Timor-Leste Ministry of Economic and development creates a gender cabinet

Over the past ten years, achievements have been made in many sectors in Timor-Leste. Schools and hospitals both in the capital and the districts have been rebuilt and many government institutions for delivering goods and services have been put in place.

East Timor predicted to be one of the top ten fastest growing economies for 2011. That news comes as the World Bank recently predicted a 15 percent growth rate and a decline in poverty by 9 percent in the foreseeable future.

On its track to development gender equality promotion is a priority.



Following the Millennium Development Goals, the Timor-Leste target for gender equality and empowerment women is “eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015”

United Nations report is clear: “Very likely to be achieved, on track”

“At primary education proportion of girls was higher than that of boys. According to 2004 population and housing census in Timor-Leste, the net primary enrolment rate is 75% for boys and 73% for girls. But this rate was decreasing at secondary and tertiary levels. At tertiary level there were only 83 girls out of 100 boys. This reflects that gender inequality still exists.

Moreover, since 2001 the ratio of literate women to men has been quite promising, reaching approximately 96%. The percentage increased slightly to 97% in 2004, but declined sharply to 93% in 2007. Achieving 100% literacy among women by 2015 is possible if informal education is made available to all in a more ambitious manner.

The share of women in wage employment in the non agricultural sector presents a different picture, however. This indicator shows that the chance of women to involve in labour market is still very low, where male dominates. Based on the data sources women contribution in the non-agricultural sector has only increased slightly from 35% in 2001 to 36% in 2007. Moreover, women in urban areas are more likely to get employed in non-primary sectors than men. Finally, an indicator of the empowerment of women can be seen in the proportion of seats held by women in national parliament, which was 28% in 2007”

As it can be seen, achievements have been made, but a lot of work is still required.

The Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste supports freedom from sex-based discrimination. Equality between women and men is a fundamental right, and a necessary condition for the achievement of its objectives of growth, employment and social cohesion.

For this reason, the Government itself it committed to the principle of equality between men and women seeking to ensure the integration of a gender perspective in the development of strategic, policies, programs and legislation within the Government.

Taking into account the importance of equality between women and men the Ministry of Economy and Development has created a gender cabinet in order to mainstream a gender perspective into the design, analysis, planning implementation, budget, monitoring and evaluation of local and national policies and programs.

Ministry of Economy and Development plays an important role in promoting the development in rural areas, where the gaps between men and women are deeper.
For this reason the Gender Cabinet is in charge to support the creation of districts gender working groups, identifying key members and priority actions in order to improve coordination between districts and promote rural community participation.

Let’s push Timor-Leste for ASEAN membership

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was established on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok by Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, with signing on the ASEAN Declaration or Bangkok Declaration.

Nowadays ASEAN is made by 10 countries which include Brunei Darussalam (1984), Viet Nam (1995), Lao PDR and Myanmar (1997) and Cambodia (1999).

ASEAN spans over an area of 4.46 million km2, 3% of the total land area of Earth, with a population of approximately 600 million people, 8.8% of the world population.

As set out in the ASEAN Declaration, the Association’s aims and purposes are about cooperation in the economic, social, cultural, technical, educational and other fields, and in the promotion of regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter.

It stipulated that the Association would be open for participation by all States in the Southeast Asian region subscribing to its aims, principles and purposes.

It proclaimed ASEAN as representing “the collective will of the nations of Southeast Asia to bind themselves together in friendship and cooperation and, through joint efforts and sacrifices, secure for their peoples and for posterity the blessings of peace, freedom and prosperity.”

Timor-Leste as the newest country in Southeast Asia Region is preparing itself to be the eleventh ASEAN member.

As a democratic country and sharing the values and principles set out in ASEAN Declaration, Timor-Leste will be, we hope, the eleventh ASEAN member, allowing the country, its population and entrepreneurs to make a part of an growing economic market which had a combined GDP of US$ 1.5 trillion and trade with the world around US$ 1.7 trillion, in 2010.

Recognized as a regional organization of global significance by Mr. Barack Obama, during the 2nd Summit in 2010, the ASEAN could be, for the synergy that it attracts, an important step to help make Timor-Leste truly prosperous, harmonious, stable and secure country, boosting its economic development.

Integration on ASEAN can also support Timor-Leste to spread itself as a peaceful and stable country and create tourism opportunities.

Thus, despite the global economic slowdown in 2009 and 2010, Asia Region (ASEAN members plus China, Japan and Republic of Korea) announced that tourist arrivals in 2010 remained resilient with more than 101 million arrivals, which is 14.40 per cent growth compared to 2009.

In terms of trade and economic cooperation, despite the ASEAN countries have increased significantly improvements, a lot of initiatives are being planned to further enhance the trade and economic cooperation, such as development of border markets, border activities, providing favorable conditions for trade among the members, facilitating intra-trade and enhancing the trade promotion.

With an economic growth around 12% in 2009 and preparing to approve at National Parliament a new private investment regime, Timor-Leste has the conditions not only to benefit of those activities, but also to attract entrepreneurs for its borders.

ASEAN cooperation in the agriculture sector dated back as early as 1968, with cooperation in food production and supply. In 1977, the scope of cooperation was broadened to include the greater area of agriculture and forestry as the needs have increased.

Currently, the specific areas under the ASEAN cooperation in food, agriculture and forestry includes food security, food handling, crops, livestock, fisheries, agricultural training and extension, agricultural cooperatives, forestry and joint cooperation in agriculture and forest products promotion scheme.

Being extremely dependent of food importation and having the climate conditions to development quickly its production, Timor-Leste could be greatly benefited of these programs.

Generation and transfer of technology to increase productivity and develop agribusiness, private sector involvement and investment, and capacity building and human resources development, are just some examples.

Timor-Leste has openly expressed intention to join ASEAN, and also has initiated the process within this year. A lot of formalisms must be observed, but we strongly believe that Timor-Leste will be certainly welcome as ASEAN eleventh member.

Asean Flag

2011 – International Year of Forests

2011 was declared the International Year of Forests by United Nations General Assembly to raise awareness and strengthen the sustainable forest management, conservation and sustainable development of forests for the benefit of all types of forests.

Forest are source of livelihood, biodiversity and wealthy and its represent an important role to combat climate change.

FAO estimates that every year 130,00’0 km2 of the world’s forest are lost due to deforestation. There are several causes for deforestation, such as conversion to agricultural land, unsustainable harvesting of timber and unsound land management.

According to the World Bank, deforestation accounts for up 20 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. </

Forests in numbers:

30% of forests are used for production of wood and non-wood products

The livelihoods of over 1.6 billion people depend on forests.

Trade in forest products was estimated at $327 billion in 2004.

Forests cover 31% of total land area.

Forests are home to 80% of our terrestrial biodiversity.

Primary forests account for 36% of forest area.

Forests are home to 300 million people around the world.

International Monetary Fund was created 65 years ago!

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was conceived in July 1944 and came into existence on December 27, 1945 when the 29 countries signed its Articles of Agreement in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States.

With a goal to stabilize exchange rates and assist the reconstruction of the world’s international payment system, after World War II, the IMF helped the world stabilize the economic system and it has been working to improve the economies of its member countries.

Nowadays, IMF is an organization of 187 countries, (members of the IMF are 186 of the UN members and Kosovo) working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty”.

What IFM does?

The IMF promotes international monetary cooperation and exchange rate stability, facilitates the balanced growth of international trade, and provides resources to help members in balance of payments difficulties or to assist with poverty reduction.

For achieving its goals IMF works with other international organizations, interacts with think tanks, civil society and the media on a daily basis.

Through its economic surveillance, the IMF keeps track of the economic health of its member countries, alerting them to risks on the horizon and providing policy advice. It also lends to countries in difficulty, and provides technical assistance and training to help countries improve economic management.

Violence against women

United Nations Development Fund for Women – UNIFEM

Established in 1976, United Nations Development Fund for Women works to promote and protect women’s rights over the world, for eradicating violence and all forms of discrimination against women and achieving gender equality.

UNIFEM works on the premise that it is the fundamental right of every woman to live a life free from discrimination and violence, and that gender equality is essential to achieving development and to building just societies.

Working in more than 100 countries, UNIFEM focuses its activities on one overarching goal: to support the implementation at the national level of existing international commitments to advance gender equality.
In support of this goal, UNIFEM works in the following thematic areas:

• Enhancing women’s economic security and rights – UNIFEM is committed to the advancement of women’s human rights and places their realization at the centre of its work in all thematic areas. Women bear a disproportionate burden of the world’s poverty. Statistics indicate that women are more likely than men to be poor and at risk of hunger because of the systematic discrimination they face in education, health care, employment and control of assets. UNIFEM supports women to reshape conditions at both ends of the economic spectrum — from boosting women’s participation in economic policy-making to supporting efforts to provide women and their communities with practical skills needed for securing sustainable livelihoods.

• Ending violence against women – Violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread violations of human rights. Globally, up to six out of every ten women experience physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime. A World Health Organization study of 24,000 women in 10 countries found that the prevalence of physical and/or sexual violence by a partner varied from 15 percent in urban Japan to 71 percent in rural Ethiopia, with most areas being in the 30–60 percent range. On behalf of the UN system, UNIFEM manages the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. The key international agreement on women’s human rights is the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which is also described as the international bill of women’s rights. Ratified by 185 UN Member States.

• Reducing the prevalence of HIV and AIDS among women and girls – More than 30 million people are today living with HIV. Globally, women now account for half of all infections. Gender inequality and violations of women’s rights make women and girls particularly susceptible, leaving them with less control than men over their bodies and their lives. Women and girls often have less information about HIV and fewer resources to take preventive measures.

• Advancing gender justice in democratic governance in stable and fragile states – around the world, gender equality in democratic governance continues to be extremely limited. Women are outnumbered 4 to 1 in legislatures around the world. At mid-year 2009, only 17 heads of state or government were women. One of the pillars of UNIFEM’s work is advancing women’s political participation and good governance, to ensure that decision-making processes are participatory, responsive, equitable and inclusive.

Learn more and help on the following link:

http://www.unifem.org/

The social effects of tourism in developing countries

Tourism may represent one of the effective ways to developing countries boost their economy, improve livelihoods and create and economic market, which can help them to start getting out of poverty.

When countries begin to provide facilities for massive tourism, such as hotels, leisure complexes, there is an immediate demand for labour, especially cleaners, waiters, gardeners and drivers which may significantly boost the local economy.

Such work more than create opportunities to learn valuable new skills, it represents an attractive alternative to agriculture or fishing for thousands of workers.

Tourisms jobs play also an important role for women social development. It is known that in developing countries women are slightly put part of the society, living under the husband economy dependence and oversight.

The tourism may development employ and important number of women, so they can gain economy independence and skills, which can be used helping their children’s education and improve the communities where they live.

In a national level, at the same time the tax revenues from tourism earnings increase the national income, which can be used to develop the country.

It has been point out that one inevitable feature of tourism’s growth is the creation of badly-paid, seasonal and insecurity jobs, Moreover, the combination of wealthy tourists being served by exploited waitresses is likely to increase social tensions in these areas, encourage crime, prostitution and other less desirable aspects of moderns economy.

These negative aspects of tourism’s growth may, in fact, occur. There are several examples regarding creation of badly-paid jobs and emerging crime and prostitution in several countries.

However, the balance between the positive and negative effect of tourism in developing countries lead us, definitely, to accept this reality as an important factor of development.

Having some experience not only living but also visiting developing counties, it can been easily seen that tourism growth and all the related services around are one of the way they have to economic growth, mainly for those that have not natural resources or other forms of revenues.

Most of developing countries have and economy based on subsistence agriculture and fisheries, which is not enough either to support country economic growth or to allow private sector development.

Since the lack of human resources is the one of the most gaps of developing countries, the investment in tourism, which not reclaims a qualify human resources, is also an advantage.

Oecussi, Timor-Leste

Oecussi was the first part of the island of Timor-Leste on which the Portuguese established themselves, in fifteenth century.

Oecussi is a coastal exclave in the western part of the island of Timor. It is separated from the rest of Timor-Leste (East) by West Timor, which is part of the province of Nusa Tenggara Timur, Indonesia, and which surrounds Oecussi in all directions except the north, where it borders the Savu Sea. It has an area of 815 square kilometres.

Oecussi is a district in Timor-Leste situated around 12 hours by ferry boat from the capital Dili. This boat connects to Dili twice a week. It can also be reached by road via Indonesia, this takes around six hours. This route requires visa authorisation from Timor-Leste’s authorities and a visa on arrival from the Indonesian government. A third, and quickest, option is by UN helicopter four days per week, although waiting lists tend to be long.

The capital of Oecussi district is Pante Macassar, which is also known as Oecussi town. Oecussi is divided into four sub-districts; Nitibe, Oesilo, Pante Macassar, and Passabe. The sub-districts are divided into 19 sucos (communities) in total. Just like any other district in Timor-Leste, most of the inhabitants are Roman Catholic. They speak Tetum, the official language of Timor-Leste, Portuguese and Indonesian.

The vast majority of Oecussi people – around 82 per cent – have always relied on agriculture for their livelihood. Oecussi farming practice tends overwhelmingly towards a subsistence model, and traditional markets commonly feature the bartering of goods as a mode of transaction. The major crops are cassavas and rice.

Attempts to increase economic activity in Oecussi through agriculture or agro-forestry will need to address the challenges of a dry climate, poor soils and mountainous topography, that offers little flat land for large-scale agriculture. Rainfall in Oecussi, as across Timor, falls mostly from November to April.

Life in Oecussi is pleasant but basic. There is a small number of restaurants and almost no nightlife. Shops are generally well stocked, with many imported goods from Indonesia, and markets have a good stocking of local products ranging from fruit to beef. Electricity is sparse, mainly for the evenings, and with regular black-outs. Hence, cooled and frozen products tend to be less available than fresh or canned goods. Both a vegetarian and a vegan diet are possible to maintain in Oecussi.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

On December 10, 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and “to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories.

The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are entitled. It consists of 30 articles which have been elaborated in subsequent international treaties, regional human rights instruments, national constitutions and laws

The Universal Declaration begins with a preamble consisting of seven paragraphs followed by a statement “proclaiming” the Declaration.
Each paragraph of the preamble sets out a reason for the adoption of the Declaration.

The first paragraph asserts that the recognition of human dignity of all people is the foundation of justice and peace in the world.

The second paragraph observes that disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind and that the four freedoms: freedom of speech, belief, freedom from want, and freedom from fear – which is “proclaimed as the highest aspiration” of the people.

The third paragraph states that so that people are not compelled to rebellion against tyranny, human rights should be protected by rule of law.

The fourth paragraph relates human rights to the development of friendly relations between nations.

The fifth paragraph links the Declaration back to the United Nations Charter which reaffirms faith in fundamental human rights and dignity and worth of the human person.

The sixth paragraph notes that all members of the United Nations have pledged themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The seventh paragraph observes that “a common understanding” of rights and freedoms is of “the greatest importance” for the full realization of that pledge.

John Rawls

John Rawls, was bron in February 21, 1921, and died in November 24, 2002. He was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy.

Rawls received the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1999, the latter presented by President Bill Clinton, in recognition of how Rawls’s thought “helped a whole generation of learned Americans revive their faith in democracy itself.

Rawls is noted for his contributions to liberal political philosophy. A Theory of Justice in 1971, is it the main work!
In A Theory of Justice, Rawls attempts to reconcile liberty and equality in a principled way, offering an account of “justice as fairness.” Central to this effort is his famous approach to the seemingly intractable problem of distributive justice!

Rawls appeals to the social contract. What principles of justice would we agree to if we desired to cooperate with others, but would also prefer more of the benefits, and less of the burdens, associated with cooperation? Justice as fairness is thus offered to people who are neither saintly altruists nor greedy egoists. Human beings are, as Rawls puts it, both rational and reasonable.
Because we are rational we have ends we want to achieve, but we are reasonable insofar as we are happy to achieve these ends together if we can, in accord with mutually acceptable regulative principles. But given how different our needs and aspirations often are, how can we find principles that are acceptable to each of us? Rawls gives us a model of a fair situation for making this choice (his argument from the original position and the famous veil of ignorance), and he argues that two principles of justice would be especially attractive.

We would, Rawls argues, affirm a principle of equal basic liberties, thus protecting the familiar liberal freedoms of conscience, association, expression, and the like (included here is a right to hold and use personal property, but Rawls defends that right in terms of our moral capacities and self-respect,[4] not by appeal to a natural right of self-ownership, thus distinguishing his account from the classical liberalism of John Locke, and the libertarian stance of Robert Nozick). But we would also want to ensure that, whatever our station in society, liberties represent meaningful options for us. For example, formal guarantees of political voice and freedom of assembly are of little real worth to the desperately poor and marginalized in society. Demanding that everyone have exactly the same effective opportunities in life is a non-starter: achieving this would almost certainly offend the very liberties that are supposedly being equalized. Nonetheless, we would want to ensure at least the “fair worth” of our liberties: wherever one ends up in society, one wants life to be worth living, with enough effective freedom to pursue personal goals. Thus we would be moved to affirm a second principle requiring fair equality of opportunity, paired with the famous (and controversial) difference principle. This second principle ensures that those with comparable talents and motivation face roughly similar life chances, and that inequalities in society work to the benefit of the least advantaged.

Rawls held that these principles of justice apply to the “basic structure” of fundamental social institutions (courts, markets, the constitution, etc), a qualification that has been the source of some controversy and constructive debate (see, for instance, the important work of Gerald Cohen). Rawls further argued that these principles were to be lexically ordered, thus giving priority to basic liberties over the more equality-oriented demands of the second principle. This has also been a topic of much debate among moral and political philosophers. Finally, Rawls took his approach as applying in the first instance to what he called a “well-ordered society … designed to advance the good of its members and effectively regulated by a public conception of justice”. [5] In this respect, he understood justice as fairness as a contribution to “ideal theory,” working “out principles that characterize a well-ordered society under favorable circumstances” [6] Much recent work in political philosophy has asked what justice as fairness might dictate (or indeed, whether it is very useful at all) for problems of “partial compliance” under “nonideal theory.” Does Rawls’s theory tell us much that is useful about what we should do in societies already characterized by profound injustices, deep distrust, material deprivation, and the like?

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Assisted Suicide

Hello there,

As promised to my dear work colleague, in my future posts, I will write down and underline some sentences of an article about Assisted Suicide, written by american philosophers (whoever is interest can read it at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1237 ).

Undoubtedly, it is a fracturing subject of our society.
Yes or No to Assisted Suicide?
In order to establish a possible dialogue about it, i’ll point out one argument of each side:

Yes: “In a free society, individuals must be allowed to make those decisions for themselves, out of their own faith, conscience and convictions”.

No: “it would be impossible to limit a right to assisted suicide in an acceptable way, once that right was recognized”.

‘Till further considerations,
Bes