SOCIAL AND HUMAN SCIENCES

Commitments:

Social Science, Research and Policy

• Ethno-Net Africa

Ethno-Net Africa is a network of African social scientists interested in comparative research, monitoring and evaluation of ethnic conflicts and social change in Africa. Within the framework of UNESCO’s MOST Programme, and in cooperation with the International Centre for Applied Social Science Research (ICASSRT) in Cameroon, the project aims at proposing appropriate solutions to policy-makers dealing with ethnic and minority problems. The main objective of the network is to contribute to a better understanding of ethnicity and ethnic conflicts in Africa by collecting, analysing and disseminating information in an effort to provide an early-warning system and prevent conflicts. The network is composed of teams in Benin, Cameroon Chad, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Togo, Uganda and Zambia, and its Secretariat is located in Cameroon.

In 1998, in view of the creation of the database on ethnic conflicts, a training workshop was held in Yaoundé (Cameroon) to familiarize project participants with database management and the Internet. Currently, the project is in the phase of establishing the database, which is published on the project’s Internet site (http://www.unesco.org/p95.htm).

• Regional Research Network on International Migration in Africa

Regional Research Network on International Migration in Africa was established in June 1998 in Gaborone (Botswana). The aim of the research is to conduct subregional projects, provide high-level advice on migration matters and offer research services, and to assist in raising the standards of data collection by both statistical offices and immigration officials. Capacity-building is envisaged to be one of the outputs of the networks’ activities including exchange of information and translation of findings into policy. Seventeen researchers from 13 African countries participated in the first general meeting of the network. Another meeting is planned for the second half of 1999, during which the first results will be presented.

• Growing Up in Cities Initiative

Growing Up in Cities is an international initiative of UNESCO’s MOST Programme. A local director in each participating country drives the initiative. Ms J. Swart-Kruger of Unisa’s Department of Anthropology and Archaeology is the South African director and the impetus behind the local project; she works with a team of specialists. Growing Up in Cities aims at enabling children and youth to evaluate their urban environments, and to make recommendations for structural, socio-cultural and ecological improvements, thus empowering the children and youth of specific communities to improve their environment. It also makes an important contribution towards building up research. Through participation in this project, a small number of final-year and postgraduate students, acting as research assistants, gained first-hand experience of participatory research and planning when working with minors. Fruitful research and implementation partnerships were also forged between local communities, academic institutions, NGOs, the Human Rights Commission, Mini and Junior Councils, regional and local government and international agencies, with UNESCO-MOST being the key participant. UNESCO, UNICEF, HSRC and the Johann Jacobs Foundation have joined this project and provide financial support for research in South Africa.

• Project on Cities: Management of social transformations and the environment

Project on Cities: Management of social transformations and the environment is a research-action project associating the MOST, MAB and CSI programmes in an intersectoral approach between the Social and Human Sciences and Natural Sciences Sectors. It forms part of the follow-up to the HABITAT II Conference, and strives to bring about concrete improvements in inhabitants’ living conditions and training capacities, helping them in their struggle against poverty by drawing on their own initiatives, especially those of women and young people, and encouraging active involvement on the part of NGOs and grassroots organizations. There are two pilot sites for this project in Africa: Djenné (Mali) and Teumbeul and Malika (Senegal) . The former has seen the launch of an urban main drainage project. The latter, meanwhile, has produced the following results during the 1998-1999 biennium: (i) extension of the drinking-water-supply system by a further 1,000 metres; (ii) capacity-building at a hundred or so community centres, enabling them to teach local populations about environmental issues and bring about a change of behaviour regarding hygiene and health (especially among women); (iii) training of 100 young apprentices in the maintenance and repair of sanitary installations; (iv) financial support and supervision provided to around 20 economic interest groups led by women, mainly in agricultural-produce processing; (v) creation of a forum to foster dialogue among the chief actors, decentralized public services, local associations and UNESCO; (vi) signing of an agreement between UNESCO and the Mission Française de Coopération in Dakar (January 1999), securing US $140,000 of French funding over a two-year period.

• Project on Empowering Women

Empowering Women is a multidisciplinary community development project drawn up within the framework of the MOST Programme, run jointly with the Natural Sciences Sector and DANIDA and featuring the participation of several NGOs. It is a local initiative on the part of the populations of the Kokologho department (Burkina Faso). Based on a strategy of integrated development and covering eight Kokologho villages, its aim is to improve community living conditions by improving access to, and management of, drinking water, educational activities and “tailor-made” information services for the entire population. UNESCO has mobilized NGOs and donor agencies to ensure that crucial endogenous-development-oriented action is carried out in line with the wishes of local women, and at their own chosen speed. The emphasis is placed on women here because their priorities are never taken into account at any level, above all locally, where they play a vital and indispensable role in the community’s endogenous development.

• Support for Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOPS)

In 1998, the MOST Programme launched a series of activities in cooperation with UNDP and BAD largely designed to reduce poverty and foster sustainable development in the Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa. Two missions were carried out in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde in May 1998 and February 1999 respectively. Owing to the situation on the ground, however, MOST was forced to postpone implementation of the Guinea-Bissau mission’s recommendations. In Cape Verde, on the other hand, work had already been under way since 1997, under the stewardship of the Social and Human Sciences Sector, to develop partnerships between the central Government and some of the country’s 17 municipalities as a means of progressing towards decentralization (DANIDA project on democratic governance). MOST has financed a study on social policy reform in preparation for a National Poverty Reduction Programme. Moreover, three projects have been included in the Social Sciences section of the Plan of Action UNESCO is preparing for the Portuguese-speaking African countries, namely, (i) first to establish and consolidate MOST National Liaison Committees; (ii) a pilot project on sustainable development in Tarrafal (Cape Verde); and (iii) an SPPD Project to develop mobilization and training strategies for the sake of local governance and development by providing development actors in Cape Verde with training in social mobilization and how to organize, put forward solutions, negotiate, and carry out micro-projects.

• Pilot Poverty Reduction Programme in Namibia

A Pilot Poverty Reduction Programme is being conducted in the Ohangwena region of northern Namibia, targeting rural women, unemployed youth and the San population, a particularly impoverished group stranded between two cultures. In addition, a Special Technical Services (STS) Project entitled Strategy for Community Mobilization and Empowerment for Poverty Reduction has been elaborated by UNESCO and UNDP. Through this project, a team of experts will conduct a participatory needs assessment study and draw up a programme of assistance to promote activities for sustainable livelihoods and a bi-cultural training programme for the San population in the Ohangwena region.

Peace, human rights and democracy

• Out of approximately 40 UNESCO Chairs in Human Rights, Democracy, Peace, Tolerance and International Understanding, there are currently 10 such Chairs in the Africa region. In 1998-1999, three new Chairs were established in Africa. With the financial support of UNESCO, the African Network for Tolerance, Non-Violence and Peace published its first Newsletter in January 1999.

• A Regional Conference on Human Rights Education in Africa was organized in Dakar (Senegal) in December 1998. The Conference was dedicated to developing human rights education at all levels, its overall objective being to inculcate a human rights culture based on the ideals of peace, tolerance and peaceful conflict management.

• In commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, two books were launched in June and December 1998 respectively: Human Rights and Democracy in Southern Africa and The Human Rights Reader: Towards a Sustainable Culture of Human Rights in Southern Africa. In addition, a Regional Conference on the theme Five Years After Vienna: Towards a Sustainable Culture of Human Rights in Southern Africa, convened in Windhoek (Namibia) from 7 to 10 December 1998, examined country reports, focused on the need to find concrete means for implementing (especially) social, economic and cultural rights, and discussed priority areas for subregional cooperation. As one of the results of the Conference, planning is under way for the creation of an inter-university web site concerning Human Rights Teaching and Research in Southern Africa.

• Within the framework of national initiatives in the field of peace and tolerance, UNESCO provided financial support for the following projects in 1998: translation of the Declaration of Principles on Tolerance into the four national languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, along with the fourth national week of tolerance organized around the time of the International Day of Tolerance (12-22 November 1998); an awareness-raising campaign and assessment of Associated School action undertaken in the field of peace and tolerance in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) at the time of the International Day of Peace (15 November 1998) and the International Day of Tolerance (16 November 1998).

• In cooperation with DANIDA, UNESCO ran two training courses in Democracy and Human Rights for Cape Verde Members of Parliament (November 1998 and April 1999), among whose participants figured a number of national and international experts. They represented a further stage to the decentralization-oriented courses started up at municipal level in 1997. Publication of the course content is currently under way. UNESCO has also established a teaching programme in Ethiopia on human rights and institutional democratization; and a cooperation effort has been launched with the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil) aimed at producing a social sciences research and teaching programme, and strengthening national institutions (e.g. parliaments, municipalities) in the five Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa.