Food security "Our goal is to strengthen existing partnerships and provide a platform for the Brazilian government to share

its successful experiences with African countries in the areas of food security, agriculture, poverty reduction and hunger eradication," said Jorge Chediek, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Brazil. Although a majority of Africans rely on agriculture for their livelihoods, basic food staples are imported, and nearly one third of Africas population is undernourished, the highest proportion of any region in the world. Through investments in EmbrapaBrazil's state-owned agriculture research centre Brazil brought about a green revolution in the 1970s, turning the country into one of the worlds largest exporters of food such as grains, meat, oranges and coffee. In addition, African countries can draw lessons from Brazils social policies and programmes, such as Bolsa Familia, which provides families with financial incentives for keeping their children in school. Around 12 million families have benefited from the programme. New York Democracy in many Latin American countries hinges largely on government action to uphold indigenous peoples rights and ensure their participation in decision-making, according to Heraldo Muoz, Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Multiculturalism as a key component in the construction of a true democracy, Muoz said yesterday, in the opening address of a meeting attended by indigenous peoples and authorities from Mexico and other Latin American countries, at the Xth United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, taking place on 16-27 May in New York. Over the last 20 years considerable progress has been made in Mexico to increase representation of indigenous peoples, a population of 15.7 million 13 percent of the countrys total. Even though indigenous peoples are the majority of inhabitants in more than 30 percent of Mexicos municipalities, they represent only eight out of 500 members of the lower house of parliament. While a larger number than in the parliaments of many other countries in the region, the representation is still substantially lower than in Bolivia, with 43 percent of indigenous representatives in the lower house, and Guatemala, with 9.4 percent, according to a recent UNDP-Organization of American States report on Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean. Responding to demands that began during the first half of the 1990s, Mexico went through a number of reforms of laws and institutions at the end of the decade, giving more rights to the countrys indigenous peoples. Within the following five years, the Government approved boundaries for 28 indigenous territorial and electoral districts, a development highlighted in the documentary Indigenous identity and democracy in Mexico which was premiered yesterday in New York. As indigenous peoples, we seek to make decisions for ourselves but obviously never outside the remit of Mexicos judicial system, said Martha Snchez, coordinator of

the Alliance of Indigenous Women in Mexico and Central America, speaking in the documentary produced jointly by UNDP and the Government of Mexico. For many years UNDP has also supported Mexicos electoral bodies in a number of significant electoral reforms and cooperation initiatives between countries in the region to promote political and electoral participation of indigenous peoples. Currently UNDP is working on a programme to enable governments and indigenous peoples in Bolivia and Mexico to share experiences in electoral and political participation. Since 2009 the programme, with assistance from the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation Development, has trained thousands of representatives from both government and civil society in 24 countries, available through the Internet website Escuela Virtual (Virtual School, in English). According to the recent UNDP Human Development Report of Indigenous Peoples in Mexico, multiculturalism can lead to greater human development if it impacts on wider political participation, from the local to the national level. Khartoum - More than 1,000 farmers living in northeast Sudan now have increased harvests and income due to water irrigation equipment provided through an initiative managed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In Arabaat, a rural community 30 kilometres west of the coastal city of Port Sudan, farmers used to rely solely on rainfall for their subsistence crops in the absence of equipment to irrigate their land. Through the Sudan Recovery and Rehabilitation Programme, the farmers received generators and pumps, enabling them to tap into rich groundwater sources and cultivate vegetables and other crops all year round, which they can also now sell at markets in Port Sudan. There is a big difference now, says Aisha Sharief, who heads one of the Arabaat farms. Nowadays we have permanent irrigation and alternate crops like sorghum and vegetables. She also grows tomatoes, okra and arugula. Hussein Musa in charge of getting the farmers produce to market and says that things have improved for them. In the past some people used wells run by merchants who took 50 percent in profits and farmers earned little. Now each farm has a well. As part of the programme, farmers also participated in management training and formed the Arabaat Development Association enabling them to pool resources and supervise other development projects in, for example, water provision and fisheries. Previously women were not represented in leadership but now they are part of the way we do business, adds Aisha Sharief, who is a member of the Association. Sharief is one of the approximately 1,000 who benefited from the five-year programme to support recovery of those in rural areas affected by the countrys civil war that ended in 2005. The US$72 million programme was managed by UNDP on behalf of the Government of National Unity and the Government of Southern Sudan, funded by the European Commission and Norway.

Marie, mother of five, forced to dig holes in the sand and wait for fresh water. (Photo: UNDP)

North Efate Island - Until a year ago, people in the village of Ekipe on North Efate Island in Vanuatu did not have access to running water. Villagers such as Marie, a mother of five, were forced to dig holes in the sand and wait for them to fill with fresh water: a time-consuming task that rarely provided enough water for cooking, bathing and washing clothes. "We go to the market in Port Vila 40 miles away to sell our goods and we come back late, said Marie. Gathering water was very hard because the water source was far from our homes. Many local communities in Vanuatu use fresh water as their water source, but rising sea levels had increased the salinity of fresh water in Ekipe, causing many health problems especially among women and children. Today villagers in Ekipe can step out their doors to running water as a result of a project implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grant Programme (SGP) that installed water taps in 75 households connecting to a community water pipe. With technical assistance from UNDP partner New Zealand International Aid and Development Agency (NZAID), Ekipe villagers have been trained in plumbing and how to build bathrooms and toilets for their homes. Theyve also learned how to manage project funds and to generate income through water fees that will help sustain their water. Access to running water has also contributed to better preparation for the violent storms that frequently hit the island. Using bricks made from sand and water, villagers are able to construct stronger houses that are more capable of coping with future cyclones. Although there has been progress in access to running water around the world, rural areas remain at a disadvantage, particularly in Oceania and sub-Saharan Africa, where rural coverage of piped water remains at 37 percent and 47 percent, respectively, as compared to 91 percent and 83 percent in urban areas. Through initiatives, such as the water project in Ekipe, UNDP is working to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015, one the targets of the seventh Millennium Development Goal (MDG). Access to clean water is a human right, said Ms. Leah Nimoho, National Coordinator SPG Vanuatu. Now families in Ekipe have water right next to their kitchen and they have more time to study and do other work rather than going around looking for water. The Arab region has achieved progress in many MDGs, including significant strides in health and education, says a recently launched UN Report. However, there have been setbacks and constraints attributable to several factors, including the relatively poor economic performance in the 1990s and early 2000s, inadequate financing of social policies, and increasing political tensions and conflicts. According to the Third Arab Human Development Report (AMDGR) for 2010, the Arab region continues to be characterized by sharp disparities between the different sub-regions While the high income countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council are ontrack to achieving most of the MDG targets, the poorer countries, most of which

suffer from conflict, together with Iraq and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, lag significantly behind, making it unlikely that they will be able to meet the majority of the targets by 2015. Within this context, the Millennium Development Goals can only be achieved by 2015 through following suitable economic and social policies. The challenge today in the Arab region is to agree on an action agenda to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. With five years to go to the target date of 2015, the prospect of falling short of achieving the Goals is very real. This would be an unacceptable failure from both the moral and developmental standpoints, maintains the report. Arab countries are on track with respect to halving the proportion of people living below $1.25-a-day. However, the picture changes when considering national poverty lines whereby the Arab region did not experience significant progress in reducing income poverty, which is concentrated in rural areas. Moreover, labor markets in most Arab countries are characterized by a wide spread of unemployment. Unemployment is particularly evident among the youth. With regard to achieving universal primary education, the Arab region has seen improvement in net enrolment rates, literacy rate of young adults aged 15-24 and gender parity in primary schooling. Womens economic and political participation remains very limited in the Arab region. Additionally, women representation in national parliaments still remains low, despite the fact that some governments have adopted some temporary measures, such as the quota system, to allow more space for womens political participation. Under-five mortality rates have declined by half in the Arab region over the period 1990-2008. But the Least Developed Countries in the region are still off track. The universal immunization coverage will not be achieved by 2015 without addressing problems of accessibility to vaccines, low health facility coverage, suboptimal delivery strategies and unavailability of services in conflict areas and for mobile and displaced populations. There are great variations in reducing maternal mortality rates among countries of the region ranging from levels below 10 per 100,000 live births in some Gulf countries to around 1,600 per 100,000 in Somalia. With respect to environment, all Arab Countries share, in varying degrees, the major challenge of improving environmental governance and integrating environmental resources management into poverty reduction strategies and national development plans. The Arab region as a whole only contributes less than 5% of global carbon dioxide emissions, but the impacts of climate change on the region are of major concern to policy makers who recognize that the Arab region will be negatively impacted by climate change. In the last three decades, rapid population growth and the acceleration of social economic development in the Arab countries were linked to significant increases in the demand for water. The proportion of population receiving access to improved drinking water sources is still low. There are six priorities that have a strong effect to reduce the constraints identified in the Arab region. These priorities include: food security, poverty reduction; adaptation to climate change; and youth employment and decent work; and to promote gender equality.

Overall poverty rates The world is on track to meet the MDG target of halving the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day. Overall poverty rates fell from 46 per cent in 1990 to 27 per cent in 2005 in developing regions, and progress in many developing countries is being sustained. This is despite setbacks caused by the 2008-09 economic downturn and the effects of the food and energy crises. However, even if these positive trends continue, in 2015, roughly 920 million people would still be living under the international poverty line of $1.25 a day, as adjusted by the World Bank in 2008. Success in Asia Achievements so far are largely the result of extraordinary success in Asia, mostly East Asia. Over a 25-year period, the poverty rate in East Asia fell from nearly 60 per cent to under 20 per cent. Poverty rates are expected to fall to around 5 per cent in China and 24 per cent in India by 2015. Little Progress in sub-Saharan Africa In contrast, little progress has been made in reducing extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, where the poverty rate has declined only slightly, from 58 to 51 per cent between 1990 and 2005. Sub-Saharan Africa, Western Asia and parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia are the few regions not expected to achieve the MDG poverty reduction target. Effects of the economic crisis The World Bank estimates that the effects of the economic crisis will push an additional 64 million people into extreme poverty in 2010, and that poverty rates will be slightly higher in 2015 and beyond than they would have been without the crisis, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern and South-Eastern Asia. Progress unsatisfactory The proportion of people suffering from hunger is declining, but at an unsatisfactory pace. Even though the proportion of people worldwide suffering from malnutrition and hunger has fallen since the early 1990s, progress has stalled since 2000-2002. The estimate of the number of people who will suffer chronic hunger this year is 925 million, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN down from 1.023 billion in 2009, but still more than the number of undernourished people in 1990 (about 815 million). Undernourished children Between 1990 and 2008, the proportion of underweight children under five declined from 31 per cent to 26 per cent in developing regions with particular success in Eastern Asia, notably China. Despite such improvements, progress is currently not fast enough to reach the MDG target, and particular focus is required in Southern Asia. This region alone accounts for almost half the worlds undernourished children. In all developing regions, children in rural areas are nearly twice as likely to be underweight as those in urban areas.