In an attempt to get attention in a hard market, the UN University has contrasted mobile penetration in India with toilet penetration in India. If telephones had been left to government, unlikely this contrast could have been drawn. So the conclusion? Get multiple parties to participate in building toilets. Far more people in India have access to a mobile phone than to a toilet, according to a UN study on how to improve sanitation levels globally.
From 13-15 October, 2008, The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) with support from the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction – Platform for the Promotion of Early Warning (UNISDR-PPEW) and the United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) organized the Second United Nations International UN-SPIDER Workshop on “Disaster Management and Space Technology – Bridging the Gap” in Bonn, Germany. LIRNEasia researcher, Natasha Udu-gama was one of 134 participants representing 49 countries. The 3-day UN-SPIDER workshop was notable in that it featured a number of German and international presentations on the themes of Session 1: “Space technology in support of risk and disaster management”, Session 2: “Vulnerability and Risk Assessment”, Session 3: “Contributions of space-based technologies to existing and proposed early warning systems”, and Session 4: “Disaster Medicine, Telemedicine and Integrated Vector Management (IVM)”. Natasha Udu-gama presented on “Last Mile Hazard Information Dissemination” during Session 3 highlighting the usage of WorldSpace Addressable Radios for Emergency Alerts (AREA) systems as appropriate for last-mile hazard information dissemination in the LIRNEasia pilot project “Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination”. The presentation also presented sustainability models for WorldSpace in Bangladesh and Indonesia, while demonstrating […]