30 de setembro de 2015

Tedesco: lanzamiento de su nuevo libro

Capitais têm 1 assassinato a cada meia hora

Casos mais críticos estão no Nordeste, onde oito das nove capitais ocupam topo das taxas de homicídio e roubo com morte

Fortaleza é líder em ranking de violência; para pesquisador, condição urbana pode favorecer delitos

JULIANA COISSIDE SÃO PAULO, 230, Folha de S.Paulo
A cada meia hora, uma pessoa foi assassinada em capitais brasileiras no ano passado. Foram 15.932 vítimas, uma alta de 0,8% em relação ao ano anterior, segundo a 9ª edição do Anuário Brasileiro de Segurança Pública.
Os casos mais críticos estão no Nordeste: oito das nove capitais da região (com exceção de Recife) estão na lista das dez maiores taxas de homicídio doloso e agressão e roubo seguidos de morte.
Fortaleza é a líder do ranking, com 77,3 mortos por esses crimes a cada 100 mil habitantes, seguida por Maceió, São Luís e Natal. São Paulo tem a taxa mais baixa, de 11,4.
O índice da capital cearense é mais do dobro da média das capitais (33) e três vezes superior à média nacional (25,2) em 2013 –os dados completos do ano passado ainda não foram consolidados.
O estudo reúne pela primeira vez dados das capitais. Eles foram tabulados pelo Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública com informações obtidas dos Estados por meio da Lei de Acesso à Informação.
Vice-presidente do Fórum Brasileiro, Renato Sérgio de Lima diz que crimes são multifatoriais, mas que teorias recentes apontam que condições urbanas podem favorecer a prática de delitos.
"Capitais têm um problema mais agudo, porque são os maiores municípios do país, têm grande adensamento urbano e ao mesmo tempo oferta de serviços públicos longe do ideal para a qualidade de vida", afirma.
Nos locais em que a questão urbana está mal resolvida, diz o sociólogo, o Estado tem dificuldade de administrar conflitos. "Se vivo num terreno invadido ou com um bar ilegal e tenho um conflito, não vou chamar a polícia porque serei preso."
O estudo também aponta alta de 16,6% no investimento em segurança pública. Estados e União, juntos, gastaram R$ 71,2 bilhões no setor em 2014, contra R$ 61,1 bilhões no ano anterior.
Em relação aos gastos por cidadão com segurança pública, Piauí, Mato Grosso e Paraíba estão entre os Estados cujo investimento caiu ou ficou próximo de zero. As capitais dos três Estados estão entre as dez que mais registraram assassinatos, proporcionalmente, em 2014.
NORDESTE
As altas taxas de violência no Nordeste, para Lima, são explicadas pelo boom econômico, que atraiu maior contingente de pessoas, sem que a oferta de serviços públicos acompanhasse esse ritmo.
Para o secretário de Segurança Pública de Alagoas, Alfredo de Mendonça Neto, o Nordeste se destaca pela forte entrada do crack nas capitais, que potencializa crimes.
"E é uma região pobre, com menos oportunidades para uma população com políticas públicas deficientes", diz.
Maceió é a segunda capital com a maior taxa de mortes violentas (69,5). O governo alagoano diz que, nos últimos nove meses, reduziu em 22% os assassinatos na capital e que chegará ao fim deste ano com taxas entre 48 e 50.
Na Paraíba, a gestão do reeleito Ricardo Coutinho (PSB) afirma ter reduzido em 24% os homicídios nos últimos quatro anos. O governo diz que reajustou salário de policiais e que tem investido em aparatos de segurança, serviço de inteligência e unidades de "polícia solidária".

25 de setembro de 2015

Nações Unidas lançam metas para o mundo ser mais sustentável

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GIOVANA GIRARDI E JAMIL CHADE - O ESTADO DE S. PAULO

25 Setembro 2015 | 09h 15

Países se comprometem com 17 objetivos para o desenvolvimento e ao mesmo tempo combater a pobreza e proteger o planeta

Começa nesta sexta-feira, 25, em Nova York, com direito a abertura pelo papa Francisco, a Conferência das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável, que vai lançar uma agenda de 17 objetivos para ajudar o mundo a trilhar um caminho de fim da pobreza, proteção do planeta e prosperidade para todos.

Os chamados Objetivos do Desenvolvimento Sustentável (ODSs) substituem e ampliam os Objetivos do Milênio - oito compromissos lançados em 2000 que visavam a uma melhora, até 2015, de problemas sociais como pobreza, mortalidade infantil e educação, em países em desenvolvimento. A proposta é que todos os países do mundo cumpram as novas metas (veja galeria abaixo), que devem ser atingidas nos próximos 15 anos.

OS 17 OBJETIVOS DO DESENVOLVIMENTO SUSTENTÁVEL

Objetivo 1: Acabar com a pobreza em todas as suas formas, em todos os lugares. Países se comprometem até 2030 a erradicarem a pobreza extrema, medida como pessoas vivendo com menos de US$ 1,25 por dia, e implementar medidas e sistemas de proteção social adequados, para todos, incluindo pisos, e atingir a cobertura substancial dos pobres e vulneráveis

Os ODSs também têm um foco bem mais amplo. A ideia é tomar medidas que não só diminuam a pobreza, mas protejam o ambiente e permitam o desenvolvimento sustentável.

Pelos próximos três dias, cerca de 150 líderes mundiais vão discutir o tema em Nova York e devem, ao fim do evento, no domingo, ratificar o acordo. A presidente Dilma Rousseff também estará lá e vai aproveitar a ocasião para lançar as metas brasileiras para o combate às mudanças climáticas, como contribuição nacional para a Conferência do Clima da ONU, que ocorre no fim do ano em Paris.

Resultados. Durante a conferência de Nova York, os países discutirão os desafios que têm pela frente. De acordo com a ONU, as ações que foram feitas nos últimos 15 anos em relação aos Objetivos do Milênio retiraram mais de 1 bilhão de pessoas da extrema pobreza, no que a entidade chama de “o maior” programa social da história. Mas a organização reconhece que ainda há muito a ser feito.

A base de comparação para medir os avanços foi o ano de 1990, quando a Guerra Fria chegava ao seu fim. Documentos internos da avaliação realizada pela ONU sobre os programas sociais apontam, por exemplo, que uma menina que nasce hoje “terá maiores chances de chegar aos 5 anos, menos chances de conviver com a fome e mais probabilidade de ir à escola”.

“As metas do milênio ajudaram a tirar mais de 1 bilhão de pessoas da extrema pobreza, a avançar no combate à fome e permitir que um número inédito de meninas esteja nas escolas. Mas, apesar dos ganhos incríveis, as desigualdades persistem e o progresso no mundo não ocorreu em todas as partes”, afirma Ban Ki-moon, secretário-geral da ONU.

Entre as pessoas com renda de menos de US$ 1,25 por dia, a entidade registrou um avanço importante. Em 1990, essa população chegava a 1,9 bilhão. Em 2015, ela atinge 836 milhões.

Por pouco a meta de reduzir pela metade a fome não foi atingida. Entre 1990 e 2015, a proporção do mundo que passa fome todos os dias caiu de 23,3% para 12,9%, com um total de 795 milhões de pessoas. Tampouco se alcançou o acesso universal à educação. O grau de participação de crianças em escolas passou de 83% para 91%, enquanto o número de pessoas fora das escolas caiu de 100 milhões, em 2000, para 57 milhões em 2015.

Oportunidade. Especialistas defendem que a crise econômica que atinge o Brasil e outras nações pelo mundo pode ser uma oportunidade para a adoção agora dos Objetivos do Desenvolvimento Sustentável.

“Todas as vezes em que houve momentos desafiadores ao longo da história, a tentação foi focar no curto prazo. Mas o que a história nos conta é que países que abraçaram inovações transformadoras, às vezes nos momentos mais críticos, são os que tiveram mais sucesso. Os ODSs oferecem um importante lembrete de que muitas das crises de hoje são resultado desse pensamento de curto prazo e da falta de transparência. Eles são precisamente um antídoto contra esse oportunismo da política do dia a dia e da atividade econômica”, disse ao Estado Achim Steiner, diretor executivo do Pnuma (programa da ONU para o ambiente).

“É uma chance de pensar qual vai ser o melhor caminho para retomar o desenvolvimento. Não faz sentido crescer, por exemplo, como São Paulo, que ficou rica, mas tem rios fétidos cortando a cidade. Isso não é sustentável nem é inteligente”, complementa Virgilio Viana, copresidente da Rede de Soluções para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável para a América Latina.

24 de setembro de 2015

Latin America to Adopt SDGs, Still Lagging on Some MDGs

By Marianela Jarroud eprint |, IPS

Maternal care during the pregnancy, birth and post-partum period is essential to reduce the high maternal mortality rate in Latin America. Credit: Courtesy of the Tigre municipal government

SANTIAGO, Sep 23 2015 (IPS) - In the last 15 years, Latin America and the Caribbean have met several key targets included in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), such as reducing extreme poverty, hunger and child mortality, incorporating more girls in the educational system, and expanding access to clean water.

However, as the world is setting out on a new challenge, meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the roadmap from here to 2030 – the region must make a bigger effort to fight, for example, maternal mortality and teen pregnancy, two of its biggest failures with regard to the MDGs, partly due to a patriarchal, sexist culture.

“We don’t have to wait for an analysis of the MDGs to understand that the region is lagging in these areas,” Chilean Dr. Ramiro Molina, founder of the Centre for Reproductive Medicine and Adolescent Development, told IPS.

“The spending needed on sexual and reproductive health is low,” he added. “It hasn’t been clearly understood that it is absolutely indispensable to invest more in this area.”

The eight MDGs, approved in September 2000 by 189 heads of state and government at a United Nations summit, were aimed at addressing development deficits in the first 15 years of the new millennium.

And on Sunday Sept. 27, at another summit in New York, leaders from around the world will approve the post-2015 sustainable development framework, which includes 17 SDGs that make up what is now called the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

With these new goals, the international community will continue to fight inequality and work towards sustainable and inclusive development.

“Latin America and the Caribbean: looking ahead after the Millennium Development Goals”, a regional monitoring report published this month by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), says the region has met the goal for reducing extreme poverty and hunger.

Between 1990 and 2015, this region more than cut in half the proportion of people living on less than 1.25 dollars a day: from 12.6 percent in 1990 to 4.6 percent in 2011.

The proportion of hungry people, meanwhile, was slashed from 14.7 percent in the 1990-1992 period to 5.5 percent in 2014-2016.

In addition, employment statistics are better today than at any other point in the last 20 years; access to and completion of primary education have increased; and the illiteracy rate among 15 to 24-year-olds fell from 6.9 percent in 1990 to 1.7 percent in 2015.

The region has also made significant progress in girls’ access to primary, secondary and tertiary education, and has narrowed the gender gap in politics.

But these advances stand in contrast to the lack of progress in other areas, especially with regard to MDG 5: reducing maternal mortality and achieving universal access to reproductive health.

The ECLAC report stresses that in 2013 the overall maternal mortality rate in Latin America and the Caribbean was 85 deaths per 100,000 live births, representing a 39 percent reduction with respect to 1990 – far from the 75 percent drop called for by the MDGs.

Adolescent pregnancy also remains a pressing problem in the region, with a live birth rate of 75.5 per 1,000 girls and women between the ages of 15 and 19.

Miriam Toaquiza and her daughter Jennifer in a hospital in Latacunga, Ecuador. She is the only girl in a special room for teenage mothers, thanks to public policies fighting the phenomenon. Credit: Gonzalo Ortiz/IPS

“Adolescence, their development and fertility are based on ignorance in our countries,” said Molina.

Tamara, now 23, is an illustration of this. When she was 13, her 27-year-old boyfriend got her pregnant.

The unexpected pregnancy forced her to drop out of school, although she was later able to complete her primary education. She never went to high school. Three years later she had her second son, with the same father.

“I missed out on several things: of course, support from my mother and my father, but above all, sex education,” the young woman, who preferred not to give her last name, told IPS.

Tamara had a difficult life. Her mother did not finish primary school and her father was a drug addict and alcoholic. She was a witness to domestic violence throughout her childhood.

From a young age, she was raped by the oldest of her six brothers, who went to prison for 10 years for what he did, when she finally decided to go to the police, without her mother’s consent.

Today, about to have her third child – with a different man this time, but someone just as absent as the father of her first two – she said she is fighting to make sure her children get an education.

“I make an effort every day for my kids to study, I try hard to educate them, because I don’t want them to suffer like I did. I want to break the circle,” she said.

In Molina’s view, to address the gaps in sexual and reproductive health, political intentions should translate into spending on primary sexual and reproductive health care services for adolescents, training on these issues for health professionals, and effective sex education programmes.

“Mexico’s good sex education programmes are only partially functioning; the excellent programmes that Costa Rica had have been discontinued; and Colombia has made enormous efforts to come up with really good sex education teaching materials, but they have practically been doomed to fail by political and strategic questions,” Molina said.

“Something similar is happening in Peru, where there have also been good programmes but they don’t have strategic or political support from the government,” he added. “Argentina gets good results, but with strong support from the government in developing sex education programmes. The same is true in Uruguay.”

According to the doctor, the case of Chile “is the worst of all,” because “we are plagued with opprobrium and shame.”

“We were the last country in the region to have a law protecting young people with sex education, which was passed in 2010 but did not enter into force until July 2014. The situation here is embarrassing,” he said.

He added that in order to meet the Agenda 2030 target for preventing teen pregnancies, merely making birth control available is not enough, “because I could drop condoms and pills from a helicopter but it wouldn’t be an effective measure.”

The issue, he said, is that people have to actually use the contraceptives, and need to know when and how to do so – which requires education.

“The goal is preventing the first pregnancy, and to do that what is needed is education, education, and when everything else has failed, education and more education. And as part of that education – broad, in-depth sex education, without ideological bias,” he added.

Molina also stressed that both maternal mortality and adolescent pregnancy “are no longer technical, but political, problems” which require that states be responsible and implement effective public policies, without worrying about facing up to conservative power groups “who are ignorant traditionalists, and cause us terrible damage.”

As the region gets ready to sign on to the SDGs, the new challenges call for a more holistic, participative, interdisciplinary and universal approach.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

22 de setembro de 2015

Education Gap Between Rich and Poor Is Growing Wider

The New York Times

SEPT. 22, 2015

Liz Niehaus, a kindergarten teacher, talks with her students at KIPP Thrive Academy in Newark. KIPP schools are among the most successful in improving educational outcomes among the poor. CreditMel Evans/Associated Press

The wounds of segregation were still raw in the 1970s. With only rare exceptions, African-American children had nowhere near the same educational opportunities as whites.

The civil rights movement, school desegregation and the War on Poverty helped bring a measure of equity to the playing field. Today, despite some setbacks along the way, racial disparities in education have narrowed significantly. By 2012, the test-score deficit of black 9-, 13- and 17-year-olds in reading and math had been reducedas much as 50 percent compared with what it was 30 to 40 years before.

Achievements like these breathe hope into our belief in the Land of Opportunity. They build trust in education as a leveling force powering economic mobility. “We do have a track record of reducing these inequalities,” said Jane Waldfogel, a professor of social work at Columbia University.

But the question remains: Why did we stop there?

For all the progress in improving educational outcomes among African-American children, the achievement gaps between more affluent and less privileged children is wider than ever. notes Sean Reardon of the Center for Education Policy Analysis at Stanford. Racial disparities are still a stain on American society, but they are no longer the main divider. Today the biggest threat to the American dream is class.

Education is today more critical than ever. College has become virtually a precondition for upward mobility. Men with only a high school diploma earn about a fifth less than they did 35 years ago. The gap between the earnings of students with a college degree and those without one is bigger than ever.

And yet American higher education is increasingly the preserve of the elite. The sons and daughters of college-educated parents are more than twice as likely to go to college as the children of high school graduates and seven times as likely as those of high school dropouts.

Only 5 percent of Americans ages 25 to 34 whose parents didn’t finish high school have a college degree. By comparison, the average across 20 rich countries in an analysis by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is almost 20 percent.

The problem, of course, doesn’t start in college.

Earlier this week, Professor Waldfogel and colleagues from Australia, Canada and Britain published a new book titled “Too Many Children Left Behind” (Russell Sage). It traces the story of America’s educational disparities across the life cycle of its children, from the day they enter kindergarten to eighth grade.

Their story goes sour very early, and it gets worse as it goes along. On the day they start kindergarten, children from families of low socioeconomic status are already more than a year behind the children of college graduates in their grasp of both reading and math.

And despite the efforts deployed by the American public education system, nine years later the achievement gap, on average, will have widened by somewhere from one-half to two-thirds.

Even the best performers from disadvantaged backgrounds, who enter kindergarten reading as well as the smartest rich kids, fall behind over the course of their schooling.

The challenges such children face compared to their more fortunate peers are enormous. Children from low socioeconomic backgrounds are seven times more likely to have been born to a teenage mother. Only half live with both parents, compared with 83 percent of the children of college graduates.

The children of less educated parents suffer higher obesity rates, have more social and emotional problems and are more likely to report poor or fair health. And because they are much poorer, they are less likely to afford private preschool or the many enrichment opportunities — extra lessons, tutors, music and art, elite sports teams — that richer, better-educated parents lavish on their children.

When they enter the public education system, they are shortchanged again. Eleven-year-olds from the wrong side of the tracks are about one-third more likely to have a novice teacher, according to Professor Waldfogel and her colleagues. They are much more likely to be held back a grade, a surefire way to stunt their development, the researchers say.

Financed mainly by real estate taxes that are more plentiful in neighborhoods with expensive homes, public education is becoming increasingly compartmentalized. Well-funded schools where the children of the affluent can play and learn with each other are cordoned off from the shabbier schools teaching the poor, who are still disproportionally from black or Hispanic backgrounds.

Even efforts to lean against inequality backfire. Research by Rachel Valentino, who received her Ph.D. in education policy at Stanford University this year, found that public prekindergarten programs offered minorities and the poor a lower-quality education.

Perhaps pre-K programs serving poor and minority children have trouble attracting good teachers. Perhaps classrooms with more disadvantaged children are more difficult to manage. Perhaps teachers offer more basic instruction because disadvantaged children need to catch up. In any event, Ms. Valentino told me, “the gaps are huge.”

This is arguably education’s biggest problem. Narrowing proficiency gaps that emerge way before college would probably do more to increase the nation’s college graduation rate than offering universal community college, easier terms on student loans or more financial aid.

“If we could equalize achievement from age zero to 14,” Professor Waldfogel told me, “that would go a long way toward closing the college enrollment and completion gaps.”

It can be done. Australia, Canada — even the historically class-ridden Britain — show much more equitable outcomes.

The policy prescriptions go beyond improving teachers and curriculums, or investing in bringing struggling students up to speed. They include helping parents, too: teaching them best practices in parenting, raising their pay and helping them with the overlapping demands of work and family.

And yet the strains from our world of increasing income inequality raise doubts about our ability to narrow the educational divide. Poorer, less educated parents simply can’t keep up with the rich, who are spending hand over fist to ensure that their children end at the front of the rat race. Our public school system has proved no match to the forces reproducing inequality across the generations.

Fifty years ago, the black-white proficiency gap was one and a half to two times as large as the gap between a child from a family at the top 90th percentile of the income distribution and a child from a family at the 10th percentile, according to Professor Reardon at Stanford. Today, the proficiency gap between the poor and the rich is nearly twice as large as that between black and white children.

In other words, even as one achievement gap narrowed, another opened wide. That kind of progress could dash one’s hope in the leveling power of education.