Africa

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At global fashion brand Ganni's 2019 runway show, models glided down the runway against the backdrop of girls from developing countries. Credit: Instagram / @oursecondskin

By Zafirah Zein
SINGAPORE, Feb 19 2019 (IPS)

Scandinavian fashion label and global It-brand Ganni hardly caused a stir recently when it closed Copenhagen Fashion Week with a sustainability-themed showcase titled “Life on Earth.”

Considering that sustainability is now a consumer trend, it is no surprise that a luxury brand touted as “a magnet for cool girls all over the planet” aimed to boost its street cred with a show that put sustainability at its core.

The problem? Photographs of brown, underprivileged women in developing countries served as the backdrop for a runway of mostly white, European models decked in designer clothing, with no mention of their stories, and how these connected in relation to the brand, or sustainability for that matter.

Zafirah Zein

Decades after the end of colonialism, Western domination in the areas of sustainable development and environmental protection threaten to undermine our efforts towards a more equal, sustainable future.

Anna Nadim Saber, a New York-based fashion blogger, criticised the brand online for being “problematic,” sharing in a long Instagram post: “This is a larger pattern of exploitation in the fashion industry. It is exactly women like those in these pictures who are worst affected by our industry: poor wages and terrible working conditions in sweatshops that manufacture clothing for many Western brands.”

To the fashion industry, she said: “Stop being tone deaf and blind to your own internalised, colonial mentality.”

Saber appeared to be the only voice from the fashion business who called out Ganni’s misstep, but her view picked at a discomfort that I’ve been harbouring a few months into writing about sustainable development.

Ganni’s efforts to promote sustainability were not just misplaced; they perpetuated notions of inequality and Western superiority through the misrepresentation of other communities and the lack of real engagement with global problems.

These “tone deaf” practices by Western brands also reaffirmed the unsettling perception that the global narrative on sustainability deflects blame from and even applauds the actors that have long been the driver of global ills.

This is rooted in colonial attitudes and cultural imperialism—issues that stem from the historical relationship between once colonised-states and their ex-colonisers, and unequal power structures between the Global North and South.

Eco-colonialism?
The term eco-colonialism is practically unheard of in the mainstream conversation on sustainability. However, government agencies and civil groups worldwide have recently used it to refer to the behaviour and policies of developed, Western nations who currently serve as the loudest voices on environmental protection today.

Earlier this year, Malaysia’s Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) accused the European Union (EU) of “economic colonisation” for its move to ban palm oil in biofuels by 2020, in a bid to halt deforestation. The country has also claimed the ban to be “discriminatory” as it favours European-grown oils such as rapeseed and sunflower, while diverting attention away from domestic environmental issues.

In an interview, a spokesperson for FELDA said: “It’s the same colonial attitudes, the white man imposing their rule on us from afar.”

Palm oil contributes significantly to the economies of Asian palm-oil exporting countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, where poor, smallholder farmers in these countries account for almost half of palm oil output and thus depend on the commodity for economic survival.

Europe, in this case, is only considering their own priorities and not those of people in Malaysia and Indonesia, while still using palm oil in everything else from soap and cosmetics to crackers and ice cream.

Putting a freeze on a crop that is most significant in accelerating social and economic development of many countries across Africa and Southeast Asia carries the shadow of neocolonialism, which includes a powerful state exercising control over another through economic or monetary means.

Another issue that stinks of green imperialism is the plastic waste trade, which gained attention after China banned foreign waste imports in January last year to protect its environment.

Forced to deal with their own rubbish, China’s move was met with backlash from British and American companies, even prompting a senior director at the Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries in Washington to say: “Do they (China) care about the global environment or only their own environment because we are land-filling perfectly good materials now because of the actions that they’re taking.”

Some also took the easier route, by redirecting their waste to Southeast Asia and swamping local ports and recycling plants across the region in the process. This led to a backlash from several countries such as Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, who subsequently banned plastic waste imports.

Thailand and Vietnam are among the five countries that were ranked as the most marine polluting countries in the world, making Asia the target of international criticism over their waste management practices and unsustainable consumer lifestyles, despite the fact they are usually at the receiving end of rich nations’ waste.

This has created an unequal picture of global waste, in which developed nations, who are more likely to engage in overconsumption, are deflected from blame.

However, most media attention has focused on plastic-choked oceans in Asia while spotlighting environmental movements in the West that want to wipe out plastic straws and switch to more durable, dearer items—lifestyle practices that are out of reach for many in the developing world.

As this opinion piece by geography experts at the University of Guelph, Canada, puts well: “If we understand waste, not as something produced by the actions of a group of individuals, but rather a product of socioeconomic systems that contribute to making waste and encourages wasting, problems with these dominant explanations arise. We start to see that Western consumers are part of the problem and cannot be absolved of their responsibility.”

Moving away from Western-led sustainability
Chandran Nair, Malaysian founder of Hong Kong-based think tank Global Institute for Tomorrow, writes in his book The Sustainable State that the problem with today’s sustainable development narrative is that it is understood from the perspective of advanced economies rather than developing ones.

He notes that discussions are often led by Western experts who rarely confronted the unsustainable means by which their own economies had grown.

Speaking with Nair at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, he weighed in on our shared view that the Western-dominated sustainability space often rang hypocritical and is reminiscent of colonial habits such as paternalism, victim-blaming and exporting problems.

Furthermore, most sustainability events and panel discussions lacked the diversity that could better represent the issues faced by the majority of the world’s population and were instead populated with white men in suits. This also extends to civil society, where green movements in Asia are often led by Western expatriates.

This always seemed strangely ironic to me, that the West was leading the world into a sustainable future, after almost worldwide adoption of a Western economic model that thrives on overconsumption has resulted in the pillaging of the earth.

“The most unsustainable societies are Western societies, but they make it an Asian problem,” said Nair. “Now these societies are also providing us with solutions from their thought leaders. There’s something wrong with this picture.”

That conversation with Nair drove home the flaw in our current narrative: sustainability often focuses on the demands and desires of the developed, and largely Western world, while failing to address the more complex barriers that the majority of the world has towards achieving a sustainable way of life.

Real solutions lie in radically shifting the global conversation to one rooted in local needs and contexts, and coming up with knowledge-based ideas and polices that are independent of Western models.

Sustainability has to furthermore be more inclusive of other voices outside of the Western mainstream—especially communites long marginalised by it—by striving for true representation that does not perpetuate damaging colonial mentalities.

Not doing so runs the risk of supporting a global structure of inequality that will do no good to our quest for sustainability.

*This story was originally published on Eco-Business and reproduced with permission.

The link to the original article follows: https://www.eco-business.com/opinion/in-the-world-of-sustainability-colonialism-is-not-dead/

The post In the World of Sustainability, Colonialism is Not Dead appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Zafirah Zein is a correspondent for Eco-Business*, a sustainability media organisation covering responsible business and sustainable development in Asia Pacific.

The post In the World of Sustainability, Colonialism is Not Dead appeared first on Inter Press Service.

“There’s been very little accountability in South Sudan for what is chronic, endemic problem of sexual violence against women and girls,” the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights says. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 2019 (IPS)

Women and girls continue to face the brunt of violence in the northern region of South Sudan with persistently high and brutal levels of sexual violence, a new report found.

Despite the signing of a peace deal nearly five months ago, United Nations investigators have found an “endemic” rise in cases of sexual violence in South Sudan’s Unity State.

“There’s been very little accountability in South Sudan for what is chronic, endemic problem of sexual violence against women and girls,” said the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights’ (OHCHR) spokesperson Rupert Colville.

“Virtually complete impunity over the years, as a result, very little disincentive for these men not to do what they’re doing,” he added at the launch of the report.

U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet also expressed concern over the widespread issue, stating: “The volatility of the situation in South Sudan combined with the lack of accountability for violations and abuses committed throughout Unity, likely leads armed actors to believe that they can get away with rape and other horrific forms of sexual violence.”

Between September and December 2018 alone, at least 175 women and girls experienced sexual and physical violence. Of these cases, 64 were girls, some as young as eight years old.

U.N. Missions in South Sudan (UNMISS) and OHCHR researchers found that most of the victims were attacked on roads as they traveled in search of firewood, food or water, commodities which have been limited since the start of the conflict in 2013.

One woman recounted her experience, stating: “We women do not have a choice…if we go by the main road, we are raped. If we go by the bush, we are raped…we avoided the road because we heard horrible stories that women and girls are grabbed while passing through and are raped, but the same happened to us. There is no escape—we are all raped.”

The 30-year-old survivor was raped on three separate occasions, each time around the same location to or from food distribution sites in Bentiu.

Almost 90 percent of the women and girls were raped by more than one perpetrator and often over several hours, the report found.

The report also observed that many of the attacks were premeditated and organised, stating: “The ruthlessness of the attackers appears to be a consistent feature of sexual violence documented during this investigation.”

In another incident in November, a woman who was two months pregnant suffered a miscarriage after being gang-raped.

Survivors also described being beaten with rifle butts, sticks, and cable wires if they attempted to resist or after they were raped.

A 50-year-old survivor told investigators she was beaten after trying to keep armed men from taking her 25-year-old daughter.

“Some of them threw punches and kicks on me for not allowing them to take my daughter. Those armed men were just like my sons, but they were so cruel. They do not have mercy,” she said.

Among the factors that have contributed to the rise in attacks against women and girls is the large number of fighters on “standby” mode awaiting disengagement and withdrawal.

Though a peace agreement was signed in September 2018, the new transitional government will not be put into effect until May, leaving members of numerous armed forces in limbo.

“A lot of these young men who are heavily armed, are just waiting around…This is a very toxic mix, and there are also youth militia which some of these official groups ally with and you don’t know exactly who they are; they’ve been heavily involved as well,” Colville said.

President Salva Kirr of South Sudan. The United Nations has urged Kirr to carry out investigations and seek justice for survivors of sexual violence in the northern region of the country. Credit: Elias Asmare/IPS

Impunity and the lack of accountability have also led to the normalisation of violence against women and girls, and both UNMISS and OHCHR have urged President Salva Kiir to carry out investigations and seek justice for survivors.

Upon hearing about reports of mass report, an investigation was carried out by a South Sudanese committee. However, they denied the allegations and declared that the rapes were “not a true story.”

While the current peace deal seems volatile, it is increasingly urgent for the new South Sudan to act and protect women and girls.

“Sadly, we have continued to receive reports of rape and gang rape in northern Unity since the beginning of this year,” Bachelet said.

“I urge the Government of South Sudan to take adequate measures – including those laid out in the peace agreement – to protect women and girls, to promptly and thoroughly investigate all allegations of sexual violence and to hold the perpetrators accountable through fair trials,” she added.

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The post Sexual Violence Surging in South Sudan appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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By Geneva Centre
GENEVA, Feb 19 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(Geneva Centre) – Two new publications entitled “The Unprecedented Rise of People on the Move” and “Veiling/ Unveiling: The Headscarf in Christianity, Islam and Judaism” have been published by the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue.

The purpose of the first publication is two-fold: it is first to assess the causes and consequences of forced displacement of people on the move in Europe and in the Arab region. The first volume entitled “Migration and human solidarity, a challenge and an opportunity for Europe and the MENA region” explores the adverse impact of cross-border movement resulting from war-related insecurity and from economic push factors such as the detrimental impact of climate change.

Secondly, it aims to demonstrate that the migrant and refugee crisis is not a “number-crisis” as many of the European countries most hostile to the arrival of people on the move are those that have hosted the smallest numbers of migrants. Upon examination of these issues, it becomes clear that the closed border policies of advanced societies and the rise of xenophobic populism further aggravate the migrant and refugee crisis.

The publication also includes a part entitled “Protecting people on the move: IDPs in the context of the refugee and migrant crisis” examines the causes and consequences of internal displacement in the context of the migrant and refugee crisis. It demonstrates that the push and pull factors of forced displacement of IDPs in the Arab region exacerbate migrant and refugee inflows to Europe. Upon examination of the predicaments of IDPs in Syria, Iraq and Azerbaijan, the study demonstrates that prolonged internal displacement results in long-term adverse impact on societies from economic, social and political standpoints.

In conclusion, the publication suggests that the long-term solution to enhance the protection of IDPs in conflict- and disaster-settings rests on the ability of stakeholders to develop efficient policies to prevent and reduce internal displacement.

The aim of the second publication is to counter misconceptions, deconstruct stereotypes and to show the role of the headscarf as a bridge between cultures and religions. Against the background of a heightened fear of the Other, with societies turning inwards and moving away from tolerance, the headscarf has become outrageously politicised. Politicians are waging a relentless war against this religious symbol, either by advocating its prohibition and thus trampling on article 18 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, or by legislating to impose it on women, thus violating women’s freedom to choose what to wear.

The Geneva Centre partnered with the Permanent Mission of Algeria to organize a panel discussion and an exhibition on 23 February 2018, at the UN Offices in Geneva, entitled “Veiling/ Unveiling: The Headscarf in Christianity, Islam and Judaism.” In the first part of the publication, the reader is provided with the summary of the debate, whilst a full chapter is dedicated to the lessons learned, offering an analysis of the topic from the standpoint of each religion discussed. The second part of the publication provides a graphic illustration of the catalogue of the eponymous exhibition.

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At the 8th Meeting of the South Commission, Havana , Cuba , July 1990. Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Chairman of the South Commission, President Fidel Castro of Cuba, Manmohan Singh, Secretary-General of the Commission, Carlos Fortin (right) and Branislav Gosovic (left), of the Commission staff.

By Branislav Gosovic
GENEVA, Feb 18 2019 (IPS)

The BAPA+40 Zero Draft Outcome Document—to be adopted at the upcoming conference on the Buenos Aires Plan of Action (BAPA+40) in Argentina March 20-22– is much like a conference report intended to accommodate different points of view.

It is neither a visionary policy nor substantive action-oriented agenda needed to bolster South-South cooperation (SSC) and give it greater importance in the United Nations system, which would normally be expected from a once-in-a-decade high-level UN conference.

Having been drafted carefully to take into account views and sensitivities of the developed countries, which have not been overly enthusiastic about South-South cooperation, the document could not give adequate prominence to preferences and position of developing countries, the major interested party and leading force of that cooperation.

Initial comments on and reactions to the Zero Draft reflect continuing disagreements and underlying policy differences between the South and the North regarding the nature and objectives of South-South cooperation.

Given – (a). the contents and policy limitations of the Draft Outcome Document, which largely delimit the final outcome of the Conference; (b). the traditional misgivings of the developed countries about SSC and their efforts to constrain its development; (c). the political and institutional obstacles that limit the UN role and engagement of its staff in promoting SSC; and (d). the absence of a comprehensive, up-to-date South platform for SSC and the differences that exist among the South’s large and diverse constituency – the Group of 77 would do well already now to begin preparing for the period following BAPA+40.

Initially, in its BAPA+40 follow-up, the G77 should address – in its own circle and in a comprehensive manner – the challenges and opportunities facing South-South cooperation.

Taking into account the outcome of the 2019 Buenos Aires Conference and the lessons learned during its preparatory process, proceedings and negotiations, a new effort should be undertaken to elaborate a G77 South-South cooperation policy platform and agenda for action.

In this context, it is important to recall the G77 1981 Caracas Conference on Economic Cooperation among Developing Countries (ECDC), which followed the 1978 Buenos Aires Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC).

Both Conferences were part and parcel of the Global South’s New International Economic Order (NIEO) initiatives during that period. The Caracas event had to be organized outside the UN, but it relied on logistical and substantive support of the UNCTAD Secretariat.

The goal was to carry on with the process beyond what had been possible to achieve in Buenos Aires and in the framework of the UN itself. The Caracas Programme of Action on Economic Cooperation among Developing Countries (A/36/333) was adopted.

It broadened the concept to incorporate “economic cooperation among developing countries” beyond the politically and substantively restricted “technical assistance”, projects-centred approach dealt with in Buenos Aires (A/CONF.79/13/Rev.1).

However, the concept of ECDC could not properly be institutionalized in the UN framework due to the opposition of the developed countries. Indeed, in the institutional-reform sweep in the 1990s, driven and inspired by these countries, even the UNCTAD Unit on ECDC was closed.

As part of its continuing initiative in the UN, the Group of 77 began to champion a broader concept, namely “South-South cooperation”, elaborated in the 1990 Report of the South Commission, The Challenge to the South. In 1994, G77, in its Ministerial Declaration, urged the UN to convene an international conference on South-South cooperation in 1996.

The resolution on South-South cooperation adopted subsequently by the UN General Assembly, inter alia called on the UN Secretary-General, in preparing his report on the state of South-South cooperation, to keep “in view the proposal to convene an international conference on South-South cooperation”.

This non-committal wording reflected the lack of developed countries’ support for the idea. And, in fact, it took nearly 15 years before such a conference could be held in the UN – the 2009 Nairobi High-level Conference on South-South Cooperation – and before the concept of South-South cooperation was anointed in this Organization.

One can argue that the suspicion harboured by key actors in the North vis-à-vis SSC has not basically changed, even though these countries now exhibit a greater tactical flexibility due to the changing realities, including the emergence of and the challenge posed by “the rising South”.

Given the differences of outlook between the North and the South, and political and administrative constraints that UN organizations and staff experience in their work to advance the process of South-South cooperation and to assist the developing countries in this domain, a satisfactory outcome of the three-day BAPA+40 North-South encounter does not seem likely from the point of view of the Group of 77.

It would, thus, be propitious for the Group to begin considering a similar approach to the one it had adopted after the 1978 Buenos Aires TCDC Conference, when it decided to hold its own ECDC conference in 1981 in Caracas.

In view of the existing situation, possibly in the final stage of the 2019 Buenos Aires Conference, the Group of 77 should highlight the coming 40th anniversary of the 1981 Caracas Conference by announcing the launching of its own South-South follow-up, as a sequel to BAPA+40.

In this way, G77 and its member states would commit themselves to review and formally consider the nature of South-South cooperation and its role in development and in the evolving geopolitical setting.

This would be a collective undertaking, pursued within one’s own circle and policy space, with the goal being to elaborate a Global South’s policy and action-oriented agenda for South-South cooperation, without the developed countries present to influence the parameters of that cooperation.

While centred on SSC actions and needs within the Global South, the proposed follow-up would also need to address, as a separate issue, the role of the UN and UN system in actively supporting South-South cooperation, as an important dimension of international development cooperation and, indeed, of democratic global governance.

Two events already on the agenda could contribute to the follow-up process in the initial stage. The Group of 77 ministerial conference, planned to mark the 55th anniversary of the Group’s establishment, could consider SSC issues and follow-up to BAPA+40, including the re-launching of some ideas and projects agreed on in the past but not implemented.

Also, as suggested by the G77 Geneva Chapter in its comment on the Zero Draft, the next quadrennial UNCTAD conference, UNCTAD XV in 2020, will be an opportunity to pave the way for a far more active policy and substantive and action-oriented role of the UN by entrusting UNCTAD with some key domains of SSC.

These include ECDC, trade, finance, investment, technology, services, and regional and sub-regional integration, in which it had played an important and pioneering role in the past.

UNCTAD XV would also be an appropriate forum where to consider the larger institutional issue, namely of a leading role that UNCTAD, in partnership with and the support of the UN regional economic commissions and the South-South economic groupings, could play in spearheading and energizing the role of the UN and UN system in support of SSC.

When considering a possible G77 follow-up process to BAPA+40 and how to deal with shortcomings and weaknesses that have affected SSC and how to reinvigorate it in the coming period and beyond, the issue that merits priority attention is the need for institutional self-empowerment of the Global South, which is seriously handicapped by not having its own global institution, one similar to the North’s OECD.

A strong organization of the South is a sine qua non of the necessary drive and long-term institutional leadership and focus for the evolving process of South-South cooperation.

This institutional deficiency cannot be overcome by relying solely on the UN, especially in its present vulnerable situation when it is under the pressure of the key developed countries. Nor can one expect this function to be undertaken by individual developing countries.

A collective self-organization at the global level is of utmost priority and importance, including for a common review of the problems and challenges faced, for distilling common views and positions, and for the participation of all countries of the Global South.

BAPA+40 and its follow-up process in the fold of the Group of 77 would provide a political impulse to inaugurating a vital action for establishing an organization that would serve as the Global South’s own lead mechanism in the promising and all-important domain of South-South, as well as international and multilateral cooperation, an organization that would work in parallel with, complement and stimulate the efforts of the UN family as a whole.

A decision to establish a major, significant global organization of the Global South for South-South cooperation would represent a landmark event on the world scene.

In conclusion, it can be argued that, despite problems and political tensions within the South, between and within its countries, often with the involvement of actors from the North, and also despite crises in the global economy and turbulences in the multilateral system of international cooperation, the overall context today is favourable for South-South cooperation.

On the geopolitical front, the spread of right-wing populism and the migrant crisis, as well as major political and economic changes in the North, are reflected in the mounting global interventionism, the negative attitude towards the developing countries’ aspirations, and the disregard for multilateralism and values on which the United Nations is founded.

This will require of the developing countries actively to seek solutions through South-South cooperation, collective self-reliance, solidarity, an overarching political stance and initiatives regarding global concerns and issues.

The post The Challenges & Opportunities Facing South-South Cooperation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Branislav Gosovic worked in UNCTAD, UNEP, UNECLAC, World Commission on Environment and Development, South Commission, and South Centre (1991-2005), and is the author of the recently-published book ‘The South Shaping the Global Future, 6 Decades of the South-North Development Struggle in the UN.’

The post The Challenges & Opportunities Facing South-South Cooperation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Feb 18 2019 (IPS)

Roma, a 2018 Mexican film written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón, is currently on a triumphal journey through the world. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, the best director and best foreign language film at the Golden Globe Awards, best director and best picture at the Critics´ Choice Awards, best film, best direction and best cinematography at the British Academy Film Awards. Furthermore, Roma has a record high ten nominations for the upcoming Academy Awards (The Oscars). Not at all bad for a black-and-white movie, which appears to have been directed by a sophisticated cineaste and custom-made for an art-house audience. Moreover, Roma deals with a highly controversial and seldom treated theme – the plight of poor, women domestic workers.

Of course, it was with high expectations that I sat down to watch this highly acclaimed movie, but it produced more disappointment than admiration. Let me begin with the aesthetics. I got an uncanny feeling that I had seen cinematography like this before. I was reminded of movies that Michelangelo Antonioni directed during the 1960s. He did not build his movies around traditional plots or intrinsic, character analysis. He rather used visuals as a tool for his message, which nevertheless was quite radical, critical of social ills and the feeling of alienation they created. Antonioni’s films were characterized by scant action and dialogue, complex and detailed composition and extremely long and well-planned shots. His characters were submerged in their inner life, unable to communicate their feelings, while Antonioni made their surroundings reflect their feelings. His persons moved around in simple, but at the same time visually stunning environments, saturated with moods and atmospheres.

Alfonso Cuarón´s movie is made like that and apart from Antonioni it reminded me of another skilled director, Luis Buñuel. Watching the wealthy people in Roma carousing on a hacienda during New Year´s Eve I came to think about Buñuel´s devastating criticism of the emptiness of higher class life in his The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and when a fire starts in the woods I was back in a surreal scene from Miloš Forman´s The Firemen´s Ball. I spite of these impressive models Cuarón´s movie lacks the desperation, the shocking condemnation of inner-city poverty of Buñuel´s Los Olvidados, which he in 1950 filmed in the slums not far from Colonia Roma, the wealthy middle class district in Mexico City, where Cuarón´s film takes place twenty years later. Roma has the refinement and aesthetics of Italian neo-realistic movies, but lacks the heart-braking compassion of films like Umberto D. and Bicycle Thieves, in which the desperate and poor protagonist in the end cries out: “I curse the day I was born!”

Like in the movies mentioned above, the setting of Cuarón´s characters is depicted with cinematographic splendour, but they do not advance the strong compassion you feel for a person like da Sica´s poor pensioner or bicycle thief. Cuarón´s “Cleo” Gutiérrez is an indigenous live-in maid in a wealthy middle-class household. Unfortunately, she remains a stereotype, as if she had been cast and solidified in the same mold as so many other working people imagined by upper middle-class moviemakers. A strong, silent, all-enduring and all-tolerating heroine, depraved of a voice of her own.

Cleo appears to speak the language of the Zapotecs of the valleys of Oaxca in southern Mexico, but we learn nothing about her roots among a people who uphold their strong traditions and who gave birth to Mexico´s president Benito Juárez (1806 – 1872), who from poor, rural, indigenous origins rose to become a well-educated, urban professional and a worldwide symbol of Latin American nationalism and resistance to foreign intervention.

Quiet and patient Cleo is dating Fermín, equally poor but a ruthless egocentric, who in an absurd scene naked is displaying his martial art skills, confessing to the usually silent Cleo: “I owe my life to martial arts. I grew up with nothing, you know.” Cleo becomes pregnant and Fermín avoids all responsibilities, insulting Cleo by calling her gata, cat, a common slur for maids “unable to take care of themselves”. Her employers sympathize with her and Cleo continues to work for them, receiving good medical care, thanks to the family’s connection to a major urban hospital.

The general background to Cleo´s drama is that the family father is leaving his wife and their four children, as well as the politically motivated Corpus Christi Massacre of June the 10th 1971, when 120 unarmed protesters were killed. Fermín happens to be part of the paramilitary Halcones, Falcons, who were guilty of the slaughter. The weakest moment of the movie is when this Fermín suddenly appears with a gun in the store where Cleo is looking for a crib for their expected child and he kills a man in front of her, at the same time as she goes into labour and is brought to the hospital by the mother of her employer. In spite of excellent care her baby is born dead. In connection with this comes the film´s most revealing scene: When Cleo is taken to the delivery room, the grandmother Teresa is asked by a nurse about Cleo’s last name, her date of birth and if she has insurance. Teresa cannot answer any of those questions.

Here the movie, as well as the reality, reveal themselves – poor women who work as maids are not considered as close friends and family members. Their employers often declare that “they are part of the family”, but this may serve as a means to deny them decent wages and social security. In spite of its shallowness, its lack of social, psychological and political sting Roma makes us aware of the plight of female, domestic workers; their poverty, defencelessness and marginalisation. Nevertheless, the soft, apolitical approach of Cuarón may just as well be a whitewash of inequality and discrimination and result in what I heard a Mexican woman state on TV: “Roma constitutes a homage to all the brave women who make it possible for us other women to make our contribution to society.”

As of June 2018, there were 2.2 million domestic workers in Mexico. Around 95 per cent of them were women and more than half of them had an indigenous background. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that there are at least 67 million domestic workers worldwide, not including child domestic workers, and that this number is increasing steadily in both developed and developing countries. Approximately 83 percent are women and many are migrant workers.1 For the most part, domestic work is demanding and undervalued. Even if legislation protecting domestic workers exists in many countries, it is seldom enforced. Domestic work is generally poorly paid and regulated. It is also common that domestic workers are subject to serious and various forms of abuse. Maybe a change is on its way. In July 2011 an ILO Convention on Domestic Workers was adopted.2 It recognized domestic workers as workers with the same rights as other labourers and it was entered into force on 5th September 2013. However, the Convention is still far from being implemented everywhere. In spite of its shortcomings a popular film like Roma might constitute a small step in the right direction.

1 https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/domestic-workers/WCMS_209773/lang–en/index.htm
2 https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CMW.aspx

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

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Una May Gordon, Principal Director, Climate Change Division, in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Jamaica. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Feb 18 2019 (IPS)

The island state of Jamaica is vulnerable to climate change which has in turn threatened both its economy and food production. But the Caribbean nation is taking the threat seriously and it has constructed a robust policy framework to support national climate action, particularly when it comes to promoting climate-smart agriculture (CSA).

“Climate change is a threat to Jamaica,” Una May Gordon, Principal Director, Climate Change Division, in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, told IPS. “We have pulled all the stops to deal with it in a smart way. Developing and implementing effective policies has been our weapon to fight climate change especially to protecting agriculture, a key economic sector.”

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), CSA pursues the triple objectives of sustainably increasing productivity and incomes, adapting to climate change, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions where possible. Though this does not imply that every practice applied in every location should produce ‘triple wins’. 

Over the last 30 years Jamaica has experienced increased floods, landslides, shoreline erosion, tropical storms, hurricanes, sea level rise and prolonged drought.

The Climate Change Division was created in 2013 in a deliberate attempt to place specific emphasis on the climate agenda. Jamaica recognised that climate change was affecting the country’s different sectors and instituted measures such as better management of water resources, adopting sustainable farming practices and planting crops that can withstand erratic weather conditions.

Adopting climate smart agriculture approaches has informed the country’s development agenda, said Gordon.

As the focal point for climate change in Jamaica, the Climate Change Division has facilitated the streamlining of climate change throughout the government structures. Gordon explains how Jamaica, which signed and ratified the 2015 Paris Agreement, has implemented resilience-building measures in the agriculture sector as part of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): How has climate change affected Jamaica specifically with regards to agriculture?

Una May Gordon (UG): Agriculture is one of the major sectors and major drivers of the Jamaican economy and it is probably the largest employer of labour within the economy. Agriculture is grounded on the rural economy and therefore affects the lives of small farmers and farm families. Drought, the [low] rainfall, the disparity in the cycles, increasing pests and disease and all these are climate related and we have seen the impacts on the production and the livelihood of the farmers.

On the other hand, there is the sea level rise; the large part of the Jamaican coastline is being impacted. Most of our critical infrastructure is within 5 kilometres of the coast and therefore many coastal communities [are also based along the coast]. We are seeing the impacts on the coastal communities and with the warming waters, we have seen less fish catches.

IPS: How do these policies work?

UG: The climate change policy has actions and activities to implement to make agriculture resilient and sustainable by adopting mitigation measures such as water management, better cropping to reduce agriculture’s environment impacts.

The agriculture ministry has a climate change focal point. This focal point belongs to a network of focal points. One of the structures that were created out of the policy framework is the climate change focal point network, which integrates and coordinates climate actions in the country. We recognise that a number of rural women are impacted by climate change. Therefore, the gender disparity between male and female is a gap we are working to close as we promote CSA initiatives.

IPS: How is CSA working?

UG: CSA, for us, is agriculture that is sustainable, that speaks to farmers and adapts to climate change. From a mitigation point of view, we talk about efficiency and reduction of waste and support for forest development.

Many farmers are on the borderline with the forests. In Jamaica, the preservation of the forest is about the sustainability of the production system and the adaptation and mitigation efforts of the farmers.

IPS: How do we get farmers to change their behaviour and recognise this?

UG: If farmers are not aware of the weather-related impacts, then they will be not be able to take action. And so the Met Service is a full partner in this project and we are using ICTs to provide farmers with real time weather data through their mobile phones. 

If a farmer knows that today or next week there will have more rain, then they will plan better as opposed not knowing what the weather will be like. If a farmer knows he will have no soil moisture then he probably takes steps to mulch. Farmers need to have a mind set change and become more proactive and prepare more to meet the challenges and we are arming them with information and skills to adapt.

IPS: How effective has this been?

UG: The project is in its early days but we have seen some results. We have farmers working together. By bringing them together, we are getting a change in minds sets because individually each farmer is doing their part and collectively they do better over time. Jamaica is divided into 14 parishes and this project is in three parishes. Eventually if we can scale up to another three parishes this year, we will be able to cover all.

IPS: What have you learnt from this that can be replicated?

UG: We underestimate the power of ICTs as a solution to addressing climate change. Cellphones are more powerful instruments than we take them to be. They can be a tool of trade for the farmers not only to make calls and so forth, but also to become part of the solutions to advance adaptation efforts because farmers can access value added information timely. Farmers are amenable to change and want to adapt. We are targeting 5,000 farmers across the three parishes. This project, though small in the scheme of things, will have a large impact.

IPS: As a government institution, what have you done to get the buy in of the private sector?

UG: Jamaica is very fortunate because the private sector is involved with us as partner in climate action … Some are retooling their own operations and there are huge investments in climate change now in Jamaica. This makes it easy for the government to scale up their ambition. Recently our Prime Minister announced that we would move from a target we had set on our own NDC of 30 percent renewables by 2025 – 2030 to 50 percent.

We also have invested significantly in clean energy. We have a solar farm and wind farms going up and these are private actions. From an agriculture point of view, the private sector is investing in sustainable agriculture practices where they are using solar energy.

The dialogue with the private sector and the government is at an advanced stage. We are supporting the rest of the Caribbean Region in conducting a scoping study to look at barriers to private sector engagement in climate action.

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Excerpt:

IPS correspondent Busani Bafana interviews UNA MAY GORDON, Principal Director, Climate Change Division, in Jamaica's Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation

The post Q&A: Jamaica Pushes Climate Smart Policies to Secure the Future of its Food Supply appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Men and women from Kalawa ward in Kenya’s Makueni County attended a forum on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Many said that development projects implemented for them didn’t include their views and input. Credit: Justus Wanzala/IPS

By Justus Wanzala
MAKUENI, Kenya, Feb 18 2019 (IPS)

Julia Mutua is a resident of Kalawa ward in the semi-arid Makueni County in Eastern Kenya and a member of a women’s farmers group that runs a poultry project.

“Women are increasingly playing a key role in economically uplifting of their households, unlike before, but they need access to affordable loans from financial institutions and requisite skills to run own enterprise,” Mutua told IPS.

When she looks around she sees the issues of poverty, and access to essential services like running water and healthcare that many in the county grapple with. She notes too that poverty has affected access to education as many parents are unable to pay their children’s school fees.

Mutua is also concerned about ensuring that people living with disabilities are included in development. “People living with disabilities have been marginalised  for long, alongside poor women and girls. To bring everybody on board in the journey to achieve SDGs, they need tailor-made interventions to address their unique challenges,” she told IPS.

But she understands the need for partnership and collaboration in attaining these development goals.
In the early morning at the end of January, she is one of a group of about 100 women and men in Kalawa Township who attended a forum on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

While the dialogue concentrated on effective and local participation in implementing the SDGs, the one-day forum’s main theme was ‘Leave no one behind’. Apart from local participants, also in attendance were representatives from Kenya’s National Treasury State Planning SDGs Unit, Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO), Islamic Relief and Caritas International.

The initiative is part of the International Civil Society Centre’s programme that involves working with governments, ordinary citizens and civil society to obtain community-driven data on marginalised communities.

The project is still in its pilot phase and is taking place in Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Nepal and Vietnam.

Back in Makueni County, the dialogue is the third in a series of five that are taking place across the country. The forums began in December, with the first one taking place Kibera Slums in the country’s capital, Nairobi. A national forum will be held later this February.

But in Makueni the issues discussed included; understanding the conditions that promote the exclusion and marginalisation of various groups in society, categories of marginalised groups, and ways of ensuring their participation in decision making when it comes to the SDGs. Deliberations also included the impact of policy intervention on development outcomes for marginalised groups.

The 100 participants, most of whom are members of community-based organisation tackling development challenges, where in agreement that the dialogue provided a great opportunity to discuss issues affecting marginalised groups.

“Water scarcity affects women and children most,” Patricia Mutuku, an official of a local Water Users Association (WRUA ) called Thwake Kalawa, said. Her association undertakes projects such as creating sand dams, managing water springs, planting trees and reclaiming degraded land.

“We’ve a plan to plant trees specifically for ground water recharge. One of our members visited Ethiopia and learnt how trees can be used to enhance ground water recharge, an initiative we’re keen to replicate,” she said.

Fred Odinga, from VSO, said the dialogue offered his organisation an opportunity to understand how different groups and communities perceive the SDGs.

“We’ve observed in forums across the country that the most marginalised segments of society, like women who have never been heard before in the development process, get a chance to be heard by government officials during such events,” Odinga told IPS.

Odinga, however, said that public participation in undertaking of SDGs projects, although highly appreciated, had flaws that required addressing.

Indeed, participants expressed their frustrations saying views collected at grassroots level for county projects were rarely used in the final plans. Participants lamented that by the time decisions were made, what was aired at the grassroots level was rarely reflected because the process involved many levels of input.

They also said that many people failed to provide this input in the first place because in many cases this was only collected from city centres, which are not easily accessible for many.

“This means that their ideas are never considered in the development process,” Odinga said.

Odinga said as convenors, they were able to demystify the SDGs, “when we started [this morning] not many appeared to comprehend SDGs. Quite a number have had heard about it but couldn’t link it to the challenges they face.”

“Unfortunately, this is just a discussion with 100 people in a county with over a million. We need many similar forums to grasp the issues facing counties as they pursue the attainment of the SDGs,”  Odinga said. He added that everyone had to be part and parcel of the journey, and that nobody should be left behind.

Charles Nyakundi of VSO, who chaired a session on citizen participation when implementing the SDGs, observed that key shortcomings for this are monitoring, evaluation and accountability.

“To ensure positive change we need to let communities [financially] own projects for sustainability instead of initiating, implementing and moving away,” he explained.

Nyakundi said in earlier SDG dialogue forums in other counties they noted that most marginalised groups include the elderly, persons with disabilities and women.

“In some cultures men are the decision makers, women don’t [contribute] ideas,” Nyakundi explained.

His views were reiterated by Fredrick Musau, a resident of Kalawa who said that a bottom up approach in terms of identification and execution of community projects is preferred by residents. Musau is an opinion leader in Kalawa ward—a former teacher who sits in most local county committees that deal with development.

Despite being a drought-prone area, Makueni County is noted to have made huge strides in improving the lives of its people since Kenya adopted devolution six years ago. Devolution is a constitutional arrangement where decision making is vested in local administrative units or counties, with national government allocating resources. The counties are run by governors.

Stephen Odhiambo from the SDG Unit of the National Treasury in the Government of Kenya called for enhanced collaboration and partnership between all levels of government and non state actors.
He explained that an intergovernmental technical working group has been constituted to oversee the implementation of SDGs at national and county services.

Noting that the dialogue forum was successful, Odhiambo said, “Citizens should not cow from demanding for services.”

Odhiambo explained that currently no useable data was available on attaining the SDGs amongst Kenya’s communities and what was mostly used to evaluate this was proxy data.

“We are working on collecting community data. The National Treasury, National Bureau of Statistics, civil society organisations in collaboration with the Germany agency, GIZ, among others, are supporting the initiative. A lot of citizen-generated data is gathered at county level, but is rarely harnessed,” he said.

Odiambo said that there is need for a multi-sectoral approach of mapping and reaching marginalised groups where they are in order to engage them.

Crispus Mwanzoya, a national government sub county administrator was, however, concerned with the sustainability of SDG projects. But he added that contributing to the SDGs could be as simple as enhancing and redirecting a gutter on a house in order to collect rain water.

“We need to change our mindsets to attain SDGs for we’re not poor in resources but poor in mind. The government can’t do everything, we have a central role.”

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The late Zaire international Pierre Ndaye Mulamba lived a life of two halves that went from fame and praise to anonymity and poverty.