Africa

Jane took to bricklaying when life got tough despite men telling her it's not a woman's job.

Croatian coach Zdravko Logarusic is named as the new coach of Zimbabwe's national team.

The first player from the DR Congo to play in Europe, Leon Mokuna, dies at the age of 90.

Idriss Moumin, president of the Association for the Physically Disabled in Djibouti, says that understanding, dignity and honouring of rights of the disabled are very important for inclusive education. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
DJIBOUTI CITY, Jan 29 2020 (IPS)

Neema Namdamu, 42, grew up in the village of Bukavu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where children with disabilities were considered a curse.

As a child Namdamu contracted polio, leaving her paralysed from the waist down. Her neighbours advised her mother to do what they felt was the “right thing”: to leave the child alone in a hut until she died of starvation.

However, thanks to her mother who refused to give in to the community’s demand, Namdamu lived and went on to attend school and pursue her studies all the way to post graduate level.

But, all through the years of her education, she struggled just to get to her classrooms.

“Not a single educational institute – be that school or college or university – had a disabled-friendly building. I cried while climbing the stairs everyday,” recalls Nmadamu. She has since founded Mama Shuja – an NGO which gives vocational training including computer operating, data entry, digital story telling, tailoring and handicrafts to young girls and women with disabilities living in eastern DRC’s conflict areas.

Nmadamu is attending the 3rd International Summit on Balanced and Inclusive Education currently being held in Djibouti City, Djibouti. Organised by the Education Relief Foundation (ERF), there are over 200 delegates and government representatives from over 35 countries currently in the Horn of Africa nation.

But the government representative from the DRC is absent. And Namadamu says that this reflects the overall lack of awareness about the importance of education in her country.

Making more learning institutions disability-friendly is key for inclusive education

Idriss Moumin is a passionate advocate of inclusiveness. As the President of the Association for People with Disabilities in Djibouti, and someone who lives with total visual impairment, he strongly wants all the disabled people in his country to be able to access education as their right.

Understanding the special needs and rights of people with disabilities is one of the issues discussed at the summit, but Moumin feels the level of understanding hasn’t matched his expectations.

“I have been hearing several speakers say phrases and terms like ‘we are doing this for them (disabled) and ‘normal people’’. I want to remind them, this is not about giving a handout, but providing (for those with disabilities) what is their right. And who are these normal people? Am I then an abnormal person?” asks Moumin.

• In Djibouti – a country of less than a million people, there are 10,500 people with various degrees of disabilities, according to an ongoing population survey. The complete data from the survey will be released only in February, but for now it is assumed that there are about 600 students and about 300 are in early years of school.

“Our main issues are accessibility, equipment and social acceptance. We lack transportation and roads and learning materials. We definitely need resources to fill these gaps. But, there is an equal need for providing these facilities as a right. For example, we should get jobs because we have our rights to employment, not because we need compassion,” Moumin tells IPS.

• According to the World Bank estimates, globally one billion people experience some form of disability. Of those, it is estimated that 93 to 150 million are children. According to Plan International these children are 10 times less likely to go to school than other children.
• And when they do attend, it is likely to be in a segregated setting. Historically, children with disabilities have been excluded from the general education system and placed in ‘special schools’. In some cases, they are separated from their families and placed in long-term residential institutions where they are educated in isolation from the community, if they are educated at all.

Investing in disabled-friendly schools in Niger

But, according to UNESCO, one of the biggest reasons why children with disabilities don’t access education, even if education policies are inclusive, is because of the lack of disabled-friendly school buildings and suitable learning materials.

• Niger is the largest country in west Africa. But according to the latest data published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), on average a person goes to school only for six years. As a result, Niger also has the lowest literacy rates in the world at 15.5 percent — far behind the global rate of 92 percent. 
• Niger has an education index of .20. The education index is a statistic from the U.N. which is calculated using the mean number of years of schooling and the expected number of years of schooling. Its education index means that Niger is ranked at the bottom of all 189 countries with available data.
• Children with disabilities are also at increased risk of school violence and bullying, preventing the safe enjoyment of their right to education, says the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), School violence and bullying: Global status report, 2016.

However, despite political conflicts and extreme poverty, several organisations are working to improve education in Niger. One such organisation is Remember Niger Coalition (RNC) – an American charity that has stepped in to help children with disabilities attend school.

In 2019, the RNC partnered with the Maradi Association for People with Disabilities and the Hosanna Institute to establish the School of Hope, a school specifically designed for children with disabilities. The three-classroom building was completed in November 2019 with one class ready for use in October when the school year began with 20 kindergarten students.

According to Julie Frye, director of marketing and communications at RNC, this is the first phase in establishing a primary through high school complex for all children, including students with learning differences and unique needs. When complete, the school will have classes from kindergarten all the way to high school for over 600 students.

The design of the School of Hope classrooms takes into consideration issues of accessibility and barrier-free spaces such as handrails, wide doorways, and access ramps. Construction included the installation of four accessible toilets and hand-washing stations, customised to meet the special needs of the disabled community.

“School infrastructure is pivotal to our mission to create quality educational opportunities in Niger. In order for quality learning to take place, students and teachers must have facilities that are safe and adapted to their needs,” Frye tells IPS. The RNC has invested a total of $50,000 so far, she reveals.

DRC: Education curbs violent crimes against the disabled

In DRC, especially in Bukavu and other eastern towns and villages, there remains significantly high levels of violence against women and girls, who are often beaten, raped and tortured. Those who are disabled cannot run away, making them more vulnerable.

The solution, Namadamu says, lies in education for the disabled and joint financing by the government and private sector funders.

“If we invest $1 million, we can build a large school, hostels, toilets, vocational skill training,  special learning materials for the blind and other technologies like computer, TV camera etc. Such a facility can provide total, inclusive education to a large community. But where is that money? We need external investment,” says Namadamu.

Sheikh Manssour Bin Mussallam, the president of ERF, says that though there is space for private investors in inclusive education, it needs to happen in a more collective and cohesive way. It should not be fragmented, but confederated.

“Regardless of whether its private sectors or philanthropists or academic bodies, we need to act through coordination. The main issue or tragedy is that where there is regional lack of initiatives, organisations or individuals, they do not communicate. When they do communicate, they do not cooperate. And when they do cooperate, its not very efficient,” Mussallam tells IPS in a special interview.

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The post Inclusive Education Still Evades People with Disabilities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Chris Wellisz. Credit: Porter Gifford

By Chris Wellisz
WASHINGTON DC, Jan 29 2020 (IPS)

Growing up in New York City in the 1970s, Edward Glaeser saw a great metropolis in decline. Crime was soaring. Garbage piled up on sidewalks as striking sanitation workers walked off the job. The city teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.

By the mid-1980s, it was clear that New York would bounce back. But it could still be a scary place; there was a triple homicide across the street from his school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Glaeser was nevertheless captivated by New York’s bustling street life and spent hours roaming its neighborhoods.

“It was both wonderful and terrifying, and it was hard not to be obsessed by it,” Glaeser recalls in an interview at his office at Harvard University.

Today, that sense of wonder still permeates Glaeser’s work as an urban economist. He deploys the economist’s theoretical tool kit to explore questions inspired by his youth in New York.

Why do some cities fail while others flourish? What accounts for sky-high housing costs in San Francisco? How does the growth of cities differ in rich and poor countries?

“I have always thought of myself as fundamentally a curious child,” Glaeser, 52, says. Rather than “pushing well-established literature forward,” he seeks to comprehend “something that I really don’t understand when I start out.”

While still a graduate student at the University of Chicago, Glaeser made his mark as a theorist of the benefits of agglomeration—the idea that dense and diverse cities are hothouses of innovation, energy, and creativity that fuel economic growth.

In the years since, his work has ranged across a breathtaking variety of subjects, from rent control and real estate bubbles to property rights, civil disobedience, and carbon emissions.

“For a couple decades now, Ed has been the leading thinker about the economics of place,” says Lawrence Summers, a Harvard professor who served as director of the National Economic Council under US President Barack Obama. “And the economics of urban areas are increasingly being seen as central to broad economic concerns.”

Glaeser and Summers are collaborating on a study of the hardening divide between well-educated, affluent coastal regions of the United States and islands of economic stagnation in what they call the “eastern heartland,” the interior states east of the Mississippi River.

There, in cities like Flint, Michigan, the proportion of prime-age men who aren’t working has been rising—along with rates of opioid addiction, disability, and mortality.

How can policy help? Traditionally, economists have been skeptical of the value of place-based policies like enterprise zones that offer tax breaks to investors, saying it is better to help people, not places.

People, they assumed, would move to where the jobs were. But labor mobility has declined in recent decades, partly because of high housing costs, partly because demand for relatively unskilled factory work has diminished.

Breaking with economic orthodoxy, Glaeser and Summers say that the federal government should tailor pro-employment measures, such as reducing the payroll tax or increasing tax credits to low earners, to fit the needs of economically distressed areas such as West Virginia. They also make the case for boosting investment in education.

As a Chicago-trained economist, Glaeser is a strong believer in the magic of free markets and opposes measures that distort incentives. “I have always been against spatial redistribution, taking from rich areas and giving to poor areas,” he says. “That doesn’t mean that you want the same policies everywhere.”

Urban economics seemed like a natural pursuit for Glaeser. His German-born father, Ludwig, was an architect who taught him how the built environment shapes people’s lives. His mother, Elizabeth, was an asset manager who introduced him to economics. Glaeser recalls how she used the example of competing cobblers to explain marginal cost pricing.

“I remember thinking what an amazing and fascinating thing it is to think about the impact of competition,” he says. He was 10 years old.

In high school, Glaeser excelled at history and mathematics. As a Princeton University undergraduate, he considered majoring in political science before choosing economics, seeing it as a path to Wall Street.

But dreams of a career in finance ended with the stock market crash of 1987, just as he started job interviews. So he opted for graduate school, because “it didn’t seem like I was cutting off many options,” he says.

“Then I got to Chicago, and that was when I really fell in love with economics.”

Glaeser keeps a framed photograph of himself with Gary Becker, the Chicago economist and Nobel prize laureate. Becker taught him that the discipline’s conceptual tools could be used to explore topics that had once been the domain of fields like sociology or anthropology—topics like racial discrimination, fertility, and the family.

“It was that sense of the creative side of economics that could work on a virtually unlimited canvas and try to make sense of any problem that you thought was important—that was the part that was so exciting to me,” Glaeser says.

At the time, Chicago economists Robert Lucas and Paul Romer were developing the so-called endogenous growth theory, which focused on the role of innovation and the exchange of ideas in economic development.

As Glaeser recalls it, Lucas pointed to cities as places where knowledge spillovers occur—meaning people can benefit from other people’s ideas without paying for them. Think of a city like Detroit early last century, where Henry Ford used his experience as chief engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company to start his automobile business.

That concept inspired a groundbreaking 1992 paper, “Growth in Cities.” Glaeser and three co-authors set out to use cities as a laboratory in which to test the new growth theories. Using 30 years of data covering 170 US cities, they found that local competition and diversity, rather than specialization, are the prime motors of urban growth.

The paper instantly made Glaeser a star and earned him a job offer from Harvard.

Glaeser “showed that urban variety, not specialization in one particular thing, was a big driver of employment growth,” says Joseph Gyourko, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and a longtime collaborator. “It was Ed’s first really well-cited article, so it did start him on his path.”

Gyourko and Glaeser started working together in the early 2000s, when Glaeser took a year’s sabbatical at Penn. They wondered why some cities, such as Detroit, declined so slowly, and why so many people stayed instead of moving elsewhere. They hit upon a simple answer: housing is durable, and as cities slump, it becomes cheaper to live there.

That insight prompted a related question: Why is housing so much more expensive than the cost of construction in cities like New York and Boston? The answer: land-use restrictions limit density, curbing the supply of housing and driving up prices. It was basic economics, yet until then, urban economists hadn’t focused on the role of regulation.

Glaeser argues that excessive regulation is destructive of the very essence of urban life—density. Cities thrive on the creativity that occurs when people living cheek by jowl exchange ideas and know-how. Sunbelt cities like Houston have grown because an easy regulatory environment keeps housing inexpensive.

To economists like Glaeser, building and zoning regulations are a tax on development. Some level of tax makes economic sense, because construction imposes costs on residents in the form of noise, congestion, and pollution.

But overly stringent regulation, often pushed by residents who want to keep out newcomers and protect their property values, can make housing unaffordable for most people.

Glaeser is similarly skeptical of historic preservation rules, to the dismay of followers of Jane Jacobs, the legendary critic of urban-renewal projects who celebrated the lively street life of New York’s old ethnic neighborhoods.

Glaeser is a big Jacobs fan—he owns an autographed copy of her 1961 classic, The Death and Life of Great American Cities—but argues that her efforts to oppose development in Greenwich Village were at odds with her support for low-income housing.

“I believe that many of our oldest buildings are treasures,” he says. “But don’t simultaneously pretend that that’s a route toward affordability. Affordability is created by mass-produced cheap housing or mass-produced cheap commercial space. And you might not like it aesthetically, but that is the affordable route.”

In 2000, Glaeser published “Consumer City,” a paper he wrote with Jed Kolko and Albert Saiz. In it, he took the concept of agglomeration a step further, arguing that people are drawn not only to the opportunities that cities offer, but also to amenities such as theaters, museums, and restaurants.

“We know that cities can attract the disproportionately young and innovative,” says Richard Florida, a professor of urban studies at the University of Toronto. “Ed was identifying the factors driving that, this whole idea that cities are not only places of production, but places of consumption.”

Glaeser laments policies such as the mortgage interest deduction, which encourages people to buy homes rather than rent apartments; highway subsidies, which make it easier to drive to the suburbs; and a school system that disadvantages inner-city students.

Such policies, he argues, not only are antiurban but also contribute to climate change, because city dwellers, who live in smaller homes and use mass transit, consume less electricity and gasoline than their suburban counterparts.

Surprisingly, he and his wife, Nancy, who have three children, decided to move to the suburbs of Boston several years ago. To Glaeser, it was a perfectly rational decision: the suburbs offer more living space, better schools, and a reasonably fast commute.

Already well known in academia, Glaeser started to reach a broader audience with the publication in 2011 of his bestselling book, Triumph of the City, a lively study of urbanization from ancient Baghdad to modern Bangalore.

His eloquence and enthusiasm make him a sought-after speaker at academic forums and TED Talks. Invariably, he is impeccably attired in well-pressed suits and preaches the gospel of urbanization in crisp, rapid-fire sentences.

Despite his celebrity, he takes teaching seriously. Rebecca Diamond, who attended his advising sessions as a graduate student, said he was generous with his time. “He taught me perspective and not to get too stuck in the weeds,” says Diamond, who now teaches at Stanford University and stays in touch with Glaeser.

Developing-world cities are his latest passion. True to form, he sees them as relatively uncharted territory, neglected both by urban economists, who focus on advanced-economy cities, and development economists, who concentrate on rural areas. They are also growing fast, and their physical and institutional infrastructure are works in progress, so economists’ policy advice can have an impact.

“The ability of economists to make a difference by getting engaged is just very large,” he says. “So, I think it is the new frontier.”

It also takes him to interesting places. His latest research project, with Nava Ashraf and Alexia Delfino of the London School of Economics, took him to the markets of Lusaka, Zambia, to study barriers to female entrepreneurship.

They found women are more likely to go into business if the rule of law is strong enough to help overcome inherently unequal relations with men.

Like Jane Jacobs, Glaeser is big believer in observing what he sees around him. “You don’t really understand a city until you’ve actually walked in the streets,” Glaeser says.

“That’s what makes Ed a first rate applied theorist,” says Gyourko. “You’ve got to get your hands messy in the data. Sometimes data is just walking around.”

While researching Triumph of the City, Glaeser explored places like Mumbai’s Dharavi quarter, which was a “completely magical experience.” Among the world’s most densely populated places, Dharavi hums with entrepreneurial energy, with potters, tailors, and other craftsmen working side by side in cramped, ill-lit quarters.

At the same time, unpaved streets, polluted air, and open sewers are reminders of the downsides of density. But Glaeser doesn’t bemoan the poverty of such places; on the contrary, he says cities attract the poor precisely because they offer opportunity. For the developing world, urbanization is the best path to prosperity.

“For all of their problems, amazing things are happening in India and sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America,” Glaeser says. “And things obviously don’t always go the right direction, but cities have been working miracles of collaboration for thousands of years, and whenever I go to a developing-world city, it is obvious to me that the age of miracles is not over.”

Opinions expressed in articles and other materials are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect IMF policy.

The post Urbanization as a Path to Prosperity appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: KUNDA DIXIT

By Kunda Dixit
ABU DHABI, Jan 29 2020 (IPS)

The increased frequency of climate-induced weather extremes and public opinion pressure are forcing even major fossil fuel exporting countries in West Asia to make a big push towards renewable energy.

In January alone, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) hosted the Gulf Intelligence UAE Energy Forum, the World Future Energy Summit, the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week and a Future Sustainability Summit. February onwards, Dubai will have the International Conference on Renewable and Sustainable Energy, International Conference on Green Energy and Environmental Technology, with a Green Week and a Congress on Biofuels and Bioenergy later this year.

The UAE is the world’s 7th largest exporter of crude oil, with 5.5% of market share, but is promoting itself as a low-carbon country. Masdar City, a model for sustainable urban living is coming up outside Abu Dhabi which is designed by Foster and Partners architects.

A 10MW solar farm outside the city provides solar power for the office buildings, which includes the regional headquarters of Siemens and IRENA (the International Renewable Energy Agency). Oil industry conclaves that used to focus on global price trends, prospecting and new oil fields now have plenary panels on solar and wind.

“Rising energy needs … climate change pressures and technological innovation mean that national oil companies must gravitate towards renewables for longer-term competitiveness and sustainability.”

Raoul Restucci, Managing Director of Petroleum Development Oman

“We are serious about energy security, and we have a strategy for an energy mix that includes renewables,” said Suhail bin Mohammed Faraj Faris Al Mazrouei, UAE Minister of Energy and Industry at the opening of the UAE Energy Forum earlier this month. That decarbonisation plan would mean the country by 2050 will be producing 38% of its energy from gas, 44% from renewables, 6% from nuclear and the use of clean coal will drop to 12%.

In the rest of the oil-rich Gulf region, petroleum-based energy will drop from the current 91% to 41%, and renewables will go up from 9% today to 59% .

Of the UAE’s 10 million population, 90% are expatriates and the country’s per capita carbon footprint is 23 tons per year. Although a low carbon trajectory would reduce total emissions, the UAE will remain a major exporter of fossil fuels into the future.

Even so, the writing was on the wall in Abu Dhabi throughout January – conference delegates felt there is no option but to move from oil to more a more efficient fossil fuel like gas, and promote utility scale solar and wind.

Even oil industry executives called for a green approach. Raoul Restucci, Managing Director of Petroleum Development Oman says: “Rising energy needs … climate change pressures and technological innovation mean that national oil companies must gravitate towards renewables for longer-term competitiveness and sustainability.”

This year, Oman is commissioning a 100MW solar farm. Saudi Arabia is turning into ‘Solar Arabia’ by integrating Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) with its existing thermal plants to generate nearly 2GW. It is adding 300MW solar photovoltaic and a 400MW wind project, and is thinking big: generate 200GW of solar power by 2030.

 

Credit: KUNDA DIXIT

 

The UAE itself is aiming to cut CO2 emissions by 70% with Dubai installing the largest single-site solar park in the world to produce 1,000MW, which will be upgraded to 5,000MW in the next ten years. Another CSP plant will generate electricity 700MW even after dark with molten salt storage. Elsewhere, solar plants balance the fluctuation in generation by pumping water to hydropower dams, releasing the water through turbines at night.

“However much we shift to renewables from transportation or electricity, we will still have to rely on oil and gas because we have to balance the baseload at night,” explains Jan Zschommler of the DNV GL, the Norway-based sustainability consultant group.

Projections show that although oil will supply 17% of the energy around the world in 2050, petroleum gas will be the primary energy source from the mid-2020s and in the next 20 years there will be a shift to non-fossil biogas.

The cost of solar photovoltaic panels has dropped by more than 90% in the past ten years, and the price of lithium ion batteries have dropped by 80% and onshore wind turbines by 75% in the same period. By 2025, it will be cheaper to build and run electric cars than a petrol vehicle.

However, even if half of all the cars in the world are electric, the demand of oil and gas will grow into the near future. Says Nobuo Tanaka of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation: “Peak oil will not happen before 2040 because even if light vehicles go electric there will be increased demand from aviation, ships and trucks as well as the petrochemical industry. That may be good news for the Middle East, but it’s bad news for the planet.”

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

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Excerpt:

However, it will be exporting fossil fuels to meet growing Asian demand for the foreseeable future

The post Oil-rich Gulf Turns to Renewable Energy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Sudan Football Association names Frenchman Hubert Velud as their new coach to replace Zdravko Logarusic.

The Government of Kenya and the UN Kenya team with their hosts on the roof of the LinkedIn HQ in San Francisco on 21 Jan 2019. Credit: UN

By Dr. Temina Madon and Radhika Shah
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 29 2020 (IPS)

One year ago, the UN began implementing reforms meant to make it more effective in delivering on sustainable development. Now, with the start of 2020, the global body has declared this as the “decade of action” to turn the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into a living reality for all humanity. But what does this look like, on the ground?

In countries like Kenya, there is widespread belief that the traditional approaches to economic growth are not enough to achieve the SDGs. Fortunately there are signs that the UN is embracing the disruptive innovation that is needed, across the development landscape, to transform the lives of people around the world. At the African Diaspora Investment Symposium held this month in Silicon Valley, USA we saw the UN, government, and private sector leaders engaged in insightful dialogue on how businesses can partner with the public sector to contribute to Africa’s development.

A team led by ICT Minister Joe Mucheru from the Government of Kenya and Siddharth Chatterjee, the UN Resident Coordinator in Kenya, spoke at the symposium. The team also met with several Silicon Valley companies and technology startups, and participated in round tables with local thought leaders at academic institutions like Stanford University and UC Berkeley.

Our interaction with government representatives and the UN team in Kenya has demonstrated an encouraging shift, especially in mobilising public-private partnerships that can transform the economy, rather than simply facilitating transactions.

In Kenya there is a noticeable, deliberate push for public-private partnerships around the SDGs as well as national priorities like the “Big Four” Development Agenda. Working hand-in-glove with the Government, the UN Country Team is branding and presenting Kenya’s national goals as an important and transparent opportunity for the business sector. They are a way to direct private investment toward activities that offer both corporate returns and sustainable development wins.

The trend towards leveraging private sector resources for Kenya’s national priorities, including catalyzing unique win-win partnerships with companies from across the world, is a welcome trajectory. In an era of declining public sector contributions to the global body, UN experts have been pushing for innovation to bridge the gap in investments needed to achieve the SDGs. This requires a mind-set shift: a focus on enabling companies to incorporate the development goals into their core business practices and strategies. And the UN’s leadership is critical in helping to ensure that corporate interests are focused where they will reduce inequality and generate positive social returns.

A demonstration of this new direction is the recent collaboration agreement between the Government of Kenya, the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at the University of California, Berkeley, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the United Nations. This initiative will build technology-intensive partnerships that bring new financing, data, and innovations into Kenya’s Big Four Agenda. The collaboration will be implemented through Kenya’s SDG Accelerator Lab — a Government-UN platform for developing, testing, and scaling novel approaches to development.

We are excited about the potential of this initiative to deliver for the citizens of Kenya. For instance, the majority of maternal and newborn deaths are preventable with relatively simple and inexpensive tools, but too often the right life-saving interventions are unavailable where and when they are most needed. Part of the solution may lie in new technologies, like data analytics systems that integrate routine health administrative data with satellite imagery and machine learning.

These systems can, for example, help community health workers to prioritize and triage care and resources to those most at risk. Through partnerships with the companies that build these technologies, Kenya can begin to realize the benefits of the fourth industrial revolution, bringing critical information and insights where they are urgently needed.

Credit must be given to the Kenya government for being at the forefront of technology adoption. Its collaboration with UN in Kenya, a partnership characterized by deep trust and calculated risk-taking, is providing a template for other developing countries seeking to tap technology for sustainable development.

Kenya already stands out as a global frontrunner in the sphere of technological innovation, through such products as the MPesa mobile money transfer service, which has transformed lives — especially for those Kenyans who have for years been kept out of conventional banking. Kenya is also home to profound social innovations, including the use of randomized controlled trials to understand the effectiveness of development programs and products (an innovation merited with the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics).

Of course innovation is not a silver bullet, and achieving the SDGs will require careful thinking about how new technologies is financed, delivered, and regulated — especially if we are to advance the welfare of citizens who feel they are still stuck in neutral. However, if used in a thoughtful manner, technology holds incredible potential to transform governments, development partners, and businesses. Through platforms like the Kenya SDG Accelerator Lab, there are opportunities to harness its full and transformative potential, in ways that leave no one behind.

It is encouraging that the UN and Government are together stewarding the involvement of technology providers, and the broader private sector, in Kenya’s development agenda.

We concur with the observation of UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed that there is no time for an incremental approach, and success will rest “first and foremost on a shift in UN’s organizational culture and mind-sets at all levels”.

We see the need for a similar mind-set shift in Silicon Valley. By 2050, one in four people will live on the African continent. In some sense, the future lies in Africa; and the tech sector’s investment must begin to align with this reality.

Temina Madon @tmadon is an Advisor to the Kenya UN SDG Innovation Lab and was founding Executive Director of CEGA at UC Berkeley. She is also a member of South Park Commons, a technology community in Silicon Valley.

Radhika Shah @radhikashahsv is an Advisor to the Kenya UN SDG Innovation Lab and is Co-President, Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs. She is a board member of CEGA at UC Berkeley.

The post Kenya Leapfrogging on 4 SDGS- Building Bridges Between Silicon Savannah and Silicon Valley appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Ivory Coast striker Wilfried Bony is looking forward to playing competitive football again as he joins Saudi Arabian club Al-Ittihad.

Trezeguet's dramatic injury-time winner puts Aston Villa into the Carabao Cup final with victory over Leicester City.

Data by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), shows that only 35 percent of students studying STEM in higher education globally are women. At primary and lower secondary levels, less than half of schools in sub-Saharan Africa have no electricity, computers or even access to the internet. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
DJIBOUTI CITY, Jan 28 2020 (IPS)

Dr. Anne-Maria Brennan loved science as a young girl. But instead of encouraging her, those around her made attempts to steer her in the “right direction”. “The right direction was in nursing, teaching and secretarial courses. I was told that girls do not study physics,” she tells IPS.

“These voices were so loud that I seriously considered becoming a music teacher. But then someone sensibly told me that I could become a scientist and an amateur musician, but there was nothing like an amateur scientist who was also a professional musician,” she says.

That was in the seventies, today Brennan is the vice-president of Science Engagement at the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation in the United Kingdom.

Brennan previously served as an associate professor in Bioscience and Forensic Biology, at the School of Applied Science, London South Bank University.

“It turns out that girls could in fact study physics, or mathematics, science, technology and engineering,” she quips.

It has been five decades since Brennan swam against the tide, pursuing a career in science. But data by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), shows that globally only 35 percent of students studying Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – or STEM – in higher education are women. Further confirming that girls are still being steered towards domestic and caring career paths.

“Gender balance in enrolment as well as inclusivity in both participation and achievements in STEM education remains a global south challenge,” Professor Kalu Mosto Onuoha, President of the Nigerian Academy of Science, tells IPS.

“Education systems will never be balanced and inclusive when half of the population is not participating at per with their counterparts in STEM education,” he adds.

Similar sentiments were shared by other delegates participating in the 3rd International Summit on Balanced and Inclusive Education currently being held in Djibouti City, Djibouti. Organised by the Education Relief Foundation (ERF), over 200 delegates and government representatives from over 35 countries are currently in the Horn of Africa nation where state leaders are expected to sign a Universal Declaration on universal inclusive education.

• Unfortunately, low female representation in STEM education is a narrative that knows no boundaries. According to UNESCO, Sweden has the highest share of women graduates from STEM programmes among Nordic countries, but STEM attainment among female students in Sweden stands at 16 percent, compared to male students at 47 percent.

Brennan affirms that the numbers are similarly low in the United Kingdom but notes some improvements in the fields of general practice and dentistry, where women have taken a lead.

She says there are few women in surgery and even fewer in engineering because men in these fields are considered unfriendly and the sectors too involved and dirty.

“These wide gender gaps in developing countries are purely out of choice. Students in these countries are making the choice to pursue other interests. In developing countries the choice is made for our students by a patriarchal culture and through socialisation,” says Onuoha.

He says that these inequalities are first rooted in the exclusion and marginalisation of girls in education enrolment.

“Girls who eventually made it to school were encouraged to undertake feminine subjects like teaching. They were socialised to believe that they could only be good mothers if they took on lighter subjects,” Onuoha expounds.

• But the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020 indicates that these inequalities are not limited to the lagging behind of girls at the enrolment level.
• In countries such as the Southern Africa nation of Namibia where girls outpace boys in school enrolment at all levels, the gap widens in STEM education. Here, about eight percent of female students have attained STEM education, compared to 21 percent of male students.
• Nonetheless, the report shines a spotlight on countries with impressive levels of STEM education uptake among their female students.
• In Mauritania, for instance, attainment in STEM is at 29 percent among female students, and 31 percent among male students. In the South Asian nation of Myanmar, female students outpace male students in attainment of STEM education.
• A few other countries such as the Arab country of Oman are slowly and surely closing the gender gap in STEM uptake, with 41 percent of female students and 55 percent of male students.

“In developing countries there are many concerted efforts to address the first part of  the problem, even though painfully slowly, we are slowly closing gender gaps in education enrolment, retention and in some cases, achievements,” Professor Mahouton Norbert Hounkonnou, from the Benin National Academy of Science, Arts and Letters, tells IPS.

Hounkonnou is a full professor of mathematics and physics, and called for the demystification of sciences. “STEM education is taught as if only a few people are meant to understand but science and math is for all of us. Everybody does math on a daily basis without even knowing it.”

Hounkonnou says that balanced and inclusive education systems call for an overhaul in what is taught in STEMs, who teaches it and how it is taught. “Learners love to be engaged. Our classrooms must become more interactive. We also need a gender component, currently lacking, in many of our educational interventions,” he adds.

He called for investment in infrastructure and learning materials to improve the environment in which STEM education is provided.

U.N. research shows that countries in the sub-Sahara Africa face the biggest challenges. At the primary and lower secondary levels, less than half of schools have access to electricity, computers and internet.

“This forum provides an opportunity for us to define the shape a balanced and inclusive STEM education system should take, and make concerted efforts to build that system. It will take financial and technical resources, including the training of teachers to better interact with female learners,” says Hounkonnou.

Related Articles

• **UPDATE** African Nations Caught in Conflict Re-commit to Inclusive Education
• Balanced and Gender-Inclusive Education is a Smart Investment

The post Addressing the Low Female Representation in STEM Education appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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By PRESS RELEASE
Jan 28 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The number of people displaced in Burkina Faso increased tenfold last year to over 560,000. The figure is predicted to skyrocket to 900,000 people by April as horrific violence continues to force families from their homes.

“Burkina Faso needs more than bullets and bombs. Military engagement alone is failing to protect vulnerable communities. Donors supporting military efforts to quell the extreme violence have not yet responded to the enormous humanitarian needs with equal emphasis,” warned NRC’s Secretary General Jan Egeland, who is visiting the country this week.

France and states from Africa’s Sahel region have increased the predominantly security-oriented response to the indiscriminate violence of many armed militants in northern and eastern Burkina Faso. But some of the large-scale military operations against armed groups have had dire humanitarian consequences, forcing communities to flee their homes in thousands.

The country is now on the brink of a hunger crisis. A staggering one in ten people in Burkina Faso will need food assistance by June. The violence is also storing up problems for future generations, as some armed groups deliberately target schools and teachers, leaving over 330,000 children without access to education.

“In the northern town of Barsalogho, I heard horrific stories from some of the 70,000 people who recently fled to camps where there is an acute need of water, sanitation, food and education. Insecurity and a lack of funding is severely hampering our work. Donor governments have not understood that this is the world’s fastest-growing displacement crisis. We still see a small aid response in a huge human catastrophe,” Egeland said.

Last year, less than half of the money required to meet humanitarian needs was received.

“We need to urgently scale up our presence to provide the assistance and protection these families deserve. Many told me they can’t sleep at night for fear of new attacks. Most are single mother led households, as their husbands and fathers are often dead or have fled from the targeted killings of men,” said Egeland.

The international community, alongside regional actors supporting the military response, must also acknowledge the root causes of the conflict that must be addressed, and for dialogue to be re-established between communities and authorities.

“I don’t understand what has happened, we used to talk to each other,” said Mariam, a displaced mother in Barsalogho. “If there were tensions between communities, leaders would have discussed according to our tradition. Now no one talks anymore, there are walls between us.”

NOTE TO EDITORS:

Photos and B-roll including video interviews with affected people can be downloaded for free use.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

• Tom Peyre-Costa, Regional Media Adviser in Central and West Africa.
Email: tom.peyrecosta@nrc.no Skype: tom.peyre-costa
Whatsapp: +33658518391 Phone: +22665524421
• NRC media hotline phone +47 90 56 23 29, email media@nrc.no

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Burkina Faso was the fastest growing displacement crisis of all humanitarian crises last year, in terms of the percentage increase in displacement. The number of displaced increased with more than 1,000% from about 50,000 at the beginning of the year to 560,000 in December 2019.
• The number of deaths in Burkina Faso due to attacks jumped from about 80 in 2016 to over 1,800 last year.
• 95 health centres were closed and 135 functioning at minimum capacity as of the end of 2019, jeopardizing the access of nearly 1.2 million people to basic healthcare.
• 330,000 children are affected by the closure of 2,087 schools due to the insecurity and need urgent education assistance.
• Not even half (48%) of the funds needed in 2019 for the humanitarian response were allocated. Required: US$187 million. Funded: US$89 million. The humanitarian community is requesting US$295 million for 2020.

The post Burkina Faso shattered by world’s fastest growing displacement crisis appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Vladimir Popov and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
BERLIN and KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 28 2020 (IPS)

One mercantilist view is that exchange rate undervaluation – e.g., via accumulation of foreign exchange reserves in China’s case – is ‘industrial policy’ to promote export-led growth, benefiting producers of exports while discouraging imports.

Taxes and subsidies are tools of selective industrial policy for which an efficient and clean bureaucracy is needed to successfully use them for growth-promotion.

Vladimir Popov

By discouraging imports and promoting exports, exchange rate undervaluation enhances cost competitiveness, e.g., by keeping wage costs down. Currency undervaluation is equivalent to import duties on all tradables and export subsidies.

But exchange rate undervaluation automatically boosts all production and export of ‘tradables’ without being selective. It is a blunt, non-selective instrument that can even work in highly corrupt environments or where the requisite competence is not available. Such promotion of export production avoids potentially corruptible, discretionary selection of beneficiaries.

Forex reserves accumulation as industrial policy?
Polterovich and Popov’s cross-country regressions for 1960-1999 suggest that foreign exchange (forex) reserves accumulation contributes to developing countries’ economic growth by increasing both capital productivity and the investment/GDP ratio.

For them, forex reserves accumulation causes expansionary real exchange rate (RER) undervaluation in the short run. RER undervaluation enables taking greater advantage of export externalities, boosting export-led growth. Accumulating forex reserves attracts foreign direct investment by raising government credibility and lowering dollar costs. Undervaluation may even improve wealth and social welfare.

Hence, they argue that forex reserves accumulation has been growth promoting by enabling exchange rate underpricing. In fact, however, there has been considerable variation in both exchange rate underpricing and forex reserves accumulation over the last four decades.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

If a country manages to become internationally competitive – whether via higher productivity, lower wages, or a weak exchange rate – it will export more than it imports, developing a trade surplus. If this surplus is kept as forex reserves, the exchange rate depreciates and the trade surplus may grow.

The decade-long strong yen (endaka) period after the 1985 Plaza Accord may thus have helped end the post-war Japanese economic miracle. Arguably, the endaka contributed to its financial ‘big bang’ and subsequent stagnation in the 1990s and its lacklustre growth thereafter.

By contrast, Chancellor Helmut Kohl avoided a similar fate for the Deutschemark by ‘hiding’ behind the common European monetary zone currency (euro) and lowering the national wage rate by accelerating ‘reunification’ of West with East Germany.

Capital flowing uphill
Countries achieving high growth have mostly been net creditors, not net borrowers, i.e., they have saved more than they have invested. Even controlling for level of development, the relationship between the current account surplus and growth remains positive and significant.

This high correlation between domestic savings and investment, even in economies with relatively open capital accounts, is contrary to the popular presumption that capital would flow to countries with better investment climates and rates of return to investment.

High domestic savings rates have often, but not always supported high investment rates, which usually, if not always, leads to faster growth.

Krugman noted that although there were at least three large waves of capital flows to developing countries around the turn of the century, but none had led to growth miracles: “… the point is that there’s no striking evidence that capital flows have been a major source of economic success.”

Hence, many developing countries’ apparent policy preference to rely on external financing is ironic as economists puzzle over why ‘capital is flowing uphill’, from developing to developed countries.

As protectionist policies have been increasingly constrained by developed countries promoted free trade mantra, exchange rate undervaluation is one of the few available tools for promoting catch-up development.

The main analytical argument against exchange rate undervaluation is “if all developing countries were to pursue this policy, there would be a ‘beggar thy neighbour’ ‘race to the bottom’”.

Undervaluation without reserves accumulation?
Many in developing countries consider the policy of forex reserves accumulation to be wrongheaded. Forex reserves are a share of national savings not invested in the national economy as they are exported out of the country for low returns, usually deployed to finance consumption and investment elsewhere.

Forex reserves generally yield low returns if invested in safe instruments, such as US Treasury bills and similar debt obligations of other Western governments. Investing these savings inside the country would yield higher returns.

The post Exchange Rate Undervaluation for Export-Led Growth Promotion appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Amina Mohamed
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 28 2020 (IPS)

Increasingly, the ability of multilateralism to address contemporary global issues such as climate change and international trade is being questioned. In the case of international trade, WTO Members have thus far not been able to conclude the Doha Round, which was launched in November 2001. The Round was supposed to have been concluded on 1 January 2005, but it has been beset by persistent differences among the WTO Members. Whereas most developing countries believe that the Round is still active and have called for the fulfilment of all Doha mandates, several developed countries are of the view that the Round has run its full course and overtaken by developments in the global economy. They note that three out of the ten top economies in the world are developing countries – Brazil, China and India – and that several developing economies are also competitive in certain sectors of the global economy and that by granting significant flexibilities in the negotiations to these competitive developing economies, the Round’s mandates are no longer valid and that differentiation among developing countries should be part of the broader on-going discussion on WTO reform.

The stalemate in the Doha negotiations has prompted countries to look at alternative ways to liberalize trade and investment for the benefit of their businesses and consumers, including negotiating plurilateral agreements at the WTO among a subset of WTO Members and negotiating bilateral and regional trade agreements. In the last five years, concluded bilateral and regional trade agreements include the United States-Mexico and Canada Free Trade Agreement, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the European Union and Canada, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership between eleven Pacific-rim countries, including Australia, Canada and Japan, the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic RelationsPlus between Australia, New Zealand and the fourteen Pacific Island Countries and European Union and MERCOSUR Free Trade Agreement. The scope of these agreements goes beyond the current WTO Agreement and addresses issues of importance to businesses such as electronic commerce, competition policy and investment as well as labour rights and the protection of the environment.

African countries have also not been idle and have recently concluded the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), which is expected to create a market of 1.2 billion people with a gross domestic product of USD2.5 trillion. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa estimates that trade among African countries, which is currently around 15 per cent, can easily be doubled if the current overall average tariffs of 6.1 per cent are eliminated. The figure is projected to be even higher if the removal of tariffs is accompanied by the elimination of non-tariff barriers on intra-African trade. With Africa’s population expected to exceed 2 billion by 2050, it is envisaged that it would be a magnet for foreign direct investment by leading multinational companies. The World Economic Forum estimates that the AfCFTA will generate USD4 trillion for investments and commercial transactions of goods and services on the continent.

Dr Amina Mohamed. Photo: Ministry Files

Notwithstanding the immense opportunities the AfCFTA will bring to the African continent, African countries should not turn their backs on the rules-based multilateral trading system, which has contributed significantly to the expansion of the global economy and in the process lifted several millions of people out of absolute poverty. Between 1948 and 2019, world trade grew from USD58.5 billion to almost USD20 trillion and it is estimated that more than 700 million people have been lifted out of absolute poverty with much of that happening in China and India. African countries should show determination and work closely with the leading WTOMembers, including the United States, the European Union, China, Brazil and India to strengthen the organization for the benefit of all countries, particularly African and least developed countries which have been operating at theperiphery of the multilateral trading system.

There is agreement among all WTO Members that the WTO Agreement needs updating considering that the current Agreement entered into force in January 1995. So much has happened in the intervening period and WTO rules need to reflect contemporary trends in the global economy if it is to remain relevant. The task of reforming the WTO should not be left to a few countries. All countries have a stake in a well-functioning multilateral trading system and collective engagement will ensure that all spectrums of views are considered in the design and implementation of new and effective multilateral trade rules. The benefits from the AfCFTA would be far greater if alongside regional liberalization, there is also multilateral liberalization, especially considering that Africa’s largest trading partners are the European Union, China and the United States. The two approaches to liberalization are not mutually exclusive and can complement each other as various studies have shown. African countries need not make a choice between the two approaches and should pursue both doggedly to achieve robust economic growth and sustainable development.

The world needs a reinforced rules-based multilateral trading system more than ever to confront the challenges of the 21stcentury. Bilateral and regional trade agreements cannot be a perfect substitute for the rules-based multilateral trading system, as issues such as trade distorting domestic support to the agriculture sector can only be effectively addressed at the multilateral level. These agreements, including the AfCFTA also tend to rely heavily on the WTO framework in many areas, including health and food safety and trade remedies. All WTO Members should work together to preserve and strengthen this public good. Compromises will have to be made and the overarching reason why countries join the WTO in the first place should not be lost on them. Every country that is a WTO Member acknowledges the role trade can play in their national economies in creating jobs, attracting foreign direct investment and lifting standards of living. Protectionism imposes significant costs and countries should avoid going down that path. African countries have a role to play in breaking the impasse at the WTO and they should work intensively with other WTO Members to reform and strengthen the institution and the rules-based multilateral trading system, while they commence implementing the AfCFTA to boost trade and investment on the continent.

The writer is a Cabinet Secretary, Government of Kenya. She served until recently as Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Minister in charge also of international trade. She has occupied several top positions at the World Trade Organization, including as Chairperson of the General Council and the Nairobi Ministerial Conference in 2015.

The post Multilateralism Versus Regionalism: Which Path Should African Countries Pursue to Expand Trade and Investment Opportunities? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

People’s Friendship University of Russia

By Somar Wijayadasa
NEW YORK, Jan 28 2020 (IPS)

Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia – popularly known as RUDN (acronym from its Russian name Rossiysky Universitet Druzhby Narodov) – is a renowned, world-class educational and research institution in Moscow.

It celebrates its 60th Anniversary from 5-7 February culminating in a grand concert at the Kremlin Palace of Congress presided by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

In keeping with Russia’s socialist tradition of helping developing countries, Premier Nikita Khrushchev opened this University in 1960 – just less than half a century after the 1917 Russian revolution, and less than two decades after the World War II that ravaged the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) with a loss of over 27 million of its people.

Events of historical significance

By 1960, Russia was a thriving economy with marvels of industrialization, advances in science, technology and medicine, escapades into outer space, and basking in the glory of a Super Power.

Simultaneously, a mass decolonization was taking place liberating hundreds of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America – that desperately required qualified cadres to develop their countries. Russia stepped up to assist them – giving birth to the Peoples’ Friendship University.

Exponential growth

As a frequent visitor to the RUDN University since 1960’s, I have had the rare privilege of witnessing its radical transformation – the exponential growth of buildings, faculties, programs and Institutes, and its number of students.

In 1960, RUDN had 539 students from 59 countries in six faculties in different locations in Moscow. By 1964, it began to build a new campus to accommodate all faculties and students in one location – that has now grown into a mega-university.

When I defended my thesis in 1967, the dissertation committee consisted of seven eminent international jurists, chaired by Feodor Kozhevnikov, a former judge of the International Court of Justice. Even then – a high standard indeed.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was the first to recognize the high level of Degrees conferred by the Friendship University. With its well-recognized global rankings, Friendship University graduates with a Master’s Degree in any discipline could gain direct admission into PhD programs in Western Universities.

For example, I was admitted to the Hague Academy of International Law, and to PhD programs at the Vienna University, and the School of Law at the New York University purely on the grades of my Master’s Degree program but my workload and travel schedules at the UN disrupted my doctoral studies.

A mega-university

Today, the training of specialists at the RUDN University is carried out according to 472 programs of various levels of education, including 74 programs in foreign languages (English and Spanish) at the various faculties, institutes and academies of the University.

Among the phenomenal changes from my days in the 1960’s is that today you can follow many courses in the English medium. Regardless, all foreign students, after a year in Russia, speak fluent Russian.

RUDN has the best Russian language school in the world to teach Russian to foreigners. To date, its professors continue to teach Russian language to almost all foreign astronauts at the Cosmonaut Training Center named after Yuri Gagarin.

Another distinct improvement is the change in 1989 from a single all-inclusive 5-year Master’s Degree Program into a multi-tiered system of higher education.

Today, RUDN offers a variety of Bachelors, Masters, and Ph.D degrees in 76 disciplines. It has more than 30 Master’s programs in English and Spanish languages, and has over 113 joint Master’s and double diploma programs with famous universities of the world.

RUDN University has about 480 cooperation agreements with universities in more than 90 countries.

Somar Wijayadasa in Moscow, in 2014, with Prof Aslan Abashidze, Dean of the Law Faculty of the People’s Friendship University of Russia

Rector of RUDN University

At the helm of this astounding university is its dynamic Rector, Prof. Vladimir Mikhailovich Filippov, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, and an Academician of the Russian Academy of Education. It is a great honor to have Dr. Fillippov as the Rector as he is an alumni (1973) of the Friendship University – for the last 15 years.

He was the Minister of Education of the Russian Republic (1998–2004), and has won many academic awards. Active in educational matters in Russia and abroad, he Chairs several educational Committees of UNESCO in Paris.

Moscow Campus: A city within the City of Moscow

The RUDN campus is located in the South-West of Moscow – about 20 minutes from the Kremlin and Red Square. It occupies 50 hectares (125 acres) and consists of 27 academic and hostel buildings, sport facilities and stadiums, a clinic and a diagnostic center, hundreds of scientific laboratories, a library, an International Club, a shopping center and 32 multinational cafés – all resembling a cosmopolitan city within the city of Moscow.

According to RUDN, the current “enrollment of students at the Moscow campus and at its Sochi Institute are about 33.5 thousand internal and external students, post-graduate students, residents and interns from 157 countries of the world”.

On average, about 9000 students live in the Moscow campus. The approximate distribution of students by country and region are: Asia – 2324; Latin America – 565; Africa – 1289; Middle East – 861; CIS and Baltic countries – 3510; and Western Europe – 349 students.

Referring to the vast multicultural composition of its student body, Rector Filippov says “our students not only obtain a university degree to fulfill their professional ambitions, but also gain invaluable experience in dealing with different cultures, and broaden their social and cultural horizons”.

Today, the University employs 2,800 highly qualified faculty members, including more than 600 doctors of sciences and 1,400 candidates of science, and about 150 foreign teachers. One noteworthy tradition that continues to date is the assiduous dedication of its professors who strive to ensure that all students excel in their studies, and graduate as well qualified professionals.

Let Knowledge Unite Us

In keeping with its motto “scientia unescamus”, the University unites people of different nationalities by means of knowledge. In that spirit, every year, the University admits nearly 2000 students from over 150 countries. Currently, over 150,000 of its graduates, including over 6000 doctors of science (PhD’s) work in 180 countries around the world.

Among its prominent graduates are: Mahmoud Abbas, Chairman of the PLO; Michel Djotodia, President of Central African Republic; Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua: Hifikepunye Pohamba, Former President of Namibia; Bharrat Jagdeo, former President of Guyana; Porfirio Lobo Sosa, former President of Honduras; Yousuf Saleh Abbas, former Prime Minister of Chad; Karim Masimov, former Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, to name a few.

Its influential alumni include hundreds of ministers, judges, ambassadors, academicians, senior United Nations officials, and thousands of doctors and engineers and other professionals in hundreds of countries from Angola to Zimbabwe.

University graduates return to their countries – that have suffered for centuries under foreign rule and exploitation – to contribute not only for the scientific advancement of their countries but also to embark on their arduous struggle to win economic independence, develop their national economies, raise their cultural levels and identities, and achieve social progress.

That exemplifies Abraham Lincoln’s words “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next”.

A mini United Nations in Moscow

Having worked for 25 years in several organizations of the United Nations system – IAEA, FAO, UNESCO, WHO/UNAIDS – and most of my career representing these organizations at the UN Headquarters in New York, I can unhesitatingly vouch that the atmosphere in the Friendship University campus bears a resemblance to the United Nations in New York.

In 2014, my wife and I casually visited the University (as we always do when we are in Moscow) not realizing that the graduation ceremonies were in progress. The massive lobby of the main building was full of beaming graduating foreign students, their families, and Ambassadors of various countries.

That multi-national gathering – some dressed in their national costumes – and the jubilant atmosphere truly resembled a mini United Nations. As we were introduced to the gathering, many thronged around us asking questions about future employment prospects in UN Agencies.

The university has a cooperative and friendly attitude – one of respect and mutual assistance. Here everyone can make a «world tour» without leaving the campus. Traditions and customs, cuisines and garments, dancing and music – the whole world is in one Moscow street.

A beacon of hope for the world

Since 1960, RUDN has offered thousands of fully paid graduate scholarships in medicine, engineering, jurisprudence, and other sciences to provide vitally needed qualified cadres to develop those newly liberated nations. That is a magnanimous contribution – unprecedented in history.

As I pointed out earlier, over 150,000 RUDN graduates work all over the world, and in various organizations of the United Nations system. Each one of them – in their professions – prove the high standard of education they received, thereby, bringing enormous credit to Russia’s People’s Friendship University.

The golden axiom “education is the ultimate gift one can give a child” may have inspired Nelson Mandela to say “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.

*Somar Wijayadasa, a Law graduate of the Friendship University was a Faculty Member of the University of Sri Lanka (1967-1972); worked for IAEA and FAO (1973-1985): delegate of UNESCO to the UN General Assembly (1985-1995); and was the Representative of UNAIDS at the United Nations from 1995-2000.

The post Russia’s Prodigious Gift of Higher Education to the Developing World appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The world's fastest land animal was hunted into extinction in the country more than 70 years ago.