Erle Frayne D. Argonza

We have a gladdening news about the Himalayan region regarding the potentialities of renewable energy or RE as impetus for economic prosperity. Eight (8) countries in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region particularly manifest high potentials for RE-driven growth.

The question that is now rising from the emerging green tech boom there is: who owns the said RE boom altogether? Who is in control, who pays up the greatest for the boom, what yields will there be for the peoples of the 8-country region?

Without such a control over the boom’s compass and yields, there is always the danger of financial predators using the RE boom to  extract the greatest profits out of their greedy pursuits, which will cancel out the people-prospering side of development.

Below is a report on the subject from the SciDev.net.

[Philippines, 27 December 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/news/himalayan-countries-urged-to-own-their-green-tech-boom.html

Himalayan countries urged to own their green tech boom

Smriti Mallapaty

21 November 2011

[KATHMANDU] Himalayan countries should support and invest in green technologies if such initiatives are to succeed and bring benefits to the economy in the long term, a meeting has heard.

Eight countries in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region are making progress in development and uptake of renewable energy technologies, which can maintain sustainable economic growth for mountain communities, a workshop in Kathmandu heard earlier this month (2–4 November).

Further investments could provide environmental, social and economic benefits to mountain communities, experts told the meeting, which was organised by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

But it is uncertain whether poorer countries could sustain investment in green technology development without external support and this dependency on donor funding could hamper the progress made so far, experts warned.

Suresh Kumar Dhungel, senior scientist at Nepal National Academy of Science and Technology, told SciDev.Net: “The sad part is that Nepal’s efforts are not solely ours, it is all guided by funds from international donor agencies. Policymakers need to realise the importance of a green society.”

Golam Rasul, head of ICIMOD’s economic analysis division said: “The initial cost of renewable energy is high compared with fossil fuel based energy. The technology we are using now is not very cost-effective. Technologically advanced countries should support research in this field.”

Rasul said regional cooperation and transboundary energy trade could offer a way out.

“Bhutan and Nepal have huge hydropower potential but lack technical capacity and large markets, whereas India and Bangladesh are power hungry,” Rasul said.

Ghulam Mohammad Malikyar, deputy director-general of the National Environmental Protection Agency, of the Afghanistan, told SciDev.Net climatic environments may need different green technologies, appropriate for local circumstances.

Prem Pokhrel, climate and energy programme officer at the Alternative Energy Promotion Centre, Nepal, said that almost a million households in Nepal are benefiting from micro-hydro power plants, improved cooking stoves, domestic biogas plants, and solar home systems. This saves an estimated 12 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year.

Pokhrel described an ‘energy ladder’ of rising income, where households transition from wood and animal-based fuels to electricity and other clean energy, as they get richer. This also translated into better health for women and children, said Pokhrel. He added that uptake of clean energy can also help generate better income.

ICIMOD organised a conference on Green Economy and Sustainable Mountain Development: Opportunities and Challenges in View of Rio+20 in September, which produced a concept paper ‘Green Economy for Sustainable Mountain Development’.

One of the key recommendations to the national governments from the concept paper was to “adopt alternative forms of energy such as hydropower, wind power, biogas, and solar energy to reduce negative impacts from the use of fossil fuels and fuel wood”.

Link to ‘Green Economy for Sustainable Mountain Development: a concept paper for Rio+20 and beyond’

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Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Severe drought just struck northern Afghanistan, inducing shortfalls in crop yields. Over 2 millions of Afghans up north have begun to feel the severity of the shortfall.

The news is surely alarming, as it comes amid the eco-catastrophes of similar types in the Horn of Africa, parts of Pakistan, and other regions of the planet. The seeming coincidence of too many droughts is indicative of the dire consequences of ecological changes brought forth by both human intervention and natural phenomena.

Meantime, as winter now knocks at the doors of northern hemispheric communities, over 2 millions of Afghans face coupling disasters of hunger, diseases, and gargantuan mortalities due to the drought there. Is the world ready to respond to the new eco-challenge and help out the said small tillers and workers?

[Philippines, 26 December 2011]

Source: http://www.devex.com/en/articles/in-afghanistan-millions-face-hunger-as-winter-approaches?source=ArticleHomepage_Center_6
In Afghanistan, Millions Face Hunger as Winter Approaches
By Ivy Mungcal on 21 November 2011
More than 2 million people in northern Afghanistan are facing hunger following a severe drought that has caused crop shortfall in the region. The situation is expected to worsen with the upcoming winter, according to several aid groups.
Nine aid groups, including Oxfam, have released a joint statement to highlight the situation and urge the international community and Afghan government to ensure people receive the food assistance they require quickly.
“Donors and relief agencies must remain vigilant and responsive as more resources will be required if the situation deteriorates because of a harsh winter,” said Manohar Shenoy, Oxfam’s country director in Afghanistan, according to The Associated Press.
Some aid agencies have also raised questions on why the situation in northern Afghanistan persists despite the billions of dollars in foreign aid received by the country.
One theory is that donors focus their aid programs in Helmand, Kandahar and other conflict-torn cities in southern Afghanistan, BBC notes, adding that aid agencies have slammed this policy, which they describe as “militarized aid.”
“They are aiming on winning hearts and minds by implementing quick fix, quick impact projects,” said Louise Hancock, Oxfam’s policy and advocacy director in Afghanistan. “These result in schools being built in areas where there are no roads going to them, where needs are not at their greatest or where there are not enough teachers to staff that school.
Read more development aid news online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive top international development headlines from the world’s leading donors, news sources and opinion leaders — emailed to you FREE every business day.
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Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Whether this news is gladdening or not, the Asian Development Bank had extended emergency funds worth US $3 million to Thailand to shore up the country’s relief and rehabilitation operations in light of the massive flooding there.

The amount is surely token, as it is worth some couples of toothpick cases for the millions of affected persons. Thailand surely deserves larger relief assistance, most specially from the global corporations that have been operating in the Bangkok region as their central hub in the whole of Asia. The oligarchic companies surely remember Thailand only when their cash registers inflow from their profitable operations, but shirk from the responsibility of helping out during calamities and catastrophies.

Better indeed that the ADB provides some aid for toothpick packs than none at all. Hopefully the same continental bank would allocate billions of dollars for new investments in the country as a way of compensating its toothpick mentality during worst calamities.

[Philippines, 25 December 2011]

Source: http://beta.adb.org/news/adb-gives-emergency-support-thailand-after-worst-floods-over-50-years
ADB Gives Emergency Support to Thailand after Worst Floods in over 50 Years
21 November 2011
MANILA, PHILIPPINES – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is providing emergency assistance of $3 million to help Thailand get back on its feet in the wake of the country’s worst flooding in more than half a century.
“The scale and magnitude of the floods are immense and this grant will help Thailand address some of the most immediate, pressing needs,” said Craig Steffensen, ADB’s Country Director in Thailand.
The floods, sparked by heavy rains in August and September, have over 600 people dead and inundated homes, farmland and businesses, including parts of the capital Bangkok and surrounding districts. All affected provinces have been declared disaster areas and the country’s gross domestic product could decline by up to 2% as a result of the devastation.
ADB’s grant will support the provision of food, water, and other essential services to people who have been forced to flee their homes and others affected by the floods. It will be coordinated with assistance being provided by other development partners, including the United Nations, World Bank, European Union, Japan and the United States.
The grant is being provided from ADB’s Asia Pacific Disaster Response Fund, which was established in 2009 to provide quick disbursing grants to help countries affected by natural calamities meet their immediate needs. It also helps bridge the gap ahead of longer term post-disaster reconstruction assistance and disaster risk reduction initiatives.
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Erle Frayne D. Argonza

In case you global citizens may be musing about what’s going on in Uganda, tons of positive news are being churned out there year by year. Such as the news about the Ugandan electric car that has just been successfully tested.

Traumatic experiences surely have a way of leaving behind bad tastes, such as the grotesque crimes of the past tyranny of the Idi Amin regime there. But that dictatorship is way past behind us now, buried deeply now in the global canvass of rapidly shaping events.

The Kiira EV that has been to a large degree designed with technical aid from university experts will be a thing to watch in the whole of Africa. It promises to be a low-cost clean energy vehicle, as shown in the report below.

[Philippines, 24 December 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/news/uganda-test-drives-its-first-electric-car.html
Uganda test-drives its first electric car
Peter Wamboga-Mugirya
21 November 2011
[KAMPALA] Ugandan scientists and students at Makerere University have built an electric car.

The two-seater Kiira EV (‘Kiira’ means roaring in Lusoga, a local dialect), which is powered by a lithium-ion battery, was test-driven early this month (1 November) at the university. It can reach a maximum speed of 200 kilometres (km) an hour but needs recharging after an 80km run.

Sandy Stevens Tickodri-Togboa, principal investigator for the project and deputy vice-chancellor at the university, told SciDev.Net that the conceptualisation and design took place between April and August 2009.

“I assembled 25 engineers, electricians and designers. We used a large percentage of local materials to develop the Kiira EV.” He said that they imported only the steering wheel and minor accessories.

The inspiration for the project came from Makerere’s participation in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Vehicle Design Summit in Italy, in 2008. The inter-university event — in which Makerere was the only African team — led to the development of Vision 200, a prototype hybrid fuel-electric car.

Following the summit, the team decided to return home and build its own electric car.

In December 2009, President Yoweri Museveni expressed confidence in the product and instructed the Ministry of Finance to provide funding for the project of 25 billion Ugandan shillings (around US$10 million) for five years (2009–14).

Tickodri-Togboa added that a prominent Uganda businessman and member of the Private Sector Foundation, Habib Kagimu, has pledged to promote the group’s work.

With such entrepreneurs, he said, the group expects the Kiira EV to evolve into low-cost cars for Ugandans in the near future. The next step is to build an electric 28-seater bus, said Tickodri-Togboa.

Kiira EV project manager Paul Musasizi said the car was tested for road-drive performance including its ability to climb steep gradients and pick up speed.

“It picks speed very quickly, the motor is strong and its reversing [ability] is perfect. It also climbed a 55 degrees incline,” he said, after test-driving the car for 4km at a speed of 65km per hour. But he added: “More adjustments still need to be done when it is gaining speed to avoid jerking”.

But David Mulabi, a community development programme coordinator at the Uganda Czech Development Trust, said that Makerere should redirect its energies.

“Farmers are struggling with drought because irrigation is too expensive … We need [irrigation] technology … not luxury [cars],” he said.
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Erle Frayne D. Argonza

So many conflicts are happening across the globe at this moment, leading to mass migrations of affected non-combatants. Rebel groups bent on forming mini-states, such as those on the African continent, form a ceaseless phenomenal tapestry of violence and migrations.

Incidentally, many migrants have returned to the homeland, or as in the case of other migrants they get absorbed in the host countries. Let us take the case of Cote d’Ivoire that has been badly hit by the same rebel syndrome messianically forming mini-states in the most gruesome conflicts one can imagine.

Migrants that used to be sheltered in tent cities of sorts are back in the country. Let’s take a cursory visit to the life of these lucky migrants via the reportage of the IOM below.

[Philippines, 23 December 2011]

Source: http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/media/press-briefing-notes/pbnAF/cache/offonce/lang/en?entryId=30969

First Group of Internally Displaced Persons Return to Their Villages in Western Cote d’Ivoire

Posted on Friday, 18-11-2011

Cote d’Ivoire – Seven months after the end of the post electoral crisis in Cote d’Ivoire, hundreds of families who sought refuge in camps in the west of the country, are finally returning home with IOM assistance.
On 16 November 2011, IOM in coordination with government authorities and partner agencies carried out the first organized return of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from a displaced centre in the western town of Duékoué to surrounding villages.
A first IOM convoy of 103 families (459 individuals) left the overcrowded Catholic Mission holding centre in Duékoué for various nearby communities. Other returns are planned over the next few days, with the remaining families scheduled for relocation in a nearby camp in Nahibly.
Up to 25,000 IDPs sought refuge in and around the Catholic Mission in Duékoué at the peak of the conflict. Currently, an estimated 17,000 displaced persons are still living in camps throughout Cote d’Ivoire, in addition to thousands of others who are staying with host communities.
Security improvements in the region have encouraged many displaced persons to consider returning to villages, with many families excited at the prospect of returning home.
“I think I will do better by returning to my village,” one of the returnees told IOM. “Life in the camp has been good because it has provided us with security. Now things are better, I need to go home and re-build my life for the sake of my children.”
Residents of other IDP camps in Western Cote d’Ivoire who are willing to return to their villages will be assisted by IOM and its partners to do so.
Over the past weeks, IOM has organized several “go-and-see visits” for IDPs who saw that living conditions in their home villages had steadily improved. On their return, they shared information with those who stayed back in the camps. This information helped them in their decision to return or not.
However, many families are still too frightened to return immediately, though they intend to do so at a later date. Some say they will have nowhere to stay because their houses were destroyed during the conflict. Others are afraid of gun-carrying traditional fighters and other armed men, while a good number fear those who they say illegally occupied their plantations after they had fled.
IOM is currently rehabilitating some 300 destroyed homes in some of the worst conflict-affected areas in the west of Cote d’Ivoire and is stocking up on non-food items, which include plastic sheeting, mattresses, mats, kitchen sets, buckets, etc. for distribution to families in need.
As the IDPs return, they will undoubtedly face the daunting task of putting their lives back together. IOM will continue to conduct follow-up missions in the areas of return, to ascertain the living conditions, with the aim of providing the assistance that is needed for sustainability.
In order to do this IOM will appeal to the donor community for financial aid. The current activities are being carried out thanks to donations from the Central Emergency Relief Fund (CERF), the European Union Humanitarian Assistance (ECHO), the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and the Australian Assistance for International Development (AUSAID).
For further information, please contact:
David Coomber
IOM Cote d’Ivoire
Tel: +225 048 30 444
E-mail: dcoomber@iom.int
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Erle Frayne D. Argonza

How much transparency is involved in the aid phenomenon? Is the transparency coming from the donor or from the recipient, or from both sides of the aid coin?

Whatever agenda will be taken up concerning the aid problem in Busan, the transparency question would surely ring the strongest decibels. And may we stress DECIBELS, as we anticipate debates that could be so emotional as they can shoot up adrenalin to feverish levels. Discourses will be accompanied by high tenor rationalizations, with finger-pointing blaming in the menu of presentations.

“Busan Busan on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” could be a guide thought in the report on the subject below.

[Philippines, 22 December 2011]

Source: http://www.devex.com/en/articles/ahead-of-busan-how-countries-rank-on-aid-transparency?source=ArticleHomepage_Center_2
Ahead of Busan: How Countries Rank on Aid Transparency
By Claudia Elliot on 17 November 2011
The majority of international aid donors are not publishing enough information about the money they give, undermining the effectiveness of development spending and damaging public trust, according to the Aid Transparency Index 2011 released earlier this week by Publish What You Fund. The report comes just two weeks before the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Korea.
Aid is a scarce and precious resource, which, if spent well, can make a major difference to the lives and prospects of people and countries receiving it. However, a lack of comprehensive, timely and comparable aid information means that donor governments do not know enough about where their own money is being spent with what effect, nor can they can compare and coordinate what they are doing with other agencies around the world.
Without comparable data, aid-recipient countries cannot plan their own spending properly or measure impact. Equally, taxpayers in both donor and recipient countries are unable to hold their government to account for spending the money well.
Major donors including the United States, Japan, France, Germany, Spain, Norway, Canada, Italy and Australia perform poorly in Publish What You Fund’s pilot Aid Transparency Index, in spite of pledges to improve at the high-level meetings in 2005 and 2008. The five best-ranked donors are the World Bank, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the African Development Bank, The Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the U.K.’s Department for International Development.
The index – the first of its kind – ranks 58 donor agencies according to how much information they provide across 35 different indicators. The average score of 34 percent shows that although some donors have made good progress, the majority need to do much more. No donors ranked in the top category “good,” which requires a score of over 80 percent.
The fifteen worst-performers (Spain, Portugal, U.S. Department of Defense, U.K. Commonwealth Development Corp., Latvia, U.S. Treasury, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, China, Greece, Cyprus and Malta) all scored less than 19 percent, with the bottom two scoring zero percent.
The report calls on all donors to sign up to and implement the International Aid Transparency Initiative, which provides a common standard for publishing data and has the potential to transform the way aid is managed. It urges donors to use the upcoming High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan to commit to publish timely, comprehensive and comparable information on aid by 2015.
The Make Aid Transparent campaign was launched in June this year to urge governments to maintain commitments to publish to IATI at Busan. In the last 6 months the campaign has gained real ground. It is now supported by over 100 organisations and 8000 people internationally and has been presented around the world, including in London, Paris, Washington, Yemen, Honduras, and Berlin. The Make Aid Transparent campaign will be handing the petition signatures to country ministers at the meeting in Busan at the end of the month.
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Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Is the Somalia famine hopelessly irreversible? If the catastrophe can be reversed, can the interventions be sustained without aid from external donors?

Those are pretty tough questions to answer. Admittedly, the famine in the Horn is too large a human & nature predicament, with over 11 millions of hungry people affected at its peak some couples of months ago. Somalia seems to be a classic basketcase of the catastrophe, as the problem there is complicated by peace & order challenges.

Below is a reportage on the subject by the UNDP. Note that the UNDP experts have taken the standpoint that the problem can be reversed but with substantial assistance from benevolent sources.

[Philippines, 21 December 2011]
Source: http://www.beta.undp.org/undp/en/home/presscenter/articles/2011/11/21/famine-in-somalia-can-only-be-reversed-with-continued-assistance.html
Famine in Somalia can only be reversed with continued assistance
21 November 2011

Water tanks have also been placed along the routes being used by displaced people. (Photo: OCHA/Buhaene)
Nairobi – Increased humanitarian assistance to Somalia has had a significant impact in the famine‐affected parts, bringing the three southern regions of Bay, Bakool and Lower Shabelle out of famine.
However, according to the latest data compiled by the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit and Famine Early Warning System in southern Somalia, famine persists in parts of the Middle Shabelle region and in the areas hosting internally displaced persons in the capital Mogadishu and along the Afgooye corridor, northwest of the city.
Malnutrition and mortality rates in many parts of southern Somalia continue to be the highest in the world.
“Any improvements can only be sustained if the current level of humanitarian assistance continues,” said Mark Bowden, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, who also serves as the UN Development Programme’s Resident Representative.
“If humanitarian activities are interrupted or reduced in southern Somalia, many areas will fall back into famine. It is only thanks to the generosity of donors that we have been able to save tens of thousands of lives in the past three months. We need this support to continue or the price we pay will be the loss of thousands of lives.”
The UN and other partners are working to increase access to food, markets and health services. UNDP has been working in Mogadishu and in some of the famine-affected districts building shallow wells, boreholes and water pumps, rehabilitating essential agricultural infrastructure, and helping to create short term jobs which allow households to improve access to food.
Somalia continues to face the largest humanitarian crisis in the world with over half of its population in urgent need of assistance.
Three million out of the four million people in crisis are in southern Somalia, where access to the population in need remains a major challenge.
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Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Here’s the bad news for everyone across the globe: global food prices remain high. In the Horn of Africa particulary, food crisis remains as the calamity that recently hit the area bordered a catastrophe of drought cum famine.

As Zoellick of World Bank had contended, the food crisis is far from over. Calamities after calamities have struck different parts of the globe in a super-convergent fashion, thus contributing to the high price index of food as a whole. Thailand is still under flood waters as of November, thus hampering the overall grains production, leading to further speculation in the cross-border prices of grains.

Below is a summary of the bad news going about food prices.

[Philippines, 20 December 2011]

Source: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:23036667~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html

Global Food Prices Remain High and Volatile Affecting Poorest Countries the Most

Press Release No:2012/134/PRM

Floods in Thailand add further uncertainty. Food crisis in the Horn of Africa continues

WASHINGTON, November 1, 2011–Global food prices remain high and volatile, hitting the poorest countries hardest and adding to the strains facing the global economy, according to the World Bank Group’s new Food Price Watch released ahead of the G-20 Summit in Cannes, France. While the Bank’s food price index has dropped 5 percent from its February 2011 peak and dipped marginally in September by one percent, it remains 19 percent above its September 2010 levels.

“The food crisis is far from over,” said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick, who has urged the G-20 to put food first. “Prices remain volatile and millions of people around the world are still suffering. The World Bank has been working closely with the French Presidency of the G-20 and our partner international organizations on actions to protect the most vulnerable from the dangers of food price volatility, while also addressing some of its root causes. Let’s remember, averting crisis is not just about banks and debt. Millions of people around the world face a daily crisis of hunger and malnutrition. At Cannes, the G-20 can and should take steps to address their needs.”

The Group of 20 heads of government, who are meeting in Cannes Nov. 3– 4 to discuss the global economy, are expected to endorse a package of concrete actions to improve transparency and policy coordination to detect and correct problems early; to help countries manage price volatility using sound risk management tools; to promote more productive and resilient agriculture; and to get food to the needy fast through emergency regional humanitarian food reserves and agreement not to ban exports of food for World Food Programme. As the world population reaches a staggering 7 billion people, it is more important than ever for the global community to galvanize around actions to improve food security.

According to Food Price Watch, a quarterly report, recent floods in Thailand−the worst in 50 years−may add uncertainty in the short run following estimated production losses of between 16 to 24 percent of total production. In the meantime, the food crisis in the Horn of Africa continues, affecting over 13.3 million people in the region–an additional million since August, and the outlook remains frightening.

The report said prices of grains rose 30 percent (September 2010–September 2011), with maize increasing by 43 percent, rice by 26 percent and wheat 16 percent. Soybean oil went up by 26 percent. Over the last quarter, however, an increase of 3 percent in the price of grains was roughly offset by a 3 percent decline in the prices of fats and oils.

Volatility, which is higher in low income countries, is expected to persist in the medium term due to multiple global and domestic factors. Structural factors contributing to the volatility include rising populations and changing diets, increasingly intertwined relations between food and energy prices, and increasing production of biofuels.

On the other hand, a favorable outlook on supply and stocks is likely to relieve some of the pressure on global food prices. Latest forecasts show global wheat stocks reaching a 10-year high in 2011-12, global production of maize to rise by 4 percent from increased production in Argentina, Brazil, China, Russia, and Ukraine. Global rice output is also likely to get a boost in 2011-12 due to an expected bumper harvest in India following very favorable monsoon rains.

These production gains in some markets underscore the critical need to keep international markets open, to get food where it is needed, provide incentives to farmers who expand production, and avoid panic behavior created by export bans.

While a troubled global economy could dampen demand and push food prices down, the effect on developing countries would be mixed−hurting food exporting countries and poor producers in rural areas, and benefiting food importers and consumers. The problem, Food Price Watch warns, is that developing countries might have now limited resources to protect vulnerable populations following the economic crisis and stimulus spending.

In addition, fears associated with the global economy may affect medium to long-term investments in agricultural research and more productive agricultural techniques, especially amid persistent volatility.

Among the ongoing efforts to improve volatility-related information, the G-20 agriculture ministers introduced the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS), officially launched in September, to increase market transparency on the short-term global food outlook, especially stocks, and to identify abnormal international market conditions in order to prompt early responses.

How the World Bank Group is helping to put food first

• In the Horn of Africa, the World Bank Group is providing $1.88 billion to save lives, improve social protection, and foster economic recovery and drought resilience. More than 13 million people are affected by the crisis.

• A first-of-its-kind World Bank Group risk management product, provided by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), will enable up to $4 billion in protection from volatile food prices for farmers, food producers, and consumers in developing countries.

• The Global Food Crisis Response Program (GFRP) is helping some 40 million people through $1.5 billion in support.

• The World Bank Group is boosting its spending on agriculture to some $6 to $8 billion a year from $4.1 billion in 2008.

• Supporting the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), set up by the World Bank Group in April 2010 at G-20’s request, to assist country-led agriculture and food security plans and help promote investments in smallholder farmers. To date, six countries and the Gates Foundation have pledged about $971.5 million over the next three years, with $571 million received.

• The World Bank Group is coordinating with UN agencies through the High-Level task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis and with NGOs.

• The World Bank Group supports the Consultative Group for International Agriculture Research (CGIAR), which it helped to establish in 1971. In 2008, the CGIAR with the support of the World Bank and other donors launched a reform process, which culminated in the adoption of a comprehensive strategy that determines the new global research programs and a new funding model that prepares CGIAR to absorb and attract vastly more program funding, with a target annual budget of $1 billion by 2013, to which the World Bank contributes some $50 million per year. With agriculture production needing to rise some 70 percent by 2050, and with a five- to ten-year window to develop new varieties and get them to farmers, increased funding from the international community for global research is critical.

Contacts:
In Washington: Alejandra Viveros, (202) 473-4306, aviveros@worldbank.org
For Broadcast Requests: Natalia Cieslik, (202) 458-9369, ncieslik@worldbank.org

To access Food Price Watch, please click:

http://go.worldbank.org/26VBL9Q3F0

Food Price Watch author, Jose Cuesta will take part in World Bank Live online discussion about Global Food Prices on Tuesday, November 8 at 10:00 am EST (15:00 GMT). Participate and submit questions in advance here: http://live.worldbank.org/qa-global-food-prices-nov-2011

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Be updated via Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/worldbank
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Erle Frayne D. Argonza / Guru Ra
31 December 2011

A Happy New Year to all spiritual seekers, freethinkers, aspirants, mystics & gurus!

The Planetary Ascension is just 50 weeks and couples of days away as of this writing. Terrans just celebrated the last Christmas (Dec. 24/25) for the 3rd dimension/density history of the planet. Tonight will witness the last New Year’s Eve celebration, last because there just may be no such celebration by the end of 2012. Post-2012, a new calendar system would most likely be instituted, replacing the Gregorian calendar imposed by the Europeans on the planet.

As far as Terra is concerned, the readiness for the big leap forward is already at a 99% level. The 1% remaining works for the planet are those nitty gritty specifications that will ensure the Divine Plan’s execution for the planet to full throttle.

Consider the following phenomena: (a) the Christ Grid niched at the EMF (electromagnetic frequency) has been fully erected, thus enabling the quantum leap in consciousness that is now going on; (b) major and minor energy centers of the planet were already activated, aiding a quickening in energy balancing for all regions and the globe; and, (c) major and minor hyperspace portals were already opened, thus ensuring greater access to the planet from other regions of the Solar system and galaxy.

Many years earlier than those phenomena mentioned, the preparatory steps were already being done at higher levels of intelligences: (a) energy releases from the being-essence of the Planetary Logos, at the spiritual center in Shamballah, accelerating the energy balance all over the planet, circa 1930s onwards; (b) energy releases from the being-essence of Highest Divine Beings in the Central Spiritual Sun, reinforcing the burning down of negative energies and catalyzing the initiation processes of evolved souls towards Atmic (soul) awakening.

To further ensure greater maneuverability and manageability of planetary changes, the Almighty Father began intervention from the 1970s onwards. Timeline changes began taking shape, such as to witness certain land formations (e.g. California) still standing up squarely, even way after they were prophesied to sink below the sea waters. The intervention has been mitigating the catastrophic changes, so that the discontinuous high-level turbulence (prior to intervention), inclusive of radical land form changes, can be slowed down a bit and distributed widely across a thousand years perhaps.

In other words, those changes that can compress themselves into a 25-year squeeze ‘time crucible’ (from 12-21-2012 through 2037), can be distributed across wide latitudes of time and space. Catastrophic damages can therefore be minimized, while the surviving Terrans will be given sufficient lead time to prepare for the next scenarios of radical changes.

Which means that, right after the planetary space-mass expansion post-polar shift and leap to 4th dimension space, the new cities and global polity can be erected pronto. Nations and old polities will melt away during the most rapid shifts to new realities, which will then permit a greater viability of a global polity led by Ascended Beings, a center where all the post-nation cities will gravitate to—magnificent cities that will mushroom in highly planned fashion across the globe.

Meantime, the target of the Divine Beings and spiritual masters of a 20% survival, with the service-for-others criterion serving as core yardstick for qualification to the new world, is optimistically achievable. Mass initiation is now taking place across the planet that is catalyzing the awareness-raising of the most prepared in the Path. From the personal unconscious, the effect will be felt more and more as the days pass in the months ahead, effects that will then be realized at the conscious level, which at the least will end the polarity within, break down the social antipathies and estrangements, and ensure global cooperation efforts among the survivors.

I need not belabor the point that the (a) Evolutionary Laggards and (b) Demoniacs (negative persons) will be swept off to oblivion as a denouement of the global change. Their transfer to worlds fit for their own awareness levels has been going on, as the mass transshipment of souls of the dead ones among them have already begun since 2008 yet.

The way to the New Age of Light is now even more traversable, and so the birthing-to-infancy of the New Terra is expected to be a highly successful surgical operation by the Divine life-givers of all sentient beings. Welcome to the New Age of Light!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Effective ocean governance, ocean & coastal sustainability, blue-green development seem to be among the new clichés formed by experts in the development circles notably the international organizations. Westerners are particularly prone to ‘fetishism of the concept’ as the late sociologist C.Wright Mills noted the phenomenon (in his critique of Talcott Parsons), so this fetishism finds manifestation in the eco-development terrain quite expectedly.

The efforts towards the blueprinting of ocean & coastal sustainability has become an interagency effort. The first blueprint was just recently launched, which the drafters hope will enlighten stakeholders in the forthcoming eco-summit to be held in Brazil next June. Just exactly how far this blueprint will make impact remains to be seen, more so that cash-strapped Western nations are in a panic situation to salve their own backyards’ economic downturns and mal-adaptive tailspins, thus rendering the green agenda as second fiddle.

Below is a report about the said blueprint coming from the UNESCO media office.

[Philippines, 18 December 2011]

Source: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/launch_of_an_inter_agency_blueprint_for_ocean_and_coastal_sustainability/
Launch of an inter-agency blueprint for ocean and coastal sustainability
Cover, A blueprint for ocean and coastal sustainability: Interagency paper towards the preparation of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20)
The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, launched the inter-agency report Blueprint for Ocean and Coastal Sustainability, prepared by the UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), as a contribution to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) which will take place next June in Brazil.
The report contains 10 concrete proposals
• (i) to reduce stressors & restore the structure and function of marine ecosystems,
• (ii) that support the Blue-Green Economy,
• (iii) leading to Policy, Legal and Institutional Reforms for effective Ocean Governance, and finally
• (iv) supporting marine research, observation, technology and capacity transfer.
A number of delegates (Brazil, Australia, Monaco, India, France, Grenada on behalf of AOSIS, and Korea) delivered statements presenting their national priorities for Rio+20, stressing the need to provide political weight to ocean issues within the existing and future sustainable development agenda. The meeting was also addressed by H.E. M. Meetarbhan, Co-chair of UN Informal Process on Oceans (Mauritius) and Ms L. Inniss, Co-coordinator of the UN Group of Experts on the Regular Process for Reporting and Assessing the State of the Marine Environment.
Related links:
• Address by Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO (.pdf)
• Statement by Mr. Terence Moore, Secretary General of the Grenada National Commission on behalf of AOSIS (.pdf)
• Blueprint for Ocean and Coastal Sustainability
02.11.2011
Source: Natural Sciences Sector
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[See: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html]
A Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone else!
That I started with a goodwill greeting associated with the Christmas occasion doesn’t make me a church devotee of which I definitely am not. I have departed a long time ago yet from Catholic Church, my childhood church, though I am still sympathetic to some of its key doctrines of faith notably Vatican II.
On the other hand, not being a church devotee doesn’t make me any less a disciple of Jesus the Christed One. I am very much a disciple of Jesus and his team-mates of Ascended Beings, and I’d categorically declare that I am, in this respect, a Christian. It is for this reason that I do attune myself to the rituals of the Christians who are largely fanatical devotees of the Cult of Jesus which was officially dubbed as Christian Church in the generic sense.
So many fallacies and lies were propagated by the Jesusian cults (i.e. churches) over the past two (2) millennia, one of which is the contention that Jesus was born on the night of 24th of December. Nobody knows about the exact date when Jesus, the World Teacher, embodied and was born as an infant a full Age ago (1 Age = 2,150 years approximately). There are mystics today who claim that Jesus was born around the end of March, but as to the exact day of his birth (using the Gregorian calendar) no mystic had made a precise claim.
In the first place, the devotional practice of giving so much importance to the exact day of birth of a founding Master in its literal sense is purely this: blind fanaticism. Even if we presume that Jesus was born on the 24th of December, there is a greater underlying meaning behind his birth that the ordinary devotees and cult hierarchs have no knowledge about. But if only the cult devotees would look to numerology for some answers regarding the question of meaning, they would find fruitful answers via this method.
But as everybody realizes, Jesusians are bent on declaring that any contention that lies outside the church/cult dogmas is a work of the Devil. You could just imagine how many freethinkers and esoteric seekers may have been labeled with the ad hominem Devil by the Jesusian cultists (church goers), and it is no surprise that this writer had earned the ire of many such fanatical cultists such as his former university students. Well, the bad luck for the fanatics is that this is no Medieval Period, and so I could make the boldest claims to unmasking church lies without being accosted or burned at stake by fanatics. Also, I reside inside the University of the Philippines (Diliman) which is the ultimate bastion of freedom in the whole of Southeast Asia. My big city, Manila, is also the citadel of freedom in Asia, so no one would stone me to death or burn me alive anywhere here for being an iconoclast.
Now, let me go straight to the question of meaning. This interpretive task is a matter of deep exegesis, likened to interpreting a dream. As one who had studied semiotics (science of signs) via the behavioral sciences and esoteric philosophy, the task is easy just the same. Humans normally resort to rituals or ceremonies, and often the cycles of seasons and weather patterns evoke ideas that then translate into ritualizing engagements. Social relations produce thought, as the sociology of knowledge (cognitive sociology) had so succinctly declared as a social law. This is our starting point for our recondite reflection.
In the ancient past, the production of rituals was the chief task of the Shaman (babaylan in ancient Philippines). The shaman was the priest (or priestess), medicine man (or woman) or healer, white magician/alchemist (taps energies for beneficial purposes), mystic (bridge to the Divine Beings), and philosopher, all rolled into a single functionary. It is important to cite the shaman here, as we can best understand the significance of the ‘December 24 event’ by putting ourselves in the position of the Roman high priests (Rome’s own equivalent of shamans) and see what this intersubjective process can reveal to us.
Remember that the Roman shamans were, in ancient parlance, pagans. In today’s anthropological language, they were animists. As such, they represented a people that was so close to nature, and knew well the cycles of seasons. Like the shamans from other cultures, they had designed rituals for every kind of human activity conceivable. A child, before being born, is prayed for using mantrams and ceremonial rites, and then receives another ritual upon birth, and another ritual upon reaching puberty, and so on till death. Likewise did the seasons of both hemispheres receive equal treatment in terms of ritualization. Ditto to the cycles of pre-cultivation, cultivation, and post-harvest for food production (agriculture, horticulture). The Romans were into such practices, to emphatically mark our point here, more so that they were already city-builders and were of advanced caliber in knowledge and technological pursuits of their time; their shamans, likewise of the highest caliber.
Culled from above is the idea of ritualizing for the end of the autumn season and the beginning of the winter season in the Northern hemisphere. The significance of Christmas, of Jesus’ birth being assigned to the 24th of December, has a great deal to do with the autumn-to-winter interface (to use current terminology). Officially, the equalization of the patterns of autumn and winter is cognized as the Winter solstice, which falls on the 21st of December in the North (winter solstice in the south falls on the 21st of June, which is summer solstice in the North).
Even before Christianity was declared an official religion, without doubt the Romans were already in the habit of ritualizing the coming of Winter. No further research is needed to establish this. All of the ethnic communities in the Mediterranean for that matter held rituals signifying the start of Winter, and the inter-permeation of cultural elements by dint of cultural diffusion is responsible for the degree of homogenization of Winter ritual patterns in the same area. Which means that the Latins (Romans), Etruscans, Greeks, Hamites, Semites, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Iberians shared more or less similar traits in their Winter rituals, the most focal being that they all celebrated Winter solstice in certain ways.
The question now is, what is the deeper significance of December the 24th other than that it marks the 3rd day after the Winter solstice? And why the 3rd day after the solstice was declared as the ‘birth of Jesus’ by the new rising religion, the Cult of Jesus (Christianity)? Why not simply assign the 21st of December as the day of his birth, which will make the birthday identical to the 1st day of winter (the 21st)?
As to the date, the 3rd day after the solstice, a note: 3 is the number of Trinity (Father, Son, Spirit) in Christology. In numerology (Indian and Pythagorean systems), 3 denotes creativity, productivity, motion, action, activity. The two semiotic sets do converge. Instead of copying the solstice day as D’ Day, the ancient shamans (who were the new bishops and priests of the Jesusian cult) decided that it would be more appropriate to indicate the Trinitarian power in the date, which makes the 24th rather than the 21st as the top candidate. For a numerologist, the day makes sense, in that declaring a creative-dynamic signification on a winter’s season, which is a season of rest or motionlessness, generates a sense of balance of the action-rest duality (yin-yang in the East).
Not only that. It would also make greater sense for the devotees or blind fanatics (a redundancy really, because devotee and fanatic are identical) if the date of birth would be on a day other than the 21st which most Mediterraneans and Northerners already celebrate. The ‘uniqueness criterion’ is an important element in decision-making, and by using this criterion means that the 24th of December made the Jesusians or Jesuits (church fanatics) a unique people who created rituals outside of the common ritual templates. That is, the 24th of December rendered the fanatics the illusion of uniqueness, which made them rest on solid psychological grounds: they need not defend any longer that they were copy-cat folks.
Now, that leads us to the next idea: converging the ‘uniqueness’ element with the ‘chosen people’ eschatological belief present in all religions and cultures. Supposedly, Jesus was the harbinger of the new idea that the ‘gentiles’ (literally the ‘outsiders’ of a chosen people who were the Jews) were themselves a ‘chosen people’ and not outsiders or outcaste. The Jesusian cult has now given the fanatics not only a sense of uniqueness, but also declared that such a uniqueness reclined in their being the ‘chosen ones’. The time for the old chosen ones has ended, and a new chosen one has begun in mandate.
You could just imagine the ecstatic impact that such a convergence of ideas could produce among the erstwhile herds of fanatics, who for many centuries were loathsome outsiders in the civilizational game. They were the barbarians & savages of the previous ages, the outsiders who were recognized best for their destructive propensities. Now they are the co-creators or co-producers of the Divine Spheres or God (co-creation signified by number 3), the next harbingers of civilization. And true indeed, the former barbarians, who were mainly Europeans, felt this mission so strongly in their psyche that for many centuries thereafter they scoured the earth for ‘heathens’ who would be converts to their idea of civility, of being cultured, progressive, rational, and humanist.
Of course, the psychological mood or theme evoked by the entire ritualizing of birth in the 24th is Hope: that Jesus was the embodiment of hope, that there was finally hope for the Europeans who for centuries were heathen slaves. Of course, it was the greatest psychological victory for the Latins (Romans & sister tribes) in as much as they were then the center of civilization world-wide. The 24th also gave the same Europeans the same sense of hope at a time of hopelessness and despair that were evoked by the cyclical winter season.
Cultivating the seed of creativity, activity, uniqueness and hope, all converging within a common seed-idea—the birthing of the Ascended Master Jesus and bestowing him with the role of Begotten Son of the Father God—and planting this in the psyche of Europeans is among the most profound developments in the genetic seeding and improvement of the Europeans themselves. True indeed, and humanity better accept this, no matter how destructive may have been the methods employed by European powers in their conquests, the Torch of Civility for the entire Piscean Age was vested in the European. Their time had come 2000+ years ago, and no force on Earth could stop that.
2000+ years ago, the seed of that historic mission of the Europeans was planted, concocted, congealed in thought, which then permeated right deep into their Collective Unconscious, which eventually got implanted in their genes. For the Collective Unconscious, which belongs to the Electromagnetic Field or EMF, interfaces directly with the biophysical, and that to induce changes in the EMF will likewise result to corresponding changes in the bio-physical dimension. The changes, in other words, will be planted as genetic traits that will govern the actions of the people concerned in the long run.
That, dearest readers, is the significance of the (night of) 24th of December. The mission of the Europeans has now been optimized, after the full Age of Pisces. Likewise the mission of Jesus: to carry on his shoulders for 2000+ years the collective karma of Earth’s humanity. The European-Jesusian missions are now over, and the Torch is now being passed on to the peoples of the East, particularly to the Pacific Asians. But this new development, which will be the definitive development of the Age of Aquarius, is another thing. Suffice me at this moment to say: I’ve shared my thoughts about the deep significance of the 24th of December, by resorting to an archeology of the psyche and soul.
A Merry Christmas again to you all! May my love for all Jesusian cultists be re-declared here, please accept my goodwill for you all. May you all evolve in spirit! Let’s all chant the mantram: Jesus is Love! Jesus is Love! Jesus is Love!

[Writ 14 December 2007, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

The United Nations Development Program had released the 2011 report on Human Development. Gladly, the peace-sponsoring nation of Norway topped the human development ranking worldwide. Sadly, the struggling republic of Congo was the last.

Let me express my own Big Kudos! to the people of Norway and all of the stakeholders involved that made possible the exemplary feat as the global model for human development. Improving health (longevity), literacy (education) and gender disparity (gender empowerment) are what makes a nation truly developed and great as the Norwegian case exemplifies.

Bullying other nations and encumbering them in debt peonage, as what the United States had steadfastly shown, can never make a country rank as tops, but only top for hegemonism. As the ranking has shown, the USA in fact fell from No. 4 to No. 23 due to yawning gap between rich and poor.

Sad and tragic for Congo, a nation that has a wonderful history of culture-building in antiquity. European domination shaved off everything great and grand that Congo built for centuries, nay rendered Congo into a basketcase of failed state. Let us hope that the developing countries of Africa and Asia would lend a hand for the DR Congo to help it salve its ailments of bad governance, fragmentary political culture and national identity, and radically solve poverty.

Below is a summary report from the UNDP about the 2011 human development assessment.

[Philippines, 17 December 2011]

Source: http://www.beta.undp.org/undp/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2011/11/02/2011-human-development-index-norway-at-top-dr-congo-last.html
2011 Human Development Index: Norway at top, DR Congo last
02 November 2011

(Photo: ©UNDP/Arantxa Cedillo)
Index covers record 187 countries and territories; inequalities lower HDI rankings for US, Republic of Korea, others
Copenhagen—Norway, Australia and the Netherlands lead the world in the 2011 Human Development Index (HDI), while the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger and Burundi are at the bottom of the Human Development Report’s annual rankings of national achievement in health, education and income, released today by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The United States, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Germany and Sweden round out the top 10 countries in the 2011 HDI, but when the Index is adjusted for internal inequalities in health, education and income, some of the wealthiest nations drop out of the HDI’s top 20: the United States falls from #4 to #23, the Republic of Korea from #15 to #32, and Israel from #17 to #25.
The United States and Israel drop in the Report’s Inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI) mainly because of income inequality, though health care is also a factor in the US ranking change, while wide education gaps between generations detract from the Republic of Korea’s IHDI performance.
Other top national achievers rise in the IHDI due to greater relative internal equalities in health, education and income: Sweden jumps from #10 to #5, Denmark climbs from #16 to #12, and Slovenia rises from #21 to #14.
The IHDI and two other composite indices—the Multidimensional Poverty Index and the Gender Inequality Index—were designed to complement the Human Development Report’s HDI, which is based on national averages in schooling, life expectancy, and per capita income. The 2011 HDI covers a record 187 countries and territories, up from 169 in 2010, reflecting in part improved data availability for many small island states of the Caribbean and the Pacific. The 2011 country rankings are therefore not comparable to the 2010 Report’s HDI figures, the authors note.
“The Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index helps us assess better the levels of development for all segments of society, rather than for just the mythical ‘average’ person,” said Milorad Kovacevic, chief statistician for the Human Development Report. “We consider health and education distribution to be just as important in this equation as income, and the data show great inequities in many countries.”
The 2011 Report—Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All—notes that income distribution has worsened in most of the world, with Latin America remaining the most unequal region in income terms, even though several countries including Brazil and Chile are narrowing internal income gaps. Yet in overall IHDI terms, including life expectancy and schooling, Latin America is more equitable than sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia, the Report shows.
To assess income distribution, as well as varying levels of life expectancy and schooling within national populations, the IHDI uses methodology developed by the renowned British economist Sir Anthony Barnes Atkinson. “We use the Atkinson approach to measure inequalities in health, education and income, because it is more sensitive to changes at the lower end of the scale than the more familiar Gini coefficient,” Kovacevic said.
Average HDI levels have risen greatly since 1970—41 percent globally and 61 percent in today’s low-HDI countries—reflecting major overall gains in health, education and income. The 2011 HDI charts progress over five years to show recent national trends: 72 nations moved up in rank from 2006 to 2011, led by Cuba (+10 to #51), Venezuela and Tanzania (+7 each to #73 and #152, respectively), while another 72 fell in rank, including
Kuwait (-8 to #63) and Finland (-7 to #22).
The 10 countries that place last in the 2011 HDI are all in sub-Saharan Africa: Guinea, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Chad, Mozambique, Burundi, Niger, and the Democratic Republic of
the Congo.
Despite recent progress, these low-HDI nations still suffer from inadequate incomes, limited schooling opportunities, and life expectancies far below world averages due in great part to deaths from preventable and treatable diseases such as malaria and AIDS. In many, these problems are compounded by the destructive legacy of armed conflict. In the lowest-ranking country in the 2011 HDI, the Democratic Republic of
the Congo, more than three million people died from warfare and conflict-linked illness in recent years, prompting the largest peacekeeping operation in UN history.
Gender Inequality Index
The Gender Inequality Index (GII) shows that Sweden leads the world in gender equality, as measured by this composite index of reproduce-tive health, years of schooling, parliamentary representation, and participation in the labour market. Sweden is followed in the gender inequality rankings by the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Germany, Singapore, Iceland and France.
Yemen ranks as the least equitable of the 146 countries in the GII, followed by Chad, Niger, Mali, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, Liberia, Central African Republic and Sierra Leone. In Yemen, just 7.6 percent of women have a secondary education, compared to 24.4 percent for men; women hold
just 0.7 percent of seats in the legislature; and only 20 percent of working-age women are in the paid work force, compared to 74 percent of men.
“In sub-Saharan Africa the biggest losses arise from gender disparities in education and from high maternal mortality and adolescent fertility rates,” the Report’s authors write. “In South Asia, women lag behind men in each dimension of the GII, most notably in education, national parliamentary representation and labour force participation. Women in Arab states are affected by unequal labour force participation (around half the global average) and low educational attainment.”
Multidimensional Poverty Index
The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) examines factors at the family level—such as access to clean water and cooking fuel and health services, as well as basic household goods and home construction standards—that together provide a fuller portrait of poverty than income measurements alone.
Some 1.7 billion people in 109 countries lived in ‘multidimensional’ poverty in the decade ending in 2010, by the MPI calculus, or almost a third of the countries’ entire combined population of 5.5 billion. That compares to the
1.3 billion people estimated to live on US$1.25 a day or less, the measure used in the UN Millennium Development Goals, which seeks to eradicate “extreme” poverty by 2015.
Niger has the highest share of multidimensionally poor, at 92 percent of the population, the Report says, followed by Ethiopia and Mali, with 89 percent and 87 percent, respectively. The 10 poorest nations as measured by the MPI are all in sub-Saharan Africa. But the largest group of multidimensionally poor is South Asian: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have some of the highest absolute numbers of MPI poor.
The MPI provides insight into environmental problems in the poorest households, including indoor air pollution and disease from contaminated water supplies. The Report notes that in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, more than 90 percent of the multidimensionally poor cannot afford clean cooking fuel, relying principally on firewood, while some 85 percent lack basic sanitation services.
ABOUT THE Human Development Index (HDI): The HDI has been published annually since the first Human Development Report in 1990 as an alternative measurement of national development, challenging purely economic assessments of progress such as Gross Domestic Product. HDI rankings are recalculated annually using the latest internationally comparable data for health, education and income. The Inequality adjusted HDI (IHDI) was introduced along with the Gender Inequality Index (GII) and Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) in last year’s Human Development Report to complement the original HDI, which as a composite measure of national averages does not reflect internal inequalities. Due to data limitations these composite indexes do not gauge other factors considered equally essential elements of human development, such as civic engagement, environmental sustainability or the quality of education and health standards.
ABOUT THIS REPORT: The annual Human Development Report is an editorially independent publication of the United Nations Development Programme. For free downloads of the 2011 Human Development Report in ten languages, plus additional reference materials on its indices and specific regional implications, please visit: http://hdr.undp.org.
ABOUT UNDP: UNDP partners with people at all levels of society to help build nations that can withstand crisis, and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. On the ground in 177 countries and territories, we offer global perspective and local insight to help empower lives and build resilient nations. Please visit: www.undp.org
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Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Does G20 protect people? If so, up to what extent do people matter to the aggrupation of the world’s wealthiest nations? If in case the G20 does protect its own people, does such protection apply to the people of its aid clientele countries?

People not things matter most, says a famous line from the legendary Mao Tsetung of China’s revolutionaries. A populist line, it has been refined today in more technical terms as ‘human development’ index. Aid agencies have seemed to lag behind in capturing the populist fever that has been engulfing the planet over the last seven (7) decades, but they do make adjustments as their very own relevance determines their survival chances.

Below is a reportage from the World Bank about what its president Robert Zoellick had said about the subject.

[Philippines, 16 December 2011]

Source: http://www.devex.com/en/blogs/the-development-newswire/robert-zoellick-g20-should-protect-people-too-not-just-systems
Robert Zoellick: G20 Should Protect People Too, Not Just Systems
Posted by Ivy Mungcal on 02 November 2011 07:59:57 AM
The G-20 summit in France this week should focus on identifying measures to make the world safer for people and not just financial systems, said World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who is expected to attend the Nov. 3 and 4 meeting of officials from the world’s top 20 economies and representatives from leading international organizations.
“They need to recognize that developing countries are now a key source of solutions to the world and then opportunity with the right investments and policies,” Zoellick said at a Nov. 1 teleconference with reporters.
This is one of three calls to actions Zoellick made during the teleconference. He also urged G-20 countries to follow through on the latest European plan to solve the debt crisis in the region and to channel more into job and growth strategies.
On protecting the most vulnerable people in developing countries while maximizing these economies’ potential to lift the global economy, Zoellick identified three areas the G-20 can focus their support on: food security, infrastructure development and policy reform.
“These are not peripheral issues and especially in a fragile and crisis-prone world where–needs of human safety nets as well as financial safety nets,” Zoellick stressed.
Read more development aid news online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive top international development headlines from the world’s leading donors, news sources and opinion leaders — emailed to you FREE every business day.
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Erle Frayne D. Argonza

It seems that Egypt has become a catch basin for expatriates who were chased by the ghosts of the conflicts in Tunisia and Libya. The latter conflict has been particularly traumatizing, so a little empathy from any observer will lead to the conclusion that any migrant that sought shelter in neighboring countries wouldn’t eye going back to the source of that trauma.

Many migrants who escaped from the Libya crisis were actually Eqyptians, and so it pays to know the consequences of the conflict on them. They left Egypt for greener pastures, and were then unexpectedly yanked out of their productive pursuits in their host country to return empty-handed aside from tagging along the spectre of traumas that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Below is a briefer on the subject from the IOM.

[Philippines, 29 November 2011]

Source: http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/media/press-briefing-notes/pbnAF/cache/offonce/lang/en?entryId=30892

IOM Survey Finds Egyptian Migrants Returning from Libya in Need of Assistance to Start New Life

Posted on Tuesday, 01-11-2011

Egypt – An IOM survey on the socio-economic profile and needs of Egyptian migrants who have returned home because of the crisis in Libya reveals that most of them require support to restart their lives in Egypt.
The survey is based on a questionnaire distributed randomly to 1,283 Egyptian migrant workers during their evacuation from Tunisia and Misurata to Egypt and on focus group discussions organized by IOM in the Upper Egypt Governorate of Fayoum from where many of the migrants came and have returned to. Additional data from this survey was also obtained from the Egyptian Ministry of Manpower and Emigration.
The study confirms that the crisis in Libya, which triggered the return of an estimated 200,000 Egyptian migrant workers, continues to have a negative impact on poor and vulnerable families and communities, especially in chronically food insecure areas such as the Fayoum Governorate. Most respondents were semi-skilled adult males who said they had been supporting dependants through remittances, which have now dried up.
When asked about the future, 75% of respondents said they intended to remain in Egypt and seek work or start-up businesses. In some cases, the decision to remain in Egypt was linked to hopes that socio-economic development will take place alongside Egypt’s political transition. In other cases, returnees said that the trauma and suffering they had experienced or witnessed as they fled Libya influenced their decisions to remain in Egypt.
Despite different motivations, the majority of those who preferred to remain in Egypt said they needed assistance to access financial services and assistance to start-up or reactivate their businesses. The survey found that financial assistance to start private enterprises was largely preferred over additional education and training because of the need for immediate access to income.
Prior to the crisis, Libya was an important source of employment for between 1 and 1.5 million Egyptians who remitted an estimated 33 million USD every year.
The survey is available online at: http://www.egypt.iom.int/publications.htm
For further information please contact:
Mathieu Luciano
IOM Egypt
Tel: +202 273 651 40/1 Ext. 391
+20 101 62 555 00
E-mail: mluciano@iom.int

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Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Do people’s choices count at all in the setting of development goals, whether these be the broadest compass of change or the typical short-term palliatives by erstwhile technocrats? This is a big question in today’s globalizing context where over 7 billion people are spread out across a rapidly urbanizing planet.

Expanding people’s choices is a matter of human capacitation, just to make this real clear. It isn’t just letting them line up during poll day and choose leaders as well as political parties on the basis of the convincing power of campaign ads and bylines, which is old hat choice-making.

Expanding people’s choices is a matter of increasing individuation, while hauling them to poll stations is a matter of cowherd-reinforcing manipulative behavior. The former is emancipatory in nature, while the latter is encumbering.

Let us review the subject from the reportage of the UNDP below.

[Philippines, 28 November 2011]

Source: http://www.beta.undp.org/undp/en/home/ourperspective/ourperspectivearticles/2011/11/02/ultimate-goal-of-development-expand-peoples-choices.html

Ultimate goal of development? Expand peoples’ choices
02 Nov 2011
Finding ways to make human development progress truly sustainable for the seven billion people who now live on our planet and for generations to come is a central challenge of the 21st century. The international community must find pathways to development which maintain ecosystem balance and reduce inequalities.
This year’s Human Development Report asks whether we can expect the positive trends of the last forty years to continue and improvements to be sustained for the people who will live on this planet over the next four decades. The report warns that some 1.7 billion people in 109 countries are living in ‘multidimensional’ poverty. According to the report, escalating environmental hazards threaten to slow or reverse the notable progress in human development of previous decades.
The impact in the worst case scenario is projected to be worse for countries which are low on the Human Development Index (HDI), leading to widening inequalities between high HDI and low HDI countries.
Key Messages of the Human Development Report
1 The most vulnerable suffer a double burden: They are more affected by environmental degradation and are less resilient towards its resulting threats such as unclean water, indoor air pollution from unhealthy cooking and poor sanitation.
2 Patterns of inequity and unsustainability are shaped by disparities in power at the global and national levels. For example, at the global level the voice of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) must work hard to be heard in climate change negotiations even though they are among the most affected.
3 Financing for environmental and social protection needs to increase. New public financing mechanisms such as a currency transaction tax could generate substantial revenues for development – just 0.005 per cent imposed on currency trading would yield some $40 billion annually.
This year’s Report offers new insights on how to move human development forward and overcome the inequity and unsustainability which currently constrain its advance. It highlights the positive synergies which exist between greater equity and sustainability and which offer win-win-win solutions for achieving both. For example, investments in access to renewable energy, clean water, and improved sanitation will advance equity, sustainability, and human development. Stronger accountability and democratic processes can also improve outcomes. Successful approaches rely on community management of natural resources, inclusive institutions which pay attention to disadvantaged groups, and cross-cutting approaches which co-ordinate budgets and mechanisms across government agencies and development partners.
It also reminds us again that tackling poverty and advancing human development is about more than lifting income.
Talk to us: How can we make human development more sustainable & equal for everyone?
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