Publication: Dominican Republic - South-South Cooperation in Action : Responding to Avian Influenza
Loading...
Published
2008-05
ISSN
Date
2012-08-13
Editor(s)
Abstract
The Low Pathogenic Avian Influenza (LPAI) H5N2 virus was detected in the Dominican Republic (DR) late last year, causing a serious disruption in sub-regional trade, poultry production, and food security. In collaboration with the World Bank, the DR Secretariat of state for agriculture organized a workshop to share regional knowledge on preparedness for emergency actions to deal with avian flu. This note captures interesting themes from the workshop.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Ekanayake, Indira Janaki; Rabin-Solomon, Bari; Balcet, Jean Claude. 2008. Dominican Republic - South-South Cooperation in Action : Responding to Avian Influenza. en breve; No. 124. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/10281 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Global Program for Avian Influenza Control and Human Pandemic Preparedness and Response : Project Accomplishments(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-09)This report reviews some of the accomplishments of the Global Program for Avian Influenza Control and Human Pandemic Preparedness and Response (GPAI). This multisectoral program comprised 72 projects in 60 developing countries in all regions and received $1.3 billion in financing from the World Bank. This support for GPAI projects was one of the World Bank s contributions to a coordinated global response to the threats of avian and pandemic influenzas, which benefited from financing of $4 billion from 35 donors in 2006-2013. Thanks to this support, developing countries strengthened their capacity for early and effective disease control, bringing substantial public health and economic benefits to the countries and to the world. According to Harvard University Professor and former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, "[veterinary and human public health systems are] probably the single most important area for productive investment on behalf of mankind." Indeed, circulation of the highly pathogenic avian flu virus was reduced, helping to lessen the likelihood of onset of a pandemic. Moreover, the projects improved public health systems for reducing locally-relevant health threats. The report presents a brief background on the global program and cross-country accomplishments and then highlights accomplishments for each project, by region.Publication People, Pathogens, and Our Planet : Volume One - Towards a One Health Approach for Controlling Zoonotic Diseases(World Bank, 2010-01-01)Whether living in urban or rural environments, humans tend to perceive the world around them as being shaped by culture and industry more than by natural history. Humans, however, are part of a biological continuum that covers all living species. Charles Darwin's 200th birthday in 2009 could serve to remind us of this. All animals, including humans but also plants, fungi, and bacteria, share the same basic biochemical principles of metabolism, reproduction, and development. Most pathogens can infect more than one host species, including humans. In 1964, veterinary epidemiologist Calvin Schwabe coined the term "one medicine" to capture the interrelatedness between animal and human health, and the medical realities of preventing and controlling zoonotic diseases or "zoonoses" -diseases that are communicable between animals and humans. One medicine signaled the recognition of the risks that zoonotic diseases pose to people, their food supplies, and their economies. Given the interrelatedness of human, animal, and ecosystem health, the rationale for some form of coordinated policy and action among agencies responsible for public health, medical science, and veterinary services is quite intuitive. Later, the term "one health" came into use, and later still, the broader concept of "one world one health," which is today used to represent the inextricable links among human and animal health and the health of the ecosystems they inhabit.Publication Avian Influenza and the Poultry Trade(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-03)Because of high mortality rates, high rates of contagion, and the possibility of cross-species infection to mammals including humans, high pathogenic avian influenza is a major concern both to consumers and producers of poultry. The implications of the avian influenza for international poultry markets are large and include the loss of consumer confidence, loss of competitiveness, loss of market shares, supply shortages, and disruptions of trade flows. This paper illustrates the effect that high pathogenic avian influenza has had on the trade flows of poultry products. The findings suggest that outbreaks of avian influenza have greatly restructured the international flow of poultry products. Consequent to high pathogenic avian influenze, Brazil has emerged as the world's largest supplier of frozen raw chicken products, while poultry industries in Southeast Asia have largely refocused their export markets by converting production from unprepared to prepared poultry meat.Publication Responding to Global Public Bads(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-01)The World Bank’s efforts to combat avian influenza and help countries to build capacity to prevent and mitigate pandemics offers a useful example in understanding how the agency can contribute to the provision of global public goods. This review aims to inform the provision of these goods by offering lessons from evaluation of the avian influenza experience. The experience also offers an example of the Bank playing a key role in the international response to an unfolding international crisis in a technical area with which it was largely unfamiliar. And provides a case study on how the Bank struggles to work effectively across sectors, both within the institution itself and in the client countries it operates in. The report aims to inform the design of any future avian influenza and zoonotic disease and pandemic preparedness interventions, and also to discuss the wider strategic lessons from the intervention that are relevant to programs responding to emergencies, providing global public goods, or cooperating with external technical agencies. The report also aims to assess the current state of the pandemic preparedness agenda, and to provide guidance on possible ways forward. The report also draws on additional interviews with Bank staff and international agency staff, on World Bank project and program documentation and reports, on the wider literature on avian influenza, and on other documents.Publication Animal and Pandemic Influenza : A Framework for Sustaining Momentum, Fifth Global Progress Report July 2010(New York: United Nations, 2010-07)Global efforts continue to work towards ensuring a world capable of preventing, detecting, and responding to animal and public health risks attributable to zoonoses and animal diseases. Drawing on achievements and experiences of the past five years, the fifth global progress report was produced to support the discussions and to provide a record of key outcomes from international ministerial conference on animal and pandemic influenza (IMCAPI). This report presents a framework for sustaining momentum which was agreed by delegates at the April 2010 IMCAPI. The framework offers three streams of work that need sustained attention by national, regional, and global authorities despite the inevitable waning of public interest in pandemic-related issues. The three work streams are: (a) prevention and control of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), (b) adoption of one health approaches, and (c) readiness for response to influenza pandemics. For each, the framework envisages two expected outcomes and identifies the actions which contribute to these expected outcomes. It identifies the incentives and institutional arrangements needed to sustain momentum, highlights systems for monitoring progress, and spells out investment priorities particularly to support institutions and systems in the least developed countries. To realize these goals, policy makers are moving away from tackling avian and pandemic influenza through emergency projects or special initiatives. Instead they aim for longer term capacity building through pursuit of effective strategies within existing programs, and the mainstreaming of pandemic readiness skills. The right incentives to achieve this transformation need to be identified and used backed with strategic political and financial support, novel institutional arrangements, and easily applied monitoring systems.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Kyrgyz Republic Country Climate and Development Report(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-03)This Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) on the Kyrgyz Republic aims to support the country’s development goals amid a changing climate. The CCDR considers two policy scenarios up to 2050: the business-as-usual (BAU) and high-growth scenarios. As it quantifies the likely impacts of climate change on the Kyrgyz economy between now and 2050, the report highlights key government actions to best prepare for and adapt to climate impacts (referred to as “with adaptation” measures), with a particular focus on the time horizon up to 2030. The CCDR also outlines a path to net zero emissions by 2050 (referred to as “with mitigation” measures, “decarbonization,” or, simply, “net zero 2050”), highlighting associated development co-benefits.Publication Continental Drying: A Threat to Our Common Future(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-04)Grounded in new evidence from satellite data, “Continental Drying: A Threat to Our Common Future” presents the first global assessment of freshwater reserves over the past two decades. The findings expose an alarming trend of “continental drying,” a persistent long-term decline in freshwater availability across vast landmasses. Not only are droughts and deluges becoming more unpredictable, but the total amount of freshwater available for use has also significantly declined. Continental drying, driven by global warming, worsening droughts, and unsustainable water and land use, is a silent but accelerating crisis—largely unknown to the public—that reshapes the global water narrative. Continental drying raises profound risks. This report reveals new empirical evidence showing how freshwater depletion leads to major job losses, reduced incomes, wildfires, and biodiversity threats. In the long term, the combined effects of drying and warming could push societies toward a tipping point where damage accelerates rapidly and adaptation becomes increasingly difficult. Against the backdrop of continental drying, global water consumption rose by 25 percent between 2000 and 2019, with about a third of this increase occurring in regions already experiencing drying. Compounding the pressure, a substantial share of water use in drying regions remains inefficient. Continental Drying identifies hot spots where rising demand and declining supply converge and explores where and how water savings can be realized. This report recommends a three-pronged approach to address the crisis: managing demand, augmenting water supply, and improving water allocation. Five cross-cutting levers—strengthening institutions, reforming water tariffs and repurposing subsidies, adopting water accounting, leveraging data and technological innovations, and valuing water in trade—are essential for effective implementation and to attract private investment to finance the approach. Beyond water, addressing trade barriers, investing in education and skills development, and improving access to markets and financial services are critical for strengthening job and livelihood resilience amid a continental drying crisis.Publication Direct and Indirect Impacts of Transport Mobility on Access to Jobs: Evidence from South Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-12)Access to jobs is essential for economic growth. In Africa, unemployment rates are notably high. This paper reexamines the relationship between transport mobility and labor market outcomes, with a particular focus on the direct and indirect effects of transport connectivity. As predicted by theory, wages are influenced by the level of commuting deterrence. Generally, higher earnings are associated with longer commute times and/or higher commuting costs. Local accessibility is also important, especially for individuals with time constraints. Both direct and indirect impacts are found to be significant in South Africa, where job accessibility has been challenging since the end of apartheid. For the direct impact, the wage elasticity associated with commuting costs is significant. Returns on commute are particularly high for women. Local accessibility to socioeconomic facilities, such as shops and health services, is also found to have a significant impact, consistent with the concept of mobility of care. To enhance employment, therefore, it is crucial to connect people not only to job locations but also to various socioeconomic points of interest, such as markets and hospitals, in an integrated manner. This integration will enable individuals to spend more time working and commuting longer distances.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Taxes, Spending, and Equity: International Patterns and Lessons for Developing Countries(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-17)Taxes and public spending underpin the basic administration of government and finance the human capital and infrastructure investments needed for economic growth. They can also have a significant and immediate impact on poverty and inequality. The question of how public finance can support longer-term growth objectives while promoting equity has become even more important in recent years, given the high fiscal deficits and debt levels most countries emerged with in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. These included the increasing cost of debt and the need to restart environmentally sustainable growth while helping households address the learning losses and other social scars caused by the pandemic. This paper examines the global evidence on which households pay which taxes and who benefits from what spending, and critically, the net effect on different households across the income distribution. The aim is to identify the patterns and lessons that emerge for designing progressive fiscal policies. A global dataset of 96 countries is assembled, spanning all regions of the world and all national income levels, grounded in the Commitment to Equity (CEQ) approach to fiscal incidence.