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At an event in the so-called Green Zone, Canadian native leaders and the non-governmental Indigenous Clean Energy launched a global hub of social enterprises to pass on knowledge and advice during the Glasgow climate summit. In the picture, Mihskakwan James Harper (R) of the Cree indigenous community explains a mixed battery energy storage project built by a private firm and an indigenous company in the province of Ontario, Canada. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
GLASGOW, Nov 9 2021 (IPS)

In the community of Bella Bella on Turtle Island in the western Canadian province of British Columbia, the indigenous Heiltsuk people capture heat from the air through devices in 40 percent of their homes, in a plan aimed at sustainable energy sovereignty.

“We use less energy, pay less, and that’s good for our health,” Leona Humchitt, a member of the Heiltsuk community, told IPS during a forum on indigenous micro-grids in the so-called Green Zone of the climate summit being hosted by Glasgow, Scotland since Oct. 31. “The project coincides with our view. We need to have a good relationship with nature.”

For native groups, these initiatives mean moving towards energy sovereignty to avoid dependence on projects that have no connection to local populations, combating energy poverty, paving the transition to cleaner sources and combating the exclusion they suffer in the renewable energies sector due to government policies and corporate decisions.

The modernisation process that began in the first quarter of 2021 lowered electricity rates from 2,880 dollars a year to about 1,200 dollars for each participating household.

In addition, the switch to heat pumps eliminates five tons of pollutant emissions per year and has reduced the community’s annual diesel consumption of 2,000 litres per household, which is usually supplied by a private hydroelectric plant.

Funded by the Canadian government and non-governmental organisations, the “Strategic Fuel Switching” project is part of the Heiltsuk Climate Action plan, which also includes measures such as biofuel and biomass from marine algae and carbon credits from marine ecosystems.

In 2017, more than 250 remote indigenous communities, out of 292 in Canada, relied on their own electricity microgeneration grids, dependent especially on diesel generators.

The venture in the Heiltsuk community, which is part of the three major Canadian native peoples, is included in a portfolio of indigenous transitional energy initiatives that have been incorporated into the non-governmental Indigenous Clean Energy (ICE) social enterprise in Canada.

A global hub for social entrepreneurship was one of the initiatives launched in the Green Zone, an open event held parallel to the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), whose annual session ends Nov. 12.

ICE has a list of 197 projects – 72 in bioenergy, 127 in energy efficiency, and 19 in other alternative sources – with more than one megawatt of installed capacity. These initiatives together represent 1.49 billion dollars in revenue over 10 years.

Mihskakwan James Harper, an indigenous man from the Cree people of Sturgeon Lake in the western Canadian province of Alberta, said it is not only about energy sovereignty, but also about community power to dispose of their own resources.

“We change our self-consumption and the communities benefit themselves from the energy, and the earth get benefits as well. Without us, we are not going to reach the climate goals. We show that indigenous peoples can bring innovations and solutions to the climate crisis,” Harper, who is development manager at the NR Stor energy company, told IPS.

NR Stor Inc. and the Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation in the Canadian province of Ontario are building the Oneida battery storage project – with a capacity of 250 MW and an investment of 400 million dollars – in the south of the province.

The facility, which will prevent some 4.1 million tons of pollutant emissions, the largest of its kind in Canada and one of the largest in the world, will provide clean and stable energy capacity by storing renewable energy off-peak for release when demand rises.

ICE estimates 4.3 billion dollars in investments are needed to underpin this energy efficiency that would create some 73,000 direct and indirect jobs and would cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than five million tons over 10 years.

Electric vehicles are still a pipe dream in many indigenous communities, due to their price and the lack of charging infrastructure. In the picture, an electric car is charged at a station in downtown Glasgow, near COP26. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Slow progress

The increase in clean sources plays a decisive role in achieving one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out in 2015 by the international community in the 2030 Agenda, within the framework of the United Nations.

SDG 7 is aimed at affordable, modern energy for all.

But processes similar to Canada’s ICE are proceeding at a slow pace.

Two projects of the Right Energy Partnership with Indigenous Peoples (REP), launched in 2018 by the non-governmental Indigenous Peoples Major Group for Sustainable Development, are being implemented in El Salvador and Honduras.

In El Salvador, the project is “Access to photovoltaic energy for indigenous peoples”, carried out since 2020 in conjunction with the non-governmental National Salvadoran Indigenous Coordination Council (CCNIS).

It is financed with 150,000 dollars from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme to provide 24 solar power systems to three communities in the town of Guatajiagua, in the eastern department of Morazán.

In Honduras, the Lenca Indigenous Community Council and the Pro Construction Committee are installing a mini-hydroelectric plant to benefit two Lenca indigenous communities in the municipality of San Francisco de Opalaca, in the southwestern department of Intibucá.

The project “Hydroelectric power generation for environmental protection and socioeconomic development in the Lenca communities of Plan de Barrios and El Zapotillo”, launched in 2019, received 150,000 dollars in GEF funding.

Clean alternative sources face community distrust due to human rights violations committed by wind, solar and hydroelectric plant owners in countries such as Colombia, Honduras and Mexico, including land dispossession, contracts harmful to local communities and lack of free consultation and adequate information prior to project design.

Amazonian indigenous people participate in protests by social movements in Glasgow, in which they claimed that their voices were not adequately heard at COP26. CREDIT: Arturo Contreras/Pie de Página

The evolution of energy initiatives has been slow, due to funding barriers and the limitations imposed by the covid-19 pandemic.

“Our main interest is to enable access to affordable renewable energy and for indigenous peoples to participate in the projects,” Eileen Mairena-Cunningham, REP project coordinator, told IPS.

“These processes should be led by indigenous organisations. Of course we are interested in participating in the global networks,” added the Miskita indigenous woman from Nicaragua.

After the always difficult first step, indigenous communities want to accelerate progress towards these goals.

In Bella Bella, Canada, the hope is to progressively replace diesel with biofuel in vehicles and in the boats that are vital to the fishing community.

“We are not going to electrify transportation overnight,” Humchitt said. “But we see an opportunity in biodiesel. We have to go forward on this issue.”

Harper concurred with that vision. “Of course we want EVs, as they become accessible and satisfy our own needs. We want to get rid of diesel. The communities have to lead the process of the local transition,” he said.

Mairena-Cunningham stressed that indigenous peoples attach primary importance to participating in global networks.

“Existing projects leave us with lessons of what can be done in our territory,” said the activist. “There is a need for policies that facilitate indigenous participation and special safeguards for access to the land. Capacity building is also needed.”

Renewable energies can be added to ecological measures that indigenous peoples already use, such as forest protection and biodiversity and water conservation. But their local implementation requires more than just willingness.

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

New research estimates that greenhouse gas emissions from nitrogen fertilizer plants such as this one add considerably to the climate impacts of the heavily promoted agricultural input. Credit: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

By Timothy A. Wise
CAMBRIDGE, Nov 9 2021 (IPS)

As world leaders wrap up the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow, new scientific research shows that there is still a great deal of magical thinking about the contribution of fertilizer to global warming.

Philanthropist Bill Gates fed the retreat from science in his book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster earlier this year. “To me fertilizer is magical,” he confesses, nitrogen fertilizer in particular. Under a photo of a beaming Gates in a Yara fertilizer distribution warehouse in Tanzania, he explains that “to grow crops, you want tons of nitrogen – way more than you would ever find in a natural setting [sic]…. But nitrogen makes climate change much worse.”

That last part, at least, is true, and new research suggests that the climate impacts of excessive use of nitrogen fertilizers is much worse than previously estimated. Researchers estimate that the N-fertilizer supply chain is contributing more than six times the greenhouse gases (GHGs) produced by the entire commercial aviation sector.

Nitrogen: a growing climate problem

By all accounts, food and agriculture are barely on the agenda of the UN climate summit, even though food systems contribute about one-third of GHGs. Direct emissions from food production account for about one-third of that, with the principal source being livestock, mostly methane and manure emissions.

But about 10% of direct emissions from come from synthetic nitrogen fertilizer applied to crops. Only a portion of the applied fertilizer is absorbed by plants. Some is turned into nitrous oxide by soil micro-organisms. Some leaches off the soil or volatilizes into gas when it is applied. The cumulative effect is the release of nitrous oxide, a GHG 265 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Three scientists working with Greenpeace, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and GRAIN have carried out the first comprehensive lifecycle analysis of N fertilizer emissions. They used improved data on direct field emissions and incorporated emissions from the manufacture and transportation of N fertilizers. Manufacturing, which relies heavily on natural gas, accounts for 35% of total N fertilizer GHGs.

The new estimates, which are preliminary as they undergo peer review, are 20% higher than those previously used by the United Nations. Not surprisingly, the largest emitters are the largest agricultural producers: China, India, North America, and Europe. On a per capita basis, though, the largest emitters are the big agricultural exporters: United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe.

Taking Africa in the wrong direction

Africa is still not a large fertilizer user, with application rates low – about 15 kg/ha – but rising rapidly with the recent Green Revolution campaigns. While Gates essentially dismisses the climate impacts from fertilizer as a necessary evil to achieve the greater good of food security, evidence is growing that the Green Revolution approach is failing on its own terms. My research showed that in AGRA’s 13 focus countries, yields were not growing significantly and the number of undernourished people has increased 31%.

The greater good promised by AGRA has not been very good.

According to the new fertilizer research, AGRA is taking Africa in the wrong direction. Globally, the use of nitrogen fertilizer is projected to grow between 50% and 138% by 2050. Africa is projected to see at least a 300% increase in the next 30 years. It will be far greater if Gates has his way.

The climate implications of that development path are worrisome. A 300% increase means 2.7 million tonnes (Mt) more of N fertilizer in Africa. With field emissions estimated at 2.65 tonnes of GHGs per tonne of nitrogen and another 4.35 tonnes from production and transportation, total emissions are more like 7 tonnes of GHGs per tonne of N fertilizer.

By 2050, a 300% increase in Africa’s fertilizer use would mean adding about 19 Mt of GHGs per year more than it emits now. Because GHGs accumulate in the atmosphere and nitrous oxide persists for more than 100 years, Africa will have contributed an additional 284 Mt of GHGs by 2050 if fertilizer use increases 300%. If Gates and AGRA get their way and Africa approaches current global averages of 137 kg/ha of N fertilizer, Africa would contribute 800% more, an additional 50 Mt in 2050, equivalent to the emissions from deforesting half a million hectares of Amazon rainforest (about 1.2 million acres). Cumulative GHGs would be 750 Mt by 2050.

That is an amount nearly equal to the annual emissions of the entire commercial aviation sector.

“Climate-stupid agriculture”

Bill Gates is just plain wrong when he says the only way to grow food is with synthetic fertilizers. Crops need nitrogen and in many areas they can get most or all of what they need from improved agroecological farming. Globally, with improved nutrient management practices there could be a 48% reduction in synthetic fertilizer use with no reduction in cereal yields, according to one article in Nature.

The scientists who authored the new report make three recommendations to reduce GHGs associated with N fertilizer use. All call into question Gates’ Green Revolution model for Africa:

• Select a model of agriculture that does not depend on synthetic fertilizers; intercropping with nitrogen-fixing crops has been shown to increase yields and improve soils.
• Reintegrate livestock into crop farming so more of the nutrients in manure are returned to the land; less than half are now.
• Limit the growth of industrial livestock production and consumption. Three-quarters of N fertilizer worldwide is used to produce livestock feed.

The science is clear: African farmers are right when they call the Green Revolution “climate-stupid agriculture.”

Timothy A. Wise is Senior Advisor at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and a Senior Research Fellow at Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute.

 

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A woman in Madagascar walks for up to 14km a day to find clean water. Credit: UNICEF/Safidy Andrianantenain

By Kumi Naidoo and Richard von Weizsäcker
GLASGOW, Scotland, Nov 9 2021 (IPS)

As the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) is swiftly moving to its conclusion on Friday, climate justice could not be more urgent or timely.

The health of our planet and our very survival are at stake. How can we ensure that this meeting achieves real action that improves people’s lives in rich and poor countries alike?

More than empty political rhetoric, what we need is a new social contract between decision-makers and people, one that achieves genuine mass support for climate action and connects people with their planet.

Leaders need to ensure that their climate action plans will tackle inequality, poverty, injustice, and promote the implementation of human rights above all.

After all, climate change threatens the enjoyment of a range of human rights, including food, health, housing, culture and development. And there is one human right in particular that is at risk from climate change and could have a domino effect on all the others: the human right to clean drinking water.

This is the most basic of all human rights (together with sanitation), and a key one in the fight against climate change.

90 % of climate change is happening through weather related events which have a profound impact on the hydrological cycle – often resulting in too much water or too little water.

All this in a world where two billion people, or 1 in 4, lack access to safe drinking water, nearly half the world’s population (3.6 billion people) don’t have adequate sanitation, and 2.3 billion people can’t wash their hands at home for lack of water or soap.

The most outrageous injustice is that the same people who lack access to water and sanitation are usually the ones most vulnerable to the effects of climate change – and the least responsible for causing it in the first place.

One report estimates that by 2040, almost 600 million children are projected to be living in areas of extremely high water stress. And the odds are against the most vulnerable, as under 1% of the billions pledged to address climate change goes to protect water services for poor communities.

In the end, those left furthest behind end up bearing the brunt of increasing water scarcity and poverty. These marginalized populations – women, children, and those living in extreme poverty – face a vicious and unjust cycle, in which a lack of access to water and sanitation is aggravated by extreme weather events, leading to more expensive, and unaffordable, services.

Connecting the Dots

But where the problem starts may also be where the solution begins. We need a radical approach that guarantees the human right to water by tackling inequalities and putting people’s needs front and center – especially the needs of those whose voices continue to be marginalized and disregarded.

This is both a necessary response, and a step toward ending the climate change crisis, as it offers benefits both for mitigation (stopping climate change) and adaptation (adjusting to the new normal).

The good news is that the solutions are well known and readily available. Well-managed water systems can protect access to reliable water supplies during times of drought. Strong sanitation systems can resist floods.

And protecting water and sanitation services from extreme weather is highly cost-effective – for every $1 spent upgrading flood-resistant infrastructure, $62 is saved in flood restoration costs.

If world leaders were to prioritize universal access to climate resilient water and sanitation infrastructure, it would be a long-term investment, yielding net benefits of US $37–86 billion per year and avoiding up to 6 billion cases of diarrhoea and 12 billion cases of parasitic worms, with significant implications for child health and nutrition over the next twenty makers understand the adaptation needs and mitigation opportunities of water and sanitation systems, as well as the risks that climate change poses to sustainable services.

And, they must align climate and water policies so that access to water is equitable, climate risks are reduced, and there is more money available for adaptation.

After all, ensuring effective climate action and sustainable access to water and sanitation are matters of human rights. This means that we must years.

Just Add Water

As we look to COP26, we need to ensure that climate decision- tackle the root causes of the water crisis globally and ensure prioritization of water for the realization of human rights, over other uses, such as large-scale agriculture and industries, including extractive industries.

To realize these rights, municipalities and villages also must be supported to improve their capacity to manage their water sources sustainably and efficiently.

Without urgent measures to slow climate change and adapt to the damage already done to our planet, there is a real risk that people’s access to water and sanitation will worsen rather than improve. And, without sanitation, we cannot guarantee the right to education; without hygiene, our health is diminished, and without reliable access to water, gender equality can never be achieved.

COP 26 is an opportunity for a reset, not only for the planet, but also for the social contract between governments and people. Eliminating inequalities, including in access to water and sanitation, is a foundational requirement for effective climate action. We hope that decision makers in Glasgow are champions for this vision of a better world.

Kumi Naidoo is a Global Leader for Sanitation and Water for All. He is also former Secretary-General of Amnesty International and former Executive Director of Greenpeace. Richard von Weizsäcker is Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy.

 

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 9 2021 (IPS)

Addressing global warming requires cutting carbon emissions by almost half by 2030! For the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, emissions must fall by 45% below 2010 levels by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5°C, instead of the 2.7°C now expected.

Instead, countries are mainly under pressure to commit to ‘net-zero’ carbon (dioxide, CO2) emissions by 2050 under that deal. Meanwhile, global carbon emissions – now already close to pre-pandemic levels – are rising rapidly despite higher fossil fuel prices.

Anis Chowdhury

Emissions from burning coal and gas are already greater now than in 2019. Global oil use is expected to rise as transport recovers from pandemic restrictions. In short, carbon emissions are far from trending towards net-zero by 2050.

False promise
At the annual climate meetings in Glasgow, carbon pricing is being touted as the main means to cut CO2 and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The European Union President urged, “Put a price on carbon”, while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau advocates a global minimum carbon tax.

Businesses are also rallying behind one-size-fits-all CO2 pricing, claiming it is “effective and fair”. But there is little discussion of how revenues thus raised should be distributed among countries, let alone to support poorer countries’ adaptation and mitigation efforts.

Carbon pricing supposedly penalizes CO2 emitters for economic losses due to global warming. The public bears the costs of global warming, e.g., damage due to rising sea levels, extreme weather events, changing rainfall, droughts or higher health care and other expenses.

But there is little effort at or evidence of compensation to those adversely affected. Therefore, poorer countries are understandably sceptical, especially as rich countries have failed to fulfil their promise of US$100bn yearly climate finance support.

The CO2 price market solution is said to be “the most powerful tool” in the climate policy arsenal. It claims to deter and thus reduce GHG emissions, while incentivizing investment shifts from fossil-fuel burning to cleaner energy generating technologies.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

No silver bullet
Carbon pricing’s actual impact has, in fact, been marginal – only reducing emissions by under 2% yearly. Such impacts remain small as ‘emitters hardly pay’. Most remain undeterred, still relying on energy from fossil fuel combustion. Also, many easily pass on the carbon tax burden to others whose spending is not price sensitive enough.

Only 22% of GHGs produced globally are subject to carbon pricing, averaging only US$3/ton! Hence, such price incentives alone cannot significantly discourage high GHG emissions, or greatly accelerate widespread use of low-carbon technologies.

Powerful fossil-fuel corporate interests have made sure that carbon prices are not high enough to force users to switch energy sources. Thus, existing CO2 pricing policies are “modest and less ambitious” than they could and should be. Meanwhile, several factors have undermined carbon taxation’s ability to speed up ‘decarbonization’.

First, carbon taxes have never actually provided much climate finance. Second, CO2 taxes misrepresent climate change as due to ‘market failure’, not as a fundamental systemic problem. Third, it seeks efficiency, not efficacy! Thus, it does not treat global warming as an urgent threat.

Fourth, market signals from carbon taxation seek to ‘optimize’ the status quo, rather than to transform systems responsible for global warming. Fifth, it offers a deceptively simplistic ‘universal’ solution, rather than a policy approach sensitive to circumstances. Sixth, it ignores political realities, especially differences in key stakeholders’ power and influence.

Unfair to poor
Even if introduced gradually, the flat carbon tax will burden poorer countries more. Worse, carbon pricing is regressive, hurting the poor more. Thus, the burden of CO2 taxes is heavier on average consumers in poor countries than on poor consumers in ‘average’ countries.

A UN survey showed a seemingly fair, uniform global carbon tax would burden – as a share of GDP – developing countries much more than developed countries. Thus, although per capita emissions in poorer countries are far less than in rich ones, a flat CO2 tax burdens developing countries much more.

Also, a standard carbon tax burdens low-income groups more, by raising not only energy costs directly, but also those of all goods and services requiring energy use. With this seemingly fair, one-size-fits-all tax, low income households and countries pay much more relatively.

Analytically, such distributional effects can be avoided by differentiated pricing, e.g., by increasing prices to reflect the amount of energy used. Also, compensatory mechanisms – such as subsidies or cash transfers to low-income groups – can help.

But these are administratively difficult, particularly for poor countries, with limited taxation and social assistance systems. Furthermore, effectively targeting vulnerable populations is hugely problematic in practice.

Mission impossible?
Selective investment and technology promotion policies are much more effective in encouraging clean energy and reducing GHG emissions. Huge investments in solar, hydro and wind energy as well as public transport are required, typically involving high initial costs and low returns. Hence, public investment often has to lead.

But most developing countries lack the fiscal capacity for such large public investment programmes. Large increases in compensatory financing, official development assistance and concessional lending are urgently needed, but have not been forthcoming despite much talk.

Climate finance initiatives generally need to improve incentives for mitigation, while funding much more climate adaptation in developing countries. Potentially, a CO2 tax could yield significantly more resources to cover such international funding requirements, but this requires appropriate redistributive measures which have never been seriously negotiated.

Carbon taxes can help
Even without an ostensibly market-determined CO2 price, taxing GHG emissions would make renewable energy more price competitive. The UN advocated a ‘global green new deal’ in response to the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. It noted a US$50/ton tax would make more renewables commercially competitive, besides mobilizing US$500bn annually for climate finance.

A mid-2021 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff note has proposed an international carbon price floor. This would “jump-start” emissions reductions by requiring G20 governments to enforce minimum carbon prices. Involving the largest emitting countries would be very consequential while bypassing collective action difficulties among the 195 UN Member States.

The scheme could be pragmatically designed to be more equitable, and for all types of GHGs, not just CO2 emissions. But even a global carbon price of US$75/ton would only cut enough emissions to keep global warming below 2°C – not the needed 1.5°C, the Paris Agreement goal!

 

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The high-level segment of the UN General Assembly in late September 2021 was attended by more than 100 world leaders and over a thousand delegates from 193 countries —despite the UN’s pandemic lockdown. But NGOs were banned from the Secretariat building—a 20-month- old ban which still continues. Credit: UN Photo / Mark Garten

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 8 2021 (IPS)

The United Nations has come under heavy fire for continuing a 20-month-long ban on non-governmental organizations (NGOs)– even though the Secretariat is expected to return to near-normal by November 15 after a pandemic lockdown going back to March 2020.

Louis Charbonneau, UN Director of Human Rights Watch, told IPS: “The Secretary-General has repeatedly spoken of the vital importance of civil society to the proper functioning of the UN. Now he needs to prove he means it by re-admitting accredited NGOs – the only category of UN passholders still barred from entering UN headquarters.”

“We know certain countries are overjoyed that critical civil society voices on human rights and humanitarian issues are currently locked out of UN HQ. They probably want the ban to go on forever,” he said.

If the Secretary-General truly considers civil society essential in ensuring the UN is accountable to the people of the world, he should end the ban on NGOs immediately as more than 60 UN member states have called for (at a meeting last week), said Charbonneau.

The staffers who were mostly tele-working from their homes are expected to back in the building next week. While diplomats were never barred from the UN during the lockdown– and while some “essential” staffers were permitted access to the building– all NGOs were banned from the premises. The UN has also refused to renew their passes to enter the headquarters building.

The mounting protests against the continued ban have come from several NGOs, most of whom have been partnering with the UN providing humanitarian assistance in conflict-ridden countries, including Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Ethiopia.

Sherine Tadros, Deputy Director of Advocacy, Amnesty International, told IPS: “It’s wonderful that Secretary-General Guterres often speaks of how much he values civil society, it’s great that he re-iterated recently that we are an integral part of the UN ecosystem”.

“But that only makes it more difficult to understand why he continues to allow a situation where we are banned from entering the UN building in New York. We urge him to address this as a matter of urgency, so that we can do our work protecting human rights,” said Tadros.

During an event marking the 75th anniversary of the UN Charter last year, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said civil society groups were a vital voice at the San Francisco Conference (where the UN was inaugurated). “You have been with us across the decades, in refugee camps, in conference rooms, and in mobilizing communities in streets and town squares across the world.”

“You are with us today as we face the COVID-19 pandemic. You are our allies in upholding human rights and battling racism. You are indispensable partners in forging peace, pushing for climate action, advancing gender equality, delivering life-saving humanitarian aid and controlling the spread of deadly weapons. And the world’s framework for shared progress, the Sustainable Development Goals, is unthinkable without you’, he declared.

In an interview with IPS, James Paul, former Executive Director at the New York-based Global Policy Forum (GPF) said for many years, the UN has placed increasingly onerous restrictions on NGOs, especially with respect to NGO access to the UN headquarters in New York.

Hinting at the UN’s political hypocrisy, he said that in spite of regular statements by the Secretary General that NGOs are “indispensable partners” of the organization, the UN has tightened the rules and steadily restricted the possibility for effective NGO action.

So, it comes as no surprise that the recent relaxation of Covid restrictions on delegations, staff journalists and other favored interlocutors has not been extended to NGOs, said Paul, author of “Of Foxes and Chickens”, a critical analysis of Oligarchy and Global Power in the UN Security Council.

He said the opening of the General Assembly in late September 2021 saw many journalists, large national delegations and a growing staff presence, but the UN kept the door firmly shut to NGOs.

Now, more than a month later, the portcullis is still down and there have been no encouraging statements from UN leaders that might suggest a lifting of the ban any time soon – or any plausible reasons given for this situation, he noted.

“Protests from the leaders of major human rights organizations have been to no avail. Is this, then, the beginning of the end of NGO active presence at the UN?” he asked.

Currently, there are thousands of NGOs worldwide who are either affiliated with the UN’s Department of Global Communications or provided consultative status by the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

The UN says NGOs have been partners of the Department of Global Communications (DGC) since its establishment in 1947. Official relationships between DGC and NGOs date back to 1968.

The Economic and Social Council in its resolution 1297 called on DGC to associate NGOs with effective information programs in place and thus disseminate information about issues on the UN’s agenda and the work of the Organization. Through associated NGOs, DGC seeks to reach people around the world and help them better understand the work and aims of the United Nations.

https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/conference-of-states-parties-to-the-convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities-2/list-of-non-governmental-organization-accredited-to-the-conference-of-states-parties.html

Andreas Bummel, Executive Director, Democracy Without Borders told IPS civil society representatives need to be given access to the UN building and meetings on an equal basis compared to other stakeholders.

“I cannot remember any time when they were barred for so long while others had access. There is a growing suspicion that concerns related to Covid-19 safety are used as a pretext for restricting civic space. For too long, the UN Secretary-General has let this happen. It is overdue for him to intervene,” said Bummel.

Michael Bröning, Executive Director of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) New York, told IPS: “Keeping the UN in New York Covid-free by making it a civil-society-free environment puts a whole new meaning to the notion of diplomatic immunity – and begs the question of protection at what price.”

Paul said some Western media outlets have sought to give the restrictions a false political spin, by claiming that the restrictions are due to the fact that the head of the UN department responsible for NGO accreditation is a Chinese national! This is pure propaganda.

The Western powers – in particular the United States and the United Kingdom – have been quietly pushing for more NGO restrictions and less funding for NGO-supportive UN “focal points” for more than two decades, even while they have been giving lip service to the cause of NGO access, he pointed out.

“This policy has come from dislike of NGO disarmament initiatives, disapproval of NGO social, economic and environmental campaigns, fury at NGO opposition to the Iraq conflict, and much more.”

As early as 1999, he said, the Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary General issued draconian guidelines excluding NGOs from open access to the all-important second floor of the headquarters complex. More restrictions were to follow, often pushed by US police and security services as a response to “terrorist threats.”

UN leaders started to talk about the “dangerous wave of NGOs,” even though there was no measurable increase in NGO numbers, said Paul.

“The UN membership more generally has not stood up for NGOs against the pressure of the big powers. These smaller states are today less supportive or even less tolerant of NGOs than they used to be, seeing NGOs as a source of embarrassment or annoying opposition on one topic or another.”

At a time of increasingly right-wing governments, getting rid of opponents is a natural step for the new breed of diplomats. Even among friendlier governments, few are ready to use political capital to defend the creative and essential democratic role of these organizations, Paul added.

Meanwhile, he argued, they have applauded the UN’s open door for business representatives, foundation bigwigs and other smooth-talking proponents of the international status quo, especially those with cash to spread around.

“An argument can be made that the exclusion of NGOs has gone so far and become so blatant that it has become a violation by the UN of its own Charter, which in Article 71 calls for the Economic and Social Council to establish “suitable arrangements for consultation” with NGOs.”

The UN leadership now says its “electronic platforms” are suitable, at least for the foreseeable future. But if this is so, why are others able to come and go while even the most respected NGO representatives are turned away?

“This may be the time to bring the UN to legal accountability. Could a case be brought in an appropriate legal body (perhaps the World Court) to test the matter?” asked Paul.

Meanwhile, Dr Agnes Callamard, Secretary-General of Amnesty International and Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, wrote a strong letter of protest to Guterres last week.

Responding to the letter, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, UN’s Chef de Cabinet, said: “I wish to assure you of the utmost importance we attach to civil society engagement in the work of the United Nations at all levels and its active participation throughout the year, including during high-level events”.

“Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been balancing the safety and security of personnel, representatives of Member States and other stakeholders with the need to ensure that the work of the Organization continues. In March 2020, the premises in New York were closed and the majority of our personnel worked remotely to ensure continuity of critical functions, including inter-governmental meetings, which had to be conducted virtually.”

The letter also says: “As the situation in New York has gradually improved, the United Nations has been able to follow a gradual and phased approach to its reopening in order to protect the health and safety of all individuals concerned. Based on medical guidance, we are currently in Phase 2 of our reopening plan with most personnel working remotely for up to four days a week.

This phased approach continues to require limiting the number of persons that can be physically present on the premises and in meetings to ensure compliance with the physical distancing recommendations of our health experts and the guidance issued by the host country authorities.

Preparations are under way to move towards Phase 3, known as our Next Normal phase, which would allow us to increase our overall footprint in the building and to reopen more fully, she said.

 

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Systems thinking provides an opportunity to understand how groundwater systems function and react to anthropogenic influences, thereby enhancing its contribution to water security, according to the authors. Credit: Bigstock.

By External Source
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 8 2021 (IPS)

“The Systems thinking approach could innovatively contribute to a water-secure Southern African Development Community (SADC) region to mitigate the acerbating impacts of climate change”. This view is shared by Engineer James Sauramba, SADC-GMI Executive Director.

Diplomacy & Science News 2019 also indicates that if sustainable water resources management is the ultimate, a transdisciplinary approach which advocates for the conjunctive use of both groundwater and surface water is required.

It is a well-known fact that water is a finite resource. To meet water demands of the ever-growing SADC population, the water community needs to constantly look for innovative approaches to ensure that the region is water and food secure considering the worsening climate change scenarios that are currently immersing the region and the globe at large.

One of the key objectives of the upcoming conference is to enhance the community of practice amongst the groundwater practitioners and allow them to talk about this water resource, that is underground, invisible, and yet indispensable

As the surface water resources dwindle, millions of people turn to groundwater as their primary source of water for agricultural, industrial and domestic use. This alone adds pressure to an already scarce resource.

Eng Sauramba says research indicates that over 70% of the 280 million people living in the SADC region rely on groundwater as their primary source of water. In most cases, especially in the rural areas,

Groundwater is the only resource that saves the population to sustain their livelihoods and from a total halt of their social and economic development. With so much demand placed upon groundwater resources, the holistically management of the resource becomes key.

Eng Sauramba continues to say that to achieve a water resilient SADC region, there is an urgent need to embrace and apply holistic approaches to water resources management, starting from the planning to implementation of the interventions.

One of the key objectives of the upcoming conference is to enhance the community of practice amongst the groundwater practitioners and allow them to talk about this water resource, that is underground, invisible, and yet indispensable. The conference will also allow participants to share the emerging issues and innovations currently used in the conjunctive use of both groundwater and surface water to combat the growing impacts of climate change.

The 4th SADC Groundwater Conference brings to prominence groundwater Systems thinking as one of the key approaches in achieving a water resilient SADC, hence the focus of this year’s theme. The conference is further divided into three sub-themes: (i) Groundwater, an Integral part of the hydrological system, (ii) Communities, institutions, capacity, and local-level governance, and (iii) Deriving benefits from the groundwater system, Innovative groundwater infrastructure interventions.

Topics under these three sub-themes will demonstrate how various components in groundwater management work together holistically to achieve the sustainable development of water resources.

Systems thinking provides an opportunity to understand how groundwater systems function and react to anthropogenic influences, thereby enhancing its contribution to water security.

Applying the systems approach to water management can assist us manage the complexity of the resource and provide a structured way of thinking about the whole system rather than its parts, and about connections rather than just content.

Systems thinking to groundwater resources management comes with a large set of mathematical formalities for addressing systems in a rigorous way and it offers us an innovative toolkit of techniques relevant for studying nexus problems, including systems dynamics, integrated assessment, simulation, and modelling, and many more.

The impact of climate change-induced severe weather events such as droughts and floods, and changes in rainfall patterns are starting to have visible and devastating effects on water and food security. A 2011 study, for instance, revealed that 12 of the 16 SADC Member States are directly and periodically affected by drought events, increasing the pressure on Southern Africa’s already dwindling lakes and rivers.

Such occurrences justify the important need to sustainably manage both groundwater and surface water conjunctively. In most cases we turn to groundwater when we are already in crises. As water custodians in the region, we need to be proactive in our planning, and collaboration from all stakeholders is of paramount importance.

The water resources systems approach today offers a scientific interdisciplinary context for dealing with the complex practical issues of water management and prediction of the water resources future.

Agriculture, the most important economic activity in the SADC region, draws an estimated 20 percent of its water from groundwater – a precious resource that often helps farmers to survive dry seasons, particularly in more arid south-western areas.

Today, more than ever, we need appropriate tools that can assist in dealing with the challenges introduced by the increase in the complexity of water resource problems, consideration of environmental impacts, and the introduction of principles of sustainability.

In the complex environment we find ourselves in, the system thinking approach promises to offer a scientific interdisciplinary context for dealing with complex practical issues of water management and prediction for the future. It also assists decision makers to make better decisions for sustainable water management to sustain livelihoods and socio – economic development.

 

This Opinion piece has been put together by Engineer James Sauramba, SADC-GMI Executive Director and Thokozani Dlamini, SADC-GMI Communications and Knowledge Management Specialist

Two grandmothers sit with their granddaughters, whom they take care of while their mothers work, on a street in the historic centre of Old Havana, Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Nov 8 2021 (IPS)

A possible solution to childcare needs is polygamy. Polygamy, the practice of having more than one spouse at the same time, was not against the laws in many countries in the past. For example, polygamy was made illegal in China in 1950, in France at the end of the 20th century, in the United States near end of the 19th century and became a felony in the United Kingdom at the start of the 17th century.

Today nearly four dozen countries worldwide, representing about one-fifth of the world’s population, permit polygamy, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Tanzania. In addition, some countries, such as France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, recognize polygamous marriages that were done in a country that permits polygamy.

Religions have differing views about marriage and polygamy. For instance, Islam permits a man to have up to four wives, and Hinduism and the Anglican Communion allows polygamy in certain circumstances and the Lutheran Church accepts some polygamists.

Worldwide it is estimated that more than 40 percent of all children below primary-school age – or nearly 350 million – need childcare services but do not have access. Too often, many of those young children spend much of their time in vulnerable and unstimulating environments. Notable exceptions are among wealthy developed countries

Giving people the right to decide on having additional spouses at the same time, rather than sequentially or serial monogamy as is current practice in most countries, has numerous advantages for individuals, families and countries.

Polygamy will not require additional government spending nor create a new entitlement, such as national pension programs, which largely benefit the elderly and retired persons, but not families with young children. Also, it will make childcare needs, such as daycare services, universal pre-primary school education, child tax credits and after school care, unnecessary.

Fiscal conservatives will be pleased to establish polygamy as it avoids establishing new entitlements and additional government expenditures for childcare benefits. Also, it would not contribute to national deficits nor negatively impact a country’s economy.

Also importantly, permitting men and women to have additional spouses, perhaps with a limit of no more than seven spouses, can be expected to substantially increase overall household income. That additional income from several employed spouses will likely move many households above the poverty threshold.

In addition, polygamy would permit one spouse to stay at home to care for children and carry out household responsibilities, with this role possibly rotating among the spouses. The other spouses would then be able to participate in the labor force and pursue their careers and professions. Many married working couples, especially those with demanding schedules, often say, “What we really need is an additional spouse in the house”.

A further potential benefit of polygamy is reducing the need for divorce. Instead of a married couple resorting to a costly and disruptive divorce, they could choose to remain married and simply add additional spouses to their household.

Also, polygamy can be expected to reduce the incidence of marital infidelity. With several spouses in the household, one has an increased number of available sexual partners.

Despite polygamy’s advantages, it’s unlikely that countries will choose to establish the right to polygamy any time soon. The practice is increasingly uncommon, with 2 percent of the global population live in polygamous households and in most countries that proportion is less than 0.5 percent.

In addition, studies report a more significant prevalence of mental-health issues, especially among women, in polygamous relationships compared to monogamous relationships. Polygamy also creates harmful competition among males that contributes to societal instability and insecurity.

Moreover, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has called for polygamy to be abolished as it violates the dignity of women. Some countries that recognize polygamous marriages conducted in another country are taking steps to stop the recognition altogether. Also, several Muslim countries have prohibited polygamy, such as Turkey in 1926 and Tunisia in 1956, largely because it was concluded that a husband could not treat his spouses with equal fairness.

Consequently, it’s evident that other options are needed to address childcare needs. In particular, those needs are seriously limiting the employment of parents, especially single-parent families and low-income mothers, influencing fertility decisions, and negatively impacting household income and national economies.

Of the world’s 2.4 billion children 14 percent – or about 330 million – are living in single-parent households, most often headed by single mothers. Those children and their single parents face social and economic challenges.

The United States has one of the highest levels of single-parent families with children. Approximately 30 percent of America’s families with children less than 18 years old, some 10 million households, are single-parent households. The percentage of U.S. families with children living with a single parent, typically a mother, has tripled since 1965.

Furthermore, childcare needs are adversely impacting the cognitive, educational and health development of children, particularly those in low-income households. Again in the United States, the proposed expanded child tax credits are expected to cut child poverty by about 40 percent, from about 14 to 8 percent.

Worldwide it is estimated that more than 40 percent of all children below primary-school age – or nearly 350 million – need childcare services but do not have access. Too often, many of those young children spend much of their time in vulnerable and unstimulating environments. Notable exceptions are among wealthy developed countries.

OECD countries spend on average 0.7 percent of GDP annually for childcare and pre-primary education, ranging from highs of 1.8 percent in Iceland and 1.6 percent in Sweden to lows of 0.3 percent in the United States and 0.2 percent in Turkey. Among the 33 member nations of OECD, the U.S. ranks 30th in public spending on families and children, which includes childcare support (Figure 1).

 

Source: OECD.

 

In many countries the lack of affordable, available and reliable childcare is keeping many parents, especially mothers, from actively participating in the labor force and reducing household earnings. Parents too often face employment decisions based on childcare needs rather than financial or career considerations. When childcare consumes much of a parent’s time and income, some, typically mothers, decide to leave the labor force.

The lack of childcare is also affecting fertility levels. In China, for example, the lack of access to affordable and convenient childcare options is an important reason why couples aren’t having more children. Of the nearly 50 million Chinese children under 3 years old, approximately 5 percent of them use day care services.

Among most wealthy developed countries, however, the enrolment of 3- to 5-year-old children in early childhood education and childcare services is relatively high, well above 80 percent. Again, a notable exception is the United States where the enrolment in early childhood education and childcare services is 66 percent, well below the OECD average of 87 percent (Figure 2).

 

Source: OECD.

 

It is becoming increasingly evident that meeting childcare needs and the labor force participation of parents, especially mothers, are closely linked to a nation’s overall economic growth. Some maintain that a country cannot be prosperous with half of its workforce sitting on the sidelines due to the lack of affordable childcare and pre-primary education.

The establishment of programs and policies to meet childcare needs and pre-primary education not only contributes to the development and wellbeing of children, their families and communities, it is also a prudent investment contributing to the economic, social and human development of a nation.

 

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

 

The pulverised beach in Kalmunai, located in eastern Sri Lanka, was stripped of most of its standing structures by the ferocity of the waves. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 8 2021 (IPS)

While negotiators from all over the world have been discussing, since 31 October 2021 in Glasgow, every single word, coma and dot in order to reach a final text that is expected to apparently keep everyone happy but really not everybody satisfied, 50% of world’s population will live in coastal areas, exposed to floods, storms and tsunamis by the year 2030.

The alarm bell rang during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), hosted in Glasgow by the United Kingdom, which is scheduled to end on 12 November with a final accord including a set of promises that, hopefully, will be met… unlike the previous unfulfilled ones.

The alert was sounded on 4 November on the occasion of this year’s World Tsunami Awareness Day.

 

What are tsunamis?

Tsunamis are rare events but can be extremely deadly. In the past 100 years, 58 of them have claimed more than 260,000 lives, or an average of 4,600 per disaster - more than any other natural hazard

The word “tsunami” comprises the Japanese words “tsu” (meaning harbour) and “nami” (meaning wave). A tsunami is a series of enormous waves created by an underwater disturbance usually associated with earthquakes occurring below or near the ocean, according to the World Tsunami Day, which adds the following:

Volcanic eruptions, submarine landslides, and coastal rock falls can also generate a tsunami, as can a large asteroid impacting the ocean. They originate from a vertical movement of the sea floor with the consequent displacement of water mass.

Tsunami waves often look like walls of water and can attack the shoreline and be dangerous for hours, with waves coming every 5 to 60 minutes.

The first wave may not be the largest, and often it is the 2nd, 3rd, 4th or even later waves that are the biggest. After one wave inundates, or floods inland, it recedes seaward often as far as a person can see, so the seafloor is exposed.

The next wave then rushes ashore within minutes and carries with it many floating debris that were destroyed by previous waves.

 

What are the causes of tsunamis?

Earthquakes – They can be generated by movements along fault zones associated with plate boundaries.

Most strong earthquakes occur in subduction zones where an ocean plate slides under a continental plate or another younger ocean plate.

All earthquakes do not cause tsunamis. There are four conditions necessary for an earthquake to cause a tsunami:

• The earthquake must occur beneath the ocean or cause material to slide into the ocean.
• The earthquake must be strong, at least magnitude 6.5 on the Richter Scale
• The earthquake must rupture the Earth’s surface and it must occur at shallow depth – less than 70km below the surface of the Earth.
• The earthquake must cause vertical movement of the sea floor (up to several metres).

Landslides – A landslide which occurs along the coast can force large amounts of water into the sea, disturbing the water and generate a tsunami. Underwater landslides can also result in tsunamis when the material loosened by the landslide moves violently, pushing the water in front of it.

Volcanic eruptions – Although relatively infrequent, violent volcanic eruptions also represent impulsive disturbances, which can displace a great volume of water and generate extremely destructive tsunami waves in the immediate source area.

One of the largest and most destructive tsunamis ever recorded was generated in August 26, 1883 after the explosion and collapse of the volcano of Krakatoa, in Indonesia. This explosion generated waves that reached 135 feet (41,15 metres), destroyed coastal towns and villages along the Sunda Strait in both the islands of Java and Sumatra, killing 36,417 people.

Extraterrestrial collisions – Tsunamis caused by extraterrestrial collisions (i.e. asteroids, meteors) are an extremely rare occurrence. Although no meteor/asteroid-induced tsunamis have been recorded in recent history, scientists realize that if these celestial bodies should strike the ocean, a large volume of water would undoubtedly be displaced to cause a tsunami.

Rapid urbanisation and growing tourism in regions prone to tsunamis, are also putting even more people in harm’s way.

 

Rare but deadly

Tsunamis are rare events but can be extremely deadly.

In the past 100 years, 58 of them have claimed more than 260,000 lives, or an average of 4,600 per disaster – more than any other natural hazard.

The highest number of deaths occurred in the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, which caused an estimated 227,000 fatalities across 14 countries. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand were the hardest hit.

Just three weeks after the disaster, the international community came together in Kobe, Japan, and adopted the 10-year Hyogo Framework for Action, the first comprehensive global agreement on disaster risk reduction.

They also created the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System, which uses seismographic and sea-level monitoring stations to send alerts to national tsunami information centres.

In his message marking this year’s World Tsunami Day, the UN Secretary-General called on all countries, international bodies, and civil society, to increase understanding of the deadly threat, and share innovative approaches to reduce risks.

“We can build on progress achieved – ranging from better outreach to tsunami-exposed communities around the world, to the inclusion of a Tsunami Programme in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development”, António Guterres said. However, he cautioned that the risks “remain immense.”

“Rising sea levels caused by the climate emergency will further exacerbate the destructive power of tsunamis.”

The 2021 World Tsunami Awareness Day was meant to promote the “Sendai Seven Campaign,” specifically the target that looks to enhance international cooperation to developing countries, those who are most at risk.

All this sounds fine. But: are all half of the world population who will be exposed to such deadly threats in just eight years from now, are they aware of the arduous wording exercise among negotiators in Glasgow to formulate a ‘politically correct’ declaration?

A demonstration, against Myanmar's military coup, outside the White House in Washington, DC. Credit: Unsplash/Gayatri Malhotra

By Jan Servaes
BRUSSELS, Nov 8 2021 (IPS)

Before the February 1 coup, China was among the top international partners of the now-in-opposition National League for Democracy (NLD). From 2015 to early 2020, when China closed its borders due to COVID-19, NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi made five trips to China and met the Chinese President Xi Jinping five times.

During one such visit, Xi announced that he would work with the NLD leadership to “jointly create a China-Myanmar community with a shared destiny”. President Xi Jinping himself visited Myanmar in January 2020.

This visit was the first state visit to Myanmar by a Chinese president after a 20-year hiatus, demonstrating the high level of bilateral ties. Xi stated that China “fully supports Myanmar in a development model that meets national conditions”.

Just days after the November 2020 elections, Xi sent a congratulatory message to Aung San Suu Kyi. In the statement, Xi, in his capacity as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), pledged that China would work with San Suu Kyi, particularly in promoting inter-party and inter-government relations.

When tensions between the NLD and Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, escalated in late 2020 and rumors of a coup d’état rose, diplomatic discussions took place behind the scenes. For example, on 12 January 2021, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with army chief Min Aung Hlaing in Nay Pyi Taw.

Wang Yi said: “China will continue to support Myanmar in protecting its sovereignty, national dignity and legitimate rights and interests, support the country in pursuing a development path appropriate to its own national circumstances and Myanmar’s military in playing an appropriate role in and making a positive contribution to the process of transformation and development of the country.”

Min Aung Hlaing replied: “Myanmar is very pleased to witness the increasing international status and influence of China, will remain committed to deepening Myanmar-China friendship and strengthening of all-round cooperation with China, and will continue to support China’s position on issues related to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang.”

After the coup, China declined to condemn the coup, while also rejecting any involvement in the coup. It urged all parties in Myanmar to “resolve their differences”.

The UN Country Team in Myanmar remains “deeply concerned over the humanitarian impact” of the country’s ongoing crises stemming largely from the military coup in February, the UN Spokesperson said on October 21. Credit: World Bank/Markus Kostner

However, China immediately reversed contacts with the NLD. A series of letters from the NLD party and the parallel opposition National Unity Government (NUG) went unanswered for months. Only in July, after a congratulatory letter from the NLD to the CPC on the occasion of its 100th anniversary, Beijing finally broke the silence.

However, this did little to change China’s stance with the junta. On the contrary, in the weeks that followed, China expanded working-level ties with the junta’s State Administrative Council (SAC) and invited them to participate in important bilateral and multilateral meetings.

China’s Janus Face

The Chinese government states that “the friendship between China and Myanmar is open to all people in Myanmar”, and claims to maintain strong relations with the NLD. But looking closely at the actions of Chinese stakeholders over the past few months it reveals a rather ambiguous image: a Janus face.

As Chatham House’s Gareth Price puts it, “China may feel that regardless of the outcome, it will remain Myanmar’s most important partner. But that sentiment may be a misjudgment because if the military is forced to withdraw, it could result in a more pronounced anti-China tilt, threatening its strategic interests.”

This begs the fundamental question: What are China’s true intentions regarding the NLD? Jason Tower, Burma country director at the US Institute of Peace (USIP), tries to answer this question in a well-documented article.

Also, the policy letter from Chatham House, — “Who decides China’s foreign policy?” –, challenges conventional wisdom that China functions as a unitary player in its foreign policy-making process. In reality, Beijing’s approach to external issues is the result of intense negotiations between sub-national authorities with a wide range of objectives.

The number of central government agencies, provincial authorities and large state-owned enterprises with influence over the country’s foreign policy has increased as China’s international relations have become more complex.

Economic cooperation

Following China’s decision in early August to work more closely with the junta’s SAC, local and national Chinese officials quickly pushed ahead with initiatives that deepened economic ties. Everything is part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Myanmar.

The center of this activity was Lincang City, in China’s Yunnan province, across the border of Myanmar’s Kokang Special Autonomous Zone (SAZ) and home to a huge cross-border industrial zone.

Chinese government documents show that the zone had generated more than $31 billion in investments by the end of 2020. The main selling point for the mainly Chinese investors is the access it provides to the Indian Ocean through the port of Yangon and the planned Kyauk Phyu Deep Sea Port Project in southern Rakhine state.

In late August, Lincang signed an agreement with the junta’s commercial authorities to open the trade route to Yangon, the China-Myanmar New Corridor. It links a new 201-kilometer rail line that starts at Lincang and connects to China’s national rail system with a highway that goes to Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, and its port.

In September, neighboring Guangxi province followed Lincang’s lead and struck new business deals with the junta through a separate China-ASEAN Expo. The Expo hosted an exhibition of a major China-backed industrial zone in Mandalay and saw the signing of key deals on e-commerce between Chinese companies and junta-affiliated Myanmar companies.

Mutual political support

According to some international observers, China was initially reluctant to fully embrace the junta. Therefore, China made a deal with the United States not to offer Myanmar’s seat at the United Nations (for the time being) to the delegate elected by the generals. Should this be understood as a Chinese concession to the NLD? Not when the representation agreement is read in full; because, after all, it leaves the current representative, an outspoken pro-NLD supporter, effectively muzzled, notes the South China Morning Post.

Other key political developments reinforce the perception that the emerging alliance between China and the SAC goes beyond the economy.

First, just two days after announcing the UN deal between China and the US, China’s foreign ministry stressed the role Myanmar had accepted in August as coordinator for the China-ASEAN relationship.

The statement, which made no mention of the political crisis, also emphasized China’s desire to proceed with the implementation of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, clearly reassuring its southern neighbor following the deal with the US at the United Nations.

Second, in early September, the SAC Ministry of Health expressed its support for China in the controversy over the origin of COVID-19. Beijing gave the announcement prominent coverage on state CCTV.

Third, when the UN Human Rights Council met in Geneva in mid-September, Myanmar was one of 40 countries to sign a declaration submitted by China condemning foreign interference justified by “human rights or democracy.” This is especially significant as China has argued since the coup that “Western forces” are behind much of the violence, and has repeatedly expressed the need to “prevent foreign interference in Myanmar.”

As a side note on this last point, it should be said that ‘human rights and democracy’ are under pressure as universal values in many Asian countries. Leaving aside the question of how many ASEAN countries are ‘democratic’, the West, and especially the US, often gets a lot of bang for the buck with references to its own ‘past’.

The reality of party-to-party engagement

The resumption of ties between the CPC and the NLD followed a letter sent by the NLD commemorating the 100th anniversary of the CPC. Subsequently, the CPC invited the NLD’s liaison officer for relations with China, to participate via video link in a seminar for South and Southeast Asian political parties ahead of the China-ASEAN Expo.

While the military’s Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) was also invited, only the NLD was featured in the video of the event broadcast by Chinese state media. While China is once again more lenient on the NLD, there is no indication of Chinese warmth to the parallel NLD-dominated NUG.

On the contrary, Chinese commentators have argued since the founding of the NUG that Aung San Suu Kyi and the other detained NLD leaders may disagree with the path taken, and question the legitimacy of the NUG on this basis.

The CPC has also warned NLD leaders to avoid revolutionary or destabilizing activities. Instead, it has encouraged the NLD to distance itself from the NUG, especially its September 7 Declaration.

Meanwhile, Chinese state media are repeating the junta’s propaganda about the coup, rejecting all of the NUG’s proposals. For example, a crucial step of the NUG was the annulment of the 2008 constitution, which allowed the military to retain significant powers. Many ethnic armed organizations and civil society figures fully support this NUG position.

However, China’s official position calls for an end to the post-coup violence through a political solution based on that constitution.

Is China playing with fire?

A closer look at China’s position that “the friendship between China and Myanmar is open to all the people of Myanmar” provides additional clues to Beijing’s calculations against the NLD.
Beijing remains concerned about the risks to its strategic investments in Myanmar from growing anti-China sentiment.

Since March, Chinese projects have been targeted by protesters and have caused tens of millions of dollars in damage.

Keeping lines open with the NLD could facilitate China’s relationship with the people of Myanmar, who largely continue to support the party. China is therefore warning the Tatmadaw to refrain from banning the NLD, which would cause a popular reaction and further destabilization.

But China is playing a complicated game. Maneuvering in such a way as to provide the NLD with a layer of legitimacy while ignoring the wider NUG movement by China carries risks. Ethnic armed groups, civil society and political parties collaborating with the NUG were already suspicious of the previous NLD government’s compromises with the military. A shattering of their unity could blow up any successful political settlement.

In sum

Interpreting China’s delicate dance with Myanmar’s dictators is complicated at best. China continues to maintain contacts with both the NLD and the junta. But where the NLD connection does not provide material support, Beijing has since August engaged in economic, diplomatic and humanitarian activities that strengthen and directly benefit ties with the military junta.

The Chatham House policy document and Richard McGregor’s “The Party” seem to confirm this. Far from being a well-orchestrated unit, the formulation and implementation of Chinese foreign policy in Beijing’s power corridors is prone to clashes between central government agencies, provincial-level governments, and large state-owned enterprises, each working for their own greater authority and budgetary power.

“Consensus-seeking remains one of the most common forms of decision-making in the Chinese political system. As China has become a major player on the global stage, foreign policy decision-making now requires more time and expertise than has been necessary in the past… Despite President Xi’s rock-solid approach to party control, the foreign policy decision-making process of China continues to be fluid in nature, opaque in execution and erratic in coordination.”

If China is seriously concerned about its long-term interests in Myanmar, it must radically rethink its approach. The declared policy of friendship between China and Myanmar could be a starting point, but it must recognize that the military is effectively waging a war with its people.

There is no way for China to maintain this friendship with the general public while showering the junta with recognition, aid and new business deals. China must also realize that these deals could ultimately fail if the junta proves incapable of governing the country.

Jan Servaes is editor of the 2020 Handbook on Communication for Development and Social Change https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-981-10-7035-8

 

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Accelerate climate finance for nature-based solutions in step with the pace of climate change, land degradation and biodiversity loss, experts. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
Glasgow, Nov 5 2021 (IPS)

Climate change experts and leaders from the Commonwealth member states rallied behind calls to accelerate climate finance for nature-based solutions to arrest the pace of climate change, land degradation, and biodiversity loss.

Featuring prominently at the global COP26 climate talks during a high-level event hosted by the Commonwealth Secretariat, in conjunction with the government of Zambia and Namibia, speakers emphasised at the heart of the nature-based solutions approach is human survival and well-being.

Titled ‘Accelerating Climate Finance for Nature-based Solutions-Climate, Land and Biodiversity Targets’, participants heard that nature-based solutions play an essential role in stopping and reversing the unprecedented loss of ecosystems while building resilience against climate change.

Patricia Scotland, the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, lauded nature-based solutions as an effective and immediate remedy to pressing societal and development challenges.

“Many societal changes and challenges are now presenting to us, and we are currently facing them boldly and bravely. They touch on human health, climate change, biodiversity loss, food and water security, and environmental degradation not just on our land but in our ocean,” Scotland said.

“They are all tied to state and functioning of the natural environment. So multi-impact scenarios, like those that the world has experienced over the last two years, have unfortunately shown us what happens when this in-extricable link is broken.”

The high-level panel included representatives from the Governments of Zambia, Namibia, Seychelles and Australia. It was followed by a second-panel discussion with partner organisations, including the Green Climate Fund, World Wide Fund for Nature, the Development Bank of Rwanda and the Department of Climate Change of Mauritius.

Nature-based solutions, panellists said, involve actions that protect, sustainably manage, and restore all ecosystems, including oceans and forests. In this regard, sustainable land management, for instance, is prioritised to tackle land degradation and promote climate-resilient land use.

Within this context, discussions centred on identifying gaps, challenges, and solutions for advancing sustainable financing mechanisms around nature-based solutions for climate action.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland in The Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian. Scotland expressed concerns about the impact of climate change on exacerbating superstorms, like this 2019 event which took a massive human toll. Credit: Commonwealth

Australia was the first country to contribute to the Commonwealth’s Climate Finance Access Hub. In a statement, Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, reiterated the country’s unwavering commitment to advancing nature-based solutions.

Morrison said that Australians understood the need to act against climate change and get to net-zero by 2050, and the country had a plan to do it, and nature-based solutions were an essential part of this plan.

He stressed the significant benefits of adopting nature-based solutions such as reaching net-zero within a set timeline, boosting agricultural productivity, protecting biodiversity, and supporting communities and job opportunities.

Pohamba Penomwenyo Shifeta, Namibia’s Minister of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, said Namibia was not far behind because the Southern Africa nation was implementing an interconnected approach to land management, climate change and biodiversity conservation.

“Namibia has so far accumulated significant knowledge and experience from ongoing projects and initiatives that can be scaled up to build resilience at the community level and ecosystems,” he said.

Scotland said the time to act was now – especially in light of the recent Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 1 contribution to the sixth assessment report, which “provides further irrefutable evidence of the immense threat confronting us all.”

She also spoke of the 2021 Emissions Gap report “released just last week and is yet another thundering reminder of the need to act urgently to curb emissions.”

In this regard, the high-level panel emphasised the urgent need to deploy an array of sustainable solutions to benefit people and the planet.

One approach, Scotland said, is through nature-based solutions, which offer a cost-effective way to simultaneously tackle the interlinked climate, biodiversity, and land degradation crisis.

Scotland said that is especially critical in the COVID-19 pandemic as the world strives to adopt blue and green recovery strategies.

Speakers called for coordinated and urgent action to boost biodiversity conservation, reduce land degradation, and enhance land-based climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts through sustainable development.

Participants heard that climate change amplifies biodiversity loss and land degradation. Despite nature-based solutions gaining visibility and traction across Commonwealth countries, there is still not enough up-take and, specifically, not enough financing to quiet nature’s wrath.

According to experts in a recent UN report titled ‘State of Finance for Nature’, $133 billion per year is directed towards nature-based solutions, representing 86 percent public financing and 14 per cent private sector finance.

This falls significantly short of the annual investment required to meet cross-cutting targets under the three Rio Conventions targets on biodiversity, climate change, and desertification.

To meet these targets, estimates show that up to $8.1 trillion worth of investment in nature-based solutions was required, representing $536 billion worth of funding every year.

The UN experts say reaching an annual funding target of $536 billion translates to tripling investments by 2030 and quadrupling by 2050.

Climate financing experts this is possible and that these estimates are cost-effective. Benefits include nations being able to meet human needs such as food and water security and accelerate long-term social and economic development.

For instance, nature-based solutions can positively contribute 37 per cent of the mitigation effort required up to 2030 to limit temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius. This is mainly within the agriculture, forestry, and land-use sectors as per 2019 estimates by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

Nevertheless, there are critical steps in the right direction. In addition to Australia, the UK and current Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting Chair-in-Office has committed to spending at least £3 billion worth of its international climate finance on nature-based solutions.

Under the Commonwealth Finance Access Hub, the Commonwealth Secretariat has already supported its member states to mobilise more than $44 million of climate financing, including for nature-based financing. More than $762 million worth of projects are in the pipeline.

Scotland said that there would be significant progress if every single member state who would wish to have a climate finance advisor were able to.

When curtains fall on COP26 Summit, experts say that protecting communities and natural habitats through concerted efforts towards the protection and restoration of ecosystems will be one of the critical goals.

 

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Female Genital Mutilation is a ‘violent act’ that, among other dramatic consequences, causes infection, disease, childbirth complications and death. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 5 2021 (IPS)

While male circumcision is spread mainly among Muslim and other religious communities, and it is apparently accepted by some medical spheres, more than 200 million girls have already fallen prey to a dangerous, abhorrent practice, which is carried out in the name of social and religious traditions: Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

Such a human rights violation is mostly carried out on young girls between infancy and age 15, is one stark evidence of gender inequality. Nevertheless it is not legally typified as a “crime” nor is it a relevant focus of wealthy societies’ feminist movements.

Although primarily concentrated in some 30 countries in Africa and the Middle East, FGM is a universal problem and is also practiced in some States in Asia and Latin America. Moreover, FGM continues to persist amongst immigrant populations living in Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand

Furthermore, it is far from being stopped—in fact some 70 million more girls are right now at risk of being mutilated by the year 2030.

 

What is all about

“Female Genital Mutilation is a ‘violent act’ that, among other dramatic consequences, causes infection, disease, childbirth complications and death,” said on this silenced practice the executive directors of the United Nations Population Fund UNFPA and UN Children’s Fund UNICEF in a joint statement.

In order to denounce this violation, it should be more than enough to report some of the key facts and conclusions that world health and human rights experts have compiled for the United Nations Organisation.

 

Frightening facts

These following ones are just some of the key facts presented by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the occasion of this year’s International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.

— Female genital mutilation involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.

— The practice has no health benefits for girls and women. And it is a violation of their human rights.

— FGM can cause severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later cysts, infections, as well as complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths.

— More than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where FGM is concentrated.

 

Deep-rooted inequality

According to the UN: “This violent, harmful practice reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women and girls… The practice also violates their rights to sexual and reproductive health, security and physical integrity, their right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and their right to life when the procedure results in death”.

 

No health benefits, only harm

According to thw World Health Organisation, FGM has no health benefits, and it harms girls and women in many ways. It involves removing and damaging healthy and normal female genital tissue, and interferes with the natural functions of girls’ and women’s bodies.

Generally speaking, risks of FGM increase with increasing severity (which here corresponds to the amount of tissue damaged), although all forms of FGM are associated with increased health risk.

Immediate complications can include: severe pain; excessive bleeding (haemorrhage); genital tissue swelling; fever; infections e.g., tetanus; urinary problems; wound healing problems; injury to surrounding genital tissue; shock and… death.

Long-term complications can include: painful urination, urinary tract infections); vaginal problems (discharge, itching, bacterial vaginosis and other infections); menstrual problems (painful menstruations, difficulty in passing menstrual blood, etc.).

And scar tissue and keloid; sexual problems (pain during intercourse, decreased satisfaction, etc.); increased risk of childbirth complications (difficult delivery, excessive bleeding, caesarean section, need to resuscitate the baby, etc.) and newborn deaths; need for later surgeries, and psychological problems (depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, low self-esteem, etc.).

In addition to the fact that most of the girls and women who have been subject to FMG live in numerous African countries, and some in Asia, they are also increasingly found in Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States; primarily immigrants from Africa and Southwestern Asia, according to the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF, UN Population Fund UNFPA and UN Women.

 

Also among migrants and refugees

The world bodies’ experts also report that, although primarily concentrated in some 30 countries in Africa and the Middle East, FGM is a universal problem and is also practiced in some States in Asia and Latin America. Moreover, FGM continues to persist amongst immigrant populations living in Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.

But what is behind the practice of girls genital mutilation?

According to WHO, the reasons why female genital mutilations are performed vary from one region to another as well as over time, and include a mix of sociocultural factors within families and communities.

The most commonly cited reasons are: where FGM is a social convention (social norm), the social pressure to conform to what others do and have been doing, as well as the need to be accepted socially and the fear of being rejected by the community, are strong motivations to perpetuate the practice.

As well, FGM is often considered a necessary part of raising a girl, and a way to prepare her for adulthood and marriage. And it is often motivated by beliefs about what is considered acceptable sexual behaviour.

As importantly: female genital mutilation aims to ensure premarital virginity and marital fidelity. In many communities it is believed to reduce a woman’s libido and therefore believed to help her resist extramarital sexual acts. Where it is believed that being cut increases marriageability, FGM is more likely to be carried out.

What else to say about such an act of cruelty…? Maybe to reiterate that it is in many cases committed in the name of social tradition and religious beliefs whose self-proclaimed male representatives use to justify by saying that mutilating girls is the way to “purify” them… by reducing their sexual appetite and keeping it all for their own!

 

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, is welcomed by teachers and students at a girls’ primary school in Kabul, Afghanistan. Credit: Omid Fazel/ECW

By Alison Kentish
New York, Nov 5 2021 (IPS)

After leading a landmark, first-ever all-women mission to Afghanistan last week, Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, says that schools must reopen for all children and that girls, in particular, must be able to return to secondary school classrooms.

Sherif visited a girls’ school in Kabul and spoke to students, female teachers, and administrators as part of her Afghan mission. She also met with the de facto education authorities at the Ministry of Education to advocate the right of all children to quality education. The ECW mission comes less than a month after ECW launched a US$4 million First Emergency Response grant to provide ‘quality, flexible learning and psychosocial support for children and adolescents caught in the escalating crisis.

“We need to act fast. When you are in the midst of a humanitarian emergency like Afghanistan, where there is no money in circulation, starvation is a very real fact and poverty is extreme,” Sherif told IPS. “Schools need to continue to reopen and education must be sustained. Not only at primary school levels but through secondary schools – and girls have to go back to secondary schools.”

Sherif, a human rights lawyer, worked in Afghanistan in the early 1990s. She was part of a mission to the country after the first Taliban takeover in 1999 and has visited the country periodically over the last 20 years. She spoke to IPS about her observations from this ground-breaking mission to Kabul a few days ago – the first of its kind since the Taliban take-over in August.

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, meets with de facto education authorities in Afghanistan.
Credit: Omid Fazel/ECW

“There are more women on the streets of Kabul today. I even saw women demonstrating for health care. I visited a girls’ primary school whose teachers and administration were all women,” Sherif said.

“The school’s headmaster is a woman, the school’s doctor is a woman, administrators and teachers are women. There are educated, strong women who are working, but they do not get salaries, because there are no salaries for basic services as a result of the funding freeze to Afghanistan.”

The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Union are just a few of the international bodies that have cut off Afghanistan’s access to financing. According to the World Bank, the country relies on grant funding for more than 75 percent of public spending, with expenditure of US$411 billion and government revenue of US$2.5 billion.

With that grant funding frozen, the country is on the brink of economic collapse.

Sherif is appealing for direct funding through UN agencies like ECW and UNICEF, which has the proven mechanisms in place to ensure that funds are used to support teachers and students.

“Teachers are not being paid. UNICEF has a very strong process on the ground. If money were to be given today or tomorrow to pay all teacher salaries, UNICEF has capacities in place to deliver on that funding, even if this would typically have been done through the World Bank or other development actors, but now we are in humanitarian crisis so you cannot use regular development aid approaches,” Sherif told IPS.

“The same goes for all UN agencies like the World Food Programme and UNHCR, the UN Refugees agency. Funding can be channeled through them directly to implement aid programmes. Nothing needs to, nor will go through, the de facto authorities.”

The ECW Director is cautiously optimistic following her meeting with the de facto education authorities, to whom she appealed for a return to secondary school for girls.

UNICEF Deputy Representative Alice Akunha and Chief of Education Jeannette Vogelaar greet the Education Cannot Wait all-women delegation to Afghanistan, led by Director Yasmine Sherif and her colleagues, Michelle May and Anouk Desgroseilliers.
Credit: Omid Fazel/ECW

“Primary schools have opened for girls’ education and for girls’ secondary education, the de facto authorities told us that they are developing a plan. I stressed that the girls have no time to lose and that the benefits of educating girls are crucial to the future of the country,” she said.

The ECW Director has commended international and national civil society organizations that now work with religious scholars as they negotiate the resumption of secondary school education at the grassroots level. “By bringing an Islamic scholar with them, these NGOs have actually managed to build trust. So secondary schools have opened in some provinces, a few in the north and a few in the south. It is important to stand firm on human rights and girls’ rights, but you must also have the ability to build trust as well,” she said.

ECW is already prepared to swiftly scale up its support and adapt its programming in Afghanistan. New challenges and more children in need of help demand pivoting and quick response. Sherif says ECW was created for crises like these.

“As the UN’s global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, we are agile, quick, and flexible. We use decades of lessons learned across the UN system to respond to crises. Traditional development aid modalities that are not crisis-sensitive are not going to work; not in this situation,” she said.

Sherif says that an estimated $1 billion is urgently required for United Nations agencies and international and local NGOs to meet the pressing education needs across the country.

“It’s about how can we save the Afghan population from a humanitarian catastrophe. How can we ensure that every Afghan girl and boy in the country can go to primary and secondary school? It’s about how we can ensure that teachers receive their salaries, so they are able to continue to teach. It is about providing teaching and learning materials and safe learning environments. It is about ensuring that the rights of adolescent girls to access education are fulfilled. That is why it was important for us to do an all-women mission to Afghanistan and to make clear where we stand on girls’ education.”

Sherif is hoping that the visit can give the world an open window view into life in Afghanistan and provide concrete recommendations for international aid to be immediately scaled up and invested to support quality education for both girls and boys.

“Afghanistan cannot wait. The girls of Afghanistan cannot wait. Education cannot wait.”

 

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In Serbia, EBRD supported privately financed wind farms at Cibuk – the biggest in the Western Balkans region – and Kovačica, helping Serbia reduce its dependence on ageing coal-fired plants running on polluting lignite. Credit: EBRD

By Vanora Bennett
LONDON, Nov 5 2021 (IPS)

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has announced its intention to double the mobilisation of private sector climate financing by 2025.

The way to achieve this target was set out in an Action Plan on Mobilising Private Capital for Climate Finance, unveiled at COP26, the global climate summit. With this plan the EBRD will support the transition to a low carbon economy in its countries of operations.

The EBRD’s plan spans the full range of activities to stimulate investment from green and sustainability-linked bonds through innovative financing mechanisms for industrial decarbonisation to targeted loans to support for the circular economy.

At the heart is a focus on policy activities to develop a regulatory environment that makes low-carbon investments commercially viable.

These activities, from the implementation of renewable energy auctions to the design of low-carbon sector pathways, are intended to trigger sustainable demand for climate-friendly investment and in turn for private capital.

“Globally, there is a significant increase in private capital committed to green finance. The EBRD will help direct that money to its countries of operations. Its ability to do so rests not on a single approach or instrument, but on a broad range of bespoke interventions. Some seek to increase the supply of private capital to EBRD countries of operations,” said EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso.

“However, the key focus of the Bank’s work is to increase the demand for this capital: the supply of bankable investment projects that attract financial flows seeking a return. This requires approaches that respond to the specific situations of markets and clients.”

Together with other multilateral development banks (MDBs), the Bank plays a leading role in helping to decarbonise economies and enable the transition to a more sustainable future, with a focus on involving the private sector in tackling climate change.

A major challenge in emerging economies and developing countries is a shortage of bankable climate projects. Several factors limit the supply of such projects. The most fundamental is the lack of either an implicit or an explicit carbon price. Without a carbon price, many green investments are not commercially viable.

The 2021 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference is key to delivering climate action, with countries making more ambitious climate pledges to move closer to the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C, with the aim of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.

Financiers, including MBDs like the EBRD, are preparing to deliver more support to realise those plans.

The EBRD is supporting these goals not only with investments in green energy, energy efficiency and energy savings. The Bank is also supporting especially exposed countries like Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan to develop roadmaps to low or zero carbon economies and it is addressing the need for a ‘just transition’ with recent investments, for instance in North Macedonia.

The EBRD brings two recent commitments of its own on enhancing its climate action. One is to increase the proportion of its green investments to more than 50 per cent of the total by 2025. The second is by 2023 to align all its operations with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

The EBRD supports the green transition in the 38 economies in Europe, Asia and Africa where it currently invests.

Vanora Bennett is EBRD green spokeswoman

 

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In the face of substantial international offers of funding for indigenous lands and forests at COP26, indigenous peoples are calling for specific schemes for their participation. Shuar leader Katan Kontiak (left) of Ecuador and Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim of Chad took part in a Nov. 2 forum on the indigenous peoples and local communities platform. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
GLASGOW, Nov 4 2021 (IPS)

“For my people, the effects of climate change are a daily reality. The rainy season is shorter and when it rains, there are floods. And we have suffered from drought,” said Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, a member of the Wodaabe or Mbororo pastoral people of Chad.

For the founder of the non-governmental Association of Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad, one pernicious effect is the violence generated, because “when resources are lost, people fight for them – for water, for example,” she told IPS after a forum on the progress made by native groups at the climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.

Around the world, indigenous peoples face the ambiguity of protecting ecosystems, such as forests or coastal zones, while at the same time suffering the onslaught of climate fury unleashed by humanity’s addiction to fossil fuels, like droughts, destructive storms and rising sea levels.

For decades, native peoples have insisted that their traditional knowledge can contribute to the fight against climate change. The emergence of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 reaffirmed the results of treating nature as just another commodity.

Although in the last decade, indigenous representatives have gained a place at environmental summits, such as the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which began on Sunday Oct. 31 in this city in the UK, now they want to be more than just token participants.

“We hope that the summit takes indigenous communities into account. We need funds that go directly to indigenous peoples,” Graciela Coy, an indigenous woman from Ak’Tenamit (our people, in the Q’eqchi’ language), a non-governmental organisation that works in northern Guatemala, told IPS.

Representatives of indigenous organisations have gained a place in every part of the COP. They participate as observers in the official sessions where the agreements are debated, in the parallel summit of social movements and in all the other forums held during the two weeks of the climate conference.

One of the expectations this year among indigenous people is the approval of the three-year working plan of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform that emerged at COP21, which approved the Paris Agreement in 2015.

The proposal must be approved by the Facilitative Working Group, composed of seven indigenous and seven government representatives and endorsed at COP24, held in the Polish city of Katowice in 2018. It must then be ratified by the plenary of the 196 Parties to the COP and is to include capacity building activities for indigenous groups, the mapping of measures for their participation in the UNFCCC and financing.

Between 2019 and 2021, the group conducted 11 activities, with no physical sessions due to the pandemic.

Climate policies are the focus of COP26, which ends Nov. 12, after being postponed for a year as a result of the covid-19 pandemic.

Government delegates at COP26 are addressing carbon market rules, climate finance of at least 100 billion dollars per year, gaps between emission reduction targets and necessary reductions, strategies for carbon neutrality by 2050, adaptation plans and the working programme for the local communities and indigenous peoples platform.

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, an indigenous activist from the Kankana-ey Igorot people of the Philippines, said the inclusion of human rights in the financing of emission reductions and adaptation to the effects of the climate crisis, as well as in the creation of carbon markets, is fundamental.

“Indigenous peoples also suffer from climate solutions, such as renewable energy projects. There must be effective safeguards that allow for the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights” in climate policies, the former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples between 2014 and 2020 told IPS.

This respect has become urgent in areas such as the Amazon, the main jungle in Latin America shared by eight countries and a French territory, whose indigenous inhabitants have suffered the deterioration caused by the inroads made by agribusiness, livestock, soybean, hydrocarbon and mining companies, as well as the construction of dams, railroads, highways and river ports.

For this reason, Tuntiak Katan, a member of the indigenous Shuar people of Ecuador and general coordinator of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC), told IPS that the removal of extractive activities from this ecosystem is a fundamental condition for making progress in protection of the climate.

“Indigenous peoples already protect 950 million hectares of land worldwide. What we are asking for is the protection of 80 percent of the Amazon by 2025. We are the voice of the women, children and elders” who suffer the impacts on the territories, said Katan, vice-coordinator of the non-governmental Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon River Basin (Coica).

The most recent scientific evidence shows that native peoples are the most effective protectors of tropical forests, which is why greater efforts are required for their conservation in the face of growing threats.

Q’eqchí’ indigenous activist Graciela Coy (R) from Guatemala called during the Glasgow climate summit for the promised international funds to go directly to indigenous peoples. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

More than empty promises

In the face of the abundant offers made during the first week of COP26 activities to promote indigenous land tenure and reforestation, indigenous peoples were skeptical and demanded direct participation in these schemes.

Oumarou Ibrahim and Coy agreed on the need to define mechanisms to ensure that the resources provided reach the territories directly.

World leaders “must be our partners. Funding must be tailored to the needs of the people. The question is how the resources are going to reach indigenous peoples directly,” said Oumarou Ibrahim.

In Coy’s opinion, the fight against climate change requires the allocation of funds, which should be transferred “to indigenous peoples, as there is a lot of international aid” that does not always materialise in local communities.

In an acceptance of what native peoples have been demanding for years, the governments of Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States and 17 private funders announced on Nov. 1 the provision of 1.7 billion dollars to help indigenous and local communities preserve tropical forests between 2021 and 2025.

It is estimated that each year only 270 million dollars are allocated to forest care and just 46 million dollars go to the direct guardians of the forest: their ancestral inhabitants.

Direct multilateral funding to aboriginal populations has been a recurring barrier to efforts to protect natural resources.

For example, the Green Climate Fund (GCF), created at COP16 in Cancun in 2010, has financed 121 community livelihood projects and delivered a total of 1.4 billion dollars.

For a total of 190 projects, it has disbursed two billion dollars and another six billion are in the pipeline. In addition, it has committed another 10 billion for projects. It has also registered 113 institutions to receive funds, but none of them are indigenous.

Furthermore, on Nov. 2, more than 105 nations signed up to the “Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use” which sets the target of zero deforestation by 2030.

Indigenous peoples are also demanding to be included in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the voluntary commitments adopted by each country for 2030 and 2050 in order to comply with the Paris Agreement and on which the goal of containing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is based.

“We just need a push,” said Katan. “We are sure of what we do and that is why it is good that they are offering financing. But what needs to be done is to abandon extractivism and get the oil, mining and agribusiness companies out of our territories, and apply a holistic vision, combined with the vision of the indigenous peoples.”

Even if COP26 does not produce the results desired by indigenous peoples, they will continue to care for natural resources and to demand climate justice.

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

COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions meant that many informal sector traders lost their jobs. Not eligible for compensation, some have turned to sex work. Credit: Marko Phiri/IPS

By Marko Phiri
Bulawayo, ZIMBABWE , Nov 4 2021 (IPS)

Thirty-six-year-old Thandiwe Mtshali* watched helplessly as her informal cross-border trading (ICBT) enterprise came to a grinding halt when the Zimbabwean authorities closed the border with South Africa as part of global efforts to stem the spread of the deadly novel coronavirus.

“That was last year, and I had no idea what to do next,” Mtshali told IPS.

Before the lockdown, she made up to four trips each month to Musina and Johannesburg in neighbouring South Africa to buy goods ranging from clothes to electrical appliances for resale in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city.

And by her account, the money was good.

“I could rent a full house in the suburbs, and my long term plans have always been to build my own home,” she said.

After months of being idle in Bulawayo, a colleague tipped her about what appeared to be an easy route out of her money troubles: truckers had not been banned from transporting goods between South Africa and Zimbabwe.

As truckers got stuck at the Beitbridge border post for weeks waiting to get their consignments processed by port authorities, it presented a new venture for informal cross-border traders such as Mtshali: sex work.

Today, Mtshali, who has two young children back in Bulawayo, rents a small shack in the border town where she “entertains” truckers and other men willing to pay for sex.

Commercial sex work is illegal in Zimbabwe, but COVID-19 has turned the sector into a necessity for many women who were made redundant by lockdown measures imposed by the government because of public health concerns.

“I do not want to do this, but it is better than sitting and waiting,” Mtshali said.

“My kids are with my mother, and all they know is that I am working in Beitbridge. As long as I send them money and groceries, they don’t need to know anything else,” she told IPS.

Local residents, however, complain that despite the lockdown restrictions that banned travel across cities, there appeared to be an influx of sex workers to the border town, each seeking to make a living.

“We have always had a problem here with sex workers, young and old competing for clients. But now we see even more after borders closed,” said Dumisani Tlou, a resident and taxi driver.

“Every tenant knows they can rent any available backroom to the women who entertain truckers and other illegal dealers, but no one seems to be doing anything about it,” he told IPS.

While the Zimbabwean authorities have made efforts to provide bailout stipends for informal traders, this has been criticised for being too little to improve the lives of millions on the fringes of official economic activity.

Many more, like Mtshali, missed out on the bailouts because they are not registered with any informal traders’ association.

“There is a need to consider special exemptions that will allow cross-border traders to import goods during the lockdown and border closures,” said Fadzai Nyamande-Pangeti, International Organisation for Migration – Zimbabwe spokesperson.

“It is also important for women cross-border traders to formalise their businesses, to make them less likely to be impacted by shocks caused by the pandemic,” she told IPS.

However, for many here at the border town, sex work comes with challenges.

While borders were closed in line with public health safety measures, this has exposed sex workers to concerns about HIV/Aids.

“These women have no social protection or insurance or any other mitigation measures to cushion them in times of disasters such as the current pandemic,” said Mary Mulenga, a representative of the Southern Africa Cross-border Traders Association (SACBTA).

In a submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Health ahead of the UN General Assembly in October, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (GNSWP), which brings together sex worker-led organisations across ninety-six countries, says, “during the pandemic, there has been a (global) drop in the availability of HIV treatment services due to the prioritisation of treating and stopping the spread of COVID-19.”

“As a result, sex workers living with HIV have experienced even greater challenges in accessing HIV treatments, further endangering their health and ability to work,” the network says in its brief to the UN.

Truckers have for years been identified as an HIV/Aids high-risk group in southern Africa, raising concerns among campaigners, such as the GNSWP, that while resources are being directed toward addressing the spread of COVID-19, both old and new entrants into the sex trade such as Mtshali are being left out.

According to the UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM), informal cross-border trade accounts for up to 40 percent of southern Africa’s intra-trade estimated USD17 billion annually. Still, border closures have upended this due to COVID-19.

Despite these disruptions brought by the novel coronavirus, the once-thriving informal cross-border trade could present more public health concerns: an increase in those living with HIV/Aids.

In recent months, Zimbabwe’s First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa launched countrywide self-sufficiency projects for sex workers. Still, with the industry continuing to take in new entrants such as Mtshali, it could be a race against daunting odds as global health experts see no easy end to COVID-19.

• The Pulitzer Centre supported this story.
• Name changed to protect identity.

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By Zoltán Kálmán
Gödöllő, Hungary, Nov 4 2021 (IPS)

UNSG Antonio Guterres convened the first-ever UN Food Systems Summit which took place on 23-24 September. The Summit preparation had a well-designed structure with remarkable and appreciated leadership of Amina Mohammed, UN DSG. Due to the hard work of the UN Special Envoy, Agnes Kalibata, and her whole Team, the organisation and logistics of the Summit was excellent.

The Summit’s main outcome is the Secretary-General’s Chair Summary and Statement of Action, “calling on the world to keep its promises for a better future through food systems that work for people, planet and prosperity”. This Statement was not negotiated in an inter-governmental process and it is not legally binding. Still, it has a series of powerful messages trying to orient stakeholders in their policy decisions.

In order to involve the broader public and to bring together a diversity of stakeholders, Food Systems Summit Dialogues were proposed. National Dialogues were organized by governments, but also regional and global dialogues were held in order to align with global events on major issues like climate, environment, health, economies and jobs, humanitarian aid and water. The Synthesis Reports analyse the outcomes of 850+ Dialogues, in which 100,000 people from around the world participated.

In spite of its virtual setting, the Summit gathered 37,000 registered delegates and was viewed by more than 50,000 people from 193 countries. 165 Member States delivered statements, 78 of which were delivered by Heads of State or Government, clearly confirming that the Summit was very much timely and relevant. To share an overview of the engagement process and the richness of findings, knowledge generated in the lead up to the Summit, a Food Systems Summit Compendium was posted online.

Considering these impressive figures, the Summit seems to be a huge success. In fact, it had a number of positive outcomes, but the most important achievement is that the Summit took place and generated a lot of insightful discussions at local, national and global level.

Was the Summit a real success? Was it a Breakthrough or a Missed Opportunity? It was undoubtedly a success from the above perspective, but looking at some details below, the picture is more complex and nuanced.

1. The Summit was not sufficiently inclusive, important stakeholders were not around the table, such as organisations representing hundreds of millions of the rural poor, including smallholders, family farmers, indigenous peoples’ groups and many others. The Summit had a “Top-down” start and the whole process remained influenced by powerful groups’ interests.

2. A Scientific Group was created with a number of outstanding professionals to provide inputs and advice to the Summit process by channelling in a wide range of relevant scientific knowledge. It was unfortunate that the composition of the Scientific Group was unbalanced with mainly natural/technological scientists and economists and almost completely missing social scientists.

3. The Summit has not clearly identified and adequately addressed the root causes. For example poverty and inequalities, along with the rights-based approach, have not received sufficient attention during the Summit process.

4. As a matter of fact, corporations control an increasing share of resources and use their power to influence policy decisions. (Although Jeffrey Sachs eloquently said at the Pre-Summit: “…behave, pay your taxes, and follow the rules. That’s what businesses should do.”…). This conflict of interest, and the existing power imbalances in favour of multinationals, are major obstacles to transformation. Still, this has not been addressed at all at the Summit.

5. The most important missing element is the absence of a call for an overall sustainability assessment, based on evidence and neutral science. These assessments, following the principle of True Costs Accounting, could cover all positive and negative externalities of all food systems and quantify them. Results of these assessments should be given due considerations by policy makers while preparing appropriate incentives for sustainable solutions and for repurposing subsidies (currently provided mainly to unsustainable models).

6. As a great achievement, a series of local and national commitments and various coalitions of action have been launched, but the Summit has eventually failed to provide global guidance. Even if a single corporation wished to transform its food systems to become sustainable, it will not put at the risk its competitiveness.

7. In the follow-up FAO, IFAD and WFP should have a prominent role, but food systems transformation is a much broader issue than their areas of competence. The UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) was created exactly for that kind of purpose. It is the foremost inclusive, multistakeholder body, providing possibilities also for UNEP, WHO, ILO along with the private sector, civil society and academia to discuss the way forward and to report to FAO and to ECOSOC. Furthermore, the CFS HLPE is there to provide neutral, science-based analysis, assessments and reporting. Instead of creating new science-policy interface.

All in all, the Summit was a success, but definitely not the desired breakthrough. Rather, this Summit proved to be a Missed Opportunity, due to the lack of global policy guidance and due to ignoring some key issues. It can only be hoped that a more inclusive follow-up will help bring the process back to the right track.

Zoltán Kálmán
Retired Ambassador, Former Permanent Representative of Hungary to FAO, IFAD, WFP. Member of the UNFSS Advisory Committee (2020-2021)

 

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Illegal fishing is not just about stealing livelihood; it is about forcing someone into crime. Coast Guard interdicts lancha crews illegally fishing in US waters. Credit: Creative Commons

By Geetika Chandwani and Purnaka L. de Silva
NEW YORK, Nov 4 2021 (IPS)

“Working together means we widen the number of like-minded actors towards a common good” –Dr. Azza Karam, Secretary-General of Religions for Peace International.

As global leaders and civil society actors participate in COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing is a significant problem that must be tackled.

In this regard, collaboration among the 55 member states of the African Union (AU) is crucial to successfully accomplishing a common goal to combat the problem of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the African continent’s coastal waters – overcoming a raft of complex and politically sensitive issues.

IUU fishing is an unprecedented problem in the time of climate change that decimates the livelihoods of local fishing communities. The AU must demonstrate strong leadership and present a united front for such collaboration to work, so that the establishment of the proposed Combined Exclusive Maritime Zone for Africa (CEMZA) can achieve impactful results and not be just a paper tiger.

African voices and indigenous expertise in producing scientific knowledge and policies have been marginalized since colonial times including vis-à-vis marine fisheries.

Africa continues to be at a disadvantage on account of the historical processes through which individual countries were integrated into the world’s economic and financial system – often driven by former colonizing powers – e.g., France, U.K.

Therefore, the needs and concerns of local African fishing communities were historically unseen and unheard in national and international deliberations over fisheries. The “new” scramble for African resources, brought a new player to the fore, namely the People’s Republic of China – triggering rapid expansion of Chinese investments, trade, development cooperation and loans aimed at exploiting Africa’s resources.

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing predominantly by Chinese, and European trawlers, endanger marine ecosystems, biodiversity, food security, and thus the survival of local African fishing communities. IUU fishing affects those countries that cannot effectively monitor and control their maritime waters and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs).

An increasing number of organizations are exploring AI, data analytics, and blockchain to combat the threat of IUU fishing – as noted by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (2020) in “How Data and Technology Can Help Address Corruption in IUU fishing” – https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/tnrc-blog-how-data-and-technology-can-help-address-corruption-in-iuu-fishing.

The arrangements in place are often abused and thus fall short in fighting the impediment of IUU fishing. It is to tackle these significant problems at the operational level that Africa’s Integrated Maritime Strategy proposes to establish the Combined Exclusive Maritime Zone for Africa (CEMZA) – as noted by Vishal Surbun (February 2021) in “Africa’s combined exclusive maritime zone concept” in Institute for Security Studies, Africa Report 32 – https://issafrica.org/research/africa-report/africas-combined-exclusive-maritime-zone-concept.

CEMZA is a future project that remains on paper only for the time being, which needs to be implemented in full to facilitate economic and security benefits for target African countries.

A consequence of the inability of individual African states to maintain law and order, to varying degrees, opened the door to the possibility of some level of continental federalization in the form of CEMZA or combining other zones falling within the African Maritime Domain (AMD).

West Africa presents coastal countries where the problems are particularly felt. The area has attracted industrial fishing boats from all over the world, particularly from China, while controls have remained entirely inadequate in the last decade.

A series of non-transparent practices often make governmental checks and control difficult. Frequent changes of the shipowner, flag country, registration, low maintenance of databases, and navigation records represent a significant challenge for state authorities and non-governmental organizations (e.g., Sea Shepherd Global, Environmental Justice Foundation) concerned with fishing rights in Africa.

There are irregularities in the Automatic Identification System (AIS) and the non-use or improper use of the satellite-based vessel monitoring system (VMS). On July 22, 2021, the Defense Innovation Unit and Global Fishing Watch, a non-profit that uses satellites to view global fishing activities, announced a new AI challenge to combat IUU fishing to tackle this transnational crime.

Likewise, an international program to track illegal fishing from space has been launched by the Canadian government – as noted by Rosie Frost (January 2021) in “What are illegal ‘dark vessels’ and why are satellites spying on them?” in Euronews – https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/02/25/what-are-illegal-dark-vessels-and-why-are-satellites-spying-on-them. It can use environmental conditions, including the temperature of the water and chlorophyll levels, to work out where the fish will be.

With the fish comes the fishermen and fisherwomen who help narrow down the areas that governmental authorities need to fully concentrate on, thereby helping them locate, identify and interdict illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

Such information must be shared with the central body of the combined EEZ not only to gather pieces of evidence but also to assist local fishing communities in earning their livelihood. The current focus on environmental concerns worldwide has drawn attention to the global crisis in fisheries and aquaculture, and the need to manage these industries in environmentally sustainable ways.

Indigenous communities have become vital partners to international climate, environmental and development missions seeking global sustainability. In many West African countries, fishing continues to be carried out through artisanal means often by poor fisherwomen.

An example is the wooden pirogues mainly in use in West Africa from Mauritania to Senegal, on which a crew composed of less than ten people usually embark and stays at sea for a few days. Canoes, gillnets, and handlines are used widely throughout Africa, while the use of indigenous industrial fishing vessels is still few, numerically.

The activities connected to the fisheries sector, characterized by high labor-intensity and low capital, employs millions of people throughout West Africa. In today’s world many people look to information and communications technology to go about their daily business. Fisherfolk in Africa also need access to technological solutions.

Having a combined EEZ and working with international partners and using technology enables them to maintain indigenous standards. Sustainable developments can be achieved only by working with local communities to create employment opportunities in an environment of trust.

In short, unity is needed for the survival of local fishing communities. Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) in Africa are shared by 33 coastal countries and 600 million people. Illegal fishing amounts to more than US $2 billion in lost profits annually – as noted by Vishal Surbun (February 2021) in “Africa’s combined exclusive maritime zone concept” in Institute for Security Studies, Africa Report 32 – https://issafrica.org/research/africa-report/africas-combined-exclusive-maritime-zone-concept.

On November 10, 2020, a new App was launched called DASE (which means “evidence” in the Fante dialect of Ghana) by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) – as noted by EJF Staff (November 10, 2020) in “New Phone App is Effective Weapon in Ghana’s Fight Against Illegal Fishing” in Environmental Justice Foundation –https://ejfoundation.org/news-media/new-phone-app-is-effective-weapon-in-ghanas-fight-against-illegal-fishing.

Communities in Ghana and Liberia can use this to gather evidence against illegal vessels, mostly industrial trawlers under foreign flags. When a vessel is spotted illegally fishing or damaging canoes, the user takes a photo of the boat through the app with its name/identification number and records the geo-satellite position.

The app uploads the report to a central database where the government can use the evidence to catch and sanction the perpetrators. A similar app must be introduced in Ajami, an Arabic script, in West Africa. Ajami is a form of literacy that remains widespread across West Africa with little or no government support. In East Africa and the Horn of Africa Swahili should be used. The idea is to find a medium to connect with local peoples to combat Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing.

Fishing is not simply a livelihood it is a culture and a way of life. Collaborative management and decision-making can help indigenous people maintain vocational skills and pride in their culture. Organizations are formed to promote peace, values, and well-being of citizens.

Coordinating efforts to restore the economy, manage risks and remove barriers helps reduce costs and create a larger market for local fishing communities. While there are several challenges mentioned in operationalizing the Combined Exclusive Maritime Zone for Africa (CEMZA) in terms of sovereignty and maritime rights, a more significant challenge is the food insecurity and poverty that arises from increased transnational organized crime, and illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing by countries like China.

In addition, there are environmental crimes, marine environmental degradation, disappearing biodiversity, and the dire effects of climate change and global warming. However, establishing CEMZA and using multiple technologies is absolutely, critical in developing and maintaining pan-African collaboration that brings about substantive change and protection for vulnerable local fishing communities. Africa needs CEMZA to be a tiger with teeth and claws.

Geetika Chandwani is finishing her M.A. at the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, New Jersey, where Professor Purnaka L. de Silva lectures in the M.A. program.

 

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Globally around 21% of young women were married before their 18th birthday - 650,000,000 girls and women alive today were married as children. Credit: United Nations.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 3 2021 (IPS)

Imagine your child, your daughter, being genitally mutilated and, further on, sold or even handed over for free to an older man who will force her to become a child mother, when her body is still far from being formed and thus able to bear with a so early pregnancy.

Well, it has been happening and it still happens right now. The victims are as many as a conservative 800 million child-girls.

And this is happening while rich societies are holding intensive debates about the right of adolescents and youngsters to enjoy their freedom of gathering in thousands and get drunk in massive parties in streets and squares without observing any of the most basic measures to prevent COVID19 contagion.

Across the globe, levels of child marriage are highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, where around 4 in 10 young women were married before age 18, followed by South Asia, where 3 in 10 were married before age 18.

Lower levels of child marriage are found in Latin America and Caribbean (25%), the Middle East and North Africa (17%), and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (11%)

Such a brutal violence is widely practiced both in poor Muslim majority societies, and also among Muslim minorities particularly in Africa and several Asian states.

And it is carried out in the name of religious or cultural traditions.

These millions of girls under the age of 18 who fall victim to these harmful practices come mostly from impoverished families, which find themselves forced to sell their children and often also to ‘give’ them for free in the hope of keeping them alive in exchange for shelter and food.

UNICEF reports that many factors interact to place a girl at risk of marriage, including poverty, the perception that marriage will provide ‘protection’, family honour, social norms, customary or religious laws that condone the practice, and an inadequate legislative framework.

That said, “child marriage often compromises a girl’s development by resulting in early pregnancy and social isolation, interrupting her schooling, limiting her opportunities for career and vocational advancement and placing her at increased risk of domestic violence. Child marriage also affects boys, but to a lesser degree than girls.”

The case of the so-called co-habitation –when a couple lives ‘in union’, as if married– also raises the same human rights concerns as marriage, UNICEF explains, adding that when a girl lives with a man and takes on the role of his caregiver, the assumption is often that she has become an adult, even if she has not yet reached the age of 18.

Additional concerns due to the informality of the relationship –in terms of inheritance, citizenship and social recognition, for example– may make girls in informal unions vulnerable in different ways than girls who are married.

 

Stark inequality

The two world bodies also warn that child marriage is often the result of entrenched gender inequality, making girls disproportionately affected by the practice. Globally, the prevalence of child marriage among boys is just one-fifth of that among girls.

Moreover, child marriage robs girls of their childhood and threatens their lives and health.

And girls who marry before 18 have worse economic and health outcomes than their unmarried peers, which are eventually passed down to their own children, further straining a country’s capacity to provide quality health and education services.

Child brides often become pregnant during adolescence, when the risk of complications during pregnancy and childbirth increases – for themselves and their infants.

The practice can also isolate girls from family and friends and exclude them from participating in their communities, taking a heavy toll on their physical and psychological well-being, continue UNICEF and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

 

The facts…

The following facts and figures, which have been compiled by the two main world specialised bodies -UNICEF and UN Population Fund (UNFPA), should suffice to unveil such a flagrant human rights violation.

— Child marriage refers to any formal marriage or informal union between a child under the age of 18 and an adult or another child.

While the prevalence of child marriage has decreased worldwide – from one in four girls married a decade ago to approximately one in five today – the practice remains widespread.

— Child marriage can lead to a lifetime of suffering. Girls who marry before they turn 18 are less likely to remain in school and more likely to experience domestic violence.

— Young teenage girls are more likely to die due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth than women in their 20s, and their children are more likely to be stillborn or die in the first month of life.

— Infants born to teenage mothers are also more likely to be stillborn or die in the first month of life.

— Wherever they occur, harmful practices rob girls of their childhood, deny them the chance to determine their own future and threaten the well-being of individuals, families and societies.

 

… And the figures

— Globally around 21% (over 1 in 5) of young women were married before their 18th birthday.

— 650,000,000 girls and women alive today were married as children.

— 12,000,000 girls under 18 are married each year. And more than 150 million additional girls will marry before their 18th birthday by 2030.

 

Where most?

UNICEF and UNFPA also report that, across the globe, levels of child marriage are highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, where around 4 in 10 young women were married before age 18, followed by South Asia, where 3 in 10 were married before age 18.

Lower levels of child marriage are found in Latin America and Caribbean (25%), the Middle East and North Africa (17%), and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (11%).

Back in 2016, UNICEF and UNFPA, launched a global programme to tackle child marriage in 12 of the most high-prevalence or high-burden countries: Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Yemen and Zambia. (See UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage).

Just add to all the above the bloodcurdling story of over 300,000 unaccompanied refugee and migrant children who are just a small part of millions of children that are innocent, easy prey for smugglers and human traffickers worldwide.

Among a raft of alarming statistics, a UN report has just found that children account for around 28 percent of trafficking victims globally. And that Sub-Saharan Africa and Central America and the Caribbean have the highest share of children among detected trafficking victims, at the rates of 64 and 62 percent, respectively.

Let alone that girls are forced by traffickers and smugglers to sexual exploitation. “Sexual tourism has a child face. No country is untouched and no child is immune.”

In view of all the above, until when such violence will continue to be committed against millions and millions of child girls who are born-equals to yours, with two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs and the same biological system. And they are the mothers of the coming generations.

 

By External Source
SEOUL, South Korea, Nov 3 2021 (IPS-Partners)

The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) has announced the appointment of Ms. Helena McLeod, Cardno International Development Group’s Team Leader of UK Aid’s Cities, Infrastructure and Growth Program (Uganda) and former Director of KPMG International Development Advisory Services (IDAS) Africa, as the incoming Deputy Director-General and Head of Green Growth Planning & Implementation (GGP&I). Ms. McLeod will succeed Ms. Hyoeun Jenny Kim, who was named Ambassador and Deputy Minister for Climate Change in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea on July 31, 2021.

Ms. McLeod will lead the GGP&I division based in the organization’s Seoul headquarters and formally assume her duties, serving a three-year term beginning on January 10, 2022.

Dr. Frank Rijsberman, GGGI’s Director General commented “We are delighted to welcome Ms. Helena McLeod to our vibrant and cohesive organization with a strong commitment to help countries make a transition to a model of economic growth that is environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive. In this role, Ms. McLeod will be responsible for managing our growing network of country offices, currently in 30 countries, where about three quarters of our 400 staff members work, embedded in the offices of our government members and partners.”

“As GGGI is going through a period of rapid growth to scale up its program and deliver more impact to green the recovery from the pandemic while accelerating climate action, this is a critical role for the organization. I am confident that Ms. McLeod’s many years living and working in developing countries, particularly in Africa, in both government and the private sector, have given her abundant experience and contacts that we can’t wait to put to work to support the green transition the world so urgently needs.”

“I am excited to join GGGI at this important point in the organization’s journey. With my experience spanning across Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, I am looking forward to leveraging my network of contacts on the ground to enhance and strengthen relationships with government stakeholders and private sector actors to help contribute to making a transformational impact in countries where GGGI has operations – especially at a time when country presence is growing rapidly in size and scale,” said Ms. McLeod.

Ms. McLeod, a British national living in South Africa, brings a wealth of 25 years of experience leading large and dynamic teams and managing innovative climate and development programs – including grant and blended finance funds – worth over GBP 1 billion, which helped to benefit millions of people.

As Head of CIG Uganda, she is responsible for managing a team of 30 multidisciplinary and multi-national experts. She is also leading diverse workstreams, including targeting mobilization of GBP1billion of finance for climate smart flagship infrastructure projects, assisting the Kampala Capital City Authority with the development and implementation of its Five-Year Strategic Plan, assisting COVID Economic Recovery Planning and action, innovative green urban planning and working on solid waste management reform.

Prior to joining Cardno, Ms. McLeod was Director for the Resilience, Renewable Energy and Climate Change Sector at the KPMG IDAS Africa Practice. In this position, she significantly scaled the portfolio to a managed grant portfolio of USD 400 million, across Africa and Asia. With specialty in management of philanthropic, government and private sector grant funds focused on climate outcomes, among her key responsibilities included designing innovative grant and blended finance funds, developing project pipeline for equity and debt finance, rapid mobilization of global programs, funds, and teams, winning and executing new business and setting strategic direction of the practice.

Her technical thematic experience covers off-grid and on-grid clean energy, urban climate resilience, infrastructure project preparation and financing, solid waste management, climate smart agriculture, sustainable transport, energy efficiency, sustainable timber trade and forestry preservation.

She also held numerous senior positions at KPMG IDAS Africa, the Development Bank of Southern Africa, DFID Africa Regional, and DFID Southern Africa. Early in her career, she worked as an economist at DFID South Africa, DFID’s London Office, and the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission in Fiji.

She holds an MSc degree in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics (with distinction) from the University College London and a BSc degree in Economics from the London School of Economics.

About the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI)
GGGI was established as an international intergovernmental organization in 2012 at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Its vision is “a low-carbon, resilient world of strong, inclusive, and sustainable growth” and its mission “to support Members in the transformation of their economies into a green growth economic model”. GGGI does this through technical assistance to: reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement; create green jobs; increase access to sustainable services (such as clean affordable energy, sustainable waste management); improve air quality; sustain natural capital for adequate supply of ecosystem services; and enhance adaptation to climate change.

Agriculture accounts for over 25 percent of Africa’s GDP while employing over 70 percent of people that live in rural communities. Credit: Miriam Gahtigah/IPS

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, Nov 3 2021 (IPS)

Local, national and world leaders, and committed climate change activists are in Glasgow for the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) to share the progress they’ve made since the COP21 in Paris six years ago and to discuss what comes next. One of the issues that must be on the table at COP26 is the worrying impact of climate change on agriculture in Africa.

Agriculture accounts for over 25 percent of Africa’s GDP while employing over 70 percent of people that live in rural communities. When agriculture is impacted, women, who work in the agricultural sector suffer the consequences. The entire agriculture value chain is threatened by climate change. According to a recent World Bank Report, unless urgent actions are taken, climate change could force millions of Africans to migrate to new areas.

At the production level, climate change is impacting agriculture via drought and flooding events. In 2020, flooding in East Africa impacted over six million people. In 2021, flooding has affected 669,000 people in West and Central Africa, over 700,000 people in Sudan and South Sudan and over 100,000 people in Nigeria.

At the foundation of climate-resilient agriculture is the need for smallholder farmers to have access to dependable and year round sources of water to support agriculture. At the moment African agriculture is dependent on rain-fed agriculture and because of climate change rains are no longer dependable

It is also having an impact through invasive and transboundary plant-eating insect pests such as the fall armyworm and the desert locust. Invasive insect pests cost the African continent U.S. $1 billion every year. Impacted the most are vulnerable groups that include African small holder farmers, women and girls, children, disabled and elderly people.

Without a climate-resilient agricultural sector, even the most ambitious climate initiatives will bear minimal returns. It is imperative for countries participating in the COP26 meeting to finance agriculture initiatives.

Looking at many developed countries, it is evident that it is possible to build climate resilient agriculture. This is particularly possible when several interlinked short-term and long-term strategies are put in place. At the foundation of climate-resilient agriculture is the need for smallholder farmers to have access to dependable and year round sources of water to support agriculture. At the moment African agriculture is dependent on rain-fed agriculture and because of climate change rains are no longer dependable.

Complementing access to water for agriculture are other important tools including access to most recent and improved agricultural technologies and resources. From improved and climate-smart seeds to drought, flooding, insects and plant disease-tolerant crops varieties to recent knowledge of agricultural practices and access to markets and financial help.

Important is the need for African countries to strengthen their early warning systems. These can only be achieved through strengthening African countries abilities to tap on big data and use it as a tool to stay ahead of all the climate linked disasters. Accompanying early warning systems is the need to lay out comprehensive climate adaptation initiatives.

At the center of all actions and strategies is the need to put the people on the ground and African countries at the center of climate action. As a founder to a startup, Oyeska Greens that is working with farmers at the Kenyan Coast I have seen firsthand the value of putting farmers at the forefront.  Putting them at the forefront ensures that the strategies and initiatives that are laid out are relevant and meeting the current challenges that small holder farmers and other vulnerable groups are facing as it relates to climate change. Without including the very people whom we are serving, we risk unsustainable and irrelevant solutions.

Climate change is the most urgent crisis of our times. While talk and meetings such as COP26 are important, in the end it is the initiatives and actual projects being implemented in African countries, particularly in the agricultural sector that will help move the needle and address the escalating climate change crisis.

All countries must work together and take action in the fight against climate change to avert many crises that are projected to happen if we fail to act.  Lives of vulnerable citizens including women, elderly and people with disabilities are at stake. Now is the time to ACT

 

Dr. Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and a Senior Food Security Fellow with the Aspen Institute, New Voices.