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Trusteeship Council. Credit: UN Photo/CCOI

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 26 2021 (IPS)

As a wisecracking cynic once remarked: “The sun would never set on the British empire because God wouldn’t trust an Englishman in the dark“. Perhaps it was an uncharitable remark because most of the British colonies have long gone.

But when i quoted this witticism to a British journalist, he countered: “I am sure it was told by a Scotsman.“

Since Scotland is not a colony, its demand for independence is not a matter of decolonization, which is virtually dead on the UN’s political agenda.

The United Nations, at its very inception 76 years ago, created a Trusteeship Council, one of its main organs, with a mandate to supervise the administration of trust territories as they transitioned from colonies to sovereign nations.

But as colonialism and trusteeships gradually came to an inglorious end, the Council suspended its activities in 1994, when Palau, the last of the original 11 trust territories, gained its independence.

With the start of the fourth International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism in June 2021, however, the UN’s Special Committee on Decolonization approved draft resolutions reaffirming once again the right of territories to self determination.

But this was confined to peoples of the remaining 14 Non-Self-Governing Territories, including New Caledonia, American Samoa, Tokelau, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, French Polynesia, Guam, Monserrat, Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena, Turks and Caicos, and the US Virgin Islands.

However, it may be a long way off before the administrative powers overseeing these territories would concede independence—if they ever do.

But is there still a need for a Trusteeship Council, which has remained inactive for nearly 27 years?

Interestingly, there is an attempt to revive a longstanding proposal to re-purpose the Trusteeship Council to address issues relating to the environment, climate change and population.

The recent changing weather patterns worldwide– including the devastation caused by forest fires in 13 states in the US and Siberia, heavy rains and severe flooding in central China and Germany, severe droughts in Iran and Madagascar and a drought that has ravaged southern Angola– have once again put the spotlight of climate change which has taken added significance at the United Nations.

Originally designed by Danish architect Finn Juhl in 1952, the Trusteeship Council was revamped in a close collaboration between the UN and the Government of Denmark, with new furniture by Danish designers Kasper Salto and Thomas Sigsgaard. Credit: UN Photo/Andrea Brizzi

Adam Day, Director of Programmes at United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, told IPS there have been proposals for a range of initiatives to address issues related to future existential risks like climate change, and to represent the needs of future generations more directly in the multilateral system.

One such proposal, he said, was to repurpose the Trusteeship Council, which has been inactive for some time, to address issues of the environment and/or future generations.

“This would be a significant move and could require action by the General Assembly, so it remains to be seen whether that will materialize.”

Another idea, he said, is to create an envoy or commissioner tasked with representing future generations. Like the Envoy on Youth, or thematic envoys across the UN, this would be the kind of role that could be created by the Secretary-General without action by the General Assembly.

“I think this is more likely to be taken up. The bigger issue, however, is how this might affect how the broader system works,” said Day.

Will Member States be willing to rethink big concepts underlying economic growth models, potentially moving away from GDP as the sole indicator of success, and offering global wellbeing and sustainability as an equally important indicator?

Will wealthy countries be willing to take seriously the fact that future generations will overwhelmingly be born in lower income countries, which will require major shifts of resources if we are to take their needs seriously?

“Those are the challenges facing the multilateral system, and I’m hopeful that the Secretary-General’s Common Agenda will help to advance this discussion,” declared Day.

But the lingering question remains: is the Trusteeship Council, and its empty chamber, ready to be converted into a special UN political body on climate change, population and the global environment— despite the existence of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA)?

Joseph Chamie, a consulting international demographerand a former director of the United Nations Population Division, told IPS as climate change and the environment are matters of great and urgent concern worldwide, redesigning the UN Trusteeship Council to address those two vital issues is certainly a worthwhile, timely and a necessary undertaking.

Given their intimate relationship, he argued, discussions of climate change/environment should not avoid world population.

He said thousands of scientists worldwide have included among their urgently needed actions the stabilization of world population. While reducing high rates of population growth alone would not resolve climate change and environmental degradation, it clearly plays a critical role in mitigating the many negative consequences.

“In brief, a redesigned UN Trusteeship Council to address climate change and the environment must not leave population out in the cold”, said Chamie, author of numerous publications on population and related issues, including climate change and the environment.

The proposed new UN body on climate change, environment and population should deal with political dimensions given that existing UN agencies are focused on social and economic aspects, he noted.

Without global political decisions on those critical issues, achieving meaningful and effective progress will be unlikely, he cautioned.

Moreover, there’s no time to waste in making those necessary global political decisions to address climate change, environmental degradation and population growth, Chamie declared.

Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said last week that water-related hazards dominated the list of disasters in terms of both the human and economic toll over the past 50 years, triggered by climate change.

Of the top 10 disasters, the hazards that led to the largest human losses during the period have been droughts (with 650,000 deaths), storms (577,232 deaths), floods (58,700 deaths), and extreme temperature (55,736 deaths).

With regard to economic losses, WMO said, the top 10 events include storms and floods. The data shows that over the 50-year period, weather, climate and water hazards accounted for 50 per cent of all disasters, 45 per cent of all reported deaths and 74 per cent of all reported economic losses at the global level.

WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said that “no country – developed or developing – is immune. Climate change is here and now. It is imperative to invest more in climate change adaptation, and one way of doing this is to strengthen multi-hazard early warning systems.

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/

 

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Alex residents queued for hours to buy basic foodstuff after shops were looted. The unrest has caused a humanitarian crisis, as has not been seen since the dawn of democracy in South Africa. Credit: Dan Ingham

By Kevin Humphrey
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, Jul 23 2021 (IPS)

Twenty-seven years after South Africa’s first democratic elections, the country finds itself reflecting on the catalysts of a week of looting and destruction of property resulting in more than 200 deaths and US$ 1.3 billion in damage.

President Cyril Ramaphosa described the week-long riots earlier this month as a failed insurrection.

Immediately before the violence, former President Jacob Zuma had handed himself over to prison authorities to begin serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of court for refusing to appear before the State Capture Commission. The commission is investigating widespread corruption in the country.

While there is an apparent link between the jailing of the former president and the looting – most analysts agree that several factors led to what has been described as a perfect storm. Of these many explanations, analysts have highlighted this is a country left ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic, which contributed to an increase in unemployment, endemic poverty that has persisted since 1994, the ruling African National Congress’ (ANC) inability to unite its factions and entrenched racial and ethnic divides.

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has planned hearings on the matter. It says it considers the “events which led up to violent incidents in different provinces, along with the resultant consequences, are complex and multifaceted.”

The SAHRC also stated that it had noted tensions that have erupted within and between particular communities – from Phoenix in Durban, KwaZulu Natal, where communities took up arms against looters, to Alexandra, popularly known as Alex, in Johannesburg, Gauteng.

Alex is an area where tensions and dissatisfaction go back for many years. The area, which has been inhabited since before the infamous 1913 Land Act, which removed land ownership from all black people in the country, was a major site of resistance during apartheid. Its post-apartheid history has been one of many unfulfilled promises, botched service delivery and allegedly corrupt practices in the Alexandra Renewal Project.

Writing for GroundUp, Masego Mafata says activists in Alex say nothing has changed after a protest in the area in 2019.

“As Alexandra is seized by mass looting and protests this week, a report from the Public Protector and the SAHRC following the devastating 2019 protests has revealed persistent failures by the City of Johannesburg and the Gauteng Provincial government. While the recent protests are reportedly linked to the incarceration of former president Jacob Zuma, the joint report suggests that Alexandra’s community is a tinderbox for public unrest.”

Economic hardships and income inequalities, exacerbated by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, are seen as a leading cause of dissatisfaction around the country.

In the recently published International Journal for Equity in Health, Chijioke O Nwosu and Adeola Oyenubi say, “nationwide lockdowns have resulted in income loss for individuals and firms, with vulnerable populations (low earners, those in informal and precarious employment, etc.) more likely to be adversely affected.”

The Congress of South African Trade Unions’ spokesperson Sizwe Pamla also pointed to multiple reasons for the rioting and looting.

“While the current events were triggered by political restlessness and frustration following the arrest of Former President Jacob Zuma, it is clear now that criminal elements have opportunistically hijacked this issue and are using it to loot,” says Pamla.

“This is also a reminder that the problem of unemployment and poverty is real in South Africa. COSATU has been arguing for a long-time that unemployment is a ticking time bomb that will explode in the face of policymakers and decision-makers.”

For individuals like Georgio da Silva, the owner of a car repair workshop in Jeppestown, Johannesburg, xenophobia also appears strongly in the mix of contributing factors. He and others in the area have experience in defending themselves and their businesses against xenophobic attacks.

Georgio da Silva, a car repair shop owner, saved his business in an area vulnerable to xenophobic attacks.

Immediately after Zuma reported to Estcourt prison and violent attacks began, Da Silva told IPS he managed to shut down his workshop but had their property damaged. Later he realised that xenophobia was only one of the motivating factors.

It is imperative that the complex mix of factors contributing to this ‘perfect storm’ of anarchy and insurrection be examined to prevent future occurrences – the political tensions within the ruling party also have to be factored in.

The bitter factional battle going on within the ANC resulted in Ramaphosa’s display of weak leadership. Barely having recovered from a week of violence, South Africans were left confused as even members of his cabinet could not agree on the unrest’s cause.

Police Minister Bheki Cele says he did not get intelligence reports regarding the unrest from the State Security Agency’s Minister Ayanda Dlodlo, which she disputes.

Defence and Military Veterans Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula contradicted Ramaphosa by saying the unrest was not part of a failed insurrection. She had since backtracked from this statement.

Political analyst, author, director of research at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection and emeritus professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, Susan Booysen, told IPS the “signature of factionalism in the ANC is printed all over the recent unrest in the country. While not being completely a root cause of the unrest, factionalism can be seen as the basic trigger that, once pulled, set the series of events in motion. Clearly, a faction of the ruling party was prepared to take part in instigating this kind of behaviour as a way of ‘getting its own back’ in the over politicised atmosphere that currently holds sway in the country.”

Professor Steven Friedman, Research Professor at the Faculty of Humanities, Politics Department at the University of Johannesburg says his “reading of the violence is that factional politics was important but not necessarily in the obvious way.”

While the violence was caused in reaction to the jailing of Zuma, which gave it a factional slant, he doubted the ferocity of violence in KZN  if it had simply been about supporting him as head of an ANC faction.

“My view is that people in political and economic networks, which are part of the faction which supports Zuma became convinced that the balance of power had shifted and that their networks were now in danger of being closed down. This would have ended their political and economic influence, and so they reacted by triggering the violence to protect their networks,” Friedman says.

What needs doing in the wake of this catastrophe is that South Africa deals with the glaring issues that have made this situation possible. These include appalling economic inequalities and a society racked with endemic violence that is the legacy of apartheid and colonialism. The country has democratic foundations, including a widely-lauded Constitution necessary to build a better society.

South Africans do have the capacity to face these challenges and build a country that delivers on its full potential as a thriving nation where there are equal opportunities for all.

–        Kevin Humphrey was an activist during the anti-apartheid struggle and is a freelance writer and editor.

 

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As Nepal faces breaking point amidst its worst COVID-19 outbreak, the United Nations and its partners launched in May 2021 the Nepal Covid-19 Response Plan calling for US$ 83.7 million to mobilize an emergency response over the next three months to assist 750,000 of the most vulnerable people affected by the pandemic. The plan was endorsed by the Nepal Humanitarian Country Team and the Government of Nepal’s COVID-19 Crisis Management Centre and lays out critical areas of support required to complement the Government of Nepal’s response efforts. Credit: World Health Organization (WHO)

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Jul 23 2021 (IPS)

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to reinstall the House of Representatives and appoint– after a prolonged and nasty legal battle– a new Prime Minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, there is high probability that a government of national unity will be put together in Nepal.

After months of uncertainty and utter disregard of the rule of law by former Prime Minister Sharma Oli, whose attempts to remain in power at any costs has severely impacted the country’s response to a more lethal 2nd wave of Covid 19, the new government has the work cut out.

Not only it needs to do whatever it takes to avoid another and much more brutal outbreak but also it must take the responsibility to reboot the entire health system before the next general election.

Though predictability and certainty are not yet common features of this still young democracy that just few years ago undertook an ambitious path towards federalism, if everything will go smooth, the country will still have to wait one and half year before the next vote.

It is enough time for an experienced though not necessarily effective politician like Deuba that he is embarking on his 5th and possibly last term as Prime Minister, to be ambitious and lay the foundations for the establishment of real national public health system.

Certainly, it is going to be a daunting task especially in a country in which the private sector was enable, in the past two decades, to take advantage and exploit a weak regulatory system to its own advantages.

During the 2nd wave there have been multiple cases of private hospitals extracting exorbitant fees from family members of patients affected by Covid.

No matter several tokenistic attempts at regulating the health care costs during the crisis and far from a real crack down of such practices, it wasn’t unsurprising that the Ministry of Health and Population’s perception of a toothless institution was greatly magnified during this second wave.

It did not help that the first doses of vaccines sent by India months ago were distributed with too loose criteria or with no criteria at all.

For example, banks’ workers and many other representatives of the private industries, including those in the tourism sector, the latter mostly unemployed since the first outbreak last year, were included in the list of essential workers deemed as priority.

I am wondering why not then ensuring in such list also streets vendors or small shop keepers from whom the vast majority of Nepalis still buy their daily groceries or why not simply prioritizing only the elders, many of which had to wait for months and months before receiving the 2nd dose?

It is clear that despite certain proven level of expertise, the Ministry of Health and Population could not prevail in the tough process of decision-making regarding vaccine distribution that was centralized by Oli and his advisors, with their quest of power at any costs and with any means topping any public health’s concerns.

Poor governance and disregard of constitution so predominant with the Oli’s administration costed the lives of thousands of people. Deuba does not need to start from scratch.

First of all, while this scriber is writing, it is certainly positive that the new Prime Minister is inaugurating a new vaccination program.

Provided that several pledges of new vaccines will materialize into real inoculations on the ground in few weeks from now, listening to the experts and ensure that scientific evidence prevails over politicking, will be essential.

The scary truth is that, with every aspect of the lockdown being lifted, the second wave did not really die off yet and it soon could metastasize in a much more dangerous contagion.

The infections are increasing day by day and as per yesterday only in the Kathmandu Valley there were almost 500 cases a day, a figure that might be indicative of a worse scenario soon to come. Getting this right and finally prioritize this emergency is going to be essential.

This means finding an agreement, albeit a temporary one, with the private hospitals that must adhere to common national standards in the provision of Covid 19 related care.

The urgency to avoid a third wave might bring some common sense among the private operators that must drastically reduce the cost of their services for all those Covid patients.

Such agreement could become a template for future and much tougher negotiations that would lead to the establishment of a truly cooperative approach where private operators should become an essential though complementary pillar of a national health system.

Similarly, to what happened for the Covid 19, existing regulations on whatever is legit to be charged on the public for any type of health service is not only scarcely regulated but even less enforced.

Linked to this issue is that any new budget provisions should drastically scale up the national health insurance program that has been implemented so far only through a too timid phase in manner that created a spotty map of the places where such service is accessible.

Ask any citizens of the country and there will be high probability that they never ever heard of such provision.

The insurance not only needs to be accessible everywhere in an easy and predictable fashion but also the max coverage allowed should be increased.

As per now with a contribution of 3500 NRS (around $ 30 US), a family of five can be reimbursed up to 100,000 NRS a year, around $ 830 US a year).

This is not barely enough to cover the real expenses of any major operation even in public hospitals which keep charging the public even if they are much more accessible (or just simply less costly) than their private counterparts.

The legal framework is centered on the Health Insurance Act that was approved in 2017 but what is needed is not only a big push towards its implementation.

There is also a need of an amendment for making it on the one hand more inclusive and on the other, mandatory rather than just voluntary in nature like per the current provisions.

Last but not the least, Oli, in one of his “grandeur” decisions, had declared the creation of 396 new public hospitals.

In the budget that was presented by his former Finance Minister just at the end of May, whose destiny is now totally uncertain with a new government in place, there were provisions for this herculean program whose implementation, provided that the resources will be available, risks to be marred by corruption and rent seeking.

Realizing these hospitals, in cooperation and partnership with the provinces and municipalities who are in charge now of public health, would truly provide a big breakthrough to enable the creation of a real national public health system.

Certainly, Deuba and the coalition of parties that will prop him up in the months ahead, including his Nepal Congress, are much keener than Oli towards the implementation of a truly federal state, a very complex undertaking that would never work out without the full support of parties in power in Kathmandu.

With so much at stake, Deuba would better ensure his legacy by effectively starving off a third Covid 19 wave and by building the columns of a more equitable, just public health system in Nepal.

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

 

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By External Source
New Caledonia, Jul 22 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Abundant with diverse coral and fish species, the South-West Pacific reefs play a critical role in the marine ecosystems and economies of Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs). While there is no question that climate change is affecting coral, the level and type of impact is not uniform. To help us better understand why these differences exist, a team of marine scientists from New Caledonia set off on a scientific mission to sample coral species around the mainland of this Pacific Island nation.

It is no surprise that coral reefs are often called the rainforests of the ocean. While covering less than 0.2 % of the ocean floor, Scleractinian corals (hard corals) are essential for the sustainability of up to one third of all marine wildlife. They are a magnet for fisheries and tourism as well as a key resource for Pacific Island people.

When the monthly mean sea surface temperature rises about 1°C above normal for an extended period, coral bleaching occurs leading to starvation and even the death of the coral. Restoring coral reefs by planting fragments of corals onto the reefs is a solution, but the transplanted corals still face the same threats.

However, some corals in certain areas appear to have developed mechanisms to cope with increases in temperature. Today scientists around the globe are examining the genomes of these corals to learn how they have adapted. Coral reef research is attempting to find the molecular markers which indicate which corals are resistant and which are sensitive to heat stress. Such resistance markers will pave the way for selective replanting in areas of coral destruction and could provide new tools for conservation and management actions.

The New Caledonian lagoon, the largest of the world, harbours various environmental conditions, especially with regard to the water temperature. Scientists have taken advantage of this unique ecosystem to identify genetic markers associated with thermal tolerance in corals.

In June 2021, a team of scientists from the Institute of Research for Development (IRD), the French National Centre for Scientific research (CNRS) and the Pacific Community (SPC) embarked on a ten-day research cruise on the Alis vessel* around the New Caledonia mainland (Grande Terre) to identify and sample three coral species at ten sites for various morphological and life traits – Acropora digitifera, Tubastrea coccinea, massive Porites species.

“We had carefully described the environmental conditions prior to this trip through analysis of remote sensing data, measuring variables such as sea surface temperature, salinity, chlorophyl, and current to select the most contrasted sites especially with regard to coral bleaching alert frequencies,” said Dr Véronique Berteaux-Lecellier, the project’s lead investigator at CNRS. “Through coral DNA sequencing and analysis at each site, we hope to uncover coral heat resistance molecular markers to understand if and how they have adapted to local conditions.”

Although the ways in which cells respond to heat-stress have been well-studied, what triggers these responses is not so well-understood. By mapping the genetic characteristics of the coral against the environmental conditions in which they grow, we can start to shed some light on what enables them to be relatively resistant to heat stress.

“This collaborative cruise is definitely boosting our work at SPC and is really promising for marine conservation,” said Pauline Bosserelle, the SPC scientist participating in this research cruise.

The next steps include measuring the range of temperatures these corals with adapted genotypes will tolerate in comparison to the non-adapted coral colonies, and compare that information with projections of sea temperature changes in the coming years. “These adapted colonies could be used to reseed areas which have already been depleted,” Dr Berteaux-Lecellier explained, “regenerating the dependent ecosystems and revitalising the reefs.”

If successful, the information from New Caledonia reefs will provide new coral preservation tools, not only for this Pacific Island, but for coral reef protection efforts around the world.

* Flotte Océanographique Française. ReefAdapt mission.

Source: The Pacific Community (SPC)

Schools in India are not just a source of education but also provide access to health, hygiene, immunisation, and nutritional safety nets. | Picture courtesy: Flickr

By External Source
Jul 22 2021 (IPS)

“The government should open schools, even if it’s for an hour, to facilitate some student-teacher interaction. Most teachers feel that students should be encouraged to come to school.

Neither parents, students, nor teachers are worried about transmission as little has changed in the community habits such as social gatherings, shared resources, intermingling of children, and drinking, among others.

Only schools have closed. What a child can learn by coming to school for two hours a week will be much more than what they learn from online videos, six days a week,” says Deepa Khare*, a pre-primary teacher from a government school in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.

With schools shut, she adds, “We call students from our own numbers and sometimes we receive calls back at odd hours. On top of that, we are expected to distribute ration, uniforms, and teaching assignments in communities. We are doing everything, except teaching.”

Schools in India are not just a source of education but also provide access to health, hygiene, immunisation, and nutritional safety nets. India’s Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDM), one of the largest school feeding programmes in the world, has been widely studied for its positive associations with an increase in attendance, decreased rates of malnutrition, and prevention of stunted growth across generations

With COVID-19 restrictions being lifted across the country, it is promising to see the centre and states focus on the way forward for reopening schools. Many states are planning to reopen schools for Grades 8-12 after a 15-month lockdown—which affected more than 260 million students in India.

While it is important to resume classes for secondary and senior secondary graders, we cannot overlook primary school students, who are at a higher risk of impaired socio-emotional learning and nutritional loss due to school closures.

There is plenty of evidence on how prolonged school closures can result in learning loss, impact mental health, and increase the risk of child labour, early marriage, and nutritional loss for children.

The learning loss has been widely discussed and acknowledged. However, primary school students are likely to face larger risks, such as lack of socio-emotional development and nutritional loss, if schools continue to remain shut.

 

Missing out on socio-emotional development

“My daughter, who is in Grade 2 now, has never met any of her classmates physically since she joined school in April 2020. She has online classes for three hours every day, where she can’t really interact with any of her other classmates.

And so, some of us (parents) have created a WhatsApp group to set up a 30-minute Zoom session for them to interact every evening,” says Asif Hassan* about his elder child, who is seven years old.

His younger child, who is three years old, has formally ‘joined’ pre-school this year. Arif is anxious about how the lack of interaction will impact the socio-emotional learning of his children, given that early childhood learning is critical for overall development. He says, “If the school vaccinates all the teachers and staff, I would be open to sending my children to school.”

What is a child’s first memory of school? More often than not, it is about peers and teachers, who constitute our definition of school—even before academic learning kicks in. Can you imagine school life without reminiscing about your peers and teachers?

These early memories of school play an important role in shaping our socio-emotional learning, which is a process for young children and adults to develop their emotions and identities. And schools are one of the first ecosystems to provide community and authentic relationships with peers and teachers This has a direct bearing on the stress and anxiety levels of children.

Globally, public health experts have stressed that lockdowns have put one in seven students at risk of poor mental health. With primary caregivers of children—both parents and teachers—currently juggling health and economic shocks, children’s needs are being put on the backburner.

Preliminary findings from a survey by ChildFund India across 10 states showed that 78 percent of children were feeling sad and eight percent were feeling anxious because they were not able to meet friends and teachers, access or/and understand online learning sessions, and because they were missing active face-to-face learning.

India’s National Education Policy 2020 also stressed the importance of socio-emotional learning for the holistic development of children. The closure of institutions during the pandemic has resulted in learning gaps, no in-person interactions, and loss of routines for children, which leaves them vulnerable to poor mental health.

 

Risking children’s health due to a lack of nutrition

“I was stuck in Bihar due to a lockdown for six months during COVID-19. When I came back to Delhi and went to take ration as a part of the midday meal for students, they told me that my children’s names had been removed as we were away for 6 months.

We didn’t stay there by choice. In the last 1.5 years, my children haven’t studied anything and I cannot afford tuition,” says Puja Devi*, a domestic worker and parent of two primary school children in Delhi.

Schools in India are not just a source of education but also provide access to health, hygiene, immunisation, and nutritional safety nets. India’s Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDM), one of the largest school feeding programmes in the world, has been widely studied for its positive associations with an increase in attendance, decreased rates of malnutrition, and prevention of stunted growth across generations.

The scheme mandates government schools to provide one cooked meal per day to their students. It is estimated that 115.9 million children in India benefit from midday meals. Schools and anganwadi centres are primarily responsible for the delivery of these hot, cooked, nutrition-rich meals.

As the pandemic led to the closure of schools and anganwadi centres in March 2020, the Supreme Court of India directed states and union territories to disburse midday meals to students in the form of take-home rations, dry rations, or cash transfers. However, the supply and implementation of this have been inadequate.

According to an Oxfam report, 35 percent of children did not receive midday meals in 2020, despite government orders. While closing schools has potentially protected children from COVID-19, it has certainly resulted in a loss of nutrition for children in India.

Here are some facts to be considered while accounting for the health risks for students, resulting from school closures:

• UNICEF estimates a 10-20 percent increase in malnutrition in India, due to COVID-19.
• A survey conducted across 12 states following the nation-wide lockdown found that 83 percent urban and 73 percent rural households were consuming less food than before.
• Poor nutrition in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life can lead to stunted growth; India is home to 46.6 million stunted children.

It is predicted that India will not meet its target of reducing undernutrition and low birth weight by two percent by 2022, under the POSHAN Abhiyaan. The continued school closures will further lead to increased malnutrition in India.

Despite the central government’s efforts to increase the per-child cooking cost and the budget of nutrition-related programmes, the closure of schools—which are responsible for the delivery of hot cooked meals—is disrupting service delivery. Hence, it is important to consider the benefits of reopening schools for primary graders, in relation to the possible health risk caused by nutritional loss.

 

Things to remember when reopening schools

With 141 countries opening schools for some kind of in-person engagement, evidence from reopened schools shows a low risk of transmission—especially among primary and pre-primary students.

Countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy appear to be taking into account the emerging evidence that schools have not been major centres of transmission of the virus, especially for young children. On July 20, 2021, the Indian Council of Medical Research also suggested that primary schools be reopened first, as children can handle viral infections better than adults.

As we look at the possibility of reopening schools in the wake of decreasing COVID-19 cases, it is crucial to prioritise the opening of schools for primary classes (Grades 1-7). This must be done to mitigate the impact of impaired nutrition and to promote cognitive growth. Here are some things we need to prioritise, in the context of reopening schools:

• For India, the midday meal programme must be reactivated in the form of cooked meals. These must be distributed to students in school, with schools taking an ‘eat and play’ approach for the first three months. This would mean focusing on feeding students hot, cooked, nutritious meals and enabling them to play and interact with each other. Opening school playgrounds and/or large halls for 2-3 hours on alternate days to do would help children ease back into schools after a 15-month gap.
• Instead of providing an INR 100 cash transfer to each child’s family under the midday meal scheme, the calorie intake under MDM must be increased for the next 6 months with the addition of more fruits, milk, and vegetables. This is important in order to compensate for nutritional deficiencies and losses incurred due to missed meals in the pandemic, and to account for those vulnerable to stunted growth.
• Teachers must be vaccinated on priority to ensure minimal risk of transmission. Those who have not received a single dose must be prioritised. Partially vaccinated teachers should be given the second dose with a 4-6-week gap—replicating the priority model followed for Indian students going to foreign universities.

UNESCO has issued a framework for reopening schools with a strategic plan and measures such as masking, social distancing, ventilation, health, and academic assessment. The World Food Programme has also released guidelines on how to activate midday meal programmes while reopening schools.

While designing standard operating procedures for the reopening of schools, the state and central governments can refer to these guidelines and adapt them to the Indian context, in order to ensure that all safety protocols are followed.

While most Indian states are focusing on reopening schools for Grades 8-12, primary schools must also be reopened in a staggered manner. While the pandemic was not foreseen, the loss of socio-emotional learning and increasing malnutrition due to school closures could be a human-induced health epidemic, if not acted upon quickly.

*Names changed to maintain confidentiality.

 

Achalika Ahuja works with Indus Action, a policy implementation organisation that works to bridge the gap between law and action. Her area of interest lies in engaging with adolescent girls and women to apply community-based learnings for policy-level solutions. In the long term, she is interested in working towards social justice for underrepresented communities.

Mayurdhar Devolla is the lead of operations at Indus Action, a policy implementation organisation that works to bridge the gap between law and action. He works closely with the state teams at Indus Action and enjoys working with the government. His long-term focus is on building solutions for a positive social impact in education, sanitation, sports, and the environment.

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

Rwanda has introduced mobile dryer machines as part of an innovative solution to reduce post-harvest losses of food Credit: Aimable Twahirwa

By Aimable Twahirwa
KIGALI, Rwanda, Jul 22 2021 (IPS)

Rwanda is trying to reduce post-harvest loss by relying on new technologies to increase the amount of food available for consumption and help smallholder farmers confront some challenges caused by the overproduction of staple crops.

For over 20 years, Cyriaque Sembagare, a maize grower from Kinigi, a mountainous village in Northern Rwanda, had survived on farming to feed his extended family but struggled with the loss of a significant portion of his harvest to rot. High levels of aflatoxin prevent farmers in remote rural Rwanda from selling maize to high-value buyers.

“I have been selling maize on the market, but I was given a low price because of the harvests highly perishable nature,” the 56-year-old farmer told IPS in an interview.

Post-harvest losses are high in Rwanda, with smallholder farmers losing an average of 27.5 percent of their production annually.

A comparison with the global and African scenarios indicates that Rwanda does well on preventing food loss and wastage (72.5 percent). The country is slightly lagging on average in sustainable agriculture (71 percent). It is among the lowest performers while tackling nutritional challenges (71.2 percent), according to the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) sustainability index.

To boost resilience and reduce post-harvest losses, the government and different development partners have supported thousands of farmers facing several barriers, ranging from a lack of knowledge to poor market access.

The initiatives include innovative solutions in post-harvest handling to improve food security in this East African country. The country is ranked 59th among 67 countries on the latest Food Sustainability Index (FSI), developed by The Economist Intelligence Unit with BCFN.

While Rwanda is ranked on top among nine low-income countries, especially in Sub-Saharan African, the country is lagging in addressing food waste.

FSI research by the Economist Intelligence Unit, based on data from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), indicates that in terms of annual food waste per head, Mozambique comes on top of African countries with 1.2kg, followed by Rwanda (1kg).

This high level of waste has prompted the government and partners to promote modern technologies to tackle post-harvest losses, including two types of dryer machines: Mobile grain dryer machines and Cob Dryer machines that tested successfully on maize, rice and soybean.

“The aim was to reduce the risk of crop degradation or contamination by different fungi which occurred when dried naturally and affects the availability of food,” Illuminée Kamaraba, the Division Manager in Post-Harvest Management and Biotechnology at Rwanda Agriculture Board, told IPS.

During the implementation phase, Rwandan researchers had embarked on testing Cob dryer machines on other crops like Roselle (Hibiscus). Some 400kg were dried before samples were taken to the laboratory to verify if the nutrients remained intact. This method focuses on limiting the harvests’ exposure to aflatoxin.

Before expanding the technology countrywide, a study to measure the impact of these innovations, especially the use of dryer machines, is planned for testing this year.

“The new technologies are complementary with some traditional methods for food preservation,” Kamaraba said.

Currently, Rwanda has acquired ten mobile dryer machines for the pilot phase to process 57 to 84 tons of well-dried and cooled cereals per day.

The mobile grain dryers mostly use electricity but could be connected to tractors to run on its diesel-powered burner where there is no electricity supply system.

For the cob dryer machine, its burner and fan depend on the supply of three-phase electricity and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) gas, while the cob container (the wagon) is a tractor-drawn vehicle.

According to official projections, the new technology, promoted through private and public partnerships (PPP), aims to help Rwanda achieve 5 percent of post-harvest losses by 2024 – down from the current 22 percent for cereals and 11 percent for beans.

Jean de Dieu Umutoni, one of the experts from Feed the Future Rwanda, Hinga Weze, a non-government organisation working to increase the resilience of agriculture and food systems to the ever-changing climate in Rwanda, told IPS that the idea behind this innovation was to increase access to post-harvest equipment and solutions

“This has been conducted through different channels such as grants, especially for smallholders’ farmers,” he said.

Both Umutoni and Kamaraba are convinced that for Rwanda to implement the public-private partnerships to reduce post-harvest losses, gaps in knowledge of smallholder farmers, especially in remote rural areas, need to be filled.

So far, Hinga Weze and Rwanda Agricultural Board (RAB) have worked together in developing some guidelines that allow the private sector to use the new technologies. Experts say, however, that the biggest challenge for farmers is that they lack information on how to access suppliers. In contrast, the suppliers lack information on the growers that need the equipment.

Umutoni says that while public-private partnerships could introduce good practices, the government needs to support the technological innovations for them to be scaled up.

“There is a good start with on use of mobile dryers to address food waste reduction, but the private sector needs to be engaged in other crop value chains,” Umutoni told IPS.

While it is the task of the government to initiate solutions, experts argue that the private sector has a role to play in ensuring the technology is sustainable.

One such example is Hinga Weze’s ‘Cob Model’. This project has enabled a private sector operator to assist farmers by using the first sizeable mobile drying machine in Rwanda. It has a capacity for drying 35 metric tons within three hours or about 100 tons per day. The NGO developed guidelines with the Rwandan government for the machine’s use.

Already, there is some indication that these technologies will be successful.

Farmers, like Sembagare, are satisfied.

“Thanks to the adoption of smart post-harvest technologies, I was able to save half the crop that would otherwise have been lost,” Sembagare told IPS.

Flood damage in Hagen, Germany. Credit: Bärwinkel,Klaus, Creative Commons.

By External Source
Jul 22 2021 (IPS)

Almost 200 people dead and many others still missing. Billions of euros’ worth of damage. Communities devastated. Thousands of homes destroyed and their occupants traumatised.

I am a flood forecaster who helped to set up the forecasting system that was used to predict the recent floods in Germany and surrounding countries. I saw days in advance that they were coming. I read reports of rainfall and river levels rising. And then I watched with growing horror as the death toll surged.

The European Flood Awareness System (EFAS), which I helped to set up, is part of the EU’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service. It provides early information on flooding to national and local authorities across Europe. I work closely with people there in my role as an independent flood scientist at the University of Reading to improve and analyse EFAS data. I don’t work in the team that issues early flood information to authorities, but looking at the data with colleagues, I could see early on just how serious the floods looked.

What is the use of a perfect forecast if the people it is supposed to warn cannot see the danger they are in? Effective flood warnings require people to be able to see into the future and imagine their house full of water, to assess the likelihood of that happening, and to see the multiple paths they could take to keep them, their family, and their property safe.

Forecasts on Friday July 9 and Saturday 10 for the Rhine catchment, covering Germany and Switzerland, had shown a high probability of flooding that would begin on Tuesday July 13. Subsequent forecasts also showed the Meuse in Belgium would be affected. The forecasts in the following days showed that there was little doubt that a major flood was coming.

EFAS sends out bulletins of early information which are designed to be read, understood and acted on by experts. They are not directly available to the public. Public flood warnings come from the national and regional weather, environment and civil protection agencies, and EFAS information needs to be used by these authorities alongside their own forecasts.

The first EFAS bulletin was sent to the relevant national authorities on Saturday July 10. More updates continued over the following days as more precise predictions became available. Formal flood notifications were issued to authorities in Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland and Luxembourg, as well as the Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) of the European Commission throughout Monday and Tuesday.

As the event neared and uncertainty in the forecast shrank, the predicted start of the flooding was pushed to Wednesday for smaller rivers and Thursday for the larger downstream rivers. Around 25 individual warnings were sent out to parts of the Rhine and Meuse.

 The German weather service, DWD, had independently forecast extremely high rainfall too and issued warnings for more than 200 mm of rain in the same areas several days ahead of time, saying that flooding was possible. Regional warnings were also issued, for example by the Environment Agency in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, one of the areas hit particularly hard by flooding.

The floods that did happen matched the scale and distribution of those that were forecast several days before. I was very surprised, therefore, that so many people died, given that authorities knew about the event and had sufficient warnings to get people to safety before the floods began.

 

Where flood warnings fail

Clearly, tragically, the whole system designed to save lives by ensuring people act on warnings before floods arrive, did not work as it should have done. It may be that individual parts of the system worked exactly as they were designed, and it is certainly true that forecasts were accurate, and there were some warnings issued through official channels. In some areas, many authorities did act in time, to evacuate people, erect temporary flood defences, and move vehicles to higher ground. But this clearly did not happen everywhere.

In the middle of an election campaign, some German leaders in national and regional government still seemed to defend the locally-devolved nature of disaster management in Germany, insisting that the warnings were adequate and agencies did their work well. It is like claiming that the maiden voyage of the Titanic was a success because 99% of its engineering worked perfectly throughout. While their arguments may be true on an individual scale, unless those in power admit that the system ultimately failed, they risk failing to learn lessons and put others at risk in the future.

Science, in large part, is about helping people see the invisible. What is the use of a perfect forecast if the people it is supposed to warn cannot see the danger they are in? Effective flood warnings require people to be able to see into the future and imagine their house full of water, to assess the likelihood of that happening, and to see the multiple paths they could take to keep them, their family, and their property safe.

I recently took part in an exercise encouraging scientists, from senior professors to school pupils, to trace the path of water in a river through time using just their imagination. Weeks later, we are seeing what happens when people cannot visualise the threat of a river ripping down their street, or a lake appearing in their house. These are the elements of flood warnings that must improve.

As climate change increases risks from heatwaves, fires and floods, we need to not only slash emissions but prepare ourselves for the problems we already have in store. Even with sufficient decarbonisation measures – which we are still yet to see from any major government – there is no avoiding the consequences of a hotter, more turbulent environment.

Hannah Cloke, Professor of Hydrology, University of Reading

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

Religious leaders. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Jul 22 2021 (IPS)

The UN High Level Political Forum (HLPF) came to a conclusion on July 15th. Another HLPF, another series of declaration, and commitments and concerns articulated by governments.

All of which are besieged by the combined pandemics of institutional and systemic failures, increasing violence, global warming which has already led to the deaths of species and humans, and of course, Covid-19 and the utter shame of only the rich getting vaccinated.

And the results of this High Level Political Forum?

Not the dramatic changes that our planetary existence cries for. Not even the radical introspection about each of the governance and civic responsibilities attested to by various human rights and humanitarian catastrophes in almost every corner of the world. In fact, the HLPF, like so many other summits and consultations between and among governments, has ended with more of the same.

But who am I to challenge or hold accountable? What have I done to try to make an iota of difference?

I ask myself that as a human being, as a citizen, as a woman, as a person of faith, as many other things. But most importantly, as the person elected to serve the world’s largest multi-faith leadership and grassroots organization. I ask as a person who has devoted over 30 years of studying and working in and on the intersections of religion with international development, democratization, governance and human rights.

Remember when good governance and democratization were such buzz words? Remember when human rights was not just what the United States tried to claim was critical to its foreign policy, while it was aiding and abetting the same regimes and groups that abused them liberally, and fighting for the triumph of liberalism against communism (which was not supposed to care much for any of those ideals)?

Remember when NGOs sprouted left, right and center, ostensibly committed to realizing good governance, human rights and the attainment of democracy, so that proposals to international development and foreign policy donor entities were replete with “building” and “strengthening civil society”?

And remember the days when “truth and reconciliation” were what the South African bloodless transition from apartheid to democracy, represented (as opposed to the painful turmoil we see in the same country and in most countries around the world)?

Remember those days?

Can we claim, with a straight face – let alone with any data to back this up – that we now have a world where human rights, democracy and good governance reign supreme – or even reign at all in most parts of the world?

If we can claim that, the entire Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) before them, and countless Treatise, Conventions, Agreements, Resolutions, not to mention NGOs, academic centers and disciplines, policy think tanks, evidence gatherers and reams of research, etc., might have been a bit unnecessary – to say the least?

Unless of course, we would maintain that democracy and good governance were not meant to ensure a world where every single form of inequality and inequity, where war and violence, where epidemics and a pandemic – run rampant?

Over the last decade in particular, we started to hear more about the importance of religion, engaging with religious leaders, and the value-added of faith-based work and organisations in terms of community reach, moral standing, trust building, conflict mediation and peacemaking, social service provision (such as healthcare, education, nutrition), and humanitarian relief.

Since the pandemic we are now hearing how houses of worship, and the large public health infrastructure, are so critical to the Covid response, and to vaccine uptake (or lack thereof). Multiple global, regional and national initiatives, in and around the United Nations, regional intergovernmental organizations and bodies, governments, networks, projects, academic degrees, and NGOs, are now sprouting in all corners of the world, all professing to do with religion or faith or interfaith.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, democracy, good governance and human rights almost became a commercial business, with donors competing to fund initiatives and to create their own.

Recipient NGOs and projects – some of them developing in record time with support from governments with a dubious record of democracy and respect for human rights – competed to seek funding from governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental sources.

Millions of dollars were given, and spent. Duplication of efforts – with each claiming to be unique – became the norm. A new global NGO elite emerged, who grew used to meeting each other in different conferences in different locations, racking up airline miles as they globe trotted from one end of the world to the other, offering their wisdom, sharing their ‘lessons learned’, showcasing their initiatives and their respective ‘approaches’ as well as their ideologies.

Members of this democracy and human rights’ community lamented the lack of political will to recognize their unique and necessary value-added, the increasing normalcy of abuse of democracy, the lack of ‘proper’ policies leading to a furthering of authoritarianism and intra-state conflicts, and usually passionately decrying the lack of resources to help their work.

Some of these civil society initiatives competed viciously, sometimes beneath a thin veneer of collaboration and partnership, and even actively undermined one another. Some of these actors compiled and decried human rights abuses in regimes and countries, when they themselves struggled with similar abuses in their own organisations, institutions and networks.

Many demanded accountability, when they themselves were among the least accountable. Few, if any, gave of their own resources to support one another’s initiatives, even when they worked for the same purposes, in the same communities, with the same people. It was each to – usually – his own.

The need for the visibility of the respective organisation or network or initiative, became more important and defining, than the absolute necessity of the collective struggle for democracy and human rights.

Does it sound familiar? It should.

Because faith-based and faith inspired actors, or religion, in various guises, is en vogue today, in the same way that democracy, good governance and human rights, were in the 1990s. And what is happening in the realms of religion, religious engagement, faith-based activity (whatever the nomenclature is), is eerily similar to the above scenarios.

And the catastrophe is that this continues to happen in the midst of a global pandemic which should be dramatically transforming our every thought and action.

In today’s geopolitical reality where authoritarianism and insecurity rules amidst a collapsing planetary infrastructure, the business of human rights and good governance is clearly teetering on bankruptcy. Religions, and faiths, are the sacred realms for most of the world’s populations. None of us can afford the bankruptcy of the sacred.

If Covid is not pushing us to take a deep dive into overcoming every single excuse which prevents us from working together, regardless of the differences between and among our faiths or organisations or races or genders, to serve all, together, then we are looking straight into the abyss of that particular hell – which we are contributing to creating.

 

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Excerpt:

Professor Azza Karam is Secretary General, Religions for Peace
 
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres believes “our solidarity based on the human rights and human dignity of all highlights the crucial role of religious leaders in our communities and beyond”. He cited previous public health crises, including HIV/AIDS and Ebola, noting how spiritual leadership had been a positive benefit in terms of community values, attitudes and actions.

Roma Capannelle Cricket Ground, home ground of Emi and Zaryan’s cricket club. Photo courtesy: Italian Cricket TV

By Daud Khan and Ahmed Raza
ROME, Jul 21 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Following Prime Minister Imran Khan’s comments about the need to promote ‘Pakistaniyat,’ a debate has been underway on what constitutes this ideology and what unites Pakistanis around the world. While this may be a contentious and polarising debate, one thing is for certain: the game of cricket is something which brings us all together.

Cricket is everywhere – it is present in speeches in the parliament, television shows, family discussions over dinner, and has quickly surpassed other historically important sports in Pakistan, namely field hockey and squash.

Amazingly, cricket is also a conduit for overseas Pakistanis to maintain a cultural and nostalgic link with the home land. Here in Italy, where the Pakistani community numbers close to 150,000 making it the second largest in Europe after the UK, Pakistanis are playing an important in keeping the spirit and passion of cricket alive in a nation where football rules supreme. In Northern Italy, in places like Emilia Romagna, Lombardia, Trentino-Alto Adige and Veneto, club teams feature a significantly large contingent of Pakistani players.

That said, cricket is still in its nascent stages in the country. Although there is a vibrant league which operates under the auspices of the Federazione Cricket Italiana, much remains to be done. For example, it’s important that more games are organized in a calendar year to enable current players to gain greater match practice. There is also a need to make inroads in the Italian school system to encourage young Italians to pick up the cricket bat and ball. Lastly, more sponsors need to come forward to ensure that cricket survives in the country.

At the start of the 2021 cricket season, we meet two young Pakistani cricketers, Emi Ghulam, 26 year old, and Zaryan Ijaz, 17 years old, in Rome to gain an understanding of how cricket plays a role in their identities. Both are all-rounders and are a regular feature in the Roma Capannelle Cricket Club’s (RCCC) 1st XI. Being 10 years apart, their varied outlooks on the game, life in Italy and what means to be a Pakistani in the country makes for a fascinating read.

Tell us about yourself and what got you into cricket?

Emi: ‘I was born in Italy to Pakistani immigrants from androon Lahore. My father used to play cricket in Rome. He was an outstanding wicketkeeper and was praised for his can-do attitude behind the stumps. I was inspired by his approach and passion towards the game and that got me into cricket’.

Zaryan: ‘I was born in Pakistan but have been in Italy for almost 11 years. We are originally from Mandi Bahauddin and we visit Pakistan frequently. My father still plays for the Roma Capannelle Cricket Club and his influence as well as regular trips to Pakistan have been the reason for playing cricket.’

How did you learn the game?

Emi: ‘There was no one to teach me the game, which was frustrating. When I starting playing, I was mocked by other people for the way I played. This riled me up further and pushed me to learn the game independently. I would credit YouTube for teaching me most of what I know. I also have family in Pakistan and England, and during visits to these places, I have had the opportunity to observe the game closely at a higher level. Here I must also mention the valuable contributions made by our club President, Francis Alphonsus Jayarajah, and captain, Leandro Mati Jayarajah, in encouraging me to take up the game seriously and for entrusting me with important responsibilities within the club.”

Zaryan: “Cricket runs in my family! My father still plays the game and my uncle also used to play.”

Emi Ghulam bowling in the nets. Photo courtesy: Roma Capannelle Cricket Club

Who are your influencers in the cricketing world?

Emi: “As a child, my father advised me to identify a cricketer to emulate. While watching TV, I used to like Sachin Tendulkar in the olden days and copy his batting style. Now, the newer exponents of modern batting, Virat Kohli and Babar Azam, are my inspiration. As for bowling, I used to admire Mohammad Aamir for his ability to swing the ball but over time I have found Wasim Akram and Jimmy Anderson to be more effective bowlers to follow.”

Zaryan: “I would have to say my father. He played cricket at a very high level in Mandi Bahauddin and I have always been insipired by his cricketing journey.”

How do you see the perception of Pakistanis in Italy?

Emi: “It’s neither positive nor negative – somewhere in the middle, I would argue. We pop up in the news when there are sad incidents of families choosing to kill their daughters, and that is not a good projection of us as people as there are many of us who are exemplary citizens and are in engaged in respectable professions. I do think that there is still respect for those Pakistanis who do good deeds.”

Zaryan: “My experiences have been positive with Italians and I have only positive things to recall. Plus, I do not think that this treatment is restricted to a big city like Rome, Pakistanis all over the country are regarded and treated well.”

Can cricket promote better integration in the Italian society?

Emi: “Indeed, cricket can be helpful. When Pakistanis play people take notice of them and their mannerisms. They get to interact with numerous Italians, get to travel to various cities to play tournaments, learn the language; as well as and quite importantly, cricket clubs help players get jobs and settle into the Italian way of life. But I do think that any Pakistani who plays the game should play with respect and dignity. Often Pakistanis get into fights on the ground which is not a positive sight. I am all for players earning and giving respect on the ground. That is what it is all about!”

Zaryan: ‘Yes, in principle but the real problem is that very few Italians play cricket. Playing the game therefore can help one to integrate with other migrants, such and Bangladeshis, Sri Lankas, etc., but not with native Italians. In order to get acquainted with the latter, sports such as volleyball, basketball and football, need to be pursued.”

Zaryan Ijaz after completing an innings. Photo courtesy: Zaryan Ijaz

How do you see the role of the Pakistani community (embassy, cultural centres, organizations, ordinary people, etc.) in promoting cricket in Italy?

Emi: “Various things. They can help us in bringing good players into the fold. With good cricketers, the standard in Italy is bound to improve. I also think that should players like me, and others of Pakistani origin in Italy, get a chance to ply their trade in cricket leagues, such as the Pakistan Super League (PSL), it will have positive impacts all around.”

Zaryan: “There is definitely a role that the community can play. Particularly, I think they can help with the publicity of the game. For example, in and around their businesses they can put posters to show support and promote one of the many clubs that play the game.”

What are your most prized accomplishments related to cricket?

Emi: “Once I came in at number seven with wickets tumbling all around. On that day nobody expected me to do anything with the bat but I surprised them all with a quick knock of 40-odd runs. I smashed nearly every bowler receiving accolades from teammates in the process. That one game gave me a lot confidence and put me on an upward trajectory”.

Zaryan: “I have captained the under-13 and under-15 teams for my club. In this role, I helped the team win five games in row which we played all over Italy, in Bologna, Rome, Napoli, etc. I always relish that memory.”

What are your future ambitions related to cricket in Italy?

Emi: “I would like the world to see my family in a good light. I would want people to acknowledge that a quality player has come out of our family. As well, I am motivated to play for the Italian national team.”

Zaryan: ”I need to work on my physique. I feel that if I can surmount this challenge I have it in me to make it to the PSL. I would like to try out for one of the teams there. Plus, I would like to play for the Italian national team.”

Emi Ghulam pictured at the RCCC Ground after scoring a half century and taking three wickets. Photo courtesy: Emi Ghulam

What is the one thing that you dearly miss about Pakistan?

Emi: “FUN. The place is abuzz with energy. I miss walking around in the streets till late at night, seeing how people go about their life, and to enjoy good food.”

Zaryan: “FOOD. I am a fan of seekh kabab and biryani, and miss eating these dished when I am there.”

Zaryan Ijaz with the winning trophy. Photo courtesy: Zaryan Ijaz

The writers are Pakistanis who work and live in Rome. This is fourth in the series of articles on Pakistanis in Italy, and the first one which looks at how sports can be a strong means for integration in the Italian society.

Source: Friday Times (Pakistan)

While the Biden Administration has taken executive actions to tackle climate change at home and abroad, through upgrading and building infrastructure, and committing to halve US greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, we are yet to see the impact.

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, Jul 21 2021 (IPS)

Across the United States, the last few months have brought along many climate-linked disasters. From surging wildfires in Hawaii to record-breaking Pacific Northwest heat waves to drought across the western states. The southwestern states also have seen heavy rains that resulted in flash flooding events.

Importantly, these climate-linked events have occurred in regions that had not been impacted before because of geography, sending the signal that no one is immune to climate change. We all must act with urgency to mitigate this existential threat, as described by President Joe Biden.

As new record-breaking events occur, pausing for a moment to wonder about the next record-breaking event becomes natural. What would it be? Where? Who else who was insulated before will be affected now?

Science delivered in a year a vaccine that traditionally takes 5 -10 years, thanks to generous funding by the government and the private sector. With increased funding by the government and private sector, scientists can collaborate across disciplines to uncover bold solutions to confront climate change

These renewed and heightened public awareness about climate change and the dangers that we all face, if we do not mitigate it, creates an important moment for all of us including policy makers at both the state and federal level to roll out bold reforms.

First up is the need to ensure that ordinary people have the most recent research and data about climate change. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides timely data, tools, and the information about climate.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change further provides policymakers with scientific assessments on climate change including highlighting climate adaptation and mitigation options.

In addition, agencies such as NASA and the United States Environmental Protection Agency also provide very robust scientific data to understand climate change and how to mitigate it. Further, states, including those facing these disasters at the moment such as the State of Oregon, have information about climate change and actions they are taking to address it.

Beyond national agencies are several websites and newspapers that have enormous sources of information about climate change.

While having most recent data is important, communicating what these climate change research and data means clearly and consistently to citizens is key. Moreover, there will be  a need to broaden  and focus on the framing, so as to engage many citizens.

Beyond sharing knowledge and communicating about climate change, both federal and state governments must enact bold and transformative climate change policies.

While the Biden Administration has taken executive actions to tackle climate change at home and abroad, through upgrading and building infrastructure, and committing to halve US greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, we are yet to see the impact.

It will take another nine years to halve greenhouse emissions. As seen, year after year, the disasters are getting stronger, and nine years is a long time to wait for change.

Governments need to re-strategize and develop immediate climate mitigation and adaptation actions that can be achievable in shorter timeframes. Alongside re-strategizing, all government ministries and agencies and sectors need to re-examine how vulnerable these sectors are to climate change.

Furthermore, they should outline what actions need to be taken to ensure that all sectors can withstand the changing climate. It is encouraging to see the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen leading efforts to review and assess the risks that climate change have on the financial stability of the U.S. Many more sectors including the agriculture and energy sectors need to engage in this type of review too.

Complementing all efforts to address climate change is the need to increase funding to climate science research. From research aimed at finding novel approaches to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to finding low -carbon -climate smart technologies to advanced energy research to climate modelling and simulation studies to understanding how the ecosystems respond to and recover from climate-linked disasters.

As we have seen with COVID-19, science can deliver solutions. Science delivered in a year a vaccine that traditionally takes 5 -10 years, thanks to generous funding by the government and the private sector. With increased funding by the government and private sector, scientists can collaborate across disciplines to uncover bold solutions to confront climate change.

Finally, there is need to ensure that all sectors impacted by climate change adapt and act. From planning for extreme temperatures, heat waves, surging wildfires, and flooding to building more resilient communities and cities.

In the fight against climate, governments must lead the way. Time is of essence.

 

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

Electronic surveillance devices. Credit: 112 Georgia/ UN Women

By Jonathan Rozen
NEW YORK, Jul 21 2021 (IPS)

Tsaone Basimanebotlhe was not expecting security agents to appear at her home in a village outside Gaborone, Botswana’s capital, in July 2019, she told CPJ in a recent interview. But they didn’t come to arrest or charge her, she recalled – they came for her devices, hunting for the source for an article published by her employer, Mmegi newspaper.

Basimanebotlhe, a politics reporter, said she surrendered her phone and password to the agents after they presented a warrant and could not find her computer. A senior officer then used technology sold by the Israel-based company Cellebrite to extract and analyze thousands of her messages, call logs, and emails, and her web browsing history, according to an affidavit from the police forensics laboratory.

The affidavit, which CPJ reviewed, was submitted during a related court case.“They’re looking for people that are divulging information to the media,” Basimanebotlhe told CPJ.

Botswana police also deployed Cellebrite technology to search the phone of Oratile Dikologang, a local editor charged in 2020 over Facebook posts who alleged that police violently interrogated him about his sources, as CPJ recently reported.

The use of powerful tools provided by private companies to scour seized devices raises significant concerns over privacy and press freedom. The experiences of Basimanebotlhe and Dikologang demonstrate that police in Botswana use digital forensics equipment to sweep up vast quantities of journalists’ communications from seized devices, regardless of whether they are charged with a crime.

The extent of these searches was only revealed when police documents were submitted in court months after the fact, and it’s not clear what happened to the data.

Botswana’s security forces routinely arrest journalists and take possession of their devices, CPJ has found. In March, Botswana police seized computers and phones from arrested reporters and media workers with the Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler, a private, Facebook-based outlet, CPJ recently documented; officers demanded their passcodes, answered calls and read messages on the devices, and kept two of the phones as evidence even after the charges connected to that arrest were withdrawn in April.

David Baaitse, a reporter for Botswana’s Weekend Post newspaper, separately told CPJ that intelligence agents took phones belonging to him and his colleague to be analyzed for six months following their arrest last year.

“If you take my phone and go and analyze it, you have my folders and everything, all my contacts,” Baaitse told CPJ in a recent interview. He added that such actions by security forces hinder journalists’ ability to gather information, saying, “Sources, they no longer trust us. They no longer want to deal directly with us.”

In Basimanebotlhe’s case, Mmegi reported that when her phone was first seized in July 2019, police were seeking evidence for their investigation of a former intelligence chief, Isaac Kgosi.

The police claimed that Kgosi had taken photographs of undercover security agents, exposing their identities, and that those photographs were published by Mmegi in a February 2019 article, Basimanebotlhe said. The article, which was attributed to a staff reporter, had been written by one of Basimanebotlhe’s colleagues, Mmegi later clarified.

“They alleged that I had photos of DIS people,” Basimanebotlhe told CPJ, referring to an acronym for Botswana’s Directorate on Intelligence and Security Services. “They believed I’m the one who wrote the story,” she said.

The affidavit detailing the forensic search of Basimanebotlhe’s devices was submitted during Kgosi’s prosecution over the photographs, his lawyer, Unoda Mack, told CPJ by phone. It states that police used Cellebrite’s Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED) and Physical Analyzer technologies to retrieve and evaluate the information from her phone, but found no evidence relevant to their investigation, according to CPJ’s review.

Mack told CPJ that Kgosi pleaded not guilty, and local media reported that a magistrate ultimately dismissed for lack of evidence the charge that he had exposed agents’ identities.

“They said they didn’t find anything in my phone,” Basimaonebotlhe told CPJ. “[But] they went through my SMS, my WhatsApp [messages].”

CPJ contacted Botswana police spokesperson Dipheko Motube over the phone about Basimaonebotlhe’s case and he requested that questions be sent via messaging app. He did not respond to those questions, and previously declined to comment on the case involving Dikologang because it was still before the court.

In response to questions about the Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler arrests, Motube told CPJ that investigations “may necessitate” detentions and confiscation of “any implement which may have been used in the commission of the offence” with “due regard to the rights of the individual arrested.”

Reached by phone, Botswana government spokesperson Batlhalefi Leagajang requested questions about security forces’ alleged use of digital forensics technology be sent by email. CPJ sent those questions, but received no response.

Cellebrite, which is owned by the Japan-based Sun Corporation, says that its UFED toolkit can extract data from mobile phones, SIM cards, and other devices even after the information was deleted, and its Physical Analyzer helps examine digital data.

In April, Nasdaq reported that Cellebrite would be listed on the stock exchange via a merger with TWC Tech Holdings II Corp., a U.S.-based special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) designed to take companies public.

In response to CPJ’s questions about the use of its technology in Botswana and human rights due diligence processes, Cellebrite provided a statement emailed via the Fusion Public Relations company that said it could not “speak to any specifics” about its customers.

Cellebrite “requires that agencies and governments that use our technology uphold the standards of international human rights law,” the statement said. “Our compliance solutions enable an audit trail and can discern who, when and how data was accessed, which leads to accountability in the agencies and organizations that use our tools,” the company added.

Cellebrite did not directly address CPJ’s question about if the company considered the use of its tools to search journalists’ devices to be acceptable. Sun Corporation and TWC Tech Holdings II Corp. did not respond to questions CPJ emailed about this article.

“[Police] want access to the data so they can know the sources of these journalists,” Dick Bayford, a lawyer in Gaborone whose firm represented Basimanebotlhe and Baaitse, told CPJ in a recent interview. “It [has] a chilling effect on freedom of the press.”

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is Senior Africa Researcher at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

Chiring Tamang holds the family’s new baby while his wife Priya looks on. She delivered the girl at home in their village in Nepal’s Sindhupalchowk district in February 2021. Credit: Marty Logan / IPS

By Marty Logan
Kathmandu, Nepal, Jul 21 2021 (IPS)

One year after Nepal’s Ministry of Health (MoH) appealed to international organisations in the country to urgently supply a drug used to stop excessive bleeding after childbirth, a UN agency has delivered $1 million worth of contraceptives to prevent another shortage.

The 1.6 million cycles of oral contraceptive pills and 776,000 units of injectable contraceptives and syringes will prevent roughly 75 000 unintended pregnancies, 22 000 unsafe abortions and 80 maternal deaths, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

As it was last year at this time, Nepal is at the tail end of a lockdown designed to break a runaway number of Covid-19 cases. Between April and May 2021, daily cases went from 150 to more than 8,000—fuelled by outbreaks in neighbouring India. Intensive care unit beds were unavailable in most hospitals in the capital Kathmandu and some cities on the southern border with India, and patients attached to oxygen tanks were forced into hospital parking lots. Crematoriums had to be expanded to accommodate the dead.

More than 9 500 people have died, and 667 000 had been infected as of 18 July, according to official figures, which are widely considered to underestimate the true impact.

“This support is very timely as Nepal was on the verge of facing a shortage of the injectable contraceptives and oral pills,” said Dr Tara Nath Pokhrel, Director of the Family Welfare Division (FWD) of the MoH. “These supplies will greatly help the federal, provincial and local governments to address the increasing family planning needs during the COVID-19 pandemic,” he added in a UNFPA press release.

Last year’s urgent need was misoprostol, a drug used for medical abortion and to stop excessive bleeding of new mothers, also known as postpartum haemorrhage (PPH). The condition is the leading cause of death among women who give birth at home, a number that skyrocketed after the first case of Covid-19 was detected in January 2020. Deliveries in health facilities fell by more than 50% during the 2020 lockdown, according to The Lancet journal.

The shortage affected only the three-pill package of misoprostol used to prevent PPH, not medical abortion kits. It was December before UNFPA could deliver nearly 500 000 doses to the government, a one-year supply.

Maintaining a steady supply of misoprostol has been a challenge for the Government of Nepal since it took over the programme from a project sponsored by the US government in 2010. Initially, it was able to turn to international partners to source the drug outside of the country, but it soon absorbed the purchasing into its procurement system.

However, in 2014 the government’s corruption agency charged eight ministry of health employees with importing poor quality misoprostol into the country at inflated prices.

Eventually, they were acquitted, along with private-sector suppliers, but the high-profile case put a ‘chill’ on further buying by government officials, a former employee of the project told IPS. “If the person needed to justify (misoprostol procurement) maybe they were thinking, ‘this created lots of tension in the past, so let’s not go for procurement’.

Shortages resulted. Then in 2015, earthquakes rocked Nepal, killing nearly 9,000 people. That disaster was followed by a months-long blockade of road routes from India after Nepal’s politicians approved a controversial new Constitution. Supply chains became twisted and unreliable.

In 2017, following Nepal’s first elections under a federal governance system, some health responsibilities were transferred from central authorities to provincial or local officials, including the purchase and distribution of misoprostol. But local governments appeared unprepared.

“In general, local governments did not have sufficient time and resources to strengthen their procurement capacity on lifesaving maternal and neonatal health commodities,” a spokesperson for UNFPA noted in a statement. “It also depended on how much priority each local government had given to the health sector in general.”

Before Covid-19 hit, the misoprostol programme was in place in 56 of Nepal’s 77 districts, but in January 2020, a survey of 12 of the 56 districts found that none had the drug, says Surya Bhatta, executive director of One Heart Worldwide, an international NGO working in Nepal.

“I think misoprostol is one of the most discussed matters in our office,” he adds. “We talk about this a lot with local leaders, pregnant mothers, female community health volunteers during their monthly meetings, and with service providers in the health facilities. Even for the managers, in larger government forums, there is a lot of discussion happening, but the implementation side has a lot of holes to fill.”

During the 2020 lockdown, misoprostol shortages and PPH deaths of women who gave birth at home generated many headlines. This year there have been no reports of misoprostol shortages, Dr Punya Poudel of the FWD told IPS. However, maternal deaths remained above average for the second year running. From mid-March 2020 to mid-June 2021, there were 258 maternal deaths, compared to 51 in the same period pre-Covid, according to preliminary statistics.

Nepal’s maternal mortality rate of 239 per 100,000 births is equivalent to roughly 1,200 deaths annually.

In the agency’s press release, UNFPA Representative to Nepal Lubna Baqi urged the government and partners to make reproductive health a priority.

“Nepal has continued to struggle with shortages in supplies due to competing priorities and demands, but it is time for the government and development partners to turn their attention to preventing unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions by investing in family planning and comprehensive sexuality education.”

 

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A global system in which poor countries are unable to develop and produce their own vaccines to match their demand is not sustainable; particularly when faced by potential future pandemics. Credit: PAHO/Karen González.

By Jonatan Konafino and Shubha Nagesh
Jul 20 2021 (IPS)

“Vaccine equity is the challenge of our time,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), told the gathering in opening remarks.  “And we are failing”at a special ministerial meeting of the Economic and Social Council.

Earlier, G7 leaders wrote a letter of support declaring that wealthier countries should pay the cost to vaccinate low and middle income countries.

Globally, indiscriminate inequity exists in the procurement and distribution of vaccines, which has hit the countries in Asia and Africa the most. According to the World Health Organization, among the 832 million vaccine doses that have been administered, 82% have gone to high- or upper-middle-income countries, while only 0.2% have been shipped to low-income countries

The United States announced that it would donate 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to COVAX to supply COVID vaccine doses to countries in need. In addition, several countries pledged support to a waiver to intellectual property restrictions, which could allow countries to produce the vaccine generically to amplify production and supply.

While these are essential steps in the right direction, a global system in which poor countries are unable to develop and produce their own vaccines to match their demand is not sustainable; particularly when faced by potential future pandemics.

Stringent measures, with global solidarity and commitment to build global vaccine equity and ensure the last person gets the vaccine in rich and poor countries alike before the next global health crisis hits is the need of the hour. This is a time when internationalism wins over nationalism, and globalism works better than local.

Globally, indiscriminate inequity exists in the procurement and distribution of vaccines, which has hit the countries in Asia and Africa the most. According to the World Health Organization, among the 832 million vaccine doses that have been administered, 82% have gone to high- or upper-middle-income countries, while only 0.2% have been shipped to low-income countries.

According to a United Nations report, in high-income countries alone, 1 in 4 people have been vaccinated, a ratio that drops precipitously to 1 in 500 in low-income countries.

This inequitable vaccine access is rooted in the power, influence and the control of few rich countries who have determined vaccine allocation. Early on, despite COVAX’s commitment to vaccinate the world’s population, Western countries developed vaccines separately, in bulk, more than what was necessary, hoarded and vaccinated all, including their young people, who are considered less at risk.

Citizens of low income countries faced shortage, even those who were at risk for COVID-19. As a result, many countries have been left behind.

In the Global South, countries have welcomed and celebrated the ‘noble’ decision of rich countries to donate overstocked vaccines. However, we must take a step back to understand why countries need donations in the first place.

Our struggle to access vaccines is not a consequence of our present shortcomings but of our long histories––many of which are burdened with the legacy of violent colonialism. If poor countries need to rely on donated vaccines, it’s a sign that the global health system is not working. Global Health has failed in this Pandemic.

It’s not just about purchasing doses. A painful history of unequal power relations has shifted resources out of low- and middle-income countries to their high-income counterparts.

We are working against a persistent lack of support for the infrastructure that allows countries in the Global South to independently drive scientific development. Moreover, our material resources and human capital have supported northern economies for decades.

This is exacerbated by the problem of brain drain, in which talent is pulled from low- and middle-income countries to their high-income counterparts, perpetuating dependence and inequities. For example, it is estimated that researchers working internationally from low-income countries produce 10 times more patents than their compatriots at home.

Scientific and health sovereignty are strategic drivers of equitable access to health.
Rich countries are often lauded for aid and donations- progress can be made when we move from charity to rights-based models.

To sustain development efforts, international cooperation and collaboration that allows what countries need is international cooperation that enhances local capacity and expertise, enables country infrastructure and retains the talent to generate innovation at home is crucial. It’s about Human Rights, Social Justice and Equity.

In the short term, developing countries need to be able to produce vaccines and access them equitably. This includes relaxing the World Trade Organization’s Trade Related Access to International Property Rights to enable countries to produce vaccines on site.

In the long term, international collaboration across nations is urgent. For example, the Sputnik-V vaccine program in Argentina involves cooperation between the Gamaleya Institute, the Russian Investment Fund and a national pharmaceutical, Richmond Lab, to develop and produce vaccines for Argentina and the southern cone. This type of cooperation is strategic to expand vaccine production and enhance technology investment in developing countries.

Regional cooperation will strengthen the health and technology sectors in developing countries. During the last few months, AstraZeneca vaccines have been produced between Argentina, which produces the active substance of the product and Mexico, which subsequently completes and bottles doses.

COVID is a global threat today. There will be more, severe threats in future. As we move forward, let the lesson from the crisis not go in vain. Together, in solidarity, we can each do our bit to advance our shared vision of an equitable world. It has taken extraordinary drive to develop the vaccine. Reimagining Global Health should be  about the deliberate intention to get this vaccine to the last person.

Jonatan Konafino MD, MSc, PhD is a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity and Professor of Public Health at Universidad Nacional Arturo Jauretche and George Washington University. Secretary of Health in the Municipality of Quilmes, Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

Shubha Nagesh is a medical doctor by training and a Global Health Consultant. She presently works for The Latika Roy Foundation, Dehradun, India. She is a Senior Atlantic Fellow in Global Health Equity.

Spanish officers inspecting the remains of a garrison on Monte Arruit, July 1921. Annual, Morocco. Credit: Public Domain.

By Joaquín Roy
MIAMI, Jul 20 2021 (IPS)

It would seem that those responsible for the recent immigration crisis in Ceuta and Melilla have coordinated their strategy to commemorate the centenary of one of the most serious defeats that Spain has suffered in its foreign relations. One hundred years ago, the Spanish armies suffered one of the most painful losses in its history.

From July 21 to August 9, 1921, the military detachments that had tried to consolidate the colonial presence in the territory of the Riff, north of the northern area of ​​the so-called Protectorate located on the Mediterranean slope of the present Kingdom of Morocco, were bloody massacred in the so-called Annual Disaster.

This episode has been imprinted in the memory of not only of the military, but also in the national conscience.

In succinct terms, what happened in North Africa in the second decade of the 20th century was a consequence of a more spectacular disaster suffered by the Spanish empire at the end of the previous century.

Joaquín Roy

As a resounding burial of the Spanish empire, which had lost almost all American territories in the 19th century, in 1898 the United States ended the Spanish presence in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, by imposing the surrender and cession of those territories after the incident of the sinking of the battleship Maine in the bay of Havana.

Embarrassed by the defeat, the Spanish military passed the blame for the awesome disaster onto the politicians. The final traumatic event originated various consequences in Spain, among which are a period of introspection and meditation on the national essence, presided over by the “Generation of ’98”, and the emergence of a regenerationism led by various sectors of public influence.

While the monarchy in the regency period could hardly stand out in remedying the state of national prostration, the military was preparing to seek the construction of a substitute empire.

In continuation of the previous incursions in North Africa, the coalition of conservative forces with military sectors, in search of alternative companies to the loss of the imperial territories, believed to find a replacement empire in North Africa.

The recruitment of military contingents based on forced replacement troops produced the serious incidents of protest at the ports of embarkation. The opposition that originated the so-called Tragic Week of Barcelona in 1909 stood out then, with the result of a fierce repression. The government survived. Spain was destined to invent another empire.

The distribution of the immense African territories among the European powers resulted in the award to Spain of the northern part that comprised the Riff, with a rugged geography populated by a human contingent that has hardly been identified with the precarious unity of Morocco.

The administration of the so-called Protectorate would be a difficult mission to fulfill until its disappearance. The withdrawal order had its holocaust in the place called Annual, where the Spanish detachment of eleven thousand five hundred soldiers was massacred and the survivors were put to the knife. These bloody events were novelistically relived by important writers such as Ramón J. Sender.

In this scenario, the Spanish Legion was founded, following the model of the French. Led by Millán Astray, one of its most prominent leaders was Commander Francisco Franco, who rose through the ranks on merits of war and later became the youngest general in the European armies.

The positions of the Spanish military in North Africa were desired both by the commanders and by the troops themselves who were involved in corruption.

Almost miraculously saved the city of Melilla, the Spanish presence received a considerable effort with the joint operation of the Spanish and French forces in the so-called landing of Al Hoceima (exaggeratedly considered as a precedent of the Normandy operation), a coastal area that still presents the survival of the Spanish “presidios”.

As a result of that remarkable joint operation, the Riff’s leader Abd el-Krim surrendered and was subsequently released. He survived his many adversaries and died in Cairo in 1963. He is considered one of the “inventors” of guerrilla strategy.

The monarchy of Alfonso XIII survived when he handed over power to General Primo de Rivera, but after his fall from grace, the institution soon disappeared when in the municipal elections of 1931 the conservative parties lost electoral favor in the big cities.

The King abdicated and the Second Republic was declared. In 1936 Franco rebelled. The troops led by the coup general left from Morocco at the beginning of the Civil War.

Ceuta and Melilla are remains of that neocolonial stage, recently converted into “autonomous cities” within the Spanish territorial administration. Despite the abandonment of the territory of the Sahara, as a result of the Green March of 1975 when the Franco regime died, Spain insists on the evaluation of the UN opinion subject to a referendum that Morocco has refused to carry out, claiming sovereignty over its inhabitants, a thesis that clashes with that of Algeria, where the Sahrawis take refuge.

Although Morocco’s tactic seems focused on the occupation of Ceuta and Melilla, in reality the priority is the control of the entire Sahara and domination of the southern slope of the Strait of Gibraltar. This strategic detail is a priority for the United States, which has generally supported Moroccan interests, as has France, a power that in turn supports Algeria’s theses.

 

Joaquín Roy is Jean Monnet Professor and Director of the European Union Center at the University of Miami

People in Yangon queue for oxygen cylinders to treat COVID patients as a third wave of the pandemic sweeps through Myanmar. Credit: Sai T

By Sara Perria
ROME, Jul 20 2021 (IPS)

The third wave of Covid-19 is sweeping through Myanmar, from the high narrow buildings of the commercial capital Yangon to bamboo houses in rural areas.

Ma Ni, not her real name, caught the virus in Yangon, infected by her husband and son. But no members of the family show up in the official numbers because they preferred to buy a home test instead of going to a hospital or a quarantine centre.

“It’s been seven days with COVID now,” 34-year-old Ma Ni says. “My husband needs oxygen, but we cannot get it … I hope God will save us.”

Ma Ni’s family is not alone. According to the military’s Ministry of Health, Myanmar recorded 3,461 new cases of COVID-19 and 82 deaths on July 11 alone.

In total, since the pandemic first struck, Myanmar has reported almost 4,000 deaths. Videos circulating on social networks show a dramatic increase in the number of bodies taken to Yangon’s crematorium.

The numbers, although certainly under-reported, are far lower than they were in Europe, the US or India, but they are growing. Moreover, the impact of COVID-19 has been compounded by the aftermath of the military coup on February 1 that ousted elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and triggered nationwide protests, resulting in more than 900 deaths and thousands of prisoners, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an NGO based in Thailand.

As a result, hundreds of panicking citizens are shying away from testing and quarantine facilities perceived as mismanaged by the unpopular military.

“I’d rather die than go to a military hospital,” Ko Moe, again not a real name, tells IPS. “I don’t trust them, and given my work as a volunteer ambulance driver, they might arrest me for helping the protestors.”

The military is trying to stop private initiatives, even shooting to disperse a crowd queuing to refill oxygen tanks. It is also forbidding producers to distribute oxygen to ineligible citizens, saying people are hoarding it unnecessarily.

Myanmar people think otherwise. Deep inside the country, in the city of Taunggyi, Shan State, a doctor interviewed by IPS says people are organising themselves autonomously to cope with the emergency because the health system has collapsed.

“As for now, things look still normal here but … many donors and well-wishers have set up a committee to install oxygen plants by themselves to help the people in the city and the small villages around Taunggyi,” she tells IPS.

Grievances are expressed all over social networks and emotional appeals for help from the international community or obituaries of loved ones who succumbed to the virus.

But it’s also the flu season, which many, feeling abandoned by the State or unable to afford private facilities, mistake for COVID.

“The situation is pretty chaotic. There have been many outbreaks of COVID but also of seasonal flu, in major cities and rural regions,” another doctor working for a private hospital in Yangon tells IPS on condition of anonymity. “People are frustrated for not getting efficient medical care from the authorities, while general hospitals cannot operate on a full scale since the majority of civil service doctors have joined the disobedience movement and there are only a few doctors and nurses left,” he says.

Indeed, only a small percentage of citizens have been vaccinated against the virus. The ongoing protests that started in February have crammed prisons with political prisoners, turning the repression into an epicentre of the outbreak.

Following a recent trip to Russia, junta leader General Min Aung Hlaing announced the purchase of 5 million doses of the Sputnik vaccine. However, it may be too little, too late to avoid an unprecedented health crisis in a country of over 54 million people only partly controlled by the military.

The international community is also accused of not helping, having been already stigmatised for failing to do anything to support Burmese citizens during the coup, beyond statements of condemnation.

The UN special rapporteur for Myanmar Tom Andrews told the Human Rights Commission on July 13 that the junta lacks the “capabilities and the legitimacy to bring this crisis under control”. And the lack of trust in the military makes this crisis “particularly lethal”, he said.

Activists from the opposition ‘Milk Tea Alliance Burma’ expressed the sentiment of the public in a Tweet: “Last year, the pandemic was contained successfully in Myanmar because of collective efforts of everyone. DASSK (Aung San Suu Kyi) was influencing the public well, holding campaigns to make cloth masks, the public followed the instructions well, they masked up and stayed at home without complaining.”

With the population mistrustful of the military and pro-democracy protests continuing, albeit on a much smaller scale, rules are often overlooked.

A Google app tracing people’s movements shows that the situation is back to the pre-coup situation in terms of traffic and crowds in the streets. Many shops may appear to be closed from the outside but are working at normal capacity behind. Masks are usually left at home.

The military has a history of resistance to international aid despite being unequipped to deal with an emergency, as happened in the disastrous aftermath of cyclone Nargis in 2008. The junta is unlikely to change its isolationist stance now, and international help may well be limited, according to a diplomat in Yangon, interviewed by IPS.

“COVID is not going to change anything for the junta, it’s taking people’s minds off the revolution, so it’s not such a bad thing for the military,” he says, asking not to be named for security reasons.

 

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The writer is a Research Analyst at Stimson Center

By Cristina Petcu
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 20 2021 (IPS)

The forthcoming UN Secretary-General’s “Our Common Agenda” report, to be released before this year’s UN General Assembly High-Level Week, is expected to offer ambitious recommendations to accelerate the realization of the UN75 Declaration as the world comes to grips with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Promote Peace & Prevent Conflicts. Credit: United Nations

While the report’s ideas are still undisclosed, three notions are likely to represent conceptual building blocks: a “new social contract,” a “new global deal,” and “networked and inclusive multilateralism” have each permeated current high-level discussions at the United Nations, especially in speeches of UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

While these three concepts are not mentioned explicitly in the UN75 Declaration, they are implicit in the framing of the declaration’s twelve commitments. Building on perspectives from past and present scholars, world leaders, policymakers, and practitioners, these powerful notions are each unpacked in Stimson Center’s recent report, “Beyond UN75: A Roadmap for Inclusive, Networked, and Effective Global Governance.”

Critics, including the United Nations, argue that the present state of the social contract is outdated and incapable of meeting the needs and challenges of the twenty-first century. The UN Secretary-General himself emphasized that a new social contract is “an opportunity to build back a more equal and sustainable world” from COVID-19.

A new, modernized social contract could, indeed, help advance a more just post-COVID-19 recovery and economic policies that consider the realization of human rights as an end in itself—rather than as one more channel to achieve high economic growth levels under outdated metrics.

It could include a global political commitment to securing social protection floors and universal access to educational systems, among other initiatives that seek to respond to the major economic, technological, and societal shifts now underway.

Similarly, an equitable, resilient, and sustainable social contract should rebuild people’s trust in governance institutions. Trust is a prerequisite that offers legitimacy to those governing, and it permits the existence of a contract in the first place.

With the “new social contract” being the vision and long-term goal for weaving a new normative fiber binding states and peoples together, the world also needs a more operational “new global deal.”

The UN Secretary-General suggested that a new global deal would entail a redistribution of power, wealth, and opportunities, and global political and economic systems that deliver critical global public goods: public health, climate action, sustainable development, and peace.

This echoes long-standing discussions about representativeness in the current system of global governance, considering, for example, the distribution of special drawing rights at the International Monetary Fund, which gives the United States a blocking minority share, or the setup of the Security Council with its five permanent, veto-wielding powers and ten non-permanent members.

Resource redistribution and redirection also need to be seen in light of calls for a “green recovery” from the COVID-19 pandemic and of the need to recalibrate the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

Advancing a new social contract and new global deal further require a more networked and inclusive multilateralism. This would entail a paradigm shift from the state-centric international world order to one where myriad actors, beyond nation-states (especially traditional major powers), can collaboratively share and implement solutions to complex problems.

Delivering the future we want will not come from “polarized member states or politicized UN secretariats.” It will result from collaborations between international civil servants, Member States, and progressive networks of non-state actors—including scholars, academics, media, businesses, philanthropies, and other stakeholders.

In this spirit, the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations must update their rules of engagement with non-state actors, to facilitate networked and inclusive multilateralism. There is no dearth of institutional innovation ideas that can help build inclusive multilateralism.

For instance, the Call for Inclusive Global Governance, released in April 2021 and endorsed by over 150 civil society organizations worldwide, provides three recommendations for promoting greater inclusion and participation of civil society at the UN: first, the creation of a formal instrument—a World Citizens’ Initiative—to enable individual citizens to influence the UN’s work; second, a UN Parliamentary Assembly to allow for the inclusion of elected representatives in agenda-setting and decision-making at the UN; and third, the appointment of a UN Civil Society Envoy to support greater civil society engagement at the UN.

Networked and inclusive multilateralism, going beyond classic intergovernmentalism, provides a platform and framework to carry out a new global deal (operational plan) in the service of establishing a new social contract (vision).

What is needed now is enlightened leadership, combined with a well-designed strategy for reform for channeling these ideas in support of a more interlinked and participatory global governance system.

Guided by these three powerful concepts, the Secretary-General’s “Our Common Agenda” can generate political momentum for a potential 2023 World Summit on Inclusive Global Governance for truly innovating the United Nations system to keep pace with present and future challenges and opportunities.

The 75th anniversary of the United Nations was believed to be a moment for laying the foundations for a new kind of multilateralism. Although adoption of the UN75 Declaration represents an important milestone, its vision is yet to be matched by a commensurate global plan for action.

Bouncing back now from the COVID-19 presents an opportunity to also rebuild a global system that can help all nations and peoples effectively overcome current global inequalities, injustices, and insecurity. It is incumbent on all of us to make 2021 a turning point for multilateralism.

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is a Research Analyst at Stimson Center

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 20 2021 (IPS)

Despite facing the world’s worst pandemic of the last century, rich countries in the World Trade Organization (WTO) have blocked efforts to enable more affordable access to the means to fight the pandemic.

Everyone knows access for all to the means for testing, treatment and prevention – including diagnostic tests, therapeutic medicines, personal protective equipment and vaccines – is crucial.

Anis Chowdhury

European deceit
In October 2020, South Africa and India requested the WTO to temporarily suspend relevant provisions of its Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). By May 2021, the proposal had 62 co-sponsors and support from more than two-thirds of WTO member States.

Despite overwhelming support from low- and middle-income countries, Western governments, Big Pharma and other industry officials dismiss this waiver request as not only unnecessary, but also undermining future technological innovation.

Although most European Parliament members support the waiver proposal, it is actively opposed by European governments and the European Commission (EC), the European Union (EU) executive.

It is also resisted by Brazil and other rich countries, such as the UK, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Canada and Japan. However, the Biden administration now supports a temporary waiver for vaccines, but is silent on the other items urgently needed.

Misleadingly, European leaders insist that the temporary waiver request is unnecessary, but IP rights (IPRs) are essential for innovation. “IPR regimes have, at best, second-order effects upon the rates of innovation”. In fact, “when patent rights have been too broad or strong, they have actually discouraged innovation”.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

They misleadingly claim access can be achieved by existing provisions for voluntary licensing (VL), technology transfer, COVAX bulk purchasing and existing TRIPS flexibilities, especially compulsory licensing (CL). But these purported solutions are known to be grossly inadequate.

COVAX is struggling due to poor funding, supply shortages and inadequate donations. Hence, many poor countries have not even applied. With IPRs strengthened internationally since 1995, TNCs find technology transfer agreements less profitable.

Big Pharma law
Strict international enforcement of patent protection is recent. Pfizer’s then chairman, Edmund Pratt successfully pushed IP onto the agenda of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which created the WTO and TRIPS in 1995.

Fearing stronger IP rights would enhance corporate power and reduce affordable access to life-saving medicines, many developing countries resisted TRIPS. But rich countries pushed TRIPS through, using carrots and sticks to divide developing countries.

TRIPS includes CL, first introduced in the 1883 Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. A government can thus allow a third party to make or use a patented product or process without the patent owner’s consent. But this can only be for domestic use, subject to other conditions, e.g., paying “the right holder … adequate remuneration”.

Despite great efforts, rich country governments failed to increase members’ TRIPS obligations at the 1997 Singapore WTO ministerial. Nevertheless, US President Clinton tried again at the 1999 Seattle ministerial, triggering an African walkout.

After 9/11, some concessions were made before the 2001 Doha ministerial, including a new ‘Development Round’ of WTO talks. Two decades later, no conclusion is in sight as rich countries see little chance of getting what they want.

With the HIV/AIDS crisis, campaigning against TRIPS was boosted by President Mandela’s leadership. The Doha Ministerial Declaration included ‘public health exceptions’ to TRIPS. Now, there is no need to first negotiate VLs during health emergencies. Also, countries without manufacturing capacity can use CLs to import cheaper versions.

European deceptions
By insisting that existing TRIPS flexibilities are sufficient, European leaders deny all actual problems in practice. Ignoring decades of experience, they used to insist VL provisions are enough to expand output and share expertise.

In reality, VLs are often shrouded in secrecy, with patent holders choosing beneficiaries and even distributors. Thus, the AstraZeneca VL to the Serum Institute of India limits what it can produce, and prevents it from meeting Indian and other needs.

They concede when “voluntary cooperation fails, compulsory licences… are a legitimate tool in the context of a pandemic”. But CLs are only relevant for patents, not new vaccines which have not been patented, and deny other IP barriers.

EC arguments protect Big Pharma, but effectively reject the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) initiative. C-TAP seeks to enable equitable access to technologies for approved COVID-19 vaccines and therapies. But industry and government officials dismiss technology sharing as unnecessary, and worse, dangerous for future innovation.

Inflexible ‘flexibilities’
For a long time, Big Pharma and their governments, including the EC, pressured developing countries not to use the very CLs they now tout as the solution. The US Trade Representative routinely threatened sanctions against countries using CLs for medicines, only recognising others’ right to use them this year.

CLs are very difficult to actually use, especially by countries with limited negotiating capacities or relevant manufacturing capabilities. Existing provisions require complicated country-by-country, company-by-company and patent-by-patent negotiations, also raising massive coordination problems.

The CL provision may be enough for some, but certainly not all needed equipment, tests and medicines. Many products need several CLs, implying “a harrowing number of CL must be coordinated and granted in multiple countries”.

Also, CL does not require sharing industrial secrets, confidential information, industrial design and other relevant knowledge necessary for viable production. These can be critical, e.g., for mRNA vaccines using new technologies.

Those countries unable to produce themselves have to find others willing to issue CLs to produce cheap generics for export. Yet more hurdles are contained in the fine print of TRIPS and the 2001 ‘flexibilities’.

Bogus claims
In fact, sharing such confidential information not only spurs competition, but also enhances innovation. Thus, Shantha Biotechnics in India developed a low-cost hepatitis B vaccine, the basis for UNICEF’s lauded global vaccination drive.

Contrary to industry and political leaders’ claims that circumscribing patents would kill pharmaceutical innovation, “a host of new drugs and improved HIV treatments” followed “the agreement on Public Health exception to TRIPS”. These new and improved treatments effectively ended that deadly pandemic.

After inventing the polio vaccine, Jonas Salk was asked, “Who owns this patent?”. He famously replied, “Well, the people I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”

 

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By Rosi Orozco
MEXICO CITY, Jul 19 2021 (IPS)

In June, the Department of Homeland Security made a critical announcement. For the first time in U.S. history, more than 15 national and local agencies and civilian organizations conducted a simultaneous major binational operation to find missing children inside and outside the United States.

Rosi Orozco

They called it “Operation Lost Souls”. Its objective was to find girls and boys who were missing and possibly deceived or kidnapped by sexual exploitation gangs.

The secret operation lasted a week. And the result announced by Special Agent Erik Breitzke surprised even the organizers: 24 minors were recovered and, among them, three were located in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

The report of the operation does not explain the condition in which the minors were found. Still, it is not difficult to infer why they were in Ciudad Juarez: the United Nations, the International Police, and the Mexican Congress have warned that this border city is a well-known destination for sex tourism.

In 1993, that Mexican city became infamous worldwide due to a phenomenon known as “Las muertas de Juarez,” where hundreds of femicides were discovered under the suspicion that the victims had been recruited for sexual slavery.

More than 28 years later, Ciudad Juarez is still a city known for its tolerance of prostitution, its glittering brothels with hidden girls, and its streets run by pimps and mafias that are tied to the porn industry. It is a pedophile’s paradise.

There is an explanation for that: in Ciudad Juárez, as in many others cities worldwide, the fight against human trafficking has the wrong approach — the police often harass those who are prostituted, not the clients. But there is a growing global movement calling for doing the opposite.

That movement is also trending in Mexico and is inspired by the French law enacted on April 13, 2016, which prohibits any sexual act that has been agreed upon in exchange for money.

It’s a simple but substantial change: to protect human rights, the law should not go against people trapped in prostitution but against clients. In other words, the authorities must attack the most powerful link in the chain, not the most vulnerable.

To this end, it is necessary to stop the criminalization of those trapped in prostitution and, instead, create incentives for their exit from the sex trade.

For example, designing self-employment programs, granting tax benefits for those who wish to leave prostitution, including them in a protected witness program with benefits, issuing temporary residence permits for foreigners who could not get a job because of their immigration status, among other measures.

To reach the goal of lowering sexual trafficking and exploitation, the law needs to strongly target the demand that perpetuates these crimes. The penalties for “client exploiters” need to be strengthened.

To prosecute them more effectively, mexican activists are asking their government to imitate what the French police does by removing the burden of proof of the solicitation from the victim’s shoulders.

The French law has been a successful model, according to the Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution (CAP International): it has curbed the investment of traffickers, discouraged clients, provided dignified outlets for the most vulnerable, and swept away the dangers of the tolerated clandestinely.

This model has also proved that pimps are less likely to “invest” in a country with such hard measures against them. Because they see themselves as genuine businessmen, these progressive laws such as the Swedish and French laws that have strong penalties for sex buyers are simply not good for business.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), in the General recommendation No. 38 (2020) on human trafficking, encourages this new movement and calls on countries around the world to enforce it, especially in a pandemic context.

“The need to address the demand that fosters sexual exploitation is significant in the context of digital technology, which exposes potential victims to an increased risk of being trafficked,” alerts the General recommendation.

This global movement walks hand in hand with others that have shaken the world, such as #MeToo or the worldwide protests against inequality.

It’s the voice of millions around the world, Mexicans included: never again a city where sex buyers are seen as mere clients and traffickers are treated as businessmen.

To raise awareness among Mexican lawmakers, we will implement from July 26 to August 6 the worldwide campaign #10Days and #VsTrafficking hand in hand with several international organizations that will encourage new activists to stand against exploitative clients and put an end to the suffering of every lost soul in the world.

We are millions convinced of a revolutionary idea: abolishing prostitution does not limit sexual freedom, instead it motivates the sexual freedom that is needed in the world. The one that does not depend on money.

The author is a human rights activist who opened the first shelter for girls and teenagers rescued from sexual commercial exploitation in Mexico. She has published five books on preventing human trafficking; she is the elected Representative of GSN Global Sustainability Network in Latin America.

 

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North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Credit: UNICEF/Olivia Acland

By Tanvi Bhatkal and Lyla Mehta
BRIGHTON, UK, Jul 19 2021 (IPS)

The UK government’s decision to reduce its Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget from 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) to 0.5% — a cut of around £4 billion this year — was confirmed last week by a majority of 35 votes in a House of Commons vote.

The cuts that came into effect from April this year have been especially devastating for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), a sector where the UK has been very prominent globally. Between 2015 and 2020, the UK helped 62.5 million people gain access to safe water and sanitation between 2015 and 2020.

A leaked memo of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) highlighted that cuts this year alone to bilateral aid for WASH could be as high as 80% – from £150 million in 2019 to £30 million in 2021. This sudden reduction will both undermine past progress, plunge millions into water insecurity and lead to unnecessary death, especially of children.

Providing clean drinking water is considered one of the most cost-effective ways of improving health and productivity across the global South. Inadequate access to WASH is responsible for 10% of the global disease burden, contributing to 1.6 million preventable deaths annually.

Having piped water frees up time for households, increasing opportunities for income generation, education, childcare and building social capital – especially for girls and women.

According to WaterAid, achieving universal basic water services would free up 77 million working days for women annually. Safe sanitation could prevent 6 billion cases of diarrhoea and 12 billion cases of helminths between 2021-2040, improving child health and nutrition.

For decades, OECD countries including the UK have been committed to improving access to drinking water and sanitation and, in 2010, the UN General Assembly officially recognized the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation.

Despite this, 2 billion people globally lack access to safe water, and 3.6 billion – nearly half of humanity – lack access to safe sanitation. In fact, the WHO and UNICEF’s Joint Monitoring Programme recently announced that achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of universal coverage by 2030 will require quadrupling current rates of progress.

Water, along with pollutants and contaminating agents, flows into a canal in Maputo, Mozambique. Credit: John Hogg / World Bank

It is never a good time to renege on global commitments and cut support for water and sanitation services – but the timing couldn’t be worse than during a global pandemic.

The leaked FCDO memo recognises WASH as a priority area of UK Aid for the British public, especially in the time of Covid-19 and with the UK hosting the UN Climate Change Conference (COP-26). Yet, this is when the UK government decided to turn off the tap.

One example of a UK ODA-funded research project is Towards Brown Gold, which studies the sanitation challenge in off-grid small towns across Ethiopia, Ghana, India and Nepal – and examines how shit can be reimagined as a resource or “brown gold”.

This year the project is receiving one third of its original budget, with uncertainty of future budget restoration. This cut has been devastating to our partners, who have unstintingly worked to formulate collaborative plans and employ staff during the severe wave of Covid-19 in South Asia and civil war in Ethiopia.

These cuts have upset ongoing work and developing partnerships with local governments and communities to contribute to improved sanitation services for the most marginalised groups. Similar cuts have occurred across hundreds of projects on water, sanitation, public health, and even critical Covid-19 research.

The government argues that the cut of £4 billion in ODA is needed as the UK’s public finances have struggled during the pandemic. Yet, while curtailing ODA , the government spent £37 billion on Test and Trace – which was considerably more expensive than similar programmes in other countries and yet failed to deliver on its basic promise.

The government has also increased defense spending by £16 billion, a quarter of which could have protected its ODA commitments. This makes it clear that the cuts are not financial, but rather ideological. While the pandemic has highlighted the need for mutual solidarity, they undermine the idea of working together to enhance global public goods.

The significant cut to UK aid is undoubtedly having devastating effects, with prolonged uncertainty for lifesaving programmes, humanitarian efforts and crucial development progress.

With concerns that the strict economic criteria needed for a return to 0.7% risks making the ODA cuts permanent, it remains imperative for the development community and for citizens to continue to urge the government to prioritise funding for essential WASH services across the global South.

The cut to UK aid is a political choice, not an economic necessity: in the midst of a pandemic the cuts to the UK’s ODA budget negatively affect the world’s poorest, the UK’s reputation, and the effectiveness of research institutions in the UK and partners across the world.

No one is safe until we are all safe. How can the UK afford to renege on its global responsibility at such a time?

Tanvi Bhatkal is a Postdoctoral Researcher and Lyla Mehta, Professorial Fellow, both at the Institute of Development Studies, UK

 

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UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta H. Fore meets with students at the Roberto Suazo Córdoba School, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Credit: UNICEF/Bindra

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 19 2021 (IPS)

With Henrietta Fore’s decision last week to step down as UNICEF Executive Director, her successor is most likely to be another American since that post has been held– uninterruptedly — by US nationals for almost 74 years, an unprecedented all-time record for a high-ranking job in the UN system.

The seven U.S. nationals who have headed the UN children’s agency since its inception in 1947 include Maurice Pate, Henry Labouisse, James Grant, Carol Bellamy, Ann Veneman, Anthony Lake and Henrietta Fore. Pate held the job for 18 years, from 1947 to 1965, and Labouisse for 14 years, from 1965 to 1979.

No other agency has had a national stranglehold on such a senior position in the 76-year history of the United Nations.

As for individuals monopolizing office, Dr Arpad Bogsch, another US national, held the post of director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva for 24 long years (1973-1997).

But more recently, however, the professional life span of senior officials in the UN secretariat is mostly five years, with a possible extension for an additional five years.

Since money talks, the US has continued to stake its claims for the UNICEF job, primarily as its largest single financial contributor.

But that claim also applies to several UN agencies, which depend on voluntary contributions, and where some of the high-ranking positions are largely held by donors or big powers, mostly from Western Europe, or China and Russia.

James Paul, former Executive Director at the New York-based Global Policy Forum (1993-2012) and a prominent figure in the NGO advocacy community at the United Nations, told IPS much is at stake in the appointment of the head of a major agency in the UN system.

Powerful governments battle over prestige and the shaping of policy, he said, pointing out, that “interest is intense now, as the appointment of a new head of UNICEF comes up”.

“Observers inevitably wonder: what country gets the post, what is the region of the appointee, what ethnic or national group does this person represent, what is the person’s gender identify, and finally, last but not least, what is the policy inclination and administrative record of the person selected?” said Paul, author of “Of Foxes and Chickens”—Oligarchy and Global Power in the UN Security Council (2017).

He said some candidates may be serious people with years of experience while others may be personal friends of a powerful head of government.

How will the selection process work and how much pressure will be put on those with a say over the appointment process: the UN Secretary General and Executive Boards or committees? he asked.

In the early years of the UN, he said, there was a tendency to appoint male candidates who were US nationals. The US government often acted very bluntly about getting its way and it threatened many times to withhold funding or punish UN officials if its candidate was not selected.

Two well-known cases of US hegemony are UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, and UNDP, the UN Development Programme.

UNICEF is notorious because its Executive Director has been a US national continuously since the organization’s founding 74 years ago, said Paul. Now that the current head is stepping down, the question inevitably arises – will Washington once again be able to get its way?

Admittedly, it did make one concession over the years. Under pressure in 1995 to accept a very accomplished Scandinavian woman, the US agreed to drop its male candidate. Washington then proposed a woman and turned up the heat.

Carol Bellamy, the US candidate, was eventually appointed. The present head, Henrietta Fore, is also a woman but she too carries a US passport, said Paul.

Former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1992-1996), who had a love-hate relationship with the US, tried to break the US monopoly back in 1995. But he failed.

In his book “UN-Vanquished–a US-UN saga,” (1999), Boutros-Ghali says he was thwarted by then US President Bill Clinton and US ambassador Madeline Albright.

Clinton wanted William Foege, a former head of the US Centres for Disease Control, to be appointed UNICEF chief to succeed James Grant, also an American.

Since Belgium and Finland had already put forward “outstanding” women candidates — and since the US had refused to pay its UN dues and was also making ”disparaging” remarks about the world body — “there was no longer automatic acceptance by other nations that the director of UNICEF must inevitably be an American man or woman,” said Boutros-Ghali.

“The US should select a woman candidate,” Boutros-Ghali told Albright, “and then I will see what I can do,” since the appointment involved consultation with the then 36-member UNICEF Executive Board. ”

Albright rolled her eyes and made a face, repeating what had become her standard expression of frustration with me,” he writes.

When the US kept pressing Foege’s candidature, Boutros-Ghali says that “many countries on the UNICEF Board were angry and (told) me to tell the United States to go to hell.”

The US eventually submitted an alternate woman candidate: Carol Bellamy, a former director of Peace Corps.

Although Elizabeth Rehn of Finland received 15 votes to Bellamy’s 12 in a straw poll, Boutros-Ghali said he asked the Board president to convince the members to achieve consensus on Bellamy so that the US could continue a monopoly it held since UNICEF was created in 1947.

And thereby hangs a tale.

According to the latest published figures, total contributions to UNICEF in 2020 were over US$7 billion. The public sector contributed the largest share: US$5.45 billion from government, inter-governmental and inter-organizational partners, as well as Global Programme Partnerships.

The top three resource partners in 2020 (by contributions received) were the Governments of the United States of America (US$801 million), Germany (US$744 million) and the European Union (US$514 million).

As UNICEF’s largest donor, the US was considered “an indispensable partner”.

“Our partnership with the US Government is broad and diverse, spanning humanitarian and development programmes across key areas of UNICEF’s work, including health; education; early child development; water, sanitation and hygiene; nutrition; child protection; gender equality; HIV and AIDS; immunization; and research programmes,” according to UNICEF.

Samir Sanbar, a former UN assistant secretary-General and head of the Department of Public Information, told IPS the argument over the post of UNICEF Executive Director was the first clash between Boutros-Ghali and Ambassador Albright who otherwise was very friendly, as both were “former professors”.

As Boutros-Ghali once quipped: “I may be America’s yes man (as he was described in the Arab press when he was elected secretary-general) but certainly not, yes sir “.

Initially, American UNICEF Executive Directors like Henry Labouisse and James Grant proved their value not merely by bringing U.S. funds but by their proven accomplishments, said Sanbar.

Guterres, an experienced politician, will most likely explore options: perhaps await proposals from the Biden Administration while keeping open possible interest by members of the Security Council like Norway–and others, which could offer a substantive contribution, as long as its candidate is a woman, said Sanbar who had served under five different secretaries-general during his longstanding UN career.

Paul pointed out that UNDP provides an interesting basis for comparison. It had a US head (the title is Administrator) for thirty-two years consecutively, from its founding in 1967.

In 1999, when the moment for a new appointment arose, the UN membership stepped up pressure for a more diverse pool of candidates.

At last, the magic spell of US dominance broke, as Mark Malloch Brown of the UK got the nod. And since 1999, there hasn’t been a single US national in that post of UNDP Administrator.

That was a sign that Washington’s grip on the UN was slipping and that its global influence was waning – slowly perhaps but unmistakably.

A capable woman from New Zealand, Helen Clark, was one of the new breed, along with a Turk, Kemal Dervis, and a German, Achim Steiner, who currently holds the post.

But not all US nominees have turned out badly, said Paul.

James Grant, was a widely-respected head of UNICEF, and Gus Speth won plaudits as head of UNDP. But symbolism is important in a multi-lateral organization with a world-wide membership and a very diverse constituency.

“No matter how competent the US candidate might be, and no matter how independent-minded, color-coded and engendered, it is time for UNICEF to get a non-US Executive Director. The world of 1947 has long gone. US hegemony is not what it was.”

“A bit of fresh air at UNICEF is long overdue,” declared Paul.

Thalif Deen 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/

 

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