Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

By Abdullah Mashrif
Jul 5 2018 (IOM)

More than one million Rohingya refugees escaped violence in Myanmar. They are living on the hilly terrains of Cox’s Bazar where the land is steep and the soil is sandy. They are desperate for space to build shelters and they have used the plantation to care for their families. Now, the land they live on is bare, and the sandy slopes are extremely vulnerable to landslides during the monsoon and cyclone seasons.

Vetiver grass stored inside the camp. Photo: Abdullah Mashrif / IOM (2018)

IOM, the UN Migration Agency, along with its partners are planting vetiver grass all over the camp to mitigate the risk of soil erosion.

Grasses are kept in water to keep them hydrated. Photo: Abdullah Mashrif / IOM (2018)

In the past weeks, over 10,000 bundles of vetiver grass have been distributed by IOM in the refugee camps. Approximately 500,000 sqm of land has been covered.

A bundle of 200 plants costs $1.50 USD. It is expected that this project will significantly improve the quality of the soil in the camps.

workers collecting grasses to plant in different locations. Photo: Abdullah Mashrif / IOM (2018)

As well as distributing the grass among partners, IOM has directly planted 2,750 bundles through IOM’s Cash for Work (CfW) program, where Rohingya refugees and members of local host communities work together to mitigate structural issues in the camp.

Mohammed Kasim is processing land before plantation. Photo: Abdullah Mashrif / IOM (2018)

“It is a great idea to plant grass in the slops, the camp will be greener and safer.” says Mohammed Kasim who has been working with IOM on several projects.

CfW participants separating seedlings from bundles before planting. Photo: Abdullah Mashrif / IOM (2018)

It takes five laborers approximately one hour to plant grass on 30 sqm of land. The seedlings reach full length (1 meter) in two months.

Separating plants from bundles. Photo: Abdullah Mashrif / IOM (2018)

Photo: Abdullah Mashrif / IOM (2018)

IOM has produced a series of simple illustrations which will help workers understand the best way to plant the grass.

Bamboo sticks are used to fix seedlings in the soil. Photo: Abdullah Mashrif / IOM (2018)

Newly planted vetiver grass must be watered twice a day. Community volunteers and refugee families have been eagerly taking care of the plants. This project has made people more concerned about soil erosion and the risks of landslides.

One week after plantation. Photo: Abdullah Mashrif / IOM (2018)

The vetiver grass project is a practical and long term initiative which IOM site management teams are working on to improve camp conditions during the coming Monsoon rains.

The use of vetiver grass is a tried and tested method for slope stabilization. IOM anticipates that this sustainable and cost effective approach will have a positive impact on reducing slope failures inside the camp during the wettest months of the year.

The post Planting Seeds for a Safer Future appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

IN PREPARATION OF MONSOON SEASON, THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION (IOM) IS TURNING TO INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS TO SUPPORT THE NEEDS OF THE ROHINGYA REFUGEES IN COX’S BAZAR. IOM IS PLANTING VETIVER GRASS ALL OVER THE ROHINGYA REFUGEE CAMP TO MITIGATE THE RISK OF LANDSLIDES.

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In this dated picture, a child collects bullets from the ground in Rounyn, a village in North Darfur, Sudan. Armed conflict on the African continent poses huge risk on any potential investments to address climate change. Credit: Albert Gonzalez Farran / UNAMID

By Issa Sikiti da Silva
KINSHASA, Jul 5 2018 (IPS)

Africa’s political instability, its armed conflicts and regulatory issues are placing at risk investment needed to tackle climate change and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on the continent. 

“A renewable energy developer or investor faces increased risk that their returns and earnings could decline as a result of political change, such as terrorism, expropriation (dispossession of property for public use), and sovereign breach of contract,” Dereje Senshaw, the principal specialist at Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), told IPS. He added that credit, market and technological risks were also obstacles towards reducing GHG emissions.

According to International Monetary Fund and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development papers, green investment refers to the investment necessary to reduce GHG and air pollutant emissions without significantly reducing the production and consumption of non-energy goods. It covers both public and private investment.

Senshaw’s explanations come against the backdrop of several armed conflicts that are tearing the resource-rich continent apart. Millions of people have been uprooted from their homes and the instability has dealt a blow to development projects and poverty-eradication programmes.

This month, the Norwegian Refugee Council listed the world’s 10-most neglected crises. Six were from Africa. In the Central African Republic, conflict began in 2013 after a coup. The country held elections three years later but peace has been elusive. The Democratic Republic of Congo is listed as having the world’s second-most neglected crisis as the central African nation has experienced almost two decades of conflict. Sudan, South Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia are also on the list.

Tariffs too high

Apart from political risks, green investments could also be compromised by regulatory issues or tariffs, Senshaw said.

“Some African countries set tariffs at very high rates, making it very unattractive to investors as they may not have the chance to recover their incurred costs in the future,” he explained.

Another major risk is the delay of utility contracts. Circumstances could change during the lifetime of a project in many sub-Saharan Africa countries and even essential services, like the provision of electricity, may stop. In addition, risk arises when regulatory agencies start to interfere with the operations of private companies.

“Similarly, there is the risk of the nationalisation of utilities and policy changes. In addition there are various regulatory risks related to biddings, procurements and hiring, and contracts,” Senshaw said, explaining that bids are frequently cancelled, postponed or disputed. “This discourages interested private actors from spending time and money on these bids. Also, some African countries put in place bureaucratic procurements and hiring procedures that hamper operations of private energy companies,” he said.

He added that corruption was another risk.

“However, I think corruption has not been overlooked by investors, rather it is still considered as one of the potential investment risks,” he said.

Senshaw said African governments needed to establish an enabling environment for private investors in renewable projects, which he described as the main driver for accelerating the deployment of renewable energy in Africa.

USD225 billion by 2030

The search for money to fund these green projects continues unabated.

Tokiashi Nagata, an expert from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), said recently that Africa would need USD225 billion by 2030 to implement energy targets set out in national determined contributions (NDCs), of which 44 percent are for unconditional targets. In the Paris Agreement, a global agreement to tackle climate change, countries declared their NDCs, which are outlines of the actions they propose to undertake in order to limit the rise in average global temperatures to below 2°C.

Unconditional targets, Nagata explained, are the targets that countries are committed to meet without international support, while conditional targets are the ones that countries would only be able to meet with international support in areas of finance and technology, among others.

Nagata, who made the announcement in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, at a GGGI capacity building summit, told IPS that the amount applied to African countries that have quantified renewable energy targets.

Virtually all African countries mention renewables in their NDCs and 85 percent of them include quantified renewable energy targets, Nagata said. He said 23 countries in Africa have renewable energy action under adaptation, while 15 have targets with off-grid renewables.

USD470 billion to fund NDCs

Currently, USD470 billion is available to fund the implementation of NDCs globally, according to IRENA. However, the agency warned that barriers to investment could come in the form of insufficient or contradictory incentives, limited experience and institutional capacity and immature financial systems.

NDCs, Nagata pointed out, provided an opportunity to capture the benefits renewables offer for climate resilient infrastructure. 

“Some renewables, especially solar, can bring electricity in a cost-effective manner to those areas where electricity cannot be brought otherwise. This will enhance their resilience. In many cases, remote areas use diesel for power,” he said, adding that it was costly and therefore not environmentally sustainable.

While the commitment of African governments plays a role in countries reaching their NDCs, the major investment driver for establishing renewable energy projects remains the attractiveness of financial returns, says Senshaw.

• Building West Africa’s Capacity to Access Climate Funding
• West Africa Building Renewable Energy Sector Partnership and Capacity
• Ethiopia’s Green Growth Goals: A Launchpad for Wider Climate Action in Africa

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By WAM
GENEVA, Jul 5 2018 (WAM)

The United Arab Emirates, UAE, has welcomed the attention and support provided by the UN Human Rights to member states regarding the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the complementarity of the Sustainable Development Goals and human rights obligations.

”Technical assistance remains the most effective tool to assist economically vulnerable countries to achieve sustainable development goals enshrined in reports and recommendations issued by the council’s various mechanisms,” said Mohammed Saleh Al Shamsi, Second Secretary at the UAE Mission in Geneva, before a panel discussion, held today as part of the 38th session of the Human Rights Council on human rights and the Sustainable Development Goals, with a focus on enhancing human rights technical cooperation and capacity-building to contribute to the effective and inclusive implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

He said that the 2030 Agenda set out many development goals, which were complementary to socio-economic and environmental dimensions.

”A National Commission was established in 2017 to implement the Sustainable Development Goals in the UAE,” he added.

He stated that the UAE will be among 47 countries which will carry out Voluntary National Reviews, VNR, of their 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development during the UN High-level political forum on sustainable development, HLPF, which will meet from 9th to 18th July, 2018.

WAM/Tariq alfaham

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By WAM
DUBAI, Jul 5 2018 (WAM)

The UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) and the French Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC) have signed for the first time a bilateral technical cooperation agreement. The agreement covers all topics related to the development of civil aviation, in particular those of safety and cyber-security. The signing took place in the presence of the French Ambassador to the UAE, Ludovic Pouille.

The cooperation will include exchanging experts, holding joint seminars, organising on-the-job trainings and participating in academic courses.

This agreement is the achievement and formalisation of a cooperation between both countries that has already started in 2017 when a UAE delegation visited DGAC for discussions on the organisation of safety oversight, and then followed by the participation of an expert from DGAC at the first ICAO Aviation Cyber-Security Summit and Exhibition hosted by the GCAA. Since then, both aviation authorities regularly exchanged technical information and practises for the benefit of enhancing safety.

The Director-General of GCAA, Saif Mohammed Al Suwaidi, said, “This cooperation is a new achievement for the UAE, France and the whole international civil aviation system. It is a bridge between nations and regions of great importance that have committed to building strong capacity in ensuring a safe, secure and sustainable civil aviation system that will benefit citizens from all the over the world. We at the GCAA manage and regulate the UAE airspace and the aviation sector in order to serve the public in a dynamic and thriving aviation environment.”

The Ambassador Pouille, said, “This comes to show the strength of UAE and France’s bilateral relations. Safety and cyber-security are important factors in civil aviation and this cooperation will help both countries to benefit from each other’s expertise and knowledge”.

According to Bertrand de Lacombe, DGAC’s Director of International Cooperation, “The GCAA has become a key player in air transport regulation, at the heart of a region where activity is tremendously dynamic. The characteristics of our countries are different but it is precisely the interest of our bilateral cooperation: it will enable us to benefit from our experiences, as we face common challenges (safety oversight, airport management, security, emergence of UAVs, etc.).”

WAM/Rasha Abubaker

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By WAM
ABU DHABI, Jul 5 2018 (WAM)

The joint European-UAE Human Rights Working Group held its eighth meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in Abu Dhabi yesterday (Wednesday).

The meeting is part of an initiative launched by H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policies in 2013, as part of efforts to raise EU awareness on the UAE’s human rights achievements. The initiative includes constructive dialogue held between the two sides twice alternately in Abu Dhabi and Brussels each year.

During the meeting – which aims at strengthening the human rights situation regionally and internationally – the two sides reviewed a number of issues of common interest, including recent human rights developments in the UAE and the EU, joint cooperation in UN mechanisms, and efforts to promote religious tolerance.

The meeting was chaired by Ahmed Abdulrahman Al Jarmin, Assistant to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation for Human Rights and International Law, in the presence of representatives from a number of government ministries, bodies and institutions in the country.

WAM/Rasha Abubaker

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One of the offices in Buenos Aires of La Poderosa, the social organisation that publishes the magazine La Garganta Poderosa and is involved in a number of activities, ranging from soup kitchens to skills training for adults and workshops for youngsters in the “villas” or slums in the capital and the rest of Argentina. Credit: Daniel Gutman/IPS

By Daniel Gutman
Jul 5 2018 (IPS)

Between the dimly-lit, narrow alleyways of Villa 21, only 30 minutes by bus from the centre of the Argentine capital, more than 50,000 people live in poverty. It was there that La Garganta Poderosa (which means powerful throat), the magazine that gave a voice to the “villeros” or slum-dwellers and whose members today feel threatened, emerged in 2010.

“’Villeros’ don’t generally reach the media in Argentina. Others see us as people who don’t want to work, or as people who are dangerous. La Garganta Poderosa is the cry that comes from our soul,” says Marcos Basualdo, in one of the organisation’s offices, a narrow shop with a cement floor and unpainted walls, where the only furniture is an old metal cabinet where copies of the magazine are stored.

Basualdo, 28, says that it was after his house was destroyed by a fire in 2015 that he joined La Poderosa, the social organisation that created the magazine, which is made up of 79 neighbourhood assemblies of “villas” or shantytowns across the country.

From that time, Basualdo recalls that “people from different political parties asked me what I needed, but nobody gave me anything.”

“Then the people of La Poderosa brought me clothes, blankets, food, without asking me for anything in return. So I decided to join this self-managed organisation, which helps us help each other and helps us realize that we can,” he tells IPS.

Villa 21, the largest shantytown in Buenos Aires, is on the south side of the city, on the banks of the Riachuelo, a river polluted for at least two centuries, recently described as an “open sewer” by the Environment Ministry, which has failed to comply with a Supreme Court ruling ordering its clean-up.

Small naked cement and brick homes are piled on each other and crowded together along the narrow alleyways in the shantytowns and families have no basic services or privacy.

As you walk through the neighbourhood, you see sights that are inconceivable in other parts of the city, such as police officers carrying semi-automatic weapons at the ready.

Across the country, villas have continued to grow over the last few decades. Official and social organisation surveys show that at least three million of the 44 million people in this South American country live in slums, without access to basic services, which means approximately 10 percent of the urban population.

In this alleyway in Villa 21, a slum in the capital of Argentina, is located the house where nine-year-old Kevin Molina was hit and killed by a stray bullet in a shootout between drug gangs in 2013, and the police refused to intervene, according to reports. Credit: Daniel Gutman/IPS

La Garganta Poderosa, whose editorial board is made up of “all the members of all the assemblies” of the villas, also grew, both in its monthly print edition and in its active participation in social networks and other projects, such as a book, radio programmes, videos and a film.

It has interviewed politicians such as former presidents Dilma Rousseff or Brazil and José “Pepe” Mujica of Uruguay or sports stars like Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona of Argentina, and has established itself as a cultural reference in Argentina, with its characteristic covers generally showing the main subjects of that edition with their mouths wide open as if screaming.

The writing style is more typical of spoken than written communication, using idioms and vocabulary generally heard in the villas, and the magazine’s journalism is internationally recognised and is studied as an example of alternative communication at some local universities.

The work this organisation carries out, as a means of creative and peaceful expression of a community living in a hostile environment, was even highlighted by the U.N. Special Rapporteur against Torture, Nils Melzer, who visited the villa in April.

However, recently, after the magazine denounced abuses and arbitrary detentions by security forces in Villa 21, the government accused it of being an accomplice to drug trafficking.

On Jun. 7, all media outlets were summoned by e-mail to a press conference at the Ministry of National Security, “to unmask the lies told by La Garganta Poderosa.”

Activists from La Poderosa, on Avenida Iriarte, the main street of Villa 21 in Buenos Aires, on Jun. 1, as they leave for the courthouse to follow a trial against six police officers for alleged brutality against two teenagers from the slum. Credit: Courtesy of La Garganta Poderosa

The next day, Minister Patricia Bullrich stated that the magazine and the social organisation that supports it are seeking to “free the neighbourhood so that it is not controlled by a state of law but by the illegal state.”

“This is a message that authorises violence against us. The minister showed images of our main leader, Nacho Levy, and since that day he has been receiving threats,” one of La Poderosa’s members told IPS, asking to remain anonymous for security reasons.

A few minutes walk from La Poderosa’s premises is the house where Kevin Molina, a nine-year-old boy, was shot in the head inside his house during a shootout between two drug gangs, in 2013.

“The neighbours called the police, but they didn’t want to get involved and said they would come and get the bodies the next day,” says the La Poderosa’s activist.

In recent weeks, the situation has become more tense.

Minister Bullrich’s accusation was a response to the repercussions from the arrest of La Garganta Poderosa photographer Roque Azcurriare and his brother-in-law. It happened on the night of May 26 and they were only released two days later.

Lucy Mercado and Marcos Basualdo, two members of La Poderosa’s social organisation, pose in front of a mural in Villa 21, a slum in Buenos Aires, that pays tribute to Marielle Franco, the Brazilian politician and human rights activist who was murdered in March in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Daniel Gutman/IPS

Using his cell-phone, Azcurriare tried to film police officers entering his house, which is located at the end of a short alleyway next to the house of Iván Navarro, a teenager who a few days earlier had testified about police brutality, during a public oral trial.

Navarro said that one night in September 2016, he and his friend Ezequiel were detained without cause in a street in the villa. He said the police beat them, threatened to kill them, stripped them naked, tried to force them to jump into the Riachuelo, and finally ordered them to run for their lives.

In connection with this case, which has been covered and supported by La Poderosa, six police officers are currently being held in pretrial detention awaiting a sentence expected in the next few weeks.

“Ivan Navarro was arrested because he was wearing a nice sports jacket. That’s how things are here in the villa. When someone is wearing brand-name sneakers, the police never think they bought them with their wages, but just assume that they’re stolen,” says Lucy Mercado, a 40-year-old woman born in Ciudad del Este, on the Triple Border between Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina, who has lived in Villa 21 since she was a little girl.

“It’s no coincidence that this is happening now. In April we had filed six complaints of torture by the police. And this very important oral trial. Never in the history of our organisation have we achieved anything like this,” another La Poderosa activist told IPS, who also asked not to be identified.

Azcurriare’s arrest gave more visibility in Argentina to the trial of the six police officers, to the point that on Jun. 1 there was a march from Villa 21 to the courthouse, in which hundreds of members of human rights organisations participated.

“We will no longer stay silent because it is not a question of harassing a charismatic reporter, but of systematically clamping down on all villa-dwellers,” La Garganta Poderosa stated on its social network accounts.

• “Them” and “Us”, a Metaphor for Urban Inequality

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Director General William Lacy Swing meets Libya Prime Minister Fayez Mustafa al-Sarraj

By International Organization for Migration
Jul 4 2018 (IOM)

BREAKING — Ambassador William Lacy Swing, IOM Director General, arrived in Tripoli this morning (04/07) to visit the survivors of the latest migration tragedy off Libya’s shores, and Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj.

Over the weekend an estimated 218 migrants lost their lives in double tragedies. A boat packed with migrants capsized off Al Khums, east of Tripoli on Sunday (01/07). An estimated 41 people survived after the rescue, but roughly 100 people were reported missing by the Libyan Coast Guard after this shipwreck. On Saturday some 104 lives were lost in another mass drowning, including those of three babies who were being brought to Europe.

Moreover, IOM’s Missing Migrants Project (MMP) has recorded since 18 June some 483 fatalities off Libya, including these

• 29 June: 6 bodies recovered in Al Maya, 2 bodies recovered in Sayiad
• 24 June: 4 reported missing by 97 migrants rescued off the coast of Libya according to LCG.
• 21 June: 26 bodies recovered in multiple locations on the Libyan coast
• 20 June:
o 50 people reported missing by UNHCR off the coast of Garabuli
o 1 body recovered during SAR off the coast of Al Hamidiyah. 82 survivors reported by LCG
• 19 June:
o 95 missing/5 survivors reported by UNHCR
o 70 missing/60 survivors off the coast of Dela reported by UNHCR
o 6 bodies recovered from shipwreck near Al Maya, 50 survivors reported by LCG
• 18 June: 5 bodies recovered in shipwreck near Melittah/Tripoli, 115 survivors reported by LCG

“I’ve just returned to Libya after a series of tragedies and the loss of hundreds of migrant lives including several babies,” said Amb. Swing upon arrival. “My message is that all must focus on saving lives and protecting migrant rights.”

This is Amb. Swing’s third visit to Libya in recent months and upon arrival he was due to meet representatives from Prime Minister Sarraj’s government. Tomorrow he will visit migrants held in detention centres – IOM has been advocating for the closure of these centres because of their failure to respect migrants rights. Amb. Swing has also insisted that women and children be separated from the detainees as a minimum first step.

For more information please contact Leonard Doyle, Tel: +41 79 285 71 23, Email: ldoyle@iom.int

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By WAM
ABU DHABI, Jul 4 2018 (WAM)

In a bid to promote community participation in segregating waste at source, Tadweer (The Centre of Waste Management – Abu Dhabi) has opened its first civic amenity for recyclable waste next to Khalidiyah Park in Abu Dhabi.

A civic amenity for recyclable waste is a residential facility that allows the public to participate in the segregation of recyclable waste through allocating coloured bins for different types of wastes and reusable materials.

The opening ceremony was attended by Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al-Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, Saif Badr Al Qubaisi, General Manager of Abu Dhabi Municipality City, Falah Al Ahbabi, Chairman of Department of Urban Planning and Municipalities, and Chairman of Tadweer, and Dr. Salem Al Kaabi, Acting General Manager of Tadweer, along with several senior government officials.

Following the opening ceremony, Dr. Thani Al-Zeyoudi and Falah Al Ahbabi toured the facility and were briefed on the scheme’s operation and its role in reducing the cost and time required for recycling, while enabling the centre to acquire important data on the types and quantity of waste generated. This will allow Tadweer to make well-informed decisions on waste management in line with the requirements of different areas.

In addition to promoting the culture of waste segregation at source and preventing indiscriminate dumping of waste through allocating designated bins for various types of recyclable waste, the scheme will help maintain a healthy and sustainable environment in Abu Dhabi and preserve the city’s aesthetic appeal.

Dr. Al-Zeyoudi said: “This community scheme will help achieve the objectives of the UAE National Agenda 2021, as it aims to segregate waste at source and dispose of it in an innovative manner. In addition to minimising per capita waste generation, we need to convert waste from landfills and turn it into useful materials that support recycling industries.”

Al Ahbabi said: “The civic amenity emphasises Tadweer’s priority to provide safe and environment-friendly facilities within Abu Dhabi’s residential communities and neighbourhoods to streamline the collection, separation and treatment of waste. In addition to its significant economic and environmental benefits to Abu Dhabi, the initiative that is in line with our sustained mandate to apply the latest waste management systems and technologies in the emirate, will help reduce the cost of waste segregation and preserve the environment.”

Dr. Salem Al Kaabi, Acting General Manager of Tadweer, said: “Tadweer places strong emphasis on enhancing community awareness about the importance of waste recycling among various segments as recycling is one of the most effective ways to curb waste generation. We are confident this initiative will deliver several positive outcomes and support Abu Dhabi’ efforts to achieve sustainable development.”

Tadweer is implementing the scheme in seven residential areas of Abu Dhabi including Khalidiyah Park. Colour-coded waste bins have been allocated to collect more than 12 different types of recyclable waste including glass, plastic, metal, electrical devices, paper, cartons and bulky waste. The bins display instructions on the type of waste collected and are attractively designed to best-in-class industry specifications to encourage the public to use them more frequently.

WAM/Rasha Abubaker

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By WAM
DUBAI, Jul 4 2018 (WAM)

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), the organiser of the 20th Water, Energy, Technology and Environment Exhibition (WETEX) 2018, has announced that it will be one of the largest specialised exhibitions in the world.

WETEX is held under the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, and under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and UAE Minister of Finance, and President of DEWA.

WETEX 2018 will be held from 23rd-25th October 2018 at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre. The exhibition will coincide with the third Dubai Solar Show, under the umbrella of the fifth Green Week.

WETEX has developed rapidly since its launch in 1999 as an exhibition of water management technologies. The energy sector was added in 2001. In 2004, DEWA expanded the sector to include environmental and waste management, green buildings, and carbon dioxide reduction solutions in 2008. In 2012, oil, gas and coal were added to the exhibition’s fossil fuels sector. This was followed by the addition of the Dubai Solar Show, in 2016, as the biggest solar exhibition in the region.

“The exhibition translates the vision of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to achieve a balance between development and the environment, and to consolidate economic, social and environmental sustainability. WETEX is a leading global platform that highlights the interrelationship between sustainability and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the impact of disruptive technologies, digital transformation, Artificial Intelligence and Research & Development (R&D) for the production of clean energy and water. This supports Dubai’s transformation into a global hub for clean energy and green economy,” said Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of DEWA, and Founder and Chairman of WETEX.

“WETEX promotes constructive partnerships and builds strong public-private investment relationships to develop and diversify clean energy production sectors as well as water and energy conservation, environmental protection, waste management, green building, and cutting-edge solutions to reduce carbon emissions,” added Al Tayer.

The exhibition offers a unique opportunity for investors and sponsors to establish and develop commercial relations and promote business opportunities by holding one-on-one meetings with representatives of major corporations and decision makers from all around the world in one location.

WETEX focuses on reviewing advanced technologies related to the water, energy and environment. It brings together the best experts, specialists, solution providers, investors, government decision makers, potential business partners and consumers from the public and private sectors.

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By WAM
DUBAI, Jul 4 2018 (WAM)

The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre has announced that 18 candidates are currently undergoing the final stage of the interviews leading up to choosing the first Emirati astronaut corps of the UAE Astronaut Programme, launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, to train and prepare the first Emirati astronaut corps to be sent to space for various scientific missions The final 18 out of 39 candidates previously passed the initial interviewing process which was conducted by qualified specialists from MBRSC.

The process included extensive tests to measure intelligence, neurocognitive ability, personality, aptitude, among others. Following these tests, one-to-one interviews were conducted where the candidates’ personalities were evaluated in various mental and psychological aspects to ensure that they are able to endure the harsh and unusual conditions in space.

The UAE Astronaut Programme is preparing the first Emirati and Arab astronaut to join astronauts at the International Space Station (ISS).

Two astronauts from the Emirati corps will be trained in Russia, one primary and one backup. One of them will be joining a crew of Russian commander and an American astronaut in Soyuz MS-12 spaceflight which is planned to launch to ISS in April 2019. The others will receive extensive training for future long duration space missions.

Yousuf Al Shaibani, director general of the MBRSC, said: “The UAE Astronaut Programme strives to support the national policy in the field of space, and support the vision of our wise leadership to build a national team of Emiratis who will be fully trained and prepared to achieve the UAE’s ambitions in this field, as per global standards.

“This will enable the UAE to become a hub for the region’s space sector, it will inspire next generations in the UAE and the region to become innovators in different fields including space science and technology.”

He added: “We have reached an important stage in the journey of selecting the first Emirati astronaut corps who will participate in scientific missions in space.”

“The 18 candidates will undergo the final assessment stage, by a committee of highly capable experts from the MBRSC, in addition to international experts from international space agencies,” added Salem Al Marri, Assistant Director-General for Scientific and Technical Affairs and Director of UAE Astronaut Programme at MBRSC.

WAM/Tariq alfaham/Hassan Bashir

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By WAM
GENEVA, Jul 4 2018 (WAM)

The international community has come a long way in combating racism, discrimination, xenophobia, extremism and religious intolerance, according to the Arab Group at the Human Rights Council.

This came in a speech delivered today by Obaid Salem Saeed Al Za’abi, UAE Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, on behalf of the Arab Group before a general debate held as part of the 38th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC), affiliated with the UN.

The UAE is currently the chair of the Council of Heads of Arab Permanent Missions to the United Nations in Geneva.

The debate tackled racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.

The Arab Group noted that the international community had come a long way in combatting racism and expressed concern about emerging forms of racism and xenophobia, including acts that targeted migrants and refugees.

The Group also indicated that some states were engaging in systematic acts of racism and discrimination against others, particularly against the Arabs, Muslims and people of African descent, adding that sometime, such acts take an institutional form.

It regretted that such practices still persist in some states, despite the fact that the migrants have contributed positively to host countries.

The Group stressed that all forms of racism must be criminalised, while all forms of exclusion must be rejected, while promoting the culture of tolerance and acceptance of others.

WAM/Hassan Bashir

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A young boy runs with his tyre past buildings damaged by airstrikes in Saada Old Town. UNICEF says health facilities in the country have been cut by more than half, thousands of schools have been destroyed, and over 2,000 children have been killed. Credit: Giles Clarke/OCHA

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 4 2018 (IPS)

Tackling the relentless conflict in Yemen has never been more urgent as it has pushed the Middle Eastern nation “deep into the abyss.” However, much can be learned from recent and ongoing initiatives.

While a recent humanitarian conference on Yemen attempted to address the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis, Norwegian Refugee Council Europe’s Director Edouard Rodier told IPS that it was a “failed opportunity.”

“We didn’t have the right people because those who are in a position to make political decisions, the kind of decisions that we need, were not there,” he said.

The conference was co-chaired by Saudi Arabia, one of the parties to the Yemeni conflict, and France, who has long backed the Saudi-led coalition, raising concerns over the event’s credibility.

“We all know that the main problem is man-made and if you really need to find a solution, you need the two parties around the table…we cannot expect from a conference that is only representing one party to the conflict that is supported by allies or countries that have interest on the one-side of the conflict to reach a significant political gain,” Rodier told IPS.

An Escalation of Violence

Since violence broke out three years ago, 22 million Yemenis are now dependent on aid and over eight million are believed to be on the verge of starvation.Health facilities have been cut by more than half, thousands of schools have been destroyed, and over 2,000 children have been killed, according to UNICEF.

After a four-day visit, United Nations Children Agency’s (UNICEF) Executive Director Henrietta Fore observed what was left of children in the war-ravaged country.

“I saw what three years of intense war after decades of underdevelopment and chronic global indifference can do to children: taken out of school, forced to fight, married off, hungry, dying from preventable diseases,” she said.

Approximately 11 million children — more than the population of Switzerland — are currently in need of food, treatment, education, water and sanitation.

Health facilities have been cut by more than half, thousands of schools have been destroyed, and over 2,000 children have been killed, according to UNICEF.

“These are only numbers we have been able to verify. The actual figures could be even higher. There is no justification for this carnage,” Fore said.

Violence has only escalated in the past month after a Saudi-led offensive in Hodeidah, which has already displaced 43,000, left three million at risk of famine and cholera, and provoked an international outcry.

Fore said that basic commodities such as cooking gas has dwindled, electricity is largely unavailable, and water shortages are severe in most of the western port city.

Prior to the war, Hodeidah’s seaport was responsible for delivering 70 percent of Yemen’s imports including fuel, food, and humanitarian aid.

“In Hodeida, as in the rest of the country, the need for peace has never been more urgent,” Fore said.

“Parties to the conflict and those who have influence over them should rally behind diplomatic efforts to prevent a further worsening of the situation across the country and to resume peace negotiations,” she added.

However, the struggle for control over Hodeidah forced Paris’ humanitarian conference to downgrade from a ministerial-level event to a technical meeting, preventing any political discussion on the crisis.

“It became a very technical meeting with different workshops to discuss things that really then would have needed the presence of people who have a knowledge of what is happening on the ground. It is good to have workshops and technical discussions with the right people at the table,” Rodier said.

But who are the right people?

A New Hope?

Many are now looking to new U.N. Envoy to Yemen’s Martin Griffiths whose recent efforts have sparked some hope for a possible ceasefire and peace deal.

“The U.N. Special Envoy is in the best position to lead this process. He should receive all the backing from all the countries that are presenting good will and that want to see progress,” Rodier told IPS.

Griffiths has been meeting with both parties to the conflict who have agreed to temporarily halt the assault on Hodeidah and have expressed a willingness to return to the negotiating table after two years of failed attempts.

While control over the port city was a point of contention that led to the failure of previous talks, Griffiths said that the Houthi rebels offered the U.N. a lead role in managing the port — a proposal that both parties accepted and a move that could help restart negotiations and prevent further attacks.

He expressed hope that an upcoming U.N. Security Council meeting will result in a proposal to be presented to the Yemenis.

However, political commitment and international support is sorely needed in order for such an initiative to be successful.

For the past three years, the Security Council has been largely silent on the crisis in Yemen and the U.N. continues to be lenient on Saudi Arabia’s gross violations of human rights.

The U.N.’s recent Children and Armed Conflict report noted that the Saudi-led coalition was responsible for more than half of child deaths and injuries in Yemen in 2017. The report also accused both Houthis and the Saudi coalition of recruiting almost 1,000 child soldiers — some as young as 11 years old.

However, the Secretary-General failed to include the coalition in his report’s list of shame.

Instead, the coalition was put on a special list for countries that put in place “measures to improve child protection” despite a U.N. expert panel having found that that any action taken by Saudi Arabia to minimise child casualties has been “largely ineffective.”

Rodier urged for the international community to maintain a sense of urgency over Yemen.

“We need to have another kind of conference with the ambition to have political gains that is U.N.-led and it has to happen soon,” he told IPS.

“We need some kind of mediation…there will be no military solution to the humanitarian crisis today in Yemen. It has to be a political solution,” Rodier added.

Fore echoed similar sentiments, highlighting the need for a political solution to the conflict.

“We all need to give peace a chance. It is the only way forward,” she said.

It is now up to the international community to step up to the plate to prevent further suffering and violations. If not, peace will continue to remain elusive with repercussions that will last generations.

• Yemen the World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis, Says UN Chief
• Overly Bureaucratic Procedures and Long Waits Cuts off Support to 22 Million Yemenis
• “International Solidarity” at Yemen Donor Conference

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Photo: Creative Commons

By International Organization for Migration
BRUSSELS, Jul 3 2018 (IOM)

IOM, the UN Migration Agency, has put forward three recommendations to the incoming Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union that are based on our view that better migration governance – national, regional and global – benefits the entire migration spectrum: migrants, their home countries and the countries of destination, and requires political courage, evidence-based vision, and a human-centred approach.

Yesterday (02/07) IOM, the UN Migration Agency, presented its migration recommendations to Austria as it took over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) on 1 July for a six-month tenure.

IOM is drawing attention to three key areas in its recommendations paper: Africa border and identity management, the EU’s Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF), and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM).

“Austria will be leading the rotating EU Presidency through a critical period in the second half of 2018 when the GCM focus shifts to implementation and the EU agrees its next multi-annual financial framework,” Eugenio Ambrosi, IOM Regional Director for the European Union, Norway and Switzerland, said in Brussels.

“Our recommendations are rooted in IOM’s conviction that better migration governance at all levels – national, regional and global – benefits not only migrants, but also their home countries and the countries of destination, and must be governed with political courage, evidence-based vision, and a human-centred approach,” added Ambrosi.

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is meant to address all aspects of migration and will have implications for both the internal and external policies of the EU.

The EU and its Member States should be encouraged to promote a comprehensive approach to migration that would put the rights, needs, capacities and contributions of migrants at its core, with a view to ensuring their safety, dignity and human rights in line with the GCM vision.

The intergovernmental negotiations on the GCM are scheduled to close in July 2018 and the adoption of the Compact is expected to take place at an intergovernmental conference in December 2018. In this interim period between these two milestones, IOM calls on the Austrian EU Presidency to set up a process to prepare for the implementation of the Compact.

Building on the EU’s migration policy commitments to working with partner countries, as well as on its prioritization of Africa as a key region for cooperation on issues around human mobility, IOM recommends that the Austrian Presidency work with African counterparts towards enhancing their border and identity management capacities to benefit African intraregional mobility and to contribute to safe and regular migration to the EU, the latter supported also by EU’s own visa policy reform.

Finally, integration, social cohesion, human rights, humanitarian aid and development cooperation all need sound investment, as successful migration policies are a long-term societal ambition. For these policies to be strategic, results-oriented and long-term, they need to be properly resourced. This year’s consultations for the next EU Multi-Annual Financial Framework offer a unique opportunity for the EU and its Member States to ensure sustainable and ambitious financial commitments to create a Europe that unites and upholds its international commitments.

IOM calls on the Presidency to allocate appropriate resources for a strategic, results-oriented and long-term migration policy.

“IOM stands ready to support the Presidency and EU member states through its global expertise and operational tools to advance our joint commitment to improving global migration governance and ensuring that each and every migrant is assisted, with their fundamental rights upheld,” said Ambrosi.

IOM’s twice-yearly recommendations to the rotating EU Presidencies are guided by its Migration Governance Framework (MiGOF) which is the first, and so far only global detailed articulation of planned and well-managed migration policies.

The six-month incumbent Presidents of the Council of the EU work together in groups of three in the interest of continuity and coherency. The current Presidential trio comprises Estonia (July/December 2017), Bulgaria (January/June 2018) and Austria (July/December 2018). The presidential representatives chair meetings at every level and propose the guidelines needed for the Council to take decisions.

IOM’s recommendations can be downloaded here in PDF.

For more information please contact Melissa Julian at IOM Brussels, Tel: +32 287 7133, Email: mjulian@iom.int

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OFID Director-General Suleiman J Al-Herbish (left) and Habitat for Humanity’s Area Vice President for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Torre Nelson. Image credit: Habitat for Humanity Int’l

By WAM
VIENNA, Jul 3 2018 (WAM)

The OPEC Fund for International Development, OFID, has signed a US$420,000 grant agreement with Habitat for Humanity International to support a project aimed at improving living conditions for slum dwellers on Peace Island, Greater Monrovia, Liberia.

The agreement was signed at Habitat’s regional office in Bratislava, Slovakia, by OFID Director-General Suleiman J Al-Herbish, and Habitat for Humanity’s Area Vice President for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Torre Nelson.

At the signing ceremony, Al-Herbish spoke of OFID’s strong commitment to helping boost socio-economic development in its partner countries – particularly the least developed in sub-Sahara Africa. He said OFID would continue directing a substantial portion of its resources to countries lacking adequate water and sanitation infrastructure and facing water shortages.

Nelson thanked OFID for its support, which will dramatically improve the living conditions of families, especially children, who had to walk long distances to reach a water point. He said Habitat’s partnership with OFID will enable approximately 13,000 people to gain access to clean water, adequate sanitation and hygiene.

The project communities in the district of Greater Monrovia are facing a number of challenges that include a lack of safe drinking water and sanitation services, resulting in a high incidence of waterborne diseases. This situation is exacerbated by unplanned urban growth. The OFID-supported project is part of a broader program underway to provide affordable and better-quality housing among vulnerable and low-income communities.

UN-Habitat will carry out interventions that include building/renovating potable water and sanitary facilities, hygiene and health awareness-raising and providing support to community-led waste collection and management. Also planned is an affordable housing scheme that will provide construction materials and micro-finance loans, as well as capacity building.

Liberia has been a beneficiary of regional OFID grants that have helped fund HIV/AIDS and polio eradication, fight Ebola and support water safety and clean cooking initiatives.

[Image caption: OFID Director-General Suleiman J Al-Herbish (left) and Habitat for Humanity’s Area Vice President for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Torre Nelson. Image credit: Habitat for Humanity Int’l]

WAM/Rola Alghoul/Rasha Abubaker

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DAVID E. BLOOM is the Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography, DANIEL CADARETTE is a research assistant, and JP SEVILLA is a research associate, all at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

By David E. Bloom, Daniel Cadarette and JP Sevilla
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 3 2018 (IPS)

Infectious diseases and associated mortality have abated, but they remain a significant threat throughout the world.

We continue to fight both old pathogens, such as the plague, that have troubled humanity for millennia and new pathogens, such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), that have mutated or spilled over from animal reservoirs.

Some infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis and malaria, are endemic to many areas, imposing substantial but steady burdens. Others, such as influenza, fluctuate in pervasiveness and intensity, wreaking havoc in developing and developed economies alike when an outbreak (a sharp increase in prevalence in a relatively limited area or population), an epidemic (a sharp increase covering a larger area or population), or a pandemic (an epidemic covering multiple countries or continents) occurs.

The health risks of outbreaks and epidemics—and the fear and panic that accompany them—map to various economic risks.

First, and perhaps most obviously, there are the costs to the health system, both public and private, of medical treatment of the infected and of outbreak control. A sizable outbreak can overwhelm the health system, limiting the capacity to deal with routine health issues and compounding the problem.

Beyond shocks to the health sector, epidemics force both the ill and their caretakers to miss work or be less effective at their jobs, driving down and disrupting productivity.

Fear of infection can result in social distancing or closed schools, enterprises, commercial establishments, transportation, and public services—all of which disrupt economic and other socially valuable activity.

Concern over the spread of even a relatively contained outbreak can lead to decreased trade. For example, a ban imposed by the European Union on exports of British beef lasted 10 years following identification of a mad cow disease outbreak in the United Kingdom, despite relatively low transmission to humans.

Travel and tourism to regions affected by outbreaks are also likely to decline. Some long-running epidemics, such as HIV and malaria, deter foreign direct investment as well.

The economic risks of epidemics are not trivial. Victoria Fan, Dean Jamison, and Lawrence Summers recently estimated the expected yearly cost of pandemic influenza at roughly $500 billion (0.6 percent of global income), including both lost income and the intrinsic cost of elevated mortality.

Even when the health impact of an outbreak is relatively limited, its economic consequences can quickly become magnified. Liberia, for example, saw GDP growth decline 8 percentage points from 2013 to 2014 during the recent Ebola outbreak in west Africa, even as the country’s overall death rate fell over the same period.

The consequences of outbreaks and epidemics are not distributed equally throughout the economy. Some sectors may even benefit financially, while others will suffer disproportionately.

Pharmaceutical companies that produce vaccines, antibiotics, or other products needed for outbreak response are potential beneficiaries. Health and life insurance companies are likely to bear heavy costs, at least in the short term, as are livestock producers in the event of an outbreak linked to animals.

Vulnerable populations, particularly the poor, are likely to suffer disproportionately, as they may have less access to health care and lower savings to protect against financial catastrophe.

Economic policymakers are accustomed to managing various forms of risk, such as trade imbalances, exchange rate movements, and changes in market interest rates. There are also risks that are not strictly economic in origin.

Armed conflict represents one such example; natural disasters are another. We can think about the economic disruption caused by outbreaks and epidemics along these same lines. As with other forms of risk, the economic risk of health shocks can be managed with policies that reduce their likelihood and that position countries to respond swiftly when they do occur.

Several factors complicate the management of epidemic risk. Diseases can be transmitted rapidly, both within and across countries, which means that timely responses to initial outbreaks are essential. In addition to being exacerbated by globalization, epidemic potential is elevated by the twin phenomena of climate change and urbanization.

Climate change is expanding the habitats of various common disease vectors, such as the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which can spread dengue, chikungunya, Zika, and yellow fever. Urbanization means more humans live in close quarters, amplifying the transmissibility of contagious disease.

In rapidly urbanizing areas, the growth of slums forces more people to live in conditions with substandard sanitation and poor access to clean water, compounding the problem.

Perhaps the greatest challenge is the formidable array of possible causes of epidemics, including pathogens that are currently unknown. In December 2015 the World Health Organization (WHO) published a list of epidemic-potential disease priorities requiring urgent research and development (R&D) attention.

That list has since been updated twice, most recently in February 2018 (see table).

Beyond this list, diseases that are currently endemic in some areas but could spread without proper control represent another category of threat. Tuberculosis, malaria, and dengue are examples, as is HIV.

Pathogens resistant to antimicrobials are increasing in prevalence throughout the world, and widespread pan-drug-resistant superbugs could pose yet another hazard. Rapid transmission of resistant pathogens is unlikely to occur in the same way it may with pandemic threats, but the proliferation of superbugs is making the world an increasingly risky place.

Epidemic risk is complex, but policymakers have tools they can deploy in response. Some tools minimize the likelihood of outbreaks or limit their proliferation. Others attempt to minimize the health impact of outbreaks that cannot be prevented or immediately contained. Still others aim to minimize the economic impact.

Investing in improved sanitation, provisioning of clean water, and better urban infrastructure can reduce the frequency of human contact with pathogenic agents.

Building strong health systems and supporting proper nutrition will help ensure good baseline levels of health, making people less susceptible to infection. Of course, strengthening basic systems, services, and infrastructure becomes easier with economic growth and development; however, policies to protect spending in these areas even when budgets are constrained can help safeguard developing economies from major health shocks that could significantly impinge upon human capital and impede economic growth.

Investment in reliable disease surveillance in both human and animal populations is also critical. Within formal global surveillance systems, it may be beneficial to develop incentives for reporting suspected outbreaks, as countries may reasonably fear the effects of such reporting on trade, tourism, and other economic outcomes.

The SARS epidemic, for instance, might have been better contained if China had reported the initial outbreak to the WHO earlier.

Informal surveillance systems, such as ProMED and HealthMap, which aggregate information from official surveillance reports, media reports, online discussions and summaries, and eyewitness observations, can also help national health systems and international responders get ahead of the epidemiological curve during the early stages of an outbreak.

Social media offers additional opportunities for early detection of shifts in infectious disease incidence.

Collaborations for monitoring epidemic readiness at the national level, such as the Global Health Security Agenda and the Joint External Evaluation Alliance, provide information national governments can use to bolster their planned outbreak responses.

Additional research into which pathogens are likely to spread and have a big impact would be worthwhile.

Countries should be ready to take initial measures to limit the spread of disease when an outbreak does occur. Historically, ships were quarantined in port during plague epidemics to prevent the spread of the disease to coastal cities. In the case of highly virulent and highly transmissible diseases, quarantines may still be necessary, although they can inspire concerns about human rights.

Likewise, it may be necessary to ration biomedical countermeasures if supplies are limited. Countries should decide in advance if they will prioritize first responders and other key personnel or favor vulnerable groups, such as children and the elderly; different strategies may be appropriate for different diseases.

Technological solutions can help minimize the burden of sizable outbreaks and epidemics. Better and less-costly treatments—including novel antibiotics and antivirals to counter resistant diseases—are sorely needed. New and improved vaccines are perhaps even more important.

There is a significant market failure when it comes to vaccines against individual low-probability pathogens that collectively are likely to cause epidemics. Given the low probability that any single vaccine of this type will be needed, high R&D costs, and delayed returns, pharmaceutical companies hesitate to invest in their development. The profit-seeking interest does not align well with the social interest of minimizing the risk posed by these diseases in the aggregate.

Farsighted international collaboration can overcome this market failure—for example, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which is supported by the governments of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Ethiopia, India, Japan, Germany, and Norway, as well as the European Commission and various nongovernmental funders.

Its goals include advancing candidate vaccines against specific low-probability, high-severity pathogens through proof of concept to enable rapid clinical testing and scale-up in the event of outbreaks of those pathogens.

It also aims to fund development of institutional and technical platforms to speed R&D in response to outbreaks for which there are no vaccines. Similar funding models could support the development of a universal influenza vaccine.

Of course, new vaccines will be less useful if governments do not ensure that at-risk populations have access to them. Assured access could also motivate developing economies to participate actively in the vaccine R&D process.

In 2007 Indonesia withheld samples of the H5N1 influenza virus from the WHO to protest the fact that companies in wealthy countries often use samples freely provided by developing economies to produce vaccines and other countermeasures without returning any profit or other special benefits to the donors.

Beyond funding R&D, international collaboration could boost epidemic preparedness by supporting centralized stockpiling of vaccines and drugs that can be deployed where they are most needed. Such collaboration has obvious advantages over a system in which each country stockpiles its own biomedical countermeasures.

While some countries are more likely to need these countermeasures than others, the global public good of living without fear of pandemics should motivate cooperation and cost sharing.

In addition, wealthy countries at relatively low risk of suffering massive health impacts from most epidemics could suffer disproportionately large economic losses—even from faraway epidemics—given the size of their economies and reliance on foreign trade.

If outbreaks do occur and impose a substantial health burden, there are tools to limit the risk of economic catastrophe. As with natural disasters, insurance can help distribute the economic burden across sectors of the economy and regions.

Prioritizing personnel such as health care workers, members of the military, and public safety employees for distribution of biomedical countermeasures during an outbreak can help protect critical economic resources.

We cannot predict which pathogen will spur the next major epidemic, where that epidemic will originate, or how dire the consequences will be. But as long as humans and infectious pathogens coexist, outbreaks and epidemics are certain to occur and to impose significant costs.

The upside is that we can take proactive steps to manage the risk of epidemics and mitigate their impact. Concerted action now at the local, national, and multinational levels can go a long way toward protecting our collective well-being in the future.

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2018/06/economic-risks-and-impacts-of-epidemics/bloom.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

Opinions expressed in articles and other materials are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect IMF policy.

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Excerpt:

DAVID E. BLOOM is the Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography, DANIEL CADARETTE is a research assistant, and JP SEVILLA is a research associate, all at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The post New & Resurgent Infectious Diseases Can Have Far-reaching Economic Repercussions appeared first on Inter Press Service.

South Sudanese Christians celebrate Christmas mass at El Fasher church in North Darfur. South Sudan's different churches have remained one of the country's few stable institutions. Credit: UN Photo/Olivier Chassot

By James Jeffrey
JUBA, Jul 3 2018 (IPS)

Throughout fifty years of struggles, South Sudan’s different churches have remained one of the country’s few stable institutions, and in their workings toward peace, have displayed a level of inter-religious cooperation rarely seen in the world. 

Priests and pastors from numerous denominations brought humanitarian relief to civilians during South Sudan’s long wars for independence — often considered a fight for religious freedom for the mostly Christian south — from the hard-line Islamist government to the north in Khartoum, Sudan.

Amid destruction and failed politics, church leaders emerged as the only players left standing with any credibility and national recognition, enabling them to effectively lobby the international community to support the southern cause while also brokering peace between communities torn apart by war and ethnic strife.

However, they have been less able to influence politicians and generals in South Sudan’s latest civil war raging since 2013, which began just two years after gaining independence from Sudan. Last week, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and rebels, led by his former vice president Riek Machar, signed a peace agreement to bring about a ceasefire. But Reuters reported that fighting broke out again on Sunday, killing 18 civilians. “The blood of the tribe has become thicker than the blood of the Christ," Episcopal Bishop Enock Tombe.

“The new outbreak of war caught the Church unprepared,” says John Ashworth, referring to the five-year civil war. Ashworth has worked in South Sudan, including advising its churches, for more than 30 years. “While the Church played a major role in protecting people and mobilising humanitarian support, and in mediating local peace and reconciliation processes, it took quite a while to rebuild the capacity to implement national level initiatives.”

Although Islam has dominated the region for centuries, Christian roots in Sudan and South Sudan go back to the 5th century. Missionaries were active in the 1800s, mainly from the Anglican, Presbyterian, Catholic and Coptic churches.

Though there are conflicting reports about South Sudan’s exact religious composition, Christianity is the dominant religion, with a 2012 Pew Research Centre report estimating that around 60 percent are Christian, 33 percent followers of African traditional religions, six percent Muslim and the rest unaffiliated.

In the face of shared adversity, South Sudan’s Christian churches embraced an ecumenical approach to establish the South Sudan Council of Churches (SSCC), which spearheaded the churches’ joint efforts that proved heavily influential in the 2005 peace deal that ended Africa’s longest-running civil war.

The SSCC continued its involvement in the process that led to the January 2011 referendum on independence, in which an overwhelming majority of South Sudanese voted to secede and become Africa’s first new country since Eritrea split from Ethiopia in 1993. South Sudan formally gained independence from Sudan on Jul. 9, 2011.

But all those achievements began to unravel in 2013 when government troops began massacring ethnic Nuer in the capital, Juba. Afterwards, the national army, called the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), split along ethnic lines during a violent uprising, pitting ethnic Dinka loyal to Kiir against Nuer led by Macher.

Both sides committed atrocities, while the narrative of fighting for religious freedom was manipulated for political advantage. The SPLA has painted themselves as Christian liberators — atrocities notwithstanding — their propaganda referring to the churchgoing Kiir as the “Joshua” who took South Sudan to the promised land of independence.

“The blood of the tribe has become thicker than the blood of the Christ,” Episcopal Bishop Enock Tombe remarked in 2014.

But the church has been caught up in the divisive fallout too. 

“The current war has divided people along ethnic lines — the church is not immune to these divisions,” says Carol Berger, an anthropologist who specialises in South Sudan.

In a speech in April, South Sudan’s vice president James Wani Igga accused priests of promoting violence.

“While individual clergy may have their own political sympathies, and while pastors on the ground continue to empathise with their local flock, the churches as bodies have remained united in calling for an end to the killing, a peaceful resolution through dialogue, peace and reconciliation — in some cases at great personal risk,” Ashworth says.

Some have accused the church of inaction during the latest civil war. Ashworth suggests that after the 2005 peace agreement the SSCC “took a breather to rebuild and repair,” with the 2013 outbreak of war catching them unprepared and less capable. Subsequently it has taken church leaders longer than expected to rebuild capacity, but now the SSCC is taking action to make up for lost ground.

It has begun by choosing a new Secretary General, says Philip Winter, a South Sudan specialist who has long been engaged in its peace processes. He notes how the SSCC was called upon by the warring parties negotiating in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, to help them get over their differences — something the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) failed to do as a mediator.

Following the talks in Ethiopia in June, both warring sides signed a peace agreement in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, a week later.

“The SSCC recognised that is was perhaps not as effective as the most recent conflict required,” Winter says. “So they are once more playing an important, if discreet, role.” 

The SSCC’s renewed impetus includes implementing a national Action Plan for Peace (APP), which recognises the need for a long-term peace process to resolve not only the current conflict but also the unresolved effects of previous conflicts which are contributing causes of the current conflict. The SSCC says the APP may continue for 10 or 20 years.

At this stage of the plan, the SSCC hopes to see a visit to the country by Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church. Earlier this year a delegation of Christian leaders from South Sudan met the Pope and urged him to visit.

“We gave the situation of the Church in South Sudan, that the people are hungry for peace, and they expect the Pope to visit them,” the Bishop Emeritus of Tori, Paride Taban, a member of the delegation, told media after meeting the Pope. “He [the Pope] encourages us not to fear. We are not alone, he is with us, and he will surely come.”

The bishop spoke at the Rome headquarters of Sant’Egidio, a peace and humanitarian group that is trying to help peace efforts in South Sudan. The group played a crucial role in the 2015 papal visit to another war-torn country, the Central African Republic, and was instrumental in the signing of the Mozambique peace accords in 1992. 

The Pope previously postponed a planned 2017 South Sudan trip with Justin Welby, the head of the Anglican Church. Most media assumed that decision was based on the country being too dangerous to visit. But Welby told media the visit was postponed to ensure it would have the maximum impact in helping to establish peace. However, with the current, tentative ceasefire, the pope may visit to consolidate peace.

“You’re playing a heavyweight card and you have to get the timing right,” he said. “You don’t waste a card like that on anything that is not going to work.”

Others, however, remain deeply sceptical of how the Pope could visit.

“I see no way that the Pope could visit South Sudan,” says Berger. “The capital of Juba is a sad and troubled place these days. People have left for their villages, or neighbouring countries. Shops and hotels have closed. The town is heavily militarised and there is hunger everywhere.”

Whether the Pope would have a lasting impact, if he comes, remains to be seen. But current events indicate why the SSCC think it worth his trying, as the world’s youngest state remains afflicted by war and famine, and mired in an almost constant state of humanitarian crisis.     

“More exhortations to the antagonists to stop fighting are largely a waste of breath,” Winter says.

• In South Sudan, Denial of Humanitarian Aid is a War Tactic
• UN Refugee Agency Calls for Aid and Peace in South Sudan
• As Peace Talks Resume, South Sudan Continues Assault on Press Freedom
• Need for Inclusive Peace Efforts in South Sudan: No More ‘Compassion Fatigue’

The post Church and Conflict in South Sudan appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Katy Rodríguez and her son (in his father’s arms) when they were reunited after leaving the Migrant Assistance Centre in San Salvador following their deportation. Like thousands of other Central American families since April, mother and son were separated for four months after entering the United States without the proper documents. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR, Jul 2 2018 (IPS)

After three hours of paperwork, Katy Rodriguez from El Salvador, who was deported from the United States, finally exited the government’s immigration facilities together with her young son and embraced family members who were waiting outside.

Rodríguez and her three-year-old son were reunited again on Jun. 28, just before she was sent back to her home country El Salvador. She is originally from Chalatenanango, in the central department of the same name.

The 29-year-old mother and her little boy spent more than four months apart after being detained on Feb. 19 for being intercepted without the proper documents in the U.S. state of Texas, where they entered the country from the Mexican border city of Reynosa.

“It’s been bad, very bad, everything we’ve been through, my son in one place and me in another,” Rodríguez told IPS in a brief statement before getting into a family car outside the Migrant Assistance Centre, where Salvadorans deported from both the United States and Mexico arrive.

She was informed she could apply for asylum, but that meant spending more time away from her son, and for that reason she chose to be deported. “I felt immense joy when they finally gave me my child,” she said with a faint smile..

Rodriguez was held in a detention centre on the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas, while her son was sent to a children’s shelter in far-flung New York City as a result of the “Zero Tolerance” policy on illegal immigration imposed in April by the Donald Trump administration.

The traumatic events experienced by Rodríguez and her son are similar to what has happened to thousands of families, most of them from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, detained and separated on the southern U.S. border after Trump implemented the measure to, in theory, stem the flow of immigrants to the United States.

According to the Salvadoran General Migration Officete, between Jan. 1 and Jun. 27, 39 minors were deported from the US, either alone or accompanied, 1,020 from Mexico and five others from other locations. That figure of 1,064 is well below the 1,472 returned in the first half of 2017.

Of the 2,500 children separated from their parents or guardians on the southern border of the U.S. since April, just over 2,000 are still being held in detention centres and shelters in that country, according to the media and human rights organisations.

This is despite the fact that President Trump signed a decree on Jun. 20 putting an end to the separation of families.

Images of children locked up in cages created by metal fencing, crying and asking to see their parents, triggered an international outcry.

“The detention of children and the separation of families is comparable to the practice of torture under international law and U.S. law itself. There is an intention to inflict harm by the authorities for the purpose of coercion,” Erika Guevara, Amnesty International’s director for the Americas, told IPS from Mexico City.

The plane in which Rodríguez was deported carried another 132 migrants, including some 20 women, who told IPS about the abuses and human rights violations suffered in the detention centres.

The presidents of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and the vice president of the United States gave a press conference after a Jun. 28 meeting in Guatemala City on the issue of migration by undocumented Central Americans to the U.S.. Credit: Presidency of El Salvador

Carolina Díaz, 21, who worked in a maquiladora – export assembly plant – before migrating to the United States, told IPS that she was held for a day and a half in what migrants refer to as the “icebox” in McAllen,Texas.

The icebox is kept extremely cold on purpose, because the guards turn up the air conditioning as a form of punishment “for crossing the border without papers,” said Díaz, a native of Ciudad Arce, in the central department of La Libertad, El Salvador.

“You practically freeze to death there, with nothing to keep yourself warm with,” she added, saying she had decided to migrate “because of the economic situation, looking for a better future.”

To sleep, all they gave her was a thermal blanket that looked like a giant sheet of aluminum foil, she said. Another woman, who did not want to be identified, told IPS that she was held in the icebox for nine days without knowing exactly why.

Díaz also spent another day and a half in the “kennel,” as they refer to the metal cages where dozens of undocumented immigrants are held.

“When I was in the kennel, the guards made fun of us, they threw the food at us as if we were dogs, almost always stale bologna sandwiches,” she said.

Díaz said that in McAllen, as well as in a similar detention centre in Laredo, Texas, she saw many mothers who had been separated from their children, crying inconsolably.

“The mothers were traumatised by the pain of the separation,” she said.

Guevara of Amnesty International said Trump’s decree does not stop the separations, but only postpones them, and families will continue to be detained, including those seeking asylum.

“The president’s Jun. 20 decree does not say what they are going to do with the more than 2,000 children already separated, in a situation of disorder that is generating other human rights violations,” she said.

These violations include the failure to notify parents or guardians when children are transferred to other detention facilities.

She added that the United States has created the world’s largest immigrant detention system, and currently operates 115 centres with at least 300,000 people detained each year.

Meanwhile, Marleny Montenegro, a psychologist with the Migrations programme in Guatemala’s non-governmental Psychosocial Action and StudiesTeam, explained that children detained and separated from their parents suffer from depression, fear, anxiety and anguish, among other psychological issues.

“They are affected in their ability to trust, their insecurity and they have trouble reintegrating into the community and in communicating their feelings and thoughts,” Montenegro told IPS from the Guatemalan capital.

The plane with undocumented deportees arrived in El Salvador on the same day as U.S. Vice President Michael Pence, who was meeting in Guatemala with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, and El Salvador’s President Sánchez Cerén.

Pence’s aim at the Jun. 28 meeting was to obtain a commitment from the three governments to adopt policies to curb migration to the U.S. According the figures he cited, 150,000 Central Americans have arrived to the US. so far this year – an irregular migration flow that he said “must stop.”

In a joint statement, at the end of what they called “a frank dialogue” with Pence, the three Central American leaders expressed their willingness to work together with the United States on actions that prioritise the well-being of children and adolescents, family unity and the due process of law.

They also stressed the importance of working in a coordinated manner to inform nationals of their countries of the risks involved in irregular migration and to combat human trafficking and smuggling networks.

• Deported Salvadorans in Times of Trump

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Secretary-General António Guterres - UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Kelsey Davenport
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 2 2018 (IPS)

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the nuclear deal with Iran is at a “crossroads” and expressed his deep regret over U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement and reimpose sanctions.

Guterres also called upon all states to support the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), saying “it is important that the withdrawal of one country not impede the ability of others to fully implement their commitments under the [JCPOA] or to engage in activities consistent with resolution 2231.”

Guterres’s remarks were part of a biannual report to the Security Council that assessed the implementation of Resolution 2231, which endorsed the JCPOA and called upon all states to support it.

The resolution also put in place legally binding requirements for states to seek Security Council approval before transferring dual-use nuclear materials and technologies, ballistic missiles components, and arms. (See below for more details.)

The United States, however, is making it difficult for states to continue supporting the deal by conducting legitimate business with Iran. U.S. officials are traveling to capitals and urging states to abide by the sanctions Trump re-imposed May 8. The penalties for these sanctions will be enforced Aug. 6 and Nov. 4 after 90- and 180-day wind-down periods.

A senior State Department official told press June 26 that the United States is pushing for all allies to cut oil imports from Iran to zero by Nov. 4 and that the “predisposition” is not to grant any waivers.

The fiscal year 2012 National Defense Authorization Act only requires states to make a “significant reduction” for an exemption from sanctions but does not specify the amount of the reduction. It is unclear if the administration is actually interpreting that to mean “zero.” It is also not clear if the oil market could absorb zeroing out exports from Iran.

Chris Ford, assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, said on June 11 that the United States is prepared to “lean hard on our partners and the international community” as Washington pursues its strategy of using sanctions to pressure Iran into new negotiations on its ballistic missiles and regional activities, as well as its nuclear program.

Iran continues to maintain that it will pull out of the JCPOA if the sanctions relief envisioned by the deal dries up. Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said June 22 in Moscow that “Iran’s exit from the nuclear deal is probable in the coming weeks” but noted that Tehran is still waiting to evaluate Europe’s response to the U.S. violation of the deal and reimposition of sanctions.

The EU has already adopted some measures, including an update to its blocking regulation that prohibits European entities from cooperation with U.S. sanctions, and is considering others.

He called June 23 for Europe to deliver its “package” of economic measures to sustain the multilateral nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), within 10 days. An Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson later added that Russia and China must also endorse the European package.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met with Chinese President Xi Jinping June 11 at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting in China. Xi said China was “determined to cement” economic relations with Iran and was “decisively against the U.S. unilateral move” to withdraw from the JCPOA and re-impose sanctions. Rouhani called for deepening the Iran-China relationship on banking and trade in national currencies.

The post UN Chief Calls for JCPOA Implementation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Kelsey Davenport is director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association

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Countries do not have to be economically prosperous to move from high birth and death rates to low fertility and mortality rates. In India as the female literacy rate increased from 39 percent to 65 percent, the fertility rate dropped. These women pictured are studying an IT short course. Credit: Ranjita Biswas/IPS

By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Jul 2 2018 (IPS)

Countries do not have to be economically prosperous to move from a situation of high birth and death rates to low fertility and mortality rates.

Education, social security, environments conducive to economic development and good value systems are what promote this, as evidenced by the recorded experiences of Asian countries as far apart as Japan and India.

According to Dr. Osamu Kusumoto, Secretary-General of the Asian Population Development Association, the economy and demographic transition or DT are indirectly rather than directly correlated.

Demographic transition is the theory that holds that countries move from a situation of high birth and death rates to low fertility and low mortality rates as they industrialise. However, in more recent times, the theory has been hit by contradictions and there are debates over whether industrialisation leads to declining population or whether lower populations lead to industrialisation and higher incomes.“At the same time the spread of healthcare and public health services promote mortality transition or lowered death rates. But, with real prosperity there is potential for fertility to rise again.”

Thus, according to Kusumoto, in high-income oil-producing countries, DT is unlikely to advance unless the countries also implement modern economic systems.

There are also debates around such inter-related DT issues as higher female incomes, old-age security and the demand for human capital with experiences differing across countries and regions.

As a country transitions, the cost of education rises creating relative poverty and promoting fertility transition, or a lowered birth rate, says Kusumoto. “At the same time the spread of healthcare and public health services promote mortality transition or lowered death rates. But with real prosperity there is potential for fertility to rise again.”

Kusumoto cites the example of Japan where, even with high per-capita incomes, people live in relative poverty and find unaffordable the high cost of educating children. “It is possible to say that fertility declines, even when social security systems are in place and old-age pensions are provided for, because people will make the rational choice of avoiding the cost of having children through marriage and childbirth.”

Japan’s birth rate is 1.44 per woman, which has caused the population to decline by one million in the last five years.

What people in Japan fail to realise, adds Kusumoto, is that without children the social security system becomes unsustainable and cannot support them in old age.

Meanwhile India, a developing country that is home to the world’s second-largest population, the total fertility rate has shown a steady decline from 3.6 per woman in 1991 to 2.4 per woman by 2011. Over that 20-year period per capita incomes rose from 1,221 dollars to 3,755 dollars, going by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) figures.

During the same period the female literacy rate increased from 39 percent to 65 percent. Also the composite human development index score of the UNDP, which combines education, health and income, rose from 0.428 in 1990 to 0.609 in 2014.

A closer look at the statistics at the district levels shows curious results such as that in eight Indian states, where there was a drop in the use of modern contraceptive methods, fertility had decreased, according to studies by the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) in Mumbai.

Professor Sanjay Kumar Mohanty at the IIPS says that disaggregated analyses at the district level are important since the districts are the focus of planning and programme implementation in India, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “Such analyses may throw light on the unexplained decrease in fertility levels.”

According to an IIPS study published in 2016, while most of India’s 640 districts experience substantial declines over the 1991-2011 period, no clear relationship between initial levels and subsequent changes was discernible.

In the Indian experience, says Mohanty, female education and literacy have been associated with the use of modern contraceptives, higher age at marriage and birth spacing.

According to Kusumoto, in order to achieve the SDGs, what is needed is mortality transition as well as fertility transition. “We need to design a system where young people can have children if they wish to do so.”

Advances in medicine and public health and the availability of healthcare services will inevitably lead to mortality transition, says Kusumoto. “But unless there is also fertility transition, the population will continue to increase beyond the Earth’s carrying capacity.” 

While fertility control was successfully promoted using healthcare-based family planning and services, as in the case of India, from the 1960s onwards Western Europe and more recently East Asia began to see fertility rates falling below mortality rates in a “second demographic transition,” Kusumoto says, adding that research is still lacking on why exactly low fertility occurs. 

A notable example of the unpredictability showed up in the rapid DT in China’s Sichuan province during a study carried out in the 1980s by Toshio Kuroda, a winner of the U.N. Population Award. Kuroda noticed that DT happened despite the province’s low gross national product, making it an exceptional case of the economic DT theory.   

While there is a correlation between the economy and DT there are clear cases where it is not the economy but changes in people’s norms and values that bring about positive transition.

The exceptional changes that took place in the former Soviet countries may be attributed to a shift from communism to a market economy, which people accepted as rational. A World Bank report shows that Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan all had birth rates of 6 children per woman in 1950-55, but this declined by almost half by 2000. It was a decline also experienced by other former Soviet countries that previously had high birth rates. All former Soviet countries also showed increased life expectancy.

In the end, says Kusumoto, what is important is policies that promote “appropriate fertility transition” and are aimed at building a society in which “human dignity is maintained as envisioned in the SDGs.”

• To Have Children or Not: The Importance of Finding a Balance

The post Declining Birth Rates Not Exclusive to Wealthy Nations appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Sit-in of Syrian migrants. Credit: IPS

By Carmen Arroyo and Emily Thampoe
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 2 2018 (IPS)

On World Refugee Day June 20, the Hungarian Parliament passed the ‘Stop Soros’ bill which is aimed at criminalizing groups who support refugees and other types of undocumented immigrants.

The government also proposed a 25% migration tax on any organization which deals with immigration in any way. With these measures, the nonprofit sector is experimenting a full drawback in the country.

Aron Demeter, the Media Manager of Amnesty International Hungary, told IPS that this bill “might have a chilling effect on the wider civil society in Hungary”.

This bill comes at a tumultuous time, what with similar ideas and protocols being discussed within the United States. Also just this week, dozens of representatives from refugee-led organizations met in Geneva with UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for the first Global Summit on Refugees, during which they have been developing structures for a global network of refugees.

In Hungary, the sentiment is the contrary from that of the United Nations. The ‘Stop Soros’ bill is named after a notable philanthropist and financialist George Soros, who is known for being involved with Hungarian rights organizations.

Abroad, Soros has been known to support American progressive political issues, even establishing the Open Society Foundation, which in the foundation’s words works to, “build vibrant and tolerant societies whose governments are accountable and open to the participation of all people”.

Led by the conservative government of prime minister Viktor Orban and its party Fidesz (Hungarian Civic Alliance), the Stop Soros law includes prison time for groups that help illegal immigrants get documents to remain in the country and limitations for NGOs to prevent them of assisting in asylum cases.

Along with these measures and the aforementioned law, the Parliament approved a constitutional amendment which said that foreigners cannot stay in Hungary.

While the bill has not been signed and enacted yet, it will be rather impactful when it is law. According to Amnesty, these new additions to Hungarian law, “pose a serious threat to the right to seek asylum; the freedoms of association, assembly, expression, and movement; the right to housing and associated economic and social rights; and the right to be free from discrimination, in violation of international human rights law and regional law”.

Charlie Yaxley, UNHCR Spokesperson for Asia and Europe, told IPS: “It is our concern that these laws will further inflame what is already a hostile public discourse around refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants and will fuel xenophobic attitudes.”

Hungary has been restricting its immigration policies since the start of the refugee crisis, and with the reelection of Fidesz last April, the country is willing to pass more restrictive legislation in order to protect its Christian identity.

However, with these measures Hungary is slowly drifting away from Western Europe, and the international community is outraged by it. The international system, led by the United Nations, has expressed its discontent with the bill.

Demeter, from Amnesty International, said “Many international actors from the UN, CoE, EU or other stakeholders have openly criticised the adoption of the law and the government’s anti-NGO campaign. We expect the European Commission to launch an infringement procedure and – in case their assessment is the same as ours – take it to CJEU.

“We also expect that MEPs – the EP plenary is going to vote on the possible launch of the Article 7 against Hungary in September – will deem this bill as one of the clear signs that the Hungarian government is systematically neglects the core European values and rules”.

When asked for Amnesty’s views on the present bill, Demeter responded: “The recently adopted STOP Soros is a new low and it “perfectly” fits into the Hungarian government’s witch-hunt against human rights NGOs that has started in 2013”.

He added: “The vague and absurd new bill – by criminalizing totally lawful activities – aims to silence those NGOs who are critical towards the government’s cruel and unlawful refugee and migration policies and other human rights issues. Though the bill at least on the surface aims to put in jail only those who are helping asylum-seekers and refugees, the message is very clear: if you are critical, you are the enemy of the government”.

Yaxley also shared with IPS UNHCR’s views on the impact of the bill on refugees: “What we may see happen to people who have been forced to flee their homes due to war, violence, and persecution, many who have been through traumatic experiences and are simply looking to exercise their fundamental human right to seek asylum, is that they might be deprived of critical aid and services.”

However, according to the Interior Minister Sandor Pinter in a document attached to the draft of the bill, “The STOP Soros package of bills serves that goal, making the organisation of illegal immigration a criminal offence. We want to use the bills to stop Hungary from becoming a country of immigrants”.

The nonprofit sector

Many international NGOs in Hungary will be targeted with this bill. Amnesty International is one of them. “Amnesty International Hungary is one of the organisations that are in the target of the government for many years.

Amnesty International many times has been named as an organisation “supporting illegal migration”. Since the law is vague and incomprehensible from a legal perspective nobody knows what is going to happen”, said Demeter.

Yaxley from UNHCR told IPS that this bill will definitely be a drawback for the nonprofit work in Hungary: “The key aspect is the additional financial requirements that are set to be placed on any NGOs that receive foreign funding. Our understanding is that our own funding [UNHCR’s] could potentially fall under this clause.”

“This may lead to a situation where essentially NGOs feel unable or unwilling to provide assistance that is really needed for refugees and asylum seekers that often arrive to countries with nothing more than the clothes on their backs or a handful of necessities.”

When asked about the repercussions after the bill is implemented, Demeter said: “Amnesty is committed to stay in Hungary and do its job just as in the previous nearly 30 years. We are going to fight against the law in front of every domestic and international court as possible”.

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