Quality Education

Image: Can search engine rankings swing elections? Source: New Internationalist. © Illustration by Livio Fania.

Democracy à la Google, Facebook & YouTube: Some Reflections

Viewpoint by Lucas Malaspina*

ROME (IDN) – When Mark Zuckerberg decided to offer emerging nations Internet.org, anger was not long in exploding. As Daniel Leisegang writes in ‘Facebook is saving the world’, this project which emerged in 2013 was a humanitarian masquerade: to allow Internet access to a huge number of Third World citizens who still remained outside the global village.

The idea was to break the barriers that prevent, for example, two-thirds of the Indian population from joining Facebook. However, besides India, the project was aimed at a total of 100 more nations.

: Phil Harris; HUMAN RIGHTS; Democracy; 05 April 2018

Photo: Live on the 21st of September, 2010, ad:tech, London (at Olympia). CC BY-SA 3.0

Learning from the Facebook Data Scandal

By Nakshatra Pachauri

Nakshatra Pachauri is Controller, Finance and Administration of the South Centre. The views in the article are solely those of the author. This article first appeared in No. 167 of SouthViews – a service of the South Centre to provide opinions and analysis of topical issues from a South perspective – on 28 March 2018. – The Editor

GENEVA (IDN-INPS) – Recent news about the collusion of Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and the Trump election has brought forward one of the more covert and often insufficiently discussed problem of Social Media platforms to the fore. Instead of calling out Facebook alone, I prefer to use Social Media platforms as the problems related to big data enterprise and privacy are as much a Twitter/Whatsapp/Instagram/Snapchat issue as it is for Facebook.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; SUSTAINABILITY; Quality Education; 30 March 2018

Obama Foundation To Launch Leaders Africa Program in July

NEW YORK (IDN) – The Obama Foundation, which aims "to inspire and empower people to change their world", is launching a 'Leaders Africa Program', and is seeking to identify a group of emerging African leaders from all sectors – government, civil society, and the private sector.

They should have demonstrated a commitment to advancing the common good, reports New York based africa.com. "The objective of the program is to build a growing network of innovative and ethical changemakers, who seek to drive positive change in their communities."

: Santo D. Banerjee; NEWSBRIEFS; 16 March 2018

Gifted African Filmmaker Leaves Behind an Impressive Legacy

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Just days before a major retrospective of his cinematic work in Brazil, Idrissa Ouedraogo passed away in his home country of Burkina Faso on February 18. He was 64.

"We talked two weeks ago," said a grieving Janaina Oliveira of Brazil's Center for Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous Studies in a Facebook post. "I was bringing him to Brazil. Tickets, screening, tribute…it was all set. He was so happy."

Ouedraogo was born on January 21, 1954, in Banfora, Burkina Faso. His parents were farmers, and he grew up in a village outside Ouagadougou.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 27 February 2018

UNESCAP, Islamic Development Bank Sign Landmark Agreement

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – One of the world’s largest multilateral development banks, the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), has launched 'Engage', a new digital platform which will promote technological and scientific solutions to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

IsDB President Dr. Bandar Hajjar announced on February 21 the launch of the new platform at an event hosted at Bloomberg's European Headquarters in London, together with UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, Dr. Hayat Sindi, Chief Scientific Advisor to IsDB, and a group of business, innovation and development experts.

: Santo D. Banerjee; UN INSIDER; 25 February 2018

Photo: A general view of the Vienna UN Conference. Credit: Robert Bosch AG/APA-Fotoservice/Schedl

Women and Water Inseparable for Sustainable Development

By Krista Price*

This is the third in a series of reports on the Vienna UN Conference from January 10-12, 2018, which discussed actions and challenges linked to the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly 5 (SDG 5) and in the spirit of SDG 17. The Vienna Liaison Office of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) organized this Conference co-ordinated by Heather Wokusch. – The Editor

VIENNA (IDN) – A comfort often overlooked, the water served at the Vienna UN headquarters is locally sourced from mountains outside of the city. In Austria, water is a point of pride. This developed nation's water sector is committed not only to quality water systems but also to sustainable practices regarding the water and waste industry. For Austrians, and those frequenting the UN's conference rooms in Vienna, exceptional drinking water is a given.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; SUSTAINABILITY; Quality Education; 26 January 2018

Photo: Dr Poonchai Chitanuntavitaya, Chief Medical Officer of Social Health Enterprise, supervising his trainees while giving massages to visitors to the school for marginalised children, supported by a foundation set up by Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, to empower the students to break into the medical field through an unconventional career path that is providing a multi-faceted approach to addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Thai Doctor Creating Multi-Faceted Approach to Sustainable Development

By Kalinga Seneviratne

CHANTABURI, Thailand (IDN) – A passionate, socially conscious doctor in this rural farming community in the north-east of Thailand is working with a school for marginalised children, supported by a foundation set up by Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, the second daughter of late King Bhumibol who died in October 2016.

The school aims at empowering the students to break into the medical field through an unconventional career path that is providing a multi-faceted approach to addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 19 January 2018

Aisha Shaaban sits in her wooden stall at Mchikichini market in Dar es Salaam waiting for her customers. She’s among women recently trained on women empowerment and how to avoid Gender violence. Credit: Kizito Makoye | IDN-INPS

Tanzania Pushing Gender Empowerment Despite Hurdles

By Kizito Makoye

DAR ES SALAAM (IDN) – Despite efforts to promote gender equality, women and girls in Tanzania are still marginalised and largely under-utilised citizens – often suffering from discrimination and violence from their male counterparts due to a biased male-dominated system which often pushes women to the brink of survival.

However, in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), various initiatives are being implemented to empower women, although they still face obstacles that prevent them from reaching their full potential.

Among others, the SDGs call for women’s empowerment, greater access to education, health care, decent work and fair representation in political and economic decision-making processes, and the following are just some of the initiatives in these directions currently under way in the East African country.

: IDN-INPS Middle East & Africa Editor; THE WORLD; Africa; 16 January 2018

Photo: The children of Namokanda community in West Bengal who have formed the ‘Shishu Panchayat' consisting of school-going children. Credit: Kalinga Seneviratne | IDN-INPS

Sustainability Is Developing Community From Within

By Kalinga Seneviratne

NAMOKANDA, West Bengal, India (IDN) – Six years ago this remote village of 130 households about 80 km from Santiniketan – the hometown of famous Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore – was a small picturesque village community surrounded by paddy fields, but without a sustainable development concept.

Today it is a confident community with most households having access to water and sanitation, and most of its children in school aspiring to go to university. One of the community leaders is even doing research in development communication at the famous Visva-Bharati University, India’s first ‘institute of national importance’, set up by Tagore.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 12 January 2018

Photo: A view down the Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt (October 2004). Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Let’s Put Order in Tourism and Tourism in Order

Viewpoint by Roberto Savio

The following is a modified version of an article which first appeared on Other News, published by the writer, an eminent proponent of "information that markets eliminate".

ROME (IDN) – We are living a paradox in which two parallel worlds coexist: the (real) world of places of poverty and violence that we (occasionally) read about in newspapers or see on TV and the other world featuring the same places which exists only for tourists, the world of beautiful beaches, wonderful nature and fantastic hotels.

Behind this paradox lies a fundamental question: how many tourists travelling the world this year will consider the social, cultural and environmental impact of their activity? Probably very few, and this is a serious issue with tourism having become a mass phenomenon driven (as usual) by money.