'The WHO Guide to sanitation in natural disasters (Assar, 1971) summarized the essential aspects of environmental health management in disasters. These included the provision of emergency water and sanitation services; the burial or cremation of the dead; vector and pest control; food hygiene; and the assessment of the danger of epidemics following emergencies and disasters, etc. Thirty years later these aspects remain essential, though the needs, challenges and opportunities are greater.

The more...

'Global food prices are up 83 per cent compared with three years ago. The resulting food price crisis constitutes an unprecedented threat to the livelihoods and well-being of millions of rural and urban households who are net food buyers.

This briefing note sets out a series of steps, both short- and medium-term, to deal with the current food crisis, and to put in place the reforms required to prevent future repetitions.'

The World Bank conducts rigorous research on climate change to guide its operational strategies and offer better advice to member countries. An important aspect of this research agenda is its focus on adaptation to climate change – an issue that has received increasing attention since Kyoto. For most United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) parties with relatively low emissions, adaptation is the critical challenge in framing policies that respond to climate change.

A more...

'Oxfam is calling for climate change adaptation policies at every level to be gender-sensitive so that they address both women’s and men’s needs and interests. Only this approach will be effective in building community-wide resilience to climate change, reducing gender inequalities, and so also promoting development.'

'People in Uganda, whose contribution to global warming has been minuscule, are feeling the impacts of climate change first and worst. On the one hand there is more erratic rainfall in the March to June rainy season, bringing drought and reductions in crop yields and plant varieties; on the other hand, the rainfall, especially in the later rains towards the end of the year, is reported as coming in downpours that are more intense and destructive, bringing floods, landslides, and soil erosion. Cl more...

'The current biofuel policies of rich countries are neither a solution to the climate crisis nor the oil crisis, and instead are contributing to a third: the food crisis. In poor countries, biofuels may offer some genuine development opportunities, but the potential economic, social, and environmental costs are severe, and decision makers should proceed with caution.'

'A destructive combination of earthquakes, floods, droughts and other hazards make South Asia is the world’s most disaster-prone region. The effects are aggravated by climate change, unsuitable social and development policies, and environmental degradation. The effect is to slow or block development and keep millions trapped in poverty.

It does not have to be this way. Oxfam's experience shows that successful disaster risk reduction policies, integrated into
development work, save lives an more...

'Are you happy? provides a thumbnail guide to the history of new economics and the current work of the new economics foundation. It asks the biggest question facing humanity - do good lives have to cost the earth? - and finds that the answer lies in a new type of economics, economics as if people and the planet mattered.'
This is a New Economics Foundation's (nef's) paper, published in November 2006. PDF format, 31 pp. In English

Taking the temperature shows that the NHS is a long way from reducing its energy consumption to meet the government’s target of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010 and 60 per cent by 2050.
As the report reveals, the sheer scale of the NHS, with 1 million patient contacts every 36 hours, means the organisation has a considerable carbon footprint, but also the potential to promote positive change
This is a New Economics Foundation's (nef's) paper, more...

'This, the latest and most comprehensive report from communities around the world on the front line of climate change catalogues the threat climate change poses to human development, and the growing consequences of inaction on the issue. It shows how, across Asia, people and communities are already acting to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. But the report says, there is not a moment to lose. Unless a decisive international agreement is reached, and soon, the lives of those living on t more...