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Protesters in Washington, DC, march against the alleged killing of Uyghur Muslims. June 2022. Credit: Unsplash/Kuzzat Altay

By Mandeep S.Tiwana
NEW YORK, Oct 3 2022 (IPS)

This week is a momentous one for the world’s premier human rights body. At stake is a resolution to decide whether the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva can hold a debate on a recently released UN report.

The report concludes that rights violations by China’s government in its Xinjiang region ‘may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity’.

Unsurprisingly, China’s government is doing everything in its power to scotch plans for a debate on the report’s contents. Its tactics include intimidating smaller states, spreading disinformation and politicising genuine human rights concerns – the very thing the Human Rights Council was set up to overcome.

The historic report, which affirms that the rights of Xinjiang’s Uyghur Muslim population are being violated through an industrial-level programme of mass incarceration, systemic torture and sexual violence, attracted huge controversy before it was released on 31 August 2022, minutes before the end of the term of the outgoing High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet.

The report was supposedly ready in September 2021 but so great was the pressure exerted by the Chinese state that it took almost another year for it to be aired. Absurdly, the 46-page report includes a 122 page annex in the form of a rebuttal issued by China, rejecting the findings and calling into question the mandate of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The Office of the High Commissioner has asserted that the report is based on a rigorous review of documentary evidence with its credibility assessed in accordance with standard human rights methodology. The report’s recommendations are pretty straightforward: prompt steps should be taken to release all people arbitrarily imprisoned in Xinjiang, a full legal review of national security and counter-terrorism policies should be undertaken, and an official investigation should be carried into allegations of human rights violations in camps and detention facilities.

Nevertheless, a proposed resolution to hold a debate on the report’s contents in early 2023 is facing severe headwinds. A number of states inside and outside the Human Rights Council, united by their shared history of impunity for rampant human rights abuses – such as Cuba, Egypt, Laos, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Venezuela – have already rallied to China’s defence in informal negotiations on the brief resolution.

What is most worrying is that China appears to be leaning on smaller states that make up the 47-member Human Rights Council by inverting arguments about politicisation of global human rights issues and projecting itself as the victim of a Western conspiracy to undermine its sovereignty.

If China were to have its way, it would be a huge setback for the Human Rights Council, which was conceived in 2006 as a representative body of states designed to overcome the flaws of ‘declining credibility and lack of professionalism’ that marred the work of the body it replaced, the UN Commission on Human Rights.

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his ground-breaking In Larger Freedom report, lamented that states sought membership ‘not to strengthen human rights but to protect themselves against criticism or to criticize others’.

Human Rights Council members are expected to uphold the highest standards in the protection and promotion of human rights. But our research at CIVICUS shows that eight of the Council’s 47 members have the worst possible civic space conditions for human rights defenders and their organisations to exist. In these countries – Cameroon, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Libya, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan – human rights are routinely abused and anyone with the temerity to speak truth to power is relentlessly persecuted.

Regimes that serially abuse human rights may be motivated to block findings of investigations being aired on the international stage, but the international community has a collective responsibility to the victims. Civil society groups are urging Human Rights Council members to stand firm on the call for a debate on the China report.

Human Rights Council member states that assert the importance of human rights and democracy in their foreign policy are expected to vote in favour. Nevertheless, the influence of regional and geo-political blocs within the Council mean that the issue will essentially be settled by the decisions of states such as Argentina, Armenia, Benin, Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mexico, Paraguay, Senegal, Ukraine and Qatar.

China will undoubtedly pressure these states to try to get them to oppose or abstain in any vote that seeks to advance justice for the Uyghur people.

The stakes are particularly high for China’s mercurial leader, Xi Jinping, who is seeking to anoint himself as president for a third term – after abolishing term limits in 2018 – at the Chinese Communist Party’s Congress, which begins on 16 October.

Recognition of the systematic abuses to which Xi’s administration has subjected the Uyghur people would be considered an international affront to his growing power.

If China were to prevail at the Human Rights Council, it would be another blow to the legitimacy of the UN, which is already reeling from the UN Security Council’s inability to overcome Russia’s permanent member veto to block action on the invasion of Ukraine. So much – for the UN’s reputation, and for the hope that human rights violators, however powerful, will be held to account – is resting on the vote.

Mandeep S. Tiwana, is chief programmes officer and representative to the United Nations at global civil society alliance, CIVICUS.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The United Nations Staff Union is the Labor Union representing New York Secretariat Staff, Locally Recruited Staff in the field, and Staff Members of UN Information Centers.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 3 2022 (IPS)

The United Nations is planning to introduce a new “mobility policy” under which staffers based in New York and other Western capitals will be mandated to serve in overseas missions and field services in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, including the UN’s 12 peacekeeping operations.

According to the proposed plan, the new policy will run in parallel with the staff selection system (vacancy management), which will continue to be the only way to progress to a higher level.

It covers all P (professional), D (Director) and FS (Field Service) staff in all functions. Only Assistant-Secretaries Generals and Under Secretaries-General (ASGs/USGs), plus staff in the Secretary-General’s office, staff on temporary appointments and a small percentage of posts designated as non-rotational, are exempted.

Currently, 93 percent of all posts are classified as rotational. The remaining seven percent includes project posts and those that are highly specialized and cannot be found in other duty stations.

All staff subject to the Mobility policy will be required to move laterally to another duty station every 2 to 5 years (depending on the duty station’s hardship level). Staff not required to move in a given year may also join the annual exercise voluntarily.

The Mobility exercises will be annual. Staff who have reached their time limit at a duty station (2 to 5 years) will be placed in one of two compendia (one for P staff and another for FS), along with those who join the exercise voluntarily.

They must express interest in up to ten posts in their compendium at other duty stations. If they are not selected for any of the posts they requested, they may be matched to other positions.

A special constraints panel will be set up to consider appeals from staff members who cannot take part in the exercise or have reasons not to move to a proposed position or location.

There is no credit for past geographic moves. The first mobility exercise is expected to begin shortly, according to the plan.

Aitor Arauz, President of the UN Staff Union (UNSU) and General Secretary, UN International Civil Servants Federation (UNISERV), told IPS the Staff Union in New York is fully committed to a fair, viable and sustainable Mobility scheme that contributes to UN staff’s career development, rotation through hardship duty stations and better awareness of the organization’s range of operations and challenges on a global scale.

“However, precisely due to UN Secretariat’s diversity of roles and specializations, we are not convinced that all UN staff can simply be moved around at regular intervals without risking a loss of expertise and programme continuity”.

The cost-benefit analysis of such a huge disruption to people’s life and family plans just doesn’t add up at this time, he pointed out.

A fully rotational workforce needs to be supported by continuous learning (with dedicated resources for internal and external studies); robust knowledge-sharing platforms free of digital divides; genuine results-based management; and an atmosphere of trust and collaboration where colleagues on all levels are willing to share information and support each other’s learning and success, he argued.

Though efforts are being made, these conditions are far from being met across the board. Furthermore, meaningful rotation out of hardship locations will only be achieved by removing artificial barriers between the GS, F and P categories, he noted.

“We are working with the Administration to ensure the rollout of a Mobility scheme that remains voluntary for now, so we can get people moving while we iron out the issues that will inevitably arise and continue to build a conducive environment of genuine trust, collaboration and knowledge sharing across the Secretariat,” declared Arauz, who presides over a 7,500-strong Staff Union, including 6,000 constituents in New York and 1,500 more in other offices around the globe.

According to UN estimates last year, the total strength of its staff worldwide is more than 315,000 in over 56 overseas offices, with approximately 9,300 in New York.

A former UN staffer who served in New York and later in Africa, told IPS: “ If you are designated an “international civil servant” – as all UN staffers are – you cannot work all your professional life only in New York, Geneva, Rome or Vienna, which are not considered “hardship” stations.”

All staffers are also entitled to “hazard pay” –over and above their regular salaries—for working in “dangerous peacekeeping locations”.

Those who serve in the field– outside Europe and North America– get hardship pay, mobility incentive (depending on how many moves they have done in the past), and non- family allowance– if it is a location that you can’t bring your family to

Ian Richards, former President of the Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations, and an economist at the Geneva-based UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), told IPS “To be clear, we support mobility. Staff join the UN to work in different parts of the world. But we should distinguish mobility from hyper-mobility.”

The Secretary-General, he pointed out, wants to force staff to another country every two to five years, which is more frequent than many diplomatic services.

“He twice asked our member states at the General Assembly to approve this package but they did not. He says he will go ahead with it anyway”.

“We are told this is to help staff in peacekeeping missions. But it will apply to all staff. I don’t understand how moving translators and their families back and forth across the Atlantic between New York, Geneva and Vienna will address the situation of colleagues in Mali. Nor if it is wise to completely change the staff of the regional economic commissions every five years”.

Richards said each move of a staff member and their family can cost the organization $75,000. With this policy in place, you could be looking at an extra $300,000 per staff member over their career.

With 20,000 international staff, member states are facing a liability of $6 billion just in moving costs. I’m not sure if they’re ready to pay for this right now.

“We have put forward sensible and cost-effective alternatives which we hope he will consider,” he declared.

The total UN budget for 2021-2022 is $4.8 billion compared with $4.4 billion in 2018-2019.

Dr Palitha Kohona, a former Chief of the UN Treaty Section who also served as a member of the Secretary-General’s Results-based Budgeting Group, told IPS: “This is a great idea of the Secretary-General– but not new”.

He pointed out that former Secretary-General Kofi Anan initiated the mobility program and implemented it in a modified form. Experience in the field was going to be made a requirement for promotion.

“I myself was nearly assigned to Baghdad with Sergio, but due to the bombing this movement did not happen”. (In August 2003, the top UN envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, was killed when terrorists blew up the UN headquarters in Baghdad, also killing at least 14 others)

Two or three of my staff voluntarily went to Bosnia and performed well., said Kohona, a former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations.

He said most national diplomatic staff get rotated every two to three years and acquire excellent experience and skills. No one is irreplaceable.

“You shouldn’t become an international civil servant so as to secure the privilege of living in New York and Geneva, acquiring real estate and sending your children to expensive schools at the expense of the taxpayer,” he declared.

A former senior staffer at the UN children’s fund told IPS: “UNICEF had a mobility program, which specified that NY was a five-year duty station and staff could be moved after 5 years. The exceptions were specialized positions which were New York-based, but even in these specialized posts incumbents could be asked to rotate’.

“I don’t know the UN policies, but if I recall, we work within UN regulations which calls us to work where needed. It’s time for New York staff to work in duty stations that require assistance,” he added.

Roderic Grigson, who worked at the UN Secretariat in the ‘70s and ‘80s as a technology innovations officer and later served in peacekeeping forces in the Middle East, told IPS: “Yes, my overseas assignment was voluntary. I arrived in 1974 and left for the Middle East in 1978, less than 5-years later, so that I would have met the program’s criteria.”

“I think it’s a good thing to do, although I can see why the Staff Union will protest. All the ‘fat cats’ in HQ who have never been in a humanitarian or conflict zone should experience what it is like living in those conditions. I do not doubt they will be the better for it.”

“I clearly remember when I came back a couple of years later to New York after serving in the Middle East, I was amazed at the lack of knowledge or sympathy my colleagues had for those of us working in the field.”

“They held themselves almost superior to those who often put their lives on the line and had to live in conditions worse than what you find in the worst slums in a big city,” said Grigson, a published author of three books, now working on a fourth.

“Frankly, it pains me to say this, but many segments of the world’s first-world population consider the UN almost irrelevant. If the UN wants to stay at the forefront of peace-keeping and humanitarian relief efforts, it must begin reforming itself from within and show the world that it can play an essential role in the future,’ he pointed out.

“What I am saying, in effect, is that they have to do a much better role in marketing themselves to their global constituents and change the way people view the organization as a whole. We are moving inexorably towards major big-power conflicts in Europe and Asia, which could shape the world in ways no one would have anticipated a few years ago”.

“I support the SG in trying to do something even as small as this, which would allow people to see the UN in a better light”.

“It might also attract a better calibre of people without political connections to take on essential jobs in the field where they are needed,” said Grigson, currently a retired corporate executive based in Melbourne, who works with local community organizations teaching refugees and new migrants how to use computers and employability courses.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Remarks to the Press by the Secretary-General of the United Nations on Russia’s decision to annex Ukrainian territory. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías

By Antonio Guterres
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 2022 (IPS)

The Kremlin has announced that a ceremony will take place Friday in Moscow that will launch a process of annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

In this moment of peril, I must underscore my duty as Secretary-General to uphold the Charter of the United Nations.

The UN Charter is clear.

Any annexation of a State’s territory by another State resulting from the threat or use of force is a violation of the Principles of the UN Charter and international law.

The United Nations General Assembly is equally clear.

In its landmark Friendly Relations Declaration of 24 October 1970 —repeatedly cited as stating rules of general international law by the International Court of Justice — the General Assembly declared that “the territory of a State shall not be the object of acquisition by another State resulting from the threat or use of force” and that “no territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal”.

And I must be clear.

The Russian Federation, as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, shares a particular responsibility to respect the Charter.

Any decision to proceed with the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine would have no legal value and deserves to be condemned.

It cannot be reconciled with the international legal framework.
It stands against everything the international community is meant to stand for.
It flouts the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations.
It is a dangerous escalation.
It has no place in the modern world.
It must not be accepted.

The position of the United Nations is unequivocal: we are fully committed to the sovereignty, unity, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine, within its internationally recognized borders, in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions.

I want to underscore that the so-called “referenda” in the occupied regions were conducted during active armed conflict, in areas under Russian occupation, and outside Ukraine’s legal and constitutional framework.

They cannot be called a genuine expression of the popular will.

Any decision by Russia to go forward will further jeopardize the prospects for peace.

It will prolong the dramatic impacts on the global economy, especially developing countries and hinder our ability to deliver life-saving aid across Ukraine and beyond.

It is high time to step back from the brink.

Now more than ever, we must work together to end this devastating and senseless war and uphold the UN Charter and international law.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous addresses the inaugural meeting of the UNGA Platform of Women Leaders at UN Headquarters during the 77th session of the UN General Assembly, 20 September 2022. Credit: UN Women/Ryan Brown

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 2022 (IPS)

When the UN’s high-level meeting of world leaders concluded last week, the head count seemed lopsided: 190 speakers, including 76 Heads of State, 50 Heads of Government, 4 Vice-Presidents, 5 Deputy Prime Ministers, 48 Ministers and 7 Heads of Delegations—overwhelmingly male.

Among the 190 speakers, there were only 23 women, “a figure that represents around 10 per cent of leaders who participated this year”, according to the UN.

The President of the General Assembly Csaba Kőrösi of Hungary struck a note of political consolation when he said: “But though their numbers are small, women leaders “pack a punch”, to quote former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who moderated this year’s first General Assembly Platform of Women Leaders”.

But the reaction from rights activists and civil society organizations (CSOs) was mostly negative.

Antonia Kirkland, Global Lead on Legal Equality at Equality Now told IPS “the dismal number of women leaders speaking at UNGA this year is very worrying given the regression on women’s rights in many parts of the world, including in the United States, where the UN General Assembly meets”.

There is a well-documented correlation, she said, between peace and security generally, economic development and women’s rights, which has an impact on everyone.

“The low number of female leaders speaking at UNGA is less than half the already low number of women parliamentarians worldwide (just over 26% according to IPU).”

“And as it becomes harder and harder for civil society to access the United Nations, women’s rights organizations have less of an opportunity to hold governments accountable to their legal obligations and commitments to ensure gender equality,” Kirkland declared.

The criticisms come amid longstanding complaints of how women are marginalized in the highest levels of the UN since its creation.

The male/female ratio for the Secretary-General stands at 9 vs zero. And the Presidency of the General Assembly (PGA), the highest policy-making body at the UN, is not far behind either.

The score stands at 73 men and 4 women as PGAs– even as the General Assembly elected another male candidate, as its 77th President, and who serves his one-year term beginning September 2022.

Since 1945, the only four women elected as presidents were: Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India (1953), Angie Brooks of Liberia (1969), Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa of Bahrain (2006) and Maria Fernando Espinosa Garces of Ecuador (2018).

Meanwhile, women Heads of State and Government met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) High-level Week to discuss global issues in the newly created UNGA Platform of Women Leaders.

The event, under the theme of “Transformative solutions by women leaders to today’s interlinked challenges”, highlighted the fact that women’s full and effective political participation and decision-making are crucial to addressing global priorities effectively, decisively, and inclusively, according to UN Women.

With the presence of President Katalin Novák of Hungary, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir of Iceland, Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa of Samoa, and Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja of Uganda, as well as Prime Minister Evelyna Wever-Croes of Aruba and Prime Minister Silveria E. Jacobs of St. Maarten, and former Prime Minister Helen Clark of New Zealand, the event was hosted by the Office of the President of the General Assembly and UN Women, in cooperation with the Council of Women World Leaders (CWWL).

Purnima Mane, a former Deputy Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and UN Assistant-Secretary-General, told IPS that in June 2022, the UNGA passed a resolution commemorating the International Day of Women in Diplomacy which acknowledged the contribution of women globally at all levels of decision making who work for the achievement of sustainable development, peace and democracy.

“And yet, we recognize that women are grossly under-represented at most levels in the UN including national delegations and senior levels of the diplomatic corps.”

While women’s political representation at senior levels is on the rise in many countries over the last few years, especially women serving as heads of State, she pointed out, it still has a long way to go with only 28 of the 193 Member states having Women heads of State of government.

This low representation of women was evident in the recent UNGA session, she said.

Of the 190 speakers, 23 were women, a figure that represents around 10 per cent of the leaders who participated this year – a number that is still “woefully low”, said Mane, a former President and CEO of Pathfinder International

It is significant, she said, that many of this small group of women leaders “pack a punch” as stated by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who moderated this year’s first General Assembly Platform of Women Leaders.

At this newly launched General Assembly Platform of Women Leaders, the female heads of State of several countries like Aruba, Bangladesh, Hungary, Iceland, St. Maarten, Samoa and Uganda, addressed the group.

“Undoubtedly this comment from Former New Zealand PM Clark gives us pause to think. It is true that some of the women leaders like those of Finland and many other Member States, have caused the world to sit up and take notice of their achievements.”

Many of the countries with female leadership are making a difference at the country level, focusing on gender equity and ensuring laws and policies which foster these.

“These countries are also doing better in terms of development goals and making a difference in their region as a whole, also inspiring women around the world to recognize their potential. Imagine what the world would be like if this number of women leaders increased significantly, to the benefit of not just their countries, but also their regions and the world,” she added.

The actions these women leaders have taken speak for themselves – they are pioneering and have yielded much-needed benefits, said Mane.

“Data are plentiful to show what a difference these women leaders are making both domestically and internationally. Yet their numbers grow far too slowly”.

“While numbers do not tell the whole story, they certainly indicate the source of the problem, and the world loses out in moving faster towards development and greater equity,” she declared.

Addressing the meeting of women leaders, Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women, said: “When more women lead in political and public life, everyone benefits, especially in crises”.

A new generation of girls see a possible future for themselves. Health, education, childcare, and violence against women receive greater attention and better solutions.

“We must find every possible way to amplify the assets women leaders bring. This Platform is an opportunity to do just that.”

Recent global crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate, and conflicts, have shown the positive difference women’s leadership and decision-making can make in executive positions, parliaments, and public administration, she said.

For example, the UNDP–UN Women COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker shows that governments with higher women’s representation in parliaments adopted a higher number of gender-sensitive policy measures in response to COVID-19, including policies aimed directly at strengthening women’s economic security.

Out of the 193 Member States of the United Nations, only 28 women serve as elected Heads of State or Government, she pointed out.

Whilst progress has been made in many countries, the global proportion of women in other levels of political office worldwide still has far to go: 21 per cent of the world’s ministers, 26 per cent of national parliamentarians, and 34 per cent of elected seats of local government.

According to a new UN report, at the current pace of progress, equal representation in parliament will not be achieved until 2062, said Bahous.

Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Prime Minister of the Republic of Iceland and Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders, said: “It is my strong belief that the world needs more women leaders and more diverse leaders, people with all kinds of backgrounds and life experiences”.

“The decisions leaders make affect all people in our societies. These decisions should be made by people who have a real and deep understanding of how most people live, of what their concerns are, and are therefore responsive to their needs.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Junwoo Na and Jeeyoon Na campaign to save street dogs.

By Junwoo Na and Jeeyoon Na
Bangkok & California, Sep 30 2022 (IPS)

When I started living in Thailand, I noticed something peculiar that I had never seen in other countries I had visited before. It was the stray dogs. I ran into so many stray dogs when jogging on the streets.

At first, I was scared of them because they might attack me, as I had read in news articles. Surprisingly, most of these stray dogs in Thailand seemed friendly. Unfortunately, since they slept on dirty streets and drank sewage water, they contracted various diseases such as rabies, babesiosis, inflammation of the lungs, canine monocytic ehrlichiosis, etc.

Woods, a little Bichon Frisé, is looked after at home, but stray dogs in Thailand live tough lives.

As a pet owner, I felt they were not supposed to be on the streets. Imagine, my Woods, a little Bichon Frisé, out on dirty streets bitten by ticks and getting rabies! It just breaks my heart. Every time I look at the stray dogs in Thailand, they look like my Woods. And I wondered, “Where do these stray dogs come from? And why do Thai people leave them on the streets?” Then I had a big awakening and decided I needed to help these stray dogs. This is how I began my public campaign and fundraising for stray dogs.

Before launching my campaign, I wanted to get some facts about health-related issues for stray dogs and found that they also affect Thai people’s welfare. Last year, I read a news article about a 39-year-old woman in Surin, Thailand, who died of rabies after taking care of stray animals.  A study revealed that almost 87.5% of dogs in Thailand have rabies and are not vaccinated against the disease. This was shocking to me, especially because getting a rabies vaccine for the dog is the first thing to do when adopting a dog in Korea, where I grew up. Knowing that humans rarely survive rabies infections, many Thai people are concerned about the stray dogs around them carrying rabies. I decided to organize a campaign to support rabies vaccination for stray dogs in Thailand because rabies affects the welfare of dogs and people.

Junwoo Na and Jeeyoon Na’s campaign included meetings with the founder of the Voice Foundation, Chollada Sirisant, and UZZUZZU MY PET’s CEO, Jongse Kim, and fundraising drives for stray dogs.

While organizing the campaign, I found something unique about Thai culture regarding the motivation for raising dogs. Unlike in South Korea, where dogs are treated as life companions for people, Thai people raise dogs to show off their status. As Thai royal families love dogs, many Thai people follow suit. But then, without having enough resources to maintain proper care for their dogs, people abandon these poor creatures onto the streets. And that’s how they end up having so many stray dogs. I realized that without changing Thai people’s minds about dogs, there would be more stray dogs would suffer. My ultimate goal is to spread the message that we have to be responsible for how these dogs become abandoned on the streets, and that, by doing so, we will be able to build a safer community where dogs and humans can happily coexist. The message is clear: Dogs are family. As we need proper health care, they need one too.

So let me talk about my campaign. To spread our message, we designed t-shirts with our slogan, ‘Dogs are Family.’ We also printed out a poster explaining that ‘Dogs’ Lives Matter,’ and that this campaign is for both people and dogs. Thanks to the support from a digital character company, ‘UZZUZZU MY PET’, we could use their characters as a mascot of our campaign.

We also had a very special interview with the founder of the Voice Foundation, Chollada Sirisant. In her interview, she explained that many Thai people are not aware of the money that it takes to keep a dog as a pet. Some people abuse the Buddhist beliefs that value the lives of all animals and abandon dogs at the Buddhist temples.

Even now, there are stray dogs that keep breeding and creating more stray dogs. This is a serious ethical problem, as more and more dogs wander around the streets, where they do not belong, and inevitably become susceptible to rabies. Due to the irresponsible behavior of humans, more dogs are getting in danger, eventually affecting us humans with the fear of rabies.

According to Chollada, adopting stray dogs isn’t always best for them because some of the rescued dogs wish to go back to the street. This means that so long as they get their rabies vaccine and get neutered, Thai people can coexist with stray dogs. Time will play a role in shaping the new ecosystem.  I have seen how animal farms in Korea were reported and brutally criticized on social media, ending the inhumane treatment of dogs in Korea.  I believe there is also hope for a change in Thai culture.

I look forward to seeing changes in how Thai people think of animal rights as more people get motivated and get involved in our actions via social media.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 Note: Junwoo Na was the team leader

Edited by Hanna Yoon

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Ricksani Alice, 19, who was married at a young age but is now back in school hoping to complete her education thanks to the Spotlight Initiative talks with UNFPA Gender Programme Officer Beatrice Kumwenda at Tilimbike Safe Community Space in Chiludzi village, Dowa, Malawi on November 2, 2020. Credit: UNFPA ESARO

By Cecilia Russell
Johannesburg, Sep 29 2022 (IPS)

Child marriage continues to be a scourge in many African countries – despite legislation and efforts of many, including parliamentarians, to keep girls in school and create brighter futures for them. This was the view of participants in a recent webinar held under the auspices of the African Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (FPA) and UNFPA East and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO).

The webinar, supported by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and the Japan Trust Fund, heard how progressive legislation prohibiting marriage for adolescents under 18, and in one case, 21, was not enough to stop the practice.

Dr Kiyoko Ikegami, Executive Director, and Secretary General, APDA, noted in her opening address that the COVID-19 pandemic had affected child marriage prevention programmes and increased poverty and inequality, which was a driving force in child marriages.

Chinwe Ogbonna, UNFPA ESARO Regional Director a.i, said while there had been considerable achievements since the 1994 ICPD conference in Egypt – the work was not yet done.

She encouraged the parliamentarians to commit themselves to actions they agreed to at a regional meeting in Addis Ababa in June, which included “amplifying evidence-based advocacy.” In Africa, she said, teenage pregnancy and HIV prevalence are high. Gender-based violence was on the rise, and femicide and the harmful practices of child marriage, and female genital mutilation continued.

The webinar heard from members of parliament in various countries across the African continent.

Fredrick Outa, from Kenya, FPA Vice-President, told the delegates that while Kenya had made ambitious commitments, FGM was an area of concern. Kenya was committed to strengthening coordination in legislation and policy framework, communication and advocacy, integration and support, and cross-border cooperation to eliminate FGM.

Kenya aimed to eliminate GBV and child and forced marriages by “addressing social and cultural norms that propagate the practice while providing support to affected women and girls.”

An MP from Zambia, Princess Kasune, said it was of concern that the Zambia Demographic and Health Survey (ZDHS) of 2018 indicated that 29 percent of women aged 20-24 reported being married before 18. The country had various programmes to address this, including partnering with traditional rulers and civil society to fight early child marriage.

“Chiefs and headmen have made commitments in the fight against child marriage …. Traditional rulers are themselves champions in the fight against child marriage,” Kasune said.

She said the practice continues even though the Marriage Act prescribes 21 as the minimum age for marriage.

However, customary law differed, and there needed to be consistency in legislation.

The other crucial campaign against early marriages was to keep children in school. While the government had employed 30 000 teachers in rural areas, more was needed.

“Keeping children in school was critical to lowering the incidence of child marriage,” Kasune said.

Muwuma Milton, MP Uganda, agreed that culture played a part in eliminating harmful practices like child marriage. The country was applying a multifaceted approach to eliminating this – including school feeding schemes, providing sanitary packs for girls, and encouraging young mothers to return to school after delivery.

“A challenge is that the country has unmet needs for family planning services, which stands at 30%, and there is a culture that believes that once a girl reaches menstruation age, they are old enough to get married,” Milton said.

Matthew Ngwale, an MP from Malawi, noted that his country adhered to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) protocol that condemns the marriage of people under 18. The Malawian constitution, Marriage, Divorce, the Family Relations Act (2015), and the Childcare Justice and Protection Act all reinforce this policy.

But, Ngwale said, despite “progressive legislation, Malawi has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, where approximately 42% of girls get married before the age of 18, and 9% are below the age of 15. Approximately 7% of boys marry before the age of 18.”

He also noted that child marriage is higher in rural than urban areas. Rural girls are 1.6 times more likely to marry early than their urban counterparts.

Poverty is a clear driver, with women in the predominantly ‘poor’ south marrying at a slightly lower age than those in the ‘wealthier’ north and central regions.

“In Malawi, children from more impoverished families are twice as likely to marry early than those from wealthier families,” Ngwale said, and in a country where data shows that 51.5% of the people live below the poverty line, which is higher in rural areas at 60% compared to urban areas at 18%.

Traditional initiation practices, done as part of a rite of passage when a girl reaches puberty, encouraged early sexual activity, Ngwale said, and the prevalence of child marriage is higher among matrilineal than patrilineal groups.

“Due to food insecurity, child marriage often becomes a more likely coping mechanism as families seek to reduce the burden of feeding the family,” he said.

Climatic challenges, such as droughts and floods, have become more frequent and catastrophic.

Child marriage impacts secondary school completion rates. In Malawi, only 45% of girls stay in school beyond 8th grade.

“Most young girls who leave school due to child marriage have few opportunities to earn a living, making them more vulnerable to GBV. Child marriage lowers women’s expected earnings in adulthood by between 1.4% and 15.6%,” he said.

However, the Malawi government had created a conducive environment for civil society organizations to work with the government to end child marriage – including the official Girls Not Brides National Partnership.

Pamela Majodina, MP Republic of South Africa, told the webinar the country was committed to the objectives of ICPD25. It has passed laws, including the Domestic Violence Act, Children’s Act, Sexual Offences Act, and Child Justice Act, where it is a criminal offense to have sex with a child under 16 – regardless of consent.

Goodlucky Kwaramba, MP Zimbabwe, said her country was committed to reducing teenage pregnancies from 21.6% to 12% by 2030 and delivering comprehensive Family Planning services by 2030.

An MP from Eswatini, Sylvia Mthethwa, said her country, with 73 percent of the population below 35 and youth unemployment at 47 percent, was committed to ensuring that youth was front of mind. While senators were mobilizing financial resources, the National Youth Policy and National Youth Operational Plan had been developed.

Meanwhile, in Tanzania, some successes were already recorded Dr Thea Ntara, MP Tanzania, said rural areas were fully supported in the rollout of free ARVs, and adolescent and youth-friendly SRH services have been available in more than 63% of all health facilities since 2017.

Note: The webinar series is based on a recommendation of the African and Asian Parliamentarians’ meeting to Follow-Up on ICPD25 Commitments held in June 2022 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Two and a half hours’ drive north from Kakarbhitta, Nepal’s eastern-most border crossing with giant neighbour India, lies the hilly hamlet of Salakpur where lives Kaushila Moktan, a famed farmer of large cardamom. “I run a homestay for guests visiting our village, I also grow green vegetables and do beekeeping,” said Moktan. “However, our biggest […]

The FRACTAL project (Future Resilience for African Cities and Lands) engaged a trans-disciplinary group of researchers, officials and practitioners that worked across six cities in southern Africa between 2015 and 2021.Voices of the marginalized and at-risk people are crucial for generating appropriate locally owned solutions.

By Gina Ziervogel
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Sep 29 2022 (IPS)

Equity and justice feature prominently in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th (IPCC) Assessment Report Working Group II, published in 2022. The report focuses on the impacts of climate change, as well as vulnerability and adaptation.

In its summary for policymakers, the report states: “Inclusive governance that prioritizes equity and justice in adaptation planning and implementation leads to more effective and sustainable adaptation outcomes (high confidence).” This is a welcome, albeit long overdue development.

The report offers widespread evidence in support of a focus on justice across different sectors and regions. It reflects rapidly mounting concern for climate justice — in both advocacy circles and in the public discourse — and a sharp increase in the volume of information on this topic.

Arguments concerning climate justice include the need to address historical inequities, contest established power, and consider diverse perspectives and needs in planning and delivery. Only by confronting these issues directly can we deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals and climate goals.

Gina Ziervogel

Africa’s cities need to respond better

As outlined in the Africa chapter of the IPCC, Africa is highly vulnerable to climate risk. The continent features strongly in discussions on equity and justice, which argue for low carbon development without interfering with the economic growth.

With their concentration of people and growth, African cities are particularly important places to focus climate action. They have been slow to develop adaptation and mitigation policies and practice, but there are ample lessons worldwide and within the continent from which to draw motivation.

Organisations such as 350.org and Climate Justice Alliance, are fighting for equity and justice locally and internationally. We can glean approaches by studying and understanding these efforts, but we need to make them locally relevant.

Across the globe, cities are rapidly integrating climate action in their plans to reduce emissions and the impacts of hazards, such as droughts, floods, fires and heatwaves.

A few African cities have made progress by building justice and equity into climate response programs. Kampala is converting organic waste into briquettes for cooking. This provides an alternative livelihood strategy, reduces the number of trees cut for charcoal, and decreases the amount of waste going to landfill.

In response to neighbourhood flood risk, residents in Nairobi have invested in reducing their exposure. In addition, they have mobilized youth groups to disseminate environmental information and engage in activities such as tree planting to stabilize riverbanks.

Some local governments are ramping up their climate change management efforts. Yet, city government responses are often sector-specific and can’t succeed by themselves — the challenge is too massive and urgent.

More projects and programmes are needed that use a collaborative or co-productive approach for meeting equity and justice goals. We must have innovative ways of bringing in different sectors and actors— to really hear their perspectives and explore potential solutions. Such an approach might require safe space for experimentation.

In addition, we have to develop methods for scaling urban solutions that ensure adaptation responses meet the needs of the most at-risk groups across cities and institutionalize strategies in city planning and implementation.

Epistemic justice

Epistemic justice refers to the extent to which different people’s knowledge is recognized. Scientific evidence abounds that solving complex problems benefits from multiple types of knowledge bases. Yet city governments provide little opportunity to integrate diverse viewpoints.

In the context of inequality, ensuring that the voices of marginalized and at-risk people are included is crucial for generating appropriate locally owned solutions.

The FRACTAL project (Future Resilience for African Cities and Lands) engaged a trans-disciplinary group of researchers, officials and practitioners that worked across six cities in southern Africa between 2015 and 2021.

FRACTAL exemplifies how city stakeholders and researchers can co-produce knowledge around climate impacts and potential adaptation responses in cities such as Lusaka, Maputo, and Windhoek.

Although climate science was an important part of the project, the initial stages provided time and space for participants to share “burning questions” in their cities and collaboratively decide how to address these.

Some cities developed climate risk narratives to guide future decisions. Others developed climate change planning documents and platforms that thought about adaptation projects through a holistic lens. Importantly, participants, built trust and capacity, for city actors to take this work forward collaboratively.

When prioritizing adaptation actions at the city level, local governments have tended to use criteria based on their frameworks and data, providing just one perspective. However, more bottom-up data is required to meet the needs of those most at risk.

Arguments concerning climate justice include the need to address historical inequities, contest established power, and consider diverse perspectives and needs in planning and delivery. Only by confronting these issues directly can we deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals and climate goals.

Such data can better capture challenges that citizens face, such as accessing water during droughts or recovering from flooding that might have washed away homes and possessions.

A recent project in Cape Town sought to do this. Local activists from low-income neighborhoods collected data on issues around water services and explored diverse ways, including film, comics and maps as ways to share this information with other residents and city officials.

Collaborations between NGOs, researchers and local governments can strengthen the type of data available and contribute to more nuanced understanding.

The National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda, for instance, collected local data that informed planning and the development of solutions to reduce climate risk with sustainable building materials and improving water and sanitation services. This work positioned them to negotiate effectively with local government to support further efforts.

Across the globe, cities are rapidly integrating climate action in their plans to reduce emissions and the impacts of hazards, such as droughts, floods, fires, and heatwaves. They also are rapidly expanding opportunities to access climate funding.

The time has come for African cities to determine how they will engage in the climate action and justice space to ensure they meet the serious challenges they are confronting.

Gina Ziervogel is Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science at the University of Cape Town.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations, September 2022

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The villagers work in a forest they planted to save themselves from the ravages of climate change. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

By Umar Manzoor Shah
Meghalaya, India, Sep 28 2022 (IPS)

Some ten years ago, Sheemanto Chatri, a 39-year-old farmer hailing from India’s northeastern state of Meghalaya, was reeling with distress. The unseasonal rainfall had washed away all the crops he had cultivated after year-long labor in his far-off hamlet.

In 2013, this farmer had sowed a ginger crop on his half-acre land and was hoping for a profitable yield. However, providence had willed otherwise. In September that year, unseasonal rains wreaked havoc on Sheemanto’s village, destroying his crops beyond repair.

“We had not anticipated this. We were praying to God to grant us a good yield. But the rains destroyed everything – our hopes and our livelihood,” says Chatri.

Another farmer, only identified as Marwin, shares a similar predicament. He said that he had grown potatoes on his farm and was planning to sell them in the open market to settle a loan from the bank. However, says Marwin, the drastic change in the weather pattern affected farmers the most in the village.

“At times, it is draught and at times unexpected heavy rains. All this is unprecedented to the core. It affected our livelihood and would hit our families hard,” says Marwin.

He added that the entire village had been incurring losses in farming due to such an unprecedented situation, putting people in dire straits in more ways than one.

“We had absolutely no clue why this was happening. We even performed congregational puja (prayers) and offered sacrifices to our Gods, but nothing happened,” Marwin said.

According to another farmer, Arup Chater, a team of local NGOs with researchers came to the village in November 2014 and assessed the crop losses.  The team also studied the pattern of the weather changes in the area and said they believed deforestation was responsible for the situation.

After the team visit, the villagers – men and women, young and old congregated at an open ground to discuss the remedial measures. They realized how the ruthless chopping of trees from the nearby forests had affected their livelihoods.

“At the onset, we didn’t understand that any such thing would happen to us if we allowed the axing of trees from the nearby woods. Now we understood that nature works in unison, and it was now affecting our lives so drastically,” Chater told IPS.

At this moment, the inhabitants of this village decided to grow a forest.

The village head made a general announcement asking the households in the village to provide saplings so they could be planted in the community forests.

“A kind of roster was devised that divided works amongst the villagers. Every day, duties were distributed among the households for toiling in the woods, tendering it with natural fertilizers, irrigating the saplings, and taking care of the newly sown plants. Three labor groups were created – each given a task of their own: “longkpa” (men), “longkmie” (women), and “samla” (youths),” says Mattheus Maring, the headman of the village.

He adds that at present, there are more than 4000 saplings that are growing.

“This forest was our only hope of not witnessing the impact of climate change. This has grown into a full forest,” Maring told IPS. “There is the chirping of birds and the sounds of leaves everywhere. Gradually, the climatic conditions and water scarcity have subtly begun to improve.”

He says he believes that this forest building has made nature “kind.”

“For the last couple of years, farmers haven’t complained about losses. They get adequate rains on time and water supplies too. The economic conditions of our village also have begun to improve,” says Maring.

He adds that a regular water supply was created by planting 2,000 each of the Michalia champaca (Diengrai), Duabanga grandiflora (Dieng Mului), and 250 Drimy carpus (Dieng Sali) seedlings.

To enhance the water source coming from the roots of the trees, there was significant participation from the “longkpa” (men), “longkmie” (women), and “samla” throughout the day. To prevent wildfires, they make sure to clear and clean it. This activity aims to preserve the water supply for future generations while transforming it into a Nutri Garden by growing traditional veggies or wild delicacies.

Due to climate change, groundwater supplies, rivers, dams, streams, and others are all under stress. In India, rain-fed agriculture occupies 65% of all arable land, highlighting the industry’s vulnerability to water constraints. Since less groundwater is being used for agriculture due to depletion levels, several states of the country are already experiencing water shortages.

Recent studies have demonstrated that climate change-induced global warming enhances the monsoon’s oscillations, causing both brief bursts of intense rain and protracted dry spells. Since 1902, 2022 has experienced the second-highest number of severe events – a frightening scenario that gave rise to droughts and floods.

In India, as per government data, monsoon rains decreased in frequency but increased in intensity in the second half of the 20th century. These extraordinary shifts are severely impacting India’s hundreds of millions of food producers and consumers, raising questions about food security.

However, the inhabitants of this northeastern village are optimistic that their hard work will yield the results – if not today, then tomorrow for sure. “We will not allow the chopping of the trees as we used to in the past. We will be vigilant now and understand that nature is a two-way street. We have to tender it with care to expect it to care for our lives in return. This community forest will save us for sure and will make our lives, the lives of our children better in more ways than one,” says Maring.
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Controlling the loss and waste of food is a crucial factor in reaching the goal of eradicating hunger in the world. Credit: FAO

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Sep 28 2022 (IPS)

These are facts, not guesses: about 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted and lost… every single year, the equivalent of one ton per each of the one billion hungry people, many of them are those who produced the food.

The findings have been reported by the World Bank, whose recent study: What a Waste 2.0 also informs that the number of wasted calories “could fill hunger gaps in the developing world.”

On this, it reports on the breakdown of the number of calories wasted per day and per person –out of the recommended 2.000– : 1.520 calories in rich North America and Oceania –of which 61% are by their consumers–, and 748 wasted calories in wealthy Europe.

With a much bigger population than Europe, a similar amount of calories is reported as wasted in industrialised Asia (746), compared to 414 in South and Southeast Asia.

Subsaharan Africa and Central Asia register 545 wasted calories per person and day, and Latin America 453, according to the World Bank’s report.

For its part, the United Nations, on the occasion of this year’s International Day of Awareness on Food Loss and Waste Reduction, on 29 September, reports that reducing food losses and waste is essential in a world where the number of people affected by hunger has been slowly on the rise since 2014, and tons and tons of edible food are lost and/or wasted … every day.

 

How is the food of the hungry being wasted?

Two main reasons lay behind such food waste and loss. One of them is attributed to inadequate transport and storage facilities in developing countries.

But the major one is the rules imposed by the markets.

Indeed, the dominating marketing, the profit-making technique consists of selecting part of the crops while discarding great amounts of food, just because they are “ugly,” “not nice” in the eyes of the consumers.

This way, millions of tons of potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, lemons, apples, pears, peaches, grapes… are every day left in the field or thrown in landfills, while millions of litres of milk and millions of eggs are dumped in the sea just to reduce their availability in the supermarkets, therefore raising their prices, and this way make more money.

Another market rule is to attract consumers with “special” offers, such as “buy one, take two” or more, while advertising their products as natural,” biological, grown in the field, etc. Other foods are presented as gluten and lactose-free; zero added sugar, more Omegas, more healthy… and cheaper.

Add that they fix tight “expiration date” and this way, pushing consumers to dump the extra amount of food they are induced to purchase just to take advantage of such “special” offers.

 

The consequences

• Significant quantities are wasted in retail and at the consumption level, with around 14% of food produced is lost between harvest and retail.
• An estimated 17% of total global food production is wasted: 11% in households, 5% in the food service, and 2% in retail.
• Food that is lost and wasted accounts for 38% of total energy usage in the global food system.

 

Not only the food is wasted…

The International Day meanwhile reiterates that food loss and waste undermine the sustainability of the world’s food systems.

“When food is lost or wasted, all the resources that were used to produce this food – including water, land, energy, labour and capital – go to waste.”

In addition, the disposal of food loss and waste in landfills, leads to greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change.

Food loss and waste can also negatively impact food security and food availability, and contribute to increasing the cost of food.

The world specialised body: the Food and Agriculture Oranization (FAO), reports these facts:

• Currently, 41.9% of the global population is unable to afford a healthy diet. That’s over 3 billion people.
• An additional 1 billion people around the world are at risk of not affording a healthy diet if a shock caused their incomes to reduce by one-third. What if there was a disaster or an economic shock?
• Furthermore, food costs could increase for up to 845 million people if a disruption to critical transport links were to occur.

In its report, FAO recalls that as the world’s population continues to grow, “the challenge should not be how to grow more food; but reducing food loss and waste” in a sustainable manner, is an immediate need if we are to maximise the use of food produced to feed and nourish more people.

Also, prioritising the reduction of food loss and waste is critical for the transition to sustainable food systems that enhance the efficient use of natural resources, lessen planetary impacts and ensure food security and nutrition.

And that reducing food waste is one of the most impactful climate solutions.

Having reported all that, who would dare to tell the one billion poor why they and their children go to bed hungry or undernourished, every single day, while the big business pundits are dressed in silky clothes, sitting in luxury offices, cashing skyrocketing salaries, and eating exquisitely selected food?

 

By Marty Logan
KATHMANDU, Sep 28 2022 (IPS)

Welcome to Strive podcast, where we chat with new voices about fresh ideas to create a more just and sustainable world. My name is Marty Logan.

Before we get to today’s episode, if you enjoy Strive I encourage you to share it with a friend so they can check out the show. If you’re listening in a podcast app just click on the share icon (the one with the up-facing arrow). Or you can share a post on our Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn channels.

Today we’re learning about what I think is a fantastic new tool for holding governments accountable to their human rights obligations. Actually the Human Rights Measurement Initiative is six years old, so it’s not brand new, but it was a revelation to me when I came across it recently.

What I like is how the Initiative’s Rights Tracker assigns a score to a government’s record on a specific right, let’s say the right to education, based on how other countries with roughly the same level of resources have performed. As a journalist I still believe in the naming and shaming approach but as today’s guest, Stephen Bagwell of the Initiative, and the University of Missouri, St Louis, says, too often governments respond to reports of rights violations by dismissing them as exaggerated or made up. It is much harder to brush off HRMI’s scores, which are largely data-based.

I also like a comparison Stephen uses to explain why human rights should be measured: the Sustainable Development Goals. There are all sorts of updates on progress toward the 2030 SDGs deadline, when in fact governments are not legally obliged to attain the goals. But hundreds of countries have ratified the various human rights instruments, like the Convention on the Rights of the Child or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights — yet no one was systematically tracking their progress on meeting those obligations.

One note on abbreviations you’ll hear in today’s episode: ICCPR is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, noted above, and the ICESCR is the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Both are bedrock human rights documents. The former is considered law in 173 countries and the ICESCR in 171 countries.

Resources:

Human Rights Measurement Initiative

Nepal page on HRMI’s Rights Tracker

 

IPS youth thought leader trainees Minseung Kim (team leader), middle, Henry Cho, right, Dongjun Lee in the interview with Seong Hoon Kim, Senior Director, Platform Development Division of Korea Social Security Information Service.

By Dongjun Lee, Henry Cho and Minseung Kim
Sep 28 2022 (IPS)

Have you watched Parasite? In 2021, everyone seemed to be watching it. But I wonder how many of them paid attention to the old man who found a little shelter in a hidden basement behind the kitchen of a mansion. However hidden it was, that’s where he could meet his basic needs. That was his little slum.

It may be a bit of a stretch, but I found that the movie Parasite exposed the core of South Korea’s unique slum culture. It’s hidden under the shadow of big skyscrapers and, more importantly, consists of seniors like the old man in the movie.

Korean slums are full of seniors. In 2020 alone, 388 seniors died home alone. There was a 29% increase in these deaths in 2021. Why? That’s what we will be talking about in this article.

First, South Korea is now an aging society. By 2025, over 20% of the Korean population will be seniors. Consequently, with the increase in the elderly population, the poverty rate among seniors has also increased.

Even though South Korea is famous for being the country that flourished rapidly after the Korean War in 1953, it has constantly encountered multiple financial crises. Many industries favor the younger generation to maximize the nation’s output, resulting in over 2 million elderly workers being unemployed and forcing an early retirement since the 1970s. With this trend, the elderly’s well-being diminished, and many experienced financial devastation – which threw them onto the streets and forced them to seek shelter. This explains the emergence of Korean slums made up of seniors.

There is another significant cause why older people fill Korean slums. The seniors in South Korea are a unique generation, sandwiched between the Korean war in their past and the YOLO (You Only Live Once) culture. They had to support their immediate and extended family (their elderly parents, brothers and sisters, and so on). On top of this, when they become seniors, their children, who live in YOLO culture (defined as the view that one should make the most of the present moment without worrying about the future), don’t support their parents. As a result, Korean families face a new crisis: abandoned seniors. Recently, there has been an increasing number of news reports about seniors abandoned by their children. Many of them die home alone without any family members. As of 2020, out of 1.8 million seniors living by themselves, 953 of them died home alone. Because of this social phenomenon, many proprietors refuse to rent their homes to seniors over 65.

To find a place to live, they go to the slums, which explains why Korean slums are uniquely full of seniors. Interestingly, these seniors have turned their slums into a silver town where they receive social welfare services and emotional support. Since they live together, charity organizations and social welfare services can easily locate and take care of them. Through these support systems obtained by living in slum areas, the seniors can feel a sense of belonging – they no longer feel alone.

IPS youth thought leader trainees with Executive Director of Concern Worldwide, Korea, Junmo Lee, and course founder Dr Hanna Yoon.

Concern Worldwide Executive Director Junmo Lee told IPS that they have to approach this issue with the importance of community in mind. Creating a community where these seniors are connected back to society is the key because the disconnection isolates them. Concern Worldwide is an international humanitarian organization that strives for a world free from poverty.

But how can this disconnection from their families and productive work be solved? We know that a single private organization can’t solve it. Then what is the solution?

Seong Hoon Kim, the Senior Director of the Platform Division at the Korea Social Security Information Service Team was able to give legislative views on the issue.

To create a community where seniors are reconnected to society, we need a communal contribution where all government, private humanitarian organizations, and family members work together as a team, Kim says.

There is a saying that it takes a whole village to raise a child.

Now, we want to say that it takes a whole village to care for seniors, especially those living in slums. We have to come as one family to support them.

However, our government needs to step up to bring the entire country together to form a community where these seniors are reconnected to their own families and society.

Henry Cho, Dongjun Lee, and Minseung Kim investigated why elderly people in Korea end up living in slums, and what can be done about it.

We are teenagers now. But we will grow old, too. We don’t want to live in slums because that’s the only option we may have. We hope to stay connected to our families and be productive until we die. To turn this hope into reality, we must start working on it now.

Living in slums after 65? It’s not just their story. It can be our and your story, too, if we don’t act now. We hope the Korean government will hear our voice and act upon it so we can live as happily as we can when we grow old. Is it not our right to pursue happiness even after 65?

 

 

Note: Minseung Kim was the team leader for this project.
Edited by Dr Hanna Yoon

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Credit: Pexels

By Robert Misik
VIENNA, Sep 28 2022 (IPS)

With no shortage of catastrophes in the past 15 years worldwide — the democratic left is stepping up to provide stability amid the storm.

Throughout the history of mankind, there have been catastrophes. In modern times, there have also been media representations of catastrophe, including worked-up or even imagined catastrophes.

More than 60 years ago, the German author Friedrich Sieburg wrote about the ‘lust for doom’, which, strangely enough, has a tremendous appeal especially in eras perceived as stable: ‘The everyday life of democracy with its dreary problems is boring, but the impending catastrophes are highly interesting.’

Now that we have had no shortage of real catastrophes in the past 15 years, we no longer have to conjure them up. First came the global financial crisis, which threatened to topple banks and other financial institutions — even states — as if houses of cards.

Later the pandemic arrived and then the military invasion of the second largest country in Europe by the largest. Its shockwaves are devastating half the world, with energy crisis, broken supply chains, price explosion, food shortages, impoverishment and destitution.

Robert Misik

And all the time comes the onrushing climate catastrophe, whose consequences are already apparent and which intersects with the current geopolitical crisis. The global electricity markets are going crazy because there is a lack of gas from Russia, but also because the rivers are drying up, the hydroelectric power plants are empty and nuclear power plants have to be shut down because the cooling water in the rivers is becoming too scarce — even the coal-fired plants are having problems where coal can no longer be shipped.

In any case, disaster is not now something we frivolously imagine because we are bored. It is there — very real for many and at least felt by most. Not only does it colour political debates but an atmosphere of pessimism, insecurity and fear has settled over most societies.

This is so even, perhaps especially, in the affluent societies of the west, which had become accustomed to stability and relative prosperity. A sentiment is spreading: the whole machinery no longer works, it is broken — and the political elites have no plan.

The left choosing stability

Against this backdrop, while the left is trying to develop programmes and instruments to master the crises, to stem the decline in prosperity and the social costs for ordinary people, those on the hard right are betting on things getting even worse, playing up catastrophe.

They hope this will benefit them, that they can thereby achieve electoral success — as with the right-wing radicals in Sweden recently or the right-wing bloc in Italy over the weekend.

It’s no surprise, then, that the far-right contenders paint the ‘elite’ and its networks in dark colours. They rummage through supposedly suppressed news and hidden secrets. They identify, to their satisfaction, how the powerful secure their dominance and say all this is connected. They imagine themselves as if detectives smugly putting pieces of the political puzzle together, in the manner of a latter-day Hercule Poirot.

It is not a completely new phenomenon to offer such a fundamental critique of ‘the system’. What is astonishing is that the far right has hijacked what used to be a prerogative of Marxist intellectuals — and of those activists who imagined a terminal catastrophe would some day issue in a socialist millennium.

Right-wing propaganda has appropriated elements of left-wing critical thinking — the questioning of the conventional and familiar, of the all-too-obvious, and the healthy suspicion of power. Amazingly, the motifs of the enlightenment have been subverted to serve conspiracy theories and fanaticism, in the cause of authoritarianism and nationalism.

The democratic left, in sharp contrast, sees its task today, grosso modo, as providing stability amid the storm. Of course, this is true where it is in government. But it in most cases it also has this reflex of responsibility where it is in opposition.

This has consequences. The left sometimes finds itself defending the status quo, against its deterioration. It knows it cannot score points with simple answers but has to work out complex plans whose realisation is tough.

This liberal left has always stood for freedom, democracy, the rule of law — for social equality and against hierarchy and fascist temptations. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has however drawn his country back into despotism in recent decades, aligned with an ideology of expansionism.

While the radical right (and some pro-Russian hard leftists) propose to kneel to Putin, the democratic left supports Ukraine’s right to self-defence and an independent path.

Russia’s imperialism has been met with sanctions from liberal Europe and north America, rebutted in turn in an economic quasi-war with the help of the ‘weapon’ of gas and oil. Yet in a multipolar and chaotic world where not all are on their side, progressives find themselves having to balance decisiveness and prudence.

Now their own economies must be stabilised and protected, and their societies, because the supply of energy and the functioning of the critical infrastructure has a much broader social centrality. This includes changes in the design of energy markets, which simply no longer function when panic on the markets leads to price explosions of 600 or even 1,000 per cent.

The colonisation of lifeworlds by market ideology has however meant that even the essential goods of everyday infrastructure have been left to the mercy of the markets. Energy suppliers which get into trouble have thus to be bailed out by governments.

The dangers of ‘politics without a project’

The effects of inflation are also different from what we know from economics textbooks. Classic inflation occurs when there is a boom, an economy reaches the limits of its capacity and there is more or less full employment. Then asset owners lose, while borrowers gain. But above all, workers and employees do not really lose out: prices rise but so do wages.

Classical inflation is characterised by a wage-price spiral in which real wages rise along with them. Historically, wage earners lost out primarily because of anti-inflationary policies, not because of inflation.

Today, however, inflation is not the result of a boom but an economic shock: it is imported, primarily due to higher energy prices and supply problems. Many companies too are groaning under their energy overheads, as they cannot fully pass on the cost increase to consumers. This in turn will mean workers will not be able to make up fully for price increases through wage rises.

The unions will fight but it will be very difficult to avoid real wage losses. Low wage increases lead to impoverishment and a decline in aggregate demand but high wage increases would lead to more bankruptcies and thus more unemployment.

The most likely result will be a combination of misfortune — a marked recession plus high inflation. Government will have to intervene with price controls, by dramatically accelerating the shift to renewable energy, by providing payments to the most vulnerable segments of the population, by accepting further budget deficits.

None of these solutions will be perfect. We must be careful not to enter a new era of depoliticised pragmatism — a ‘politics without a project’, to borrow an old formulation from a famous German book edited by the legendary Suhrkamp publisher Siegfried Unseld 30 years ago. But there will tend to be no grand design to policy, just muddling through.

Public debates will be characterised by a certain confusion, as we are already observing. On the one hand, most citizens want clear and focused plans, but at the same time they know that there are no easy, simplistic answers.

A pandering left-wing populism is therefore not an attractive alternative. It is not only a too-narrow preaching to the converted but also there is a broad swath of potential support among liberal and left citizens for a politics of reason and responsibility.

In times of such uncertainty, we do not need trumpeters and bullshiters. We need people who can be trusted to do the best they can to sort things out.

Robert Misik is a writer and essayist. He publishes in many German-language newspapers and magazines, including Die Zeit and Die Tageszeitung.

Source: International Politics and Society is published by the Global and European Policy Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin.

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Soo Hyoun Lim's classmate doing a campaign inside the Yongsan International School’s cafeteria with the poster.

By Soo Hyoun Lim and Hyeonuk Hwang
Seoul, Sep 28 2022 (IPS)

During my summer break this year, I read a news article about five school cafeteria workers who had died of lung cancer. Due to these incidents, a union of cafeteria workers, wearing their aprons and holding their lunch trays, held a protest in front of the President’s office on a scorching summer day. And it made us think about the devastating working conditions for the school lunch employees. Isn’t it so disheartening that we eat our school lunch at the expense of their health?

Did you know that one cafeteria staffer has to provide 150 student servings in a substandard kitchen with poor ventilation systems? That’s why they get lung cancer. While cooking, they inhale gasses, known as cooking fumes or cooking smoke. This substance contains “carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and several toxic volatile hydrocarbons,” which has caused 3.8 million people to die prematurely from this “indoor air pollution”. So installing a proper ventilation system in a school cafeteria is crucial to protect the kitchen staff.

Soo Hyoun Lim (right) and friend campaign for safe working environments for cafeteria workers at Yongsan International School’s cafeteria.

But why isn’t there a proper ventilation system in the first place?  Initially, South Korea did not have a school cafeteria. All school children brought their lunch boxes from home until 2011. Those who could not afford their lunch box received free lunch from school. But imagine it: Johnny is flashing out his fancy lunch box next to Jane, who is eating free lunch from school. What would Jane feel about this? Well, Korean politicians thought that no child should be left behind in terms of school lunches. So for the sake of equality, the Korean government launched a “Free School Lunch for All” program in 2011. The real problem was that they launched this free lunch program without installing a proper kitchen ventilation system to save on the budget. Basically, for the sake of political populism, they overlooked the serious problems a substandard kitchen environment would bring to the health of school cafeteria workers.

What about other countries that offer free school lunches? In Japan, for example, schools are built with a free school lunch program in mind from the beginning. So proper ventilation systems are built in. And they constantly renovate their school kitchens for the sake of the health of both cafeteria workers and students, which is a stark contrast to Korean schools.

Is there anything I can do as a student?

Hyeonuk Hwang holds the poster in public to raise awareness of the dangers school cafeteria workers face.

I strongly believe that spreading the news of the devastating working environment for school cafeteria ladies using social media is a good place to start. So I made a poster and posted it on my Instagram. The result was phenomenal. We got lots of ‘Likes’ and comments from people thanking us for raising awareness of this dire situation in Korean school cafeterias. And we will continue to design new posters and post them on social media. People may wonder what difference a small media post can make. Confucius said, “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” Our post may be a small stone. But wait until we have a huge collection of posts about this issue. We may move a mountain. You never know.

What else can we do as students? Well, we are writing this opinion editorial to suggest creative solutions which may reach the ears of the policymakers in South Korea. That’s something! For the answer, we thought of using clean and renewable energy: cook with the sun! Have you ever used a solar oven before? Basically, a solar cooker consists of a system of reflectors and a cooking pot. The setup converts the solar energy into heat energy to bake, boil, or steam food. In a solar oven, you can cook anything that you can cook in a conventional electric or gas oven or stove without producing toxic cooking fumes. Well, browning is unlikely in a solar oven due to lower temperatures. On the bright side, this means that we don’t need to worry about our food getting dried out or burned.

Most importantly, no deadly cooking fumes! We may not get crisp French fries or caramelized steaks, but there are huge collections of recipes designed specifically for solar ovens. If we can eliminate the harmful cooking smoke for our cafeteria ladies’ health, we will be happily satisfied with the solar cooker food.

Soo Hyoun Lim and Hyeonuk Hwang took their campaign to Instagram.

But will it work for a large crowd of people? According to Mason Terry, director of the Oregon Renewable Energy Center, multiple solar ovens were functioning superbly years ago at a refugee camp in Nepal. You may not know this, but Nepal is home to over 40,000 refugees. If it worked for such a large number of hungry people in Nepal, I’m sure that South Korea could find ways to utilize this earth-friendly oven for their students at school. Since the budget was the issue for installing proper ventilation systems in Korean schools, they can save a lot of gas and power bills by using solar ovens. And with that money saved, they can install proper ventilation systems! Again, we ardently hope that this sustainable solution reaches the ears of South Korean policymakers.

Posters on social media and talking about solar ovens. We know. They are small steps. Perhaps too small to change the current Korean cafeterias. Perhaps too weak to save the lives of our cafeteria ladies. But however small and weak these steps may be, the important thing is that we are leaving our footprints on this issue. Wayne Gerad Trotman once said, “We are not helpless. We all can make this world a better place. We can start with small steps, one day at a time.” So take a small step with us today. Tomorrow we will be a step closer to bringing changes to Korean school cafeterias.

Note: Soo Hyoun Lim was the team leader for this project.
Edited by Dr Hanna Yoon

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HelpAge Zimbabwe director Priscilla Gavi is concerned about the elder abuse in Zimbabwe, especially as many are reliant on their families for support. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
Sep 28 2022 (IPS)

At his house in Mabvuku, a high-density suburb in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, 86-year-old Tinago Murape claims his grandchildren starve him.

Not only that, but Murape, who now walks with the support of a walking stick, said his three grandchildren – grown-up men with their wives and children living in his house, accuse him of bewitching them.

Murape’s wife, Sekai, born in 1941, died two years ago after she contracted COVID-19.

All of his three children, two sons and a daughter, succumbed to AIDS decades ago, Murape told IPS without beating about the bush as he tapped on the ground with his walking stick.

Faced with joblessness and leading lives as domestic part-time workers in the affluent suburbs of Harare, his grandchildren strongly believe their grandfather cast spells on them, resulting in them failing to get formal jobs even though they are educated.

Now the grandsons, and their wives, have reportedly slapped Murape with sanctions – denying him food as a way of punishing him for causing their economic misery, according to him.

The grandchildren have vehemently denied the accusations.

“That’s not true. It’s old age pushing him to think like that,” one of the grandchildren told IPS.

Yet, for Murape, the abuse has gone on for years as he claims well-wishers and neighbours have often fed and clothed him.

The three grandsons, 27-year-old Richard, 29-year-old Benito and 32-year-old Tamai Murape, have never been formally employed after they completed their technical courses at Harare Polytechnic College.

According to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, 90 percent of Zimbabweans are unemployed.

Murape’s grandsons are part of the country’s unemployed, although they blame witchcraft, which they pin on their aged grandfather, for their joblessness.

Director for HelpAge Zimbabwe, Priscilla Gavi, said: “Older people are wrongly accused of practising witchcraft, which sees them blamed for deaths, drought, floods, disease and other calamities.”

In some instances, said Gavi, older persons are set upon by community members with beatings that may be fatal or leave them with disabilities or are burnt in their houses.

But Murape has said he has learnt to make do with the abuse.

“Sometimes they shut me out of my own house on top of denying me food, knowing I have no source of income and well-wishers have become my saviours every day,” Murape told IPS.

In fact, with many aged Zimbabwean citizens like Murape putting up with abuse, the abuse of the country’s senior citizens has turned into a growing trend.

In 2021 alone, police in Zimbabwe claimed they handled 900 cases countrywide related to the abuse of aged persons.

Like Murape, many aged persons in Zimbabwe taken care of by relatives claim they have become victims of physical and emotional abuse, with some claiming even to have been sexually abused.

Aged rape victims are many, like 76-year-old Agness Murambiwa in Harare, who claimed her 22-year-old grandson raped her before he fled to neighbouring South Africa earlier this year.

Gavi said aged persons are not spared from sexual abuse.

“Cases of rape of older women by much younger men are increasing in parts of Zimbabwe. In some instances, these arise from the mistaken notion that having sex with an older woman can cure one of terminal illnesses,” Gavi told IPS.

But the wounds remain for Zimbabwe’s aged rape victims like Murambiwa.

“Earlier this year, Themba, my grandson, attacked me while I slept in my bedroom, threatened to kill me if I made any noise before he raped me. It pains me that my own blood did this to me,” Murambiwa told IPS.

Murambiwa is taken care of by her two daughters, both of whom divorced their husbands and one of whom is Themba’s mother.

The daughters are also strained taking care of their aged mother.

“It’s not easy looking after an aged parent. We have limited resources, and she always complains that we are not doing enough, yet none of us is employed. We are vendors living from hand to mouth,” 52-year-old Letiwe, one of Murambiwa’s daughters, told IPS.

But many aged Zimbabweans like Murape and Murambiwa said they could not fight off their abusers because they were in desperate need of care.

With limited resources to support its senior citizens, Zimbabwe has no social grants for the aged.

This means aged persons like Murape and Murambiwa are on their own as they bear the brunt of abuse in the twilight of their lives.

Yet the Constitution of Zimbabwe protects the elderly, defined in Section 82 of the Constitution as people over 70.

Many of Zimbabwe’s aged citizens have no money after the 2008 hyperinflation eroded their savings.

This time, a new round of inflation has not helped the country’s growing number of abused aged persons who depend on their relatives.

Inflation currently hovers above 257 percent in Zimbabwe, with food prices skyrocketing, meaning the lives of aged persons such as Murape could even worsen.

Other than inflation, for aged men – widowers that have remarried, according to HelpAge’s Gavi, abuse could be even worse.

“Some older men have also faced abuse from their younger wives who mistreat their spouses wantonly, leading to some of these men finding themselves on the streets,” said Gavi.

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Just another day in the main hall of the Qamishli campus. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
QAMISHLI, Syria, Sep 27 2022 (IPS)

There is a main hall as well as workshops, laboratories and, of course, a cafeteria, where the half-hour break flies by amid card games and laughs. It could well be any university if it wasn’t for those men armed with assault rifles at the entrance.

This is the campus of University of Rojava in Qamishli (700 kilometres northeast of Damascus), an institution that opened its doors in October 2016, in the midst of a war that still rages on.

The Kurdish minority in Syria coexists with Arabs and Syriacs in the so-called Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). It's in this corner of Syria, which shares borders with both Turkey and Iraq, where such a network of universities has been built. It now rivals the institutions of the Syrian Arab Republic government

“Lessons in the Kurdish language are one of our hallmarks,” Rohan Mistefa, the former dean, tells IPS from an office on the second floor. Other than the language of instruction, significant differences from other Syrian universities are also visible in the curriculum.

“We got rid of subjects such as Ideology and History of the Baath Party (in power in Damascus since 1963) and replaced it with `Democratic Culture,'” explains this Kurdish woman in her mid-forties. The creation of a Department of Science for Women (Jineoloij, in Kurdish), she adds, has been another milestone.

The University of Rojava hosts around 2,000 students on three campuses. There are, however, two other active universities in Syria’s northeast: Kobani, working since 2017, and Al- Sharq in Raqqa. The latter has been operating since last year in a city that was once the capital of the Islamic State in Syria.

“Unlike the universities of Kobani and Rojava, in Raqqa they study in Arabic because the majority of citizens there are Arabs,” says Mistefa, who is today co-responsible for coordinating between the three institutions.

Mustefa has been closely linked to the institution since its inception. She helped to found the first Kurdish university in Syria in her native district of Afrin in 2015. That pioneering initiative had to close its doors in 2018: territorially disconnected from the rest of the Kurdish Syrian territories, Afrin was taken over by Ankara-backed Islamist militias. It remains under occupation to this day.

“Many people ask us why we open schools and universities in the middle of the war. I always tell them that ours is a culture of building, and not that of destroying our neighbours and their allies”, says the Kurdish woman.

 

Ideologues and martyrs of the Kurdish cause are also present on the walls of the University of Rojava. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

 

The Kurds call “Rojava” (“west”) their native land in northeast Syria. In the wake of the so-called “Arab spring” uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, Kurds opted for what was then known as the “third way”: neither with the government nor with the opposition.

Twelve years on, the Kurdish minority in Syria coexists with Arabs and Syriacs in the so-called Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). It’s in this corner of Syria, which shares borders with both Turkey and Iraq, where such a network of universities has been built. It now rivals the institutions of the Syrian Arab Republic government.

 

A “titanic task”

After the opening of the first Kurdish-language schools in the history of Syria, the University of Rojava is one more step forward in a revolution that has placed education among its main values.

It consists of nine faculties that offer free academic training in various Engineering branches, as well as Medicine, Law, Educational Sciences, Administration and Finance, Journalism and, of course, Kurdish Philology.

“I chose Philology because I love writing poems in Kurdish; I am very much into folklore, literature… everything that has to do with our culture,” Tolen Kenjo, a second-year student from the neighbouring city of Hasaka tells IPS.

The 19-year old still remembers being punished at school whenever she would utter a word in her mother tongue. For more than four decades, the ban on the Kurdish language in Syria was just another chapter within an ambitious assimilation plan that also included the displacement of the country’s Kurdish population and even the deprivation of citizenship of tens of thousands of them.

 

The cafeteria during the half-hour break. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

 

Today, the university’s walls are covered with posters: climate maps, the photosynthesis cycle, quotes from the Russian classics. For the first time in Syria, all are in the Kurdish language. The corridors get crammed with students during the breaks between classes, often amid the laughter that comes from a group of students playing volleyball in the courtyard.

In the Department of English Language and Translation, we find Jihan Ayo, a Kurdish woman who has been teaching here for more than three years. Ayo is one of the more than 200,000 displaced (UN figures) who arrived from Serekaniye in 2019, when the Kurdish district was invaded by Islamist militias under Ankara´s wing.

“Turkey’s attacks or those by cells of the Islamic State are still a common currency here,” Ayo tells IPS. When it comes to lessons, she points to a “titanic task.”

Work is still underway to translate teaching materials into Kurdish — to train not only students but also those who will become their teachers. Among other things, Ayo remembers those “very tough” 18 months during which the pandemic forced lessons to be suspended.

“We tried to cope with things online; we got help from volunteer teachers from practically all over the world, but, of course, not everyone here has the means to connect to the Internet…”

She also faces a fight to gain the trust of many local citizens, towards an educational network that has no recognition outside this corner of Syria. Although the Kurdish administration administers the region, the “official” schools -those ran by Damascus- continue to function and, of course, they stick to the pre-war curriculum.

 

Teaching in the middle of a war has been one of the challenges faced by the Syrian Kurds. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

 

Recognition

In a comprehensive report published in September 2022 on the university system in northeast Syria, Rojava researchers Information Center (an independent press organization) stress the importance of international recognition that can make the institution more attractive to students.

“While the quality of the education received at these universities in itself is comparable to other institutions’ in the region, the lack of recognition abroad may make it impossible for the students to continue their studies outside of Syria, find employment abroad, or even have their technical knowledge recognized by companies and institutions not tied to the AANES,” the report warns.

It also claimks that the University of Rojava maintains cooperation agreements with at least eight foreign universities, including Washington State University (U.S.), Emden/Leer University of Applied Sciences (Germany) and the University of Parma (Italy)..

It´s just a ten-minute walk from the campus to the headquarters of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the dominant political party among Kurds in Syria. From his office, PYD co-chairman Salih Muslim wanted to highlight the role of universities as “providers of necessary cadres to build and develop the places they belong to and come from.”

“Our universities are ready to cooperate and exchange experiences with all the universities and international institutions to gain more experience and they are welcome to do so,” Muslim told IPS.

Despite the lack of international recognition, academic life goes on in this corner of Syria. Noreldin Hassan arrived from Afrin after the 2018 invasion and today is about to fulfil his dream of graduating in Journalism. The 27-year-old tells IPS that his university is “working in the right direction” to achieve international recognition. However, he has chosen not to wait for a degree to begin his career, and he has been working as a reporter for eight years already .

“Getting a diploma is important, but, at the end of the day, journalists learn by sheer practice while looking for stories and covering those,” stresses the young man.

The last story he covered? One about those women forced to marry mercenaries on a Turkish payroll. The story he´d like to cover the most? No surprises here:

“The day when the Kurds of Afrin can finally go back home.”

 

Many of the global crises we face are caused or exacerbated by corruption. Credit: Ashwath Hedge/Wikimedia Commons

By Blair Glencorse and Sanjeeta Pant
WASHINGTON DC, Sep 27 2022 (IPS)

As global crises mount, the G20 is proving unable to find solutions. Political disagreements within the bloc- including most prominently with Russia over the ongoing war in Ukraine- have hamstrung collective efforts.

Economic challenges have inevitably led to a focus on domestic priorities. And significant political changes in key G20 countries over the past few months- such as the UK and Italy- have further undermined joint decision-making.

Equally, on corruption issues, the G20 has a long way go, although the body continues to reiterate its commitment fighting graft and leading by example on core issues such as the role of audit institutions, anti-corruption education, money laundering and graft in the renewable energy sector.

The G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group (ACWG) meets for the final time under the Indonesian Presidency this week- and while there remains plenty to do, there are also glimmers of hope for the future, as India takes on leadership of the G20 for 2023.

It is easy to get disheartened about the continued ubiquity of corruption- but beyond the headlines and if we pay attention to the small print, there is some important progress being made

To better understand the progress made, Accountability Lab, as one of the international Co-Chairs of the C20 Anti-Corruption Working Group (ACWG), has partnered with the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) to distill complex and scattered information on anti-corruption within G20 countries (often buried in lengthy reports, as we’ve highlighted previously) into a set of easy-to-understand one-pagers. Each of these (see Australia here or South Africa here for example) outlines for each of the member countries the progress made against key priorities, with the goal of encouraging sharing of ideas and learning within the G20.

 

Here is what we found:

Enhancing the role of audit in tackling corruption

The G20 ACWG recognizes the important role of audit in preventing corruption in both the public and private sectors, and member countries have institutions and systems in place to deter corruption.

For instance, 17 out of the 19 G20 member countries (the 20th is the EU) score over a global average of 63 on the International Budget Partnership’s metric for oversight by supreme audit institutions. Brazil has received a great deal of scrutiny in recent years because of corruption, but Brazil’s Tribunal de Contas da Uniao (TCU) is cited as an example for its innovative use of data analytics and artificial intelligence including identifying indicators of corruption.

Member countries are also improving existing laws, with Japan proposing to reform its audit law to provide more enforcement power to the Japanese Institute of Certified Public Accountants and improve oversight of listed companies.

 

Promoting public participation and anti-corruption education

Most G20 member countries have policies guaranteeing the right to participation through specific laws such as the right to information, public information disclosure or public procurement, to name a few.

In India, the Pre-legislative Consultation Policy was passed recently to ensure public participation in policy-making processes, and government as well as civil society platforms are available to promote public education, including on corruption issues.

Similarly, South Korea’s Public-Private Consultative Council for Transparent Society under the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission provides a platform to inform and disseminate anti-corruption messages. South Korea also aims to strengthen civic space and public participation including through a national Participatory Budgeting Citizens’ Committee.

In Australia a public-private partnership (Bribery Prevention Network) launched in October 2020 bringing together the private sector, civil society, government and academia to provide free resources to help corporates implement anti-bribery programmes, and was runner up in the Anti Corruption Collective Action Awards 2022.

 

Professional enablers of money laundering

The G20 acknowledges gaps in member countries’ anti-money laundering efforts, particularly related to preventive measures targeting professional enablers, including accountants, lawyers, or real estate agents- and is aiming to pull together guidance on these issues through a Compendium for Professional Enablers of Money Laundering.

While most countries do not have a comprehensive definition of Designated Non-Financial Business Professionals (DNFBPs), Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia comply with the 2012 Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards on the definition. The 2021 follow-up review from FATF noted that the revisions to China’s anti-money laundering law will include general provisions and supervision of DNFPBs.

In the US, if the ENABLERS Act– which was approved by the House of Representatives in July 2022– is passed by the Senate, it could regulate professional enablers; and in the UK, lack of supervision of enablers is being acknowledged by the government as it looks at different models to strengthen the supervision of accountants and lawyers.

 

Promoting corruption in the renewable energy sector

The G20 is working on a background note on Promoting Anti-Corruption in Renewable Energy in order to raise awareness and increase collaboration to prevent corruption in the energy sector. In 2022, Argentina launched an open information system (SIACAM) which provides public access to data on mining activities in the country, including their environmental and socio-economic impacts.

The Resource Governance Index notes that Argentina is one of only 7 countries that has made this type of data available. Similarly in Mexico, progress has been made with the publication of all oil procurement contracts on the state-owned website oil company, Pemex.

Japan’s cooperation agreement with India and the European Union to share experiences and best practices on liquid natural gas is cited as an example to follow by the International Energy Agency.

It is easy to get disheartened about the continued ubiquity of corruption- but beyond the headlines and if we pay attention to the small print, there is some important progress being made.

With the G20, the key now- as India assumes leadership of group- is for member countries to double down on their commitments and follow-through on implementation of reforms. Many of the global crises we face are caused or exacerbated by corruption- now is the time for our leaders to get this right.

Blair Glencorse is Executive Director of Accountability Lab; Sanjeeta Pant is of Accountability Lab. This piece draws on research carried out with RUSI. Follow the Lab on Twitter @accountlab

 

While 2020 saw the highest deforestation rate in Brazil’s history, deforestation rates were up to three times lower in Indigenous territories. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Solange Bandiaky-Badji and Torbjørn Gjefsen
WASHINGTON DC, Sep 27 2022 (IPS)

US $270 million may sound like a lot of money, especially for just one year. But it is only a small fraction—less than one percent—of all global funding for climate change adaptation and mitigation.  This small fraction, however, is the annual amount that was invested in the tenure and forest management of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs) over the past decade.

This month we learned that the actual amount of funding that reached IPs and LCs was a small fraction of the small fraction: only 17 percent went to activities that specifically named an indigenous organization.

This figure likely overestimates the actual share that reaches these communities as intermediary institutions also have project implementation costs that are part of this funding.  The discrepancy calls into question whether the $1.7 billion pledged at the UN climate change meetings to Indigenous Peoples and local communities for their land tenure and conservation initiatives will actually reach them.

Securing and protecting the tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities is one of the most cost-effective, equitable, and efficient means of protecting, restoring, and sustainably using tropical forestlands and the ecosystems services they provide

The rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities are inextricably linked to the preservation of key ecosystems and the maintenance of carbon stored in tropical forests and peatlands. At least 36 percent of Key Biodiversity Areas globally are found on IP and LC lands, along with at least 25 percent of the above-ground carbon storage in tropical forests.

Efforts to reduce climate change and the loss of biodiversity depend on these landscapes remaining intact, and IP and LC forest management has proven more effective in this regard than any other. While 2020 saw the highest deforestation rate in Brazil’s history, for example, deforestation rates were up to three times lower in Indigenous territories.

The most recent United Nations climate report, embraced this point, stating: “Supporting Indigenous self-determination, recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ rights and supporting Indigenous knowledge-based adaptation are critical to reducing climate change risks and effective adaptation.”

In a report our organizations released in September, we found that between 2011 and 2020, donors disbursed approximately $2.7 billion (on average $270 million annually) for projects supporting IP and LC tenure and forest management in tropical countries. We compiled data on this funding stream and assessed the grants along different dimensions of “Fit for Purpose” criteria—meaning that funding is given in ways that are effective, relevant and appropriate for IP and LCs.

Applying the “Fit for Purpose” criteria for IP and LC funding over the past decade was educational. We found that:

• IP and LC-led: Only 17 percent of IP and LC tenure and forest management funding between 2011 and 2020 mentioned an indigenous organization, indicating that a low share of funding is under leadership of Indigenous and community organizations.
• Mutually Accountable: There is a lack of accountability and transparency from donors towards IPs and LCs, inhibiting IP and LC understanding and influence over donor priorities and decisions. Most private foundations, who represent the majority of the IPLC Forest Tenure Pledge donors, do not share data on their projects systematically.
• Flexible and Long-term: Donors have increasingly been providing funding through long-term funding agreements, which provides IP and LC organizations with much-needed predictability and security. Yet, a lack of flexibility to change or adapt priorities within projects restricts IP and LC organizations in addressing diverse community needs, imminent threats or seize on windows of opportunity.
• Gender Inclusive: Only 32 percent of IP and LC tenure and forest management funding included gender-related keywords, despite the essential role of women in IP and LC forest management and their notable exclusion from many governance structures and forest management decisions.
• Timely and Accessible: Due to strict eligibility and administrative requirements of bilateral and multilateral donors, IP and LC organizations must overcome considerable barriers to access funding. Funding for IP and LC tenure and forest management has therefore generally relied on traditional development aid funding structures, with national and international organizations acting as intermediaries.

Securing and protecting the tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities is one of the most cost-effective, equitable, and efficient means of protecting, restoring, and sustainably using tropical forestlands and the ecosystems services they provide.

Many things get in the way of funding Indigenous Peoples and local communities, but in the end we will not solve the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity extinction unless we embrace the need for more equitable partnerships. We have already pledged the funding to support them, now we have to make sure they receive it.

Solange Bandiaky-Badji, PhD, is the Coordinator of the Rights and Resources Initiative
Torbjørn Gjefsen is Senior Policy Advisor, Climate, for Rainforest Foundation Norway.

Women’s financial exclusion in Kenya is not only a matter of having an ID or a chauvinist husband but is about financial institutions’ attitude to women.

By Issa Sikiti da Silva
Nairobi, Sep 27 2022 (IPS)

A two-year-old child cries hysterically as his mother attends to customers standing in front of her stall to buy vegetables on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital Nairobi. The mother, 25-year-old Esther, who refuses to give her surname for fear her husband will know that she has spoken to strangers about family issues, sells spinach, onion, tomato, garlic, and green pepper at a street corner to supplement her husband’s “meager” construction wage. It has been four years since she started the business, and she says it is beginning to feel like an eternity.

“I might be a village girl, but I have big dreams and ambitions, which unfortunately are being hampered by my selfish husband,” the rural-born, uneducated woman tells IPS through a translator.

“I’m tired of selling on the streets, it’s very cold here, and sometimes it’s windy and hot. I need to rent a small shop and turn it into a convenience store that will sell anything from cigarettes and cold drinks to milk. But there are some important obstacles to overcome,” she explains.

Esther does not have an identity document (ID), which represents the first obstacle to her dream coming true. According to a FinAccess February 2022 report published by Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Kenya, 87% of the people in this East African nation without ID in 2021 are between 18 and 25, compared to 69% in 2019. There is the highest incidence of lack of national identity cards in Kenya’s rural areas, mostly among women, and that has more than doubled since 2019, says the report.

It would appear that even if Esther had an ID, her husband would not allow her to get a loan due to Kenya’s misogynistic and patriarchal mentalities that put men in control of all household’s financial decisions.

“My husband says he is the boss of the family, and therefore he must manage all the money that comes in and advises how it is spent. All he knows is to count my money every evening, I don’t see his pay slip, and I totally ignore how much he earns, except to tell me that he earns very little and that my business is vital to support his income to help pay the bills,” Esther says emotionally, looking from left to right for signs of her husband’s return from work.

Many observers believe that women’s financial exclusion in Kenya is not only a matter of having an ID or a chauvinist husband, but it is also about financial institutions’ unfriendliness towards impoverished women like Esther and her neighbor Fridah.

“Who’s going to lend money to people like us? I knocked on all doors, but nobody helped me apparently because I’m not qualified for a loan. I’m stuck here for the rest of my life with this business of selling fried fish on this street corner. Men are moving fast forward, while women remain static. It’s complicated for us in this country,” Fridah, a widow of four children, says.

A man identified only as Rasta says: “The problem with today’s women is that when she starts making more money than you, she becomes rude, disrespectful, and arrogant. Then one day, when you wake up, she tells you she wants a divorce. That’s totally un-African.”

Another man sitting nearby intervenes, blaming the white people for brainwashing African women about gender equality. “There’s no such thing in our culture and traditions. Financial inclusion for women, or whatever you call it, it’s sheer nonsense. Not in my house. I’m in charge of everything, and it stays that way.”

The US-based Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) says without gender norm transformation, it is unlikely that women’s financial inclusion will lead to meaningful economic empowerment.

“It is time to move away from gender-blind or gender-aware approaches to financial services toward a gender-transformative approach that explicitly creates gender-equal financial systems by embedding pathways for engagement on equal terms,” it points out.

“Access to finance is one path to economic empowerment. Yet, women are disadvantaged in many ways, hindering their ability to access value-adding finance. For instance, on average, women are less educated than men, earn less income, and own fewer assets which makes them less likely to be considered or targeted in design of finance solutions,” state Wanza Mbole Namboya and Amrik Heyer, two financial inclusion specialists of FSD Kenya, in an analysis published in March 2022.

Approached for comment, a Washington-based spokesperson for the International Financial Corporation (IFC) said: “Gender equality and economic inclusion are essential for economic growth and development. No country, community, or economy can achieve its potential or meet the challenges of the 21st century without the full and equal participation of women and men, girls and boys.

“Advancing economic inclusion means creating an economy that works for everyone. An inclusive economy ensures that all parts of society, especially poor or socially disadvantaged groups, regardless of their gender identity, sexual orientation, place of birth, family background, racial identity, age, ability, or other circumstances, over which they have no control, have full, fair, and equitable access to market opportunities as employees, leaders, consumers, business owners, and community members.”

The Gender Global Gap Index 2022 published in July, which ranks Sub-Saharan Africa sixth (67.9%) in terms of regions that have closed their gender gap, says it will take the region 98 years to fully close its gender gap. Kenya ranks a distant 57th in the report, which puts Rwanda (6th globally) and Namibia (8th) top in Africa in closing the gender gap. South Africa emerged 20th.

Furthermore, the report deplores the rise of gender gaps in the workforce, describing it as “an emerging crisis”.

As if cultural norms, identification issues, and lenders’ unfriendliness towards women were not enough to suppress women’s financial independence and economic participation in Africa, there seems to be a bunch of men who want to make sure that sexual favors become a sine qua non condition for women’s advancement in the workplace.

Claire, who learned it the hard way, recounts: “I worked for 10 years for this company but never got promoted, let alone get a pay increase. But my male colleagues, whom we have the same level of education and who joined the company after me kept moving forward in all aspects.

“My boss told me face to face over and over again that unless I start sleeping with him, I’ll stay in that same position forever. I was shocked but never gave in to his demands because I’m different from other women who sell themselves to indecent rich men for a pay rise or a higher position.”

She ended up quitting and got another job. Asked if it even crossed her mind to open a case of sexual harassment against her former boss, she replies: “Which judge is going to believe me? Where is the evidence? At some stage, I thought of taping our conversation, but I told myself it is no use.

“Besides, these people are rich and powerful and have political connections. Their lawyers will tear you apart in one minute; who is going to defend me? I just made the right decision to leave peacefully but empty-handed, forget everything and get on with my life.”

The Global Gender Gap Report 2022 says: “Gender gaps in the workforce are driven and affected by many factors, including long-standing structural barriers, socioeconomic and technological transformation, as well as economic shocks.

“Globally societal expectations, employer policies, the legal environment, and the availability of care continue to play an important role in the choice of educational tracks and career trajectories,” it says.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Conversation at the UN General Assembly Side Event on Responding to the Urgent Humanitarian Needs in the Horn of Africa. Credit: Karelia Pallan/Oxfam

By Abby Maxman
NEW YORK, Sep 27 2022 (IPS)

Last week, as world leaders gathered in New York for the 77th United Nations General Assembly, one topic came up more than most: looming famine. That’s because despite a global commitment to make famine a relic of the past, it is once again knocking at our door.

In Somaliland two weeks ago, I witnessed communities past their breaking points. Grandparents there told me they could not recall a drought like this in their lifetimes.

At UNGA, I was honored to take part in many discussions on this and other topics – in particular a panel about the urgent humanitarian needs in the Horn of Africa. The region is facing several interlinked issues, including hunger, conflict, climate, and COVID-19. As we discuss – and more importantly, respond to – the crisis, we should keep in mind three themes: the urgency of the moment, the need for more access and more funding, and the implementation of a systemic solution.

The humanitarian crisis in the Horn needs to be at the top of the international agenda, and we need commitment, resources and action urgently. We have seen the warning signs that famine is coming for quite some time – and now we have been warned that it could be declared in Somalia as soon as next month.

Often, the international community is reactionary to crises, but this time we must also be anticipatory in assessing and responding to the needs of the region. In my trip to Somaliland, I spoke to farmers, pastoralists, and visited communities impacted by conflict, climate, and COVID-19. It was my first visit back to Somaliland in more than 20 years, which offered an interesting perspective of the arc of change.

Abby Maxman speaks with Safia, a woman forced to leave her home in Somaliland amid the drought and growing hunger. Credit: Chris Hufstader/Oxfam

Their shared experience is clear: their livelihoods and way of life – and that of their ancestors – are in danger and the need for action now is more urgent than ever. It is dispiriting that these preventable tragedies continue to repeat when the world has the resources and know-how to prevent them.

I spoke with Safia, a 38-year-old divorced mother of eight children, who lost 90% of her livestock. She stayed as long as she could in her community until she felt unsafe as the weak and dead livestock attracted hyenas at night, compelling her to make the five-day journey to reach the Dur-Dur IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camp near Burao.

At Dur Dur they were welcomed with clean water, some food, and materials to build a shelter. She and her children have been there for about three months. They are struggling to get enough food and might eat one meal a day, if they can. Oxfam and others are there offering support, but it’s not nearly enough to meet their basic needs.

Safia’s experience was just one of countless more of those who are bearing the brunt of the dual global hunger and climate crises that has been brought on by distant forces who are prioritizing profits over people and planet.

Earlier this year, Oxfam’s research estimated that one person is dying from acute hunger in the region every 48 seconds. Since then, the situation has only gotten worse. We have a narrow window of opportunity to stave off hunger in the horn. It is not too late to avert disaster, but more needs to be done immediately.

We know that anticipatory action saves lives, livelihoods, and scarce aid money, and across Oxfam and with our partners we have been sounding the alarm of this slow, onset emergency at local, national, and global levels for the past two years. Yet we are witnessing a system that is failing the people who are least responsible for this crisis.

We need more access and a lot more funding that supports frontline organizations and leaders. During the panel, it was encouraging to hear Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Second Martin Griffiths put such emphasis on funding local organizations and leaders who have the knowledge, access, and courage to make real impact.

Local organizations know where the most vulnerable people are located, they can reach disaster zones quickly, and they understand the languages, cultures, geography, and political realities of the affected communities far better than outsiders.

These local leaders should be given the resources and space to make decisions to have the most effective response that will save lives now and in the long run. This may mean that international donors and organizations need to be more flexible in how they coordinate, fund, and implement a humanitarian response. The old way may not be the most effective – in fact we know it is not – especially where there are access challenges.

Finally, we must take a systemic approach in tackling these issues. We know that hunger, climate, and conflict do not happen in silos – they are inextricably linked. We must make sure we are fighting these interlinked crises, especially hunger and climate, together.

Climate change is causing more extreme weather events like droughts, floods, and heatwaves, which devastate crops and displace vulnerable communities. In fact, hunger has more than doubled in 10 of the worst climate hotspots in recent years.

Countries that have contributed the least to emissions are bearing the worst impacts of the climate crisis, while fossil fuel companies see record-breaking profits. Less than 18 days of profits from fossil fuel companies could cover the whole UN humanitarian appeal of $48.82 billion for 2022.

These conversations and convenings are important, but we must do more than raise the alarm – we must see action to follow them up. I hope that leaders recommit the political will to fulfill their moral obligation to meet this crisis in the Horn head on.

Safia is doing all she can to ensure her family’s survival – we must see leaders do all in their power, right now, to make sure she and millions more get the urgent aid they need now to survive, and see their right to a safe, healthy future recognized and realized in years to come.

Abby Maxman is President and CEO Oxfam America.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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