26 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2021
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    1. Partnerships between researchers and farmers

      R & D and Digital infrastructure are primary causes of any development strategy even within developing countries.

    2. Women are the primary farmers in many contexts

      One of the observations that we also noticed during our work on the community project in Mars'allam is the participation of women in the profession of beekeeping and honey production regardless of the physical effort.

    3. Adaptive testing

      The transition of the domestic economy to the level of the sixth technology revolution of the world scientific and technological progress is connected, among other things, with the development of digital information technologies in agriculture.

    4. The success of the spread of indigenous vegetable cultivation (such as African nightshade, okra, amaranths, spider plant and egg plants) on raised beds in Kenya and Tanzania has been because of a focus on both crop management and markets where consumer demand for vegetables is high

      It is ultimately a matter of supply, demand and sustainable management by those in charge.

    5. A number of new systems of management have been developed and extended to large numbers of farmers. Some of these were controversial at the beginning of programmes, as they appear to break existing norms and rules for agriculture. The use of fertiliser shrubs and trees in maize rotations in Kenya, Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda, for example, has led to improved maize yields, even though land is put under fertiliser fallows for two-year periods.The development of conservation agriculture has centred on abandoning ploughing or soil tillage in order to build up soil quality, nutrients and water. Such integrated soil management, using conservation agriculture methods, can help to increase the carbon sink in soils. Soils contain twice as much carbon as the atmosphere. Historically, losses through cultivation and disturbance have been established to be 40-80 Pg C58, and losses continue at a rate of 1.6–0.8 Pg C per year, mainly in the tropics. There is thus considerable scope to reduce emissions and increase the capacity of agricultural soils as a sink. 54 AA28 (Annex E refers)55 AA19 (Annex E refers) 56 AA6 (Annex E refers)57 AA18 (Annex E refers)

      An important point for agricultural development systems is the cultural concept of the profession of agriculture. How will the sustainable development goals for agriculture be achieved despite the neglect of many farmers for the agricultural profession due to the living conditions and other developments.

    6. Crop varietal improvements

      Farmer participatory varietal selection (PVS) was used to identify farmer-acceptable cultivars of rice and chickpea. Farmers' requirements in new crop cultivars (varieties) were determined, a search was carried out for released and non-released cultivars that matched these needs, and they were tested in farmer-managed, participatory trials. Farmer-acceptable cultivars were found amongst released material, but not among the recommended material for the area.

    7. sustainable intensification

      one of the areas that can to achieve sustainable increases in agricultural productivity through it is strengthening livelihoods using the benefits of increased productivity and diversification within the value chain, including through providing the conditions for access to good agricultural practices and knowledge, quality seeds, post-harvest and agro-processing technologies, food safety systems, markets and credit.

    1. The pandemic is particularly taxing for countries facing peace and security challenges. The outbreak has exacerbat-ed protection concerns and prevention shortcomings and exposed populations in vulnerable situations to new threats in humanitarian crises. There is a risk that when the international community is distracted, parties to conflicts will take advantage of the impact of the pandemic to create or aggravate insecurity and im-pede medical care and other life-saving assistance and services including those deemed politically sensitive, in the area of sexual and reproductive health and rights, while at the same time not addressing se-rious violations and abuses that occurred

      What is incomprehensible is that international laws that are supposed to apply to everyone and to protect every country, itself need laws that monitor & protect them.

    1. ‘agricultural productivity‘

      Agricultural productivity is directly related to water issues. The productivity per unit input is a crucial point to take into account. Testing out the systems to be used in an interlinkage in terms of the three bottom lines is also a tool.

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    1. What will be themain difficulties in building aneffective GlobalPartnership forDevelopment?

      Effective global partnership is not an easy task to be implemented. It requires a deep understanding of the nature of partnership parties to find out a common platform for all parties to move through. For example, in Egypt we can not apply what can be applied in U.S. or Japan even with the same deliverables. There are other considerations should be taken into account.

    1. By reusing building elements

      Five common strategies to conserve materials throughout a project's life cycle:

      1. Reuse existing materials.
      2. Plan for smaller, more compact communities.
      3. Design smaller, more flexible homes & buildings.
      4. Use efficient framing techniques.
      5. Promote source reduction in operations.
    2. Using toilets that improve upon these efficiency levels, such as dual flush toilets, composting toilets and waterless urinals, can save a tremendous amount of potable water.

      Through a combination of water efficient fixtures, a project is required to achieve a 20% reduction in Indoor water usage.

    3. One strategy for reducing potable water use in toilets and certain appliances is using water conserving fixtures like waterless urinals and low flow faucets. Another is using non-potable water like greywater, rainwater or treated wastewater for flushing.

      As the baseline flush rate for unirals is 0.8 GPF, 1.2 GPF toilets would reduce water below the baseline, thus contributing to Indoor water use reduction.

    4. Common strategies for achieving inside and outside water efficiency are

      LEED-certified projects must demand at least 20% or less indoor water as compared to conventionally designed buildings.

  4. Nov 2021
    1. Maximizing the value of water in investment decisions requires careful valuation of the costs and benefits that a project provides. For this, all benefits need to be taken into account, including those that are economic, social or environmental. Many of the unintended consequences of these investments, both negative and positive, must also be considered. Aggregating these types of benefits can be difficult, as they are not all easily converted into monetary amounts. In cases where benefits cannot be monetized, other valuation tools can be used, such as cost–effectiveness analyses, which compare costs with non-pecuniary outcomes such as lives saved, people served or environmental metrics achieved. Another critical factor for determining benefits of a project is comparing it to what would happen if the project were not undertaken.

      When approaching strategies to reduce water for a project, it is necessary for the project team to calculate a BASELINE for water usage versus project's requirements. Baseline versus design: the amount of water a conventional project would use as compared to the design case.

    2. Energy, industry and business | 93In concert with all sectors and stakeholders, EIB enterprises, in order to succeed and survive commercially and to play their necessary part in overall water management and stewardship in the face of climate change, will need to improve their understanding of value and valuation of water: some potential avenues are outlined below.6.8.1 Internal pricing In a similar way as companies have developed internal prices for carbon, there is increasing momentum to do this for water. Such an internal price is one “used in economic analysis, when market price is felt to be a poor estimate of ‘real’ economic value” (Emerton and Bos, 2004, p. 86), and attempts to account for future uncertainty around price (WWF/IFC, 2015). In 2017, of the companies reporting to CDP, 53 (7%) were accommodating environmental and social costs by performing internal pricing of water (CDP, 2017). For example, using a tool that quantifies hidden costs like pre-treatment and wastewater treatment, Colgate Palmolive discovered that their true cost of water was 2.5 times what they paid for it. Limitations to shadow pricing include the assumptions required and changes to the value of money over time: it works for procurement, but most impacts are caused by other factors, such as operational interruption (WWF, 2019a).6.8.2 Industry 4.0The fourth industrial revolution22 is anticipated to lead to increased productivity and growth, with up to 30% faster production and 25% increases in efficiency (Rüßmann et al., 2015). It blends digital and physical technology into cyberphysical systems using nine technology pillars.23 Such systems will be connected along the value chain (Box 6.6), collecting data and optimizing production. Clearly, as water’s true value is increasingly recognized in EIB, water efficiency will be an integral part of such developments. In Industry 4.0, water efficiency will also be connected with increasing energy efficiency and with the uptake of renewable clean energy sources (UNIDO, 2017).22 The fourth industrial revolution was preceded by three others, two of which had strong connections with water. The first focused on water power and the steam engine. The second centred on electricity, which has a strong nexus with water. The third was driven by computers and automation.23 Autonomous robots, simulation, horizontal and vertical system integration, the industrial internet of things, cybersecurity, the cloud, additive manufacturing, augmented reality, and big data and analytics.6.8Future value for EIB – Succeeding and surviving Blockchain technology could offer a transparent way to manage water and trade water rights in real time between parties, including industry and energy Box 6.6 ‘Supply chain’ versus ‘value chain’A ‘supply chain’ refers to the system and resources required to move a product or service from supplier to customer. The supply chain (or indirect) water footprint of a business is the volume of freshwater consumed or polluted to produce all the goods and services that form the input of production of a business. The ‘value chain’ concept builds on this, but also considers the manner in which value is added along the chain, both to the product/service and the actors involved. From a sustainability perspective, ‘value chain’ has more appeal, since it explicitly references internal and external stakeholders in the value creation process. It also encourages a full-lifecycle perspective and not just a focus on the (upstream) procurement of inputs. Value is generally used in a narrow economic sense, but it can be interpreted to encompass ‘values’, i.e. ethical and moral concerns as well as other non-monetary utility values such as the closing of material loops, the provision of ecosystem services and added customer value.

      It seems to me that the value includes, but not limited to, sustainable practices in utilizing water in general. One of the most important aspects is assessing the output per unit input of water productivity in different areas.

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    1. Despite progress in solid waste management practices in the decade since the original What a Waste Report was published, fundamental insti-tutional, financial, social, and environmental problems still exist. Although each country and city has their own site-specific situations, general observations can be made across low-, middle-, and high-income countries, as delineated in Table 1.

      One of the most important issue of Waste Management is the construction waste management plans. There are some strategies to reduce waste during construction, and during operations & maintenance. Construction waste management plans should address whether waste will be separated on-site into individually labeled waste containers or collected in a commingled fashion in one container and sorted off-site.

    1. Water-intensive agricultural products include meat, dairy products, sugar and cotton. Water use efficiency is often low, partly as a result of low water pricing or even subsidies, irrespective of scarcity. Lack of awareness of simple water saving measures among farmers and the use of water inef-ficient technologies also contribute. The water footprint of a country, an indicator introduced in 2002, measures the volume of freshwater used to produce the goods and services consumed by the inhabitants of a country, calculated over the product’s entire global supply chain. It is composed

      The concept of virtual water is critical. Market decisions should be taken into consideration for exporting products that have high value with low water consumption.

  6. Oct 2021
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    1. quality control within these organization

      It seems to me that quality assurance and quality control are the most important part of the initiative at all. Without monitoring quality, it is impossible to achieve the ultimate goals.

    2. the breaking down ofold and consumed water networks,

      Interesting

  8. Sep 2021
    1. The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a severe blow to the sustainable development prospects of Africa, exacerbating unemployment, poverty and inequality. After the largest contraction on record in 2020, aggregate GDP of the continent is projected to expand by 3.6 per cent in 2021, due to strengthening global prospects, rising exports and higher commodity prices. Per capita incomes are expected to recover to pre-crisis levels only by 2024.

      Comparing between developing countries and developed countries, there is a modest difference in the aggregate GDP ( 6.2% : 3.6%). The lag is relatively appears in the paradigm of investment both are adopting. The real problem would be exposed by time as a result of both paradigms.

    2. investment in technological innovation, climate mitigation, and rural development

      It seems to be that most countries after the pandemic tends to redistribute their budget to include R&D and intellectual property section to be at top of all sectors.

    1. Time lags between actions and effects add to the difficulty of identifying when a particular factor may have spurred improvement.

      This is clearly critical. The lag between awareness and implementation is untouchable.

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    1. Although all definitions ofsustainable developmentsee it in terms of maintaining conditions for future gener-ations, the mainstream approach sees this in terms of economic conditionsprimar-ily, whereas more critical perspectives emphasize ecological conditions directly.

      I see that there is a clear contradiction between whether sustainability shall be seen in terms of environmental aspects or economical aspects. Both are agreed about maintaining conditions, but the conflict between environment and economy is the dominant.

    2. The concept of sustainable development appeared as a reaction to the limits-to-growth literature

      Sustainable development & Growth literature.. In terms of what both are connected ?!

    3. the primary causes of extreme poverty are immaterial, theylie in certain deficiencies in education, organization, and discipline”(p. 159). Poorcountries, in his view, did not need more technology or physical infrastructure ormore foreign aid to eliminate poverty.