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Security Council Members Hold Open Videoconference in Connection with Syria. Courtesy: United Nations/Loey Felipe

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 16 2020 (IPS)

Children in Syria are facing the brutal brunt of the ongoing civil war in the country, now rendered further paralysed owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and United States sanctions.

At the Sept. 15 launch of the report investigating human rights violations in Syria by the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, experts warned that in addition to the already ongoing conflict, “newer forms of violence” was on the rise.

“While well documented violence such as arbitrary detention, disappearances, torture, and deaths in custody continue to be utilised by these actors, newer forms of violence including targeted killings, looting, appropriation of property are increasing in numbers and carry sectarian undertones,” Paulo Pinheiro, chair of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, said yesterday.

The report monitored human rights conditions in the war-torn country between Jan. 11 and Jul. 1, 2020. It paints a grave picture especially about the condition of children, in addition to other human rights crises in the country.

Children are both victims to being recruited by the Syrian National Army (SNA), as well as sexual abuse, which is used as a means to inflict torture on other men, the report found.

It documented at least two occasions when members of the SNA forced male detainees to witness the rape of a minor in an attempt to “humiliate, extract confessions and instil fear” within them.

“On the first day, the minor was threatened with being raped in front of the men, but the rape did not proceed,” read the report. “The following day, the same minor was gang-raped, as the male detainees were beaten and forced to watch in an act that amounts to torture.”

“Women and young girls are being targeted more and more, [with] reports of rape and detention have risen quite a bit,” Hanny Megally, a member of the commission.

The SNA is also recruiting children to deploy them in conflict outside of the country, the report found.

Meanwhile, children recruited by the Syrian Democratic Forces/Kurdish People’s Protection Units would end up in detention centres on accusations of espionage and/or for being affiliated with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. According to testimony from adult detainees, the children were held in the same cells as adults, and it’s not clear if they had been charged with anything.

Children are also suffering alongside the rest of the country from grave food insecurity, according to the report.

About 9.3 million are currently facing food insecurity in the country, exacerbated further by the pandemic as well as U.S. sanctions.

The United Nations Children’s Fund estimates about six million children have been born since the war began, whose only idea of life has been the conflict. 

Beyond these grave effects on children, other civilians remain at continuous threat of arbitrary detention, with risks of dying while in detention.

Megally said that the overall nature of attacks on civilians has also experienced change: there are now more assassinations, more people being kidnapped for extortions and ransom, and more people being attacked to silence their criticism. 

In a response to an inquiry by the media, Megally added that measures such as checkpoints, which are set up to restrict movements in order to contain the pandemic, were “often being used to detain and harass people who are trying to move for legitimate reasons.”

The report calls for leaders to immediately address issues of gender-based sexual violence, to have a “large-scale prisoner release”, and for all stakeholders — local and international — to “ensure and facilitate unfettered access for independent humanitarian, protection and human rights organisations in every part of the country, including to places of confinement or detention” in order to address the food insecurity concerns in the country.

Pinheiro further reiterated that in order to address this worsening crisis, it’s imperative that sectoral sanctions are waived to ensure that there’s movement of food and medical supplies, and that children and prisoners be released.

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Credit: The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the intergovernmental body which assesses the state of biodiversity and of the ecosystem services it provides to society, in response to requests from decision makers.

By Inger Andersen
NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 15 2020 (IPS)

We have known for a long time that biodiversity, and the services it provides, have been in decline. It is on this background that ten years ago, the international community adopted the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020.

The goal of the plan, and its Aichi Biodiversity Targets, was to halt biodiversity loss and ensure that ecosystems continued to provide essential services.

Governments and the wider society have acted to address the biodiversity crisis. Some nations have made some progress. However, as this Report Card on global progress demonstrates, we have not met the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. And we are not on track for the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity.

Many of you might have heard me speak to the devastating consequences of humanity’s imprint on nature, in particular, the COVID-19 pandemic, a zoonotic disease transmitted between animals and humans, which is by no means the first and will not be the last.

From COVID-19 to massive wildfires, floods, melting glaciers and unprecedented heat, our failure to meet the Aichi Targets – to protect our home – has very real consequences. We can no longer afford to cast nature to the side. Now is the time for a massive step up, conserving, restoring and using biodiversity fairly and sustainably.

If we do not, biodiversity will continue to buckle under the weight of land- and sea-use change, overexploitation, climate change, pollution and invasive alien species. This will further damage human health, economies and societies, with particularly dire impacts on indigenous communities.

This Global Biodiversity Outlook spells out transitions that can create a society living in harmony with nature: transitions in how we use land and forests; organize our agriculture and food supply systems; manage fisheries; use water; manage urban environments and tackle climate change. There are many examples that show how the right policies can bring positive outcomes.

For example, where fisheries have been regulated and reported, abundance of stocks has improved. Where coordinated action has been taken to slow deforestation, habitat loss has been controlled. Ecosystem restoration, when implemented effectively and with the support of local populations, has reversed decades of degradation.

To knit the global response together, UN Member States will soon adopt the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. In the Framework, we need ambitious, clear and common targets for a nature-positive world.

Targets that can be broken down and implemented at the national level. We need targets that can be added up, so we know whether we are on track to meet the new goals that we will set. We need financing, capacity development, transparency and accountability.

We need buy-in from the sectors and groups – infrastructure, agriculture, government, business and finance – that drive biodiversity loss. This may seem like a tall order, but I believe protecting nature is entirely within humanity’s reach. There is today a far deeper understanding of what nature loss means for health and well-being.

Businesses can no longer afford to ignore the risk of biodiversity loss to profitability. And we are seeing countries, companies and financiers begin to lean in on the nature agenda. As we seek to stretch on the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), we have a real shot at embedding ecosystem-based adaptation and nature-based solutions into climate action.

We don’t need to wait for the Biodiversity Framework to be finalized before we begin this work. As the UN Secretary-General has noted, this is a “make or break moment for the planet”.

As we seek to reboot the global economy following COVID-19, how we prioritize and direct our resources will either secure human, economic and environmental health for generations to come, or take us down the grey path that has brought with it the suffering we are seeing today.

We have little choice in the path we must take.

 

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Excerpt:

Inger Andersen is UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

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Small-scale slash-and-burn agriculture is one of the deforestation problems in Brazil’s Amazon jungle. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By External Source
Sep 15 2020 (IPS)

The EU is thinking about agreeing to a €4 billion trade deal with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay (known as the Mercosur bloc). In our new academic research, myself and 21 international co-authors looked at the details of this deal so you don’t have to. What we found wasn’t pretty.

Even though negotiations took two decades, the deal failed to include Indigenous groups or local communities in negotiations. This is crucial given that murders of Indigenous leaders in the Brazilian Amazon has hit the highest level in two decades. Many of these violent attacks are linked to land grabs for agricultural expansion, and very few of them are officially investigated.

Imports from the Mercosur bloc to the EU already result in deforestation equivalent to one football pitch every three minutes
Worryingly, this trade deal would guarantee cheaper beef and ongoing tariff-free soy – the two top drivers of deforestation in the region. Despite this, the deal fails to provide mechanisms to ensure that deforestation and human rights violations are not linked to the commodities imported into the EU, clearly in contradiction to the goals of the EU Green Deal.

To add insult to injury, Brazil’s government is doing the opposite of what the country agreed to in the Paris Agreement – to reduce deforestation. Right now, fires are raging through the Amazon at the same startling rate as 2019, while unprecedented burning is sweeping through Argentina’s and Brazil’s wetlands. Out of control fires in wetlands really shouldn’t be a thing.

The tide looks like it might be turning on this agreement, with German chancellor Angela Merkel recently voicing “considerable doubts” following a meeting with youth climate activists.

Here’s the deeper issue that’s often ignored: even without this contentious deal, the ongoing problems of international trade will be left untouched.

The EU is already responsible for hefty imports from the Mercosur bloc. It imports more than 10 million tonnes of soy (for livestock feed) and over 200,000 tonnes of beef every year. Imports from the Mercosur bloc to the EU already result in deforestation equivalent to one football pitch every three minutes. All while the Amazon nears a tipping point that if reached could trigger a rapid shift from lush tropical rainforest to a dry savanna. This would be catastrophic for Indigenous people, the region’s agriculture, and the world’s climate.

If we are serious about combating climate change and supporting human rights, we must take urgent action.

 

Infographic from the academic article published in the journal One Earth. Laura Kehoe, Author provided

 

Things could be so much better

First things first: it’s clear that we need to cut down on foods that have high environmental impacts such as meat. Europeans eat so much meat that they are not only driving deforestation abroad, but also causing health problems at home. Excessive meat consumption is associated with increased rates of coronary heart disease, strokes, and type 2 diabetes, with convincing evidence that red and processed meat can cause cancer. If we ate more delicious plants, we’d feel better and the planet would too.

However, fixing our diets alone won’t be enough to completely solve this issue. To avoid unintentionally fuelling conflict and ecocide abroad, Europeans also need to fundamentally fix trade.

Luckily, solving this crisis doesn’t require fancy new inventions or a technological leap. Our research outlines the mechanisms needed to transform trade for the better, all of which are available to us now. For example, we could actually listen to Indigenous peoples and local communities and work to ensure they don’t lose their land to illegal invasions. We could trace the origin of products to make sure they don’t come from areas of deforestation or conflict. We could introduce legal mechanisms like collective redress – where vulnerable communities have a means to seek legal action.

Crucially though, even if we hold every company to account and trace every soybean, we could still indirectly drive pressure on South America’s last remaining forests, savannas, and wetlands if our demand increases. To avoid this, it’s important that we make trade deals contingent on countries making wider progress towards international commitments – the Paris agreement being a prime example.

Imagine if the economic muscle of trade was used to create a new playing field, where entering the game required genuine progress on reducing deforestation and supporting human rights. In the case of Brazil, Indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara suggests two clear benchmarks of progress that should be met before considering ratifying any new trade deals:

1. Substantial progress in ending impunity for violence against forest defenders, as measured by the number of these cases investigated, prosecuted, and brought to trial.
2. A reduction in deforestation rates that is sufficient to put the country back on track to meet its own targets under the Paris Agreement.

Ultimately, we need to have the courage to stand up and act in line with the values we already hold. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to live in a world that isn’t hellbent on destruction? Where we can have dinner without worrying about whether our meal has a shady past?

Our research outlines what’s needed to fundamentally fix trade – it’s now up to the EU to step up and become a leader in sustainability that we can all be proud of.

Laura Kehoe, Researcher in Conservation Decision Science and Land Use, University of Oxford

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

The post Fight Fire with Trade: How Europe Can Help Save the Amazon appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By PRESS RELEASE
PARIS, Sep 15 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, on Thursday 27 August launched an international fund raising appeal, Li Beirut (For Beirut in Arabic), to support the rehabilitation of schools, historic heritage buildings, museums, galleries and the creative economy, all of which suffered extensive damage in the deadly explosions that shook the Lebanese capital on 4 August.

As she launched Li Beirut, the Director-General expressed the unflagging solidarity of UNESCO with the people of Lebanon.

“UNESCO, of which Lebanon is a founding member, stands at their side to mobilize the international community and support the city’s recovery for and through culture, heritage and education” Ms Azoulay declared.

The Director-General emphasized UNESCO’s commitment to applying the highest internationally recognized professional and management standards in coordinating support for education and culture in the framework of UN assistance to Lebanon. “I solemnly call for the historic centre to be protected – through administrative measures and appropriate regulations – to prevent property speculation and transactions taking advantage of residents’ distress and vulnerability,” she added.

In addition to coordinating UN efforts to support education in Beirut, which will require $23 million, UNESCO has committed to the immediate rehabilitation of 40 of the 159 affected schools with funds it has already raised. In the coming months, UNESCO will prioritize funding for schooling and distance learning, an urgent issue for the 85,000 affected students. “We must focus on education, because it is a major concern for families and it is where Lebanon’s future will be played out,” said the Director-General. To this end, the Global Education Coalition, put in place by UNESCO during the early weeks of the COVID-19 crisis. will hold a Special Session on the situation in Lebanon on 1 September.

UNESCO will also lead international coordination efforts for the recovery and reconstruction of Beirut’s culture and heritage and raise funds to respond to the crisis affecting the cultural sector. “We must protect the spirit of the city, even as we work to rebuild it. We must build back – but, more importantly, we must build back well. This means protecting the unique heritage of these neighbourhoods, respecting the city’s history, and supporting its creative energy,” said Ms Azoulay. According to preliminary estimates, $500,000,000 are needed to support heritage and the creative economy over the coming year, with museums, galleries and cultural institutions expected to experience substantial losses in revenues. UNESCO will conduct priority interventions to stabilize, secure and safeguard several historic buildings located in the most affected neighbourhoods.

As part of these actions, Ms Azoulay said, “We are determined to mobilize the international community both for built heritage and museums, and for the hard-hit creative sector, by supporting artists and cultural professionals, whom UNESCO will also bring together in three ResiliArt debates in September.” To finance these operations on the ground, a UNESCO donors’ conference for Beirut will be organized before the end of September.

During her two-day visit, the Director-General took stock of the situation through meetings with artists, members of the cultural sector and creative industries, including NGOs and local partners.

Source: UNESCO

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Credit: Charles Mangwiro/IPS

By Charles Mangwiro
CHOKWE, Mozambique, Sep 15 2020 (IPS)

Like many Mozambicans in the agricultural sector, 39-year-old Fatima Matavele, a commercial farmer in the district of Chokwe, some 213 kilometres north of the capital, Maputo, has had a tough year. Although the last few years have been hard, 2020 has proven to be the most difficult of all.

Trading within Mozambique, with its rutted roads and bribe-hungry police, has never been easy, but restrictions imposed by President Filipe Nyusi’s government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have worsened an already bad situation. Last week on Sept. 6, the country emerged from a second set of COVID-19 restrictions, which lasted 30 days.

In ordinary times, Matavele can transport her produce to the Zimpeto vegetable market — the country’s fresh farm produce bazaar on the outskirts of Maputo — in less than four hours. But since the coronavirus restrictions came in, some shipments were taking much longer to reach the market, that is if they are lucky to reach it at all.

On those unlucky days when the produce cannot be transported, Matavele and her workers ended up dumping sacks and boxes of fresh vegetables on the roadside.

“I employ a total of 45 people at my farm and if the trucks are delayed or turned away altogether, the produce spoils,” said Matavele, whose traders’ collective slashed the number of trucks it runs to Maputo from up to eight a day to only one or two a day.

“This is an outright loss but I must pay my workers at the end of the month,” the farmer of 15 years told IPS.

In sub-Saharan Africa 40 precent of staple foods fail to reach markets because of poor roads and market access limitations, according to the Food Sustainability Index (FSI) developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition (BCFN).

The breakdowns in the food supply chain here are contributing to fears of a spiralling food crisis. The coronavirus-induced lockdowns, the first of which occurred in March, have pushed commodities and food prices up in Mozambique while people are racing to stock food. According to the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network, “maize grain prices in monitored markets increased by 7-13 percent in July compared to June 2020, 11-50 percent above last year’s prices, and 18-55 percent above the five-year average”.

The United Nations says the pandemic could cause the number of Africans living in food insecurity to double to 43 million in the next six months.

While some countries have been able to rely on healthy pre-crisis stocks to keep the price of staples such as maize and rice relatively stable, more time-sensitive supply chains are fraying and legions of independent traders are taking the hit.

Mozambique is one of the world’s poorest countries – ranking 178 out of 187 nations on the U.N.’s Human Development Index – which also means it cannot afford the luxury of importing food for its population.

At the same time nearly half a million people need food aid in Mozambique and food prices are soaring in the aftermath of poor rains that hit most crops in the just-ended farming season, the government said recently. (The Mozambican agriculture season runs from October to April, with harvesting from May to July.) The Ministry of Agriculture said 450,000 people need food assistance and 150,000 face a critical situation in the southern and central areas of the country.

The central and southern provinces are still recovering from devastating floods and cyclones that smashed the regions early last year, leaving a trail of extensive damage and hundreds of people dead.

Agriculture is the backbone of the economy in Mozambique, providing employment for over 75 percent of the workforce. The Open Society Foundation in a 2019 report estimated that 70 percent of people under 35 years of age, who form the majority of Mozambique’s population of 30 million, cannot find stable employment.

“We (farmers) are the solution to this [food crisis] but we are struggling alone without any assistance and we are forced to spend our own money to keep the farming sector afloat and we have started using all sorts of media such as Facebook and What’s app to engage with our clients just to keep them informed of what is going on,” said Matavele.

“With support from an agricultural bank we will be able to feed the whole nation and cut all food imports in Mozambique,” she added.

In the 2020 financial year, the agriculture sector was allocated 10 percent of the country’s total budget of $5.1 billion to help purchase and improve the quality of seeds, as well as to introduce irrigated and mechanised farming.

According to Matavele, high fuel prices and transportation costs isolated farmers from one of their biggest markets while the country’s growing debt and economic crisis strained the budgets of many.

Added to this are extreme weather conditions, that often seems to alternate between flooding and drought, which has dashed hopes of decent harvests.

Producers in the Chokwe district also complain about the lack of resellers to purchase their product. Chokwe district is located in southern Gaza province’s agriculture heartland and shares a border with the South African province of Mpumalanga.

Matavele, a single mother of five, is totally dependent on her farming where she produces potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbages. Tomatoes, however, remain the most popular produce among urban consumers.

“Agriculture is my childhood dream come true, but I never imagined that things could quickly come to standstill… the future is looking very bleak hence we are forced to find new ways to remain afloat as an industry,” she said adding, “now we are producing more and we sell our products cheaply to recover our investments as the solution, it’s better than doing nothing.”

The subsistence farmers of Chokwe, hardened by years of poverty, are already replanting what they can, using cuttings from the uprooted cassava plants that now litter the village.
Matavele watched as her tractor tilled the land in preparation for the next season.

But the land has its rhythm and will not be rushed, however great the need. The cassava be ready to eat only in eight months time. Until then, hunger is a real threat.

To increase food production, “firstly, all cities had to cope with the need to ensure access to food and sustainable diets for the most vulnerable and deprived groups of the population (e.g. poor, unemployed, elderly, children, migrants, etc.) and the government should invest in local farmers, many of whom still use the most basic hoes to till their fields and lack access to the best seeds,” said Marta Antonelli, head of research at the Italy-based BCFN in an emailed response to IPS.

• Tomorrow read how Mozambique, a country wracked by hunger, has signed away land concessions three times larger than Greater London to outside investors in the past decade, displacing thousands of farmers in the process.

 

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The post COVID-19 Worsens Mozambique’s Hunger – Part 1 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

High fuel prices and transportation costs isolated Mozambique's farmers from one of their biggest markets while the country’s growing debt and economic crisis strained the budgets of many. But restrictions imposed by President Filipe Nyusi’s government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened food security as farmers have been unable to get their produce to market. This is the first in a two-part series.

The post COVID-19 Worsens Mozambique’s Hunger – Part 1 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By PRESS RELEASE
PARIS, Sep 15 2020 (IPS-Partners)

A new UNESCO report highlights a sharp increase in the global number of protests during which the police and security forces violated media freedom in the first half of 2020. Between January and June this year, 21 protests around the world were marred by violations of press freedom, including protests in which journalists were attacked, arrested and even killed.

UNESCO’s new report, Safety of Journalists Covering Protests – Preserving Freedom of the Press During Times of Civil Unrest, points to a wider upward trend in the use of unlawful force by police and security forces over the last five years. In 2015, journalists covering 15 protests worldwide were impeded by the police and security forces. By 2019, that number more than doubled to 32. The report suggests that a troubling new threshold has been crossed, revealing a significant and growing threat to media freedom and freedom of access to information in all regions of the world.

The report also found that ten journalists were killed while covering protests over the last five years. Each of these killings was condemned at the time by UNESCO’s Director-General.

In some protests up to 500 separate violations took place, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. In some cases, including during protests linked to the Black Lives Matter movement, violence resulted in permanent injuries, such as those sustained by several journalists blinded by rubber bullets or pepper balls.

Launching the report, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay underscored that the freedom to inform citizens on the causes of unrest and the response from state authorities are of vital importance for democracies to thrive.Journalists have a critical role in reporting and informing audiences on protest movements. For many years, UNESCO has been raising global awareness to ensure that they can do this safely and without fear of persecution, and training security forces and the judiciary on international norms in freedom of expression. The figures in this report show that much greater efforts are needed. We call on the international community and all relevant authorities to ensure that these fundamental rights are upheld.

Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director-General

The report finds that during this five-year period, protests around the world have been rooted in concerns about economic injustice, government corruption, the decline of political freedoms, and growing authoritarianism. It details the different abuses journalists face when covering protests including surveillance, harassment, intimidation, beating, being shot at with lethal or non-lethal ammunition, detention, abduction and the deliberate destruction of equipment.

It also contains concrete recommendations for all actors involved, from media outlets and national authorities to international organizations, to ensure better protections for journalists. These include: strengthening training for police and law enforcement actors on freedom of expression and appropriate behaviour in dealing with the media; providing appropriate training and equipment to journalists, including freelancers, sent to cover demonstrations; appointing national ombudsmen to hold police accountable for the use of force against journalists during demonstrations; and strengthening national mechanisms for the safety of journalists.

UNESCO provides technical assistance to Member States, including training for police and security forces on upholding press freedom and freedom of expression.

The report is an issue brief in the UNESCO Series on World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development.

The report is available in the six official UN languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, and Chinese.

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By Vladimir Popov and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
BERLIN and KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 15 2020 (IPS)

In recent decades, many contemporary macroeconomic and financial problems have been blamed on ‘soft budget constraints’ (SBCs), with the term becoming quite popular in the economics lexicon, financial media and political discourse.

Soft budget constraints
Originally coined four decades ago to purportedly describe the economic roots of problems in centrally planned ‘socialist’ economies, it was soon also invoked for ostensibly dirigiste developing countries accused of ‘macroeconomic populism’ and ‘industrial policy’.

Vladimir Popov

It has since assumed a double life, invoked on one (microeconomic) hand to discipline large enterprises not maximising shareholder value by investing too much for the medium and long-term, and on the other (macroeconomic) hand to control ‘irresponsible’ governments running budget deficits.

First formulated by Harvard economist Janos Kornai from Hungary to explain economic behaviour in ‘socialist’ economies said to be characterised by shortage, the term was soon widely used in the literature on economic transitions from centrally planned ‘socialism’ to market capitalism.

The original claim was that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in socialist countries were not allowed to fail even when unprofitable. According to him, such SOEs were almost always bailed out with financial subsidies or by other means. True, SOEs in socialist economies never went out of business as there were no bankruptcies.

But although such legal bankruptcy provisions were undoubtedly lacking, SOEs were often disciplined by other means in such ‘centrally planned’ economies: national budget provisioning under central planning was almost always strictly limited, managements could be changed, or enterprises required to reform.

Nevertheless, poor enterprise management and losses were blamed on SBCs. With enterprise losses assumed to result in national level budgetary indiscipline, SBCs at both levels were presumed to be related.

Hence, permanent government budget deficits, debt accumulation, high inflation and other macroeconomic imbalances were presumed to be associated with pervasive enterprise level SBCs and losses.

Global neoliberal economic ascendance from the 1980s increasingly invoked SBCs to explain economic problems at both micro and macro levels in non-socialist economies, such as the financial difficulties of US auto giant Chrysler in the 1980s and various macro-financial crises since.

Shortages and SBCs
The SBC notion was directly linked by Kornai to the ‘shortage economy’, another notion associated with him from the 1980s, with both portrayed as characteristic of centrally planned socialist economies.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

When a government covers the losses of all unprofitable SOEs with a national fiscal SBC — a practice presumed to be widespread — both wages and profits exceed the value of output, causing both consumer and investment demand to exceed supply in such ‘shortage’ economies.

As enterprises are not constrained from increasing demand for resources, shortages emerge. Shortages are inevitable if prices are controlled and cannot rise to clear markets. But SBCs do not inevitably lead to shortages as market price increases can eliminate them.

Due to SBCs, enterprises are presumed to increase investment and production until they encounter non-financial resource constraints in the form of shortages. But no explanations have been offered as to why these should necessarily occur, either in theory or in practice.

Rather, this claim is based on the presumption that SOE managers are primarily, if not solely interested in maximizing output or growth rates. This presumption is widely believed by economists to be realistic, although there is no systematic evidence that this was indeed the case.

Selective industrial policy
Enterprise level losses over several years were also presumed to be due to SBCs, rather than the result of a deliberate policy of selective encouragement of and support for particular sectors, technological initiatives and enterprises.

In fact, such support for strategic industries and enterprises was not widespread, let alone pervasive, and did not cause major government budget deficits. Such selective industrial policy is thus easily, but misleadingly depicted as a classic cause of enterprise-level SBCs.

Such selective subsidization may or may not succeed in accelerating progressive structural transformation, but was certainly neither an intrinsic or pervasive feature of centrally planned socialist economies, and even more misleadingly, a major cause of pervasive SBCs.

In East Asia, promotion of export-oriented manufacturing and new high-tech industries contributed to successful catch-up growth and structural transformation. But such targeted subsidization conditional on meeting performance criteria did not involve national level or macroeconomic SBCs.

The problem in the USSR and East European countries was not subsidization per se, but rather, indefinite, even increasing protection through higher domestic prices for manufactures — as part of import substituting industrialization policy — perpetually protecting manufacturing SOEs not effectively compelled to become more competitive.

Budget constraints in ‘socialist’ economies
In the Soviet Union after the Second World War, from the 1947 monetary reform until the 1987 Gorbachev perestroika reforms, budget deficits and debt were kept low and transparent. Open and hidden annual inflation rates remained in the single digits, often lower than in Western countries.

In fact, budget constraints in ‘socialist’ economies were ‘stricter’ than in most developing countries, and no less ‘hard’ than in many developed countries. SBCs in ‘socialist’ economies were not all-pervasive, as often claimed, but selective, e.g., involving subsidization of some enterprises or industries at the expense of others.

Budget constraints under central planning were mostly much stricter than in market economies at similar levels of development. SOE losses could contribute to government budget deficits, but were mostly modest under ‘socialism’, with both open and hidden inflation relatively low.

Various political factors shaped macroeconomic policy choices during the 1990s’ transitions. Previously ‘hard’ budget constraints ‘softened’ dramatically in many East European countries and former Soviet republics, resulting in fast growing budget deficits and high inflation.

The new combination of weak states facing rivalrous powerful interest groups caused governments to ‘kick the can down the road’, with deficits, debt, inflationary financing, overvalued exchange rates as well as domestic fuel and energy prices below world levels.

Hence, SBCs were just one type of economic policy, rare in ‘socialist’ countries, but found in many developing countries, especially in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, and ironically, in transition economies, especially in the former USSR, from the 1990s.

 

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Credit: Image from istockphoto.com/jaynothing/ International Politics and Society, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Brussels office.

By Asyura Salleh
YOKOSUKA CITY, Japan, Sep 15 2020 (IPS)

Maritime security in Asia Pacific is often viewed through a traditional security lens, where the main responsibility falls on maritime law enforcement agencies to protect maritime borders and territorial sovereignty.

However, such a narrow perspective can fail to effectively counter maritime security threats and overburden enforcement agencies. A more holistic understanding of maritime drivers and actors is necessary to expand the scope beyond traditional security concerns and engage all maritime stakeholders in protecting the region’s maritime commons.

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically altered the maritime landscape by accentuating social and political fissures that exist along Asia Pacific’s coastlines such as domestic political instability and economic grievances.

These fissures have spilled over into the maritime arena as reports of crimes such as illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, piracy, and armed robbery increase since the onset of the pandemic.

As enforcement agencies become preoccupied with battling the pandemic and defence budgets are readjusted, incidents of piracy and armed robbery in the period from January to June 2020 doubled from the previous year.

In most cases, the main responders to these crimes have been maritime law enforcement agencies such as Indonesia’s Maritime Affairs and Fishery Ministry, the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency, and Singapore’s Maritime Security Task Force.

Under restricted social distancing measures that limit the freedom of movement, necessitate working in shifts, and demand frequent health monitoring, regional enforcement authorities have demonstrated a high level of responsiveness and flexibility towards these changes in the maritime environment and modes of operation.

However, should the pandemic period further extend, other maritime stakeholders need to be better utilized to distribute this task of monitoring and protecting the maritime domain.

In addition to maritime law enforcement agencies, a whole-of-society approach must be encouraged by co-opting the coastal communities, shipping industry, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and local government units into a nationwide effort to preserve maritime security.

Unlike maritime enforcement agencies, which mainly operate at sea, other sectors in society are better engaged with the land-based problems that drive most of these maritime crimes.

Relative economic deprivation, weak implementation of regulations, and the unequal distribution of welfare resources are some factors that can be directly linked to economic development projects, community policing initiatives, and welfare programmes.

For these reasons, maritime drivers are best tackled through close partnerships with the coastal community and local government units. Despite being continually overlooked, the coastal community holds intimate knowledge on the complex waterways and patterns of users at sea.

Such information can be extremely helpful in maintaining maritime security. Some countries such as Malaysia have recognized the need for such a whole-of-society approach in the 2020 Defence White Paper by calling for a greater role of the rakyat, or citizens, in defending national security. The real test will be in the implementation, but the government’s encouragement of the concept at a strategic level is already an important step.

For an effective whole-of-society approach, several elements need to be prioritized. These include community empowerment, fostering stronger levels of trust, and building maritime domain awareness (MDA).

Initiatives such as the Keselamatan dan Pembangunan (“KESBAN”) approach utilized a people-centric approach to deter security threats. First established to defeat the insurgency movement in Malaya from 1948 to 1960, this approach focuses on building security and development through a controlled hierarchical structure and chain of command that stretches to the district and village levels.

Such close engagements also serve to empower the community by encouraging them to monitor the areas themselves under a direct chain of information that can eventually reach the country’s national security council.

Stronger levels of trust between security agencies, fishing industries, and non-governmental organizations are also necessary to facilitate efficient and rapid responses to maritime incidents. This can be achieved by developing a region-wide network of agencies or companies that share a similar objective.

Malaysia has implemented inter-agency operations such as Ops Benteng to protect maritime borders, while private sector initiatives such as the Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship coalition engages various seafood companies across the world to pursue sustainable fisheries.

Meanwhile, many maritime law-enforcement agencies are working towards the concept of MDA. Indonesia’s recently-established Maritime Information Center is a reflection of this movement as the Center seeks to collate information on incidents taking place in Indonesia’s exclusive economic zones.

In addition to centralizing information, this Center enhances coordination with other information-sharing centres across the region such as Singapore’s Information Fusion Centre and the International Maritime Bureau in Malaysia.

While such an effort is necessary to enhance a country’s MDA level, other maritime security stakeholders could also contribute information to a virtual platform that is publicly accessible by all users across the region. Such an initiative would enhance transparency and also build a shared understanding of Asia Pacific’s waterways.

These initiatives demonstrate a gradual movement towards a whole-of-society approach in the Asia Pacific. For as long as maritime law enforcement agencies remain at the forefront of defending maritime security, it will be important to recognise that more support needs to be provided to other stakeholders such as the coastal community, private sector industries, and non-governmental organizations in better coordinating their efforts with these agencies.

As the pandemic continues to accelerate the rate of maritime incidents such as piracy and armed robbery, it is more pertinent than ever to start building closer connections between the region’s maritime security stakeholders to achieve peace together.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS) based in the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s Brussels office.

 

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Excerpt:

Asyura Salleh is a non-Resident Vasey Fellow at the Pacific Forum and Special Advisor for Maritime Security at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies.

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By External Source
Sep 14 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Come to the table, with a willingness to share and be vulnerable: This video is the second in a 3 part series hearing directly from Monitoring Evaluation and Learning practitioners within the Pacific region and their experience of using Pacific approaches in their work. In this video we hear from Associate Professor Cresantia Frances Koya – Vaka’uta who works with the University of the South Pacific, the regionally owned provider of tertiary education in the Pacific region and an international centre of excellence for teaching, research consulting and training on all aspects of Pacific culture, environment and human resource development needs.

We asked Professor Koya-Vaka’uta to share her experiences using Pacific approaches and what advice she would give to new or existing development partner working within the Pacific region. Frances was one of the stakeholders involved in a 12 month journey of talanoa to explore, assess and report on MEL capacity in the Pacific . The Pacific approaches used and he findings are found in the final report: The Pacific MEL Capacity Strengthening Rebbilib http://purl.org/spc/digilib/doc/vpukq

Source: The Pacific Community (SPC)

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H.E. Mr. Volkan Bozkir, President-elect of the 75th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By External Source
NEW YORK, Sep 14 2020 (IPS)

The Turkish diplomat elected to be the president of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, Volkan Bozkir, is taking on the role as the Organization grapples with an unprecedented pandemic, and questions surrounding the future direction it should take.

Mr. Bozkir, a highly experienced public servant, and recently Minister for European Affairs, with almost 50 years of professional experience, was elected from the Western European and Others (WEOG) group of nations, and follows Nigeria’s Tijjani Muhammad-Bande.

Mr. Bozkir joined Turkey’s foreign service in 1972, and has held several senior diplomatic positions, including Consul General in New York, Ambassador in Bucharest, and Permanent Representative of Turkey to the EU.

Ahead of the 75th session, Mr. Bozkir sat down with UN News, to discuss how to ensure that the UN stays relevant in the decades to come, why it is he will be making the protection of vulnerable people and communities a key issue during his year in the presidency, and how he intends to cope with the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

GA President: Of course, COVID-19 has become an overwhelming priority and focus right now. That is why I chose to adapt the theme for the 75th session of the UN. Member States chose the theme: “The future we want, the United Nations we need: reaffirming our collective commitment to multilateralism”. I added to that, “confronting COVID-19 through effective multilateral action”, because the pandemic is testing our institutions like never before: we have a duty to take effective action at the global level to overcome this virus, and the havoc it is wreaking on our economies and societies.

UN News: The UN is 75 years old this year. What does this anniversary mean to you as President of the GA during this session?

GA President: COVID-19 is a global crisis the world hasn’t known since the UN was created out of the ashes of World War Two. It is not only a health crisis, but a social and economic crisis, which has exacerbated existing challenges the UN is seeking to overcome through the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The whole of humanity is in this fight together. It is time for unity. Member States have never had a more compelling reason to work closely together for the common good. And I am certain that, together, we will come out of it stronger.

In all these endeavours the UN, in particular, the General Assembly has a central role to play. Through this body, Member States set norms and direct our collective resources to addressing common challenges. Vaccines is a case in point. Will the COVID vaccine be a global common good shared equitably? This is a disease that does not respect national boundaries. We are not safe until we are all safe.

GA President: This landmark anniversary is a unique opportunity to look back on what has already been achieved and build on these achievements to overcome the challenges currently facing multilateralism and the UN.

Institutions need to adapt and reform themselves to stay relevant and fit for purpose. I support the UN reform agenda, and the sweeping changes we have seen in the areas of peace and security, development and management. These steps are crucial to make the entire UN family more united and coherent.

The United Nations, to this day, is the only international organization with universal membership that establishes the norms for dealing with global problems through multilateralism. And the General Assembly is the only UN organ where all Member States have an equal voice.

UN News: Why have you made vulnerable people and groups a focus of your presidency?

GA President: Global challenges and crises take the worst toll on the most vulnerable persons and countries. People in need or under oppression should feel that their concerns are being heard in the UN’s most democratic body. I will work to bring the voices of the world’s people into our discussions.

Ambassador Volkan Bozkir (left) of Turkey, incoming President of the 75th Session of the UN General Assembly, meets with Secretary-General António Guterres back in January 2020. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

UN News: 2020 is a significant year for women’s rights. We are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for action and the 20th anniversary of the landmark UN Security Council resolution on Women, Peace and Security. What actions will you take to ensure the empowerment of women and girls?

GA President: Evidence shows that gender equality supports greater levels of peace and prosperity. Women often lack access to decent work, equal pay, quality education and adequate health care. They suffer from violence and discrimination and are often under-represented in political and economic decision-making processes. And unfortunately, with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, even the gains made in the past decades are at risk of being rolled back. That must change.

Improving women’s lives makes our societies more inclusive and productive, which helps everyone. As the principal international standard-setting institution, the United Nations bears a special responsibility to lead by example.

For my part, I have paid special attention to gender parity while forming my own team, which now includes more women than men, and is at gender parity in senior management. And I will ensure a gender lens is applied to the work we do across peace and security, human rights, humanitarian issues, and sustainable development.

UN News: On a personal level, how did you become interested in public service? What motivates you?

GA President: As a career diplomat and politician for nearly 50 years, I have spent my entire professional life in public service. It was a source of pride for me to serve my country and my nation.

Now I am at the beginning of a new and equally proud chapter, where I will be serving all UN members. My motivation for taking on this challenging new role is my strong conviction in the effectiveness of multilateral diplomacy, and also my desire to serve and make contributions, even small ones in history’s flow, to the overall well-being of humanity. I cannot think of a much better place than the UN to work for that.

 

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Nigerian migrants arrive in Lagos from Libya. Nigeria has, in the last two years, evacuated thousands of its citizens from Libya and Lebanon after they suffered several forms of abuses, including enslavement. Trafficking has resulted in at least 80,000 Nigerian women being held as sex slaves and forced labour in the Middle East. Credit: Sam Olukoya/IPS

By Sam Olukoya
LAGOS, Nigeria, Sep 14 2020 (IPS)

“I need help, right now I cannot walk properly,” trafficking victim Nkiru Obasi pleaded from her hospital bed in a video she posted online.

The young Nigerian woman had been injured in the Aug. 4 Beirut blast, which ripped through the Lebanese capital, killing 190 people injuring a further 6,500 and damaging 40 percent of the city. However, it’s not her injuries keeping her in Lebanon but a restrictive and abusive system of migrant laws.

Obasi is just one of thousands of young Nigerian women trafficked to Lebanon with false promises of a better life. The Lagos-based New Telegraph newspaper quoted a source in the Nigerian embassy in Lebanon as saying that some 4,541 Nigerian women were trafficked to the country last year. The chair of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, described the rate at which Nigerian women are trafficked to Lebanon as “an epidemic”.

After sustaining injuries in the blast, Obasi tried to return to Nigeria but she and four others were stopped at the airport under the exploitative Kafala system.

The system, which is widely practiced in Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East, prohibits migrant workers from returning to their countries without the permission of their employer.

“Lebanon’s restrictive and exploitative kafala system traps tens of thousands of migrant domestic workers in potentially harmful situations by tying their legal status to their employer, enabling highly abusive conditions amounting at worst to modern-day slavery,” according to Aya Majzoub, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. The rights organisation called for a revised contract that recognises and protects workers’ internationally guaranteed rights.

In late May, Nigeria attempted to repatriate 60 trafficked women from Lebanon but only 50 could return home. Anti-trafficking activists in the Middle East said the remaining 10 women were held back in Lebanon under the Kafala system.

The Kafala system operates alongside a system that enslaves trafficked women. In April, a Lebanese man posted an advert under the “Buy and Sell in Lebanon” Facebook group. “Domestic worker from Nigeria for sale with new legal document, she is 30 years old, she is very active and very clean,” the advert said in Arabic. The price tag was $1,000.

An outcry from Nigeria forced Lebanese authorities to rescue the woman while a man thought to be responsible for the Facebook post was arrested. The Lebanese Ministry of Labour said the man would be tried in court for human trafficking.

But this is not an isolated case. Many Nigerian women trafficked to the Middle East have spoken out about being sold as slaves.

In January, 23-year-old Ajayi Omolola appeared in an online video saying she and a few other Nigerian women were being held under harsh conditions and that their lives were at risk.

“When we are ill, they don’t take us to the hospital, some of those I arrived in Lebanon with have died,” she said.

Omolola said on arrival in Lebanon, her passport was taken away and she was “sold”.

“I did not realise that they had sold me into slavery,” she said, adding that she only realised the gravity of her situation when her boss told her she could not return to Nigeria because he had “bought her”.

Kikelomo Olayide had a similar account. On arrival in Lebanon from Nigeria she was taken to a market. “In that market, they call us slaves,” she said.

Roland Nwoha, head of programmes/coordinator of migration and human trafficking at Idia Renaissance, a Nigerian organisation working to discourage irregular migration and human trafficking, told IPS that even though Europe is a major attraction for Nigerians in search of a better future abroad, the Middle East is proving an alternative for many.

Nwoha explained that unlike the journey to Europe, which involves a dangerous land journey through the desert and an equally dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean Sea, traffickers fly their victims to the Middle East after procuring visas for them with the promise of good jobs.

The chair of Nigeria’s House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora Affairs Tolulope Akande-Sadipe said 80,000 Nigerian women are being held as sex slaves,and forced labour in the Middle East, especially in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Nigerian women trafficked to the Middle East “almost always end in labour and sexual exploitation,” Daniel Atokolo Lagos commander of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons said.

Gloria Bright, a Nigerian teacher who was promised a teaching job with a monthly salary of $1,000 in Lebanon, was held captive and made to work as a domestic worker upon her arrival. She posted an online video in which she pleaded for help and to be rescued. She said besides being made to work under very harsh conditions, her boss sexually harassed her. “At times he will ask me to massage him, he will hug me, he will kiss me,” she said.

Bright was fortunate to be rescued by Nigerian authorities before the Aug. 4 Beirut blast.

Dabiri-Erewa said the trafficking of Nigerians to Lebanon “is becoming a big embarrassment and it has to be stopped”. In an effort to stop the crime, Nigerian authorities have arrested several people, including Lebanese residents in Nigeria. A Lebanese is being investigated in connection with the trafficking of 27 women to Lebanon, two of whom have been rescued.

The Lebanese ambassador to Nigeria, Houssam Diab, says his embassy is assisting the Nigerian government to stop the trafficking of women to his country. He said the issuance of work visas to Nigerians has been suspended following cases of the abuse of Nigerian women at the hands of their Lebanese employers.

The ambassador said the Lebanese Ministry of Labour will work out a “legal and systemic way to make domestic staff to come into Lebanon legally without the fear of inhuman treatment”.   

Nigerian activists, like Nwoha, who are working against human trafficking say the Nigerian government has to do more to curtailing the activities of the traffickers. They said the government should make conditions at home better to stop Nigerians desperately seeking a better life abroad.

 

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalisation of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking” and so forth.

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Tso Rolpa glacial lake at 4,580m has grown seven times in size in the past 60 years due to global heating. Credit: RASTRARAJ BHANDARI

By Mukesh Pokhrel
KATHMANDU, Sep 14 2020 (IPS)

A new report out this week warns that hundreds of glacial lakes in the Himalaya are in danger of bursting because global heating is melting the ice on the world’s highest mountains. However, on only two of them have there been mitigation measures to reduce water levels.

Those projects have been prohibitively expensive, and questions have been raised about their sustainability and whether they offer a long-term solution.

The water level of the Tso Rolpa glacial lake in the Rolwaling Valley was lowered 20 years ago after scientists warned that it was in imminent danger of bursting. The project cost $9 million at the time, most of it coming from The Netherlands.

Its sluice gate lowered the water level by only 3m, and scientists now say it needs to go down by a further 20m to reduce risk of it bursting. A network of early warning stations downstream also has not functioned as planned.

 

A sluice gate built 20 years ago reduced the level of the water by 3m, but it needs to go down by 20m to reduce the danger of a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF). Credit: RASTRARAJ BHANDARI

 

The other project was a drainage channel and gate built on Imja Lake in the Mt Everest region in 2016 by the Nepal Army with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) at a cost of $7.2 million.

The project located at 5,000m altitude was criticised at the time for being an expensive show-case on a popular tourist site near Mt Everest, and for wasting money on a lake that is relatively stable because it is buttressed by two side moraines of the Lhotse Nup and Nuptse Glaciers. Glacial lakes like Thulagi in Lamjung on the Hongu basin were said to be in much greater danger of bursting, and needed more urgent mitigation.

And it has emerged that four years after the project was completed and the water in Imja Lake lowered by 3.4m, the Nepal Army and its main contractor have yet to remove their excavators and other equipment from the site as per the contract — flouting guidelines of Sagarmatha National Park, which is a World Heritage Site.

Despite recent interventions by UNESCO and the national park, the Nepal Army has said it is technically not possible to take the equipment out because of altitude restrictions on its helicopters. The firm hired by the army, Krishna Construction, says its contract does not say anything about removal of equipment.

The Glacial Lake Inventory report launched at a webinar on Monday says that of the expanding glacial lakes in the Himalaya, 47 on the watersheds of Nepal’s three main rivers are at high risk of bursting, and causing catastrophic floods downstream. Of these, 42 lakes are on the Kosi River basin in eastern Nepal, three are on the Gandaki and two on the Karnali watersheds.

However, not all the lakes are located in Nepal. Of the 47 dangerous lakes, 25 are in Tibet and empty into rivers that flow down directly into Nepal. One of the high risk lakes is in Indian territory near Karnali.

This week’s report by the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and UNDP mapped 3,624 glacial lakes in the three river basins in Nepal, China and India, of which 2,070 are within Nepal’s boundaries. The other 1,509 are on the Tibetan Plateau in China and 45 are in India, but drain into Nepal.

 

 

The researchers evaluated the risk factors for the glacial lakes depending on the integrity of their moraine dams, topography of the surroundings and the risk of avalanche into the lakes, as well as downstream settlements and infrastructure and divided them into three categories.

Of the 47 dangerous lakes on the Kosi, Gandaki and Karnali basins, 31 were found to be at very high risk of bursting and causing damage. Twelve other lakes are at moderate risk and there are four lakes in the lower risk category.

The lakes are expanding because the ice fields feeding them are melting faster due to global heating, as well as increased deposition of soot particles on the snow. An ICIMOD assessment last year reported that even in the best case scenario, the Himalaya will lose one-third of its ice and snow during this century. But recent studies have shown that the melting is actually happening faster than previously thought, and is accelerating.

This has increased the number of glacial lakes in the Nepal Himalaya as well as their sizes. For example, remote sensing data in the report showed that there were 3,609 glacial lakes in Nepal’s three river basins with a combined area of 180sq km. By 2015, the number had grown to 3,696 and they covered a combined area of 195.4sq km.

Scientists have long noted that the rate of melting is higher in the eastern Himalaya than in the west, and the report confirms this. Interestingly, while the number of glacial lakes in the Kosi basin has gone down, their total area has increased by 14sq km – largely because supraglacial ponds have merged, or the lakes have drained without bursting.

The report has also recorded 26 glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) events in the Nepal Himalaya since 1977, but only 14 of them were on lakes located in Nepal. This emphasises the importance of trans-boundary early warning system – especially on lakes in Tibet upstream on the two Bhote Kosi rivers, Tama Kosi, the Arun and others.

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

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These ELSA maps of Costa Rica show regions that are suitable for protection, management, and restoration in coordination with three different conventions: The Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Maps: Open Street Map and Carto

By Francis Francis Ogwal, Tom Okurut and Carlos Manuel Rodriguez
KAMPALA, Uganda, Sep 14 2020 (IPS)

The year 2020 was considered a “Super Year” for biodiversity. A string of interconnected events offered a unique opportunity to build a global coalition and international policy framework that recognized the central role of nature to all life on Earth.

At the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15), 196 governments were due to agree on targets that will shape action on nature for the next 30 years, while at the UN Climate Conference (COP 25) governments were to have the final opportunity to increase the ambition of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to combat climate change.

As nature conservation could contribute over a third of climate solutions, these negotiations offered a golden opportunity to narrow down the gaps between these multilateral agreements that are critical for the future of the planet.

Instead 2020 has become a year in which nature has shown humanity that we have pushed the planet to its boundaries. UN Environment Programme’s Executive Director Inger Anderson warns that “nature is sending us a message.”

COVID-19, wildfires, locust invasions, and record heat waves show the catastrophic impacts of climate change and biodiversity collapse. And these are only harbingers of what is to come if humanity does not change course.

With both the UN Biodiversity Conference and UN Climate Conference moved to 2021, we have an opportunity to reflect, in a way unthinkable even six months ago, on individual, societal, and political norms of “business as usual”.

We must explore innovations that recognize the fundamental role of nature in everything from corporate bottom lines, to human well-being, to the survival of life on Earth.

What is known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution has brought with it incredible changes in technology that have the potential to transform societies. Approximately 2,200 satellites now circle the earth. Spatial data can produce maps of forest cover and loss, human settlements, city watersheds, and agricultural production.

Geospatial technology on the ground can complement this view, offering a means to map local and Indigenous knowledge of unique ecosystems. This is essential for addressing extinction, ecosystem destruction, and zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19.

Both Costa Rica and Uganda recognize the vast potential of spatial data to support the creation of a transformative post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework for the UN Biodiversity Convention, which also capitalizes on synergies with the UN Climate Convention.

Costa Rica is one of the world’s only country that has managed to reverse deforestation, and is pioneering a bold Decarbonization Plan. Uganda, a leading force for conservation in Africa, is playing a critical role in advancing the UN Biodiversity Convention. It is co-chair for the development of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, playing a critical role in guiding the global community to the international commitments that are widely seen as an essential opportunity for governments to put biodiversity on path to recovery when the Framework is adopted at COP 15.

In partnership with UNDP, the National Geographic Society, University of Northern British Columbia, Global Environment Facility, and The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Costa Rica and Uganda are leading the way, along with additional pilots in Colombia, Kazakhstan, and Peru, to use spatial data to map ‘essential life support areas’ (ELSAs).

These are areas that conserve critical biodiversity and provide humans with food, water, and carbon storage. ELSAs can determine which regions should be prioritized for protection, management, and restoration.

In Costa Rica, UNDP and the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE,), and the Center for High Technology (CENAT) have created an interactive web tool that generates ELSA maps based on the country’s targets for nature, climate change, and sustainable development.

MINAE plans to use ELSA maps to identify areas for inclusion in Costa Rica’s new Payments for Environment Services Programme (PES). This will help identify natural areas critical for carbon sequestration, natural beauty, water and food, and cultural heritage as well as compensating landowners who engage in protection, reforestation, or agroforestry.

MINAE’s National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC) will also use ELSA mapping to construct Costa Rica’s restoration, rehabilitation, recovery, reforestation, and regeneration strategy.

In Uganda, led by UNDP and Uganda’s National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), ELSA maps will show where actions to protect, manage, restore, and rehabilitate nature can support rangelands, forest regeneration, riverbank and lakeshore protection, and wetlands restoration.

Uganda’s policymakers are particularly interested in nature-based solutions for livelihoods, climate resilience and disaster risk reduction which is a key priority given the county’s recent disasters of landslides and flooding.

The ELSA approach can guide the development, implementation, and monitoring of progress for the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework in Costa Rica, Uganda, and other countries around the world.

While Target 1 relates to land and seas under spatial planning, ELSA can help to identify actions that capitalize on synergies across proposed Target 2, on protecting and conserving at least 30 percent of the planet; Target 7 on increasing contributions to climate change mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk reduction from nature-based solutions; and Target 5 on controlling and managing invasive species.

Additional post-2020 Global Biodiversity targets that ELSA can contribute to include Target 9 on supporting the productivity, sustainability and resilience of biodiversity in agricultural and other managed ecosystems and Target 10 on ensuring that nature-based solutions contribute to regulation of air quality and water provision for human well-being.

Mapping essential life support areas will be key to identifying where nature-based solutions should shape commitments to the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. By using ELSA to run scenarios before entering negotiations or setting policy targets, countries can see what is achievable.

COVID-19 may have pushed the establishment of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and the final agreement on NDCs until 2021, but action on biodiversity loss must occur now. To halt the sixth mass extinction, at least 30 percent of the planet needs to be protected by 2030. A daunting task, but Costa Rica, Uganda, and their counterparts are leading the way.

Source: United Nations Development Programme

 

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Excerpt:

Francis Ogwal, Natural Resources Manager (Biodiversity and Rangelands), National Environment Management Authority, Uganda; Tom Okurut is Executive Director, National Environment Management Authority, Uganda; and Carlos Manuel Rodriguez is Minister of Environment and Energy, Costa Rica

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World leaders have been urged to stay home in the first “virtual” UN General Assembly sessions in the 75-year history of the United Nations. The annual high-level sessions, with mostly pre-recorded video speeches, begin September 22. The UN says there will be “no marvelling at seemingly endless presidential motorcades on First Avenue and no “standing-room only” moments in the gilded General Assembly Hall, as the Organization’s busiest time of the year is reimagined in the time of COVID-19. Credit: Anton Uspensky, UN News

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 11 2020 (IPS)

Back in 1998, Senator Jesse Helms, a rightwing Republican from the US state of North Carolina, carried out a virulent one-man hate-campaign against the UN– and its very presence in New York.

A fulltime chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee– and a part-time UN basher—the late Helms publicly complained that providing funds to the UN is like “pouring money into a rathole”. Helms wanted the “Glass House by the East River” shipped out of New York — for good.

Fast forward to 2020.

There is widespread speculation that when US president Donald Trump addresses the General Assembly on September 22 –one of the few, or perhaps the only head of state, to do so “in person” in a virtually virus-locked down world body– he may either threaten to pull out of the UN (very unlikely), warn of possible cuts in financial contributions (likely), or downsize the US role in the world body (most likely).

But with a highly unpredictable US president, everything is up in the air.

Meanwhile, the cry to “de-fund the police”, triggered by anti-black violence by law enforcement officials in the US, has prompted a new hashtag “de-fund the UN”.

Asked for his comments, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters September 8: ”I have seen the hashtag.”

“I think we prove every day the worth in investing in the United Nations for the betterment of peoples everywhere and the value that it brings, whether it is helping during the pandemic… or what we’re doing all over the world, what we’re doing in our peacekeeping missions… So, we do our utmost to prove our worth every day by the work that we do,” said Dujarric.

Any proposed cuts – or attempts to “‘de-fund” the UN –will also likely be a retaliation against the failed US resolution last month in the UN Security Council against the resumption of sanctions on Iran.

Suffering a devastating defeat, the Trump administration was both isolated and humiliated when only one UN member state, the Dominican Republic, voted with the US in the 15-member Security Council, the most powerful body in the UN.

The vote was short of the minimum nine “yes” votes required for adoption—and 11 members, including Western allies such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom abstained, while China and Russia voted against the resolution.
Asked what the Security Council rejection would mean to the US on the world stage, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters: “Well, it’s disappointing, because privately, every world leader, every one of my counterparts tells me that America is doing the right thing.”

No one, he said, “has come to me and advocated for allowing Iran to have these weapon systems. And so, for them not to stand up and tell the world publicly at the United Nations, yep, this is the right thing, it’s incomprehensible to me. To side with the Russians and the Chinese on this important issue at this important moment in time at the UN, I think, is really dangerous for the world.”

Asked why there was no support from the European countries on the Security Council, he was blunt: “You’ll have to ask the Europeans that”

If the de-funding does happen, and since the US pays 22 percent of the UN’s budget, it will be devastating blow to a world body commemorating its 75th anniversary later this month.

As a hard-core unilateralist, Trump has been openly antagonistic towards multilateral institutions.

Since he took office back in January 2017, the Trump administration has either de-funded, withdrawn from, or denigrated several UN agencies and affiliated institutions, including the World Health Organization, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court (ICC), among others.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/08/trump-delivers-last-hurrah-empty-united-nations-will-still-make-sound/

And according to a report in the New York Times September 4, Trump is very likely to withdraw from the iconic 71-year-old military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — if he wins a second term as president.

The Times quotes former US officials as saying that such a move would be one of the biggest global strategic shifts in generations and a major victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

So, will the UN be far behind?

Norman Solomon, executive director of the Washington-based Institute for Public Accuracy, told IPS the Trump administration is a wrecking crew that seeks to undermine if not demolish any international institutions that do not serve Trump’s idiosyncratic whims or, more substantially, don’t serve narrow interests of U.S.-based corporations and the military-industrial complex.

While top leaders of the U.S. government have routinely seen the United Nations as primarily an instrument to be used to advance America’s geopolitical interests, during the last three-quarters of a century some have recognized the overlap between humanitarian and nationalistic goals.

“No longer”, he declared.

“The Trump regime has operated almost entirely from the basis of narrowly defined self-interest, to the point that it should be understood as the gravest threat not only to the UN but to the world as a whole”, said Solomon, author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death”

“When we evaluate international institutions, they should not be conflated. The United Nations and its potential are very far from comparable to NATO.”

The UN — while significantly and by some measures deeply flawed, and badly in need of power restructuring — has laudable aspirations, he argued.

“NATO, on the other hand, is far more of a threat to peace than a defender. Trump’s hostility to the concept of the United Nations is in many ways categorical, whereas his intermittent criticisms of NATO are inconsistent and largely a function of unhinged nationalism”, said Solomon.

During what are hopefully his last several months as president, he pointed out, Trump should be ostracized as much as possible by world leaders and civil society.

His so-called leadership is a toxic brew of greed, calculated stupidity and narcissistic prerogatives of supposed “American exceptionalism.”

Many U.S. presidents during the last 75 years have aspired to see the United States government work its will on the entire world, but Trump has taken such conceits to an extreme that requires complete rejection, said Solomon.

Ian Williams, President of the Foreign Press Association in New York and author of “UNtold: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War”, told IPS the UN system is in the sad position where the US acts as if it hates the organization, but the other members do not love it enough to step into the gap.

Historically, the US prizes the organization’s dependence on Washington as was shown when the US rebuffed Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme’s 1985 proposal to restrict its contributions to 15%.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/12/time-end-cheque-book-diplomacy-un/

Since then the other powers could at any time have called the US bluff and met the shortfall- after all Ted Turner did, said Williams, a former President of the UN Correspondents’ Association (UNCA).

“But it goes beyond finance. The US’s lawless attitude has proved infectious. If the US and its ally Israel can defy resolutions, then why can’t Russia break the rules over Ukraine, or Beijing in the China Sea or India over Kashmir?”

He pointed out that previous US administrations have been constrained in their public disdain of international law and order because they needed the UN rubber stamp their positions, as indeed Trump tried over the snapback on Iran but the prestige behind that legitimizing power is a rapidly devaluing asset.

“It is perhaps make-or-break time. The UN’s figurehead, the Secretary General (SG), should invite President Trump to take his braggadocio and depart if he goes too far.”

If Trump loses in November, said Williams, then the SG will get some recognition and gratitude from the incoming administration.

“If he wins, the UN should have contingency plans for continuing without the US, while thanking the archaisms of the UN Charter that leave some counterweight to the unscrupulously expedient Russian and Chinese on the Security Council.”

At the worst, perhaps, realistically the General Assembly should set up and International Residual Mechanism to look after the collective obligations of the UN until such time as the members show signs of resuming their responsibilities effectively, declared Williams.

Barbara Adams, chair of the board of Global Policy Forum, told IPS: “Perhaps the rumoured threat from Trump will backfire and mobilize voices within the USA to generate something similar to the USPS effect (postal services)”.

Certainly, it will bring much international and domestic media attention and hopefully the UN will be able to stand up well to the scrutiny, she added.

“The S-G’s Nelson Mandela lecture was unusually forthright in addressing the systemic issues exposed by COVID. More recently he has been more outspoken, such as, that power is not given away, it has to be taken”.

Could it trigger a “be careful what you wish for” reaction domestically and among Member States whose multilateralism rhetoric is not matched by their actions?, she asked.

“Is this the shock needed to demand genuinely democratic global governance and begin the long overdue transition away from what it has become: a deal-making forum with people and countries represented by the executive branch that does not reflect their diversity and values – and push the UN back to its purpose – to lead the way towards sustainable peace, justice, and human rights”?.

Most concern reflects those fearful of the immediate consequences for the UN budget. Are they missing or ignoring the accompanying constraints from power dynamics in decision-making process?, noted Adams.

In 1985, she said, the Prime Minister of Sweden Olaf Palme proposed a ceiling of 10 per cent on the assessed contribution of any Member State.

In addressing the UNGA to commemorate its 40th anniversary he said: “a more even distribution of assessed contributions would better reflect the fact that this Organization is the instrument of all nations”. While this garnered some support, it exposed resistance in many US circles aware that it would reduce US political power and leverage at the UN.

Expressed differently but clearly by Ambassador Stephanie Power said: “Our ability to exercise leadership in the UN—to protect our core national security interests—is directly tied to meeting our financial obligations.”

The UN decision-making is often compared to the weighted voting setup of the IMF and the World Bank having a one country, one vote –as opposed to something closer to one dollar, one vote. This misses the point: there is weighted voting exercised through budgets, threats and self-censorship, declared Adams.

The post Will Trump Threaten to Pullout or De-fund the United Nations? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Saul Escobar Toledo
MEXICO CITY, Sep 11 2020 (IPS)

The national occupation and employment survey prepared by INEGI, with figures updated to July 2020, shows an improvement that has occurred in the last two months. However, the employment situation, compared with the data existing before the pandemic still shows serious problems:

Saul Escobar Toledo

Of the 12 million who left the labor market since the beginning of April, 7.2 have already returned; the other 4,800,000 declared they needed a job, but they are not looking for one. In addition, another important portion of the workforce became part of the people characterized as ” absent with a labor link “, that is, those workers who did not attend their work centers but were not fired. It is not known if all of them have been paid their full wages and benefits and, above all, if these millions of absent will someday return to labor or will be laid off permanently.

INEGI registered an employed population of almost 50 million people (49.8) ; It should be noted, however, that the increase between June and July corresponded to the male gender, with an increase of 2.2 million people at the same time as there was a reduction of 750 thousand women .

Throughout these months, one of the sectors hardest hit has been that of the self – employed: 20% of them remained inactive in April; 16% in May; 10% in June and only 2% in July. Unpaid employees (which only receive tips or payments in kind) were also severely affected: 21% did not work in April, but in July were almost all toiling.

If we measure the phenomenon taking into account the informal workers ( who work on their own account or in the service of an employer), the figures are more dramatic: in April 10 million stopped working, in May 8, in June 5, in July still 3 million . If we accumulate all these figures, it gives us a total of 26 million, which would give an idea of the days / worker lost in recent months and the income that was not received. Some lost only a month, others two or three, and still in July many did not receive any income at all. The paralysis has affected mainly the female gender, but the number of victims is impressive.

Meanwhile, the rate of open unemployment was 5.4% in July, which yields a figure of 2.8 million persons. Here again, the rate is higher in women than in men (6.3% vs. 4.8%). By age, those most affected have been those between 24 and 44 years old, which represent more than 50% of the total. It must be emphasized that this rate has increased, not decreased, as it accounted for 4.7% in April.

Even more serious, the underemployment rate, although it fell in July compared to the previous month, is still 18.4%. This represents an increase of 3.21 times in April; 3.78 in May; 2.75 in June and 2.45 in July compared to the historical average prior to the pandemic. This means that new occupations have become more precarious, insecure s, worse paid and surely very poorly protected.

In short, we have several problems. The damage caused by economic paralysis and the pandemic : 1) affected formal workers who were laid off and have not found another job; or have not attended to their workplace and are living in uncertainty; or they have sought refuge in underemployment (and have lost income and benefits) . And 2) self – employed and informal workers who have had no income during several or all these months.

All this damage is a fact, has already happened but so far nothing has been done to restore it. As anyone can see, it is a large social debt. The repair of this immense gap in the economy of Mexican families cannot be solved with the social programs that were already planned. It is not possible to support an entire family with the elderly pension, or with student grants.

For example, the pension program for the elderly, which has the more substantial budget and covers a larger number of people. The amount of money delivered is not only insufficient today (around 600 dollars per older adult between January and June 2020, that is 100 dollars per month according to the Second Presidential Report).

Undoubtedly, the damage caused, the income that has not been replaced, will lead to an increase in poverty (between March and May the number of poor increased from 36 to 55% according to CONEVAL). The inequality also has increased. According to some studies, the wage bill suffered a drop of between 6.6 and 13.8% in the second quarter of the year calculated annually. This has resulted, naturally, in a reduction of consumption of around 20% (annually comparison, even with the rise in June and July).

A country with greater poverty and more inequality cannot be a desirable outcome for a government that has set out exactly the opposite. Above all, because in the face of these phenomena, the government has not proposed any special action.

On the other hand, the decrease in the family´s income points to a slower economic recovery due to the fall in purchasing power. The increase in minimum and contractual wages have not been able to remedy these losses and surely will not do so in the remainder of the year due to the magnitude of the economic slowdown.

The 2021 budget represents an opportunity to make up for something that Mexican families have lost; to prevent further impoverishment and to stimulate faster economic recovery. It has been argued, by the president of the republic, that a growth in government debt may be detrimental to an indeterminate tomorrow. However, the government do not want to recognize that the Mexican state has already contracted a huge debt with millions of families who have lost their income since March. Finding a formula to pay this social debt and at the same time avoid a financial crisis in the future is not impossible, nor is it a dead-end dilemma.

At the same time, the possibility of a progressive fiscal reform that serves to pay off this social debt and for a more vigorous economic reactivation cannot be ruled out for political reasons (the 2021 elections or the fear of a negative reaction from a privileged sector ) . The most surprising is that the government announced a reform of the pension system that precisely proposes an increase in employer contributions and requires increased public spending. This equates to an increase in taxes and an increase in the federal government debt. How, then, do you refuse to charge a greater tribute to the richest and most prosperous, and at the same time propose a scheme to favor big business (the companies that manage the pensions)?

A further reduction in public spending and investment (what they now call austerity) can only have the result that, once again, the cost of the crisis will be borne by the vast majority of the population. Its consequences would be equally negative for recovery of production, consumption, and prosperity of the country.

The government must face the most important question of all: give Mexicans the opportunity to overcome this crisis with the least possible losses. If they do not, all the architecture of the promised change will become fragile and maybe a mere rhetorical exercise.

 

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Degraded farmland is being restored in Mahbubnagar district of Telangana state in India. Investing in sustainable land management and reversing land degradation will help build economies post-COVID-19 and help poor people increase their incomes. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
HYDERABAD, India , Sep 11 2020 (IPS)

Investing in sustainable land management and land restoration will help build economies post-COVID-19 and help poor people increase their incomes as the destruction of global food chains by the pandemic provides a chance for ensuring diversity in production through ensuring the inclusion of local producers.

It also provides an opportunity to repurpose incentives for subsidies so that they deliver more common benefits for everybody without impacting the bottom line for the farmers, says Louise Baker the Managing Director of the Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Baker is the first woman to hold the position in the U.N. agency and was appointed by UNCCD’s Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw in June.

Originally from England,. Baker joined the UNCCD secretariat in 2011 and had been serving as Chief of the External Relations, Policy and Advocacy unit since 2014.

In an interview with IPS, Baker talks about the current global status of land restoration and identifies the areas where more work is needed. She also candidly shares her own vision of a future where sustainable land management is considered a new normal and used widely by nations across the world to create employment and gender equity and to improve the quality of life of the poor. Excerpts of the interview follow.

Louise Baker Managing Director of the Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

IPS:  How does it feel to be the first woman MD of Global Mechanism and what excites you about your new role?

Louise Baker (LB): It is exciting for me to move over to Global Mechanism.

I think, what’s interesting about my role is putting policy into action. If the countries use the policy, start writing projects, start doing it on the ground – kind of making it happen, then it feels like there is a momentum behind the work of UNCCD now and there is a sense of direction. So, I am excited that all the work I have been doing in policy, now I can see it on the ground, transforming people’s lives.

IPS: In the next 10 years, what would you like to change or like to see changed?

LB: I would see the cross-sectoral nature of land being taken seriously, not just in silos that says “this is an environmental issue or agricultural issue”, because it’s not. Its culture, agriculture, its land, its water, urban development, rural development, women …so I think it should find its place like climate does – find its place in multiple sectors. People need a more holistic approach. So, I would like to see that.

I would like a conversation around what we spend on issues that impact the land. We spend a lot, globally, on incentives in agricultural sector. We sponsor fertilisers, we sponsor pesticide, we provide inputs in the agriculture.  I think there is an opportunity to repurpose those incentives, those subsides so that they deliver more common benefits for everybody without impacting the bottom line for the farmers.

I would like to see – flagships. I would like to see things like the Great Green Wall of Africa. I would like to see the Ganges rehabilitated, I would like to see things that rub people’s imagination, I would like to see people inspired to do something about this.

I would also like to see, in terms of access to financing, the least developed countries getting a bigger share of the financing.

IPS: How can least-developed countries get enough financing?

LB: You quite often see the big financing processes – the countries that are able to write fabulous proposals, get the lion’s share of the money from the international processes. And those countries that are without the in-house capacity to wade through the difficult proposal writing processes, often don’t get the money they need. So, the people who are the least able to write the proposals are the ones who need it. An international effort to start the pipeline of bankable projects for countries who need it the most would be important and I think that goes across the private sector.

The public sector has got quite a high standard in terms of what it demands for financing – all these requirements and then you need to make a profit. So, it gets even more complicated to get incentivise, de-risk and get a pipeline of projects particularly in vulnerable communities for the private sector to take a risk on. So, I think ensuring the quality of those proposals and building the capacity of people to get those proposals in would be really important.

IPS: What is reverse land degradation and build back better? How can this help restore the economy impacted by the pandemic?

LB: In terms of the post-COVID-19 world, I think its critical that we do build back better. People who are most affected by COVID-19 – people who are in most precarious situations, people who don’t have fixed term jobs, don’t get a salary at the end of the month to get what they need and rely on natural resources to pay for what they need. There’s an opportunity I think for the first time in  terms of the incentives plans to build the economy back, to invest in these natural resource base, to invest in many countries for the survival of the poor people so they can increase incrementally their incomes.

It means things like value chains which were destructed during COVID-19 are shorter. You can work with local producers. Global value chains often cut out local producers, so you want to ensure diversity in your production, you want to ensure, for example, it’s not a value chain that is just producing food for export and there is no local production of food.

Q: What kind of returns can come from investing in sustainable land management and reverse land degradation?

LB: It’s very site-specific. In general, if you invest a dollar, the economic return is between $5 to $10 in the restoration economy. And that’s across the board, so it’s an average number.

But actually there are economic benefits in terms of the eco-system services provided: if you sustainably manage the land in a dryland area, you will get more water and therefore your crops will grow better and therefore you will not suffer from dried crops so much.

There is an economic benefit in terms of new value chains, that you can now grow crops in certain areas where you couldn’t before. And if you are smart about it then there are green products that you can sell to new value chains, local or international. For example, food like Moringa and Baobab are now considered “super foods” in many countries. And so, you can create a market and high-income jobs as you go down the chain. So, there’s marketing, packaging, design, production – it’s all tied onto the natural base. So, there is a return in the investment into the eco-system services. The big win is if you can leverage that into an economic opportunity that creates more jobs, creates different types of jobs.

IPS: How can land restoration empower the youth or contribute to gender equity?

LB: Young people are really enthusiastic about changing the world and they have got brilliant ideas to change the world but they need to be given the space to do it and the space isn’t necessarily being a farmer or what their grandparents did. They need to have their creativity, they need to bring in new technologies, new innovations like drip irrigation, drone technology, planting by drones, designs for groundwater recharge. new ways to working their new models. And I think that needs to be encouraged as well. In terms of gender, women hold valuable knowledge on land use and management, especially in the rural areas.

Therefore, using gender‐specific ways of documenting and preserving women’s knowledge should be central to sustainable management and restoration efforts. Increasing women’s presence in decision-making will play a pivotal role in closing the gender gap in land ownership and management and help create a land degradation neutral world that is gender responsive.

IPS: What is the global status of the promises made by the nations in the last UNCCD COP on land neutrality?

LB: Numbers or countries committing are still quite high. Barbados joined last week. And so, Barbados is committed to set up its target. Globally if you add up the other programmes’ voluntary contributions it’s a lot of land the countries have committed to move into sustainable management.  I think there’s still some work to do on the targets to identify geographically where the work will happen, and there’s quite a lot to do to ensure the benefits of land restoration is enjoyed by all segments of  society.

We are quite excited to work around gender. We have seen some very generous funding from the Canadians to work on mainstreaming gender into our work. So, I think there’s progress definitely, but there’s still a way to go.

The big challenge is – and we have spoken about capacity building in proposal writing – translating the targets into bankable projects. It’s a work that’s ongoing. A couple of countries -Armenia and Turkey – have actually gone through the process for some adaptation funding by GEF.

IPS: Women are disproportionately affected by climate change yet underrepresented at the decision-making table. Can your appointment be looked at a part of the growing trend of change the picture?

LB: The credit of my appointment goes to Ibrahim Thiaw – the Executive Secretary of UNCCD who has also recently appointed Tina Birmpili of Greece as the next Deputy Executive Secretary of UNCCD. I don’t think we are appointed because we are female, but of course I see this as an opportunity to do more work and contribute more to building of the momentum that UNCCD now has.

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A 2009 study found that almost 250,000 children worked in auto repair stores, brick klins, as domestic labourers, and as carpet weavers and sozni embroiderers in Jammu and Kashmir. Laureates and global human rights activists have renewed their call for world leaders to double their efforts in protecting children from child labour and child trafficking during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Sep 11 2020 (IPS)

Addressing delegates at the end of the virtual 3rd Fair Share for Children Summit, 2014 Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi told global citizens that “business as usual” in dealing with COVID-19 is not going to be tolerated.

“We’re not going to accept the miseries of child labour and trafficking to continue to be normal,” he said.

The two-day summit, which concluded yesterday Sep. 10, saw laureates and global human rights activists renew their call for world leaders to double their efforts in protecting children during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Several Nobel laureates and heads states and government as well as heads of United Nations agencies spoke, including the Dalai Lama, Professor Muhammad Yunus, Dr. Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkol Karman, and Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, among others.

“My dear children, we’re here to tell you one thing; we’re not going to fail you,” Satyarthi said, assuring the children of the world of their commitment.

“We’re not going to leave you. We’ll stand by you and fight for you,” he said during his concluding remarks. He demanded that the fair share for children must become the new normal.

Satyarthi, who is the founder of Laureates and Leaders for Children which hosted the summit,  further demanded that governments should establish social safety nets for the poor because they are the ones most impacted by the pandemic and that, once the COVID-19 vaccine is available, it should be accessible to everyone in the world.

Satyarthi pinned his hope on the youth whom he applauded for showing leadership during the Summit through their participation and speaking in support of children’s rights.

“Your authority, energy, vision and leadership are definitely a ray of hope in these difficult times,” she said.

He further called on the youth to continue campaigning for children should because the world cannot afford to lose an entire generation.

“Protection of children is not only affordable, but it is also achievable,” concluded Satyarthi.

1996 Nobel Peace Laureate and former president of Timor-Leste José Ramos-Horta called on global leaders to “unite and act now” against child labour and slavery.

“If we fail, we’re accomplices, we’re guilty of betraying children,” he said.

Ramos-Horta said destitute children are the most impacted by COVID-19 because they do not have access to clean water, three meals a day and no longer go to school.

Rula Ghani, the First Lady of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, called upon adults to be responsible not only for their own children but for every child throughout the world. She said it is everyone’s responsibility to nurture every child they can reach because each one has a potential for greatness and distinction.

Ghani decried the fact that wars and conflicts are tearing apart the very fabric of society in such a way that the sense of security, the comfort of belonging to a caring group and certainty of a bright future are fast becoming a luxury of a few.

“In a world where the social compact between society and its members no longer carries any meaning, where even medical emergencies such as COVID-19 can wreak havoc because of the absence of thoughtful coordination and prevalence of political interest, it is high time to stop and reflect,” she said.

While the world is battling with the worst global crisis since World War II and the most significant economic challenge since the great depression, it is also facing the biggest political crisis where presidents do not know how to tell the truth, observed Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, Professor at Columbia University. Sachs, who is also the director of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, said the world is also dealing with the abuses by political leaders who do not care and are not transparent.

“The humanitarian crisis is deepening dramatically, and we don’t even know the extent of it because it is moving faster than our data can keep up,” he said. “We know that hunger is rising, destitution is rising, and desperation is rising.”

Sachs recommended turning to the multi-level institutions in the short term, especially the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which he said has done an excellent job of providing emergency assistance.

He called on the IMF, World Bank and other international financial institutions to provide far more resources, without the usual conditionalities. This will help avert a hunger crisis, the massive rise of deaths because of the diversion of health and medical personnel and greater levels of deprivation.

“The IMF has emergency financing facilities that have provided more than US$ 80 billion since the start of the crisis, but we need vastly more than that,” said Sachs.

Peter Kwasi Kodjie, secretary-general of the All-Africa Students Union, also called for more financial resources to be directed to children. While pleading with leaders to accept the reality of COVID-19 as the new normal, he said it cannot be the new normal for the many children who go to bed hungry because they no longer go to school. He noted that many children face the risk of not returning to school.

“Young people of the world are asking for a fair share of the money to be allocated to children who are marginalised to avoid disaster,” said Kodjie.

José Ángel Gurría, secretary-general of the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), also called on countries to ensure that children get a fair share of the global response to the pandemic.

“You can count on the OECD to help countries to put children at the centre of their social policies,” said Gurria. 

This was the first Laureates and Leaders for Children Summit to be held virtually owing to the pandemic.

 

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Intercultural bilingual school at Andahuaylas province, Peru. Photo courtesy Sergio Chaparro Hernández (CESR)

By Laura Adriaensens and Sergio Chaparro Hernández
ANTWERP, Belgium / BOGOTA, Colombia, Sep 11 2020 (IPS)

“It’s a major paradox, no?” asks Hugo Ñopo, a researcher at the Peruvian think tank Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE). Since the beginning of the pandemic, Peru has presented itself as an example for the region: it quickly implemented drastic prevention measures, followed scientific recommendations and prepared an economic support plan for the most vulnerable segments of the population.

Nevertheless, the country has become a hotspot for cases of Covid-19, which has led to desperate situations in many cities and regions. Peru has confirmed 28,000 deaths and more than 600,000 infections from Covid-19 by the end of August. With these numbers, the country has the largest number of registered deaths per million residents in the entire world.

Furthermore, according to other data, the official numbers might even understate the true extent of the pandemic. “Peru had an early start, but getting into the game first is no guarantee for success,” states Ñopo. “You have to run the race, and this is a marathon.”

The metaphor of a marathon is a good starting point to understand why Peru has had such difficulty addressing the current public health crisis, despite the efforts made by its government. Behind a facade of economic success, the country is still plagued by extremely high levels of inequality.

For decades, Peru has been one of the Latin American countries with the lowest investment in social policies. This has led to deep disparities in the realization of social rights, including the rights to health and education. Today, the enjoyment of these rights is characterized by structural deprivations for many in the midst of enormous privileges for a small elite.

In particular, Peru has faced a critical social fracture in relation to its many Indigenous peoples, whose enjoyment of rights and social services remains abysmally low. In 2019, poverty rates among the population with an Indigenous first language nearly doubled the poverty rate of those who speak Spanish as their first language. In rural areas, the poverty rates of Indigenous language speakers are even higher.

The measures taken by President Martín Vizcarra in response to the pandemic are not enough to remedy these structural inequalities, which have existed for decades. Rather than a short sprint, reforms in the long term are needed.

Health finances require intensive care

A 2019 study undertaken by the Center for Economic and Social Rights examines the role of tax policy in guaranteeing socioeconomic equality and human rights. The report finds that the persistence of high levels of inequality in Peru is explained, to a large extent, by the absence of fiscal policies that allow for adequate financing of programs such as health and education programs that are crucial to the guarantee of social rights.

As the economic expansion fueled by the commodities boom grinds to a halt, serious questions arise about the sustainability of the Peruvian economic model and the sufficiency of its investment in rights and services.

Peru has one of the lowest tax revenue collection rates in Latin America, and the State has taken little action in confronting tax evasion and avoidance, which has caused an estimated loss of 7.5% of GDP. This has reinforced the privileged position of wealthy people with greater contributive capacity while displacing the tax burden on to the rest of the population. In addition, the lack of transparency, participation, and accountability has eroded tax morale and citizen trust in state institutions.

The Peruvian health system was already marked by serious deficiencies long before the pandemic started. The State’s policy regarding cancer care illustrates this. Cancer has become the leading cause of death by disease in Peru, with 90 persons dying from this disease every day.

Although the cancer incidence rate in Peru remains comparatively low in the international context, the risk of dying from cancer before age 75 is higher than the global average, despite Peru being an upper-middle income country.

This shows that the health system does not effectively reduce these risks, particularly for the most disadvantaged populations. The divergent experiences of patients with cancer dramatically reflect the costs of inequality and illustrate how funding decisions have life or death consequences for some.

Teresa Rodríguez, a survivor of cervical cancer from Chimbote, calls out the lack of oncologists in her region: “Other women in the same situation should not have go through this. If my illness had been detected in time, it would not have reached this severity.”

As with Teresa, the poorest people tend to be diagnosed in more advanced stages of illness and face greater barriers to accessing adequate and prompt treatment. This is a consequence of Peru’s fragmented system of health insurance, as well as the absence of specialized health services to diagnose and treat cancer in the more rural and remote departments of the country.

Although Peru established Plan Esperanza in 2012, a public program for the prevention and treatment of cancer with notable achievements, this effort was compromised when the total budget for cancer care was cut down by a sixth in 2019. If this trend continues, it is likely that the achievements of the program will be reversed.

However, the money necessary to finance the effort properly is within reach – as long as the government is willing to rethink its priorities. Eliminating unnecessary tax incentives, for example, would allow the State to increase by 12 times the resources which it dedicates each year to fight cancer.

The regional differences in the healthcare system throughout Peru have become even more pronounced during the pandemic. Many remote communities have been affected by the virus after contact with state officials or tourists visiting the Amazon region. Indigenous communities have asked the government for help, complaining that they have nothing to protect themselves but banana leaves as facemasks and self-imposed quarantines.

“Despite the fact that we live in a region with dengue, with malaria, with endemic diseases that also take lives, I do not remember any comparable situation to the current one,” states Jorge Carillo. He works as a journalist in Iquitos, a large city in the Peruvian Amazon region, which has been heavily affected by the virus and suffers from a lack of ICU beds, medical material, and personnel.

“Post pandemic there’s a lot to do. And if we don’t changeit may sound a little uglyit doesn’t make sense to even survive the pandemic. After all we’ve seen, staying the same or worse would be unthinkable, wouldn’t it?”

Commitment to intercultural education is proven in the allocation of resources

Notably, the pandemic also risks exacerbating disparities in access to other social services, like education. Peru has long failed to guarantee Indigenous peoples culturally appropriate education, which has reinforced racial segregation and gender inequality.

Over the past several years, policies were adopted supporting bilingual, intercultural education for Indigenous children, as a promising step to ensure their access to education. However, the money dedicated to translating these policies into reality is still far from adequate: in 2017, the budget for intercultural education took up only 0.6 per cent of the education allocation, and a mere 0.1 per cent of total public spending.

“I really would like more budget to be allocated for intercultural education. Education should be more important, because without education there is no progress,” said Maruja Pérez, a teacher from an intercultural bilingual school in the Andahuaylas province.

The COVID-19 pandemic will likely further widen the gaps across ethnicities in access to and quality of education, mainly because of the lack of internet connectivity and adequate alternatives to in-person classes in Indigenous communities. In 2018, only 15.9% of Indigenous women and 24.3% of men had internet access, compared to 56.7% of non-Indigenous women and 61.2% men.

While the Peruvian government has provided rural households with access to tablets and launched the “Learning from Home” strategy (Aprendo en Casa) aiming to reach Indigenous children through TV and radio lessons in Indigenous languages, the accessibility and quality standards of this strategy are far from those that non-Indigenous households in urban areas enjoy.

The current situation in Peru might seem grim, but there is hope for the future. The Peruvian state could take steps to more proactively mobilize resources sufficient to providing quality public services to all, as there are certainly options available to finance key social policies.

Multinational corporations and international financial institutions also have an important role to play in expanding fiscal policy space and preventing tax abuse and other practices that reduce State revenue. With eliminating unnecessary tax expenditures, for example, the State could increase by 12 times the resources it dedicates each year to fighting cancer, the primary cause of mortality in Peru.

A higher tax revenue, collected from those most able to pay, such as wealthy individuals and powerful corporations, could help to address the impact of Covid-19, achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, and reduce the territorial, racial, ethnic, and gender disparities that have afflicted Peru for decades.

*The Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) is an international nongovernmental organization that fights poverty and inequality by advancing human rights as guiding principles of social and economic justice. Working in collaboration with partners around the world, CESR uses international human rights law as a tool to challenge unjust economic policies that systematically undermine rights enjoyment and thereby fuel inequalities. Its international and interdisciplinary staff team is based in New York and Johannesburg comes from the human rights, development and social justice movements in different parts of the world.

 

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The post A Marathon, Not a Sprint: Peru Needs Fiscal Reforms to Quell High COVID-19 Death Rate appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Laura Adriaensens,LL.M. in International Legal Studies at New York University (NYU) School of Law, Fulbright and BAEF Fellow, M. A. Schwind Scholar. Sergio Chaparro Hernández is Program Officer at the Center for Economic and Social Rights* (www.cesr.org)

The post A Marathon, Not a Sprint: Peru Needs Fiscal Reforms to Quell High COVID-19 Death Rate appeared first on Inter Press Service.

At least 50 million children are on the move in the world today and millions more are affected by migration. Now more than ever, a rescue package is needed for these refugee children. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Sep 10 2020 (IPS)

Forced to flee wars and disasters, sometimes without family, and struggling to survive in the worst of circumstances, children on the move have long led very precarious lives. Be they refugees, internally displaced or asylum seekers, vulnerable and marginalised, they lose years of childhood. They are exposed to the worst forms of abuse, such as commercial exploitation and violence. Today, their situation is dire as they remain at the very bottom of the list to receive emergency measures to protect them from the impacts of COVID-19. 

Still, there is a deafening silence on the nature of a rescue package for the ultra-vulnerable child population.

Speaking on the second and final day of the Fair Share of Children Summit held virtually, Nobel laureates, leading international figures and heads of the United Nations agencies, who include the Dalai Lama, 2014 Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi, Dr. Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Leymah Gbowee,  and Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven have dispelled all doubt that without this package, the fallout of COVID-19 will be borne by the world’s most marginalised children.

Seme Ludanga Faustino has lived experiences of being a refugee. The co-founder of I CAN South Sudan, a registered refugee-led organisation, stated that the closure of schools and many other child-friendly spaces would be most devastating for displaced children as this is where they learn to cope and heal from traumatic experiences.

“These are children who need structured engagement the most. Even worse, many of them are now separated from their caregivers, who are often fellow refugees. One way to help these children is to support their caregivers to support this child population,” he advised.                                                  

With U.N Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates indicating that 50 million children are on the move in the world today and millions more affected by migration, now more than ever, a rescue package is needed for the world’s most marginalised and impoverished children.

Similarly, a newly launched report by the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation titled “A Fair Share For Children: Preventing the loss of a generation to COVID-19” paints a disturbing picture of the harms and vulnerabilities facing children on the move. The number of children on the move has increased every year for at least a decade, and it is more likely now that the numbers will only grow during and post COVID-19.

The report further indicates that as of the end of March this year, the G20 countries alone had already committed over $5 trillion towards protecting the global economy. Since additional commitments from high-income countries have brought the figure to $8 trillion – a large chunk of this money will be used to protect businesses.

Jody Williams, 1997 Nobel Peace Laureate, stated that real change would begin when resources are directed where they are most needed.

Notably, there is still minimal movement at the national and international levels to address the non-health impacts of COVID-19 on the most marginalised citizens. The report further states that to date, “little is being actively spent on targeted interventions to support the almost 20 percent of children living on two dollars or less per day.”

Against this backdrop, a session, dubbed “Increased Vulnerability of Children on the Move”, examined the increased challenges and risks faced by children on the move due to COVID-19 such as the impact of new legislation imposed due to the pandemic, and explore ways to protect this deeply marginalised child population.

Session moderator Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, emphasised on the need to explore solutions.

Josie Naughton, CEO, Help Refugees, spoke of the need for political will as it is a sure way to the change that is needed for vulnerable child population.

Abraham Keita, a youth activist and 2015 International Children’s Peace Prize Winner, was born during Liberia’s brutal civil war and his father, a driver for a humanitarian organisation was killed in an ambush when he was only five years old.

He grew up in the densely populated informal settlements of West Point, Liberia in extreme poverty and great difficulties. But as those closest to the numbers are often the ones closest to the solutions, he said that beyond statistics are real lives. Keita emphasised that appealing for political will is not enough and that people must appeal to the moral conscience.

The “A Fair Share for Children” report reveals that by mid-April, 167 countries had closed their borders, and at least 57 states made no exception for people seeking asylum.

This is despite ongoing “168 armed conflicts, 15 wars and 23 limited wars. One in 10 children are living in zones of conflict,” said Philip Jennings, co-president, International Peace Bureau, 1910 Nobel Peace Prize-winning organisation.

“We have this peace deficit which COVID-19 only makes worse the conditions of children on the move. I want world leaders and laureates to talk about peace. We need a global ceasefire. Sustainable peace has to be the message from us to the children,” he said.

The U.N. Refugee Agency’s most recent Global Trends report indicates that as of the of 2019, the number of refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and asylum-seekers was at an all-time high with an estimated 79.5 million people, of which 13 million children were refugees.

Equally alarming, 400,000 asylum applications were made by children unaccompanied by any family member. Overall, at least 18 million children were internally displaced by conflicts or disasters.

The “A Fair Share for Children” report warns that as refugee camps are neither designed nor equipped for pandemics such as COVID-19, simple protective measures such as hand washing and social distancing are next to impossible to achieve. The report states that the maximum standards for a typical camp “call for a maximum of 120 people to one water tap and 3.5 square meters of living space per person. Most, if not all, refugee camps are operating beyond this capacity.”

Child rights experts now say that the world is sitting on a catastrophe, as these children will experience even deeper exclusion from any kind of social protection measures or safety nets.

Speakers at the summit, including Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan, decried the fact that even before the pandemic, fundamental public services including education, healthcare, hygiene and sanitation, nutrition and child protection not to mention resettlement and asylum services, were already lacking for this extremely vulnerable child population.

He said that poverty had gotten even worse, there is a decline in migrant remittances and that many refugees who had temporary jobs, lost them.

“Extreme poverty is considered an act of violence, so right now, there is violence and injustice committed against children on the move in particular. More government support is needed and direct financial support not just for NGOs but for small businesses, including those owned by refugees. Countries must stop separating families and turning down asylum seekers,” he said today.

Marianna Vardinoyannis, U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation Goodwill Ambassador and 2020 U.N. Nelson Mandela Prize Laureate urged participants and governments to open their eyes to the suffering of children on the move.

“There is so much that we do not see that defines the traumatic lives of these children. As we built better post COVID, education must be a priority for displaced children. Without an education, the children will lack the tools they need to rebuild their lives,” she cautioned.

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Before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2018, 400 million primary school-age children were already facing poor access to quality education leading to a lack of basic reading skills. Young people have added their voice in calling on world leaders to allocate at least 20 percent of the COVID-19 stimulus package to the marginalised children and youth. Credit: Naresh Newar/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Sep 10 2020 (IPS)

Young people have added their voice in calling on world leaders to allocate at least 20 percent of the COVID-19 stimulus package to the marginalised children and youth.

Addressing delegates at the on the final day of the third Fair Share for Children Summit chairperson of the Commonwealth Students’ Association, Dr. Maisha Reza said if 20 percent of the $5 trillion announced by G20 countries in March were allocated to children, it would fully fund the United Nation COVID-19 appeals and save over 70 million lives.

“How humanity responds collectively to the crisis today will determine the future that we build for our children and the future of our people and planet,” said Reza.

The summit, facilitated by the Laureates for Leaders and Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation – both of which were founded by 2014 Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi – brought together several laureates, including the Dalai Lama, Tawakkol Karman, Professor Jody Williams, international leaders and heads of United Nations agencies.

Reza challenged world leaders to take responsibility for their actions. They should not blame the pandemic for the global challenges of unemployment, hunger, crime and violence, among others. Instead, she said, COVID-19 amplified the already existing gaps and cracks that were already unresolved and overlooked.

Quoting from recently released A Fair Share for Children Report, Reza said before the pandemic in 2018, 400 million primary school-age children were already facing poor access to quality education leading to a lack of basic reading skills. Moreover, 258 children out-of-school in 2018.

The report further states that as a direct consequence of national lockdowns, school closures were implemented in more than 190 countries.

To date, more than 160 countries have continued to lock children out of school. At the peak of the pandemic 1.6 billion – about 91.3 percent of all enrolled students – were out of school or university, with the vast majority being under 18.

“It is not just COVID-19 that is exacerbated global inequality, but the world’s unjust response to COVID-19 will deepen inequality for a generation,” she said.

Dr. Maisha Reza said if 20 percent of the $5 trillion announced by G20 countries in March were allocated to children, it would fully fund the United Nations COVID-19 appeals and save over 70 million lives.

Reza criticised leaders for focusing more on multinational companies while leaving the marginalised and vulnerable to fend for themselves, adding that millions of children will pay the price with their lives unless action is taken.

She said the youth and students have to choose between fulfilling their economic potential and between contributing to their families’ sustenance.

“This is an extremely unfair choice that they have to make for the poor decisions of world leaders,” she said.

She further invited the youth to make use of alliances through student organisations, NGOs and international platforms such as the summit while using social media to hold their leaders accountable.

While urging governments to invest in education and children, Ulrich Knudsen, Deputy Secretary-General, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), warned that it would be a mistake not to give companies life support during the pandemic.

“It’s in the interest of everyone in society that we also give life support to companies,” he said in response to a question that governments seem to be prioritising corporates over marginalised citizens.

“If we don’t do that, the economy will break, and we’ll have even more inequality that hurts the vulnerable, be they youth, children women.”

He said after this crisis, there would be competing pressures on government budgets. Because they are spending so much now and that the funds have to be paid back governments will be faced with competing priorities such as the elderly, climate change and paying back loans.

“But there are unquestionable benefits of keeping schools open,” he said.

While applauding the youth in taking the lead to ensure that their voices are heard, Knudsen urged governments to create a conducive political environment for these issues.

“At OECD, we have youth- and child-sensitive policymaking. We need governments’ approach to issues that affect children and youth differently than others. We cannot expect that policies made for adults will not have adverse side effects for children and youth,” he said. 

The digital divide and economic inequalities came under sharp focus during the discussion. Knudsen said the significant disparities when it comes to access to technology had resulted in the vulnerable being left behind when doing e-learning or remote learning.

“If you don’t have access to a computer, you’re completely lost during a crisis like this one. There’s the economic inequality, and then there’s the digital divide, we need to address both,” he said.

Adding his voice about the digital divide was Edvardas Vabuolas from the Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions (OBESSU). He said it is a well-established fact that many children are not accessing education during the pandemic because of lack of access to the internet and gadgets such as computers.

Dr Rigoberta Menchú Tum, 1992 Nobel Peace Laureate agreed, adding that it was time to talk about technology because, during the pandemic, fewer children had access to education. She further called for an education system that is multi- and bilingual.

“Budgets have to be devoted to education,” she said, through an interpreter.

She noted that some countries used the curfews as an excuse to become dictatorial states. 

Tum further called people in public office to use the lens of diversity during the post-COVID era so not to leave anyone behind in the future.

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