Africa

There is a Ghana recall after four years for Kwadwo Asamoah but no places for Asamoah Gyan nor the Ayew brothers.

eSwatini says it will maintain relations with Taiwan after China seeks diplomatic ties.

A view of Block D5 at the Kutupalong extension camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Photo by: Tanvir Murad Topu / World Bank / CC BY-NC-ND

By Kelli Rogers
COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh, Aug 22 2018 (IOM)

Concrete replaces hand-dug mud steps zigzagging down steep hillsides. Sturdy bridges stretch over marshes, and a main road carves a bumpy path through once inaccessible zones. The mega-camp that sprawls across 6,000 acres of Bangladesh’s Ukhia region has changed greatly in the year since it became home to 700,000 additional Rohingya refugees fleeing violence and persecution in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

For Rohingya and the aid groups that assist them, improved infrastructure and access represents hard-won progress. For the poor Bangladeshi communities on the camp’s fringes, it instills an alarming sense of permanence — one that could appear as support for Rohingya rather than their own families.

There are more than 100 projects underway targeting host communities, some of which were present before the mass arrival of Rohingya. Currently, 20,250 families receive livelihoods support, more than 25,000 participate in cash-for-work plans, and 2,150 families have received agriculture inputs training, according to the Inter Sector Coordination Group that oversees the Rohingya crisis response.

These numbers may mean little to hungry Bangladeshis, who watch trucks loaded with food and water turn from a road jammed with aid vehicles into Kutupalong camp: Away from them and toward their 1 million new neighbors.

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By WAM
ABU DHABI, Aug 22 2018 (WAM)

His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, has discussed the devastation caused by the floods in Kerala during a telephone call with the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.

During the call, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed expressed his sincere condolences and sympathy to the Prime Minister and discussed the relief efforts under way.

H.H. Sheikh Mohamed said that the UAE was prepared to extend all help during this humanitarian crisis in which hundreds have been killed and thousands displaced, and added that the two countries had always enjoyed deep and friendly ties going back several years.

The Indian Prime Minister expressed his thanks and appreciation for the UAE’s concern and its assistance in relief efforts across the southern Indian state of Kerala.

He said that the UAE’s response reflected the special relationship between the two countries and their peoples.

WAM/Hassan Bashir

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By WAM
MANAMA, Aug 22 2018 (WAM)

Bahrain has suspended issuance of entry visas to the Qatari citizens, excluding students in the Kingdom and those who currently have valid visas, Bahrain News Agency (BNA) reported.

Based on the statement of severing political ties with Qatar on June 5 last year and the implementation of related-directives of the Cabinet for all concerned ministries and government organisations, the Ministry of Interior has announced the suspension of the issuance of entry visas for Qatari nationals, BNA said today.

Qatari students who study in Bahrain will be excluded, along with those with valid visas, the ministry said.

“The decision was not taken because of Qatari nationals who share brotherly ties with Bahrainis, but as result of irresponsible acts of Qatari authorities that do not consider the rights of neighbouring countries or the principles of the international law,” the ministry said.

WAM/Hassan Bashir

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Participants of the first Disability Pride Parade in New York City in 2015. New York has a long way to go before their infrastructure becomes inclusive for people with disabilities. Courtesy: UN Photo

By Carmen Arroyo
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 22 2018 (IPS)

Even though over six billion people—nearly one billion of whom will have disabilities— are expected to live in urban centres by 2050, many of the world’s major urban cities have a long way to go before their infrastructure becomes inclusive for people with disabilities.

As the world’s population ages, in 2050, more than 20 percent will be 60 or older, making urban accessibility an urgent need, according to a report by the Disability Inclusive and Accessible Urban Development Network (DIAUD).

But some major cities, like New York, have a long way to go before their infrastructure becomes inclusive for people with disabilities.
The report Service Denied: Accessibility and the New York City Subway System, published in July, revealed that 24 percent of the subway stations in the city were not accessible to people with disabilities. In addition, 62 of 122 New York City neighbourhoods with subway lines did not have stations accessible under the ADA, most of them located in the Bronx, Brooklyn or Queens. Despite the city government’s efforts to ensure public transport accessibility, the subway seems a hard battle.

“New York City is a great city with a lot of history behind it, unfortunately much of its iconic infrastructure was constructed before anyone considered the needs of people with disabilities. Today it can be difficult for a person with a disability to navigate our century-old subway system,” Victor Calise, commissioner of the mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities in New York City, told IPS.

Since the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006, which was seen as a human rights and development advancement, accessibility has gained momentum.

Also, the approval of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, and its consecutive implementation and amendment in 2008, ensured city government’s focus on inclusion. Although public transit, access to restaurants or office spaces, employment and education are some of the issues that urban accessibility includes; public infrastructure and housing remain the most important barriers in some major old cities, such as New York.

“The fact remains that to be a truly inclusive city we must continue the work to make our subway system equally accessible for all. Without equal transportation people with disabilities struggle to get to school, doctor’s appointments and their places of employment,” he added.

Asked what the current options, besides the subway, are for people with disabilities, Calise replied: “There are some alternatives in place, including a 100 percent accessible bus system, an increasingly accessible taxi fleet and a subscription-based paratransit service that costs the same as a subway ride.”

He explained that since mayor Bill De Blasio took office, improvements have been made, especially in the subway system.

“First, every subway system that is being built new (most recently the 2nd Avenue subway line) is being built with accessibility in mind. Second, with major renovations being done on subway stations we are also making necessary installations of elevators and other accessibility features while the work is being done.”

A further improvement has come from the taxi industry. “The TLC [New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission] has also expanded its Accessible Dispatch programme— previously only providing pick-ups in Manhattan—to all five boroughs to connect people with disabilities to yellow and green taxis as they need them, and also advocated for greater accessibility in the for-hire vehicle sector.”

The subway accessibility problem does not only exist in New York City. Other major urban centre like Paris and London also struggle to keep their subway stations accessible: 15 out of 303 stations in Paris are wheelchair-accessible, and 71 out of 270 in London are fully accessible, according to an article at The Guardian.

However, Los Angeles (LA) and the District of Columbia (DC) have done a surprisingly good job at making their public transportation system accessible for people with disabilities: all of their subway stations are fully accessible (91 in DC and 93 in LA).

Thus, their current improvements are going a step further. The spokesperson from Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti’s office told IPS: “We all have a role to play in breaking down barriers between communities with disabilities and the larger public.”

He shared with IPS what the city government has worked on during the last months: “The mayor issued Executive Directive 10—Vision Zero— to reduce traffic fatalities and make our streets safer for everyone, particularly for children, the elderly, and people with physical disabilities. We also issued Executive Directive 17, Purposeful Ageing LA, which is an innovative, multi-year effort to enhance the lives of older adults with improvements such as additional bus benches and transit shelters for elderly and disabilities individuals to use while traveling throughout the city.”

“These directives have helped Los Angeles become one of the most welcoming and accessible cities in the world,” he added.

In terms of housing accessibility, New York still struggles, due to its layout and antiquity, whereas DC takes the lead.

“An additional pitfall of the historic nature of NYC is its buildings. People with disabilities have difficulty navigating inaccessible building infrastructure; getting into restaurants, office buildings and finding housing units that are accessible for them,” argued Calise.

Asked what the strategy is to make housing accessible, he replied: “To combat this we are focused on ensuring accessibility in everything new that is being built by reinforcing and adding to the NYC building code. In addition, there are a multitude of renovation programs that modify a person’s home to make it more accessible.”

In DC, the mayor has also improved housing accessibility.“Mayor [Muriel] Bowser has devoted over USD100 million to the District’s Housing Production Trust Fund designed to develop accessible and affordable housing units both in new and existing apartment buildings,” Matthew McCollough, director at DC’s Office of Disability Rights, told IPS.

“This has led to the delivery of 3,606 affordable units, and there are 5,000 more affordable units in the pipeline,” he concluded.

The spokesperson from LA’s mayor’s office claimed: “As a city, it’s our job to ensure that all city facilities, programs, services, and activities are accessible to individuals with disabilities. But creating a more welcoming and accessible city goes beyond our infrastructure – we want every resident to feel safe and cared for by their community.”

Accessibility beyond city government

Although local governments are responsible for public infrastructure and, thus, for making it accessible to all citizens, civil society and the private sector also have a role to play that goes from lobbying to actually implementing solutions.

From NYC, Calise argued: “The role of the private sector is to realise the enormous benefits of accessibility in your business.”

“If your facility is accessible you are not only expanding your business to someone who uses a wheelchair but friends and family of people who use wheelchairs, parents with strollers and others. Accessibility is not only the right thing to do but it’s the smart thing to do in order to benefit your business.”

As for civil society, Calise stated: “The role of civil society is to be conscious of people with disabilities and the enormous benefits of inclusive design.”

Thus, they should move from consciousness to action: “With this knowledge, civil society should be conscious of how they can make their own homes, workspaces, websites etc. accessible and usable for all. In addition, when utilising these services of accessibility be mindful of those who really need them.”

The spokesperson from the LA office agreed and argued in favour of a comprehensive strategy: “It’s our job to help spread awareness around the needs of our disabled communities so that both the public and private sectors can proactively incorporate their needs into everyday decisions around services and infrastructure. As people with disabilities face disproportionally high unemployment rates, it’s also imperative that local civil society and the private sector work to create a more inclusive workplace by proactively recruiting individuals with disabilities.”

He concluded: “This holistic approach to actively identifying and incorporating the unique needs of individuals with disabilities helps ensure that everyone in our city is able to live vibrant, active lives.”

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The post Accessible Public Transportation and Housing, a Need for People with Disabilities in Major Cities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of a series of stories on disability inclusion.

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Sudanese photographer Ola Alsheikh shares her favourite shots from her hometown, Khartoum.

Driving cash-handling vehicles is seen as one of the most dangerous jobs in South Africa.

Kofi Annan, U.N. Secretary General from 1997 to 2007 and 2001 Nobel Peace Prize-winner, who died on Aug. 18, seen together with Brazilian diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello (left), one of his right-hand men and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, who died in Baghdad in 2003. Credit: Sergio Vieira de Mello Foundation

By Mario Osava
RÍO DE JANEIRO, Aug 21 2018 (IPS)

Kofi Annan’s stature as a global leader grew after he finished his second term as United Nations Secretary-General in 2006. Time confirmed his excellence in defending the principles and values of multilateralism, which is currently on the decline and subject to all kinds of attacks.

Some of the crucial actions carried out by Annan, who died on Aug. 18, such as condemning the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, had the key backing of two Brazilian diplomats.

Sergio Vieira de Mello, who died in Baghdad on Aug. 19, 2003, was U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and Annan’s right-hand man in dealing with conflicts and rebuilding shattered nations.

He was sent to Iraq as the secretary-general’s special representative in May 2003, two months after the invasion, a spectacle of violence and bombings instantly reported by the global media.

A truck bomb destroyed the Canal Hotel used as a U.N. office in Baghdad.

Vieira and 21 other U.N. officials were killed in the suicide attack by the Al-Zarqawi organisation, the seed of what would later call itself the Islamic State (IS), according to Carolina Larriera, Vieira’s Argentine widow and a member of his team who survived in the rubble.

In memory of the victims, the U.N. General Assembly decided in 2008 to designate Aug. 19 as World Humanitarian Day, dedicated to all those who risk their lives to assist people affected by armed conflicts and other crises.

Vieira, a Brazilian who worked at the U.N. since he was 21, died at the age of 55 as a hero of humanitarian and peace operations in the most dangerous situations, in Bangladesh, Sudan, Cyprus, Mozambique, Peru and Iraq.

He mediated conflicts in Cambodia, Lebanon, Rwanda and other countries, while in Kosovo and East Timor he supported the “building of new nations.”

Between 1999 and 2002 he led the U.N. peacekeeping forces that oversaw the transition to independence of East Timor, a former Portuguese colony occupied by Indonesia since 1975.

The son of a Brazilian diplomat, Vieira rose through the ranks of the United Nations, occupying positions in its refugee and human rights agencies.

He reached the peak of his career in the missions commissioned by Annan, such as the operation in East Timor. Many even pointed to him as a possible successor to the secretary general because of his proven capacity and extensive experience.

“Annan was a giant at the United Nations,” the last great promoter of multilateralism, which has recently lost momentum, overtaken by the current wave of nationalism,” said Clóvis Brigagão, a political scientist who headed the Centre for the Study of the Americas at a university in Rio de Janeiro.

Born in Ghana 80 years ago, Annan was the first black U.N. secretary-general. He held the position from 1997 to 2006.

He was recognised as perhaps the last global head of state that the powers-that-be allowed the world and as a leader who promoted human rights as a priority and strengthened the mechanisms of peace, democratisation and development.

One of his triumphs was to achieve a consensus on the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that set 17 targets to reduce poverty, hunger, child and maternal mortality, among other scourges of humanity, from 2000 to 2015.

Expanded and renewed, 169 targets now make up the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDOs), the heirs to the MDGs, seeking to promote social, human, environmental and economic advances by 2030.

For his work, Annan was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the U.N. in 2001.

But it was the tragedy in Iraq that marked his two terms at the General Secretariat, as the first career staffer to be promoted to the top post in the U.N.

During that crisis, in addition to Vieira he also had the support of another Brazilian diplomat, José Mauricio Bustani, in adopting a position against the invasion by the U.S.-led coalition that also included Great Britain, Australia and Poland.

Bustani had led the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) since it was created in 1997 to enforce the international convention that seeks to eradicate these weapons worldwide.

His reports were key to the U.S. government’s decision to attack Iraq under George W. Bush (2001-2009), in what was known as the second Gulf War (2003-2011) after the one that took place between 1990 and 1991.

The pretext for the attack was the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction, mainly chemical weapons, in the hands of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

In 2001, Bustani was negotiating Iraq’s accession to the OPCW, which would allow for inspections and would prove, according to him, the absence of such weapons in the country.

This was a challenge to the U.S. government, which exerted pressure that led to Bustani’s removal from the organisation in 2002. A year later, Iraq was bombed under a justification that was never proven, which reinforced Annan’s condemnation of the Iraq war, which he deemed “illegal”.

Bustani shared his experience in the article “Brazil and OPCW: Diplomacy and Defence of the Multilateral System Under Attack,” published in late 2002, and continued his career, as Brazil’s ambassador to Britain and France, before retiring in 2015.

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The worst drought in 40 years has forced thousands in Sri Lanka to abandon their livelihoods and seek work in cities. Amnesty International says that they will be taking on climate change as a human rights issue. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By IPS Correspondents
JOHANNESBURG/UNITED NATIONS, Aug 21 2018 (IPS)

The human rights movement must be bigger, bolder, and more inclusive if we are to tackle today’s challenges, said Amnesty International’s first South African Secretary General.

Laying out his ambitious goals for the organisation and the global human rights movement as a whole is Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty International’s newest Secretary General.

“In my first message as Secretary General, I want to make clear that Amnesty International is now opening its arms wider than ever before to build a genuinely global community that stretches into all four corners of the world, especially in the global south,” Naidoo said as he took up his position.

“I want us to build a human rights movement that is more inclusive. We need to redefine what it means to be a human rights champion in 2018. An activist can come from all walks of life,” he continued.

Hailing from South Africa, Naidoo got his start in social justice while protesting apartheid in his home country and has since worked on issues of education, inequality, and climate change.

“Our world is facing complex problems that can only be tackled if we break away from old ideas that human rights are about some forms of injustice that people face, but not others. The patterns of oppression that we’re living through are interconnected,” said Naidoo.

IPS spoke to Naidoo about the importance of intersectionality, climate change, and his vision for one of the biggest human rights organisations in such divisive times.

Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty International’s newest Secretary General, says climate change is a human rights issue that the organisation will now also focus on. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

IPS: Why is it so important for intersections and the coming together of human rights organisations, and how do you envision this happening?

Naidoo: Well firstly, I think people would be being somewhat delusional if they think individual organisations are going to deliver results. Part of whether Amnesty is able to be successful is that we depend upon the quality of the relationships and alliances that we build with organisations working on the ground.

The good thing is that because of Amnesty’s moving-to-the-ground strategy, which was to move more capacity from London to the different regions, means now we’ve got on-the-ground capacity so those partnerships can happen more easier.

But more than that, it is about the intersection of the agendas.

Say you are taking up the issue of gender equality, you can’t take up the issue of gender equality without understanding that economic exclusion of women is much greater so it brings in economic rights as well as gender rights.

So part of our success will depend on how good we are at making common cause with issues where they are intersecting.

Part of the problems in the past is that people only wanted to form an alliance if they agreed on everything, and that’s not what alliances are about and not what coalitions are about.

An example I use is when I was the chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty which IPS was part of. One of the big tensions there was how do you, in that broad movement keep the religious folks and the women’s movement together? The women’s movement wanted very explicit commitment by the Global Call to Action Against Poverty that we are committed to reproductive rights. And then the religious folks said if you put that there, then we are leaving the coalition.

So what we did was put them in the same room, and said come up with a solution. And at the end, they came up with language that said we support reproductive health. So it was less than what the feminist movement wanted, but it was more than what the religious movement wanted but they found a way to actually live with that.

Because on everything else—on women’s employment, on stopping violence against women and all of that—they had no disagreement.

Let’s be honest the problem is so many fault lines and divisions that are emerging on religious ground, on race, class, migration and so on and unless we can create safer and more spaces for dialogue to talk about differences, and how do we manage difference, we will end up with more and more conflicts.

IPS: What does that mean for the Global South? You said that Amnesty is now on the ground in many countries. What does that mean for these regions and these people to see Amnesty International more on the ground?

Naidoo: What I hope it means is that Amnesty’s being on the ground means that it is more sensitive to on the ground knowledge, taking its lead from local people and being more humble in how it analyses and understands its own role.

For people on the ground, hopefully it means it gives them a great sense of confidence that a well-known organisation that has a long track record, has won the Nobel Peace Prize and all of that, is an ally that will strengthen their struggles.

And sadly, you know, I’ve seen it happen a thousand times, many of our leaders on the continent: if a local NGO says I want to meet with you about about A,B,C, they will say no. If some international organisation that is a big brand says they want to meet, they will get the meeting.

So part of what it hopefully means is we will help amplify the voices of the people that we partner with.

IPS: IPS has been covering climate change for decades. Could you tell us why climate change is a human rights issue to Amnesty?

Naidoo: Let’s put it in the words of Sharan Burrow, the first woman to lead the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). She and I were having a meeting with former Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, and we were waiting for him and so we swapped each other’s notes around. She was doing the climate change pitch and I did the labor and decent worker pitch. And you could see Ban Ki-moon looking at his [notes]—is this the Greenpeace person or is the labour person?

And [Burrow] said to him, “You know Mr. Secretary General, you must wonder why me as a trade unionist, where I supposed to fight for decent work and better working conditions, am so passionate about climate change?”

And she said, “it is because as a mother, as a human being, and as a worker leader, I recognise there are no jobs on a dead planet. And so if there are no jobs on a dead planet, there are no human beings on a dead planet. If there are no human beings on a dead planet, then there are no human rights on a dead planet.”

So I mean, there is no more important human right than the right to life, right?

And that is why I always say, our struggle is not to save the planet. The planet does not need saving. Because the end result is that if we continue on the path that we are, we warm the planet to a point where we become extinct. The planet will still be here. And in fact once we become extinct as a species, the forests will recover, the oceans will replenish themselves.

So the struggle we are engaged in is whether humanity can fashion a new way to mutually co-exist with nature in an interdependent relationship for centuries and centuries to come.

And that is why the human rights movement has to take climate change seriously.

*Interview has been edited for clarity and length

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Soldiers were caught on film hitting a photographer covering a protest over the arrest of an MP.

There are an estimated 13,000 pieces of plastic litter afloat every single square kilometer of ocean. Credit: Bo Eide Snemann/CC-BY-2.0

By Ralph Regenvanu
PORT VILA, Aug 21 2018 (IPS)

Cradled in the South Pacific, my home country Vanuatu is made mostly of ocean.  The Pacific covers 98% of the national jurisdiction. Here, some 280,000 Ni-Vanuatu like myself live simply off the land and sea.  We view the ocean as a living ‘bridge’ that connects islands and continents while sustaining life in all its forms. Where we come from, the ocean has a heartbeat.

So when scientists collected nearly 24,000 pieces of non-biodegradable trash on the beaches of the capital city Port Vila last August, it was a harsh reality check for us all. A tally of more than 4,400 plastic bags, 3,000 food wrappers, 4,400 plastic and foam packages, 2,600 beverage cans and 2,100 plastic drinking bottles showed that the addiction to cheap, convenient plastics had crept onto our shores and into our lives. The debris was choking marine life, slowly poisoning fish (and those who eat them) and negatively affecting tourism.

Ralph Regenvanu, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vanuatu

To save our oceans, the country had to take swift and decisive action.

Last month, Vanuatu became one of the first in the world to implement a ban on single use plastic bags, straws and polystyrene food containers. The Government announced the new rules in January, prohibiting the importation and manufacturing of certain non-biodegradable plastic products, followed by a six-month grace period so local businesses and manufacturers could use up supplies.

Alternatives were developed. Traditional natural fibre baskets took the place of plastic bags. Home-grown innovators such as Tom Yaken created community water taps using bamboo instead of the usual plastic pipes. We were guided by a National Ocean Policy for sustainable ocean management, framed around the traditional ‘Nakamal’ – the customary Ni-Vanuatu institution for governance.

A medium and long-term communication strategy is being put in place to begin the discussion on how to achieve lasting change in the age of plastic.

Looking at the region, I am proud that other Pacific ‘big ocean states’ are also rallying against the curse of marine plastic pollution. Samoa recently announced plans to ban all single-use plastic bags and straws by January 2019. New Zealand made a similar pledge to phase out single-use plastics over the next year. Meanwhile, island countries such as Palau, the Marshall Islands, Northern Marianas, Guam, and parts of the Federated States of Micronesia have all outlawed single use plastic shopping bags. Fiji and Tonga have levy systems in place to discourage plastic bag use.

But even beyond the Pacific, the momentum towards a major global transition has never before been so great.

In April, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London, 53 countries made a joint commitment to preserve the health of the ocean, recognising its role in sustaining life on our planet.  Under the Commonwealth ‘Blue Charter’, Vanuatu and the United Kingdom stepped forward as ‘champion countries’ to tackle marine plastic pollution.

It is a pressing global issue – scientists predict that if current trends continue, there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050. Even now, the accumulation of trash floating in the Northern Pacific Ocean (commonly known as the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’) spans an area three times the size of France and is estimated to weigh 80,000 tonnes – equivalent to 500 jumbo jets. The effects are dire for marine ecosystems, ocean economies and human life, and demand a global response.

Fortunately, the vast majority of Commonwealth countries are island or coastal states (just seven are landlocked).  There is huge potential for resources and good practices to be shared, refined and scaled across the Commonwealth, and with the rest of the world.

My own hope is that all 53 leaders who signed on to the Commonwealth Blue Charter commit to concrete steps to address plastic waste in their countries. We have a remarkable opportunity to jointly make improvements to our planet, and it must not be missed.

Vanuatu’s journey so far has been instructive. I am confident that between traditional marine resource management practices and new knowledge and innovations, solutions to the plastic problem are available, or ready to be discovered. It just takes leadership.

Pacific Island countries like Vanuatu have already shown themselves to be ready and willing.

 

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Excerpt:

Op-ed by Ralph Regenvanu, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vanuatu

The post If Vanuatu Can Ban Single-Use Plastics, so Can the Other Commonwealth Countries! appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Colombo, Sri Lanka. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 21 2018 (IPS)

Protracted economic stagnation in rich countries continues to threaten the development prospects of poorer countries. Globalization and economic liberalization over the last few decades have integrated developing countries into the world economy, but now that very integration is becoming a threat as developing countries are shackled by the knock-on effects of the rich world’s troubles.

 

Trade interdependence at risk

As a consequence of increased global integration, growth in developing countries relies more than ever on access to international markets. That access is needed, not only to export products, but also to import food and other requirements. Interdependence nowadays, however asymmetric, is a two-way street, but with very different traffic flows.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Unfortunately, the trade effects of the crisis have been compounded by their impact on development cooperation efforts, which have been floundering lately. In 1969, OECD countries committed to devote 0.7% of their Gross National Income in official development assistance (ODA) to developing countries. But the total in 2017 reached only $146.6 billion, or 0.31% of aggregate gross national income – less than half of what was promised.

In 2000, UN member states adopted the Millennium Development Goals to provide benchmarks for tackling world poverty, revised a decade and a half later with the successor Sustainable Development Goals. But all serious audits since show major shortfalls in international efforts to achieve the goals, a sober reminder of the need to step up efforts and meet longstanding international commitments, especially in the current global financial crisis.

 

Aid less forthcoming

Individual countries’ promises of aid to the least developed countries (LDCs) have fared no better, while the G-7 countries have failed to fulfill their pledges of debt forgiveness and aid for poorer countries that they have made at various summits over the decades.

At the turn of the century, development aid seemed to rise as a priority for richer countries. But, having declined precipitously following the Cold War’s end almost three decades ago, ODA flows only picked up after the 9/11 or September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Monterrey Consensus, the outcome of the 2002 first ever UN conference on Financing for Development, is now the major reference for international development financing.

But, perhaps more than ever before, much bilateral ODA remains ‘tied’, or used for donor government projects, rendering the prospects of national budgetary support more remote than ever. Tied aid requires the recipient country to spend the aid received in the donor country, often on overpriced goods and services or unnecessary technical assistance. Increasingly, ODA is being used to promote private corporate interests from the donor country itself through ostensible ‘public-private partnerships’ and other similar arrangements.

Not surprisingly, even International Monetary Fund staff have become increasingly critical of ODA, citing failure to contribute to economic growth. However, UN research shows that if blatantly politically-driven aid is excluded from consideration, the evidence points to a robust positive relationship. Despite recent efforts to enhance aid effectiveness, progress has been modest at best, not least because average project financing has fallen by more than two-thirds!

 

Debt

Debt is another side of the development dilemma. In the last decade, the joint IMF-World Bank Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative and its extension, the supplementary Multilateral Debt Relief initiative, made some progress on debt sustainability. But debt relief is still not treated as additional to ODA. The result is ‘double counting’ as what is first counted as a concessional loan is then booked again as a debt write-off.

At the 2001 LDCs summit in Brussels, developed countries committed to providing 100% duty-free and quota-free (DFQF) access for LDC exports. But actual access is only available for 80% of products, and anything short of full DFQF allows importing countries to exclude the very products that LDCs can successfully export.

Unfortunately, many of the poorest countries have been unable to cope with unsustainable debt burdens following the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Meanwhile, there has been little progress towards an equitable and effective sovereign-debt workout framework despite the debilitating Argentine, Greek and other crises.

 

Technology gap

In addition to facing export obstacles, declining aid inflows, and unsustainable debt, the poorest countries remain far behind developed countries technologically. Affordable and equitable access to existing and new technologies is crucial for human progress and sustainable development in many areas, including food security and climate-change mitigation and adaptation.

The decline of public-sector research and agricultural-extension efforts, stronger intellectual-property claims and greater reliance on privately owned technologies have ominous implications, especially for the poor. The same is true for affordable access to essential medicines, on which progress remains modest.

An international survey in recent years found that such medicines were available in less than half of poor countries’ public facilities and less than two-thirds of private facilities. Meanwhile, median prices were almost thrice international reference prices in the public sector, and over six times as much in the private sector!

Thus, with the recent protracted stagnation in many rich countries, fiscal austerity measures, growing protectionism and other recent developments have made things worse for international development cooperation.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former economics professor, was United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought in 2007.

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The traditional priest placed a curse on those accused of links to a Nigerian church attack.

About 80 percent of Guyana’s forests, some 15 million hectares, have remained untouched over time. The country is making plans for a green economy while also looking to exploit its fossil fuel reserves. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Jewel Fraser
GEORGETOWN, Aug 21 2018 (IPS)

Guyana is forging ahead with plans to exploit vast offshore reserves of oil and gas, even while speaking eloquently of its leadership in transitioning to a green economy at a recent political party congress addressed by the country’s president.

The mixed signals on plans for a green economy have increased in the past year, in the wake of a 2015 discovery of what has been termed one of the largest discoveries of oil and gas 120 miles off Guyana’s shores, which saw major international oil companies vying for exploration rightseven as the government began work on a Green State Development Strategy (GSDS).

Central to the GSDS is “the structural transformation of Guyana’s economy into a green and inclusive one [that] will recognise the economic value of the extractive sectors, instituting measures to ensure their environmental sustainability while facilitating new economic growth from a more diverse set of inclusive, green and high value-adding sectors.”

In line with its goal to transition to a green economy, Guyana entered into a seven-year partnership with Norway for a REDD+ investment fund, on the basis of its 19 million hectares of forest with a carbon sink capacity of 350 tons/hectare, in what it described as “the world’s first national-scale, payment-for-performance forest conservation agreement.” The USD250 million investment fund from Norway is earmarked for pioneering Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy.

At the same time, government agencies of this small South American country, the only English-speaking one on the continent, gave some assistance to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as it researched the most effective measures for ensuring the Guyanese labour force developed the skills needed in a green economy.

The ILO agreed to respond to IPS’ queries about the paradox of Guyana exploiting its fossil fuel reserves while making plans for a green economy, whereas repeated efforts by the IPS to obtain an interview with Guyana’s Office of Climate Change were unsuccessful.

Andrew Small, the consultant commissioned by the ILO to carry out the study on greening Guyana’s labour force, told IPS via e-mail that he thinks the country is indeed ready and positioning itself for a green economy. He pointed to changes in the education curricula at both secondary school and tertiary level, as well as efforts at encouraging climate smart agriculture. “Guyana is indeed a small country but a major contributor to the global effort to reduce carbon emissions from economic and social activities,” he said.

He also pointed out the move by some large businesses to incorporate renewable energy into their buildings and processes, and an attendant move by the government to enable further uptake of renewable energy. “In particular the Guyana Energy Agency and Guyana Power and Light Company are leading the final draft and implementation of the Draft Guyana Energy Policy (2017) and Guyana Energy Sector Strategic Plan (2015-2020), respectively. These policies outline anticipated energy demand, an optimal energy mix for Guyana including a 100 percent increase in renewable energy sources aligned to Guyana’s transition to an environmentally sustainable economy,” he said.

However, with an estimated four billion barrels of oil in its waters, the pull of oil money has been creating a shift in focus for some who might potentially have taken up working in green jobs. Small admits, “The shift is already happening. The magnitude of this sector will attract many highly skilled Guyanese. There have been some local concerns expressed about this, in particular in the case of engineers from the Public Infrastructure Ministry or [with regard to those] who would otherwise seek employment with this Ministry among others.”

At the same time, the ILO Caribbean’s Enterprise and Job Creation Specialist Kelvin Sergeant told IPS that the impact of oil and gas exploration on the green transition could go either way. “It can be positive or negative. Positive if the resources from the oil sector are used to develop the green economy and ensure sustainability of the environment and the rest of the society, especially the more vulnerable in the society. If this is not done, then there could be many new problems in the future.”

Nevertheless, he explained, the ILO commissioned the “Skills for green jobs” in Guyana study because his organisation believes a green economy is a sustainable one. “The ILO places great emphasis on greening of the economy and green jobs. This is critical towards sustainable economies and societies. …The ILO, however, argues that policies towards greening of the economy will have an impact on workers. There will be job losses, job gains or jobs will be redefined. Because of this, the ILO believes that any policy towards greening of the economy should be just and fair and must leave no one behind.”

The focus on fossil fuels “can be only detrimental if there is no trickling down of the gains from the oil sector. The whole process has to be carefully managed to avoid Dutch disease and other problems which have plagued Caribbean countries that have oil,” he said. “There needs to be careful policies which ensure that everyone benefits from the oil finds.”

Apart from labour market concerns, it remains to be seen how Guyana will live up to its Nationally Determined Contributions tabled last year. The country promised “to avoid emissions in the amount of 48.7 MtCO2e annually if adequate incentives are provided”, on the basis of its forest cover. If the four billion barrel estimate given is correct, Guyana’s reserves alone represent almost four-fifths of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 estimate of the amount of energy that will be generated by Latin America’s industrial sector including its fossil fuel industry in the years leading up to 2030. The IPCC estimates the approximately 33 EJ of energy (roughly equivalent to 5.4 billion barrels of oil) Latin America will generate up to 2030 will result in 2,417 MtCO2 emissions, making Guyana’s promises in support of the Paris Agreement inconsequential in the light of emissions its billions of barrels would produce.

But Sergeant remains upbeat about the viability of a green economy. He said the focus on fossil fuel exploration does not mean efforts to promote green skills for a green economy are moot. “It does not have to, if the guidelines for a just transition are followed.”

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Nigeria forward Anthony Nwakaeme moves to Turkey rather than China in order to keep alive his hopes of playing for the Super Eagles again.

Women protest on the streets of Rabat to demand equal rights. Credit: Abderrahim El Ouali/IPS.

By Rangita de Silva de Alwis
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 21 2018 (IPS)

Recent developments around the world give support to the idea of the #MeToo movement’s transformative potential. A postmodernist claim was that the feminist movement was essentialist and that no one expression of feminism can be applicable to women of different ethnicity, cultural, or class identity. The #Me Too movement has found expression in different cultural traditions and helped to challenge this theory. 

China’s #我也是; Latin America’s #YoTambien; the Middle East’s and the United States’ #MeToo have sparked a mini revolution for women.  However, the data on the laws remain disappointing.

The newly released IFC Report on Women, Business and the Law (2018) reveal that 104 economies still prevent women from working in certain jobs, because of their gender.  In 59 economies there are no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace.

In 18 economies, husbands can legally prevent their wives from working. A tour- de- force of Penn Law’s newly released first phase of the family law data base show that legalized discrimination remains enshrined in the law.  See: http://www.law.upenn.libguides.com/globalwomensleadership

 

Constructing ‘Honor” and “Shame” in the Law:

Notions of a woman’s “honor,” “shame,” and “obedience” are intimately tied to the way in which the law constructs those concepts. The Algerian Family Code in Article 39 (1) legalizes a woman’s obedience not only to her husband but to his relatives:

Despite much remaining legalized discrimination, the year 2017 was a watershed year for women. Although it is difficult to prove causation, it could be argued that the #MeToo movement has helped to spark some policy change and debate in different parts of the world

“The wife is required to obey her husband and grant him respect as the head of the family. The wife is required to “respect the parents of her husband and relatives.”

In Gabon too, according to Article 178 of the Family Law, “the spouses may, during the marriage, renounce the option of monogamy.” In Gabon, women still need the permission of a guardian or husband to open a bank account.

According to Article 257 of the Civil Code although a woman may, on her own signature, open a special current account to deposit or withdraw funds reserved for the household, the opening of this account must be notified by the custodian to the husband.

The law’s power to construct marriage relations and shape women’s inferior status in the family can be both subtle or direct. In Tanzania, Marriage Act. Section 63(a) states that it shall be the duty of every husband to maintain his wife or wives and to provide them with such support as to his means and station in life.  However, the duty of support is not mutual.

Polygamous marriages are recognized in several legal systems and reduces women’s status in the marriage and family. In Tanzania according to the Marriage Act. Section 10, monogamous marriages can be converted to polygamous unions at any time during the marriage.

Several countries also call for four adult witnesses of good moral conduct to bear witness to a crime of rape making it almost impossible for a victim of rape to meet this evidentiary requirement.  Moreover, these provisions render a woman’s evidence worth half that of a male witness. For example, The Iranian Penal Code states:

“Article 74: Adultery, whether punishable by flogging or stoning, may be proven by the testimony of four just men or that of three just men and two just women.”

Virginity testing is sanctioned by law and is meant to control a woman’s sexuality and the notions of a woman’s chastity is tied to a family’s honor. The South African Children’s Act 12(3) allows for virginity testing of girls over the age of 16.

A woman’s so-called honor plays a role in regulating abortion too. For example, in Chile, according to Article 344 of the Penal Code, the punishment shall be reduced if the abortion was done in order to hide a woman’s “dishonor.”

An estimated 93 percent of women of reproductive age in Africa live in countries with restrictive abortion laws. The Ugandan and Zambian Penal Code carry a similar penalty of a seven-year imprisonment for any woman who tries to voluntarily miscarry. In Namibia, the prison sentence could be extended up to 14 years.

 

A demonstration in support of legal abortion in Argentina. Credit: Demian Marchi/Amnesty International

 

Second Class Citizenship in the Law

Nationality laws in over twenty countries (The Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Brunei, Burundi, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kiribati, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Malaysia, Mauritania, Nepal, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Togo, United Arab Emirates) worldwide exclude mothers from passing their nationality to their children on an equal basis with fathers.

This creates a category of second class citizens and when children are unable to acquire their parents’ nationality; it leads to statelessness. Gender discrimination in nationality laws impede a child’s access to public education and health care.  Unequal nationality laws also curtail access to driver’s licenses, bank accounts and access to social welfare programs and employment.

Unexamined assumptions in the law such as overprotection of women or exclusion of women from certain categories of work reinforce stereotypes that women are fragile and do more harm than good to a woman’s ability to care for her family and community.

Russia excludes women from 400 categories of employment, and the Nigerian Labor Act in Section 57 provides the Minister of Labor a blanket authorization for the exclusion of women from categories of employment as he/she thinks fit: “The Minister may make regulations prohibiting or restricting, subject to such conditions as may be specified in the regulations, the employment of women in any particular type or types of industrial or other undertakings or in any process or work carried on by such undertakings.”

 

Protest march of women workers for higher wages, and against male domination in trade union politics in tea plantations at Munnar in southern Indian state of Kerala. Credit: K.S. Harikrishnan/IPS

 

Are Laws Changing?

A longitudinal mapping of the alterations in the laws that regulate the status of women will reveal whether there are changes in the law and how and where these changes occur.

Despite much remaining legalized discrimination, the year 2017 was a watershed year for women.  Although it is difficult to prove causation, it could be argued that the #MeToo movement has helped to spark some policy change and debate in different parts of the world.

In Tunisia, Jordan, and Lebanon, parliaments repealed provisions in their penal codes that allowed rapists to escape punishment by marrying their victims. In 2017, the Tunisian parliament repealed Article 227 of the penal code exonerating the rapist if he married his victim.

The recent domestic violence law approved by the Tunisian parliament in 2017 was a long time coming and was preceded by a decade long struggle by women to create a normative and legal framework to address violence against women.

However, it could be argued that the global forces unleashed by the #MeToo movement was the final nudge to see it through parliament. The law also criminalizes sexual harassment in public spaces.

After years of mobilizing by women, in 2017, Lebanon’s parliament rolled back Article 522 of the Penal Code, which had allowed rapists to escape prosecution by marrying the victim. However, the legislative body retained a loophole relating to sex with children between the ages 15-17 and seducing a “virgin” girl into having sex with the promise of marriage.

Again in 2017, India’s Supreme Court banned the controversial Islamic divorce practice known as “triple talaq” or instant divorce in a landmark ruling. The practice allowed a husband to divorce his wife simply saying the Arabic word for divorce, talaq three times.

Even when laws failed to pass, it seems that the #MeToo movement helped spark otherwise long suppressed debate. Just this month, in the Pope’s home country, the Argentinian senate narrowly rejected a Bill that would allow elective abortion in the first fourteen weeks of pregnancy.

In Brazil, home to the largest Catholic population, where abortion carries a punishment of three years, both supporters and opposers discussed a bill to decriminalize abortion.

More than 25 years ago Radhika Coomaraswamy, who was Secretary General Kofi Annan’s  First Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Under Secretary General, gave me a copy of the 1985 case of Sha Bano. Shah Bano, a sixty-five year old woman living deep in the byzantine confines of the old royal state of Madhya Pradesh, was divorced after forty-five years of marriage by her husband by the triple talaq method.

Shah Bano filed an action in court seeking a small subsistence from her wealthy lawyer husband under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, a colonial piece of legislation intended to prevent “vagrancy” of wives. The Indian Supreme Court’s decision to award Sha Bano maintenance of five dollars a month polarized the Hindu and Muslim communities and created fissures in the Muslim community.

A year later, Martha Minow, now the 300th Anniversary Professor at Harvard University gave me a copy of her article, “Forming Underneath Everything that Grows: Toward a History of Family Law.” She argues that family law grows “underneath” other legal fields in the sense that its “rules about roles and duties between men and women, parents and children, families and strangers historically and conceptually underlie other rules about employment and commerce, education and welfare, and perhaps the governance of the state.”

Both Coomaraswamy and Minow hoped that my generation would address the contested nature of family law reform. It seems that it is the next generation- the #Me Too generation that will propel these changes.

Catharine MacKinon argues that #MeToo has done what the law could not.  I argue that the #MeToo movement has the power and potential to mobilize political and social forces to influence debate and to contribute to law and social reform.

At a moment when the traditional liberal world order as we know is floundering, the global women’s movement and the #MeToo movement offer potentially transformative ways to translate women’s experiences into lawmaking in areas where the law itself is complicit in the unequal status of women. The mapping of laws will allow us to see how far we have come and how far we still have to go.

Footnote: I thank the Council on Foreign Relations and Rachel Vogelstein, Douglas Dillon Senior Fellow and Director of Women and Foreign Policy Program for hosting a discussion on Family Law Reform and Women’s Rights on September 5th. I am grateful to Under Secretary Gender Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Head of UN Women for inspiring the Mapping of Family Law and Dean Theodore W. Ruger, Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School for making the first phase of the Mapping possible. I also thank Dr. Paula Johnson, President of Wellesley College for setting the standard for the reexamination of ways in which gender differentials in different systems, whether in the global legal systems or in health care, impact women.       

This is excerpted from an article to be published on the “SDG Goal 5 and de Jure Discrimination in the Law” by the UN SDG Fund.

 

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Excerpt:

Rangita de Silva de Alwis is Associate Dean of International Affairs, University of Pennsylvania Law School, Global Adviser, UN SDG Fund & UN Women High Level Working Group on Women’s Access to Justice

The post The Gender of Law: What the Mapping of Family Laws Reveals appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The former Arsenal manager is to be decorated by his ex-player, Liberia's President George Weah.

Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

By Pratima Yadav, Vani S. Kulkarni, and Raghav Gaiha
NEW DELHI, Aug 21 2018 (IPS)

Old age morbidity is a rapidly worsening curse in India. The swift descent of the elderly in India (60 years+) into non-communicable diseases (NCDs e.g. cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes) could have disastrous consequences in terms of impoverishment of families, excess mortality, lowering of investment and consequent deceleration of growth.

Indeed, the government has to deal simultaneously with the rising fiscal burden of NCDs and substantial burden of infectious diseases. As a recent Lancet report (2018) points out, failure to devise a strategy and make timely investment now will jeopardise achievement of SDG 3 and target 4 of a one-third reduction in premature mortality from NCDs by 2030.

NCDs are chronic in nature and take a long time to develop. They are linked to ageing and affluence, and have replaced infectious diseases and malnutrition as the dominant causes of ill health and death in much of the world including India. The four NCDs (cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes) share a set of modifiable risk factors: unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, smoking, excessive use of alcohol and failure to detect and control intermediate risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and excess weight (Bloom et al. 2014).

Of the 56 million deaths worldwide each year, 38 million (68%) are due to non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and 16 million (more than 40%) of these deaths are premature (before 70 years of age).

The burden of NCDs rose sharply among the old. It doubled among 61-70 years and 71-80 years and nearly tripled among 80 + years. In sharp contrast, prevalence of communicable diseases also rose but only slightly

The four NCDs (cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes) account for 42% of all deaths in India. These diseases contribute to 22% of disability-adjusted life-years in India (or DALYs—the combination of years lived with serious illness and those lost due to premature death). So the cost in terms of lives lost is horrendous.

Our analysis with National Sample Survey (NSS) data for 2004 and 2014 highlights some of these concerns in a striking way.

The burden of NCDs rose sharply among the old. It doubled among 61-70 years and 71-80 years and nearly tripled among 80 + years. In sharp contrast, prevalence of communicable diseases also rose but only slightly. So there are strong grounds for an epidemiological transition away from communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases among the old that require longer-term and more expensive solutions.

Between rural and urban areas, the latter had higher prevalence of NCDs and the disparity grew. This gap is largely attributable to greater dependence on processed food, and environmental pollution.

Comparison by gender yields an interesting reversal. In 2004, aged women had higher prevalence of NCDs than aged men, but there was a reversal in 2014. Part of the explanation lies in difference in health-seeking behaviour, with women more restricted in their access to medical care.

Highest prevalence of NCDs was observed among the widowed, followed by the divorced/separated and lowest among never married. Each of these groups recorded higher prevalence except never married who recorded a decline. Ostracised by society, widows often seek solace in slow death.

Does education make a difference? It does. Among the illiterates and those below primary, the prevalence rose while in all other categories of education it declined. The decline was sharpest among the graduates, followed by those with middle to higher secondary education.

NCDs are often associated with affluence and associated sedentary lifestyle and diets rich in carbohydrates and fats. So we examined the association between per capita income quintiles and NCDs. One striking feature is that both in 2004 and 2014, prevalence rose steadily across these quintiles except in the lowest/least affluent. Besides, prevalence rose more than moderately among the more affluent fourth and fifth quintiles. So the characterisation of NCDs as diseases of affluence is accurate.

Typically, socio-economic hierarchy comprises: the most disadvantaged STs, followed by SCs, OBCs and Others. Prevalence of NCDs was lowest among the STs, higher among the SCs, still higher among the OBCs and highest among the Others in 2004. This pattern remained unchanged in 2014. While the STs experienced a slight reduction, all other groups recorded increases in prevalence of NCDs—especially OBCs and Others.

While the recent National Health Policy 2017 and Niti Aayog have ambitious agenda for curtailing premature death and morbidity due to NCDs, the measly increase in this year’s budget is ironical. Indeed, the neglect of NCDs is worse than tragic given the prediction that cumulative losses in output between 2012 and 2030 due to NCDs may be as high as one-and-a half times of India’s GDP.

 

Pratima Yadav is an independent researcher; Vani S. Kulkarni is Lecturer in Sociology, University of Pennsylvania; and Raghav Gaiha is (Hon.) Professorial Research Fellow, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, and Visiting Scholar, Centre for Population Studies, University of Pennsylvania.

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Excerpt:

The swift descent of the elderly in India into non-communicable diseases could have various disastrous consequences.

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New Cameroon coach Clarence Seedorf drops China-based players, including captain Benjamin Moukandjo, from his first squad.