BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION INITIATIVES

BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION INITIATIVES

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

11 developing countries, including emerging markets, have just taken off with their respective programs as impetus for biodiversity conservation.

It has been a daunting task, since the advent of modernity, to return to biodiversity in farming practices. Modern food production celebrated the specialized land-use and high-yield mono-crop varieties at the expense of natural soil fertility offered by biodiversity.

A return to time-honored traditional practices in farming and eco-management is today’s sine qua non to effective environmental balancing acts. Incidentally, there are models around the world to emulate concerning biodiversity in food production.

Below is a report on the joint initiative of Japan and the UNDP concerning biodiversity conservation.

[Philippines, 10 July 2011]

http://www.beta.undp.org/undp/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2011/06/27/japan-undp-team-up-for-local-biodiversity-conservation.html

Japan, UNDP team up for local biodiversity conservation

27 June 2011

Communities in 11 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe are to receive small grants to put into practice biodiversity-friendly natural resource management and farming systems.

Rural communities in Brazil, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Grenada, Fiji, India, Malawi, Nepal, Slovakia and Turkey will recapture and apply time-honoured agro-ecological practices, learn new techniques and exchange knowledge on traditional farming systems and the conservation of biodiversity and natural resources.

The Satoyama Initiative, adopted at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), is named after the traditional landscape resulting from application of a suite of traditional, sustainable resource management practices perfected over centuries by communities in Japan. This mosaic of mixed forests, rice paddies, upland rice fields, grasslands, streams and ponds is called “satoyama”. The variety of habitats ensures higher numbers of species, and the farming systems themselves conserve crop diversity, water and soil fertility, while stabilizing income and food security.

Today, the Government of Japan and UNDP launched the partnership agreement to promote the Satoyama vision and practices in selected countries.

“Working in 176 countries and territories, we learned that local communities have developed often unique ways of farming and use of resources that provide food and livelihood without damaging the environment,” said Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator.

“We’re grateful to the Government of Japan for their continued support to the interlinked challenges of poverty, biodiversity, and climate change at the time of their own recovery from the devastating tsunami.”

This five-year partnership programme for Satoyama Initiative provides US$2 million through the Convention’s Japan Biodiversity Fund to support communities during the first year to implement best practices and share knowledge.

“Japan recognizes the significance of local knowledge for resource management and farming in the international effort to ensure environmental sustainability. This collaboration is the flagship programme of the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative,” said Ryu Matsumoto, Minister of Environment of Japan.

Small grants for community-based projects will be disbursed through the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme and other UNDP-supported small grants schemes.

The CBD Secretariat will work with UNDP to analyze the impacts of Satoyama activities and use this knowledge to feed the current international policy debate with respect to the Biodiversity Convention. UNDP, with the United Nations University, will use the lessons from this programme to replicate and upscale successful experiences to other communities around the world.

Prior to collaborating on the Satoyama Initiative, Japan and UNDP have partnered on a number of initiatives, for example, the Africa Adaptation Programme, which supports 20 African countries to adapt to climate change and embark on low-emission, climate-resilient development paths.

UNDP will continue to advocate the use of sustainability strategies in the fight against biodiversity loss, climate change and poverty at next year’s major international conferences, including Rio+20, to be held in Brazil in June and Biodiversity COP11 in India.

Contact Information

Stanislav Saling
stanislav.saling@undp.org
+1 212 9065296

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HIV LEGISLATION IN LATIN AMERICA: BAMBOOZLING HIV CARRIERS WON’T WORK!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good day from the Pearl of the Orient!

Officials from 18 Latin American countries recently convened in Brazil to tackle HIV legislation. The Latin countries seem to have arrived at a consensus regarding HIV and how it should be managed.

Such a move is surely a most welcome one. Given the divergent perceptions about HIV, regional-to-continental consensus could somehow help country stakeholders in reshaping their frameworks, understanding HIV, and addressing the problems more equitably and judiciously.

Latin America is surely a continent that is worth watching in regard to concrete intervention measures on HIV with the proper legislative frameworks and public policies in place. There is yet a gestation period to wait till the consensus will take off as concrete interventions, though so far the consensus-building exercise is already a very productive one worth other regions’ emulation.

Below is a UNDP report on the HIV convention in Brazil.

[Philippines, 10 July 2011]

Source: http://www.beta.undp.org/undp/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2011/06/29/officials-experts-call-for-better-hiv-law-action-in-latin-america.html

Officials, experts call for better HIV law, action in Latin America

29 June 2011

Sao Paolo, Brazil — Eighty-nine officials and experts from 18 Latin American countries concluded two days of talks here Monday calling for an end to violence and discrimination against people living with HIV and better access to potentially life-saving HIV treatments.

“It is no coincidence that the Global Commission on HIV & the Law is convening its regional dialogue in Brazil,” Heraldo Munoz, Director of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) Regional Bureau for Latin America & the Caribbean, told a Global Commission on HIV & the Law Regional Dialogue here June 26-27.

“Brazil’s commitment to respecting human rights and addressing the underlying inequalities that fuel the epidemic has set their HIV prevention and treatment efforts apart from those of many other countries and, most importantly, have led to tangible reductions in infection rates.”

Representatives from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela all took part in the fourth of seven regional dialogues convened by UNDP on behalf of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

The discussions, moderated by former CNN Español journalist Jorge Gestoso, will inform deliberations by the Global Commission on HIV & the Law. A town hall-style format aims to foster genuine dialogue in which all participants may share experiences, views, and concerns and identify innovative ways in which law and policy can effectively contribute to achieving better HIV, health, and development outcomes.

“If we don’t confront the uncomfortable inequalities, injustices, and stigmatizing norms of our societies and institutions which have been long denied, our fragile HIV and development gains will be lost and the cost—human and financial—will exact a terrible toll, which could have been prevented,” Commissioner Ana Elena Chacon Ecchevaria of Costa Rica said.

Participants concluded that:

• Countries must invest in implementing laws to protect people who are stigmatized, discriminated against, and criminalized

• Criminalization of people living with HIV—including women, youths, male, female, and transgender sex workers, and gay and transgender people—remains a barrier to effective HIV responses and is linked to increased violence experienced by these groups

• Violence against people living with HIV—including women, youths, male, female, and transgender sex workers, and gay and transgender people—remains a major barrier to effective HIV responses and must be stopped, with zero tolerance for police violence

• Where laws are causing harm and legal contradictions result in increased vulnerability and human rights violations, these laws must be changed

• Religious and cultural influences on laws and law enforcement that result in greater HIV vulnerability and risk must stop

• Intellectual property law and policy must not impede universal access to life-saving anti-retroviral treatment

Although UNAIDS says that HIV is a relatively stable epidemic in Latin America, the number of people living with HIV increased from 1.1 million to 1.4 million, from 2001 to 2009. Key populations such as men who have sex with men, trans people, sex workers, and drug users continue to experience much higher rates of HIV than the general population. One-third of all HIV-positive people in the region live in Brazil, and an estimated 550,000 women are living with HIV in Latin America.

“If laws are not able to express a modern thought, that is humane, a thought that takes into account human rights and eliminates repressive policies and practices, we will not see progress in HIV and development,” former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, chair of the Global Commission on HIV & the Law, noted in his remarks.

Contact Information

Sarah Jackson-Han
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-Washington
+1 202 331 9130 tel.
+1 202 674 7442 mobile
+1 202 907 4613 mobile #2
sarah.jackson-han@undp.org
http://www.us.undp.org/

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UPDATE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, PH AT MEDIUM SCORE

UPDATE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, PH AT MEDIUM SCORE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

In the latest UNDP report on human development, 169 countries were evaluated and scored accordingly. Four general ranking scales were employed and countries properly fit based on their scores, to note: Very High Human Development, High Human Development, Medium Human Development, and Low Human Development.

My country the Philippines was ranked No. 99, and was classed among the Medium Human Development countries. After two (2) decades or so of UNDP, PH remains at the medium HD level, and so the message is clear here: work harder to graduate to High HD level.

The industrialized countries happen to comprise the core of the Very High HD. That is indicative enough of their greatest formula for achieving developed country status before the 2^nd world war yet: their successes in capacity-building. A well-capacitated work force redounds to high productivity, high value-added indices, and high incomes.

The ranking is shown in the table below.

[Philippines, 10 July 2011]

Source: http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/

Human Development Index (HDI) - 2010 Rankings

Very High Human Development Norway Australia New Zealand United States Ireland Liechtenstein Netherlands Canada Sweden Germany Japan Korea (Republic of) Switzerland France Israel Finland Iceland Belgium Denmark Spain Hong Kong, China (SAR) Greece Italy Luxembourg Austria United Kingdom Singapore Czech Republic Slovenia Andorra Slovakia United Arab Emirates Malta Estonia Cyprus Hungary Brunei Darussalam Qatar Bahrain Portugal Poland Barbados

High Human Development Bahamas Lithuania Chile Argentina Kuwait Latvia Montenegro Romania Croatia Uruguay Cuba* Palau* Libya Panama Saudi Arabia Mexico Malaysia Bulgaria Trinidad and Tobago Serbia Belarus Costa Rica Peru Albania Russian Federation Kazakhstan Azerbaijan Bosnia and Herzegovina Ukraine Iran (Islamic Republic of) The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Mauritius Brazil Georgia Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) Armenia Ecuador Belize Colombia Jamaica Tunisia Jordan Turkey Algeria Tonga

Medium Human Development Fiji Turkmenistan Dominican Republic China El Salvador Sri Lanka Thailand Gabon Suriname Occupied Palestinian Territory* Bolivia (Plurinational State of) Paraguay Philippines Botswana Moldova (Republic of) Mongolia Egypt Uzbekistan Micronesia (Federated States of) Guyana Namibia Honduras Maldives Indonesia Kyrgyzstan South Africa Syrian Arab Republic Tajikistan Viet Nam Morocco Nicaragua Guatemala Equatorial Guinea Cape Verde India Timor-Leste Swaziland Lao People's Democratic Republic Solomon Islands Cambodia Pakistan Congo São Tomé and Príncipe

Low Human Development Kenya Bangladesh Ghana Cameroon Myanmar Yemen Benin Madagascar Mauritania Papua New Guinea Nepal Togo Comoros Lesotho Nigeria Uganda Senegal Haiti Angola Djibouti Tanzania (United Republic of) Côte d'Ivoire Zambia Gambia Rwanda Malawi Sudan Afghanistan Guinea Ethiopia Sierra Leone Central African Republic Mali Burkina Faso Liberia Chad Guinea-Bissau Mozambique Burundi Niger Congo (Democratic Republic of the) Zimbabwe

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HUMAN DEVELOPMENT WORLDWIDE ON UPSWING

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT WORLDWIDE ON UPSWING

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Two (2) decades ago the United Nations Development Program or UNDP released a new ‘social technology’ for measuring development. The overall methodoly & tool has been known as the Human Development Index or HDI.

The HDI, from its very inception, looked at measures of development other than the stereotype economic growth indices: GNP, GDP, GDP per capita. Among the novel measures that it introduced are: (a) health, measured thru longevity; (b) education, measured thru literacy rates; and, (c) gender parity, thru the gender empowerment measurement or GEM.

After two (2) decades of consistent assessments and evaluations of nations using the HDI, we hear the gladdening news straight from the UNDP that human development has been improving. However, developing countries or DCs shouldn’t be complacent and leave everything to natural processes, just because their respective HDIs are improving.

The specific country HDIs should serve as yardsticks and alarm bells for country stakeholders—state, market, civil society—to act upon. The message is clear hence: that infrastructures and natural resources alone do not make a country developed.

77% of development requisites are in the nature of human & social capital, which requires heavy investments in human development as a whole. Institutional development and capacity-building are the keys to waging a successful campaign to accelerate human development.

Below is the latest capsule summary of the UNDP regarding HDI.

[Philippines, 10 July 2011]

Source: http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2010/summary/

Summary - The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development

“People are the real wealth of a nation.” With these words the 1990 Human Development Report began a forceful case for a new approach to thinking about development. That the objective of development should be to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives may appear self-evident today. But that has not always been the case. A central objective of the Report for the past 20 years has been to emphasize that development is primarily and fundamentally about people.

This year’s Report celebrates the contributions of the human development approach, which is as relevant as ever to making sense of our changing world and finding ways to improve people’s well-being. Indeed, human development is an evolving idea—not a fixed, static set of precepts—and as the world changes, analytical tools and concepts evolve. So this Report is also about how the human development approach can adjust to meet the challenges of the new millennium.

The past 20 years have seen substantial progress in many aspects of human development. Most people today are healthier, live longer, are more educated and have more access to goods and services. Even in countries facing adverse economic conditions, people’s health and education have greatly improved. And there has been progress not only in improving health and education and raising income, but also in expanding people’s power to select leaders, influence public decisions and share knowledge.

Yet not all sides of the story are positive. These years have also seen increasing inequality— both within and across countries— as well as production and consumption patterns that have increasingly been revealed as unsustainable. Progress has varied, and people in some regions—such as Southern Africa and the former Soviet Union—have experienced periods of regress, especially in health. New vulnerabilities require innovative public policies to confront risk and inequalities while harnessing dynamic market forces for the benefit of all.

Addressing these issues requires new tools. In this Report we introduce three measures to the Report family of indices—the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the Gender Inequality Index and the Multidimensional Poverty Index. These state-of-the-art measures incorporate recent advances in theory and measurement and support the centrality of inequality and poverty in the human development framework. We introduce these experimental series with the intention of stimulating reasoned public debate beyond the traditional focus on aggregates.

Today’s challenges also require a new policy outlook. While there are no silver bullets or magic potions for human development, some policy implications are clear. First, we cannot assume that future development will mimic past advances: opportunities today and in the future are greater in many respects. Second, varied experiences and specific contexts preclude overarching policy prescriptions and point towards more general principles and guidelines. Third, major new challenges must be addressed—most prominently, climate change.

Many challenges lie ahead. Some are related to policy: development policies must be based on the local context and sound overarching principles; numerous problems go beyond the capacity of individual states and require democratically accountable global institutions. There are also implications for research: deeper analysis of the surprisingly weak relationship between economic growth and improvements in health and education and careful consideration of how the multidimensionality of development objectives affects development thinking are just two examples.

HEALTH & CLIMATE CHANGE

HEALTH & CLIMATE CHANGE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

How does climate change dovetail into health, hygiene, and public policy concerns regarding healthcare?

The impact of climate change is surely very complex a matter, as it involves many intervening factors affecting epidemiology and ailments. Health perspectives must, first of all, be re-tooled to constitute emerging paradigms about the matter.

Below is an update report by the development group eldis.org. Country cases showing climate change impact on health are incorporated.

[Philippines, 08 July 2011]

ELDIS HEALTH REPORTER
5 July 2011
Source: http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health

In this issue:

1. Predicting and mapping malaria under climate change scenarios: the potential redistribution of malaria vectors in Africa
2. A human health perspective on climate change
3. Impacts of climate change on public health in India: future research directions
4. The implications of climate change for health in Africa

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Predicting and mapping malaria under climate change scenarios: the potential redistribution of malaria vectors in Africa

Authors: EZ Tonnang,Henri; YM Kangalawe,Richard; Z Yanda,Pius
Produced by: Malaria Journal, BioMed Central (2010)

This paper, published in the Malaria Journal, posits that malaria is rampant in Africa and causes untold mortality and morbidity. Since vector-borne diseases such as malaria are climate sensitive, the authors argue that this fact raises considerable concern over the implications of climate change on future disease risk, as malaria vectors (Anopheles mosquitoes) may shift from their traditional locations to invade new zones.

Exploiting the sets of information previously generated by entomologists, e.g. on geographical ranges of vectors and malaria distribution, the authors build models that will enable prediction and mapping the potential redistribution of Anopheles mosquitoes in Africa.

Key findings of this study are:

• Shifts in the Anopheles mosquitoes species boundaries southward and eastward of Africa may occur rather than jump into quite different climatic environments.
• In the absence of adequate control, these predictions are crucial in understanding the possible future geographical range of the vectors and the disease, which could facilitate planning for various adaptation options.

The authors conclude that the outputs from this study will be helpful at various levels of decision making, for example, in setting up of an early warning and sustainable strategies for climate change and climate change adaptation for malaria vectors control programmes in Africa.

Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=58482

A human health perspective on climate change

Produced by: Environmental Health Perspectives (2010)

This report, published by the the Interagency Working Group on Climate Change and Health, highlights 11 key categories of diseases and other health consequences that are occurring or will occur due to climate change.

The purpose of this paper is to identify research needs for all aspects of the research-to-decision making pathway that will help us understand and mitigate the health effects of climate change, as well as ensure that we choose the healthiest and most efficient approaches to climate change adaptation. This way, the authors provide a starting point for coordination of research to better understand climate’s impact on human health. The authors articulate, in a concrete way, that human beings are vulnerable in many ways to the health effects of climate change. They lay out both what we know and what we need to know about these effects in a way that will allow the health research community to bring its collective knowledge to bear on solving these problems.

The paper highlights the state-of-the-science on the human health consequences of climate change on:

• Asthma, respiratory allergies, and airway diseases.
• Cancer.
• Cardiovascular disease and stroke.
• Foodborne diseases and nutrition.
• Heat-related morbidity and mortality.
• Human developmental effects.
• Mental health and stress- related disorders.
• Neurological diseases and disorders.
• Waterborne diseases.
• Weather-related morbidity and mortality.
• Vectorborne and zoonotic diseases (like malaria, which can be transmitted from animals to humans).

The report also examines a number of cross-cutting issues for research in this area, including susceptible, vulnerable, and displaced populations; public health and health care infrastructure; capacities and skills needed; and communication and education efforts.

The authors conclude that the actions we take today will help to shape our environment in the decades to come. Some degree of climate change is unavoidable, and we must adapt to its associated health effects; however, aggressive mitigation actions can significantly blunt the worst of the expected exposures.

They recommend research to identify who will be most vulnerable, and what efforts will be most beneficial; and to focus on the following areas:

• Integrating climate science with health science.
• Integrating environmental, public health, and marine and wildlife surveillance.
• Applying climate and meteorological observations to real-time public health issues.
• Down-scaling long-term climate models to estimate human exposure risks and burden of disease.

Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=58464

Impacts of climate change on public health in India: future research directions

Authors: F. Bush,Kathleen; Luber,George
Produced by: Environmental Health Perspectives (2011)

Building on the information presented at the 2009 Joint Indo–U.S. Workshop on Climate Change and Health in Goa, India, this paper reviews relevant literature and data, to address gaps in knowledge, and identify priorities and strategies for future research in India.

The authors argue that:

• Climate change and associated increases in climate variability willlikely further exacerbate global health disparities. As such, moreresearch is needed, particularly in developing countries, to accuratelypredict the anticipated impacts and inform effective interventions.
• The scope of the problem in India is enormous, based on the potential for climate change and variability to exacerbate endemic malaria, dengue, yellow fever, cholera, and chikungunya, as well as chronic diseases, particularly among the millions of people who already experience poor sanitation, pollution, malnutrition, and a shortage of drinking water.
• In light of this realisation, the authors highlight the importance of improving the surveillance, monitoring, and integration of meteorological, environmental, geospatial, and health data while working in parallel to implement adaptation strategies.

Key conclusions and recommendations:

• It is critical for India to invest in improvements in information infrastructure that are innovative and that promote interdisciplinary collaborations while embarking on adaptation strategies.
• This will require unprecedented levels of collaboration across diverse institutions in India and abroad.
• The ensuing data can be used in research on the likely impacts of climate change on health that reflect India’s diverse climates and populations.
• Finally, the authors recommend the enhancement of local human and technical capacities for risk communication and promoting adaptive behavior.

Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=58462

The implications of climate change for health in Africa

Authors: Chimbari,M., J.
Produced by: Arid Lands Information Network (2010)

The interactions between health and climate change are clearly recognised; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change includes a chapter on health issues in all its publications. But we still need to better understand all the possible impacts of climate change on health.

To date, much of the evidence of the health impacts of climate change has focused on malaria. But the impacts are much wider than this. Climate change projections for Africa indicate that temperatures will increase by 0.2–0.5°C per decade, and many African regions will experience more severe droughts. This will translate to a short growing season for food crops, thus leading to food shortages. These changes may affect human health directly, as the changing weather patterns encourage the production of disease vectors and parasites, such as those causing malaria. Indirect changes will result through impacts on water availability, air quality, food quality and quantity, ecosystems, agriculture and economies – all factors that affect people’s health.

This issue of Joto Afrika features articles from different countries, which highlight ongoing or completed research into climate change and health across Africa. These articles indicate:

• climate change may increase the prevalence of diseases transmitted between humans and animals
• children are most vulnerable to climate change; in times of food shortage, they must be well-fed to avoid malnutrition, as this can make them more vulnerable to other diseases
• communities living in areas prone to flooding are often displaced, forcing them to move to temporary accommodation with basic facilities. This makes them more vulnerable to waterborne diseases
• modelling is an important tool for early warning for climate-induced health disasters
• vulnerable people in communities, for example people living with HIV, can develop successful coping strategies.

Climate change is a significant and emerging threat to public health. There is need for capacity building and implementation of projects to strengthen the health system response to climate change and to ensure that health is appropriately considered in decisions made by other sectors such as energy and transport.

Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=57204