Add us as your preferred source on Google to see more of our content in Search.
Add to Preferred SourcesWildfires, widespread destruction and millions displaced and critical funding gap. Here is what you missed from last week’s headlines in the international development sector.
Wildfires: EU provides crucial assistance to the Mediterranean region
As several countries grapple with rapidly spreading wildfires, the EU steps in to reinforce firefighting efforts and provide much-needed support to the affected communities with over 490 firefighters and 9 firefighting planes deployed to Greece and Tunisia since 18 July.
The two Mediterranean countries have activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism and the EU has swiftly replied:
- 10 countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Italy, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Serbia) are contributing to the EU Civil Protection Mechanism’s response to the wildfires in Greece. In total, over 490 firefighters and 7 planes have been deployed to different areas of the country. One EU Liaison Officer is supporting the coordination of operations in Greece and the EU’s Copernicus satellite mapping is providing damage assessment on several areas in the Attica region and Rhodes.
- 2 Canadairs from the rescEU reserve hosted by Spain are being deployed to northwest Tunisia.
The wildfires, fuelled by dry weather conditions and high temperatures are posing a severe threat to lives, livelihoods, and ecosystems across the Mediterranean. In response, the EU Civil Protection Mechanism shows once again that it is a key instrument of solidarity and cooperation among EU Member States and beyond during emergencies.
Widespread destruction and millions displaced: 3 months of violence in Sudan
Nearly 14 weeks of fighting in Sudan have forced more than 2.8 million people to flee their homes, seeking safety in other parts of the country and abroad. There are growing risks of disease outbreaks in camps for displaced people, with children dying from measles and other preventable illnesses.
Over 1,000 people have lost their lives since fighting began in April, and another 11,700 have been injured, according to the United Nations.
The violence continues to escalate in Khartoum and has spread to other areas including Kordofan, Darfur, and Blue Nile.
Critical funding gap for onward transportation for people fleeing Sudan risks to create a humanitarian catastrophe in the border areas
The humanitarian community in South Sudan is calling for urgent funding to ensure continued support for onward transportation for people fleeing the Sudan conflict to South Sudan. Since the outbreak of hostilities in Sudan on 15 April, over 193,000 people have crossed into South Sudan.
In June 2023, the number of new arrivals surged significantly, with approximately 15,000 individuals arriving from Sudan every week. Over 70 percent of the arrivals enter South Sudan through Renk’s Wunthow border entry point, of whom the vast majority are South Sudanese nationals. With no end to the Sudan conflict in sight, it is expected that the number of people seeking refuge in South Sudan will continue to rise in the coming period.
“Many of those arriving in South Sudan are increasingly vulnerable with no financial resources to continue their journey inside the country,” said Peter Van der Auweraert, the Acting Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan.
National and State-level Authorities together with the humanitarian community have been able to provide onward transportation assistance to those without means so that they can reach their final destinations by road, river, or air. Funds are, however, dwindling rapidly, and without new funding, humanitarian agencies will be forced to halt transportation assistance in two weeks’ time. Funding shortfalls have already forced the National Authorities to cease assistance.
DevelopmentAid Editorials
Mandatory salary transparency in the EU: A way to tackle gender pay gap
The disclosure of the salary in any job advertisement has been mandatory since April in European Union member-states. The new regulations, as per a EU directive, also aim to ensure that workers receive key salary information during their employment and that pay structures are based on and include gender-neutral job evaluation and classification systems. In this article, we review the possible impact of this new directive, its benefits for employees, and the changes involved for employers.
Maximizing project success with Tenderwell
Project management tools are designed to streamline and simplify an entire project lifecycle, from start to finish. These specialty tools allow businesses to more efficiently manage a project, keep track of progress (and challenges), supervise budgets, and collaborate with team members. Project acquisition and management tools also can provide real-time feedback and data analysis, helping managers to make informed decisions more quickly and thus reduce the risk of delays or cost overruns.
Indeed, it is by centralizing all project-related data and activity in one platform that project acquisition and management tools such as Tenderwell help teams to work together more efficiently and cohesively, leading to better project outcomes, improved productivity, and, of course, increased profitability for the businesses that use them.
Intrigued about how a project acquisition tool can place you ahead of the competition and help streamline the project implementation phases? Check out our previous article on Tenderwell.
Why do employees quit and how can you stop them?
The recent COVID-19 pandemic triggered an apparent trend of employees resigning from their jobs and this simply will not go away. People are changing their occupations and fields of work, transitioning into atypical professions, taking early retirement, or even launching their own businesses.
At the same time, talent remains highly sought after. In the middle of 2022, there were 11.3 million unfilled positions in the United States alone, a significant increase to the 9.3 million in the same period in the previous year.
Here’s what else has happened
FAO: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has welcomed €25 million in additional funding from the European Union (EU) to extend and scale up the Sustainable Wildlife Management (SWM) Programme. Since 2017, the initiative has been working with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to reduce unsustainable wildlife hunting, conserve wildlife, and strengthen people’s livelihoods and food security.
Ukraine: In partnership with the government of Japan, UNOPS is working to boost medical services in facilities across Ukraine, improving patient treatment and supporting healthcare professionals.
USAID: The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) contributes US$23.4 million to UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, to provide emergency relief and life-saving reproductive health and protection services to 1.3 million of the most vulnerable women and girls in Yemen.
UK, World Bank: The Government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the World Bank have launched a partnership—the Resilient Asia Program (RAP) —to accelerate transformational and collaborative climate action to respond to the urgency of climate change challenges in South Asia.
Yemen: The UN has started a complex operation to transfer crude oil from a decaying supertanker stranded off the coast of Yemen since 2015. The 19-day operation will pump more than one million barrels out of the rusting vessel, the Safer, which was abandoned over eight years ago, to a nearby replacement vessel.
Reports
Global coal demand set to remain at record levels in 2023
Continued strong growth in Asian economies offsets declines in Europe and North America, highlighting the need for stronger policies and investments to accelerate the growth of clean energy.
Global coal consumption climbed to a new all-time high in 2022 and will stay near that record level this year as strong growth in Asia for both power generation and industrial applications outpaces declines in the United States and Europe, according to the IEA’s latest market update.
Coal consumption in 2022 rose by 3.3% to 8.3 billion tonnes, setting a new record, according to the IEA’s mid-year Coal Market Update, which was published. In 2023 and 2024, small declines in coal-fired power generation are likely to be offset by rises in industrial use of coal, the report predicts, although there are wide variations between geographic regions.
Climate change impacts increase in Asia
Extreme weather and climate change impacts are increasing in Asia, which ricocheted between droughts and floods in 2022, ruining lives and destroying livelihoods. Melting ice and glaciers and rising sea levels threaten more socio-economic disruption in the future, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization.
Asia, the continent with the largest land mass extending to the Arctic, is warming faster than the global average. The warming trend in Asia in 1991–2022 was almost double the warming trend in the 1961–1990 period, according to the WMO State of the Climate in Asia 2022 report.
1 in 2 children in Europe and Central Asia are exposed to high heatwave frequency, double the global average
Around half of children in Europe and Central Asia – or 92 million – are exposed to high heatwave frequency, according to an analysis of the latest available data from 50 countries published by UNICEF in a new policy brief. This is double the global average of 1 in 4 children exposed to high heatwave frequency.
Beat the heat: protecting children from heatwaves in Europe and Central Asia notes that children are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of heatwaves, putting them at risk of serious illnesses including heatstroke.
Events
SAMEA 2023 Online Capacity Building Workshops
📅 07-23 August 2023 / 23-31 October 2023
Online
SAMEA is pleased to present the 2023 Capacity Building Workshops that will once again be presented virtually. We will deliver two workshop series in the months of August and October.