FROM THE COMPILER'S DESK

Welcome to the September 2009 edition of ‘REEDS NEWS’. The festive season had begun but the spirit of celebrations is certainly not as usual for many people. It is an irony that until few weeks back where states like Andhra Pradesh were facing a draught like situation due to failure of monsoon, suddenly experiencing unprecedented and massive scale of floods caused by torrential rains displacing millions of people. Blame it on climatic change? Whatever, it is high time for the policy makers and all the stakeholders to work on measures in sustained set of actions that improve society’s capacity to, anticipate, mitigate, withstand and recover from water-related problems towards managing the water as an Economic Good. Our collective future depends on it. At the moment, it is for us all to do our bit to help those whose lives have been disrupted by the calamity.

Another sad event during September was the demise of Dr. YS Rajasekhar Reddy, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. More than anything else, his commitment towards the rescue and revival of rural economies across the state will be remembered for a long time to come. While we gratefully recollect the moments of receiving the Letter of Appreciation from him on 1st November 2008, for REEDS extensive involvement in the areas of health and sanitation, we hereby pay rich tributes to the inspiring leader and visionary.




Ravi K Reddy, October 9, 2009

INSIDE THE ORGANIZATION

REEDS is able to make a reasonable mark of difference in all its initiatives aimed towards improved quality of life of rural communities so far: Safe Drinking Water, Health & Sanitation Awareness; and Rain Water Harvesting. However, it is certainly a disappointment to note that one of the REEDS' initiatives towards Life Skills Development remain unrealized. One of the initiative, Demand driven Skills empowerment, is being conceptualized for establishing a mechanism to offer in scale, sustained empowerment of rural population by addressing the need of integrated and one-stop-facility for livelihood promotion - making accessible employability opportunities to those who are constrained by low income levels, lack of formal education, inadequate skills, and little bargaining power at economic/social level and connect them to the market oriented opportunities for livelihood enhancement that contribute towards equitable economic growth of the society. We appreciate and solicit your valuable ideas, suggestions and support to accomplish this objective early.

FACTS THAT MATTER

• About 1.2 billion workers around the world were living with their families in poverty prior to the onset of the economic crisis in 2007 of which about 620 million living in extreme poverty of less than USD 1.25 per day. The current economic crisis poses a grave threat to the livelihoods, health and wellbeing of millions.
• Global unemployment could increase by between 29 million and 59 million unemployed people in 2009 versus 2007 taking the total global unemployment in 2009 to between 210 million and 239 million and this scenario imply severe labour market distress worldwide and deterioration in other labour market indicators.

Source: ILO’s The Global Employment Trends, May 2009

HAPPENINGS

A central figure in the "green revolution", Norman Ernest Borlaug died on 12 September 2009 at the age of 95. Prof. Dr. Norman, a Nobel Prize winning scientist shall be remembered for his great services and contributions to Agriculture saving of hundreds of millions of lives of the people of Asia and Latin America. Borlaug's breakthrough technology had increased crop yields in Pakistan and India fourfold making these traditionally food deficit countries self-sufficient in an amazingly short time, saving hundreds of millions of lives. Because of his achievements to prevent hunger, famine and misery around the world, it is said that Dr. Borlaug has "saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived." REEDS join rest of the world in paying homage to this great change maker.