VOA标准英语2012--Urbanization Grows Worldwide
时间:2018-12-16 作者:英语课 分类:VOA标准英语2012年(八月)
Urbanization Grows Worldwide
The World Urban Forum 1 (9/1-7) gets underway Saturday in Naples, Italy to address the growing trend toward urbanization. About 3-thousand participants from 114 countries are expected to attend the conference. This year’s theme is The Urban Future.
The 6th World Urban Forum will address social, economic and environmental issues. These include quality of life, equity 2 and prosperity, job creation and energy and transportation.
“The World Urban Forum is a U.N. event held every two years, primarily organized by U.N. Habitat. And it’s really a space for people to come together and have a dialogue about urbanization. [It’s] possibly less of a political space, and more of a debate and dialogue space dominated by U.N. agencies, academics and particularly city-level government officials,” said Ramona Vijeyarasa of the anti- poverty organization ActionAid International.
Vijeyarasa, ActionAid’s Senior Women’s Rights Program Manager, is attending the forum.
“We’re actually at a point now where more than half the world’s population lives in cities or urban spaces. And what’s even more interesting is that the pace of urban poverty reduction has been slower than rural poverty reduction. So for us, we’re seeing a real urbanization of poverty. And I think even within the development sector 4, we’re not talking enough about urban poverty. And yet it’s the issue that’s affecting more of the world’s population than any other, in my view, at the moment,” she said.
World Urban Forum, Naples 2012
Urbanization, she said, has two sides. It can bring marginalization, violence and sub-standard housing for the poor, while at the same time offering opportunities to grow and advance.
ActionAid will take part in a presentation at the World Urban Forum on the insecurity women face in cities. Vijeyarasa said this includes unlit, insecure spaces, police departments that are insensitive to women’s issues and higher levels of crime.
“Really, we’re often talking about migrant women in these areas, as well. So even more isolation 5 and even less access to services and ways of reporting crime and violence,” she said.
She added that better urban planning can address some of these issues.
“Certainly, ideally, we would be looking at cities that are new and emerging. So a lot of the peri-urban or rural communities that are increasingly urbanizing present a really good opportunity to design the city in a gender 6-sensitive way. But as you know, a lot of the cities that we’re talking about, for example the work we’re doing in Kenya or Ethiopia, are already established cities. So we’re working to try and fix the problem.”
However, Vijeyarasa said there are plenty of solutions available. But she says people must first be aware of the problems before they can solve them.
She said, “I think gender really isn’t necessarily on the table. Urban planning is a very male-dominated sector. And I even expect that the World Urban Forum is a particularly male-dominated space. So the first thing is to get gender on the agenda and to seek accountability from stakeholders, who are responsible for urbanization, urban planning and safety and security. There are all sorts of mechanisms 7 that have been tested in some places: an increased number of female police, training of police forces generally, even training of transport workers have been tried in countries like India.”
She said ActionAid research in Ghana, South Africa and India shows that young women – ages 19 to 24 – are especially vulnerable to sexual and economic exploitation, and face a lack of health and reproductive services.
On the positive side, urban areas offer greater educational opportunities for women and girls, bigger markets for the goods they produce, and a chance to network with other women to form political or lobbying groups.
- They're holding a forum on new ways of teaching history.他们正在举行历史教学讨论会。
- The organisation would provide a forum where problems could be discussed.这个组织将提供一个可以讨论问题的平台。
- They shared the work of the house with equity.他们公平地分担家务。
- To capture his equity,Murphy must either sell or refinance.要获得资产净值,墨菲必须出售或者重新融资。
- The car has many safety features,including anti - skid braking.这车配有许多特别安全装置,包括防滑制动器。
- The anti-aircraft units opened fire and hit two of the enemy planes.防空部队开炮,击中了两架敌机。
- The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
- The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。
- The millionaire lived in complete isolation from the outside world.这位富翁过着与世隔绝的生活。
- He retired and lived in relative isolation.他退休后,生活比较孤寂。
- French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语,所有的名词都有性。
- Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。
- The research will provide direct insight into molecular mechanisms. 这项研究将使人能够直接地了解分子的机理。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- He explained how the two mechanisms worked. 他解释这两台机械装置是如何工作的。 来自《简明英汉词典》