Three things in life that, once gone, never come back
1. Time
2.. Words
3. Opportunity
Three things in life that can destroy a person
1. Anger
2. Pride
3. Unforgiveness
Three things in life that you should never lose
1. Hope
2. Peace
3. Honesty
Three things in life that are most valuable
1.. Love
2. Family & Friends
3. Kindness
Three things in life that are never certain
1. Fortune
2. Success
3. Dreams
Three things that make a person
1. Commitment
2. Sincerity
3. Hard work
Three things that are truly constant -
Father - Son - Holy Spirit
I ask the Lord to bless you, as I pray for you today,
to guide you and protect you, as you go along your way.
God's love is always with you, God's promises are true.
And when you give God all your cares, you know God will see you through.
Do not curse the darkness
Light a candle instead.
In recognition of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the theme for this year's observance of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is "Human Rights and Dignity of People Living in Poverty".
The observance of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty can be traced back to 17 October 1987. On that day, over a hundred thousand people gathered at the Trocadéro in Paris, where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948, to honour the victims of extreme poverty, violence and hunger. They proclaimed that poverty is a violation of human rights and affirmed the need to come together to ensure that these rights are respected. These convictions are inscribed in a commemorative stone unveiled on this day. Since then, people of all backgrounds, beliefs and social origins have gathered every year on October 17 th to renew their commitment and show their solidarity with the poor. Replicas of the commemorative stone have been unveiled around the world and serve as a gathering place to celebrate the Day. One such replica is located in the garden of United Nations Headquarters and is the site of the annual commemoration organized by the United Nations Secretariat in New York.
Through resolution 47/196 adopted on 22 December 1992, the General Assembly declared 17 October as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty and invited all States to devote the Day to presenting and promoting, as appropriate in the national context, concrete activities with regard to the eradication of poverty and destitution. The resolution further invites intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to assist States, at their request, in organizing national activities for the observance of the Day, and requests the Secretary-General to take, within existing resources, the measures necessary to ensure the success of the Day's observance by the United Nations.
October 17th presents an opportunity to acknowledge the effort and struggle of people living in poverty, a chance for them to make their concerns heard, and a moment to recognize that poor people are the first ones to fight against poverty. Participation of the poor themselves has been at the center of the Day's celebration since its very beginning. The commemoration of October 17 th also reflects the willingness of people living in poverty to use their expertise to contribute to the eradication of poverty.
The struggle against poverty has evolved more and more visibly into an overarching development goal of the international community. Poverty eradication, however, is not only a development goal; it is also a central challenge for ensuring world-wide recognition of human rights. The international community has acknowledged that poverty is a violation of human rights and that promoting human rights can reduce poverty.
The world-wide persistence of poverty can be attributed in part to the violations of human rights. In fact, human rights violations can be both a cause and a consequence of poverty. People living in poverty are excluded from society, and their ability to secure their own rights is particularly limited by their predicament.
Poverty can be seen as a human condition of deprivation of resources, capabilities, choices, security and power necessary for the enjoyment of an adequate standard of living and other civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.
Under the core human rights instruments, human beings are guaranteed among others, the rights to life, liberty and security of person, the right to the highest attainable standard of health, the right to just and favourable working conditions, the right to adequate food, housing and social security, the right to education and participation in the democratic process. Securing those rights for all would bring us closer to poverty eradication.
Human rights based approach to fighting poverty links poverty reduction to the question of obligation, rather than charity and compels policymakers to implement strategies helping the most vulnerable individuals and groups escape poverty and destitution.
THE SECRETARY-GENERAL MESSAGE ON THE INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE ERADICATION OF POVERTY
17 October 2008
The theme of this year’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty – “Human Rights and Dignity of People Living in Poverty” – recalls the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 60 years ago. The Declaration affirms that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family”.
Sixty years on, hundreds of millions of people are still deprived of basic human rights such as food, housing, education, and decent working conditions. Those forced to live in poverty often face social exclusion, discrimination and disempowerment. Poverty robs the poor of their human dignity.
Our efforts to eradicate poverty must pay close attention to respect for human rights and the dignity of all. They must go beyond basic material needs and address discrimination and inequality. That means ensuring that all poor people have access to the resources they need - land, capital, knowledge and skills – to escape poverty. It means empowering the poor to effectively participate in decision-making and other activities that directly affect their lives.
Current economic uncertainties make this task even more challenging, but also even more important. Rising food and fuel prices, and the global financial crisis, are threatening to negate the progress made to reduce poverty and hunger in many parts of the world. An estimated 100 million people are now at risk of falling into poverty.
At the high-level event last September, Governments reconfirmed their commitments to the Millennium Development Goals. Many pledged new resources to bolster food security, eradicate disease, ensure access to water and sanitation and manage the financial crisis. These commitments are not a matter of charity, but an obligation in the pursuit of human rights for all. If we fail to keep our promise on the MDGs, we create the conditions for greater human misery and global insecurity.
Poverty will not be eradicated without due respect for human rights. On this International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, let us guarantee the inherent dignity and equal rights of all members of the human family and strive for a world free of poverty and injustice.
About the Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight goals to be achieved by 2015 that respond to the world’s main development challenges. The MDGs are drawn from the actions and targets contained in the Millennium Declaration that was adopted by 191 member countries of the United Nations,during the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000.
This unprecedented global framework for development is a crucial step towards ending poverty and inequality.
However, at the halfway point to the 2015 deadline for the achievement of the Goals, we have seen some progress, but much more needs to be done. Urgent action must be taken by nations if they are to fulfill their promise to achieve the MDGs. Since agreeing to make the MDGs a key framework for international action and cooperation to reduce poverty, much progress has been made.
But despite the gains, no region in the world is on-track to achieve all of the Goals, and some regions are off-track on many of them. Uurgent action is needed to implement sound policies to achieve the Goals set in 2000, and deliver on the promise made to the world’s poor in the Millennium Declaration:
“We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected”
The eight MDGs break down into 21 quantifiable targets that are measured by 60 indicators. The eight MDGs are:
1. eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. achieve universal primary education
3. promote gender equality and empower women
4. reduce child mortality
5. improve maternal health
6. combat HIV/AIDs, malaria and other diseases
7. ensure environmental sustainability
8. develop a global partnership for development
The MDGs:
* synthesise, in a single package, many of the most important commitments made separately at the international conferences and summits of the 1990s;
* recognise explicitly the interdependence between growth, poverty reduction and sustainable development
* acknowledge that development rests on the foundations of democratic governance, the rule of law, respect for human rights and peace and security
* are based on time-bound and measurable targets accompanied by indicators for monitoring progress;
* bring together, in the eighth Goal, the responsibilities of developing countries with those of developed countries
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations celebrates World Food Day each year on 16 October, the day on which the Organization was founded in 1945.
The objectives of World Food Day are to:
* encourage attention to agricultural food production and to stimulate national, bilateral, multilateral and non-governmental efforts to this end;
* encourage economic and technical cooperation among developing countries;
* encourage the participation of rural people, particularly women and the least privileged categories, in decisions and activities influencing their living conditions;
* heighten public awareness of the problem of hunger in the world;
* promote the transfer of technologies to the developing world; and
* strengthen international and national solidarity in the struggle against hunger, malnutrition and poverty and draw attention to achievements in food and agricultural development.
FAO Director-General’s message on the World Food Day/TeleFood 2008 theme:
"World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy"
From 3 to 5 June 2008, delegates from 181 countries met in Rome – including 43 Heads of State and Government and over 100 ministers – to participate in the High-Level Conference on World Food Security. Over 5 000 people attended this event, which brought the food crisis to the forefront of the global development agenda. The Conference reaffirmed the need to produce more and therefore to invest more in agriculture. There is indeed a need to address the growing food demand due to increasing populations, economic progress in emerging countries and competition in the bioenergy sector when supply is affected by climate change and declining stocks.
This year’s World Food Day theme which is: “World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy”, provides an opportunity to promote the conclusions of the High-Level Conference in order to implement them as soon as possible.
Climate change affects everyone but the poorest regions are already its first victims. Their situation is likely to worsen in the next decades. The worst hit will be hundreds of millions of people who are already vulnerable and food insecure: small-scale crop and animal producers, fishers and foresters. Climate change will affect availability of land, water and biodiversity. Changes in temperatures and precipitation, as well as more frequent extreme weather patterns, are expected to result in agriculture production shortfalls with negative impacts on access to food.
Therefore, climate change is likely to increase migration towards richer countries while rising sea levels may force many communities in low-lying coastal areas and river deltas to move to higher ground. These risks need to be taken into account. And the analysis of food security needs to be placed in a completely new context.
During the last three years, due to the soaring food and energy prices, the number of hungry people has increased by another 75 million at the end of 2007. This crisis is due to decreasing investments in agriculture in the poorest countries during the last 30 years. The share of agriculture in public development aid declined from 17% in 1980 to 3% in 2006. Financial institutions drastically reduced their funds for agriculture. We need to reverse this trend to come back to the previous level of investment. We also need to create food enabling frameworks for substantial increase of direct foreign investments for agriculture in low-income, food-deficit countries. Equitable partnerships between countries which have land, water and labour supply and countries which have financial resources, management facilities and markets would constitute a solid base for sustainable agriculture. Agriculture has to be able to double global food production by 2050, when the current population of the globe now at 6 billion, will reach 9 billion. This is the only way to mobilise the needed funds for a renewal of agriculture which are estimated at US$ 30 billion per year by the special High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Crisis.
On this World Food Day 2008, I invite you to promote the Declaration of the High-Level Conference on World Food Security, mobilising all stakeholders: national governments, international institutions, agricultural professional organizations, civil society and the private sector for its implementation. More than ever, the future of this planet depends on our capacity to sustain the development of agriculture in the poorest countries.
Jacques Diouf
Director-General
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
The first International Day of Rural Women is observed on 15 October 2008. This new international day, established by the General Assembly in its resolution 62/136 of 18 December 2007, recognizes “the critical role and contribution of rural women, including indigenous women, in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty.”
The idea of honoring rural women with a special day was put forward by international NGOs at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. It was suggested that 15 October be celebrated as “World Rural Women’s Day,” the eve of World Food Day, in order to highlight the role played by rural women in food production and food security. “World Rural Women’s Day” has been celebrated, primarily by civil society, across the world for over a decade.
In 2007, at the tenth session of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, Member States of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, expressed in the Quito Consensus their decision to promote the adoption of an International Day of Rural Women “as an explicit recognition of [rural women’s] economic contribution and the development of their communities, in particular with regard to the unpaid work they perform.”
The contribution of rural women
The International Day of Rural Women will direct attention to both the contribution that women make in rural areas, and the many challenges that they face. Women play a critical role in the rural economies of both developed and developing countries. In most parts of the developing world they participate in crop production and livestock care, provide food, water and fuel for their families, and engage in off-farm activities to diversify the family income. In addition, they carry out vital functions in caring for children, older persons and the sick.
Women make an important contribution to food production. According to the International labor Organization (ILO), 428 million women work in the agricultural sector around the world, compared to 608 million men. In many parts of the world, agriculture is the first sector of employment for women, for instance in Sub-Saharan Africa and in South Asia, where respectively 68 per cent and 61 per cent of working women are employed in agriculture.
Access to education and health
In developing countries, 25 per cent of rural children do not attend primary school, compared to 16 per cent of urban children, and gender inequalities in access to education remain: 69 per cent of rural girls attend primary school compared to 73 per cent of rural boys.
Different factors, including the need for their labor, the low levels of education of their parents, and lack of access to quality schooling, account for the high proportion of out-of-school children in rural areas. The gender disparity is partly due to the fact that girls are heavily relied upon for housework and child care. Other factors that account for girls’ unequal access to education in rural areas include a lack of a safe means of transportation, poor security in schools, and the lack of separate sanitation facilities.
Rural women are also disadvantaged in their access to health. For instance, in many countries, reproductive health care remains inadequate, and maternal mortality continues to be high, with the highest rates in Sub-Saharan Africa. In every region of the world, the presence of skilled birth attendants is lower in rural than in urban areas.
Most pregnant women in rural areas continue to work while pregnant and resume work soon after delivery. Moreover, the absence of timely medical care, inadequate diet and heavy workload often results in complicated pregnancies and high maternal mortality rates.
Poverty
Rural women are particularly vulnerable to poverty. According to the World Bank, 75 per cent of the poor in developing countries live in rural areas. While women work the land, they often do not hold formal and clear land titles. Less than two per cent of land in the developing world is owned by women, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). A lack of rights over land makes women extremely vulnerable to eviction and negatively affects their economic options.
Women’s access to credit is also limited because land is the major asset used as collateral to obtain loans. Women have to rely heavily on the unregulated, informal sector to meet their needs, and often pay higher interest rates as a result. While limited access to land and credit affects rural women as a whole, some groups are particularly vulnerable and marginalized, such as widows, indigenous women and women heading households – a growing category, due to male out-migration.
Global challenges
Women and girls, particularly in rural areas, are also acutely exposed to the food crisis currently affecting the world. High food prices mean that the poor have to spend a larger proportion of their income on food and will probably buy less food or food that is less nutritious.
Moreover, in some societies the practice for men and boys to eat before women and girls may further compromise the latter’s food intake in times of shortages.
Another current global issue that disproportionately impacts rural women is climate change. Women and girls living in areas affected by desertification and deforestation have to walk longer to collect water and firewood, which further limits the time they can devote to school or income-generating activities. It may also put them at greater risk of gender-based violence.
Moreover, rural women suffer more from natural disasters, such as floods, fires, and mudslides, than men. A study of 141 countries showed that natural disasters killed more women than men, both directly and indirectly, in countries where the status of women was low. Other research provides evidence that there are frequently higher female casualties during floods because women have not been taught how to swim.
World Mental Health Day is observed on 10 October every year to raise public awareness about mental health issues. The theme for this year's World Mental Health Day - 'Advocacy for Global Mental Health: Scaling Up Services through Citizen Advocacy and Action' - was chosen partly to gather together the hundreds of grassroots mental health organizations that participate in the World Mental Health Day so they can plan and carry out awareness and advocacy events within their own communities and countries.
Greater efforts are needed to address the difficulties in providing mental health care and protecting the human rights of those with severe disorders, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, urging scaled up resources to provide care to those who need it.
“Mental health is of paramount importance for personal well-being, family relationships and an individual’s ability to contribute to society,” Mr. Ban said in his message on World Mental Health Day, observed annually on 10 October.
He pointed out that mental disorders occur “in all cultures and at all stages of life,” and are too often linked to poverty, marginalization and social disadvantage.
Resources to tackle the issue are “insufficient, inequitably distributed and inefficiently used,” the Secretary-General noted.
“Scaling up services should be a priority,” he said, hailing a new initiative announced by the UN World Health Organization (WHO).
With over three quarters of people suffering from mental disorders in the developing world receiving no care, “Mental health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP): Scaling up care for mental, neurological and substance use disorders” seeks to close the massive treatment gap.
WHO said that tens of millions could be treated for diseases such as depression and schizophrenia, even where resources are scarce, so long as there is proper care, psychosocial assistance and medication.
“Governments across the world need to see mental health as a vital component of primary health care,” said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan. “We need to change policy and practice.”
In most countries, less than 2 per cent of health funds are earmarked for mental health. One third of people living with schizophrenia, over half suffering from depression and three quarters with alcohol-use disorders cannot access affordable care.
Meanwhile, one person dies of suicide – one of the leading causes of death, albeit a preventable one, among young adults worldwide – every 40 seconds.
The cost of boosting services is not very high, WHO said, and can be as low as $0.20 per person per year to enhance treatment for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and hazardous alcohol use.
“We need to ensure that people with these disorders are not denied opportunities to contribute to social and economic life and that their human rights are protected,” said Benedetto Saraceno, Director of WHO’s Mental Health and Substance Abuse Department.
In her message on the Day, the head of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) stressed the importance of addressing mental health through the lens of reproductive health, which “is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.”
During pregnancy and after delivery, many women suffer from depression, but cannot access the necessary treatment. “Perinatal depression is associated with increased risk of obstetric complications and premature birth,” said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, UNFPA’s Executive Director. “And depressed women are less likely to seek and receive antenatal or postnatal care.”
Survivors of gender-based and sexual violence need mental health and psychosocial support services, she added.
UNFPA and WHO have joined forces to integrate mental health services into existing maternal and child health policies.
“Today, we call on all governments and partners to include measures for mental health in efforts to achieve human development and respond to humanitarian crises,” Ms. Obaid said. “Mental health is central to human dignity.”
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