UNESCO Courier articles from March 1999

UNESCO Courier archives from March 1999

Ahmadou Kourouma: an African novelist's inside story.(includes related articles)(Interview)
March 1, 1999... Ahmadou Kourouma is a writer from Cote d'Ivoire whose relatively slender but highly original output - three novels published over 28 years - draws up an eloquent indictment of the injustices imposed on black Africa Your first novel, The...

ONE intelligent island.(includes related articles)(convergence of services on Singapore's Internet)
March 1, 1999... Singapore is bidding to create a 'wired' economy where services converge on the Internet at an unparalleled pace to transform the island's chief resource - a well educated population - into a new breed of netizens They have been a familiar...

Tracking down looted art.(includes related articles)
March 1, 1999... Drawing up accurate inventories of art treasures is an essential first step in the fight against massive international trafficking In economic terms, illicit trafficking in cultural property ranks alongside international illicit trading in...

Twilight in Tunisia.(A New Deal for the Poor, part 2)(government program to alleviate poverty)
March 1, 1999... The UNDP has called Tunisia's fight against poverty a model for the rest of the Arab world. The government certainly does a great deal perhaps a bit too much Once upon a time there was a poor man adrift in the solitude of what the Tunisian...

The state: USA: the self-help gospel.(A New Deal for the Poor, part 2)
March 1, 1999... Individualism, an ethic of self-improvement, and suspicions of big government help explain a situation in which a rich nation tolerates high poverty levels It is not easy, in the glassy canyons of San Francisco's financial district, to...

Chile's two-track therapy.(A New Deal for the Poor, part 1)
March 1, 1999... Ultra-liberal economic measures strongly backed up by state intervention have reduced poverty, but there are still glaring inequalities Chile is the only country in Latin America where poverty has substantially diminished over the past...

Mali: growth without development.(A New Deal for the Poor, part 1)
March 1, 1999... Whose fault is it that economic growth has been accompanied by increasing poverty in one of the world's poorest countries? In the last few years, Mali's economic growth rate has picked up, but most Malians haven't noticed the benefits....

The markets: a fickle friend.(A New Deal for the Poor, part 1)(includes related article on the decline of official development assistance)(elimination of poverty)
March 1, 1999... In Asia, financial crisis has thrust millions back into impoverishment and shattered faith in the ability of markets alone to address the problems of the poor. But can the region capitalize on the lessons learned from the crash? Hadijah...

The final and optimal crisis of the century.(A New Deal for the Poor)(global financial crisis)
March 1, 1999... Global financial crises have shaken faith in the market as panacea. Today, the world is grappling for a new consensus to meet the challenges of globalization, development and poverty. It may sound paradoxical to join two such apparently...

A new deal for the poor.(elimination of poverty)
March 1, 1999... Collapsing national economies, natural disasters and political storms have dragged millions of people below the poverty line in the 1990s. Meanwhile, in many parts of the world, vast proportions of the population have been living in misery for...

Chicanos paint their way back.(includes related article on wall paintings)(jobless young ethnics preoccupy themselves with mural painting)
March 1, 1999... Jobless young ethnics in several cities of the southwest US are finding a purpose in life when they get together and paint murals In the Arizona city of Tucson, 100 km from the Mexican border, 1995 was a record year for crime. Ninety-four...

Nuclear decommissioning: a problem that won't go away.(includes related articles)
March 1, 1999... Critics of current waste disposal and power plant dismantling schemes believe that the legacy of nuclear power generation may impoverish and endanger future generations for millennia to come Imagine traveling a thousand years hence in a...

Myths and illusions.(misapprehensions regarding democracy and poverty)(Editorial)
March 1, 1999... The tide of precarity is rising steadily, so that people who have never been poor no longer regard poverty as a distant prospect but as one so close that it could engulf them at any moment In 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall was rightly...

Genetic weapons: a 21st-century nightmare?(includes related article on the hopeps and dilemmas of genome research)(foray into biological weapon research)
March 1, 1999... The spectre of new biological weapons made possible by the mapping of the human genome makes it more urgent than ever to prevent biotechnology research from being hijacked for evil purposes It sounds like science fiction, but like many...

Another lost decade?(A New Deal for the Poor, part 3)(problems posed by a globalized economy)
March 1, 1999... The economic crises of the late 1990s hit harder than those of ten years ago. How can the world's poor be sheltered from the uncertainties of a globalized economy? Of the 4.4 billion people in developing countries, nearly three-fifths lack...

Madagascar: a waning tradition.(A New Deal for the Poor, part 3)(the function of the fokonolona in Ambingivato, Madagascar)
March 1, 1999... In the uplands of northern Madagascar, the villagers of Ambingivato shaped their community's future with their own hands. But this kind of collective action is fading fast Seven million people die each year of curable diseases and 800...

ATD's streetwise librarians.(A New Deal for the Poor, part 3)(Aid in Total Distress Fourth World's use of culture to fight against exclusion and poverty)
March 1, 1999... An NGO that uses culture as a weapon against poverty and exclusion but doesn't always get a friendly welcome from the hungry When Hurricane Mitch hit Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, in the evening of 28 October 1998, the first thing...

The people: culture - the wild card.(A New Deal for the Poor, part 3)(includes related article on the key to empowerment)(anti-poverty projects in developing countries)
March 1, 1999... Anti-poverty projects in developing countries cannot hope to succeed unless they find leverage in local cultures In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of undernourished people more than doubled between 1970 and 1990, rising from 103 million to...

In the former Eastern bloc, a hazardous transition: what should the state do in a region where poverty is making a horrific comeback?(A New Deal for the Poor, part 2)(Former Soviet Union)
March 1, 1999... In 1960, the 20% of world population living in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20% - by 1995 theft income was 82 times as much. In the former Eastern bloc, strong central government virtually wiped out poverty...