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Somalia: Administrative Boundaries: Regions (admin level 1) (31 Mar 2023)
Sat, 01 Apr 2023 04:52:28 +0000
Please refer to the attached Map.
UNFPA delivers support to ensure rights and dignity of women and girls with disabilities amidst conflicts in Myanmar
Sat, 01 Apr 2023 04:19:35 +0000
“We (Women with disabilities) experience double discrimination due to our gender and disability status. Without having access to information and services, we are more vulnerable to face different forms of violence both inside and outside of our homes,” Nwe Nwe Win, a local woman with physical disability said.
According to the 2019 Myanmar Inter-censal Survey, there is an estimated of 3.5 million females with disabilities compared to an estimated 2.5 million of males. Women with disabilities are 2 to 4 times more likely to experience intimate partner violence. They are more vulnerable to experience the situation such as withholding medication and assistive devices (such as wheelchairs, hearing aid and white canes, etc.), denial of assistance, food, water, and basic needs.
In conflict related situation, women and girls with disabilities are especially vulnerable. UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, with the support of local partner organizations of persons with disabilities , provides dignity kits which include basic needs for women and girls with disabilities from affected communities to ensure their personal hygiene and dignity.
“I had to flee my home when armed clashes happened near my village. I couldn’t bring anything from my personal belongings due to my physical disability?. Thanks to the items included in the kits such as basic clothing and sanitary napkins, I can live with dignity and manage my personal hygiene even in the situation of emergency.” Nyein Nyein, a local woman with disabilities from conflict affected area.
Sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence information is important for women with disabilities at the displaced sites to minimize the risks they might have. Without access to the sexual and reproductive health services and information, they are at higher risk of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. Women with disabilities are up to 10 times more likely to experience sexual violence. It is important to provide information and services for persons with disabilities considering their specific needs based on major types of disabilities.
Sian Nuam, a local woman with physical disability said, “I didn’t notice that I was experiencing gender-based violence at home. Thanks to the assistive devices (wheelchair) to go out by myself without needing assistance from my family anymore and the opportunity to attend gender-based violence awareness and mental health and psychosocial support sessions provided by local OPD with the support of UNFPA, I feel empowered and understand my rights.”
Every person with disability has equal rights and choices as anyone else, as in global frameworks such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ICPD Programme of Action and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. To end discrimination and exclusion in our society, it is important that we leave no one behind.
Yu Myat Mun, Programme Analyst of UNFPA Myanmar said, “The integrated sexual and reproductive health, gender-based violence and mental health and psychosocial support services and information are lifesaving assets for the women and girls with disabilities especially who are at the conflict affected displaced sites, by safeguarding their dignity, and opportunity to practice their body rights with the informed choices.” UNFPA’s support also ensure the equal accessibility to the maternal and family planning services for the persons with disabilities promoting their sexual and reproductive rights as others.
Joshua, one of the leaders of local organization of persons with disabilities said, “The main barrier which women and girls with disabilities face in the society is not their disabilities, but, sadly, it is the discrimination of people from their communities. It hinders full and effective participation of women with disabilities in the communities. We must end this barrier - discrimination against persons with disabilities including women and girl and provide support to ensure their rights and dignity.”
Pakistan: Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA): Sindh Daily Situation Report (March 31, 2023)
Sat, 01 Apr 2023 04:11:47 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
No. PDMA (SINDH)/(SITREP)/2022/2819
Period Covered: 22:00 hrs. 20-06-2022 to 30-03-2023 22:00 hrs.
Journeys of resilience: Reflections on travelling through war-torn Ukraine [EN/UK]
Sat, 01 Apr 2023 03:34:16 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
Travelling in Ukraine these days isn’t easy writes IOM Regional Director Manfred Profazi.
When I served as Chief of Mission for the International Organization for Migration from 2012 to 2017 it was possible to fly, or take one of the modern trains across the length and breadth of this vast country.
Now flying is completely impossible, and travel by train is still fraught.
My journey this week in Ukraine, from Odesa and Mykolaiv in the south, Dnipro in the East, up to the capital Kyiv and again west to Lviv was, for security reasons, by road. It gave me ample time to reflect on my own journey and the millions of individual journeys that have been taken since the start of the war, and indeed before.
Millions of people are in state of flux, caught between being displaced in their own land, or with their families torn apart. Some stay in Ukraine because they cannot leave the land that bore them, some because leaving is not an option, some, of course, stay to fight.
Some 5.4 million people are displaced in Ukraine, and more than eight million have fled across its borders, but it’s impossible to estimate how many million journeys have been undertaken. Many people have been displaced several times. Some have travelled abroad, come back, settled, and left again as the fighting swings this way and that.
This feeling of dislocation affects even communities and people that have not relocated. Communities have been crushed, unsettled, scattered. The damage in places like Mykolaiv, and countless small towns and villages I passed through this week scars the landscape and the emotions.
Who would not want to flee such a nightmare?
And yet, people stay. People are returning. People are adapting to being in new host communities, and are bringing their skills and their experience to help rebuild their nation. Their homeland.
Of course rebuilding and reconstruction in the middle of a war is challenging, to put it mildly, but everywhere I went I saw new infrastructure rising from the rubble. Much of it, I am proud and humbled to say, has been installed by IOM and by organizations working with us, and with local authorities, who have done so much to keep hope alive.
One of many examples is the mobile heating plant, essentially the hangar of a 40-tonne truck, specially adapted to provide heat to a children’s hospital, where hundreds of children – local and displaced – can receive uninterrupted treatment.
I was lucky enough to be able to hear first-person accounts of survival, of resilience and even optimism from young and old alike. These stories, and the dedication of our staff, keep all of us motivated and focussed on our assistance, and on facilitating recovering without fostering dependency.
I’m thinking of Valeriia and her son, who fled the destruction of Bakhmut and are now finally in decent accommodation, thanks to IOM-organized repair works to a dormitory in Dnipro.
She showed me photos of her home, now completely destroyed, and spoke wistfully of her market garden. Now she grows a few greens in a window box. Her son, a diligent student, follows his lessons on a mobile phone, as he doesn’t even have a laptop. They have not given up; they do whatever it takes to retain a simulacrum of normal life.
IOM's integrated approach allows us to support displaced people and host communities on multiple levels and provide them with a full range of services from infrastructure to income-generation.
I was Chief Mission at IOM Ukraine in 2014 when the armed conflict caused the first wave of displacement. Back then we built the technical know-how and a close relationship with local and central government that stood us in good stead as we scaled up to meet these massive new challenges.
I would like to say there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but, as they say, “prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future”. One thing is sure, there is light IN the tunnel, the light that comes from the resilience, the resolution, even the obduracy of the Ukrainian people, who refuse to submit to despair.
We will continue our efforts to support these people as long as needed in all the ways we can.
World: Global Price Watch: February 2023 Prices (March 31, 2023)
Sat, 01 Apr 2023 02:54:46 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
KEY MESSAGES
• In West Africa, staple food prices were stable. However, in Chad, prices increased atypically early due to reduced supply and insecurity. A scarcity of cash amidst the currency swap in Nigeria caused reduced market activities. Across the region, prices trended above the five-year average due to low carryover stocks, restrictions on cereal exports, high transport costs, and insecurity in the Sahel; while in the coastal countries, prices reflected the strong demand, elevated international prices, high production costs, and lower exchange rates – particularly in Nigeria, Ghana, and Sierra Leone (Page 3).
• In East Africa, staple food prices were stable or declined in most markets in Uganda, Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and the key production markets in Tanzania, Sudan, and South Sudan. However, food prices were elevated, driven by belowaverage production, persistent currency depreciation, high global fuel prices, and localized insecurity-related trade disruptions (Page 4).
• In Southern Africa, maize prices were mixed in February, as the effects of positive harvest outlooks were offset by seasonal stock declines and shocks, including Cyclone Freddy, increased conflict in eastern DRC, and the drought in East Africa. Prices remained above 2022 levels due to increased production costs and currency depreciations across the region. Headline inflation surged across several countries in February, driven by increased transport costs and declines in foreign currency revenues associated with declining revenues from mineral exports (Page 5).
• In Central America, staple grains supplies were stable across the region due to sufficient carryover stocks and imports. White maize prices were stable, as increased production costs offset the effects of increased supplies from recent harvests. Red bean prices increased owing to a tighter regional supply, driven by three consecutive years of agroclimatic shocks. In Haiti, local food prices increased, driven by below-average winter harvests, fuel scarcity, and transportation prices. Despite currency depreciation, prices of imports were stable or declined due to increased supply as fuel availability improved (Page 6).
• In Central Asia, staple food price trends were mixed.
Wheat flour remained stable in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan in February compared to the previous month, driven in part by a strong harvest in Kazakhstan. Meanwhile the price of rice increased in Pakistan and in Afghanistan increased only two percent, a slow in the growth trend that started in October 2022. In Yemen, wheat flour continued to increase dramatically in Aden while it remained unchanged in Sana'a City (Page 7).
• International staple food markets were sufficiently supplied. Global staple food prices increased, crude oil prices decreased, and fertilizer prices decreased due to lower seasonal demand and global gas prices. However, prices remain above the five-year average (Page 2).
Ethiopia Annual Country Report 2022 - Country Strategic Plan 2020 - 2025
Sat, 01 Apr 2023 02:28:36 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
Overview
The drought in parts of the country and the ongoing conflict across Northern Ethiopia exacerbated existing food insecurity levels across the country. A fifth failed rainy season in the south and the conflict in Afar, Amhara, and Tigray regions displaced millions. The estimated number of food insecure people increased from 18 million in 2021 to more than 22.6 million by the end of 2022[1].
The operating environment became increasingly challenging and complex as humanitarian needs outstretched WFP’s available resources, affecting WFP’s ability to deliver a response proportionate to the needs. 2022 saw an increase in security incidents and access constraints which caused significant delays and, at times, halted crucial activities such as climate resilience building and livelihood initiatives. Severe shortfalls in nutrition resources and supplies left WFP no choice but to cease distributions of nutrition prevention support in July and cut refugee rations by 50 percent from June. In 2022, WFP raised an unprecedented level of funding; however, despite raising more money than ever before, needs continued to outstrip resources. WFP received 69 percent (USD 1.1 billion) of the requirements (USD 1.6 billion).
Despite these challenges, WFP successfully reached 10.2 million [2] girls and boys, women, and men, including 614,370 persons with disabilities (PWD), through distribution of 507,786 metric tons(mt) of food and USD 25 million [3] in cash-based transfers across its activities in Ethiopia. Collaborating with five partners, WFP reached over 6.4 million people with relief assistance under the Humanitarian Response Plan in the Afar, Amhara, Tigray, and Somali regions, extending its assistance to conflict, drought and flood-affected people.
In efforts to contribute towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, WFP adapted its crisis response activities by revising the WFP Ethiopia 2020-2025 Country Strategic Plan, increasing its 2022 budget by USD 1 billion.
In February 2022, WFP launched its drought response to which 94 percent of 3.5 million [4] people were assisted across Oromia, Somali, and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' (SNNPR) regions through the provision of food assistance, nutritional support, livelihoods support, support to build and maintain productive assets, education and by augmenting logistics capacity.
As is too often the case in emergencies, women and girls were disproportionately affected by the conflict, leading to increased malnutrition among these groups[5]. WFP responded by providing specialized nutritious foods to 2 million children aged 6-59 months, as well as 1 million pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls, out of 7.5 million targeted [6] through the prevention and treatment of moderate acute malnutrition. To improve dietary diversity and access to nutrient dense foods (e.g., fruit, vegetables, eggs), WFP supported households with pregnant and breastfeeeding women and children under two years of age with fresh food vouchers.
Throughout 2022, WFP continued to build its ‘Changing Lives’ portfolio of activities which are critical to provide lasting solutions to the vulnerable communities. These included home-grown school feeding, resilience building for refugees and host communities, climate change adaptation through index insurance targeting pastoralists, and activities to prevent stunting in pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls and children, reaching about 347,666 people in total.
In 2022, WFP has piloted new resilience and livelihoods projects such as the re-greening of degraded land and the use of anticipatory actions helping communities respond early to climate shocks and build resilience and smallholder farmer support in production and market linkages. WFP continued to support the Government of Ethiopia with capacity strengthening initiatives, including the support provided to digitize their early warning systems.
In line with WFP’s commitment to the achievement of SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals), WFP continued to demonstrate its role as a partner of choice and key enabler of Ethiopia’s humanitarian response across sectors. The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) played a critical role in providing transport to 8,000 passengers from UN agencies and partner organisations to hard-to-reach regions in Ethiopia. Confronted with infrastructure, insecurity and road accessibility challenges, WFP used its logistical expertise to move 600,000 mt of food through various corridors throughout 2022.
By the end of 2022, after a peace agreement was reached in November, WFP was operating via all four corridors into Tigray, providing urgently required humanitarian assistance after their closure for over 18 months.
El Salvador Annual Country Report 2022 - Country Strategic Plan 2022 - 2027
Sat, 01 Apr 2023 01:47:40 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
Overview
In 2022, El Salvador faced the prolonged socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 climatic shocks linked to the La Niña phenomenon that affected the region with above average rainfall [1] along with the Tropical Storm Julia that hit the country in October. Moreover, the Ukraine crisis affected the global food system with repercussions on food, fuel and fertiliser prices, negatively impacting access to food for Salvadorans. Families experienced a reduction in basic grain stocks and an increase in the cost of the basic food basket in rural and urban areas (a 20 and 13 percent increase respectively over the previous year), exacerbating the situation of 907,000 acutely food insecure people (14 percent of the population) [2].
Against this backdrop, WFP started the implementation of its new Country Strategic Plan (CSP) 2022-2027 in July 2022 in a joint effort with the Government, United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations and academic institutions [3]. This Annual Country Report covers the initial six months of that CSP. The new strategic outcomes focus on strengthening food systems, promoting employment opportunities, improving nutrition and providing timely humanitarian assistance. Altogether, these efforts align with Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero Hunger) and 17 (Partnerships for the Goals), successfully contributing to changing lives and saving lives in El Salvador.
During the reporting period, WFP assisted food-insecure populations (61,839 people, 53 percent women and girls) through integrated emergency responses that address immediate humanitarian needs and incorporate early recovery actions [4] while contributing to raising awareness on nutrition and gender equality. Financial requirements for crisis response were covered at 96 percent, allowing WFP to reach 20 percent more beneficiaries than planned through emergency food assistance during the second half of 2022. This included 4,880 people affected by Tropical Storm Julia.
Under its youth vocational training programme, WFP reached 100 youth (53 percent women) from precarious urban settlements at high risk of becoming victims of violence. Overall, in 2022, WFP increased youth beneficiaries by 67 percent compared to 2021 through gastronomy and digital skills certifications. Young people received technical training and benefited from job placement in the private sector. WFP assisted the Government to launch two additional youth vocational trainings that will benefit young people in two new departments in the west and east of the country.
WFP also improved market access for producers by strengthening their organizations' capacities and ability to do business in staple grain trading, wild honey, and gastronomy. WFP assisted 153 subsistence smallholder farmers to boost their revenues by selling 120 mt of sorghum in formal markets, improving their livelihoods and food security.
Likewise, WFP supported 21 small businesses led by women, strengthening their capacities in marketing and associative mechanisms. This initiative increased their economic independence through more robust and sustainable business management and access to insurance and financial services, thereby contributing to empowerment.
WFP strengthened the capacities of the Government and the humanitarian community by providing evidence that contributed to informed decision-making through (i) analysis of the food security situation using the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification; (ii) emergency food security assessment (72 hours) after the impact of tropical storm Julia;
(iii) market assessment and price monitoring; (iv) publication of baseline results of the "Impact Evaluation of Cash-Based Transfers on Food Security and Gender Equality in El Salvador" [5]; (v) the National Food Security Assessment; (vi) study to assess students' perception on Biofortik [6].
Moreover, WFP supported the Ministry of Education in enhancing the School Feeding and Health Programme by conducting the baseline survey for the new results framework [7], improving its supply chain and launching the pilot of "Kitchen-in-a-Box", an innovative project that aims to equip schools with easy-to-establish kitchens.
Furthermore, WFP contributed to early child development, raising awareness through social media channels on the importance of breastfeeding. This initiative contributed to malnutrition prevention in alignment with the "Grow together" policy launched by the Government [8].
Overall, WFP increased its footprint by expanding activities, operations, and investments by injecting USD 4.7 million into the local economy through cash-based transfers.
Joint paper on JHA Agencies’ contribution to EU Solidarity with Ukraine, March 2023
Fri, 31 Mar 2023 23:44:21 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
EU agencies issue joint paper on support for Ukraine
Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified military aggression against Ukraine, which started on 24 February 2022, triggered a firm and overarching political response by the European Union. Actions in the justice and home affairs policy field form integral parts of a successful and efficient response. The nine EU Agencies cooperating within the Justice and Home Affairs Agencies’ Network (JHAAN) play a vital role in this process by contributing to the implementation of political decisions made at the European level, assisting Member States and other countries, and providing support to people affected by the war, in particular persons displaced from Ukraine.
Each of the nine Agencies engaged in a substantial number of actions in a very short time, and the Agencies provided tangible solutions and support.
Frontex stands with Ukraine and continues to provide support within our mandate. From the first days of the invasion, the agency has been supporting both EU Member States affected with the migratory flows, as well as our neighbours. The agency activated a crisis response mechanism and established a dedicated crisis response team which operates 24/7. Through this mechanism, Frontex provides regular updates to the Member States and the EU institutions on the situation at border crossing points and monitors refugee flows to support awareness, border control activities, including facilitation of border crossings, and evacuation corridors.
Coming with a helping hand to the Member States affected the most by the record number of refugees at EU’s doorsteps, Frontex provided hundreds of standing corps officers and equipment to support them at their borders with Ukraine. Even more Frontex officers arrived in Moldova as soon as the EU signed an agreement on border management cooperation, to assist the neighbour that received the highest number of Ukrainian refugees per capita.
The agency had about 500 standing corps officers working along the eastern border from Finland to Romania, including more than 350 officers working at the EU-Ukraine borders.
Our support for Ukraine is not waning. In January, Frontex and the State Border Guard Service signed a grant agreement worth 12 million euros to support Ukrainian border officers in performing their duties.
While the JHA Agencies’ responses cover a broad spectrum of activities, ranging from actions on the ground to those in cyberspace, the most prominent actions included:
Producing targeted analytical products and reports;
Identifying key fundamental rights challenges and ways to overcome them;
Providing operational support to investigations of core international crimes allegedly committed in Ukraine;
Providing operational support to national authorities, with a particular emphasis on Member States bordering Ukraine and Moldova;
Information provision-related activities and support;
Contributing to the enforcement of EU sanctions; and
Supporting the authorities of Ukraine and Moldova.
World: Good Practices in Disaster Risk Reduction: Midterm Review of the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030
Fri, 31 Mar 2023 23:19:08 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
This document seeks to distil good practices from the findings and recommendations identified in The Midterm Review of the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (MTR SF)3, emerging from over seventy Voluntary National Reports (VNRs) submitted by Member States following national consultations and reviews, as well as formal submissions of non-State stakeholders, meetings, interviews with experts and practitioners, policy documents, strategic and guidance documents, and thematic studies. Bringing this global expertise to scale will be critical to accelerate progress towards accelerating implementation of the Sendai Framework and thus risk-informed sustainable development.
The document highlights good practices in disaster risk reduction (DRR) that correspond to the Sendai Framework's four priority areas. While the good practices included provide valuable insights on the way forward, in that they are drawn from the submissions of Member States and stakeholders to the MTR SF, they should not be treated as exhaustive.
As such, this document must be read in conjunction with the report of the Main findings and recommendations of the midterm review of the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (A/77/640) and the Report of the midterm review of the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. It is recommended that these examples be treated as points of departure for further discussion and scale-up at regional and global levels.
World: An Age of Crises: Prospects for inequality and division, February 2023
Fri, 31 Mar 2023 23:02:34 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
Author
Roshni Menon
Senior Program Officer
Inequalities can shape, drive, and amplify crises and at the same time, be the consequence of crises.
The double shock of the COVID-19 pandemic followed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been accompanied by an uptick in income and social inequalities. Moreover, a world enveloped in a series of crises has become the grim backdrop for many of the current discourses on how to solve salient world problems.
The complexity and force of how each individual crisis overlaps and interacts with, and sometimes worsens the impact of other crises—including rising levels of inequality and exclusion—is profound and damaging, requiring careful analysis of both consequences and solutions. For instance, surging inflation rates, which began in 2021, as well as the food and energy crises set off largely by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have precipitated and worsened the debt crisis in many lower income countries. Combined with the existential threat of climate change and related and prevalent extreme climate events, a perfect and potent storm of events have been set in motion: even if aspects of today’s cost-of-living crisis wane, their ripple effects will continue to reverberate, in some instances setting off political instability and social unrest in parts of the world. The lessons learned from these crises, and their interaction with inequality and exclusion will be critical to better prepare for the future, and to break the deadly spiral of crises and rising inequality. While disasters—both those created by people and generated by nature—have increasingly become a daily reality for many in different parts of the world, policies at the global, regional, and national levels, have yet to catch up with this new reality.
Looking across six areas—food and fuel shortages, inflation, debt distress, extreme climate-related events, and political unrest—there are very few countries that escape the reach of at least one crisis.
However, more alarmingly, many countries are exposed to multiple and compounding levels of economic, social, and environmental shock; which can intersect with underlying inequalities and vulnerabilities such that a vicious cycle of income inequality, increasing social stratification, and discontent spreads across societies and generations. New research from the Pathfinders team shows that in those countries for which complete data exists across six crises (90 in total), eight countries are at risk for being impacted by all crises at the same time. 72 out of these 90 countries (or 80 percent) are at high or moderate risk of suffering from at least three crises at the same time. If we limit the analysis to five crises (food price shock, inflation, extreme climate events, debt distress, and protests), 10 out of the 134 countries with complete data are at high or moderate risk of suffering from all five crises and 86 countries (65 percent) from at least three crises. This number may even be an underestimate as typically lower income countries have less capacity to collect data and tend to deal with multiple crises arising from debt and cost-of-living issues.
In response to these multiple crises (or polycrisis), urgent, integrated, and coordinated policy interventions are needed, including even greater cooperation and commitment at the global level. Without a sharp change of course, a renewed recommitment to multilateralism and bolder action to address root causes, there will be little change for the better. There is an opportunity for committed countries to advocate for sustained and urgent action to respond to the immediate humanitarian needs of a great majority of the world’s population. Policy solutions can be geared towards the shorter and longer terms: The first includes an urgent set of instruments aimed at reducing suffering as soon as possible and a second set focused on achieving longer-term structural transformation to reduce vulnerability and promote sustainability.
World: One Year After Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: The geopolitical struggle is not where you think it is
Fri, 31 Mar 2023 22:47:10 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
Roshni Menon, Faiza Shaheen
When Russia invaded Ukraine one year ago, there were immediate concerns about the effects on food and energy security, and on geopolitical alignment in other countries. The world was right to be concerned, but the repercussions have been much wider and deeper than many predicted. There are two main ways in which conflict dynamics have shifted, neither of them solely caused by the war but both exacerbated by it:
• Russian’s war on Ukraine has shone the lens on inter-state conflict and proxy war. In truth, this dynamic has been taking place for some time. The majority of “old” civil wars between wellestablished rebel movements and governments were for the most part ended in the two decades after the end of the Cold War, some through negotiation and some militarily. Many have been replaced by complex local conflicts involving cross-boader extremist movements and organized crime. At the same time, interstate tensions have been rising for some time, whether in the South China Sea or the Eastern Mediterranean. Russian’s invasion of Ukraine raised the attention on inter-state threats and proxy conflicts, due to the spotlight placed on the Wagner Group and the patterns of diplomatic, military, and economic aid from the US, China, and Russia in all continents. While the most recent UN resolution marking the one year anniversary of the invasion calling again for Russia to unconditionally withdraw from Ukraine received the support of 141 countries, there were still notable exemptions including from India, Pakistan, and South Africa. Those heralding the vote as a global consensus are failing to see the intricacies of the political dynamics which still points to divisions.
• Compounding the pandemic and climate change, a war started in one corner of the world has resulted in a global cost-of-living crisis and increasing debt for almost every country worldwide —countries that had no hand in Russia’s invasion or in the failure to respond to public health and socio-economic crisis. More than 100 countries face three or more interlocking crises as a result of the events of the last three years. Most countries around the world now face domestic pressures that make them turn either inwards or towards allies who will provide immediate help. As a result, the world risks increasing polarization between blocs.
Kenya: Government Operation Against Pastoralist Militias in North Rift Region, 31 March 2023
Fri, 31 Mar 2023 22:21:28 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
Kenya at a Glance: 1 January-24 March 2023
VITAL TRENDS
ACLED records nearly 250 political violence events and 240 reported fatalities from 1 January to 24 March 2023. Pastoralist militias were involved in almost 30% of violent activity in the country.
Garissa county saw the highest number of reported fatalities, with 37. Turkana county followed with 27 reported fatalities. Pastoralist militias were connected to 30% of reported fatalities.
Protests were the most common event type recorded by ACLED, with nearly 190 events, followed by riots, with almost 140 events. Opposition groups organized mass protests in some areas of the country against the increased cost of living.
World: Principios Rectores y Acciones Inspiradoras Poniendo en Práctica la Resolución para Reducir la Violencia Urbana (Octubre 2022)
Fri, 31 Mar 2023 22:12:36 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
Resolución Para Reducir la Violencia en las Ciudades
Resolución desarrollada en asociación con Paz en Nuestras Ciudades y adoptada por mayoría de votos en el Parlamento Global de Alcaldes (GPM por sus siglas en inglés) , el 15 de junio de 2020.
Introducción
Una prioridad clave a nivel global es la reducción de la violencia, especialmente en nuestras ciudades. Alrededor del mundo, más de 600,000 personas en situaciones de conflicto son asesinadas cada año—y gran parte de esto ocurre en las ciudades, el extremismo, el crimen y la violencia interpersonal. Sin embargo, también existen ejemplos notables de ciudades que previenen y reducen la violencia, en especial donde hay liderazgos inteligentes, intervenciones fundadas en los datos y basadas en la evidencia, enfocadas en las zonas de conflicto, y medidas económicas y sociales de prevención. Aún así, continúa existiendo una ausencia de acciones interurbanas fuertes para acelerar las medidas de reducción de la violencia alrededor del mundo.
A medida que la pandemia del coronavirus siga expandiéndose alrededor del mundo, la misma interactúa con estas dinámicas de violencia existentes, de formas tanto predecibles como no predecibles. Ya estamos viendo, por ejemplo, tendencias consistentes en un incremento de la violencia en el hogar, principalmente contra mujeres y niños. Mientras que en algunas ciudades la violencia callejera se redujo como resultado de las órdenes de quedarse en casa , en otras, la violencia callejera, o comunitaria, se incrementó, agregando cargas adicionales a los organismos de seguridad pública, ya sobrecargados a causa del COVID-19. Es esencial que, mientras impulsamos acciones en respuesta a la pandemia, no perdamos de vista garantizar una seguridad más amplia para nuestros residentes urbanos, incluyendo medidas de reducción y prevención de la violencia.
GPM está bien situado para liderar una agenda global de reducción de la violencia en las ciudades. En 2019, la Declaración Durban destacó el compromiso del GPM en reducir la violencia en un 50 por ciento, para el 2030. Subrayó la importancia de estrategias amplias e integrales, basadas en la evidencia de lo que funciona. El GPM no está solo. Específicamente, Pathfinders de SDG16, una coalición de múltiples participantes , incluyendo docenas de gobiernos, organismos inter - nacionales y ONGs, también se ha comprometido a reducir la violencia en un 50 por ciento, para el 2030. Otra iniciativa enfocada en las ciudades, Paz en Nuestras Ciudades , fue lanzada de forma conjunta con Pathfinders, Impact: Peace y +Peace, e incluye miembros municipales que también son parte del GPM como Amman y Dayton.
El GPM tiene una oportunidad para acelerar sus acciones en torno a su meta de reducción del 50 por ciento de violencia urbana. El objetivo sería involucrar otras redes urbanas para unirse en una declaración conjunta y establecer acciones basadas en la evidencia, para reducir la violencia a la mitad para el 2030. Será necesario modernizar las acciones para aplicarlas al contexto actual de la pandemia del coronavirus, incluyendo las restricciones establecidas en torno a las interacciones en persona, así como las agudizadas presiones sobre nuestros sistemas. La declaración y sus acciones cor - respondientes serían desarrolladas usando la Plataforma Virtual del GPM. El producto final sería entregado a la Secretaría General de la ONU y a la Asamblea General durante las sesiones de la AGNU, entre el 15 y el 30 de septiembre de 2020. De esta forma, el GPM no solo fortalece la colaboración de las redes urbanas, sino que también aumenta las actividades en torno a un tema clave, que se alinea con su mandato y prioridades políticas.
World: Guiding Principles and Inspiring Actions: Operationalizing the Resolution to Reduce Urban Violence (October 2022)
Fri, 31 Mar 2023 22:01:48 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
The first priority of mayors is to keep communities safe. With 80-90 percent of global violent deaths occurring in urban areas outside of conflict zones, violence is an overwhelmingly urban challenge. Many cities have recognized the severity of this problem and have committed themselves to a 50 percent reduction in urban violence by 2030 through the first of its kind global resolution to reduce urban violence.
This report examines how cities around the world have gone on to operationalize this commitment and shares key strategies that city leaders can utilize for reducing urban violence. Published by Peace in Our Cities, it provides a roadmap for how implementing evidence-based interventions, focusing resources on vulnerable populations, and coordination among government actors and civil society organizations can demonstrably build community resilience and prevent violence.
By integrating the best available evidence on violence reduction with 17 examples of inspiring city initiatives from across five continents, this roadmap describes what effective policies look like, how to interrupt cycles of violence, and why partnership and buy-in from the people can help ensure successful policy implementation.
World: SADC seeks to fast-track humanitarian centre operations
Fri, 31 Mar 2023 21:38:02 +0000
SANF 23 no 5 – By Clarkson Mambo
SADC Member States have been urged to fast track the signing of the agreement that establishes the SADC Humanitarian and Emergency Operations Centre.
This was one of the decisions of the SADC Council of Ministers which met in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo from 18-19 March 2023 to deliberate on regional integration.
The United Republic of Tanzania on 23 February 2023 became the first of the 16 Member States to sign the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA).
The signing ceremony took place in the backdrop of the record-breaking Cyclone Freddy, which brought heavy rains and flooding, leaving a trail of destruction in Malawi and Mozambique, with many lives lost.
The SADC Council of Ministers observed a Moment of Silence in solidarity with the Republics of Malawi and Mozambique, and approved emergency support for humanitarian assistance following an appeal from the President of Malawi who has declared a State of Disaster.
Southern Africa has in the last five years experienced an increase in weather-related phenomena like droughts and tropical cyclones such as Desmond, Enawo, Idai, Kenneth, Eloise and Cheneso.
The impact has been widespread in some countries in the eastern part of the region, resulting in loss of life, injury, disease and other negative effects on human, physical, mental and social wellbeing, as well as damage to property and infrastructure, loss of services, social and economic disruption, and environmental degradation.
This has hampered efforts to address poverty, food security and infrastructure development.
SADC leaders approved the establishment of the SADC Humanitarian and Emergency Operations Centre (SHOC) last year, as a dedicated institution in preparation for such eventualities.
The Republic of Mozambique is host of the SHOC which was launched by President Filipe Nyusi on 21 June 2021. The Centre is part of the region’s disaster risk management and resilience-building efforts and will be responsible for coordinating humanitarian and emergency response support to Member States when necessary.
Specific functions of the Centre include the provision of technical support to National Disaster Management Entities and other regional and international stakeholders towards improved coordination of disaster risk management and the establishment and maintenance of a regional Disaster Risk Loss and Damage Database.
Operations of the Centre will be guided by the SADC Disaster Preparedness and Response Strategy and Fund (2016-2030) whose aim is to enhance coordination for effective disaster preparedness, response and resilience.
To ensure that the SHOC is set up within the shortest possible period, it becomes imperative that SADC Member States follow in the footsteps of the United Republic of Tanzania and sign the Intergovernmental Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) that provides a legal basis for the operationalization of the Centre.
At the signing ceremony, George Simbachawene, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office responsible for parliamentary affairs, labour employment, youth and the disabled in Tanzania, said the Centre will deepen cooperation among Member States, improve security of people and properties in the region as well as establish closer relations among the people.
A representative of the SADC Secretariat, Dr Phineas Leonard Matto, expressed hope that the majority of the SADC Member States will follow suit and sign the MoA for it to enter into force and pave way for the full establishment of the Centre.
A minimum of 11 of the 16 SADC Member States are required to sign any protocol or agreement before it enters into force.
SADC Ministers of Justice as well as Attorney Generals had approved the draft MoA for the SHOC at their meeting held in July 2022.
In addition to the SHOC, the SADC region has put in place other complementary response mechanisms to assist in matters relating to disaster management.
One of the initiatives is the SADC Online Vulnerability Atlas developed by the SADC Regional Vulnerability Assessment and Analysis (RVAA) Programme, which is designed to store and share data on food, nutrition and livelihoods security from the 16 SADC Member States in the wake of disasters.
A Climate Data Processing Centre to provide timely early warning information such as prediction of flood and drought potential, and onset of the rainy season, as well as climate advisories and information has also been put in place.
SADC is also planning to develop and operationalize a regional database to record losses from disasters through a Regional Disaster Risk Information System while plans are afoot to establish a regional risk insurance scheme, which aims to improve rapid responses to natural disasters in the region. sardc.net
Southern African News Features offers a reliable source of regional information and analysis on the Southern African Development Community, and is provided as a service to the SADC region.
This article may be reproduced with credit to the author and publisher.
SANF is produced by the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC), which has monitored regional developments since 1985. Email sanf[at]sardc.net
Crisis regional por la situación de Venezuela: Respuesta del Gobierno de Estados Unidos a la emergencia compleja (última actualización 17/03/23)
Fri, 31 Mar 2023 21:32:37 +0000
Please refer to the attached Map.
Crisis regional por la situación de Venezuela - Emergencia compleja - Hoja informativa n.º 2 Año fiscal (AF) 2023, 17 de marzo del 2023
Fri, 31 Mar 2023 21:28:12 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
RESUMEN DE LA SITUACIÓN
7.7 MILLONES Personas que necesitan asistencia humanitaria en Venezuela
ONU, marzo del 2023
7.2 MILLONES Migrantes y refugiados venezolanos en todo el mundo
R4V, enero del 2023
$795 MILLONES Necesarios para el plan de asistencia humanitaria 2022-2023 de Venezuela
ONU, agosto del 2022
$1700 MILLONES Necesarios para el RMRP del 2023 R4V, diciembre del 2022
9.3 MILLONES Personas afectadas fuera de Venezuela que requieren asistencia
R4V, diciembre del 2022
El 17 de marzo, la embajadora Linda ThomasGreenfield, representante de Estados Unidos ante las Naciones Unidas, anunció más de $171 millones adicionales para asistencia humanitaria y de desarrollo para personas afectadas por la crisis en curso en Venezuela, así como a migrantes, refugiados y comunidades de acogida en toda la región.
El 1 de diciembre, R4V publicó el Plan de Respuesta a Refugiados y Migrantes (RMRP) para los años 2023 y 2024, en el que solicita $1700 millones para atender las necesidades de más de 3.4 millones de refugiados, migrantes y comunidades de acogida que necesitan asistencia.
El 17 de febrero, el Gobierno de Ecuador lanzó la tercera y última etapa de su nuevo proceso de regularización de migrantes.
World: IMF Lending Under the Resilience and Sustainability Trust: An Initial Assessment
Fri, 31 Mar 2023 21:25:25 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
by Sanjeev Gupta and Hannah Brown
This paper provides an early assessment of five initial programs supported by the IMF’s new facility supported by the Resilience and Sustainability Trust to address two long-term challenges, climate change and pandemic preparedness. We find that its operations can be strengthened to better achieve the underlying objectives. They include: paying greater attention to depth of program measures; ensuring that the overall number of program conditions are not excessive to unduly strain the capacity of countries; better coordinating program support with the provision of diagnostics by international financial institutions identifying reform measures to be included in the program; reporting the share of climate-related investment in total investment in countries receiving support from the new facility; and including measures to prepare for pandemics in the subsequent programs.
World: A Dual Evidence Agenda: Delivering Greater Impact for Development and Global
Fri, 31 Mar 2023 21:23:34 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
by Amanda Glassman , Janeen Madan Keller , Julia Kaufman and Ian Mitchell
The World Bank’s evolution is a large part of the international response to global challenges like climate change and pandemic risks, with significant attention on amounts and sources of money. But less attention is paid to an inconvenient truth: few policymakers and experts know what works to make measurable progress against global challenges. On climate and development, for example, knowledge is sparse; demonstrating that a project or policy’s climate impact is “real, measurable and additional” remains a work in progress.
Generating and using evidence is imperative to enhance both the development and the global impact of public and aid spending. There has been significant improvement on the development side, including new data and methods and a growing global community of evaluators. But still, only a small share of development programs is rigorously evaluated.
With global challenges high on the international agenda and financing set to increase in the coming years, a big push on evidence, backed by dedicated resources, is essential. The potential rate of return is immense: better data on results could save hundreds of millions in mistargeted or ineffective spending—and importantly, could reduce potential trade-offs with funding for poverty reduction and development more generally.
This note makes the case for a reinvigorated evidence agenda to boost the impact of financing for development and global public goods, recognizing synergies and trade-offs between these dual goals.
Global action, local impact: Evidence for developmentGenerating and using evidence to improve programs and public policies is good value for money. Several examples demonstrate the impact of evidence on lives improved and money saved across sectors and regions.
Our recent CGD Working Group on New Evidence Tools for Policy Impact spotlighted areas of significant progress in the evaluation and evidence ecosystem to better harness the value of evidence, including growing interest from policymakers in using evaluation evidence to inform programs and policies; a growing global community of researchers, organizations, and partnerships conducting evaluations; and advances in data and methodologies that enable faster, lower-cost studies.
Still, major challenges persist. Across government, aid agencies, and other international organizations, funding, capacity, and institutional incentives for evidence generation and use remain limited
As a result, we know surprisingly little about the results of spending on development. Only 10 percent of evaluations conducted or commissioned by bilateral agencies like USAID and the German Institute for Development Evaluation are impact evaluations. And less than 5 percent of World Bank projects since 2010 have been subject to impact evaluation. While not every policy or project requires or would benefit from a formal impact evaluation, more representative evidence on the effectiveness of operations is needed given the huge opportunity costs associated with less cost-effective uses of scarce development, global health, and climate spending
For instance, the best social interventions are 10 to 100 times more cost-effective than the average interventions; these differences generally hold up across global health, education, climate change, and other social interventions and apply in rich and poor countries alike. For climate mitigation specifically, the (limited) data we have so far suggests the most cost-effective interventions could be 260 times as effective as the least effective ones.
CGD’s Working Group on New Evidence Tools for Policy Impact offers specific recommendations to enhance the policy value and use of this type of rigorous evidence for global development, including designing evaluations that start from the policy question and decision space available, advancing locally grounded evidence-to-policy partnerships to develop and shape these studies, and enhancing incentives to strengthen use of such evidence.
Local action, global impact: Evidence for global public goodThe recent spotlight on global challenges comes with a renewed imperative to harness results and evidence for greater impact. While there are conceptual and measurement issues that will need to be tackled (more below), we still know far too little about how effective spending on global challenges is.
“Global public goods” (GPG) refer to institutions, mechanisms, and outcomes that benefit people across country income groups and extend to both current and future generations. In economic terms, they are considered non-rival and non-excludable, meaning one country’s benefit does not affect or exclude benefit by others. CGD and others have long discussed the role of multilateral institutions like the World Bank in taking a GPG approach to tackling global challenges like climate change and pandemic preparedness, which defy borders and disproportionately affect the poorest and most vulnerable
Not all GPG efforts can—or should—be rigorously evaluated, and the social benefits of additional information on some specific areas and programs are likely to be much greater than others. Both policymakers and funders should make strategic and intentional decisions on when to invest in and collect more evidence, both for GPGs and development programs. Our working group report suggests using a “value of information” approach to proactively consider and prioritize evaluation investments with the greatest potential social returns, including in areas that receive substantial resources and have a sparse evidence base.
Areas like climate mitigation and pandemic preparedness represent large and growing areas of concessional finance. Filling substantial knowledge gaps in these areas would address high-value decision-making needs. But doing so will require additional dedicated resources for data and evidence-related activities, including both generating individual studies and using bodies of evidence that bring together different studies and types of data.
Climate mitigation
Mitigation has hugely consequential global benefits. One ton of greenhouse gas reduction or removal anywhere has impact everywhere, meaning that the local benefit of mitigation is a tiny fraction of the global shared benefit. Many middle-income countries have growing emissions, and while the specific outcome trade-offs of using public expenditure and aid on climate mitigation versus other areas are important to consider, they remain understudied.
Climate finance provided and mobilized for low- and middle-income countries totaled over $83 billion in 2020, with over 80 percent in loans and grants from public budgets. Climate-relevant projects currently account for one-third of bilateral ODA, and recent assessments suggest total financing needs for climate in the trillions of dollars. And as mentioned, the World Bank continues to rethink its mandate and tools to effectively deploy more climate finance. According to a new CGD paper, climate mitigation finance from the Climate Investment Funds and Green Climate Fund has generally been channeled to the countries and sectors with the highest emissions. But resource allocation across the largest recipients is not fully aligned with the size of country emissions, nor does allocation seem to optimize for additionality and catalytic impact with these concessional resources. Bringing more and better data and evidence to bear on resource allocation decisions could yield substantial benefits.
Yet, as previous CGD research has shown, we know surprisingly little about the effectiveness of spending on climate. For instance, out of 10,000 impact evaluations in 3iE’s database, less than 120 were tagged as “climate adaptation,” “climate mitigation,” and “climate resilience” (see figure). Cost-effectiveness evidence is also scant. What little is known shows highly variable results and cost-effectiveness estimates. A recent audit found that the European Commission’s 15-year effort to help 80 countries address problems from climate change had no demonstrable impact on countries’ climate resilience. And using the Green Climate Fund’s ex-ante estimates of project cost-effectiveness, the most cost-effective programs prevent over 200 times more emissions than the least effective. Despite the huge implications of these differences, we have far too little evidence to draw from to assess the climate impact of development projects or the development impact of climate projects.
Stepping back, we acknowledge that defining and measuring mitigation externalities and marginal benefits involves underlying complexities and is not yet well developed. But more should be done to strive for measurement rigor; empirically evaluating cost-effectiveness or cost-benefit should be a priority, not just focusing on semi-artificial or ex-ante results measurement. Given the common challenges and measures of success, evaluation efforts should also see substantial collaboration.
Pandemic preparedness
The next pandemic is a matter of when, not if. But because the health and economic consequences are felt differentially across countries, the return on investment in pandemic preparedness varies significantly. Again, while the trade-offs related to different uses of public expenditure and/or aid are likely important, they are understudied.
Development assistance for health in 2021 totaled $67 billion; “preparedness” historically has made up roughly 2-10 percent of development assistance for health, depending on definitions and how you slice and dice the data. With a new fund established at the World Bank and the annual funding gap for pandemic preparedness estimated at 10 billion, we should see an uptick in spending (beyond ODA) in the years to come.
We have little evidence on the effectiveness of pandemic preparedness interventions and surveillance systems in different country contexts. What we have are lists of policies and actions (even indicators are not fully agreed upon). But what we need is clear evidence on a menu of “best buys” for preparedness, taking into account the notional capital and recurrent costs of various multi-component surveillance systems to assess how much health impact can be bought with a given system. The WHO’s recently launched Mosaic Respiratory Surveillance Framework, which can help national authorities identify priority surveillance objectives and the best approaches to meet and evaluate them, is a step in the right direction.
But given remaining gaps, resources are currently deployed in uncoordinated and fragmented ways. It is unclear what is working for what purpose to deliver better outcomes. Information on costs and benefits from different perspectives (national vs. regional vs. global; ex-ante and during) is not just “nice-to-have knowledge” but should inform real-world resource allocation, including at the newly created Pandemic Fund
Trade-offs and synergies
When it comes to generating evidence in these areas, there are important differences and trade-offs to consider. For instance, the ultimate outcomes we’re working towards through GPGs relate to avoiding worst case scenarios (i.e., an absence measured by proxies), which is fundamentally different from development outcomes. There are also unanswered questions around how to measure and account for the differences in local and global benefits of GPGs. Evaluations can also be used to help unpack distributional questions about to whom the benefits from these investments accrue
Across the board, more evidence can mean more impact. With the tools at our disposal, we should keep the focus on recognizing lessons from the past; building on progress; increasing funding; improving incentives; and recognizing the interconnectedness between development, climate mitigation, and preparedness goals. As more financing for global challenges is deployed in the coming years, data and evidence use is needed to shift resources towards the most effective approaches and deliver demonstrable results.
What next? A closer look at the World Bank
Policymakers and practitioners must act now to integrate evidence into their efforts to tackle global challenges—and evaluation and evidence funders and practitioners must also take action to integrate high-value GPG-related questions into their evidence agendas.
For example, as the World Bank operationalizes its 2021 Strategic Framework for Knowledge and advances institution-wide reforms outlined in its evolution roadmap, all while preparing for a new president to take the helm, linking its agendas on global challenges and knowledge generation would help keep the focus on real-world impact.
The Strategic Framework for Knowledge includes little mention of the evidence agenda for global challenges like pandemic preparedness and climate. But we are glad to see the evolution roadmap emphasize how the World Bank can “further strengthen its focus on outcomes by strengthening investment in data, impact evaluation and results architecture,” noting that impact evaluations are currently underutilized across the bank’s portfolio and that investment in data generation and capacity in developing countries is inadequate. The roadmap recognizes the need for increased investments in impact evaluation to guide domestic spending, inform operations supporting GPGs, and “enhance the quality of project design and implementation by informing evidence-based mid-course corrections and filling knowledge gaps that then benefit subsequent projects.
But translating these intentions into real progress is where the rubber meets the road. As part of CGD’s working group, we highlighted ways the World Bank can leverage knowledge generation for policy impact, including embedding impact evaluation and related evidence activities across its operational structure and developing sectoral, regional, and country learning agendas. And achieving meaningful progress will require additional resources be dedicated for evaluation and evidence activities, as noted in the roadmap.
By prioritizing even a small share of resources for evidence-related functions, the World Bank’s leadership and shareholders would assure that all resources are spent more effectively and efficiently. Specifically, the bank needs a range of evaluation structures to work with country partners to inform policy and lending operations to make timely adjustments and generate and sustain policymaker demand for evidence, while also protecting the integrity and independence of the research to remain high-quality and credible. In terms of resources, funding for impact evaluation currently depends on insufficient—and at times uncertain—external trust fund financing and fragmented operational interest. New resources are needed to undertake evaluations more strategically and systematically across the World Bank’s evolving portfolio.
In addition to these measures, the World Bank’s board and management could consider the following actions to finance evaluation and evidence production and use:
include attention to the dual agenda in data, research, and evaluation as part of organizational KPI revisions within the roadmap process;
set aside a defined allocation of new financing mobilized by the bank to address global challenges;
ensure all new GPG-focused projects have some evaluation resources attached, or ensure the top 10 percent (by value) of new GPG projects are evaluated;
support trust funds to carry out longer-term research projects that focus on specific regions or global challenges and go beyond the timelines of specific operations; and
embed knowledge management within the World Bank’s Governance Global Practice, which could then pursue joint ventures with other global practices as a way to contribute to strengthened in-country evidence functions and capacities, building on collaboration between DIME and the Global Governance Practice.
Regardless of the financing mechanism, using evidence to inform investment—and disinvestment—decisions is our best shot at meeting the challenges of today and tomorrow.
Reforming the World Bank to Play a Critical Role in Addressing Climate Change
Fri, 31 Mar 2023 21:20:31 +0000
Please refer to the attached file.
by Pedro Alba , Patricia Bliss-Guest and Laura Tuck
The current World Bank model focuses on reducing poverty and promoting equitable growth, while considering environmental and social sustainability. Programming of resources is country-driven, and resources are allocated to programs and investments according to priorities of client government authorities. Despite the appeal of this approach and its many benefits, it has left numerous global public goods (GPGs), particularly those related to climate change, underfinanced, undermanaged, and unachieved. The resulting limited levels of investment and programs have significant global cost and, potentially, extreme ramifications. While there has been considerable reflection on the question of mandate, as well as on options for improving financial engineering of the multilateral development banks (MDBs) to increase resources to better address GPGs, there has been little attention given to reforms and changes in the internal business model that would be required at an MDB like the World Bank if it were to implement a new global mission on climate change. This paper examines the changes in the internal business model that would allow the World Bank (or other MDBs) to better address climate change—and, with some adjustments, potentially, other GPGs.
