United Nations Development Programme held a conference to launch the “Inclusive Civic Engagement in Legislation Making” project 8th October 2008 in Ankara. In partnership with the Prime Ministry, the Association for Parliamentary Advisers and the Association for Legislation, the project which is funded by UNDP Democratic Governance Thematic Trust Fund, aims to contribute to the creation of an enabling environment for and increased awareness of civil society’s engagement with legislation making by lowering the barriers of entry to participatory and inclusive policymaking and decision-making processes. More >>

On 9 September 2008, a project was launched in Ankara with broad participation from political parties, women parliamentarians, civil society organizations, academicians, media representatives and well-known international experts and activists. It was the launch of the project “Women in Local Politics and Decision Making” of UNDP, funded by the Swedish International Cooperation and Development Agency. The project aims at increasing the number of women elected for the upcoming local elections in Turkey previewed for the end of March 2009.  More >>

Twelve years of sound and fruitful cooperation between United Nations Development Programme Turkey and Southeastern Anatolia Project Regional Development Administration +has been rejuvenated by a new project, signed on March 2008, named “Innovations for Women’s Empowerment in the GAP Region”. This is a follow-up to the UNDP-GAP joint project, “Strengthening Regional Development and Reduction of Socio-Economic Disparities in the GAP Region, Phase II”, which was concluded in November 2007.  More >>

The “Saray Effective Water Usage Training Campaign” commenced with a training provided to school teachers of the Saray Primary School on 9 September 2008 in the context of the “Water Supply and Usage Improvement in Saray” project implemented by UNDP and Coca-Cola in partnership with Saray Municipality (Ankara). The training which was also participated by the Saray Municipality officials was given by Prof. Dr. Kemal Sönmez from Ankara University Faculty of Agriculture. The training aims to raise awareness on increasing local people’s access to safe drinking water, conscious and effective management and usage of water and water resources and protection of water resources. More >>

UNDP’s Procurement Capacity Development Centre has recently launched its public procurement online resource website that aims to contribute to the development, management and improvement of national and sub-national public procurement processes. The PCDC website will bring together individuals and organizations from developed and developing countries, governments, the private sector, civil society groups and educational institutions and will act as a forum in which all parties can exchange information on procurement capacity development research, analysis, approaches, tools and lessons from experience. This broad network will contribute to efforts of spending resources effectively and achieving targeted development goals. More >>

The world has made strong and sustained progress in reducing extreme poverty, the United Nations reports, but this is now being undercut by higher prices, particularly of food and oil, and the global economic slowdown. Since 2002, rising prices for minerals and agricultural raw materials have contributed to the remarkable run of economic growth in all developing regions, according to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals Report 2008. However, many developing countries are now facing higher import bills for food and fuel, jeopardizing their growth. Improved estimates of poverty from the World Bank show that the number of poor in the developing world is larger than previously thought, at 1.4 billion people. But the new estimates confirm that between 1990 and 2005, the number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen – from 1.8 to 1.4 billion – and that the 1990 global poverty rate is likely to be halved by 2015. However, these aggregates mask large disparities among regions. More >>

“While there has been progress on many fronts, the delivery on commitments has been deficient and has fallen behind schedule. It is therefore essential that all partners accelerate their efforts to deliver on the promises they have made” says UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in the preface of a recently published report. “Delivering on the Global Partnership for Achieving the Millennium Development Goals” prepared by the MDG Gap Task Force was launched on 4 September 2008 by Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in New York. The report is a call to improve the monitoring of progress on the global partnership for development as embodied in Goal 8 of the MDGs. The main message is that while there has been progress on several counts, delivery on commitments made by Member States...  More >>