The project aims at scaling up prevention efforts in the High Risk Groups and the general population. It further aims at increasing care, support and treatment to the affected people.
The agreement was signed by Madhusudan Prasad, Joint Secretary (Fund Bank), the Finance Ministry on behalf of India and Isabel M.Guerrero, Country Director for the World Bank here.
The United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) is also providing a grant through a common pool. An agreement to this effect was also signed here between DFID and the Indian government.
The project, which will show India's capability in information technology, health care and education, aims at setting up a demonstration model in each country.
"Its successful implementation is expected to enhance India's profile in the region and add a fresh dimension to India's partnership with Africa," the statement said.
An India-AU MOU for the Pan-African e-Network was signed in October 2005.
Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam, during the inaugural session of the Pan-African Parliament held at Johannesburg, South Africa, in September, 2004, had proposed to connect all the 53 nations of the African Union (AU) by a satellite and fiberoptic network.
Thereafter, Indian Ministry of External Affairs proceeded with the setting up of the network, now called Pan-African e-Network.
Malaysian Tourism Minister Adnan Tengku Mansor said the move was to ensure that all travelers, including inbound foreigners and outbound locals, are protected and covered by insurance.
The measure, which took effect from July 1, advisably required travelers to take it up, but they also had the flexibility to refuse it, Adnan said.
Under the plan, travelers can expect a refund in such cases as that the participating travel and tour company is unable to render its services, due to abrupt business closure, Adnan said.
Local media reported that the plan was endorsed by the ministry to ensure travelers to get the basic coverage and protection against travel risks.
It is managed via a joint venture between Timeless Vocation SdnBhd and Pempena Sdn Bhd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Tourism Ministry, with Tahan Insurance Malaysia Bhd as the underwriter.
Local or outbound travelers will need to pay 15 ringgit (4.3 U.S. dollars premium for coverage while inbound travelers are required to pay 15 U.S. dollars for which coverage is for the whole period of travel.
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive requires 4kg of "e-waste" to be recycled per person.
Manufacturers have to fund recycling schemes, while retailers must offer take-back services to customers.
The legislation was supposed to be operational by August 2005 but was delayed by "major difficulties".
"E-waste", which includes PCs, games consoles, microwaves and washing machines, is the fastest-growing form of rubbish in the European Union.
The UK produces an estimated 1.2m tonnes of e-waste each year, most of which has been ending up in landfill sites.
Beyond the shelf
"I think this is an absolutely great piece of legislation," said Jonathan Wright, a senior supply chain executive for Accenture, the management consultancy.
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"In the past, all that companies focused on was getting products made and getting them out to customers," he explained.
"Now, organisations are having to think about what is going to happen after the product has been sold."
The WEEE directive entered the statute book at the beginning of the year, but full producer responsibility was delayed until 1 July.
Under the legislation, retailers selling electrical goods are obliged to offer customers a free in-store take-back service on a "like for like" basis, or help fund the expansion of a network of WEEE collection points.
Comet, one of the UK's largest electrical retailers, is among the companies funding the upgrading of local authority-run recycling facilities.
The company's managing director, Hugh Harvey, welcomed the belated introduction of the law.
"We believe this legislation is a really positive initiative which will make it much easier for consumers to recycle their electrical waste," he said.
Collective responsibility
The directive has also required manufacturers to join one of 37 "Producer Compliance Schemes" operating in the UK.
The schemes, which are monitored by the Environment Agency, collect and recycle the e-waste on behalf of the companies.
"The amount we are responsible for is calculated by looking at the amount we sell," explained HP's takeback compliance manager, Kirstie McIntyre.
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Recycling stops harmful substances entering the environment
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"We report to our compliance scheme, who in turn reports to the Environment Agency on our behalf.
"We tell them how much IT we sold to consumers and business customers last year; the Environment Agency then adds up all the sales by the major manufacturers and works out percentage responsibility for each company."
However, Mrs McIntyre voiced concern that the EU directive did not offer the same incentives as WEEE legislation in Japan.
"What they have done in Japan is introduce a more individual producers' responsibility approach," she said.
"Instead of HP being responsible for any old IT and recycling it, we are only responsible for HP equipment."
This had a number of additional environmental benefits, she added.
"Most of the environmental impact in complex manufactured goods is decided at the design stage.
"If we design our products to be more recyclable at the end-of-life stage, we not only reap the economic benefits but also the design decisions that we have made.
"Why should we make [components] easier to remove when we are getting everybody else's laptop back.
"At the end of the day, we have shareholders and we have to make a very strong business case for any changes that we make.
"At the moment, we do have design changes that we can make, but we cannot make the business case stack up because we do not get enough of our own products back."
The WEEE Directive is scheduled to be reviewed in 2008, five years after the EU first agreed to implement legislation to tackle the growing problem of e-waste ending up in landfill sites.
The establishment of the African Union Government is part of a proposal of realizing the continent's political and economic integration by setting up a United States of Africa by 2015.Theunion's 53 members have all agreed that the union's ultimate objective is the political and economic integration of the continent leading to the creation of the United States of Africa, an idea pioneered by pan-Africanists, represented by the Republic of Ghana's founding president Kwame Nkrumah.
However, differences exist over the modalities and time frame for achieving this goal and the appropriate pace of integration. There are mainly two schools of thoughts.
One is that the union should build and strengthen current AU structures, harmonize and rationalize regional economic communities before taking the bold leap to the United States of Africa.
The other is that the union should accelerate the pace of integration for as long as the continent remains a motley gathering of fragmented states, the ideal conditions for full integration will never be attained.
In July 2006, a committee of seven African heads of state submitted a report to the AU summit. The report, named the "Study on an African Union Government towards the United States of Africa," outlines a roadmap of forming the United States of Africa by2015 in three phases.
The first phase is the establishment of the Union Government by2009, to be followed by the second phase of the consolidation of the union government from 2009 to 2012 and third phase of establishing the United States of Africa by 2015.
While Libya, Nigeria, Senegal and some other west African countries are enthusiastic about the acceleration of the integration process, some countries in the east and south of the continent prefer a "step by step" approach.
"That Africa should unite has never been in question. The question is the model of integration that would help accelerate Africa's economic development and strengthen democratic governance on the continent," South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said earlier this month.