Bratislava, 20.10.2010. My UN year is not over yet.

The 3rd phase has started: reporting and thinking about how to pass this experience further to fellow young people. This article is about my follow-up activities.

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Talking in the morning's broadcast of the radio on 20 October 2010.

On Friday 22.10., finally I got to see the development education in practice. I visited 1st year class at the University of Vienna, the topic was Afghanistan. See Internationale Entwicklung.

On Saturday 23.10., Meeting with Gita Hulmanova, YD Slovakia 2009.

Weekend 6-7.11. I wrote 2 articles, first for a Slovak newspaper's special issue on development aid and second for Polemics, the Diplomatic Academy's paper. I am especially glad for that one: many possible future diplomats may get to read about the program. I was interviewed by a classmate, for Swedish paper.

On Monday 8.11., Lunch with the Youth Council and my report has been written.

25-28.11., I attended the Europe-Africa Youth Summit in Libya. Here is my article, with some photos (in Slovak).

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In December and January, things get usually pretty busy at the university and this year it was no exception. However, I currently enjoy a class called "International Organizations and Multilateral Diplomacy" where we mostly deal with the UN and "Development Economics". Fantastic classes!

On 24.1.2011, we had a meeting in the Youth Council, about the YD 2011. In mid February, the competition will be launched. I am already curious about my successor.

Scheduled and surprising meetings of the Week 2

This is my second week at the UN and here come my impressions.

Monday 11.10. at UNESCO



During this meeting, topics such as higher education, intercultural dialoge were discussed. "What can UNESCO do so that higher education is free" was question of the Belgian YD. "Culture is not part of MDGs but without culture no goal can be achieved" is what we heard, stressing the importance of taking cultural background always into consideration.

Tuesday 12.10. morning working breakfast at Swiss mission “Successful Environmental Policy; Youth participation in decision making processes”

Meeting of the day Not planned, yet a great luck on being on the right place in the right moment: I ran into Kofi Annan!
lunch time a photo exhibition at the Bulgarian consulate

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Kofi Annan____________________________________________Velislava Ivanova, Bulgarian YD

evening Something that particularly stuck in my mind; an evening screening of a documentary by UNICEF, dealing with the plight of Children of war giving an insight into to Uganda’s Lord Resistance Army.

Wednesday 13.10.
morning Reporting from the plenary of the 3rd Committee. On the agenda we had Advancement of women and Children's rights. Earlier I had chance to hear Michele Bachelet, the newly appointed Under Secretary General for UN Women. The discussion has been great today, with a special regard to the question time, there was a lively discussion between representatives of Korea and Japan.

lunch time a side event at the Dominican Rep. mission
Mostly discussing organizational things like how to hand information we collected to the next delegates, our coordination after we are back from NY, website etc.

afternoon At 5pm, we met Mr. Joseph Deiss, the President of the 65th General Assembly. After a short introduction (and photoshooting), we asked questions. Our very enthusiastic Belgian delegate Matthieu asked about future of the UN, if UN Parliamentary Assembly would not be a solution for solving the global problems and would not better represent real people. A question from Dominican Rep. followed, asking about the role of NGOs. Germany asked whether he could support us and call upon the member states to implement the youth delegate program.



Mr. Joseph Deiss and Youth Delegates 2010



Thursday 14.10. morning working breakfast at Thai mission “Sufficiency Economy: the Role and Participation of Youth in Sustainable Development”
10am I am meeting our ambassador
lunch time WFUNA (World Federation of United Nations Associations) event "Handbook for Establishing a National Youth Delegate Programme to the UN"

Weekend. Saturday 16.10., Boston. Dambisa Moyo, the author of the Dead Aid (Why the aid is not working and how there is a better way for Africa) was speaking at the Boston Book Festival. Not only that her book was impressive, she is impressive! The way she spoke - you could really know she means it. Indian Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen and famous Harvard Professor Michael Sandel were also present.
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Dambisa Moyo signing my issue of her Dead Aid. D. Moyo, Amartya Sen, M. Sandel

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She wrote: Dana, make the cycle stop.

New York Week 1: My speech and meeting the SG

In my speech in the 3rd Committee of the General Assembly on Oct 5, I advocated for youth everywhere to get a basic knowledge of development. This, I emphasized, would lead to every young person forming their own opinion on global issues. I am concerned about the fact that there are too many young people in developed countries who misunderstand the concept of development, as well as humanitarian aid and carry a negative attitude, most of the times without having sufficient background information.

Monday 4.10. Meeting Slovak Permanent mission and first day in the UN HQ, precisely in the 3rd committee's plenary. Most of the youth delegates delivered their speeches today, but mine initially on 44place (eventually moved up to 32) was cut off and planned for Tuesday. Exciting day, many people present and the young deleagtes' speeches very refreshing; one could notice choice of stronger words, concrete references and rarely repeating cliche -like phrases. The speeches are uploaded here. It is worth to click on this link, I was very impressed by my colleagues and friends.

Tuesday 5.10. Highlight of the morning - I delivered my statement on development education. Et voila, it was not so bad. Here is the text, a short video is to come.

Highlight of the afternoon;
We, the youth delegates had the chance to meet the Secretary General, his excellency Mr. Ban Ki Moon. He spoke to us shortly and overwhelmed me with his incredible charisma. Photos are on the UN webiste, too. Ufff a day to remember.

I used a free moment in the afternoon to see a plenary on International terrorism. What happened afterwards? A break at Vienna café, having a huge chocolate muffin with Gitte, the Belgian (Flemish) youth delegate. Carlos, who sells so needed coffee and cookies remarked that it was the 3rd time we went there today. Yes and we deserved it each time.

Me and Gitte Briffa, the biggest fans of American cousine among the Youth delegates

Thursday 7.10. Workshop on Dialogue Initiatives for the International Year on Youth. We'll be brainstorming about possible joint actions for the rest of the IYY.

Divided in groups at the Saudi Arabian mission, an intense dialogue was held and some ideas of concrete actions on promotion of mutual understanding and tolerance among young people were born. Now it is time for follow up and make them happen..


Photo 1 on the right: Abdulaziz Tarazbouni, the YD Saudi Arabia. Photo 2: One group brainstorming

Friday 8.10. morning Meeting Alliance of Civilizations in Chrysler Building
lunch time side event on Youth unemployment at the German mission "Save the date"


Alliance of Civilizations. ______________________German side event

From the Big Apple

Dear all, I arrived safely in NYC on Sat 2 Oct. Let's get started!


Rodaina El Batnigi, the Austrian YD and me at JFK The United Nations Headquarters

On Sunday 3.10., a coordination youth delegates meeting took place. New and familiar faces from Utrecht, expectations and enthusiasm... and a lot on our agenda!

2 weeks more clever, at SlovakAid

Incredibly fast end of this summer I witnessed at the Development and Humanitarian Aid Department (ORPO) at the Slovak MFA. I was going there with some degree of curiousity: on one hand I had been to the Dpt. before and I am not exadurating by calling it a very positive first impression, on the other hand comments like "Internship at the Ministry? Oh I had like 5mins. work there per day" had reached me before starting.

I came to a great team of people and got to go through Czech Aid. You know I am half Czech and thus I was pleased to be going to find out how my second half is dealing with the issue. I was however not really able to do more than reading some of the Czech Ministry website, there was a department meeting as the time of evaluating development aid projects had come. Then there was something else, ...

Did I go there to write my speech for the UN GA? Forget it for a week, this is how the aid is happening in practical terms and I was not going to miss the opportunity to watch! I listened, read, paid attention to details and asked. 2 weeks passed very quickly. I have still got now to monitor the Czech Aid, development studies abroad and to write the speech.

It seems like my TO DO list is getting longer, but hah, tonight I can cross out updating the blog. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Meeting Habitat for Humanity

A house in Yerevan, Armenia

I have met Lucija Popovska from Habitat for Humanity Regional office for the Europe and Central Asia in Bratislava today. Lucija understood immediately my concern about the connection between youth and development and humanitarian aid and raised some issues to think about.

Do you know, what impact do natural disasters and war have on youth? Young people participate in wars themselves many times; not only in Africa, but also in Kosovo the average age of soldiers was far under 30. One of many worrying examples showing that youth-specific policy is needed.

Humanitarian aid is generally aimed to 3 areas and thus places suffering from poverty, post-war and post-natural disasters. Development aid is in contrary mainly about building economic system and fighting corruption.

The objectives of Habitat for Humanity are mobilizing resources and enabling access to affordable housing, which is done in 3 ways:
1. Building/renovating houses and providing resources to do that
2. Mobilizing resources and people – volunteers, donations and loans (micro-loans, youth entrepreneurship)
3. Changing the housing policies on the national level, advocacy

Housing policies are rather poor in “new Europe” – let’s exclude Western Europe now - housing as such is normally cut between more authorities, as land, social affairs, Youth department and other. On the top of that, housing policies are rarely youth-friendly. In Hungary, a change of these policies has been proposed, hopefully it will move to a good direction in a short time. And Hungary is not so far from Slovakia.

If you want to know more about Habitat's activities, visit their website here. Big thanks to Lucija for her time!!

Introduction at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

"Slovakia is a small country, but sometimes better perceived in Africa than the big ones."

Today has been a motivating day, with special thanks to Ms. Wursterova, the director of Development and Humanitarian Aid Department, who gave me a positive insight on the issue. It has become clear that what matters is the way how the aid is directed and not exclusively the financial aspect. Is the crucial to listen to what the developing countries exactly need - that's why so called "Country Strategy Paper" is produced.

Slovakia is directing its official aid to 3 program countries: Afghanistan, Kenya and Serbia.

How is the Slovak youth involved and informed? A nice example, which caught my attention, is one high school which played "an Afghan day": the pupils dressed in Afghan way, lived their tradition, as well as the Afghan school played Slovak day, staying connected through Skype.

Secondly, there was an essay competition on the topic, motivating students with 1. prize Internship at UN HQ in Geneva, 2. prize internship at UNDP Bratislava and 3. prize internship at Ministry of Foreign Affairs. See the winning essays here (in Slovak).

Thirdly, there are efforts to cooperate closely with the Ministry of Education and implement the development aid topic to the educational contents in Slovak schools.

I am curious to find out more during my internship in the department 23.8. - 3.9. 2010.

Meeting UNDP Regional Centre in Bratislava 1

I used to go long 8 years to school on the same street - Grosslingova - and during so many hours looking out of the window, I never thought deeply about the blue flag waving on the next building. Some years later, I learned that

in Bratislava we have a Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) which serves 28 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, including those in Central Asia.

If you click on the picture above, you can find a publication called "UNDP for beginners", I highly recommend to read it, it is very clear and informative.

UN Advocacy meeting in Utrecht, 25-27 June 2010

Jens (DE), me (SK), Clara (DE), Jonas (CH), Rodaina (AT), Minke (NL-NGO)

The goal of the meeting organized by European Youth Forum was to get to know each other as Youth Delegates from different countries, share our concerns and objectives and agree on joint actions planned for UNGA. The schedule was much busier than it looks like on this ice-cream eating picture. The tasks were successfully divided - and a video is to come!

Development and humanitarian aid

Atar, Mauritania, November 2008

will be my core topic. I am convinced me that this is the thing, which should move up in the list of popular topics. Just have a look at these numbers:
ODA/GNI i.e. Official Development Assistance/Gross National Income


Official Development Assistance 2007 2006
Czech Republic ......................... 0.11 0.12
Hungary ................................. 0.08 0.13
Poland ................................... 0.09 0.09
Slovak Republic ....................... 0.09 0.10

Source: MANAGING AID: PRACTICES OF DAC MEMBER COUNTRIES – ISBN 978-92-64-06021-0 – © OECD 2009
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/58/29/42903202.pdf page 183

But how much 0.09 really is? It is hard for a chemist to imagine what it exactly means in practical terms. In Slovakia, it is 12 euro/person/year. 2 drinks less on Friday night.
How much should it be? The members of the UN committed that a developed country would contribute with a minimum net amount of 0.70 percent of its GNI.

Numbers say a lot, but not everything. The real question is about how is this money used and whether it is good at all to influence development in every corner of the world? Let's think together...

Once the good days start...

21 June 2010 - Visit to the UN in Vienna
12 June 2010 - The elections in Slovakia
9 June 2010 - I got a Bachelor degree in Biochemistry and therefore can start my Master Program in "Environmental Technology and International Affairs" at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna. The first year ever that I am looking forward to -after the summer-.

24 May 2010 - a good day!

In the final round of the selection procedure, we were 4 and an academic debate was planned in order to decide upon the Youth Delegate to the UN for 2010.
We were 2 vs 2, discussing about non-formal education. I was supposed to arrive in the night from Yerevan, but on the place I decided to rebook my flight and prepare for the debate and the interview. It was worth it - I got the chance to be a Youth Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Not only that, but to meet many talented people, youth delegates from other countries, people working in different organizations, a former Slovak ambassador in the United States and not least, great people from the Slovak Youth Council. Thanks to them for this chance.

The next selection process will take place in March 2011. To read more about procedure, please visit the Youth Council's website (in Slovak), to read my Essay on Youth and Environment, click here.