pledged $27.4 million to aid development in targeted villages across ruralAfrica, the billionaire financier said Monday.

Soros also pledged up to $20 million in loans to support business projects within those villages over the next five years.

The founder and chairman of the Open Society Foundations thanked his board of directors Monday for backing his pledge to the Millennium Villages project despite early misgivings.

Soros says that board members opposed his giving any donations to the project when it was first launched five years ago, considering it risky. But he said he gave money anyway, "because it was my money" and the idea seemed "worth a shot." His $50 million pledge in 2006 was distributed over the next five years.

The project's track record has proved its success, said Soros. "It has been a big challenge, but the project has come a long way," he said.

Somalia famine: Lessons we can take away

The Millennium Villages project aims to help 500,000 people in 10 countries across Africa to reachU.N. development goals and offer a model for the remainder of the continent.

The global development goals, set by the United Nations in 2000, call on all member states to work to reduce child mortality by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-quarters in 2015. Other goals include cutting extreme poverty by half, ensuring universal primary education, promoting gender equality and halting and reversing the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

A report on the project's first five years, released Monday, shows that the proportion of households in the targeted villages with access to improved drinking water soared to 68 percent from 17 percent, and students benefiting from school meal programs grew to 75 percent from 25 percent.

Average maize yields more than tripled during the same period, from 1.3 metric tons per hectare (2.5 acres) to 4.6 metric tons per hectare.

Directed by Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University's Earth Institute, the Millennium Villages Project operates closely with U.N. agencies and with the support of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

"We are thrilled by the rapid gains that the Millennium Village communities are making in the fight against poverty, hunger and disease," said Sachs, Ban's special adviser on the U.N. Millennium Development Goals project.

Jaff Sachs tonight @ MSNBC @8:15p to give his 2cent view of Wisconsin and Unions

@JeffDSachsJeffrey D. Sachs

Will be on @lawrence tonight on MSNBC after 8:15p talking Wisconsin, unions, economy.

UN, world ignore development in Darfur: UN adviser

By Alaa Shahine

CAIRO (Reuters) - The U.N. and world powers are not tackling the root causes of the Darfur crisis such as water scarcity water and lack of development, a U.N. adviser said.

"The diplomats and the military strategists and the political strategists want to approach it from a strategic point of view, from a peacekeeping point of view, from a geopolitical point of view ... whatever it is but not from a water and development point of view," Jeffry Sachs said.

Sachs, an adviser to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the world body needs to refocus its efforts.

"The right approach is to start from a position that Darfur is one of the most impoverished places on the whole planet. It's one of the most ecologically and economically stressed parts on the whole planet," he told a packed hall at the American University in Cairo on Monday evening.

International experts estimate 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced since the conflict flared in 2003 when mostly African rebels revolted against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum, charging it with neglect.

Darfur is the site of the world's biggest humanitarian operation, with the presence of many aid agencies including the U.N. Most of the work is geared to provide basic aid to millions caught in the conflict rather than long-term development.

Aid agencies came under regular attacks from bandits and combatants as the crisis turned into a free-for-all conflict, with tribes, rebels, bandits and government forces vying for everything from cattle to political power.

Analysts say the eruption of fighting in 2003 was in part the culmination of decades of economic and social neglect by the British occupation and successive Sudanese governments, along with regional conflicts that spilled into the vast, remote area.

WATER RACE

"Nomads from the north of Darfur moved south to find water. What they found was sedentary population and they tried to ethnically cleanse them, so that they can grab the water," Sachs said. "This is a one-sentenced, perhaps dramatically over-simplified (explanation) but it is not wrong".

Sachs, who is also the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York, said he was once summoned to the U.N. for an urgent meeting to discuss the water in Darfur.

He said the meeting turned out to focus only on how to find enough water for 26,000 peacekeepers the world body was preparing to station in the region.

"I said three times during the meeting that's 26,000 people, and there are 7 million people in Darfur, and that probably gives you an idea about the water problem. I could not be heard. The problem was a practical one".

Sachs said cutting wasteful spending on military operations and what he described as excessive corporate bonuses would help the world mobilise enough funds to tackle poverty and ensure comprehensive access to primary healthcare and safe water.

He said the American public still sees power, rather than development and aid, as the best way to settle world problems.

"If we would just look and listen, we'd understand that these are hungry people. And you can send all the armies in the world but you are not going to get one more drop of water that way."