Air Pollution Major Cause of Mortality, Morbidity: Study

"Air pollution has been identified as the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in Bangladesh, according to a study.

'If the exposure to urban air pollution was reduced by 20-80 percent, it would result in saving 1,200 to 3,500 lives annually and avoiding 80-230 million cases of disease,' said Country Environmental Assessment (2006) report released recently. The government of Bangladesh (GOB) and the World Bank jointly conducted the assessment while the government recognized the need to address the problem of urban air pollution because of its wide ranging adverse impacts, said a World Bank information note today (Monday).  It developed the ‘Clean Air and Sustainable Environment (CASE)’ project with proposed World Bank financing to facilitate the adoption of sustainable environmental initiatives in the key polluting sectors (urban transport and brick making) with a focus on reducing air pollution and improving safe mobility. ..." [United News of Bangladesh Limited/Factiva]

Reuters adds that "...  'It is estimated that if the exposure to urban air pollution were reduced by 20 percent...it would result in saving 1,200 to 3,500 lives annually and avoiding 80 to 230 million cases of disease,' the World Bank said. The Bangladesh government has recently initiated a 'Clean Air and Sustainable Environment' project with an estimated cost of $75 million. The project will target key air polluting sectors, especially urban transport and brick making. About $65 million of the project's funding would come from the IDA, while the rest will be borne by the Bangladesh government, a World Bank official told Reuters." [Reuters/Factiva]

In related news, Asia Pulse reports that "The World Bank will provide $165.7 million for implementing Dhaka Water Supply and Sanitation Project taken up to improve storm water and wastewater drainage and water services in the poorly served capital. ... Firstly, the project will install selected storm water pumping stations and rehabilitate selected canals to help improve drainage and minimize urban flooding. It will also carry out rehabilitation, repair and expansion of priority investments in Dhaka city’s sewerage network and treatment plant to improve the urban environment. Last but not least, the project will support DWASAs pilot expansion of water and sanitation services into selected Dhaka slums to provide services to the urban poor residing in the slum areas, a World Bank release said. ... " [Asia Pulse (Australia)/Factiva]

Sudan Woos Investors to Put $1 billion in Farming

"Sudan is seeking to attract at least $1 billion of capital for its agricultural sector from Arab and Asian investment groups, which are turning to Africa in search of new food supplies as their governments try to manage the impact of commodity price inflation.

The investment ministry is marketing a portfolio of 17 large-scale projects that would cover an area of 880,000 hectares, one of its officials told the FT. Abdalla Elhag Mohamed, Director of external relations at the ministry, said: 'Everyone coming to Sudan is asking about agriculture, to the extent that we are struggling to cope.' The country sees agricultural development as a vital means of reducing its dependence on oil revenues.

The greatest interest has come from governments in the Middle East, where overseas agricultural projects are being seen as tools for ensuring food security following big increases in the prices of rice and wheat, staple foods for the region. Abu Dhabi is preparing to launch a project to develop more than 28,000 hectares of Sudanese land and Egypt has said it is considering a venture in the giant Gezira scheme, one of Sudan’s few irrigation projects. Saudi Arabia, which plans to set up large-scale agricultural projects in a number of countries, has also held talks with Khartoum. ..." [The Financial Times/Factiva]

IHT writes that "... The country is already growing wheat for Saudi Arabia, sorghum for camels in the United Arab Emirates and vine-ripened tomatoes for the Jordanian Army. Now the government is plowing $5 billion into new agribusiness projects, many of them to produce food for export. ...

UN officials in Sudan say that the fact that they have to import some of the same commodities that Sudan not only produces but exports is a source of constant frustration. 'Sudan could be self-sufficient,' said Kenro Oshidari, the director of the World Food Program in Sudan. 'It does have the potential to be the breadbasket of Africa.' Sudanese officials say that is precisely their goal, and they deny that Sudanese agribusiness is being built at the expense of their own people. They reject accusations that they are neglecting far-flung areas like Darfur, much less waging a war of hunger and deprivation against them. Instead, Sudanese officials say they are simply trying to build up their economy. ...

Sudan is the largest country in Africa, nearly 2.6 million square kilometers, or a million square miles. It has 84 million hectares, or 208 million acres, of arable land, with less than a quarter being cultivated. ..." [The International Herald Tribune/Factiva]

Violence, Graft Halve Afghan Foreign Investment

"The Taliban insurgency, corruption and poor infrastructure have halved potential foreign investment in Afghanistan and rising food prices could further add to insecurity, the governor of the central bank said on Monday. ...

'First of all we are losing foreign investment because of the security situation,' Central Bank Governor Abdul Qadeer Fitrat told Reuters in an interview. 'We could have attracted on average between $2 billion a year and $3 billion a year in foreign investment both through the Afghan Diaspora and foreign investors, but now ... it is less than 1 billion a year,' he said. Some Afghan businessmen who had returned to the country after 2001, were now moving their assets abroad and fewer foreign companies were bidding for infrastructure projects, Fitrat said. ...

Corruption also adds to costs, so there is no level playing field neither for foreign investors nor Afghans from abroad. Afghanistan is placed 172nd out of 180 countries in Transparency International's corruption perception index. 'Those who pay bribes will be successful, will get land, will get access to electricity,' said Fitrat. 'Those who do not know how to bribe will fall behind.' ... " [Reuters/Factiva]

IHT adds that "... World Bank  President Robert Zoellick last month called on the Afghan government to follow promises to crack down on corruption with action, and Fitrat, himself a former World Bank advisor, said President Hamid Karzai had begun to tackle the problem by appointing 'clean' officials to high-level posts.

Despite the problems, Afghan gross domestic product has more than doubled from $4.5 billion in 2004 to more than $10 billion projected for the current Afghan year which ends in March 2009, the governor said. The government, while still reliant on aid for around 90 percent of its budget, has increased revenue collection so that taxes on businesses in the formal sector and their employees now account for some 50 percent of domestic income compared to less than 20 percent in 2002. Agricultural production has also increased significantly, but has gone from 70 percent of GDP in 2002, to 50 percent of GDP now due to the even larger growth in other sectors, especially construction, banking and telecommunications. ...

The government plans to spend $50 million to stockpile wheat for emergencies, he said, but 'donor countries must also address this more than anything else, because it will destabilise the government and it will destabilise the current status quo.' Unless the problem is addressed, Fitrat said, there was a danger that food shortages could add to insecurity and further damage the economy, sending Afghanistan into a vicious circle of violence." [The International Herald Tribune/Factiva]

Australia Commits up to $2.5 Billion for Poverty Eradication in Indonesia

“Australia will provide up to AUD 2.5 billion (21.25 trillion rupiah) over the next five years to Indonesia to tackle poverty and assist it to achieve its social and economic development priorities, the Australian embassy said in its website on Monday.

Australia is committed to working in partnership with Indonesia to meet its Millennium Development Goals and create a better life for the poorest people in Indonesia, it said….

One of the flagship projects of the partnership is the AUD 328 million (2.79 trillion rupiah) initiative to improve hundreds of kilometres of national roads and bridges in 10 provinces across eastern Indonesia…”[ANTARA News (08/11/08)]

Indonesia is trying to accelerate construction of roads and ports to ease transportation of goods across the 18,000 islands that make it the world's largest archipelago. Improved roads will also help slow inflation, reduce costs for farmers and boost economic growth.

Roads will give farmers access to markets ``encouraging investment,'' [Australian Foreign Minister Stephen] Smith, who is on a visit to Indonesia, said in the statement.” [Bloomberg (08/11/2008)]

“Smith, on the second day of his whirlwind trip to Indonesia, is due to open a junior high school in Makassar, southern Sulawesi - the mid-point in Australia's $A335 million commitment of 2,000 new or expanded schools in poor and remote areas by the end of next year.

Almost two million Indonesian teenagers aged 13 to 15 are not in school.

‘The opening will mark the halfway mark of an ambitious project, under the Australia-Indonesia Partnership, to build or expand 2,000 high schools across 20 provinces by the end of 2009,’ Smith said in Jakarta.

‘Australia is funding this program to help Indonesia fulfil its vision that all young Indonesians will have nine years of basic education.’” [Sydney Morning Herald (08/12/2008)]

“‘The Australia-Indonesia Partnership has grown to nearly half a billion dollars this year and is Australia's largest development assistance program. We provide more grants to Indonesian than any other donor,’ [Smith] said….

‘As (Indonesia's) voice in regional and international affairs becomes even stronger, we see a genuine partnership with a neighbor and friend,’ he said ….” [The Jakarta Post (08/12/2008)]

New Bird Flu Strain Found in Nigeria: UN's FAO

“A new strain of H5N1 bird flu has shown up among birds in Africa in a worrying development, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported on Monday.

The new strain of H5N1 avian influenza is genetically different from the strains that circulated in Nigeria during earlier outbreaks in 2006 and 2007 and is new to Africa, the FAO said.

‘It is more similar to strains previously identified in Europe (Italy), Asia (Afghanistan) and the Middle East (Iran) in 2007," the FAO said in a statement.

‘The detection of a new avian influenza virus strain in Africa raises serious concerns as it remains unknown how this strain has been introduced to the continent,’ said Scott Newman, International Wildlife Coordinator of FAO's Animal Health Service.

‘It seems to be unlikely that wild birds have carried the strain to Africa, since the last migration of wild birds from Europe and Central Asia to Africa occurred in September 2007 and this year's southerly migration into Africa has not really started yet,’ Newman added.

‘It could well be that there are other channels for virus introduction: international trade, for example, or illegal and unreported movement of poultry. This increases the risk of avian influenza spread to other countries in Western Africa.’

Avian influenza is common, but the H5N1 strain is particularly worrying both to poultry producers and doctors. The highly pathogenic H5N1 strain has swept through flocks in many parts of Asia, Europe and Africa.

It rarely infects people but has killed 243 out of 385 known to have been infected since 2003, according to the World Health Organization. It has killed or forced the slaughter of 300 million birds.” [Reuters/Factiva (08/12/2008)]

“Since the avian influenza epidemic caused by the H5N1 strain started five years ago in Asia, the disease has affected more than 60 countries, most of which have succeeded to eliminate the virus from poultry, the FAO said.

In Nigeria, the virus was first confirmed in February 2006 and infected poultry in 25 states before being contained, but the west African economic powerhouse has recently reported two new highly pathogenic bird flu outbreaks in the northern states of Katsina and Kano.”  [Agence France Presse/Factiva (08/12/2008)]

“FAO chief veterinary officer Joseph Domenech said Nigeria was swift in reporting the outbreak and sharing relevant information about the new strain.”  [Dow Jones Commodities Service/Factiva (08/12/2008)]

Also in This Edition… Briefly Noted...

The World Bank has approved an action plan to correct flaws detected in the planning of the West African Gas Pipeline, or WAGP, project for which it is providing risk guarantees. The Bank said in a statement on its Web site that the independent Inspection Panel investigation of WAGP, approved by its board in April 2007, identified systemic weaknesses in the management and supervision of the project, and found that the Bank management "failed to comply with key social and environmental safeguards policies." [Dow Jones/Factiva]

Three consecutive days of heavy rain in some parts of Indonesia's Central Sulawesi have paralyzed transportation to and from a number of regions in the province, because of landslides. In Donggala regency, the main road connecting Palu and Kulawi was completely blocked by a landslide at kilometer 35 to the south of Palu, obstructing vehicles heading to or leaving from the provincial capital.[The Jakarta Post/Factiva]

US financial regulators are making the same mistakes as their Latin American equivalents in the debt crisis of the early 1980s, according to Andrés Velasco, Chile’s finance minister. Public guarantees for private financial activities had to be coupled with strong regulation, he said, while regulators and credit ratings agencies should have been more vigilant about the risks associated with new financial instruments. [The Financial Times/Factiva]

South Korea's finance ministry announced a list of 41 state-owned enterprises and investments targeted for privatization that was shorter than many analysts expected, a sign the government is bowing to public pressure to slow changes in the country's economic structure. The state-owned enterprises on the list were also small in size and economic value.[The Wall Street Journal Europe/Factiva]

The World Bank's Officer of Rural Development, Water and Environment in Sana'a, Naji Abu Hatem, said that the World Bank is preparing a large project to dealing with the water sector in Yemen for the cost of $360 million. In a statement to the state-run Saba News Agency, Abu Hatem made it clear that the World Bank will contribute $90 million to the project with additional contributions from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany. [Yemen Times/Factiva]

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) last week signed a corporation agreement with the Rwandan government to strengthen the capacity of the country's newly established Capital Markets.  The signed agreement provides that the IFC will support the CMAC in strengthening the country's recently launched securities exchange.  It will also help the council develop an appropriate legal and regulatory environment for issuing and trading bonds, implement a training and certification programme for securities market participants, and establish a framework for integrating Rwanda's capital markets with other markets in East Africa. [AllAfrica]

The World Bank granted on Tuesday $7.0 million (4.7 million euro) to Moldova to help the country face an ongoing food crisis and improve nutrition. "This financing provides some badly needed support to people who are being hit hardest by the sharp increase in food prices," the World Bank country manager for Moldova Melanie Marlett said in a statement. "By targeting the most vulnerable groups, we are hoping to ensure that an increase in food costs won't mean a decrease in the health of the poorest Moldovans," she said.  The grant will be used to improve nutrition among new and expecting mothers, infants and children and to provide cash transfers to social institutions which provide food to children. [South East Europe Newswire]