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Sarvodaya discusses economic issues at mega meet About 5,000
people from across the country are expected to meet in Colombo next
weekend to promote and discuss the economic development of Sri Lanka
at the village level. Sarvodaya Economic Enterprises Development Services (Guarantee) Ltd, the economic development arm of the Sarvodaya Movement, is conducting its inaugural “Sarvodaya Society Day” on January 18 at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium. SEEDS will use
the occasion to recognise the work done by thousands of Sarvodaya
volunteers to improve the economic, social and spiritual development
of Sarvodya members, their villages and the country. It will also
provide a forum for Sarvodaya members to exchange information and
ideas. “We want
to acknowledge the time and energy that so many Sarvodya members
have volunteered to improve the lives of people in their villages,”
said SEEDS Managing Director Shakila Wijewardena. “Sarvodaya
is a true grassroots organisation. So this meeting also provides
a unique opportunity for thousands of people, all of whom have first
hand knowledge of the development issues facing ordinary Sri Lankans,
to come together and discuss ways to improve the country. At a time
of great hope for the country s future, their collective knowledge
is an invaluable tool for anyone with an interest in Sri Lanka s
development.” Prizes will
be awarded to recognise the best Sarvodaya Society presidents, treasurers
and managers. SEEDS economic
programme is conducted through more than 3000 Sarvodaya village
societies, encompassing around half a million members. SEEDS mission
is “to eradicate poverty through economic empowerment for a
sustainable livelihood.” It does this by facilitating savings
and borrowings and promoting effective economic management, a SEEDS
statement said. Currently operating
in 20 districts, SEEDS is in the process of expanding its services
into the North and East of the country. This process began in July
last year, with the establishment of a SEEDS office in Batticaloa. Operating through Sarvodaya village societies, SEEDS is the largest non-governmental microfinance organization in Sri Lanka. Since SEEDS commenced operations in 1987, these village societies have generated cumulative savings of Rs. 1.2 billion. They have also developed an effective credit culture in their villages, with borrowing possible through both an internal revolving fund maintained by each village society, and through direct borrowing from SEEDS. To date, more than Rs 5 billion have been lent to villagers. Haiti “ Worst” in new water poverty index The newly developed
international Water Poverty Index (WPI) finds that some of the world's
richest nations such as the United States and Japan fare poorly
in water ranking, while some developing countries score in the top
10, say researchers from the UK's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
and experts from the World Water Council. The Water Poverty Index
has been developed by a team of 31 researchers in consultation with
more than 100 water professionals from around the world. At the
international scale, it grades 147 countries according to five different
measures, resources, access, capacity, use and environmental impact
-- to show where the best and worst water situations exist. According
to the WPI, the top 10 water-rich nations in the world are, in descending
order: Finland, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Guyana, Suriname, Austria,
Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland. The 10 countries lowest on the
Water Poverty Index are all in the developing world -- Haiti, Niger,
Ethiopia, Eritrea, Malawi, Djibouti, Chad, Benin, Rwanda, and Burundi.
“The links between poverty, social deprivation, environmental
integrity, water availability and health becomes clearer in the
WPI, enabling policy makers and stake-holders to identify where
problems exist and the appropriate measures to deal with their causes,”
says Caroline Sullivan, Ph.D. who led an interdisciplinary team
to develop the WPI concept at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
in Wallingford, United Kingdom, part of the UK government's Natural
Environment Research Council. The new index demonstrates the strong
connection between water poverty and income poverty. This link will
be a prime subject of the upcoming 3rd World Water Forum, where
some 10,000 government officials, representatives of international
and non-governmental organisations, industry and water experts will
discuss the world water crisis and its solutions. The Forum, to
be held in Kyoto, Japan in March of 2003 , is expected to be the
most important international water conference ever held. One of
the advantages of this new index is that it draws on information
already available from a number of sources, including the United
Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index. This makes
it easy to update without having to create new data gathering systems.
“The international Water Poverty Index demonstrates that it
is not the amount of water resources available that determine poverty
levels in a country, but the effectiveness of how you use those
resources,” says Dr. Sullivan. “The best illustration
of how the utilisation of water resources affect a nation's water
and poverty situation can be found by comparing Haiti and the Dominican
Republic.” The two nations share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola
and have more or less the same amount of water, but Haiti ranks
last at 147th while the Dominican Republic ranks 64th. “ The
reasons for the wide divergence are partly due to the fact that
Haiti's resources are lower than those elsewhere,” says Dr.
Sullivan. “ However, perhaps more meaningfully, the capacity
scores for the Dominican Republic are also very high, indicating
a healthy, well-educated population with a reasonable financial
base. In terms of both use and the environment, Haiti's scores are
much lower, reflecting the much lower level of development in that
country than in the Dominican Republic.” The WPI assigns a
value of 20 points as the best score for each of its five categories.
A country that completely meets the criteria in all five categories
would have a score of 100. The highest-ranking country, Finland,
has a WPI of 78 points, while Haiti, the last, has a WPI of just
35. According to a statistical analysis, one of the five WPI components
that defines a country's level of ability to purchase, manage and
lobby for improved water, education and health, has Iceland, Ireland,
Spain, Japan and Austria as the top five countries. Four of these
are in the top 10 percent as measured by the WPI as a whole. These
countries, along with many others, have high incomes and healthy
and well-educated populations. The bottom five are: Sierra Leone,
Niger, Guinea-Bissau, Mali and the Central African Republic. Besides
being among the world's poorest, these countries also suffer from
inadequate health and education provision. Niger and Sierra Leone,
for instance, have the highest rates of under-5 mortality in the
world, respectively 320 and 316 per 1000 live births. Furthermore,
four of these countries are among the 10 percent of countries with
the lowest overall WPI rating. For Resources, which measures the
per capita volume of surface a n d groundwater resources that can
be drawn upon by communities and countries, the top five countries
are Iceland, Suriname, Guyana, Congo and Papua New Guinea. The bottom
- five are United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and
Israel. The top countries all have abundant resources, but most
importantly they have small populations in relation to the amount
of resources. The bottom countries are all in desert areas with
minimal rainfall and no major rivers bringing water from outside.
Despite the scarcity of water, Israel, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are
in the top 50 percent as measured by the WPI, reflecting their ability
to overcome these shortages through effective management and use.
In Access, which measures a country's ability to access water for
drinking, industry and agricultural use, 21 countries garnered very
high scores Austria, Barbados, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Finland,
France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland , United Kingdom
and the United States. So many countries achieved this rating because
they have the economic capacity to provide safe water supplies and
sanitation to their whole populations. The lowest - five countries
in this category are Eritrea, Chad, Ethiopia, Malawi and Rwanda.
Besides poor levels of access to safe domestic water and sanitation,
these countries also need irrigation for food production, but the
demand is not being met adequately. "The economies of the countries
at the lower end, and many others, are unable to generate the user
fees or tax revenues needed for infrastructure development,"
says Cosgrove, a Canadian water engineer. "They will certainly
require assistance from the developed world." For Use, which
measures how efficiently a country uses water for domestic, agricultural
and industrial purposes, the lowest ranking country is the United
States, because of wasteful or inefficient water use practices.
For instance, despite the massive consumption of water in agriculture, the contribution of agriculture to the national GDP is tiny. The USA also practices high per capita domestic water use and high volumes of water used per dollar of industrial production. Also in the bottom - five are Djibouti, New Zealand, Cape Verde and Italy. All have heavy agricultural water use for relatively little return, while in the case of Djibouti and Cape Verde domestic use is below acceptable levels. The top - five countries are Turkmenistan, Indonesia, Guyana, Sudan and Equatorial Guinea. They have acceptabl
e levels of domestic use, and industrial and agricultural production
is relatively efficient in terms of the amount of water used, in
comparison with the revenue generated by that use. For Environment,
which provides a measure of ecological sustainability, issues included
are water quality, environmental strategies and regulation, and
numbers of endangered species. The top - five countries in this
category are Finland, Canada, United Kingdom Norway and Austria |
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