USAID RDM/A Regional Environment Office Weekly Report Week Ending May 16, 2008

Chinese Water Companies to Adopt Participatory Planning to Strengthen Water Services Delivery.  On May 13, 2008, managers from five water companies in the Province of Jiangsu, China explored strategies for adopting new policies and practices for engaging the public in the planning, design, and operation of water systems.  Their work was based on a survey completed by USAID’s ECO-Asia program on user demand and willingness to connect to water systems in five communities in Jiangsu.  Senior managers learned about the critical importance of participatory planning in enhancing the responsiveness, transparency and accountability of water services delivery.  Counterparts from the Manila Water Company in the Philippines shared their experience on customer feedback systems. Encouraged by the enthusiastic response from participants, USAID and the World Bank will pilot a participatory planning approach to designing local distribution systems in a selected township in Jiangsu.

Major Wildlife Seizures by ASEAN-WEN Task Forces.  Thai and Vietnamese National Wildlife Crime Task Forces set up under the USAID-supported ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) carried out major seizures of protected wildlife this week.  On May 10, Thai Nature Crime Police rescued 33 slow loris and arrested a major supplier near Bangkok. On May 11, Vietnam Police recovered a metric ton of live monitor lizards in Quang Tri province, south of Hanoi. USAID-sponsored trainings are helping ASEAN authorities investigate and target the ringleaders of smuggling operations.

Philippines to Implement USAID Sponsored Anti-Wildlife Crime Training.  Authorities in the Philippines this week finalized development of their own Wildlife Crime Enforcement Training package modeled on training delivered by the USAID-funded ASEAN-WEN Support Program.  The Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources led an interagency group that translated and localized ASEAN-WEN training on wildlife crime detection, investigation and response. ASEAN-WEN will next help Philippine authorities publish the training package, which will be an important long-term tool for building sustainable capacity to suppress wildlife crime in the Philippines.

Lamp Manufacturers to Develop Quality Identification System for Energy-Saving Lamps.
At a workshop on May 14, 2008 in Shanghai, China major lamp manufacturers and associations agreed to initiate a quality identification system for energy-saving compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) in Asia. The scheme provides a critical step to increase the reliability and effectiveness of CFLs sold in the region, helping to increase their adoption and reduce fossil fuel consumption. The USAID ECO-Asia Clean Development and Climate Program (CDCP) organized the workshop in conjunction with "Phase-Out 2008", a major international conference bringing together public and private sector stakeholders working to replace inefficient lamps with efficient, cost-effective alternatives. Over the past 16 months, as many as 40 governments accounting for roughly half the global lamp market have announced plans to phase out energy-inefficient incandescent bulbs and replace them with CFLs. The International Energy Agency estimates that a complete global phase-out of inefficient incandescent lamps could reduce annual electricity use by 800 terawatt hours and avoid 490 million metric tons of CO2 emissions by 2012. The ECO-Asia CDCP will hold a follow-up meeting at the Asian Development Bank in early June to agree on a road map for implementing the CFL quality identification system.

India’s Largest Power Utility Launches a Renovation and Modernization Program to Increase Coal Efficiency. India's National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), the country's largest power generating utility, is embarking on an aggressive renovation and modernization (R&M) program for its existing coal-fired power plants. By 2012, it is expected that the program will lead to increased energy efficiency of fuel conversion and lower emissions in more than 4,000 megawatts of installed power plant capacity. This week, USAID's ECO-Asia Clean Development and Climate Program (CDCP) and NTPC officials agreed to a strategic partnership on coal plant R&M. ECO-Asia CDCP experts will provide technical assistance to support training workshops that will transfer R&M best practices from the US and other Asian countries to NTPC, conduct plant visits and provide expert consultations, and provide inputs to NTPC investment proposals. This assistance will ultimately contribute to significant energy efficiency gains and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants. As a first step, in July 2008 NTPC and ECO-Asia CDCP will jointly host a two-day workshop at NTPC’s headquarters in Delhi on various R&M topics including technology options, tariffs and policy incentives, procurement guidelines, and carbon finance.