The Battle of The Acronyms: PIA vs. PSIA Steel Cage Match!

Poverty Impact Assessments (PIAs) and Poverty and Social Impact Analyses (PSIA) are most alliteratively defined as papers analyzing the impacts of development policies, projects, and programs on predominantly poor populations. PIAs, while relatively quick and inexpensive to implement, rely on existing data and are often somewhat limited in scope. PSIAs, on the other hand, are more expensive and time-consuming, but allow for much deeper analysis and stakeholder participation. The April issue of the IPC's Poverty in Focus examines the pros and cons of both methods of analysis, with some recommendations for how both can be improved:

The process of how PIA and PSIA are conducted is crucial for their
effectiveness and needs to go beyond providing reports. Experiences so far show that the following institutional and process issues have to be addressed:

• The analysis needs to be embedded in the policy cycles of partner countries and donors. The timing for conducting a PSIA or PIA needs to be right. They need to take place early enough to feed into the debate and actual decision-making.
  
• The selection of reforms, programmes and specific topics and questions to study has to be done in a consultative and transparent manner. This builds the foundation for ownership and potential impact on policy or programme formulation.
  
• The analysis needs a solid institutional anchoring. PSIAs and PIAs have to be commissioned and facilitated by relevant players in the policy process to ensure that the results are used in decision-making.
  
• A good strategy for dialogue and communication at all stages is essential to encourage broad participation and ownership for the results.

What Is Taters, Precious?

(This is what happens when I blog before lunch.)

Today marks the conclusion of the Global Potato Conference in Cuzco, Peru. This flagship event of the International Year of the Potato comes at a time when global commodity prices for wheat, rice, and corn are rising, and many scientists are hailing the potato as the "food of the future:"

Grown in more than 100 countries, potato is already a key part of the global food system. It is the world’s No. 1 non-grain food commodity and world production reached a record 320 million tonnes in 2007.

Potato cultivation is expanding strongly in the developing world, which now accounts for more than half of the global harvest and where the potato’s ease of cultivation and high energy content have made it a valuable cash crop for millions of farmers.

Melting Ice Caps: Great for Industry... Polar Bears Not So Much

A new story from the Worldwatch Institute reveals the friggin obvious - the melting of the Arctic ice cap has the oil and shipping industry salivating over the prospects of shipping lanes and untapped oil deposits on the seafloor. For the first time in 2007, the entire Northwest Passage was ice-free.

Arctic Oil & Gas Corp., an exploration company, has claimed exclusive rights to develop oil resources in the Arctic Ocean. On Tuesday, the group invited major companies from Canada, Norway, and Denmark to explore the Arctic abyss. "It simply doesn't get any bigger than this in the oil patch," CEO Peter Sterling said in a statement.
...
In the seas north of Russia and Alaska, expanded oil-and-gas development is already under way. The U.S. Department of Interior last month sold a record-breaking $2.6 billion in development bids throughout the Chukchi Sea, just above the Bering Strait. Additional sales are scheduled for 2010 and 2012.

IMF To World: "How're We Doin?"

The Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund has issued a preliminary draft issues paper on the IMF's involvement in trade policy. Aside from examining the clarity and legality of the IMF's role in formulating trade policy, the IEO will also attempt to tackle the nine-thousand-pound elephant in the room - the effect of IMF-mandated trade policy on developing countries.

From the draft issues paper:

Aside from the question of mandate, the substance of the IMF’s trade policy advice has also been controversial. Some critics contend that the IMF is too doctrinaire, pushing for trade liberalization and imposing trade conditionality no matter the circumstances. By doing so, it is claimed, the IMF constricts developing countries’ policy space and their ability to create their own development paths.8 Even in cases where trade liberalization may be desirable in the medium to long term, there is dissatisfaction with how the IMF designs its trade reform strategies. The IMF is accused of pushing for too-rapid liberalization, with insufficient analysis of market imperfections in domestic and world markets and inadequate attention to the fiscal consequences and social costs, and with an absence of needed safety nets for vulnerable segments of the population.

WFP Appeal: Close the Funding Gap

The UN's World Food Programme has issued an urgent appeal to donor governments to close a $500 million budget shortfall for food aid purchases. (That's a lot of vocabulary words on FreeRice) The rising costs of food staples and fuel are the primary cause of this funding gap, and are also exacerbating the problem of world hunger:

The price of food and fuel has soared to record levels in recent years, and entered an aggressive pace of increase in June of last year. WFP has taken many steps to mitigate these increases, including making 80 percent of our food purchases - US$612 million - in local and regional markets of the developing world. In 2007 alone, we increased our local purchases by 30 percent. This not only saves on food and transport costs but is a win for local farmers, helping to break the cycle of hunger at its root.

But even with our mitigation efforts, the cost of our food purchases has risen 55 percent since June 2007. This decrease in purchasing power led us to announce on 25 February a US$500 million shortfall in our budget for food rations. In the three weeks since that announcement, food prices have increased another 20 percent and such increases show no sign of abating any time soon.

Happy World Water Day!

I'm feeling lazy today so here's the value-added official description:

The international observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.

The United Nations General Assembly designated 22 March of each year as the World Day for Water by adopting a resolution.This world day for water was to be observed starting in 1993, in conformity with the recommendations of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development contained in chapter 18 (Fresh Water Resources) of Agenda 21.

States were invited to devote the Day to implement the UN recommendations and set up concrete activities as deemed appropriate in the national context.

The Subcommittee welcomes the assistance offered by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre to contribute to an information network centre in support of the observance of the Day by Governments, as required.

Happy World Water Day 2008!

Poop, Poverty, Prayer, and Political Priorities

In a bit of commemorative syzygy, this year's World Water Day is coinciding with the International Year of Sanitation, and the International Decade of "Oh Shit, We're Not Going to Make the MDGs." The Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) proposes an all-out effort to address the 2.6 billion people who still lack access to adequate sanitation through technology, the market, and religion. The main obstacle, however, may be lack of political will.

Other experts, like Jack Sim, founder and current head of the Singapore-based World Toilet Organisation (WTO), called for the poor to be viewed in different light if the current sanitation gap has to be bridged. "We don't follow the donor model, which requires the poor to be certified as useless to receive assistance."

His organization has pushed the message for better sanitation using a "marketing model," where the poor have to "demand" toilets. That includes "teaching the poor to be sanitation businessmen," said Sim.

The role of religion in influencing change of current toilet habits has to be roped in, he added. ''Religion is a very good tool, because most religions say that when you come to God, you must come clean. We must try and leverage on this.''

Seattle Cans the Bottle

The city of Seattle has announced that it will no longer purchase bottled water for events and staff. This move, hailed by environmental and other watchdog groups. will save the city about $60,000 per year and may make a small dent in the 17 million barrels of oil that are used to produce bottled water for the U.S. market.

The mayor is also using this as an opportunity to promote Seattle's tap water, describing it as "every bit as good as bottled water." In fact, the mayor is being rather inaccurate - tap water is in fact much safer than bottled water, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. While municipal water systems must meet stringent EPA requirements for purity, bottled waters face far more lenient FDA requirements, which are enforced by fewer than one staffer. Here's a partial list of the gaps regulatory gaps between the tap and the bottle:

• City tap water can have no confirmed E. coli or fecal coliform bacteria (bacteria that are indications of possible contamination by fecal matter). FDA bottled water rules include no such prohibition (a certain amount of any type of coliform bacteria is allowed in bottled water).
  
• Bottled water plants must test for coliform bacteria just once a week; big-city tap water must be tested 100 or more times a month.
  
• Most cities using surface water have had to test for Cryptosporidium or Giardia, two common water pathogens that can cause diarrhea and other intestinal problems (or more serious problems in vulnerable people), yet bottled water companies don't have to do this.
  
• City tap water must meet standards for certain important toxic or cancer-causing chemicals such as phthalate (a chemical that can leach from plastic, including plastic bottles); some in the industry persuaded FDA to exempt bottled water from regulations regarding these chemicals.
  
• FDA's rules completely exempt 60-70 percent of the bottled water sold in the United States from the agency's bottled water standards, because FDA says its rules do not apply to water packaged and sold within the same state.

Thirsty yet?

Climate Change, Drought, and Poverty: A Vietnam Case Study

A recent study by Oxfam examines the impact of increasing droughts and a changing climate on rural communities. Focusing on the Ninh Thuan province of southeastern Vietnam, the study assessed the vulnerability of the most drought-prone areas to negative livelihood impacts. These communities were found to be well aware of the changes in climate happening around them, and linked these to poor environmental management practices.

These communities were also beginning to engage in or identify adaptation strategies:

Communities could identify currently prevailing autonomous adaptation strategies in agriculture, animal husbandry, water resources, food, and economic security. Growing new crop varieties and formulation of seasonal calendars were major autonomous adaptation strategies designed to deal with impacts of drought on agriculture. In animal husbandry, introducing alternative livestock breeds and finding new feed and fodder sources were the most important practices in the mountainous region, while growing fodder crops had become an important strategy in the coastal region. Communities in the coastal region adopted a wider number of animal-husbandry strategies than in the mountainous region – a fact which could be a reflection of their developmental level.

Humans Winning the War on Glaciers!

New data released this week by the World Glacier Monitoring Service reveals that the rate of glacial thinning doubled between 2004/2005 and 2005/2006. The WGMS survey tracks 30 reference glaciers in nine mountain ranges in Antarctica, Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America and the Pacific, and the survey has found an overall loss of 38 feet of ice thickness since this tracking began in 1980. According to a UN Environment Programme press release:

The Service calculates thickening and thinning of glaciers in terms of 'water equivalent'. The estimates for the year 2006 indicate that further shrinking took place equal to around 1.4 metres of water equivalent compared to losses of half a metre in 2005.

"This continues the trend in accelerated ice loss during the past two and a half decades and brings the total loss since 1980 to more than 10.5 metres of water equivalent," said Professor Haberli. During 1980-1999, average loss rates had been 0.3 metres per year. Since the turn of the millennium, this rate had increased to about half a metre per year.

The record loss during these two decades – 0.7 metres in 1998 – has now been exceeded by three out of the past six years: 2003, 2004 and 2006.

The continued loss of glacial ice, predicted by the climate models in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, will have drastic future effects on downstream populations who rely on these glaciers as a source of water for consumption, agriculture, and power, particularly if the science deniers continue to delay action with false claims that we're in "the coldest winter of the century."

Combatting Poverty through Water Demand Management

A recent working paper from the International Development Research Center's WaDImena program explores the feasibility of using water demand management as a method of tackling poverty in the greater Middle East. Water demand management (WDM) refers to the strategy of making efficient use of existing water resources by reducing waste, controlling flow, and optimizing usage. In the context of poverty reduction, writes author Stephen Tyler, this means using gains in system efficiency to ensure that water is available for more of the urban and rural poor. To be equitable, water governance must be decentralized, not an easy task given the highly centralized water systems of most countries in the region.

As with comanagement of other natural resources, decentralized approaches to water resource management cannot be imposed in a top-down fashion by central governments. The experience with transfer of irrigation system management demonstrates the need for local organizational capacity-building, community development, clarification of local and state responsibilities and financial contributions, all of which need stronger communications tools and skills amongst partners (Vermilion 2006).

Local water user organizations do not just spring into existence because central government agencies mandate them. They have to emerge from local processes of interaction and governance. This means that while enabling policies which recognize and support such local processes are essential prerequisites to WDM and poverty reduction, they are by themselves not sufficient to ensure that real devolution of management and local participation take place.

Splish, Splash! It's Water Week on Toasterhead's Jihadosphere!

"Water, that's what I'm getting at, water. Mandrake, water is the source of all life. Seven-tenths of this earth's surface is water. Why, do you realize that seventy percent of you is water?

And as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids."

- Brig. Gen. Jack T. Ripper

As any fool can plainly see, water is an important substance indeed, and the way we manage water in the coming decades will have an critical impact on climate change, agriculture, health, poverty, conflict, and the survival of our species.

In commemoration of World Water Day, March 22, we will be focusing on different water-related topics every day this week.

Five Years After "Black Spring," Journalists Still Struggling in Cuba

A new report by Reporters Without Borders reveals that life for independent journalists in Cuba has not improved in the five years since the "Black Spring" crackdown in which 75 journalists and human rights activists were rounded up and sentenced to 14-30 year sentences. Twenty-seven of the 75 were journalists, and in the five years since the crackdown, only four of these journalists have been released. Journalists are still subjected to intimidation, censorship, blacklisting, and even violent attack.

Not all the news is bad, however. Bloggers such as Generation Y's Yoani Sánchez, operate in open defiance of the government. Additionally, the end of Fidel Castro's regime and Cuba's signing of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has given Cuban journalists some hope for an end to the repressive restrictions on the press:

"The simple fact of no longer sensing Fidel’s threatening form over our heads has helped ease the pressure", says Yoani Sánchez, one of the country’s most influential bloggers. "The government does not give ground of its own free will. We are seizing the space for ourselves". The retirement from political life of the Líder Máximo - temporarily since the end of July 2006 and finally with the appointment of his brother Raúl to the presidency of the State Council - has almost imperceptibly lifted both spirits and pens. Journalists, many of whom came into the profession via human rights activism and opposition to the Castro regime, say they are no longer afraid.

Good News for Biofuels

Who says there's nothing good in Maryland?

A new discovery by University of Maryland scientists could be a major breakthrough in the large-scale production of cellulosic ethanol. Professors Steve Hutcheson and Ron Weiner isolated an enzyme from the saccharophagus degradans bacteria, found in Chesapeake Bay marsh grass, which can break down plant-based sources such as newspaper, trub, switchgrass, and agricultural waste into fermentable sugars suitable for producing ethanol. Best of all, the process is carbon-neutral and doesn't affect food prices like corn and sugar ethanol.

Happy Birthday, DNA!

Today, March 11, 2008, would have been Douglas Adams's 56th birthday. Last week also marked the 30th anniversary of the first broadcast of the BBC4 debut of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the wonderfully briliant story of the destruction of our mostly-harmless planet.

Although Adams died in 2001 at the far too young age of 49, the environmental causes he supported still go on, including the ongoing plight of the rhino:

When one compares a map of the current distribution of the five rhino species with one showing the distribution c. 1800, the difference is striking. Many countries have lost their rhino populations altogether: Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Chad, Central African Republic, Sudan and Mozambique in Africa; and Pakistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Sarawak in Asia.

The most obvious reason for the decline from around a million rhinos in the year 1800 to approximately 18,000 today is poaching, but habitat loss has also been a key factor. There are several ways in which this is manifested:

Clearance of land for human settlement and agricultural production

Logging, authorised and illegal

Poaching is the main threat to rhinos’ survival, whether motivated by the Yemeni dagger handle trade or by the demand for rhino horn in traditional Chinese medicine. Conservationists obviously try to prevent poaching from occurring, whether by mounting intensive anti-poaching patrols and maintaining high visibility, by fencing sanctuaries, or by incentivising locals to pass on intelligence.

A Campaign to Free "Animals Without Tails" in the DRC

The World Peasants/ Indigenous Foundation (WPIO) has embarked on an innovative yet simple strategy to end enslavement of indigenous Mbuti families in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. They're asking slaveowners, very nicely, to stop. In its Ten for One Campaign WIPO recruits teams of ten influential local people, such as teachers and religious leaders, to convince kings and lords (murhambi) to release their badja or slaves. Since 2003, the campaign has freed 23 badja families and helped 120 others gain wages or school fees.

The Mbuti are part of the indigenous central African group known more colloquially as pygmies (a term considered offensive to some), and who often face segregation and marginalization by more powerful buntu tribes. In the DRC, this segregation often takes the extreme form of slavery.

According to a recent WPIO newsletter, the tradition of enslaving pygmies goes back many years and is linked to a rigid social hierarchy that treats pygmies as "animals without tails." Many badja are caught in the forests and forced to work seven days a week for food or the equivalent of one dollar a week. Freddy Wangabo, the WPIO director, also reports that sexual abuse of badja women is "rampant."

WPIO has concluded that the traditional strategy of human rights advocacy – to "shame and denounce" – is ineffective because the landowners are above the law and because pygmies are held in such low esteem. Aggressive advocacy can also provoke hostility. In 2003, a WPIO delegation was stoned. The same year, WPIO staff were arrested while organizing a football match to bring pygmies and Bantu together in South Kivu. Local radio stations have refused to carry WPIO messages.

As a result, WPIO has turned to intensive but tactful lobbying of individual slave-owners, in the form of the "Ten for One" campaign.

Like Water For Peri-Urbanites

The IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre has an interesting and lengthy paper comparing the approach of three growing cities to the problem of providing water and sanitation to those living in the sprawling periphery. The cities of Chennai, India; Cochabamba, Bolivia; and São Paulo, Brazil, all took different approaches to address their peri-urban areas, and conflict played a role in every example.

Although there are some important differences, we find several similarities across these three widely differing cities in Asia and Latin America. In each city, there are huge problems in service delivery to expanding populations in the peri-urban areas. These are probably insurmountable in the short term due to existing patterns of development in the cities. However, innovative, locally-inspired and alternative solutions have emerged to fill the gaps in formal systems.

Sometimes these have clear overall benefits such as the generally well-performing community-managed water systems in Cochabamba, but sometimes they are associated with severe negative impacts, for example, the over-exploitation and inefficiencies associated with private water markets and tankering in Chennai.

In São Paulo too, new solutions are being sought to tackle wastewater problems such as condominal sewerage and decentralised treatment, rather than the conventional approaches to sewage collection and centralised treatment. The dialogues and negotiations linked to these contested processes of infrastructure development are the focus of this book.

"Do you see how ugly the world is?”

Forrest Hylton has a fantastic article tying together all the loose ends in Colombia's cross-border assassination of FARC leader Raúl Reyes. From Colombian president Álvaro Uribe's ties to the parapolítica scandal to the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement to the "the matter of the uranium" letter allegedly found on Reyes' laptop (which miraculously survived the bombing raid that killed 17 people unscathed), this story has more plot twists than a bad telenovela.

Not coincidentally, this attack on Ecuador occured at a time when the region's "Ugly Betty," Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, was successfully negotiating with the FARC for the release of hostages, and strengthening his ties with Europe. And at the a time when Ecuador's president Raphael Correa has been raising quite a stink over American military bases, vulture capitalists, and Chevron's legact of pollution in his country in addition to negotiating with Reyes for the release of hostages, including Colombian-French politician Ingrid Betancourt. As Hylton explains, the attack on FARC will have little impact on the organization militarily, but the impact of killing FARC's ambassador will have far-reaching diplomatic consequences:

... there is no shortage of trained personnel to keep the war machine running, and it is unlikely that the killing of Raúl Reyes will make much of a dent in its functioning, except in terms of negotiating the release of the remaining hostages and laying the foundation for a negotiated peace; in terms of politics rather than total war. This explains the reaction of French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who said, “It is bad news that the man we were talking to, with whom we had contacts, has been killed. Do you see how ugly the world is?”

It may tempting to dismiss Kouchner’s question, but his point may be somewhat more subtle: namely, that Uribe killed Reyes in a deliberate effort to block the French government from negotiating the release of Ingrid Betancourt. Were Betancourt to be freed, Uribe would likely come under international pressure to grant the FARC political status as a pre-condition for a negotiated political settlement, and might have to contend with Betancourt’s efforts to build a broad anti-Uribe coalition at home and abroad.

Dispatches from the Land of Morons

Gristmill's Miles Grant is blogging from the Heartland Institute's utterly hilarious Science Deniers Conference in New York. Predictably, this Second Coming of Jesus is even more pathetic than we rational people could have possibly imagined. But, alas, the morons have friends in profitable places:

Where does all the money come from? While the Heartland Institute no longer discloses its funders, ExxonSecrets.org reports data linking $7.5 million in Exxon funding from 1998-2006 to the Heartland Institute and many of the event's cosponsors. Sourcewatch also reports Heartland receives major funding from the tobacco industry, receiving $240,000 from Philip Morris (a.k.a. Altria) from 1993-1998 alone.

But the more I've listened to these speakers, the more I've realized that for most of them, it's not about the science. Panels don't go five minutes without attacking Al Gore or comparing climate activists to socialists who want to destroy capitalism. Deniers are part of a political culture that frames the world in terms of left and right, so they've absorbed global warming into that broader paradigm of partisan politics.

Oxfam: Dire Consequences from Ghaza Holocaust

Oxfam International is issuing warnings of dire humanitarian consequences resulting from Israel's collective-punishment massacre against the imprisoned citizens of Ghaza. In this current "Hot Winter" military incursion, more than 112 Palestinians have been killed and over 350 have been wounded in the fight against Qassam firecrackers. As Oxfam reports, Israeli F-16s are not limiting their missile strikes to military targets:

Earlier this week, an Oxfam funded mobile clinic, pharmacy and office of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) were destroyed by an Israeli air strike. The destruction of this health facility comes at a time when humanitarian needs are rapidly increasing as the Gaza blockade continues and essential services, including water and sanitation, are close to break down.

Adam Leach, Lead Manager of Oxfam International for Middle East, said: ‘We have all the elements for a dramatic deterioration in the humanitarian situation in Gaza and innocent civilians will again be the ones to suffer most. We call on all parties to the conflict to end violence against civilians and to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law. We appeal to the international community to take immediate action to stop the escalation of violence and insecurity and press for a truce in order to ensure protection of civilians. Sustaining and increasing human suffering is unlikely to lead to peace.”

Women in the Media 2008

UNESCO has launched an appeal to promote equality in media with their Women Make The News 2008 campaign. Working with the International Federation of Journalists, the campaign aims to shatter the glass ceiling women face in media outlets around the globe:

Women Make the News 2008 has two goals: to highlight the need to promote women journalists to decision-making positions throughout the world, and to promote gender equality in newsrooms. We wish to invite print and broadcast media to share with us features, articles, interviews and TV and radio programmes dedicated to this year’s theme Women’s Untold Stories to reveal women’s multiple talents, achievements and contributions to their communities.

A Penny For Your Slave Labor

Oxfam America and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers highlight a continuing problem of slave labor in our nation's food production system - a problem that the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange and Burger King would prefer not to fix.

The growers exchange, which represents 90% of Florida's tomato growers, and the fast-food chain have balked at a CIW-promoted plan that would pay workers just a penny more per pound through an outside firm. Despite the fact that such deals have already been successfully implemented with McDonald's and Taco Bell, the growers continue to insist that no mechanism exists to pay farm workers an extra penny per pound through a third party, and Burger King is threatening to take their business south of the border.

The CIW describes the conditions for Florida's tomato farm workers in Oxfam's press release:

It says that field hands earn on average 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes they pick—a rate that hasn’t climbed much since 1978. At that piece rate, workers have to pick nearly two-and-a-half tons of tomatoes to earn the minimum wage. When it rains and the tomatoes are wet, they can’t be picked—and workers are sent home without having earned a penny. Other days, conditions are such that workers can only haul in 100 buckets a day—an effort that gets them barely $4.50 an hour, on average. Farm workers don’t get sick days. And they don’t get overtime.

"I don’t know of any industry that hasn’t increased its wages in 30 years, and that’s something that needs to change—right away," said Reyes. "When your voice is being ignored, when you have no benefits and no protections and you’re viewed only as hands to do the job, that’s when abuses like slavery happen. Sweatshop conditions in the field are ground zero for slavery to flourish."