Africa

Concerned over the rate of biodiversity loss, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is calling for a new deal for nature and people. South Africa’s white rhinoceros recovered from near-extinction thanks to intense conservation efforts. Credit: Kanya D’Almeida/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 14 2018 (IPS)

Wildlife is being wiped out in an unprecedented rate, and it’s our fault. But a new deal could provide a new pathway forward.

Concerned over the rate of biodiversity loss, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is calling for a new deal for nature and people in order to accelerate and integrate action between three core areas: biodiversity, land degradation, and climate change.

“The trends are shocking. We are facing a decline which is unprecedented and its accelerating,” WWF’s Director General Marco Lambertini told IPS.

“This is a global issue. Almost no country is completely exempt,” he added.

And it’s not just the iconic species like pandas, elephants, and tigers, he noted.

According the WWF’s recent Living Planet report, populations of vertebrate species have declined by 60 percent around the world in just 40 years.

Freshwater species alone faced a decline of over 80 percent.

Such population declines were especially prominent in South and Central America, where there is 89 percent less wildlife than in 1970.

Among the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss are directly linked to human activities, namely land conversion and overexploitation.

Over 40 percent of the world’s land has been converted or set aside for agriculture alone.

The Amazon, which is home to over 10 percent of the world’s species, has seen deforestation and habitat conversion to make way for agricultural activities such as cattle ranching and soy cultivation.

Though there has been some efforts to halt and reverse such harmful activities, 20 percent of the Amazon disappeared in just 50 years.

In Indonesia, primates are facing a heightened risk of extinction as forests are destroyed to produce palm oil.

“Food production is the single most important driver of wild habitat loss…very few people realise the connection between the food that they eat and the impact it is having on wildlife and wild habitats in the world,” Lambertini said.

But it doesn’t stop there.

According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), unsustainable land management, which encompasses many modern crop and livestock practices, is causing soil and land degradation thus contributing to both desertification and further biodiversity loss.

“With our current trends in production, urbanisation, and environmental degradation, we are losing and wasting too much land,” said UNCCD’s Executive Secretary Monique Barbut in the group’s Global Land Outlook report.

“We are losing our connection with the earth. We are losing too quickly the water, soil, and biodiversity that support all life,” she added.

Lambertini echoed similar sentiments to IPS, stating: “There’s not going to be a prosperous, healthy, happy, just future for us in a degraded planet.”

Finding Common Ground

UNCCD is one of three conventions that were established during the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Its sister conventions include the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Though significant as separate frameworks, Lambertini highlighted the need for more integration between the three conventions as the three issues are interconnected.

“We are calling for a new deal for nature…that really recognises those interdependencies and that they need to be integrated—land degradation, climate change, and nature conservation,” he said.

The Executive Secretaries of the three conventions also recognised the intersectionality of the three issues during the U.N. climate change conference in 2017, calling for the establishment of a project preparation facility.

The facility would help promote an coordinated action towards the convention’s common issues and finance large-scale multi-disciplinary projects.

However, little has been mentioned of it since.

Similar to the Paris climate accord, the proposed “new deal for nature and people” would ramp up the international community’s efforts through ambitious goals and targets to halt biodiversity loss and protect and restore nature.

Unlike the majority of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the end date of the biodiversity-related targets under the SDGs is in 2020 and it is expected that many countries will not come close to reaching the targets given current trends.

The new deal for nature would therefore be a post-2020 framework, helping governments to keep up, if not raise, their efforts.

A recent U.N. Biodiversity Conference agreed to begin a preparatory process, marking a first step towards a new framework. However, WWF noted that ambition was weak.

“The world needs to wake up to the risks of biodiversity loss. All stakeholders; business, government and people, need to act now if we are to have any hope of creating a sustainable future for all and a New Deal for Nature and People in 2020,” Lambertini said.

“For this to happen, we need a cohesive vision and strong political will – something [Conference of the Parties 14] has unfortunately lacked,” he added.

The Value of Nature

The Living Planet Index calculated that nature provides services worth $125 trillion annually while also providing us with fresh air, clean water, food, and medicine.

Wildlife play an essential role, and can even help restore and conserve land.

“We often forget that these creatures are fundamental to maintaining ecosystems like forests, oceans, wetlands, grasslands and make services that are fundamental to us,” Lambertini told IPS.

“There is a huge link between biodiversity and their ecosystems…and our fight against climate change,” he added.

For instance, approximately 87 percent of all flowering plant species are pollinated by animals, and crops that are partially pollinated by animals account for 35 percent of global food production.

Primates also help disperse seeds and pollen, helping maintain tropical rainforests which are play a crucial role in global rainfall patterns and carbon emissions reduction.

During the recent U.N. climate change conference in Poland, many looked to natural climate solutions including forests which help cut emissions by up to 30 percent.

WWF is urging all stakeholders to come together to deliver on a comprehensive framework to help protect the environment by the next U.N. biodiversity conference set to take place in China in 2020.

“It’s time to stop taking nature for granted—we are depending on nature more than nature depends on us,” Lambertini said.

“Don’t leave nature and environmental conservation and climate change as an afterthought, they have to be driving the thinking and the planning at the policy level as much as the economic level,” he concluded.

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The post Negotiating for Nature appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Ivorian Football Federation appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) against an alleged decision by Caf to strip the country of the 2021 Nations Cup.

At least 11 people are reported killed in Baidoa following the arrest of a former al-Shabab chief.

Born in London, raised in Dublin and now a Tunisia international, Ayman Ben Mohamed has travelled an unusual road to this month's Fifa Club World Cup.

Born in London, raised in Dublin and now based in Africa, Tunisia international Ayman Ben Mohamed has travelled an unusual road to this month's Fifa Club World Cup.

Gernot Laganda, Chief of the Climate and Disaster Risk Reduction Programmes at the World Food Programme says that because of climate change the number of natural disasters in the world have doubled since 1990. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
KATOWICE, Poland, Dec 14 2018 (IPS)

As the United Nations climate conference nears an end, all eyes are on the negotiators  who have been working day and night for the past two weeks to come up with a Rulebook for implementation of the Paris Agreement.

However, according to the World Food Programme (WFP), climate change is also a humanitarian issue.

According to the humanitarian organisation, natural disasters such as droughts, storms and floods, have doubled since the 1990s.

“So nowadays there are so many people who require food assistance and other humanitarian aid after disasters than it was a few decades ago,” Gernot Laganda, Chief of the Climate and Disaster Risk Reduction Programmes at WFP, tells IPS at the sidelines of the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24) in Kotowice, Poland.

“We are also concerned because with humanitarian aid, we cannot run fast enough as the problem of hunger in the world is running away from us,” Laganda says.

According to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018, the number of hungry people increased to over 820 million in 2017 from approximately 804 million in 2016. And Laganda says the ‘trend is on the rise”.

“When we look into a future of 2 degrees Celsius warmer world, it means we will have over a billion people who are at risk of hunger and food security,” he says. Excepts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): How is climate change impacting on food security?

Gernot Laganda (GL): Climate change affects food security in two principle ways. First, there is the whole question around agriculture from production of crops, to the storage to the transport to the market. Climate change can affect each of these stages.

The other one is about extreme events that keep throwing people back into poverty. Each year, 28 million people fall back into poverty because of extreme weather events. That means no matter how much development progress we are making to achieve zero hunger by 2030, every year we slide back, and that is a concern.

IPS: Will women’s ownership of land be of good value especially for climate adaptation?

GL: Having ownership of land certainly increases sustainability of agriculture production because people look after their land. In many cases, development projects fail also because land ownership and who has the right to use the land for how long has not been considered. So it is a big factor in development.

Of course when you mention the issue of ownership of land, then the whole issue of gender comes in, in various ways. On one side, there is a discussion about women being vulnerable in general. But we see it in slightly a different way.  We see it as women being agents of change in many countries and in many communities, so when you want to invest in a sustainable manner, it is a very good idea to have women saving groups. They have very good experiences in building risk reserves. And whenever there are little problems for example when the rains come late, it becomes very efficient to go through such crises. But when it comes to catastrophic shocks, we look more at insurance based models.

IPS: Do you see this COP solving some of the climate problems in relation to food security?

GL: This COP is primarily about implementing the Paris agreement and maintaining the global average of temperature increases well below two degrees Celsius. I think in all the discussions about temperature ranges we tend to forget that many countries, especially in Africa, are already experiencing two degrees Celsius of temperature increase. So the reality in these countries look like what we are still discussing here. Indeed, many African countries already live the future that we are collectively still trying to avoid.

IPS: How has climate change contributed in terms of displacing families?

GL: Statistics from the last 10 years tell us that on average 22 million people are driven from their homes every year because of climate extremes. Migration is actually a traditional adaptation mechanism because people move to other places in search of greener pastures, job opportunities and so on. But we are talking about forced displacement due to climate related disasters. Climate related events can also aggravate conflicts at local levels between farmers and herders for example, or it can still happen between countries especially where we have large international river basins.

IPS: What does the latest  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report mean to Africa in terms of food security?

GL: All countries are affected by climate change but agrarian countries feel it the most. In Africa, many countries have a huge percentage of their GDP coming from agriculture. That makes such economies very vulnerable because agriculture is about climate sensitive resources such as water, crops, fish-stock, livestock among others. All poor countries that heavily depend on natural resources are the most impacted.

IPS: What are your expectations for COP24?

GL: Everybody’s expectation is that we will have a Rulebook by the end of the COP. But there is also a recognition that this is not an easy task because for one it is difficult enough to agree on what we want to do. But [the Rulebook] is about how we are going to hold ourselves accountable.

In the Rulebook, I expect to see a regime by which countries can track and report on the degrees of their progress against their self set targets or Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

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The post Q&A: Many African Countries Already Live the Future of 2°C Warmer appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) side event at COP24 that discussed transparency and NDC implementation. Credit: Sohara Mehroze Shachi/IPS

By Sohara Mehroze Shachi
KATOWICE, Poland, Dec 14 2018 (IPS)

It is close to curtain call for the United Nations’ Climate Conference in Katowice, Poland, with ministers from around the world negotiating the text for a “rulebook” to implement the historic 2015 Paris Agreement for climate action. Amidst the various issues being debated, one of the most technical and complicated is Article 6 of the agreement, which focuses on the country plans for climate action.

While the world has been having climate conferences since 1992, the tide turned with the Paris Agreement when all countries agreed to play their part to undertake climate action.

“Developing countries now have a strong political will to contribute to the greenhouse gas reduction,” said Hyoeun Jenny Kim, Deputy Director General at the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), an international organisation that promotes balancing economic growth without harming the environment. This political will was manifested in Paris with countries voluntarily submitting their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for reducing carbon emissions and building climate resilience, taking into account their respective circumstances.

“But at the same time, they need support to affectively implement their NDCs,” Kim said, at a side event at the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24), which was organised by GGGI and focused on transparency and NDC implementation.

In order to get support from outside, Measuring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) of a country’s carbon emissions reduction is almost a precondition as many donor agencies and even private sector organisations want to know how much greenhouse gases a developing country is emitting before they make a decision to support it.

“MRV is key for developing countries to get access to financial, technical and capacity building support, and that’s why we are supporting developing countries to set up more proper and internationally acceptable MRV scheme,” Kim said.

GGGI’s interventions in this area include preparing a low emissions development strategy for Fiji, Colombia’s national green growth strategy and Mongolia’s national energy efficiency plan. The organisation is also working on building capacity to implement MRVs in various countries around the globe, including, Mozambique, Senegal, Nepal and Laos.

“We will continue to support our members and partners in their efforts of effectively implementing NDCs with robust MRVs, so they can access more finance,” Kim said.

“We are committed to reminding countries that green growth can happen.”

One of the speakers at the panel was Ariyaratne Hewage, Special Envoy of the President on Climate Change, Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment, in Sri Lanka, which is on track to become a member of the GGGI. He said Sri Lanka anticipates extensive support from GGGI in the years to come for its preparation of various project proposals to fight climate change.

“The present situation in Sri Lanka is severe droughts in one part of the country and heavy floods in another,” Hewage said. During a 2016 survey conducted by the Bonn-based NGO Germanwatch, Sri Lanka was awarded the fourth place in terms of climate vulnerability.

“We are severely affected by climate change, so we are very keen in developing climate change programs to ensure these problems are properly addressed,” Hewage said.

The proposed emission reduction i.e. mitigation targets of Sri Lanka’s NDCs include 30 percent reduction in the energy sector and 10 percent reduction in transport, industry and waste by 2030.

“For energy and transport sector we already have developed MRV systems, but for the other sectors – industry, waste, agriculture, livestock, forestry – we need help,” he added.

The need for support was also stressed by Ziaul Haque who leads the Bangladesh delegation’s COP24 negotiations on Article 6.

“Our main issue is lack of capacity to address this enhanced transparency framework under the Paris Agreement at both the institutional level and the individual level,” said Haque, highlighting the need for accurate data.

“We need to bring data on green house gas emissions from different institutions and whether they are collecting and archiving the data in the right manner is an issue that needs to be looked at. In this regard our institutional arrangement is not very strong at the national level,” he said, stating that strengthening the capacity of institutions and individuals who will be dealing with the transparency issue is crucial.

Rajani Ranjan Rashmi, a Distinguished Fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and former Special Secretary of India’s Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, said at the side event that one of the fundamental issues to deciding a transparency framework is that of flexibility.

“Developing countries should be able to make gradual progression on the quality of data,” he said. “We have so far not been able to agree in the discussions on this level of flexibility.”

Moreover, whether the same guidelines regarding MRV of greenhouse gases should be applied to all countries is also an issue of contention at COP24, he added.

Jae Jung, Deputy Director of the Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Research Center (GIR), another panelist at the side event, said having common metrics and structured summary is crucial.

“At this moment we don’t have the final text of the Paris rulebook, but we do have a very clean text of the common metric with no bracket, so there might be agreement on that,” Jung said.

“In terms of global stock take of emissions we don’t have to have a common metric in our inventory. But when we do the global stock take every five years there has to be someone doing the conversion applying the same common metric to all countries’ inventories,” he added.

He also stressed the importance of “structured summary” – a form of presentation of aggregated presentation of data that makes it possible to see the level of carbon emissions of one country – stating that helps to avoid double counting issue.

“There is opposition to structured summary because some parties want to use qualitative indicators and narrative descriptions of their NDCs,” he said, “But how does it make sense logically to have qualitative results when you have a quantitative target?”

One way to address the multifaceted challenges to NDC implementation would be through engagement of the private sector, according to experts.

“Many people think Article 6 of the Paris Agreement is about the market itself, but it is about increasing cooperation,” said Dr. Suh-Young Chung, Director of Center for Climate and Sustainable Development Law and Policy (CSDLAP).

“If you look at the Paris landscape to meet the 2-degree Celsius temperature target, you realise it is not enough and you need to bring in private sector investment. And countries need to work together on this,” he said, adding that Article 6 eventually needs to promote cooperation with the private sector, via incentive mechanism to engage businesses and addressing the risks they face.

“Article 6 is about bringing more opportunities for developing countries, but to do so, you need MRVs first,” he said.

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The post Decoding Article 6 of the COP24 Climate Negotiations appeared first on Inter Press Service.

ICSC Commissioners with former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Credit: UN photo

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 14 2018 (IPS)

The UN’s heavily-hyped “zero tolerance” policy on sexual abuse is being ridiculed once again –– this time with the abrupt resignation of the head of the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) who faced charges of sexual harassment and was the subject of an inquiry by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS).

The resignation of the ICSC chairman, Under-Secretary-General (USG) Kingston Rhodes, who holds one of the highest ranking jobs in the UN system, followed the release of the OIOS report to the ICSC last week.

But the contents of the report are under wraps since neither the OIOS nor ICSC have announced plans to go public with the results of the months-long investigations in an institution which has long preached “transparency and accountability” to the outside world.

The New York-based Equality Now, a non-governmental organization (NGO) which promotes women’s rights, received an official email December 11 from the ICSC’s Executive Secretary, Regina Pawlik, that the chair, Kingston Rhodes from Sierra Leone, is resigning, effective 14 December—about two weeks ahead of his planned retirement.

Antonia Kirkland, Legal Equality Global Lead at Equality Now, told IPS that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres acknowledged months ago that the allegations against the Chair of the ICSC are “credible.,”

“So he should have done everything to protect his own staff from sexual harassment regardless of the Chair of the ICSC, or anyone else’s, technical employment status vis-a-vis the UN.”

She said the UN’s zero tolerance policy on sexual harassment should apply to all, without exception, with survivors and their interests at the center.

“All those who have been found to perpetrate sexual harassment should be held accountable. The UN is the premier international defender of human rights and should start by defending its own employees from sexual harassment in the workplace,” said Kirkland.

Moreover, she pointed out, the Commissioners of the ICSC, whose meetings are funded by the UN, should have held the Chair accountable, first when the UN Secretary-General brought the allegations to their attention almost 10 months ago.

“The fact that the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) report took a year to be completed and shared with the ICSC Commissioners, and has never been shared with the complainant, is unacceptable,” she added.

The ICSC is described as an independent expert body established by the 193- member UN General Assembly, and its mandate is to regulate and coordinate the conditions of service of staff in the United Nations common system, while promoting and maintaining high standards in the international civil service.

At a press briefing December 11, UN Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq was asked about the OIOS investigation.

Question: “So, there is a report submitted by OIOS… but will the UN release its report, or how will it address it, in the name of transparency”. As you know, responded Haq, “the ICSC is outside of the United Nations itself”.

“The report has been submitted to them, and it’s up to them to respond. Ultimately, I don’t speak for them; so, I can’t answer questions about what they may do,” he added.

Paula Donovan, a women’s rights activist and co-Director of AIDS-Free World and Code Blue Campaign, told IPS “for months, my question about this ICSC saga has been: “Why, when the UN constantly cites the need for more and better-qualified investigators at OIOS, are they farming out the UN’s over-stretched investigators’ services to any entity that, according to the SG’s spokesperson, isn’t part of the UN?”

“It’s become second nature for the UN to respond to any question related to sexual abuse in ways that test public confidence in the organization’s relationship with the truth,” declared Donovan, a former UN Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa.

When allegations of sexual harassment were made against the ICSC last November, the United Nations admitted that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has no jurisdiction over a UN body created by the General Assembly and answerable only to member states.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/03/sexual-abuse-un-chief-no-jurisdiction-act/

Kirkland of Equality Now told IPS: “When the complainant went to the UN Ethics Office to complain about retaliation, she was asked to transfer, rather than him being put on administrative leave, at the very least”.

Indeed, it appears the Commissioners have allowed the Chairman to resign quietly, on the day of his farewell party this Friday (replacing the annual holiday party), rather than terminating him. This comes just before the end of his term on the 31st and sends the wrong message that powerful men can harass UN female staff with impunity,” she added.

In a statement to IPS, Equality Now identified the complainant as Shihana Mohamed, a Human Resources Policies Officer who has been working with ICSC since 2005 and in the UN system for over 20 years.

She told Equality Now: “I was sexually harassed by the Chairman of the ICSC for over 10 years – and I was not the only one. Because I said “NO” to his repeated sexual advances, he denied me promotions, and excluded me from duty travels, training, assignments, projects, Commission sessions and working groups”

“In 2016, I was on sick leave for 3-months due to the stress caused by the hostile office environment and retaliation by the ICSC management.”

“His quiet resignation just two weeks before the end of his term is a slap in my face and barely a slap on his wrist. It is very sad that the ICSC, a jointly-funded body with a mandate to cover all facets of UN staff employment conditions, failed to make Mr. Rhodes accountable for his misconduct.”

Also, the Secretary-General and the President of the General Assembly have said that they do not have any jurisdiction over the ICSC Chairman who is a UN official elected by the General Assembly.

“Then, my question is, who has the jurisdiction over him? Can this one person stand above all the rules, regulation and UN values as well as with no checks and balances while dealing with public funds and trust?,” she asked.

Messages to Rhodes and to his Vice Chairman Aldo Mantovani, seeking comments, went unanswered.

Meanwhile, Peter A. Gallo, the Legal Counsel to Shihana Mohamed, said in a statement released December 13, that he had formally requested the Secretary-General waive the immunity of Rhodes.

“I have not received any response to that request. Mr. Rhodes is not a “UN staff member” as such, but enjoys the protection of the 1946 Convention on Privileges and Immunities,” he said.

“The United Nations has often denied that they use that Convention as a mechanism to protect sexual offenders, but the Secretary-General’s failure to act on this request shows that is not the case,” said Gallo, himself a former OIOS investigator.

He pointed out that the sexual harassment complaint against Rhodes was made twelve months ago.

“The pertinent UN rules state that such investigations should normally be completed within three months, but I have been informed by Investigations Director, Mr. Ben Swanson of the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (“OIOS”) confirming that while a complaint was received in November 2017, the investigation was not actually commenced for another five months while the Organization delayed making a decision on whether Mr. Rhodes could actually be investigated. The OIOS investigation then took a further seven months.”

In June this year, said Gallo, the “Secretary-General acknowledged that the evidence against Mr. Rhodes was “credible” and “serious” – but although he may not have the authority to discipline the ICSC Chairman, the Secretary-General does have the authority – and indeed the duty – to waive the immunity and leave the matter to the legal system in New York: but has been unwilling to do so.”

He said “to allow the subject of an sexual harassment investigation to avoid being held accountable for his actions by simply accepting his resignation less than ten working days before he was due to retire anyway is a patent insult to every woman working in the UN system, and shows the utter futility of victims relying on the UN to hold perpetrators accountable for misconduct.”

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post Senior UN Official Resigns Undermining Sexual Abuse Charges appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A few hours after the adoption of the United Nation’s Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration in Marrakech, a consortium of Moroccan human rights organisations—La Vie Campesina—held a sit in protest in front of Marrakech’s Grand Post Office, denouncing the compact. Credit: Souleymane Brah Oumarou/IPS

By Souleymane Brah Oumarou
MARRAKECH, Morocco, Dec 13 2018 (IPS)

A few hours after the adoption of the United Nation’s Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration in Marrakech, a consortium of Moroccan human rights organisations—La Vie Campesina—held a sit in protest in front of Marrakech’s Grand Post Office. In the statement issued on December 11, the leaders of the 15 organisations denounced the compact.

“It is a setback, not only for the free movement of people and their goods, but also a violation of human rights, protection of migrants and their families as provided for in international conventions already approved by the United Nations and other institutions,” says Federico Daniel, a member of the consortium, adding that La vie Campesina proposes an alternative compact “to restore the primacy of the rights of men, women, children and peoples.”

This can be achieved, he explains, by “building local economies that are sustainable, united and just, while a state’s responsibility is to prevent criminalisation, repression or detention of migrants on their migratory routes before they reach their country of destination and settlement.”

The consortium’s stance echoes that of a number of UN member countries that made last minute withdrawals from the compact. Hungary, Australia, Israel, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Latvia, Italy, Switzerland and Chile have all either refused to sign it or expressed reservations. The United States, one of the first to bridle against the U.N.’s push for the Compact, has gone as far as labelling it a violation of state sovereignty.

“We believe the Compact and the process that led to its adoption, including the New York Declaration, represent an effort by the U.N. to advance global governance at the expense of the sovereign right of States to manage their immigration systems in accordance with their national laws, policies, and interests,” read a statement released by the U.S. on the eve of the conference.

But the U.N. insists that the compact is voluntary and cooperative, not legally binding, and fully respects the sovereignty of states. 

“The Global Compact respects the sovereignty of countries,” says U.N. Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres.  “And I believe that, reading carefully the Compact, countries will be able to understand that there are no reasons to be worried about the Compact. And I am hopeful that in the future they will join us in a common venture to the benefit of their own societies of the world as a whole and of the migrants.”

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By Lahcen Elyasmini
MARRAKECH, Morocco, Dec 13 2018 (IPS)

One of the reasons Morocco embraced hosting the Global Compact on Migration is because it is country in which the story of immigration is deeply embedded.

The evolution of the Moroccan immigration phenomenon occurred during the second half of the 20th century. The first waves of migrants began at the end of the 1950s and at the beginning of the ‘60s, heading toward Europe—France, in particular.

During this period, France, like many European countries, was re-constructing itself in the wake of the Second World War, and it also needed a boost to its workforce because of huge human losses during the war—hence the appeal of foreign labourers.

Morocco was particularly well placed to provide, both literally, due to its proximity to the southern shore of Spain—which lies but 15 kilometres from Morocco’s coast at the narrowest point of the Strait of Gibraltar waterway between them—and culturally and historically. Between 1912 – 1956, Morocco was a French and Spanish protectorate, during which French policy meant a Moroccan could travel freely to France without a visa, a far cry from the situation now in Europe, hence there already was a Moroccan footprint established in the country. 

Come the late 1960s and into the 1970s, Moroccans kept immigrating to France, many to work in the agricultural as well as industrial sectors. This wave continued until the 1973 Oil Crisis around the world, after which the weakened French economy could not absorb more immigrants. Furthermore, unemployment had hit much of the French population, leading to increased racism and xenophobia.

As a result, the attention of Moroccan immigrants turned toward other European countries such as Holland, Belgium, Germany and Scandinavian countries. But many of these potential destination countries had by this stage restrictive entry measures, introducing visas since the ‘80s. As a result, more southern-placed European countries such as Spain and Italy became destination countries for migrants, after they arrived but could not continue northward.

During the last twenty years, Morocco has received its own big immigration wave of Africans, who have arrived, dreaming of reaching Europe. But the strong security measures now established by almost all European countries, including Spain, have turned Morocco into a destination country, with many of these migrants choosing to settle in Morocco, the coast of Spain visible but unreachable on the horizon.

This migratory evolution means that Morocco knows all about being a country of origin, of transit and of destination, leaving an indelible print on the nation’s psyche. Hence it increasingly seeks to cooperate with European countries on the matter, having learned through experience and realising—perhaps more than most others—how immigration is a structural phenomenon that can’t be resolved only by security measures. The Global Compact on Migration is what Morocco has been looking for. But how many other countries will follow through with this new vision on how to handle migration?

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The post The Evolution of Moroccan Immigration: a Lesson for All Countries appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Katherina Guevara (L) and Cristina Rentería, with the Environmental Management Office at the La Molina National Agrarian University, stand next to one of the 10 stations for the separate disposal of waste that they have set up for administrative staff. Another 32 eco-efficient modules were installed for general use on the campus on the outskirts of Lima, Peru. Credit: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Dec 13 2018 (IPS)

Since 2017, public entities in Peru have strengthened their eco-efficient practices with the coordinated application of various measures and the development of an environmental management culture, in order to advance in the adequate use of public resources.

That set of practices led to savings of more than 19 million dollars in two years, said Roxana Díaz, Eco-efficiency Management Advisor at the Ministry of the Environment (Minam), who is in charge of a special programme for that purpose.

Through the Eco-efficient Public Institutions Initiative (EcoIP), since 2017 Minam has provided support to 41 state entities in this area, with the advice of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and the aim of improving the synergy between environmental and economic aspects when planning their activities."It's a very interesting initiative considering that one out of every 10 workers are public employees in Peru and that the State is one of the largest consumers of natural resources. Public sector practices that must be corrected and the thousands of people involved in the effort to improve their performance are now becoming visible." -- Aaron Drayer

The objective of the EcoIP project is to provide advice to public institutions by building the capacity of each institution’s eco-efficiency managers so they can undertake practices aimed at better use of water, energy, paper, fuel and solid waste, Díaz told IPS.

“The EcoIP Initiative is based on a 2015 assessment that revealed opportunities for the optimal application of Peruvian regulations for eco-efficiency,” said Aaron Drayer, the country representative of GGGI, an intergovernmental institution created in 2012 to promote green growth across the globe.

The GGGI became involved to contribute to the fulfillment of target 57 of the 2014-2018 Competitiveness Agenda of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, whose goal is for 30 percent of public institutions to gradually have eco-efficiency programmes and reduce their energy and water consumption.

“It’s a very interesting initiative considering that one out of every 10 workers are public employees in Peru and that the State is one of the largest consumers of natural resources. Public sector practices that must be corrected and the thousands of people involved in the effort to improve their performance are now becoming visible,” Drayer told IPS.

Peru has a group of Eco-efficiency Measures for the Public Sector, aimed at better environmental management of the State to promote sustainable development in the country, which are embodied in Minam’s Supreme Decree 009 of 2009.

Eco-efficiency, a term coined in the early 1990s, involves reducing ecological damage to a minimum while maximising efficiency, based on the concept of creating more goods and services while using fewer resources and creating less waste and pollution, in both the public and private sectors.

With this vision, the model programme implemented by Minam with the collaboration of the GGGI sought to strengthen the existing institutional framework, provide public employees with skills to sustain the new process, and generate a culture for the efficient use of water, energy and paper, and the management of solid waste.

“My assessment of the process is positive, we have built a replicable programme and have built capacities, managing to get 50 percent of the public institutions involved to achieve the goal of being recognised as eco-efficient entities,” Díaz said.

Paola Córdova (1st-left), GGGI Green Growth officer in Peru, takes part in the event to declare the end of the pilot phase of the Eco-efficient Public Institutions Initiative, in which 41 public organisations received recognition as eco-efficient institutions by Peru’s Ministry of the Environment in November 2018. Credit: Minam

She said an eco-efficient public institution is one that provides quality public service to citizens while at the same time efficiently using its resources, reducing its environmental impacts and maintaining adequate working conditions for staff. It achieves a balance between environmental management and economic profitability, she added.

Paola Córdova, GGGI Green Growth Officer in Peru, took part in the initial implementation of the Initiative along with the Minam team when essential project needs were identified, such as senior management involvement, staff allocation, budget and time.

In the two years in which EcoIP worked as a model or pilot project, advised by the GGGI, positive results included capacity-building among public employees in different sectors, such as ministries, universities and autonomous bodies, she explained.

In addition, this year the EcoIP was extended to the government of the department of San Martín, in central Peru, initiating the phase of decentralisation of the Initiative, which will continue to expand next year to other parts of the country, now that it will be a stable programme within Minam.

“The GGGI has contributed to the systematisation of this experience and to identifying the lessons learned, which are inputs for Minam to continue replicating the model of eco-efficient public entities,” Córdova told IPS.

According to Minam’s Diaz, the evaluation carried out confirms that the methodology used is replicable and can therefore overcome the challenge of high employee turnover in the public sector and strengthen its scope, thanks to the model established with the first 41 public entities included, out of a total of more than 2,000.

The official explained that standardised methodologies used to calculate the use of resources offer reliable data on annual consumption.

Carlos Llanos (C), head of the Environmental Management Office at the public La Molina National Agrarian University, on the outskirts of Peru’s capital, and members of his team showcase Christmas ornaments made from recycled material. Credit: Mariela Jara/IPS

The new system makes it possible to identify measures to correct inappropriate practices and thus support compliance with Peru’s nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The country pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent by 2030.

“The State has saved 66 million soles (19 million dollars) since the implementation of the methodology, which we could transform into quantities of CO2 (carbon dioxide) that were no longer emitted, because it is electrical energy that was no longer consumed, as well as water and paper mainly,” Díaz said.

For the Minam official, it is very important that this methodology also teaches how to calculate the economic profitability of the measures.

A success story

One of the successful experiences was led by the La Molina National Agrarian University, a public institution located on 6,000 hectares of land about 18 kilometers from the center of the capital.

Under the impulse of the university’s Environmental Management Office (OGA) and its technical team, an environmental culture, eco-efficiency, oversight and solid waste management have been promoted among teachers, students and administrative staff.

They have installed 32 eco-efficient points, i.e. separate bins for people to deposit waste properly, as well as 10 stations where administrative staff place cardboard, general waste, plastic and glass.

“The educational community had be sensitised to its proper use, as well as to the replacement of paper by digital communications and the reduction of water and electricity consumption,” environmental engineer Carlos Llanos, who heads the OGA, told IPS.

The team expresses its satisfaction that the various actions undertaken such as visits, sign and posters and competitions have involved 20 percent of the campus premises, within the objective of promoting sustainable development on the campus.

One of the winners of the internal “Sustainable Office” contest was the Educational Innovation Unit, headed by professor Elva Ríos and also made up of psychologists Silvia Morales and Karen Goycochea. They carry eco-efficiency in their veins.

“We are ‘molineros’ (from La Molina university), we are punctual and eco-efficient” is the motto used by the Unit in all their activities. “We train professors to be better teachers, but the environmental perspective is present in that work,” Morales told IPS.

The OGA advice has contributed to reducing the consumption of paper, energy and water and to improving waste management.

“We unplug the machines when we aren’t using them, we turn off the lights and take advantage of the daylight, for which we have cleared the windows area, we have placed bottles with sand inside the toilets and as soon as a pipe leaks, we call General Services, and we have separate garbage bins,” Morales added.

Karen Goycochea recalls that five months ago, when she joined the Unit, the staff emphasised the eco-efficient measures they took in the office and at the university. “It was exciting for me because I have always been committed to environmental management,” she told IPS.

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Former South Africa international Naka Drotske is in intensive care following a setback in his recovery after being shot in a robbery.

Credit: UNDP

By Kifah Sasa
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, Dec 13 2018 (IPS)

Twelve years ago, in a restaurant in Puntarenas on the pacific coast of Costa Rica, a group of long line fishermen met with three UNDP conservation specialists.

The conservationists wanted to understand how best to avoid illegal fishing inside Cocos Island Marine Protected Area, located off the shore of Costa Rica and now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

As part of their stakeholder engagement strategy, they decided to meet longline fishermen for dinner. It didn’t turn out quite as they had hoped – not many hands were shaken after dessert.

There was one table but two very different perspectives. The UNDP personnel were working on a project which saw illegal fishing on Cocos Island as a conservation issue.

On the other hand, the group of local entrepreneurs from Puntarenas were challenged by depleted resources and closed markets. Though some of them were indeed responsible for illegal fishing, none were big businessmen with major ambitions, but rather owners of a couple of long line vessels trying to make a living — with little access to credit and paying the highest social security costs in the region for every member of their expeditions.

The prospect of UNDP supporting the government to further restrictions on their livelihoods, was not taken lightly. A lot of mistrust turned the food, and the mood, sour.

According to data estimated by the Costa Rican Institute of Fisheries and Aquaculture (INCOPESCA), the country’s fishing sector is made up of around 400 boats with each boat carrying between five and eight people, forming a working population of around 2,000 to 3,200 directly linked to the sector.

Together with the families that depend on this activity, the affected population reaches between 10 to 16 million people and this is without including those indirectly linked through the thousands of other indirect jobs which ensure fishing activity such as transportation, fishing supplies, food, mechanics, and others.

Credit: UNDP

Fast forward to the present day and twelve years later, the perspectives of both the conservationists and the fishermen have changed. Last November, not far from that restaurant in Puntarenas, Costa Rica was the first country in the world to launch a National Action Plan for sustainable fisheries of large pelagic species, using UNDP’s methodology.

Through the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG), the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE), the Costa Rican Institute of Fisheries and Aquaculture (INCOPESCA) and the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the country officially presented a plan with three main areas of work: improving the fisheries of large pelagic species in Costa Rica such as tuna, swordfish and mahi mahi; increasing the supply of seafood from sustainable sources and ensuring the social welfare of the people linked to the fishing activity.

During the presentation of the plan, one of those same sector leaders from the restaurant took the opportunity to approach the same UNDP staff member he met all those years ago and said to him, “I wanted to thank UNDP for the trust it has given us and for helping us build a formal plan with institutions”.

A clear victory for UNDP’s firm confidence and strong commitment to multi-stakeholder dialogue as the key element to achieve systemic change for sustainable commodity production.

The National Action Plan for Large Pelagic Fisheries will run for ten years and will directly contribute to the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Costa Rica.

Credit: UNDP

A model case study of successful convening and collaboration between different stakeholders, it is the result of a process of dialogue lasting twelve months and involving more than one hundred representatives of government, academia, civil society, international cooperation, fishermen, exporters, restaurants and supermarkets.

A group of people who were not likely to be happy in same room a few years ago but are now committed to working together towards a more sustainable, inclusive and promising future for Costa Rican fisheries.

Through 2019, we celebrate ten years of UNDP supporting multi-stakeholder approaches to the sustainability challenges of highly-traded commodities around the world.

Through the Green Commodities Programme, UNDP’s approach has been to build trust among stakeholders by facilitating neutral spaces where they can collaborate on a shared vision and agenda for action, coming to a collective agreement on the root of the sustainability problems of key commodities and on how they will work together to resolve them.

Through its multi-stakeholder National Commodity Platforms, the programme is currently working on palm oil, cocoa, coffee, beef, soy, pineapple and fisheries in Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay, Liberia, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Philippines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

The post Costa Rica: First Country to Protect Sustainable Fisheries of Large Pelagics Species appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Kifah Sasa is Sustainable Development Officer at UNDP Costa Rica

The post Costa Rica: First Country to Protect Sustainable Fisheries of Large Pelagics Species appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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