The United Nations
Thematic and Substantive Issues

The difference between IGNORANCE and APATHY?
I don't know and I don't care!

The Thematic and Substantive Issues are the key index point of reference linking NGOs both inside the United Nations and outside the United Nations worldwide who are interested in following and looking for solutions to these problems/issues. The United Nations addresses these during the General Assembly Session each year in their agenda.

The Thematic refers to general themes of interest to the United Nations. And the Substantive refers to key and substantial issues/problems the UN will focus on. See the list.

If you are looking for an area you are interested in; you can go to this section, find the topic, then look for the links to the NGOs inside and outside the UN who are also focused on these areas. This will provide you with links and contacts you may want to be connected with.

If you are an NGO inside (with official status with the UN) or an NGO outside (no official status with the UN), but are interested in being linked to these issues, send us your web address (URL).

Go to the Global Problems and Key UN Peoples Issues

The United Nations Main areas of Concern and key web sites...

Peace & Security	Economic & Social Development
International Law	Human Rights
Humanitarian Affairs

LINKS to Key NGOs interested in the following T&S Issues:

Aging
Agriculture
Bio-diversity
Children and Youth
Child Rights
Communications and Media
Conflict Resolution
Convention on the Rights of the Child
Corporations - TNCs - MAIs
Development Policy and Int'l Economic Cooperation
Disabled
Disarmament
Economic Development
Economic, Humanitarian and Disaster Relief Assistance
Education
Environment
Expansion of the role of the NGOs at the United Nations
Family
Food
Forests
Freedom of Religion and Belief
Girl Child
Globalization
Habitat
Health, Food and Nutrition
Human Resources, Social and Cultural Development
Human Rights
Human Vales
Indigenous Peoples
International Labor
International Law and International System
International Peace and Security
International Trade, Finance and Transport
Islands
Justice: International Criminal Court
Land Mines
Oceans
Outer Space
Mountains
Mental Health
Narcotics and Drugs of Abuse
Natural Resources, Energy and Cartography
Peace
Peaceful Use of Outer Space
Peoples Assembly
Population and Human Settlements
Private Sector
Refugees and Displaced Persons

War Refugees
Environmental Refugees
Economic Refugees

Religion
Safety
Science and Technology
Social Development
Status of Women
United Nations activities
United Nations Associations
Water
Women's Rights

Water

Food

Health

The Poor (Poverty)

Starvation

Population

Environment

Women Issues:

Violence Against Woman

Housing

See Homeless

Urban Problems

Rural Problems

Farmers

Aging

Youth

Children

Hunger

Homeless

Globalization

Employment

Education

Economic Development

Refugees:

Environmental Refugees

Economic Refugees

War Refugees

Existing Wars

Disarmament

The Armaments Industry

Landmines

Peace

Hague Appeal for Peace

Abolition 2000

Canadian Peace Alliance

Human Rights

Science & Technology

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We are working on this list....

If we have missed any critical ones...please let us know.

This child wil never be told to:

Clean up his room, take out the garbage, turn off the TV, sweep the garage, bring in the mail, mow the lawn, help with the dishes, weed the garden, stop tying up the phone.

It’s not a perfect childhood.

It’s a homeless one.

Some one million (1,000,000) American kids are growing up homeless in the United States of America. This is at the point of an epidemic. There seems to be a attitude of "they are not entitled to it!" Or "they should get out and work for it!" We need to "cut the entitlement programs and the welfare state," along with "cut taxes for the wealthy." (Steven Forbes, A very rich USA Presidential candidate.) Cutting of $90 Billion dollars of Welfare support and the dumping of thousands of single mothers and children out on to the streets. All while "Greed is good!" movies are popular and the "The Rich are rapidly separating themselves from the Poor" according to the UNDP's latest Human Development Report for 1998.

What is the homeless situation for children in your countries? Write to us.

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Children & Hunger:

According to a television show about to air in the United States of America, "Crisis at Christmas" CBS Channel 2, December 4, 1998, at 7:30 PM EST: Over 15 million children are starving and going hungry in the United States of America. All while globalization is destroying USA's farmers and only two oil companies on one day report spending $80 billion dollars to merge their companies.

IAED is interested in the effects of the "globalization" process, and the "structural adjustment" policies of the World Bank and the IMF International Monetary Fund, on the creation of an increasing number of "Economic Refugees."

If you are aware of similar conditions in your countries, please send us information.

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Poverty:

Every day some 67,000 more join the legions of the poor.

Of the nearly 6 billion people on earth, some 1.3 billion make less than $370 a year. The average in rich nations is $21,598. Most live in the developing world - Africa, Asia, and Latin America. But even in the rich nations, there are pockets of poverty. And 7 in 10 of the world's poor are female.

Most people never escape abject poverty. It denies them their basic needs - food, clothing, and shelter. It can rob them of freedom, dignity, education and good health.

The World Health Organization says, "Poverty wields its destructive influence at every stage of human life, from the moment of conception to the grave. It conspires with the most deadly and painful diseases to bring a wretched existence to all who suffer from it."

The UNDP United Nations Development Programme human development magazine Choices describes the notion that "the poor are catching up" as 'a dangerous myth.' Instead, it states: "We love in a world that has in fact become more polarized economically, both among countries and within them."

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Aging:

Each month the world's older population increases by 1.2 million! By 2020, 1.4 billion persons will be over the age of 60, an increase of 240% since 1980 with the fastest growth in developing countries. By 2025, worldwide life expectancy will reach 73 years . . . a 50% improvement on the 1955 average of only 48 years . . . a quality of life challenge.

Middle age growth is decreasing, leaving a growing youth age group. There could be potential problems between the elderly and the youth.

How do we build sustainable communities for all?

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Safe Water:

"Safe water is the foundation of health and health is the foundation for development".

Water is essential. No one can survive without it. For millions of the world's poorest people fetching water for their daily needs means a long walk, often to a polluted source. Poor sanitation makes a bad situation worse.

The cost is an untold amount of preventable illnesses and millions of premature deaths.
10 million children will die unnecessarily this year from illnesses which can be averted by basic improvements to the water supplies and sanitation.

Some world's experts are suggesting, "...the next world war will be fought over water and food."

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Landmines:

In 1995 alone more than 110 million landmines were buried in 68 countries. with an equal number stockpiled around the world. More than 2 million children died as a result of armed conflicts in the past decade, in part because of landmines.

Landmines are one of the moist widely used weapons in contemporary conflicts...
Landmines are cheap to buy, easy to use, hard to detect, costly and dangerous to remove...
Landmines are used to deliberately keep people from their homes...
Landmines kill or maim every twenty minutes...
The poorest of the poor are most severely affected and are most likely to die from injuries...
Landmine survivors are often totally dependent on immediate family for continued survival...
Landmines deny access to land, farming and food, water sources, schools, medical facilities and pathways...
Landmines NEVER SLEEP!

Some landmines have been designed as small, bright, and colorful butterfly looking plastic toys. Especially attractive to children... and deadly! They are very cheap and can be spread over large areas by aircraft.

At a recent United Nations briefing to the NGOs: "We are proud to announce that this year we have removed a record 100,000 landmines worldwide at a cost of up to $1,000 dollars each." And on the same program another speaker reported, "During the same time there has been over 2.5 million new land mines deployed worldwide at a cost of $3 dollar each."

The argument for landmines is, "They slow down an advancing army, and facilitate a safe withdraw for a retreating army." Actually armies understand landmines and know how to deal with them rather quickly. What landmines actually do, is go on killing and maiming innocent citizens long after any war is concluded.

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Population:

It is estimated that by the year 2030 the World's population will double to 12 Billion people. 85% of the people living in the rural areas will move into the cities looking for work; creating massive problems for urban planning and management along with the possibility of a crisis in water and food and jobs which could lead to a world war.

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Violence against Women:

"Every 12 seconds a woman is beaten in America"

"50% of the women beaten are pregnant"

"Every 8 minutes a woman is raped in America"

"Every 6 hours a woman is killed in America"

"Domestic violence is the No. 1 cause of Hospital Emergency Room visits in America"

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Environmental Refugees:

One Hurricane can destroy a country and set it back 25 to 50 years overnight. Honduras is estimated to have right now over 1.4 million homeless refugees as of 12/1/98. Their complete infrastructure has been dismantled overnight.

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Refugees:

Number of Refugees and others of concern to UNHCR as of 1998:
(The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)

1950	1.0 Million human beings. Mostly women and children.
1960	1.4 Million human beings. Mostly women and children.
1963	1.3 Million human beings. Mostly women and children.
1970	2.5 Million human beings. Mostly women and children.
1974	2.4 Million human beings. Mostly women and children.
1980	8.2 Million human beings. Mostly women and children.
1985	11.6 Million human beings. Mostly women and children.
1990	17.2 Million human beings. Mostly women and children.
1995	26.1 Million human beings. Mostly women and children.
1998	22.7 Million human beings. Mostly women and children.

These numbers represent Refugees mainly from wars. Note the increase in refugees since the 1989 changes in Russian/USA relations. Most of these wars are internal conflicts. The world is willing to standby and watch huge disasters and slaughters of humankind. Missing are the uncounted but growing numbers of:

1. Environmental Natural Disaster Refugees.
2. Environmental Man-Made Disasters Refugees.
3. Economic Refugees (resulting from globalization and economic expansion policies.) A brand new category of refugees.

A few facts:

The number uprooted peoples needing help has grown dramatically throughout this century. Today's refugees and internally displaced are mainly women and children who have lost their homes, families and many of their other human rights.

Women and children, who between them often make up 80+ percent of any refugee population, increasingly become deliberate targets of combatants during conflicts.

Women refugees are often victimized many times over.

Many regions of the world have become vast forests of landmines (see landmines) and victims among civilian populations and refugees number in the hundreds of thousands.

A save and secure home is one of the first human rights a refugee loses.

Millions of children have been killed, wounded or died of starvation and disease in the last couple of decades.

178 countries of the UN believe it is now time for an effective International Criminal Court to hold responsible those who are involved in these kinds of atrocities. Seven countries don't.

"Fifty years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the very foundation of refugee protection is under threat. The world is faced with unprecedented numbers of victims of forced displacement. At the same time, many states are denying protection to refugees and asylum seekers , and have ignored the very principles of protection they themselves agreed on." - Amnesty International

"Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution." Article 14, Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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Armaments:

"Overkill. In 1995 the world spent more than US$1.5 million each minute on defense - a total of nearly $800 billion. The cost of achieving basic social services for all has been estimated at $40 billion a year for ten years - a total of $400 billion. That is half of what was spent globally on the military in 1995 alone. More than 110 million landmines were buried in 68 countries. with an equal number stockpiled around the world. More than 2 million children died as a result of armed conflicts in the past decade, in part because of landmines. Half the world's governments pay more to guard against military attack than fight the enemies of health. In the early 1990s Angola, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Qatar, and Yemen spent about twice as much on the military as they did on health and education; the Syrian Arab Republic spent almost four times as much. Thirty leading industrialized countries exported nearly $22 billion worth of conventional weapons in 1995, - 94% of the world total. The USA exported 51% of the world's weapons, followed by the Russian Federation (13%) , Germany (8%), and the United Kingdom (6%). There were close to 22 million people serving in the armed forces worldwide in 1995, two-thirds of them from developing countries. Kuwait spent $2,091 per capita on the military in 1995, South Africa spent $88, MEXICO $30, VIET NAM $12, AND Costa Rico $6. Official development assistance provided by the United States in 1995 was only 3% of what the country spent on defense that year."

- Human Development Report 1997, Commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme.

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Note: Previously there was a Transnational Corporations Group at the United Nations in New York City. The groups job was to monitor the transnational corporations activities. This group was moved to Europe a few years back, and just last year was dissolved. Seems they do not want anybody watching the transnational corporations while they globalize. All this is doing is creating a tremendous amount of curiosity and focus on the transnational corporations by more of the civil society, especially the NGOs..

http://www.corporatewatch.org

Janet M. Eaton <jeaton@fox.nstn.ca> has created an annotated
list of MAI websites - World Wide. 27 K
It is available at: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/3264

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IAED - International Agency Economic Development

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IAED - International Agency Economic Development

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Peace Odyssey 2001

We seek to build a broad coalition of groups to form a network for a People's Conference in the year 2001 to deal with problems of peace, justice, war, and global security. Many major international organizations are already in support of this event. For more details contact:

NGO Committee on Disarmament
Ms. Dorrie Weiss, Coordinator
777 UN Plaza, 3B
New York. NY 10017
Tel: 1-212-687-5340
Fax: 1-212-687-1643
e-mail: weissdor@aol.com

World Peace Organization

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