Jay-Z was honored at the United Nations Association 50th Anniversary Gala last Wednesday. The person offering the funny introduction is United States Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad.
Check out Jay-Z's adopted project, Water for Life and his MTV documentary on global freshwater scarcity.
And he came wielding some compelling statistics (ones with which loyal UN Dispatch readers may be familiar). From UN News Centre:
Speaking at his first news conference since taking up the post of Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Alain Le Roy cited a 2006 study by the United States Government Accountability Office which estimated that it would cost the US about twice as much as the UN to conduct a peacekeeping operation similar to the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). He also recalled a separate study by the RAND Corporation which found that the UN is far more cost-effective at nation-building than individual governments. "While $7.2 billion may seem like a lot," stated Mr. Le Roy, "if we compare the figures that UN missions cost to the costs that other institutions would incur... the UN remains cost effective."While it is not unexpected for the head of UN peacekeeping to praise UN peacekeeping, the numbers and studies that he uses to bolster his claim are cold, hard facts. Le Roy is not blind to the challenges facing UN peacekeeping, either; he was candid about the struggles to deploy the mission in Darfur and the need to combat sexual exploitation and abuse among peacekeepers. These challenges do nothing to undermine the overall advantages of UN peacekeeping, however, and addressing them head-on will only strengthen Le Roy's case that blue helmets represent an exceedingly wise investment. Managing an organization that takes on so much with such a comparatively low budget is not easy, and Mr. Le Roy will need to negotiate a tricky balancing act between realism and optimism. It's a task that his predecessor and countryman, the very capable Jean-Marie Guehenno, understood well, and let's hope that Mr. Le Roy follows in the latter's footsteps.
Seriously. From the UN News Center:
The United Nations International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has received a coveted Emmy Award for its part in coming up with a means to allow high-quality video to reach devices ranging from mobile phones to High Definition Televisions. The honour recognized the Joint Video Team - comprising the ITU, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) - for its highly efficient video compression method to significantly reduce both the bandwidth needed to deliver high-quality video and the space to store it. The technology "is a jewel in the crown of international standards collaboration," Malcolm Johnson, Director of ITU's standardization bureau, said in his acceptance speech at a ceremony in Hollywood on Saturday. "Its widespread adoption is testament to the flexibility and efficiency that has been engineered by a group of people that have dedicated themselves to achieving this goal," he added. Called H.264 | MPEG-4 AVC, the technology is used in products for companies such as Adobe, Apple, BBC, France Telecom, Motorola, Sony and Toshiba to send high-definition video images over broadcast television, cable television, satellite television services, Blu-Ray, mobile phones and Internet Protocol television.
Matt Damon channels Michelle Obama, Mayor Bloomberg, and Cindy McCain, among others
Not to be outdone, his Oceans 11 through 13 Costar George Clooney cut this video for the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations in May:
Samantha Power marks the fifth year anniversary of Sergio Vieiro de Mello's assassination with a New York Times op-ed on terrorists' new front against aid workers.
Just as we Americans tried to make sense of [9-11], United Nations officials, nongovernmental workers and world leaders grappled with applying the lessons of August 19. But five years later -- and less than a week after Taliban forces in Afghanistan killed three female educators and a driver with the International Rescue Committee -- the individuals who carry out vital humanitarian and development work for the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations have never been more at risk. The Baghdad bombing made it clear that the United Nations and humanitarian groups had moved from the 1990s, when their flags no longer offered them protection, to a phase in which their affiliations made them outright targets of Al Qaeda and other violent extremists.One of the most dangerous places in the world for humanitarian workers is Somalia. The head of the United Nations Development Program's Somalia office was shot dead coming out of Mosque last month. And just yesterday, local World Food Program confirmed that employee Abdulkadir Diad Mohamed was killed while riding in his car. In her essay, Power recommends steps the international community can take to keep aid workers safe. This includes spending more money on security for humanitarian organizations and, where possible, getting greater commitments from the host country to provide security. In places like Somalia where this latter option is not possible (and where the international community is not willing to expend many resources) aid workers may have no choice but to pull out. It is an unfortunate decision to have to make. As Power says, we need to do more to protect the protectors.
I was unable to tape a UN Plaza diavlog this week, but New York Sun national security reporter Eli Lake stepped up. In the segment below, Eli surprises by offering two reasons why American neoconservatives (like himself) should love the United Nations.
Good to see the neocons are on board! Next stop, libertarians.
Foreign Policy's long-awaited ranking of "top public intellectuals" is now available, and earning second place is Muhammad Yunus, a pioneering microfinancer and a member of the board of the UN Foundation, which sponsors this site. FP's description:
More than 30 years ago, Yunus loaned several dozen poor entrepreneurs in his native Bangladesh a total of $27. It was the beginning of a lifetime devoted to fighting poverty through microfinance, efforts that earned him a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Over the years, his Grameen Bank, now operating in more than 100 countries, has loaned nearly $7 billion in small sums to more than 7 million borrowers--97 percent of them women. Ninety-eight percent of the loans have been repaid.Check out the full list here; it includes some names you might not have expected.
Remember Hans Blix? It seems the Senate Intelligence Committee panel investigating pre-war intelligence does not--or perhaps they just don't want to. Fortunately, Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association does. Via News Unfiltered.
[T]he committee report makes an inexcusable and obvious error of omission that most of the mainstream media and commentariat continue to overlook: the Bush administration and Congress ignored the widely-available findings of the UN weapons inspectors weeks before the U.S. invasion. On Feb. 13, 2003, the chief UN inspector, Hans Blix, reported to the UN Security Council that there was no evidence of either active chemical or biological weapons programs or stockpiles. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei reported that there was no evidence of a reconstituted nuclear weapons program. On the basis of leads provided by U.S. and other intelligence agencies and information gained from earlier inspections, the UN inspectors conducted more than 760 inspections covering about 500 sites from November 2002 through February 2003. The UN inspectors' findings directly contradicted key assessments of the October 2002 NIE and provided ample reason to reassess that document, which was based entirely on information gathered before the return of the UN inspectors in November of 2002.To make matters worse, the IAEA's findings are again being discounted in the current debate on Iran. And like the debate preceding the Iraq war, people seem to be taking it for granted that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program--even though the UN nuclear watch dog and our own intelligence agencies say this just is not so.
Over on The Atlantic's newly remodeled homepage, James Gibney offers an authoritative takedown of those scurrilous allegations that the United Nations Development Program funneled money to Kim Jong Ill. Read the whole thing. All I would add to Gibney's account is that back in January the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations also looked into these allegations and found them to be baseless. Finally, don't miss our own John Boonstra's real coverage of the fake scandal.