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Goat rearing is contributing to economic independence and improved livelihoods of women thanks to a post-COVID-19 empowerment project. CREDIT: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

By Umar Manzoor Shah
MILONPUR, INDIA, Aug 8 2023 (IPS)

Seema Devi is a 39-year-old woman hailing from India’s northeastern state of Assam. She lives in a village called Milonpur, a small hamlet with no more than 1 000 inhabitants. While most men from the village, including Devi’s husband, move to cities and towns in search of work, women are left behind to take care of the house and kids.

Devi says that after the COVID-19 lockdown in India in the year 2020, the family income drastically plummeted. As most of the factories were shut for months, the workers, including Devi’s husband, were jobless. Even after the lockdown ended and workers were called back to the factories, the wages dipped.

“Earlier my husband would earn no less than Rs 10 000 a month (125 USD), and after the lockdown, it wasn’t more than a mere 6 000 rupees (70 USD). My children and I would suffer for the want of basic needs like medicine and clothing, but at the same time, I was considerate of the situation and helplessness of my husband,” Devi told IPS.

However, there were few alternatives available at home that could have mitigated Devi’s predicament. With the small area of ancestral land used for cultivation, the change in weather patterns caused her family and several households in the village to reap losses.

However, in 2021, a non-government organization visited the hamlet to assess the situation in the post-COVID scenario. The villagers told the team about how most of the men in the village go out to cities and towns in search of livelihood and work as labourers in factories and that their wages have come down due to economic distress in the country.

After hectic deliberations, about ten self-help groups of women were created. They trained in livestock farming and how this venture could be turned into a profitable business.

The women were initially reluctant because they were unaware of how to make livestock farming profitable. They would ask the members of the charitable organisation questions like, “What if it fails to yield desired results? What if some terrible disease affects the animals, and what if the livestock wouldn’t generate any income for them?”

Wilson Kandulna, who was the senior member of the team, told IPS that experts were called in to train the women about cattle rearing and how timely vaccinations, proper feed, and care could make livestock farming profitable and mitigate their basic living costs. “At first, we provided ten goat kids to each women’s group and made them aware of the dos and don’ts of this kind of farming. They were quick to learn and grasped easily whatever was taught to them,” Wilson said.

He added that these women were living in economic distress due to the limited income of their husbands and were desperately anxious about the scarcity of proper education for children and other daily needs.

Devi says that as soon as she got the goat kids, she acquired basic training in feeding them properly and taking them for vaccinations to the nearby government veterinary hospital.

“Two years have passed, and now we have hundreds of goats as they reproduce quickly, and we are now able to earn a good income. During the first few months, there were issues like feeding problems, proper shelter during monsoons and summers, and how and when we should take them out for grazing. As time passed and we learned the skills, we have become very trained goat rearers,” Devi said.

Renuka, another woman in the self-help group, told IPS that for the past year, they have been continuously getting demands for goat milk from the main towns. “People know about the health benefits of goat milk. They know it is organic without any preservatives, and that is the reason we have a very high demand for it. We sell it at a good price, and at times, demand surpasses the supply,” Renuka said.

For Devi, livestock farming has been no less than a blessing. She says she earns more than five thousand rupees a month (about 60 USD) and has been able to cover daily household expenses all by herself. “I no longer rely on my husband for household expenses. I take care of it all by myself. My husband, too, is relieved, and things are getting back on track,” Devi said, smiling.

Kalpana, a 32-year-old member of the group, says the goats have increased in number, and last year, several of them were sold in the market at a good price.

“The profits were shared by the group members. Earlier, women in this village were entirely dependent on their husbands for covering their basic expenses. Now, they are economically self-reliant. They take good care of the house and of themselves,” Kalpana told IPS News.

Note: Names of some of the women have been changed on their request.

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From street vendors and domestic workers to subsistence farmers and seasonal agriculture workers, women make up a disproportionate percentage of workers in the informal sector. In South Asia, over 80 per cent of women in non-agricultural jobs are in informal employment; in sub-Saharan Africa, 74 per cent; and in Latin America and the Caribbean, 54 percent. Credit: UN Women

By Naila Kabeer
LONDON, Aug 8 2023 (IPS)

Last week the IMF offered a cautious estimate of positive global economic growth for this year, warning ‘we are on track, but not out of the woods’. But with the IMF and governments continuing to use gross domestic product (GDP) as the dominant measure of economic progress, a more appropriate warning might be that ‘we’ are failing to see the wood for the trees.

As multiple crises wreak havoc across the world, as inequality continues to rise inexorably, as we approach near irreversible climate breakdown, it strains credulity that governments remain fixated on a metric that is incapable of capturing these momentous changes and their profound consequences for our lives.

GDP was developed to measure the monetary value of the marketed goods and services produced in an economy but it rapidly became the predominant measure of national welfare. As such it is flawed.

We should recall the warning issued by Simon Kuznets, founding father of GDP, back in 1934: the welfare of a nation could not, and should not, be inferred from the measurement of its GDP.

GDP is blind to the distribution of the marketed goods and services it measures; it equates progress with growing wealth, even if that wealth is concentrated among a small minority of the world’s population.

It fails to distinguish between market activities that harm people and planet and those that are beneficial. It ignores the value of unpaid care. And it only recognizes natural resources when they can be exploited for profit.

Credit: UN Women/Zhanarbek Amankulov

As the feminist economist Marilyn Waring put it, GDP embodies an economic system that counts oil spills and wars as positive contributions to growth but deems the unpaid care of children and families as valueless.

Take the example of unpaid care work, overwhelmingly carried out by women across the world. According to data cited in an Oxfam paper this week, almost two-thirds of women’s weekly working hours – and forty-five percent of the total for all adults – do not enter estimates of GDP because they do not enter the market.

That means nearly 90 billion hours of unpaid care work, without which economic growth would come to a grinding halt, do not count as part of that growth!

History has shown us that fixation on GDP-oriented growth has led to government policies that directly harm women, particularly those at the intersection of multiple inequalities, such as race, class, caste and disability.

This is evident in the consequences of repeated and sustained austerity cuts to public services, here in the UK and elsewhere, including many countries in the Global South. These showed up clearly in the UK during the pandemic.

Cuts in welfare services on which many women depended in order to take up paid work meant that they had to compensate with increased unpaid labour. Cuts to jobs and pay in the public sector where women workers made up most of the work force meant higher rates of female unemployment.

And where public services were retained, as in the health sector, women from poor and minority households made up the majority of frontline workers, were those most exposed to infection.

There are alternative measures of wellbeing to GDP. Some are based on indigenous conceptualizations that stress harmony between people and planet. Others seek to build on common values found across the world: values that stress care and capabilities, culture and leisure, connections with nature and community and, very importantly, democratic participation and social justice.

What these measures all have in common is that GDP is no longer considered the primary goal of national efforts but just one of the means by which shared goals can be achieved.

This proliferation of concepts is indicative of the deep dissatisfaction with GDP on the part of many and the need to go beyond it. They include international organizations like the UN, the OECD and the EU, governments like New Zealand, Canada, Bhutan, Peru, Ecuador as well as numerous networks of activists and academics.

The fact that they have not arrived at an agreed alternative to GDP reflects at least two major challenges. The first is methodological but one that can be resolved through debate and deliberation. Do we want a single, multidimensional index to track how we are doing, more complex than GDP but closer to shared values?

Or should we opt for a dashboard of indicators that allow us to track where we are doing well and where we are falling behind? Should the alternative be nationally determined or internationally?

One argument in favour of an internationalist consensus is the need to factor in ‘the wellbeing elsewhere’ dimension: what we do within one country can have positive or negative repercussions for people in other countries.

The second challenge is political and harder to resolve, as economic elites have been able to capture political power. The richest 1% are not just the wealthiest, they have greatest political clout. They also have strong vested interest in defending a measure of progress that ensures they can legitimately capture the bulk of the wealth generated by markets.

Conversely, those who have most to gain from alternative measures of progress are dispersed and divided – in no small way through the efforts of the 1%. The second challenge therefore is to find a bridge across these divisions and dispersions so that we can collectively engage in the task of revolutionizing the way we think about ourselves in relation to each other and to our planet.

Professor Naila Kabeer is a feminist economist, Department of International Development, London School of Economics (LSE).

https://www.lse.ac.uk/international-development/people/naila-kabeer

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Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India, December 15, 2021: Community members in Sowripalayam outside of Coimbatore stand in line to receive a nutritious meal from No Food Waste. Credit: The Global FoodBanking Network / Narayana Swamy Subbaraman

By Lisa Moon
CHICAGO, USA, Aug 8 2023 (IPS)

With the ongoing global food crisis—triggered by the COVID pandemic, disasters, supply chain disruptions, and conflict in Ukraine—food security should be at the top of the G20 agenda when countries gather in India in September 2023.

Food security and national security are closely intertwined. Throughout history, countries that have suffered from extreme hunger and malnutrition have been vulnerable to civil unrest, along with diminished economic productivity and exacerbated inequity.

Having a robust and resilient food system is critical for G20 countries, which together represent around 85 percent of global gross domestic product and are home to two-thirds of the world’s population. In addition, G20 countries produce as much as 80 percent of the world’s cereals and account for a similar proportion of global agricultural exports.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recognized this imperative, recently saying in a message to G20 Agricultural Ministers: “I urge you to deliberate on how to undertake collective action to achieve global food security.”

Yet, with more than 735 million people facing food insecurity in 2022, about half of whom are in G20 countries, the food system clearly needs repair.

While a multi-dimensional approach is essential, there is a solution that brings immediate benefit to people, while reducing food waste and helping address climate change. That solution is food banking.

Food banks collect surplus food in large volumes, often donated or purchased from food manufacturers, retailers or farmers, and get it to those who need it most. Working in concert with other community-led organizations to reduce hunger and food insecurity, food banks help address the paradox at the heart of the global food system: the unconscionable amount of food that is lost or wasted that could – and should – instead be used to feed people.

Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu, India, December 17, 2021: No Food Waste (NFW) staff serve a nutritious meal to community members in Eswaran Koil Street. Credit: The Global FoodBanking Network / Narayana Swamy Subbaraman

Food banks are already present in every G20 market, providing nutritious meals to people who need them most. They often complement the work of governments to get food to people who are underfed or undernourished. And they can reach those who are often left out of other forms of social protection. Food bankers are embedded in their communities and can respond quickly when disasters strike.

Last year, members of The Global FoodBanking Network in nearly 50 countries helped feed 32 million people, distributing more than 650 million kilograms of food and groceries and mitigating 1.5 billion kilograms of CO2e through avoided food loss and waste. Many of these countries faced civil unrest and disasters caused by climate change and conflict.

India is already setting a strong example in mobilizing food banks as part of its efforts to address food waste. Having implemented Surplus Food Regulations in 2019 to ensure unused food could be donated, India saw a 250 percent increase in the volume of food distributed through food banks last year compared to pre-pandemic levels.

The food banks No Food Waste, India FoodBanking Network and Feeding India provided 13.5 million kilograms of food to 6.4 million people in 2022. These food banks provide nutrition to school children, migrant workers and other vulnerable populations. With supportive government policies and financing, these efforts have the potential to expand rapidly in the coming years.

A growing number of G20 countries, such as Brazil and Indonesia, are also adopting food banks to strengthen their food security and reduce hunger. Last year, Brazil’s national network of nearly 100 food banks served 2.5 million people in the country. And food banks in Indonesia provided food to about 1.2 million people in 2022, an increase of nearly 40 percent compared to 2021.

By working with food producers, retailers and farmers, food banks bridge public and private sectors, providing a vital service that complements social welfare programs and helps minimize food waste and the associated emissions, contributing to multiple human development goals.

When G20 leaders come to the table to discuss the urgency of food security, they will look for solutions that are already available and have proven track records. India has already made it clear that food security is a priority for its G20 presidency. The government now has the opportunity to leverage its experiences and insights to build effective collaboration among countries on this issue.

By developing comprehensive food security strategies, G20 countries can make a sound investment to create a stronger future.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is President & CEO, The Global Food Banking Network

President Tinubu is facing strong opposition to any deployment of troops to oust Niger's junta.

A hidden world of exploitation by men working as "spiritual healers" has been uncovered by the BBC.

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Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey students stage a protest in support of Russia and the coup plotters. Credit: Abdoulaye Hali Aboubacar

By Promise Eze
SOKOTO, NIGERIA, Aug 7 2023 (IPS)

On July 26 2023 a man named Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane, flanked by soldiers with military fatigues, appeared on Niger’s national television to announce the execution of a coup. It was the country’s fourth coup since it gained independence from France in 1960.

“The defence and security forces have decided to put an end to the regime you are familiar with. This follows the continuous deterioration of the security situation, the bad social and economic management,” he said.

The country’s president Mohamed Bazoum, who came to power in 2021 through Niger’s first democratic elections, was removed, and his government, including the constitution, was suspended.

Before the announcement of the coup, President Bazoum had been held captive in the presidential palace. This was unexpected, as earlier in the year, Bazoum had dismissed the possibility of a military coup during an interview. However, he was ultimately overthrown by the very people who were supposed to protect him—the Presidential Guard.

Two days later, the Presidential Guard commander General Abdourahamane Tchiani was proclaimed as the new leader of the country following the army’s support of the sudden military takeover.

The recent military takeover in Niger has reverberated through the international community, shocking those who regarded the country as a bulwark against the encroachment of democratic backsliding in the region.

Niger faced widespread international condemnation following the military coup. The European Union, the United States, France, and the West African regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), were among those who unequivocally condemned the coup. France issued a stern warning, threatening to respond firmly to any violence directed at its diplomatic mission in Niger or its citizens and interests.

While this may not be the first coup in Niger, and it certainly isn’t the first in the Sahel or West Africa. In recent years, the region has witnessed a series of coups where military officers have seized power from elected government officials, driven by their frustration with the increasing incidents of terrorism, corruption, and political instability in West Africa.

In January 2022, Burkina Faso witnessed two coups, which were triggered by the deteriorating security situation and the President’s perceived inability to effectively address challenges, notably the Islamist insurgency.

Similarly, Mali experienced coups in both 2020 and 2021, indicating the volatility of its political landscape. In 2021, President Alpha Condé of Guinea was overthrown in a coup d’état by the country’s armed forces following gunfire in the capital, Conakry.

These three nations share notable similarities: they are located in West Africa, have unstable political systems, face regular jihadist threats, and were once under French colonial rule.

Analysts argue that these coups represent direct threats to democracy in West Africa, undermining the principles of democratic governance in the region.

“The coup represents a significant setback for the small but crucial developmental strides made by West Africa and the entire African continent towards more people-oriented governance, even if not perfect. It’s disheartening to see these gains being nullified. This unsettling development raises concerns about the potential for more coups across Africa in the years to come, which is a distressing prospect. Moreover, it is likely to exacerbate insecurity, particularly terrorism, as violent non-state actors may seize the opportunity to emerge,” says Timothy Avele, a security expert, and Managing Director of Agent-X Security, based in Lagos, Nigeria.

Ibrahim Baba Shatambaya, a lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, holds the view that the army’s actions in Niger were motivated by a desire to break free from France’s long-standing control and exploitation of its former colonial territories.

“The coup stands as evidence that democracy is facing challenges in Africa, and it reflects the inability of ECOWAS to ensure that leaders in the West African sub-region meet the expectations of their people,” he adds.

For the Love of Uranium

In French West Africa, there has been a significant rise in anti-French sentiments, which is considered a key factor driving the military coups in the region.

Many people hold France responsible for contributing to the region’s instability through military interventions.

Despite maintaining military bases and promising to combat Jihadism, violence and attacks persist, leading to suspicions that France might have a hand in terrorist activities.

Critics also argue that France has taken advantage of the region’s resources while failing to break colonial ties. For instance, Niger, the world’s fifth-largest uranium producer, supplies nearly a quarter of the European Union’s uranium, used for electricity production. However, despite its resource wealth, Niger remains one of the world’s poorest countries, with a poorly diversified economy heavily reliant on agriculture. More than 41% of the population lives in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank’s data from 2021.

Furthermore, Orano (formerly Areva), a French state-controlled nuclear fuel producer, faces accusations of leaving behind large amounts of radioactive waste in Niger, posing health risks to local communities. There are also concerns about insufficient protection for workers against radiation. Orano has also been embroiled in bribery allegations in Southern Africa.

The French-backed CFA currency, used by 14 nations in West and Central Africa, including Niger, has faced criticism for enabling France to maintain control over the economies of its former colonies. This currency system requires member countries to deposit 50% of their currency reserves with the Banque de France and is pegged to the euro.

French President Emmanuel Macron has made efforts to distance himself from France’s colonial past in Africa and advocate for a new approach based on partnership. However, deep-rooted suspicions and grievances persist.

Long Live Russia, Goodbye France 

About ten years ago, Mali sought military assistance from France when Islamic militants threatened the capital, Bamako. France’s arrival was initially hailed as heroic, but its presence in the West African nation did not yield long-term improvements. Instead, terrorist groups with ties to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Islamic State of the Greater Sahara carried out devastating attacks. Mali even blamed the French for arming terrorists.

Diplomatic relations between Paris and Bamako began to deteriorate following a coup in May 2021 and resistance against democratic elections in January 2022. Consequently, Mali expelled the French and embraced the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary organisation, which has gained influence in Africa.

The Wagner Group has gained notoriety for its involvement in the internal affairs of multiple African nations, offering military and security assistance to advance Moscow’s influence across the continent. Disturbingly, it has faced accusations of perpetrating massacres and acts of rape. However, despite these alleged atrocities, many discontented young Africans harbour a sense of indifference towards Wagner’s actions, as their grievances with France and the West take precedence in their perspective.

Burkina Faso also expelled the French, with thousands of people rallying in the capital, Ouagadougou, in support of a military takeover that ousted President Roch Kabore. Russian flags were displayed in the streets, and some demonstrators urged Moscow to replace France in the fight against jihadists.

Even in Niger, celebrations backing the coup plotters have swept across the country, gaining momentum despite calls for a return to democracy. There are also reports of the Niger junta meeting with the Wagner Group in Mali to seek military support.

“Nigeriens harbour deep grievances against France for various reasons, primarily due to the exploitation of our resources, which disproportionately benefits France. An evident illustration of this disparity is the supply of French electricity sourced from our uranium, while we remain 80% dependent on another country (Nigeria) for our energy needs.

“Another major concern is the issue of terrorism. Despite the presence of over a thousand French soldiers in the country with the stated objective of combating terrorists, they seem unable to effectively confront the threat. Instead, our population and soldiers bear the brunt of the attacks, leaving us vulnerable and disheartened.

“As an alternative, many Nigeriens view Russia as a potential saviour in the face of their escalating tensions with France and the rest of the world. Russia’s involvement in the terrorist conflict in Mali, particularly through the actions of the Wagner Group, has further fueled this perception,’’ Abdoulaye Hali Aboubacar, a student at the Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey, tells IPS.

ECOWAS Versus Niger

The growing presence of the Wagner group is clear evidence that ECOWAS has failed to do its homework. However, the new government of ECOWAS is poised to make a difference.

After taking over as the Chairman of ECOWAS on July 9, President Bola Tinubu made a firm statement, stating that the region would not accept any more successful coups, as it had experienced five of them since 2020.

A mere 15 days after Tinubu’s resolute speech, the government in Niger was overthrown by officers.

In response to the crisis, Tinubu took immediate action and presided over an emergency ECOWAS summit in Abuja. Several sanctions were implemented, and notably, for the first time in the bloc’s history, it demanded that the putschists restore constitutional order under the risk of facing the potential use of force.

However, there are apprehensions regarding ECOWAS, which has faced criticism for its limited ability to address coup regimes and its alleged neglect of crucial underlying issues like corruption and poverty. Some argue that ECOWAS’s response to the coup might be influenced by how the news of it was received in the Western world.

“It is advisable for Nigeria-led ECOWAS to introspect before escalating the already precarious situation in Niger. The current trajectory could turn Niger into a battleground for foreign powers to settle scores, leading to a dangerous quagmire if not handled carefully by the authorities, especially Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu and his advisers,” Avele cautions.

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World Food Programme food distribution in Sudan - Credit: UNAMID / Shangil Tobaya

By Olivier De Schutter
BRUSSELS, Belgium, Aug 7 2023 (IPS)

The fragile state of global food systems has reached a crossroads. Recent headlines underscore the profound challenges we now confront.

The United Nations released sobering statistics that 122 million more people are going hungry than in 2019, erasing years of progress. One week later, Russia announced it was ending the crucial deal that allowed Ukraine’s vast grain production to be shipped to the outside world.

This deal was an important factor in alleviating last year’s record high food prices. Russia then proceeded to bomb grain facilities in Ukraine, causing wheat and corn prices to surge. Simultaneously, soaring heat, blazing wildfires, and devastating floods are jeopardising harvests around the world. Meanwhile the food industry has recorded billions in profits.

These events tell us we are facing both acute shocks to food security, and chronic underlying food poverty. Even while the industrial globalised food system generates bountiful profits. These are all symptoms of the same disease – and highlight the urgent need for major changes in our food systems.

Two statistics from the UN’s hunger report are perhaps most concerning.

First, the projection that almost 600 million people could be chronically undernourished in 2030. This shows that the Sustainable Development Goals – in which governments committed to end hunger by that date – lie in tatters, unless urgent action is taken.

Second, the finding that a decent nutritious diet is now out of reach for nearly half the planet. The cost of a healthy diet has shot up just as people are seeing disposable incomes tumble. What an indictment of our failing food system.

Olivier De Schutter

This is not because the world does not produce enough food. Global agriculture has never produced so many calories – its growth outpacing population growth. The streamlined chains of the industrial food system are well tuned to deliver cheap and uniform biscuits, crisps and fizzy drinks across the planet, increasingly to even the most remote areas.

Rather, the industrial food system is simply not delivering. It prioritises market demand and profit, over meeting human needs. It is more profitable to produce mass commodities for animal feed, biofuels and processed foods, ultimately serving rich consumers with an ability to pay, rather than the needs of poor communities and hungry populations. The industrial food system is not built to ensure access to food and healthy diets for all.

Hence only about 55% of people around the globe live in countries with enough fresh fruits and vegetables available to meet the World Health Organization’s minimum recommended daily consumption target.

Our food system has had some unlucky shocks these last three years – from Covid-19, climate impacts and conflict. But it was also disastrously vulnerable. The industrial food system is built upon layers of concentration which are liable to disruption.

Half the calories consumed around the world come from just three staple crops (wheat, maize and rice), grown from a narrow range of seed varieties, exported from a small number of countries, shipped around the world by a handful of powerful trading firms. This is profitable, but it is not robust.

Record high debts in many Global South countries are also preventing them from investing to combat hunger, trapping them in a vicious cycle. Global South countries have been forced to specialise in growing and exporting cash crops like cocoa, coffee and cotton in order to pay down debts – at the expense of growing food for their own populations.

They are thus required to import food – food which is now much more expensive – and unable to invest in resilient local food production. Africa is today a net importer of food – with net food imports of $35 billion in 2015, expected to triple by 2025.

Governments will no doubt agree on the need to raise ambitions. But when we are so far off course, the time is up for small adjustments. We need a completely new recipe to address hunger and build resilience. Based on breaking dependence on the global market to provide adequate nutrition and feed the hungry, and rebuilding countries’ capacity to produce the food they require.

Social protection schemes must guarantee food access for the world’s poorest – with proven policies like the successful ‘Fome Zero’ programme deployed by Brazil in the 2000s that took the country off the hunger map. Urgent debt relief for heavily indebted low-income countries is also crucial to allow them to invest in anti-hunger schemes and domestic food production.

In a world of climate crisis in which more shocks are to come, resilience throughout the system must be the goal. More diverse agroecological food production, shorter food chains, and countries producing more nutritious food for their own people can unlock the food security that too many are denied. It’s time we admit the industrial food system is starving people.

Let these alarming headlines be a turning point to a different road, a route towards resilience.

Olivier De Schutter is co-chair of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) and UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights

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Niger's neighbours earlier threatened military action if the elected president was not restored by the end of Sunday.

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