Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

By Raghbendra Jha
CANBERRA, Australia, Jun 12 2020 (IPS)

Prior to the onset of the coronavirus crisis South Asian women participated only sparingly in the labor market. Even though South Asia was and still has the potential to become one of the fastest growing regions in the world (post COVID19) female labor force participation rates were low at 23.6% compared to 80% for men (World Bank figures).

Raghbendra Jha

The principal reasons for low female labor participation rates are (i) relatively low literacy rates for women as compared to men1 although the gap between the two is falling and both rates are rising; (ii) gender norms that view household work as women’s work and work outside the house as men’s work,. Again these norms are changing, especially for educated women; (iii) lack of electricity. In rural areas acts as a deterrent to female employment.2 This constraint has also been eased considerably with the electrification of all villages in India, although this may still be a problem in other countries; (iv) poor physical connectivity which impairs access of women to markets and other work places; (v) laws that restrict women’s employment in certain areas (e.g. occupations involving lifting) and the hours of the day in which they can work. These laws have recently been amended in India. (vi) work places that are not family friendly, e.g. with poor maternity leave provisions.

Many of these constraints are being eased. But there is quite a way to go. Some economists argue that globally female employment has a U-shape in the employment income per capita space. When family income is low women have to work because they need to augment the family resources. At high levels of income women work in elite professions. At intermediate levels of income female employment is low.3 If this is true then the drop in female employment is actually a reflection of rising income. It should increase when incomes have risen sufficiently. However, female employment is needed for the sake of gender equity and because women bring in a different set of skills and also because working mothers are good managers of their households.

The onset of the COVID-19 crisis has seriously shaken up this state of affairs. Men and women particularly in the services, manufacturing and non-formal sectors will have experienced serious job separation issues. Many of these women and men have returned to their villages where agriculture is already quite feminized.4 How this reverse migration affects incomes and employment will depend on the ensuing recovery. If the slowdown is protracted these workers – both male and female – will have to be accommodated in the non-formal or rural sectors. This means that alternative sources of job opportunities will need to be created on a large scale.

The government of India has pumped in an extra ₹400 million into the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Program for fiscal year 2021 in addition to the amount already budgeted.5 Similar initiatives have been taken in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Non-agricultural rural employment would need to grow fast if the downturn is drawn out. It is likely that in some of these occupations (e.g. handicrafts, khadi and other work involving some amount of processing) women will find employment whereas men will be take in for more onerous work. But, it is hard to see total employment rise for women because of these activities. However, some states in India (e.g. Uttar Pradesh) have begun skill mapping of returning migrants so that they can be employed locally and do not have to go back to cities and large towns.6 Since women will rarely migrate back to cities and towns without men folk they will have to make do with whatever work is available at the local level, if they work at all.

Whenever full economic activity resumes and these workers and their families return to towns and cities their employment will depend on the speed of the recovery. On balance, it is difficult to imagine that most men or women will get back to positions similar to those they had prior to the onset of COVID. In the case of India generous loans for entrepreneurial activities have been made available and some families may get involved in these. So, one can foresee a strong move toward self-employment in the post COVID era. Ironically, this may see an improvement in women’s employment as many of them will be involved in family enterprises.

All told, next few months will be a testing period for workers in South Asia. Women workers have been adversely affected more than men and face an uncertain future whether they remain in the cities or have reverse migrated to their homes. This period of adjustment will test many of these workers. If the pace of recovery is rapid and geared towards low value-added, low skill intensive jobs or involve considerable self-employment the labor market will recover soon. However, if the recovery is slow prospects for female employment will remain weak.

1 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.FE.ZS Accessed 12th June 2020
2 https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/12956/analyzing-female-employment-trends-in-south-asia Accessed 12th June 2020
3 https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/social-identity/what-explains-the-decline-in-female-labour-force-participation-in-india.html Accessed 12th June 2020.
4 The concept of feminization of agriculture refers to a phenomenon when men go to work in towns and cities and women stay to work on the farm. See https://wle.cgiar.org/thrive/big-questions/what-truth/feminization-agriculture Accessed 12th June 2020
5 https://indianexpress.com/article/business/centre-to-pump-rs-40000-crore-more-into-mgnrega-for-fy21-6414887/ Accessed 12th June 2020.
6 https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/uttar-pradesh-launches-skill-mapping-of-returning-workers-to-provide-jobs-within-state/article31767273.ece Accessed 12th June 2020.

The author is Professor of Economics, Australian National University and Executive Director Australia South Asia Research Centre

 

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High school student in eastern India, studies a leaflet on menstrual hygiene. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Webster Mavhu
HARARE, Jun 12 2020 (IPS)

An all-male panel assembled to discuss menstrual health on International Menstrual Hygiene Day sparked outrage on social media and a flurry of memes of all-female panels discussing male issues.

But the social media spat should not divert attention from the issues the day tries to raise in order to break menstrual taboos and raise awareness about the importance of menstrual health and hygiene management for women and adolescent girls worldwide.

And if we truly want to do this, then we must include men not just in the conversation but also in the interventions being implemented.

Despite it being a natural biological process, menstruation is characterized by myths, stigma and taboos across the world.

Among both boys and girls, reproductive health knowledge is often acquired too late. For example, menstruation is often discussed only after it has happened, and begins with a feeling of fear.

As in many cultures, I grew up with menstruation taboos. For example, a menstruating woman is not supposed to slaughter a chicken, prepare certain foods, or brew beer for spiritual occasions.

Also, a menstruating woman is not supposed to verbally inform her sexual partner that she is menstruating. Instead, she will do so symbolically for example, by placing a piece of red cloth on their sleeping mat as there can be no discussion about the matter.

It is not just couples who do not discuss menstruation. Young girls are not able to talk about it openly with their mothers, grandmothers, aunts or fathers – all of whom are potential sources of reliable information.

My work over the past 15 years has included exploring sexual and reproductive health issues among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa. A key finding has been that among both boys and girls, reproductive health knowledge is often acquired too late.

For example, menstruation is often discussed only after it has happened, and begins with a feeling of fear. In some of my research, an adolescent described her first experience: “Initially, I thought I had urinated without realizing it but I was shocked to see blood. When I informed my mother, she said I was supposed to use rags as sanitary pads and to wash myself three times a day so that I would not smell bad.” The discussion ended there.

Gaps in information are often filled by hearsay. Another girl described how, when she began menstruating, her elder sister advised her to use cotton wool as opposed to sanitary pads “as the latter make one lose virginity”. The elder sister said she had also been told this by her friend.

Myths around menstruation are also common among boys. For example, boys tell each other that unprotected sex with a menstruating girl has no risk of pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections. There is also the belief that potential health “effects” of having unprotected sex with a menstruating girl can be prevented by drinking a solution made from mature soot.

Clearly, efforts to tackle myths around menstruation must target both girls and boys to reduce menstrual-related stigma and ill-treatment, as well as improve sexual and reproductive health.

When I was in my sixth grade, a fellow classmate had her first period and bled on her school uniform. She tied her jersey around her waist. When the boys realized what had happened, they untied her jersey. She desperately tried to cover the stain with her hands, but the boys kicked away her hands to make sure the stain would remain exposed, jeering in the process. She missed the following week of school.

More than three decades later, girls continue to miss school during their menstrual period. Studies conducted across the whole world have highlighted full or part-day school absences as a result of menstruation.

Of course a range of measures are being introduced into schools to reduce girls’ absenteeism from school including: provision of sanitary products, access to socially acceptable disposal facilities, access to water for washing near toilets, and space for changing. However, very few seem to be targeting boys.

Targeting boys with menstrual health education will not only improve girls’ school attendance but will help address menstrual-related myths and stigma. 

A pilot study conducted in Uganda tested a multicomponent school-based menstrual health and hygiene intervention, and evaluated its impact on several issues including, secondary school attendance. The intervention targeted both boys and girls.

Study findings indicated a potential intervention impact on improving menstrual-related school absenteeism. Of note, a drama skit on menstruation was very popular with both boys and girls, and worked well to involve boys in this topic and de-stigmatize menstruation.

It is therefore critical for menstrual health and hygiene interventions to include boys not just for immediate benefits but also for influencing their future thought patterns and behaviors. 

Ultimately, men will be able to discuss menstruation with their wives and daughters, thereby significantly breaking taboos and reducing menstrual-related stigma.

 

Webster Mavhu is a linguist-turned social scientist and global health practitioner who has been conducting research to inform programming for the past 15 years. He is a 2020 @aspennewvoices fellow.

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India is an Asian country with a middle-income economy. An increase of poverty is expected in Asian countries as a result of the economic recession linked to the coronavirus lockdowns. This dated photo shows women from the Mishing community in Dhemaji district. Credit: Priyanka Borpujari/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 12 2020 (IPS)

Global poverty, which is increasing because of the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis and ensuing worldwide lockdowns, is shifting and a dramatic increase in middle-income developing countries in Asia is expected.

This is according to new research published by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER).

Andy Sumner, a professor of International Development at King’s College London and co-author of the report, told IPS that recent research which estimates the number of people who will be pushed into poverty because of the virus also shows that the increase in poverty could be an “absolute increase” for the first time in two decades. 

“The potential increase in extreme poverty could mark the first absolute increase in the global count since 1999—and the first since 1990 in terms of the headcount ratio,” he told IPS.

The research estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic could push between 80 to 395 million people into extreme poverty globally, under the World Bank’s definition of poverty of people living under $1.90 per day. When measured with the World Bank’s upper threshold of the poverty line (people living under $3.20 and $5.50 per day) the estimate of people to be pushed into poverty is even higher at more than 500 million people. 

Sumner, along with authors Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez of King’s College London and Chris Hoy of Australian National University, published the paper titled “Precarity and the pandemic COVID-19 and poverty incidence, intensity, and severity in developing countries” as a follow-up to their April report.

While the estimates remain similar to the ones made in April, Sumner said the key findings in this report show there will potentially be a major shift in the location of global poverty. 

This, he said, is because “poverty is likely to increase dramatically in middle-income developing countries in Asia.” Furthermore, the “intensity and severity” of poverty will also likely increase dramatically. 

“The resources needed to lift the incomes of the poor to the poverty lines could increase by 60 percent, from $446 million a day in the absence of crisis, to above $700 million a day,” he explained. 

Excerpts of the interview follow. Some of the answers have been paraphrased for clarity purposes. 

Inter Press Service (IPS): The impact of COVID-19 on global poverty seems to be a significant issue. What was the root cause of poverty in a pre-pandemic world, and what is the root cause of poverty currently in COVID-19’s context?

Andy Sumner (AS): The root cause of poverty in many developing countries is a governance failure to put in place more redistributive policies. This is made difficult for developing countries given their place in the global economy. In the context of COVID-19, the situation is made worse as so many millions of people live just above the poverty line and are at risk of falling back into poverty. 

IPS: Your report says “[the] potential effects that the current COVID-19 crisis could leave on poverty look more dramatic when focusing on the composition of global poverty since 1990.” Could you elaborate on this last part, about the ways in which the poverty arising out of COVID-19 could be more dramatic?  

AS: There could be much more new poverty not only in countries where poverty has remained relatively high over the last three decades, but also in countries that are not among the poorest anymore. This points not only to their population size, but also suggests that much of their previously poor people moved to just above the poverty line, and as a result implying that the recent progress they achieved has been relatively fragile. 

IPS: What is an indicator of the “intensity and severity of poverty” you mentioned in your report. How would the middle-income countries’ increase in poverty affect the distribution of global poverty?

AS: For “intensity and severity of poverty,” we estimate the daily income losses among the existing poor and new poor. As for the terms of the middle-income countries’ increase in poverty, many of them are in Asia, and are populous. As a result, changes in poverty in middle income countries will tend to shift the pattern of global poverty towards Asia.

IPS: One of your findings is also that “The resources needed to lift the incomes of the poor to the poverty lines, as indicated by the poverty gap, could increase by 60 percent, from $446 million a day in the absence of crisis to above $700 million a day under a 20- percent contraction.” Are governments and world leaders prepared with these resources? In the event these  resources are not met with, how will it further impact poverty levels?

AS: Governments in developing countries have started to try to address the poverty impacts of COVID-19 through increasing the size and coverage of social protection payments. This reflects a tiny fraction of what G7 countries have spent on their own economies.

The world’s richest countries have collectively spent trillions of dollars stimulating their economies. So far, Germany and France have spent 9 to 11 percent of GDP. The United States has spent 13 percent of GDP, while Japan has spent 21 percent of GDP since the crisis started. In contrast, we estimate the cost of ending both pre-crisis extreme poverty plus the new extreme poverty as a result of the crisis will be just 0.63 percent of the combined G7’s GDP. 

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Indigenous schoolchildren in Bolivia's Andes highlands. Credit: Marisabel Bellido/IPS

By Kristalina Georgieva
WASHINGTON, Jun 12 2020 (IPS)

The COVID-19 crisis is inflicting the most pain on those who are already most vulnerable. This calamity could lead to a significant rise in income inequality. And it could jeopardize development gains, from educational attainment to poverty reduction. New estimates suggest that up to 100 million people worldwide could be pushed into extreme poverty, erasing all gains made in poverty reduction in the past three years.

That is why policymakers must do everything in their power to promote a more inclusive recovery, one that benefits all segments of society.

Our new research, prepared jointly with the World Bank for the G20, focuses on how to increase people’s access to opportunities, no matter who they are and where they are from. More equitable access to opportunities is associated with stronger and more sustainable growth and higher income gains for the poor. But unlocking the full potential of all individuals is not an easy task.

As they move forward, all governments will need to gear up for a more inclusive recovery. This means taking the right measures, especially on fiscal stimulus, education, and fintech. And it means sharing ideas, learning from others, and fostering a greater sense of solidarity

The reality is that low-income households face higher health risks from the virus. They bear the brunt of record-high unemployment and are less likely to benefit from distance learning. Children’s nutrition may also be harmed by the disruption to school-provided meals. According to UN estimates, more than half a billion children worldwide have lost their access to education as a result of coronavirus lockdowns. Many won’t return to the classrooms after the pandemic, with girls more likely than boys to drop out.

These inequalities are truly shocking, but not unexpected. We know from experience and recent IMF analysis that major epidemics often exacerbate pre-existing income inequality.

A policy response like no other

The good news is that governments around the world have deployed extraordinary policy measures to save lives and protect livelihoods. These include extra efforts to protect the poor, with many countries stepping up food aid and targeted cash transfers. Globally, fiscal actions so far amount to about $10 trillion.

But given the severity of the crisis, significant further efforts are essential. This includes taking the measures needed to avoid a scarring of the economy, including from job losses and higher inequality. It is clear that increasing access to opportunities is now more critical than ever if we are to avoid persistent increases in inequality.

With this in mind, I would like to highlight three priorities:

 

1. Use fiscal stimulus wisely

Substantial fiscal stimulus will have to be deployed during the recovery phase to boost growth and employment. We know from the global financial crisis that countries that experienced larger output losses relative to the pre-crisis trend tended to have higher increases in inequality.

Yet securing a return to growth is not enough. Let’s remember the post-financial crisis reforms and investments that made banking systems more resilient. We will need a similar surge in reforms and investments during the recovery phase to significantly improve the economic prospects of the most vulnerable.

So, we will need a fiscal stimulus that delivers for people. This means scaling up public investment in health care to protect the most vulnerable and minimize the risks from future epidemics. It also means strengthening social safety nets; expanding access to quality education, clean water, and sanitation; and investing in climate-smart infrastructure. Some countries could also expand access to high-quality childcare, which can boost female labor force participation and long-term growth.

These efforts are critical to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. But how can we significantly scale up spending when so many countries are now facing rising public debt? Public debt in emerging markets has risen to levels not seen in 50 years.

The IMF and the World Bank have championed debt service suspension as a fast-acting measure for countries that lack the financial resources to adequately respond to the crisis. The G20 has responded by agreeing to suspend repayment of official bilateral credit for the poorest countries, from May 1 through the end of 2020.

Over the medium term, there will be room to improve the efficiency of spending and mobilize higher public revenue. There will also be room for tax reform: for example, some advanced and emerging economies could raise their top personal income tax rates without slowing growth. Countries could ensure that the corporate tax system captures an appropriate part of the unusual gains received by the “winners” of the crisis, including perhaps from digital activities. And there should be a concerted effort to combat illicit flows and close tax loopholes, both domestically and internationally.

 

2. Empower the next generation through education

The virus-related disruption to education has left millions of children at risk of “learning poverty,” which means being unable to read and comprehend a simple text by age 10. Driven by poor access to quality schooling, learning poverty is already too high, especially in emerging markets and low-income nations.

 

 

We are also concerned about the long-term effects of the crisis on income and education gaps. In our research, we looked at the link between education and inequality. A 10-point increase in a country’s Gini coefficient (with such increases observed in some economies around the time of the global financial crisis) is associated with significantly lower educational attainment of about half a year. This could reduce lifetime earnings and cause income and opportunity gaps to become persistent across generations.

 

 

In other words, safeguarding our future means safeguarding our children. That is why we need more investment in education—not just spending more on schools and distance-learning capacity, but also improving the quality of education and the access to life-long learning and re-skilling.

These efforts can pay large dividends in terms of growth, productivity, and living standards. Simulations, based on a model reflecting an economy like Brazil, show that reducing the educational attainment gap by a quarter, relative to the OECD average, could boost economic output by more than 14 percent.

 

3. Harness the power of financial technology

COVID-19 has triggered a mass migration from analog to digital. But not everyone has seen the benefits; and the growing digital divide is set to become one of the legacies of the crisis.

What can policymakers do? A key priority must be to broaden the access of low-income households and small businesses to financial products, which will allow households to smooth consumption in the face of shocks and businesses to undertake productive investments. This “inclusion revolution” is now gaining momentum as governments are providing emergency cash transfers in record amounts. For example, in Pakistan and Peru, new support programs cover one-third of the population.

Reaching the most vulnerable can be challenging in developing economies, where nearly 70 percent of employment is informal. But this is where fintech opportunities abound. Think of the fact that about two-thirds of all unbanked adults (1.1 billion people) have a mobile phone, and one-quarter have access to the internet. Moving routine cash payments by governments into accounts could reduce the number of unbanked adults by 100 million globally, and even bigger opportunities exist in the private sector.

Of course, governments also need to manage fintech risks. Reforms are needed to promote competition, enhance consumer protection, and fight money laundering. Finding the right balance will be critical for lower inequality and growth.

Our research shows that greater access to finance and technology is associated with higher intergenerational income mobility. And we have estimated that there is a 2- to 3-percentage-point GDP growth difference over the long term between financially inclusive countries and their less inclusive peers.

 

 

In all these areas, the IMF is working with the World Bank and many other partners to support countries in this time of crisis. We are deeply committed to helping vulnerable groups through our hands-on technical assistance, policy advice, and lending programs. And we have increased our focus on social spending issues, including safety nets, health and education.

As they move forward, all governments will need to gear up for a more inclusive recovery. This means taking the right measures, especially on fiscal stimulus, education, and fintech. And it means sharing ideas, learning from others, and fostering a greater sense of solidarity.

If there is one lesson from this crisis, it’s that our society is only as strong as its weakest member. This should be our compass to a more resilient post-pandemic world.

 

The post The Global Economic Reset—Promoting a More Inclusive Recovery appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Kristalina Georgieva is the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

The post The Global Economic Reset—Promoting a More Inclusive Recovery appeared first on Inter Press Service.

High rise apartments & green spaces contrast with the adjacent sprawling slum area in Mumbai, India. Credit: Johnny Miller

By Johnny Miller
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Jun 12 2020 (IPS)

From shocking death tolls to widespread job losses, there is no understating the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the world’s cities.

Health care systems, economies, and social lives have been upended by a virus for which the world was totally unprepared.

But even as cities struggle with basic needs like providing a safe environment for all, there is as an opportunity for long-lasting changes to make our cities both more prosperous and equitable and less vulnerable to future shocks such as highly contagious diseases.

Cities and local governments should be recognized for steps they are already taking to build public health, social, and economic resilience during this crisis. They are disinfecting public transport and are keeping public spaces clean.

They are mobilizing both professional and volunteer networks to source, make, and distribute personal protective equipment for frontline workers. They are making sure food reaches older persons who are self-isolating for their own safety and struggling families with children who are no longer going to school, being challenged equally by new ways of working such as home schooling and home office.

This unprecedented moment requires emergency action and social solidarity. We can seize on this brief window to “retro-fit” and make permanent improvements by both delivering the fundamentals of sustainable cities from the pre-pandemic era and adopting the measures that are likely to be necessary in the post-pandemic era.

Our future cities need to be resilient, sustainable, inclusive and equitable. They need to be forward-thinking, able to innovate and better positioned to withstand shocks and catastrophes like the Covid-19 pandemic.

To do this they will need to respect core human values of dignity and care, and invest in citizens’ health along with decent shelter, clean water, and free education. They will recognize that diversity is a strength, and that achieving equality of outcomes for all means safeguarding the rights of expression and culture.

Future cities must rethink and reorganize their built environment using the lenses of equity and access. COVID-19 has exposed the reality of profoundly divided populations. Regenerating neglected urban areas can bring healthy, sustainable benefits to local communities, which in turn increases city resilience as a whole.

Connecting communities with people-friendly parks, green spaces, and community-aligned infrastructure allows neighborhoods to prosper and thrive once more.

We see some cities embrace the “new normal’. Lyon has a plan to more permanently house 1,500 homeless people who were offered temporary shelter during France’s lockdown. Cities around the world have closed streets to cars in order to provide more space for pedestrians and cyclists.

Already, Seattle and Paris have said some of those changes will be made permanent. Bogota, one of South America’s most cycle-friendly cities and already a leader in sustainable transport, just dedicated over 70 more kilometers of bike lanes on top of the 550 that already exist.

With the disruption of global supply chains and long-distance air travel, it is possible that future cities will look and act more locally, with localized and self-sustaining networks of food production, green spaces, and even power generation.

By moving away from a reliance on overseas producers, we can unlock the true value of neglected assets and resources within communities which currently lie dormant.

At the same time, the cities of the future will be more reliant on digital technology and the wide utilization of the internet even as children learning from home eventually go back to school and knowledge workers connecting remotely will eventually return to spending more time in the offices again.

Even in the poorest regions of the world, city dwellers are beginning to rely on the internet for education, business, banking, and social relationships. COVID-19 has already opened our eyes to a world where only those with the freedom and privilege to be able to access the online world are the ones able to access all society has to offer.

The current crisis provides an opportunity for cities to ensure that digital services are available to everyone, but they need to take a proactive approach to digital technologies.

This could include investing in community broadband and free public wi-fi, providing digital literacy and skills to older people and marginalized communities and making websites and online platforms accessible to people with disabilities. Bridging the digital divide, already a pre-pandemic challenge, will be essential to building back better neighborhoods.

The good news is that many cities already see the benefits of resilient, inclusive societies, and some areas like Kerala state in India are weathering the COVID-19 storm well even without massive financial resources.

This is showing that focusing on public health delivery in a compassionate, equitable way, is just as important as economic stimulus to the recovery of a region once the pandemic is over.

The choices we make in the next year will define our societies for an entire generation and perhaps beyond. Let’s use this opportunity as a fulcrum to leverage the future that we know we can build together.

 

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The post How Cities Can Turn COVID-19 Crisis into an Opportunity to Build Better appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Johnny Miller is a photographer, documentary maker and UN-Habitat Champion based in Cape Town South Africa.

The post How Cities Can Turn COVID-19 Crisis into an Opportunity to Build Better appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
SINGAPORE, Jun 12 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The eyes of much of the world were focused on Beijing during the last week of May. That was because China had scheduled for that time-perod what is generally collectively termed “Two Sessions” or Lianghui in Mandarin. These are back-to-back annual parliamentary meetings of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the National People’s Congress (NPC). The event usually take place in March, but this year had to be pushed back to May because of the COVID virus. Again, ordinarily, these last ten days, but this year, for the same reason, the period was compressed to a week.

The first, the CCPPC, which has 2000 representatives drawn from different segments of society is considered the country’s foremost political advisory body, is mandated to make proposals and advance policy suggestions to the government. At this meeting they offered hundreds of proposals on public health security. This session, which kicks of the Liangui, was followed as is wont, by the session of the NPC, which, with its 3000 delegates is usually considered the nation’s legislative organ. It is tasked to review and endorse the government’s immediate past and future work, adopt fresh legislation, approve the budget and ratify senior administrative appointments. Unsurprisingly, of the two sessions, that of the NPC is more keenly watched.

In the past China’s “Two sessions” had rarely not gripped the global media. These did not feature the lively debates of the British House of Commons, or the hullaballoo of the Indian Lok Sabha. But currently the attention has grown enormously. This is in tandem of the perceptible rise of China, not only as the world’s second largest economy, but also as a superpower peer. Behind the veneer of apparently staid rubber stamp Chinese bodies, the international media and global powers are now aware that huge politics are at play, and they are at pains to discern their intricacies. The speeches made there are seriously parsed and the body-language of the key participants carefully noted and analyzed. For all are aware that what happens during these deliberations in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, do not remain in Beijing but have a huge impact on the world beyond.

A major event in the NPC, as is always the case, was the presentation of the Annual work Report by Premier Li Keqiang. In this session stabilizing employment, ensuring living standards and eliminating poverty were the key themes. Li announced fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate the economy, but with a modicum of restraint. He noted the challenges in the external environment posed by the China-United states strategic rivalry, the global recession, and the anti-globalization sentiments. He made known that domestic consumption, and advances in high technology, would be the key components of China’s response.

Economists and financial analysts waited with bated breath to see if Li would declare a growth target in this pandemic year. He did not. Last year he had set it at between 6 to 6.5 percent of the GDP, a modest one by Chinese standards, and it did grow by 6.1 per cent, in the midst of a fierce trade war with the US. Showing prudence, this year he eschewed naming a growth figure number. He attributed this to “the COVID-19 and the world economic and trade environment”. To spur the economy, China would raise the budget deficit target from 2.8 per cent of the GDP last year to3.6 per cent, breaching the self-imposed traditional ceiling of 3 per cent. Also, a 1 trillion yuan special government bond was to be issued. A logical take-away of the observers was that China was adjusting to realities of the situation, but confident of a recovery, and indeed of leading the way in this regard.

The main outcome, that dominated overseas commentary, came with the decision to impose national security legislation in Hong Kong. Such an attempt was made in the past in 2003, but withdrawn after half a million protesters took to the streets in Hong Kong .Since Hon Kong’s return to China in 1997, the former British Colony had been governed under a “one country, two systems” principle , guaranteeing a high degree of autonomy for 50 years, with Beijing controlling defence and foreign affairs. This also facilitated special trade privileges from the US, upon certification of the State Department of the continuation of such autonomy. The legislation, likely to be implemented this summer would allow for “relevant security organs” to set up units in Hong Kong, raising fears among some Hong Kongers that the “two systems” principle would be eroded, though Beijing denied it , citing the narrow and specific focus of the law.

Unconvinced by Beijing’s explanation, thousands of demonstrators hit the streets. Scenes created brought back memories of the chaos of last year’s anti-government protests. But the fact that after seventeen years Beijing had resurrected the legislation displayed confidence in their capabilities this time round. This, despite their full awareness that the US and the West would react adversely. China obviously believes it has come a long way since 2003. The United Kingdom immediately made an offer of the possibilities of citizenship to Hong Kongers choosing to make such application. The US State Department denied the ‘autonomy ‘certification that was necessary for continued trade privileges. President Donald Trump, already making his anti-China agenda a key plank of his re-election campaign, immediately revoked Hong Kong’s trade privileges, stating that the island would be treated at par with China.

Ironically, this may be exactly what China wants; that Hong Kong is organically its part! Beijing must have calculated that it has sufficient fiscal wherewithal to counter major dents to Honk Kong’s economy by US actions. Though it appears to deny it , it may actually have other options as economic hubs, should Hong Kong fail to retain this status, though it is difficult to see, at least at this time, how the western system would accept such alternatives. However, one never knows. There is another irony in these developments. Criticizing civil rights violations, as she perceived it, the US Congressional Speaker, Nancy Pelosi had described the earlier chaotic demonstrations in Hong Kong as “a beautiful sight”. Then, in Minneapolis in the US, a black man George Floyd, died, not in the hands, but by the knee of a white policeman, pressed against his neck , till life slowly ebbed away from him , in full view of onlookers. Violent rioting ensued as a result, from coast to coast in America, led by black minorities, still raging at the time of writing, causing huge destruction in their trail. China’s media pointed to this, and simply repeated Pelosi’s remarks that it was “a beautiful sight”!

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is Principal Research Fellow at ISAS, National University of Singapore, former Foreign Advisor and President of Cosmos Foundation Bangladesh.

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(photo: metamorworks/iStock by Getty Images)

By Antoinette Sayeh
Washington DC, Jun 11 2020 (IPS)

Exceptional times call for exceptional action. In response to COVID-19, the IMF has moved with unprecedented speed and magnitude of financial assistance to help countries protect lives and livelihoods. Economic stabilization and a sustainable recovery, however, will require more than financial assistance. For recovery to be sustainable, policymakers will need to strengthen economic institutions that enable resilient, inclusive policies.

Integrating capacity development with financial support

Governments today face difficult policy decisions – but many lack the strong economic foundations and technical know-how to design and implement the necessary policies. Consider, for instance, the impact of COVID-19 on national budgets, which includes massive spending pressures, lost government revenues and higher debt. This makes progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals even more challenging, particularly for the most fragile and vulnerable countries.

Which is why the IMF has been providing immediate and real-time policy advice and capacity development support to over 160 countries to address urgent issues such as cash management, financial supervision, cybersecurity, and economic governance. Direct, ongoing conversations with policymakers to develop capacity to tackle these issues always goes hand-in-hand with IMF financial support. Thus far, over 90 percent of countries that requested pandemic-related emergency financing have also received capacity development support in the form of hands-on technical advice, practical tools and policy-oriented training.

Strengthening public finances and debt management

Business continuity and protecting revenue streams are crucial for governments to rapidly mobilize and maintain domestic resources. And as countries ramp up emergency spending, they also want to ensure that they have strong institutional frameworks and good governance so money can quickly get to those who need it the most – especially when it comes to health expenditures and social protection systems. The IMF has been working with tax administrations and budget offices in many countries to help them restore operations and strengthen support to businesses and individuals, without compromising safeguards and accountability.

An even greater challenge lies ahead for policymakers in debt management, resulting from worsened fiscal positions and higher financing costs. The IMF has provided immediate debt service relief to 27 of our poorest member countries, and together with the World Bank, has led the call to major bilateral creditors to suspend debt service payments from the poorest countries. Debt managers worldwide are grappling with strategic, recording, and management issues in the COVID-19 environment – and are working with IMF technical experts to revise and update their debt management strategies and systems. An important element in this process is data, because it provides key information to assess the crisis and associated financing needs. For managing debt well, statistics are crucial. Short, “micro-learning” videos on the IMF Institute’s YouTube Channel have also been developed to tackle issues related to public sector debt data.

As governments carefully begin to shift towards reopening, stronger economic institutions will enable them to better assess the challenges created by the pandemic and resume efforts on policies that promote opportunities for all of their people – like tackling inequality, taking action on climate, and leveraging digitalization.

Maintaining close engagement

We are all navigating uncharted territory in adapting to new ways of working. The IMF recognizes this and is building virtual platforms to facilitate knowledge sharing, including a policy tracker covering the actions taken by 196 economies to combat the impact of COVID-19. Drawing on decades of working with countries, we have produced 45 Special Series Notes that provide practical policy guidance to countries on the nuts and bolts of common crisis-related policy challenges. We have expanded free online courses to increase global access to IMF expertise on topics such as fiscal policymaking, financial inclusion, and macroeconomic management. The IMF is also leveraging its global network of regional capacity development centers to respond quickly to countries’ emerging needs and ensure closer coordination with development partners.

As a former policymaker, I know first-hand the important role economic institutions can play in shaping policies that impact ordinary people. The laborious task of strengthening economic foundations is not glamourous – but it is one that can have the greatest, long-term impact on the economic and social wellbeing of people. As the world emerges from the Great Lockdown, policymakers and development partners should treat rebuilding stronger, more resilient institutions as a top priority.

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Excerpt:

Antoinette Sayeh is Deputy Managing Director of the IMF.

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By Tasneem Tayeb
Jun 11 2020 (IPS-Partners)

With Covid-19 bringing economic activities across nations to a halt, more and more people are being pushed into poverty. Job losses, business losses and farming losses, leading to economic stress, are pushing many to the fringes of poverty. And as families are being rendered helpless, the worst sufferers are invariably the children.

“46 percent children suffer from multidimensional poverty,” suggests a report shared recently by Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS). And in the face of the growing economic hardships of the people, triggered by Covid-19, the number is likely to shoot up in the coming months.

From increased threats of modern slavery—domestic servitude, sex trafficking, and forced labour, such as begging—and reduced access to nutrition, basic healthcare facilities and education, to increased risk of emotional abuse and mental trauma, children today, especially the ones born into poverty, are at greater risk of exploitation.

According to Unicef, “The economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic could push up to 86 million more children into household poverty by the end of 2020.”

Save the Children and Unicef suggest that, “Immediate loss of income means families are less able to afford the basics, including food and water, less likely to access health care or education, and more at risk of child marriage, violence, exploitation and abuse. When fiscal contraction occurs, the reach and quality of the services families depend on can also be diminished.”

And with more and more people becoming jobless, chances of families abandoning their children, or using them to earn money is increasing by the day. According to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report, “due to the pandemic, more children are being forced onto the streets to search for food and money, thus increasing their risk of exploitation.”

And more concerning are the lurking threats of the different ways in which children, in the wake of Covid-19 are being forced into sexual exploitation. For one, families in this part of the world, unable to feed “extra mouths”, often marry off their girls at an early age. Sometimes even in exchange for money. These little girls are subjected to marital rape by their husbands, and more often than not, suffer severe reproductive health damages due to the burden of early motherhood.

And if the girls are not so lucky, they are sold to traffickers by their husbands for money. Sometimes, in fact, predators marry young girls to be able to sell them for good money into sex slavery. While writing a detailed piece on this issue last year, I found that at times of desperation, the families themselves sell girls into prostitution. There have been cases where young sex workers had claimed that they had been sold to dalals by their own mothers.

Young boys face a different kind of fate. They are sent away to work in the informal sector to earn money for their families. And some of these young boys are preyed upon by predators for trafficking as slaves and sometimes into male prostitution.

According to a 2014 report by The Scelles Foundation, 42 million worldwide were involved in sex slavery. Of them, about eight million were men—it is not just women who are at the risk of being trafficked into sexual slavery. Male prostitution remains a less discussed issue, which is why when referring to sex slavery, the dialogues mostly centre around girls. But young boys do get raped and the possibility of them being forced into prostitution cannot be ignored.

And the children who have been sent out of the house to earn their living as beggars live with the constant threat of being exploited by their ring leaders. These girls and boys are not only taken advantage of by their employers but are also at times abused by the people giving them alms. I was once horrified when I saw a driver holding on to a semi-clothed girl’s hand while giving her alms. The girl—not knowing that it is not right for someone to touch her without her permission—was just happy that she got a note! Next time on the road, take a careful look, and the abuse of these children will become apparent.

But with Covid-19, you would think the demand for prostitution would have taken a hit, but you’d be wrong. The risk remains: according to Mama Fatima Singhateh, Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Covid-19 lockdown has resulted in people finding newer ways of availing prostitution services—through “delivery” or “drive-through”. According to Singhateh, people’s tendency to access illegal websites featuring child pornography has also increased— “Producing and accessing child sexual abuse material and live-stream child sexual abuse online has now become an easy alternative to groom and lure children into sexual activities and to trade images in online communities.”

A report published by the Council on Foreign Relations echoes the same fear— “While the current drop in global demand might temporarily disrupt exploitative circumstances, this effect is likely short-lived and eclipsed by increased vulnerability. Within sex trafficking, for example, the demand for commercial sex has dropped due to social distancing regulations. However, there is evidence that online sexual exploitation of children is on the rise, indicating that perpetrators are adapting in response to the environment.”

And this brings into the picture a new set of prey: children from middle-income to higher-income families who have access to the internet. These children, for whom the internet is the only means of staying connected with their friends and teachers, are at risk of being preyed upon by malicious traffickers.

And stuck at home, detached from the life they used to live, these children—according to Kazi Amdadul Hoque, Director-Strategic Planning and Head of Climate Action, Friendship, an international NGO—face a different kind of trauma. The fear of uncertainty, the fear of contagion and the depression from the lack of access to friends and outdoor activities make these children especially vulnerable to predators.

Child psychologist Tarana Anis suggests that now more than ever, parents and families have to be vigilant about the kind of online content their children are being exposed to, who their children are interacting with online, and which website they are accessing frequently. She suggests that families should engage in more shared activities and open discussions about current issues with their children.

This is certainly one way of tackling this problem. But we must keep in mind that the threat of physically trafficking children and selling them into prostitution or forced labour remains. Maybe there has been a decline in demand now, but it is only temporary. With the state’s resources already stretched fighting Covid-19, the government will find it difficult to fight off these other diseases, but this one definitely needs attention.

The government, along with bringing the poor under social safety schemes, must also mobilise the law enforcement agencies to strictly monitor the trafficking situation in the country. And families should spend more time with children and educate them about the risks that they might face online. The communities must look out for each, support each other and report suspicious activities. It is time we start looking out for ourselves, our loved ones and our communities, and report the wrongs to the concerned authorities, for the greater good of our children.

Tasneem Tayeb is a columnist for The Daily Star.
Her Twitter handle is: @TayebTasneem

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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Excerpt:

Families, communities and policymakers must now work in tandem to eliminate this life-scarring menace

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By African Development Bank
Jun 11 2020 (IPS-Partners)

From Sudan to Mali, Senegal to Mozambique, and Zambia to Mauritania, women are changing the face of agriculture, adapting and innovating to tackle the challenges of climate change, and feeding the continent’s growing population.

African women are actors along the entire agricultural value chain, as farmers, livestock breeders, food processors, traders, farm workers, entrepreneurs and consumers.

Through the African Development Bank’s Technologies for African Transformation (TAAT) initiative, millions of African women have gained access to new agricultural technologies that have boosted their crop yields, enabling them to tap new markets and increase their incomes .

Improved seeds can help Africa’s smallholder farmers, the majority of whom are women, to produce high crop yields even in areas plagued by climate change-related drought, floods and locust swarms that can destroy an entire harvest. Add in the constraints recently imposed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s a tough time to be a subsistence farmer.

Fathia Mohamed Ahmed, who belongs to a collective of two dozen women farmers in Sudan’s Darfur region is one such farmer. Through the TAAT initiative, her collective has been provided with high quality seeds for cultivating sorghum, a grain suited to hot, dry conditions. Sorghum, also known as millet, yields a grain that is rich in carbohydrates, protein and other nutrients that can be made into porridge, flatbreads, and cakes.

As a result of higher yields, collective members have gained opportunities for business expansion, including selling sorghum for cash at local markets. “It is an important breakthrough for the group to start our business,” Fathia said. “Our group is still in its infancy, but our focus is to grow and increase our agricultural business activities in the near future.”

West across the Sahel in Mali, 54-year-old Dramane Diallo works alongside a group of women who cultivate rice in Baguinéda, in lowlands on the banks of the Niger river.

Thanks to a Bank-funded food and nutrition project, rice and cereal harvests in Mali’s “rice bowl” have risen sharply, and farming families are reaping the benefits. “It used to be that you couldn’t go near the embankments because they were in such poor condition. We had problems irrigating our fields,” Dramane said. “But the irrigation channels have been restored and this has made my work less of a chore.”

At the local market, new produce is available. Every evening, stallholder Adiaratou Traoré goes to meet growers in their fields to buy vegetables to sell the next morning. One of her customers, Ténin Traoré, is enjoying the new variety of food on offer:

“Agricultural products used to be scarce in our market. Despite the demand, what was available from farmers was expensive and poor quality. It hasn’t been like that for the last two years. Now, we have a modern market, we have everything we need and the quality is good too,” she said.

In neighbouring Mauritania, the government partnered with the Bank to roll out a $12 million irrigation project that has breathed new life into the west Brakna region, which is prone to droughts, food insecurity and other effects of climate change.

The development of irrigation systems and dredging of backwaters that flow out of the Senegal River has increased the arable and irrigated farmland from 300 hectares to almost 7,000 hectares.

The project has benefited local women, including Oumou Salif Diop, president of a cooperative of 150 women farmers. The women, who grow tomatoes, onions and rice among other crops, have received training under the project.

“We know how to work and how to preserve what we harvest,” said Oumou. “We farm better, generating better yields and higher profits. Compared with before, there has been a huge change.”

Further up the agricultural value chain is Monica Musonda, a Zambian businesswoman and CEO of food processing company Java Foods(link is external), which produces affordable and nutritious snacks made from local ingredients.

Although African women are well represented in cultivation, primary processing and as market traders, Monica is one of only few female entrepreneurs that have created large, profitable agri-businesses.

One problem is access to finance. The Bank estimates that a $15.6 billion financing gap exists for African women in agricultural value chains. Women are forced to rely on personal savings and family loans which are rarely enough to fund businesses to scale.

The Bank’s Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) adopts a three-pronged approach–improving access to finance, providing technical assistance and strengthening the enabling environment—to close that gap.

As well as supporting women farmers’ access to improved seed technologies and irrigation systems, The Bank is also promoting women’s transition into the most profitable segments of agricultural value chains. And with good reason: when African women thrive their societies share fully in the dividends.

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Malawi’s small scale traders selling their merchandise at Limbe market in Blantyre. Credit: Lameck Masina/IPS

By Lameck Masina
BLANTYRE, Malawi, Jun 11 2020 (IPS)

Malawi remains one of the few nations in the world that has not gone into a coronavirus lockdown as the government rushes to meet the conditions of a court order to implement a cash transfer scheme for the poor before doing so. But as some parts of the world are slowing coming out of their lockdowns, it could be likely this southern African nation won’t go into one as the rerun of the country’s presidential election nears. 

On Apr. 27, President Peter Mutharika announced the roll out of a multimillion dollar emergency cash transfer exercise aimed to cushion the peri urban poor from the impact of the coronavirus.

Mutharika said the $51 million bailout initiative targeted 172,000 households in the cities of Lilongwe, Blantyre, Mzuzu and Zomba.

The exercise, which was expected to roll out in May, was in response to demands from civil rights organisations, who obtained a court injunction against a planned 21-day lockdown scheduled to start Apr. 18, outlining the lack of measures to cushion the country’s vulnerable. The court ruled the cash transfer scheme be implemented and a lockdown would be suspended until then.

Under the World Bank-funded programme, beneficiaries will receive MK35, 000 (about $47) a month, for six months.

Country’s vulnerable still waiting

Widow Elizabeth Longwe has been earning her daily income by selling tomatoes at Limbe market in Blantyre. But since the country confirmed its first case of coronavirus on Apr. 2, her daily sales have reduced by almost half.

Her customers stopped purchasing from her for fear of contracting the virus, which has killed over 400,000 people across the globe.

“Instead, people started buying things in bulk and using them sparingly, making it difficult for small scale businesses like mine to enjoy the same kind of sales one would do on a normal day,” she tells IPS.

The mother of three says she “thanks God” that her lack of sales came after the government suspended schools in response to the pandemic.

“It would have been a disaster to me because I couldn’t have managed to provide transport money for my two older children to school daily. But still, my worry was how I would manage to feed my children,” she says.

But she had been hopeful for financial assistance when the cash transfer scheme was been announced.

So too was Lackson Tembo, who trades in second-hand clothes, also at Limbe Market.

“This was a relief to me because with this meant I would still be feeding my children. I would be able to buy soap for washing and bathing. I would be able to pay my monthly rent,” Tembo tells IPS.

Where is the money?

But Tembo and Longwe, who are among the first beneficiaries listed for the cash transfers, are yet to receive the money. And they have not been informed why. They fear that remarks by the country’s Vice President Saulos Chilima, who said at a political rally in May that donors have withheld the funds for fear of abuse, may in fact be true.

However, spokesperson for the Treasury Department in the Ministry of Finance Williams Banda tells IPS that the funds are there but disbursement is delayed because they have been working on “implementation modalities”.

“The World Bank was targeting the peri-urban hotspots of the major cities … [but] when the technical committee looked at the list, they noted that the targeted beneficiaries [vulnerable groups] were not on the lists,” says Banda.

Banda says this forced the technical committee to suspend the listing and start engaging with “the ones who do the normal social cash transfer, to get to those who are indeed vulnerable and very poor individuals in the peri-urban hot spots”.

Lockdown versus elections

However, many still doubt if the lockdown will ever take off as political leaders intensify their campaign rallies ahead of the country’s presidential re-run, expected to be held on Jul 2.

• Malawi is expected to go polls after the Constitutional Court nullified the country’s May 21, 2019 presidential elections citing massive and systematic irregularities, including the use of correctional fluid on the ballots. 
• In its verdict on February 3, the court ordered fresh polls within 150 days, which ends on July 3. Parliament, which is currently sitting in the capital Lilongwe, is expected to set a date for the fresh polls.

But at a political rally on Saturday, Jun. 6, in the Zomba City in southern Malawi, former President Joyce Banda accused the government of exaggerating figures of COVID-19 cases.

Malawi has so far confirmed 455 COVID-19 cases with 4 deaths and 55 recoveries. 

“Since April, we have only registered four deaths, and recently we saw the government faking people suffering from the coronavirus, to find an excuse to postpone the election through a lockdown, but still, more are recovering.

“Let’s just thank God that we have been spared from this pandemic rather than deliberately bloating cases to attract donor money,” she had said.

Her remarks were an echo of what other opposition leaders have been saying; that the government should forget imposing a lockdown as Malawians are eager to go to polls.

Cash transfer to start soon … but what of COVID-19 testing?

While it is uncertain if the country will ever go into a lockdown, Minister of Population Planning and Social Welfare Clara Makungwa tells IPS that with or without the lockdown, the emergency cash transfer will still roll out because of the increasing number of people impacted by COVID-19. This includes migrant workers who are returning home, as well as those who are unable to run their businesses as people implement their own social distancing measures here.

“Figures for those affected are getting bigger and bigger now. For example we have 17 busses coming soon with people [migrant workers who were stranded in South Africa because of the lockdown there] who are coming back home, they are helpless. Those that have businesses are suffering. They are not enjoying the usual business as they were doing before. These people still need assistance,” she tells IPS. 

Makungwa says some of the issues which delayed the roll out of the programme have been resolved and expectation is that the exercise would start by the end of this month.

“We needed to train the enumerators, brief the block leaders because they are the ones to benefit and also work with city councils.  So we have come that far and we are now ready for the enumerators to go round doing the enlisting and the programme will roll out,” says Makungwa.

However a lecturer in economics at Malawi Polytechnic, Betcheni Tchereni, tells IPS that although the cash transfer would help mitigate the impact of the virus on the poor, efforts to contain the spread of the virus should also be funded.

“The best thing that we should do is procure enough testing kits and make sure that pretty much everybody has been tested. That way then it will be alright and make sure that porous borders have been closed. Because you have seen that most of the people have been affected or infected because of someone who travelled from abroad,” Tchereni tells IPS.

Malawi with a population of about 18 million has just tested 13 COVID-19 testing sites according to the Public Health Institution of Malawi. About 6,000 people have far been tested.

Related Articles

• Safeguarding Africa’s Food Security in the Age of COVID-19
• Economic Ghosts Block Post-Lockdown Recovery
• The Curious Case of Covid-19 in Africa

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By Antonella Teodoro and Luisa Rodriguez
GENEVA, Jun 11 2020 (IPS)

In the first quarter of 2020, the coronavirus pandemic led to a 3% drop in global trade values. COVID-19 could trigger the biggest economic contraction since World War II, affecting all industries from finance to hospitality.

As there is significant uncertainty about how the epidemiological and economic situation will evolve, assessing the duration and the gravity of the pandemic seems like an impossible task.

However, recent forecasts suggest: trade volumes decreasing between 13% and 32% in 2020 (WTO, 2020), global growth falling to -3% (IMF, 2020) and different maritime seaborne scenarios ranging from a return to sector average (around 3% p.a.) after 2022 to growth rates falling by 17% by 2024 (Stopford,2020)[i].

Industries whose operations are more globalized (and particularly those that rely on Chinese inputs for production) were most exposed to initial supply chain disruption due to COVID-19. This was the case for precision instruments, machinery, automotive and communication equipment (UNCTAD, 2020).

Given its non-essential nature, the fashion industry faces significant risks. Indeed, in times of COVID-19, as consumers around the world remain in lockdown, they no longer need new products. This industry is characterised by a highly integrated global supply chain.

In it, many developing countries play the role of the supplier of low-cost inputs. This article highlights some of challenges and concerns that some of these countries face, many of which are dependent on textile and garment exports.

The textile industry supply chains, trade logistics and developing countries

The accession of China to the WTO (2001) and the expiry of the WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (which ended a 10-year trade regime managed through quotas) on 1st January 2005 contributed to making China an important centre of textile and clothing global value chains (GVCs).

These two developments led to shift apparel production and sourcing (by globalized retailers and producers) to China and other Asian countries because of low labour costs (UNCTAD, 2005), following the cost-reducing logic of GVCs.

As wages gradually rose in China and Chinese plants moved to produce higher-value goods, countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam, with lower wages costs started attracting factories to relocate their production from China.

At the global level, China remains an important supplier of fashion goods (as shown in Figure 1) but has also become an important consumer of this industry.

Figure 1: Top 20 exporting countries of fashion goods*
(share in global exports), estimated TEU 2019

* SITC, 2-digit categories including: Textile fibres, Textiles & made-up articles, Clothing & accessories. (Source: MDS Transmodal, March 2020)

Major exporters of fashion goods for whom exports in the sector represent a significant share of export earnings are shown in Figure 2. Consequently, the Asian country most badly affected by the disease outbreak could be Bangladesh where circa 85% of its exports include fashion goods, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Top 20 exporting countries of fashion goods*
(share in total country exports), estimated TEU 2019

* SITC, 2-digit categories including: Textile fibres, Textiles & made-up articles, Clothing & accessories. (Source: MDS Transmodal, March 2020)

Given the globalized nature of the industry, companies and retailers must transport their goods and raw materials across many countries. Besides China, other countries play an important role as key hubs around which trade of fashion products takes place.

This is the case for the United States (as the most important retail market), and some European countries (such as Belgium, Germany, France and UK), with ports such as Rotterdam and Antwerp featuring prominently in this trade. (CO, 2018).

From a logistics point of view, the textile, apparel and garments industry is considered a time-sensitive industry. Irregularities in making goods reach a particular place at a specified location on time can lead to reduced (or no) profits for the textile owner.

In addition, clothing collections change quickly: their lifecycle is short (as perishable products) and their commercialization is characterized by strong seasonal peaks. In this sense, textile logistics are characterized by small stocks and short delivery times.

These goods and raw materials are usually transported using a combination of land, sea, and air. Within this trade logistics context, strong multimodal interlinkages are key to ensure Just in Time delivery.

E-commerce developments have further accentuated time-related logistics requirements, such as next day delivery, as well as the capacity of handling a large volume of returns and offering the possibility for manufacturers and dealers to check the location of their articles at any time.

Emerging concerns related to COVID19 from the perspective of developing countries

The COVID-19 outbreak led to production stops in China first, followed by closures of shops elsewhere around the world.

For the moment, European and American retailers, the two destination markets for this sector, are still cancelling their orders. Cancelled orders are a cause for concern in many sourcing countries.

As shippers are increasingly invoking ‘force majeure’ clauses within their contracts to halt their payments, on 8 April, the Sustainable Textile of Asian Region (STAR) Network, the body, which brings together representatives of the producing associations from Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Myanmar, Pakistan and Vietnam, released a joint statement on the issue.

It urged brands and retailers to consider the impact that their purchasing decisions during the coronavirus pandemic could have on workers and small businesses in the supply chain and, therefore, to honour their contracts with their suppliers.

In their statement, the STAR Network invited global businesses to “support business partners in the supply chain as much as possible, and aim at a long-term strategy of business continuity, supply chain unity and social sustainability.”

Supply chain disruption: the reduced production perspective

The evolution of local epidemiologic situation in key sourcing countries, has impacted workforce availability and production, as well as multimodal logistics underpinning global value chains.

One of the concerns in this respect is that production of fashion goods could be moved away to other sourcing countries that are resuming activities faster in the Asian region or that are closer to retailers to diversify their supply chain risk.

Governments in developed countries around the world are implementing unprecedented actions to ease the effect on their economies from measures put in place to limit the spread of the pandemic.

Most developing countries do not have similar financial means, health systems or social safety nets to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and its economic impacts.

In this context, various assistance packages have been announced by IMF, the World Bank and others with a view to supporting economies, including emerging market economies.

Transport connectivity impact

Observable changes derived from the pandemic concerning maritime transport networks include, for example a reduction in service frequency (blank sailings and idle fleet) and changes in routing affecting particularly Asia-Northern Europe services, a key axis in the trade of fashion goods.

Shipping lines are reducing the number of port calls in the maritime services they offer to adapt to declining demand and cargo imbalances (JOC, 2020).

This is likely to affect the liner shipping connectivity of sourcing countries both in terms of intercontinental as well as intra-regional feeder calls and, if this situation persists, could make economic recovery even harder.

The fashion industry is undoubtedly under pressure in these uncertain times. Depending on the role that countries play in the supply chain, building resilience could entail different needs and approaches.

Prospects appear particularly bleak for low-cost sourcing countries that are highly dependent on textile and garments exports for revenues, concurrently faced with the challenge of limited financial means and less developed health systems and social safety nets to cope with the socio-economic effects of the pandemic.

In the short-term, lockdowns around the world have thrown a spotlight on risks associated with high supply chain interconnectedness and challenges associated with global sourcing.

This has also had an impact on trade logistics, as the glue that holds global value chains together. Observable changes introduced in maritime transport services to cope with reduced demand and cargo imbalances illustrate this.

The key question is what will this mean in the longer term, after surviving this unplanned humanitarian and financial crisis, particularly for the weakest links of the chain?

Driven by growing pressure towards more environmentally friendly lifestyles, the fashion industry was already confronted, before the pandemic, with increased concerns regarding its sustainability footprint, particularly consumption patterns associated with ‘fast fashion’ (increasing levels of expenditures and waste disposal) and associated production patterns (workplace conditions, environmental impact of textiles processing).

Will the current crisis accelerate a transformation in consumption patterns, inducing structural changes to the industry supply chain?

For example, could it lead to generalize new models such as ‘seasonless designs’ or lead to shorter value chains (i.e. increased local or regional sourcing)? Certainly, moving away from the “just in time” or “made- to- order” business models will have an impact on trading and transport patterns.

The post COVID-19 & its Impact on Textile & Garment Supply Chains in Developing Nations appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Antonella Teodoro is Senior Consultant at the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) & Luisa Rodriguez is Economic Affairs Officer, UNCTAD

The post COVID-19 & its Impact on Textile & Garment Supply Chains in Developing Nations appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A Pakistani child domestic worker. Credit: Fahim Siddiqi /IPS

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jun 11 2020 (IPS)

Even before Covid-19, the world was facing a care crisis. The plight of often neglected, under-appreciated, under-protected and poorly equipped ‘frontline’ health personnel working to contain the pandemic has drawn attention to the tip of the care crisis iceberg.

Rising care work burden
Ageing populations as well as cuts to public services and social protection were making matters worse, increasing the burden on carers, or care givers/providers, regardless of their employment status.

Elderly people need long-term care as they age, while existing social arrangements, including government services, remain inadequate and ill prepared. Such demands on caregivers will continue to increase as populations grow and people live longer.

Oxfam’s annual early 2020 Davos report, Time to Care, estimates that 2.3 billion people will need care by 2030, 200 million more than in 2015, including 100 million more older people and an additional 100 million children aged 6 to 14 years.

Care work, unpaid or underpaid, is generally not visible, greatly undervalued and typically taken for granted. It is often not considered real or proper ‘work’, with spending for care work considered a cost, not an investment.

The nature of care work and gender discrimination undermines the health and well-being of its mainly female workers. Women and girls, especially the poor and marginalized, do 12.5 billion hours of care work daily for free, and much more for poor wages.

The women and girls are left ‘time-poor’, often unable to meet their own needs. Consequently, they have less time for education and paid work, let alone fully participate socially and politically.

Unpaid care work
The study argued that unpaid care work is essential for our economies, businesses and societies. However, unpaid care work is often underappreciated when measuring economic progress and social wellbeing, not least because this burden is mainly borne by women and girls, who do more than three-quarters of all unpaid care work.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Oxfam estimates that the monetary value of women’s unpaid care work globally, for women aged 15 and over, is at least US$10.8 trillion annually. Although high, this figure is still believed to be an underestimate, with the true figure far higher.

Women thus often earn less because their unpaid care work limits their time for paid work; in fact, 42 per cent of working age women, compared to six per cent of males, cannot get paid work due to their caregiving responsibilities.

Climate change is also increasing the need for unpaid care. In five years, up to 2.4 billion people will be living in areas without enough water, forcing women and girls to carry more water even further. Also, as global warming and other developments adversely affect health and food production, many women and girls will have to work more to cope.

Domestic workers
Besides doing care work for free at home, many poor women also provide care for others, especially as domestic workers, among the most poorly treated employees in the world. Hence, they are also more likely to be in undesirable, poorly paid, dirty and precarious jobs.

Only about a tenth of domestic workers are covered by labour laws as much as other workers, while only around half have minimum wage protection. For more than half of all domestic workers, national laws do not limit working hours.

Meanwhile, 3.4 million domestic workers in forced labour do not get US$8 billion yearly, or about three-fifths of the wages due to them. Forced labour and trafficking cause domestic workers to be “trapped in other people’s homes”, with “their lives controlled”, but also “rendered invisible and unprotected”.

Two-thirds of the paid ‘care workforce’ are women. Jobs — such as nursery workers, domestic workers, and ‘care assistants’ — are often physically and emotionally draining, besides being poorly paid, with few benefits, despite having to work irregular hours.

Redistributing care burden
The Oxfam report notes that governments greatly under-tax the wealthy, and hence do not collect enough revenue to better fund vital public services, including social services and infrastructure.

Progressive taxation and spending, including subsidized social services and social protection, would reduce the burden of care work and social inequality. Better investments in electricity, water, sanitation, childcare and healthcare would improve the quality of care workers’ lives by easing their care work responsibilities.

Such efforts should recognize unpaid and poorly paid care work as providing real value. Better, affordable and equitable access to time-saving care-supporting infrastructure and devices would also reduce the burden of unpaid care tasks.

With government and employers reducing the burden of care work, redistributing unpaid care work more fairly within households would become more feasible. Enabling meaningful participation by care givers, paid and unpaid, in policy-making would also help.

Oxfam proposals
Oxfam proposed various actions, including national care systems, to help care givers including: improving the lot of both the unpaid and the underpaid; addressing the greater burden on women and girls; improving and protecting care workers’ rights, with paid employees entitled to living wages and decent working conditions.

Governments were urged to ratify ILO Convention 189, protecting domestic workers and eliminating gender wage gaps. Societies should also challenge the harmful and discriminatory social and cultural norms that care work is the responsibility of women and girls, including by encouraging men and boys to share care work responsibilities.

Businesses must also recognize the value of care work for employees’ wellbeing and productivity. Employers should provide benefits and services, such as crèches and other childcare entitlements, while ensuring decent working conditions for care providers.

The post Unsung Heroines: Who Cares for the Carers? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Teddy Cotella stands in front of the solar panels he installed in 2018 on his farm in an area of scarce infrastructure and far from the power grid, in the Argentine province of Santiago del Estero. To get electricity, he used to use generators that consumed about 20,000 litres of diesel fuel annually. CREDIT: Courtesy of Teddy Cotella

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Jun 10 2020 (IPS)

Rice farmers in the Argentine province of Entre Rios often look like mechanics. “They’re always full of grease, because they haul diesel fuel around all the time, for their water pumps,” says local farmer Arturo Deymonnaz. He, however, doesn’t have that problem, because he uses solar energy to grow his rice.

Deymonnaz’s farm is located outside the town of Villa Elisa, in east-central Argentina, near one of the bridges that crosses into Uruguay. He’s a lifelong livestock producer – like his father and grandfather – but in 2018 he ventured into rice production, tempted by an agronomist who assured him it could be grown using clean energy.

“This is traditionally a rice-producing area, but many have stopped growing it because so much money is spent on fuel that it is no longer profitable. Here, rice is planted in November and harvested in April. That’s 100 days with the pumps running 24 hours a day to draw water from the wells for the rice,” he tells IPS.

But Deymonnaz says it’s profitable for him to grow rice, thanks to the fact that he draws water from a 48-metre-deep well using two pumps fueled by 36 solar panels on his 300-hectare farm, 10 of which he now dedicates to planting rice.

“I call it my solar rice farm. I don’t spend money on fuel and I don’t have to put up with the noise or the steam produced by the motor,” says the farmer, who also installed a system of plastic sleeves with sluices to reduce the high water consumption of his rice crop. He estimates that with this system he uses at least 30 percent less water.

Deymonnaz is representative of a phenomenon that is growing in this Southern Cone country of 44 million people, which is the third largest economy in Latin America and where agriculture accounts for 13 percent of GDP.

According to the latest National Agricultural Census conducted here in 2018, of the 162,650 rural establishments that use some type of energy, 25,850 have solar panels.

The water pumps used in rice farming are very powerful, which means they cannot rely on conventional electrical connections. Even farms connected to the grid have to use generators that run on diesel fuel.

Arturo Deymonnaz is the third generation of his family dedicated to livestock farming. But two years ago he began growing rice, which he produces solely with solar energy, in northern Argentina. Rice growers in the area use high-powered pumps to extract from wells the enormous amount of water required to grow the crop, which previously were fueled by huge amounts of diesel fuel. CREDIT: Courtesy of Héctor Pirchi

“In Entre Rios, the cost of fuel is driving small-scale farmers out of business. We used to have about 100,000 hectares of rice, but last year only half of that was planted. That’s why solar energy is a solution,” Héctor Pirchi, an expert on rice at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), told IPS.

But the use of solar energy is not limited to Entre Ríos: it is spreading through rural areas all around the country.

Due to the lockdown in place in Argentina since March because of the COVID-19 pandemic, IPS interviewed several farmers, solar energy entrepreneurs and experts in different provinces by phone from Buenos Aires.

Teddy Cotella, who grows soybeans, corn, wheat and chickpeas in northern Argentina, is fascinated by solar energy. His 3,000-hectare farm in the province of Santiago del Estero is 12 km from the power grid, so for almost 20 years he used generators.

“I used to use about 20,000 litres of diesel a year for electricity generation alone. To people who complain about their power company bill, I tell them ‘try not having electric service at all’,” he says.

In 2018 Cotella installed solar panels along with lithium batteries, which store electricity for the nighttime or rainy days. These provide electric power for all three houses and for production on the farm.

“People whose farms are located far from the grid shouldn’t hesitate. I would also put solar panels on a house in the city,” says Cotella, who adds that the investment in solar panels is recovered in just three years.

Agritur is a 9,000-hectare agricultural establishment in the central Argentine province of San Luis where 1,800 solar panels were installed in 2019, producing 600 kilowatts of energy and providing half of the farm’s electricity. All the crops are grown using an irrigation system, because rainfall amounts to just 500 mm a year. CREDIT: MWh Solar

Northern Argentina mainly falls within the Chaco ecosystem, a vast semi-arid plain covered in shrubs and hardwood forest that extends into Bolivia and Paraguay. This region is home to Argentina’s poorest provinces and infrastructure is scarce, so small solar parks change lives.

Ariel Ludueña owns Ener One, a renewable energy company that since 2017 has installed some 2,500 solar panels in northern Argentina.

“I am sure that solar energy will continue to grow, especially in that area, because it gives farmers independence. There are farms that are 80 km from the grid, along bad roads over which it is not easy to transport fuel,” says Ludueña from the western province of Córdoba.

One of Ludueña’s customers is Ignacio Pisani, an agricultural production engineer who moved from Buenos Aires to the northwestern province of Salta 30 years ago to devote himself to farming.

Pisani’s farm is 15 km from the grid, and when he asked the provincial authorities to extend it, they said he had to pay the cost, which was a disproportionate investment for a small farmer.

So Pisani used a generator not only to provide electricity for his house and his workers’ houses, but also to pump water for his cows and for the drip irrigation system he uses to grow onions, watermelon and alfalfa on his 1,500-hectare farm. In this part of the Chaco, rain is scarce and is concentrated in the southern hemisphere summer months.

The solar panels seen in the background power the pump that extracts water from this well to grow rice on the Colonia Mabragaña farm in the Argentine province of Entre Ríos. Rice consumes enormous quantities of water, but on this farm a system of plastic sleeves with sluices reduces the crop’s water consumption by at least 30 percent. CREDIT: Courtesy of Héctor Pirchi

“The generator was giving me a lot of problems: high fuel consumption, noise, the need to buy spare parts… And I could see that the power grid was never going to arrive. That’s why I decided in 2018 to install a solar park with 50 panels that would cover all my needs,” says Pisani.

The farmer financed the project with his own capital, after realising that in Argentina the politically correct rhetoric in favour of renewable energy rarely translates into concrete financial support.

“I turned to all the public and private entities in search of support, but nobody helped me,” says Pisani, who along with the panels has 16 batteries that allow him to guarantee electric supply for up to three days in case the weather is rainy or cloudy.

The outlook seems even more uncertain for large agricultural establishments, which are key players in Argentina’s foreign trade. According to official figures, agribusiness products accounted for 42.6 percent of Argentina’s total exports in 2019.

“Solar technology is constantly evolving and cost reduction makes it one of the most competitive, clean and efficient technologies for agribusiness establishments,” says renewable energy economist Matías Irigoyen from Buenos Aires.

“Although its implementation at the national level will depend on the energy policies that are adopted, it is already the most convenient solution in several provinces,” adds Irigoyen, who is also a partner the MWh Solar company.

In 2019, the company installed 1,800 solar panels on a 9,000-hectare farm in the province of San Luis, in central Argentina.

The farm is a large consumer of electricity that buys energy directly from the wholesale market, and since last year has been covering half of its demand with solar energy.

“In addition to the fact that agribusiness companies can benefit economically from renewable energies, the interesting thing is that they can also access new international markets, due to the growing demand for products with a smaller carbon footprint,” says Irigoyen.

The post Solar Power Fills Gaps in Underserviced Rural Argentina appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Protests Against Racism in New York City. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Isabel Ortiz, Sara Burke and Hernan Cortes Saenz
NEW YORK and BRUSSELS, Jun 10 2020 (IPS)

After a period of forced silence because of the Covid-19 quarantines, citizens around the world are defying coronavirus restrictions and claiming the streets to fight for real democracy, jobs, living wages, public services, human rights and against corruption, inequality and injustice. We predict an increasing wave of protests all over the world led by different types of people defying the status quo. Unless policies change, clashes in the street are likely to become the new normal.

Isabel Ortiz

In the last weeks, we have seen protests against racism and police brutality explode in the US and internationally after another black man died in police custody. We see Chileans protesting lockdown-food shortages, scarcity of work, and costly social services, and Ecuadorans demonstrating against IMF-supported austerity cuts. Lebanon has convulsed with riots over corruption, lack of jobs and public services. Protesters in Hong Kong continue to defy China’s tightening grip. In Israel they denounce West Bank annexation, while in the Philippines they condemn President Duterte’s Anti-Terrorism Act as a breach of civil rights and the Constitution. Young people are taking to the streets in Senegal over the lockdown and lack of jobs and opportunities. In Spain we see health workers demanding safer working conditions while workers from other industries face massive layoffs. In many countries, people protest in car-based caravans to maintain social distancing because of the pandemic.

There have been periods in history when large numbers of people rebelled against the status quo and demanded change, such as in 1848, 1917 and 1968. While protests have intensified in recent weeks because of the pandemic, the level of protests worldwide has remained high for more than a decade, with some of the largest protests in world history. They were set off by the 2008 financial crisis and commodity price spikes, such as those that sparked food riots in Africa and Asia, three years before the “Arab Spring”, the “Indignados” (Outraged) in Spain or “Occupy” in the US and Hong Kong. More recently, we have seen massive protests in Latin America and a global feminist wave set off by the “Me Too” movement. Now, as Covid-19 makes its way around the world, we are experiencing the continuation of this period of rising outrage and discontent.

Sara Burke

We have been studying recent world protests and found interesting lessons. To start, the number of protests has been increasing on a yearly basis. Protesters’ main general demand was for economic and social justice in the face of prescribed “austerity” reforms; however, the overwhelming grievance of protesters, regardless of the political system of their country, was the lack of “real democracy”. Other common demands relate to people’s rights such as racial, gender or labor rights. The main target of the protests was national governments, but global institutions and corporations were also targeted.

A profile of demonstrators reveals that not only traditional protesters (eg. activists, unions) are demonstrating; on the contrary, middle classes, youth, older persons and other social groups are actively protesting in most countries because of lack of trust and disillusionment with the current political and economic system.

People around the world are acutely aware that policy-making has not prioritized them. Across the political spectrum, there is rebellion against politics as usual. Governments both authoritarian and democratic are failing to respond to the needs of ordinary people. Many demonstrations and marches also explicitly denounce the international system and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Central Bank, which have been widely perceived as the chief architects of inequitable reforms.

Not only is the number of protests increasing, but also the number of protestors. Crowd estimates suggest that dozens of rallies had more than one million protesters; some of those may well be the largest protests in history (eg. 100 million in India in 2013, 17 million in Egypt during the Arab Spring).

Hernan Cortes Saenz

Repression is well documented in over half of the protests in our study. According to media reports, the protests that generated the most arrests were in Iran, the UK, Russia, Chile, Malaysia, US and Cameroon (different years). Our research, that we continue updating, also documents a rising concern with some modes of repression that do not imply the use of physical violence: citizen surveillance.

If there is repression, what are the controversial demands that protesters are putting forward? The grievances demanded cross over virtually every area of public policy, from jobs, public services and social protection to the environment, finance, taxation, corruption and justice. The majority of the demands are in full accordance with United Nations proposals and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Governments need to listen to the demands from citizens legitimately protesting the denial of social, economic and civil rights. Leaders and policymakers will only invite further unrest if they fail to prioritize and act on the demand for real democracy.

Isabel Ortiz is Director of the Global Social Justice Program at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University, and former director of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF.

Sara Burke is Senior Policy Analyst at Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES; for identification purposes only; views do not reflect the institutional views of FES).

Hernan Cortes Saenz is PhD in International Relations.

 

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The post World Protests Show Rising Outrage and Mounting Discontent appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Devyn Holliday, Research Officer, Economic, Youth & Sustainable Development Directorate
 
This blog is part of the seminar series on ‘The Economics of COVID-19’.

By Devyn Holliday
Jun 10 2020 (IPS-Partners)

When countries shuttered their shops, closed their markets, and cordoned off places of gathering to help ward off the coronavirus, they did so out of immediate concern for the health and wellbeing of their citizens.

However, as these measures endure the virus is no longer the sole threat to the health and wellbeing of citizens. People across the globe are facing mounting threats to their wellbeing compounded by growing unemployment, lockdown in vulnerable living conditions, and decreases in aid and remittances.

Ultimately, in fighting the flames of Covid-19 other issues are getting suffocated in the smoke— unhealthy tradeoffs arise as other struggles are now neglected and pushed to the side.

Loss of Aid

With resources, aid and attention focused on controlling the spread of Covid-19, the flames of other illnesses previously handled by medical aid are slowly starting to burn again.

Over 117 million children will miss measles vaccinations (as well as those for cholera and polio) in the coming weeks and months as Covid-19 forces countries to put immunization campaigns on hold.

Furthermore, resources have been diverted from women’s sexual and reproductive health with over 5,600 mobile clinics and community-based centres across the globe being closed, thus putting women’s health increasingly at risk.

With aid and attention funnelled towards getting Covid-19 outbreaks under control, we are facing a game of pick your poison: focus your efforts on Covid-19, while other preventable illnesses and conditions flare up due to lack of resources and attention, or see your country become the new epicentre. But, countries need not pick up the poison chalice in the first place.

Strengthening domestic institutions

To avoid regression of progress on other health fronts due to decreases in aid, personnel and funding, countries must bolster their domestic institutions to deliver aid and be flexible in their pursuits.

As it is difficult to start from scratch and scale up, countries should build off of whatever existing institutions or organisations already deliver aid domestically. For example, in the Pacific this means investing in the education, training, and equipment of kinship and wantok groups as aid is typically distributed by them on a community level, particularly in rural areas.

Alongside economic contraction around the world, the World Bank estimates there has been a $110 billion USD drop in remittances.

With the backbone of living standards across the developing world now being removed, countries need to act fast in order to keep households afloat.

Actions to not only reduce the monetary cost of transactions but also the time and opportunity cost of both sending and receiving remittances need to be taken.

Ultimately to keep the world’s vulnerable from losing what resources they do have as far as education, food, housing security etc., countries must take bold action to ensure that remittances can firstly be made, and secondly be sent and received with relative ease.

Impact on Women

Bold action must also be taken to address and remedy the way in which the virus, as those before it, has been unequally burdening women. In past epidemics, like the 2013-2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, we saw large upticks in sexual and gender-based violence due to women being confined to home but also the diversion of resources that would normally protect them towards fighting the outbreak (Onyango 2020) — today we see a similar happening across the globe.

To combat this, protective services for women and girls (Women’s centres, domestic violence hotlines, safe spaces, sexual and reproductive centres etc.,) need to be classified as essential services. By doing so, women will have many more courses of redress and avenues to receive the help they need.

Economically, women are disproportionately burdened by Covid-19 for many reasons, the primary ones being the largely unequal amount of unpaid care work, gender pay gaps, and the closure of marketplaces resulting in increased unemployment.

Gender roles

Due to entrenched gender roles, women are seen as the primary caregivers, and with lockdowns confining families to their own households, women are disproportionately engaging in care, whether it’s the education of children or the caring for sick or elderly family members.

While this work is necessary, the unequal burden of it inhibits women’s educational and economic pursuits, in turn setting them up for a skills and assets gap in the long-run.

Therefore, it is integral that Covid-19 interventions address this inequality and the compounded burden of domestic work on women and girls.

In order to support economic recovery for women, skills trainings could help bolster their earnings when markets and informal sectors of society do reopen and until then, social protection measures should help to compensate women for their unpaid labour.

Covid-19 is unlike any other challenge faced in the modern era, thus to fight it we must use unprecedented ways of thinking and planning.

It is not enough to fight the disease while other development efforts are left to wane without resources and attention.

Country responses must take into account how their vulnerable populations are being doubly affected by not only the virus but also by the responses intended to keep them safe.

Join the Conversation

The next webinar in the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Virtual Seminar Series: The Economics of COVID-19 will focus on the pandemic’s impact on gender dynamics, the future of tourism, development aid, and remittances.

Tune in Wednesday, June 10th to learn more about these issues and more during the last webinar of the series.

Seminar 5: The Future of Tourism, Development Aid and the Gendered Impact of the Virus
Register to attend the seminar
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The post What is lost in the smoke of COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Devyn Holliday, Research Officer, Economic, Youth & Sustainable Development Directorate

 
This blog is part of the seminar series on ‘The Economics of COVID-19’.

The post What is lost in the smoke of COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Frankfurt / Nairobi, Jun 10 2020 (IPS-Partners)

As COVID-19 hits the fossil fuel industry, a new report shows that renewable energy is more cost-effective than ever – providing an opportunity to prioritize clean energy in economic recovery packages and bring the world closer to meeting the Paris Agreement goals.

Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2020 report — from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre and BloombergNEF (BNEF), available at www.fs-unep-centre.org — analyzes 2019 investment trends, and clean energy commitments made by countries and corporations for the next decade.

It finds commitments equivalent to 826 GW of new non-hydro renewable power capacity, at a likely cost of around USD 1 trillion, by 2030. (1GW is similar to the capacity of a nuclear reactor). Getting on track to limiting global temperature rise to under 2 degrees Celsius — the main goal of the Paris Agreement — would require the addition of around 3,000GW by 2030, the exact amount depending on the technology mix chosen. The planned investments also fall far below the USD 2.7 trillion committed to renewables during the last decade.

However, the report shows that the cost of installing renewable energy has hit new lows, meaning future investments will deliver far more capacity. Renewable energy capacity, excluding large hydro-electric dams of more than 50 MW, grew by 184 gigawatts (GW) in 2019. This highest-ever annual addition was 20 GW, or 12 percent, more than the new capacity commissioned in 2018. Yet the dollar investment in 2019 was just 1 per cent higher than the previous year, at USD 282.2 billion.

The all-in, or levelized, cost of electricity continues to fall for wind and solar, thanks to technology improvements, economies of scale and fierce competition in auctions. Costs for electricity from new solar photovoltaic plants in the second half of 2019 were 83 per cent lower than a decade earlier.

“The chorus of voices calling on governments to use their COVID-19 recovery packages to create sustainable economies is growing,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP. “This research shows that renewable energy is one of the smartest, most cost-effective investments they can make in these packages.”

“If governments take advantage of the ever-falling price tag of renewables to put clean energy at the heart of COVID-19 economic recovery, they can take a big step towards a healthy natural world, which is the best insurance policy against global pandemics,” Andersen said.

Renewable energy has been eating away at fossil fuels’ dominant share of electricity generation over the last decade. Nearly 78 per cent of the net new GW of generating capacity added globally in 2019 was in wind, solar, biomass and waste, geothermal and small hydro. Investment in renewables, excluding large hydro, was more than three times that in new fossil fuel plants.

“Renewables such as wind and solar power already account for almost 80 per cent of newly built capacity for electricity generation,” said Svenja Schulze, Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Germany. “Investors and markets are convinced of their reliability and competitiveness.”

“The promotion of renewables can be a powerful engine for the recovery of the economy after the Coronavirus crisis, creating new and secure jobs,” she added. “At the same time, renewables improve air quality thus protecting public health. By promoting renewable energies within the framework of Coronavirus economic stimulus packages, we have the opportunity to invest in future prosperity, health and climate protection.”

2019 marked many other records, the report finds:

• The highest solar power capacity additions in one year, at 118 GW.
• The highest investment in offshore wind in one year, at USD 29.9 billion, up 19 per cent year-on-year.
• The largest financing ever for a solar project, at USD 4.3 billion for Al Maktoum IV in the United Arab Emirates.
• The highest volume of renewable energy corporate power purchase agreements, at 19.5GW worldwide.
• The highest capacity awarded in renewable energy auctions, at 78.5GW worldwide.
• The highest renewables investment ever in developing economies other than China and India, at USD 59.5 billion.
• A broadening investment, with a record 21 countries and territories investing more than USD 2 billion in renewables.

Nils Stieglitz, President of Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, said: “We see the energy transition is in full swing, with the highest capacity of renewables financed ever. Meanwhile, the fossil fuel sector has been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis – with demand for coal- and gas-fired electricity down in many countries, and oil prices slumping.

“The climate and COVID-19 crises – despite their different natures – are both disruptions that command attention from policy makers and managers alike. Both crises demonstrate the need to increase climate ambition and shift the world’s energy supply towards renewables.”

The 2019 investment brought the share of renewables, excluding large hydro, in global generation to 13.4 per cent, up from 12.4 per cent in 2018 and 5.9 per cent in 2009. This means that in 2019, renewable power plants prevented the emission of an estimated 2.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide, a substantial saving given global power sector emissions of approximately 13.5 gigatonnes in 2019.

“Clean energy finds itself at a crossroads in 2020,” said Jon Moore, Chief Executive of BloombergNEF. “The last decade produced huge progress, but official targets for 2030 are far short of what is required to address climate change. When the current crisis eases, governments will need to strengthen their ambitions not just on renewable power, but also on the decarbonization of transport, buildings and industry.”

UNEP: unenvironment.org
Frankfurt School of Finance and Management: frankfurt-school.de
BloombergNEF: about.bnef.com

The post Falling Clean Energy Costs Create Opportunity to Boost Climate Action in COVID-19 Recovery Packages appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Western Sahel has been in the grip of a security crisis since 2012, when Tuareg rebels in Mali grouped together in an attempt to administer a new northern state called Azawad. Credit: Marc-André Boisvert/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 10 2020 (IPS)

The combination of rife insecurity, food insecurity and more than 7.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance has left the Sahel a region in crisis, with the global coronavirus pandemic expected to exacerbate the situation.

In a briefing released today, Jun. 10, Amnesty International painted a picture of rife insecurity in the Sahel, with a civilian population “trapped between attacks by armed groups and ongoing military operations”.

The briefing, titled ‘They Executed Some and Brought the Rest with Them: Civilian Lives at risk in the Sahel’, details the grave reality in the region, especially across Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, including “at least 57 cases of extrajudicial executions or unlawful killings, and at least 142 cases of enforced disappearances” that have allegedly been committed by soldiers between February and April.

The organisation stated that in Mali and Burkina Faso the deliberate killing of unarmed citizens by security forces could be counted as war crimes.

• The Western Sahel has been in the grip of a security crisis since 2012, when Tuareg rebels in Mali grouped together in an attempt to administer a new northern state called Azawad. 
• The attempt failed, after intervention from French troops in 2013. However, local groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State continue to spread violence across the region.
• A multinational military force from the G5 Sahel countries of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger has attempted to control the violence since 2017.
• France has retained a military presence in the region.

A range of concerns

The briefing comes on the back of a recent United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) high-level talk about the region where Ramesh Rajasingham, Acting Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said the current situation in the Sahel region was “in every sense of the word a crisis”.

Rajasingham noted that between 2019 and now, the region experienced an exponential rise in its need for humanitarian assistance: with 7.5 million people in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali requiring assistance — up from 6.1 million just a year ago. 

He added that issues such as food insecurity and displacement of people were adding to this need, and that 5.5 million out of 12 million people in the larger Sahel are “just a step away” from “emergency levels of food insecurity”. 

“These are the highest levels of food insecurity we have witnessed in this region in a decade,” he said. “The socio-economic fallout from COVID-19 is likely to double these numbers.”

According to Ousmane Diallo, a Sahel researcher at Amnesty International, the COVID-19 pandemic “is not the defining feature in the region due to its emergence but it constitutes another challenge that different governments must contend with”.

“Some of the measures that were taken such as restrictions to freedom of assembly or to the continuation of the lockdown measures and curfew generated a lot of tensions – political, economical, but also on human rights issues,” Diallo told IPS. 

“Some of those actors who were critical of how the government handled the pandemic,  especially some of the emergency funds that were set up in order to meet the socio-economic effect of the pandemic, were sometimes arrested or even charged with causing public disorder,” he said. 

Achim Steiner, Administrator, U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) and Vice Chair of U.N. Sustainable Development Group said; “Before the onset of COVID-19, the central Sahel region was trapped by protracted conflict, violent extremism, competition over accessible lands and water and the [dangers of] climate change with temperatures rising at one and a half times faster than the global average.”

According to the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies, violent activity involving militant Islamist groups in the Sahel has doubled every year since 2015. 

The academic institution noted that since 2013, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have doubled their military budgets, amounting to a total of some $600 million.

“The governments of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have mobilised their security structures in an effort to respond to the rise in militant Islamist group violence,” the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies said.

Not the first human rights violations

But Diallo told IPS that this is not the first time Amnesty International has documented human rights violations committed by security forces, and that international actors must be swift in taking action. 

“There’s been announcements about investigations that [have] never been conclusive or led to sanctions,” he said. 

One such incident was the Apr. 9 arrest and execution of civilians in Burkina Faso’s Soum province when soldiers arrived in the town of Djibo in a long convoy of pick-ups and motorbikes.

“They arrested several youths who were around a well, watering animals,” an eye witness is reported by Amnesty International as saying.

Though the soldiers later released a number of the youths, including those under-age, three individuals had been retained in custody.

“Hours later, we heard gunfire but dared not go and inquire until the military had left. I lost a paternal cousin and two maternal uncles that day,” the eye witness said.

The arrests had led to the execution of 31 residents by the GFAT (Groupement des forces anti-terroristes).

While on Apr. 20 the Burkinabè government acknowledge these extrajudicial killings, stating that the Direction de la Justice Militaire had been mandated to investigate it, there have been no further updates on the investigations.

Better solutions 

Meanwhile, Rajasingham from OCHR shared possible solutions for addressing the current crisis. 

“Sustained development investment is key to strengthening basic services: food security and nutrition displacement demand our full attention support,” he said, adding that women and children must be kept as the highest priority in any approach. 

Cessouma Minata Samate, Commissioner for Political Affairs at the African Union Commission highlighted the need for cooperation from all levels of society.  

“We need to [be] including local communities,” she said, adding that the approach should be inclusive.

** Additional reporting by Nalisha Adams in Bonn.

Related Articles

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• Mali – Barely Surviving As One Country, Let Alone Two
• In Mali, Driving Out Rebels but Not Fear

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Homeless in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan/IPS

By Ayesha Marfatia
MUMBAI, India, Jun 10 2020 (IPS)

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have reminded us that ‘universal challenges’ are experienced differently, based on context. The varying demographics, systems, and administrative structures in each nation have resulted in distinctive experiences and challenges while grappling with the fallout from the crisis.

Within countries too, the experience is not homogeneous—people and communities are interacting with the pandemic in different ways based on their privilege (socio-economic status, access to healthcare, and so on). Take India, for example, where the pandemic, lockdown, and subsequent migration have clearly exposed the layers of socio-economic inequalities in the country.

This reminder, that even universal challenges affect people differently, is something that we must keep in mind when talking about climate change. Because while it is a global phenomenon, we need to acknowledge that its effects vary from region to region, and examine the country- and community-specific impacts.

To encourage this change in thinking and identify how to support community-level responses to disasters and the climate crisis, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and the India Climate Collaborative released a report—Community Resilience: The heart of climate action–authored by Suranjana Gupta.

Here are some of their findings.

 

Disasters, development, poverty, and vulnerability are closely interlinked

Out of 181 countries, India is considered to be the fifth most vulnerable to climate change. In 2019, in addition to experiencing the hottest July ever recorded, we saw 74 percent more extreme rainfall events and seven cyclones. In fact, in just the first half of the year, about 2.17 million citizens were displaced due to disasters.

The destruction and displacement caused by Cyclone Fani in Odisha and the Kerala floods last year illustrate how disasters can reverse efforts made towards poverty reduction and development

If we further scrutinise this, noticeable differences in the way various communities within India experience climate change emerge. For example, it has been well-documented that smallholder farmers who rely on rainfall for irrigation are facing more extreme temperatures in summer followed by drought. A temperature rise of even one degree can affect crop yields and destroy agri-based livelihoods. Rising temperatures also have a direct influence on the spread of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue—health shocks that a lot of families cannot afford.

Additionally, the destruction and displacement caused by Cyclone Fani in Odisha and the Kerala floods last year illustrate how disasters can reverse efforts made towards poverty reduction and development. In Puri and Khurda, two of the worst-affected districts in Odisha, more than half of the rural population lived in semi-permanent or temporary house structures. About 1.3 lakh houses were built under different rural housing programmes, and after the cyclone, a large proportion of these houses were damaged.

With Cyclone Amphan as well, certain communities are likely to be more heavily impacted than others. For example, while damage is being caused across West Bengal and Odisha, the urban poor in Kolkata, farmers in low lying areas such as the Sundarbans, and migrant workers who have returned to their villages with no source of income, will face harsher, longer-term consequences.

 

Building for the most marginalised

After disasters strike, government, philanthropy, humanitarian organisations, and other nonprofits often work on ‘building back better’ and developing community resilience towards disasters. When engaged in this work, the following aspects about local communities and vulnerable populations need to be kept in mind:

 

1. Vulnerable communities are not monolithic

Though disaster resilience needs to be built at a large scale, across the country, the poor and marginalised communities that bear the brunt of disasters and climate change belong to different contexts and locations. Solutions, as a result, cannot be broad or generic, and need to be localised and tailored to these varying contexts—livelihoods, topography, natural resources, housing patterns, culture, and socio-economic status.

 

2. Small-scale, local disasters are often ignored

Large-scale disasters usually receive a significant amount of attention, along with resources and aid from state and national governments. However, smaller, localised disasters—heat waves, cloudbursts, small-scale floods, for example—can have equally devastating impacts on local populations, but draw little attention and resources.

 

3. Local stakeholders need to be involved

There is evidence to suggest that in many cases, more effective, efficient, and sustainable results can be achieved by financing and involving local actors. Where communities want to advance resilience, their capacities and leadership needs to be enhanced—local leadership is more likely to sustain efforts in the long run.

Certain government-led relief efforts have actively worked to include local stakeholders to enable community resilience. For example, the Kudumbashree network in Kerala (comprising of 43 lakh women from 2.77 lakh groups federated across the state) was empowered to take on formal roles in the flood-recovery process. Organising several aspects of relief and recovery, Kudumbashree members distributed 35,000 food packets from community kitchens over five days, and community counselling by the women reached 40,000 people.

 

4. Relief may not reach certain communities

Even when relief programmes are made available, the poorest and most marginalised communities may not be able to access them, or may have to actually incur costs to access them. Some communities, living in remote or difficult to reach areas, or those with no official records of their presence, may be invisible and left out of relief efforts.

 

5. Informality can render individuals invisible

Approximately 81 percent of employed workers in the Indian economy work in the informal sector. Sixty-four million Indians live in informal settlements. Governments do not usually have reliable data around informality, and so people working in the informal sector or living in informal housing might be the worst affected by disasters, but there are poor records of who they are, what they earn, and what they lose. The ability to claim resources and benefits also largely extends only to people in the formal sector, or those with domicile proofs.

 

6. Policies focus on nationwide losses

The asset base of the most vulnerable is thin, and forms a miniscule proportion of aggregate national loss. Policy discussions on disaster losses tend to focus on aggregate losses in relation to GDP, but the losses faced by this miniscule proportion are actually very large. In India, crises may result in children being taken out of school, or reduced household access to medical services and food security.

 

7. The poor are perceived as beneficiaries

Disaster-prone or affected areas might in fact need external assistance, but communities themselves best know where the most marginalised households are located, can undertake rescue and relief operations themselves, and can protect their natural resources. Thinking of them as passive recipients of aid disregards the knowledge, skills, and leadership present within these communities, and excludes them from decision-making processes.

 

8. ‘Exposure’ does not equal ‘vulnerability’

Exposure to disasters is often conflated with vulnerability. But being exposed to a hazard alone does not determine vulnerability. Exposure, paired with socio-economic status and the capacity to prevent damage and losses, determines vulnerability. This means that vulnerable communities are not likely to experience losses as a result of their locations alone. Two houses in the same area could experience a disaster differently, according to income levels or asset protection.

 

The opportunity for philanthropy

Community resilience initiatives that help people adapt to climate change and disasters do exist, but there is still a need to deepen their impact, widen their scale, and attract more partners to take this approach. Philanthropy needs to tap into the experience, expertise, and networks of these initiatives and help them to grow.

It’s important to remember that funding resilience doesn’t necessarily mean developing an entirely new grant portfolio. Here are a few strategies that philanthropists can use to make their funding climate-compatible:

• Make weather and climate information accessible to communities in forms they are comfortable with, so that they can make informed decisions that protect their lives, livestock, livelihoods, homes, and other assets from the adverse impacts of disaster and climate change.
• Affirm community leadership by appointing community experts as trainers, researchers, and resource persons. Communities have demonstrated expertise in transferring knowledge and practice, and members can be remunerated for their roles as resource persons.
• Incentivise government engagement so that plans and programmes can be developed in collaboration with communities and are responsive to their needs.
• Organise multi-stakeholder dialogue between the private sector, government, and civil society. These stakeholders need to build trust in order to effectively collaborate and coordinate efforts towards climate change and disaster management.

Lastly, when funding community resilience, it is important to remember three things. First, the context-specific nature of climate and disaster risk means there are no universal metrics to measuring resilience. Second, good governance—transparency, accountability, inclusivity, decentralisation, and so on—are key to driving climate-informed decisions and building community resilience. Third, long-term investments in communities do make a difference.

 

Know more

• Explore the report in its entirety to learn more about community resilience and climate-proofing development.
• Read about how Cyclone Amphan has moved focus back on millions displaced by climate disasters.
• Watch this discussion with Jairam Ramesh, Rohini Nilekani, and Navroz Dubash, moderated by Barkha Dutt, on recovery in the face of COVID-19 and climate change.
• Learn more about how climate change adaptation, rather than mitigation, needs to be mainstreamed in India.

 

Ayesha Marfatia is an editorial associate at India Development Review.

 

This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

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Sealed playground just outside the Slovak capital, Bratislava. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

By Charlotte Cooper
LONDON, Jun 10 2020 (IPS)

During the Covid-19 pandemic governments around the world have introduced curfews as an exceptional, yet necessary, means of containing the spread of the virus. Yet while most countries have applied their curfews uniformly to all citizens, authorities across several regions have introduced them only for certain groups exclusively because of their age, including for under-18s.

Most curfews have now been eased, but the ones specific to children and young people are based on lazy and harmful stereotypes about this age group which have required little justification.

Youth curfews not only discriminate against under-18s and reinforce harmful stereotypes about them, but they are also not an effective means of controlling the virus if other age groups are allowed to roam freely

These discriminatory measures are nothing new, but rather an extension of a problem that existed before the pandemic: the issue of criminalising actions only for certain groups of people. Also known as status offences, they are a form of age discrimination and should be abolished.

 

Where and why have youth curfews been used?

Restrictions on children leaving their homes during the pandemic have been enforced with varying levels of severity across most regions. In one of the most severe cases, Bosnia and Herzegovina barred under-18s and over-65s from going outdoors for any reason.

Anyone from the two age groups found violating the order risked being fined, and official data confirms that police in Sarajevo issued fines to children. The country’s Constitutional Court has since declared that the order violates human rights, and children are now allowed out for a few hours during three days of the week, but it has not been revoked entirely.

Meanwhile in Colombia, where the national government decreed that local authorities were allowed to impose youth curfews specifically, it appears that only two areas introduced a 24-hour curfew on under-18s and over-60s: the department of Norte de Santander and the city of Manizales, respectively home to almost 1.5 million and half a million people.

In other places, including Kazakhstan, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, and a number of French cities, regions in Russia and counties in the United States, the curfews for under-18s have been less extreme. For instance, rules have been implemented that ban children from going out unaccompanied, or between certain times of the day. Nonetheless, these still amount to age discrimination.

The justifications given for the restrictions – if any at all – do not hold up to scrutiny. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, officials claimed that they were introduced in order to protect children, as they were a vulnerable group.

Yet research shows children are much less vulnerable to severe and fatal symptoms of Covid-19 than adults, and may also be less able to catch and spread the virus. On the other hand in Colombia and in some parts of the United States, authorities resorted to lazy generalisations claiming that young people were more likely to break social distancing rules by gathering in crowds in parks.

In both instances, the justifications mirror those given for status offences before the pandemic; they are based on claims either of children’s need for protection or their propensity for criminal or anti-social behaviour.

 

Youth curfews as age discrimination

Youth curfews fall into so-called status offences because they prohibit behaviour that, while considered acceptable for adults – that is, being outdoors at certain times – is criminalised when carried out by under-18s. Other examples of status offences that apply to under-18s include truancy, running away from home, begging and even ‘disobedience’.

The problem with status offences is the differential treatment of under-18s – and the restriction of their rights – based purely on their age. This, by definition, amounts to age discrimination. If the reasons given for the youth curfews were genuine, then they should have logically applied to adults too, as adults, just like children and young people, also need protection from the virus – not to mention that many adults have also been flouting social distancing measures.

Youth curfews not only discriminate against under-18s and reinforce harmful stereotypes about them, but they are also not an effective means of controlling the virus if other age groups are allowed to roam freely.

What’s more, the discrimination will hit some children harder than others – children who face difficulties staying in their home, many of whom are already marginalised.

This includes children who live or work on the street to survive, children who face abuse in the home, those who need to leave the house for their physical or mental health, and children living in cramped or otherwise unhealthy conditions such as refugee camps or slums.

 

What is the solution?

In the context of the pandemic, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has emphasised that any restrictions on children’s rights must “be imposed only when necessary, be proportionate and kept to an absolute minimum”. Looking beyond the pandemic, it is worth remembering the Riyadh Guidelines call on governments to “ensure that any conduct not considered an offence or not penalised if committed by an adult is not considered an offence and not penalised if committed by a young person”.

Much like adults, children and young people are very conscious of the seriousness of the pandemic and its impact on their lives and others. And while a minority of people of any age may flout social distancing rules, the majority will respect them.

So rather than limiting under-18s’ freedoms and exacerbating the challenges they already face, governments should stop imposing discriminatory restrictions on children and young people. Instead, they should focus on engaging children as responsible citizens who want to learn about the pandemic and are ready to help stop its spread. Let us end the injustice of status offences, for now and forever.

 

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Excerpt:

Charlotte Cooper is Campaigns Coordinator at CRIN - Child Rights International Network.

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Protests against police brutality have been taking place in cities across the United States including in New York city. Credit: UN News/Shirin Yaseen

By Antonio Guterres
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 10 2020 (IPS)

I want to once again express to all colleagues my enormous appreciation, my enormous gratitude, for your fantastic professionalism, your flexibility and the way you have been able to fully deliver for the people we care for during this period.

And to say that as we hopefully approach a moment in which we might return to normality, that we will do it very carefully and in a phased way, because the safety and the well-being of the staff will be the primary consideration.

But of course, today we are gathered for another reason. I felt compelled to give you my testimony in these dramatic moments. We are all shocked by the brutality of the murder of George Floyd.

And we are all impacted and concerned, with lots of events that followed that we have been very attentively looking at. And I think it’s important to recognize that the center of these is a serious question of racism. Now, racism is abhorrent, nasty, and must be rejected everywhere at any moment, condemned in a clear way.

Racism is the rejection of our common humanity, which is a central aspect against the Charter of the United Nations. So, something that justifies the Charter of the United Nations is the fight against racism.

But I think we need to go a little bit further, and to look into this from an ideological perspective, from an economic and social perspective, and also from a perspective of relations between police, governments and people.

First, the ideological perspective. We are unfortunately entering a phase that some have called the post-enlightenment. Enlightenment is a European concept largely but I think the values of the enlightenment — the primacy of reason, tolerance, mutual respect — are common to many civilizations and many cultures around the world.

And indeed, it is as if these values are now being put dramatically into question. It is nationalism, it’s irrationality, it’s populism, it’s xenophobia, it is racism, white supremacism, it is different forms of Neo-Nazism, that are apparent in our societies.

And it is clear that in the center of these drives to irrationality, there is racism, and many other things have racist components. We have been fighting a lot against antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred. And in antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred, there is a racist dimension.

Protesters in Brooklyn, New York, peacefully demonstrate about racial injustice. Credit: UN News/Shirin Yaseen

So, racism is in the center of many other things that we deal with and fight against. It’s important to recognize that this is an ideological battle, in which it is essential to assert our values, the values of common humanity, the values of the Charter, equality, non-discrimination, mutual respect, and the capacity to support all the movements that fight for these values that are also deeply linked to the affirmation of human rights.

Now, if racism is something that exists everywhere, racism also exists within the United Nations. This is another aspect that I would like to underline today. We have very robust policies in relation to discrimination, harassment, abuse of authority.

There was recently a review of those policies that are in the SG bulletin. But we have not paid enough attention within the Organization to the specific question of racist bias and racist discrimination. Of course, there is a general question of diversity and inclusivity.

When we try to fight sexual harassment, the most important instrument is gender parity. When you try to fight racism, the most important instrument is to have regional diversity and inclusivity in our work. But this is general and of course we are fighting for it.

But we need to go deeper. I think we need to have within the United Nations an honest conversation on racism. We have some instruments already that were decided. We have the “united in respect” dialogues. We have the inclusion dialogues.

But these are, again, generic. We need to have something specific. I asked the Ombudsman together with the human resources department to prepare, in articulation with the staff representatives, a plan of action for a one-year debate on racism within the Organization, aiming at conclusions that, obviously, I want to listen to and be able to act upon.

I would like to have a chapter on racism in the next staff engagement survey to see if we are able to make progress or not in this regard.

My idea is for there to be a free-flowing discussion. I want people to feel totally at ease through the Ombudsman offices, through the civility café, through inviting experts to come and do TED talks and through debates that are organized. I’ve seen the staff engagement survey, I know that some feel that there is not enough respect within the Organization, that they can’t freely express themselves because they are afraid.

I want this debate to be a clearly open, free-flowing debate without any restriction, and I’m very much interested in participating. There is also a social and economic dimension in all of this, the central question of inequality in society, the central question of discrimination in society.

And it is clear that diversity is a richness, not a threat. The societies that are diverse can only succeed if there is a massive investment in social cohesion, by governments, local authorities, civil society, churches, against discrimination and inequality.

This is central to our 2030 Agenda, and this is central to the Sustainable Development Goals, and central to the values of the United Nations. So, our values are not only related to the questions of racism as a human rights violation, they are central to the questions of inequality and discrimination.

And these are vital in the perspectives of the work we do in relation to the 2030 Agenda and to diversity. We also need to understand that when we have situations in which social cohesion does not exist, where social protection is not enough, and where we have different forms of discrimination, there are grievances: those grievances have a legitimate right to be expressed in societies.

And for that demonstrations are something that is perfectly normal. It is our role to ask for demonstrations to be peaceful and at the same time to ask authorities to listen to the grievances and for police forces and others to be restrained in the way they handle these situations.

And this is very much at the center of what we have been saying in relation to the recent events and other similar ones around the world. And this brings us to the question of police brutality. One of the central problems that we are witnessing, and it’s very general, it’s not only police brutality, it is the difficulty of many authorities to deal with diversity.

The most obvious aspect, which is less evident, but many colleagues have already felt it, is the so-called profiling. But more dramatic than that is, of course, the police brutality in itself. We have seen a murder, but there are many other forms of police brutality that we see around the world, expressing racism.

Police forces need to be fully trained on human rights. Many times, police brutality is the expression of the frustrations of the police officers themselves, as well as of the lack of adequate psychosocial support to them.

Now the UN positions have been clear. The Human Rights High Commissioner has spoken. I have also been very clear in all my messages. Of course, many colleagues would like to be much more vocal and active, and we have the limitations of being International Civil Servants.

But there is one thing that we all can do, which is to spread the UN messages. This can be done by everybody with the tools at their disposal. All of us can multiply and amplify our messages against racism, our message against police brutality, our messages against the inequalities and discriminations that lead to situations like the ones we live in, fully asserting our values.

And I’d like to say that I count on our colleagues and on the staff representatives to help us organize an effective internal discussion on racism. Because I think we need to look deeply into it. And we all need to look into ourselves, into our prejudices and do everything possible to eradicate these aberrations from us and from the societies around us.

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Excerpt:

Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General in an address to staffers at a Town Hall meeting

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