Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Groundnut farm in Torit, South Sudan. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS.

By External Source
Nov 15 2021 (IPS)

Africa has pinned its hopes on agriculture for the creation of jobs and the resulting reduction of poverty. But its role is being stymied by the high cost of financing.

Limited investment, high interest rates and restricted support means African businesses are losing out to foreign competitors.

If we want to transform the continent’s food security and fortunes, then African Governments must help create an economic environment conducive to local investment by, for example, amortizing loan rates and driving billion dollar investments into the sector.

And all stakeholders—including government, donors, and the private sector— must work towards a more equitable and inclusive approach to build local investment for sustainable agricultural growth.

Agriculture in Africa is the sector that offers the greatest potential for poverty reduction and job creation, particularly among vulnerable rural populations and urban dwellers with limited job opportunities.

Dr. Mavis Owureku-Asare

To transform the continent’s food security and fortunes, African Governments should urge the mainstream banks to amortize loan rates and drive billion dollar investments into the sector. All stakeholders—including government, donors, and the private sector—must align and target their investments towards a more equitable and inclusive approach that will support the locals and lead to a sustainable growth in agriculture.

Agriculture today accounts for 23% of GDP in Sub Saharan Africa, and growth generated by agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to be 11 times more effective in reducing poverty than GDP growth in other sectors—a vital multiplier given that 65% of the continent’s labor force is engaged in agriculture.

While an absolute increase in investment is essential, Africa has been the land of opportunity for foreign investors. African entrepreneurs are facing some of the world’s most challenging business conditions. The resources necessary to grow a business—such as finance, human and social capital, and infrastructure are less accessible in Africa. Finance, in particular, is costlier in Africa than in other parts of the world.

The most obvious of all the challenges, most African-led start-ups have difficulties in raising capital. Entrepreneurs and small business owners cannot easily access finance to expand business. They are usually faced with problems of collateral, high interest rates, extra bank charges, inability to evaluate financial proposals, limited financial knowledge, making it difficult for small businesses to access finance.

On the other hand, American venture capital and private equity is dominating Africa, but it’s mostly funding other foreign founders as native entrepreneurs struggle to raise financing. Some attribute the funding inequity to a mix of issues, including lack of experience with and understanding of the African market, general mistrust, and the tendency to fund companies based in the West that are operating in Africa.

For example, in Ghana, foreign businesses who borrow from their home countries assess 3-5% loans to do business in Ghana whereas the locals have to borrow at 23% to compete with these companies. Even with continental free trade these foreign businesses have about 20% advantage over local companies and startups who borrow from within. Even with efforts from the government to compel prevailing commercial banks to reduce loan rates, Ghanaian businesses and startups are still losing out with the implementation of continental free trade agreement.

Dr. Cedric Habiyaremye

Even though some agro-processing businesses registered with the Ghana Free Zone Authority and Ghana Investment Promotion Centre are exempt from income tax for ten years from paying duty on the importation of equipment, lowering interest rates will go a long way to solidify some of these interventions for startups who must borrow money to start a business.

Tax incentives alone cannot account for other challenges for the lack of infrastructure and problems faced in Ghana’s investment environment. The government should also address land acquisition challenges with local and traditional authorities who own most of the land in Ghana.

By having inequity in funding, Africa’s start-up environment is missing out on a lot of talent and losing out on building many great companies to transform the continent’s food systems.

To build the continent’s next start-up giants, a few things are needed; setting up SME help desks and developing relevant products for the emerging African entrepreneurs; government agencies should engage to provide credit support to help de-risk bank lending, reducing the need for collateral as well as the cost of borrowing; banks across the continent need to work with entrepreneurs to help them prepare viable business proposals in accordance with their lending rules.

Public-private partnerships are a strong pillar and a good support system for agribusiness start-ups to leverage. For example, a high-yielding economic opportunity in the agri-food systems sector needs numerous components: capacity development adapted to local entrepreneurs’ needs and labor markets opportunities; facilitation and mentorship in adequately accessing land, credit, and markets; and enhancing the opportunities for agripreneurs inclusion in policy and strategic debates.

To be sure, there are exciting steps in the right direction. Organizations like Food Systems for the Future are offering capital and wraparound services tailored to Agtech, Foodtech, and Innovative, scalable market businesses with a potential for increased profitability and nutrition impact in Sub Saharan Africa. In addition, Norrsken Foundation is building East Africa’s largest hub for entrepreneurship and innovation in Kigali, Rwanda, for education, innovation, and entrepreneurship—forming an ecosystem that enables entrepreneurs to build strong companies that solve local and global challenges. Google, The Tony Elumelu Foundation, and Seedstars World (to name a few) are also playing an active role in providing funding for these green entrepreneurs.

However, this challenge is still very far from being resolved on the entire continent.

There is a need to enable African entrepreneurs in the food systems to develop or enhance their business ideas and create a high-quality business plan to support the launch or growth of their agri-business.

Until then, agriculture will fail to live up to its potential for economic growth in Africa.

 

Dr. Mavis Owureku-Asare is a Food Scientist based in Ghana. She is The Head of Senior Research Scientist at the Biotechnology and Nuclear AaAgriculture Research Institute where She is leading research and providing solar drying technologies to reduce postharvest losses in the Tomato value chain. She is a Food Safety Consultant and a 2020 Aspen New voices fellow.

Dr. Cedric Habiyaremye is a Rwandan crop scientist, Research Associate at Washington State University, Research Lead at Food Systems for the Future Institute, and agricultural entrepreneur developing solutions for a zero-hunger and malnutrition-free world. He is a New Voices Senior Fellow at The Aspen Institute. www.CedricNotes.Com

 

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 15 2021 (IPS)

The United Nations, which consists of 193 member states, has long been accused of discrimination against staffers who number over 315,000 and spread across 56 UN agencies and entities worldwide.

But most of these are deeply rooted system-wide. A wide-ranging staff survey, both in New York and Geneva last year, revealed that discrimination was based either on race, religion, gender or nationality.

Last year, the UN Secretariat in New York, faltered ingloriously, as it abruptly withdrew its own online survey on racism, in which it asked staffers to identify themselves either as “black, brown, white., mixed/multi-racial, and any other”.

But the most offensive of the categories listed in the UN survey was “yellow” – a widely condemned Western racist description of some Asians, including Japanese, Chinese and Koreans.

https://www.globalissues.org/news/2020/08/21/26749

The Asian Group at the UN, comprising over 50 member states, is one of the largest among regional groups in the world body, and UN staffers of Asian origin have now formed a UN Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (UN-ANDI).

Shihana Mohamed of Sri Lanka, a founding member, and one of the coordinators of UN-ANDI, told IPS: “Our mission is to work towards a culture in which inclusivity is integrated into all aspects of work and life in the Organization and diversity is the foundation of talent and productivity.”

“We believe that we all have the power to stop discrimination, eliminate oppression and bring an end to ignorance and indifference. We stand against racial prejudice and intolerant attitudes and actions around the world and within the Organization,” said Mohamed, who is currently Human Resources Policies Officer at the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC).

“We strongly support all initiatives for promoting inclusion, justice, dignity, and combating racism and discrimination in all forms, inside and outside the United Nations.”

“We believe that our perspectives will enrich the discussions on any organizational culture-related issues and facilitate the journey towards the paradigm that is engrained in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, said Mohamed, who has more than 20 years of experience in the UN system, having previously worked at UNESCAP, UNDESA, UNOHRM and UNDPKO.

The other co-ordinators of UN-ANDI include Abul Hasnat Monjurul Kabir of Bangladesh (UN System Coordination Advisor/Team Leader, Gender Equality and Disability Inclusion in UN Women), Cirila Villaflores of the Philippines (Human Resources Associate, UNDP) and Xuejun Wen of China (Reviser, Chinese Translation Service, DGACM, UN Secretariat).

A zoom meeting of Asians last month. Credit: UN-ANDI

In a concept paper released recently, the Network says it welcomes Asian staff and affiliated personnel within the UN system — including diplomats, interns, consultants and former staff, who are either Asians or of Asian descent.

Meanwhile, a 2014 General Assembly Resolution, proclaiming the “International Decade for People of African Descent”, called upon Member States and international organizations to take action “to promote equality and inclusion of persons of African descent and to directly engage with persons of African descent for the purposes of doing so”.

The call for action resulted in the inauguration by staff members of the United Nations People of African Descent (UNPAD). One of its primary goals was “to establish a platform for the coordination of the engagement between the UN Administration and UN personnel of African descent, promoting equal inclusion, and facilitating access for persons of African descent in the UN system while increasing the visibility to the issues facing them.”

Currently, there are also other interest groups such as UN Globe for LGBTQ community and UN Feminist Network for women and gender parity in the UN system.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/08/racism-un-practice-preach/

Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, a former Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations (1996-2001), told IPS raising awareness is important, but raising one’s voice is more important. He described a recent zoom meeting as a landmark event with Asian staffers meeting publicly for the first time as a group.

“You have to raise your voice, you have to speak up loudly as an Asian, as a member of this network, and in a focused way to speak up whenever there is an opportunity or create an opportunity to speak up,” he said, while addressing the Group last month.

“That is what we need— attention, global attention– that is what I believe is important for us to remember”.

The African group’s power comes from their solidarity as a group — wherever they are, as civil society, as staff, as member states, and they are very solidly together, and they are supportive of each other, said Chowdhury, a former UN Under-Secretary=General and High Representative of the UN (2002-2007).

He pointed out that the African network also includes ambassadors and other diplomats. “That is a very wonderful example for us, the Asians, to follow because staff members can do only so much.”

“But member States’ understanding and support to their objective, their demands, their needs, their frustrations are essential. So, Asian network should make an effort to reach out to the ambassadors or diplomats and start telling them about this network, tell them that we need your support, we need you to back us up when the moment comes in the 5th Committee most of the time or in some occasions in their “umbrella” statements in the General Assembly,” he advised.

But “we need to say that this should apply to the Asian staff members also. That way we will be able to raise our voice and make ourselves heard very well and that that is very important.”

“As you approached me, you should approach also the former staff members from Asia who are available in New York. It is better to consult them and to get to learn from their experience, from their energy, from their ideas”, he declared.

According to the 2021 annual report of the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC A/76/30), the largest number of unrepresented (17) and underrepresented (8) countries in the UN system were in the Asia and the Pacific region (para. 148).

In 10 or more organizations with no formal guidelines for geographical distribution, staff were not represented from 64 countries and among them, 25 countries were from the Asia. Twelve countries did not have staff in 15 of the organizations, with seven of these countries from Asia and the Pacific (para. 155).

At the recent zoom meeting, Akiko Yuge of Japan, a former Assistant Administrator of the UNDP, said: “As the world advances towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, countries, communities, and people in the Asia and the Pacific region have shown remarkable progress, success, and resilience.”

Their local knowledge and wisdom, resourcefulness, and innovation have certainly promoted the SDGs in many ways.

“The great diversity and wealth of backgrounds, cultures, and abilities in our region make us stronger and creative. This is indeed the power and strength of Asia and the Pacific nations and people”.

“As we build back better, let us maximize this power of diversity while ensuring inclusion of every person in our society and economy”, said Yuge who has served in UNDP offices in Thailand, Indonesia, and Bhutan, and also travelled to many countries in the Asia and the Pacific region.

Xuejun Wen, Coordinator of UN-ANDI/Reviser, Chinese Translation Service, DGACM, UN Secretariat, New York, said inequality and racism have long been problems in human history and the pandemic has seen them become more acute and apparent. That has led to the founding of UN-ANDI.

“It is a very very young network, but we have started to see a great deal of interest in it, because many of us as Asians have experienced or seen the impact and harm that unfair practices have brought on us. The problems will not be solved overnight, but we believe that a thousand-mile journey is composed of a great many single steps. Every tiny effort will count”.

Cirila Villaflores, Coordinator of UN-ANDI/ Human Resources Associate, UNDP, New York, said UN-UN-ANDI believes in the sharing of human experiences which reveal the dynamism and complexity of human nature.

“Any social or cultural discrimination in our basic personal rights on the grounds as indicated in the UN charter is incompatible with our calling to love what is true and good. UN-ANDI serves as a platform to freely exchange such ideas in order to grow and learn to cherish what is right”

Yuan Lin, UN-ANDI member/ Information Systems Officer, MONUSCO, Goma Office, Democratic Republic of Congo said “UN-ANDI provides an excellent platform to bring voices to the UN staff of Asian heritage. It allows many of the talented and hard-working UN colleagues from Asian member states and background to address organizational matters that are relevant to them.”

Purna Sen, Visiting Professor at London Metropolitan University and the former Executive Coordinator and Spokesperson on Addressing Sexual Harassment and Other Forms of Discrimination, said beyond cultural and regional representation, the UN-ANDI has a key role to play to become a trusted route through which issues that are troubling the UN are addressed increasingly, responsively.

Acknowledging that neither racism nor sexual harassment should exist inside the UN, the Secretary-General has acknowledged that they both do. UN-ANDI can aspire to offer support, advice and succor to those so harmed and advise the SG on how to address these issues in ways that build upon the experiences of survivors, said Sen.

 

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One of the family photos taken after the laborious end of the 26th climate summit in Glasgow, which closed a day later than scheduled with a Climate Pact described as falling short by even the most optimistic, lacking important decisions to combat the crisis and without directly confronting fossil fuels, the cause of the emergency. CREDIT: UNFCCC

By Emilio Godoy
GLASGOW, Nov 13 2021 (IPS)

Developing countries will surely remember the Glasgow climate summit, the most important since 2015, as a fiasco that left them as an afterthought. That was the prevailing sentiment among delegates from the developing South during the closing ceremony on the night of Saturday Nov. 13, one day after the scheduled end of the conference.

Bolivia’s chief negotiator, Diego Pacheco, questioned the outcome of the summit. “It is not fair to pass the responsibility to developing countries. Developed countries do not want to acknowledge their responsibility for the crisis. They have systematically broken their funding pledges and emission reduction commitments,” he told IPS minutes after the end of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) on climate change in Glasgow.

The 196 Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ignored the public clamor, which took shape in the demands of indigenous peoples, young people, women, scientists and social movements around the world for substantive measures to combat the climate crisis, even though the goal of containing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is barely surviving on life support.

The Glasgow Climate Pact that came out of the summit finally mentions the need to move away from the use of coal. But it had to water down the stronger recommendation to “phase out” in order to overcome the last stumbling block.

In addition, COP26 broke a taboo, albeit very tepidly, after arduous marches and counter-marches in the negotiating room and in the three drafts of the Glasgow Pact: there was a mention of fossil fuels as part of the climate emergency. And it also stated the need to reduce “inefficient” subsidies for fossil fuels.

But the summit, where decisions are made by consensus, avoided a strong stance in this regard. It also avoided moving from recommendations to obligations for the next edition, to be held in Egypt, and those that follow, while the climate crisis continues causing severe droughts, devastating storms, melting of the polar ice caps and warming of the oceans.

In a plenary session that was delayed by several minutes, the final declaration underwent a last-minute change when India, one of the villains of the meeting – along with Saudi Arabia, Australia and Russia – asked for the phrase “phasing out” of coal to be replaced by “phasing down”, a change questioned by countries such as Mexico, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

A paradoxical fact at the close of COP26, where civil society organizations complained that they were left out, was the decision of several countries to endorse the final text even though they differed on several points, including the fossil energy face-lifts.

“Today, we can say with credibility that we have kept 1.5 degrees within reach. But its pulse is weak. And it will only survive if we keep our promises. If we translate commitments into rapid action,” said conference chairman Alok Sharma, choking back tears after a pact – albeit a minimal one – was reached by negotiating three drafts and holding arduous discussions on the fossil fuel question, right up to the final plenary.

COP26 chair Alok Sharma blinked back tears during his closing speech at the climate summit, expressing the tension of negotiating the Glasgow Climate Pact, due to the hurdles thrown in the way of a consensus by the big coal and oil producers. CREDIT: UNFCCC-Twitter

The South is still waiting

Lost amidst the impacts of the climate emergency and forgotten by the industrialized countries, the global South failed to obtain something vital for many of its nations: a clear plan and funding for loss and damage, an issue that was deferred to COP27 in Egypt.

Mohamed Adow, director of the non-governmental Power Shift Africa, said the pact is “not good enough…There is no mention of solidarity and justice. We need a clear process to face loss and damage. There should be a link between emission reduction, financing and adaptation.”

The final decision by China, the United States, India and the European Union to turn their backs on a global fossil fuel exit and deny climate support to the most vulnerable nations left the developing world high and dry.

“There are things that cannot wait to COP27 or 2025. To face loss and damage, the most vulnerable countries need financing to battle the impacts on their territories,” Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, global climate and energy leader for the non-governmental World Wildlife Fund, told IPS.

Climate policies were, at least on the agenda, the focus of COP26.

The summit focused on carbon market rules, climate finance of at least 100 billion dollars per year, gaps between emission reduction targets and needed reductions, strategies for carbon neutrality by 2050, adaptation plans, and the working platform for local communities and indigenous peoples.

But the goal of hundreds of billions of dollars per year has been postponed, a reflection of the fact that financing for climate mitigation and adaptation is a touchy issue, especially for developed countries.

The corridors of the Blue Zone of the Scottish Events Campus, where the official part of the 26th Climate Conference was held in the city of Glasgow, were emptying on Saturday Nov. 13, at the end of the summit, which lasted a day longer than scheduled and ended with a negative balance according to civil society organizations. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Offers and promises – on paper

One breakthrough at COP26 was the approval of the rules of the Paris Agreement, signed in the French capital in December 2015, at COP21, to form the basis on which subsequent summits have revolved. By 2024, all countries will have to report detailed data on emissions, which will form a baseline to assess future greenhouse gas reductions.

The agreement on the functioning of carbon markets creates a trading system between countries, but does not remove the possibility of countries and companies skirting the rules.

Industrialized countries committed to doubling adaptation finance by 2025 based on 2019 amounts. In addition, COP26 approved a new work program to increase greenhouse gas cuts, with reports due in 2022.

It also asked the UNFCCC to evaluate climate plans that year and its final declaration calls on countries to switch from coal and hydrocarbons to renewable energy.

Apart from the Climate Pact, the summit produced voluntary commitments against deforestation, emissions of methane, a gas more polluting than carbon dioxide, and the phasing out of gasoline and diesel vehicles.

In addition, at least 10 countries agreed to put an end to the issuing of new hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation licenses in their territories.

Furthermore, some thirty nations agreed to suspend public funding for coal, gas and oil by 2022.

Demonstrations demanding ambitious, substantive and equitable measures to address the climate crisis continued throughout the 14-day climate summit in Glasgow, which ended on the night of Saturday Nov. 13 with disappointing results for the global South. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Finally, more than 100 stakeholders, including countries and companies, signed up to the elimination of cars with internal combustion engines by 2030, without the major automobile manufacturers such as Germany, Spain and France joining in, and a hundred nations signed a pact to promote sustainable agriculture.

All of the 2030 pledges, which still need concrete plans for implementation, imply a temperature rise of 2.8 degrees C by the end of this century, according to the independent Climate Action Tracker.

The climate plans of the 48 least developed countries (LDCs) would cost more than 93 billion dollars annually, the non-governmental International Institute for Environment and Development said in Glasgow.

In addition, annual adaptation costs in developing countries would be about 70 billion dollars, reaching a total of 140 to 300 billion dollars by 2030, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

But the largest disbursements are related to loss and damage, which would range between 290 billion and 580 billion dollars by 2030, and hence the enormous concern of these nations to obtain essential financing, according to a 2019 study. And their disappointment with the results of the Oct. 31-Nov.13 conference.

During his presentation at the closing plenary, Seve Paeniu, a climate envoy from Tuvalu, an island nation whose very existence is threatened by the rising sea level, showed a photo of his three grandchildren and said he had been thinking about what to say to them when he got home.

“Glasgow has made a promise to guarantee their future. It will be the best Christmas gift that I can bring home,” he said. But judging by the Climate Pact, Paeniu may have to look for another present.

IPS produced this article with the support of Iniciativa Climática of Mexico and the European Climate Foundation.

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Diabetes test, Mauritius. Credit: Nasseem Ackbarally/IPS

By Bruno Kappa
NAIROBI, Nov 12 2021 (IPS)

Although for different reasons, diabetes appears to be one of the few cases that put rich and poor societies at equal footing. In either case, diabetes is caused by wrong, dangerous to health nutritional habits.

In fact, people in industrialised countries tend to consume the so-called “junk food”, while in poor nations diabetes is caused by malnutrition and undernourishment.

And it is a seriously worrying health problem. In fact, globally, an estimated 422 million adults were living with diabetes as of 2014, compared to 108 million in 1980. Since then, the figure has doubled.

Now have a closer look: every five seconds one person develops diabetes…every 10 seconds one person dies of diabetes…every 30 seconds a limb is lost to diabetes.

The rate at which the global prevalence of diabetes has nearly doubled since 1980 is that it has risen from 4.7% to 8.5% in the adult population.

This reflects an increase in associated risk factors such as being overweight or obese, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

 

What is it about?

WHO defines diabetes as a chronic disease, which occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin, or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar.

This leads to an increased concentration of glucose in the blood (hyper-glycaemia).

 

Types of diabetes

Type 1 diabetes (previously known as insulin-dependent or childhood-onset diabetes) is characterized by a lack of insulin production.

Type 2 diabetes (formerly called non-insulin-dependent or adult-onset diabetes) is caused by the body’s ineffective use of insulin. It often results from excess body weight and physical inactivity.

Gestational diabetes is hyper-glycaemia that is first recognised during pregnancy, with blood glucose values above normal but below those diagnostic of diabetes.

Women with gestational diabetes are at an increased risk of complications during pregnancy and at delivery. These women and possibly their children are also at increased risk of type 2 diabetes in the future.

 

The impact

The United Nations has repeatedly warned that diabetes is a major cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower limb amputation.

Why? Hyper-glycaemia, or raised blood sugar, is a common effect of uncontrolled diabetes and over time leads to serious damage to many of the body’s systems, especially the nerves and blood vessels.

Between 2000 and 2016, there was a 5% increase in premature mortality from diabetes.
And in 2019, an estimated 1.5 million deaths were directly caused by diabetes. Another 2.2 million deaths were attributable to high blood glucose in 2012.

 

Faster rise in low and middle income countries

Over the past decade, diabetes prevalence has risen faster in low and middle-income countries than in high-income countries.

The Middle East and North of Africa are among the highest impacted due to wrong diets. In this region, people consume excessive amount of carbohydrates, pastries with high doses of sugar and honey, and very sugary drinks, in addition to incorporating “junk food” in their diet.

 

Obesity and diabetes: the cause-effect

Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health.

Body mass index is a simple index of weight-for-height that is commonly used to classify overweight and obesity in adults. It is defined as a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of his height in meters (kg/m2).

The World Health Organisation reports the following facts and figures:

• Worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975.

• In 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight. Of these over 650 million were obese.

• 39% of adults aged 18 years and over were overweight in 2016, and 13% were obese.

• Most of the world’s population live in countries where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight.

• 39 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2020.

• Over 340 million children and adolescents aged 5-19 were overweight or obese in 2016.

 

Access to diabetes care

Every year, 14 November marks World Diabetes Day. The theme for World Diabetes Day 2021-23 is access to diabetes care.

According to it, 100 years after the discovery of insulin, millions of people with diabetes around the world cannot access the care they need. People with diabetes require ongoing care and support to manage their condition and avoid complications.

A healthy diet, regular physical activity, maintaining a normal body weight and avoiding tobacco use are ways to prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes.

In view of the above, change in nutritional habits appears to be almost a matter of life or death.

Efforts to improve nutrition of breastfeeding mothers has resulted in an innovative maize product which includes small fish which often go to waste. Credit: Zany Jadraque/unsplash

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Nov 12 2021 (IPS)

During the COVID-19 lockdown in Uganda, a breastfeeding mother struggled to improve the health of her malnourished child. With the closure of her local health centre, she worried the child could die without urgent medical treatment.

Her child was saved. The mother was given a fish-enriched maize meal, developed by a local team of researchers under the NutriFish project and donated to the local Mulago Hospital in Kampala.

It is not hard to see why the food innovation was effective. The fish-enriched maize meal flour is packed with essential micronutrients and protein. A 200g serving of the fish-enriched maize meal, known locally as posho, provides up to 50 percent of a mother’s daily requirements in terms of calories, vitamin A, iron and zinc.

“Posho is good for me even though its appearance can put one off, it is delicious,” a breastfeeding mother wrote in hospital comments after receiving the maize meal, developed to help tackle widespread nutritional deficiencies, particularly among women of reproductive age and children under five years.

According to the 2017 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey, 29 percent of children under five years are stunted while 4 percent are wasted, and 11 percent are underweight. Furthermore, about 32 percent of women aged 15-49 are anaemic, making it vital for them to access foods rich in micronutrients such as iron, zinc and calcium, which are found in fish.

A nutritionally enhanced maize meal suitable for breastfeeding mothers has been developed by the NutriFish project and donated to hospitals in Uganda. Credit NutriFish

NutriFish researchers developed the nutrient-enriched meal using under-utilized small fish (USF) species. The meal is created by blending maize with Silverfish – a small lake fish species locally known as “mukene”, which is less preferred despite being highly nutritious because of its pungent smell and grittiness.

Dorothy Nakimbugwe, one of the co-principal investigators in the NutriFish project, explained that the enriched maize meal had been developed with other products, including baby food, a seasoning, a snack, and a sauce. All the products contain under-utilized fish and Nile Perch by-products (NPB), rich in calcium, zinc and iron, making them ideal micronutrient deficiency busters for vulnerable groups in Uganda.

“The fish-enriched maize meal was evaluated by breastfeeding mothers to improve their ability to produce adequate breast milk to feed their babies,” Nakimbugwe told IPS.

NutriFish researchers are helping reduce losses of underutilized small fish and Nile Perch by-products through improved post-harvest and processing technologies such as solar tent dryers.

The NutriFish project is an initiative of the Cultivate Africa’s Future (CultiAF) Fund, a partnership between the Australian’s Center for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and Canada’s International Development Research Centre. The project promotes the handling and processing of small fish to improve the quality and shelf life and avoid waste.

Researchers from the National Fisheries Resources Research Institute (NaFIRRI) estimate that up to 40 percent of the small fish caught in Ugandan lakes are lost due to poor handling and rudimentary processing methods.

These losses have negative implications for fish supply and the incomes of actors in the small fish value chains, particularly women who dominate fish processing, says Jackson Efitre, a senior lecturer in fisheries and aquaculture at Makerere University and the NutriFish project’s principal investigator.

Currently, the small fish are processed using open sun drying or on raised racks which take a long time, exposing fish to dust, insects, and bacterial contamination, Efitre said. He added there are persistent challenges with the current methods of processing and preserving fish to avoid loss.

Each Ugandan consumes between 10 and 12 kg of fish per year which is lower than the 25 kg per person per year recommended by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, according to Efitre.

Declining stocks of large fish species, coupled with high exports, gender inequalities and post-harvest losses, have affected supply, Efitre said.

The Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) has developed the Double Pyramid Model to raise awareness of foods’ environmental and nutritional impacts. The Health Pyramid orders food according to the frequency of consumption with the base, including foods that should be eaten more frequently, such as fruit, vegetables and whole grain.

Legumes and fish are recommended protein sources, while red meat and high glycaemic foods should be eaten in moderation. The Climate Pyramid indicates that animal-based products have the highest contribution to climate change while plant-based ones have the smallest.

Research by BCFN also notes that fish and legumes should be the primary source of protein in diets for many communities. The researchers note that sustainably increasing fish production also faces challenges related to large scale exploitation and experience of domestic fish production and climate change, making it important for consumers to aim for a balanced and diverse diet.

“The Double Health and Climate Pyramid shows that all foods can be part of a healthy and sustainable diet when consumed with appropriate frequency. Typically, foods that have a low climate impact are also those that should be consumed at a higher frequency for personal health,” according to the report.

The report further notes that food waste occurs during industrial processing, distribution, and final consumption of food. In developing countries, food waste occurs mainly through losses upstream in the production chain.

BCFN has identified possible ways to prevent food waste through information, diet education, and the involvement of governments, institutions, producers, and distributors in the food value chain.

 

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By External Source
Nov 12 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Patricia Danzi was appointed Director General of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in May 2020. For nearly three decades, she has dedicated her career to serving the world’s vulnerable populations.

Danzi was with the International Committee of the Red Cross since 1996, serving as a delegate, with increasing responsibilities, in the Balkans (Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo), Peru, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola. At head office, she was appointed Deputy Head of Operations for the Horn of Africa and Political Advisor to the Director of Operations. She served as Head of Operations for America between November 2008 and April 2015 and has been Regional Director for Africa from May 2015 until she assumed the post of director general of the SDC on 1 May 2020.

Danzi studied in Lincoln, Nebraska, and in Zurich and holds a master’s degree in agricultural economics, geography and environmental science. She undertook postgraduate work in development studies in Geneva and speaks seven languages.

Born in Switzerland, Danzi is the daughter of a Swiss German secondary school teacher and a Nigerian diplomat and the eldest of six siblings. In her student days she taught mentally challenged children and spent time teaching in a township in South Africa just after Nelson Mandela was elected President. Danzi represented Switzerland in athletics at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. She has two adult sons.

ECW: The Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies was officially launched in January. How will this new hub impact our global efforts to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals, most specifically SDG4?

Patricia Danzi: In emergencies, protracted crises and forced displacement situations, education plays a key role for affected children. A structure and the possibility to learn helps them and their families to project themselves into a brighter future and not to lose hope.

Yet education is still too often a rather neglected sector in humanitarian action and tends to fall through the cracks when durable solutions are discussed or development interventions in crisis contexts are designed.

That is why Switzerland pledged at the 2019 Global Refugee Forum to promote Geneva as the Global Hub for Education in Emergencies – a hub which will strive for collective action to raise the profile of EiE, both politically and operationally. Geneva is an excellent place to host the Global Hub for Education in Emergencies. The city is the humanitarian capital and the second UN HQ. A large number of member states representations, hundreds of NGOs, the private sector, academic institutions and many actors across sectors that are relevant for education are present in Geneva. This provides a perfect opportunity for collective thinking and action.

As co-founding members of the Geneva Global Hub for EiE, the pledge was co-signed by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the Global Education Cluster (GEC), the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), UNICEF, the University of Geneva, UNESCO and UNHCR. Switzerland is extremely happy that, since its launch in January 2021, already 21 new organizations have joined the EiE Hub and we welcome many more, including other member states. Only together can we bring EiE to scale and positively impact the education of crisis-affected girls and boys and make a steps towards achieving SDG4!

ECW: Since its inception, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) has mobilised US$827 million through its trust fund and over US$ 1 billion in aligned funding through its Multi-Year Resilience Programmes (MYRPs). Switzerland has been a key partner in achieving our goals and delivering for the millions of children and adolescents that are being left behind by conflict, COVID-19 and the climate crisis. But a huge US$1 billion funding gap remains. How can we fill this gap and align public sector funding, private sector funding and blended finance modalities to achieve our goals?

Patricia Danzi: First, awareness has to rise! The world needs to understand better that if education is not addressed in a timely and proper manner, human capital is lost – sometimes for generations. Investing in education is therefore key.

Second, providing funds for EiE is a collective responsibility. It should be both an act of solidarity and a genuine interest of bilateral and multilateral donors, of the private sector and of crisis-affected countries themselves. In addition, we should all become better in engaging more in preventive and preparing action to make national education systems more crisis resilient. This demands forward-looking approaches of actors working in development and better collaboration between different stakeholders.

Third, we need to become more creative and more flexible in finding new ways of working and of financing. Public donor models of grants have their limits, so has ODA. Engaging the private sector more actively – and holding it accountable – will be important. SDC is, for example, piloting a new way of generating funding and impact for education through a recently initiated project called “Impact Linked Financing for Education” where public and private money is pooled.

ECW: Localisation is a key component of ECW’s global movement to provide crisis-impacted children and adolescents with the safety, hope and opportunity of a quality education. How can we accelerate efforts to achieve the targets in the Grand Bargain Agreement through ECW-financed programmes?

Patricia Danzi: We congratulate ECW for the efforts it makes in this regard. Switzerland endorsed the Grand Bargain. Strengthening local capacity – be it Ministries of Education, decentralized education authorities, local communities or national civil society and NGO actors – is an important concern for Switzerland’s engagement in education, such as it is in other sectors. Only local ownership can bring sustainable change. Moreover, in many emergency contexts, the first responders are parents, teachers, local civil society organizations or educational authorities before the international community arrives and – sadly – often overruns what already exists instead of building upon it and strengthening it.

Every EiE-intervention run by an international actor should have a local counterpart. Capacity strengthening must be a building block in any partnership. Handing over ownership, engaging more flexibly and predictably is key.

ECW: You represented Switzerland in the women’s heptathlon during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. What a remarkable achievement! How can sports benefit girls caught up in emergencies and protracted crises and how can we empower a future generation of powerful women advocates, athletes, doctors, engineers and leaders?

Patricia Danzi: Sports can provide boys and girls with a lot of self-confidence. It can help channel anger, frustration and increase resilience. It prepares one well to be humble when winning and resilient when losing. These are great lessons for life. Generally, we can all mentor young people, learning from and with them rather than lecturing them.

ECW: Before your appointment as the Director-General for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), you worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). How can education help to prevent and limit human suffering and contain the harmful effects of armed conflict on people’s lives and dignity?

Patricia Danzi: If education is not available, opportunities are lacking. Wars often last for decades and sometimes generations have not seen the inside of a classroom. During war, it is important that parties to a conflict respect international humanitarian law. Uneducated fighters lack that knowledge.

When people are forced to flee fighting, families often choose the location where to displace to according to the education that is available for their children. Education helps children to have a structured life and to forget the dire situation they are facing. They can become children again. When equipped accordingly, school can also help them overcome trauma and start the healing process.

ECW: You are living an interesting life! As the daughter of a Swiss-German teacher and a Nigerian diplomat – and a leading role model for women and girls everywhere – we believe that readers are leaders. Can you please share with us two books that have positively influenced you and that you would recommend to others?

Patricia Danzi: Two books that have influenced me and which I recommend are A Long Walk to Freedom and Half of a Yellow Sun. My thoughts on both:

• A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela: Humbling, a must-read for every person that aspires for leadership. A lesson of how to overcome one’s prejudice, judgements and lead selflessly, taking in lessons from life and showing a true interest in people.
• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Describing the different sides of the Biafra Civil War – the author wasn’t even born then – makes the reader slip under the skin of the characters, gives readers a different look at what war does to people, how it affects their lives and how it makes them do things they never thought they were capable of (good and bad). It sheds a different and nuanced light on “victims” and “perpetrators”. My grandfather was killed in that war and the book, therefore, brings many accounts of my relatives to life again.

 

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Photojournalist Eti-Inyene Godwin Akpan reported on the 2020 protests against police violence in Nigeria. Cedit: Eti-Inyene Godwin Akpan via CP

By Jonathan Rozen
NEW YORK, Nov 12 2021 (IPS)

The photos showed blood-soaked concrete, a gashed open thigh, and an injured protester grimacing in pain on the ground. Taken by photojournalist Eti-Inyene Godwin Akpan on October 20, 2020, the images tell the story of Nigerian forces’ mass shooting of anti-police brutality protesters at Lagos’ Lekki Toll Gate, an incident the government continues to deny.

One year after Akpan published the photographs on social media, he planned to display them in Lagos at a museum exhibit marking the anniversary of the protests against police brutality that swept Nigeria late last year.

But he postponed the show indefinitely after receiving two calls summoning him, without explanation, to the local offices of Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS), a federal security agency.

“I now sleep with one eye closed, trying to watch my back every second,” Akpan told CPJ in a phone call. “They know I know some things and I have some images…”

The calls came minutes after Akpan gave a live interview on local TV about his work documenting the 2020 protests. Akpan said that he asked the callers for a formal, emailed summons.

He feared that without it, the DSS might mistreat him or hold him for a prolonged period without access to a lawyer or his family, the kind of behavior that CPJ has documented in the past. The calls echoed intimidation tactics he said he faced a year earlier following his posting on social media about the toll gate shooting – tactics that led him to temporarily flee the country.

Reached by CPJ via messaging app, DSS spokesperson Peter Afunanya denied that his agency called Akpan in early October 2021. He also dismissed concerns over the DSS’ history of detaining journalists.

“Right in front of my eyes, I saw dead bodies,” reads the caption on Akpan’s Instagram post from the October 2020 shooting that killed protesters, according to local and international media and rights groups. It was the deadliest incident in last year’s protests, known as the End SARS movement – a reference to the protesters’ call to dismantle Nigeria’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad unit.

Journalists covering the protest movement were beaten, harassed, and fined by law enforcement. One reporter, Onifade Emmanuel Pelumi, was found dead at a mortuary on October 30, 2020; he was last seen alive in police custody after he covered unrest around the protests in Lagos.

Images of the Lekki Toll Gate killings are particularly sensitive, Akpan told CPJ, because they contradict the government’s account. In a press conference, Nigerian Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed marked October 20 this year by calling it “the first anniversary of the phantom massacre,” which took place “without blood or bodies.” Last year the Nigerian army admitted it used live rounds at the toll gate, but said its forces only shot into the air.

After Akpan first published the pictures, he told CPJ that anonymous callers pressured him to take down the Instagram post and replace it with one saying the images were fake. He said his bank account was frozen and that DSS agents arrived at his office looking for him, which DSS spokesperson Afunanya denied.

After that, Akpan decided to heed friends’ advice to leave the country. In the days before he fled, Akpan told CPJ that he believed the images he had captured could contribute to the historical record of the protests. But to protect this evidence for future generations and continue his work, he needed to be safe.

He fled to Ghana by crossing over land through Benin and Togo – a journey of hundreds of miles facilitated by CPJ and Maxime Domegni, an editor with the Global Investigative Journalism Network.

Akpan did not know anyone in Benin or Togo. Nor did he speak the local languages of those two francophone countries. But CPJ introduced him to two local investigative journalists — Igance Sossou in Benin and Ferdinand Ayité in Togo – whose help would prove invaluable.

Sossou and Ayité have both faced reprisal for their work and told CPJ in separate interviews that they agreed to assist Akpan out of journalistic solidarity.

“I understand the risk hanging over journalism in the West African sub-region,” Sossou, who was arrested in late 2019, imprisoned for six months, and fined over social media posts, told CPJ via messaging app. “If you are a journalist who experienced what I experienced between 2019 and 2020 in Benin, you are necessarily sensitive to the case of Eti-Inyene.”

After Akpan slipped across Nigeria’s western border, he met Sossou in Cotonou, Benin’s economic capital. Sossou said he assisted Akpan with changing his money into local currency and finding a car and driver to transport him to Togo’s border, which Akpan crossed on foot before finding a cab to Lomé, Togo’s capital.

Ayité, whose newspaper L’Alternative has been repeatedly suspended and who continues to face harassment by authorities, told CPJ he met Akpan in Lomé. Ayité arranged and paid for Akpan’s dinner and overnight accommodation as well as a motorcycle driver who could safely navigate the border with Ghana the following morning. Once across, Akpan caught a bus from the Aflao border town to Accra.

“We are just journalists and we have no borders. Wherever one of us is threatened, all journalists are concerned,” Ayité told CPJ. “Solidarity must be the cardinal value of our profession and I think that this is what guided Ignace Sossou and my modest self to come to the aid of [Akpan].”

Akpan told CPJ that his travel across Togo and Benin would have been “so difficult, if not impossible” without this assistance. “I would have been attacked or duped,” he said. “It was an amazing collaboration.”

After arriving in Accra, a friend helped Akpan find accommodation. He stayed in hiding for four months but decided to return to Nigeria in February 2021. The stresses of exile, exacerbated by the pandemic, made him struggle with loneliness and depression, he said.

“I felt that there was still work for me to do in Nigeria. These stories [of the protests] still need to be told,” Akpan said, adding that he initially avoided telling his mother and sisters of his return because it would make them worry.

Despite one sister’s advice never to set foot back in Nigeria, he felt that the protests had diminished enough to reduce the risk. But the intimidating calls returned this October, as Akpan promoted his photo exhibition.

Akpan told CPJ that the callers claiming to be DSS agents never sent him an emailed summons, as he had requested. After their calls, he received other calls from people asking him questions about his photography.

He said the people claimed to be potential clients, but when he requested the callers send their details over email, they never followed up, compounding his fears. He said he now takes extra precautions to secure his communications and store his information.

Yet, Akpan has not stopped trying to record historic events. He went out with his camera on this year’s October 20 anniversary to photograph a memorial marking the Lekki Toll Gate killings, where journalists were again attacked by police.

The solidarity he experienced over the last 12 months has given him courage and strengthened his commitment to speaking the truth, he told CPJ. “I rest assured that I’m not alone,” he said.

Jonathan Rozen is Senior Africa Researcher at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

 

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WTO is hoping for an end to fishing subsidy negotiations which have been ongoing for more than 20 years. Fishmonger in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, displays his catch for sale. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
Bulawayo, ZIMBABWE , Nov 11 2021 (IPS)

With subsidies of global fisheries back on the World Trade Organisation’s agenda, experts are calling for African governments to upscale the protection of the sector long plagued by activities that continue to threaten the continent’s blue economy.

The chair of the negotiations, Ambassador Santiago Wills of Colombia, earlier in November 2021 presented a revised draft text on fisheries subsidies. This will be used for discussions aimed at resolving remaining differences ahead of the 12th Ministerial Conference from November 20 to December 3.

The Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala called the subsidies “harmful” when the ministers met on July 15.
She said she was cautiously optimistic that there could be an agreement on how to cap subsidies that contribute to overfishing.

Now she is more emphatic and has been engaging political leaders at the highest level to get their support for a successful conclusion to the highest levels, to get their support for a successful conclusion to the 21-year-long negotiations.

“The eyes of the world are really on us,” she said. “Time is short and I believe that this text reflects a very important step toward a final outcome. I really see a significant rebalancing of the provisions, including those pertaining to special and differential treatment, while, at the same time, maintaining the level of ambition.”

Meanwhile, independent researchers say harmful practices ranging from overfishing and too much reliance on fisheries for livelihoods have to be addressed by African governments.

Researchers at the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies say unfair subsidies go towards inputs such as fuel and larger fishing vessels which often go beyond regulated permits while also pushing out smaller players.

Amid those challenges, African countries still have to compete in global fish markets with rich countries which heavily subsidise the sector. This creates sustainable development gaps that will slow the realisation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SGD) 14, which seeks the sustainable use of marine resources.

Guided by the SGDs, the WTO gave the trade ministers ahead of the July 15 meeting the “task of securing an agreement on disciplines to eliminate subsidies for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and to prohibit certain forms of fisheries subsidies and contribute to overcapacity and overfishing,”

Developing and least developed countries will take centre stage of these negotiations to ensure they get a fair deal, with the meeting at the end of November, according to remarks by Okonjo-Iweala.

According to FAO, Africa is home to thriving artisanal fishing communities, employing more than 12 million people, with global demand projected to increase 30 percent by 2030.

There are concerns that low-income coastal fishing communities face the harshest challenges of depleting stocks as they compete with more sophisticated illegal fishing syndicates.

Experts warn that African countries need to develop strategies that will ensure less reliance on fisheries, ensuring the sector’s long-term sustainability.

Rashid Sumaila of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the University of British Columbia, Canada, says African governments have to do more to see fewer nets cast in the continental waters.

“Governments must remove the incentive to overfish,” Sumaila told IPS.

“They must also improve national fisheries management and push for regional cooperative management of the sector and make illegal fishing unprofitable,” he said.

How African governments achieve that on a continent plagued by low incomes and a thriving informal sector could prove difficult, researchers from the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies contend.

By WTO estimates, global fisheries subsidies stand at around USD35 billion per year.

Citing data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation(FAO), the WTO says fish stocks are at risk of collapsing in many parts of the world due to overexploitation. It estimates that 34 percent of global stocks are overfished, “meaning they are being exploited at a pace where the fish population cannot replenish itself.”

While the WTO has cited what it calls “lack of political impetus” in the past two decades to resolve the contentious fisheries subsidies and protect smaller global players, Alice Tipping, a researcher at the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Sustainable Trade and Fisheries, says despite the challenges of the past 20 years, collective action among both high- and low-income countries is the only way forward.

“The WTO negotiations are both technically and legally challenging because they require collective action from governments, but there is a clear benefit in having rules applied at the multilateral level so that everyone has to contribute to the solution,” Tipping told IPS.

Experts say the two-decade deadlock highlights the weak negotiating clout of African and other low-income countries, with some rich countries insisting on an exemption from the harmful subsidies ban while simultaneously allowing their fishing fleets to operate illegally on African shores.

As DG Okonjo-Iweala put it, “the fisheries subsidies negotiations are a test both of the WTO’s credibility as a multinational negotiating forum.”

“If we wait another 20 years, there may be no marine fisheries left to subsidise – or artisanal fishing communities to support,” Okonjo-Iweala warned.

The African continent finds itself in a bind as the African Union’s Agenda 2063 describes the fisheries as “Africa’s Future,” recognising the sector’s key role as a “catalyst for socio-economic transformation.”

This, however, highlights the continent’s reliance on fisheries when researchers are pushing for the decongestion and up-scaled regulation of artisanal fishers.

“A lot of artisanal fisheries is unreported and unregulated mainly because authorities do not affect enough means to document and manage those fisheries,” said Beatrice Gomez, Coordinator of the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Agreements (CFFA).

The CFFA is a platform of European and African groups raising awareness on the impact of EU-Africa agreements on African artisanal fishing communities.

“It would be better to have the activities of artisanal fishers documented properly to show their real importance for jobs and food security to ensure sustainability and long-term future,” Gomez told IPS by email.

“Ideally, for this work, artisanal fisheries have to be co-managed in collaboration with fishing communities, but it takes money, time and human resources which (African) governments do not have or do not want to devote to this.”

The World Bank says fisheries contribute USD24 billion to the African economy, making it a huge attraction for the poor.

 

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• WTO Inches Closer To Agreement on Harmful Fishing Subsidies
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The biofuel from this mini biogas power plant in the municipality of Entre Rios do Oeste, in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná, is supplied by local pig farmers, who earn extra income while the municipality saves on energy costs for its facilities and public lighting. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 11 2021 (IPS)

The number of victims of serious burns, some fatal, has increased in Brazil. Without money to buy cooking gas, the price of which rose 30 percent this year, many poor families resort to ethanol and people are injured in household accidents.

A larger number of poor Brazilians have returned to using firewood, less explosive but also a cause of accidents and of health-damaging household pollution. It is cheaper in the countryside, while in the cities people burn boards and old furniture, not always as widely available as alcohol or ethanol, which can be purchased at any gas station.

In fact, biofuels, such as wood, ethanol, biodiesel and biogas, have been competing with fossil fuels since the industrial use of coal began in England in the 18th century. Economic and environmental factors influence private and public decision-making with regard to their production and use.

A commitment made by 103 countries at the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) on Climate Change, which is taking place in the Scottish city of Glasgow during the first 12 days of November, to reduce methane emissions from 2020 levels 30 percent by 2030, may now give biofuels a new boost.

Replacing oil, gas and coal with other sources will help contribute to that goal.

“In Brazil, the demand for ethanol was imposed for economic reasons: high oil prices; and energy reasons: the risk of shortages,” said Regis Leal, an aeronautical engineer and specialist in Technological Development at the state-owned National Laboratory of Biorenewables.

Ethanol in the seventies

Ethanol is a fuel produced from sugarcane, corn or any vegetable with a high sucrose content, which is mainly used in motor vehicles. Brazil is the world’s second largest producer of ethanol, after the United States.

The National Alcohol Programme (Proalcohol) was created in Brazil in 1975, two years after the first big oil crisis that more than tripled the price of a barrel of oil. Brazil, which at the time imported more than 80 percent of the crude oil it consumed, lost the momentum of an economy that had grown by more than 10 percent per year between 1968 and 1973.

With alcohol or ethanol replacing gasoline or mixed with it, the aim was to reduce dependence on imported oil, while intensifying the search for hydrocarbon deposits for self-sufficiency, which Brazil only achieved three decades later.

This sugar mill and ethanol distillery are in the southern Brazilian state of São Paulo, much of whose territory has been turned into one large sugarcane field. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

In the United States, the use of ethanol began to be fomented in the 1980s, but for environmental reasons, Leal told IPS in an interview by telephone from Campinas, a city in the interior of the state of São Paulo, near the country’s largest sugar and ethanol-producing area.

In cities located at high altitudes, such as Denver, the capital of the western U.S. state of Colorado, at 1,600 metres above sea level, lower oxygen levels lead to incomplete combustion of petroleum derivatives and, consequently, greater carbon monoxide contamination and health damage, he explained.

Mixing in MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether), a combination of chemicals, added oxygen, but because it was a highly toxic product it was soon replaced by ethanol, made from corn in the case of the U.S.

In both Brazil and the United States, biofuel production also bolstered or stabilised the price of sugar and corn by absorbing surplus production.

This is an aspect that is misunderstood by those who condemn biofuel production for apparently reducing food production. This is a false dilemma, because it must be analysed on a case-by-case basis, said Suani Coelho, coordinator of the Bioenergy Research Group (GBio) of the Energy and Environment Institute at the University of São Paulo.

“In Tanzania, a FAO (U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation) study evaluated the production of ethanol from manioc. The hypothesis seemed doubtful, also because the energy balance of cassava is not so good. But in Tanzania there is a surplus of the crop that cannot be exported. So it is worth taking advantage of it to make ethanol,” said Coelho, a chemical engineer with a doctorate in energy.

In Brazil, where ethanol is made almost exclusively from the more locally productive sugarcane, corn was incorporated in the industry in 2017, with a distillery in Lucas do Rio Verde, in the state of Mato Grosso, the country’s largest producer of soybeans, corn and cotton.

Lucas do Rio Verde is in the state of Mato Grosso, the region of Brazil with the highest soybean and corn production, which is crowded with agribusiness warehouses and silos. The first corn ethanol distillery was set up there to take advantage of the surplus corn production. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

“Corn is produced there as a second crop, after soybeans, in the same area, in a volume that is not viable for export. So it makes sense to use it for ethanol,” she told IPS by telephone from São Paulo.

Ethanol led to a great improvement in the urban environment.

In Brazil it has already replaced 46 percent of gasoline, according to the sugarcane industry association (Unica), with an annual production of 35 billion litres. It is used as fuel alone in motor vehicles or as a 27 percent blend in gasoline.

The United States produces 50 to 70 percent more than Brazil, depending on the year. Together, they account for about 84 percent of world production, a level of concentration that hinders free international trade in ethanol.

Biofuels or electrification

Coelho and Leal do not agree with the claim that the electrification of transportation tends to hinder the expansion of biofuels to other countries and major producers.

Developing countries do not have the capacity to make large investments to build new infrastructure, such as electric recharging points for vehicles. Moreover, “Brazil is going through a crisis, it is increasing fossil fuel thermoelectric generation, making the energy mix dirtier, and it has no other way to increase the supply of electricity,” argued Coelho.

Leal said the demand for ethanol can grow a great deal. “Any increase in its blend in the United States, which accounts for half of the world’s gasoline consumption, will have a huge impact,” he said.

The ethanol expert also questions the environmental and climatic advantages of electric vehicles, taking into consideration the entire production cycle, transportation, batteries, employment and other aspects.

View of a vast oil palm plantation in Tailandia, a municipality in the state of Pará, in Brazil’s eastern Amazon rainforest. The intent to turn palm oil into biodiesel did not work out, because the oil serves a more attractive market in the food and chemical industries. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Biodiesel was not as successful as ethanol, but it also improved the urban environment and has a future, with some additional effort.

It is produced from vegetable or animal oils, even used, and other fatty materials.

Its main problem is that it is more expensive and therefore cannot compete with diesel fuel in order to replace it, Leal pointed out. Currently the diesel blend has been reduced from 12 to 10 percent, so as not to further drive up the cost of diesel fuel, the price of which is rising worldwide.

Another biofuel, which has been around for a long time but is now expanding, is biogas.

It is not only clean, but actually helps to reduce pollution, since it is the gas generated from garbage, wastewater, agricultural waste and animal excrement, which is no longer released into the air, thus reducing greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Its use is incipient in Brazil, but it has the potential to replace 70 percent of the diesel fuel consumed in the country, at a lower cost, according to the Brazilian Biogas Association. And big cities and the country’s enormous agricultural sector offer plenty of raw materials.

By means of a simple refining process, biogas is converted into biomethane, equivalent to natural gas and, therefore, a fuel that can even be used to run heavy vehicles. If used for electricity generation, it could meet 36 percent of national demand, the association of companies in the sector estimates.

Small biodigesters produce biogas that could prevent the use of firewood and ethanol, and the resultant accidents and pollution, among poor families, especially in the countryside, noted Coelho.

“Appropriate public policies and low-interest loans for investments” could boost biogas and its environmental benefits, at a time when international financial institutions are cutting financing for coal-fired and other fossil fuel power plants, Leal said.

The two experts stressed that all these biofuels play an important role in making green hydrogen, produced from renewable energy sources, viable and recognised as central to the world’s energy future.

Biofuels have served humanity since its earliest past, not always in a sustainable way. The first was firewood, on which 2.8 billion people in the world still depend, according to an October 2020 World Bank report. But it is environmentally unsound, and leads to deforestation and household pollution.

The oils and resins that illuminated cities and homes in centuries past, before the advent of electricity, were also destructive. Oils extracted from whale blubber and from the eggs of Amazonian turtles are examples, almost driving certain species to extinction.

The main drivers of antimicrobial resistance include the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials; lack of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene for both humans and animals; poor infection and disease prevention and control in health-care facilities and farms; poor access to quality, affordable medicines, vaccines and diagnostics; lack of awareness and knowledge; and lack of enforcement of legislation. Credit: Bigstock.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 11 2021 (IPS)

The following information is based on investigations and studies carried out by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Antimicrobials – including antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and antiparasitics – are medicines used to prevent and treat infections in humans, animals and plants.

 

What is antimicrobial resistance?

Antimicrobial Resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death

Antimicrobial Resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.

As a result of drug resistance, antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines become ineffective and infections become increasingly difficult or impossible to treat.

 

Why is it a global concern?

The emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens that have acquired new resistance mechanisms, leading to antimicrobial resistance, continues to threaten our ability to treat common infections.

Especially alarming is the rapid global spread of multi- and pan-resistant bacteria (also known as “superbugs”) that cause infections that are not treatable with existing antimicrobial medicines such as antibiotics.

Furthermore, a lack of access to quality antimicrobials remains a major issue. Antibiotic shortages are affecting countries of all levels of development and especially in health-care systems.

 

Change or loose

In other words, new antibacterials are urgently needed – for example, to treat carbapenem-resistant gram-negative bacterial infections as identified in the WHO priority pathogen list.

However, if people do not change the way antibiotics are used now, new antibiotics will suffer the same fate as the current ones and become ineffective.

Without effective tools for the prevention and adequate treatment of drug-resistant infections and improved access to existing and new quality-assured antimicrobials, the number of people for whom treatment is failing or who die of infections will increase.

Medical procedures, such as surgery, including caesarean sections or hip replacements, cancer chemotherapy, and organ transplantation, will become more risky.

 

What accelerates the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance?

AMR occurs naturally over time, usually through genetic changes. Antimicrobial resistant organisms are found in people, animals, food, plants and the environment (in water, soil and air).

They can spread from person to person or between people and animals, including from food of animal origin.

The main drivers of antimicrobial resistance include the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials; lack of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene for both humans and animals; poor infection and disease prevention and control in health-care facilities and farms; poor access to quality, affordable medicines, vaccines and diagnostics; lack of awareness and knowledge; and lack of enforcement of legislation.

 

Present situation

For common bacterial infections, including urinary tract infections, sepsis, sexually transmitted infections, and some forms of diarrhoea, high rates of resistance against antibiotics frequently used to treat these infections have been observed world-wide, indicating that we are running out of effective antibiotics.

 

Drug resistance in malaria parasites

Another example is the case of the emergence of drug-resistant parasites which possess one of the greatest threats to malaria control and results in increased malaria morbidity and mortality.

 

Drug resistance in fungi

The prevalence of drug-resistant fungal infections is exasperating the already difficult treatment situation. Many fungal infections have existing treatability issues such as toxicity especially for patients with other underlying infections (e.g. HIV).

This is leading to more difficult to treat fungal infections, treatment failures, longer hospital stays and much more expensive treatment options.

 

A week to raise awareness

This year’s World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) marked 18 to 24 November was previously called the World Antibiotic Awareness Week.

But from 2020, it would be called the World Antimicrobial Awareness Week to include all antimicrobials including antibiotics, antifungals, antiparasitics and antivirals.

The Week is a global campaign aiming at raising awareness of antimicrobial resistance worldwide and encouraging best practices among the general public, health workers and policy makers to slow the development and spread of drug-resistant infections.

Is obtaining more and more commercial benefits a reason enough to transform the healers into killers?

Extreme weather like widespread drought is causing economic losses amongst farmers in Africa. Credit: UN Photo/Albert González Farran

By Nibal Zgheib
LONDON, Nov 11 2021 (IPS)

Targeted action in agriculture could have a massive impact on climate change, according to a joint brief by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Investment Centre of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), published at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow scheduled to end November 12.

The mitigation potential of crop and livestock activities, including soil carbon sequestration and better land management, is estimated at 3 to 7 percent of total anthropogenic emissions by 2030.

The potential economic value of mitigating these emissions could amount between US$ 60 billion and US$ 360 billion, the two institutions say.

“Agriculture must become the focus of a global coalition for carbon neutrality and we need to support both mitigation and adaptation. We must enable smallholder farmers to adapt and to benefit economically through the provision of environmental services,” said Mohamed Manssouri, Director of the FAO Investment Centre.

“Now is the time to grasp this vital opportunity to reduce emissions and increase carbon sequestration, while restoring biodiversity, supporting health and nutrition and generating new business opportunities through food and land-use systems.”

The brief highlights the huge potential for engaging food and land-use systems in the fight against climate change. It also shows how the agriculture sector is uniquely placed to be part of the carbon-neutral solution by reducing emissions, while maximizing its potential to act as a carbon sink by absorbing more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases. A full report will be published in early 2022.

The agriculture sector generates a high amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with agri-food systems causing an estimated 21 to 37 percent of total global emissions. But agriculture is also a victim of emissions.

Farmers are often among the first witnesses to climate change. Rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and supply-chain disruptions are already impacting food production, undermining global efforts to end hunger.

The EBRD/FAO brief shows how sustainable, targeted investments and interventions will make agriculture part of the climate solution. Reaching carbon neutrality for agri-food systems essentially means lowering GHG emissions throughout the entire value chain, improving farming practices, using agricultural lands for carbon sequestration, promoting sustainable agriculture and avoiding land clearance.

The brief sets out key action areas for policymakers and investors, including the development and enhancement of sound governance mechanisms and the mainstreaming of carbon neutrality in corporate strategies.

Achieving the right policy mix and agreeing on carbon accounting methods can unlock major investments in greening across agri-food systems.

“The investment universe is evolving quickly, as banks align their lending with the net zero objective and asset managers look for opportunities to decarbonise their portfolios while managing risks associated with climate change,” said Natalya Zhukova, EBRD Director, Head of Agribusiness.

One of the main actors in addressing climate change is the private sector. Country policies, strategies and roadmaps are all important in signalling regulatory changes and creating incentives to drive the accurate valuation and pricing of carbon.

While the private sector will be needed to mobilise billions, equally, it stands to gain by reducing costs, mitigating risks, protecting brand values, ensuring long-term supply-chain viability and gaining competitive advantage.

Nibal Zgheib is Communication Adviser, EBRD and former Programme Assistant, World Food Programme

 

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The climate summit COP26 was accompanied by protests by social movements, with demonstrators arriving in Glasgow from all over the world and expressing themselves in their own language or dressing up as dinosaurs to symbolize their criticism. But government delegates did not listen to their demands for ambitious and fair action to contain the global warming crisis. CREDIT: Laura Quiñones/UN

By Emilio Godoy
GLASGOW, Nov 11 2021 (IPS)

One element that runs through all social movement climate summits is their rejection of the official meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the low ambition of its outcomes – and the treaty’s 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) was no exception.

The leaders of the UNFCCC “gladly welcome those who caused the crisis. COP26 has done nothing but pretend and greenwash,” Mitzi Jonelle Tan, a member of the non-governmental organization Youth Advocates for Climate Action from the Philippines, told IPS during a rally at the Glasgow Screening Room, a few blocks from the venue where the official meeting is being held until Friday, Nov. 12.

The COP26 Coalition, the alternative summit to the climate conference, has been a motley crew of organizations and movements whose common demand was a real effort to fight the climate crisis through concrete and fair measures and whose 200 events in this Scottish city included workshops, forums, artistic presentations and protests, which ended on Wednesday, Nov. 10.

Among the demands with which the alternative meeting in Glasgow lobbied the 196 Parties to the UNFCCC were the abandonment of fossil fuels, the rejection of cosmetic solutions to the climate emergency, the demand for a just transition to a lower carbon economy and the call for reparations and redistribution of funds to indigenous communities and the global South.

The movement also called for a gender perspective in policies, climate justice – that those primarily responsible (developed nations) take responsibility and pay for their role -, respect for the rights of indigenous peoples, and a halt to air pollution.

Due to logistical issues and the limitations imposed by the covid-19 pandemic, which postponed the official summit for a year, the parallel sessions of the social movements were held in this Scottish city in a hybrid format, combining face-to-face and virtual participation. Exhibitors and online participants struggled with the quality of their internet connections.

One of the most unanimous and loudest criticisms from non-governmental social and environmental organizations focused on the exclusion of civil society groups from Latin America, Africa and Asia, due to the UK host government’s decision to modify the admission criteria according to the level of contagion in each country and the extent of vaccination.

In addition, they complained about the strict hurdles imposed by the COP26 presidency, held by the United Kingdom, supported by Italy, to the presence of NGO observers at the official negotiating tables, which undermined the transparency of the Glasgow process, whose agreements are to be embodied in a final declaration, which is weakening every day and whose final text will be released on Nov. 12 or 13, if the negotiations stretch out.

The alternative movement also had a formal but unofficial space in the so-called COP26 Green Zone, located in the same area as the official negotiations, in the center of Glasgow.

In the forums parallel to COP26 in Glasgow, indigenous women were major protagonists with their demands for respect for their rights and effective participation in the negotiations. In the picture, indigenous women delegates take part in a forum on women of the forest at the peoples’ summit. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

In-depth solutions

One of their key proposals was for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty aimed at moving towards the end of the era of coal, gas and oil, the consumption of which is primarily responsible for the growing planetary climate emergency.

The initiative, which imitates the name of the treaty against nuclear weapons, demands an immediate end to the expansion of fossil fuel production, a fair phase-out and a just energy transition.

Countries and corporations “continue to invest capital in the extraction of fossil fuels. We need to see efforts to phase them out, to stop the financing, subsidies and exploitation of fossil fuels,” Tzeporah Berman, the Canadian chair of the anti-fossil fuel initiative, told IPS.

The idea for the treaty emerged in 2015 from a call by leaders and NGOs from Pacific island states – whose very existence is threatened by the climate crisis – and it was formally launched in 2020.

So far it has received the support of some 750 organizations, 12 cities, more than 2,500 scientists, academics, parliamentarians from around the world, and religious leaders, indigenous movements and more than 100 Nobel Prize winners.

Climate policies are the focus of COP26 which has addressed carbon market rules, at least 100 billion dollars a year in climate finance, gaps between emission reduction targets and necessary reductions, strategies for carbon neutrality by 2050, adaptation plans, and the working platform on local communities and indigenous peoples.

The International Rights of Nature Tribunal tried the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), parallel to COP26. In the case, Philippine activist Mitzi Jonelle Tan testified to the lack of effective action against the climate emergency. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Indigenous people and rights of nature tribunal in the spotlight

Indigenous people, especially from the Amazon jungle, have been key participants at the latest edition of the alternative summit, with at least 40 activists present in Glasgow to complain about harassment by the government of far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and demand more protection for the rainforest, whose destruction can have dramatic effects on the environmental health of the planet.

“Our main demand is demarcation of our territories,” because this guarantees a number of rights, Cristiane Pankararu, a member of the Pankararu people and leader of Brazil’s non-governmental National Association of Indigenous Women Warriors (ANMIGA), told IPS.

Her organization belongs to the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, whose demands are demarcation, climate solutions based on indigenous peoples’ knowledge and practices, and investment in forest protection.

One of the most symbolic activities of the counter-summit was the Fifth International Rights of Nature Tribunal, which tried the cases of “False solutions to the climate change crisis” and “The Amazon, a threatened living entity”.

In the first verdict, the tribunal, which sat for the first time in 2014 and was composed this time of seven judges from six countries, found the UNFCCC at fault for failing to attack the roots of the climate emergency.

In the second ruling, the jury, composed of nine experts from seven countries, accused developed countries and China, as well as agricultural, mining and food corporations, of destroying the Amazon, the planet’s main rainforest ecosystem, which is threatened by these extractive activities.

Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, listed three serious problems: the role of large corporations, the protection of corporate intellectual property, and the power of corporations to sue states that want to protect the environment, in international arbitration tribunals.

“It is a profound symptom of how the global economy protects the interests of large corporations, especially extractive ones, and that has not been addressed at the COP,” he told IPS.

A dialogue of the deaf has prevailed between the UNFCCC and civil society, as the official summit has ignored the demands of social movements.

“They have not listened to us. We are here to demand action. We don’t need another COP to solve the climate crisis, we need change,” Tan complained.

Despite the obstacles, “we will not stop participating actively. The women’s movement is unifying. It is a slow process, because people are not used to being led by women,” Pankararu said.

IPS produced this article with the support of Iniciativa Climática of Mexico and the European Climate Foundation.

By External Source
Nov 10 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland has appealed to world leaders attending the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 to close the gap in ongoing negotiations this week in Glasgow, with millions of lives and livelihoods on the line in climate-vulnerable countries.

Secretary-General Scotland delivered her statement today to the resumed high-level segment of the conference, hours after a draft outcome document was released by the United Kingdom, as chair of the summit.

She said: “If we lose vulnerable nations who have battled with courage and resilience, we lose the fight against climate change.”

“If the gaps on emissions are not closed, if improved access to climate finance does not materialise, we risk the most vulnerable nations amongst us being subsumed by sea level rises and being engulfed by debt, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

“Do not grow weary and lose heart. Dig deeper, come together, and close the gap in these negotiations.”

More than 2.5 billion people live in the Commonwealth’s 54 member countries, 60 percent of whom are under age 30. That includes 32 small states and 14 of the least developed countries of the world which are facing the brunt of the climate change impacts.

The Secretary-General added: “Millions are already losing lives and livelihoods from the impacts of climate change, but they are fighting. We must too.

“They know that, without action, the force and frequency of violent weather, fire, shortages of food, water and the threat of rising seas will continue to intensify until it overwhelms them. They require inclusive, just and equitable actions.”

Climate-related disasters in the Commonwealth doubled in number from the period 1980-1990 (431) to the period 2010-2020 (815), with economic damages increasing from US$39 billion to $189 billion over the same time frames.

In earlier discussions at COP26, the Secretary-General reiterated the call for developed countries to deliver the promised US$100 billion in annual climate finance to support developing nations, both for adaptation as well as mitigation purposes.

She added that funds also need to be accessible to the smallest and most vulnerable countries, who currently have difficulties tapping into finance due to lack of capacity and data.

She highlighted key Commonwealth initiatives responding to the climate crisis, including the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, the Commonwealth Blue Charter, the Call for Action on Living Lands and the Disaster Risk Finance Portal.

Girls at Malual Agai School in South Sudan are having a lesson about menstrual hygiene. The school is one of the beneficiaries from Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) funded by Education Cannot Wait (ECW). The fund aims to keep girls at school by supporting them and providing them with dignity kits. Credit: ECW

By Charlton Doki
Juba, South Sudan, Nov 10 2021 (IPS)

Ayom Wol sits under a tree in South Sudan in the scorching midday sun. He is a newly-trained teacher, preparing for tomorrow’s lessons. His school principal says he has to prepare while at school because there is no electricity at home.

The 29-year-old Wol teaches English and Science in Mitor Primary School in Gogrial West County of Warrap state. The school is among hundreds benefiting from a Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) funded by Education Cannot Wait (ECW).

Wol is among the teachers who have received teacher training with ECW funding, and the training has greatly improved his skills and capacity to prepare lesson plans and teaching materials.

Education Cannot Wait is the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. In January 2020, it launched the MYRP in collaboration with the South Sudan government and local and international aid and development agencies. The MYRP programme focuses on building resilience within education in South Sudan.

ECW director Yasmine Sherif. Credit: ECW

“With one of the lowest school enrolment rates in the world, children and adolescents in South Sudan continue to bear the heavy burden of the years of conflict that ravaged their country. Girls are disproportionally affected. They represent three-quarters of the out of school children in primary education, and it is even worse at the secondary level,” says Yasmine Sherif, the Director of Education Cannot Wait.

“Together with our partners in the government, communities, civil society and the UN, Education Cannot Wait’s investment in safe, inclusive quality education for the most marginalised children and adolescents in the country can finally turn the tide for the next generation of South Sudanese to thrive and become positive changemakers for their young nation.

The MYRP provides an opportunity for children to access education in six of South Sudan’s ten states: Jonglei, Upper Nile, Unity, Eastern Equatoria, Lakes and Warrap. ECW allocated US$30 million as seed funding to support the three-year MYRP, which targets children in 355 schools and learning centres across the six states. These learning centres include 69 early childhood development centres, 213 primary schools, 21 secondary schools and 52 alternative education system centres, both for ‘Accelerated Education Programmes’ and ‘Pastoralist Education Programmes’.

Out of 117,256 beneficiaries reached by the MYRP during the first year of implementation, 46,010 are girls, and 1,647 are children with disabilities.

A Back-to-School campaign in Riwoto primary school, Kapoeta North County. The school is supported by ECW is working to ensure that all children, including those with disabilities, are able to attend school. Credit: ECW

Even though he has taught for nine years, Wol says, he became a better teacher after attending training supported through the MYRP.

“I now know how to prepare a lesson plan and a scheme of work for any subject,” Wol says. “I have also learned from the training how to support children who are living with disabilities.”

Joseph Mogga, the Education Programme Manager for Christian Mission for Development in South Sudan’s Jonglei state, says the MYRP helps train teachers on how to handle inclusion, especially of children with disabilities, amongst other issues.

“We are going to train teachers on how they can teach in an inclusive setting. Here in South Sudan, vulnerability is more pronounced when the child with a disability is a girl,” he says, adding that this project supports an inclusive and safe learning environment for all girls and boys, including those with disabilities.

The Director-General for Gender Equity and Inclusive Education in the Ministry of General Education and Instruction, Esther Akumu Achire, says that some cultures and traditions in South Sudan deprive girls of their right to education, promoting harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage.

“This is very common among our people, and these are among the cultural barriers we are trying to change.”

Malual Agurpiny Primary School flooded. ECW is at the forefront of ensuring that children benefit from quality education even in crises. Credit: ECW

Long distances to schools and climate-change-induced floods also disrupt education.

“The long distances to get to school scares some parents from sending their children to school because they feel that the schools are too far, and there is conflict and insecurity. Sometimes, you hear about rape which scares the parents for their children.”

Achire says about 2.8 million children remain out of school. She is grateful for the MYRP initiative supporting the education sector in South Sudan.

“The MYRP is doing a good job. We have realised that the girls and the children with disabilities are taken care of. We are now trying to ensure that the girls, even young mothers, are now back to school and that they are learning well.”

Adolescent girls are given dignity kits, and children with disabilities are provided for. “Children with disabilities are given some assistive devices which help them continue learning,” Achire says. “In fact, with awareness-raising on children with disabilities and the importance of girls coming to school, the enrolment is going up.”
A critical aspect of the programme is the teacher training component.

“We could have the girls in schools, but if the teachers are not there or if they do not know how to teach, it becomes a problem. But with the MYRP, teacher training is being conducted,” she says, adding that the training also focuses on reducing gender-based violence.

ECW staff are hard at work despite the flooding to ensure the schools are functional. Credit: ECW

Ayuen Awien, a primary seven pupil at Keen Primary School in Gogrial West County, Warrap state, attests to the benefits of being involved in the ECW programme.

Early and forced marriages are common in her community, so she is considered vulnerable and eligible for support. Awien says the school environment offers her safety.

“I feel secure here because our teachers are against early and forced marriages,” says Awien. “I would probably have been forced to get married if I was not in school.”

Awien says she has received books, dignity kits, playing and learning materials and is quite comfortable in school. In the future, Awien says, she wants to be a doctor.

“I encourage other girls who are at home to enrol and stay in school. If you study, you will have a better life in future, and you will be able to help your parents as well,” she says.

The MYRP programme has distributed 1.2 million textbooks to all targeted counties to facilitate learning for all children targeted by the programme.

According to Mogga, the MYRP is probably the only programme highlighting the plight of children with disabilities.

“In Duk County, wheelchairs, crutches, hearing aids are distributed. Eyeglasses for children who need them so that they can attend classes and be able to see what’s written on the blackboard easily were also donated,” says Mogga.

The MYRP implementing partners are now looking at school infrastructure to assess whether the facilities are accessible to physically challenged learners.

Schools are often in inaccessible areas, but nevertheless, ECW staff ensure that the children get the provisions they need. Credit: ECW

Mogga explains that disruptions to children’s education include conflict, floods, loss of family members and traditional practices such as early marriage. Boys are also expected to look after the cattle when they are supposed to be at school.

“For boys and girls who have been out of school, there was no glimpse of hope,” Mogga says, adding that the ECW-supported programme is a “timely intervention in favour of promoting access to education for out-of-school children.”

To help ensure that girls enrol and stay in school, the MYRP addresses the challenges that force girls and young mothers to drop out.

Programme implementers say the support protects the girls from sexual abuse and exploitation, including sexual exploitation – trading sex to earn money to pay for school fees and meet other basic needs.

“This support also protects girls from early marriages. If a girl is supported with this scholarship, they are happy, and it prevents the risk of early marriage because once they are out of school, the next option is getting married. But by keeping them in school with a scholarship and money offered to them and providing them with basic items like school uniform it prevents them from getting married early,” says Alberto Maker, an education project manager at UNKEA, one of the agencies implementing the MYRP in Gogrial County of South Sudan’s Warrap state.

Implementers of the MYRP stress that several challenges hamper boys’ and girls’ access to safe, inclusive quality education – including climate-impact disasters like floods.

Jacob Masanso, Education Consortium Manager of the MYRP, says recent unprecedented flooding destroyed classrooms in 340 schools across the country, thus exacerbating the shortage of school infrastructure and resulting in health risks.

“Flooding also makes access to target schools and communities hard. For example, some roads are impassable, causing delays in the implementation of certain interventions,” added Masanso.

ECW assisted with COVID-19 preventative equipment so schools could reopen. Credit: ECW

The MYRP also supported school reopening in the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure the safety of children and teachers.

“We provided handwashing facilities and COVID-19 preventive materials when schools reopened officially on 3 May 2021. The MYRP implementing partners worked closely with the Ministry of General Education and Instruction and other stakeholders focused on supporting safe school reopening, community mobilisation and engagement,” says Grazia Paoleri, the MYRP Secretariat Coordinator.

“We did this to ensure that both children previously out-of-school prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 and closure of schools and those who were in-school before COVID-19 return to school and learn.”

Paoleri said the funding gap for the MYRP in South Sudan is estimated to be nearly US$190 million by 2022. The Ministry of General Education and Instruction, together with education partners, have developed a funding strategy that guides resource mobilisation efforts for closing this gap to ensure continued access to quality learning opportunities for girls and boys in the country.

• The ECW-supported Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) in South Sudan is managed by a consortium of Save the Children, Finn Church Aid and Norwegian Refugee Council together with 17 implementing partners, including Christian Mission for Development (CMD), AVSI, SPEDP, Nile Hope, Food for the Hungry, SAADO, Oxfam, Plan International, CEF, Windle Trust, CINA, HESS, World Vision, Mercy Corps, UNIDOR, UNKEA, PCO.

 

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Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

By External Source
Nov 10 2021 (IPS-Partners)

A new toolkit launched in the margins of the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 aims to unlock clean energy investments for small island nations, many of whom rely heavily on imported fossil fuels for power generation.

Small island developing states (SIDS) made a collective commitment in 2019 to achieve 100 percent renewable energy targets by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050. However, they lack sufficient funding to achieve this transition, with private and public funders yet to step up investments in the clean energy sector.

The SIDS Clean Energy Toolkit, developed under a joint project by the Commonwealth Secretariat and Sustainable Energy For All (SEforAll), helps countries translate clean energy transition plans into investable business opportunities.

It supports analysis to help tackle hurdles such as the small size of projects and lack of interest from key international investors, the lack of adequate capital in local financial institutions and restrictive legal conditions for foreign investment. It enables users to carry out cost-benefit analyses and build robust business cases for energy investment in their countries.

Launching the toolkit, Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland said:

“Of the 38 countries classified by the UN as Small Island Developing States, 25 are Commonwealth countries. Despite significant clean energy resource potential, SIDS have a heavy dependence on imported fossil fuels that result in some of the highest electricity costs in the world, along with significant supply chain challenges that put pressure on already-strained economies.

“This toolkit can assist SIDS develop business cases and strategies to facilitate investment in clean energy projects, particularly in the power sector.”

The toolkit is being trialled in Seychelles. Using the toolkit, a country business case has been developed for Seychelles that identifies the scale of investment required to transition to clean energy. It also provides an objective basis for credible strategies to attract and maximise the investment required to achieve its clean energy goals.

Welcoming the opportunity, Minister for Finance, Economic Planning and Trade, Naadir Hassan, said: “I cannot stressed enough that there is an urgent need for us to prepare for the future and unless we invest in developing and exploiting renewable energy sources today, we might face a situation where we become victims of severe energy shortages. The cost of transitioning at that point may be beyond our means. The Call for Action is now.”

The launch event also included a roundtable for investors and financial institutions such as the International Renewable Energy Association (IRENA), the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), who discussed the business case for investing in clean, affordable reliable electricity in Seychelles.

US, UK, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland in violation of international human rights law in “prolonging the pandemic” ahead of vital World Trade Organisation meeting

By External Source
GENEVA, Nov 10 2021 (IPS-Partners)

An international coalition of human rights law groups, public health experts, and civil society organisations is taking legal action against the US, UK, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland, on the grounds that these countries are in violation of international human rights law by failing to intervene on what has been an inequitable and racially discriminatory roll-out of the vaccine and other COVID healthcare technologies.

In an appeal to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the coalition charges that by failing to lift intellectual property barriers on all COVID-19 medical technologies through a TRIPS waiver (or to effectively implement it through technology transfers), the US, UK, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland are in violation of the International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a human rights convention ratified by nearly all countries in the world.

Because the rich countries currently making and hoarding vaccines are majority white, and the formerly colonized countries suffering due to vaccines being withheld are majority Black, indigenous, or other people of colour, the current inequitable vaccine rollout is a textbook example of structural racial discrimination.

The International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination requires that countries take effective measures “to review governmental, national and local policies, and to amend, rescind or nullify any laws or regulations which have the effect of creating or perpetuating racial discrimination wherever it exists.” Countries have an obligation under the convention to “prevent, prohibit and eradicate” all practices of racial discrimination particularly “racial segregation and apartheid.”

Yet the US, UK, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland have opposed or willfully failed to take all available measures to increase global supply of and equitable access to vaccines and other COVID-19 medical technologies, a violation of their obligations under the human rights convention.

Globally, 73% of all COVID-19 vaccine doses have gone to just 10 countries. Rich countries have administered 61 times more doses per capita than poorer countries and delivered only 14% of the 1.8 billion doses promised to poor countries. Just 5.8% of Africans have been vaccinated. The top 10 high-income countries will have hoarded 870 million excess doses of vaccines by the end of 2021. Countries in the Global South stand to lose $2.3 trillion from now until 2025 if they can’t vaccinate 60% of their population by mid-2022.

The appeal asks the CERD Committee to compel the US, UK, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland to “respect, protect and fulfil their human rights obligations,” as well as to take several immediate actions, including:

• Demand that the Respondent States immediately support, implement, and enforce a temporary waiver of the intellectual property barriers on COVID-19 vaccines, tests, and treatments currently imposed by the World Trade Organisation’s Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS), as requested by India and South Africa in October 2020, and
• Mandate technology and knowledge transfers from the relevant pharmaceutical corporations to the many manufacturers around the world standing by to ramp up production of these lifesaving medical technologies.
The CERD meets from November 15 in a weeks-long session coinciding with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting on November 30. The WTO ministerial is a key opportunity to resolve the year-long impasse on the proposal to break the corporate monopoly control of COVID-19 healthcare technologies by granting the TRIPS waiver.

Tian Johnson, Founder & Lead Strategist, African Alliance and member of the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said: “As a consequence of neocolonial economic and social policies in Africa, fragile health systems impact communities’ access to health services in much of the continent. Africa will become known as the continent of COVID-19 – not because of vaccine hesitancy but because of the inequity, greed, and inaction of pharmaceutical companies and political leaders of the North. Having to rely only on the continent’s own capacity and resources will not be enough to save African lives. Nor should it be. African lives matter, just as much as lives in Berlin, Washington, Tel Aviv, Geneva, London, Toronto or Brussels. COVID-19 is a global crisis that requires global action, whose response all countries should be able to share equally.”

Paula Litvachky, from the Center for Legal and Social Studies in Argentina, said: “Latin America has been extremely affected by the pandemic. It concentrates almost 25 percent of all COVID-19 deaths in a continent that is less than 10 percent of the world’s population. Although there is regional industrial capacity, many States have had problems accessing vaccines. Groups such as indigenous peoples, Afro descendants and racialized sectors are harder hit than others, both by the virus and by the dramatic social and economic crises it is provoking.”

Anele Yawa, General Secretary of the Treatment Action Campaign and a member of the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said: “Big Pharma has prioritized excessive profits over protecting people’s health for too long. Often they are aided and abetted by governments in the Global North through their inaction or opposition to a more just system. We have repeatedly seen this occur in many fights for access to affordable medicines, from the fight for HIV medicines in the early 2000s and more recently in our fight to Fix the Patent Laws to ensure more affordable medicines for cancer, TB, mental health and beyond. Yet again now with COVID-19, we are seeing Big Pharma greed being prioritized over people’s lives all over the world. Governments must fulfil their international obligations and help prioritize people over profits by ensuring vaccine equity for all, irrespective of where you were born, poverty, gender or immigration status.”

Joshua Castellino, Executive Director of Minority Rights Group International, said: “COVID-19 has hit people of colour, women, indigenous people, and other minority and discriminated groups harder in terms of infections, deaths, lack of access to healthcare, resultant poverty, and even violence and emotional trauma. The discrimination of the virus is being revisited by vaccine discrimination, as rich nations deliberately withhold and deny these same groups of people equitable access to it.”

Meena Jagannath, coordinator of the Global Network of Movement Lawyers at Movement Law Lab, said: “We have tabled an evidenced-based challenge to the UN, an institution meant to embody the spirit of multilateral cooperation. Our evidence points to specific actions by the named states in perpetuating structural divisions between the global north and the global south that are rooted in historical colonialism, all in the service of profit and the corporate capture of power. This contravenes their legal obligations under international covenants and agreements they’ve ratified. This is a test-of-our-times for the UN system to engage and correct. We are deadly serious in our resolve to seek justice and redress.”

Mandivavarira Mudarikwa, Attorney, Women’s Legal Centre, South Africa, a member of ESCR-Net – International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, said: “It is undeniable that women in their diversity, especially those of colour, have disproportionately been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, including in shouldering the greatest burden of healthcare and unpaid care work. The inequitable availability of access to health care, personal protective equipment and the distribution of vaccines, and other lifesaving treatments has laid bare the ongoing discrimination that women face in their daily lives. Critical, transformative action is needed immediately if we are to substantively effect change and bring about just and equal access to the right to health. We therefore support the submission of the CERD urgent action appeal aimed at addressing the gender and racial injustice that persists and hope that others will join in this collective action.”

The petition urges CERD to find that these countries must prioritise actions that will protect people’s lives instead of the corporate-controlled intellectual property of the vaccine. They should be supporting — rather than blocking — a proposal at the WTO to waive these intellectual property monopolies, so that more countries are able to make more and cheaper vaccines and other COVID healthcare technologies.

Germany, the UK, Norway and Switzerland have actively opposed moves to waive intellectual property barriers on all COVID-19 vaccine technologies at the WTO. The US has declared support but only for a narrow waiver on the vaccine alone, while failing to use other mechanisms at its disposal e.g. mandating technology transfers through use of the Defense Production Act.

The petition is also strengthened by a separate legal brief signed by jurists around the world which finds that these “blocking” states are also, by their actions, breaching a number of covenant and treaty obligations under international human rights law. The brief says these countries are violating both the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, along with a number of treaties they have signed as members of the WTO, including their legal obligations of international cooperation. A broad legal coalition is also advancing additional complaints in other forums, including a submission to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to surface the gender discrimination.

The petitioning groups include African Alliance, Center for Economic and Social Rights, Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales, Minority Rights Group, Oxfam International and Treatment Action Campaign. The petition was coordinated by Global Network of Movement Lawyers (of Movement Law Lab) and ESCR-Net, and is supported by SECTION27 and other organizations within the People’s Vaccine Alliance.

Excerpt:

US, UK, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland in violation of international human rights law in “prolonging the pandemic” ahead of vital World Trade Organisation meeting

Forestry loss: Up to 65 per cent of productive land is degraded, while desertification affects 45 per cent of Africa’s land area. Credit: FAO/Luis Tato.
Meanwhile, well over 100 countries (representing over 85% of the world’s forests) have signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, committing to work collectively to halt and reverse forestry loss and land degradation by 2030, while promoting an inclusive rural transformation.

By Tina Nybo Jensen
AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands, Nov 10 2021 (IPS)

With the UN climate change conference – COP26 – continuing this week in Glasgow, it’s obvious that there is consensus among a majority of world leaders and key stakeholders that much more needs to be done, if the ambition of keeping global warming to a 1.5-degree increase is to have any chance of being met. Yet talk, as they say, is cheap. Or, in the words of Greta: too much “blah, blah, blah” and not enough action.

Responding to the global climate crisis demands a global response, with public commitments backed up by resources and collaboration. We cannot have countries or organizations working in silos.

And we cannot de-couple climate considerations from the broader sustainability agenda, as exemplified by the Sustainable Development Goals – and SDG 13 (climate action), in particular.

Widening perspectives to understand all impacts

A catch-phrase doing the rounds on social media lately, coined by Jan Konietzko of Cognizant, is ‘carbon tunnel vision’. A clever play on words, yes, but beyond that it is a highly pertinent observation.

If we achieve net-zero emissions yet overlook human rights, or fail to safeguard biodiversity, what will this mean for the wellbeing of people and planet?

At Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), we provide the global common language for organizations to communicate their impacts. The GRI Standards broadly address a company’s impacts on the economy, environment and people, in a holistic and comprehensive way.

That is why, through GRI’s engagements at COP26 we have focused on how sustainability reporting can inform decision-making that achieves faster action on climate change and related sustainability issues.

At the heart of this is strengthening and highlighting the synergies between the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda. It will only be through concerted and connected action on these commitments, informed by evidence and data, that we can seize the opportunities for an inclusive and sustainable future for all.

Collaboration between public and private sectors

Alongside transnational coordination between governments, we need to further engage the private sector as a key partner in the realization and implementation of the SDGs and the Paris Agreement. Working closely with the UN Global Compact and other international organizations, GRI strives to highlight and increase the importance of corporate sustainability reporting for the SDGs.

Encouragingly, the Climate Confidence Barometer, published in September by WBCSD and FREUDS, highlights that 98% of companies surveyed reported confidence that they will meet net-zero targets by 2050. In addition, 55% are confident that the global business community will do so as well.

However, the transition does not stop at emissions; as identified in a recent report from the Future of Sustainable Data Alliance, there is a ‘ESG data hole’ when it comes to biodiversity and nature. KPMG research from December 2020 also found that less than a quarter of large companies at risk from biodiversity loss disclose on the topic.

In this context, GRI’s plans to launch a new Biodiversity Standard in 2022 are timely and much needed, while October’s UN Biodiversity Conference set the stage for work to resume next year to adopt a post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

Action that delivers tangible results

However, it is encouraging that well over 100 countries (representing over 85% of the world’s forests) have signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, committing to work collectively to halt and reverse forestry loss and land degradation by 2030, while promoting an inclusive rural transformation.

This is a commendable vision – but we need to hold all parties to these commitments.

To secure tangible results – from safeguarding the environment to wider progress on the sustainability agenda – the action needs to start today. It cannot become a carte blanche to maintain ‘business as usual’ until 2030.

Regular and comprehensive reporting on sustainability impacts, with accountability from all organizations with an involvement, is essential to measure progress.

Effective sustainability reporting offers a unique perspective on the role of the private sector, helping countries to work towards the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda. While a multi-faceted approach is needed to reach these goals, we should be no means downplay the significance of reaching net-zero.

It is not a matter of either/or – we need to dramatically cut emissions and secure broader sustainable development in the process.

It’s time for true leadership

There are strong signs that business is already convinced of the urgency of the situation – and is, in fact, pressing governments to do much more. The We Mean Business Coalition call to action urges the G20 to limit average global temperature rise to 1.5°C. It has been signed so far by 778 business leaders – representing US$2.7 trillion in annual revenue. Furthermore, one-in-five companies around the world have set net-zero targets.

Last week, WBCSD launched a manifesto that calls for a new ‘Corporate Determined Contributions’ mechanism to measure the private sector’s role in the global climate recovery. With a core focus on the imperatives to reduce, remove and report GHG emissions, this reflects a growing and welcome trend of responsible companies pressing for greater influence in support of climate action.

As COP26 draws to close, GRI calls on all stakeholders to raise their ambitions, act now on their commitments, and work together to deliver a holistic approach to the challenges of climate change. One that takes account of the environment and society – cutting emissions while also securing sustainable development. Failure on either front will mean tragic consequences for all.

Tina Nybo Jensen is International Policy Manager at Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). She leads on the development, management and implementation of GRI’s Sustainable Development Program, with a special focus on the SDGs and engagement with multilateral organizations.

Prior to joining GRI in 2014, Tina worked for the Danish Red Cross Youth in Jordan and the Westbank, and at the Danish Embassy in Thailand. She holds Master’s Degrees in Development & International Relations (Aalborg University, Denmark), and Political Science with Specialisation in Environmental Governance & International Relations (Vrije University Amsterdam, the Netherlands).

 

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Datong, in China’s Shanxi Province, was an old-fashioned coal mining city. It has been a key city for an environmental clean-up. China is the world’s largest emitter of CO2. Credit: Trevor Page

By Marwa Awad
OTTAWA, Canada, Nov 9 2021 (IPS)

Look up any map showing today’s global humanitarian crises and you’ll find it awash in red alerts more than ever before. Climate emergencies are fast emerging in new areas that have never previously witnessed them, and they are accelerating humanity’s march towards the precipice in regions long battered by conflict, hunger and displacement.

While developed countries are responsible for the lion’s share of CO2 emissions, developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are the ones suffering the most from the devastating effects of these climate-induced emergencies.

The adverse effects of climate change are already at an advanced stage, with many developing countries around the world living in climates 3 degrees higher than normal such as Mali and Burkina Faso. It is no longer enough to focus only on mitigating climate crises through reducing fossil fuels and transforming food systems.

Cracked earth due to drought in India’s north-eastern State of Bihar. Bihar was the epicenter of India’s last major famine in the mid 1960s. Credit: Trevor Page

With only a few days left of the UN COP26 climate talks, world leaders and experts negotiating mitigative measures to cap global warming at 1.5 C or face irreversible disaster would be remiss not to prioritize helping developing countries already devastated by the impact of global warming to quickly adapt to climate change.

“In parallel with mitigation, we need to help countries adapt to the new climactic stresses brought about by global warming,” says Amir Abdulla, Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Programme. “Climate change adaptation is urgently needed in countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America where people face climate extremes.”

Without the ability to adapt, people will have no other choice but to migrate to where they can survive. In 2020, 30 million people were internally displaced due to weather-related events, primarily storms and floods. That is three times as many as conflict, according to the Norwegian Refugee Committee.

“At WFP, we recognize that if we can keep people in their homes and on their land, we help reduce the number of people who become climate migrants and climate refugees. But to do so, we have to enable people not only survive but also thrive on their land,” said Abdulla.

Entire villages in the Fangak region of South Sudan have been submerged due to record floods that have swept across the country for the third consecutive year, displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Credit: Marwa Awad

WFP has had a strong record of working with communities to recover from climactic shocks and stresses that jeopardize their food security. In some of the most arid regions, WFP helps smallholder farmers and communities establish free nurseries to hold back the desert and recover agricultural land.

In central America and the Dry Corridor of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, WFP helped more than 32,000 people adapt to their changing climate by creating livelihoods and income generating activities that are suitable for the drought condition, while also implementing community projects on land restoration the result of which has been the reforestation of more than 1,300 hectares of degraded and marginal land as well as the construction of nearly 3,000 water harvesting systems.

Another pathway towards climate change adaptation is providing climate risk insurance, whether for drought or floods, to smallholder farmers who cannot buy insurance to protect their crops. Since the past couple of years, WFP has protected 1.5 million people in Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe and the Gambia from catastrophic drought events with climate risk insurance, through its African Risk Capacity Replica Initiative. Smallholder farmers received payouts from climate risk insurance, without which they would have been forced to move. These insurance schemes have also benefited vulnerable people coping with the impact of COVID-19.

Conclusion

In a post-COVID-19 world compounded by an increase in climate emergencies, humanitarian needs will always outpace available resources and finances. Meanwhile achieving zero hunger by 2030 has already become a dream out of reach. But those with influence can carve out pathways to a safer, more stable future for all by working with humanitarian organisations and actors in a globally coordinated manner to establish early warning systems that can anticipate risk and map out preventative measures to mitigate climate hazards before they spiral into natural disasters. As for the sake of those living on the frontlines of the climate crisis who have not the luxury of time and cannot wait for developed countries to deliver on their promise of cutting down their CO2 emissions, these vulnerable communities need immediate help to adapt to their already changed and riskier world.

Marwa Awad, a resident of Ottawa, Canada, works for the World Food Programme. She is the co-host of “The WFP PEOPLE Show”.

 

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By Theodore van der Pluijm
THE HAGUE, The Netherlands, Nov 9 2021 (IPS)

Tensions and hostilities persisted until early 2019, when the regime of Omar al-Bashir – to a large extent symbolized by oppressing minority groups in the Darfurs, Blue Nile state and South Kordofan – finally ended. Meanwhile, many inhabitants of the Nuba Mountains and other parts of South Kordofan, had escaped to South Sudan, which had become independent in 2011. There, they found, however, a country with even more interethnic strains and assaults, resulting, in addition to the innumerable internally displaced persons, the flight of 2.3 million citizens to six countries in the region. An area characterized by perpetual political and ethnic tensions which often resulted in border crossings in opposite ways. The present case of refugees from Ethiopia to the Republic of Sudan is an example of this phenomenon in the IGAD-region. (The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is an eight-country trade bloc in Africa that includes governments from the Horn of Africa, the Nile Valley and the African Great Lakes. Its headquaters is in Djibouti City)

The author on the road between Dilling and Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan in February 1999.

Through the ‘Juba Peace Agreement’ of October 2020, internal reconciliation would finally be realized in The Sudan. By this, creating an environment in which sustained rural and agricultural development programs could be implemented without major ideological or inter-ethnic frictions, including in Darfur and in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan.

The Transitional Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok aimed at political and ethnic appeasement in order to foster development initiativeves all over the country. However, the military coup led by general Al-Burhan arrested Hamdok and all other civilian members of this interim government. Once again, many people went into the streets to protest. Once more demonstrators were arrested or killed. In addition, during the past two weeks the pressure from outside has gained momentum. The US and other countries, now even including Saudi Arabia and the UAE have urged Al-Burhan to release all persons and to return to civilian rule with Hamdok as Prime Minister.

The book ‘West of The Nile and Around The Sudd’ – published in May 2021 with 142 pp. containing a large number of pictures taken in the field – is about efforts by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a United Nations specialized agency and financing institution, aimed at designing of and monitoring the implementation of agricultural and rural development projects in the Republic of The Sudan. The country has ample natural resources for achieving food security and adequate income and living standards for the entire population, including the inhabitants of rural areas where there are no armed conflicts.

More specifically, the purpose of this book is to show how local data are collected as indispensable tools for the preparation of new development projects or for the supervision of on-going investment programs. Considering the latter, the book starts with the process of data-gathering during a supervision mission for the World Bank-led Southern Region Agricultural Project (SRAP) in October 1980, about two years after its start. This promising region-wide scheme, however, had to be terminated already in 1984, an effect of the conflict between the central government and forces of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

The way of assembling information during the formulation mission in early 1999 for the design of the South Kordofan Rural Development Project is reflected in parts Three, Four and Five of the book. During meetings in villages and hamlets we were impressed both by the willingness of the local authorities to provide maximum information and the friendliness and openness of the inhabitants – families and individuals – in the way they received us and provided their opinions.

This project started its promising operations at the end of the year 2000. However, also in this case, during its implementation, time and time again, project activities have been affected by armed conflicts between government forces – frequently assisted by militias – and insurgents, historically located in the Nuba Mountains and other zones of South Kordofan. However, different from the SRAP, its implementation could continue. Nevertheless, as part Six in the book explains, time-wise and regionally, project activities had frequently to be halted in order to avoid clashes and combats. Moreover, in the final stages of 2012-2013, project activities had to be stopped, when, despite the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CAP), hostilities in South Kordofan expanded significantly.

(On 19 December 2018, a few weeks before starting this book, I visited the ambassador of the Republic of Sudan in The Netherlands. During an informative, frank and pleasant meeting, I stressed that the time had come for President Omar al-Bashir to change his policies radically. Evidently, I was completely unaware that on the very same day in the historic city of Atbara, massive protests took place. These eventually triggered demonstrations and protests all over the country in which women played a major role. Finally, on 11 April 2019 Al Bashir was arrested. A promising era could commence).

The author of the book is a former United Nations IFAD senior official who was Director of the Near East and North Africa Division., in addition to other responsibilities.

 

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A new analysis of global drug policies looks at how countries’ drug policies and implementation align with the UN principles of human rights, health and development. Credit: Michael Longmire/Unsplash

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Nov 9 2021 (IPS)

A “radically innovative” new analysis of global drug policies has laid bare the full impact repressive drug laws and their implementation have on millions of people worldwide, civil society groups behind its creation have said.

The inaugural Global Drug Policy Index (GDPI) www.globaldrugpolicyindex.net, developed by the Harm Reduction Consortium (HRC) – a collaboration of civil society groups – ranks countries on their drug policies against a series of indicators related to health, development, and human rights.

Groups in the HRC say it is the first tool of its kind to document, measure, and compare countries’ drug policies, and their implementation, across the world.

And the results of the first index have underlined how even the best-ranked countries are falling dramatically short in aligning policies and their implementation with UN principles of human rights, health, and development.

Ann Fordham, Director at the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), which was involved in creating the index, told IPS: “The message is that no country is doing well. They all have huge room for improvement.”

HRC organisations say that for decades, tracking how well – or badly – governments are doing in drug policy has been difficult.

Until now, many governments have measured the ‘success’ of drug policies not against health, development, and human rights outcomes, but instead by prioritising indicators such as the numbers of people imprisoned for drug offences, the volume of drugs seized, or the number of hectares of drug crops eradicated.

The net result, drug law reform groups argue, is a severe lack of accountability when it comes to the repressive approaches to drugs favoured by many governments and which blight the lives of millions of people, invariably among the most vulnerable and marginalised populations.

But they believe the GDPI will change that.

It uses 75 indicators running across five broad dimensions of drug policy: criminal justice, extreme responses, health and harm reduction, access to internationally controlled medicines, and development.

Thirty countries – the HRC plans to expand the project to include more states in future – are given a score in each of these five areas and ranked according to an overall score out of 100.

The scores are decided on not just extant data but, crucially, expert local perspectives on policy implementation.

This, the team behind the index’s methodology says, helped create a more accurate picture of how people were being affected by a given state’s drug policies, and objectively quantifying the effects of their implementation.

Professor David Bewley-Taylor, of Swansea University told IPS: “Our work was a deliberate effort to include affected communities at the heart of the index. It allows lazy assumptions about countries’ drug policies to be challenged and adds nuance to the debate about drug policy.”

His colleague, Dr Matthew Wall, added: “Even with the best data records there can be gaps. Because we were working with civil society, we could get extra data, get an on the ground evaluation of policy implementation.

“Without civil society perspectives, there would have been something missing, especially in measuring equity of implementation in some areas, for instance, access to harm reduction treatment.”

Some of the findings in the index highlighted the dire impact of policy implementation on communities.

It showed that a militarised and law enforcement approach to drug control remains prevalent globally, with lethal force by military or police reported in half of the countries surveyed. Drug law enforcement is also predominantly targeted at non-violent offences, especially people who use drugs.

Meanwhile, to some extent, in all countries, there is a disproportionate impact of drug control on marginalised people based on gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status.

The index also pointed out sometimes large gaps between policy and its implementation, and how some countries are doing well in some areas but poorly in others.

For instance, in ensuring access to controlled medicines, countries like India, Indonesia, Mexico, and Senegal score high on policy but get 0/100 for actual availability for those in need.

It also found that inequality is deeply seated in global drug policies, with the five top-ranking countries scoring three times as much as the lowest-ranking five countries. According to the report, this is partly due to the colonial legacy of the ‘war on drugs’ approach.

While Norway topped the index, even it did not perform well in all areas and gained an overall score of 74/100. The median score across all 30 countries in the index was just 48/100.

Campaigners believe that by framing the ‘success’ of countries’ drug policies in terms of indicators of human rights, health, and development, and especially because it involves data gathered from on the ground experience of implementation, the index can be a powerful tool in trying to persuade governments to change their approach to drugs.

“The Global Drug Policy Index is nothing short of a radical innovation,” said Helen Clark, Chair of the Global Commission on Drug Policy and former Prime Minister of New Zealand.

“Good, accurate data is power, and it can help us end the `war on drugs´ sooner rather than later.”

Writing in the report’s foreword, she added: “For decision-makers wishing to understand the consequences of drug control, as well as for those who seek to hold governments accountable, the index sheds light on critical aspects of drug policies that have been historically neglected, such as the intersection of drug policy and development, or the differentiated impacts of drug law enforcement on ethnic groups, Indigenous peoples, women and the poorest members of society.”

The index’s accompanying report illustrates the effects of drug policies on communities, including real-life stories of people who use drugs, often documenting the stigma, violence, and persecution drug users face because of repressive drug policies and their implementation.

It also has a series of recommendations for governments, including calls for an end to violence, arbitrary detention, extreme sentencing and disproportionate penalties, and the promotion of access to health, medicines, and harm reduction services and a long-term development approach for marginalised communities worldwide.

However, it is unclear to what extent the GDPI would sway policymakers in countries where repressive drugs policies have been the norm for decades and where regimes have repeatedly resisted calls for reform.

Groups campaigning for drug law reform in Belarus, for instance, which has some of the most repressive drug legislation globally and notoriously harsh implementation of it, told IPS the index is unlikely to change the regime’s legislation, nor its hard-line approach to drug use.

Piotr Markielau of Legalize Belarus told IPS: “This index is a great idea, but it has very little chance of influencing drug policy in Belarus or any other non-democratic country.”

But Fordham said even if the index was ignored by policymakers in some states, it does not diminish its worth.

“We appreciate that there are some countries which will remain impervious to our efforts, but we hope that the index will at least ignite conversation about the metrics used to measure drug policies.

“We have to keep banging the drum and shining a light on repressive drug policies and the harm they are doing.”

She added: “Governments don’t like accountability on this, so we expect some pushback on the index. But one thing I am proud of with the index is the incredibly robust methodology that has been used. It is a very considered piece of work, and it will put us on solid ground when we talk to governments.”

 

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