The United Newsletter

Nations System
in Lebanon March-April 2005

Working Together for South Lebanon The consultations sought to

discuss with the local
Inauguration of the Renovated Water Reservoir stakeholders the findings of
in Beit Yahun the agro-food industry
survey conducted in the
The Australian liberated area of South
Ambassador, Mrs. Lebanon.
Stephanie Shwabsky,
inaugurated on 10 March Mr. Antoine Mansour, UN-
2005 the renovated ESCWA Team Leader of
water reservoir in Beit Private Sector and
Yahun, funded by the Enterprise Development,
Australian Embassy, reviewed the results of the survey done in cooperation with the
executed by the ”Association d’aide au développement rural”. He subsequently
Ukrainian Battalion in engaged local stakeholders in an interactive discussion on the
UNIFIL, and coordinated strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and risks of two promising
by the Mine Action groups of products, one being honey and its by-products and
Coordination Centre South Lebanon (MACC SL) and the the other herbs, mainly thyme and “sumac”.
Humanitarian Cell - UNIFIL. The ceremony was attended by Mr. As a follow-up to these consultations, the Team will prepare an
Chris Clark, MACC SL Programme Manager, Lt Col Sarna, in-depth assessment of one of the promising products discussed
UNIFIL Force Humanitarian Officer, and Col Zvak from the with local stakeholders. The assessment will be used to identify
Ukranian Battalion, in addition to local officials from Beit Yahun. training needs and means of technical cooperation in Phase II of
the project.

Collaboration Between ESCWA and Fares

Foundation Continued

The resident population expressed gratitude and appreciation to
the Australian Embassy for the generous donation, which will
contribute to the development of the village. The Australian
Ambassador thanked MACC SL for clearing the mines in Beit
Yahun and for their coordination between the different parties in
the renovation of the reservoir and she stressed that clearing
mines should be followed by development projects encouraging
the people to stay in their villages. She also thanked UNIFIL for
their help in renovating the reservoir. The Ambassador praised
UNIFIL, MACC SL and the local population for their partnership
with the Australian Embassy in this project.
Building National Capacities
Developing Agro-Industries in South Lebanon
As part of the implementation of the phase I needs assessment
of the project on “Employment Creation and Income Generation
through the Development of Micro and Small Agro-industries in
South Lebanon,” ESCWA undertook two consultative meetings
in Bint Jbeil and Khiam on 3 February.
Over 60 participants attended the meetings, including municipal
council officials, farmers, business owners, members of local
cooperatives and chambers of commerce, professors and school
administrators, as well as representatives from the Ministry of
Economy and Trade, non-governmental organizations and
United Nations agencies working in the region.
As part of an ESCWA
initiative aimed at building
the capacity of member
countries in harnessing new
technologies for local
community development
and within the framework of
cooperation with Fares
Foundation initiated in 2002
to support socio-economic
development in Lebanon and the region, three Multipurpose
Technology Community Centres (MTCCs) were established in
the villages of Tal-Abbas, Bebnine and Al-Mkaybleh, in Akkar
region, North Lebanon. They were established in cooperation
with local municipalities and with the support of the Arab Fund
for Economic and Social Development, Microsoft, the
International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations
Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).The
MTCCs offer courses in basic computer skills that constitute a
step towards obtaining the International Computer Driving
License (ICDL). They also provide language training courses and
internet access services, thus presenting the local communities
with the means for enhancing their job skills.
The centres are also intended to offer vocational training
sessions and support for small and micro enterprises in order to
contribute to the creation of new job opportunities. Within this
context, efforts are underway to expand the range of services
and training courses of the MTCCs to include secretarial and
accountancy training as well as provision of selected e-services,
and to replicate the experience through planning three other
centres in other Akkar villages.
The three MTCCs have graduated around 200 trainees after one
year of operation. The Al-Mkaybleh centre, which serves 17
villages in Wadi Khaled and Mashta, organized a graduation
ceremony in January 2005 that included twenty-seven trainees
from different backgrounds and age groups. The youngest
graduate in this ceremony was 10 years old and female
graduates constituted 37% of their total number.
The legal Framework for HIV/AIDS and Human
Rights in the Arab States
The International Labour Organization/Regional Office for Arab
States (ILO/ROAS), in collaboration with the United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), the United Nations AIDS Programme
(UNAIDS), the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights (UNOHCHR) and the Arab Institute for Human
Rights (AIHR), announces the launching of a common project
titled: “ The legal Framework for HIV/AIDS and Human Rights in
the Arab States”.
This initiative aims at reviewing the international instruments
and national legislations (Statutory and customary laws,
jurisprudence and policies) related to the human rights of
children, their families and other vulnerable groups, infected
with/affected by HIV/AIDS in 15 Arab States (Algeria, Djibouti,
Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine
Oman, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen) proposing a model of
legislation.
The project is divided into four main phases:
Phase I: Review and analysis of HIV/AIDS related laws
(statutory and customary), regulations and policies and
jurisprudence.
Phase II: Develop user-friendly training materials for
legislators, policy and decision makers, including religious
leaders.
Phase III: Training of legislators, policy and decision makers,
including religious leaders.
Phase IV: Improvement of policy, regulatory and legal
frameworks.
ILO’s approach to the fight against the epidemic is above all
rights based and one of its main regional priorities is the reform
of Labour Legislation, including promotion of policies focusing
on vulnerable workers to ensure equal rights in employment.
Therefore, it is of high relevance for ILO to develop, adapt and
disseminate appropriate material to combat stigma and
discrimination faced by HIV infected or affected employees in
the workplace.
This interagency initiative is inspired by one of the priority areas
defined for the region by the 2006-2007 UNAIDS Unified Budget
Work plan (UBW), which is that of legislation, legal frameworks,
and policies.
In the 2006-2007 UBW draft report, it is clear that the growing
number of UNAIDS cosponsors and the increased commitment,
engagement and resources in the region on HIV/AIDS, calls for
stronger coordination among these cosponsors.
ILO will base its technical contribution on the principle
guidelines of the ILO Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the
world of work. This will need to involve the tripartite partners
(Ministry of Labour, employers’ and employees’ representatives)
in social dialogue on the issue of HIV/AIDS and the world of
work.
The first phase of this project was initiated by a regional expert
inception workshop for all partners and selected researchers
from 15 Arab States on 13 and 14 March 2005 in Cairo. These
expert legal researchers will be undergoing the review in their
respective countries following a common methodology and
producing national reports in preparation for a consensus
meeting in early October 2005 to come up with
recommendations and an action plan for Phase II.
The Attorney and Counselor at Law, Mr. Nizar Saghieh has been
chosen to undergo the legal review for Lebanon. Mr. Saghieh
will be cooperating with the Lebanese National AIDS Programme
and the UN Theme Group on HIV/AIDS (consisting of all UN
agencies in Lebanon) for any technical, political or
administrative input.
This project has been in the making for over two years, and it
was not until this first workshop on the 13-14 March 2005 held
in Cairo, that it has finally been officially launched, after having
carefully chosen high caliber experts to undergo Phase I in the
selected Arab States.
Awareness Raising Initiatives: Women’s
Legal Rights
Promoting the Rights of Children and Women in
the Arab Region through Information
The United Nations Development Programme / Information and
Communication Technology for Development in Arab Region
UNDP/ICTDAR and the Lebanese Council to Resist Violence
Against Women launched on 8 February 2005 a CD-Rom on
women’s rights under the project “Promoting the Rights of
Children and Women in the Arab Region through Information”.
The project aims at providing women with necessary
information to obtain financial and legal support from the
government, social service institutions or their separated
spouses. The project will help empower women to address and
resolve issues related to family law, including child support
payments, marriage and divorce, labor, adoption and custody.
The project has two primary target groups: civil society and
women.
The CD-Rom contains a digitized copy of all main acts, laws and
decrees related to family law, alongside answers to frequently
asked questions, and the text of major relevant international
conventions.
Dr. Mona Hammam, UN
Resident Coordinator and
UNDP Resident
Representative, Dr. Najat
Rochdi, Regional
Coordinator,
UNDP/ICTDAR, and Mrs.
Zoya Rohana, Coordinator,
Lebanese Council to Resist
Violence Against Women,
delivered speeches on the
occasion.
The objectives of the project are:
1. To provide women social workers in local communities with
centres of support and rights-related information, including
referrals to legal counsel enabling them to advise other women
on the most appropriate recourse to resolve legal issues and/or
to obtain financial support.
2. To assist the judicial system to process and monitor child
support information by computerizing the domestic court’s
payment system. Each woman eligible for child support will
have a personal account and will receive remittances made on
her behalf by the spouse or by the government.
3. To train staff who will provide information as in point 1)
and run the pertinent services in the domestic court system as
in point 2) in the basic operation of computer-based information
systems.
UNDP directs the project through ICTDAR that is responsible for
providing substantive guidance, technical and managerial
advice. In each country where the project is active there will be
a national project coordinator and national support staff. The
project will rely on partnerships with CSOs, research institutions
and consultants for the implementation of a substantial share of
its activities.
 The UN ESCWA Launches the
Report on Arab Women:
Beijing+10
The ESCWA Executive Secretary Mervat
Tallawy launched a report prepared by
UN-ESCWA entitled “Arab Women:
Beijing+10” that documents the most
important achievements of Arab
women and highlights the obstacles
and challenges they have faced in the
ten years following the Beijing
Conference. It recommends a regional
framework to overcome these obstacles and challenges in the
next decade based on the Beirut Declaration on Arab Women
launched last July at the conclusion of the Arab regional
conference “Ten Years after Beijing: Call for Peace” and
organized by UN-ESCWA.
Achievements and Obstacles
The major accomplishments listed by the report include the
dissemination of new legislation benefiting women; the
establishment of new mechanisms concerned with women’s
issues, for example ministries, councils and commissions; the
attainment of women’s political rights in some countries; the
allocation of quotas to increase the representation of women in
national parliaments; and the ratification by 17 Arab countries
of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women.
The most significant obstacles facing women as outlined by the
report are the current economic, cultural, social and political
situation and the impact of occupation and wars; the lack of
gender disaggregated statistics and information in official
documents and reports that reflect the true level of women’s
contribution to economic, cultural, social and political life; and
limited mechanisms of coordination, monitoring and
accountability.
Major challenges for women include illiteracy; the high rate of
female school dropouts; poverty and unemployment; violence
against women; permanent discrimination within legislation
particularly within penal codes; limited allocation of financial
resources for the empowerment of women; and social traditions
and restrictions related to customs.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the conference, Tallawy
said there were plenty of laws that afford major opportunities to
instigate change on the level of women’s participation in the
political, economic, social and cultural aspects of the
development process, but that implementation was more
important than the drafting of texts. Tallawy was speaking at
the opening of the 5th Conference of the National Council for
Egyptian Women held in Cairo from 14 to 16 March 2005. She
said that the regional instability caused by the Arab-Israeli
conflict, the situation in Palestine, the war in Iraq and
successive wars was a great hindrance to the progress of Arab
women. She hoped that Arab peoples would look to the future
without submitting to the difficult circumstances and challenges
that have always faced them.
WHO
World Bank
Second Conference of the Lebanese Invasive
coronary Registry
The National Non-Communicable Diseases Program (NCDP) and
the Lebanese Society of Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery (LSC)
in association with the Ministry of Public Health and the World
Health Organization (WHO), have succeeded in creating the
Lebanese Interventional Coronary Registry (LICOR). The
Purpose of the Registry is to record cases of invasive
cardiovascular procedures. Therefore, a software was developed
and installed in all Catheter Laboratories in Lebanon. This
software serves as a computerized reporting form, allowing
reports to be exported monthly through the Internet. This
advanced method of data collection made the LICOR one of the
most successful and reliable registries in Lebanon.
The LICOR 2004 preliminary data were presented in a
conference held on 23 of March 2005 at the Metropolitan Hotel.
World Health Day
2005: Make every
mother and child
count
The World Health
Organization (WHO) is
pleased to announce healthy
mothers and children as the
theme for World Health Day 2005. This is also the subject of the
World Health Report 2005, which will be launched on World
Health Day, on 7 April 2005
The slogan for World Health Day 2005 is "Make every
mother and child count", which reflects the reality that today,
the health of women and children is not a high enough priority
for many governments and the international community.
For more information on the activities of the UN Country Team
in Lebanon or to submit ideas on upcoming events, please
contact the Office of the UN Resident Coordinator:
Francesca Giovannini, UN Coordination Analyst, e-mail:
francesca.giovannini@undp.org, tel: 961-1-978716
Michèle Abou-Saad, UN Coordination Associate, e-mail:
michele.abou-saad@undp.org, tel: 961-1-978715
The Newsletter is posted on the UN System Web Site:
http://www.un.org.lb
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