Friday, November 5, 2010

State of world population 2010 (By UNFPA)

State of world population 2010 (By UNFPA) mentions about Nepal.
This reports shows Nepal has mortality rate of 39 per 1,000 live births. Life expectancy M/F are respectively 66.6 & 68.2 years. Births per 1,000 women ages 15-19 are 101. Contraceptive Prevalence_any methods 48 & modern methods 44. Total population 29.9 millions in 2010 & will be 49 millions in 2050.

These are the pages or chapters which contains Nepal's issues :

Transfor ming resolutions into reality/Page-4
UNPFA, in partnership with many stakeholders, is helping countries and territories transform resolution 1325—and subsequent ones that also deal with women, peace and security—into reality. Much of UNFPA’s work at the country level focuses on developing the capacities of governments, United Nations agencies and institutions to incorporate gender issues in the design
and implementation of activities in the realm of peace and security, prevention, protection and participation.

Prevention

In Nepal, UNFPA is supporting the development of a National Action Plan for the Implementation of resolution 1325. UNFPA and partner organizations have also conducted training for women members of the Constituent Assembly in 2008 on basic human rights, with an emphasis on Security Council resolutions 1325 and 1820.

WHEN WOMEN ARE THE COMBATANTS/Page 45

Feminists have often argued that women are natural peace-makers and would choose non-violent solutions rather than conflict whenever possible.
Since ancient times, however, women have gone to war, and the conflicts in contemporary times have involved many women, by choice or forced recruitment. Ethnic conflict and nationalistic or class-related causes have drawn committed women into civil wars and sometimes terrorism.
High-technology warfare waged by developed nations has attracted women to careers in the military, where they seek commanding roles in competition with men.
Swati Parashar, a lecturer at the University of Limerick in Ireland, writing recently about feminism and armed conflict in Sri Lanka, where up to a fifth of the cadres of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were girls or women, raised relevant questions.“Women who support and indulge in both discriminate and indiscriminate violence against institutions of the state and unarmed civilians not only redefine notions of nationalism, gender and religious identity, but also highlight their complex and problematic relationship with feminism. To what extent does participating in militant activities and armed combat provide women with opportunities to transcend conventional gender roles?…
How are militant women influenced by these political movements and how do they influence these movements?...
How does/should feminist international relations approach these militant women?”
A subsequent question might be: What happens when fighting ends and these women go home? Nepal and Sri Lanka are now going through processes of reintegrating former female combatants. A cautionary warning about some post-conflict expectations among women who chose to fight alongside men was offered by Sara Emmanuel, writing in the ISIS Newsletter in June 2007.“In El Salvador,” she wrote, “women exmilitants looking back on their lives as fighters, speak of experiencing some kind of liberation from social restrictions; new sexual freedom and liberation from conventional perceptions of motherhood; hope of finding a means of overcoming poverty and oppression and bringing about a better future. However, the realities that peace and demobilisation brought were very different. The women were separated from their comrades, they lost their weapons, they had to suddenly go back to their families and reintegration was difficult. They felt lonely and isolated. They needed emotional care and support."
In Nepal, women played many active roles during a 10-year armed conflict between government forces and a Maoist insurgency. Women were combatants, state security personnel, sole breadwinners for households, researchers, activists, journalists and politicians. The image of women with guns was a new reality in Nepal that challenged the age-old perception of women as subservient members of society. After the signing of a peace agreement in 2006, space opened up for women’s participation in peacebuilding. An interim constitution introduced “women’s rights” as fundamental and pledged non-discrimination on the basis of gender. In 2006, a parliamentary resolution was passed to reserve 33 per cent of seats for women in all state bodies.
Women made up about a third of the Maoist forces, and many of them were children when they joined.
In February, when the Maoists discharged 3,000 minors from their People’s Liberation Army, about 1,000 of them were girls. As part of a joint United Nations support programme, led by UNFPA, reproductive health services were provided to former combatants and technical help was offered to ensure a gender-sensitive approach to the planning and implementation of the military discharge process.

Page 79

“In the last 10 years, our role in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations has completely changed,” the chief of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Under-Secretary-General Alain Le Roy said. “The mandate of peacekeeping is much more complex and with a much wider agenda. We are dealing much more with civil society.” In Burundi, Afghanistan and Nepal, he said, missions have promoted quotas for women in legislatures. “We have pushed to adopt the rape law in Liberia, and a domestic violence law in Timor- Leste,” he said. “In human rights, we see that the legal framework is in place.”

Women as peace -builders/Page 85

While women are often excluded from formal peace negotiations and only marginally represented in political decision-making structures, the experiences of various conflict-affected countries show that women often engage vigorously in informal peacebuilding and policy-related activities.
Burundi and Nepal are two conflictaffected countries in which women in civil society have been heralded for their efforts throughout peace and post-conflict processes. In both countries, the expansion of women’s public roles and responsibilities during armed conflict laid the ground for the establishment of an array of women’s organizations and networks. In these networks, women engaged in peacebuilding activities during the conflict, mobilized actively for the integration of a gender perspective and women’s participation in the peace negotiations, and continued their advocacy for women’s political participation, rights and needs throughout the postconflict period.
By the time that the Burundian peace process star ted in 1998, Burundian women’s organizations had already been mobilizing for peace for several years. In response to the civil war that began in 1994, women came together on a multi-ethnic basis to create a number of associations and two umbrella organizations— Collectif des associations et ONG féminines du Burundi (CAFOB) and Dushirehamwe—which united diverse women’s groups in their advocacy for peace at the grassroots and national levels. Throughout the post-conflict period, women’s organizations and networks have been an important arena for women’s mobilization and action in Burundi.
Nepal saw a wave of women’s political engagement during the peaceful mass protests of 2006 that initiated the country’s peace process, with women from civil society taking to the streets and demanding peace and democracy. Since then, a myriad of active women’s organizations with
a diversity of priorities, activities and target groups have been operating there. Although there are no formal linkages for communication between political institutions and civil society groups, many women’s organizations have pushed persistently to get access to political leaders and institutions, using an array of methods (including petitions, media publications, workshops, seminars, signature campaigns and street demonstrations) to be heard. Women’s organizations have also gathered to work for joint causes related to women, peace and security through networks such as Shanti Malika, Women’s Alliance for Peace, Power, Democracy and the
Constituent Assembly (WAPPDCA), and WomenAct.

Source: Women’s Organizations: A Driving Force Behind Women’s Participation and Rights, Åshild Falch, 2010, Peace Research Institute Oslo.

And comparing with others

In South Asia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives lag much behind Sri Lanka in respect of these important health and social indicators.
The Infant Mortality Rate per thousand births in India in 2010 was 52, Pakistan 61, Bhutan 41, Nepal 38 and Maldives 20 while Sri Lanka had only15 deaths which was highly satisfactory.
The Maternal Mortality rate per 100,000 births stood at a high 830 in Nepal while in India it was 450, Bangladesh 570, Pakistan 320, Maldives 120 with Sri Lanka only 58 mother deaths.
The life expectancy in India respectively for male and female was 62 / 66 years, Bangladesh 68 years for both, Pakistan 66 / 67, Nepal 66 / 68, Maldives 70 / 74 and Sri Lanka was 71 and 74 years.
The country with most dismal indicators in the world, Afghanistan records 152 infant deaths per 1,000 births and 1,800 maternal deaths per 100,000. The life expectancy in Afghanistan is only 44 for both sexes.
Some of the best countries to live in, Sweden, Australia and Switzerland, the Infant Mortality rate, Maternal Morality rate and Life Expectancy stood respective at 3, 3 and 79 / 83, 4, 4 and 79 / 84 and 4, 5, and 79 / 84.

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