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Reuters blog archive
from Felix Salmon:
A very smart way to save antiquities
I first heard about the Sustainable Preservation Initiative back in 2009. Back then, it was little more than an idea attached to a tollgate. The problem at hand is the large number of antiquities and important archaeological sites which exist in poor areas of poor countries. Historically, that has been a recipe for looting; more recently, those sites have been more at risk of simply being bulldozed as urban areas sprawl. As SPI's Larry Coben and Rebekah Junkermeier write, the way that archaeologists have historically attempted to address those problems -- conservation, education and museums -- simply didn't work. So, they came up with another idea -- one which would give locals a sustainable financial incentive to maintain and preserve their patrimony.
Four years on, SPI is a well established organization. The bare-bones original concept was simply to put up a fence in front of an archaeological site, and let locals charge for admission. When tourists would arrive to see the ruins, they would pay the locals, creating a brand new income stream. Today, SPI's ambitions -- and the incomes, and the number of people that a single site can support -- are much bigger. The organization's first big project was in San Jose de Moro, in Peru, a region where incomes average $9.50 per day. SPI came in with a $48,000 one-time grant, which paid for a visitors center, a snack bar, toilets, a crafts workshop -- standard touristic infrastructure, which is now providing good incomes to a dozen local residents. The local crafts, based on local antiquities, are even available now on Novica.
SPI has now launched its first crowdfunding campaign, to bring the model to two more sites in Peru, and already it has raised more than $25,000 of its $49,000 goal. I really like this model: it uses poverty alleviation as a tool with which to save priceless artifacts, and in many ways the means are more important and impressive than the end.
The trick here, of course, is to empower the locals as much as possible, rather than to parachute in and tell them how to run a business. But the fact is that even if the locals aren't particularly well educated, and have very little financial capital, they are rich in what you might call cultural capital. And a single up-front investment in touristic infrastructure can create a sustainable, profitable enterprise which can not only last for decades but can even grow over time.
from The Human Impact:
UNDP’s Helen Clark: balancing water, food, energy key to post-2015 goals
Global development goals due to replace current anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) when they expire in 2015 could be unified by a concept that calls for an integrated view of economic growth and development, said Helen Clark, head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The concept -- the water-energy-food nexus -- aims to create a sustainable economy and a healthy environment by considering how each of the three elements interrelate and are affected by decision-making.
from The Human Impact:
Menstruation taboo puts 300 mln women in India at risk – experts
More than 300 million women and girls in India do not have access to safe menstrual hygiene products, endangering their health, curtailing their education and putting their livelihoods at risk, say experts at the Geneva-based Water Supply & Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC).
At least 23 percent of girls in India leave school when they start menstruating and the rest miss an average of five days during each monthly menstrual period between the ages of 12 and 18, according to WSSCC, a partnership run by government, non-governmental organisation (NGO) members and a United Nations-hosted secretariat.
from The Human Impact:
Over to you: experts take water development goals debate to Web
An inspired Facebook update or a 140-character tweet could play a key role in shaping global development plans.
Over the next few weeks, policymakers are seeking input from the public via social media channels as they craft a sustainable development goal to address global water-management concerns and ensure water is available in the future for food and industrial production, for drinking and for sanitation.
from MacroScope:
Subconscience of a liberal: Krugman’s curious support of sweatshops
Who hasn’t heard of Paul Krugman these days? The Nobel-winning Princeton economist and New York Times columnist has emerged as a key voice in American liberalism, and is berated by the right for his support of heavy fiscal stimulus, higher inflation and a strong social safety net.
Which makes the views espoused in a 1997 missive entitled “In Praise of Cheap Labor” rather surprising. In the article, the economist attacks opponents of globalization for their soft-hearted distaste for inhumane labor conditions in developing countries.
from The Great Debate UK:
A local approach to building resilience
--Nicholas Rutherford is the Director of AidEx. The opinions expressed are his own.--
South-South Cooperation is currently and correctly being cited as a route to cutting poverty and increasing food security in the developing world, with recent plaudits including Ban Ki-moon and Amina Mohamed. The premise is that two or more developing countries achieve goals through mutual cooperation and exchanges of knowledge, skills and resources.
from The Human Impact:
Climate change means doing Asian development differently
In the face of climate change, is it time to re-examine the way we do development in Asia?
For years, many developing countries have believed it can be only one or the other - economic growth or reducing carbon emissions.
from The Human Impact:
Expert urges unity in dialogue over water security
Disconnected approaches to water security are hindering efforts to launch more effective talks on providing universal access to fresh water and sanitation, an expert said at an international conference this week.
The division between discussions on boosting access to water for the poor and those on the challenges of managing water as a resource was plain to see at the water security conference at Oxford University, according to Tom Slaymaker, a senior policy analyst at WaterAid.
from Global Investing:
BRICS: future aid superpowers?
Britain's aid programme for India hit the headlines this year, when New Delhi, much to the fury of the Daily Mail, described Britain's £200 million annual aid to it as peanuts. Whether it makes sense to send money to a fast-growing emerging power that spends billions of dollars on arms is up for debate but few know that India has been boosting its own aid programme for other poor nations. A report released today by NGO Global Health Strategies Initiatives (GHSi) finds that India's foreign assistance grew 10.8 percent annually between 2005 and 2010.
The actual sums flowing from India are, to use its own phrase, peanuts. The country provided $680 million in 2010. Compare that to the $3.2 billion annual contribution even from crisis-hit Italy. The difference is that Indian donations have risen from $443 million in 2005, while Italy's have fallen 10 percent in this period, GHSi found. Indian aid has grown in fact at a rate 10 times that of the United States. Add to that Indian pharma companies' contribution -- the source of 60- 80 percent of the vaccines procured by United Nations agencies.
from India Insight:
Should Britain continue its controversial £1bln India aid package?
The UK will continue to send more than £1 billion to India over the next four years, despite huge cuts to government spending under London's Conservative-led coalition government and soaring economic growth in the Asian giant.
Andrew Mitchell, the UK's international development secretary, told the Financial Times on Monday that Britain's annual £280 million aid payments to India would not be reduced, in spite of the country's space ambitions, nuclear energy development, soaring numbers of billionaires and its own aid program to many African nations.
Mitchell's comments, a day before an official announcement, are likely to infuriate some UK MPs who have seen spending slashed in their constituencies, and those who have called for a reduction in overseas payments as British taxpayers brace for a period of tough austerity measures.
