Donors provide additional support for Ukraine, more than 1 billion people in the world are now living with obesity and nearly one year of conflict in Sudan. Here is what you missed from last week’s headlines in the international development sector.
Donors provide additional $760 million for Ukraine to sustain critical government services
The World Bank announced an additional $760 million in donor support to help Ukraine sustain its critical government services at national and regional levels. This funding is the sixth Additional Financing for the Public Expenditures for Administrative Capacity Endurance in Ukraine (PEACE) Project that continues to provide support for the wages for teachers, first responders, and emergency services staff, as well as social assistance for internally displaced persons and the elderly.
The grant is supported by the PEACE Co-Financing Multi-Donor Trust Fund and the Ukraine Relief, Recovery, Reconstruction, and Reform Trust Fund (URTF).
To date, World Bank-mobilized support has enabled the Government of Ukraine to provide essential services that are reaching more than 15 million Ukrainians, including 10 million pensioners, 500,000 education employees of educational institutions, 145,000 government employees, 56,000 first responders, and over three million social assistance recipients. With the support of the project, 100% of the government has continued to exercise its core functions, 98% of pensions were paid on time, and over 90% of internally displaced persons and social assistance recipients were paid on time.
One in eight people are now living with obesity
A new study released by the Lancet shows that, in 2022, more than 1 billion people in the world are now living with obesity. Worldwide, obesity among adults has more than doubled since 1990, and has quadrupled among children and adolescents (5 to 19 years of age). The data also show that 43% of adults were overweight in 2022.
The study also shows that even though the rates of undernutrition have dropped, it is still a public health challenge in many places, particularly in South-East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Countries with the highest combined rates of underweight and obesity in 2022 were island nations in the Pacific and the Caribbean and those in the Middle East and North Africa.
Malnutrition, in all its forms, includes undernutrition (wasting, stunting, underweight), inadequate vitamins or minerals, overweight, and obesity. Undernutrition is responsible for half of the deaths of children under 5 and obesity can cause noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and some cancers.
After nearly one year of conflict in Sudan, 18 million people face food insecurity
It has been almost a year since conflict broke out in Sudan, and the needs have never been greater. Nearly 18 million people, or a third of the population, are acutely food insecure. The conflict has triggered one of the world’s largest displacement crises, with nearly 11 million people displaced both internally and in countries around the world.
Nearly 25 million people are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, including 14 million children. Fuel shortages, rising food prices, and a large-scale cholera outbreak are causing the situation to deteriorate further. Violence prevents humanitarian workers from accessing the hardest-hit communities, and many families are left without access to lifesaving health care and necessities.
The crisis in Sudan is one of the world’s most severe, but it is also largely forgotten. The last ten months of conflict have followed years of fighting and instability. The conflict is primarily taking place in the heart of Khartoum, the capital, with a devastating effect on the whole country. It has sparked not only the world’s biggest displacement crisis but also the largest child displacement crisis, with four million children displaced.
DevelopmentAid Editorials
Hero Stories | Silent crisis of amputees shatters dreams and steals childhoods of thousands in war-torn Yemen
Imagine losing a limb not in the immediate chaos of a years-long war, but amidst a broken healthcare system struggling to serve its most vulnerable citizens. This is the harsh reality that Abdel Nasser Ahmed Aklan faced, a reality that propelled him from despair to become a beacon of hope for countless others in war-torn Yemen.
Largest agriculture aid programs employers on DevelopmentAid
For billions of people worldwide, agriculture is the primary source of food and way of living. It has long been considered the foundation of human civilization. Today, it can help to foster shared prosperity and provide food for the expected 10 billion population by 2050. Agriculture’s role in the global economy is also significant. Contributing to 4% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) and up to 25% of GDP in the least developed nations, agriculture is also essential to economic growth.
Fact Chronicles | The economic impact of destruction in war-torn Gaza
The ongoing military conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hammas has exacerbated poverty levels to an unprecedented and alarming extent. Four months into the conflict, Gaza has seen its infrastructure leveled to the ground, economic activities brought to a standstill and millions of civilians displaced but with no way out of the besieged Gaza Strip. A preliminary report on Gaza made public by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development warns that “it will take decades for Gaza to return to pre-October 2023 welfare levels”.
Harnessing the power of synergy: The unbeatable combination of Tenderwell and the DevelopmentAid platform
With ODA budgets being revised and donors demanding value for money, organizations working in the development sector must remain competitive. And that is why savvy companies are taking advantage of the unique synergy provided by the Tendewell application and DevelopmentAid’s data-rich platform.
Tenderwell is a cloud-based CRM that was designed by the creators of DevelopmentAid.org, the world’s leading provider of information services for donors, consulting and engineering companies, NGOs, and individual professionals working in the aid sector. With seamless integration, the Tenderwell app and the DevelopmentAid platform give organizations all the tools needed to take their tender tracking, and proposal preparation processes to new heights.
Here’s what else has happened
Women: As the war on Gaza approaches its five-month mark, Gazan women continue to suffer its devastating impact. While this war spares no one, UN Women data shows that it kills and injures women in unprecedented ways. As the UN warns of a looming famine, here are seven facts as to why the war on Gaza is also a war on women.
Australia: The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomed a new contribution of AUD 4 million (USD 2.63 million) from the Government of Australia enabling WFP to provide critical food and cash assistance to vulnerable people in Lebanon.
Colombia: The results of the latest food security assessment by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Colombia show a 5 percent reduction in food insecurity, with 13 million people facing moderate or severe food insecurity – down from 15 million the previous year.
EU and World Bank: With initial funding of €6 million in 2024, the EU will help civil protection authorities of EU Member States, EU Civil Protection Mechanism Participating States, and Georgia and Kosovo to bolster their capacity to achieve the Disaster Resilience Goals.
Republic of Korea: The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) Korea office announced that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea recently donated $4 million to WFP Afghanistan. Donations will be used to provide emergency food and nutrition support to save lives and prevent famine in Afghanistan, where the food crisis is severe.
Reports
World must move beyond waste era and turn rubbish into resource: UN Report
With municipal waste set to rise by two-thirds and its costs to almost double within a generation, only a drastic reduction in waste generation will secure a liveable and affordable future, according to a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report.
Titled “Beyond an Age of Waste: Turning Rubbish into a Resource,” the UNEP Global Waste Management Outlook 2024 (GWMO 2024) provides the most substantial update on global waste generation and the cost of waste and its management since 2018. The analysis uses life cycle assessments to explore what the world could gain or lose through continuing business-as-usual, adopting halfway measures, or committing fully to zero waste and circular economy societies.
Rich countries use six times more resources, generate 10 times the climate impacts than low-income ones
The extraction of the Earth’s natural resources tripled in the past five decades, related to the massive build-up of infrastructure in many parts of the world and the high levels of material consumption, especially in upper-middle and high-income countries.
Material extraction is expected to rise by 60 per cent by 2060 and could derail efforts to achieve not only global climate, biodiversity, and pollution targets but also economic prosperity and human well-being, according to a report published today by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)-hosted International Resource Panel.
The 2024 Global Resource Outlook, developed by the International Resource Panel with authors from around the globe and launched during the sixth session of the UN Environment Assembly, calls for sweeping policy changes to bring humanity to live within its means and reduce this projected growth in resource use by one third while growing the economy, improving well-being, and minimizing environmental impacts.
UN issues global alert over teacher shortage
The world urgently needs 44 million teachers by 2030 to make the Sustainable Development Goals a reality, a new report from UNESCO, the UN agency championing education, announced.
Events
Discover the Power of Tenderwell: Streamlining Your Project Acquisition Process | Webinar
DevelopmentAid, in collaboration with Sergiu Casu, the Director of Business Development at Tenderwell, invites you to attend the webinar on “How to Streamline Your Project Acquisition Process with Tenderwell,” scheduled for 12 March 2024 at 3 pm (Brussels)/9 am (Washington DC).
Key takeaways
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- Efficiently store, track, and manage projects, candidates, proposals, organizations, and awards/references with Tenderwell’s data bank.
- Harness the power of Tenderwell’s emailer to create customized recipient lists and automate communication.
- Gain valuable insights with Tenderwell’s statistics module that can provide numerical analysis and graphical representations.
- Seamlessly organize and coordinate agenda tasks with Tenderwell’s event organizer tool to ensure you never miss important deadlines or opportunities.