Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Esther Ngumbi and Ifeanyi Nsofor
ILLINOIS, United States / ABUJA, Oct 16 2019 (IPS)

United Nations World Food Day is celebrated around the world on October 16 under the theme: “Our Actions ARE Our Future. Healthy Diets for a Zero Hunger World”. This theme is timely, especially, because across Africa and around the world, there has been a gradual rise in malnutrition and diet-related non communicable diseases, as highlighted in The Lancet study and a United Nations Report published earlier this year.

While 45 percent of deaths in children are from nutrition-related causes, mainly malnutrition, diet-related non communicable diseases like obesity is a fast-growing problem across the world causing low- and middle-income countries to face a double burden of malnutrition.

Globally, non-communicable diseases kill the most people every year. Based on 2016 data, out of 56.9 million deaths, 40.5 million were due to non-communicable diseases (30.5 million were in developing countries). Diabetes, one of the complications of obesity led to 1.6 million deaths.

While 45 percent of deaths in children are from nutrition-related causes, mainly malnutrition, diet-related non communicable diseases like obesity is a fast-growing problem across the world causing low- and middle-income countries to face a double burden of malnutrition

Obesity is ubiquitous – every country is dealing with this pandemic in one form or another. Rates of obesity among females aged 5-19 years is 59%, 42% 36%, 8% in U.S., South Africa, Brazil and India respectively.

Research in Ghana shows that children from poorer backgrounds are more vulnerable to food insecurity and narrow dietary diversity. In contrast, consumption of processed foods rich in sugar but poor in nutrients is common among all socioeconomic classes. Showing that obesity does not respect boundaries. In Scotland, about 30% of adults and 13% of children are obese – this is attributable to foods and drinks high in fat, sugar and salt.

It is said that; the youths are the future. However, if the present trends of diet-related non communicable diseases like obesity among youths fueled by unhealthy foods continue, the future would be unhealthy. This is how to make the future healthy.

 

First, focus on consumption of plant-based nutritious meals among women of child-bearing age. One way to achieve this is by civil society organisations working with government to identify locally available nutritious meals and training families on how best to prepare these meals.

Data shows that most important time for using nutrition to improve cognition and physical development of a child is the first 1000 days of life (from when the woman becomes pregnant, through-out pregnancy, birth and until the baby is 2 years old).

In addition to the woman eating nutritious meals, there are several nutritional interventions to achieving these, including – exclusive breastfeeding within one hour after birth until the baby is 6 months old; introduction of nutritious complementary meals at 6 months and continuing of breastfeeding until the baby is 2 years old.

The good news is that, the African continent is endowed with indigenous vegetable plant varieties such as amaranth greens, African nightshade, Ethiopian mustard and fluted pumpkins that are affordable, and highly nutritious and dense in essential micronutrients that are lacking in many of the foods African.

In addition, many of these vegetable plants are highly adapted to the African climate and can endure drought and pests. Further, women that grow these crops for consumption can also earn income by selling the excess vegetables.

In Nigeria, for example, women farmers growing these indigenous highly nutritious indigenous African vegetable plant varieties are reaping several benefits including earning income and boosting food security. Similar success stories are documented in several African countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia.

 

Second, all nations should ban artificial trans-fat production and use. Globally, consumption of trans fat accounts for more than 500,0000 deaths due to heart disease every year, according to the World Health Organization.

The harmful effects of trans fat is by raising bad cholesterol and lower good cholesterol levels. Therefore, increasing risk of heart disease, stroke and insulin-dependent diabetes. Already there are lessons from countries that have policies on artificial trans fats.

For instance, South Africa limits industrially produced trans-fat in foods, fats and oils; and U.S. and Canada bans the source of industrially-produced trans-fat and require trans-fat to be labeled on packaged food.

 

Third, reduce daily consumption of salt to less than one teaspoonful a day because the sodium contained in salt increases blood pressure.

Hypertension in turn, is implicated in 7.5 million deaths every year.  According to the U.S. Centres for Disease control, more than 70% of the sodium Americans consume comes from processed and restaurant foods. There are several ways to reduce salt consumption such as public education, front-of-package labelling, promotion of salt substitutes, industry reformulation of packaged foods, and intervention for restaurants.

The United Kingdom salt reduction program led to lower slat content in processed foods, resulting in a 15% reduction in population salt intake.

 

Lastly, countries must come up with comprehensive policy approaches or revise already existing national nutrition policies to address this growing diet-related non communicable diseases. Once they’re set, governments must place high priority on them to ensure that nutrition policies are implemented and followed and that citizens are aware of them.

The complex, widespread and global rise of diet-related health diseases demand that we re-assess the foods we eat every day. Doing so will pave the way to a world where people are healthy.

 

Dr. Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor at the Entomology Department, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She is a Senior Food security fellow with the Aspen Institute and has written opinion pieces for various outlets including NPR, CNN, Los Angeles Times, Aljazeera and New York Times. You can follow Esther on Twitter @EstherNgumbi.

Dr. Ifeanyi M. Nsofor, a medical doctor, the CEO of EpiAFRIC and Director of Policy and Advocacy at Nigeria Health Watch. I am a 2019 Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at George Washington University, a Senior New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a 2006 International Ford Fellow. You can follow me on Twitter @ekemma. 

The post Let Plants be Thy Medicine – You Are What You Eat appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan documented some 100 attacks in the Afghanistan’s presidential election period, from Jun. 8 to Sept. 30. Some 85 civilians died and 373 others were injured. Pictured here is a dated photo of the country’s 2009 elections. Courtesy: UN Photo/Tim Page

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 16 2019 (IPS)

A wave of bloody Taliban attacks aimed at derailing Afghanistan’s recent elections killed and maimed hundreds of people, including children, the United Nations mission to the country said on Tuesday.

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, known as UNAMA, documented some 100 attacks in the country’s election period, from Jun. 8 to Sept. 30, which claimed the lives of 85 civilians and injured 373 others.

On polling day itself, Sept. 28, some 249 civilians were injured and another 28 were killed, with children making up more than one-third of the victims in a day of carnage across the turbulent South Asian country.

The bloodshed underscores the fragile state of Afghan democracy and the relative strength of Taliban insurgents some 18 years after the United States and others invaded the country in a bid to tackle terrorism that has dragged on far longer than expected.

Tadamichi Yamamoto, head of UNAMA and the world body’s envoy to Afghanistan, lauded Afghans who bravely “defied the threats” and “cast their votes” despite fears of Taliban gunfire, grenades and other perils.

“These attacks, along with public statements made by the Taliban, revealed a deliberate campaign intended to undermine the electoral process and deprive Afghan citizens of their right to participate in this important political process, freely and without fear,” said Yamamoto.

United Nations special report describes severe impact of election-related violence on civilians in #Afghanistan, mainly coming from the Taliban’s deliberate campaign to disrupt the 28 September presidential election. More: https://t.co/ET9Tk9bFvX. pic.twitter.com/o0zQuwZFBR

— UNAMA News (@UNAMAnews) October 15, 2019

Some 95 percent of the attacks were the work of the Afghan Taliban group, which has been waging an insurgency since it was toppled by a United States-led coalition following al-Qeada’s Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.

Most of the Taliban strikes were carried out with grenades, rockets and mortars, but some home-made bombs were also planted near polling stations, which included schools, researchers said in the eight-page report.

Speaking with IPS and other reporters in New York on Tuesday, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric blamed “most of the violence” on the “Taliban’s deliberate campaign to disrupt Afghanistan’s presidential election”.

“The report not only documents the harm to civilians caused by the Taliban’s violent offensive to disrupt the election but also highlights a pattern of abductions, threats, intimidation and harassment carried out by the Taliban against civilians,” Dujarric said.

Only about one-quarter of eligible voters cast their ballots — a low turnout of an estimated 2.6 million votes that was attributed to Taliban threats and concerns over the fairness of elections in a country that is riddled with graft.

Though the vote was safer than a parliamentary ballot in 2018, Afghanistan has since been gripped with political uncertainty and the front-running candidates complaining about the process even before a result has been called.

The leading candidates — President Ashraf Ghani and his main rival Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah — both claimed victory on polling day, even though preliminary results will not be released until this Saturday at the earliest.

Unless one of the candidates secures a majority of more than 50 percent, the elections will proceed to a second round. The Independent Election Commission says that biometric voter verification and other safeguards have cleaned up Afghan elections.

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, weeks after the 9/11 attacks, to topple the Taliban. The hardliners regrouped and have waged a fierce insurgency for years against the government, US forces and other Western allies in Afghanistan.

The Taliban control more of Afghanistan than at any time since its regime was toppled in 2001, and government security forces are struggling to contain the militants as several rounds of U.S.-Taliban peace talks in Qatar have so far failed to clinch a deal.

In another report released on Tuesday, the International Crisis Group, a research and advocacy organisation, warned that 2018 was Afghanistan’s deadliest year yet, with a death toll comparable to the Syrian and Yemen wars combined.

The group warned of “extended political wrangling” between presidential candidates should they contest the outcome of the presidential vote, while noting the “glimmers of an opening for the resumption of U.S.-Taliban talks”.

“If talks restart and produce a deal, that could mark the beginning of a serious peace process. If, on the other hand, they remain frozen, Afghanistan may descend into worsening violence,” the group said in a statement.

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UN Forum opens with call for decisive action in cities to deliver on SDG targets

By PRESS RELEASE
PENANG, Malaysia, Oct 15 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(ESCAP news) — The Seventh Asia-Pacific Urban Forum (APUF-7) opened today with a strong call for cities to take the lead and embrace a “can do” spirit in driving sustainable development commitments across the region.

The Asia-Pacific region became majority urban in 2019 for the first time in human history. With more than 2.3 billion people in the region now living in cities, the need for a sustainable urban future has never been greater. By 2050, an additional 1.2 billion new urban residents will also have profound implications for the region’s economy, society and environment.

“A city should not just happen anymore. Every block, every building and neighbourhood requires careful planning. Cities can play a major role in supporting a more sustainable and inclusive future in our region. Yet, this depends on decisive action in cities and urban centres right across Asia and the Pacific,” said United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) Ms. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana at the Forum’s opening.

“Cities in Asia and the Pacific are at the forefront of global efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, serving as engines of economic prosperity, innovation and well-being. To ensure the full implementation of the New Urban Agenda, our cities must be better planned, managed and financed for improved resilience and to meet the needs of all citizens, including the urban poor. We must protect the environment and leave no one and no place behind,” said United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) Ms. Maimunah Mohd Sharif.

Attended by over 7,000 policymakers, expert speakers, thought leaders from national and local government, private sector, research communities and civil society from 60 countries, the three-day Forum will provide opportunities to mobilize common actions to address critical urban development challenges as well as provide insights into future-proofed urban solutions.

“Across the world, urban centres are assuming a larger role in achieving the SDGs, and this is particularly true with climate change,” said Prime Minister of Fiji Hon. Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama. “As concentrated population hubs with high-density living, the world’s cities –– over 90 per cent of which are located on the coast –– are naturally more vulnerable to catastrophic weather events, they have an outsized carbon footprint, and their buildings and infrastructure trap heat, further intensifying the effects of global warming. But when it comes to meeting any of our SDGs, we shouldn’t see our cities as the problem; with proper urban planning, and through innovative, local thinking, they can be the solution.”

“Urbanization is one of the defining trends of Asia-Pacific’s transformation. Cities generate over 80 per cent of gross domestic product in many countries in Asia and the Pacific and are engines of economic growth. The quality and efficiency of our cities will determine the region’s long-term productivity and overall stability,” said H.E. Ms. Hajah Zuraida Kamaruddin, Minister of Housing and Local Government, Malaysia.

H.E. Mr. Chow Kon Yeow, Chief Minister of Penang highlighted the importance of localizing approaches to the SDGs: “In Penang, we have a vision to become A Family-Focused Green and Smart State that Inspires the Nation. This is our Penang2030 vision. It is not a blueprint for development but an approach and a call to stakeholders to participate and contribute in shaping Penang’s future towards a liveable and green city.”

Natural resource management, climate change, disaster risk and rising inequalities are posing major urban development challenges across the region, according to The Future of Asian and Pacific Cities Report 2019 launched today at the Forum.

The Report makes the case for four priorities and four approaches to realize a sustainable urban future in Asia and the Pacific. A sustainable future occurs when planning lays a foundation; resilience guards against future risk; smart cities deploy the best technology for the job; and financing tools help pay for it all. Getting these essentials right in cities today, the Report argues, is vital in order to adapt to the demands of tomorrow. The Report will serve as a vital road map for the next decade of Asia-Pacific’s urbanization and serve as a reference to shape cities of all sizes, from booming intermediate cities to ageing legacy cities, heading into the crucial final decade to meet the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda.

The Future of Asian and Pacific Cities Report 2019 was jointly developed by ESCAP and UN-Habitat, in close collaboration with the Asian Development Bank, the European Union, Singapore’s Centre for Liveable Cities, The Rockefeller Foundation and the United Nations Development Programme.

The Asia-Pacific Urban Forum, which has been held every four years since 1993, is the largest regional gathering of urban stakeholders. This year the Forum is organized by ESCAP and UN-Habitat, in partnership with Urbanice Malaysia and the Penang Island City Council.

For more information on APUF-7 visit: www.apuf7.org

Download the Future of Asian and Pacific Cities Report 2019 at: http://bit.ly/FoAPC2019

Media Enquiries
Ms. Kavita Sukanandan, Public Information Officer, Strategic Communications and Advocacy Section, ESCAP, T: (66) 2 288 1869 / E: sukanandan@un.org

Ms. Susannah Price, Head of Communications Branch, UN-Habitat, T: (254) 20 762 5518 / Mobile: (254) 722 719 867/ E: susannah.price@un.org

Ms. Amalia Izzati Shariffuddin, Communication, Publicity & Event Management, Urbanice Malaysia, T: (60)138047445 / E: amalia.urbanicemalaysia@gmail.com

Dr. Mohd Rizal bin Osman, Director, Business Development & Operations, Urbanice Malaysia, T: (60)3 2081 6170 / E: mrizal.urbanicemalaysia@gmail.com

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Excerpt:

UN Forum opens with call for decisive action in cities to deliver on SDG targets

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By Lindsay Falvey
MELBOURNE, Oct 15 2019 (IPS)

Success has many parents – so the saying goes. In the case of the massive successes of international agricultural research, no one person can claim parentage. There are heroes along the way such as Norman Borlaug and his early cereal breeding, and the team that eliminated the cattle disease Rinderpest from the world – smallpox is the only other disease that has been totally eradicated. Another is the founder of The Crawford Fund, Derek Tribe, who was also instrumental in the creation of what is now the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), which I chair. However, it would be more correct to highlight the thousands of scientists who have contributed to the world’s greatest feat of feeding an extra three billion people when pundits said it was impossible.

More than 30% of the world was hungry in the 1960s; today it’s around 15% yet population has doubled. Australia has been a consistent funder and collaborator in this major success, much of which was achieved through international agricultural research centres, particularly those that form CGIAR, a global research-for-development partnership working for a food-secure future. Australians have been highly represented in these and other elite research centres since their beginnings in the 1960s.

Now, 50 years on, a new generation of agricultural scientists, thought leaders and research managers is needed to carry on this scientific and humanitarian work in the face of such complex and ‘wickedly’ inter-related problems as world poverty and malnutrition, global warming, and mass migration.

My own association with this rewarding international field has spanned many different aspects from research to research governance to development. It has not been as scientifically profound as many of my colleagues – but it has been fulfilling, worthwhile and fun. I would like to share part of that story to encourage others who are entering the sector.

Fifty years ago I started in the tropics, which led into 45 years’ association with international agricultural research and development. It is easy to imagine that my ‘career’ was somehow planned, but I have not had a career in that sense at all. A colleague once described it more as opportunistic, which is largely correct – it has been based on taking opportunities where I thought I could make a difference as they arose, and accepting the risks that came with them.

The first ingredient was a sound agricultural science education, which fortunately Australia continues to offer. My ‘career’ included, for example; conducting livestock research in what was remote northern Thailand; development consulting for the World Bank, AsDB, UN and the aid organisations of three countries but mostly Australia; managing development-consulting companies; being Dean of the nation’s largest faculty of agriculture; some private sector ventures; directorship of a major foreign investment in agriculture; reviewing two international research centres, and chairing the ILRI board. The trajectory is non-linear and is far from conventional, but what skills were honed by one field proved useful for others. If I have any advice for some of the NextGen, it is – if you are comfortable with change, take opportunities as they arise rather than follow what were the career paths of the OldGen.

The common theme of international agricultural research and development across those decades taught me that my skills in organising were perhaps more in demand than those in specific research and development. Thus, I came to see that creating the best environment for researchers and development specialists was as important as the research and development itself. Peer management of skilled specialists is a specialist task in itself and is easily undervalued if healthy food for marginalised people is treated in the same manner as a non-essential commodity in a generic approach to management. This means that the new generation of agricultural researchers and developers will include both specialists and specialist-managers.

That is my experience; it has not produced a new plant variety or rid the world of a zoonotic disease but, as a small cog in that complex machine, it has supported such things. I see its outputs in the results of significant scientists in the international agricultural research centres, universities and commerce. Operating in a competitive environment funded by governments and philanthropists, international researchers may find that objectives do not always align with those of funders or with those the ultimate clients of research, the food-marginalised of the world. Balancing these factors is part of the specialists’ manager.

Across the whole sector, some of the outstanding successes of diverse scientists include:

• Wheat Rust: 117 million hectares protected; >60 million households food secured
• Milk: doubled incomes for 9 million, often landless, Indian dairy farmers
• Asia 1965-85: income up 190%; food security for 1.8 billion
• Eggs: large reductions in chicken deaths to allow an egg-a-day for Ethiopian children
• Improved Maize: now 75% of suitable land under cereal cultivation
• Cassava Mosaic Virus & Mealybug: yields up 40%; 29 million better fed
• Re-Greening the Sahel: > 5 million hectares transformed; 3 million more fed
• Argentina Pampas: 22 million ha sustainable; world leader in soybean production
• Indo-Gangetic Plain: 1.8 million hectares; income gains $340 per household
• Bangladesh: 67% reduction in well costs; doubled rice production; 22 million fed
• China: Yield increases of 15-31%; 63% of rice is hybrids; 60 million more fed
• Land-tenure reform in China 1978-84: grain up 34%; incomes by 137%

Building on such successes, today’s challenge continues for such areas as animal and plants pests, diseases and production-intensification in addition to eliminating debilitating malnutrition. A world in which malnutrition condemns up to a billion people to stunted and mentally incomplete lives is morally incompatible with modern knowledge when it has researchable solutions. Solutions may include genetic manipulation to enhance deficient micronutrients in plants, and the improved production of animal-sourced foods that are essential in the first 1000 days from conception.

In these and other cases, research will be conducted within an integrated context that adapts to climate change and reduces past environmental impacts. The Nextgen – as The Crawford Fund calls our brilliant younger agricultural scientists – will make a major contribution to these and other international challenges. In that way they will enhance a proud tradition.

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Excerpt:

Professor Lindsay Falvey, who will be presented with the 2019 Crawford Fund medal on World Food Day for remaining practically and passionately committed, for over four decades, to the international contributions agricultural science makes to food security.

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A farmer picks string beans in Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By External Source
ROME, Oct 15 2019 (IPS)

A new FAO report launched today by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization provides insights into how much food is lost – as well as where and why – at different stages of the food supply chain, calls for informed decisions for an effective reduction and offers new ways to measure progress.

This will not only help to achieve progress towards the important target of reducing food loss and waste, but could also contribute to a number of Sustainable Development Goals related to food security and environmental sustainability, the report states.

According to the State of Food and Agriculture 2019, globally around 14 percent of the world’s food is lost after harvesting and before reaching the retail level, including through on-farm activities, storage and transportation. However, the food losses vary considerably from one region to another within the same commodity groups and supply chain stages.

Harvesting is the most frequently identified critical loss point for all types of food. Inadequate storage facilities and poor handling practices were also named among the main causes of on-farm storage losses. For fruits, roots and tubers, packaging and transportation also appear to be critical

The report highlights the need, and offers a new methodology, to measure carefully losses at each stage in the food supply chain. Doing so will help to identify critical loss points across the supply chain. These are points where food losses have the highest magnitude, the greatest impact on food security, and the largest economic dimensions, as well as to identify the appropriate measures for their reduction.

It also points to the importance of reducing food waste, which occurs at the retail and consumption level and is linked to limited shelf life and consumer behaviour, such as   demanding food products that meet aesthetic standards, and limited incentive to avoid food waste.

“As we strive to make progress towards reducing food loss and waste, we can only be truly effective if our efforts are informed by a solid understanding of the problem,” said FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu in the foreword to the report. He questioned, “how we can allow food to be thrown away when more than 820 million people in the world continue to go hungry every day”.

 

Identifying critical loss points for targeted action

Evidence presented in the report shows a vast range in terms of loss and waste percentages within commodities, supply chain stages and regions, suggesting there is a considerable potential for reduction where percentages are higher.

Losses and waste are generally higher for fruits and vegetables than for cereals and pulses at all stages in the food supply chain, with the exception of on-farm losses and those during transportation in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia.

In lower-income countries, more fresh fruit and vegetable loss is attributed to poor infrastructure than in industrialized countries. In fact, many lower-income countries lose significant amounts of food during storage, often due to poor storage facilities, including refrigerated warehouses.

Despite the fact that that in most high-income countries adequate storage facilities, including refrigerated warehouses, are available throughout the supply chain, losses do occur during storage, generally because of a technical breakdown, poor management of temperature, humidity or overstocking.

The report also reveals the results from a number of case studies conducted by FAO for identifying critical loss points. Results indicate that harvesting is the most frequently identified critical loss point for all types of food. Inadequate storage facilities and poor handling practices were also named among the main causes of on-farm storage losses. For fruits, roots and tubers, packaging and transportation also appear to be critical.

Such findings are valuable in providing guidance when identifying potential interventions for food loss reduction.

 

Getting the incentives right

The report urges countries to step up efforts to tackle the root causes of food loss and waste at all stages and provides guidance on policy and interventions to reduce food loss and waste.

Reducing food loss and waste generally entails costs, and farmers, suppliers and consumers will only take necessary measures if their costs are outweighed by the benefits. Thus, changing incentives for various stakeholders in the supply chain will involve identifying options that either increase the net benefits or provide better information on the existing net benefits, the report states.

Even when stakeholders are aware of the benefits of reducing food loss and waste, they  may face constraints that prevent them from implementing actions. For example, without financial help private actors in developing countries, especially smallholders, may not be able to bear the high upfront cost associated with implementing such actions. Improving credit access could be an option even in the absence of detailed information on losses.

The report will also help governments to analyse constraints and trade-offs for more efficient interventions.  For example, they can raise awareness of the benefits of reducing food loss and waste among suppliers and consumers and influence their decision-making through various types of actions or policies.

However, the report stresses that the policy measures aimed at reducing food loss and waste should be coherent and involve effective monitoring and evaluation of interventions to assure accountability of existing actions and efforts.

This story was originally published by FAO

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 15 2019 (IPS)

The OECD Secretariat published its proposed ‘unified approach’ to reform international tax rules to address tax challenges posed by digitalization on 9 October 2019.

Under current rules, there is little chance of a company being taxed without its physical presence in the country concerned. But digitalization enables many businesses to remotely conduct economic activities affecting a national economy without a direct physical presence.

Anis Chowdhury

The OECD proposal aims to ensure that highly profitable large transnational enterprises (TNEs), including digital companies, pay tax wherever they generate profits from significant ‘consumer-facing activities’.

‘Consumer-facing’ refers to any role, service, technology or information directed at customers, including sales and marketing. Hence, the proposal is principally about allocating taxing rights to countries and jurisdictions where TNEs have their markets and not only to countries where products or services are produced or where the TNEs are physically present.

The proposal — open for public consultation until 12 November — is in response to the G20 request to the OECD to find consensus solutions to tackle under-taxation of TNEs in an increasingly digitalized economy. The OECD is seeking agreement in principle from the G20 by the end of January 2020 before proposing more detailed rules.

The proposal
The OECD proposal includes a new formula for ‘residual profits’, involving taxing rights for countries when revenues arise from sales in countries exceeding a certain level yet to be determined.

Pascal Saint-Amans, Director of the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, has explained the proposed tax rules using the following example. If a company has a worldwide profit rate of 35%, of which, say, 10% is ‘normal’ or ‘routine’ profit, then 25% will be deemed ‘residual’ profit.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

An agreed percentage — say 20% of the 25%, or 5% of global profit in the example — will be reallocated to market jurisdictions according to their sales’ shares or market size. So, if a country accounts for 10% of a company’s sales, it would get taxing rights on 0.5% of the total profits of the company.

These shares are open to negotiation. But what is clear is that it would have to be a formula-based solution to prevent haggling over what counts as routine and residual profit respectively. If agreed, this would mark a key first step in establishing one of the most significant shifts in international taxation since the 1920s.

Shifting from production to consumption
Although billed as the most dramatic change to existing century-old international tax rules, the OECD proposal has been criticised for only tinkering at the margins, “doing little to redistribute profits from tax havens, and even less for the lower-income countries that lose the most to corporate tax abuse”, according to the Tax Justice Network (TJN).

TJN’s analysis shows that the OECD reforms could end up reducing their tax bases by 3%, while about four-fifths of the taxes obtained will likely go to high income countries.

The biggest winners will be large economies such as the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy and large developing economies like China and India. Small economies, particularly the small developing economies where the TNEs locate their production, will lose out. Small developing countries would benefit more from a focus on employees rather than market size.

Lacking ambition
The OECD’s Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) sees the proposal as heading in the right direction by recognizing unitary taxation as unavoidable in an increasingly digitalized world economy. But the TUAC considers the proposed changes too timid, falling short of what is needed to achieve fair and sustainable taxation.

After all, the proposal is limited to ‘consumer-facing’ businesses with some carve-outs yet to be decided, excluding pure ‘business to business’ (B2B) transactions and extractive industries. Its impact on finance is also unclear as while some may be largely B2B, ‘business to consumer’ (B2C) transactions invariably figure to some extent.

The Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) recognizes that the OECD proposal moves beyond the restrictive arm’s length principle (ALP). It also appreciates the intention to stem the ‘race to the bottom’ due to tax competition by providing a floor with a global minimum corporate tax.

But the ICRICT laments that the proposal falls short of adopting the unitary enterprise principle for all TNE profits, also advocated by many developing countries (led by the Washington-based G24 caucus of developing countries in the Bretton Woods institutions) and civil society. The ICRICT also recommends a global minimum corporate tax rate of 25%.

Long live transfer pricing
The ICRICT is also concerned about the proposal to separate ‘routine’ from ‘residual’ profits, with only the latter subject to formulary apportionment, and that the proposal relies only on sales to determine the distribution of taxable profits.

The proposal to only allocate a small fraction of residual profits based on formulary apportionment will mean that the ALP will still guide allocation of the vast bulk of a company’s profits. Thus, the OECD proposal will not stop transfer pricing as TNEs can still shift ‘routine’ or normal profit, as has long happened.

Meanwhile, concerns remain about the scope and extent of the current reform process and whether it will be watered down by pressures from TNEs and some influential governments. Key issues will include how much profits will be drawn from sales and the threshold for routine profits.

Greater tax transparency is needed for informed discussion of such reforms. Currently publicly available data on TNEs’ country-by-country reporting fall short of what is needed by countries to be able to assess the likely impacts of the proposal.

Legitimacy
While the process has become more inclusive, the credibility of the OECD as the appropriate body leading such work remains moot, and much still needs to be done to ensure more effective participation and representation of developing countries.

Worryingly, before its announcement, the proposal was discussed on 1 October behind closed doors by OECD Member States participating in the OECD Task Force on the Digital Economy. A French economic ministry official also revealed that the principles of the unified approach were decided by G7 ministers in Chantilly in July. Such G7 and OECD influence gives cause for concern about biases inherent in the proposal.

Creating a fairer international tax architecture requires multilateral discussions well beyond current processes, and should be led by the United Nations system, the only forum where all countries are represented equally.

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President Hassan Rouhani of Iran

By Sohrab Razzaghi and Masana Ndinga-Kanga
JOHANNESBURG / AMSTERDAM, Oct 15 2019 (IPS)

2019 has not been a good year for Iranian human rights activists. At a time where civic space had completely closed, many watched in disbelief as the regime mounted even more restrictions on civil society. Over recent months, many activists have been arrested, like Noushin Javari (a photographer), Marzieh Amiri (a journalist), and Javad Lal Mohammadi (teacher).

As the UN Third Committee prepares to meet in October 2019, it will be worth following whether the General Assembly will take proactive steps to respond to the crisis in Iran or continue to avert its eyes in the face of complicated global politics that have emboldened President Rouhani in his regressive anti-western crackdown on civil society.

During the UN General Assembly on 25 September 2019, Iranian President Rouhani’s called for the creation of a ‘coalition of hope’ in the Gulf region, that would focus on “peace, stability, progress and welfare” and working to “invest on hope towards a better future rather than in war and violence [sic],” with the aim of restoring justice and peace.

However, the civic space track record of Iran and many of its Gulf neighbours demonstrates that oftentimes the state is the perpetrator of violence and restrictions in-country, curtailing the very justice and peace it aims to implement.

It then begs the question, how can a regional coalition of hope be developed, when the state so frequently responds to human rights defenders with violence – excluding the language of human rights from even sustainable development goals.

Many civil society actors have been detained – deemed enemies of the state and foreign agents. As Iranian communities reel under the pressure of yet another bout of sanctions, it is worth begging the question ‘does the closure of civic space serve the interests of sustainable development in Iran?’

Contrary to what policymakers responsible for civic space closure might think, these restrictions ultimately hurt sustainable development. Human rights activists around the world, including in Iran, are oftentimes the critical purveyors of equitable ‘sustainability’ in the development process, campaigning for environmental justice, worker’s rights and the respect for the dignity and humanity of all.

In 2018, the Ayatollah Khamenei’s official website published a draft 50-year vision for “progress.” The document, entitled the Islamic-Iranian Pattern for Progress (IIPP), sets out a set of objectives to be met by 2065, covering a vast range of issues, among them the economy, justice and poverty – still to be approved by parliament.

The plan focuses on addressing poverty, the economy and the justice system. It seeks further alignment of religion and the sociopolitical system in the country, but also includes provisions for “prompting independence, accountability and specialization in the judiciary” and “enhancing women’s position and providing equal opportunities for them, with emphasis on their role as mothers.”

Critics of the regime would not be wrong to look at these policy objectives with concern, especially as the regime has a narrowed position on the role of women in society and has repeatedly failed to guarantee independence of the judiciary – where human rights defenders and political dissenters are subject to numerous violations of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (to which Iran is party).

According to a recent comparative report on Sustainable Development, Iran is in 82nd place among 156 countries. This lower-than-average score, however, is not surprising. Iran has not committed to the indexes of sustainable development, meaning people in Iran are not participating in a systematic and organized manner in the process of development. Instead, policymaking and development is a top-down process steered by the government.

In fact, most involvement of Iranians in this process is decorative. As a solution, Iranians have been organizing themselves in civil society to combine their voices and make sure they are heard. This, however, is counteracted by repression from the state, resulting in the country being rated as closed on the Civicus Monitor.

Countless activists who have been advocating for the true meaning of sustainable development have paid the price. Civil society activists, especially environmental activists, labor union and teacher union activists, as well as human rights defenders have been wrongfully persecuted.

Eight environmental activists are sitting in prison on charges of espionage, four of whom are additionally charged with “sowing corruption on earth”. If convicted, they will face death penalty. Another environmental expert, Dr. Kavous Seyed Emami, died in detention, and the circumstances of his death are unclear.

According to the Iranian Constitution, citizens are permitted to set up associations and assemblies; yet this clause is not implemented. Few, if any, groups have permission to freely form associations, including socio-political groups or ethnic/religious minorities. Last month for example, Omid Mehr foundation was closed by government authorities. When asked about the reason for closure, authorities said that Omid Mehr foundation was advocating Western values, which does not fit in Iran.

The false claim that campaigning for human rights is equal to advocating Western values is an adage used by repressive regimes to silence dissent and put forward a development agenda that excludes minorities and others on the margins. But development is not sustainable if they are excluded.

For example, the regime frequently equates the campaigns of women to determine their dress codes as acts against the state, threats to national security or prostitution. Despite the peaceful protest (handing out flowers in commemoration of International Women’s Day) against the hijab by Yasaman Aryani and Monireh Arabshahi, they were sentenced to 16 years imprisonment after being subject to enforced disappearance. Such lengthy sentences and gross human rights violations do not equate sustainability nor development.

The government not only fails to safeguard the freedom of associations and civil society organizations, but actively creates non-independent organizations (or Governmental NGOs, GONGOs) to put forward an inaccurate picture of civic engagement by the state.

Only CSOs that support the agenda of the state are accepted by the government, strengthening the top-down, government-centered way of working. The Organization for Defending Victims of Violence (ODVV), one of many GONGOs, attends international meetings, including UNHRC meetings.

Actively curating a counter-narrative of progress through GONGOs shows the vulnerability of the state to international pressure in an interconnected global political economy. The state recognizes its reliance on international partnerships for the advancement of its economic objectives.

But instead it fails to align its internal policy processes to international human rights conventions – channeling resources that could be spent on authentic engagement with civil society in country to its image. As a result, tensions in Iran are mounting at the dire state of socioeconomic affairs.

For instance, in January 2018, mass protests against poverty and economic difficulties erupted in the country. Rather than engage with citizens, the state responded through 4,967 arrests and any assembly was strictly and heavily repressed.

Among those arrested were activists, women, workers, students and teachers. Many of the arrestees have been sentenced to long imprisonment terms. Many more are critical to the realization of sustainable development in Iran.

Rather than supporting socioeconomic development, the state-imposed limitations on freedom of assembly and association in Iran, have weakened and decapacitated citizen engagement, and prevented their participation in the process of achieving sustainable development. It is short-term thinking that creates enemies of civil society and sustainable development.

In fact, a dynamic, vibrant, democratic and development-oriented association landscape is an important requirement for sustainable development. By releasing activists and opening the civic space, Iran can truly begin the process of social change for the upliftment of all.

The post Vibrant Civil Society Essential for Sustainable Development in Iran appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Sohrab Razzaghi is Executive Director of Volunteer Activists Institute a non-profit, non-governmental, non-political and independent institute, whose primary aim is capacity building among activists and civil society organizations for democracy, human rights and peace building within Iranian society and communities in the MENA region.

 
Masana Ndinga-Kanga is MENA Advocacy Lead at CIVICUS, an alliance of 7000 civil society partners around the world.

The post Vibrant Civil Society Essential for Sustainable Development in Iran appeared first on Inter Press Service.

According to the UN, an estimated one-third of all food is lost or wasted worldwide as it moves from where it is produced to where it is eaten.

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 15 2019 (IPS)

With one-third of food produced for human consumption lost or wasted, and millions still going hungry, the UN’s food-related agencies are shining a spotlight on the issue: on Monday, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published its annual State of Food and Agriculture report with findings that could lead to a reduction in food loss and waste, and, earlier in October, the World Food Programme (WFP) launched its awareness-raising #StopTheWaste campaign.

 

Pinpointing the problem

“How can we allow food to be thrown away when more than 820 million people in the world continue to go hungry every day?”, asked FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu in the foreword to his agency’s report.

The study contains fresh estimates of the scale of the problem, enabling a better understanding of the challenge, and suggesting possible solutions, by looking into why, and where, loss and waste take place. The FAO makes a distinction between food losses, which occur at the stage when food is harvested, up until the moment when it is sold; and food waste, which occurs during the sale and consumption of food.

 

Getting to the root of the issue

Guidance for countries, suggesting policies and interventions that can reduce food loss and waste, is also part of the report. This include providing incentives for farmers and producers, to make it cost-effective for them to be more efficient and less wasteful. These incentives may involve financial help for smallholders, who don’t have the means to pay for improved techniques and practices.

Armed with better data, such as the information in the report, governments will be able to target their actions more accurately and raise awareness of the benefits of reducing food loss and waste among suppliers and consumers and influence their decision-making.

 

 

The World Food Programme is also hoping to bring the problems surrounding food loss and waste to a larger audience, with the launch of its #StopTheWaste campaign, which is encouraging all of us to think about how we can reduce food waste in our daily lives.

In the field, WFP helps smallholder farmers to get their food to the people who need it most, by providing new technologies for storage and transportation, that prevent crops from spoiling prematurely and connecting them with markets.

This story was originally published by UN News

The post Stop the Waste: UN Food Agencies Call for Action to Reduce Global Hunger appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A coastal city, Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, is an area where people have relied on the ocean for food and employment for as long as they have lived there. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Kate Strachan
Oct 15 2019 (IPS)

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate highlights the urgency of prioritising ambitious and coordinated actions to address the unprecedented and continuing changes that are taking place in the ocean and cryosphere (Earth’s frozen lands).

The Special Report highlights the importance and associated benefits of limiting global warming to the lowest possible level, by meeting the 1.5oC temperature goal that governments set themselves in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions will limit the scale of changes that the ocean and cryosphere will experience. In a 1.5oC future, the consequences for ecosystems and the communities that depend on them will still be challenging, but potentially more manageable – compared to higher levels of warming. Global average surface temperatures have already risen by 1oC since preindustrial times.

For African coastal cities, sea level rise and increasing storm frequency and intensity pose serious threats to residents, and their transportation, water, housing, energy, and infrastructure requirements. Cities face difficult choices under changing climate patterns and highly constrained public financing

The report talks about the benefits of ambitious and effective adaptation for sustainable development and, on the contrary, the risks of delayed action.

Globally, sea level rose approximately 15 cm during the 20th century. Currently, it is rising more than twice that fast (3.6 mm per year), and accelerating. As I think of the work we do at ICLEI Africa, I ask: what does this mean for African coastal cities?

 

African cities face widespread exposure to sea level rise

The reality is that the West, Central, East and Mediterranean coastal zones in Africa are very low-lying. Within these low-lying coastal zones are many of Africa’s largest cities: Dakar, Abidjan, Accra, Lagos, Dar es Salaam, Alexandria, Tripoli, and Cape Town.

These coastal cities are characterised by large populations, significant economic activity, dense transportation networks, as well as being places that support extensive coastal tourism.

Unfortunately a number of socio-economic impacts need to be taken into consideration, these include potentially being forced to move settlements, shifting ports and navigational facilities, the loss of infrastructure and disturbance to coastal fishery and tourism operations.

The associated impacts could impose unbearable pressure on Africa’s already hard-pressed economies. The report outlines additional climate-related risks and challenges that people around the world are exposed to today and that future generations will face.

Furthermore, the report calls for the establishment of city coastal management policies and plans that include phased disengagement from the coast, where practicable, and the enforcement of setback lines. City networks like ICLEI have a vital role to play in advocating for cities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect and restore their coastal ecosystems, carefully manage the use of natural resources, limit climate related risks to livelihoods, and to look for opportunities that support adaptation to future changes that also offer societal co-benefits for example through our Coastal City Adaptation training programme.

In addition, ICLEI works with its partners to explore important nature-based solutions for tackling associated challenges (find out more via the UNA Coasts website).

The IPCC’s Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere highlights the importance of education and provides evidence of the benefits of combining scientific knowledge with local/indigenous knowledge to develop appropriate management actions for climate change risks and enhanced resilience.

We all have a role to play in ensuring both national and local government decision-makers are equipped with the necessary tools that can be used to mainstream, or integrate, adaptation into existing decision-making and appraisal processes, and have access to the science needed to support these decisions.

Mainstreaming the concepts of adaptation and resilience into city decision making processes and, thus, extending beyond the usual urban governance practices is difficult. In order for local government officials to make sound decisions in the face of uncertainty will require new and dynamic decision-making approaches and planning processes.

 

Climate change adaptation should be more central in development processes

Actions used by national and local governments to address climate change and development need to be complementary and reinforce one another. Furthermore, in order for adaptation strategies to be applicable to current and future challenges, they need to be seen as learning and adaptive processes.

Adaptation cannot be seen as a once off intervention, but rather a continuous process that evolves as new information becomes available and conditions change.

The IPCC Special Report presents a number of options to adapt to changes that are unavoidable, discussed how to manage associated risks and build resilience for a sustainable future. The assessment highlights that adaptation depends on the capacity of individuals and communities and the availability of resources.

 

Extreme weather events are on the rise, and low-lying coastal cities are highly exposed

Cities and their surrounding areas serve as engines of regional and national economic growth, but they also amplify climate-related risk by virtue of their population density, concentration of critical infrastructure, and other high-value economic assets. More people and more assets are exposed to climate hazards.

The ocean drives our climate and weather and a warmer ocean means an increase in frequency and intensity of extreme events such as cyclones, wind and rainfall, which in turn increases coastal erosion and flooding impacts. The recent cyclones experienced in Mozambique highlight such devastating effects.

Warmer oceans impact negatively on coral reefs, important for tourism and job creation. It is predicted that an increase of 1.5 degrees could cause coral reefs to decline by 70 to 90 percent.

For African coastal cities, sea level rise and increasing storm frequency and intensity pose serious threats to residents, and their transportation, water, housing, energy, and infrastructure requirements. Cities face difficult choices under changing climate patterns and highly constrained public financing.

 

Diverse, reliable sources of funding are needed to help cities brace for climate change

Accessing finance remains a critical challenge for the implementation of policies and plans that enable climate change adaptation.

The required financial flows for the implementation of adaptation plans and their enabling policies can and should be sought from a variety of sources, spanning local, national and international resources, as well as private, public and philanthropic facilities.

Another critical role is therefore to support government authorities to explore innovative ways in which they could secure financial resources for adaptation. An avenue to secure investment to fund coastal adaptation may be to demonstrate and promote the value of the coastal zone and more specifically coastal natural assets in supporting public priorities such as poverty alleviation, economic development and job creation.

The predicted impacts in this report are serious and relate to all aspects of life. Whether you reside near or far from the ocean, consume seafood or not, this report reiterates the need for a healthy ocean to survive. We need to act now to ensure our and our children’s future.

 

This opinion editorial was originally published by The Climate and Development Knowledge Network

Related Articles

• PODCAST: How the Oceans and the Cryosphere are Under Threat and What it Means for Africa- IPCC Author Explains

The post The IPCC’s Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere – What it means for Africa’s coastal cities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Kate Strachan, Professional Officer for Climate Change and Coastal Management at ICLEI Africa, reflects on what the IPCC’s latest Special Report means for Africa’s low-lying coastal cities

The post The IPCC’s Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere – What it means for Africa’s coastal cities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Bandana Timalsina reaches out to touch her husband‘s face one last time before his cremation at Pashupati in August. Kedar Timalsina hung himself at a seafood factory in Busan where he worked. Photos: Ki Mindo/ The Seoul Shinmun

By Ki Mindo
SEOUL, Oct 15 2019 (IPS)

For many Nepalis, it is dream to find work in Korea where they expect to earn many times more than in Nepal. Yet, there is a dark side to the Korean Dream: between 2009 to 2018, there were 143 deaths of Nepali workers in South Korean soil, and of them 43 were suicides.

The 31% suicide rate is much higher than workers from other nationalities. Among Burmese workers, there was a total of 51 deaths and 4 involved suicide, from 2011 to August 2019. Suicides rate is relatively low among Vietnamese migrant workers with zero suicide out of the 14 deaths from 2017 to August 2019.

Most of these deaths involved E-9 non-professional employment visa holders who had been employed at farms and factories that suffer a chronic labour shortage. While these tragic deaths repeat every year, the South Korean government does not have a clue why so many migrant workers make such an extreme choice.

No matter how harsh and hostile the work environment in Korea, returning to Nepal is not an option for most. It was not easy for them to come to Korea in the first place, and they carry the weight of their family’s expectations on their shoulders.

“Nepali migrant workers who come to South Korea under the employment permit system tend to be highly educated,” notes Seo Seonyoung, a Sociology researcher at Yonsei University. “Their families have great expectation for them, but as soon in Korea they find themselves at the lowest rung of the workforce ladder. The unbearable stress could eventually force them to commit suicide.”

There are growing voices calling for a systematic improvement to end the vicious cycle. The South Korean government has been trying to improve ties as part of its ‘New Southern Policy’ to balance its need for migrant workers to address the shortfall of workers.

There are now 2.42 million migrant workers in Korea, and the number has nearly doubled in the past 10 years. Local farms and factories cannot function without migrant workforces.

Hong Sung Soo, Law professor at Sookmyung Women’s University says: “Discrimination and xenophobia towards migrants are not only inappropriate, but also not clever at all if we consider our industrial and demographic reality.”

Labour rights groups and health activists have been trying to find out why there is such a high suicide rate among Nepali migrant workers in farms and factories in South Korea.

“It is not just a single factor, there is a web of complex reasons that trap migrant workers towards the extreme choice,” explains Jeong Young-seob, Co-director of the group, Migrants Act.

A field survey in August of 141 migrant workers from Nepal by the Seoul Shinmun newspaper, Green Hospital and the Migrants Trade Union showed that there were four main factors: gap between expectation and reality of working in Korea, lack of exit, high expectations from loved ones back home, and ruined relationships in Nepal.

 

Great Expectations = Great Disappointments

To aspiring Nepali migrant workers, South Korea is a land of opportunity, where they hope to earn five to eight times more than in a job back home. Even highly educated young Nepalis apply for an E-9 visa to South Korea. But when they arrive, they often struggle with harsh labour conditions and discrimination.

Of the respondents in the survey, 28% cited a gap between the reality of their work and the expectations they had. Like Surendra, 28, who has been working in a mushroom farm for three years. He has a degree from Tribhuvan University.

He says: “Before I came here, I was excited about earning Rs300,000 a month, but I had no idea about working and living conditions. Back home we rarely experience working for 12 hours without any real break. I was not even learning any skills, it was simple manual labour.”

The survey showed that 45.6% of the respondents worked more than 52 hours a week, and 19% said they worked 60 hours a week, and only 26% said they had a normal 5-day work week.

 

No Exit

After working in South Korea for 16 months, Nepali migrant worker Shrestha, 27, jumped from the rooftop of his company dorm in June 2017. He had been suffering from insomnia as he struggled to adjust to alternate day and night shifts.

His suicide note said: ‘I have been seeing doctors for health problems and sleep disorders. It did not improve. I wanted to quit and find another job but the company did not allow it. I wanted to go back to Nepal to recover, but the company said no.’

The survey showed that 71% of respondents had tried to find a new job, and 36% of them said this was because of long working hours and dangerous conditions.

Migrant workers who come to South Korea under the employment permit system are allowed to change workplaces up to three times within a three-year period. But it requires permission from their employers.

 

Hard Work

No matter how harsh and hostile the work environment in Korea, returning to Nepal is not an option for most. It was not easy for them to come to Korea in the first place, and they carry the weight of their family’s expectations on their shoulders.

“If migrant workers go back, the villagers would criticise them for forsaking a great opportunity, people will laugh at their failure and brand them weak. Caught between a rock and a hard place, many Nepali migrant workers commit suicide,” explained Udaya Rai, the Nepali head of the Migrants Trade Union.

 

Ruined Relationships

What sustains migrant workers despite harsh working conditions in Korea is love of families back home. However, when their relationship collapses, it leads to great emotional stress. Tej Bahadur Gurung, 29, had two friends who committed suicide due to family or relationship problems.

Kham Gurung, 45, recalled: “I had to deal with a family issue while I was working non-stop in Korea, but I couldn’t afford to go back. That really tormented me.”

Naivety and lack of exposure to the outside world among Nepali youth who need better jobs to take care of their families creates a problem, says Kapil B Dahal of the Department of Anthropology at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu.

Dahal says there have been no systematic study of suicides among Nepali migrant workers in Korea, or elsewhere. The Korean Ministry of Justice keeps a record of the deaths of migrant workers by country, but does not have data on the cause of death.

“Nepali migrant workers in the Middle East and Europe also commit suicides, yet the Nepal government and politicians do not do anything. Nepali migrant workers make a great contribution to the country’s economy, but their health is overlooked and their suicides are ignored,” Dahal says.

The Nepal Embassy in Seoul offers counseling services for migrant workers, but Udaya Rai of the Migrant Trade Union questioned its effectiveness. “They are not interested in addressing these deaths and suicides, they fear the South Korean government might slash the quota for Nepalis if we start to speak up. That is why they stay silent and hurriedly send bodies back to Nepal.”

 

Kedar Timalsina, 28

A coffin was rolled out of the arrival area of Kathmandu airport recently. Inside was the body of Kedar Timalsina who hanged himself on 20 July in Busan inside the warehouse of the seafood processing factory where he worked.

“This paper doesn’t say anything about why Kedar killed himself,” family members at Kathmandu airport said, examining his death certificate from South Korean police.

Kedar’s family could not understand why he would kill himself. It had been only 25 days since his wife Bandana gave birth to their first son. “I even heard Kedar threw a big party in Korea to celebrate the birth of the baby. Why would such a man kill himself? It doesn’t make any sense,” said Bandana’s brother. Kedar had an aging mother who just turned 60, and would need his care more than before.

What further frustrates the grieving family is the silence and indifference from both their government and the Korean authorities. For the Nepal Embassy in Seoul its responsibility was over after shipping the coffin to Kathmandu. South Korean police never investigated surveillance camera footage at the factory, or forensics on Kedar’s phone.

According to South Korean police, Kedar’s co-worker had told them he had recently purchased some land in Nepal, which turned out to be a fraud. Kedar’s family says that is not true because the land he bought two years ago had nearly doubled in price. None of Kedar’s personal belongings were returned to his family, and Korean police said the Embassy had told them the family did not want them back. The family said the Embassy had never contacted them about his belongings.

“We are responsible for confirming the identity and death certificate in order to promptly return the body back to family in Nepal. The Embassy does not send back items unless they are important,” the Embassy of Nepal replied when asked about it.

At the cremation site in Pashupati, Bandana wept as she caressed her husband’s face for the last time. “What do I do with our baby?” she cried. It took four hours for the fire to consume Kedar’s body, and with it his ‘Korean Dream’.

 

Bal Bahadur Gurung, 32

“He really loved the children. These kids remind me of my husband every time I see them,” said Maiya Gurung, 28, wiping tears with a tissue under her shades.

Maiya’s husband Bal Bahadur Gurung jumped off the Wolleung Bridge in Seoul, on 12 June, and died instantly after being hit by a passing vehicle. CCTV footage showed Bal Bahadur walking nervously back-and-forth over the bridge several times, hesitating. He had become an ‘unregistered’ migrant two days ago, and feared deportation.

Bal Bahadur entered South Korea with a proper work visa in October 2017. In March, he left the company and registered himself at the Ministry of Labor to find another job. Migrant workers automatically lose their right to stay in the country if they fail to secure employment within three months. Bal Bahadur went back to Nepal to spend a short time with his family then returned to Korea, but had no luck finding a job within the three month deadline.

Maiya Gurung came to South Korea to take her husband’s remains. Her neighbours tell her that her husband looked so happy when he was visiting Pokhara two months before his suicide. Shocked by his youngest son’s tragic death, Bal Bahadur’s father, a former soldier, is suffering from amnesia.

Maiya’s seven-year-old daughter asks her: “Did Daddy die?”

“No,” she replies, “your father has gone abroad to work.” Maiya Gurung weeps as she tells us later, “I want to die, too. But when I think of these poor children, I can’t.”

 

Dhan Raj Ghale, 40

‘I am enocent. I have no mistake. Company cheating me. I am no crazy […]

company take my signiture […] please investigation please’

This is the note left by Dhan Raj Ghale’s hand-written suicide note in English before he hanged himself in 2011 while working at a futon factory in Daegu City. Dhan even had a plane ticket booked to go back to Nepal.

Upon seeing a Korean reporter in August in Pokhara, Dhan’s wife Man Maya Ghale, 48, and Dhan’s younger brother Bhim Raj Ghale, 36, recalled the events of eight years ago.

Bhim said his older brother was a hard-working man who loved his family more than anything else in the world. “After seeing the letters, I thought Dhan must have been bullied at work,” Bhim recalled.

Dhan also left another short letter written in Nepali: ‘I’ve done nothing wrong. I once fought with another worker from Mongolia. I don’t know what that Mongolian guy told Korean people…’

He also wrote twice to the manager of the company: ‘You don’t talk to me anymore. I don’t understand. Please tell me why.’

The company, however, denied there was bullying, and that Dhan was never asked to sign any document. Dhan may have found Korea’s alternate day and night shifts difficult, and had been working night shifts for two months before his death. “My husband told me he could not sleep when he was working night shifts,” Man Maya recalled.

Dhan’s daughter and son were ten and five at the time of their father’s death. Now they are in college and school. “I will never forgive those people who mistreated my father,” Dhan’s son vows revenge, and the siblings have made joint promises to themselves they will never go overseas to work no matter what.

Nevertheless, Man Maya and Bhim said they did not hate Koreans. “You see in South Korea, as well as in Nepal, there are good people and bad people. Sadly, my husband met bad people. I don’t want to blame all Koreans because of them. I just want those bad ones to be punished.”

Some names have been changed.

Ki Mindo is a reporter for The Seoul Shinmun key5088@seoul.or.kr 

These articles are reprinted under special arrangement with the Seoul Shinmun which published the stories in Korean on 23 September, 2019 as part of a Special Series titled ‘The 2019 Migrant Report: Betrayed Korean Dreams’.

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

 

The post Why Are So Many Nepali Workers in Korea Committing Suicide? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Isaiah Esipisu
ADDIS ABABA, Oct 15 2019 (IPS)

“Special reports come to address issues that need deeper understanding and deeper research,” Dr James Kairo, one of the lead authors of the ‘Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate,’ a special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told IPS.

The report focused on what would happen to oceans and cryosphere (frozen parts of our world) which include the polar and high mountains if temperatures increase beyond 1°C above pre-industrial levels to 1.5°C, and beyond.

According to the conclusions, human beings have already affected the oceans and the cryosphere. We can see the impact from the increased temperatures. “If it goes like this unabated, then it will have a huge impact on oceans,” Kario said.

The islands in the oceans and the low-lying areas in East and West Africa are all under threat.

“From mountainous areas, if the temperatures increase by 1.5°C, then we will lose over 80 percent of the snow, and this will have consequences on livelihoods of those people who depend on hydroelectricity, lowland agriculture wildlife and the list is endless,” Kario explained.

 

Dr James Kairo, one of the lead authors of the ‘Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate,’ a special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) speaks to IPS from the Africa Climate Risk Conference that was held in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

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The post How the Oceans and the Cryosphere are Under Threat and What it Means for Africa- IPCC Author Explains appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

In this Voices from the Global South podcast, Dr James Kairo, one of the lead authors of the ‘Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate,’ a special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) speaks to IPS from the Africa Climate Risk Conference that was held in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.

The post How the Oceans and the Cryosphere are Under Threat and What it Means for Africa- IPCC Author Explains appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Bernd Lange and Tim Peter
HANOVER/ BRUSSELS, Oct 14 2019 (IPS)

In recent years, global trade and trade policy have become central socio-political issues. The planned EU-US trade agreement TTIP triggered an unprecedented storm of indignation and resistance.

The fierce debates surrounding the agreement recently negotiated between the EU and the MERCOSUR states show that, in the past years, it has not been possible to find a new balance in trade policy and thereby create broader social acceptance.

We are at a crossroads. Because the domination of the ideal of free trade is over, the king is dead. The assumption that everyone will benefit from the expansion and liberalisation of global trade and that these developments will therefore produce no losers is obviously absolutely wrong.

People and the environment are affected, while profits are distributed unevenly. That is not only true in those states that are perceived as the extended workbench of the western world, but also in Germany and Europe.

Many of these developments originated in an environment that was not shaped by bilateral treaties, but by the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The work of the WTO undoubtedly focusses on dismantling trade barriers and settling trade disputes. In 1996, developing countries blocked the opening of talks on trade-related labour rights issues. They feared that any WTO rules in this area could be used as a pretext to take protectionist measures and thus eliminate the comparative advantage of cheaper labour.

 

Regulating globalization

In response to these developments, the EU has included labour and environmental standards in bilateral agreements and in its legislation for opening up its own market to developing countries (GSP Regulation).

The result that we can see today is sobering. In the case of Korea, it took years and countless appeals from trade unions, parliamentarians and other observers until the European Commission finally triggered the dispute settlement mechanism to address Korea’s non-compliance in regards to labour rights commitments this year, for the first time in its history.

The outcome is uncertain, in part because Korean officials know there will be no harsh penalties if they continue to fail to fulfil their commitments. The GSP system has also proved to be sluggish: on the one hand, there’s a lack of capacity to monitor the situation in third countries and, on the other, the Commission shows itself reluctant to exert any decisive pressure on governments.

It is high time we take responsibility and show the world that we are serious about making globalisation sustainable.

We need a new approach for our trade policy. The aim must be a new regulation of globalisation, where social and environmental objectives rather than economic ones dominate. Workers’ rights must be strengthened and workers’ representatives must be given a real voice in the implementation of trade agreements.

The same applies to environmental protection. Trade agreements should not run counter to the objectives of the Paris Agreement, but must promote its implementation. Such an approach would change the balance and focus of the European Commission’s work.

At the same time, we should not be afraid to introduce barriers and restrictions where they make sense or where they are even necessary. The EU must not reward states that systematically violate human rights, labour rights and environmental standards with unrestricted market access.

Where infringements are detected, we must react quickly and consistently. To this end, we must adapt legislation and lay better foundations in our agreements. But more importantly, there must be a change in the Commission’s attitude.

 

What the next Trade Commissioner should do

A change of direction is only credible if we can ensure the consistent implementation of an agreement in its entirety. And if the Commission, supported by the European Parliament and the member states, uses its legal leeway to protect people and the environment.

If issues of sustainability do not go beyond paying lip service, the future for bilateral trade agreements and European trade policy will continue to be characterised by dissent and uncertainty. This path leads to a dead end – to continue down this road would be to lose credibility as a global actor.

For Europe has the potential to become a much more influential actor on the world stage. Europe is an economic power, but also is an advocate for international standards who sets conditions for cooperation. In doing so, we rely on universal values and norms and on cooperation on equal terms.

Trade Commissioner-designate Phil Hogan has missed the opportunity to provide a progressive vision of the EU as a global actor in his hearing on 30 September 2019. This is regrettable as time is running out to implement a ‘trade policy for all’, that his predecessor Cecilia Malmström promised. The European Parliament will therefore make sure to give Commissioner-designate Hogan a series of tasks to steer his work over the coming months and years.

It is high time we take responsibility and show the world that we are serious about making globalisation sustainable.

The post Free Trade is Dead appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Bernd Lange has been a Member of European Parliament (MEP) for the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) since 2009, and since 2014 he is chairman of the Trade Committee and a deputy member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.

 
Tim Peter has been a commercial policy officer in the office of the Chairman of the Committee on International Trade of the European Parliament since 2014. Prior to his work in the EP, he worked in the speaker service and the Directorate-General for Trade of the European Commission.

The post Free Trade is Dead appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By PRESS RELEASE
GENEVA, Oct 14 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(ESCAP News) – While applied tariffs in the Asia-Pacific region have halved over the past two decades, the number of non-tariff measures (NTMs) – policy regulations other than tariffs affecting international trade – has risen significantly, according to a new report launched today by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2019 (APTIR) finds that NTMs are now affecting around 58 per cent of trade in Asia and the Pacific. One reason for the rise of NTMs is their growing popularity as weapons of trade policy in regional and global trade tensions. This can include government procurement limitations, subsidies to export and import restrictions as well as import and export bans through unilateral or multilateral sanctions. Meeting these complex and often opaque rules can require significant resources, affecting in particular small and medium-sized enterprises.

However, the report also notes that NTMs as policy instruments can often be legitimate. Most of the NTMs are technical regulations, such as sanitary and phytosanitary requirements on food. The average cost of these measures alone amounts to 1.6 per cent of gross domestic product, roughly US$1.4 trillion globally. But they also serve important purposes such as protection of human health or the environment; and can even boost trade under certain conditions.

“While trade costs associated with NTMs are estimated to be more than double that of tariffs, NTMs often serve important public policy objectives linked to sustainable development. The key is to ensure they are designed and implemented effectively so that costs are minimized,” said United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP Ms. Armida Alisjahbana.

“The key is to ensure that while public policy objectives and further, Sustainable Development Goals are met, traders are not unnecessarily burdened and trade costs are minimized,” said Mr. Mukhisa Kituyi, Secretary-General of UNCTAD.

While costly to traders, failure to have essential technical NTMs in place or their poor implementation may have serious detrimental impacts on sustainable development. For example, the report refers to the lack of NTMs covering illegal fishing and timber trade in many Asia-Pacific economies. It also points to the high economic costs for the region associated with the African swine fever epidemic, which can be linked to deficient implementation of NTMs. At the same time, new regulations on trade in plastic waste arising from amendment to the Basel Convention are promising.

NTMs are often very different between countries, making it difficult for firms to move goods from one country to another. Regulatory cooperation at the regional and multilateral level and the use of international standards when designing or updating NTMs is therefore important in overcoming challenges related to the heterogeneity of regulations.

Looking ahead, the report also highlights that trade costs of NTMs can be significantly reduced by moving to paperless trade and cross-border electronic exchange of information. This could lower costs by 25 per cent on average in the region, generating savings for both governments and traders of over US$600 billion annually.

The Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report is published biennially to provide insights into the impacts of recent and emerging developments in trade and foreign direct investment on countries’ abilities to meet the challenges of achieving sustainable development. The 2019 Report was prepared by ESCAP in collaboration with UNCTAD.

Read the full APTIR 2019 report: https://www.unescap.org/publications/APTIR2019

For media enquiries, please contact:
Ms. Kavita Sukanandan, Public Information Officer, Strategic Communications and Advocacy Section, ESCAP, T: (66) 2 288 1869 / E: sukanandan@un.org

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Group of Afro-Colombian women in Guapi, Cali, showing the area where they will start a new banana plantation. Credit: IFAD

By Jesus Quintana
LIMA, Peru, Oct 14 2019 (IPS)

Rural poverty and inequality continue inflicting large swaths of population in Colombia, especially in rural areas. This situation, endemic since at least the beginning of the twentieth century, was at the root of the 50-year long conflict that shattered the country, leaving 220,000 deaths and 5.7 million displaced persons, and devastating a significant part of the rural areas, where government services and infrastructure vanished.

The effects of the civil war were particularly damaging for rural people, who suffered the worst kinds of violence and whose well-being was disproportionately affected. Illicit crops and criminal activities in rural areas, which boomed as a result of the conflict, have seriously compromised Colombia’s ability to sustain legal economic activities. This in part explains the great inequalities that exist between urban and rural areas in today’s Colombia.

Jesus Quintana. Credit: A. Prado/MADR

The peace process between the Government and leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (known by its Spanish acronym, FARC), the country’s largest insurgent group, halted most of the violence in 2016, giving hope for a lasting solution to violence, deprivation and the lack of basic services, from roads to schools to running water, in the countryside.

However, three years after the signing of the Peace Agreement, the situation in the rural areas has barely improved. Poverty affects one-third (36.1%) of the rural population, more than double the poverty rate in urban areas (16.2%), according to the World Bank. Colombia still has one of the highest levels of economic inequality in the world – in 2018, the country’s Gini coefficient increased to 52, ranking second in Latin America. More remote rural areas experience higher poverty levels. Social exclusion, mortality and food insecurity indicators are also significantly higher among rural women, indigenous peoples and Afro-descendant populations.

To revert this situation, the Colombian government has presented its strategy – the National Development Plan 2018-22, “Pacto por Colombia, Pacto por la equidad” [Pact for Colombia, Pact for Equity] which is organized around three axes, aiming to boost equality, entrepreneurship and legality. The objectives for entrepreneurship include an alliance to enhance the development and productivity of rural Colombia, promoting a productive transformation with more innovation, increased labour and business formalization, and better public goods and services.

Framed within this overall response, the Ministry of Agriculture, in collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), has launched a new program, “El Campo Emprende” [Rural areas are enterprising], that benefits small producers, indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant communities, female heads of household, young people, and in general vulnerable families in the rural sector of the country, promoting economic ventures to reduce extreme poverty.

Beneficiaries of El Campo Emprende in Santiago de Quilichao, Cauca, presenting details of their Association for textile manufacturing. Credit: J. Quintana/IFAD

El Campo Emprende, with a total cost of US$ 70 million over six years, assists more than 36 000 families living in 134 rural municipalities of 20 departments, including the worst affected areas by the armed conflict, where trust and social capital have been destroyed, basic services are scarce, and where vulnerability is high.

The program seeks to strengthen associative processes around productive initiatives – agricultural production, handicrafts, tourism, green businesses and other rural services carried out by poor rural families, promoting and financing the creation of rural businesses that can improve the quality of life and generate employment in Colombian rurality.

El Campo Emprende has also a view to global commitments, helping to fulfil the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially objectives 1 (ending poverty), 2 (zero hunger) and 8 (decent work and economic growth).

The program was launched last 15 August by President Duque and Minister Valencia in Caucasia, Antioquia, one of the areas that most suffered the violence during the conflict, with the participation of IFAD, the Spanish Cooperation and the European Union (both agencies cofinance the program) and was attended by more than 1,500 guests.

Official launching of El Campo Emprende in Caucasia, Antioquia, last 15 August 2019. Credit: Presidencia de Colombia

IFAD has been present in Colombia since the early 80s, and is supporting national priorities for the rural sector, especially those regarding entrepreneurship and productivity, to create greater opportunities for small-scale agricultural producers and rural entrepreneurs, and improve their well-being through creative, solid solutions that work.

With IFAD’s support, small-scale rural agricultural producers and entrepreneurs are being assisted to increase their productivity, competitiveness and incomes by enhancing their asset base, strengthening their organizational capacity, and promoting their access to markets and to inclusive financial and public services.

El Campo Emprende will be a key contribution to development and the consolidation of peace in the countryside, creating a brighter future for many poor families that placed their hope for progress and prosperity in this new Colombia era – and helping heal the wounds.

The post Rural Poverty Is Still a Scar on the Soul of Colombia, but a New Program Supporting Agri-Entrepreneurship Can Help Heal the Wounds appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Jesus Quintana is LAC Subregional Head and Country Director for Colombia at the International Fund for Agricultural Development

The post Rural Poverty Is Still a Scar on the Soul of Colombia, but a New Program Supporting Agri-Entrepreneurship Can Help Heal the Wounds appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Garment workers travel on private buses organized by their factory in Cambodia. When women do overtime work but lack safe transportation back home, it can expose them to greater risks of sexual assault at night. Credit: Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch.

By Nisha Varia
NEW YORK, Oct 14 2019 (IPS)

If one dreamed up an ambitious global #metoo success story, it might involve governments around the world enthusiastically supporting legal norms and action on sexual harassment with active support and cooperation from businesses and workers.

Sound too good to be true? It is exactly what happened in June with the adoption of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention on Violence and Harassment. These new international standards could improve the world of work globally – and the next step is for countries to ratify and implement this landmark treaty.

Since September, media outlets have published countless reflections on the second anniversary of #MeToo going viral. Publications have collated useful timelines of high-profile cases and analyzed whether the movement has made a difference in workplaces around the world.

There have been many successes. The shift in public discourse, the newfound attention to an issue long normalized into invisibility, and the growing number of sexual violence survivors feeling empowered to speak up have shattered the status quo.

Resignations and prosecutions of those accused of abuse have taken place around the world, including Egypt, India, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Sweden, and the United States. There are new sexual harassment laws in 15 US states, and more legal resources for survivors who wish to come forward.

If the potential of #MeToo is to be fully realized on a global scale, governments must do their part to protect workers from sexual violence. Ratification of the Violence and Harassment Convention is a historic opportunity for countries to pledge their commitment to ending this scourge

But more change is needed. There has been backlash, for example through the use of defamation suits against those who turned to social media to make claims of abuse. In the past few weeks, Sandra Muller, whose tweet sparked France’s #metoo or #balancetonporc movement, was fined for defamation, and an Indian high court ordered Facebook and Instagram to reveal the identity of the person running an anonymous account sharing #metoo stories in India’s art world.

A 2018 World Bank report found that 59 out of 189 economies had no specific legal provisions covering sexual harassment in employment. And the ILO has found that existing laws often exclude the workers most exposed to violence, for example domestic workers, farmworkers, and those in precarious employment.

If the potential of #MeToo is to be fully realized on a global scale, governments must do their part to protect workers from sexual violence. Ratification of the Violence and Harassment Convention is a historic opportunity for countries to pledge their commitment to ending this scourge.

The treaty sets out minimum obligations for how governments should prevent and protect people from violence at work. This includes ensuring robust national laws against harassment and violence at work and prevention measures such as information campaigns. It also requires enforcement—such as inspections and investigations, and access to remedies for victims, including complaints mechanisms, whistleblower protections, and compensation.

Countries that ratify agree to align their national laws to the treaty’s standards and will be periodically reviewed for their compliance by the ILO.

The treaty is not limited to direct government action. It obliges governments to require employers to have workplace policies addressing violence and harassment, risk assessments, prevention measures, and training. Employers should take on these responsibilities whether their governments ratify the treaty or not.

Worker organizations had been pushing for the Violence and Harassment Convention for years, and the #MeToo social media explosion in October 2017 injected energy and urgency into the treaty negotiations that began in 2018 . Marie Clarke Walker, the lead negotiator for the workers, noted that it enabled her to push back against naysayers with, “You can’t say these things are not happening. It’s all over the media.”

There is reason to be excited. The treaty provides clear and specific guidance on an area of law that has remained murky and underdeveloped in many countries, just as the public is clamoring for reform.

Already, 10 countries–Argentina, Belgium, France, Iceland, Ireland, Namibia, Philippines, South Africa, Uganda, and Uruguay–have announced their intention to ratify the treaty without delay.

Global and national trade unions, such as the International Trade Union Confederation, and feminist groups, including the hallmark 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, are gearing up to push other countries to join them.

This treaty offers governments an unprecedented new tool—backed by the United Nations, trade unions, and many employers—to fight against the harassment and violence plaguing workers around the world. Ratifying and enforcing it as soon as possible is the right thing to do.

 

The post The #MeToo Movement’s Powerful New Tool appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Nisha Varia is the women’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.

The post The #MeToo Movement’s Powerful New Tool appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By IPS World Desk
ROME, Oct 14 2019 (IPS)

Globalization and urbanization have had a staggering impact on human history, especially over the last decade. 

The world’s population living in urban areas was less than 5 percent in 1800. According to the the United Nations, that number increased to 47 percent by the year 2000. In ten years time, that number is expected to reach 65 percent.

As these shifts have taken place, we have witnessed dramatic changes in our diets and eating habits. The world has begun to abandon the traditions of preparing meals at home, which have historically been seasonal, plant-based and fibre-rich.

Preferring convenience, the world has turned to refined starches, sugars, fats, salt, processed foods, meat and animal-source products. In urban areas especially, consumers increasingly rely on supply chains of supermarkets, fast food outlets, street food vendors and take-away restaurants.

 

 

Dietary choices and sedentary lifestyles have pushed obesity into epidemic proportions not only in developed countries, but in low-income countries too, where hunger and obesity can co-exist.

Currently, 670 million adults and 160 million children suffer from obesity worldwide.

Astonishingly, over 820 million people suffer from hunger.

And this dichotomy is taking a toll on national health budgets, costing up to 2 trillion us dollars per year.

Poor diets are now are a leading cause of illness, linked to one fifth of all deaths worldwide.

The annual celebration of World World Food Day is an effort to bring attention to these issues. This year, it aims to push people everywhere to take action, under the theme: “Our Actions Are Our Future.”

The celebration is intent on informing citizens, businesses and governments that dietary choices, from the products we consume individually, to planetary choices, including the reduction of our environmental footprints, can enable a movement of change.

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Whale watching is seen as an ethical alternative to viewing captive cetaceans. Its benefits include raising awareness and educating people about cetaceans and marine conservation, besides providing a platform for research and collecting scientific data. But experts caution that this activity must be constantly monitored and compliance with legislation enforced, to avoid risk of harassment, injury and undue disturbances to cetaceans. Credit: Neena Bhandari/IPS

By Neena Bhandari
SYDNEY, Australia, Oct 14 2019 (IPS)

The thrill of watching a whale up close or schools of dolphins frolicking in an ocean are much sought after experiences today, boosting the demand for tours that provide people the opportunity to see these marine animals in their natural habitats. But becoming a major tourist drawcard has also exposed cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) and their environs to risks and challenges.

“Whale-watching generates economic benefits to a wider portion of the coastal communities where it is carried out, resulting in a more socially fair distribution of the profits unlike commercial whaling, which concentrated income in the hands of few business owners who killed whales for profit,” said Luena Fernandes of the Humpback Whale Institute in Brazil, who is the chair of the Whale Heritage Sites (WHS) Steering Committee and Chair of the World Cetacean Alliance (WCA) Science Working Group.

Over 100 whale scientists, conservationists and whale watching tourism experts met from 8th to 12th October in Hervey Bay in Australia’s Queensland state for the fifth World Whale Conference (WWC), organised by the United Kingdom-based WCA, world’s largest partnership of non-profit organisations, whale and dolphin watching tour operators and individuals, and co-hosted by Fraser Coast Tourism and Events.

Whale watching is seen as an ethical alternative to viewing captive cetaceans. Its benefits include raising awareness and educating people about cetaceans and marine conservation, besides providing a platform for research and collecting scientific data. But Fernandes cautions that this activity must be constantly monitored and compliance with legislation enforced, to avoid risk of harassment, injury and undue disturbances to cetaceans. In many localities, whale-watching is carried out within breeding areas.

Scientists have also raised concerns about swimming with whales and dolphins, especially active interaction whereby tourists are placed ‘in the way’ of cetaceans or actually chase them. Studies have demonstrated that human interactions and vessels can alter the behaviour of cetaceans.

Humpback whales migrate from the cold southern waters of the Antarctic to the warm northern waters of the Kimberley region every year to calve. The World’s largest pod of Humpback Whales, estimated at up to 40,000, mate and give birth in the Indian Ocean around Broome, western Australia. Credit: Neena Bhandari/IPS

“In the short-term, whale-watching can change the distribution and dispersion of cetacean groups, and affect their vocalisations which are a crucial part of their social life and survival. Cetaceans can also be negatively affected without showing any apparent change in behaviour.  But acute, prolonged or cumulative stress can result in diseases and affect reproductive success and survival in the long-term,” Fernandes told IPS.

“In large whales, significant behaviour changes can have high energy costs too, in particular for females with calves, with the aggravation of being far from their feeding areas. If the females cannot rest and spend their energy reserves swimming, they may not have enough milk to nurse their calves adequately. This may affect calf growth, resulting in their lower survival probability. Only three studies to date have been able to demonstrate long-term effects of whale-watching on cetacean vital rates, mainly a decrease in female reproductive success, and all on Odontocetes (toothed whales and dolphins),” she added. 

Globally, an estimated 15 million or more people went whale watching in 2019. The last global study had stated that 13 million people went whale watching in 2009. People worldwide spent more than $2.5bn on commercial whale watching tours, with the industry supporting 19,000 jobs.

To inspire kids and adults about marine life and ocean conservation in landlocked places, nine-year-old Aeon Bashir, who addressed the conference via video link from his home in Minnesota (USA), started Aeon for Ocean in 2017.

“Children who live in inland areas often do not know or have a connection with oceans and marine life. Through presentations, sing-a-longs, discussions and beach clean-ups, me and my team of ambassadors in the Krill2Whale Program, have been helping our peers and adults understand how we are all part of the marine ecosystem with every breath we take and through the water we drink and use,” Aeon told IPS.

He wants other young people, especially from developing inland Asian countries, to become Krill2Whale Ambassadors.

“The programme represents kids like me learning about the small creatures, the krill, and to the biggest creature, the whale. It is aimed at educating, creating awareness about oceans and youth leadership by encouraging young people to speak or write about conservation.

We are also using virtual reality to help kids see personal connection with oceans and enthuse them into science,” added Aeon, who wants to be an aeronautical engineer and marine scientist to improve the design of planes by studying the Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) body shape and movements.

To inspire kids and adults about marine life and ocean conservation in landlocked places, nine-year-old Aeon Bashir started Aeon for Ocean in 2017. This is Aeon presenting at the ProdeoAcademy. Courtesy: Aeon for Oceans

It was during their vacations in California that his parents first observed Aeon’s passion for whales and dolphins. “He preferred to watch these creatures in the ocean rather than go to theme parks. His heroes were whales, dolphins and sharks toys,” says his mother, Menaka Nagarajan, who hails from Chennai. His father, Bashir Ahmed, is from Bangladesh, both parents are computer scientists.

“We are learning with Aeon. If I knew what I know now about oceans and marine life when I was younger, I wouldn’t have been the one to throw that candy wrapper in the sea, but I would have been part of the solution.” 

Plastic pollution is driving many of the marine species to brink of extinction. Take 3 for the Sea inspires everyone to be part of the solution by taking 3 pieces of rubbish from a beach, waterway or anywhere to help reduce the plastic pollution ending up in our oceans.

“Earlier this year a starving Cuvier’s beaked whale was found beached in the Philippines, choking on 40 kg of plastic rubbish. Take 3 has delivered education that inspires participation to 350,000 students, and our global community of 300,000 are removing over 10 million pieces of rubbish every year,” Roberta Dixon-Valk, a marine ecologist/conservationist and Head of Programmes and a Co-founder of Take 3 for the Sea, told IPS.

Highlighting other major threats and risks to whales in the Asia-Pacific region, Wally Franklin, whale researcher and founder of The Oceania Project told IPS, “Climate change poses the most major threat to cetaceans. Rising sea temperatures and increased acidity of oceans may disrupt both breeding area patterns and habitats usage by humpback whales as well as krill production in Antarctic feeding areas. Also increasing vessel traffic, both commercial and recreational along coastal migratory corridors remain a serious threat as well as habitat degradation and plastic pollution.

“Sound pollution from coastal construction as well as offshore drilling platforms are likely to have an increasing impact on the acoustic environment for humpback whales and other species of cetaceans using coastal corridors during migration between Antarctic feeding areas and temperate breeding grounds.”

According to International Union for the Conservation of Nature, of the 89 currently recognised cetacean species, 29 percent are assigned to a threatened category.

Cetacean stranding, commonly known as beaching, is when whales and dolphins strand themselves on land, usually on a beach. Beached whales often die. Responses to stranding across the Asia-Pacific region vary tremendously, from expert care and successful re-floatation to communities using a stranded animal as a food source opportunity with little respect for the animal.

Sharon Livermore, Marine Conservation Programme Officer at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, an animal welfare and conservation organisation, told IPS, “In the case of any marine mammal strandings, it is important that members of the public who may come across one do all they can to help reduce risks to the animal. Firstly, if there are dogs in the area it is important they are kept under control to reduce stress to the stranded animal and ideally other members of the public are kept at a distance to reduce further disturbance”.

“We advise people to get in touch with the relevant marine stranding rescue group in the area. It is best to leave it to trained responders to refloat stranded animals to avoid inadvertently causing injury, but anyone keen to get more involved might wish to look into training and volunteering with a stranding network,” Livermore added.

Recent developments in AI technology are having a major impact on the study of marine mammals. According to Franklin, “Increased availability of visual data is allowing for the emergence of photo-based mark-recapture catalogues for multiple species. Emerging algorithms, if provided with an accurate and representative baseline curated by ‘eye’, can help quantify inherent error in matching.

However, no automated system has yet been developed to accommodate the information provided by multiple marks (e.g., ventral-tail flukes, dorsal-fins and lateral body marks). Importantly such AI technology must be open access to encourage wide application across multiple species”.

The migratory nature and wide range of most whale species makes it possible to watch them in various destinations throughout the year, but it also makes it crucial to protect their feeding, resting, breeding and calving habitats. 

The WCA’s Global Best Practice Guidance and International Whaling Commission’s Whale Watching Handbook represent international best practice for responsible whale and dolphin watching in the wild.

To reward communities that are promoting sustainable environmental management of marine resources, Whale Heritage Sites are being accredited across the globe. Hervey Bay, an internationally significant whale new-born calf nursery – where whales prepare their young for the long migration back to Antarctic waters, was on Friday accredited as the first Whale Heritage Site.

The whale watching centre of The Bluff, in Durban (South Africa), an important migratory route for humpback whales, including mother/calf pairs moving between northern calving grounds and southern feeding regions, was the second accredited site.

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The post Huge moment for Ethiopia as Abiy Ahmed wins Nobel Peace prize appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

It’s one of the world’s most prestigious honours, and has been awarded to Ethiopia’s prime minister in recognition of his inspired leadership across the Horn of Africa. But the award also comes at a time when his domestic policies and credibility are under increasing strain.

The post Huge moment for Ethiopia as Abiy Ahmed wins Nobel Peace prize appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Artist Kehinde Wiley discusses his work. Credit: A. D. McKenzie/IPS

By A. D. McKenzie
PARIS, Oct 11 2019 (IPS)

Fresh from unveiling a huge statue of a black man on horseback in New York’s Times Square, renowned African American artist Kehinde Wiley flew to France this week to “meet” 18th-century French painter Jacques-Louis David.

Wiley – most known for painting the portrait of US President Barack Obama in 2017 – is now “sharing a room” with David, who lived from 1748 to 1825 and was a painter and supporter of French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte.

In an exhibition titled “Wiley Meets David”, the American artist’s massive and colourful 2005 painting Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps can for the first time be viewed opposite David’s 1800 depiction Bonaparte Crossing the Great St. Bernard Pass (Le Premier Consul franchissant le col du Grand-Saint-Bernard), in a show that runs until Jan. 6, 2020.

“There’s lots of chest beating going on … that’s why when you look closely at my painting, you’ll see sperm cells swimming across the surface,” said Wiley at the Oct. 9 opening of the exhibition. “This is masculinity boiled down to its most essential component. All of this stuff, warfare, is about egos, about nationhood, about the formation of society.”

The two works of powerful-looking men on horseback are presented “in dialogue” at the imposing Château de Malmaison, just outside Paris. This is the former residence of French Empress Joséphine, which she shared with Bonaparte before they divorced in 1809.

Wiley’s painting comprises a reinterpretation of David’s portrait, and it is the first in his series “Rumors of War”, where African American subjects replace the historically mighty in a questioning of warfare and inequality. Here, a model named Williams is on horseback, in the same pose as David’s Napoleon, but wearing contemporary urban gear and a golden cloak. In contrast, David’s depiction was a “symbol of the glory of Bonaparte” when it was produced in 1800, according to the show’s curators.

Wiley stressed that his work was meant to make people of African descent visible in ways that they haven’t been in the history of art. But he added that despite the aura of power in his painting, he was also portraying “fragility”, even amidst certain social advances.

Wiley arrives at the Château de Malmaison with associates. Credit: A. D. McKenzie

“I want to caution us against a facile acceptance,” Wiley said. “These steps that we’re moving forward with, I prize greatly, but I also recognize their fragility. As powerful as that young man looks on that horse, it’s not his power that I’m concerned about, but rather his fragile position within that culture … that relegates artists like myself to even need to make utterances like the ones that I’ve done.”

Before being brought to France, Wiley’s painting had been exhibited for years at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the current show is a joint project between this museum and the Château de Malmaison.

After the exhibition in France, both paintings will be on display in Brooklyn, from Jan. 24 to May 10, 2020. David’s work is therefore returning to the United States, where it had spent time in New Jersey in the 1800s as part of the property of Napoleon’s brother Joseph.

“The partnership with the Brooklyn Museum will provide an opportunity to shed light on the current practices of North American museums with regard to groups of artists who have been overlooked in history and the history of art, and their links to audience development,” said Emmanuel Delbouis, a co-curator of the exhibition.

For Wiley, 42 years old, it’s high time for a change in the narrative regarding the contributions of people who have traditionally been excluded from mainstream stories. He said it was not a “trend” or a “movement” that so many artists of African descent are now focusing on historical issues affecting people of colour.

“We have been able and capable of contributing to the larger conversation globally, and now these conversations are happening,” he said during the exhibition’s press opening. “I think perhaps the culture is evolving. So, it’s not a trend … it’s simply another human voice being paid attention to.”

He said his painting was a criticism of colonialism and a challenge to its legacy, but that it was also an “embrace” of French art and David’s talent.

Wiley, who rose to fame with the portrait of Obama, has seen his artistic impact grow, both in the United States and internationally. He has held several exhibitions in France, and before the opening of this latest show, the unveiling of his 27-foot-high statue in Times Square, on Sept. 27, garnered global attention.

That work, his first public sculpture, will be on view at the famed square for several weeks before being permanently installed at the entrance to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, in Richmond, Virginia. It is being shown at the same time as the painting in France, sparking dialogue on both sides of the Atlantic about history and who gets to be celebrated in public monuments.

“We’re standing on the leading edge of story-telling, arguably on the leading edge of propaganda,” Wiley said in France. “Art has for centuries been at the service of churches, of state, of powerful men. And now artists have the ability to take that language and do what they will with it.

“So what am I doing? I’m engaging that language in a way that says ‘yes’ to certain things and ‘no’ to others,” he added. “The culture evolves, but we’re stuck here together, and we have to figure out how we’re gonna evolve together.”

This article is published in an arrangement with Southern World Arts News. Follow on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale

The post Obama’s Portraitist Challenges Napoleon’s Painter appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Oct 11 2019 (IPS)

Politics is a dodgy game, maybe even more so if you represent political views based on a moral approach. When the charismatic Justin Trudeau, son of a cosmopolitan liberal who served as Canada´s Prime Minister for 16 years, in 2015 was elected Prime Minister it was within a global political climate different from what it is today. Barack Obama was in the White House, Angela Merkel served her third period as German Chancellor, and the UK Government had not yet announced its country’s withdrawal from the EU. Nevertheless, Russia had three months before Trudeau´s election annexed Crimea, while Viktor Orbán´s Hungarian government the month before initiated the construction of a 4 metres high barrier along its nation´s eastern and southern borders to keep immigrants out.

After Donald Trump on January 27, 2017, had announced a ban on entry from seven Muslim-majority countries, Trudeau tweeted that “Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith” and since Trump was elected more than 40,000 asylum seekers have from the USA crossed the border into Canada.1 Just after taking office, Trudeau issued a statement promising to work for gender equality, to fight environmental degradation, rebuild relations with indigenous people and run an open, ethical and clear government, as well as he declared that his first legislative priority would be to lower taxes for middle-income Canadians and raise them for the highest percentage of income earners.

However, Trudeau´s stance as a stout liberal is becoming increasingly difficult within a global context and ahead of the Canadian general election day on October 21 his political opponents are exposing and trying to benefit from several shortcomings of his politics, as well as casting doubts on his personal integrity. A recent addition to this campaign has been when on September 18 Trudeau attracted controversy for a photograph published in Time on which he wore “brownface makeup” at a party at a private school where he was teaching in 2001. Time also published two earlier photos on which Trudeau wore “blackface”. Eventually, Trudeau was accused of being a populist politician obscuring the fact that he grew up as a privileged, white boy in close connection with the corridors of power where he learned to avoid accusations by acting as a firm believer in equality and multiculturalism. At once Trudeau apologized for unconsciously having hurt people:

Darkening your face, regardless of the context and circumstances, is always unacceptable because of the racist history of blackface. I should’ve understood that then, and I never should’ve done it […] I’m not that person anymore. I’m someone that understands the deep hurt caused by actions like that to people who live with discrimination every single day. I regret it deeply and I’m deeply sorry that I did that. It was something I didn’t think was racist at the time, and now I know it was racist.2

Trudeau was probably right. Dressing up and acting like a person from another culture and with another skin colour is probably something many of us have done. I remember how happy I was when I as a kid was chosen to play the African king Caspar in the Church´s Christmas pageant, wearing blackface and a beautiful robe. Furthermore, one of the favorite games among us kids in Sweden were to play Cowboys and Indians. I always wanted to be Sitting Bull and even had a magnificent feather war bonnet that my father had made for me.

Wearing blackface in the US or Canada may occasionally be equally innocent. Racist connotations of blackface are easily discernible, but its history is nevertheless multifaceted. Music and entertainment have always been a means for discriminated people to express frustrations and criticize an oppressing society. In his book Blues People from 1963, Leroy Jones, later known as Amiri Baraka, traced the origins of blues and jazz.3 Among other findings he described the cakewalk, originally a dance performed at get-togethers of plantation slaves, ridiculing the pretentious behaviour of slave masters. The polyrhythmic and syncopated music accompanying such dances was influenced by the hambone rhythm common among the West African Ewe people. After a troupe of former slaves performed the dance at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia it became popular all over the U.S. It was named cakewalk since the dancers were awarded with an enormous cake. Several composers, like Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Stephen Foster, made use of cakewalk tunes, but most famous was Scott Joplin´s inclusion of these specific rhythms in his ragtime compositions.

Cakewalk also captivated Europeans. In 1908, the French composer Claude Debussy published his Children´s Corner, a 6-movement suite for solo piano. The sixth piece, Golliwogg´s Cakewalk, is a jaunty, syncopated tune inspired by American ragtime. At the time Golliwogg dolls were fashionable all over the U.S. and Europe. They were stuffed dolls with jet black faces, bright red lips and wild, woolly hair. They wore red trousers, a shirt with a stiff collar, red bow-tie, and a blue jacket with tails, all reminiscent of performers in blackface minstrels.

Over the years, cakewalk had developed into popular shows, so called minstrels, in which both white and African American actors painted their faces jet black and then engaged in equilibristic song and dance numbers. Even the composer of the Canadian national hymn, Calixa Lavallée (1842-1891) spent 10 years of his life on stage in blackface. Famous Afro American blackface performers were Bahamian born Bert Williams and young comedy star Josephine Baker, who later brought her act to France, transformed it by introducing exotic ”African” traits and eventually became not only one of the most famous African American performers ever, but also a hero of the French resistance movement against the Nazi occupiers. The list of white artists performing in blackface is vast; famous among them are for example Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Doris Day. Mickey Rooney, Shirley Temple and Judy Garland, just to mention a few of them. Most famous of all blackface acts is when musical artist Al Jolson sang Mammy in the 1927 movie The Jazz Singer, the first sound film. As a son of a Jewish, Orthodox cantor who could not accept that his son had become a vaudeville artist, both Jolson and the character in the movie wore blackface during their performances as an indication that they had broken away from the ”enclosed traditional Jewish life” and become integrated in ”American culture”.4

The Golliwog character that inspired Debussy was created by the illustrator Florence Kate Upton, who in 1895 began writing children books about a black doll. The doll became the hero of thirteen enormously popular, rhyming books and was presented as a gentle and inventive character. The last of Upton´s books about Golliwog was published in 1909, but dolls manufactured in his likeness had by then become a common addition to thousands of nurseries. In far away Sweden, I was unaware of their existence but like millions of other children around the world I had read several of Enid Blyton´s (1897–1968) books – they have over the years been published in over 600 million copies – though I was never a great fan of them, the kids ate too much and were far too well-behaved. Her books are still popular and have been translated into 90 different languages. She built a literary empire, sometimes producing fifty books a year, among them a series of Golliwog books, like The Three Golliwogs, The Little Black Doll, The Golliwog Grumbles and Here Comes Noddy Again, it is only in the last book that a Golliwog is really naughty – he asks a driver for a lift only to end up stealing his car. Blyton´s books about the Golliwogs have been defended as being innocent children´s literature. Neverthelss, they are racist. The looks and simplistic behaviour of the black characters contribute to conecptions that more or less consciously influence the minds of young readers. The name Golliwog is offensive as well. Wog is a derogatory word referring to a ”non-white person”. The term apparently originated from sailors and used to label a person as a clumsy newcomer, someone who had not yet crossed the equator – pollywog was another name for a tadpole, i.e. someone who is not yet fully developed.

In Blues People, Leroi Jones characterized blackface performances as yet another proof of unawareness of how black people relate to oppressors. According to him, white people are brought up within a culture that thoughtlessly infantilizes and discriminates against persons of another skin colour. Most white Americans lack awareness of the origins of their own culture, which in reality is a mixture of contributions from a vast number of people with different skin colours. Especially American music, fashion and literature contain important traits of African culture and much of what now is used to denigrate African Americans were originally used by them to criticize the whites:

If the cakewalk is a Negro dance caricaturing certain white customs, what is that dance, when, say, a white theater company attempts to satirize it as a Negro dance? I find the idea of white minstrels in blackface satirizing a dance satirizing a dance satirizing themselves, as a remarkable kind of irony.5

Racism is absurd and all of us, irrespective of the colour of our skin, ought to realize that if we do not admit that certain behaviour can be considered as denigrating by others we remain at an infantile state of mind. When kids play being Cowboys and Indians, or when grown-ups impersonate people from other cultures, this is mostly done in an innocent manner. However, it is a quite different case when, as for example D.W. Griffith did in his classic and still admired movie Birth of a Nation, blackfaced actors are ridiculing and demonizing black Americans.

Trudeau did the right thing when he apologized for his use of blackface. However, his political opponents’ way of interpreting thoughtless, bygone playacting as a racist statement may be considered as a politically motivated maneuver intended to damage someone who actually has been trying to improve race relations.

1 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47940989
2 https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/justin-trudeau-blackface-brownface-photos-video
3 Jones, Leroi (1999) Blues People: Negro Music in White America. New York: Harper Perennial.
4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIaj7FNHnjQ
5 Jones (1999), p. 86.

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

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