Fence it

I have been away to Heiligendamm over the weekened to get an idea of the area - well as far as i could get. as you can see from picture above roads leading to Heiligendamm are blocked at the moment. I went to Rostock too, to check out the accommodation I booked online for my ActionAid colleagues to come here later in June and last but not least to look at the fence I mentioned earlier. This is what it looks like! They are still in the middle of constrution - later on cameras will also be added. I dared to google pictures from the former GDR to get a comparison - you may want to do so yourself.

cheers ladies

it is five to noon - well by the time this blog is written it is past midnight - and then it is our day - international women's day. Let's call upon Chancellor Angela Merkel to show us what's in it for women's rights during the double presidency of the EU and the G8. Today, more than 100 organisations launched a new campaign "women won't wait" which sheds light on the vicious circle of violence against women & girls and HIV/AIDS. If one reads that young women account for 76% of all new HIV infections in Sub-Saharan Africa then for sure we can't wait any longer - we should not and we must not, as Mary Robinson said in her remarks at the launch event. Indeed, actions are needed - i guess it's Merkels turn just now.

yet again, good night and good luck

Making the most of a Friday evening...

I went to see Jeffrey Sachs who gave a talk titled "Making the most of the Heiligendamm G8 Summit". A successful G8 summit for him this year is about timetables and funding plans being delivered. It is about implementing existing commitments instead of adding new promises, is the mantra of his talk.

His focus is on the 2005 G8 promise to double aid to Africa to at least US$ 50bn in 2010 while hardly any attention is paid by Sachs to the crucial G8 commitment: achieving universal access to prevention, treatment and care for all people with HIV and AIDS also by 2010. UNAIDS estimates that this year alone approximately US$ 8bn are needed!

For Sachs, all this is fundamentally an economic problem and not a challenge to a G8's budget but a challenge to decency. He provides a figure indicating the 20hrs of US pentagon spending is sufficient to combat malaria.

Missing this years opportunity to follow through on very practical steps as an action plan that outlines which G8 country increase its official development assistance on which date relates to the summit being meaningless, according to Sachs - for sure something that Chancellor Merkel is trying to prevent. The cost of not delivering is economically as well as politically not viable.

But don't get me wrong - it wasn't my best Friday evening.

I don't agree with Sachs that the nature of the problem is an economic one and that one can ignore the politics. I don't understand how a 2hrs talk about the G8 summit can get away with not mentioning the WTO negotations. His speech is about needs that can be satisifed if only we follow his practical guidelines as in the Millennium Villages.

I wonder, if it would be all that simple as Sachs is putting it, why are there 850 million people hungry though there is enough food to feed the world. It is a violation of poor people's rights - and only one of them is the denial of women's rights to land...

Oh, no single women in fact managed to be taken into the question session...
Oh, and the host managed to acknowledge all but NGOs attendance in his entry speech...
Oh, thank god it was Friday and off I went through yet another rainy night in Berlin...