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Poverty
Africa, geology and the march of the development technocrats
Jason Hickel asks whether 'environmental determinism' – the theory that Africa's development has been hindered as a result of 'the environmental conditions that Africans inhabit' – accurately explains Africa's poverty. While he commends its attempt to stop blaming underdevelopment 'on the presumed genetic inferiority of black people', he finds the theory and motives behind environmental determinism to be seriously lacking. Hickel asserts that environmental determinism is both ahistorical and apolitical: 'Poverty is not a problem of nature, it is a problem of power.'
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NEWS
Selected news
Haiti's women: mobilising to meet the challenges
Mon Feb 08 2010 - Source: Mama Cash
In Port-au-Prince, the UN has set up 16 centers aimed exclusively at distributing food to women. Men had been pushing women out of food lines and stealing relief supplies from women leaving the distribution areas.
Haiti: displaced women face double jeopardy
Thu Feb 04 2010 - Source: IPS
Women's rights and development activists working in Haiti say that greater attention must be paid to the immediate needs of women and girls, as well as their role in the long-term reconstruction of the devastated country.
Genocide charge put back on arrest warrant against Sudan president
Wed Feb 03 2010 - Source: The Guardian
Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, could face genocide charges in the International Criminal Court after a legal ruling over his role in the conflict in Darfur.
CAMPAIGNS
Stop closure of LGBT group in Izmir, Turkey
Drop Haiti's debt

World Trade Organization - WTO
The impact of trade liberalization on the realization of human rights: Civil Society open letter to Pascal Lamy
In an open letter to WTO Director General, Pascal Lamy, civil society organizations stated their concern about the persistent and obvious contradictions between the rhetoric of complementarity between human rights and trade liberalization (as it has been implemented so far), given the real outcomes of liberalization for people and communities around the world, especially in the developing countries.
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Biotechnology and biosafety
Hope for an anti-biopiracy treaty in 2010
Prospects seem encouraging for a new international agreement to prevent biopiracy and to ensure fair and equitable benefit sharing from the use of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge. October 2010 is the target for this agreement to be adopted by governments that are Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), when the governments gather in Nagoya, Japan for the biennial Conference of the Parties.
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UN reform
The FutureUN project: Global survey on the future of the UN Development System
The FutureUN project intends to examine the future of the United Nations Development System. The project has arisen from a recognition that the 30 agencies of the UN Development System have lived through several decades of a fast-changing global environment and will need to adapt to the new realities, challenges and actors. The project is being launch by conducting a short global survey.
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