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PRELIMS BOOSTERS 2018
Fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) and UNDP – United Nation Development Programme
Fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus)
- Vulnerable — IUCN Red List
- State animal of West Bengal
- Medium-sized wild cat of South and Southeast Asia
- Habitat
- Strongly associated with wetlands, typically inhabit swamps and marshy areas, around oxbow lakes, reed beds, tidal creeks and in mangrove forests
- In India, fishing cats are mainly found in the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans, on the foothills of the Himalayas along the Ganga and Brahmaputra river valleys and in the Western Ghats.
- Threats
- Habitat loss — destruction of wetlands, which are increasingly being pollutedand converted for agricultural use and human settlements.
- Hunting for food
- Over-exploitationof local fish stocks and retaliatory killing
- Conservation
- CITES Appendix II
- Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972
UNDP – United Nation Development Programme
- Headquarter — New York City
- United Nations’ global development network.
- Executive board within the United Nations General Assembly.
- Objective : Helping countries to achieve the eradication of poverty, and the reduction of inequalities and exclusion.
- It publishes Human Development Report
- Currently works with 170 countries
- Origin
- Established in 1965 with the merging of the Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance (EPTA) and the Special Fund.
- Rationale was to avoid duplication of [their] activities
- EPTA — set up in 1949 to help the economic and political aspects of underdeveloped countries
- Special Fund — to enlarge the scope of UN technical assistance.
- Focus area:
- Sustainable development
- Democratic governance and peacebuilding
- Climate and disaster resilience
- UNDP’s mandate does not permit to provide financial assistance to individuals (including students seeking scholarships for their studies), companies or private groups.
- Strategic Plan 2018-2021 — sets out the direction for a new UNDP, optimized to help countries achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
- 2015 — UNDP adopted mandatory Social and Environmental Standardsfor all of its projects and programmes.
- UNDP is guided by the United Nations Development Group’s common approach implementing the SDGs, called MAPS, or Mainstreaming, Acceleration, and Policy Support.
