1. We welcome in 2 new participants to the Consultants Community:
- Alastair McCracken, Chairman of EcoTourism Australia. Alastair has extensive experience over 25 years in the development, operations and marketing of resort destinations. In senior management roles, he has developed feasibility studies for, and opened new hotels with Hilton Hotels and Hyatt International throughout Australia and Asia, spending 6 years in the development and operation of Grand Hyatt Bali, at Nusa Dua, Indonesia. Alastair led the development of Couran Cove Island Resort, Australia’s first fully integrated eco- tourism village. Alastair’s key expertise and interest is in the planning and development of local community driven tourism and the appropriate and authentic expression of local culture in the travel experience.
- Pallavi Mandke has been working in the areas of tourism, urban and environmental management since 1995 and has been involved in a number of research and demonstration projects in Asia. Having lived and worked in India, South East Asia and Australia she brings a sound understanding of cultural values and attitudes, the importance of respectful interdisciplinary activities and a sound appreciation of global issues as they affect tourism planning and development. To further her academic and professional achievements she recently submitted her PhD thesis at the University of Queensland, Australia in the area of tourism for urban poverty reduction.
2. And a new participant to our Researchers Community:
- Dr. Thomas Iverson is a registered consultant with the Asian Development Bank and the Global Development Network. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Texas, and taught graduate courses in economics and management information systems at Kentucky State University’s Graduate Center. Tom has been at the University of Guam since 1988, where he is currently a Professor of Economics and the Executive Director of the Sustainable Development Institute. With a wide range of interests, Dr. Iverson has consulted in Guam, Palau, Chuuk State and Pohnpei State (Federated States of Micronesia), and Bali. Since 2002, the Iversons have also operated a tourism business, Cosmo Salon & Spa, in Sanur, Bali.
3. Web site & dedicated emails
www.pacificasiatourism.org is up and running. Continuous fine-tuning occurs. Thus far, almost 20 members of the network have taken on a pacificasiatourism.org email address.
4. Useful resources: http://www.doingbusiness.org/map/
The World Bank Group’s Doing Business project aims to provide objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 178 economies.
5. PARTS OF ASIA-PACIFIC REGION LAG BEHIND AFRICA IN REACHING ANTIPOVERTY GOALS — UN
New York, Oct 8 2007
A new United Nations report assessing progress in the Asia-Pacific region on reaching the antipoverty Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) paints a mixed picture of progress in some parts of the region even as others lag behind Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.
Released today in Bangkok and Manila, the report states that the region is well on track and ahead of its peers in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa to reduce extreme poverty by half, attain universal education, and achieve gender parity in education by the target year 2015.
But Asia and the Pacific accounts for about two thirds of the world’s underweight children. More than one in four children under the age of five are underweight. The rates in many Asian countries exceed those of Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the report.
The region is also moving too slowly in reducing child mortality — every year six out of every 100 children do not live to see their fifth birthday, a rate almost double that of Latin American and the Caribbean. The most serious problems are in South Asia where most countries are off track on reducing child mortality.
Maternal deaths in Asia and the Pacific account for almost half of the global total, according to the report, The Millennium Development Goals: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2007. The region’s overall maternal mortality ratio, at over 300 per 100,000 live births, is more than 30 percent higher than in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The region’s greatest challenges lie in addressing the issues of child mortality, malnutrition, improving maternal health and providing safe drinking water and sanitation facilities, said the report — a joint publication by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
“The 2007 MDG progress report gives us an indication of what the region stands to gain if focus on those countries that are moving slowly or not making progress, and within those areas concentrate on improving the lives of the most vulnerable,” said Haishan Fu, Chief, Statistics Development Section, UNESCAP.
The report points out if the countries in the region that are off track were able to speed up and meet the MDG targets by 2015, then about 196 million more people would be lifted out of extreme poverty, 23 million more children would no longer suffer from hunger and nearly 1 million more children would survive beyond their fifth birthday.
The other key areas where Asia-Pacific region is making slow progress are provision of access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation facilities. Across the region, over 560 million people in rural areas lack access to improved water sources; over 1.5 billion are living without basic sanitation facilities, nearly three-quarters of the global total. The report also warns that environmental pressures — arising from land degradation, poor water management, rising pollution in urban areas, CO2 emission contributing to climate change and other factors — could push more people into poverty. The eight MDGs range from halving extreme poverty to reducing child mortality, halting spread of HIV and AIDS, providing universal primary education and providing access to clean drinking water and sanitation facilities — all by the target year of 2015.
