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	Floods drown Asia"s rice bowl by Reliefweb / Agence France-Presse   Oct 20, 2011   Many children dying and jobs being lost in Asian floods.   The floods which have affected eight million people across South East Asia, and which now threaten Bangkok, have underlined shortcomings in disaster risk reduction with many children drowning because they cannot swim, and thousands of workers now unemployed because of poorly located manufacturing plants, the Head of the UN’s Bangkok Office for Disaster Reduction, UNISDR, Jerry Velasquez said.   “We are particularly concerned to learn about the high numbers of children dying in these floods which was a concern raised by children themselves when over 600 were interviewed for the new Children’s Charter on Disaster Risk Reduction which was the focus of International Disaster Reduction Day on October 13.”   Over 200 children are reported to have died in Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand out of an estimated total of 745 flood-related deaths. And more than 3000 schools have also been affected in Thailand alone which will have long term consequences on the education of thousands of children.   “UNISDR is also urging the governments of the affected countries to open discussions with the private sector on what adjustments need to be made in their land use to locate their factories in disaster proof areas to better protect their workers. The private sector has a responsibility in reducing disaster risks when these events are now so predictable in the light of what we know about the impact of climate change on the frequency and intensity of these types of disasters.”   Across the region the well-being of millions will be drastically affected by loss of livelihoods as manufacturing plants are forced to shut and agriculture struggle to recover.   “These floods map exactly onto models for a one-in-a-hundred-years event, and things could get worse in the future. If we know where the floods are going to happen and how high they are going to be, then we should be better prepared,” said Velasquez.   Oct 5, 2011   Massive floods have ravaged vast swathes of Asia"s rice bowl, threatening to further drive up food prices and adding to the burden of farmers who are among the region"s poorest, experts say.   About 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres) of paddy fields in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos have been damaged or are at risk from the worst floods to hit the region in years, officials say.   In Thailand, the world"s biggest rice exporter, where 237 people have died in the floods, about one million hectares of paddy -- roughly 10 percent of the total -- have been damaged, they say.   Heavy rains in Laos and Cambodia have also led to big losses in recent weeks, and experts say flood waters have now drained into Vietnam"s Mekong Delta, a key global rice producer, making it the latest to be inundated.   Further west, flooding of rice and other farmland in Pakistan"s arable belt has cost that country nearly $2 billion in losses.   "The whole region will now suffer from rising food prices as potential harvests have now been devastated. The damage is very serious this year and it will be some time before people can resume normal lives," Margareta Wahlstrom, the United Nations chief of disaster reduction, said in a statement.   The flood damage comes on top of worries about the impact on global rice prices of a new scheme by the Thai government to boost the minimum price farmers receive for their crop.   Vietnam meanwhile is the world"s number-two rice exporter and the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam accounts for half the country"s production.   "Agricultural production is seriously affected this year by the floods that were, in fact, worse than our forecasts," said Vuong Huu Tien, of the flood and storm control department.   In Cambodia, more than 330,000 hectares of rice paddy have been inundated, said a senior official at the Ministry of Agriculture.   Cambodia, where more than 160 people have been killed in the floods, exports only a fraction of total rice production but the crop accounts for about 7.5 percent of gross domestic product.   Laos, one of Asia"s poorest nations, has also suffered, according to reports in state-controlled media there. Tropical storms which struck since June killed at least 23 people in the country and damaged more than 60,000 hectares of paddy, the reports said. Visit the related web page
	Millennium Villages project in Africa by The Earth Institute / United Nations   October 2011   The Millennium Villages project is a United Nations-backed initiative to help African communities accelerate efforts to advance social development and improve living standards for currently half a million people in a number of villages.   The project utilizes science-based expertise to advance progress to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).   The project is now moving into its second phase focusing on business development opoortunities to help poor rural communities progress towards self-sufficiency when the project ends in 2015.   UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recalled visiting Mwandama village in Malawi in May 2010 with Jeffrey Sachs, the Director of the Millennium Villages project and his Senior Adviser on MDGs.   “I saw first-hand how an integrated, holistic approach to development can help entire communities lift themselves from extreme poverty,” he said. “The MDGs are interlinked – a comprehensive fight against poverty, hunger and disease.   “Success in one brings success in others. We do not need to pick or choose among objectives. On the contrary, the UN is progressively investing in areas with broad multiplier effects. The challenge – especially in this time of financial austerity – is to build on this momentum.”   Mr. Ban echoed those remarks in an op-ed column published in The Daily News in Egypt today. “Touring the Mwandama village, I saw the potential of modern technologies – smart phones and mobile broadband, improved seed varieties, the latest in drip irrigation, modern diagnostic tests for malaria, and low-cost solar-energy grids – to advance human well-being in ways that simply were not feasible even a few years ago,” he wrote.   According to a scientific review of the project, successes achieved in the first phase between 2006 and 2009 across 11 Millennium Villages include the following:   Malaria rates fell by 72 per cent over the first three years; Households with access to improved drinking water more than tripled; Across six sites, average maize yields doubled, and in some sites quadrupled; Rates of chronic malnutrition dropped by one-third among children under two; Students benefiting from school meal programmes increased to 75 per cent.   “It is the purpose of my foundation’s continuing support to help scale up the experience in the model villages in the first phase and to link small agriculture with business structures that will provide sustainable incomes for entire regions, not just for model villages,” said Mr. George Soros, from Open Societies Foundations, a major funding partner. “This will be the main focus of the next phase.”   Mr. Sachs said the project had made “tremendous breakthroughs” in achieving the MDGs in places that seemed “absolutely hopeless.”   “The essence of the projects has been to work with the local communities, typically clusters of villages of 30,000 to 50,000 people, using cutting edge, low-cost technologies in a highly effective way and making sure that the communities benefit from the synergies by simultaneously investing in agriculture, health, education, infrastructure and business development.”   “With the significant improvements already achieved in health, education, agriculture, gender equality, and incomes, plus the continued progress that we can expect in the second phase of the project, the Millennium Villages are on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015,” said Mr. Sachs.   In phase two, the project will focus on raising incomes through business development and linking farmers to larger markets to ensure continued growth and greater economic stability.   The project will also work to ensure sustainability by gradually withdrawing financial support from the project as governments scale up investments; and to document and replicate project interventions.   July 2010   Before joining the Millennium Village programme in 2005, more than 90 per cent of Ruhiira’s population in Uganda survived on subsistence agriculture and more than half of its children under the age of five were chronically malnourished or stunted.   In the past five years, nearly all of Ruhiira’s 6,000 farmers have diversified their plots to boost their incomes. The scheme has also helped to attract buyers, both local and regional, so that they can get higher prices for their maize.   During a recent visit Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), hailed Ruhiira for “the transformation and revolution of hope in this community.” She was speaking to a Woman’s Association, which sells beans and maize to the agency.   Ms. Sheeran said the “beans of hope” grown in Ruhiira area are helping to feed hungry children in Karamoja, a drought-stricken region in northeast Uganda. She pledged to buy twice the amount of food from the community next year.   The Women’s Association, has already sold 250 metric tons of beans and maize to the agency’s Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative, which seeks to give small farmers better access to markets.   The Millennium Villages programme is working to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)– in 13 areas of 10 African countries within five years through community-led development.   “What you are doing is known all over the world,” Jeffrey Sachs, who heads the Millennium Villages Project, said as he toured Ruhiira with Ms. Sheeran. “People are inspired by the progress Ruhiira is making. When 2015 comes, you will have shown the world how this community achieved all the Millennium Development Goals.” Visit the related web page
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