Oxfam Briefing Paper: Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. the Southern Caucasus at a Crossroads

Taking Stock for the Future: A time for decisions


The people of the Southern Caucasus are coming to a crossroads and a moment for choices.

Thirteen years after gaining independence from the Soviet Union, nearly half of the population of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia (collectively referred to as ‘the Southern Caucasus’ in this note) are still living below respective national poverty lines (World Bank, 2003). [1] The provision of basic services has virtually ground to a halt in some regions, unemployment is high, and for many it is hard to find even a day’s work.

During the last 10 years, the enormous human and natural resources of the Southern Caucasus have been wasted by conflict and the collapse of social services. Despite relatively steady economic growth, benefits have been unfairly distributed between rich and poor people, with widespread corruption and the abuse of power leading to instability.

In 2000, the three countries signed up to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – international targets for reducing global poverty. [2] This commitment to poverty alleviation presents a major opportunity which must be seized in order to improve the lives of citizens. To do this, there is a need for the development of dependable and accountable institutions which will deliver reform.

Oxfam calls on national governments, the international community, and civil-society organisations to work together to make the best policy decisions and choices about public expenditure to improve the lives of poor and vulnerable people.

Poverty in the Southern Caucasus

Oxfam has been working in the Southern Caucasus, responding to both humanitarian and development needs, since 1993. At that time, the region was embroiled in three armed conflicts: in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh. Ten years later, the Southern Caucasus remains home to more than 1.1 million refugees and internally displaced people (UNHCR 2002). They continue to live in a state of uncertainty, while the unresolved conflicts remain in political stalemate.

The turbulence of the 1990s not only uprooted large numbers of people but also disrupted their livelihoods. Trade ceased between Armenia and Azerbaijan, severing the natural links between the two countries. Local markets were forced to operate in isolation, and access to international markets remains limited. The stalemate also makes the region unattractive to foreign investors. Thus the potential for reviving historically viable and badly needed trade relations remains unrealised.

Before the regional conflicts began, the break-up of the Soviet Union had led to mass unemployment and the erosion of institutions which had previously delivered free social services for all. Millions of people were driven into abject poverty. Since then, some groups have become conspicuously rich, while others still struggle to survive.

The changes affected men and women in different ways. Women proved to be more resilient to the wholesale socio-economic changes that spread mass unemployment across the region. In many households, women took on the role of breadwinner (a role traditionally attributed to men); they engaged in small-scale production and trading, adapting to the crisis more easily than men, who found it difficult to accept that they were no longer the wage earners. As a result, household tensions led to domestic disputes, and to violence in the worst cases.

What can be done?

Oxfam and other development agencies have witnessed situations in which poor people have proved capable of breaking the vicious cycle of poverty. For example, primary health-care projects, funded by Oxfam, have given people access to essential drugs and basic health care in places where health services previously provided by the State had collapsed. Up to 100 villages in Armenia now run community-based health schemes, which meet the basic needs of local villagers. Such schemes have proved feasible and effective, but they will need to be supported by the government if they are to benefit larger numbers of poor people in the country. A second example of community initiative is provided by Oxfam’s micro-finance projects in the three countries of the region, offering loans and training to help poor people to engage in small businesses. These projects and those of other development agencies have shown that, with support, poor people can be creative, efficient, and successful in their business activities.

Both examples show that positive change is possible. In the first case, poor people benefited from access to affordable primary health care, while in the second case poor people made use of loans and skills-training to earn their own living. However, both examples also show that the impact of such successful initiatives will remain limited unless the national governments support or create accountable and transparent institutions to ensure that larger numbers of poor people can benefit from them.

Oxfam has encouraged partnership between local communities, civil-society organisations, governments, and donor agencies through its work on the development of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and budget monitoring. We believe that such partnerships are crucial to the establishment of the institutions that will deliver much-needed reforms.

Now is the time for action

Oxfam believes there is huge potential within the region to achieve positive change. We want to see existing foundations used as the basis to start building a better future. The commitment of the three states to work towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals offers hope to people living in poverty in the Southern Caucasus. In the next ten years, the national governments, donor agencies, and civil-society organisations need to work together more energetically to develop new modes of partnership to rise to this challenge. They should begin by reaching consensus on the causes of poverty and agreeing on the obstacles that need to be overcome in order that the wealth of this rich region can be fairly shared by all. As a pre-requisite, it is essential to find and implement solutions to the destructive conflicts in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh.

Experience gained from 10 years of working in the Southern Caucasus has taught Oxfam that reducing poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals in the region will depend upon specific conditions:

• new economic opportunities for poor people, to ensure that wealth is not accumulated only in the hands of a few;
• access to basic, affordable services, particularly health care, for poor people;
• better governance and accountable and transparent institutions, delivering reforms to improve the lives of poor people.
These must be achieved to make the vision for a prosperous and secure region a reality for millions of poor people across the Southern Caucasus.

Annex

What are the Millennium Development Goals?


Commitments made at international conferences and world summits during the 1990s were summarised in the Millennium Declaration issued by world leaders in September 2000. Drawing on the declaration, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) worked with other UN departments, funds, and programmes, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to produce a concise set of goals, numerical targets, and quantifiable indicators to assess progress towards the reduction of world poverty. The new set is known as the ‘Millennium Development Goals’, which include eight goals, 18 targets, and more than 40 indicators. The UN General Assembly has approved these as part of the Secretary-General's ‘Millennium Roadmap’.

The Millennium Development Goals, to be achieved by 2015, include:

• halving extreme poverty and hunger
• achieving universal primary education
• promoting gender equality
• reducing under-five mortality by two-thirds
• reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters
• reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and TB
• ensuring environmental sustainability
• developing a global partnership for development, with targets for aid, trade, and debt relief.

(Source: UNDP)

More information about the MDGs can be found at:

UN Millennium Development Goals website

Meeting the Millennium Development Goals - IIED website

Make Poverty History


References

• UNHCR (2002) ‘UNHCR Statistical Yearbook’, accessed 7 October 2004
• World Bank (2003) ‘Country at a Glance tables’, accessed 7 October 2004



Footnotes

1. Percentage of population living below national poverty line: Armenia – 43 per cent; Azerbaijan – 50 per cent; Georgia – 55 per cent.
2. International targets for the reduction of poverty, listed in full in the annex to this paper.

Language, Thought and Reality - Integrated wisdom

Miscellaneous Quotations from Language, Thought and Reality - Benjamin Lee Whorf

"The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group... We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation."

'Common sense' is unaware that talking itself means using a complex cultural organization, just as it is unaware of cultural organizations in general.

"It is evident to a linguist that thinking as defined by Jung, contains a large linguistic element a strictly patterned nature, while feeling is mainly nonlinguistic, though it may use the vehicle of language, albeit in a way quite different from thinking. Thinking may be said to be language's own ground, whereas feeling deals in feeling values which language indeed possesses but which lie rather on its borderland. There are Jung's two rational functions, and by contrast his two irrational functions, sensation and intuition, may fairly be termed nonlinguistc.

It seems to be largely the type of grammar in our languages, worked up into logic by Aristotle and his school, that makes it compulsive for us to think of energy as transmitted from "source" to "receiver," and to shrink from the idea that what is transmitted may be a trigger-effect, adn the energy comes as much or more from the unlocalized limitless sink or reservoir upon which the trigger-effects knocks as it comes from the "source"--although the source did lose an equal amount of energy (MCMT 1.5: 12)

In mathematics we deliberately seek and progress toward a level of intellectual living. But we are not taught to aspire to the same freedom in speech. It appears to be possible to get into a higher mental-verbal world which is generalized, as algebra is generalised above arithmetic. Those original explorers, Whitehead and Russell, were so far ahead that they have been virtually useless to the body of mankind. Like some sort of Lief Erricsons, they will be known by an occasional monument noticed sometime later. (F. Kunz and Whorf, MCMT 1.7: 15)

Back in the middle of the last century Mendeleeff and Lothar-Meyer discovered what had also been a poet's intuition, that "the atoms march in tune," i.e. that they form an evenly graduated sequence, like the notes of a musical scale. Emerson was a student of chemistry as well as a philosopher and poet; he believed in a synthesis of awareness; that all ways of getting understanding, science, poetry, religion, intuition, are glimpses of the same ultimate vista. He and a few others succeeded in getting New England really excited about this integrated wisdom.

Certain psychically sensitive people get vivid and often amazingly correct impressions of the thoughts, emotions, and personal characters of others as moving, vibrating, spatial figures or designs, with the wave-charactersistic of color; and they see the cloud-like substance which bears these patterns impress them upon other cloud-like bodies--this being a crude description, naturally. Such people, who seem to "see" mechanistic force-like operations and configurations in a dimensioned space-field, may perhaps be more highly developed and nearer the truth of things than ordinary people who merely "feel" or "sense" qualities called emotions or thoughts. (MCMT 1.4: 11)

by ED. JOHN B. CARROLL, CAMBRIDGE: MIT PRESS, 1956

The G-8: A leading role in small arms control?

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/conflict_disasters/smallarms_g8.htm

A joint agency policy paper submitted by the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), Christian Aid, International Alert, Oxfam GB, and Saferworld

Summary

This week, the world's major arms supplying nations will come together for the first time to consider measures to combat the illicit trade in light weapons. The 15-17 May G-8 summit in Birmingham, UK, offers these states an historic opportunity to both endorse and expand upon an initiative underway in the United Nations. Already active on the issue, the G-8 states were among those countries that agreed the adoption of a legally binding global convention to combat firearms trafficking at a meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) at the end of April.

The importance of G-8 support for small arms control cannot be underestimated. This high-profile forum includes the world's five biggest arms exporting nations which together account for nearly 90 percent of the world's arms exports. And as the major industrial powers, the G-8 have the capacity to fund programmes to tackle the problems of light weapons proliferation. Political commitment and action undertaken by these influential states would indicate that major suppliers are finally beginning to take responsibility for the devastating impact that light weapons proliferation is having on crime and violent conflict.

However, if this is to happen, the G-8 must adopt a more comprehensive approach to the issue than they are currently. The initiative agreed at ECOSOC, whilst important, only addresses one aspect of small arms proliferation - the illicit transfer of firearms to criminals. Dealing with this aspect of small arms transfers is not enough. It is vital that the G-8 address the bigger problem of the proliferation of all types of light weapons fuelling armed conflict. The boundaries between crime and conflict are increasingly blurring and trying to tackle the problem solely as a crime prevention issue will meet with only limited success. It is not only the firearms illicitly traded by criminals that cause violence and suffering. Governments must re-examine their own domestic and export policies and practices that contribute to the perpetuation of violence. The international community cannot allow governments to use controls on illicit trafficking as a smokescreen to divert attention away from their commitments and responsibilities as producers, suppliers and recipients of light weapons.

The G-8 states should broaden their efforts to combat small arms proliferation to include:

The links between crime and conflict
Committing funds to small arms control
The links between the legal and illegal trade in light weapons
Third World debt and poverty alleviation are also on the agenda of the Birmingham Summit. The G-8 states must acknowledge that, in many regions of conflict and instability, debt alleviation and poverty eradication will meet with limited success when developing countries continue to be awash with light weapons. They should further acknowledge that many of the weapons in circulation in regions of conflict were produced and supplied by the G-8 states themselves.

Small arms, big impact

The problems caused by the widespread proliferation and use of light weapons are no longer in doubt. While light weapons are not the root cause of violence, they are responsible for making crime more violent and conflict more lethal. Easy access to light weapons, by legitimate purchase or via the black market, exacerbates violations of human rights, thwarts long term sustainable development and reconstruction and prevents the peaceful resolution of conflict.

The majority of conflicts today, particularly internal conflicts, are fought with light weapons. By one account, of the all the wars being fought at the beginning of 1995, light weapons were the main equipment used in all 49. In 46 they were the only equipment. In modern warfare it is invariably the civilian populations that suffer. In all the wars fought since 1990, 84 percent of fatalities, some four million people, were civilians.

However, these weapons pose a number of problems for control problems for those seeking to establish tighter controls over their movements. Light weapons are the weapons of choice for combatants and criminals alike for a number of reasons. They are cheap, durable and robust, with few moving parts and little need for spares, and they can be assembled and transported by a child a young as ten. Lightweight and easy to conceal, these weapons are also extremely attractive to smugglers, thus regions of conflict provide fertile ground for illicit weapons trafficking. For former combatants, without access to peaceful and sustainable livelihoods, weapons become a form of currency. In order to survive, they may use them for banditry or trade them in the civilian market for other goods. Once a conflict ends, it is often extremely difficult for authorities to regain control of weapons that have flooded the country.

Increasingly, light weapons are being circulated not just from one conflict to another but from conflicts into civil society. Light weapons and small arms used for violence and crime are often left behind after conflicts end and are used to fuel post-conflict crime waves, as in El Salvador where the murder rate has increased by 36 percent since the end of the civil war. Alternatively, left over weapons are transferred across borders, as in South Africa, where the easy availability of automatic weapons from Mozambique and Angola has made the country one of the world's largest centres of illicit light weapons trafficking. It is no coincidence that South Africa now has the highest murder rate in the world.

Although the secretive nature of this trade makes it difficult to assess, some estimate that the illegal trade in light weapons accounts for more than 50 percent of all global light weapons transfers. However, unlike most major conventional weapons, the lines of supply are very long; a single weapon often passes through many hands and is "recycled" from one conflict to the next or from conflicts into civil society. Often, at least one link in this 'chain' will be legitimate. Given the blurred lines between licit and illicit trade in light weapons, a piecemeal approach to control through crime prevention will not be sufficient to reduce the violence caused by these weapons.

Momentum building around control initiatives

It has become clear that the dangers posed by light weapons are far too serious to ignore. In the past year, individual governments and institutions have sprung into action with initiatives to stem light weapons transfers at both the regional and international levels. Milestones of particular note include:

April 1998: The UN ECOSOC Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice endorsed a resolution calling for a legally binding convention to combat firearms trafficking. At the seventh session of the Crime Commission held in Vienna in late April, 54 countries signed a resolution calling for a legally binding convention to combat the illicit trafficking in firearms. The proposed convention will be based on the principles enshrined in the November 1997 OAS Convention (see below). The resolution garnered support from a diverse range of countries. Brazil, Canada and the United States were particularly strong advocates of the proposed resolution and managed to secure the endorsement of all G-8 states.
January-June 1998: EU negotiations on a 'Code of Conduct' to govern the legal transfer of weapons.By "setting high common standards for arms exports" and encouraging accountability and transparency, EU states can strengthen export controls, making illicit trafficking more difficult as a result. A draft proposal for an EU Code was jointly tabled by the UK and France in February, and it is anticipated that the EU will reach agreement on the issue by the end of June 1998. The US Congress and a Commission of Nobel Peace Laureates are pursuing similar efforts to establish a US Code and an International Code, respectively.
November 1997: The Organisation of American States (OAS) signed an "Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials". Signed by 27 Member States of the Organisation of American States (OAS) in November 1997, the Convention seeks to "prevent, combat, and eradicate the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms". The Convention includes practical measures such as the marking of weapons at the point of manufacture and the point of import, the harmonisation of licensing procedures and the exchange of information and expertise among the Member States on these issues.
June 1997: The European Union (EU) agreed a "Programme for Preventing and Combating Illicit Trafficking in Conventional Arms". Endorsed by all 15 Member States, the Programme combines measures to combat the illicit trafficking of arms through EU Member States with demand-side measures, such as providing for assistance towards building local capacity, and removing arms from society in regions of conflict.
Roots of G-8 discussions

Illicit firearms trafficking first appeared on the (then) G-7 agenda during the 1994 Economic Summit in Halifax, when leaders highlighted the economic and social costs of crime. By the time of the Denver Summit in June 1997, illicit weapons trafficking had become a G-8 priority and decisions to consider a "new international instrument' and a "stronger international regime" were included in the summit's Final Communiqué'. The US State Department provided G-8 states with a proposed outline for a legally binding international instrument in autumn 1997. The proposals closely paralleled the central tenets of the OAS convention, including, firearm identification at the point of manufacture and import and harmonisation of licensing procedures.

Initially, EU members of the G-8 were reluctant to agree to such a formulation, not yet having reached EU-wide consensus on harmonising import/export certificates or marking weapons at the point of manufacture and import. However, a strong degree of consensus emerged in G-8 negotiations early this year and by March the G-8 states agreed to call for a legally binding convention based on the OAS model. Following the resolution at ECOSOC last month, it is expected the Birmingham communiqué will call for the swift implementation of a convention through the UN Crime Commission.

An international convention would be a welcome development. However, ECOSOC is only mandated to address civilian firearms trafficking in a crime context. This restricted mandate will necessarily limit both the scope and effectiveness of a potentially far-reaching initiative. It is vital, therefore, that the G-8 develop a much more wide-ranging approach.

Recommendations

Regardless of the ultimate forum for negotiation, it is crucial that the G-8 take this timely opportunity to develop a comprehensive approach to light weapons control that addresses all aspects of the problem, including those weapons that are "legally" supplied to conflict or conflict vulnerable societies. As the world's wealthiest and most powerful states, the G-8 nations are well placed to encourage global participation in an international control effort. Moreover, they should accept their responsibility to fund practical measures to control light weapons proliferation.

Link between crime and conflict

The realities of social integration and the porous nature of international borders has blurred the lines which distinguish conflict and crime. The militarisation of civil society is a feature of many post-conflict regions; in many parts of the world, black marketeers offer weapons that at one time were used to fight wars. Weapons attained and used for violence in armed conflict are now traded easily across borders and put to criminal use, allowing assault weapons and military-style arms to fall into civilian hands. In addition, for former soldiers with few marketable skills, weapons become a form of currency. Inadequate demobilisation after conflicts, therefore, fuels crime and banditry. Any initiative undertaken by the G-8 will be far more relevant to countries in regions of conflict if these links between crime and conflict are acknowledged. The G-8 should therefore:

Make an explicit link between crime and conflict within the final communiqué.
Advocate that the proposed legally binding instrument to combat illicit firearms trafficking includes a clause to incorporate mandatory destruction of weapons in all UN peacekeeping missions, demobilisation programmes, weapons collections, amnesties and seizures.
Develop initiatives within other multilateral organisations to combat illicit trafficking at the regional and sub-regional levels which link the problems of crime and conflict. All G-8 states should engage their own regional fora on control initiatives, including the EU, the OAS, the CIS and ASEAN;
Commit funds and re-orientate aid towards small arms control

Considering the interest of G8 states in measures currently being pursued at the UN, the final communiqué should reflect a commitment from each state to fully participate in projects and fund initiatives in the field of practical disarmament. All efforts to tackle illicit arms trafficking will be doomed to failure if they are not properly resourced. As the leading industrialised nations, the G-8 must, therefore, accept their responsibility for funding such initiatives. Considerable investments of human and financial resources are required for any G-8 initiative to move from a statement of intent to effective and practical control measures. Many of the countries directly affected by the proliferation of light weapons - both legal and illegal - lack the capacity and infrastructure to control the problem. The G-8 states should therefore announce a commitment of funds for:

Fund the swift implementation of the UN Convention to control firearms trafficking;
Participation by regions directly affected by light weapons proliferation in the Interpol Weapons and Explosives Tracking System database (IWETS)database, the only existing international database for stolen and recovered weapons, and in the implementation of the UN Convention.
An important way of securing funds for implementing effective firearms control is to recognise the link between security and long term development and stability. Controlling light weapons is not just a law enforcement issue. Often the insecurity and violence fuelled by the spread of light weapons means that countries cannot make use of economic and social development assistance. Yet although the link between development and security is increasingly being recognised, programmes to boost internal security and arms control in conflict-prone regions remain poorly funded. A commitment from the G-8 to use a proportion of development aid for security projects would have a powerful impact. The G-8, therefore, should:

Endorse the 'security first' approach to development co-operation which acknowledges that a secure environment is a pre-requisite for long-term development and so incorporates support for police training, strengthening border controls, demobilisation and the reintegration of soldiers into development assistance.
Establish a special 'security assistance' fund for countries in regions of conflict to enable them to tackle the problems of light weapons.
Link legal and illegal light weapons transfers

Targeting illicit trafficking may allow governments to clamp down on the illegal market trade but dealing with this aspect of firearms transfers is not enough. It is not only the firearms illicitly traded by criminals that cause violence and suffering. The international community cannot allow governments to use controls on illicit trafficking as a smokescreen to divert attention away from their commitments and responsibilities as producers, suppliers and recipients of light weapons. Furthermore, the distinction between legal and illegal is often blurred. It is more accurate to talk of a 'grey' market than a black one. This grey market relies partly on the use of legal loopholes such as the absence of controls on third-party brokering, inadequate or neglected end-use guarantees, or on governments turning a blind eye to questionable deals. The G-8 should urgently address this problem.

The link between legal exports and illegal transfers should be made within the final communiqué.
The G-8 countries should the use summit as an opportunity to discuss, strengthen and internationalise Britain's proposal for an EU Code of Conduct "setting high common standards governing arms exports".
The G-8 should collectively identify the loopholes in their control systems which may be aiding the development of grey market trading, and introduce a coordinated international programme to close them down.
Conclusion

A coherent and comprehensive approach to small arms proliferation is required. Efforts to combat illicit trafficking must be matched with equal vigilance on the licit side. Ultimately, it is the presence of light weapons in situations of potential violence and instability, and not the legal and illegal means by which they have arrived at their destination that is at issue. Commitment by the G-8 countries has the potential to be enormously influential. A comprehensive approach to small arms control which acknowledges the links - domestic to international, legal and illegal, crime and conflict - and provides the resources to help address them would have a multiplier effect. It could influence national governments, regional and international bodies to address other aspects of the problems of light weapons proliferation which are so desperately in need of attention. This opportunity should not be missed.

Date of original publication: April 1998

G7 countries languish at bottom of class on education funding

Global Campaign for Education Press Release - Oxfam

A new “school report card” released today reveals that 100 million children are still out of school because G7 and other rich countries are simply failing to provide the funding needed for a quality education.

The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) school report grades 22 rich countries on the quantity and quality of education aid they provide to poor countries. The US ranks at the bottom of the class, receiving a failing “F” grade along with Austria, closely followed by “E” grade countries Spain and Italy and “D” graded Germany and France. Norway scores at the top of the class with an A, followed by Netherlands, and “B” ranked Sweden, Ireland and the UK.

The School Report is the first full breakdown of just how much money individual donor country governments are actually providing since they promised five years ago to achieve “universal primary education” as one of the eight millennium development goals.

It shows some promising signs that progress has been made by donors and developing countries since 2000 and 17 million more African children are getting an education. Yet most donor countries are failing to deliver: five of the G7 rank in the bottom half of the class, with a combined grade of 'D'.

The report calls upon donor countries currently meeting at the World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington DC to immediately increase quality education funding. Many developing countries have produced clear, credible plans to expand education through the Fast Track Initiative*, but have yet to receive the promised aid from donors.

It would take an additional $5.4 billion in aid annually to ensure that every child could go to school, which amounts to around two days global military spending or less than $1 for every child under the age of 18 in the developing world. Currently G7, other rich countries and multilateral donors provide a total of only $1.7 billion annually.

“Put simply, by failing to give the funding promised, the US and other G7 countries are preventing children in poor countries from going to school,” said GCE Bangladesh spokesperson Rasheda Chowdhury.

“Education is crucial to helping preventing HIV, increasing family earnings and ending poverty. Why won’t rich countries give children a chance by getting them into school?”

As a first step towards achieving the millennium goal of “universal primary education” donor countries promised to get as many girls as boys into school by 2005. Yet scandalously, even this modest target has been missed, and 9 million more girls than boys are left out of school every year.

Notes to Editors:

What is the Fast Track Initiative?
Three years ago, in April 2002, donor countries at the World Bank Spring Meeting launched a ‘Fast Track Initiative’ to mobilise and coordinate full funding and resources for developing countries that provide clear, costed plans to educate all their children. If developing countries developed sound, credible plans to expand education access and quality, donors would not let them fail for lack of funding. The 12 initial countries included: Yemen, Gambia, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso, Guyana, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Ghana, Vietnam, Honduras, and Guinea

Yet after devoting much effort to working out clear budgets with donors, the first 12 countries to join the Fast Track still need another $300m per year to implement their education plans. In other words, 40% of the aid promised to Fast Track countries never arrived.

Does education aid really work?
Education, especially for girls, empowers families to break the cycle of poverty for good. Young women with a primary education are twice as likely to stay safe from AIDS, and their earnings will be 10–20 per cent higher for every year of schooling completed. Evidence gathered over 30 years shows that educating women is the single most powerful weapon against malnutrition — more effective even than improving food supply. Without universal primary education, the other Millennium Development Goals — stopping AIDS, halving the number of people living in poverty, ending unnecessary hunger and child death — are not going to be achieved.

A number of poor countries are using a little bit of rich country aid, and a lot of their own money, to make amazing progress towards educating all their children. From 1990 to 2000, Ethiopia more than doubled enrolments, from 33 per cent to 71 per cent. A grant of just $3.5m from the Fast Track Initiative is helping 70,000 more 6-year-olds attend school in Nicaragua and providing a daily school meal to 800,000 pupils, up from 200,000 last year.

Related links:

Cool Planet for Teachers - http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/

Cool Planet for Children - how more and better aid can improve access to education in developing countries http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/kidsweb/oxfam/campaigns/mph_aid.htm

Millennium Development Goals campaign http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_you_can_do/campaign/mdg/index.htm

Send my friend to school

Meta Interpretation

Whilst ultimately changeable the 'real' has characteristics which are, in part, unreponsive to how we know about them. Realism is plural with respect to methodologies and with respect to theories, and therefore offers a good platform from which to embark on integrated mixed methods research (Wendy Olsen). In order to generate a dialectic of learning we mix approaches to get two or three viewpoints upon the things being studied.

The homology argument - in its simplest form claims no more than that social stratification and cultural stratification map on to each other very closely.
However, more elaborate versions of the homology argument exist, notably that developed by Pierre Bourdieu in his book, Distinction (1984). Status has to be seen as the symbolic aspect or dimension of the class structure, which is not itself reducible to economic relations alone.

Far too much time is spent by statisticians on statistics, when it would be interesting for them to spend more time on developing alternative interpretations.

Hermeneutics, the study of interpretation and meaning, is often confused with people feeling empathy for others. Everyday talk is not as coherent as a discourse. Texts such as dialogues are often deeply contradictory. Understanding the meaninig is universal as it is common to all knowledge, yet understanding is not the same thing in all instances. How we understand or take a person's talk varies depending on the context.

The reality could be changed according to the ways in which questions are linguistically structured to elicit increasingly complex responses and the ways that answers are interpreted. Realists argue that many things in the social world are unobservable such as relationships , power, status , etc. Yet we record our observations of things as if they are objective facts and empirical data.

People construe others' behviour through their own subjective lens of perception, and the others' behaviour, too, is framed within their own subjective and discursive frame of reference.

Social scientist can have a special ability to understand social and personal meanings. This area makes social science different from natural or physical science. Social science, where appropriate, has to be critical of common sense and stereotyped interpretation. Therefore social science must have a critical relationship with its target. To be prepared to question what people tell or give as evidence.

Empiricism, realism and constructionism are edges of a triangle of viewpoints. Each can offer a philosphical starting point for research. Nonetheless, empiricism and realism stand poles apart. Empiricists assume the world consists of facts, this is unrealistic. The real world is very complex. The data we record about reality is only a rough, partial, and incomplete record.

Naive realism is not the form of realism to which social scientists should refer nor decision makers should base their conclusions upon them. The issue of reification, of making structures appear real which were merely assumed to exist a priori, offers an area for urgent exploration.

Steroetyping does indeed make for poor analysis. Its weakness is that stereotypes are greatly oversimplified and so do not account for the complexity of the world.
Stereotypes have significant social implications, as prejudice is a serious consequence of stereotyping. The evidence to support this involved participants being given trial evidence and then being asked to judge 'guilt'. In one condition they were told the name of the defendant was Carlos Ramirez and in the other that it was Robert Johnson. “Carlos Ramirez” was found guilty more often than “Robert Johnson”,which suggests that biased information processing underpins stereotypes.

“ ... From mutual glances to avoidance of eye contact, from name dropping to name calling, from co-operation to competition - almost all aspects of behaviour can be employed to let someone know what we expect from them. All too often the result is that we will have defined the situation so that the other person has little choice but to behave as expected and thereby confirm our stereotypes of him or her.” (1)

Individuals are “hell bent” on confirming their hypotheses about other people, and will selectively search for information that corroborates their expectations. Thus compiling unbiased information is utmost important to come up with realistic analysis.

Stereotyping plays a profound role in our judgement of people and consequently on our decision making to deal with them. Understanding how we create and use our stereotypes improves our capacity to deal effectively with people whose views or behaviour is simply different and unpredictable. Those unique characteristics who do not act according to our 'common' scenarios. Our misjudgement when studying social and individual behaviour might lead to serious miscalculation in identifying agents of social changes.

Fiske (1993), argues that stereotyping and power are mutually reinforcing. She notes that dominant people pay more attention to information which confirms or legitimises their dominance and less to the information that could undermine it.

Illusory Correlation as a Basis for Steroetyping - Research by Hamilton and Gifford (1976, PA2L p.36) demonstrated how the illusory correlation could lead to prejudice. Participants were presented with statements about two groups, A and B. There were more statements for group A and so in this sense group B became the minority. There were more positive statements than negative statements for both groups but when asked to recall the statements, participants reported more negative than positive ones for group B (the “minority” group).

When we stereotype people we are actually forming a correlation between a particular member of some group and that person's behavior or character. We must be aware that these relationships may be false or illusory. Illusory correlations occur when we perceive a relationship between two events (e.g., older person and a behavior) that does not actually exist or does exist but to a lesser extent than we believe (Chapman, 1967). We can stereotype people along many dimensions. For example, we can stereotype people based on hair color (red hair, blondes), occupation, organizations they belong to (fraternities or sororities), cars they drive, ethnicity, gender, and age. The list is endless. What we are basically doing is creating relationships between one variable of the person (e.g., hair color) and another variable (their behavior). These relationships (or stereotypes) may come from our own experience, or from society or our culture. One concern with using stereotypes is that once we view a person or group in a certain way it is hard to recognize or appreciate information that goes against the stereotype.

Moscovici (1988) claims that we rely upon social representations because the world so complex that we often have to use others’ views to help us understand. Thus, social representations are considered an inherent outcome of informational influence, a type of conformity.

Yet, simplification, naive realism and relience on stereotypes, ultimately turn us blind to the choices that can Make All the Difference.



(1) Jones, Russell A., “Perceiving Other People: Stereotyping As a Process of Social Cognition”, In Miller, Arthur G. (ed.), In the Eye of the Beholder: Contemporary Issues In Stereotyping, New York: Praeger Publishers, p. 83

References:
- SOCIAL AND CULTURAL STEREOTYPING, http://www.a-levelpsychology.co.uk/resources/cdrom/pdf/revision.pdf

- Chapman, L. J. (1967). Illusory correlation in observational report. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 6.

- http://www.questia.com/library/communication/language-and-linguistics/linguistics/metalinguistics.jsp

- Social stratification and cultural consumption, Oxford University, 16 March 2005, http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0006/papers/music4.pdf

- Triangulation in social research, By Wendy Olsen, http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/staff/triangulation.pdf

- A fair chance, Oxfam GB, http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/education/
downloads/gce_afairchance_full.pdf

Global Citizenship: the Handbook for Primary Teaching

Oxfam wins awards for 'outstanding' teaching resources

Two of Oxfam’s recent global teaching resources have received major accolades from the Geographical Association.

Water for All , an interactive online educational resource investigating the importance of clean water around the world, was presented with a Silver Award for 2005 at the GA’s annual awards ceremony.

The Geographical Association said, ’Water for All is the latest of Oxfam’s outstanding range of websites that support global education. This website is a worthy award winner. Every primary and Key Stage 3 teacher should investigate this site, and then explore further other Oxfam websites.’

Looking Behind the Logo: The Global Supply chain in the Sportswear Industry was awarded Highly Commended by the Association. They said:

’Oxfam have created a thought-provoking role-play activity booklet that is an excellent teaching resource and a source to explore development issues. The booklet uses sports and fashion wear as a vehicle to allow the students to study the workings of world trade and how it impacts on the lives of people worldwide.

This is a booklet that all secondary school geographers could use with their classes or simply to explore their own thoughts and attitudes on development issues. It shows how people’s values and attitudes affect issues, decision-making and the analysis of evidence.’

In the last two years we have also won awards for our Milking It! online resource, exploring trade issues, using case studies of farmers in Jamaica and Wales, and Global Citizenship: The Handbook for primary teaching, a book promoting social justice and equity through the curriculum.

Our Cool Planet website contains hundreds of education materials – many free to use or download – covering various development issues including water, trade, the environment, peace and conflict, equality and natural disasters. For a full list of books and other print resources visit www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/catalogue

Find out more online at www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet or contact Lucy Stephens on 01865 313248 or lstephens@oxfam.org.uk



GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP

DESCRIPTION

This handbook explains the term "global citizenship" and develops its guiding principles into clear, practical pointers for use in school. By discussing the issues, ideas, and approaches in this handbook, users will be able to explore and develop their own understanding of global citizenship and bring its concepts into all their educational practice, through every subject area, into assemblies and across the whole school. Global citizenship is not an additional subject, but a way of teaching the existing curriculum which promotes social justice and equity.The book should be a valuable tool for classroom teachers, head teachers, teacher educators, student teachers, home school educators, non-teaching staff, governors and parents. This handbook is also ideal for PSHE co-ordinators and members of staff who are interested in finding out how to include a citizenship perspective in their teaching. The book is packed with discussion points, issues, ideas and approaches for practical citizenship teaching. All of the worksheets and extracts are photocopiable.

REVIEWS

Global Citizenhip is an exciting new handbook that should be in every primary school. It has a number of strengths, not least from the geographical perspective. Among these is the ability to link geographical work with other aspects of the primary curriculum, particularly Literacy and PSHE.An early chapter provides a range of user-friendly activities for in-service work, to help develop a global perspective to the curriculum. These would be a really good starting point for any school, primary or secondary, wishing to develop the global aspects of citizenship.The following three substantive chapters consider Global Citizenship in general terms, Global Citizenship and Literacy, and finally Global Citizenship and Geography. There is much in the first two of these that is geography, giving a greater breadth to the subject than the narrow confines of the National Curriculum. In particular, there is a range of activities for assemblies and the Foundation Stage as well as the rest of the primary curriculum. Cross-curricular links are mode not just for the English National Curriculum, but also the curriculum in Scotland and Wales.The chapter on Geography shows where the links can be made between the QCA Scheme for Geography and Global Citizenship. A final chapter gives a very valuable and comprehensive list of Resources and Contacts.As a country, and for the future of our planet, we need to develop a global perspective within our children. If Geography is to flourish in the primary sector, it will be through introducing the ideas and approaches provided in this publication. There is much for the primary school in this handbook. Every school should use it. Award citation from the Geographical Association "...its content is excellent and it is well written....the pages will reveal a whole range of useful and valuable resources."Junior Education, May-02 "If anyone is in any doubt about what global citizenship means... this handbook is for them... chapters show how key elements of global citizenship can be incorporated into the curriculum... defines and makes the case for global citizenship clearly and convincingly." TES Primary, June-02 "...explains global citizenship and develops its principles into practical points.
" Child Education, Jun-02

AUTHOR: Oxfam
STOCK CODE: 164941
AVAILABILITY: In print
FORMAT: Spiral / comb bound (pp: 176) 297 x 210mm (A4)
READERSHIP: Primary, Pre-School and Early Years,
PUBLISHED: 30 Oct 2001 PRICE: £25.00

SOCIAL FUND - WOMEN ACCESS TO EDUCATION

Social funds as a new focus on service delivery and local capacity building are supposed to be demand driven with a funding focus on the needs of the poor. Demand orientation is defined as an approach taken by outside agencies that involves offering options and important information to community groups so that they can make an informed choice among different alternatives, thus increasing the likelihood that the funded project will in fact meet a local need. Under this approach agencies require local communities to provide evidence that they are interested in and committed to projects by requiring cash or in-kind contributions or the initiation of organizational tasks prior to implementation of the project. Agencies also support community control and authority over the course of project implementation. Finally, local organizational capacity building involves fostering the ability of groups of people, especially the poor, to work together, trust one another, and organize their efforts to mobilize resources, solve problems,
resolve conflicts and network with other groups in order to leverage resources and achieve shared goals. The project designs that attempt to devolve decision making and resources to lower levels of govemment and to communities and user groups. Social funds have provided much valuable experience on the mechanisms for reorienting development agendies toward partiicpation and demand based projects. They have received highly satisfactory performance ratings and have also instituted ground breaking initiatives to increase community involvement and control in project implementation.

The government program of targeted interventions in joint planning and decision making with community groups and acting as lending instruments for alleviating poverty on a sustainable basis more attention will have to be focused on community participation, demand orientation, and investment in local organisational capacity. According to the World Bank study on 51 social funds programs at the end of1996, only 19 percent of the total number of social funds were identified as"at risk," thus making them a "well- performing" portfolio.

Among the strengths of social funds are decentralized management approach and demand-driven mechanisms for identifying beneficiary concerns. social funds used for building roads, schools, mosques, piped gaz supply systems, health facilities are actually designed to take into account the different needs, constraints, and opportunities of men and women, however, it is difficult to assess whether they equally benefit from such projects. Incorporating gender analysis in project management reveals the feasibility of the projects to address and meet the needs and priorities of community comprised women as well as men. Consideration is needed for scheduling community meetings at a time of day when a woman’s domestic and other responsibilities are less likely to be an obstacle. It takes into account the local mores as to whether women can have a voice in the presence of unrelated men or older women in rural area. Experience has shown that a project that uses a gender-sensitive approach during the implementation phase is more sustainable in the long run. Social fund can provide vital role for governments in raising awareness about gender-specific issues, particularly in ministries and municipalities, as well as among NGOs and local community organizations.

Most Social Fund projects support the creation of economic infrastructure, including roads, civil works, irrigatin, land reclamation and natural resource management activities. The other most common activities were creation of social service infrastructure (schools, clinics, sanitation, and water facilities as well as investment in developing social service program activities. Financing to support community development and org at the grassroots level was also mentioned in some projects in addition to agency strengthening or institutional develpment of private firms, NGOs, or municipalities.
At the community level the two most important criteria were demand and local organisational capacity. At the agency level the extent to which the agency made achieving beneficiary participation of intended goal, the degree to which the agency made use of local knowldedge through extension of local resources, and whether the agency had the autonomy to adjust resource allocations in response to community needs.

The shift from the supply driven to the demand driven approach seems to be general around the world. The operational and policy implications of a demand driven approach include the imperative for communities to be involved in the identification of their needs and conception of the projects. The trend has also been towards the decentralisation of authority and resources, including the involvement of communities in procurement of goods and services, management of projects and overall implementation.
Of crucial concern is whether the design, focus and orientation of social funds support sustainability of the projects established. This concern should include the question whether such design entails the mainstreaming of gender and focus on the specific needs of women. A wide variety of activities can be financed under this component, including: information sessions/material, training, action-research, twinning arrangements, secondments and short-term technical assistance.
Initial assessments suggest the need of interventions in: participatory techniques, needs assessment, accounting, sub-project planning, and time management.

Education is a large, and typically the largest, sector in each of the social fund portfolios in the World Bank Report (1996):

– Nicaragua 57% of investment (1991-98)
– Zambia 76% of projects (1991-mid-2000)
– Honduras 57 % of investments (through 1998)
– Bolivia 50% of investments (FIS I&II)
– Peru 13% (rural investments 1996-99)

A recent evaluation (2002) of social fund projects by the Operation Evaluation Department (OED) finds that social fund projects have been highly effective in delivering small-scale infrastructure, but much less so in achieving consistently positive and significant improvements in outcomes and welfare impacts.While social fund projects have delivered slightly more than proportional benefits to the poor and the poorest, there have also been a significant number of non-poor beneficiaries. Most social fund beneficiaries are satisfied with the financed subprojects, but the biggest community problems have not necessarily been addressed and there is no assurance that the selected subprojects ensure the highest net benefits to the community. While social fund facilities are generally operating and equipped, they have not been immune to staffing and equipment shortages. Social fund agencies have developed capacity as effective and innovative organizations, but wider impacts on existing institutions have been much more limited.



GENDER BUDGET INITIATIVES
Gender or women's budget initiatives are not separate budgets for women.They include analysis of gender targeted allocations (e.g. special programmes targeting women); they disaggregate by gender the impact of mainstream expenditures across all sectors and services; and they review equal opportunities policies and allocations within government services.

Macro-economic policies in general, and fiscal policies in particular, are seldom, gender-neutral. The study of key concepts of macroeconomics and highlighting gender dimensions of current economic thinkings is absolutely essential to those working in planning machineries, Ministries of Finance and in development co-operation policy advice. It will also be of value for gender specialists working with economists and planners. Engendering macro economic policies in development programs is necessary in order to address key priorities in a sustainable manner. Gender Analysis of the economy examines what keeps men and women from being able to help themselves and their families through analysing social behavior and measuring family relation dimensions such as gender expectations and values placed upon men and women in their everyday lives. The process of budget allocation, integration of gender budget analysis into the stages of budget process, gender budget analysis methods building on pro poor and participatory budgeting, differentiation of local budget analysis from national budget analysis, developing indicators to enable monitoring of relevant data are among basic steps toward developing the building blocks for unbiased distribution of social development funds.
It is of crucial importance to engage with the budget actors during the budget formulation as well as the enactment and execution stages. More engagement in the budget formulation stage requires closer work with ministries such as Finance and sectoral ministries' budget and planning departments and most important with Management and Planning Organisation responsible for Budget allocation in Iran. Gender budget analysis should take place somewhere between the auditing and budget formulation phases of the cycle. By feeding gender analysis into policy design and budget drafting phases the sustainablity of development projects, such as social development funds are monitored and directed.
The initiative should work to bring together a solid group of representatives of government institutions, academics, and people from trade unions and community based organisations to form a network of experts to promote gender equality through appropriate economic policy and by applying gender auditing tools to study different needs of household members. The aim should be directed toward encourage the government to use gender analysis to improve its economic policy making and the use of public budget to address effectively, the different needs of men and women.

GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES SOCIAL FUNDS

Despite efforts of the Governemnt to reduce subsidies, their weight in the national budget remains considerable. The mechanisms for decision-making regarding subsidies are complex, involving a number of bodies and institutions. The Supreme Council for Economic Affairs, under the President's Office, is the highest authority with regard to economic affairs. Its decisions on guaranteed producer prices and overall subsidies are taken on the basis of proposals prepared by the Planning and Budget Organization and its Bureau for Agricultural Affairs and Rural Development, in coordination with the Office for Protection of Consumers' and Producers' Rights and the Ministry of Agriculture. They are then submitted to Parliament, for thorough inspection and subsequent endorsement which will be effective following the final review by the Guardian Council, prior to their incorporation in the annual budget.

Subsidies first gained importance during the war with Iraq which required exceptional efforts to secure minimum equitative food supplies and living standards. Subsequently, the government maintained an important subsidy programme in favour of both consumers and producers of agricultural products. Producers benefited from guaranteed prices for their products, based on estimates of average national production costs, which secured significant farm profit margins.
The 1993 budget put the cost of subsidizing basic goods at 3 Billion USD, equivalent to 9.4 percent of estimated government revenues and 2.5 percent of projected GDP. At present, consumer food subsidies are granted for bread, sugar, milk, cheese, meat, tea, vegetable oil and rice; and producer subsidies for improved seeds and a number of farm inputs. Other sectors such as petrol and electricity also are heavily subsidiesed by the Government.
Owing to the lack of a sustainable development vision over recent decades, Iran's environment and natural resources faces vast deterioration due to sectoral approaches, infrastructural fragmentation, inadequate legislation, regulations and enforcement and unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. This requires significant attention of budget actors to avail social funds to engage in participatory programs implemented by CBOs.
Iran Government oil-based macro economic policies to sustain development programme and effectively address poverty issues need integrated gender sensitive target planning on subsidized goods and services in allocation of public budget, monitoring and evaluation. The formation of Family Gender Budget Initiative embeded in the government subsidies could be the start point for more meaningful, pro-poor, allocation of public budget for economic development and in poverty eradication strategies.

Better understanding of the rationale of integrating gender into the planning and budgeting systems; an expertise that can add on bargaining power of families as beneficiaries of subsidies and public budget. Benefit incidence analysis indicates method of computing of distribution of public expenditure across different demographic groups, such as women and men. The procedure involves allocating per unit public subsidies (for example, expenditure per student for the education sector) according to individual utilisation rates of public services (van de Walle and Nead 1995, cited in World Bank 1995).

TO TRANSLATE GOVERNMENT COMMITMENTS INTO EFFECTIVE ACTION:

- Fit the family gender budgeting initiative into the development frameworks of the government provision of Social Funds and Allocation of Subsidies

- Approaches to integrate gender issues into government policies, and local development plans to strengthen household economy and equitable distribution of subsidies at family level.

The community grant mechanism of social funds has been well suited to supporting income-generating activities indirectly through economic and social infrastructure investments that raise the productive potential of the community. Examples of economic infrastructure that directly raises income potential include small-scale irrigation, market facilities, a harbor or coldstorage for fishing, and even a building and safe for a savings and credit association or village bank.
Income-earning potential is also increased indirectly by investments that raise the productivity of labor, such as clean water, education and health facilities. Since these economic and social infrastructure investments do not in themselves generate income but rather facilitate the carrying out of income-generating activities, they are appropriate for grant funding, with some contribution by the community (in cash and/or in kind). To help realize that income generating potential, they may be accompanied by programs to raise social capital and skills and to expand access to financial services.

SHORTCOMINGS

The existence of large state-operated funds out of the oil income allocated to different state relief organisations such as Welfare Org, and other emerging state owned organisation that demand their share from public budget - inevitably led to the emergence of Mafia-style groups and rampant corruption to access non taxable easy funds. Competition between various groups to justify their legitimacy to grasp the social services funds, under the guise of "privatising" them, has resulted in the corruption in this sector being exposed.

Iranian NGOs, in the most part, in addition to being constrained by the lack of financial resources, require significant training and capacity building in the management and implementation of community initiatives. Therefore, consistent with similar operations elsewhere, initiation for the Local Development Funds would include adequate technical and financial resources to build NGO capacity. Involving provincial and local level authorities and NGOs in the design and implementation of LDF would improve targeting, facilitate project delivery and ensure a higher level of empowerment and coordination at the local level.


NEW APPROACH - PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING

Participatory budgeting is a mechanism of local government (or equivalent), which brings local communities closer to the decision-making process around the public budget. It is a flexible set of community engagement techniques, adaptable to local circumstances, but sharing a common principle: that power lies with those who decide how new money is to be spent. Where it has been tried it has enhanced participation in local democracy whilst improving the delivery and costeffectiveness of local services.

In the UK, New Deal for Community areas are already experimenting with participatory research, community audits, area profiling and citizens’ panels to inform investment decisions. Working with residents’ groups, holding workshops and communicating through local radio and other new media are common ways to engage with residents. All these methods already have a place in UK local governance and form a readymade body of participation techniques. Participatory budgeting adds new ideas, but in general strengthens existing methods of community engagement through focussing firmly on budgets.


Re-oxygenating Democracy - ‘in Brazil - Porto Alegre- Something like 50,000 residents – poor and middle class, women and men, leftist and centrist – now participate in the budgeting cycle of this city of a million and a half people. The number of participants has grown each year since its start 12 years ago. For example, each year the bulk of new street-paving has gone to the poorer, outlying districts. When Participatory Budgeting started, only 75 per cent of homes had running water, while today 99 per cent have treated water and 85 per cent have piped sewerage. In 12 years of participatory budgeting, the number of public [state] schools increased from 29 to 86, and literacy has reached 98 percent. In addition, corruption and waste – which before was the rule in Brazilian local politics – has been reduced through the transparency brought by participatory budgeting processes. Democracy has been re-oxygenated. This is not just to do with the number of people participating. It has also built new competencies in talking effectively and sympathetically between political leaders, specialists in agencies, and fellow citizens from many different backgrounds.



References:

- Oxfam GB; Breathing life into democracy, the power of participatory budgeting; Community Pride Initiative/Oxfam UK Poverty Programme, February 2005
http://www.oxfamgb.org/ukpp/resources/downloads/pb_breathing_life_into_democracy.pdf

- Social Funds, South Africa, ILO

- Gender dimensions of Social Development Funds, ILO, 2002

- Women's Budget Group, WBG, gender budget analysis around the world,

- Concepts of sustainable development, (Panel for Education for Sustainable Development, 1999) , www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/teachers

- Gender Responsive Budgets GRD Programme, UNIFEM
http://www.gender-budgets.org/uploads/user-S/11001154051ItineraryandSummaryRevie.pdf

- the Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics,
www.ingentaconnect.com

- Glossary on macroeconomics from a gender perspective, by BRIDGE in collaboration with GTZ - German Technical Cooperation


- Social Funds - A Review of World Bank Experience, February, 2002
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP
/IB/2002/03/22/000094946_02031010371645/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf


- Emadi, M.H.; Abbassi, E. 1999. The wise world of water works in an Iranian village: A holistic study of indigenous water relations in the Posht-e godar region (Markazi Province, Iran). In: Talebbeydokhti, N.;Telvari, A.; Heydarian, S.A. (eds), Proceedings of the Regional Workshop on Traditional Water Harvesting Systems (Tehran, 1-5 May 1999), pp. 145-160 Ministry of Jihad-e-Sazandegi, Dept. of Watershed Management, Tehran.

ACCESS TO EDUCATION AND TRAINING FOR WOMEN

Iran Constitution explicitly declares, the
state is duty bound to provide primary education
facilities for all, men and women. To carry out this
task in the first decade after Revolution, an
increasing number of schools were established across
the country; in some cases, schools in deprived areas
working three shifts.

Availability of schools particularly at primary level
even in remote villages as well as a new perception of
educational system as Islamic - 'especially favoring
fathers' - encouraged a noticeable reduction of
cultural barriers against girls' education. Hence,
so many Iranian girls from all over the
country entered primary schools. There are evidences
of an increasing rate of girls' enrollment
particularly at primary level (Report of MPO, 2003).
With nearly universal enrollment in primary schools
for the last decade, in 1996 the proportions of the
literate men and women in the 10-24 age groups were
95% and 91%, respectively.

For the first few years after the revolution,
fertility rose as high as 8 children per household.
The rise in fertility followed by a rapid decline
considers an age structure that is favorable for
economic growth when the population grows to their
working age. High fertility is considered a negative
influence on economic growth, however as it was
controlled to decline rapidly to 2 children per family
in 2002, it caused the ratio of adults to children to
rise. The Iranian adult-child ratio will grow more
than double in the next twenty years (Salehi-Isfahani,
1998). This ratio provides opportunity for the
potential human resources for teaching and training
youth. However, as population grow old will later draw
resources away from the creation of human capital and
toward the care of the aged.

The decline in marital fertility and the rise in age
at marriage to 24, for women, is significant feature
because of its implications for investment in children
and labor supply of women. Boys and girls are
postponing marriage mostly for reasons regarding lack
of resources for marriage and fewer for continuation
of their education.


TABLE 3 LITERACY RATES, 1976-96 POPULATION 6 wags AND
OLDER
_________________________________________________
year Urban Rural

male female male female

1976 74 56 44 17
1986 81 66 60 37
1991 88 78 73 55
1996 90 82 77 62

Source: Statistical Center of Iran, SCI


Young girls and boys have appreciation for education
and put enormous amount of efforts, much of which is
intended for passing tests and obtaining degrees
rather than learning productive skills that workers
need on their jobs. Although the heat for competition
was outraging to enter universities, girls have
exceeded the boys at the rate 67% of the new entrees
were among girls. In Average, number of female
university graduates (public and private) has
increased up to 40% of total graduates in last ten
years. Surely, considering the amplified share of
female students' admission in recent years, the figure
of graduated will be accelerated in near future.
Studies indicate that girl’s shares are 76% in medical
studies and 20% in engineering fields. Consequently,
with the elimination of illiteracy among women
declining to nearly 23 %, different norms and values
have been adopted. Iranian women and men are equally
aware of the importance of science and education in
the modern era.

According to statistics, 22 per cent of female labor
force and 7.9 per cent of male labor force hold
university degrees. The Government bears a
considerable share of the cost of education and
training of human resources in Iran. In sum, Iranian
families are in a position to substantially increase
their investment in human capital. Educated parents
with fewer children are in a good position to increase
the human capital of the next generation of Iranians.

Education has a strong social value for Iranian girls
who see university studies as a way to be socially
active, postpone marriages, and gain social respect.
The considerable increase in girls’ admission in
higher education since 1999, as well as high costs of
entering into universities led male students not to
pursue higher education and leaving the scene in favor
of female students. Subsequently, girls in Iran
outnumbered boys in the entire university system.
Impressive gains by urban women in higher education
have drawn significant attention to gender perspective
of future changes. This indicates that the main
problem in women's labor market regarding shortage of
job opportunities is mainly directed at young educated
women and is on the accelerating verge. In fact more
than 88.7% of unemployed women in urban areas are
those with higher education and in rural area this
figure comes up to around 59.4% (Ladan Norouzi, MPO,
2004). With the highest economic dependency ratio the
country is clearly missing opportunities for increased
welfare of families and society. Higher female labor
force participation in line with what would be
expected from the educational attainment, age
structure and fertility rates of the country could
allow family income to increase by up to 30 percent
(World Bank, 2003).

There is a connection between age and feeling of
discrimination among both sexes. Youngsters more than
other age categories are of opinion that society
considers males as more important and they are aware
of gender inequalities in the society. Therefore,
youth and educated group have a more realistic
understanding of social facts (Al-e-agha,
1997:194-196). By increased level of education and
younger age group - which are two specific
characteristics of female university students- demands
and expectations are rising and the gap between
realities and expectations could function as a change
agent. The larger the gap, the wider cultural changes
is in prospect.


Social Capital – the areas of concerns
________________________________________________

Of crucial importance, is the fact that, increase in
vulnerabilities and social upheavals emerges in the
wake of poverty compounded by injustice, unfair
distribution of income and discrimination.
The spread of administrative and financial corruption
is directly related to the structures of political
economy and the presence in top managerial posts of
the powerful immune to checks and balances. Even
though almost 75% of the total dirty money is
generated by 5% of the corrupt, most bribe-taking,
work slowdowns and low-level financial irregularities
are in large part due to need and high living costs
that have gradually been institutionalized.

Similarly, youth delinquency, increase in street
children and child labor (presently about 550,000
children below 15 work in Iran) are undoubtedly
related to poverty, deprivation and broken homes.

Demand for narcotics comes largely from the
unemployed, deprived and powerless whose share of the
addict population is much higher than their share in
the society at large. Escaping from decay, despair and
deprivation is considered as the main cause of seeking
relief in drugs. Supply of illegal drugs is basically
the function of distributors who are addicts, poor and
jobless.

Statistics show in 1977 only 54 women were detained
for drug abuse through out the country while during
the last ten years the prevalence of drug addiction
among women reached 6.6% of the population. For some
area this figure is as high as 13.3 % in Tehran and
12% in Kerman. Prostitution is meaningfully related to
drug addiction according to researches explaining that
addicted men force their spouses to use their body to
provide drugs. According to the UN, out of 6000 tons
of drugs produced annually in Afghanistan, more than
40% is used only in Iran, turning this country to the
largest user. Only in 2003 more than 130.000 men and
women were detained in relation to drug abuse. The
prevalence of drug addiction is such that for every 5,
one is involved with drug addiction.

The accelerated trend of divorce (showing 30% increase
in Tehran, 2003) and number of runaway girls (60.000)
from home in 2003 is a warning alarm on emerging
social problems.


Enhancing Women’s Economic Participation is
Essential (WB, 2003)
_____________________________________________

The reason why women economic participation could
result in permanently higher rates of growth in income
need some explanation;

- Women’s economic participation will increase
international competitiveness. For instance many east
Asian countries have been able to achieve high growth
through export oriented female intensive manufacturing
industries.

- by increasing the pool of innate talent from which
employers can draw through training increased women
participation in economy increases the average ability
of the workforce.

- The importance of women’s employment and income is
needed for their bargaining power within families.
Women tend to spend a greater share of their income on
the education and health of heir children. This is
even more accurate for Iranian women which will
increase human capital of the next generation.

- Women’s wider participation in economy particularly
in the social context of Iran will result in good
governance. There is evidence that women are less
prone to corruption and nepotism than men. Improving
access of women to jobs may consequently improve
governance in business. Wider presence of women in
auditing and accounting fields will definitely
decrease the degree of corruption which is so crucial
for release of the country out of the vicious circle
of poverty.


Future Training Strategies to Fill the Gaps
________________________________________________

Considering mismanagement the major fault line of the
national economy, life skills and recent "personal
development" trainings by helping to develop human
potential will enhance the ability of women to
reintegrate into society and contribute to its
reconstruction. This encompasses a whole range of
social skills from assertiveness training and
self-esteem to managing one's time and stress levels.
These courses may be short-term workshops, residential
programs or evening classes. The growth in these kinds
of programs that aim for attitudinal, psychological
and lifestyle change reflects the belief in education
for self-improvement and for life change that is most
needed for the young generation in this country.

The investments in education and health are beginning
to have their effect in the region in empowering
women. Reconsideration of development policies to
create better opportunities for the generation of
youth; the country needs to view gender issues as part
of the solution. In order to benefit from all the
resources, human and others, we need systematic and
comprehensive capacity building programs for women
through out the country:

Women should be assisted to have access to training
packages that take the needs and interests of the
learners, the community and the post-school training
institutions and post-training employment
opportunities into account;

Women should advocate and lobby for share in public
budget to be allocated for comprehensive assessment of
the developmental needs of children and adolescents in
terms of social, emotional, cognitive and physical
domains;

Women should advocate for the establishment of
training centers that allow and train an awareness and
implementation of human rights and responsibilities
within a democratic society.

Women should advocate for facilitation process access
to appropriate and innovative resource material; for
classroom methodology that empowers the learner to
participate at all levels in school and society.

Women should advocate to be trained to learn how trade
unions are functioning. Women should be encouraged and
allowed to organize themselves to tackle their issues
using participatory methods.

Women need numerous training programs and advice
centers for understanding the job market and matching
aptitudes to job specifications and for training for
self-employment.

Women need various out-of-school programs aimed at
improving basic numeracy and literacy. There is a need
for adult education programs as evening courses for
women to expand their skills and broaden their
knowledge and interests.

Women need to enhance skills and scopes such as
language, communication and problem-solving skills.

Women need training on life skills to be taught by
public and private employment counseling services,
guidance teachers in schools, public and private
vocational training centers, NGOs, and the university
to broaden the scope of income generation activities,
to train for machineries to have access to
information, access to assets, self initiation, and
inventive ideas to fill up the gaps and seize the
market opportunities.


Human Resources Crisis and Brain Drains
_________________________________________________

According to IMF Iran is ranked number one among 91
developing countries in regard to what is called brain
drains. The initial collective emigration happened at
the time of Revolution which consisted of all high
ranking groups in public and governmental sectors in
addition another 2 million joined them in the first
few years which made the total to rise to 4 million.

In 1985 according to bank resources, assets belonging
to Iranians in US were accounted for $400 billion.
Every year 180.000 students and educated individuals
leave the country in pursue of a better living
condition. In the last few years, emigration of high
educated managers and brain drains has accelerated due
to high rate of unemployment, low pays, vandalism and
lumpenism spreading out, lack of job opportunities,
corrupted and biased system to access the top jobs,
high risk in business affaires, highly controlled and
monitored market by business Mafias, higher social
value for get rich quick schemes and less respect for
educated individuals, low pay for university professor
(same level as ordinary administrator), discriminative
selection based on commitment to the regime instead of
expertise and eligibility, and general restricted
social codes which makes every normal family to be too
much bothered by police, militias, revolutionary
guards. Prison has become so ordinary and a norm;
every single family have sometime in their ordinary
day to day life dealt with some kind of detention and
jailing of their loved ones.

92% of young students who won the top titles in
International Olympiads have already left the country
following the invitation by top universities. In a
survey by Dr Ali Assadi, socialist, the country is
facing real crisis in regard to human resources within
next 10 years.