World Bank To Bolster Sustainable Energy Role
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"The World Bank seeks to play a bigger role in sustainable energy projects around the globe including experimental carbon capture and storage (CCS) research, Vice President for Sustainable Development Katherine Sierra ... told Reuters on the sidelines of a carbon conference.
She said wind technology was 'penetrating' the energy mix in developing markets and solar energy was picking up despite high costs compared to fossil fuel-based electricity generation which creates the heat-trapping gasses blamed for global warming. Sierra said still-experimental CCS technology, which siphons carbon dioxide (CO2) from power plant or industrial exhausts and buries it below ground, may be an option for some developing countries which rely heavily on dirtier coal-based power. ...
Sierra said the World Bank has traditionally not funded 'pre-commercialized technology' such as CCS but rather focused on transferring proven green technology to developing states. But she said the Bank could help fund some CCS projects or studies, including geological surveys, as well as provide clients with know-how on creating renewable energy policies. ..." [Reuters/Factiva]
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UN Labor Agency Says World Unemployment Could Rise By 50 Million In 2009
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"The ranks of unemployed could swell by 50.4 million worldwide this year because of the global downturn, the UN labor agency said Thursday. ...
The agency urged governments to make job creation part of their stimulus packages to avoid the worst-case scenario. It said 29 million jobs could be saved if companies are given an incentive to retain their workers. The worldwide number of unemployed by the end of the year will range between 209.6 million and 239 million, the agency said in an update to its annual Global Employment Trends report. ..." [The Associated Press/Factiva]
Reuters adds that "...The forecast represents a global unemployment rate of 6.5-7.4 percent, it said in an update to its Global Employment Trends, and compares with a forecast of 6.3-7.1 percent in the last estimate in March and a 5.9 percent rate in 2008. ...
'We are seeing an unprecedented increase in unemployment and the number of workers at risk of falling into poverty around the world this year,' International Labor Organization (ILO) Director-General Juan Somavia said in a statement. ...He told a news conference it was important for government policies to ensure that the lag between job creation and return to growth was not too wide. ..." [Reuters/Factiva]
AFP notes that "...According to the latest ILO report, the bulk of the newly unemployed would come from developed economies and the EU. 'The region is likely to account for 35 to 40 percent of the total global increase in unemployment, despite accounting for less than 16 percent of the global labor force,' said the report. ...
Somavia said there were 'signs of initial impact' from stimulus packages launched by governments to lift the world economy out of the slump. But he warned of a 'serious job situation that could last for six to eight years if no actions are taken,' urging countries to sign up to a 'global jobs pact.'..." [Agence France Presse/Factiva]
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UN Report: Investing In African Agricultural Sector Most Effective In Tackling Economic Recession
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"Investing in Africa's agricultural sector is the most effective way to tackle the economic recession that threatens the continent's progress toward attaining the UN Millennium Development Goals...said this year's report, jointly published by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Union Commission (AU), which is entitled Developing African Agriculture through Regional Value Chains.
The impact of the global financial crisis and economic recession has significantly lowered demand for Africa's exports, choking commodity prices and stifling growth. ... But agriculture holds a beacon of hope. The agricultural sector provides 25 to 35 percent of Africa's gross domestic product, 60 percent of Africa's employment and is the main source of income in rural areas, said the report. ..." [Xinhua/Factiva]
Kyodo News notes that "...African countries will also witness a drop in capital inflows such as aid and foreign direct investment, the report said, adding they need sound domestic policy as well as continued aid flow and targeted financing facilities from international financial institutions." [Kyodo News (Japan)/Factiva]
AFP adds that "...The report said that the global slowdown has resulted in lower demand for Africa's exports and a sharp decline in commodity prices, making it even harder to tackle poverty. 'In order to cut public spending and maintain fiscal stability, many countries will be forced to reduce spending on development projects and cut some services,' it said. ...
Inflation is expected to slow this year due to lower energy and commodity prices, the report added, but drought will continue to affect some countries and food prices will remain 'above historical levels'. According to the study, the hardest-hit region will be southern Africa with just 1.2 percent growth. ..." [Agence France Presse/Factiva]
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Commentary: IT Makes Poverty A 'Curable Affliction'
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A commentary by UN Assistant Secretary-General and UN Development Program Director of the Bureau for Development Policy Olav Kjorven published in the FT writes: "The quest to put information and communications technologies (ICTs) to work in fighting poverty began at the same time as the internet revolution 20 years ago. Two decades of hits and misses later, the idea of 'being connected' has evolved enormously for nearly everyone on the planet. ...
It is the wrong approach for rich countries to ship used computers, gadgets and ideas to poor countries, to fill a physical and virtual gap. Instead we should focus on working with developing country partners on the social, economic and political gaps already identified - the main stumbling blocks to achieving the UN's Millennium Development Goals - and use ICTs to help build solutions. ICTs, therefore, are a means and not an end. ...
Figuring out how to deliver public services such as water, health and education comes up time and again in the MDG targets, so how can ICTs help? ...
Mobile phones are expanding the frontiers in getting basic public services to the people most in need. In Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, a health worker can now text basic health information and services to a rural community of 250,000 people 60kms away.
Using recycled phones and working in tandem with the local public hospital, this project means that help is now getting through to tuberculosis and other patients who would otherwise never get treatment.
ICTs also make private services such as banking affordable, accessible and available to more poor people in the developing world. Mobile banking - or 'm-banking' - allows millions of people living far from any bank branch to use mobile phone credits to access financial services. ...
Do these innovative examples help to reduce poverty? In effect, yes. By reducing the obstacles poor people face and increasing their choices and opportunities, ICTs help shore up the simple idea that extreme poverty and gross disparities of opportunity are not inescapable features of the human condition but a curable affliction.
Eradicating poverty is far more than a mouse click away, but by being smart and imaginative in how we link development challenges with new technologies, we could shorten the journey ahead." [The Financial Times (UK)/Factiva]
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Also in this Edition... Briefly Noted...
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A group of Mozambique's nineteen development partners have pledged to provide a $804.5 million aid package to support the 2010 state budget and development projects, Noticias newspaper said on Friday. Under the agreement with the Program Aid Partners (PAP), Mozambique's government has committed itself to continued poverty reduction, democracy and the respect of human rights. [Reuters/Factiva]
France Minister for Ecology, Jean-Louis Borloo, was to announce on Thursday 28 May in Nairobi at the meeting of African ministers of environment, an initiative on energy. Entitled 'Energizing Africa: from Dream to Reality', the plan aims to develop electricity on the continent while fighting against climate change. [Le Monde (France)/Factiva]
International oil companies will be invited to bid for concessions in Brazil's enormous pre-salt oil fields as early as next year, Mines and Energy Minister Edson Lobao, told the FT. Brazil stopped selling concessions in the offshore pre-salt area, which oil industry executives say will rival the North Sea in size and importance, soon after their discovery in 2007. [The Financial Times (UK)/Factiva]
Argentina's government is coming under pressure to ban the chemical used in the world's best-selling herbicide, which has helped turn the country into an important world food exporter in the past decade, after new research found that it might be harmful to human health. [The Financial Times (UK)/Factiva]
Russian Railways is in talks with the World Bank on guarantees for its bond issue and plans to raise $500 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the firm's CEO said on Friday. [Reuters/Factiva]
India's economy grew a better-than-expected 5.8 percent in the first three months of 2009 - the last quarter of the financial year, driven by strong growth in the finance and property sector, and a surge in social spending. Growth from January to March 2009 picked up from the previous quarter, when growth had slowed to 5.3 percent. [The Financial Times (UK)/Factiva]
The World Bank's executive director's board approved $600 million to Turkey for a private sector renewable energy and energy efficiency project, the Bank said in a statement on Friday. The project seeks to help increase privately owned and operated energy production from renewable sources and curb greenhouse gas emissions as a result. [Reuters/Factiva]
International scientists say they have found the first evidence of resistance to the world's most effective drug for treating malaria. They say the trend in western Cambodia has to be urgently contained because full-blown resistance would be a global health catastrophe. Drugs are taking longer to clear blood of malaria parasites than before. [BBC News (UK)]
Austria confirmed Thursday that it had nominated EU Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner as a candidate to become the new director general of UNESCO. [Agence France Presse/Factiva]
A US Congress decision on International Monetary Fund gold sales could be a week away, a spokesman at the US Senate Committee on Appropriations said late Wednesday. The final process to decide could begin as early as Monday and may take a week to finalize, he told Dow Jones Newswires. [Dow Jones/Factiva]
Global development leaders hope to find novel ways to raise funds for poor countries through mechanisms such as taxing currency transactions, delegates at the Paris Leading Group on Solidarity Levies to Fund Development conference said on Thursday. [Reuters/Factiva]
Nearly one-third of the natural gas yet to be discovered in the world is north of the Arctic Circle and most of it is in Russian territory, according to a new analysis led by researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey. [The Associated Press/Factiva]
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