"Can anyone tell me why Dana succeeded in this exercise?" asks Randa, a summer camp instructor, to the 20 young girls still catching their breath from the last sports activity. A few of them enthusiastically raise their hands: "She did not lose her self-control," says one girl; "She was persistent," adds another.
It is precisely this lesson that Randa is hoping will be absorbed by the young people attending a two-week summer camp at Qalandia Village, near Ramallah. It is here that Randa has been implementing a range of sports activities to help youth develop their life skills and better cope with daily challenges to stay away from violence and crime. Prior to the opening of the summer camps, Randa was part of a group of 26 instructors in the State of Palestine trained by UNODC on the Line Up, Live Up life skills curriculum.
Today, over 55 per cent of the world's population lives in urban areas; by 2050, this is set to increase to more than two-thirds. While urbanization brings with it economic growth and prosperity, it also presents a range of negative social issues, with cities often home to high levels of income inequality, gangs, and organized criminal groups.
Looking to help counter this, UNODC works with countries to reduce urban crime and violence at regional, national and local levels. One of those with whom UNODC has been partnering closely to achieve this is Colombia, through mechanisms such as strengthening local data collection and crime analysis, and, most recently, introducing the sports-based, youth crime prevention initiative Line Up, Live Up.
Established in 2016, the International Anti-Corruption Excellence Award is designed to showcase creative and outstanding achievements of anti-corruption projects from across the globe and publicly acknowledge these exceptional efforts.
Awarded by the Rule Of Law and Anti-Corruption Center (ROLACC), and presented in support of the anti-corruption mandate of UNODC, the initiative promotes the importance of tackling corruption and encourages the implementation of the United Nations Convention against Corruption.
Submissions close 5 September 2018 and more details on the award and nomination process can be found at www.aceaward.com.
In the latest edition of the magazine 'Justice Trends', UNODC's Dimitri Vlassis - Chief of the organization's Corruption and Economic Crime Branch - provides his insights into the workings of the 13th UN Crime Congress held in Qatar in 2015, and the resultant Doha Declaration which emerged from this important gathering.
In this wide-ranging interview, Mr. Vlassis discusses UNODC's Global Programme - the first time that such an implementation initiative has emerged from a Crime Congress to provide support to countries to put into practice the Doha Declaration's commitments.
As more and more countries recognize the essential role of sport in promoting sustainable development, UNODC is working across the globe to promote life skills training programmes that can be implemented in sport settings to strengthen youth resilience and help them to stay away from crime, violence, and drug-use.
Most recently, UNODC has been working with the Central Asian nations of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, offering a practical tool for these Governments to complement national youth policies and strengthen their crime prevention efforts through social development.