Having been in the Ukraine for a little over a week now I thought it would be a good idea to report on my experiences of Ukrainian Television. Whilst the vast majority is in Ukrianian, be that originally or dubbed over English films (Die Hard is particularly funny) there are a few which aren't. They are instead in Russian with Ukrainian subtitles. There is of course a sole exception, the TV channel English Club, which is mainly in English or when not has English Subtitles.
I actually discovered that this channel is based in Dnipro and they often look for native English speakers to appear on it! (finally the chance I've been waiting for to launch my own TV career and become famous in the Ukraine!) However there seams to be a large amount of it that is devoted to advertising different products that the English Club seam to offer. Despite this it is still a welcome relief.
Speaking (typing, whatever it's the same thing) of great adverts, a particular favourite has to be the dubbing of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button with very deep Russian accents and Cyrillic names. Quality TV if ever there has been such a thing.
As a result of all this it has lead to me either watching the news and having no idea what's going on, watching футбал TВ or "football TV", where the universal language of football transcends all lack of knowledge of Russian, and finally simply not watching TV...which is a very good option too.
Tuesday 31 August 2010
Monday 30 August 2010
Induction week at IH DNK
Induction week at International House DNK officially started on Wednesday the 25th of August by which point I had managed to have a proper nights sleep and felt much more awake than the pervious day. We began with some drinks and getting to know you exercises, including one over Skype with the other school in Donetsk, although this didn’t quite run according to plan (we left the Donestk school waiting for 30 minutes before the skype link was up and running. Then due to the web cams location being away from the microphone, it was not possible to ask questions to people from the other school.) It was still a very useful way to meet all the other teachers and at least gain some basic knowledge about them.
After this we began the more serious work going over the basic approaches to delivering different types of lessons, what resources the school has, the changes that are occurring within the structure of the school this year and of course some more getting to know you games. During this period I discovered that actually IH DNK use different terminology and possibly even approach to teaching a language lesson that I had been taught during my CELTA. On the one hand this could be only a difference of semantics, yet it does seam possible to end up ordering a lesson in a completely different way to that which I am use to, and even possible miss out stages that I would consider very important. My hope is that if there is a genuine difference then I can take the best from both approaches rather than the worse!
The other new teachers and I also started our Beginner Russian classes. John (one of the other new teachers) and I had a clear advantage having used some of the Michel Thomas foundation Russian course before we came and Having a basic knowledge of Cyrillic really helped to know what some of the words were. The classes have so far dealt with such advance language as how to greet some one in formal and informal situations. So far my favourite phrase that I have learnt is to say “pleased to meet you” which is privetna paznacomitsa”.
I have also delivered my first lesson in the Ukraine! Don’t get too excited though, this lesson was a 20 minute introductory class that we give during the “open houses” where prospective students visit and we try to convince them to sign up. I had signed up to give the trial lesson for the Young learners who can be any age from 5-9, unfortunately for me no one from that age group turned up on my day. This resulted in me delivering the lesson to two of the native Ukrainian teachers who did their best impressions of very young pupils.
On Saturday after the signing of contracts (well that’s my next 10 months accounted for) and another open house I went into town with john to explore and get more familiar with the location of everything. During which time we managed to stumble across a McDonald’s! Not having an oven and having had a week of food where the closest item I ate to English food was Italian I really appreciated having a Burger and fries at approximately half the cost from an English McDonald’s.
Also on Saturday evening I went out with 3 of the other teachers for a meal and a few drinks. This included sampling the local Ukrainian vodka and the local beer as well as the not so local TGI Fridays food. We almost went to the UK themed Pub called “Big Ben” but alas this was not open.
During the evening we discussed some of the pervious teachers and their motivations for coming out to the Ukraine. Some of the reasons seamed fairly standard, experiencing a totally different culture, low cost of living, wanting to improve their Russian etc. And some were a lot more interesting, Such as those who came to find wives (yes, that’s right more than one, in fact many it would seam), the man who came over to work whilst he sorted out his mail order brides visa (yup a real mail order bride), or the Jehovah’s whiteness who came over to go around preaching every evening and teach in the morning…that was until he knocked on the door of one of the students houses and after a few angry phone calls (“is this really what you are up to! Trying to convert my children…etc”) He became and Ex-teacher at the school.
The last story I found quite interesting, not least due to the very strong opinions of the other teachers about J.W’s and religion in general, but mainly due to the fact that a teachers actions outside the school could cause to his dismissal. If he hadn’t of knocked on any students doors then no one would have complained and him using his spare time really shouldn’t be the school’s business, they don’t own him whilst he is out of school. But due to the coincidence (though it would have had to happen at some point) that he knocked on a students door meant that all of a sudden a conflict of interest occurred.
As a religious person myself I have more obvious reasons to be concerned about stories like this, I don’t believe that I should have to not talk about my faith to anyone including pupils if it arose in discussion or another event lead to it arising. However I do understand that pupils do not pay to be preached at but to have lessons in English, and it could certainly appear as though the school might be using deception to preach to people considering the above event, as such perhaps the only option to prove that this isn’t true would be for the teacher to leave the school. [just for the record I have no plans to go round to peoples houses, knock on their doors and certainly no plans to start preaching about only 144,000 going to heaven, that you need to be in the top 144,000 holy points to actually get into heaven and that God’s actually name is Jehovah, a name that was created much after Hebrew times combining two Jewish names for God that no one knew how to pronounce (oh and that Jesus was just a good guy)].
I still have another couple of days of the induction week before teaching gets fully underway during which time I shall hopefully make use of skype and the internet connection at the school (one of the major downsides of my apartment not having internet) before diving into the deep end of full time teaching.
After this we began the more serious work going over the basic approaches to delivering different types of lessons, what resources the school has, the changes that are occurring within the structure of the school this year and of course some more getting to know you games. During this period I discovered that actually IH DNK use different terminology and possibly even approach to teaching a language lesson that I had been taught during my CELTA. On the one hand this could be only a difference of semantics, yet it does seam possible to end up ordering a lesson in a completely different way to that which I am use to, and even possible miss out stages that I would consider very important. My hope is that if there is a genuine difference then I can take the best from both approaches rather than the worse!
The other new teachers and I also started our Beginner Russian classes. John (one of the other new teachers) and I had a clear advantage having used some of the Michel Thomas foundation Russian course before we came and Having a basic knowledge of Cyrillic really helped to know what some of the words were. The classes have so far dealt with such advance language as how to greet some one in formal and informal situations. So far my favourite phrase that I have learnt is to say “pleased to meet you” which is privetna paznacomitsa”.
I have also delivered my first lesson in the Ukraine! Don’t get too excited though, this lesson was a 20 minute introductory class that we give during the “open houses” where prospective students visit and we try to convince them to sign up. I had signed up to give the trial lesson for the Young learners who can be any age from 5-9, unfortunately for me no one from that age group turned up on my day. This resulted in me delivering the lesson to two of the native Ukrainian teachers who did their best impressions of very young pupils.
On Saturday after the signing of contracts (well that’s my next 10 months accounted for) and another open house I went into town with john to explore and get more familiar with the location of everything. During which time we managed to stumble across a McDonald’s! Not having an oven and having had a week of food where the closest item I ate to English food was Italian I really appreciated having a Burger and fries at approximately half the cost from an English McDonald’s.
Also on Saturday evening I went out with 3 of the other teachers for a meal and a few drinks. This included sampling the local Ukrainian vodka and the local beer as well as the not so local TGI Fridays food. We almost went to the UK themed Pub called “Big Ben” but alas this was not open.
During the evening we discussed some of the pervious teachers and their motivations for coming out to the Ukraine. Some of the reasons seamed fairly standard, experiencing a totally different culture, low cost of living, wanting to improve their Russian etc. And some were a lot more interesting, Such as those who came to find wives (yes, that’s right more than one, in fact many it would seam), the man who came over to work whilst he sorted out his mail order brides visa (yup a real mail order bride), or the Jehovah’s whiteness who came over to go around preaching every evening and teach in the morning…that was until he knocked on the door of one of the students houses and after a few angry phone calls (“is this really what you are up to! Trying to convert my children…etc”) He became and Ex-teacher at the school.
The last story I found quite interesting, not least due to the very strong opinions of the other teachers about J.W’s and religion in general, but mainly due to the fact that a teachers actions outside the school could cause to his dismissal. If he hadn’t of knocked on any students doors then no one would have complained and him using his spare time really shouldn’t be the school’s business, they don’t own him whilst he is out of school. But due to the coincidence (though it would have had to happen at some point) that he knocked on a students door meant that all of a sudden a conflict of interest occurred.
As a religious person myself I have more obvious reasons to be concerned about stories like this, I don’t believe that I should have to not talk about my faith to anyone including pupils if it arose in discussion or another event lead to it arising. However I do understand that pupils do not pay to be preached at but to have lessons in English, and it could certainly appear as though the school might be using deception to preach to people considering the above event, as such perhaps the only option to prove that this isn’t true would be for the teacher to leave the school. [just for the record I have no plans to go round to peoples houses, knock on their doors and certainly no plans to start preaching about only 144,000 going to heaven, that you need to be in the top 144,000 holy points to actually get into heaven and that God’s actually name is Jehovah, a name that was created much after Hebrew times combining two Jewish names for God that no one knew how to pronounce (oh and that Jesus was just a good guy)].
I still have another couple of days of the induction week before teaching gets fully underway during which time I shall hopefully make use of skype and the internet connection at the school (one of the major downsides of my apartment not having internet) before diving into the deep end of full time teaching.
Saturday 28 August 2010
First post from Ukraine
Hello and welcome from Dnipropetrovsk!
This is my first post since arriving in the Ukraine and Dnipro more specifically. I arrived into the Ukraine at 17:50 (approximately) and after having spend the plane journey talking to a very nice Ukrainian university student (who informed me of many interesting fact about the Ukraine and frequently mentioned why she was so strong in her desire to leave) I entered into the busy visa hall.
After a quick word with the very [UN]helpful officer I found an English speaker who pointed me in the right direction of the visa forms and also told me that 50 US dollars would be enough to speed us to the front of the cue.
After finally arriving I quickly found the other teachers from the other school's including a teacher who had been out there for a few months and studied Russian at university (very handy let me tell you!) we quickly got on a bus and headed out to the train station where me and John (the other new teacher for Dnipro) would get the sleeper train that evening.
After dropping of my suitcase we went to sample the local delights of Kyiv and ended up in a sushi bar... Never the less they did sell some of the local food varenyky a sort of cross between dim sum/ravioli that comes with a variety of fillings.
I felt optimistic about the "meat" option though upon discovering it was sold out, settled for the potato option. Despite essential being potato wrapped in a sort of pasta it was very flavoursome, no doubt assisted by the side dishes of semina and some oiley onion thing whose name I can not remember.
I wish I could report that the sleep train lived up to its name, alas this was not the case. Instead I spend most of the 7 hour journey tossing and turning and swatting mosquitoes in a semi comatose state. When I arrived at my apartment everything seamed pretty much as you would expect of a standard apartment in the UK, with the only exception of the shower (more to come later).
After this I was assisted in a food shop and phone sim card purchasing adventure by one of the local teachers which was very useful to have some basic items in the apartment and not have to spend ridiculous sums of money for using my phone.
Finally we made our way over to the school...the very long way. In fact we walked straight past it as we didn't expect it to be so close to the flat. However we did eventually arrive...after having walked all the way round the block! (and not a small block either).
The last event that day was to go out to the local Italian which helpfully has it's menu in Ukrainian, meaning that my knowledge of Russian provided to be of little helps except in working out the names of the pizza's, what was pizza and what was pasta and mozzarella which is spelt as it sounds.
The next day was the start of the induction week which I'll post some more details of in my next post along with some more pictures.
This is my first post since arriving in the Ukraine and Dnipro more specifically. I arrived into the Ukraine at 17:50 (approximately) and after having spend the plane journey talking to a very nice Ukrainian university student (who informed me of many interesting fact about the Ukraine and frequently mentioned why she was so strong in her desire to leave) I entered into the busy visa hall.
After a quick word with the very [UN]helpful officer I found an English speaker who pointed me in the right direction of the visa forms and also told me that 50 US dollars would be enough to speed us to the front of the cue.
After finally arriving I quickly found the other teachers from the other school's including a teacher who had been out there for a few months and studied Russian at university (very handy let me tell you!) we quickly got on a bus and headed out to the train station where me and John (the other new teacher for Dnipro) would get the sleeper train that evening.
After dropping of my suitcase we went to sample the local delights of Kyiv and ended up in a sushi bar... Never the less they did sell some of the local food varenyky a sort of cross between dim sum/ravioli that comes with a variety of fillings.
I felt optimistic about the "meat" option though upon discovering it was sold out, settled for the potato option. Despite essential being potato wrapped in a sort of pasta it was very flavoursome, no doubt assisted by the side dishes of semina and some oiley onion thing whose name I can not remember.
I wish I could report that the sleep train lived up to its name, alas this was not the case. Instead I spend most of the 7 hour journey tossing and turning and swatting mosquitoes in a semi comatose state. When I arrived at my apartment everything seamed pretty much as you would expect of a standard apartment in the UK, with the only exception of the shower (more to come later).
After this I was assisted in a food shop and phone sim card purchasing adventure by one of the local teachers which was very useful to have some basic items in the apartment and not have to spend ridiculous sums of money for using my phone.
Finally we made our way over to the school...the very long way. In fact we walked straight past it as we didn't expect it to be so close to the flat. However we did eventually arrive...after having walked all the way round the block! (and not a small block either).
The last event that day was to go out to the local Italian which helpfully has it's menu in Ukrainian, meaning that my knowledge of Russian provided to be of little helps except in working out the names of the pizza's, what was pizza and what was pasta and mozzarella which is spelt as it sounds.
The next day was the start of the induction week which I'll post some more details of in my next post along with some more pictures.
Monday 23 August 2010
Goodbye UK
I've set this to hopefully be delayed until I have left for the Ukraine and will as such be my last blog from the UK for some time. For those of you who don't know I have a contract with International House DNK (based in Dnipropetrovsk and Donestk) to teach English as a foreign language for the next 10 months.
As you can imagine I am very excited about this and nervous at the same time, the fact that this is my first teaching post and that I will be developing a language (Russian) which my fluency is pretty poor at still (and let's not even discuss pronunciation!)which means this is less a step out of my comfort zone into the unknown and more a leap from a third story building.
Luckily International House have in place a lot of assistance for teachers coming out to their country to help them with the language and culture changes as well as helping to develop their capabilities as teachers.
My plane departs tomorrow (today when you read this) the 23rd of August at 12:45 and will arrive 17:50 in Kyiv (Ukraine time...which is two hours ahead). After this I'll have about 6 hours in Kyiv before heading off on the sleeper train down to Dnipropetrosk. This short train journey of 6 hours will take me to the city where (baring any last minute changes) I shall be living in for the next 10 months (give or take a few days back at Christmas.
Once in Dnipro (for short) I shall have half a day before Induction week begins and then after that teaching starts straight away. It should be a hectic first few weeks adjusting to full time working and I'm not certain when I will be getting internet access out there so it could be a while before I actually get to write another blog post or anything. However I do want to keep writing and keep you up to date with everything Ukrainian.
To get me into the mood for moving to the Ukraine I have been watching Everything is Illuminate, A film set in the Ukriane and staring Elija Wood and Eugene Hutz the front man from Goglo Bordello. It is a great film about a Jewish man who goes back to the village where his grandfather use to live. What I did find quite encouraging was that I didn't find reading cyrilic as hard as I expected I highly recommend seeing it as it is a really great film.
I will post picture, video's etc as soon as I can about everything that is going on so I hope you will enjoy learning a bit about the Ukraine and everything I get up to. Anyway I must go and finish packing now, thank you for reading.
Friday 20 August 2010
Preparing for homesickness
I have never been homesick in my life. I remember going on holidays with friends, school trips abroad, living up in Leeds for a year and not getting homesick at all. However I'm willing to bet that living in a country with a different culture, language and alphabet with no friends coming with me is going to be a lot more challenging than anything I have previously experienced.
I came across this article on the Oxford seminars website on what the stages of homesickness are and how you can overcome them. It started of sounds pretty normal and not too shocking until it states that it usually takes "4-5 months after living in a new culture" to adapt and that "some people take longer"! Oh dear!
Lukily I have already been given a little helping hand from Luke Bozier to help remind me of home.
Anyway lots more packing to do.
I came across this article on the Oxford seminars website on what the stages of homesickness are and how you can overcome them. It started of sounds pretty normal and not too shocking until it states that it usually takes "4-5 months after living in a new culture" to adapt and that "some people take longer"! Oh dear!
Lukily I have already been given a little helping hand from Luke Bozier to help remind me of home.
Anyway lots more packing to do.
Wednesday 18 August 2010
Human trafficking and Brothels
The first was the use of trafficked children to work on an illegal cannabis farm in the UK.
Then there was the report that 1 in 10 prostitutes in the UK's brothels are migrant victims of human trafficking who mainly come from Asia (according to a report from the Association of Chief Police Officers). [it should be noted that this report doesn't list the victims of trafficking who come from the UK.]
It has been interesting to see that there have been a couple of responses to these with some saying that if these were legalised then it would reduce the amount of trafficking involved (and even possibly eliminate it completely) and then others saying that actually the only correct response is to come down even harder. With regard to the last case I have heard someone argue that the only way to stop human trafficking in the sex industry is to ban all pornography which leads people to prostitutes.
I'm sure many people will argue one way or the other as to what is the best way to deal with trafficking. However one thing that is certain a key step is to raise peoples awareness of trafficking so that they can identify people who have been trafficked and assist them to escape trafficking.
Tuesday 10 August 2010
Paths out of Poverty
This morning Conservative Home ran a piece looking at welfare reform and briefly hinting at there "3 paths out of poverty" personally to me this sounds like a potential title for a self help book. However it is an important issue and one definitely worth discussing.
The three options offered by Conservative Home are Education, Family and Work but there is no explanation in the article as to why/how these are the paths out of poverty and even less detail given to what poverty actually is. The only sentence I can find that relates to the, very nice, picture is
...it is every individual's responsibility to escape poverty by acquiring a basic education, providing for his or her family and by taking work.
Tim Montgomerie does mention that the government has a responsibility to help the individual achieve these goals but ultimately it is up to them. The reality of this statement is that actually what Tim is arguing is that working and making sure you spend money on your family for their essential needs is what helps people escape poverty. Education is a means to ensure that you get work, providing for your family ensure that child poverty doesn't exist, that money isn't flittered away on gambling or alcohol whilst not buying essential items for the family. Work provides money, motivation, purpose and betters your own life and those around you.
The problem is that not everyone can be in work without job creation or as they have been described by some "non-jobs". There seams to be a truth that in every economy there is a point where no more jobs are created. In some cases those in who are unemployed can quickly find new employment and there is a high turn around in the job market, in other cases this can be a near permanent state through personal and environmental factors.
There are some other factors that are necessary for gaining employment. Lack of housing can be a trap that can be easy to enter and extremely difficult to escape. Without an address to put on an application form then you can't get a bank account or a job. Only when there is an act of grace or state provision of housing can this cycle be broken and a life of hand out be ended.
Fair wages at work are also very important to end poverty, after all if you are paid so little that you can not afford the basic provisions then you can not provide for your family no matter if you are educated and have a job.
Access to provisions such as water, sanitation, health care and food services are fortunately issues that don't have to be contemplated in Britain due to their universal availability. Admittedly in some cases lack of shelter and money can provide obstacles in these areas but if someone has shelter and a job with a fair wage then these other resources should be available.
So far I have only looked at a very small definition of poverty that address basic human resource needs such as water, health services etc. However in reality poverty is about much more than just money and if we used a definition of wholeness of life it would be much more appropriate. There are many very rich people who suffer from sever depression due to the lack of social needs being met. The effect of loneliness and feelings of isolation of people can not be underestimated, it can cause health issues, addictions, losing work, not doing essential tasks and many other factors.
The other problems is that poverty is always judged relatively to levels of wealth, considering that poverty is defined as lack of basic needs this definition can be highly inappropriate and plays into redistributive hands. I have no problems with the rhetoric of redistribution but to confuse the two isn't correct and the issue of poverty is a much more important issue to address than redistribution. In some cases using a, bottom 10% of society, bench mark is a great way to examine the level of poverty people are in, whether social mobility is present and many other factors and so we should still use it an examine it. However poverty needs to be assessed on those who don't even have the bare necessities.
So really when we talk about escaping poverty we need to talk not only about work, education and family but also addictions, housing, mental health and even community. This doesn't mean the state has to provide them (imagine a government forcing you to have kids so that you fulfilled the family quota) but it should at least enable and not prevent these.
Jorge Mortman recently said a quote that really challenged me and got me thinking
"The opposite of poverty isn't property, it's community."
Being a Christian I think he was drawing on reference to the book of Acts where it talks about the community of believes having everything in common and selling their possessions so that no one was in need. In communities like this we want to meet every need that a person has, both physical, mental and spiritual.
The three options offered by Conservative Home are Education, Family and Work but there is no explanation in the article as to why/how these are the paths out of poverty and even less detail given to what poverty actually is. The only sentence I can find that relates to the, very nice, picture is
...it is every individual's responsibility to escape poverty by acquiring a basic education, providing for his or her family and by taking work.
Tim Montgomerie does mention that the government has a responsibility to help the individual achieve these goals but ultimately it is up to them. The reality of this statement is that actually what Tim is arguing is that working and making sure you spend money on your family for their essential needs is what helps people escape poverty. Education is a means to ensure that you get work, providing for your family ensure that child poverty doesn't exist, that money isn't flittered away on gambling or alcohol whilst not buying essential items for the family. Work provides money, motivation, purpose and betters your own life and those around you.
The problem is that not everyone can be in work without job creation or as they have been described by some "non-jobs". There seams to be a truth that in every economy there is a point where no more jobs are created. In some cases those in who are unemployed can quickly find new employment and there is a high turn around in the job market, in other cases this can be a near permanent state through personal and environmental factors.
There are some other factors that are necessary for gaining employment. Lack of housing can be a trap that can be easy to enter and extremely difficult to escape. Without an address to put on an application form then you can't get a bank account or a job. Only when there is an act of grace or state provision of housing can this cycle be broken and a life of hand out be ended.
Fair wages at work are also very important to end poverty, after all if you are paid so little that you can not afford the basic provisions then you can not provide for your family no matter if you are educated and have a job.
Access to provisions such as water, sanitation, health care and food services are fortunately issues that don't have to be contemplated in Britain due to their universal availability. Admittedly in some cases lack of shelter and money can provide obstacles in these areas but if someone has shelter and a job with a fair wage then these other resources should be available.
So far I have only looked at a very small definition of poverty that address basic human resource needs such as water, health services etc. However in reality poverty is about much more than just money and if we used a definition of wholeness of life it would be much more appropriate. There are many very rich people who suffer from sever depression due to the lack of social needs being met. The effect of loneliness and feelings of isolation of people can not be underestimated, it can cause health issues, addictions, losing work, not doing essential tasks and many other factors.
The other problems is that poverty is always judged relatively to levels of wealth, considering that poverty is defined as lack of basic needs this definition can be highly inappropriate and plays into redistributive hands. I have no problems with the rhetoric of redistribution but to confuse the two isn't correct and the issue of poverty is a much more important issue to address than redistribution. In some cases using a, bottom 10% of society, bench mark is a great way to examine the level of poverty people are in, whether social mobility is present and many other factors and so we should still use it an examine it. However poverty needs to be assessed on those who don't even have the bare necessities.
So really when we talk about escaping poverty we need to talk not only about work, education and family but also addictions, housing, mental health and even community. This doesn't mean the state has to provide them (imagine a government forcing you to have kids so that you fulfilled the family quota) but it should at least enable and not prevent these.
Jorge Mortman recently said a quote that really challenged me and got me thinking
"The opposite of poverty isn't property, it's community."
Being a Christian I think he was drawing on reference to the book of Acts where it talks about the community of believes having everything in common and selling their possessions so that no one was in need. In communities like this we want to meet every need that a person has, both physical, mental and spiritual.
Tuesday 3 August 2010
The Importance Of good leaders for International Development
One of the key factors in International development isn't the quantity or quality of the aid that is given to a country, but rather the leaders in a country and the amount of corruption that exits. If corruption is wide spread at the top of a government the Aid can be siphoned on. However if there is also corruption at local levels then Aid can also not be distributed amongst those it is intended for.
This is also true of emergence aid as well as development aid, where jobs can be handed out to the selected elite and contracts go not to the best company but to the most connected company.
The issue of tackling corruption is one that in some ways we are powerless to affect and yet we can try and stimulate a culture that is repulsed by corruption leading to it's decline.
The factors that can help this are NGO groups that encourage good leadership (such as the four pillars group that encourages leadership), globalised news that informs people of corruption, helping to train other states anti-corruption forces, promoting wide spread education and a whole host of other measures.
Some of these measures, such as promoting wider education, will help development in other ways as well and have merit in themselves. However there are a host of measures that may well appear to some to not offer direct benefits to our country or the country in question. Measure such as training other police and anti corruption forces, even although this may well help prevent fraud in our own country.
In many some cases corruption within the delivery of Aid has been linked to funding wars by non government actors. The long term impact of war can have a truly devastating affect on the prospects of a countries development.
For Further reading Here is a Transparancy International report on corruption within Humanitarian Aid.
This is also true of emergence aid as well as development aid, where jobs can be handed out to the selected elite and contracts go not to the best company but to the most connected company.
The issue of tackling corruption is one that in some ways we are powerless to affect and yet we can try and stimulate a culture that is repulsed by corruption leading to it's decline.
The factors that can help this are NGO groups that encourage good leadership (such as the four pillars group that encourages leadership), globalised news that informs people of corruption, helping to train other states anti-corruption forces, promoting wide spread education and a whole host of other measures.
Some of these measures, such as promoting wider education, will help development in other ways as well and have merit in themselves. However there are a host of measures that may well appear to some to not offer direct benefits to our country or the country in question. Measure such as training other police and anti corruption forces, even although this may well help prevent fraud in our own country.
In many some cases corruption within the delivery of Aid has been linked to funding wars by non government actors. The long term impact of war can have a truly devastating affect on the prospects of a countries development.
For Further reading Here is a Transparancy International report on corruption within Humanitarian Aid.
Sunday 1 August 2010
Why does David Cameron really want Turkey to be in the EU?
Many have been praising David Cameron for his statements regarding pushing forward further plans for Turkey to join the EU based on the view point that this will help the EU to exert more pressure on Turkey to comply with human rights records and in addition it will help the image of many of these western countries in the Islamic world.
There is definitely a case for both these points and it is especially true that EU membership could be a very effective "carrot" to help Turkey improve it's human rights record. However the most important element behind a "carrot" is that it can only be given once certain achievements have been made. Camerons statements have seamed, to me, to suggest that compliance would only have to take place after membership has been achieved is a huge mistake. I am certain that there would be standards that Turkey would have to achieve but it is usual that standards are not met and yet EU procedures continue. The case in point being the financial standards for the Euro.
As such it is important to having strong rhetoric at the start of this process to ensure that meeting these standards is embedded into the thoughts of both the EU and Turkey.
However is there perhaps another less altruistic reason for Cameron seeking Turkey Integration? Does Cameron want Turkey to join the EU to slow down integration within the EU? Major has come out and said that he viewed Balklands integration as a way of slowing down further intergration of current EU members and hence he was such a strong supporter.
It worked as well! Since the Balkans states were granted membership there has been a decade of debates over what issues should be supra-national and intergovernmental. There have been arguments about keeping the veto, about how many votes in the parliament each state should have and many of these measures have been held up by various countries at different times. It's common sense that the more different partners involved the more varied the view points and the harder to get consensus.
As such we should be wary of Camerons statements, this is a great way to delay Europe integration (not that is necasserily a bad thing at the moment) and direct the focus of the EU soley on getting Turkey to comply with human rights standards. Considering his anti Europe stance it would seam to be a cleaver political move.
There is definitely a case for both these points and it is especially true that EU membership could be a very effective "carrot" to help Turkey improve it's human rights record. However the most important element behind a "carrot" is that it can only be given once certain achievements have been made. Camerons statements have seamed, to me, to suggest that compliance would only have to take place after membership has been achieved is a huge mistake. I am certain that there would be standards that Turkey would have to achieve but it is usual that standards are not met and yet EU procedures continue. The case in point being the financial standards for the Euro.
As such it is important to having strong rhetoric at the start of this process to ensure that meeting these standards is embedded into the thoughts of both the EU and Turkey.
However is there perhaps another less altruistic reason for Cameron seeking Turkey Integration? Does Cameron want Turkey to join the EU to slow down integration within the EU? Major has come out and said that he viewed Balklands integration as a way of slowing down further intergration of current EU members and hence he was such a strong supporter.
It worked as well! Since the Balkans states were granted membership there has been a decade of debates over what issues should be supra-national and intergovernmental. There have been arguments about keeping the veto, about how many votes in the parliament each state should have and many of these measures have been held up by various countries at different times. It's common sense that the more different partners involved the more varied the view points and the harder to get consensus.
As such we should be wary of Camerons statements, this is a great way to delay Europe integration (not that is necasserily a bad thing at the moment) and direct the focus of the EU soley on getting Turkey to comply with human rights standards. Considering his anti Europe stance it would seam to be a cleaver political move.
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