Bezalel

3rd United Nations World Water Development Report: Water in a Changing World 'The third edition of the United Nations World Water Development Report, 'Water in a Changing World' was presented recently at the Fifth World Water Forum in Istanbul, Turkey on March 16, 2009. This report builds on the work of previous studies, including the two previous World Water Development Reports, and has a new, holistic format. A major theme of this report is that important decisions affecting water management are made outside the water sector and are driven by external, largely unpredictable forces - forces of demography, climate change, the global economy, changing societal values and norms, technological innovation, laws and customs and financial markets. Many of these external drivers are dynamic, and changes are accelerating. The report emphasizes that decisions in other sectors and those related to development, growth and livelihoods should incorporate water as an integral component, including responses to climate change, food and energy challenges and disaster management. The report is available for download and can also be accessed online.'

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

'This paper argues that understanding the link between global capitalist crisis macrodynamics and water commodification trends requires a discussion of the crucial intervening public management strategy, namely the decentralisation of service delivery functions without decentralisation of sufficient resources. The crucial linkage between these processes emanates from core multilateral institutions, like the UN.'

'Anemia afflicts an estimated two billion people worldwide, mostly due to iron deficiency. It primarily affects women. Yet among adolescents, prevalence rates of anemia are closer for males and females in some parts of the world. The prevalence of anemia is disproportionately high in developing countries, due to poverty, inadequate diet, certain diseases, pregnancy and lactation, and poor access to health services. Young people are particularly susceptible because of their rapid growth and associated high iron requirements. Anemia is a critical health concern because it affects growth and energy levels. In pregnancy it is associated with premature births, low birth weight, and perinatal and maternal mortality. Adolescence is an opportune time for interventions to address anemia. In addition to growth needs, girls need to improve iron status before pregnancy. And both boys and girls are more accessible to information about anemia through schools, recreational activities, and via the mass media than they will be later in their lives.'

Northern Uganda has been at the centre of a two-decade long insurgency that has left the rural communities in a precarious pandemonium-like situation characterised by widespread poverty, high illiteracy levels and bad living conditions. But this insurgence just came at a time when the region was supposed to be eliminating these obstacles to achieving a dignified, civilised way of life. However, in the last 8 yrs, Apac district, where this project is located, has been relatively safe that is why WOUGNET have been able to establish the rural access project there, according to the WOUGNET Director Dr. Dorothy Okello

Implementing Physical and Virtual Food Reserves to Protect the Poor and Prevent Market Failure

Romanticizing the Poor

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

Welfare impacts of rural electrification : a case study from Bangladesh