The new publication “Growing Together: Youth and the Work of the United Nations” was launched on International Youth Day. The UN Programme on Youth coordinated this inter-agency effort which shows how the United Nations system as a whole, supports youth development through a diverse range of programmes and activities. The publication demonstrates that the work of the various parts of the United Nations system is complementary and covers all 15 priority areas of the World Programme of Action for Youth that was adopted by the General Assembly. By taking stock of UN system activities related to youth, the publication also provides a chance to assess how effectively the United Nations system is responding to the youth development challenge. It is intended as a source of information to assist stakeholders and to ensure that the United Nations truly delivers as one in the area of youth. For more information or to download a copy of the publication, please visit http://www.un.org/youth.

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By Somini Sengupta

AZAMGARH DISTRICT, India: When Chandra Bhan Prasad visits his ancestral village in these feudal badlands of northern India, he dispenses the following advice to his fellow untouchables: Get rid of your cattle, because the care of animals demands children’s labor. Invest in your children’s education instead of jewelry or land. Cities are good for Dalit outcastes like us, and so is India’s new capitalism.

Read more in the International Herald Tribune…

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Green is the new black. No buzz-phrase better sums up both the excitement many of us feel about the blooming environmental and social consciousness around us and the essential hollowness of the answers being promoted by many newly-minted eco-pundits.

The flood of environmental magazine cover stories, documentaries and advertisements has pushed us over a public-opinion threshold, which is great. But the solutions being touted by many of our new-found allies are themselves creating a new kind of problem — people who should know better are selling a muddle-headed, style-over-substance, “lite green” environmentalism at a time when we need to be rebuilding our civilization to avoid disaster. To be blunt, we’re being sold out.

Read more at Worldchanging.com…

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Are you in a happy mood?  Take a look at this World Database of Happiness, a great scientific & inspirational directory for everything from a selection on valid measurement to a state happiness ranking.

Heard about Bhutan’s policy to measure ‘Gross National Happiness‘ instead of the traditional economic measure of GDP?

Or watch Goldfrapp’s ‘Happiness’, something you can’t resist to get happy of… It’s gorgeous!

Or watch the following TED movies about happiness:

Dan Gilbert: Why are we happy? Why aren’t we happy?

Matthieu Ricard: Habits of happiness

Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice

… or all the other TED movies tagged ‘What makes us happy?’

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WAGENINGEN, Netherlands: Bringing a green revolution to Africa and feeding the continent’s 200 million hungry people is one of the greatest development challenges of this century, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Monday.

Annan said a 50 percent jump in staple food prices in the last year has deepened the crisis for the average African farmer rather than helped him.

Farmers who lack fertilizer for poor soil, who have no access to high yield seed and who cannot move their crops to the market because of high fuel costs gain no benefit from higher farm prices, he said.

Africa needs to revolutionize the entire food chain, he said. That “will require one of the largest efforts in human history,” he said.

Annan is director of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, formed two years ago with grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. He said he has committed US$330 million (€225 million) to help small scale farming in Africa.

Most farms in Africa are less than a hectare (2.5 acres) and only five percent of arable land is irrigated. Four of five people in rural Africa have no electricity, he said.

Annan spoke at the opening of the Academic Year at Wageningen University, an agricultural research institute involved in his program.

Read more at the International Heral Tribune…

… or read the speech Kofi Annan delivered ath Wageningen University

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