Over a decade ago, most countries joined an international treaty — the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — to begin to consider what can be done to reduce global warming and to cope with whatever temperature increases are inevitable. More recently, a number of nations approved an addition to the treaty: the Kyoto Protocol, which has more powerful (and legally binding) measures. The Kyoto Protocol is an international and legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide entered into force on 16 February 2005.
The UNFCCC secretariat supports all institutions involved in the climate change process, particularly the COP (Conference of the Parties), the subsidiary bodies and their Bureau. To help countries meet their emission targets, and to encourage the private sector and developing countries to contribute to emission reduction efforts, negotiators of the Protocol included three market-based mechanisms – Emissions Trading, the Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation.
Related Weblinks:
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC: http://www.unfccc.int
Denmark’s COP15 website: http://en.cop15.dk
General press info: http://www.pressinfo.cop15.dk
COP15 calendar: http://www.calendar.cop15.dk
Official Tweets: http://twitter.com/cop15
Climate change in Google Earth: http://www.google.com/landing/cop15/
YouTube – Cop15’s Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Cop15
SID Forum Update: http://www.sidint.net/intl-agenda/climate-change/
TckTckTck | The World is Ready: http://tcktcktck.org
TckTckTck is the hub for stories on how hundreds of millions of people around the world are coming together to show world leaders we are ready for a new climate deal.
Interactive map and reporting system for the CDM
http://cdm.unfccc.int/Projects/MapApp
The CDM project map shows the location of CDM activities worldwide. Visitors can travel around the globe and learn about the location and many details of each project. In addition to this, a series of new graphs provide detailed breakdowns about the range, distribution of such projects that highlight national participation, project impacts and the status of project registration.
The Evaluation Café is a method for group facilitation that allows stakeholders of a project or programme to evaluate its impact in an informal brief session. The purpose of the Evaluation Café is to build and document stakeholders’ views on success and impacts after a planned activity. The aim of the workshop is to clarify future expectations of strategic planning in the light of past experiences. Evaluation Café is a fast result-driven qualitative survey, seen as a participative way of focus group interview. This step-by-step guide by Karsten Weitzenegger helps you to run it successfully.
http://www.weitzenegger.de/cafe/index.htm
AGEG experts engaged in meetings on forest and climate protection in preparation of UNFCCC COP-15 Climate Conference, Copenhagen.
In two events, organised by BCC – Business Communications Consulting GmbH with participation of representatives from policy, government, development agencies, business, science and civil society, especially the concept of reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries (REDD), its inclusion into a post-Kyoto climate protection regime, and issues of financing and practical implementation were discussed.
For reports on these two events please follow the links below:
UN Forum on Forests (UNFF) in Guilin, China
Country-Led Initiative in Support of the UN Forum on Forests: Forests for People – The Role of National Forest Programmes and the Non-Legally Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests
The Country-Led Initiative (CLI) in support of the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF) met from 17 to 20 November 2009 in Guilin, China, focusing on forests for people and the role of national forest programmes (NFPs) and the Non-Legally Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests (NLBI). One hundred and fifty participants representing governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations gathered to share experiences and lessons learned in the use of NFPs to achieve sustainable forest management (SFM) and as a means to implement the NLBI. The meeting was organized by the Government of China in collaboration with Austria, Finland, Germany, and the United States of America. The Asia-Pacific Network for Sustainable Forest Management and Rehabilitation (APFNet), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the NFP Facility, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) provided technical support.
More: http://www.ageg.de/news/country-led_initiative_in_support_of_the_un_forum_on_forests/
Developing countries can shift to lower-carbon paths while promoting development and reducing poverty – if they receive financial and technical assistance from high-income countries. This is among the findings of the World Development Report (WDR) 2010, published by the World Bank. It is key, thus the report, that industrialised countries curb their carbon dioxide emissions and foster the development of alternative energy sources. ”If developed countries act now, a ‘climate-smart’ world is feasible, and the costs for getting there will be high but still manageable”, says the report, which was produced with an eye to the upcoming United Nations climate summit due mid-December in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Developing countries face 75–80 percent of the potential damage from climate change. They therefore urgently need help to prepare for the impacts – drought, fl oods and rising sea levels. They also need assistance to intensify agricultural production, combat malnutrition and disease, and build climate resilient infrastructure. The current financial crisis cannot be an excuse to put climate protection on the back burner, the report warns. Source: World Bank, http://www.worldbank.org/wdr2010
A new Oxfam report has warned that at least 4.5 million children could die unless world leaders deliver additional funds to help poor countries fight the growing impact of climate change, rather than diverting it from existing aid promises. The report, ‘Beyond Aid,’ also warns that at least 75 million fewer children are likely to attend school and 8.6 million fewer people could have access to HIV/AIDS treatment if aid is diverted to help poor countries tackle climate change. Without at least $50 billion a year in addition to the 0.7 per cent of national income rich countries have already pledged as aid, recent progress toward the Millennium Development Goals could stall and then go into reverse. Source: Oxfam, http://tinyurl.com/yc5atwj
The Center for Global Development launched a survey on how to design a climate agreement that is environmentally effective, economically efficient, and fair. The 15 questions about climate policy in this survey present you with some of the same choices that climate negotiators are weighing, and that global leaders will tackle at Copenhagen and beyond. An important goal of the survey is to discover on which aspects of a climate agreement people from different backgrounds agree, and on which they disagree. The Center hopes to discover on which issues there is agreement among people who share a commitment to development but come from different backgrounds, and on which issues a consensus has yet to emerge. http://www.join.cgdev.org/site/R?i=loPmIQsFmx3x-L5kZS-Nuw
The expected introduction of the European Union’s (EU) Lisbon Treaty in 2010 will fundamentally alter how EU external action is conducted. This presents both risks and opportunities for EU development cooperation. The general expectation of EU Member States’ Senior Officials is that progress in EU integration and a stronger EU profile in the world would strengthen EU development cooperation and improve policy coherence for development This would also help to ensure better cooperation with partner countries in the South. But there were varying assessments on how these aspirations might best be achieved. See the ECDPM background document. Source: ECDPM. http://dev.afflux.com/ecdpm/manager2/link.php?ID=1125
The European Commission published a progress report of the Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) approach launched in 2005 as part of the European Consensus on Development. The PCD review published in late September says that its framework ”allows for a systematic exploration of the effects that EU policies other than aid might have on development and on the achievement of the MDGs. The European Commission claims that these are ”powerful mechanisms to promote PCD”. Source: CTA. http://www.eurodad.org/whatsnew/articles.aspx?id=3883
http://www.acp.int/en/sg/migration09/acpmigration09_workshop.html
The ACP Migration Facility aiming to support the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to better understand and manage the flow of migration within their borders, was officially launched on the 27th and 28th October in Brussels. This took place during a workshop organised by the ACP Secretariat in collaboration with the European Commission’s EuropeAid Cooperation Office (AIDCO). Source: ACP Secretariat.
Twitter Lists are a great way to organize the people you follow and discover new and interesting accounts. The idea is to allow people to curate lists of Twitter accounts. Other Twitter users can then subscribe to your lists. Check out my new list on development cooperation news: http://twitter.com/kweitzenegger/development-cooperation. Tell me if you want be part of it.
AGEG Consultants eG has two new Managing Directors, who share general management tasks. Both are experienced Consultants and are named Harald, but are not relatives. Harald Himsel will lead the business development, while Harald Speidel looks more on the administration and financial management. Martina Jacobson joined the team as Project Manager for Training, E-Learning, and Sustainable Tourism. All activities of AGEG Consultants are coordinated from AGEG’s Head Office in Kirchheim unter Teck, Germany. A team of 16 people is responsible for the acquisition and management of short and long term projects as well as for the provision of services to AGEG’s members and associates. http://www.ageg.de/headoffice/headoffice_team/
The European Commission has selected three consortia in which AGEG participates as partner for the Multiple Framework Contract to recruit technical assistance for short-term expertise. The Framework Contract Beneficiaries is an instrument for fast and transparent recruiting of experts for activities in the sole interest of the beneficiary countries/authorities of the European Commission’s external aid programmes. We expect to receive requests for international and national expertise by the European Commission from now on.
AGEG is now a ‘preferred supplier’ for Technical Assistance services to the EC for the following specific areas of expertise:
– Transport and Infrastructure sector (Lot 2)
– Environment (Lot 6)
– Humanitarian Aid and crisis management (Lot 12)
AGEG is enlarging the database of individual experts especially for these sectors. We are looking for interested and qualified experts. Candidates should have experience in EC development co-operation and in conducting short-term missions (evaluations, studies, technical assistance, etc.). If you are interested and agree that we can include your CV in our database, please send your updated CV to Angela Kirchherr at a.kirchherr @ ageg.de. See http://www.ageg.de/project_jobs/
As president in office of the EU Council, the Minister for International Development Cooperation of Sweden, Gunilla Carlsson, presented to MEPs from the Committee on Development the presidency’s priorities for the second semester of 2009: development as part of the climate change agenda, democracy building as well as policy coherence and effectiveness. Helping to ensure that developing countries can effectively fight poverty in all its forms and meet the challenges that follow in the wake of the global economic crisis and climate change are the main priorities the Swedish presidency in the field of development. Replying to some questions of MEPs about the sometimes incoherent EU approach, the Swedish minister encouraged the European Parliament to make full use of its scrutinising powers (budgetary and co-decision procedures) in order to ensure that the EU makes the development cooperation more effective and ensures that different EU policy areas and actors work together more coherently. http://www.europarl.europa.eu
The newly published 2009 annual report on the European Community’s development and external assistance policies and their implementation in 2008 shows that the European Union continues to be the world’s leading development aid donor, accounting for 60% of world aid in 2008. The Commission alone committed EUR 12 billion, more than a fifth of the EU total. At the same time the quality and effectiveness of aid are improving, as are transparency and the monitoring of results. The Commission has continued its efforts to make its aid more effective by working more closely with other international donors and by simplifying its procedures. Considerable efforts have also been made to channel aid through national systems in order to strengthen ownership at local level and reduce transaction costs for the partner countries. In 2008 the Commission also stepped up its efforts to mainstream such issues as gender, the environment, and the rights of children and indigenous people in the development process. Source: RAPID http://tinyurl.com/yd4aodv
The European Commission issued its Annual Report on Competition Policy for 2008. The report provides a summary of the most important developments with regards to EU competition policy and focuses on major enforcement actions. Furthermore, the ways in which tools of competition policy have been applied to combat the financial crisis are outlined and the benefits to consumers of competition policy are underlined. For the first time, the 2008 Annual Report includes a special chapter on a topic considered to be of particular importance in the field of competition policy. The topic chosen is ”Cartels and consumers”. In 2008, the Commission fined 34 undertakings in seven cartel decisions. In cases such as the Banana cartel, consumers directly suffered from higher prices until the Commission broke up the price fixing cartel. http://ec.europa.eu/competition/publications/annual_report/index.html
The European Commission published the results of the new ”Flash Eurobarometer: SMEs’ access to finance”. The survey, conducted with 9071 firms in 27 EU Member States, Croatia, Iceland and Norway, was set up to assess EU companies’ use of various sources of finance, to get a picture of the magnitude of companies’ difficulties in getting access to finance, and to obtain an overview of companies’ expectations for financing their future projects and developments. Overall, the survey revealed that businesses face difficulties in accessing finance, as almost half of them have problems to access bank loans. Despite the fact that availability of bank loans has deteriorated over the last six months for 46% of SMEs, over 70% of small businesses were able to receive all or part of the bank load they wanted, and only 15% were fully rejected. http://tinyurl.com/yantrpd
The fourth phase of AL-INVEST, financed by the European Commission, aims at supporting the internationalisation of Latin American SMEs in collaboration with their European partners in order to contribute to reinforce social cohesion in the region. Unlike the previous phases, the fourth phase of the AL-INVEST (2009-2012) is implemented through three groups of business organisations belonging to three distinct geographical areas of Latin America: 1. Central America-Cuba-México; 2. Andean Region; 3. Mercosur Chile and Venezuela. These three groups are supported through horizontal services delivered by a European consortium lead by EUROCHAMBRES. This consortium will carry out market studies, business meetings, technical assistance, individual exchange programmes and trainings. In addition, all European business organisations with experience and/or interest in working with Latin America will be gathered under a Network of Interested Institutions. AL-INVEST IV website: http://www.al-invest4.eu
AFD and Crédit Agricole Asset Management have launched CAAM AFD Avenirs durables (Sustainable Futures), an innovative mutual fund that allows savers to participate in financing projects in developing countries. This innovative product aims to create new sources of financing for development, while at the same time meeting the demands of savers seeking socially responsible investments http://www.caamafdavenirsdurables.org
Creating the conditions for good jobs and, more importantly, social protection programs for those unable to find decent work is an urgent priority for governments in Asia and the Pacific, Asian Development Bank (ADB) Vice President Ursula Schaefer-Preuss told a conference in Ha Noi, Viet Nam. Speaking at the conclusion of a three-day conference titled ”The Impact of the Global Economic Slowdown on Poverty and Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific,” Ms. Schaefer-Preuss said that the recent global economic downturn has cut demand for the exports on which the region’s economies depend, forcing job cuts in many of the industries that send their goods overseas and slashing the incomes of thousands of people in the region. Many may struggle to find alternative employment. ”Before the crisis – in the context of high growth rates – only about half of the region’s young labor entrants could find decent jobs, while the rest had to sustain themselves and their families through the informal sector,” said Ms. Schaefer-Preuss. ”The need for social protection strategies to address the post-crisis labor market becomes more urgent with the prospect that growth rates may not reach the levels of just a few years ago.” The conference, organized by the ADB, together with the governments of Viet Nam and the People’s Republic of China, the ASEAN Secretariat and nine development partners, saw over 350 representatives from ADB, regional governments, civil society, intergovernment organizations and academe discuss the social impact of the global crisis and the need for social policy reforms. http://www.adb.org/Media/Articles/2009/13020-asian-employments-priorities/
Asia and Pacific countries continue to make broad progress in reducing extreme poverty but hunger still remains widespread and many economies are struggling to meet other Millennium Development Goals, including reductions in maternal mortality rates and access to sanitation, latest available data show. Source: ADB http://www.adb.org/article.asp?id=12968
GTZ has contracted CEFE International to develop a Tool Box for the Promotion of Private Sector Development Commitment of Migrants. 15 innovative and well described ideas are needed. Approved contributions (4 pages) will be honoured with up to 375,00 USD. But you can gain even more. http://www.cefe.net/en/makemoney/call-contributions-migration-and-development
The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) launched a call addressed to individuals for the establishment of a database of independent experts to assist the EIT in the process of the evaluation and implementation of Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs). The database will include profiles from the following areas: Sustainable energy, Climate change adoption and mitigation, Future information and communication society, Business creation and venture capital, Innovation in existing business, Entrepreneurial education, Research and product development. The list drawn up from the date of publication of this call will be valid until the end of 2013. Applications may be submitted at any time, up to the last 3 months of validity of the list. To register as an independent expert, see http://eit.europa.eu/experts.html
The Microinsurance Innovation Facility and the European Development Research Network (EUDN) invite academic researchers to submit proposals for research that will contribute new knowledge to support microinsurance development in developing countries. Deadline: 30 October 2009. http://www.eudnet.net/microinsurance.html
Looking for a job in development cooperation? This Website gives you a list of professional opportunities around the world. Updated as you arrive. I am still working on updates, so come back soon.
http://www.weitzenegger.de/new/jobmarket.php
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