 | ||
| ||
Over the past 50 years, Niger—a mineral-rich, low-income country on the southern edge of the Sahara desert—has faced extended periods of drought, frequent food shortages, and some of the most difficult human development challenges in the world.
“It takes extreme drought to make headlines, but the reality is that nearly a quarter of the population of Niger faces chronic food insecurity in any given year,” said Ousmane Diagana, World Bank Country Director for Niger. “Poverty and hunger are part of the landscape here during years of normal harvest, and things simply get worse with harsh climate or other shocks.”
A chronically food-insecure person is expected to survive on less than 1,800 kcal a day. In 2006, data showed that over 70 percent of daily caloric Nigerien’s consumption came from cereals (millet, sorghum and other cereals). Less than five percent of daily caloric consumption was derived from meat and fish, dairy products, and fruits and vegetables, which are important sources of micronutrients, such as iron, iodine, vitamin A and calcium.
Since 1990, over 60 percent of Niger’s largely rural population has lived below the poverty line, a trend made all the more serious by rapid population growth. According to UNICEF, the rate of chronic malnutrition in 2009 was 46.3 percent while in the second and third largest cities Zinder and Maradi respectively, both located in south Niger, this rate was over 50 percent.
Half of the country’s children below the age of five suffered from chronic malnutrition, as measured by stunting (low height-for-age). The recent food crises of 2008 and 2010, due to local drought and international high prices, have exacerbated the vulnerability of the poor to food insecurity. In January this year, after civilian rule was restored in the country, measures to cope with long-running food insecurity and deep poverty began taking shape. While a strong emergency food response continues to be a priority, longer-term solutions are also being actively sought and implemented.
New safety net to cover a million people over five years
The World Bank is supporting Niger’s renewed effort to protect vulnerable households through analytical work that has helped identify effective investments and by financing a new social safety net that is expected to cover a million people over five years in the worst affected regions of the country.
With reliable assistance being made available for the poorest families, today’s infants and young children in the regions of Dosso, Maradi, Tahoua, Tillaberi, and Zinder need not be permanently weakened by malnutrition, which has serious long-term consequences, including for learning skills.
The new safety net system will provide regular transfers of approximately $20 a month over a two-year period to very poor households in a state of chronic food insecurity. The payments are made to women who are expected to attend “essential family practices” training in health, nutrition and sanitation.
Payments will be made to women through designated payment agencies, mostly microfinance institutions and mobile phone companies, and are expected to significantly improve food consumption among registered households.
Already 2500 women have been benefitting from an early pilot of the project in four departments in Tahoua and Tillaberi. Those transfers have allowed them to purchase more food and not depend on hand outs from other people in the village. In other cases some women have already started to make arrangements to start participating in local saving schemes so they can buy livestock later on.
At Foygorou, Commune Ouallam, Department of Ouallam (Tillaberi), Mrs. Hadiza Moussa said she bought a sack of millet with her allowance of the first transfer. With the second transfer, she bought clothes for her children and gave her husband 2000 francs for some other essentials.
Cash-for-work will be offered every year for a period of sixty days each year to about 15,000 people going through temporary food insecurity, as a means of increasing household income during hard times caused by crop failures, high food prices, or other unpredictable events.
How the strongest solutions were identified
A recent World Bank report, Niger: Food Security and Safety Nets has informed the design of Niger’s new safety net initiative, finding that, for instance, very short-term transfers only after the occurrence of a large food crisis, do not strengthen household food security much beyond the life of the intervention.
“The new safety net in Niger has been designed based on a comprehensive analysis of Niger’s particular challenges,” said Carlo del Ninno, Senior Economist with the World Bank’s Africa Region. “We find that cash transfers to poor people must be for at least 18 months so as to have a positive impact; and that essential family practices campaigns do improve family health and children’s nutritional status.”
The new safety net will also follow international best practices such as a robust management information system to support key functions like targeting, a database of potential and actual beneficiaries, payment, and monitoring and evaluation. Significant resources will be invested in this before the actual large-scale payments begin.
Other medium-term responses recommended for Niger include: a) investment in agriculture to increase availability of staple food products by increasing productivity, improving efficiency of domestic agricultural markets, and reducing production risks for farmers; b) monitoring and anticipation of cereal price trends in neighboring countries; c) and a stronger emergency response.
| ||
Friday, September 2, 2011
Niger Takes Action to Reverse 50 Years of Food Insecurity
Facing up to the global water crisis
Some poor, politically stable countries have made great strides in access to water supply and sanitation. Water experts meeting in Stockholm called for further improvements
Water is pumped from a borehole in rural Uganda. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian
With rising population growth and changes in the earth's climate putting stress on the consumable 1% of the planet's water, the global water crisis risks becoming a source of cross-border conflict.
Sub-Saharan Africa is especially vulnerable given its dry climate, which is exacerbated by underdevelopment and mismanagement of water resources. In 2000, countries in Africa and in other regions set targets to halve by 2015 the number of people without access to these basic services. Some of them may meet these targets. In rural Rwanda, where nearly 4 million people gained access to improved sanitation between 1990 and 2008, household access to sanitation facilities has increased faster than in any other country in the region.
In fact, according to a report by the World Bank's water and sanitation programme (WSP) released on the occasion of Stockholm's annual World Water Week gathering of experts, sub-Saharan Africa has made significant progress. Across the 32 participating countries, coverage of improved water supply has risen by 13 percentage points between 1990 and 2008 to 58% of the total population. Improved sanitation coverage rose by 11 percentage points to 36%.
The progress made since 1990 points to a combination of political and economic factors. Low-income, but politically stable countries committed to sector reform have made greater increases in coverage in rural water supply and urban sanitation, reduced open defecation more markedly, and been more successful in keeping water supply coverage up with population growth in urban areas than either resource-rich countries, or their conflict-affected low-income peers.
Accelerating progress in providing sustainable, equitable access to water and sanitation requires two things. First, the mechanisms that convert funding into giving more people access to safer water and sanitation services need to be strengthened. Second, funding needs to be increased by at least $6bn a year to tackle a projected annual shortfall of capital investment.
According to the UN Environment Programmes's Green Economy Report , also released at Stockholm last week, an annual investment of $198bn, 0.16% of global GDP, by 2030 could reduce water scarcity and halve the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation in less than four years.
In fact, many households are already investing in basic sanitation improvements and reaping significant economic benefits. Unep's report cites WSP's Economics of Sanitation Initiative study, which found that Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam lose about $9bn a year, 2% of their combined GDP, due to problems caused by poor sanitation. According to the study's second phase , also released during Water Week, households in these countries see up to seven times their initial investment in basic sanitation improvements, such as building a pit latrine.
Water Week closed with a Stockholm statement calling on governments participating at the Rio+20 summit in next June to commit to achieving "universal provisioning of safe drinking water, adequate sanitation and modern energy services by the year 2030" and to adopt intervening targets to increase efficiency in the management of water, energy and food.
Success will depend on the realisation of a common vision shared among governments, ministries, official and NGO development partners, and regional bodies. Development partners can respond to needs and reward efforts by tailoring technical assistance and aid to various stages of development.
Finance ministries can incrementally increase the water and sanitation budget share and collaborate with other ministries to link with core government systems like budget and expenditure management.
Finally, inter-governmental partnerships can pursue enhanced external support for water supply and sanitation, and foster regional learning among peers.
• Jae So is manager of the water and sanitation programme, a multi-donor partnership administered by the World Bank
Building Wi-Fi That Works at 800 MPH, Into a Car Designed to Break the Sound Barrier
The Fastest Wi-Fi in Town North American Eagle
Discovered during a dig through the FCC's experimental radio applications by Steven J. Crowley, it has come to light that North American Eagle is trying to install what will presumably be the fastest-moving Wi-Fi network on the ground--because it's being built inside a vehicle designed to break the world land speed record (and the sound barrier) at 800 miles per hour.
North American Eagle's latest vehicle is basically a converted Lockheed F-104 jet, 45,000 horsepower turbo jet engine and all, designed to travel on land rather than in the air. At 56 feet long, the vehicle weighs about seven tons and blasts a 20-plus foot plume of fire upon hitting maximum afterburner, so it's not surprising that it's designed to break the world speed record, currently sitting at 763 mph.
This vehicle is designed to top 800 mph, but it needs to collect data while driving so the team can monitor and study how it performs. Wi-Fi is fast enough to handle the transmission of data and video, so the team will have to install some fancy Tropos systems to beam that data from the race area (a dry lake bed in Nevada) to the team's base stations. The car is decked out with all kinds of sensors, from accelerometers to piezoelectric sensors to gyroscopes. Beaming Wi-Fi at those speeds, in real time, is no mean feat, but the team is already well on its way to breaking the speed record, with test runs topping 400 mph, so hopefully they can install it soon to properly monitor the tests.
Can I Buy Land on the Moon?
Stake Out Governments can’t claim land on the moon, but individuals and corporations may one day be able to. NASA/iStock
For now at least, the moon is like the sea: everyone can use it, but no one can own it. In 1967 the U.S. and the Soviet Union negotiated the Outer Space Treaty, which states that no nation can own a piece of the moon or an asteroid. “You have a right to go up and take the lunar soil, but you don’t have any right to draw a square on the surface of the moon and say, ‘That square is mine,’” says Stephen E. Doyle, a retired lawyer who served as NASA’s Deputy Director of Internal Affairs. If the Space Settlement Institute—which lobbies for private industry to develop land on other planets—has its way, new laws will allow space colonists to stake moon claims and start a colony.
Alan Wasser, the Space Settlement Institute’s chairman, says that a private company should build a “spaceline,” similar to an airline, between the Earth and moon. And because a corporation is not a nation, the Outer Space Treaty would not apply. Corporations have settled new worlds before. The London Company was a joint stock enterprise that established the Jamestown Settlement in 1607,providing transportation to pioneers in return for seven years of labor in America, where they cultivated tobacco and other crops for the company’s profit.
Wasser says that land ownership—and the promise of profits based on it—is a necessary incentive to invest in space settlement. He is lobbying for legislation that would commit the U.S. government to honor future moon claims. But anyone can buy a deed to land on the moon right now. The Lunar Registry (“Earth’s leading lunar real-estate agency”) sells such deeds on its website for about $20 an acre. Doyle says that some kind of lunar governing body is necessary to recognize and enforce property rights, but no such body exists. So as it stands, the claims are not much more than fancy pieces of paper.
Doyle says that future moon settlers could look to the Antarctic Treaty, which designates the continent as a scientific preserve and prohibits military activity or mining; 28 countries maintain research stations subject to review by the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs, which oversees best practices of scientific research on the continent. “Anybody who understands the implications of imposing a national law on celestial bodies,” Doyle says, “understands we are better to treat it like Antarctica and the high seas than we are to treat it like Manhattan.” If not, he says, we would “take all the problems and contests we’ve had on the surface of the Earth for 5,000 years and extend them to outer space.”
At Tissue Engineering Conference, The Future of Endangered-Meat Burgers and Other Treats
By Paul Adams
Dr. Post has grown pork in petri dishes, giving it daily exercise to improve its texture. Now he has received an injection of money with which to expand his research into beef. One hindrance is the bloodlessness of lab-grown tissue, which gives it a less-than-appetizing pallor, but theworkshop attendees seem optimistic about the practical, ethical, and environmental future of in vitro meat.
Mystery Meat Unidentified chunks of frozen meat await DNA testing. John B. Carnett
Earlier this week, we rejoiced at some promising news about the future of creating tasty meat without killing animals. Today, New Scientist is reporting from a workshop in Göteborg, Sweden, where Maastricht University meat scientist Mark Post relates his intention to grill up an in-vitro hamburger within a year.
Dr. Post has grown pork in petri dishes, giving it daily exercise to improve its texture. Now he has received an injection of money with which to expand his research into beef. One hindrance is the bloodlessness of lab-grown tissue, which gives it a less-than-appetizing pallor, but theworkshop attendees seem optimistic about the practical, ethical, and environmental future of in vitro meat.
Steffan Welin of Linköping University offers the enticing reminder that lab-grown meat need not be limited to the sorts of beasts we typically eat, which have been chosen as much for their ease of cultivation as for their deliciousness. But cells in a vat don't have to graze or romp, aren't endangered, and thrive in captivity, so they can be cultured from whatever animal appeals. I think I fancy a hippo steak.
Holographic Microscope Detects Bacteria on the CheapPost title
Researchers at UCLA have developed a low-cost, optics-free holographic microscope capable of detecting bacteria, such as E. coli , in various samples, including water, food, and blood. And by cheap, we mean really cheap. The researchers say it costs less than $100 to build.
The microscope has two ways of analyzing samples: a transmission mode and a reflection mode. The transmission mode is good for transparent media, like thin slices of a sample or clear liquids. In this case, the microscope’s laser can easily penetrate and analyze microscopic objects. For denser, more solid samples the microscope uses holography to generate a 3-D image of the sample that can be beamed to remote computers for further analysis if necessary.
In reflection mode, the microscope basically splits the laser beam using a mirror. It then uses one half of the beam to illuminate the sample. On the other side the sample beam and the control beam are recombined. Some “clever mathematics” can then use resulting the changes in the beam to generate a 3-D image of the object sampled.
But while that may sound fairly high-tech, there are no expensive optics or other pricey components required. The photo sensors are of the variety often found in smartphones, and small lasers like the one used in the device are really inexpensive these days as well. That all means that these holographic microscopes could be widely deployed at little cost.
And that’s the idea. Places that don’t have access to high-tech diagnostic equipment could use these devices to sample food and water--or even human blood--for harmful bugs and beam the images to more powerful computing devices elsewhere for analysis or diagnosis. That could help contain contaminations and outbreaks faster, saving lives while keeping costs down.
Scientists Fit Cyborg Beetles With Generators that Turn Their Own Wings into Power Plants
No more battery-driven bugs for DARPA
For years now, DARPA and other free-thinking research institutions have been developing micro-air-vehicles (MAV), usually modeled after insects. But building a tiny, lightweight flying robot is tough when you need a power supply--like an onboard battery--to keep the MAV flying. Then researchers turned to insect mind control--implanting live insects with machinery that lets humans manipulate their movements--but the problem remained: neural control hardware requires a battery to run.
Now, a team of Michigan researchers may have finally solved the battery problem by demonstrating an energy scavenger that derives power straight from the insects own wing motion. Using a tethered Green June Beetle and a couple of piezoelectric generators mounted on its wings, the researchers were able to generate 45 µW (that’s microwatt, or one one-thousandth of a milliwatt) of power.
What’s more, they think they could improve that by an order of magnitude if they made the beetle a true cyborg and directly implanted the generators to the insect’s flight muscles. That’s enough power to run the onboard neuro-hardware needed to manipulate the beetles--which means basically the ability to tell a Green June beetle to fly depends on the power generated from flight.
That’s pretty cool, considering DARPA and the rest of the cyborg insect research establishment has a variety of roles in mind for the sensor laden drone insects of the future, including search and rescue, intelligence and surveillance, environmental monitoring and the like.
அ. செ. முருகானந்தன்
அ. செ. முருகானந்தன் கவிதைத்துறையில் ஈடுபட்டதாகத் தெரிய வில்லை மகாஜனாவின் மூன்று முத்துக்கள் என்று பாராட்டப்பட்ட எழுத்தாளர் களில் அவரும் ஒருவர். மற்றையோர் இருவரும் உருத்திரமூர்த்தியும் அ.ந. கந்தசாமியும் என்பது வாசகர்களுக்குத் தெரிந்திருக்கலாம். அ. செ. முருகானந்தன் என்பது அளவெட்டி செல்லக்கண்டு முருகானந்தன் என விரிவுறும். செல்லக்கண்டு என்பது இவருடைய தாய் பெயர். தாய் பெயரால் மக்கள் பெயரை வழங்கும் கலாச் சாரமொன்றும் நம்மவரிடையே இருந்த தென்பதை இப்பெயர் நிரூபித்துக்காட்டுகிறது. இவர் மகாஜனக் கல்லூரியிற் கற்ற காலத் திலேயே பத்திரிகைகளுக்குச் சிறுகதை எழுத ஆரம்பித்தவர் கல்வியை முடித்த பிறகுங் கூட இவர் உத்தியோகப்பக்கம் திரும்பிப்பாராது பத்திரிகைத் தொழிலில் ஈடுபட்டும் கதைகளை எழுதுவதில் ஆர்வங்காட்டியும் தமது காலத் தைப் போக்கினார். இதனால் பிற்காலத்தில் வருமானமுள்ள ஒரு தொழிலோ ஓய்வூதி யமோ இல்லாமல் வாழ்க்கையைக் கொண்டு நடந்த அவர் பட்ட கஸ்டம் அவருடன் நெருங்கிப் பழகியவர்களுக்கு நன்கு தெரிந்ததே.
முருகானந்தன் யாழ்ப்பாணக் களமும் பண்பாடுங் கொண்ட கதைகளைப் படைத்த தன் மூலம் இரசிகர்கள் மத்தியில் புகழ் பெற் றார். ‘புகையில் தெரிந்த முகம்’ என்னும் அவரது குறுநாவல் இலக்கிய ஆர்வலர்களின் பாராட் டைப் பெற்றது. இக்குறுநாவல் சவாரிக்காட் சியையும் நீதிமன்ற வழக்குகளையுங் கொண்ட மைந்தது. ஈழகேசரியில் ‘பீஷ்மன்’ என்ற புனைபெயரில் ஆங்கில நாவலொன்றை ‘அலிபாபாவின் குகை’ என்ற தலைப்பில் தொடர்ந்து மொழிபெயர்த்து வெளியிட்டார். ஜேர்மன் மொழியில் வில்கெல்ம் சிமித் என்ப வர் எழுதிய நாவலை மொழிபெயர்த்து ‘போட்டி’ என்ற தலைப்பில் வெளி யிட்டார்.
அ. செ. மு. இளமை யிலே அதாவது பாட சாலையில் கற்கும்போதே எழுத்துத்துறையில் ஈடு பட்டவர் என்பதை முன் னர் கண்டோம். அக்கா லத்திலேயே இவர் ஈழ கேசரியின் ஆசிரியர் குழுவிற் சேர்ந்து எழுத்துத் துறையில் தீவிரமாக ஈடு பட்டார். இந்த முனைப்பே இவரை வேறொரு தொழில் தேடுவதையும் அரசாங்க உத்தியோ கத்தைப் பெறுவதையும் தடுத்து விட்டது எனலாம். இக்காலத்தில் அ. செ.மு அவர்கள் மறுமலர்ச்சிச் சங்கத்திலும் பிரதான உறுப்பி னராகவிருந்து செயற்பட்டார். ஈழகேசரியின் முதன்மையாசிரியராகப் பதவியேற்ற இராஜ. அரியரத்தினம் தமிழ் நாடு சென்றுவிட்டதால் முருகானந்தன் அவர்களே ஈழகேசரியின் ஆசிரி யராக செயற்பட்டார். இவர் தமது ‘யாத்திரை’ என்ற நவீனத்தை 1957ல் ஈழகேசரியில் வெளியிட்டு வந்தார். 1958ல் ஈழகேசரி வெளிவராது நின்று விட்டதால் அந்த நவீனம் ஈழநாட்டில் வெளியிடப்பட்டது.
இவர் எழுதிய சிறுகதைகளில் காளிமுத்து வின் பிரஜா உரிமை என்பதும் ஒன்று. இச்சிறு கதை மலையக மக்களின் அவலங்களைப் படம்பிடித்துக்காட்டும் வகையில் அமைத்துள் ளது. மலையக மக்களும் இந்நாட்டு மக்களே யென்ற உணர்வை அக்கதை வாசகர்களுக்கு வெளிப்படையாகக் காட்டுகிறது. இந்த உணர்வை யுண்டாக்கும் விதத்தில் காளிமுத்துவின் முப்பாட்டனின் எலும்புக் கூடு மூலம் சித்திரித் துக் காட்டுந்திறன் நயக்கவும் வியக்கவும் வைக் கிறது. அண்மைக் காலத்தில் பதினைந்து ஈழத்துச் சிறுகதைகள் சிங்கள மொழியில் மொழிபெயர்க்கப்பட்டன. அவற்றுள் அ. செ. முருகானந்தன் எழுதிய ‘காளிமுத்துவின் பிரஜா உரிமை’ யும் ஒன்றாக இருந்தது. இது இவ்வெழுத்தாளரின் சிறுகதை வெற்றியை எடுத்துக் காட்டுவதாகும். ‘மனிதமாடு’ என்கிற சிறுகதை தொகுதியும் மக்களைக் கவரக்கூடிய விதத்தில் அமைந்துள்ளது. மனிதனை இழுத்துச் செல்லும் மனிதனையே மனிதமாடு என்று எழுத்தாளர் குறிப்பிடுகிறார்.
எழுத்துலகில் புகுந்தால் இலகுவாக புகழேணியில் ஏறிவிடலாம் என்பது சில எழுத்தாளரின் எண்ணம். ஆனால் எழுதிய சிறுகதைகளையோ கவிதைகளையோ நாவல் களையோ அச்சிட்டுவெளிப்படுத்தும் எழுத்தா ளர்கள் மேடையில் வைத்து வெளியீடுகளில் புகழப்பட்டாலும் நூல்வெளியீட்டுக்குச் செலவு செய்த பணத்தைப் பெறமுடியாது நட்டப்படு பவர்களே பலராவர். எழுத்தாளர்களின் கனவு ஈற்றில் கானல் நீராகிவிட பின்னாளில் அவர் கள் படும் கஸ்ட நஸ்டங்களுக்கு நல்ல எடுத்துக் காட்டானவர் அ. செ. முருகானந்தமவர்களே. அவர் பிச்சையெடுத்து வாழவேண்டிய நிலையி லிருந்த போது அவரை எந்த வளம் படைத்த எழுத்தாளரும் கவனிக்கவில்லையென்பது கவலை தருவதே. தமிழ் எழுத்தாளரைக் கவனிக்கத் தமிழ் அரசுமில்லை, பணம் படைத்தை பிரபுக்களும் இல்லையென்பதே உண்மை நிலைப்பாடு.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)