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The definition of child labour on cocoa farms in West Africa is still in dispute Dr.Richard Asare/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

By External Source
Oct 4 2021 (IPS)

The evidence of child labour on cocoa farms in West Africa became public knowledge in the late 1990s. This followed press reports documenting the existence of hazardous child labour on cocoa farms. Pressure on the cocoa industry to end child labour has been growing ever since, particularly from civil society and more recently from both US and European regulators.

To meet consumer demand for more sustainable and ethical cocoa, the industry began using certification schemes in the late 2000s. Certification labels, such as Rainforest Alliance and FairTrade, aim, among other goals, to guarantee cocoa produced without the use of child labour.

The number of children under the age of 18 working on cocoa farms (certified or not) actually increased between 2013 and 2019, to reach an estimated 790,000. It’s believed that 97% of them are engaged in some of the most hazardous work, including clearing land, harvesting cocoa with a machete, or applying agrochemicals on cocoa farms

It is estimated that between one-third and one-half of the cocoa sold worldwide is currently certified.

In September 2001, by ratifying the Harkin-Engel Protocol, the cocoa industry committed to reduce the most hazardous forms of child labour by 70% by 2020. Yet, Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest cocoa producer, is still struggling with child labour on its cocoa farms.

Indeed, the number of children under the age of 18 working on cocoa farms (certified or not) actually increased between 2013 and 2019, to reach an estimated 790,000. It’s believed that 97% of them are engaged in some of the most hazardous work, including clearing land, harvesting cocoa with a machete, or applying agrochemicals on cocoa farms.

My new research paper focusing on certified cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire argues that the real number of child labourers is likely even higher, as measures of child labour may be biased. The results also suggest that certification is not working as intended when it comes to child labour.

 

Child labour in cocoa

I found that the prevalence of child labour is likely being underestimated by studies conducted by both researchers and the cocoa industry. This is due to a concept called social desirability bias which occurs when people are reluctant to provide completely truthful answers about sensitive topics out of fear of negative consequences.

In the case of child labour on Ivorian cocoa farms, certified farmers may lie about their reliance on child labour as any type of child labour is prohibited by the certification schemes they belong to. Hazardous labour is also prohibited by national legislation.

Fear of legal, social, or economic repercussions is likely leading certified farmers to under report their use of child labour. This is making it harder to accurately measure the scope of the problem and to enact effective policies to fight it.

 

Sensitive questions

My study relied on a list experiment survey method. It asks respondents about sensitive topics in a more indirect manner than standard surveys.

The prevalence of child labour use estimated using the indirect measure is twice as large as the one from direct questioning. Using list experiments, I find that between 21% and 25% of the surveyed cocoa farmers were relying on child labour during the past 12 months, depending on the type of work involved. This difference suggests that at least half of Ivorian cocoa farmers who use child labour on their certified farms are not willing to admit it.

 

Why the reliance on children

Main drivers include failures in labour markets, lack of school infrastructure and difficulties in monitoring the use of child labour by certified cocoa farmers, mainly because of the remoteness of the farms.

Cocoa production requires a significant amount of physical labour, as many tasks associated with cocoa farming are not mechanised. Additionally, as cocoa prices in Côte d’Ivoire are fixed seasonally, the only way for farmers to increase their cocoa-generated income is to increase their production. This requires increased labour.

At the same time, Ivorian cocoa farms tend to be clustered in cocoa-growing communities. This means that local adult labour is scarce because most able-bodied adults are employed on their own cocoa farms, and are not seeking labour on other farms.

This labour market failure —- more labourers are needed precisely where they are not available — results in more cocoa farmers relying on child labour. This phenomenon is even more important when cocoa farms are located in remote communities with difficult access to roads. The reliance on child labour by cocoa farmers is then partly due to adult labour shortages. This finding is further borne out by the fact that the presence of an additional adult in a cocoa-growing household reduced the likelihood of relying on child labour up to 4%.

I also found that the prevalence of child labour is higher on more remote farms, which can be explained by weaker law enforcement in these areas, fewer available adult labourers, and limited opportunity for children to attend school due to a lack of school infrastructure.

 

Conclusion

Taken together, these findings strongly suggest that child labour rates, and potentially other sensitive subjects, are not being measured accurately. In addition, they show that the issue of child labour remains rampant in Côte d’Ivoire, even on cocoa farms certified as child-labour-free.

Understanding the various reasons behind farmers’ continued use of child labour and reluctance to admit that use is an important first step in designing more effective policies. By taking the phenomenon of social desirability bias into account in future research, governments and development partners can lead to more accurate measures of the issue and inform more effective policymaking.

Marine Jouvin, PhD Candidate in development economics, Université de Bordeaux

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

By Marty Logan
KATHMANDU, Oct 4 2021 (IPS)

Today we’re talking about the aftermath of the horrendous murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the protests that ensued. But first, this is the fourth episode of the show, and we’d really like to hear what you think of it. So could you please take a minute to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Thank you!

Welcome to Strive, a podcast by IPS News. My name is Marty Logan.

The brutal murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 horrified people around the world. The weeks of massive demonstrations that followed, and the often violent response by police, left many of us captivated and inspired others worldwide to take to the streets in solidarity.

Racial justice activist and organizer Larry Dean would normally have been leading people onto the streets of Chicago, as he had been doing for a decade—but this killing struck him to his core. Instead he went back to his family home to try to tune out the world.

Today, Dean looks back on those dark days and can identify some shafts of light in the movement for racial justice and equality in the United States. But are they bright enough to reveal a path to autonomy and freedom for Black people, one that can overcome a biased justice system, impoverished schools, police budgets that are still ballooning in many cities and many other barriers?

Listen now to my conversation with Larry Dean to find out.

 

 

“Our Common Agenda” report looks ahead to the next 25 years and represents the Secretary-General’s vision on the future of global cooperation and reinvigorating inclusive, networked, and effective multilateralism. The Secretary-General presented his report to the General Assembly in September 2021 before the end of the 75th session of the General Assembly. Credit: United Nations

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Oct 4 2021 (IPS)

There is no doubt that Secretary General Antonio Guterres is going big and bold with the recent release of an ambitious blueprint that could pave the way for a more inclusive, effective and networked international system centered on youth’s aspirations and needs.

Titled Our Common Agenda, the report is fundamentally a call for action, a manifesto for change with plenty of innovative ideas, an encompassing and holistic document that builds on the Declaration on the Commemoration of the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the United Nations that was signed last year on 21st of September.

The aim is really to start a reflection that leads to imagine a possible different and better future as there is the recognition that we have almost reached the breaking point and fundamental changes are urgent.

As stated in the document, Our Common Agenda “represents the Secretary General‘s vision on the future of global cooperation and reinvigorating an inclusive, networked, effective multilateralism” and there was no better way for the Secretary General to start his second mandate.

The challenges are so dire and multifaceted.

From the “triple planetary emergency” of climate change, biodiversity and pollution to envisioning a better, more equal education and health care systems while making a strong case on the centrality of social protection systems as the best shield to protect the most vulnerable in times of shocks, it is high time for a difference global governance.

Such new system can better reflect an approach to international relations based on cooperation and solidarity.

This is exactly what Guterres is trying to pitch with Our Common Agenda, concrete actions that might show the way to the international community on the directions global leaders must take if they want to ensure a better, more equal planet for the generations to come.

There are many proposals on the plate.

For example, the High-Level Summit on the Future will be a platform aiming to forge a new global consensus on what our future should look like and how we secure it”.

Clear on this agenda is an effort to bolster a new understanding on peace by reducing new threats, including those coming from cyber warfare and lethal autonomous weapons, including investing in new efforts to prevent new conflicts.

The proposal for a Global Digital Compact is another idea to create a global debate and consensus on ensuring that new technologies, including artificial intelligence, become a force for good rather than a tool of self-harm and destruction.

Retooling the global economy to the new challenges emerging from the climate emergency is another top priority for the Secretary General.

New sources of funding must be created and in an era of complex and “creative” financial derivatives and other tools that are enriching the global capitalist elite, ironically, we are running out of imagination and creativity.

Indeed, funding is one of the thorniest roadblocks to an agreement at the Cop 26 in Glasgow.
How can we secure a better, greener and less polluted world if there is still no agreement on 100 billion USD climate financing package that was agreed in Paris back in 2015?

In trying to answer some of daunting questions, Secretary General Guterres is proposing biennial summits to “tackle public and private financing for climate change, with the overriding aim of creating a more sustainable and resilient global economy.”

New metrics able to “value the life and the wellbeing of the many over short term profit for the few” might replace the GDP.

What it is noticeable is that the level of ambition found in Our Common Agenda aims to create momentum on a series of ideas and initiatives that have been for long occupying a space in the debate sphere but could never move forward for lack of buy in.

The World Social Summit in 2025, another of the proposals, is exactly designed to rally world leaders behind the concept of New Social Contract, a better deal between the people and the government.

In practice it means universal health care, stronger education system, more responsive public services and huge investments in social protections measures. Unless a global consensus will emerge from other world leaders, hardly any of these proposals can be implemented.

Yet it is worthy for the UN as a system to enable a global conversation on what needs to be changed if the humankind aspires to thrive for the next decades and beyond.

Perhaps the most important part of Our Common Agenda is the focus given on the youth.

I am not really talking about tokenistic measures like creating a new UN Youth Office that basically will integrate the neglected and overshadow office of the UN SG’s Envoy on Youth.
The Secretary General is absolutely right in bringing youth on the top of the agenda but how doing so will be key.

While it is important to lay the ground for a Declaration on Future Generations, another promised envisioned in the report that also include holding a Transforming Education Summit in 2022, what at the end will count is finding practical ways to enable youth to be active and engage in the society.

The UN should certainly play a big part in centering a new global agenda for change on the youth but the proposals envision to “retrofitting” the UN System for the future, also included in the report, risk just to be a smokescreen.

We truly need a more agile, more effective UN System but in order to achieve such shift, so much change in its offices around the world must first happen because they really need to be more people responsive, more open and less opaque.

This means going well beyond the “McKinsey or BCG for the good” caps that represent the business as usual at the UN, a style that also contributes to insulate its agencies and programs in a comfortable, almost luxurious balloon.

A different mindset and different attitudes are needed and this does not mean neglecting or going beyond the UN core mandate of working with the governments.

This is something extremely important but should not prevent more openness and more understatement and perhaps humbleness.

Therefore, besides the bold announcements contained in Our Common Agenda that are related to youth, UN agencies and programs should undertake a turnaround so that they can truly become more youth centric.

This implies also a rethinking of usual working approaches in order to embrace the freshness and enthusiasm of the youth.

From the ground to the top, the UN system can truly foster civic engagement, youth participation especially by better involving girls and young women through new grassroots programs in partnership with local governments and civil society and by also advising the UN Country Offices.

As Secretary General is in last mandate, Guterres is right at envisioning a better world order focused on a genuine multilateralism.

Yet in order to create opportunities for the youth to be able to participate in the decision making at global level, the home work start within the UN system locally.

It is here where the Secretary General can really have an impact and shows the world leaders how to model a youth centric future.

The Author is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not-for-profit NGO in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives.

 

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By 2050, one in four people in the Asia Pacific region will be above the age of 60 years. Credit: UNFPA Bangladesh

By Bjorn Andersson
Oct 1 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Imagine it is the year 2050. In Asia Pacific, one in four people will be over the age of 60 years—three times the number of older people in 2010. With close to 1.3 billion senior citizens in less than 30 years from now, are countries in the region prepared to fully address the needs of their older populations, so that they age with dignity?

Let’s rewind.

Today, 72-year-old Ping sells three kilograms of sticky rice every day at her remote village in a Southeast Asian country, earning barely enough for a basic living. She’s been doing this for more than 10 years, ever since her husband passed away. Her son died two months ago, and her two daughters have married and moved to another province. Ping gets some consolation from the health insurance she is entitled to, as maintaining good health in her old age is her main concern.

Back in the day, Ping and other women in numerous countries across the Asia Pacific region might have been supported by their families and communities. But times are changing. Migration and urbanisation have shifted traditional support systems for the elderly, and more and more governments are grappling with increasing healthcare costs and a shrinking workforce. While less than a third of older persons in the region currently receive a pension of some sort, pension payments are increasing as the older populations grow, straining the governments further.

As the world observes the International Day of Older Persons today, there is an urgent need for policy reform in addressing population ageing now more than ever. This must be driven by a shift in mindset to convert the challenges into a demographic opportunity.

We must rethink population ageing, celebrating it as the triumph of development that it truly is. More and more people are living longer due to the result of successive advancements in healthcare, nutrition, and economic and social well-being. Along with longer life expectancy, couples are having fewer babies. This is due to a variety of reasons, such as the challenges couples face in striking a work-life balance, and not being able to afford having more children. However, low fertility and longer life expectancy are not the problem. The real problem is not being ready to face this rapidly changing demographic shift.

This is why governments must act now. Policymakers must work together with academics and civil society to incorporate rights-based ageing policies and systems into national development plans. While some countries in Asia Pacific have already taken such steps, implementation must be strengthened, particularly within the contexts of Covid-19 and the escalating humanitarian crises that increase vulnerabilities of older people.

Adapting a life-cycle approach with gender equality in focus

In Asia Pacific, with more than half of the older population being women, it is crucial to adopt a life-cycle approach to population ageing, grounded in gender equality and human rights.

Life-long gender discrimination leaves women even more disadvantaged in an ageing society. Older women are often more financially dependent than older men due to generally lower education levels and unpaid work, having often carried the burden of being the family caregiver. Investing in each stage of life, starting from before a girl is born, determines the path of her life course. When a woman is able to safely deliver her baby, this in turn improves the long-term health of both mother and child. When a girl has access to quality education, including comprehensive sex education, it helps her make informed decisions about life-changing matters as she transitions from childhood to adolescence, and on to adulthood.

When a woman has equal opportunity to contribute to the workforce and has bodily autonomy, she has the power to shape her own future. The decisions she makes, and is allowed to make, at every stage of her life paves the way towards a healthier and more financially secure silver age.

There is little time to lose

We need to take action now. The megatrend of rapid demographic shifts is altering Asia Pacific as well as the entire world. This is why the years 2021-2030 have been declared the UN Decade for Healthy Ageing, complementing the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA), the 20th anniversary of which is next year, and will bring together governments in Asia Pacific and the world to review the progress made and make better plans for the challenges ahead.

While there is no single comprehensive policy that can address population ageing, we must invest in forward-thinking, rights-based and gender-sensitive policies that focus on the needs of people at every stage of their lives. In doing so, countries in the Asia Pacific region can aspire to and achieve a better future for all, where no one is left behind.

Björn Andersson is Asia Pacific regional director at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct 1 2021 (IPS)

The growing number and share of older persons in Asia and the Pacific represent success stories of declining fertility and increasing longevity; the result of advances in social and economic development. This demographic transition is taking place against the backdrop of the accelerating Fourth Industrial Revolution. But COVID-19, with its epicentre now in Asia and the Pacific, has exacerbated the suffering of older persons in vulnerable situations and demonstrated the fragility of this progress.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

Asia and the Pacific is home to the largest number of older persons in the world – and rapidly ageing. When the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted in 2015, 8 per cent of the region’s total population was 65 years or older. By 2030, when the Agenda comes to an end, it is projected that 12 per cent of the total population – one in eight people – will comprise older persons. Fifty-four per cent of all older persons in the region will be women, and their share will increase with age.

Asia and the Pacific has made much progress in connecting the region through information and communication technologies (ICTs). At the same time, it is still the most digitally divided region in the world. Approximately half of its population lacks Internet access. Women and older persons – especially older women – are the least likely to be digitally connected.

COVID-19 has demonstrated how technologies can help fight the spread of the virus, sustain daily life, support business continuity and keep people socially connected. It has also shown that those who are excluded from the digital transformation, including older persons, are at increased risk of being permanently left behind. Digital equity for all ages is, therefore, more important than ever.

The next few years provide an opportunity for Asia and the Pacific to build on its successes with regard to population ageing and rapid digital transformation, learn from the tragic consequences of the pandemic, and promote and strengthen the inclusion of older persons in the digital world. The 2022 Fourth Review and Appraisal of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing and the further elaboration of the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway will allow countries to develop policies and action plans to achieve digital equity for all ages.

Among those policies, it is particularly important to promote digital literacy and narrow digital skills gaps of older persons through tailored peer-to-peer or intergenerational training programmes. In the fast-changing digital environment, developing, strengthening and maintaining digital literacy requires a life-course approach.

Moreover, providing accessible, affordable and reliable Internet connectivity for persons of all ages must be a priority. Expanding digital infrastructure, geographical coverage and digital inclusion of older persons through targeted policies and programmes will improve access, enable greater social participation, empower older persons, and enhance their ability to live independently.

As highlighted in the Madrid Plan of Action, technology can reduce health risks and promote cost-efficient access to health care for older persons, for instance, through telemedicine or robotic surgery. Assistive technology devices and solutions can support more and safer mobility for older persons, especially those with disabilities or living alone. Social media platforms can promote social interaction and reduce social isolation and loneliness.

The ESCAP Guidebook on using Information Communication Technologies to address the health-care needs of older persons has documented good practices from around the region. It also includes policy recommendations and a checklist for policymakers to mainstream ICTs in policies affecting older persons.

While older persons are among the least digitally connected population groups, they are among the most vulnerable to cyberthreats. It is, therefore, critical to establish adequate safety measures, raise awareness, and teach older users to be cautious online.

As we commemorate the United Nations International Day of Older Persons 2021, let us remind ourselves that the risks and vulnerabilities experienced by older persons during the pandemic are not new. Many older persons in the region lack social protection such as access to universal health care and pensions.

The COVID-19 recovery is an opportunity to set the stage for a more inclusive, equitable and age-friendly society, anchored in human rights and guided by the promise of the 2030 Agenda to leave no one behind. Digital equity for all ages, highlighted in the 2030 Agenda, goes beyond national interests. Greater digital cooperation by governments and stakeholders is instrumental for both inclusive and sustainable development and building back better. At the regional and subregional levels, digital cooperation can be fruitfully leveraged to build consensus and share good practices, lessons learned, and policy recommendations. These, in turn, can supplement national level policy and decision-making for the benefit of all age groups.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

 

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A deactivated Minuteman II missile in its silo. Credit: U.S. National Park Service

By Daryl G. Kimball
WASHINGTON DC, Oct 1 2021 (IPS)

Most successful U.S. presidents have actively led efforts to advance arms control agreements and reduce the risk of nuclear war.

Although much has been achieved over the years, there are still 14,000 nuclear weapons and nine nuclear-armed states; progress on disarmament has stalled; and tensions between the United States and its main nuclear adversaries—Russia and China—are rising.

President Joe Biden clearly recognizes the problem and the value of diplomacy and nuclear restraint in solving it. His Interim National Security Strategic Guidance states that his administration will seek to “re-establish [its] credibility as a leader in arms control” and “take steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in [U.S.] national security strategy.”

In February, Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) and negotiate further nuclear limits.

But it remains to be seen whether Biden’s recently launched Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) will lead to meaningful adjustments in the dangerous Cold War-era nuclear policies and costly nuclear modernization programs he inherited. Earlier this year, Biden blew the chance to meaningfully scale back his predecessor’s bloated $44 billion annual nuclear budget.

Going forward, Biden needs to play a more direct role in the NPR to ensure it reflects his priorities and does not reinforce the dangerous overreliance on nuclear weapons and exacerbate global nuclear competition.

As I and other experts recommended in a recent letter to the White House, the president should make important changes in several key areas.

First, the NPR should include a declaratory policy that substantially narrows the role of nuclear weapons, consistent with Biden’s stated views. In 2020, he wrote, “I believe that the sole purpose of the U.S. nuclear arsenal should be deterring—and, if necessary, retaliating against—a nuclear attack. As president, I will work to put that belief into practice.”

A “sole purpose” policy that rules out the use of nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike or in response to a nonnuclear attack on the United States or its allies would increase strategic stability, reduce the risk of nuclear war, and help operationalize the principle that Biden and Putin agreed to in July that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” The more options there are to use nuclear weapons, the more likely it is that they will be used.

Second, the NPR should revise outdated targeting requirements that are used to determine how many nuclear weapons are “enough.” Although Russia is modernizing its arsenal and China is rapidly increasing its smaller strategic retaliatory force, including systems to evade U.S. missile defenses, the current U.S. nuclear arsenal vastly exceeds what is and will be necessary to deter a nuclear attack.

President Barack Obama announced in 2013 that the United States could safely reduce its deployed strategic nuclear weapons by one-third below New START levels, to approximately 1,000 deployed strategic weapons, regardless of what Russia did. The case for such a reduction still holds.

Contrary to the Cold War logic of U.S. Strategic Command, having more bombs and more delivery options does not translate into more effective deterrence. It can fuel arms races and squander funds needed to address higher priority security needs.

The sobering reality is that it would take just a few hundred U.S. strategic nuclear weapons to destroy Russian and Chinese military capacity, kill hundreds of millions of innocent people, and produce a planetary climate catastrophe.

By signaling that the United States seeks a smaller, more appropriately sized nuclear force, Biden could help lower tensions, put a spotlight on other nuclear-armed states that are expanding their arsenals, and more credibly claim the United States is fulfilling its obligations under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Third, Biden’s NPR should examine options for scaling back the size and scope of the U.S. nuclear modernization plan and put into practice the “no new nuclear weapons” policy he said he would support during his presidential campaign.

He should reverse the decisions made by the Trump administration to field a new lower-yield W76-2 warhead variant and to develop a new nuclear sea-launched cruise missile. These weapons invite miscalculation in a crisis by lowering the threshold for nuclear use. New warhead projects, such as the W93 for U.S. and UK submarine-based missiles, are also unnecessary and costly and should be shelved.

In his inaugural address to the United Nations, Biden said, “[W]e stand…at an inflection point in history.” He is right. The actions that world leaders take in the next decade are critical to whether we address massive global threats and challenges, including the existential threat of nuclear war. Biden must do his part by implementing policies that reduce the salience of nuclear weapons and head off a new arms race.

The writer is the Executive Director of the Arms Control Association in Washington DC.

 

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A Dao family sharing a meal in Sa Pa, Lao Cai province, Vietnam. The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) support the Vietnam government’s Zero Hunger challenge. Credit: Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT - Trong Chinh

By Siri Jamieson
ROME, Italy, Oct 1 2021 (IPS)

Amidst the verdant hills and remote corners of Vietnam’s rural regions, the growth that has transformed the economy in this part of Southeast Asia in recent decades can be hard to see. Undernourishment among children still results in stunting – even in cities too where overweight/obesity is also on the rise.

UN data shows that almost 10% of the population in Vietnam live in poverty, and this is reflected in malnutrition rates and stunted growth. Smallholder farmers are usually considered the most at risk of poverty and food insecurity. But the outcome of Vietnam’s last COVID-19 lockdown was a staggering unemployment rate that might have pushed up to five million people into poverty – especially the many holding insecure jobs in the informal sector.

There’s been no lack of examples of civil society reacting to the lockdown emergencies. Vietnamese businessman Hoang Tuan Anh, local media reported, even created a network of rice ATMs for the poor who suffered from reduced household incomes during the pandemic, distributing thousands of tonnes of rice. Other private initiatives have sprouted among poor neighborhoods.

But while some initiatives made headlines, the broad issues of malnutrition can only be addressed on a much larger scale.

Food security, according to the FAO, comes “when all people at all times have physical, social and economic access to food, which is safe and consumed in sufficient quantity and quality to meet their dietary needs and food preferences and is supported by an environment of adequate sanitation, health services, and care, allowing for a healthy and active life”.  Adequate food is thus not only dependent on quantity but also the quality of nutrients.

Zero Hunger is expected to result in healthier diets and better nutrition to tackle both under- and over-nutrition. Here informal traders in Hanoi sell food on the streets. Credit: Georgina Smith, CIAT

In 2015 the Vietnamese government launched a national action program for the “Zero Hunger Challenge” and in 2018 the Prime Minister signed Decision No. 712 / QD-TTg on Zero Hunger National Action Plan aimed at tackling inadequate nutrition with the aim of achieving one of the most crucial UN Sustainable Development Goals by the 2030 target. The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) together with the National Institute of Nutrition, Vietnam Academy of Agriculture Sciences, and other national and international partners have supported the government in this long-term effort, providing research-based solutions to harness biodiversity and transform agriculture, food systems for healthier diets, according to its mandate.

Working with Vietnam Academy of Agriculture Sciences and Zero Hunger Office – the Ministry of Agriculture, National Institute of Nutrition – the Ministry of Health and liaising with private and public actors, it has provided technological expertise to the Nutrition sensitive agriculture project under the Zero Hunger. After several years of research and the identification of issues and socio-demographic factors, Zero Hunger is set to continue its pilot stage and prepare its implementation stage. Expectations are high for a transition to healthier diets and better nutrition destined to tackle both under- and over-nutrition.

As a member of CGIAR – a global partnership that unites international organizations engaged in food security research – the Alliance has played an active role in preparations for the UN Food Systems Summit. The focus of the Alliance will be to remind all representatives in the food industry and especially the large corporations and all stakeholders invited to the September 23 summit in New York that the best way to combat hunger is through diversity and sustainability. The key take-home message is that only increased conservation and agro-biodiversity can guarantee the kinds of food that are resilient to sudden change of climate, pandemics and a planet fit for life in general.

Malnutrition rates in Vietnam have decreased in recent years and waves of famine with strictly rationed food belong thankfully to the past. Yet the memories of what made lack of food ‘normal’ are still vivid. With climate patterns now disrupting the recent achievements and COVID-19 accelerating the crisis, there is increased political awareness that food systems have to undergo a dramatic overhaul.

Tuyen Huynh, country coordinator of CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health, says the Mekong River – the lifeblood for so much agriculture and transport – is among the key eco-systems most at risk. The river system is increasingly unstable.

“When the climate changes so unpredictably from what it used to be and events become more extreme, then it becomes more difficult to say ‘we’ll cultivate this because the weather is like this’,” she explained. Salination of the water, she added, is increasingly affecting rice cultivation, as it impoverishes the quality of soil and nutrients.

Research on food systems profiles demonstrated that strategies to address food insecurity should be implemented in urban settings as well as rural areas. All across the country, and especially in mountainous areas and in winter, some meats and vegetables are difficult to obtain for the poor.

The Alliance has focused on the link between agriculture and nutrition models and has made sure that farmers are able to communicate their points of view by technically supporting the government in surveys and guidelines using the different languages spoken across the country.

Rather than pushing for simply increasing the production of food as such, governments, farmers, and producers have to think of how to provide more diversified and healthy food as well as improve the quality of nutrients in food. It’s a transformation that is expected as a result of embracing a local perspective of agricultural systems. The challenge in Vietnam is getting healthy foods to both urban and rural settings.

Chemical fertilizers and pesticides can exacerbate the weaknesses of food systems, promoting mono-cropping, lack of adaptability, and lack of response. And the all-important link between food, people, and their culture also risks being severed.

“Rice is the main staple in Vietnam. We mainly export rice and fruit—these are not available in some remote mountains in certain seasons so in winter there is often not enough food,” said Truong Mai, vice director of the National Institute of Nutrition. “Water and sanitation are also a very big issue in remote areas,” she added, underlining how food security cannot be tackled in isolation.

 

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By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Sep 30 2021 (IPS)

I assume channel surfing and internet browsing contribute to a decrease in people’s attention span. I am not familiar with any scientific proof, though while working as a teacher I found that some students may be exhausted when five minutes of a lesson has passed and begin fingering on their smartphones. They might also complain if a text is longer than half a page, while finding it almost impossible to read a book.

Maybe we are all incapable of keeping a focus. For a while, Afghanistan overshadowed the media stream, though interest faded when the tragic scenes at the airport of Kabul were not there anymore. New catastrophes await the attention of world media.

Attention to Haiti comes and disappears in short flashes. Most recently, we were regaled with pictures of how US horse-mounted patrollers by the Mexican border were roping in Haitian immigrants, reminding us of how runaway slaves were caught 150 years ago. Three days later the US special envoy to Haiti resigned in protest of an ongoing large-scale, forced repatriation of Haitian migrants to a homeland wrecked by civil strife and natural disaster. Daniel Foote was appointed after the assassination of Haiti’s president. His letter of resignation reflects a deep concern for Washington’s disinterest in improving conditions in Haiti:

“I will not be associated with the United States inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti, a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs to daily life. Our policy approach to Haiti remains deeply flawed, and my policy recommendations have been ignored and dismissed, when not edited to project a narrative different from my own.”

The deportation of Haitians is one of the swiftest, mass expulsions ever. The US is presently receiving thousands of Afghans while sending Haitians to a country which humanitarian crisis is intimately related to earlier US interventionist policies; military occupation and meddling in internal affairs, often through support to dictators. Haiti is reeling from the 7 July assassination of its president, facing an escalation in gang violence, while some 4.4 million people, or nearly 46 per cent of its population suffer acute food insecurity. On 14 August, an earthquake shock Haiti; at least 2,200 people were killed, more than 12,200 injured, at least 137,500 buildings were damaged or destroyed, and an estimated 650,000 people are currently in need of assistance. Three days after the catastrophe a tropical storms disrupted access to water, shelter, and other basic services, while flooding and mudslides worsened the situation for already vulnerable families.

Haiti is one of the most overpopulated countries on earth. The US has a population density of 70 persons per square mile, Cuba has 235, while Haiti’s population density is almost 600 people per square mile. Agriculture is not producing enough to feed a population harassed by political instability, connected with a small, but highly influential political and economic elite, often supported by foreign stakeholders. The international community, which historically has contemplated Haiti through a lens distorted by racism and disinterest, is not doing much to mitigate a worsening situation, triggering immigration movements towards countries like the US, which government apparently assume that a solution to the problem will be to send migrants back to their misery.

Investments have to be made in education and health, as well as in support of enterprises capable of providing sustainable income, while governmental institutions need to be strengthened to promote human development for all sectors of society. Emigration cannot be the only means to brake Haiti’s chain of down-spiraling events, but it helps – currently, 35 percent of Haiti’s GDP is constituted by the roughly 3.8 billion USD worth of remittances the diaspora provides every year.

The recently murdered president, Jovenel Moïse, was originally not a member of the traditional elite, but an entrepreneur acting outside the political sphere. He developed an agricultural project of organic banana production and partnered with Mulligan Water, a US based global water treatment company, to establish a water plant for distribution of drinkable water to Haiti’s northern departments. In 2017, Moïse participated in the general elections on a platform promoting universal education and health care, as well as energy reform, rule of law, sustainable jobs, and environmental protection. He won with a slight margin. Since then, numerous roads have been built, reconstructed and paved. Haiti’s second largest hydro-power plant and several agricultural water reservoirs have been constructed, producing electricity and water for increased agricultural production.

Protests against Moïse’s regime had been mounting, among accusations of widespread corruption and a continued negligence of damages caused by the 2010 earthquake, when more than 200,000 persons were killed and 1.5 million left homeless. This natural disaster was preceded by a hurricane which in 2008 wiped out 70 percent of Haiti’s crops. In 2016, hurricane Matthew was almost as devastating.

Dangers to Moïse’s government furthermore lurked among members of the wealthy, small and powerful elite and not the least – increasingly menacing crime syndicates. Foremost among them is the one controlled by former police officer Jimmy Chérizier, alias Barbecue, leader of G9 and Family, a criminal federation of nine of the strongest gangs in Haiti’s capital.

Chérizier has been known to support Moïse’s party, Tèt Kale, and being backed by corrupt members of the police force. After being behind several armed attacks on rivaling gangs and innocent individuals, who live in fear of extortion, arson, theft and rape committed by his thugs, Chérizier has disclaimed all political affiliations and called for a ”popular uprising”, marching with his men through the slums of La Saline, while openly brandishing sophisticated weaponry.

Even if Jovenel Moïse described criminal gangs as Haiti’s “own demons”, his government’s actions have been considered as negligible. Moïse declared: “We prioritize dialogue, even in our fight with bandits and gangs. I am the president of all Haitians, the good and the bad.”

So far, 44 individuals have been arrested in connection with the assassination of Moïse, on the run is a former official in the Justice Ministry’s anti-corruption unit. Haitian police states that the killing squad consisted of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans. The Colombians were all former soldiers. Retired Colombian military personell are currently employed by security firms around the world, which value their training and fighting experience. Moïse’s killers were allegedly hired by an obscure, self-described doctor, Christian Sanon, through a US firm called Corporate Training Unlimited (CTU). No explanation has been given to how a man with a negligible income and 400,000 USD in debt could be the organizer of a complex and expensive plot to murder Haiti’s president. A further twist to the story is that Haiti’s interim Prime Minister, neurosurgeon and former Minister of Health, Ariel Henry, a few days ago sacked his Minister of Justice, since he supported a prosecutor who sought charges against Henry over the murder of Moïse. Everything remains shrouded in mystery.

Why Haitians turn up along the US-Mexican border is easier to explain. After the devastating earthquake in 2010, several Haitians arrived in Brazil, attracted by a building boom partly in connection with Brazil hosting the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. When those jobs dried up, several construction workers ended up in other Latin American countries, especially Chile. Others crossed the border to the Dominican Republic, which currently host about 1 million Haitians. All over Latin America strict migration policies are now enforced, while Haitians move towards the US, fearing that misery awaits them if they return to their impoverished homeland. Some 19,000 undocumented migrants, mainly Haitians, are stuck in Colombia, trying to enter Panama and continue to Mexico, where approximately 12,000 migrants are waiting to be processed by US immigration agents, which most likely will refuse entry.

Historically speaking, the small island nation of Haiti has been important to the Americas. In 1804, it became after the US the first independent republic of the Americas. In spite of winning its war of liberation, Haiti was forced to compensate France, a debt paid until 1947. The French Saint-Domingue was one of the world’s most brutally efficient slave colonies; one-third of newly imported Africans died within a few years and a policy of ”better buy than bread” kept the slave population young and limited. After liberation an export oriented mono-cultivation of mainly sugarcane was through a land reform changed into family based small holder subsistence farming and the population increased rapidly. With an unyielding black government Haiti suffered until the 1830s of European non-recognition and it was not until the late 1860s it was accepted as a nation by the US and other American countries, while continuously being depicted as barbaric and uncivilized.

In 1822, Haiti conquered the Spanish part of the island, abolishing slavery there. The president Boyer welcomed 6,000 US former slaves, as well as political exiles from the Americas. He supplied Simón Bolívar with 1,000 rifles, munitions, supplies, a printing press, and hundreds of Haitian soldiers to support him in his effort to” free Latin America” and abolish slavery. Between 1915 and 1935 the US occupied Haiti, resulting in several thousand Haitians killed and numerous human rights violations, including torture, summary executions and forced labour. The occupation was, as has been customary with most colonial and exploitative enterprises, defended as a “civilization process”.

Painting, sculpture, dance and music have always flourished in Haiti. It was the Creole culture emanating among exiled Haitians in New Orleans that influenced the creation of jazz, which since then have had such a great impact on American culture. And … while listening to the depressing news about Haitian suffering it might be advisable to enjoy the works of Haiti’s great authors, like Jacques Roumain, Stephen Alexis, and René Depestre, and not the least women writers like Marie Vieux-Chauvet and Edwige Danticat. An attention span well worth the effort, particularly since it increases our knowledge of the problems harassing Haiti. Hopefully would such reading bolster the international community’s realization of the gravity of the plight of the Haitian people and contribute to end its long sufferings.

 

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Rwanda's Gishwati Mukura rainforest is one of the most biodiverse places on the Congo Basin. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

By Aimable Twahirwa
NYABIHU, RWANDA, Sep 30 2021 (IPS)

Laurent Hategekimana, a villager from Nyabihu, a district from Western Rwanda, recalls the terrible condition of the Gishwati natural forest a few years ago when it was overrun by illegal loggers and invading farmers.

Many invaders of this natural reserve were local villagers, and Hategekimana, a farmer-turned environmental activist, faced a hard task changing their minds.

“Although many haven’t yet started getting tangible benefits, some people are engaging in beekeeping while others are trying to venture into tree planting, conservation farming and handcraft,” the father of six told IPS in an interview.

In these remote rural parts of Rwanda, tropical forest conservation is now creating new jobs for several thousand indigenous people who live especially near major rainforests in Western Rwanda thanks to the country’s new laws and policies encouraging community participation in environmental protection.

With a number of challenges facing this group who self-identify as having a link to surrounding natural resources, scientists recommend strategic solutions to resolve possible conflicts between people and the conservation of wildlife along this part of the Congo river basin.

Some scientists believe it is important to find out what kinds of activities communities want, need and could commit to and steward in a sustainable way, to come up with durable actions that address biodiversity conservation and climate change issues.

Thanks to several conservation mechanisms adopted recently by the Rwanda government and stakeholders, Hategekimana is among members of the indigenous community who have become actively involved in keeping guard of the Gishwati natural forest. They inform the local administrative authorities of illegal activities such as felling trees without a permit and burning charcoal.

“I now understand the importance of conserving the forest. That’s why I sacrifice my time to protect it,” Hategekimana said.

Over the last two decades, large parts of these natural reserves on the Rwandan side of the Congo rainforest were nearly depleted, largely due to resettlement and livestock farming.

When new forest conservation efforts were initiated in 2015, most local villagers felt they were depriving their main source of income. Some were initially engaged in illegal logging, timber, and charcoal business.

The natural reserve of Gishwati-Mukura, now a national park for conservation, is currently contributing to improving the livelihoods of the local communities living in the surrounding areas. This, in turn, offers the forest a better chance of regeneration.

This has pushed local residents to launch a local NGO focusing on the conservation of the newly created national park. Thanks to these initiatives, the size of the reserve increased from 886 to 1 484 hectares the number of chimpanzees grew from 13 to 30, the 600 hectares added to the core forest are naturally regenerating and chimpanzees started using this area over the last two decades

Professor Beth Kaplin, the Director of the Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resources Management of the University of Rwanda told IPS that there is a need to commit to really listening to the people who live next to this park and interact with it daily and develop strategies collaboratively to solve emerging problems.

“We need to take time to find out what kinds of activities communities want, need and could commit to and steward in a sustainable way (…) to come up with durable actions that address biodiversity conservation and climate change issues,” she said.

Gishwati Forest, a protected reserve in the north-western part of Rwanda, covers an area of about 1439 hectares and Mukura forest, with a total surface of 1987 hectares, has critical populations of endemic and endangered species such as golden monkeys, blue monkeys, and chimpanzees and over 130 different types of birds.

The reserve also boasts about 60 species of trees, including indigenous hardwoods and bamboo, according to Rwanda Development Board, a government agency responsible for Tourism and Conservation.

The Rwanda Environmental Management Authority (REMA) estimates the forest reserves initially covered 250 000 hectares, but illegal mining, animal grazing, tree cutting, and other practices drastically reduced its size.

In 2014, Rwanda received $9.5 million from the Global Environment Facility through the World Bank to restore the forest and biodiversity in the Gishwati-Mukura forest.

The primary purpose of this funding was to support community-based activities. These included farm stays, handicrafts, beekeeping, and tourism activities such as tea plantation tours and the chance to learn from traditional healers, who use natural plants to support modern medicine and synthesised drugs.

The collective efforts of villagers, environmental, indigenous NGOs and local administrative entities to train and mobilise villagers on the importance of conserving the forest in this part of the Congo River Basin, which covers 33 percent of Rwanda, has been praised.

“These efforts have changed people’s mindsets and in turn save this natural forest from extinction,” said Jean Bosco Hakizimana, a senior local administrative leader in Arusha, a small forest village from Nyabihu, a mountainous district in North-Western Rwanda.

Delphine Uwajeneza, the deputy head of the African Initiative for Mankind Progress Organization, told IPS that the key to achieving the current natural forest conservation efforts would be to include indigenous people in decision-making and management of ecosystems. Her NGO advocates for the protection and promotion of the rights, welfare, and development of the historically marginalised people in Rwanda.

“Current conservation efforts will not allow rainforests to persist if they are completely closed off from use or other benefits by these communities … they are the first to preserve the environment,” Uwajeneza told IPS in an interview.

While the Rwandan Government and stakeholders are satisfied with current conservation efforts, some scientists and activists shake their heads in dismay and say it is not enough. They are adamant the communities living around those natural reserves need to benefit.

Dr Charles Karangwa, Head of the Regional Forests and Landscapes Programme for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Eastern and Southern Africa Region, told IPS the most important is to balance the need of these communities trying to make a living and trying to maintain and sustain their forests.

“Development actors need to engage these vulnerable communities in a win-win situation,” he said.

In 2011, Rwanda joined “The Bonn Challenge”, a global effort to bring 150 million hectares of the world’s deforested and degraded land into restoration by 2020. Rwanda has reached its 30% forest cover target, according to officials.

However, despite the good policy framework and efforts towards achieving this goal, experts stress the need for identifying ways that communities can benefit from the resources of the forest in sustainable ways.

“People who work here (in the traditional ceramic industry) earn their livelihood without entirely depending on forest resources,” says 55-year-old Giselle Uwimanaas as she chats with neighbours in the village a stone’s throw from a nearby rainforest reserve of Mukura in Rutsiro, Western Rwanda.

 

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A farmer works in a rice field in Bagré, Burkina Faso. Credit: FAO/Alessandra Benedetti

By Hugh Welsh
NEW JERSEY, USA, Sep 30 2021 (IPS)

In the days following the UN Food Systems Summit I have read a number or articles questioning whether there is a role for the private sector in transforming global food systems into something healthier, more sustainable and more equitable. Frankly, I don’t see how food systems transformation is possible without meaningful participation of the private sector.

The theme of each of these articles is that the ‘private sector created the food systems challenges and consequently has no role in discussing and executing potential solutions’.

In a world that is becoming more divisive every day, this type of exclusionary sentiment will not lead to the collaboration and cooperation we so desperately need if we are to collectively work towards results – not rhetoric.

The United Nations has projected that the world’s population is expected to swell to 9.8 billion by 2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100. According to The World Health Organization in 2020, it was estimated that a staggering 811 million people or approximately a tenth of the global population were undernourished.

Our existing food system is already under tremendous pressure and showing signs of distress from the effects of climate change on agricultural production and environmental degradation of the land and oceans. A new approach to providing healthy nutrition and tackling climate change is urgently needed.

So, what does food system transformation look like?

One such example is Africa Improved Foods (‘AIF’), a company that is a unique partnership between DSM* and quasi-public sector partners. In collaboration with the Government of Rwanda, AIF has become a trusted Africa-based producer of high-quality fortified porridge to address childhood stunting in Rwanda, have an African source of nutritious food for the WFP, and a product sold commercially in regional retail outlets.

The Kigali based operation provides good jobs, and sources key raw materials such as maize and soy from regional small holder farmers, the majority of which are women owned enterprises. Overall, AIF sources materials from over 130,000 farmers in Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, DRC and Kenya. In Rwanda alone, AIF sources directly from 45,000 farmers.

This is not philanthropy, to be sustainable operations like AIF must be profitable. To be transformative, operations like AIF must focus on creating local jobs, helping local farmers, and producing high quality nutritious food for the local community. To be impactful, innovation like AIF must be scalable – and the AIF model is replicable throughout the world with the right public and private partners supporting.

This model offers a potential solution to the tragedy of malnutrition and food insecurity. It also, importantly, spurs local economic growth and social stability through the creation of a manufacturing base and jobs, improves the lives of small holder farmers by creating a predictable market for their crops and encourages the use of practices to address issues like aflatoxin. It also offers communities and aid organizations alike an opportunity to source from Africa for Africa, perpetuating a virtuous cycle of healthy development.

We also recognize the connection between climate change and nutrition, and the need to address both. While continuing to work on more sustainable and nutritious plant-based proteins, we recognize that demand for animal protein will only continue to grow as the global population grows and grows wealthier.

Extensive research has indicated that we will need to double production of animal protein to meet the anticipated demand, however, herein lies yet another challenge – according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, cattle are responsible for 65% of the livestock sector’s greenhouse emissions globally.

Methane is a short-lived but potent greenhouse gas with a warming effect 28 times greater than that of carbon dioxide. Ruminants, such as cattle, cows and sheep emit methane gases contributing to climate change. We need to make the production of animal protein more sustainable and a key will be private sector innovation.

One example is DSM’s Bovaer® feed additive which can reduce methane emissions from ruminants by up to 80%. This safe and effective feed additive can lead to the immediate reduction of enteric methane emissions at a time when we need meaningful, scalable and affordable solutions to the climate emergency NOW.

These are two simple examples of private sector contributions to food systems transformation. DSM has committed to reaching 800 million suffering from micronutrient deficiency, reaching 150 million people with plant-based proteins, helping 500 million improve their immunity through nutrition, reducing livestock emissions by double digits, and helping at least 500,000 small holder farmers enjoy a sustainable livelihood – all by 2030.

These are our Food System Commitments and we look forward to working with all stakeholders to achieve them. We ask the critics of the private sector– we hear what you say but what are you committed to do?

Hugh Welsh is President and General Counsel of DSM North America. DSM is no longer an acronym – it’s a stand alone.

 

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By External Source
Sep 29 2021 (IPS-Partners)

More than 2,000 young leaders and youth-led organisations from across the Commonwealth are urging governments to respect the needs and contributions of the world’s most vulnerable groups, in the lead up to global climate talks in Glasgow in November.

The Commonwealth Youth Statement on Climate Change, released today, appeals to governments to include youth, women, the elderly and people with disabilities in decision-making on climate change-related policies.

Noting that 1.5 billion people in the Commonwealth are under the age of 30, young people call on leaders to ensure additional, predictable finance for youth-led climate action, as well as adequate social protections for vulnerable groups to cope with the climate crisis.

“We demand an end to climate inaction. Our generation will have to deal with more frequent and severe climate impacts than ever, making us one of the groups most vulnerable to its impacts,” said the statement.

Seven key recommendations are put forward to feed into global discussions at the Youth4Climate Summit this week in Milan from 28 to 30 September.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland welcomed the proposals, saying: “Young people are the true heroes in the fight against climate change. They have demonstrated a tremendous capacity to grasp the reality of the climate crisis and mobilise crucial support for climate action across groups, sectors and nations.

“Without the contributions and innovations of young people from all Commonwealth regions, the world would not have achieved the progress it has today on climate action. We need them at the table so that their voices can be heard as discussions continue on the development of effective climate policies and strategies.”

Pan-Commonwealth coordinator of the Commonwealth Youth Climate Change Network (CYCN), Leneka Rhoden said: “Never in history have young people been empowered with the social and technological tools to effect change, as we are today. We are equipped with the platform to launch projects that can help to secure our environment, our people, and our future.

“The CYCN is proud to support the efforts of Youth4Climate as we prepare for COP26 by uniting youth to tackle climate change. Collectively, our voices and actions are amplified to achieve the equitable, sustainable and resilient future we seek.”

Commonwealth youth also propose capacity-building programmes to enhance youth-led ‘green’ and ‘blue’ enterprises, focusing on climate and ocean action, particularly in post-pandemic recovery efforts.

Highlighting the economic opportunities the ‘blue economy’ and renewable energy sector can offer local communities and youth, the statement calls for further commitments to ocean protection and an inclusive and equitable transition to clean energy.

Julia Gama, Miss Brazil Universe working with Morhan to deliver food baskets to people affected by Hansen’s disease, with support from the Sasakawa Health Foundation. Credit: Morhan

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, KENYA, Sep 29 2021 (IPS)

A new dawn has come, and it was through the work of Yohei Sasakawa, the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, that those affected by leprosy now had a voice to speak for themselves.

So said Faustino Pinto, a person affected by leprosy and Vice National Coordinator of Movement for the Reintegration of People Affected by Hansen’s disease (Morhan), at a webinar with the theme ‘Hansen’s Disease/Leprosy as Human Rights issue’.

Sasakawa, who is also the chairperson of the Nippon Foundation, and Dr Alice Cruz, UN Special Rapporteur on the Elimination of Discrimination against Persons Affected by Leprosy, addressed the webinar. Guests included Caroline Teixeira, Miss World Brazil 2021 and Julia Gama, Miss Universe Brazil 2020. The Sasakawa Health Foundation, in collaboration with Morhan, were co-conveners. The event forms part of a 10-month-long campaign dubbed ‘Do not Forget Leprosy’.

The celebrity guests applauded his sentiments.

Faustino Pinto, a person affected by leprosy and Vice National Coordinator of Morhan. Credit: Joyce Chimbi

Gama, also working with Morhan, told IPS: “Hansen’s disease has a cure, and I believe so does prejudice. I will use my voice to ensure that those who were silenced are heard. I believe togetherness is our strength, and together we can eradicate Hansen’s disease.”

Pinto praised Sasakawa for his lifelong commitment to improving the lives of those affected by the disease.

“We were taught to just accept what we were told: Take the medicine, keep the appointments, open your mouth to check if you did take the medicine, do not abandon the treatment,” says Pinto. This changed when Sasakawa became involved.

Pinto appealed for those affected by leprosy to be heard, seen, and involved in efforts towards zero leprosy.

He lauded the Sasakawa and the Foundation “for always talking about us and including us in the debate” and for “truly listening to us and giving us a voice”. It is this voice that Pinto used to appeal to the global community, saying, “Don’t Forget Hansen’s Disease. Don’t Forget Us.”

At the heart of discussions was the bid to draw the world’s attention to a disease in equal measure, a medical and social problem. Furthermore, the meeting was a key platform where participants were urged to approach leprosy as a human’s rights issue.

While concerted efforts have today led to less than one case of leprosy in a population of 10 000 people as per WHO estimates, with at least 200 000 new cases reported annually, experts say leprosy is still very much a concern.

“There are more than one billion people in the world living with disabilities, including persons affected by leprosy. We need to create an inclusive society where everyone can have an education, find work, and get married if they want to. People have passion and motivation. Often, all they lack is opportunity,” says Sasakawa.

Governments efforts to respond to COVID-19 is believed to have setback the progress towards zero leprosy.

“Persons affected by leprosy face multiple discrimination. They are often discriminated against on various grounds – like leprosy, but also gender, age, poverty, disability, sexuality, and race. They also struggle with violence from the State and society and with interpersonal violence,” says Cruz.

Caroline Teixeira, Miss World Brazil, with Morhan’s national coordinators Artur Custódio (centre) and Lucimar Batista (right), and the director of the National Beauty Contest and Morhan volunteer, Marina Fontes (left). Credit: Morhan

“There is such ability and potential in the world, and to have everyone participate in society will create a truly wonderful future. That is why it is important for persons affected by leprosy to have confidence and speak out,” Sasakawa emphasises.

“To support them, Sasakawa Health Foundation and The Nippon Foundation are helping them to build up their organisational capacity. I would like to see a society in which everyone is active, able to express their opinions to the authorities with confidence, and their contribution is valued,” he adds.

Over ten months, the campaign, which leverages Sasakawa’s 20th anniversary as Goodwill Ambassador, will raise awareness of why the world should stay focused on leprosy.

“It was a great honour to be chosen Miss World Brazil and thus become an ambassador of the fight against Hansen’s disease in Brazil, the country with the highest incidence of the disease in the world,” Teixeira told IPS.

“In the coming days, I will be part of a Morhan delegation visiting several cities in the north of the country, sensitising governments to action in defence of the rights of persons affected. We will certainly unite many voices so that Hansen’s disease is not forgotten,” she says.

Nevertheless, left untreated, leprosy can result in permanent disability. Worldwide, three to four million people live with some form of disability due to leprosy, as per WHO estimates.

There is growing concern that COVID-19 and the fear of discrimination could further prevent people from visiting hospitals, leading to diagnosis and treatment delays.

As it is, WHO’s 2020 statistics show an estimated 40 percent drop in the detection of new leprosy cases, which, experts warn, will lead to increased transmission of leprosy and more cases of disability.

Discrimination and stigma remain a primary concern for Sasakawa. He decries that “people who should be part of society remain isolated in colonies facing hardships. The more you look into it, the more you see the restrictions they live under, including legal restrictions in some cases. Is it not strange that someone cured of a disease cannot take their place in society?”

“I belatedly realised that if the human rights aspect wasn’t addressed, then elimination of leprosy in a true sense would not be possible. I would like to create a society where everyone feels fully engaged, able to express their opinions, and appreciated. The coming era must be one of diversity, and for that, we need social inclusion.”

 

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Health workers are at the frontlines in the fight against the new Corona Virus. Credit: John Njoroge

By Ann Keeling, Divya Mathew, Deepa Venkatachalam, and Chantal Umuhoza
NEW YORK, Sep 29 2021 (IPS)

Gender-responsive universal health coverage (UHC) has the proven potential to transform the health and lives of billions of people, particularly girls and women, in all their intersecting identities. At tomorrow’s kick-off to the 2023 UN High-Level Meeting (HLM) on UHC, Member States and stakeholders will review progress made on the 2019 HLM’s commitments and set a roadmap to achieve UHC by 2030. We, as the co-convening organizations of the Alliance for Gender Equality and UHC, call on Member States to safeguard gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) as part of UHC implementation, especially in light of the gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To move forward, it is crucial to remember our cumulative past promises. In 2019, Member States adopted a Political Declaration that contained strong commitments to ensure universal access to SRHR, including family planning; mainstreaming a gender perspective across health systems; and increasing the meaningful representation, engagement, and empowerment of all women in the health workforce. Further, 58 countries put forward a joint statement that argued that investing in SRHR is affordable, cost-saving, and integral for UHC. These commitments were the result of the advocacy and hard work of civil society organizations, including members of the Alliance for Gender Equality and UHC, and set out a clear path on the steps needed to make gender-responsive UHC a reality.

However, following the 2019 HLM, the deadly and devastating COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed how individuals around the globe could access essential health services. Fundamental human rights, including hard-won gains made for UHC, SRHR, and gender equality, are now at risk as health and social services are strained and political attention is diverted. The protracted pandemic underscores how gender-responsive UHC is more important than ever.

We call on Member States to renew the commitments made in 2019 and affirm that delivering on the promise of health for all is only possible by way of gender-responsive UHC.

To truly deliver gender-responsive UHC, we offer the following five recommendations:

1. Design policies and programs with an intersectional lens that places SRHR and girls and women — in all their diversity — at the center of UHC design and implementation. To be effective, UHC must recognize and respond to the needs of women in all their intersecting identities, including by explicitly addressing the ways in which race, ethnicity, age, ability, migrant status, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, and caste multiply risk and impact health outcomes. What’s more, COVID-19 has deepened inequalities for marginalized populations, and special attention is needed, now more than ever, to deliver UHC for those pushed furthest behind.

2. Ensure UHC includes comprehensive SRH services, and provide access to SRH services for all individuals throughout the life course. These services must be free of stigma, discrimination, coercion, and violence, and they must be integrated, high quality, affordable, accessible, and acceptable. The World Health Organization (WHO) provides guidance in the UHC Compendium of interventions and supporting documents for what this can look like. The pandemic has given way to multiple interruptions to SRHR care. For example, an estimated 12 million women may have been unable to access family planning services due to the pandemic. COVID-19 response and recovery and UHC implementation must address these issues.

3. Prioritize, collect, and utilize disaggregated data, especially gender-disaggregated data. UHC policy and planning can only be gender-responsive when informed by data that are disaggregated by gender and other social characteristics. In the current pandemic, not all countries are reporting disaggregated data on infections and mortality from COVID-19 to the WHO, and most countries have not implemented a gendered policy response. In June 2021, only 50% of 199 countries reported data disaggregated by sex on COVID-19 infections and/or deaths in the previous month.1 The number of countries reporting sex-disaggregated statistics has also decreased over the course of the pandemic. Without this information, decision-makers are unable to base policies on evidence affirming how to address the health needs of all genders — a critical lesson for UHC.

4. Foster gender equality in the health and care workforce and catalyze women’s leadership. The approach to the health and care workforce in the pandemic has frequently not applied a gender lens, ignoring the fact that women are 70% of the global health workforce and powerful drivers of health services. Gender inequities in the health workforce were present long before the pandemic, with the majority of female health workers in lower-status, low-paid roles and sectors, often in insecure conditions and facing harassment on a regular basis. Moreover, although women have played a critical role in the pandemic response — from vaccine design to health service delivery — they have been marginalized in leadership on pandemic decision-making from parliamentary to community levels. In fact, 85% of national COVID-19 task forces have majority male membership. Urgent investment in safe, decent, and equal work for women health workers, as well as equal footing for women in leadership and decision-making roles, must be central to the delivery of UHC.

5. Back commitments to advancing SRHR, gender equality, and civil society engagement in UHC design and implementation with necessary funding and accountability. Now is the time to invest in health and the care economy, particularly in UHC. Governments everywhere are facing fiscal constraints from the pandemic. UHC is a critical part of investing in and building back resilient health and social systems to avoid catastrophic spending on future pandemics and global health emergencies. UHC must be designed intentionally, with appropriate accountability mechanisms, to reduce inequalities between and within countries — and especially gender inequality, which undermines social and economic rights and resilience.

We, along with our civil society partners in the Alliance for Gender Equality and UHC, stand ready to work hand-in-hand with governments, the UN, and all stakeholders to act on these recommendations on the road to the 2023 HLM on UHC. At this point in the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no time to waste in making the promise of health for all a reality, and this can only be achieved through gender-responsive UHC that centers gender equality and SRHR.

The authors are Ann Keeling of Women in Global Health, Divya Mathew of Women Deliver, Deepa Venkatachalam of Sama Resource Group for Women and Health, and Chantal Umuhoza of Spectra Rwanda. These four organizations are the co-conveners of the Alliance for Gender Equality and Universal Health Coverage.

1 Global Health 50/50 (globalhealth5050.org)

 

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The writer is Research Associate at the Oakland Institute in San Francisco, USA.

By Andy Currier
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Sep 29 2021 (IPS)

The September 16, 2021 announcement from the World Bank that it had discontinued publication of the Doing Business Report (DBR) marked a major victory for people and planet.

Since 2002, the DBR has scored and ranked countries on the “ease of doing business,” i.e. on regulatory changes and reforms that make them more attractive to private investors. These “reforms” have included lowering corporate taxes, slashing environmental safeguards, social and labor standards, cutting administrative procedures, and removing restrictions to trade and business.

Cancellation of the DBR comes after data irregularities were found in the 2018 and 2020 reports. Audits revealed serious ethical concerns of data manipulation – shattering trust in the rankings. An explosive external review delivered to the Bank’s Board of Executive Directors exposed how senior Bank officials applied pressure to manipulate data in order to improve rankings for select countries.

Notably, the independent report exposed how then-Bank CEO (and current IMF Managing Director) Kristalina Georgieva applied “pressure” to “make specific changes to China’s data points in an effort to increase its ranking for the 2018 DBR,” at a time the country was expected to increase its financial contribution to the Bank’s capital. Then-World Bank President Dr. Jim Yong Kim was also indirectly implicated in the effort to increase China’s ranking.

Simeon Jankov, one of the founders of the DBR and a senior Bank official was also incriminated in altering Saudi Arabia’s data to boost the country’s ranking, in an effort to reward the country for the “important role it played in the Bank community.”

Saudi Arabia had previously implemented a series of Reimbursable Advisory Services (RAS) projects – paid advisory services provided by the Bank, some of which focus on improving economic indicators scored on the DBR. Elevating Saudi Arabia to first place in the Top Improvers list was done to “demonstrate the effectiveness of the Bank’s efforts and validate the amount of money Saudi Arabia had spent on RAS projects relating to the Doing Business Report.”

While shocking, these revelations are not the first charges of data manipulation brought against the Bank’s flagship publication. In 2018, the World Bank’s then-Chief Economist, Paul Romer exposed how DBR scores for Chile were skewed and politically manipulated to disfavor Michelle Bachelet’s progressive government.

While Romer admitted “business conditions did not get worse in Chile” under Bachelet, the country’s DBR rank fell from 25th to 57th while she was in power. The Bank denied Romer’s allegations and he subsequently resigned.

The blatant evidence of manipulation of the rankings is a slap in the face of the poorest countries that deregulated their economies to gain favor with the Bank. Consumed by climbing the rankings, policy makers around the world prioritized reforms that would improve their score instead of pursuing policies that would benefit people or the environment.

Even before the extent of the data manipulation came to light and destroyed any credibility of the DBR, the rankings were built on a flawed premise that rewarded countries for reducing their labor standards, destroying the environment, and providing easy access for corporate pillaging and land grabs.

For instance, the DBR ranked Sierra Leone, as one of “the top 15 economies that improved their business regulatory environment the most” after the country implemented policy changes that fast-tracked land leases, attracting foreign investors eager to develop large-scale oil palm and sugar cane plantations that deprived local communities of the land essential to their livelihoods.

Similarly, the DBR ranked Liberia as a “top ten global reformer” in 2010 after it prioritized lowering tax rates for corporations, provided guarantees to investors “against unfair expropriation,” and “ensur[ed] the ability of investors to repatriate capital and profits,” among other pro-corporate reforms. These policy changes resulted in giant palm oil and rubber producers acquiring more than 1.5 million acres of land – once again at the expense of community livelihoods.

Sustained Civil Society Mobilization Driving Force in Ending DBR

The Bank and IMF’s structural adjustments programs (SAPs) implemented in the 1980s and 1990s, impoverished millions in developing countries after imposing the withdrawal of state intervention and sweeping liberalization of economies as conditions to receive loans. The same year sustained mobilization from civil society finally ended SAPs, the Bank created the DBR to repackage and push the same neoliberal doctrine.

Over the past 18 years, the DBR has been met with strong resistance from the global labor movement and groups advocating for more equitable development policies in the Global South. Since 2014, the 280-organization strong Our Land Our Business campaign – comprised of NGOs, unions, farmers, and consumer groups from over 80 countries – has called for the end of the rankings.

For over seven years, Our Land Our Business has waged a steadfast advocacy campaign, including letters, petitions, and mass protests around the world. Coordinating the campaign, the Oakland Institute has produced dozens of reports and advocacy materials providing in-depth analysis and monitoring the impact of the DBR for people around the world.

Pressure on the Bank to end the DBR grew in March 2021 when the Rights Not Rankings Campaign – comprised of over 360 civil society organizations, academics and trade unions ¬–called on the Bank to end the program given that the “underlying premises of the Doing Business Report are not supported by evidence and contradict the objectives of a just recovery,” from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

While a landmark victory, these campaigns remain vigilant as the World Bank continues to leverage its influence and pressure countries to prioritize reforms that benefit corporate interests over true development. The scandal that derailed the DBR reveals ingrained institutional flaws in the World Bank and the biased, pro-corporate ideology and development pathway it continues to promote.

Next, the Bank should end the Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) Program. Created in the image of the DBR, the EBA rewards countries for implementing reforms in the agriculture sector that benefit agribusiness over the small farmers who actually feed the world. The revelations that have ended the DBR undeniably discredit the EBA and add to the Program’s crisis of legitimacy. The Our Land Our Business Campaign will continue its unwavering advocacy until the EBA joins the DBR in the dustbin of history.

Despite the work ahead, the end of the DBR should be widely celebrated as it marks the end of a tool wielded on the behalf of global capital interests for nearly two decades. Its demise was long overdue and clears the way for policies that serve people and the planet first.

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is Research Associate at the Oakland Institute in San Francisco, USA.

Research consultants Nandinchimeg Magsar (Mongolia), Sangeet Kayastha (Nepal), Anna Marie Alhambra (Philippines) and Dr Vazirov Jamshed (Tajikistan) briefed a webinar organised by APDA on the impact of COVID-19 on the youth.

By Cecilia Russell
Johannesburg, Sep 29 2021 (IPS)

Most families in the Republic of Tajikistan were affected when economic migrants were caught up in the COVID-19 pandemic abroad, Dr Vazirov Jamshed, research consultant for Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), told a webinar on the impact of the pandemic on youth.

In a predominantly agriculturally driven economy, he said, many young people seek employment abroad – mainly in the Russian Federation and other countries.

When the pandemic lockdowns started, these workers found themselves without jobs, and the remittances that once “accounted for 30 percent of the country’s GDP in 2019 had declined by half in 2021”.

These were not the only young economic migrants left without means and often without access to basic services abroad.

Sangeet Kayastha, AFFPD research consultant from Nepal, said it was estimated that 20 percent of Nepalese abroad were at risk of being unemployed.

“They have not received their wages and other benefits and are deprived of access to basic services, including health facilities,” he told the forum. While the government had promoted the repatriation of migrant workers, this was “at their own cost”.

The webinar, hosted by Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) and Asian Population and Development Association (APDA), heard of the devastating impacts of the pandemic on young people. While many agreed, there were success stories, the closure of educational institutions, the reliance on online schooling in countries where connectivity was poor and expensive, and the impact on micro, small and medium businesses meant that the youth was badly affected.

Professor Keizo Takemi, MP for Japan and chair of AFPPD, shared a story of volunteer youth activism, started by an Indian member of parliament, that saved the lives of over 10 000 patients through coordinating medical service provides and beds at medical facilities with those in need.

However, he also sounded the alarm that COVID-19 had created an “inequality pandemic”, with rising disparities in and between countries.

Björn Andersson, Regional Director, UNFPA APRO, reiterated that there was a need to understand “that the pandemic displaced many. Inequalities were exacerbated”, and vulnerable people, including youth, were severely impacted.

UNFPA had driven change by working with a regional youth network to develop national helplines for COVID-19 support, sexual and reproductive health, family planning and HIV services in more than 20 countries in the region. It also established GBV helpline and helplines focused on mental health and opened143 women and youth-friendly spaces were developed in several countries.

Nevertheless, the pandemic had created a considerable gap. One of the challenges was that in governments’ attempts to grapple with the pandemic’s threats, youth issues were not prioritised, even in countries with progressive youth policies.

Vazirov said Tajikistan was not ready for online education. The literacy rate is high, however, many young people could not continue their education during the lockdown due to the pandemic because of poor infrastructure and comparatively low connection of most of the population to reliable internet.

“The price for the intent is the highest, not only in the region but in the world if you compare the income levels and internet costs,” he said.

Nandinchimeg Magsar, a research consultant for Mongolia, noted that from February 3, 2020, all levels of education shifted to non-classroom training such as TV lessons and online learning.

This became a challenge as only three out of five students could attend their TV lessons regularly, and 15% could not participate in their lessons for various reasons, including a lack of TV or internet.

Anna Marie Alhambra, a research consultant for the Philippines, said that most students were involved in modular or distance learning. “This involves the use of gadgets, and according to a survey, the lack of access to these gadgets was the main reason why some students could not enrol in their schools.”

She also expressed concern that a survey conducted by UNICEF indicated that parents observed that children learnt a little less with online learning compared with face-to-face classes.

The consultants agreed that youth need to become at the forefront in all countries in terms of priority and involvement in future policy development.

Alhambra said pre-pandemic youth unemployment had been decreasing in the Philippines, but COVID-19 set that back.

“It was 14.7% in July 2019 and was 22.4% in July 2020. This means that 1.7 million Filipino youth are unemployed. During the lockdown, youth working in wholesale, retail, food service, construction, transportation, and storage were most affected because everyone was asked to stay at home. Highly disturbing is that there is still a 14% reduction in working hours which means less income and less economic activity for the youth,” she said.

Magsar said from February 3, 2020, all levels of education in Mongolia shifted to non-classroom training such as TV lessons and online learning. Only three out of five students could attend their TV lessons regularly, and 15% could not participate in their lessons for various reasons, including a lack of TV or internet.

In the Philippines, Alhambra said, most students were involved in modular or distance learning. This involves the use of gadgets, and according to a survey, the “lack of access to these gadgets was the main reason some students could not enrol in their schools”. A survey conducted by UNICEF indicated that parents observed that children learnt a little less with online learning compared with face-to-face classes.

Manmohan Sharma, Executive Secretary of IAPPD from India, noted that the COVID-19 “pandemic was becoming endemic” and would last longer than expected. He suggested that APDA and AFPPD keep this subject on the agenda in the longer term.

Dr Osamu Kusumoto, Secretary-General and Executive Director of APDA, wanted to know from the consultants how to prioritise these issues into a country’s policy.

Vazirov, replied saying the pandemic unveiled weaknesses in policies and his country’s approaches to crises. Tajikistan has a national development strategy until 2030, but, in his view, it was time to reconsider the practices – not only for education but for all sectors in the country which need to work in a coordinated fashion.

He disagreed that the pandemic was becoming endemic. “Now is the time to review existing policy documents and introduce amendments based on lessons we learnt, work together, and jointly combat the negative consequences of COVID-19,” he said.

 

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• Parliamentarians Determined to Reach ICPD 25 Goals

By an IPS Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 28 2021 (IPS)

Chakravarthi Raghavan, who passed away early this week, was a prolific writer and a distinguished journalist who covered the United Nations both in New York and Geneva for several decades.

A proponent of development journalism, Raghavan’s voluminous reporting and writings were sharply focused on the global South. A longstanding reporter for Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency in Geneva, he was Editor of Third World Economics and representative of the Third World Network (TWN) in Geneva.

Chakravarthy Raghavan

He was on a team which launched the first ever IPS UN conference newspaper – Terra Viva— at the historic 1992 Earth Summit in Rio.

As a leading Indian journalist, he once held the post of Chief Editor of Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency. In 1980, Raghavan became the Chief Editor of the SUNS (then known as the Special United Nations Service), which was founded by the International Foundation for Development Alternatives (IFDA).

The aim of the SUNS was to provide information and analysis on global events and developments from a Third World perspective. Raghavan was its strongest advocate. In 1989, TWN took over responsibility for publishing SUNS.

As Chief Editor of SUNS, Raghavan provided critical and unique analyses of crucial international developments (such as the Uruguay Round negotiations and the subsequent developments in the WTO) from the perspective of developing countries.

In 1997, he was presented with the G77/UNDP award for promoting TCDC/ECDC (Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries/Economic Cooperation Among Developing Countries).

In his speech, he offered his profoundest thanks to the Group of 77 and China and the selection committee and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) for the honour bestowed on him.

“I was not present at the birth of the Group of 77, and UNCTAD, in Geneva in 1964; but I was at its conception – here in New York when a handful of key delegates from Afro-Asia and Latin America used to meet in the corridors and lounges outside the ECOSOC/Trusteeship chambers, and this led to the joint resolution presented to the General Assembly in the name of 65 countries for a UN Conference on Trade and Development – to bring economic issues back into the UN,” he said.

Since then, cooperation among developing countries has increased. There are many regional and sub-regional groups and integration agreements. But the international system currently favours those groupings and integration agreements that are associated with or led by the North, and disfavours independent groupings, he pointed out.

“And, at a time as now when the developing world is facing new threats to its independence, sovereignty and the well-being of its people, there is also a measure of dis- spiritedness and disunity within the South that those of us who have an interest in the well-being of the South, and the North, must strive hard to reverse and remove’

“As one individual from the South, I do pledge my intention to continue to strive for this, but I do plead with the governments of the South, and their delegates represented here, and the international institutions to do their utmost in this direction,” he declared.

Raghavan’s publications include: Recolonization: GATT, Uruguay Round and Third World (1990); ‘The New World Order – A View from the South’ (1997); ‘World Trade Order: Advantage for Whom?’ Third World Economics (1994);, ‘Role of Multilateral Organizations in the Globalization Process,’ Third World Economics, No. 128 (1996); ‘The World Trade Organization and its Dispute Settlement System: Tilting the balance against the South’, TWN Trade and Development Series No 9 (2000); Financial Services, the WTO and Initiatives for Global Financial Reform (2010); From GATT to the WTO: The Secret Story of the Uruguay Round, Third World Network Penang (2000); Developing Countries and Services Trade: Chasing a black cat in a dark room blindfolded (2002) TWN Penang; Disconnects at all levels, Third World Economics 403, June 2007.

The awards he received during his journalistic career include: 1998 UNDP/Group of 77 TCDC/ECDC Award for outstanding contribution as Chief Editor of South-North Development Monitor and Editor of Third World Economics to the promotion of technical and economic cooperation among developing countries; Membre d’Honneur de l’Association de la Presse Étrangère en Suisse (June 2007); Membre d’Honneur Association des Correspondants auprès des Nations Unies.

 

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By Danielle Nierenberg
NEW ORLEANS, United States, Sep 28 2021 (IPS)

The global food system needs a massive overhaul – this was clear before the Covid pandemic and it is even more true today.

Feeding the world in a sustainable and healthy way is entirely possible but it is also inextricably linked to tackling the climate crisis by reaching net zero emissions, and to halting the dizzying decline in bio-diversity which is currently threatening the survival of one million plant and animal species.

Danielle Nierenberg

And yet nearly two years after the onset of the pandemic, collectively we are acting as if we are unaware of lessons learned or, in worst cases, turning our backs on them. We can’t pretend that it is possible to go back to normal. That ‘normality’, at least for the better-off, papered over the cracks in reality.

That reality, exacerbated by Covid-19, is a looming global food emergency, triggered by a combination of climate extremes, economic shocks of rising food prices and joblessness, as well as protracted armed conflicts.

The UN is warning that this year 41 million people across 43 countries are at imminent risk of famine. This compares with 27 million in 2019. Famine-like conditions are worsening in Ethiopia, Madagascar, South Sudan and Yemen.

More people are dying of hunger around the world each day than from Covid.

On the climate front, greenhouse gas emissions are rebounding after a relatively short hiatus caused by economic slowdowns, reaching new highs in 2021.

Transforming our food systems is thus not just about feeding people. Production and transport of food accounts for about a third of all greenhouse gas emissions. Industrial animal agriculture and increased mono-cropping with over-use of pesticides and fertilizers are major drivers of biodiversity loss.

The UN Environment Program has recently issued its damning analysis of the industrial food system, with low retail costs in developed countries obscuring the massive damage caused to the environment, as well as epidemics of malnutrition and obesity and increased transmission of diseases between animals and humans.

We have to feed the world equitably in a sustainable way. Science, technology and more efficient market mechanisms are just one part of the solution. The greater challenge lies in addressing genuine land and agrarian reforms. Often it is the industrial food system and the corporate sector that holds the rights over the use of land, water, crops, plants and seeds – not those who produce and consume food.

Small farmers, pastoralists and indigenous peoples must be heard and respected, and the injustices of land grabbing must be reversed. Truly regenerative and restorative food systems cannot leave these people behind. Women, who produce much more food than recognised, and youth who struggle to access land need political empowerment.

The pandemic that has disrupted global food production has disproportionately affected women farmers and food producers who were already excluded from full participation in agricultural development. Food policies must not be gender blind and the needs of women should be at the forefront of responses to mass disasters. Imagine the changes that could really happen if we had women farmers running municipalities, towns and even countries.

Even during the depths of the pandemic, the threat for many people of poor nutrition and inadequate food was caused by loss of incomes and livelihoods, not shortage of food itself. But economic insecurity goes hand in hand with the climate crisis.

The world is facing radical choices. This decade must be one of decisive action as we strive to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger by 2030. New powerful and all-embracing alliances are needed to avoid a silo mentality that divides issues and communities. Governments, companies, institutions and citizens have to come together to reset food systems.

As members of civil society we have a responsibility to carry over the positive elements of the UN Food Systems Summit held in New York last week and make up for its deficiencies too. The issue of food must be addressed at the UN COP26 climate talks in Glasgow in November and again at the UN biodiversity summit in Kunming next year.

We are on the cusp of a new era. The warning signals on climate, biodiversity and food crises have been repeatedly and clearly flagged by experts. If we have the individual and collective courage to act then our decisive responses to the pandemic can soon set us on the way to a more healthy, sustainable and just food system.

Danielle Nierenberg is co-founder and president of Food Tank, a nonprofit organization focused on building a global community for safe, healthy, nourished eaters.

 

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Border tent camp at El Chaparral Port of Entry, Tijuana, Mexico, March 2021. Credit: The Jewish Voice.

By Peter Costantini
SEATTLE, US, Sep 28 2021 (IPS)

A widely condemned Trump administration program designed to slash legal immigration to the United States, initially terminated by the Joe Biden administration, has been reinstated by court rulings on a Republican lawsuit. Human-rights and immigrant justice advocates have gone on the legal and political offensive against the decision, and are pressing the Biden administration to bypass the court’s roadblock.

The Migrant Protection Protocols, commonly known as Remain in Mexico, make asylum at the United States border more difficult and dangerous to obtain by forcing migrants initially accepted into the process to return to Mexico to await their next asylum hearing.

Human rights and immigrant justice advocates have protested forcefully that Remain in Mexico is a violation of the law and of migrants’ human rights, and must not be reinstated

During the United States presidential campaign, Joe Biden criticized the program as “dangerous” and “inhumane” and said he would end it. After taking office, his administration immediately suspended new enrollments into Remain in Mexico, and on June 1 terminated Trump’s original December 2018 program. So far, Biden has allowed some 13,000 affected immigrants to re-enter the United States to await their hearings, but an estimated 25,000 remain in limbo near the border. Tens of thousands more have apparently dispersed to other parts of Mexico and Central America, or crossed without documentation into the U.S.

In an effort to restore Remain in Mexico, the Republican attorneys general of the states of Texas and Missouri challenged the Biden administration’s repeal of the program in a U.S. District Court in Texas, and on August 13 a Trump-appointed judge ordered it reinstated. The Biden administration appealed unsuccessfully to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and then to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking them to stay the Texas ruling while the case proceeded. But on August 24 the Supreme Court rejected the request and allowed the original District Court decision to stand until the appeal is decided.

In response, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement disagreeing with the court decisions and regretting that the Supreme Court declined to issue a stay. “DHS has appealed the district court’s order”, it said, “and will continue to vigorously challenge it. As the appeal process continues, however, DHS will comply with the order in good faith.”

 

Civil society and Congress push back

Human rights and immigrant justice advocates have protested forcefully that Remain in Mexico is a violation of the law and of migrants’ human rights, and must not be reinstated. An official of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Gillian Triggs, called Remain in Mexico “a menace to the asylum system and to the compliance of the U.S. with its international obligations.“ She told Alberto Pradilla of the Mexican news site Animal Politico, “All people have a right to seek asylum. The difficulty with MPP is that, in effect, it denies access to a process.”

The original District Court ruling held that the Biden’s government’s memo terminating the program had not considered all relevant factors nor given sufficient justification for cancelling it. In response, immigrant advocates have called on Biden’s policy-makers to quickly redraft the memo with a fuller explanation for the rescission that would pass muster with the courts. “The government must take all steps available to fully end this illegal program,” commented Omar Jadwat, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, “including by re-terminating it with a fuller explanation. What it must not do is use this decision as cover for abandoning its commitment to restore a fair asylum system.”

“It is abundantly clear that the United States cannot safely reinstate MPP and that any attempt to return people seeking safety to harm in Mexico will violate U.S. and international legal obligations to refugees”, argued a letter from over 30 Democratic members of Congress, led by Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX16) and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ). “MPP does not represent our values as a country and should be permanently discarded along with the many other unlawful Trump administration policies designed to punish and deter refugees from seeking safety.”

Debate continues within the Biden administration, according to Anita Kumar of Politico, on whether to redraft the memo terminating Remain in Mexico to meet the courts’ objections, or to try to comply with the ruling by implementing “Remain in Mexico Lite”, requiring smaller numbers to wait in Mexico in better living conditions and with more access to attorneys. However, Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, told Kumar: “One of his campaign promises was to end MPP. He did that. He should stand by that. The answer is not to simply find a gentler, kinder MPP 2.0. That completely flies in the face of his promise.”

Over 70 civil-society groups and coalitions from the U.S., Mexico and Central America took a different tack: they sent a letter (reprinted below) to the Mexican government calling on it to refuse to cooperate with the revived Remain in Mexico program. When Trump originally launched it, the Mexican government said it did not agree with it, but would cooperate for humanitarian reasons. The organizations now urge Mexico to reject U.S. requests to accept returnees, which the Biden administration and the courts appear to recognize would make it impossible to reinstate the program. The letter points out that the Mexican Supreme Court and National Human Rights Commission are currently hearing cases about the legality and human-rights consequences of the program, and warns of the probable harm that would be inflicted on migrants by its reinstatement.

Negotiations are reportedly being conducted between Mexico and the U.S. on issues raised by the program’s provisional reinstatement. So far, the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been publicly non-committal on how much it is willing to cooperate, invoking national sovereignty to deny any obligation to comply with a U.S. court’s decision, yet not ruling out humanitarian assistance.

 

Migrant Protection Protocols, AKA Remain in Mexico

What the Trump administration officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols had nothing to do with protecting migrants. On the contrary, the measure put them in mortal danger, sending 72 thousand mainly Central American migrants who had already been accepted as potential candidates for asylum back to await their court hearings in Mexico, often for many months, sometimes for more than a year. As the ACLU’s Jadwat put it: “The whole purpose of the policy was to punish people for seeking asylum by trapping them in miserable and dangerous conditions.” The ACLU and other civil-society groups challenged the program in court, but were unable to overturn it during Trump’s term. They are considering restarting legal action if the Biden administration re-implements the policy.

Some border areas to which migrants have been returned by the program are so dangerous that the U.S. State Department warns travelers of the same threat level as in Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen. They are dominated by organized crime, often in league with corrupt officials and police, and many thousands of returnees have fallen victim to violent crimes. Returned migrants are frequently forced to live in unsanitary tent camps and overcrowded shelters. Access to U.S. immigration attorneys is severely restricted, and migrants often encounter difficulties entering the U.S. for their hearings. As a result, the percentage of asylum seekers returned to Mexico under the program who eventually receive asylum is reportedly only 1.6 percent of completed cases.

The United Nations and international human rights groups have sharply criticized Remain in Mexico as a violation of the rights to request asylum and to avoid refoulement – forced return to situations of persecution that migrants are trying to escape. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and former President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet Jeria, said she was “profoundly disturbed” by the Migrant Protection Protocols and related Trump policies that had “drastically reduced protections for migrant families.” Amnesty International warned: “Trump’s efforts to end asylum are an all-out assault on human rights.”

 

“Zero Tolerance” for immigrants

Remain in Mexico was only one among many repressive weapons deployed by Trump’s immigration bureaucracy in its blitzkrieg on asylum. Early in his term, his administration began to restrict and sometimes cut off access for migrants to request asylum at official ports of entry, which is guaranteed by the Refugee Act of 1980 and international treaties. Around the same time, Attorney General Jeff Sessions imposed what he called “Zero Tolerance”, which decreed that all migrants trying to cross between ports of entry would be imprisoned, and that children would be separated from their parents. This also violated those laws and treaties, which protect the right to seek asylum anywhere along a border or within U.S. territory. The forced separation of families was condemned across much of the U.S. political spectrum. Physicians for Human Rights, a U.S. NGO, called it a form of torture and forced disappearance, and the American Association of Pediatrics characterized it as “government-sanctioned child abuse” that could cause “irreparable harm” with “lifelong consequences”.

Buttressing these interlocking virtual walls against seeking asylum, Trump’s cadre erected legal barriers against those already in the asylum process. These included Remain in Mexico and efforts to force Central American or Mexican governments to accept asylum seekers in lieu of granting them asylum in the U.S.

Some of these programs were struck down by courts. But Trump’s immigration Rasputin, Stephen Miller, and fellow operatives continued to launch other salvos against authorized and unauthorized immigration. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, they took advantage of it to strongarm the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into issuing an emergency order, known as Title 42, which prohibited nearly all immigration across the southwest border and ordered the rapid expulsion of migrants without a chance to ask for asylum. Although the Trump administration justified the measure as a means of preventing the spread of the pandemic, a loud chorus of public health experts inside and outside of the CDC objected that Title 42 could not be justified for public health reasons, and was yet another effort to exclude legal immigrants seeking asylum.

The incoming Joe Biden administration has eliminated some of Trump’s worst attacks on immigrants. But it is still enforcing Title 42, except for children, and continues to pressure other governments to stop immigration through Mexico.

The scope and brutality of the Trump administration’s policies made clear that its ultimate goal was to eventually end all immigration to the U.S., except perhaps from Norway. It came close to completely eliminating the refugee program. In measures tantamount to ethnic cleansing, it also tried to exclude Muslim, African, and other immigrants and visitors of color. It also imposed measures to make both lawful permanent resident status and naturalization more difficult to achieve and maintain. More than four-fifths of migrants to the U.S. are from Latin America, Asia and Africa, as Trump’s cadre were well aware. Their white sado-nationalism unleashed scapegoating and repression that reeked of racism, xenophobia, and fascism. As Adam Serwer observed in The Atlantic of Trump and his supporters: “The cruelty is the point.”

In the eyes of many observers around the world, the Trump régime came to be viewed as a rogue state that flagrantly denied the human rights of migrants. The Biden administration could take a step towards repairing the damage by refusing to reinstate one of Trump’s most destructive violations.

 

(Full text of the letter and list of endorsers)

Civil Society Organizations Call on the Mexican Government to Reject Any Reinstatement of MPP

https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/research-resources/civil-society-organizations-call-on-the-mexican-government-to-reject-any-reinstatement-of-migrant-protection-protocols

 

For more information

American Immigration Council. “The ‘Migrant Protection Protocols’”. Washington, DC: American Immigration Council, January 22, 2021
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/migrant-protection-protocols

Hecho en América. “’Quédate en México’ y la expulsión de migrantes al territorio mexicano” (video). YouTube, August 26, 2021.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPIyxBVPP4A
Laura Carlsen of Americas Program interviews three Mexican analysts on the reinstatement of Remain in Mexico (in Spanish).

In Somalia, water infrastructure projects are building climate resilience and reducing emissions by using solar panels to provide energy. Credit: UNDP/Tobin Jones

By Franck Kuwonu
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 28 2021 (IPS)

Rondrotiana Barimalala is a climate researcher at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and a lead author for the IPCC report to the recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report titled Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis.

The report says we can act on climate change but warns that time is running out.

In this interview with Africa Renewal’s Franck Kuwonu, Barimalala talks about what extreme weather events mean for Africa and what could be a new normal if global warming is not tackled urgently.

Excerpts from the interview.

Africa is not a major contributor to carbon emissions, yet human-made global warming is advancing more rapidly on the continent than in the rest of the world, the IPCC report says. How do you explain this?

The warming is global. It happens everywhere. But the situation in African is worse because of our limited capacity to adapt even when most emissions happen elsewhere. More extreme events, for example, happen in different parts of the world, but [again] our capacity to adapt is low compared to other places. And I think that makes us vulnerable and to suffer most from the consequences.

Rondrotiana Barimalala

Q: Following 1998, 2010 and 2016, Africa experienced its fourth-warmest April this year. These rises in temperature have been noticeable over the last two decades. Is this a trend we’re likely to see in the future?

A: Yes. For the past few decades, the warming rose rapidly. And one of the consequences of global warming is frequent extreme events, frequent extreme temperature—for instance, very hot temperature or very cold temperature. If it continues to increase at this speed, then we should expect more frequent events. And these will become the new normal.

Q: On Africa, the report’s findings include increased hot and cold extremes, rise in sea-level, increased drought and pluvial flooding. Do these events happen equally across the regions? Is North Africa experiencing these at the same rate as West, Central or Southern Africa, for instance?

A: There are differences. In the report, Africa is divided into nine areas. That’s basically based on the understanding of climate systems in the region. So, West Africa wouldn’t be the same as Southern Africa, for instance. All regions in Africa experience extreme heat. But it will be different across the regions.

Let me just take the example of the heatwave magnitude. We are expecting that the number of days that we have more than 35°C across Africa will increase substantially by 2050, but especially in West Africa and East Africa. The substantial increases in these regions may not be the same in Central Africa. So, it’s not evenly distributed; everything will not increase to the same degree everywhere.

Q: Talking about West Africa: the report projects precipitation to increase over Central Sahel and decrease in the western regions?

A: Yes. The report concluded that the western regions of Africa will experience decreased precipitation except in Western Sahel, and there will be an increase in the eastern regions.

Franck Kuwonu

Q: What would be the impact of that on the livelihoods of people in the Sahel? Will parts of the Sahel be green, in the central areas for instance, while the western area will become more arid?

A: Yes. For the western part, there will be an increase in aridity, unfortunately. Because we have a decrease in rainfall, that will impact agriculture, ecology and biosphere. In areas with projected increase in precipitation, it’s not impossible to have a greener land, for example in the eastern part. But again, we need more studies to confirm it.

Q: Another finding and projection of the report is the rise in sea level across the continent. The western side, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic, appears to be the most affected. How bad is it? How about the eastern parts along the Indian Ocean? To what extent are these affected?

A: Let’s look at what happens [now] before we talk about the future. For the Atlantic Ocean, from 1900 to 2018 the level rose by around 2 millimeters per year. The Indian Ocean was 1.3 millimeters per year. And recently, the levels are almost the same. Now, it’s around 3.40 millimeters in the Atlantic Ocean and 3.60 millimeters in the Indian Ocean. So, it’s serious on both sides. What makes it more serious on the western side, I think, is the the low-elevation land in the area.

Q: So, both are rising, and it looks like the Indian side has outpaced the western side. Is that correct?

A: Yes. But the impact is not felt the same way because coastal areas on the east side are higher than on the west side. If you look at the coast along Tanzania, those areas have high topography—higher elevation.

Q: Traveling along coastal areas in West Africa, from Lagos (Nigeria) to Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) for instance, one can see ruins of entire roads and villages, historical sites washed away by the sea. What is the main cause of this—expanding warming waters or sinking lands? Or is it the melting ice, which is far away from the continent?

A: When we talk about sea level rise, we must consider expansion due to the warming of oceans. And that contributes most to the global rise in sea-level. And then, we have the melting ice and glaciers. But I think that from the examples you just gave, these are more classified as coastal erosion than sea level rise, I think houses and roads disappearing are more about coastal erosion. And the continent has experienced shoreline retreats at the rate of one meter per year from 1984 until around 2016/2017, and that’s been very important as well.

Q: Are there other places around the world where, comparatively, the rate of the rise is much higher?

A: Similar to the extreme heats, the rate of rise is not uniformly distributed. For instance, the Atlantic is warming at a faster rate than the Pacific, leading to larger sea level rise than the global mean, along the European and US east coastal areas. There are also different factors such as land settling or rising due to loss of the weight of ice due to melting.

Q: What then are the likely consequences of the sea level continuing to rise?

A: The likely consequences would be on coastal areas because when the sea level rises, you tend to have more erosion from the sea, decline of water quality and destruction of different infrastructures.

Q: What lies ahead? Are the projected trends irreversible for the continent? What should people and policymakers be aware of going forward?

A: That’s a tricky question. Of course, we would benefit from having the greenhouse gases decreasing everywhere. In Africa, that’s what we are looking forward to, as we are very vulnerable. So, if you ask me what lies ahead for Africa, I would say it depends on global efforts. I think we know the facts. We know what is going to happen if we don’t make decisions. Through this report, we are putting facts in front of governments. So, it’s hard for me to say what lies ahead for Africa. But it really depends on global decisions as well as decisions made in every country in Africa regarding what to do based on these facts.

Footnote

Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis: Key facts on Africa:

Mean temperatures and hot extremes have emerged above natural variability, relative to 1850–1900, in all land regions in Africa.

The rate of surface temperature increase has generally been more rapid in Africa than the global average, with human-induced climate change being the dominant driver.

Observed increases in hot extremes (including heatwaves) and decreases in cold extremes (including cold waves) are projected to continue throughout the 21st century with additional global warming

Marine heatwaves have become more frequent since the 20th century and are projected to increase around Africa.

Relative sea level has increased at a higher rate than global mean sea level around Africa over the last three decades. Relative sea-level rise is likely to virtually certain to continue around Africa, contributing to increases in the frequency and severity of coastal flooding in low-lying areas to coastal erosion and along most sandy coasts.

The frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events are projected to increase almost everywhere in Africa with additional global warming.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

 

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 28 2021 (IPS)

When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan during 1996-2001, the United Nations was engaged in a losing battle for women’s rights.

And that battle was occasionally led by two senior female UN officials, one of them working for a UN agency providing humanitarian assistance inside unfriendly Taliban territory.

Radhika Coomaraswamy, a former UN Under-Secretary-General, who travelled around the world as Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women (1994-2003), recounted an uncomfortable eye-to-back – not an eye-to-eye — meeting she had with a Taliban official.

“When I met the Foreign Minister”, she told me last week, “We sat side by side on two distant chairs and he would not look at me. I kept putting my face in the line of his vision and he slowly turned his back.”

“My bodyguard then leaned over and told me what should have been obvious: that he will not set eyes on me”.

“And when I met the Minister of Justice, I asked him about domestic violence” and he told me that “Afghan women were well brought up, and they do not attack their husbands,” said Coomaraswamy, one of the third high-ranking officials in the UN hierarchy, next to the Secretary-General and the Deputy Secretary-General.

Meanwhile, when Anoja Wijeyesekera, received her new UNICEF assignment in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan back in 1997, her appointment letter arrived with a “survival manual” and chilling instructions: write your last will before leaving home.

A former UNICEF Resident Project Officer (1997-1999) in Jalalabad and later in Kabul (1999-2001), she recounted an identical anecdote similar to Coomaraswamy’s.

“When I first went to Afghanistan in 1997, as the UNICEF Resident Project Officer in Jalalabad, the Taliban refused to look at me, as I happened to be a woman. At meetings, which were all- male events, they would look away from me with an expression of total disgust and would keep their heads turned away from me, when speaking to me,” she recounted.

“After a couple of months of this icy reception, which I considered to be a farcical comedy, they gradually thawed and even shook my hand, spoke in English, and became friendly”

“And I said to my staff perhaps the Taliban thought that I had turned into a man!” she added jokingly.

Many Afghan families were displaced when the Taliban advanced on Kabul. Credit: UNHCR/Yama Noori

According to a report in the New York Times last week, during the first years of Taliban rule, women were forbidden to work outside the home or even to leave the house without a male guardian.

“They could not attend school, and faced public flogging if they were found to have violated morality rules, like one requiring that they be fully covered.”

At a fund-raiser last week for humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, which generated more than $1.2 billion in pledges, Martin Griffiths, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said when he met with Taliban officials recently in Kabul, he received assurances— in writing.

Their message read: “We have made it clear in all public forums that we are committed to all rights of women, rights of minorities and principles of freedom of expression in the light of religion and culture, therefore we once again reiterate our commitment and will gradually take concrete steps with the help of the international community.”

But the lingering question is whether the Taliban government will honour these commitments – particularly, judging by its past track record.

Of the $1.2 billion in pledges, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said September 27, only about $131 million has actually been received; that’s 21.7 per cent of the $606 million required through the end of this year.

“We are very pleased with pledges; we are even more pleased when we get cash,” he said.

Meanwhile, asked about her personal experiences during her tenure in Afghanistan, UNICEF”s Wijeyesekera, described the Taliban as a motley group of fighters, mullahs and other fringe elements of society including drop outs, bandits, criminals and bigots that have come together under the umbrella term “Taliban” which means students.

They are supposed to be students of Islam and by their own definition, she pointed out, they are students and not graduates or professors. This is revealing as many of the foot soldiers are semi-literate but well versed in the art of guerrilla warfare.

“Their brand of Islam is totally opposed to the accepted version of Islam that is taught in universities and other places of genuine learning,” said Wijeyesekera, in an interview with IPS last week.

“As you know the madrassas of Pakistan were established with the support of the CIA to train mujahidin fighters to defeat the Russians. I have seen the Nebraska curriculum, which is explained in my book (“Facing the Taliban,” available on Amazon) which was a tool to brain-wash poor children into becoming cannon fodder on the battle field.”

During her time in Afghanistan, she said, some Talibs holding positions in government were more educated. However, many were Mullahs who were completely closed to the outside world, having only been taught in a Madrassa.

The Minister for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue [V&V] named Torabi was a one- eyed, one-legged fighter whose only occupation was beating people, mostly women, she said.
His Ministry was in charge of floggings, beheadings, amputations and stonings. If the newly created Ministry with that name, is headed by a similar person, the result would be similar, she added.

Despite these absolutely horrific practices, conducted by their own “government”, “I have to say that at a personal and sub-national level, the more educated departmental heads were relatively flexible, as they understood the benefits of UNICEF programmes for the children and women of Afghanistan.”

As time progressed, one of the most ruthless and die-hard Taliban leaders — the Minister of Health, developed an understanding with me, regarding the implementation of UNICEF programmes, as he could see the benefits of those programmes.

Thus,” I would say that although “policy” could be one thing, practices could vary depending on the location and the particular Talib in question”.

Asked about other senior female UN officials, she said there were women heading other UN agencies in Afghanistan, including the head of UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) both in Jalalabad and Kabul. Also, in Jalalabad the head of the office of the World Health Organization (WHO) was a woman.

Meanwhile, the UN may keep posting women to Afghanistan– at least to challenge the validity of Taliban’s claims on women rights.

Speaking at a seminar at the UN on September 21, Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said there were credible reports of serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights abuses taking place in many areas under effective Taliban control such as summary executions of civilians, restrictions on the rights of women, including their right to move freely and girls’ right to attend schools, recruitment of child soldiers, and more.

Since the Taliban’s takeover, its spokespeople have issued several announcements of human rights commitments. Notably, in a letter to the United Nations they announced their “commitment to all rights of women… in the light of religion and culture” and vowed to “gradually take concrete steps with the help of the international community”.

However, practices on the ground have undermined and sadly contradicted these stated commitments, she added.

“Women have been progressively excluded from the public sphere. In many areas, they are prohibited from appearing in public spaces without a male guardian. In numerous professional sectors, women face increasing restrictions”.

To date, Bachelet said, girls over the age of 12 have in effect been prohibited from attending school. Female and male university students are now separated, with female students only to be taught by female professors – of whom there are few, further undermining women’s access to higher education.

She pointed out that the Ministry that once promoted women’s rights has been dis-banded, and its premises taken over by a Ministry for the propagation of Virtue and the prevention of Vice – an all-male office that will apply guidelines on appropriate dress and behaviour.

Taliban representatives have dismantled many Departments of Women’s Affairs across Afghanistan, gaining access to sensitive files and threatening their personnel, and have accused women’s civil society groups of immorality and spreading ‘anti-Islamic’ ideas, said Bachelet.

“Afghan women and girls comprise half of the population. It will be to Afghanistan’s advantage that the talents and capabilities of its women are utilised, to contribute to the Afghanistan of the future.”

 

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