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Dr. Dainius Pūras is UN Special Rapporteur on “the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”.

By Dr. Dainius Pūras
GENEVA, Jun 21 2018 (IPS)

Ambulance drivers attacked, nurses detained, doctors tortured, pharmacists arrested, dentists facing more than a decade in prison—all for delivering healthcare to people considered enemies of the state.

There is a disturbing global phenomenon of governments using domestic laws, policies, and practices to punish health professionals for doing their job to treat those in need. Whether it’s vague counter-terrorism legislation, misguided domestic laws and policies, or harsh administrative sanctions, states are often turning to domestic laws to criminalize health care.

Dr. Dainius Pūras

I have been privileged to be part of the medical profession for more than three decades. In recent years, I have seen the ways in which laws provide a pretext for states to enact violence and punitive sanction against my fellow health workers. These alarming trends undermine the ethical foundation of medicine and the human rights of communities we have pledged to serve.

Health professionals have a duty to care for the sick, wounded and injured, regardless of their patients’ political affiliation or which side of a conflict they are on. The core human rights principle of non-discrimination is not only a key component of medical ethics, but an essential part of our humanity: every human being has a right to medical care. Whether a foe or an ally, a patient is a patient.

For more than half a century, governments have recognized this concept, enshrining the protection of healthcare in international humanitarian and human rights instruments, as well as their national constitutions. Just two years ago, 80 states adopted a resolution specifically condemning attacks on health providers and their patients.

As the UN special rapporteur on the right to health, I have examined this issue during my country missions and engaged directly with governments as cases of medical professionals under threat have come to my attention.

Regrettably, health professionals continue to be harassed, fired, arrested, prosecuted and even killed for caring for those in need. I am convinced that these egregious human rights violations against health professionals and the communities they seek to serve emerge from a systemic failure to explicitly safeguard healthcare in law and policy at the national level.

These practices in countries around the world do not occur in a vacuum, but emerge from embedded legal systems that ensnare health workers in a widening punitive net.

I recently requested a review of the role domestic laws play in fostering the criminalization of healthcare to understand how health workers experience extraordinary violence, harassment or sanctions. The findings are alarming: of the 16 countries analyzed in the report, authorities in at least 10 of them could interpret the provision of healthcare as supporting terrorism.

The implication of this general state of legal affairs is dire. If nurses, doctors and paramedics are afraid to treat people because they may be prosecuted, whole communities could suffer.

Some countries have begun to understand how these laws and practices undermine healthcare and are taking steps to safeguard it. But much more needs to be done. Everyone must be able to access healthcare—it is an obligation under the right to health and incumbent upon states to secure.

States must review and amend their laws to ensure they explicitly shield the sick and wounded and those who care for them. Military, police and security forces must be instructed that patients cannot be denied care, regardless of their affiliation.

This requires both a normative as well as a cultural shift in how state structures uphold everyone’s basic dignity and rights. The international community must elevate this issue to ensure the protection of healthcare permeates the entire UN family.

In times of unrest and conflict, accessing medical care can mean the difference between life and death. Laws must be there to protect those providing that essential medical care, not be used as weapons against them.

The post Countries are Using Domestic Laws to Criminalize Health Care appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr. Dainius Pūras is UN Special Rapporteur on “the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”.

The post Countries are Using Domestic Laws to Criminalize Health Care appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A lake in Ukraine, which has a relative scarcity of naturally-occurring water supplies in populated areas. Credit: Vitaliy Motrinets/cc by 4.0

By Ed Holt
KIEV, Jun 21 2018 (IPS)

A campaign to raise awareness of water security in Ukraine could be an inspiration around the world, activists behind it say, after it forced a change in the country’s approach to its water resources.

After almost five years of promoting a vision of water security and proactive water management among various stakeholders and the government in Kiev, the issue of water security is now a top development priority for the government.“Ageing infrastructure dating back to Soviet times, canals, dams and reservoirs require huge resources – financial, human and technical – and there are new challenges as the climate changes." --Andriy Demydenko

Anna Tsvietkova of local NGO MAMA-86, a partner of the Global Water Partnership (GWP) intergovernmental organisation, and which was involved in the campaign, told IPS this was an example of how expert knowledge combined with awareness-raising could move water, or potentially other topics, to near the top of a country’s development agenda.

“Our work could be an inspiration for groups in other countries. We were active and we gave the best advice. Our government had to accept our proposals [on water security],” she said.

Like many countries, the issue of water security is becoming increasingly important for Ukraine.

Groups like GWP Ukraine have said that the state of water resources and water supply in Ukraine is a serious threat to national security, with its effects exacerbated by economic and political crisis, military conflict and climate change.

The country has a relative scarcity of naturally-occurring water supplies in populated areas and studies have shown that surface and ground water resources are unequally distributed between seasons and across the country.

The inefficient management of available water resources, including excess abstraction and pollution, has led to depletion and contamination of water resources, according to local environmental groups.

Meanwhile, ageing and poorly-maintained infrastructure and outdated water and wastewater treatment and technology have caused further problems, including serious sanitation and related health issues.

But until relatively recently, water security in Ukraine was not viewed by the authorities as a concept on its own and was dealt with as part of wider, overarching environmental protection legislation. Authorities – and the wider public at large – were fixed on the concept of water protection rather than risk-based management.

“One of the main threats to water security is that water management is perceived by the people managing it as management of water infrastructure and extracted water, which leaves all other sources of water unmanaged,” Dr Andriy Demydenko of the Ukrainian Center of Environmental and Water Projects told IPS.

“As a result authorities just control water quality and quantity parameters without having any responsibility to reach water targets,” he explained.

He added: “Ageing infrastructure dating back to Soviet times, canals, dams and reservoirs require huge resources – financial, human and technical – and there are new challenges as the climate changes.

“Also, a lack of a scientific basis for decision making and management, shortages in in knowledge and capacity building leave Ukraine very vulnerable and unprepared for events such as water scarcity, droughts and floods.”

However, through campaigns and national stakeholder dialogues over the last five years, GWP and local partner groups introduced and promoted the new concept of risk–based or proactive water management.

In 2016 GWP Ukraine organized four stakeholder consultations on the strategic issues of water policy entitled “Rethinking of Water Security for Ukraine”.

As a result, GWP Ukraine prepared a publication presenting a proposed set of national water goals, targets of sustainable development, and indicators to assess the progress in achieving goals on the water-energy-food nexus.

And in the last year, multi-stakeholder consultations have taken place to push Ukraine to an integrated water resources management approach.

Indeed, the GWP Ukraine’s work has helped change the Environment Ministry’s policy on water strategy.

Having initially said its water sector development programme was covered under other state programmes and strategic documents for water sector development, after seeing GWP’s proposals for a water strategy the ministry decided to approach the EU Water Initiative+ project to help develop its strategy.

Of GWP Ukraine’s original proposals in its consultation document, the Ukrainian government has already accepted proposals on some targets and indicators for Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 on ensuring access to water and sanitation for all.

The group continues to work with the government to accept other SDG 6 indicators and include them in the country’s development strategy.

It is hoped a concept paper on water sector reforms will be formulated this summer and then passed to government for approval. A draft of the country’s water strategy is to be presented and discussed at the next National Water Policy Dialogue, which is expected to take place sometime at the end of this year.

But, stresses Tsvietkova, the importance of GWP Ukraine’s work is not confined to Ukraine.

The group’s success in pushing change in Ukraine has led to other groups within the GWP CACENA network – covering Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia – to ask for support in the development of their countries’ water policies as part of national development programmes.

“They have been very interested,” she said.

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The post Ukraine Puts Water Strategy High on Development Agenda appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Photomontage by the organisation Isla Urbana, a pioneer in the promotion of rainwater harvesting as part of a new model in the management of water supply and consumption in Mexico, where the benefits of the system to get access to water are recreated in informal settlements in the west of the capital. Credit: Isla Urbana

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Jun 20 2018 (IPS)

Twenty-five years ago, Mexican engineer Gustavo Rodriguez decided to collect rainwater to solve the scarcity of water in his home and contribute to the care of natural resources.

“We did it to seek a better integration with the care of nature. We wanted to have a sustainable home,” this resident of the indigenous town of San Bartolo Ameyalco, on the west side of Mexico City, told IPS.

Rodriguez installed a roof catchment, cistern, filters and piping, a system that retains 90 cubic metres (m3) of water and meets for at least seven months a year the water needs of the 12 people who live in three houses on his land.

“We use between 80 and 90 liters per person per day,” said Rodríguez, who has also incorporated a biodigester to generate biomass as energy to increase the sustainability of his farm.

San Bartolo Ameyalco, which means “place of springs” in the Nahuatl language, with a population of some 20,000 people, is supplied with water from a spring connected to the local water network which it feeds. But many people lack piped water, even though tjey pay for it.

“There is trade in water in tanker trucks and this has caused tension with its management. There is access to water, but not all people receive it and this is because the valves are manipulated to get people to pay political favours” in exchange for the supply, said Rodriguez, who has not received piped water for four months.

Rain can help this Latin American country of 130 million people to cope with the water crisis projected by experts from 2030 onwards, while it is currently causing floods, landslides and generally ending up in the drains.

At the same time, it can help Mexico achieve the goal of ensuring availability and sustainable management of clean water and sanitation for all, the sixth of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals to be met by 2030.

The country receives an estimated 1.45 billion m3 of water per year in the form of precipitation, according to Mexico’s Water Statistics 2017.

Of the rainfall, 72 percent evaporates and returns to the atmosphere, 21 percent drains through water bodies and 6.3 percent infiltrates the subsoil and recharges aquifers, of which 105 out of 653 are overexploited.

In Mexico, rainwater ends up in the drains, when collecting it could supply water to households that lack the service. In the picture, a storm hits Mexico City on April 28, 2018. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

 

Between 1981 and 2010, 740 millimeters of annual rainfall fell on this nation, while in 2016, rainfall rose slightly to 744 millimeters.

Data from the government’s National Water Commission indicate that the average natural availability of the resource fell from 18,035 m3 per inhabitant per year in 1950 to 3,687 m3 in 2016.

Despite the decrease, availability is not a problem, according to the parameters set by the United Nations, which establishes that a country with less than 1,000 m3 per inhabitant per year has a shortage of water and a country with a range between 1,000 and 1,700 m3 per person of water supply suffers water stress.

Data from the non-governmental Oxfam in Mexico indicate that almost 10 million people have no water in their homes, in violation of the right to water established in the constitution since 2012.

In addition, Mexico is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as prolonged droughts and heavy rainfall within a wet season that traditionally goes from May to October. Several studies foresee a water crisis by 2040, especially from the centre to the north of the country.

There are 8.8 million people living in Mexico City proper and more than 20 million in Greater Mexico City, and on average almost 16 m3 of water per inhabitant per day are extracted and only about 11 are replaced.

Water shortages prompted Matilde Jiménez to seek rainwater collection for her home in the Cerrada del Bosque Xochitonalá shantytown in the Santa Cruz Alcapizca neighbourhood of Xochimilco, one of the 16 boroughs into which Mexico City is divided, on the south side of the city.

“We didn’t have water, and a neighbour heard about the Isla Urbana organisation, their people visited us and registered several neighbours to get collectors installed,” Jiménez, a homemaker who is studying creative writing, told IPS.

After paying 150 dollars, her home, where she lives with her husband and three children, now has a collection system that has provided them with about 11,000 litres since its installation, which covers more than five months of consumption. They no longer have to spend money to buy water from the tanker trucks.

A large rainwater collection tank that serves for irrigation, water for animal consumption and, once properly purified, human consumption. Neta Cero has installed more than 2,000 of these systems in four states of Mexico. Credit: Neta Cero

Rainfall reduces the need to obtain or import water from conventional sources, allows for the creation of supplies at specific locations, and does not depend on the traditional system, thus reducing the vicious circle of dependency and crisis.

Seven out of 16 boroughs in the capital suffer from water insecurity, calculated from the degree of marginalisation, access to water and distribution of the resource, according to the non-governmental organisation Isla Urbana, a pioneer in the promotion of rainwater harvesting in the country.

This organisation estimates that 21,693 hectares of rooftops would contribute 16 million m3 per month. The city consumes 32 m3 per second, so rainfall could provide 20 percent of that demand.

Water scarcity has led several organisations to develop rainwater harvesting systems in remote areas of the country, such as the social enterprise Neta Cero.

“There are communities without access to water. What we are doing is solving these problems with these systems that represent a very important source for these communities,” its founder, Tirian Mink, from the United States, told IPS.

This social entrepreneur, who created the organisation in 2013, recalled how he himself built the first “spring-roof” that year in the town of Palo de Marca, in the municipality of Huautla de Jiménez, which has a population of over 31,000 people and is located in the southern state of Oaxaca.

“It was in a preschool, it was a very important learning experience. We installed it in a couple of weeks with local materials, the tank was filled in less than a week,” said Mink, who chose the site because of the high levels of water stress and heavy rainfall and where nine systems already operate to provide a supply of water to the community.

The water is stored in tanks with a capacity of between 200,000 and 500,000 litres, at a cost of between 4,800 and 146,000 dollars, depending on the complexity and size of the facility, and with a total capacity to collect up to five million litres. Neta Cero has already connected 2,315 systems in four states since 2013.

The Mexican government is implementing the National Programme for Rainwater Harvesting and Eco-techniques in Rural Areas, which in 2017 was implemented in 94 highly marginalised areas in eight of the country’s 32 states, with the installation of 944 rainwater harvesting systems.

The government of Mexico City has also installed hundreds of rainwater systems in an attempt to alleviate the crisis that threatens to worsen in the long term.

Engineer Rodríguez proposed the promotion of rainwater harvesting. “There is little awareness, aggravated by political patronage. Politicians need to be aware of the problem and its solutions. The problem is not technical, it is social, a problem of governance. There is a lack of incentives,” he said.

Mink proposed more funding for the installation and maintenance of systems.

“We seek interventions with greater impact with the least investment. The biggest impact is achieved with large systems, but one difficulty is that the water service is free of charge so there is no maintenance. That is a challenge, and to have sustainable systems” environmentally and financially, said Mink.

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The post Looking to the Sky for Solutions to Mexico’s Water Scarcity appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Somali migrants, once stranded in Libya, arrive home in Somalia via an IOM charter flight. Photo: UNSOM Somalia/2018

By International Organization for Migration
Somalia, Jun 20 2018 (IOM)

As the sun begins to rise, 150 migrants welcome their first morning on Somalia’s soil in, what is for some, years and, others, months. Disembarking an IOM, UN Migration Agency, charter flight from Libya, at the end of May 2018 is the final haul of a long and hard journey. It is not the end that they had expected when they had first set out from Somalia. It isn’t Europe but it is home and it is safe.

Among the passengers is Ali Said Faqi, Ambassador for the Somali Government to the European Union (EU), and a major part of the mission to help Somali migrants stranded in Libya return home to their families. While few might have missed the stark media headlines on the abuse African migrants have faced at the hands of smugglers, traffickers and criminal gangs in Libya, Ali is one of the few, who have travelled to the source of these stories.

Ali with a returnee from Libya as he travels home to Somalia

Like most Somali diaspora, who were forced to flee the civil war, he is well acquainted with, what can be for many, the agonizing feeling of leaving home. After Ali left Somalia in the 1990’s, he passed through Kenya, Italy and Germany, before finally arriving in the United States in December 1998. He went on to become a prominent scholar in toxicology. His academic resume includes a PhD in toxicology from the University of Leipzig, more than 100 published scientific papers, two text book in toxicology and various impressive academic tenures.

In June 2013, Ali received an unexpected call from the Speaker of the Somali Parliament Mohamed Osman Jawari and the former President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. They were looking for a nominee for the post of Somali Ambassador to the EU. ‘I never harboured any political ambitions, but nonetheless contributing to my country’s welfare was always close to my heart,’ Ali says. The decision was therefore easy, and by the following day Ali Faqi was an Ambassador.

Ali speaks with a group of Somali migrants in a detention centre in Libya.

His journey to Libya several years later came about through another request from the highest echelons of the Somali Government. In the wake of the harrowing news stories of Africans being sold as slaves in Libya, President Mohamed Abullahi Farmajo called upon his Ambassador for help. ‘First, I was only to do a three-day mission to Libya but I ended up staying altogether 25 days,’ says Ali. When seeing the conditions in which the Somalis were held in Libya and hearing their harrowing stories, Ali could not return back before having done everything in his power to help them. ‘The stories I was told were like horror movies – all marked by experiences of hunger, thirst, torture, rape, forced labour and a long list of unimaginable abuses,’ Ali says.

This was his big chance to pay tribute to the country he loved so dearly – and he certainly rose to the challenge. When he eventually boarded a plane to Libya, he was not alone. Through IOM’s humanitarian voluntary return assistance, 75 Somalis reunited with their families. This attested to the importance of Ali’s hard work in getting Somali migrants out of Libya’s detention centres and of IOM’s operations to get them home. It was not long before Ali received a new wave of pledges for support.

IOM staff assist migrants as they are travelling home to Somalia. Photo: UNSOM Somalia

Ali’s strong commitment and hard work has gained him wide international recognition, such that, on 18 May 2018, he was granted the African Leadership Award for Outstanding International Humanitarian Service by the Independent Pan African Youth Parliament. With such a commitment to stranded Somali migrants, the sky is the limit for what Ali can achieve.

Through this project, altogether 235 Somali migrants have been assisted with voluntary return from Libya since March 2018, and an additional group of 200 people are expected to be assisted in the month of June 2018. This return and reintegration assistance of Somali migrants is part of the larger EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration, which facilitates orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration management through the development of rights-based and development-focused policies and processes on protection and sustainable reintegration. The EU-IOM Joint Initiative, backed by the EU Trust Fund, covers and has been set up in close cooperation with a total of 26 African countries.

The reintegration support under the Joint Initiative aims to address returnees’ economic, social and psychosocial needs and foster inclusion of communities of return in reintegration planning and support whenever possible. To address these needs, the programme promotes an integrated reintegration approach that supports both migrants and their communities, has the potential to complement local development and aims to mitigate some of the drivers of irregular migration. The reintegration assistance is tailored to needs and opportunities. The value and duration of the assistance is not fixed and can vary. The programme does not foresee specific one size fits all reintegration packages.

The post A Journey from Science to Diplomacy: Rescuing Somali Migrants Stranded in Libya appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Migrants being loaded on to a cargo plane in Kufra. Credit: Rebecca Murray/IPS

By Bibiana Piene
OSLO, Jun 20 2018 (IPS)

What is the relationship between migration and development? And why do people choose to leave or stay in their home countries? Those are among the questions an international research project will explore.

The project, estimated to cost about 5 million euros, is the largest ever EU-funded research project on migration .

It will be Ledheaded by the Peace Research Institute (PRIO) in Norway, in collaboration with research communities in both Europe, Africa and Asia, a. A total of 36 researchers will be involved in this research project.

“We will contribute to long-term solutions to migration challenges, among other things, by looking at the links between Europe’s immigration policy and development policy”, says PRIO researcher and project manager Jorgen Carling to IPS.

Should I stay or should I go?

Among the questions the researchers are asking is what it takes for people to want to stay and create a future in their home countries.

The connection between migration and development is essential in developing constructing a more effective and sustainable migration policy, and tackle the challenges and opportunities that migration brings, Carling states believes.

The researchers will also take a closer look at the term “development”.

“This is not as simple as it sounds, because more development has proven to create more migration, not less. We’re going to analyze this gap and figure out what’s going on”, says Carling.

“We will try to understand how different types of changes work. Development is often used as a collective term for all possible social changes in a positive direction, but in reality some things can be better, for example more prosperity. At the same time, crime can increase, as well as the gap between the poor and the rich,” he adds.

Important piece in political game

The project will start in September.

“I am looking forward to using research in a way that can create a better policy. We’re sure to get new knowledge”, says Carling, who acknowledges that research probably is just a piece in the political game on migration.

“But it’s an important piece”, he emphasizes.

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The post EU Funds Giant Research Project on Migration appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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By WAM
GENEVA, Jun 20 2018 (WAM)

The UAE has reiterated its keenness to deal with the mechanisms of the Human Rights Council with honesty and transparency within the framework of mutual respect, constructive dialogue and fruitful cooperation. The country also reaffirmed its belief that all people share common rights – regardless of colour, gender or race – saying a universal understanding of the concepts of human rights and a broad consensus among all states is vital in order to achieve negotiation.

In a speech delivered at the 38th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Obaid Salem Al Zaabi, Permanent Representative of the UAE to United Nations and other International Organisations in Geneva, expressed his thanks and appreciation to Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, for the valuable briefing of the activities carried out by his office during the past year.

Al Zaabi noted that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted by the UN in 1948 carries noble universal values, some of which developed into moral principles that contributed to the remarkable development of human rights and the service of humanity. While some principles, Al Zaabi noted, have gradually diverged into “strange concepts” which emerge in some societies because those principles are incompatible with the social and cultural beliefs of many societies and ethnicities.

At the political level, Al Zaabi said that some of the principles of the Human Rights Declaration have been used as a mean to apply pressure in foreign relations, for political purposes and as part of foreign diplomacy.

Regarding the work and performance of the various mechanisms of the Human Rights Council, Al Zaabi affirmed the UAE’s keenness and constant effort to apply them with honesty and transparency within the framework of mutual respect, constructive dialogue and fruitful cooperation between the two sides.

He went on to express “deep regret” that many of these mechanisms had come out of the framework of their mandates, causing a consequent negative impact on the effectiveness of the Council’s work and performance.

On the occasion of the end of Zeid Al Hussein’s mandate, Al Zaabi expressed his thanks and appreciation to the High Commissioner for his efforts in supporting the human rights system, despite the difficult tasks and diverse challenges he faced, wishing him success in the future.

WAM/Rasha Abubaker/Esraa Ismail

The post UAE stresses keenness to deal with Human Rights Council mechanisms with honesty and transparency appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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