GFDD/FUNGLODE series regarding social and national security issues

GFDD/FUNGLODE series regarding social and national security issues

by Staff Writer
Global Foundation for Democracy and Development Newsletter
April 12, 2006

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic The series of documentary presentations and the following panel discussions were aimed to increase public awareness about current issues of global importance as hunger, nuclear weapons and peacekeeping missions.

With the presentation of “The Peacekeepers”, Global Foundation Democracy and Development (GFDD), its sister organization in the Dominican Republic, Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo (FUNGLODE), and the United Nations Association of the Dominican Republic (UNADR), closed the series of documentary presentation which included three films aimed to increase public awareness and sensitize the audience about current global issues as hunger, nuclear weapons and peacekeeping missions. This initiative was sponsored by Americans for Informed Democracy.

In the first presentation “The Silent Killer”, the audience was able to understand hunger from a powerful documentary, followed by a discussion lead by María Paz Salas, United Nations World Food Program Representative in Dominican Republic, and Matilde Vásquez Cabral, Under Secretary of Health and Nutrition, Ministry of Public Health, Nutrition and Social Assistance (SESPAS for its Spanish initials). Both experts alerted on the high risk that hunger poses to humanity, and emphasized several strategies that Dominican Republic is implementing to deal with this problem. Some of these strategies include the creation of the Hunger and Under Nutrition Atlas of Dominican Republic; the goal to reduce the amount of children under 5 years old below normal weight (2.500 grams), as well as to reduce the percentage of the population living under the minimum food-energy consumption level (2.100 Kcal/person/day), and the increase of the income proportion spend on food.

Both Salas and Vásquez Cabral highlighted the 2005 Government spending ($4,957 millions of Dominican pesos) which focused on: School Food Programs; Vulnerable Groups Food Programs; and programs supporting food supply which benefited primary and secondary students, and poor households.

Mrs. Salas announced a Project to eliminate child under nutrition in Dominican Republic and other countries of the Central American Integration System (SICA for its Spanish initials), to be implemented with the support of the UN World Food Program and the Interamerican Development Bank (IADB), for ten years.

The subject of threats posed by weapons of mass destruction was discussed in the second presentation with the documentary “Last best chance”. The discussion panel included José Jorge Núñez Alba, Chemical Engineer, Coordinator, Eco-Peace Mexican Network. Mr. Núñez explained the disastrous implications that the detonation of any nuclear artifact would pose to the world. He also emphasized the current risks and the possibilities that some vulnerable nuclear weapons, in existence since the Cold War, could soon explode due to lack of security measures.

He highlighted the fact that globalization and economic integration trends in today’s World pose a greater threat because of the difficulty of effective supervision in the transportation across borders of weapons of mass destruction and other nuclear artifacts. He pointed the example of the enormous daily transportation movements of huge containers across the Mexican-American border, or the amount of letters received by the U.S. Congress that allowed Anthrax to enter the States.

Finally, peacekeeping missions were approached in the documentary “The Peacekeepers”, based in the recent UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC). This presentation was followed by a discussion panel lead by Ayaka Susuki, Senior Political Affairs/Planning Officer in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

Mrs. Susuki explained the critical situation in Congo and highlighted the political difficulties inside the United Nations Security Council to approve the mission and to define the role of the peacekeeping team (Department of Peace Keeping Operations of the UN, DPKO) in convincing the member states to take action in this specific case. She pointed to the work done by the DPKO team in published reports and the support offered by the international press in sensitizing countries.

This documentary presentation series, part of GFDD/FUNGLODE’s aim to increase public awareness on current global issues, made it possible to sensitize at least 250 people, many of them members of the “March 2nd” Police Academy, students, professionals, NGOs representatives, among others.