UN: Yemen unlikely to get cholera vaccine as first planned.
U.N. officials said Tuesday that plans to ship as many as 1 million doses of cholera vaccine to Yemen are likely to be shelved over security, access and logistical challenges, even as the deadly caseload continues to balloon in parts of the war-torn country.
The U.N. aid coordination agency said Yemen’s suspected cholera caseload has surged past 313,000 and caused over 1,700 deaths, making it the world’s largest outbreak.
War has crippled Yemen’s health system, depleted access to safe drinking water and put millions on the brink of famine.
The Yemeni government is allied with a Saudi-led coalition that is battling Shiite Houthi rebels, who control the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen.
Cholera vaccine rollouts are not easy even in more peaceful situations.
The vaccines have to be kept in cold storage, and patients should receive a follow-up vaccination after the first one.
In Yemen, where cholera has now reached all 21 governorates, the vaccines have to be targeted to those areas most susceptible to new outbreaks.
However, there are many areas in the country where the trend line is moving up, and those areas are, as you would imagine, the most remote," or behind conflict lines.
Never miss a local story.

The Maryland Department of the Environment thanks Governor Hogan for his leadership as the new head of the six-state Chesapeake Bay Program and his support for local investments to protect a national treasure,” said Maryland Secretary of the Environment Ben Grumbles.
“Providing nearly $100 million to upgrade key sewage treatment plants, septic systems, drinking water systems and clean energy projects will help us to green and grow the state’s economy and lead in the race to protect and restore Chesapeake Bay watersheds.” The following projects were approved today: Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant Enhanced Nutrient Removal Upgrade project – Baltimore City, Baltimore County A $46,219,057 Bay Restoration Fund grant to Baltimore City will help fund the planning, design and construction of Biological Nutrient Removal (BNR) and Enhanced Nutrient Removal (ENR) upgrades at the 180 million gallons per day Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant.
After the upgrades, the facility will reduce its nitrogen discharge by 83 percent, significantly reducing the amount of nutrients discharged to Back River and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay.
Baltimore City multiple sewershed projects — Baltimore City Bay Restoration Fund grants totaling $16,999,258 to Baltimore City will help fund a continuation of Baltimore City’s efforts to prevent sanitary sewer overflows as required by a consent decree initiated by the Maryland Department of the Environment and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
After the upgrade, the facility will reduce its nitrogen discharge by 83 percent and its phosphorus discharge by 90 percent, significantly reducing the amount of nutrients discharged to the Sassafras River and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay.
Enhanced Nutrient Removal upgrades allow facilities to significantly reduce the amount of nutrients discharged to local waterways and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay.
Prince Albert/Sunnyside Water Project – Allegany County A $150,000 grant in the form of forgiveness of a Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund loan to Allegany County, along with a second $150,000 Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund loan, will help fund the Prince Albert/Sunnyside Water Project.
The project includes the design and construction of waterlines, valves and fire hydrants to extend public water service from Allegany County’s Mt.
The project will provide clean, reliable drinking water and fire protection to the area.
Kent County Water Treatment Plant and Wastewater Treatment Plants Lighting Efficiency Upgrade project – Kent County A $129,720 Energy Water Infrastructure Program grant to Kent County will fund upgrades to lighting systems at four water treatment plants and three wastewater treatment plants.

“Hunger will only be defeated if countries translate their pledges into action, especially at national and local levels,” FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said at the opening of the agency’s biennial conference in Rome.
Concerted effort is required in countries affected by conflict and climate change – which collectively house nearly 60 per cent of the world’s population suffering from hunger – he underscored.
It has also signalled the high risk of famine in north-east Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen with 20 million people severely affected.
These extreme conditions not only disrupt the lives of those affected, they also force many to migrate in search of better lives, compounding the distress.
The most vulnerable – especially women – are often the worst impacted.
In order to alleviate the suffering of millions, the UN agency will, over the next two years, be focusing its efforts on the promotion of sustainable agriculture, climate change mitigation and adaptation, poverty reduction, water scarcity, migration as well as supporting conflict-affected rural livelihoods.
Transforming agriculture sector critical for 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – UNDP chief Also today, delivering the McDougall Memorial Lecture, Achim Steiner, the Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), highlighted that transforming agriculture was crucial to transform the world, as envisioned in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
This, he said, is in many ways a “profound political reforms agenda.” “Doing so cannot be seen as a technical challenge to be addressed within the agricultural sector, but rather as a complex undertaking that calls for integrated approaches considering economic, environmental, and social aspects,” said Mr. Steiner.
“[This] needs to recognize farmers as agents of change, operating within a larger ‘agriculture economy,’ that with the right incentives and enablers, can leverage agriculture to enhance livelihoods and sustainability.” The lecture honours Frank Lidgett McDougall, an Australian economist, who played a key role in the creation of FAO.
It reviews and decides on FAO’s programme of work and budget, and discusses priority areas related to food and agriculture across the globe.

UN Projects Tackle Desertification in the Mid-East, Asia and Africa.
June 2017: The China-UN Peace and Development Trust Fund and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) have launched land restoration initiatives that may also help countries progress towards sustainable energy, agriculture and water management.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) is supporting the conversion of desert to cultivable land in Egypt, while the China-UN Peace and Development Trust Fund launched a project on Juncao Technology that could be tailored to countries’ needs across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
The agency also notes that agriculture in the region uses “around 85% of the total available freshwater,” with more than 60% of water resources flowing from outside national and regional boundaries.
Graziano da Silva called looming water scarcity in the MENA region is a “huge challenge requiring an urgent and massive response.” To disseminate agricultural technologies, reduce hunger, enhance sustainable energy and address soil erosion in African and Asian countries, the China-UN Peace and Development Trust Fund launched the Juncao Technology project in May 2017.
According to remarks by China’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Liu Jieyi, Juncao, the technology is an agricultural approach that replaces wood with grass and can be used to grow edible and medicinal fungi, feed livestock, produce clean energy and prevent erosion.
In the dry Ningxia region of northwestern China, it is estimated that Juncao technologies helped to raise farmers’ annual income from US$80 in 1998 to US$1,024 in 2007.
According to Chinese news sources, China will contribute $200 million to the UN over 10 years to the UN Peace and Development Trust Fund to support peace and security and implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The Fund was launched in May 2017.
[Website of the FAO Near East and North Africa Water Scarcity Initiative] [SDG Knowledge Hub Story on WDCD 2017] [Xinhua Story on Launch of the Juncao Technology Project] [Remarks by Liu Jieyi] [State Council of People’s Republic of China Press Release]

No quick-fixes again to farmer unrest, please.
Recent UN reports project that by 2050, global population will rise from the current total of 7 billion to about 9 billion.
The imperative for such tremendous agricultural boost will hit developing economies the hardest, where the challenge is not just to produce adequate food (with appropriate nutritional traits) but to ensure easy access of the same to the masses.
Unfortunately, the main reason behind such depletion is irrigational drafting itself.
And this is a key reason why providing free electricity (a major farmer demand), will only aggravate the situation.
Recent estimates of the Central Electrical Authority (CES) project national electricity demand to rise from 776 TW-h in 2012 to about 2500 TW-h in 2030.
In the past few years drought has become a key resistance to agricultural yield that needs to be addressed on priority basis.
In 2014 this was 69 per cent and in 2012, about 44 per cent, which indicates increasing prevalence of drought.
Today almost 1 billion people are undernourished globally, and particularly in Asia (578 million).
The problem is, all these will have to happen on existing agricultural land (which is a finite quantity).

Drought, floods slash Sri Lanka’s rice production, threaten food security – U.N.. ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A severe drought followed by floods has slashed agricultural production in Sri Lanka, leaving some 900,000 people facing food insecurity, the United Nations said, warning that without help the situation might further deteriorate.
Production of rice, the country’s staple food, is forecast to drop almost 40 percent to 2.7 million tonnes in 2017, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) said in a report on Thursday.
Other crops including pulses, chillies and onion are also expected to take a blow, it said.
In May, the situation was exacerbated by the worst torrential rains in 14 years, which triggered floods and landslides in the country’s southwest, killing some 200 people and forcing many from their homes.
"The level of water in irrigation reservoirs is still well below the average," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
Unable to grow their own crops, many families have to buy food at local markets where prices have spiked due to the crisis, it said.
FAO and WFP said seeds, equipment, irrigation support, and cash assistance are urgently needed to help farmers in the next planting season starting in September, and to prevent conditions from deteriorating.
"If (the planting season) fails the situation will worsen a lot for the families affected," Coslet said.
(Reporting by Umberto Bacchi @UmbertoBacchi, Editing by Alisa Tang.
Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience.

“Saving livelihoods means saving lives – this is what building resilience is all about,” he added, noting that for years, the focus has been responding to droughts when they happen, rushing to provide emergency assistance and to keep people alive.
While these emergency responses are important, investing in preparedness and resilience puts countries on a footing to act quickly before it is too late, meaning that farmers and rural communities are better positioned to cope with extreme weather when it does hit.
The need for a global drought re-boot is pressing.
The many impacts of drought drive not only hunger and instability but cause economic losses up to $8 billion each annually.
As the planet’s climate changes, severe dry-spells are becoming more and more frequent.
Since the 1970s, the land area in the world affected by situations of drought has doubled.
Over 80 percent of damage and losses caused by drought are born by agriculture in the developing world, FAO studies have shown.
Between 2005 and 2016, 84 droughts affected 34 different African nations.
“WMO provides guidance and scientific information to strengthen national services responsible for addressing drought risks to agriculture,” said WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas.
“This means investing in smallholder farmers to help them address productivity challenges, give them access to markets and finance and most importantly encourage climate-smart agriculture so that when the drought inevitably comes, they have the tools they need to survive and thrive,” said Mr. Houngbo.

UN: Early Weather Forecasts Key to Saving Lives in Drought.
With droughts set to become more frequent due to global warming, delivering timely, long-term weather forecasts to farmers in the developing world will be key to limiting damage and saving lives, the head of the U.N. food agency said on Monday.
Droughts have killed more than 11 million people worldwide since 1900 and now affect double the land area than in 1970, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Developing countries are the most exposed, with their agricultural sectors shouldering 80 percent of all damage caused by drought, FAO says.
Better access to reliable weather data and early warning systems could help farmers in rural areas get ready to endure long spells of no rain, said FAO director-general Jose Graziano da Silva.
"Most of the times poor rural communities in developing countries don’t even know that a drought is about to strike," he told a conference at the FAO headquarters in Rome.
"People die because they are not prepared to face the impacts of the drought – because their livelihoods are not resilient enough," he said.
In Rome, FAO and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) signed an accord to increase cooperation in the face of climate change, improving agro-meteorological services to help small farmers prepare for droughts.
WMO secretary general Petteri Taalas said weather forecast accuracy had greatly increased in recent years thanks developments in satellite, computing and scientific research.
The last El Nino, a warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific that typically occurs every few years, subsided in 2016 and was linked to crop damage, fires and flash floods.

Early weather forecasts key to saving lives in drought – U.N.. ROME, June 19 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – With droughts set to become more frequent due to global warming, delivering timely, long-term weather forecasts to farmers in the developing world will be key to limiting damage and saving lives, the head of the U.N. food agency said on Monday.
Droughts have killed more than 11 million people worldwide since 1900 and now affect double the land area than in 1970, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Better access to reliable weather data and early warning systems could help farmers in rural areas get ready to endure long spells of no rain, said FAO director-general Jose Graziano da Silva.
"Most of the times poor rural communities in developing countries don’t even know that a drought is about to strike," he told a conference at the FAO headquarters in Rome.
Measures such as planting resistant crops and building water reservoirs can greatly reduce the impact of droughts, but international responses too often focus on emergency relief, said Graziano da Silva.
"People die because they are not prepared to face the impacts of the drought – because their livelihoods are not resilient enough," he said.
WMO secretary general Petteri Taalas said weather forecast accuracy had greatly increased in recent years thanks developments in satellite, computing and scientific research.
The last El Nino, a warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific that typically occurs every few years, subsided in 2016 and was linked to crop damage, fires and flash floods.
(Reporting by Umberto Bacchi @UmbertoBacchi, Editing by Ros Russell.
Visit news.trust.org)

East Ukraine fighting imperils water access for 750,00 children: UN.
More At least 750,000 children in eastern Ukraine are at imminent risk of losing access to safe water supplies after a surge in fighting between the government and separatist rebels, a UN report said Friday.
Approximately 400,000 people, including 104,000 children, had their drinking water cut off for four days this week after two filtration stations for the regional pipeline were destroyed by shelling, the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said.
Urgent repairs were completed only Thursday evening, it added.
"Nearly three million people in eastern Ukraine rely on water infrastructure that is now in the line of fire," said Afshan Khan, the agency’s regional director for Europe and Central Asia.
"We expect more families will be cut off from safe drinking water, putting children at severe risk of disease and other dangers."
In the rebels’ de facto capital of Donetsk, power lines serving the city’s water filtration station were hit earlier this month, threatening access to clean water for more than one million people, the report said.
Children who lose access to clean drinking water can quickly contract water-borne diseases including diarrhoea, UNICEF warned.
"All sides of the conflict must allow urgent repairs when water sources are destroyed and immediately stop the indiscriminate shelling of vital civilian infrastructure," Khan said.
More than 10,000 people have died and almost 24,000 have been injured since the pro-Russian insurgency began in April 2014, while 3.8 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and more than 1.5 million have been forced from their homes.