NewsWhore
06-16-2011, 04:00 PM
The team that produced the eye-opening United Nations Human Development Reports in the DR is out of a job. Team coordinator Miguel Ceara-Hatton says that the UN representative in the DR, Valerie Julliand has taken measures aimed at dismantling the report-producing operation at the UNDP. The team had been working on provincial human development reports.
Ceara-Hatton complained that the decision to kill the work was taken despite having the funding for producing the reports. The information compiled was intended for use in formulating government policies aimed at improving the quality of life of residents in the Dominican Republic. The team had worked on producing the reports for the United Nations Human Development Program Office in the Dominican Republic for eight years. Ceara-Hatton said they operated as an independent and academic space for a team of researchers.
Ceara-Hatton said that on the occasion of the launch of the 2010 Human Development Report, UNDP administrator Helen Clark said: "The messages they convey are not always embraced in all quarters".
The report coordinator said that if the reports did not broach controversial issues or provoke vigorous debate on matters of concern to all, they would not stimulate people to think about the real issues of development and society empowerment, which he says has been his mission and mandate.
As reported in Listin Diario, he reiterated his commitment to rigorous and independent research, which he said he would continue in other spaces to seek an improvement of the quality of life of the people and for human development to be a matter of human rights and not a privilege for people in power as it is at present.
Diario Libre editorialist Adriano Miguel Tejada said that Ceara-Hatton had to leave because his work had become "politically incorrect."
"We are obliged to dance to the tune played by the politicians, because they have the monopoly on the repertoire," he wrote. "We Dominicans need to review the space we have given to the politicians, or we will not survive as a society," he concludes.
http://content.undp.org/go/newsroom/2010/november/helen-clark--on-the-occasion-of-the-launch-of-the-2010-human-development-report.en
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#6)
Ceara-Hatton complained that the decision to kill the work was taken despite having the funding for producing the reports. The information compiled was intended for use in formulating government policies aimed at improving the quality of life of residents in the Dominican Republic. The team had worked on producing the reports for the United Nations Human Development Program Office in the Dominican Republic for eight years. Ceara-Hatton said they operated as an independent and academic space for a team of researchers.
Ceara-Hatton said that on the occasion of the launch of the 2010 Human Development Report, UNDP administrator Helen Clark said: "The messages they convey are not always embraced in all quarters".
The report coordinator said that if the reports did not broach controversial issues or provoke vigorous debate on matters of concern to all, they would not stimulate people to think about the real issues of development and society empowerment, which he says has been his mission and mandate.
As reported in Listin Diario, he reiterated his commitment to rigorous and independent research, which he said he would continue in other spaces to seek an improvement of the quality of life of the people and for human development to be a matter of human rights and not a privilege for people in power as it is at present.
Diario Libre editorialist Adriano Miguel Tejada said that Ceara-Hatton had to leave because his work had become "politically incorrect."
"We are obliged to dance to the tune played by the politicians, because they have the monopoly on the repertoire," he wrote. "We Dominicans need to review the space we have given to the politicians, or we will not survive as a society," he concludes.
http://content.undp.org/go/newsroom/2010/november/helen-clark--on-the-occasion-of-the-launch-of-the-2010-human-development-report.en
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#6)