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Safe Passages arranges food distribution for 120 immigrant families. Families also receive immigration information, legal information, and referrals, such as rental assistance programs, COVID-19 vaccination details, and parenting resources. Credit: Safe Passages

By SeiMi Chu
Stanford, Jul 18 2022 (IPS)

Veronica Vega’s husband was the first in the family to immigrate to Oakland, California. When 27 years ago Vega decided to join him, she was five months pregnant and walked across the Mexican border to come to the United States.

“It was a horrible experience. It was so sad to leave your country, your town, and your family behind. Everything was different – the country, the language, the community. That’s why I looked around to find somewhere I could belong,” Vega reflected.

She discovered Safe Passages, an organization that supports youth and families by providing enhanced services and community development through various programs. Vega no longer felt alone.

Now, Vega is the Community Development Manager at Safe Passages, and she assists other immigrants in getting the help they need to integrate into US society successfully.

Vega tells of a success story. She helped a family from Tijuana, Mexico, receive their acceptance to the renowned Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA is an immigration policy that provides immigrants who came to the US as a child a work permit and a two-year period to reside in the country without facing deportation. After two years, immigrants need to submit a renewal application for DACA. US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) allows renewal subject to requirements.

The mother of two fled from Mexico to California because she faced domestic violence from her husband. She and her children contacted Safe Passages, where they met Vega.

Safe Passages serves about 5,000 families annually. One of their programs focuses on helping children who may face deportation due to their refugee status. Vega connected this family to one of their partners, East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC).

A private lawyer through EBCLC helped them receive their permanent residencies, and the service they received was free.

“When I heard they were considered permanent residents of the United States, I was so happy. They never realized they would receive anything, and I was so happy,” Vega said.

Vega helps families who fear deportation. She aids about 1,500 families per year with immigration resources.

She wants to partner with more non-profit organizations to help immigrant families.

“I was accepted into this country, and I love to work in the community. I love to help people regardless of race, age, and status,” Vega explained.

Alicia Perez, Chief Operating Officer of Safe Passages, described how the different programs at Safe Passages interconnect.

Safe Passages aims to support families with children with a big focus on school-based programs. They have after-school and tutoring programs, family resources, and health centers. Safe Passages makes the information accessible by ensuring materials are in the migrants’ home languages – informing them about their civil rights.

The organization provides immigrant families with Red Cards created by the immigrant Legal Resource Center. The Red Card informs families about their rights under the US Constitution, whether they are immigrants or not. Safe Passages asks families to carry their Red Cards in case they are stopped by law enforcement or the police.

“We believe all children should have access to education, health care, and support. By doing so, they are most likely to live fulfilling lives and be successful, regardless of race, economic status, ethnicity, or gender,” Perez said.

Refugee Processing Center’s Refugee Admission Report releases data on the number of refugee arrivals. California had the highest refugee arrivals from October 1, 2021, through May 31, 2022, with 1,128 people arriving in the state.

Florencia Reyes Donohue, a senior paralegal in Kids in Need of Defense’s (KIND) San Francisco office, helps prepare and file forms for unaccompanied child clients seeking protection in the US.

KIND’s mission is to ensure that no child goes into immigration court without high-quality legal representation and that unaccompanied children have access to the protection they need and deserve. The organization partners with pro bono attorneys from more than 700 law firms and corporations to represent clients at no cost.

KIND worked with 29,000 children from 2009 to 2021. In addition to legal services, they provide holistic care through its social services program. KIND ensured that children would have an easier time adjusting to a country they were unfamiliar with by addressing their traumas. KIND offers counseling referrals, social-emotional support, health insurance assistance, school enrollment, and job placements, among other services.

Reyes Donohue said she admired the bravery the children she worked with had. “They do this journey alone; they are incredibly resilient.”

Fathers attend their kids’ soccer team practices and Safe Passages’ parenting workshops. Safe Passages provides immigration information, parenting workshops, and referrals during these practices. Credit: Safe Passages

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jul 18 2022 (IPS)

South Africa, the home land of the late giant fighter against Apartheid, racism and discrimination – Nelson Mandela “Mandiba”, is already ‘on the precipice of explosive xenophobic violence’ against migrants, refugees, asylum seekers – and even citizens perceived as outsiders.

Just three days ahead of this year’s Nelson Mandela International Day (18 July), a group of independent United Nations human rights experts condemned reports of escalating violence targeting foreign nationals in South Africa.

Today, the world honours a giant of our time; a leader of unparalleled courage and towering achievement; and a man of quiet dignity and deep humanity

António Guterres, UN Secretary-General

Known as Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world, the human rights experts warned that the ongoing xenophobic mobilisation is “broader and deeper,” and has become the central campaign strategy for some political parties in the country.

 

Operation Dudula

In a statement released on 15 July 2022, the United Nations independent human rights experts cited “Operation Dudula” as an example of the spreading hate speech.

Originally a social media campaign, Operation Dudula has become an umbrella for the mobilisation of “violent protests, vigilant eviolence, arson targeting migrant-owned homes and businesses, and even the murder of foreign nationals.”

According to the human rights experts, xenophobia is often explicitly racialised, targeting low-income Black migrants and refugees and, in some cases, South African citizens accused of being “too Black to be South Africans.”

 

Inequality

South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world, according to a recent World Bank’s report titled ‘Inequality in Southern Africa’.

The report highlighted how inequality is consistent as 10% of the population owns more than 80% of the wealth.

Out of its 60 million inhabitants, “an estimated 10 million people in South Africa live below the food poverty line, while the unemployment rate is at a record high of almost 40% amongst Black South Africans according to Statistics South Africa.”

Poverty, unemployment and crime are reportedly the greatest sources of contention as Operation Dudula and its members believe that illegal foreigners are the reason that South Africa’s public socioeconomic systems do not benefit its native Black majority.

Impoverished former European colonies –who also fall victims of deepening poverty and inequality–, South Africa’s neighbouring countries- Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and the enclaved Lesotho-, have been lastly a source of increasing migration.

 

Fueled by the Government

“Anti-migrant discourse from senior government officials has fanned the flames of violence, and government actors have failed to prevent further violence or hold perpetrators accountable,” say the UN human rights Special Rapporteurs.

According to the World Bank’s country review, the South African economy was already in a weak position when it entered the pandemic after a decade of low growth.

From 2021, the recovery is expected to continue in 2022, with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth expected at 2.1% and to average 1.7% over the medium term.

Commodity prices remain important for South Africa, a major net exporter of minerals and net importer of oil, however, strengthening investment, including foreign direct investment, will be critical to propelling growth and creating jobs.

The World Bank goes on explaining that South Africa has made considerable strides to improve the wellbeing of its citizens since its transition to democracy in the mid-1990s, but progress has stagnated in the last decade.

The percentage of the population below the upper-middle-income-country poverty line fell from 68% to 56% between 2005 and 2010 but has since trended slightly upwards to 57% in 2015 and is projected to have reached 60% in 2020.

Structural challenges and weak growth have undermined progress in reducing poverty, which have been heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic, adds the review.

“The achievement of progress in household welfare is severely constrained by rising unemployment, which reached an unprecedented 35.3% in the fourth quarter of 2021. The unemployment rate is highest among youths aged between 15 and 24, at around 66.5%.”

In her extensively documented, detailed article on IPS: Myths Fuel Xenophobic Sentiment in South Africa, Fawzia Moodley also reported from Johannesburg on a study by the World Bank: Mixed Migration, Forced Displacement and Job Outcomes in South Africa.

Debunking the myth that foreign nationals are ‘stealing’ jobs from locals or are better off than locals is the finding that “one immigrant worker generated approximately two jobs for local residents in South Africa between 1996 and 2011”.

 

Nelson Mandela

“Today, the world honours a giant of our time; a leader of unparalleled courage and towering achievement; and a man of quiet dignity and deep humanity,” said the UN secretary general, António Guterres, in his message on the occasion of the 2022 Nelson Mandela International Day.

“Our world today is marred by war; overwhelmed by emergencies; blighted by racism, discrimination, poverty, and inequalities; and threatened by climate disaster,” adds Guterres.

“Let us find hope in Nelson Mandela’s example and inspiration in his vision.”

Nelson Mandela devoted his life to the service of humanity — as a human rights lawyer, a prisoner of conscience, an international peacemaker and the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa. See Mandela’s life >>. See also: Mandela Rules >>

“It is easy to break down and destroy. The heroes are those who make peace and build.”- Nelson Mandela.

 

Any politicians listening over there?

 

View of the solar park in the municipality of Escobar, located an hour's drive from Buenos Aires. Inaugurated this month, it is the first municipally financed and managed solar energy project, at a time when private investment has withdrawn from large clean energy projects in Argentina. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Jul 18 2022 (IPS)

The multitude of solar panels stands out along a dirt road in an unpopulated area. Although located just an hour’s drive from Buenos Aires, the new solar park in the municipality of Escobar is in a place of silence and solitude, symbolic of the difficulties faced by renewable energies in making inroads in Argentina.

The Escobar plant, inaugurated this month, is the first solar energy park with municipal investment and management, at a time when private initiative has practically withdrawn from clean energy projects in this South American country of 47 million people, which has been in the grip of a deep economic and financial crisis for years.

“There are 3,700 photovoltaic solar panels that produce electricity to be sold to one of the electric cooperatives that distributes power in the area. With this plant, we seek to position ourselves as a sustainable municipality and access financing for new projects,” Victoria Bandín, director of Innovation in the Municipality of Escobar, told IPS during a tour of the grounds of the six-hectare park.

Located 50 kilometers from the Argentine capital, to which it is connected by a freeway, Escobar is a municipality on the northern edge of Greater Buenos Aires, a gigantic metropolitan area of 15 million inhabitants where the country’s greatest wealth and poverty live side by side.

Escobar’s extensive green areas have attracted thousands of families in recent years seeking to get away from the cement and noise of Buenos Aires, which has fuelled the construction of dozens of upscale high-security private housing developments.

Escobar is also home to a large community of Bolivian immigrants, who play a key role in the production of fruits and vegetables. In fact, the fresh food market that supplies the stores of several municipalities in the area bears the name “Bolivian Community”.

Next to the market, which is very close to the solar park, the white, inflated tarp of a biodigester, in which the market’s organic waste is processed, stands out.

Eliseo Acchura is about to send spoiled food discarded by stallholders to the biodigester at Escobar’s fruit and vegetable market. The biodigester, operating since last year, produces biogas that is then converted into electricity used in the market. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

“I pick up almost a ton of fruit and vegetables per day that the stallholders discard, and after 40 to 60 days of decomposition in the biodigester, we have biogas,” Eliseo Acchura, who works on the project inaugurated last year with support from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), told IPS.

The biogas is used to generate electricity to supply part of the market.

“We have rural areas and we seek to preserve ourselves as a green place on the edge of the great gray blob that is the greater metropolitan area,” Guillermo Bochatón, coordinator of the Sustainable Escobar program, which is carrying out several environmental initiatives, told IPS.

The rise and fall of renewables

Clean energies experienced a boom in Argentina starting in 2016, thanks to the Renovar Program, which managed to attract domestic and foreign private investors.

Through this program, the national government guaranteed the purchase of electricity for 20 years at a fixed rate in dollars and created a guaranty fund with the participation of international credit institutions to guarantee payment.

The share of renewable sources in the total electricity mix, almost non-existent in 2015, grew significantly since 2016, reaching a record high of 13 percent on average in 2021.

Today, Argentina’s electricity system has an installed capacity of almost 43,000 MW, of which 5,175 MW are renewable. The main source of generation is thermal (powered by natural gas and, to a lesser extent, oil) making up 59 percent of the total, followed by large hydroelectric projects, which make up 25 percent (only hydroelectric projects of less than 50 MW are considered renewable).

Among renewables, the largest share last year came from wind (74 percent), followed by solar (13 percent), small hydro (7 percent) and bioenergies, according to official data

Of the 189 renewable energy projects in operation, 133 were commissioned over the last four years.

The biodigester at Escobar’s wholesale fruit market was inaugurated last year and is part of the environmentally friendly initiatives launched in this municipality near the Argentine capital. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

Clean energies today face two major problems in this country, according to Marcelo Alvarez, a member of the board of directors of the Argentine Chamber of Renewable Energies (CADER).

One has to do with infrastructure due to the saturation of the electricity transmission networks that deliver electric power to large cities. Another is the lack of financing, as a result of the macroeconomic conditions in the country.

“Even private ventures in distributed generation today are practically reserved only for environmental activists, because the lack of financing and extremely low electricity rates make them unprofitable,” Alvarez explained.

He said that the way things are going, the country is not likely to meet the goal set by law in 2015, for 20 percent of the national electricity mix to come from domestic sources by 2025.

“From a technical point of view, Argentina’s potential for renewable energies is enormous, because it has the necessary natural resources. And economically too, because in the medium term the costs of electricity production will fall,” Gabriel Blanco, a specialist in renewable energies from the National University of the Center of the Province of Buenos Aires (UNICEN), told Ecoamericas.

“The main obstacle is that there is no political will, because the decision is to bet on the energy business of fossil fuels, large hydroelectric and nuclear power plants,” he added.

The Escobar solar park has an installed capacity of 2.3 MW and required an investment of some two million dollars, which will be recovered with the sale of electricity within seven years, said the mayor of Escobar, Ariel Sujarchuk. “Between 23 and 53 more years of useful life of pure profit will be left after that,” he added.

The inauguration was also attended by Environment Minister Juan Cabandié, who pledged more than 1.7 million dollars in government funds for the expansion of the solar park, which has a large piece of land available for the installation of more panels.

In his speech in Escobar, Cabandié criticized industrialized countries for failing to comply with the financing needed to transform the economies of developing countries, as pledged under the Paris Agreement on climate change, adopted in the French capital in 2015.

The minister said that “the sector responsible for damaging the planet is in the Northern, not the Southern, hemisphere,” and argued that it is the countries of the North that must assume “the responsibility of financing the transition to sustainability of the countries of the South.”

By External Source
Jul 15 2022 (IPS-Partners)

 

This virtual event was hosted by BRAC, the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the UN, and the Permanent Mission of Rwanda to the UN on the sidelines of the 2022 UN High Level Political Forum.

This webinar reflects on BRAC’s role in generating development lessons in the Global South and Bangladesh’s remarkable progress towards meeting the UN SDGs. The panel will discuss SDGs 1: No Poverty; 4: Quality Education, 5: Gender Equality, and 17: Partnerships for the Goals. We hope this event will also promote the need for continued global cooperation in order to achieve the UN SDGs, especially in the midst of compounding global crises.

By Armida Alisjahbana, Woochong Um and Kanni Wignaraja
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jul 15 2022 (IPS)

The start of the “Decade of Action” to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has also marked the start of an unprecedented period of overlapping crises.

The Covid-19 pandemic and crises of conflict, hunger, climate change and environmental degradation are mutually compounding, pushing millions into acute poverty, health, and food insecurity. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has further disrupted supply chains and brought spikes in food and fuel prices.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

A region at risk

The devastation caused by efforts to control the spread of Covid-19 across the Asia-Pacific region is now well documented. At least 90 million people have likely fallen into extreme poverty, and more than 150 million and 170 million people are under the poverty lines of US$3.20 and $5.50 a day, respectively.

The pandemic drove home the consequences of uneven progress on the SDGs and exposed glaring gaps in social protection and health-care systems. The dynamics of recovery in Asia and the Pacific have been shaped by access to vaccination and diagnostics, as well as by the structure and efficacy of national economies and public health systems.

Yet for all the economic contraction, greenhouse gas emissions in the Asia-Pacific region continued largely unabated, and the long-burning climate crisis continues to rage.

The positive effects of producing less waste and air pollution, for example, have been short-lived. Action lags, even as many countries in Asia and the Pacific have committed to scale up the ambition of their climate action and pursue a just energy transition. The political and economic drive to move away from fossil fuels remains weak, even with soaring prices of oil and gas across the region.

As the Ukraine conflict drives greater uncertainty and exacerbates food and fuel shortages, leading to surging prices, security is increasingly at the center of economic and political priorities.

This confluence of issues is adding to the shocks already dealt with by the pandemic and triggering crises of governance in some parts of our region. Again, the poorest and most vulnerable groups are the most affected.

Woochong Um

Price pressures on everyday necessities like food and fuel are straining household budgets, yet governments will find it more difficult to step in this time. Government responses to the previous succession of shocks have reduced fiscal space while leaving heightened national debt burdens in their wake.

It has never been more important to ensure that the integrated aspects of economic, social, and environmental sustainability are built into our approaches to recovery.

As our joint ESCAP-ADB-UNDP 2022 report on Building Forward Together for the SDGs highlighted, despite important pockets of good practice, countries of Asia and the Pacific need to act much more decisively – and faster and at scale – on this imperative. This redefines what progress means and how it is measured, as development that promotes the well-being of the whole – people and planet.

Extraordinary agenda for extraordinary times

All this is a sobering backdrop for achieving the ambitious agenda of the SDGs. But these interlocking shocks are also a result of a failure to advance on the SDGs as an integrated agenda.

We need unconventional responses and investments that fundamentally change what determines sustainable development outcomes. Rather than treating our current looming crises of energy, food and human security as distinct, we must address their interlinkages.

To illustrate, a determined focus on fiscal reforms that deliver environmental and social benefits can generate big wins. Asia and the Pacific can lead with action on long-standing commitments to eliminate costly environmentally harmful subsidies, including for fossil fuels.

Kanni Wignaraja

Some countries took advantage of reduced fossil-fuel consumption during the Covid-19 lockdowns and mobility restrictions to increase taxes on fuel to raise funds for recovery programs and provide health insurance and social protection for those least protected.

There are also opportunities to repurpose the estimated US$540 billion spent each year on global agricultural subsidies to promote more inclusive agriculture, and healthier and more sustainable systems of food production.

Better targeting smallholder farmers and rewarding good practices such as promoting shifts to regenerative agriculture can help transform food systems, restore ecosystems, and protect biodiversity.

Just transitions

For our part, as UN agencies and multilateral organizations, we are committed to supporting countries to pursue just transitions to rapid decarbonization and climate resilience. Scaling up the deployment of greener renewables will be key to meeting energy security needs.

Similarly, the current food crisis must be a catalyst for an urgent transition to more sustainable, locally secure food production and markets. Agricultural practices that foster local resilience, adopt nature-based solutions while increasing efficiencies, and support climate mitigation practices can strengthen long-term food security.

The SDGs test resolves and require us to address the difficult trade-offs of recovery. To emerge from interlinked crises of energy, food and fiscal space, we must accelerate the transformations needed to end poverty and protect the planet.

We must ensure that by 2030 all people, not just a few, enjoy a greater level of peace and prosperity.

The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the Asian Development Bank and the UN Development Program will host a side event at the High-Level Political Forum for Sustainable Development on July 12, 2022, that will explore these themes further.

Armida Alisjahbana is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
Kanni Wignaraja is Assistant Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
Woochong Um is Managing Director General of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

IPS UN Bureau

 

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View of the interior of the Reborn plant, where electric buses are manufactured, for now for the state-owned copper company Codelco, to which a hundred units are to be delivered in December, destined for the El Teniente mine, the largest underground copper mine in the world, with some 3,000 tunnels. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Jul 15 2022 (IPS)

The manufacture in Chile of an electric bus christened Queltehue, a wading bird native to the country, is another step towards electromobility and in the fight against pollution that triggers frequent environmental crises and smog emergencies in Santiago and other cities.

The National Electromobility Strategy, updated and relaunched in 2021, aims for 100 percent of the public transport vehicle fleet and 40 percent of private cars to be electric by 2050. By 2035, internal combustion engine cars will no longer be sold in this country.

That means that in less than 30 years some five million vehicles will switch from fuel to electricity, avoiding the emission of some 11 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year and reducing spending on oil and petroleum products by more than 3.3 billion dollars a year.

Electric mobility can also be clean and with zero emissions, if this long narrow South American country sandwiched between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean takes advantage of its enormous potential to produce solar and wind energy thanks to the abundant sunlight in the Atacama Desert and the strong winds in coastal areas and in the southern region of Magallanes.

However, much remains to be done because there are currently only about 2,750 electric vehicles in circulation in Chile and there are only about 310 public chargers to serve them.

A notable stride forward in the last four years has been the increase in the number of electric public transport buses, which now account for 20 percent of the 6,713 buses that serve passengers in Santiago, where 7.1 million of the country’s 19.1 million inhabitants live.

At the Los Espinos Electroterminal, in the municipality of Peñalolén in the Andes foothills bordering Santiago, the electric buses of the private company Metbus begin and end their routes through the Chilean capital. “We noticed that the passengers are more relaxed,” company inspector José Bazán, who traveled twice to Shenzhen, China to buy the electric buses, told IPS. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

In May, Minister of Transport and Telecommunications Juan Carlos Muñoz confirmed that another 70 electric buses will serve some 50,000 daily passengers in the working-class municipalities of La Pintana, San Joaquín and Puente Alto, on the southern outskirts of Santiago.

“Bringing electromobility and its benefits to sectors that have been left behind by development not only makes a city more sustainable, it makes it more inclusive,” he said at the time.

“Quality transportation is fundamental for people to leave their cars parked and opt for more efficient modes, which will allow us to make Santiago an environmentally friendly city,” Muñoz added.

So far, electric buses for public transport, a sector that is in private hands in Chile, have come from Chinese companies, especially BYD and Foton, but that is expected to change as electric mobility expands.

The strategy not only targets public transportation, but also freight, commercial vehicles and vehicles used in key industries in the local economy, such as mining.

Engineers Ricardo Repenning and Felipe Cevallos, partners in Reborn, pose for a photo in front of their factory in Rancagua, the first in Chile to manufacture and reassemble electric buses, for now for the state copper industry, but with the intention of extending to urban and rural public transport. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Successful experience in the mines

Felipe Cevallos, a 32-year-old mechanical engineer, and Ricardo Repenning, a 33-year-old electrical engineer, are partners in the Chilean company Reborn Electric Motors, which began by converting diesel vehicles to electric ones, but this year will manufacture 104 electric buses for the El Teniente mine of the state-owned copper company Codelco.

These buses do not emit CO2 or make noise and can safely carry 24 passengers each.

“We have successfully carried passengers a total of 210,000 kilometers in the mine in difficult conditions of mud and salt, steep slopes and high levels of humidity,” Cevallos proudly told IPS during a visit to the company’s plant in the municipality of Rancagua, 86 kilometers south of Santiago.

The 3,000-square-meter automotive facility employs 50 people whose average age is 30, and can produce up to 200 vehicles per year.

The buses are made up of 45 percent Chilean parts, while the bodies are brought from Brazil, the engines come from Canada and the batteries are made in China.

“We manufacture the power and control branches, the distribution strip and the low to high voltage domains, the structures, displays and software to run the systems and the engine cooling cycles and other components,” Cevallos said.

A picture of one of the electric buses on the assembly line at the Reborn plant. Each bus contains 45 percent Chilean parts, while the rest are imported from Brazil, Canada and China. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

At El Teniente, the world’s largest underground copper deposit, there are 24 double-gun 150-kw chargers that can charge two Queltehue buses in 40 minutes.

(The scientific name of the Queltehue or Southern Lapwing, the species for which the bus was named, is Vanellus chilensis.)

Other buses operate from Rancagua and another 10 chargers are being installed at the terminal of Transportes Link, the operator of the public transport service, in partnership with Reborn.

“Fast charging requires more power and better splicing. The electrolinera charging station charges faster, but the vehicle must be able to support faster charging,” Repenning explained.

Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer and exporter, is committed to using only electric vehicles to transport workers at El Teniente, which is located under the hill of the same name in the municipality of Machalí, some 120 kilometers from Santiago.

“The 104 buses that we will deliver will transport the workers between their arrival points and locker rooms to the interior of the mine. Each one travels 15 to 20 kilometers, largely through tunnels,” said Repenning.

He added that Reborn manufactures and reassembles electric buses.

“We started out by reconverting diesel buses that had reached the end of their useful life and transforming them into 100 percent electric. In 2020 we started making brand-new 100 percent electric buses in the Rancagua factory,” he explained.

Cables of all colors and sizes are used at the Reborn electric bus plant in the Chilean town of Rancagua. The company is recognized by the international Society of Automotive Engineers. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

The company is now focused on transportation in the mining industry, but its technology can be applied to urban and rural transportation – and that is the direction of its future expansion.

Reborn has been recognized by SAE International, formerly named the Society of Automotive Engineers.

“When the batteries were very heavy, a lot of passenger capacity was lost. Today, batteries have greatly improved their energy density,” and that facilitates the electrification of public transportation, Repenning said.

Pending challenges

Land transportation absorbs about 30 percent of the total energy consumed by Chile and the greenhouse gases it generates represent between 17 and 25 percent of the total gases emitted by this country.

Luciano Ahumada, director of the School of Information Technology and Telecommunications at the Diego Portales University (UDP), told IPS that “electromobility is a tremendous tool, perhaps the most important one, for achieving carbon neutrality and thus making us responsible for our environment.”

Ahumada said that among the biggest problems of electromobility are the high price of vehicles and the lack of confidence among users that they can count on a network that recharges batteries in a timely manner.

The private company Metbus is a pioneer in electromobility in Chile. It brought the first two electric buses from China in 2017. It now operates 1,430 electric buses, the largest fleet in South America, with vehicles equipped with air-conditioning, WIFI, USB and camera systems. At the Electroterminal it installed solar panels to generate the energy it consumes in its offices. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

An electric bus in Chile costs around 300,000 dollars and a car around 50,000 dollars. But the operating cost of both is a third or a quarter of that of combustion engine vehicles.

“The biggest challenge is to generate an incentive for the purchase and production of electric vehicles and to create and install charging infrastructure and a charging management system that is reliable and sustainable,” said Ahumada.

Héctor Novoa, a professor at the UDP Faculty of Architecture who is working on a doctoral thesis on electric mobility, believes that the Chilean electromobility strategy has pros and cons.

“Chile has the largest fleet in the southern hemisphere with electric buses in public transportation,” he noted.

“But its public policy has gone hand in hand with favoring the involvement of actors that have a share of the energy business. Electromobility is also a business model,” Novoa said.

He cited as examples the Copec group of companies, dedicated to forestry, energy and gas stations, and the Chilean subsidiary of the Italian transnational Enel, focused on electricity and gas.

Many young university graduates work at the Reborn company that operates in the city of Rancagua, south of the Chilean capital, where electric buses are assembled for the El Teniente copper mine, but which has a goal of producing buses for urban and rural public transport. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

“Copec has electric vehicle terminals. Where previously the buses were supplied with fuel, now they are sold electricity. Public policy has gone hand in hand with the private sector to secure for it certain parts of the business,” Novoa told IPS.

But the academic regretted that the installation of public electric chargers “has targeted certain upscale neighborhoods and municipalities of Santiago, which points to a strengthening of inequality.

“The charging infrastructure is too limited to allow charging in public places without being exposed to being vandalized,” he acknowledged.

Novoa also called for greater clarity regarding how the city would absorb the new charging infrastructure and make the distribution more egalitarian.

He concurred with Ahumada that “electromobility is a key element for decarbonization” and he also believes that the high price of electric vehicles limits their development.

He stressed, however, that “electromobility is based on an awareness linked to scientific evidence in international forums that brings the ecological and scientific world closer to politics.”

The academic also urged consideration of a largely ignored aspect: the fact that an important part of vehicle emissions comes not from exhaust but from brake pad and tire wear that produces toxic particulate matter.

In saturated zones this fine particulate matter pollutant is significant, Novoa said.

“Climate change has accelerated the transformation processes associated with decarbonizing not only transport, but also other areas linked to industry, such as energy generation,” he said.

US President Joseph R. Biden Jr. addresses the UN General Assembly’s 76th session in September 2021. Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak

By Norman Solomon
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Jul 15 2022 (IPS)

Pundits are focused on Joe Biden’s tanking poll numbers, while progressives continue to be alarmed by his dismal job performance. Under the apt headline “President Biden Is Not Cutting the Mustard,” last week The American Prospect summed up: “Young people are abandoning him in droves because he won’t fight for their rights and freedom.”

Ryan Cooper wrote that “at a time when Democrats are desperate for leadership — especially some kind of strategy to deal with a lawless and extreme Supreme Court — he is missing in action.”

Yes, Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema team up with Republicans to stymie vital measures. But the president’s refusal to issue executive orders that could enact such popular measures as canceling student debt and many other policies has been part of a derelict approach as national crises deepen. Recent events have dramatized the downward Biden spiral.

Biden’s slow and anemic response to the Supreme Court’s long-expected Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade spotlighted the magnitude of the stakes and the failure.

The grim outlook has been underscored by arrogance toward progressive activists.

Consider this statement from White House communications director Kate Bedingfield last weekend as she reacted to wide criticism: “Joe Biden’s goal in responding to Dobbs is not to satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party. It’s to deliver help to women who are in danger and assemble a broad-based coalition to defend a woman’s right to choose now, just as he assembled such a coalition to win during the 2020 campaign.”

The traditional response to such arrogance from the White House toward the incumbent’s party base is to grin — or, more likely, grimace — and bear it. But that’s a serious error for concerned individuals and organizations. Serving as enablers to bad policies and bad politics is hardly wise.

Polling released by the New York Times on Monday highlighted that most of Biden’s own party doesn’t want him to run for re-election, “with 64 percent of Democratic voters saying they would prefer a new standard-bearer in the 2024 presidential campaign.” And, “only 26 percent of Democratic voters said the party should renominate him.”

A former ambassador to Portugal who was appointed by President Obama, Allan Katz, has made a strong case for Biden to announce now that he won’t run for re-election. Writing for Newsweek under the headline “President Biden: I’m Begging You — Don’t Run in 2024. Our Country Needs You to Stand Down,” Katz contended that such an announcement from Biden would remove an albatross from the necks of Democrats facing tough elections in the midterms.

In short, to defeat as many Republicans as possible this fall, Biden should be seen as a one-term president who will not seek the Democratic nomination in 2024.

Why push forward with this goal? The #DontRunJoe campaign that our team at RootsAction launched this week offers this explanation: “We felt impelled to intervene at this time because while there is a mainstream media debate raging over whether Joe Biden should run again, that discussion is too narrow and lacking in substance — focused largely on his age or latest poll numbers”.

“We object to Biden running in 2024 because of his job performance as president. He has proven incapable of effectively leading for policies so badly needed by working people and the planet, including policies he promised as a candidate.”

It’s no secret that Republicans are very likely to win the House this November, probably by a large margin. And the neofascist GOP has a good chance of winning the Senate as well, although that could be very close.

Defeating Republicans will be hindered to the extent that progressive and liberal forces circle the political wagons around an unpopular president in a defense of the unacceptable status quo.

While voters must be encouraged to support Democrats — the only way to beat Republicans — in key congressional races this fall, that should not mean signing onto a quest to renew Biden’s lease on the White House.

RootsAction has emphasized: “While we are announcing the Don’t Run Joe campaign now, we are urging progressive, anti-racist, feminist and pro-working-class activists to focus on defeating the right wing in this November’s elections. Our all-out launch will come on November 9, 2022 — the day after those midterm elections.”

With all the bad news and negative polling about Biden in recent weeks, the folly of touting him for a second term has come into sharp focus. While the president insists that he plans to run again, he has left himself an escape hatch by saying that will happen assuming he’s in good health.

But what we should do is insist that — whatever his personal health might be — the health of the country comes first. Democratic candidates this fall should not be hobbled by the pretense that they’re asking voters to support a scenario of six more years for President Biden.

It’s time to create a grassroots groundswell that can compel Joe Biden to give public notice — preferably soon — that he won’t provide an assist to Republican forces by trying to extend his presidency for another four years.

A pledge to voluntarily retire at the end of his first term would boost the Democratic Party’s chances of getting a stronger and more progressive ticket in 2024 — and would convey in the meantime that Democratic candidates and the Biden presidency are not one and the same.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of a dozen books including Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America’s Warfare State, published this year in a new edition as a free e-book. His other books include War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Om Ehab, right, with her sisters and children in her home in Beach Camp for Palestine Refugees in Gaza. Credit: UN News/Reem Abaza

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 15 2022 (IPS)

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which dates back to the mid-1940s, is one of the longest military confrontations defying a permanent solution – even as it continues to be on the agenda of the United Nations whose primary mandate is the maintenance of international peace and security.

But regrettably there has been no peace nor security in the long-festering battle for a Palestinian homeland.

The multiple peace plans floating around Middle Eastern and Western capitals included a proposed “one-state solution”, a “two- state solution” and the 1993 “Oslo Accords”, a peace treaty based on UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 aimed at fulfilling the “right of the Palestinian people to self-determination”.

But none of them really got off the ground.

Alon Ben-Meir, a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU), has a new plan for an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian confederation.

In an interview with IPS, Dr Ben-Meir said after 73 years of conflict, regardless of the many changes on the ground, the political wind that swept the region, and the intermittent violence between Israel and Palestine, the Palestinians will not, under any circumstances give up on their aspiration for statehood.

“Ultimately, the creation of an independent Palestinian state that exists side-by-side with Israel remains the only viable option to end their conflict”, argued Dr Meir, who has taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies for over 20 years.

“Given however the substantive irreversible fact that were created on the ground since 1967, an independent Palestinian state can peacefully coexist with Israel only through the establishment of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation that would subsequently be joined by Jordan,” he said.

Mahmoud Abbas, President of the S tate of Palestine, addresses the UN Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By definition, a confederation is a “voluntary associations of independent states that, to secure some common purpose, agree to certain limitations on their freedom of action and establish some joint machinery of consultation or deliberation” [emphasis added].

This is necessitated by the facts and the requirement that all sides will have to fully and permanently collaborate on many levels required by the changing conditions on the ground, most of which can no longer be restored to the status quo ante, he explained.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00438200211066350.

Excerpts from the Q&A follows:

Q: What is unique about the proposed confederation—and how different is it from several of the failed peace agreements over the last 75 years?

A: What is unique about the proposed confederation is that the three countries, as independent states, would join together on issues of common interest that cannot be addressed but in full collaboration under the framework of confederation.

It is imperative for the three main players to address the following facts on the ground and their national security collectively, as they can no longer reverse them to the status quo ante. These constitute the foundation of the confederation and include:

The interspersed Israeli and Palestinian populations in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Israel proper, which can no longer be separated and is the backbone of confederation;

The intrinsic religious connection all three states have to Jerusalem, including the fact that the Palestinians will never give up on East Jerusalem becoming the Palestinian capital; albeit Jerusalem can never be divided physically, and the border between East and West Jerusalem is only political and applicable for administrative purposes;

The intertwined national security concerns of Israelis and Palestinians; the need to continue the current cooperation in this critical area, and the need to further expand their collaboration once a Palestinian state is created: the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the majority of which will have to remain in place because under no circumstance will Israel ever evacuate all the settlements; the Palestinian refugees who must be resettled and/or compensated, as the right of return has never been considered as a viable option even by the Palestinians, albeit tacitly.

Thus, given the inevitability of coexistence, whether under hostile or peaceful conditions, and the interconnectedness on all the above five levels, the establishment of a confederation as the ultimate goal would allow both sides to jointly resolve and manage their differences.

The above facts must be factored in as they are not subject to a dramatic shift and are central to reaching a sustainable peace agreement.

Q: Has the proposed plan been endorsed or supported by either the Israeli government or the Palestinian Authority? And what about Hamas? Any reactions from any of these warring parties?

A: The proposed Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian confederation plan has been discussed with former and current officials and scholars from all three countries. It has been acknowledged and has largely been received well.

They admit (albeit not officially) that given the prevailing conditions—that is, the inter-connectedness between the three parties from the perspectives of territorial contiguity, national security, and economic development—they have little choice but to fully collaborate without compromising their independence as defined by the concept of confederation.

Although publicly Hamas rejects Israel’s right to exist, privately it admits that Israel is there to stay and has no choice but to cooperate with Israel on many levels.

Under the proposed confederation, the interaction between Hamas and Israel will only increase by virtue of Gaza’s location and the need of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to connect and transact with one another, which can be done largely through Israel on land.

Q: Do you plan to submit your proposal to the five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council—the US, UK, France, Russia and China?

A: Our hope is that once the three countries conclude that there is really no other viable option that will bring about an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and recognize the inevitability of co-existence, the proposal will certainly be endorsed by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—the US, UK, France, Russia, and China.

We should bear in mind, however, that once the three countries agree to form a confederation, the Security Council need only to recognize Palestinian independence, which will not be vetoed by any of the five veto-wielding powers because they all support the establishment of a Palestinian state under conditions of peace. Beyond that, the UNSC will have no say about the formation of the confederation.

Q: Depending on the reactions of the Israelis and the Palestinians, would you amend or revise the proposal?

A: Any peace proposal, regardless of its merits, will be subject to modifications to meet some specific nuances that are of special concern to the parties involved. That said, the concept of the confederation itself will not change because it takes into consideration the many facts on the ground that are not subject to change and because it is designed to largely meet the needs and the aspirations of the three countries.

Having said that, there are still issues over which there is no consensus. Jerusalem is a case in point; the Israelis vehemently oppose the surrendering of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians and it becoming the capital of the Palestinian state.

The proposal offers a solution whereby the city will remain physically undivided while respecting each other’s inherent affinity and religious connection to the holy sites.

Moreover, both Israeli and Palestinian residents will continue to move freely between the two parts of the city without any restriction, which is exactly the case at the present.

Q: Are you planning to submit the proposal to the UN Secretary-General?

A: I believe that if the UN Secretary General is to look at the proposal, he will more than likely endorse it as it is consistent with his and the majority view of the General Assembly (GA) that the Palestinians are entitled to an independent state of their own.

We are trying now to share it with as many entities—academic and political—to engender greater receptivity. In fact, the entire proposal was published in the Spring issue of World Affairs Journal, and the Journal will have an issue in December dedicated entirely to the proposal.

We will soon seek channels to convey it directly to the Secretary General in the hope that he would formally share it with all the parties involved directly and indirectly.

This includes obviously the Palestinian Authority, Israel, and Jordan, and with the US, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Germany, who will by playing critical roles in various capacities.

Q: If the proposal is eventually accepted by the parties, do you think it would be prudent to seek ratification by the 193-member General Assembly and the 15-member Security Council, both of which have been involved with the Palestinian issue since its inception?

A: To the best of my knowledge once the proposal is accepted by the three parties it does not need a formal ratification by the General Assembly (GA). Indecently, the GA has already granted Palestine observer status. That said, a full endorsement of the proposal by the GA will enhance both its legitimacy and scope.

As to the UNSC, given that any new application for membership in the UN must be approved by the Security Council, the 15 member states may well have to vote to grant the Palestinians the status of full member state of the UN, which will be a given under the framework of the agreed-upon confederation.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “key to sustainable peace in the Middle East”, says UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, maintaining that the lack of any progress only “furthers radicalization across the region”

Teenage girls harvest tomatoes on a farm in the state of Sinaloa, in northern Mexico. Credit: Courtesy of Instituto Sinaloense para la Educación de los Adultos (Sinaloa Institute for Adult Education)

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jul 14 2022 (IPS)

While the world’s big private business pours billions of dollars in producing automatic machines and assuring their optimal functioning, bareley no money has been invested in the hundreds of millions of human workers, who are left shockingly unprotected, treated like cheap robots, or even worse.

For example, of all domestic workers worldwide -overwhelmingly women- up to 94% lack access to the full range of protections, covering medical care, sickness, unemployment, old age, employment injury, family, maternity, invalidity and survivors’ benefits.

More than 60% of the world’s adult labour force –or about 2 billion workers– work in the informal economy. They are not recognised, registered, regulated or protected under labour legislation and social protection. The consequences can be severe, for individuals, families as well as economies

This means that only 6% of their total number –estimated at over 75 million worldwide– have access to comprehensive social protection.

In its mid-June 2022 report: Making the right to social security a reality for domestic workers, the International Labour Organization (ILO) also informs that about half of all domestic workers have no coverage at all, with the remaining half legally covered by at least one benefit.

The extension of effective coverage has lagged significantly behind that of legal coverage ILO explains. Only one-in-five domestic workers are actually covered in practice because the vast majority are employed informally.

Despite their vital contribution to society, supporting households with their most personal and care needs, most of the world’s 75,6 million domestic workers face multiple barriers to enjoying legal coverage and effective access to social security, the report explains.

“They are often excluded from national social security legislation.”

 

Women, three-quarters of all

As 76.2% of domestic workers (57.7 million people) are women, such social protection gaps leave them particularly vulnerable.

Most of them do not have access to social insurance schemes benefits related to unemployment or employment injury, also according to the world’s main labour body.

 

No protection in the Americas, Arab region, Asia, Africa

The report also highlights major differences between regions.

• In Europe and Central Asia, 57.3% of domestic workers are legally covered for all benefits.

• A little more than 10% of domestic workers are legally covered for all benefits in the Americas;

• Almost none are fully covered in the Arab States, Asia and the Pacific and Africa ‒ regions that include countries where significant numbers of domestic workers are employed.

• The COVID-19 pandemic has made “glaringly apparent” the social protection coverage gaps experienced by domestic workers. They were among the worst hit during the pandemic, with many losing their jobs and livelihoods.

• Many of those who kept their jobs were often exposed to the disease without sufficient protective equipment. However, domestic workers could rarely rely on adequate health protection, sickness or unemployment benefits, further exposing their vulnerabilities.

 

Asia is the largest garment manufacturer in the world. Despite increase in real wages for most workers, their working conditions have remained poor and characterised by widespread informality and vulnerability. Credit: Obaidul Arif/IPS

 

No decent work in the ‘garment factory’

Tragically, the unprotected tens of millions of domestic workers are not the only case of human rights abuse.

For example, Asia remains the ‘garment factory of the world,’ yet the sector faces an array of challenges many of which have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a 24 June new ILO report: Employment, wages and productivity in the Asian garment sector: Taking stock of recent trends.

The study highlights how the industry still accounts for 55% of global textiles and clothing exports and employs some 60 million workers.

The situation has been exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19.

 

Exposed to dangerous biological risks

A biological hazard as any micro-organism, cell or other organic material that may be of plant, animal, or human origin, including any which have been genetically modified, and which can cause harm to human health, explains the International Labour Organzation.

This may include, but is not limited to, bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi, prions, DNA materials, bodily fluids, and other microorganisms and their associated allergens and toxins.

Both infectious and non-infectious biological hazards can be a significant health threat in numerous sectors and workplaces worldwide.

 

Death

“For example, communicable diseases alone are estimated to have caused 310,000 work-related deaths worldwide in 2021, 120,000 of which were due to COVID-19.”

To deal with this alarming issue, experts from governments and employers’ and workers’ organisations meeting at the International Labour Organisation (Geneva, 20 to 24 June) adopted guidelines for handling biological hazards in the working environment.

They provide specific advice, aligned with international labour standards, on preventing and controlling work-related injuries, diseases, and deaths related to exposure to biological hazards in the working environment.

“This includes questions related to the responsibilities and rights of competent authorities, employers, occupational health services and workers, workplace risk management, workers’ health surveillance, and preparedness and response to emergencies.”

 

Social protection for rural workers “remains a dream”

Social protection for rural workers “remains a dream”, according to a report launched in Geneva on 7 July 2022 by the Bureau for Workers’ Activities (ACTRAV), part of the UN’s International Labour Organization.

This is of particular concern for those in precarious work conditions, including informal, casual, temporary and subcontracted workers and day labourers who form the large majority of workers on agricultural plantations, laid out in the study: Decent work deficits among rural workers.

Based on 16 case studies covering 15 countries in Africa, Asia, Central Asia, Europe and Latin America, the report shows that deficits in working conditions are found in every sector and in relation to every substantive element covered by the framework of the ILO’s Decent Work Indicators.

It reveals that “child and forced labour as well as debt bondage remain a reality for many worldwide.”

Up to 95% of children engaged in hazardous work are employed in agriculture, notably in the cocoa, palm oil and tobacco sectors. And forced labour is linked to the many ways workers are dependent on employers.

 

80% of all working poor, in rural areas

Meanwhile, about 80% of the world’s poor live in rural areas, many of whom face severe decent-work deficits, including inadequate safety, low pay, lack of stability and security, and excessive working hours – with women and young workers hit the hardest.

And women are disproportionately represented in the most precarious positions; having to accept low-paying, low-skilled jobs, suffering huge gender pay gaps, and are more prone to workplace harassment and abuse compared to male workers, the report reveals.

 

Exposed to chemicals

The report also describes chemical exposure as posing serious health and other risks to agricultural workers, particularly to children and pregnant and lactating women.

“Most rural workers operate in the informal economy, which includes a large proportion of women working as unpaid care workers who have no access to maternity leave and other essential protections.”

Add to all the above that over 60% of world workers are not recognised, not registered, not protected.

In fact, the UN reports that more than 60% of the world’s adult labour force –or about 2 billion workers– work in the informal economy. “They are not recognised, registered, regulated or protected under labour legislation and social protection. The consequences can be severe, for individuals, families as well as economies.”

Maybe because they are humans?

 

Thanks to the Technical University of Kenya (TUK), fishers on Lake Victoria may soon have a drone keeping an eye on them and making sure they do not fall victim to border conflicts. Credit: TUK

By Wilson Odhiambo
Nairobi, Jul 14 2022 (IPS)

It is exactly two years since George Omuodo’s brutal confrontation with fishers from Uganda, an encounter that left him hospitalized with a broken arm and bruised ribs. After listening to his ordeal, one wonders where he gets the courage to go back to the lake every day.

“I have to feed my family,” Omuodo tells IPS.

Omuodo is a 28-year-old fisher from Homabay county, a place famously known for its fishing activities with its large harbor and string of fishing boats lined up along the shores of Lake Victoria.

George Omuodo, who relies on fishing on Lake Victoria, had a violent confrontation with fishers from Uganda. Now a pilot project using a drone to keep fishers from border conflicts could assist in keeping him safe. Credit: Wilson Odhiambo/IPS

Omuodo and most of his friends rely on fishing, a source of food and income for their families. The only problem with this humble lifestyle is that it suddenly turned risky.

Border conflicts have been a perennial problem for local authorities on Lake Victoria for a long time, which has seen some fishermen lose their lives as they participate in their trade. The infamous Migingo Island is one example of border conflict that has seen many Kenyan fishers suffer at the hands of Ugandan authorities. The fishermen complained of being harassed by the border patrols, some of whom forced them to give up their equipment, catch, and even freedom due to trespassing rules.

“The area around Migingo is good for fishing and is what drives us there. However, the Ugandan government believes that Migingo Island is their territory and that all the fish around the area belong to them. Their border patrol and fishermen have been harassing us,” Omuodo lamented.

“Since this is our only source of livelihood, we have no choice but to constantly risk our lives just to earn a living for ourselves,” he said.

Omuodo and his friends may finally have someone to watch over them as they go about their business.

Thanks to the Technical University of Kenya (TUK), fishers on Lake Victoria may soon have a drone keeping an eye on them and making sure they do not fall victim to border conflicts.

In 2018, TUK embarked on a project that saw them develop their nanosatellite dubbed “TUKSat-1,” which was aimed at monitoring security on Lake Victoria, including helping local authorities in rescue operations.

According to TUK, the satellite works by relaying coordinates, including pictorial views, to the relevant personnel, thus aiding in tracking water vessels and people who go missing on the lake.

TUKSat-1 aims to mitigate this problem by sounding an alarm whenever a Kenyan vessel drifts too close to a Kenya-Tanzania or Kenya-Uganda border.

Professor Paul Baki, the project’s lead investigator, said the nanosatellite program was a joint effort that involved disciplines from various schools such as mechanical and process engineering, surveying and geospatial technologies, aerospace, and aeronautical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering as well as physics and earth sciences. Credit: TUK

Professor Paul Baki, the project’s lead investigator, told IPS that the nanosatellite program was a joint effort that involved disciplines from various schools such as Mechanical and process engineering, surveying and geospatial technologies, aerospace and aeronautical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering as well as physics and earth sciences.

“The TUKSat-1 program was initiated at the University in 2018 and involved collaborations between TUK and other institutions abroad,” Baki told IPS. “We were able to get funding from the Kenya Space Agency in 2020 and built the 1U nanosatellite (10cm3 in volume) between October 2020 to October 2021,” he added.

Baki said that the parts used to build the satellite were bought locally, and all the work was done in TUK’s physics laboratory.

Space exploration is not alien to Kenya, as NASA once launched a satellite from the San Marco launch site, Malindi, in 1970. Despite the satellite (dubbed Small Astronomical Satellite 1, SAS-1) not being Kenyan-owned, it did bear the Kenyan slogan “UHURU,” and the launch was a historic moment for a country that had just gained its independence. The satellite was also the first of its kind dedicated to X-ray astronomy.

Fast forward five decades later, where the University of Nairobi was able to build the first Kenyan-owned satellite (1st Kenyan University Nanosatellite-Precursor Flight) 1KUNS – PF, which was launched from the international space station in the United States.

The CubeSat, assembled by University of Nairobi (UON) engineering students in collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), was launched into the international space station on May 11, 2018. Its purpose was to carry out technological tests while recording details about the earth.

The UON got its funding, worth Ksh.120 million (about US$ 1miillion), from the joint space program between JAXA and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) in 2016.

However, unlike the 1KUNS-PF, which currently floats around in space, the TUKSat-1 was launched on a drone and is meant to demonstrate the technology in preparation for more technical launches.

“Space technology and exploration will soon influence our economy and livelihood,” said Seth Odhiambo Nyawacha, a Geomatics Application Expert at Locate IT Limited. It is time Africa started producing the minds needed for technological advancements.

Nyawacha explained that Africa quickly became a consumer of space-based technology and products, which called for investments from stakeholders, especially in education and training about space technology and its exploration.

“With the development of the African Space Agency, soon to be hosted in Egypt, the continent will require home-based technicians and engineers to propel our satellites to space, ranging from communication satellites, weather forecast satellites in the wake of climate change, among other satellite types,” Nyawacha told IPS. He applauded the effort by JAXA and UNOOSA to help fund and train engineers in Sub-Saharan Africa.

A 2021 Kenyan-Spaceport report said that Kenya’s position on the equator made it a suitable center for rocket launches, and Marsabit was chosen as the site for setting up a spaceport.

The Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and Moi University are other Kenyan institutions interested in space exploration.

“Kenya has shown great potential in space technology, and we should use this opportunity to set up a small-scale domestic space industry. As a country, we need to tap into the bright minds in our universities and help them propel Kenya into the frontiers of space technology,” Baki added.

Omuodo doesn’t understand much about satellites but welcomes any measure that would help them ply their trade in peace.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Credit: United Nations

By Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 14 2022 (IPS)

Our world is in deep trouble – and so too are the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Time is running out. But there is still hope. Because we know what we need to do:

End the senseless, disastrous wars – now. Unleash a renewable energy revolution – now. Invest in people and build a new social contract – now.

And deliver a New Global Deal to rebalance power and financial resources and enable all developing countries to invest in the SDGs.

Let’s come together, starting today, with ambition, resolve and solidarity, to rescue the SDGs before it is too late.

We meet at a time of great uncertainty. The world faces cascading crises that are causing profound suffering today, and carry the seeds of dangerous inequality, instability and climate chaos tomorrow.

The ripple effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have hit amid a fragile and uneven recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, while the climate emergency is gathering pace.

Some countries are investing in recovery through a transition to renewable energy and sustainable development.

But others are unable to do so, because of deep-rooted structural challenges and inequalities, at global and national levels.

Some 94 countries, home to 1.6 billion people, face a perfect storm: dramatic increases in the price of food and energy, and a lack of access to finance.

And so there is a real risk of multiple famines this year. Next year could be even worse, if fertilizer shortages affect the harvests of staple crops, including rice.

The United Nations Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance has warned of the impacts of the current cost of living crisis and the future risks for next year.

Sixty per cent of workers today have lower real incomes than before the pandemic; developing countries are missing $1.2 trillion per year, just to fill the social protection gap; And sixty percent of developing economies are currently in, or at high risk of, debt distress.

Meanwhile, the number of people forced from their homes has risen to 100 million — the highest number since the creation of the United Nations.

The planet’s largest ecosystems – oceans and forests – are in danger. Biodiversity is declining at unprecedented rates.

Discrimination against women and girls continues in all sectors and all societies, while gender-based violence is at emergency levels. Attacks on women’s reproductive rights are reverberating around the world.

Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals will require $4.3 trillion USD per year — more money than ever before — because the international community is simply not keeping pace with the commitments it made;

In the face of these cascading crises, we are far from powerless. There is much we can do, and many concrete steps we can take, to turn things around.

I see four areas for immediate action.

First, recovery from the pandemic in every country.

We must ensure equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines, therapies and tests. And now it is very important to have a serious effort to increase the number of countries that can produce vaccines, diagnostics, and other else technologies thinking about the future.

Governments must work together with the pharmaceutical industry and other stakeholders to share licenses and to provide technical and financial support to allow many other countries to produce vaccines and other medical important products.

Then we must redouble our efforts to make sure future outbreaks of disease are better managed by strengthening health systems and ensuring Universal Health Coverage.

Second, we need to tackle the food, energy and finance crisis.

Ukraine’s food production, and the food and fertilizer produced by Russia, must be brought back to world markets — despite the war.

We have been working hard on a plan to allow for the safe and secure exports of Ukrainian produced foods through the Black Sea and Russian foods and fertilizers to global markets.

I thank the governments involved for your continued cooperation.

But there can be no solution to today’s crises without a solution to the crisis of economic inequality in the developing world.

We need to make resources and fiscal space available to countries and communities, including Middle Income Countries, that have an even more limited financial toolbox than three years ago.

This requires global financial institutions to use all the instruments at their disposal, with flexibility and understanding.

Among other measures, they must consider raising access limits, re-channeling all unused Special Drawing Rights to countries in need, and reviving the Debt Service Suspension Initiative to provide immediate support to those in debt distress.

We should not forget that the majority of poor people do not live in the poorest countries; they live in Middle Income Countries.

If they don’t receive the support they need, the development prospects of heavily indebted Middle-Income Countries will be seriously compromised.

Looking ahead, we need a New Global Deal so that developing countries have a fair shot at building their own futures.

My report on Our Common Agenda calls for concerted efforts to rebalance power and resources through an operational debt relief and restructuring framework; lower borrowing costs for developing countries; and investment in long-term resilience over short-term profit.

The global financial system is failing the developing world.

Although since it was not designed to protect developing countries, perhaps it is more accurate to say the system is working as intended.

So, we need reform.

We need a system that works for the vulnerable, not just the powerful.

Third, we need to invest in people.

The pandemic has shown the devastating impacts of inequality within and between countries.

Time and again, it is the most vulnerable and marginalized who suffer most when crises hit.

It is time to prioritize investment in people; to build a new social contract, based on universal social protection; and to overhaul social support systems established in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Education is one critical example.

Any hope of solving the world’s challenges starts with education. But education today is racked by a crisis of equity, quality and relevance.

The Transforming Education Summit that I will convene in September is a platform for world leaders to recommit to education as a global public good; to chart a new vision for education systems fit for the future; and to mobilize support in order to move from vision to reality, especially in developing countries.

The Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions offers another critical entry point.

I urge all countries to make full use of this tool to reskill and retool their workforces for the economies of the future: powered by renewable energy and based on digital connectivity.

Fourth, we cannot delay ambitious climate action.

The battle to keep the 1.5 degree goal alive will be won or lost this decade.

While achieving this goal requires a reduction in global emissions of 45 percent below 2010 levels by 2030, current pledges would result in a 14 percent increase in emissions by that date.

This is collective suicide. We must change course.

Ending the global addiction to fossil fuels through a renewable energy revolution is priority number one.

I have been asking for no new coal plants and no more subsidies to fossil fuels because funding fossil fuels is delusional and funding renewable energy is rational.

Developed countries must make good on their $100 billion climate finance commitment to developing countries, starting this year.

Developing economies must have access to the resources and technology they need.

Half of all climate finance should go to adaptation. Everyone in climate- related high-risk areas should be covered by early warning systems within the next five years.

And we need to review access and eligibility frameworks for concessional finance, so that developing countries, including Middle Income Countries, can get the finance they need, when they need it.

The World Bank and the other international financial institutions must provide much more concessional funding, especially in relation to climate adaptation.

The High-level Political Forum is the place where the world comes together around solutions for sustainable development; for rebuilding differently and better; for achieving the SDGs.

We have the knowledge, the science and technologies and the financial resources to reverse the trajectories that have led us off course.

We have inspiring examples of transformative change.

In just over one year’s time, we will meet here for the 2023 SDG summit marking the halfway point between the adoption of the 2030 Agenda, and its target date.

Let’s do everything in our power to change course and build solid progress by then.

I wish you a successful meeting.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

In his opening address to the 2022 Ministerial meeting of the High-Level Political Forum on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, July 13-15.

World hunger in 2021 reached 828 million people, an increase of 46 million from 2020 and 150 million since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: FAO.

By Mario Lubetkin
ROME, Jul 13 2022 (IPS)

The signs of the last few years indicate a continuous setback towards achieving food security. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ (FAO) annual report, “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI)”, prepared together with other UN agencies and presented on July 6th leaves no doubt about the dangerous situation in which we find ourselves regarding the real possibilities of eliminating hunger and poverty by 2030, as solemnly proposed by the international community in October 2015 in New York.

According to the latest SOFI data, world hunger in 2021 reached 828 million people, an increase of 46 million from 2020 and 150 million since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, showing that hunger has skyrocketed in 2020, after five years of no change or slight improvements. In 2019, the global population suffering from hunger was 8% of the world population, in 2020 it was 9.3% and in 2021 it reached 9.8%.

In 2021, nearly 2.3 billion people were moderately or severely food insecure that is, 350 million more than those who suffered from it before COVID-19. Likewise, around 924 million people, representing 11.7% of the world's population, faced severe levels of food insecurity, a figure that increased by 207 million in just two years

Looking into the future, the report projects that at this rate, even with a global economic recovery, around 670 million people will go hungry, or 8% of the world’s population. This is the same percentage as in 2015 when more than 150 heads of state and government adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to eliminate hunger and poverty worldwide by 2030!

Experts remind us that, in 2021, nearly 2.3 billion people were moderately or severely food insecure that is, 350 million more than those who suffered from it before COVID-19.

Likewise, around 924 million people, representing 11.7% of the world’s population, faced severe levels of food insecurity, a figure that increased by 207 million in just two years. Moreover, the gender gap continued to widen, with women accounting for 31.9% of these dramatic figures, while men accounted for 27.6%.

In 2020, nearly 3.1 billion people could not afford to maintain a healthy diet, 112 million more than in 2019, reflecting the consumer consequences of the effects of food price inflation stemming from the economic implications of COVID-19.

This is without calculating the impact of the war in Ukraine involving two of the world’s main producers of basic grains, oilseeds and fertilizers, and other conflicts around the world.

Clearly, this is disrupting the international supply chains and driving up the price of grains, fertilizers and energy, as well as ready-to-eat therapeutic foods for the treatment of severe malnutrition in children.

An estimated 45 million children under the age of five suffer from wasting. This is one of the deadliest forms of malnutrition that increases the risk of child mortality 12-fold. Meanwhile, 149 million children of the same age suffer from stunted growth and development due to a chronic lack of nutrients necessary for a healthy diet, and another 39 million are overweight, all aspects that will undoubtedly affect the future development of our societies.

One way to contribute to economic recovery when faced with the danger of a global recession with its direct consequences on public income and spending, is to adapt the forms of support for food and agriculture, which between 2013 and 2018 was 630,000 million dollars, and allocate them to nutritious foods where per capita consumption still falls short of the recommended levels for a healthy diet.

The SOFI report suggests that if governments were to adapt the resources they are using to encourage the production, supply and consumption of nutritious food, they would contribute to making healthy diets less expensive, more affordable and equitable for all people.

FAO, through its Director-General Qu Dongyu, insists that, in this complex situation, aggravated by war and climatic factors, investment in countries affected by rising food prices should increase, especially by supporting local production of nutritious food.

Currently, only 8% of all food security funding under emergency aid goes to support agricultural production.

In addition, information tools must be improved to enable better analysis and decision-making on food security and nutrition, in particular by using the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC), which can be a key factor in global responses to hunger.

Specialists say that policies aimed at increasing the productivity, efficiency, resilience and inclusion of agrifood systems should be promoted.

For this to happen, a financial investment equivalent to 8% of the volume of the agrifood market would be advisable, and these investments should focus on value chain infrastructure, innovation, new technologies and inclusive digital infrastructure.

Reducing food loss and waste could feed an additional 1.26 billion people a year, including enough fruit and vegetables for everyone.

In parallel, it would be advisable to ensure a better and more efficient use of available fertilizers for a better adaptation to local agricultural systems, maintaining market transparency, using tools such as the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS), which is important for building confidence in world markets, while seeking to stabilize prices, preserving the open world trade system.

The solutions exist, but we must act before it is too late.

Excerpt:

This is an op-ed by Mario Lubetkin, FAO Assistant Director-General and designated FAO Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean (1 August 2022)

BRAC celebrates 50 years and has reached over nine million people living in extreme poverty through its Ultra-Poor Graduation program, which introduces a set of sequenced and holistic interventions intended to guarantee sustained financial stability. Credit: BRAC

By Naureen Hossain
New York, Jul 13 2022 (IPS)

As part of the 2022 United Nations High-Level Political Forum, BRAC, with the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the United Nations, and the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Rwanda to the United Nations, hosted a side event this week to discuss development opportunities led by the Global South. The event highlighted the NGO’s achievements over the last five decades in alleviating and eradicating poverty and the interconnectedness between the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their initiatives.

As part of the 2022 United Nations High-Level Political Forum, BRAC and the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the United Nations hosted a side event this week to discuss development opportunities led by the Global South. The event highlighted the NGO’s achievements over the last five decades in alleviating and eradicating poverty and the interconnectedness between the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their initiatives.

The discussion was moderated by IPS Senior Vice Chair and Executive Director, IPS North America, Farhana Haque Rahman. Speakers included BRAC Executive Director Asif Saleh, Ambassador Rabab Fatima of Bangladesh; Robert Kayinamura, Deputy Permanent Representative of Rwanda Mission to the United Nations; Deputy Chief and Senior Programme Management Officer to the UN Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries, and Small Island States (UN-OHRLLS) Susanna Wolf; Oriana Bandiera, Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, and Jaideep Prabhu, Director of the Center for India & Global Business, Cambridge University.

At the high-level discussion commemorating BRAC’s 50 years of eradicating poverty were BRAC Executive Director Asif Saleh; Ambassador Rabab Fatima of Bangladesh and Robert Kayinamura, Deputy Permanent Representative of Rwanda Mission to the United Nations. Credit: BRAC

The event was a commemoration of BRAC’s 50th anniversary. Founded in 1972 by Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, BRAC began as a humanitarian relief provider after Bangladesh’s war of independence ended in 1971. The NGO has since grown in scale and operations, the only one of its size to originate from the Global South. Its programs reach over 100 million people in 11 South Asia and African countries. It aims to provide the tools and strategies for people to graduate from poverty and into more financially stable, resilient lives. Over the last five decades, BRAC has worked to address the pressing socio-economic issues of the times through holistic, solutions-based approaches that have relied on local community involvement in multiple program planning and implementation avenues.

The success of BRAC and other NGOs has also come down to the close collaboration between them and the Bangladesh government. Bangladesh has been celebrated for its economic growth and development, achieving the highest GDP globally from 2010 to 2020. The World Bank has called it a “model for poverty reduction”. This has been possible, as Ambassador Rabab Fatima stated in her opening remarks, because of the government’s “tremendous commitment to achieving the UN SDGs, especially SDG 1: No Poverty – aligning national plans and policy documents with SDG targets and goals and working in close partnership with the NGO sector and other civil society members, including BRAC”.

The forum’s discussion also deliberated on the multi-faceted approach needed for poverty eradication.

BRAC Executive Director Asif Saleh noted that “critical to eradicating poverty is understanding that it is multidimensional.”

“Solutions must address not only income and livelihoods but also education, health, climate, and gender equality – the many interconnected drivers that trap people in the most extreme states of poverty, unable to escape without receiving a significant transfer of assets and tailored support…”

Saleh also remarked that BRAC’s social development and investment approach had been shaped by a “problems-driven approach, rather than a proposal-driven one” and is crucially defined by its founding and establishment in the Global South. The traditional approach to development, as designed and dictated by the Global North, has had the unintended consequence of excluding millions of people from traditional programs and market-led initiatives.

“What we’ve seen is that people in extreme poverty are being left behind in development discussions.”

Deputy Chief and Senior Programme Management Officer to UN-OHRLLS Susanna Wolf; Oriana Bandiera, Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and Jaideep Prabhu, Director of the Center for India & Global Business, Cambridge University. Credit: BRAC

The high-level forum also covered how BRAC’s work and, in turn, Bangladesh’s growth and success demonstrate the SDGs’ interconnectedness, particularly regarding SDG1. Most notably, SDGs 4, 5, and 17 call for equitable and inclusive quality education for all, gender equality and revitalizing global partnerships for sustainable development.

In working with millions of people living in extreme poverty, the solutions put forward by BRAC have been borne from innovation through frugality for the sake of financial viability and social and environmental impact, as Professor Jaideep Prabhu noted.

“Indeed, Bangladesh has pioneered the idea of social business… but instead of returning these profits to investors and owners, you put this wealth back into scaling your social mission and broadening your social impact.”

Prabhu also noted that this approach to business and social development had been adopted worldwide, including publicly listed companies that take responsibility for their performance’s social and environmental impact.

BRAC reached over nine million people living in extreme poverty through its Ultra-Poor Graduation program, which introduces a set of sequenced and holistic interventions intended to guarantee sustained financial stability.

Among their efforts at poverty eradication, a key factor has been to empower women through education and economic independence.

Oriana Bandiera of the London School of Economics remarked: “It is not possible to achieve SDG1 [No Poverty] without advancing economic opportunities for women and their status in society.”

Studies from the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) have shown that investing in women’s economic empowerment can have a meaningful impact on social and economic development. This can be observed in Bangladesh, where it has made significant strides in reducing gender divisions, closing 72 percent of the overall gender gap, and reducing the rates of child marriages, maternal mortality, and family violence.

As was discussed in the forum, this investment in women’s economic empowerment and the long-term impact on poverty eradication can be achieved through community engagement. This has been seen in BRAC’s education programs, first pioneered in 1985. Their model for community-based education programs recruits women, men, and other members of local communities in the most vulnerable areas to provide accessible schooling for boys and girls in one-classroom settings. Today, BRAC has become one of the world’s largest education providers.

Poverty is multidimensional and solutions should not only address income and livelihoods but also education, health, climate, and gender equality, a high-level discussion moderated by IPS Senior Vice Chair and Executive Director, IPS North America, Farhana Haque Rahman heard. Credit: BRAC

BRAC demonstrated the potential for countries in the Global South to proactively lead development initiatives in the region. Deputy Permanent Representative of the Republic of Rwanda to the UN Robert Kayinamura stated that middle-income countries should step up to corroborate and share their knowledge and lived experiences in shaping these initiatives, citing Rwanda’s growth in the development sector.

“We have tried to achieve within our means with the SDGs,” he said. “It has been partnerships, including BRAC, which has brought us to where we are.”

This sentiment and call for partnerships to achieve the SDGs was echoed by Susanna Wolf of UN-OHLLRS, who provided the perspective of international agencies.

“Strong emphasis on building resilience to various shocks from health emergencies to disasters and price shocks, which are all increasingly frequent and disproportionally affect LDCs (Least Developed Countries). To address the multidimensional nature of poverty, all partners are expected to step up their efforts. Social protection has an increasingly important role to play, and other LDCs can learn a lot from the innovative approaches spearheaded by BRAC.”

The systemic inequities that have resulted in and perpetuated extreme poverty have only come in sharper contrast in the wake of compounding global crises such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. The efforts of NGOs like BRAC and the frontline workers that continue to work through these crises to support the most vulnerable communities show their resilience. BRAC has championed people’s resilience, agency, and partnership for fifty years; may it continue for another fifty more.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Mumtaza Bano (centre), is ploughing the field along with other women in her village in south Kashmir. Farmers in the region have experienced a heat wave which has turned much of the area, known for lush green hills, into a dry wasteland. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

By Umar Manzoor Shah
Srinagar, Indian Kashmir, Jul 13 2022 (IPS)

The soaring temperatures this year in India’s northern state of Kashmir are proving calamitous for the region’s farming community.  The place, otherwise known for its emerald streams, lush green hills, and ice sheets, is reeling under heat attributed to climate change this year. The heat wave of such intensity has left most of the water canals dead and dry, plunging the already conflict-torn region into a frightening agrarian crisis.

Perturbed and dismayed, Ghulam Mohammad Mir is trying to sow a paddy crop on his two-acre plot in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal area. Mir says his months of hard work would probably get wasted as the land has almost turned barren due to scorching heat and water scarcity.

“We are witnessing the temperatures spiking as high as 37 degrees Celsius. Such heat wave was otherwise alien to Kashmir. You can see the land looks barren, and if we sow any crop here, we fear it would turn into dry, dead twigs in the coming days. The scenes are scary to imagine. There is little water accumulated by the rain left in the fields,” Mir told IPS.

Ghulam Mohammad Mir is sowing a paddy crop on his two-acre land located in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal area. Mir says his months of hard work will probably get wasted as the land has almost turned barren in the unrelenting heat. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

The farmer, who is in his late 50s, says he has been in paddy cultivation since childhood but has never seen the drying of the land with such intensity.  Mir says the water canals were never as dry as they are today, and in the first three months after spring – from March to June, there was no rainfall, and then it rained heavily for four days, suddenly plummeting the temperatures to mere 15 degrees Celsius.

“And then, the mercury surged again, and within a mere one week, the temperatures surged to almost 37 degrees. Where will we get water to irrigate our fields now? The paddy will burn amid such scorching heat. This is disastrous to the core,” Mir said.

According to the research titled ‘Climate Change Projection in Kashmir Valley’ conducted by the region’s agriculture university, the states of Jammu and Kashmir are impacted by climate change. The state, claims the research, is expected to have a surge in the number of rainy days by 2030.

“Similarly, the annual temperature is likely to increase in the next century compared to the base period of 1970. An increasing trend in annual maximum and minimum temperature, as well as precipitation, has also been predicted for the region under Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES).”

Over the years, the valley has experienced irregular precipitation patterns. In the first five months of 2022, Kashmir saw a 38 percent decrease in rainfall, according to data from the Meteorological Department (MeT) in Srinagar. The data reveals that the Kashmir valley has experienced a significant lack of pre-monsoon precipitation over the years. From March 1 to May 31, 2022, the region got 99.5 mm of rain, a 70 percent down from the average. Comparably, between March and May of each of the following years—2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021—there was a deficit of 16, 28, 35, and 26%, respectively.

Mohammad Iqbal Choudhary, the Director of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Kashmir, told IPS that most irrigation canals have turned dry in Kashmir. As a result, the majority of paddy fields have been left uncultivated.

Dr Arshid Jahangir, who teaches Environmental Studies at the University of Kashmir, said climate models indicate a pretty bleak outlook for the region.

In the future, Jahangir says extreme events will happen more frequently in the Himalayas, which includes Kashmir.

“The Kashmir region has had numerous extreme weather occurrences in the last ten years, including floods, frequent cloudbursts, heat waves, droughts, landslides, and early snowfalls. In Kashmir’s climate history, such occurrences were never typical. These extreme events won’t just keep happening; their frequency will also rise. Aside from the financial losses, everyone’s lives are in danger as a result of this,” he said.

For farmers like Mir, if the situation doesn’t improve, they will have no choice but to abandon farming forever.

“You see, our children do not want to do this work. They ask, ‘what is the fun of toiling so hard only to get losses in the end?’ We could sell this land off and do some other business,” Mir said.

Most Kashmiris are farmers, using various techniques adapted to the region’s environment. Rice is planted in May and harvested in September. The main summer crops are maize, sorghum, millet, pulses, tobacco, and cotton, and the main spring crop is barley.

In south Kashmir’s Pulwama area, Mumtaza Bano was busy ploughing her two-acre land with her husband. However, Bano seems pessimistic about having a profitable yield this year.

“The soil looks hard, and it is tough to plough it through. It is July, and we are without any irrigation facility here. The canals are running dry, and so are our hopes of a good yield. This entire village is considering abandoning farming now and doing some other work. It is just a waste of time now,” Bano said.

Kashmir’s renowned earth scientist Professor Shakil Ahmad Ramsoo, told IPS that action at the global level is needed to resolve the crises prevalent across the Himalayan region.

“Global climate change is a reality. There would be extended dry spells interspersed with high-intensity, long-duration downpours. There is a trend when we look over the past 30 to 50 years. Snowfall in the winter is currently below average. The autumn is becoming dryer. The rainy spring is drying up. This is why the crisis needs global attention so that we can mitigate it,” Ramsoo said.
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Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.
                                                    Michel de Montaigne

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM, Jul 13 2022 (IPS)

During the beginning of the pandemic, people wanted to learn more about COVID-19. Enclosed in their homes they watched with fear and fascination how the pandemic swept over the world, while comparing numbers of affected people and the death-toll in different countries. Watching COVID’s rampage became a kind of horror show. However, already after a few months with death-tolls rising and isolation not being over anytime soon, psychological fatigue set in. Judging from media coverage it now appears as if the pandemic finally is over, which is far from being the case.

A similar phenomenon seems to arise in relation to the war in Ukraine. Media coverage is decreasing, even if Russian troops are advancing while towns and villages continue to crumble under their heavy bombardment. The Ukrainian war came as a shock. Without provocation an independent nation was invaded by a military super-power. However, soon general interest was fading and the war in Ukraine is in the minds of many gradually being transformed into a “traditional” war. Affected by declining endurance and lack of commitment, as well as an audience-adapted media, people have a tendency to “normalise” protracted human suffering.

Relatively safe and comfortable, media audience is now returning to previous internet surfing and TV channel zapping, searching for entertainment and celebrity gossip. The U.S. author Norman Mailer often repeated his view of the “Western World” as a place where people out of convenience and inertia tend to gloss over all complexity, avoiding questions that take more than ten seconds to answer. To form an opinion, they require tangible and upsetting events, while more in-depth analyses tend to bore them.

Superficiality and lack of analysis are evident in emotionally charged and polarizing postings prevailing on social media networks, where propaganda and shallow information are delivered to millions of consumers, distracting them from important issues, while strengthening hatred and bigotry, eroding social trust, undermining serious journalism, fostering doubts about science and furthermore serving as covert surveillance of lives and opinions of individuals acceding the global web.

Young people tend to have significantly better computer skills than older newspaper- and book readers and are accordingly by elders accused of spending too much time within a digital world. Nevertheless, I assume most internet users, no matter their age, have a tendency to enter a limited, personal niche of specific information. Their approach to source criticism is to visit sites they are familiar with, judging such information to be more trustworthy than the one offered by other news outlets.

Social media might make sense of life, though the problem is that they generally deal with other people’s views and lives, seldom with our own. However, this cannot be exclusively blamed on social media. After all, young and old are alike when it comes to assessing an incessant avalanche of information. It is a common human trait that few of us have the time, courage, or interest, to dig deep into our own mind in search of whom we actually are, as well as the origin of our ideas and opinions. Something that might influence a reluctance to take decisions on our own, and if we do so – take responsibility and stand by them.

Nevertheless, there are a few brave women and men who are able to do just that. An example – in 1983, a Soviet duty officer, Stanislav Petrov, did on the early warning system detect intercontinental, nuclear missiles entering Soviet air space. He was supposed to report this to his superiors, who without doubt would have launched a nuclear counter-attack. However, Petrov used his personal reasoning and experience. The radar had only detected five missiles and there was no indication of the U.S. considering a nuclear onslaught. If it really was a nuclear attack, why use only five missiles and not stage an “all-out assault”? Petrov assumed a system failure was more likely than an actual nuclear attack. He decided not to alert anyone and thus saved the world.

With this example in mind, let me return to COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine. Social networks are excellent tools for acquiring knowledge, though at the same time they nurture tribalism and intolerance, spreading damaging beliefs by convincing people to support a common, but bad cause, while avoiding personal, well-thought-out positions. Shared beliefs are the glue of community. In a bewildering and often hostile environment we are in need of a fixed place/position. A sense of belonging makes us feel safe and protected. We are herd animals and some of us consider the defence of rigid and shared beliefs as a matter of life or death, convictions that have to be kept alive and guarded from change, far beyond fact and reason.

Take the anti-vax movement. Due to strong beliefs in vaccines’ harmfulness people are willing to put their own lives, as well as those of others, in danger and even losing jobs and friends. This in spite of a global, scientific consensus that vaccines are safe and beneficent.

Anti-vaxers might be influenced by a lack of scientific knowledge, mistrust of public authorities, insufficient confidence in health care providers, general complacency, and/or misguiding religious/ideological beliefs. Fundamentalist Christians may believe that vaccinations are instigated by the Beast and a overture to the Apocalypse. Adherents to the Waldorf Movement can apply the founder’s opinion that their children’s spirits benefit from being “tempered in the fires of a good inflammation”, while Salafists might consider vaccination campaigns as a means of Infidels to pacify the zeal of the Righteous.

Delusions are fuelled by more than a thousand web sites spreading anti-vaccine misinformation, as well as a host of books and articles clogging social media with misinformation, hindering serious information to reach people already deceived by fake news.

Vaccination campaigns have eradicated smallpox, which once killed as many as one in seven children in Europe alone. With the exception of Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan they made polio disappear from earth. Half a million children were in 2000 dying from measles, ten years later these deaths were down by eighty percent, akin to similar reductions in mortality from diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and bacterial meningitis.

There is a wealth of scientific proof that opposing vaccination campaigns has negative effects. An example – starting around 2008, Somali immigrants in Minneapolis were targeted by organized meetings warning for a “vaccine-autism link”, eight years later the Somali community was in the throes of a serious measles outbreak. The same happened in 2019, when the Orthodox Jewish community in New York was targeted by a campaign comparing vaccines to the Holocaust.

There is no link between vaccines and autism. In 1998, British scientist Andrew Wakefield published, in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, research results suggesting that measles-, mumps-, and rubella vaccines caused behavioural regression and developmental disorders in children. Even if Wakefield’s findings could not be reproduced and proven right, vaccination rates began to drop. After finding that research results had been falsified, The Lancet retracted Wakefield’s article. However, by then the vaccine-autism connection had gone viral on the web. Eventually, Wakefield was barred from practising medicine in the UK and it was found that his research had been funded by lawyers engaged by parents in lawsuits against vaccine-producing companies.

Even if there is no link between vaccines and autism, there is definitely one between plagues and war. The deadly influenza pandemic in 1918 was propelled by troop movements and population shifts. Typhus follows almost every war. Armed conflicts cause malnutrition, poor pest control, sanitation problems, soil and water contamination, and destruction of medical facilities, while vaccination and other mass-treatment programmes falter, or cease.

The current, armed conflict in Yemen has caused the largest cholera outbreak in history, while the disease was absent from this country before the war. Wars in Syria and Iraq led to a resurgence of measles and polio, and the same is occurring in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has severely damaged the health care infrastructure, preventing citizens from receiving medical help. Specialist services are disrupted – HIV treatment and tuberculosis control are impacted. COVID-19 is spreading, as physical distancing are difficult to maintain in underground shelters, while vaccination efforts have been disrupted. They were already low before the invasion, with only 35 percent of Ukraine residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The war has also halted a Government roll-out of polio vaccination.

Considering the intimate connection between war and epidemics, a holding on to the harmfulness of vaccine campaigns, or a justification of wars of aggression, appear to be both absurd and harmful. We need to learn to discern the “full picture”, to compare and listen to different voices/various
opinions and thus avoid to be entrenched in fake and harmful convictions.

Instead of being lured into bigotry, we ought to finally understand that everything is connected, not the least misinformation, war, and disease. This means we have to make a joint effort to refrain from spreading and clinging to fake news and instead try to save our planet from the actual perils threatening it. There is only one Earth and no spare.

Main source: Hotez, Peter J. (2021) Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti Science. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.

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Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.
                                                    Michel de Montaigne

By External Source
Jul 12 2022 (IPS-Partners)

 
Isobel Coleman was sworn in as Deputy Administrator for Policy and Programming at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in November 2021.

As USAID’s Deputy Administrator, Isobel Coleman is responsible for program and policy oversight. She guides USAID’s crisis response, and she is also responsible for overseeing Agency efforts to prevent famine and future pandemics, strengthen education, health, democracy and economic growth, and improve responses to climate change.

Ambassador Coleman is a foreign policy and global development expert with more than 25 years of experience working in government, the private sector and non-profits.

ECW: When it comes to education aid funding, why is it important to prioritize the most vulnerable girls and boys – those whose lives are impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters – through organizations like Education Cannot Wait?

Isobel Coleman: At USAID, we know that to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 – equitable, inclusive quality education for all – we must prioritize the unique needs of the most vulnerable children and youth. Half of USAID’s basic and higher education funding is spent in regions experiencing conflict and crisis. But we are well aware that the scale of global need is growing due to crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, rising political instability and climate-induced disasters.

Education Cannot Wait (ECW) plays a vital role in addressing the educational needs of children and youth in acute and forgotten crises. As the only global fund dedicated to education in emergencies, ECW is uniquely positioned to coordinate among donors, the private sector, and humanitarian and development actors to meet the needs of the next generation. The work of ECW is helping ensure this growing population has the skills and abilities to sustain themselves while engaging as productive citizens in their communities.

ECW: Newsweek has named you one of the “150 Women Who Shake the World” and, in your current role at USAID, you are an inspiration to young and adolescent girls. With so many girls being left behind without access to education, why must – and how can we – best empower an entire generation of girls and young women to become the leaders of tomorrow?

Isobel Coleman: Research shows that education is certainly among the most powerful drivers of women and girls empowerment, and critical to achieving development and humanitarian outcomes. According to UNESCO, 15 million girls and 10 million boys worldwide will never set foot in a classroom; refugee girls are half as likely as their male counterparts to be in secondary school.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban’s decision this Spring not to reopen schools for girls above Grade 6 is a terrible blow to the gains in education that girls have been steadily making in that country. It is simply unacceptable that some three million school-aged Afghan girls are out of school due to economic, political and cultural barriers. USAID works to break down gender-related barriers to education so that all learners ¬– especially girls and women – have access to quality learning opportunities from pre-primary through higher education.

Educating girls and young women is an investment not only in them as individuals, but also in their future families, their communities and society at large. The evidence is clear – when a female head of household has an education, particularly a secondary school education, they can more sustainably escape a lifetime of poverty for themselves and their family, even in the face of conflict, crisis or other adversities.

In fiscal year 2020, the U.S. government provided more than 24 million primary and secondary students in 53 countries with opportunities to learn literacy, numeracy and other basic skills; distributed more than 31 million textbooks and other teaching and learning materials; and provided education to approximately 12 million women and girls. In Afghanistan, we are working hard to find ways to sustain access to education at all levels through support to Afghan-owned and operated community-based and private education.

At USAID, empowering women and girls through education is part of a broader approach to inclusion for all marginalized populations. We are working to better understand the root causes of marginalization and focusing our interventions on serving the most marginalized learners, including adolescent girls and those facing intersectional challenges such as disability, displacement and extreme poverty.

I want to emphasize the importance of supporting women to advance and succeed in leadership positions within education systems. Adolescent girls need role models and leaders in both the school and classroom, their communities and in public offices who will advocate for their specific needs with high levels of influence. When women are equitably represented in education leadership – whether at the international, national or even individual school-level – all learners, especially adolescent girls, benefit exponentially.

ECW: In your capacity as USAID Deputy Administrator for Policy and Programming, how do you see the role of multilateralism to steer the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals (in particular, SDG4, equitable, inclusive quality education for all) – particularly given ECW’s new data which shows there are now 222 million crisis-affected children and adolescents who need urgent education support?

Isobel Coleman: The United States has long championed international basic education. We are the largest bilateral funder of international basic education because we understand education is a foundational driver of development and is transformational for individuals and societies.

The U.S. will continue leading in international education through our bilateral and multilateral assistance. Working with all stakeholders, including our multilateral partners, builds resilient education systems, improves learning outcomes, and reaches the most marginalized children and youth. Through our support to multilateral partners, such as Education Cannot Wait, working in concert with our bilateral programs in basic and higher education, we maximize our ability to reach the greatest number of children and youth, and help deliver on SDG4.

A great example of our multilateral and bilateral assistance working together is in northern Mali. Last October, USAID contributed an additional $5 million to ECW’s programs in Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu to ensure continuity of learning opportunities, while USAID programming helped build resilient education systems for conflict-affected communities.

ECW: Why is investing in education in crisis-contexts like the Sahel, Yemen and beyond important for global social and economic security, and why is this important for the American people? Why should the private sector – including leading American companies – invest today in education in emergencies and protracted crises?

Isobel Coleman: Inclusive, quality education can reduce conflict and promote political and economic stability. But who delivers it – and what is taught – is crucial to promote democracy and prevent influence from malign actors. The private sector benefits from increased global stability, so it has not only a social responsibility, but some self-interest in joining international donors to address the educational needs of children and youth and help set them up for lifelong success.

Given the funding gap in education, we need EVERYONE to respond – donors, governments and the private sector. This is not an issue that any one entity can solve alone. The pandemic-related challenges that teachers and students continue to face globally have only expanded existing gaps and highlighted the need for new and non-traditional funding.

ECW: The climate crisis is an education crisis. How can we better connect education – especially for crisis-affected girls and boys – with climate action?

Isobel Coleman: Climate change poses challenges to education infrastructure and learning outcomes. It impacts marginalized populations disproportionately, worsening poverty and exacerbating non-climate stressors. However, strong education systems with emergency response capacity and plans can implement proactive measures to minimize damage and disruption due to climate events, such as droughts and hurricanes. Often after a natural disaster, the opening of schools signals the return to normalcy for both families and businesses, enabling early recovery. Therefore, investing in education during acute crises is also essential for children and the wider community.

Responding to the climate crisis is a USAID priority. USAID recently launched an ambitious 2022-2030 Climate Strategy to better support countries to adapt to climate change, leverage resources to mobilize both public and private climate finance, increase technical assistance to those most at risk of climate impacts, and cut the Agency’s carbon footprint. We are currently developing guidance to articulate how USAID’s programs can advance climate mitigation and adaptation across all levels of education, including by:

• Partnering with Ministries to integrate climate themes in curriculum and trainings
• Supporting education leaders to plan for climate resilience and green infrastructure
• Supporting youth to build skills for green jobs and engaging youth leaders to advocate for improved environmental practices and attitudes in their communities
• Leveraging the capacity of higher education systems to serve as climate action leaders and knowledge generators
• Improving risk management and capacity through training.

ECW: Our readers would like to know a little about you on a personal level and we know that reading is crucial to every child’s (and adult’s) growth and development. What are some of the books that have most influenced you and why would you recommend them to others?

Isobel Coleman: Reading absolutely is critical to personal growth and development! I was, and still am, an avid reader. I devour biographies, read mostly non-fiction, but also love fiction too. So many books have left indelible impressions on me – it’s a struggle to pick a few. But one that stands out is Strength in What Remains, a book by Tracy Kidder about the remarkable Deo who survived genocide and civil war in Burundi, made his way to America and through tremendous hard work, tenacity, perseverance and the kindness of strangers, became a doctor working with Partners in Health. It’s a truly inspirational journey. I’ve had the honor of getting to know Deo over the years and watched with awe and admiration as he’s devoted his life to helping others.

USAID recognizes the vital importance of ensuring that all children and youth have access to quality books in languages they understand to achieve literacy. Along with other donors and partners through the Global Book Alliance, USAID is proud to support the Global Digital Library, an open-source library maintained by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation that makes 6,000+ high-quality reading resources available in 83 languages, including under-published languages. The library breaks down physical barriers to accessing books and is accessible to those with disabilities.

More than 1.3 million people in Ontario, Canada, the most populous province in one of the world’s wealthiest countries, are food insecure. Credit: Ottawa Food Bank

By Juliet Morrison
Ottawa , Jul 12 2022 (IPS)

Lisa Argiropulos, a single mother of two teenage sons and a resident of Ottawa, Ontario, has been facing food insecurity since 2016, after an accident that left her with chronic pain and disabilities.

Unable to continue working, Argiropulos has been living off disability support and child benefits payments. Yet, her income is insufficient to provide for herself and her family, especially with today’s prices.

“With the prices going up, it’s astronomical. I was struggling before. Now it’s ten times worse. By the time I pay all my bills, my utilities, and any expenses, what’s left over for food is not nearly enough. It’s been really, really hard. You’re always having to look elsewhere for help, weekly, monthly,” Argiropulos said.

In Canada, the cost of food has risen 9.7 percent from April 2021 to April 2022. The high price of other necessities, like gas and housing, has also contributed to food insecurity; people have to spend more of their income on those expenses, which leaves less for food.

Food insecurity occurs when people do not have reliable access to enough nutritious food. Pre-pandemic, it affected approximately 1.3 million people in Ontario—the most populous province of one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

“That really shows how challenging it is for so many in Ontario. It is not everyone’s reality to be able to afford all your basic necessities in a month,” Amanda King, Director of Network and Government Relations at Feed Ontario, said.

Today, the total number living with food insecurity is likely to be bigger because inflation has put more people in precarious positions.

“Food insecurity is something that’s somewhat invisible. That is why it is really important to emphasize the data and statistics that we have. If you look at a classroom, you cannot immediately identify which child did not have breakfast that morning. Statistically, you know there are children in that classroom that have not had breakfast,” King said.

To get by, Argiropulos seeks additional support from her local food bank to stretch her food budget. For her, that is the Barrhaven Food Cupboard, where she’s allowed one visit a month. While she receives a package of food intended to last for seven days, it goes quickly in her family of three, with her growing sons.

Food banks are also feeling the current strain of inflation.

Usage of food banks has increased significantly in the past couple of months as more people are in need. According to CEO George Macdonald, the Barrhaven Food Cupboard has seen a usage increase of 130 percent since last year. Ottawa Food Bank CEO Rachael Wilson noted that they served 52,000 meals across their network in March. Last year, they served an average of 44,000 a month.”

Higher food and gas prices mean that it has become more expensive for food banks to operate. Before the pandemic, the Ottawa Food Bank spent 1.7 million Canadian dollars (about USD 1.31 million) annually on food. This year, Wilson told IPS they were preparing to spend over 4.5m CAD (USD 3.49m).

Though both Wilson and Macdonald were coping with the demand, they noted that further increases in food bank usage could affect their ability to serve their community.

“It’s very stressful. Knowing how we are going to get food on our shelves every day is just a day-to-day stress right now. So far, there hasn’t been an instance where we couldn’t provide the food that is needed. But I honestly don’t know how sustainable it is for us to continue to meet the needs at this level without major change,” Wilson said.

The Ottawa Food Bank, which supports 112 smaller food programs, relies primarily on charitable donations. It receives no regular funding from the provincial or federal government.

The current extent of food insecurity has prompted calls for change in how policymakers address the issue.

Government interventions on food insecurity have mostly been in helping support the operations of food banks.  Provincial relief for food insecurity during the pandemic came indirectly: over 1 billion CAD was allocated in Social Services Relief Funding (SSRF) (about USD 775m) to help municipalities and social service providers, including food banks.  ­­­­

While helpful for short-term relief, Tim Li, research coordinator at PROOF—a program from the University of Toronto working to identify policy solutions for hunger—explained that these interventions do little to address the causes of food insecurity.

“Hunger is not just about not having food. It’s about people’s financial circumstances. It’s about poverty, lack of income, and income security. We’re not seeing action that takes that approach as far as addressing income inadequacy to reduce food insecurity. It goes to show that the safety net is not as robust as we thought.”

Rather than increasing aid to food banks, PROOF advocates for income-based solutions, such as expanding social assistance and increasing the minimum wage. Such moves would require mostly provincial-level action, given the provinces are responsible for both areas.

“Our research really points to policymakers tackling minimum wage, social assistance, and all the other different policies that exist within their toolbox, whether that’s income tax, child benefits. There’s a lot that public policymakers can do. It’s just a matter of them doing it,” Li said.

More than 60 percent of people dependent on social assistance in Canada are food insecure, according to a 2018 study.

The total is presumed to be bigger today, given most social assistance programs are not indexed to inflation. This results in support payments being worth less and less each year as prices rise, potentially leading more people to slip into food insecurity.

Argiropulos is also asking for income-based solutions. Fully supporting herself and her family is simply out of reach in her current state, she told IPS.

Around a year ago, her doctor recommended she apply for a food allowance for those with dietary needs because of medical conditions. The allowance was part of Ontario’s Disability Support Program (ODSP), and Argiropulos qualified because she had type two diabetes.

She was shocked, however, upon realizing how much she was eligible to receive.

“He sent in [the paperwork], and it was only an additional 35 dollars per month for type two diabetes. I had gestational diabetes throughout both pregnancies with my children. So, I know. I’ve seen dieticians. I know how you’re supposed to eat. I know about carbohydrates. I know about all that stuff. Thirty-five dollars, it’s not even doable,” she said.

Argiropulos noted that the reality of living on social assistance and facing food insecurity needs to be emphasized.

“I worked my entire life, and I fell on bad times. And food, nobody should be denied food. We live in a country where we should not be denied food. When you are forced to rely on the system, struggling for food should not happen. It just shouldn’t.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Sandy Recinos Executive Secretary against Sexual Violence, Exploitation and Trafficking in Persons (SVET) from Guatemala - Former congresswoman Rosi Orozco from México - Ann Basham Chief Executive Officer at Ascend ConsultingUnited State.
Mobile Units for the Prevention of Sexual Violence, Exploitation and Human Trafficking “UNIVET”, which allows sharing information, preventing these crimes and also promoting the culture of reporting among its inhabitants. Credit: Rosi Orozco

By Rosi Orozco
MEXICO CITY, Jul 12 2022 (IPS)

This is an alert message: if nothing stops the wave of violence in Mexico, by the end of 2024 the country could exceed the figure of 150,000 missing persons.

Just on May 17, Mexico crossed a the ultimate horror border: officially there are more than 100,000 people who cannot be located. The equivalent of the evaporation of two and a half times the population of Monaco. Most of those people are victims of organized crime.

It is an old problem in Mexico, but it has taken a new turn in recent months: in its most recent report, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances recognized that since 2006 the phenomenon has been concentrated in men between 15 and 40 years, but the pandemic changed that profile. Now, the great national drama focuses on girls and boys from 12 to 35 years old.

The coronavirus opened gaps in inequality and poverty like no other natural phenomenon. Sexual violence, human trafficking, and femicides increased in Mexico, and forced disappearances became an effective means to hide those crimes. Criminals act with a perverse idea: without a body, there is no crime and therefore no punishment.

The problem is so severe that the Mexican government has recognized that the number of girls and women has skyrocketed in recent months to more than 24,600 women waiting to be located. Many of them are not even 10 years old.

One of the latest national sorrows is a young woman called Debanhi Susana Escobar Bazaldúa, 18 years old, who disappeared on April 8 in Nuevo León, México, on a highway that reaches Texas, United States.

Her search kept the country in suspense after a photograph was released where she appeared alone and at dawn waiting for a taxi to return home after attending a party. The image became a symbol of fear and hope.

Magistrate Delia Davila and Former Congresswoman Rosi Orozco after a meeting with specialized judges to deal with human trafficking. Credit: Rosi Orozco

But after 13 days of searching, his body was found at the bottom of a hotel cistern frequented by human traffickers. While she was wanted alive, five more missing women were found. The causes of Debanhi Susana Escobar’s death are still unclear, but the family points to a crime of a sexual nature.

The death of the young woman who dreamed of being a lawyer strucked a chord in a country numbed to the horrors of human trafficking. And amid a pain that seems to make no sense, her father demanded that the life of Debanhi Susana Escobar be a symbol against the wave of missing women.

The mourning of Debanhi Susana Escobar’s family comes at a crucial moment for Mexico if we want to avoid reaching 150,000 disappeared people in the next two years.

On one hand, the Mexican Senate president, Olga Sánchez Cordero, close to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is promoting a series of reforms to the national general law against human trafficking that prevents the sexual exploitation of women in prostitution.

Senator Sánchez Cordero’s intention also seeks to punish whoever maintains a house of prostitution, which includes its administration, lease, or financing. That measure would meant a heavy blow to the human trafficking networks that make girls and women disappear.

This initiative comes as Mexico celebrates 10 years of the general law against human trafficking, promulgated in 2012. This law has been praised by international experts —such as the Spanish prosecutor Beatriz Sanchez, who is already studying Mexican legislation as an inspiration to create a comprehensive law and abolitionist in her country.

There’s another international experience on the southern border in Mexico from which we can all learn: in Guatemala a successful experiment is being carried out to stop sexual and labor exploitation with a novel approach.

For example, leaders like Justice Delia Dávila have taken on the responsibility of training judges to specialize in investigating human trafficking. The judges issue sentences in favor of the victims and work together with civil society, such as the World Vision organization.

In addition, Guatemala has a vehicle project known as UNIVET, which reaches the most remote communities to carry out prevention and education work for vulnerable girls, adolescents, and women.

In this way, Guatemala is at the forefront in Latin America by creating a national strategy against human exploitation, giving it the priority that this crime deserves, which is the second most lucrative globally.

The efforts in Mexico, Spain, France, Guatemala and dozens of countries with an abolitionist approach make us believe that it is possible to achieve what cynical voices tell us will be impossible: stop the trend of violence that will lead us to 150,000 disappeared people.

We have to do it for Debanhi Susana Escobar. For his family and the legacy they want to leave this country. For each missing person, for each survivor, for each future girl. For Mexico.

This is an alert message: we still have time. Let’s be brave and push for the changes that the most vulnerable need.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Solar power stations in plain areas, wind turbines in the distance. Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, China. Credit: Africa Renewal, United Nations

By António Guterres
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 12 2022 (IPS)

Nero was famously accused of fiddling while Rome burned. Today, some leaders are doing worse. They are throwing fuel on the fire. Literally.

As the fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ripples across the globe, the response of some nations to the growing energy crisis has been to double down on fossil fuels – pouring billions more dollars into the coal, oil and gas that are driving our deepening climate emergency.

Meanwhile all climate indicators continue to break records, forecasting a future of ferocious storms, floods, droughts, wildfires and unlivable temperatures in vast swathes of the planet.

Our world faces climate chaos. New funding for fossil fuel exploration and production infrastructure is delusional. Fossil fuels are not the answer, nor will they ever be.

We can see the damage we are doing to the planet and our societies. It is in the news every day, and no one is immune.

Fossil fuels are the cause of the climate crisis. Renewable energy is the answer – to limit climate disruption and boost energy security. Had we invested earlier and massively in renewable energy, we would not find ourselves once again at the mercy of unstable fossil fuel markets.

Renewables are the peace plan of the 21st century. But the battle for a rapid and just energy transition is not being fought on a level field. Investors are still backing fossil fuels, and governments still hand out billions in subsidies for coal, oil and gas – some US $11 million every minute.

Secretary-General António Guterres

There is a word for favouring short-term relief over long-term well-being. Addiction. We are still addicted to fossil fuels. For the health of our societies and planet, we need to quit. Now.

The only true path to energy security, stable power prices, prosperity and a livable planet lies in abandoning polluting fossil fuels and accelerating the renewables-based energy transition.

To that end, I have called on G20 governments to dismantle coal infrastructure, with a full phase-out by 2030 for OECD countries and 2040 for all others.

I have urged financial actors to abandon fossil fuel finance and invest in renewable energy. And I have proposed a five-point plan to boost renewable energy round the world.

Five-point plan

First, we must make renewable energy technology a global public good, including removing intellectual property barriers to technology transfer.

Second, we must improve global access to supply chains for renewable energy technologies components and raw materials.

In 2020, the world installed 5 gigawatts of battery storage. We need 600 gigawatts of storage capacity by 2030. Clearly, we need a global coalition to get there.

Shipping bottlenecks and supply-chain constraints, as well as higher costs for lithium and other battery metals, are hurting deployment of such technologies and materials just as we need them most.

Third, we must cut the red tape that holds up solar and wind projects. We need fast-track approvals and more effort to modernize electricity grids. In the European Union, it takes eight years to approve a wind farm, and 10 years in the United States. In the Republic of Korea, onshore wind projects need 22 permits from eight different ministries.

Fourth, the world must shift energy subsidies from fossil fuels to protect vulnerable people from energy shocks and invest in a just transition to sustainable future.

And fifth, we need to triple investments in renewables. This includes multilateral development banks and development finance institutions, as well as commercial banks. All must step up and dramatically boost investments in renewables.

We need more urgency from all global leaders. We are already perilously close to hitting the 1.5°C limit that science tells us is the maximum level of warming to avoid the worst climate impacts.

To keep 1.5 alive, we must reduce emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 and reach net zero emissions by mid-century. But current national commitments will lead to an increase of almost 14 per cent this decade. That spells catastrophe.

The answer lies in renewables – for climate action, for energy security, and for providing clean electricity to the hundreds of millions of people who currently lack it. Renewables are a triple win.

There is no excuse for anyone to reject a renewables revolution. While oil and gas prices have reached record price levels, renewables are getting cheaper all the time.

The cost of solar energy and batteries has plummeted 85 per cent over the past decade. The cost of wind power fell by 55 per cent. And investment in renewables creates three times more jobs than fossil fuels.

Of course, renewables are not the only answer to the climate crisis. Nature-based solutions, such as reversing deforestation and land degradation, are essential. So too are efforts to promote energy efficiency. But a rapid renewable energy transition must be our ambition.

As we wean ourselves off fossil fuels, the benefits will be vast, and not just to the climate. Energy prices will be lower and more predictable, with positive knock-on effects for food and economic security.

When energy prices rise, so do the costs of food and all the goods we rely on. So, let us all agree that a rapid renewables revolution is necessary and stop fiddling while our future burns.

Antonio Guterres, a former Prime Minister of Portugal, is the Secretary-General of the United Nations

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

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Excerpt:

The only true path to energy security, stable power prices, prosperity and a livable planet lies in abandoning polluting fossil fuels and accelerating the renewables-based energy transition.