Samaale and Sab Network

Welcome to Samaale and Sab a multi faced Network, which focus the Social and Political Development of the Somali Civil Society in this global world. 

Peace

 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4682

Somalia: top UN envoy praises new Government, urges full support.

13 March 2009 – The United Nations’ top envoy for Somalia today lauded progress made in the past month by the new Government of the Horn of Africa country, which has been torn by factional strife since the overthrow of Siad Barre in 1991.

In a statement issued in Nairobi, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah encouraged the Government of National Unity to continue working towards peace and stability and urged Somalis and the international community to support it.

 http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30176&Cr=somali&Cr1=

 http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/af/119024.htm

2008 Human Rights Reports: Ethiopia

BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND LABOR

2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

February 25, 2009

Ethiopia is a federal republic led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition. The population was approximately 77 million. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, the EPRDF won a third consecutive five-year term. In local and by-elections held in April the EPRDF and allied parties won virtually all of the more than three million seats contested, severely diminishing opportunities for mainstream political opposition. Prior to the vote, ruling coalition agents and supporters used coercive tactics and manipulation of the electoral process, including intimidation of opposition candidates and supporters. Political parties were predominantly ethnically based, and opposition parties remained fractured. During the year fighting between government forces, including local militias, and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), an ethnically based, nationalist, insurgent movement operating in the Somali Region, resulted in continued allegations of human rights abuses by all parties, particularly diversion of food aid from intended beneficiaries suffering from a severe drought. 

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/af/119001.htm 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. UNEP

Climate Change and Water.

IPCC Technical Paper VI

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Technical Paper on Climate Change and Water is the sixth paper in the IPCC Technical Paper series and was produced in response to a proposal by the Secretariat of the World Climate Programme – Water (WCP-Water) and the International Steering Committee of the Dialogue on Water and Climate at the 19th Plenary Session of the IPCC which took place in Geneva in April 2002. A consultative meeting on Climate Change and Water was held in Geneva in November 2002 and recommended the preparation of a Technical Paper on Climate Change and Water instead of preparing a Special Report to address this subject. Such a document was to be based primarily on the findings of the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC, but also earlier IPCC publications. The Panel also decided that water should be treated as cross cutting theme in the Fourth Assessment Report. 

NURTURING INSTABILITY:

LEBANON’S PALESTINIAN REFUGEE CAMPS

Middle East Report N°84 – 19 February 2009

NURTURING INSTABILITY: LEBANON’S PALESTINIAN REFUGEE CAMPS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The vast Palestinian refugee population is routinely forgotten and ignored in much of the Middle East. Not so in Lebanon. Unlike in other host countries, the refugee question remains at the heart of politics, a recurrent source of passionate debate and occasional trigger of violence. The Palestinian presence was a catalyst of the 1975-1990 civil war, Israel’s 1982 invasion and Syrian efforts to bring the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) to heel. Virtually nothing has been done since to genuinely address the problem. Marginalised, deprived of basic political and economic rights, trapped in the camps, bereft of realistic prospects, heavily armed and standing atop multiple fault lines – inter-Lebanese, inter-Palestinian and inter-Arab – the refugee population constitutes a time bomb. Until the Arab-Israeli conflict is resolved, a comprehensive approach is required that clarifies the Palestinians’ status, formally excludes their permanent settlement in Lebanon, significantly improves their living conditions and, through better Lebanese-Palestinian and inter-Palestinian coordination, enhances camp management.

Political science?

Strengthening science-policy dialogue in developing countries.

Nicola Jones, Harry Jones and Cora Walsh

Science and technology are playing an increasingly important role in the policy process. The value of science and technological information is already well-established in the fields of health, agriculture and natural resource management, but issues such as climate change, food security and biotechnology have recently attracted a high profile in international policy debates about sustainable development and poverty reduction. These trends are set against a background of increasing international interest in and rhetorical commitment to evidence-informed policy dialogue and processes as a means to improve development policy and practice. Surprisingly, however, there is a dearth of research that systematically examines the science–policy interface in developing countries. Even fewer analysts have sought to offer practical strategies and recommendations for strengthening linkages between scientific knowledge and the policy process.