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Add to Preferred SourcesCritical year to ‘reset our relationship with nature’, a new EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change and Honduras: nearly one third of the population face severe hunger. Here is what you missed from last week’s headlines in the international development sector:
2021: Critical year to ‘reset our relationship with nature’ – UN chief
During this time of “crisis and fragility”, the UN chief told the United Nations Environment Assembly that human well-being and prosperity can be vastly improved by prioritizing nature-based solutions.
Painting a picture of the turmoil wreaked by COVID-19, whereby millions are being pushed into poverty, inequalities are growing among people and countries, and “a triple environmental emergency” of climate disruption, biodiversity decline, and a pollution epidemic that is “cutting short some nine million lives a year”, Secretary-General António Guterres upheld in his video message that now is “a critical year to reset our relationship with nature.”
A new EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change
The European Commission adopted a new EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change, setting out the pathway to prepare for the unavoidable impacts of climate change. While the EU does everything within its power to mitigate climate change, domestically and internationally, we must also get ready to face its unavoidable consequences.
From deadly heatwaves and devastating droughts to decimated forests and coastlines eroded by rising sea levels, climate change is already taking its toll in Europe and worldwide. Building on the 2013 Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, the aim of the new proposals is to shift the focus from understanding the problem to developing solutions and to move from planning to implementation.
Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal, Frans Timmermans said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has been a stark reminder that insufficient preparation can have dire consequences. There is no vaccine against the climate crisis, but we can still fight it and prepare for its unavoidable effects. The impacts of climate change are already felt both inside and outside the European Union. The new climate adaptation strategy equips us to speed up and deepen preparations. If we get ready today, we can still build a climate-resilient tomorrow.”
Honduras: nearly one third of the population face severe hunger
The severity of acute food insecurity in Honduras has reached unprecedented levels and the Integrated Food Security (IPC) analysis projects that the situation will worsen in the coming months leaving more than one-third of the population facing severe hunger. Urgent funding and assistance are needed to help combat this devastating hunger epidemic.
“By the end of this year, we are looking at a staggering one-third of the population of Honduras suffering from extreme and chronic hunger. A brutal combination of COVID-19 lockdowns throughout 2020 and subsequent loss of livelihoods, thousands of lost jobs, severe tropical storms at the end of last year, and recurrent droughts in the last 5 years linked to climate change, have all led us here to this situation,” said Maite Matheu, Country Director of CARE Honduras.
Before the pandemic, Honduras was actually seeing good levels of economic growth, despite the fact that the levels of poverty were among the highest in the region. In 2021 the economy is now contracting, and the number of people living in poverty is expected to significantly increase among already impoverished and marginalized groups such as indigenous communities, rural women, and women working in the informal sector.
DevelopmentAid Editorials
COVAX starts to deliver first doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Africa
The UN-led initiative aiming to supply the poorest countries with COVID-19 vaccinations has announced that it will send as many as 90 million doses in February.
African countries continue to have the highest poverty rates in the world
Whilst overall, poverty has been on the decline in Africa, the number of poor has continued to rise as a result of a growing population. According to a U.N. report, poverty decreased from 54% in 1990 to 41% in 2015, despite the increasing number of poor. This trend has continued until today and, as the current numbers show, African countries continue to have the highest poverty rates in the world.
COVID-19 pandemic endangers access to contraception in the poorest countries
According to the latest report issued by the Family Planning 2020 global initiative, the COVID-19 pandemic can negatively affect reproductive health, by lowering the number of women and girls who have access to contraception in the poorest countries.
Here’s what else has happened
South Sudan: The second round of a vaccination campaign to protect more than 2.8 million children from polio is underway in South Sudan, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported.
WHO: With one in 10 people still feeling ill 12 weeks after having COVID-19, authorities must do more to support them, an UN-backed policy brief argues.
FAO and IAEA: For more than 57 years, the partnership between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and IAEA has contributed to addressing global challenges, including food insecurity, climate change, animal/zoonotic diseases, and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. The IAEA and FAO signed a Revised Arrangement, which upgrades their partnership and expands the horizons of their work.
KfW: Many years of war, political instability – and now the coronavirus: Ukraine, where around 1.3 million people have been infected so far and 25,000 have died because of or with COVID-19, is in good need of help. As a result, the new phase of the ongoing support by KfW in the area of social infrastructure is now very welcome.
USAID: Thanks to Congress and the generosity of the American people, President Biden announced that the United States intends to provide an initial $2 billion, out of a total planned $4 billion, to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to support the Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (Gavi COVAX AMC) to provide COVID-19 vaccines for 92 low- and middle-income countries.
Reports
Women´s economic empowerment is critical to resilient recovery efforts
The economic crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic is having a profound detrimental effect on most people around the world. Yet, it has impacted men and women differently. Women are more likely to work in health care, unpaid care, and domestic work, making them more susceptible to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pandemic derails historic advances in children’s access to school meals
The COVID-19 pandemic risks reversing a decade of hard-won gains in global efforts to provide nutritious food to the world’s most vulnerable children through a free daily meal in school, the United Nations World Food Programme said in a report.
The full State of School Feeding Worldwide report.
UN Panel: End financial abuses to save people and planet
Governments can finance critical action on extreme poverty, COVID-19, and the climate crisis and by recovering the billions of dollars lost through tax abuse, corruption, and money-laundering, says a UN panel.
Read the full Financial Integrity for Sustainable Development report.
Emerging technologies can foster an inclusive COVID-19 recovery
COVID-19 recovery efforts present an opportunity for governments and the international community to use new and emerging technologies to reduce the inequalities brought into sharper focus by the pandemic, says UNCTAD’s Technology and Innovation Report 2021.
Read the full Catching technological waves: Innovation with equity report.
Events
How OLAF Investigates Fraud Against the EU Budget | Webinar
? 18 March ? 15:00 CET/ 9:00 ET/ 6:00PT
Virtual
Join the DevelopmentAid webinar to find out how OLAF investigates fraud against the EU budget.
The conversation is going to focus on the following topics:
- OLAF in figures: How many investigations? How much money recovered? How many recommendations for actions to the state authorities? How many companies/individuals have been actually prosecuted?
- The position of OLAF in the EU structure.
- Cooperating with OLAF as a witness or a person/entity being investigated.
- Fraud prevention measures? Hercule Programmes?
Big cases of investigation.
You will have the possibility to ask questions directly at the webinar.
HOST: Sergiu Casu, Business Development Director, DevelopmentAid.
Speaker: Michał Pesta, External Relations Coordinator, International Operations and Investigations Unit OLAF.B.4.
Seventh Session of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development | Hybrid format
? 1 – 4 March
Brazzaville, Republic of Congo
The aim of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development is to advance the integrated implementation of the 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063, which are mutually reinforcing. To that end, the Regional Forum provides a multi-stakeholder platform for follow-up and review of progress and challenges in the implementation of the two Agendas, while strengthening learning and advocating effective policy measures and actions.
6th Event of the African Day of School Feeding | Virtual
? 1 March ? 13.00 – 15.30 (GMT +3)
Virtual
The 6th ADSF continental commemoration is hosted by the African Union Commission (AUC). The event will be guided by the Theme: “Harnessing Africa’s Traditional Knowledge and Food to Support Home-Grown School Feeding Programmes and Systems During COVID-19 Response and Beyond. “