Philippines' Green Benches To Deliver Environmental Justice

Philippines' Green Benches To Deliver Environmental Justice PDF

Program Brings Black Pottery to Market

Dangzhen Pichu’s family has been making Nixi black pottery for more than four centuries in the mountains of China’s Yunnan province, an area best known as Shangri-La.  While the region is as stunning as British author James Hilton described in his 1933 novel “Lost Horizon,” it is equally remote. 

Diqing Tibetan Prefecture’s distance from markets marginalized its residents of made it difficult for Dangzhen’s pottery company to survive.

USAID looked for solutions that would help the residents of Dangzhen’s native village of Tangdui participate in China’s economic boom while preserving their unique Nixi culture. 

After interviewing residents and researching Nixi pottery in 2007, a USAID-funded contractor, The Mountain Institute, helped residents design brochures and take English-language classes so they could communicate with customers from distant lands.

The programs are reaping benefits. “The brochures resulted in numerous sales when I attended the China Import & Export Fair in Kunming,” says Dangzhen, 35, whose monthly income has increased by 200 percent since the leaflets were printed.

This has had enormous impact on Dangzhen and his neighbors.  Two-thirds of the village's 30 families have one or two potters contributing to their family's income.  Most earn between $400 and $1,000 a year, more than they would as farmers.

Dangzhen is now training 20 apprentices in this ancient craft, teaching them to dig the red clay, form the vessels, fire them in a pit, darken them with sawdust and ash, and then seal their interiors with a mixture of yogurt whey and barley powder.  “We’ll maintain our culture of making Nixi black pottery and earn more for our families,” Dangzhen says.

In Nixi Town, 11 entrepreneurs are now able to speak basic English.  Sales of black pottery have increased – in stark contrast to just a few months ago when a group of Canadian travelers left empty-handed because they were unable to bargain with residents.

Program Brings Black Pottery to Market PDF

Loans Allow Utilities to Expand

CHALLENGE   Local water districts in the Philippines were caught in a vicious circle.  They wanted to extend water pipes to poor urban neighborhoods, which would improve quality of life and provide new revenue to the utilities.  But their shaky financial status prevented many of them from obtaining the necessary loans.  The main source of financing for the 600 local water districts, the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA), had a government mandate to provide loans to districts with poor credit.  The catch was that LWUA had no loan products for the districts and no experience in structuring such loans.

INITIATIVE   USAID’s Environmental Cooperation-Asia (ECO-Asia) program helped LWUA develop an innovative financial solution for water districts with poor credit.  The Project Development and Efficiency Improvement Fund (PDEIF) offers water districts short-term loans to upgrade their operational efficiency and establish better credit through repayment.  These upgrades improve districts’ financial and operational performance.  In addition, with greater creditworthiness established, districts become eligible for new loans to expand their infrastructure even further.  To demonstrate this process, ECO-Asia also helped two water districts prepare applications for efficiency improvement loans.

RESULTS   LWUA issued its first PDEIF loan for US$200,000 to the Laguna Water District in southeast Manila.  The district put up US$200,000 of its own money to match the loan and used the funding to finance improvements and establish 3,000 new connections to homes which previously had no running water.  The Philippine government demonstrated its confidence in the program by injecting US$3 million into the loan fund.  The program is rapidly growing and 10 other districts have been short-listed to receive funding.  USAID has helped LWUA create a new loan product that allows riskier utilities to improve not only their infrastructure, but their credit.  This success will mean improved access to water, and an improved quality of life, for many Philippine communities.

Loans Allow Utilities to Expand PDF

Helping Asia Fight Avian Influenza

Twelve years ago, no one knew the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus could infect human beings.  Then in 1997, there was an outbreak in Hong Kong that killed six people.  Scientists feared the virus, having jumped from birds to humans, might mutate and cause a pandemic.  Concerns were heightened in 2003 when the H5N1 virus resurfaced in China.  Since then, avian influenza (AI) has spread beyond Asia, killing millions of birds and more than 250 of the 400 people it has infected.  Eighty percent of those deaths have occurred in Asia, illustrating the need for a regional campaign to fight the disease.  

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has responded by coordinating efforts with a variety of U.S. and international agencies as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs).  USAID-sponsored programs help countries prepare for and react to AI outbreaks as well as coordinate with their neighbors to contain the virus’s spread. 

This is a huge change since 2003 when few people in Southeast Asia were trained in combined human and animal disease surveillance or in rapid response.  These are crucial skills to contain AI outbreaks and provide medical treatment to humans, shown to be most effective when given within 48 hours of the onset of symptoms. 

Since 2005, USAID has trained more than 7,000 animal health staff and volunteers to detect H5N1 in Asia.  As a result, countries now have staff capable of leading responses to contain AI outbreaks. 

These training programs have saved lives.  In 2007, an outbreak of the H5N1 virus was detected among poultry in Burma.  Rapid-response teams, trained with USAID funding, examined 689 people who had been in contact with dead or diseased birds.  They found a 7-year-old girl suffering from fever and headache and began antiviral treatment within the crucial 48-hour period.  The girl, who later tested positive for the H5N1 virus, survived.

USAID-sponsored AI programs have helped the governments of China, Burma, Laos, and Vietnam develop the knowledge and skills to fight H5N1 through preparedness, surveillance and speedy response.  USAID has also established the first rapid-response distribution center to ship emergency supplies to AI outbreaks anywhere in Asia in 24 hours.  These new capabilities are protecting the region, and quite possibly the world, from emerging diseases that threaten global health.

Helping Asia Fight Avian Influenza PDF

ASEAN Single Window Closer to Goal

The vision for the ASEAN Single Window (ASW) is simple: Improve the handling of goods at borders so containers clear customs in 30 minutes instead of five days.  Consumers benefit from the secure, timely delivery of goods at lower costs.

A major step in achieving this vision is to establish national single windows (NSW) among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ 10 member states.  Each NSW will enable one-time, one-point submission of trade transaction information for processing by government agencies as well as customs authorities in each member state.  The ASW will connect the national windows enabling region-wide sharing of trade transaction information.

Software demonstrating the effectiveness of the ASW was demonstrated at an ASW Steering Committee meeting in November 2008.

The application was developed by the ASEAN Single Window Project, funded under the ADVANCE program by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The new software enables the electronic exchange of information for certificates of origin, the documents required for goods to receive ASEAN’s preferential tariff treatment.

Members of the ASW Steering Committee and technical experts were impressed by the demonstration.  They recognized the software’s value in encouraging member states to develop their NSWs and put it on the agenda for the next meeting of the ASEAN Economic Ministers in 2009.

Brunei and Laos have expressed interest in using the software. Singapore and Thailand, which currently have similar systems operating, are considering merging the pilot software with their own systems to improve cross-border information exchange.

ASEAN Single Window Closer to Goal PDF

Lao Lawmakers Prepare for WTO Accession

For least-developed countries, such as Laos, World Trade Organization (WTO) accession is a daunting task. 

To lessen the burden and help Laos succeed in its commitments to the U.S.-Laos Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA), USAID sponsored a workshop for the Lao National Assembly.  The seminar used the experiences of Vietnam and Cambodia to help Lao parliamentarians understand how to clear the hurdles and benefit from WTO accession and BTA implementation.

Siphana Sok, the lead negotiator for Cambodia’s WTO accession, discussed how Cambodia has benefitted from its WTO membership and what it took to meet WTO requirements.  Ngo Duc Manh, a member of Vietnam’s National Assembly, discussed how USAID’s technical assistance proved invaluable in Vietnam’s WTO accession and U.S.-Vietnam BTA negotiations. 

In the five years since the U.S.-Vietnam BTA was signed, labor-intensive Vietnamese exports to the U.S. have grown eight-fold and U.S. exports to Vietnam have doubled.  American direct foreign investment has boomed.  And the implementation of the U.S.-Vietnam BTA completed many of the legal, regulatory and administrative reforms required for WTO accession.

Citing the successes of Vietnam, Dawn Shackleford, of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), described how Laos can use the BTA as a stepping stone to WTO accession.  The USTR’s Robert Fisher discussed liberalization and public-private sector dialogue when making trade reforms. 

U.S. Ambassador Ravic Huso stressed the U.S.’s commitment to helping Laos benefit from trade.  The Lao Minister of Industry and Commerce, Dr. Nam Viyaketh, emphasized the importance of trade to foster his country’s growth and development.

The 70 parliamentarians and government officials participating in the workshop praised it as a rare opportunity to explore the mechanics of trade reform and meet with international experts. 

The workshop was part of USAID’s Laos WTO/BTA Project to meet WTO accession requirements, comply with U.S.-Laos BTA obligations, and fulfill its commitments to the ASEAN Economic Community.

Lao Lawmakers Prepare for WTO Accession PDF