World's hunger problem on the rise, says UN report

[LakeGeneve]

Why should sex for a bit of food be just the domain of the U.N. and other NGO's?

You have no idea just how real this is.

I read 17,000 UN peacekeeping troops in Liberia alone. What a twisted mess it must be. Power does corrupt on all levels..

But I must disagree as for all the mess that a UN peacekeeping mission can and generally is, UNMIL has kept that country stable for many years. No more kiddies getting their hands and feet chopped off and Africas first female President. Still a basket case of a country but then after what it has been through it will take a few generations.

Two general points.

The majority of allegations of 'sex for food' against UN & NGOs involves national staff of those organisations. All organisations have to recruit staff quickly and vet as best they can but the context is often very contrained and there are often few qualified people.

Orgs conduct fairly good sexual harassment awareness in staff training with staff signing Codes of Conduct against abuse of power for sex which is monitored. But only so much can be achieved in a short time and usually your talking a conflict, post conflict setting where normal institutional mechanisms are poor if existent at all and where some disturbing practices of abuse may have been previously not uncommon. So normally your talking about male nationals taking advantage and exploiting their own which is tragic.

However, from what I know all orgs take such allegations very seriously and will press criminal sanctions for obvious reasons.

Secondly, the UN DPKO (Dept of Peacekeeping Operations) DOES NOT get to select troops for missions. There are more UN peacekeeping missions (16 or 17) today than ever before and frankly most professional armies do not offer their troops to the UN so the UN cannot pick and choose. TTC (Troop Countributing Countries) offer troops for specific missions. It is perhaps no surprise that the biggest TCCs are Pakistan, Bangladesh & Jordan. It is not uncommon for some countries to send their troops with poor equipment that the UN must fix before the troops are deployed (Bangladesh is famous for this).

Though the UN Force Commander has overall command of all UN Peacekeepers the reality is that the troops are under the command of their sovereign commander. UN missions give some basic sentisation to various issues (eg. some troops come across the word gender for the first time) but troops are on 6-12 month rotations so education is limited. The DPKO will conduct intensive investigations into any allegations but they are reliant on the cooperation of the particular unit. And DPKO CANNOT apply of enforce any sanction to any troops as no country will allow that to happen.

So the UN cannot;

1) select the troops for UN missions,

2) have effective command of those troops,

3) oblige troops to cooperate in any investigation,

4) enforce any sanction against any nations troops.

Because no country is willing to give the UN that authority! The UN would like to have authority but no country is willing to give up their sovereign rights over their troops. (Anyone hear the US ICC arguement here?)

Now, many professional military forces usually do cooperate with UN investigations but any sanction is at the discretion of that country. Usually professional forces will apply a sanction. Sometimes the not so professional ones also. I know of a case from one UN mission where two Jordanian soldiers where sent home within days and reportedly beheaded after they were caught raping young boys.

Anywhere in the world where you have soldiers you have higher rates of sexual abuse/ assault. That is a statistical fact. Soldiers are more prone to commit certain types of crime.

Just because some nations soldiers are wearing the UN Blue Helmet is does not make them any different to the soldiers there were before. The UN has many problems and is not free of abusers but this general one rests with the members states and those unprofessional troops.

[Mister Moobs]

Why should sex for a bit of food be just the domain of the U.N. and other NGO's?

You have no idea just how real this is.

Same kinds of stories abound here in Afghan.

The UN is a failure from top to bottom. It's the most corrupt organization on the planet. Food for sex. Food for Oil. Food for money for the SECGEN Family Slush fund.

I'm sure that there are some who work for the UN who care. But they're trying to ward off Tsunami with a wet napkin.

Just because some nations soldiers are wearing the UN Blue Helmet is does not make them any different to the soldiers there were before. The UN has many problems and is not free of abusers but this general one rests with the members states and those unprofessional troops.

The UN IS it's member Nations.

The UN is a failed entity.

Moamar Qaddafi is a UN human rights expert. That says it all.

[eagle]

Why should sex for a bit of food be just the domain of the U.N. and other NGO's?

You have no idea just how real this is.

I read 17,000 UN peacekeeping troops in Liberia alone. What a twisted mess it must be. Power does corrupt on all levels..

But I must disagree as for all the mess that a UN peacekeeping mission can and generally is, UNMIL has kept that country stable for many years. No more kiddies getting their hands and feet chopped off and Africas first female President. Still a basket case of a country but then after what it has been through it will take a few generations.

Two general points.

The majority of allegations of 'sex for food' against UN & NGOs involves national staff of those organisations. All organisations have to recruit staff quickly and vet as best they can but the context is often very contrained and there are often few qualified people.

Orgs conduct fairly good sexual harassment awareness in staff training with staff signing Codes of Conduct against abuse of power for sex which is monitored. But only so much can be achieved in a short time and usually your talking a conflict, post conflict setting where normal institutional mechanisms are poor if existent at all and where some disturbing practices of abuse may have been previously not uncommon. So normally your talking about male nationals taking advantage and exploiting their own which is tragic.

However, from what I know all orgs take such allegations very seriously and will press criminal sanctions for obvious reasons.

Secondly, the UN DPKO (Dept of Peacekeeping Operations) DOES NOT get to select troops for missions. There are more UN peacekeeping missions (16 or 17) today than ever before and frankly most professional armies do not offer their troops to the UN so the UN cannot pick and choose. TTC (Troop Countributing Countries) offer troops for specific missions. It is perhaps no surprise that the biggest TCCs are Pakistan, Bangladesh & Jordan. It is not uncommon for some countries to send their troops with poor equipment that the UN must fix before the troops are deployed (Bangladesh is famous for this).

Though the UN Force Commander has overall command of all UN Peacekeepers the reality is that the troops are under the command of their sovereign commander. UN missions give some basic sentisation to various issues (eg. some troops come across the word gender for the first time) but troops are on 6-12 month rotations so education is limited. The DPKO will conduct intensive investigations into any allegations but they are reliant on the cooperation of the particular unit. And DPKO CANNOT apply of enforce any sanction to any troops as no country will allow that to happen.

So the UN cannot;

1) select the troops for UN missions,

2) have effective command of those troops,

3) oblige troops to cooperate in any investigation,

4) enforce any sanction against any nations troops.

Because no country is willing to give the UN that authority! The UN would like to have authority but no country is willing to give up their sovereign rights over their troops. (Anyone hear the US ICC arguement here?)

Now, many professional military forces usually do cooperate with UN investigations but any sanction is at the discretion of that country. Usually professional forces will apply a sanction. Sometimes the not so professional ones also. I know of a case from one UN mission where two Jordanian soldiers where sent home within days and reportedly beheaded after they were caught raping young boys.

Anywhere in the world where you have soldiers you have higher rates of sexual abuse/ assault. That is a statistical fact. Soldiers are more prone to commit certain types of crime.

Just because some nations soldiers are wearing the UN Blue Helmet is does not make them any different to the soldiers there were before. The UN has many problems and is not free of abusers but this general one rests with the members states and those unprofessional troops.

All that was said here was sex for food is bad and power corrupts. So how can you disagree?

[Mister Moobs]

Why should sex for a bit of food be just the domain of the U.N. and other NGO's?

You have no idea just how real this is.

I read 17,000 UN peacekeeping troops in Liberia alone. What a twisted mess it must be. Power does corrupt on all levels..

But I must disagree as for all the mess that a UN peacekeeping mission can and generally is, UNMIL has kept that country stable for many years. No more kiddies getting their hands and feet chopped off and Africas first female President. Still a basket case of a country but then after what it has been through it will take a few generations.

Two general points.

The majority of allegations of 'sex for food' against UN & NGOs involves national staff of those organisations. All organisations have to recruit staff quickly and vet as best they can but the context is often very contrained and there are often few qualified people.

Orgs conduct fairly good sexual harassment awareness in staff training with staff signing Codes of Conduct against abuse of power for sex which is monitored. But only so much can be achieved in a short time and usually your talking a conflict, post conflict setting where normal institutional mechanisms are poor if existent at all and where some disturbing practices of abuse may have been previously not uncommon. So normally your talking about male nationals taking advantage and exploiting their own which is tragic.

However, from what I know all orgs take such allegations very seriously and will press criminal sanctions for obvious reasons.

Secondly, the UN DPKO (Dept of Peacekeeping Operations) DOES NOT get to select troops for missions. There are more UN peacekeeping missions (16 or 17) today than ever before and frankly most professional armies do not offer their troops to the UN so the UN cannot pick and choose. TTC (Troop Countributing Countries) offer troops for specific missions. It is perhaps no surprise that the biggest TCCs are Pakistan, Bangladesh & Jordan. It is not uncommon for some countries to send their troops with poor equipment that the UN must fix before the troops are deployed (Bangladesh is famous for this).

Though the UN Force Commander has overall command of all UN Peacekeepers the reality is that the troops are under the command of their sovereign commander. UN missions give some basic sentisation to various issues (eg. some troops come across the word gender for the first time) but troops are on 6-12 month rotations so education is limited. The DPKO will conduct intensive investigations into any allegations but they are reliant on the cooperation of the particular unit. And DPKO CANNOT apply of enforce any sanction to any troops as no country will allow that to happen.

So the UN cannot;

1) select the troops for UN missions,

2) have effective command of those troops,

3) oblige troops to cooperate in any investigation,

4) enforce any sanction against any nations troops.

Because no country is willing to give the UN that authority! The UN would like to have authority but no country is willing to give up their sovereign rights over their troops. (Anyone hear the US ICC arguement here?)

Now, many professional military forces usually do cooperate with UN investigations but any sanction is at the discretion of that country. Usually professional forces will apply a sanction. Sometimes the not so professional ones also. I know of a case from one UN mission where two Jordanian soldiers where sent home within days and reportedly beheaded after they were caught raping young boys.

Anywhere in the world where you have soldiers you have higher rates of sexual abuse/ assault. That is a statistical fact. Soldiers are more prone to commit certain types of crime.

Just because some nations soldiers are wearing the UN Blue Helmet is does not make them any different to the soldiers there were before. The UN has many problems and is not free of abusers but this general one rests with the members states and those unprofessional troops.

All that was said here was sex for food is bad and power corrupts. So how can you disagree?

The Defensiveness of an Interested Party.

[eagle]

Why should sex for a bit of food be just the domain of the U.N. and other NGO's?

You have no idea just how real this is.

Same kinds of stories abound here in Afghan.

The UN is a failure from top to bottom. It's the most corrupt organization on the planet. Food for sex. Food for Oil. Food for money for the SECGEN Family Slush fund.

I'm sure that there are some who work for the UN who care. But they're trying to ward off Tsunami with a wet napkin.

Just because some nations soldiers are wearing the UN Blue Helmet is does not make them any different to the soldiers there were before. The UN has many problems and is not free of abusers but this general one rests with the members states and those unprofessional troops.

The UN IS it's member Nations.

The UN is a failed entity.

Moamar Qaddafi is a UN human rights expert. That says it all.

I've heard a lot of complaints about the UN and I'm sure there is lots of corruption but even if you disband the UN altogether the countries of the world will get together somewhere else to discuss their needs and it will be the same thing just a different name different place. Like Star Trek And Star Wars movies it will always be and should be. I'm sure if one more Star Wars movie comes out their will be a Jedi getting head or something. Now the corruption should go as should political greed and corruption around the globe. Has anyone heard from Batman lately ?

[PeeMarc]

Gonna take my hangover down the road and tuck into a full english breakfast with lashings of toast. **** it.

[Admin_2]

Gonna take my hangover down the road and tuck into a full english breakfast with lashings of toast. f*ck it.

I missed a great party, but no hangover over here!

[Mister Moobs]

I've heard a lot of complaints about the UN and I'm sure there is lots of corruption but even if you disband the UN altogether the countries of the world will get together somewhere else to discuss their needs and it will be the same thing just a different name different place. Now the corruption should go as should political greed and corruption around the globe.

I agree.

There should be a world body.

The world has progressed past the point where THIS iteration of the UN is relevant.

The UN should be re-org'd along the lines of the G20. More than 6 nations on this planet count in the grand scheme.

India, Brazil, Argentina, Switzerland, Germany, Japan and a few other countries are no less relevant than the 6 veto holding members of the UN.

How is that France, Britain, America, Russia, China (isn''t there a 6th one) have final say over the rest of the World in decision affecting the Planet?

It's nonsense.

The UN needs to evolve. And the UN SECGEN needs to rotate between the G20. The heads of commissions such as the Human Rights commission should come from Nations that actually have expertise in those areas. As opposed to the politically correct nonsense that occurs now.

How was Kofi Annan qualilfied to lead the world? He was not. The UN has made itself irrelevant by making cultural awareness and political correctness paramount over reality.

There will always be corruption. It's not going anywhere. That doesn't mean that it should not be rooted out. The attempt should be made.

But as long as the UN is a joke, it will never become truly relevant. I will not back a full US commitment until it becomes a worthy endeavor.

The UNWFP here in Afghanistan is terrible. They sell more food than they hand out to the needy.

[LakeGeneve]

Gonna take my hangover down the road and tuck into a full english breakfast with lashings of toast. f*ck it.

Your going to **** your breakfast or just the toast, sounds a bit messy but whatever you need to do in order to deal with your hangover?! :shock:

Oh BTW, start of vegetarian week so go easy on the meat for a week if everyone can. Good for ones health and the planet.

[LakeGeneve]

Gonna take my hangover down the road and tuck into a full english breakfast with lashings of toast. f*ck it.

Your going to f*ck your whole breakfast or just lash the toast? :shock: Sounds a bit messy but whatever you need to do in order to deal with your hangover!

Oh BTW, start of vegetarian week so go easy on the meat for a week if everyone can. Good for ones health and the planet.

[LakeGeneve]

Why should sex for a bit of food be just the domain of the U.N. and other NGO's?

You have no idea just how real this is.

I read 17,000 UN peacekeeping troops in Liberia alone. What a twisted mess it must be. Power does corrupt on all levels..

But I must disagree as for all the mess that a UN peacekeeping mission can and generally is, UNMIL has kept that country stable for many years. No more kiddies getting their hands and feet chopped off and Africas first female President. Still a basket case of a country but then after what it has been through it will take a few generations.

Two general points.

The majority of allegations of 'sex for food' against UN & NGOs involves national staff of those organisations. All organisations have to recruit staff quickly and vet as best they can but the context is often very contrained and there are often few qualified people.

Orgs conduct fairly good sexual harassment awareness in staff training with staff signing Codes of Conduct against abuse of power for sex which is monitored. But only so much can be achieved in a short time and usually your talking a conflict, post conflict setting where normal institutional mechanisms are poor if existent at all and where some disturbing practices of abuse may have been previously not uncommon. So normally your talking about male nationals taking advantage and exploiting their own which is tragic.

However, from what I know all orgs take such allegations very seriously and will press criminal sanctions for obvious reasons.

Secondly, the UN DPKO (Dept of Peacekeeping Operations) DOES NOT get to select troops for missions. There are more UN peacekeeping missions (16 or 17) today than ever before and frankly most professional armies do not offer their troops to the UN so the UN cannot pick and choose. TTC (Troop Countributing Countries) offer troops for specific missions. It is perhaps no surprise that the biggest TCCs are Pakistan, Bangladesh & Jordan. It is not uncommon for some countries to send their troops with poor equipment that the UN must fix before the troops are deployed (Bangladesh is famous for this).

Though the UN Force Commander has overall command of all UN Peacekeepers the reality is that the troops are under the command of their sovereign commander. UN missions give some basic sentisation to various issues (eg. some troops come across the word gender for the first time) but troops are on 6-12 month rotations so education is limited. The DPKO will conduct intensive investigations into any allegations but they are reliant on the cooperation of the particular unit. And DPKO CANNOT apply of enforce any sanction to any troops as no country will allow that to happen.

So the UN cannot;

1) select the troops for UN missions,

2) have effective command of those troops,

3) oblige troops to cooperate in any investigation,

4) enforce any sanction against any nations troops.

Because no country is willing to give the UN that authority! The UN would like to have authority but no country is willing to give up their sovereign rights over their troops. (Anyone hear the US ICC arguement here?)

Now, many professional military forces usually do cooperate with UN investigations but any sanction is at the discretion of that country. Usually professional forces will apply a sanction. Sometimes the not so professional ones also. I know of a case from one UN mission where two Jordanian soldiers where sent home within days and reportedly beheaded after they were caught raping young boys.

Anywhere in the world where you have soldiers you have higher rates of sexual abuse/ assault. That is a statistical fact. Soldiers are more prone to commit certain types of crime.

Just because some nations soldiers are wearing the UN Blue Helmet is does not make them any different to the soldiers there were before. The UN has many problems and is not free of abusers but this general one rests with the members states and those unprofessional troops.

All that was said here was sex for food is bad and power corrupts. So how can you disagree?

I may have misunderstood you eagle as the disagreement was in relation to Liberia being a mess which it really was 10 yrs ago but it is now relatively much better. It was a complete mess at the start of the century - kids being raped or conscripted to be soldiers, people having their limbs chopped off or forced into slavery (ironic given the founding of the country by freed American slaves) and a economy and society ripped apart by Charles Taylor and his thugs. (He is in the Hague to be tried for crimes in neighbouring Sierra Leone by that countrys special tribunal).

Now with the large, dysfunctional UN mission (UNMIL) Liberia has at least been stable for the last 5 yrs, elected africas FIRST female head of state, decreased rates of gender based violence (a good friend of mine headed up an anti-gender based violence program there for 2 yrs and told me appalling stories), increased education participation rates and started to slowly rebuild an economy.

It is not a total succes story but none are. The UN mission has had many problems, there has been abuse by some UN peacekeepers and the problems of corruption in the govt have grown. Liberia is still at the bottom on many developmental indexes but it is doing a world better with all those UN peacekeepers & NGOs than it was when it was the hellhole before. People can at least live without fear.

The other part of my post reponse was relation to Don's dry humour. I just sought to give some facts regarding the general situation of when cases involving sex for food arise involving NGO workers. I have worked in places where these incidents occur so added some info. for what it is worth.

[English_George]

cases involving sex for food arise involving NGO workers

...a beautiful example of how aid gets corrupted...

...so it's not only financial aid that has its hands all over the wrong people

...but then again.....what do you expect?...Really?

....Anything to do with peace in my mind has been warped by our modern 'material world'

....Obama.........it's over as a conversation, but Alfred Nobel is still turning in his grave...

...Nothing can surprise me know.......except maybe one day they say it's all a big hoax which started centuries ago by an elite society and that it's ALL corrupted deliberately......

...but it would be more of a 'raised eyebrow' surprise, than a 'WTF'

..79

[Stramash]

there is a 2 word solution to both over population and food shortages;

Soylent Green.

Alternatively, there is a one word solution to over population (which will then increase available food anyway)

Eugenics.

:twisted:

[Mister Moobs]

there is a 2 word solution to both over population and food shortages;

:twisted:

I got one word: CANNIBALISM!

[PJack]

the problem with feeding people is they eat and then the next day they are hungry again. there is just no end to it all. and I am not sure but I have seen so many fat people in the States and it stands to reason they are eating way more than they should be. Someone should tell Obama.

i remember reading a report last year stating that between 25 to 30% of the food bought in the UK/Ireland was wasted .... i'm guessing the figure for the US will be something similar !!!

plenty of food to go around ... just not the drive or want to distribute it more fairly !!!

americans are so much fatter I am sure they are doing better job at conservation

[PeeMarc]

the problem with feeding people is they eat and then the next day they are hungry again. there is just no end to it all. and I am not sure but I have seen so many fat people in the States and it stands to reason they are eating way more than they should be. Someone should tell Obama.

i remember reading a report last year stating that between 25 to 30% of the food bought in the UK/Ireland was wasted .... i'm guessing the figure for the US will be something similar !!!

plenty of food to go around ... just not the drive or want to distribute it more fairly !!!

americans are so much fatter I am sure they are doing better job at conservation

Apparently the US has 5% of the worlds population... BUT consumes 30% of the world's resources every day.

The US is basically a bloated fat pig with an eating disorder.

www.storyofstuff.com

[faycyber]

I feel so bad when I bin my food ...

[eagle]

LG wrote

may have misunderstood you eagle

no I only read the first line and reacted :oops:

[LakeGeneve]

^ No worries mate.

Ethipoia is asking for emergency food aid to feed 6.2 million people as this seasons crops have not come through just as we approach the 25th anniversary of the 1984 disaster; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8319741.stm

A follow up article to last weeks report in todays NTYs;

Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow

Agronomists and development experts who gathered in Rome last week generally agreed that the resources and technical knowledge were available to increase food production by 50 percent in 2030 and by 70 percent in 2050 ? the amounts needed to feed a population expected to grow to 9.1 billion in 40 years. A straw poll of the experts in Rome on whether the world will be able to feed its population in 40 years underscored the uncertainty surrounding that question: 73 said yes, 49 said no and 15 abstained.

[Mister Moobs]

We need a good world war. That'll solve it.

Maybe Germany and France could start one again.

[beej]

We need a good world war. That'll solve it.

Maybe Germany and France could start one again.

Or serve up some of those ******* in Det5, they'd each feed an african nation for a year.

[Mister Moobs]