This month, the United Nations Development Program made water and sanitation the centerpiece of its flagship publication, the Human Development Report.
Claims of a "water apartheid," where poor people pay more for water than the rich, are bound to attract attention. But what are the economics behind the problem, and how can it be fixed？ In countries that have trouble delivering clean water to their people, a lack of infrastructure is often the culprit. People in areas that are not served by public utilities have to rely on costlier ways of getting water, such as itinerant water trucks and treks to wells. Paradoxically, as the water sources get costlier, the water itself tends to be more dangerous. Water piped by utilities - to the rich and the poor alike - is usually cleaner than water trucked in or collected from an outdoor tank.
The problem exists not only in rural areas but even in big cities, said Hakan Bjorkman, program director of the UN agency in Thailand. Further, subsidies made tolocal water systems often end up benefiting people other than the poor, he added.
The agency proposes a three-step solution. First, make access to 20 liters, or 5 gallons, of clean water a day a human right. Next, make local governments accountable for delivering this service. Last, invest in infrastructure to link people to water mains.The report says governments, especially in developing countries, should spend at least 1 percent of gross domestic product on water and sanitation. It also recommends that foreign aid be more directed toward these problems. Clearly, this approach relies heavily on government intervention, something Bjorkman readily acknowledged. But there are some market-based approaches as well.
By offering cut-rate connections to poor people to the water mainline, the private water utility in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, has steadily increased access to clean water, according to the agency&39;s report. A subsidy may not even be necessary, despite the agency&39;s proposals, if a country can harness the economic benefits of providing clean water.
People who receive clean water are much less likely to die from water-borne diseases - a common malady in the developing world - and much more likely to enjoy long, productive, taxpaying lives that can benefit their host countries. So if a government is trying to raise financing to invest in new infrastructure, it might find receptive ears in private credit markets - as long as it can harness the return. Similarly, private companies may calculate that it is worth bringing clean water to an area if its residents are willing to pay back the investment over many years.
In the meantime, some local solutions are being found. In Thailand, Bjorkman said, some small communities are taking challenges like water access upon themselves. "People organize themselves in groups to leverage what little resources they have to help their communities," he said. "That&39;s especially true out in the rural areas. They invest their money in revolving funds and saving schemes, and they invest themselves to improve their villages. "It is not always easy to take these solutions and replicate them in other countries, though. Assembling a broad menu of different approaches can be the first step in finding the right solution for a given region or country.
相关问题推荐
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阅读理解：Present-day philosophers usually envision their discipline as an endeavor that has been, since antiquity, distinct from and superior to any particular intellectual discipline such as theology or science.
The basis for this view, however, lies in a serious misinterpretation of the past, a projection of modern concerns onto past events.
The idea of an autonomous discipline called “philosophy,” distinct from and sitting in judgment on such pursuits as theology and science turns out, on close examination, to be of quite recent origin.
When, in the seventeenth century, Descartes and Hobbes rejected medieval philosophy, they did not think of themselves, as modern philosophers do, as proposing a new and better philosophy, but rather as furthering “the warfare between science and theology.”
They were fighting, albeit discreetly, to open the intellectual world to the new science and to liberate intellectual life from ecclesiastical philosophy and envisioned their work as contributing to the growth, not of philosophy, but of research in mathematics and physics.
This link between philosophical interests and scientific practice persisted until the nineteenth century, when decline in ecclesiastical power over scholarship and changes in the nature of science provoked the final separation of philosophy from both.
The demarcation of philosophy from science was facilitated by the development in the early nineteenth century of a new notion, that philosophy‘s core interest should be epistemology, the general explanation of what it means to know something.
Modern philosophers now trace that notion back at least to Descartes and Spinoza, but it was not explicitly articulated until the late eighteenth century, by Kant, and did not become built into the structure of academic institutions and the standard self-descriptions of philosophy professors until the late nineteenth century.
Without the idea of epistemology, the survival of philosophy in an age of modern science is hard to imagine.
Metaphysics, philosophy‘s traditional core—considered as the most general description of how the heavens and the earth are put together—had been rendered almost completely meaningless by the spectacular progress of physics.
Kant, however, by focusing philosophy on the problem of knowledge, managed to replace metaphysics with epistemology, and thus to transform. the notion of philosophy as “queen of sciences” into the new notion of philosophy as a separate, foundational discipline: philosophy became “primary” no longer in the sense of “highest” but in the sense of “underlying”.
1.Which of the following best expresses the author‘s main point？
A.Philosophy‘s overriding interest in basic human questions is a legacy primarily of the work of Kant.
B.Philosophy was deeply involved in the seventeenth-century warfare between science and religion.
C.The set of problems of primary importance to philosophers has remained relatively constant since antiquity.
D.The status of philosophy as an independent intellectual pursuit is a relatively recent development.
E.The role of philosophy in guiding intellectual speculation has gradually been usurped by science.
2.The author of the passage implies which of the following in discussing the development of philosophy during the nineteenth century？
（A) Nineteenth-century philosophy took science as its model for understanding the bases of knowledge.
（B) The role of academic institutions in shaping metaphysical philosophy grew enormously during the nineteenth century.
（C) Nineteenth-century philosophers carried out a program of investigation explicitly laid out by Descartes and Spinoza.
（D) Kant had an overwhelming impact on the direction of nineteenth-century philosophy.
（E) Nineteenth-century philosophy made major advances in understanding the nature of knowledge.
3.The author suggests that Descartes‘ support for the new science of the seventeenth century can be characterized as
（A) pragmatic and hypocritica -
近年来，中国全面把握对外开放阶段性特点，按照完善内外联动、互利共赢、安全高效的开放型经济体系的要求，总结实践中的成功经验，把“引进来”和“走出去”更好地结合起来，创新对外投资和合作方式，支持企业在研发、生产、销售等方面开展国际化经营。目前，中国正在加快推进各种形式的对外投资合作，培育发展中国的跨国公司，支持有实力的企业建立国际营销网络，加强境外基础设施建设合作，规范发展对外劳务合作，积极推动境外经贸合作区建设，缓解我国生产能力过剩、内需不足的矛盾，推动国内产业转型，带动相关产品和服务出口。
坚持对外开放基本国策，坚定不移地发展开放型经济、奉行互利共赢的开放战略，是改革开放30多年来中国经济持续快速发展的一条成功经验。招商引资、择优选资，促进“引资”与“引智”相结合，是中国对外开放的重要内容。
截至2010年7月，中国累计设立外商投资企业69.8万家，实际使用外资1.05万亿美元。目前中国22%的税收、28%的工业增加值、55%的进出口、50%的技术引进、约4500万人的就业，都来自外商投资企业的贡献。对外开放、吸引外资是互利共赢的。对中国来说，通过持续吸引外资为国家现代化建设提供了必要的资金、先进的技术和宝贵的管理经验以及众多国际化人才。对外商投资企业来说，则赢得了可观的投资回报，不少在华外商投资企业成为其母公司全球业务的增长亮点和利润中心。 -
__combination of techniques authors use, all stories—from the briefest anecdotes to the longest novels—have a plot.
ARegarding
BWhatever
CIn so far as
DNo matter -
When night falls in remote parts of Africa and the Indian subcontinent, hundreds of millions of people without access to electricity turn to candles or flammable and polluting kerosene lamps for illumination.
Slowly through small loans for solar powered devices, microfinance is bringing light to these rural regions where a lack of electricity has stymied economic development, literacy rates and health. A woman sews clothes on a sewing machine driven by solar energy in Ahmedabad/ Photo credit: Amit Dave/ Reuters
“Earlier, they could not do much once the sun set. Now, the sun is used differently. They have increased their productivity, improved their health and socio-economic status,” said Pinal Shah from SEWA Bank, a micro -lending institution.
Vegetable seller Ramiben Waghri took out a loan to buy a solar lantern which she uses to light up her stall at night. The lantern costs between $66-$112, about a week？ s income for Waghri.
“The vegetables look better by this light, and it？ s cheaper than kerosene and doesn？ t smell,” said Waghri, who estimates she makes about 300 rupees （$6) more each evening with her lantern.
“If we can use the sun to save some money, why not？”
In India, solar power projects, often funded by micro credit institutions, are helping the country reduce carbon emissions and achieve its goal to double the contribution of renewable energy to 6%, or 25,000 megawatts, within the next four years.
Off-grid applications such as solar cookers and lanterns, which can provide several hours of light at night after being charged by the sun during the day, will help cut dependence on fossil fuels and reduce the fourth biggest emitter？ s carbon footprint, said Pradeep Dadhich, a senior fellow at energy research institute TERI.
“They are reaching people who otherwise have limited or no access to electricity, and depend on kerosene, diesel or firewood for their energy needs,” he said.“The applications not only satisfy these needs, they also improve the quality of life and reduce the carbon footprint.”
SEWA or Self Employed Women？ s Association, is among a growing number of microfinance institutions in India focused on providing affordable renewable energy sources to poor people, who otherwise would have had to stand for hours to buy kerosene for lamps, or trudge miles to collect firewood for cooking.
SKS Microfinance, India？ s largest MFI, offers solar lamps to its 5 million customers, while Grameen Surya Bijlee （Rural Solar Electricity) Foundation helps fund lamps and home and street lighting systems for villagers in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. -
互联网推进了中国经济社会发展。在经济领域，互联网加速向传统产业渗透，产业边界日益交融，新型商务模式和服务经济加速兴起，衍生了新的业态。
互联网在促进经济结构调整、转变经济发展方式等方面发挥着越来越重要的作用。
互联网成为推动中国经济发展的重要引擎。包括互联网在内的信息技术与产业，对中国经济高速增长作出了重要贡献。
互联网与实体经济不断融合，利用互联网改造和提升传统产业，带动了传统产业结构调整和经济发展方式的转变。互联网发展与运用还催生了一批新兴产业，工业咨询、软件服务、外包服务等工业服务业蓬勃兴起。信息技术在加快自主创新和节能降耗，推动减排治污等方面的作用日益凸显，互联网已经成为中国发展低碳经济的新型战略性产业。
中国政府将大力推动电子商务类、教育类网站发展，积极推进电子政务建设，支持发展网络广播、网络电视等新兴媒体，倡导提供形式多样、内容丰富的互联网信息服务，以满足人们多样化、多层次的信息消费需求。