Tác giả: Đào Thu Hằng

I'm from Hanoi, Viet Nam. I'm an author of Dot Chuoi Non (dotchuoinon.com/author/hangbelu/), a blog on Positive thinking, founded by Dr. Tran Dinh Hoanh, an attorney in Washington DC. I'm a co-founder of Conversations on Vietnam Development - cvdvn.net, a virtual think tank. I am a co-founder of two companies in Viet Nam working on children education services. I advise companies on STEAM education, English language education for children and students in Vietnam. I'm studying the Buddha's teaching and the teaching of Jesus. I practice mindful living including meditation. I hold a PhD on Sustainable Energy Systems from University of Lisbon and Aalto University. I graduated from Hanoi University of Technology on Environmental Engineering. I obtained a Master degree of the same major from Stanford University and Nanyang Technological University. My English-language blog at: hangbelu.wordpress/. I play table tennis as a hobby.

Why the Future Is Bright for the World’s Poorest Farmers

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
By Bill Gates | January 20, 2016
Gatenotes.com – I have probably learned more about farming in Africa from Sam Dryden than from any other person. Sam has been spent decades working in agriculture, including a stint at the Gates Foundation, and he is passionate about improving the lives of the poorest. So when he asked me to contribute to a series of articles in Foreign Affairs on the future of farming and its role in fighting poverty, I was happy to do it. My essay is below. You can download the whole series—which includes authors like Kofi Annan and Sir Gordon Conway—here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlwnUVjEhsU

One thing I’ve learned in my work with Microsoft is that the process of innovation tends to take longer than many people expect, but it also tends to be more revolutionary than they imagine. We are seeing this dynamic play out right now in the way digital technology is fundamentally reorganizing life for the poorest people in the world.

Twenty years ago, when the Internet was brand new, a lot of people thought computers would quickly become part of daily life in developing countries. And when I say “a lot of people,” I include myself. But those people weren’t thinking about all the facts.

In 1997, I traveled to South Africa for the first time. I spent most of my time in big office buildings in downtown Johannesburg. One day, though, I took a side trip to Soweto, where Microsoft was donating computers and software to a community center—the same kind of thing we did in the United States. Tiếp tục đọc “Why the Future Is Bright for the World’s Poorest Farmers” →

In Asia, supporting women farmers crucial to fighting poverty, hunger and climate change

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Oxfam International – Tue, 12 Jan 2016 11:35 GMT

Author: Airah Cadiogan, Oxfam Philippines

At the first Asia Women Farmer Forum, women farmers from 14 developing countries came together to exchange experiences on securing their right to land and enhancing their resilience in the face of climate change. Diah Dwiandani/Oxfam

Thomsonreutersfoundation – At the first Asia Women Farmer Forum, women farmers from 14 developing countries came together to exchange experiences on securing their right to land and enhancing their resilience in the face of climate change. Diah Dwiandani/Oxfam

On that same evening, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, women farmers from 14 developing countries – leaders and climate experts in their own right – were getting ready to head back home. They had just attended the first Asia Women Farmer Forum organized by Oxfam as part of its Asia GROW Campaign to bring women together to discuss the challenges they have faced in securing their rights and enhancing their resilience in a changing climate.

“A woman farmer who goes to bed hungry is just wrong,” said Janice Ian Manlutac, Resilience lead for Oxfam in Asia, “But this is a daily reality in many Asian countries, where women make up 50 per cent of the total agricultural workforce.”

Norly Grace Mercado, Oxfam’s Asia GROW Campaign Coordinator, added: “Women have far less access than men to productive resources like land, livestock, education, and agricultural extension and financial services. Our research has also shown that women farmers work up to 16 hours in the field but only share 10 per cent of the profit.”

To put faces to numbers, participants of the forum shared their struggles and, most importantly, their stories of courage in the face of unfavorable odds. Tiếp tục đọc “In Asia, supporting women farmers crucial to fighting poverty, hunger and climate change” →

Food firms failing to tackle nutrition crisis

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
By Vaidehi Shah

Tuesday 19 January 2016

Rising obesity and malnutrition are indicators that a global nutrition crisis is mounting, but the world’s largest food and beverage (F&B) companies are not doing enough to solve it, a new study says.

canada candy
Candy on a supermarket shelf in Edmonton, Canada. One in three people globally is either overweight or undernourished. Image: Tyler McKay / Shutterstock.com

ecobusiness – Rising rates of obesity and malnourishment indicate that a global nutrition crisis is mounting, but the world’s largest food and beverage (F&B) companies are not doing enough to solve it, a new study says.

Released on Thursday in London, the Global Access to Nutrition Index report found that while leading food firms have made some progress towards improving consumers’ diets, there is much more the sector can do to tackle these widespread issues.

The index, which was first launched by the Netherlands-based non-profit Access to Nutrition Foundation (ANF) in 2013 and is now in its second edition, assesses the 22 largest food companies on how well their corporate strategy, product offering and marketing efforts address obesity and under-nutrition. Tiếp tục đọc “Food firms failing to tackle nutrition crisis” →

‘Unruly’ ‘rebels’? The situation of defenders working on corporate accountability in East Asia

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Governments, business, and ASEAN and UN bodies must act to respect and protect individuals, organisations and communities working to promote corporate accountability in East Asia in the face of mounting attacks and worsening restrictions against human rights defenders and corporate accountability activists in the region. 

ISHR – (Geneva/Bangkok) – Human rights defenders working to promote corporate respect for human rights or accountability for business-related human rights violations face significant challenges across the East Asia region, regardless of the country or sector in which they work. In a joint report released publicly today, the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) and the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) draw from information from nine different national-level human rights organisations to highlight country-specific concerns and to provide recommendations to improve the situation for defenders. Tiếp tục đọc “‘Unruly’ ‘rebels’? The situation of defenders working on corporate accountability in East Asia” →

Health care in Vietnam Limping along

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Ordinary folk are sick and tired of their public hospitals

Full to overflowing

economist – WAS the tumour malignant? Nguyen Thi Hoat’s doctors could not tell because their public hospital lacks brain-scanners. Ms Hoat’s only option was to travel 130km (80 miles), on the back of her sister’s motorbike, from her village to a crowded public hospital in the capital. Yet her state insurance policy covers just 30% of any medical expenses incurred outside her home province. The $150 that Ms Hoat, a rice farmer, put towards blood tests and a brain scan is equal, for her, to a month’s earnings.

It is the job of the authorities to look after health care. The Communist Party of Vietnam first pledged health-sector reform as early as the 1920s, well before it declared the country independent in 1945. It developed a publicly financed health-care system even as it was fighting wars against France and then America. The provision of health care is supposed to be one of the pillars on which the party’s legitimacy is based.
Tiếp tục đọc “Health care in Vietnam Limping along” →

Finnish education guru Pasi Sahlberg: treat primary school teachers like doctors

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Finnish education leader Pasi Sahlberg discusses what works and what doesn’t in education. pasisahlberg.com

The Finnish education system is one of the best performing and most equitable in the OECD.

theconversation – With Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s promise to make Australia one of the best five performing countries for education in the world, what can we learn from the Scandinavians?

One answer might be more simple than we think: elevate teachers to the same social and professional status we hold doctors and other people with whom we trust with vital aspects of our health and well-being.

Today The Conversation presents a discussion between two of the world’s leading education experts on how Australia can learn from others and improve its educational outcomes.

Pasi Sahlberg is Director General of the Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation (CIMO) in the Ministry of Education in Finland. He has worked as a teacher, teacher-educator, policy advisor and director, and for the World Bank and European Commission.

Professor John Hattie is director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education. His influential 2008 book Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement is believed to be the world’s largest evidence-based study into the factors which improve student learning. Tiếp tục đọc “Finnish education guru Pasi Sahlberg: treat primary school teachers like doctors” →

Malaysia to Ban Bauxite Mining for 3 Months to Cut Pollution

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
January 6, 2016 — 8:33 AM GMT Updated on January 6, 2016 — 10:52 AM GMT
  • Country supplied more than 40% of China’s imports last year
  • Suspension starts Jan. 15 as government seeks to tighten rules

bloomberg – Malaysia, the biggest shipper of bauxite to China, will stop mining ore for three months to cut river and sea pollution, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Wan Junaidi Jaafar said.

The ban takes effect from Jan. 15 in Pahang, the largest producing state, Wan Junaidi told reporters. Exports will be allowed during the moratorium to reduce port inventories, and after the suspension the government will limit bauxite production to the capacity to ship the material, he said on Wednesday.

Malaysia supplied more than 40 percent of China’s imports of the aluminum-making raw material last year after Indonesia imposed a ban on shipments in January 2014. China produces about half the world’s aluminum used in everything from aircraft to door frames and drink cans. The country’s exports of the metal and its products surged 36 percent in November from the previous month, helping push global prices down 19 percent in 2015. Tiếp tục đọc “Malaysia to Ban Bauxite Mining for 3 Months to Cut Pollution” →

Vietnam begins huge effort to identify war dead

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

World’s largest systematic identification project will use smart DNA-testing technology.

12 January 2016 Article tools

KHAM/Reuters/Corbis

Vietnam’s Viet-Laos cemetery contains the remains of thousands of people who died in the Vietnam War — but most are still unidentified.

Nature – Digging foundations for temples or schools, harvesting rice in paddy fields: these are some of the ways that the decaying remains of Vietnam War victims still turn up, 40 years after the conflict ended. Now an effort has begun that will use smart DNA technologies to identify the bones of the half a million or more Vietnamese soldiers and civilians who are thought still to be missing.

Related stories

More related stories

It is the largest ever systematic identification effort; only the identification of more than 20,000 victims of armed conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1990s comes close.

“When I was a 21-year-old in the medical corps there, I never imagined that such a project could ever become possible,” says Vietnam veteran and genomics pioneer Craig Venter, head of the J. Craig Venter Institute in La Jolla, California. “We thought of body counts as statistics — now, decades later, it may be possible to put names to them.”

Although the United States has repatriated and identified most of its war dead, Vietnam has so far identified just a few hundred people, using outdated techniques. Yet people in Vietnam remain desperate to acquire the remains of family members. Tiếp tục đọc “Vietnam begins huge effort to identify war dead” →

The Dubious Promise of Bioenergy Plus Carbon Capture

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Climate change agreements rest on negative emissions technologies that may be unachievable.

technologyreview – While many scientists and climate change activists hailed December’s Paris agreement as a historic step forward for international efforts to limit global warming, the landmark accord rests on a highly dubious assumption: to achieve the goal of limiting the rise in global average temperature to less than 2 °C (much less the more ambitious goal of 1.5 °C), we don’t just need to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide to essentially zero by the end of this century. We also must remove from the atmosphere huge amounts of carbon dioxide that have already been emitted (see “Paris Climate Agreement Rests on Shaky Technological Foundations”).

Doing so will involve “negative emissions technologies”—systems that capture carbon dioxide and store it, usually deep underground. Such technologies are theoretical at best, but they are considered critical for achieving the Paris goals. Of the 116 scenarios reviewed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to achieve stabilization of carbon in the atmosphere at between 430 and 480 parts per million (the level considered necessary for a maximum 2 °C rise in temperature), 101 involve some form of negative emissions. Tiếp tục đọc “The Dubious Promise of Bioenergy Plus Carbon Capture” →

What’s really important about China’s stock market disaster, and what’s not

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
By Matt O’Brien January 7

(Reuters)

Washingtonpost – You can only defy financial gravity for so long. At some point, what went up for no reason must come down for a very good one, no matter what the government does to try to keep it aloft.

Which is to say that it was another disastrous day for Chinese stocks. On the plus side, though, it was a short one. Indeed, China’s market was only open for 14 minutes on Thursday before it fell the maximum 7 percent it’s allowed to in a single session. It’s the second time that’s happened this week, enough to erase almost all its gains since the summer. Tiếp tục đọc “What’s really important about China’s stock market disaster, and what’s not” →

5 reasons to be worried about health security in Asia

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Published on Thursday, 17 December 2015

Pharmacy at a health clinic in Poipet, Cambodia.
Pharmacy at a health clinic in Poipet, Cambodia.

blogs.adb.org – If you live in Asia and the Pacific, do you ever wonder how high your risk is of contracting antimicrobial-resistant bacteria or emerging infectious diseases such as a new strain of avian influenza? Unfortunately, I have to tell you that the risk here is higher that in any other region in the world.

1. South and Southeast Asia are epicenters for antimicrobial resistance.

South and Southeast Asia are home to the highest number of major bacterial pathogens for which there is antimicrobial resistance. Most developing countries in the region do not monitor or reinforce standards in antibiotic use and prescription, and the limited available data paints a picture of widespread non-compliance with antibiotic treatment regimen. Self-medication with antibiotics available over-the-counter is common throughout Asia, and an estimated 50% of patients fail to follow the recommended antibiotics course of treatment, mainly because it’s expensive. Traces of antimicrobials used in the animal husbandry sector find their way into the food chain; so most of the meat that was not grown organically was likely treated with antibiotics. Even fish is often bathed in antibiotic solution in many commercial fisheries. And of course the water you drink might also be contaminated due to lack of adequate water treatment plants. Constant exposure to antibiotics increases the risk of developing antimicrobial resistance.

2. Asia is a hotspot for emerging infectious diseases.

Asia as where new emerging infectious diseases are most likely to originate, particularly zoonosis (diseases transmitted from animals), vector-borne diseases and drug-resistant pathogens. This is evident in the increasing frequency of these events over the last decade and is correlated directly with socio-economic, environmental and ecological factors. Numerous outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases have had a huge impact in Asia. SARS rapidly decimated tourism to the region in 2003, costing the industry $18 billion or approximately $2 million per person infected. The H5N1 virus had a profound effect on the poultry industry: in 2003-2004 Viet Nam culled 45 million birds and lost $118 million, while a Thai ban on poultry reduced the country’s income from poultry exports by 93%, from $598 million in 2003 to $44 million in 2004.

3. Health risks are increasing in Asia.

Asia is one of the most globalized, mobile regions in the world, and trade facilitates the rapid spread of diseases that otherwise may have been contained by geographical boundaries. Climate change and the associated rise in temperature and flooding lead to more vector-borne diseases such as chikungunya, malaria and dengue. Pollution and natural disasters are also significant risk factors for respiratory tract infections and water-borne diseases.

4. Fragmented supply chains impact the efficiency of drugs and vaccines.

Too much medicine that needs cold storage but is exposed to heat and humid environments can lead to an overestimation of actual effective vaccination coverage and decreased efficacy of medicines – both contributing to increasing risk of disease outbreaks. You might have seen this affect in your own children, who have been vaccinated in Asia but still developed certain diseases they were supposed to be protected against because the vaccine probably wasn’t effective anymore.

5. Unregulated health service providers.

Chronic under-investment in public health systems has resulted in private sector provision of health services, which are often unregulated (threatening quality) and not required to report routinely to health management information systems. A consequence of this data gap is that critical information on incidence of infectious diseases or drug resistance identified in the private sector takes much longer to reach public health sector officials.

The above risks can only be addressed with strengthened health systems and increased accountability, both of which arise from collaboration between countries and development partners to invest in public health services. To combat health threats and to avoid significant economic losses, we must step up health financing and redouble their efforts in cross-sector, cross-border and regional coordination on health policies and practices.

Investing in health systems today will yield not only direct health and economic benefits tomorrow, but will also help protect populations from emerging health threats both within and beyond the region. Donors outside of the region must continue to support health system strengthening in Asia, as weak health systems in any country can pose threats to their own public health and economic security.

Health is having the same disease as your neighbor – so make sure your neighbor has no diseases.

Family planning in Vietnam Running deer

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

A draft population law looks ill-considered and discriminatory

Reinvigorating agricultural productivity in the Lower Mekong

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
November 27, 2015 1:00 pm JST
Aladdin D. Rillo and Mercedita A. Sombilla

asia.nikkei.com – The green revolution has done wonders for Asia. Yields for most crops, particularly the region’s main staple of rice, have doubled over recent decades. In the Lower Mekong Delta, considered to be Asia’s rice bowl, the new technologies and crop strains that the green revolution brought were a big success.

Cambodian farmers load vegetables onto a cart for transport to market, at a farm in Kandal Province, south of Phnom Penh, on Oct. 16, which was World Food Day. © AP

Rice production in the Lower Mekong countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam soared 68% between 1980 and 1995. During the same period, average yields more than doubled from their levels in the 1960s to about 3.5 tons per hectare. Total land area planted with rice also increased by around 25% to 16.3 million hectares between 1996 and 2005.

      By the end of 2013, however, the gains seemed to have leveled off. Between 2006 and 2013, average yield growth slowed to 22% across all of the Lower Mekong countries except Cambodia, as growth in rice production slid to 36%.

The slower trends in yield and production growth were not unique to the Lower Mekong. They also applied to the rest of Asia for various reasons. Chief among them is that green revolution technologies, particularly new rice seed varieties, had become exhausted. Poor land and water quality were also culprits in the drop-off, along with inadequate farm management practices and the rapid conversion of farmland to non-agricultural use. Eroding profit margins due to a decline in the price of rice on global markets exacted a heavy toll as well.

Low productivity

There is reason for alarm at the change. Agriculture still provides 10% of Asia’s value-added output and is an important source of employment as about 45% of jobs in Asia are in rural areas. With declining yields and production, this means that productivity, the value of output per worker, will decline further. Tiếp tục đọc “Reinvigorating agricultural productivity in the Lower Mekong” →

How a Vietnamese Refugee Is Rethinking Food Delivery in America

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Munchery CEO Tri Tran opens up about his harrowing journey to Silicon Valley.

January 5, 2016

Brad Stone BradStone

Munchery’s roasted chicken with frisée, walnut, and blue cheese salad.

Bloomberg.com – Tri Tran was always looking for something better to eat than government gruel. He grew up in the desperately lean decade after the end of the Vietnam War, in the small city of Ba Ria, about 50 miles southeast of Ho Chi Minh City. Because his parents were public school teachers, they received discounts on rations of rice, root vegetables, and a paste made from sorghum, which his mother cooked together. The paste was barely enough to subsist on and gave Tran terrible digestive problems. So he, his older brother, Trac, and their father occasionally sneaked into desiccated rice fields to gather wild vegetables and, if they were lucky, paddy crabs.

Tran’s parents knew their sons faced limited prospects. Tran was only 11 years old in 1986, but he remembers failed escape attempts, brokered by shady operators who skirted the communist government’s prohibition on leaving the country. Once, the family stowed away in a canoe and paddled into the middle of Ganh Rai Bay to meet a larger boat that never arrived. Later, walking back from the bay after another failed attempt, they were caught by police and thrown in jail for 24 hours.
Tiếp tục đọc “How a Vietnamese Refugee Is Rethinking Food Delivery in America” →

Migration and refugees

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

ODI – Development is migration: millions leave their countries each year in search of opportunities and better lives. People also leave their homes to escape conflict, repression or environmental disasters. Remittances – the money that people send home from abroad – accounts for nearly 600 billion dollars, dwarfing global aid budgets.

Our research and high-level debates on the crisis in the Mediterranean and, more recently, on the Syrian refugee crisis, examine how we can meet these global challenges – and the role of international development to better manage global migration.

Through research, events, media engagement and partnerships, ODI offers evidence to lay bare the political and economic realities of migration and to inform the public debate.

Specifically, we focus on three areas: refugees and displacement, European migration policy and human mobility.