Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Rama Hansraj

By Mariya Salim
NEW DELHI, India, Jul 2 2021 (IPS)

Two Indian women, one Muslim and the other Dalit (former untouchables), separated by culture and geography, have found common ground in leading change in conflict-torn South Sudan.

Rama Hansraj, a Dalit, grew up in a humble railway colony in Secunderabad. Huma Khan, a Muslim, born and raised in the controversial north Indian city of Faizabad, now Ayodhya, home to the demolished Babri Masjid. Both agree their personal experiences of experiencing and seeing discrimination in India and the world led to their decisions to work in the international humanitarian field in conflict zones.

The women are activists and feminists who, through their experiences of struggle and years of work with India’s most marginalised, decided to work in geographies and contexts which ordinarily many would avoid.

“What else do you expect someone, who has grown up five kilometres (three miles) away from the disputed Babri Masjid site in an atmosphere of constant conflict and communal strife, to want to pursue?” says Khan in an exclusive interview with IPS. She was answering a question on why she chose to work in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan instead of choosing a more comfortable position.

In her last role in South Sudan, Khan was the senior women’s protection advisor, leading the section on conflict-related sexual violence at the United Nations mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). She is now a senior human rights adviser to the UN in Bangladesh.

Hansraj, country director of Save the Children in South Sudan, shared with IPS how her work on the ground in India and her interactions with the development sector motivated her to take up positions outside the country and institutions with decision-making powers.

“For us Dalits, access to basic facilities like education and land is a challenge. We face discrimination even in disasters,” she says while sharing her experience of working post-Tsunami in India.

Here she saw how Dalits, affected by the disaster, were not even allowed to stand in the same queue as others to receive basic aid.

“We started working on developing donor principles in disasters, highlighting the fact that they need to look at the vulnerabilities within the response and how the beneficiary selection needs to be more inclusive. That is when I saw that not working in these bigger organisations was not going to help us,” recalls Hansraj.

Khan spent many years in Gujarat as an independent activist living in resettlement colonies after the communal violence of 2002. There she worked to help rebuild communities and assist in the case of a gang rape survivor. Her lived experiences made her “unapologetically Muslim”.

She recalled how she refused to share the stage at an event organised by an international NGO where women were made to “unveil” as a symbol of freeing them.

Huma Khan

“It was a month after 9/11 that I had a study-cum-work trip planned to the US which I did not want to cancel,” Khan says. “I have had an object thrown at me and been called ‘Taliban’ while walking down a street in the US because I had covered my head to escape the cold.”

Hansraj has been part of anti-caste movements for as long as she can remember, and shared caste discrimination crosses borders and continents and is not only an “Indian problem”.

“Caste travels where Indians travel, and the international development sector is no exception. Indians abroad always assume I am upper caste, because otherwise how could I be in such high positions, being a Dalit,’ she says with sarcasm.

Both Hansraj and Khan were Ford Foundation fellows and got their initial international academic exposure with the fellowship.

One of the driving factors for both moving from India to take up challenging positions in countries like Yemen (for Hansraj) and Darfur and Afghanistan (for Huma) was their disappointment with the development sector in India and its treatment of Muslim and Dalit communities.

“Even if you’re working for a Dalit organisation, the funding decisions were still with those upper caste people sitting in the international NGOs, who basically made decisions for us,” says Hansraj.

“Even today, most positions of power in the development sector are occupied by upper caste individuals who decide what to fund and what not to, instead of letting us decide on our own issues.”

Khan, who co-founded the feminist rights and advocacy group AALI in India, also felt the space to grow, especially for a Muslim woman in the development sector in India, was shrinking, with those who occupied powerful positions continuing to do so for decades.

Both women worked in South Sudan for close to three years. When Khan left the country late last year, she became a senior human rights adviser to the UN in Bangladesh. Hansraj continues to head Save the Children in South Sudan.

South Sudan is the youngest country globally, gaining its independence from the Republic of Sudan in 2011. The country experiences constant instability and conflict since then.

Both Khan and Hansraj, in leading roles, have held interactions, negotiations and led advocacy and action-oriented processes with the leadership in the country, with tribal chiefs and community elders alike.

Constant armed rifts and coming face to face with former armed groups where negotiations were needed to either release abducted women or children, or both did not deter them.

“My team and I were able to facilitate the process of the release of women who were abducted, many as sexual slaves, in the Western Equatoria region of South Sudan. To deal with the leadership in the capital city of Juba was one thing, and to negotiate with the commanders on the ground had challenges of threat for us and especially for those women,” recalls Khan. The negotiation led to the release of dozens of women and children, many of whom were subjected to repeated rape, sexual slavery and forced marriage by members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO).

“For me, my identity and my experiences as a marginalised person mean I can identify myself with conflict-affected communities and communities that have been deprived of their basic freedoms, like South Sudan, ” says Hansraj.

Hansraj shared how she lived in constant fear of being raped when she was in the country in 2015-2016, having witnessed compound break-ins and rampant sexual violence.

“Women and children are abducted in the process of cattle-raiding here. There is intercommunal violence. In India, women and children from Dalit communities were abducted and trafficked for centuries into forced labour and sex work,” she says.

Hansraj feels she imported herself into a context, which is so similar and heart wrenching that sometimes she finds herself caught between emotions and practicalities.

Mariya Salim is a fellow at IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Jul 1 2021 (IPS)

In 2020, French President Emmanuel Macron announced plans for tougher laws to tackle what he called, “Islamist Separatism”, and a crackdown on “radical Islamists” in France, which he said were materializing through repeated deviations from the Republic’s values. To counter this, President Macron announced his plans to create a “French Islam”, a practise of the faith which would be regulated by the state.

Rim-Sarah Alouane

In February 2021, France’s National Assembly passed a controversial “Separatist Bill”, to reinforce the country’s secular identity. The draft legislation aims to address, “deliberate politico-religious projects leading to the creation of a counter-society and to indoctrinationation, running counter to French laws”. Ironically this legislation which is meant to protect constitutional values, including human dignity, gender equality has been critiqued for undermining those very values.

“Instead of responding with pragmatism, instead of bringing a rational response to a very difficult issue of radicalization and terrorism, we respond to these issues in a very emotional way, which is dangerous,” says French scholar and commentator Rim-Sarah Alouane in an interview to me.

“The law of Separatism has a list of amendments that will not only restrict civil liberty but also extend the law of 1905 on limiting religious freedom. This law is equal, it applies to everybody, but when you look at it, it will defacto affect Muslim groups,” says Rim-Sarah.

French officials insist the bill is not aimed at Muslims in France, but is against the reconstructed vision of a religion that behaves in a way contrary to the republic.

France has 5.7 million Muslims living in the country, one of the largest in Europe. This bill extends to what is known in France as the “neutrality principle”, which basically prohibits civil servants from wearing religious symbols, voicing political views and is extended to private contractors of public services.

“The groups that are in difficult positions will be in even more difficult positions due to such laws. Can you imagine, let’s say you work for a private company as a maid or as a garbage collector, you will have to be religiously neutral because your company has a contract with the state,” says Rim-Sarah.

The draft law against “separatism” also includes provisions which bolsters powers to close mosques promoting “extremism”, requiring associations to pledge allegiance to French “Republican principles”.

Rights group Amnesty International called for the many problematic provisions of the bill to be scrapped or amended. “The proposed law would be a serious attack on rights and freedoms in France. It would allow public authorities to fund only organizations which sign a ‘contract of republican commitment’ – a vaguely defined concept which is wide open to abuse and threatens the very freedoms of expression and association the French authorities claim to stand for,” the statement said.

Recently there was an uproar in France creating serious public debate concerns over the prohibition of the use of religious symbols for parents picking up their children after school, accompanying them on school trips, and during national sports competition.

Although the bill does not clearly state Muslims or Hijabs, this impacts mothers who do wear hijabs (headscarfs) while accompanying their children. An amendment was made in 2004, which prohibited use of religious symbols in schools in France, though parents were excluded from this ban, only to be opened up again for discussion.

French officials have often championed this ban as a protection of the country’s “secular constitution” and a defence against the regressive Islamic attitude towards its women. Only failing to give freedom or even a choice to Muslim women living in France, to decide what they want to wear or not want to wear.

The “Don’t touch my hijab” movement in France had Muslim women protesting the hijab bans, calling it Islamophobic and a way to exclude Muslim women in the country.

“The niqab ban is to just an excuse to go after the Muslim visibility. Whatever you think about the Niqab, we all have an opinion on it, it doesn’t really matter. I think it’s a conversation that should be around Muslim women, and its not the state that should decide what is religious or not.

“Imposing a woman to wear a certain garment is the same as imposing a woman to remove a certain garment. Muslim majority countries whether Saudi Arabia or Iran saying that a Muslim woman should dress in a certain way is wrong, but I would say the same for countries that say a Muslim woman needs to remove her hijab. It’s about the Muslim woman’s freedom, let Muslim women live their lives,” says Rim-Sarah.

The threat to secularism is often emphasized, in the case of France, by questioning French Muslims apparent lack of integration into what the state believes to be French society. The debate over integration is essentially structured around compatibility of religion and national identity, which has also become a strong political tool in France, and more so recently also across Europe.

France was the first country in Europe to ban full-face coverings in public in 2011, however other countries in Europe still have partial or total burqa bans, including Norway, Denmark, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Latvia. Earlier in March Switzerland passed a referendum banning full face coverings in public spaces. The consequence of such construction is that terrorism and the veil end up being situated on the same level of analysis as violence against European values and principles and “constructing Muslims in Europe as enemies of European societies.”

The exceptional nature of France’s secularism or laïcité’ is more than just a basic separation of the religious and the political, “it is a deep structural and ideological system unique to France and French history.” Liberté, égalité and fraternité are the safe-house of French identity, but you can’t have cultural unity without accepting cultural diversity. The very same French secularism that shouts for freedom, takes that agency away from individuals with multicultural identities. The problem is the assumption that the Muslim population in France might affect the French identity because it could challenge the very concept of laïcité’. The Separatist Bill which is being used to reinforce France’s tradition by discouraging religious viewpoints and identities is only creating a society which is isolating, dominating and excluding minority citizens in the name of upholding republican principles.

“We have more legislation being passed on restricting civil liberties in France. It is deeply concerning because we are passing laws that are directly restricting civil liberties, rights and freedoms. When it affects one group, at some point everybody will be affected. People don’t seem to realize that, because they feel it is to defy political Islam, to fight separatism, will be just for the Muslims basically, but the reality is once one group is tackled, others will follow. You know history. The moment you attack an individual on the grounds of who they are, you are attacking the very foundation of democracy,” says Rim-Sarah.

The author is a journalist and filmmaker based out of New Delhi. She hosts a weekly online show called The Sania Farooqui Show where Muslim women from around the world are invited to share their views. You can follow her on Twitter here.

 

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Plastic bags may remain intact for years in the marine environment. Plastic products certified to be industrially compostable are no solution for littering, as they do not degrade efficiently in the environment and continue to pose a threat to wildlife as they break down. Credit: Eleonora de Sabata / Clean Sea LIFE

By Guy Dinmore
St David’s, Wales, Jul 1 2021 (IPS)

Documented images of albatross chicks and marine turtles dying slow deaths from eating plastic bags and other waste are being seared into our consciences. And yet our mass pollution of Earth’s seas and oceans, fuelled by single-use plastics and throw-away consumerism, just gets worse.

Plastic debris is estimated to kill more than a million seabirds, 100,000 marine mammals and countless sea turtles every year. Plastics, with all their benefits and promises, have revolutionised societies and economies since their development in the 1950s, but now some 8 million tonnes end up in the oceans every year.

Waste plastic, making up to 80% of all marine debris from surface waters to deep-sea sediments, breaks down into micro-plastics which enter the digestive systems of sea and land animals and humans. Invisible plastic is in the water we drink, the salt we eat and the air we breathe. Experts are still working out the long-term impacts, such as cancer and impaired reproductive systems.

The fishing industry, nautical activities and aquaculture also leave a massive legacy in terms of ocean waste, poisoning and ensnaring sea life.

Hasna Moudud heads a small NGO in Bangladesh, working to protect coastal areas where vast rivers pour into the Indian Ocean, providing livelihoods and food for millions.

Her NGO, Coastal Area Resource Development and Management Association (Cardma), plants coastal trees, protects olive ridley sea turtles in a conservation hatchery in the Bay of Bengal, and helps women in cottage industries, using cane grass to make mats instead of plastic.

“Oceans are always neglected,” she tells IPS. “Small NGOs like myself take risks to save whatever we can of the fragile ecosystem that is left for our future generations.”

Plastic bottles and bottle caps are among the most frequent items found along Mediterranean shores. Credit: Eleonora de Sabata / Clean Sea LIFE

But to combine her NGO’s efforts with those of others, Moudud says she is “praying” to attend the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2020 in Marseille this September where government, civil society and indigenous peoples’ organisations from around the world will join discussions to set priorities and drive conservation and sustainable development action.

Meeting every four years – with this Congress delayed by the Covid pandemic – member organisations of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, vote on major issues to shape humanity’s response to the planet’s conservation crises. This particular Congress in Marseille is offering both in-person and virtual participation options, allowing those unable to make the trip to Marseille for the full Congress the opportunity to join discussions and provide their feedback.

Moudud’s NGO is a co-sponsor of Congress Motion 022: “Stopping the global plastic pollution crisis in marine environments by 2030.”

The broad resolution goes to the heart of the waste plastics issue. It notes that global production is due to increase by 40% over the next 15 years from current levels of around 300 million tonnes and that the world’s “predominant throwaway model” means that over 75% of the plastics ever produced to date are waste, “notably because the price of plastic on the market does not represent all of the costs of its lifecycle to nature or society”.

Recalling previous international efforts to set goals for ending marine plastic litter, the motion calls on the international community to reach a wide-ranging global agreement to combat marine plastic pollution. This would entail, among other measures, eliminating unnecessary plastic production, in particular single-use plastic waste; recycling and proper prevention of leakage into the environment; and public awareness campaigns.

Sunlight, salt and pounding waves grind marine litter down to plastic grains. Credit: Eleonora de Sabata / Clean Sea LIFE

Activists say previous international efforts to curb plastic pollution have been toothless. Moudud is among many who want mandatory and enforceable measures, accusing big business of what she calls “manipulative practices through sponsorship and malpractice without helping build the natural world”.

“No one is looking or holding the polluters responsible,” she says, calling for a toughening up of the resolution. “I am deeply involved in everything IUCN does to help save the natural world and sustainable living.”

Steve Trott, project manager for IUCN-member Watamu Marine Association which is tackling plastic pollution in their Marine Protected Area in Kenya, says Motion 022 clearly sets out the threats posed by plastic waste to marine and coastal environments, economies and human health and well-being.

“Watamu Marine Association and EcoWorld Recycling based on the Kenya coast embrace the IUCN call for action,” Trott told IPS.

Pushing circular economy initiatives, their NGO has created dynamic plastic value chains through partnerships between the hotels industry and local communities, sponsoring beach clean-ups and collecting plastic waste for recycling. This provides a second source of income for community waste collectors while local artists are also up-cycling plastic waste.

Reflecting one of the main themes of IUCN’s membership structure bringing together civil society and indigenous peoples and government authorities, Trott says Watamu is following a “win-win model which can be replicated and up-scaled, sending out an ‘Act Local, Think Global’ message to inspire others”. He hopes to attend the Congress in Marseille if all goes well.

Single Use items are littering the world’s oceans. Credit: Eleonora de Sabata / Clean Sea LIFE

The Plastic Waste Makers index, a study by Australia’s Minderoo Foundation, identifies 20 companies producing more than half of all single-use plastic waste in the world. Some are state-owned and multinational corporations, whose plastic production is financed by major banks. The report notes that nearly 98% of single-use plastic is made from what is called virgin fossil fuels — plastic created without any recycled materials.

Single-use plastics explain why fossil fuel companies are ramping up their production as their two main markets of transport and electricity generation are being decarbonised. By 2050 plastic is expected to account for 5%-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Humankind possesses unprecedented levels of knowledge but also the accompanying responsibility, knowing that oceans are in the poorest health since humans started exploiting them.

Single use plastics – and the estimated 130 million tonnes that are dumped each year around the world – have dominated studies and discussions on waste. Plastic bottles, food containers and wrappers, and single-use bags are the four most widespread items polluting the seas.

One element woven into similar narratives of how to tackle the world’s burning environmental issues – such as carbon emissions, species loss, and plastic waste – is the potential fix offered by technology. Motion 022 refers to the need for more investment in environmentally sound plastic waste collection, recycling and disposal systems as well as forms of recovery.

A study led by biologist Nikoleta Bellou at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon institute focuses on inventive sea-cleaning solutions to date, including floating drones. But her paper suggests that it could take about a century to remove just 5% of plastics currently in the oceans using clean-up devices because plastic production and waste are accumulating so fast.

Activists welcome IUCN’s intervention on plastic waste pollution and the strong mandate a successful and unanimous motion can convey to governments and international institutions. But they also caution against taking too narrow an approach towards tackling marine pollution at the September 3-11 Congress.

Eleonora de Sabata, spokesperson for the Clean Sea Life project, co-funded by the European Union’s LIFE programme, told IPS that the narrative needs to shift away from single-use plastic to single-use everything. “Technology” has come up with so-called ‘bio’ plastics as a replacement for some plastics but only to create a whole suite of problems of their own.

“It’s the throwaway culture that creates problems, whether plastic or not. Green washing and sloppy leadership are filling our world of single use,” she argues. Washing our consciences by simply substituting single-use plastics with other single-use items, such as supposedly biodegradable bags and cutlery, are not the answer.

 

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

By Guillaume Baggio, Manzoor Qadir and Vladimir Smakhtin
HAMILTON, Ontario, Canada, Jul 1 2021 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic has undeniably amplified the existing vulnerabilities of billions of people worldwide. Marginalized communities in developing countries were excluded from social protection and support.

Long-standing economic and social inequalities have deepened with the poor getting poorer. A sharp divide in the distribution of vaccines has revealed major issues in the global health sector.

Economic stimulus packages amounting to about $10 trillion were assembled in a matter of months — a much larger sum than what governments invested when the 2008 financial crisis struck. Yet, progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have largely decelerated.

In fact, the pandemic has made many of the goals literally unachievable in the time left to 2030.

Progress towards SDG 6 — Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all — is among the goals most suffering. The world at large was already off track on this before the pandemic.

An estimated 2 billion and 3.6 billion people still live without access to safely managed water supplies and sanitation respectively. Funds needed to tackle this immense challenge were estimated in 2016 to be US $74–166 billion annually until 2030.

They have never been raised, and now, likely, more is needed. Instead, due to the pandemic, water funding is now projected to decrease.

The cost of meeting other SDG 6 targets – beyond just universal water supply and sanitation – is not included in the above. With attention turning now to post-pandemic economic recovery plans, the question is: where and how do we get the money needed to achieve SDG 6 in the final nine years of the SDG era if we continuously failed to do so in the first six?

Recently initiated acceleration frameworks create some hope, and yet it is difficult to be particularly optimistic.

As we face unresolved global water challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic, while detrimental in itself already, might be a prelude to more threatening events. The world needs to get used to and prepare for “living with pandemics”, as the risk of infectious diseases now competes side by side with the risk of our failure to act on climate change.

New infectious diseases may increase in the next decades not the least due to continuing uncontrolled human destruction of ecosystems. Next pandemics could bring even higher mortality rates or as yet unimaginable human health impacts.

In this context, providing safe water and sanitation, and ensuring healthy freshwater ecosystems are no longer matters of just basic needs, human rights or dignity. They are the matters of survival for all. Strategic actions are required now rather than waiting for the next pandemic episodes.

Countries will likely have little choice other than addressing multiple development challenges simultaneously. Yet, from the standpoint of preparing for future pandemics, further prioritization of those challenges needs to be made.

In the global water sector, there are several items that may need to receive priority in the next nine SDG years:

· Ensure the universal water and sanitation access in healthcare facilities. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, roughly half of healthcare facilities lack access to basic water, and three quarters lack access to sanitation services, while data on access to basic hygiene services in these facilities is widely unavailable across all regions.

· Ensure water and sanitation access gap in schools. Globally, 31% and 37% of schools lack access to basic water and sanitation services respectively. Girls who lack access to safe water and sanitation at school are more likely to abandon their education creating long-term impacts, with losses in their lifetime productivity and earnings estimated at $15–30 trillion.

· Provide water access to refugees, who numbered more than 26 million in 2020. COVID-19 has worsened refugees’ living conditions and untreated water and inadequate sanitation and hygiene increased the possibility of infectious diseases – now and in the future.

· Improve water and health services for the urban poor. One in four of the world urban population live in informal settlements where social distancing, regular hand washing and other pandemic management practices are unfeasible. Short-term responses, including the suspension of water billing, and water trucks and water supply points, have been far from enough to offset the access gap in these areas.

The above challenges have a lot in common. All are explicitly human-centric and target the most vulnerable; hence they are critical to address if we are serious about leaving no one behind. All of them, if addressed, will alleviate the impact of future pandemics.

All contribute to SDG 6 targets on universal water supply and sanitation. All have strong links with other important SDGs, e.g. you cannot eradicate a source of refugees without ensuring peace, political stability and arresting environmental degradation.

And all are implicit within the current SDG targets. Achieving the above milestones may not be enough for universal access to water and sanitation, but they will still be unprecedented achievements in modern history.

Arresting the degradation of freshwater ecosystems – to alleviate the probability of future pandemics -also needs to be made much stronger. Although some relevant processes are on the way, they may turn out to be too lengthy to be effective.

Overall, the COVID-19 pandemic suggests that revisiting and articulating priorities in the ongoing SDG efforts may be in order. With almost 170 targets, the SDG framework, while comprehensive, is perhaps too ambitious for a rather short period.

And it is not just the matter of periodic assessment of the SDG progress, but also the matter of adjusting the targets; particularly when many original ones were blurred and when new major factors like pandemics recently reshaped the world. There are things that just can no longer wait. Fixing at least some of the world’s most chronic water problems is one of them.

Guillaume Baggio is Research Associate, Manzoor Qadir is Assistant Director, and Vladimir Smakhtin is the Director at the UN University’s Canadian-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health, which is supported by the Government of Canada and hosted at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. The Institute marks its 25th anniversary in 2021.

 

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Illustration by Inge Snip. Credit: openDemocracy

By Khatondi Soita Wepukhulu
KAMPALA, Jun 30 2021 (IPS)

At Mulago, Uganda’s biggest public hospital, a receptionist at an HIV clinic for marginalised and ‘most at risk’ populations, including LGBT people, said that an undercover reporter’s 17-year-old gay brother could “quit” his same-sex attraction.

“Whoever wants to quit homosexuality, we connect them,” she said – to external counsellors, who have included Pastor Solomon Male, a locally known anti-gay campaigner. She also gave our undercover reporter the phone number of a man who “was once a patient here” and “was once a homosexual but isn’t anymore”.

The USAID aid agency – which says it supports LGBTQI+ inclusive development – gave the Most At Risk Populations Initiative (MARPI) that runs this clinic a $420,000 grant in 2019, ending this September. (It is unclear if any of this money went to this specific clinic.)

It is just one of several examples of health centres in Uganda where our undercover reporters caught staff providing, or providing referrals for, controversial anti-gay ‘therapies’.

Our investigation identified similar support for ‘anti-gay’ counselling activities at three hospitals in the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau (UCMB) network. This network received more than $1m from USAID between 2019 and this April, though it is unclear whether the specific hospitals identified in this investigation received any of this money.

At one of these hospitals – Nsambya, Uganda’s biggest private health facility – staff referred our reporters to the private office of Cabrine Mukiibi, on the outskirts of Kampala, who mixed Freudian theories, biblical quotes and anti-gay insults in his diagnosis.

Mukiibi, who is also a staff counsellor at Nsambya, stated that sex without procreation “becomes evil” – before recommending what he called “exposure therapy”, telling our undercover reporter to “get a housemaid” that her supposedly gay teenage brother can “get attracted [to]’’, one who is “between 18 and 20 years of age”.

A spokesperson from the US embassy in Kampala, Anthony Kujawa, said that ‘conversion therapy’ goes against “the policy of the United States to pursue an end to violence and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics”.

In response to questions from openDemocracy, Kujawa explained that US funding for UCMB was supposed to support the capacity of Catholic health facilities involved in HIV and AIDS care. He said: “USAID does not fund or promote anti-LGBTQI+ conversion therapy and will investigate any report that a USAID funded partner is doing so.”

Rosco Kasujja, director of mental health at Makerere University’s school of psychology and head of the Uganda Clinical Psychologists Association, called openDemocracy’s findings “disturbing”. He blamed the lack of a national regulator for psychologists, which could ensure that all patients receive quality care.

“It’s really frustrating that we don’t have any power,’’ he said, in reference to his association’s voluntary and non-binding standards. “People are playing by their own rules and [we] can’t do anything about it.”

 

‘Extremely unethical’

Globally, more than 65 associations of doctors, psychologists or counsellors have condemned ‘conversion therapy’ practices, according to a 2020 report by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) rights group.

Three countries (Brazil, Ecuador and Malta) have banned these practices – which range from ‘talk therapy’ to physical ‘treatments’ including so-called aversion therapy, while Germany has banned them when applied to minors. Several US states have also passed bans, while the UK recently pledged to do the same nationwide.

Anal sex is illegal in Uganda, and homosexuality is heavily stigmatised. It is unclear how common ‘conversion therapy’ is, but openDemocracy teamed up with local researchers to document the experiences of 20 LGBT Ugandan survivors of such ‘treatments’.

Interviewees said such ‘therapy’ “felt like murder” and that they “suffered depression and anxiety”, drug dependence and suicidal thoughts. Mulago and a hospital in UCMB’s network were among the facilities they named as having provided the treatments.

Godiva Akullo, a feminist lawyer in Kampala, said of those providing ‘conversion’ therapies: “I think it’s extremely unethical behaviour.”

 

Unregulated therapy

In Kampala, openDemocracy undercover reporters visited three hospitals in the aid-funded UCMB network, looking for ‘treatment’ for same-sex attraction, and were referred to providers of such therapy either within the health facilities or externally.

At Kisubi Hospital’s “youth-friendly” clinic, a counsellor offered a session for 50,000 Ugandan shillings ($14), saying a “17 [year-old] is still a small child we can modify”.

At Lubaga Hospital, Matthias Ssetuba introduced himself as the facility’s “mental health focal person”. He claimed that homosexuality is caused by factors ranging from peer pressure to the internet, and also said that it can be “changed”.

“It is a mental health issue,” he added, “because once you start having sex with the same sex, much as those whites are saying ‘it’s normal’, in our society it’s abnormal. And anything to do with abnormality has something to do with mental health.”

He stressed that a person “has to accept” that they need help “in converting”.

In an email to openDemocracy afterwards, Ssettuba said it was the first time he’d had “such a case at the hospital”, which “has never aided any anti-LGBT conversion therapy”.

“We would only wish to support those who might want to do so at their own will,” he said. He did not reply to further questions about his statements to our undercover reporters.

Homosexuality, said Cabrine Mukiibi (the counsellor referred by Nsambya Hospital) is often caused by “unresolved competition” between a child and a same-sex parent for the attention of an opposite-sex parent during their development’s “phallic stage”.

He wore a label on his coat saying “clinical psychologist” when he met our reporters. He has also been quoted in local media as a “clinical psychologist”.

He said he had just finished (but not yet been awarded) a master’s degree in clinical psychology at Uganda Martyrs University, which is affiliated to the Catholic Church. But this degree is not listed on the university’s website, and Uganda’s higher education regulator told openDemocracy the university is not accredited to offer this programme.

Nsambya Hospital’s director Peter Sekweyama told openDemocracy that Mukiibi is “just offering counselling”, and that he is “trained in something like humanities”.

Kasujja, head of the psychologists’ association, said hospitals have a responsibility to ensure their staff are qualified – but warned that without national regulation of counsellors and psychologists, “there is going to be lots of abuse, […] lots of harm.”

No one from Kisubi Hospital responded to openDemocracy’s requests for comment. UCMB and the HIV clinic at Mulago Hospital also did not respond.

The US embassy in Kampala did not say if USAID funding to UCMB has been renewed.

Noah Mirembe, a human rights lawyer and trans man in Kampala, said that Ugandans who have been harmed by ‘conversion therapy’ practices and are interested in legal redress should contact the Taala Foundation (an organisation he co-directs) for support.

* Additional reporting by Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi

 

This story was originally published by openDemocracy

A domestic worker in her house in the Dhaka’s Malibagh slum. She no longer has work because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Courtesy: Rafiqul Islam

By Rafiqul Islam
DHAKA, Jun 30 2021 (IPS)

Rani Akter, a mother of five, usually works as a domestic helper in Dhaka’s Zikatola area. When the coronavirus pandemic broke out in Bangladesh last March, her employers asked her not to come to their homes for fear of infection.

“I lost my work in three houses one after the other, which became a nightmare for me. My rich employers did not allow me in their homes as they thought that I might carry the invisible virus,” Akter told IPS.

Akter’s husband also lost his job because of the COVID-19 lockdown and the family fell on hard times.

“We had nowhere to go. Once we had a home in Mehendiganj in the coastal Barishal district, but riverbank erosion engulfed our home eight years ago. That’s why we were compelled to stay in the city,” she said.

Akter began knocking on doors, looking — unsuccessfully — for work.

“We did not find government relief or cash assistance. But we had to survive and that’s why at first we were bearing family expenses from our savings. And when the savings were spent, we started borrowing from our relatives. We’ve already borrowed Tk 40,000 ($ 471). We are taking Tk 5,000 to 6,000 ($ 58 to $ 70) in loans per month from neighbours and relatives to meet our food demand and pay rent,” Akter said.

She said her family was running into debt and she did not know when their suffering would end.

Shahana Akter (20), a single mother who works as a domestic helper in Netrakona town, also lost her work when the pandemic started. But she was more fortunate that most.

“When I lost my work, I thought how my five-year-old son and I would survive. I had no savings. But I was lucky enough as I got a new work after two months of the lockdown,” Shahana Akter told IPS.

Millions of domestic workers lost their jobs because of COVID-19

There is no official data on the number of domestic workers in Bangladesh. But according to Rezaul Haque, additional secretary (Labour Wing) of Bangladesh’s Labour and Employment Ministry, around 95 percent of domestic helpers are women and girls.

A 2006 International Labour Organisation (ILO) study estimated that Bangladesh had four million domestic workers in a country with a population of 163 million.

While a recent study by the National Domestic Women Workers Union (NDWWU) showed there are about 2.2 to 2.5 million domestic workers, of which about 60 percent or 1.5 million were live-out workers with the remaining 40 percent living their employer’s homes.

According to NDWWU general secretary Murshida Akter Nahar, when the coronavirus outbreak began here in March 2020, many domestic workers lost their jobs without notice and without being paid the wages owed to them. 

It is estimated that around 1.2 million live-out workers lost their jobs since March 2020.

“And many domestic helpers were forced out of their employers’ houses, so they had to suffer a miserable life during the lockdown last year. They had no shelter to live and no food to eat in Dhaka city. That was why many of them were compelled to leave the city,” she told IPS.

Once the COVID-19 infection rate reduced, many domestic workers returned to the city, hoping to be re-employed by their former employers. But most did not get their jobs back.

Nahar said those domestic helpers who had been able to find employment, lost their jobs when the coronavirus situation started deteriorating once again this March. “But they did not get enough support from the government.”

She said many domestic workers started begging, resulting a rapid rise of beggars on the city streets.        

Mahmuda Begum (40) lives in a small rented house in the city’s Zikatola area and she had also worked in the area as a domestic helper. When the pandemic began she lost her job overnight.

“I lost my only livelihood option due to COVID-19. I spent all the savings that I had. Now I have no money to pay house rent (Taka 5,000 per month or $58) or buy food and other essential goods. That’s why I had no option but to borrow money at high interest,” Begum told IPS.

Begum, a widow and mother of two, said she did not pay her rent for four months and her family often have to starve for lack of food. “We cannot eat meals three times in a day,” she added. 

Shahana Akter (20), a single mother and domestic worker in Netrakona town, also lost her work when the pandemic started. She was able to find employment again. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

Domestic work is an unregulated sector

Rights bodies have been demanding ratification of the ILO Convention 189 and implementation of the Domestic Workers Protection and Welfare Policy. In 2015, the Bangladesh government adopted the Domestic Workers Protection and Welfare Policy aiming to ensure the rights of domestic workers and they were supposed to be a registration process. 

“But the government is yet to implement the policy. We are also demanding the government include the domestic work issue in the Labour Act to be amended,” Nahar said.

Domestic Workers Rights Network coordinator Abul Hossain said: “At the onset of the lockdown enforced in Bangladesh, the domestic workers faced a lot of suffering. About 30 percent of them, who lost work, were compelled to return to their villages and those who were in the city did not have any work. A majority of them did not get any government support.”

He said that many were now in a difficult situation as they could not pay rent and were trapped in debt. He said this also resulted in a rapid rise in family feuds.

Hossain, also a trade union leader, said it was impossible to currently ensure the rights of domestic workers and suggested bringing them under a legal framework to establish their rights.

Haque, additional secretary (Labour Wing) of the Labour and Employment Ministry, said the government distributed cash assistance and relief among the unemployed by preparing their lists. He said that there was no specific social protection scheme for domestic workers as they worked in the informal sector.

Haque said that if the proposed Domestic Workers Protection and Welfare Policy Act was passed, the rights of domestic workers could be established.

“Talks continue with stakeholders concerned to formulate a law to ensure the rights of domestic workers,” Haque said.      

_______________________________________________________________________________

This feature was made possible by a donation from Farida Sultana Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Farida Sultana passed away in December 2020 after battling COVID-19 for two weeks. 

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By External Source
Tonga, Jun 30 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Last week, the Tonga Laboratory Services completed the installation of a 4 module GeneXpert testing equipment used for diagnosis of COVID-19 infection and to increase SARS-coV-2 testing capacity.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, each Pacific Island Country and Territory (PICT) had one or two GeneXpert equipment for diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) and sexually transmitted infections (STI), supported by Global Fund. The same equipment had been used for COVID-19 testing in the last 12 months.

The progressive increase in demand for COVID-19 testing in PICTs over the past months resulted in frequent equipment downtime due to repair and maintenance affecting not only COVID-19 testing but also TB and STI testing. Therefore, the need to have a dedicated equipment for COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 testing was critical.

Telesia Apikotoa, Laboratory Manager at Tonga Laboratory Services, said this equipment will help them prepare for the worst should an outbreak occur. “This equipment will strengthen our COVID-19 testing capabilities and receiving 4 additional modules for testing is of great help to us. We acknowledge the support received since the beginning of this pandemic to improve our laboratory’s services and capabilities”.

Dr Eka Buadromo, Senior Laboratory Advisor at the Pacific Community’s (SPC) Public Health Division, said that SPC continues to provide technical support to Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) during this COVID-19 pandemic through the provision of polymerase chain reaction testing facilities, equipment, consumables, and reagents required for SARS-CoV-2 testing.

“The deployment of GeneXpert equipment to PICTs specifically to test for SARS-CoV-2 will improve diagnostic accuracy, turnaround time of test results and also lengthen the life-span of the instrument”.

This has been made possible by the Pacific Community (SPC) with financial support from the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) Grant and European Union (EU), while purchased through the UNICEF-procurement system for COVID-19 emergency supplies.

So far, 12 PICTs have received GeneXpert equipment and SPC continues to work with the Joint Pacific COVID-19 Incident Management Team and other donor partners to support the supply of GeneXpert testing cartridges and further ensure that PICTs are well prepared to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: The Pacific Community (SPC)

Credit: UNICEF Uganda/2021/Abdul

By External Source
NEW YORK, Jun 30 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Education Cannot Wait (ECW) – the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies – is developing a curriculum derived from the seminal work of world-renowned psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”, and its related branch of psychotherapy, Logotherapy. The curriculum, which has been preliminary field-tested in Uganda, aims to fully tap into the resilience of girls and boys living in crisis settings.

Psychosocial support is a core component of the holistic education programmes supported by ECW and its partners to help adolescent girls and boys in armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate change-related disasters and protracted crises to cope with the incommensurable hardship and adversity they face.

“Crisis-affected girls and boys endure abnormal challenges of armed conflicts, widespread violations of their human rights, chronic insecurity and constant threats to their lives and sense of safety. To achieve quality learning outcomes and empower them to thrive towards their potential, one must address their trauma and experiences of adversity. By empowering them to find a meaning in their experience, they stand greater chances of healing, unleashing their resilience and becoming positive agents of change in all walks of life. Logotherapy is a forward-looking and profound approach that ignites the strength of the human spirit,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait.

“With this ground-breaking curriculum we want to shift the dominant narrative that hardship prevents young people from achieving their goals or fully living their story of life. Viktor Frankl provides an empirical and inspiring example of how extreme hardship can actually fuel global contributions. At Education Cannot Wait, this is also our stance. We want to empower children and adolescents in armed conflicts and forcible displacement to turn their gruesome adversity into ultimate hope and capacity to shed their light of knowledge, wisdom and compassion onto their communities, nations and the rest of the world.”

Frankl posits that human beings can withstand significant suffering if they can access meaning and hope and recognize their choices and potential. Frankl tested his research while enduring Nazi concentration camps in World War II. The themes he conveys include dehumanization, profound loss, injustice, and unspeakable cruelty. Without making comparisons, Frankl presented logotherapy in his world-renowned book, “Man’s Search for a Meaning,” which is today universally recognized as one of the top schools of thoughts in Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS). Thus, all of these concepts are relatable and relevant to adolescent girls and boys living in conflict and disaster-affected communities.

By providing a curriculum as a global good, ECW aims to offer a structured alternative approach to partners who work with adolescents experiencing hardship. Through dialogue, reflection and activities focused on the life and teachings of Viktor Frankl – as well as role models such as Malala Yousafzai, Wangari Maathai, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela – young people will explore how to create connection, find meaning, imagine a different future, and contribute to the world in big and small ways. ECW supported the field-testing of the curriculum package – titled “An Instruction Manual for Life” – with groups of adolescents in a non-formal community setting with upper secondary students in Northern Uganda in early 2021.

Initial results from the testing found that young people and facilitators enthusiastically embraced the curriculum as “relevant, exciting, engaging, and new.” Youth reported high satisfaction and showed that they learned and internalized key concepts. Facilitators expressed strong interest in the curriculum as they felt that local schools fell short in supporting adolescents in profound and critical thinking, individual expression and self-reflection to access their resilience, inner strength, hopes and dreams.

Based on the feedback of the field testing, ECW filmed introductory videos to accompany each of the three “blocks” of the curriculum: “Deep Dive”, “Find Your Meaning” and “Dream Big.”

Watch videos

Watch all the ECW Logotherapy Life Lessons Videos on our playlist.

Additional testing will be conducted before the curriculum is finalized and published.
For more information on the curriculum, please contact info@un-ecw.org

 

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Excerpt:

This first of its kind curriculum acknowledges the immeasurable resilience of adolescents living in crisis settings, encouraging them to use their experience to become their potential.

Health workers on Bwama Island on Lake Bunyonyi in Uganda prepare to administer COVID-19 vaccines. “The threat of a third wave in Africa is real and rising”, said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. “Our priority is clear – it’s crucial that we swiftly get vaccines into the arms of Africans at high risk of falling seriously ill and dying of COVID-19.” Credit: UNICEF/Catherine Ntabadde

By Kristalina Georgieva and Abebe Aemro Selassie
WASHINGTON DC, Jun 30 2021 (IPS)

Sub-Saharan Africa is in the grips of a third wave of COVID-19 infections that threatens to be even more brutal than the two that came before.

This is yet more evidence of a dangerous divergence in the global economy. One track for countries with good access to vaccines, where strong recoveries are taking hold. And another for those countries that are still waiting and at risk of falling further behind.

The growth of infections in sub-Saharan Africa is now the fastest in the world, with an explosive trajectory that is outpacing the record set in the second wave. At this pace, this new wave will likely surpass previous peaks in a matter of days—and in some countries, infections are already more than double, or even triple, their January peaks.

The latest (delta) variant—reportedly 60 percent more transmissible than earlier variants—has been detected in 14 countries.

When the pandemic first hit, quick action by policymakers helped prevent infection rates seen elsewhere around the world. But it pushed already strained local health systems to the breaking point.

Only six months after the initial crisis, the region experienced a second wave that swiftly outpaced the scale and speed of the first. Now, another six months on, sub-Saharan Africa faces its third devastating wave.

The only way for the region to break free from this vicious pandemic cycle is to swiftly implement a widespread vaccination program.

A still-vulnerable region

The sheer speed of this third wave highlights the difficulty policymakers in sub Saharan Africa face in heading off a crisis once it gets under way. In Namibia, for example, new cases reached the previous January peak within only two weeks, and tripled another two weeks later. For many countries, by the time a new surge is identified, it may already be too late.

And the options employed during previous waves may no longer be feasible. The re-imposition of containment measures would likely come at too high an economic and social cost, and is simply unsustainable—and unenforceable—over a prolonged period.

Looking back, most sub-Saharan African countries entered the second wave in a more difficult economic position than the first, with shrinking fiscal resources to protect the vulnerable, additional millions thrown into poverty, and depleted household balance sheets.

While some countries have taken steps to improve preparedness, unfortunately, very few have had sufficient resources—or time—to strengthen public health systems.

And, now, the scale of the current wave is once again threatening to overwhelm local health systems. News reports across the region point to overwhelmed hospitals. The sick are dying while waiting for a bed. Non-emergency surgeries have been canceled to preserve space for COVID-19 patients.

And military hospitals have been opened for civilian use. Oxygen has become a key constraint, with supply already failing to keep up with the demand for critically-ill patients. The region’s scarce health workers continue to be at risk.

The risks of leaving Africa behind

The vaccine rollout in sub-Saharan Africa remains the slowest in the world. Less than 1 adult in every hundred is fully vaccinated, compared to an average of over 30 in more advanced economies. This means even most essential frontline workers continue to work unprotected. In this context, some of the world’s more fortunate countries have stockpiled enough vaccines to cover their populations many times over.

Without significant, upfront, international assistance—and without an effective region-wide vaccination effort—the near-term future of sub-Saharan Africa will be one of repeated waves of infection, which will exact an ever-increasing toll on the lives and livelihoods of the region’s most vulnerable, while also paralyzing investment, productivity, and growth.

In short, without help the region risks being left further and further behind.

And the longer the pandemic is left to ravage Africa, the more likely it is that ever more dangerous variants of the disease will emerge. Vaccination is not simply an issue of local lives and livelihoods. It is also a global public good. For every country—everywhere—the most durable vaccine effort is one that covers everyone, in every country.

What can be done to speed up the vaccine effort?

IMF staff has put forward a global proposal that targets vaccinating at least 40 percent of the total population of all countries by end-2021, and at least 60 percent by the first half of 2022.

Africa is expected to receive 30 percent vaccination coverage through COVAX and another 30 percent coverage through the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT), established by the African Union under the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa.

We see seven key steps to ensure these vaccination targets are met:

• • First, it is essential to deliver vaccines to sub Saharan Africa as soon as possible. Given that much of the global supply of vaccines for 2021 has already been bought up, many countries will be forced to wait until 2022 to get them. So, the fastest way to get vaccines to sub Saharan Africa is for advanced economies to share their stockpiles bilaterally or through multilateral initiatives. COVAX has already received pledges for over half a billion doses. But these need to turn into actual deliveries as soon as possible to make a difference. Indeed, the goal should be to get a quarter of a billion doses to the region by September.

 

• • Second, vaccine manufacturers should speed up supply to Africa for the rest of this year. Advanced economies with vaccine manufacturing capabilities should encourage their manufacturers to do so, especially when demand at home is falling short of supply.

 

• • Third, AVATT should be fully financed to ensure coverage of 30 percent of the African Union population. This requires an estimated $2 billion, that would for example allow AVATT to execute its optional contract of 180 million doses with J&J.

 

• • Fourth, remove cross-border export restrictions on raw materials and finished vaccines. This includes ensuring that the Aspen facility in South Africa—a key supplier to AVATT—is operational at full capacity, and resuming exports from the Serum Institute of India to COVAX. African vaccination plans rely heavily on these two facilities.

 

• • Fifth, financing of at least $2.5 billion and upfront planning will also be critical to ensure health systems can deliver shots-in-arm promptly as vaccine supply ramps up. Many countries in the region, including eSwatini, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, and Rwanda, have quickly and effectively administered their limited supplies. These countries, along with others in the region, have had to place their vaccine campaigns on hold as they wait for the arrival of the new supplies that they have recently procured at comparatively high cost or the donated supplies from other countries’ stockpiles. It is these shortages—rather than the ability to administer shots—that has so far been the biggest constraint. But when supply picks up, health systems must be prepared to vaccinate as many people as possible. And this is doable as the experience in many developing countries show—the likes of Seychelles, Mongolia, Bhutan, and Maldives impressively scaled-up vaccinations quickly once their vaccine supplies arrived.

 

• • Alongside vaccination efforts, countries must also ensure that their public health systems are able to handle an influx of cases. This includes accelerating the acquisition of vital COVID-19 health tools, including therapeutics, oxygen, and personal protective equipment. No matter what the speed of vaccinations, these supplies are needed now to help save lives. This will require urgent grant financing to pre-emptively procure and deliver a minimum package of critical COVID-19 Health Tools to address the rising health and economic costs arising from the surge in cases driven by the delta variant.

 

• Finally, the magnitude of the region’s financing needs requires a coordinated effort on the part of the international community. Few countries have the fiscal space to finance this effort on their own, considering the region’s already elevated debt levels and already pressing spending needs. Most of the international community’s financial assistance will need to come in the form of grants or concessional loans. With our colleagues from the World Bank, WHO, WTO, and others, the IMF has formed a special task force to ensure that countries get the resources and vaccines they need.

As always, Africa can count on the IMF. We remain deeply committed to all countries in the region. We’ve ramped up our lending to sub Saharan Africa—last year it was more than 13 times our annual average—and support to increase our access limits will allow us to scale up our zero-interest lending capacity.

And the unprecedented $650 billion new SDR allocation, far and away the largest in the Fund’s history, once approved will make $23 billion available to member countries in sub Saharan Africa.

Yet the gravity and urgency of the situation requires the global community working together. We all have a stake in this. So, in all countries—advanced and emerging alike—we can reclaim our physical and economic health from the pandemic. And so that sub Saharan Africa can resume its path toward a more prosperous future.

Kristalina Georgieva is the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Abebe Aemro Selassie is the Director of the IMF’s African Department.

 

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Net-zero emissions from food and land use, reimagining school meals and advancing healthy diets will be on the agenda at the Pre-Summit next month

By External Source
ROME, Jun 29 2021 (IPS-Partners)

The UN Food Systems Summit has revealed the 15 action areas with more than 50 solution clusters that will inspire discussions at the Pre-Summit in Rome from July 26-28.

Each action area, developed by more than 500 members of the Summit’s five Action Tracks, represents a cluster of game-changing propositions that aim to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by transforming food systems.

The solutions, published on the online Summit Community, are to support Member States as they work through national pathways for food systems transformation. They will also help catalyse new coalitions and commitments from governments and partners to support these pathways, many of which will be announced at the UN Food Systems Summit in September in New York.

The solutions were refined from more than 2,000 ideas proposed during 18 months of dialogues, surveys and open fora with Indigenous Peoples, youth, producers, researchers, NGOs and governments.

Among the game-changing solutions are initiatives to reimagine school meals programmes and proposals to include the cost of a healthy diet when calculating poverty lines.

Other solutions include the development of deforestation-free supply chains, and subsidies redirected towards sustainable production and consumption.

Initial ideas for new partnerships include an Indigenous Peoples Food Systems Trust, a Coalition for African Youth in Agriculture, and a Food and Land Net Zero Country Alliance, for countries to commit to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from food and land use by 2050.

Notes to editors

Journalists can register for news updates from the Summit here and apply for Pre-Summit accreditation here.

For more information: FSScommunications@un.org

About the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit

The UN Food Systems Summit was announced by the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, on World Food Day last October as a part of the Decade of Action for delivery on the SDGs by 2030. The aim of the Summit is to deliver progress on all 17 of the SDGs through a food systems approach, leveraging the interconnectedness of food systems to global challenges such as hunger, climate change, poverty and inequality. More information about the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit and list of Advisory Committee and Scientific Group members can be found online: https://www.un.org/foodsystemssummit

Excerpt:

Net-zero emissions from food and land use, reimagining school meals and advancing healthy diets will be on the agenda at the Pre-Summit next month

The changes needed to get to net-zero emissions in the global energy sector by 2050 require everyone to make choices now that align to our collective goal

By Pete Richardson
TORONTO, Canada, Jun 29 2021 (IPS)

Life is a series of choices. And choices have consequences. When it comes to climate change, some choices have bigger consequences than others, and there’s a startling takeaway: your next “big” decision will play a meaningful role in our collective ability to reach Net-Zero by 2050.

Pete Richardson

Last month, the International Energy Agency (IEA) published a roadmap describing how the global energy sector can zero-out its emissions by mid-century. In a report that includes many remarkable statements, three stand out. First, behavioral changes, like walking instead of driving, amount to just 4% of the required reductions. Second, more than half of all decarbonization is linked to consumer choices, such as installing low-carbon heating. Third, electricity sector emissions have to nosedive even as electricity demand doubles.

Two conclusions flow from this. If governments and industry follow the IEA roadmap, consumers won’t need to modify their behavior much; the overwhelming majority (96%) of emissions reductions will come from other changes. This may come as a relief to many. But there’s a nuance; the IEA distinguishes behavior from choices. That means – and here’s our second conclusion – every choice each of us makes today that has a long-term climate impact must be made in a way that propels us toward zeroing emissions.

It’s hard to imagine how individual choices can affect long-term global targets; the time frame is too remote, and a collective goal is too abstract. But reverse-engineering the actions required, and understanding how those actions must be spread across society, accelerates and personalizes the importance of today’s choices.

This is because of a concept called committed emissions. Every new ‘thing’ that we build or buy has an expected working life. Understanding the climate impact of a ‘thing’ therefore requires knowing both the rate at which it generates carbon, and how long (in years) it will operate. For example, cars last, on average, 15 years, whilst power plants can run for decades.

That means there are fewer than two generations of cars before 2050, and just one generation of power plant. In fact, the issue is more pressing than that; the IEA’s roadmap requires electric vehicle sales to swell from 5% of today’s market to more than 60% by 2030, and our carbon “budget” for new-build power plants is already compromised because of the longevity of our existing power fleet.

The startling result is that your next big decision will have a meaningful impact on our collective ability to hit Net-Zero by 2050. Put differently, if you are fortunate enough to influence an investment in a new car or power plant, you must have a compelling reason (and there are fewer than you think) to invest in anything other than a zero-emissions-vehicle or zero-carbon-ready power plant.

Why are we focusing on cars and power plants? Shouldn’t we also eat less red meat, and avoid plastic bags? The answer is yes; all of it matters. But – and here’s the crux – some choices have an exponentially bigger climate impact than others. To illustrate, your decision to use reusable bags at the grocery store, while admirable, means little if you drive a gas-guzzling truck to get there.

So which choices have the most impact? Simply put, it’s the choices about machines and appliances that – historically – have involved burning things, and it’s a short list. Power plants and cars are on it. So too are the things that heat our buildings and cook our food. Today, many of these activities involve fire, and that needs to change if we are to reach Net-Zero by 2050.

The challenge with switching out fire for electrons (or other zero-emission technologies) is that history, bias and noise are all against us. History, because past energy transitions have taken time. Bias, because we are prone to favor information that supports pre-existing beliefs. And noise, because we are bombarded with conflicting information on a daily basis.

These challenges are compounded by the fact that many of our “big” choices are made under pressure, e.g. an appliance has failed and we need a new one, NOW. In these circumstances, we routinely rely on heuristics (mental short-cuts to make quicker decisions), which tend to disadvantage new approaches.

In the wild, that normally means a mid-winter failure of a gas furnace will result in a like-for-like replacement, even though the same job could be done by an electric heat pump. Here, no-one can blame the stressed householder. Similarly, it’s tough (but easier) to blame an under-pressure board that continues investing in emission-heavy technologies.

The toxic combination of history, bias, noise and pressure is worsened by information asymmetry, which is to say that a Google search for “replacement furnace” yields more experts in gas heating than heat pumps. And all that is before accounting for price differences between carbon-intensive and low carbon alternatives, which can be significant.

The remedy? Getting ‘climate-smart’ information into decision-makers’ hands. (Note: our biggest challenge is not technology.)

This requires excising historic ‘truths’ that weren’t true in the past, and aren’t true now. It means correcting for bias and noise, and being transparent on the true costs of carbon. It means training our workforce differently, and making low-carbon alternatives cost-competitive at point-of-purchase. For the expanding electricity sector, it means developing a fleet strategy that centers on a timely shift to Net-Zero

Big choices are hard. But they are pressing, and they are critical. Bad choices today amplify tomorrow’s challenges, and each of us bears responsibility for that.

Pete Richardson is a Climate Strategist at Manifest Climate, with a focus on energy, and a drive to effect change at scale.

 

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Excerpt:

The changes needed to get to net-zero emissions in the global energy sector by 2050 require everyone to make choices now that align to our collective goal

A 15-year-old boy working alongside a teenage girl at an artisanal and small-scale mine in Odahu, Amansie West district, Ghana. Credit: Juliane Kippenberg/Human Rights Watch

By Juliane Kippenberg
BERLIN, Jun 29 2021 (IPS)

Many products these days come with the promise that workers and communities all along their supply line  are protected from abuse  under a particular standard or code of conduct. Since the United Nations adopted the Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights a decade ago, a plethora of such certification systems have emerged, including for  mining  and connected industries ranging from cars to jewelry and electronics.

For mining and mineral sourcing alone, companies can pick from at least 17 standards— some apply to all minerals, and others to certain ones.  The standards seek to promote respect for human rights or the environment, and companies carrying the label are  checked periodically for their performance under the standard by an audit company.

A strong certification standard should give civil society and industry representative equal representation on its decision-making body. They should require adherence to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and other relevant human rights law

But some of these systems aren’t worth as much to consumers or workers in the supply chain as one might hope.  A certification standard is voluntary and usually owned and managed by a separate certification body. Many entail only superficial human rights inspections and lack transparency because decision-making bodies for these systems are often dominated by industry representatives.

The standards are often broad and vague. Compliance is not always checked rigorously. For example, audits of companies in the gold supply chain often are done by someone at a desk and don’t  include on-the-ground checks of conditions in the  mines.

For instance, the London Bullion Market Association—the certification body for gold refineries—has certified gold refineries with serious human rights  abuses, including violence against local residents by mine security personnel in Tanzania, and conflict-related abuses in Sudan. The Association responded by saying it is committed to “continuous improvement.”

Certification bodies often don’t share information on why a company received certification including whom they interviewed and  any weaknesses they identified.  For example, the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) does not publish detailed findings of their audits, or require member companies to publish how they are putting its standard into practice. Nor does it require member companies to disclose shortcomings they found and the steps they have taken to address them.

In addition, certification bodies rarely require companies to disclose their suppliers and the mines they source from. This makes it much harder for communities affected by mining to report problems to companies that get minerals from their local mines and to push for improvements.

But not all standards have the same problems. The Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, a fairly new standard for large-scale mining, stands out for having equal representation of unions, affected communities, nongovernmental organizations, and companies on its decision-making board.

It also has greater transparency requirements, and recently published the first two audit reports, from mines in Mexico and Zimbabwe, with an impressive level of detail about non-compliance it found. With regard to traceability, the Fairmined and Fairtrade Gold standards ensure full traceability of artisanally mined gold back to the mine of origin.

New mandatory rules for all companies and sectors are being developed in the European Union and beyond. This is a good development—voluntary certification standards cannot bring about the industry-wide change that is needed. Laws can level the playing-field and introduce greater corporate accountability.

The debate around mandatory human rights rules raises important questions about the relationship between law and voluntary certification standards. The European Union’s new mandatory minerals regulation already relies heavily on certification bodies for gold, tin, tungsten, and tantalum.

The EU is in the process of assessing which certification bodies will get recognition under the regulation. This is a risky process: a law that relies on a weak certification system for implementation is still weak.

Voluntary certification standards do not substitute for effective grievance redress and remediation, but they have their place and can help foster responsible business conduct—provided they are rigorous, transparent, and inclusive.

A strong certification standard should give civil society and industry representative equal representation on its decision-making body. They should require adherence to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and other relevant human rights law.

Risk assessments and audits should be conducted by independent human rights and environmental experts who visit mines of origin and properly consult affected communities, and be complemented by effective grievance mechanisms. To ensure transparency, certification standards should require companies to make audit reports public and describe the steps taken to address risks, as well as publish the names of their suppliers and mines of origin.

These steps could help consumers as well as workers and affected communities throughout the company’s supply chain to be confident that “responsible mineral” standards  are truly helpful when it comes to improving human rights in the sector.

 

Juliane Kippenberg is a Human Rights Watch associate director for child rights who has done extensive research on child labor in gold mining and gold supply chains, including in Mali, Ghana, and the Philippines.

Several Indian rice-eating states have a diversity of heritage rice varieties rich in nutrition, flavour, taste and texture that have been grown for centuries. Pictured here are farmers with the Jeeraphool variety. Courtesy: Deepak Sharma

By Manipadma Jena
BHUBANESWAR, India, Jun 29 2021 (IPS)

Madhuri Roy left the famous Kamakhya temple in Guwahati, Assam. She had sought the goddess’s blessings for the safe delivery of her youngest daughter’s baby, which was due in a few weeks. Shanty shops lined the temple outside and Roy’s eyes fell on a stack of black rice packets. All through her daughter’s pregnancy she had craved her childhood favourite black rice pudding. But during the country’s COVID-19 lockdown Roy could not procure it even though Meghalaya, her Himalayan home state, grew it.

The temple shopkeeper informed Roy the rice had come from the Jorhat district of Assam, the gateway to India’s north-east. The four heritage rice varieties he stocked, which previously verged on extinction, were being revived by small groups of farmers, he said.

Several Indian rice-eating states have a diversity of local rice varieties rich in nutrition, flavour, taste and texture that have been grown for centuries. Some even come with pest-repelling properties. They were mostly cultivated using grandparents’ traditional know-how that cared foremost for soil health, which the elders knew must sustain future generations.

The Kola Joha or Black Husked Rice rich in nutrients such as protein, minerals that Roy bought for her pregnant daughter also contains the high levels of antioxidant that protects cells, tissues, and vital organs.

With high fibre and low sugar it is an aromatic winter-grown rice native to Assam that has been revived with three other varieties from an almost-lost status to being currently farmed by hundreds of smallholders.

Marketed since December 2020, traditional rice growers are now targeting the burgeoning health-conscious Indian middle and upper class as their clients.

Kola Joha was just one of 24 heritage rice varieties identified and selected, after nutritional profiling, for revival across Assam under the Native Basket brand by Guwahati-based NGO Foundation for Development Integration (FDI). 

FDI’s initiative was recognised and adopted along with similar projects in seven other Indian States and the Union Territory of Ladakh by a project funded by the Global Environment Facility, which is supported by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and implemented by the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and theIndian Council of Agricultural Research though the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources. The Alliance is part of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future.

The project titled “Mainstreaming agricultural biodiversity conservation and utilisation in the agricultural sector to ensure ecosystem services and reduce vulnerability”, runs from 2017 till November 2022. It aims to address the sustainable development goals to achieve zero hunger, take action to combat climate change and protect, restore and promote sustainable use of land.

In fact, a report titled The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 by UNEP and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO), launched on June 3, highlights croplands ecosystem restoration as a number one priority.

It underscored “restoration must crucially involve the knowledge, experience and capacities of indigenous people and local communities to ensure restoration plans are implemented and sustained.” The UN Decade is building a strong, broad-based global movement to halt the degradation of ecosystems and ramp up restoration and put the world on track for a sustainable future.

The first customer at Native Basket outlet by Guwahati-based NGO Foundation for Development Integration (FDI), which has identified 24 heritage rice varieties for revival. Courtesy: Sonal Dsouza

Local grains regain their rightful place and more

Even before Assam’s ancient rice genes were being tracked and revived, a group of 20 indigenous women farmers in Surguja district of Central-eastern Indian state Chhattisgarh realised the threats to the survival of their traditional rice variety called Jeeraphool, roughly translating to ‘Cumin-Flower’ taking its name from its petite cumin-shape and pleasant aroma.

It had survived — barely.

And only because it was a ritualistic necessity in festivals and temple offerings.

In 2005, the small group of tribal women formed a self-help group to protect and promote their heritage grain. As its popularity gradually increased in local markets, the number of group members grew.

After registering Jeeraphool with Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority of India, the women’s collective then applied, with technical support provided by the Alliance, for a Geographical Indication tag (the Jeeraphool variety is primarily grown only in Surguja district).

It was approved in March 2019 for a period of 10 years. The heritage rice has now found its place on India’s food export list.

The women self-help groups are striding ahead with their success, linking up with companies and local-level government offices to produce and market alternate products from the rice. From 120 hectares and 180 tonnes of Jeeraphool grains in 2005 they have more than tripled cultivation to 400 hectares harvesting over 1,000 tonnes in 2020 in Surguja district. The agricultural heritage has traversed a long journey to victorious survival.

Besides promoting agrobiodiversity conservation, food and nutritional security, and climate resilience, the revival of local seeds has empowered Surguja’s women farmers as it reaffirms their position as repositories of traditional knowledge and has set an example for other indigenous women to fight for tenure rights over farmland they have used since their ancestors.

In Assam, under the Native Basket brand, farmers have learnt to not just grow their rice but to independently handle market linkages after the Alliance, ICAR-NBPGR and FDI aided in registering the brand’s intellectual property rights.

The small and marginal farmers have also organised into Farmer Producer Organisation.

Armed with a brand name, their everyday rice variety, which sells higher quantities, fetched 50 percent more at 1,550 rupees ($22) per quintal. Their aromatic rice brought in up to 20 percent higher. Over 2,000 farmer families are benefiting the whole gamut of activity from production to processing and sale. 

In the eight different locations where the Alliance is working, 19 community seed banks currently conserve, maintain and provide farmers ready access to over 2,000 traditional varieties of different crops.

Prior to the1960s Green Revolution, which was initiated to address malnutrition in the Global South, India was home to an estimated more than 100,000 rice varieties. Most were lost when hybrid, high-yield, bio-engineered rice varieties were introduced. However, in some unknown inaccessible rural corners local rice have been conserved, planted year after year in tiny patches by smallholder custodian farmers for cultural and dietary preferences. These are being tracked and amplified.

Indigenous women, custodians of heritage seeds, pose in their village seed bank in Odisha’s Koraput district in India’s Eastern Ghats. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Sustaining the revival

It’s not a smooth revival path, however.

“Policy is there but there is a conflict between enhancing production (that promote high yielding varieties and heavy use of fertilisers) and producing sustainably (which is what) traditional farming is. It promotes use of native seeds and organic fertilisers and pesticides. There are few institutional program with multi-stakeholders involving public-private and communities including NGOs,” Jai Rana, the India national coordinator of the UNEP- GEF project and a senior scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), told IPS.

On how the farming community can be incentivised to bring much more farmland under traditional crops Rana said, “better pricing of produce and assured marketing or buy back systems would work best. In initial stages a combination of subsidy in addition to marketing linkages would be necessary but thereafter getting a good market price would be key.”

Highlighting the importance of a sturdy financial mechanism for ecosystem restoration Eduardo Mansur, Director of FAO’s Environment, Climate and Biodiversity Office, said 20 percent of 4.5 billion hectares of agricultural land on the planet is severely degraded and could reduce food productivity by 12 percent. This, he said, was not because we do not know how to restore it, but because incentives had to motivate farmers to engage with sustainable soil practices.

Mansur was speaking at the virtual press briefing at the report launch of Becoming #GenerationRestoration: Ecosystem Restoration for People, Nature and Climate.

“Disincentives too need to be included in the mechanism for degradation that will penalise systems that are, maybe, lucrative but not in equilibrium with required sustainable use of natural resources,” Mansur said. 

A rich source of protein, iron, fibre and antioxidants black rice works against cancer, diabetes and heart disease. In ancient China, black rice was considered so unique and nutritious that it was forbidden for all but royalty. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

 

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In 2015, scientists at the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation (KSLOF) came to the Chagos Archipelago to assess the status of the reefs. Over the course of two months at sea, they conducted thousands of surveys of the benthic and reef fish communities at over 100 locations across the archipelago. Credit: KSLOF/Ken Marks

By Liz Thompson
MARYLAND, USA, Jun 29 2021 (IPS)

On the Global Reef Expedition—the largest coral reef survey and mapping expedition in history—scientists from the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation traveled to the Chagos Archipelago to study some of the most remote coral reefs on Earth.

What we found were reefs teeming with life, but also worrying signs of the unfolding coral reef crisis.

The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation embarked on the Global Reef Expedition to assess the status of coral reefs around the world. Over the course of ten years, the Expedition circumnavigated the globe, visiting over 1,000 reefs in 15 countries in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans and their associated seas, to assess coral reef status and resiliency.

The Expedition surveyed the coral and fish communities on some of the most remote coral reefs on Earth, and there was no better place to do that than in the Chagos Archipelago.

In 2015, the Foundation assembled an international team of scientists to study the coral reefs of the Chagos Archipelago for the final Expedition research mission. Over the course of two months at sea, the scientists conducted thousands of surveys of the benthic and reef fish communities at over 100 locations across the archipelago.

Because of its remote location and protected status, Chagos was the perfect place to study global issues such as climate change and overfishing that threaten the long-term survival of coral reefs.

Reefs are declining due to a variety of human impacts, including coastal development, fishing pressure, and pollution, but these local pressures are absent in Chagos since the archipelago is uninhabited, save for the military base on Diego Garcia.

Prior to the Expedition, estimates indicated Chagos could contain more than half of the healthy reefs remaining in the Indian Ocean.

What we found in the Chagos Archipelago was a stark reminder that the coral reef crisis is affecting reefs everywhere, even in the last great coral reef wilderness area on Earth.

While surveying reefs in the Chagos Archipelago, scientists witnessed the beginning of a mass coral bleaching event, when corals turned neon-colored shades of pink, blue, and yellow. Credit: KSLOF/Derek Manzello

When the research mission began, we found reefs teeming with life, a diverse assemblage of corals, and an abundance of fish. The reefs of the Chagos Archipelago were truly exceptional; they had some of the highest density of coral and fish recorded on the entire Global Reef Expedition.

Reefs were surrounded by schools of jacks and snappers, swarms of small fish clung to the reefs, and large fish such as groupers, sharks, and rays were found throughout the area. Chagos had an astounding abundance and diversity of life in the water and on the seafloor.

However, towards the end of the research mission, we witnessed the beginning of what would become a catastrophic and global coral bleaching event.

In the clear and unusually calm waters of the Indian Ocean, we watched the reefs bleach before their eyes. During the first signs of bleaching, corals turned vibrant, almost neon-colored shades of pink, blue, and yellow before turning white, as the corals tried to protect themselves from the sun’s harmful rays after losing their symbiotic algae.

As the warm waters persisted, the extent of the bleaching was readily apparent and impacted the vast majority of the shallow-water corals.

There was hope that corals in Chagos would bounce back to health relatively quickly. But a study shortly after the bleaching event found live coral fell dramatically from the relatively healthy 31-52% observed on the Expedition, to only 5-15%.

Since then, there have been promising signs the reefs are recovering, but it is unlikely that the reefs will regain their high coral cover for at least a decade after this latest bleaching event.

Because the Expedition was the last research mission to survey the reefs prior to the bleaching, the findings from this research mission will be extremely useful to marine managers as they assess the impact of the bleaching event and monitor how the reefs are recovering over time.

The scientific findings from the research mission were recently published in The Global Reef Expedition: Chagos Archipelago Final Report. This report contains detailed information on the diversity and abundance of corals and reef fish species, along with valuable baseline data on the state of the reefs at a point in time.

This report can help government agencies, conservation organizations, and scientists manage and conserve reefs in the archipelago.

The world has already lost 50% of its coral reefs in the past 30 years. The rest could be gone by the end of the century if nothing is done to save them. With the increased frequency of coral bleaching due to a changing climate, combined with growing human impacts such as overfishing and pollution, coral reefs face an uphill battle to survive.

In the face of the coral reef crisis, the reefs of the Chagos Archipelago face some of the best odds, despite recently bleaching. They are protected, relatively free from human influence, and still contain large and healthy fish populations and a stunning diversity of life.

This diversity may be helping the reefs in Chagos recover from bleaching, but it may also be one of the key factors that could help these reefs survive well into the future.

The Expedition mission to the Chagos Archipelago gave scientists the chance to study some of the most pristine coral reefs in the Indian Ocean. Our findings illustrate what remarkable places coral reefs can be when given the opportunity to thrive, but they also highlight the perils all reefs face in a changing world.

Liz Thompson is Director of Communications for the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation in Annapolis, Maryland, USA. She has more 15 years of experience in marine conservation, policy and communications and writes about the need to protect our marine environment for the use and enjoyment of future generations.

The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation is a nonprofit environmental organization that works to protect and restore the world’s oceans through scientific research, outreach, and education. As part of its commitment to Science Without Borders®, the Foundation provides information to governments, scientists, and local communities so that they can use the latest science to work toward sustainable ocean protection.
www.livingoceansfoundation.org

 

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jun 29 2021 (IPS)

Too many have swallowed the myth that lowering corporate income tax (CIT) is necessary to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) for growth. Although contradicted by their own research, this lie has long been promoted by influential international economic institutions.

‘Beggar-thy-neighbour’ policies
The early 1980s’ economics ‘counter-revolution’ impacted the ‘Washington Consensus’ of the US federal government and the two Washington-based Bretton Woods institutions (BWIs) – the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

Anis Chowdhury

Thus, the rise of ‘supply side’ economics in the US – advocating lower direct taxes on income and wealth – influenced the world. Without evidence, IMF researchers justified its policy advice thus: “The complete abolition of CIT would be the most direct application of the theoretical result that small open economies should not tax capital income.”

Noting that capital is highly mobile, and can more easily evade taxes than labour, IMF economists even recommended that “small countries should not levy source-based taxes on capital income”. Meanwhile, the Bank’s highly influential, but dubious Doing Business Report has recommended tax incentives without evidence.

To get BWI approval, developing country governments have undertaken tax reforms, reducing progressive direct taxation. Instead, they have favoured more regressive indirect taxes, such as the value-added tax (VAT), sometimes dubbed the goods and services tax.

Consequently, IMF tax policy recommendations to Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries during 1998-2008 reduced corporate and personal income tax rates while promoting VAT. And following Bank advice, Tanzania – Africa’s third largest gold producer – ended up subsidising, not taxing foreign mining companies!

Evidence contradicts advice
World Bank research and surveys have long found that tax incentives do not really attract FDI inflows. A Bank report found no strong evidence that tax incentives attracted non-resource ‘greenfield’ or additional new FDI.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

It also found “tax incentives impose significant costs on the countries using them”, including fiscal losses, rent-seeking, tax evasion, administrative costs, economic distortions and “retaliation against new or more generous incentives” by competitors.

An earlier Bank brief noted “tax incentives are not the most influential factor for multinationals in selecting investment locations. More important are factors such as basic infrastructure, political stability, and the cost and availability of labor”.

It also argued that tax incentives do not compensate well “for negative factors in a country’s investment climate”. Meanwhile, the “race to the bottom…may end up in a bidding war, favoring multinational firms at the expense of the state and the welfare of its citizens”.

Researchers have unearthed no strong evidence that tax incentives are beneficial. While some incentives may attract FDI, they crowd out other investments; hence, overall investment and growth do not improve.

An IMF report noted, “Tax incentives generally rank low in investment climate surveys in low-income countries, …investment would have been undertaken even without them. And their fiscal cost can be high, reducing opportunities for much-needed public spending…, or requiring higher taxes on other activities.”

Even Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) research confirmed BWI findings that tax incentives hardly attracted FDI. The Economist also found a weak relationship between tax rates and business investment as well as growth rates.

A UK government report cast more doubt: “effectively attracting FDI needs public spending, so narrowing the tax base works with tax incentives for low-income countries could be contra-productive”.

Race to bottom hurts all
IMF findings confirm that ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ tax competition worsened avoidable revenue losses. Such ill-advised efforts to attract investment inevitably accelerated CIT rates’ ‘race to the bottom’.

BWI advice to governments has undoubtedly lowered CIT rates. But despite lower CIT rates, transnational corporations (TNCs) still minimise paying tax, e.g., by shifting profits to tax havens and exploiting loopholes.

CIT rate averages for high-income countries (HICs) have dropped twenty percentage points since 1980, falling from 38% in 1990 to 23% in 2018. Meanwhile, they fell from 40% to 25% in middle-income countries, and from over 45% to 30% in low-income countries (LICs).

Cut-throat competition has especially hurt developing countries, which rely much more on CIT than developed economies. IMF research found a one-point average CIT rate cut in other countries reduces a developing country’s CIT revenue by two-thirds of a point.

Such tax cuts induce other concessions, further eroding the base for corporate taxation. Thus, tax revenue is doubly lost by both rate and base cuts. Fund staff estimated revenue loss at 1.3% of GDP in developing countries, due to base erosion and rate reductions – much worse than in developed countries.

The UK government estimated global revenue loss due to TNC tax minimisation at US$500-650bn annually. Such adverse effects were two to three times higher in LICs than in HICs. SSA countries lost the most revenue relative to GDP, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean, and South Asia.

A third of global revenue loss – US$167-200bn – is from low and middle-income countries (LMICs), costing them 1.0-1.5% of national income. With better tax administrations and larger formal sectors, HICs can replace such losses more easily than LMICs with generally weaker tax systems and larger informal sectors.

Tax breakthrough
The IMF and others now agree that an international minimum CIT rate can stop this race to the bottom and TNC profit shifting. The group of seven largest rich countries (G7) recently agreed to a minimum 15% rate, rejecting US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s proposed 21%. Even The Economist agrees the G7 proposal favours rich countries.

Earlier, the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) had recommended a 25% minimum and fairer revenue distribution to developing countries.

Finance ministers from Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and Germany joined Yellen in welcoming the recent G7 agreement for a minimum global CIT rate, while expressing confidence “that the rate can ultimately be pushed higher than 15 percent”.

An influential piece has claimed ‘A Global Minimum Corporate Tax Is a Bad Idea’, again citing the myth that low taxes will attract FDI. Invoking new Cold War fears, it claimed China and Russia would also gain an unfair advantage in luring “even more” FDI.

Trump-appointed Bank President David Malpass opposes the agreement, claiming it would undermine poor countries’ ability to attract investment despite Bank research showing otherwise. Pro-Trump governments in Hungary and Poland also object to the G7 deal. Developing countries cannot allow such tax-cutters to speak for them.

Developing country members of the G20 must insist on a higher minimum and fairer revenue distribution at its forthcoming finance ministers meeting. If the G7 refuses to start with anything more than 15%, an agreed rate increase schedule of an additional one percent annually would get to 25% in a decade.

International tax rules are currently set by rich countries through the OECD. Developing countries participate at a disadvantage. Instead of allowing it to control the process, they must urgently insist on an inclusive, balanced and fair multilateral process for international tax cooperation.

 

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Katja Iversen with French President Emmanuel Macron at the G7 2019 Gender Equality Council

By Nayema Nusrat
NEW YORK, Jun 28 2021 (IPS)

As the global gathering for gender equality, the Generation Equality Forum, kicks off in Paris on June 30, 2020, IPS conducted an exclusive interview with Katja Iversen.

Iversen is a leading global influencer on leadership, sustainability, and gender equality, an executive advisor to Goal 17 Partners, UNILEVER, Women Political Leaders, and others. She was also on President Macron’s G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council in 2019.

The Generation Equality Forum, convened by UN Women and co-chaired by the Presidents of France and Mexico, comes when the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to reverse global progress on gender equality.

The forum is expected to affirm bold “gender equality investments, programs, and policies and start a 5-year action journey, based on a Global Acceleration Plan for Gender Equality which will be launched at the Forum,” according to a media statement.

Iversen spoke extensively about the need for women to be included in decision-making, the role of the private sector, and how the world is on a tipping point.

“If we want to see positive development for both people and planet, we – in short – need more women in power and more power to women, in the economy and politics,” Iversen said. “The upcoming Generation Equality Forum, hosted by UN Women in collaboration with the governments of France and Mexico, comes at a pivotal moment and provides a great opportunity to catalyze progress. I want to see the whole world reacting to the clarion call coming out of Paris this week”.

She stressed that now was the time to act because “we see a destabilizing and widening inequality gap in the world. We also see a growing conservatism and pushback on women’s rights, including sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR). And very concretely, we see skyrocketing increases in gender-based violence, enhanced misogyny, women carrying even more of the unpaid care work, as well as alarming rates of girls dropping out of school, and women leaving the labor force”.

She spoke about the need to involve the private sector in creating a more gender-equal world.

“The private sector is a lead employer of women, women are consumers, and we will not see gender equality, nor a sustainable world at large if the private sector does not commit to change. Luckily more and more companies are stepping up to the plate and investing in sustainability and gender equality,” she told IPS.

She and Goal 17 Partners, a network of executives and entrepreneurs integrating the UN’s Sustainable Development goals into business practices, are working with new companies who are getting engaged in the SDGs, including SDG 5 on gender equality and women’s empowerment. Together, including UN Foundation, UN Forum on Business and Human Rights (BSR), UN Women, they have been shepherding commitments to Generation Equality.

“There is a tremendous need AND potential, not least for small- and medium-sized enterprises, whether we are talking women’s leadership, equal pay, parental leave, financial inclusion, diverse, inclusive and harassment-free workplaces, or health and education. Investing in the various aspects of gender equality is both the right and economically the smart thing to do, research shows”.

Regarding research, Katja Iversen spoke to IPS about the need for better and more data and research: “Decision-makers, whether in governments, funding institutions or private sector, need to invest in and get more and disaggregated data. If we don’t know the details of how many or where girls and women live and die, work and want to go to school, give birth or care for the sick, whether they are rich or poor, we won’t get the right policies, programs, or investments that can drive the needed solutions.”

She pointed out that according to UN Women, less than 25 percent of national COVID decision-making bodies have women included.

“It is too easy to cut resources from people who are not at the decision-making tables. We urgently need to get many women into leadership, including the COVID response and recovery efforts. All evidence shows that when more women are included in decision making, there is a more holistic approach and both societies and people fare better.”

In that regard, she highlighted some transformational, political commitments that will be put forward at the Generation Equality Forum, including from the vast network of Women Political Leaders, which count thousands and thousands of women ministers, mayors, parliamentarians, heads of states, and leaders from the private sector.

“I believe we will see some real game-changers,” she said.

Iversen expressed concern about the strong need for further funding, not least for women’s organizations on the frontline. It is linked to the recent and severe cuts to gender equality and sexual and reproductive health that could badly affect women and their health, especially in vulnerable communities.

“Adding to what happened during former US President Donald Trump era, the cuts we see right now from several countries, including the UK, will have devastating effects for girls, women, and gender equality, including for the most marginalized in emergency and humanitarian situations,” she told IPS. “The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), for example, estimates that with the 130 million GBP (180 million USD) the UK wants to withdraw from the Supplies Partnership, UNFPA could have helped prevent around 250,000 maternal and child deaths, 14.6 million unintended pregnancies and 4.3 million unsafe abortions.”

IPS: UNFPA and its partners estimate the significant health service disruptions by COVID 17 could result in 47 million women in low- and middle-income countries going without contraceptives. How do we deal with this loss of access to the most basic SRH services, especially now that the second wave of Covid-19 is disrupting health services again in many parts of the world?

KI: The shift of staff and funds away from maternal and reproductive health services due to the COVID response is devastating, and it will have ramifications for years, if not decades. We know from Ebola that maternal mortality went up, that access to family planning went down, and that girls and women paid the price in both lives and livelihood. Unfortunately, the evidence is mainly anecdotal as women’s health is not documented and measured the same way as other health services, just as there, in general, is a tremendous lack of sex-disaggregated data, including on key Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators and in COVID infections and deaths. This time – under the COVID pandemic – the gaps in SRHR services, shifts in resources, and cutbacks on services must be documented – in data and stories.

IPS: In many countries, the removal of the tampon tax (or period tax) has been at the forefront of equality of access to SRHR. What other key issues do you think we must focus on to ensure equity of access to SRHR and greater bodily autonomy?

KI: I am thrilled to see SRHR and bodily autonomy being a priority of Generation Equality and to see countries like Denmark, France, Burkina Faso, and UNFPA, etc., lead on this.

A woman’s right to decide on her own life and body is a fundamental human right. Bodily autonomy for girls and women – in all their rich diversity – is political, social, economically, and health-related. It is about having the power and agency to make choices over our own body, fertility, and future, living a life free of violence and coercion in both the private and public sphere, deciding who to have sex with and how to love. It’s about the right to decide whether to get children – or not – about having a health system that supports this with the full range of SRHR services readily available, affordable, and accessible. Bodily autonomy ties into norms, structure, systems – and if we want equity and health for all, we need to address all of it. I am glad to see this included in the progressive Generation Equality roadmap, with strong suggestions on how to counter gender-based violence, climate change, promote economic justice and feminist movements and leadership, etc.

The world is at a pivotal moment and a tipping point. With enough people and institutions reacting to the Clarion Call from the Generation Equality Forum in Paris, I believe we can make it tip the right way.

 

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Robby Nena's small house, made of concrete and tin roof, is built on reclaimed land at the edge of the Finkol river, about 200 meters from the Pacific Ocean within the Utwe Biosphere Reserve Transition Zone in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Climate change impact means that his home is frequently inundated with saltwater during high tide. Courtesy: Kosrae Conservation & Safety Organisation (KCSO)

By Neena Bhandari
SYDNEY, Australia, Jun 28 2021 (IPS)

Robby Nena is one of the many farmers and fishermen on the frontline of climate change in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), where coastal flooding and erosion, variable and heavy rainfall, increased temperature, droughts and other extreme weather events are becoming all too common.

FSM is one of the 22 Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs). These nations contribute less than 0.03 percent of the world’s total CO2 and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Yet, they are amongst the most vulnerable to the impacts of global warming, climate change and sea level rise. A quarter of Pacific people live within 1 km of the coast.

“Every time it rains, our home and farm get flooded, destroying our crops, damaging infrastructure and posing a major health hazard. Our tapioca and taro crops were completely destroyed in the major flooding event last month,” Nena tells IPS from Utwe village in FSM’s Kosrae state via a choppy Messenger call.

His small house, made of concrete and tin roof, is built on reclaimed land at the edge of the Finkol river, about 200 meters from the Pacific Ocean within the Utwe Biosphere Reserve Transition Zone.

“The river and ocean meet here so we also get frequently inundated with saltwater during high tide,” says Nena, who lives with his mother, teacher wife and two children.

The already evident and worsening impacts of climate change on food security and livelihoods in PICTs are being exacerbated by lack of timely access to climate finance for mitigation and adaptation, say climate advocates.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF), part of the financial mechanism of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is currently the world’s largest dedicated multilateral climate fund and the main multilateral financing mechanism to support developing countries in achieving a reduction of their GHG emissions and boost their ability to respond to climate change.

Belinda Hadley, Team Leader of FSM’s National Designated Authority (NDA) for the GCF, says that currently FSM doesn’t have the technical, financial and human capacity to access climate finance for mitigation, adaptation and resilience projects, which are much needed for the growing climate change challenges.

“It is difficult to make our proposals bankable because of all the requirements. English is the language for climate finance applications, and to most people in FSM, articulating needs, challenges and activities into proposals is no easy feat as various islands have their own distinct indigenous languages,” Hadley tells IPS.

GCF proposals, in order to be successful, need a strong and robust explanation of the climate impacts and risks to be addressed. The climate rationale description, as requested in the GCF proposal template, requires access to sound climate science and data.

Consequently, not having climate data disaggregated from development data thus makes it difficult to demonstrate climate change impacts separately from other sustainable development issues.

“This requirement of separate data for climate change makes it difficult for us. We have climate change and development data consolidated and integrated into one because of our small population and dispersed geography,” says Hadley.

FSM comprises of more than 600 islands spread across the four states of Kosrae, Yap, Chuuk and Pohnpei. This geographical spread makes disaster preparedness and response a challenge and financially costly.

The pandemic has added another layer to the hard realities of climate change for the people of FSM. 

“We were working on accessing climate financing to begin our adaptation efforts and move forward with our national adaptation plan, but we have not been able to conduct state consultations and meet stakeholders. All attention and resources have been focused on COVID-19 preparedness measures. Everything else has been pushed to the backburner,” Hadley tells IPS.

GCF operates through a network of accredited Direct Access Entities (DAE) and delivery partners, who work directly with developing countries for project design and implementation.

Robby Nena (centre) farms and fishes for subsistence. Fish are a mainstay of food security in most Pacific Island Countries and Territories and subsistence fishing still provides the majority of dietary animal protein in the region. Courtesy: Kosrae Conservation & Safety Organisation (KCSO)

The Pacific Community (SPC), which supports PICTs with overall coordination and capacity building for their engagement with climate finance mechanisms such as the GCF, is the delivery partner for FSM’s NDA. It supported the Micronesia Conservation Trust (MCT) to become an accredited DAE and to develop FSM’s first full-sized GCF project on food security, which was approved for funding in March 2021.

MCT’s Deputy Executive Director Lisa Ranahan Andon tells IPS, “This very first GCF grant to the FSM is going to the people who most need this intervention – and those are the most vulnerable farmers and fishers.”

“We are confident that our approach, integrating disparate one-off projects into a cohesive national approach, will increase the positive impacts on communities. We are in the process of fulfilling the pre-disbursement requirements and anticipate a first disbursement and project initiation in January 2022,” she adds.

Andon feels that this first award should help pave the way for other PICTs and national DAE in the region to secure GCF financing.

FSM accounts for only 0.003 percent of global CO2 and other GHG emissions, yet it has set an ambitious target of 35 percent emission reduction by 2025.

Besides the GCF, the country has been receiving some climate financing from the Adaptation Fund, European Union, Global Environment Facility, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and others, mainly for food and water security, renewable energy, coastal protection and disaster risk reduction.

Kosrae Conservation & Safety Organisation (KCSO), a small non-profit organisation supports and implements climate adaptation and mitigation projects in the local communities of Kosrae through climate finance from amongst others, the MCT. Under one of its 2018 grants, they controlled and collected Crown of Thorns Starfish (COTS), which is an invasive species that destroys coral in FSM, to experiment the use of COTS as a green fertiliser.

“The farmers we distributed it to all claim that the COTS were a good natural fertiliser. We repeated the COTS collection this year and supplied it to four farmers in different villages. Nena is one of them. Three of the four farmers are seeing very good results,” KCSO’s Executive Director Andy George tells IPS.

“If these farmers planted 50 plants and they can eat off it, then that is a success for us. Apart from helping them become self-sufficient in meeting their subsistence requirements, we also educate them towards climate adaptation and mitigation,” he adds.

A lot of farmers like Nena only do farming and fishing for subsistence. Local produce includes eggplant, sweet potato, taro, banana, sugarcane, coconut and citrus plants. Fish are a mainstay of food security in most PICTs and subsistence fishing still provides the majority of dietary animal protein in the region.

While PICTs have small populations and land mass, SPC’s Deputy Director General in Noumea (New Caledonia), Cameron Diver tells IPS, “They are the custodians of significant resources such as tuna stocks, which countries around the globe rely on for food security. If these nations cannot access the level of climate finance required to address climate change impacts on these resources, then this could threaten food security for global populations well beyond the region.”

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By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, Kanni Wignaraja and Omar Abdi
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jun 28 2021 (IPS)

With health systems at a breaking point, hospitals at capacity and desperate family members searching for oxygen for loved ones, the devastating second wave of COVID-19 that has swept across South Asia has felt ¬surreal. Official figures have indicated record-breaking daily coronavirus cases and deaths, not only in South Asia, but across the entire Asia-Pacific region during the latest surge. As devastating as it has been, the truth is we may never know how many people have died during the pandemic.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

Underreporting of deaths is common across the Asia-Pacific region, with an estimated 60 per cent of deaths occurring without a death certificate issued or cause of death recorded. One reason for this is the lack of a coordinated civil registration system to accurately record all vital events. This issue is exacerbated in times of crisis, as many of the poor die as they lived: overlooked or without being officially counted.

Civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems record deaths and other key life events such as births and marriages. A complete approach to civil registration, tracking vital statistics and identity management relies on multiple arms of government and institutions working together to collect, verify and share data and statistics so they are reliable, timely and put to right use. Without such official data and records during catastrophes such as a pandemic, we see how fast people get left out of extended social protection, vaccination drives and emergency cash transfers. Conversely, it significantly limits the ability of the most vulnerable groups to claim this access and their rights.

The need for accurate data and reporting mechanisms is critical at all times and even more crucial during humanitarian situations, whether a natural disaster or health emergency, when urgent decisions are required and hard choices have to be made. Governments, health authorities and development partners need timely and complete data to know the extent of the issue. This data can guide evidence-based decisions on where resources should be deployed and assess which interventions have been most effective. The more complete, accurate and trustworthy the data, the better the decisions. Or at least, the leadership is unable to use the excuse of ”we did not know.”

Kanni Wignaraja

In 2014, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) convened the first Ministerial Conference on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics, during which the Asian and Pacific CRVS Decade (2015-2024) was declared. Governments later set a time frame for realizing their shared vision – that all people in the region will benefit from universal and responsive CRVS systems.

These are complex and vast systems that need both technological and human capabilities to do it correctly, and the political commitment to sustain the effort. Development partners, including ESCAP, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), continue to actively work with governments and institutions to support the development of national civil registration systems, vital statistics systems and identity management systems such as national population registers and national ID card schemes.

A challenge facing governments has been transitioning from a standalone paper-based registration system to an integrated and interoperable digital one. UNICEF has worked with countries in the region on the registration of newborns, digitalization of old records and creation of integrated digital birth registration systems. UNICEF is also working with the World Health Organization (WHO) to improve integration of health services and civil registration, allowing governments to provide uninterrupted civil registration services and respond faster to health priorities, especially during crises.

Omar Abdi

UNDP and UNICEF play leading roles in implementing the UN Legal Identity Agenda, which aims to support countries in building holistic, country-owned, sustainable civil registration, vital statistics and identity management systems. Recognizing the importance of protecting privacy and personal data, UNDP advises countries on the appropriate legal and governance framework and has been engaged in supporting civil registration, national ID cards and legal identity in countries.

It is clear from the report by ESCAP, Get Every One in the Picture: A snapshot of progress midway through the Asian and Pacific CRVS Decade, that many countries in our region have seen improvements. However, we need to do more to ensure that all countries are able to produce reliable official statistics. And to use this to also learn and look forward.

The human toll of the COVID-19 crisis has been immense with far reaching consequences for the most vulnerable families. To respond effectively to disasters and build back better, it is time we get everyone in the picture.

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

Kanni Wignaraja is the Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, UNDP
Omar Abdi is the Deputy Executive Director of Programmes, UNICEF

 

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Women's Political Network, Credit: UNDP Montenegro

The Women’s Political Network was established in Montenegro in November 2017 to promote equal political and economic rights and to combat gender-based-violence. The initiative was funded by the Delegation of the European Union to Montenegro and implemented by UNDP in partnership with the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights.

Meanwhile the UN will be commemorating International Day of Parliamentarism on June 30.

By Mirjana Spoljaric Egger
NEW YORK, Jun 28 2021 (IPS)

In elections last October in Georgia, women’s share of seats in parliament went up by nearly seven percent, following the enforcement of a 25 percent quota for women candidates.

In North Macedonia, Serbia and Croatia, which apply a 40 percent legislated gender quota, women exceeded 30 percent in parliament. And in Kosovo*, women won more seats in parliament during the 2021 February election than in any previous year, gaining a 40 percent share.

But, as heartening as these results are, they are rare stars for women in the political firmament.

Women worldwide hold just over a quarter of all seats in parliaments and all positions of speakers in 2020, with 53 countries having at least one woman speaker.

At this rate it will take 50 years for parliaments to reach gender parity. Other estimates lead to gloomier forecasts – such as 145.5 years to reach gender parity in legislative and executive branches of the government.

If recent electoral trends are any indication, parliaments in most countries covered by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) will not reach gender parity by 2030.

Among countries that are likely to reach gender parity, more than half have adopted gender quotas. One of the most widely applied tools to accelerate progress on women’s political representation, legislated quotas allow more women to get elected and have a shot at changing gender social norms.

A 2017 survey conducted among top and middle management of parliamentary political parties in Georgia – complemented with the reports and personal experiences of female politicians and activists – highlighted the obstacles faced by Georgian women striving for a political career. Credit: Daro Sulakauri/UNDP Georgia

Numbers matter. Part of the solution to increasing women’s political participation lies in the ability to track progress and comparing data across countries. For example, legislated quotas – despite being a somewhat contested phenomenon – were applied last year in 81 states globally, including 25 countries and territories represented on UNDP’s recently updated Equalfuture platform.

Launched in 2020 to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action, this online portal showcases progress in women’s participation in national parliaments in 57 countries and territories in the Europe and Central Asia region over the past 26 years.

Equalfuture now features updated data on women’s presence in electoral politics.

It shows that, despite progress, women in the ECA region have just over a fourth of seats in national legislatures. In only six countries in the region are women speakers of parliament – Azerbaijan elected a woman speaker for the first time in 2020 – while there are women speakers in just 20 of the 57 countries in the UNECE region.

To argue that there have never been so many opportunities open to women as there are today is to ignore the powerful hold of gender bias in society. Nearly half of the population in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) believe men make better political leaders than women. The bias ranges from more than 60 percent in Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan supporting this view to less than 30 percent in Croatia and Montenegro.

This could be one of many reasons why young women in 2020 made less than one percent of all parliamentarians worldwide.

Gender bias is just one in a constellation of factors in the slow crawl in women’s political representation.

Violence against women in politics is a formidable obstacle to women’s entry to the political sphere. This increasingly recognized phenomenon is alarmingly pervasive: in 45 UNECE countries, most women parliamentarians have suffered psychological violence or been the target of online sexist attacks on social media during their mandate. Almost half received death threats or threats of rape and beating, and a quarter suffered sexual violence.

Women aspiring to politics are also subject to vicious forms of cyberviolence not foreseen in the Beijing Platform for Action which called on parliaments to have no less than 30 percent of women in their ranks. Abusive online comments aimed at women politicians are inversely proportional to the number of women in political office. During the parliamentary elections campaign in Georgia in 2020, women were only 22 percent of candidates but the target of 40 percent of all hate comments. Most comments called on them to stay home and give up their political ambitions.

Given the many gender fault lines laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is little surprise that women make up only 24 percent of the COVID-19 task force members worldwide. With its profound impacts on women’s paid and unpaid work, the pandemic has set back decades of hard-won gains in gender equality.

More women than men lost their jobs while their care burdens intensified during the pandemic. With fewer resources and less time to spend on the activities outside the household, fewer women are likely to engage in politics.

However, without women’s input, countries risk making poor decisions at a pivotal moment of recovery from crisis.

On the upcoming International Day of Parliamentarism (June 30), let us celebrate not only parliamentarians but gender-equal parliaments as a cornerstone of a well-functioning democracy. And let us redouble our efforts to dismantle the barriers and dislodge the biases that hold women back from an equal future in political decision-making.

Mirjana Spoljaric Egger is Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, Assistant Administrator of UNDP, and Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS. She was appointed to this position by the UN Secretary-General in August 2018 and assumed duties in October 2018. She oversees UNDP operations in 18 countries and territories of Europe and Central Asia: https://www.eurasia.undp.org/content/rbec/en/home/about-us/about-the-region.html

Learn more about the progress of women’s participation in politics in 57 countries and territories over the past 26 years through UNDP Eurasia’s online platform Equalfuture.

* References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of Security Council resolution 1244 (1999)

 

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Children in Douma, East Ghouta. The siege on East Ghouta lasted almost seven years. Douma is home to more than 250,000 people living amidst large scale urban destruction, wide contamination with explosive remnants of war and limited access to essential services. Credit: UNICEF/UN0264239/Syrian Arab Republic/Sanadiki

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 25 2021 (IPS)

When the UN’s annual report on Children and Armed Conflict was released last week, it was expected to “name and shame” some of the world’s worst human rights violators – particularly the abusers of children.

But these violators were protected– and never stigmatized—despite the hundreds of children killed by warring parties in ongoing conflicts, particularly in Yemen, Syria and Myanmar, involving the US, Russia and China as arms suppliers, triggering criticism from UN watchers and human rights organizations.

Jo Becker, Children’s Rights Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch, told IPS: “We continue to be disappointed that the Secretary-General (SG) is not using the “list of shame” to hold all parties accountable for their grave violations against children”.

The message he is sending to the Saudi-led coalition regarding their operations in Yemen is that “as long as they kill and maim fewer children than they did the year before, they can stay off the list”.

“We also saw in the case of Myanmar how disastrous it was to remove the Tatmadaw (the country’s armed forces) from the list while they were still recruiting and using children; the number the following year tripled”.

The SG should not make listing decisions based on his hopes for future improvement, but based on the facts on the ground, said Becker.

His repeated failure to base his list, on the UN’s own evidence, betrays children and fuels impunity. ”Now that his second term as Secretary-General is assured, he should abandon that approach and ensure his list reflects the facts. And the UN Security Council should insist that he list all violators, without exception,” declared Becker.

The oil-blessed Saudi Arabia, which is leading a coalition in the military conflict in Yemen, is a longstanding political and military ally of the US– which along with the UK, China, Russia and France– is armed with veto powers in the Security Council.

Russia provides political and military support to war-ravaged Syria while China, one of the largest arms suppliers to Myanmar, has undermined Security Council attempts to impose an arms embargo in the conflict-ridden country.

Ian Williams, President of the New York-based Foreign Press Association (FPA) and author of ‘UNtold: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War’, told IPS Guterres has adopted a human rights profile that is low enough to be subterranean.

History suggests that one of the few weapons open to the SG and the UN collectively is “naming and shaming”, he said, pointing out, it is also true that many member states — like the 57-member Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) that refuses to support the Uighurs, are also shamelessly unprincipled in the face of power — but an ethical and forthright SG, as the tribune for the UN Charter, could turn the tide.

“If Guterres is more concerned about posterity than his pension—and if he wants to make the history books rather than the footnotes– he should take his cue from Dag Hammarskjold, speak truth to power. And avoid chartered aircraft,” said Williams, a former President of the UN Correspondents’ Association (UNCA).

Various models of SG-ship have been tried, he pointed out, but none of them are entirely successful.

“Kofi Annan was tried the nice approach. Ban Ki-moon tried being nice in public, firm in meetings with heads of state, and furious in private with the gratuitous insults they heaped upon him”, said Williams.

Perhaps the most hard-hitting comments came from Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW): “Guterres’s first term was defined by public silence regarding human rights abuses by China, Russia, and the United States and their allies,” he said, referring to the three veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council.

“With his re-election behind him, Guterres should use the next five years to become a strong vocal advocate for rights. His recent willingness to denounce abuses in Myanmar and Belarus should expand to include all governments deserving condemnation, including those that are powerful and protected.”

Since taking office in January 2017, Guterres has rarely criticized or called for accountability by specific governments or their leaders, said Roth.

Guterres “adopted a non-confrontational approach toward former US President Donald Trump’s efforts to sideline human rights by undermining multilateral organizations like the UN and embracing authoritarian leaders.”

He adopted a similar approach to crimes against humanity in Xinjiang by China’s government, now the UN’s second biggest financial contributor, after the US, and to war crimes by Saudi Arabia in Yemen, complained Roth.

HRW also said Guterres has been reluctant to criticize abuses by Russia’s government, which has frequently used its veto power in the Security Council to block human rights-related resolutions on Syria and elsewhere. Guterres should also exercise stronger leadership against the global pushback on women’s rights, it added.

According to Watch List on Children and Armed Conflict, the Secretary-General removed the Saudi and Emirati-led coalition from his annual list of child rights abusers last year, despite the UN finding that it was responsible for killing and maiming 222 children in Yemen in 2019.

At the time, he had vowed to re-list the coalition if it failed to sustainably decrease violations.

“As the UN’s latest report shows, the Secretary-General’s decision to remove the Saudi and Emirati-led coalition from his shame list last year sent a clear message that parties can get away with killing children,” said Adrianne Lapar, director of Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict.

“If the Secretary-General does not immediately reconsider his decision and return the coalition to his list, he seriously undermines international efforts to protect children in war and emboldens warring parties to be more abusive against children.”

Meanwhile, Save the Children, a leading humanitarian organization for children, pointed out that 194 Yemeni children were killed and maimed in 2020, but the UN Report on Children and Armed Conflict again fails to hold perpetrators to account.

But despite the killings in Yemen in 2020, according to UN verified data, the Saudi and Emirati led coalition gets a green light to continue destroying children’s lives in Yemen, the organization said.

“In a disheartening decision, the UN Secretary General António Guterres again failed to include the coalition in this year’s ‘list of shame’.”

It was taken off the list last year, with a commitment by the Secretary General to relist them unless there was a ‘sustained significant decrease in killing and maiming’. By not relisting the coalition, Guterres sends the message that reducing the number of child casualties to about two hundred is ‘good enough’ progress, Save the Children said.

Matthew Wells, Deputy Director of Thematics for Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Programme said Guterres, “who has just been given another five-year term; must become bolder and more courageous in prioritizing human rights and calling out perpetrators, including on children and armed conflict.”

Together with the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, he should commit publicly to applying the same standard irrespective of perpetrator or context – producing a complete list based on evidence and objective criteria, something he has failed to do again this year.

Next year, he must follow the criteria laid out in 2010; the Saudi Arabia-led coalition and Israeli military, among others, will again prove a key test.

For their part, UN member states must demand a credible list. Why have teams on the ground put themselves in danger to document violations that get ignored?, asked Wells.

 

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