On 30 April, UNIC Ankara, as the chair of the United Nations Communication Group in Turkey organized, an “Effective Communication and Advocacy Workshop” with the participation of British Council staff.
 
Last year, UN in Turkey signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate with the British Council in Turkey to promote awareness on issues that are common on the agenda of both of the Organizations.
 
At the workshop, UN and British Council staff shared their experience of how to make web sites more effective, successful social media campaigns and power of visual material in disseminating messages.
 
Social media are the tools young people use to communicate mostly in Turkey. That is why the UN agencies attach special importance to making the best use them.
 
All the participants expressed their satisfaction with the workshop and voiced their hope that similar activities will follow.
 
Every year, UNIC Ankara organizes at least two workshops to enhance the communications skills of UN staff in Turkey. This year’s second workshop will be on effective presentation skills and will take place in November.
 
UNIC Ankara also seeks to invite staff of UN partners in Turkey to such events to deepen the cooperation with those organizations.

Asia-Pacific economies will see subdued growth in 2013 after last year’s sharp slowdown caused by external factors, according to Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2013.
 
The survey’s launch in Turkey, was organized by UNIC Ankara in cooperation with ESCAP, in Ankara on 18 April, with the participation of UN Resident Coordinator a.i. Mustapha Sinaceur, Alberto Isgut, ESCAP expert and Associate Prof. Selin Sayek Böke of Bilkent University.
 
Noting that the region’s economic progress has been marked by widening income inequalities and severe natural resources depletion, ESCAP argued that macroeconomic policies could play a vital role in reorienting the region towards a more inclusive and sustainable growth path – a high priority for its Post-2015 Development Agenda.
 
In his opening remarks, Mr. Sinaceur said that the global economic crisis still has severe effects around the world. “The world has been experiencing serious global economic challenges since 2007. Several reports on the world economy and labor market portent that hard times for millions will be here to stay for some time. According to the ILO, millions of jobs are still missing compared to the situation that existed before the global economic crisis”. He added that as outlined in the report, depletion of natural resources was a serious problem which was also being discussed at the 10th Forum on Forests that is taking place in Istanbul.
 
He ended his speech by saying “I hope and trust that today’s event, will be one of many steps the international community takes to turn the tide and to defeat the ills that threaten our world economically, socially and environmentally”.
 
“The dominant macroeconomic policy paradigm since the early 1980s has emphasized stabilization in the narrow sense of keeping inflation at a very low single-digit level and achieving a primary budget surplus or a very low deficit-to-GDP ratio. In developing countries, there often has been a trade-off between achieving such stabilization targets and broader development objectives. Many countries have achieved them at the cost of development, for example, by cutting public investment in key areas and expenditures on education and health. Indebted countries in the euro zone are also prioritizing fiscal austerity at an enormous economic and social cost associated with high unemployment” Isgut said.
 
“In addition, a long-term macroeconomic simulation exercise shows that governments can pursue inclusive and sustainable development while maintaining fiscal sustainability and price stability at the same time” he added.
 
Associate Prof. Sayek said that the report’s launch was very timely and it offered solutions to the ills of our current world. She also added that Turkey could also benefit from the proposals put in the report to make its economy fully inclusive and sustainable.
 
Turkey also effected from regional economic slow down

Turkey is studied in the South-South West Asia region in the Survey. It argues that the growth in the Turkish economy slows as the global economy weakens again, inflationary pressures persist, a slight increase in budget deficit has been seen but the current account deficit raises serious concern about its sustainability.

As part of the global activities to commemorate the Victims of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, a UN traveling exhibit was hosted in Ankara.

On 25 March, the exhibit was inaugurated at Ankara’s Antares Shopping Mall by UN Resident Coordinator Shahid Najam and Keçiören’s Mayor, Mustafa Ak. The exhibit will be open for a week.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was the largest forced migration in history, and incontrovertibly one of the most inhumane. The extensive exodus of Africans spread to many areas of the world over a 400-year period, and was unprecedented in the annals of recorded human history.

UN Resident Coordinator in Turkey, Shahid Najam, said that the Trade inflicted immense suffering on millions of innocent victims for four centuries, making it among the longest, most widespread tragedies in human history. Najam pointed out that while legalized slavery has long been abolished, slavery-like practices are very much with us – from debt bondage and domestic servitude to forced or early marriages, the sale of wives and trafficking in children.

Mayor Ak also said that although slavery has been abolished, today it still shows its ugly face in the form of exploitation of people and their labor.

 

On 1 March, a group of students from Istanbul’s Işık University visited UNIC Ankara for a briefing on the principles and priorities of the United Nations.
 
The students, who were accompanied by their professors, were in Ankara as part of a tour of the City which included visiting government offices, think-thank organizations and NGOs.
 
During the meeting, the UNIC Information Officer made a UN4U presentation and briefed the students on the Post-2015 Development Agenda which is in the making. The meeting ended after a question and answer session.
 
UNIC Ankara gives special importance to developing close working relations with universities, including the ones outside Ankara.