This year’s observance of International Literacy Day highlights the central role of literacy in the empowerment of women.  Literacy transforms the lives of women, their families, communities and societies.  Literate women are more likely to send their children, especially their girls, to school.  By acquiring literacy, women become more economically self-reliant and more actively engaged in their country’s social, political and cultural life.  All evidence shows that investment in literacy for women yields high development dividends.

Women’s literacy has gained greater prominence on political agendas over the past decade, ever since the World Education Forum, in Dakar, at which governments set the goal of halving the number of adult illiterates by 2015.  The UN Literacy Decade, running from 2003 to 2012, has given further impetus to reducing illiteracy.  Illiteracy rates are dropping, yet approximately one adult in six is still unable to read or write; two out of three illiterate adults are women. 

The world needs increased funding and sustained advocacy for quality literacy programmes that empower women and ensure that girls and boys at primary and secondary level do not become a new generation of young illiterates.  The International Literacy Prizes awarded by UNESCO today to programmes in Cape Verde, Egypt, Germany and Nepal are examples of excellence and innovation.  Each is tangible proof of literacy’s profound and positive influence on women living in very different circumstances – from rural environments to immigrant urban communities.  Such programmes deserve to be widely replicated and expanded.

Every literate woman marks a victory over poverty.  On this International Literacy Day I urge governments, donors, non-governmental organizations and all development partners to make literacy accessible to women everywhere.  Literacy is an essential foundation for development and prosperity.  Empowering women through literacy empowers us all.

Dozens of Lao women are learning to be midwives as part of a national effort to bring down one of the region’s highest maternal mortality rates.

Two families lose a mother and nearly 20 babies are born dead every day, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which is supporting the government initiative.

Deliveries by untrained birthing attendants, unable to solve life-threatening complications during birthing at home or help a newborn take its first breath, are partly responsible for both maternal and infant deaths, according to Monir Islam, director of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Making Pregnancies Safer department. Read more

With the objective of paying tribute to the native Lao cuisine and encouraging the continued use of edible insects in the Lao diet for improved nutrition and food security, SAEP LAAI LAAI! 2010 is the first major food celebration in Lao PDR that focuses on the use of insects as a main element in local and international cuisines. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) will hold the event “SAEP LAAI LAAI! 2010 – A Celebration of the Delicious Lao Insect” on Saturday, the 28th of August, from 4pm to 8pm, at the Lao International Trade Exhibition and Convention Center (ITECC). Read more   

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon established in June 2010 an advocacy group of eminent persons to try to galvanize support worldwide towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by their target date of 2015.  

“We need to emerge from the September Millennium Development Goals summit with concrete national action plans for realizing the Goals. These advocates can help us get there,” Mr. Ban stressed. Each of the group’s members have been asked to focus their advocacy efforts on specific Goals.

The MDG Advocacy Group, composed of high-profile individuals supporting the Secretary-General in building political will and mobilizing global action for the MDGs, held its first meeting in Madrid, Spain, on 16 July. The Advocates who were present, who come from Chile, China, Denmark, France, South Korea, Nigeria, South Africa/Mozambique, Sweden and the United States, recorded brief video messages, as did UNDP Goodwill Ambassador Antonio Banderas. The videos are posted on the UN YouTube channel:

Here are some advocate videos from the members:

Jan Eliasson - Advocate for the Millennium Development Goals

Michelle Bachelet - Advocate for the Millennium Development Goals

Antonio Banderas - UN Goodwill Ambassador for the Millennium Development Goals

Akin Adesina - Advocate for the Millennium Development Goals

This note is to provide you with guidance on the observance of World Humanitarian Day, 19 August 2010. World Humanitarian Day was established by the UN General Assembly in December 2008 to "contribute to increasing public awareness about humanitarian work and the importance of international cooperation and to commemorate all humanitarian and United Nations and associated personnel who have worked in the promotion of the humanitarian cause, and those who have lost their lives in the course of duty."  On 19 August, 2003, 22 people died in the bombing of the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, among them the Special Representative of the Secretary-General Sergio Vieira de Mello. The World Humanitarian Day is dedicated to those who lost their lives in the pursuit of humanitarian service.

In addition to commemorating those who lost their lives in pursuit of a humanitarian cause, the Day is also held to emphasize current humanitarian needs and challenges worldwide, such as threats to humanitarian aid workers by conflicting parties, challenges in reaching the people needing assistance and the increasing complexity of the humanitarian environment due to food price shocks, global market turbulence, water shortages and climate change. Particular focus will be placed on the people on whose behalf humanitarians serve.

There are three objectives for the Day this year: to draw attention to humanitarian needs worldwide; to explain, in simple, visual terms what humanitarian aid work entails; and to remember those who have lost their lives in humanitarian service.

The Day will focus on the diversity of the humanitarian community, and aims to describe who humanitarians are and what they do. An official ceremony will take place at UNHQ on 19 August, led by the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, John Holmes.

The UN Office of the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has developed a range of promotional and background materials.

All materials on World Humanitarian Day are available in all six UN languages from here, the non-branded website set up for WHD 2010. The short film, PSAs and other materials are available on YouTube and through the official OCHA Facebook page:

Photo: UNDP LAO PDR

With the September MDG Summit in New York approaching, there is, according to Ajay Chhibber, UN assistant secretary general, UNDP assistant administrator and director for UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, “much to learn from Asia and much to be gained by renewing the political will to accelerate progress on the MDGs.”

He was talking after the two day ministerial meeting to review progress on meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the Asia-Pacific region in Jakarta, Indonesia, on the 3rd and 4th August. The result of that meeting was the Jakarta declaration, a renewed commitment from countries across the region to continue developing their efforts to achieve the MDGs. Read more

In the world’s most cluster bombed country the continued presence of unexploded ordnance (UXO) poses serious humanitarian challenges.  On average 300 people a year are killed or injured in UXO accidents. Their presence is also an impediment to poverty reduction. They prevent access to agricultural land and require additional resources for land clearance before any development can take place. UXO clearance is a precondition for the development of the nation and its attempts to graduate from Least Developed Country status by 2020. Read more