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UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organisation |
The
English-language edition of the UNESCO Moscow Office’s Activity Report for 2000-2001
came out at the end of October 2001.
The colorful edition highlighted specific examples of the various activities of the Moscow Office and its partner organizations in UNESCO’s main programs in the areas of education, science, culture, and communications, its flagship projects, and the transdisciplinary project Towards a Culture of Peace.
The reforms that began in the organization two years ago were
aimed not only at expanding and deepening its activities, but at perfecting
the result-oriented mechanisms for their implementation. Many projects are being
carried out with the participation of UNESCO in Russia for the first time. Among
these are projects such as Support to the Russian Federation in the Rehabilitation
of the Educational System in the Chechen Republic, the Use of the Internet to
Monitor Respect for Prisoner’s Rights in Russia, and Culture of 
Innovation.
An up-to-date informational directory is included in the appendices. A list of UNESCO’s partner organizations for the last two years is also given.
Since mid-2001, having already become regional, UNESCO’s Moscow Office has expanded the boundaries of its activities, and is now directing the implementation of projects not only in the Russian Federation, but in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, and the Republic of Moldova.
The delegates to the thirty-first Session of UNESCO’s General Conference, held in Paris from October 15 through November 3, 2001, were the first to read the Report.
The Report is available free of charge. For information on how to obtain a copy, please contact UNESCO’s Moscow Office at:
moscow@unesco.org.
Electronic versions in both Russian and English will be on-line in PDF format at the beginning of 2002, at the Office’s Internet site www.unesco.ru.
Wolfgang Reuther,
Director
of the UNESCO
Moscow Office
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United Nations Development Programme |
On November 19, 2001, Russian Government and big business leaders met for a roundtable discussion of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s initiative for the signing of the Global Compact. The initiative aims to involve businesses in closer cooperation with the United Nations and to enhance corporate responsibility for compliance with international standards in the field of labor relations, human rights and environmental protection. The nine principles of the Global Compact are devised to facilitate the formation of "a market with a human face" and to make modern globalization beneficial for all, not only the chosen few.
The Moscow roundtable discussion was organized by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and it was supported by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Participants in the discussion noted that the principles put forth by the United Nations found reflection in the Code of Corporate Behavior worked out with the participation of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.
A number of major Russian businesses are already implementing extensive industrial modernization programs which meet top ecological standards. Russian scientists are conducting research into the problem of social responsibility in the business sphere. The Russian Government’s Academy of National Economy is working in conjunction with the Ministry of Economic Development on plans to establish the Center for Corporate Social Responsibility which will pool the efforts of the executive, the business community and business education specialists in the development of methodological recommendations for the solution of interrelated problems.
The Global Compact is an exclusively voluntary initiative, it is intended to create a global framework that will facilitate sustained development and raise the level of civic responsibility through active and creative involvement of company leaders in this process. The principles of the Global Compact have been acclaimed in many countries of the world where thousands of companies and businesses have joined the movement.
First Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Louise Frechette stressed in her address to the participants in the roundtable discussion in Moscow that the Global Compact would serve to unite efforts aiming to find radical solutions to many existing problems. The UNDP office in Moscow holds that immense potential and promise are inherent in the development of partnership relations in the sphere of small and medium-sized businesses.
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November 28–29, 2001 the workshop "Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women: implementation, monitoring and reporting" was held in Moscow. Taking part were about 50 representatives of ministries, departments, non-governmental organizations from all 7 federal regions of RF.
Galina Karelova, the first Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Development, opened the workshop.
January
25 Russia will present to the UN its report on how the country implements Convention
on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), she noted.
On the eve of this event we organize our seminar. Meanwhile the State Duma prepared
the draft law on state guarantees of maintenance of the equal rights and equal
opportunities for the men and women. Now, the Ministry of Labour and Social
Development studies, how the problem of achieving the gender equality has been
realized in the subjects of the Russian Federation. In February we will hold
the Russian-Canadian Conference on development of Russia’s gender strategy.
We are going to present at the Conference a complete report on the situation
in each Russian region. We mean to present this report to both the President,
and the Government of the Russian Federation.
Damira Sartbaeva, Director of Regional Office for CIS countries
of United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM): Our workshop is held
within the framework of 
dialogue
of three most interested parties in realizing the Female Convention, as the
world names it sometimes: the representatives of state bodies, responsible for
women affairs, non-governmental organizations and members of CEDAW Committee,
which carries out the monitoring of the implementation by the states of this
Convention, ratified by more than 160 countries. It came into force in 1981,
and there were many achievements for the time past, but these 20 years have
only prepared ground for real work – to implement the Convention at a national
level. Only at a local level the Convention turns to real potential to change
life of the women and society. And only as a result of purposeful, innovative,
and well planned activities of female organizations – both state, and public
ones, with political will of government the condition of life of the women will
change to best.
Feride Akar, member of the UN Committee on Convention on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW): The Convention explains how to understand discrimination. Its definition covers both obvious, and latent discrimination, both de jure and de facto, in all areas - political, economic, social and cultural. This document examines not only countries’ laws, but also cultural norms and practice, traditions, religion. The Convention is revolutionary by being aimed at the liquidation of discrimination in the personal relations between individuals, inside the family.
From the end of 2000 the Protocol to the Convention has appeared. It is the new legislative tool, which enables the women to address the UN Committee on Convention on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women with complaints, if their rights specified in the Convention are violated. 68 countries have signed it while 27 countries have ratified it. The Russian Federation has signed this Protocol, but has not ratified it yet.
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The Federal Action Program "Reforming the RF Ministry of
Justice`s Criminal Offender System (2002-2006)" goes into effect on January
1st. At the same time, the UN Development Program (UNDP) and the Ministry of
Justice’s Main Directorate of the Criminal Corrections 
System
are developing a joint project aimed at improving the conditions under which
Russian prisoners are held. The project director on the part of the Ministry
of Justice, Mikhail Kurtser, kindly agreed to tell UN in Russia readers about
these innovations, and the reasons for them.
The transition to a market economy, which has been difficult for the domestic economy as a whole, has had a negative effect on the functioning of the Russian Federation’s Criminal Corrections System, or CCS. In recent years, CCS units have systematically experienced shortages in their allocated budgets. The lack of funds, in turn, has had a negative effect on the condition and health of the prisoners.
According to data on January 1, 2001, 84,383 prisoners were ill with tuberculosis. About one third of them suffered from multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB infection.
This is why we’re preparing a set of measures for observing a sanitary regime; treating and preventing tuberculosis, AIDS, hepatitis, and other infectious diseases among prisoners; improving living conditions in prisons and penal colonies; and making it easier for prisoners to adapt to life on the outside when they’re released.
New projects help to strengthen correctional facilities’ material and technical bases, and stabilize their financial and economic situation through the production of goods, thereby utilizing idle prisoners and production capacity.
In the interest of prisoners’ health and improving the medical and sanitary conditions at corrections facilities, we will be drawing up special treatment programs, primarily for tuberculosis. We are counting here on the cooperation of the Russian scientists who have come up with new anti-tuberculosis medicines. Their use will allow us to significantly reduce the time and cost of treatment, and the volume of medicine given to the patient.
Beginning in 2002, convicts will be able to take out life and health insurance. This in no way means that needed medical treatment will be reduced; we will continue to provide it to each prisoner, as we do now. They will simply have new opportunities for treatment. As the insurance goes into effect, each inmate will be guaranteed more expensive medicines, and treatment from qualified specialists whom the facilities’ tight budgets would otherwise not allow. This will be entirely voluntary, and convicts have a choice: either pay the insurance himself, or ask his relatives to contribute to it.
There is one other task facing us: the creation of a corporate telecommuncations network. This will allow prisoners to get a contemporary education, have medical consultations, and communicate with their friends and relatives.
We shall reach all of these goals with the help of the UN Development Programme, which has given us one more example of an international organization collaborating closely with the Ministry of Justice. It is quite prestigious for us to be working together with the UNDP; it marks a transition to a higher level of relations between us and international organizations.
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On 28–30 November 2001 a seminar on Human Development was held in Togliatti, arranged by a joint effort of UNDP Russia, the Administration of Samara Oblast and the Mayor Office of Togliatti. The seminar was one of a series of events within the framework for the preparation of the National Human Development Report (NHDR). The NHDR is the seventh report of the kind, prepared under the UNDP aegis in Russia since 1995.
The NHDR is an independent research prepared by a group of prominent Russian academics and experts in the field of economics, demography and social policy. It contains a prognosis of the trends in Russia’s socio-economic development, and a comparative analysis of the current situation and Human Development in the Russian regions, including the calculation of regional Human Development Indexes.
The UNDP concept of Human Development was presented in Samara by a group of key authors of the Report, including Professor Sergei Bobylev, Professor Anatoly Vishnevsky, Dr. Lilia Ovcharova, Dr. Natalia Zubarevich, and others. Blanche de Bonneval, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative in Russia, and Dr. Gabibulla Khasaev, Head Department of Economic Development and Investment of Samara Oblast Administration, also addressed the seminar.
The seminar on Human Development proved to become a significant public and academic event in the region. It covered the key principles and socio-economic aspects of Human Development (economic growth, unemployment, living standards), as well as demographic aspects (public and reproductive health, life expectancy, mortality and birth rates), and the influence of education system, local self-governance and environment protection on Human Development dynamics.
The NHDR 2001 authors reported at the seminar that Samara Oblast was in the Top Five Russian regions in terms of Human Development indicators. UNDP methodology of Human Development level assessment and prognosis is to provide a tool for the solution of existing socio-economic problems in the region.
The Seminar proved that regional and local administrators, as well as leaders of business and academic community of Samara Oblast strive to provide sound and sustainable growth of the living standards of the population, and to reduce poverty level, which fully corresponds to the UNDP mandate. This is a basis for future cooperation and establishing partnership between Samara Oblast and UNDP.
Vladimir Petrovsky,
UNDP Governance Officer