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.

Juvenile abortion rate remains high

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
A range of obstetrics and gynecology clinics sit along Giai Phong Street, across from Bach Mai Hospital. — Illustrative photo vietnamnet.vn

Vietnamnews.vn – HA NOI (VNS) — A range of obstetrics and gynecology clinics sit along Giai Phong Street, across from Bach Mai Hospital.

Staff members wearing white blouses wait at the front doors of those private facilities, ready to approach anyone who passes by slowly or appears to be seeking an abortion. Tiếp tục đọc “Juvenile abortion rate remains high” →

What the VW Scandal Means for Clean Diesel

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

The revelations about Volkswagen’s diesel emissions hurt not only the German carmaker, but the diesel industry overall.

The cars in question include the Passat, Jetta, Beetle, Golf, and Audi A3.

MITtechnologyreview – When Volkswagen debuted the so-called “clean diesel” Jetta TDI sedan and wagon in 2009, it was regarded as something of a breakthrough. The company claimed its new diesel technology would reduce emissions—most notably soot and nitrogen oxides (NOx)—without disrupting the car’s exemplary efficiency or performance.

We now know that unsuspecting owners of some 500,000 VW diesel cars in the United States—and as many as 11 million worldwide—were all the while subjecting themselves and others on the road to extraordinarily high levels of the emissions that cause smog. The company’s CEO apologized after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revealed that VW used technology to produce overly forgiving results during smog tests that did not match emissions on the road. Tiếp tục đọc “What the VW Scandal Means for Clean Diesel” →

Ethnic minorities in Vietnam: Out of sight

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ 1 bình luận

Continuing grinding poverty in Vietnam’s minority regions is a liability for the Communist Party

Economist – XU XEO GIA ekes out a living in Pho, a remote village in Vietnam’s northern mountains. Mr Gia comes from the Hmong ethnic minority. He is grateful for the education and health-care subsidies that his family receives from the government. But he struggles on marginal land to raise livestock and grow rice. The odd $25 he earns from selling a pig is just enough to clothe his children and keep creditors at bay. “Life is getting better,” he says, “but not fast enough.” Tiếp tục đọc “Ethnic minorities in Vietnam: Out of sight” →

Sustainable Development Goals: Setting a New Course for People and Planet

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
by Peter Hazlewood Peter Hazlewood and Mathilde Bouyé – September 18, 2015
The unveiling of the Sustainable Development Goals next week will be a milestone moment for our collective future. Photo by US Mission to the United Nations Agencies in Rome/Flickr
The unveiling of the Sustainable Development Goals next week will be a milestone moment for our collective future. Photo by US Mission to the United Nations Agencies in Rome/Flickr

WRI – The unveiling of the Sustainable Development Goals next week will be a milestone moment for our collective future. On September 25, the largest-ever gathering of world leaders will join together at a UN Summit meeting in New York to formally adopt Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with a set of 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the center. The launch of the SDGs builds on the Financing for Development Conference in July where governments agreed to a renewed global framework on how to finance international development, and they should be followed by the adoption of a new global climate agreement in December. Taken together, these landmark agreements create breakthrough opportunities to transform economies and chart a new course for people and the planet—a future that’s more inclusive, more equitable and more sustainable. Tiếp tục đọc “Sustainable Development Goals: Setting a New Course for People and Planet” →

Why interdisciplinary research matters

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Scientists must work together to save the world. A special issue asks how they can scale disciplinary walls.

 17 September 2015

Illustration by Dean Trippe

Nature – To solve the grand challenges facing society — energy, water, climate, food, health — scientists and social scientists must work together. But research that transcends conventional academic boundaries is harder to fund, do, review and publish — and those who attempt it struggle for recognition and advancement (see World View, page 291). This special issue examines what governments, funders, journals, universities and academics must do to make interdisciplinary work a joy rather than a curse. Tiếp tục đọc “Why interdisciplinary research matters” →

Social enterprise: constraints and opportunities – evidence from Vietnam and Kenya

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

March 2014 William Smith and Emily Darko

ODI – Social enterprise has been a broadly defined term, poorly understood at the level of country and sector context specific activity. This paper synthesises findings, based on case studies of social enterprises operating in the agriculture and health sectors in Kenya and Vietnam. Main conclusions are that the concept of social enterprise needs to be clearly defined if governments and donors want to give preferential support to such organisations and that defining social enterprise as a hybrid business model facilitates identification and analysis of enterprise models that are distinct from mainstream business. The research found that the social enterprises covered in the survey were often small, personality driven, and internationally supported. Social enterprises face special constraints linked to their hybrid business model: access to finance, human resources, legal status, difficult markets, and management weakness. Market and state failure creates niches for social enterprise: serving disadvantaged communities, managing public infrastructure, and creating environmental benefits. Governments, donors and promoters should assess the niche for social enterprise in specific market contexts in place of blanket promotion of the concept.

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It’s not charity: the rise of social enterprise in Vietnam

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ 2 bình luận

More work still needs to be done to dispel confusion surrounding social enterprises in Vietnam and help promote sustainable growth

 Traditional Vietnamese paper-making
Social enterprise is keeping traditional paper-making alive. Photograph: Zó project

in Vietnam

theguardian – It’s mid-afternoon in the village of Duong O, Bac Ninh province, but Huong hasn’t got time to break for tea. She’s only halfway through the long, exhausting job of making a traditional paper called Do. It’s winter and her hands are raw from the process of dipping a framed screen into a trough of frigid water, raising the pulpy tree bark fibres from the surface and transferring them onto a board, where they will be pressed and dried to become a single sheet of paper.

Tiếp tục đọc “It’s not charity: the rise of social enterprise in Vietnam” →

Food foolish: Waste, hunger and climate change

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
John Mandyck and Eric B. Schultz

Saturday, September 5, 2015 – 1:20am

The following is an excerpt from the book Food Foolish.

GreenBiz – One-third or more of the food we produce each year is never eaten.

More than 1 billion metric tons of food is lost or wasted, never making it from the farm to our fork.

Often in developing countries it decays in fields before harvest or spoils while being transported. Some is lost in retail markets before consumers can buy it. Meanwhile, in developed countries people buy too much and then throw it away. They reject perfectly nutritious food that is cosmetically imperfect. Tiếp tục đọc “Food foolish: Waste, hunger and climate change” →

Does Full-day Schooling Reduce Educational Inequality in Vietnam?

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
  • Date: 14 Sep 2015
  • Series: PERI ESP Working Paper Series 2015 No. 72
  • Author: Tran Ngo Thi Minh Tam and Laure Pasquier-Doumer
  • Download the file ( English, 1402 KB, PDF document )

Privatization of the education sector has recently emerged in many low- and middle- income countries. This paper contributes empirical evidence to the ongoing discourses by looking into full-day schooling and educational inequality in Vietnam. Full-day schooling was implemented initially to deal with deficiencies in primary instructional time in Vietnam. Using data from the Vietnam Young Lives School Survey (2011), this paper examines whether full-day schooling decreases educational inequality. Specifically we examine how the transition from private extra classes to full-day schooling and accompanied school resources affect the gap in learning achievement between children from different social backgrounds.

Analysis results show that full-day schooling improves student learning progress. However full-day schooling does not narrow the inequality in education, and appears to associate with the rising gap in learning progress. Among students that attend full-day schooling, those from more-advantaged backgrounds have more instruction, better resources and obtain higher learning progress in comparison with those from more disadvantaged backgrounds. Higher attendance in full-day schooling magnifies the effect of social background on learning progress.

 

Global Consumption Trends Break New Records

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
Follow GLOBE-Net
Worldwatch Institute’s Vital Signs exposes latest global peaks of production and consumption, as well as associated impacts

Global – net: Washington, D.C.—- From coal to cars to coffee, consumption levels are breaking records.

trends

According to the Worldwatch Institute’s latest report, Vital Signs, Volume 22: The Trends That Are Shaping Our Future, the acceleration of resource depletion, pollution, and climate change may come with underappreciated social and environmental costs (www.worldwatch.org).

Drawing on a wide range of sources, Vital Signs shows trends related to today’s often record-breaking levels of consumption by providing data and concise analyses of significant global trends in food and agriculture, population and society, and energy and climate. Tiếp tục đọc “Global Consumption Trends Break New Records” →

Policy: Four gaps in China’s new environmental law

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
Bo Zhang & Cong Cao

21 January 2015

Implementation and accountability will remain challenging, especially at the local level, warn Bo Zhang and Cong Cao.

Subject terms:Law Government Conservation biology

STR/AFP/Getty

Nature – A resident of China’s Hubei province clears the Fuhe river of dead fish, thought to have been poisoned by high levels of ammonia.

On 1 January, a new environmental protection law (EPL) took effect in China. It is the nation’s first attempt to harmonize economic and social development with environmental protection.

The EPL is perceived as the most progressive and stringent law in the history of environmental protection in China. It details harsher penalties for environmental offences — for example, for acts of tampering and falsifying data, discharging pollutants covertly and evading supervision. It contains provisions for tackling pollution, raising public awareness and protecting whistle-blowers. It places more responsibility and accountability on local governments and law-enforcement agencies and sets higher standards for enterprises. Tiếp tục đọc “Policy: Four gaps in China’s new environmental law” →

Sustainable cities: The changing role of businesses

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Corporate Citizenship senior researcher Jayesh Shah explores some of the trends in the development of cities, focusing on how this changes the role of businesses.

songdo aerial view

Eco-business: Songdo, South Korea. Buildings here have automatic climate control and computerised access. Furthermore, roads, water, waste and electricity systems are built with electronic sensors to enable the city’s brain to track and respond to the movement of residents.Image: Panya K / Shutterstock.com

By Jayesh Shah
Tuesday 8 September 2015
As we draw closer to September’s summit on the SDGs – the universal set of goals, targets and indicators that will frame the development agenda over the next 15 years – it could be argued that there will not be a sustainable world without sustainable cities.

Trends in urban development

Cities have for some time been recognised as the frontier for global development. This is due first and foremost to over half the global population now living in urban areas, but also to them harbouring most of the world’s economic activity. Tiếp tục đọc “Sustainable cities: The changing role of businesses” →

“Local Start-ups Hold the Key to Transforming Africa’s Seed Industry”

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

September 2, 2015

Author: Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development; Director, Science, Technology, and Globalization Project; Principal Investigator, Agricultural Innovation in Africa

Belfer Center Programs or Projects: Agricultural Innovation in Africa; Science, Technology, and Globalization; Science, Technology, and Public Policy

The seed industry in sub-Saharan Africa is informal in nature, with approximately 80% of farmers saving and replanting seeds from year to year. This gives them security of access. But improved varieties — including high-yielding and hybrid crops — will increase productivity and income.

To get these seeds into the hands of farmers, a better marketing and distribution system is needed. Local small and medium-sized seed enterprises have a comparative advantage in reaching this underserved market due to their size and market reach.

There has been considerable concern over the potential control of Africa’s seed sector by large corporations. While such firms continue to operate in most countries, it notable that Africa’s seed sector is currently dominated by local start-ups.

The firms are well positioned to promote food security and improve livelihoods among marginalised rural communities. They could help grow the fledgling seed industry, but need better access to credit, research facilities and human resources to achieve their full potential.

What’s holding back the sector in Africa Tiếp tục đọc ““Local Start-ups Hold the Key to Transforming Africa’s Seed Industry”” →

Google lays bare overlooked deforestation ‘hotspots’

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Last updated on 2 September 2015, 1:25 pm

Search giant and researchers map emerging clusters of tropical forest loss in Southeast Asia, South America and Africa

Deforestation in Bhutan. Forests are vital stocks of carbon and water resources (Flickr/ World Bank)

By Alex Pashley

Forests are being cut down at a rapid clip in previously spared territories, data from the University of Maryland and Google reveals.

RCCT – New hotspots are appearing in Southeast Asia’s Mekong Basin, South America’s Gran Chaco region and Madagascar, high-resolution satellite mapping released by Global Forest Watch shows.

The world lost more than 18 million hectares of forest in 2014, an area twice the size of Portugal.

Over 2012-14, the three-year average was the worst since records began in 2001, in a troubling trend as rates reverse after years of decline.

An interactive map shows advances in tree cover loss and gain worldwide between 2001-2014 (Credit: Global Forest Watch)

Carbon-rich forests hacked down for cash crops, such as beef, soy and palm oil, together with weak governance, are the main drivers of tree cover loss, said Nigel Sizer at the World Resources Institute. Tiếp tục đọc “Google lays bare overlooked deforestation ‘hotspots’” →

Large-scale illegal trade in hundreds of wild-collected ornamental plants in Southeast Asia

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Date:September 14, 2015

Source:National University of Singapore

Sciencedaily – Southeast Asia is a widely recognised centre of illegal wildlife trade — both as the source region for species ranging from seahorses to tigers, and as a global consumer of ivory carvings, wild pets, and traditional Chinese medicinal products.

While there are mounting efforts to tackle illegal wildlife trade, including within Singapore to reduce demand for wildlife products, the illegal trade in some species still remains undocumented.

Associate Professor Edward L. Webb, from the Department of Biological Sciences at the National University of Singapore (NUS), and NUS PhD graduate Dr Jacob Phelps, have uncovered a previously little recognised Southeast Asian wildlife trade — the illegal sale of wild-collected ornamental plants, especially orchids.

Their findings were recently published in the journal Biological Conservation in June 2015.

Uncovering the “invisible” orchid trade

The researchers conducted extensive surveys of wildlife markets across Thailand, including border markets with Laos and Myanmar, and identified more than 400 species of ornamental plants in illegal trade — species widely prized by plant enthusiasts for their beauty, fragrance and/or rarity. Over 80% of these plants traded at the markets are wild orchids. Some of these were even listed in published literature as threatened. Tiếp tục đọc “Large-scale illegal trade in hundreds of wild-collected ornamental plants in Southeast Asia” →