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Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
The saddening and horrific pictures from Haiti after its devastating earthquake brought back vivid memories for me. I lived through an earthquake when I was a young boy in Morocco, and I know how harrowing it is. At that time, there were forty thousand casualties -- nothing close to what has happened in Haiti -- but I still recall the traumatic scenes of collapsed buildings and mourning families.
Haiti has now been devastated on a far larger scale. The earthquake -- the worst in the region in more than 200 years -- is the latest in a series of natural and man-made disasters that have, over the years, turned the Caribbean country into the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Some 80 percent of its nine million people live below the poverty line.
The earthquake has flattened much of the capital, Port-au-Prince. According to the International Red Cross, three million people, nearly a third of Haiti's population, will need emergency food, water, and shelter for months to come.
Two hundred years ago, Haiti was the "Pearl of the Antilles." Its amazingly rich soil then produced four crops a year. It is not unrealistic to imagine that the country can be rebuilt as a prosperous nation. But it needs help over a prolonged period.
That's why I'm proposing a type of Marshall Plan -- an international effort to support the Haitian authorities in rebuilding the country and back its democracy, much as the United States helped rebuild Europe after the destruction of World War II.
The IMF has the capacity to provide urgently needed cash resources very quickly, and we -- along with separate contributions from other international agencies -- aim to make $100 million available to Haiti in the next few days as a bridge that will get Haiti through from today's humanitarian needs to tomorrow's reconstruction. The Fund, in close coordination with other donors, is assisting the authorities in getting cash to circulate in the economy so people can buy food, and civil servants can be paid. Banks will reopen shortly but the payments system is not fully operational yet.
That will take care of short-term needs but we should also plan now for the future. A first donors' conference is scheduled to take place in Montreal next week, in preparation for a larger conference in the spring that will mobilize financing for Haiti. I hope the contours of such a plan will start to take shape through the process begun in Montreal. In the coming weeks and months, the Fund will participate, by providing money and expertise, in the reconstruction plan that will be coordinated across the international community.
Part of the goal will be to restart private activity, rebuilding businesses and encouraging guarantees for the banking sector so that lending can get under way again. It is also critical to support the creation of jobs in rural areas, where large sectors of the population have moved because of the quake.
With victims still being dug out of the rubble, Haiti's needs are massive and immediate: the international community is working together to mobilize all available resources and to deliver them as quickly as possible. Once again, in tragic circumstances, the rescue and reconstruction effort highlights that only the international community, acting in concert, can meet challenges that go beyond individual governments. And we must emphasize that the focus on Haiti must not result in the diversion of aid at the expense of other poor countries.
For now, and for at least the next couple of years, Haiti has no payments to make on its existing debts to the Fund, while the emergency loan we are providing is interest-free, with no repayments due for five years. Looking beyond the emergency phase, and as part of an international plan to rebuild the country, there will be a need to reassess Haiti's debt situation in light of the catastrophic damage to its economy. At that stage, the international community needs to be ready to provide comprehensive debt relief.
Today, the urgent immediate priority is to save the people of Haiti. In a few weeks, it will be reconstruction. We must be prepared to think on as massive a scale as then U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall did after World War II. If we seize this chance, we can help the people of Haiti escape their cycle of poverty and deprivation fueled by merciless natural disasters that plague the Caribbean nation. The international community owes it to them.
From the iMFdirect blog via Huffington Post.
Teaser photo: Rémi Kaupp
May 5 2010
The Global Marshall Plan Group of Steyr-Kirchdorf is organizing a network meeting for the Global Marshall Plan Initiative in Upper Austria.
More details will be published shortly at the website of the SPES Future Academy: www.spes.co.at.
The meeting will be held in German.
Students found organisation in Austria
How to build up a sustainable and fair world?
Climate justice, tax justice, coherence in development aid policy - the conversion of these catchwords means that it is possible to build up a better and sustainable world. The Global Marshall Plan Initiative follows this kind of ideas to create a comprehensive framework for the future of our planet. If we follow these measures consistently, we will be able to stop climate change and global poverty within the next 10-20 years.
What can young people do?
The aim of "Global Marshall Plan Supporting Students" is to inform many youths about complicated subjects like sustainability and global justice. Youths have a multiplier's function in society. That means that they pass on their knowledge.
We believe in the positive influence on the policy is exercised by clarification of the people. It is definitely easier to pursue a sustainable and fair policy if civil society is exercising pressure! We believe that education and awareness building are especially lasting when it is more than just spreading information. It needs to allow people to become active and to act specifically. Therefore "Global Marshall Plan Supporting Students" main focus is on awareness building. With our projects we want to reach that young people deal with the issues in a creative way and that they are actively involved in a better world.
Our first project - "Climate protection now in Klosterneuburg!"
On 12 December 2009, at the worldwide action day for the climate protection, we went out into the streets in Klosterneuburg (Austria). With self-made posters and flyers and through talks with pedestrians we informed about the necessary changes of our lifestyle. Controversial discussions started with questions like "Should petrol become more expensive? Is it the right measure for the climate protection?" 82 people took part in the poll and a clear majority voted for a rise in price.
Azerbaijan's First Children's Forum in Baku
The first Azerbaijan Children Forum brought 250 children from 56 regions of the country. They met between 18-19 December 2009 in Baku.
Most of governmental officials (Prime Minister Office, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Youth and Sport, Ministry of Ecology and etc) joined Azerbaijan's First Children Forum. 
Rufat Dargahli, 11 years old, member of Azerbaijan Youth Union and participant of Tunza 2009 conference was selected to the Forum. During the Forum he was elected as leader of Environmental and Healthy Life working group.
During an interview by two popular TV channels of Azerbaijan – Public TV and ANS TV - he called upon all Azerbaijan youth and children to start planting trees in all regions of Azerbaijan. 
by the end of Forum Azerbaijan children adopted Baku Declaration, which will be submit to the President of Azerbaijan.
Rufat's following suggestions was accepted and included to the declaration:
• Calling all society members to think about climate change and start the campaign "Stop Talking. Start Planting."
• Creation of first children TV channel
• Creation of children communication systems via national internet social network
• Creation of network with children from different countries and organize exchange programs, conferences, camps and etc.
Become a fan! Tag your photo!
Your campaign now has a brand new facebook fan page. Have a look and invite friends to become a fan! 
Tag yourself and your friends in the photos and help to spread the campaign.
Interview with Kumi Naidoo
18 January 2010
www.alliancemagazine.org
Few people would disagree that the outcome of the recent Copenhagen conference was very disappointing. But are there positive things that we can build on, Caroline Hartnell asked Kumi Naidoo, the new executive director of Greenpeace International. What can individuals, civil society and private foundations do to ensure we do reach the global deal we need? Advocacy for policy change at global level is the priority now, says Naidoo. Foundations should step up their funding, and should be willing to support civil disobedience along with other approaches.
I’d like to start by asking for your assessment of the outcome of the Copenhagen conference. However unsatisfactory, is it something we can build on?
Since the Bali conference two years ago, the objective of many governments and civil society was to ensure that Copenhagen delivered a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty. We didn’t get one. However, there are some things that we can put down as partial successes.
First, we began to see national political leadership taking responsibility because the climate issue is not simply about the climate but about the economy, about society and about peace. So we have established that this is not just about environment ministers getting together and talking about a political issue but a central issue that affects how we think about the planet.
The second positive thing is that there was virtually no contesting of the science, even with the recent climategate emails. There was no real problem like we used to have when President Bush was there. I think the scientific debate has been put to bed now.
The third positive thing was that we got agreement on the principle that developing countries are least responsible for the climate chaos we find ourselves in and also the ones paying the most brutal price. They should therefore receive significant financing to help them adapt to the impact of climate change, recognizing the historical responsibility. There were a lot of questions about the figures. The figure that was committed from 2015 is $100 billion a year. Greenpeace has been calling for a minimum of $140 billion and African countries have been calling for $200 billion. The weakness is that no one has said where this is going to come from.
Finally, there was a recognition that, as President Obama said, Copenhagen will not avert catastrophic climate change. For once, political leaders didn't attempt to greenwash it because it is so clear that there is a long way to go before the kind of response the science suggests we need is actually achieved. So overall, while Copenhagen didn't live up to expectations, I think the positive things that I've just mentioned give us a measure of cautious optimism for the next stage of the struggle.
Presumably what we’re working towards now is binding targets that do what’s required in the time required?
Correct. The next big meeting, COP16 as it will be known as, takes place in November in Mexico, but the whole message of the campaign that Greenpeace is supporting, the Tck Tck Tck campaign, is that time is running out. If we take what the scientists and economists like Nick Stern are saying, and the International Energy Agency, for every year that we delay taking action, the costs go up by $500 million. In terms of the so-called Copenhagen Accord, governments are supposed to announce the targets that they are seeking to achieve in terms of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, what national plans they are developing, what policies they are pursuing and what assistance they need. The deadline for that is 31 January, so at the moment a lot of energy is going towards that.
There’s also a meeting in Bonn in May/June this year where we’re hoping that we can get some clearer targets on the table. There are also closer, more specific targets like working for zero deforestation by 2015, and we think we can get actionable plans if there’s enough of a political consensus. One of the downsides of the Copenhagen Accord is that it’s really G8-ish or G20-ish in the generalness of the terms in which it’s couched, which local leaders can exploit. Think of all the fanfare surrounding the Gleneagles summit: 2010 was the year to deliver and we’ve not even reached 50 per cent of delivery on many of those promises.
So what can civil society and individuals do to help ensure that these milestones in January, May/June and November are met and we do get the agreements we need?
First, I think citizens and civil society must recognize that governments will not act with the urgency that is needed unless they are pushed into it.
I think there are two broad sets of things individuals can do. One is developing their own understanding of the issue and helping raise awareness in families, schools, places of worship and so on. The other is changing consumer behaviour and building pressure from below for the kind of change that is needed. Take using energy-efficient light bulbs, for example. If there was a significant move in that direction, in the long term, not only would they become cheaper, but we’d probably see much more accelerated movement towards governments passing legislation that makes energy-efficient light bulbs the norm rather than the exception. Other forms of consumer behaviour – the level of demand for meat-based as opposed to vegetarian food, the transport we use – all of these things can also accelerate change at the top. Overall, individual citizens need to pressure their politicians to let them know they care, that inaction on climate will have intolerable consequences.
With regard to civil society, what was positive about Copenhagen was that the climate issue was no longer an issue only for environmental groups. We saw the World Council of Churches and other faith-based groups, trade unions and development organizations that don’t normally get involved in climate issues came to the fore very strongly. This was the aim of the Tck Tck Tck campaign (a collation of civil society organizations including Greenpeace, Oxfam, Amnesty, the International Trade Union Federation and others). We will only know we have turned the corner in terms of climate change activism if we can attract these organizations to put their name and energy and resources behind the campaign.
Why do you think it’s so difficult to engage people in climate change activism?
I think there are three things involved. First, a slow-burning issue like climate change is not very visible and not easy to explain to a broad audience, unlike human rights violations or poverty. The second problem is the science. This is often presented in ways that make it harder for people who aren’t specialists to engage with. When we start talking 350 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere, 1.5 versus 2 degrees, and so on, people get quite alienated. One of the challenges that we took up in 2009 was how we can make all this more accessible, without being simplistic. The third thing is that, unlike human rights violations and poverty, where there are no serious lobbyists putting money and advertising into saying these are good things, with climate change, we come up against some of the most powerful industry interests in the world – the fossil fuel industry and other polluting industries, with huge advertising budgets and very good lobbyists.
Given all the things that stack up against civil society, I think we did quite well to put those lobbies on the defensive.
So what can civil society do next?
There are four things civil society has been doing and must continue to do. First, we need to continue to make a contribution to the science. Right now, I’m sure that with the current cold spell many people around the world, especially in Europe, are saying, ‘Whatever happened to global warming?’ We need to be able to explain how the impact of global warming is actually producing extremities in the weather, possibly including these colder periods in Europe and North America.
Second, we need to do much more global awareness raising than we’re doing – and we need to do this in a non-jargonistic way. Third, we need to look at what forms private action can take, in terms of consumer behaviour, and what demands people make of the environment in terms of transport, energy consumption and so on. Civil society needs to be engaging in new ways of thinking – everything from energy efficiency to looking at sustainable ways out of energy poverty. Part of the problem we face is that 1.6 billion people in the world are energy poor, with virtually no access to any form of energy whatsoever. We need to find low-carbon ways of moving these people out of poverty by giving them access to PVC solar panels and so on.
You talked about the effectiveness of civil society lobbying prior to Copenhagen. Is there still a continuing advocacy role for civil society?
Absolutely. None of these things go any way towards the scale of changes that we actually need, and that’s why the voice of civil society in lobbying for policy changes and national legislative interventions, backed up by the global treaty that we’re all working for, is critically important for pushing government to make serious cuts in emissions and invest more in energy efficiency as well as renewable energy. I would say that in places like Africa and Asia, we have not begun to exploit the potential of solar and wind energy. There is a huge potential there, which might mean that, ten years from now, with the right levels of investment, Africa, specifically North Africa, could become an exporter of energy to Europe.
How to do advocacy is one of the things that civil society needs to address. The conventional methods of lobbying and letter writing and appealing and going to meetings need to be enhanced. When humanity has been faced with grave problems – slavery or apartheid, for example – it’s only when decent men and women have been willing to step forward and say, 'Enough. I’m willing to put my life on the line, like Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi, I'm prepared to engage in civil disobedience', that these extreme situations are ended. Al Gore has recently called for civil disobedience to advance the climate change agenda. I think that’s part of what civil society needs to do.
And presumably what private foundations and individual donors should do is support the best civil society organizations that are working in these areas?
I think foundations need to be putting their resources into all the activities I've just been talking about. The big issue is how much you put into service delivery versus policy change. I think foundations need to become a bit more cutting-edge in terms of putting more resources into advocacy efforts – and at Copenhagen we did see certain foundations for the first time getting better results from making global grants.
This needs to be intensified. We need to recognize that at the end of the day we can't win the climate challenge by investing only at the national level. We need a global response and more needs to be invested, especially at the global level. Second – and I think this will challenge philanthropy like nothing else – there needs to be more support for peaceful but high-impact civil disobedience. Foundations, particularly the more cutting-edge ones, need to be open to that. And in terms of scale of support, they need to do more!
What do you see as the main obstacle to more and more effective climate-related grantmaking?
Part of the problem we face here, and in other areas, is that we tend to operate in silos, both in our analysis and in our interventions. We put things in environmental silos, development silos and so on. Climate change intersects with many areas of grantmaking. What, for example, is the youth development-climate change nexus? Young people have been the biggest voices on climate change: they know that their future is at stake. Or take grantmaking related to peace and conflict: climate change has already driven local-level conflict in places like Bangladesh and water scarcity was one of the causes of the genocide in Darfur. Likewise, if you look at funding for women, we know that as conflict arises and poverty increases, women and children will pay the biggest price. It's not a question of foundations saying, 'Climate change is a new thing. Now let’s look at what we can do.' It’s a question of how they adapt existing streams of grantmaking to make them more climate friendly.
But overall the focus at this stage should be on policy change at global level?
We can win small, incremental victories here and there at the local and national levels, but the aggregated impact is going to be woefully inadequate. So yes, right now the primary focus should be to help civil society to push our governments to agree a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty to avert catastrophic climate change.
Kumi Naidoo is executive director of Greenpeace International.
For more information www.greenpeace.org
Photo credit © Greenpeace / Marco Okhuizen
Essay by Zeki Ergas
According to Igaal Niddam, the Swiss director whose new movie, Brothers, is scheduled to hit the Swiss screens at the beginning of February 2010, it is, in the long run, very serious, assuming, of course that the present trends will continue. The movie is, ostensibly, about two Israeli brothers, one of whom is a veteran kibbutznik who has worked and lived in a kibbutz for more than twenty-five years, and the other, a distinguished religious scholar who, after spending several years in the U.S., is back in Israel where he wants to defend the rights of the Yeshiva (religious schools) students to certain privileges, such as, exemption to military service (three years for all the able-bodied young male Israelis – and two, for female ones, but they are not concerned here, since they cannot be religious scholars, that field is reserved to men only!) and to important state subsidies (they also receive, of course, important sums from overseas, especially from Hassidic Jews in New York, in the United States). The inevitable clash between the two brothers is, ostensibly, the subject of the movie. However, the real subject is the lack or absence of separation between politics and religion in Israel, and the possibility that that may, in the long, result in an implosion or civil war.
Is Niddam right? Should we worry, in the long run, about the substantial risk of an implosion or a civil war in Israel that could so weaken that country that it could collapse like a house of cards?
That there is a growing rift, an increasingly yawning gap between: on the one hand, the secular Israelis who have built a prosperous, technically on the cutting edge of progress, successful and vibrant, if ethically deficient, society; and, on the other hand, the religious Israelis who stubbornly, fanatically, and against all reality and logic, want to keep the occupied territories because they, unshakably, believe belong to the Jewish people. Moreover, these religious extremists want to impose the Torah Law in Israel, i.e., to turn Israel into a theocratic state – ironically, like Iran.
Can, in the long run, these two realities, the religious and the secular, co-exist in Israel? Or, is, in the long run, a no-holds-barred confrontation – an implosion or civil war – unavoidable?
I think it is difficult to deny – based on the long list of reasons given by Gideon Levy in a recent article in Ha’aretz (one of two or three most influential newspapers in Israel) that Israel is today a semi-theocratic state. The existence of religious political parties that are part of the government (they always have been), and which, increasingly, dictate governmental policy, is certainly among the most important of these reasons. To make things worse, these political parties -- like Shas, for example, and its ‘spiritual leader’, Rabbi Ovadya Yosef -- are openly racist (as is Israel Beiteinu, the main partner of the governmental coalition, whose leader, Avigdor Lieberman, who lives in a settlement himself, is a true catastrophe for the international image of Israel).
For the sake of the argument, or as a theoretical proposition, it can be submitted that is increasingly looking like that if one day, in the unpredictable and distant future, Israel is destroyed, it will happen, not because it has been defeated in war by its external enemies, but because violent internal quarrels will have weakened it so much, that it will collapse like a house of cards.
What to do to avoid this catastrophic outcome?
It is sometimes said, only half-jokingly, that Israel is not a state with an army, but an army with a state. What is undeniably true is that the army is the most powerful institution in the country and that it exerts a very great influence on the government. The army could, in other words, if it really wanted, force the government to undertake the changes and reforms that are indispensable, which are, broadly speaking:
one, the dissolution of the present government, and its replacement by national unity government;
two, the writing of a Constitution that would enshrine the separation of religion and politics; and
three, declaring boldly that the time has come to make a lasting peace with the Palestinians which involves, not only agreeing to create a truly independent and viable Palestinian state, but also helping Palestinians actively to achieve that goal. For, let us accept it clearly and unambiguously once and for all: there is no real future on this land, unless it is built, together, by the Israelis and the Palestinians.
As for the settlers, they will have to be given what, in a previous paper I have called the de Gaulle option: after the army withdraws at a given date, they can choose: one, to become Palestinian citizens; two, to remain in Palestine as Israeli citizens, but under Palestinian sovereignty; and three, to come back home.
All this may seem very unrealistic at this point, to say the least. But ‘seem’ is the operative word here, because it is not really unrealistic at all. It is, on the contrary, very realistic and the only solution – other than endless war waged by a pariah state that must, in the long run, end badly for Israel. So, let Israelis take a deep breath and do what it must be done. Before it is too late. If Israel is to be saved. From itself.
Zeki Ergas, a scholar, writer and peace activist, is Secretary General of International PEN’s Swiss Romand Center. He is also a leading member of that same organisation’s Writers for Peace Committee.
Copyright mediaforfreedom.com
Photo
"It is necessary to focus on cultural diversity instead of cultural alienation in dialogue between cultures."
(Amman – Majlis El-Hassan)
His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal, on Monday (January, 18, 2010), said that it is essential to understand the importance of supra-national issues in the West Asia-North Africa region and to ensure that the region is represented institutionally on a world level.
Addressing, via satellite, a group of students and representatives from Board and faculty associated with various units of study on campus at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, HRH said that it is necessary to consider the impact of religion on culture and the impact of culture on religion as well as the development of the noble art of listening and conversation in order to activate dialogue away from stereotypes.
Prince El Hassan called for the invocation of the wisdom of illumination, which originated in the Orient, and the heritage of Western enlightenment in order to meet the growing extremist views in the world of today, stressing the importance of citizen diplomacy in this context.
HRH also talked of the importance of humanizing globalization to develop a global understanding that goes beyond rentier investments and that highlights the human face of various issues of security, economy and culture - calling for dialogue within civil society which takes into account the cultural diversity of peoples and the meeting of minds.
“Developing an awareness of a shared interactive memory is essential to understand the future and to move to the third sphere, in partnership between governments, private sectors and civil society in order to address imprisonment of thought, and to formulate a law for peace” the Prince said.
Earlier on Monday, Prince El Hassan addressed a group of Syriac Orthodox representatives from Aleppo, who are visiting Jordan. HRH stressed that ethics, values and morals have their origins in religions.
HRH called for indexing comparative analysis of the concepts that lead to convergence between humanitarian law and heavenly guidance, stressing that education should be touched upon by such comparative studies.
Prince El Hassan said that it is necessary to focus on cultural diversity instead of cultural alienation in dialogue between cultures.
HRH called for the establishment of a moral authority in the holy places which transcends politics. He also called for the establishment of a fund to honor these places and take care of them.
HRH stressed the importance of developing a strategy of understanding for our extended Arab and Muslim family in the world, so as to address various issues such as immigration, poverty and unemployment.
Prince El Hassan said that if the time of central planning has ended, this should not mean the end of priorities. A major priority to address nowadays is the spreading radicalism which affects the rationality of many.
Photo by: Boghos Darakjian
(Amman, 19 January 2010)
The initiative and projects in the media
Global Marshall Plan All articles in German
05/05/2010
Micheldorf, Upper Austria
Lectures and Networking around the Global Marshall Plan
The Global Marshall Plan Group of Steyr-Kirchdorf is organizing a
netzwork meeting for the Global Marshall Plan Initiative in Upper
Austria.
More details will be published shortly at the website of the SPES Future Academy: www.spes.co.at.
The meeting will be held in German.
