February 2019
Peace and Conflict Prevention/Resolution Month
Rotary's goal of worldwide peace and tolerance has been an unwavering pursuit: conducting global forums, hosting international peace symposiums, advancing peace through its 60-year collaboration with the UN, as well as grassroots initiatives such as the Rotarian Action Group for Peace.
But Rotary's most significant effort to wage peace is the Rotary Peace Centers program, established in 2002. Each year, the program trains some of the world's most dedicated and brightest professionals, preparing them to promote national and international cooperation and to resolve conflict. They include graduates of a two-year master's degree program and a three-month professional certificate program at Rotary's partner universities.
Today, more than 900 peace fellows are applying their expertise in various fields. They're settling border conflicts in West Africa, developing aid programs at the World Bank, drafting legislation to protect exploited children in Brazil, providing security for U.S. diplomats, and many other career paths devoted to peace.
23 February — Rotary's anniversary
Rotary's 108th anniversary on 23 February marks a year of both achievements in the fight to eradicate polio and a stepped-up commitment to finish the job.
Worldwide, 222 polio cases were reported in 2012, a little more than one-third of the 650 cases reported in 2011. India marked its second year without polio on 13 January. Overall, the annual incidence of polio has decreased more than 99 percent since the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched in 1988. Then polio infected about 350,000 children per year.
Although the wild poliovirus is now endemic only in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria, it could spread from there back to other countries.
Among Rotary's chief responsibilities in the eradication initiative is advocacy, an increasingly important element of this latter stage of the effort. In addition to contributing more than US$1 billion to the GPEI, Rotary has helped secure over $9 billion from donor governments since the initiative began in 1988. Rotary is boosting its advocacy work in the 200 countries and regions where Rotary clubs exist to encourage every national government to help meet a $700 million shortfall (as of 1 February) in funding the GPEI through 2013.
