| Virtual School for Latin American and the Caribeean For the first time, the Region will count with a Virtual School specialized in human development and democratic governance |
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From Tuesday June 27, Latin America and the Caribbean will count with a Virtual School that will strengthen capacity building in citizenship and the emergence of new leaderships favoring democratic governance and human development. The presentation of this important achievement will be made by Fernando Cardesa, Director for Latin America of the European Commission Cooperation Agency, and Martín Santiago from UNDP Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean. Unlike other online training tools, the Virtual School is created for practical action. That is, it intends to cooperate with the strengthening of democratic governance, comprehensive citizeship, the correct practice of human development principles, and the emergence of new leaderships throughout Latin America and the Caribbean making the best use of the major advantages offered by Information Technologies and Communications. The Virtual School is an initiative developed by UNDP and cofinanced by the European Commission and the |
Catalan Agency of Cooperation for Development. It comprises two academic areas: Human Development and Democratic Governance. Now it is opening the Virtual Campus to facilitate the building of networks and communities around this paradigms. The Campus will allow to build a big knowledge community that actually permits students to dialogue through the histories, experiences, and knowledge built from their national and professional particularities. The launching of the Virtual School will show this new scenario for knowledge, where the Virtual Campus will make possible for students, academics, politics, public officials, social activists, leaders, business people, to dialogue through learning, fora and debates. In this way, experiences from Bolivia, Colombia, Argentina, Guatemala, Mexico, Brazil, Dominican Republic and many other knowledge sources, will make contact and enrich themselves mutually. They will also move from theoretical knowledge to everyday practice. |
| Workshop for Capacity Strengthening in Gender and Governance Panama, May 22-23, 2006 |
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The Executive Board and the Administrator are giving all their support to the gender issue in order for UNDP to consolidate its capacity of offering specific services through its programs giving a coordinated respond to international commitments acquired by governments and development institutions for fighting against gender inequalities and discriminations. In the same way, our Regional Bureau for Latin America and the |
Caribbean holds a solid commitment with the gender subject matter and its inclusion into human development agendas promoted by UNDP throughout the Region. In December 2005, efforts were started for strengthening capacities in gender perspective, and now the II Workshop for Capacity Strengthening on Gender and Governance was hold in Panama on May 22 and 23. It was an excellent opportunity for promoting a high-level discussion with regional experts in order to generate a set of ideas and commitments on how to improve the systemic incorporation of the gender perspective into the human development agenda promoted by UNDP, with particular emphasis on democratic governance issues. Besides the rich group discussions and the learning facilitated by Line Bareiro, the group had the great opportunity to hold a videoconference with Rebeca Grynspan, our Regional Director. |
| Publication of the book: Mediation – Design of a Practive Authors: María Elena Caram, member of the Democratic Dialogue Regional Project’s Support Network; Diana Eilbaum; and Matilde Risolía |
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This book proposes the reader to participate in the numerous conversations the authors have shared in professional spaces for more than ten years, both in mediation as in teaching. A time that starts with the wish of understanding mediation and disseminating it –long before it was installed in Argentina’s regulations through the Fundación Libra—and it gradually expands until it is configured as a methodology for conflict resolution, legally recognized and effectively valid in the community, not only at a professional level but also at a user level, who resort to it almost naturally. Convergence of both paths allows to offer a trip to the mediation process, step by step, with special emphasis in the interventions of the mediator, his/her resources and difficulties. The particular view on the subject may be very useful for people who want to learn about mediation, mediators that wish to revise their practice reflecting on the fascinating aspects of this task, and specially to trainers in mediation hoping to provide them with a systematic text written in a common language, developing tools and connecting them to theory illustrating their use in concrete cases |
Publication of the book: Community Mediation. Conflicts in the Social and Urban Scenario |
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This book presents a different view from where practices are reformulated and oriented towards the new sociocultural conditions marked by differences and inequalities. In this way, Community Mediation establishes a different quality in the way conflict is conceived and approached in all its complex dimensions, and redefines aspirations of mediation within the urban social field. From this point of view, mediation is perceived as an invaluable instrument for institutional and social transformation aimed at restructuring the public thing and making it present in urban social life. The deep and accelerated changes produced in the social, political, economic and cultural order, have transformed the dynamics of the cities in which we live, and also the ways of socializing or the ways in which “we are together”. These new scenarios demand urgent answers for a coexistence based on respect and mutual recognition. Mediation in general and community mediation in particular, are offered with this purpose, contributing to establish dialogue spaces where people can arrange their differences and participatorily build their place in society. True intermediary spaces can be created or organized, and channels can be opened to facilitate the articulation of a political, institutional and social framework. A mediator profile is also proposed, one engaged to building a pluralist, equitable and integrating society-city. |