United Nations: This Week in Development - 15 April 2013

UN Arms Trade Treaty draft includes provisions to help curb violence in LDCs
During his comments at the final consultations for the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) this week, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said "there are common standards for the global trade in armchairs but not the global trade in arms.

His statement highlighted that unregulated arms and munitions trades lead to continued and unprecedented violence, particularly in the least developed countries. Read more...

After Chad outbreak, reasons for yellow fever activity remain elusive
In late February, the government of Chad launched a mass emergency vaccination campaign in response to an outbreak of yellow fever. For the first time in decades, multiple cases had been confirmed in the country. "It's not the first case, but it's the first cluster," says Olivier Ronveaux, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Yellow Fever Officer for Africa. Read more...

Despite tragic setbacks, push to end polio remains strong
In September 2012, the end of polio seemed close at hand. Incidence had fallen more than 99 percent since 1988, saving 8 million people from paralysis, thanks to an international partnership known as the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). A polio-free world was almost in sight; only three countries-Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan-remained endemic. Read more...

57th CSW calls to end child marriage in the developing world
According to a report from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) by the year 2020, 142 million girls will be married before age 18. This translates to 14.2 million girls married each year - 39,000 girls married each day. The governments of Bangladesh, Canada, and Malawi sponsored a special session of the 57th Commission on the Status of Women at United Nations headquarters in New York City on Thursday to address child marriage. "We all have a role to play in reducing child marriage and ensuring that girls remain girls and not wives and mothers," said moderator Carole Presern, executive director of The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health. Read more...

The water crisis: a women's crisis
At a United Nations conference on water and women held Thursday, February 21 in New York City, Margaret Batty, Policy and Campaigns Director at WaterAid, declared water a "basic human need" and "fundamental human right." Lakshmi Puri, Deputy Executive Director at UN Women, r asserted that the time women spend collecting water "excludes" them from fulfilling their rights and keeps them from becoming tomorrow's leaders. Read more...

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