IRIS

HEALTH
HERP _ Iraq Health Enterprise Planning: Information Technology for the MOH for the Year 2005 and Beyond

RESOURCES
A new recruitment agency established for NGOs Business Against Corruption - A Framework for Action Guide to Equality in the Family in the Maghreb Guidelines for Gender-Based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Settings, IASC Taskforce on Gender in Humanitarian Assistance, 2005 Key List of Bibliographical Resources on Culture and Development USEFUL WEBSITE: Free Directory of 47,500 Development Organizations The International Poverty Centre (IPC)

Development e-Brief receives and comprises of material from various sources for its publication. Should you wish to refer to these sources/ sites directly, the list includes publications from: AVIVA, www.aviva.org ,AWID: www.awid.org , Democracy Digest: www.freedomhouse.org , Development Gateway: www.developmentgatway.org , Dignity: www.dignity.org , e-Civicus: www.civicus.org , Eldis: www.eldis.org , ESCWA: www.escwa.org.lb , GDB: www.developmentex.com , Global Knowledge Partnership: www.globalknowledge.org , IGTN: www.IGTN.org , ILO: www.ilo.org One World: www.oneworld.net , Siyanda: www.siyanda.org , The Daily Star: www.dailystar.com.lb , The Drum Beat: www.comminit.com , The Soul Beat: www.comminit.com , The World Bank: www.worldbank.org , UNDP: www.undp.org , Wicejilist: www.wicej.addr.com , WLP: www.learningpartnership.org

ECONOMY & TRADE

Abu Dhabi unveils $27 billion island tourism project
Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) unveiled a new public joint-stock company charged with developing a $27 billion project on Saadiyat Island, which will transform the 27-square-kilometer natural island just 500 meters offshore the United Arab Emirate's capital city into a strategic international tourism destination.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=3&article_id=23912

Ras al-Khaimah to build $5.44 billion resort
The Ras al-Khaimah Government and the PDSI Development Group have launched a $5.44 billion real-estate project that will include a mountain resort, wildlife sanctuary and marina. The two parties have already signed an agreement for a fifty-fifty joint venture on a freehold basis that is open to foreign investors.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=3&article_id=23910

Beirut should call in the IMF
The Lebanese government should seek the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to ensure that the economic reform plan is implemented, the president of the Association of Banks (ABL) in Lebanon said. Francois Bassil also stressed that Lebanese banks were willing to participate in any privatization program.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=3&article_id=23830

Oil revenues bring welcome rise in Arab development aid
Not only have oil revenues been the driving force of the regional economy over the past few years, but they have also fueled an increase in development assistance from multi-lateral Arab financial institutions. In 2001 the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) had disbursed a cumulative $3.1 billion of development finance
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=3&article_id=24011

EDUCATION
Alam Simsim - Egypt
Sesame Workshop collaborates with local producers, Egypt's First Lady, child development experts, educators, and psychologists to develop this educational curriculum in response to local needs. In addition to teaching a range of literacy, numeracy, cognitive and social interaction skills, Alam Simsim encourages children - especially girls - to be proud of who they are, appreciate different ways of life, and respect each other. Alam Simsim is also designed to help children learn about health and hygiene, the environment, and letters and numbers. A key strategy involves creating "a lively and friendly place where all children are always welcome." http://www.comminit.com/experiences/pds2006/experiences-3553.html

Sesame Stories (Sippuray Sumsum/ Hikayat Simsim) - Israel, Palestine & Jordan
This multimedia project presents messages of respect and understanding to young children in the Middle East. At its core is a TV programme that combines live action segments featuring Muppet characters with animation and mini-documentaries; the purpose is to provide a "window" into local culture, helping to humanize the other and promote pride and hope. Educational materials such as activity books, teachers' guides, home videos, posters, and public service announcements (PSAs) addressing parents were produced. The first Hebrew/Arabic bilingual interactive material was developed for the project and is available online, as are educational CD-Roms. http://www.comminit.com/experiences/pds2005/experiences-3451.html

The Educational Impact of "Rechov Sumsum/ Shara'a Simsim: A Sesame Street" Television Series to Promote Respect and Understanding among Children Living in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza
Designed to break down cultural stereotypes by familiarizing Israeli and Palestinian children with each other, Rechov Sumsum/Shara'a Simsim integrates educational messages within an entertaining, magazine-type format that includes animation, live-action documentaries, and studio segments. Researchers interviewed 275 preschoolers about their social and cultural judgments before the programme began, and then 4 months later.
http://www.comminit.com/evaluations/eval2005/evaluations-141.html

UN predicts 18 million new teachers needed to meet millennium goals
More than 18 million new teachers will be needed over the next nine years to meet a UN goal of providing primary education to all the world's children by 2015, a UN agency said. Developing nations have the greatest needs but are poorly equipped to fulfill them because of lack of money and qualified personnel.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=23988

GENDER
Bahraini women long for fairer laws
Bahraini women are battling a male-dominated society and powerful Islamists in their quest for reforms that would shift jurisdiction over family and women's affairs from Islamic to civil courts. One example is Majida, 32, whose 12-year marriage was annulled: She was deprived of her children and sent back to her family home following a decision by an Islamic court. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=23660

Gulf women enraged over Islamic ruling on strings-free marriage
An Islamic tribunal's ruling that allows Sunni men to marry without having to live with or financially support their wives has enraged Gulf women's rights activists who say Islamic marriage is unfair enough already. The Mecca-based Islamic Jurisprudence Assembly announced on April 12 that so-called Misyar marriage.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=23975

Iran opens stadiums to women
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iranian women can finally go to stadiums to watch sporting events, putting an unexpected end to a quarter-century ban. "It should be planned in a way that women are respected and are given the best places to watch national and important games. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=23924

Lebanese women will have their say
"In the first draft I called it [a word sometimes used by Beirut taxi drivers]. That word was cut. Then I named it 'Coco.'" Lina Khoury smiles mischievously. "They told me I couldn't use that name. 'Why not?' I asked. 'Because,' they said, 'you told us it refers to [a word often used by Beirut taxi drivers]. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=4&article_id=23661

Lebanese Ministry makes women prime targets for literacy courses
"I left school when I was only 11," said 38-year-old Ihsan. "My mother became ill, and, being the eldest daughter, I had to take care of the family. That's why I never learned how to read or write properly." Wearing a white and orange head scarf, the young mother of four now takes literacy classes at a community center in Ain al-Rummaneh, a predominantly Christian area of Beirut
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=23990

Pakistani woman describes nightmare of rape, imprisonment
Sixteen-year-old Isma Mahmoud was deported to Pakistan last month after serving six months in shackles and handcuffs in a prison in Saudi Arabia. Her crime: being raped by a Saudi man. "It's difficult for me to talk about what happened to me, from rape to prison and from prison to deportation.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=23956

Promoting FGM Abandonment in Egypt: Introduction of Positive Deviance
CEPDA has been working to end the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Egypt since 1998, primarily through the positive deviance approach. In this context, "positive deviants" refer to those individuals who have decided that the practice of FGM is wrong ...
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/population/rc/ItemDetail.do~1061955?intcmp=700

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Border village in Lebanon is off the beaten path - way off
Among all remote border villages, usually isolated and neglected, the village of Toufeil, lost behind the eastern Anti-Lebanon Range, is the extreme example of desertion and solitude, where a mixed-identity populace of a few hundred leads its own way of life which fellow citizens in either Syria or Lebanon cannot imagine exists. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=23816

Lebanese Council for Development and Reconstruction plan aims to prove doubters wrong
A senior official at the Council for Development and Reconstruction says he expects a breath of fresh air by the end of 2006 that will cause living conditions to improve markedly in several clusters of poverty across Lebanon. In a recent interview with The Daily Star, Ramzi Naaman, manager of social and economic planning at the CDR, said. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=23722

Conference in Lebanon addresses Millennium goals
The United Nations Development Program began a two-day national conference on the follow-up mechanism for the Millennium Development Goals in Lebanon. Held at le Meridian Commodore Hotel, the workshop, featured speeches and presentations from UN officials
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=23680

Mini-marathon in Lebanon marks hope that conflict stays in past
Under minimal security measures, several Lebanese citizens staged a mini-marathon "So the war will not return" to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the start of the Civil War in 1975.The participants in the mini-marathon, mostly Lebanese Forces supporters, ran from Ain al-Rummaneh, the place where the war's. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=23724

Lebanese NSSF's problems are major headache for all Lebanese
Corruption, mismanagement, lack of accountability, overstaffing and waste are taking their toll on Lebanon's National Social Security Fund (NSSF) as Cabinet members vow to clean up the mess, politicians and economists said on Thursday. But cleaning the mess at the NSSF may prove one of the biggest challenges facing the government. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=3&article_id=23726

… And Cabinet urges its overhaul
The Cabinet decided on Tuesday that any reform plan of the National Social Security Fund should start with creating a new law that regulates it. Two plans to reform the NSSF were the focus of an extraordinary Cabinet session on Tuesday.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=23679

UNDP backs broad survey aimed at cutting poverty in Akkar – Lebanon
A geographic, economic and social survey of the Akkar area of Jouma has been launched in an attempt to enhance the area's rural development and decrease severe poverty. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Lebanese council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR). http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=23839

YOUTH & CHILDREN

Child labor thrives in Iraq due to lax enforcement
In a crowded market, 10-year-old Mazin expertly navigates his way through shoppers and vendors. He wears a second-hand T-shirt and cheap sneakers and has an ice cream box slung around his neck. Mazin, who did not give his last name, earns 3,000 to 7,000 dinars ($2-$3) per day doing seasonal work, which in spring means selling ice cream
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=24019

Encouraging young bookworms
"We as a culture are not avid readers. We are more the visiting type, the talking type, the socializing type," observes Julinda Abu Nasr, president of a 31-year-old organization called the Lebanese Board on Books for Young People (LBBY). "You see more people reading, but children have so many distractions, so many distractions. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=4&article_id=23977

REPORTS & BOOKS & ARTICLES

EDUCATION
DFID: Keeping our Promises: Delivering Education for All
The UK Department for International Development released this report "Keeping our promises: Delivering education for all" on April 10, 2006, in announcing a US$15 billion, or £8.5 billion, commitment to provide aid for education over the next ten years. DFID_s ... http://topics.developmentgateway.org/aideffectiveness/rc/ItemDetail.do~1060611?intcmp=700

Investing in Research and Education: GNR-MENA Report on HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa
Like many widespread epidemics, HIV/AIDS should be considered a serious, global and regional security issue in that it can severely weaken Middle Eastern economies, social structures, family support systems, and regional political stability. It is, as Peter Piot ... http://topics.developmentgateway.org/aideffectiveness/rc/ItemDetail.do~1060654?intcmp=700

GENDER
Creating an enabling environment for the advancement of women and girls
This publication is World Vision's briefing paper to the 50th Commission on the Status of Women. It focuses on World Vision's work to empower and advance the status of women and girls while assisting the entire community in realizing its full potential. Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC21423

Development magazine focuses on women's rights and development
The recent issue of Development magazine continues the conversations started at the 10th Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) Forum, a feminist space where 1,800 women came together to look at how women are making change happen. This special issue aims to capture some of the excitement generated during the Conference and to indicate the current directions feminists around the world are taking. The result is a unique multifaceted resource from which everyone grappling with the world’s deep inequalities and injustices can learn. For further details, please visit www.civicus.org/new/media/DvelopmentFlyer49-1.pdf

Empowering Women, Developing Society: Female Education in the Middle East & North Africa [MENA]
"Education helps women take advantage of opportunities that could benefit them and their families, preparing women for the labor force and helping them understand their legal and reproductive rights." Based on this observation, the authors recommend that "efforts to improve female education in MENA countries need to go beyond rhetoric and should involve policies and programmes with measurable results. For more information: http://www.comminit.com/strategicthinking/st2004/thinking-32.html

Education for Girls & Issues of Early Marriage & Motherhood
From the Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education to the UN Commission for Human Rights 2006 http://www.wunrn.com

Gender Caucus in WSIS - Challenges for Gender Equality
Jensen, the author, contends that World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) meetings held in Geneva (2003) and Tunis (2005) were a "serious challenge" for gender equality advocates. She suggests that media and information and communication technologies (ICTs) can help women overcome isolation; allow them to network and to gain strength as political actors; enable their articulation of human rights; provide effective means to hold governments and other social actors responsible for their conduct; and help to lift them out of poverty and secure a livelihood. According to Jensen, advances for women must include primary and secondary education as well as tools to help them become top-level decision makers in all areas relating to ICTs. http://www.comminit.com/strategicthinking/st2005/thinking-1172.html

Gender Baseline Study for Finnish Development Cooperation
A central pillar in Finland’s development policy is to promote gender equality in developing countries. However, according to a recent evaluation report, no concrete results have been achieved at mainstreaming gender issues into its development programmes. The ... http://topics.developmentgateway.org/aideffectiveness/rc/ItemDetail.do~1060603?intcmp=700

Iraqi Women under Siege
This report by CODE PINK/GLOBAL EXCHANGE explores the affects on women of the 2003invasion and the subsequent ongoing occupation. Executive Summary: "From 1958 to the 1990s, Iraq provided more rights and freedoms for women and girls than most of its neighbors ... http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do~1061431?intcmp=700

Researching Violence Against Women: a Practical Guide for Researchers and Activists, Ellsberg, M. and Heise, L., 2005
A manual of techniques for conducting research on violence against women http://www.siyanda.org/static/ellsberg_vaw.htm

Syria's First Study of Violence Against Women Breaks Taboo
Syria's first comprehensive field study of violence against women concluded that nearly one in four married woman surveyed has been beaten. The study was released last week, part of a report by the United Nations Development Fund for Women on the status of women in Syria. For more information: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/world/middleeast/10cnd-syria.html

SOCIAL WATCH No Country in the World Treats Its Women as Well as Its Men
There is not a single country in the world today where women have the same opportunities as men, and although progress has been made in some areas in recent years, women are still disadvantaged in economic and political life. Gender equity is far from being achieved. The opportunities available to men and women are unequal in every country in the world. Almost 70% of the world's poor are women. http://www.socialwatch.org/en/informeImpreso/pdfs/gei2005_eng.pdf

WHO Multi-country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence Against Women, WHO,
A study shows the prevalence of violence against women in 10 different countries and cultures. http://www.siyanda.org/static/who_domesticviolence.htm

Women, Islam, and the New Iraq By Isobel Coleman (From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2006).
ISOBEL COLEMAN is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Women and U.S. Foreign Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Summary: Although questions of implementation remain, the new Iraqi constitution makes Islam the law of the land. This need not mean ... http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do~1060524?intcmp=700

A new recruitment agency established for NGOs |
A new international recruitment agency has been set up to respond to the globalisation of nongovernmental organisations. Global Charity Jobs aims to provide web-based recruitment solutions within the not-for-profit sector for charities, foundations, higher education institutes, the cultural sector and United Nations agencies. The agency is designed to help those looking to fill senior posts in leadership, development, fundraising, finance, administration, marketing, human resources, new media, communications, campaigning and advocacy. For more information, visit www.ipsterraviva.net/Europe/article.aspx?id=3205

Business Against Corruption - A Framework for Action
To help companies deal with corruption in every aspect of their operations, the UN Global Compact, the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum, and Transparency International have jointly published "Business Against Corruption - A Framework for Action ... http://topics.developmentgateway.org/businessenvironment/rc/ItemDetail.do~1061797?intcmp=700

Guide to Equality in the Family in the Maghreb
This Guide was developed by a coalition of women's organisations from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia to be used as an advocacy tool for reform of family law in Muslim-majority societies. The Guide presents the current state of the law, then proposes religious, human rights, sociological, and domestic legal arguments for reform. http://www.comminit.com/africa/materials/ma2005/materials-2607.html

Guidelines for Gender-Based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Settings, IASC Taskforce on Gender in Humanitarian Assistance, 2005
A set of guidelines to prevent and respond to gender-based violence during the early stages of an emergency http://www.siyanda.org/static/iasc_sexualviolence.htm

Key List of Bibliographical Resources on Culture and Development
Increasingly, development practitioners argue that culture needs to be taken into account in development work. However, the way that cultural processes work and affect communication, development and individual and social change are still poorly understood. Listed ... http://topics.developmentgateway.org/population/rc/ItemDetail.do~1061773?intcmp=700

USEFUL WEBSITE: Free Directory of 47,500 Development Organizations The directory of development organizations, listing 47.500 development organizations, has been prepared to facilitate international cooperation and knowledge sharing in development work, both among civil society organizations, research institutions, governments ... http://topics.developmentgateway.org/egovernment/rc/ItemDetail.do~1061129?intcmp=700

The International Poverty Centre
(IPC) IPC intends to publish regularly an online bulletin and working papers to encourage policy debate and dissemination of knowledge on key poverty topics. In Focus is an online bulletin of the International Poverty Centre. Its purpose is to present succinctly the results of recent research on poverty and inequality in the developing world. For more information: http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/ipcpublications.htm

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