The conference in the Asian Approaches to Development Cooperation dialogue series convened in Seoul, South Korea, this month, and brought together development experts and senior government officials to discuss climate change mitigation, green growth, and adapting to and building resilience to natural disasters. This dialogue series, co-organized by The Asia Foundation and the Korea Development Institute (KDI), brings together both “emerging” and “traditional” development actors to discuss international development challenges. This year’s focus on effective cooperation for deterring the impacts of climate change was launched in Seoul, fittingly, as South Korea is playing a leading role in low-carbon development in the Asia-Pacific region.

According to the UN, boosting global investments in renewable energy to $630 billion by 2030 would create at least 20 million additional jobs worldwide. South Korea is playing a leading role in the region’s green growth. Photo/Flickr user Toby Simkin

Green growth is a new policy paradigm for Asia and the Pacific that emphasizes ecologically sustainable economic progress and fosters low-carbon, socially-inclusive development. Its four pillars include sustainable production and consumption, green businesses, sustainable infrastructure, and fiscal incentives and reforms. “Growing green” means implementing more eco-efficient and profitable production, producing less pollution and waste in the process, and prioritizing the environment as essential to long-term social and economic development goals.

In July 2009, South Korea announced its “National Strategy for Green Growth” through 2050, providing a blueprint for how to shift its economic structure away from energy-intensive industries that have driven the majority of the development paths in Asia. The target goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent from a business-as-usual path by 2020, and increase the country’s renewable energy to 11 percent of total energy supplies by 2030.

With initial funding of $83.6 billion (representing 2 percent of GDP), South Korea’s first Five-Year Plan for Green Growth 2009-2013 has successfully turned strategy into concrete and operational policy initiatives toward achieving green growth and resource efficiency. South Korea’s government announced plans to continue making investments in innovative, low-carbon technologies for renewable energy, waste management, public transportation and construction, and to create enough new jobs in these sectors to offset the loss of employment in current carbon-intensive industries, such as mining, petroleum refining, and fossil fuel power generation.

In terms of development cooperation, South Korea has increased its development assistance budget since 2000 by 6.5 times, to approximately $1.3 billion in 2011, and has pledged to boost financing of regional renewable energy, conservation, and development projects to 30 percent of the total aid budget by 2020. Already, the Korean government installed a Communications, Ocean, and Meteorological Satellite system to improve Sri Lanka’s disaster preparedness by allowing officials to better share data, analysis, and forecasting capability. The system is part of the East Asia Climate Partnership, an initiative announced in 2008 and funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) to share South Korea’s knowledge and technology resources in green growth, climate change adaptation and improved resource management to developing countries. KOICA has also pledged to build reservoirs, irrigation channels, and treatment facilities that will clean, recycle, and better manage water resources needed to effectively sustain agricultural production in the Philippines, which has decreased dramatically due to recent sustained droughts.

South Korea is also playing a leading role in green-growth policy advising. The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), founded in 2010 as a Korean NGO and since established as a treaty-based intergovernmental organization, works to advance the practice and theory of green growth by supporting the development, implementation, and diffusion of green growth strategies in developing and emerging countries, including in the least-developed countries in Asia. GGGI involves both state and non-state actors, such as other international organizations, NGOs, private companies, and research institutes.

According to a United Nations report on green growth, boosting global investments in renewable energy to $630 billion by 2030 would create at least 20 million additional jobs worldwide, making it a much larger source of employment than today’s fossil energy industry. One of the most interesting but least reported aspects of the current economic recovery effort is that over two-thirds of global green stimulus has in fact been committed in the Asia-Pacific, led by Australia, China, South Korea, and Japan.

Indeed, South Korea’s green growth strategy was highlighted throughout the AADC dialogue with representatives from other emerging economies in the region, notably China, India, and Malaysia, to share its successes on enacting renewable energy policy, implementing low-carbon transportation, and employing financial incentive for industries to make reforms to achieve green growth goals. Reflected in part by its leadership in this area, South Korea has been chosen as the home of the newly established Green Climate Fund, the multilateral financial mechanism recently created to support the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change adaptation and mitigation efforts.

At the 2010 G20 Seoul Summit, South Korea’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Kim Sung-han, declared that “many issues today require unprecedented international cooperation. Solving today’s complex challenges will require ‘middle powers’ to play a greater, more active role. Through various initiatives, such as its programs in green growth and development cooperation, South Korea has demonstrated the influence middle powers are having on global governance and that they may be best suited to facilitate consensus building and revitalize momentum for cooperation.”

Kourtnii S. Brown is a program officer for The Asia Foundation’s Environment Programs in San Francisco, and attended the AADC conference in Seoul. She can be reached at kbrown@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

People were standing up and sitting down, intense negotiations were underway, funding decisions were being made, and a lot of commotion was coming from a crowd of over 300 policymakers, scientists, and practitioners from over 40 countries. We are gathered in Dhaka, Bangladesh, for the Seventh Annual International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation to Climate Change (CBA7), and were playing games meant to capture and simplify the multitude of complex factors that go into decision-making for preparing for and responding to climate change impacts, among them: when and how much to invest in disaster preparedness measures while experiencing the cost of damages when disaster strikes.

The conference began with opening remarks by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who called for global and immediate action on climate change, highlighting the extreme vulnerability Bangladesh faces to its impacts: flooding, drought, sea level rise, salinity intrusion, and severe storms. Indeed, Bangladesh is the world’s most vulnerable country to climate change. In response, Bangladesh has become a leader in its experience and efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change. The government has contributed nearly $350 million of its own funds to its Climate Change Trust Fund, and communities have been adapting to climate change for years, experimenting with what does and doesn’t work. But challenges remain, and current efforts are focused on bridging the gap between government and civil society, and increasing the role of local government.

The theme for this year’s conference addresses the governance of community-based adaptation (CBA) and mainstreaming CBA into national and local planning. But this is easier said than done – in order to achieve holistic governance on climate change, it needs to be incorporated into all aspects of development considerations and decision-making, which can be a daunting and complicated task. Some of the many issues we are discussing include: how is climate change integrated and streamlined into all facets of government development planning, including agriculture, health, infrastructure, environment, and education? How are all people accounted for, including women, children, and vulnerable groups? How can disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation initiatives be coordinated? And importantly, how can adaptation initiatives effectively be monitored and evaluated?

Climate change scenario game developed developed for ACCRA and played with local government officials in Uganda, Mozambique, and Ethiopia. It distills competing factors in decision-making for investments in agriculture, health, infrastructure, energy, and education in light of the impacts from natural disasters. Photo/Lisa Hook

The climate change games, co-developed and co-facilitated by Pablo Suarez from Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, work in practical application with communities, farmers, policy makers, and humanitarian workers trying to adapt to climate change. They use simple materials in a board-game format using dice, beans, and spin-wheels, and are facilitated by trained practitioners who help translate the game dynamics into the real world complexities of climate change decision-making. The games distill complex issues and considerations to support local government decision-makers as they attempt to integrate climate change into their own development planning. They are helping to reframe engrained approaches to development planning to anticipate a range of future scenarios as a result of climate change.

This includes understanding the tradeoffs made in real-world decisions when addressing climate change, for example, the tradeoff between now vs. later and the tradeoff between individual vs. community interests. In the real world, decision making tends to favor a current “now” perspective, but the games help participants inhabit the future, and experience the consequences of inaction. Additionally, individually-focused decisions tend to be made in the short-term to receive the greatest benefits, but over the long-term collective investment increases the likelihood of withstanding shocks.

Here at the CBA7, the games provided a new way for us to interact and learn from one another – beyond the usual power point presentations. This format engages active participation, where everyone is able to ask, challenge, and learn from the process simultaneously. Our team quickly came together to decide when to invest in early warning systems for natural disasters before we rolled our dice, the outcome of which determined the impact from a natural disaster, and the resulting loss of our collective funds. The experience of anticipation, fast decision-making for investments, uncertainty, and loss quickly became very personal and emotionally charged, especially as the stakes were raised and probabilities of natural disasters were increased due to climate change.

In the end, the winning team succeeded by lobbying the game-appointed “local government” official for more “resources,” securing an advantage over other teams. But, this contributed to a valuable bigger-picture lesson: often, the systems meant to provide benefits to and support community-based adaptation do not reach their intended recipients, but are instead allocated for other interests. A lack of transparency and effective governance make accounting for these funds difficult to track, reinforcing the importance of effective, transparent, and participatory governance for valuable climate change resilience. Pablo concluded that “the games are designed to capture the incentives and disincentives in the real world, and the dynamics between immediate satisfaction and protection against potential future threats.” They are changing the nature of these dialogues.

Lisa Hook is a senior program officer for The Asia Foundation’s Environment Programs in San Francisco. She can be reached at lhook@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

Following the news on environmental issues here in China can be a grim business. The first months of 2013 alone brought coverage of January’s “airpocalypse,” when air pollution in Beijing reached historic levels; news of thousands of dead pigs floating in the Huangpu River, a primary source of Shanghai’s drinking water; and a new report indicating that China sees 1.2 million premature deaths each year due to outdoor air pollution – almost 40 percent of the world’s total of such deaths.

Air pollution in Beijing reached historic levels in early 2013. Photo by Matthew Pendergast.

Amid such bleak headlines, it can be easy to miss any kind of progress. However, a report released in late March does show progress on an issue that many experts consider crucial to long-term and sustained improvement of environmental outcomes: environmental information transparency.

The Pollution Information Transparency Index (PITI), published each year since 2009 by the Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE, a Chinese NGO founded in 2006) and the Natural Resources Defense Council, rates the performance of 113 Chinese cities on criteria reflecting standards for environmental information disclosure set by China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) in 2008. In crucial measures promulgated that year, MEP authorized public access to environmental information, and required local environmental agencies and businesses to disclose information on environmental protection plans, environmental conditions, and environmental investigation results. The next year, in 2009, China’s State Council issued a regulation that obliges planning agencies to solicit public opinion on government plans that may negatively impact the environment or public interests.

2008 and 2009 were milestone years for environmental law in China. The work of IPE and others has shown that public disclosure of the sources and types of pollution in China can lead to real changes, whether by placing direct pressure on polluters or, in the case of manufacturers, by providing citizens and civil society organizations with information they can use to encourage multinational corporations to pressure their suppliers to clean up. And, encouragingly, the PITI score (averaged across all 113 cities) has improved each year since 2009. However, progress is uneven:  the scores show a wide gap between the best- and worst-performing cities, and the scores of several cities actually declined between the 2011 and 2012 reports.

For a number of years, The Asia Foundation has worked with national and local partners to strengthen open government information and public participation in decision-making in China. Under a new project focused specifically on environmental information transparency and participation in environmental decision-making, we are working to strengthen the capacity of local regulatory agencies and foster more constructive collaboration between government, civil society organizations, and business. In four pilot cities reflecting China’s diverse geographic, socioeconomic, and environmental conditions, the Foundation will collaborate with research institutes, government agencies, civil society organizations, and business associations to lead capacity-building programs for businesses, their regulators, and the civil society organizations that often serve as their watchdogs; will work with these stakeholders to collaboratively develop, test and refine local procedures implementing MEP’s 2008 measures; and will share best practices between cities and at the national level. The innovative PITI index, which captures a wide range of transparency indicators, is one of the key metrics that the Foundation and its partners will use to measure the impact of this project.

As delegates from around the country gathered in a smoggy Beijing in March for the meeting of the National People’s Congress, environmental issues were – out of necessity – front and center. Although the head of China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection was reappointed, he received the fewest affirmative votes of any minister. Days later, Li Keqiang, in his first speech as the country’s new premier, highlighted China’s environmental challenges and the government’s responsibility to ensure that economic growth does not continue to come at the expense of the environment and, ultimately, the health of the Chinese people. With growing public concern, instantaneous sharing of environmental dispatches from around China on microblogs, and renewed government commitment to progress, the news from China may be looking up.

Anne Mills works with The Asia Foundation on its Environment programs in China. She can be reached at aegillette@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

Last week, the Asian Development Bank released its annual “Asian Development Outlook” report for 2013, with Asia’s success story of unprecedented growth in the last decades forecast to grow by 6.6 percent in 2013 and 6.7 percent in 2014. This remarkable growth is fueled by what seems to be an insatiable and possibly dangerous appetite for energy, the focus of this year’s report.

Energy consumption is indeed helping to power Asia’s economic expansion, and this trend is only growing. Asia consumed 34 percent of the global energy supply in 2010; by 2035, that share will increase to more than half.

Energy consumption is indeed helping to power Asia’s economic expansion, and this trend is only growing. Asia consumed 34 percent of the global energy supply in 2010; by 2035, that share will increase to more than half. However, this does not come without a cost.

Many Asian cities are among the worst cities for air pollution in the world, from Ulaanbaatar to New Delhi to Beijing. In China, the government – which only in recent years has become more candid about the environmental consequences exacted by its growth strategy – released statistics from its own Ministry of Environmental Protection which estimated that the cost of environmental degradation to the country was $230 billion, or 3.5 percent of the nation’s total GDP. This environmental degradation and its impact on climate change is becoming a real threat to Asia’s growth and to its population. Southeast Asia, for example, has been designated by the UN as “highly vulnerable” to the impacts of climate change and natural disaster, as the majority of its population and many of its major cities are located in low-lying coastal areas. According to the ADB, continuing “business as usual” emissions increases are expected to trigger a loss of 6.7 percent combined GDP by 2100 in ASEAN countries. In this context, Asian economies will have to manage energy access, both among countries in the region and between the rich and the poor. Without effective management, rising disparities may lead to wider development gaps and exacerbate social and political tensions in the region.

Regional cooperation may hold the key to addressing Asia’s energy challenge, as it already has on the economic front. Asia has clearly benefited from improved intraregional trade and regional economic integration. Intraregional trade and trade with China now accounts for more than 37 percent of ASEAN’s total trade, up from 26 percent in 2000. Moreover, ASEAN is moving forward on its plans for an integrated ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015, which will create a single market and production base that will enable member economies to benefit from improved efficiencies in their value chains and economies of scale. Such reforms have helped contribute to strong economic performances by ASEAN member economies in 2012 and strong projections for the near future. Although South Asia is less integrated than Southeast Asia, significant headway has also been made toward improved intraregional economic cooperation in the region. For example, earlier this year, Pakistan granted Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to India, a major breakthrough for trade relations between these two countries. Regional integration has been credited as a key factor in insulating the sub-region, and Asia overall, from the effects of the global slowdown or stagnation experienced in EU and the U.S.

Similarly, efforts to foster regional cooperation on the energy front may lead to major payoffs for meeting Asia’s energy challenge. Currently, cross-border energy markets and infrastructure connectivity have been neglected on the regional arena. As the ADB report states, “The lack of cooperation is all the more glaring as jointly promoting energy savings and energy security would not require new technology or pose the high cost and financial risk developing it might entail. … What is missing is political commitment in Asian countries to cooperate in energy markets and build the necessary infrastructure.” Examples of areas ripe for regional cooperation include cross-border coordination on the mode of electricity transmission for maximum efficiency, political consensus on the sharing of hydroelectric power, transportation connectivity, development of interconnected natural gas systems, and co-investment on renewable energies.

All of these projects will require strong political will at the national and regional levels. There are technical as well as policy challenges to overcome in order for an integrated Asian energy market to emerge. As the environmental and health costs to rapid economic growth become too large to ignore, regional cooperation will no longer be optional for political and economic actors. The private sector will also have a prominent role to play in the delivery of sustainable development solutions for the region. Ultimately, the objective for Asian development must underscore coordinated and responsible approaches, with nations working together to bring about sustainable prosperity for all.

Véronique Salze-Lozac’h is The Asia Foundation’s director for Economic Development Programs based in Bangkok, Nina Merchant-Vega is associate director, and Katherine Loh is a senior program officer. Salze-Lozac’h can be reached at VSalze-Lozach@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors and not those of The Asia Foundation.

Mongolia sits on some of the world’s largest mineral deposits, primarily coal and copper, as well as rare earth and precious metals. While the country’s abundant resources have driven Mongolia to the top of Asia’s economic performers, the rapid growth has not happened without serious concern over the environmental impact from the country’s booming mining industry.

Artisanal mining offers traditional herders an alternative, viable income when they suffered livestock losses and thus economic difficulties during Mongolia’s catastrophic winter weather events. Photo/Matthew Pendergast

The good news is that Mongolia’s government is increasingly prioritizing green growth and environmental responsibility. In 2012, the government increased the mandate of the Ministry of Environment to include “Green Development,” and established a new National Green Development Strategy and action program to outline ways for each major economic sector to transition to a greener economy.

The formal mining sector in Mongolia is comprised of officially registered small- to large-sized mining companies that are conducting commercial operations and have obtained formal mining licenses from the government. The minerals extracted from the formal mining sector last year made up nearly 91.3 percent of all exports. Informal, artisanal mining, on the other hand, is made up of small-scale miners who have limited access to capital and/or technology but may obtain access to land to carry out mining activities. It is estimated that artisanal mining contributes $110 million annually to export revenues. Given the large-scale investments that well-resourced mining companies are able to make on environmental rehabilitation efforts, there are a number of excellent examples in Mongolia of best practices in environmental reclamation and rehabilitation efforts. Lesser known are the efforts underway in communities where small and artisanal mining is taking place.

Mine shafts dug by artisanal miners in Mandal soum. Photo/Srabani Roy

Artisanal and small-scale mining in Mongolia started to evolve in the 1990s when the country transitioned from a centrally planned to a market economy. In 1993, the government initiated its “Gold program” to promote development of the formal mining sector. This subsequently led to growth in artisanal mining which drove down unemployment by offering traditional herders an alternative, viable income when they suffered livestock losses and thus economic difficulties during Mongolia’s catastrophic winter weather events (known as dzuds). The artisanal mining sector initially suffered from a poor reputation as it was often considered illegal and associated with environmental and social problems, such as soil and water pollution, mined land that was not being rehabilitated, and crime. However, in 2010, with support from development organizations and civil society, a more robust policy and legal framework declared artisanal mining a legal occupation, which meant that artisanal miners could secure mining land and formalize their operations into official partnerships.

Outreach among artisanal mining communities to promote the use of environmentally friendly technologies and reclaim environmentally degraded land has helped improve the public perception about artisanal mining as a viable alternative livelihood option. Indeed, it is increasingly seen as a greener and more socially responsible sub-sector.

The Asia Foundation has worked on responsible resource issues in Mongolia since 2006, but has primarily focused on industrial mining. However, over the last few years, we have been working closely with artisanal miners, to give them a greater voice and knowledge base. Now, these miners participate in multi-stakeholders groups (which also include local authorities, mining companies, and community members) that provide guidance on responsible artisanal mining and a place to discuss concerns.

One of the most critical environmental issues surrounding artisanal mining is the rehabilitation of degraded land, characteristics of which may include large unfilled holes and/or tunnels, compacted soils, lack of vegetation, and polluted water and soil. In 2012, we partnered with a local environmental NGO to help develop a model artisanal and small-scale mining land reclamation project in Uyanga district, Uvurkhangai province – one of Mongolia’s mining areas with a large amount of un-reclaimed lands 490 km from the capital, Ulaanbaatar. We provided a training course for the NGO to work with 45 artisanal miners and undertake technical and biological reclamation of a two-hectare site, rehabilitating the land in conformity with the government’s reclamation standards.

Although the site was relatively small, the project has created local enthusiasm for reclamation in the area and heightened awareness on how to conduct rehabilitation effectively. An added strength is that the district governor is upholding it as a model for mine reclamation. At his insistence, mining companies operating in the jurisdiction are now required to visit the reclamation site (with the NGO representatives) to learn what can and must be done to properly reclaim their operations. The NGO provides a letter for the governor confirming that the mining company has seen and understood the process and work involved in mine reclamation; otherwise, local permission to mine in Uyanga district will not be provided.

Increasingly, artisanal miners who we’ve met with are recognizing the need to improve their environmental responsibility in order to have their profession accepted in their local communities, and also so that local authorities will be more compelled to officially provide them access to local land to mine. While the sector faces many challenges, if the environmental and social impacts are effectively managed, artisanal mining has the potential to provide sustainable livelihoods for many rural citizens in addition to its significant contributions to the Mongolian economy.

The activities related to artisanal and small-scale mining under the Foundation’s Engaging Stakeholders for Environmental Conservation (ESEC) program are implemented with the generous support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

Meloney C. Lindberg is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in Mongolia and Bolormaa Purevjav is the program director for the Foundation’s ESEC program there. They can be reached at mlindberg@asiafound.org and bolormaa@asiafound.org, respectively. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors and not those of The Asia Foundation.

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More than 75 percent of Asia-Pacific countries lack water security, according to a new report released last week by the Asian Development Bank. Compared to other regions, South Asia is a hot spot where inequity of access to water is the highest. The region supports more than 21 percent of the world’s population, but has access to just over 8 percent of global water resources. As rapid population growth and urbanization increase demand, water is increasingly a scarce and precious resource in South Asia.

The Teesta flood plain covers nearly 14 percent of the total cropped area of Bangladesh, providing livelihood opportunities directly to approximately 7.3 percent of the population, or 9.15 million people. Photo/Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association

Even as the complex environmental consequences of climate change, deteriorating river ecology, and growing urbanization continue to unfold new challenges for the region, South Asia’s water woes could be significantly mitigated through improved water governance of its major transboundary rivers: the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra, which straddle international boundaries and support the lives of an estimated 700 million people. Effective regional cooperation in managing these and other transboundary rivers in the region will only be achieved when countries work together.

The Asia Foundation recently concluded a study on the political economy of the Teesta River Basin, in partnership with civil society organizations in India and Bangladesh. Based on field work on either side of the India and Bangladesh border, the study examined the social, political and economic factors influencing basin governance, and mapped key stakeholders, their incentives, relative stakes, and capacity to influence water governance decisions in the basin. The Teesta River originates in the northeastern Indian state of Sikkim and flows through West Bengal before entering Bangladesh. It has been a source of dispute for decades as both countries have significant populations that depend on the Teesta’s waters for food, energy, and livelihoods. For example, the Teesta flood plain covers nearly 14 percent of the total cropped area of Bangladesh, providing livelihood opportunities directly to approximately 7.3 percent of the population, or 9.15 million people, in five districts of Rangpur. The Teesta River Basin is a fascinating microcosm of the complexity that surrounds the politics of transboundary water governance in South Asia.

Through the study, we discovered that a host of individuals and groups have found little voice in the formal negotiation process about how the Teesta’s waters are shared between India and Bangladesh. These include fishermen and environmental activists interested in maintaining the ecological balance of the river; developers and financial institutions looking to construct mega dams and hydropower projects in the Indian state of Sikkim; farmers in West Bengal and Bangladesh who are putting pressure on their governments to build barrages and irrigation canals as the river hits the plains; “hydrocrats” (hydrologists in the national capitals of both countries) who disagree with their foreign affairs colleagues on the meaning of “national interest;” and hundreds of thousands of farmers on both sides of the border who are marginalized, and who suffer up to eight months of drought and floods year after year.

With such a broad range of stakeholders with an interest in the river and its management, arriving at a widely acceptable solution is a difficult task. One of the study’s key takeaways is that workable solutions in transboundary water governance will not materialize until the following three features of South Asian water governance policies change:

• The discourse on transboundary water becomes less nationalistic so that reasonable compromises are possible in water negotiations.

• Benefit sharing is broadly constructed beyond just volumetric measures of water that reduce negotiations to a zero-sum game. In the Teesta River Basin, for instance, lean season augmentation of river flows has seldom been discussed, the bilateral negotiations to date have mostly centered on the quantity of water that each country can claim.

• The search for workable solutions is no longer limited to within state hydrocracies alone, but rather involves a larger set of actors within as well as outside the state.

While these changes will not happen overnight, the report identifies the following strategies to help promote the process of reform:

Working with an unbundled state. The state is made up multiple individuals, groups, and agencies that compete for resources and power. They carry different perspectives on necessary policy responses and are able to provide checks and balances on the system. For example, the courts, the parliament, and political parties all have varying degrees of influence over formal policy processes. It is necessary for civil society and other stakeholders to identify and engage with a diverse set of actors within the state to drive reform efforts rather than to wait for state hydrocracies to evolve.

Dialogue first, negotiations second. Negotiations on transboundary water are state-controlled, single-track processes that have failed to understand the diversity of claims on water and the potential for benefit sharing of transboundary rivers. This has kept broadly agreeable solutions on transboundary water from emerging. An expanded, multi-track dialogue process can actually change the agenda of negotiation and help to make it broader in terms of the potential for benefit sharing. On the Teesta alone, negotiations have been going on for over four decades. Unless approached differently, an alternate result is not likely to materialize in the future.

Alignment of stakeholder interests. Our analysis suggests there are shared interests between different sets of stakeholders in the Teesta River Basin. For instance, civil society activists in Sikkim are seeking to protect the ecological health of the river by limiting hydropower and dam development on the Teesta to ensure a basic minimum flow in the river. Their interest matches those of boatmen and fishermen in Rangpur, Bangladesh, where availability of water in the dry season is affecting transit and fishing activities. Such alignments can be fostered and used to build grassroots coalitions around shared objectives.

Transboundary CSO coalitions. Civil society organizations can serve as important conduits for fostering dialogue and linking grassroots issues to the negotiation process. In particular, CSOs can work outside the confines of foreign policy, work across borders to engage with a range of stakeholders, and support informal dialogue processes to support formal negotiations. The dialogue platforms provided by transboundary CSO coalitions can help pave the way for more effective formal negotiations between states.

Open access to information. Government monopoly over data and information in the Teesta River Basin has prevented civil society and other non-state actors from effectively engaging and intervening in the river’s management. By bringing a greater volume of information in the public domain, through support for programs on the Right to Information (RTI) and other transparency enhancing activism, state control over data can gradually be eased, opening up new spaces for civil society engagement and participation.

The United Nations has declared 2013 as the International Year for Cooperation on Water, recognizing that “water is a shared resource and its management needs to take into account a wide variety of conflicting interests.” As water scarcity continues to confront South Asia’s populations and economies, understanding the issues, challenges, and opportunities that this study presents is a good place to start, and over time, will be critical to improving transboundary water governance in  the region.

Sagar Prasai is The Asia Foundation’s deputy country representative in Nepal and Mandakini Devasher Surie is the Foundation’s senior program officer in India. They can be reached at sprasai@asiafound.org and mdsurie@asiafound.org respectively. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors and not those of The Asia Foundation.

My colleague Lisa Hook and I are currently in the Pacific Island countries of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), two small island states that face some of the highest risks of natural disasters and climate change. We are here to examine issues and challenges surrounding disaster preparedness, relief, and reconstruction. While in consultations with the Micronesia Conservation Trust and Conservation Society of Pohnpei, representatives shared details about the high risk of water shortages that the outer atolls in FSM and RMI experience annually, particularly in the Yap state of FSM.

A majority of goods need to be imported to these Pacific Island countries, including many food supplies, fuel, construction commodities, and during a disaster, relief and reconstruction supplies. Photo/Lisa Hook

The FSM constitutes four major island groups totaling 607 islands with a population of 106,487, and the RMI is made up of two archipelagic island chains of 29 atolls, each with many small islets, and five single islands with a population of 68,480. Due in part to climate change and also to climate variability, such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon, water insecurity is becoming more severe and more frequent on atolls and islets throughout both of these island nations, which are largely dependent on rainfall as their main fresh water source. Droughts have a severe impact on water availability and quality, agricultural and energy production, and ecosystem health. Depending on the acuteness of water shortages, in some instances, outer atolls have had to seek emergency assistance from state and national government agencies.

Despite this reality, conservation organizations that we have met with said that vulnerability is also a result of a lack of preparedness and capacity to adapt to changes in climate. They expressed an urgent need to develop better drought monitoring and risk management systems, and for outer atolls to have frameworks in place to manage drought risks through integrated methods, including water catchment systems, reverse osmosis machines, and improved watershed management. The FSM in particular needs to develop a coordinated national drought policy. There is also a need for improved monitoring and early warning systems to deliver timely information to decision makers, effective impact assessment procedures, proactive risk management measures, preparedness plans to increase coping capacities, and effective emergency response programs to reduce the impact of droughts.

Mangroves are important to protecting against large ocean waves and salinity intrusion. There are efforts to manage these natural resources, conducted in part by the Conservation Society of Pohnpei, but competing factors, such as local people using them for firewood and coastal development pose some threats. Photo/Lisa Hook

Predictive climate data can also be a powerful tool to increase drought resilience. Small island developing states, like FSM and RMI, can utilize improvements in climate prediction capabilities. The conservation societies warned though that better dissemination and understanding of such information and services, especially for the most vulnerable, is needed in order for them to be helpful. This begins with increasing public awareness about climate change, climate change adaptation, and disaster preparedness. Local conservation societies that are working to educate communities in the outer atolls on water insecurity have the available indigenous resources and talents that can be tapped by larger international organizations to provide the in-depth knowledge and understanding of the local context in order to more effectively implement ecologically sensitive interventions.

Read about The Asia Foundation’s work in the Pacific Islands to prepare communities for effective disaster management.

Kourtnii S. Brown is a program officer and Lisa Hook is a senior program officer for The Asia Foundation’s Environment Programs in San Francisco. They can be reached at kbrown@asiafound.org and lhook@asiafound.org, respectively. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors and not those of The Asia Foundation.

As the world population approaches 9 billion by 2050 and demand for food rises, tackling food security and sustainability is one of the most critical challenges.

What achievements and progress in the area of food sustainability and security have been made in the last decades?

There has been significant progress made in this area since 2009 – both internationally, and from the U.S. government and related foundations. The effort of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs was crucial in what has happened and it has been my privilege to be a volunteer on their task force since early 2008. It established an international effort, called the Global Agricultural Development Initiative, funded by the Gates Foundation. We prepared a proposal of suggested initiatives that could be done by the U.S. and international efforts and presented it to both the McCain and Obama campaigns in time for them to take it to the Republican and Democratic conventions. After the election, Obama’s transition team picked it up and it became the basis for Obama’s initiatives which he began to speak about in 2009, when he suggested a global agricultural initiative at the G20 summit in London. He followed up with more detailed proposal and a pledge at the July 2009 G8 summit in Italy of an additional $3.5 billion over the next three years and that leveraged another $18.5 billion in pledges from other countries and international institutions.

Later that year at the Rome Food Summit, the Rome principles were unanimously endorsed by the 193 countries in attendance and provided the foundation for collective global action on food security. To implement the president’s pledge, then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in May 2010 the Feed the Future program. USAID decided to concentrate its efforts for Feed the Future on five Sub-Saharan Phase II countries and then on the remaining 15 countries, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, and Tajikistan in Asia, that seemed to be ready to effectively implement the Rome principles to feed their population and their families.

But despite this recent focus, there has been a 2-decade long decline in support for agriculture development aid on the part of the wealthy countries. Of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, the proportion of aid that they have provided to developing countries for agriculture development was in the area of 11 percent in the late 1980s and fell to 6 percent in 2008-2009, which led to digression in some areas of progress. Now, under USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, this has been largely reversed in the last year and a half, and that’s been good news.

Undernourishment and poverty is still rife: India struggles to alleviate hunger, as poor distribution, among other problems, left 18 percent of the population, some 217 million people, undernourished from 2010 to 2012. What do you see as the major obstacles here?

We will have an expected 2.3 billion additional people added to the world’s population by 2050, moving from 7 to over 9 billion. There are more desperately poor people at poverty and below poverty levels in India, concentrated in the Northeast, than all of sub-Saharan Africa combined.

It’s estimated that 33 percent growth in population means that we need to somehow provide agricultural development that helps people’s income increase, and of course, as that income increases, there will be different dietary and caloric intakes, so you then have more food being eaten by those you are trying to help. Of course there are also the unknown factors of weather volatility and even more demands for water. Seventy percent of the world’s fresh water is used today by agriculture. The UN says that already 25 percent of the world’s farm land is degraded, causing fertility and erosion problems. At most there might be 12 percent of the world’s land surface that could be cultivated that is not.

There are 560 million people who survive on less than a dollar and a half a day. Approximately 70-80 percent of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas. They live on small farms, predominately women and children, and they rely on subsistence farming. They are highly vulnerable to disasters, to dislocations, to disease. An average African family uses nearly half of their income to feed themselves, compared with the U.S. average family that spends about 6 percent of their income on food. We have inadequate infrastructure, inadequate farm to market roads, transportation capability, and communication capabilities. There is also an access problem created by trade barriers. It’s said that Africa could feed itself – it doesn’t now – if it simply eliminated the trade barriers among African countries, not to mention from developed countries to Africa. There is also rising commodity prices and food price volatility. In late 2007 and in 2008, food crises in many parts of the world, especially in Southeast and South Asia, stemmed from rising energy costs, weather changes, and panic reactions on the part of governments. That wiped out any fragile savings those families might have had, and delayed economic recovery.

Climate change is another challenge. We don’t know what this will do, but there are estimates that suggest effects from climate change are currently reducing the productivity worldwide of about 5-6 percent and that there are estimated to be production declines of  7 percent in at least a quarter of the countries in the world.

What innovations in food production are being made to promote sustainability in preparation of a growing population and increase demand in food?

Much of Southeast Asia depends on rice as a primary food staple. There is good work, some supported by Feed the Future, to adapt plants and seeds for changing growing conditions. For example, the International Rice Institute and USAID have developed types of rice that are now saline and drought resistant. That’s particularly important for a country like Bangladesh, which not only suffers from occasional typhoons, but also droughts.

A new type of sweet potato has been produced in Rwanda that is high in beta carotene, nutrition dense, and produces large amounts of Vitamin A, which is very important to health and nutrition. An estimated 50 million children are affected by Vitamin A deficiencies every year, so this new sweet potato will be very important for them and pregnant women.

In Mali, 70-80 percent of the food, like much of West Africa, is produced by women farmers. The feminization of farming – it’s been going on there for ages, but now it’s recognized and we are trying to increase women’s resources and access to credit, land tenure, and new technologies. It’s been found, and pretty well proven, that if you put the money into the hands of these women farmers, it will result in better healthcare, food, and education for their children. Through Feed the Future, and based on feedback from Mali’s government, we concentrated efforts on a group of women shallot farmers who were using traditional methods that were time consuming and low in productivity. By introducing new equipment, storage facilities, improved plants and seeds, and techniques to a 2,000-member cooperative that they had formed, they dramatically increased their shallot production, which is putting money in their hands for food, health care, and the education of their children.

We are finding that in some places in Africa, the use of the cell phone is widespread, even down to the small holder farmer, and through her phone, she is able to access credit, access extension services where they exist, get information about crops and markets, and other things that are completely life-changing.

What role can NGOs play in supporting the global fight against poverty and ensuring food sustainability?

This takes us right back to the beginning – the efforts of the Chicago Council would probably not have been possible without the support of the Gates Foundation. Also, while I have emphasized the kind of changes that our government has supported, public funds alone are not going to get us there. It’s going to take a leveraged private sector and complementary actions by NGOs in order to broaden this public effort. Compared to the resources that the public sector can put into this, even if it’s going to be 18.5 billion or 21.5 billion every three years, which is hopeful thinking I’m afraid, the private sector can put in even more if they are motivated and convinced that the risks are such that they can make a profit. We can help the private sector focus on how they can make money by helping a network of small holders with new seeds, technology, and plants. In many cases, the most effective agents to take the new resources and technologies and get it applied by subsistence farmers and others is an NGO that has the trust and confidence in the people on the ground to accomplish it.

For the past 30 years, Asia has been urbanizing at a faster rate than any other region in the world. In 2011, Asia was home to roughly 61 percent of the world’s population, or 4.2 billion people. More than 40 percent of them now live in urban areas. By 2025, Asia will have 21 of the world’s 37 megacities; over the next 30 years, another 1.1 billion Asians are expected to move to urban centers.

Some Asian city planners have realized the benefits of green growth and have chosen to aggressively embark on making sustainable investments in low-carbon transit systems, energy-efficient buildings, and climate change-resilient infrastructure.

Cities  – though they occupy just 2 percent of the world’s land – consume 75 percent of the planet’s resources and generate a similar percentage of waste. Therefore, “greening” cities can be a very efficient and impactful way to reduce resource use and help the environment. High population densities can make the process of supplying essential municipal services (such as energy, transport, and water) far more efficient and cost-effective. At the same time, if urban development is not sustainably managed, then the growth of cities can instead be a catalyst for sharp rises in air pollution, slum dwellings, widening economic and social inequalities, energy waste, and environmental degradation.

Unfortunately, the majority of Asia’s cities currently represent the latter development path. According to a recent Asian Development Bank report, half of the world’s most polluted cities are in Asia, mainly due to their high rates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil-fuel powered vehicles and coal-fired power plants. More than three quarters of Asian cities (compared to 11 percent of non-Asian cities) fail to meet the European Union’s air quality standard for particulate matter, and air pollution in Asia leads to the death of 500,000 people each year. Between 2000 and 2008, average per capita GHG emissions in Asia increased by 97 percent (as opposed to only 18 percent for the rest of the world). If GHG emissions levels continue to rise unabated in the region, the impact on global health, climate change, and rising sea levels will be extremely detrimental.

The overall economic costs and risks to human security associated with environmental degradation, growing slum areas, and lack of investments in proper infrastructure – especially in coastal and large river basin areas – make Asia’s cities some of the most vulnerable to natural disasters in the world. Rising Asian urban populations mean that over 400 million people may be at risk of coastal flooding and roughly 350 million at risk of inland flooding by 2025 (with Bangkok, Dhaka, Manila, Jakarta, and Shanghai among the metropolises at highest risk).

By contrast, sustainable urban economic growth has the potential to improve living standards and bring millions out of poverty. Some Asian city planners have realized the benefits of green growth and have chosen to aggressively embark on making sustainable investments in low-carbon transit systems, energy-efficient buildings, and climate change-resilient infrastructure. By building on the science and technology advancements in other regions in the world and adapting it to their own urban development models, these new “smart cities” or “green cities” are beginning to crop up across the continent, employing innovations in renewable resources, green space, recycling, energy-saving buildings, and other environmentally friendly measures.

Songdo International Business District, 40 miles from South Korea’s capital, Seoul, is a prime example of a “smart city” that brings together the world’s best technologies, building design, and eco-friendly practices to create the ultimate green lifestyle and work experience. Songdo, which opened in 2009, was built over the last decade from scratch on reclaimed mudflat lands. Cisco Network and Gale International companies invested more than $40 billion in ICT networks that help regulate electricity and water use in all of the city’s buildings, curbing waste and cutting operating costs and reserving almost 40 percent of land for green space. About 125 miles southeast of Beijing, Caofeidian is another pilot “green city” currently being developed from the ground up by the Swedish firm SWECO with specific environmental goals, such as ensuring that 60 percent of all trips in the city are conducted through public transport, and that average water use is capped at 180 liters per person daily (in comparison to other Asian cities that use on average 278 liters per person of water per day).

Other, more nuanced illustrations of already existing green solutions in Asian cities (primarily to reduce air pollution and energy waste), include low-cost electric vehicles in the Philippines, urban metro rail systems in Vietnam, inland waterway transport in China, and bus rapid transit (BRT) systems in Bangladesh, China, and Mongolia. The BRT in Guangzhou, China, for example, has successfully increased bus speeds by 30 percent, saving about 6.63 minutes per trip, and customer satisfaction has risen by 36 percent. Singapore’s water conservation program demonstrates how a tiered tariff that charges heavy water users a higher rate and imposes a water conservation tax has managed to cut domestic water consumption from 165 liters a day per person in 2003 to 154 liters a day per person last year.

A rapid scaling up of investments in these types of green approaches are what’s needed to reduce energy use in cities, as well as other undesirable impacts associated with dirty energy production, and could prevent the region’s environment from further deterioration. Asia is in a unique position to take advantage of its “late-comer” developing economies status by embracing green technology transfers from countries that are pioneering sustainable urban growth and design, as well as fostering new technological innovations that are adapted to Asia-specific vulnerabilities. To achieve this, Asia must begin to more efficiently and effectively manage its urbanization process in terms of city form, design, development density, industry, and logistics systems.

In March, The Asia Foundation and the Korea Development Institute (KDI) will co-host the ongoing dialogue series on Asian Approaches to Development Cooperation, which will focus on providing essential knowledge exchange on climate change, low-carbon growth, and green urbanization in the region. Read more.

Kourtnii S. Brown is a program officer for The Asia Foundation’s Environment Programs in San Francisco. She can be reached at kbrown@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.