Monday, November 14, 2011

UK AID MONITORING NEEDS IMPROVEMENT!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

UK’s Department for International Development or DfID should improve the monitoring of its aid offers to developing countries, particularly those aid involving infrastructures. This is the assessment of evaluators both inside and outside the UK.

UK’s aid comes from taxpayers’ money, the same taxpayers who are up in revolt over diminishing social services funds for education, health, and related welfare purposes. There are howls raised from partisan quarters concerning the propriety of UK providing further aid to other countries at a time when Britain’s own economy is on fire.

Below is a special report on the subject from the DevEx.com.

[Philippines, 11 November 2011]

Source: http://www.devex.com/en/blogs/the-development-newswire/dfid-urged-to-improve-monitoring-of-multilateral-aid-for-infrastructure

DfID Urged to Improve Monitoring of Multilateral Aid for Infrastructure

Ivy Mungcal

10 October 2011

The U.K. Department for International Development needs a more “systematic approach” for monitoring the funding it provides to multilateral development banks for infrastructure projects to avoid corruption and ensure value for U.K. taxpayers’ money, the development committee of the U.K. House of Commons said in a new report.

The report lauds DfID’s innovative approach to supporting infrastructure development in the developing world, including through mechanisms such as the Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility, the Guardian reports. But members of the committee that drafted the report said the department needs to improve the way it tracks and monitor its contributions to multilateral bank-financed infrastructure projects, the news agency adds.

“We believe that assessing the comparative cost of infrastructure projects financed by the various multilaterals should be an ongoing process for DfID,” the committee members said. “We ask DfID to look at how it could undertake a more systematic approach to assessing the value for money provided by different multilaterals for the infrastructure projects they finance.”

The report expresses particular concern over U.K. contributions to infrastructure projects managed by the African Development Bank, which the report said DfID itself has cited for project delays, poor quality staffing and lack of poverty focus in the department’s recent multilateral aid review.

Members of the Common’s development committee also raised concern over the rigid rules of the World Bank and other multilateral development banks which they said hamper the development of local jobs and capacity.

“We recommend that DfID use its leverage at the World Bank and the other MDBs to ensure that they build capacity within developing country government procurement processes, for example by specifying in large infrastructure projects funded by MDBs a certain level of local procurement, or the use of, or training of, local professionals.,” the members of parliament wrote in the report, as quoted by the Guardian.

Further, the report urges DfID to draft and implement an infrastructure strategy that lays out the department’s priorities within the sector such as local capacity development, focus on road safety measures and use of technologies suited for the needs of aid recipient countries.

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.

Ivy Mungcal

Ivy covers international development breaking news for The Development Newswire, Global Development Briefing and other Devex publications, focusing in particular on U.S. aid reform as well as the Americas and Caribbean.

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Saturday, November 12, 2011

HOW’S AID TRANSPARENCY FAIRING?

HOW’S AID TRANSPARENCY FAIRING?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

“Mirror mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?” desperately asked a development worker unto a magic mirror, confronted as she is with the question of transparency in donor funding and utilization. The magical mirror then gently responded,”search it in your heart, dearest one, for you might not believe me if I tell you.”

I wish I could say this: transparency in aid offering is a non-existent thing, a chimerical stuff that is only fit for the most ridiculous soap operas. From the source of funds down to the recipients, there are grey transactions, kickbacks or whatever. For instance, a water utilities project that would cost merely US $100 Millions can be inflated 10X as much to total US $1 Billions, as cost estimates are padded with a collusion from the donor agency and the recipients (consultants who do the feasibility study are then bribed to maintain “silence of the lambs.”)

I wasn’t born yesterday, and I am deeply aware of the non-transparent transactions in the aids business. I know of technical consultants who can testify in any appropriate body (legislative, judicial) concerning the dirty transactions if given the opportunities to squeal information.

Below is a relevant discussion concerning the subject.

[Philippines, 09 November 2011]

Source: http://www.devex.com/en/blogs/the-development-newswire/global-initiative-alarmed-over-pushback-on-aid-transparency-commitments-as-busan-forum-nears

Global Initiative Alarmed Over 'Pushback' on Aid Transparency Commitments as Busan Forum Nears

Posted by Che de los Reyes on 10 October 2011 07:02:00 AM

A global aid transparency group has expressed alarm over the “pushback” in aid transparency commitments among donor countries while the text for the final document to be approved in the 4^th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan next month is being negotiated.

According to the campaign group Publish What You Fund, a number of donors seem to be ”attempting to dilute or undermine” commitments to aid transparency “by removing all references to the International Aid Transparency Initiative” and implementation deadlines during the “Working Party on Aid Effectiveness” meeting in Paris this week.

The IATI provides a common format and agreed standard for donors’ reporting on aid.

In the meeting hosted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — the last before the Nov 29 to Dec. 1 Busan forum — donor countries, particularly Japan, the United States and Germany, are disagreeing on deadlines for reducing tied aid, Publish What You Fund said.

Other countries such as Ireland and Norway, despite being founding members of IATI, are silent on the matter. China, meanwhile, is proposing to delete the whole transparency section from the text, the group said.

This “evasiveness” on actual commitments, however, comes despite the fact that donors are “seriously off track to meet their aid effectiveness targets” that were agreed upon six years ago.

But the co-chairs of the working party have stressed the importance of IATI and the need for donors to agree on implementation dates. They also stressed there are more commitments from partner countries than donors.

Despite the perceived turning back by some donors on their commitments, Publish What You Fund noted that a number of large donors have expressed support for IATI. These include the World Bank, the United Kingdom, Sweden, the Netherlands and the European Commission.

The global initiative is thus urging the international community to prevent “a handful of countries from undermining the hopes of a successful meeting in Busan.”

“At a time when aid budgets are under huge pressure,” the campaign group said, “failure to deliver on transparency and accountability could have serious implications for the funding of life-saving poverty reduction efforts around the world.”

Read more:

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Wednesday, November 09, 2011

AGRICULTURE AS INCOME SOURCE FOR YOUTH: SHOWCASING JAMAICA

AGRICULTURE AS INCOME SOURCE FOR YOUTH: SHOWCASING JAMAICA

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Does agriculture still promise Glad Tidings for the youth of today in developing countries more so the poor ones?

Urbanization has been rapidly spreading across the developing world. The rising cities present themselves as lands of vast opportunities for the youth, an enchanting experience that has lured even the sons and daughters of small planters to seek jobs in the cities right after high school. Those who take up college degrees never return to their rural communities.

With new opportunities for agriculture setting in today, created by global markets, does agriculture promise a career to the youth in parallel manner as industries and services offer to them? Jamaica seems to show the way to such a positive track in farming for the youth as shown in the report below.

[Philippines, 08 November 2011]

Source: http://www.beta.undp.org/undp/en/home/ourwork/povertyreduction/successstories/agriculture_opens_new_doors_for_young_jamaicans.html

Agriculture opens new doors for young Jamaicans

Kingston – Some 650 young and jobless women and men in four impoverished areas of Jamaica have received training in cultivation and food production skills to boost their job opportunities in local farming and agro-industries.

Through a three-year programme started in January 2010 by the Government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the young people have learned how to process fruit and vegetable juice, herbs and ginger powder to produce dried fruit, jams, sorrel, meat and honey.

“This project provides not only technical knowledge and training, but facilities and equipment that would have been difficult or impossible for them to do otherwise,” said Machel Stewart, UNDP Poverty Programme Advisor.

The Rural Youth Employment Project also involves workshops and career days with presentations by farmers and agribusiness professionals from around the country where nearly one third of Jamaicans aged 15-29 are unemployed.

“Agriculture is beneficial to my family and to the whole world,” said a 15 year-old high school student who dreams to own a farm in Saint Thomas, one of the most underdeveloped parishes in the island, with high levels of unemployment, poverty and early pregnancy cases.

“It helps us spend less money because we grow what we eat,” she added.

More than 360 high-school students – 60 percent of them women – have been involved in agriculture career days. In addition, 114 young community leaders attended workshops on leadership, team building and management, fund-raising and event planning, community safety and security.

The project - a US$1,000,000 partnership with the National Centre for Youth Development, the Rural Agricultural Development Authority and national youth organizations - is implemented by Jamaica’s Scientific Research Council and funded by UNDP and the United States Agency for International Development.

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Tuesday, November 08, 2011

IMPROVING TEACHER DEVELOPMENT: INTERNATIONAL MANUAL

IMPROVING TEACHER DEVELOPMENT: INTERNATIONAL MANUAL

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Gracious day from the Philippines!

For those who are in pedagogy and capacity-building, here is a recently released manual on improving teachers’ and educational quality. Released by the UNESCO, the manual is titled: Teachers and Educational Quality: Monitoring Global Needs for 2015.

This well researched material, which took 25 countries as country cases to accomplish, could just be the one we need to search for fresh ideas on how to address the problem of declining quality of education world-wide. Declining teachers’ quality redounds to declining instructional quality, thus resulting to low aptitude levels as measured by math, sciences and language abilities.

Below is an apt briefer about the said manual coming from the UNESCO site.

[Philippines, 07 November 2011]

Source: http://publishing.unesco.org/details.aspx?&Code_Livre=4456&change=E

Teachers and Educational Quality: Monitoring Global Needs for 2015

Albert Motivans, Thomas Smith and Michael Bruneforth

UNESCO Reference Works series

Ce titre est disponible.

25,00 € €

Livre, 216 pages, 48 figures, 9 tables, 21 boxes

Format: 28 × 21,5 cm

2006, 978-92-9189-033-0

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Teachers and Educational Quality: Monitoring Global Needs for 2015 provides global and regional assessments on the state of teachers and education quality. By highlighting trends in the numbers and quality of teachers, especially in developing countries, it explores the policy implications that come into play when attempts are made to bridge any gaps between the two. It also compares the strengths and shortcomings of recruitment and deployment policies, as well as looking at working conditions around the world.

Data on less-developed countries, in particular, are presented from a wide range of sources. These include administrative data, student assessment studies and special data collection on primary and secondary teachers in 25 countries. Aiming to inform policy-making, the report employs international benchmarks for monitoring change.

This publication also features a unique methodology for simulating teacher demand by 2015. It not merely projects demand, but defines fixed targets described in terms of indicators, also applying a model to quantify the minimum required to reach stated goals.

Also available in the UNESCO Reference Works series

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Monday, November 07, 2011

AFGHAN CORRUPTION AS PER AUSTRALIAN CONTRACTORS’ KICKBACKS

AFGHAN CORRUPTION AS PER AUSTRALIAN CONTRACTORS’ KICKBACKS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Afghanistan is the favorite guinea pig of the British oligarchy to mass produce opium through the operations of their drug dealers. Such dealers in turn negotiate with the opium farmers who are paid their wages in gold, thus showing the link of the drug trade to gold hoarding on global scale.

A laboratory for corrupt deals of crocodile contractors and big business from the West, Afghanistan is typical failed state which is only a nation-state on paper. Corruption is the general trend in the country, from the Western biz corps to Afghan politicians who pocket aid intended for the country.

Destroyed by the Droid armies of the global oligarchy (droid armies = herds of US troops), Afghanistan is as vulnerable as ever to every monstrosity of warlords, drug dealers, mafia businesses, and crocodile politicians. Below is the case of an Australian contractor that has pocketed kickbacks to close deals within the host country.

[Philippines, 06 November 2011]

Source: http://www.devex.com/en/blogs/development-assistance-under-obama

Australian Contractor Admits Accepting Payment for Steering Deals in Afghan Reconstruction Projects

Posted by Ivy Mungcal on 14 October 2011 06:06:04 AM

Local men work at a construction site for new shops in Helmand, Afghanistan. A former construction manager in the country has pleaded guilty to seeking and receiving payments for steering U.S.-financed projects in favor of local firms and contractors. Photo by: isafmedia / CC BY

A former construction manager who worked as an agent for the International Organization for Migration in Afghanistan has pleaded guilty to seeking and receiving payments for steering U.S.-financed projects in favor of local Afghan firms and contractors.

Neil Campbell, who is originally from Australia, admitted before a U.S. district court that he solicited a one-time payment of $190,000 from an Afghan subcontractor as reward for channeling more than $15 million worth of IOM reconstruction projects, including the construction of a school and a hospital, to the said local company.

The projects were funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has provided some $260 million to the IOM since 2002 for the construction of schools, hospitals and other facilities in Afghanistan.

Campbell is set to be sentenced on Dec. 14, 2011. He was initially facing up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine but his plea deal with the U.S. government guarantees he would only serve a maximum sentence of 27 months and pay only up to $50,000 in fines, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Campbell has also agreed to repay the $10,000 he received from an undercover USAID investigator who posed as representative of the Afghan subcontractor as part of the sting operation that eventually led to Campbell’s arrest.

U.S. officials have touted Campbell’s arrest and his admission as a display of the U.S. government’s “seriousness” in protecting the money it spends on overseas projects.

“We will continue to deploy investigative resources around the world to ensure that criminals who exploit our generosity are held accountable in an American courtroom,” U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen Jr. of the District of Columbia said in a statement.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Assistant Director James McJunkin added: “Today’s plea is a reminder that taking fraudulent payments and misrepresenting U.S. interests has its consequences.”

Read more on U.S. aid reform 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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Friday, November 04, 2011

MICRO-INSURING FARMERS IN LIGHT OF CALAMITIES: KENYA SHOWCASE

MICRO-INSURING FARMERS IN LIGHT OF CALAMITIES: KENYA SHOWCASE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Climate change + burgeoning population are causing pressures on food production. Famine has hit the Horn of Africa anew due to drought, a famine that has affected 11 millions of poor small planters. What intervention tools can be applied in support of rehabilitation works post-calamities?

Micro-insurance is one such tool, which could come in different forms. It could morph as crop insurance. Likewise can it come as calamity insurance. The latter option still has to be conceptualized though in developing countries.

Kenya has its own version of innovation on micro-insurance, which when combined with high-tech solar-energized climate/weather tracking there surely makes for a highly appreciable project. Below is a report about the subject.

[Philippines, 05 November 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/farming-practices/news/micro-insurance-scheme-pays-off-for-kenyan-farmers.html

Micro-insurance scheme pays off for Kenyan farmers

Tom Mboya

14 October 2011 | EN

[NAIROBI] Some of the farmers who lost their crops in the Horn of Africa drought this year may be able to afford farming next season, with the help of a 'micro-insurance' scheme.

Kilimo Salama — Swahili for 'safe farming' — was launched last year, providing small-scale farmers in Kenya with crop insurance by combining mobile phone payment with the data from automated weather stations.

Farmers register with one of 30 solar-powered weather stations, each covering a 15–20 kilometre radius, and purchase insurance when buying seeds and fertilisers. Kilimo Salama uses data from these stations to calculate the severity of droughts — or excessive rainfall. Eligible farmers then receive payouts via their mobile phones.

In March, it paid out US$3,135 each to more than 1,200 farmers for losses after lack of rain, and more than 1,400 farmers received US$9,230 each in September because of prolonged droughts that caused crop failure.

"Since its inception, the project has been a big success," said Wairimu Muthike, project's lead field coordinator.

He added: "The number of farmers willing to protect their crop by insuring their farm investments has increased tremendously. The sum insured among interested farmers has also been growing."

According to Wairimu, the best indicator that the project is succeeding is the number of larger-scale farmers it is attracting.

Finance is entirely derived from the premiums collected from farmers, according to Rahab Wambui, a field coordinator with the project, rather than coming from commercial or charitable sources.

"This will result in the sustainability of the programme," she said.

The project initially enrolled 9,000 farmers but the number has increased to 21,341 this year. In 2009-2010 it targeted maize, but this year it expanded to include wheat, beans, and sorghum.

"Many farmers find this to be an effective way of ensuring that, when adverse effects of nature set in, they can find an alternative source of funding in order to cultivate again," said Silas Waweru, a farmer who has benefited from the payout.

Wairimu said that potential plans for spreading the programme to other countries were still classified.

The Horn of Africa has been hit by the worst drought in 60 years, according to the UN. It has caused a widespread famine affecting millions of people, despite having been forecast months in advance.

Livestock farmers in Kenya are expected to find out about their claims from another, satellite-based insurance scheme this month.

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Thursday, November 03, 2011

YOUTH AS CHANGE DRIVERS

YOUTH AS CHANGE DRIVERS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Youth as change drivers is hardly a new phenomenon. The advent of modernity has seen the youth (ages 18 through 30 roughly) began searing critiques of status quo, critiques that later evolved to large-scale mass movements aiming to overthrow establish authority. The Philippines is a concrete case in point where the youth of the late 19^th century led the nationalist independent movement that created the new nation.

What makes a youth-led change program unique is that it is an alternative to the old notions of a working class-led movement for change. The ideologies of the 19^th century, same ideologies that have stubbornly stayed and solidified till the 20^th century, were very strongly class-based cognitive forms, which excluded the possibility of youth-led or gender-led change programs.

Old ideologies are finally cracking, thus paving the way for alternative tracks to social sector-driven change. The Arab Spring for instance highlighted the stinking Jurassic state of the old options and the decisive import of a youth-led change.

Below is a briefer from the UNESCO about writings from the youth concerning their sector as drivers of change.

[Philippines, 04 November 2011]

Source: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco-courier/

How youth drive change

The International Year of Youth (August 2010 – August 2011) turned out to be more revolutionary than expected. At the beginning of 2011, young people rose up in Tunisia and then in Egypt, and the movement spread to other countries in the region, also rousing countries in Europe such as Spain. Elsewhere in the world, youth are mobilizing for a range of causes, as varied as the means they use. Much more involved than we tend to think, young people have decided to take things in hand. And in this issue of the Courier, it is they who are speaking out, expressing their concerns and explaining their actions.

To read this issue please click here (PDF-56 pages)

Young people in the world: So different and so alike, Monique Coleman
Mobile revolution, Gigi Ibrahim
Spring of outrage, Alfredo Trujillo Fernandez
Miracle Weapons, Serge Amisi
When poetry is louder than a bomb, Nate Marshall
Moonlight stars, Carol Natukunda
A young sughar, Nosheen Abbas
Rebels with a cause, Jens Lubbadeh
Prescriptions for a sick planet, Zhao Ying
Green architecture, Carlos Bartesaghi Koc

OUR GUEST

Revolution: one of the great feats of civilization, Khaled Youssef

*To display PDF documents, Acrobat reader is needed: download the latest version

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Wednesday, November 02, 2011

US SLASHES UN FUNDING, IS ISOLATIONISM BACK?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

The world’s top hegemon is slashing fund contributions to the United Nations. The fund cuts are coated with rubrics of transparency and accountability, which is hardly surprising for the global hegemon that has been tailing behind emerging markets in providing fresh perspectives on global issues.

Such a development is hardly new. During the hegemonism of the fascistic neo-conservatives, there was a slight modification of the plan, as the UN members were made to kowtow to the extremist polarism of the said fascists led by Cheney & Bush. Funds thus flowed to the UN at rather appreciable levels, thus quashing the isolationists who were sidelighted during the dominant years of the extremists.

The neo-cons are still inside the defense establishment today, though their ascendancy within the Republican Party has been eclipsed by the neo-fascist Tea Party demagogues’ formation that seems to have resurrected the isolationists. Part of the old fogey isolationism agenda was to reduce UN funding to bare minimum as the US federal government should focus on internal affairs.

In a revealing pronouncement by a Harvard professor of political science who visited Manila in 2000, 2/3 of the isolationists in the House of Representatives have not even visited other countries. Yet such isolationists speak so nauseatingly self-righteous a manner in their putting the blames of the USA’s ailments on external factors such as the yuan, China, immigrants’ host countries, etc.

Only the harebrained folks surely buy the line of dirty isolationist demogues. Below is a reportage about the latest anti-foreign demagogy of the isolationists.

[Philippines, 03 November 2011]

Source: http://www.devex.com/en/blogs/development-assistance-under-obama/house-panel-approves-to-reduce-us-contributions-to-united-nations

House Panel Moves to Slash US Contributions to UN

Posted by Ivy Mungcal on 14 October 2011 05:19:07 AM

House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen holds a press conference on the United Nations Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act or H.R. 2829. Photo by: House Committee on Foreign Affairs

The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee passed Oct. 13 a reform proposal that would significantly slash U.S. funding to the United Nations if the global body fails to implement sweeping reforms, including shifting to a voluntary funding basis for its regular budget.

H.R. 2829, or the U.N. Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act, was approved by the Republican-led committee with a 23-15 vote despite pressure from top administration officials and leading U.S. aid groups, who argued the measure would undermine U.S. leadership in the international community.

The proposal, which was introduced by House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), requires the United States to withhold 50 percent of its nonvoluntary regular budget contributions to the United Nations if, after two years, less than 80 percent of the U.N. regular budget is funded on a voluntary basis.

A voluntary funding structure of the U.N. regular budget would allow the United States and other U.N.-member states to pressure the global body to implement badly needed reforms, supporters of the measure argued.

“We will never achieve lasting, sweeping reforms if the U.S. keeps paying in full what the U.N. dictates to us, with no consequences for the U.N.’s failures,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “A shift to voluntary funding will help end the U.N.’s entitlement culture, forcing it to perform better and cut costs in order to justify its funding.”

Leading U.S. aid groups and foreign aid supporters, however, stressed the proposal is not the best way to press for reform at the United Nations.

“The anti-U.N. legislation passed today is counterproductive to an effective relationship between the United States and the United Nations,” Better World Campaign head Timothy Wirth said. “This bill would degrade our leadership and end the decades-long work of Republican and Democratic administrations to successfully work within the U.N. system to advance American national security, political and economic interests.”

Wirth further noted that approval of the reform proposal goes “against the will of the American people,” citing the results of a recent opinion poll showing the majority of the U.S. public opposes the measure.

Leading U.S. aid groups and foreign aid supporters have been actively campaigning alongside administration officials against the approval of H.R. 2829 and similar proposals targeting the U.S. international affairs budget account.

Ahead of the proposal’s markup, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has written to the House Foreign Affairs Committee to pressure it to drop the proposal. Clinton also noted that she would ask U.S. President Barack Obama to veto the proposal should it reach his desk.

But as Time notes, a presidential veto may not be necessary. The reform proposal is not expected to reach the president’s desk any time soon as it still needs approval of the full House floor and the Democrat-led Senate, which is unlikely to support the significant cuts proposed by the Republicans.

Read more:

US Public Largely Opposes Cuts in US Contributions to UN

Ros-Lehtinen Proposal Keeps Pressure on UN

Esther Brimmer: Ros-Lehtinen Proposal ‘Backwards,’ Will Undermine U.S. World Leadership

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Tuesday, November 01, 2011

THAI FLOODS, EMERGING MARKETS’ ECOHAZARDS

THAI FLOODS, EMERGING MARKETS’ ECOHAZARDS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Storms have repetitively struck emerging markets in Asia over the last two (2) months. Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, China, Pakistan, Japan, Taiwan, India, Indonesia and other most dynamic economies of the region seem to be liberally wallowing in swamps of floods.

The signs are very ominous as they bring to the surface the ecohazards facing the said countries. The case of Thailand, where 300 people have died in the latest floods while over 2 million people were badly affected, represents such ecohazards for the economic dynamos during the period.

Below is an update report from the UNDP about the Thai floods.

[Philippines, 02 November 2011]

Source: http://www.beta.undp.org/undp/en/home/presscenter/articles/2011/10/14/thailand-undp-beefs-up-capacity-to-respond-to-severe-flooding-.html

Thailand: UNDP beefs up capacity to respond to severe flooding

14 October 2011

Bangkok – The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has expressed deep concern and offered support to the Government of Thailand as the country battles severe flooding that has killed more than 280 people and affected more than two million others since July this year.

More than 80 percent of the country’s 76 provinces have been affected by the floods. In excess of 900 industrial plants and farmland areas have suffered damage and millions of heads of livestock have been affected.

Nearly 30 provinces have been declared disaster areas and 12 are on high alert for threats of heavy rain and river overflow.

The UN has been in regular contact with authorities including the Thailand Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, and has been monitoring the flood situation and its humanitarian and development impacts.

According to the country’s irrigation authorities, 11 out of the 26 major dams in Thailand currently hold more water than their official capacity, while others are between 82 and 99 percent full, and need to release excess water, forcing more evacuations in downstream areas.

UNDP is increasing its own capacity to support the Thai people at this time, setting aside both financial and technical emergency resources, and will continue to work with the Government to support Thailand’s longer-term recovery and rehabilitation.

The 21st century has been marked by an escalating impact of disasters from natural hazards and a huge loss of life and destruction of livelihoods and communities. In 2010, nearly 400,000 people were killed by disasters worldwide and more than 200 million were affected. Economic damage was estimated at US$110 billion.

“Vulnerability to disasters is growing faster than resilience,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday in his message to mark the International Day for Disaster Reduction. “Disaster risk reduction should be an everyday concern for everybody. Let us all invest today for a safer tomorrow.”

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Monday, November 14, 2011

UK AID MONITORING NEEDS IMPROVEMENT!

DfID Urged to Improve Monitoring of Multilateral Aid for Infrastructure

Saturday, November 12, 2011

HOW’S AID TRANSPARENCY FAIRING?

Global Initiative Alarmed Over 'Pushback' on Aid Transparency Commitments as Busan Forum Nears

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

AGRICULTURE AS INCOME SOURCE FOR YOUTH: SHOWCASING JAMAICA

Agriculture opens new doors for young Jamaicans

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

IMPROVING TEACHER DEVELOPMENT: INTERNATIONAL MANUAL

Monday, November 07, 2011

AFGHAN CORRUPTION AS PER AUSTRALIAN CONTRACTORS’ KICKBACKS

Australian Contractor Admits Accepting Payment for Steering Deals in Afghan Reconstruction Projects

Friday, November 04, 2011

MICRO-INSURING FARMERS IN LIGHT OF CALAMITIES: KENYA SHOWCASE

Micro-insurance scheme pays off for Kenyan farmers

Thursday, November 03, 2011

YOUTH AS CHANGE DRIVERS

How youth drive change

OUR GUEST

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

US SLASHES UN FUNDING, IS ISOLATIONISM BACK?

House Panel Moves to Slash US Contributions to UN

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

THAI FLOODS, EMERGING MARKETS’ ECOHAZARDS

Thailand: UNDP beefs up capacity to respond to severe flooding

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