VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Asia-Pacific has faced a record number of climate-related disasters in 2020, affecting tens of millions of vulnerable people already hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Red Cross said on Wednesday.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said it had responded to 24 climate-linked crises this year in the world’s most disaster-prone region - up from 18 in 2019 - including floods, typhoons, extreme cold and drought.

“COVID-19 has of course aggravated these impacts, with a taste of the compound shocks we’re expecting in a changing climate,” Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“The pandemic has not only complicated evacuations and disaster response, but also aggravates the economic impact of disasters, especially for the poorest people,” he added.

Southeast Asia was the IFRC’s busiest region in 2020, with 15 emergency responses to disasters including severe floods, storms and landslides in the Philippines and Vietnam that affected more than 31 million people.

Jess Letch, the IFRC’s emergency operations manager, said the challenge had been to help communities with relief aid while also taking the steps needed to halt the spread of COVID-19.

Mary Joy Gonzales, a resilience project manager with CARE in the Philippines, said her aid agency had worked to provide additional shelter to enable social distancing after one person contracted COVID-19 in an evacuation centre it was supporting.

Women have suffered a triple blow, she added, with the pandemic fuelling violence at home just as many lost their jobs and had to look after out-of-school children and elderly relatives while the country was pummelled by destructive storms.

The agency expected that such impacts “will get worse due to climate change”, she told journalists earlier this month.

“We have seen the trend in the past 10 years: typhoons have been becoming stronger and we have lost thousands of lives already,” she said.

Last year, more than 94 million people in the Asia-Pacific region were hit by climate-related disasters, with the area experiencing twice as many emergencies as the Americas or Africa, according to the IFRC’s latest World Disasters Report.

The total number of people affected in 2020 has not yet been released. (Reuters)

Europeans are set to start getting coronavirus vaccines before the new year after the regional drug regulator accelerated its approval process following the launch of immunisation campaigns in the United States and Britain.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said an expert panel would convene on Monday Dec. 21 to evaluate the vaccine made by U.S. company Pfizer and German partner BioNTech. It had previously said the meeting could be as late as Dec 29.

While EMA’s mandate is to issue recommendations on new medical treatments, the European Commission has the final say on approval and typically follows EMA’s advice.

EMA said its expert meeting was brought forward after the companies had provided more data, as requested, and the EU Commission would fast-track its procedures to rule on approval “within days”.

Germany should start giving coronavirus shots 24 to 72 hours after the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine gets EU approval and could begin as soon as Christmas, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Tuesday.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen echoed those sentiments by saying on Twitter “(It is) Likely that the first Europeans will be vaccinated before end 2020.”

Germany, France, Italy and five other European states will coordinate the start of their vaccination campaigns, the countries’ health ministers said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

The countries will promote “the coordination of the launch of the vaccination campaigns” and will rapidly share information on how it is proceeding, said the statement, released by Italy.

The statement was also signed by the health ministers of Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and EU neighbour Switzerland. (Reuters)

Vice President Ma'ruf Amin pressed for digitalization of Islamic economic and financial development in a bid to facilitate restoration in economic conditions following the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Digitalization will have a broad impact on the progress and sustainability of the Islamic economy and finance, both nationally and globally," Vice President Amin stated at the International Webinar Digitalization Leading the Islamic Economy in the New Normal held virtually, Tuesday.

The vice president noted that the COVID-19 pandemic had compelled people to adapt to a different lifestyle than before. With such new normal habits, Amin pressed for innovation to offer benefits, especially for the Islamic economic and financial ecosystem.

"The development of technology and digitalization had certainly ushered in several changes in the lifestyle of people in society, including social duties," he pointed out.

The vice president emphasized that the digitalization of Islamic economy and finance should be developed together with several digital applications and the growth of startups in Indonesia. This offers a huge opportunity to realize the potential of Islamic economy, both nationally and globally.

"We must use this, so that the Islamic economy and finance can offer broader benefits to the community," he remarked.

The government has also implemented digitalization in the Islamic economy and finance, through the issuance of retail sukuk (Islamic bonds) and green sukuk that can easily be traded online. This convenience is expected to pique the interest of the younger generation to invest in sharia.

"This is very attractive for the younger generation to participate in investing in Islamic financial instruments. In addition, Islamic shares can be purchased through the Shariah Online Trading System (SOTS)," he remarked.

To this end, the vice president is optimistic that stakeholders related to sharia economy and finance would collaborate with various parties to develop a sharia economic system in the country.

"Indonesia remains committed to utilizing and strengthening the digital economy as one of the strategies in developing the Islamic economy that requires cooperation and collaboration with many parties," he stated. (antaranews)

The Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs is formulating a national digital economic strategy to help the nation face the challenges of technological advancement, a ministry official said on Tuesday.

Deputy for creative economy, entrepreneurship, and cooperatives and small, medium enterprises (SME) competitiveness at the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, M Rudy Salahuddin, said the strategy, which is being formulated by his office, will serve as an accommodating policy to support the creation of a level playing field, the empowerment of SMEs, and development of human resources with advanced skills.

"The scope of the digital economy is vast and unlimited, that digital ecosystems become complex and interconnected with one another, so they require special treatment and cannot be equated with conventional policies," he said at the virtual Indonesia Digital Conference. He joined the event from Jakarta on Tuesday.

Salahuddin said the national digital economy strategy is being formulated to realize the main vision of sustainable and inclusive economic growth, in line with the complexities of many intertwined policies.

Every ministry and institution has policies related to digital economy, which need to be merged into one national strategy, he explained.

The Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs has completed formulating the outline of the strategy, he said adding, discussions on the strategy are expected to begin next year and would involve related stakeholders.

The challenges to developing the digital economy in the country, he continued, include overlapping policies, high demand for digital talent, low level of digital literacy, and less-than-optimal exploration of the potential of the digital economy sector.

"This national strategy will also become the main framework and guideline in the development of the needs for digital economy in the country, for all stakeholders," he remarked.

The national framework will be sustained by four main pillars: digital talent, research and innovation, physical and digital infrastructure, as well as supporting policies and regulations.

"The strategy will also be derived into an action plan with timeframes, including medium and short ones, as well as the ones in between," he informed.

It is expected that all four pillars will bring added value and develop capacities of all business-makers, the people, and the government, and thus help achieve sustainable economic development, he added.

"This is what we will push. We hope amid the pandemic, we can prepare a national strategy for the digital economy, so that after the pandemic, it can be a referral for all stakeholders," he remarked. (antaranews)