Interesting Article from the EP

Let's streamline development policies, eh..

Reading our statement at the Council of Europe

Thanks to Rose, here is the video of Adrienne and me reading the statement at the Council of Europe. I think the video pretty much speaks for itself...

Some thoughts for follow-up

Hey everyone! Thanks very much for all your great comments yesterday in our wrap up session and thanks also to Matt for his comments - we touched upon them in our session as well

Keep in touch everyone xoxo jess

Group 1 : NEXT STEPS
30 mai : liste. Se mettre en contact avec les politiciens que l’on connait. La qualité prime sur la quantité. Envoi à Jessica ?
Conserver la déclaration actuelle.
Chaque pays peut insister sur les sujets qui leur paraissent importants. Traduire les déclarations, se les envoyer.
Partager les activités qui se font dans les différents pays.

Group 2 : STATEMENT REVIEW + NEXT STEPS
Audience = policymakers, national and international level
Strike paragraph 1 – not necessary
Keep paragraph 2 and 3 as is
Add instead pax Christi int’l + partner orgs and allies
Change age of young people to 16
Switch order of next 2 paragraphs make stronger statement this way
Wordsmith – later
Really emphasize theres a meeting in oct. – our statement leading up to = time sensitive!!
Copy and paste email list of parliamentarians for your country – rose can show you if questions
Eric – what our country has done so far, what goals and then concrete actions – VERY specific asks! /goals
-opening paragraph could be modified for each country
-customize statement

Group 3 - STATEMENT REVIEW + NEXT STEPS
statement can be translated into own language
-give specific recommendations for own country
-media training – start with most important info and then move to least
easy to write emails to politicians, attach statement
concrete action – Belgium
peace week in September we are planning diff activities, same week there will be a military summit in ghent (European military summit)
Jessica can go to parl with stijn vb
-also contact local newspapers – la croix (france), using rue 89
-INTEGRAL in front of human development (catholic social teaching)
Statement – 4th paragraph – first thing you mention is financial – it’s an economic crisis
HIV and AIDS

Belated Climate Change Presentation of Jef Felix

Climate Change - Challenges for Development, Ethical Considerations...

View more presentations from guest0647b9f.

Andre Bader on Grassroot and Small Group Community Organizing

Beamer présentation définitive

View more presentations from guest0647b9f.

Breakout Groups for Post-Seminar

some thoughts...

Group 1: IMPACT

Group 2: MULTIPLYING EFFECTS

Group 3: FOLLOW-UP

Some suggestions for concrete follow-up activities:

Night of Peace - Amsterdam

For Climate Refugees

World Conference of Religions for Peace, ARMS DOWN!

World Youth Conference on MDGs, Mexico City

Armed Violence and the MDG Review Process, Briefing Note

For your edits...

Pax Christi International Youth Statement
May 2010 – Triennial World Assembly Youth Seminar

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were developed following the adoption of the Millennium Declaration in 2000, which pledged UN member state support—financial and structural—for the developing world, in an effort to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat malaria and HIV/AIDS, ensure environmental sustainability, and develop a global partnership for international development.

As we reflect on the benchmarks committed to by our governments ten years ago, we as young people (aged 18-30) urge our elected officials, appointed leaders, and national, regional and international policymakers to recommit themselves and to reprioritize these development targets. With only five years remaining until the goals are set to expire, we gather this week in Strasbourg, France—a capital of European policymaking—as diverse people of faith and commitment, as leaders in our communities and as those affected by a future of world inequity, to ask ourselves:

What world will we inherit?

Representing the international peace and human rights movement Pax Christi International, we believe firmly in a world where sustainable human security for all is a concrete reality. We believe that the only way to achieve peace and full human flourishing in our globally interconnected community is through the promotion of human rights and human achievement, regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, or any other factor of social, cultural, or national differentiation. We believe that if we have been entrusted with the future of our planet and her limited resources, we must morally obligate ourselves to champion social and environmental justice.

As such, we believe that the Millennium Development Goals are not merely aspirational benchmarks but standards of human achievement which should be championed in the face of many crises currently affecting our world—financial, environmental, and human-security related.

We believe that the Millennium Development Goals are a path toward promoting sustainable human security and peace, and should be adequately funded according to 0.7% of the Gross National Income (GNI) – committed to by the most developed countries in 1970 and reiterated in 2002 at the Monterrey Consensus (the outcome of the first International Conference on Financing for Development in 2002).

We call into question the increase in military spending since the outbreak of the global war on terror. We urge our national governments to heed our call for a renewed focus on sustainable development and sustained human security in the face of growing threats to vulnerable populations around the world. We believe that the united voice of morally committed, passionately engaged, politically empowered young people has the power to change our world.

Religions for Peace

The fourth morning started with the presentation of Religions for Peace, the largest global religious coalition standing for peace. Lama Azab and Taoufik Hartit explained one of the main campaigns of the coalition: Arms down. The three goals of this year-long campaign launched in November 2009 are the abolition of nuclear weapons, the end of the proliferation and misuse of conventional weapons and most of all the redirection of 10% of military expenditure to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015. This last information actually shocked me knowing that in 2008, the military spending was up to 1464 billion $! So if you also think that this money could be better used, just follow the link and sign the petition… http://religionsforpeace.org/initiatives/global-youth-network/campaign-for-shared-security/

Olivia Tiffoche

Presentations on Media, outreach, advocacy and online tools

Media, outreach, advocacy

View more presentations from Marius Ulozas.

Social Media As Tools For Policy Dialogue

View more presentations from Marius Ulozas.

Can a revolution be twittered?

Marius Uzolas, European Youth Foundation Media Traning Representative, is now with us to guide a session. This session will be interactive because the field is very broad, and may differ from country to country.
Media these days are an important tool to get your message spread, more than shouting on the street.
Let's try to summarize Marius' presentation a bit. Communication and desicions about communication should be based on four principles.
1. Whom i want to inform? What change you want to bring and on which level. Institutional level, political level, personal level. Define your target groups. Who is relied to the topic? (Members/participants, partners, opinion leaders, interest groups, community, society, institutions). Some target groups you have to make aware, some you have to ask for change, some you have to ask for money.
2. Message content. What will I say. What/where/when? Explain why it is important, crucial at this point. What will (it) change? Make the before and after picture. Who's benefiting from that? How will it happen?
3. Channel. Where/ via what will I inform. You want a petition to be signed? Do you put posters on walls then? No. You can't click on it. Choose the right channel. If you want efficiency, you must know what media your target group is using to get information. (Printed media, TV, Web audience, social networks).
4. Means. How will I do it. Verbal? (Maybe it's enough to go talk with someone). Text information (announce of events, post fact pres release, iformation for media) Static visual (poster, photos, sculpture). Visual-sound (videa footage, coverage). Direct interaction/action (event).

After the break we try to applicate these knowledge to a concrete thing: our youth statement.
Let's talk about the news value criteria. Everyone has it's own interest and if you can play with it, it will help you. It's about exploiting the system. What will be covered? Novelty, personalities (contact them and mobilize them), importance/scale, conflict/drama, rare/extraordinarity, negativity. Be aware or the context: is your project/cause different, and how?

Nine rules for press release.

1. Clear Message: Be able to say it in one sentence and attract interest.
2. Pay attention to the title: short, catchy, informative and active.
N.B. Mentioning your organization not necessarily strengthens the title ('Pax Christi youth call for change' vs 'European youth call for change').
3. Inverted pyramid: Be clear with when, where and what is happening, then go to the why and how, and end by giving the context. The most important information has to be on top of the article.
4. Logic: Do not repeat the same information. Clear emphasis/stress (ex. 100 people protested at the ministery, at the ministery 100 people protested, at the ministery there was a protest of 100 people)
5. Facts vs judgements: Judgements are NOT facts, subjective judgements can be introduced by quotes. Facts shouldn't be quoted.
6. Expressing: Instead of adjectives you can use illustrative arguments. Naked numbers are not understandable. (ex.20.000 people have migrated, it's the size of this or that city)
7. Positioning: Why are you the best. Have you won the Noble peace price allready. Are you the oldest, the biggest,...
8. Simplicity: Round of numbers. Avoid bureaucratic expressions, stereotypes and cliche, international words, technical terms. Make it as simple that everyone would understand. We got used to short information and are not really anymore into reading big texts.
9. Details: date, title, no longer than 1 page, not more than 2-3 quoted persons, contacts.

People, create a twitter account !
Enables you to send short messages to an extended audience, fast and effective.
Twitter is personel, skills you to formulate titles 'cause you have to be clear and short, you can attach links, it is a great tool for networking your organisation.

I thank Marius for his presentation and concrete interaction which can help anyone of us.

Pensée du moment...

"Vision without Action is a Daydream, Action without Vision is a Nightmare." -- Japanese Proverb

Jeff Felix doing what he does best...

Climate Change

The monday afternoon session was starred by Jef Felix, who talked to us on Climate Change, in relationship with the MDG's and social justice. It is undoubtful that climate change may be the major challenge for the future and could impede the realisation of the MDG's. Jef's presentation was followed by an animated debate where we discussed the effects of climate change in Africa, how (over)population effects on climate change and many other interesting points of view.

Germany‘s commitment on achieving the Millennium Development Goals

OVERALL ASSESSMENT

Despite significant and laudable increases in development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa in 2007 and 2008, Germany remains off track to meet its 2010 target. It has budgeted for further significant increases in 2009.

Attaining the 2010 target is not out of reach, but will require even more rapid progress in the one remaining budget cycle.

Within the G7, Germany is an average performer on effectiveness of development assistance. It has spent more on water and sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa than any other G8 country and is a clear leader in this sector. It also continues to be a leader in generating funding from innovative financing mechanisms, including being the first G8 country to direct financing from the sales of CO2 emissions certificates to development. However, Germany, along with other members of the EU, has failed to deliver pro-development trade reforms.

LOOKING AHEAD

Germany's ODA to sub-Saharan Africa increased substantially in 2007 and 2008, but decreased slightly in 2009, mostly due to a reduction of debt relief. German political leaders have pointed out that despite - and because of - the financial crisis, development assistance remains important. This was underscored when Germany allocated $144 million from its national stimulus package for infrastructure projects in developing countries. It is critical that Germany continues to significantly increase its budget for development assistance and that most of these increases are channelled to sub-Saharan Africa. The positive trend established over the past three years needs to be continued by whatever coalition forms the government after the elections in September 2009. It is encouraging that cabinet members of both coalition parties have indicated substantial ODA increases for 2010. These ODA increases have to come in a genuinely concessional form so that sub-Saharan African countries stand to benefit from them without jeopardising their debt sustainability. By doing this, Germany can further build on its international credibility as a responsible partner for developing countries.

DATA

Source: http://www.one.org/international/datareport2009/germany.html

“NGO Advocacy in European Political Institutions – a Practitioner’s Perspective”

On Wednesday our first presenter Emmanouil Athanasiou, Head of Asia Desk, FIDH, told us about the advocacy and lobbying in the European Union. Emmanouil is a lawyer specialized in international and European human rights law. He was still a student, when he joined to a European program that trained young expert in foreign affairs. In charge of human rights in UN peacekeeping missions in Africa, he worked in Eritrea, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Currently he leads the Asia Desk programs of the International Federation for Human Rights.

The FIDH is the oldest organization that deals with human rights; it was founded by twenty national organizations on the initiative of French and German member organizations in 1922. The FIDH is a federation -as Emmanouil said - 164 human rights organizations throughout the world contribute to the prevention of human rights violations, to the protection of victims of such violations, as well as to the promotion of human rights.

The presentation was very useful and interesting; we learnt some tricks how to influence policymakers in favor of specific causes using personal contacts, sometimes public pressure, or political action to persuade legislators to vote in a particular manner. Emmanouil explained the process of lobby in the EU, and who do they lobby:

• European Commission – for the role in policy formulation and drafting legislation.
• European Parliament – because is accessible and after the Lisbon Treaty the Parliament has become a more important factor in the distribution of the money than before that.
• European Council – for the high policy and position tracking in Brussels.

After the presentation about the advocacy process, Emmanouil gave us documentation about the situation in Burma/Myanmar under the current military rule, one of the most repressive regimes in the world. The paper gives concrete dates about the electoral process in Burma. It explains how to the regime is preparing itself for the day after the elections which are organized with only one am: to ensure that the country will remain still hostage of the military.

Our team really liked this subject, it was clear and realistic about how we can advocate in European political institutions for achieving our goal.

“Team Romania”

Ctrl-Alt-Shift...

Here are a couple of short films from the "Ctrl-Alt-Shift Film competition" that could be used to sensibilize people and take action to. The following films were made to raise awareness of issues.

About War & Child soldiers: "War School" by Ben Newman.
"Opting for a short based around war + peace, Ben Newman came up with one of the most popular entries, gaining praise across the board by re-creating a military training camp for child soldiers in a British school. It was described by Riz Ahmed as a great idea, simple, communicating a direct message"

About gender: Man Made by Fern Berresford
"This two-minute short, based around gender + power, tackles the treatment of women as property and the lack of self worth and identity women feel due to the gender inequalities prevalent in many societies."

Session on media and outreach is soon to start

HEY (virtual) people ;)

the session on media, outreach and advocacy is soon to start. see you 11AM @ the plenary.
shall you have some time - join PCI Youth @ Twitter - http://twitter.com/PCI_Youth

Marius

Denmark's Development aid and Military Expenditures

Denmark is one of the 5 european countries that have managed to give an Official Development Assistance GNI of over the UN set target of 0.7%. In 2009, they managed to get to 0.83, which is the same as € 2,208 million.

Denmark has many humanitarian NGO's, one of the biggest being DanChurchAid, which is funded through private donations, foundations, DANIDA ( Danish International Development Assistance), the UN and the EU. In 2009, DanChurchAid raised 66 million euros, where it spent 52% in Africa, 23% in Asia, 6% in the middle east, 5% in central europe, 8% in eastern europe and central asia, and 6% globally.

The Military is the 5th largest single economy in the Danish Government (the largest being the ministry of social affairs). Its expenditure in 2009 was approx. 2,687 million €.

Olivia Shaw

Conference Call with Vaiba Flomo

Tuesday 11th, we all gathered in the conference room at 10 a.m (slightly later than monday, so we all got a bit of a lie in). We started by watching a film, called "Pray the devil back to hell". The film was made in 2008, and it was a documentary about a group of women who wanted peace in the second Liberian civil war. This group was called "Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace", organized by a woman named Leymah Roberta Gbowee. She managed to gather christian and muslim women of Monrovia to protest in a nonviolent way.

One of the women who was greatly involved in this group was Vaiba Flomo, a Liberian woman who was sick of all the pain and grief that the war had brought upon them.

After we had had lunch, we came back to the conference room to call Vaiba Flomo. We managed to get through to her, and even though it was slightly difficult to understand what she was saying (Thanks to the crackling noises of the phone) we all listened intently to what she had to say.

We asked her all sorts of questions, from personal questions about why she joined the movement, questions on the child soldiers, to her thoughts on the election of the first female president of an African nation; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. She was very happy to answer them, and we learnt a lot more about her from the "interview".

Olivia Shaw

Belgium and MDG's

Yesterday all of us did our presentation on our countries achievements (or the lack of it...) on the MDG's. Having been in development for two years I liked very much to talk, not only on numbers, but also to give the view from inside on methodology in development actions. Afterwards our presentations were enriched by a very interesting and open debate with our guests from Burundi and Ivory Coasts, who give us their view on development. As we all know: debates where global economics, fair trade relations and football players are discussed can't be wrong! We're looking forward for more!!

Austria`s non-reached development goals and it`s poor military

As one of the richest countries in Europe it seems to not reach the 0.7%-Goal deliberately. The money spent on development aid constantly decreased in the last years and reached a new minimum in 2009, with only 0.42% of Austria`s GDP. As if it wasn`t enough to no reach the goal, Austria is even cheating on the aid-recieving countries by giving almost half of it`s development aid in dept releases, which is by far the highest number in Europe. NGOs that have an eye one Austria`s donor behaviour claim, that the percentage of development aid shrinks to not more than 0.2% of the GDP after discounting debt releases and costs for immigrant assistence in Austria. In 2003 a pressure group was found, to force the austrian government to at least try to reach the 0.7-Goal with no to middling success.
The military spendings of Austria have stagnated in the last few years at about 2.7% of the GDP, which means about 2 Billion € per year in absolute numbers. If you look at the fact, that Austria is surrounded by EU countries this is an absurdly high amount, but in fact the Austrian armed forces have way to few money. It`s even that bad, that they had to sell some of their caserns and other buildings, so we probably need a proper reform of our army before we can talk about decreasing military spendings

Picture above: Poor austrian soldier not even having a gun

The Millennium Development Goals for Romania

"Romania's objective of developing a modern, inclusive, European society will take time and commitment"- said the former Prime Minister of Romania, Adrian Nastase in 2003.

In the last seven years, many things has been changed in our country, because when the MDGs were developed, Romania was a beneficial of the development aids.

Nowadays, Romania contributes with an exact sum of money to the fund for the developing countries. During the last years, to reach the MDGs, Romania has learnt valuable lessons regarding the cooperation between government, international organizations, civil society and the private sector.

Romania managed to satisfy partially all the MDGs, but there is still work to do.

More precisely the situations of MDGs were the following based on a report made in 2003, and updated in 2007:

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.

Halve the severe poverty rate by 2009, as compared to 2002. This target was achieved in 2005. Figure 1 shows the dynamics of the severe poverty rate, and the second one shows the dynamics of the severe poverty rate by residence.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education:

Ensure that at least 95% of children in rural areas complete a full course of primary and secondary education as of 2012. Increase the literacy rate of the Roma population.

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Increase women’s level of employment and the level of representation in the national parliament.

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

Halve the mortality rate in children aged 1-4 years between 2002 and 2015.

Reduce infant mortality by 40% between 2002 and 2015.

Eliminate measles by 2007

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

Halve the maternal mortality rate, between 2001 and 2009

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Maintain, by 2007, the incidence of HIV/ AIDS at the level of 2002.

Have halted by 2005 and begun to reverse the incidence of tuberculosis. (Directly Observed Treatment Short Course).

Provide access to affordable essential drugs.

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

Ensure a growth of the rate of tree plantation, from 27% to 35% by 2040 .

Increase the proportion of protected land area from 2.56% in 1990 to 10% by 2015.

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Double the number of people with sustainable access to drinking water by 2015.

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

Double the number of subscribers to fixed telephony networks between 2001 and 2015.

Increase by at least 20% the number of personal computers every year.

"Team Romania"

France s spending: Development Aid & Military budget

Development Aid Budget and MDGs

In 2009, the French contribution to Official Development Assistance (ODA) represents 0.46% of GDP.
This ODA budget has increased up to +16.9%. France is the second leading donor in terms of volume and the second leading donor in terms of the increase in its net ODA.
By keeping this growth every year, France will be able to reach the UN-MDG target of 0.7% of its GDP by 2015.

Though the 2009 figures show an increase of the ODA budget. The French ODA agency - AFP - has been reducing its donation by substuting them by bilateral lending and contributions to international organisations:
a) the donation has been drecreased:
- in 2009: down to €175 millions (i.e. two times lower than in 2006).
- bilateral health donation has been decreased by five between 2007 and 2010, reaching €20M.

b) the lending have increased:
- bilateral contributions: up to €8.7 b.
- in IMF loans: from €28 millions in 2008 upto €586 millions in 2009

c) the multilateral contributions have increased:
- contributions to the EU (+ 330 millions)
- contributions to the World Bank (+ 75 millions)

NOTA:
1. Further analysis need to be developped in order to detail the contributions to the ODA.
2. ODA could serve for disbursement of loans as well. The Committe of the Abolition of the Thirld World Debt (CADTM) points out several limits of the interpretation of the previous ODA figures.

Defense budget

Between 1999-2008, the SIPRI shows an increase of military spending (+3.5%). The latest figures from SIPRI are for 2008, the military budget is equal to 2.3% of GDP ( France = 4th of the most military spenders in the world with 4.5% of world sharing, and 2nd European country behind UK in terms of GDP).
The SIPRI definition of military spending includes: « Defense », « Security», « ex-serviceman & National memory » and « R&D and university ». The « Defense » budget alone represents, in 2008, €37b (against €65.7b for all military spending).

The 2010 French voted budget indicates that Defense represents the second budget of France (15.3% of state spending), behind the Education program (47.7% of state spending).
According to the French White Paper on defense (strategic review), the gouverment investment will either keep maintaining or reinforce its military strength. From 2012, the France effort in defense will increase at the rate of 1% per year and per volume.

But we could wonder in which strategies the France is based on to foresee the "future of the world"?
According to Pierre Conesa, in "Le Monde Diplomatique", the French think-tank or - even at the regional level - the European institutions are not big enough to be enable to define their own European strategies, but follow the Americain perspective.

Present open-points are:
What is the Americain Tendancy? (Pierre Consea explains already in its article, but need to be developped or dubbed in French)
Does the France export weapons? If so, where, how much, what kind of?

Discussing human security

During the midday session Peter Brune gave a presentation on human security. After giving a short introduction on the concept of Human security, Mr. Brune invited the participants to do a value exercise on two major debates within the human security paradigm.
-In the first debate the necessity of the use of force was positioned against the opinion that non violence is the only reasonable option to create durable peace.
-In the second debate the community based approach to human security was positioned against the human rights based approach.
The participants were asked to place themselves in a straight line to indicate their own position between these two extremes after which they were invited to clarify their opinion.
Following this short exercise the participants broke up into small groups to discuss these topics among themselves. After 15 minutes the plenary session was reopened during which the indicated reporters presented the conclusions of these group discussions, providing further impetus to the plenary discussions.
During the final part of this session individual participants were given a chance to ask Mr. Brune questions on the topic of human security and disarmament by which he could interactively share his opinions and experiences as an expert on human security and an advocate of peace and disarmament.

US: Military Spending vs. Development Aid

Even though US gives the most money overall for development aid ($28.7B in 2009), it only gives 0.2% of it’s GNI—behind the UN target of 0.7%. That being said, the 2009 donation was up 5.4% from 2008 levels.

To look at foreign military assistance, a basic chart is helpful...

Foreign Operations	2009 Actual	2010 Estimated	2011 Request
Foreign Military Assistance	6,231,500,000	4,195,000,000	5,473,348,000
USAID	1,257,959,000	1,650,300,000	1,695,506,000
MCC	875,000,000	1,105,000,000	1,279,700,000

It should be noted, that Department of Defense requests for the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund is completely separate, and the FY2011 request for that line item was $11B.

As I mentioned yesterday, U.S. military spending is 4% of GDP.

NGOs and the COE

Today, Jutta Gutzkow, NGO liason officer of the Council of Europe, told us about how the Council of Europe interacts with NGOs. There is a big conference every year where many international NGOs meet to interact with the Council of Europe. According to miss Gutzkow, this is very important because if all the NGOs make a single voice, they are much more powerful in influencing actual policy than if they act on their own. Also, the Council of Europe can get a very clear view on what is happening in a civil society by interacting with NGOs. On top of that the Council of Europe tries to promote NGO activity in its member-countries to promote a civil society there. They see to it that NGOs use lobbying in a democratically responsible way through a special rule of conduct they formulated.

NGO and other non-governmental activity can be very important for a democracy because through them, politicians can get a much better view of what their electorate wants. IF NGOs are involved in the policy process, unpopular but necessary decisions can also be explained much better to the electorate through the NGOs. It is true though that some kinds of NGO bargaining can also undermine democracy. This is sometimes happening because usually NGOs represent only the interest of part of the society while democratic politics has to take into account the interest of the whole society. If a NGO gets too strong or uses methods that are not democratically responsible, it can force politicians to act in favor of their interest at the expense of the societal interest. Therefore I think it is very good to regulate the behavior of the NGOs so that a society can have the benefits of NGOs but not the costs.

Another part of the presentation was about how political decision-making works and what kind of participation belongs to different phases in the decision-making process. It was a very clear explanation of complex elements of political theory and very helpful in understanding the work of NGOs and the involvement of the Council of Europe in this.

All in all, I really liked this very clear presentation, made possible for a big part by the great work of our translators. If all presentations will go like this, it will be a very useful and interesting week. I am looking forward to tomorrow...

The best way to spend your money

Today, we had a group session about human security and how military spending relates to development aid. Basically we argued that military spending is not all bad and that it can certainly improve human- and national security. However, it takes more to reach an acceptable standard of human security, for example spending money on internal security or recieving the right kind of development aid. It also greatly depends on what sort of country you are talking about. A developing country could benefit a lot from more spending on social equality while a more developed country could benefit more from spending money on the police force. In the end, military spending can be a good thing, but it should never get out of proportion.

A subject like this becomes more interesting if you can look at it from the perspective of different countries and therefore it was great to talk about it with people with a lot of different nationalities.

The missing parts of the MDG's

During our afternoon sessions, our group had to talk about the Millenium Develoment Goals (MDG's). We believe that some urgent problems have been left out. The MDG's takes interesting things into account, but does not mention demographic problems like overpopulation and aging of the population. There could also be more interest in the internal and external migration. Countries from al over the world are dealing with this occurence.

Some Romanians, a French Guy, and an American Girl Walked into a Breakout Session...

...and confirmed what everyone knew: American military spending is out.of.control. 41.5% ($607B) of the world share.

Romania, on the other hand, spends about $2B (1.3% of GDP) while France spends $55B (2.3% of GDP). There was also talk of Romania's increased spending since its entrance into NATO, and their need to continuously purchase military equipment because they always buy used.

The U.S. and France found themselves on the list of top 15 countries in terms of military spending, making their tax-paying citizens amongst the top 15 investment losers.

In other news, the group talked about issues we would like to see our countries invest in and came up with the following:

• Romania: infrastructure. A highway is currently under construction which costs 18M€/km (kudos to the American company...figures), but once it's finished, it will boost tourism, jobs, transportation, etc.
• France: education, health care, housing.
• U.S.: health care. Current spending is about 16% of GDP, and there could be much more investment in preventative care and addressing the problem of the high numbers of uninsured.

Military spending group, signing out...

Me and the Lads talk Development

It's the end of the first day and we are all tired and weary and we feel like we've known each other for years. So just before we were allowed to go into Strasbourg and have a few...coffees, we were brought together in "breakout groups" (an americanism, no doubt) to discuss different parts of the advocacy package. My group (I was the only girl, by the way) was deemed "qualified" enough to tackle the Millennium Development Goals themselves, and we discussed the following:

What have the targets left out? Why have certain countries (NL, L, NL, DK, SE) managed to reach the targets and not others? What are new innovative ways to raise money?

It was great. One of the Dutch lads made a small presentation afterwards of our findings. Hardly MDG experts, we managed to pull together for some fairly intelligent points of discussion.

“ Gender and peacebuilding: a foundation for Development”

The first "bit" of our seminar featured Claudette Werleigh entering lively discussion with the team on the the gender-in-development issue; This summary was kindly hacked out by Stijn Snoeck from Belgium....

On the first session of Pax Christi’s transnational youth seminar Claudette Werleigh, Pax Christi International’s secretary-General and the former prime minister of Haiti, gave a presentation on gender and peacebuilding. Ms. Werleigh is a renowned expert on gender equality and helped among others to found the women’s league for women’s empowerment, which is an organization promoting the participation of women in politics.

After an introductory presentation the participants were encouraged to ask questions to Ms. Werleigh with regard to the session’s theme. Jessica Brown, the coordinator of this transnational youth seminar, opened this question and answer session with a couple of prepared questions after which the participants were given the opportunity ask more questions and to share their opinion with regard to this session’s theme. Through these questions and answers, Ms. Werleigh shared her vision on gender equality and her personal experiences as an advocate of women’s empowerment.

Ms. Wherleigh emphasised that gender equality cannot be considered as just a women’s issue. The MDG’s with regard to gender equality not only address the specific difficulties of women. As gender roles affect every aspect within a society, from its political issues through its moral values, they also influence the achievement of other MDG’s as well. She noted that the MDG’s on gender equality are even in the developed countries not achieved. However, European and especially the Scandinavian countries have set a positive example in this regard. Several European governments have made genuine efforts to move their society beyond the traditional, male dominated role patterns and devised policies to bring more equality within both their administrations as within individual families.

Some of the governmental policies which could promote gender equality can be considered as positive discrimination. Although Ms. Werleigh is not a fervent proponent of positive discrimination, she admitted that it could be a necessary tool to bring about more equality. One can also perceive a certain gap between governmental policies and the prevailing views on gender equality within a given society; issuing a law promoting gender equality is easier than effectively changing people’s minds. Ms. Werleigh underlined this fact, noting that it can take generations before the positive effects of governmental policies trickle down into general society. Initiatives aiming to empower women can only be taken serious by men if they realize that gender equality is also beneficial to them and one cannot waver in promoting this fact.

We can no longer afford to exclude the potential of half the world’s population in the pursuit of peace and development. There is an inseparable link between gender, development and peace building: true sustainable development can only be reached in societies where the gaping chasm between the sexes is overcome, only in societies where a transition is made from a system of domination to a system of more equality and shared responsibility, a lasting peace can be built.

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John from Pax Christi on why he is excited about the youth seminar...

Jessica, our Youth Coordinator speaks!

Participant List:

Christiaan Heyting
Milan Slezak
Eric Pattianadane
Simao Saco
Lorenzo Rosella
Lucas Stupin
Stijn Van Bever
Christophe Lardinois
Jean-Elie Houdry
Franz Schneckenleithner
Matthias Pichler
Adrienne Alexander
Laura Savino
Rose Kelleher
Deirdre Tobin
Zsuzsa -Csilla Kovács
Timea Kerekes
Mihály-Levente Kovács
Levente Varga
Olivia Shaw
Meghann Villanueva

Jessica Brown
Stijn Snoeck
Marius Ulzolas
Taoufik Hartit
Simon David
Lama Azab
Adriana Eslava
Chandra Schwab
Jon Kerrigan
Matt Jeziorski

CONTRIBUTE to the Pax Christi Youth Seminar blog, or become a follower

Welcome to the Pax Christi Youth seminar blog! There is less that a week to go before we convene in Strasbourg, and TEAM YOUTH invites you to contribute to this blog with any thoughts or ideas in preparation for our seminar. We will use this social media tool to make video recordings of participants during the seminar, and we ask that everyone attending contributes at one point or another.

On thursday the 13th may, you will all attend a training session entitled “Blogging, Twitter and Social Media as Tools for Policy Dialogue”. In this session, participants will learn about development of websites, e-newsletter marketing/ content management systems, google documents, if you aren't an expert already!

The purpose of the session is to get more tech savvy, learn how to use these online tools to exchange information, organise groups and awareness raising campaigns. This BLOG is your opportunity to get a head start!