The World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved Program-for-Results (PforR), an innovative new financing instrument for the World Bank’s client countries that links the disbursement of funds directly to the delivery of defined results. Money will flow once the results have been delivered and verified.

PforR would support government programs in a diverse range of countries and sectors. In some countries, PforR would help deliver and improve the coverage of antenatal care for mothers and newborns or increase immunization coverage for children. In others, PforR would help provide sustainable water supply and sanitation services; strengthen the coverage and quality of early childhood and primary education; or contribute to a government program to reduce the number of rural households living below the poverty line.

‘Enhancing development effectiveness by helping developing countries achieve results is central to the mission of World Bank,’ said Robert B. Zoellick, President of the World Bank Group. ‘Program-for-Results financing demands greater accountability from partner countries and in turn will help these countries continue to deliver sustainable results long after the Bank’s involvement has ended. The time is right for this innovative development approach.’

PforR will also help improve the transparency and accountability of developing country programs, and strengthen systems to fight fraud and corruption. Under the new instrument, the Bank will provide part of the overall funding for a larger, developing country-financed program but will be able to provide its technical expertise to the larger government program. For example, the Bank’s commitment to openness and transparency will be applied to the entire program supported – including through the application of the Bank’s Access to Information policy to PforR operations.

Key assessments – fiduciary, environmental & social – of program systems are an important feature of this new instrument and will help provide assurance that Bank financing is used appropriately and that the environmental and social impacts of the program are adequately addressed. These assessments will all be publically disclosed. PforR financing will also help partner countries improve the design and implementation of their development programs, strengthen institutions, and build capacity.

Says Joachim von Amsberg, World Bank Vice President for Operations Policy and Country Services, ‘Building effective and accountable institutions in partner countries is key to achieving better development outcomes and results. We believe that with this new instrument, the World Bank jointly with others – government, development partners, civil society, the private sector and others – will be a better partner focused on results, focused on institution building and focused on better partnerships.’ Source: World Bank http://tinyurl.com/6f3afdx

Innovations for Poverty Action is a nonprofit dedicated to discovering what works to help the world’s poor. We design and evaluate programs in real contexts with real people, and provide hands-on assistance to bring successful programs to scale. IPA uses randomized evaluations because they provide the highest quality and most reliable answers to what works and what does not. They also repeat studies in different countries to test if findings are really transferable.

News that another $72 million has been committed for a second stage of the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) has led to another round of critical discussion as to what can be learning from this entire endeavor. The Guardian’s Poverty Matters blog and Lawrence Haddad at the Development Horizons blog offer some critiques. In response to the latter, Jeffrey Sachs and Prabhjot Singh offer a rather stunning reply which seems worth discussing from the point of view of what is possible with impact evaluations. World Bank’s David McKenzie
dissects some of their statements.

Recently launched, ELLA is a knowledge sharing and learning platform on selected economic, environmental and governance issues, funded by the UK Department for International Development.

ELLA represents an opportunity for learning, sharing and networking.

• It shares knowledge of recent Latin American experiences tailored for African and Asian policy makers and practitioners who are looking to innovate: successful experiences, evidence-based lessons, key organisations and publications.

• It supports learning between Latin American, African and South Asian countries

• It provides a networking platform for organisations and individuals to link to Latin America

You can view the website and find out more information about the project at http://ella.practicalaction.org

Thanks to Yaso Kunaratnam!

The survey also found that across the region 62 per cent of people believe corruption has become worse in the past three years.

Daily Lives and Corruption, Public Opinion in Southern Africa surveyed more than 6,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe between 2010 and 2011.

The good news is that 80 per cent of those interviewed said they were prepared to get involved in the fight against corruption and three-quarters said ordinary people can make a difference in the fight against corruption.

“Governments must wake up to the fact that people will not tolerate corruption any more and start reforming weak institutions, particular the police. People have a right to feel that they are protected by the police and not harassed,” said Chantal Uwimana, Regional Director for Africa and the Middle East at Transparency International.

The report found that people in all six countries named the police as the most corrupt service provider of the nine featured in the survey and that most bribes were paid to the police.

The results showed some regional differences. In four out of the six countries people reported paying bribes to speed up services but in South Africa and the DRC more bribes were paid to avoid problems with the authorities.

In five of the six countries people trusted the government more than non-governmental organisations, the media, international organisations or the private sector to fight corruption. In Malawi, however, non-governmental organisations were trusted just as much as the government. Source: Distributed by the African Press Organization on behalf of Transparency International, http://tinyurl.com/ce5vjuh

At the fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness approximately 2000 delegates from 160 governments, parliaments, international organisations, civil society and the private sector will review global progress in improving the impact and value for money of development aid and make new commitments to further ensure that aid helps reduce poverty and supports progress in meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

The conference will be a major milestone and turning point for the global aid effectiveness agenda: The conference will assess the achievement of the Paris Declaration targets and the commitments of the Accra Agenda for Action by the 2010 deadline, as well as report on the monitoring of the Fragile States Principles. Significantly, the event will also chart future directions for more effective development aid and contribute towards a new international aid architecture as follow-up to the Paris process. The 2015 MDG deadline and the biennial ECOSOC Development Cooperation Forum will be of particular relevance in this regard and are likely to put the UN system in the limelight during the negotiations.

The Busan Forum is a continuation in a series of High Level Forums on Aid Effectiveness that started in Rome (2003) and continued in Paris (2005) and Accra (2008). For the fourth time since 2003, industrialized and developing countries will be discussing ways of making development cooperation more effective. A third draft of the Busan Outcome Document has been prepared. The Outcome Document will be further discussed and developed and will be finalised at the Busan Forum itself.

It is clear for everyone to see that the context for aid effectiveness has changed a great deal in recent years. Making sure that Busan is about more than just playing the end game of a previous era is vital to us all. The question is, are we brave enough to make it happen?

Michèle Laubscher (Alliance Sud) sees OECD veering in the wrong direction. She writes: ”The last meeting held three years ago in the Ghanaian capital Accra ended with the recognition that effective development cooperation requires democratic ownership, transparency and an enabling environment for to civil society. Another idea that also gained traction in Accra was that aid can contribute only modestly to the social and economic development of poor countries. Much more important are government policies in these countries as well as external factors such as global economic and trade conditions, which are generally dictated by the industrialized countries. Future discussions should therefore be about «development effectiveness» rather than just aid effectiveness. It was not decided at the time what this meant in concrete terms, and this will now be done at the conference in the South Korean city of Busan. The competition for «new donor countries» and the private sector could well set the clock back and water down important principles.” Source: http://www.alliancesud.ch/en/policy/aid/busan-high-level-meeting

AidWatch takes a critical look at the European Commission’s proposals (http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/multimedia/presentations-speeches/conference_en.htm) for the EU common position ahead of the HLF-4. AidWatch is particularly concerned by the proposal to narrow the aid effectiveness agenda down to a more limited set of commitments, to streamline the global monitoring process and the lack of concrete and measureable reform commitments for the EU. http://www.concordeurope.org/Public/Page.php?ID=14347

A global aid transparency group around ”Publish What You Fund” 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 HLF-4 is being negotiated. http://tinyurl.com/cyrnsu7

Women’s groups and gender equality advocates engaged in the HLF-4 process call on all governments and other development actors involved in the HLF-4 and 2012 DCF process to consider some imperatives for Gender Equality (http://www.globaleverantwortung.at/images/doku/womensorganisations_keydemands_busan_oct2011.pdf)

At Busan, world leaders will again proclaim their faith in the power of local parliaments and civil society to make aid more transparent, accountable and effective. ”I have my doubts,” writes Till Bruckner in this Devev Blog. Accountability is inherently demand-driven. If local parliaments and NGOs are to effectively monitor and influence international aid, they must be highly capable, and willing and able to rise to the challenge. In most aid recipient countries, these preconditions for aid accountability simply do not exist. The Busan forum will doubtlessly produce a polished document full of well-intended promises. But if these promises are based on fantasy, not reality, we cannot pressure donors to live up to them. Aid transparency is a necessary precondition for local aid accountability, but in itself is not sufficient. Accountability is a two-way process. Information gives local accountability agencies ammunition to press for change – but only if they are willing and able to do so. Source: http://www.devex.com/en/blogs/full-disclosure/the-local-aid-accountability-delusion

The European Parliament adopted its report on aid effectiveness (http://tinyurl.com/cnoznl7) that demands much more ambitious reforms than the European Commission has proposed so far. The report is published just as EU Member State governments are currently negotiating the joint EU position for the HLF-4. The report calls for further progress to empower developing country‘s people and democratic institutions; and emphasises that donors‘ procurement practices need to be reformed to boost aid‘s economic impact and drive inclusive growth.

Official Event Site http://www.aideffectiveness.org/busanHLF-4/ Official OECD Site http://tinyurl.com/3zemvor
UN Aid Effectiveness Website http://www.undg.org/index.cfm?P=219

CSO Open Forum http://www.cso-effectiveness.org
Fully participatory space for Civil Society Organizations worldwide united to define and advocate a common framework for CSO development effectiveness http://twitter.com/#!/CSOpenForum

The Broker Blog http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/Blogs/Busan-High-Level-Forum
The Broker, in cooperation with the OECD, invites you to contribute to this blog about the challenges of the coming HLF on aid effectivess at Busan.

ODI Blog – The road to Busan and beyond http://tinyurl.com/3gr7d2v ODI experts respond to the conference
http://tinyurl.com/bvetons
In the lead up to the Busan conference, ODI experts explore aid effectiveness alongside country ownership, climate finance, and principles for global agreement.

Official Social Media Sites of the Fourth High Level Forum
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/busanHLF-4
Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/HLF-4Org
Vimeo http://vimeo.com/user7035907
YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/HLF-4busan
Blog http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/Blogs/Busan-High-Level-Forum RSS http://feeds.feedburner.com/busanHLF-4

Sign on to CSO Asks to Busan: http://www.betteraid.org
Tell world leaders that you want to add a citizen voice to aid and development decisions.

Capacity Development: Where do EU Members Stand on the Road to Busan? http://tinyurl.com/18r
Gwennaelle Corre, author of the EC study on ‘Supporting the Implementation of the Technical Cooperation for an Enhanced Capacity Development’, found, however that there is a noticeable difference between the Capacity Development practices and experiences of EU Member States. While all European donors do not regard Capacity Development with the same degree of priority, they have become increasingly aware of the importance of supporting it as a way to achieve lasting development results, according to a recent European Commission study.

CSOs on the Road to Busan: CSO Key Messages and Proposals
http://tinyurl.com/d8s8wmh
This paper by BetterAid lays out the main demands from civil society organizations (CSOs) in the run up to the HLF-4. Civil society organizations can sign on to the paper online.

Demanding democratic ownership. D+C article by Antonio Tujan Jr. http://www.inwent.org/ez/articles/197562/index.en.shtml
Civil society organisations are engaged in the aid effectiveness debate. They have been pushing for deeper, more meaningful reform. In 2008, the Accra HLF recognised CSOs as development actors in their own right. Some of their concerns were adopted by the HLF, including broader country ownership or more effective and inclusive partnerships. Many demands, however, were not met. The most important of these were aid reforms that would enable people to use their human rights (”right-based results”) and introduce democratic ownership free from foreign interference.

Democratic Ownership after Busan: Setting up Integrative Partnerships for Development http://www.alliance2015.org/index.php?id=54
In its preparations for the HLF-4, Alliance2015 has surveyed the progress towards democratic ownership based on five case studies – Cambodia, Ghana, Mozambique, Nicaragua and Tanzania – and on a cross-country report focussing on civil society participation in the development process. Donors are not doing enough to provide developing countries the political space they need in order to find their own path to development through real democratic processes. Numerous governments in developing countries have never really endorsed the principle of democratic ownership. They have not taken serious steps towards shaping an enabling environment because they do not sufficiently recognise civil society and parliaments as being independent actors in the development process. When civil society organisations and parliaments are invited to participate, they often do not possess the necessary knowledge about political processes. Therefore, they are frequently unable to make a meaningful contribution to the development process.

Independent Evaluation of the Implementation of the Paris Declaration http://www.aideffectiveness.org/busanHLF-4/topics/evidence-for-busan/450.html
The Independent Evaluation of the Implementation of the Paris Declaration is an independent global appraisal of efforts to improve the effectiveness of international aid since 2005. The latest evidence is vital for decisions taken at Busan. It will help in learning lessons and ensuring that all involved in aid meet their commitments.

It’s Complicated: the Challenge of Implementing the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2011/0922_paris_declaration_chandy.aspx By Laurence Chandy, The Brookings Institution.
Of the 13 targets agreed to at the Paris High Level Forum, only one was met. That’s a grim outcome even by the standards of global development, where commitments are regularly professed but rarely fulfilled. It also makes for a gloomy backdrop to this November’s High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Korea. Over the next few weeks, be prepared for a good amount of haranguing and finger-pointing as development activists line up to accuse donor agencies of not trying hard enough and aid skeptics write off the High Level Forum process as an ineffectual talking shop.

Move on. D+C Comment by Sachin Chaturvedi
http://www.inwent.org/ez/articles/197873/index.en.shtml
The time has come to move on beyond ”donors” and ”recipients” in the international development discourse, argues an expert from India. In his view, the focus must be on what is happening in the countries that receive aid flows, and what can improve the lot of their peoples.

Results based aid: limitations of new approaches
GDI Briefing Paper 17/2011 by Stephan Klingebiel
http://tinyurl.com/clx2d5b
Some of the current instruments already offer useful ways of incentivising performance. For instance, designing budget support with variable tranches. With respect to other RBA approaches (such as Cash on Delivery), practical experience is still lacking. It is possible that the disadvantages might outweigh the advantages. The hoped for benefit of RBA approaches, that of being able to produce clearly verifiable results may only ”seem to be” achievable. RBA approaches assume a clear performance orientation in the partner countries, which applies to the reform dynamic countries, but those without good governance may be less easily encouraged by such a system of incentives, and thus other approaches might be more suitable there.

Africa Platform on Development Effectiveness
http://www.africa-platform.org
The Platform brings consultation, coordination and a common voice to Africa’s development perspectives, strategies and policies focusing on capacity development, aid effectiveness and south-south cooperation.

BetterAid
http://www.betteraid.org
BetterAid unites over 1000 development organisations from civil society working on development effectiveness. BetterAid has been challenging the aid effectiveness agenda since January 2007 and is leading many of the civil society activities in the lead up to the HLF-4 in Busan.

capacity4dev.eu Public Group on Aid Effectiveness
http://capacity4dev.ec.europa.eu/pubaideffect/
Capacity4dev.eu is a growing online community for development practitioners. This interactive platform was set up by EuropeAid to enhance knowledge through the exchange of practices on effective international cooperation.

CSO Development effectiveness
http://www.cso-effectiveness.org.
New website on the effectiveness of civil organisations working in Development.

IATI is a global aid transparency standard
http://iatistandard.org
IATI consists of a set of aid information standards; an online registry of published data; and a governance and advocacy process that builds the case for transparency across the aid sector. IATI makes information about aid spending easier to access, use and understand.

IDEAS AidRating
http://www.aidrating.org
AidRating strives to contribute to better aid by measuring effectiveness/impact of interventions and making them comparable. In order to achieve this, we support full project related transparency by donors and contracting agencies.

Impact Evaluation, Development Effectiveness | 3IE
http://www.3ieimpact.org
The International Initiative for Impact Evaluations. Improving development effectiveness through better use of evidence from quality impact evaluation.

LenCD Learning Network on Capacity Development – Road to Busan http://www.lencd.org/group/busan
The ”Road to Busan” working group has identified 10 key priorities to pursue between now and the High Level Forum. All members of the Learning Network are invited to participate in any or all of these initiatives.

Make Aid Transparent campaign
http://www.makeaidtransparent.org
The Make Aid Transparent campaign is a coalition of 101 civil society organisations who have come together to call on donors to publish more and better information about the aid they give.

SDC Aid Effectiveness Network (SDC-AEnet)
http://www.sdc-aid-effectiveness.ch
The website of the Swiss SDC Community of Practice on matters related to Aid Effectiveness. You’ll find here information on the SDC-AEnet itself, as well as on the DAC hosted Working Party on Aid Effectiveness, and SDC’s role in it.

The Open Forum for CSO
http://www.cso-effectiveness.org
The Open Forum brings together civil society organisations from around the world to discuss the issues and challenges to their effectiveness as development actors. Its objective is to propose, by late 2011, a global effectiveness framework for CSOs. The Open Forum is accessible to all interested CSOs worldwide, including NGOs, church-related organisations, trade unions, social movements and grassroots organisations.

United Nations Development Group
http://www.undg.org/index.cfm?P=1412
The UNDG Task Team has agreed on a joint statement and key messages for HLF-4 on the global aid architecture and the role of multilateral institutions, capacity development, and on countries affected by conflict and fragility. The UNDG/ECHA Working Group on Transitions is used at the platform to develop coordinated and coherent UN messages on crisis and post-crisis issues, feeding in to the joint preparations of the UNDG task team, as well as to the relevant external processes, i.e. the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding and the International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF).

Norway, Australia and the Netherlands lead the world in the 2011 Human Development Index (HDI), while the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger and Burundi are at the bottom of the Human Development Report’s annual rankings of national achievement in health, education and income, released today by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The United States, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Germany and Sweden round out the top 10 countries in the 2011 HDI, but when the Index is adjusted for internal inequalities in health, education and income, some of the wealthiest nations drop out of the HDI’s top 20: the United States falls from #4 to #23, the Republic of Korea from #15 to #32, and Israel from #17 to #25.

The United States and Israel drop in the Report’s Inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI) mainly because of income inequality, though health care is also a factor in the US ranking change, while wide education gaps between generations detract from the Republic of Korea’s IHDI performance.

Other top national achievers rise in the IHDI due to greater relative internal equalities in health, education and income: Sweden jumps from #10 to #5, Denmark climbs from #16 to #12, and Slovenia rises from #21 to #14.

The IHDI and two other composite indices—the Multidimensional Poverty Index and the Gender Inequality Index—were designed to complement the Human Development Report’s HDI, which is based on national averages in schooling, life expectancy, and per capita income. The 2011 HDI covers a record 187 countries and territories, up from 169 in 2010, reflecting in part improved data availability for many small island states of the Caribbean and the Pacific. The 2011 country rankings are therefore not comparable to the 2010 Report’s HDI figures, the authors note.

“The Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index helps us assess better the levels of development for all segments of society, rather than for just the mythical ‘average’ person,” said Milorad Kovacevic, chief statistician for the Human Development Report. “We consider health and education distribution to be just as important in this equation as income, and the data show great inequities in many countries.”

The 2011 Report—Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All—notes that income distribution has worsened in most of the world, with Latin America remaining the most unequal region in income terms, even though several countries including Brazil and Chile are narrowing internal income gaps. Yet in overall IHDI terms, including life expectancy and schooling, Latin America is more equitable than sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia, the Report shows.

To assess income distribution, as well as varying levels of life expectancy and schooling within national populations, the IHDI uses methodology developed by the renowned British economist Sir Anthony Barnes Atkinson. “We use the Atkinson approach to measure inequalities in health, education and income, because it is more sensitive to changes at the lower end of the scale than the more familiar Gini coefficient,” Kovacevic said.

Average HDI levels have risen greatly since 1970—41 percent globally and 61 percent in today’s low-HDI countries—reflecting major overall gains in health, education and income. The 2011 HDI charts progress over five years to show recent national trends: 72 nations moved up in rank from 2006 to 2011, led by Cuba (+10 to #51), Venezuela and Tanzania (+7 each to #73 and #152, respectively), while another 72 fell in rank, including Kuwait (-8 to #63) and Finland (-7 to #22).

The 10 countries that place last in the 2011 HDI are all in sub-Saharan Africa: Guinea, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Chad, Mozambique, Burundi, Niger, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Despite recent progress, these low-HDI nations still suffer from inadequate incomes, limited schooling opportunities, and life expectancies far below world averages due in great part to deaths from preventable and treatable diseases such as malaria and AIDS. In many, these problems are compounded by the destructive legacy of armed conflict. In the lowest-ranking country in the 2011 HDI, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more than three million people died from warfare and conflict-linked illness in recent years, prompting the largest peacekeeping operation in UN history.

Gender Inequality Index

The Gender Inequality Index (GII) shows that Sweden leads the world in gender equality, as measured by this composite index of reproductive health, years of schooling, parliamentary representation, and participation in the labour market. Sweden is followed in the gender inequality rankings by the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Germany, Singapore, Iceland and France.

Yemen ranks as the least equitable of the 146 countries in the GII, followed by Chad, Niger, Mali, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, Liberia, Central African Republic and Sierra Leone. In Yemen, just 7.6 percent of women have a secondary education, compared to 24.4 percent for men; women hold just 0.7 percent of seats in the legislature; and only 20 percent of working-age women are in the paid work force, compared to 74 percent of men.

“In sub-Saharan Africa the biggest losses arise from gender disparities in education and from high maternal mortality and adolescent fertility rates,” the Report’s authors write. “In South Asia, women lag behind men in each dimension of the GII, most notably in education, national parliamentary representation and labour force participation. Women in Arab states are affected by unequal labour force participation (around half the global average) and low educational attainment.”

Multidimensional Poverty Index

The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) examines factors at the family level—such as access to clean water and cooking fuel and health services, as well as basic household goods and home construction standards—that together provide a fuller portrait of poverty than income measurements alone.

Some 1.7 billion people in 109 countries lived in ‘multidimensional’ poverty in the decade ending in 2010, by the MPI calculus, or almost a third of the countries’ entire combined population of 5.5 billion. That compares to the 1.3 billion people estimated to live on US$1.25 a day or less, the measure used in the UN Millennium Development Goals, which seeks to eradicate “extreme” poverty by 2015.

Niger has the highest share of multidimensionally poor, at 92 percent of the population, the Report says, followed by Ethiopia and Mali, with 89 percent and 87 percent, respectively. The 10 poorest nations as measured by the MPI are all in sub-Saharan Africa. But the largest group of multidimensionally poor is South Asian: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have some of the highest absolute numbers of MPI poor.

The MPI provides insight into environmental problems in the poorest households, including indoor air pollution and disease from contaminated water supplies. The Report notes that in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, more than 90 percent of the multidimensionally poor cannot afford clean cooking fuel, relying principally on firewood, while some 85 percent lack basic sanitation services.

The 2011 Report—Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All—argues that environmental sustainability can be most fairly and effectively achieved by addressing health, education, income, and gender disparities together with the need for global action on energy production and ecosystem protection. The Report was launched in Copenhagen today by UNDP Administrator Helen Clark with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, whose new government has pledged to reduce Denmark’s CO2 emissions by a dramatic 40 percent over the next 10 years.

As the world community prepares for the landmark UN Conference on Sustainable Development in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, the Report argues that sustainability must be approached as a matter of basic social justice, for current and future generations alike.

“Sustainability is not exclusively or even primarily an environmental issue, as this Report so persuasively argues,” Helen Clark says in the foreword. “It is fundamentally about how we choose to live our lives, with an awareness that everything we do has consequences for the seven billions of us here today, as well as for the billions more who will follow, for centuries to come.”

UNDP has commissioned the editorially-independent Human Development Reports each year since 1990, when its Human Development Index (HDI), a composite measure of health, education and income, first challenged purely economic measures of national achievement and called for consistent global tracking of progress in overall living standards.

Between 1970 and 2010 the countries in the lowest 25 percent of the HDI rankings improved their overall HDI achievement by a remarkable 82 percent, twice the global average. If the pace of improvement over the past 40 years were to be continued for the next 40, the great majority of countries would achieve HDI levels by 2050 equal to or better than those now enjoyed only by the top 25 percent in today’s HDI rankings, the Report notes—an extraordinary achievement for human development globally in less than a century. Yet because of escalating environmental hazards, these positive development trends may instead be abruptly halted by mid-century, the Report contends, noting that people in the poorest countries are disproportionately at risk from climate-driven disasters such as drought and flooding and exposure to air and water pollution.

Sustainability and social justice

Despite the human development progress of recent years, income distribution has worsened, grave gender imbalances still persist, and accelerating environmental destruction puts a “double burden of deprivation” on the poorest households and communities, the Report says. Half of all malnutrition worldwide is attributable to environmental factors, such as water pollution and drought-driven scarcity, perpetuating a vicious cycle of impoverishment and ecological damage, the Report notes.

High living standards need not be carbon-fueled and follow the examples of the richest countries, says the Report, presenting evidence that while CO2 emissions have been closely linked with national income growth in recent decades, fossil-fuel consumption does not correspond with other key measures of human development, such as life expectancy and education. In fact, many advanced industrial nations are reducing their carbon footprints while maintaining growth.

“Growth driven by fossil fuel consumption is not a prerequisite for a better life in broader human development terms,” Helen Clark said. “Investments that improve equity—in access, for example, to renewable energy, water and sanitation, and reproductive healthcare—could advance both sustainability and human development.”

The Report calls for electricity service to be provided to the 1.5 billion people who are now off the power grid—and says that this can be done both affordably and sustainably, without a significant rise in carbon emissions. This new UN-backed ‘Universal Energy Access Initiative’ could be achieved with investments of about one-eighth of the amount currently spent on fossils fuel subsidies, estimated at US$312 billion worldwide in 2009, according to the Report.

The Report adds its voice to those urging consideration of an international currency trading tax or broader financial transaction levies to fund the fight against climate change and extreme poverty. A tax of just 0.005 percent on foreign exchange trading could raise $40 billion yearly or more, the Report estimates, significantly boosting aid flows to poor countries—amounting to $130 billion in 2010—at a time when development funding is lagging behind previously pledged levels due to the global financial crisis.

“The tax would allow those who benefit most from globalization to help those who benefit least,” the Report argues, estimating that about $105 billion is needed annually just to finance adaptation to climate change, especially in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

The Report examines social factors not always associated with environmental sustainability:

· Expanding reproductive rights, health care and contraceptive access would open a new front in the fight against gender inequality and poverty, the Report contends. Reproductive rights can further reduce environmental pressures by slowing global demographic growth, with the world population now projected to rise from 7 billion today to 9.3 billion within 40 years.

· The Report argues that official transparency and independent watchdogs—including news media, civil society and courts—are vital to civic engagement in environmental policymaking. Some 120 national constitutions guarantee environmental protections, but in many countries there is little enforcement of these provisions, the Report says.

· Bold global action is urgently required for sustainable development, but local initiatives to support poor communities can be both highly cost-effective and environmentally beneficial, the Report emphasizes. India’s Rural Employment Guarantee Act cost about 0.5 percent of GDP in 2009 and benefited 45 million households—one-tenth of the labour force; Brazil’s Bolsa Familia and Mexico’s Oportunidades programmes cost about 0.4 percent of GDP and provide safety nets for about one-fifth of their populations.

The authors forecast that unchecked environmental deterioration—from drought in sub-Saharan Africa to rising sea levels that could swamp low-lying countries like Bangladesh—could cause food prices to soar by up to 50 percent and reverse efforts to expand water, sanitation and energy access to billions of people, notably in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

By 2050, in an “environmental challenge” scenario factoring in the effects of global warming on food production and pollution, the average HDI would be 12 percent lower in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa than would otherwise be the case, the Report estimates. Under an even more adverse “environmental disaster” situation—with vast deforestation, dramatic biodiversity declines and increasingly extreme weather—the global HDI would fall 15 percent below the baseline projection for 2050, with the deepest losses in the poorest regions.

Environmental deterioration could undermine decades of efforts to expand water, sanitation and electricity access to the world’s poorest communities: “These absolute deprivations, important in themselves, are major violations of human rights,” the authors say.

As they cope with high international oil prices that led to an increase in poverty in the region last year, Asia-Pacific countries must ensure that national energy policies aim to universalize access to clean and efficient energy services, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) said.

“Ensuring access to modern energy services, doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency and doubling the share of renewable energy can revitalize the regional economy, combat climate change and go a long way toward ensuring equal opportunity for all,” Rae Kwon Chung, Director, Environment and Development Division, ESCAP told the Expert Group Meeting on Sustainable Energy Development in Asia and the Pacific, reiterating the vision of the United Nations Secretary-General’s ‘Sustainable Energy for All’ initiative.

Representatives from over 15 Asia-Pacific governments and energy experts from around the world met at the 27-29 September Expert Group Meeting organized by ESCAP jointly with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to review energy security challenges facing the region and lay the groundwork for a regional energy security agenda.

ESCAP estimates show that over 40 per cent of the approximate 4 billion people in the region mainly rely on traditional biomass for their cooking and heating needs while nearly 1 billion people lack electricity. This has enormous socio-economic costs, most of them borne by women who comprise nearly 70 per cent of the estimated 1 billion people in the region living on less than US$1.25 a day.

“Wider access to energy is a critical for reducing inequality. In formulating energy policies, we need to listen to the voices of the poor and marginalized,” Nanda Krairiksh, Director, Social Development Division, ESCAP told the meeting.

“Ensuring universal access to basic, clean energy services also provides significant benefits in the domains of health, literacy and equity,” Ms Krairiksh said. “Access to energy would, therefore, offer opportunities for millions of people to contribute more effectively and productively to society.”

According to ESCAP, few Asia-Pacific countries have integrated poverty reduction and environmental protection concerns into national energy policies. Lack of access to energy is a core cause of chronic poverty in developing countries in the region which, in turn, makes it even more difficult to obtain essential energy services, resulting in a vicious cycle of poverty and energy deprivation.

Noting that people facing energy insecurity have no voice in energy policy-making, the Expert Group Meeting agreed on the fundamental need to make energy policies pro-poor, and especially pro-women, in order to ensure universal access to modern energy sources.

Source: http://www.unescap.org/unis/press/2011/sep/g44.asp

Southern Innovator is a new magazine for a fast-changing world. It profiles and celebrates the innovators across the global South finding new ways to tackle poverty, create wealth and improve human development and achieve the millennium development goals (MDGs). In its first issue, Southern
Innovator features the people who are re-shaping new technologies – from mobile phone ‘apps’ to Internet technologies – to overcome poverty and to improve the quality of life in some of the poorest places on earth.

SI is based on intensive research and is produced by UNDP’s Special Unit for South-South Cooperation (www.southerninnovator.org). The Unit is the leading organisation in the world tasked with the goal of sharing knowledge across the global South. It organises events including the yearly South-South Expo www.southsouthexpo.org), a roaming celebration and gathering of Southern innovators previously held in New York and Geneva, Switzerland. This year’s Expo will be held in Rome, Italy (5 to 9 December 2011).

SI is being distributed around the world through the United Nations network and partners and reaches some of the poorest and remotest places as well as the vibrant but stressed growing global megacities. It is hoped the magazine will inspire budding innovators with its mix of stories, essential information, facts and figures, images and graphics. The magazine will evolve based on reader responses and this first issue is very much the beginning of a journey. As became clear while researching this first issue, many things can change in a short space of time. Few could have imagined the rapid take-up of mobile phones in Africa and how these phones have become integral to development goals across the continent.

The first issue features innovators in mobile phone and information technologies fromthe global South. It can be read online here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/57980406/Southern-Innovator-Issue-1. Copies for distribution can be ordered from UNDP’s Special Unit for South-South Cooperation here: E-mail: ssc.info@undp.org.

As part of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF), it will serve in preparing the
UN Conference on Sustainable Development which will be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012.
Jointly organised by the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development and
the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, and with support from Finland and Austria.
http://www.forests-in-a-green-economy.de

ECA Press Release No. 90/2011 Web: http://www.uneca.org/

Addis Ababa, 21 June 2011 (ECA) – African trade experts from member State capitals and the Geneva-based African trade negotiators assembled on Tuesday in Geneva for a
roundtable organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in
preparation for the 18-19 July, 3rd Global Aid for Trade (AfT) review. The aim of the
Review will be to assess the impact of AfT on economic growth, trade creation and poverty reduction.

According to the Information and Communication Service of the ECA, the day’s
roundtable discussed a collaborative study prepared under the auspices of the African
AfT Working Group. The Working Group comprised the African Development Bank, the ECA and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Speaking at the meeting, Stephen Karingi, Acting Director of the ECA Regional
Integration and Trade Division said, “AfT to Africa enjoys continuing growth, with no
apparent decline, following the global economic crisis and no signs of diversion from
other ODA.” He added that compared to other regions, Africa now supersedes Asia as the principal regional recipient of AfT.

Accordingly, economic infrastructure continues to enjoy the largest share of AfT to
Africa, closely followed by building productive capacity. The study shows that up to USD 7.2 billion has gone towards spending in economic infrastructure.

“During the period under review (2006-09), a few countries and regions appear to
receive a disproportionate share, but per capita AfT tells another story,” said Karingi.

He explained that as an example, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania were
among the top AfT recipients. “Yet, on a per capita basis, Island economies received
on average, a higher percentage (17.6) than say, non-LDCs, which received 9.9 per cent.”

Karingi also said that the increase in AfT to Africa is more impressive than the total
ODA flows to the region. “In other words, AfT to Africa increases at much faster rate
than the total ODA flows; growth rate of total ODA stands at 11.1% , while AfT 21.4%) during the period under review (2006-09).”

He argued that the picture demonstrates that AfT to Africa “has been rising, both in
volume terms and as a proportion of both the global AfT and total ODA to the region.”
To the relief of social development actors at the meeting, the study revealed that the
increase in the volume of AfT “was additional and not at the expense of a diversion of resources from other social or economic sectors.”

Case stories were also submitted to the WTO, which according to Karingi, provided a snapshot of AfT experiences on the ground in Africa.

“Of the 269 case stories submitted to the WTO, 114 pertain to Africa,” said Karingi. He added that ECA’s case story documenting the impact of AfT on specific binding constraints is a notable contribution on AfT Approaches for the whole continent.

A number of other issues emerged from the study, including the fact that AfT flow to
Africa is the most stable compared to other developing regions, such as Asia, America,
Europe and Oceania. There are also considerable variations among African countries in
AfT flows in terms of volume, per capita, ratio of disbursements to commitments as well as the share of AfT in the total ODA flows.

The conclusions will feed into the African Group position to the Committee of Trade
and Development to be held later in the week on 23-24 June 2011 and the Third Global Review of Aid for Trade to be held on 18-19 July 2011.