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Disasters are often portrayed as acts of nature, or of a natural order. Yet this is mostly far from reality. The major factors influencing disaster risks are human and social vulnerability, matched with the overall capacity to respond to or reduce the impact of natural hazards. Poverty is therefore a major factor increasing disaster risk, by increasing vulnerability to disasters and reducing existing coping capacities. It is only by addressing these two issues together that we can make the difference between a community trapped in a grinding poverty cycle, and one with secure lives and livelihoods. Full publication in PDF format (1.74MB), Number of pages: 85p

Transforming natural resource wealth into sustained growth and poverty reduction : a conceptual framework for Sub-Saharan African oil exporting countries

'Growing demand for energy and natural resources has led many low-income, resource-rich countries to open remote areas to industrial development. Even as a financial crisis engulfed the global economy in 2008 and 2009, projects such as oil pipelines, roads, and mines continued to remain key development priorities.' Source: WRI

Building on a legacy spanning three decades, UNFPA Country Offices in the Asia-Pacific region and their faith-based partners came together for a two-day consultation to assess the nature and impact of these partnerships in the areas of maternal health, gender equality, migration and youth welfare. This report documents the experiences and lessons learned from the varied initiatives of faith-based organizations, as well as the best practices emanating from these strategic alliances around the region. The discussions, recommendations for action and the many voices of critical faith-based actors, are all documented in this report.

'This paper presents an analysis of Official Development Assistance (ODA) flows to the water and sanitation sector, based on data gathered from the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and Creditor Reporting Systems (CRS) databases, as well as current knowledge in the sector. As part of this analysis, ODA flows to the health and education sectors, as well as to broader topics including governance and finance, are also considered. Where possible, policy implications and specific discussion about small towns is provided, however there is a general lack of information about financing flows to small towns, due to the nature of the accounting systems used by donors (and reported to the OECD).'

Water is a limited natural resource and fundamental for life and health. In 2000, the World Health Organization estimate that of the world's 6 billion people, at least 1.1 billion lack access to safe drinking-water and 2.4 billion persons live without access to sanitation systems. An estimated 14 to 30 thousand people, mostly young and elderly, die everyday from avoidable water-related diseases (e.g. diarrhoeal diseases). The lives of these people who are among the poorest on our planet are often devastated by this deprivation, which impedes the enjoyment of health and other human rights.

'Conflict is an unavoidable aspect of human social systems. Given the central importance of water resources to all human communities, it is natural that conflicts arise with regard to access, allocation, development and management of the resource.'

'This paper argues that mobility and migration have always been an intrinsic part of human development. Migration can be considered as a fundamental capabilities-enhancing freedom itself. However, any meaningful understanding of migration needs to simultaneously analyse agency and structure. Rather than applying dichotomous classifications such as between forced and voluntary migration, it is more appropriate to conceive of a continuum running from low to high constraints under which migration occurs, in which all migrants deal with structural constraints, although to highly varying degrees. Besides being an integral part of human development, mobility also tends to affect the same structural processes of which it is part. Simplistic positive-versus-negative debates on migration and development can be overcome by integrating agency-structure dialectics in the analysis of migration impacts. This paper argues that (i) the degree to which migrants are able to affect structural change is real but limited; (ii) the nature of change in sending and receiving is not pre-determined; and (iii) that in order to enable a more focused and rigorous debate, there is a need to better distinguish and specify different levels and dimensions at which the reciprocal relationship between human mobility and development can be analysed. A critical reading of the empirical literature leads to the conclusion that it would be naïve to think that despite their often considerable benefits for individuals and communities, migration and remittances alone can remove more structural development constraints. Despite their development potential, migrants and remittances can neither be blamed for a lack of development nor be expected to trigger take-off development in generally unattractive investment environments. By increasing selectivity and suffering among migrants, current immigration restrictions have a negative impact on migrants' wellbeing as well as the poverty and inequality reducing pot

The world's poor are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation and lack of access to clean, affordable energy services. Climate change, loss of biodiversity and depletion of natural resources are both national and global issues requiring cooperation among all countries. UNDP works to strengthen national capacity to manage the environment in a sustainable manner while ensuring adequate protection for the poor, by identifying and sharing best practices, providing policy advice and forging partnerships.

Recently, gender perspectives have received more attention from various stakeholders due to consistent global advocacy and awareness-raising efforts that highlighted the importance of gender equality in disaster risk reduction. However, progress in mainstreaming gender perspectives into disaster risk reduction remains inadequate. Gender considerations are still largely marginalized from the disaster risk reduction process. Based on information provided in national reports on disaster risk reduction, such marginalization of women is especially true at the national level. In daily realities, women are key victims as well as resilient forces to natural disasters. Sri-Lanka Disaster Management Minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe, talks about the role played by women in disaster risk reduction and how gender issues have to be linked to the sustainable development goals nations want to achieve.

Learning for Change in ADB The rapidly changing-and, at times, excessively complex-nature of development work demands diverse competences from aid agencies such as the Asian Development Bank. The learning challenges these present require the ability to work more reflectively in a turbulent practice environment. Learning for Change in ADB broadly defines a learning organization as a collective undertaking, rooted in action, that builds and improves its own practice by consciously and continually devising and developing the means to draw learning from its own (and others') experience. It identifies the 10 challenges that ADB must overcome to develop as a learning organization and specifies practicable next steps to conquer each. It can help deliver the increased development effectiveness that Strategy 2020, ADB's long-term strategic framework for 2008-2020, seeks.

'The objective of the Sindh Education Sector Reform Project for Pakistan is to increase school participation, reduce gender and rural/urban disparities in schooling outcomes, increase retention and transition, and improve quality. The key potential environmental and safety issues related to the program include: (i) liquid and solid wastes generated during school construction and operation; (ii) lack of adequate measures, both at the design and construction stages, to address the schools´ vulnerabilities to natural disasters (both in new and rehabilitated schools); (iii) drinking water contamination and lack of adequate sanitation facilities; (iv) lack of education programs for children in personal hygiene and safety procedures during emergencies; (v) lack of low-cost renewable power systems in schools located in off-grid areas, resulting in an inadequate learning environment for children (excessive heat and poor lightning), and preventing the use of low-cost water decontamination techniques; and (vi) land acquisition issues.