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India's trans-boundary riparian policies affect four countries - Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh - on three river systems - the Indus, the Ganga and the Brahmaputra-Mehgna
. China's riparian policies affect nine countries to the south - Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam - on five river systems - the Indus, the Ganga, the Brahmaputra, the Salween and the Mekong. [IRN report]. URL:[http://www.internationalrivers.org/files/TransboundaryRiverBasins.pdf]
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This report is one of five country case studies commissioned by Oxfam GB on the effects of the global economic crisis in South East Asia
. It shows that Thai women are highly vulnerable to the effects of the financial crisis because they are over-represented in the sectors most affected, such as export manufacturing, the garment industry, electronics, and services.
They tend to be employed in precarious jobs where they are more likely to be fired first or to experience harsh working conditions. Women in Thailand tend to be responsible for family welfare, so are be adversely affected by cuts in public spending on safety nets and by reductions in remittances.
Key recommendations
- The government, regional institutions, and donors should work together to share information on the situation of women in the crisis. They should gather and provide up-to-date, reliable data that is disaggregated by gender, age, and location.
- Thai women workers interviewed called on the government to support women workers by setting up good quality day-care centres in industrial areas; by allowing women to be adequately represented in tripartite committees, and by monitoring companies' (including foreign companies') treatment of workers, particularly women.
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East Asian governments have demonstrated in their response to the current global economic crisis that they have learned critical lessons from the major financial meltdown in the 1990s
. They have provided timely stimulus packages and have proactively targeted those who generally are more vulnerable to shocks.
But have governments really understood the impact of the crisis on the least resilient people of the region and tailored their support to meet their needs?
Oxfam recognises that women experience poverty differently from men; at times of acute pressure women are expected to bring in income, run a household, care for children and elders and more.
This research report draws on country case studies from Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia. It seeks to identify and recognise how the financial crisis has impacted on women, in order test whether East Asian governments are doing enough to support the most vulnerable.
Key recommendations
- Governments should collect gender-disaggregated data in order to ensure that research on the impact of the crisis contributes to appropriate policies and measures to support women.
- Governments should encourage equity of education, training and employment opportunities for women's development and empowerment.
- Social protection measures for all workers, including women, in both the public and the private sectors, must be legislated and enforced. Such measures should include, at the least, provisions for retirement pensions and health care that are gender neutral.
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This volume which is likely to be of interest primarily to specialists on the northeastern hill region of India, is a conference proceedings masquerading as a book
. It presents a diverse collection of 33 chapters; most are focused on spome aspect of shifting cultivation, but some deal only with forests or homegardens. Three-quarters of the chapters are about India; three of them on Yunnan, China; two cover Laos; and one each discusses Burma and northern Thailand. A concluding chapter examines some key problems relating to shifting cultivation
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Oxfam supports communities and organisations around the world that are already developing the tools and techniques that can be used to adapt to global warming
. This case study is one in a series that highlights some of this work to assist programme practitioners in sharing and learning on climate change adaptation.
In 2007, after the Yasathorn Province in Northeastern Thailand experienced its longest rainy-season dry spell in decades, Oxfam along with partners Earth Net Foundation decided to take action to safeguard the livelihoods of the region’s farmers. In consultation with farming communities, Oxfam and ENF implemented a one-year pilot climate change adaptation project designed to reduce the negative impacts of climate change on the production of organic jasmine rice.
As part of the project, men, women and children were educated about climate change and its potential impacts in Thailand; were provided with loans to design, construct and implement their own on-farm water management systems; and shared ideas with other farmers about how they could adapt their farming practices to cope with climate change.
As a result of this project the communities reduced their food insecurity by maintaining a sufficient level of rice output despite the harsh conditions, and diversified their food crops to include fruits and other vegetables, some of which was sold at market for cash income.
Key recommendations
- Participation of farmers in every stage of the project contributed to its success.
- Use of scientific data by farmers, government officials and scientists helped participants make informed decisions and was important in all steps of project implementation.
- Low interest loans for farmers enabled repayment without incurring further debt.
- Farmers’ new knowledge on climate change helped them apply their existing experience and skills to find solutions.
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Oxfam supports communities and organisations around the world that are already developing the tools and techniques that can be used to adapt to global warming
. This case study is one in a series that highlights some of this work to assist programme practitioners in sharing and learning on climate change adaptation.
In 2007, after the Yasathorn Province in Northeastern Thailand experienced its longest rainy-season dry spell in decades, Oxfam along with partners Earth Net Foundation decided to take action to safeguard the livelihoods of the region’s farmers. In consultation with farming communities, Oxfam and ENF implemented a one-year pilot climate change adaptation project designed to reduce the negative impacts of climate change on the production of organic jasmine rice.
As part of the project, men, women and children were educated about climate change and its potential impacts in Thailand; were provided with loans to design, construct and implement their own on-farm water management systems; and shared ideas with other farmers about how they could adapt their farming practices to cope with climate change.
As a result of this project the communities reduced their food insecurity by maintaining a sufficient level of rice output despite the harsh conditions, and diversified their food crops to include fruits and other vegetables, some of which was sold at market for cash income.
Key recommendations
- Participation of farmers in every stage of the project contributed to its success.
- Use of scientific data by farmers, government officials and scientists helped participants make informed decisions and was important in all steps of project implementation.
- Low interest loans for farmers enabled repayment without incurring further debt.
- Farmers’ new knowledge on climate change helped them apply their existing experience and skills to find solutions.
Also see full report
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Based on two case studies conducted at local sites in Northern Thailand and Lao PDR, the objectives of this paper are:
- to assess whether conditions for the establishment of PES at the watershed level exist in the uplands of mainland SE Asia and
- to examine and discuss limitations that are likely to impinge on direct transfer of the PES concept as well as the institutional adaptations and support that are required for the successful implementation of PES markets in this regional context
.
The study’s main findings are that:
- acceptance of PES principles and constraints are directly related to stakeholders’ perception of their land rights irrespective of their actual rights;
- willingness to pay (WTP) is very low among local stakeholders, making any PES market unlikely to emerge without external support;
- the classical scheme for watershed services hardly applies in its original form because environmental service (ES) providers and buyers are generally the same people;
- where potential ES buyers feel that ES providers are better-off or wealthier than them, they do not have any WTP for ES;
- good governance, including a strong liaising at various levels between people and the authorities is a strong prerequisite for the successful establishment of PES markets, even without direct government funding.
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This paper discusses the potential of developing compensation schemes in a socio-political context where upland farmers – mostly belonging to ethnic minority groups – tend to be considered a threat to the natural resource base rather than providers of environmental services
. Based on data obtained from 371 farm households in the upstream communities and 151 farm households in the downstream communities of the watershed, upstream resource managers’ willingness to accept compensation for the conservation measures and downstream resource managers’ willingness to pay for water resource improvements were estimated through the use of choice experiments.
Results from the study suggest that downstream resource managers would be willing to provide on average nearly 1% of their annual income for a substantial improvement of the quantity and quality of water resources, which could be achieved by compensating upstream farmers’ change of their agricultural systems towards more environment-friendly practices. Both willingness to pay of downstream respondents and willingness of upstream resource managers to accept compensation were positively correlated with age, education, participation in environmental conservation activities and previous experiences with droughts and/or erosion. The paper concludes that there is a potential for establishing compensation schemes for provision of environmental services in northern Thai watersheds if other actors, such as private businesses and local administration, contribute a substantial share of the budget and if all relevant stakeholders get involved in the institutional design of compensation schemes
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For centuries swidden was an important farming practice found across the girth of Southeast Asia
. Today, however, these systems are changing and sometimes disappearing at a pace never before experienced. In order to explain the demise or transitioning of swidden the rapid and massive changes that have and are occurring in the political and economic environment in which these farmers operate needs to be understod. Swidden farming has always been characterised by change, but since the onset of modern independent nation states, governments and markets in Southeast Asia have transformed the terms of swiddeners’ everyday lives to a degree that is significantly different from that ever experienced before. In this paper the authors identified six factors that have contributed to the demise or transformation of swidden systems, and support these arguments with examples from China (Xishuangbanna), Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. These trends include classifying swiddeners as ethnic minorities within nation-states, dividing the landscape into forest and permanent agriculture, expansion of forest departments and the rise of conservation, resettlement, privatisation and commoditisation of land and land-based production, and expansion of market infrastructure and the promotion of industrial agriculture. In addition the authors note a growing trend toward a transition from rural to urban livelihoods and expanding urban-labour markets
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The global financial crisis is already beginning to have an impact on the ?real economy? in poorer countries around the world
. However, the debate in the west about the impact of the crisis has largely ignored its impact on the developing world, and the voices of people from these countries are rarely heard.
This report presents snapshots of the financial crisis as seen by 21 thinkers, academics and policymakers in 14 developing countries. IDS invited them to present their views on the likely impacts and possible responses to the crisis. Most importantly, results show that developing countries cannot be treated as a homogenous block ? concerns vary significantly across countries, depending on their current economic situation, exposure to specific impacts and capacity to respond. Isolation from world financial markets will not protect the poorest countries, as the indirect impacts are likely to be severe.
The report identifies six main pathways of impact:
- lower demand for exports. In Bangladesh, orders for ready-made garments from Europe and the US dropped 7 per cent in September. In Kenya, the cut flower industry is suffering as European customers are hit by the crisis;
- fall in portfolio and direct foreign investment. Investors shy away from markets that are perceived to be riskier. The Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation has indicated that its investment plans will be severely affected due to the crisis;
- falls in exchange rate. The sudden withdrawal of foreign capital from several developing countries has caused dramatic falls in their exchange rate. Companies and governments with substantial foreign currency denominated debts may contract or even collapse as a result;
- rising risk premiums and interest rates for developing countries on global capital markets;
- decline in remittances from workers in recession affected countries;
- foreign aid decline. Richer countries will reduce aid as governments reassess their fiscal priorities during a downturn. This could have particularly negative consequences for Africa.
Policy responses must take the following points into consideration:
- countries will be affected differently by the pathways listed above. Developing a typography of countries will allow for different responses to address their specific needs;
- within national economies some people will have more exposure to the affects than others;
- there are governance implications at international and national levels.
The authors propose three specific policies:
* increase in aid flows
* enhancing social protection
* restructuring International Financial Institutions
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