Posts tagged Covid-19

Climate change a major threat to global health: WHO

0 Comments read Environment & Development, Health & Science
Climate change is impacting health. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 11.04.2022 (SciDev.Net): Climate change poses a serious threat to human health that calls for urgent action and global collaboration on scales seen in the COVID-19 response, says the World Health Organization (WHO).

“If we don’t take action today on planet health, we are putting our future health at risk. And when health is at risk, everything is at risk. That’s what we have learned from COVID-19,” Takeshi Kasai, WHO regional director for the Western Pacific Region said addressing a virtual press conference from Manila on 7 April, World Health Day

“Climate crisis is also a health crisis since climate change affects health in many different ways,” Kasai said, emphasising the need to build sustainable, climate-resilient health systems.

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Post-pandemic Asia Pacific lags on climate SDG – UN

0 Comments read Environment & Development
Impacts of COVID-19, climate change and human-made crises have further disadvantaged vulnerable groups, including rural populations, poorer households, women and people with severe disabilities, says a UN report. Tai O fishing village on Lantau Island in Hong Kong. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 25.03.2022 (SciDev.Net): The Asia Pacific region has significantly regressed on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets related to climate action and responsible consumption and production, moving the region further away from the 2030 goalpost, according to a UN report.

The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific’s (ESCAP) 2022 Asia-Pacific SDG Progress Report, launched on 17 March, notes that inequality in the region has widened due to impacts of COVID-19, climate change and human-made crises. It says vulnerable groups, including women, rural populations, poorer households and people with severe disabilities, have been disadvantaged the most as a result.

“The sole focus on economic recovery post-pandemic is likely to hinder progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, which was already lagging to begin with,” Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, UN Under-Secretary-General and ESCAP’s executive secretary, tells SciDev.Net. “As the region strives to build back better and recover, the 2030 Agenda can serve as a guiding mechanism for both economic and social development”.

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Micro-estimates of wealth data ‘can help tackle poverty’

0 Comments read Environment & Development, Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 25.01.2022 (SciDev.Net): A data project charting poverty levels in detail across the global South could help policymakers better target social assistance and humanitarian aid, researchers say.

The COVID-19 pandemic has deepened poverty globally, with an estimated 97 million more people, most of them in LMICs, pushed into extreme poverty in 2021, according to the World Bank. But a dearth of reliable and up-to-date poverty data in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) poses a major challenge for governments and civil society.

To bridge this data gap, researchers at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, and the Data for Good programme, which collates data from Meta platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, have developed a public data set of Relative Wealth Index (RWI), which provides micro-estimates of wealth of all populated areas in the 135 LMICs. The study was published in PNAS on 18 January.

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