Britain, Norway Launch Fund To Preserve Congo Basin Rainforest

 “The Prime Ministers of Britain and Norway on Tuesday launched a multi-million-pound initiative to preserve the rainforest in the Congo Basin, which has been described as ‘the world's second lung.’

Gordon Brown and Jens Stoltenberg announced the GBP 100 million ($195 million) fund in cooperation with the Commission for the Forests of Central Africa (COMIFAC) and the African Development Bank. Each country will contribute GBP 50 million, while Britain pledged an additional GBP 8 million.

Britain's Department for International Development said the money would help create a satellite monitoring system to give the first detailed view of the rate of deforestation in the Congo, with the pictures beamed direct to Central Africa. Stoltenberg said as much as one fifth of current greenhouse gas emissions were caused by deforestation, but experts believed the emissions could be substantially lowered in a relatively short period. …” [Agence France Presse and AFX/Factiva]

Guardian Unlimited adds that “…The fund is intended to provide African governments and people living in the rainforest with a viable alternative to logging, mining, and felling trees for firewood and subsistence farming. …Projects will be eligible for funds if they can demonstrate that they will curb the destruction of forest, by providing alternative sources of income or energy for example. Their effectiveness will be monitored from above by high definition cameras being made in the Rutherford Appleton laboratory in Oxfordshire, UK, due to be mounted on satellites and launched into orbit in the next two years. …British and Norwegian officials acknowledge that the biggest challenge will be ensuring that the money is effectively spent. …

The new Congo Basin Forest Fund will be co-chaired by Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmental activist and Nobel Peace laureate, and Paul Martin, a former Canadian Prime Minister. Maathai said the scheme was an example of ‘carbon justice’ by which industrialized countries responsible for global warming entered into partnerships with those suffering its effects or those being asked to sacrifice their own economic development in the interests of the planet. …” [Guardian Unlimited (UK)/Factiva]

World Bank Backs ASEAN Aid Team In Myanmar

“The World Bank has handed $850,000 to an Association of Southeast Asian Nations team working to assess the impact of Myanmar's cyclone Nargis, ASEAN said Tuesday. The cash will go to ASEAN's Emergency Rapid Assessment team, which was sent into the devastated Irrawaddy Delta region early this month to gauge the damage, the regional grouping said in a press release.The Bank money would be spent on ‘the coordination of international response and senior-level dialogue on recovery planning as well as (the) training of ASEAN technical staff in damage and loss assessment,’ it said. …” [Agence France Presse/Factiva]

Meanwhile Xinhua reports that “A new Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has emerged from its response to cyclone-hit Myanmar, showing the world that it can ‘take on the responsibility placed on it’, Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said in Singapore Wednesday. ‘It just so happened that we are being baptized by the Cyclone Nargis. That is the test of our new ASEAN,’ he told a one-day ASEAN Leadership Forum on Wednesday morning. …” [Xinhua/Factiva]

In related Myanmar news, IHT writes that “More than six weeks have passed since Cyclone Nargis swept through the Irrawaddy Delta in southern Myanmar, leaving a trail of flattened villages and broken lives and arousing international sympathy that turned to anguish as the military government obstructed foreign aid.

Now doctors and aid workers who have gained access to remote areas of the delta are returning with a less pessimistic picture of the human cost of the delay in reaching survivors.

They say there have been no signs of starvation or widespread outbreaks of disease, and the number of lives lost because of the military government's slow response to the disaster appears to have been very few. …

Private citizens in Myanmar were crucial in compensating for the government's torpid response. Convoys of trucks filled with drinking water, clothing, food and construction materials poured into the delta. ‘It's been overwhelmingly impressive what local organizations, medical groups and some businessmen have done, said Ruth Bradley Jones, Second Secretary in the British Embassy in Yangon. ‘They are the true heroes of the relief effort.’ …” [The International Herald Tribune/Factiva]

Ethiopia Land ofLots of Hope: WB Vice President.

 “Ethiopia is in the right direction in the fight against poverty, but there is still a need to enhance production capacity of its agricultural sector to attain food security, said World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President Justin Yifu Lin on Tuesday.

Briefing journalists on the conclusion of his visit to Ethiopia, Lin said there are a lot of positive changes in Ethiopia, adding that the link between market and technology is in the right direction. Lin arrived here on Friday evening for a four-day visit, during which he looked at the operations of companies engaged in the export sector. …

Lin said Ethiopia should also make use of its large domestic market as it has close to 80 million population. Furthermore, the large number of population will contribute a lot to expand labor- intensive agricultural and industrial activities, he said…...” [Xinhua/Factiva]

World's Refugee Count In 2007 Exceeded 11 Million, UN Says

“The number of refugees crossing borders to escape conflict and persecution increased last year, and threatens to continue to grow because of factors like climate change and scarce resources, the UN refugee agency warned Tuesday.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) oversaw the care of 11.4 million refugees in 2007, including about 400,000 people who were enduring conflict in their own countries, the agency said. The total was 9.9 million people in 2006. …

‘We are now faced with a complex mix of global challenges that could threaten even more forced displacement in the future,’ Antonio Guterres, the high commissioner, said in a statement. The challenges include armed conflicts, bad governance, environmental degradation and extreme price increases for basic goods that have hit the poor the hardest and created instability in many places, Guterres said. …” [The New York Times/Factiva]

WP adds that “…The refugee agency said that 3.1 million people were displaced within their countries this year, while about 2.1 million returned to their homes. Well over 10 million more displaced people - including at least 3 million in Sudan - are cut off from international assistance or are forced to rely exclusively on their own governments for help. …

Pakistan, Iran, Syria and Jordan shoulder the heaviest burden, together playing host to nearly 5 million refugees, mostly Afghans and Iraqis. Countries in the Americas hosted fewer refugees than every other major world region; the US hosted 280,000 refugees in 2007, while more than 550,000 Colombians sought refuge in neighboring countries.

Part of the change in the number of refugees and displaced people last year was driven by a new definition of the two groups. It now includes individuals who had never registered with the UN. …The report also records a dramatic drop in the number of stateless individuals, who lack any citizenship, from 5.8 million in 2006 to 3 million last year. The vast majority of the change was due to Nepal's extension of citizenship to nearly 2 million ethnic minorities.” [The Washington Post/Factiva]

FT notes that “…The UNHCR said the number of refugees worldwide had risen for the second consecutive year… in its annual Global Trends report. …Apart from refugees who have crossed international frontiers, the UNHCR has a mandate to look after about half the 26 million displaced by conflict within their own countries, bringing the total number of people under its care by the end of 2007 to an unprecedented 25.1 million.” [The Financial Times (UK)/Factiva]

World Better Equipped To Fight Flu Pandemic – UN

“World readiness for an influenza pandemic has improved after an ‘extraordinary global response’ to the bird flu threat of recent years, the top UN official dealing with the disease said on Tuesday. But David Nabarro, the world body's influenza coordinator, said the risk of a pandemic remained, should the bird flu virus mutate into a form that is easily transmitted between humans. …

He said the UN was most concerned about Indonesia, which has the most human cases, but also about Vietnam, Bangladesh and Egypt…He cited South Korea and Britain as examples of countries that responded vigorously to recent bird flu outbreaks. A total of some $2.7 billion was pledged to fight the disease at a series of international conferences. The world was also much better prepared than it was in 2005 to cope with a possible pandemic, with about 160 nations having plans in place, Nabarro said. …” [Reuters/Factiva]

Xinhua adds that “… He said governments had invested massively in improving conditions in which poultry are reared and had increased their focus on the link between animal and human diseases. …According to Nabarro, the spread of avian influenza reached 55 countries during 2006 and went into some 60 countries by the end of 2007.” [Xinhua/Factiva]

AP notes that “…He also cited as a factor French drug company Sanofi Pasteur's pledge this week to donate over three years 60 million vaccines against the hard-to-treat H5N1 flu strain. That comes on top of British drug company GlaxoSmithKline's pledge last year to donate 50 million doses of H5N1 vaccine to help the World Health Organization set up a global stockpile. …

Most people killed so far have been infected by domestic fowl, and the virus remains difficult for humans to catch. About half the people infected die. Experts fear, though, that it could mutate into a form that easily spreads among humans, sparking a pandemic that some have estimated could kill anywhere from 5 million to 150 million. …” [The Associated Press/Factiva]

Also in this Edition: Briefly Noted...

Briefly Noted… More than five million Zimbabweans will face food shortages by early next year, UN food security agencies said on Tuesday. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) said in a report that they expected the number of food insecure Zimbabweans to rise to two million as early as July or September this year. [BBC Monitoring Africa and South Africa-based Zim Online/Factiva]

World Bank and Cameroon’s government have organized a general review of the program and portfolio of projects funded in the country by the International Development Association (IDA), according to official sources. [Xinhua/Factiva]

Booming investment in the Democratic Republic of Congo's long-neglected mining sector is expected to boost growth to 12 percent this year, the Central Bank's Director of Research Vincent Ngonga said on Tuesday. [Reuters/Factiva]

The International Finance Corporation headed by Lars Thunell, World Bank Vice President, is finalizing negotiations with Sofol AgroFinanzas headed by Francisco Meré Palafox, in order to become its financial partner. The intention is to solidify the deal in the next few days for an approximate amount of ten million dollars. [El Financiero (Mexico)/Factiva]

Ecuador faces 15 arbitration claims in the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, or ICSID, worth a total of around $12 billion, Attorney General Diego Garcia said Tuesday. [Dow Jones/Factiva]

Bangladesh's economy is likely to grow at a double digit level over the next 12 years, Asian Development Bank outgoing Country Director Hua Du said on Tuesday. [Reuters/Factiva]

Leading businesses in China and the US announced $14 billion in new business deals on Monday, on the eve of high-level economic talks…. The deals involve $8 billion in Chinese investments and purchases of aircraft engines, telecommunications equipment, semiconductors and electronic components, said China’s Minister of Commerce Chen Deming. He added that $6 billion in other deals involved American purchases and investments in China. [The New York Times/Factiva]

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Tuesday it will be difficult for the G8 industrialized countries to drastically stem rises in oil and food prices over the short term, in an interview with leading news agencies from the G8 countries at a Tokyo hotel. [Kyodo News (Japan)/Factiva]

Japan will consider imposing an environment tax as part of discussions this autumn on an overhaul of the tax system, the government's top advisory panel said on Tuesday. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who heads the panel, has put climate change as the centerpiece of his policy in the lead-up to a G8 summit next month, where global warming is high on the agenda. [Reuters/Factiva]

Developing countries in Asia need to improve the quality of their education systems as many graduates lack the skills needed in today's rapidly changing workplace, the Asian Development Bank said on Tuesday. [Xinhua/Factiva]

Indian Oil Minister Murli Deora has urged oil producing nations to pump extra oil to bring stability to volatile markets ahead of a June 22 meeting of major consumers and producers called by top exporter Saudi Arabia. [Reuters/Factiva]

The World Bank on Tuesday approved a $256.85 million line of credit for Pakistan to improve the reliability and efficiency of power supply in a country where poor electricity service is a major constraint to economic growth. [Reuters/Factiva]

The World Bank on Tuesday approved three projects worth $164 million to clean up Azerbaijan's Absheron Peninsula, polluted by years of onshore oil production and posing health risks to millions of people who live in the area. The area is among the 10 most polluted places in the world, according to the Blacksmith Institute, a New York non-profit group. [Reuters/Factiva]

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gave his blessing to a …investment strategy for Russia's first sovereign wealth fund at a meeting with top officials in the Kremlin on Tuesday. Russia split its oil stabilization fund this year into a $129 billion Reserve Fund, which will cushion the budget from a fall in oil prices, and a $33 billion National Wealth Fund (NWF) earmarked for riskier investments. [Reuters/Factiva]

Poland may have to raise interest rates especially if the European Central Bank increases euro zone borrowing costs, as widely expected, World Bank's Lead Economist Thomas Laursen said on Wednesday. [Reuters/Factiva]

Food prices will remain high until at least 2015 with rising fertilizer costs making it harder for farmers to step up production said World Bank, Lead Operations Officer Tijan Sallah in a telephone interview in Washington. [Bloomberg]

The US would take a lead role in cutting greenhouse gas emissions in a successor to the Kyoto protocol, the head of the US delegation to climate change talks said yesterday. The US should take on a greater role [in cutting emissions] that is commensurate with our economic standing," said, Under-Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, Paula Dobriansky. [The Financial Times (UK)/Factiva]