Development: June 2006 Archives

"[T]here is already a relatively significant installed capacity for production of ethanol in Central America, especially in Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica."

HAVANA, Jun 23 (IPS) - The countries of Latin America are turning more and more to plans for the use and development of ethanol, or alcohol made from sugar cane, as they are feeling an ever-pressing need to diversify their sources of energy for economic and environmental reasons.

Colombia, one of the countries most advanced in this respect after Brazil, the region's undisputed leader, now produces between 900,000 and one million litres a day of ethanol. In 60 percent of the national territory, the petrol sold is a mandatory blend containing 10 percent ethanol.

"The idea is to extend that to the entire country," Julio Ce'sar Vera, director of hydrocarbons in the Colombian Ministry of Mines and Energy, told IPS. "We have already begun to carry out studies for raising the proportion of alcohol in petrol to 20 percent over the next five to 10 years."

"About one billion people worldwide live in slums, of whom 134 million are in Latin America and the Caribbean"

SANTIAGO, Jun 23 (IPS) - In Uruguay, 16,000 families have a proper home as a result of housing construction cooperatives, while in Bolivia people living in the ravines of La Paz have a system to deal with housing risks thanks to a non-governmental network.. And further south, in Chile, self-build social housing projects are mushrooming.

Improvement in urban living conditions, mainly ensuring basic sanitation, drinking water, security of tenure, adequate size and safety of location, is one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2000. The world target is to achieve significant improvement in the living conditions of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.

Village ladies are collecting water from a well in Ananda Nagar for their daily household needs. This is one of hundreds of water conservation projects which are serving the needs of the poor people of 55 villages around Ananda Nagar Master Unit (an all-round development project established by Shrii P. R. Sarkar) located at Baglata village of Purulia District, West Bengal - India. (please click on the image to enlarge)

"Eliminating hunger and making sure all Brazilians are able to eat three square meals a day was one of Lula's main campaign pledges in 2002."

(IPS) - This decade will be marked by the reduction of inequality in Brazil, just as the 1990s brought currency stability and the universalisation of primary education, according to Marcelo Neri, the head of the Getulio Vargas Foundation's Centre for Social Policies.

Brazil has the most unequal distribution of income in Latin America, which is the most unequal region in the world.

But economic inequality in Brazil has been diminishing at a fast pace since 2001, with the per capita income of the poor growing "at a Chinese-style rate," which is expected to continue this year, Neri told IPS.

Full story: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33655