Fast growing Asia is slow on buying toilets

Despite the explosive growth of Asian economies, one important part of development is lacking for many. The lack of a toilet for a majority of homes in Asia could slow the ease of poverty in the region.

Without a clean toilet, people are exposed to all kinds of health risks. Diseases caused poor sanitation will prevent people from earning income and can spread across neighborhoods quickly..

From this AFP article that we found at the Mail and Guardian, we learn more on why social advocates are concerned about sanitation in Asia.

"The lack of good toilets as well as sanitation is still a problem in Asia," said Babar Kibir of Bangladesh-based Brac, one of the world's biggest non-government organisations.

Sanitation has an "immense effect" on poverty reduction, Kibir said.

"It has linkages with poverty, child mortality, combating disease and environmental sustainability," the director of Brac's Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programme, or Wash, told Agence France-Presse.

People living in poor sanitary conditions are vulnerable to illness which often prevents them from finding regular employment, Kibir said, adding that much of the meagre income they earn would be spent on medical treatment.

Diarrhoea, malnutrition, arrested physical growth, loss of eyesight, typhoid, dysentery and hepatitis are diseases commonly associated with poor sanitation.

"Poor people, particularly women and children, can enjoy protection from diseases, malnutrition and death by using safe water and sanitation facilities including improved hygiene practices," said Kibir.
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In Bangladesh, one of Asia's poorest countries, Brac's Wash programme provides micro-loans to the poor to build toilet facilities, charging only a minimum service charge. Grants are given only to the very poor.

But the programme goes beyond just providing latrines -- it comes as an entire package, which includes designing and building eco-friendly toilets and raising awareness in the community about the need for good sanitation.

Missing nutrients in Asian diets

From IRIN, a story on how nutrients missing from diets in Asia could be a silent killer of the area's children.

By the time Fatima Emilova was six months old she had been hospitalized twice for 10 days at a time with debilitating bouts of diarrhoea. The disease, a worldwide killer, is often caused by a lack of zinc, one of several micronutrients dangerously deficient among infants in the impoverished Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan.

“After she was born, she was very weak,” said Fatima’s mother, Jazira Seitaliyeva, 34. “But after six months, that stopped. Now she walks, runs, flies around – she’s different from the other children.” Seitaliyeva attributes the changes in the youngest of her six children, now eighteen months old, to a micronutrient powder containing iron, folic acid, vitamins A and C and zinc, given free to infants aged 6-24 months in Talas Province, where the family lives in Ak-Korgon, a dusty village of about 160 homes.

“The little ones who get it cut their teeth faster,” Mahera Uruzbayeva, the local nurse-practitioner in charge of distributing the powder in the neighbouring hamlet of Kok-Kashat, told IRIN. “Their appetite is better and they’re sick less. The year before last, more children had the flu; this year we got a rest.”
The powder - Gulazyk in Kyrgyz and Sprinkles in English - has been distributed in Talas since June 2009 and is part of a larger pilot programme to fight malnutrition and promote early childhood development, implemented since 2008 by Kyrgyzstan’s Health Ministry, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Swiss Red Cross, with support from the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC).

Preliminary results show that the Gulazyk project is working. An initial analysis of the data - to be presented, pending final review, on 23 November in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek - suggests it has already cut the rate of iron-deficiency anaemia in Talas Province by 20 percent.

According to the CDC the disease afflicts nearly 40 percent of the country's women and at least half the children, and the hope is to expand the programme nationally.

Hidden hunger

In Kyrgyzstan, as elsewhere, malnutrition is dangerously easy to overlook when children don’t have protruding ribs and distended bellies. Healthy eating means not only getting enough food but getting the right vitamins and minerals, or micronutrients, particularly iron, iodine, Vitamin A, folic acid and zinc. When these are absent in early childhood, the damage can be invisible at first but devastating in the long run.

“Micronutrient deficiency is the main threat to the physical health and intellectual capacity of children under two,” said Dr Tursun Mamyrbaeva, a leading nutritionist at Kyrgyzstan’s Republican Centre for Immunoprophylaxis. “A persistent deficiency, even of a tiny amount of vitamins and minerals, can provoke and exacerbate hundreds of ailments, including malignant tumours and developmental defects, and can ultimately undermine the viability of the nation as a whole.”

UNICEF saw alarming signs of chronic micronutrient deficiency in Kyrgyzstan in 2006, when it found that 13 percent of children under five were growing more slowly than normal; in Talas Province the prevalence of stunted growth was twice the national average. A survey overseen there by the CDC in 2008, before the introduction of Gulazyk, found that two-thirds of babies aged 6-24 months were iron-deficient, and just as many had too little folic acid.

Nationwide, dangerously low levels of folic acid in pregnant women leave 150 babies a year with severe birth defects, mostly of the brain and spinal cord, while 300 newborns die from insufficient Vitamin A, too weak to fight off lethal infections, according to Kyrgyzstan’s Health Ministry.

Iron, the weakest link

Micronutrients are best considered as a group, but nutrition experts in Kyrgyzstan have focused mostly on iron deficiency, which places more than 20,000 children under two – about 10 percent – at risk of mental retardation, according to the Health Ministry.

“Six months to two years is a period of very rapid growth for children. Their regular intake of iron can’t keep up with their needs,” said Elizabeth Lundeen, a health promotion adviser to the Swiss Red Cross, who has been working in Kyrgyzstan for over four years and helped develop the Gulazyk project. “In the West we have tons of fortified complementary foods, but in many developing countries these foods are either unavailable or unaffordable.”

Fatima’s household is a case in point. Like many in Kyrgyzstan, the family spends well over half its income on food, which includes buying about 100 kg of flour a month, but none of the four food shops in Ak-Korgon sells fortified cereals and a 2009 law on fortification has been hard to enforce, particularly in rural areas. Most of the mountainous country’s 3,000 flour mills are tiny private enterprises, with significant amounts of flour imported across porous borders with few controls.

Holistic approach

The collapse of the Soviet Union and its centralized economy in 1991 ushered in an era of hardship. As newly independent Kyrgyzstan sank into poverty, access to healthcare and education worsened, as did eating habits. Many people began replacing nutritious but increasingly expensive meat and dairy products with cheaper items like bread and tea, which inhibits the body’s uptake of iron.

“In the 1970s, when I visited relatives here, children weren’t allowed to drink tea,” said Jamilya Madalbekova, the UNICEF coordinator in Talas. “My grandmother and her friends would shoo us into the kitchen to drink jarma,” a hearty drink made of crushed grain and water or yogurt. After 1991, “there were about 10 years that were critical for the population - now we’re reaping those fruits.”

UNICEF and the Swiss Red Cross decided on a holistic approach to make up for families' poor access to wholesome food, accurate information and high-quality medical care. The programme began as an educational campaign about healthy eating for pregnant women, best practices for breast-feeding and a balanced diet for infants. The free micronutrient powder was added in 2009, followed by materials for boosting infants’ intellectual development with simple interactions like talking, reading, singing and playing.

“The Gulazyk project is unique in that it addresses both nutrition and early cognitive and social stimulation of young children,” said Farhad Imambakiyev, UNICEF’s communications officer in Kyrgyzstan. “The two are mutually reinforcing - like two wings that allow each child to reach full developmental potential.”

The programme trains local doctors and nurses and groups of volunteers, called village health committees, who spend a few days a month visiting neighbours with health-related information and advice, so as to reach families with small children. Even medical professionals say they have learned from the experience.

“When I was a student there was no emphasis on nutrition - it was more about illness,” said Uruzbayeva, the nurse-practitioner in Kok-Kashat, who likes the colourful charts and pamphlets illustrating the programme’s key points. “The materials make things easier; before, lessons were all oral.”

Obstacles and prospects

The Gulazyk project has not been trouble-free. In the provincial capital of Talas, a city of about 34,000, Dr Damira Baisabayeva, who coordinates distribution of the powder and is second-in-command of healthcare in the province, asked doctors to collect data on usage. They reported that from January to September 2010, 91 percent of eligible families received Gulazyk, but only 59 percent used it as directed.

“In the countryside communities are compact - medical professionals are viewed as authority figures,” Baisabayeva told IRIN. “In the city it’s harder - the population is bigger, there’s lots of migration. People have more doctors to choose from, but doctors have large caseloads and no support from civil society, so there’s less interaction with patients, less time to talk with them.”

Mistrust is as prevalent in the capital as in rural areas. A small number of families refused to participate, saying they were sceptical of the powder’s foreign origins. Others became afraid because Gulazyk, like any iron supplement, changed the colour of children’s stools, or because it was initially introduced in the summer, when children often fell ill with seasonal intestinal infections, and parents attributed these to the powder. Some feared they were being subjected to an experiment.

Gulazyk has proven effective in reducing infant anaemia and the Swiss Red Cross is funding the project for three years in Naryn, one of Kyrgyzstan’s poorest provinces. Charitable foundations backed by financier-philanthropist George Soros have committed US$1.3 million to distribute it in three more of the country’s seven provinces.

In the remaining two, Jalalabad and Osh, which were devastated by ethno-political violence in June, UNICEF and the Health Ministry are distributing the powder to hospitalized children as a part of an emergency response.

Gulazyk’s cost-benefit ratio makes it attractive to donors: one sachet costs less than 2.5 US cents, including shipping and customs clearance. The three-year programmes in Talas and Naryn have price tags of about $300,000 each and a nationwide scale-up would cost under $6 million – a fraction of the estimated $28 million lost by Kyrgyzstan each year “due to the problems of iron and iodine deficiency”, according to statistics cited by the Health Ministry.

The global economic crisis has intensified nutritional needs. Dr Nargiza Kanazarova, a general practitioner in rural Talas, told IRIN: “I’d like to see a programme like Gulazyk for pregnant women ... While they’re pregnant, they’re scared; they want healthy babies. When the babies start growing up, they run, they jump, they seem healthy and mothers get lax.” Many public-health experts and medical professionals would like to see Gulazyk, or comparable supplements, expanded to children older than two.

The World Food Programme concluded in 2008 that one-fifth of Kyrgyzstan’s households were at “high nutritional and health risk because of poor food consumption.”

In 2008 the Copenhagen Consensus, a group of prominent economists rated micronutrient supplements for children as the most cost-effective poverty-fighting measure available. Local production of micronutrient supplements is being considered in Kyrgyzstan.

Irrigation improvement in Asia

The population boom continues in Asia as one billion more people are expected to be created in the next 40 years. This will mean many more mouths to feed and agricultural experts say that improvements need to be made to irrigation systems through the continent. Depending on rain alone will not be able to grow the amount of food to feed everyone. Crops are too susceptible to damage by either drought or floods. Irrigation systems began to be built on Asia in the 1970s but a renewed push is needed to expand or upgrade existing irrigation.

From the IPS, writer Marwaan Macan-Markar attended an Asian Development Bank meeting that discussed the issue.

"Irrigated agriculture is a more secure platform," says Thierry Facon, senior water management officer at the Asia-Pacific office of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). "Rain-fed agriculture is less productive."

This distinction has become more stark against the backdrop of uncertain weather patterns arising from climate change. "Farmers are reluctant to invest in good seeds and fertiliser in rain-fed areas because of climate change uncertainties," Facon explained to IPS. "It is in this area that you find most of the rural poor and vulnerable populations."

Studies by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) mirror this reality. "Approximately 27 million hectares of rain-fed rice are frequently affected by drought," states a report by one of the region’s premier rice research bodies based in Los Banos, in the Philippines. "The rain-fed rice environments experience multiple abiotic stresses and are characterised by high levels of uncertainty, particularly with regard to the timing, duration and intensity of rainfall."

But if the irrigation systems built and managed by governments are to help better rice and wheat yields, these largely ageing water distribution networks must be upgraded to meet farmers’ new demands, according to a clutch of new studies released recently at a meeting in Manila hosted by the Asian Development Bank (AsDB).
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Many of the current irrigation systems were built when the Green Revolution began to sweep across the continent in the 1960s. This radical push to increase rice production through the introduction of high-yielding rice varieties in the paddy fields across Asia has been credited for helping slash the numbers living in hunger.

According to the U.N. food agency, the Green Revolution accounted for a 300 percent increase in rice production in the past four decades, helping to "reduce the proportion of hunger from 34 percent in 1970 to 16 percent in 2006."

And now, as the region faces the challenge of having to feed 1.5 billion new mouths in the next four decades, attention is once again turning to what the irrigation systems can deliver. "Asia’s population will reach five billion people by 2050 and feeding 1.5 billion additional people will require irrigation systems that generate more value per drop of water," states ‘Growing More Food with Less Water: How Can Revitalising Asia’s Irrigation Help?’ one of the studies released at the AsDB meeting that drew some 600 policymakers.

"Asia accounts for 70 percent of the world’s irrigated land and is home to some of the oldest and largest irrigation schemes," states the Manila-based Bank. "But most systems were built before the 1970s, function poorly and often fail to match the needs of farmers."

Asian Maternal and Child health stats from Save The Children

A new report from Save The Children gives us statistics on child and maternal health in Asia. The report shows an uneven balance of child deaths from urban to rural areas. Urban children have a better chance of survival than those in rural areas.

Save The Children says there is improvement in child survival rates, but they fall short of what is needed to meet the Millennium Development Goal for child mortality. MGD number 4 has a goal of cutting child and maternal deaths by two thirds by the year 2015.

From the Inter Press Service, writer Marwaan Macan-Markar gives us country-by-country statistics.

A recent report by Save the Children, entitled ‘A Fair Chance At Life’, shows that Cambodia has seen a 32 percent drop in child mortality figures among the country’s "richest 20 percent", but only an 18 percent reduction in child mortality among the "poorest 20 percent".

Indonesia, the region’s giant where 16 percent of its 225 million people live below the poverty line, has recorded "equitable progress," noted the 37-page report. The poorest 20 percent has seen child mortality figures drop by 29 percent, while the richest 20 percent has witnessed a nine percent decline.

Military-ruled Burma, also known as Myanmar, lags behind all with the worst child mortality figures. It reportedly has 104 children under five years dying for every 1,000 live births. Cambodia, by contrast, has 82 deaths of children under five years of age per 1,000 live births. Laos, the third of this region’s poorest countries, has 75 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Child rights groups have hailed Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam as being well on course to meeting the 2015 targets. The region’s richest country, the city-state of Singapore, has been singled out in a study by ‘The Lancet’, a British medical journal, as leading all countries in the world in child mortality rates, having reduced it by 75 percent since 1990.

The inequity in child mortality rates in countries like Cambodia and the Philippines, which has 32 deaths per 1,000 live births, is "partly an urban-rural divide," said Phillips. "There is no conscious discrimination, but a natural tendency for nurses and doctors to work in cities."

At times, the distance to a health care is a day away, making it costly and time consuming for a family to take a newborn to treat illnesses that lead to child deaths, such as pneumonia, diarrhoea and sepsis.

"If you live more distant from a health centre, you will be reached later unlike those who live closer to health care workers," said Basil Rodriques, regional adviser for your child survival and development at the Asia office of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). "The MDGs saw the ‘low hanging fruits’ reached first."

New breakthrough could boost rice yields by 50%

From IRIN, a story about a possible scientific breakthrough that could increase rice yields by 50 percent.

Scientists at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) report signs of progress in their efforts to enhance rice's photosynthetic efficiency to boost yields.

If successful, global yields could rise by as much as 50 percent, avoiding potential rice shortages, or even future famines, specialists say.

According to IRRI, a global population increase of some two billion people by 2050 will require an extra 250 million metric tonnes of rice in Asia alone.

"Fifteen months into the project, things are looking positive," Paul Quick, principal scientist and head of IRRI's C4 rice project, told IRIN in Los Banos, the Philippines. "We have identified at least 10 to 15 plant phenotypes that look like the type of plant we are looking for, plants that are starting to show a switch to C4."

C4 plants - such as maize and sorghum - use a much more efficient photosynthesis process than rice (a C3 plant), produce a higher yield and use 1.5-3 times less water, he said.

With funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the first phase of the 15-year project is focusing on the discovery of the genes required for C4 photosynthesis.

"Achieving this goal will be extremely challenging as many of the processes that need to be changed are poorly understood at the genetic level," Quick said.

Plants typically have more than 30,000 genes so it is not easy to identify which genes are necessary to create the C4 engine. At the same time, thousands of plants need to be grown and screened for errors in their photosynthetic engine.

"It's like making a cake. We still don't know the recipe, but we now have a better idea of what the ingredients are," Jacqueline Dionora, a senior associate scientist for the project said.

New crop strains needed

According to the UN, food production needs to rise by 50 percent by the year 2030 to meet rising demand, fuelled by population growth, competition for water and increasing use of agricultural products for bio-fuels.

"Increased photosynthetic efficiency through the introduction of the C4 photosynthetic pathway is one mechanism by which this can be achieved," Quick said, citing its high light, water and nitrogen use efficiency.

"The C4-Rice project is seen as a high-risk scientific venture but this is nothing compared with the potential future risks to human health if food supply cannot meet demand."

A new study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) - a peer-reviewed, scientific journal from the US - warned that rice production would be affected with rising temperatures due to climate change.

The study by international scientists found evidence that the net impact of projected temperature increases would slow the growth of rice production in Asia. Rising temperatures during the past 25 years have already cut the yield growth rate by 10-20 percent in several areas.

About three billion people eat rice every day, and more than 60 percent of the world's one billion poorest and undernourished people who live in Asia depend on rice as their staple food, according to IRRI.

A decline in rice production would mean more people in poverty and hunger, the report's researchers warned.

"If we cannot change our rice production methods or develop new rice strains that can withstand higher temperatures, there will be a loss in rice production over the next few decades as days and nights get hotter," said Jarrod Welch, lead author of the report.

"This will get increasingly worse as temperatures rise further towards the middle of the century."

On 18 August, scientists will gather in Shanghai for the 15th international congress of photosynthesis research. The three-day meeting will bring together experts from various disciplines of C4 biology, including biochemistry, evolution, genetic regulation, gene discovery, systems modelling and genetic engineering.

New AIDS report on the middle east

From IRIN, a new study gives us statistics on the occurrence of HIV-AIDS in the Middle East.

Statistics on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the Middle East are hard to come by but a new study launched on 28 June in the United Arab Emirates has attempted to gather all existing data into one place and add some analysis and action points for policymakers.

“In all previous reports we thought there was no HIV data from this region. But there turned out to be lots of data here,” said Laith Abu Raddad, director of the Biostatistics and Biomathematic Research Core at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar and the principal author of the study (not yet available online).

“This report is basically more like a scientific epidemiological study: Getting pieces of data, thousands of data that we managed to collect from every country in the region, putting them together and analysing them to see what they tell us in terms of HIV epidemiology,” he said.

The report, characterizing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Middle East and North Africa, is a joint effort of the World Bank, the UN Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It covers 23 countries that the three organizations include in their MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region.

According to UNAIDS, about 412,000 people were living with HIV in MENA by the end of 2008, up from 270,000 in 2001. The report said most new infections were from within commercial sex and drug-taking populations.

The report divides the MENA region into two categories according to HIV prevalence: the “subregion with considerable prevalence” (Djibouti, Somalia, Southern Sudan); and the Core MENA region, where HIV prevalence is described as “very limited” (the rest of MENA countries).

Sudan, Somalia and Djibouti

“In north Sudan, we used to think in the past that we have a much more serious problem of HIV but now the data set is more complete, it’s clear that north Sudan really is quite similar to the rest of the MENA countries. But in south Sudan we may have a generalized epidemic,” Abu Raddad said. A generalized epidemic is one that has spread beyond high-risk minority populations to the general population.

A 2003 UNAIDS and WHO report referred to in the study said Sudan had a 2.6 percent HIV prevalence rate.

Abu Raddad said Djibouti “was the Disneyland of risk behaviour” and had a large number of Ethiopian sex workers serving truck drivers and foreign army bases. “We have this corridor which is certainly full of HIV, but the rest of the country is fine,” he noted.

A 2008 UNAIDS report said Djibouti had a 3.4 percent HIV prevalence rate in its capital and a 1.1 percent rate outside it.

“Technically speaking, the HIV epidemics in Djibouti and Somalia are already generalized, but the context of HIV infection and risk groups in these countries suggests that HIV dynamics are mainly focused around concentrated epidemics in the commercial sex networks,” said the new report.

Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran

The report said Pakistan and Iran, where HIV prevalence is low among the general population, faced concentrated HIV epidemics among injecting drug users (IDUs), while this was also a significant mode of transmission for HIV in Afghanistan.

“We know we have a concentrated epidemic among IDUs in Pakistan, and the increase was very rapid over the past few years. In Karachi, for example, we had near zero percent among this group in 2003 or 2004 and then within six months it jumped to 24 percent.”

He said this increase could be attributed to needle sharing, poverty and a lack of awareness.

Egypt and Tunisia

Egypt has a different pattern in terms of the spread of HIV. Surveys of risk groups showed that HIV prevalence was very low among IDUs and female sex workers (FSWs). “This is not a surprise for FSWs. In those kind of conservative countries in the region - and Egypt is one them - we see very little prevalence of HIV among FSWs. But having very low prevalence among IDUs is quite a surprise,” Abu Raddad said.

He said that Egypt appeared to be having an HIV epidemic among men having sex with men (MSM), at a prevalence rate of 6 percent.

“The country also has an interesting pattern. Usually HIV epidemics start with IDUs and then move to MSM, which we see in Iran and Pakistan. But this is not the case in some countries, like Egypt and Tunisia, where the epidemic is starting with MSM,” Abu Raddad said.

Dearth of data

Experts said that despite all the information from different sources that the new report brings together, the region still does not have enough data to form a coherent strategy to tackle HIV/AIDS. The report conceded that the MENA region “continues to be viewed as the anomaly in the HIV/AIDS world map”.

“This is because we have not invested enough in building the right surveillance systems, so we don’t have systems that actually detect and follow up on this issue,” Hind Khatib, regional director of UNAIDS, told IRIN.

“Political commitment should be matched with domestic resources and investment in human resources, which is limited in the region. You have to spend on your programmes and systems and you have to have strategic directions that are focused on the drivers of the epidemic,” Khatib said.

She said she hoped to see the governments of the many low-income countries in the region allocate more funds to HIV programmes, particularly in light of the fact that the financial crisis had made it harder for countries to be eligible for assistance from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Experts agreed that the main challenge for the region was the stigma of HIV/AIDS and discrimination against people living with it.

“We have to bring in the people living with HIV and the civil society. We have to open up in our thinking and policies,” Khatib said.

The Himalayan mountains could soon become food insecure

A new study published in the journal Nature claims that the Himalayan mountains area of South Asia could become food insecure if global warming continues. Rising temperatures could melt the snow packs at the top of the mountains which could eventually dry up the water basins below.

From this Associated Press article that we found at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, writer Michael Casey tells us more about the study.

Those that do count heavily on glaciers like the Indus, Ganges and Brahamaputra basins in South Asia could see their water supplies decline by as much as 19.6 percent by 2050. China's Yellow River basin, in contrast, would see a 9.5 percent increase precipitation as monsoon patterns change due to the changing climate.

"We show that it's only certain areas that will be affected," said Marc Bierkens, an Utrecht University hydrology professor , who along with Walter Immerzee and Ludovicus van Beek conducted the study. "The amount of people affected is still large. Every person is one too many but it's much less than was first anticipated."

The study is one of the first to examine the impact of shrinking glaciers on the Himalayan river basins. It will likely further fuel the debate on the degree that climate change will devastate the river basins that are mostly located in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and China.

Scientists for the most part agree glaciers are melting at an accelerated rate as temperatures increase. Most scientists tie that warming directly to higher atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

Some glaciers, such as in the Himalayas, could hold out for centuries in a warmer world. But more than 90 percent of glaciers worldwide are in retreat, with major losses already seen across much of Alaska, the Alps, the Andes and numerous other ranges, according to researchers in the United States and Europe.
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Still, several of these outside researchers said the findings should reaffirm concerns that the region will suffer food shortages due to climate change, exasperating already existing concerns such as overpopulation, poverty, pollution and weakening monsoon rains in parts of South Asia.

"The paper teaches us there's lot of uncertainty in the future water supply of Asia and within the realm of plausibility are scenarios that may give us concern," said Casey Brown, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Massachusetts.

"At present, we know that water concerns are already a certainty - the large and growing populations and high dependence on irrigated agriculture which makes the region vulnerable to present climate variability," he said.

Poverty of indigenous people worldwide

A new World Bank study focuses on the poverty of indigenous people around the world. The report says that indigenous people only make up 5 percent of the world's population, but make up 10 percent of the world's poor.

Statistics in the World Bank report shows that Asia has made great strides to reduce the poverty of it's indigenous people, mostly coming from the boom economies of China and India. Meanwhile, Latin America has shown a slow progress.

From this IPS article, writer Marguerite A. Suozzi gathers some reaction to the report.

"The level of poverty that has been reduced in Asia is significant," said Harry Patrinos, a co-author of the study and lead education economist at the World Bank. He attributes these positive results to broad-based economic growth programmes in each country which aim to reduce poverty nationally.

China "started with a much higher level of poverty than any country in Latin America, yet the indigenous populations', the minority populations' poverty reduced by more than 17 percent between 1990 and 2002," said Patrinos. "But we also have a more rapid change in India, as compared to Latin America, where there is a lack of progress," he said.

The report cited the lack of development indicators for indigenous peoples as "a major hindrance to both their empowerment and poverty reduction," and seeks to narrow these gaps "by estimating several key development indicators related to progress under the Millennium Development Goals for indigenous peoples around the world."

But the definition of "development" by the development community, and the definition of "development" held by different native peoples may be one challenge in moving forward.

"Widespread, sustainable, economic growth is required to target poverty reduction," Patrinos told reporters on Monday, as are programmes designed to be specifically relevant to indigenous communities' needs.

Micro-insurance

As America wanders around for solutions for health insurance, one idea has helped thousands throughout Asia and Africa. Modeled after microcredit, the idea of micro-insurance makes health insurance affordable to the poor. In some cases micro-insurance charges only a penny a day to cover a family.

Low cost insurance is a lot easier to do in Africa because they have many differences compared to the US health system. Malpractice lawsuits are almost non-existent, doctors make a much lower wage than in the US, and many hospitals are supported by the government.

From this Associated Press article that we found at the Washington Times, one of our favorite writers, Katharine Houreld describes micro-insurance further.

Even as the U.S. debates how best to insure its people against sickness, a type of health care financing is growing more popular in Africa: micro-insurance. Activists say it can help pay for health care for some of the billions of people in the developing world who cannot afford it.

"Poor people need health insurance; they deserve it. and it can be done," Nobel-prize winning economist Muhammad Yunus told the Associated Press.

His Grameen bank already provides health insurance to around half a million poor Bangladeshis, and Mr. Yunus wants to expand further by using the Internet to connect doctors to patients in remote areas.

Micro-insurance is defined as a product accessible to those earning less than $2 a day, who pay tiny weekly premiums of sometimes less than a cent. The policies usually cover all conditions — including pre-existing illnesses like HIV/AIDS and maternity costs — and are written in language that is easy to understand.

Some 14 million Africans use micro-insurance, and the number of African policyholders has increased by 80 percent in the last five years, according to a recent study by the International Labor Organization. The numbers are still a fraction of the potential market, but are growing rapidly as more organizations offer insurance products to the poor.
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But still, insurance can be a hard sell. It's difficult to persuade those struggling to survive to part with precious cash to pay for care that they may never need. For that reason, said World Health Organization specialist Varatharajan Durairaj, micro-insurance could help the middle classes and some of the poor, but not the most desperate.

Yunus calls on Africa to open up laws for microcedit banks

At the annual microcredit summit in Kenya, Muhammad Yunus said that African laws need to be opened up to allow microcredit banks to operate. Right now on the African continent only non-governmental charities, or the government themselves conduct microcedit loans. Yunus says the laws must allow banks to begin to make small loans to people without collateral just as they do in Asia.

From Reuters South Africa, writer Frank Nyakairu attended the conference.

"To create a new kind of bank, which works with the poor people, we need new legislation but in most of the countries in Africa that legislation has not taken place, so we have left microcredit scenario to the NGOs," Yunus told Reuters in an interview.

Nicknamed the "banker to the poor," Yunus started his movement 30 years ago with a $27 loan to women in Chittagong, Bangladesh.

It has mushroomed and delivered millions of tiny loans to poor people who do not have access to mainstream banking.

"People are ready in Africa there is no problem with the people it's a question of institutional and conceptual arrangement and microcredit could be wonderful social business," he said.

Yunus is attending an annual microcredit summit in Kenya, where Africa's microfinance institutions hope to emulate the success and growth of the industry in Asia, which hosts more than 80 percent of the world's 150 million microfinance beneficiaries.

"African women are very active compared to any women anywhere in the world and micro credits have the best chance of succeeding in Africa particularly in women but the financing is never brought to them," he said.

The future of Mekong river

From IRIN, the future of maintaining Asia's biggest river is being discussed, but activists say that the voice of the people is absent from the discussion.

Millions of people living in and around Southeast Asia’s largest river, the Mekong, need a greater voice in determining its future, say activists.

“There needs to be more recognition of the voice of the people who depend on the river and what their vision of the river is,” Carl Middleton, the Mekong programme coordinator for the US-based NGO International Rivers, told IRIN.

“Decision-makers should listen better to the people that are affected by [infrastructure] projects.”

His comments coincide with the conclusion of the first ever Mekong River Summit on 5 April in the Thai coastal town of Hua Hin, which brought together leaders from China, Laos, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Thailand and Myanmar to discuss its management.

The summit, organized by the Mekong River Commission (MRC) to mark its 15th anniversary, comes at a critical time: the river’s water-level is at its lowest point in 50 years in Laos and northern Thailand.

Boat traffic has been halted along many parts of the 4,350km river, and fisheries and irrigation systems have been adversely affected.

Dams in China

While unusually low rainfall is widely believed to be responsible for the current low level of water in the Mekong, many environmentalists and NGOs claim China has exacerbated the situation by damming the river upstream.

China has four dams on the river and four more planned, but Beijing denies the dams are contributing to the current low level of the Mekong, and used the MRC meetings to reiterate its stance that natural causes are to blame.

"The current extreme dry weather in the lower Mekong river basin is the root cause for the reduced run-off water and declining water level in the main stem Mekong," Chen Mingzhong, deputy director-general of China’s Department of International Cooperation, Science and Technology, told a conference on 2 April that preceded the international summit.

On 4 April, China’s delegation promised increased cooperation among Mekong river countries on water management issues, particularly concerning its dams. This comes after China agreed for the first time ever late last month to share water-level data at two dams.

“This is a positive step,” Middleton told IRIN. A lack of rainfall is obviously a very important factor in the low level of the Mekong, he said, but questions remain as to whether China’s dams have also exacerbated the situation, or whether the dams could be used to alleviate the problem.

The summit focused on regional cooperation in solving drought and flooding problems in the Mekong region. The final joint declaration covered how the river can be used to reduce poverty, boost sustainable energy development, help people adapt to climate change, improve infrastructure and increase the involvement of civil society stakeholders in planning and decision-making.

Face of poverty in Asia is female

A new report from the United Nations was unveiled yesterday that describes the development process of Asia. It says that many economies in Asia have been able to cut poverty in half to meetMillennium Development Goal number 1 by 2015. The report points out that the progress has been uneven, often leaving women behind.

from the IPS, writer Diana G. Mendoza attended the report's unveiling.

The Asia-Pacific Regional Report 2009/10, titled, "Achieving the Millennium Development Goals in an Era of Global Uncertainty," said "most countries across Southeast Asia have reduced extreme poverty by half, but the other half has a woman’s face."

Across the region, some countries have managed to cope with multiple threats of economic crisis, health shocks and pandemics, and natural disasters, but most are still hurting from the impact of these crises and have yet to cope with the little time left to realise the development goals they pledged to achieve by 2015, the report added.
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Among vulnerable populations in the region, women are among those likely to be hurt most by the impact of the crisis on poverty in the region. According to the report, this sector constitutes the majority of Asia’s low- skilled, low-salaried and temporary workers – part of the flexible workforce that can easily be left behind during economic downturns.

Many of them have lost their jobs in export manufacturing, including garments, textiles and electronics – and in tourism and related services. Employers are also more likely to lay off women workers if they consider that they are not the primary heads of households.

Women form nearly two-thirds of the total Asian migrant population, said the report. Yet, they have little protection.

In most Asian countries, less than 20 percent of female workers belong to labour unions. The loss of female income is likely to have a greater impact on welfare, as women tend to spend a greater proportion of their income on meeting the basic needs of household members.

Dr Heyzer cited the Philippines as one of the countries in the region that has achieved gender parity and maintained economic stability while dealing with the economic crisis, but it is still wanting in protection for women in migration and employment.

"Migration patterns of Filipino women are phenomenal, and although they helped caution the economic crisis through remittances, but they do not receive the care that they need," she said.

She also said the Philippines registered a five percent growth rate in its remittances, totaling 17 billion pesos (368.72 million U.S. dollars) in 2009. This helped push the growth of the South-east Asian country’s national economy from three percent in 2009 to 3.5 percent in the first months of 2010, she said. Yet, she noted the disturbing problem of de-skilling, where educated and professional Filipino women are forced to work as housemates and domestic helpers in other countries.

Asia still spending on children during the recession

In comparing the current recession to the Asian economic crisis of 1997, the International Labor Organization found some good news. Child labor has not increased significantly during this current slowdown, whereas child labor had a huge jump in 1997. The ILO attributes this to Asian governments continued spending on social assistance instead of cutting those programs.

From the IPS, reporter Marwaan Macan-Markar examines how the Asian countries are coping in the world's recession in regards to child labor.

"There are some positive signs emerging from the current crisis unlike in 1997," says Gyorgy Sziraczki, senior economist at the Asia-Pacific office of the International Labour Organization (ILO). "Governments have learnt from the Asian crisis and are not repeating the same mistakes as they did then."

"Cutting social spending after the 1997 crisis was an aggravating factor to increasing child labour," added Szirackzi in an interview in his Bangkok office. "This explains the good news this time."

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) learned similar lessons. The two financial institutions’ austerity conditions for large bailout or rescue packages included cutting social spending. This time, though, "they didn’t suggest cuts in social spending," said Szirackzi.

"The governments in the region did not cut social spending but introduced programmes that strengthened social spending," Szirackzi explained. Indonesia and the Philippines are among the countries where innovative social spending programmes have been introduced, consequently keeping vulnerable children in the school system.

Indonesia’s ‘Hopeful Family Programme’, which was implemented in January 2007, was expanded in 2009 to cover more families in the giant archipelago following the crisis hitting its export sector. Under this programme, families living below the poverty line of less than 15 U.S. dollars per month get a direct boost of cash on top of aid for health and education.

These forms of assistance are conditional on expectant mothers undergoing at least four medical check-ups during maternity, said the ILO in a study assessing the impact of the global financial crisis in Asia. "Families with children need to take them to local community health centres to receive vaccinations and ensure they complete up to junior high school. A minimum attendance requirement is also set at 85 percent each year," added the report.

A similar programme in the Philippines—called ‘Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino’ or poverty reduction programme for the Filipino familiy, which was implemented in 2007—was expanded in 2009 to benefit more poor families, says Armin Bauer, a senior economist at the Manila-based Asian Development Bank. "They were given conditional cash transfers to ensure that maternal care was ensured and that children went to school."

The Philippines and Indonesia gave additional money to the already prevailing social spending programmes, he said in a telephone interview from the Philippine capital, Manila. "After the 1997 crash there was no additional money spent, only cuts."

We guess Senegal will have to export instead

The rice harvest is booming in Senegal... but no one there wants to eat it. After the food crisis of last year, Senegal decided to produce more rice. The problem is, the tastes of the public still prefer the rice imported from Asia.

It's an example of the public's preference running counter to the efforts to increase local food production to protect against future food price shocks.

From this AFP article that we found at Google News, writer Laurence Boutreux tries to answer why the Senegalese prefer foreign rice.

But the Senegalese, who serve rice with so many meals, said no thanks. Why? That's where it gets sticky.

Explanations range from taste to social standing to the legacy of colonialism. Whatever the reason, the government is now figuring out how to promote locally grown rice and hopes to import none of the staple by 2012.

It seems they may have a hard time achieving that goal. Last year, over three quarters of the 800,000 tonnes of rice consumed by the Senegalese was imported from Asia.

The impetus for change came from the food crisis, which had sent prices of imported rice soaring. Senegal has since been pushing locally grown rice to rely less on agricultural imports, but despite good crops, much remains unsold.
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According to the latest official estimates -- disputed by some producers -- the rice harvest will be at 508,481 tonnes for 2009, up 25 percent compared to 2008.

The figures have prompted a promise from Senegal's agriculture minister that the country "will not import a single kernel of rice in 2012".

But what if no one eats it?

One expert blamed the problem on the legacy of colonialism.

"It dates back to the colonisation," said Wore Gana Seck, the head of the commission for durable development and environment at Senegal's economic and social council.

"Before the Senegalese ate millet and sorghum, but the French imposed a monoculture of peanuts on farmers and imported broken rice from their other colony Indochina for the Senegalese to eat," she says.

Indonesia's poverty rate falls

A nation with one of the highest rates of poverty in Asia has seen it's percentage fall. Indonesia's poverty rate has fallen to 14.15 from 15.42 a year ago.

From this Reuters story that we found in the Guardian, we read some of the factors that may have led to the drop.

The number of poor people fell to 32.53 million in March, from 34.96 million in the same period a year, the bureau said, based on a survey of 68,000 households. The total population is about 226 million.

The government defines those who spend less than 200,262 rupiah a month on average as below the poverty line. One of the most important factors affecting monthly spending is the price of rice, a staple food.

Rice accounts for about a quarter of monthly spending for the poor in the cities, and about 35 percent of the spending for the poor living in villages.

The price of rice rose 7.8 percent in March compared to a year ago, a slower pace than inflation over the same period, the bureau said, adding that farmers' average daily income increased around 13 percent in the period.

Numbers of hungry in South Asia hits a 40 year high

The global recession has added 100 million people in South Asia to the numbers who are always hungry. This brings the number to a 40 year high, or just over 400 million total. These numbers are according to a new UNICEF survey of the region.

From the Taiwan Times, this Associated Press article further reviews the numbers.

The region's poor, who have borne the brunt of the economic trouble, desperately need governments to spend more money on food, health care and education to alleviate the crisis, said Daniel Toole, a regional director for the U.N. Children's Fund, or UNICEF.

At least 405 million people in South Asia suffered from chronic hunger in 2007-2008, up from 300 million in 20004-2006, according to a UNICEF report Tuesday.

"Without urgent, inclusive government response, the poor of South Asia, nearly 20 percent of the world's population, will sink further into poverty and malnutrition with long-term negative consequences for growth and development in the region and globally," the report said.

The report focused on the economic crisis's impact on women and children in eight South Asian nations _ Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Nearly 33 percent of South Asia's 1.8 billion people eat less than the minimum recommended daily requirements. Three-quarters live in households earning less than $2 a day, the report said.

The poor spend more than half of their income on food, which has become more expensive and made life even more difficult for them, it said. Nearly half of the region's children are malnourished.

UNICEF also criticized India for not doing enough to lift the poor up during the period of economic boom. They say that their efforts were wasted instead on too much military spending. They also accuse Pakistan of the same high military spending, instead of helping those in poverty.

From the Financial Times, writer James Lamont covers this angle to the story.

Aniruddha Bonnerjee, an economic and social policy consultant for Unicef, said there had been “stagnation” in the fight against malnutrition and that stubbornly high food prices posed a growing threat to poor families. He warned that with India’s growth rates now almost half what they were two years ago, New Delhi would find it more difficult to boost spending on health, education and food to nurture its human capital.

“If there was no progress against malnutrition and hunger when growth was higher, how are you going to do it now?” he asked.

Mr Bonnerjee said some Asian countries had managed to halve poverty over five years during times of high economic growth; India was falling far short of that achievement. Mr Singh’s championing of “inclusive growth” was electioneering and had left large swathes of the population untouched, he said.

Unicef was also critical of high military budgets in the region at the cost of social protection. India is modernising its armed forces and projecting its power more widely than in the past.

“A number of countries in south Asia decide to invest in the military and not to increase investment in their people.” said Daniel Toole, Unicef’s regional director “Budgetary allocations can be more than 10 per cent in the military, while education is only 2 per cent.”

Asian and European leaders confirm sticking with MDG's

A two day conference between Asian and European leaders resulted in a declaration that the continents will still strive to meet the Millenium Development Goals, despite the global recession. Many countries are far behind on meeting the goals, and the recession has only made them fall further.

From ABS-CBN News, reporter Michelle Orosa attended the conference.

Thirteen Asian countries, 16 European countries, the European Comission, eight international organizations and 10 civil society organizations attended the two-day conference.

Of these 13 countries, Richelle said 5 to 7 were having more difficulty than the rest in following through with the MDG goals.

"Thanks to efforts from India and China, development has progressed significantly in the region. But this has not spread to the whole of Asia," he noted.

Richelle declined to name the countries, but according to a background study submitted for the 2009 ASEM entitled, "Development Challenges and Opportunities," cited as lagging behind other countries in fulfilling several aspects of the MDGs are Cambodia, India, Mongolia, Pakistan, Myanmar Laos, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The Philippines, in particular, was cited for lagging in the goals of halving the number of people living under $1 a day, improving quality of teaching and learning conditions, and improving access to health services.

Rolando Tungpalan, Deputy Director General for the National Economic Development Authority admitted that there was much to improve in the areas cited, but he maintains the government is committed to keeping the country on track to meet its MDG goals by 2015.

Richelle added there are currently 3 factors the ASEM is watching out for in achieving the MDG goals: Volatility in the prices of commodities, slowdown in remittance volumes as the crisis affect job prospects of migrant labor, and the amount of money available for official development assistance.

How the global recession will impact Asia

The Asian Development Bank has released a study that examines the effect the global recession will have in Asia. The bad news is, that it will increase the already high level of poverty in the region. The good news is, that many economies in Asia are isolated enough from the global financial system that their economies will continue to grow.

From IPS, reporter Prime Sarmiento unpacks the report for us.

The AsDB study, presented at a forum here earlier this month, expects a 6.7 percent growth for South Asia in 2009. This may be modest compared to the 8.6 percent growth posted in 2007, but still implies that the AsDB does not expect the sub-region to fall into recession anytime soon.

Participants at the forum were agreed that the poor, especially in countries like Nepal and Bangladesh, whose economies depend heavily on remittances from its nationals working abroad, were likely to be worst hit.

"While some countries in South Asia have had relatively less exposure to the crisis from the adverse impacts of capital flows, more than half of the 900 million people in developing Asia who survive on 1.25 US dollars a day live in the sub-region, so any tempering of growth is a serious cause for concern," AsDB president Haruhiko Kuroda said at the forum

In a speech delivered at the forum, Arun Shourie, member of India's parliament and former minister of public sector divestment, noted that behind all the macroeconomic data are people who will lose their livelihoods or cannot send their children to school.

South Asia may be home to some of the world's growing economies but positive fundamentals have not done much to improve the plight of the sub-continent's poor.

India, one of Asia's economic powerhouses, has posted an impressive eight to nine percent growth in the past few years. But 30 percent of India's one billion populace subsists on less than two dollars a day.

The situation is worse in poorer economies like Nepal and Bangladesh where nearly 40 percent of the population live below the poverty level, experts at the forum said. The crisis will further intensify inequities with the wealthy remaining unscathed and the poor suffering more.

An interview about the sanitation crisis in Asia and Africa

40 percent of the world's population still lack basic sanitation. A majority of that percentage are in Africa and Asia. It remains one of the Millennium Development Goals that the world if far behind on achieving.

From the IPS we find an interview with the leader of a group that has been building public toilets in many countries. The World Toilet Association says the most difficult thing about building sanitation worldwide is changing people's behavior.

Thalif Deen of the IPS interviewed WTA secretary general, Song Young-Gon.

IPS: What are the regions urgently in need of help to meet their sanitation goals? Africa? Asia? Latin America? According to the U.N., 62 percent of Africans do not have access to improved sanitation. If so, why are they lagging far behind other regions?

SY: About 40 percent of the world population lives without proper toilets. They primarily reside in Africa and Asia, two regions that are most urgently in need of toilets and sanitation aid. Residents live under the constant threat of contracting typhoid [enteric] fever, cholera, enteritis, and malaria.

For example, a lack of toilets makes it impossible to separate drinking water from waste water. As a result, drinking water becomes polluted. People must either buy water or drink polluted water. Yet, the average income of a slum resident in Africa is less than a dollar per day; when they are forced to buy drinking water they use more than 30 percent of their income. This contributes to the never-ending cycle of poverty.

In addition, polluted water and an inadequate water supply for people to wash their hands cause waterborne diseases, which ultimately prevents people from working. Unemployment then increases the poverty level. In extreme cases, these diseases result in death, since people cannot afford medical treatment. It is clear that the lack of toilets is intricately related to poverty and sickness.

The improvement of sanitation, therefore, can advance the improvement of other social problems. Without proper sanitation, poverty aid is but a temporary expedient.

IPS: What are the major shortcomings in meeting the sanitation needs of developing nations? Funding? Lack of support from governments? Absence of political will?

SY: The most urgent is changing people's mindset and behaviour. People must recognise the importance of defecating in toilets instead of open spaces. In order for this to happen, there needs to be proper education programmes. National and local governments must assume this responsibility.

There must also be adequate funding, political will, and popular support in place. These factors are crucial. People must first become aware of the importance of toilets and sanitation to motivate central and local governments to implement such programmes.

Poppy cultivation in Asia growing

The United Nations office on Drugs and Crime says that Asian poppy production for opium is on the increase. In the countries of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand poppy production was next to nothing since 1998, but an increase in opium prices a big decrease in other crops have led to the rebound.

In this story from IRIN, we learn more about rebel groups within Myanmar who have returned to poppy cultivation, and the economic factors behind it.

This reduction has been largely the result of pressure on two of the largest opium producers in Myanmar's Golden Triangle (bordering China, Laos and Thailand) - the Kokang and the Wa.

Both are rebel ethnic groups, with large guerrilla forces, who have ceasefire agreements with the Myanmar government.

The Kokang virtually ceased opium production in 2003 and the Wa in 2005. But in the past two years both poppy cultivation and opium production have begun to grow again.

"The trend is certainly upwards with a significant increase in the land under cultivation in Myanmar," said Leik Boonwaat, UNODC chief in Laos, who has also been stationed in Myanmar.

"Former opium farmers who already live in dire poverty are facing twin levers of increasing opium prices and falling commodity prices that may encourage them to resume poppy growing," he said.

The prices of most commodities grown or produced in Shan Sate in Myanmar, and in Laos, as alternatives to poppy - including maize and rubber - have fallen by more than 50 percent, according to the UN's annual drug report.

Most of the Wa and Kokang alternative crops - tea, rubber and fruit - are sold to traders across the border in China where demand for these products has all but dried up.