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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jun 14 2022 (IPS)

US-led sanctions are inadvertently undermining the dollar’s post-Second World War dominance. The growing number of countries threatened by US and allied actions is forcing victims and potential targets to respond pro-actively.

SWIFT strengthened dollar
The instant messaging system of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) informs users, both payers and payees, of payments made. Thus, it enables the smooth and rapid transfer of funds across borders.

Anis Chowdhury

Created in 1973, and launched in 1977, SWIFT is headquartered in Belgium. It links 11,000 banks and financial institutions (BFIs) in more than 200 countries. The system sends over 40 million messages daily, as trillions of US dollars (USD) change hands worldwide.

Co-owned by more than 2,000 BFIs, it is run by the National Bank of Belgium, together with the G-10 central banks of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US. Joint ownership was supposed to avoid involvement in geopolitical disputes.

Many parties use USD accounts to settle dollar-denominated transactions. Otherwise, banks of importing and exporting countries would need accounts in each other’s currencies in their respective countries in order to settle payments.

SWIFT abuse
US and allied – including European Union (EU) – sanctions against Russia and Belarus followed their illegal invasion of Ukraine. Created during the US-Soviet Cold War, SWIFT remains firmly under Western control. It is now used to block payments for Russian energy and agriculture exports.

But besides stopping income flows, it inadvertently erodes USD dominance. As sanctions are increasingly imposed, such actions intimidate others as well. While intimidation may work, it also prompts other actions.

This includes preparing for contingencies, e.g., by joining other payments arrangements. Such alternatives may ensure not only smoother, but also more secure cross-border financial transfers.

As part of US-led sanctions against the Islamic Republic, the EU stopped SWIFT services to Iranian banks from 2012. This blocked foreign funds transfers to Iran until a compromise was struck in 2016.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

US financial hegemony
Based in Brussels, with a data centre in the US, SWIFT is a ‘financial panopticon’ for surveillance of cross-border financial flows. About 95% of world USD payments are settled through the private New York-based Clearing House Interbank Payments System (CHIPS), involving 43 financial institutions.

About 40% of worldwide cross-border payments are in USD. CHIPS settles US$1.8 trillion in claims daily. As all CHIPS members maintain US offices, they are subject to US law regardless of headquarters location or ownership.

Hence, over nearly two decades, CHIPS members like BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered and others have paid nearly US$13 billion in fines for Iran-related sanctions violations under US law!

Exorbitant privilege
The USD remains the currency of choice for international trade and foreign reserve holdings. Hence, the US has enjoyed an “exorbitant privilege” since World War Two after the 1944 Bretton Woods conference created the gold-based ‘dollar standard’ – set at US$35 for an ounce of gold.

With the USD remaining the international currency of choice, the US Treasury could pay low interest rates for bonds that other countries hold as reserves. It thus borrows cheaply to finance deficits and debt. Hence, it is able to spend more, e.g., on its military, while collecting less taxes.

Due to USD popularity, the US also profits from seigniorage, namely, the difference between the cost of printing dollar notes and their face value, i.e., the price one pays to obtain them.

In August 1971, President Nixon unilaterally ‘ended’ US obligations under the Bretton Woods international monetary system, e.g., to redeem gold for USD, as agreed. Soon, the fixed USD exchange rates of the old order – determining other currencies’ relative values – became flexible in the new ‘non-system’.

In the ensuing uncertainty, the US ‘persuaded’ Saudi King Feisal to ensure all oil and gas transactions are settled in USD. Thus, OPEC’s 1974 ‘petrodollar’ deal strengthened the USD following the uncertainties after the Nixon shock.

Nevertheless, countries began diversifying their reserve portfolios, especially after the euro’s launch in 1999. Thus, the USD share of foreign currency reserves worldwide declined from 71% in 1999 to 59% in 2021.

With US rhetoric more belligerent, dollar apprehension has been spreading. On 20 April 2022, Israel – a staunch US ally – decided to diversify its reserves, replacing part of its USD share with other major trading partners’ currencies, including China’s renminbi.

Sanction reaction
The EU decision to bar Iranian banks from SWIFT prompted China to develop its Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS). Operational since 2015, CIPS is administered by China’s central bank. By 2021, CIPS had 80 financial institutions as members, including 23 Russian banks.

At the end of 2021, Russia held nearly a third of world renminbi reserves. Some view the recent Russian sanctions as a turning point, as those not entrenched in the US camp now have more reason to consider using other currencies instead.

After all, before seizing about US$300 billion in Russian assets, the US had confiscated about US$9.5 billion in Afghan reserves and US$342 million of Venezuelan assets.

Threatened with exclusion from SWIFT following the 2014 Crimea crisis, Russia developed its own SPFS (Financial Message Transfer System) messaging system. Launched in 2017, SPFS uses technology similar to SWIFT’s and CIPS’s.

Both CIPS and SPFS are still developing, largely serving domestic BFIs. By April 2022, most Russian banks and 52 foreign institutions from 12 countries had access to SPFS. Ongoing developments may accelerate their progress or merger.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has its own domestic payments systems, RuPay. It clears millions of daily transactions among domestic BFIs, and can be used for cross-border transactions.

Sanctions cut both ways
Unsurprisingly, those not allied to the US want to change the system. Following the 2008-9 global financial crisis, China’s central bank head called for “an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations”.

Meanwhile, China’s USD assets have declined from 79% in 2005 to 58% in 2014, presumably falling further since then. More recently, China’s central bank has been progressively expanding use of its digital yuan or renminbi, e-CNY.

With over 260 million users, its app is now ‘technically ready’ for cross-border use as no Western bank is needed to move funds across borders. Such payments for imports from China using e-CNY will bypass SWIFT, and CHIPS will not need to clear them.

Russia has long complained of US abuse of dollar hegemony. Moscow has tried to ‘de-dollarize’ by avoiding USD use in trade with other BRICS – i.e., Brazil, India, China and South Africa – and in its National Wealth Fund holdings.

Last year, Vladimir Putin warned the US is biting the hand feeding it, by undermining confidence in the US-centric system. He warned, “the US makes a huge mistake in using dollar as the sanction instrument”.

The scope of US financial payments surveillance and USD payments will decline, although not immediately. Thus, Western sanctions have unwittingly accelerated erosion of US financial hegemony.

Besides worsening stagflationary trends, such actions have prompted its targets – current and prospective – to take pre-emptive, defensive measures, with yet unknown consequences.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
SINGAPORE, Jun 13 2022 (IPS-Partners)

Despite the fact that the post Second World War period witnessed the growth and proliferation of a plethora horrendous weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear bombs, human intellectual ingenuity managed to keep the slide into catastrophe at bay. The idea was proffered, and largely accepted, that these weapons were meant not to fight wars but to prevent them. During much of the Cold War period, when nuclear weapons proliferated, particularly among the superpowers, peace was maintained on the premise of the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Since the key superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, had the capacity to destroy each other many times over, rational logic prevented both from initiating a nuclear war. Defence was achieved by deterrence, that is preventing the enemy from attacking with threat of overwhelmingly unacceptable level of retaliation (“nuclear deterrence”)

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

Then in the mid – 1970s the US Secretary of Defence enunciated the ‘Schlesinger doctrine’ named after him. It held that there could be small scale, limited nuclear conflicts, using weapons with greater precision but lower yield, specifically targeted, gradually escalating to higher levels of warfare. In other words, a nuclear exchange could imply ‘limited warfighting’ which could also be winnable. The view was that at one point of equilibrium along the escalating curve, one side would capitulate. Design and weapons-production followed theory. Weapons became smaller and more precise. They were tactical with shorter range and more appropriate for battlefield or theatre use. For these very reasons the propensity for possible use increased mathematically, and logically. Sensing this danger leaders negotiated and signed treaties, bringing down numbers of long distance and shortrange ordnances down impressively. The total size of nuclear arsenal came down from much higher numbers to about 13000 strategic and 2000 tactical weapons. Eventually these treaties expired. However, rationality still held sway, and although wars had not ceased. Nonetheless, the danger of a nuclear war seemed to have receded. At least up until now.

The aforesaid discussion largely reflected the extant western theoretical and doctrinal literature. But what about Russia, the successor of the Soviet Union? Briefly Russian thinking in this regard was encompassed in the two concepts of SDERZIVANIE (“nuclear restraint”) and USTRASHENIE (‘intimidation”). This combination is meant to persuade the adversary that it has no chance of achieving its strategic goals by force. This policy which implies use of conventional and strategic weaponry remains in operation both in peace and war. Nuclear weapons are seen as being only one item in the tool- kit of warfare. It includes the western concept of “deterrence” as well as coercive measures and compellence. It is thus designed to be a multi-domain cross-cutting effort using both soft and hard power. Hence the western perception of the Russian doctrine as “hybrid”.

In June 2020, President Vladimir Putin signed Executive Order355 that outlined Russia’s current strategic doctrine. It contained a systematized asymmetric approach, underscoring the severity and certainty of “punishment”. The document lists a whole series of activities by the adversary that may be constituted as a threat to Russia (and its allies) to be “neutralized by the implementation of nuclear deterrence” (meaning “nuclear weapons”). The order also allows for the use of nuclear weapons not only to counter the enemy’s similar capabilities, but also “other types of weapons of mass destruction of significant combat potential of general purpose forces”. Western analysts believe this as entailing a wide range of options to introduce nuclear weapons at an early stage of conflict to prevent its spread. In other words, a reconfirmation of the “escalate to de-escalate” strategy.

Additionally, the Russians are said to have in place what is known as “dead hand” system, or the “perimeter”. It is designed to automatically initiate the launch of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) by sending a pre-entered highest authority order if an enemy nuclear strike is detected by seismic, light, radioactivity, and pressure sensors. It will operate even if the commanding elements are fully destroyed, for instance by a pre-emptive strike. The system is normally switched off, but is supposed to be activated during times of crisis. The current war in Ukraine probably fits the bill, especially when Putin has put the nuclear deterrence on “full alert”. In any case, it is said to remain fully functional and can be pressed into service whenever needed. The US does not operate a “dead hand” counterpart, but the National Command Authority has backup authorities in the event of the death of the President and/or of Secretary of Defence.

Presidents Biden and Putin had got off to a what seemed to be a fairly decent start when in a phone conversation in February last year they agreed to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty by five more years. By doing so they were reversing the decision earlier of President Donald Trump. But with the Ukraine crisis boiling over right now, that happy moment seems ions ago. In the war in Ukraine whether by tactical design or military compulsion the Russians have eased pressure on other parts including the capital Kyiv and are now consolidating focus on the east, in Donbass and Crimea. One consequence has been a burgeoning sense among western allies that a Russian defeat is possible. Hence the enthusiasm to arm the Ukrainians with deadlier weapons than earlier thought appropriate, or wise. The Russian leadership have been warning that red lines are being crossed. The peace talks in Belarus and Turkey have all but collapsed. The sanctions- noose around Russia is being tightened. We have reached a stalemate. The world is on edge. This is what the great international relations thinker Coral Bell described as a “crisis -slide”. As things stand now, one hasty decision, an accidental shooting down of a plane, one bomb reaching the wrong target can bring unspeakable results. The danger is very real that one side may be persuaded that the use of a nuclear device would be “rational”. We have climbed high on Herman Kahn’s “escalation ladder” to Armageddon. Are we inexorably sleepwalking towards a horrific conflagration?

There must be a rethink by global leaders while there is time. Just as President John Kennedy and Premier Nikita Krushchev walked away from the brink of disaster during the Cuban crisis in 1962, our chance may lie in that bit of history repeating itself. My own long diplomatic career had been devoted to issues of disarmament and non-proliferation. I have never felt as close to catastrophe as I do now. Should good sense prevail, and disaster avoided, we must look to one glimmer of hope in the dark cloud. That is the UN Resolution 72/31 of 4 December 2017 banning nuclear weapons. It will take enormous leadership and courage, and a great leap of faith to commit ourselves to it. They say victors write the history. But a total nuclear war may leave us with no history at all, as there perhaps may be none alive to write it!

This story was originally published by Dhaka Courier.

Brazil ranks as the third largest economy in the Americas, and the 10th largest in the world, It is a major exporter of food products, but, hunger has surged over 70% in just two years in the country, impacting more than 33 million people, up from 19 million in 2020. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By IPS Correspondents
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 13 2022 (IPS)

Right now, out of a total of 211.7 million Brazilians, 116.7 million are experiencing some level of food insecurity, 43.4 million do not have enough food, and 19 million were facing hunger, reveals a June 2022 report by the Brazilian Research Network of Food and Nutrition Sovereignty and Security (Rede PENSSAN).

The results of its national survey show that less than half of Brazilian households (44.8%) were food secure, while 55.2% of households were experiencing some level of food insecurity, and 9% of households were facing hunger (severe food insecurity).

In Brazil, someone earning the minimum monthly wage would have to work 19 years to make the same money a Brazilian from the richest 0.1% of the population makes in one month

The situation is even worse in rural areas, where 12% of households are affected by hunger, reveals the survey, while explaining that in rural areas, severe food insecurity is twice as high in households without access to water for food and livestock production compared to those with access to water.

Historic setback

According to the Rede PENSSAN, the current situation in this Latin American largest economy reflects a “historic setback” for a country that had made huge gains against poverty.

Such gains were successively achieved by the Government of former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who ruled the Latin American giant from January 2003 to the end of 2010.

Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, continued with the same social policies, from January 2011 to May 2016. Roussef was succeeded by Michel Miguel Elias Temer Lulia from 31 August 2016 to 31 December 2018.

Social policies, dismantled

Thanks to both Lula da Silva and Dilma Roussef social policies, Brazil lifted 28 million people out of poverty in just 15 years, reducing poverty to less than 10% of the population.

Then came current president Jair Messias Bolsonaro, an ex-military who took office on 1 January 2019, whose regime has been dismantling the considerable hunger reduction and social gains which were achieved by his predecessors’ governments.

Among other dire consequences, households with income of up to half of a minimum monthly salary per capita face severe food insecurity at levels 2.5 times the national average.

The study also pointed to persistent inequalities among regions, including disparities in household income, which are important determinants of food access.

 

Extreme inequality

In addition to the increasing sharp inequalities between Brazilian regions and between urban and rural populations, economic inequality in Brazil has reached extreme levels, despite being one of the largest economies in the world, reports OXFAM International.

The last decades have seen incredible progress across Brazil. The country has been able to reduce inequality, taking millions of people out of poverty and thereby raising the base of the social pyramid, OXFAM reminds.

But despite this evolution, the pace has been very slow and the Latin American giant is still listed as one of the most unequal countries on the planet, adds OXFAM in its report Extreme Inequality in Brazil in Numbers.

 

The numbers

The report provides some staggering numbers:

• In Brazil, someone earning the minimum monthly wage would have to work 19 years to make the same money a Brazilian from the richest 0.1% of the population makes in one month.

• At the current rate inequality is decreasing in Brazil, it will take the country 75 years to reach the United Kingdom’s current level of income equality and almost 60 years to meet Spanish standards.

• Compared to its neighbours, Brazil is 35 years behind Uruguay and 30 behind Argentina.

Richest 5%, same income as poorest 50%

But while such sharp inequality is hitting the most vulnerable in Brazil, it strikes even harder Brazilian women and blacks. See these OXFAM numbers:

• Brazil’s six richest men have the same wealth as the poorest 50% of the population; around 100 million people. The country’s richest 5% have the same income as the remaining 95%.

• If Brazil’s six richest men pooled their wealth and spent 1 million Brazilian reals a day (around $319,000), it would take them 36 years to spend all their money. Meanwhile, 16 million Brazilians live below the poverty line.

• At the current pace of progress, Brazilian women will close the wage gap in 2047. Black Brazilians will earn the same as whites in 2089. Brazil is decades away from wage equality.

Big food producer and exporter

Such is the current harsh reality of a giant country covering more than 8,5 square kilometres of land, home to over 214 million people, which ranks as the third largest economy in the Americas, and the 10th largest in the world by nominal gross domestic product (GDP).

Brazil is rich in resources, being the world’s largest producer of coffee over the last 150 years. It is also a major exporter of food products, such as soy, maize, beef, chicken meat, soybean meal, sugar, tobacco, cotton, orange, among others.

Amidst sharpening inequality and the ongoing dismantling of social policies, hunger in Brazil surged over 70% in just two years, impacting more than 33 million people, up from 19 million in 2020.

At the Haru Oni demonstration plant where the ecological fuel based on green hydrogen will be produced, the wind turbine that will provide wind energy to the project promoted by the HIF Global group in the southern Chilean region of Magallanes has been installed. CREDIT: HIF Global

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Jun 13 2022 (IPS)

Patagonia’s strong winds are driving projects that will place Magallanes, in the extreme south of Chile, in a privileged position to produce and export green hydrogen and help the country move towards carbon neutrality.

The projects underway aim to produce green fuel to replace gasoline in any vehicle, competing with the efficiency of electromobility. Another goal is to produce green ammonia to replace, for example, the 350,000 tons of gray ammonia that Chile imports for the large copper mines in the north of the country.

President Gabriel Boric said on Jul. 8 at the IV Business Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California, that Chile “is going to bet heavily on green hydrogen, both the State and the private sector.”

He encouraged U.S. businesspeople to invest in Chile while “linking production chains and raising environmental standards.”

“In the Patagonian region alone, if we do things right, the potential is enough to supply 13 percent of the world’s demand for green hydrogen,” said Boric, a native of Punta Arenas, the capital of the Magallanes region, popularly known as Chile’s Patagonia.

Julio Maturana, undersecretary of energy, told IPS that it is essential that green hydrogen be developed in harmony with Chile’s territories and ecosystems.

“We will push for hydrogen to be at the base of the creation of industry, and for Chile to participate in the entire value chain, including technological innovation,” he said.

Maturana said that the government is promoting studies to identify the greatest comparative advantages, “pushing for more sustainable mining, green fertilizers, green steel, zero-emission maritime and aviation fuels, or manufacturing processes so that Chile can add value not only with its winds in Magallanes and the desert sun, but also with its workers, universities and industry.”

According to the undersecretary, when the National Green Hydrogen Strategy was launched two years ago, there were 20 projects submitted – a number that has since risen threefold.

“There are more than 15 projects that have set their operational start date for green hydrogen production on an industrial scale before 2030,” he said, projecting “about 3.7 gigawatts (GW) of electrolysis operating by 2025 and 35 GW of electrolysis operating by 2030.”

In the extreme south of Chile, members of the Environmental Studies Group from the University of Magallanes carry out field work in Bahía Posesión to gather data for the environmental impact study for the H2 Magallanes project of the French group Total Eren. CREDIT: Erika Mutschke/University of Magallanes

Characteristics of the green hydrogen boom

Green hydrogen is obtained by electrolysis using only electrical energy from clean, renewable sources such as wind or sun.

Electrolysis involves using electricity to split the water molecule, consisting of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, H2O.

Of all the hydrogen produced in the world today, 95 percent is gray hydrogen obtained using natural gas, oil or coal, which causes the emission of large quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2), a major driver of global warming.

The use of electricity represents almost 70 percent of the cost of producing green hydrogen, which is why Chile is in a privileged location due to its enormous solar radiation potential in the northern Atacama Desert and the strong winds in the southern Patagonia region.

Magallanes is exceptionally windy because of the clash of high pressure systems caused by the Pacific anticyclone, which runs from Ecuador to Patagonia, and the low pressures and cold air masses originating from the polar front coming from Antarctica.

In 2019 Chile’s energy mix included 44 percent renewables. It is estimated that by 2030 renewables will make up 70 percent of the mix and that by 2050 the proportion will climb to 95 percent, as part of an energy transition that in addition to decarbonizing energy aims to free the country from costly hydrocarbon imports.

Producing a kilogram of green hydrogen today costs six dollars, but Undersecretary Maturana said that “Chile has the technical conditions to achieve production costs of less than a dollar per kilo.”

This would be important for bringing the cost of green hydrogen closer to that of fossil fuels, while now it is four times more expensive.

“To bring the price down, a series of measures will be required to provide certainty, access to financing and the promotion of a market or critical mass of local demand,” said the undersecretary.

Wind towers near Punta Arenas, capital of the Magallanes region, one of the best areas in the world for producing wind energy because a turbine can operate for more than 5,000 hours a year, according to Daniele Consoli of Enel Green Power, which is promoting the Haru Oni green hydrogen project in Chile’s southern Patagonia region. CREDIT: Ministry of Energy

Two flagship projects move ahead

A wind turbine has already been installed in Magallanes, part of an assembly platform built north of Punta Arenas at the Haru Oni demonstration plant.

The project, the first phase of which involves an investment of 51 million dollars, is being promoted by the international consortium HIF Global which, in parallel, will build a plant to produce green hydrogen that will then be treated to produce green gasoline.

“Little by little our project is taking shape and this turbine is a fundamental part of it,” said Clara Bowman, general manager of HIF Global, a company with 80 percent Chilean capital as well as the participation of German and U.S. firms.

“In parallel, in various places around the world, such as China, Germany and the United States, the equipment that will allow us to produce carbon-neutral eFuel is already being manufactured. We are working to start operations during the second half of this year,” explained the manager of the company, whose name is the abbreviation of Highly Innovative Fuels.

The French company Total Eren is developing the H2 Magallanes Project in the municipality of San Gregorio, near Punta Arenas, which will have up to 10 GW of installed wind power capacity and up to eight GW of electrolysis capacity, in addition to a desalination plant and an ammonia (NH3) production plant.

“The timeframe puts the start of the construction phase in 2025, and it is projected that by 2027 the first green hydrogen units could be operating,” said Macarena Toledo, environmental and social director of the H2 Magallanes Project.

The estimated investment is 20 billion dollars, she told IPS.

The Environmental Studies Group at the University of Magallanes is preparing the project’s environmental impact study, which includes variables of soil, water, fauna, flora, relief and strategies to inform the community about wind turbines and green hydrogen.

Claudio Gómez, dean of engineering at the university, told IPS that green hydrogen has unleashed “an explosive process that involves a revolution in the education of engineers, who must have a new kind of training to face new challenges.”

A sign reads “Welcome to the municipality of San Gregorio” in the extreme south of Chile, where the H2 Magallanes project is conducting environmental impact studies before starting construction of its project, the initial phase of which is scheduled for 2025. CREDIT: Total Eren

A cleaner future, not just on paper

The carbon-neutral fuel produced by Haru Oni will be tested in vehicles of the German brand Porsche, which is part of the consortium. The projection is that seven million cars will have green hydrogen cells by 2030 in China, Japan, the United States and South Korea.

The big goal is for green hydrogen to be incorporated into large trucks and machinery in mining, industrial sectors such as steel mills, refineries, fertilizer and ceramics factories, and ships and airplanes.

On Jun. 6, a group of companies launched a project to make Pudahuel International Airport, which serves the capital city of Santiago, the first in Latin America to use green hydrogen.

The group, which includes the company that manages the airport, will evaluate the development of a hydrogen ecosystem, including production and fueling infrastructure to serve the airport complex’s ground operations, as well as aircraft in the future.

An additional key advantage of green hydrogen is that its molecule has a high energy density per unit mass: it is three times higher than that of gasoline and 120 times higher than that of lithium batteries.

In Bahía Posesión in Patagonia, the Environmental Studies Group from the University of Magallanes carries out work for the environmental impact study for the H2 Magallanes project, one of the initiatives that aims to exploit the wind energy potential of Chile’s southern Patagonia region for the production of green hydrogen. CREDIT: Erika Mutschke/University of Magallanes

The key role of the State

Undersecretary Maturana stressed that the Boric administration, in office since March, wants the state-owned National Petroleum Company (Enap) and Copper Corporation (Codelco) to play an important role in the production of green hydrogen.

“We want Enap to play a role not only as an infrastructure facilitator, but also as a producer of green hydrogen to accelerate the development of our local and export industry. We expect it to take a leading role in projects given its experience in energy infrastructure,” he said.

And with regard to Codelco, he said it can play an important role in promoting the energy transition from the mining industry, testing and studying low-emission technologies in its operations.

“Public, private, academic and civil society collaboration will be key to expanding this industry,” he said.

Maturana ruled out problems with water use, indicating that the projects presented would include desalination and/or water reuse.

“The cost of water in the production of green hydrogen represents less than one percent, so raising the cost of water to meet sustainable standards would not have a high impact on the final price of energy,” he explained.

Souta Oshiro, Seoul, Korea. “This is a meme that I created. It is about donating foods that you overbought to food banks. I tried to make it funny and effective.” Credit: Souta Oshiro

By Sungjoon Ham, Souta Oshiro and Alex Yoon
Seoul, Tokyo, Boston, Jun 13 2022 (IPS)

Johnny, living in the United States (US), goes to his school and gets free breakfast and lunch there. There may not be enough food for dinner at home. But he knows that he can get fed at school. Sadly, however, after the pandemic, schools were closed, which meant no breakfast and no lunch for him.

Living in the United Kingdom (UK), Peter faces the same problem. He is lucky because he has a caring teacher who painstakingly walks five kilometers every day to deliver his meals. But not everyone is as lucky as Peter.

Farmers produce about 4 billion tons of food globally, but 1.3 billion tons (about one-third) are wasted and lost. Can you imagine how much that is? 100 kg of food loss and waste for every person on the planet!

Are you surprised?

Did you think that the issue of hunger concerns children in developing nations only during COVID-19?

Hunger now extends to countries like the UK, South Korea, Japan, and the US.

In other words, especially during the pandemic, hunger is not their problem but OUR problem.

Therefore, the urgency in solving this issue has become more apparent to those living in developed countries. We hope to inspire a movement of change through our efforts and inspire others to fight hunger by stopping food loss and waste.

We have to ask a fundamental question: Why does Johnny have nothing to eat while Sam in the neighborhood has too much food to eat?

Extending this question to an international level, why are children in Somalia starving while children in the US have obesity problems for overeating? What causes such inequality? And what can we do about it? We know that it sounds like a daunting challenge. How can kids like us, young and inexperienced, make a difference in world hunger?

A contingent of adults thinks we have neither the experience nor the expertise to bring changes to the “real world”.

No one said stopping hunger would be easy, especially during this pandemic. But it’s necessary, and it’s worth it.

From our research, the solution to world hunger, especially during COVID-19, can be two-fold. Firstly, the redirection of excess foods towards those in need, and secondly, the ‘untact’ method.

Let us start with the redirection of excess foods. There is a saying: “Someone’s trash is someone else’s treasure.” In other words, the food that Sam wastes can feed Johnny’s entire family.

Let’s take it to a global level. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the food currently lost or wasted in America could feed 300 million people, and in Europe, 200 million people.

If food could be redistributed to people or nations in hunger before it is wasted or lost, we would end the hunger pandemic.

Indeed, many countries are running soup kitchens and making donations of food. But after the COVID-19, many countries closed their borders, banned social gatherings, and even eating-in facilities.

Furthermore, a survey from the Borgen Project revealed that half of the people surveyed had concerns about exposing themselves to the virus in these eating spaces.

So not only less economically developed countries (LEDC) but also more economically developed countries (MEDC) are facing a hunger pandemic due to COVID-19.

According to Feeding America, an estimated 42 million people, or one in eight Americans, faced food insecurity in 2021.

How can we solve this hunger crisis during the COVID pandemic? We are suggesting our second solution: using the ‘untact’ method.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, a new term, ‘untact’ (a combination of the prefix’ un’ and the word ‘contact’), has been floating around our society to indicate contactless movement in our daily affairs.

Can we somehow use the ‘untact’ method to redirect and redistribute foods before they are wasted or lost?

We find the answer in technology – in apps. For example, COPIA is an app created in the US to redistribute surplus food to feed the hungry.

This is how it works: Any restaurants, hotels, hospitals, cafeterias, and other businesses with food can use COPIA’s app to schedule pickups of their surplus food. Then a COPIA donation delivery driver picks up their excess food and delivers it safely to a local nonprofit recipient.

But COPIA’s job doesn’t stop there.

They track surplus trends for those donors so that they can reduce their food waste and loss.

Businesses can also get significant tax savings by using COPIA: For every $1 a company invests in food waste reduction, they can expect a $14 return on investment.

So, it is a win-win situation for all.

And this kind of ‘untact’ technology via an app is observed in other parts of the world: Wakeai app in Japan, Damogo in South Korea, Makan Rescue App in Singapore, Karma app in the EU and the UK, JustNow app in Africa, Flashfood app in Canada, Bring Me Home app in Australia and the list goes on.

We see this ‘untact’ technology as a possible solution that can reduce food loss and waste worldwide. We hope people try these apps and join our efforts to fight the hunger pandemic.

Besides the apps, there are practical solutions that we exercise in our daily lives as middle school students. We will share them here, hoping our actions can inspire others to do the same.

Alex Yoon inside the Stop and Shop, Massachusetts, USA. “I found these unwanted ugly fruits in this cart and decided to buy them to show that I am trying to reduce food waste instead of throwing them away. I blended them and made juice out of them.”

“When I go to a grocery store, I go for the unwanted ugly fruits because most people want to buy perfect-looking fruits only, and those ugly fruits end up in a trash can later because nobody wants them. I bring those ugly fruits home and make juice out of them. I find that they taste the same! So, I am holding up a sign in front of a fruit corner saying, ‘Aesthetics should not matter in produce selection!’, hoping to inspire people to buy all fruits regardless of their appearance,” says Alex Yoon.

Alex’s public campaign in the grocery store encourages many to follow suit by making mindful choices when choosing what to buy.

Souta Oshiro, Seoul (Raemian APT, Due Cose Hannam Branch, Shinsegae Department Store). “I am teaching food waste and loss to my friend. Some tips include buying food that has a shorter shelf time, eating everything on my plate, and planning for dinner to reduce food waste.”

Looking at Souta Oshiro’s efforts, we can see how beneficial food loss education can be on a personalized level.

“I run a private campaign with my friends. I go to their homes and educate them about food loss and waste issues in the world. In addition, when I go to a grocery store, I opt for foods that will expire soon and be wasted rather than freshly new products. When I come home with these foods, I feel so good because I saved them from going to a trash can,” Souta says.

“This feeling of satisfaction in preventing food from being wasted does not end here. As a household, when we purchase too much food during our weekly shopping, we choose to donate the extras to a food bank. This encourages us to not only be mindful during our shopping but also beyond the exit doors of the grocery store. The waste is not in landfills but in someone’s mouth. This simple redirection of excess foods means my family is relieved that our surplus will not end up in the trash.”

Sungjoon Ham, Seocho Middle School, Seoul, Korea: “I am holding up a large sign to passionately champion the increase of awareness on the severity of the hunger issue.”

Sungjoon Ham has chosen to participate in a public campaign in front of his school grounds so that his peers and teachers can be swayed to make mindful choices in their own lives. He aims to make students, who are hungry at lunchtime, think twice before piling up excess foods. These foods are not likely to be eaten because the students are too full. Furthermore, he hopes this can allow all those more fortunate to take a step back and reflect on being a part of the solution rather than the problem.

“During my campaign efforts, I hoped to increase awareness through my actions and artistic choices, which was why I decided to make my poster large with bold lettering. However, I did not want my efforts to end there. I hope that my actions can spread throughout social media with the help of my friends. Through inspiration from the Ice Bucket Challenge, I plan to upload this picture with the tag #NoFoodLoss. This process will allow many more people to join my campaign that will hopefully not end in Korea but spread worldwide,” says Sungjoon.

After looking at our efforts to end food loss and waste, we hope to encourage others to take part and spread awareness.

We agree that everyone should stop wasting food. However, this cannot be solved simply through a proclamation.

Therefore, we focused on compiling extensive research and explored the depths of this issue, which we found to be enjoyable.

Sadly, many people are not aware of hunger and food waste.

In conclusion, we hope that through reading this article, the depths of food waste and loss are understood and will encourage our audience to develop forward-thinking solutions for the betterment of our future.

Sungjoon Ham, Souta Oshiro, and Alex Yoon are middle school learners living in the USA and Asia. They participated in a joint APDA, and IPS training on developing opinion content. Hanna Yoon led the course and edited the opinion content. 

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

Sungjoon Ham, Souta Oshiro, and Alex Yoon are middle school learners living in the USA and Asia. This is the first in a series of opinion pieces written by young people under the banner of Youth Thought Leaders.

Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, addresses the General Assembly’s 75th session in September 2020. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Jun 13 2022 (IPS)

I am at a loss for words to express my horror as I watched the first segment of the public hearing of the Congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. As long as the Republican Party denies what happened that infamous day and Trump remains free, this country faces unprecedented peril.

Righting the Wrong

The Congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection began the first of its public hearings last week. Each of these is of the highest importance to the country, even if many Americans are unlikely to be swayed by them.

Last Thursday’s hearing revealed never-before-seen footage of the violence that erupted in the nation’s capital, and testimony from officials and advisors close to Trump (including Attorney General Barr and Ivanka Trump) made it clear that they did not believe Trump’s fabrication of a stolen election and told him so.

These hearings are crucial to our Republic, to maintaining the integrity of our democratic norms and institutions, and to preventing not simply another violent mob outbreak, but another attack on our democracy orchestrated, as this was, by the highest office in the land.

Indeed, what happened on January 6, 2021, was unprecedented in our history. It was the culmination of a concerted months-long effort by the President of the United States to halt the transfer of power and stage a coup that would have meant the end of this country as we know it, had he been successful.

The rule of law hung in the balance that day. Trump knowingly lied and continues to lie about the results of the 2020 election, and he summoned a mob to the capital promising that January 6 would be “Wild” – a last ditch effort to prevent the certification of Biden’s election victory.

Every president in our nation’s history has honored the constitutional duty to relinquish power and allow the peaceful transfer of executive authority – every president that is, until Donald Trump.

This is what many Americans still fail to grasp or acknowledge: Trump struck at the very heart of our democracy, he broke a solemn oath and in doing so he has made it easier for this to happen again.

If presidents are unwilling to honor the results of free and fair elections, then the future of this Republic in the gravest of danger. As it is, Trump has forever stained the office of the president: in breaking his oath to the constitution he has irrevocably broken the sacred trust between the American people and their chief executive.

Nothing will ever change the fact that a sitting president attempted an illegal, unconstitutional, and profoundly immoral coup to remain in power; that is a cause not only for the gravest concern but for the deepest sadness.

These hearings then are among the most important ever conducted in the 246 years since this nation was born, for they bear on nothing less than the very survival of this country as a constitutional democracy.

The existential danger that burst into deadly mob violence on January 6 has not been laid to rest, it is ongoing. It is still poisoning our country and casting a shadow over the next presidential election.

Trump continues to lie to the public; Republican lawmakers continue to parrot those lies and downplay what happened on January 6 or excuse and even justify it as “legitimate political discourse.”

If a mob attack on the Capitol is “legitimate political discourse” then our fate is already sealed – it is, then only a matter of time until the next violent insurrection; and the next one may well make January 6 look like a mere rehearsal.

If Trump had his way, then Vice-President Pence would have also broken his oath to the constitution and derailed the certification of electoral votes. Our continued existence as a Republic might very well have hung on Pence’s actions that day.

The mob’s response was to call for Pence to be hanged, and a noose and scaffold was erected apparently for that very purpose. What was Trump’s reaction when he was told that the mob was calling for Pence’s summary execution? His words were: “Maybe our supporters have the right idea.” Mike Pence “deserves” it.

Trump did not want the attack to stop, responded angrily to advisors that begged him to call off the mob, and supported their aim to see Mike Pence, one of his most loyal followers, hanged. The country as a whole must reckon with and acknowledge what a sitting president perpetrated and the existential harm he brought on this country with his reckless, abhorrent, and illegal actions.

To be sure, Trump was personally and directly responsible for the worst attack on the Capitol since 1814, and as long as he is at the helm of the Republican Party, he remains a very serious threat to the United States.

The Republican Party has been irredeemably hijacked by Trump’s autocratic ambitions. In following him they are bringing this country ever closer to another existential precipice. Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming – effectively excommunicated from the Republican Party simply for performing her sworn duty as a member of Congress – said what every Republican lawmaker “defending the indefensible” must hear and take to heart:

“There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

Indeed, if these hearings assure us of anything it is that history will not be able to forget or deny the peril in which the nation was placed by a violent mob deployed by the President of the United States to overturn the result of a legitimate elections.

It is now clear, even before we hear more testimony, that Trump and his co-conspirators engineered a coup to prevent the peaceful transfer of power even though he handedly lost the election.

Trump knowingly violated the constitution that he swore to uphold and protect. Thus, there should be no doubt in anybody’s mind that he has committed treason against the United States, for which he must be charged and face his day in court.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The writer, a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU), taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies for over 20 years.

The long lines for kerosene, used in cooking, which is in short supply island-wide. Credit: Sunday Times, Sri Lanka

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 13 2022 (IPS)

As one of the world’s foremost international humanitarian organizations, the United Nations has pledged to provide food and medicines to cash-strapped Sri Lanka –a country suffering from a major financial crisis.

As of last week, a UN team, led by the Resident Coordinator in Colombo, Hanaa Singer-Hamdy has appealed to international donors for more than $47 million in “life-saving assistance” to 1.7 million people in a country with a population of over 22 million.

This stands in contrast to the staggering $5.0 billion the government is seeking for the island’s economic survival during the next six months—primarily for food, fuel and fertilizer.

Last month, the UN announced that with a $1.5 million donation from the Government of Japan, the UN’s children’s agency UNICEF will procure medicines for over 1.2 million people, among them 53,000 pregnant mothers and nearly 122,000 children with immediate medical needs.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is expected to receive about $1.5 million from Japan to provide food assistance to children and families in need of support.

In addition, Australia has made available the equivalent of nearly $5 million for food security, essential medicines for women’s health, nutrition data collection and analysis with UN agencies working together, including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN Children’s Fund.

Currently, some of the UN’s biggest aid recipients are either countries embroiled in military conflicts such as Ukraine, Afghanistan and Yemen – or the 46 member states categorized as Least Developed Countries (LDCs), “the poorest of the world’s poor”.

The majority of LDCs are from Africa, including Angola, Rwanda, Zambia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Somalia and the Central African Republic, while the LDCs from Asia include Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Afghanistan.

https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/least-developed-country-category/ldcs-at-a-glance.html

According to published reports, Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves have hit a low of $1.9 billion, equivalent to funds that could finance less than one month’s imports while its debt service repayments amount to about $6.9 billion. Last month, Sri Lanka defaulted on its debt repayments for the first time in history.

An editorial in the Sri Lanka Sunday Times put the problem in its right perspective: “Once called the ‘Granary of the East’, Sri Lanka is also considering tapping the SAARC Food Bank – from the buffer stocks of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The country is not only financially bankrupt, it is facing a famine in a few months”.

“From a middle-income country not long ago, it has come to this”, said the editorial.

“What an inglorious comedown for the country and humiliating stigma for its people no better personified by the presence of its Foreign Minister and chairman of the ruling party accepting a container of food aid from abroad at the Colombo harbour”.

“Brought about by stupendously irresponsible agricultural policy decision-making at the highest levels of Government, it is now humble-pie that is left to be eaten as Sri Lanka appeals to the world for food in the midst of a global economy facing recession, inflation, and a hurricane of shortages of oil, gas and wheat.”

Should Sri Lanka, long designated by the UN as a “middle-income country,” be heading towards the ranks of the 46 LDCs?

In an interview with IPS, Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, former Permanent Representative of Bangladesh and the first Under-Secretary-General and UN High Representative for LDCs, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, responded to questions on the benefits and privileges of being an LDC.

“LDCs benefit from exclusive international support measures (ISMs) in the areas of trade, development cooperation and participation in international organizations and processes.”

Such measures in the area of trade, he pointed out, include preferential market access for goods and services; special treatment under World Trade Organization rules and certain regional trade agreements; and technical assistance and capacity building.

A range of financial and technical assistance provided by multilateral and bilateral partners, such as special programmes and budget allocations at the UN, including the Technology Bank for LDCs and Fund for LDCs, established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Support for debt cancellation and/or debt rescheduling are also available for LDCs, he added
.
Other support measures help LDCs participate in international forums, such as caps and discounts on contributions to the budget of the United Nations and financial support for representatives of LDCs to travel to General Assembly and other meetings, said Ambassador Chowdhury, who was also Senior Special Adviser to UN General Assembly President (2011-2012).

Excerpts from the interview:

Q: Do you think that Sri Lanka, which has appealed for humanitarian assistance from the UN, may end up being an international basket case?

A: It is not conceivable that Sri Lanka would become an international basket case. But it needs to steer away from the man-made, to say more directly, the current corruption-driven economy, in the right direction to return to its steady developing socio-economic development of yester years.

Among the eight members of SAARC only three are not LDCs, but among the other five LDCs, the Maldives have already “graduated” out of the LDC category and Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh are scheduled to graduate by 2026 (as their economies improve).

Being the victim of a catastrophic economic mismanagement should not prompt Sri Lanka to think of seeking an LDC status. The United Nations defines LDCs as countries that have low levels of income and face severe structural impediments to sustainable development.

Q: If the situation continues to deteriorate, what are our chances of joining the 46 LDCs?

A: Joining the LDCs group involve a long process and requires fulfillment of all three criteria to be eligible. According to the UN, those three are:

1. Income: Countries must have an average per capita income (GNI) of below USD$1,018 for inclusion, and above USD$1,222for graduation.
[The Gross Domestic Product per capita in Sri Lanka was last recorded at 4052.75 US dollars in 2020.]
2. Human Assets: Countries must also have a low score on the Human Assets Index (HAI), a tool that measures health and education outcomes, including under-five mortality rate, maternal mortality, adult literacy rate and gender parity for secondary school enrolment. [Sri Lanka is much above the “60 or below” threshold.]
3. Economic and Environmental Vulnerability: Countries must score high on the Economic and Environmental Vulnerability Index (EVI), which measures factors like remoteness, dependence on agriculture and vulnerability to natural disasters.
[ Sri Lanka is below “36 or above” threshold. The current economic downturn and challenges faced by Sri Lanka may not fully fit the country’s EVI threshold]

IPS – How does this work? Does Sri Lanka have to apply to the UN for LDC status?

A: The Committee for Development Policy (CDP) reviews the list of LDCs and makes recommendations for inclusion in and graduation from the category every three years.

According to UN guidelines, the time frame of the eligibility procedure includes preliminary finding that the country satisfies inclusion criteria; notifies the country of its findings; prepares a country assessment note; provides a draft to the country; finds the country eligible and formally notifies the country of eligibility conclusion; and the General Assembly finally takes note of the CDP recommendation.

Q: What’s the downside of being an LDC?

A: In reality, there is no downside except the psychological perception of being categorized as one of the poorest countries. Some say that foreign direct investment (FDI) is not forthcoming.

If there is a downside, how come six countries have “graduated” from LDCs over the years since the category was established by the General Assembly in 1971 and ten more are in the pipeline for graduation by 2026.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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President Joe Biden authorized use of the Defense Production Act to ramp up production of several climate-friendly technologies. Credit: MICHAEL WILSON/Unsplash

By External Source
Jun 10 2022 (IPS)

Solar panels, heat pumps and hydrogen are all building blocks of a clean energy economy. But are they truly “essential to the national defense”?

President Joe Biden proclaimed that they are in early June when he authorized using the Defense Production Act to ramp up their production in the U.S., along with insulation and power grid components.

As an environmental engineering professor, I agree that these technologies are essential to mitigating our risks from climate change and overreliance on fossil fuels. However, efforts to expand production capabilities must be accompanied by policies to stimulate demand if Biden hopes to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.

 

Energy and the Defense Production Act

The United States enacted the Defense Production Act of 1950 at the start of the Korean War to secure materials deemed essential to national defense. Presidents soon recognized that essential materials extend far beyond weapons and ammunition. They have invoked the act to secure domestic supplies of everything from communications equipment to medical resources and baby formula.

For energy, past presidents used the act to expand fossil fuel supplies, not transition away from them. Lyndon Johnson used it to refurbish oil tankers during the 1967 Arab oil embargo, and Richard Nixon to secure materials for the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline in 1974. Even when Jimmy Carter used the act in 1980 to seek substitutes for oil, synthetic fuels made from coal and natural gas were a leading focus.

Today, the focus is on transitioning away from all fossil fuels, a move considered essential for confronting two key threats – climate change and volatile energy markets.

The Department of Defense has identified numerous national security risks arising from climate change. Those include threats to the water supply, food production and infrastructure, which may trigger migration and competition for scarce resources. Fossil fuels are the dominant source of greenhouse gas emissions that are driving global warming.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlights additional risks of relying on fossil fuels. Russia and other adversaries are among the leading producers of these fuels. Overreliance on fossil fuels leaves the United States and its allies vulnerable to threats and to price shocks in volatile markets.

Even as the world’s top producer of oil and natural gas, the United States has been rocked by price spikes as our allies shun Russian fuels.

 

Targeting 4 pillars of clean energy

Transitioning from fossil fuels to cleaner energy can mitigate these risks.

As I explain in my book, “Confronting Climate Gridlock,” building a clean energy economy requires four mutually reinforcing pillars – efficiency, clean electricity, electrification and clean fuels.

Efficiency shrinks energy demand and costs along with the burdens on the other pillars. Clean electricity eliminates greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and enables the electrification of vehicles, heating and industry. Meanwhile, clean fuels will be needed for airplanes, ships and industrial processes that can’t easily be electrified.

The technologies targeted by Biden’s actions are well aligned with these pillars.

Insulation is crucial to energy efficiency. Solar panels provide one of the cheapest and cleanest options for electricity. Power grid components are needed to integrate more wind and solar into the energy mix.

Heat pumps, which can both heat and cool a home, are far more efficient than traditional furnaces and replace natural gas or heating oil with electricity. Electrolyzers produce hydrogen for use as a fuel or a feedstock for chemicals.

 

Generating demand is essential

Production is only one step. For this effort to succeed, the U.S. must also ramp up demand.

Stimulating demand spurs learning by doing, which drives down costs, spurring greater demand. A virtuous cycle of rising adoption of technologies and falling costs can arise, as it has for wind and solar power, batteries and other technologies.

The technologies targeted by Biden differ in their readiness for this virtuous cycle to work.

Insulation is already cheap and abundantly produced domestically. What’s needed in this case are policies like building codes and incentives that can stimulate demand by encouraging more use of insulation to help make homes and buildings more energy efficient, not more capacity for production.

Solar panels are currently cheap, but the vast majority are manufactured in Asia. Even if Biden succeeds in tripling domestic manufacturing capacity, U.S. production alone will remain insufficient to satisfy the growing demand for new solar projects. Biden also put a two-year pause on the threat of new tariffs for solar imports to keep supplies flowing while U.S. production tries to ramp up, and announced support for grid-strengthening projects to boost growth of U.S. installations.

Electrolyzers face a tougher road. They’re expensive, and using them to make hydrogen from electricity and water for now costs far more than making hydrogen from natural gas – a process that produces greenhouse gas emissions. The Department of Energy aims to slash electrolyzer costs by 80% within a decade. Until it succeeds, there will be little demand for the electrolyzers that Biden hopes to see produced.

 

Helping heat pumps succeed

That leaves heat pumps as the technology most likely to benefit from Biden’s declaration.

Heat pumps can slash energy use, but they also cost more upfront and are unfamiliar to many contractors and consumers while technologies remain in flux.

Pairing use of the Defense Production Act with customer incentives, increased government purchasing and funding for research and development can create a virtuous cycle of rising demand, improving technologies and falling costs.

Clean energy is indeed essential to mitigating the risks posed by climate change and volatile markets. Invoking the Defense Production Act can bolster supply, but the government will also have to stimulate demand and fund targeted research to spur the virtuous cycles needed to accelerate the energy transition.

Daniel Cohan, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

NGOs call for Europe to opt for citizen-controlled renewable energy in Brussels. Credit: FoE Europe/Lode Saidane

By Jagoda Munic
BRUSSELS, Jun 10 2022 (IPS)

This month marks the mid-point of the much-heralded European Green Deal. Taking office at the end of 2019, the European Commission went into rhetoric overdrive. This was Europe’s ‘man on the moon’ moment, we were told. The Green Deal would herald an economic paradigm shift, and “reconcile the economy with our planet…to make it work for our people” the new President, Ursula von der Leyen, said.

Now, two and a half years later, and with two and a half years of the mandate left to go, this vision of the Green Deal is barely alive. The pandemic has taken its toll – slowing down legislative processes and their implementation. Now the horrific invasion of Ukraine, and its global repercussions, are consuming politicians’ attention.

The European Green Deal can still get off the ground. Its promise can be saved, but it will require European governments to revisit the bold vision put forward over two years ago and to double-down on it

With so much hype, perhaps it was inevitable that the substance of the assorted legislation lumped under the Green Deal would be a let-down. Indeed, Friends of the Earth Europe was critical of the package from the outset. The policy proposals remain moderate and far short of what’s needed to tackle the climate and ecological emergency.

Fundamentally, the Green Deal does not recognise Europe’s historical responsibilities and it locks-in the exploitation of countries outside Europe which are already disproportionately affected with its and colossal demand for natural resources.

To be fair, in the face of unpredicted and unprecedented crises, Brussels did not drop its sustainability drive altogether – the EU has shown some resolve in keeping the green transition on its to-do list.

At this halfway point, we can say that some positive proposals have kept the potential of the Green Deal alive. A new 10-year-plan to tackle nature loss is welcome. The intention to boost renewables is also good, including the pledge to set up at least one renewable energy community in every municipality, in recognition of the need to democratise energy.

Other proposals are promising in principle but lack the necessary funding. A ‘just transition fund’ to help alleviate the social and economic costs of transition should be increased ten-fold. The ‘social climate fund’ designed to support subsidised renovations, renewables and green transport across Europe has been slashed before it even exists.

Overall, the components making up the Green Deal lack scale, urgency and justice. They are based on flawed ‘green growth’ thinking. They certainly do not constitute the step-change that was promised – and that is desperately needed to bring our socio-economic system within planetary boundaries.

Major barriers to truly progressive, transformational EU decision-making have not been tackled. The von der Leyen Commission has spectacularly failed to reign in vested interests’ influence on the agenda. In the last two and a half years this Commission has taken part in 500 meetings with representatives of oil, gas and coal companies. That’s close to one meeting every working day. The European Green Deal proposals have the fingerprints of corporate lobbying all over.

The plans are polluted by techno-fixes and failed market-based solutions. Policy-makers have fallen for the ‘hydrogen hype’ of the gas industry which promotes an overinflated role for green hydrogen in Europe’s energy mix. They are continuing to subsidise supposed ‘hydrogen ready’ infrastructure projects which in reality just lock-in continued fossil fuel use and eye-watering industry profits.

War in Ukraine has shown the fragility of the European energy system and its overreliance on fossil fuels. It must be a turning-point to get us off fossil fuels and accelerate the efficient, clean, democratic energy system of the future. In the next years we need to see massive investment in community renewables and renovations.

Green Deal proposals aimed at reducing the use of pesticides have been postponed after coming under pressure from the agribusiness lobby. This delay comes after the historic failure to reform the Common Agricultural Policy, meaning that 400 billion Euro of EU funds will continue to be spent on warped farming subsidies which mainly benefit a few environmentally-disastrous industrial-scale factory farms.

The agribusiness lobby is now cynically using the invasion of Ukraine to try to derail other sustainable agriculture goals. Their short-term arguments ignore that the decline of insects and pollinators will impact our capacity to produce food in the long-term.

The European Green Deal can still get off the ground. Its promise can be saved, but it will require European governments to revisit the bold vision put forward over two years ago and to double-down on it. The crises of the intervening years – global pandemic, military aggression, the rising cost of living – must be taken as reasons to re-commit to that vision, and press ahead with the policies to realise it, not to water it down.

The social elements which are currently at the margins need to be made central, and the industry interests which are currently dominant need to be removed. For example, the EU must tackle corporate climate impunity by introducing enforceable obligations on companies to reduce their emissions in line with the Paris Agreement.

The European Green Deal can still catalyse a socio-economic system that provides for the needs of all people, but only when every decision from this moment narrows inequality, and respects the Earth’s limits.

Excerpt:

Jagoda Munic is Director, Friends of the Earth Europe

Small holder farmers in Senegal are embracing sustainable agriculture practises to boost their productivity and income. Credit: Caroline Mwongera/ Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Jun 10 2022 (IPS)

Onions and rice are a conspicuous part of every meal in Senegal, including the famous Poulet Yassa. However, climate change makes it hard for smallholder farmers to grow enough staple food with extra to sell for income.

Senegal is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change from droughts, flooding, sea-level rise, coastal erosion, and bush fires, according to the Climate Change Knowledge portal of the World Bank.

“For some time, we have been facing climatic risks such as the scarcity of rains that persist more and more, high heat and a decline in productivity leading to food insecurity,” says Coumba Diallo, a smallholder farmer from Gourel Baydi village in the Tambacounda region.

Diallo, 47, is the President of the Kawral Women’s Group of Gourel Baydi, whose members have been trained to farm sustainably to beat climate change while increasing productivity and profits.

A regional project is helping farmers adapt to the impacts of climate change which has made agricultural production a gamble. Under the Adaptation and Valorization of Entrepreneurship in Irrigated Agriculture (AVENIR) project led by Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), in partnership with the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), smallholder farmers in Senegal are being trained in farming as a business in agroforestry, horticulture and rice.

The AVENIR project aims to improve the social and economic well-being and resilience of farming households in Senegal’s Sedhiou and Tambacounda regions. The two areas in the southwest and east of the country are vulnerable to climate change, experiencing drought spells, flooding, coastal erosion and soil salinity.

Commending the project, Diallo commented that demonstration activities had armed her with the tools to deal with climate change, such as using adapted seeds and learning new agricultural practices to increase her crop yields and income while being more resilient to the climate.

“Learning through practice has helped us to have a better knowledge of adapted varieties, a good mastery of fertility management practices, agroforestry and the drip system to make efficient production with good yields,” Diallo explained.

Another farmer, Clément Sambou, co-founder, and coordinator of Startup-sociale in the Sedhiou Region, says the water salinity, silting, loss of arable land and water erosion are major risks in his region. They are tackling these through the adoption of better agricultural practices.

The AVENIR project encourages women and young people to treat farming as a business by promoting climate-adapted irrigation and agricultural practices. It increases the profitability of agribusinesses in the production of baobab, mango, cashew, onion, okra, ditakh, madd, pepper and rice.

The project will benefit more than 10 000 women and youth from farming households and indirectly impact another estimated 35 000 individuals.

“We want to ensure that farmers have increased their ability to cope with the climate risks they face in the regions where they are producing food,” says Caroline Mwongera, a senior scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Mbene Diagne, a farmer from Thioro Bougou village in the Tambacounda region, has found practical training helpful. It’s boosted his knowledge of soil fertility management technologies, especially with moisture conservation techniques in an excessively hot area.

“There is a very big difference between our practices and those current conveyed through the demonstration sites,” said Diagne (29), vice-president of a group of young modern farmers in Tambacounda.

“With these new technologies, there is a reduction in workload for irrigation with better control of water and working time,” Diagne noted.

Farming is Good Business

The project has focused on adaptation and agribusiness after realizing that horticulture was an easy market entry option for women because of the high demand for horticulture products.

“We wanted to create opportunities for women and young people to engage and sell their produce in the local markets,” says Mwongera. “The varieties we selected for horticulture are locally demanded. For example, onion is a big part of the Senegalese diet,  tomatoes, pepper, and okra. In addition, horticulture is a good fit for women and youth with limited access to irrigated land,  which can measure as small as twenty square metres. ”

The project has promoted salinity and drought-tolerant rice varieties. The Senegalese research organization, ISRA and the Africa Rice Centre developed the rice. For agroforestry, quick maturing mango, cashew and baobab varieties have been introduced.

“If you have food and income, you can cope with climate risks. We want the food system to be diversified. That is why we are focusing on the three commodity groups: rice, agroforestry, and horticulture because that helps you to withstand risks better, says Mwongera. She adds that farmers are also trained to intensify their production to grow short-season crop varieties under irrigation.

Farmers get high-yielding and drought-tolerant seeds and are trained using climate-smart technologies and efficient, affordable irrigation techniques.

Increasing Incomes through Irrigation

Farmers have been introduced to affordable and labour efficient water technologies to save on scarce water resources.

“We are now training farmers to use drip irrigation, which is water efficient and has low labour demand, especially for women,” Mwongera told IPS, explaining that farmers have shifted from manual flood irrigation, sprinklers and watering cans which used a lot of water.

Rice and onions are part of every meal in Senegal, but smallholders often face food insecurity. Now a project helps farms adapt to the impact of climate change, Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

To encourage farmers to use water-efficient technologies, the project has introduced an incentive-based purchase programme (e-voucher) to provide discounts for farmers. Farmers get technologies at a fraction of the value with an option to pay the balance when they produce and sell their crops.

A multi-actor platform brings together local actors, producer organizations, local administration, and researchers to help farmers share information and experiences on climate information services and equitable water resource management to improve their productivity.

Mwongera noted that farmers had poor access to viable markets, which meant they could not increase their production if they had nowhere to sell their produce. There is a need for a market value chain that includes producers, processors, transport providers and the financial sector.

“We need market-led development to enhance resilience and profitability of farmers,” says Mwongera noting that the project was also teaching farmers about integrated soil management, proper composting and using climate information services.

“We also provide weather information using SMS and integrated voice through a service provider who gets weather forecasts from the National Agency for Civil Aviation and Meteorology of Senegal (ANACIM). Farmers use this information to plan when to plant and what varieties to plant,” said Mwongera.

Climate change threatens Senegal’s social and economic development, which is vulnerable to droughts, floods, and high temperatures, which impact the agricultural sector. Agriculture employs 70 percent of the country’s workforce and contributes about 17 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.

Top climate scientists have warned of the urgency of reducing carbon emissions as human-induced climate change affects all development sectors, including agriculture. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather has reduced food and water security, hindering efforts to meet Sustainable Development Goals.

“Increasing weather and climate extreme events have exposed millions of people to acute food insecurity and reduced water security, with the largest impacts observed in many locations and/or communities in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Small Islands and the Arctic Jointly,” scientists said. They noted that sudden food production losses and access to food compounded by decreased diet diversity had increased malnutrition in many communities, especially small-scale food producers and low-income households.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Sbongile Tabhethe works in the food garden at eKhenana land occupation in Cato Manor, Durban, 9 June 2020. Credit: New Frame / Mlungisi Mbele

By Vijay Prashad
Jun 10 2022 (IPS-Partners)

In March 2022, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres warned of a ‘hurricane of hunger’ due to the war in Ukraine. Forty-five developing countries, most of them on the African continent, he said, ‘import at least a third of their wheat from Ukraine or Russia, with 18 of those import[ing] at least 50 percent’. Russia and Ukraine export 33% of global barley stocks, 29% of wheat, 17% of corn, and nearly 80% of the world’s supply of sunflower oil. Farmers outside of Russia and Ukraine, trying to make up for the lack of exports, are now struggling with higher fuel prices also caused by the war. Fuel prices impact both the cost of chemical fertilisers and farmers’ ability to grow their own crops. Maximo Torero Cullen, chief economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, said that ‘one of every five calories people eat have crossed at least one international border, up more than 50 percent from 40 years ago’. This turbulence in the global food trade will certainly create a problem for nutrition and food intake, particularly amongst the poorest people on the planet.

Poorer countries do not have many tools to stem the tide of hunger, largely due to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules that privilege subsidy regimes for richer countries but punish poorer ones if they use state action on behalf of their own farmers and the hungry. A recent report by no less than the WTO, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development provided evidence of these subsidy advantages from which wealthier countries benefit. At the 12th WTO ministerial conference in mid-June, the G-33 countries will seek to expand the use of the ‘peace clause’ (established in 2013) to allow poorer countries to protect their farmers’ livelihoods through the state procurement of food and enhanced public food distribution systems.

Two young girls return to their homes after drawing water from a stream that the farm dwelling community shares with wild animals, 29 July 2020. Credit: New Frame / Magnificent Mndebele

Those who grow our food are hungry, yet, stunningly, there is little conversation about the poverty and hunger of farmers, peasants, and agricultural workers themselves. More than 3.4 billion people – nearly half the world’s population – live in rural areas; amongst them are 80% of the world’s poor. For most of the rural poor, agriculture is the principal source of income, providing billions of jobs. Rural poverty is reproduced not because people do not work hard, but because of the dispossession of rural workers from land ownership and the withdrawal of state support from small farmers and peasants.

Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research (South Africa) has been paying very close attention to the plight of farmworkers in the region as part of our overall project to monitor the ‘hurricane of hunger’. Our most recent dossier, This Land Is the Land of Our Ancestors, is a fine-grained study of farmworkers from their own perspective. Researcher Yvonne Phyllis travelled from KwaZulu-Natal to the Western and Northern Cape provinces interviewing farmworkers and their organisations to learn about the failures of land reform in South Africa and its impact on their lives. This is one of the few dossiers that begins in the first person, reflecting the intimate nature of politics surrounding the land issue in South Africa. ‘What does the land mean to you?’, I asked Yvonne while we were together in Johannesburg recently. She answered:

I grew up on a farm in Bedford, in the Eastern Cape province. My upbringing gifted me some of the best lessons of my life. One lesson was from the community of farmworkers and farm dwellers; they taught me the value of being in community with other people. They also taught me what it means to nurture and cultivate land and how to make my own meaning of what land is to me. Those lessons have informed my personal beliefs about the nature of land. All people deserve to live from the land. Land is not only important because we can produce from it; it forms part of people’s histories, humanity, and cultural heritage.

Six generations of the Phyllis family have lived in this house and worked on this farm. Credit: New Frame / Andy Mkosi

The process of colonialism by Dutch (Boer) and British settlers dispossessed African farmers and converted them into either landless workers, unpaid labour tenants, or the rural unemployed. This process was hardened by the Native Land Act (no. 27 of 1913), whose legacy continues to be felt today. Seventeen-year-old composer Reuben Caluza (1895–1969) responded to the law with his ‘Umteto we Land Act’ (‘The Land Act’), which became one of the first anthems of the liberation movement in the country:

The right which our compatriots fought for
Our cry for the nation
is to have our country
We cry for the homeless
sons of our fathers
Who do not have a place
in this place of our ancestors

The Freedom Charter (1955) of the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies promised those who struggled against apartheid, which formally ended in 1994, that ‘The land shall be shared among those who work it’. This promise was alluded to again in the 1996 South African Constitution, chapter 2, section 25.5, but it excludes explicit mention of farmworkers.

This is the site of the ancestral graveyard of the Phyllis family on which Yvonne’s father Jacob and their family worked, 6 June 2021. Credit: New Frame / Andy Mkosi

In fact, right from the 1993 Interim Constitution, the new post-apartheid system defended the rights of farm owners through a ‘property clause’ in chapter 2, section 28. Differences within the ANC led to the abandonment of the more progressive Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) in favour of the neoliberal Growth, Employment, and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy – a self-imposed structural adjustment programme. What this meant was that there were simply insufficient political will and state funds allocated for the land restitution, land tenure reform, and land redistribution programmes. As our dossier notes, to this day the promises of the Freedom Charter ‘have yet to be fulfilled’.

Rather than expropriate land from the primarily white land-owning class to compensate for historical injustices, the state provides for compensation to landowners and operates on the principle of ‘willing buyer, willing seller’. Bureaucratic red tape and a lack of funds have sabotaged any genuine land reform project. In his 2014 Ruth First Lecture, Irvin Jim, general secretary of the largest trade union in the country, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), noted that the centenary of the 1913 Land Act was not commemorated by the government but only by the militant strike by farmworkers in 2012 and 2013. ‘The strike is still fresh in our memories’, Jim said. ‘It continues to highlight the colonial historical fact that the land, and the produce that comes from it, are not being equitably shared among those who work the land’. Due to the neoliberal orientation of the land question, some of the programmes set up for restitution and redistribution have ended up benefitting large landholders over subsistence farmers and lifelong farmworkers.

Former labourers Freeda Mkhabela, Lucia Foster, and Gugu Ngubane (from left to right) are among the activists struggling against landlessness as well as poor pay and working conditions and for better treatment of farmworkers, 26 May 2021. Credit: New Frame / Mlungisi Mbele

A genuine agrarian reform project in South Africa would not only meet the cries for justice from the land but would also provide a pathway to deal with the hunger crisis in the countryside. Our dossier ends with a six-point list of demands developed from our conversations with farmworkers and their organisations:

1. The government of South Africa must consult farmworkers and farm dwellers to incorporate their contributions into the development of a land reform programme which addresses their land needs.
2. Labour tenants’ claims to land ownership should be given priority in order to avoid land reform that solely enriches Black elites.
3. The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform, and Rural Development should facilitate the process of white farm owners apportioning some of their farmland to lifetime employees and descendants of families who have worked on farms for several generations.
4. The government must purchase farms for farmworkers and assist them with capital for start-up costs, farming equipment, and agricultural skills.
5. Land reform in South Africa must take into account the social factors that contribute to food insecurity and acknowledge the opportunities to rectify it through land redistribution.
6. The process of land reform must address the marginalisation of women workers in the agricultural industry and the lack of land ownership by women farmers to ensure gender parity in both spheres.

Loo ngumhlaba wookhokho bethu! This is the land of our ancestors! That’s the slogan that gives our dossier its title. It is about time that those who work the land get to own the land.

A UN meeting on the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, 26 September. Credit: UN Photo/Kim Haughton

By Norman Solomon
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Jun 10 2022 (IPS)

I’ve just finished going through the more than 60 presidential statements, documents and communiques about the war in Ukraine that the White House has released and posted on its website since Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in early March.

They all share with that speech one stunning characteristic — the complete absence of any mention of nuclear weapons or nuclear war dangers. Yet we’re now living in a time when those dangers are the worst they’ve been since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

You might think that the risks of global nuclear annihilation would merit at least a few of the more than 25,000 words officially released on Biden’s behalf during the 100 days since his dramatic speech to a joint session of Congress.

But an evasive pattern began from the outset. While devoting much of that speech to the Ukraine conflict, Biden said nothing at all about the heightened risks that it might trigger the use of nuclear weapons.

A leader interested in informing the American people rather than infantilizing them would have something to say about the need to prevent nuclear war at a time of escalating tensions between the world’s two nuclear superpowers.

A CBS News poll this spring found that the war in Ukraine had caused 70 percent of adults in the U.S. to be worried that it could lead to nuclear warfare.

But rather than publicly address such fears, Biden has dodged the public — unwilling to combine his justifiable denunciations of Russia’s horrific war on Ukraine with even the slightest cautionary mention about the upward spike in nuclear-war risks.

Biden has used silence to gaslight the body politic with major help from mass media and top Democrats. While occasional mainstream news pieces have noted the increase in nuclear-war worries and dangers, Biden has not been called to account for refusing to address them.

As for Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill, party loyalties have taken precedence over ethical responsibilities. What’s overdue is a willingness to insist that Biden forthrightly speak about a subject that involves the entire future of humanity.

Giving the president and congressional leaders the benefit of doubts has been a chronic and tragic problem throughout the nuclear age. Even some organizations that should know better have often succumbed to the temptation to serve as enablers.

In her roles as House minority leader and speaker, Nancy Pelosi has championed one bloated Pentagon budget increase after another, including huge outlays for new nuclear weapons systems.

Yet she continues to enjoy warm and sometimes even fawning treatment from well-heeled groups with arms-control and disarmament orientations.

And so it was, days ago, when the Ploughshares Fund sent supporters a promotional email about its annual “Chain Reaction” event — trumpeting that “Speaker Pelosi will join our illustrious list of previously announced speakers to explore current opportunities to build a movement to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons once and for all.”

The claim that Pelosi would be an apt person to guide listeners on how to “build a movement” with such goals was nothing short of absurd. For good measure, the announcement made the same claim for another speaker, Fiona Hill, a hawkish former senior director for Europe and Russia at the National Security Council.

Bizarre as it is, the notion that Pelosi and Hill are fit to explain how to “build a movement to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons” is in sync with a submissive assumption — that there’s no need to challenge Biden’s refusal to address nuclear-war dangers.

The president has a responsibility to engage with journalists and the public about nuclear weapons and the threat they pose to human survival on this planet. Urgently, Biden should be pushed toward genuine diplomacy including arms-control negotiations with Russia. Members of Congress, organizations and constituents should be demanding that he acknowledge the growing dangers of nuclear war and specify what he intends to do to diminish instead of fuel those dangers.

Such demands can gain momentum and have political impact as a result of grassroots activism rather than beneficent elitism. That’s why this Sunday, nearly 100 organizations are co-sponsoring a “Defuse Nuclear War” live stream — marking the 40th anniversary of the day when 1 million people gathered in New York’s Central Park, on June 12, 1982, to call for an end to the nuclear arms race.

That massive protest was in the spirit of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964: “I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction.”

In 2022, the real possibility of such a hell for the entire world has become unmentionable for the president and his enablers. But refusing to talk about the dangers of thermonuclear destruction makes it more likely.

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 also the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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In virtually every region, governments appear to be at a loss on how best to address international migration, especially the waves of illegal migration arriving daily at international borders and the many already residing unlawfully within their countries. Credit: Alexander Bee/OIM

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Jun 9 2022 (IPS)

A world with open borders, as some strongly advocate while others insist on maintaining controlled borders, is an interesting exercise to consider given its potential consequences for nations, the planet’s 8 billion human inhabitants, climate change, and the environment.

Based on international surveys of 152 countries taken several years ago before the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 15 percent of the world’s adults said that they would like to migrate permanently to another country if they could. Based on that percentage for adults plus their family members, the estimated number of people who want to migrate in 2022 is likely to be no less than 1.5 billion.

Seven destination countries attract half of those wanting to migrate to another country. The top destination country at 21 percent of those wanting to migrate is the United States. Substantially lower, Canada and Germany are next at 6 percent, followed by France and Australia at 5 percent, the United Kingdom at 4 percent, and Saudi Arabia at 3 percent

The figure of 1.5 billion wanting to migrate is more than 5 times the estimated number of immigrants in the world in 2020, or about 281 million. The figure of potential immigrants is also approximately 500 times the annual flow of immigrants globally.

The two regions with the highest proportions wanting to migrate to another country if they had the chance are sub-Saharan Africa at 33 percent and Latin America and the Caribbean at 27 percent. In addition, in 13 countries at least half of their populations would like to migrate to another country.

The top three countries with the proportion of their adult populations wanting to migrate are Sierra Leone at 71 percent, Liberia at 66 percent, and Haiti at 63 percent. They are followed by Albania at 60 percent, El Salvador at 52 percent, the Democratic Republic of the Congo at 50 percent.

Seven destination countries attract half of those wanting to migrate to another country. The top destination country at 21 percent of those wanting to migrate is the United States. Substantially lower, Canada and Germany are next at 6 percent, followed by France and Australia at 5 percent, the United Kingdom at 4 percent, and Saudi Arabia at 3 percent.

Among those seven destination countries, the numbers wanting to migrate are greater than the current populations of five of them. For example, the number of people wanting to migrate to Canada is 90 million versus its current population of 38 million. Similarly, the number wanting to migrate to Germany is 94 million versus its current population of 84 million. In the remaining two countries, the United States and the United Kingdom, the numbers wanting to migrate are nearly the same size as their current populations (Figure 1).

 

Source: United Nations and Gallup.

 

In addition to its impact on the size of populations, open borders would alter the ethnic, religious, and linguistic composition of populations, leading to increased cultural diversity. Past and present international migration flows have demonstrated alterations in the cultural composition of populations.

In the United States, for example, since 1965 when the Immigration and National Act on country of origin was passed, the proportion Hispanic increased nearly five-fold, from 4 percent to 19 percent in 2020, and the proportion non-Hispanic white declined from 84 percent to 58 percent. Similarly in Germany, the proportion Muslim since 1965 has increased five-fold, from less than 1 percent to 5 percent of the population in 2020.

Various reasons have been offered both in support and in opposition to an open borders world. For example, those opposed believe open borders would increase security threats, damage domestic economies, benefit big business and elites, increase societal costs, encourage brain drain, facilitate illegal trade, reduce labor wages, undermine cultural integrity, and create integration problems (Table 1).

 

Source: Author’s compilation.

 

In contrast, those in support believe open borders would provide a basic human right, reduce poverty, increase GDP growth, reduce border control costs, increase the labor supply, provide talented workers, promote travel, reduce time and costs of travel, raise a country’s tax base, promote cultural diversity, and contribute to global interdependence.

Open borders would certainly impact the cultural composition of populations. Even without open borders, the current changes in the cultural composition of populations being brought about by international migration have not only raised public concerns but have also contributed to the growing influence of nativist and far-right political parties.

The nativist parties are typically opposed to immigration, seeing it as a threat to their national cultural integrity. In contrast, those supportive of immigration welcome the arrival of people with differing backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultures. They view immigration it as a natural, ongoing human phenomenon that enriches societies.

Open borders would also have consequences on climate change and the environment. Large numbers of people would be migrating to countries with high levels of greenhouse gas emissions per capita. For example, while the world average of tons of CO2 equivalent per person is about 6, the level in the United States is about three times as large at 19.

Similarly, open borders would impact the environment. The migration to the high consumption destination countries would lead to increased biodiversity loss, pollution, and congestion.

An open borders world is not likely to happen any time soon. However, recent large-scale immigration flows, both legal and illegal, are substantially impacting government programs, domestic politics, international relations, and public opinion as well as the size and composition of the populations.

In virtually every region, governments appear to be at a loss on how best to address international migration, especially the waves of illegal migration arriving daily at international borders and the many already residing unlawfully within their countries. International conventions, agreements, and compacts concerning international migration are largely viewed as being outdated, unrealistic, and ineffective in dealing with today’s international migration issues.

The supply of men, women, and children in poor developing countries wanting to migrate greatly exceeds the demand for those migrants in wealthy developed countries by a factor of about five hundred.

The result is the Great Migration Clash, i.e., a worldwide struggle between those who “want out” of their countries and those who want others to “keep out” of their countries.

Given the enormous difference in supply and demand, the Migration Clash is unlikely to be resolved by simply asking destination countries to raise their immigration levels. To resolve the Migration Clash will require considerably improving the social, economic, political, and environmental conditions of the populations in the migrant sending countries.

Achieving those desirable development goals any time soon, however, appears as unlikely as establishing an open borders world. Therefore, countries will continue dealing the best they can with the consequences of controlled borders and the Great Migration Clash.

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”

Activists, Tahira Hasan, and Shahira Naim welcome the Supreme Court ruling which recognises sex work as a profession. However, questions are asked about whether the ruling is enough to guarantee that those in the profession no longer face harassment.

By Mehru Jaffer
Lucknow, Jun 9 2022 (IPS)

Social activists, including Lucknow-based Tahira Hasan, have welcomed the Indian Supreme Court’s recent ruling recognising sex work as a profession.

The top court ruled that sex workers should be treated with dignity and that workshops be held to make them aware of their rights.

“This is a welcome step taken by the country’s top court. It is only fair to reiterate that sex work is a profession like any other. It is the duty of society to ensure that sex workers can earn a living without harassment,” Hasan told the IPS.

In the absence of a law, the Court invoked its special power under Article 142 of the Constitution to issue guidelines that define sex work as a profession.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao said that sex workers are entitled to protection and dignity in the eyes of the law.

“Notwithstanding the profession, every individual in this country has a right to a dignified life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India,” said the Supreme Court order, as published on LiveLaw.

“Whenever there is a raid on any brothel, since voluntary sex work is not illegal and only running the brothel is unlawful, the sex workers concerned should not be arrested or penalised or harassed or victimised.

“When it is clear that the sex worker is an adult and is participating with consent, the police must refrain from interfering or taking any criminal action,” reads the judgment.

According to the ruling, sex workers cannot be discriminated against by police officials when they lodge a criminal complaint, especially if the offence committed against them is of a sexual nature.

It said that the police could not intervene unnecessarily in the business of sex workers, and the police should be sensitised towards them. The latest guidelines rule that sex workers be provided medical and legal care.

(The) “basic protection of human decency and dignity extends to sex workers and their children, who, bearing the brunt of social stigma attached to their work, are removed to the fringes of the society, deprived of their right to live with dignity and opportunities to provide the same to their children.”

The Court made particular reference to the children of sex workers, noting that “if a minor is found living in a brothel or with sex workers, it should not be presumed that he/she has been trafficked. In case the sex worker claims that he/she is her son/daughter, tests can be done to determine if the claim is correct and if so, the minor should not be forcibly separated.”

The apex Court has also ordered the police not to reveal the identity of sex workers to the media and has asked the Press Council of India to issue appropriate guidelines in this regard.

According to the Court, what the sex workers do for their health and safety cannot be construed as an offence. It reminded the country that Article 21 of the Constitution gives every citizen the right to live a dignified life and practice their profession without fear.

The Court has asked the government for its opinion on the guidelines for sex workers. It asked the government to clarify its stand on recommendations made by a panel in 2011 for exempting adult sex workers who engaged in consensual sex from being criminalised.

The central government needs to develop a law for sex workers. Until that happens, the Court would like to see the rehabilitation of sex workers. Police, it said, should undergo sensitisation training because they are often accused of abusing and subjecting them to violence.

However, Shahira Naim, journalist and social activist, wonders if the recent Court ruling will improve the plight of sex workers. While sex work has always been legal in India, but society treats those involved with contempt.

Despite the concern expressed by the Court, sex workers, especially women, continue to be denied dignity.  When hotels are raided, it is often the prostitute who is arrested while the male client and the pimp are allowed to escape. Training the police is necessary where it is not easy to wash away the stigma connected to the profession.

It is the enforcement of laws that will restore dignity.

“Till the stigma attached to the profession is dealt with, sex workers will continue to be disrespected in society. A good law alone cannot make life easy for them, but practising the spirit of the law will help,” Naim said.

Sex workers remain vulnerable to this day. There is the example of the 42-year-old woman killed in the southern Indian city of Bangalore by a security guard for refusing to have unprotected sex with him. In January 2020, the security guard was kicked by a sex worker when he tried to force himself upon her without a condom. He asked her to return the money he had already paid her for sex. Angry and afraid because she made a noise, the security guard allegedly slit the throat of the prostitute and escaped.

According to newspaper reports, the police eventually traced the murderer and took him into custody.

A sex worker who did not want to reveal her name said the existing laws are not bad, but they are not implemented in the way they should be. The court’s recent ruling is yet another appeal to society to practice the law of the land in spirit.

The ruling puts the plight of sex workers at the centre of a public debate at a time when people continue to be embarrassed to talk about it. The topic is taboo. Even mentioning sex workers is considered sinful in a society that once celebrated prostitutes. In Indian mythology, prostitutes are described as celestial beings. They are mentioned as a perfect incarnation of beauty and whose musical talent and masterful dance steps were appreciated by ancient society.

But it has been a long haul for contemporary sex workers who continue to struggle for a little more dignity in life. While voluntary sex work is legal, running a brothel is illegal in India. If brothels, hotels, pimping and propositioning are all illegal, then how and where the sex worker is supposed to carry out her business, questions Naim.

This kind of harassment ought to end as the Court reiterates that sex work is a profession like any other and that the police should neither interfere nor take criminal action against adults and consenting sex.

But if and when the harassment will end is the question.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Delegates at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) summit debate the role of youth in narrowing the digital divide. Credit: ITU

By Juliet Morrison
Toronto, Jun 9 2022 (IPS)

“50 percent of the present, but 100 percent of the future,” was the refrain at the first-ever Generation Connect Global Youth Summit.

Held in Kigali, Rwanda, from June 2-4, the youth summit saw community activists, entrepreneurs, engineers, policymakers, and students from over 115 countries discuss the digital divide and youth engagement. Another 4,800 participants joined virtually from research centers, universities, and schools.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN agency on information and communication technologies, organized the summit. It served as a build-up to the ITU’s World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC), held two days after the conference, from June 6–16.

Participants at the summit emphasized the need for young people to be considered equal partners in decision-making, especially around problems concerning their future.

“We know that young people are going to be the most affected by problems like the climate crisis. That means that we must have a stake in what is decided and what is negotiated in these spaces,” climate activist Xiye Bastida said.

The discussion was also centered around bridging the digital divide. Like the later WTDC conference, the summit’s theme was “connecting the unconnected to achieve sustainable development.”

During the opening ceremony, Prime Minister of Rwanda Édouard Ngirente remarked upon the benefits of digital technologies being omnipresent in daily life. But the Prime Minister also noted that many were missing out on the advantages of technological innovation.

Globally more than 2.2 billion children and young people lack an internet connection at home. Of those, 350 million young people have never accessed the internet.

“The digital economy is growing rapidly, with almost every aspect of our lives moving online and massive economic opportunities being created. Opportunities ahead are indeed promising, but in order to fully tap into these opportunities, we must ensure that nobody is left behind,” he said.

Ngirente mentioned that the lack of uniform access to technology posed challenges for economic development and youth employment rates.

“The extent to which our economies can grow will depend on the ability to ensure equitable access to technology and upskilling and reskilling our populations, especially the young,” he said.

Currently, access to internet connectivity is inequitable. Accessibility depends on factors like income, demographic, and gender.

For example, only 15 percent of women and girls in the least developed countries use the internet, noted Heidi Schroderus-Fox, the UN Acting High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries, and Small Island Developing States.

“There’s a huge gap,” Schroderus-Fox said. “We need to make sure that the opportunities of the internet and the digital world are provided equally for everyone, women, girls, men, boys, everyone.”

Critical policy matters related to internet connectivity and technologies, such as cyber-safety, the future of work, and entrepreneurship, were also explored in summit sessions. The need for youth engagement to weigh in on these policy matters remained an essential thread throughout the event.

Twenty-six-year-old Emma Theofelus, the Namibian Deputy Minister of Information and Communication Technology, talked about how young people are best positioned to discuss regulations around online work and content creation due to their experience navigating online spaces.

“Policy should take center stage. But, beyond that, it is a policy that should be co-created by young people. We understand best the complexities and challenges of online platforms and the harms that can come with it,” she said.

The emphasis on youth engagement was central to the summit’s outcome document—the Generation Connect’s Call to Action. “Our Digital Future,” lists recommendations to foster better youth participation around decisions in governments, the UN, and the ITU for “a more inclusive, sustainable digital future.”

Situating the Call to Action, the Rwandan Minister of Youth Rosemary Mbabazi emphasized the document as a pivotal step for more digital inclusivity.

“The Call for Action embodies the call to the young minds, the global partners, the private sector, and the commitment to provide internet connectivity and make it accessible, available, and affordable through creating and enabling an environment as well as providing the prerequisite infrastructure for the young people to invent and innovate,” she said.

Although the Call to Action had been in the works since 2020 and had already undergone an extensive online consultation process, it was finalized during the summit. There, attendees reviewed the document and gave suggestions for improvement.

One suggestion was to refer to sexual minorities alongside gender minorities. Another was to swap the phrase “digital rights” for “human rights” to leverage the issue’s urgency for policymakers and use established language for international documents.

The Generation Connect Call to Action was to be presented to leaders at the WTDC.

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Hindou Ibrahim, SDG Advocate and Indigenous Rights Activist. Credit: Africa Renewal, United Nations

By Devi Palanivelu
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 9 2022 (IPS)

Thirty years ago, the Earth Summit, which took place in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, paved the way for the establishment of three major conventions on the environment – specifically on biodiversity, climate change and desertification.

As countries meet on all three conventions in 2022, SDG Advocate and indigenous rights activist Hindou Ibrahim talks about the indispensable role that indigenous communities around the world play in protecting life on our planet – its biodiversity, land and climate.

“As indigenous peoples, we say, we are not different than the rest of the species, we are only one species of nature, so we cannot harm the rest of them. So that’s why living in harmony, it’s connecting each other, respecting each other and trying to keep the balance without harming the rest of the species – species of nature,” says Ms. Ibrahim.

She is no stranger to international climate change, human rights and sustainability processes. In 1999, at just 15 years of age, she founded the Association of Indigenous Peul Women and Peoples of Chad, a community-based organization that promotes the rights of girls and women in Chad’s Mbororo community which she belongs to.

In the years following, she became the co-chair of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change, and today she is one of the 17 eminent global leaders known as the SDG Advocates.

For centuries, indigenous communities like hers have protected our environment. They care for more than 20 per cent of our planet’s land and 80 percent of its biodiversity.

Devi Palanivelu

“For centuries and centuries, my great grandparents have always used the ecosystem. They know the ecosystem, they move from one place to another one to find work in pastures, but in this way of living, it is giving back to nature; it is helping nature to get regenerated in a natural way”.

“So, for all the indigenous peoples around the world, this is the deeper connection we have. And that’s also why we are protecting 80 per cent of the world’s biodiversity. Because for us, it is not a passion, or a job. It is our way of living. And that’s what we have done for all generations.”

Their way of life – rich with traditional knowledge and respect for nature – and their ability to manage natural resources sustainably supports the lives and livelihoods of 2.5 billion people or about 1 in 3 people in the world.

“We are very happy that now – from the private sector to the public, to UN agencies, all people are saying how important are indigenous peoples and their role to protect the biodiversity but to fight climate change, they are finally recognizing that indigenous peoples are a solution, we are not only a victim of the climate change,” says Ms. Ibrahim.

Indigenous communities have historically been at the margins of formal global negotiations on climate change. They were finally given a voice alongside governments in 2015 when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change created the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform.

“When we talk about nature, when we talk about the climate, most of the time people talk a lot, but they do not act, maybe it is difficult for them to find the way to act. This is where the role of indigenous peoples [should be] in the centre of each discussion because we are not only talking, we are acting. We want the people who are talking to follow us and act. If we [have] acted all those years, we won’t be in this pathway of climate impact every single day.”

At the 2021 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, governments pledged $12 billion to stop and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. $1.7 billion was earmarked to support indigenous communities’ efforts to conserve tropical forests.

However, the world’s nearly 480 million indigenous peoples living in at least 90 countries need support to protect a diversity of ecosystems – from the glaciers in the Arctic to the steppes in Central Asia and the savannahs in Africa – that are threatened by climate change.

“Imagine when you come in country like mine, in Chad. In the north, you have the desert 100 per cent; you come a little bit down, you have the Sahara regions; you go a little bit further you have the savannah. And after the savannah, you have the tropical forests. What is happening with climate change?”

“ [With] desertification advanced, the people from the desert moved to the Sahel, the people from the Sahel moved to the savannahs, those from savannah moved to tropical forests. And that’s also how the peoples are using the ecosystem that exists. So, you cannot choose to protect only the tropical forests. When you place money, you must think about all the rest of the ecosystem that interconnects – from the oceans to the glaciers,” stresses Ms. Ibrahim.

In recent years, the world’s leading scientists have recognized indigenous communities as “some of the best environment stewards” stressing their central role in safeguarding life on our planet.

Their traditional knowledge – which is closely linked to their lands, territories and resources – can help end food insecurity, combat climate change and reverse land degradation and biodiversity loss.

“Around the world, we are facing a lot of crises – from the environment to health and to wars. But when we think about the impact of all that, it is based on human survival and planet survival, so we must all act to fight climate change, and

Source Africa Renewal, United Nations

The interview was first published here as part of the climate thought leader series.

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Through collaboration we can build on the foundations of our knowledge to bring forward innovative ways to address health challenges that benefit all of humanity. Credit: WHO

By Quarraisha Abdool Karim
DURBAN, South Africa, Jun 8 2022 (IPS)

Africa is plagued by many epidemics — from tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS to malaria and wild polio — but the continent has also worked for decades to fight these threats. The key to beating these deadly diseases is turning inward to existing expertise and finding locally driven solutions.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has placed public health back in the global spotlight and has also served as a reminder that science is not undertaken in an ivory tower. Science shapes humanity because it takes place among us. COVID-19 has also showcased that no epidemic takes place in isolation. Through collaboration we can build on the foundations of our knowledge to bring forward innovative ways to address health challenges that benefit all of humanity.

This is not a new idea. In fact, it is something that we became all too familiar with during the AIDS pandemic.

Africa has the scientific leadership and intellectual capital to develop new technologies and interventions. This is something we have shown time and time again. If there is a problem, then local research is surely the best path toward finding a solution

Despair, pain, and loss were rampant during the 1980s and early 1990s, at the beginning of South Africa’s HIV epidemic. Every weekend, white funeral tents in rural KwaZulu-Natal seemed to mushroom up and multiply, signifying the growing toll the virus was taking on the country.

Witnessing this helped catalyse me to undertake one of the earliest population-based studies that looked closely at this emerging health issue in South Africa. HIV prevalence was low at the time, with less than 1% of the population having been infected.

But lurking within the data was a shocking revelation: young women (15-24 years old) were six times more likely to be infected compared to their male counterparts.

We knew something had to be done. That meant understanding what had led to this striking disparity in risk. So, we began speaking to women from all parts of society to try and get a better sense of what they were experiencing.

Here’s what we learned: power dynamics of relationships and sex were disrupting disease prevention. Women didn’t have the ability to protect themselves because of the limited options available to them — options like condoms, that placed the responsibility of reducing risk in the hands of men.

Meanwhile, cases continued to surge in South Africa at an alarming rate, doubling annually in the general population.

Existing methods to prevent HIV infection weren’t going to cut it. Approaches designed in the global North were never going to be able to fully account for the needs of women in Africa. That’s why new solutions had to be brought forward instead.

One way that we sought to empower women was through a gel that contained Tenofovir, an antiretroviral (ARV) medication. This innovative approach, shown in the CAPRISA 004 trial, enabled HIV-negative women to protect themselves from the virus. CAPRISA’s research on PrEP was recently recognised by the VinFuture Prize as a lifesaving innovation from the global South.

Today, Tenofovir is taken daily as a pill for HIV prevention, a solution also known as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). It has been adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a key prevention option for both women and men.

And it hasn’t stopped there — a range of new anti-retroviral drugs and long-acting formulations, delivered as injections and implants, are currently being evaluated to expand prevention choices.

AIDS is no longer a fatal condition, instead it is chronic yet manageable. But we still see too many deaths and new HIV infections, particularly in marginalized populations. Two-thirds of all people living with HIV/AIDS are in sub–Saharan Africa and the region accounts for 60% of all new infections.

As we turn our focus towards other pandemics, such as COVID-19, we cannot afford to lose the gains made in HIV. It is a trap we fell into before — when early HIV work overshadowed TB efforts — and it is not one we can afford to be caught in again.

Even now, COVID-19 continues to draw on lessons from the decades of work that have been poured into our HIV/AIDS response. This includes leveraging existing testing tools to detect COVID, utilising clinical trial infrastructure to expedite vaccine development, calling on community engagement processes to educate the public, and relying on scientific expertise to guide governments in their response.

The AIDS pandemic has taught us that scientists, policy-makers, and civil societies cannot work in a vacuum. There must be a unity of purpose that galvanises the steadfast support of global leaders in governments and funding agencies across the world.

Africa has the scientific leadership and intellectual capital to develop new technologies and interventions. This is something we have shown time and time again. If there is a problem, then local research is surely the best path toward finding a solution.

Pursuing this path of innovation requires funding that will support and promote the growth and expertise of Africa’s scientists. Our inter-dependency and shared vulnerability underscores the importance of collaboration and resource-sharing both globally and regionally that must be used for the benefit of humanity. There is no time for complacency. We must ensure that solutions are tailored by local research to best benefit those in need.

Professor Quarraisha Abdool Karim, PhD is an infectious diseases epidemiologist and Associate Scientific Director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA). She was a 2021 Laureate of the VinFuture Prize, in the ‘Innovators from developing countries’ category.

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Jun 8 2022 (IPS)

It has been over 100 days since Russia first invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, turning the country into a slaughterhouse. The United Nations (UN) in this report says that, as of 1 June, 2022, more than 6.9 million refugees have left Ukraine and 2.1 million have returned, while eight million people are displaced inside Ukraine itself. War in Ukraine has caused the fastest growing refugee crisis since World War II.

In a statement, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the conflict which began in February has since then taken thousands of lives, caused untold destruction, displaced millions of people, resulted in unacceptable violation of human rights and is inflaming a three-dimensional global – food, energy and finance – that is pummeling the most vulnerable people, countries and economies.

Maria Dmytriyeva

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who are choosing to stay and fight back are demonstrating unity and resilience and say they are ready for the resistance. Maria Dmytriyeva, a long-time women’s rights activist and national gender expert with Democracy Development Center, an NGO based out of Ukraine is one amongst them who chose to stay back, has been working on the ground aiding civilians since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

In an interview given to IPS News Dmytriyeva says that areas that were affected directly by the hostilities that have been liberated by the Ukrainian army are now rapidly rebuilding. “Local people and visiting builders are cleaning up the street, debris, mines and restoring infrastructure, where there are no Russians, life goes on.”

“We do have major problems with fuel as Russians deliberately destroyed our petroleum hosting areas, so transportation is a problem. We don’t have food scarcity; the problem is how to deliver it into areas controlled by Russians or heavily bombarded by Russians,” Dmytriyeva said.

Human rights organizations have been watching the impact of the war in Ukraine on women and children. The Rapid Gender Analysis, put together by UN Women and CARE International says that 90% of those fleeing Ukraine and 60% of those displaced are women – both which comes with increased safety risks, gender-based violence, poor hygiene, lack of basic supplies and safety concerns in shelters or across borders.

“I have visited three border checkpoints, in Romania, Moldova and Slovakia, we don’t enough information about what to do once anyone crosses the borders – how to manage your passport, how to find the right people, which shelter to go to and how to stay safe,” says Ella Lamakh, a social policy expert and Head of Democracy Development Center in Ukraine who too stayed back in Ukraine to help women and children impacted by the war.

Ella Lamakh

“There are a lot of women and children crossing these borders, and when I asked them where they are going, their reply is – ‘oh we are just going across the border, we will ask some volunteer, or we will figure it out’. While I am thankful for all the help these women are getting, there are a lot of posters on the walls across the border or at these checkpoints, but nobody has the time or mind to stop and read any of them. What would be useful for these women is if they are given information, handed over to them in the form of posters or booklets,” Lamakh says.

As of 3 June, the Human Rights Monitoring Team of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had received reports of 124 alleged acts of conflict-related sexual violence across Ukraine.

“Allegations of sexual violence by Russian troops in Ukraine are mounting. A national hotline on domestic violence, human trafficking and gender-based discrimination has been set up, and has received multiple shocking reports ranging from gang rape, to coercion, where loved ones are forced to watch an act of sexual violence committed against a partner of a child” stated this report.

The United Nations has warned that the war in Ukraine has also helped stoke a global food crisis, and “what could follow would be malnutrition, mass hunger and famine, in a crisis that could last for years, urging Russia to release Ukrainian grain exports.”

Before the war began in February, Ukraine exported 4.5m tonnes of agricultural produce per month through its ports – 12% of the planet’s wheat, 15% of its corn and half of its sunflower oil. As Russian warships cut off the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and others, the supply has been gravely impacted.

More than a month into Russia’s invasion, the Ukrainian military fared better than expected, where Russia has numerical superiority with 900,000 active personnel in its armed forces, and 2 million in reserve, Ukraine has 196,000 and 900,000 reservists, stated this report. Ukraine managed to bring the asymmetric power of pervasive inexpensive commercial technology, especially citizen-empowering social networks and crowdsourcing. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy through his various appeals managed to tap into its western allies demanding weapons and sanctions to fight back.

Several countries have reached out to help Ukraine by sending military aid to Kyiv. The United States will be sending Ukraine advanced rocket systems and munitions as part of a new $700 million package of military equipment, “promised only after direct assurance by Ukraine’s leader that they would not use it against targets within Russian territory.”

Britain is to supply long-range rocket artillery to Ukraine, UK will be sending a handful of tracked M270 multiple launch rocket systems. Spain is to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft missiles and Leopard battle tanks in a step up of its military support.

In its latest attempt to punish Russia, the European Union, along with countries such as the UK and the US have introduced a series of measures to weaken key areas of the Russian economy, such as its energy and financial sectors. The EU has imposed a ban on all imports of oil from Russia that are brought in by sea. The US is banning all Russian oil and gas imports, and the UK will phase out Russian oil imports by the end of 2022. Germany has put on hold the final approval of Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia. These western sanctions on Russia are like none the world has seen.

Only time will tell what Russia’s overestimation of its own capabilities and underestimation of the capacity of Ukraine to fight back will result in, but history is a proof that ‘wars of aggression’ have not always ended well for aggressor states, and as seen in Ukraine, it’s already united western allies, rallied Ukrainians against common enemy and united them with a sense of purpose and collective sacrifice, keeping them going stronger for the last 100 days. Ukraine is showing the world how to fight back.

Sania Farooqui is a New Delhi based journalist, filmmaker and host of The Sania Farooqui Show where she regularly speaks to women who have made significant contributions to bring about socio economic changes globally. She writes and reports regularly for IPS news wire.

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By Mark Lowcock
LONDON, Jun 8 2022 (IPS)

This is what happens when you starve. With no food, the body’s metabolism slows down to preserve energy for vital organs. Hungry and weak, people often become fatigued, irritable and confused.

The immune system loses strength. As they starve, people—especially children—are likelier to fall sick or die from diseases they may have otherwise resisted. Cholera, respiratory infections, malaria, dengue, and diphtheria kill more people in famines than starvation itself.

For the lucky (or unlucky?) ones who escape disease but still have nothing to eat, their organs will begin to wither and then fail. Eventually, the body starts to devour its own muscles, including the heart.

Many will experience hallucinations and convulsions before, finally, the heart stops. It is a terrible, agonizing, and humiliating death. It is nearly as terrible to watch – as I know from my own experience over nearly 40 years in Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere.

When I was young, many people—including researchers and scientists—thought famine was a permanent feature of the human experience. Famines are shocking, scarring events, the most extreme form of humanitarian disaster. They involve large-scale loss of life with a slow but visible prelude, a tipping point beyond which prevention is no longer possible, and then an explosion.

As an undergraduate, I went to Nobel-prize-winner Amartya Sen’s lectures on poverty and famine, and I wrote a masters’ dissertation on the use of food grain prices as an early warning of food crises.

For many of my friends and me, the Ethiopia famine of 1984 was a lightbulb moment. In previous eras, famine was a feature of the fragility of agriculture against the ever-increasing pressure of higher populations.

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb, in which he predicted that by the 1980s, four billion people would have been killed by famines. His opening sentences set the scene: “The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines in which hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.”

Ehrlich predicted that England would cease to exist by 2000 because the country would be consumed by hunger. Historical experience gave these dark warnings a degree of credence. Researchers think that famines may have taken more lives than war over the course of human history.

More than 120 million people are believed to have died in famines in the hundred years after 1870, a larger number even than those killed in that period’s uniquely bloody wars.

The doom mongers, though, were wrong. In fact, in the past 50 years, famine has become much rarer and much less lethal. So far this century, there has just been one real famine. That was in Somalia in 2011, when a quarter of a million people died.

Ehrlich and his ilk were wrong because they failed to see how the world was changing. Three main factors have combined to produce unprecedented advances in reducing large-scale loss of life through starvation over the last 50 years.

First was an exponential increase in agricultural output and productivity. Improvements in plant breeding, protection, storage, irrigation, harvesting, transporting, and marketing have contributed to a 300 percent increase in food grain production, using only 12 percent more agricultural land around the world.

The global spread in the use of nitrogen-based artificial fertiliser and the development through the Green Revolution of improved seed varieties for major crops explain most of the improvements.

Second, a spectacular reduction in global poverty has increased people’s ability to afford food. In the 60 years after 1960, the extreme poverty rate globally dropped from more than 50 percent of the total human population to less than 10 percent. In particular, the 25 years from 1990 to 2015 saw a reduction from 35 percent to less than 10 percent, even while the global population continued to grow dramatically.

So not only was there a lot more food available, but most people now had enough income to be able to buy it. Food security has been enhanced by the entitlements created by social safety net schemes established in dozens of the poorest countries over the past 20 years, including ones I have seen myself in countries including Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malawi, Pakistan, Uganda, Yemen, and Zambia.

Third, when famine does threaten, the response is now much more effective than it was 30 years ago. My first job was on the famine in Ethiopia in the mid-1980s. Then, the overwhelming focus of the relief effort was on food, water, and shelter. Now we understand that in a famine, starvation is not the main cause of death.

The real killers are those diseases that a healthy person can generally fight off but a starving one cannot. As a result, today’s famine responses include comprehensive immunisation programmes, primary healthcare, and nutrition interventions as well as food and clean water.

The result of all this scientific, technological, and economic progress is that modern-day famines are manmade – the result either of deliberate attempts to stave a population, or of wilful negligence.

That was true to a degree in the past: Mao Zedong’s Great Famine in China in the 1960s, generally believed to be the worst famine in history in terms of the total number of lives lost, arose largely from the authorities’ policy choices.

And the famine that some people claim took three million lives in North Korea in the mid-1990s—a repetition of which remains a risk, as I saw during a visit to Pyongyang and the south of the country in 2018—could have been forestalled had the regime been willing to accept the international help on offer.

Despite all the progress famine is now back. But so far in the 21st century, ignorant policy choices have not been what generated famine threats. Deliberate, concerted attempts to prevent aid reaching the starving, as part of the military or political strategy of states or armed groups, are now the only explanation for the failure to have eradicated famine from the human experience. In every single case of famine or near famine in the last ten years – including those I dealt with at the UN from 2017-21 – the fine line between, on the one hand, acute suffering and chronic hunger and, on the other, mass death through starvation and related causes, was policed by the men with guns and bombs. Pressure on them has meant the worst has been avoided.

The world now faces its most serious food crisis for many decades. It arises from the cumulative effects of a decade of spreading conflict, the repeated undermining by climate change of livelihoods based on increasingly volatile rainfall, and the economic crunch on the most vulnerable countries from the COVID pandemic.

And then on top of all that has come Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, disrupting global grain markets and taking the food exports of Russia and Ukraine – enough food for 400 million people – largely off the table this year.

The new global food crisis affects us all. Everyone going to a supermarket for weekly shopping is aware of prices rising. For most of us, the impact is manageable. Buying food is not the biggest call on our incomes. We can tighten our belts and adjust.

But for about 10% of the world’s population, mostly in the poorer countries of the Middle East (like Syria and Yemen) and sub-Saharan Africa, it’s different. Tens of millions of them are falling back into extreme poverty, where they barely have enough calories and nutrients to nourish their bodies properly and their children suffer stunting and life-long cognitive impairments.

However, it is the roughly 1% of the world’s population who faced acute hunger even before the Ukraine crisis, those who cannot survive at all without help from aid agencies, who will be the victims if today’s food crisis is allowed to deteriorate into multiple simultaneous famines.

They are mostly concentrated in relatively few countries, including in particular Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Yemen and parts of the Sahel. Millions may starve to death. That is what policy makers should be really focused on.

So, what can be done? Simultaneous actions are needed in four areas.

First, a real effort needs to be made to get more grain onto the market in the very short term. There is plenty of food to feed everyone this year. Diplomatic efforts, which have become increasingly visible over the last month, to find a way to access the grain silos in the Black Sea ports and export the 20 million tonnes of wheat they contain should be intensified.

They may not work; if they don’t, those holding large stocks of grain for strategic reserves should be prevailed upon to release a modest proportion of them. That would ease the market and take the edge off price increases.

Second, because it seems unlikely that the underlying causes of this year’s crisis will be solved quickly, reducing medium term reliance on Russia and Ukraine is now a practical necessity.

Farmers around the world need greater help and encouragement to plant more wheat, maize, sunflower and other food crops, as well as better access to inputs, above all seeds and fertiliser. Diversification in the fertiliser market, in which Russia and its allies are dominant, is a particular priority.

Third, many low-income countries which do not produce enough food for their populations but do have the administrative capacity and institutions to run effective safety net programmes are constrained from importing food by fiscal problems and indebtedness.

Macroeconomic management matters, but some accommodation from the shareholders of international financial institutions led by the World Bank and IMF is necessary in the current circumstances.

And fourth, and most important of all in the next weeks and months, a substantial increase in emergency humanitarian aid to populations in clear and present danger of mass starvation is essential.

The Biden administration and US Congress package agreed a package of $5 billion for this in May. That shows the way. Others, especially the UK and the EU, should follow suit. The G7 summit in Bavaria this month would be a good time to do that.

Footnote: This article is adapted in part from Relief Chief: A Manifesto for Saving Lives in Dire Times, out now from the Center for Global Development.(CGD).

Mark Lowcock was appointed UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator in May 2017 and served in that role until June 2021. He was previously Permanent Secretary of the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development. As one of the most distinguished international public servants, Lowcock has spent more than 35 years leading and managing responses to humanitarian crises across the globe.

He has authored opinion articles for The Washington Post, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, Le Monde, CNN, and others. He was twice awarded medals by Queen Elizabeth II for services to international development and public service, including Knighthood in 2017. He is a Visiting Professor of Practice in the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics, and a Distinguished Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development.

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Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, standing with Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, at the 75th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland in May 2022. Sasakawa was honored at the Global Health Leaders Awards.

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Jun 7 2022 (IPS)

When Yohei Sasakawa visited a remote village in South America, he found 23 people living there. It was no ordinary village because all the residents had been stigmatized and shunned by society because they were affected by leprosy.

Yet this is not a unique story, says Sasakawa, the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination. This is the story of persons affected by leprosy, where there are more than 100 laws globally that discriminate based on the disease.

In his journey to at least 122 countries in Africa and South America, he found that the story of persons affected by leprosy is characterized by stigma, discrimination, and ostracization.

Against this backdrop, Sasakawa had a message of hope and encouragement during the sixth ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ campaign webinar series titled, Elimination of Leprosy: Initiatives in the Americas and Africa.

Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination during one of his many visits to communities where people affected by leprosy live. Credit: Joyce Chimbi

He said that eliminating leprosy was “in its last mile. A sustained push is much needed in spite of and because of ongoing challenges including COVID-19 pandemic as well as the myths and misconceptions around leprosy”.

“India has the highest number of leprosy cases, but they have also targeted to eliminate leprosy by 2030. This is an ambitious goal. I am encouraged by ongoing efforts, commitment, and passion to eliminate leprosy.”

With the universality of leprosy’s challenges in mind, under the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative, the WHO Goodwill Ambassador, the Nippon Foundation, and Sasakawa Health Foundation work in a coordinated approach to achieve a leprosy free world.

Dr Carissa Etienne, Director, Pan American Health Organization, regional office for the Americas of WHO, stressed the need to sustain the fight to achieve zero leprosy cases by 2030. She called for a doubling of efforts. The Global Leprosy Strategy 2021 to 2030 is both a health and economic strategy because it aims at promoting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The webinar provided a platform for health officials, NGOs, and representatives of organizations of persons affected by leprosy. Participants heard how countries in the Americas and Africa are stepping up prevention initiatives in keeping with WHO guidelines to accelerate the annual decline in new leprosy cases.

Experts stressed that innovative approaches are much needed to sustain leprosy case detection, contact tracing, and treatment, especially against the backdrop of COVID-19, which continues to shift attention from the disease.

Speakers stressed that a WHO-recommended regimen of timely screening and treating eligible contacts with single-dose rifampicin was vital. When the single dose is given as post-exposure prophylaxis to contacts of newly diagnosed patients, it results in a 50 to 60 % reduction in the chances of developing leprosy over the next two years.

WHO recorded a total of 202,185 new leprosy cases globally in 2019. India, Indonesia, and Brazil register the highest number of new leprosy cases – more than 10,000 cases each.

Worldwide, 13 other countries reported 1,000 to 10,000 cases each. The Americas recorded 29,936 new cases, with Africa following closely with 20,205.

The webinar was held in line with the Global Leprosy Strategy for 2021-2030, on track with the new road map on neglected tropical diseases. To eliminate leprosy, new cases must reduce to about 63,000 globally.

Dr Carmelita Ribeiro Filha Coriolano from the Brazilian Ministry of Health spoke extensively about the spread of new cases in the Americas in 2020. department of chronic conditions and Sexually Transmitted Infections health surveillance secretariat

Coriolano provided a detailed sociodemographic profile of new leprosy disease cases and physical disability indicators picked up by the Department of Chronic Conditions and Sexually Transmitted Infections Health Surveillance Secretariat. She noted that Brazil recorded the highest new cases of leprosy in 2021.

In Africa, too, the cases remain a cause of concern.

“In 2015, leprosy was eliminated as a public health concern in Angola. But the disease is still very much a priority because the most recent data shows 797 new cases were detected,” says Dr Ernesto Afonso, National Leprosy Program Coordinator, Ministry of Health in Angola.

Dr Joseph Ngozi Chukwu, medical advisor, German Leprosy Relief Association in Nigeria, updated the epidemiological situation, leprosy case management, achievements, and lessons learned.

“Over 30,000 persons are estimated to be living with leprosy-related disabilities across Nigeria,” he said.

Lucrecia Vasquez Acevedo, President, Felehansen-National Federation of the Associations of the Persons Affected by Leprosy in Colombia, said the stigma continued.

“We cannot forget about leprosy because of the myths, misconceptions, and lies created around leprosy. It is important to teach other people the truth about leprosy. During the pandemic, we learned how to use technology to teach and overcome the challenges of access to information presented by the pandemic,” says Acevedo, suggesting that the same should apply to leprosy.

Professor Takahiro Nanri, Executive Director, Sasakawa Health Foundation, facilitated a question-and-answer session, providing an opportunity to respond to questions from the participants. During the session, issues of myths, misconceptions, and stigma arose as they remained an obstacle to eliminating leprosy.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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