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Between Horror and Hope in the Villages of Ituri

Fri, 08/06/2021 - 17:38

Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

By Elena L. Pasquini
ROME, Aug 6 2021 (IPS)

“We have buried twenty-eight people. I have seen them with my own eyes. We also found three bodies in the fields and buried them too. I can show them to you. It’s not far from here. We buried them there.” The man points to the hills. He doesn’t want to show his face or say his name, but he agrees that his voice can be recorded, so that his words don’t get lost. The camera can’t shoot him; it can only look at the tall grass or at the forest towards the countryside where it is no longer possible to cultivate food. The man talks while music from Lengabo’s catholic church marks the time of truce and hope.

Voices in the villages of Ituri, a northeastern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo in the heart of Africa’s Great Lake region, often remain unnamed, like the victims. A pair of blue plastic flip-flops on the floor of an earthen house is the only possible portrait of another man who leads a group of villages between the Ugandan border and the North Kivu. He is the chief of a once-large community—over 120,000 people—that is now a land of empty houses. He still lives where men who do not wear uniforms lead ordinary lives during the day, but burn houses and slaughter other men like animals during the night.

Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

Towards Uganda is the territory of Djugu. To the South, one finds Irumu, ravaged by local militias and the ferocity of the Forces démocratiques alliée, an Islamist armed group active in Beni. Since 1998, the region has been a theater of conflict that flares up in waves, the last one in 2017. More than by mountains, rivers, and lakes, the geography of Ituri is formed by armed groups that strike terror and target civilians through their areas of influence, their fleeting alliances or fights. Their acronyms—Codeco, FPIC, Zaire, ADF, and others— give the face of reason to blind violence. It is a map of horror, of charred bodies, gutted men and women, their internal organs exposed; of mothers killed with children in their wombs, opened so that their babies can be mutilated. This is what refugees describe, what images document, and what the United Nations reports. The attacks reach up to a few kilometers from Bunia, the provincial capital, where those whom the war has displaced look for shelter.

Sometimes and in some places, the conflict holds its breath. Then, some among those who fled their homes try to return to the villages. Approximately 800,000 people went back in 2020, although 1.7 million remain internally displaced and many have left the country. Those who return know that war can break out again suddenly, in a few days, weeks or months. Yet today is Sunday and Mass is being celebrated. The music plays and the corn dries in the sun at Dele and Lengabo. And at Tchunga, not far from Bunia, the village it is not a place of horror, but a place of welcoming.

To leave Bunia in the direction of Irumu, along the road leading to North Kivu, is to leave behind a safe place—as safe as a city in the middle of a war can be. Early in the morning, the sun is pale pink and the trees are not yet green, but black. The earth is not yet red. It’s a pale pink that reflects itself in the puddles of dirt roads where one can easily get bogged down, stuck between two walls of forest.

In the small town of Dele, in front of the village chief’s house, the children work: a hoe in their hands, two chickens in their arms. A group of men chat. It is Sunday and the hypnotic rhythm of the Congolese music comes from the church square across the street. “We ask for help because life has recently become too difficult. We do some rural activities to survive,” Yoshua Businiliri explains. He looks at the red, fleshy flowers that dominate the fields, whose green hue is so intense that not even the fragile sun of dawn can soften it. Land abounds in Ituri, but it does not produce enough: It can be cultivated only near the houses; no one risks going to the hills where the road thatcrosses Dele leads.

Those hills hide Lake Albert, the seventh-largest African lake, whose name recalls the time when Europe got its hands on Africa: Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. It was the British Samuel Baker who made the lake known to the continent that would decide the future of Congo. However, until 1997, the lake—“Nyanza” in the local language—bore the name of Mobutu Sese Seko, the man who, by forming a dictatorship, destroyed the dream of democracy born from independence from Belgium. Before that, the lake was known as Mwitanzige: There is a legend that says that locusts – ezige – die when they cross the lake. Today, perhaps, oil could change its fate and maybe its name—the oil discovered beneath the lake’s surface and credited with being among the causes of the new wave of violence.

Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

People arrive slowly from the village center and the countryside as the sun rises and makes the tin roofs on the damp hills iridescent. The church is small for everyone; worshippers sit outdoors on wooden benches or low, three-legged stools in front of the stone-decorated facade. The children wait silently, leaning on three poles: a football goal on a huge field of wild grass crossed by a small path. The women wear colored dresses and fabrics, almost starched, and their hair is wrapped in scarfs or skillfully styled. It is a feast day, like a summer Sunday in any small town of rural Italy, and perhaps more.

The priests wear the bright green that is worn at this time of the year. The little dancers are dressed in white. A cross is carried in the procession; hands move and hips swing. Today, the Gospel tells of the miracle of the healing of a leper. Here, where the Covid pandemic finds almost nothing to contain it and where Ebola, with its deaths and the stigma that weighs on survivors, is not yet a memory, people know that it is not only war that kills: “Children suffer from diseases but lack medicines. Especially malaria affects them the most. For this reason, we ask for help: a mosquito net because mosquitoes are too many in the villages of the territory of Dele. We need money for medical treatments,” Yoshua explains.

There is calm in Dele. The war seems far away. Here, too, those fleeing home take refuge. “The displaced need help because they sleep in the bush due to lack of security and shelter. Others stay in the schools, in the church, and elsewhere. They have lost almost everything,” he adds.

Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

It is a moment for the sun to rise, as well as a moment for it to set: The equator passes less than two hundred kilometers from here. In Lengabo, along the road that leads from Bunia to Irumu and then to Beni, the Mass is ceelbrated by the White Fathers, the Missionaries of Africa, a religious order established in Algeria at the end of the nineteenth century and that moved to the heart of the continent. Today, they have a center for vulnerable children, the School of Peace, in Bunia. Every Sunday, the fathers join the devotees in the villages.

The altar with its simple white cloth, the light of an incandescent bulb hanging from a wire above it, high wooden vaults: The church is packed here, too. People dance while the choirmaster, wearing a long green cassock edged in white, guides voices and drums. Outside, the empty and dilapidated houses offer a reminder that a fierce conflict is going on and that Lengabo has counted its deaths.

“Most of them were innocent people,” the man who hides his name and face says. “They were among the displaced. We had welcomed them here. We didn’t know they were militiamen. They had hidden their intentions. They were the ones who started fighting the loyalist army.”

He adds: “Some bodies were armed and others were tied up … We could not distinguish who they were. Even the militiamen were in civilian clothes. Most of them were civilians. There were also soldiers among the deaths, and they were buried somewhere here. Because when there is war, there are deaths on both sides.”

Even in the village led by the man in blue sandals, there is a respite, yet there are areas where he no longer dares to go or where he stops for only a few hours. “The militia has changed strategy, it is not in the bush. It is scattered among the population. Here is where it operates: It operates and then returns among the people. This is the danger,” he explains.

The same is likely to have happened in Lengabo when the village was “sealed off” by a police cordon at the beginning of the year to hunt down militiamen. The arrests were followed by violence and deaths. Esperance Mujaganyi, a thirty-eight-year-old farmer, fled. She produces corn, which becomes flour or mandro, a fermented drink.

Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

A child walks to the church alone. He is five or six years old: long, brown pants and a T-shirt resembling those of English schools, with blue, white, and red bands, and a small crest. Not far away, Esperance sits in front of her house and of what is still just the reed skeleton of a building. Her long brown skirt blends into the ground and into the walls made of earth. Her ears bear two points of gold. “We are slowly resuming the life we had before the war,” she says. But she doesn’t want to talk about that day. She jumps up when asked about the fights.

Every time there is an attack, people leave the villages “because when there is war, the bullets fall and the metal sheets get punctured,” the man explains. They know that everything will be destroyed and stolen, and they will have to start over, every time, once they return. Death can knock on the door any day and militiamen do not even need an AK-47: A match is enough to set a house of dry grass on fire. “You leave your home and all your belongings, and life gets harder and harder on the move to save yourself from war. If you have money with you, you spend that money with no other input and it’s very complicated,”Esperance says.

At least one thousand sixty-seven summary executions and arbitrary killings were committed in Ituri in 2021, as well as all kinds of human rights violations from rape to torture, according to the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office. And this is just one corner of Congo, where the most underreported crisis across the world takes place. Data probably underestimate the scale of the tragedy because the victims often remain silent for fear of being stigmatized. Verifying the facts and documenting what happens in the villages is difficult even for international organizations that often do not reach the most remote areas of the province. Congolese soldiers have been deployed in Dele and Lengabo but people don’t trust them. The soldiers ask for money at checkpoints, like bandits, they say. They are responsible for abuses and violence too, according to the United Nations.

However, villages are more than just places to flee; they can also be safe places to live. Tchunga is not far from Bunia. A rough but busy road leads there. Things are going well now, explains the village chief, Jean-Paul Risisa. Wearing a gray suit and immaculate shirt while standing with his deputy and secretary, he says that welcoming those who have been displaced is not always easy: “There are almost three thousand people just in our locality, and they are many. We welcome the displaced very well, but we do not have the means to build (enough houses) for them.” Behind him, Tchunga is an open-air construction site. “There are many people here and many are starting to build: Tchunga has become like a city,” he adds.

Life centers on a well. Yellow, pink, and blue plastic cans wait in an orderly row to be filled amid the laughter and splashes of children. The well was built by humanitarian organizations—the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and AIDES—because water, in this country that seems to float on it, is as precious as the gold in which the subsoil is rich. However, it breaks backs, especially those of women and children. Until the well was dug, the people of Tchunga had to walk at least five kilometers to get water, and they washed their clothes in the river. Today, water is essential for a community that is growing under the pressure of a humanitarian emergency. Protecting the well is key, as it, too, can become a target of violence. The community takes care of it, just as it takes care of the displaced.

“When your neighbor has a problem, you can’t deny him (help). We help them by giving space in our homes to some people,” Daniel Bakanoba, secretary of Tchunga, explains. “Others live for free in our courtyards and there is a minority who rent a house. But we are not able to respond to every need because when you leave your home, your field, your possessions or when you have children, your needs are enormous.” The houses, he says, are not all “beautiful.” “We’re doing our best.” As is Didi, a local driver. Two women live in his house; each has seven children. They arrived on foot from Bokela a few days ago, their clothes torn and their lives needing to be rebuilt. A pagne—the fabric that women wear around their waists—is always around their hips. Their beds are covered by mosquito nets attached to the walls. The semi-darkness keeps the rooms cool; a little light filters through an antique pink metal window. They were farmers and are now on the brink of starving.

Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

It is a dejavù that seems destined to be lived a thousand times in the villages of Ituri. Rumors, still without evidence, say that it all started in Djugu in 2017 with the mysterious death of a priest—a murder, according to some voices, never proved. It would have rekindled ancient hatred between the Lendu and Hema tribes. But the truth is much more complex: It is hidden in the folds of Ituri’s recent history and in the heart of a land that seems to be too rich to live in peace.

This feature was first published by Degrees of Latitude
Akilimali Saleh Chomachoma as producer and Sahwili interpreter

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Categories: Africa

International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples 2021

Fri, 08/06/2021 - 13:53

By External Source
Aug 6 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Indigenous peoples live in all regions of the world.

They are distinct social and cultural groups and share collective ancestral ties to the land they live on.

They own, occupy or use some 22% of global land area.

But they safeguard 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity.

There are at least 370-500 million indigenous peoples in the world.

They represent the greater part of the world’s cultural diversity.

And they have created and speak the major share of the world’s almost 7000 languages.

Although they make up just 5 percent of the global population, they account for about 15 percent of the extreme poor.

Indigenous Peoples’ life expectancy is up to 20 years lower than that of non-indigenous people.

Much of the land occupied by Indigenous Peoples is under customary ownership.

Yet many governments recognize only a fraction of this land as belonging to Indigenous peoples.

The right to participate in decision-making is a key component in achieving reconciliation between Indigenous Peoples and States.

A new social contract must combat the legacy of marginalization affecting indigenous peoples.

One organization working towards this is NEFAS: the North East Slow Food and Agrobiodiversity Society.

NESFAS and its indigenous communities aim to defend, revive, and promote Indigenous Food Systems.

It values traditional and local knowledge holders for their ingenuity.

And it empowers indigenous youth to become beacons of hope.

International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples 2021: “Leaving no one behind: Indigenous peoples and the call for a new social contract.”

Categories: Africa

Wildlife Trafficking to Come under Fire at IUCN Congress

Fri, 08/06/2021 - 13:30

The killing of rhinos by poachers has risen sharply since South Africa started easing COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Their horns are cut off and trafficked mostly to Asia. Credit: AWF wildlife archive

By Guy Dinmore
St David’s, Wales, Aug 6 2021 (IPS)

A recent seizure at Johannesburg’s international airport of a large consignment of rhino horns confirmed worst fears – illegal trafficking of wildlife and the plundering of treasured species is back with a vengeance after a Covid-19 lockdown lull.

Destined for Kuala Lumpur, the 32 pieces of rhino horns weighing a total of 160kg were intercepted by a sniffer dog on July 17.

Rhinos in South Africa were being killed by poachers at the rate of three a day in 2019. But with domestic and international travel restrictions imposed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the daily toll in 2020 fell to around one. However, a subsequent lockdown easing has given rise to “serious numbers” of rhino poaching incidents, according to WWF.

Carcases of rhinos left by poachers to bleed to death are unfortunately just one of the most visible images of the global illegal trafficking in wildlife – a multi-billion dollar industry often run by transnational syndicates, sometimes alongside trafficking in drugs, arms and people.

From the seas to the skies, the industrial-scale killing of animals, illegal logging of timber and the plundering of rare plants are driving many species to extinction.

Tigers – their bones and other body parts used in traditional medicine — are among the most threatened victims, with 97 percent of the wild tiger population estimated to have disappeared over the past century. Cheetahs are vanishing because of the demand for pets.

A quarter of shark species are now facing extinction, mostly due to illegal and unsustainable fishing. All seven remaining species of sea turtles are at risk. New species of orchids – there are about 28,000 known to science – have disappeared to collectors and thus become extinct in the wild before they are even recorded. Millions of birds are traded illegally each year. The list goes on and on.

The most trafficked mammal on earth is the pangolin, a scaly ant-eating creature. More than a million are estimated to have been poached from the wild in the last decade for their meat, skin and scales. All eight species are deemed at risk of extinction.

All eight species of pangolin, four in Asia and four in Africa, are threatened with extinction, mostly because of illegal poaching and trafficking. Credit: AWF wildlife archive

The Covid-19 pandemic has hammered home what scientists were long saying – that wildlife trafficking is also a serious threat to global security. Bats and pangolins are the focus of research into the evolutionary path of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the Covid-19 disease. A recent study by the Francis Crick Institute showed that SARS-CoV-2 could in theory have moved to humans from pangolins, after originating in a currently unknown bat coronavirus.

Three-quarters of all emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, transferred from animals to humans, facilitated by environmental destruction and wildlife crime.

These findings only further underscore efforts by the International Union for Conservation of Nature to shape humanity’s response to the planet’s conservation crises. The IUCN World Conservation Congress, initially delayed by the pandemic and now to be held from 3-11 September in Marseille, is the world’s leading conservation event where government, civil society and indigenous peoples’ organisations will join discussions, debate and vote on motions that will set priorities and drive conservation and sustainable development action.

Two key motions tackle illegal wildlife trafficking: Motion 50 on implementing international efforts to tackle the role of cybercrime, the internet and social media in enabling traffickers, and Motion 65 on engaging the private sector to combat wildlife trafficking.

Jose Louies, a specialist in wildlife crime prevention with the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), a co-sponsor of Motion 50, says governments must make the illegal wildlife trade a top priority and set out clear guidelines on wildlife cybercrime. IT companies must also set policies to stop, control and monitor traffickers using their platforms.

Louies told IPS that WTI’s covert agents had been following pangolin traders online in recent months, connecting with suppliers and buyers from several countries.

Pangolin scales sold illegally through the internet by wildlife traffickers. The pangolin, sometimes called a scaly anteater, is the world’s most trafficked mammal. Credit: Jose Louies / Wildlife Trust of India.

“Most of these leads were picked up from a single social media platform where the buyers and sellers posted comments with email ids/ phone numbers to connect,” he added. ”We had 114 buyers and 69 sellers,” he said, naming the sample countries as Pakistan, Nepal, Iraq, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Myanmar and 17 states in India.

“The use of social media and messaging apps to build connections between suspects at various levels of trade is a serious matter of concern. Such fluidic and organic systems will enable a network to regenerate quicker than a conventional network.”

WTI sees IUCN as the leading global body to make recommendations and influence policies, regardless of political borders, and to act as an enabler for global conservation policies and practices. “Conservation is not an exclusive job of conservationists – it’s the collective efforts of everyone,” says Louies.

Among the various elements of Motion 50, IUCN members call on governments to strengthen legislation to tackle cyber-enabled wildlife trafficking; collaborate more in cross-border investigations; encourage and protect whistle-blowers; and encourage technology companies to step up efforts to stop online trafficking.

Known as Hatha Jodi, these dried penises of the monitor lizard were sold illegally by traffickers online. Credit: Jose Louies / Wildlife Trust of India.

The Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online, launched in 2018, now brings together over 40 companies from across the world in partnership with wildlife experts at WWF, TRAFFIC, and IFAW for an industry-wide approach to shut down online marketplaces for wildlife traffickers

The latest companies to join are China’s Douyin, a popular short video social media platform, and Huya, a video game company.
As the Coalition admits, advances in technology and connectivity, combined with rising buying power and demand for illegal wildlife products, have increased the ease of exchange from poacher to consumer. ”A largely unregulated online market allows criminals to sell illegally obtained wildlife products across the globe. Purchasing elephant ivory, tiger cubs, and pangolin scales is as easy as click, pay, ship.”

But despite such coordinated efforts, including GLACY+ involving Interpol, trafficking is getting even bigger.

“In Africa, cybercrime is escalating on many platforms via the internet,” says Philip Muruthi, vice president of the African Wildlife Foundation, also a co-sponsor of Motion 50. “You just need to do a Google search and you will find someone trying to sell some wildlife product or wildlife… but the capacity to deal with wildlife cybercrime is very low across the board. This is something that we have noted across Africa – a growing silent problem – for which we have limited knowledge and capacity to turn around.”

AWF has a program to train and equip law enforcement officers to combat wildlife cybercrime, starting in Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but governments and other players could do much more, Muruthi tells IPS.

“What is agreed at these IUCN World Conservation Congresses often results in enhanced collective action. The issue of wildlife cybercrime may be elusive at a glance but deep analyses reveals it warrants local, regional and global attention,” Muruthi adds.

Stressing the importance of its unique structure spanning governments, NGOs, the private sector, individuals and indigenous peoples, AWF also benefits from being able to access more potential collaborators and span disciplines and themes.

Steven Galster, chair of Freeland which describes itself as a “lean, frontline international NGO with a team of law enforcement, development and communications specialists” fighting wildlife trafficking and human slavery, says traffickers are winning an unequal battle. Richer countries are not backing up their political promises with action, he says.

“I’m a big fan of IUCN. It’s an important body,” Galster tells IPS, praising IUCN’s Asia team. But he urges IUCN to shift priorities.

More broadly, Freeland, a co-sponsor of Motion 065, is calling on IUCN to go further and push for a global suspension of commercial trade in wild animals as a matter of urgency to save biodiversity and avoid another pandemic, rather than just trying to stamp out illegal wildlife trade as defined by CITES conventions.

“Legal trade also carries virus transmission risks. There remains so much unknown about the many viruses out there, and how they may mutate, that we should not be confining our containment to only some species of families of animals,” Galster says. ”The precautionary principle should be pushed harder than ever in wake of Covid-19.”

Categories: Africa

ECW Interviews the Honourable Awut Deng Acuil, Minister of General Education and Instruction for South Sudan

Fri, 08/06/2021 - 08:21

By External Source
Aug 6 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Awut Deng Acuil is the first female Minister of Education for South Sudan, and only the second person to serve as Minister of Education for her country – which became independent country in 2011. Prior to this role, Minister Acuil was the first woman to serve as the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. Recently, Minister Acuil made history as the first women to lead a South Sudan university when she was appointed head of council at the University of Bahr El-Ghazal.

Since 2005, Minister Acuil has served as Presidential Advisor on Gender and Human Rights, Minister of Labour, Public Service and Human Resource Development, Minister of Humanitarian and Disaster Management and Minister of Gender, Child and Social Welfare.

Her long and impressive history of public service began during a challenging time in her life. During the civil war in Sudan, she spent years as a refugee in Kenya with her children. Following the death of her husband, Minister Acuil went on to continue her education and become a fierce advocate for peace, gender equality and human rights.

Minister Acuil became active in a number of organizations, training others in conflict resolution and advocating for peace. She is a founding member of the Sudanese Women Association of Nairobi and the Sudanese Women Voice for Peace. These experiences, coupled with her degree in political science, led to her participation in eventual peace negotiations between the North and South. She gained international recognition for these efforts to promote peace and development in her war-torn nation when she was awarded the InterAction Humanitarian Award in 2002.

Awut Deng Acuil has been Minister of Education and Instruction for South Sudan since early 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on education globally and further exacerbated existing barriers to education in her country. Not one to balk in the face of challenge, Minister Acuil continues to champion for the rights, protection and education of young and future generations of South Sudan.

As the Minister of General Education and Instruction, Awut Deng Acuil is supporting new initiatives in education, including those with ECW, that aim to open the door to learning for children throughout South Sudan who have been too-often excluded – girls and boys affected by conflict, students with disabilities, and pastoralist children who herd livestock.

ECW: South Sudan has a young population with a median age of 18 years, which results in serious pressure on the education system. Can you describe the challenges faced by South Sudanese children and youth to access inclusive, quality education – especially for girls?

Minister Awut Deng Acuil: A number of inhibiting factors affect school enrolment, retention and completion rates in South Sudan: lack of school infrastructure – including availability of WASH facilities, sex-segregated toilets, menstrual management and sanitation systems, etc. – conflict and insecurity, traditional norms and the high turnover of qualified teachers – particularly female teachers – which results in a lack of qualified teachers. These factors fall into three barrier categories: household and community level barriers; school-based barriers; and, policy/system-level barriers. They can occur simultaneously to limit children’s learning.

While access to education rates are very low for all children in South Sudan, they are even lower for certain groups of children such as girls, children with disabilities, children affected by conflict, and pastoralist children.

Nationally, there are more male students than female students in all school types.
One of the biggest gender gaps is in secondary schools where only 35% of the enrolled students are female.

Children with disabilities face even greater exclusion. 1,597 (1.4%) of children enrolled in ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) supported primary schools are children with disabilities, while 50 (1.38%) learners enrolled in MYRP-supported secondary schools are children with disabilities.

Girls face a number of barriers to accessing education, including:

• School environment: Lack of girl-friendly infrastructure such as WASH facilities, menstrual hygiene management (MHM) issues, school-related gender based violence, gender-biased teaching, learning methods, language, etc.

• System and policy: secondary schools are not available throughout all of South Sudan. The majority are located in urban areas, leaving rural areas neglected. This leads to higher dropout rates in rural areas. Lack of infrastructure, under-qualified teachers, inconsistent teacher pay and scarcity of resources further limit the construction of, access to and continuous staffing of schools.

• Teacher performance at schools: according to Educational Management Information System (EMIS) 2018 data, only 17% of teachers currently teaching in primary schools, and 52% of teachers in secondary schools, have received recognized teacher trainings. Besides the need to train these teachers in education foundations and subject matter content, it is imperative that trainings incorporate gender-sensitive lenses in all aspects – from teaching and learning material to the language used by teachers to promote a gender-sensitive and responsive teaching and learning environment.

Existing Education Cannot Wait (ECW) programmes are addressing learning environment barriers through: the construction of girl and disability-friendly WASH facilities in schools, menstrual hygiene management (MHM), prevention of gender-based violence, etc. More still needs to be done to support the enrolment and retention of girls in school to complete their education cycle and transition to higher levels of learning.

ECW: What are the key priorities and strategies of South Sudan’s Ministry of Education to address these challenges and to fulfil the right to a quality education of every girl and boy in South Sudan?

Minister Awut Deng Acuil: There are two levels of reform that are taking place in South Sudan with respect to the education system.

On a higher, more systemic level, the Government is attempting to prioritize education by creating strategic plans and bolstering the infrastructure required for an effective education sector.

In South Sudan, where 40% of girls are married before the age of 18, the Government has demonstrated its commitment to ending child marriage by prioritizing child protection and providing for gender equality and women’s empowerment in the Constitution, Child Act (2008) and ratifying related international and regional human rights instruments. The right to education is enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan 2011, including in Article 17 on the rights of the child and Article 29 on the right to education.

The General Education Act 2012 outlines a regulatory framework and structure for education in the country, providing guidance on general education principles and goals as well as associated structures, systems, standards, financing and accountability for the sector. The General Education Strategic Plan (GESP) 2017–2022 is a national roadmap for implementation of the General Education Act and outlines strategies, monitoring and evaluation frameworks and financing of the sector. The GESP also includes education in emergencies and humanitarian activities that link to the medium-term development objectives.

The End Child Marriage in South Sudan, Strategic National Action Plan 2017-2030 and a National Gender Strategy, while not yet fully implemented, aim to address the early pregnancy and early marriage issues.

The Inclusive Education Policy in South Sudan was just launched on 27 July 2021. This national policy defines and identifies areas of need across the whole population. The comprehensive inclusive education policy framework will guide the work of all actors involved in the provision of inclusive education to ensure consistency and coordinated implementation. This policy is also important in the elimination of discrimination and enhancement of equity and equality for all learners, especially inclusion of learners with additional needs in the education system, including learners with disabilities.

On a deeper level, reforms have been made to the curriculum and teaching materials, attempting to improve the quality of education and promote peace in South Sudan.

With the help of development agencies and partners, South Sudan has developed a new national curriculum that “is designed to help young people learn about their shared national identity” and “supports key values for the country including justice, democracy, tolerance and respect”. The aims of this curriculum are aligned with the Constitution of South Sudan, the General Education Act and the South Sudan Vision 2040, which aspire “to build an educated and informed nation by 2040.”

Within the curriculum, there are seven goals for the broader education sector; one of the goals is to “promote national unity and cohesion”. While the formation of a national identity can help post-conflict countries overcome differences, nationalism can also be associated with exclusionary policies. How South Sudan moves forward in respecting its citizens’ ethnic diversity, acknowledging its history of conflict and teaching learners to actively engage and think critically will be a key feature of the education system.

ECW: In 2020, together with the Ministry of Education and other education partners, Education Cannot Wait rolled out a Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) with the particular aim of getting more South Sudanese children enrolled. While these are still early days, how relevant and impactful has the programme been so far?

Minister Awut Deng Acuil: Through the ECW Multi-Year Resilience Programme, 137,708 learners (54,408 girls and 83,300 boys) have been supported to enroll in school in ECD, primary, ALP, PEP and secondary schools across the six States and the back-to-school/learning campaigns are still ongoing to get more children back to school.

Analysis of enrollment trends indicate that many children who were formally in school before the COVID-19 pandemic have yet to return to school. The ECW MYRP has supported the safe reopening of schools and efforts to build back better through the creation of more learning spaces, improvement of WASH in schools and awareness-raising on COVID-19 preventive measures. One other key impact has been reducing the pupil-book ratio for secondary education to 1:1 in the six target States.

ECW’s MYRP is reaching over half of the country geographically, where the majority of the population of children in need are located. The Programme focuses on six States: the three States of the Greater Upper Nile (Jonglei, Upper Nile and Unity States), one State in the Greater Equatoria Region (Eastern Equatoria) and two States in the Greater Bahr el Ghazal Region (Lakes and Warrap). These six States of MYRP implementation are areas affected by different types of conflict and by different trends in terms of displacement.

Progress is being made on several components, for example:

UNICEF

• 1.12 million textbooks have reached all targeted counties and, in most cases, reached the schools. Different partners joined the State and County Authorities in distributing textbooks to the schools and we have continuously followed up on the use of the books. The textbooks ratio is expected to be reduced to 1:1 for secondary and primary learners in the targeted six States across South Sudan and other 2 States included in this initiative. All enrolled learners have also been provided with learning kits and adolescent girls have been provided with MHM kits.

• With the exception of children with sight and hearing impairments, all children with physical disabilities have been provided with assistive devices. There is the tendency to focus on the children with visible disabilities and this is something that we must take into greater consideration during the next quarters. We need to make sure that children with “invisible” disabilities also get the support that they need.

• All supported schools have been provided with learning kits including chalk, manila papers, markers and pens.

Additionally, one of the important features of the ECW Multi-Year Resilience Programme in South Sudan is the robust in-country governance mechanism, which is led by the Ministry of Education with active participation of donors like the UK, USAID, SIDA and Canada, United Nations agencies like UNICEF and UNESCO, and civil society actors, like the National Education Coalition. The MYRP Secretariat providing the technical support is an important added value of the programme. This mechanism enhances the Programme’s effectiveness and alignment.

ECW: To reach all the out-of-school girls and boys targeted by this multi-year programme, an additional US$189 million must be urgently mobilised. What is the government’s strategy to ensure that the programme will be fully funded? How can public and private donors help and what message do you have for them?

Minister Awut Deng Acuil: The focus on Internally Displaced People (IDPs), returnee and host community girls and boys aligns perfectly with the Ministry’s target and policy priorities. Multi-year design and catalytic seed funding are innovative approaches as lack of funding too often disrupts South Sudanese children’s continuity of learning.

The MYRP has always been seen as a government intervention, in line with the priorities and objectives identified as national priorities, and the Ministry of Education believes it must make a substantial contribution to its realization.

The Ministry of General Education and Instruction (MoGEI), together with implementing partners, stakeholders, donor groups, etc., has developed a solid fundraising strategy to bridge the significant financing gap, extend the project and include more girls and boys in the Programme.

In the context of South Sudan, the following donor groups have been targeted:
South Sudan Government (domestic resources); public donors (humanitarian and development donors); humanitarian funding envelopes (CERF funding, pooled funding, etc.); other UN pooled funding mechanisms (for example, the Peacebuilding Fund, if relevant); and, private sector donors and private foundations.

By conducting prospect research on potential new donors and existing supporters, MoGEI wants to maximize fundraising reach. And, by analysing these prospects, the Ministry hopes to discover new information that can help create better strategies for all future campaigns too.

ECW: COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on education everywhere. What are the repercussions of the pandemic in South Sudan and how has the Ministry of Education worked to ensure that children and youth are able to keep learning and developing themselves to their full potential?

Minister Awut Deng Acuil: The outbreak of COVID-19 in late 2019 led to the closure of schools in March 2020, when cases of the disease were detected in South Sudan. Numerous deaths and infections were recorded so, as part of precautionary measures, schools were closed and learning was suspended nationwide.

The closure of schools exacerbated the challenges facing education and puts in danger progress made. Data has shown an increase in pregnancies as a result of increased time out of school, which is leading girls to spend more time around men in their communities and at greater risk of sexual violence and exploitation (Save the Children et al., 2015, Children’s Ebola Recovery Assessment in Sierra Leone).

In crises, families may also resort to early marriage as a coping mechanism to either alleviate economic pressures on the household and/or to generate income through ‘bride price’.

Studies have also shown that poverty can drive parents to send their children to cattle camps when they are unable to provide them with food. Child labour in cattle camps is a basis of concern as it means that children are sent far away from home, more exposed to protection issues and inherently prevented from attending school (ILO, 2013, Child labour and Education in Pastoralist Communities in South Sudan).

To reduce negative consequences of school closures and to ensure learners are able to continue their education, MoGEI, with support from different partners, has adapted learning methods and provided alternative protection and support mechanisms. With support from UNESCO, through the Capacity Development for Education Programme, MoGEI launched ‘Education on Air’.

This programme aims to broadcast daily lessons to primary and secondary level learners, focusing on key topics such as English, science and mathematics. During these ‘on air’ lessons, teachers deliver classes and address questions from learners live. Several radio networks have provided such programmes, including City Radio FM, Eye Radio, South Sudan Radio and Miraya Radio. The Ministry of General Education and Instruction, with UNESCO, also introduced ‘Education on Line’, where learners could follow the science teachers while teaching. In October 2020, the MoGEI, with support from development partners, also opened schools for candidate classes all over the country. Necessary steps were taken to avoid putting children, teachers and their family members at risk of contracting the disease.

ECW: The situation in South Sudan has improved somewhat in recent months but the consequences of the multiple shocks and crises that the country has experienced in recent years are still felt. What can be done to further strengthen resilience, and to ensure that the education sector is better able to withstand these shocks and indeed bounce back?

Minister Awut Deng Acuil: Only by planning for unforeseen conflicts and natural disasters, and by integrating disaster risk reduction, can the South Sudanese education system remain functional in the face of shocks.

In this context, South Sudan embarked in September 2015 on its second Education Sector Analysis (ESA). Representing much more than a simple update, the 2015 ESA is the first of its kind to incorporate crisis-sensitive analyses. Multiple education sector analyses, each of which constitutes a chapter of the report (i.e. on the global context, school enrolment and internal efficiency, cost and financing, as well as management and quality), were carried out using a crisis-sensitive lens. Equity analyses were also mainstreamed with a specific focus on gender and the regional state-level, reflecting the decentralized nature of the education sector. These permit a better understanding of education sector challenges, weaknesses and strengths.

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

Minister Awut Deng Acuil: When I was a child, I loved Alice in Wonderland very much. Alice diverges from the gender norms by creating a completely new world that she explores while facing many hostilities with a very positive attitude. Alice is a prototype of a rebellious child who manages not only to survive this dangerous adventure but also to learn and become a woman with a new sense of her own subjectivity. A woman who refuses ideas of marriage and oppression and instead teaches us that “we can chase something interesting, barge in where we’re not invited, try new things, observe strange phenomena, ask too many questions, argue with authority figures, tell stories, and wander far from home without worrying how to get back.”

Categories: Africa

African Farmers Could Benefit from More Friendly EU Agriculture Policies

Fri, 08/06/2021 - 07:30

A farmer near the town of Kisumu in Kenya tills his land. Credit: World Bank/Peter Kapuscinski

By Hans Wetzels
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 6 2021 (IPS)

Gilbert Bor manages a small farm in the western highlands of Kenya. Landscapes are hilly, village roads lined with pine trees, his cows mostly of the Friesian breed. He is up at 6:00am daily to lead his animals through the woods into the valley below.

Most farmers in and around his village in Kapseret grow maize or beans for subsistence. But that is set to change, says Mr. Bor.

East African regional authorities have started promoting cash crops like avocados and coffee to increase Kenyan exports to the European Union and China. At the same time, local farmers are getting organized as well, says Mr. Bor. His own community collectively invested in a milk tank to strengthen its position on regional dairy markets.

“For products like coffee, mangoes or peanuts, Europe is an important market,” Mr. Bor explains, enthusiastically. “Crops exported from Kenya are exempt from taxation in Europe. That also goes for exports to Europe from Ghana, Nigeria and the Francophone countries.”

The EU is a global agricultural powerhouse. The 27-country bloc feeds a steady stream of processed foods, grains, dairy and meats onto the world market while importing large quantities of raw commodities like soy, sugar cane or palm oil, tropical vegetables and fruits like avocados.

Keeping an eye on EU policies

Globalization is making markets better accessible to farmers like Mr. Bor. He says: “Almost all EU countries purchase Kenyan agricultural goods. Who stands to benefit most will depend on what countries like Germany or the Netherlands decide. African farmers must keep a closer eye on European policymakers.”

In particular, African farmers need to watch the evolution of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that was conceived in 1962 to provide affordable food for its population post-World War II.

Under CAP, the EU became so efficient that surpluses piled up. The authorities subsequently introduced export refunds—paying international traders the difference between the EU’s high internal prices and lower world market prices.

Those subsidies put pressure on food prices worldwide, leading to detrimental effects on African farming economies.

However, the EU abandoned its trade-distorting subsidies in 2017. A year later the EU-Parliament, for the first time ever, commissioned a study on the impact of the CAP around the globe.

“In recent years we have seen progress in better aligning agriculture with international development goals,” says Maria Blanco, head-author of the Technical University in Madrid, Spain.

However, simply increasing international trade in agricultural products would not automatically lead to better incomes for African farmers, experts say.

If unchecked, such trade could damage the environment, lead to the displacements of local peoples or human rights violations.

Ms. Blanco warns: “Importing sugarcane from outside Europe would create economic activity in the global south. But commodity imports from developing countries can also lead to land grabs or environmental pollution.”

Commodities are usually grown on large plantations. Once money starts pouring in the stakes, economically and politically, are raised, which put small farmers at risk. The shift to industrial-style agriculture usually puts tremendous pressure on the environment when it comes to chemical usage, deforestation or water pollution.

Pressure from exports

Research by the thinktank ARC2020 and the German NGO Heinrich Böll Stiftung finds that the EU agricultural policy creates ripple effects around the globe.

Trade arrangements with Honduras, for example, concentrated the banana trade in the hands of few multinationals while the demand for grain and soya in Europe encourages land control in Central Asia.

Despite the positive outlook, African farmers are under unrelenting pressure of EU exports. After markets inside Europe were awash with milk after the bloc abandoned its quota system in 2015, Dutch and German producers quickly sought out other export opportunities.

Global dairy players like Danone or FrieslandCampina have increased their processing capabilities in West Africa. The FrieslandCampina subsidiary WAMCO controls no less than 75 percent of the milk market in Nigeria.

In Ghana increased exports of frozen chicken, from 13,000 metric tons in 2003 to 175,000 in 2019, have affected local production.

Over 90 percent of chicken meats in supermarkets in Ghana are imported from the United States or the EU.

“Poultry has the highest turnover and its short cycle of production is for income generation for farmers in Ghana. But European exports of frozen chickens negatively affect our own meat industry,” worries poultry farmer Anthony Akunzule.

Africa’s free trade area

The newly established African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could boost African farmers’ efforts to compete with the EU. The trade agreement, which eliminates tariffs between African countries by 90 per cent and tackles customs delays, could foster intra-African trade in agriculture.

Professor of European Agricultural Policy Alan Matthews of the Trinity College, Dublin, says attention is rightly shifting attention away from the notion that CAP alone is responsible for Africa’s agricultural woes.

Mr. Mathews says that African governments had failed to prioritize investment in rural areas, even as most experts now believe the AfCFTA will be a game changer for Africa’s development.

What Africa farmers need are favourable policies and actions in both Europe and Africa, says Mr. Bor. For now, he says that, “Opportunities are all around for small farmers like me, mostly in the organic niche.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

Categories: Africa

5 Things To Watch For in the Latest IPCC Report on Climate Science

Fri, 08/06/2021 - 01:39

Floods in Kenya's Turkana County, Lodwar town. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS.

By External Source
Aug 5 2021 (IPS)

On Aug. 9, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release its most comprehensive report on the science of climate change since 2013. It will be the first of four reports released under the IPCC’s latest assessment cycle, with subsequent reports coming in 2022.

Over the past eight years, climate scientists have improved the methods they use to measure different aspects of climate and to model (or project) what might happen in the future. They’ve also been monitoring the changes that have developed right before our eyes.

This updated assessment comes three months before world leaders gather in Glasgow, Scotland, to find ways to avoid the worst effects of climate change and renew their commitments to reduce greenhouse gases. It also comes amid another year of severe heat waves, droughts, wildfires, flooding and storms.

The report will provide policy-makers with the best possible information regarding the physical science of climate change, which is essential for long-term planning in many sectors, from infrastructure to energy to social welfare. Here are five things to look for in the new report:

1. How sensitive is the climate to increasing carbon dioxide?

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are higher now than they have been in 800,000 years, reaching 419 parts per million (ppm) in May 2021. Average global temperature rises with each increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, but how much it rises depends on many factors.

Climate scientists use models to understand how much warming occurs when CO2 concentrations double from pre-industrial levels — from 260 ppm to 520 ppm — a concept called “climate sensitivity.” The more sensitive the climate, the faster greenhouse gas emissions must be curbed to stay below 2 C.

Equilibrium climate sensitivity from the last three major climate model intercomparisons. (Note: There was no ‘CMIP4’.)
(Data: IPCC, Graph: Alex Crawford)

Older climate models estimated that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would lead to a temperature increase of 2.1 C to 4.7 C. The latest set of climate models, called CMIP6, broadened the range to 1.8 C to 5.6 C, meaning the climate is at least as sensitive to doubling of carbon dioxide as previous models showed, but may, in fact, be even more sensitive.

The range is influenced by uncertainties in a number of climate factors, including water vapour and cloud cover, and how they will increase or decrease the effects of warming. Scientists are working to narrow the range in climate projections so that we know more about how quickly we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change and adapt to others.

2. What’s going on with clouds?

Clouds are a wild card in the climate change game. They create feedbacks to warming, meaning that warming changes cloud cover, but cloud cover can also speed up or slow down warming in different situations.

Clouds reflect about a quarter of incoming sunlight away from the Earth. So, if more warming leads to more clouds, we would expect more sunlight to be reflected, slowing warming. However, clouds also insulate the Earth, trapping the heat given off by the surface. So, increasing cloud cover (like during nighttime) could amplify warming.

Two main issues stand out: First, many factors, including cloud type, altitude and season, determine a cloud’s overall effect on warming. Second, clouds are incredibly difficult to model; how the models treat clouds is key to the range in climate sensitivity.

3. Did climate change fuel recent extreme weather?

Since the last IPCC report, our ability to assess global warming’s impact on extreme events has improved immensely. Chapter 11 of the latest report is devoted to this.

Global warming means stronger summer heat waves and more frequent tropical nights (temperatures above 20 C) are occurring in middle latitudes, like Canada and Europe.

Warmer air can hold more water. This can cause more evaporation from land, and lead to drought and wildfires. In addition, an atmosphere with more water can produce more precipitation and flooding.

Scientists projected decades ago that these changes to the water cycle would occur, but now it’s clear they’re already happening.

4. Have regional climate projections improved?

The climate models evaluated by the IPCC are global models. This is essential to capture the connections between tropics and poles or land and ocean. However, it comes at a cost — the models struggle to simulate many features smaller than 100 kilometres across, like small storms or islands.

Regional relationships can be complex: For example, extreme storms help break up summer Arctic sea ice, but reduced sea ice cover may also lead to stronger storms.

Since the last IPCC report, techniques for taking this large-scale information and refining it have shown how regional and local climate has changed and could change in the future. Other experiments target regional issues, like the impacts of Arctic sea ice loss on storms.

5. How will Antarctic ice sheets contribute to sea-level rise?

Global sea level is rising because water expands slightly when it warms up, and mountain glaciers and the Greenland Ice Sheet are melting and adding water to the ocean.

But the largest potential source of sea-level rise over the next century is Antarctica. Ice sheet models show that melting of Antarctic ice sheets will add between 14 and 114 centimetres to sea-level rise by 2100. That is a huge range, and it all depends on whether the West Antarctic Ice Sheet remains relatively stable or begins a slow but unstoppable collapse.

How the IPCC communicates this scientific debate will impact how coastal communities plan for sea-level rise. Low-lying cities, like Lagos, Nigeria, could become uninhabitable by the end of the century due to sea-level rise, especially if the higher model estimates prove most prescient.

The IPCC report will give policy-makers a better understanding of how climate change is affecting us today. This will be especially helpful for putting short-term adaptation strategies in place.

But as the science has improved, the outlook on future change has become more sobering, and the large uncertainties that remain mean substantial future work for climate scientists.

Alex Crawford, Research Associate at the Centre for Earth Observation Science, Clayton H. Riddle Faculty of Environment, Earth, and Resources, University of Manitoba

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

Categories: Africa

Olympian Turned Volunteer Keeps Traffic Running in Busy Lagos

Thu, 08/05/2021 - 16:12

Bassey Etim Ironbar is a rare example of an Olympian that transformed from an athlete to a volunteer who does menial jobs like sweeping the streets and clearing debris from open sewers. Ironbar, a Nigerian weightlifter, was competing in the men’s Super Heavyweight event at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles when a leg […]

Categories: Africa

Human Ingenuity Now Needed for Our Survival

Thu, 08/05/2021 - 07:38

Portrait of Pardhi tribal community members, Maharashtra, India. Credit: UNICEF/Sri Kolari

By Don Collins
WASHINGTON DC, Aug 5 2021 (IPS)

The scientific and other human accomplishments in my 90-year lifetime are not only amazing but also seem to have apparently made too many of us arrogant and feckless about our future human survival on Earth. Or, if not arrogant or feckless, at least largely or unknowingly ignoring the urgency of the onset of devastating environmental threats.

Those conditions have been exhaustively described in every possible medium. See Cowspiracy and Seaspiracy, two recent documentaries by credible scientists about human attacks on our fragile environment. Jeff Bezos’ comment after his near outer space flight was about seeing the need to protect our tiny orb.

I attended the first Earth Day in Chicago in 1970 and had earlier had the pleasure of meeting at lunch with Fairfield Osborn at the NY Zoological Society’s NY station on Long Island. What a delightful, caring and prescient man. Fair, as he was known to his friends, wrote “Our Plundered Planet”, a bestselling book in 1948, which marked the initiation of our modern environmental movement.

Still, as our most respected scientific observers tell us, the underlying solution for global problems requires us to reduce our human numbers substantially or we threaten the survival of us Homo sapiens.

The global population is now almost 8 billion humans, with 3 billion more projected before 2100. The population at my first was about 2 billion so it has expanded 4 times in my lifetime!

The process of reducing human numbers so that we don’t destroy what sustains us can be done starting now gently, humanely, and quite safely. Or we can continue to proceed as we are now arrogantly, stupidly, selfishly and violently to drive our lives on this finite planet to ends. Authors have long envisioned the fictional end of human life.

https://www.flavorwire.com/315584/the-10-best-end-of-the-world-novels

I discuss this issue in my new book, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion By 2100” now available on Amazon and other book web sites

This prioritization of population reduction is meant in any way to dismiss the urgent need for addressing climate issues as suggested by the UN.

In fact, many conservation efforts have been enormously effective, except when they haven’t been effective such as the continuing destruction of the Brazilian rain forests and other non-renewable resources. One of my cousins has been working there for the Nature Conservancy for many years, but we are losing the battle.

A recent suggestion that the UN form an Environmental Committee to draw action to this key issue. The link follows:

http://www.ipsnews.net/2021/07/time-create-un-political-body-climate-change/

In short, annual human overuse of Earth’s bounties has reached its limits as we now can see from worldwide events reported daily.

I was in attendance at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo as a Press representative for several NGOs with which I was affiliated, including the Population Institute.

At that time, the media reaction was significant, although in retrospect transitory, but of course some commentators used words like “historic” or to quote from the UN website, “Out of Cairo came no less than a revolution”, as “Barbara Crossette, a former UN Bureau Chief of The New York Times, told the thirty-seventh session of the Commission on Population and Development as she delivered a keynote address on the theme “Has the Cairo Consensus Lost Momentum: A Journalist’s View”.

Now at 90, and as one associated since 1965 with many family planning and “population explosion focused” NGOs, I can observe with sadness my continuing disappointment at the vast shortcomings of leadership over these years in making women’s rights and access to family planning universal.

We are all well aware of the role of some religions in slowing adoption of family planning, but also there was far less enthusiasm from those who sought woman’s rights but balked in those pre Roe vs Wade at gaining women’s right to choice abortion.

This was an issue which was a major part of my activities earlier in my life as I worked closely with funding for abortion facilities, for example, with Al Moran, Executive Director of PPNYC and helping Rei Ravenholt start Ipas, which focused internationally on helping women gain safe abortions.

A film entitled “Whose Choice” which I funded on the continuing lag in abortion services can be viewed free at www.churchandstate.org.uk.

Since then, I have made major efforts to add more tools to let women be served, beyond just saying they should have more tools. Talk is easy, service is hard. Politics are ruthless. Rei’s premature departure as head of family planning at US Aid was certainly related to his vigorous initiatives for abortion.

My boss then was a major Population Council donor in the late 1960’s. Her $2 million a year unrestricted grants ($17 million in today’s dollars) ceased when the Council declined to do abortion projects, saying its Catholic board member would object.

I specifically recall the voice at the 1994 Cairo conference of Joan Dunlap, who had been an aide to Population Council’s John D. Rockefeller III in New York city. She clearly backed women’s rights, but her illegal abortion earlier in life apparently affected her reluctance, which she expressed to me at a lunch in the late 1960’s, to get involved with my abortion projects then.

Her attitude apparently changed as her 2012 obituary reports. Not unique on people evolving in attitudes, as for example also in the early 1970’s the PPFA affiliate in my hometown refused to do abortions at that time, forcing a group of us to start a freestanding clinic which did thousands of early abortions in its first year.

World population at the time of the 1994 ICPD was 5.6 million, now almost 8 billion, having grown 4 times in my lifetime. And world leaders and the media still don’t give the issue proper priority.

Do we act or continue on this downward path unnecessarily? The evidence is now immutable but still not fully addressed because of failed global leadership.

Remember those end-of-the-world fiction writers used to be thought of as far out in fantasy, but not anymore by respected scientists and naturalists such as Sir David Attenborough or E.O Wilson. In short “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy no longer seems so far-fetched.

In reading their articles one can realize the obvious truth of the above POV.

Donald A. Collins is a former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist. He is also a free lance writer living in Washington, DC., who has spent over 50 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Population Institute, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International (mow FHI360) and Ipas. He is a Yale undergraduate with MBA from New York University. He can be reached at dcoll28416@aol.com

Excerpt:

Currently, world population is almost 8 billion, with 3.0 billion more projected before 2100. The process of reducing human numbers so that “we don’t destroy what sustains us can be done starting now gently, humanely, and quite safely”.

Categories: Africa

Hunger Will Not Be Defeated Without a Better Environment, Nutrition and Health

Thu, 08/05/2021 - 01:25

Meeting of the opening day of the UN Food Systems Pre-Summit, held at FAO headquarters in Rome from 26 to 28 July. Photo: Giuseppe Carotenuto /FAO

By Mario Lubetkin
ROME, Aug 4 2021 (IPS)

The UN Food Systems Pre-Summit, held from 26 to 28 July in Rome, highlighted, as perhaps never before, that hunger can be defeated if we also manage to protect the environment, promote better nutrition and health. This new mentality and comprehensive approach consist of considering higher levels of economic investment to stimulate trade in agriculture and food and pursue a path towards a sustainable future.

At this meeting, it was agreed to establish forms of common interaction through thematic coalitions that allow joining efforts to achieve zero hunger, reduce food waste, guarantee school feeding, face deciding factors of agroecology, as well as the management of data in the agricultural and food area and different kinds of resilience, among other goals.

Current data continues to show a negative trend of a permanent increase in people facing hunger. Today, more than 810 million are hungry and there is the danger that this trend will continue to increase as a result of the pandemic’s impact on the world economy, which could lead to another 100 million people going hungry

For the first time in the era of COVID-19, the Pre-Summit allowed more than 500 representatives of governments, the private sector, civil society and science to physically gather at FAO headquarters in Rome, while thousands of senior government, private sector and civil society officials from more than 130 countries participated online.

As noted by many specialists, increasing levels of hunger have been compounded by increasing levels of obesity that now exceed 900 million people, of which 140 million are children, while about 3 billion cannot afford a healthy diet.

Hunger is a health issue, therefore, we must ensure that sustainable healthy diets are affordable and accessible to everyone.

The meeting also discussed how reducing food waste, which already exceeds an annual cost of 400 million dollars and reaches or exceeds a quarter of the global food production that would perfectly meet the needs of the world population, would improve the global food supply.

For this to happen, new economic investments should be adopted, as well as substantial improvements in the food production system itself, in the adaptation of infrastructure, in trade, and so on.

Innovation and technological development are key in the immediate future of this sector. In addition, social protection and respect for local cultures, especially indigenous, are other aspects to take into consideration for the transformation towards more sustainable food systems.

Advancing in this process to achieve no poverty (SDG1) and zero hunger (SDG2) by 2030 – two of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the global Agenda launched by more than 150 heads of State and of Government in September 2015 in New York – demands heavy investments. To reach the global goals in the next nine years, an estimated 14 billion in investments is necessary.

Based on this data, governments need to adjust their budgets, development banks need to play a more active role and private sector companies should assume a greater commitment in this delicate phase, thus also generating greater support for small and medium rural producers and to family farming.

Generating synergies and a coalition of countries, regions, public and private players was also the focus of attention at the meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of the Group of 20 (G20), which was held on 29 June in the Italian city of Matera, where they agreed to join efforts to advance in the building of an operational coalition that allows achieving zero hunger by 2030.

To have healthy food, we need a healthy environment, and must reverse the loss of biodiversity and land degradation, increase the efficiency of water use and promote the sustainable management of water resources to improve food quality.

The lives of more than 1 billion people are severely limited by water scarcity or restriction. Almost 1 billion hectares of pasture and arable land are severely affected by recurring droughts and more than 60 percent of irrigated arable land is subject to high or very high stress due to a lack of water.

In September, within the framework of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the Summit on Food Systems will be held with the participation of Heads of State and Government. It will summarize the debates in Rome on how to address the transformation of the sector and discuss the way forward towards a phase of greater action to make up for lost time get back on track to achieving the SDGs by 2030.

Excerpt:

Mario Lubetkin is Assistant Director General at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Categories: Africa

China Struggles with Socio-environmental Standards in Latin America

Wed, 08/04/2021 - 19:41

For the construction of the suspended Yucatán Solar Park on the Yucatán peninsula in southeastern Mexico, the site was only partially cleared. Like most infrastructure projects involving Chinese companies and banks in Latin America, the plant lacks socio-environmental standards. CREDIT: Courtesy of Asamblea Múuch' Xíinbal

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Aug 4 2021 (IPS)

In southeast Mexico, work on the Yucatan Solar Park, owned by the Chinese company Jinko Solar, has been halted since 2020 for lack of proper consultation with indigenous communities, after affected local residents filed an injunction against the project.

In February 2019, residents of several Mayan indigenous villages in the municipalities of Cuncunul and Valladolid, in the state of Yucatan, demanded a halt to work on the park, run by Jinko Solar Investment Pte Ltd. Months later, a court ordered the suspension of the 71.5 million dollar project.

The conflict illustrates the need for Chinese corporations and banks to include socio-environmental safeguards in the financing, design, construction and operation of works in Latin America and the Caribbean, where there are at least 983 conflicts over mining, energy, transportation and communications projects, some of which are financed by Chinese firms.

Paulina Garzón from Ecuador, who is director of the non-governmental Latinoamerica Sustentable (LAS), said that although standards exist in China, they have not been internalised by the institutions.

“China has not included the economic cost in its developmentalist and extractivist vision, a cost that is paid in the long term by the affected populations and by the debtor countries. But these costs are not taken into account when the viability of granting the loan is assessed,” the head of LAS’ China-Latin America Sustainable Investments Initiative (CLASII), told IPS by telephone from Washington.

CLASII is about to publish research on the application of the environmental guidelines of the China Development Bank (CDB). These guidelines, established in 2004, are secret and there is no channel for denouncing the negative impacts of projects.

The organisation found eight Chinese guidelines for companies and investors, nine for financial institutions and seven sectoral guidelines for infrastructure, mining and forestry. The Chinese government will soon publish new regulations for the ministries of trade and environment on outbound investment.

In Argentina, the hydroelectric power plants under construction, named “Presidente Néstor Kirchner” and “Gobernador Jorge Cepernic”, with a combined capacity of 1,310 megawatts on the Santa Cruz River in Patagonia, in the south of the country, represent another emblematic case of the vicissitudes of projects that have Chinese financing.

In 2016 the Argentine Supreme Court halted work on the project, financed by the CDB and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), until a public hearing and a new environmental impact assessment were conducted. The project was thus suspended for two years.

Construction of two hydropower plants in the Patagonia region of southern Argentina, financed by the China Development Bank, was stalled between 2016 and 2018 due to an order by the country’s highest court for a new environmental impact assessment and other unmet requirements. China is stumbling over socio-environmental safeguards as it makes headway in Latin America. CREDIT: IEASA

In a 2016 letter, the BDC Corporation reminded the Argentine Ministry of Finance and Treasury of several force majeure clauses for approving the power plants and their dams, such as the necessary approval by the lender of any contractual modifications.

The parties signed the 4.7 billion dollar financing agreement in 2014 and linked it to a similar one in 2012 for the 2.1 billion dollar upgrading of the Belgrano Cargas railway, which runs across northern Argentina.

“We wish to insist that the ongoing and successful implementation of the project is not only mutually beneficial and a bilateral win-win, but will also lay the foundation for deeper future economic cooperation” between the parties, the 2016 letter states, while warning of the risk of cross-default, should Argentina default on the 2014 agreement for the dams.

Gradual adherence to multilateral guidelines

Although several Chinese financial institutions have signed up to various voluntary socio-environmental guidelines, in practice none of the ones with a significant presence in infrastructure projects in Latin America have adhered, with the exception of ICBC, the largest of its kind in China and with operations in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Panama and Peru.

The Yucatan Solar Park, owned by Chinese company Jinko Solar, has been on hold in Mexico since 2019 due to a lack of adequate consultation with local indigenous communities. The image shows the planned location of the power plant, in the middle of the jungle in the southeastern state of Yucatan and, top right, the city of Valladolid. CREDIT: Justice Atlas

Three Chinese institutions have adhered to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment, a set of six socio-environmental safeguards.

Nine Chinese banks signed the Principles of Responsible Banking, with six other standards on environmental impact, sustainability, participation and transparency.

In addition, seven Chinese banks adopted the Equator Principles, a framework for defining, assessing and managing the socio-environmental risks of projects.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), founded in 2015 to finance the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), has only validated one project in Latin America out of 134 approved worldwide. However, the project, in Ecuador, does not involve infrastructure, but addresses the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although in 2019 several Chinese banks, such as the BDC and ICBC, signed the “Green Investment Principles” (GIP) to assess the potential social and environmental effects of BRI investments, there is still no evidence of their application by this initiative that emerged to promote a maritime and rail network from the Asian powerhouse to the western end of Europe and to Latin America.

For Enrique Dussel, director of the Centre for China-Mexico Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the debate on safeguards is a novel one in the Asian giant.

“Historically, Chinese companies have shown great political pragmatism, the banks are interested in doing business and it did not matter if it was in activities that could be questioned from an environmental standpoint. The question was to mark a presence and participate in the Latin American market. Chinese pragmatism in these aspects practically leaves the responsibility up to the counterpart,” Dussel told IPS.

A magnet

The region attracted 138 Chinese infrastructure projects worth 94.09 billion dollars for the 2005-2020 period, according to the “Monitor of Chinese Infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean 2021“, drawn up by the Latin American and Caribbean Academic Network on China.

South America has been the biggest pole of attraction for Chinese investment, as Ecuador obtained 11 of the 40 infrastructure projects during the 2010-2014 period, while from 2015 to 2020 Argentina and Brazil accounted for 23 and 11 of the 92 projects in the region, respectively.

The projection of one of the two hydroelectric power plants financed by Chinese institutions in southern Patagonia, Argentina, whose construction generated tensions between Bejing and Buenos Aires due to intervention by the South American country’s justice system to verify compliance with socio-environmental requirements, which suspended the mega-projects for two years. CREDIT: Government of Argentina

Chile, Colombia and Mexico carried out infrastructure projects with Chinese companies and financing for the first time in the 2015-2020 period.

Energy, transportation, communications and telecommunications are among the main areas of Chinese involvement in the region. The incursion of the Asian giant has been based on public and some private companies, backed by funds from Chinese banks.

To shore up its foothold in Latin America, Beijing has created instruments into which it has injected multimillion-dollar funds, such as the Special Loan Programme for China-Latin America Infrastructure Project and the China-LAC Industrial Cooperation Investment Fund and bilateral cooperation funds.

That strategy is linked to the BRI, which several Latin American countries have joined, in an attempt to draw investment, and which is helping China fill the void left by the United States since 2016.

In December 2020, a group of international advisors to the BRI suggested that China adopt stricter environmental controls for its foreign investments.

According to this scheme, projects that could cause significant and irreversible environmental damage would be marked red, works of moderate and mitigable impact would be marked yellow, and projects without significant negative effects would be marked green.

Garzón and Dussel said there have been some changes.

“It is a process that we are going to see gradually. The institutions recognise the need to improve things and have taken a step to improve environmental behavior. The worrying thing is if this at some point becomes just a slogan that aims to improve the ability to approve projects and obtain a social license, rather than a serious practice,” said the head of CLASII.

Dussel noted, for his part, that “the AIIB is explicitly seeking to integrate environmental issues. There are many initiatives in this regard in China itself, to evaluate projects, attempting to compare the criteria for evaluation and implementation of Chinese infrastructure versus Western ones, specifically the World Bank’s. There is clearly a learning process.”

As the Chinese Infrastructure Monitor anticipates, infrastructure initiatives in the region will grow, with their attendant social and environmental fallout.

Categories: Africa

‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ Campaign Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

Wed, 08/04/2021 - 16:53

Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination answers questions from Patricia Soares, a guest at the launch of the ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ campaign. They are with Takahiro Nanri, Executive Director of the Sasakawa Health Foundation. Credit: Cecilia Russell

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, Aug 4 2021 (IPS)

A visit to a leprosy facility in Korea with his father, Ryoichi Sasakawa, spurred Yohei Sasakawa to dedicate his life to eliminating both the disease and discrimination of those affected.

He was speaking in an emotional pre-recorded address ahead of his 20th anniversary as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination and at the launch of a 10-month ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ campaign by the Sasakawa Health Foundation Initiative.

Sasakawa said while he had achieved much in the 20 years, including getting the UN General Assembly to adopt the guidelines for eliminating discrimination of people affected by leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, the COVID-19 pandemic threatened the success of an international campaign to eradicate the disease.

In the past 18 months, while the world grappled with the pandemic, there was an estimated 30% to 50% decrease in detecting new leprosy cases. This could lead to increased transmission of the disease and more cases of disability, the webinar heard. In many communities, protocols, including lockdowns, had made it difficult to access treatment. This resulted in a loss of livelihoods and exacerbated discrimination that people affected by leprosy often face.

“Even amid the pandemic, it is very important that everyone involved in leprosy work continues what they are doing. We must not allow leprosy to be forgotten,” Sasakawa said.

Special guest Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO Regional Office for Southeast Asia, said the pandemic could undo decades of progress unless addressed.

“Let us be clear COVID-19 will be with us for some time. It is not enough to maintain minimal leprosy services. Rather such services must be restarted or expanded, with a focus on intensifying outreach activities to identify cases and begin treatment to all who need it,” Singh said.

However, as much as the pandemic was a threat, it had also allowed a focus on new technologies.

For many months now, “e-learning materials have helped community volunteers identify potential leprosy cases, and then refer them on to health workers,” Singh said. This was being extended to counselling and mental health support and should be harnessed in this campaign to fight both the disease and discrimination of those affected.

Sasakawa said in his 20 years as a goodwill ambassador, he had been on 200 trips to 100 countries. Here he spread the message of eliminating both disease and discrimination.

In his keynote address, he likened his campaign to a motorcycle with the front wheel symbolising the elimination of the disease and the back wheel eliminating discrimination.

“Both wheels must turn at the same time if we are to make progress toward a world without leprosy and its associated problems,” he told the webinar. This symbol is included in the campaign’s logo.

During an extensive question and answer session, Sasakawa said it was crucial that those affected return to work to support themselves. There were several initiatives, beyond just speaking to top politicians, that could be used.

These initiatives included reskilling but also included getting big businesses involved in the employment of people with disabilities. Sasakawa referred to the Valuable 500 project, launched in 2019 at World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. This project, supported by the Nippon Foundation, called on the top 500 companies to promote the inclusion in business of people with disabilities.

Sasakawa said while he was a person who “believes the solution lies in the field”, the pandemic taught him it was now crucial to include new technology – webinars and social media – in the tool kit to end the disease and discrimination.

“Today, thanks to these technological tools, we are able to share the best practices that are happening in various countries and share with the world,” he said.

The Initiative is a strategic alliance between WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination Yohei Sasakawa, The Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation for achieving a world without leprosy and problems related to the disease. Since 1975, The Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation have supported the national leprosy programs of endemic countries through the WHO, with support totalling some US$200 million to date.

Leprosy is an infectious disease that mainly affects the skin and peripheral nerves. Around 200,000 cases are newly reported each year. Leprosy is curable with multidrug therapy but, left untreated, can result in permanent disability. An estimated 3 to 4 million people in the world today are thought to be living with some form of disability as a result of leprosy.

The campaign will feature a total of six webinars, online media briefings, TV and radio spots, social media messaging and videos featuring the Goodwill Ambassador. It will also incorporate other awareness-raising activities, including the annual Global Appeal to End Stigma and Discrimination against Persons Affected by Leprosy issued at the end of January.

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Categories: Africa

Multilateral Peace Operations in 2020: Developments & Trends

Wed, 08/04/2021 - 07:03

Female peacekeepers from South Africa on patrol in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. July 2021. Credit: MONUSCO/Michael Ali

By Timo Smit
STOCKHOLM / THE HAGUE, Aug 4 2021 (IPS)

The first year of the Covid-19 pandemic saw wide-ranging impacts on multilateral peace operations.

The crisis simultaneously affected all operations, host nations, headquarters and contributing countries. It caused major disruption—from the political-strategic level where mandates are drawn up, down to the operational and tactical levels.

Operations were forced to adapt in order to preserve continuity as far as was possible. While some of the effects of the pandemic are clearly reflected in the data—most notably in mission mortality rates—others are not.

For example, SIPRI data on personnel deployments cannot always capture delays in troop rotations or whether mission personnel were evacuated or working remotely for part of the year.

However, there is some evidence that Covid considerations did affect deployments, as is noted below.

Operations close in Guinea-Bissau and Sudan

There were 62 multilateral peace operations active in 2020, the same number as in 2019. The largest share of these (21) were conducted by the UN. Regional organizations such as the African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU) and alliances (such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO) together conducted 36 operations. Ad hoc coalitions of states conducted 5 peace operations in 2020.

Two small operations in Guinea-Bissau closed in 2020. One was conducted by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS): the ECOWAS Mission in Guinea-Bissau (ECOMIB), the other by the UN: the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNIOGBIS).

One other operation that closed during the year was the AU–UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), which was launched in 2007. UNAMID had deployed between 20 000 and 25 000 international personnel at its height in 2009–14, and it still deployed around 6500 in 2020.

A small political mission based in Khartoum, the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in the Sudan (UNITAMS), opened on 1 January 2021.

UNAMID’s closure is a landmark in contemporary peacekeeping. It is the fourth major UN peacekeeping operation to close since 2017; the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) both closed in 2017 and the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) in 2018.

Only seven operations comprising more than 5000 international personnel were still active at the start of 2021, and no operation deploying more than 1500 international personnel has been launched since 2014.

Three smaller operations open in CAR and Libya

The three operations that opened in 2020 were also in Africa. Two opened in the Central African Republic (CAR), in the wake of the 2019 Political Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation.

The AU Military Observers Mission to the CAR (MOUACA) was authorized in July 2020 to help monitor implementation of the agreement.

The EU Advisory Mission in the CAR (EUAM RCA), mandated to support security sector reform, had been established in December 2019 but was not launched until August 2020. Both operations have an authorized strength below 100 international personnel.

The AU Mission in Libya, the third new operation, was established by a decision of the AU Assembly in February 2020 to ‘upgrade’ the AU Liaison Office in Libya ‘to the level of mission’.

The Covid-19 pandemic seems to have complicated the deployment and build-up of these operations. In fact, while EUAM RCA was up and running at the end of 2020, albeit not at full capacity, there is little public information available on the status and activities of MOUACA or the AU Mission in Libya.

The latest edition of SIPRI’s Map of Multilateral Peace Operations shows all operations active as of 1 May 2021—including some that are outside the scope of SIPRI’s definition, such as the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) against Boko Haram, the Joint Force of the Group of Five for the Sahel (JF-G5S) and the EU Naval Force in the Mediterranean Sea (Operation Irini).

Personnel deployments fall

The number of international personnel deployed in multilateral peace operations globally fell by 7.7 per cent, from 137 781 in 2019 to 127 124 in 2020.

This was the largest year-on-year decrease since the drawdown of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan in 2012–14. Around 87 per cent were military personnel, roughly the same proportion as in 2019.

Almost two-thirds of the deployed personnel in 2020 were serving in UN peace operations (66 per cent on average over the year). Almost three-quarters (74 per cent at the end of the year) were deployed in sub-Saharan Africa (both UN and non-UN operations).

The number of personnel deployed in UN peace operations globally and in multilateral peace operations (UN and non-UN) in sub-Saharan Africa declined for the fifth year in a row.

Both had peaked in 2015–16 following a period of rapid growth driven by the establishment of major operations in CAR and Mali and the expansion of major operations in Somalia and South Sudan.

The number of personnel deployed in UN peace operations fell by 2.4 per cent between 2019 and 2020 (from 88 849 to 86 712), reaching its lowest level since 2007.

Meanwhile, the number of personnel deployed in multilateral peace operations in sub-Saharan Africa decreased by 3.4 per cent (from 97 519 on 31 December 2019 to 94 201 on 31 December 2020), reaching its lowest level since December 2012.

Women continued to be under-represented among multilateral peace operations personnel in 2020, as reported in a SIPRI publication prepared for the 20th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security last year.

Afghanistan: The end of NATO deployments imminent

The development that contributed most to the net reduction of peace operations personnel deployments last year was the agreement reached on 29 February 2020 between the United States Government and the Taliban on the withdrawal of all US forces from Afghanistan within 14 months.

Due to the subsequent drawdown of most US troops, the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission (RSM) shrank from 16 551 to 9592 personnel over the course of 2020.

The RSM was launched on 1 January 2015 and was mandated to train, advise and assist the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces following the departure of ISAF, which had been active from 2001 to 2014.

The new operation was originally supposed to end on 31 December 2016, but it was not until April 2021 that NATO leaders formally announced their intention to terminate the RSM. The decision came shortly after US President Joe Biden had ordered the withdrawal of the remaining US troops from Afghanistan by 11 September 2021.

As a result of the withdrawal of most US troops from the RSM, the USA started 2020 as the second largest troop contributor to multilateral peace operations (after Ethiopia) and ended the year as the tenth largest.

Fewer blue helmets killed in action, more by illness than in previous years

In 2020, UN peace operations lost 78 uniformed personnel, 13 international civilian personnel and 32 local staff. The fatality rate for uniformed personnel was 0.9 per 1000.

This was noticeably higher than in 2018 and 2019, but around the average for the period 2011–20.

Despite this, the rate of hostile deaths (i.e. deaths caused by malicious acts) among uniformed personnel was at its lowest since 2011, at 0.15 per 1000.

This decline could conceivably be partly an effect of the pandemic, for example because peacekeepers were not able to patrol as much as usual or were otherwise less exposed to the risk of violence due to pandemic-related restrictions.

Meanwhile, the number of deaths due to illness among international and local personnel in UN peace operations in 2020 was almost double that in 2019 (83 compared to 42), with most of these deaths occurring between June and September 2020.

This difference is almost certainly linked in large part to the Covid-19 pandemic and its impacts, which contributed to a record number of deaths across the UN during the year.

Excerpt:

The writer is a Researcher with the Peace Operations and Conflict Management Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)

Categories: Africa

Daphne Caruana Galizia’s Family Hope ‘Lessons are Learnt’ to Protect Investigative Journalists

Tue, 08/03/2021 - 09:44

Languages Tuesday, August 3, 2021 IPS on Twitter IPS on Facebook RSS feed INTER PRESS SERVICE News Agency News and Views from the Global South Africa Asia-Pacific Europe Latin America & the Caribbean Middle East & North Africa North America Global Home Development & Aid Aid Education Energy Health Food & Agriculture Humanitarian Emergencies Poverty & SDGs Population Economy & Trade Financial Crisis Green Economy Labour Natural Resources Trade & Investment Cooperatives Environment Advancing Deserts Biodiversity Climate Change Green Economy Water & Sanitation Human Rights Armed Conflicts Crime & Justice Democracy Indigenous Rights LGBTQ Migration & Refugees Press Freedom Religion Global Governance Civilisations Find Alliances Eye on the IFIs Global Geopolitics Globalisation Peace South-South United Nations South-South G77 Regional Alliances Southern Aid & Trade Civil Society Active Citizens World Social Forum Conferences Gender Gender Violence Women & Economy Women & Climate Change Women’s Health Gender Identity Women in Politics Crime & Justice, Democracy, Europe, Europe, Featured, Global Governance, Headlines, Human Rights, Press Freedom, TerraViva United Nations Press Freedom Daphne Caruana Galizia’s Family Hope ‘Lessons are Learnt’ to Protect Investigative Journalists By Ed Holt Reprint | | Print | Send by email Flowers, candles and tributes to Daphne Caruana Galizia left at the foot of the Great Siege Monument, opposite the Law Courts in Valletta. Caruana Galizia, Malta’s most prominent investigative journalist, was killed by a car bomb in October 2017 outside her home in the village of Bidnija. Courtesy: Continentaleurope/CC BY-SA 4.0

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Aug 3 2021 (IPS)

BRATISLAVA, August 2 (IPS) – The family of slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has called for “lessons to be learnt” after an independent inquiry found that the Maltese state bore responsibility for her death.

Caruana Galizia, Malta’s most prominent investigative journalist, was killed by a car bomb in October 2017 outside her home in the village of Bidnija. Her investigations had exposed high-level government corruption linked to businesses.

The inquiry findings into the killing released last week delivered a damning verdict of the state’s role in her murder.

In a 457-page report, the inquiry panel of one serving and two retired judges, said that her death had been preventable, and that responsibility lay with the state for creating “an atmosphere of impunity… which led to the collapse of the rule of law”.

Summing up their findings, they said: “….acts, certainly illicit if not illegal, were committed by persons within State entities that created an environment that facilitated the assassination. This even by failing to do their duty to act promptly and effectively to give proper protection to the journalist.”

Andrew Caruana Galizia, Daphne’s son, told IPS: “The findings of the report are an enormous vindication for us, although it is painful to see it recognised that my mother’s death could have been prevented.

“But what is most important is that lessons be learnt from these findings and to make sure that no journalist in Malta will suffer the same fate as my mother.”

Daphne Caruana Galizia Credit: https://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/dsc_8970bw/

Caruana Galizia’s murder made headlines worldwide, focusing attention on the rule of law in Malta and journalist safety and highlighting the murky links between Maltese politicians and big business, which she was investigating.

Prosecutors claim local businessman Yorgen Fenech, who had close links to senior government officials, masterminded the murder. Fenech, one of two men awaiting trial on charges of involvement in the murder, denies responsibility.

The Prime Minister at the time of her killing, Josef Muscat, was also eventually forced to resign after investigations implicated close contacts of his in the killing.

The inquiry highlighted alleged links between the Maltese government and criminals and how that encouraged the killers. The inquiry’s report stated that: “What is impressive in this case is the severity and extent of this impunity at the highest levels which made those who committed the crime feel safe in doing so.

“Another shocking factor was the fact that all the institutions in the country failed to react appropriately and effectively to counteract this impunity as they were duty-bound to do, a shortcoming which can be attributed precisely to the ties which were exploited between those in power and those who advanced their dubious interests.”

And it called for steps to be taken immediately to bring in checks on ties between politicians and big business.

It also recommended a series of measures be implemented to increase journalism safety.

Press freedom watchdogs, who, along with Caruana Galizia’s family and international groups, had campaigned for years for an independent investigation into the killing, said it was vital action was taken to create a safer environment for journalists to work.

Jamie Wiseman, Europe Advocacy Officer at the International Press Institute (IPI), told IPS: “It is crucial that steps are taken to improve the environment for the safety of journalists, including the introduction of legislation criminalising violence against journalists, condemnation by state officials of all attacks against media workers, and the establishment of a journalist safety committee composed of government officials, media representatives, civil society and the security services.

“Serious implementation of these changes would go a long way to ensuring the tragic killing of a journalist never occurs again in Malta.”

But groups like IPI are hoping the inquiry and its findings will also have an effect beyond just journalists and journalism in Malta.

Caruana Galizia’s assassination drew almost unprecedented international attention in part because it took place in an EU country.

At the time, Europe was seen as one of the safest places for journalists to work in the world.

Since then, there have been other prominent killings of journalists in the EU, including that of Jan Kuciak in Slovakia just a few months after Caruana Galizia was murdered, and in the last few months Giorgos Karaivaz in Greece, and Peter de Vries in the Netherlands.

Fears have been raised about growing violence against journalists in Europe, stoked by aggressive rhetoric and clampdowns on media freedom by populist leaders in many countries, including Hungary, Poland, and Serbia.

In the case of Kuciak’s murder specifically, press freedom and rights organisations said repeated verbal attacks and denigration of journalists may have emboldened the killers.

Rob Mahoney, Deputy Executive Director at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said the inquiry’s findings would send out a message to those who believe they can kill, threaten, and attempt to silence journalists with impunity.

“It is a very important first step on the road to ending a poisonous culture of impunity, particularly in the European Union. Journalists need the rule of law and an independent judiciary to fulfil their function of providing information to citizens in a democracy. This inquiry underscores that.

“I hope it will show the public how without brave investigative journalists, crime and corruption at the highest levels of government and business will run rampant.”

Andrew Caruana Galizia added: “One tragic finding from the inquiry was that it confirmed that at the time of my mother’s death, Malta was in the process of being taken over by mafia organisations, and that the only thing that stopped that happening was the death of my mother and the people demanding change after that.

“There is similar corruption and state capture by criminal groups in other parts of Europe, so what is happening here could send a message to other countries [where a similar process might be underway].”

Meanwhile, press freedom groups point out that while the inquiry’s findings have confirmed much of what they have said for years was linked to Daphne’s death, such as issues around the rule of law and the creation of an environment that allowed a journalist to be killed, they, and her family, are still waiting for full justice for her murder to be served.

So far, only one person has been sentenced in connection with the killing – earlier this year, a man pleaded guilty to taking part and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Rebecca Vincent, Director of International Campaigns at Reporters Without Borders, told IPS: “What must be remembered is that this is separate from the criminal investigation and the people behind Daphne’s killing need to be brought to full justice. The inquiry is a crucial step towards justice – but it is just a step.”

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Categories: Africa

Suburban Living the Worst for Carbon Emissions – New Research

Tue, 08/03/2021 - 08:04

An expected drop in greenhouse gas emissions linked to the global economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is only “short-term good news”, the head of the UN weather agency said in April 2020. Credit: World Meteorological Organization /Kabelo Tamocha

By Sabrina Zwick
TOKYO, Aug 3 2021 (IPS)

Work, education, entertainment, or simply better connectivity all draw people to cities. By the end of this century around 85% of the world population are predicted to live in cities.

There are speculations that the COVID-19 pandemic will slow down this urbanisation trend, but I think it’s unlikely to stop it.

Cities remain the primary location for job opportunities, education and cultural offers, and the continued rise in housing prices in many European cities over the past year indicates that city life is still high in demand.

Some find this trend worrying, as – globally – urbanisation has worsened the climate crisis, and cities are often blamed for boosting energy consumption and carbon emissions.

The World Bank estimates that 80% of global GDP is produced in urban areas. This results in higher income, consumption and associated levels of emissions.

It is certain that a considerable share of the global carbon budget will be used up for building new infrastructure, particularly in fast-growing cities. Further emissions take place when cities expand and land use changes – turning vegetation into city grounds.

Sabrina Zwick

On the other hand, cities cover only about 3% of the global land surface while, at present, accounting for 58% of the world’s population. This compact structure can render emission savings linked to higher densities, connectivity, accessibility and land use.

Copenhagen and Amsterdam, for instance, are great examples of cities that make good use of these compact structures and offer a low emission lifestyle.

What’s better for the climate?

Rural homes are surrounded by nature, but are often larger than urban houses or apartments and people who live in them require cars to get around. City homes are usually smaller and offer short distances, but also a world of shiny consumption goods, takeaway food and entertainment options – at least in non-COVID times.

But what does this mean for individual carbon footprints: are they bigger in the city or in the countryside, if the income level is similar?

To answer this question, my colleague Pablo Munoz and I looked at the consumption patterns of more than 8,000 households in Austria. We clustered them into urban, semi-urban and rural areas, estimated their carbon footprints, and found that people in urban areas, on average, had the smallest carbon footprints.

People in semi-urban areas had the biggest carbon footprints, with those in rural areas in between.

The main difference we found is that the city dwellers we analysed had lower direct emissions from transport, heating and cooking. They did have more indirect emissions, that is, emissions released upstream in the production chain – by factories producing TVs for example.

But in total, we found that the emissions of urban dwellers were still comparatively low. Even when controlling for other socioeconomic factors including income, we found that people in semi-urban areas in Austria emit around 8% more CO₂ than those in cities, and people in rural areas around 4% more.

This evidence that a city lifestyle is the least carbon intense in Austria is replicated by other studies for high-income countries in Europe (such as the UK and Finland).

But it doesn’t mean that it applies to everywhere: research shows that urbanisation in low-income countries usually increases emissions.

This isn’t to say we should discourage urbanisation in these countries. One of the principle reasons for this pattern is the income gap between urban and rural areas in these countries: higher urban incomes lead to more consumption and resulting emissions.

In high-income countries on the other hand, the urban-rural income gap is much smaller as consumption levels are high everywhere. So, in countries such as Austria or the UK, living in cities tends to be better for the climate, as dense living can reduce transport and heating emissions.

Curse or cure

Does this mean that urbanisation is good or bad on the long run? There is no simple answer to this. The link between urbanisation and income, to take just one factor, is very complex.

Globally, we know that urbanisation has been a driver for higher emissions. But results like ours give hope that city life is the sustainable option after all, at least once countries reach a certain income level and when doing it right.

Key to this is a strong commitment to climate action and implementing it fast. Governments around the globe should make best use of high densities, connectivity, accessibility and land in urban areas – and plan cities and their surroundings in a smart and climate friendly way.

But efforts should not be limited to cities, given that semi-urban areas are the worst for emissions. This is especially true in light of increasing housing prices in cities and a post-COVID digitalised world, which make suburbs increasingly attractive for many of us.

Ways to decrease emissions are numerous: good public transport systems and bicycle routes, short distances to basic infrastructure, efficient buildings, and green heating and cooling systems are all proven ways of cutting carbon costs.

In addition, carbon pricing can create incentives for greener value chains and more sustainable consumption. When planning land use, rural-urban migration trends and other behavioural aspects should be taken into account.

The way urban and rural areas are designed will affect people’s choices – such as their preferred mode of transport – and associated emissions.

But ultimately, we as individuals determine our own consumption patterns and our carbon footprint can be large or small, whether we live in the city or elsewhere.

This work was partially supported by the Austrian Climate Research Programme (ACRP) of the Austrian Climate and Energy Fund through the project “Innovative climate policy instruments to reduce consumption-based emissions to complement territorial emission reduction efforts”.

Excerpt:

The writer is Research Associate at United Nations University

Categories: Africa

Central Banks Must Address Pandemic Challenges

Tue, 08/03/2021 - 07:31

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 3 2021 (IPS)

Hopes for an inclusive global economic recovery are fast fading. As rich countries have done little to ensure poor countries’ access to vaccines and fiscal resources, North-South “fault lines” will certainly widen.

Enhancing relief, recovery, transformation
While the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised rich countries’ recovery prospects upward, the United Nations (UN) notes formidable challenges, especially for developing countries, due to the pandemic.

Anis Chowdhury

The UN warns of more setbacks for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), already behind schedule before the pandemic. Grim recovery prospects have been worsened by debt distress and dramatic drops in investment and trade.

Designing appropriate relief, recovery and reforms well is necessary. For the IMF, growth-enhancing reforms could significantly improve growth in emerging market and developing economies over the next decade.

Countries must quickly spend much more to contain the pandemic and offset adverse effects of policy responses. This is needed to protect incomes, jobs and businesses, while paying more attention to the most vulnerable. Also, the SDGs still need more financing.

Policy choices now will determine chances of a greener, more inclusive and resilient future. There have to be better synergies among short, medium and long-term policies through improved coordination.

Macroeconomic policy coordination
Although public debt is already high while tax revenue has shrunk, governments need to spend more. Central banks (CBs) must lend more to governments to create more fiscal space. Better monetary policy support for government spending should strengthen relief, recovery and reform, not enable more corporate debt and asset price bubbles.

In turn, fiscal authorities can create monetary policy space by enabling spending on nationally produced goods and services, investing in productive capabilities, enabling new jobs and occupations, and expanding social protection. Policy design should ensure that more liquidity does not generate excessive inflationary pressures or net imports.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Greater CB independence in recent decades has undermined macroeconomic policy coordination, preventing them from lending directly to governments. Keeping inflation low has become paramount, ignoring other policy goals. Supposedly for CB and monetary policy credibility, such priorities actually serve financial investors, especially speculators.

But with ‘unconventional monetary policies’ after the 2008 global financial crisis, CB lending to governments has become more acceptable. Many rich country governments have since turned to CBs for fiscal space and other finance.

With little affordable finance available from both private and official sources, some developing countries, such as Indonesia, have temporarily suspended laws preventing direct borrowing from CBs. Others, e.g., the Philippines, have amended legislation to allow CBs to directly lend to governments.

Thus, how countries emerge from recessions in the short-term, and transform their economies to achieve progress in the longer term, critically depends on effective cooperation between CBs and governments.

Central banks’ developmental role
Historically, CBs have played a developmental role, e.g., financing public investment. Even though many CB statutes are not explicit about such roles, the two oldest CBs – the Bank of England and Sweden’s Riksbank – are not prohibited from vigorously promoting policy priorities, e.g., the latter’s commitment to housing for all.

The Bank of England has even pioneered creating specialised development institutions, e.g., the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation, the Finance Corporation for Industry, and the Bankers’ Industrial Development Company.

The US Federal Reserve Act is committed to realise “the economy’s long run potential to increase production, so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates…in furtherance of the purposes of the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1948.”

CBs of Italy, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands have used various means to finance activities underserved by credit markets. These include lowering bank reserve requirements and lending for priorities such as housing, agriculture, exports, small business and underdeveloped regions.

Well before independence, the Reserve Bank of India observed, “it may be desirable for Central Bank credit to be made available in a larger number of ways and with less restrictions”. Hence, development objectives are explicit in many developing countries’ CB statutes.

The statutes of some CBs established in the 1970s and 1980s with IMF technical assistance also have specific provisions for developmental roles, e.g., in Bhutan, Botswana, Fiji, Maldives, Solomon Islands, Swaziland and Vanuatu.

This is consistent with IMF Article of Agreement IV, “each member shall endeavor to direct its economic and financial policies toward the objective of fostering orderly economic growth with reasonable price stability, with due regard to its circumstances”.

The Bangladesh CB, a financial inclusion pioneer, also adopted a sustainable finance policy in 2011 to promote green investment and sustainable agriculture. Ninety developing country CBs have since signed the Maya Declaration to advance financial inclusion.

Supporting transformation
Borrowing to finance recovery and reform has to promote desirable changes, creating new productive capacities, accelerating digitalisation, revitalising rural and regional economies, conducting business and work in new ways, and making economies more sustainable.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has aligned ‘quantitative easing’ with the European Commission (EC)’s pandemic response. By indicating it would buy newly issued government bonds in the secondary market, the ECB has effectively financed government borrowing despite the ban on directly lending to the government.

Thus, considerable ECB purchase of government bonds has lowered borrowing costs for member States’ pandemic responses. These include the EC’s Next Generation package, including the European Green Deal and its ‘digitalization transition’.

The Bank of Japan is also supporting government efforts for relief, recovery, economic growth, structural change, disaster management and global warming mitigation. It is also encouraging companies to invest in digitalisation and green technologies.

The South Korean CB has also purchased more government bonds. Several measures have provided monetary support for the ‘Korean New Deal’, including pandemic relief, recovery, digital and green investments, and employment safety nets.

China’s CB’s targeted monetary policy tools are also increasingly aligned with the government’s long-term strategic goals. These include supporting key sectors while preventing asset price bubbles and ‘overheating’.

Bolder actions needed
Over the last year, poorer countries have been condemned to protracted recessions and delayed recoveries. Vaccine imperialism and apartheid mean that their vaccination efforts will be delayed and limited, if not worse.

Extended slowdowns not only threaten to become depressions, but also to further set back the modest progress achieved in recent decades. The North-South gap between rich and poor countries is certain to grow again.

Recovery prospects have been set back by poor countries’ lack of ‘fiscal space’. The IMF must help them use monetary policy much more creatively, not only to enhance fiscal space, but also to complement other policies for relief, recovery and transformation.

Categories: Africa

Resumption of China-US Contacts: Use of Protocol as Peacetime Weapon in an Unstable World

Mon, 08/02/2021 - 17:46

By Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
SINGAPORE, Aug 2 2021 (IPS)

It had been four long months since the meeting in Alaska between Chinese and American officials, their first interaction since President Joe Biden assumed office in January this year. That was when the Chinese Foreign policy top mandarins Yang Jiechi (Director, Central Foreign Affairs Commission) and Wang Yi (State Councillor and Foreign Minister) bitterly locked horns with the American top diplomats, Antony Blinken (Secretary of State) and Jake Sullivan (National Security Advisor) in Anchorage in intensely chilly circumstances. Bilateral relations remained pretty much frozen since. Both sides might have come around to the belief that a resumption of some level of contact was overdue. Not so much to bring about a thaw; rather, simply to test the water.

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

The possibility of a meeting between the two Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden began to surface when it became known both would be in Rome to attend a Group of 20 Summit. But that would require preparations. The Biden Administration, believing it had taken enough of a tough stance against China to placate the right side of America’s political divide, chose to make the first move. It asked for Chinese acceptance of a visit to Beijing at a level, neither too high nor too low, which they believed was the case with the position of Wendy Sherman, Deputy Secretary of State. The Chinese deeply unhappy with not just the content of talks at Anchorage but also with the quality of hospitality accorded the visitors, were now ready to pay back in kind.

The tool used was something that has historically been done in situations warranting subtle messaging, a skill at which the Chinese are past masters. That is the use of the rules of protocol as a peace-time weapon. After some show of hesitation, Beijing agreed to the visit but presented a lower ranking Chinese official as the appropriate counterpart, denying access to either Wang Yi or Yang Jiechi, which the Americans insisted upon. Eventually the access was provided, though formally , and optically, the main meeting was going to be with a lower-ranking Vice Foreign Minister, Xie Feng. What was going to take place with Wang Yi was a “call”. In traditional diplomatic protocol a visiting dignitary can always “call on“ higher ranking hosts, but not negotiate, which is normally done with appropriate counterparts. So, the Chinese were not offering any extra privilege, but were nonetheless raising Cain over it just to make a point. By resorting to this method China was wanting to put the US in its place, at the same time derive the necessary benefits from the visit which was an unavoidable preparatory step to the long-awaited Summit of the leaders. In that, at least for now, both sides appear to see merit.

There was to be a further tit for tat. Since the Chinese high officials were not received last April at the US capital, Washington DC, as they would have liked, Deputy Secretary Adams had to remain content with her programme taking place in Tianjin, located 100km south-east of Beijing. What was publicly stated was that Beijing had very strict rules related to Covid prevention that would impede the visit. Both sides seemed to accept the fact that a nuanced, but necessary under the circumstances, diplomatic minuet was being danced out, and both must have heaved a sigh of relief when this parrying ended, and the meetings could finally take place. The official photo of the call on Foreign Minister Wang Yi showed he and Wendy Sherman seated a fair distance apart, speaking to each other via microphones, amplifying not just the sound but also the political distance!

Prior to the meeting, Wang Yi stated in a tone that was a tad ominous: “If the US has not learnt how to deal with other countries on an equal footing, then we have the responsibility to work with the international community to teach the US a lesson”. By now, everyone was expecting the discussions to be tough, which they were. The Chinese set out three red lines for the US: One, China’s political system must not be challenged; two, China’s development must not be interrupted; and, three, China’s sovereignty issues such as matters in Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan must not be interfered with. Demonstrating considerable political acumen, Sherman avoided direct confrontation, making the point that the US goal was to set up “guardrails” to prevent competition from turning into conflicts. A state Department readout of the talks, which seemed to assume a slightly conciliatory tone, said that she had affirmed the importance of cooperation in areas of global interest including climate change, drug trafficking and weapons proliferation.

No one really expected the trip to make any substantive progress in terms of Sino-US bilateral relations, as was the case. The best outcome of the visit was that it took place at all! It simply marked a resumption of bilateral contacts, and nothing more. Also, it has managed to keep alive a glimmer of hope that the Xi-Biden summit could still happen as both sides seemed not to be unfavourably disposed towards the idea. The obtaining situation does not warrant any optimism for improved ties. Biden faces domestic pressures not to appear to be “soft” on China if he wants the Congress to approve his proposed legislations, which he does. Xi may not have similar constraints, but he does have an international gallery to play to, to which he is bent on demonstrating that China can outperform the US.

Just as the world is learning to live with the Covid pandemic, so must it learn to live with the burgeoning Sino-US rivalry. The rising Chinese dragon is no longer demure but is increasingly, and unabashedly demanding. At the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi declared that his people “will never allow foreign forces to bully, coerce, and enslave us”. If there are to be headwinds, China is preparing to rise like a kite against it. Dominant Western powers, particularly the US are unlikely to be obliging, as the increased pace of American diplomacy in East Asia shows. Nonetheless, it is all but certain that a paradigm shift in powerplay across the globe is already in progress, and it is bound to make for an unstable world.

This story was originally published by Dhaka Courier.

Categories: Africa

Increasing Revenue & Protecting Public Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Mon, 08/02/2021 - 13:18

The World Health Organization (WHO) says that tobacco use claims about eight million lives a year. Credit: WHO

By Hana Ross and Sophapan Ratanachena-McWhortor
CAPETOWN / BANGKOK, Aug 2 2021 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on millions of families and damaged the economy of countries around the globe.

Rich countries with higher vaccination rates have opened up their economy ahead of poor countries that are still struggling to fight the pandemic.

Yet, there is a simple recipe to boost the population’s health and increase revenue to pay for vaccines and economic recovery. This simple recipe calls for just one ingredient – the implementation of evidence-based tobacco tax policy.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tax and price measures are the most effective means to reduce the demand for tobacco which in in turn will save lives, reduce government expenditures on healthcare, and increase tax revenue.

Smoking is now a recognized risk factor for severe COVID-19 outcomes. Therefore, countries with high smoking prevalence such as Indonesia and Vietnam are quite vulnerable during the pandemic.

Many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) struggle to reduce their persistently high level of tobacco use while spending a significant amount of their healthcare budget on tobacco-related diseases.

These preventable expenditures along with pandemic-related expenses are putting the Ministries of Finance in a quandary.

ASEAN countries are lagging behind in terms of using tobacco taxes to curb tobacco use even though some countries like the Philippines have made significant progress in recent years.

Most ASEAN countries lack a long-term tax policy plan and neither review nor update their policies according to their fiscal and public health targets. The main obstacles to effective tobacco tax policies include complex tax structures, small tax changes that fail to decrease affordability of tobacco use, and weak tax administration.

Credit: Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA)

These obstacles are perpetuated by the tobacco industry’s interference. Transnational tobacco companies routinely target LMICs to increase their profits and made special efforts to ensure that their customers kept smoking throughout the pandemic.

In the ASEAN region, home to 122 million smokers, the tobacco industry is thwarting tax increases to keep cigarette prices low, obtaining delays in paying taxes, offering promotions to customers and providing charitable contributions to resource-starved governments to earn political favors.

A 2020 survey by the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) in seven countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam) revealed tobacco industry interference to be one of the key obstacles in achieving higher excise tax revenue across the region.

The industry publicizes exaggerated illicit trade data, falsely predicts economic disasters, and co-opts high profile allies to discourage tax increases. Policymakers and politicians need to be aware of these industry efforts and protect the public interest from industry interference.

A recent SEATCA study in four ASEAN countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Vietnam) revealed that governments are missing out on collecting a substantial amount of tobacco tax revenue as a result of failure to raise tobacco taxes to recommended levels, simplify complex tax structures, and/or remove tax benefits to tobacco companies.

The study highlighted that 1.3 million premature deaths could have been prevented and an additional USD 4.81 billion tax revenue could have been collected in the last two years had their governments implemented effective tobacco tax policy.

Lao PDR is also missing out on tax revenue due to an unfair joint venture between the government and cigarette manufacturers which resulted in the tobacco companies not paying their fair share of tax and their refusal to provide their mandatory contribution to the Tobacco Control Fund (TCF) established seven years ago.

As a result, the Lao government has lost excise tax revenue in excess of USD 142.9 million from 2002-2019 and TCF revenue of USD 18 million from 2014 – 2019.

Tobacco tax policy is a low-cost tool that governments can use to achieve sustainable revenue for health and social development. This could greatly help during the pandemic to pay for vaccinations and therapeutics in the fight against COVID-19.

LMICs in search of revenue to balance their pandemic-related financial and economic losses should prioritize tobacco tax policy as a public health intervention, because it has the potential of both saving lives and generating substantial revenue.

Dr Hana Ross is the Principal Research Officer of Research on Economics for Excisable Products (REEP), at the University of Cape Town, South Africa & Sophapan Ratanachena-McWhortor is the Tobacco Tax Program Manager for SEATCA

Categories: Africa

After Vilifying the UN, US Returns to the World Body

Mon, 08/02/2021 - 12:16

Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 2 2021 (IPS)

Ed Koch, a sharp-tongued Mayor of New York city (1978-89), once stopped short of using a four-letter word to denounce the United Nations.

Instead, he opted for a five-letter word dismissing the UN as a “sewer” relegating it to the lower depths of degradation.

In a bygone era, some of the most vociferous rightwing, conservative US politicians never ceased to denounce the world body primarily because of a rash of UN resolutions condemning Israel for human rights violations in the occupied territories or for resolutions mis-perceived as anti-American.

The late Senator Jesse Helms, a Republican chairman of the powerful US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, once said “providing funds to the UN was like pouring money into a rat hole.”

“I disagree with the premises upon which the United Nations is built and with the illusion that it propagates,” Senator Helms, said in a letter to the World Federalist Association. “It would be one thing if the United Nations were just an international side show, but it plays a greater role. It is a vast engine for the promotion of socialism, and to promote this purpose the U.S. provides a quarter of its budget,” he said.

Helms, said he has long called for “our country’s departure from this Organization, and vice versa.”

Charles Lichtenstein, a former U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to the U.N. Mission, once said he would urge members of the United Nations to move out of New York if they did not like the treatment they were receiving in the United States.

Helms — with tongue firmly entrenched in cheek — said he would join Lichtenstein in waving goodbye to U.N. member- states “as they sail away into the sunset.”

When the 193-member UN General Assembly elected some of the so-called “repressive regimes” as members of the Human Rights Commission (later the Human Rights Council), Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (Republican of California) hollered: “The inmates have taken over the asylum. And I don’t plan to give the lunatics any more American tax dollars to play with.”

And more recently, former President Donald Trump not only decried multilateralism and challenged the effectiveness of the world body but also dismissed it as “a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.”

Trump pulled out of two historic international agreements: the Paris climate change agreement and the nuclear deal with Iran.

But things have dramatically changed since he was ousted from the White House— and the US is gradually returning to the UN, whose primary home is New York, even though most of its agencies are based outside the US, including in Geneva, Rome, Vienna, Paris, Bonn and Nairobi.

The administration of President Joe Biden, which took over from the Trump administration about six months ago, has not only returned to multilateralism but has also pledged to re-engage both with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris.

Additionally, the US has agreed to restore funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), both of which suffered funding cuts under Trump.

Last April, the Biden’s administration said it plans to provide $235 million to Palestinians, restoring part of the assistance cut by Trump. Two-thirds will go to UNRWA, which has suffered a financial crisis since it lost $360 million of US funding in 2018.

In 2016, UNFPA received $69 million in funding from the U.S. And in July 2019, UNFPA expressed concerns over US withholding funds for the third consecutive year The Biden administration is expected to restore US funding.

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry, accompanied by his grand-daughter, signs the Paris Agreement at UN headquarters in April 2016. Credit: UN Photo/Amanda Voisard

Penny Abeywardena, Commissioner for International Affairs at the Office of the New York city Mayor Bill de Blasio, welcomed the move by the United Nations to gradually return to near-normal after a 16-month pandemic lock down.

She said “the UN General Assembly has for decades been a staple of Fall in New York and as Host City to the UN, we have always been proud to welcome the international community who gather here”.

Kul Gautam, a former UN assistant secretary-general, told IPS the whole world, including the United Nations, breathed a sigh of relief at the advent of the Joe Biden administration in the US, following four years of the erratic and unpredictable Donald Trump presidency.

Mirroring Trump’s “America First” bravado, his senior diplomatic team, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Ambassador Niki Haley showed little regard or diplomatic finesse in dealing with the complex issues high on the UN’s agenda, he pointed out.

Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton had so little respect for the UN that as the US Ambassador to the UN, he had once proclaimed that if the UN Secretariat building in New York “lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference,” said Gautam, a former deputy executive director of the UN children’s agency UNICEF.

Similarly, his Trump-era successor Niki Haley told a Republican National Convention that the “UN was a place where dictators, murderers and thieves denounce America, and demand that we pay their bills.”

Gautam said in contrast to the Trump-era narrative of the UN being a largely bureaucratic and profligate anti-American organization, dominated by China and Third World countries, the Biden administration quickly proclaimed that “America was back” at the UN and would provide constructive leadership and support a multilateral approach to solving the world’s most pressing issues from COVID-19 to climate change.

Not only is Joe Biden himself a seasoned statesman in international affairs, said Gautam, but his senior aides, including Secretary of State Tony Blinken, UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Special Envoy John Kerry are all consummate diplomats who believe in multilateralism.

Mandeep S. Tiwana, Chief Programmes Officer at CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organizations (CSOs) , told IPS the United States played a key role in establishing the UN Charter who’s opening words, ‘We the Peoples’, mirror the opening words of the US Constitution. Eleanor Roosevelt stewarded the drafting of what is arguably the UN’s finest achievement – adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“The Trump administration’s disdain for the UN devalued these historical achievements. Traditionally, the United States has been a supporter of rights and democratic values at the UN as core pillars of its foreign policy,” he said.

The Biden administration’s commitment to re-engage at the UN is being welcomed by many in civil society working to challenge discrimination and oppression, he said, pointing out, that it’s a step in the right direction for people-centered multilateralism which lies at the core of the UN’s founding.

Tiwana also said the Biden administration has an opportunity not just to repair the damage of the Trump years but to demonstrate commitment to laying the ground work for the ambitious advancement of justice, equality and sustainability for future generations.

Gautam said while Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was severely constrained from taking some bold initiatives during his first term due to fear of the veto-wielding and chest-thumping Trump administration’s non-cooperation, he should, in his second term, feel more empowered to act more decisively to push for the kind of bold vision he outlined in July 2020 in his Nelson Mandela Lecture: “Tackling the Inequality Pandemic: A New Social Contract for a New Era”.

The early and quick gestures of the Biden administration rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, funding for UNFPA and COVAX and paying outstanding US arrears to the UN peace-keeping budget are all encouraging signs, he noted.

“The ball is now in Guterres’ —and his senior management team’s– court to harness the potential of the Biden administration’s goodwill to assert UN’s proactive role to help tackle the most pressing global challenges of our times”, said Gautam, author of “Global Citizen from Gulmi: My Journey from the Hills of Nepal to the Halls of the United Nations” (Nepalaya Publications 2018)

Thalif Deen, Senior Editor and Director at the UN Bureau of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, is the author of a newly-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment -– and Don’t Quote Me on That.” Peppered with scores of anecdotes-– from the serious to the hilarious-– the book is available on Amazon worldwide. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

Categories: Africa

WTO Inches Closer To Agreement on Harmful Fishing Subsidies

Mon, 08/02/2021 - 10:55

More than 200 million people depend in some way on small-scale fisheries. Ending harmful fishery subsidies would give industrially overfished stocks an opportunity to bounce back. Credit: Christopher Pala/IPS

By Fermín Koop
BUENOS AIRES, Aug 2 2021 (IPS)

After more than 20 years of negotiations, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has moved a step closer to an agreement on ending harmful fishing subsidies. The deal would set new rules for the global fishing industry and limit government funding that contributes to unsustainable fishing and the depletion of global fish stocks.

In a meeting with government ministers and heads of national delegations, WTO members vowed to finish the negotiations before the WTO’s Twelfth Ministerial Conference (MC12) in late November, and to empower their delegations in Geneva to do so. Members also said the negotiating text currently on the table can be used as the basis to strike a final agreement.

Eliminating all harmful subsidies could help fish populations recover. Specifically, it would result in an increase of 12.5% in global fish biomass by 2050, which translates into nearly 35 million metric tonnes of fish – almost three times Africa’s entire fish consumption in a single year

“It’s been a successful day,” WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told reporters at the close of the meeting. “In 20 years of negotiations, this is the closest we have ever come towards reaching an outcome – a high-quality outcome that would contribute to building a sustainable blue economy. I feel new hope.”

The talks’ chair, Santiago Wills, was also upbeat: “I believe that the answers today have given us the ingredients to reach a successful conclusion. Members now want to move to text-based negotiations. Twenty years has been long enough. If we continue [negotiating] for another 20 years, there won’t be any fish left.”

Negotiators at the WTO had been tasked with eliminating subsidies for illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and prohibiting certain subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing. Talks have been going on since 2001 but differences between governments have hindered progress.

2020 had been set as a deadline to strike an agreement, but talks were delayed due to Covid-19 restrictions and the US presidential elections. A deadline was then set for this July, which was again missed. Now, Okonjo-Iweala, appointed as head of the WTO in March, aims to reach an agreement by year-end in what will be a key test for the organisation’s credibility, with members deadlocked on other fronts.

“In international negotiations of this type only two things are relevant. The nitty-gritty to make sure everybody is on the same page, and the spirit that prevails. If Ngozi and Wills reflected correctly what happened in the meeting, we can say there’s cautious optimism over an agreement,” Remi Parmentier, director of environmental consultancy The Varda Group, told China Dialogue Ocean.

A potential agreement

At the meeting, ministers discussed an eight-page draft agreement, which lists a range of subsidy bans and some conditions for exemptions for poorer countries, all of which are yet to be finalised. While some delegations like the EU were positive, several ministers expressed reservations over the content of the text.

“Clearly, it will lead to capacity constraints for developing countries, while advanced nations will continue to grant subsidies,” Indian trade minister Piyush Goyal said at the meeting, regarding one part of the text. Pakistan described the draft as “regressive and unbalanced,” while the African coalition said “significant gaps” remain.

Countries’ differences were acknowledged by Ngozi and Wills at the meeting. Nevertheless, they remain optimistic and said the issues would be resolved once countries move into text-based negotiations. The agreement on fishing subsidies will require a consensus among all member states, according to WTO rules.

The draft deal essentially proposes three categories of prohibited subsidies; those that support IUU fishing, affect overfished stocks, or lead to overcapacity and overfishing. While this may sound simple, the political, economic and cultural complexities represent real challenges.

One of the main issues has been the demand for developing countries and the poorest nations to receive so-called special and differential treatment. While this is widely accepted for the poorest countries, demands from self-identified developing countries to be exempt from subsidy constraints has proven to be difficult to accept.

Many of the major fishing nations are considered developing countries by the WTO, including China, which has one of the world’s biggest fishing fleets. China’s minister of commerce, Wang Wentao, expressed China’s “support for the conclusion of [fishing subsidies] negotiations before the end of MC12.” Speaking at the meeting on 15 July, Wang stressed that concluding the negotiations would represent a major contribution from the WTO to the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. “As a developing country and a major fishing power, China will take on obligations commensurate with our level of development”.

At the meeting, Wang also introduced China’s emphasis on green development in future policies on fishing subsidies and its “zero-tolerance” policy towards IUU.

Isabel Jarrett, manager of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ project to end harmful fisheries subsidies, told China Dialogue Ocean that an agreement “with too many loopholes” would undermine the WTO’s sustainability goals. The final text has to ensure that governments aren’t allowed to subsidise “irresponsible practices that can hurt fish populations,” she added.

The scale of the problem

Subsidies paid to the global fishing industry amount to around US$35 billion per year (228 billion yuan). Of this, $20 billion is given in forms that enhance the capacity of large fishing fleets, such as fuel subsidies and tax exemption programmes, according to the European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries.

In 2018, the world’s top 10 providers of harmful fisheries subsidies gave out $15.4 billion in total, according to a report by Oceana. The EU, as a bloc, provided $2 billion, ranking third behind China and Japan.

Research by Pew has found that eliminating all harmful subsidies could help fish populations recover. Specifically, it would result in an increase of 12.5% in global fish biomass by 2050, which translates into nearly 35 million metric tonnes of fish – almost three times Africa’s entire fish consumption in a single year.

The need for progress on an agreement has gained new urgency during the last few years, as the world’s fish populations have continued to fall below sustainable levels. Around 60% of assessed stocks are fully exploited and 30% are overexploited, according to the latest figures from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

The termination of harmful subsidies, which is embedded in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), would be seen as key progress on ocean sustainability ahead of this year’s UN biodiversity conference in Kunming, scheduled for October, and the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November.

“This is the year that the agreement has to be delivered. The WTO chief has made positive pronouncements of an agreement this year. There’s light at the end of this 20-year tunnel. The alternative of being in the tunnel shadows is a depressing prospect at the time ocean life is declining,” Peter Thomson, UN special envoy for the ocean, said in a recent webinar.

This article was originally published by China Dialogue

Categories: Africa

When Branded as a Born Criminal: The Plight of India’s De-Notified Tribes

Fri, 07/30/2021 - 17:21

A girl from the Nat community performing – Credit: Department for Social Justice

By Mariya Salim
NEW DELHI, India, Jul 30 2021 (IPS)

Branded as being born ‘criminal’ 150 years ago under British colonial rule, De-Notified Tribes (DNTs) continue to bear the brunt of the various laws that stigmatised them since 1871.

Dakxin Chhara, the award-winning filmmaker and DNT activist, shared how the DNT community in India continues living an abysmal existence because of a centuries-old criminality stigma. Chhara calls his community an “invisible population” owing to their absence from government records, welfare schemes and a complete lack of political will to address their marginalisation.

“Even within a village in India, one can see the clear demarcation of localities based on caste, religion etc. One of the most marginalised, Dalits (former untouchables) also have an area where they stay, but for DNTs, there is no space within this structure,” Chhara said in an exclusive interview with IPS. “They are not considered worthy of being part of the village, and most end up living in jungles, moving from one place to another, isolated and stigmatised.”

In 1871, nearly 150 tribes were notified to be criminals by the ‘Criminal Tribes Act’ passed by the British, meaning, just being born into one of these tribes made one a criminal. The absurdity of the rationale behind this discriminatory law, introduced in 1871 in India, a society largely based on caste and caste-based discrimination, can be seen in the British official’s introduction to the bill. He said: “People from time immemorial have been pursuing the caste system defined job-positions: weaving, carpentry and such were hereditary jobs. So, there must have been hereditary criminals also who pursued their forefathers’ profession.”

Academics say the creation of these criminal tribes was a “colonial stereotype”. It was to justify the British to discipline or control a section of the population who did not fit into the colonial power’s moral order they were trying to enforce on rural society. Among the worst victims were communities like the DNTs, who did not have a sedentary lifestyle. This made it more difficult to demand their subservience.

The Criminal Tribes Act, 1871, was repealed on August 31, 1952, resulting in the former criminal tribes ‘de-notified’ of this discriminatory tag. However, this was only on paper.

As in most groups, the women from these communities bear many layers of marginalisation. Sakila Khatoon from the north Indian state of Bihar belongs to the Nat community. Married off at a very early age, Sakila pursued her education and worked within the development sector on issues concerning her community. Most women she works with, however, have not had that opportunity, she told IPS.

Women from the Nat community face prejudice and stereotypes because of their involvement in sex work, and those who wish to explore other avenues of livelihood are discouraged and not treated with dignity. Sex workers from the community not only face stigmatisation but also are targets of police excesses. Khatoon shared how children of these women are often discouraged from pursuing higher education and are recipients of undignified comments from people who know that their parents are sex workers.

“Encouraging and supporting women from our communities to pursue higher education is the key to their upliftment,” Khatoon says.

Vijay (name changed) from the ‘Pardhi’ community in the state of Madhya Pradesh shared how harassment by police led to many people belonging to his community commit suicide and how the authorities continue to ostracise them. Youth are arbitrarily arrested on mere suspicion because they are seen as habitual offenders.

Over the years, there haven’t been any genuine attempts to address the plight of the DNT communities, and commissions aimed at improving their condition have failed.

Shiney Vashisht, a PhD research scholar at the Jamia Milia Islamia in New Delhi, who worked as a researcher at the National Commission for Denotified, Nomadic and Semi Nomadic tribes, confirms this.

“The National Commissions established and re-established over the years, have done nothing close to substantial for the DNTs except for half-heartedly recommending welfare steps, that are a mere compilation of suggestions from previous commission reports, based on population projections of decades-old data,” Vashisht says.

Based on her engagement with leaders from the community and field research, she argues that these communities deserve a designated commission, having a constitutional status on the lines of National Commissions for Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

The commission should generate a database from a national survey of DNTs. The inquiries should have a strong mandate to recommend DNT specific welfare schemes.

Chhara adds that one of the demands of the DNT community is separate reservations. He gives the example of the state of Maharashtra, where within the OBC quota, there is a separate reservation for DNTs and says that a model similar to this should be applicable throughout the country.

Chhara remembers how as children, his sister eventually gave up going to school after the humiliation of being falsely called a thief in front of the entire class and teacher when a few marble balls went missing.

Years later, little has changed. Chhara had to remove his children from their school after the principal told him that because the school’s trustees belonged to the upper caste, the school had clear instructions of not admitting any children from communities that Chhara came from.

“It is not hard to guess that when something like this can happen to a man like me who has won national and international awards, what would the fate and plight of others belonging to our communities be.”

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Categories: Africa

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