UN aviation agency hails cost saving, pollution reducing rules for the Americas

24 January - New minimum vertical distance rules for aircraft flying over North, Central and South America and the Caribbean that have just come into force will lead to less fuel burn, less pollution from engine emissions and overall savings of nearly $6 billion over the next 15 years, according to the United Nations aviation agency.

As of last Thursday, the minimum vertical distance has been reduced by half, to 1,000 feet, from 2,000 feet, at altitudes between 29,000 and 41,000 feet, resulting in more efficient flight, the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) announced.

“This latest achievement is another significant step forward in ICAO’s global cooperative effort with its contracting states, airspace users and service providers to maximize operational benefits for all concerned, while at the same time ensuring that safety remains our top priority,” ICAO Council President Assad Kotaite said.

The so-called Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM) was first implemented in 1997 in the airspace of the North Atlantic and applied successively thereafter over Europe, the Pacific, Asia, the Middle East and in the Europe to South America corridor.

On the same basis of regional agreements, it will be expanded progressively to eventually cover all airspace around the world. The cost-benefit analysis in the North Pacific showed a 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent reduction in fuel cost for a saving of approximately $8 million per year for aircraft using this airspace.

For the Caribbean and South and Central American regions, it is expected that airlines will save approximately $400 million in a 15-year period for international flights alone, while for North America the fuel-saving benefits would be approximately $5.3 billion for the same period.
Microfinance is now more than microcredit in developing countries, World Bank says

24 January - The financial system that started off decades ago as just small loans to the poor has expanded into such diverse small-scale services for its clients as providing credit cards, setting up saving programmes that identify illiterate clients by a fingerprint and having audited financial standards for microfinance institutions, a World Bank executive said.

Outlining the financial services needs of poor people, World Bank director Elizabeth Littlefield told a symposium held over the weekend at the United Nations that in addition to loans, they need a safe place to save, not a coffee container that they bury in the dirt.

They need a secure way to transfer money from the urban area where they may be working to recipients in rural areas without resorting to carrying money in a paper bag on a bus, the chief executive of the Bank's Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) told the event, organized by the Financial Women's Association (FWA).

The symposium, called "Microfinance in Transition - Becoming an Inclusive Financial Sector," was FWA's observance of the UN's International Year of Microcredit 2005, launched on 18 November last year.

Acknowledging that the data are still inexact, Ms. Littlefield said some developing countries' savings banks and post office banks have some 750 million accounts and even when they are loss-making, these institutions sometimes have countrywide infrastructures.

The institutions, which should take a position at the centre of their countries' financial policies and banking legislation, have been building diverse banking models, forming a "collage of competition" and innovation, and overlapping in soliciting poor people as customers, she said.

In 50 countries, governments or central banks are implementing policies for microfinance institutions (MFIs) and a dozen financial agencies are now rating them, she said.

In a dozen countries MFIs are issuing their own Visa and MasterCard credit cards and some, such as ADOPEM, the affiliate of Women's World Banking in the Dominican Republic, are using international ATM networks where the user pushes the button of the person dressed like herself and the machine addresses her in her language, she said.

In some countries, like Brazil and South Africa, the state bank is using lottery kiosks or retail shopping networks for point-of-sale (PoS) banking, Ms. Littlefield said.

The average rate of return on equity (ROE) is high at 32 per cent and the average increase in borrowers is 25 per cent per annum, she said.

She predicted that the policies of middle-income countries, such as Turkey and Mexico, would diverge from those of poor countries, such as Uganda and Benin, and that the more efficient institutions eventually would buy out the weaker ones.

Meanwhile, there was a universe of 120 MFIs in which investors could put money, she said, but of the $180 million now counted as private investment, much was public in origin, coming from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, Ms. Littlefield said.
Bystander killed by gunman during exchange of fire with UN forces in Côte d'Ivoire

23 January - The United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI) has deplored the death of a bystander killed by an unidentified gunmen during a clash with the UN blue helmets on Friday.

The incident began when two armed individuals attempted to seize a UN car, prompting an exchange of fire with the UNOCI troops.

One of the two assailants was arrested and turned over to the Ivorian security forces for investigation. The other, although seriously injured, escaped from the scene, according to UNOCI.

In a statement released in Abidjan, the UN mission hailed the “exemplary collaboration” it received from the Ivorian security forces and the general public, while offering condolences to the victim's family.
UN conference adopts 10-year plan to tackle natural hazards

23 January - The United Nations World Conference on Disaster Reduction – a long-planned event which gained added importance in the wake of the recent Indian Ocean tsunami – has concluded in Kobe, Japan, with countries pledging to reduce the risks facing millions of people who are exposed to natural calamities.

At the final session on Saturday, 168 delegations adopted the “Hyogo Framework for Action: 2005 – 2015,” which calls for putting disaster risk at the center of national policies, strengthening the capacity of disaster-prone countries to address risk, and investing heavily in disaster preparedness.

“This new plan will help reduce the gap between what we know and what we do; the critical ingredient is political commitment,” said UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland, who has been deeply involved in the tsunami relief effort.

Taking place less than one month after that catastrophic event claimed more than 165,000 lives, the conference heard numerous voices from around the globe pledging to foster protection against future calamities.

Speaking at the closing meeting, the President of the Conference, Yoshitaka Murata, said “these five days spent in Kobe will make a real difference in the way we look at hazards, at risks and vulnerability, and that we all truly engage on the road for a safer world.”

The conference also adopted a declaration recommending that a “culture of disaster prevention and resilience” must be fostered and recognizing the relationship between disaster reduction, sustainable development and poverty reduction.

While hailing the progress achieved in Kobe, Mr. Egeland cautioned that success is “contingent on partnerships on working together to meet this global challenge.”

At the meeting, an International Early Warning Programme was launched to improve resilience to all types of natural hazards including droughts, wildland fires, floods, typhoons, hurricanes, landslides, volcanic eruption and tsunamis. This UN initiative will emphasize the importance of people-centered early warning systems and community education about disaster preparedness.

In response to last month's tsunami disaster, the World Conference held a special session where delegates pledged their support to create a regional tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean. The new warning system will draw from the experience of the Pacific Ocean tsunami early warning systems making use of the existing coordination mechanism of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Also launched during the Conference were an international flood initiative, an alliance to support earthquake risk reduction and the earthquake megacities initiative, all geared to helping countries and communities cope with disasters.

“The world may not be a safer place next week but that is when we will have to start working together to ensure that commitments made at this event become a reality,” said Mr. Egeland.

21 January - Beyond the horrific loss of human life, the recent Indian Ocean tsunami extensively damaged Indonesia's coastal environment, causing $675 million in losses to natural habitats and important ecosystem functions, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reported today.

In Aceh and North Sumatra, 25,000 hectares (ha) of mangroves, some 32,000 ha of previously existing coral reefs, and 120 ha of seegrass beds have been damaged, according to a new report which features key contributions from UNEP. The economic loss is valued at $118.2 million, $332.4 million and $2.3 million, respectively.

“These latest findings from just one of the affected countries show that there have been significant consequences for the environment and for the livelihoods of local people as a result of the tsunami,” said UNEP chief Klaus Toepfer.

While acknowledging that the terrible human toll of the tsunami must be addressed first, he said, “the recovery and reconstruction process underway must also invest in the environmental capital of natural resources, the forests, mangroves and coral reefs that are nature's buffer to such disasters and their consequences.”

UNEP is currently working in the region in response to emerging needs caused by the disaster. Indonesia has asked the agency to establish an environmental crisis centre. Maldives has requested emergency waste management assistance and impact studies on coral reefs and livelihoods. Sri Lanka and Thailand are seeking UNEP's help in conducting environmental impact assessments.

Meanwhile, in Kobe, Japan, delegates at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction are discussing the central role of a healthy environment in long-term disaster risk reduction.

Welcoming the good progress made at that meeting, Mr. Toepfer said it was now understood that environmental issues must be fully integrated in disaster preparation and response.

“There is now wide acceptance that environmental degradation and depletion of natural buffers increases risks for, and impacts from, natural and man-made disasters,” he said. “Now we need action, targets and a firm timetable of implementation.”

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Communications and Public Information, P.O. Box 30552, Nairobi, Kenya

Tel: (254-2) 623292/93, Fax: [254-2] 62 3927/623692, Email:cpiinfo@unep.org, http://www.unep.org