24 May: Engage-ing links

By Engage

Each week on Engage, we aim to share with you a selection of links to articles and stories about the Australian aid program and international development that we find interesting or noteworthy. Here’s a snapshot of online stories this week:

Our ‘game-changing’ role in the global effort to end polio

By David Goldstone, philanthropist, polio survivor and co-founder of Rotary of Crawley

Polio is more than 99 per cent eliminated. Thanks to an immense global partnership, the disease is on the verge of being completely wiped out.

Waiting to be vaccinated, outside a village health centre in Afghanistan. Photo: UNICEF/Jeremy Hartley.

Waiting to be vaccinated, outside a village health centre in Afghanistan. Photo: UNICEF/Jeremy Hartley.

Australians should be proud of the role we have played in the epic battle against this disease. This country has had a long history of involvement in the global effort to end polio – reaching all the way back before anyone had any inkling that a vaccine would be found to protect against it.

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17 May: Engage-ing links

Each week on Engage, we aim to share with you a selection of links to articles and stories about the Australian aid program and international development that we find interesting or noteworthy. Here’s a snapshot of online stories this week:

Improving outcomes for communities by involving women in mining

By Rebecca Bryant, Assistant Director General, Sustainable Economic Development Branch, AusAID

Ensuring that the benefits from mining actually make their way to local communities is a challenge the world over. Ensuring that women and men are able to access these benefits equitably, irrespective of their roles in the household, community, workforce and leadership, is an even greater challenge.

Ms Ume Wainetti is currently the Program Coordinator of the Family Sexual Violence Committee in Papua New Guinea. She was also the women’s representative at the Ok Tedi compensation negotiations in 2007.

Ume Wainetti speaking at a 2011 event in PNG marking the UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Ume Wainetti speaking at a 2011 event in PNG marking the UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Photo: AusAID

The Ok Tedi gold and copper mine in Papua New Guinea’s Western Province remains a key source of revenue for the PNG Government. It is large, impacting more than 50,000 people in 120 villages downstream of the mine. The environmental impacts of the flow of tailings and waste rock into the river system are felt keenly by the local women who tend the market gardens. However, these women were not represented at all in compensation negotiations with communities impacted by the mines’ operations, until Ms Wainetti’s appointment to the negotiating team.

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Sustainable enterprises and employment in mining areas

By Rebecca Bryant, ADG Sustainable Economic Development, AusAID

In resource-rich developing countries, mining projects create relatively few direct jobs beyond the construction stage, but they can be very effective in stimulating the local economy and helping establish business enterprises and growth in the broader economy.

Building sustainable enterprises is a key theme for the Mining for Development Conference being held in Sydney, 20-21 May. We know it’s important, but do we know how to achieve it? And whose responsibility is it?

Australia is strongly promoting the role of local communities within the mining sector. The benefits are many: participation can improve community and employee relations and bring substantial benefits in terms of reputation and good corporate citizenship. Local economic participation and development can boost local economies as well as reduce dependence on the mine for local economic wellbeing over time. Both industry and government have a role in ensuring this.

Training program for newly engaged mining inspectors

Training program for newly engaged mining inspectors. Photo: International Mining for Development Centre

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