No.312Jana May-June 2006 Funded by UNFPA ISSN 0252-3639 United Nations Secretary-General presents first Human Development Award to Thai King Secretary-General Kofi Annan had an audience with His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand to whom Mr. Annan presented the Human Development Lifetime Award on 26 May at the Royal Residence in Hua Hin. The Award was conferred in recognition of His Majesty’s dedication to improving the lives of Thai people. It was the first time that the UNDP award was presented to an individual in honour of his lifetime work to furthering the understanding and progress of human development in a national, regional or global context. The Award was presented during the auspicious occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the King’s accession to the throne. (Photo courtesy of UN Photo/Evan Schneider) Sexual and reproductive health worsens worldwide With more than half a million women dying economic planning and training of country teams each year during pregnancy and childbirth from for planning and working together. They will largely preventable causes, and 340 million new coordinate work in addressing female genital cases of sexually transmitted bacterial infections mutilation/cutting; obstetric fistula, a devastating annually, United Nations agencies are childbirth injury; violence against women; and a coordinating action to reverse the global trend of pilot programme in two countries to introduce the deteriorating levels of sexual and reproductive Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine. health. “The key is to make practical plans in order to “There is a really worrying rise in the number implement these strategies”, UNFPA Executive and severity of sexually transmitted infections Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said. “We are (STI),” the World Health Organization (WHO) faced with an urgent need to increase investment Acting Director-General Anders NordstrÖm said. in sexual and reproductive health to ensure access “But the consequences of poor sexual and to quality reproductive health services, including reproductive health go well beyond STIs. They youth-friendly services, and to link HIV/AIDS lead directly to completely preventable illness and STI prevention with reproductive health and death..” services and vice versa”. Together with the United Nations Population (Source: UN News Centre, 21 June) Fund (UNFPA), WHO has identified a number of priority areas for joint action, including a Contents coordinated action plan for a global STI ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ prevention and control strategy, support to ª Three Gorges Dam near completion ................... 2 increase skilled health attendants in target countries, and plans to improve reproductive, ª Dangers of FGM revealed ................................... 3 maternal, newborn and adolescent health. ª AIDS clock ticking ................................................. 4 The two agencies also call for the inclusion of ª .......................... 5 sexual and reproductive health in national Avian flu in Asia and the Pacific UN ESCAP works towards reducing poverty and managing globalization World’s biggest-ever river dam nears completion After 13 years of breakneck construction that displaced more than a million villagers, China recently poured the final concrete on an enormous dam across the mighty Yangtze River, seeking to tame the flood-prone waterway that has nurtured and tormented the Chinese people for 5,000 years. As reported in a feature published in the Washington Post on 18 May, the Three Gorges Project, with 25,000 workers and a budget of USD 24 billion, is China’s most ambitious engineering undertaking since the Great Wall. It has replaced Brazil’s Structural work on the Three Gorges Dam was finished in May 2006, about nine months Itaipu Dam as the world’s largest ahead of schedule. Social costs linked to resettlements of population affected have been hydroelectric and flood-control described as accounting to about one third of the project’s cost. (Picture courtesy of installation, Chinese officials said, http://www.yangtzeriver.org/) with the strength to hold back more water than Lake Superior and power 26 generators to churn out 85 billion resettlements to more or less distant “The Government of China kilowatt-hours of electricity a year resettlement sites (within or outside emphasized moving out and resettling when the final touches are completed their counties) is also the focus of stably as the key objectives during the in 2008. much attention and concern. physical resettlement or transition The Asia-Pacific Population period of displacement. However, In its scope and ambition – as well Journal (available online from planning for the restoration of as its costs – the Three Gorges Project www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/ livelihoods and production of the has become a symbol of China’s journal/index.asp), vol. 18, No. 3, dislocated rural migrants in the new relentless energy and determination to dedicated one article to the issue. environments remains inadequate”, take its place among the world’s great Contributed by Yan Tan, Graeme the authors noted. “Whether or not economic powers. Hugo and Lesley Potter, the article distant resettlements can produce a At the same time, critics of the examined the various patterns of sustainable reconstruction of project – they are many in China and resettlement of over 1.3 million livelihoods and production as well as abroad according to the Post –have persons over 17 years to 11 recipient local sustainable development in the questioned whether building a giant provinces and municipalities in China, destination locations remains to be dam is really scientific in the discussing underlying challenges. seen”. twenty-first century, when a few nations are weighing the wisdom of China closes sex-selection clinics damming their rivers. Despite the price tag, they note, the Three Gorges A Chinese province has closed 201 The crackdown underscores Dam will produce only 2 per cent of clinics that helped detect and abort concerns over the growing gender gap China’s electricity by 2010. female foetuses and is offering caused by a traditional preference for Moreover, environmentalists have stipends to elderly couples without male offspring and policies limiting warned that the backup of water sons in an attempt to counter China’s most couples to one child. Official behind the dam could end up as a giant figures show 117 boys are born in widening gender imbalance, the China for every 100 girls. The ratio in waste-collection pool for Chongqing, Government of China has announced. China’s largest urban conglomeration some parts of Hebei is as high as 134 about 250 miles upstream. Investigators in Hebei province, to 100. “There are two sides to everything, near Beijing, uncovered 848 cases Along with the crackdown, Heibei and the Three Gorges Dam is no over the past two years where medical is paying monthly stipends of about exception”, said Cao Guangjing, the staff had violated rules which prohibit USD 75 to couples without sons, building company’s deputy manager, gender checks that can lead to roughly the equivalent of an average quoted in the Post. “But many studies, abortions. monthly farming income. It is also undertaken since the beginning, have subsidizing school fees to help more shown that the advantages outweigh Of 745 hospitals and clinics than 8,000 women, who had to leave the disadvantages”. involved, 374 facilities were fined, and school prematurely, to return to classrooms. The massive displacement of over 104 medical workers had their licenses one million inhabitants of the Three revoked for arranging the illegal (Source: Associate Press reported in Gorges reservoir area and their forced practices. Push Journal, via [email protected] , 2 June) 2 Dangers of female genital People in the headlines Aiming to shore up contingency mutilation for childbirth revealed plans for the operation of the United Women who have had Female Nations in case of a human outbreak of Genital Mutilation (FGM) are bird flu, Secretary-General Kofi Annan significantly more likely to has named Ms. Imelda Henkin of the experience difficulties during Netherlands as the new Pandemic childbirth and their babies are more Influenza Preparedness Coordinator in likely to die as a result of the mid-May. Ms. Henkin is the former traditional yet gruesome practice, UNFPA Deputy Executive Director for according to a new United Nations Management who was overseeing a study released recently, which range of operations including in the reiterated calls for total abolition of a areas of emergency response and staff practice that currently affects 100 safety. She retired from the UNFPA on million people worldwide. 31 December 2005 (see Headliners No. The study, the first to give clear 310). evidence of the harmful effects for In her new capacity, Ms. Henkin women and babies, cites serious