The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has issued a report addressing the challenges posed by the global economic crisis. The report provides an analysis of the global financial crisis, highlighting the effects and means of addressing the issue.......
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has issued Multi-year Expert Meeting on Enterprise Development Polices and Capacity-building in Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) crisis report. This report provides the outcome of the second Multi-year Expert Meeting on Enterpr......
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), has issued the Trade and Environment Review 2009/2010 ).
This report is focuses on the 140 plus low-income and least developed countries, which have not caused the economic, financial, climate and food crises. According to this ......
One of my favorite quotes by Bjarke Ingels:
"Engineering without engines. We should use contemporary technology and computation capacity to make our buildings independent of machinery. Building services today are essentially mechanical compensations for the fact that buildings are bad for what they are designed for—human life. Therefore we pump air around, illuminate dark spaces with electric lights, and heat and cool the spaces in order to make them livable. The result is boring boxes with big energy bills. If we moved the qualities out of the machine room and back into architecture’s inherent attributes, we’d make more interesting buildings and more sustainable cities."
These are all ideas very much at the core of green building, but there's a focus here that I think is...
Authored by: Bob KennedyAs announced in January (link), The William Davidson Institute (WDI) has joined the World Resources Institute and Acumen Fund as co-Managing Partners of the NextBillion.net site. The Managing Partners set strategy, fund enhancements to the site, manage the site, and work together to grow the NextBillion community.
This post is intended to introduce WDI to the NextBillion community and to invite you to explore ways to engage with the Institute.
WDI is a think tank located at the University of Michigan (UM) that focuses on business and policy issues in developing countries. WDI was founded in 1992, just a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, because Bill Davidson wanted to help the countries of Central and Eastern Europe make the transition...
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Here at WorldChanging, we often have conversations about how best to envision desirable futures. Not just on how to collaborate on designing them, or accelerate development on the kind of technology that would get us there, but how to portray inspiring green futures that people would want to live in.
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Tokyo's Transforming Tower | Madeline Ashby
"I wish there were a way to combine these shutters and some form of external cladding, but in a year both the tower's designers and its inhabitants will understand how best to exploit this building's transformation potential."
Event Summary - 2009 Behavior, Energy and Climate Change Conference | Stefanie Bowles
We feature notes from Stephanie Bowles on a couple of talks from the 2009 Behavior, Energy and Climate Change (BECC) conference in Washington DC. Bowles, quoting Karen Ehrhardt-Martinez: "... the BECC conference organizers made the veggie lunch option the default for the conference, and you had to opt in for the meat option. Meat eating went from 95% to 20% with this simple change, and we...
Prices for European carbon emissions permits are too low to deliver low-carbon investment and the British government should press the EU to tighten limits on emissions, a UK Parliamentary committee said on...
The Colts did not emerge victoriously at the Super Bowl, but their loss is a gain for children and families left with few possessions after Haiti’s catastrophic...
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Electric cars must be backed by "smart" power networks if they are to help the world's climate problems, environmentalists warned on Monday as European ministers prepared to debate a strategy for the...
Friends of the Earth says that the Environmental Audit Committee's report on carbon trading, released today, is the 'nail in the coffin' of the schemes....
With many unfilled oil jobs in North Dakota, people are arriving to try to fill the openings. For those who don't do the research on housing and the job requirements, it could make them homeless for a while. This adds to the homeless population already in the state, where few shelters exist especially in it's many rural areas.From CBS News, this Associated Press story highlights the problem. Many of the job seekers came to North Dakota without researching jobs or housing, said Louis "Mac" McLeod, executive director of the Minot Area Homeless Coalition. They arrive to find they are unqualified for the work that exists, or if they land a job, they can't get housing, which is scarce."If you got a roof over your head, stay there," McLeod advised. "We want people to come to North Dakota, but...
INEQUALITY NOT SO BLACK AND WHITE , 8 February 2010 (IRIN) - The growing gulf between the haves and have-nots in the black population has given South Africa the dubious distinction of becoming one of the world's most unequal societies, according to a recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an inter-government body....
- Following the 2009 Copenhagen Accord negotiations, Canada's position on climate change is examined in the global context as well as in relation to current policy in the United...
Australia today launched a A$70 million initiative to halve emission intensity from...
UN Development Programme (UNDP) published Burundi national human development report. The summary of the report Bonne gouvernance et développement durable, available in French (full-text, 1.74 MB), argues that good governance and the rule of law are essential for sustainable human development in Buru......
From IRIN, the World Health Organization welcomes a controversial new law in Egypt regulating the black market for human organs.A controversial organ transplant bill expected to become law in the next few weeks could regularize organ transplants and curb Egypt’s booming illicit trade in human organs, experts say.Hundreds and possibly thousands of poor Egyptians sell their kidneys and livers every year to pay off debts and buy food, making the country a regional “hub” for organ trafficking, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).The bill, which is causing controversy among medics, clerics and rights activists, says organs donated from live donors will be restricted to “family members of the fourth degree”, and that the removal of organs without official authorization...
More than a century into its existence, Philips is once again betting heavily on semiconductors. This time the consumer electronics firm is looking to harness their potential as a source of...
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) launched Humanitarian Action Report 2010, an annual humanitarian funding appeal for children and women affected by protracted emergencies. The report outlines 2010 UNICEF humanitarian action funding requirements for 28 most pressing crises around the worl......
A new survey conducted by South Africa's government finds no link between poverty and violent crime. The study conducted by SA Institute of Race Relations found that poverty rates varied across the South African municipalities, but shows that some areas that had high poverty rates also had low murder or crime rates.From South Africa's Times Live we find this breakdown of the survey. The SAIRR said Eastern Cape municipalities had the highest murder rate, 54 murders per 100,000 people, and a poverty rate of 62%.But Limpopo municipalities recorded the lowest murder rate - while sharing the same poverty rate.The findings form part of a local government study which assessed 80 indicators from each of 52 metropolitan and district municipalities.The indicators included demographics, education,...
Authored by: Sriram GuttaOver the last two decades, models for livelihoods for the poor have come of age and many organizations have focused their efforts on reducing the vulnerability of marginalized communities. A lot of these activities have been through the efforts of NGOs, international funding agencies, and local organizations working in specific regions and with specific segments.
Though these models have been successful in creating employment, they haven't scaled to realize their true potential. One such example is of Chamba chappals where over 500 artisans make sturdy and beautifully designed footwear in their homes or small shops. Chamba chappals have long been known for their durability and exclusive designs, many of which are now being developed and sold by footwear...
DAKAR, 8 February 2010 (IRIN) - The emergency aid industry has improved but must try harder, according to the broadest ever assessment of its performance....
Coping with Crisis, no. IV (2009) [full-text] - Focus is on psychosocial issues and research. Disasters, early view (Feb. 2010) [access] - Series of articles now online which appear to be part of an upcoming special issue on the "social dynamics of humanitarian action." Journal of Humanitarian Assistance (5 Feb. 2010) [full-text] - New article entitled "Why was there still malnutrition in Ethiopia in 2008? Causes and humanitarian accountability."Migrations Société, vol. 22, no. 127 (Jan. 2010) [contents]- Mix of articles.Tagged...
A few months ago the world celebrated the fall of the Berlin wall. Reflecting upon transition twenty years after this historically monumental event, yields important lessons about the challenges of establishing democracies and market economies. Neither appears overnight; both require difficult and often unpopular reforms in order to create inclusive and responsive institutions of governance and business.
The outcomes of the systemic transition in Central and Eastern Europe are undoubtedly impressive but vary greatly, and even the most successful countries continue to struggle with corruption, delayed reforms of key economic sectors, and disillusionment and lingering nostalgia among their populations. In order for the region’s democracies to deliver growth and prosperity, their...
Pollution and water scarcity threaten livelihoods in central-south Asia. But, argues Michael Renner, international efforts could help to forge a solution.The quantity and quality of available water play a crucial role in the politics of central-south Asia. Access to clean drinking water is a major, though largely unmet, objective and poor management lies at the heart of many problems.
Many areas are already experiencing physical water shortages – recent studies estimate per capita water availability in the densely-populated Indus basin at around 1,000 cubic metres per year – and climate change will only exacerbate this.
The region’s water challenges do not inevitably lead to armed conflict. Unalleviated, however, they threaten to undermine human security and bring...
In New Agriculturist:Rubbish and food waste dumped on the roadside is not only a health hazard for those living nearby, but also a wasted resource. Vegetable peel, fruit skins and other waste can be turned into animal feed, or even a source of fuel.More herephoto courtesy of New...
NAIROBI, 8 February 2010 (IRIN) - A bomb explosion was the last thing Abdiqani Sheikh Omar, 26, expected on his graduation day, after six years of studying medicine at Somalia's Benadir University in the capital,...