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Inclusive Education to Break the Cycles of Poverty

Fri, 10/15/2021 - 08:17

Street Library in Mayotte, July 2016. Credit: François Phliponeau/ATD Fourth World - Centre Joseph Wresinski

By Olivier De Schutter and Donald Lee
NEW YORK, Oct 15 2021 (IPS)

In September 2021, children in the northern hemisphere returned to school after the summer break. For some, the end of the holidays signaled a return to normalcy and to the joys of learning after facing months of school closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For the majority of children in the Global South, however, the return to reality looked grimmer.

Digital divide leaving billions behind

Many children have been unable to pursue their education due to school closures reported in over 188 countries. While governments have sought to implement solutions for children to continue learning from home using broadcast and Internet-based remote learning policies, nearly one third of children worldwide could not make use of these solutions. UNICEF notes that three quarters of these students either come from rural areas, belong to the poorest households, or both: these children have been left behind due to the digital divide. As a result, the organization estimates that more than one billion children are at risk of falling behind on education.

Furthermore, many parents who had lost their source of income due to the pandemic had no choice but to remove their children from school so that they could help their families. Sadly, child labor has risen for the first time in two decades: 160 million children are now estimated to be working, about 8 million more than in 2017, mainly in the agricultural sector; 9 million more at risk of doing so due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Inequality and the pandemic

While the pandemic has exacerbated the inequalities children suffer in schooling, such inequalities are not new. The World Bank estimates that while 96 percent of children complete their secondary education in OECD countries, that rate is only 35 percent in low-income countries. In 2018, an estimated 258 million children and youth – mainly from poor households – were out of school.

Whereas the number of children, adolescents and youth excluded from education fell steadily in the decade following 2000, progress has stalled since, especially for poor children in low-income countries: in 2014, only one quarter of the poorest children in these countries completed primary school. Indeed, in low and lower-middle income countries, the likelihood of enrollment in primary and secondary schools still depends on parental income and education levels to a significant extent.

Festival of Learning in Guatemala, November 2015. Credit: Sulma Flores/ATD Fourth World – Centre Joseph Wresinski

Financial barriers to opportunities

Several important mechanisms are at work. While nearly 90 percent of low-income countries officially provide free primary education, the hidden costs remain high: transportation costs, learning materials and school supplies may be prohibitive, preventing parents from sending their children to school. Moreover, more than 40 percent of low-income countries charge fees for lower-secondary education. This may discourage parents who live on low incomes to send their children to school, especially given the high opportunity costs involved where the alternative to high school education is to contribute to the family income by working. Lowering these financial barriers can significantly improve enrollment and attendance rates.

Even when children are enrolled in formal education, other obstacles prevent them from effectively learning. Children from poor households routinely face exclusion and discrimination. A participatory action research project led by ATD Fourth World in Belgium found that the shame experienced by children in poverty was one of the key obstacles to successful schooling. Shame, as well as fear of abuse, also prevents students from poor families and their parents from engaging with teachers.

Children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds also tend to be better prepared for formal education. As a result, across nearly all countries, the family background of a student (parental education, socioeconomic status, conditions at home) remains the single most important predictor of learning outcomes.

In France for example, the difference in outcomes on the tests of the Programme for International Student Assessment between the richest and poorest students amounted to 115 points in the science performance, the equivalent of about three years of schooling. A vicious cycle emerges: parents and children from low-income households may lose their motivation to prioritize schooling because they perceive their chances of performing well as low.

Children in Kenya who dropped out of school cited the difficulty of performing well, rather than costs, parental pressure, or other factors, as a major reason for leaving. This leads low-income households to underinvest in education, thus perpetuating poverty from one generation to the next and relegating equality of opportunities to a distant dream.

Public action is urgently needed

Increasing public budgets going to education is essential to break the cycles of poverty.

Educational systems must avoid, at all costs, reproducing inequalities that are inherited from childhood, especially for children from families living in poverty. There is a strong relationship between public investment in education and social mobility, especially for developing economies and in relation to primary education.

The Education 2030 Framework for Action provides that States should allocate at least 4 to 6 percent of their GDP, and/or at least 15 to 20 per cent of public expenditure, to education. Indeed, recent research, examining case studies from seven countries — from Brazil to Vietnam and from India to Namibia — demonstrates the benefits of public education and its potential for social transformation.

Fostering inclusive education

We need well-trained (and well-paid) teachers who are present and engage with children. We need schools that reduce the role of selection and assessment based on academic performance alone and instead that value each child for what they contribute to the classroom. We need schools that are fully accessible to everyone – regardless of age, gender, class or disability. And, we need more extracurricular opportunities after school hours that are open to all children at no additional charge, since children from poor households are far less likely to partake in afterschool activities, particularly in music and sports, than their peers from wealthier families.

A recent report presented to the United Nations General Assembly, underscores the urgent need for inclusive education. Schools must not be spaces of failure, but rather places where children can discover their talents and abilities, where they earn qualifications that enable them to keep learning or to find a job in which they can continue to develop. They must be places where collaboration – rather than competition – is nurtured and valued, and where otherness is accepted and cherished.

Inclusive education can also challenge stereotypes about the poor, and the associated discrimination they often suffer: in New Delhi, India, when elite schools catering to students from wealthy households were required to set aside 20 per cent of places to children from poorer families, pro-social behaviour among students increased, and prejudice against children from poor backgrounds diminished.

Schools have too often been seen as institutions that select, rank and exclude. They should instead empower, value and include. This will allow them to fully contribute to breaking the vicious cycles that perpetuate poverty, condemning children from low-income households to a life-long sentence for a crime they have not committed.

Olivier De Schutter is the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights and Professor at UCLouvain and Sciences Po (Paris). On 20 October, he will present a report on the persistence of poverty to the UN General Assembly. Donald Lee is President of the International Movement ATD Fourth World and a former senior economist at the United Nations in New York.

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Categories: Africa

QE, or No QE, That is the Question?

Fri, 10/15/2021 - 07:46

Credit: wwww.imf.org

By Alexander Kozul-Wright
GENEVA, Oct 15 2021 (IPS)

The guardians of the global economy convened in Washington this week to discuss their latest global growth forecasts. The World Bank-IMF Board of Governors meetings have been squarely focused on the global response to COVID-19, with economists warning of slowing momentum in wealthy nations and grossly uneven recoveries across the developing world.

Still, since February 2020 governments around the world have deployed US$16 trillion in fiscal support measures to combat the pandemic. These vast sums have provided emergency lifelines to health care systems, businesses, and households.

High fiscal expenditure and low tax revenues raised government debt in 2020 to a record 97% of world GDP. It is projected to stabilise at 99% this year, according to the IMF’s latest Fiscal Monitor, published Wednesday. The report also contends that “exceptional policy responses triggered by the pandemic pose a challenge for discerning the best path forward for fiscal policy.”

Typically, governments deploy a two-pronged approach to fund spending: they can either borrow more or raise taxes (or both). Quantitative Easing (QE) represents another, unconventional policy choice that authorities have turned to in recent economic crises.

QE is shorthand for a set of unorthodox monetary policies in which a central bank purchases government debt (as well as other assets) to increase money supply and lower interest rates. It is designed to spur consumption and investment and, in turn, shore up GDP growth.

While central banks in advanced economies (AEs) have deployed QE since the 2008 financial crisis, constraints are more binding in emerging markets (EMs) economies.

EMs lack the deep financial markets observed in AEs, relying instead on foreign investors (attracted by high interest rates) to cover deficits. As such, measures designed to lower interest rates are seen to deter foreign investors and place downward pressure on domestic currencies.

What’s more, EM governments with access to central bank financing are, rightly or wrongly, thought to exercise less fiscal discipline than their AE counterparts. In turn, rampant quantitative easing risks undermining monetary policy credibility.

In large part, this concern underscores why EM policy makers attribute so much importance to central bank independence – a nebulous concept under normal circumstances, let alone in a crisis, but critical when thinking about the impact debt monetization can have.

First, the erosion between fiscal and monetary policy risks stoking runaway inflation by expanding the monetary base. And second, even if government bond yields are not immediately driven up by money creation, it could happen over the medium-term, raising the cost of future debt financing.

The trade-off between continuing to support economic activity and preserving fiscal space (room in the government budget for extra spending) is therefore thornier for EMs than AEs. “EM central banks are trying to find ways of financing their budgets without being accused of printing money”, says Yilmaz Akyuz, former chief economist at UNCTAD.

“Just as in 2009, the IMF is already talking about returning to ‘normal’ central bank policies”, he noted. Indeed, another IMF report published this week cast aspersions on EM quantitative easing, decrying a lack of policy experience and warning about the “threat of exiting these types of programs.”

But despite the Fund’s repeated exhortations, the central bank of Indonesia (BI) recently pledged to continue buying trillions of rupiah (billions in US$ equivalent) worth of government debt. The ‘burden-sharing’ agreement, unveiled in July 2020, was designed to help finance the 2020 fiscal deficit in the wake of Covid-19.

Last year, BI purchased long-dated government bonds in both primary and secondary markets, in addition to rebating interest payments for certain types of debt. Overall, BI financed roughly half of Indonesia’s 6.1% (of GDP) deficit in 2020, lowering debt repayment costs and providing greater scope to respond to the pandemic.

Back in 2020, the bond-purchasing scheme was deemed a “one-off”, and was widely expected to conclude this year. In August 2021, however, the central bank pledged to extend deficit financing into 2022.

Since August, the price of both government bonds and the rupiah have remained relatively stable. And so long as investors maintain their trust in BI independence and the government’s commitment to fiscal sustainability, Indonesia’s experiment with unorthodox economic policy looks set to continue.

Alexander Kozul-Wright is a consultant for the Third World Network (TWN)

Categories: Africa

Argentina’s Small Farming Communities Reach Consumers Online

Thu, 10/14/2021 - 22:06

One of the Argentine small farmer groups participating in the digital marketing project uses agroecological irrigation and tomato crushing techniques in the province of Mendoza. CREDIT: Nicolás Heredia/Alma Nativa

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Oct 14 2021 (IPS)

“The biggest problem for family farmers has always been to market and sell what they produce, at a fair price,” says Natalia Manini, a member of the Union of Landless Rural Workers (UST), a small farmers organisation in Argentina that has been taking steps to forge direct ties with consumers.

The UST, which groups producers of fresh vegetables, preserves and honey, as well as goat and sheep breeders, from the western province of Mendoza, opened its own premises in April in the provincial capital of the same name.

In addition, it has just joined Alma Nativa (“native soul”), a network created to market and sell products from peasant and indigenous organisations, which brings together more than 4,300 producers grouped in 21 organisations, and now sells its products over the Internet.

“Selling wholesale to a distributor is simple, but the problem is that a large part of the income does not reach the producer,” Manini told IPS from the town of Lavalle in Mendoza province."The aim is to mobilise consumers to buy products from Latin American ecosystems that are made with respect for the environment, while small producers benefit from visibility and logistical support so that local products reach the entire country.” -- Guadalupe Marín

The rural leader argues that, due to cost considerations, farmers can only access fair trade through collective projects, which have received a boost from the acceleration of digital changes generated by the covid-19 pandemic.

Alma Nativa is a marketing and sales solution formally created in 2018 by two Argentine non-governmental organisations (NGOs) focused on socio-environmental issues: Fibo Social Impact and the Cultural Association for Integral Development (ACDI). Their approach was to go a step beyond the scheme of economic support for productive development projects.

“Back in 2014 we began to ask ourselves why small farmer and indigenous communities could not secure profitable prices for the food and handicrafts they produce, and to think about how to get farmers to stop depending on donations and subsidies from NGOs and the state,” Fibo director Gabriela Sbarra told IPS in an interview in Buenos Aires.

Sbarra was a regular participant in regional community product fairs, which prior to the restrictions put in place due to the pandemic were often organised in Argentina by the authorities, who financed the setting up of the stands, accommodation and travel costs from their communities for farmers and craftspeople.

It was only thanks to this economic aid that farmers and artisans were able to make a profit.

“The effort was geared towards finding a genuine market for these products, which could not be sold online because it is very difficult to generate traffic on the Internet and they cannot reach supermarkets either, because they have no production volume. Informality was leaving communities out of the market,” Sbarra explained.

Three cooperatives in the Chaco region, the great forested plain that Argentina shares with Bolivia and Paraguay, are dedicated to honey production and are part of the Alma Nativa project, through which they sell their products to consumers throughout the country via the Internet. CREDIT: Nicolás Heredia/Alma Nativa

E-commerce, the new market

So the founders of Alma Nativa knocked on the doors of Mercado Libre, an e-commerce giant born in Argentina that has expanded throughout most of Latin America. The company agreed not to charge commissions for sales by an online store of agroecological food produced by local communities.

Alma Nativa then set up a warehouse in the town of Villa Madero, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, where products arriving from rural communities throughout the country are labeled for distribution.

“The pandemic has created an opportunity, because it helped to open a debate about what we eat. Many people began to question how food is produced and even forced agribusiness companies to think about more sustainable production systems,” said Manini.

Norberto Gugliotta, manager of the Cosar Beekeeping Cooperative, emphasised that the pandemic not only accelerated the process of digitalisation of producers and consumers, but also fueled the search by a growing part of society for healthy food produced in a socially responsible manner.

“We were prepared to seize the opportunity, because our products were ready, so we joined Alma Nativa this year,” said the beekeeper from the town of Sauce Viejo. Gugliotta is the visible face of a cooperative made up of some 120 producers in the province of Santa Fe, in the centre of this South American country, who produce certified organic, fair trade honey.

Argentina, Latin America’s third largest economy, is an agricultural powerhouse, with a powerful agribusiness sector whose main products are soybeans, corn and soybean oil, which in 2020 generated 26.3 billion dollars in exports, according to official figures.

Behind the success lies a huge universe of family farmers and peasant and indigenous communities. According to the latest National Agricultural Census, carried out in 2018, more than 90 percent of the country’s 250,881 farms are family-run.

But the infrastructure and technological lag in rural areas is significant, as demonstrated by the fact that only 35 percent of farms have Internet access.

The deprivation is particularly acute in the Chaco, a neglected region in the north of the country, home to some 200,000 indigenous people belonging to nine groups whose economy is closely linked to natural resources, according to the non-governmental Fundapaz.

Indigenous artisans from the Pilagá community in the northern province of Formosa, within the Gran Chaco region, have begun selling their baskets online throughout Argentina. CREDIT: Rosario Bobbio/Alma Nativa

New platform for indigenous handicrafts

Communities from the Chaco, a vast region of low forests and savannas and rich biodiversity covering more than one million square km in Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay, which is home to a diversity of native peoples, also began to market their handicrafts over Mercado Libre in the last few weeks.

“This initiative originated in Brazil with the ‘Amazonia em Pé’ programme and today we are replicating it in Argentina, in the Gran Chaco area. It seeks to build bridges between local artisans and consumers throughout the country,” explained Guadalupe Marín, director of sustainability at Mercado Libre.

“The aim is to mobilise consumers to buy products from Latin American ecosystems that are made with respect for the environment, while small producers benefit from visibility and logistical support so that local products reach the entire country,” she told IPS in Buenos Aires.

On Sept. 27, Mercado Libre launched the campaign “From the Gran Chaco, for you”, which offers for sale more than 2,500 products in 200 categories, such as baskets, indigenous and local art, decorative elements made with natural fibers, honey, weavings and handmade games.

It includes not only Alma Nativa, but also Emprendedores por Naturaleza (“entrepreneurs by/for nature”), a programme launched by the environmental foundation Rewilding Argentina, which works for the conservation of the Chaco and now promotes the sale of products made by 60 families living in rural areas adjacent to the El Impenetrable national park, the largest protected area in the region.

“The idea for the project arose last year, after we conducted a socioeconomic survey among 250 families in the area that found that the only income of 98 percent of them comes from welfare,” said Fatima Hollmann, regional coordinator of the Rewilding Argentina Communities Programme.

She told IPS that “people raise livestock for subsistence and sometimes work on fencing a field or some other temporary task, but there are no steady sources of employment in El Impenetrable.”

“That is why we are trying to generate income for local residents,” Hollmann explained in an interview in Buenos Aires. “Our production lines are focused on ceramics, since most people have built their houses there with adobe. Many also know how to make bricks and we have held trainings to teach people to turn a brick into an artistic piece, inspired by native fauna, which transmits the importance of conserving the forest.”

According to the figures released by the expert during the first week of the programme “From the Gran Chaco, for you” in early October, 644 products were offered for sale, of which 382 were sold to buyers from more than 10 Argentine provinces, including 100 percent of the textiles available and 76 percent of the wooden handicrafts.

“The alternative is to cut down the native forests,” Hollmann says. “We are proposing a transition from an extractivist economy to a regenerative one, which contributes to the reconstruction of the ecosystem, and gives consumers in the cities the chance to contribute to that goal.”

Excerpt:

This article is part of IPS' coverage of World Food Day, celebrated Oct. 16, whose 2021 theme is: Grow, nourish, sustain. Together.

Categories: Africa

World Food Day 2021

Thu, 10/14/2021 - 20:55

By External Source
Oct 14 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Our lives depend on the world’s agri-food system.

Every time we eat, we participate in the system.

A sustainable agri-food system is one in which sufficient, nutritious and safe foods are available to everyone.

This means nobody goes hungry or suffers from any form of malnutrition.

Today’s agri-food systems are exposing profound inequalities and injustices in our global society.

More than 3 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet.

That’s 40% of the world’s population.

By contrast, 2 billion people are overweight or obese.

This is due to poor diets and sedentary lifestyles.

55% of the world’s population resides in cities.

By 2050, this number will increase to 68%.

Related health-care costs could exceed USD1.3 trillion per year by 2030.

The world’s agri-food system currently employs 1 billion people – more than any other sector.

But, smallholder farmers produce more than 33% of the world’s food…
…despite poverty, a lack of financing, training and technology.

So, food production often degrades or destroys natural habitats and contributes to species extinction.

The world’s food systems are responsible for more than 33% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

14% of the world’s food is lost due to inadequate harvesting, handling, transportation and storage.

17% of the world’s food is wasted on a consumer level.

Solutions do exist. Make #WorldFoodDay your day.

World Food Day 2021: Our Actions are our Future.

Categories: Africa

How Land Management Can Restore Hope to Women in Rural Kenya

Thu, 10/14/2021 - 15:15

Unable to support her family with the earnings from her farm due to land degradation, Jennifer Kamba (on the right), a smallholder farmer in Machakos county of Kenya, now works as a part-time cook and caterer. Credit: IPS

By Stella Paul
HYDERABAD, India, Oct 14 2021 (IPS)

Jenifer Kamba, 33, has always loved farming – a love passed on to her by her late husband after they married 14 years ago. The young farmer duo grew maise, pepper and vegetables on their two-acre farm in Kivandini of Kenya’s Machakos county. Even after her husband died five years ago, Kamba didn’t stop farming. However, of late, the soil looks dry, and her production has declined considerably.

“The land is not what it used to be,” she says, “Even a few years ago, my vegetables were beautiful. The pumpkins were big, juicy and my husband sometimes sold some into the local market. But now, they are small and crooked in shape. It feels as if something has sucked the life out of my land.”

Unable to feed herself and her two school-going children from the earnings of her farm, Kamba now takes up seasonal work such as cooking in her wealthier neighbours’ homes.

The ailing factor of Kamba’s land – increasing degradation due to extreme weather events such as droughts and below-average rainfall – is a challenge that farmers worldwide face today, linked to climate change.

According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), more than 2 billion hectares worldwide are currently affected by the decline in the quality or arability of land. In Africa, where the livelihood of 70% of the population depends on agriculture, 22 million hectares are degraded. This directly affects the yield, pushing farmers, especially those like Kamba who have small landholdings, into poverty.

Machakos, which lies 56 km east of the country’s capital Nairobi, has been identified by the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) as one of the most drought-prone counties. In the past ten years, the county has witnessed at least four severe droughts that have caused significant damage to soil health.

“This is something we are taking very seriously,” says Dr Ruth Kattumuri, Senior Director for Economic, Youth and Sustainable Development at the Commonwealth Secretariat. “Land degradation is a two-sided challenge as it is both caused by climate change and contributes to it. Supporting our member countries with sustainable land management efforts is of utmost importance for us.”

Jenifer Kamba’s farm. The farm used to yield enough to support her family, but now she has had to turn to part-time employment to make ends meet. Credit: IPS

While climate change is worsening droughts and erratic rainfall, leading to desertification and soil erosion, Kattumuri adds that deforestation and unsustainable agricultural practices are also driving up emissions at the same time.

“Rural communities, smallholder farmers, and the poor are adversely affected,” she says.
According to a 2016 study by Kenya Livestock and Research Institute, 22 % of Kenyan land area has degraded between 1982 and 2006, including 31 % of croplands.
The Kenyan government has adopted various measures to fight land degradation and promote sustainable land management.

In September 2016, the government announced that it would restore 5.1 million hectares of degraded land. According to an estimate by the World Resource Institute, 65 million acres across the country were restorable for future use. In its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), submitted first in 2015, the government committed to creating a tree cover for at least 10% of its total land area to mitigate climate change. Together, the moves are expected to improve livelihoods, curb climate change, safeguard biodiversity and more.

But the problem, say some, is that implementation of these measures has been sporadic, and very few of the most severely affected people, especially women, are aware of them.

The story of subsistence farmers Ruth Mutinda, 41, and her sister Beth, 37, in Mwala village of Machakos is an example: the sisters who jointly own a small farm have seen a sharp decline in their yield of maise, beans and pigeon peas in the past six to seven years.

The village is near Kitui – another county affected by successive droughts, including one in the current year. According to the NDMA, the prevailing drought situation is mainly attributed to the delayed onset of the March to May long rains.

Mutinda sisters say that insufficient rain has increased the heat, which, in turn, has ‘stolen the moisture’ off the farm. In addition, the water level in their village river has also decreased due to the drought and random sand-mining activities, leaving them without an alternative means to water their land.

“There is a small river at the edge of our village. Earlier, we fetched water from there for our farms. But now we can only fetch few buckets for washing and cooking. So, if there is no water, how can the land be good again?” asks Beth.

Though the NDMA has mentioned several measures to support the drought-affected farmers across the nation, including Machakos and Kitui, the sister duo seems unaware of those. They have also not heard of any land restoration initiatives and think that regular irrigation is the only way to increase soil fertility.

The only external support Beth and Ruth ever received was a few fruiting tree saplings from the Rural Resource Center – a local NGO. But the dry soil of the farm couldn’t sustain their growth.

Landscape view of Mwala village in Machakos county. The Commonwealth Living Land’s Charter, which aims to get member countries to integrate sustainable land use management into their national climate action plans, focusing on nature-based solutions, could assist areas affected by climate change. Credit: IPS

The apparent “disconnect” between the policy and its intended beneficiaries is evident in degraded land restoration and climate action in general, says Leonida Odongo, Executive Director of the Nairobi-based NGO Haki Nawiri Afrika. Her organisation fights for marginalised communities’ rights to climate justice and food justice.

She maintains that climate change solutions often fail to envisage how many ways women on the frontline are affected.

“In Africa, the climate crisis means women are travelling longer distances in search of water; it means Gender-Based Violence in the household; it means conflict as communities fight over pasture and water; it means the emergence of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. It means the death of people and animals and forced relocation. It’s time to act and avert his crisis,” says Odongo.

Ceciele Ndjebet, President of African Women’s Network for Community Management of Forests (REFACOF) in Cameroon, feels that women do not enjoy the benefits of climate action, including sustainable land management, because they do not have access to finance.
This especially applies to NGOs and community-based organisations that directly know women’s climate challenges and can bridge the gap between policies and communities but cannot provide solutions because of the uphill battle to access finance.

“I heard a lot about Green Climate Fund (GCF) and others, that there is funding available. But is that funding available to civil society organisations? I doubt. All the accreditation processes are complicated; we think we need political will for all those who want to recognise what the civil society has to say or the role to play. We need that political will from our government to recognise that we should be part of the solution,” says Ndjebet.

The Commonwealth Living Lands Charter could help address these concerns. The charter is a proposed initiative of the Commonwealth that aims to get its member countries to integrate sustainable land use management into their national climate action plans, focusing on nature-based solutions.

Under the proposed Commonwealth Call to Action on Living Lands, the Commonwealth Secretariat will support member states to access funding to scale up nature-based solutions in implementing their NDCs that address land degradation.

“We are conducting consultations with our member countries and regions. The aim is to bridge the gaps between climate change, nature and land degradation policies. We want to ensure that what we eventually propose to our heads of government for adoption can be a basis for inclusive, sustainable land management,” says Unnikrishnan Nair, Head of Climate Change at the Commonwealth Secretariat. “That includes women, rural communities and other vulnerable populations – we should not leave anyone behind.”

The Living Lands Charter, if adopted by Commonwealth leaders, will serve as an agreement among the 54 member countries to work towards climate-resilient and sustainable land management by integrating the targets of the three Rio Conventions — the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (UNCBD), the Land Degradation Neutrality targets (UNCCD), and the Paris Agreement (UNFCCC).

Focus areas to be explored include climate-resilient agriculture, soil and water conservation and management, sustainable green cover and biodiversity, and the active engagement of indigenous people.

The combined action is expected to propel the progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG 15 – Life on Lands.

Could this new initiative help the much needed financial and technological support trickle down to women in the climate change frontline communities, including Kamba and Mutinda sisters?

Time will tell.

Meantime, Jennifer Kamba isn’t giving up hope yet on her land: “I just hope when my children grow up, this land will still produce food for them,” she says, with a flicker of dreams for the future in her eyes.

Categories: Africa

Winning the Human Race, Together

Thu, 10/14/2021 - 08:15

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Oct 14 2021 (IPS)

“Now is the time for a stronger, more networked and inclusive multilateral system anchored in the United Nations,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres in his latest report “Our Common Agenda.” Indeed, there is a fork in the road: we can either choose to breakdown or to breakthrough.

Yasmine Sherif

Making this moral choice and adopting this legal imperative is more relevant today than ever. The estimated 75 million children and adolescents caught in emergencies and protracted crisis who suffer from disrupted education has now dramatically increased from 75 million to 128 million due to the pandemic. These vulnerable girls and boys are now the ones left furthest behind in some of the world’s toughest contexts, in Afghanistan, the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa and South America.

The current education financing gap amounts to US$1.48 billion for low- and middle-income countries. A gap that is increasingly widening. In reviving the multilateralism that is so urgently needed, the UN Secretary-General will convene a crucial, timely summit on Transforming Education in 2022.

Despite all that we do, despite all our investments, we cannot win ‘the human race’ unless we invest in our fellow human beings, now. It is the children and young people impacted by armed conflicts, climate-crisis induced disasters, forced displacement and protracted crises who are in a sprint against time, with their lives and futures on the line.

We can no longer let “an entire generation facing irreversible losses be left behind in the ruins of armed conflicts, in protracted refuge, on a planet whose climate-change threatens us all,” as the UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of Education Cannot Wait’s High-Level Steering Group, The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown stated at the launch of Education Cannot Wait’s Annual Results Report: Winning the Human Race, on 5 October 2021.

Education is the foundation, the DNA and the absolute prerequisite for achieving all other Sustainable Human Development Goals and Universal Human Rights. Education means investments in the limitless possibilities of human potential: the workforce, governance, gender-equality, justice, peace and security.

“Access to quality education is key to addressing 21st century challenges, including accelerating the fight to end poverty and climate change,” says The LEGO Foundation’s new CEO, Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen, in this month’s ECW Newsletter high-level interview.

The time has come to connect the dots between individual human beings and our collective humanity and life on this planet. We are now investing more and more in Mother Earth through significant climate change financing. We must now also invest in the human beings populating the planet. The correlation between the positive impact of education upon on all aspects of life on the planet is indispensable and inescapable.

Higher education levels lead to higher concern for the environment, and adaptation to climate change

Education is the one unique investment that can prevent conflict and forced displacement

Every additional year of schooling reduces an adolescent boy’s risk of becoming involved in conflict by 20 percent

Conversely, lack of education often leads to political disempowerment and regression to group allegiances

Education is also the most secure means of ending extreme poverty

If all children were to learn basic reading skills, the impact would be 171 million fewer people living in extreme poverty. *Footnotes below

Education Cannot Wait is a multilateral global UN fund. Our Annual Results Report of 2020, Winning the Human Race, launched at the UN in Geneva this month, testifies to what we can achieve when we think and act multilaterally: when we connect the dots, become one, and act for all.

Through multilateralism, we reached more than 29 million crisis-affected girls and boys in 2020 alone through ECW’s COVID-19 emergency response, working with our strategic partners, including host governments, our 21 donors, UNICEF, UNHCR, UNESCO, UNDP, WFP, our civil society partners, such as INEE, Jesuit Refugee Service, AVSI, Save the Children, Plan International, Norwegian Refugee Council, International Rescue Committee and numerous local civil society organizations across 34 countries. Through joint programming, we were also able to jointly deliver quality education to more than 4.6 million children and youth, of whom 51% were girls and adolescent girls, 38% were refugees – all while we increased ECW allocations to children and youth with disabilities.

This is made possible because ODA governments, private sector and philanthropic partners are scaling up their support for the catalytic ECW global fund whereby their investments are part of multilateral efforts that work as closely as possible to those we serve, establishing links conducive to numerous, diverse SDGs and human rights. The full list of our 21 generous donor partners can be found at the end of this Newsletter.

In connection with the UNGA week this year, ECW strategic donors advancing multilateralism, such as Germany, the United States, the European Union/European Commission, France, The LEGO Foundation and Porticus took giant steps and committed $138.1 million to ECW, bringing the total resources mobilized thus far in 2021 alone to $156.1 million and the total since ECW’s inception to $1.85 billion ($827 million mobilized for the Trust Fund; and, over $1 billion worth of programmes aligned with ECW MYRPs, as leveraged by ECW with partners).

Furthermore, the Global Hub for Education in Emergencies celebrated its new collective space under the ECW umbrella in Geneva, thanks to Switzerland which is the second biggest UN capital for humanitarian and development actors after New York City. The Global Hub brings together NGOs, the UN, academia, foundations, and governments to inspire more commitment and resources to quality education for those left furthest behind in emergencies and protracted crisis.

Multilateralism through the United Nations works.

Still, this is just the start of a major global effort to work through the multilateral coordination system to reach those left furthest behind and bring education from the margins to the center. Based on empirical evidence, ECW calls for an additional $1 billion to contribute to an innovative model that has proven to work.

Political leaders, governments, private sector, UN and civil society – all part of ECW’s multilateral UN system – recognize that education is a precondition for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and Universal Human Rights. Together, we think long-term and act now. Together, we connect the dots and see things from afar and within. Together, we work on what the world needs most right now: A Common Agenda to Win the Human Race.

Yasmine Sherif is Director,
Education Cannot Wait
The UN Global Fund for Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises

Categories: Africa

Will the World Bank Walk Away with $100 Billion IDA20 Replenishment Without “Walking the Talk” on Disability?

Thu, 10/14/2021 - 07:46

Credit: World Bank

By Andre Hovaguimian
VIENNA, Oct 14 2021 (IPS)

Will the World Bank walk away with $100 Billion IDA20 replenishment without “Walking the Talk” on disability?

The World Bank Group’s (WBG) International Development Association (IDA), the Bank’s low-income lending arm, aspires to raise $100 billion for its early 20th replenishment (IDA20). IDA20’s focus includes “reducing barriers preventing …persons with disabilities…from achieving their full potential”.

In 2019, the World Bank Group mobilised $82 billion under IDA19 to support its global development goals, with disability one of its four key cross-cutting themes.

The World Bank’s 2018 Disability Inclusion and Accountability Framework commits to, “non- discrimination and equality, accessibility, inclusion and participation, and partnership and collaboration.” However, behind this fundraising rhetoric lies another dark reality.

Dozens of staff disabled while employed by the WBG claim that abuse, retaliation, governance failures, lack of transparency, lack of accountability and denial of legitimate disability claims to cut costs are not the exception but the norm.

These issues were first publicly exposed during the 2021 World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings in April in an article by Inter-Press Service (IPS) news agency.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2021/04/disability-discrimination-world-bank-immunity-impunity/

Over the past four years, the number of disability-related internal complaints has risen alarmingly, with alerts to the President of the World Bank. However, the rights of disabled continue to be trampled, under the condoning gaze of the human resources team tasked with oversight.

How can the World Bank circumvent its responsibilities?

The World Bank has immunity under the International Organizations Immunities Act, which means that although headquartered in the US, a few blocks from the US Supreme court, it is not subject to any US laws, nor can it be sued in US courts.

Originally granted to facilitate operations, this immunity has had very serious repercussions for the Bank’s disabled staff, who cannot claim protection under any minimum national or international disability law – such as the American with Disabilities Act or the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It is time the WBG be held accountable under these standards.

WBG unclear rules facilitate discrimination

The World Bank sets its own standards in the form of its Disability and Workers’ Compensation Rules which lack the robustness befitting an international organisation because their vagueness facilitates discrimination, abuse, cronyism, arbitrary interpretation, unequal application and retaliation.

These rules do not require WBG to treat disabled staff fairly, or even equitably.

Under cover of immunity, the WBG can and has changed these rules with impunity. For example, the WBG has removed the pension protection for totally and permanently disabled staff. In response to questions about arbitrary and unfair decisions, the human resources team tasked with oversight refers to “proprietary procedures,” which are kept secret.

The World Bank is expanding operations and increasing staffing in fragile, conflict and violence settings. Unlike its sister UN organisations, the WBG does not provide critical Malicious Acts (MA) insurance to protect its staff.

As early as 2010, these shortcomings were exposed in a report by the US-based Government Accountability Project based on the information provided by a WBG whistle-blower.

Unfortunately, despite continued calls for reforms, this report’s findings about lax security arrangements and “a chronicle of changing policies on claims reimbursements, rotating claims adjustors, increasingly detailed and contradictory demands for information,” and the Bank’s “exceptionally parsimonious” workers compensation programme, remain the norm.

Intimidation and retaliation: Beyond the findings of the Doing Business Report

The recent scandal unleashed by the independent investigation of the irregularities in the Bank’s Doing Business Report (see Observer Autumn 2021) exposed an environment of “psychological terrorism”, bullying and intimidation.

The reported experience of the disabled at the World Bank certainly supports this description. Some of the disabled report psychological harm expressed in attempted suicide, mental breakdown, and hospitalisation due to harassment by the WBG and its handling of the disability programme.

The disabled report feeling powerless and that they have nowhere to turn for support. They have raised their concerns to the World Bank President, David Malpass, and to all 25 Executive Directors of the WBG Board, yet to no avail.

The disabled feel that the World Bank has a culture where those who expose abuses face retaliation. Those who commit the abuses do so with impunity. Whistle-blowers fear retaliation, as the Bank could end their disability coverage, endangering their health and survival.

Many disabled report they have experienced examples of adverse actions that they attribute to whistle-blower retaliation including intimidation by private investigators, arbitrary denial of medical treatments and slander.

The Doing Business external and independent investigation has revealed the internal accountability deficit at the World Bank. Similarly, only an external and independent investigation with full participation of the WBG disabled will reveal the magnitude of the disability issues at the World Bank.

What is required is a structural overhaul of World Bank’s workers compensation and disability schemes, transparency, governance and accountability mechanisms.

Prior to handing over additional taxpayer funds for IDA20, donors have an obligation to uphold human rights and ensure that the Bank can no longer get away with, “Do as I say, but not as I do.”

Andre Hovaguimian, is a former investment director for Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa at the International Financial Corporation (IFC), a sister organization of the World Bank and a member of the World Bank Group (WBG).

Categories: Africa

Cuba’s Power Crisis Drives Home Need to Accelerate Energy Transition

Thu, 10/14/2021 - 02:43

A worker walks through the facilities of the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes thermoelectric plant in the central province of Cienfuegos. Most of Cuba's thermoelectric plants, almost all of which were built with technology from the now defunct Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist bloc, have a lifespan of 30 to 35 years, and it would take 40 to 80 million dollars to repair and upgrade each one, according to industry executives. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Luis Brizuela
HAVANA, Oct 14 2021 (IPS)

With aging infrastructure and problems with fuel supplies, Cuba is facing a crisis in its electric power generation system, which could accelerate plans to increase the share of renewable sources in the energy mix.

In recent weeks, blackouts have been widespread in the 15 provinces of this Caribbean island nation.

Breakdowns in several of the eight thermoelectric plants and delayed maintenance in 18 of its 20 generating blocks are the cause of the generation deficits, according to the authorities.

In addition, there are malfunctions in the distribution systems – lines, substations, transformers – due to the lack of spare parts.

Cuba produces half of the fuel burned in several of its thermoelectric plants, but a significant portion depends on imports.

Under bilateral agreements, Cuba should receive some 53,000 barrels per day of oil and derivatives from Venezuela. But the collapse of that South American country under the weight of its lingering crisis means that shipments are irregular, according to media reports, although the local government does not provide precise figures."The operating reserves in the power system are low and at times have been below what is required to meet consumer energy demand, which means the power supply is necessarily and inevitably affected.” -- Liván Arronte

There is also a reported decrease in the volumes of natural gas associated with oil, used in facilities on the northwest coast, a deficit that can only be overcome by means of new oil wells, according to industry executives.

“The operating reserves in the power system are low and at times have been below what is required to meet consumer energy demand, which means the power supply is necessarily and inevitably affected,” Minister of Energy and Mines Liván Arronte said on television on Sept. 14.

For Cuban families, the current crisis is reminiscent of the prolonged power outages of the early 1990s, when after the collapse of the then Soviet Union, the island lost its main fuel supplier.

In September 2019, another energy crisis occurred when the administration of then President Donald Trump (2017-Jan 2021) took steps to prevent the arrival of tankers to the island, as part of measures to stiffen the economic and financial embargo that the United States has had in place against Cuba since 1962.

“The U.S. government has dedicated itself to threatening and blackmailing companies that supply fuel to Cuba, and this is a qualitative leap in the intensification and application of unconventional measures against those involved in international transportation, without any legal or moral authority,” stated the 2020 annual report on the embargo.

Authorities in Cuba argue that the sanctions hinder access to credit to purchase parts and other inputs, which delays the necessary maintenance of the thermal plants.

Cuba’s dwindling coffers are in no condition to take on extra expenses, given the effects of three decades of economic crisis and the impact of the covid-19 pandemic that has made it necessary to prioritise imports of medical supplies and food.

The power grid is in critical condition and the still high level of dependence on fuel imports is a factor of vulnerability and undermines the country’s projected energy sovereignty and independence, analysts warn.

A wind farm located near the city of Gibara, in the eastern province of Holguín. Cuba has set a goal of steadily reducing the use of fossil fuels and increasing the use of renewable sources in electricity generation to 24 percent, by 2030. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Aging infrastructure

Cuba has an installed potential of more than 6500 MW/h, but the real generation capacity is only half of that, and when several generator units are disconnected from the National Electric System (SEN), it is impossible to meet peak demand of 3300 to 3500 MW/h.

The country has eight thermal power plants with 20 generation blocks and a total capacity of some 2600 MW/h, equivalent to 40 percent of the electricity that can potentially be generated in this island nation of 11.2 million people.

Several of them are able to handle Cuba’s extra-heavy crude (between seven and 18 degrees API), whose sulphur content of seven to eight percent increases corrosion in the boilers, making it necessary to reduce the time between routine maintenance, to 50 to 70 days a year.

Cuba has an oil and accompanying gas production equivalent to 3.5 million tons per year (22 million barrels), from which 2.6 million tons (16.3 million barrels) of crude oil and approximately one billion cubic meters of natural gas are obtained, according to 2020 data released by the official media.

The network of power plants forms the backbone of a system that is complemented in the 15 provinces with fuel oil engines and diesel generators, which have also been hit by the shortage in spare parts and which use part of the 150 to 200 million dollars a month in fuel imports, according to official reports.

The rest of Cuba’s electricity comes from local liquefied petroleum gas (nearly eight percent), renewable sources (five percent) and three percent from floating units (patanas), which also use fossil fuels, in Mariel Bay, 45 km west of Havana.

With one exception, the thermoelectric plants, mainly built with technology from the defunct Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist bloc, have passed their 30 to 35 year lifespan, and 40 to 80 million dollars are needed to repair each plant, according to industry leaders.

To alleviate the current crisis, the government announced an investment scheme aimed at reactivating currently unused generation potential and prioritising the staggered maintenance programme.

“The strategy’s projects include four thermal generation blocks of 200 MW/h each, which will use national crude oil and … today there are projects in different stages to produce 3500 MW/h from renewable sources, which have been affected by the current crisis,” said Arronte.

The Belgian company BDC-Log Servicios Logísticos y Transporte is optimising its operation through the use of solar panels installed on the roofs of its warehouses in the Mariel Special Development Zone, in the western province of Artemisa. The policy for the development of renewable sources in Cuba, approved in 2014, aims to encourage foreign investment in large and small projects, in order to boost energy efficiency and self-sufficiency. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Renewable energies: ups and downs

In 2014, the Cuban government approved a “Policy for the development of renewable energy sources and efficient energy use by 2030”, which aims to gradually reduce the use of fossil fuels and sets a target for 24 percent of energy to come from clean sources by that year.

The policy is also geared towards fomenting foreign investment, in both large and small local projects, with the objective of improving energy efficiency and self-sufficiency, with installations mainly connected to the national grid.

According to some estimates, more than three billion dollars in financing will be needed in order to develop more than 2000 MW/h of new capacity in renewable sources over the next nine years.

Decree-Law No. 345 passed in 2019 on the development of renewable sources contains incentives to promote self-supply from clean energy, the sale of surplus energy to the national grid, as well as tariff and tax benefits for individuals and legal entities that use these sources.

The law also proposes the installation of the most efficient LED bulbs in public streetlights, the sale of solar water heaters and efficient appliances, as well as public education campaigns on the need to save energy.

Cuba ended 2020 with an installed capacity of almost 300 MW/h from renewable sources, some of whose installations were supported by international projects and institutions.

Studies indicate that the expansion of renewable sources could reduce the use of fossil fuels in electricity generation by 2.3 million tons a year and could cut carbon dioxide emissions by eight million tons.

However, these projections clash with the high cost of technologies to obtain energy from sunlight, wind, water and biomass.

In Cuba, which aims to develop all of these sources, the solar energy programme is the most advanced, in a country with average solar radiation of more than five kilowatts per square meter per day, which is considered high.

In late July, resolutions were published allowing people to import solar power systems, free of customs duties and without commercial purposes, as well as equipment, parts and components that generate or operate as renewable energy sources.

Some chain stores also sell solar panels for more than 1,500 dollars per unit, compared to the monthly salaries of Cubans that range from 87 to 400 dollars.

Although the state can buy surplus energy from private consumers, people consulted by IPS said it was not worth the cost of purchasing and setting up a photovoltaic system and the several years needed to recover the initial investment.

Another pending issue is the technology to accumulate solar energy for use at night.

Categories: Africa

Atoll Nation of Tuvalu Adopts ‘Cubes’ to Step Up Nutritious Food Production

Wed, 10/13/2021 - 09:24

Tuvalu’s farmers have watched their crops destroyed by extreme tropical weather. They are now using Funafala 'food cubes' to have greater control over their harvests.

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia , Oct 13 2021 (IPS)

Tuvalu, a small atoll island nation in the Central Pacific Ocean, is one of few countries in the world to have so far evaded the pandemic. But, while it has achieved a milestone with no recorded cases of COVID-19, its population of about 11,931 continues to battle food uncertainties and poor nutrition. These challenges, present long before the pandemic emerged, have been exacerbated by lockdown restrictions and economic hardships during the past year and a half.

In the low-lying island country, people have strived to grow food with “lack of access to land, lack of compost for growing food and, more so, with high tides and cyclones flooding the land with seawater,” Teuleala Manuella-Morris, Country Manager for the environmental and development organization, Live & Learn, in the capital, Funafuti, told IPS.

For years the islanders have watched their food gardens destroyed by extreme tropical weather and disasters, such as cyclones and tidal surges. These factors have contributed to their increasing consumption of imported foods. But now, the future is looking more certain with the introduction of an innovative farming system on Funafala, an islet situated close to the main Funafuti Island.

The new farming method is based on a modular structure of specially designed boxes, known as ‘food cubes’, which give local food growers greater control over their harvests.

“Tuvalu, as an atoll nation, has a range of agricultural production challenges and also relies on imported food. The pandemic has also affected food supply chains. So, considering such challenges, there was a shift in policy in trying to strengthen food security programs. In the meantime, we were already piloting the food cube system in Tuvalu. It fits perfectly well with the shift in policy focus for food security for the country,” Gibson Susumu, Head of Sustainable Agriculture in the Land Resources Division of the regional development organization, Pacific Community, which is guiding the project’s implementation, told IPS.

Issues of declining agricultural production and persistent malnutrition have existed across the Pacific Islands for decades. Before the pandemic in 2019, 49.6 percent of Oceania’s population of an estimated 11.9 million endured moderate to severe food insecurity, reports the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Although stunting afflicts 10 percent of children under five years in Tuvalu, which is well below the regional average, the country carries a heavy burden of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). Eighty percent of men and 83.8 percent of women were classified as overweight in Tuvalu in 2016, cites the Global Nutrition Report, while diabetes afflicts 23.1 percent of adults, according to the World Health Organization.

It is anticipated that the use of food cubes will assist with food security on the atoll island of Tuvalu.

On Funafala, a vast interlocking array of boxes, raised above the ground, creates a patchwork field of green abundance. The ‘field’ contains 80-100 cubes spread over an area of 1.2 acres in which fruit and vegetables are being grown for more than 16 local households. Each ‘food cube’, which is one-metre square and 30 centimetres deep, is manufactured from 80 percent recycled food-grade plastic and designed with features that expose the plants grown within to oxygen and controlled irrigation.

“The Funafala garden has showcased the growing of local foods, like pulaka (giant swamp taro), taro, local figs, cassava, dwarf bananas and dwarf pawpaw trees…It is not only providing more food for the community but has also proven that the food cubes are another way of growing food in areas being flooded with seawater while maintaining soil fertility for more planting. At the same time, it saves water,” Manuella-Morris told IPS.

The ‘food cube’ was designed and produced by Biofilta, an Australian company developing modular urban farming systems six years ago. In 2017, the business won a worldwide competition called LAUNCH Food, commissioned by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to reward new solutions to the global issue of poor nutrition.

“To put it into a food security context, I think those food cubes will be able to produce up to 150 kilograms of vegetables and greens for a year, and that is sufficient to meet the green vegetable requirements for the member households,” Susumu said.

Biofilta claims that the system is “raised, so there is no risk of saltwater inundation, and our wicking technology is extremely water-efficient, using only a fraction of the water needed in conventional agriculture.” These are important features, as Tuvalu possesses no renewable water resources and its point of highest elevation above sea level is only 5 metres. Further, the farm uses compost, specifically tailored to the country’s soil needs by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), which also draws on ingredients from the island’s green waste treatment facility.

Another key partner, Live & Learn, has expanded trials of the farming system on other islands in Tuvalu. The long-term goal is better health outcomes and longer productive lives for islanders. “Because of agricultural challenges, the diet diversity is very low…So, with the diversification of the production systems, it means that the households have more access to healthy diets, and if the surpluses can be marketed, it also supports the income side of the households,” Susumu explained.

The Pacific Community also plans to consult with the government, local communities, and farmers to determine appropriate prices for the commercial sale of surplus fresh produce from the farms so that healthy food remains affordable to everyone.

More widely, the initiative is responding to calls from organizations, such as the FAO, to rethink food systems around the world so that smarter production leads to increased supplies of quality food, reduced pressures on finite natural resources, such as land and water, and the lower impact of agricultural practices on global warming.

The success of the ‘food cubes’ in Tuvalu has sparked enthusiasm by other Pacific Island countries, such as the Cook Islands and Fiji, where it’s also being trialled.

Categories: Africa

Education Cannot Wait Interviews the LEGO Foundation’s New CEO Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen

Wed, 10/13/2021 - 08:32

By External Source
Oct 13 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen is the CEO of The LEGO Foundation. Ms. Albrectsen has spent almost 30 years in fields of international development, human rights and diplomacy, most recently holding the position of Global CEO at Plan International since September 2015.

At Plan International, Ms. Albrectsen helped transform the organization by working together with children, young people, supporters and partners to deliver positive impact. Prior to Plan International, Ms. Albrectsen was United Nations Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director for Management at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). She is also co-chair of the Board of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data and a member of the United Nations Every Woman Every Child High Level Steering Group, the Generation Unlimited Global Board and she is the chair of the International Civil Society Centre Board.

ECW: Congratulations on your new appointment as CEO of The LEGO Foundation, a strategic and valued partner of Education Cannot Wait (ECW). Could you outline for us your vision for The LEGO Foundation as we work together to achieve SDG4 through The LEGO Foundation’s focus on early childhood education and Learning Through Play, particularly for children and youth impacted by crises and emergencies?

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen: Thank you, I am delighted to be heading up such an incredible organisation and it is wonderful to continue our longstanding partnership with Education Cannot Wait.

At The LEGO Foundation we promote the development of all children everywhere through playful learning, including children impacted by humanitarian crises and emergencies. We know that play reduces stress, builds resilience, while fostering imagination and hope. We are on a journey to transform the lives of at least 75 million children each year by 2032.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exasperated existing problems faced by children all over the world. Put simply, we are facing a child rights crisis. And it’s only through collaboration that we can achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 to ensure inclusive, equitable, quality education for all children – even in these unprecedented times.

This is why we hope to continue working with our partners, to change systems, attitudes and norms standing in the way of all children reaching their full potential. Because when we team up, great things happen.

ECW: The LEGO Foundation is the leading philanthropic donor to ECW, working closely with us since 2019 to deliver inclusive quality education for crisis-affected children and youth. What message do you have to encourage other private sector donors to support our collective efforts for girls and boys impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate-change induced disasters and COVID-19?

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen: Listen to the children. Children are our role models, we listen to them and so should others.

Education is a top priority for children affected by crisis. When we address learning loss caused by crisis, families and entire communities benefit. Education boosts growth and reduces inequality. It ultimately promotes sustainable development. We simply cannot afford not to invest in children affected by crisis.

As we navigate COVID-19 recovery, we are at a pivotal moment in time to transform where, what, and how we learn. We have seen super smart solutions to education access. Now we must revolutionise education quality. Access to quality education is key to addressing 21st century challenges, including accelerating the fight to end poverty and climate-change.

Working in coalition with other donors is crucial to reaching the most vulnerable and in need children – especially in crisis and emergency situations. This is why we call on the private sector, philanthropic organisations, governments, and others to act now and donate generously to the global efforts for children impacted by conflicts, crises, climate-change induced disasters and the COVID-19 response and recovery.

ECW: The LEGO Foundation generously provided ECW with US$5.6 million in September 2021 in support of ECW’s work in Afghanistan and Haiti, bringing The LEGO Foundation’s total contributions to ECW to $33 million. What returns on investment for girls and boys, and for The LEGO Foundation, are you hoping to see as a result of these contributions to the work in Afghanistan and Haiti?

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen: We know that by partnering with ECW attention is focused on both the immediate and long-term impacts of crisis situations and that two key elements always in focus are access to and quality of education.

The LEGO Foundation believes deeply in the power of Learning Through Play for children affected by conflicts and crises, as is the current situation in Afghanistan and Haiti.

Research proves that play provides comfort, helps children to overcome traumatic experiences, builds resilience and allows a return to the routine and normalcy of being a child. Play can also relieve excess energy, provide emotional catharsis, and express emotions in a non-threatening way, encouraging children to respond to challenges with creative problem-solving.

Our investment in ECW will protect children and promote their learning and wellbeing by providing safe, equitable, locally relevant, and age-appropriate learning through play opportunities. This partnership will also support the mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of all children.

ECW: Play is often underestimated in learning, despite being the most natural way of acquiring essential life skills in early childhood. In emergencies and crisis this is further compounded by lack of resources and stress experienced by children and caregivers. By the end of 2020 ECW had allocated 11.5% of resources to early childhood interventions, exceeding the 10% target. What do you think should be done to raise the profile of the importance of early childhood programmes and learning through play in emergencies?

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen: The investment in the early years of the child’s life is absolutely crucial because the early playful experiences will have benefits that last well beyond the early years. We know that children learn best through play. Play is the most natural way for children to learn to read, write and do math, while also developing physically, socially, and emotionally to think creatively, and to collaborate to solve problems. This becomes even more important for the youngest children in emergencies. Playful learning can help them overcome the stressors caused by traumatic experiences.

Significant, coordinated investment in access to Learning Through Play in the early years is urgently needed to make a greater difference in the lives of children who find themselves in humanitarian crises and emergency situations. But it isn’t all about money. It’s also about using the power of brands like ours to influence others to invest in children’s learning, the development of holistic skills, and working in partnership with like-minded organisations like ECW.

We need policymakers, key decision makers and international leaders to pay attention to the early learning crisis, lending their support and voices to prioritising early childhood programmes. Children are not the future. They are the present!

And together we must ensure the importance of early childhood programmes and Learning Through Play in emergencies is amplified onto the public agenda. It’s only with awareness of the problem that we can work together to transform the education in emergencies ecosystem for the better.

ECW: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a global impact on all areas of virtually everyone’s life, and in many countries affected by emergencies and crises, vaccinations are still out of grasp. How does The LEGO Foundation see the long-term effect of the pandemic on education, particularly for crisis-affected children and youth already impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement and climate-induced disasters prior to COVID-19?

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen: To put it very simply, the COVID-19 pandemic has made already dire situations worse. Overlapping crises of conflict, natural disaster and COVID-19 exacerbate the burdens that children face.

At the peak of the pandemic, 90 per cent of the world’s students were out of school – that’s 1.6 billion children. The impact of school closures and the subsequent learning loss is devastating for children. When children drop out of school, the impacts can last a lifetime. These children may not develop the skills they need to reach their true potential.

We do not yet know the full impact on children after they were deprived of the chance to develop socially and emotionally together. But we do know that the pandemic has widened existing inequalities and increased the insecurity of the most vulnerable, particularly those children impacted by crises and emergencies.

We may see the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for years to come, but it is our joint responsibility to act now, stepping in as soon as possible to prevent further loss of quality education.

We have a unique and unprecedented opportunity to transform education systems, driving Learning Through Play to the forefront of the education agenda and equipping children with the skills they will need to navigate an ever-changing world.

ECW: The LEGO Foundation continues to be an innovative leader in early childhood education and learning through play. What are the three most important achievements you feel have been made in this area as a result of The LEGO Foundation’s work and advocacy on the importance of early childhood education and learning through play in emergency and crisis settings, and what are the most pressing things still to be done?

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen: Firstly, I hope we have helped raise and amplify the voices of children affected by crisis. Lifelong learning through play starts at birth and, can and should take place anywhere. No one should be left behind.

The second contribution is towards generating greater evidence on the importance of early childhood education and Learning Through Play in emergency and crisis settings. Education being an underfunded area also makes it difficult to push for more investment in early education, yet evidence shows that early learning sets children up for success. Our two large investments in promoting and supporting playful learning experiences for children in humanitarian settings are creating, testing, and scaling up new playful early learning interventions, and part of this work is also giving us more evidence on what works and why.

The third, and probably the most important for us, is the impact we have on the lives of children. We are excited about the increase in the number of children reached with Early Childhood Education (ECE) interventions and increase in overall investments in ECE through ECW. We understand that many more Multi-Year Resilience Programmes (MYRPs) developed by governments with support from ECW include ECE or pre-primary education. This is a very positive shift. We want to see how playful learning is used in these programmes and what this does for holistic learning outcomes for children.

ECW: Our readers would like to get to know you a bit better on a personal level and reading is a key component of education. Could you please share with us two or three books that have influenced you the most personally and/or professionally, and why you’d recommend them to other people to read?

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen: What a wonderful question: There are obviously great lessons for all of us in ‘Pippi Longstocking’ by Astrid Lindgren about children’s, especially girl’s, agency and ingenuity. More recent books which have shaped my thinking a lot include ‘New Power,’ by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms which helped inform my ideas about movements. I finally need to mention ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about what it means to be a feminist, and how gender roles and norms are detrimental to both men and women.

Excerpt:

ECW’s largest private sector donor highlights the value of investing in early childhood programming and learning through play to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

Categories: Africa

World Food Day: Climate Change is Exacerbating Hunger & Conflict—it’s Time to Break the Cycle

Wed, 10/13/2021 - 07:47

Women sell fruit and vegetables on a sidewalk in the Philippines, where workers in the informal economy are in danger of having their livelihoods destroyed by the impacts of COVID-19. The UN will be commemorating World Food Day on October 16. Credit: ILO/Minette Rimando

By Farah Hegazi and Caroline Delgado
STOCKHOLM, Oct 13 2021 (IPS)

Hunger, violent conflict and the visible impacts of climate change are all on the rise. World Food Day, October 16, is a reminder that we need to talk about the intricate ways that these challenges are connected—and how to tackle them together.

Despite steadily increasing global harvests, more than 150 million people were acutely food-insecure in 2020, and 41 million people were reportedly on the edge of famine this summer. The main drivers of this food insecurity were violent conflict and extreme weather events.

With the number of active armed conflicts at an historic high, the impacts of climate change intensifying rapidly, and the world economy reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to find sustainable solutions to the dangerous interactions between hunger, conflict and climate change impacts could not be more pressing.

Hunger, conflict and climate change: a lethal cocktail

Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Zimbabwe together accounted for the 10 worst hunger crises in 2020. In the preceding decade, they accounted for over 72 per cent of all conflict deaths globally. Most of these countries are also highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

This is no mere coincidence. Both conflict and climate change impact people’s ability to produce, trade and access food, often through complex interactions.

Attacks on food production are a regular feature of war, whether it is placing landmines in fields, burning crops, looting or killing livestock, or forcing farmers to switch away from food crops to more lucrative illicit crops such as coca leaves.

Disruption of transport routes makes it harder to distribute and store food, especially more perishable types. And when food is short and formal markets fail to deliver, black markets can thrive, with profits often going to one conflict party or another and thus helping to prolong the fighting. Not surprisingly, lasting food insecurity is among the principal legacies of war.

Climate change can also disrupt food production—from the immediate damage from floods and droughts, to slower impacts such changing rainfall patterns and rising temperatures that make it harder to grow current crop varieties.

These impacts can devastate the livelihoods of farmers and herders. The risk of conflict breaking out increases as they compete over viable land and water resources or migrate. They may also be courted by armed groups promising security and brighter prospects.

In Mali, for example, nearly a fifth of the population is food-insecure because of greater variability in rainfall and more frequent and severe droughts linked to climate change. Extremist groups have been quick to use this to their advantage, providing people with food in exchange for support and thereby further fueling conflict.

South Sudan is facing a similar situation. In flood-affected pastoral regions such as Jonglei, cattle raiding has become more frequent and more violent.

Combined solutions

On the positive side, these links between hunger, climate and conflict provide entry points for action that addresses all three—and does so more effectively than programmes trying to tackle them separately.

As an example, in a region of East Africa known as the Greater Karamoja Cluster—spanning parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda—there have been violent clashes between groups of migratory herders during protracted drought.

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization have managed to reduce these conflicts, and boost the herders’ livelihoods and food security, by helping them negotiate deals on the use of pasture and water resources.

Even small-scale, highly localized programmes can catalyse wider change. In Colombia, a country highly vulnerable to climate change and scarred by the legacy of a long-running armed conflict, the revival of traditional indigenous knowledge is gaining momentum.

This includes using natural early warning signs like the appearance of certain migratory birds, which can help locals to prepare themselves for climate impacts, as well as reviving sustainable farming, fishing and hunting practices. In the process, it brings together communities fragmented by the fighting.

The rise of hunger and conflict—reversing decades of progress—along with intensifying impacts of climate change all call for urgent action, from the United Nations down. But they are connected issues, compounding each other at dire cost to people and nature.

Although it recognized that conflict and climate are linked to food insecurity, the recent UN Food Systems Summit missed the chance to discuss in depth how these connections work or how to address them.

Another chance for real progress is coming with the imminent UN climate summit in Glasgow, COP26. It is to be hoped that the discussions on climate change adaptation and loss and damage will explicitly look at how to decouple hunger, conflict and climate change.

Dr Farah Hegazi is a Researcher on the Climate Change and Risk programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), where she specializes on environmental peacebuilding. She is part of the research team for the SIPRI initiative Environment of Peace (https://www.sipri.org/research/peace-and-development/environment-peace).

Dr Caroline Delgado is a Senior Researcher and Director of the Food, Peace and Security Programme at SIPRI. Her areas of expertise include conflict, human security and peacebuilding. She is one of the focal points for the Global Registry of Violent Deaths (GReVD).

Categories: Africa

GGGI and Qatar MME sign an MoU and funding agreement to promote climate resilience and green growth in Qatar

Tue, 10/12/2021 - 19:14

By External Source
SEOUL, Republic of Korea, Oct 12 2021 (IPS-Partners)

The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) of the State of Qatar have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to formalize their joint cooperation to promote climate resiliency and green growth in the State of Qatar.

The MoU was signed by His Excellency Dr.Abdulla bin Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Subaie, Minister Municipality and Environment of the State of Qatar, and Dr. Frank Rijsberman, Director-General of GGGI. The in-person signing ceremony was held at the GGGI Seoul headquarters. HE Minister Al-Subaie was accompanied by H.E. Khalid Ibrahim Abdulrahman Al-Hamar, Ambassador of Qatar to the Republic of Korea, and several other Qatari dignitaries, and was joined by GGGI’s senior management team.

H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon, President & Chair of GGGI welcomed the Qatari delegation to GGGI and witnessed the signing ceremony. Congratulating MME and GGGI on the occasion, he said, “I am pleased to see this new milestone in GGGI’s growing relationship with Qatar. This demonstrates Qatar’s commitment to environmental sustainability which is linked to the long-term prosperity of every country”.

H.E. Minister Al-Subaie stated that “Today’s ceremony resembles our commitment, not only to the initiatives we are taking domestically but also to international cooperation for contributing to the green transition. I hope that this will be the beginning of many years of cooperation between us which will also benefit communities around the globe.”

GGGI’s Director-General Dr. Rijsberman remarked, “Qatar is a founding member of GGGI, and we look forward to working together with MME in supporting sustainable development in Qatar. This pandemic has highlighted the need for strong international cooperation and the need for green growth approaches for a resilient world for future generations. I am pleased with this strengthening collaboration and look forward to our joint work under the MoU that will benefit both Qatar and encourage other GGGI Member countries as well.”

Qatar is currently a Member of the Council of GGGI. Under this cooperation agreement, Qatar will provide USD 7.5 million for scaling up GGGI’s Doha office operations to support the State of Qatar in green growth policy, planning, and implementation. In Aug 2020, represented by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), Qatar signed a Host Country Agreement with GGGI to formally impart diplomatic privileges and immunities to its Doha office hosted at the MME. GGGI also has a cooperation program with the Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD) and formalized the partnership in October 2020 under which four QFFD-GGGI projects are being implemented to support climate resilience and green recovery in the Pacific, Caribbean, and West African regions.

Moderating the ceremony, GGGI’s Qatar engagement focal Dr. Pranab Baruah thanked involved colleagues at the MME and the Embassy of Qatar in Seoul for their various supports to advance the MoU process to conclusion.

Categories: Africa

Why Pakistani Women Feel Unsafe in Public Spaces

Tue, 10/12/2021 - 15:07

Women’s Day (Auret March) in 2018. Despite the growth of feminism and activism against gender-based violence, women still fear attacks in public places in Pakistan. Credit: Zofeen T Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
Karachi, Oct 12 2021 (IPS)

The mauling, groping and tossing of a young woman by a crowd of between 300 and 400 men in a park in the eastern city of Lahore, in the Punjab province, may have caused a wave of country-wide disgust, but speaks volumes of how unsafe public spaces are for Pakistani women.

“If I’m not safe in my own city, I can never be safe in any corner of the world,” said the woman survivor, also a TikTokker, in an interview narrating the incident that occurred on Pakistan’s 74th day of independence and was captured on videos that went viral soon after.

Actor Ushna Shah echoed the same sentiment on Twitter: “What else has to happen for every single person to accept the fact that women are not safe in Pakistan. Women are not safe.”

Sheema Kermani says her dancers pack up and leave public spaces when confronted.

“Over the years, public spaces for women in Pakistan have been decreasing,” lamented Sheema Kermani, a renowned classical dancer, and founder of Karachi-based Tehrik-e-Niswan, a women’s rights group. She and her group have had their share of unwarranted episodes, performing in public spaces, even doing street theatre. They have had stones hurled at them or have been asked to stop their performance, in which case they pack up immediately and leave to “avoid confrontation”.

Despite more women joining the workforce and the emergence of young feminist groups that have “actually pushed for making public spaces safe for women,” Kermani observed, “the last couple of years has taken Pakistani society back many hundreds of years” where women are “hated, demeaned, exploited, abused, even raped”. She added: “It is as if their lives are of little consequence.”

And that is what the TikTokker felt when she said: “They [men] were playing with me,” as they ripped off her clothes.

This incident comes just weeks after the beheading of a former diplomat’s daughter in the capital. Another undated video that went viral, following the TikTokker’s assault, showed a man lunging towards two women riding on the back of a rickshaw and is heard kissing one of them. Police are investigating yet another video of a woman being stripped by a group of men in a park.

Prime Minister Imran Khan does not make it easier either when he blames women for these crimes that he says are “spreading like cancer”. “Wearing very few clothes,” he said, will have an “impact on the men unless they are robots”. In 2019, the information minister quoted the Prime Minister for blaming TikTok, a social media platform, for the “growing obscenity and vulgarity in society”.

“But I was not even vulgarly dressed,” the TikTok survivor had said in her interview.

Maria Memon was shaken to the core after experiencing verbal abuse.

“I can well imagine this woman’s trauma,” said TV anchorperson Maria Memon.

She had faced an unruly mob while covering an anti-government protest sit-in by the now ruling Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), in Faisalabad, also in Punjab, in 2014, that had left her “shaken to the core” after being attacked by a volley of verbal abuse.

“They wanted to see me break down,” she said. When that did not happen, they started “throwing empty plastic water bottles and sticks at me,” she told IPS over the phone from Islamabad, the country’s capital.

Seven years later, said Memon, Pakistani women journalists remain “untrained”, “unprepared”, and “vulnerable” to a crowd that can quickly turn violent. While media outlets want to send women to these events, they seldom have a contingency escape plan to quickly evacuate them when things get rough.

In 2018, the London-based Thomson Reuters Foundation ranked Pakistan the sixth most dangerous country and fifth on non-sexual violence, including domestic abuse in the world for women.

Sana Mirza recalls her own humiliating incident and salutes those who report harassment.

“Unless these men are not punished, there will be no stopping them,” said Sana Mirza, Memon’s colleague, who faced a similar situation in another PTI rally in Lahore, just a few weeks after Memon, in 2014.

Unlike Memon, she broke down in front of the camera, “feeling humiliated,” she said, and the episode continued haunting her, and she refused to go out in the field for a good eight months. “I even removed myself from social media as these platforms had become too toxic, and I was unable to sleep,” she told IPS over the phone from Islamabad.

While many women, had they experienced what the TikTokker’s went through, would have kept silent, Mirza said, she saluted this woman “for her courage to lodge a complaint to the police”.

So far, over 60 men have been arrested after they were identified through the video using the national database. The police have geo-fenced 28,000 people and shortlisted 350 suspects, and the arrests continue.

But Mirza remains unconvinced the arrested men arrested will be punished. “They never are. Just look at the statistics!” she said.

According to Karachi-based War Against Rape, while sexual assault and rape cases have increased, the conviction rate is less than 3%. And this figure is about the crimes that are reported.

Amna Baig believes that women should report incidents as non-reporting emboldens the perpetrators.

While the “system may not be perfect”, Amna Baig, an Islamabad-based policewoman, defending the police system by not reporting such incidents was “emboldening” perpetrators. She termed the complaint filing by the TikTok user, albeit three days late, a very “courageous” step.

In her five years of being in the force at various cities in Punjab, she said, she had come across several murders of women by their spouses. Still, neither the deceased nor any family member ever filed a complaint of domestic violence (DV) before the murder.

“You can save so many lives if you report,” she said, adding, “Just lodging a complaint can act as a deterrent because the person knows he will be held accountable”.

Interestingly, Baig feels “safer” and “empowered” in a police uniform than in plain clothes. “I think the uniform exudes both the fear factor as well as respect,” and has never been harassed while on duty.

Still, it is not too late to ensure “women’s choices, voices, and lives count” if you ask Senator Sherry Rehman.

It was time to bring to life the domestic violence bill that she had first introduced back in 2004, as a member of the national assembly, but which she continues to stumble “on the barriers of misogyny and anti-women lobbies”.

The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) is vetting it to ensure it is in tandem with the Shariah [Islamic law].

“Why are only legislations related to women sent to the CII?” asked Rehman. “Like the rest, these too, can be discussed in the parliament, and their fate decided through voting just the way other bills are discussed and passed,” she added.

While she admitted no one law or series of laws would change the game, moving the law is the starting point, not the endpoint for change.

“Without baseline laws against domestic violence, for instance, such as the one in Sindh, the courts won’t have the legal scaffolding to provide the relief even if they are so inclined,” she pointed out.

Categories: Africa

Disparities in Poverty Between Ethnic Groups & Across Genders Show Why We Need to Dig Deeper into Poverty Data

Tue, 10/12/2021 - 08:05

Credit: UNDP

By Sabina Alkire
LONDON, Oct 12 2021 (IPS)

During the pandemic, we learnt a new word – at least I did: comorbidity. It means that one or more additional conditions co-occur (all happen at the same time for a person) alongside a primary condition – in this case the virus.

And we learnt that when a person has significant comorbidities, the path of the virus can be tragic.

We therefore learned to be highly alert for diabetes, for lung conditions, and medical histories, and to protect vulnerable people in our circles carefully. As time went on, our circle of attention expanded – to handwashing, to overcrowding, to water and nutrition, or informal work – or risks like domestic violence, that make lockdown unbearable.

After a while, this habit of looking into comorbidities felt eerily familiar. Our and other teams working on poverty also scrutinise disadvantages that strike a person all-at-once. Instead of calling these comorbidities, we call them deprivations.

And a large package of deprivations is called multidimensional poverty.

But the idea is really rather similar: those who already have high poverty ‘comorbidities’ (in our language, people who are ‘multidimensionally poor’) are already facing difficulties, and are also most at-risk if a further threat strikes – like the virus.

But just as the virus affected different groups differently, the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating inequalities that poverty data was only just starting to explore before the pandemic hit.

Let me give an example from the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) produced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) this year.

We studied two layers of ‘co-morbidities’. First, we looked at a set of 10 indicators spanning conditions like child mortality, school attendance, electricity, water, and assets, and found out how many people are deprived in at least one-third of weighted indicators.

Second, we looked at poverty across ethnic groups, and through a gendered and intrahousehold lens. Data are pre-covid, but provide the most up-to-date assessment of all-at-once deprivations – of multidimensional poverty – that we have.

Sabina Alkire. Credit: Kiara Worth IISD/ENB

In the first place, looking across 5.9 billion people in 109 developing countries, we found that 1.3 billion were multidimensionally poor. And in terms of the poverty parallel for ‘comorbidities’, one billion lack clean energy; one billion lack adequate sanitation; one billion have substandard housing, 788 million live with at least one undernourished person and over half lack electricity – even to charge a cell phone or turn on at night.

So, the web of co-deprivations is indeed dense and tightly woven. And this dataset – which incidentally is online with all of these details in many forms, because we want people to use it – is disaggregated so you can map 1,291 subnational regions, or look at children, or female-headed households, or rural-urban areas, to see how the level of poverty and the overlaps across 10 indicators, vary. It’s a lot of information.

Next, we probed inequalities. We had some ethnicity data for 2.4 billion people in 41 countries – it’s not perfect, but the topic is too important to ignore. So, we disaggregated the already disturbing condition of multidimensional poverty by ethnic groups.

Disparity across these ethnic groups was astonishingly high – higher than across all 1,291 subnational regions. In Latin America, indigenous peoples stood out. For instance, in Bolivia indigenous communities account for about 44 percent of the population but 75 percent of multidimensionally poor people.

In Gabon and Nigeria, the disparity in poverty rates between ethnic groups spanned 70 percentage points. We did this study not to drum doom, but rather to shine light on ethnic disparities in the hopes that this will spark change.

Then there is gender. We know the vital importance of girls’ education in reducing undernutrition, child mortality, unemployment etc. So, we wanted to see how many of the 1.3 billion poor people don’t have an educated girl or woman in their household.

We used 6 years of schooling as our criterion. When the data came in, it gave us a start. Two-thirds of all multidimensionally poor people – 836 million – lack any educated girl or woman.

So, while there has been progress in poverty reduction, the road ahead is long. To understand more we peered inside the household, to look at boys and men in those households.

And we found that one-sixth of all multidimensionally poor people (215 million) live in households with an educated male, but no educated female – a daily disparity. But half the 1.3 billion MPI poor lacked any educated person. One meets these figures with a heavy heart.

To put that number into perspective, across the 4.6 billion people who were not poor, only 4.2 percent of them lack an educated person. Yes, nowadays we yearn to leapfrog, to expand digital reach. But distressing basics – of education, of nutrition – are still a real part of poverty ‘comorbidities’.

So, comorbidities and multidimensional poverty cover common ground. And just as the Charlston Comorbidity Index among others has been widely used, so too we hope that this uncomfortable profiling of multidimensional poverty, and of structural inequalities by ethnicity, age, place and gender, will contribute to what Pope Francis calls “a global movement against indifference” so that the picture we find from the data for the rest of this decade is not one of a poverty pandemic.

Sabina Alkire is Director, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative

Categories: Africa

Better Late than Never, but Act Now

Tue, 10/12/2021 - 07:40

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct 12 2021 (IPS)

The world should now be more aware of likely COVID-19 devastation unless urgently checked. Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced an US$8 billion plan to quickly vaccinate many more people to expedite ending the pandemic.

New WHO plan
Perhaps frustrated after being ignored by rich country governments and major vaccine producers, the new WHO plan is relatively modest, but hopefully more realisable. Supported by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the Vaccination Strategy seeks to reduce vaccine apartheid by inoculating 40% in all countries before year’s end, and 70% by mid-2022.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

had urged governments to vaccinate at least 10% of their populations by September 2021. With almost 6.5 billion inoculations by then, almost a third of the world’s people were fully vaccinated. As noted by WHO Director General (DG) Tedros, “High and upper-middle income countries have used 75 per cent of all vaccines produced so far”.

Worldwide vaccination will also stem emerging new variants. But less than 0.5% of doses have gone to low-income countries, with less than 5% in Africa fully vaccinated. Thus, more than 55, mainly African countries have been largely left out in this ‘two-track’ vaccination effort.

Globally, about 1.5 billion vaccine doses are being produced monthly. The WHO Strategy deems this enough to achieve its targets, “provided they are distributed equitably”. Although more financing is still needed, it implies enough to procure most vaccines needed for poorer countries via COVAX and the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT).

Despite the past, the DG believes the Strategy can succeed if countries and companies supplying vaccines prioritise delivery and donations to COVAX and AVAT. He also urges sharing know-how and non-exclusive licences to spread increased manufacturing capacity.

Intellectual property impediment
Intellectual property rights (IPRs) underlie the world pandemic divide today. Undoubtedly, those who innovate should be rewarded for their achievement. But US law does not prevent price gouging by IP owners. Worse, there are no strong incentives for commercial vaccine suppliers to eradicate the disease.

Unsurprisingly, Pfizer has already revised its business strategy for its main revenue stream to be from selling ‘boosters’ and other COVID-19 needs. WHO and other initiatives to encourage voluntary technology and knowledge sharing have gone nowhere as major companies refuse to share knowledge.

Nevertheless, genome sequencing in China in early January 2020 and the almost free use of crucial techniques to produce mRNA vaccines – such as NIH-owned patents and CRISPR technology – have expedited such vaccine development.

Earlier claims that developing countries are not capable of producing the new mRNA vaccines are no longer credible. South Africa and Brazil have already made them under licence. Independent assessments suggest many more – including others in Africa – can do so.

The October 2020 TRIPS waiver request by South Africa and India goes beyond the 2001 WTO approval of public health flexibilities. This allows production using patent compulsory licensing (CL) in extenuating situations during public health emergencies. But the waiver has been blocked, mainly by rich European governments.

The waiver was not mainly about vaccines. When the request was first made, the only vaccine available was Russian. The waiver request for temporary IPR suspension – only for the pandemic’s duration – is for COVID-19 tests, treatments, equipment, vaccines and other needs, subject to strict conditions.

In the face of a global crisis demanding urgent action, the European Commission position – even a year later – is that TRIPS voluntary licensing (VL) is enough. It insists the waiver – and even CL – are not needed even though both VL and CL require country by country, patent by patent negotiations and licensing.

As affordable COVID-19 supplies are still desperately needed, the scale and scope of the current challenge still need the waiver. But no developing country – or for that matter, patent holder – has either the means or time to negotiate to meet all the needed VLs urgently.

Achieving Global Vaccine Equity
For Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, adequately addressing vaccine equity requires raising output, deemed necessary for a more equitable response. The BU proposal calls for a simultaneous 3-pronged approach to quickly scale up vaccine supplies via:

IP constraints

financing

By contrast, CL would still require many separate, often lengthy negotiations and licensing for every patent involved in making needed items.

Massively increasing donations – especially from vaccine-hoarding and producing countries – can get many more doses to the under-vaccinated. Big rich G7 countries are still very far from meeting their own modest billion dose donation target.

COVAX, ostensibly for more equitable access to vaccines, has achieved about 10% of its promise, far less than the two billion doses pledged by year’s end. The proposed WHO moratorium on booster shots should continue until equitable vaccine access has been achieved.

Socio-economic inequalities among and within countries have also frustrated pandemic containment. Unsurprisingly, worldwide vaccine inequalities have exacerbated adverse effects. Sadly, the international community has the means, but not the political will to do the needed.

US missing leadership chance
Half a year ago, President Biden announced the US would support a vaccine patent waiver. His vaccine summit before the UN General Assembly was promising, but again did not deliver much. He can still make a world of difference, uniting the world to defeat the pandemic.

Without White House leadership, urgently needed technology sharing will not occur. As Moderna received federal government funding, the US President is legally empowered to ramp up its output and supplies, e.g., on a cost-plus basis. He could also get Moderna to enable others to quickly make vaccines needed.

Washington can thus ensure Moderna does the needed. If Biden wants to lead the world, he still has a small window of opportunity to lead and win the war against COVID-19. Not doing so will mean millions more avoidable deaths. Only together can we rise to the greatest challenge of our times.

Categories: Africa

Mental Health at a Cost, Inequality

Mon, 10/11/2021 - 19:46

Women are nearly twice as likely as men to suffer from mental illness, including depression. Credit: Unsplash /Melanie Wasser.

By External Source
Oct 11 2021 (IPS)

World Mental Health Day was on October 10, 2021. The theme for this year was “Mental Health in an unequal World”. This is an appropriate focus given the extreme inequities to access to mental health services that exist in our society.

We are three providers committed to mental health equity across the globe-in India, Uganda and the United States. While our countries and contexts may differ, our commitment to equality in Mental Health is the same. We recognize commonalities in the diverse impact that mental illness has on the most vulnerable members of our communities.

While there has been some focus on the poor access to mental health services in high income countries, between 75% to 95% of people with mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries are unable to access mental health services at all

Mental health disorders are considered the second leading cause of disease burden in terms of Years Lived with Disability (YLD) and sixth leading cause of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) in the world. Mental health and substance use disorders are a major source of disability across the globe, regardless of location or income.

While there has been some focus on the poor access to mental health services in high income countries, between 75% to 95% of people with mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries are unable to access mental health services at all. Lack of investment in mental health disproportionate to the overall health budget contributes to the mental health treatment gap.

Mental health is dependent on a milieu of advantages and disadvantages. Adversity, trauma, insecurities, poverty, power disabling environment and physical morbidities, among other factors, all contribute to poor mental health. These issues are all augmented in under-resourced areas and exacerbated among the most vulnerable.

Wealth inequality has impacted general health, including mental health. Women are nearly twice as likely as men to suffer from mental illness, including depression. This gender disparity may relate to social inequalities and living standards across nations.

While public health discourse has begun to address the mental health burden and address it, social inequalities must be understood to achieve any form of equality in the mental health landscape. Addressing disparities in mental health not only involves reducing the stigma associated with mental health diagnoses and treatment but also involves increasing access to care.

According to the United Nations, there are 9 per 100,000 mental health workers for the global population. However, when taking into account low versus high income countries this number varies substantially.

While this shows that mental health services are available, access is important in treating mental illness as well as an understanding of factors such as the social determinants of health that greatly contribute to one’s mental health.

Therefore when we attempt to reduce inequality in mental health, we must also make a worldwide commitment to promote policies that advance equality across gender, wealth, education and participation must be made to achieve the highest possible level of mental health for all people.

Reducing mental health inequalities and their impact on us is one of the most immediate problems that we face and needs urgent action. We suggest four ways to focus on mental health equity locally and globally with a greater focus on effective, pragmatic, scalable solutions that address disadvantages and foster resilience in people.

We need to co-create mental health services that integrate and not isolate people; options to access services should focus on keeping individuals within their own environment of comfort. Services should be provided to increase accessibility. This includes the provision of services at convenient locations within a community and during times beyond normal work hours, including evenings and weekends. Utilization rates will peak and mental well-being and outcomes will improve drastically.
The health care community needs to shift its mind-set to adopting holistic mental health processes and outcomes that embrace openness and creativity. Mental well-being should be normalised in the practice and policy of healthcare provision. This can help reduce the stigma associated with both seeking and providing treatment.
Communities should be engaged in grassroots efforts that focus on training members to become mental health gatekeepers and liaise with clinical practitioners. Strong and sustainable examples include Zimbabwe’s grandma benches, healing circles, and Mental Health First Aid education programs that have invested in the community to engage the solutions that best serve their purpose and needs.

Mental Health cannot be addressed in isolation since it is centered in a complex socio-cultural context. Solutions to enhance equity have to address the environmental and sociopolitical factors in play in the community and divest from oppressive systems that perpetuate marginalization of mental illness.

If the COVID-19 Pandemic and its associated lockdowns has not highlighted the urgent need to promote Mental health, then nothing will. We need to treat Mental health promotion as a public health emergency which needs immediate action necessary to generate equity in outcomes. Awareness is only the first step. High quality, affordable and normalized mental health should not be a privilege but a right, that everyone can claim.

Equal Mental Health Care for all; let’s make it a reality!

Author Biographies:

Shubha Nagesh is a medical doctor and a public health consultant and works at The Latika Roy Foundation, Dehradun, India.

Gabrielle Jackson is a licensed clinical social worker, therapist, and facilitator in private practice at Diasporic Healing LLC in Washington DC.

Rose Mary Nakame is a Registered Nurse, Public Health Specialist, and Executive Director of REMI East Africa in Kampala, Uganda.

Categories: Africa

India: Gaps in the Government’s Plan to Help Unorganised Workers

Mon, 10/11/2021 - 18:27

Effective digital intervention for unorganised workers needs to be supported by a strengthened non-digital infrastructure. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS.

By External Source
Oct 11 2021 (IPS)

The Government of India launched the e-Shram portal with the mandate of registering 380,000,000 unorganised workers in the country. The portal aims to bridge the gap in unorganised workers’ ability to access social welfare and employment benefits by issuing an e-Shram card (or Shramik card) upon registration.

This card assigns each worker a unique 12-digit number, which enables access to social security and employment benefits. The government also plans to use the data collected via the portal to create India’s first Aadhaar-seeded National Database of Unorganized Workers (NDUW).

At its core, this one-of-a-kind initiative is a welcome change as it will systematically bring unorganised workers under one umbrella. By expanding the scope of defining the term ‘worker’, it enables the inclusion of erstwhile excluded categories of domestic and migrant workers.

Failed attempts by workers to access the digital portal draws attention to the importance of strengthening non-digital infrastructure. This will improve access and effectiveness of digital interventions for the poor and marginalised unorganised workforce, whose reality is marred by a stark digital divide

The portal offers both online and offline registration routes. However, as described below, failed attempts by workers to access the digital portal draws attention to the importance of strengthening non-digital infrastructure. This will improve access and effectiveness of digital interventions for the poor and marginalised unorganised workforce, whose reality is marred by a stark digital divide.

Moreover, insights from workers attempting to access and register on the portal highlight the need for proactive and effective collaboration between employers, workers collectives, and civil society organisations (CSOs). This will help the portal deliver to its target beneficiaries.

Barriers in access to devices and the internet

Attempts to register three migrant domestic workers working in New Delhi—two from West Bengal (Amira and Nur) and one from Madhya Pradesh (Rita Devi)—shed light on the barriers in access, awareness, and ability to claim to benefits that many erstwhile excluded groups face.

The first attempt to digitally register Amira failed as she could not access the e-Shram portal using her keypad handset that had no internet. Nur was next—she was unable to access the website as the page was incompatible with her 2G internet connection and handset. And Rita, who did not have a mobile phone, relied on her employer to return her family’s calls.

Barriers in access to mobile number–seeded Aadhaar

We then tried using a desktop interface for registration. Amira was unable to register as her phone number did not match the mobile number linked to her Aadhaar. “In the migration to Delhi by train, I lost the registered number that my husband and I used… as a domestic worker, I had never used that number or Aadhaar to get any employment benefits… I didn’t know such benefits existed.”

Since Amira had not previously accessed employment welfare benefits which required mobile–Aadhaar authentication, she was unaware of the need to update her mobile number over the years. Through the process of trying to register her using Aadhaar, what Amira was most sceptical about was the misuse of her Aadhaar on an online portal that she did not have information about. She said, “This won’t take away my family’s PDS entitlements back in Bengal, right?”

For Nur and Rita, online registration on the portal failed because their Aadhaar was not attached to a mobile number. As the online e-Shram portal requires a mobile number-Aadhaar authentication, the workers were unable to use the digital intervention to their advantage.

In all three cases, failure to register online highlighted the need for workers to rely on common service centres (CSCs) and kiosks for assistance to register online and get their Aadhaar linked, thus depending on non-digital infrastructure to claim digital welfare benefits.

This is in tandem with findings from previous reports, which showcase that migrant workers’ precarity is reinforced due to the challenges they face during the process of updating their Aadhaar. Discussions with the team from Chalo Network, a financial inclusion initiative tell us that migrant workers face barriers firstly due to the limited awareness about the process, and secondly due to the time and financial cost involved.

This was especially noted during the pandemic when workers faced limited access to welfare due to issues in updating Aadhaar, which made them rely on non-digital infrastructure and intermediaries for support.

Creating an inclusive and conducive ecosystem for e-Shram beneficiaries

As the government takes steps towards building India’s Aadhaar-seeded NDUW and ease unorganised workers’ access to welfare benefits, few gaps remain to be filled. Filling these gaps is essential to effectively incorporating India’s 90 percent informal workforce that has so far remained on the margin of employment-related welfare benefits.

The government and welfare ecosystem need to address the bottlenecks which impinge on workers’ ability to effectively use the infrastructure to claim these benefits. Some key areas to be considered are:

1. Bridging the digital divide
Unorganised workers account for 92 percent of India’s workforce. In India, only 4.4 percent rural and 42 percent urban households have access to the internet, which is further skewed due to gender and regional disparity.

Poorer states like Odisha averaged at 5.8 percent internet access in rural areas while accounting for 81.5 percent unorganised workforce.
Only 21 percent women have access to mobile internet services.

In this digitally unequal landscape, the hope for an organic digital uptake of e-Shram seems a distant dream. However, the use of existing non-digital welfare infrastructure—welfare boards, fair price shops (FPS), CSC agents, and CSOs—which are present at the grassroots and have been working with unorganised workers might propel a speedy and effective uptake.

2. Reinforcing trust and reach
Historically, many unorganised wor k ers have remained outside the scope of employment-related benefits by the state. Noting their first-time inclusion, there is a need to create awareness and trust among the beneficiaries and the employment ecosystem about the advantages of registering on the portal.

As informality remains a feature of not merely state-worker relations but also worker-employer relations, it is important to reinforce trust among workers and their employers about the merits that the initiative holds. Here, grounded awareness campaigns with the use of multilingual posters and voice-based awareness initiatives will encourage registration uptake, especially among migrants, women, and adolescents workers, who presently remain marginalised due to literacy and language constraints.

3. Strengthening non-digital infrastructure
Effective digital intervention for unorganised workers needs to be supported by a strengthened non-digital infrastructure. To create impact at scale, the government should invest in the training and capacity building of non-digital infrastructure, including CSC and kiosks, which will be the first step for workers to use the portal effectively.

Additionally, the existing network of last-mile delivery agents from other government interventions such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), and Public Distribution System (PDS), among others, can be capitalised to create awareness and reach beneficiaries.

4. Avoiding workers’ self-selection out of the benefits
The e-Shram portal extends social welfare benefits to categories such as domestic and migrant workers, who so far have been excluded from the welfare infrastructure. It calls for special attention to be given to promote awareness about entitlements among workers whose labour has been excluded both in the policy and societal realm.

Accounting for the historical gendered exclusion of women’s domestic work in the realm of policy, a majority of domestic workers remain unaware of their rights and the entitlements they are eligible for. This is worse when workers are migrants in destination states where they have limited bargaining power vis-a-vis their employers. In this context, a proactive awareness campaign will help avoid workers’ self-exclusion and promote equitable inclusion as beneficiaries.

5. Integrating employers and CSOs as stakeholders
Lastly, noting the informal relation between employers and employees in the unorganised sector, it is critical to work with CSOs, employers, and intermediaries such as thekedars and contractors to enable an ecosystem that focuses on benefits to workers.

Nudging employers to encourage registration may potentially benefit the uptake, along with creating more awareness about the entitlements that unorganised workers can benefit from, without any penalty to employers. In particular, CSO integration with e-Shram can be seen in two ways.

First, by enabling workers access through non-governmental volunteer-based registration in their existing programmes. Second, by partnering with CSOs for effective delivery of benefits, similar to previous attempts in the health and education domains. Effective grassroots integration can provide a pathbreaking space for collaboration and strengthening of the welfare ecosystem for unorganised workers.

Harshita Sinha is a PhD Candidate at the London School of Economics working on migrant workers and the Indian informal labour market. She is also a migration fellow with India Migration Now and Bandhu Urban Tech. Her work looks at the intersection of citizenship and informal labour regimes in urban destination states. She has recently curated Voices of Informality, a knowledge platform which aims to bring forth grassroots stories on informality for practice-based action.

This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

Categories: Africa

Day of the Girl Child: A Digital Generation Where Every Girl Counts

Mon, 10/11/2021 - 12:27

“People say that boys work in technology, but I think girls can also do it because when I started working on it, I really enjoyed it and it inspired me for the future, " says one of the Junior Regional Winners of the 2021 Technovation challenge, a UNDP supported programme that invites girls and young women to work in teams to code mobile applications and help solve real-world problems through technology. Day of the Girl Child October 11 Credit: UN Technovation

By Mirjana Spoljaric Egger
NEW YORK, Oct 11 2021 (IPS)

The theme of this year’s annual International Day of the Girl Child, on October 11, “Digital generation. Our generation.”, recognizes the digital transformation brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. But while the pandemic accelerated the transition to online learning, working and networking, it also accelerated women and girl’s risk of being left behind.

In 2020, more than 60 million women in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) had no access to the mobile internet and so, were more likely than men to miss out on learning and working opportunities.

Access, ownership and use of digital tools are not gender-neutral: For instance, parents may be stricter with girls than boys in the use of mobile phones and activities that require the use of the internet, while households with limited computing resources might redirect these to boys and men over girls and women, often tasked with domestic chores and unpaid work. Factors such as affordability and cost also affect women and girls disproportionally.

Moreover, social norms, gender bias and a lack of support from the family and teachers often dissuade girls and women from choosing education programmes in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and from pursuing careers in these fields.

19-year-old South African girl Sebabatso Ncephe (left) developed an app – Afya Yangu, or “My Health” in Swahili. By allowing hospitals to directly communicate with patients, the app helps patients maintain privacy and dignity. Credit: UNICEF/Mosibudi Ratlebjane

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, one in three girls report being discouraged by their families from choosing STEM subjects more broadly at university, while in Ukraine 23 percent of women aged 15-24 report a lack of self-confidence as the main reason for not pursuing a career in technology. With fewer women pursuing STEM fields, the scarcity of women role models for the younger generation persists, reinforcing the problem.

Gender equality in STEM

We must all join forces to advance gender equality in STEM. Measures include removing gender stereotypes in education, raising awareness and promoting STEM subjects to girls and women, and offering career guidance to encourage girls to consider studying in fields dominated by men.

Our regional advocacy platform, STEM4All, is engaging with multiple partners – from policymakers and academic institutions to women and girls themselves– in sharing knowledge, building coalitions and making connections to advance gender equality in STEM.

Earlier this year, the platform facilitated a ‘Girls in Tech: Central Asia’ event, which brought together leaders from the tech industry and ICT role models to share experiences and offer advice to more than 120 girls and women in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

One of our goals in the platform is to profile high-impact initiatives by our partners, government, and the private sector. For instance, the Engineer Girls of Turkey project is a wonderful model of how we can increase the employability of qualified women in engineering with scholarships, internships and mentoring, and coaching support.

In Azerbaijan, UNDP has partnered with USAID in piloting a nine-month mentorship programme to equip young women and girls with tools and advice to progress in STEM fields. The platform is powered by the Accelerator Labs, a UNDP learning network created to accelerate progress towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Future of work

While the demand for workers in STEM occupations is only expected to grow in the future, in Europe and Central Asia, the share of women researchers in engineering and technology crosses 40 percent only in a few countries. The number of women in computer science is also particularly low compared to men: women are only 18 percent of ICT specialists in the EU, while just 16 percent of founders in the ICT and tech fields in Southern Caucasus and Western CIS are women.

Cultural and social norms, a lack of childcare support, and inadequate parental leave policies are major barriers to women entering and progressing in careers of their choice. These obstacles are amplified manifold in STEM fields, whose men-dominated workplaces and entrenched gender stereotypes present formidable impediments for many talented women.

Gender equality in STEM and in the future of work is a goal unto itself. We cannot deny half of humanity the opportunity to enter and succeed in this high-growth sector which powers the green and digital transition.

But there are also compelling economic and social reasons for us to strive towards this goal.

In the EU, for example, closing the gender gap in STEM could lead to an additional 1.2 million jobs. More women graduating in STEM subjects and choosing careers in higher-wage sectors can gradually increase their average earnings, helping to close the gender wage gap.

The world and the future of work need women’s skills and perspectives, talent and leadership, as much as those of men. This requires all our concerted actions to close the gender digital gap and leverage the power of technology to advance girls’ and women’s education, leadership and equal future.

Mirjana Spoljaric Egger is Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, Assistant Administrator of UNDP, and Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS. She was appointed to this position by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in August 2018 and assumed her duties in October 2018.

Categories: Africa

China and the UN at 50- What We Can Achieve Together

Mon, 10/11/2021 - 12:10

Delegation of the People’s Republic of China making its debut at the UN Assembly Hall. Credit: Xinhua

By Siddharth Chatterjee
BEIJING, Oct 11 2021 (IPS)

China was one of the architects of the United Nations and was the first signatory of the UN Charter in San Francisco in 1945.

But it was only in October 1971, with the Chinese delegation led by Mr. Qiao Guanhua, that China’s representation at the UN resumed. Since that time, the UN has had the great privilege of witnessing and supporting China in achieving one of the greatest periods of socio-economic progress in world history.

Now, on the 50th anniversary of China in the UN, I am honoured to serve as the UN Resident Coordinator, a post I took earlier this year.

While I took up my post in Beijing on 08 February 2021, I am only just beginning to understand its rich tapestry of over 5,000 years of civilization. The UN in China has had the privilege to shape and witness the profound economic and social transformations that have occurred since reform and opening-up.

As we commemorate a half-century of cooperation, a question naturally emerges: Which way now for the UN and China?

This is a weighty question, as China and the world are at a critical juncture. Tentatively emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, but with many countries still struggling terribly. Staring down the threats of climate change, with record-setting heat, fires, storms, and other disasters. Counting down the years in this “Decade of Action” to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

China’s standard-setting leadership in past decades gives me confidence that we can achieve even greater things in the years to come.

CHINA’S RECORD-BREAKING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

In 1978, Deng Xiaoping’s Reform and Opening-up Policy began to transform the nation, as evidenced, for example, in Shenzhen, which changed from a fishing village on the Pearl River Delta into an international hub for research and innovation in a single generation.

And in 1979, China chose to accept development assistance from the UN, learning from its long experience in poverty alleviation and industrial and agricultural growth.

China’s success in the more than 40 years since then has been nothing short of miraculous. During this time, China:

The signs of this progress are evident not just in statistics, but in daily quality-of-life matters. Throughout China now lie the classic hallmarks of a market economy, with opulent shops from luxury brands, foreign and domestic. A far cry from what I saw as a young boy growing up near Chinatown in my native Kolkata, India, though fondly remembered as a warren of alleys, narrow aisles of food markets, elderly men playing board games in parks, with Chinese characters on the signs overhead.

For example, in Beijing during the early 1980s, cabbage was often the only vegetable on menus. With help from the UN’s development agency in China, availability at markets expanded — supporting the diversification of domestic vegetables and introducing new ones from abroad, such as broccoli.

This startling success is on track to continue. China’s per capita GDP is projected to more than double by 2025, reaching over $25,000, adjusted for purchasing power. The country’s surging economy is set to overtake 56 countries in the world’s per-capita income rankings during the quarter-century through 2025, the International Monetary Fund projects.

No less an authority than Professor Jeffrey Sachs, a United Nations SDG Advocate and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, has called China an “inspiration” in stopping the pandemic and ending poverty.

This progress is all the more remarkable considering the hit that the pandemic has delivered to the global economy. China’s generosity and leadership on this front are commendable.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the 9th World Peace Forum in Beijing “to build a “Great Wall of Immunity” to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.

Still, challenges remain. As with any economy at this stage of development, the relentless pursuit of high growth is reaching its natural limits, and China faces new economic, social, and environmental challenges.

NEW PRIORITIES FOR AGENDA 2030 AND BEYOND

The UN Sustainable Development Goals are meant to be achieved by the year 2030, and we are now in what is called the “Decade of Action.” I see three areas for close cooperation at this critical juncture.

First, a new sustainable development model. The Government recognizes slower economic growth as the “new normal.” Changing demographic, labour, and investment realities present China with new obstacles in addressing food security, pervasive inequalities, and cost-effectiveness in universal healthcare.

In a post-Xiaokang society, China needs to embrace innovations and services that drive equitable and inclusive progress, dealing with the legacies of rapid expansion to achieve the SDGs and leave no one behind.

Second, climate change. As a consequence of its large population and economy, China is the world’s single largest emitter of carbon dioxide, responsible for a quarter of global emissions. Having recognized the environmental costs of this development model, President Xi Jinping has set a bold ambition for China to hit peak carbon emissions by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2060.

This enormous feat will require a massive transition in how China’s economy works and its population lives every day. Seismic shifts in investments and technologies will be needed. Here, China’s recent pledge to end all financing of coal plants abroad and redirect its support for developing countries towards green and low carbon energy is most welcome.

We will need to sustain this momentum ahead of and following the COP 15 UN Biodiversity Conference in Kunming, the second UN Sustainable Transport Conference in Beijing, and the COP 26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.

Third, multilateralism. China is a champion for multilateral efforts to address global challenges. China has the will, knowledge, and resources to contribute enormously to the SDGs and position itself as an exceptional member of the community of nations.

As the UN Secretary-General António Guterres has described, “In its successful efforts in the fight against extreme poverty, China’s accomplishments in the past decades set a powerful example that can be shared with other countries, through South-South Cooperation”.

Today, China is the second-largest contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget and has sent more peacekeepers to UN missions than any other permanent member of the Security Council. China also played a vital role in shaping the consensus needed for the SDGs and the Paris Agreement.

Future efforts should emphasize initiatives that expand vaccine access, grant debt relief to lower-income countries, and provide sustainable financing for infrastructure and climate efforts.

On this front, we hope the Global Development Initiative announced by President Xi Jinping recently will accelerate needed international cooperation efforts and we extend our support to contribute our expertise, in line with international norms and standards.

CHINA AND THE UNITED NATIONS

The United Nations family in China is in lockstep with China’s vision. The 2030 Agenda and the recently agreed-upon Country Framework are the blueprints for building on the gains of the past.

In this Decade of Action to achieve the SDGs, the UN can support this ambition and convene, connect and catalyze stakeholders in leveraging China’s development experience to benefit other countries, especially those in Africa, in the spirit of South-South Cooperation.

As the world deals with the pandemic, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres put forward a “Common Agenda” at the 76th Session of the General Assembly, where he said, “We face a moment of truth. Now is the time to deliver…restore trust…[and] inspire hope. Humanity has shown that we are capable of great things when we work together. That is the raison d’être of our United Nations”.

October 2021 will also be time for the UN and China to celebrate our 50-year relationship. China and the UN will reimagine, innovate, reinvigorate and continue the hard and daily work and dedicate ourselves anew to creating lasting prosperity for the people of China and all the world.

The author is Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in China

Categories: Africa

When Girls Have Access to Technologies, A True Digital Revolution Will Be In Sight

Mon, 10/11/2021 - 09:12

2.2 billion young people below the age of 25 don't have internet connections at home, and girls are more likely to lack access. Young girls in Guinea. Credit: Karl Grobl/EDC

By Margaret Butler, Julia Fan, and Amy West
NEW YORK, Oct 11 2021 (IPS)

This year’s International Day of the Girl theme, Digital Generation, Our Generation, celebrates the potential of digital technologies while calling for the inclusion of all girls in accessing technology. The digital revolution will not be realized if girls without access to digital solutions are left behind. For years, advocates of technology for development have been repeating the mantra that technology is not a panacea. Yet in racing to connect, catch up, and create greater access, we ignore at our own peril the inconsistent or non-existent household- and community-level access girls have to technologies. While digital solutions are available and evolving all the time, they should be accompanied by hybrid methods which include new ways to use analog technologies, so that existing local resources are reimagined and redistributed in ways that support more girls learning.

If we want to ensure equal access to technology to close the gender digital divide, these on-the-ground realities are critical to decision-making and planning. To be clear, the global COVID-19 pandemic amplified digital platforms for learning, training, and connecting, but at the same time some 2.2 billion young people below the age of 25 still do not have internet access at home. Girls do not have equal access to or equal ownership of phones or tablets in the home, and they lack opportunities to gain the digital literacy, which would enable them to grow their own learning, expand their information sources, or communicate with others. The gender digital divide has increased in recent years, with only 15% of women in lower- and middle- income countries using the internet. Globally, girls have significantly less access to the internet, tablets, mobile phones, radio, and television than boys, further exacerbated by household poverty levels, geography, disability, and competing social cultural norms. An estimated 52% of girls have to borrow a mobile phone if they want access compared to 28% of boys. These technological gender gaps are most often due to girls and women lacking access, skills, familiarity with tools, representation and participation in STEM, and leadership and resource support to become champions within the technology sector.

The Coalition for Adolescent Girls (CAG), which is made up of 76 organizations around the world that work with and for girls, has seen the effectiveness of hybrid approaches to technology solutions firsthand. Several of its members focus on strengthening the enabling environments that will reach and retain girls as participants in digital education, health and wellbeing interventions, and youth development opportunities that leverage existing local resources that are fit-for-purpose.

At AMPLIFY Girls, a CAG member based in Kenya, recent research in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda demonstrates that for girls, lack of access to remote virtual learning tools and resources is a clear barrier to staying in or returning to school. Girls do not have regular use of remote learning devices, such as radios, television, smart phones, or computers to participate in virtual classrooms. When directly asked about government-sponsored radio or television lessons, girls said that they did not participate because there was no radio or TV at home. For those that did have a radio or TV at home, a male family member had priority access and they were burdened regularly with household chores.

African organizations are often overlooked as innovators in the technology space, yet are providing contextually relevant services to close the gender digital divide. AkiraChix in Kenya recruits young women from the most remote communities in eastern Africa and invests in year-long training to help them successfully launch their careers in technology. Jifundishe runs an independent study program that young mothers, historically banned from returning to school in Tanzania, can access to complete both secondary and tertiary education through self-paced learning.

In the Philippines, another CAG member, Education Development Center (EDC), conducted early assessments on gendered use and access of technologies only to learn that few girls own computers or tablets in rural areas in particular, making it difficult to access virtual education and training offerings. Skills development training and materials in those contexts, therefore, have been disseminated through a blended learning approach comprising paper-based, self-directed curriculum for home-based learning, reinforced by interactive audio instruction and home visits by peer leaders and mentors (among these, women).

EDC also utilizes interactive audio instruction and blended learning at-scale to strengthen access and learning of soft skills, literacy and work readiness—this has been particularly valuable during the COVID-19 pandemic, where in-person learning has come to a standstill. In Uganda, EDC has delivered a combination of interactive audio instruction and small group-based home learning activities, including HIV/GBV prevention and life skills curriculum to reinforce household protection messages and mitigate the high risks faced by girls during the pandemic. Radio remains an accessible and low-cost analog method for achieving learning and health messaging at scale.

Research by CAG members Women Deliver and Girl Effect in India, Malawi, and Rwanda show that digital technologies also hold promise for increasing access to sexual and reproductive health information for girls, but this increased information alone is not enough to produce improved health outcomes. While girls may access health information online, girls are wary of acting on that information because they are unsure of its validity and accuracy, as well as fear social stigma. Linking online information to appropriate youth-friendly medical and community services allows girls to verify that information and seek care.

As these examples and research demonstrate, hybrid digital and analog solutions are not only the most inclusive, but also lead to improved learning and development outcomes, especially for girls. Indeed, digital access is critical to development and innovation. But we should not throw any technology – old or new – at a challenge without ensuring that girls and boys return to school, and have equal access to the content, the tools, and the skilled and knowledgeable teachers and mentors who are vital to sustained uptake and learning outcomes.

On this International Day of the Girl, we call for the broadest access possible to critical health information and education, and we emphasize the importance of contextual relevance in choosing what tools – whether analog or digital – are most effective in achieving impact. If we do this, we create greater opportunities for girls to engage with learning first and then technologies, which ultimately will strengthen multiple development outcomes.

The authors are Margaret Butler of AMPLIFY Girls, Julia Fan of Women Deliver, and Amy West of Education Development Center. Amplify Girls, Education Development Center, and Women Deliver are active members in the Coalition for Adolescent Girls (CAG), a member-led and driven organization dedicated to supporting, investing in, and improving the lives of adolescent girls.

Categories: Africa

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