Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Credit: County of Los Angeles

By David Medine
WASHINGTON DC, May 5 2020 (IPS)

In the Philippines, Peru, India, Kenya, South Africa and many other developing countries, poor people who are already struggling with the health impact of the coronavirus pandemic have been targeted by online fraudsters trying to take unfair advantage of them.

There is the risk that these scams could undermine confidence in digital technologies that are proving so very important in keeping people informed and connected during the pandemic.

In particular, trust in digital financial services, which have been useful in advancing financial inclusion efforts, could be damaged at the very time that they have proven to be an effective means of getting payments to poor people quickly and efficiently.

Here are some examples of virus-related scams:

• • A

phishing

• attack is offering housebound people in India a free Netflix subscription during the lockdown if they click on a survey link and forward the message to 10 WhatsApp users.

 

• • Emails with suspicious links have also been sent purporting to be from the World Health Organization, United Nations and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

• •

Scammers

• have been visiting homes in South Africa to “recall” banknotes and coins they say are contaminated with the coronavirus, providing receipts for “clean” cash that is never delivered.

 

• •

Fake

• offers of emergency money for essentials have been reported in India.

 

• • INTERPOL

warns

• that criminals have been calling victims pretending to be clinic or hospital officials, reporting that a relative has fallen sick with the virus and requesting payments for medical treatment.

 

• • People desperate to protect themselves are falling for offers of

fake

• medical products, such as masks, vaccines and

testing kits

• .

 

• Education and COVID-19: UN helps children continue their learning

There have even been false claims that the coronavirus is related to exposure to new technologies (such as 5G, which can be used to deliver money mobiles services). There are measures authorities can take in response to better protect consumers.

Regulators, providers and consumer protection agencies can alert people to the risks; providers can make sure they have adequate consumer complaint mechanisms in place; and law enforcement can coordinate firm action, not only in country but across borders.

Credit: United Nations

Preying on vulnerable populations in developing countries at a time of crisis is unconscionable. A multi-pronged effort is needed to protect more people from becoming victimized at a time when many are struggling with lost income as a result of being forced to stay at home to combat the illness.

A concerted effort by the public and private sectors is needed to protect customers through educational efforts and high visibility law enforcement actions.

In the short term, education is key, and governments are often best positioned to take the lead. For instance, the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric) has been warning bank customers about criminals exploiting the virus to engage in phishing.

Similarly, the Philippines Department of Information and Communications Technology has asked Filipinos to be mindful of their safety online and to be wary of unverified COVID-19 websites or applications that require consumers to provide their personal data.

There is a need for governments to continue to identify consumer protection threats — initially, by reaching out to banks, microfinance institutions, fintechs, NGOs and other entities to find out what they are seeing in their markets. Efforts should then be made to warn people how to identify potential scams.

The Central Bank of South Africa has stated that neither banknotes nor coins have been withdrawn from circulation, so anyone offering to “recall” currency should be met with a skeptical eye.

While there is a natural instinct to provide financial support for friends and family in need of medical care, it is important to follow INTERPOL’s warning and confirm that unknown callers are really acting on their behalf. Such consumer warnings could be sent via SMS, WhatsApp or along with other governmental communications.

The private sector must also play a critical role in protecting consumers during the crisis. In the course of providing financial services, trusted firms can educate customers about how to avoid pitfalls, such as responding to fraudulent communications.

There is also the need for digital financial services companies to have effective consumer complaint and resolution centers so that customers who have been scammed have some recourse.

Prosecuting digital scam artists promptly and meting out harsh punishments will send a strong message. One recent example is the response to a brazen attempt by a fraudster in India purporting to sell the world’s tallest statue, the Statue of Unity, for $4 billion to raise money for the Gujarat state to fund its fight against coronavirus.

This action led the Indian police to lodge a case. Similarly, Indian police have registered cases against fake offers of discounted Jio and Netflix services. Such enforcement actions help further educate members of the public about protecting themselves against fraudulent actors.

In the connected world in which we live, it is often easier to commit fraud across borders than inside one’s own country. There is no better time than now for governments to work with their neighbors and go after criminals in each other’s countries.

Such an effort has been led by INTERPOL, an inter-governmental organization with 194 member countries, including many developing countries. INTERPOL has been receiving information from member countries on a near-daily basis regarding coronavirus fraud cases, along with requests to help stop fraudulent payments.

While targeted victims have been primarily located in Asia, criminals have used bank accounts in other regions such as Europe. INTERPOL has helped national authorities to block some of the payments, assisting with some 30 COVID-19 related fraud scam cases.

Where cooperative agreements between countries do not exist, perhaps a silver lining of the current crisis would be to promote such cross-border consumer protection efforts.

Collectively, we can combat the outrageous attempts by some to take advantage of this crisis for their financial benefit. Of course, to survive many people will need more medical and financial help, not just tips on how to avoid scams.

Many countries have undertaken wide-ranging relief efforts. Digital financial services, such as mobile money, are proven mechanisms for getting financial aid quickly to the poorest and neediest in times of crisis.

Let’s take steps now to ensure digital technology is used as a force for good.

The post Financial Scams Rise as Coronavirus Hits Developing Countries appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

David Medine is Senior Financial Sector Specialist at the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). He is also CGAP’s lead on data protection and security and works to develop novel, consumer-oriented approaches to data protection and to encourage the creation of cyber security resource centers for developing countries.

The post Financial Scams Rise as Coronavirus Hits Developing Countries appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, May 5 2020 (IPS)

Like much of the West, Argentina did not take many early precautionary actions after the Covid-19 epidemic was confirmed in January, but became the first Latin American country to act decisively with a 12 March public health emergency declaration.

The presidential decree came a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global pandemic, just over a week after the first case was detected in the republic on 3 March.

Anis Chowdhury

Lockdown to ‘flatten the curve’
With neither vaccine nor cure available, Argentina decided on a lockdown to buy time to ‘flatten the curve’ by slowing its rapid spread and quickly enhancing its public health capacities and capabilities, to do mass testing and contact tracing, and get protective equipment for frontline health workers and respirators for the severely infected.

The measures include a mandatory ‘stay in shelter’ lockdown, with those violating the order facing fines and harsh prison sentences from six months to two years, and other “social, preventive isolation” measures from 20 to 31 March, now extended to 10 May.

All arrivals from Covid-19 ‘hot spots’ (including China, Iran, South Korea, Italy and the US) have to be quarantined for 14 days regardless of nationality. All direct flights between Argentina and the US as well as Europe were suspended for 30 days from 17 March, now extended indefinitely.

As infections surge in neighbouring Brazil, the government has set up secure corridors in border provinces, allowing Brazilian drivers to access bathrooms, get food and unload products with minimal contact with Argentines.

Health ‘non-system’ fragmented, ineffective, inequitable
All Argentines have a constitutional right to health care, but this does not mean much, due to its gross inequalities. Its patchwork of regional and national laws without much coherence compounds the problem, resulting in very complicated and uneven coverage.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The new left populist government from December 2019 of Peronist President Alberto Fernandez reversed the previous Macri government’s severe austerity measures under an IMF program, and demotion of the Health Minister to a non-cabinet position, which had further undermined its already debilitated health ‘non-system’.

A tenth of the population, mostly around Buenos Aires, has private health insurance, ensuring access to private hospitals with most of the best physicians, nurses and equipment.

About a third of the population – mostly rural poor – does not have any health insurance, and little choice other than the chronically underfunded and understaffed public hospitals. Many Argentines get health coverage through unions, with more than 300 various schemes, offering very different benefits.

By 30 April, 214 deaths had been attributed to the virus, while confirmed infections reached 4,285, probably too few, due to the low testing rate. By 26 April, only around 50,000 tests had been done for its 45.2 million population, compared to Chile’s 150,000 for 19.1 million. However, the Argentine government is rapidly enhancing its testing capacity.

Protecting the economy, people
For the new government, the crisis could not have come at a worse time, inheriting an economy in deep recession, with gross public debt around US$323 billion (93.3% of GDP), annual inflation over 50%, poverty above 40%, unemployment at almost 10%, and the Argentine peso having lost 68% of its value in 2019.

Yet, Argentina committed around 2% of GDP to an economic and social relief package, ensuring that no essential services – electricity, gas, water, mobile telephony, fixed landlines, internet and cable television – are cut for retirees, social welfare recipients and households earning less than about U$520 due to non-payment.

The government provides 10,000 pesos (about US$150) as an Emergency Family Income to domestic workers and other low-income earners, prioritizing those who qualify for the Universal Child Allowance and the Allowance for Pregnant Women. Nearly eight million Argentines received relief payments from 21 April.

The administration has made every employer, regardless of trade and size, eligible for the Emergency Aid Program for Work and Production, postponing or reducing taxes on small businesses by up to 95% and paying employees half to all the monthly minimum wage.

More than US$30 million has been allocated for food aid alone, with national, provincial and municipal authorities mobilizing many to work in public kitchens. Fernandez has promised food and other resources needed to survive, especially by the poor.

The government has also required banks to extend hundreds of millions of US dollars in loans at reduced interest rates to keep the economy afloat. The administration has also suspended evictions and frozen all rent increases until September, besides absolving the lowest tax bracket of penalties for not paying their March taxes.

As the lockdown continues, Argentina’s economic and social relief package has grown, almost daily, to almost double the original sum committed, to 3.5% of GDP by April’s end.

National unity against epidemic
Despite Argentina’s fiercely divisive politics, the new President insisted on standing with leaders from across the political spectrum in a rare display of unity to announce the 19 March lockdown.

The national government is working closely with state governors as well as all health providers, securing private sector cooperation without nationalization.

Meanwhile, the armed forces are building triage centres in case of a surge in infections while social, religious and business groups work together to deliver food to more than two million in the greater Buenos Aires area alone.

Despite relief measures, much hardship remains, especially for those in poor crowded barrio slums and relying on daily incomes. Yet, its measures have 94.7% approval, with the President’s popularity soaring to 81%.

Crisis as opportunity
After taking office, President Fernandez increased progressive taxation to try to balance the budget to restore growth, rather than pay foreign creditors. Rather than cut social expenditures, he cut spending benefitting the wealthy, e.g., by reducing higher pensions, but not cutting smaller ones.

Having announced that its debt needed restructuring, the new government made a restructuring offer to creditors well before the pandemic became its central concern. The government organized another display of national unity to back its insistence that it cannot pay creditors while dealing with the pandemic.

On 16 April, Economy Minister Martín Guzmán demanded that creditors accept new securities to replace US$65 billion worth of bonds, almost 40% of its foreign currency debt.

Argentina is also seeking a small ‘haircut’ of 5.4% on the debt principal, saving the government US$3.6 billion and cutting interest payments by 62%. These repayments will start low, at just 0.5%, beginning late in 2023, and will peak in 2029 at less than 5%. The plan will save the government U$37.9 billion in interest.

President Fernandez also welcomed the joint G20 statement of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund proposing immediate debt relief for the poorest countries, while calling for a global humanitarian emergency fund to tackle the pandemic.

Guzmán also urged fellow G20 finance ministers to use the ‘entire toolkit’ of economic policies, including bilateral swaps, to aid countries most in need.

Meanwhile, there seems to be a consensus of sorts that Argentina has tackled the epidemic rather well so far despite its problematic health system and economic problems.

The 27 March Bloomberg headline, Argentina Sacrifices Economy to Ward Off Virus, Winning Praise, captured the cruel dilemma Covid-19 has posed for people and governments to choose between lives and livelihoods.

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An Indigenous woman worker harvesting the tender leaves in a tea farm in Unakoti district of Tripura State before the coronavirus lockdown. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
UNAKOTI, India, May 4 2020 (IPS)

As the sun sets over the hills, Prafulla Debbarma, a small tea grower in Dhanbilash village in north eastern India, walks along the labyrinth path of his farm and past a thick blanket of well-grown tea plants. In the fading light, the farmer appears deeply worried. This tea farm, the sole source of his livelihood, remains unharvested thanks to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

Across the region, tea harvesting begins on Apr. 1. But as India declared a total lockdown to halt the spread of coronavirus on Mar. 25, farmers in Tripura — the fifth-largest tea producer in India — also had to halt all activities, which included not being allowed to bring in additional labour for harvesting. Two weeks later, on Apr. 12, the government finally allowed harvesting, but by then the tea bushes had grown bigger with new leaves losing their tenderness — a crucial factor in determining the quality of the tea.

According to Debbarma, who is head of the state’s Association of Small Tea Growers — a 4,700-strong community of independent, smallholder tea farmers or growers — everything was fine until the pandemic.

“Our tea was starting to get recognised and markets were just opening for us slowly. The government also was promoting this sector. But the lockdown has destroyed everything because from harvesting to sale, there will be a chain of losses now,” he told IPS.

The supply chain includes plucking the tender tea shoots in spring, drying, processing, packaging and selling, which is done through auctions. Small tea growers, few of whom own a processing facility, sell their entire produce to bigger tea farms in the region.

So being at bottom of the supply chain pyramid, Debbarma explained, means that small growers are also the most vulnerable as they have little say in the sale of the produce or price control.

The Rangrung tea estate, in Unakoti, in India’s Tripura state, is owned collectively by a group of small tea farmers. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

Small tea growers making headway 

A few kilometres away from Debbarma’s farm is Rangrung, a tea estate owned collectively by a group of small tea farmers. Many of these farmers also work as day labourers on other plantations as their own farms are too small to provide a livelihood.

Dulal Urang, one of Rangrung’s smallholder farmers who also works as a day labourer, is worried that the economic effects of the COVID crisis may push sector back to an era of uncertainty similar to the one almost two decades ago.

• From 1982-2001, the state’s entire tea sector collapsed due to a raging armed insurgency. As violence escalated, most estates were forced to shut down.

However, over the past few years, the tea sector had begun thriving again.

• Debbarma and Urang are among the 4,000 small tea growers, defined by  the Tea Board of India as a person who has a tea farm of up to 25 acres, in Tripura. Here in Tripura, most smallholder tea farmers like Debbarma cultivate on less than two acres of land.
• There are now 58 tea estates, spread over 7,482 hectares of land, with an annual production of around 8.72 million kg. Of these, 13 farms are like Rangrung, owned by small tea growers’ collectives.
• Together, the industry employs over 13,000 people.

Livelihood worries

According to the United Nations, tea plays a meaningful role in rural development, poverty reduction and food security in developing countries.

But in India, tea estates have been historically known as pockets of poor nutrition, ill health and under nourishment, mostly because of low wages and poverty. In Tripura, an overwhelming majority of the workers here earn between $26 to $66 per month, a Tripura University study found. It noted, “the present wage rate is Rs.71 ($0.94) per day, it may be increased up to Rs.150 ($1.98) per day or more”.

The set government wage in Tripura is actually 176 rupees or $2.33 a day for an adult and 88 rupees or $1.66 a day for a non-adult. A UNICEF-backed study also notes that a significant number of tea estates across the country also employ child labour.

However, farms that have better market access and higher selling prices had been slowly changing for the better.

Debbarma, who started his own processing unit recently, employs some 29 people and sells most of his produce to Hindustan Lever — Unilever’s India arm.

“The price was good, and the procurement process is transparent. If we produce more, we can pay more to [our workers] and change our entire community,” said the farmer.

Kanchan Uriya a member of the Rangrung village council noted that where estates paid the government daily wage, life had been better for tea pickers.

“Wherever the right wages are paid, the living condition has improved. You can see in tea estates like Manu Valley where workers have regular food supplies, mobile phones etc. But some [tea estates] are still not paying it,” she told IPS.

Small tea growers producing quality organic tea

But some of the smallholder tea farmers, who also worked as day labourers, had been contributing by producing high quality organic tea, said Bijit Basumatary, head of the Organic Small Tea Growers Association of North East (OSTGANE).

In international markets, the difference between the price of organic and non-organic tea is huge: while a kg of the best quality of non-organic tea sells for about $5, organic tea can be sold for at least at $105 per kg.

Though to sell organic tea, a tea planter needs to acquire a certificate from an authorised agency and recommendation of the Tea Board of India (TBI) — the nodal government agency on tea trade. It’s a complex process, involving a variety of tests on the variety, quality and yield rates, among others.

With limited resources and without the backing of big business houses, small tea growers found it hard to get the organic tag. 

Yet, two smallholder tea farms in Tripura, Maheshkhola and Mohanpur, had received the coveted organic certification after they met the National Programme for Organic Production Standards.  

And other like Debbarma had been lobbying the government for support in getting the certification, while proactively learning organic farming techniques. 

Debbarma, who is also the vice chair of OSTGANE, organised one such training at his own tea farm prior to the coronavirus lockdown.

Combating the effects of climate change

The growers were also planning a shift to natural gas from coal — a move supported by India’s premier fossil fuel explorer Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC), Om Prakash Singh, a senior ONGC official had said during a press conference in January. 

If implement quickly, this could be a small but significant step towards easing the burden of the troubled industry, which has been hit by climate change. 

• Data from the Tea Research Institute — India’s oldest and largest tea research station — shows that India’s entire tea industry is facing climatic challenges such as erratic rainfall, which is causing inconsistent and low yield.

Combined with organic farming, the shift to an alternative, clean energy supply would help the small tea growers in Tripura restore plant and soil health, increase yield and better combat the climate threat in the future.

Dulal Urang cycles through Rangrung tea garden. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

Coronavirus may have reversed the progress

But amid the COVID-19 lockdown, this continued improvement of conditions seems impossible now, Uriya said. Especially as most tea farms follow a ‘no work, no pay’ policy.

The lockdown, which was meant to end today, May 4, has been extended for a further two weeks.

According to Debbarma, the combination of a delayed harvest, coupled with a low market price is almost certain to cause financial damage and losses too heavy to recover.

Uriya is afraid that this will result is much lower wages for tea pickers. 

“If they didn’t pay the right wages when business was good, how will they pay when there is little or no business?” she said.

In the meantime, small tea farmers, like Urang, want to ensure their harvests are wasted and that they can continue earning a living.

“Right now, I am only hoping that my harvest is sold and there will be enough work after this season. Otherwise, our survival will be difficult, especially when the rains come,” Urang told IPS.

 

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By Eco Matser
AMSTERDAM, May 4 2020 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequalities and revealed to what extent current economic models are not sustainable. It has also shown that most countries are not equipped to cope with a health crisis.

The World Food Program is warning that the lives and livelihoods of 265 million people in low and middle-income countries will be under severe threat unless swift action is taken to tackle the pandemic.

This is especially true for the 840 million people in the world who still do not have access to electricity. And the further 3 billion who rely on inefficient stoves and polluting fuels like kerosene, biomass (wood, animal dung and crop waste) and coal for cooking or heating.

In the light of the annual toll to human health, the environment, and local economies, clean cooking solutions should be part of a global forward-looking strategy. Including these solutions in the wider plan for the recovery is ambitious, yet necessary

According to a recent study by the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health, “There is a large overlap between causes of deaths of COVID-19 patients and the diseases that are affected by long-term exposure to fine particulate matter.”

The results of the study suggest that “Long-term exposure to air pollution increases vulnerability to experiencing the most severe Covid-19 outcomes.” Similar conclusions on the link between high mortality in northern Italy and the level of air pollution in this region have been drawn by the Aarhus University. The evidence builds upon previous research during the 2003 SARS outbreak.

This raises the question of the impact that a respiratory illness like COVID-19 could have on people who are already exposed to indoor pollution. Particularly the poorest and most vulnerable who do not have access to clean cooking options and already bear the burden of energy poverty.

 

Four million premature deaths

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that each year around four million people die prematurely from illnesses attributable to household air pollution. Women and children in many communities are disproportionately affected because of their traditional home-based activities, including cooking. As the WHO states, “Close to half of pneumonia deaths among children under five are caused by particulate matter (soot) inhaled from household air pollution.”

But at present, this issue is not getting the political attention it deserves. As a consequence, access to clean cooking solutions largely remains lacking, which vastly increases the risk for vulnerable groups during the current pandemic.

 

How to save millions of potential victims

The COVID-19 pandemic is intimately linked to the other challenges our world is facing. From outdoor and indoor pollution to climate change, from the over-exploitation of natural resources to the loss of biodiversity, these crises are all interlinked.

They are the product of a global socio-economic system that considers nature and ecosystems as its farms and factories. The response to the virus outbreak should not be limited to containing its spread in the short-term, but must entail a long-term vision of sustainability and inclusion.

There is an immediate need to ensure food security and support our health systems, especially in less developed countries and areas where lack of or unreliable electricity access prevents basic health service provision.

But going forward, governments have to respond to the pressing issues shaping our future. While an immediate health and financial response is crucial to prevent further spread of the virus and economic collapse, other long-term changes are urgently needed. One of these is the switch from traditional fuels to clean cooking solutions. This will protect millions of women, men and future generations by giving them a better chance of survival from COVID-19 and any new respiratory viruses.

 

A forward-looking strategy

Fortunately, the solutions already exist. But they have received too little attention and financial support. A Hivos/World Future Council report published last year shows that the costs of cooking with solar electricity using efficient slow cookers and pressure cookers have decreased in the last few years. So these clean alternatives are now competitive with the costs of traditional cooking fuels.

In the light of the annual toll to human health, the environment, and local economies, clean cooking solutions should be part of a global forward-looking strategy. Including these solutions in the wider plan for the recovery is ambitious, yet necessary. It is high time for governments, policy and decision-makers to embrace this new opportunity. They need to step up action and ensure an inclusive, resilient, sustainable and just future. After years of inaction on this front, now is the time to cooperate in a global response.

 

The big picture

Clean cooking solutions are part of the larger push towards decentralized renewable energy (DRE). COVID-19 will not only impact existing DRE projects that provide energy services to millions of people. It will also affect the future of the sector, jeopardizing our efforts to ensure a just energy transition for all. The DRE sector cannot be allowed to fail. That is why Hivos joined the Alliance for Rural Electrifications’ call to action for redirecting and adapting funding windows to the decentralized renewable energy sector.

We need to jointly strive for an inclusive energy sector. We must ensure that the most vulnerable people and the prime victims of this crisis are included in designing energy policies and programs.

This opinion piece was originally published here

 

Eco Matser is Hivos global Climate Change / Energy and Development Coordinator

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Workers busy plucking leaves in Rangichhara tea garden in Kulaura of Moulvibazar recently. Photo: Mintu Deshwara

By Mintu Deshwara
May 4 2020 (IPS-Partners)

After her mother passed away, her father remarried and moved elsewhere, and so attending school became a luxury for 12-year-old Sheuly Munda.

Along with her grandmother Belmoni, a registered tea-garden worker, Sheuly now plucks leaves at a tea garden in Moulvibazar district’s Srimongol upazila.

“I wanted to continue my study, but my grandmother said she could not bear my education expenses. Instead, it would be better for the family if I could earn something,” she said, while helping Belmoni achieve her daily leaf plucking target of 20-25 kg to earn the day’s wage of Tk 102.

In the same garden, 16-year-old Sakhina Munda started plucking leaves two years ago after dropping out of school at grade VII.

“My mother, a registered worker in this garden, has tuberculosis and my father died a few years ago. So, I have to work here to feed our family of four,” she said. Like other tea workers, she works at least seven to eight hours a day.

A 2018 baseline survey by BBS, funded by Unicef, found that 18.8 percent of all children between the ages of five and 17 in tea gardens of Moulvibazar, Habiganj and Sylhet districts are engaged in child labour.

The percentage of tea-garden children aged 5-17 and involved in child labour in Habiganj is 29.8 percent, in Moulvibazar 15.6 percent and in Sylhet 19.3 percent.

The study, the first of its kind on the country’s tea gardens, was conducted under Unicef’s Global Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) programme.

Another MICS report from 2019 shows the total child labour in the country for children aged 5-17 is 6.8 percent.

The findings from the tea gardens show that low wages, malnutrition, inadequate maternity and health services lead children to work in tea gardens.

Tea-garden children mostly work as a substitute of or in addition to a family member, mentioned yet another study.

Faisal Ahmmed and Ismail Hossain, professors of the Department of Social Work, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, conducted a study titled “A Study Report on Working Conditions of Tea Plantation Workers in Bangladesh” and published in 2016 and funded by the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Some children work as a replacement of a parent who is unable to work, so that they do not lose their residence in the workers’ colony. Living quarters are given only to active workers, the study said.

During peak season, the tea-garden authorities welcome children to work alongside their parents to finish the plucking within the stipulated timeframes. Workers also take their children to work to meet targets or secure more income, stated the findings.

“We do not want our children to work. We want to send them to school. But how can we afford that when we cannot even afford three meals a day?” Ajit Banerjee, a tea worker in Barlekha upazila of Moulvibazar, asked.

Pankaj Kondo, vice president of Bangladesh Cha Sramik Union, told this correspondent that, according to national law, children under 18 are not allowed to work in tea gardens, but they still do.

Generally, male child workers dig canals, repair broken roads in the tea gardens and take care of the tea plants. Female child workers pluck tea leaves and sometimes put tea into sacks in the factories, he said.

GM Shiblee, chairman of the Sylhet branch of Bangladesh Cha Sangsad, the tea garden owners’ association, said they rejected the MICS survey findings.

“They conducted the survey without contacting us,” he complained, adding that some people take jobs in the tea gardens with fake documents.

Shah Alam, chairman of Bangladesh Cha Sangsad, told this correspondent, “We do not employ any child.”
When asked about the findings of studies, he said action will be taken against those who employ children in tea gardens.

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Garment workers wash hands before entering an apparel factory at the Ulail area in Savar, on April 28, 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare, in the cruellest way, the extraordinary precariousness and injustices of our world of work. Photo: Palash Khan

By Guy Ryder
May 4 2020 (IPS-Partners)

In these times of Covid-19, the big challenge for most of us is how to protect ourselves and our families from the virus and how to hold on to our jobs. For policymakers, that translates into beating the pandemic without doing irreversible damage to the economy in the process.

With over three million confirmed cases and over 230,000 victims of the virus to date globally, and the expected loss of the equivalent of 305 million jobs worldwide by mid-year, the stakes have never been higher. Governments continue to “follow the science” in the search for the best solutions while foregoing the obvious benefits of much greater international cooperation in building the needed global response to the global challenge.

But with the war against Covid-19 still to be won, it has become commonplace that what awaits us after victory is a “new normal” in the way society is organised and the way we will work.

This is hardly reassuring.

Because no one seems able to say what the new normal will be. Because the message is that it will be dictated by the constraints imposed by the pandemic rather than our choices and preferences. And because we’ve heard it before. The mantra which provided the mood music of the crash of 2008-2009 was that once the vaccine to the virus of financial excess had been developed and applied, the global economy would be safer, fairer, more sustainable. But that didn’t happen. The old normal was restored with a vengeance and those on the lower echelons of labour markets found themselves even further behind.

So May 1, the international day of labour, is the right occasion to look more closely at this new normal, and start on the task of making it a better normal—not so much for those who already have much, but for those who so obviously have too little.

This pandemic has laid bare, in the cruellest way, the extraordinary precariousness and injustices of our world of work. It is the decimation of livelihoods in the informal economy—where six out of ten workers make a living—that has ignited warnings from our colleagues in the World Food Programme of the coming pandemic of hunger. It is the gaping holes in the social protection systems of even the richest countries that have left millions in situations of deprivation. It is the failure to guarantee workplace safety that condemns nearly three million to die each year, because of the work they do. And it is the unchecked dynamic of growing inequality that means that if, in medical terms, the virus does not discriminate between its victims in its social and economic impact, it discriminates brutally against the poorest and the powerless.

The only thing that should surprise us in all this is that we are surprised. Before the pandemic, the manifest deficits in decent work were mostly played out in individual episodes of quiet desperation. It has taken the calamity of Covid-19 to aggregate them into the collective social cataclysm the world faces today. But we always knew: we simply chose not to care. By and large, policy choices by commission or omission accentuated rather than alleviated the problem.

Fifty-two years ago, Martin Luther King, in a speech to striking sanitation workers on the eve of his assassination, reminded the world that there is dignity in all labour. Today, the virus has similarly highlighted the always essential and sometimes heroic role of the working heroes of this pandemic. People who are usually invisible, unconsidered, undervalued, even ignored. Health and care workers, cleaners, supermarket cashiers, transport staff—too often numbered among the ranks of the working poor and the insecure.

Today, the denial of dignity to these people, and to millions of others, stand as a symbol of past policy failures and our future responsibilities.

On May Day next year, we trust that the pressing emergency of Covid-19 will be behind us. But we will have before us the task of building a future of work which tackles the injustices that the pandemic has highlighted, together with the permanent and no longer postponable challenges of climate, digital and demographic transition.

This is what defines the better normal that has to be the lasting legacy of the global health emergency of 2020.

Guy Ryder is the Director-General of International Labour Organization (ILO).

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post New Normal? Better Normal! appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Joseph Chamie
NEW YORK, May 4 2020 (IPS)

How many COVID-19 deaths will occur before a vaccine becomes available worldwide? As with many seemingly simple questions about an uncertain future, the proper answer to that important query is: “it depends”.

The total worldwide number of deaths from COVID-19 before a vaccine, reported to be nearly a quarter-million at the end of April and amounting to a five-fold increase since the start of April, is hard to predict. It depends on a host of critical factors, many of which are not well understood and are changing rapidly.

In the absence of a vaccine and limited success in limiting the spread of COVID-19, the percent of the world’s population becoming infected could reach 70 percent, the level roughly estimated to reach herd immunity. With an infection level of 70 percent and a 1 percent fatality rate, the resulting number of deaths from COVID-19 is 55 million, or about 0.7 percent of the world’s population

Among those factors are the pandemic’s duration, the dissemination of the disease, the contagiousness and fatality of the virus, the virus’ basic reproductive rate (R0), human bodily responses, access to and quality of health care, available treatments for the illness, immunity after the illness, population susceptibility and the effectiveness of mitigation policies to reduce the virus’ spread.

The true number of deaths due to Covid-19 deaths will likely never be known precisely for several reasons. Many COVID-19 deaths will go undercounted and underreported, some deliberately by government authorities and others missed due to weak vital statistics reporting systems. Also, specifying the cause of death is not always straightforward and clear as multiple causes may be involved in a person’s death.

Clearly, the worldwide availability of an effective vaccine against COVID-19 remains the utmost priority in defeating the pandemic. Scientists around the world are actively working on vaccines for COVID-19 as well as potential treatments for the illness.

To date, there is no vaccine for COVID-19 and no specific antiviral medicines against the disease. Although hopeful signs are emerging, most experts expect that a vaccine that would be administered widely on a global scale is unlikely to occur before 2021. In addition, even if a vaccine were discovered and made available, it is not clear how long the immunity to the disease might last.

WHO has warned that people who have had COVID-19 are not necessarily immune by the presence of antibodies from getting the virus again. In other words, while some are hopeful regarding immunity, as of yet there is no evidence that people who have had COVID-19 will not get a second infection. Consequently, governments are being cautioned about considering issuing “immunity passports” or risk-free certificates to people who had COVID-19 and assuming those people are safe to return to normal activities.

Up until the time when an effective vaccine becomes accessible and affordable worldwide, the number of COVID-19 deaths will be determined largely by two critical factors. The first is the percent of the world’s population who will become infected, both those who become ill and those who are asymptomatic. And the second critical factor determining the number of COVID-19 deaths is the percent of those infected who will die from the illness.

At this early point in the pandemic’s spread, government officials, public health experts and statistical modelers face the serious risks of both underestimating and overestimating the expected numbers of infections and deaths from COVID-19.

Some for political, economic, public order and related reasons tend to gravitate towards lower estimated numbers of COVID-19 infections and fatalities. Others who are concerned about being unprepared, undersupplied and overwhelmed by the disease, as well as the serious underreporting of coronavirus deaths, tend to lean towards higher estimates of COVID-19 deaths and infections.

To date the reported official numbers of COVID-19 deaths per one million population, unadjusted for age-sex structure, vary considerably across countries. Among the top ten countries, which are all developed countries, reported COVID-19 death rates at the end of April ranged from a low of nearly 200 deaths per million population in the United States to a high of more than 650 deaths per million population in Belgium (Figure 1). In China, where the novel coronavirus was first identified in Wuhan in December 2019, the reported COVID-19 death rate is substantially lower at 3 per one million population.

 

Source: Reported national data compiled by Worldometer.

 

COVID-19 death rates for dense urban centers are substantially higher than national rates. New York City, one of the epicenters of the coronavirus, reported that 25 percent of its residents may have been infected by COVID-19 by the end of April – similar to the proportion in Stockholm – and the COVID-19 death rate for the New York City metro area had surpassed more than 1,000 deaths per one million population. The death toll in Wuhan has recently been raised, with the COVID-19 mortality rate now at about 350 deaths per one million population.

Some models of the pandemic’s spread assume that the disease could infect from 40 to 70 percent of the world’s population. If the COVID-19 operates similar to other viruses, some report that a high infection rate of around 60 to 70 percent would in theory lead to “herd immunity”, which happens when a sufficiently high proportion of a population become immune to an infection disease that it stops the disease from spreading. However, some have dismissed that high level of infection because it is not prevention and implies that most people would become sick with many requiring hospitalization and large numbers dying.

The majority of people who become infected with COVID-19 are expected to be asymptomatic or recover without needing special treatment. However, when elderly people, and younger adults with serious medical conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes, lung disease, asthma and obesity, get infected with the coronavirus, the available data finds them having markedly higher risks of becoming severely ill, requiring hospitalization and possibly dying from the disease.

The overall death rate from COVID-19 is estimated by some to be somewhere around 1 percent. Other estimates place the fatality rate at around 0.5 to 1 percent. In comparison, the death rate from seasonal flu is substantially smaller, typically around 0.1 percent in the United States.

Applying both more and less likely values for the infection rate and death rate of COVID-19 to the world’s population of 7.8 billion yields a broad range for the expected total number of COVID-19 deaths worldwide (Figure 2). As the world is at the early stages of this new pandemic, the selected values for this exercise are tentative and will require updating as more statistical data on the rates of infection and fatality become available.

 

 

At the high end of the range, where 70 percent of the world’s population is infected and 2 percent of them die from the coronavirus, which is near the case fatality rate of 1.8 percent abroad the cruise ship Diamond Princess, the number of deaths from the pandemic reaches a high of 110 million, or about 1.4 percent of the world’s population. At the low end, where 10 percent of the world is infected and 0.1 percent of those people die, the number of deaths is nearly 1 million, or 0.01 percent of the world’s population.

As noted earlier, some experts believe that the fatality rate from COVID-19 is likely to be ten times that of seasonal influenza, or around 1 percent. If one-third of the world’s population were to become infected with the virus, which is the infection level reported in the 1918 influenza pandemic, the resulting number of deaths from COVID-19 would be about 26 million, or 100 times as great as the official number of COVID-19 deaths at the end of April and 0.33 percent of today’s world population.

As a point of comparison, the 1918 influenza pandemic, considered the deadliest pandemic in human history, killed no less than 50 million and perhaps as many as 100 million people. Those numbers of death represent a staggering 3 and 5 percent, respectively, of the world’s population at that time.

In the absence of a vaccine and limited success in limiting the spread of COVID-19, the percent of the world’s population becoming infected could reach 70 percent, the level roughly estimated to reach herd immunity. With an infection level of 70 percent and a 1 percent fatality rate, the resulting number of deaths from COVID-19 is 55 million, or about 0.7 percent of the world’s population.

Some believe that the large reported numbers of people who died from COVID-19 may be inflated because many people would have died soon anyway as well as exaggerated for political reasons. Recently reported mortality data for 11 countries during the last month undermine that notion by finding that far more people died in those countries than in previous years. For example, the number of daily deaths is more than twice the usual number in Paris and six times the normal amount in New York City.

An analysis in Italy over the period 23 February to 21 March found that for every officially recorded COVID-19 death, there may have been another death that went unrecorded. In addition, some government agencies report that the coronavirus death toll is an underestimation as it only counts those who died after testing positive.

Given the paucity of good data and the relatively high levels of morbidity and mortality from COVID-19, unprecedented efforts are needed to slow the spread of the infection or “flatten the curve”. Without a widely available COVID-19 vaccine, populations will need to consider a variety of appropriate measures, including shelter-in-place, social-distancing, contact tracing, widespread rapid testing, self-isolation, hand washing and face mask wearing. However, as many have repeatedly cautioned, if efforts to suppress the spread of the disease are greatly relaxed or stopped too early, COVID-19 will come back and kill many more people, especially among high-risk populations, in a short amount of time.

However, some have expressed the strong concern that “the cure is worse than the disease”. In their view, the enormous economic, social and human rights consequences of closing down normal life, including businesses, schools, public places and services, travel, functions, gatherings, etc., are calamitous, long lasting and worse than the toll of the novel coronavirus.

They fear that the unemployment, hunger, impoverishment, financial indebtedness, bankruptcies, investment failings, reduced revenue, agriculture setbacks, food supply disruptions, crippled economies, widespread despair and depression brought about by the mandatory lockdown and related draconian restrictions will to lead to higher morbidity and mortality rates and more human misery than those resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, many are increasingly deciding to end the lockdown and to gradually return to normal daily life with limited restrictions based on area-specific risk profiles and trends in COVID-19 infection and fatality rates.

To support their decisions to end the lockdown, some have pointed to Sweden’s experience with the coronavirus. That country did not impose a rigid lockdown, but kept public life as unrestricted as possible with recommended public health guidelines, closing colleges and high schools but not lower level schools, banning gatherings of 50 or more persons, keeping restaurants and bars open and trusted the public to adopt voluntary measures to slow down the contagion’s spread.

As a result of Sweden’s coronavirus strategy, the country’s capital, Stockholm, is expected to reach herd immunity in May. Attempting to achieve herd immunity through exposure, however, has proven controversial. Sweden’s number of coronavirus deaths per million population, 256 at the end of April, is far greater than the numbers in neighboring Denmark (78), Finland (38) and Norway (39). Also, Sweden’s strategy has placed its elderly and people with existing health conditions at substantially greater risk of becoming seriously ill and, potentially, dying from the coronavirus.

By the end of April people over the age of 70 in Sweden accounted for 86 percent of that nation’s fatalities, which is roughly similar to level observed in the United States where 80 percent of the COVID-19 deaths were to those aged 65 years and over. Many of the elderly deaths occurred in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, where the disease typically spreads easily.

 

To effectively confront the current and future pandemics, government officials and agencies need to

• tell the truth,
• be transparent,
• provide sound information,
• allay public anxieties,
• establish the public’s trust,
• rely on medical/health expertise,
• gather and utilize scientific data,
• address misinformation,
• avoid politicization, and
• resist stigma, blame and social discord.

 

In addition, responsible authorities should heed early warnings, be prepared to act quickly, aggressively and consistently, promote appropriate interventions to stem the virus’ spread and coordinate the efforts of local, state and national authorities.

Most medical and health experts have concluded that it is now almost inevitable that the COVID-19 will be transmitted globally and take a big toll on the world’s population. To effectively confront the COVID-19 pandemic, international cooperation and global efforts need to be supported, strengthened and properly funded, especially as the worst of the coronavirus still lies ahead for the world.

 

Joseph Chamie is an independent consulting demographer and a former director of the United Nations Population Division.

 

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ONLINE HIGH-LEVEL DIALOGUE Moderated by Jorge Ramos (journalist & author, Univision)
 
4 May 2020, 17:00-18:15 CET (GMT+2) / 11:00am-12:15pm EDT
 
JOIN LIVE: http://en.unesco.org/commemorations/worldpressfreedomday
 

By External Source
May 4 2020 (IPS-Partners)

On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day 2020, join UNESCO for a dynamic online
discussion on the importance of press freedom and independent journalism to provide reliable,
life-saving information during the COVID-19 pandemic. Topics to be covered include:

• Fighting disinformation and rumours
• Journalists on the front lines: ensuring their health and safety
• The role of governments: protecting press freedom and independent journalism
• The role of social media and technology: supporting journalism and fighting disinformation

PROGRAMME

Opening: Audrey Azoulay Director-General, UNESCO

Remarks: António Guterres Secretary-General, United Nations

High-level: Audrey Azoulay Director-General, UNESCO

Panel:

François-Philippe Champagne Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada
Co-chair of the Media Freedom Coalition
Michelle Bachelet United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Christophe Deloire Secretary-General, Reporters without Borders
Monika Bickert Vice-President for Public Policy & Content, Facebook
Maria Ressa Investigative journalist and co-founder of Rappler
Younes Mjahed President, International Federation of Journalists

Also featuring a series of video messages from Heads of State and Government,
Ministers and other high-level figures.

Organized with the support of members of the Group of Friends on the Safety of Journalists at UNESCO.

MORE THAN EVER WE NEED FACTS.
MORE THAN EVER WE NEED PRESS FREEDOM.

#WorldPressFreedomDay #PressFreedom #Covid19
en.unesco.org/commemorations/worldpressfreedomday

The post Press Freedom and Tackling Disinformation in the COVID-19 context appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

ONLINE HIGH-LEVEL DIALOGUE Moderated by Jorge Ramos (journalist & author, Univision)

 
4 May 2020, 17:00-18:15 CET (GMT+2) / 11:00am-12:15pm EDT

 
JOIN LIVE: http://en.unesco.org/commemorations/worldpressfreedomday
 

The post Press Freedom and Tackling Disinformation in the COVID-19 context appeared first on Inter Press Service.

An undersea restaurant in the Maldives, a Small Island Developing State (SIDS)

By Pamela Coke-Hamilton
GENEVA, May 4 2020 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures put in place to contain its diffusion are taking a heavy toll on the tourism sector. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the COVID-19 pandemic will result in a contraction of the tourism sector by 20% to 30% in 2020.

This estimate is likely to be conservative for countries relying on foreign tourists, as the recent data on daily air traffic indicate a drop of almost 80% since January 2020.

While many economic sectors are expected to recover once restrictive measures are lifted, the pandemic will probably have a longer lasting effect on international tourism. This is largely due to reduced consumer confidence and the likelihood of longer restrictions on the international movement of people.

According to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), in previous viral epidemics the average recovery time for visitors to a destination was about 19 months.

Highly vulnerable countries

The sudden, deep and likely prolonged downturn in the travel and tourism sector has made countries that rely heavily on foreign tourism very concerned about their finances.

Among these, small island developing states (SIDS) are most vulnerable not only because they are highly dependent on tourism, but also because any shock of such magnitude is difficult to manage for small economies.

Related link: Coronavirus (COVID-19) : News, Analysis and Resources. Credit: UNCTAD

On average, the tourism sector accounts for almost 30% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the SIDS, according to WTTC data. This share is over 50% for the Maldives, Seychelles, St. Kitts and Nevis and Grenada.

Overall, travel and tourism in the SIDS generates approximately $30 billion per year. A decline in tourism receipts by 25% will result in a $7.4 billion or 7.3% fall in GDP. The drop could be significantly greater in some of the SIDS, reaching 16% in the Maldives and Seychelles.

It is expected that for many SIDS, the COVID-19 pandemic will directly result in record amounts of revenue losses without the alternative sources of foreign exchange revenues necessary to service external debt and pay for imports.

Devastating economic consequences

In general, countries may be able to weather economic storms by relying on additional debt or using available foreign reserves.

However, access to global capital markets is increasingly tight, more so for small countries such as SIDS, which are often highly indebted and not well diversified.

The external debt of the SIDS as a group accounts for 72.4% of their GDP on average, reaching up to 200% in the Seychelles and the Bahamas.

Foreign reserves are also generally low, with many of the SIDS possessing only the reserves sufficient for a few months of imports. Given these statistics, it is evident that without international assistance, the economic consequences of the pandemic will be devastating for many of the SIDS.

Immediate financial needs

By considering the economic impact of reduced tourism revenues (assuming a 25% decline in tourism receipts and restoring the minimum level of import coverage (three months), it is possible to provide a rough estimate of each country’s immediate financial needs to offset the damage of the pandemic.

Currently, the SIDS would need about $5.5 billion to counteract the adverse effects of the pandemic on their economies.

The Maldives stands out with a need of $1.2 billion due to its reliance on tourism revenues, followed by the Bahamas and Jamaica.

Many of the SIDS, like Jamaica and the Bahamas, also face high external debt burdens which require complementary external debt suspension or relief programmes.

Table 1: Tourism, Debt and Foreign Currency Reserve Indicators

International response

While governments all over the world have announced fiscal measures totalling $8 trillion to combat the pandemic, the international community has also mobilized funds through international financial institutions to counteract the economic crisis in the most vulnerable countries.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) created a $50 billion fund through its rapid-disbursing emergency financing facilities for low-income and emerging market countries. It has earmarked $10 billion to serve its poorest members with a zero-interest rate. Regional banks have also created response facilities aimed at financially supporting their members.

What options are available for SIDS?

The IMF has just revamped the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT) to offer short term debt reliefs to some of its members.

While some SIDS such as Comoros, São Tomé and Príncipe, and the Solomon Islands have already requested and obtained debt relief, there is room for more SIDS to take advantage of this option. While many of the SIDS are not among the poorest countries, they are vulnerable. This is further compounded by high levels of external debt many SIDS experience.

It is critical that SIDS have access to funding at zero interest rates and can suspend existing debt payments until they are financially ready to service their external debt obligations.

Ultimately, this can help blunt the impact of external shocks such as COVID-19 and equip them with the necessary financial resources to plan their next steps for their economic development.

The post Impact of COVID-19 on Tourism in Small Island Developing States appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Pamela Coke-Hamilton, Director, Division on International Trade and Commodities, UN Conference on Trade & Development (UNCTAD)

The post Impact of COVID-19 on Tourism in Small Island Developing States appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Badiuzzaman Bay
May 3 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Press freedom in Bangladesh has been in decline long before the coronavirus came to our shores. Over the last decade, thanks to increasingly repressive media laws and highhanded measures adopted by the authorities, the health of journalism has been deteriorating in such a way that even the stalwarts of the fourth estate began to worry if the damage could ever be reversed. Yet, an outcome few would have expected during the Covid-19 crisis—which was expected to unite the people and their leaders against humanity’s most dreaded enemy in decades—is the tightening of the noose around free flow of information, which holds the key to this unity. It’s a self-defeating strategy that hurts not only the general people and the media, but those tightening the noose as well.

There are plenty of cases to illustrate this point. Take, for instance, the restrictions put in the way of journalists covering daily briefings from the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS). A report by Prothom Alo on April 30 charted the changes in the DGHS’ media engagement policy that show how the government has been restricting access to information about the coronavirus. First, the journalists were robbed of the opportunity to ask questions when, on April 8, the online media briefings were repackaged as “daily health bulletins”. It is common knowledge that questions are an essential part of any press briefing. They help journalists glean necessary information, challenge statements and demand clarifications if need be. But these so-called live “bulletins”, conducted by a top health official, basically offer a bland, pre-scripted communiqué that demands blind faith on the part of the audience, without any recourse to verification. Then, starting April 11, information on the government’s stock of testing kits was airbrushed from the bulletins. From April 24 onwards, information on daily sample collection in each testing laboratory in the country (there are 31 now) was also removed.

Could these be mere acts of omission? Should we take the statements from the administration—which has been roundly criticised for its failure to expand testing, ensure adequate safety gear for all frontline health workers, check irregularities in relief distribution, enforce social distancing regulations so essential to “flatten the curve” of the virus, and to protect the most vulnerable groups in society—at face value? Should we keep our faith in another BTV-like partisan tool of communication?

That certainly seems to be the conclusion of the administration. There is no denying that the coronavirus has created an unprecedented situation in Bangladesh as in many other countries. There is no exit strategy good enough for a crisis of this magnitude. It’s also true that the virus is as much a public relations issue as a medical one, given how public perception/response can dramatically change a situation. Manufacturing approval is thus vital to the continuity of the government’s efforts. We have ministers who keep telling us how Bangladesh has fared better than the likes of the US, Italy and Spain. However, such optimistic but grossly misleading claims belie the fact that Bangladesh lags far behind even its neighbours in dealing with the crisis. There are growing fears that the actual numbers of infection cases and deaths are much higher than the figures released by the authorities. The fumbling response of the authorities has justifiably made the country a case study in what not to do in a pandemic.

The list of things going haywire is quite stupefying, as a cursory glance through any newspaper will reveal. For the media and free speech activists, this essentially meant suppression of vital information, tightening of control of the social media, efforts of the administration to impose its version of journalism, threats of lawsuits, arrests and imprisonment for those speaking out about the crisis, etc.

On April 18, four journalists including bdnews24.com Editor-in-Chief Toufique Imrose Khalidi and jagonews24.com acting editor Mohiuddin Sarker were sued under the Digital Security Act for reporting on alleged embezzlement of aid for coronavirus victims in Thakurgaon’s Baliadangi Upazila. They were charged with publishing “offensive, false, defamatory or fear-inducing data or information,” following a complaint filed by a ruling party leader. One of the accused, local journalistTanvir Hasan, claimed that the lawsuit was filed to stifle journalists so that they do not report on corruption committed by ruling party politicians. “Police have acted swiftly in taking on the case. It’s an attempt to stop us from writing about corruption,” he told the Deutsche Welle (DW).

Since mid-March, according to the Human Rights Watch, the authorities have targeted or arrested a number of individuals including doctors, academics, students and opposition activists for their comments about the coronavirus, most of them under the draconian Digital Security Act. All this adds up to a grave warning: there is a systematic effort in place to silence those who express concerns about the government’s handling of the crisis. Often this is done in the name of preventing the spread of “rumours” and “misinformation”. As if to bolster theinformation suppression claims, on April 23, Health Minister Zahid Maleque directed officials not to talk to the media, since it “creates misunderstanding” and “it is against the government’s policy.” He said this while speaking at the daily online “bulletin”.

True, the government has a responsibility to prevent the spread of misinformation about Covid-19. But this doesn’t mean it can or should silence those with genuine concerns or criticism of its handling of the situation. According to Brad Adams, Asia director at the Human Rights Watch, “the government should stop abusing free speech and start building trust by ensuring that people are properly informed about plans for prevention, containment, and cure as it battles the virus.”

Regardless of the circumstances created by Covid-19, Bangladesh’s struggle with press freedom has been a constant challenge. In this year’s World Press Freedom Index released by the Reporters Without Borders later last month, the country has ranked 151st out of 180 countries, while its position was 150th last year. It is instructional to take a look at these figures as they remind us how far down the rabbit hole have we fallen. Clearly, the problem hasn’t been exacerbated by the coronavirus, but suppression of information and press freedom poses a greater challenge now as it has very real health consequences. This much should be obvious to anyone who cares for their life and that of their loved ones. This goes for those in power as well.

And this is precisely why journalism is more vital now than ever before. The Covid-19 pandemic has placed independent media front and centre in providing reliable, fact-checked and potentially life-saving information. An independent press can ensure our leaders and officials remain accountable and their measures are scrutinised. This will only help improve the government’s response to the crisis—as will an emboldened citizenry free to voice their legitimate concerns and grievances. The opposite of it, as they say, is “pure, unadulterated chaos”.

Badiuzzaman Bay is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star. Email: badiuzzaman.bd@gmail.com

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Blocking media access during Covid-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, May 1 2020 (IPS)

United Nations has designated at least 170 specific days of the year as occasions to mark particular events or topics to promote the objectives of the Organization. 2 This might be considered as yet another sign of a supersaturation caused by the internet revolution. However, it cannot be denied that certain issues need to be globally recognized and amended. UNESCO has declared that the 3rd of May will be a day to remind us that media are in several parts of the world under attack, their independence are denied, critical thinking is considered as a threat and journalists seeking the truth are harassed, threatened, roughed up, or even killed. I would like to add that it is also an opportunity to acknowledge that communication, critical thinking, and imagination are essential parts of human existence and culture, if this is suppressed the entire humanity will suffer.

Journalists are essential contributors to the well-being of our communities. They are communicators and we currently live within an Age of Information, which we definitely entered in the late 20th Century when our civilization underwent a shift from traditional industry to an economy primarily based upon information technology. Even if the transformation has been brusque, its is nevertheless a result of a development which finds its origin more than 500 years back in time.

During the 1450s, Johannes Gutenberg devised a method for printing books with movable, reusable types. In three years he completed an edition of nearly 200 bibles, the same amount of time it previously had taken to print a single book of the same size as Gutenberg´s Bible. Soon there were printing presses in all of Europe’s major cities. The printed book became the most useful, versatile and most enduring technology in world history.

For the first time in human existence written texts reached large segments of the population, giving rise to ideas that turned the world upside down. Everything changed and time could not be reversed. Old regimes crumbled and disappeared, science advanced, people exchanged information across borders, across seas and continents. The world opened up, new technologies developed, people demanded rights and justice, supported by the rapid spread of the written world. Priviliged decision makers tried to stop this development; wars were waged, heretics tortured and excecuted, printing presses smashed, newspaper offices burned to the ground, but the unchained word continued to expand, sowing its seeds of transformation. People came to realize that freedom of the press was the linchpin for a just and equal society. In 1823, the German author Heinrich Heine famously wrote “Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.” 3

What happened in the 16th century may be compared to the recent decades’ electronic information explosion, with its avalanche of social media, which just like the invention of printing with movable types is a result of technological innovation. The Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan called the global era of the printed book the Gutenberg Galaxy. However, already in 1962 McLuhan saw where humanity was heading, that the time of the Gutenberg Galaxy had begun to be replaced by computer technology: “Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrinian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as an infantile piece of science fiction. And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence.” 4

The advent of the Internet and related social changes has during recent years affected the entire political discourse, making mis-information and deception more prevalent than ever before. Our political culture is increasingly framed by emotional appeals, neglecting and even resisting factual, complicated and multidimensional realities. Influential media outlets depend on their ability to attract viewers to their websites, so they thus might generate lucrative advertising revenues. With the sole purpose of attracting users and advertisers, startling and/or apealling stories are published without any foundations whatsoever. Easy access to online advertisment, increased political polarization and the enormous popularity of social media have all been implicated in the spread of ”fake news”, competing with well researched, responsable, and legitimate journalism. Commercialization of reporting has been an issue ever since the invention of the printing press. In 2014, the German journalist Udo Ulfkotte paid attention to the problem in his book Gekaufte Journalisten, in which he stated that secret services pay journalists to report stories in a certain light, something which also is true when it comes to politicians and decision makers in several nations around the world. 5

Fake news and an unrestrained internet are currently undermining serious media coverage, making it increasingly difficult for serious journalists to cover significant news – newspapers are shut down, journalists lose their jobs and income while reporting become ever more superficial and sensational. Parallell to this development, decision makers are incresingly trying to benefit from the marginalization of critical, professional and investigative journalism. Some, most notably the current president of the United States, have broadened the meaning of ”fake news” to include any reporting negative of their behaviour and leadership.

Totalitarian leadership tries to bask in on notions about the press spreading ”fake news”, i.e. criticism of its politics and is trying to control all media outlets, even appropriating as much reporting as possible. In its annual global survey, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) found that in 2019 at least 250 journalists had been imprisioned in relation to their work. After China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, the worst jailers were Eritrea, Vietnam, and Iran. There has in recent years been a rising trend to harass and imprison regime critical journalists, while using numerous pretexts to silence the free press, depicting censorship and concerns of holding on to power as an antidote to terrorism and social unrest. Turkey, China and Egypt accounted for more than half of all journalists jailed globally. 6

Chinese leaders were utterly displeased to learn that their nation by Reporters sans frontières (RSF) had been evaluated as a nation that did not favour any freedom of expression. China was actually at the 177th place out of 180 countries within RSF´s 2020 World Press Freedom Index, barley ahead of Eritrea, Turkmenistan and North Korea. China´s deplorable position was according to RSF due to the fact that its leadership to a high degree was ignoring Article 35 of their nation´s own consitution, which intended to guarantee freedom of the press. I was also pointed out that President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party in recent years had tightened their control of China’s state and privately-owned media, increased surveillance of social media, and were actively trying to export their oppressive model of media control. It was furthermore stressed that in 2020, China remains ”the worlds biggest jailer of journalists” with more than 109 of them officially behind bars. 7 It is interesting to note that the Chinese Foreign Minstry spokesman, Geng Shuang, accused RSF of spreading ”fake news”.

Egypt´s low ranking in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index is due to the fact that over the past six years, Egyptian media have come to be almost entirely dominated by the State – including its intelligence services and security agencies. The Egyptian state is now in direct or indirect control of most of the newspapers, television and radio stations and can thus directly, or indirectly, censor all reporting. It has furthermore become dangerous to ”provoke” the regime. Not only journalists, but any media producer, run the risk of being put on trial for diffuse crimes, like insulting the judiciary and/or the president. When asked if the wievs of a world leader like Donald Trump had any influence on the freedom of the press in Egypt a journalist answered: ”It sets a tone. I would say it must matter on some level that the president of the United States expresses admiration for repressive governments that crack down on journalists and violate human rights.” 8

President Trump has called Egypt´s leader Abdel Fatah al-Sisis a ”great leader” and even my ”favorite dictator”. Much like Donald Trump and his supporters, Egypt’s leaders have responded to reports about the estimated number of coronavirus infections as though they were a personal attack, rather than a health crisis the entire world is struggling to contain. Opinions mirrored by another regime finding itself among the culprits when it comes to limiting freedom of speech – the Turkish president Recep Erdoğan, who has described journalists as ”throwing up” false information and untruths and thus being more dangerous than the virus itself. He accused media critical of his regime as ”waging a war against their own country” and working ”night and day to break the nation’s morale,” warning them that they would ”drown in their own pools of hatred and intrigues along with terrorist organisations.” 9

Freedom of speech is part of human culture, a tool to confront power abuse, corruption, injustice and violence. To preserve and defend human dignity and well-being we must protect the freedom of the press, if not – the people of the world will follow a road to self-extinction.

1 Hikmet, Nazim ”A Sad State of Freedoom” in Bold, Alan (ed.) (1970) The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, p. 263.
2 https://www.un.org/en/sections/observances/international-days/
3 From Heinrich Heine´s Almansor, A Tragedy, quoted in Ward, Graham (2003), True religion. Hoboken NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, p. 142.
4 McLuhan, Marshall (1962) The Gutenberg Galaxy; The making of typographic man. University of Toronto Press, p. 32.
5 Ulfkotte, Udo (2019) Presstitutes Embedded in the Pay of the CIA: A Confession from the Profession. San Diego CA: Progressive Press.
6 https://cpj.org/reports/2019/12/journalists-jailed-china-turkey-saudi-arabia-egypt.php
7 https://rsf.org/en/news/china-ranking-near-bottom-rsfs-index-claims-it-welcomes-foreign-journalists-despite-all-evidence
8 https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/27870/simply-put-there-s-no-freedom-of-the-press-in-sisi-s-egypt
9 https://en.qantara.de/content/coronavirus-and-press-freedom-in-turkey-erdogans-crusade-against-all-media-and-political

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

The post Freedom of the Press as a Guarantee for Human Dignity and Well-Being appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

You may proclaim that one must live
not as a tool, a number or a link
but as a human being—
then at once they handcuff your wrists.
You are free to be arrested, imprisoned
and even hanged. 1

The post Freedom of the Press as a Guarantee for Human Dignity and Well-Being appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Namrata Sharma
KATHMANDU, May 1 2020 (IPS)

This year’s World Press Freedom Day on 3 May falls during COVID-19 lockdowns in many of our countries. Restriction on movement means journalists all over the world are facing obstacles in getting interviews and data, and verifying stories before publishing.

In addition, the global pandemic has been used by many governments to control not just the people’s movement but also their right to information. Journalists have been intimidated or attacked, and photojournalists and videographers on the frontlines often risk getting infected while documenting stories.

Two recent webinars conducted by Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) and Finance Uncovered (FU) showed that recent government moves to restrict the press in Nepal are not unique – they are happening in many countries around the world.

The global pandemic has been used by many governments to control not just the people’s movement but also their right to information. Journalists have been intimidated or attacked, and photojournalists and videographers on the frontlines often risk getting infected while documenting stories

There have been efforts by authorities to criminalise journalism, and this is putting journalists reporting on the pandemic at risk, noted Courtney Radsch of the Center to Protect Journalists at the GIJN webinar. In Nepal, too, there have been attempts by various government agencies to censor information. 

Last month, the portal Kathmandu Press posted a story about alleged corruption during the purchase of medical equipment involving people in high places. This story was deleted from the site by a software company maintaining the portal’s homepage which had links to individuals in the Prime Minister’s Office involved in the deal.

On 27 April, Radio Nepal aired a live interview of former prime minister Baburam Bhattarai that was sharply critical of Prime Minister K P Oli. The government asked the head of the state-owned radio station and its news editor for an explanation, and got the interview deleted from Radio Nepal’s site.

On 18 April, Press Council Nepal (PCN) sent a letter to Nepal Telecommunication Authority to shut down certain web-based portals and ban them from publishing false news. In all these recent cases, the government appears to be using the cover of the COVID-19 crisis and the excuse of protecting privacy and shielding the public from fake news and character assassination to crackdown on the free press.

“Many supposedly democratic countries like the United States, India and Nepal are censoring the press and making it very difficult for press freedom to prevail while covering COVID 19,” said Kosmos Biswokarma editor of Kathmandu Press. Tampering with the website without permission raised grave questions of freedom of press in this country, he added.

The mission of journalism is to use the citizens’ right to freedom of expression to keep them informed. Journalists go to great lengths, and put themselves at considerable risk, to gather and investigate factual information to alert the public and authorities about wrong-doing and malpractice.

However, citizens today get their information not just from the mass media but also from the Internet. The dissemination of fake news, rumours, defamation, violation of privacy on social media is not journalism. Governments should make that distinction.

The authorities should not mistake misinformation for journalism, and not use objectionable social media content for blanket suppression of journalistic information. There has to be a mechanism to track such content and take action against perpetrators. It is the Press Council Nepal’s job to trace these sources, and not issue directives to ban portals. In fact it is not the PCN’s job to close down the media at all.

During emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic, due diligence rules are relaxed and there is a lack of transparency in big deals. Because it is the journalist’s job to speak truth to power, this often gets them into trouble, as happened in Nepal with the coverage of the Omni Business Corporate International in the direct purchase of test kits and medical equipment from China at inflated cost.

Shiva Gaunle of the Centre for Investigative Journalism Nepal (CIJ-N) says the biggest problem journalists are facing during the present crisis is getting data and verifying them. “It is not just the lockdown and restrictions on mobility, news items are taken off home pages or shut down, how can Nepal claim to have right to information and rule of law?” he asks.

Journalism is not a crime, and fake news is not journalism. Governments should be able to separate the two, especially during emergencies like this global pandemic.

Namrata Sharma is the former chair of the Centre for Investigative Journalism Nepal

Twitter: NamrataSharmaP

namrata1964@yahoo.com

The post Journalism is Not a Crime…and Fake News on Social Media is Not Journalism appeared first on Inter Press Service.