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Brazilian women have been making headway in traditionally male-dominated areas. Construction workers in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

By Jemimah Njuki
NAIROBI, Mar 13 2020 (IPS)

Two profound incidents happened the week of International Women’s Day. 

One, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Party candidate for President of the U.S., bowed out of the election race despite what commentators said was a strong campaign with a  “plan for everything” and strong message of economic populism. Now there are no female frontrunners left.

Two, the United Nations Development Programme released a report headlined “Almost 90% of men/women globally are biased against women”. The report argues that in different spheres – employment, education, politics –  when empowerment is basic and precarious, women are overrepresented, but as power increases the gender gap widens.

Discriminatory social norms and stereotypes reinforce gendered identities and determine power relations which in turn constrain what men and women can do in ways that lead to inequality and exclusion

Three critical statistics stand out from the report – 50 percent of people say they think men make better political leaders, more than 40 percent feel that men make better business executives than women, and 30 percent believe it is okay for men to beat their spouses.

At the centre of this are harmful social norms, beliefs and stereotypes. For example, while legal barriers on women’s ability to vote and be elected have been removed in most countries, and women can participate in the economy without formal restrictions perceptions, beliefs about women’s capabilities and prejudices create an often-invisible barrier to women.

These discriminatory social norms and stereotypes reinforce gendered identities and determine power relations which in turn constrain what men and women can do in ways that lead to inequality and exclusion

And while policies such as affirmative action or equal parental leave can provide guidelines and basic principles to address inequalities, they are not sufficient to address those inequalities that are rooted in social exclusion and longstanding social norms.

We must challenge harmful gender norms, belief systems and stereotypes.

First, we can provide individuals with the information and knowledge that can cultivate different values, behaviours and belief systems. Gender norms are transferred and reinforced through communication, much of which happens informally within families and among peer groups in the wider community or through schools, religious organisations, government policies, and the media.

It follows that, communication and knowledge that provides alternative narratives can change belief systems and stereotypes.

In a recent review by the Overseas Development Institute, 71 percent of the wide range of communications programmes were effective in changing norms, attitudes and practices.

In one of the programs in Taru, India, – a radio soap opera that featured a young woman health worker – led to more supportive attitudes among listeners towards girls’ rights to education and to reduced support for sex-selective abortion.

In Zambia, a community theatre in fishing communities that showed women making decisions and owning assets led to 30 percent more women increasing their contributions to decision-making regarding fish processing and 49 percent more taking part in deciding what to do with the associated income.

Second is addressing the household power dynamics and changing unequal power relationships within households by engaging men and boys.

Even in areas such as food and nutrition, assumptions, norms and practices about women needing fewer calories, or not being allowed to eat certain food—can push women and girls into perpetual malnutrition and protein deficiency.

For example in Ghana, father-to-father support groups,  comprised of men who to discuss family-oriented issues that include infant and young child feeding, household interaction and support, and male involvement in child welfare have lead to men adopting new behaviors that contribute to the health and wellbeing of their households, especially pregnant and lactating women and children. Working with groups of men, as gender champions eliminates stigma foe men who are seen to be doing ‘women’s tasks’.

Third is removing sanctions for non-compliance to harmful norms and providing incentives for alternative more equitable norms through engaging traditional or religious leaders, duty bearers and norm ‘enforcers’.

Research shows that a social norm will be stickiest when individuals have the most to gain from complying with it and the most to lose from challenging it. Leaders have a lot of influence on the culture of a group or as they have the most control of sanctioning and can also set a strong expectation from others.

When female senior chief Theresa Kachindamoto in Malawi annulled 850 child marriages in 2016, she set expectations for all village heads firing from their jobs those that refused to ban the practice of child marriage.

And finally, for long term change, socialising boys and girls to more equitable sharing of roles and responsibilities, equal opportunities and respect for all irrespective of gender.

Society expects different attitudes and behaviors from boys and girls leading to boys and girls being socialized differently and to have different opportunities.

For example a report by UNICEF shows that girls between 5 and 14 years old spend 40 per cent more time, or 160 million more hours a day, on unpaid household chores and collecting water and firewood compared to boys their age.

But socialization also goes beyond roles to expectations and personality traits for example messaging of “boys are aggressive”, “girls are good at reading” “men are scientists”.

Parents’ gender-role modeling is critical in changing children’s perceptions and belief systems. Research for example has shown that a fathers’ childcare involvement is negatively related to children’s gender stereotyping.

And as Senator Elizabeth Warren said as she bowed out, we can not make these “pinky promises” that girls can be anything they want including president, without addressing the norms and prejudices that hold them back.

 

Dr Jemimah Njuki is an Aspen News Voices Fellow and writes on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. Follow her @jemimah_njuki

The post Norms and Prejudices are Still Holding Women Back appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Mavic Cabrera-Balleza
NEW YORK, Mar 13 2020 (IPS)

Where are the women and youth peacebuilders in the Beijing+25 and the Generation Equality Forum processes?

Their absence raises serious questions about the effectivity and coherence of the work of the UN on gender equality since armed conflict is both a cause and a consequence of gender inequality.

Over the last five months, I have spent most of my waking and sleeping hours strategizing with our team at the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP) about how to keep peace and security on the agenda of the Generation Equality Forum (GEF), the incarnation of the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women.

Many of our friends and allies within the Women and Peace and Security community ask me: Is it worth putting our limited time and resources into trying to participate in these bureaucratic and non-binding processes? Is it worth engaging with government and UN bureaucracies to advance our feminist agendas?

My answer to these questions is a resounding yes! But only if women and youth peacebuilders are part of the process. Here is why.

An inspiration for the Women and Peace and Security and Youth, Peace and Security agendas

Nearly 25 years ago, in August and September 1995, more than 30,000 women from around the world convened in Beijing, China to participate in the Fourth World Conference and NGO Forum on Women.

It was a watershed moment for the global women’s movement not only because of its magnitude, but mainly because it brought forth the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action (BPFA), by far the most comprehensive global agenda for women’s empowerment and gender equality.

The BPFA set strategic objectives and actions for the advancement of women and the achievement of gender equality in 12 critical areas of concerns, ranging from women and poverty to women and armed conflict, and women’s human rights.

The BPFA resulted in the establishment of more than 100 national institutions for women’s advancement, including Ministries of Gender in many countries. It led to advocacy for—and the adoption of—the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women and Peace and Security (UNSCR 1325) in October 2000.

The adoption of the UNSCR 1325 was a major achievement and a result of the unyielding work of women peacebuilders around the world. It established a normative framework for women’s meaningful participation in decision-making, conflict resolution, conflict prevention and peacebuilding; as well as protection of women and girls’ rights, and prevention of sexual and gender-based violence in conflict-affected situations.

For those of us who are working towards the effective implementation of the Women and Peace and Security (WPS) and the Youth and Peace and Security (YPS) agendas, the BPFA is a foundation document and a model for robust civil society ownership and participation.

It stands alongside the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS and YPS as one of the most important international instruments on women’s rights, youth rights, and gender equality.

More than two decades later, the Generation Equality Forum (GEF) is underway. Much like the Beijing Conference and Platform for Action, the GEF and its outcomes will not be legally binding.

This raises concerns among some civil society groups as to the resources and energy spent on these processes. Indeed, forums and conferences use up considerable resources; and the laws and policies that come out of them are, after all, just words on paper.

Nonetheless, with strong civil society ownership and participation, the GEF can lead to outcomes that shape not only laws and policies, but concrete actions on women’s rights and gender equality. In the same way that the Beijing Conference and the Platform for Action did.

A test of legitimacy and accountability of the Generation Equality Forum

The success of the GEF and its outcomes are dependent on the extent and quality of the participation of civil society groups representing diverse issues and initiatives.

In line with the accountability framework for the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the GEF process aims to map progress and reactivate commitments to implementation. It proposes to do so by launching Action Coalitions, which will catalyze collective action, spark global, inter-generational conversations, and deliver results to further advance equality for women and girls.

This is where a major problem arises. Women peacebuilders and youth peacebuilders are not represented in the decision-making structure of the GEF. As a result, WPS and YPS have been left out from the Action Coalitions identified by the Forum organizers.

This is particularly astounding, since the WPS and YPS agendas are integral to all three pillars of the United Nations—peace and security, human rights and development. Equally important, the exclusion of WPS and YPS raises serious questions about the scope of civil society consultations, and how decisions are made in the GEF.

Many years of experience in the women’s movement tells us that the legitimacy of—and accountability to—decisions on women’s rights and gender equality largely depend on the participation and ownership of civil society organizations representing women’s interests that may be impacted by such decisions.

Call for an Action Coalition on Women and Peace and Security and Youth, Peace and Security

WPS and YPS agendas are critical to realizing the promise of the BPFA. They cannot be effectively mainstreamed in any of the six Action Coalitions. Recognizing this, more than 150 feminist, grassroots women’s rights organizations and networks from around the world sent an Open Letter to the Governments of France and Mexico and UN Women, expressing concern about the serious risk of leaving out key priorities and needs of women and youth peacebuilders in the GEF.

Their call was backed by the Civil Society Advisory Group to the GEF, the UN High-Level Advisory Group for the 2015 Global Study on UNSCR 1325, and the Government of South Africa who supported the establishment of a stand-alone Action Coalition on WPS and YPS.

As the GEF process unfolds, its organizers must acknowledge the diversity of women’s issues. They also need to recognize civil society as a partner on equal footing with the Governments of France and Mexico, and UN Women. This means responding to the reverberating calls of the more than 150 feminist and women’s rights organizations, and the Civil Society Advisory Group to form a stand-alone Action Coalition on WPS and YPS.

Marking the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the Generation Equality Forum presents a global momentum to advance gender equality. Yet, to date, it fails to address the biggest and most persistent challenge that the international community confronts: armed conflicts that are becoming more and more vicious and fragmented.

As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said in his January 22, 2020 speech to the General Assembly, the lack of peace and security remains as one of greatest threats to 21st century progress.

Is Beijing +25 worth civil society’s limited time and resources? Yes, but only if it fully integrates peace and security at its core and meaningfully includes women and youth peacebuilders to achieve it.

The post A Woman Peacebuilder’s Reflections on Beijing+25 & the Generation Equality Forum appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Mavic Cabrera-Balleza is Founder and CEO of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP) which is actively involved in the implementation of the resolutions Women and Peace and Security (WPS) and Youth and Peace and Security (YPS), including localization and synergies with CEDAW.

The post A Woman Peacebuilder’s Reflections on Beijing+25 & the Generation Equality Forum appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Off the main streets in Gonder, Ethiopia, poverty becomes starker. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By Vani S. Kulkarni and Raghav Gaiha
PHILADELPHIA and NEW DELHI, Mar 13 2020 (IPS)

With about 109 million people, Ethiopia is the second most populous nation in Africa after Nigeria, and the fastest growing economy in the region. However, it is also one of the poorest, with a per capita income of $790.

About 80% of the Ethiopian population lives in rural areas, but these are increasingly migrating to urban areas due to a lack of job opportunities. However, with unemployment levels at 16.5%, the situation in urban areas offers even fewer possibilities of finding employment.

Poverty is predominantly a rural phenomenon in Ethiopia. While urban headcount poverty declined from 36.9 percent in 2000 to 14.8 percent in 2016, rural poverty only declined from 45.4 percent to 25.6 percent in the same period.

Unfortunately, the evidence on the role of health in reducing poverty is sparse. We, therefore, focus on rural disability as an impediment to promoting rural employment and reduction of rural poverty. Our analysis is based on the Ethiopia Socio-Economic Survey (ESS) covering 2011/12, 2013/14 and 2015/16. It is a nationally representative panel survey.

We sketch below (i) factors associated with rural disability in Ethiopia; (ii) factors associated with rural employment-especially the association between employment and disability; and (iii) association between rural poverty and disability and the underlying links.

Vani S. Kulkarni

In order to circumvent reverse causality, say, between disability and poverty, the former is for 2015-16 and the latter for 2011-12.

About 13.77 % of the rural Ethiopian population suffered from disabilities in 2015-16. About 63% suffered from a single disability while the rest from multiple disabilities (>1). The largest share was of the age-group, 31-50 years, followed by the older age-group,51-70 years. These two age-groups together accounted for over 70 % of those suffering from a single disability. The largest share of multiple disabilities was of 51-70 years, followed by the oldest (>70 years) and 31-50 years. The combined share of 31-50 years and 51-70 years was about 67 %. If we go by prevalence of disability by age-group, it was highest among the oldest, followed by 51-70 years. A similar pattern was observed for multiple disabilities except that the prevalence among the oldest was just under 50 %.

Disability by gender shows a frequently observed contrast. The shares of females in both single and multiple disabilities-over 52 %- was higher in 2015-16. However, differences between prevalences by gender were low, with slighly higher prevalences among females.

The highest share of those suffering from one disability was of those belonging to largest households(>6 members), followed by those in lower-sized households (between 3-5 members). The latter, however, accounted for the largest share of multiple disabilities, followed by largest households. Prevalences within single and multiple disabilities offered yet another contrast. The highest prevalence of single disability was observed among those living alone, followed by those living in households with just two members. This is replicated for multiple disabilities, with the higher prevalence than of single disability.

Rural employment by duration in 7 days was classified into ranges of hours worked: 0 hour, 1-25 hours, > 25 hours in 7 days, and disabilities into none, 1 and > 1. The former refer to 2015/16 while the latter refer to 2011/12.

The largest share of those working 1-25 hours was associated with those without any disability, followed by those suffering from a single disability and then a sharp drop in the share of those with multiple disabilities.A similar distribution was observed among those working longer hours, >25 hours, with the largest share of those without any disability and lowest of those with multiple disabilities. There was a low reduction in proportions of each disability group working 1-25 hours, with the highest among those without disability, followed by those with a single disability and then among those with multiple disabilities. A similar pattern was observed among disability groups in longer duration of employment, >25 hours. Thus it follows that single and multiple disabilities-especially the latter-were associated with restricted hours of employment, compared with those without any disability.

Raghav Gaiha

Considering part-time, casual and temporary employment, comparison between non-disabled and disabled shows that the proportion of disabled persons not-working was higher than that of the non-disabled, while those of working 1-25 hours and >25 hours were lower.

There are two issues in rural poverty analysis: one is its persistence, and second is movement into and out of it over time. Just under one-half of extremely poor in 2011/12 remained so during this period, a lower proportion of middle class remained in it, and more than half remained affluent. About 30 % of extremely poor in 2011/12 moved up into middle-class and a little under a quarter into affluent in 2015/16. From middle-class under 30 % descended into extreme poverty and about 33 % became affluent. From affluent, about 29 % decended into middle-class and a much smaller proportion became extremely poor. Hence high persistence of poverty coexisted with considerable upward economic mobility.

As a vast majority of the Ethiopian rural population did not suffer from any disability, it is not surprising that they constituted largest shares of extremely poor, middle class and affluent in 2015/16. Their proportion of extremely poor was lowest and of affluent highest. The proportion of disabled who were extremely poor was lowest but higher than among disabled, and higher in middle class and affluent but again lower than among non-disabled. Thus disability wass associated with greater vulnerability to extreme poverty and restricted prospects of being in middle class.

In conclusion, the challenge of reduction in poverty remains enormous while not paying due attention to preventing and eliminating disability is likely to make it much harder.

(Vani S. Kulkarni is Lecturer in Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, USA; and Raghav Gaiha is (Hon.) Professorial Research Fellow, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, England, and Research Affiliate, Population Studies Centre, University of Pennsylvania, USA). The views are personal.

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By Tariq Rauf
VIENNA, Mar 12 2020 (IPS)

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and coincidentally the tenth quinquennial (five yearly) review conference is scheduled to be held at the United Nations in New York from 27 April to 22 May.

With 191 States parties, the NPT is the cornerstone of the global regime for nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

An unexpected complication is that of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and its impact on the NPT review conference – thus far, there is an inexplicable thundering silence from the UN regarding the postponement of the conference.

COVID-19

Yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 to be a global pandemic affecting more than 114 countries with 118,000 people infected, 4,291 fatalities and many thousands more fighting for their lives in hospitals.

The WHO stated that this is the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus and that never before has there been a pandemic that can be controlled.

In the United States, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the total number of cases as of 11 March is 938, total deaths 29, in 38 states and the District of Columbia). The New York State Department of Health is reporting 52 cases in New York City and 164 in the State.

Thus, it is clear that New York City is affected by COVID-19 and there is a high risk of the further spread of the virus. Add to this, the expected arrival of more than 400 delegates from all parts of the world, to attend the NPT conference, including obviously from countries and regions already afflicted with the corononavirus.

Should this transpire, it would not take a virologist or a rocket scientist to predict a rapid transmission of the virus to many of the delegates all concentrated in the UN General Assembly chamber for several days and in other large meeting rooms for another three weeks.

Furthermore, the US may restrict entry to delegates coming from countries afflicted with coronavirus and either deny visas or place them under quarantine for two weeks or more? In fact, President Donald Trump already has suspended all travel from mainland Europe for 30 days starting on Friday.

So, why has not the UN ordered the postponement of all large conferences till the virus infections subside and the environment is safe again for large and small congregations of people drawn from all corners of the world?

And, why have not the diplomats accredited to the UN in New York, from States parties to the NPT, already decided to postpone the NPT review conference? What is it about COVID-19 that they do not understand and why are they delaying taking the common sense decision to postpone the event?

The UN Secretary-General’s “Message on COVID 19” is limited to bulleted points such as, “All of us face a common threat – the coronavirus – COVID 19. Today’s declaration of a pandemic is a call to action – for everyone, everywhere”, which is not reassuring!

UN General Assembly President Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, on the other hand, has stated that the coronavirus will only be tackled “through a multilateral response” in which the UN “must lead by example” and that the UN should take a “coordinated and coherent approach” regarding decisions on whether major meetings can go ahead.

He added that at the UN Secretariat “we have started the process looking at scaling down, postponing and/or cancelling meetings, as appropriate”. Well, it’s high time to do so – the sooner the better!

Options for the NPT Review Conference

Reportedly, “options” are being considered but no decision has been taken as yet. One option seemingly gathering support, and reportedly pushed by some States, is to convene the NPT Review Conference as scheduled on 27th April but then to immediately prorogue (or adjourn) it to August or later this year after possibly adopting a statement or declaration commemorating 50 years of the NPT.

The stated rationale being that the NPT conference is a scheduled quinquennial event according to the Treaty and therefore must be convened – if only for a day under present circumstances – going from the sublime to the ridiculous!

The logic of such a bizarre “option” can only emanate from New York and capitals, as oftentimes they tend to be oblivious to the calendars of events and meetings in other UN capitals that deal with nuclear matters, namely Vienna (Austria) and Geneva (Switzerland).

Not surprisingly, the reaction in Vienna and Geneva has tended to be one of shock and disbelief. What were these diplomats/officials thinking? Are they not aware that the third session of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva is scheduled for 3 August to 18 September?

And, do they not realize that in Western Europe the civilized practice of annual vacation in August is nearly sacrosanct! Just because in the United States the concept of taking an annual vacation is generally frowned upon is no reason to subject others to this stress of giving up their vacation time.

Postpone to 2021 and Convene in Vienna

As I have recommended earlier this month, there is only one sound course of action: that to postpone the NPT review conference to 2021 (possibly 26 April to 21 May) and to convene it from then on in Vienna. The following are the reasons for my recommendation, which is beginning to get some traction:

1. The year following an NPT review conference always is a gap year; hence there should not be any impediment to moving it to next year. No important decisions need to be taken this year and the 50th anniversary of the NPT can be marked by speeches and statements by ministers in capitals, New York, Geneva and Vienna.
2. At present, there are no prospects for any progress on nuclear disarmament – a key element of the NPT. Both the Russian Federation and the United States are engaged in modernization of their nuclear weapons; and the United States is pursuing a policy of steadily abandoning treaties, multilateralism and striking out in favour of unilateral nationalistic policies. Last year, the United States abandoned the 1987 Intermediate- and Shorter-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty as well as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) limiting Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme; earlier in 2002 it pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty that formed the basis of strategic stability between Russia and the United States. In addition, thus far, the United States has not indicated any interest in extending the 2010 New START Treaty limiting strategic nuclear weapons that will expire in February 2021, and in preserving the Open Skies Treaty that permits confidence-building aerial overflights. In addition, some officials now are openly verbally attacking those in countries who promote fulfilling the nuclear disarmament obligations under the NPT. Thus, postponing the NPT conference to 2021 provides a respite of a year with the possibility of an improved climate in 2021?
3. The technical and policy expertise for nuclear verification, safety and security, and peaceful uses always has resided in Vienna (Austria) at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA provides secretariat support and expertise to the NPT review conference on two of the three pillars of the NPT – nuclear non-proliferation and peaceful uses.
4. The expertise and experience for negotiating multilateral nuclear arms control resides at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva (Switzerland) – the third pillar of the NPT.
5. UN New York has no diplomatic or technical expertise related to the NPT; it is basically a political talk shop. Negotiations on resolutions on nuclear arms control matters in the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, as well as in the UN Disarmament Commission, normally are conducted by diplomats coming over to New York from Geneva and from capitals.
6. Staff from the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (ODA) in New York, together with IAEA staff form the “secretariat” for NPT review conferences and their preparatory committees. UN ODA New York staff travel to Vienna and Geneva, respectively, to service the preparatory committee sessions held there along with UN ODA staff based in these two European cities. Thus, UN ODA New York staff can easily support the review conference held in Vienna.
7. The claim that participation in NPT review conferences held in New York is higher as all Member States of the United Nations are represented there is not credible. Of the 191 States Parties to the NPT, generally not more than 150 attend review conferences and then too small delegations only make a showing on the first and last days in order to be listed in the official list of participants. It need not be a burden for small States to attend review conferences in Vienna.
8. Given concerns about the effect on the climate from air travel and current tendency to minimize long distance travel by air to reduce the carbon footprint; convening the review conference from 2021 onwards in Vienna also can have a positive impact in reducing the carbon burden of attendance. The geographic location of Vienna in Central Europe will greatly reduce distances to be travelled by delegates from Asia, Africa and Oceania, as well as of course by European countries – these regions put together comprise the largest number of countries in the world. Only the North and South American delegates will have increased travel distances, but these obviously are a minority compared to those from the regions noted above.
9. It is obvious that costs of hotel accommodation in New York are inordinately high with tax upon taxes, as are the high costs of food and meals. Hotel and food costs in Vienna are much cheaper than in New York or Geneva, as are hotel costs. Thus, significant savings can be incurred by foreign ministries in connection with participation in the review conference held in Vienna. Such savings would be even more beneficial for civil society representatives, who obviously cannot draw upon tax payer funding as can official delegates.
10. Finally, there is now no rationale to hold NPT review conferences at any location in any nuclear-weapon State (NWS), especially since 25 years after the indefinite extension of the NPT the deficit in nuclear disarmament remains significant, nuclear weapons are being modernized in some NWS, the threshold of possible use of nuclear weapons has been lowered, and existing treaties are under threat. Better to hold review conferences in a “neutral” country such as Austria that is a strong champion on nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament.

Decide Now

The longer this decision is delayed to move the NPT review conference to 2021 in Vienna, the higher the costs incurred this year in cancelling New York flights and hotel rooms. While government delegates may well be able to afford such penalties as tax dollars pay for their expenses, for civil society participants cancellation costs would be onerous and unaffordable as they either self-finance or rely on charitable donations.

Thus, as I have described in some detail above, there are no compelling reasons at all to convene the presently scheduled NPT review conference in New York this year. It makes eminent common and fiscal sense to convene it next year in April-May and to hold it in Vienna – the historic capital location of important conferences for more than two centuries and imbued with the intangible “spirit of Vienna” that encourages harmony and compromise.

* Tariq Rauf has attended all nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) meetings since 1987 as a delegate, including as senior adviser to the chair of Main Committee I (nuclear disarmament) in 2015 and to the chair of the 2014 preparatory committee; as alternate head of the International Atomic Energy Agency delegation to the NPT; and as a non-proliferation expert with the Canadian delegation from 1987. Personal views are expressed here.

The post The 2020 NPT Review Conference: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Yasmine Sherif is Director Education Cannot Wait

By Yasmine Sherif
Mar 12 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Conflicts and disasters are about destruction. Discrimination and marginalization are about disempowerment. Combine the two and we get a glimpse of the brutal reality affecting millions of girls today. Standing amidst the ruins of their towns, displaced communities and torn-apart families, they are further shackled by exclusion, exploitation and lost opportunities because of their gender.

An estimated 39 million girls and adolescent girls in countries affected by armed conflicts, forced displacement or natural disasters lack access to quality education. They represent a new generation prevented from acquiring the skills they need to withstand the shocks of crisis, to rebuild their lives and to contribute to the reconstruction of their society. They also represent a significant segment of humanity deprived of their inherent human right to learn, grow and achieve their potential.

Girls are the ones furthest left behind. We find them in South Sudan, where 72 per cent of primary school-aged girls (vs. 64 per cent of boys) do not attend primary school; in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, where only 38 per cent of primary school students are girls; in Niger, where only 15 per cent of 15- to 24-year-old girls and young women are literate (vs. 35 per cent of young men); and, in Afghanistan where 70 per cent of the 3.5 million out of school children are girls, to mention just a few staggering, illustrative examples in the 21st century.

Yet, it has been demonstrated that better educated women have better incomes, and their children are better educated and in better health. The World Bank estimates that if every girl worldwide were to receive 12 years of quality-schooling, their lifetime earning could increase by $15 trillion to $30 trillion. Moreover, greater education equality between male and female students could decrease the likelihood of violent conflict by as much as 37 per cent. Thus, while the statistics clearly make the case for bold financial investments in girls’ education now, the lack of such investments is even costlier and its impact will haunt generations to come.

As a global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, ECW leverages funding to advance girls’ education in the humanitarian-development nexus. ECW’s recently published Gender Policy and Accountability Framework sets out our approach in translating our commitment to girls’ education in conflict- and crisis-affected countries into action. ECW has also taken affirmative action to ensure that 60 per cent of all students benefiting from ECW investments are girls and adolescent girls, while gender-sensitivity is integrated across all ECW-funded joint programmes.

Together with ECW stakeholders and partners on the ground, such as host-governments, strategic donor partners, UN agencies, civil society and private sector, we pursue gender equality and the empowerment of girls in emergencies and protracted crises through Sustainable Development Goal 4, since it is the foundation for all other SDGs.

Without a strong foundation values and aspirations tend to crumble. Can there be a more urgent mission than to invest in girls’ education to ensure a solid foundation for the Decade of Action?

The post Her Education Is Our Foundation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Yasmine Sherif is Director Education Cannot Wait

The post Her Education Is Our Foundation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Dawa Yangzum Sherpa

By Shusma Barali
KATHMANDU, Mar 12 2020 (IPS)

Nepal’s trekking industry has been dominated by male guides, but a growing number of women are entering the profession as their reputation for reliability spreads.

Female trekking guides are paid well, but guiding is seasonal work and women find they are not encouraged in it by their families and society at large. Many are forced to abandon their jobs after getting married.

One of Nepal’s seniormost women guides is Neena Singh Skambraks, who has 30 years of experience. She remembers taking her first group of Japanese trekkers to Dhulikhel when she was just 19.

“I had no work experience and family and friends made fun of me,” recalls Skambraks, whose career took off after she learnt to speak Japanese and gained experience taking clients to Annapurna and Everest Base Camps.

 

Neena Singh Skambraks

 

Maya Gurung owns her own company, Everest Women Treks Expedition, and is a climber herself, but it is a challenge for her trainees to stay on the job. “There is a general lack of support from families and disapproval of society,” she explains.

Gurung climbed Mt Everest in 2008 as part of the 10-member First Inclusive Women’s Sagarmatha Expedition, and realised then that there were very few women in the climbing industry. She set up her company not just as a business, but with the aim of training young trafficked women in mountain survival, self-defence and hospitality.

Love of mountains is in Dawa Yangzum Sherpa’s blood. She started training and working as a high-altitude guide ten years ago and climbed Mt Everest in 2012. Since she got an international mountain-guide certificate, she has been busier than ever with expeditions and with training aspiring women climbers.

Sherpa believes that women have the added responsibility of overcoming pressure from colleagues and customers to prove that they are capable of doing their jobs professionally.

Dolma Pakhrin

Dolma Pakhrin is executive director of Sherpa Encounter Treks and Tours, and says that female guides are in high demand from clients because they have built a reputation for reliability. “Women trekkers and older tourists who visit Nepal ask for female guides,” she adds.

“Disapproval from family, societal pressure, uncertainty about the future as well as the restriction on work after marriage means many female guides have not been able to stay on,” explains Maya Gurung.

Take Goma Thapa, who became a trekking guide against her parents’ wishes because they did not think it was a respectable job. “Even though I earn my own living, my family still tells me to go find a real job,” says Thapa, who was criticised for “wandering from place to place without getting married.”

Financially independent, Thapa has decided not to get married at all because it would mean quitting her job. She says: “It is our responsibility to set an example to the next generation to resist those who restrict women from working for career goals.”

 

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

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Due to the recent precautionary measures to combat the spread of the COVID19 taken by the Italian government, which will affect the movement of people in the whole country in the coming weeks, Seeds&Chips cannot take place as scheduled on May 18-20, 2020.

By PRESS RELEASE
MILAN, Italy, Mar 12 2020 (IPS-Partners)

In light of the ongoing public health emergency and in observance of the decree signed by the Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, on Monday, March 9th – enacting forced quarantine for the whole Italian country, while banning all public events until April, 3 – we have taken the tough decision to postpone the Sixth Edition of Seeds&Chips – The Global Food Innovation Summit which would have been taking place on May 18-20, 2020 at MiCo, Milano Congressi.

“This is an announcement that we would never have wished to write but, sadly, as a consequence of the ongoing public health risks caused by COVID19 and according to what is laid down in decree of The Presidency of the Council of Ministers, on March 9th, 2020 – imposing restrictions on people’s movements and banning all public events and initiatives to prevent the outbreak of the COVID2019 – we have decided to postpone our Summit” said Marco Gualtieri, Founder of Seeds&Chips.

As an organization working tirelessly to advance sustainable, healthy and prosperous societies around the world, the safety of all attendees, speakers, startups, companies and everyone else involved, is and must remain our top priority at the basis of our decision.

We are a global community of ChangeMakers, growing up in a fast-changing, complex and unpredictable world. This has allowed us to overcome all difficult challenges we meet on our way.

“The scenario has changed significantly over the past two weeks. Until the end of last week, we were cautiously optimistic that the Summit would go ahead, as planned. The rapid deteriorating public health situation in Italy, in particular in Milan and in our Region, has obliged us to concretely think about an alternative plan” Marco Gualtieri added.

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people who are working at Seeds&Chips to make our Summit possible every year, all moderators and speakers who put together their sessions with us, all attendees, journalists, sponsors and partners who have been with us to craft our event and helped us grow in the last years”.

Today is a sad day for Seeds&Chips – The Global Food Innovation Summit – Milan Edition, but we hope to be back soon with good news. In fact, we are evaluating the opportunity of the upcoming pre-COP26 in Milan at the end of September, to build a new exciting event, filled, as usual, with creativity, innovation and great passion.

***

Seeds&Chips – The Global Food Innovation Summit, founded by entrepreneur Marco Gualtieri, is the world’s flagship food innovation event. An exceptional platform to promote technologically advanced solutions and talents from all over the world. An exhibition area and conference schedule to present, tell and discuss themes, models and innovations that are changing the way food is produced, transformed, distributed, consumed and talked about.

——

For more information
Press Office Seeds&Chips, The Global Food Innovation Summit
Attilio Ruffo, Chief Marketing Communications Officer, e-mail: href=”mailto:attilio@sustainandability.com” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>attilio@sustainandability.com
Valentina Gasbarri, Communication and Social Media Manager, e-mail: valentina@seedsandchips.com ; phone: +39 345 970 0906

The post Seeds&Chips – The Global Food Innovation Summit 2020 postponed appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Due to the recent precautionary measures to combat the spread of the COVID19 taken by the Italian government, which will affect the movement of people in the whole country in the coming weeks, Seeds&Chips cannot take place as scheduled on May 18-20, 2020.

The post Seeds&Chips – The Global Food Innovation Summit 2020 postponed appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: UNDP

By Luis Felipe López-Calva
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 12 2020 (IPS)

History shows that in Latin America and the Caribbean, volatility is the norm and not the exception and that the development trajectories of their countries are not linear.

The region has significant links to China, economic relations have skyrocketed in recent decades, particularly through trade, foreign direct investment, and loans.

The COVID-19 outbreak is a new potential source of volatility and a threat to the macroeconomic stability of Latin America and the Caribbean.

While it is still too early to fully understand its impact on China’s growth, and how it will result in a slowdown in our region, what we know so far is that COVID-19 is spreading at an accelerated rate and has caused a disruption to China’s economy.

The virus has spread to more than 117 countries, with more than 117,335 confirmed cases. It is very likely that the impact on China’s growth and commodity prices, besides, represents a shock to our region.

Latin America and the Caribbean have significant links to China, economic relations have skyrocketed in recent decades, particularly through trade, foreign direct investment, and loans.

Trade with China increased from US$12 billion in 2000 to US$306 billion in 2018 and is already the second trading partner. Three years ago, it represented nine percent of total Latin American exports and 18.4 percent of total imports.

It is not the same in all countries, but, for example, China represents 28.1 percent of total Brazilian exports, as well as 10.5 percent of Argentina’s and 32.4 percent of Chile’s.

Although China mainly imports primary products such as minerals and metals, agricultural products and fuels, its exports consist of machines and electrical equipment, textiles, chemicals, and metals.

Its six main trading partners in the region are Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela, whose exports are concentrated in four products, which represent 75 percent of Latin American exports: copper, soy, crude oil, and iron ore.

Foreign direct investment and loans from China have increased over the past decade. Between 2005 and 2017, China represented five percent of total foreign direct investment–more than US$ 90 billion dollars.

According to the Inter-American Dialogue Public Policy Center, China has placed more than US$141 billion in loans since 2005, which represents more than the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Development Bank of Latin America combined.

Venezuela is, by far, the largest recipient of these loans, with an amount of US$67.2 billion dollars since 2005, followed by Brazil at US$28.9 billion), Ecuador at US$18.4 billion and Argentina at US$16.9 billion.

Although the full extent of the impact of the coronavirus will ultimately depend on how well the outbreak is contained, China’s growth in the first quarter of the year is expected to fall sharply and recover later in the year.

While China has estimated its 2020 growth at six percent several analysts have revised their projections downward to between five and even 4.5 percent.

These shocks will likely be translated into Latin America and the Caribbean through trade, commodity prices and foreign direct investment. In terms of trade, a slowdown in Chinese demand for goods driven by an economic slowdown will have a strong impact in countries such as Brazil, Chile, and Peru.

Net exporters Argentina, Colombia, and Ecuador will also feel the impact to a lesser extent. History shows that in Latin America and the Caribbean, volatility is the norm and not the exception, and that the development trajectories of their countries are not linear.

The volatility arose with this new coronavirus testing resilience here and in China, that ability to return to a predetermined path of development in the shortest possible time.

Beyond the panic that has been unleashed, COVID-19 is a call to resilience in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The post How will COVID-19 Affect Economies of Latin America & the Caribbean? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Luis Felipe López-Calva is UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean

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By Vani S. Kulkarni and Raghav Gaiha
PHILADELPHIA and NEW DELHI, Mar 11 2020 (IPS)

About 15% of the world’s population lives with some form of disability, of whom 2-4% experience significant difficulties in functioning. Disability is part of the human condition, and almost everyone will be temporarily or permanently impaired at some point in life, and those who survive into old age will experience increasing difficulties in functioning. Here the focus is on empirical validation of whether disabilities are associated with economic hardships through loss of employment and consequently impoverishment in rural India. The motivation stems from continuing neglect of health in the budgetary allocations –including the allocations for 2020-21.

Vani S. Kulkarni

For lack of more recent data-the NSS does not cover disabilities- we use the two rounds of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) panel data for 2005 and 2012. An intuitive methodology is used to overcome reverse causality between poverty and disability by comparing poverty outcomes in 2012 and prevalence of disability in 2005. Priority in time of the latter allows us to make unambiguous comparisons between poverty and disability in rural India. The sequence of empirical analyses summarised below is: (i) factors associated with disability; (ii) relationship between rural employment and disability; and (iii) between poverty/or a welfare metric and disability in rural India. The central argument resting on these building blocks is that disabilities are likely to rise; they are associated with loss of long duration employment; and thus with rise in poverty.

The prevaence of dsability is 9.70 % in the rural population in 2012. Of the disabled, more than half (51.3 %) suffer from 2-4 disabilities. Persistence is also largest in this range of disabilities (about 31 % remain in it between 2005-2012).

Shares of those suffering from 1 disability are largest in the age-group 31-50 years, followed by 51-60 years. In the case of 2-4 disabilities, the largest share is found among those 31-50 years old, 51-60 years old and then among the older group,61-70 years. Shares of those suffering from >4 disabilities rise from those 31-50 years old to 61-70 years and then decline. Within the youngest (15-30 years), about 98 % do not suffer from any disability which declines among older age-groups (just under 50 % among the oldest >70 years). In the older age-group (31-50 years), a vast majority do not suffer from any disability, and small proportions suffer from a single and multiple disabilities. A similar pattern is observed among those in the age-group, 51-60 years, with substantially lower proportions without any disability and larger proportions suffering from single and multiple disabilities. Among the older, 61-70 years, the proportion without disability is considerably lower, but those with single and multiple disabilities rise,with about 30 % suffering from >4 disabilities. As aging grows rapidly, the burden of disabilities is likely to surge. But at the same time, high prevalence of disability among a large segment of the working age group is likely to have deleterious employment effects.

Employment in rural areas is disaggregated into four categories: no employment, <240 hours in the previous year (ie, previous to 2012), part time employment >240 hours, and full time employment (at least 250 days and at least 2000 hours).

Raghav Gaiha

As those suffering from disabilities are a small fraction of the rural population, it is not surprising that in each duration of employment the share of those not suffering from any disability is markedly higher than that of the disabled. Specifically, their shares are higher in short and longer duration of employment while those of the disabled mere fractions. What is indeed striking is that among the disabled, the proportion of not employed is just under half, and markedly lower in part-time and full –time employment.

Instead of using a poverty cut-off (the World Bank uses several), we have used terciles of per capita expenditure (at constant prices). The bottom tercile denotes extremely poor, the next middle class and the third affluent.

As non-disabled households are a huge fraction, it is not surprising that their shares are highest in each tercile. In the non-disabled households, the proportions are almost equally distributed among the terciles. In the lowest disability group (<0.31) at the household level, the proportion in the first tercile is lowest, and highest in the second and third terciles. The highest disability group (>0. 60), however, offers a contrast. Their proportion in the lowest tercile is highest compared with other disability groups but slightly lower than the proportion in the second tercile. Their proportion in the third tercile not just within this disability group but also across all other disability groups is lowest. Thus highly disabled are largely confined to extreme poverty with most restricted prospects of becoming affluent through barriers to long duration employment (including but not limited to discriminatory practices in hiring the disabled).

Ironically, while the SDGs assign high priority to preventing and overcoming disability, officially adopted by 193 countries including India, the FM’s budget for 2020-21 is not just a missed opportunity for growth stimulus but almost cruel to those experiencing persistent health deprivation by cutting the health outlay.

(Vani S. Kulkarni is Lecturer in Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, USA; and Raghav Gaiha is (Hon.) Professorial Research Fellow, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, England, and Research Affiliate, Population Studies Centre, University of Pennsylvania, USA).

Adapted from: Disabled and Extremely Poor, The Hindu, 6 March, 2020.

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By Ida Karlsson
STOCKHOLM, Mar 11 2020 (IPS)

There has been a significant increase in arms exports from the United States and France, according to a new report. The flow of arms to the Middle East has increased, with Saudi Arabia being the world’s largest importer.

More than a third, 36 percent, of all weapons traded worldwide are now manufactured in the United States. Major arms transferred from the United States went to a total of 96 countries.

The largest exporters of weapons in the last five years were the United States, Russia, France, Germany and China. Together they accounted for 76 percent of all arms exports in 2015–19

Russia is still the second-largest arms exporter in the world but the country’s sales have dropped over the last five years. France has established itself as the third-biggest arms dealer, according to a report published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Sipri, which analyzed trends over the past five years.

The largest exporters of weapons in the last five years were the United States, Russia, France, Germany and China. Together they accounted for 76 percent of all arms exports in 2015–19.

France had the highest increase in arms exports among the top five countries. French arms exports reached their highest level since 1990, which accounted for 7.9 percent of total global arms exports.

US, German and Chinese arms exports also rose, while Russian arms exports fell. Russian arms exports accounted for 21 percent of the total arms exports.

”Russia has lost traction in India – the main long-term recipient of Russian major arms – which has led to a sharp decline in arms exports,” says Sipri researcher Alexandra Kuimova. 

With its increase in exports, the United States is widening the gap between itself and Russia.

The Sipri report shows that countries in the Middle East have been stepping up their weapons import by 61 percent compared to the years before, with Saudi Arabia being the biggest importer worldwide.

”Half of the US arms exports in the past five years went to the Middle East, and half of those went to Saudia Arabia,” says Pieter D. Wezeman, senior researcher at Sipri.

All in all, European countries accounted for more than a quarter of the global arms trade. International arms trade grew by more than 5 percent between 2015 and 2019, according to the report.

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A polio vaccinator administers the oral polio vaccine to a child in Pakistan. The country remains one of three in the world where polio is yet to be eradicated. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan, Mar 11 2020 (IPS)

Dr. Rana Muhammad Safdar, the coordinator for Pakistan’s National Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication, has sleepless nights thinking about what needs to be done for his country to eradicate polio.

“Not only me but the entire team is having sleepless nights thinking how best and how quickly we can reach the finish line,” he told IPS. “It’s always painful to hear a child getting paralysed for life from a vaccine-preventable disease.”

Last month, over 39 million children under the age of five were vaccinated across Pakistan. And a little more than 180,000 children were missed because their parents refused to have them vaccinated. While the number of missed children is marginal in comparison to those who were vaccinated, it has caused concern.

“The proportion of children missed in the last two campaigns due to refusals is very small (0.5 percent) but where clustered these can still provide the virus with the opportunity to survive longer and re-infect areas that we clean through so much hard work,” Safdar lamented.

The Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme began 26 years ago with the “largest surveillance network” in the world — an army of 260,000 polio vaccinators going door to door to administer oral polio vaccine (OPV) to children under five. Yet the country is only one of three in the world, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria (Nigeria has not reported any wild polio virus cases for a year, however there have been cases of vaccine-derived poliovirus in the West African nation), that has not eradicated the virus.

Last year, for the first time, Pakistan reported 25 positive Wild Poliovirus 1 (WPV1) cases across the country. Since the start of the year 23 new cases have been reported, with more expected to be recorded later this year.

The issue is so sensitive that every small gain by anti-vaccine groups takes the vaccination campaign two giant steps back. A video shared on Twitter last year, claiming that polio drops had some toxic ingredient making children sick, went viral and led to a round of refusals for months afterwards.

The reason for refusals include the same misconceptions that vaccination teams have been facing the past several years and include unfounded beliefs that; the programme is a western-funded campaign with some hidden agenda, polio drops are given to Muslim children to cause infertility and to stem the population of the Muslim community, it has some ingredients that are forbidden for Muslims, and that it causes paralysis.

Abrar Khan, a 29-year-old teacher, contracted polio when was just three. He’s no public health specialist, but Khan has an encyclopedia of knowledge about the virus. Five years ago he was a polio ambassador with the government’s Polio Eradication Initiative.

And he still makes it a point to visit homes in his locality of Baldia Town, in Karachi’s District West, that are marked by polio workers with an “R” because the family refused to have their children vaccinated. “I tell them it is their right to refuse; I try and convince them but even if they say yes to me, I have no way of knowing if they got their child vaccinated,” he told IPS in a phone interview.

He said people were more concerned about the other more common diseases their children where battling with, as well as the failing healthcare system. “One way to win these people over would be to provide better quality healthcare,” said Khan.

Swaleha Ahmed*, who asked for her real name not to printed because she holds a senior position within the polio programme, told IPS that if the government were to provide for the needs of young children, including paying for their healthcare, education and basic needs, “all those parents who hide their kids when polio workers visit their homes will come forward and get their kids registered to avail this childcare fund”. 

Ahmed, who has been with the programme for some 17 years, pointed out that because the campaign was so old, complacency has set in. And as parents continue to refuse to all their children to vaccinated, it was discovered that some vaccinators in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), where the virus originated and is circulating, were wrongly marking refusals as having been vaccinated.

“It happened in KP in the very remote areas where these workers have to walk miles in knee deep snow only to be told by families that they do not want their kids to be administered drops,” she said.

But the programme is trying to overcome this.

“We are telling polio workers that if they get refusals, it will not make a dent on their daily wages nor will they have to go again as someone else will be sent in their place if they face resistance,” said Ahmed. “They are also warned that if they are found to fake the process and mark the kids without first giving them drops, they can lose their jobs.”

But there is growing fatigue for this campaign from the side of parents as well. Nasik Abbas,who works as a supervisor in Tarnol, some 20 km from the federal capital, Islamabad, has been involved in the polio campaign for over 13 years. “Parents are now annoyed by the regular knocking at their door,” he told IPS.

Hifza Tahir, who works in Islamabad’s Bahria Town has been facing another dilemma. “They turn me away saying they will get their kids vaccinated from the hospital.”   

Ahmed said the working hours and ways of working for polio vaccinators, some 62 percent of whom are women, needed to be reevaluated.

“We should not bind these workers by time and attendance. We are dealing with kids and their parents. So we should give the workers flexi times in which they must cover the required number of homes,” said Ahmed. In some cases, she said, it would make more sense to visit the house later in the day when the decision maker, usually a father, was home from work, or early morning before the kids went to school. 

Ahmed, however, admitted that despite the challenges the polio programme has come a long way. “Today, the polio workers are better trained to deal with parents, have an ID card to prove their identity, are provided security and everything is documented,” she said.

The campaigns will continue with another round of special vaccination in high risk districts this month followed by a nationwide campaign in mid-April, said Safdar.

“Our efforts from December 2019 till April 2020 will push the virus back to 2017-18 levels and from thereon we will further push it towards zero polio by focusing on routine immunisation, improving basic health services, malnutrition as well as ensuring safe water and sanitation,” he said.

Related Articles

• As Donors Ramp up Polio Funding, Worries of Comeback Persist

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Secretary-General António Guterres poses with women who comprise part of the leadership team, including Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed (centre left) and Chef de Cabinet Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 11 2020 (IPS)

The United Nations claims it has reached one of its primary goals relating to women’s rights in the world body: gender parity at senior levels of management and in the highest echelons of the Organization.

Leading the way, besides the UN Secretariat, is UN Women, ‘the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women’, created by the UN General Assembly back in July 2010.

Katja Pehrman, UN Women’s Senior Advisor on Gender Parity and the Focal Point for Women in the UN System, told IPS that 85% of UN Women at senior management (at D1 level or higher) are female.

“Achieving gender parity at the top level is indeed a major accomplishment and takes place for the first time in UN’s history,” she pointed out, as the UN commemorated International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8.

Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, “is truly leading by example, and this achievement comes at an opportune time as we are celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, where the goal of equal representation of women and men was established”.

As the Secretary-General also has made clear, she pointed out, the parity agenda is not merely about numbers but also about transforming the organizational culture. Only that can guarantee sustainable results.

As part of its strong mandate, and through the network of 350 Gender Focal Points, UN-Women helps to guide the UN system on how to build a more inclusive and equal work environment in support of gender parity, she noted.

“This happens through the Enabling Environment Guidelines for the UN system which were published last year and include recommendations on standards of conduct, family-friendly policies, recruitments and flexible working arrangements,” she declared.

Florencia Soto Nino-Martinez, UN Associate Spokesperson, told IPS “We have full parity in (the ranks of) Under Secretaries-General (USGs) and Assistant Secretaries-General (ASGs) in the Secretariat and the Funds and Programmes – 90 men and 90 women”.

“This represents a first step for full gender parity in 2028 at all levels of the UN which remains our basic objectives,” she said.

In the UN hierarchy, the Secretary-General is the chief administrative officer (CAO), followed by the Deputy Secretary-General, Under-Secretaries-General (USGs), Assistant Secretaries-General (ASGs) and Directors (D-1 level and higher).

Guterres told delegates on March 9 that in January this year “we achieved gender parity – 90 women and 90 men – in the ranks of our full-time senior leadership, two years ahead of the target that I set at the start of my tenure, and we have a roadmap for parity at all levels in the coming years”.

Still, he complained that “women in parliaments are still outnumbered three-to-one by men, women still earn just 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, and unpaid care and domestic work remain stubbornly feminized the world over”.

In some areas, he said, progress towards gender equality has stalled or even gone into reverse.

“Some countries have rolled back laws that protect women from violence; others are reducing civic space; still others are pursuing economic and immigration policies that indirectly discriminate against women,” Guterres said.

Outlining some of the steps he plans to take in the future, the Secretary-General said: “I have reminded the entire senior leadership team about the special measures we have in place to advance parity throughout the system”.

If a male candidate is hired in an office or department that has not yet achieved gender parity, and where an equally competent female candidate had been identified, an explanation must be sent to my office detailing the reasoning for the decision prior to final selection being made, he declared.

Ian Richards, President of the 60,000-strong Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA), told IPS the biggest problem remains the low representation of women in the field.

“Women certainly face greater challenges than men in certain field locations, particularly regarding access to relevant healthcare, and there is a lot the UN can do to improve the field working environment,” he said.

But the Secretary-General’s proposal– now before the General Assembly– to only fire men during downsizing exercises is not the way forward and is legally and ethically dubious, he added.

There needs to be a change in how the field is marketed.

“There are plenty of women in the field making successful careers at every grade yet the overall impression remains that the field is mainly for men.”

He said women in the field need to be held up as role models so that others follow. Human Resources needs to listen to their experiences and understand what the challenges are and how they can be overcome.

Aside from having better diversity on the frontline, said Richards, a key reason to have more women in the field is because those who rise to the top of the UN are more likely to have passed through the field on their way up.

Looking at it from another angle, a surefire way to get better gender equality in the field would be to make it compulsory for all staff who want to get to senior positions to take up at least one prior assignment in the field, with no opt-puts according to gender.

“But it wouldn’t be to the taste of everyone,” declared Richards.

The United Nations-wide Gender Parity Strategy, launched in September 2017, sets targets for equal representation of women and men, with specific commitments leadership and accountability; senior management; recruitment and retention; creating an enabling environment; and field operations.

Maria Fernanda Espinosa of Ecuador, only the fourth female to be elected as President of the General Assembly in its 74-year history of overwhelmingly male Presidents. Credit: United Nations

While the UN secretariat and the UN’s affiliated agencies have made progress on gender parity and gender empowerment, the 193 member states have lagged far behind.

In its 74-year history, the General Assembly has elected only four women as presidents – Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India (1953), Angie Brooks of Liberia (1969), Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa of Bahrain (2006) and Maria Fernanda Espinosa of Ecuador (2018)

And that’s four out of 74 Presidents, 70 of whom were men.

The 15-member Security Council’s track record is probably worse because it has continued to elect men as UN Secretaries-General, rubber-stamped by the General Assembly.

And that’s zero out of nine male UN chiefs (Trygve Lie of Norway, Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden, U. Thant of Burma (now Myanmar), Kurt Waldheim of Austria, Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru, Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, Kofi Annan of Ghana, Ban Ki-moon of South Korea and, currently, Antonio Guterres of Portugal).

You can find more about the UN’s gender parity strategy at the UN here: https://reform.un.org/content/gender-parity-strategy

A few additional sources of information:

• • UN Women produced the biennial Secretary-General’s Report on the Improvement in the Status of Women. Available:

https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2019/07/improvement-in-the-status-of-women-in-the-united-nations-system-2019

• • In 2019 UN Women produced the ‘Enabling environment guidelines for the United Nations system’ in support of the ‘Secretary-General’s system-wide strategy on gender parity’. Available:

https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2019/02/supplementary-guidance-on-the-enabling-environment-guidelines-for-the-united-nations-system

• • The recent UN resolution A/RES/74/128, ‘Follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women and full implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcome of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly’, reiterated the political commitment to gender parity, including recognizing the role of UN Women and calling on the UN system to use the Enabling Environment Guidelines (see especially para 30-23). Available:

https://undocs.org/en/A/RES/74/128

• • The goal of the equitable distribution of positions between men and women at the UN Headquarters was enshrined in the Beijing Platform for Action (see especially 913c). Available:

https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2015/01/beijing-declaration

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

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

The US is currently still in a stock market bubble which, if history is any guide, is likely to end, as argued by Thomas Palley. While President Trump would, of course, like to sustain it to strengthen his November re-election prospects, the Covid19 black swan is already showing signs of pricking the bubble

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Meanwhile, US business investment has declined for many years. As shares of GDP, corporate profits or even market capitalization, such investment has been in decline for at least four decades. Clearly, ‘neo-liberal’ economic policies have failed to decades-long trend.

Financialization ‘unreal’
Julius Krein has underscored some dangerous financialization trends. Global stocks are now worth almost US$90 trillion, more than world output. Including equities, bank deposits, (government plus private) debt securities, etc., the total value of financial assets rose from US$118 trillion in 2004 to over US$200 trillion in 2010, more than double world output then.

Half of Americans own no stocks, while just ten per cent own over 80 per cent of equities, and the top one per cent has almost 40 per cent. With no increase in real investments, more funds in financial markets have served to worsen wealth inequality.

‘Capital returns’ in 1980, in the form of share buybacks and dividends, were about two per cent of US GDP, when real investment was close to 15 per cent. By 2016, real investment had fallen to around 12 per cent of output, while capital returns had risen to about 6 per cent.

Ironically, in an age of ostensible globalization, rising capital returns has become increasingly national in some economies, rather than involving cross-border capital flows, which fell from US$12.4 trillion in 2007 to US$4.3 trillion, i.e., by 65%.

The rise of finance, at the expense of the real economy, over the last four decades has slowed productive investments and economic growth, ending the post-war Keynesian Golden Age quarter century. Meanwhile, as profit rates declined, debt has increased.

Inflating stock market bubbles
Since the 1980s, as Palley has shown, ‘engineered’ US stock market bubbles have obscured lessons from preceding busts, explaining them away as Schumpeterian creative destruction. While each new bubble may retrieve some of the preceding loss, it never fully restores earlier economic gains.

Investors buy stock, expecting to sell at higher prices. Such purchases push up share prices, drawing new investors into the price appreciation spiral. The share price bubble continues to inflate until faith in ever rising prices ends, with the bubble imploding when enough buyers start selling.

Each new stock market bubble seduces share market punters to invest ever more, to gain even more, while obscuring public understanding of the economic malaise. And when prices fall, many shareowners hold on to their stocks, hoping for prices to recover, to make more, or at least, to cut losses.

Thus, stock market dynamics resemble Ponzi frauds, with earlier investors profiting from new investments. Handsome gains draw in more investments until even these are insufficient to meet rising expectations. Changes in market sentiments can slow the bubble’s growth, or cause reversals, even collapse.

Along the way, all investors feel richer, triggering wealth effects and market exuberance, typically irrational. When downturns occur, many are too embarrassed to admit to losses, especially if they have induced others, relatives and friends, to invest.

Thus, the dynamics of stock market speculative bubbles are akin to a collectively self-inflicted fraud as most retail investors lack the ‘inside’ information needed to make sound portfolio investment judgements.

Promoting stock market addiction
The US Federal Reserve’s apparent commitment to the stock market since Alan Greenspan was in the chair, and its growing, albeit varying influences on financial asset prices has been seen as giving the green light to speculation, enabling serial asset price bubbles over at least three decades.

Despite its balanced official mandate, unsurprisingly, US Fed leadership is widely believed to favour Wall Street, while mainstream economists view asset price inflation as the unavoidable price of overcoming recession, sustaining economic growth and the bubble’s wealth effect.

Unlike the Roosevelt era, when economic policy and war achieved full employment and improved labour conditions, decision-making in recent decades has been seen as better serving capital, with the bias justified by insisting that the interests of capital and labour are ‘joined at the hip’.

With 401K (a US employer sponsored retirement savings plan allowing employees to invest a portion of their salaries before taxes) and other investments in the stock market, widespread ‘middle class’ addiction to stock price inflation has also been economically and politically self-deluding.

But despite the sustained US stock market bubble after the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, the US ‘middle class’ continues to be economically squeezed, with relatively few having benefited significantly.

This stock market addiction is rooted in an illusion promoted by Wall Street, their enablers in the public authorities, and their cheerleaders among mainstream economists and the business media who identify the notion of shared prosperity with stock market indices.

But the history and dynamics of stock market bubbles imply that they simply cannot be the basis for shared prosperity, as suggested by all too many emerging markets’ governments. Sadly, wishful thinking to the contrary perpetuates the mass delusion promoted and perpetuated by those who stand to gain most.

Stock market bubbles serve to obscure the dangers of neoliberal financialization for the economy. Demystification of obfuscating narratives can not only improve public understanding of the problems, dangers and challenges involved, but also inform the reforms needed to address them.

The post CORRECTED VERSION: Stock Market Bubble Threat appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Pîxabay.

By Esther Ngumbi and Brian Lovett
ILLINOIS, United States, Mar 11 2020 (IPS)

Institutions of higher education have a responsibility to lead by example and to provide current, high-quality information to the people and communities that support them. This responsibility is no clearer than during a public health and information crisis like the one presented by this novel coronavirus.

State and local governments in particular should be able to rely on Universities for guidance on protective evidence-based precautionary measures, whether it’s cancelling events, closing schools or formulating public health postings.

The University of Washington officially announced that it would cancel its in-person classes due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak that has affected more than 70 people in the state. Some 50,000 students are expected to take their finals and attend classes remotely.

How prepared is our education system to deal with coronavirus? It is undeniable that the educational system of today is built on a foundation of in-person community/group-based learning. How can we ensure that the rush to complete this transition to online courses does not exacerbate barriers and leave students behind?

Universities are faced with the sobering reality that the virus will continue to spread, buoyed by a botched national testing and appearance-focused denial from the top down. Across the nation, many universities are formulating plans to follow a similar approach, including developing contingency plans like moving classes online, canceling travel, and issuing websites, warnings and guidelines on how to deal with this novel virus.

We are not the only country preparing in this way and already globally, nearly 300 million students are out of school due to precautions over the spread of coronavirus, and this number is expected to continue to rise.

As we read the news and see the alerts on campuses in particular, with one of us being an Assistant Professor who is teaching an in-person class, it is starting to sink in that this class may soon have to move online. I realize that anytime soon, my students may not be able to attend in class in person. Professors are already exchanging tips and resources on how to transition courses online.

Some courses may weather the transition fine, but we still wonder how prepared is our education system to deal with coronavirus? It is undeniable that the educational system of today is built on a foundation of in-person community/group-based learning. How can we ensure that the rush to complete this transition in the face of a pandemic does not exacerbate barriers and leave students behind?

What does this new normal mean to the underprivileged, especially to people of color and underrepresented minorities, who may not have access to the internet to attend or listen to lectures, should in-person classes be moved online?

Unfortunately, services, such as free access to library computers and other typical university technology support will also be inaccessible to prevent the spread of the viruses.

Small business-as-usual tweaks to a curriculum will not be tenable solutions. This challenge requires solutions that consider underprivileged students first when planning transitions away from the traditional classroom, and this transition must be supported by intense empathy for students.

Like any new normal, the anxiety that comes along is high. It is high for students, faculty members, administrators, and university chancellors. We must recognize that, like us, our students are scared for themselves, for their vulnerable loved ones and for the continuity of their education.

As important, applicable and exciting as we all believe our classes are, we need to adjust our deadlines and expectations in line with our new reality. No line in a syllabus is worth upholding if it will increase student anxiety during a growing global pandemic.

The truth is, there are more questions than answers.

One thing for sure is that no matter the outcome, this moment will shape our education system. Like any change, new models by which education and classes are delivered to students will arise.

Those with power in academia, from a university president to a teaching assistant, have an opportunity to lead us through this crisis with a vision that at its core accessible and empathetic. These decisions cannot be made lightly, as what we do now will certainly shake the foundation upon which our educational system is built upon.

 

Dr. Esther Ngumbi (@EstherNgumbi) is an Assistant Professor at the Entomology Department and African American Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She is a Senior Food security fellow with the Aspen Institute.

Dr. Brian Lovett (@lovettbr) is a recent PhD from the University of Maryland Department of Entomology. His work has contributed to the advancement of transgenic mosquito-killing fungi for malaria prevention.

The post Is Our Academic System Ready for a New Coronavirus Normal? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Victims say places like beauty salons have become hunting grounds for fixers, middlemen in sex and human trafficking. Courtesy: Ignatius Banda

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Mar 10 2020 (IPS)

Similo Ntuli* looks like a ordinary, fashion-savvy woman in her twenties. As a hairdresser and beauty therapist in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, Ntuli has her finger on the pulse of the latest styles and trends. But she also has, what she admits, are dark secrets.

“I have become suspicious of young rich women whose source of income cannot be explained,” she says. And she knows what she is talking about.

“I have been to Dubai (in 2018) where I was invited to work for some rich guys but what I saw made me think twice about how I want to make my money,” she tells IPS on condition of anonymity .

“The grossest sexual fantasies you can imagine can get a young girl money that is unthinkable here in Zimbabwe,” she says.

Ntuli says she was introduced to contacts or clients in the Near East by “a fixer” in Bulawayo. But she says she had to leave Dubai in a hurry after the demands to perform “despicable sex acts” proved unbearable.

Lobbyists in Zimbabwe are concerned by what they see as the weak enforcement of the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, also known as the Palermo Protocol. It came  into effect on Dec. 25, 2003 and seeks to prevent, suppress and punish the trafficking of persons.

Zimbabwe may be a signatory, along with 184 members of the U.N.,  but activists here say that enforcement efforts against organised human and sex trafficking remain inadequate as the true factors driving this are not being addressed.

Zimbabwe is facing its worst economic crisis in decades and activists say that the lack of safety nets, awareness campaigns and legal recourse for exploited women has continued to expose them to exploitation.

“The rate at which foreigners come to the country exposes the young women to trafficking. Recently, Zimbabwe adopted the mantra that it is ‘open for business’ and potential investors in their quest to partner with Zimbabwe have been frequenting the country,” Fadzai Traquino, national director of Women in Law in Southern Africa, tells IPS.

She explains that because of the current economic climate perpetrators are able to take advantage of vulnerable young women, offering them “job opportunities”, explaining that those women who accept such opportunities often do so out of desperation.

“And so it becomes difficult to curb the pandemic as women are opting for these opportunities to secure financial and economic security,” Traquino says.

And, as Ntuli points out, there remain gaps in how human and sex trafficking crimes can be reported.

“I think people, including the police in Zimbabwe, have become cynical. I think its because of the economic crisis. Someone who I told my story to asked what I thought I was doing going to Dubai. I cannot even approach law enforcement officers on this matter as I feel I know what their reaction would be,” Ntuli says.

In 2019, the United States State Department issued the Trafficking in Persons Report noted that Zimbabwe “does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking”, while local researchers say more needs to be done if young women such as Ntuli are to come forward and report cases for justice to be served. Ntuli admits that she is unaware if there is any legal recourse open to her as a victim of sex trafficking.

“Educating vulnerable people about human trafficking for sexual exploitation is one piece to addressing the problem. As the Palermo Protocol mandates, governments need to deal with the root causes of trafficking for sexual exploitation, and these are grounded in gender inequality and discrimination,” says Tsitsi Matekaire, the global lead of End Sex Trafficking at Equality Now, an NGO that advocates for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women and girls.

“Governments must ensure that women and girls are supported to reach their potential, free from the impact of discrimination and poverty, and create more equal societies so that they are not vulnerable to sex trafficking in the first place,” Matekaire tells IPS.

“Governments must ensure that victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation are properly supported to rebuild their lives after the traumatic experience, whether they have been trafficked within the country or where trafficked to another country,” she adds.

The International Criminal Police Organisation’s (INTERPOL) Vulnerable Communities unit has noted the importance of training local enforcement agents on how to conduct victim interviews in cases of human trafficking and child sexual exploitation.

In responses to IPS’ enquires, the police organisation used the example of a successful INTERPOL-assisted raid of sex trafficking in West Africa in January, where local police were provided with specialised training to bust a trafficking ring. 

While Zimbabwe has made efforts to address human and sex trafficking, Traquino says more still needs to be done.

“The Government of Zimbabwe has demonstrated overall increasing efforts to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is not has not fully reached the required level of commitment in tackling human trafficking at large,” she tells IPS.

“There is more that can be done to conscientise young economically vulnerable woman. The state has not taken advantage of the platforms that the youth are mostly found at, particularly Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and various other social media platforms. Sensitising young women about the risks of trafficking on the [social media] platforms that they frequently visit can be effective as the message reaches them directly,” Traquino says.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ), which actively supports the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 8 of decent work and economic growth, has focused much of its work on eliminating modern slavery. It acknowledges that the “legal system is failing — human trafficking is illegal everywhere but it is growing everywhere”.

“As a consequence something has to change — we need new laws — governments are obliged to protect their citizens,” GSN states.

Gillian Chinzete, senior programmes officer with the Harare-based NGO Girls and Women Empowerment Network, also believes African governments and respective legislatures must be pressured to act.

“This will help in ensuring effective implementation of policies,” she tells IPS.

“Communities have little or no information about human trafficking. Human trafficking cases are hidden from the general communities,” Chinzete adds.

*Not her real name.

Related Articles

• Indonesia’s Laws Ineffective against Human Trafficking
• Zimbabwe’s Thin Line between Child Smuggling and Child Trafficking

The post Current Laws Cannot Protect Zimbabwe’s Women from Sex Trafficking appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Young women in Zimbabwe are becoming increasingly vulnerable to sex trafficking because of the country’s economic climate and because of the lack of enforcement of international legal instruments.

The post Current Laws Cannot Protect Zimbabwe’s Women from Sex Trafficking appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Government of Kenya, the European Union & the United Nations unite to accelerate Kenya’s Big 4 development agenda and the SDGs. Credit: Barbara @EUinKenya

By PRESS RELEASE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 10 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The United Nations, European Union and its Member States, and Government of Kenya met, for the first time, to explore ways they can combine efforts to best support the Government of Kenya in achieving its national priorities as outlined in Vision2030, MTPIII and the Big Four agenda.

Over a two-day retreat in Gigiri, Nairobi, the EU and UN committed to:

– working towards a common framework for regular engagements with the Government of Kenya in support of common priority areas such as the devolution process, digitalization agenda, public private partnerships, support for transition to a sustainable green economy and youth and job creation, ensuring that no-one is left behind;
– put measures in place to further harmonize technical assistance to the Government of Kenya in support of national development priorities;
– support Kenya in establishing an Integrated National Financing Framework and rally partners for the sustainable financing of Kenya’s development agenda, including the Big Four agenda.

Mr António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, has stated that there are serious threats to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the United Nations, especially its development system, must be effectively reformed in order to be able to limit the impact of those threats. The reform of the United Nations development system involves a set of far-reaching changes in the way the UN development system works to help countries around the world in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The EU, and its Member States are strong supporters of this UN reform in order to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of UN development cooperation with Kenya, and all around the world.

Siddharth Chatterjee, UN Resident Coordinator to Kenya stated at the retreat: “As the UN Reforms are rapidly taking shape, we will be defined by how we address the SDGs through a “business unusual” approach. We have to innovate, take risk, leverage and reinforce each other to succeed. That is at the heart of the UN’s repositioning agenda. We are deeply thankful for the strong partnership with the EU and its Member States, and would like to applaud the Government of Kenya for its leadership of this important agenda”

H.E Simon Mordue, EU Ambassador to Kenya, praised the government’s commitment and the UNs’ reform efforts thus far, adding that “We need to act as one, which means enhancing and fully exploiting the full range of synergies of the EU, UN and indeed the Kenyan government and moving to financing coupled with sustained policy dialogue. This will allow us to unleash the full potential of our development support for the benefit of Kenya and her population”.

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About the UN in Kenya: Since 1963 the Government of Kenya and the United Nations are partnering to spur the Country’s social economic development. In 1996, the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON) was established, becoming one of four major UN office sites and the UN’s headquarters in Africa. Kenya has been a top advocate of Agenda 2030 and was a member of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons who advised the United Nations Secretary General on the global development framework beyond 2015, adopted as Agenda 2030 including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Today there are 23 UN agencies operating from Nairobi, which are delivering as one support to Kenya in line with the USD1.9 billion UN Development Cooperation Framework (2018-2022) which was developed under the co-leadership of the Government and UN in consultation with key stakeholders. For more information: www.kenya.un.org/

About the EU in Kenya: The EU and its member states are a major development supporter of Kenya with over 4.5 billion euro in development assistance to Kenya for the period 2018-2022. EU and its Member States are strong supporters of UN reform in order to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the UN’s development cooperation with Kenya, and all around the world, in order to ensure the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are attained. For more information: https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/kenya/1376/about-eu-delegation-kenya_en

The post The United Nations, European Union and its Member States take strides to enhance their strategic partnership to help Kenya accelerate the attainment of the SDGs appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Slash-and-burn clearing in the rainforest in the state of Acre, next to Amazonas. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

By N Chandra Mohan
NEW DELHI, Mar 10 2020 (IPS)

Brazil is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of coffee, sugar, beef, soya, cotton, and ethanol but due to its environmental and water footprint it ranks low on sustainability. Brazilian agriculture’s contribution to the loss of rainforest is a case in point – the Amazon lost as much as 3,465 square miles of forest due to fires last year – triggering widespread international outrage over the lax environment policies that allowed all of this to happen. Its large commercial cattle herd is also a source of greenhouse gas emissions. Brazil’s challenge is to make its model of agricultural development more environment-friendly.

For sustainable agriculture, Brazil has a score of 64.2 — out of a scale of 0 to 100, where 100 represents the greatest progress towards meeting a performance indicator — that gives it a lowly rank of 51 out of 67 countries in the third edition of the Food Sustainability Index (FSI), developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition in Italy. In Latin America, Argentina, Mexico and Colombia have higher scores than Brazil. The FSI is based on the three pillars of sustainable agriculture, nutritional challenges and food waste. Being an agricultural powerhouse therefore hardly implies greater sustainability.

Brazil’s agricultural sector grew rapidly – an average of 4.1 percent per annum between 1991 and 2015 — by extending the arable land frontier and through productivity improvements. Net forested area diminished by almost one million hectares between 2010 and 2015 according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development- Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations’ Agricultural Outlook 2019-28. The sector is dominated by large commercial and export-oriented enterprises. Scale economies contributed to lower production costs and a leading position in global trade. Brazil thus became the world’s third largest exporter of agricultural products, with exports reaching $79.3 billion in 2017.

N Chandra Mohan

Productivity changes are integrally related to the role of government agricultural research institutions, sometimes through collaboration with the private sector, like the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, EMBRAPA. For sub-level FSI indicators of sustainable agriculture like public support to R&D, Brazil is among the top 5 out of 67 countries. EMBRAPA played a significant role in transforming agriculture in the midwest or Cerrado region by introducing technologies from abroad like nitrogen fixation and no-tillage practices and livestock breeds and adapting them locally to produce more cotton, soybeans, maize and cattle.

As a leading agricultural power, the Brazilian model has lessons for the South, especially for countries relying on small holder farms to feed their growing population. Although large scale agribusiness enterprises dominate, the 4.4 million family farms who occupy less than 25 percent of agricultural land are still important in Brazil, thanks to several institutional measures. Comprehensive family farming programmes provided credit, insurance and marketing support. Family farms also contributed in part to school feeding programmes in the country. From 1999 to 2018, there was also a dedicated Ministry of Agrarian Development for family farmers.

The successful performance of Brazil’s family farms is reflected in the fact that they are responsible for 70 percent of domestic food consumption. They account for 87 percent of cassava, 70 percent of beans, 34 percent of rice and 21 percent of wheat that is consumed in Brazil. Family farms also account for 60 percent of milk and 50 percent of poultry (http://www.brazil.gov.br/about-brazil/news/2018/06/brazilian-family-farmers-are– the-worlds-8th-largest-food-producer). With annual revenues of $55.2 billion, the sector would rank Brazil 8th in the world in food production if the country relied only on family farmers for supply.

For such reasons, Brazil’s agricultural expertise has many takers in the South. Brazil’s president was the chief guest at India’s Republic Day celebrations on January 26 this year. Several agreements were signed during his visit that included collaboration for ethanol production, sharing of best practices in crop and livestock health, deepening cooperation in agriculture research between the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and EMBRAPA, setting up cold chains and terminal markets for fruits and vegetables with state- of-art facilities, among others, according to the India-Brazil joint statement issued during the Brazilian President’s visit.

India is also keen to set up farmer producer organisations that will have collective strength for better access to quality inputs, technology, credit and marketing to improve small farmer incomes in various states. In this regard, it can benefit from the highly successful Microbacias 11 programme in the Brazilian state of Sao Paolo. In fact, couple of years ago, a team from India did visit Sao Paolo to learn from Microbacias 11 to improve the competitiveness of smallholder farmers in the state of Jharkhand as part of a South-South Exchange Programme. The upshot is that while Brazil must respond to climate change imperatives to make its agriculture more sustainable, as a leading global player it obviously has much to offer countries of the South.

(N Chandra Mohan is an economics and business commentator)

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Mar 10 2020 (IPS)

The US is currently still in a stock market bubble which, if history is any guide, is likely to end, perhaps soon due to Covid19. President Trump would, of course, like to sustain it to strengthen his November re-election prospects.

Meanwhile, US business investment has declined for many years. As shares of GDP, corporate profits or even market capitalization, such investment has been in decline for at least four decades. Clearly, ‘neo-liberal’ economic policies have failed to decades-long trend.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Financialization ‘unreal’
Although focused on the US, William Lazonick’s seminal 2014 Harvard Business Review article, Profits without Prosperity, and Lazonick and Shin’s new book, Predatory Value Extraction: How the Looting of the Business Corporation Became the US Norm and How Sustainable Prosperity Can Be Restored offer invaluable insights into investment trends with implications for much of the world.

Julius Krein has helpfully reviewed recent US trends confirming the Lazonick concerns. Global stocks are now worth almost US$90 trillion, more than world output. Including equities, bank deposits, (government plus private) debt securities, etc., the total value of financial assets rose from US$118 trillion in 2004 to over US$200 trillion in 2010, more than double world output then.

Half of Americans own no stocks, while just ten per cent own over 80 per cent of equities, and the top one per cent has almost 40 per cent. With no increase in real investments, more funds in financial markets have served to worsen wealth inequality.

‘Capital returns’ in 1980, in the form of share buybacks and dividends, were about two per cent of US GDP, when real investment was close to 15 per cent. By 2016, real investment had fallen to around 12 per cent of output, while capital returns had risen to about 6 per cent.

Ironically, in an age of ostensible globalization, rising capital returns has become increasingly national in some economies, rather than involving cross-border capital flows, which fell from US$12.4 trillion in 2007 to US$4.3 trillion, i.e., by 65%.

The rise of finance, at the expense of the real economy, over the last four decades has slowed productive investments and economic growth, ending the post-war Keynesian Golden Age quarter century. Meanwhile, as profit rates declined, debt has increased.

Ponzi-like stock market dynamics
Since the 1980s, ‘engineered’ US stock market bubbles have obscured lessons from preceding busts, explaining them away as Schumpeterian creative destruction. While each new bubble may retrieve some of the preceding loss, it never fully restores earlier economic gains.

Investors buy stock, expecting to sell at higher prices. Such purchases push up share prices, drawing new investors into the price appreciation spiral. The share price bubble continues to inflate until faith in ever rising prices ends, with the bubble imploding when enough buyers start selling.

Each new stock market bubble seduces share market punters to invest ever more, to gain even more, while obscuring public understanding of the economic malaise. And when prices fall, many shareowners hold on to their stocks, hoping for prices to recover, to make more, or at least, to cut losses.

Thus, stock market dynamics resemble Ponzi frauds, with earlier investors profiting from new investments. Handsome gains draw in more investments until even these are insufficient to meet rising expectations. Changes in market sentiments can slow the bubble’s growth, or cause reversals, even collapse.

Along the way, all investors feel richer, triggering wealth effects and market exuberance, typically irrational. When downturns occur, many are too embarrassed to admit to losses, especially if they have induced others, relatives and friends, to invest.

Thus, the dynamics of stock market speculative bubbles are akin to a collectively self-inflicted fraud as most retail investors lack the ‘inside’ information needed to make sound portfolio investment judgements.

Promoting stock market addiction
The US Federal Reserve’s apparent commitment to the stock market since Alan Greenspan was in the chair, and its growing, albeit varying influences on financial asset prices has been seen as giving the green light to speculation, enabling serial asset price bubbles over at least three decades.

Despite its balanced official mandate, unsurprisingly, US Fed leadership is widely believed to favour Wall Street, while mainstream economists view asset price inflation as the unavoidable price of overcoming recession, sustaining economic growth and the bubble’s wealth effect.

Unlike the Roosevelt era, when economic policy and war achieved full employment and improved labour conditions, decision-making in recent decades has been seen as better serving capital, with the bias justified by insisting that the interests of capital and labour are ‘joined at the hip’.

With 401K (a US employer sponsored retirement savings plan allowing employees to invest a portion of their salaries before taxes) and other investments in the stock market, widespread ‘middle class’ addiction to stock price inflation has also been economically and politically self-deluding.

But despite the sustained US stock market bubble after the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, the US ‘middle class’ continues to be economically squeezed, with relatively few having benefited significantly.

This stock market addiction is rooted in an illusion promoted by Wall Street, their enablers in the public authorities, and their cheerleaders among mainstream economists and the business media who identify the notion of shared prosperity with stock market indices.

But the history and dynamics of stock market bubbles imply that they simply cannot be the basis for shared prosperity. Sadly, wishful thinking to the contrary perpetuates the mass delusion promoted and perpetuated by those who stand to gain most.

Stock market bubbles serve to obscure the dangers of neoliberal financialization for the economy. Demystification of obfuscating narratives can not only improve public understanding of the problems, dangers and challenges involved, but also inform the reforms needed to address them.

The post Stock Market Bubble No Basis for Shared Prosperity appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Use of Biomass for household cooking

By Hemraj Bhattarai
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Mar 10 2020 (IPS)

A young adult man requires 15 m3 or 15 kg of air, 1.5 liters or 1.5 kg of water and 0.75 kg of solid food every day. This indicates around 87% of our everyday basic requirement is air.

The simple question is, what happens to our health and environment if the same air gets polluted? The short and simple answer is, “pollution kills”.

Biomass burning (BB) in rural kitchens is still the primary source of energy particularly in developing countries. Around 3 billion people rely on open fires or simple stoves for cooking.
The World Energy Outlook report of International Energy Agency 2011 claimed 39% of the global population use biomass fuel either for cooking or heating and are largely consumed in developing nations.

For instance, the earlier findings during 2000s reported more than 80% of domestic energy in India is from biomass of which ~ 90% of the households use animal dung or wood for cooking. Huge amounts of gaseous and small sized particles that can enter into our lungs are released from the household BB or from rural kitchen.

This adversely degrades the indoor air quality and seriously affects human health and on a larger scale contributes to climate change and global air pollution.

Traditional cooking stoves which have incomplete combustion of biomass fuel and emit substantial amounts of pollutants is very common in the South Asian region. The common types of biomass fuel used are wood, dried animal dung, sugarcane bagasse, crop residue etc.

Ishora Devi – 50, is one of the regular users of biomass fuel in a traditional cooking stove. Every day she wakes up around 4:30-5:00 am, and burns the traditional stove to cook food for humans and animals (buffalo). She had a family of 8 members including her and two buffaloes.

Usually she burns on the stove 3-4 times a day and each time it lasts up to 1-2 hours, which means in a day she spends around 4-8 hours near the cooking stove in a smoky zone. She explained, “I use around 10 kg of firewood each day.”

The ceiling of her kitchen has already changed its color and turned in to black due to continuous burning of firewood and emission of soot particles. Similarly, the color of the door shows a significant difference in color i.e. the lower half is normal whereas upper half is brown or almost black.

This indicates, the smoke once released is hotter and lighter therefore tries to accumulate near the ceiling. Thus, a person who works in the kitchen by standing is more likely to be affected compared to the one who works by sitting.

Ishora Devi is just a representative of billions of people using biomass fuel who spends most of their life in the smoky environment. Most of the kitchens are not well ventilated therefore the air inside the kitchen cannot flow smoothly thus could cause suffocation.

Besides household biomass burning inside the kitchen, crop residue burning also has a strong influence on local to regional air pollution. Recent findings in 2019 highlighted the significant influence of countryside crop residue/wood burning on Delhi air quality particularly during post-harvest season i.e. winter and autumn.

The researchers used the state-of-the-art technology of dual carbon isotope fingerprint (δ13C/Δ14C) to come-up with this solid decision. The small-scale crop residue burning is frequently observed in rural sites over South Asia. Such open burnings release tremendous amounts of gases and aerosols which once released into the atmosphere, degrades its quality.

Dr. Lekhendra Tripathee from Nepal, an assistant Professor at Chinese Academy of Sciences, who is working in the field of air pollution in Himalayas and Indo-Gangetic Plain over the last eight years, claims, “the air pollution has no political boundary and could easily transport from one site to the other.”

He further added, “Humans are the polluter and victims of their action. The more we control the emission, the safer environment we will have to live in.”

Professor Cong Zhiyuan at Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Beijing, China, identified the transport of biomass burning emissions from South Asia to Tibetan Plateau and their impact on fragile and sensitive ecosystems in his paper published in Scientific Reports in 2015.

Biomass burning releases huge amounts of gases and aerosols related to carbon, nitrogen, sulphur and many more which are more likely to threaten the human life, climate and ecosystem therein.

Emission of huge amount of air pollutants as a result of crop residue burning in South Asian region

Biomass burning is the major cause of air pollution which leads to several chronic illnesses such as lung cancer, acute respiratory infection, asthma, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease etc.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2012 estimated worldwide annual premature death of 4.3 million people as a result of indoor air pollution caused by biomass combustion during cooking.

In general, of the all deaths from lung cancer, ambient air pollution accounts for 29% and almost half (~ 43%) of the deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is caused by air pollution.

Women, children and aged people are mostly the victim of indoor air pollution. WHO reported, death of children under 5 years of age due to pneumonia is the result of particulate matter (soot) inhaled from household air pollution.

In short, air pollution is a global problem and more serious in the case of South Asia where biomass burning is extremely high. The increase in dependency over renewable energy such as hydroelectricity could help to maintain the atmospheric environment.

*Hemraj Bhattarai is a graduate student from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. Currently, he works at the Kathmandu Center for Research and Education on issues relating to air pollution in the Himalayas and South Asia.

The post Air Pollution in South Asia: Biomass Burning Emissions & its Impact appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Frank Rijsberman and Ingvild Solvang
Mar 9 2020 (IPS)

This year, the Paris Agreement’s effectiveness as a global response to the climate crisis is being tested as governments are preparing to submit more ambitious national targets for mitigation and adaptation.

The combined ambitions of these targets should match the urgency to strengthening resilience and limiting the disastrous climate change impacts around the world.

The Paris Agreement aims to keep global warming well below 2°C and closer to 1.5°C compared with pre-industrial levels. This means reaching a peak in global emissions shortly and achieving climate neutrality by 2050, in other words target Net Zero Emissions by 2050.

Achieving this requires stepping up immediate actions that follow new models of economic growth and development that shift policies and investments towards low-carbon, green growth solutions.

Promotion of poverty alleviation, gender equality and social inclusion is embedded in GGGI’s support to our member countries in this transition. This is in recognition that achievement of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for the Paris Agreement must align with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) priorities.

Mounting evidence shows that gender equality is an accelerator of development and of climate action, and GGGI suggests two key priorities for International Women’s Day 2020.

First, increased investments in climate change adaptation are essential for livelihoods, food security and disaster risk reduction, particularly to benefit women and girls, who are disproportionally impacted by climate change.

Second, “A Just Transition” is needed, particularly in renewable energy, to ensure enhanced opportunities world over for women to participate in decision-making and the economy.

 

Women and girls are more vulnerable to the Climate Crisis

The climate crisis impacts men and women differently and given their different roles in society. In the most climate vulnerable communities, women’s work and activities tend to be dependent on natural resources, and climate change results in more effort and time required to collect water, firewood, and secure food for the household.

Lack of access to sustainable energy services and productive assets and financial resources are key barriers to the ability of communities to adapt to a changing climate. With limited roles in community and household decision-making, and with lesser access to services and resources globally, women are further disadvantaged.

A study by McKinsey estimates that although women constitute 50% of the global population, they contribute only 37% to the global (formal) economy. Only 24.5% of the world’s parliamentarians are women.

And, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), only 15% of the world’s landowners are female. Therefore, GGGI is working to make climate action work to accelerate gender equality by promoting gender-responsive plans, policies, technologies and investments.

 

 

In Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady Delta, mangrove forests are essential to people’s lives and livelihoods. The Cyclone Nargis that hit the Delta in 2008 claimed more than 130,000 lives.

Consistent with a tragic global disaster pattern, 61% of those dead were female with the number much higher in some villages according to a 2014 post-disaster assessment undertaken by the Government of Myanmar and partners. This illustrates the gendered nature of climate disasters.

A UNWOMEN and UNDP review of evidence highlights how integrated approaches to political and economic empowerment are needed to support women participation and leadership in climate action, which in turns enhances their resilience. In the context of the Myanmar Delta, mangrove conservation is an essential response to the climate crisis.

GGGI is incorporating these gender perspectives into its work with the government on developing the case for community-led forest management, to safeguard men and women’s equal leadership and sustainable access to forest resources. In parallel, investments in fishery value chains could have significant positive impacts on rural women’s livelihoods through access to finance, technology and markets.

 

 

Women Have Untapped Potential in the Transition to Renewable Energy

A transition to renewable energy is essential to fight the climate crisis. About three-quarters of the first generation of NDCs made reference to renewable energy, and this focus is likely to increase as governments submit more ambitious targets and as the price of renewable energy has come down significantly in the last 5 years since the first generation of NDCs was prepared.

This shift requires a “just transition”, i.e. support for those who lose their jobs in the brown economy in the shift towards a green economy, to ensure a broad-based political will and public support for driving decarbonization of the economy.

GGGI has assessed the potential for green job creation in Mexico, Indonesia and Rwanda as a result of the switch to renewable energy in the NDCs of these countries, and found that considerable employment and economic opportunities can be created.

For example, achieving Mexico’s renewable energy targets under the NDCs would create 370,000 additional jobs compared to the business-as-usual scenario. While the number of green jobs gained will likely outpace the numbers of brown jobs lost, those losing their brown jobs are not the same people as those gaining new green jobs, and therefore a just transition is key.

Furthermore, by acknowledging the gender dimension of the renewable energy sub-sector, policymakers have an opportunity to ensure that women can participate in this expanding green labor force on equal terms as their male counterparts.

An IRENA report from 2019 estimates that only 32% of the current global renewable energy workforce are women and that the gender gap is even wider in technical and senior roles. In a 2020 report on the emerging wind energy sector, IRENA concludes women constitute only 21% of the workforce in this sub-sector, which is even lower that the global average for women in oil and gas (22%).

The reasons for these gender gaps are complex, and the NDC can be an important instrument to pair climate targets with socio-economic co-benefits and women’s empowerment.

A first step towards closing this gender gap is to have better quality gender data to drive responsive polices, for example in public procurement criteria that stimulate women’s participation in the RE workforce, conducive workplace policies, and measures to increase the number of women in energy-related education.

In the Mexican State of Sonora, where 21% of the energy workforce are women, GGGI has engaged with a broad range of public and private sector stakeholders to explore opportunities for gender equality in renewable energy sector. This should ensure a broader talent-base for a growing sector.

At the same time, Mexico has one of the world’s largest gender gaps in employment generally, and increased women’s participation could therefore significantly contribute to economic growth and increased welfare.

In conclusion, while gender equality and women’s empowerment are goals, they are also essential enablers of climate action and development more broadly. While upping climate ambitions in 2020, we must also step up our efforts to unlock the potential of women and girls around the world.

The post An Ambitious Year for Climate Action Is a Big Year for Women’s Empowerment appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Frank Rijsberman, Director General, and Ingvild Solvang, Head of Climate Action and Inclusive Development, GGGI

The post An Ambitious Year for Climate Action Is a Big Year for Women’s Empowerment appeared first on Inter Press Service.