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By GGGI
Jun 12 2019 (IPS-Partners)

SEOUL, Republic of Korea  (GGGI) – Out of more than 200 participants, 15 were shortlisted from GGGI’s Member countries and countries where GGGI has operations, including Cambodia, Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Jordan, Morocco, Nepal, the Philippines, Rwanda, Uganda, the UAE, and Vanuatu. This year, GGGI is pleased to have a variety of project ideas designed to facilitate the achievement of green growth and climate change action in developing countries, including innovative uses of solar PV systems, recycling solutions, and waste management innovations.

In 2019, 50% of applications consisted of teams with female leads with regional diversity of 43% (Asia), 7% (Small islands), 30% (Sub-Saharan Africa), 17% (MENA), and 3% (Latin America).

GGGI would like to congratulate the following 15 participants who will take part in a 12-week support and development program, receiving mentoring and training through a virtual webinar. The top three teams who win the Business Plan Competition will win USD 5,000 per team in seed funding to invest in their business ideas plus bursaries.

 

 

In April, GGGI kicked off a global competition to support young entrepreneurs develop sustainable ideas or solutions that would positively impact their communities and the Sustainable Development Goals.

“We are hoping to foster a generation of young leaders passionate about promoting green solutions and a sustainable future"

Dr. Frank Rijsberman, Director-General of GGGI

Now in its second year, the Greenpreneurs 2019 program aims to serve as a platform for young entrepreneurs with ideas for business development, that is environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive.

“Young entrepreneurs have innovative business ideas to accelerate the transition to green growth in developing countries, however, they still lack access to right technical training, network, mentorship, and seed capital. Thus, together with Student Energy and the Youth Climate Lab, GGGI launched a pilot Greenpreneurs program in 2018 with the aim of providing support for green growth startups, particularly in developing countries.”

Believing in the potential of the youth, Greenpreneurs is designed to provide opportunities for young entrepreneurs to transform innovative ideas into green businesses in sustainable energy, water and sanitation, sustainable landscapes and green cities – all of which are GGGI’s thematic priorities.

“We are hoping to foster a generation of young leaders passionate about promoting green solutions and a sustainable future. Last year, we launched a business competition limited to virtual mentoring over the web, but this year, we are envisioning to have physical incubators to join the green streams to nurture green entrepreneurs,” said Dr. Frank Rijsberman.

GGGI’s partner, the Youth Climate Lab, shared how “youth play a crucial role in combating climate change. Their active participation provides intergenerational viewpoints of present and future citizens, which are fundamental to sustainable development.”

About Greenprenuers Program 2019

Greenpreneurs is a twelve-week virtual global competition open to youth between the ages of 17 and 35 focused in GGGI’s Member countries. The four priority themes (Sustainable Energy, Water & Sanitation, Sustainable Landscapes, and Green Cities) reflect the urgent issues impeding growth in developing countries in the context of green growth, climate change, and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

 

 

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Photo Credit: UNICEF/Phil Moore

By UNOCHA
Jun 11 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(UNOCHA) – Conflict, hunger and disease forced nearly 700,000 people to flee South Sudan to become refugees in neighbouring countries in 2017. More than 70 percent of those fled in the first half of 2017, when multiple military offensives occurred in Upper Nile, Unity, Jonglei, and the Greater Equatoria region.

Since 2013, over 4.2 million people – about one in three South Sudanese – have been displaced within the country. More than 2.2 million people are now refugees in countries across the region, including Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

What happens when people are forced to abandon their land, homes, jobs and schools due to a civil war? Follow one family’s journey of 1,000 kilometers (over 600 miles) as they travel the length of South Sudan in search of safety.

View the full story on UN OCHA

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By Nils Røkke
TRONDHEIM, Norway, Jun 11 2019 (IPS)

Never before has half a degree (0.5C) meant so much for humanity. We are behaving as if we have time to deal with climate change. We don’t. The main problem is that we believe we must sacrifice growth and prosperity for the sake of decarbonisation. We don’t.

Increase investments

We can decarbonise the economy and create jobs and growth. In Europe, this requires that member states increase investments in energy research and renewable energy technologies.

Europe can take the lead by investing in research and reviewing regulations, making sustainability a competitive advantage. The public and the private sector need to work together to quickly prototype technologies and then scale the pilots.

This requires research and innovation incentives. To show the effect of these approaches, I would like to point out a few concrete examples.

To increase investments in research in Europe, research institutes, the public and the private sector need to link national funding to EU programs. Existing research funding needs to be spent more wisely.

Nils Røkke

Simultaneously the public and the private sector need to plan, work and evaluate projects like real partners. I am certain that this will incentivize and accelerate climate-friendly and market-worthy businesses and ideas.

One example of an effective public-private partnership is the Norwegian government’s support of research facilities for carbon capture and storage at multiple locations for multiple industries. This includes Norcem’s cement plant in Breivik and the recycling of energy from a waste incineration plant at Klementsrud in Oslo.

Leveraging public-private partnerships

The Norwegian government has understood that to balance its national carbon budget, the public sector needs to support private industry. Proof that this approach works is the first full-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) solution to be implemented at a cement factory, in Brevik, Norway.

Government supported schemes for capacity building, research and innovation has underpinned this development and planned deployment. This has also included projects operating under the EU Framework programs for research from FP6 to Horizon 2020. We need more solutions that are sustainable, effective and realistic by 2030. Which means we also need more public-private partnership.

Regulating change

At the same time, countries can regulate to ensure that sustainable operations become a competitive advantage and that sustainable technologies is rapidly deployed and adopted. A clear example from industry is the Europe-wide market for carbon quotas.

Requiring companies to pay for their emissions incentivizes them to find the most innovative and effective ways to reduce their emissions. The companies that can reduce emissions in the most cost-effective way will in turn become more competitive. The companies that change will capture market share and grow.

Regulations are also an incredibly efficient way to affect consumer and market behaviour, and thereby which technologies are sold, profitable and further improved. A common example of this is the Norwegian government’s approach to regulating the personal vehicle market.

Electric vehicles are exempt from many taxes and fees in Norway, which makes them very appealing when compared to vehicles with internal combustion engines. All of these incentives have made a significant impact on consumers adopting electric vehicles.

In March 2019 Norway actually became the first country in the world to sell more electric vehicles than internal combustion vehicles.

Incentivising energy research

Increasing funds for energy research and affecting behaviour through regulation are important for change, but full-scale pilot projects will only scale when energy research itself is incentivized. No one single technology or system can tackle our transition to a zero-emission society.

Each country must therefore consider the tools at their disposal to incentivise research into technologies for renewable energy. This was the backdrop for establishing the Mission Innovation initiative (MI) that was launched at the COP21 in Paris. Why is only 1.8% of public research and development funding invested in clean energy when clean energy is one of the most important ways to achieve climate neutrality?

The Mission Innovation initiative aims to double the investment into clean energy to trigger more investment from the private sector. After all, public money cannot solve this challenge alone.

Countries need to work together. At EERA, we work hard to ensure that we facilitate cooperation to the greatest possible extent. One concrete project I would like to draw attention to is the Joint Programme for Concentrated Solar Power (JP CSP).

Fostering knowledge and technology transfer from advanced European research to the most promising areas for solar thermal energy is the key aim of the international cooperation strategy of the program.

Within the framework of the EU funded Integrated Research Programme STAGE-STE, the JP CSP has successfully integrated partners from four continents – from Australia to Chile, Brazil, Mexico, India, China, as well as from MENA countries like Libya, Morocco and Saudi Arabia – in its research community, gathering all the key research institutions working on CSP and solar thermal energy.

The EU can always do more. One concrete recommendation I would like to give as Executive Vice President of Sustainability at SINTEF and Chair of EERA is to increase the budget for the next Horizon Europe research program. The initial suggestion of 100 billion EUR should instead be expanded to 120 billion.

We need the budgetary room so that we can fully pursue the ideas that make the most sense. Also, we need to be sure that the research we do fully permeates industry. Therefore, “Pillar Two” of Horizon Europe, the portion that connects the research with industrial opportunities, must be further strengthened.

There are many solutions and technologies that are required to generate the technologies and techniques for a more sustainable future. All countries and member states in Europe should increase their investments, regulate to ensure that sustainability becomes a competitive advantage, and incentivize research to realize as many solutions as possible.

Technology can keep us in the race to prevent global warming, jobs and economic growth. How can we ever overspend on that investment?

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Excerpt:

Nils Røkke is Chair of European Energy Research Association and head of Sustainability at SINTEF Energy.

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Michael Lim Mah Hui
KUALA LUMPUR and PENANG, Jun 11 2019 (IPS)

The emergence and growth of financialization from the 1980s has been driven by several factors operating at various levels – national and international, ideological and political, and of course, technological. The 1971 collapse of the Bretton Woods (BW) international monetary system arguably paved the way for financial globalization.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Cross-border financing
The BW dollar-gold standard had provided the basis for the relatively stable post-World War Two exchange rate system; ‘regulated’ capital flows of the BW system gave way to a new international financial order based on free-floating exchange rates and freer cross-border capital flows.

These developments changed banking in two ways. First, banks became more globalized, with international banking taking off in the 1970s. In the 1950s, only three major US banks had foreign branches. In 1965, only US$9 billion, or 2% of total US banking loans, were foreign. By 1976, foreign loans had risen to US$219 billion as the ten largest US banks made half their profits from international banking.

Second, with floating exchange rates, transnational companies’ (TNCs) profits were exposed to currency risks. Fluctuating, instead of stable exchange rates generated more profits from foreign exchange trading, accounting for growing bank revenues and profits.

Hedging and speculation
As banks increasingly served TNC ‘hedging’ needs, forex trading for speculation became more important than supporting the real economy. Although total world trade in 2007 was only worth US$15 trillion, forex trading averaged US$5 trillion daily, or over a quadrillion in the year!

Derivatives — such as options, swaps, non-deliverable contracts, ‘shorting’, etc. — allowed banks and their clients to hedge and speculate, with greatly increasing leverage magnifying risks, not only to the parties involved, but also to the financial system as a whole.

Michael Lim Mah Hui

At the international level, governments have permitted the proliferation of tax havens for corporations and individuals to evade taxes, ‘recycle’ and hide illicit funds, supported by bankers, lawyers, accountants and other enablers. Such illicit flows in 2014 were estimated at between US$1.4 trillion to US$2.5 trillion.

Thus, financial globalization involves mutating networks of financial institutions, both banks and non-bank financial institutions such as institutional investors, asset managers, investment funds and other ‘shadow banks’.

It involves lending to companies, households and individuals, for trading on securities and derivative markets within and across national borders. Financial globalization has been enabled by innovations made possible by significant improvements in computing capability.

Hélène Rey argues synchronized financial trends constitute a ‘global financial cycle’ due to the growing interconnectivity of securities and equity markets, capital flows and credit cycles around the world, ultimately influenced by US Fed policies. Greater integration and synchronization of financial markets have thus exacerbated financial instability and fragility.

From state to individual
But rapid global financialization is not only due to the expansive power of financial innovation, but also to deliberate policy choices at national and international level, beginning in the US with financial liberalization and banking deregulation from the 1980s. Interstate banking was allowed, and interest rate controls lifted, with commercial banks eventually allowed to underwrite and trade securities.

The US and other powerful financial interests successfully ‘globalized’ financial liberalization and financialization in the rest of the world, pressuring economies to lift exchange rate controls and open financial markets to foreign banks and investors, leading to Japan’s financial ‘big bang’ in 1990-1991 and the 1997-1998 East Asian financial crises.

The 1980s also saw the erosion of progressive taxation with more tax breaks for the rich, ostensibly to promote growth, and exaggeration of supposed funding crises for social security and public pensions.

Governments have favoured finance with generous tax breaks for interest income, with capital gains taxed much less than wages. These were invoked to legitimize the shift from future provisioning via the welfare state to self-provisioning via market investments.

Thus, investment risks have shifted from employers and governments to future pensioners investing individually via private pension funds, insurance companies and asset management corporations, i.e., changing from ‘defined benefits’ to ‘defined contributions’.

Ideological drivers
Financialization has been supported by the rise of shareholder activism, invoking ‘economic value added’ (EVA) arguments, to maximize shareholder value, instead of serving various stakeholders including employees, customers, suppliers and the public, or allowing managerial abuse of the ‘principal-agent’ problem, as managers serve their own interests, rather than investors’.

Short-termist maximization of stock prices via quarterly earnings, e.g., through mergers and acquisitions, is thus prioritized instead of long-term considerations, including ‘organic growth’. This paved the way for the mergers and acquisitions wave of the 1980s and 1990s, immensely profiting Wall Street and anointing financiers as the new ‘masters of the universe’.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former economics professor, was United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.

Dr Michael LIM Mah Hui has been a university professor and banker, in the private sector and with the Asian Development Bank.

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Cartoon by Jack Swanepoel, published in Sunday Times, Johannesburg, July 13, 1997

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

When I recently visited the Czech Republic I noticed an increasing Czech opposition against their wealthy Prime Minister. Andrej Babiš has been endowed with the nickname Babisconi since he, like the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, is accused of purchasing and using various means of communication for his own propaganda purposes. Apparently, this endeavour has so far been quite successful, since according to my Czech friends Babiš is still popular among a majority of their compatriots.

Like Berlusconi, Donald Trump, Poland´s Kaczyński and Hungary´s Orbán, Andrej Babiš challenges his nation´s legal representatives and even tries to change legislation to favour him in his efforts to avoid mounting accusations of wrongdoing. Billionaires like Trump, Berlusconi and Babiš came to power by declaring that their wealth made them immune to corruption, claiming that their goal was to ”drain swamps” created by corrupt, ”professional” politicians. To prove their capacity to achieve a change for the better they referred to their success as entrepreneurs. However, all three soon fell victims to an urge to continue enriching themselves.

The Czech Republic is at the very core of Europe and a man like Andrej Babiš appears to be a result of the country´s liminal position between a ”capitalist” West and a formerly ”socialist” East. Babiš is a billionaire who like Trump brags about his wealth and popularity, while using xenophobia as a means to gain support. Extremely wealthy politicians like Trump and Berlusconi have been accused of gaining their fortunes through connections with organized crime, while Babiš is said to have benefitted from the oligarch-controlled environment that emerged from a crumbling ”Eastern Block”.

On the 5th of June, 120,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Prague protesting against what they considered to be Andrej Babiš´s shameless power abuse. It was the biggest protest since 28 November 1989, when 500,000 demonstrators convinced the nation´s Communist leaders that they had to resign. However, street protests do apparently not bother Andrej Babiš. Like Trump, Babiš claims that after his victory in the last elections (he obtained close to 30 percent of the votes, three times more than the closest contender) he is confident that his ”base” remains strong and loyal, while he believes the opposition is just a paper tiger whipped on by fake news.

Before entering politics, Babiš was an entrepreneur and he is now the second richest man in the Czech Republic, with an estimated net worth of about US$ 4.04 billion. Since 2011, Babiš heads the recently founded populist party ANU, which proclaims its goal is to rid the Republic of corruption and fight unemployment. ANU, which has an anti-EU and anti-immigration platform, also promises substantial tax cuts for all.

In spite of his ruling party´s intention to abolish immunity for politicians, such immunity has so far saved Babiš from being convicted for fraud. He has been under investigation by both the Czech Police and OLAF (Office européen de Lutte Anti-Fraude) the European Anti-Fraud Office. Among other crimes Babiš is accused of using an anonymous company, unlawfully controlled by himself, to obtain a € 2 million subsidy from the EU. In 2017, Babiš was, upon request from the Czech police, stripped of his parliamentary immunity. However, after a few months, as a result of his re-election as Prime Minister, Babiš regained his parliamentary immunity.

Babiš is constantly accused of conflicts of interest, recurrent intimidations of opponents, as well as his alleged past role in the communist secret police. In 1980, Babiš joined the generally dreaded Communist Party and has since then on been accused of being an ”influential” agent for the Czechoslovak Secret State Security Service, StB, and working closely with KGB, something he vehemently denies.

When the trading firm Agrofert in 1993 was ”re-capitalized”, Babiš suddenly emerged as its sole owner, supported by so far undisclosed financing. Under Babiš´s leadership Agrofert gradually developed into one of the largest companies in the country, acquiring and developing various agricultural, food processing and chemical industries. In 2011, Agrofert Holding consisted of more than 230 companies, mainly in the Czech Republic, Slovakia (Babiš is a Slovak by birth) and Germany. In 2013, Agrofert purchased the media company MAFRA, publisher of two big newspapers, owner of a TVnetwork and the Czech Republic´s most popular radio station.

Babiš is known to oppose the power and influence of both the EU and NATO. His conflict with the latter organisation emanates from his disappointment over its refusal to sink ships ”trafficking human beings”. He stated that NATO

it is not interested in refugees, although Turkey, a NATO member, is their entrance gate to Europe and smugglers operate on Turkish territory.1

He has also rejected EU refugee quotas stating:

We must react to the needs and fears of the citizens of our country. We must guarantee the security of Czech citizens. Even if we are punished by sanctions.2

Even if Babiš repeatedly has assured people about his close attachment to Western Europe and the US, he is accused of furthering Russian policy goals and business interests. An often quoted example is that he granted a Czech government loan guarantee to a Russian company with a record of defaults, though owned by a close friend to Putin.

Is Andrej Babiš emergence in politics part of a trend where business interests and a global financial system facilitate kleptocracy? Where internal and foreign policies are crafted to pursue rulers´ personal agendas and enrichment? We are witnessing Trump´s blatant lies and coverups, well aware of the fact that much of his wealth was created through deals with Mafia dons like Vito Genovese, Anthony ”Fat Tony” Salerno, Paul Castellano, John Staluppi and Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo. Contacts generally mediated through the ruthless lawyer Roy Cohn. No one involved in huge construction projects on Manhattan, or within the gambling world of Atlantic City, could avoid making deals with the ”mob”. This business model did not change when the Trump Organization began to cooperate with money laundering oligarchs like Kazakh citizens Mukhtar Ablyazov and Ilyas Khrapunov, as well as several other shady characters from around the world.3

The dirty connections between politics and business are revealed from all over the world. Kleptocrats from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Angola are siphoning wealth to offshore companies. Cyprus and other places are currently emerging as havens for dirty Russian money. A year ago, Malaysia´s former Premier Minister Najib Razak was arrested by Malaysia´s Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) accused of transferring US$10.6 million to his personal bank account. The money originated from complicated schemes orchestrated through an investment group funded by government developement grants. These are just a few worrying signs and indications of a wave of greed and ruthlessness sweeping the world. Occasionally, hidden horrors of this criminal realm flare up when some journalist or whistleblower is brutally murdered, like Daphne Caruana Galizia on Malta, Jamal Kashoggi in Istanbul, or Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow, just to mention a few of the most famous cases, representing numerous other believers in freedom of speech who are killed, tortured and silenced all over the world.

Investigative journalists have often good reasons for fear. But – are powerful and wealthy people fearless? Apparently not. I assume most of them fear to lose their power and money and thus be exposed as being pathetic and defenseless. Tony Schwartz, who ghostwrote The Art of the Deal for Donald Trump, stated:

Fear is the hidden through-line in Trump’s life – fear of weakness, of inadequacy, of failure, of criticism and of insignificance. He has spent his life trying to outrun these fears by “winning” – as he puts it – and by redefining reality whenever the facts don’t serve the narrative he seeks to create. It hasn’t worked, but not for lack of effort.4

1 Czech minister Babiš criticises NATO´s stance of refugees,” Ceske Noviny, 20 Septenber 2015.
2 “Babiš: ´I reject the EU refugee quotas´,” Prague Monitor, 4 August, 2016.
3 Cooley, Alexander and John Heathershaw (2018) Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia. Princeton: Yale University Press
4 Mayer, Jane (2016) ”Donald Trump´s Ghostwriter Tells All,” The New Yorker, July 18

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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Elisa knitting outside her home.

By Karessa Ramos
MADRID, Spain, Jun 11 2019 (IPS)

This is the story of two women who are positively transforming social norms in their respective societies, as part of the global movement towards gender equality.

In Lima, Peru, Elisa Cuchupoma runs two livelihoods: one is selling knitted hair ornaments along with her group lending co-members, and the other is selling cuy (cavia porcellus), a guinea pig native to the Andean regions, raised for its meat.

She is part of the Palabra de Mujer group lending program of BBVA Microfinance Foundation (BBVAMF) in the country, which has reached more than 90,000 vulnerable women.

In La Vega, Dominican Republic, Benita Hernández tends a small-scale farm where she grows coffee, celery and sweet potato among other crops. Recently, she has also added macadamia nuts in her list of produce and has been receiving loans and technical assistance from the Foundation’s local institution.

This may not seem much at first glance, but in a region where women still face significant barriers to own productive properties and to independently access financing, Elisa and Benita join millions of women fighting for this and other rights that they are being denied.

Similarly, over 1.2 million women like them are taking part in this worldwide action, with the support of BBVAMF, through its six microfinance institutions (MFIs) in five countries in Latin America.

It is true that over the past decades in the Americas, the legal framework in politics, economics and in protecting women from gender violence has evolved positively. In fact, it is the second-best performer according to the OECD’s 2019 Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) Report, which reflects women’s situation in 180 countries regarding discrimination in four dimensions: the family, restricted physical integrity, limited access to productive and financial resources, and restrained civil liberties.

None of its countries classify as having high or very high discrimination. Still, the SIGI’s latest edition1 confirms that to reach Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5): Gender Equality, the region has to address women’s lack of access to productive and financial resources.

This organization, together with the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), confirms that adequate legislation is the first step towards gender equality, as it impacts women’s economic independence, without which, their progress and that of the whole region will never be optimized.

For instance, the SIGI shares that “nine countries have not implemented gender-sensitive measures to expand women’s access to formal financial services”. Consequently, their participation in the social and economic spheres is limited and their potential remains untapped. The report has identified that the region’s economic cost of gender inequality is USD 400 bn.

Benita in her farm.

Likewise, it reveals that the family is the most difficult area of change, to the extent that Colombia is the only country with a law recognizing that women and men enjoy the same right to be head of household.

This means that as of this day, women’s voice and status within their home are subordinated to those of men. However, legal protection is insufficient when women’s own families continue to express negative attitudes about them or the projects they wish to undertake. Social norms and dynamics, based on practices, would have to undergo major transformations as well.

Accordingly, Elisa and Benita are not settling to be entrepreneurs with stable sources of income. Access to financial resources has enabled them to dream bigger and make their progress extensible to their households and communities.

In fact, BBVAMF’s own social performance assessment reveals that its female clients perform better than males: their earnings grow by 20% annually (versus 12% for businesses managed by male entrepreneurs), 37% of female clients overcome poverty in the second year with the Foundation, and although their exit to poverty is slower than that of their male counterpart, they experience a much lower relapse rate.

This is why it’s no surprise that, in their own way, these two women are also paving the road for change, so other women could enjoy the same rights as they do.

In Elisa’s case, her husband’s apprehension to apply for a loan deterred her from pushing her business plans forward. This went on until she learned about BBVAMF’s Peruvian MFI, where she was given a loan without her husband’s knowledge (since his collateral and signature were not required).

This then, became her gateway to economic independence, because aside from financial resources, her lending group (named “Neighbors united forever”) also receives training in financial and business management, and the members have become her second family who support her and encourage her to follow her ambitions.

In return, she has taught other female lending groups how to knit; expanding their skillset and making other entrepreneurial possibilities open to them. She now offers employment to 12 women of her community.

Benita, for her part, knows how lack of information has caused Dominican women to waive their right to be land proprietors, preventing them to accumulate assets and reduce their vulnerability. Indeed, the SIGI identifies “poor, less educated and rural women to be at higher risk due to intersectional discrimination.”

Without adequate knowledge about the requirements, and sometimes not even possessing the basic document of identification, they don’t stand a chance to be legal land owners. This widespread reality drove her to become part of the “Asociación Humanista de Campesinos” (Humanist Farmers’ Association) to help people fix their documentation requirements and afterwards aid them to obtain their land titles.

As the SIGI 2019 states, “social norms can be double-edged swords for women”: they can either hinder or act as catalysts for their progress. This is why the efforts of these two female entrepreneurs, along with those of other women, governments, the private sector, civil society, and other stakeholders are slowly taking the shape of a tool to eliminate discriminatory laws, social norms and practices.

Yet it must be maintained that transforming this social, cultural and historical machinery is a non-exclusive responsibility for women. The whole society- women and men, girls and boys must be engaged.

In this regard, SEGIB and BBVA Microfinance Foundation will jointly host the presentation of the SIGI 2019 in Madrid, Spain, on June 13th, as part of their commitment to drive changes that bring the world nearer to fulfilling SDG 5 and the 2030 Agenda. The gathering will take a broad look at the main conclusions of the report, after which the Latin American context will then be discussed, where Elisa and Benita will share their tales and make the reality of many others like them visible for the world to see: women who have to overcome social and economic barriers to find their way towards economic independence, and thus, contribute to achieving gender equality.

1 The SIGI looks at the gaps that legislation, social norms and practices create between men and women in terms of rights and opportunities. For more on methodology, refer to: http://bit.ly/2I2YDOw (p. 165)

The post Championing Social Changes: A Tale of Two Women appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Karessa Ramos is Social Media Data Analyst for BBVA Microfinance Foundation based in Madrid

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China’s Defence Minister Wei Fenghe (left) and acting US Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan (front second right) attend the opening of the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore on May 31, 2019. PHOTO: AFP

By Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
Jun 10 2019 (IPS-Partners)

The Annual Jamboree of global defence leaders at the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore is much more than just a talkathon. Amidst the wining and dining, and in the chambers and corridors, policymakers and thought leaders get the opportunity to interact with one another intensely over a weekend. They try to make sense of how the regional critical security and related issues are evolving, against the backdrop of a rising Asia and a burgeoning superpower competition in what is now being increasingly viewed as the “Indo-Pacific Region”. Over the last several years the United States seemed to enjoy a walk-over vis-à-vis the agenda in the absence of senior Chinese protagonists. It invariably resulted in a spot of “China-bashing”, and a consequent erosion of its significance, the high quality of discourses notwithstanding.

All that changed during this year’s dialogue, between May 31 and June 2. The not-quite sleeping dragon decided that it was about time it showed up to spew some fire to display its potential might. So Beijing despatched a very high official, indeed its Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe to take on the US Acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan. On the verbal battlegrounds of Shangri La, it was finally, the Greek meets Greek, and as is said when that happens, then comes the tug of war!Though strategically the US is far ahead in terms of conventional and nuclear hardware, China already possesses the capacity to wreak absolutely unacceptable damage upon the US.

The Shangri La Dialogue provides for some superb conferencing. The London-based Institute of International and Strategic Studies organises it and the Singapore government provides the deliberations a gentle stewardship so as to be able to yield fruitful results. If in the past China’s absence caused the upshot to appear somewhat lopsided, this time round Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong himself took care to lay down the ground-rules of the discussions in a masterful analysis of the regional and global situation at a post-dinner tour d’horizon on the opening night.

He did not fight shy of the problems that dot the world in our times, offered some pragmatic solutions while circumspectly avoiding taking sides. He concluded by urging: “we must work together to maximise the chances that countries will have the wisdom and courage to work together…will have the wisdom and courage to make the right choices, opt for openness and integration, and so preserve and expand the progress we have made together.”

It was not that Singapore was simply punching above its weight. His rational words calmed nerves. They helped to round off the sharp edges of the inevitable US-China debate that was at the core of this year’s programme.

Nonetheless, some sparks did fly. A restrained Shanahan, without mentioning China, iterated that States that “eroded rules-based order”, were a “threat to the region”. Despite the perplexity of some in the audience, who could have thought the remarks could have applied equally to Shanahan’s own country, the US, Wei Fenghe accepted the fact that China was the target. Almost coinciding with Shanahan’s speech, The US Department of Defence released a report referring to China as a “revisionist power” seeking regional hegemony in the near, and global pre-eminence in the longer term.

To many analysts though, it could have seemed like the pot calling the kettle black. For didn’t it resemble the pattern of behaviour of the US itself, not so long ago? So, is the US now looking to inherit the pristine purity of behaviour of the proverbial Caesar’s wife? In a laconic riposte worthy of Julius Caesar’s famous “I came I saw I conquered” message, Wei Fenghe shot back at his perceived rival: “A talk, yes? A fight, ready. Bully us? No Way”!

He reiterated that China was ready to fight the US to the end, but confined the rhetoric, for now at least, to the sphere of trade! He might as well have quoted the old limerick: “We don’t want to fight, but by jingo if we do, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the ships, we’ve got the money too!” For the participants of other countries, the apprehension understandably was the same that faced the grass beneath the elephants, doomed to be trampled upon, whether the giant animals made love or locked war!

Happily the prospects of a war are far beyond the rim of the saucer. The US and China, much unlike the US and the Soviet Union of the yesteryears are much too interdependent. They are the largest trade partners, and China owns an estimated USD 1.18 trillion US debt (as of April last year, though the figures pared down somewhat since). Though strategically the US is far ahead in terms of conventional and nuclear hardware, China already possesses the capacity to wreak absolutely unacceptable damage upon the US. Also, while Soviet leaders, not just Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky, but also those that followed were committed to destroying the capitalist system and building anew, the Chinese took the pragmatic line of working to change within the system and weaving the differences philosophically within the dialectical process.

Despite the oft-cited mention of the Thucydides syndrome, named after the Greek historian who said when Athens grew strong there was great fear in Sparta, serious current thinkers have pretty much ruled out an all-out war. In a recent tome entitled “Destined for War; Can America and China escape the Thucydides Trap?” the strategic writer Graham Wallace argued that, yes, they can. What he meant was “yes, they must”. He stated that research showed such avoidance was possible, but it called for imaginative but painful steps.

But this does not mean we are not headed for a long-term Sino-US rivalry, within the model of a rising power challenging a sated one. The trade gap with China has, for the US, grown to a record USD 419.2 billion. Competition for influence in the Asia-Pacific region, where the powers collide directly is fierce. The age of the US as the only hyper-power was short lived. The two current superpowers, led by both Mr Donald Trump and Mr Xi Jinping are subordinating multilateral institutions to suit their purposes. The global state-system is now very much the “anarchical Society” as described by the theoretician Hedley Bull in a classic study of the same name.

In a situation where each State is more or less on its own, the need for each to focus on its own security and development increases manifold. For a country like Bangladesh it would entail expanding product and services markets through innovative initiatives like bilateral and pluri-lateral Free Trade Agreements, rather than say, being dependent on global bodies like the World Trade Organization. Also, bolstering its own defences with smart procurements rather than depend on the platitudinous resolutions of the United Nations. Perhaps the easy life of a policymaker is a thing of the past. It amply proves the veracity of the axiom that fitness to survive perhaps must remain a perennial societal goal.

Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is Principal Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, and a former Foreign Advisor in a Caretaker Government in Bangladesh.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Duel at the Shangri-La dialogue: Implications for us all appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Ogbonge Women Lagos Chapter in Agege

By Chinasa Asonye
LAGOS, Nigeria, Jun 10 2019 (IPS)

As a wife and mother in Nigeria who wanted to support my family and my community, I began my own farm in 2006. When I began, I never could have dreamed that just cultivating the earth would someday lead to my meeting government leaders, and traveling to meet other women from around the world doing their part to make a difference in their own communities.

Years of hard work, learning and women’s solidarity built to my recent trip to New York City, where I participated in the Commission on the Status of Women. I was there to talk about my work in Nigeria, and my journey from being one individual small-scale farmer, to this international stage.

It was an amazing opportunity that was all new, yet also brought me full-circle and made me realize I am on the right track. Now, as I head home after further travels, my time in New York feels monumental and my passion for this work is stronger than ever.

THE BEGINNING

What brought me is Chileofarms, my farming company that produces, processes and packages rice, fish, poultry, and vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, spinach, pumpkin. To help build up my farm, and the good it could grow, I entered a competition and development program in 2014 called Oxfam’s Female Food Heroes, which gives resources, training and exposure to female farmers.

I was given an award as a Female Food Hero in a ceremony attended by the Governor, Commissioner, Permanent Secretaries and other guests. It was the first time I started to realize how much impact I could really have as a Small Scale Farmer and it was the assistance of Oxfam that made it possible.

During the award presentation, the Director of the Gender Desk from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture in Nigeria, Mrs. Karima Babaginda, asked me what they could expect to see as my achievements in the next 5 years. l told her that in five years, Nigerian female farmers’ voices will he heard both locally and internationally. I knew I had to get to work to live up to my promise.

Asonye Chinasa presenting her paper “Economic Empowerment as a Means for Social Protection for Women in Agriculture” at United Nations during The Commission on Status of Women

l went back to my community to see how l can contribute to helping other women and l formed a Cooperative called Ogbonge Women Multipurpose Association, where women with like minds came together to discuss the progress of our farms and how we can help each other.

l constructed a smoking kiln with my Female Food Hero award money in my community where my fellow women could come to smoke their fish, package and sell it. This simple equipment was important, especially when we are having post-harvest losses, because with the smoking kiln, the shelf life of dry fish is extended to 6 months.

We also started farming mushrooms together, and donated a portion of the profit to help widows, displaced and other vulnerable people living in our community. There are many women who cannot go to their farms because of the fear of been raped or killed, or their farms were destroyed with nothing to fall back on. We are lucky we are even safe and able to farm in the first place – not everyone is that lucky.

We then started to tackle the issue of loans because our women are always having problem accessing loans through banks. With Oxfam’s help, 42 women from around our state were trained in Village Savings and Loans (VSL), which is when 25 to 30 women come together to save, give each other loans, and share the interest.

This not only brought extra and more reliable income, but it brought so much happiness to our women. l started a VSL group with 25 members in 2017 and today we are 500 women with more still waiting to join. Because of this program, our women can now feed their children and send them to school, without have to wait for the money they make in harvest season.

We also advocated for farmers all over Nigeria – all women farmers decided to come together to present a Farmers Manifesto to the Gubernatorial Candidates before the Concluded Nigeria Election.

We asked candidates to sign this manifesto that agreed that farmers be recognized, and our demands must be met if they want us to vote for them. We have also pushed to change land ownership laws that have not allowed women to own and inherit land.

COMING FULL CIRCLE IN NEW YORK

During the Commission on the Status of Women it was an unbelievable honor to see the experiences and knowledge from women from different countries together in one room.

We shared ideas and what we wanted most, with one issue of common interest being the issue of women being denied American visas to attend the conference., l was overwhelmed with joy discussing issues like land rights for women, challenges facing displaced women and families and more.

l told myself that l have to go back to my country and pass the knowledge to my women and also see how we can get more women from Nigeria to have this amazing opportunity to join this conversation with women from around the world.

I was overwhelmed and honored to be included as a panelist representing Oxfam as the Female Food Hero to discuss economic empowerment as a means for social protection for women in agriculture. Here I was, a woman from a rural area in Nigeria, now having the chance to speak at this global forum in New York.

I gave my presentation in the United Nations building, and to my surprise, there was the same Director of the Gender Desk from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture in Nigeria, Mrs. Karima Babaginda. l was able to ask her: “Have l fulfilled what l have promised to achieve over five years?” and she laughed and said “Well done, Ogbonge Woman.” I was right on schedule, five years later with my voice at an international forum sharing the stories of my Nigerian female farmers.

WHAT’S NEXT

My time in New York motivated me to do more and keep pushing. As an Ogbonge woman trying to contribute my part towards the growth and development of my community, I would like to work more to bring in more women to the Village Savings and Loans groups, and will also remind women that we need to work on ourselves, because the government can’t do it all for us.

We need to face the problems as they come and that we can jointly speak with one voice. Women’s collective efforts and solidarity are key to make the changes we want to see, in partnership with our leaders.

We are also pleading for more donors and NGOs to come to our aid, because even with a strong, united group, the women farmers really need help. I will continue to advocate for my fellow female farmers, because we each deserve a chance to work hard, feel safe, make promises and fulfill them.

The post A Journey from a Small-Scale Farm to International Stage appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Chinasa Asonye is CEO of Chileofarms, a women’s farming collective

The post A Journey from a Small-Scale Farm to International Stage appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Kyrgyzstan journalist Azimjon Askarov and his wife, Khadicha, pictured during a family vacation in Arslanbob in the summer of 2009. 'This was Azimjon's last summer of freedom,' Khadicha told CPJ. (Askarov family)

By Gulnoza Said
NEW YORK, Jun 10 2019 (IPS)

On a recent morning in Bazar-Korgon, southern Kyrgyzstan, Khadicha Askarova was giving hasty instructions to her daughter about what needed to be packed.

They were about to set off: first for the capital Bishkek, some 600km from where they live, and then another 70km to a prison colony where her husband, Azimjon Askarov, was transferred in March.

But Askarov, a 68-year-old independent journalist and rights activist, shouldn’t be in jail at all. The U.N. Human Rights Committee ruled in 2016 that Askarov was subject to torture and mistreatment from the moment of his detention on June 15, 2010 to his speedy trial and subsequent imprisonment, and that he should be released immediately.

CPJ’s research into his case found that the original trial was marred by irregularities and allegations of torture, mistreatment and harassment of defendants, including Askarov, and their witnesses. But Kyrgyz authorities defied the U.N. resolution and in 2017, amid international outcry, upheld his life sentence.

Conditions in the new prison are harsh. In letters home, the journalist wrote that he had run ins with the guards and that prison officials punish detainees after visiting days. His health is also deteriorating and he has limited access to medication, the journalist’s wife, Askarova, said.

“What breaks my heart is to see how much he aged since being imprisoned. He used to be a man full of energy and vigor. Now, he is old, sickly, skinny, and there’s no way out of this situation for him,” she said, fighting back the tears when we spoke via a video messaging app earlier this month.

The couple, who have been married for over 40 years, now have limited contact: just six family visits and two phone calls a year. As Askarov wrote in a recent letter to his wife, “They like keeping us under a tight lid here. Communication with the outside world is banned.”

The letter, which his wife shared with CPJ, also gave a glimpse of the harsh prison conditions: “After family visits, inmates are punished by being forced to eat raw onions and carrots for several days.”

“On regular days, they give us pea soup that contains nothing but watery peas. On public holidays, we get what the prison administration calls plov [pilaf] but it is not more than 150g of rice cooked with some carrots, per person.”

Since Askarov’s transfer to a prison outside Bishkek in March, he wrote that he has had three “incidents” with prison guards. The journalist did not specify the nature of incidents, but wrote that guards were known for their mistreatment of and conflicts with inmates.

“There are few good ones among them”, he added, almost as if he was preventing possible punishment should the content of the letter became known to the guards.

One of the incidents was connected to the journalist’s poor health. He has the heart condition tachycardia, hypotension, and gets dizzy and nauseated if he stands for too long.

Under prison rules, if a guard enters a cell, the inmate must stand. “That’s the rule. Twice a day, guards enter cells. An inmate has to cite his full name and an article of the criminal code he was convicted of violating. But Azimjon was not able to stand straight for too long. His knees bend, he had to sit down. That was the ‘incident’,” the journalist’s wife, Askarova, told me.

Soon after the transfer, Askarov complained about his health to prison administration, and said that low blood pressure and a cold was diagnosed. “But they did not have any medication to give me,” he wrote.

Askarova told CPJ that doctors at the prison ask families to bring medication. “They rely on us for something that they ought to provide,” she said.

She added that the few visits they are allowed are emotional, and the travel hard and costly. She makes sure that one visit falls on her husband’s birthday, May 17. This year, the couple’s daughter and their three grandchildren also visited on his birthday, their first visit to a new jail.

‘I’m afraid they will forget how he looks’ Askarov’s wife says

Azimjon Askarov, pictured with his daughter Navruza and grandchildren, during a May 2018 visit in Bishek prison. The journalist was moved to a new prison in 2019 that bans families from taking photographs during visits. (Askarova family)

“The new prison is much farther from Bishkek. After a nearly 14-hour drive to Bishkek, we took another taxi to the prison, but then had to walk about seven kilometers in the heat and dust. It was especially hard for the little ones, although they were excited to see their grandfather. They are still little, and I am afraid they can forget how he looks like, how he sounds,” Askarova said.

Adding to that concern is a rule at the prison banning families from taking photographs during visits. “Now, I have to look at old pictures of Azimjon. They deprived me even of the photos of my husband,” she said.

Askarova said she would move to Bishkek to be closer to the prison, but she cannot sell the house that her husband has owned for decades. The authorities seized the journalist’s property after he was charged in 2010.

In 2015, the journalist’s lawyer successfully appealed against the seizure, but before Askarova had overcome a legal quagmire of changing the ownership, authorities placed a new lien on the house in February. She said she has started another appeal process.

Askarova said that before they visit each year on his birthday, the couple’s daughter Navruza, who lives in Uzbekistan, usually comes to Bazar-Korgon to help pack personal items, food, medicine and books. But it is Askarova who picks flowers from her garden and buys bouquets at a florist for her husband.

“He is an artist, you know. He loves flowers. I get the most beautiful ones for him. Many kinds, sometimes several bouquets,” she said.

Azimjon and Khadicha met at art college in the Uzbek capital Tashkent in 1974. They have been married for 42 years and raised four children, who live in Uzbekistan. He used to work as an artist. But every time he heard a neighbor complain of injustice, he felt the urge to help, Askarova said.

In the late 1990s, he started documenting the cases, mediating between his community members and law enforcement, and researching legal books. He eventually became a go-to person in Bazar-Korgon if the rights of a member of his community had been violated.

He was known for taking up the cases on police brutality. It was this reputation that led many people to come to him for help when violence against ethnic Uzbeks erupted in June 2010, she said.

In prison, Askarov started to paint again. In 2014, international and local activists organized an exhibition of Askarov’s work to raise awareness of his case. In 2018, he wrote a book, “I am happy,” which includes a dedication to his late mother, “who lost me, her son, during her and my life, and left this world, shocked by the greatest injustice.” Copies of the book are still available online.

During his imprisonment, Askarov studied English and is able to read the many cards sent to him from around the world, his wife said. She added that he has been studying Japanese from the books and dictionaries she brought him, and that he has become interested in herbal medicine because conventional medication was not available in prison.

Askarov has also kept a diary since 2010. “He writes down everything. I keep reading them in between prison visits. One word that he uses most frequently is freedom. When he sees rain through the cell window, he writes ‘I wish I was free to feel rain drops on my skin. When he sees snow, he writes ‘I wish I was free to be outside and enjoy the snow now’. Freedom is his main wish and goal. He lives for it,” Askarova said.

* Gulnoza Said is a journalist and communications professional with over 15 years of experience in New York, Prague, Bratislava, and Tashkent. She has covered issues including politics, media, religion, and human rights with a focus on Central Asia, Russia, and Turkey.

The post UN Says Kyrgyz Journalist Should be Freed appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Gulnoza Said* is Program Coordinator, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Europe and Central Asia

The post UN Says Kyrgyz Journalist Should be Freed appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A group of activists calling themselves the Embassy Protection Collective protested against the U.S. and opposition party leader Juan Guide's representatives taking over the Venezuelan embassy. Credit: Backbone Campaign/ (CC BY 2.0)

By Caley Pigliucci
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 10 2019 (IPS)

Venezuelans in the city of Washington D.C., in the United States, are currently without consular protection as access to their country’s embassy has remained unstable since April.

“I went to get my passport…and then of course April 2019 is when it expired. And that limits me because you know my parents are at an age that anything could happen,” Luis*, a 35-year-old Venezuelan living in the U.S., told IPS. He asked not to be identified by his real name as he still has family living in Caracas and is concerned for their safety.

While the situation regarding the embassy remains uncertain, Venezuela still has other consulates in the country, but IPS was unable to reach them.

Where do Venezuelans in need of assistance go to?

Luis’s inability to renew his passport through the embassy comes amid a continued power-struggle at the embassy. Protestors had occupied the Washington embassy two weeks prior to the revocation of visas for representatives in the embassy on Apr. 24 by the Trump Administration.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro won re-election in May 2018, but the U.S. and other nations, including Canada, recognised the leader of the opposition party Juan Guaidó as president in January.

The U.S. revoked the visas of Maduro’s representatives at the embassy and helped establish Carlos Vecchio, a representative of Guaidó.

Medea Benjamin is co-founder of Code Pink, a NGO that describes itself on its website as “a women-led grassroots organisation working to end U.S. wars and militarism”, which participated in protesting, along with other activists, against the U.S. and Guadio’s representatives taking over the Venezuelan embassy in May. She told IPS: “It is such a critical international convention on diplomatic relations, one that has global implications.”

“If you’re a Venezuelan in need of assistance, where are you going to go? You need representation.”

Luis moved to the U.S. at 17 and eventually naturalised. He now has dual citizenship, but according to the U.S. Department of State – Consulate Affairs, if a person is a dual national, they must still have a valid Venezuelan passport in their possession to enter and leave Venezuela.

In the almost two decades that he has been in the U.S., Luis said he “never encountered any issues”, having at least three passports during that time.

But now, should Luis wish to travel to Venezuela he would have to travel out of state, or possibly to the Venezuelan embassy in Canada, to renew his passport. It’s a trip that he said is too expensive and time consuming.

There are some consulates still open in the U.S., including the one in New York. But Luis said he believed the New York consulate has already been taken over by representatives of the Venezuelan opposition.

“I do not recognise the opposition’s president. I wouldn’t go and get my paperwork with an institution that I don’t recognise,” he said.

Luis told IPS that he is part of the local Venezuelan community and has many Venezuelan friends, but that he thinks many of them are not as concerned as he is about the embassy.

“I’m a minority, because the largest amount of Venezuelan people are people from middle and upper class that have the means to travel,” Luis said, referring to the ability to travel out of state to other consulates or out of country to other embassies to renew their passports.

“It’s a class-struggle and also an ideological struggle,” he added.

IPS tried to reach out to the embassy for a statement from Guaidó’s representatives, but the phone lines were cut, and there is no other contact information listed on their website.

Safety of Embassies

Protestors fighting against the U.S. intervention in Venezuela had kept a small group of four protestors inside the Washington embassy, starting about two weeks prior to the visa revocation on Apr. 24 until May 16 when police in Washington used a battering ram to enter the building. 

Adrienne Pine, an associate professor of anthropology at American University, was one of the final four protestors occupying the embassy. Other protestors had left after an eviction notice was posted by U.S. police on May 13. She was arrested on May 16, and released the following day after a court appearance. She is neither a member of Code Pink nor a Venezuelan.

When asked why she remained in the embassy until her arrest, Pine told IPS: “I am a United States citizen, and I feel passionate about our government not engaging in regime change operations and not acting as an imperial actor around the world.”

On May 15, the permanent representative to Venezuela, Samuel Moncada, stated to the United Nations that the U.S. actions in attempting to occupy the embassy was a “pretext of war”.

He called for the U.S. to respect international law and warned of a violation of respect for diplomats worldwide.

In response to Moncada, spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, Stéphane Dujarric, stated in a U.N. press briefing on May 16: “We hope that the situation is resolved peacefully, bilaterally between the United States and Venezuela.”

The U.S. is legally allowed to recognise Guaidó, but under international law in Article 45 of the Vienna Convention, the violation of diplomatic offices of other governments is not allowed.

Pine warned of the U.S. police occupation of the embassy, “What it basically signals is that no embassy around the world is safe.”

Dozens of nations, including the U.S. and many of its western allies, recognise Guaidó as president of the Latin American nation. The U.N., however, continues to recognise Maduro as president. 

Though the U.N. has not agreed with the actions of the U.S., Benjamin believes the response from the U.N. and the international community has been too limited. She explained that this is “absolutely because of the United States. In any other country, I think the U.N. would have stepped in.”

Luis, who has family on both sides of the political aisle, is in support of the on-going international dialogue. He told IPS: “The ones who are left to pay are us, you know, the ones who want to have peace.”

“I just want my family to have a normal life,” he added.

*Not his real name.

Related Articles

• International Trade Unions Condemn Recognition of Guaidó
• The Crisis in Venezuela
• Repression Stands in the Way of Political Solution to Crisis in Venezuela

The post Venezuelans Left Without Assistance in Washington appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Rohingya refugees gather at a market inside a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar. Photo: REUTERS/MOHAMMAD PONIR HOSSAIN

By Farzana Misha and Dimple T Shah
Jun 9 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(The Daily Star) – The Rohingya influx into Bangladesh, described by the United Nations (UN) as the “world’s fastest growing refugee crisis,” has been one of the most discussed humanitarian crises of recent times. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Bangladesh, prior to the latest exodus, had already been hosting more than 300,000 Rohingya refugees.

The latest mega settlement of Kutupalong-Balukhali, with a population of over 600,000 in Ukhia, Cox’s Bazar, was built swiftly within five months. More than 90 percent of the camp population live below the UNHCR emergency standards of 45 square metres per person and at some areas as low as 8 square metres. The overcrowding poses several environmental (e.g. deforestation, contamination), economic (e.g. impact on the host community’s economy, reducing the average wage) and health (e.g. epidemics) risks. Considering the speed and scale of the crisis, the initial response of the host country and humanitarian aid organisations was to provide basic support to the refugees. However, the influx has decreased and the timeline for a safe and Rohingya-approved repatriation back to Myanmar remains unknown. Moreover, the Bangladesh government should rethink how to maintain medium- to long-term support to the Rohingya population in a more structured way while addressing host community needs.

The Bangladesh government had proposed relocating the Rohingyas to the coastal areas in 2015—specifically, to Bhasan Char (originally known as “Thengar Char”) in Noakhali. Recent details of government-approved infrastructure reportedly include 120 plots of land (each containing 12 buildings housing 16 families in a 12-foot by 14-foot unit with shared kitchens and bathrooms), one cyclone shelter and a 2.47m high embankment-flood barrier. At present, talks about Bhasan Char have softened into whispers. There is no telling when the plans may resurface. Thus, a frank discussion exploring risks and vulnerabilities is necessary.The geographical setting, scarcity of proper infrastructure and isolation from the mainland impede the functioning of administration, and services such as law enforcement, economic participation, health and education are very limited.

Initially, the relocation idea immediately received scrutiny from the public and organisations such as the UN and Amnesty International. The criticism stems largely because of Bhasan Char’s exposure to natural disasters. This scepticism is anticipated as many are unfamiliar with the char lands.

In Bangladesh, close to three million people live on 185 fertile silt islands, known as chars, which are formed by the dynamics of river erosion and accretion. The chars are low-lying areas and the soil is of high salinity. Initially, the forest department develops newly emerged chars for a period of 10 to 15 years. The objectives of the forest department activities are to accelerate accretion, stabilise the land, and protect it against storms and cyclones. Historical trends reveal that during the times when the forest department was in control, poor and landless households located and occupied the chars. According to government regulations and the ministry of land oversight, each household is provided 1 to 1.5 acres of char land.

However, the geographical setting, scarcity of proper infrastructure and isolation from the mainland impede the functioning of administration, and services such as law enforcement, economic participation, health and education are very limited. Adaptability strategies in these areas are strikingly different from the other parts of the country. The chars are considerably more susceptible to covariate shocks due to cyclones, erosion, water-logging, droughts and salinity intrusion. To improve the livelihoods of char-dwellers, several tailored interventions have been designed and implemented. While the beginning of development activities in these areas date back to the late 1970s, the Char Development and Settlement Program (CDSP) maximised the momentum and set itself up as a leading intervention circa 1994. Facilitated by the government of Bangladesh, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), it has since expanded into several phases. This programme offers a wide range of support components that target livelihood in the chars among other areas. A recent CDSP study revealed that successful livestock rearing training positively influenced food consumption and increased entrepreneurship as well. In addition, there was an improvement in water and sanitation practices along with an overall increase in human rights awareness.

Undoubtedly, the CDSP programme has elevated living standards in the chars that improve at each programme phase although it is unclear whether the programme would be implemented in Bhasan Char. Habitation of Bhasan Char is widely debated, yet key questions surrounding security, economic participation and language are left unanswered. In addition, there is the question of the availability of health and education services.

The lack of law enforcement is a concern. Before 1994, char laws stated that the government automatically owned char lands. However, recent amendments suggest that government ownership applies if no private claimant establishes prior ownership rights. In addition, the lack of day-to-day char governance has created scope for manipulation among the char population. Mirroring a feudal system, jotedars—a class of “rich” peasants living on the mainland coast regions—have their own puppets called lathyals to control char dwellers. Ironically, the lathyals, using violence and intimidation, promise char dwellers security over other extraneous threats at a cost, collected as a form of rent. Their sinister antics also target government officials. Blurred property rights and the absence of government control create security risks for the Rohingya population. Not to mention, approximately 80 percent of the Rohingya population are women and children.

Typically, char dwellers work on economic activities such as livestock rearing, farming sustainable vegetation and fishing. These activities wholly depend on mainland trade. The government will potentially allow the Rohingyas to work on Bhasan Char but they have not revealed the specifics yet. Will the government allow the Rohingya population full access to mainland markets? If yes, how will Rohingyas travel to the mainland? The inter-char transport system is active albeit limited to water-based methods. Beyond economics, water transport is necessary during frequent seasonal threats. Does the government plan on granting Rohingyas the freedom to move in and out of the char?

Another source of concern that has not been addressed is the language barrier. The dialect the Rohingyas speak is fairly close to Chittagonian, which is the local dialect of Chattogram and Cox’s Bazar. This fluidity in communication promotes stronger integration and opportunities. However, this advantage dissipates should they move to Bhasan Char where the local dialect (Noakhali) is quite different.

Char health services have improved thanks to organisations such as BRAC, but are not near mainland capabilities. Some trained medical workers provide on-site medical care such as women’s health services. However, char dwellers depend on untrained practitioners.

Approximately 60 percent of the Rohingya children population require education, though NGOs can only provide foundational learning. Provisions for higher education are non-existent. How does the government propose to educate the Rohingya youth at Bhasan Char? It should be noted that seasonal extremes affect their school attendance too.

Discussion with aid personnel on the ground revealed that many Rohingyas harbour the desire to return home if their citizenship rights are restored. Relocating to Bhasan Char will, in effect, leave them one step removed from this possibility ever occurring. In the medium- to long-term, they believe in integration possibilities and enjoy a sense of familiarity with the Cox’s Bazar terrain. Recommendations have been offered to ease host community tensions. For instance, the government and NGOs can do more to address major host community needs; joint programming on projects such as the World Bank’s proposal to tackle deforestation serves as a strong community-building opportunity. In fact, recent survey results indicate that 58 percent of Rohingyas, who want to meet with host communities, believe not enough is being done to do so. Likewise, half the locals who want to meet with the Rohingyas agree.

Indeed, Bangladesh has generously sheltered the Rohingya population amid the mass exodus. Now tasked with considering medium- to long-term solutions, the international community must step up to assist Bangladesh with fair and adaptable options. Security, economic participation, communication, health and education are key elements involved in achieving solutions. Moreover, listening to stakeholders such as host communities and the Rohingya population should remain a top priority.

Farzana Misha is a development researcher at ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Dimple T Shah is an attorney in the United States as well as a human rights and immigration activist.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Resettling the Unsettled appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The oceans are among our biggest resource and also our biggest dumping grounds.

By Quamrul Haider
Jun 8 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(The Daily Star) – Today is “World Oceans Day,” a day observed worldwide to raise awareness about the crucial role the oceans play in sustaining life on Earth. It is also a day to appreciate the beauty of the oceans that “brings eternal joy to the soul.”

The oceans are among our biggest resource and also our biggest dumping grounds. Because they are so vast and deep, many of us believe that no matter how much garbage we dump into them, the effects would be negligible. Proponents of dumping even have a mantra: “The solution to pollution is dilution.” Really! In case they don’t know, garbage dumped into the oceans is continuously mixed by wind and waves and widely dispersed over huge surface areas.

There is a zone in the Pacific Ocean, called The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is a gyre of marine garbage twice the size of Texas. The garbage, mainly microplastics, were carried there by strong currents from other parts of the ocean. This is not the only floating garbage in our oceans. The Atlantic and Indian Oceans have their own garbage patches. Worse yet, the sheer size of the patches is making clean-up efforts an extremely difficult task.

Surely, human activities are impacting the oceans in drastic ways. Some of the anthropogenic environmental issues that are affecting the oceans are plastic pollution, oil spills, climate change and noise. One of the most dangerous threats the oceans may face in this century is radioactive pollution.The oceans are no longer “The Silent World” of the famous oceanic explorer Jacques Cousteau. Today, they are being acoustically bleached by noise from seismic blasts used for offshore oil and gas exploration, marine traffic and military sonar.

Each year, we dump nearly eight million tonnes of plastic—mostly grocery bags, water bottles, yogurt cups, drinking straws and plastic utensils—into the oceans. Recently, plastic has been discovered in the deepest part (11 kilometres) of the world’s oceans, Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Extremely elevated concentration of PCBs, an environment-damaging chemical banned in the 1970s, have also been found within the sediment of the trench.

While it takes hundreds of years for plastics to decompose fully, some of them break down much quicker into tiny, easy-to-swallow particles that can easily be ingested by marine species causing choking, starvation and other impairments.

Pollution of the oceans by oil spills has been one of the major concerns for a long time. The primary source of spill is offshore drilling. The process is inherently dangerous and thus, is prone to accidents. When accidents happen, and they do happen without warning, they cause massive damage to the environment—aquatic and shore—that persists for decades to come. Some oil spills happen when tankers transporting petroleum products have accidents.

If the layer of the oil is thick enough, it smothers creatures unable to move out from under it. Besides, swimming and diving birds become covered with oil, which mats their feathers, reducing their buoyancy and preventing flight. The insulative value of feathers is also lost and the birds quickly die of exposure in cold water.

The world’s largest oil spill was not an accident; it was the result of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The second worst disaster was the spill by BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010. Both incidents killed tens of thousands of birds, marine mammals, sea turtles and fish, among others.

Land and oceans together absorb slightly more than half of all the carbon dioxide emissions, with the oceans taking a greater share. When carbon dioxide dissolves in water, it forms carbonic acid. Various studies estimate that if we keep on pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the current rate, then by the year 2100, the water of the oceans could be nearly 150 percent more acidic than they are now. Such a large increase in acidity would upset the productivity and composition of many coastal ecosystems by affecting the key species at the base of the oceanic food webs. It would also reduce calcium carbonate, which is essential for building the shells and skeletons of creatures like mussels, clams, corals and oysters.

Because oceans absorb more than 90 percent of the heat that is added to the climate system, sea level is changing, albeit unevenly. It is changing unevenly as oceans do not warm uniformly across the planet, with the southern oceans warming at a faster rate. In addition, global reef systems are slowly migrating poleward as oceans around the world continue to warm.

The single most significant contribution to rising sea level is from the thermal expansion of water. Melting ice makes the second most important contribution, but only melting of land-based ice—glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets—is significant. Ice that is already floating in the water—iceberg—makes essentially no change in sea level when it melts, because the greater density of water offsets the volume of ice that is not submerged. Other factors that contribute to the rise in sea level include wind and ocean circulations, depth of the oceans, deposition of sediments by river flows and alteration of the hydrologic cycle by humans.

According to some studies, global sea level rose by about 18 cms during the last century. In the worst-case scenario, sea level could rise by two metres by the end of the year 2100. Arguably, rising sea level is among the potentially most catastrophic effects of human-caused climate change.

The oceans are no longer “The Silent World” of the famous oceanic explorer Jacques Cousteau. Today, they are being acoustically bleached by noise from seismic blasts used for offshore oil and gas exploration, marine traffic and military sonar.

Unlike plastic pollution, noise pollution does not have the visual impact that is needed to spark an outcry and force action. It is an invisible menace that is drowning out the sounds of many marine animals, including fish, use for navigation, communicating with each other, finding food, choosing mates and warning others of potential dangers.

Whales and dolphins are particularly vulnerable to noise pollution. The deafening seismic blasts and the ping of sonar are responsible for the loss of their hearing and habitat, and disruption in their mating and other vital behaviours. The disappearance of beaked whales in the Bahamas in recent years have been attributed to testing of US Navy sonar systems in the region.

From 1946 through 1993, nuclear countries used the oceans to dispose of radioactive wastes. The United States alone dumped more than 110,000 containers of nuclear material off its coasts. Russia dumped some 17,000 containers of radioactive wastes and several nuclear reactors, including some containing spent nuclear fuel.

It is highly likely that radioactive wastes would eventually leak out of the containers because of poor insulation, volcanic activity, tectonic plate movement and several other geological factors. Indeed, last month, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres confirmed that a Cold War era concrete “coffin” filled with nuclear waste is leaking radioactive material into the Pacific Ocean. Since radiation from nuclear wastes remains active for hundreds of thousands of years, their dangerous effects will linger for a long time and will have lethal impact on marine life.

Furthermore, six nuclear submarines—4 Russian and 2 American—lost as a result of accidents are lying at the bottom of the oceans. They represent serious threat of radioactive contamination of the oceans, too.

One of the biggest contaminations due to radiation was caused by a series of nuclear tests conducted by the USA on the sea, in the air and underwater at Bikini Atoll in the North Pacific between 1946 and 1958. The French nuclear tests carried out during 1966-1996 in French Polynesia are responsible for other cases of intense radioactive pollution of marine ecosystems.

Clearly, we are using the oceans as the ultimate sump, partly because their very immensity seems to preclude any long-term effect, and partly because they belong to no one. This cannot continue indefinitely because in order for us to survive, we have to protect the oceans. Lest we forget, life emerged from the oceans and the source of most of the oxygen we breathe are the oceans. They have been an endless source of inspiration to humankind.

Quamrul Haider is a Professor of Physics at Fordham University, New York.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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A memorandum of understanding was just signed between Open Governance Partnerships (OGP) and Africa’s flagship governance programme, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), sealed on the sidelines of the just concluded 6th Convening of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), in Ottawa, Canada.

By Korir Sing’Oei
NAIROBI, Jun 7 2019 (IPS)

When two high profile governance initiatives strategically collaborate, the expected intent is to effect significant outcomes. Thus, the universe of democratic governance – lately buffeted by adverse winds of nationalism, intolerance and other threats – should take a keen note of the memorandum of understanding between Open Governance Partnerships (OGP) and Africa’s flagship governance programme, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), sealed on the sidelines of the just concluded 6th Convening of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), in Ottawa, Canada.  

Although the APRM was established in 2003 as a small project by the African Union (AU) under the framework of the implementation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), it was under President Kenyatta’s chairmanship (2015-2017), that it reinvigorated and upgraded into a Specialized Agency of the AU.

OGP stands to gain from its collaboration with APRM since a critical challenge it faces is inadequate linkage with AU institutions. This challenge has contributed to perceptions that the West conceived it with little African involvement.

APRM’s robust mandate now encompasses not only support for African countries in the voluntary self-assessments of their governance and socio-economic processes but also monitors implementation of specific country commitments while tracking key Continental governance initiatives.

As such, the APRM is a mechanism for identifying governance deficiencies and assessing constraints to political stability, economic growth and sustainable development of a country. With a membership of 38 African countries and the ambition of universal participation by all the 54 states by 2020, APRM is a significant vehicle that the continent cannot ignore.

On the other hand, Africa has been a critical cog of the OGP since its inception in 2011, as reflected by the fact that 17% of the current membership of OGP is from Africa. Similarly, 3 of the 20 sub-national members of OGP (including Kenya’s Elgeyo Marakwet) are from Africa.

Rather than present mandate compliance of its membership with prescribed targets as does APRM, OGP mandates that participating countries curate National Action Plans (NAPs) detailing commitments towards good governance based on a participatory process that involves state and non-state actors.  The Independent Review Mechanism then reviews these co-created, context-specific and autonomous commitments.

As a country involved in both OGP and APRM, Kenya can state without equivocation that both initiatives are not placebo treatment to governance challenges that continue to imperil the continent.

Instead, they represent a serious attempt at tackling the impediments to sustainable development by mobilising important constituencies to the aid of governance.

In 2006, when Kenya went through the first APRM review, the outcome document revealed the clear need for a review of our constitution to create mechanisms for managing diversity and addressing land-related grievances.

These issues were to hurt the country a year later during the contested 2007 elections. On the ashes of this unfortunate development, Kenya proceeded to craft a reasonably progressive constitution that has served the country better over the last ten years.

Similarly, Kenya, now on its 3rd National Action Plan, has leveraged on its OGP membership to advance participatory budgeting, strengthen transparency in procurements through beneficial ownership and open contracting regimes and facilitate the enactment of laws on climate change and freedom of information.

Moreover, Kenya has become a vital laboratory by which the APRM may address one of its perceived weaknesses: disconnect with citizens of African member countries. Under Kenya’s 3rd NAP 2018-2020, APRM Kenya Office is working on modifying indicators used in country assessments for application at county levels.

Enabling counties to engage in a peer review process that will provide an opportunity for county reports on the state of their governance processes to be produced and submitted to the Council of Governors by the peer review with the ed county.

The APRM mashinani is bound to ensure that citizens at the grassroots level understand the relevance of this critical continental initiative, leading, hopefully to greater ownership. By cascading APRM to counties, the precise aim is also to enable counties to meet their constitutional obligation

Likewise, OGP stands to gain from its collaboration with APRM since a critical challenge it faces is inadequate linkage with AU institutions. This challenge has contributed to perceptions that the West conceived it with little African involvement.

It further impedes OGP from high-level political engagement with the AU, especially at the Heads of State Summit level. As the APRM is now even more firmly grounded in the African governance architecture than at its inception, and given it is well poised to bring most members of the AU block under its ambit; through APRM, OGP will find apposite structures to socialise African states regarding the potential presented by OGP in furthering good governance on the continent.

Kenya OGP community will undoubtedly lend its support to the effective activation of the OGP-APRM collaboration.

The post OGP-APRM Collaboration A Positive Step for Good Governance in Africa appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Korir Sing’Oei, Legal Advisor, Office of the Deputy President, Kenya & Convener OGP Implementation Committee

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By Tim Christophersen
NAIROBI, Jun 7 2019 (IPS)

On the 1st of March 2019, we saw one of the rare moments in history when the entire world comes together and agrees on a joint way forward. The United Nations General Assembly recognized the urgent need to tackle the compounded crisis of climate change and biodiversity loss, and passed a resolution to proclaim 2021-2030 as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. With the aim to restore at least 350 million hectares of degraded landscapes by 2030 – an area the size of India – the UN Decade is a loud and clear call to action for all of us. And it is a great opportunity for the UN-REDD Programme and its partner countries to build on 10 years worth of relevant experience with safeguards, impactful policies and measures, and attracting private and public investments.

Tim Christophersen

It is high time that we bring more attention to the essential role of nature for a peaceful, fair and prosperous future. Nature can provide more than one third of the solution to climate change, but nature-based solutions such as ecosystem restoration and forest conservation currently receive less than 3 percent of climate finance. Neglecting nature in our implementation of climate solutions means we are also not doing enough to save biodiversity. The double whammy of climate change and biodiversity loss has impacts that go far beyond our economy. If we do not act now, the very foundations of our culture, and our cohesion as a global civilization could be at risk.

How can we turn the tide? While ecosystem restoration is not a silver bullet for our current crisis, it is a useful approach to shift the narrative, from despair to action. Restoration is about active participation at all levels. The restoration of ecosystems can at the same time restore a sense of community, and restore dignity and hope to disadvantaged and marginalized communities around the world. It can provide many young people with a new sense of purpose and opportunity, and help vulnerable communities to adapt to climate change.

To harness the full potential of this UN Decade, we need three key changes, at global and national level:

– Investments: public funding needs to crowd more private sector investments into restoration. For the 350 million hectare target, we need an estimated 837 billion USD of public and private investments by 2030. This can be achieved through a mix of shifting subsidies and other fiscal incentives, and public risk capital to attract private investments.
– Capacity: we need a huge cadre of young (or young-at-heart) green entrepreneurs, who will need a combination of skills on ecology, social transformation, and sound financial and business sense. There are potentially millions of jobs world-wide, if we can train and help these ‘eco-preneurs’ of the future.
– Government leadership: above all, we need Governments to step up. They need to take over the baton now from the citizens who are protesting for better climate protection, more decent jobs, and more equality. There is already a ‘regreening revolution’ underway across degraded landscapes and coastal areas world-wide. But we need Governments to ensure this is going in the right direction, by giving clear policy signals, and setting solid strategies to integrate nature-based solutions into national climate action and sustainable development pathways.

The restoration of ecosystems across the globe, at a significant scale, has the potential to be a big part of the required joint effort of humanity to turn the tide of environmental degradation. We have risen to critical global challenges before, and we can do it again.

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By Juan Pablo Segura
WASHINGTON DC, Jun 7 2019 (IPS)

The maternal mortality rate in the United States is the highest of any developed country – and the rate is rising. The US is currently the most dangerous place to give birth in the developed world.

Few to none of these maternal deaths are due to medical mismanagement. Instead, problems of access, care coordination, and inequities in health care resources and social services are at the heart of maternal death rates.

Minority women, particularly those facing socioeconomic challenges, are the primary victims behind these statistics — nationally, African American women are three to four times more likely to die from childbirth than non-Hispanic white women.

Heavy hitters like The New York Times, USA Today, NPR, and others have highlighted the problem of maternal mortality and called for action; and cities like DC have responded to the call by implementing maternal mortality task forces.

Consistently, these task forces have arrived at the same conclusion: the causes affecting pregnancy-related deaths are not separate threads, but a web; and these overlapping social, economic, behavioral, and genetic determinants cannot be adequately addressed by siloed stakeholders.

There are many who have long recognized this problem, and a few who have been actively committing resources toward creating solutions. They have put energy, time, and capital on the line to disrupt the status quo, addressing the problems to make improved pregnancy outcomes a reality.

Cradle Cincinnati is an exemplar. They have formed a coalition that connects all of the significant stakeholders in the pregnancy space to combat the high infant mortality rates in Hamilton Country, Ohio, joining families in the community to payers and health systems (including traditional competitors).

Cradle’s strategic model has made significant steps toward improving outcomes: for five years in a row, the number of sleep-related infant deaths in Hamilton County was lower than their historic average, dropping from 16 to 12 annually.

But 12 is still over the national average of nine, and the national average is nine too many. While a single life is at stake, we need to be taking leaps, not steps, to better outcomes.

While effective, models like Cradle and others like it (group prenatal care, for example) all share a dependence on human interaction, and this physical requirement is a huge constraint to scaling such programs. Without scalability, outcomes will continue to improve at a snail’s pace, eventually plateauing. We need to be able to scale these best practices in every community — not tomorrow but today.

This is where technology comes in. Tech can bridge the gap created by the human limitations of these models, and embedding proven workflows and care protocols in tech experiences that enable more interventions — like remote patient monitoring (RPM) through internet of things (IoT) devices — can be the key to scaling these alternative and more effective care models.

Digital tools provide the connectivity that models like Cradle deliver in the physical setting, while addressing the problems of cost, inefficiencies, and scalability that have slowed progress in the past.

More than 4 years ago, George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates (GW-MFA) anticipated this vision. They were one of the first providers in the United States to recognize the power of tech to disrupt outdated and insufficient standards of care in the pregnancy space — standards that had woefully failed in their purpose.

GW-MFA were early adopters of a novel model that directly addresses three troubling realities in the status quo: absence of education, lack of access to necessary care, and failure to stratify risk.

That new model was a partnership to create and deploy a technology-powered pregnancy solution to directly impact the pregnancy journey and its associated outcomes, supporting patients and providers with increased digital touchpoints, educational materials, and interventions through remote monitoring and digital engagement.

Now, in an industry first, the vision to connect all stakeholders in the space is being realized through a new partnership with AmeriHealth Caritas DC, a managed care organization, which has joined with GW-MFA to further deploy tech-enabled prenatal and postpartum care in the Medicaid population, a population often ignored by the technology community.

Partnerships such as this one begin to solve some of the structural difficulties in coordinating care between insurance companies and doctors for Medicaid patients. It will focus on increasing access to tech-enabled pregnancy care that allows all patients, regardless of their socioeconomic status, to receive the benefits of remote monitoring and virtual care with the same privacy and security as a physical interaction at the doctor’s office.

There is no excuse for the current statistics of maternal death. The healthcare industry has had the technology to impact care, but what has been missing is the combined vision to make these tools powerful agents of change. Mothers and infants in our communities have a right to a safe and healthy life, and partnerships such as this one have the power to be the difference.

The post Mothers in the US Are Dying: What Are We Doing to Save Them? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Juan Pablo Segura is Co-founder of Babyscripts, the leading virtual care platform for managing obstetrics.

The post Mothers in the US Are Dying: What Are We Doing to Save Them? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Women in the fisheries sector are largely concentrated in low-skilled, low-paid seasonal jobs without health, safety, and labor rights protections. Pictured here are Rita Francke and another fisherwoman at a jetty, in front of the old crayfish factory at Witsands, South Africa. Credit: Lee Middleton/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 7 2019 (IPS)

Our oceans play a major role in everyday life, but they are in grave danger. To protect the ocean, we must look to a crucial, largely overlooked component: gender.

For World Oceans Day this year, which occurs every year on Jun. 8, the United Nations and the international community is shining a spotlight on the intersections between the ocean and gender—an often underrepresented and unrecognised relationship.

“Gender equality and the health and conservation of our oceans are inextricably linked and we need to mainstream gender equality both in policies and programs and really in our DNA,” UN Women’s Policy Analyst Carla Kraft told IPS.

Founder of Women4Oceans Farah Obaidullah echoed similar sentiments to IPS to mark the occasion, stating: “It’s a great step that the UN is recognising the importance of addressing gender when it comes to achieving healthy oceans. You can’t achieve healthy oceans without achieving gender equality.”

Women make up approximately 47 percent of the world’s 120 million people, working in fisheries around the world, outnumbering men both in large-scale and small-scale fisheries.

However, women in the fisheries sector are largely concentrated in low-skilled, low-paid seasonal jobs without health, safety, and labour rights protections. In fact, women earn approximately 64 percent of men’s wages for the same work in aquaculture.

At the same time, women’s contributions both towards ocean-based livelihoods and conservation efforts remain invisible.

“There’s a disproportion valuation or recognition of women’s work and skills in marine and coastal development and ocean and marine resources,” Kraft said.

“Women’s economic empowerment is very much related to ocean activities and resources so it’s really about having gender equality as both a goal and a process through which we can conserve, preserve, and use the ocean in economic activity,” she added.

 

As ocean degradation and climate change deepens, women are left with even less access to economic resources, protection, and stable livelihoods, which thus exacerbates gender inequalities.

According to UN Women, women and children are 14 times more likely to die or get injured in natural disasters due to unequal access to resources.

While women’s political participation is increasing, Obaidullah noted that women are still left out of the table in decision-making and lack recognition around fisheries and ocean governance, telling IPS of her own experiences as an ocean advocate.

“It’s difficult—sometimes it’s because I’m a woman, sometimes it’s because of my ethnic background—to have my voice heard in certain settings. I’ll go to a conference and try to talk about serious topics with fellow delegates but [only to] be put down,” Obaidullah told IPS.

“I have seen how women have left the conservation movement and academia because of being in the minority in the fields that they work. And that has to change because we are losing out on all this capacity, intelligence, and training because of the inequality in this sector,” she added.

For instance, UN Women found that in Thailand men make 41 percent of decisions compared to 28 percent by women regarding fish farming. Such decisions are often related to establishing farms, business registration, feeding, and dealing with emergencies.

Obaidullah highlighted the need to empower  and support women across the globe to ensure sustainable ocean governance, including at the UN.

“Bringing in different voices from different backgrounds and from different genders is essential if we are going to set a healthier course for humanity…. we need to be making role models across geographies, across cultures if we are to get people motivated and inspired to take action for the ocean,” she said.

“There are a lot of women and people from different cultures and countries that are really on the ground fighting the fight for our ocean but they don’t get the spotlight.”

Women make up approximately 47 percent of the world’s 120 million people working in fisheries around the world, outnumbering men both in large-scale fisheries and small-scale fisheries. Credit: Lee Middleton/IPS

Already, the work towards inclusive conservation has begun.

In Seychelles, numerous organisations have put women and youth at the centre of efforts. One such organisation is SOCOMEP, a woman-run fisheries quality and quantity control company.

In Kenya, women are promoting conservation education within the mangrove forests through the Mikoko Pamoja mangrove conservation and restoration project, helping contribute to ecotourism, better health care and education while generating an income.

Kraft pointed to the need for data as the intersections between gender and the ocean still remain unexplored.

“One of the biggest issues right now that we have is the lack of sex-disaggregated data so it makes it harder to make really adequate policy responses when we don’t know the exact status of where women are in the economic activities in ocean and marine-related fields,” she said.

At the end of the day, the international community must also recognise that gender is related to and should be mainstreamed through all sectors.

“We have gone too long without having a gender lens really used for all of these policymakers…gender equality will benefit sustainable ocean governance and sustainable ocean governance with a gender lens will contribute to gender equality and women’s economic empowerment,” Kraft said.

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By Charlotte Munns
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 6 2019 (IPS)

Attacks on Afghan schools tripled between 2017 and 2018, according to a UNICEF report released last week: from 68 attacks to 192 in 2018. This figure seems unlikely to decrease as the Afghan government prepares to use schools once again for political activity in the upcoming election.

The report comes following the Third International Conference on Safe Schools in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. The international community met to discuss the Safe Schools Declaration which outlines means to protect schools in times of conflict. Attendees have called into question the effectiveness of this Declaration.

UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore expressed concern that education in Afghanistan was “under fire.”

“The senseless attacks on schools; the killing, injury and abduction of teachers; and the threats against education are destroying the hopes and dreams of an entire generation of children,” she said in a statement.

On Tuesday Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, said in a statement, “due to the conflict in Afghanistan, more than 1,000 schools closed by the end of last year, leaving half a million children out of school.”

This swell in attacks comes as schools are being pulled deeper into the conflict in Afghanistan. They are used more and more frequently in elections. Educational institutions were used as polling booths for Afghani’s to cast their votes in the 2018 presidential election, as well as in 2014.

The majority of schools attacked in 2018 were used in some capacity during the elections.

Anthony Neal, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s (NRC) Advocacy Manager in Afghanistan and attendee at the Third International Conference on Safe Schools, said in a statement to IPS, “out of the 192 attacks on schools that took place last year, 92 of these were election-related,” adding, “using schools in this way places them directly on the front line.”

While schools have been used peacefully for political purposes elsewhere, the unique political situation in Afghanistan places a target on schools used in this capacity.

“In many countries around the world schools are used as polling centres – including just recently across Europe for the European Parliamentary elections. In most countries this occurs without increasing the risk of attack on these facilities,” Anthony Neal told IPS, “unfortunately in Afghanistan – where elections are seen as a major divide between the different sides of the conflict – this is not the case.”

Patricia Gossman, Senior Researcher in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch, echoed this statement when she told IPS “a polling place is going to be a target unfortunately, given the Taliban’s attitude toward the elections.”

Organisations have called for polling booths and voter registration centres to be moved away from schools.

“Many schools across Afghanistan are currently being used by armed forces,” Neal said, “in order to protect education in Afghanistan, those supporting the elections should find alternative polling and voter registration sites.”

Despite this call to find new locations for election activities, the Afghan government seems to have made no progress in finding alternate sites, with reports indicating they are already preparing school buildings for the elections.

“They have made no preparations to use any other facilities,” Gossman said, “it is not beyond the means of those planning to come up with another facility.”

She suggested using tents as polling booths, which have been used successfully in other countries before, and are independent, neutral and cheap.

With the upcoming election scheduled for September, Afghanistan could see a worsening in an already precarious educational situation.

According to the World Bank, Afghanistan has a literacy rate of just 31%, one of the lowest in the world. This is partly due to the near complete prohibition of female education under Islamist Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001.

The UNICEF report released last week underscores this deterioration, estimating 3.7 million school-aged children, close to half of all Afghanis between the ages of 7 and 17, do not attend formal schools.

Attacks on educational institutions in Afghanistan is part of a global issue that the international community has attempted to address.

In a statement to the Third International Conference on Safe Schools Mark Lowcock, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator said, “in the last five years, more than 14,000 attacks on education were reported in 34 countries.”

He claimed poor adherence to the Safe Schools Declaration, to which Afghanistan is a signatory, is partly to blame; “when countries sign up for the declaration, they have to implement the obligations under it,” he added, “we are seeing too many examples of forces occupying schools. That has to stop.”

In the specific case of Afghanistan, however, the effectiveness of the Safe Schools Declaration seems questionable.

Speaking on the intensity of the violence in Afghanistan, Gossman noted, “even the best intentions seem to get thrown at the wind once you’re faced with this kind of pace of conflict.”

She added, “there’s all kinds of promises on paper that look very good, but implementation and enforcement are severely lacking.”

While the Safe Schools Declaration may aim to protect education in times of conflict, when faced with a context in which education is being violently targeted it seems powerless to instigate real change.

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When we say that children aren’t learning, what we mean is that they are not fitting into our assessment of their learning outcomes | Picture courtesy: Nilesh Nimkar

By Nilesh Nimkar
THANE, MAHARASHTRA, India, Jun 6 2019 (IPS)

When we look at learning outcomes for children, we only look at standardised tests, ignoring any indigenous knowledge, language, or problem solving strategies they might have.

The brick kilns of Sonale were bustling with activity—children running around, indigenous technology being used, and lots of mathematics being done. I recently went there after a teacher from the nearby primary school approached our nonprofit, Quest, because the children living there were simply not learning. The concern was, if they didn’t even know their multiplication tables, how would they cope in classes V, VI, and VII?

So I went to see for myself. I asked these children, “To make the mortar for the bricks, how many pits have been dug?

“On one side 11; another side 12”

They also told me they would put three containers of raw material in each pit. So I asked them how many containers they would need in total, and after running off to count them, they came back with the right answers. They could also explain how they arrived at those numbers. What I found was that they were counting in threes. Not the way one recites the tables in the schools, but visualising it in their mind.

Clearly, these children knew how to multiply. That they failed to memorise their tables was beside the point. They had understood the concept and had demonstrated a strong meta-cognitive ability when they explained how they arrived at the answer

Clearly, these children knew how to multiply. That they failed to memorise their tables was beside the point. They had understood the concept and had demonstrated a strong meta-cognitive ability when they explained how they arrived at the answer. In my further conversations, I was amazed to see the kinds of calculations the children at the brick kilns did. For instance, 13 multiplied by 11 was done mentally because they were able to understand it within their own context (that of the brick kiln).

 

Standardised testing disadvantages marginalised children

This example illustrates one of the biggest challenges of our schools today—standardised assessment—which further disadvantages marginalised children. These children have a different type of cultural capital that schools and tests hardly recognise.

Western research in the field of math pedagogy points to the importance of children’s indigenous knowledge and strategies in solving problems and considers them to be the starting point for sound understanding of elementary mathematics. But what are those indigenous strategies in the Indian context? We still don’t know much about them. And our lack of knowledge results in us asking these children to run an unfair race.

Today, when we say that children from marginalised communities aren’t learning, what we mean is that they are not fitting into our assessment of their learning outcomes. By completely ignoring their indigenous knowledge, language, and problem-solving strategies, we have so far continued to focus on what they don’t know, and never paid attention to what they do know.

 

The process tells us more than just the outcomes

I do not deny the necessity of having some common indicators to understand the status of education in a given cluster, block, district, or state. But setting and chasing these indicators mindlessly could be dangerous.

Take for example, an encounter I had at an SSC exam centre in a rural school a few years ago. While I was visiting, I saw that the teachers were openly giving students answers to questions while they wrote their exams. When I asked why this was happening, a teacher said to me, “These children are weak from the beginning. It is almost impossible that they pass the exam on their own. If they fail, it will affect the result of our school and this would create a lot of trouble for us.”

This encounter is a classic example of what will happen if we neglect the process of learning and just focus on the numerical indicators of success. Our belief tends to be that if we can control learning outcomes, the quality of education will improve. But children can rote learn, or use unfair ways to pass their exams—we have no system that can check it at scale. What’s more, we are forgetting to track whether or not these children truly understand what they’ve been taught.

Ever since the ASER and other such reports have been published, we’ve been talking about how poor the learning outcomes are. But what have we really done to change things? We have been experimenting with examinations more than the actual process of learning, finding newer and newer ways to test the learning outcomes. But, if a pipe is choked, no matter what bowl you put under the opening, no water will drip into it. Similarly, no matter what exams, standard tests, and evaluation tool we use, only a little will change if we fail to address the core issues related to the process of learning.

 

“What I found was that they were counting in threes. Not the way one recites the tables in the schools, but visualising it in their mind” | Picture courtesy: Nilesh Nimkar

 

What needs to be done

1. Strengthen the process, invest in teachers

One of the positive outcomes of the Right to Education (RTE) Act is that it improved enrolment rates. But we know that it’s not enough to get children into schools. We need to alter our schools to meet children’s needs. If we want to set the process of education right, we have to strengthen its most impacting factor, the teacher.

Teacher education and ongoing teacher professional development are areas where we haven’t paid much attention. Instead of offering our teachers quick fixes to the challenges they face, we need to begin working with, and for our teachers.

One example of how to do this could be through a technology based distant mentoring system for teachers working across geographies. Quest, the nonprofit I run, has a system like this on a much smaller scale—here, teachers send audio recordings of their classroom activity to mentors (experienced teachers, teacher-educators, or researchers in the field of pedagogy), who then provide them with ongoing feedback to help them fine-tune their skills. This type of support system needs to be created on a larger scale.

 

2. Change the way we test

We need to alter the tools and parameters we use to assess success. We had a chance to do this when the idea of continuous comprehensive evaluations was introduced. However, the teachers and education community at large could not free themselves from the idea of examinations, and we lost a golden opportunity to bring our focus on to the process.

In a country as diverse as India, the assessment framework could be common for all. But the actual tests should be local and culturally appropriate. For example, I have seen assessment tests that show a picture of a well-maintained French garden or a city park, expecting a rural child to talk about it. In this situation it is obvious that the child will show poor oral expression.

Or yet another example is that of asking children to write words only from the ‘standard’ language—when in reality, Marathi spoken in different parts of Maharashtra is not the same. But normally the assessments are not sensitive to this regional variation, which means that children with a home language that is different than the standard variant of Marathi will always perform poorly.

The question we must ask ourselves is, do we want to make the education system more inclusive, or do we want to use it as a sieve to weed out the ‘weaker’ children? We need to design an overarching framework and build a bank of regionally, culturally appropriate testing items. Unless we do this our focus will always remain on what children don’t know.

 

Nilesh Nimkar has over 20 years’ experience in the field of early childhood education, elementary education, teacher education and curriculum development. He has initiated several innovative programs for teachers and children, specially in the rural and tribal areas. He has received the Maharashtra Foundation Award for ‘Outstanding social work in the field of education’.

 

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

The post What Standardised Testing Doesn’t Tell Us About Learning appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council Jan Egeland visited Buea in South West in Cameroon Tuesday 23 April. There he met with a group of women who have been displaced by the mounting crisis in the Anglophone parts of Cameroon.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 6 2019 (IPS)

The world’s 10 most under reported displacement crises— which have rendered millions of people homeless– have continued to worsen due either to political neglect, a shortage of funds or lack of media attention, according to a new report released by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

NRC Secretary-General Jan Egeland says humanitarian assistance should be given based on needs– and needs alone. However, every day millions of displaced people are neglected because they have been struck by the wrong crisis and the dollars have dried up.

The countries faced with displacement crises last year were largely in Africa, with Cameroon heading the list, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic, Burundi, Mali, Libya and Ethiopia.

The remaining three, according to the NRC, were Ukraine, Venezuela and Palestine.

“This depressing list must serve as a wake-up call for all of us. Only by drawing attention to these crises, learning about them and placing them high on the international agenda, can we achieve much needed change,” said Egeland, a former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

Dr Martin Scott, from the University of East Anglia, UK, and lead author of a recent report into The State of Humanitarian Journalism, told IPS although reports like this are an important first step in raising the profile of these crises – but it is not enough to simply lament the lack of coverage.

“What’s needed is a clear-headed assessment of why these displacement crises receive so little coverage. Partly, it’s a reflection of the broken business models of most international journalism – which means news outlets often struggle to provide consistent coverage of real public value,” he argued.

But it is also a reflection of the political priorities of powerful countries – which news outlets often reflect, Dr Scott added.

These reports, he pointed out, also draw attention to what’s not working, in general, within international journalism.

“But there are news outlets which do, regularly, report on crises like these – such as Devex, News Deeply, The New Humanitarian and Inter Press Service (IPS),” he noted.

“It is important to highlight their work – so that audiences know there is coverage of these crises out there,” he declared.

Singling out Cameroon, Egeland said the international community is asleep at the wheel when it comes to the crisis in Cameroon. Brutal killings, burned-down villages and massive displacement have been met with deafening silence.

He said conflict has so far uprooted half a million people in South-West and North-West Cameroon. Hundreds of villages have been set ablaze. Hospitals have been attacked. Health workers fear being abducted or killed.

Over 780,000 children have seen their schools close and thousands of people, currently hiding in the bushes, have received no humanitarian relief. Still there has been no major mediation efforts, no large relief programmes, minimal media interest and too little pressure on parties to stop attacking civilians.

“This culture of paralysis by the international community has to end. Every day the conflict is allowed to continue, bitterness is building and the region edges closer towards full-blown war,” said Egeland, who recently visited the central African country.

The Norwegian Refugee Council is calling for increased attention to the crises on the list to prevent the suffering of millions of vulnerable people.

“This depressing list must serve as a wake-up call for all of us. Only by drawing attention to these crises, learning about them and placing them high on the international agenda, can we achieve much needed change,” Egeland said.

Asked if the United Nations and the international community were lagging behind in their support, NRC’s Tiril Skarstein told IPS: “We believe that the international community is not doing enough to solve these crises. The lack of political will to find solutions to these crises is often a result of lack of geopolitical interests in the area.”

However, he pointed out, there are also some countries on the list where several world powers have competing interests, leading to a deadlock and a lack of political solutions for people on the ground,–like for example in Palestine and Ukraine.

Asked if the shortfall in funding is due to neglect on the part of Western donors or domestic economic and financial constraints within donor nations, he said humanitarian assistance should be given based on needs alone.

Still, it is easier to attract humanitarian funding to some crises than others. Often, “ we see a close link between the amount of media attention a crisis receives and the amount of humanitarian funding. Some of the crises at the neglected crises list were less than 40 percent funded last year.”

But there is also a general funding shortfall, he conceded.

Last year, only about 60 percent of the total humanitarian appeals by UN and partner organizations were funded.

“This means that we need all donors to increase their humanitarian support so that we can meet the actual humanitarian needs, and we also need new donors, including several emerging economies, to step up.”

Asked why these crises were affecting mostly African nations, compared to Asian and Latin American nations, Skarstein told IPS “unfortunately, the crises on the African continent seldom make media headlines or reach foreign policy agendas before it is too late.”

The lack of funding and political attention has devastating consequences for the civilians who receive neither protection against attacks, nor the necessary relief when they have had to flee their homes in search of safety, he argued.

Most of those who flee head towards neighboring countries or are displaced within their own country. “However, the fact that most of these people do not turn up at our doorsteps here in Europe, for example, does not remove our responsibility to act,” he noted.

According to NRC, the crisis in Cameroon has its root in the country’s troubled colonial history. After World War One, the former German colony was split between a French and British mandate.

The country has now both English and French as official languages, but people in the English-speaking parts have been feeling increasingly marginalized, NRC said.

And in 2016, civilians took to the streets, and a heavy crackdown by security forces led to widespread violence and the formation of armed opposition groups.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post World’s Displacement Crises Worsened by Lack of Funds, Political Will or Media Attention appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Saim Bin Mujib
Jun 5 2019 (IPS-Partners)

At a time of extreme scarcity of open space for children to play, Washpur Garden City in Bosila of Dhaka has opened up an aesthetic place completely made of bamboo for kids to have fun.

The project called Bamboo Playspace is a part of an architectural course CADSE (Critical Architecture Design and Sustainable Environment), where students from different universities took part to create it.

The space was designed and created under supervision of design and architecture studio Para to help flourish the physical and mental development of kids from the non-profit Local Education and Economic Development Organization (LEEDO). But the Bamboo Playspace is open for all children.

Moreover, the place is not only for kids’ play. There is a stage and a gallery for holding drama and other cultural activities too.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Bamboo Playspace for kids in Dhaka appeared first on Inter Press Service.