Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

By Akash Chhetri
KATHMANDU, Feb 21 2020 (IPS)

A major discrepancy between Nepal government and foreign records of the number of Nepali children adopted in North America and Europe has exposed a trafficking ring that involves various child welfare agencies in Kathmandu.

The Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens has records of only 64 children from Nepal sent for adoption to ten western countries from 2010 to 2019. However, a list submitted to the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) by the US Department of State and the nine other countries reveals that 242 Nepali children were taken for adoption in those nine years.

The ten countries are the United States, Denmark, France, Norway, Switzerland, Canada, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Sweden. There are 178 more Nepali children adopted internationally than the government has records for. Why the discrepancy?

“The data we have is authentic,” maintains Ministry spokesperson Gyanendra Paudel. “We have no idea how the details in other countries showed more numbers.”

But for Manju Khatiwada at the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), this is a clear case of child trafficking. She says: “The traffickers produce fake documents and influence both the government officials and parents to smuggle the children abroad.”

Official adoptions by foreign nationals have virtually stopped after reports of corruption and payoffs were publicised in the media ten years ago. But there is a high demand for adoption, especially in western countries, and a plentiful supply of poor Nepali parents who cannot support their children, and this differential drives trafficking. Some parents are also tricked by traffickers into giving up their children.

Manju and Bhimsen Khadka from Sindhupalchok used to sell roasted corn by the roadside in Kathmandu. One day ten years ago, a neighbour named Sarita Shrestha and her husband took pity on their three boys, and offered to place two of them, Rajkumar and Balkrishna, aged 8 and 6, at a children’s shelter.

The parents agreed because it would relieve the burden of feeding and educating them. But once the children were taken from them, the shelter’s management repeatedly refused to allow Manju and Bhimsen to visit them, and even started issuing threats.

“I begged them to at least let me see my sons just once, but they said they would finish me off,” Manju Khadka recalls tearfully. The parents lodged a complaint at the NHRC, which started an investigation, and found that Rajkumar and Balkrishna had already been adopted in Italy.

Says NHRC’s Khatiwada: “It is clear that the parents were tricked into thinking their sons would be educated, but they were instead stolen and sold by the shelter, which prepared original-looking fake documents at the Nepal Children’s Organisation in Naxal.”

The NHRC notified the government, saying Bal Mandir had sent the children to Italy for adoption, and recommending that Nepal’s adoption laws and policies be amended to plug the loopholes. It also said a public awareness campaign was necessary to warn parents about child trafficking.

After malpractices were uncovered in the 2000s, the Nepal government tightened laws on adoption. According to the ‘Terms and Conditions and Process Required for Approving Adoption of a Nepali Child by an Alien – 2008,’ prospective foreign parents cannot choose the child they want to adopt.

Foreign couples wishing to adopt a Nepali child must apply through a registered international agency or their embassies in Nepal, filling out forms offering details about the age, gender and other particulars that they seek in a child. A joint secretary-led ‘Family Matching Committee’ is then assigned to find the child from shelters. Clause 14 of the Terms and Conditions stipulates that these adoptions will take place on a first-come-first-serve basis.

However, the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) documents make clear that many adoptions have skipped the whole process. The documents show that Denmark received 20 Nepali children through adoption from Nepal in the last nine years.

But government records in Kathmandu show only two children had paperwork to leave for that country. The mismatch is even starker for France, for which government records here show only one adopted Nepali child, but the HCCH records 21 Nepali children adopted by French families.

Numerically, the United States shows the biggest discrepancy. The State Department report reveals that 102 children were adopted from Nepal in the last nine years, but the government’s records here show only 11.

According to the Bureau of Consular Affairs of the US Department of State, an American citizen wishing to adopt a child should be at least 25 years old, and in the case of couples both husband and wife should agree to adopt the child.

Prospective parents should not have any criminal background and should meet the criteria of the country from which they seek to adopt. The fact that 91 Nepali children adopted by Americans have no records in Nepal prove that they were transported outside of legal channels. HCCH records show that Norway, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden and Italy had similar inconsistency with Nepal government records.

Only figures for Germany show the opposite: government records here show four children were adopted by German parents between 2010 and 2019, and HCCH data shows only two children were adopted in Germany.

Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 of the Civil Code 2017 have the provisions in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. And there are a slew of policies and strict regulations governing inter-country adoption.

For example, the Standards for Operation and Management of Residential Child Care Homes 2013 says it is the state’s responsibility to look after children who have lost both parents, or the children of invalid parents, provided their kin cannot take care of them. The priority is for in-country adoption, and international adoption is only a last resort.

All these legal provisions make inter-country child adoption so strict that it is inconceivable that such adoptions take place without the knowledge of several government agencies. The discrepancy of HCCH and Nepali records thus reveals that children are being trafficked abroad in the guise of adoption.

An NHRC report on Trafficking in Persons 2019 points to a nexus between orphanages, child-care centres and foreigners wishing to adopt children. The report says there are 14,864 children in 533 children’s homes all over the country. Nearly 80% of children in such centres are not orphans, and have either one or both parents.

The only government shelter for orphans is Bal Mandir and it is run by the Nepal Children’s Organisation (NCO), which provides care, nutrition and education to orphans all over the country. The NCO has been implicated in facilitating documents for illegal inter-country adoption.

In August 2019, British national Dona Smith was arrested at Kathmandu airport with a newborn baby she claimed was her daughter. Smith was carrying a birth certificate from Lalitpur Metropolitan City and the baby’s passport, issued by the British Embassy, carried her name as Anna Bella Laxmi Shrestha Smith. Smith told suspicious immigration officials that the baby’s father was Nepali.

An investigation later found out that the baby’s real mother was a rape victim who gave birth to her at Paropakar Maternity Hospital. Smith admitted to paying Bal Krishna Dangol, director of the NCO, Rs450,000 for the baby and another Rs2 million to procure the necessary documents to take her out of the country. Deputy Superintendent of Police Hobindra Bogati says Dangol was found to be involved in a larger child-trafficking network. Both Dangol and Smith are now in jail.

Police figures show more than 1,000 children were trafficked in the past five years. DSP Silwal says the children are usually bought from willing poor parents but that some parents are tricked into sending them to shelters. The traffickers then sell them to adoption brokers who make contact with foreigners eager to adopt children.

“The children who are trafficked are often from the poor and underprivileged families or are street children,” Silwal says, “Traffickers prefer them because it is easier to tempt their parents.”

NHRC Commisioner Mohna Ansari says it difficult to curb such crimes unless there is public awareness. “In our poverty-ridden society with rampant illiteracy and scarcity, parents think sending children to shelters will at least give them a good education. They are easily tempted by strangers who promise to take care of them.”

Centre for Investigative Journalism-Nepal

 

“I want to see my sons again”

 

Ten years ago, two of Manju Khadka’s three sons, Ram Kumar, 8, and Bal Krishna, 6 (pictured, right) were taken to a children’s shelter by a neighbour who promised they would be educated and fed there. For three years, Khadka was repeatedly prevented from seeing them. Finally, she found out they had been adopted by a couple in Italy.

“I gave birth to them. I did not send them as babies, they were grown up and going to school,” says a tearful Khadka (pictured, above). “They threatened to finish me off.”

When she went to the police, they were rude and accused her of selling her children to the shelter. So Manju and her husband went to the National Human Rights Commission, but were unable to receive the help they needed to get their boys back. Ram Kumar and Bal Krishna are now 19 and 17 and living in Italy.

 

How Naresh became Chanorang Kim

Naresh Gharti, the youngest of his family, was born in east Rukum and was growing up in Pokhara. In 2018, South Korean tourist Nara Kim got to know the Gharti family and they agreed to let her adopt Naresh.

Faced with strict rules about inter-country adoption, Nara Kim decided to take a short cut. According to the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), Kim produced a document, certified by Pokhara Metropolitan City, showing that Naresh was her son. She got a fake birth certificate for Naresh from a hospital in Pokhara.

The South Korean Embassy in Kathmandu provided Naresh with a Korean passport  (M 72504568) based on those documents. The passport changed Naresh’s name to Chanorang Kim. The last stop was to get a visa for Naresh at the Department of Immigration where officials got suspicious. Both Kim and Naresh were arrested at Kathmandu airport while trying to fly out in May 2019. Kim is in jail awaiting trial.

 

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

The post Nepal’s Baby Export appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: IPBES

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 20 2020 (IPS)

The UN’s highly-touted socio-economic agenda, which lays out an ambitious global plan for “people, planet and prosperity”, has been dominated by “goals, targets and deadlines.”

But regrettably, most developing nations are struggling to reach these goals—due largely to a shortfall in much-needed funding or lack of political will on the part of most governments.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)– which was launched in 2015 and includes the proposed eradication of extreme poverty and hunger– are expected to be achieved by the targeted date of 2030.

But judging by the limited progress made so far, even the United Nations is skeptical about winning the race against global poverty and hunger– on deadline—besides achieving gender equality, quality education and climate action worldwide.

The 2016 Paris Climate Change agreement has “a global stock-take every 5 years to assess the collective progress towards achieving the purpose of the Agreement and to inform further individual actions by Parties.”

And the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets — aimed largely at protecting and preserving the world’s ecosystems–have a 2020 deadline, with just 10 months to go.

Credit: Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

The 20 global targets were formulated under the 2011-2020 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and grouped under five goals, including addressing the underlying causes of biodiversity loss by mainstreaming biodiversity across governments and society, reducing direct pressures on biodiversity while promoting sustainable use; and improving the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity.

In the run-up to an upcoming UN Biodiversity Conference in China, officials and experts will convene at FAO headquarters, Rome, February 24-29. for negotiations on the initial draft of a landmark post-2020 global biodiversity framework and targets, extending through 2030.

The new framework will be considered and adopted by the 196 Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the 2020 UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP15), scheduled to take place October 15-28,
In Kunming, China.

Asked if the Aichi achievements are far below targets, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Acting Executive Secretary of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), told IPS “as you point out, research is leading us to the conclusion that actions have not been sufficient to accelerate progress to achievement of the Aichi Targets to the extent required – and consequently, that none of the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets are likely to be fully met, although some specific components or elements within the targets have been achieved”.

She said the full assessment of the status of the targets will be published in Global Biodiversity Outlook 5, which will be released on 18 May 2020.

“But we can say in general, that there has been a wealth of policies and actions developed in all parts of the world to address biodiversity loss, even if cumulatively they have not been sufficient to meet the goals agreed by the global community.”

“We will need to build on these as we move forward to achieve the 2050 Vision”, she noted.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema

Excerpts from the interview:

IPS: There have been reports that very few people have ever heard of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets compared to SDGs and the Paris climate change agreement. Is this a fair characterization? How important is public outreach and how will this be different for the post-2020 Biodiversity Framework?

Mrema: Progress has been made in public awareness and understanding of biodiversity and its values; there is wide variation across countries and attention to biodiversity in the media remains at a much lower level than coverage of climate change.

Nevertheless, the heightened public alarm about the impacts of climate change is frequently expressed alongside dismay at the state of biodiversity, in particular the extinction crisis.

The media coverage of the IPBES Global Assessment in 2019 was incredible, and this has demonstrated that people are ready to engage on this agenda. But more can be done.

This is why the Parties have asked that any post 2020 global biodiversity framework include an innovative and active communications and outreach strategy, which will be developed as part of the negotiations.

IPS: What shortcomings, if any, have been already identified in feedback about the zero draft of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework? Are you expecting any significant changes to the draft before adoption?

Mrema: The Parties will only provide their feedback on the zero draft when the meeting of the working group begins in Rome on 24 February. I invite you and your readers to follow the proceedings of the meeting, which will be webcast.

IPS: As the 20 targets are expected to expire by the end of 2020, will the Parties to the CBD adopt a revised set of targets for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework? Any indications of what these revised targets would be?

Mrema: As you correctly point out, the period for the implementation of the Strategic Plan 2011-2020 is nearing its end. In 2018, the Conference of the Parties, at its fourteenth meeting in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt adopted a process for developing a post-2020 global biodiversity framework by establishing an Open-ended Working Group (WG2020) to support this process and appointing two Co-chairs, Francis Ogwal (Uganda) and Basile van Havre (Canada) to lead the process.

Subsequently, the WG2020, at its first meeting in August 2019 in Nairobi, requested the Co-chairs and the Executive Secretary, with the oversight of the Bureau, to prepare a zero draft text of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework for consideration by the second meeting of the Working Group, which will be held from 24 to 29 February 2020 in Rome.

The Co-chairs and the Acting Executive Secretary, made this “zero draft” of the global biodiversity framework available on 13 January.

The Zero draft was prepared based on extensive regional and thematic consultations, the advice from the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice and from the Working Group on Article 8 J and written submissions.

The Zero draft was also developed taking into account global trends and future scenarios, including the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services,

The framework is built around a theory of change which recognizes that urgent policy action globally, regionally and nationally is required to transform economic, social and financial models so that the trends that have exacerbated biodiversity loss will stabilize in the next 10 years (by 2030) and allow for the recovery of natural ecosystems in the following 20 years, with net improvements by 2050 to achieve the Convention’s vision of “living in harmony with nature by 2050”.

The zero draft contains suggested global goals for 2030 and 2050 and action-oriented targets for 2030. As I noted, there will be considered by the Parties at their meeting taking place next week in Rome.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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A large number of children are regularly transported across Zimbabwe’s borders by women who are not their mothers. Courtesy: Michelle Chifamba

By Michelle Chifamba
HARARE, Feb 20 2020 (IPS)

Elton Ndumiso*, a bus-conductor who works the route from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, to neighbouring South Africa, sees it all the time: Zimbabwean women travelling with three or four children, who are clearly not their own kids, and taking them across the border.

It’s a crime that most bus drivers or conductors either turn a blind eye to, or become accomplices in by assisting the women. 

Ndumiso told IPS that in many cases some bus drivers and conductors go as far as “talking to” or even bribing border officials, to allow them to let the children and women enter neighbouring countries without regular migration documents.

The practice is not a new one.

“A number of children have been transported by female smugglers to cross the border. Some of the women will be in possession of signed affidavits that claim they are the legal guardians of the children. It is difficult to prove what the intensions of the smugglers would be once they have crossed the border to South Africa,” Ndumiso told IPS.

• The Parliament of Zimbabwe notes that child trafficking is one of the greatest challenges the country is facing as a result of the prevailing economic conditions.
• And according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) — an intergovernmental United Nations agency that provides services and oversights around migration — there are a number of cases of Zimbabwean parents living in neighbouring countries who pay smugglers to reunite them with their children in their new country.

Ndumiso may not know what risks await the children after they cross the border, but he’s seen cases of children being at risk during the journey as well. He remembered a recent case of a woman who was smuggling four children across the border into South Africa and had lost one of the kids when the bus stopped for a break.

“The young child was eight years old and disappeared in the small mining town of Mvuma in Midlands Province were the bus had stopped for recess. We searched for the child but could not find her. We had to leave the woman at the nearest police and a police report was made,” Ndumiso told IPS, explaining that the woman had claimed she was transporting the children to join their parents in South Africa.

IOM told IPS that despite there being a large number of instances of child smuggling and trafficking across Zimbabwe’s porous borders, these cases still remain unknown and unreported because of the nature of the crime. 

IOM-Zimbabwe head of programmes Ana Medeiros told IPS that this was largely due to the fact that in many cases victims were afraid to speak out and tell their stories.

• The 2018 Zimbabwe Parliament Committee on Human Rights’ report states that figures about this illicit crime are unavailable.
• In the report, parliament recorded that in Zimbabwe the crime of child trafficking is difficult to establish as large amounts of money is gathered in the illegal trade to create networks around the world.
• “These are calculative syndicates who create links within the government and … world to recruit unsuspecting victims who are lured by the need to improve their lives,” read the report.

Head of the Zimbabwe Gender Commission, an independent rights body in this southern African nation, Virginia Muwanigwa, told IPS that very few cases of child trafficking are addressed each year in Zimbabwe as they are difficult to trace.

“In most cases, the traffickers who pay the smugglers to transport the children along the borders are close family members who may have … affidavits and consent from parents or guardians of the children for transportation and may also pay a bribe to border officials,” she explained. 

According to IOM, smuggling is mostly prevalent on the borders of South Africa and Botswana because documents can be forged and people bribed to allow entry without proper documents.

Medeiros, however, was careful to point out that, “smugglers are not traffickers because in most cases they are paid for their service to facilitate the process of smuggling. However, in some cases they may be linked to the traffickers.” The easily porous borders means that the trafficking of children is also prevalent.

“Child trafficking cases are difficult to trace because minors are not responsible for their actions and there is a thin line between smuggling and trafficking. Trafficking is not always clear as many trafficked people may be recorded as migrants in the country of destination,” Medeiros told IPS.

And Medeiros told IPS that when it comes to cases of child trafficking, usually trusted people like church and family members recruited children with promised work or education outside the country where they either ended up in domestic servitude or as sex salves.

“As a result of the nature of the crime, the component of confidentiality when investigating the issues of child trafficking and lack of knowledge on the crime of human trafficking, many families and children fall victim to trafficking, particularly with people who are close to them who are paid by traffickers to recruit young children,” Medeiros told IPS.

IOM is currently supporting Zimbabwe with capacity building and training programmes to educate people on the crime of human trafficking.

“IOM has supported the government through the Ministry of Public Service Labour and Social Welfare and Civil Society Organisations in providing information through promotional materials such as flyers, banners, T-shirts, road-shows throughout the country’s provinces to educate people on trafficking,” Medeiros told IPS.

In addition, the U.N. agency also shelters victims of trafficking, also providing them counselling.

“At the shelters victims receive counselling and share their stories on how they ended up being smuggled or trafficked,” Medeiros added.

The United States Department of State Trafficking in Persons in Zimbabwe says it also provided more than $ 750,000 in assistance for anti-trafficking programmes covering victim services, awareness and referrals, aligning legislation and building mutual capacity.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ), which actively supports the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 8 of decent work and economic growth, has focused much of its work on eliminating modern slavery. It, however, acknowledges that globally the legal system has failed to put an end to trafficking and that new laws are needed to protect citizens from this.

“The legal system can be the driver for change — so let’s use the instruments already in place — the law firms that are willing to drive change. Initiate any new laws/programmes not as a marketing add-on but a business norm and a business imperative. We need rule of law and safety of citizens in place — civilised society cannot exist without the rule of law in place,” GSN states on its website.

Muwanigwa too wants to see stronger laws in place to protect Zimbabwe’s children.

“There is need for legislation reform as very few cases of child-smuggling or trafficking in persons are investigated. Resource constraints are also the major drawback when it comes to issues of human trafficking in Zimbabwe,” Muwanigwa told IPS.

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.

 

** Writing with Nalisha Adams in Bonn, Germany

Related Articles

• How to Recognise Nigeria’s Trafficked Kids
• Human Trafficking – It Came Disguised as the Opportunity of a Lifetime

The post Zimbabwe’s Thin Line between Child Smuggling and Child Trafficking appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

While there are a large number of instances of child smuggling and trafficking across Zimbabwe’s porous borders, these cases still remain unknown and unreported because of the nature of the crime. 

The post Zimbabwe’s Thin Line between Child Smuggling and Child Trafficking appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jemimah Njuki
NAIROBI, Feb 20 2020 (IPS)

The global gender community will meet in New York in March to review progress on gender equality and women’s empowerment in the 25 years since the Beijing declaration. The theme for this year’s Commission on the Status of Women gathering is Generation Equality, emphasizing how the current generation must close the gender gap. 

Examples of gaps include how women’s representation in national parliaments is only 23.7 per cent. In 39 countries, daughters and sons do not have equal inheritance rights. In 49 countries there are no laws protecting women from domestic violence, and globally 750 million women and girls are married before the age of 18. In the agriculture sector where I work, women are just 13 per cent of agricultural land holders globally.  

While the UN hopes these kinds of gender gaps can close in a generation, analysis by the World Economic Forum in their Global Gender Gap Report 2020 sets different expectations.  The report says it will take 99.5 years to close the gender gap if we accelerate progress, but if we continue the current pace, it could take up to 257 years. This is alarming. 

It will take 99.5 years to close the gender gap if we accelerate progress, but if we continue the current pace, it could take up to 257 years

While numerous development actors are engaged in projects around the globe that seek to achieve gender equality and empowerment of women and girls, governments and other agencies need to act fast and at scale to accelerate progress to ensure we become generation equality.

First, there needs to be political commitment by governments across the world to address gender inequality and women’s political participation. This can be in the form of women’s representation in parliament, gender responsive budgeting or advancing policies that protect the rights of women.

By February of 2019, only 12 countries — led by Rwanda with 61.3% — had over 40% representation of women in parliament. The proportion of ministerial posts held by women however remains low, at only one in five. France, Canada and Spain and more recently Scotland have all had cabinets with at least as many women as men.

Equal political participation by women and men needs to be the norm rather than the exception. Strategies that have worked include quotas for women’s representation, reforming pollical parties to be more gender equal, and ensuring a level playing field for women political aspirants. 

Second, governments need to accelerate laws that protect the rights of women and girls. Without these laws, the efforts of organizations will not be sustainable as they are not protected under the law. Evidence shows that discriminatory laws still exist in many countries.

For example, the Women, Law and Business report 2020 shows that 90 out of 190 countries still have at least one restriction on the jobs women can hold. In terms of laws to redistribute women’s care work, more than half of the economies covered mandate paid leave specifically reserved for fathers, but the median duration of that leave is just five days.

Only 43 economies have paid parental leave that can be shared by mothers and fathers. This is despite research that shows law reforms and policies that empower women are not only good for women’s empowerment, but they also boost economic growth.

For example, when women can move more freely, work outside the home and manage assets, they’re more likely to join the workforce and strengthen the economy.

Third, we must address the harmful social and cultural norms and societal perceptions of women as laws by themselves are not enough in protecting the rights of women. Evidence from Bangladesh for example shows women who routinely wore burkah/hijab, and hence are more compliant with religious and cultural norms are less likely to be engaged in outside work.

In Kenya, while equal inheritance of land and other property is entrenched in the constitution, women own less than 7 percent of the land in the country, mainly due to cultural norms that still do not recognise the rights of women and girls to inherit land.

Engaging men, boys, traditional and religious leaders can change norms and practices that are harmful to women and girls. In countries like Zambia and Malawi, traditional chiefs have been instrumental in reducing forced and early child marriage. 

And finally, we must invest in research and evidence to test what works, where we are making progress and where progress is not happening so as to inform future action. While there are indicators to track progress, the analysis of what is working in different contexts to achieve gender equality is not always that robust.

Tools like the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, tracks women’s empowerment in agriculture and shows the impact of different interventions on different indicators of women’s empowerment. Analysing data used to track SDG 5 on gender equality to track what is working and use the lessons for future implementation can help to accelerate progress. 

While some progress has been made in addressing gender inequality in recent years, a big push in this last decade before the expiry in 2030 of the Sustainable Development Goals is clearly needed. Now we must use different tools than those which created the problem.

 

Jemimah Njuki is an expert on gender equality and women’s empowerment. She is an Aspen New Voices Fellow. You can follow her @jemimah_njuki

The post Generation Equality: Four Ways to Accelerate Progress appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: IPS

By Stefania Fabrizio, Daniel Gurara and Lisa Kolovich
WASHINGTON DC, Feb 20 2020 (IPS)

Making sure that opportunities to enter the workforce are fair and rewarding for women benefits everyone. Yet, the average female workforce participation rate across countries is still 20 percentage points lower than the male rate, largely because gender gaps in wages and access to opportunities, such as education, stubbornly persist.

Our new study finds that fiscal policy choices that address gender equality—such as investing in education or infrastructure, developing better sanitation facilities, implementing individual-based tax regimes, and offering parental leave—create more economic opportunities for women, increase growth, and reduce poverty and inequality.

When governments actively promote policies to increase female labor force participation, more women do indeed join the labor force. Most measures pay for themselves in the long run without additional costs for governments and the added bonus—a larger workforce leads to higher economic activity and growth, which generate additional tax revenue for the country.

Inclusive fiscal policies

Since the mid-1980s, at least 80 countries across all levels of development and regions have adopted fiscal policies to promote gender equality. Previous IMF research suggests that in advanced economies, when governments actively promote policies to increase female labor force participation, more women do indeed join the labor force.

Canada, Czech Republic, and Sweden, for example, have witnessed a substantial increase in women’s paid work when the countries switched to using individual rather than family income taxation.

For low-income and developing countries, programs aimed at reducing gender gaps in education, particularly for secondary and university education, have supported more economic opportunities for women.

Other effective fiscal policies, such as better infrastructure, decrease the time spent on unpaid care work, while providing more women the choice to enter into paid employment.

The bottom line is that greater gender parity at all levels, from unskilled workers to top management positions, can also foster the creation of new ideas—leading to higher productivity.

Credit: Food Tank

Competing demands

Policymakers face difficult choices every day, given limited room in the budget and competing demands. These choices often come down to investing in schools or roads, introducing new revenue measures, or offering free, high-quality childcare.

Here, policymakers must consider not only what happens to economic growth, but also how these policies can reduce income and gender inequality.

To help with these decisions, our recent analysis examines how policies designed to increase women’s labor force participation can accomplish multiple economic and social goals.

We find that some gender-responsive fiscal policies increase labor productivity and in turn, sustainable growth. Take for instance, an effort to reduce the gender gap in literacy rates.

In low-income countries the average literacy rate of men is about 70 percent while it is only 54 percent for women. But if fiscal policies can be used to close this gap, then women’s productivity increases and ultimately, more women are equipped for jobs in more skill-intensive sectors.

Labor-saving infrastructure, such as greater access to safe water, frees time, particularly for women. For instance, in Malawi, women on average spend 54 minutes a day collecting water. Better access to infrastructure means that women may then choose to pursue paid work.

Removing tax distortions for the earner in the family with the lower wage, usually the woman, by changing the personal income tax structure from a family to an individual system creates incentives for more women to work, and with greater diversity in the workforce, fresh and innovative ideas can boost productivity.

Securing the future

Not all gender-responsive fiscal policies benefit women equally. Subsidizing childcare and providing paid maternity leave would have a greater impact on poorer women because they typically face higher childcare costs relative to their income.

For example, in the US, poorer women spend 17.4 percent of their income on childcare compared to 7.8 for richer women.

Time horizons matter too. A mix of measures could help support economic goals in a sustainable manner while tackling immediate social needs.

For example, investing in education to equip girls with the same skills as boys would boost women’s human capital while shaping future labor productivity. In the meantime, cash transfers that target poorer working women may help reduce poverty and inequality.

Our research shows that tackling gender-biased social norms is crucial. In fact, removing discriminatory practices and addressing social norms amplifies the positive effects of gender-responsive measures. Not only would this improve human rights, but it also would help promote women’s economic empowerment.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), discriminatory laws and social practices reduce women’s years of schooling by 16 percent and decrease labor force participation by 12 percent, resulting in a global income loss of 7.5 percent of the global GDP.

Progress in some countries is encouraging. For example, under the Promundo initiative, 34 countries have introduced programs to engage men and boys on gender norms with participants responding very positively to the initiative.

Real changes are happening. Still, we have a long way to go to make the world a place with the same opportunities for men and women. Policymakers and citizens working together can foster equality, equity, and brighter prospects for all, and ensure that gender equality becomes a reality in all of our lifetimes.

IMFBlog, where this article was originally published, is a forum for the views of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff and officials on pressing economic and policy issues of the day.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF and its Executive Board.

The post Fiscal Policies For Women’s Economic Empowerment appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

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By PRESS RELEASE
SEOUL, South Korea, Feb 20 2020 (IPS-Partners)

On February 20, 2020 – Mr. Ban Ki-moon, 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations, has officially begun his second term in office as the President of the Assembly and Chair of the Council of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). In his letter to Members of GGGI, President and Chair Mr. Ban reaffirmed his commitment to raise awareness of the Institute and its work to tackle climate change and help countries accelerate achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“Leading the Institute is not a new endeavor for me but, rather, a continuation of my previous mission at the UN. Although GGGI is much younger and smaller than the UN, it is a treaty-based intergovernmental organization, the existence of which is to counter climate change by working very much in tandem with the Paris Agreement and the SDGs,” said Mr. Ban.

On October 16, 2019, Mr. Ban was unanimously re-elected by the Members of the Assembly and the Council to serve as GGGI’s President and Chair for another two-year term commencing February 20, 2020.

During his first two-year term, GGGI’s membership has expanded to 36 Members, with 8 new Members – namely Paraguay, Tonga, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Burkina Faso, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, Ecuador and Angola – joining the organization. His vision and leadership will help GGGI deliver greater impact for its Members – supporting them to achieve solid and ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement, that are due at the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow in November 2020.

Many countries, including GGGI’s Members, are stepping up efforts to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. One of GGGI’s priorities for 2020 centers around supporting its Members to meet their ambitious NDC commitments. In addition, GGGI is contributing to reducing billions of tons of CO2e; increasing access to sustainable services for 600 million people; enabling adaptation services for 16 million people; and protecting 80 million hectares of natural capital throughout the world.

Mr. Ban reiterated the importance of bringing the world together to take action on climate change and move toward a sustainable future – especially as 2020 is a crucial year for climate action, where countries have to recommit to the Paris Agreement.

ABOUT THE GLOBAL GREEN GROWTH INSTITUTE (GGGI)

Based in Seoul, Republic of Korea, the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) is a treaty-based international, inter-governmental organization that supports developing country governments transition to a model of economic growth that is environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive. GGGI delivers programs for more than 30 Members and partners – in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the Pacific – with technical support, capacity building, policy planning and implementation, and by helping to build a pipeline of bankable green investment projects.

GGGI supports its Members and partners to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals and the Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement.

To learn more about GGGI, visit www.gggi.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram.

@FrankRijsberman         @gggi_hq         @bankimooncentre

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By Maged Srour
ROME, Feb 19 2020 (IPS)

In a groundbreaking ruling in January 2020, the International Court of Justice demanded that Myanmar halt all measures that contribute to the genocide of the Rohingya community.

The order was lauded by international bodies and organisations who have been involved with and/or closely following the case since the Gambia filed a lawsuit against Myanmar for human rights violations against the Rohingya community.

The United Nations Secretary General has said he “welcomes” the order and “will promptly transmit the notice of the provisional measures ordered by the Court to the Security Council,”

The Rohingya refugees continue to remain in camps in Bangladesh, where they are vulnerable to human trafficking and other forms of violence.

IPS has been reporting extensively on the Rohingya tragedy over the past several years.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/01/experts-laud-international-court-justice-order-myanmar-halt-genocidal-conduct/

Here, IPS brings together a select number of powerful images from the Rohingya community seen through the lens of Mohammad Rakibul Hassan, a Bangladeshi photojournalist, filmmaker and visual artist.

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Schoolgirls in Peshawar. Section 89 Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), which allowed for the use of corporal punishment by parents, guardians and teachers "in good faith for the benefit”, was suspended last week by the Islamabad High Court. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

By Zofeen Ebrahim
ISLAMABAD , Feb 19 2020 (IPS)

“He struck his head, his side, his stomach and went on hitting him. When Hunain said he could not breathe, the teacher slammed him against the wall, saying, ‘Being dramatic are we?’” This is the eye witness account from a classmate of 17-year-old Pakistani student, Hunain Bilal, who was allegedly beaten to death by his teacher after he failed to memorise his lessons.

It was a story that had sent shockwaves through Lahore after Bilal died from his injuries in September. But Section 89 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) allowed for the use of corporal punishment by parents, guardians and teachers “in good faith for the benefit” meant that the teacher accused of Bilal’s death could not be tried for murder.

Bilal’s cousin, 21-year old media studies student Rimsha Naeem, has been concerned that the small social media uproar that placed a spotlight on the issue of corporal punishment in Pakistan was only fleeting. And that instead the memory her cousin’s tragic death would slowly fade as and the government appeared to be soft-peddling the issue.

“The murderer did not have to bear any consequences and is out on bail,” she said explaining why it was imperative that a law be put in place to stop “such barbarity so no parent should ever have to bear this tragedy”.

Last week, however, saw a victory for the rights of school kids across the country when singer and rights activist Shehzad Roy filed a successful petition with the Islamabad High Court to ban the practice of corporal punishment of children up to the age of 12.

“It was a huge win for us!” said a jubilant Roy, speaking to IPS after the court suspended Section 89 of the PPC. He is happy as now the children of the Islamabad Capital Territory, the only area in Pakistan where they remained unprotected by law or any administrative order, will hopefully be spared the rod.     

• In 2017, Sindh became the first province to ban corporal punishment by enacting a law — the Sindh Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Act — because the “child has the right to be shown respect for his personality and individuality” it states. Moreover it has made it a criminal offence.
• By eliminating smacking, spanking and even verbal lashing, it is hoped the child will no longer be humiliated in a classroom setting, a seminary, or at home.
• Other provinces in the country have administrative orders against corporal punishment, but these are not enforceable.

Roy said corporal punishment only caused harm and often led to a child dropping out of school or running away from home. Dr. Murad Khan, Professor Emeritus at Karachi’s Aga Khan University’s Department of Psychiatry, endorsed this. “The more damaging effect is that it leads to poor performance, loss of confidence and self-esteem, a sense of helplessness, anger (that can turn into violence towards others and self), anxiety and depression. In addition there is humiliation, shame and loss of dignity. All this affects a person mental health and well being,” he added.

Referring to a Harvard study, Roy told IPS that corporal punishment affected the same part of the brain area that is affected by severe physical and sexual abuse.

And the scars never heal, said Khan.

“The effect of corporal punishment on different individuals is different. Some grow up to be abusers themselves; some grow up angry at parents and family for not protecting them. Others grow up with poor self confidence and self esteem. Many hate all authority figures and have difficulty in forming trusting relationships.”

Khan also pointed out that in terms of behaviour change there is enough research to show that corporal punishment never works “neither as a deterrent nor in terms of changing a student’s behaviour”. He told IPS students should certainly be disciplined for any transgression – academic, social, behaviour etc. but never physically.

But Roy’s work is far from over. In the absence of a bill, the other three provinces, namely Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, have standing administrative orders barring corporal punishment to be inflicted. To this, Sami Mustafa, an educationist who has been running a school system in Karachi for over four decades, said tersely, “When was the last time these court orders worked in improving the educational culture of schools?”

“These administrative orders do not mean much,” agreed Roy because these “do not criminalise the act” and so like in the case of Bilal, the teacher cannot be tried for murder. What’s more, “it is an interim order and so far is limited to schools” pointed out human rights lawyer, Sara Malkani. Nevertheless she found “filing this petition is an important step” and one which was “in the right direction”. “The goal now is to get a final order that permanently bans corporal punishment,” she told IPS.

Roy, too, is aiming for a more permanent solution. “I want to re-ignite a conversation whereby the legislators in these provinces can find it upon themselves to legislate.”

And with a “good law” to take cue from, according to Shahab Usto, who is representing Roy, the work for other provinces in law-making should not be too difficult. 

“Sindh’s law is quite comprehensive and can be replicated in other provinces,” he told IPS. “It encompasses all the possible situations where a child faces punishment be it school, work, rehabilitation centre, jail or other places. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, it will only take more time,” he said.

He further said the Sindh Child Protection Authority Act 2011 could be brought in aid to reinforce the implementation of the Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Act, as the former contains provisions for institutional arrangement.

“Both laws, if implemented in a mutually supplementary way, could make a substantive improvement towards protecting the child human rights in Sindh, for now,” he said. 

With Pakistan having ratified and becoming a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child back in 1990, which mandates member states to legislate the laws protecting children, Usto pointed out that Pakistan was “already behind schedule by 30 years”.    

Roy and Usto may be happy with the IHC’s verdict for now, but child rights activist and senior lawyer, Anees Jillani, has his misgivings about “judicial interventions” in matters that should “ideally be handled by the parliament and provincial assemblies coming up with a comprehensive law handling this issue”. He said this new trend by the judiciary overstepping its domain to “attract media attention” rather “unhealthy”.

“I don’t want his life to have gone in vain,” said Naeem, Bilal’s cousin. “This unfortunate event may well have gone unnoticed by society had my cousin not died from his injuries which created an uproar on the social media, after which the mainstream media took it up…This happens to scores of kids every day, and is seen by our society as an acceptable way of disciplining a child.”

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• Inclusive Education Still Evades People with Disabilities

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A Malawian nurse at a training session. A report looking into the discontinuation of U.S. global health assistance to foreign non-governmental facilities providing abortion or abortion-related services, says that the ban is affecting the population in Malawi. Credit:Claire Ngozo/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 2020 (IPS)

A report released last week has detailed the complex ways in which President Donald Trump’s ‘Global Gag Rule’ (GGR), that blocks U.S. global health assistance to foreign non-governmental facilities providing abortion or abortion-related services, is affecting the population in Malawi, a country already hard hit with numerous climate change disasters. 

The report, titled ‘A Powerful Force: U.S. Global Health Assistance and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Malawi’ was released on Feb. 10 by Washington, D.C.-based sexual and reproductive health rights organisation CHANGE, the Center for Health and Gender Equity. 

Serra Sippel, president of CHANGE, told IPS they chose to study Malawi in part because the country is a recipient of U.S. assistance in the three key fields of sexual and reproductive health: family planning, maternal and child health, and HIV and AIDS. 

“The GGR impacts health structures and when health structures are impacted, it is often the marginalised and criminalised groups who bear the brunt of the impact,” Sippel told IPS. “This includes people living in rural areas, adolescent girls and young women, and female sex workers.”

The report details the numerous ways in which GGR affects the fabric of a country where many communities are already averse to abortion, often owing to religious concerns. This means that when a young woman needs to get an abortion, they might do so in unsafe ways in order to keep them secret. 

One partner organisation is quoted in the report as saying, sometimes a girl “would drink a potion like a solution of washing powder and some will use sticks” to engineer her own abortion. 

In the Sub-Saharan country, where abortion is a taboo and can even lead to 14 years in prison in cases where there is no “life endangerment” of the pregnant person, more than 50,000 women suffer annually from unsafe abortion practices, according to the report. 

Marie Stopes International (MSI), which doesn’t have direct services in Malawi, estimates that about 78,000 women undergo unsafe abortion practices in the country, according to the report. Abebe Shibru, MSI’s country director in Zimbabwe, shared with IPS the general effect it’s having in sub-Saharan Africa.  

“The GGR continues to aggravate the situation of undermining women’s right for choice,” Shibru told IPS. “Lack of adequate services for family planning, increasing rate of teen age pregnancy and increasing maternal mortality, mostly from unsafe abortions, are some of the issues that the GGR contributes to.”   

Sippel told IPS that the local MSI affiliate Banja La Mtsogolo (BLM) was “forced to end their participation in the U.S. PEPFAR DREAMS Partnership, a highly effective HIV prevention programme, because of the GGR”.

Some of the impact is top-down from the government. In 2015, the Termination of Pregnancy Bill, introduced in Malawi to ensure safe abortion in cases of incest, rape, fetal anomaly, was “slowed down” by the Minister of Health given their fears that it would affect U.S. foreign aid in the country while President Trump is in office, according to the report. 

“We also met with the International Planned Parenthood Federation affiliate Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM) who was forced to stop their participation in the LINKAGES project which provides HIV and AIDS prevention, care, and treatment services for key populations. Because of the GGR they were forced to close four clinics,” Sippel added. 

There is also a further effect on a community that’s hard hit by climate change, and vulnerable to a range of climate concerns such as intense rainfall and droughts, among many other issues. These issues, although not directly related to GGR, further amplify the negative effects such foreign policy has on those at the center of the crisis, according to advocates.

“When women are displaced because of climate change, their risk of exposure to gender-based violence often increases,” Sippel told IPS. “They are walking longer distances to get water and firewood. Also, as women enter camps post-disaster, their access to SRHR services can often be limited.”

 

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• Ending Bullying and Humiliation over Menstruation as Girls and Boys in Conservative Eswatini are Educated about Reproductive Health

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By Jonathan Rozen
NEW YORK, Feb 19 2020 (IPS)

As reporters for Nigeria’s Premium Times newspaper, Samuel Ogundipe and Azeezat Adedigba told CPJ they spoke often over the phone. They had no idea that their regular conversations about work and their personal lives were creating a record of their friendship.

On August 9, 2018, Ogundipe published an article about a communication between Nigeria’s police chief and vice president. Days later, police investigating his source issued a written summons, CPJ reported at the time.

It was not addressed to Ogundipe and made no mention of his article or the charges he would later face of theft and possession of police documents. Instead, as Ogundipe recounted, police called Adedigba for questioning in connection with a slew of serious crimes, allegations that evaporated after police used her phone to summon her friend to the station.

Ogundipe’s experience is one of at least three cases since 2017 where police from across Nigeria used phone records to lure and then arrest journalists currently facing criminal charges for their work.

In each case, police used the records to identify people with a relationship to a targeted journalist, detained those people, and then forced them to facilitate the arrest.

The police methods reinforce the value of internet-based, encrypted communications at a time when authorities have also targeted journalists’ phones and computers to reveal their sources. Those prosecuted in all three cases are free on bail.

Nigerian journalist Samuel Ogundipe (Photo: Samuel Ogundipe)

“If the police called me and said we have something to ask you, I would go there…this is just their tactics,” Ogundipe said.

Ogundipe and Adedigba told CPJ that police made no secret of the way they had established their relationship, showing them each call records they claimed to have obtained from the pair’s cellphone network providers—Nigeria-based 9mobile, a subsidiary of the UAE-based Etisalat telecom company, and South Africa-based MTN, respectively.

“[Police have] been checking who I’ve been talking to…[in order to] see who was close enough to me to be used as bait,” Ogundipe added.

CPJ’s repeated calls in late 2019 and early 2020 to Nigerian police spokesperson Frank Mba rang unanswered.

The 2003 Nigerian Communications Act mandates that network service providers assist authorities in preventing crime and protecting national security. Regulations for enforcing it grant senior police officials the power to authorize requests to obtain “call data” from telecom companies without a judicial warrant, according to CPJ’s review.

That data includes where and when regular phone calls and SMS messages took place and between which numbers, according to documents reviewed by CPJ and interviews with three individuals with knowledge of police requests for call data in Nigeria. All three requested not to be named for fear of reprisal.

Nigeria has over 184 million active mobile phone lines, with roughly two million lines added every month to service its estimated 190 million people, according to 2019 data released by the national telecom regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). SIM card ownership for these lines is tracked under a 2011 regulation, which CPJ reviewed, mandating the collection of personal information, including fingerprints and photos, that police can access without a warrant as long as a senior-ranking officer gives written approval.

Other NCC regulations, released in October 2019 and reviewed by CPJ, detail police permissions to intercept communications under certain circumstances.

At the time of publishing, Ogundipe told CPJ his next court date had yet to be scheduled, but two journalists who were taken into custody at the end of 2019–Gidado Yushau and Alfred Olufemi–were preparing for their fifth hearing scheduled in Kwara State for March 4.

Similar to Ogundipe and Adedigba, police used call records to identify individuals that could be used to lead them to their targets, those affected told CPJ.

Nigerian journalist Gidado Yushau (Photo: Gidado Yushau)

Yushau, publisher of The News Digest website, and Olufemi, a freelance reporter, were charged in November 2019 with criminal conspiracy and criminal defamation in connection with a complaint over a May 2018 News Digest report Olufemi wrote about a factory owned by Sarah Alade, now special adviser to Nigeria’s president. Alade and other representatives of the factory did not answer calls or declined comment when CPJ reported on the case.

The first journalist police used to track down Yushau and Olufemi worked in another city for an unrelated news outlet. Wunmi Ashafa, a Lagos-based journalist with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), told CPJ that police tricked her into meeting, then made her summon her colleague, Yusuf Yunus, who in turn was used to facilitate the arrest of the Digest’s web developer, Adebowale Adekoya. The officers claimed to know they were connected from their call records.

Police were “tracking all the people that are calling me, that I’m talking to,” Yunus told CPJ in an interview. “The network provider has said that this line and this line have spoken at this particular hour,” he said police told him. Ashafa and Yunus said they were released after police detained Adekoya.

“I don’t know why they decided to do that,” Ashafa told CPJ, adding that she missed a meeting at her daughter’s school because police involved her. “They apologized to us, to myself and Yunus, that that was the only way they could get [Adekoya].”

Mistaken for the Digest’s publisher, Adekoya described being held for five nights, driven over 1,200 kilometers—including to Abuja and Kwara State—and threatened with detention if he did not lead the officers to Yushau and promise to help bring Olufemi into custody, before his release.

Nigerian journalist Alfred Olufemi. (Photo: Alfred Olufemi)

CPJ reached Peter Okasanmi, a spokesperson with the Kwara State police, by phone in January. He declined to comment on Yushau and Olufemi’s case because the trial was ongoing, but described how police regularly used telecommunications information to make arrests.

“We are able to track the culprits by use of technology through the SIM [cards] that were registered,” Okasanmi said. “Suspects, they are usually like kidnappers…we use all of those gadgets to track their locations and get them arrested…we have our own equipment we are using,” he added, without elaborating.

On November 4, CPJ contacted NCC spokesperson Henry Nkemadu by phone and upon his request sent questions regarding security agencies’ access to communications data, but received no response. Subsequent calls to Nkemadu and other NCC officials went unanswered.

Police used a similar tactic in 2017 to arrest Tega Oghenedoro, the Uyo city-based publisher of the Secret Reporters news website who writes under the pseudonym Fejiro Oliver, CPJ reported this month.

He faces cybercrime charges related to reports alleging corruption in a Lagos-based Nigerian bank and is due in court on May 28, CPJ reported.

Isaac Omomedia, an aide to the governor of Delta State, told CPJ in October 2019 that he did not know Oliver, but that they had a mutual acquaintance, Prince Kpokpogri, the publisher of Integrity Watchdog magazine.

In March 2017, Omomedia arrived at a hotel in Asaba, the Delta State capital where he lives, after receiving a call to collect a parcel from the DHL delivery company, he told CPJ.

Instead, he was met by six police officers who questioned him about Kpokpogri, someone they claimed to know he was in touch with by reviewing his call records. On their instructions, Omomedia said he invited Kpokpogri to a meeting.

Kpokpogri told CPJ that police arrested him upon arrival, drove him over 200 kilometers to Uyo, and told him, in turn, to summon Oliver. The officers had identified him because they had “bugged” both his and Oliver’s phone lines, he remembered them saying. Kpokpogri said police arrested Oliver when he arrived and drove them both over 350 kilometers to Benin City; Oliver was then flown to Lagos and Kpokpogri was released without charge.

Kenneth Ogbeifun, the Lagos-based investigating officer in Oliver’s case, requested emailed questions when contacted for comment by CPJ in January 2020. Follow-up emails and messages went unanswered.

CPJ also reached an officer who confirmed his name as Moses and that he was part of the team that arrested Oliver on behalf of Lagos police, but when asked about how Omomedia and Kpokpogri were used in the arrest, the line disconnected.

Those involved in Oliver’s arrest, and the chain leading to Yushau and Olufemi, told CPJ they relied on the Nigeria-based Globacom, also known as Glo, India-based Airtel, or MTN for their cell phone service.

“I will give you the number used to commit the crime and you have only 60 minutes to produce the details,” the Premium Times quoted Isa Pantami, Nigeria’s minister of communications and digital economy, as saying in late 2019. Operators that failed to produce data would be sanctioned, according to that report.

CPJ called the ministry of communications and digital economy in mid-January. Philomena Oshodin, a deputy director, said that she was not the relevant person to comment before the line went silent; follow up messages went unanswered.

Between November 2019 and January 2020, CPJ reached out to public relations departments at MTN, 9mobile, Airtel, and Glo, and emailed questions to representatives for each about security agencies’ access to telecom user data in Nigeria. None replied with answers by date of publication.

“You’re reporting as a journalist, which is not a crime…[but] you feel you’re being punished,” Ogundipe told CPJ, reflecting on his arrest and prosecution. “It’s very scary…it’s difficult to predict how far these guys will go.”

For information on digital safety, consult CPJ’s Digital Safety Kit.

*Jonathan Rozen is CPJ’s senior Africa researcher. Previously, he worked in South Africa, Mozambique, and Canada with the Institute for Security Studies, assessing Mozambican peace-building processes. Rozen was a U.N. correspondent for IPS News and has written for Al-Jazeera English and the International Peace Institute. He speaks English and French.

The post How Nigeria’s Police used Telecom Surveillance to Lure & Arrest Journalists appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Jonathan Rozen* is Senior Africa Researcher at Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

The post How Nigeria’s Police used Telecom Surveillance to Lure & Arrest Journalists appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 18 2020 (IPS)

When UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addressed the 193-member General Assembly last December, he focused on the smoldering climate crisis– pointing out that the last five years have been the hottest ever recorded.

Ice caps are melting, he said, In Greenland alone, 179 billion tonnes of ice melted in July. Permafrost in the Arctic is thawing 70 years ahead of projections. Antarctica is melting three times as fast as a decade ago.

“Ocean levels are rising quicker than expected, putting some of our biggest and most economically important cities at risk. More than two-thirds of the world’s megacities are located by the sea. And while the oceans are rising, they are also being poisoned,” Guterres warned.

And as the planet burns, one million species in the world’s eco-system are in near-term danger of extinction
According to a new survey of 222 leading scientists from 52 countries conducted by Future Earth, there are five global risks — failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation; extreme weather events; major biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse; food crises; and water crises. And four of them — climate change, extreme weather, biodiversity loss, and water crises — were deemed as most likely to occur?

Asked about the impending disaster, Dr. Anne Larigauderie, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) told IPS that climate change, extreme weather events, biodiversity loss and food and water crises are already happening, primarily as a result of human activities, and they are deeply impacting the lives of people around the world.

“It is therefore imperative for the science and expert community to make their voices heard – as Future Earth has done, building on the key messages of the IPBES Global Assessment Report – to provide decision-makers with the evidence and options they need to act.”

Of real significance, however, is that it is not just the voice of science that is now speaking up for nature – consider that the global business community has also become increasingly vocal about the risks of the nature crisis and the need for evidence-informed action.

For example, in the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Risk Report, the top five perceived risks are all environmental and “systems-level thinking,” as called for.

Decision-makers have a wide range of options across sectors, systems and scales to shift to more sustainable pathways.

Dr. Anne Larigauderie

One million species face extinction, but the solutions to the nature crisis are still within our reach, said Dr Larigauderie, in an interview with IPS.

In the run-up to October’s historic UN Biodiversity Conference, officials and experts will convene at FAO headquarters, Rome, 24-29 Feb. for negotiations on the initial draft of a landmark post-2020 global biodiversity framework and targets for nature to 2030.

The new framework will be considered by the 196 Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the 2020 UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP15), Kunming, China, 15-28 Oct.

Excerpts from the interview:

IPS: How many of the 20 Aichi biodiversity targets—including the integration of biodiversity values into national and local development and poverty reduction strategies – have been achieved so far/will still be achieved even as the 2020 deadline is looming over the horizon?

Dr Larigauderie: The IPBES Global Assessment Report shows that, of the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets, good progress has been made towards components of just 4 target, moderate progress towards components of 7 more targets, with poor progress towards all components of 6 other targets. Conservation actions, including protected areas, efforts to manage unsustainable use and address the illegal capture and trade of species, and the translocation and eradication of invasive species, have been successful in preventing the extinction of some species.

Good progress has been made on less than 10% of the 54 total elements. On 39% of the elements, poor progress and even some loss of progress has been seen.

As a result, the state of nature overall continues to decline, with 12 of 16 indicators showing significantly worsening trends.

It has never been more urgent for decision-makers at every level to have the best evidence and heed the warnings of science, for the decisions made now will have direct implications for our shared future.

IPS: How is the world doing on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially as regards the impact of the nature crisis and the likely missing of most of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets on efforts to achieve these?

Dr Larigauderie: Human development depends directly on nature – from food and water security, to jobs, health and general well-being. The rapid declines we are seeing now in biodiversity, and many of nature’s contributions to people, mean that most international development goals will not be achieved – unless we make fundamental, system-wide changes. The IPBES Global Assessment Report found that 80% of assessed SDG targets will be undermined by negative trends in nature.

The Sustainable Development Goals and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets are closely connected, with many of the Aichi Targets having been integrated into the SDGs.

Our failure to achieve the Aichi Targets does not bode well for efforts to achieve the SDGs – unless we see fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values – to tackle the direct and the indirect drives of the nature crisis.

Besides clear connections to climate, oceans and land, the nature crisis has direct implications for poverty, hunger, health, water, and cities in addition to more a complex relationship to education, gender equality, reducing inequalities, and promoting peace and justice.

Without transformative change addressing both the direct and indirect drivers of biodiversity loss, we will not achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

IPS: How will the rising global population — from the current 7.6 billion to an estimated 8.6 billion in 2030, with 43 cities reaching over 10 million each by 2030– have an impact on biodiversity targets? There are already warnings that the increase in population will have negative implications on the demand for resources, including food, infrastructure and land use.

Dr Larigauderie: Population growth is a major indirect driver of change in nature. Since 1970, the human population has more than doubled, but at the same time, per capita consumption has also risen sharply [15% since 1980], the global economy has grown nearly fourfold, global trade has grown tenfold, and the environmental and social costs of production and consumption have shifted away from those most directly responsible.

In other words, population growth is important but is only one of many key indirect drivers of change underpinning the unsustainable use of our natural resources. Other important indirect drivers include economy and technology, institutions and governance and conflicts, all of these being dependant on our values and behaviours.

Addressing all of the indirect drivers, including population growth, in an integrated and holistic way, will best enable us to achieve our shared global development goals.

Indeed, as the co-chairs of the CBD’s Open-ended Working Group on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework note, “the wide-ranging changes that are needed to reach the 2050 Vison will require an unprecedented degree of collaboration and whole-of-society engagement.” (Zero draft, page 3, 6(f))

IPS: In this important “super year” for nature, with major milestones expected on both climate change and biodiversity, what plans are there to bring the science/expert communities from both climate and biodiversity together to help best inform the decisions and actions for the coming decade?

Dr Larigauderie: 2020 has real potential to be a turning point for society, where we can begin to holistically transform our relationship with nature. The ‘Super Year for Nature’ is an opportunity for decision-makers at every level of society to listen and act on the science on both biodiversity and climate change. The stakes could not be higher.

Climate change and biodiversity loss are inseparable challenges that must be addressed together, in the scientific community as well as in policy and business.

From 12 –14 May this year, well before the two major UN biodiversity and climate conferences in 2020, IPBES and the IPCC will co-sponsor a workshop – the first of its kind – to bring leading scientists together to focus on the opportunities to meet both of these challenges and on the risks of addressing them separately from one another.

The workshop report will be an important document informing the CBD and UNFCCC Conferences of the Parties (COP15 and COP 26, respectively) regarding implementation of the Paris Agreement, the post-2020 biodiversity framework and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The IPBES Global Assessment found that nature-based solutions can provide more than one-third of climate mitigation needed to keep warming below 2°C.

Enquiries: Rob Spaull, IPBES Head of Communications Robert.spaull@ipbes.net

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 18 2020 (IPS)

In an annual ritual early in the year, most major economic organizations have released forecasts for the global economy in 2020. Incredibly, almost as a reminder of where financial power resides in this day and age, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its forecasts at the World Economic Forum’s 50th annual meeting in Davos.

Anis Chowdhury

Although the IMF revised its global economic growth prognosis slightly downwards from its October 2019 forecast, it still offers the most optimistic prospect of 3.3% growth in 2020. The World Bank’s forecast of 2.5% – identical to the United Nations (UN) estimate – is the lowest, with the OECD’s at 2.9%.

The IMF justified its optimism by improved market sentiments following the Phase One US-China Trade Deal and diminished fears of a ‘no-deal Brexit’. Goldman Sachs describes these developments as ‘A Break in the Clouds’, forecasting global growth at 3.4% in 2020, while Morgan Stanley sees ‘Calmer Waters Ahead’, expecting 3.2% in 2020 and 3.5% in 2021.

Perils of ‘talking up’
It is not unusual for these organizations to be optimistic: after all, they do not want to be seen as naysayers, or prophets of doom, especially if their pronouncements are later denounced as self-fulfilling prophecies.

But ‘talking up the economy’ can have grave consequences, as with the 2008-2009 global financial crisis (GFC). Then, the IMF revised its forecast upward in July 2007, a month before the US ‘sub-prime’ mortgage crisis morphed into the worst global downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Meanwhile, the OECD was confident that any US ‘soft-landing’ would be offset by robust European economic performance. Such forecasts fostered a false and ultimately dangerous sense of invulnerability and complacence before the storm broke.

Policymakers ignored warnings by the United Nations since 2005 about fundamental weaknesses, including growing global imbalances and the debt-financed US housing bubble. As is now well known, the collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage market brought down world finance and, eventually, the global economy.

Hazards of forecasting
Thankfully, it is customary to include some cautionary notes with these annual forecasts, even when optimistic. For example, the IMF now warns of more downside risks, including geopolitical tensions, social unrest, trade tensions, and developing economies’ financial turmoil.

Both the UN and the IMF fear that the climate crisis can trigger financial stress, further slowing economic growth. To make matters worse, ignoring fundamental weaknesses and focusing excessively on ephemeral short-term trends can be dangerously misleading.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

To be sure, forecasting is extremely hazardous, and sometimes compared unfavourably to astrology. Forecasters factor in plausible developments, but completely unpredictable ‘black swan’ events, such as the novel coronavirus pandemic, can upset even the best of forecasts.

Meanwhile, the World Bank warns of ballooning debt, both public and private. The UN and the World Bank also note that the sharp productivity growth slowdown since the GFC has reduced long-term growth and poverty reduction prospects; furthermore, high inequality will also delay such progress.

Both the UN and the IMF note that high and rising inequality also engenders greater social and political polarization, unrest and instability. Additionally, the UN also warns of deepening political polarization and growing scepticism about multilateralism as significant downside risks.

But none mention that the long-run effects of income inequality on both consumption and output can be quite large, delaying economic recovery by limiting aggregate demand and capacity utilization.

Policy failure
Such fundamental weaknesses owe much to policy failures. Unlike the New Deal following the Great Depression of the 1930s, all too many contemporary policymakers shy away from addressing core problems, such as financial excesses, rising household debt, exorbitant executive salaries vis-à-vis stagnant, if not declining real wages, that also contributed to the GFC.

Low (negative) interest rates, due to unconventional monetary policy, especially ‘quantitative easing’ (QE), have not promoted productive investments, and allowed less-productive firms to survive. Thus, QE failed to boost productivity.

‘Easy money’ has been used for share buy-backs, mergers, acquisitions and inflated executive remuneration. Thus, as before the GFC, ‘fictitious capital’ is being systemically generated once again, contributing to asset price bubbles and endangering financial stability.

‘Easy money’ from developed economies has also flowed to developing countries in search of better returns, making them more vulnerable, besides raising their indebtedness yet again.

QE has also contributed to rising inequality. Meanwhile, major central banks have exhausted much of their means for lending at very low or even negative interest rates as they have very limited room to cut interest rates further.

No fiscal saviour
Besides reducing overall revenue collection and marginal income tax rates, the longstanding trend from direct to indirect taxation has shifted tax incidence from incomes to consumption, largely at the expense of the middle class.

Pursuing fiscal austerity under various guises, governments have slashed social and infrastructure spending in favour of public-private partnerships skewed in favour of influential corporate interests. Fiscal austerity also slowed economic recovery and technology adoption to the detriment of productivity growth.

Such fiscal reforms have not only exacerbated inequality, but also kept countries and households in debt bondage. And as governments have less fiscal space with rising debt, their ability to respond to crises – financial, climate or pandemic – is severely compromised.

Missed opportunity
Had national policymakers, led by the G20, embraced the UN recommendation for a Global Green New Deal to stimulate recovery, address the climate crisis and reverse growing inequality, the global economy could have been put on a more inclusive and sustainable path.

Such hopes remain even more elusive in an increasingly fractured world where multilateralism itself has been discredited and deliberately undermined by ethno-populism’s relegitimization of jingoism.

The post Global Economy Still Slowing, Dangerously Vulnerable appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Angus Wright, Ivette Perfecto and John Vandermeer
OAKLAND, California, Feb 18 2020 (IPS)

When we were children, a long auto trip would require a stop every hour or so to clean the windshield of the insects that had been intercepted.

Today’s windshields are spared this indignity—a convenience for motorists but a terrifying signpost of danger for the well being of the planet and humanity.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the current peril we face as we push forward into what is now understood as the beginning of a new mass extinction. Yet efforts to curb this potential catastrophe are hindered by limited understanding of the relevant sciences, both natural and social.

And a keystone issue is agriculture, both as partial cause of the crisis, and potential contributor to its solution. This is understood technically, but restricted limits of debate continue to force a restricted set of proposed solutions.

To take an extreme example, E. O. Wilson, one of the world’s best-known biologists, recently proposed that half of the Earth’s surface should be put into protected status for the sole purpose of preserving biodiversity.

While his proposal is unusually bold, the general idea of a vast expansion of protected areas is common among some conservationists in the United States and elsewhere. At present, something less than fifteen percent of planetary surface is in some kind of protected status, with various international agencies committed to expanding protected areas to seventeen percent.

Implementation of what Wilson calls a “Half-Earth” strategy would require that more than three times as much land than at present be designated as “protected” areas for the primary purpose of biodiversity protection.1

Wilson acknowledges that a Half-Earth approach would require an extreme intensification of agricultural production on land outside protected areas in order to provide enough food for human needs. He does little to contemplate what kind of intensification would be required.

Neither does he acknowledge the impact conventional intensification would have on biodiversity. Since he relies on previous production gains under industrial agriculture as evidence of the possibility of greater gains using similar techniques, he apparently does not see any serious drawbacks to such techniques.

Some conservationists who favor strategies similar to Wilson’s, speak of agricultural land as “sacrifice zones,” in which intensification, making liberal use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers and other industrial style techniques, would necessarily reduce non-food organisms to a bare minimum, a “sacrifice” necessary for the pesky species Homo sapiens.

Ironically, these conservationists’ support for land-sparing converges with agribusiness’ interests to increase industrial agricultural intensification.

In the growing scientific literature, this perspective has come to be called “land-sparing,” with the idea that agricultural intensification must be used to spare as much land as possible from human activity in order to leave the rest for the flourishing of non-human species.

In contrast to the land-sparing approach, others who are equally as interested in biodiversity conservation have proposed a “land sharing” approach, in which it is argued that high food production and biodiversity conservation may be achieved most efficiently if pursued simultaneously in a planned fashion.

This point of view is suspicious of what they call the “fortress” protection ideology, in which areas are designated to be free of any human activity, assuming that in such areas all species initially there will survive in perpetuity.

The land-sharing point of view is frequently characterized, perhaps incorrectly, as one in which the agricultural activity itself needs to be sufficiently benign for all the biodiversity in the area, such that purely protected areas are unnecessary.

Either-or Versus Both-and

The land-sparers emphasize increasing agricultural production to minimize land-use devoted to agriculture. The land-sharers emphasize the need to have an agriculture that is favorable for the survival of species.

The first sees the protected area as the only place where biodiversity is conserved; the second sees a benign form of agriculture that itself contains the whole of the biodiversity. In the second edition of our book, Nature’s Matrix, we argue that both sides of this debate are wrong.

Most of Earth’s terrestrial surface contains patches of natural, unmanaged, vegetation. The “landscape” is, by definition, those patches plus the “matrix” in which they are located.

A simplified summary suggests that for one side, the only thing that matters are the patches of natural vegetation (and thus they need to be protected), while for the other side the only thing that matters is a matrix that is conducive to the survival of species. Both sides are wrong.

Very basic ecology acknowledges that local extinctions of species occur regularly, even in the most protected of areas. Local extinctions are, in fact, a normal part of nature. What determines ultimate survival is whether the matrix of the landscape allows for migration and/or reproduction.

Protected areas are very seldom large enough to provide conditions for the survival of most species. If species do not move freely through that matrix, then local extinctions can balloon into regional, and even global, extinctions. Thus, the ability for organisms to migrate and reproduce in agricultural areas is critical. The survival of a species in even the most protected areas will be otherwise undermined by surrounding industrial agricultural “sacrifice zones.”

What we propose in our second edition of Nature’s Matrix is not a strictly “land sharing’ approach, since we recognize the need for maintaining protected areas.

However, we also recognize that the goal of producing enough food to satisfy human nutritional demand does not require the conversion of those protected areas to agriculture, no matter how biodiversity friendly.

We agree with Kremen’s recent analysis of the debate, noting that instead of an either-or approach, we need a “both–and” approach that “favors both large, protected regions and favorable surrounding matrices.”2 We further argue that a matrix favorable to biodiversity can only be achieved by an alliance of diverse social movements and organizations.

Promoting the Nature’s Matrix Approach

In the United States and other industrialized nations, there are a variety of organizations that implicitly or explicitly favor this “nature’s matrix” perspective, including most environmental organizations.

Among the most important are land trust organizations that sign contracts with land owners to create or maintain agriculture that is supportive of relatively high species diversity. Organizations bringing together practitioners and researchers of low input or organic agriculture, agroecology, rotational grazing, and production of perennial crops all usually favor species friendly production techniques.

In Europe, and to a lesser degree in the United States, governments offer cash payments or other reimbursements to farmers who adopt production plans that directly and indirectly favor wildlife.3 These initiatives are complemented in many urban areas by planning for parks, parkways, and greenbelts that offer wildlife-friendly areas within urban boundaries, and in the best of circumstances, connect urban landscapes directly to biodiversity friendly agriculture.

In the biodiverse tropics, support for high quality matrices include organizations of those who are already practicing biodiversity-friendly agriculture, such as those cultivating shade grown coffee and cacao. These organizations are supported by trade certification schemes for “shade grown” and “bird friendly” products.

In Asia, there are smallholder rice systems which support high biodiversity, and organizations which support them. Frequently these organizations include land reform movements, organizations of producers within designated extractive reserves, indigenous peoples, and family farm confederations, most of which have officially adopted policies promoting agroecological farming techniques that tend to create high-quality, biodiversity-friendly matrices.

The organization La Via Campesina, an international alliance of peasant and small-scale agricultural producers, promotes such approaches. There is a general recognition among such organizations that, for a variety of reasons, their members have often practiced agriculture that tends to destroy or degrade species-rich environments, but that understanding strengthens their resolve to support positive change that, they believe, will tend to support more successful, small-scale agricultural production as well as biodiverse landscapes.

As in industrialized countries, a substantial portion of the environmental movement in the global south supports policies promoting agroecological approaches to agriculture that promote complex landscapes friendly to high levels of biodiversity.

New Coffee Plants at a Rainforest Alliance Certified Coffee Farm in Guatemala. Photo courtesy of USAID Biodiversity and Rainforestry (CC BY-NC 2.0).

The Search for Empirical Validation

Empirical study of the two strategies has been less than convincing, due to limitations in both time and space. How long a time period is appropriate? Useful studies must begin with actually occurring landscapes, landscapes in which an intricate dance involving agriculture and species survival has a long history.

Counting insect splats on our windshield over the average period of five years will not likely lead us to the same conclusions as 50 year personal observations. Indeed, there is virtually uniform acknowledgment from the community of scientific ecologists that local extinctions are extensive, leading some to refer to the “extinction debt” of particular landscape patterns.

This reality means that we have little idea of when the dance might be declared over, making it exceedingly difficult to set empirically appropriate beginnings and ends to studies. We may be able to measure population density at a given point in time, but knowing whether any given population is decreasing its numbers to near extinction is a difficult empirical problem.5

Similarly, if two such landscape level approaches are to be compared, where does one draw the boundary between one approach and the other? Most actually occurring landscapes seem to be a blend of the two strategies in ways that make it very difficult to compare because only an arbitrary spatial boundary can be determined, and yet, if none is determined, what should be measured?

In addition, very few advocates of either position insist on a simple either/or dichotomy and are compelled to recognize that all regional landscapes are some kind of a mix. In contrast to Wilson’s sharply arbitrary “half-earth” suggestion, most involved in the debate on both sides understand that it is a matter of emphasis rather than a question of choosing between polar opposites.

Not surprisingly, a proliferation of carefully designed studies meant to compare sparing and sharing approaches have led to conclusions that add detail to understanding the problem but that fall far short of demonstrating the superiority of one approach over the other.

In spite of a very measured and reasonable effort by Kremen in 2015 to put an end to an increasingly polarized debate, Wilson and others continue efforts to sharpen the idea of an “either-or” approach by vastly increasing the territorial ambitions of the land-sparing advocates while avoiding critical discussion of the damaging effects of industrial agriculture.

And the growing attempt to study the problem empirically may confuse rather than enlighten. Despite a significant amount of research, convincing empirical evidence establishing one approach over the other is not to be found.

There are a number of reasons for this lack of resolution, reasons that are fundamental to the nature of the problem and unlikely to be resolved.

For those of us who argue for a landscape approach, where both natural vegetation patches and a high quality matrix comprise the landscape, the essential problem with the land-sparing perspective can be summarized in two related points: first, land-sparing strategies assume that protected areas are far more protective of biodiversity than is the case; and, second, the strategies assume that the negative effect of industrial agriculture on biodiversity is minimal and can remain so even under measures to intensify production. Both of these assumptions rest on an idea of control over nature that is illusory.

The insects flying out of a reserve understand little of the poison that awaits them in the neighboring soybean landscape. This false sense of control over both human life and ecological processes derives at least partially from a particular way of thinking shaped by a particular moment in political time and space, and is not likely to serve either humanity or biodiversity well.

The post Biodiversity & Agriculture: Nature’s Matrix & Future of Conservation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Angus Wright, Ivette Perfecto and John Vandermeer, authors, Food First, Institute for Food and Development Policy

The post Biodiversity & Agriculture: Nature’s Matrix & Future of Conservation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Getting the measure of water in a southern Indian village. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS.

By Saahil Kejriwal
Feb 18 2020 (IPS)

Over the last few decades, groundwater has become the major source of irrigation for Indian agriculture. Pumped by millions of privately-owned tube-wells, it contributes 60 percent of the water used for irrigation, having grown by 105 percent since the 1970s.

However, India is now facing a severe crisis of groundwater depletion, and the most vulnerable are the hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers who crucially depend on irrigation water for their livelihoods.

The manner in which these farmers will cope with and adapt to these changes will have dramatic implications for global food security, social stability, and progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

India is now facing a severe crisis of groundwater depletion, and the most vulnerable are the hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers who crucially depend on irrigation water for their livelihoods.
There are broadly two views on how farmers might adapt to depletion in groundwater. According to optimists, they may adopt new agricultural practices or technologies, such as rainwater harvesting or drip irrigation, that can enable them to manage with less water and maintain their agricultural income.

Pessimists however warn that as water runs out, farmers may adapt by shifting labour to non-agricultural sources of income generation, or by migrating to areas with better employment opportunities, creating massive waves of ‘water refugees’.

A recent study on adaptation strategies taken post long-term water loss in rural Karnataka helps inform this debate.

The nays have it: there is little evidence that agricultural incomes are maintained

The study collected detailed data from 1,500 farmers in 100 villages across Karnataka—a state that is reeling under the pressure of persistent drought and depletion of groundwater resources. It was found that the drying up of wells was extremely widespread: over 60 percent of farmers in the sample have had their wells dry up.

To understand the effects of this on farmers, researchers compared farmers whose first well had dried up or failed, with those farmers residing in the same village who had drilled equally deep wells in the same year, but whose wells were still functional.

Specialised cameras inserted into the borewells revealed a complex and variable geology, indicating that well failure is random and a matter of fortune. Because of this irregularity, it was possible to find farms with a dried-up well right next to farms still irrigated by active wells.

This allowed the study to attribute differences in the socio-economic status of farmers in the sample to the condition of their wells i.e. whether they were functional or not.

Here are four key findings from the study:

 

There was a decline in agricultural income and not enough adaptation

Households suffered a dramatic decline in agricultural income following the loss of access to groundwater due to the drying up of their first borewell. There was little evidence that households can adapt enough to maintain agricultural incomes.

The study found that though households could potentially have drilled additional wells as a means to adapt to the failure of their first borewell, the cost and risk of doing so prevented most households from pursuing it.

Less than 25 percent of the respondents expressed an intention of attempting to drill another borewell, with 93 percent of them blaming the high costs involved—each failed borewell costs close to INR 50,000.

Failure of the first borewell also led to a decline in the probability that a household uses irrigation at all. There was a decrease in the cultivation of horticultural crops, which require a more controlled, consistent, and reliable supply of irrigation water than most field crops, and a partially compensating increase in the cultivation of field crops.

Horticultural crops—such as fruit and vegetables—generally fetch a better price in the market, and so this shift further impacted agricultural income. Dry-season cultivation, in which irrigation is more important, had a larger change in cropping.

 

Households were able to offset the loss in agricultural income through increased off-farm income

The study showed that households were able to largely offset the loss in agricultural income through increased off-farm income. Failure of the first borewell led to a decline in own-farm cultivation and a compensating increase in employment off the farm. These trends were more pronounced in the dry season.

However, the reallocation of labour was achieved without substantial migration or even employment in nearby villages, arguing against the idea that groundwater decline will result in large waves of ‘water refugees’.

The average borewell failure in the sample occurred about ten years prior to the survey. Hence, these adaptations could be understood as medium- to long-term strategies, rather than temporary, short-term coping mechanisms.

 

There were negative impacts on school enrolment and assets held by the farmers

Even though overall income was maintained post the failure of the first borewell, the lives of these farmers were negatively affected in other ways.

There was a reduction in school enrolment and a rise in employment among children old enough to be employed (12–18 years old). Interestingly, the enrolment rates among younger children (6–11 years old) increased.

One explanation is that borewell failure reduces the potential of young children to contribute to the farms, thereby reducing the opportunity cost of attending school. Another explanation is that borewell failure pushes households to make greater investments in the human capital of their younger children, in order to prepare them for non-agricultural employment.

The failure of the first borewell also affected the assets and debts of farmers. While there was no evidence that farmers sold off land in response to borewell failure, there was a devaluation in non-land assets—specifically a decline in livestock, bicycle, and refrigerator ownership, as well as a substantial decline in gold holdings.

Further, both the probability of having outstanding debt, and the absolute amount of debt, increased. The reasons for this could be attempts to smooth consumption and the costs of drilling another well.

 

Areas with higher industrial development were more likely to maintain incomes

The study categorised the villages in the sample as ‘low-development’ and ‘high-development’, depending on the total number of workers employed by large firms located within 5 kilometres of the village.

Households in both low- and high-development areas displayed a similar decline in on-farm employment. However, households in high-development areas displayed a larger shift toward off-farm employment, and those in low-development areas experienced a larger increase in unemployment.

Additionally, the decline in farm income in high-development areas was smaller, but insignificantly so. The increase in off-farm income, however, was significantly larger in high-development areas. As a result, there was a sizeable difference in incomes in both areas.

To summarise, evidence from the study suggests that loss of access to irrigation water reduced income through agricultural activities, with little indication that households adapted to these losses through shifts in agricultural practices.

On the other hand, they seemed to be relatively successful in off-setting agricultural income losses through a reallocation of labour to off-farm employment, leaving total income little affected. The ability of households to adapt their income through non-agricultural employment, however, depended on the structure of the local economy, specifically the presence of large firms in their vicinity.

 

Know more

• Read the full study with more detailed insights on American Economic Review.
• Watch a short summary of the study, including a snippet from the field.
• Read a similar study on the impact of water scarcity on farmers in the state of Gujarat.

Do more

• Connect with two of the authors of the original study: Ram Fishman and Veena Srinivasan.
• If you are interested in partnerships through which Israeli experience and technology in water use efficiency can be adapted, tested and put to practice in the Indian context, get in touch with Ram’s lab (Nitsan lab) at Tel Aviv University.

 

Saahil Kejriwal is an associate at IDR. He is responsible for sourcing and editing content, along with online and offline outreach. He has completed the Young India Fellowship, a postgraduate diploma in liberal studies, from Ashoka University. Prior to that, Saahil worked as an instructional designer at NIIT Ltd. Saahil holds a BA in Economics from Hansraj College, University of Delhi. He spent his early years in Guwahati, Assam.

 

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

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Credit: China.org

By James Liang
BEIJING, China, Feb 17 2020 (IPS)

As efforts to contain the Coronavirus epidemic enter a critical stage, it is important to remember that the costs cannot be measured purely in economic terms, as the measures taken will have implications for life expectancy across the entire nation.

Analysis of historical data from various countries gives insight into the relationship between life expectancy and GDP per capita.

In the first place, it is clear that countries with higher per capita incomes have longer life expectancies, owing to the ability and willingness of wealthier nations to invest in healthcare, infrastructure, and environmental governance, thereby increasing life expectancy and reducing fatality rates.

Research suggests that, in general, a 100% increase in per capita income under similar conditions equates to an increase in life expectancy of 1-3 years. Over the past few decades, with the continued increase in per capita income in China, life expectancy has steadily increased in tandem.

On the basis of this, we can make a conservative estimate that a 50% decrease in GDP would see a 1.5 year decrease in life expectancy. Thus, for each 1% reduction in in GDP, life expectancy will decrease by approximately 10 days.

This hypothesis can be tested against the economic theory of the “value of life”. In the realm of economics, “value of life” is a relatively mature concept which refers to the amount that a society is willing to spend in order to increase the average life expectancy.

Some will deem the notion of calculating a value for life to be cynical or even repulsive, as life is priceless. From an ethical point of view, this is entirely correct.

In reality, however, whether in terms of work, business, or social management, a balance must be struck between reducing the risk of fatality and the cost of doing so. In order to identify this balance, a value for life must be calculated in a scientific, if seemingly ruthless, manner.

For example, some jobs inherently entail a far higher risk of fatality than others, such as underground mining and construction of ultra-high buildings. From the perspective of purely reducing the risk of death, these jobs should be eliminated.

But in reality, doing so would both increase the unemployment rate and have adverse impacts on the natural progression of related work, and ultimately, society as a whole will bear the cost of underdevelopment.

In this case, a more rational approach would see the introduction of stronger labor protections for such jobs. Finally, with an income premium determined by the market, high-risk jobs would be rewarded with higher salaries, and an acceptable balance may be achieved.

Similarly, enterprise and government must strike a balance between risk and cost in the provision of transportation infrastructure. For example, in designing a new road, governments can reduce the number of fatalities through the implementation of safety provisions, like extra lanes, non-motorized lanes, and wider sidewalks.

Evidently, however, not all roads are built in this way. Does this mean that the designers of those roads had a disregard safety? Of course, this is not the case.

Even if the proposed road is designed to be impeccably safe, should the cost be RMB 10 billion (approx. USD $1.4 billion), it is likely that the road will not be built at all, leaving people with no transportation infrastructure.

Thus, for such construction projects, the government will issue minimum standards for safety, but it is up to the designer to determine the upper limit.

So, how much is a reduction in fatality worth?

In determining this, an implicit calculation is made to strike a balance with the value of life. In fact, economists have long calculated the value of life in economic terms based on data from various countries.

Generally speaking, the value of life in developed nations is between 10-100 times the GDP per capita. Assuming that the value of life is calculated at 30 times the GDP per capita, the average life expectancy would be around 80 years, or approximately 30,000 days.

This inference can be tested by comparing the GDP per capita and life expectancy of different countries.

In terms of preventing and controlling infectious diseases, with reference to influenza numbers from previous years, in the absence of large-scale compulsory quarantine measures, the infection rate will not exceed 10% of the overall population, and the fatality rate will be around 0.2%.

Thus, the total number of fatalities relative to the entire population will be 2 in 10,000 (0.02%). Assuming that the life expectancy of those who die of influenza is around 60 years, and the average life expectancy across society is 80 years, each person who has died of influenza will have died prematurely, on average, by 20 years.

Calculating on the basis of the fatality rate of 2 in 10,000 (0.02%), the per capita reduction in life expectancy will be 20 multiplied by 0.02, which is four-thousandths of a year, or about 1.5 days. Therefore, on average, the impact of a mass-scale influenza outbreak on human society is a reduction in life expectancy of 1.5 days.

On the basis of this analysis, it is possible to infer a reasonable social policy. If every person infected with influenza, that is, 10% of the population, is quarantined for 14 days, and family members who have been in close contact with them (assuming 20% of the population) are also be quarantined, the loss to GDP due to their inability to participate meaningfully in the creation of wealth for this period will be 30% * 14/365 = 1% of GDP.

As mentioned above, a 1% GDP regression will cause a retrogression across society in medical care, infrastructure and environmental governance, amounting to a reduction in the average life expectancy of about 10 days, a number far greater than the impact of influenza.

Based on this calculation alone, pure isolation is not an effective means of containing influenza, and thus no country or society will implement such measures.

Some may deem the above calculation to be alarmist, but in actuality, this does not even take into account the formidable operation costs of isolating so many people, or the costs of restriction population movement.

A less optimistic estimation of the losses incurred could be 10% of GDP, or even higher, leading to a reduction of the average life expectancy by 100 days or more, possibly amounting to a loss of life equivalent to dozens or hundreds of times the number of deaths attributable to influenza itself.

Of course, if quarantine measures are able to isolate the flu at an early, small-scale stage, for example, 1% of the population, or within one or two cities, then such measures can still be effective.

Once infections spread to over 10% of the population, however, the continued isolation of patients and people in close contact with them will amount to a greater overall toll on lives.

The present epidemic is distinct from previous influenza outbreaks, and therefore, factors such as mortality, the rate of infection, and the proportion of people who need to be quarantined are different, and a significant amount of data is yet to be observed.

The same logic, however, applies to the impact of the economy on life expectancy.

Society has established its determination to beat this epidemic, and such an attitude is undoubtedly correct and necessary, and ultimately, this victory will belong to the entire human race.

However, I also hope that as society strives to beat this epidemic “at all costs”, the above analysis can help society to keep various “costs” to a minimum.

We must adopt a scientific and rational attitude in determining the most appropriate means of controlling and eradicating the epidemic.

In responding to the novel coronavirus, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other diseases that threaten lives, we must also give comprehensive consideration to social and medical resources, and strike a balance that is conducive to protecting lives.

Regularity and security in everyday life and work is an important and fundamental part of life for every person, and we should strive to minimize the impact to this.

*The opinions expressed are entirely that of the author.

The post Coronavirus Epidemic Has Implications for Life Expectancy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

James Liang* is co-founder and Executive Chairman of Trip.com Group and professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management

The post Coronavirus Epidemic Has Implications for Life Expectancy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A child wades through water on her way to school in Kurigram district of northern Bangladesh during floods in August 2016. Credit: UNICEF/Akash

By Fairuz Ahmed
NEW YORK, Feb 17 2020 (IPS)

For any riverine country, the state of the water body around big cities and conditions of major rivers hold a leadership position in the overall climate effects and how the water body is protected and preserved impacts the entire economy and living standards of that country. Bangladesh is renowned for the geomorphic features that include massive rivers flowing throughout the country. Within the border of Bangladesh lie the bottom reaches of the Himalayan Range water sources that flow into the Bay of Bengal totaling the number of rivers by a count of 700. The length of river bodies is about 24,140 km. There are predominantly four major river systems: the Brahmaputra-Jamuna, the Ganges-Padma, the Surma-Meghna, and the Chittagong Region river system. The Brahmaputra is the 22nd longest (2,850 km) and the Ganges is the 30th longest (2,510 km) river in the world. (1) The river system works as a backbone for agriculture, communication, drinking water source, energy source, fishing and as the principal arteries of commercial transportation in Bangladesh. During the annual monsoon period between June and October, the rivers flow about 140,000 cubic meters per second and during the dry period, the numbers come down to 7000 cubic meters per second.

As water is vital to agriculture, more than 60 percent of the net arable land, some 9.1 million hectares, is cultivated during the monsoon. (2) Besides having the massive river bodies Bangladesh is also home to nearly 165 million people and is the 8th most populated country with a land area spanning 147,570 square kilometers (56,980 square miles), making it one of the most densely-populated countries in the world. (3)The country’s flat topography, dense population, and weak infrastructure make it uniquely vulnerable to the powerful and unpredictable forces that climate change compounds. The threat is felt from the flood and drought-prone lowlands in the country’s north, to its storm-ravaged coastline along the Bay of Bengal. Along with 6 million climate refugees, around 12 million of the 19.4 million children most affected by climate change, live in and around the powerful river systems which flow through Bangladesh and are regularly affected greatly by river erosion. (4) Coastal residents in Bangladesh are losing their homes and farmland at an astonishing rate due to riverbank erosion, which affects roughly 1 million people and displaces 50,000 to 200,000 every year. (5)

Over 14.8% of the population here live below the poverty line, 3.25% of the rural population lack access to water and almost 53.14% of rural population lack sanitation. (6) Lack of access to safe water and improved sanitation facilities in rural areas, overcrowded conditions, and a lack of healthy ways of disposing of waste in urban centers, all contribute to the water and sanitation crisis in Bangladesh. (7) Although 97% of the total population has access to water, the quality of water is questionable. Groundwater is also not as safe as the threat of arsenic contamination is very high all over the country. (8)

Land degradation, dwindling wetlands, ever-increasing pressure on forest areas, air pollution and climate change has become a major focus for the survival of Bangladesh. In spite of these challenges, Bangladesh has become one of the world’s five fastest-growing economies, averaging more than 6% annual growth over the last decade. (9) The country is moving on a development pathway to becoming a middle-income country and dreams to go beyond.

A man tries to fish in the Meghna while huge metal pipes pour silt on the river to fill it up at Gazaria of Munshiganj. A private petroleum purification plant is filling up the river, defying a High Court order. Such illegal acts have become rampant and the authorities concerned remain oblivious to those. Photo: Rashed Shumon/ The Daily Star

A Pentagon commissioned US military report on climate, points to Bangladesh being the most vulnerable country when it comes to the escalating effects of climate change. As one of the least developed countries in the world, Bangladesh is making one of the smallest contributions to global emissions. (10) Yet, being one of the most densely populated nations on the planet, the huge population os Bangladesh is paying some of the highest prices for intensifying weather patterns.

The Bangladesh government accepted climate change a decade back and has become one of the most proactive governments in the world in dealing with it. They are working on building resilience and adaptation strategies to better cope with the pressing situation. In 2009, the government of Bangladesh brought local experts together and the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan were created as a result. Over the last ten years, the minister of finance has been putting $100 million into promoting these actions and the research to tackle climate change. Dr. Saleemul Huq, a Bangladeshi scientist, director of International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) who has been named among the: World’s 100 Most Influential People in Climate Policy for 2019 has remarked that: “In our formulation of the narrative of Bangladesh, we used to be the most vulnerable country in the world. We still are. But, we are on our way to becoming the most resilient country. We are actively going up the learning curve on how to deal with the problem very fast.” (11)

On a visit to Bangladesh in July 2019, the former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon commented that: “Bangladesh is the best teacher in climate change adaptation. We are here to learn from Bangladesh’s experiences and vision when it comes to adaptation, our best teachers are opened doors who are on the front lines of climate change,” He also said that if the sea level rises just by one meter, almost 17% of the country would be underwater by 2050 and while the rest of the world debate climate change, for Bangladesh adapting to a warmer, more violent, less predictable climate is a matter of absolute survival. (12).

The Government has amped up the efforts of fighting climate change and environmental pollution and undertaken a number of initiatives such as Green Growth Strategy, Bangladesh Environment Conservation Act and the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan. Rigorous monitoring and enforcement activities are in place to curb environmental pollution by compelling industries to set up and maintain the Effluent Treatment Plant. Much emphasis is also given on the conservation of biological diversity through the implementation of a Coastal and Wetlands Biodiversity Management Project. (13)

Bangladesh is among the few countries that have a separate court on the environment. So if a river is polluted or encroached upon, those affected by it are able to go to court seeking remedial measures. The Government has also intensified drives in the capital city of Dhaka and elsewhere to evict river grabbers. (14) The High Court has declared rivers as a “legal entity” and this is aiding in freeing rivers from enrichment and in combatting pollution. According to an article published in The Daily Star, multiple laws are there in place for river conservation. If the High Court’s judgment per case by case is carried out along with police involvement and empowerment paired with the vigorous implementation of the laws by the custodians, the rivers can be conserved and be protected from grabbers.

Both the government and the people of Bangladesh are recognizing the climate change issue, and are actively trying to tackle it because the problem is large and complex. The government of Bangladesh is open to adaptation and are revising their plans to tackle the situation even better for the future. (15) With community efforts, general awareness of climate change and its effects, proper implementation of laws, along with Government monitoring, intervention and maintaining the acceptable water quality of rivers and the overall water body of Bangladesh can be hoped to be reversed gradually.

1. http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=River
2. http://countrystudies.us/bangladesh/25.htm
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh
4. https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/04/1036141
5. https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2018/03/cnre-bangladesh-river-basin.html
6.https://www.charitywater.org/our-projects/asia/bangladesh?utm_medium=ppc&utm_source=adwords&utm_campaign=geo&utm_content=bangladesh&gclid=CjwKCAiAp5nyBRABEiwApTwjXu4MhD1UJ4h0UG76ZjWNDNCEPni4gYg5q1eJDXegldNaDSiRfwoC2hoCfoMQAvD_BwE https://water.org/our-impact/bangladesh/
7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6684462/
8. UN: Climate disasters imperil Bangladesh kids’ lives, future By JULHAS ALAM. April 4, 2019
9. https://web.unep.org/environmentassembly/bangladesh
10. https://www.thedailystar.net/environment/climate-change-policy-2019-dr-saleemul-huq-among-world-100-most-influential-1718266
11.https://www.mondaq.com/australia/Environment/881378/Your-PM-is-an-arsonist-An-interview-with-climate-expert-Dr-Saleemul-Huq-of-Bangladesh
12. This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/bangladesh-best-teacher-climate-change-adaptation-un-ex-chief-ban-ki-moon/)
13. https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/news/new-plan-four-rivers-1698151
14. https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/river-grabbing-in-bangladesh-183727
15. https://www.dhakatribune.com/climate-change/2019/03/20/dr-saleemul-impact-of-global-warming-inevitable

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Mission 1.5 players will take on the role of climate policymakers trying to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Courtesy: UNDP

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 17 2020 (IPS)

The United Nations Development Programme is leading a climate change effort that might finally address concerns many advocates have: bridging the gap between people and governments. 

The “Mission 1.5, a campaign” was launched in New York on Thursday, with the purpose of bringing the people closer to their governments with their suggested — and even ambitious — climate action plans.

The campaign is designed around an internet and mobile-based video game, available here, that UNDP is targeting will reach 20 million people around the globe, providing them with an opportunity to voice their solutions.  

“One of the things that has been really important to us about Mission 1.5 is to really ensure that we can reach as many people as possible,” Cassie Flynn, UNDP climate change advisor, told IPS. “What we know that this is a huge industry, and how do we use that industry to tackle one of the biggest problems in the world?”

Jude Ower, founder and CEO of Playmob, a gaming company that works on social advocacy through their games and designed Mission 1.5, told IPS that climate-oriented games are their most popular.

She noted that the gaming industry’s “massive scale” of the industry — with 2.7 billion players around the world — can play a role in moving forward with climate action.

“The number one thing people do on their phone apart from social media is gaming,” she told IPS at the launch. “It’s a great way to reach people in an uninterrupted way and gaming is great for telling stories, for engaging people, for inspiring action as well.”

In this game, the players are asked questions about solutions for climate change in different fields such as green economy, fossil fuels, corporate responsibility, and more. 

The questions have three options for answers — while one of the three is usually an answer that is obviously against a progress towards appropriate climate action, the other two are more nuanced. And based on the answer one picks, they’re awarded either 700 points or 1,000 points. 

At the launch on Thursday, attendees played the game and shared their notes — the collective results were projected on the screen for everyone to see. 

“Mission 1.5 is learning from the world of gaming and digital technology,” Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator said at the launch, “and together we tried to identify the different ways in which people throughout the world cannot just be spectators of climate change, not just sit in meetings and be lectured at, be told about the science, be told about the challenge, and often be told about the reasons about why we’re not acting.”

After the game, players are asked to vote on key climate actions they want to see adopted. This data will be analysed and delivered to governments, who often lack access to reliable information on public opinion on climate action. 

The game is not for just young kids — the organisers reiterated that this game can be played by anyone around the world, irrespective of their age and location. 

“This is a game for everybody. It’s a game that parents can play with their kids, and for friends to play,” Flynn told IPS. “We’re really excited for this being able to help everyone, no matter whether you know a lot about climate change or a little climate change, you can get something out of it, and you can learn.”

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By PRESS RELEASE
NEW YORK, Feb 17 2020 (IPS-Partners)

In just one week, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), with the Governments of Ethiopia and Chad and implementing partners, launched two new multi-year resilience programmes in Chad (7 February) and Ethiopia (14 February) with US$48 million in seed funding over three years to roll out crucial programme activities and catalyse additional resources.

The budgets for these multi-year programmes total US$216 million and thus call for urgent funding to fill the remaining gaps. When fully funded, the programmes will support quality education for approximately 1 million children and youth affected by conflict, forced displacement, protracted crises and impacts of climate change, including droughts and floods.

With the launch of the government-led programmes in Chad and Ethiopia, ECW and its partners have now realized a proven model for advancing humanitarian-development coherence in 10 crisis-affected countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, State of Palestine, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Uganda.

“In Chad, Ethiopia and other crisis-affected countries, children’s lives have been ripped apart by conflict, forced displacement, climate change impacts and protracted crises. Girls are the most affected and are therefore our top priority. Across these programmes, we must ensure that every child and young person can enjoy their right to inclusive and continued quality education in a protective learning environment – one that caters to all their educational needs and allows them to become who they were meant to be,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait.

“We must not leave these children behind. They all have the right to develop and thrive. By working together with national governments, UN agencies, donors and other key partners, we are building a global movement to reach these children and to accelerate actions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals within the UN’s Decade of Action,” continued Sherif.

ECW operates with unprecedented speed and agility in mobilizing partnerships and resources to deliver results for children, helping to advance Sustainable Development Goal 4 – quality inclusive education – for children and youth affected by conflicts, disasters, forced displacement and protracted crises.

In just three years of operation, the Fund has already raised over half a billion dollars and reached over 2.3 million girls and boys, including refugees, internally displaced children, and other children and youth affected by emergencies and protracted crises.

Kickstarting resource mobilization
The programme launches in Chad and Ethiopia kickstart global efforts to fully fund each of the multi-year resilience programmes (MYRPs), and donors are encouraged to help make a transformational difference in the lives of crises-affected children and youth.

• In Chad, ECW plans to allocate a total US$21 million over three years in seed funding grants to catalyse the additional US$30 million required to fully fund the three-year programme and reach 230,000 crisis-affected girls and boys.
• In Ethiopia, ECW plans to allocate a total US$27 million in seed funding grants to catalyse the additional US$138 million required to fully fund the three-year US$165 million programme and reach approximately 746,000 crisis-affected girls and boys.

The ECW-facilitated MYRPs help bridge the gap between emergency response and long-term development and focus on reaching the most marginalized and vulnerable children and youth, such as girls and children with disabilities. MYRPs are developed on the ground in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders – national governments, UN agencies, donors, private sector and civil society.

Interventions are designed to provide whole-of-child solutions and to reintegrate out-of-school girls and boys into learning and training programmes, improve learning environments, train teachers, improve the governance of the education system in emergency situations, provide psychosocial and school feeding services, support early childhood education and to increase enrolment and retention.

Yasmine Sherif meets with girls and boys in Chad in advance of the multi-year resilience programme launch.

Key facts and figures on Chad
The protracted crisis in Chad has pushed 1.2 million children (aged 6 to 11) out of school. Only 19 per cent of girls and 40 per cent of boys access lower-secondary-school education, and only one out of every ten girls complete middle school. Developed under the auspices of Chad’s Ministry of National Education and Civic Promotion (MENPC) with the support of Education Cannot Wait and a range of UN agencies and international and national civil society partners, the new MYRP focuses on refugee, displaced and host community children and youth and those affected by food insecurity and malnutrition.

In advance of the Ethiopia launch, Yasmine Sherif visited with children in Ethiopia’s hard-hit Oromiya Region with the State Minister of Education H.E Tsion Teklu, and representatives from Save the Children and UNICEF

Key facts and figures on Ethiopia
Ethiopia has an estimated 1.4 million displaced, returnee, and refugee children, mostly resulting from conflicts and natural disasters. One million of these children are out of school, 527,000 of them girls. Latest data shows that 728 schools have been damaged by conflict or natural disasters. In Ethiopia, the Ministry of Education will lead the programme in partnership with Save the Children, UNICEF, Education Cannot Wait, and the Education Cluster.

# # #
Notes to Editors

• View online
• Multi-Year Resilience Programme Launch in Ethiopia (Read the full announcement here)
• Multi-Year Resilience Programme in Chad (Read the full announcement here: En, Fr)
• Share our social Chad video on facebook and twitter
• Share our social Ethiopia video on facebook and twitter

About Education Cannot Wait: ECW is the first global fund dedicated to education in emergencies. It was launched by international humanitarian and development aid actors, along with public and private donors, to address the urgent education needs of 75 million children and youth in conflict and crisis settings. ECW’s investment modalities are designed to usher in a more collaborative approach among actors on the ground, ensuring relief and development organizations join forces to achieve education outcomes. Education Cannot Wait is hosted by UNICEF. The Fund is administered under UNICEF’s financial, human resources and administrative rules and regulations, while operations are run by the Fund’s own independent governance structure.

Please follow on Twitter: @EduCannotWait @YasmineSherif1 @KentPage
Additional information at: www.educationcannotwait.org

For press inquiries: Kent Page, kpage@unicef.org, +1-917-302-1735
For press inquiries: Anouk Desgroseilliers, adesgroseilliers@un-ecw.org, +1-917-640-6820
For any other inquiries: info@un-ecw.org

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Excerpt:

TOGETHER WITH PARTNERS, THIS WEEK SAW THE LAUNCH OF TWO MULTI-YEAR RESILIENCE PROGRAMMES TO ACCELERATE SDG 4

 
10 multi-year programmes have been approved to date as ECW – the global fund for education in emergencies – and partners gain momentum to support UN Decade of Action

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Cargo containers at the Port of Mombasa. Kenya is experiencing a shift in the pattern of its exports and imports. Credit: Standard

By Ambassador Amina Mohamed
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 17 2020 (IPS)

The rise of the services economy around the world represents a profound transformation that offers significant opportunities for countries’ sustainable development strategies.

Globally, services now comprise the largest share of economic activity and employment, accounting for almost two-thirds of global GDP. In Africa, services have grown and now account for over 50 per cent of GDP, including for almost 60 per cent of GDP in East Africa. For African countries that are not resource-rich, in particular, services have contributed for the greater part of annual GDP growth since 2000, compared to manufacturing and agriculture.

The rise of services is also occurring in the sphere of international trade and investment. Services are increasingly tradable as a result of technological advances and now represent the fastest growing component of world trade, as well as account for the largest share of global foreign direct investment.

Services, Trade and Development

Services trade is important from a development perspective for various reasons. A range of services – from finance to telecommunications or logistics – are essential to facilitate all other economic activities, and are therefore critical to economies’ overall competitiveness and growth. Access to affordable and efficient services, through trade and investment, benefits all other economic sectors and improves export performance in manufacturing and agriculture.

Amb. Amina Mohamed

Services also offer increasing opportunities for exports and diversification. While Africa still only accounts for a small share of total world services trade, the region’s exports grew by 10 per cent in 2018. Services exports of least-developed countries (LDCs), the majority of which are African countries, increased by 15 per cent in 2018, though their share of world services trade remains minute. In the case of Kenya, several services sectors, such as tourism, aviation, finance and ICT, have flourished and boosted the country’s exports and economic growth. Other Industries including, the cut flowers industry have done extremely well as a result of efficient logistics services.

By its very nature, services trade can be instrumental in efforts to promote inclusiveness by providing increased opportunities to women and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). Globally, the services sector employs more women than other sectors and hosts large numbers of MSMEs. A dynamic and expanding services sector, encouraged by growing trade and investment, contributes to the empowerment of women and enhances economic and social inclusion.

Finally, services are an essential part of regional integration efforts, as recognized by governments in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Strengthening economic relationships in Africa – including by facilitating the development of agriculture and industrialization – requires a strong services sector in the region. In Kenya, for example, suppliers and distributors of telecom, transport and financial services play a fundamental role in facilitating broader trade integration in East Africa. Services enable landlocked countries overcome geographical constraints and effectively access regional and global markets for their products.

International Cooperation Matters

At the regional level, trade agreements, in particular the AfCFTA, are indispensable in supporting the sector’s expansion and growth. They will ensure that all countries benefit from such expansion of economic activity by creating new trade opportunities and fostering transparency and predictability through clear and mutually advantageous rules. A key test for the AfCFTA would be whether it promotes inclusive growth and sustainable development of all African countries and not just a few.

At the multilateral level, engagement on services has the potential to complement regional efforts and help advance national objectives, while contributing to building a climate conducive for the advancement of African negotiating interests in agriculture and other areas. WTO Members took a notable step in promoting the further integration of LDCs in the trading system by adopting, in 2011, the services waiver, which allows these economies to receive preferential access for their services exports. But to increase the participation of developing countries, including African countries, the capacity constraints faced by them need to be taken into account.

Trade obligations on services are best complemented by the international community’s efforts, in the context of Aid for Trade, to help build domestic services capacity and support governments’ regulatory and trade facilitative efforts.

Paying due attention to both aspects will be key to ensuring that services trade helps fulfil development aspirations of many developing countries.

The post Why Trade in Services Matters for Development and Inclusiveness in Africa appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Ambassador Amina Mohamed, is the Cabinet Secretary for Sports, Culture and Heritage in the Government of Kenya.

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