Africa

Women often walk miles to collect clean drinking water. This podcast looks at water solutions. CREDIT: Linah Mwamachi/IPS

By Linah Mwamachi
NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 19 2023 (IPS)

In the wake of harsh climate change and erratic weather conditions, women and girls are most affected. They often walk miles to collect fresh water which makes them vulnerable to rape and other crimes and infringement of their rights. This podcast is highlighting simple water solutions for women and girls.

 

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The region estimates at least 1,400 have died since a food corruption scam was uncovered in April.

There is an urgent need to have actionable strategies to help strengthen plants and agricultural resilience to drought, heat waves, elevated temperatures, flooding, extreme precipitation, and insect outbreaks. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, USA, Aug 18 2023 (IPS)

Across the U.S., and around the world, extremes in weather patterns, from drought to excessive heat to flooding to wildfires to outbreaks of insect pests and disease have become frequent and are predicted to continue to become more intense because of climate change, and the warming of our planet.

These reoccurring climate-linked extreme events serve as warning signals that no state, country, or region is immune to climate change. Leaders and citizens in all areas must act with urgency to mitigate this existential threat to humanity.

As leaders around the world consider climate mitigation initiatives, they need to be sure to strengthen agricultural crops’ resilience to extreme heat, drought, insect herbivory and flooding, that have become increasingly common

These record-breaking and historical extremes in weather, impacting farmers and our ability to grow essential agricultural crops such as maize, wheat, soybeans, wheat, and vegetables including tomatoes, mark a pivotal moment for all of us, including scientists, and policy makers at both the state and federal levels. Much more needs to happen to strengthen agricultural systems of today so that crops can withstand these adversities.

As leaders around the world consider climate mitigation initiatives, they need to be sure to strengthen agricultural crops’ resilience to extreme heat, drought, insect herbivory and flooding, that have become increasingly common.

Like humans, crops are sensitive to drought and extreme heat and the interactions of drought and heat. When temperatures are high, normal crop growth and development is affected. Further, several important crop physiological processes such as respiration, photosynthesis and transpiration are affected by heat stress.

Similarly, agricultural crops including maize and vegetable crops such as tomato are also sensitive to excessive rainfall and flooding stress when it happens individually or in combination with other stressors. Evidence to date reveals that, in fact, excessive rainfall results in maize yield losses of comparable magnitude to drought.

Ultimately, because of extremes brought about by climate change, plants’ normal growth is affected with consequences for yields, food supply and security as well as agriculture. This is problematic for many reasons, including because agriculture is an important sector of economies of the US, the UK, France and many African countries.

Of concern are the cascading consequences and other legacy effects that may linger on, long after extreme events such as drought have happened. These legacy effects affect both soils, microbial communities living in the soils and the health of crop plants that are grown in years to come.

Clearly, there is an urgent need to have actionable strategies to help strengthen plants and agricultural resilience to drought, heat waves, elevated temperatures, flooding, extreme precipitation, and insect outbreaks.

Strengthening the resilience of agricultural and crop plants demands the incorporation of multiple actionable strategies.

Among the actionable strategies is to encourage farmers to adopt climate-smart practices. Climate smart practices include many approaches ranging from planting heat and drought tolerant crop varieties to planting varieties that have been bred to enhance their photosynthetic capacities and water use efficiencies when periods of stress occur, to applying products such as silicon and silicone nanoparticles to applying inoculants that are made from naturally occurring beneficial soil microbes that can confer tolerance to heat and drought among other stressors.

In addition, growers can adopt soil health conservation practices including planting cover crops, mulching, and practicing no till or reduced tillage. All these practices ultimately improve soil health. It’s a win-win,

In parallel, there is need to fund research to understand how agricultural crops respond to drought, flooding, insect herbivory outbreaks and other climate-linked stresses. There is need to fund research that breeds crops that can grow under the new climate extremes including crops that can grow and produce when two stressors happen in combination.

All these actionable strategies require some form of capital; hence it is important for growers to be assisted with the capital and other inputs they need to adopt climate-smart strategies and other soil health conservation practices. Governments, NGO’s, private funders must work together and create partnerships that seek to ensure that growers and researchers have funds needed to adopt these practices.

In dealing with climate change extremes that threaten the growth, development, and the health of agricultural crops that are important to meet our food security needs, we must choose to facilitate the adoption of practices that strengthen crops resilience to these stressors. Every investment in research and funding the adoption of these strategies by growers helps.

Esther Ngumbi, PhD is Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology, African American Studies Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

There's currently a huge demand across the world for lithium and it's Zimbabwe that has Africa's largest lithium reserve.

Women outside an emergency vehicle aimed at helping those affected by flooding. CREDIT: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN , Aug 18 2023 (IPS)

Torrential monsoon rains have left the people, especially women, in crisis as they are still grappling to recover from the last year’s floods in Pakistan.

“We are yet to return to normal lives after devastation caused by severe rains in June 2002 when the new series of rains have started only to further aggravate our problems,” Jannat Bibi, a resident of Kalam in the Swat Valley, told IPS.

Bibi, 44, a housewife, along with co-villagers, must walk about a kilometre twice a day to collect drinking water for her 10-member family. She says they want the government to provide them with essential needs like food, water, shelter, and medication.

“A new ongoing wave of monsoon rains has left us high and dry as we are facing a host of ailments due to contaminated water.”

“Some non-governmental organisations have given us mineral water, utensils and foodstuff last year in June when torrential rain damaged our mud-built houses, but this year, there’s nobody to extend us a helping hand despite severe floods,” she says.

Most people in the neighbourhood fear that more rain would bring more misery for them as the people have yet to rebuild their homes while roads and health facilities were in shambles.

Dr Farooq Khan in Swat district says the people desperately require clean drinking water as cases of diarrhoea have been increasing among them.

“There are more cases of vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue, haemorrhagic fever (DHF) and Leishmaniasis because the people are exposed to mosquitoes-bites, the transmitters of these diseases, due to pools of stagnant water which serves as breeding grounds for mosquitoes,” Khan said.

Power breakdowns create problems because people cannot get drinking water from wells, and they often store it in uncovered pots, which serve as breeding spots for mosquitoes. “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recorded 18,000 dengue Haemorrhagic fever patients and 18 deaths in 2022,” he said.

National Disaster Management Authority says at least 86 people, including eight children, have been killed by floods and landslides triggered by monsoon rains that have lashed Pakistan since last month. In June 2022, a flood killed 289 people, it says.

“Women are the worst victim of climatic changes as they stay home and have to prepare food, wash clothes and look after children, therefore, we need to focus on their welfare,” Dr Javid Khan, a local physician in Malakand district, which is adjacent to Swat, says.

According to him, about 20 cholera cases have been recorded because people use water contaminated by sewerage pipes during floods.

“The World Health Organization is establishing two diarrhoea treatment centres to prevent outbreaks of food and water-borne diseases,” he said.

Munir Ahmed, a local environmentalist, says that women, representing about half of the country’s population, are the worst affected by torrential rains.

Last year, massive flooding affected nearly two-thirds of the country’s population in Pakistan, as it submerged the low-lying areas inhabited by poor people, he says.

Rains destroyed 1.7 million homes in Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces which also damaged the water sources and cultivable land, he says.

“As the people were recovering from the past year’s devastation caused by flood, a new spell has started dampening their hopes of recovery,” Ahmed says.

More than 1 300 health facilities and 3 000 schools destroyed by 2022’s floods are yet to be built.

“More than 50 000 pregnant women are finding it hard to undergo mandatory checkups at hospitals because of bad roads and lack of transportation in the country,” according to the Ministry of Health. It says the government is providing alternate sources in the shape of mobile vehicles to ensure their home-based clinical examinations.

Jabina Bibi, of the remote Chitral district, waited in stayed at home despite being six months into her pregnancy and didn’t receive a medical checkup until a local NGO sent a team to her locality, and she managed to source iron tablets for the treatment of severe malnourishment.

“The NGO’s doctors proved a blessing for me, and I delivered a normal baby because they carried out an ultrasound which enabled me to know the date of delivery for which I was taken to the hospital located 50 km away,” she said.

Other women also benefited, but the facilities are scarce, she said.

Chitral experienced more floods in July this year, which killed at least ten people. Water-Aid, and non-profit organisation, says that the floods have left almost 700 000 pregnant women in the country without getting maternal healthcare, leaving them and their newborns without support, food, security, and basic medical care. The miscarriage rate also skyrocketed during this period.

Floods causing landslides also resulted in the displacement of people and the loss of millions of livestock.

In Mansehra district, extensive damage rendered many roads unusable, creating significant transportation difficulties.

“We need to find work because construction activities have stopped, and it’s extremely to travel to other districts to find jobs,” Mushtaq Ahmed, 24, a resident of Mansehra, said. Pakistan is the second country with the most melting glaciers due to global warming, and Mansehra is one of the affected districts.

Climate experts believe that women and children are at a much higher risk of losing their lives during a disaster due to their limited access to resources during emergencies. The situation regarding monsoon rains has been under control as of now, but there are forecasts of potential rains in the coming days, which can hammer the last nail in the coffin of those madly hit by rainwaters last year.

Climate change brings, in its wake, deprivation of people from food security, health, education, and jobs, besides exposing women to violence, displacement, and mental health issues, and the government needs to protect the people from the ill effects of floods, experts say.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Israel's parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem. Credit: Unsplash/Rafael Nir

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Aug 18 2023 (IPS)

The prospect of normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia will have enormous implications on Israel and the entire region. Since it will certainly take a personal sacrifice to put Israel’s national interests first, the question is, will Prime Minister Netanyahu muster the courage to do what’s best for the country

Prime Minister Netanyahu faces a historic opportunity to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and set the country on an unparalleled path of progress, security, and peace. But for that to happen, Netanyahu will have to agree to accept the Saudis’ reported demand to establish a path that will lead to the end of the occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

Given, however, Netanyahu’s personal legal woes and his dependence on the most hard-core racist government in Israel’s history to stay in power, will he sacrifice his personal interests by accepting the Saudi demands, which would certainly precipitate the collapse of his government and force him to face his legal peril?

His other choice would be to forfeit such a historic opportunity by continuing to pursue policies that will dismantle Israel’s democracy, convert Israel into an autocracy, intensify the violent conflict with the Palestinians, and put Israel always on the defensive while its enemies lay in wait.

Saudi Arabia is the de facto leading Arab state and is representative of Sunni Islam. Whether or not the Saudis care about the Palestinian cause, they cannot simply abandon the Palestinians to their own devices and still claim the leadership role they highly covet. The Saudis cannot and should not, under any circumstances, agree to normalize relations with Israel unless the Netanyahu government agrees to end the conflict with the Palestinians based on a two-state solution.

For the Palestinians, Saudi Arabia offers the last hope to protect their national interests. Should the Palestinians feel abandoned by the Saudis and have nothing left to lose, they will feel that they have no choice but to resort increasingly to violence against the Israelis with the intent of destabilizing the region and disrupting the normalization process between Israel and the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia. The Palestinians know that should a major conflagration ensue between them and Israel, the Arab states will have little choice but to land on their side.

The advantages to Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia knows how much it can benefit directly from the normalization of relations with Israel in terms of technology, intelligence sharing, and above all regional security. Riyadh also knows that Israel wants normalization as much, if not more than they themselves.

In addition, the Saudis know how much the Biden administration would like Riyadh and Jerusalem to reach an agreement because it would greatly serve the US’s overall regional geostrategic interests. This includes curbing China’s influence, containing Iran’s nuclear weapon program, weakening extremism, and stabilizing the region to ensure the US’ long-term unchallenged power over a region of pivotal strategic importance.

Knowing how much both the US and Israel would benefit from normalization and how eager they are to conclude such an agreement, the Saudis put forth three major requirements from the US as a prerequisite to normalizing relations with Israel:

Guaranteeing Saudi Arabia’s national security along the line of the US’ commitment to NATO, where an attack on any member state constitutes an attack on all member states, including the US.
Providing nuclear facilities for civilian purposes including the production of clean energy and for medical purposes along with the prestige that goes with it.

Approving the purchase of the US’ most advanced weapons systems, including the F-35 airplane among other arsenals. The Saudis are fully aware that President Biden wants to secure a major win just before the elections by building on the Abraham Accords. Obviously, they are in a position to hand him such a win provided that he meets their requirements.

Regardless of how desirable and far-reaching the implications of normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are, for President Biden it remains an extremely difficult task to achieve due to two major factors.

First, the Saudis’ conditional requirements from the US will certainly evoke significant Congressional resistance. But if the deal ends the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on a two-state solution, over which many Democratic leaders including Senators Chris Van Hollen and Tim Kaine insist, the Senate will more than likely approve it with some modifications because they understand and appreciate how significantly it will benefit the US’ geostrategic interest.

The second and more daunting difficulty President Biden faces is Netanyahu’s objections to making any major concession to the Palestinians, especially one that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state. In addition, Netanyahu’s current coalition partners vehemently oppose any major concession to the Palestinians and any such move could lead to the dissolution of his government should Netanyahu make even a partial concession, such as the freezing of settlement expansion or ending any further annexation of Palestinian territory.

Juxtaposed to the position of Netanyahu and his government, it is critical for the Israeli public and a few of the less extreme members in the government to understand how paramount the consequences are for Israel’s future should it normalize relations with Saudi Arabia.

The advantages to Israel

It is hard to exaggerate the enormous advantages Israel would reap. To begin with, it will open the door for normalization of relations with most, if not all, of the Arab and Muslim-majority states, end once and for all Israel’s isolation, and dramatically strengthen its national security, as normalization of relations would inevitably entail security collaboration.

And since any Israeli-Saudi agreement will have to include a definitive roadmap to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it will pull the rug from underneath Israel’s staunch enemy Iran and its proxy Hezbollah, and force Hamas to reconsider its militant posture toward Israel.

Moreover, Israel’s export of technology and other scientific knowhow in all fields of endeavor, along with the export of military hardware, will exponentially grow along with foreign investments, making the country an economic powerhouse with a corresponding political influence.

With that, Israel’s friendship and collaborative relations with the US and the EU will reach new heights and dramatically enhance their shared regional geostrategic interest and mitigate any friction in policy or strategy in dealing with any regional conflict.

Finally, ending the occupation will restore Israel’s moral foundation, mitigate the poisonous hatred between Israel and the Palestinians, restore the dignity and the integrity of the Israeli military, and most importantly, end the dehumanization of Palestinians under occupation.

Should an agreement be reached, given the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflicting issues, Saudi Arabia and the US should establish a road map and timeline for the implementation of the various components of the agreement while monitoring the progress made to ensure that both sides are fully complying with the provisions included therein.

Moreover, the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement should be enshrined in a treaty between the two sides that binds future Israeli and Palestinian governments and is guaranteed by the US and Saudi Arabia.

I concede that the prospect of Netanyahu changing his position is remote. But given his inflated ego and his concern over his legacy, coupled with increasing pressure from the US, there might be a small chance that he changes his mind, albeit such a leap is laden with considerable personal risk.

The question is, will he nevertheless muster the courage and rise to the historic occasion, show statesmanship, and leave a legacy of one who sacrificed himself politically for the sake of the nation?

I doubt he will, but miracles do happen, and Israel today is desperately in need of one.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A selection of the best photos from the African continent and beyond.

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Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen. He will hand power to his son later this month, after rigged elections. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Kris Janssens
PHNOM PENH, Aug 17 2023 (IPS)

Democracy is declining in Southeast Asia. The Cambodian prime minister will hand over his office to his son later this month, after rigged elections. Meanwhile, Thailand’s largest political party is kept from power.

”What do you expect, he’s in the military!” My fellow journalist is quite firm when I ask her what she thinks about the prime minister-designate of Cambodia. We sit in her favourite coffee shop near the royal palace in the capital city Phnom Penh, where we occasionally meet to discuss political issues.

 

Little alternative

She doesn’t think Hun Manet (45), who will become the country’s next leader on August 22, will change the system. Not only because he is an army chief, but also because she thinks father Hun Sen (71) will continue to play an important role behind the scenes till his very last day.

This has always been Hun Sen's strategy. Emphasizing he has brought peace and stability after the turbulent Khmer Rouge era, while mildly pampering the middle class to avoid any uprising. According to his successor, who also held a post-election speech, “the nation’s biggest asset is its human resources”

“Until then, the son cannot possibly tackle the widespread corruption, even if he wanted to,” she says, referring to a story about children of party officials who are on the payrolls of ministries without actually working there.

My colleague has been living in Cambodia since the late 1990s and she knows that there’s little alternative. If the current rulers were to disappear today, the lights would go out in this country. Literally, because the prime minister’s family also owns the only electricity company.

The dynastic succession from father to son raised more eyebrows among foreign observers than among Cambodian citizens. In recent decades, they have mainly been busy rebuilding their country after the devastating Khmer Rouge period and the turbulent 1980s.

Hun Sen’s CPP (Cambodian People’s Party) has ruled the country since the late 1970s and has declared a landslide victory after last month’s national elections. This wasn’t a surprise, as all significant opponents had been eliminated in advance.

 

A game of thrones

In neighboring Thailand, the opposition was allowed to participate in recent elections. In May this year, the reformist and anti-junta Move Forward Party (MFP) even became the largest party. But leader Pita Limjaroenrat failed to gather enough support from the military-appointed senators to become prime minister.

Limjaroenrat is even suspended as a member of parliament for allegedly violating electoral rules. The new prime minister will be a candidate from the second largest group in Parliament, Pheu Thai. This is the party of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (74), who has been living in exile for fifteen years to escape convictions and will now return to Thailand.

“So it’s confirmed”, writes political journalist and Thailand expert Andrew MacGregor Marshall on his X-account (formerly Twitter).

“(King) Vajiralongkorn and Thaksin have done a deal (…) to pardon Thaksin if he keeps MFP out of power”

 

A history of coups

Thailand has a history of successive military coups, each time overthrowing civilian governments. The last one was in 2014 when outgoing Prime Minister Prayut took power. Five years later, he was able to stay in office as prime minister after doubtful elections. Future Forward, the predecessor of MFP, was sidelined.

But unlike the Cambodians, the Thai people are not easily lectured by an old power elite. In 2020, student protests grew into national anti-establishment demonstrations. For the first time, the monarchy was also openly questioned.

King Vajiralongkorn, who inherited the throne from his popular father Bhumibol in 2016, is accused of rapidly gaining powers never possessed by his predecessor. However, Thailand has strict laws against lese-majeste and several students were sentenced to prison for participating in these (peaceful) demonstrations.

 

Behind the scenes

Last month, dissatisfied MFP supporters gathered in the streets of Bangkok to express their anger. More protest is to be expected. In an opinion article for ‘Bangkok Post’, political scientist Thitinan Pongsudhirak says the voter has little to say, while the real political game takes place behind the scenes. He is referring to the Constitutional Court, which can easily eliminate (opposition) parties.

“The commotion and seeming chaos among political parties and politicians, in contrast to the appointed agencies and established centres of power, has been used to discredit and weaken democratic institutions”, he writes.

Same story in 2017 in Cambodia, where the Supreme Court outlawed the opposition party CNRP (Cambodia National Rescue Party). For this year’s ballot, political opponent Candle Light Party (CLP, the successor to CNRP) was simply disqualified. According to the election committee, “the party failed to submit a copy of the original party registration”.

 

Nation’s biggest asset

Meanwhile, in the coffee bar in Phnom Penh, we are finishing our coffees. The prediction about father Hun Sen’s interference seems to be accurate. In a recent speech, the outgoing prime minister hit out at election critics in the EU and the US. “Democracy has won,” he said. He called the family transfer of power “needed to ensure peace in the country and to prevent bloodshed”.

This has always been Hun Sen’s strategy. Emphasizing he has brought peace and stability after the turbulent Khmer Rouge era, while mildly pampering the middle class to avoid any uprising. According to his successor, who also held a post-election speech, “the nation’s biggest asset is its human resources”.

It is promising that the new leader recognizes the opportunities (but also the challenges) of his very young population, with a median age of 25 years well below the global average. Hopefully this Hun Manet will give Cambodian politics a more human face, even though he is ‘the son of his father’.

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A South Sudanese soldier carries a machine gun. Credit: punghi/ Shutterstock

By Samuel Kofi Tetteh Baah and Christoph Lakner
WASHINGTON DC, Aug 17 2023 (IPS)

In 1990, about half of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia and two-thirds in East Asia and the Pacific were living in extreme poverty (defined as living on less than what today amounts to around $2.15 per person per day).

In the three decades that followed, these three regions have followed quite different development paths. In 2019, 35 percent of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa were estimated to be living in extreme poverty, compared to 9 percent in South Asia or 1 percent in East Asia and the Pacific.

Why has Sub-Saharan Africa been left behind? What explains the sluggish progress in poverty reduction in the region?

The role of fragility, conflict, and violence in stifling development

Fragility, conflict, and violence, or, more generally, the lack of peace and security, is one of the key barriers to poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The World Bank’s list of fragile, conflict-affected, and violent (FCV) countries in 1998, the year with the earliest available data, indicates that 13 of the 24 FCV countries worldwide were in Sub-Saharan Africa (54%, or slightly over a half).

By 2021, the year with the latest available data, the number of FCV countries in Sub-Saharan Africa had increased by six, and the region still accounted for roughly half of all FCV countries in the world (19 of the 37 FCV countries).

Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the world had already become more violent over the years, largely driven by increasing counts of FCV countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa.

These two regions do not only have the most cases of fragility, conflict, and violence, but also the worst trends in extreme poverty.

Thirty out of the 48 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (almost two-thirds) have been designated as a fragile, conflict-affected, or violent (FCV) country at least once since 1998; in the Middle East and North Africa, it is 7 out of 14 countries (or a half).

Extreme poverty has decreased at a slow pace in Sub-Saharan Africa and increasing in the Middle East and North Africa (though at lower levels of poverty and subject to greater uncertainty due to a lack of recent data for many countries in the Middle East).

Besides the severe impact on human life and happiness, conflicts worsen a country’s ability to promote its own development and eradicate poverty. They lead to the loss of lives (human capital) and property (physical capital), thereby stifling investment, growth, and poverty reduction.

From an economic standpoint, they destroy investor confidence in the economy and lead to wasteful military spending. Conflicts destabilize economic activity, disrupt food value chains, and increase the risk of food insecurity and hunger.

In times of political or civil unrest, people flee for safety in neighboring countries, human mobility and transportation can be restricted, trust and social capital get destroyed, and people live in fear and panic with little or no hope for a better life.

All these factors are contrary to the values of freedom, peace, and stability necessary for poverty reduction.

Poverty and fragility: a vicious circle

The lack of peace increases the risk of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. All FCV countries in the region in 1998 were low-income countries, whereas the non-FCV countries were split between middle-income and low-income countries.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, the Central Africa Republic, and Liberia are highly conflict-affected, and are the only countries that have remained FCV countries without interruptions since 1998.

These four low-income countries had an average extreme poverty rate as high as 73 percent in 1998, while the remaining FCV countries had an average rate of 44 percent compared with 56 percent for all non-FCV low-income countries.

In 2019, the abovementioned four countries still had a high extreme poverty rate of 58 percent, almost twice the extreme poverty rate in the remaining FCV countries or all non-FCV low-income countries (34 percent and 39 percent, respectively).

Fragility and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

Or could it be that the lack of peace in Sub-Saharan Africa is because of poverty (and inequality) in the region? Studies have suggested that grievance increases the risk of conflict, and grievance may occur when individuals or groups of individuals are socially, politically, or culturally deprived.

Conflicts are more likely when deprivation occurs along the lines of ethnicity, religion, or geographical location. In fact, high ethnic and cultural diversity in Sub-Saharan Africa increases the proclivity for such conflicts.

A negative relationship between income status and FCV status, supports the idea that poverty drives conflicts. On the other hand, it is important to stress that this is not an automatic mechanism: eight countries have always been low-income countries but were not FCV countries in 2019.

Also, two of them (Rwanda and Uganda) have never been FCV over the entire period for which data are available. Overall, poverty and fragility can re-inforce each other and create a vicious cycle or a trap.

There are other factors that might jointly explain the high levels of poverty and fragility in Sub-Saharan Africa, such as low schooling attainment, high inequality in educational outcomes, and the lack of decent jobs. Improving educational outcomes for all (i.e., SDG 4) and increasing job opportunities for all (i.e., SDG 8) would therefore be priority areas in Sub-Saharan Africa that could potentially break the poverty-fragility trap that the region seems to be stuck in.

A highly educated population is more likely to be tolerant, while education and employment opportunities offer the most likely route out of poverty. However, these policy actions are more long-term in perspective, and require peace and stability to be effective.

Samuel Kofi Tetteh Baah is Consultant, Poverty and Inequality Unit, Development Economics Research Group, World Bank; Christoph Lakner is Senior Economist, Development Data Group, World Bank.

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the UK Government through the Data and Evidence for Tackling Extreme Poverty (DEEP) Research Program.

Source: World Bank

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 17 2023 (IPS)

The artificial intelligence (AI) platform ChatGPT, whose negative consequences include misinformation, is facing new charges of political bias.

According to a study by the University of East Anglia (UEA), released August 17, AI ChatGPT shows “a significant and systemic left-wing bias”.

Published in the journal Public Choice, the findings show that ChatGPT’s responses favour the Democrats in the US, the Labour Party in the UK, and President Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party in Brazil.

Concerns of an inbuilt political bias in ChatGPT have been raised previously but this is the first largescale study using a consistent, evidenced-based analysis, say a team of researchers in the UK and Brazil, who developed a rigorous new method to check for political bias.

Lead author Dr Fabio Motoki, of Norwich Business School at the University of East Anglia, said: “With the growing use by the public of AI-powered systems to find out facts and create new content, it is important that the output of popular platforms such as ChatGPT is as impartial as possible”.

“The presence of political bias can influence user views and has potential implications for political and electoral processes.”

“Our findings reinforce concerns that AI systems could replicate, or even amplify, existing challenges posed by the Internet and social media.”

Asked if it was possible to avoid or circumvent the political bias in ChatGPT, Dr Motoki told IPS: “Our study does not directly address this issue. What you ask is a recent and active area of research. What we do create is a method to systematically measure bias by leveraging the ability of these more advanced models of answering questions in a human-like fashion, while statistically overcoming some issues around their randomness.”

The main contribution of the study, he pointed out, is addressing several standing issues in the AI bias literature with a simple procedure.

“We posit that our tool is a way of democratizing the oversight of these models, acting as a guide to measure their biases and hold their creators accountable”.

“I can’t go into details because of a non-disclosure agreement, but an entity (I cannot say whether a government agency or a private company) has asked me to produce a technical report using this method. Therefore, we expect it to have a real-world impact, helping address your concern of avoiding bias,” he said.

According to the study, the researchers developed an innovative new method to test for ChatGPT’s political neutrality.

The platform was asked to impersonate individuals from across the political spectrum while answering a series of more than 60 ideological questions.

The responses were then compared with the platform’s default answers to the same set of questions – allowing the researchers to measure the degree to which ChatGPT’s responses were associated with a particular political stance.

To overcome difficulties caused by the inherent randomness of ‘large language models’ that power AI platforms such as ChatGPT, each question was asked 100 times and the different responses collected.

These multiple responses were then put through a 1000-repetition ‘bootstrap’ (a method of re-sampling the original data) to further increase the reliability of the inferences drawn from the generated text, according to the study.

“We created this procedure because conducting a single round of testing is not enough,” said co-author Victor Rodrigues. “Due to the model’s randomness, even when impersonating a Democrat, sometimes ChatGPT answers would lean towards the right of the political spectrum.”

A number of further tests were undertaken to ensure the method was as rigorous as possible. In a ‘dose-response test’ ChatGPT was asked to impersonate radical political positions.

In a ‘placebo test,’ it was asked politically-neutral questions. And in a ‘profession-politics alignment test’ it was asked to impersonate different types of professionals.

“We hope that our method will aid scrutiny and regulation of these rapidly developing technologies,” said co-author Dr Pinho Neto. “By enabling the detection and correction of LLM biases, we aim to promote transparency, accountability, and public trust in this technology,” he added.

The unique new analysis tool created by the project would be freely available and relatively simple for members of the public to use, thereby “democratising oversight,” said Dr Motoki.

As well as checking for political bias, the tool can be used to measure other types of biases in ChatGPT’s responses.

According to the UEA study, while the research project did not set out to determine the reasons for the political bias, the findings did point towards two potential sources.

The first was the training dataset – which may have biases within it, or added to it by the human developers, which the developers’ ‘cleaning’ procedure had failed to remove.

The second potential source was the algorithm itself, which may be amplifying existing biases in the training data.

Besides Dr Motoki, other researchers included Dr Valdemar Pinho Neto (EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance – FGV EPGE, and Center for Empirical Studies in Economics – FGV CESE), and Victor Rodrigues (Nova Educação).

Meanwhile, citing a report from the Center for AI Safety, the New York Times reported May 31 that a group of over 350 AI industry leaders warned that artificial intelligence poses a growing new danger to humanity –and should be considered a “societal risk on a par with pandemics and nuclear wars”.

“We must take those warnings seriously,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last June. “Our proposed Global Digital Compact, New Agenda for Peace, and Accord on the global governance of AI, will offer multilateral solutions based on human rights,” Guterres said.

“But the advent of generative AI must not distract us from the damage digital technology is already doing to our world. The proliferation of hate and lies in the digital space is causing grave global harm – now. It is fueling conflict, death and destruction – now. It is threatening democracy and human rights – now. It is undermining public health and climate action – now,” he warned.

Guterres also said the UN is developing “a Code of Conduct for Information Integrity on Digital Platforms” — ahead of the UN Summit of the Future scheduled to take place in September 2024.

“The Code of Conduct will be a set of principles that we hope governments, digital platforms and other stakeholders will implement voluntarily,” he told reporters.

A copy of the study is available via the following Dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/dsfdvc77xdaumuau74ry1/h?rlkey=0mu6cr88ax8fdrj8k1k174741&dl=0

The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a UK Top 25 university (Complete University Guide and HESA Graduate Outcomes Survey) and is ranked in the UK Top 30 in the Sunday Times and Guardian University guides. It also ranks in the UK Top 20 for research quality (Times Higher Education REF2021 Analysis) and the UK Top 10 for impact on Sustainable Development Goals.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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If people living in informal settlements gained access to adequate housing, the average life span would jump 2.4 years on average globally, saving 730,000 lives each year. Credit: Lova Rabary-Rakontondravony/IPS

By Jonathan Reckford and Joseph Muturi
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Aug 16 2023 (IPS)

When representatives from dozens of countries gathered recently at the UN High Level Political Forum in New York to share progress on their efforts to achieve the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this disturbing reality was clear: the world is not even close to meeting the goals by 2030 as intended.

According to the report released at the meeting, progress on more than half of the SDG targets is weak and insufficient, with 30% of targets stalled or in reverse. In particular, progress towards SDG 11, which centers on making “cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” is stagnating, signaling regression for the third year in a row.

Unless governments take urgent action to address the plight of more than 1 billion people struggling daily to survive in slums and other poorly constructed informal settlements, we will not achieve the SDGs.

Unless governments take urgent action to address the plight of more than 1 billion people struggling daily to survive in slums and other poorly constructed informal settlements, we will not achieve the SDGs

Access to affordable, safe housing is a fundamental human right, and intrinsically linked to building sustainable and resilient communities. It’s time world leaders turned their attention to improving housing conditions in informal settlements as a critical first step in helping to solve the most pressing development challenges of our time, from health and education to jobs and climate resilience.

Consider Milka Achieng, 31, who lives among the more than 250,000 residents of Kibera, a bustling hub of mud-walled homes and small businesses that make up one of the world’s largest informal settlements on the south side of Nairobi, Kenya.

Every day, Milka heads out for work and walks past the kiosk where she pumps water that isn’t clean enough to drink without boiling. She passes neighbors who live with the constant fear of eviction and the threat of deadly fires sparked by jerry-rigged electrical lines.

Yet despite these conditions, Milka remains upbeat. She works for a Kenya-based startup that, from its production facility in the heart of Kibera, cranks out firesafe blocks designed to make homes in informal settlements safer and more resilient. These are the kinds of innovative, scalable solutions that not only hold promise for the future of Kibera, but also for the millions of families struggling to keep their loved ones healthy and safe in informal communities around the globe.

By 2050, nearly 70% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas, making the proliferation of informal settlements inevitable – unless world governments take bold, collective action.

A new report reveals the incredible, transformational benefits – in terms of health, education, and income –  if world leaders invest in upgrading housing in informal settlements. The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) modeling from 102 low- and middle-income countries shows that if people living in informal settlements gained access to adequate housing, the average life span would jump 2.4 years on average globally, saving 730,000 lives each year.

This translates to more deaths prevented than if malaria were to be eliminated. The report also found that as many as 41.6 million additional children would be enrolled in school worldwide.

Economic growth, meanwhile, would jump by as much as 10.5% in some countries, whether measured as GDP or gross national income per capita. The resulting increase in living standards would exceed the projected cost of improving informal settlements in many countries.

These findings provide a long-overdue wake-up call to governments and municipal authorities that prioritizing safe and secure housing would have far-reaching implications for advancing not just community wellbeing, but national and global economic prosperity.

World leaders whose countries contribute billions of dollars annually to foreign assistance yet don’t prioritize improving informal settlements are making a grave mistake. Their goals related to education, health, and other areas of human wellbeing hinge on how well the world responds to trends such as growing inequities, rapid urbanization, and a worsening global housing crisis.

As the heads of an international housing organization and a global network of slum dwellers, respectively, we believe governments have an urgent responsibility to invest in comprehensive solutions to our global housing crisis.

This includes supporting start-ups, such as Milka’s factory, which are pioneering innovative, low-cost, and community-driven solutions to strengthen the foundation of unsafe housing settlements worldwide.

Simultaneously, officials at the global, national and municipals levels must ensure that residents have land tenure security, climate-resilient homes, and basic services such as clean water and sanitation.

Importantly, IIED researchers also concluded that, while they couldn’t put a precise number on it, the rehabilitation of informal settlements would have a clear and positive “spillover effect” by strengthening environmental, political and health care systems for all. This, in turn, would improve overall societal wellbeing for generations to come.

Upgrading the world’s supply of adequate housing is a lever for equitable human development and a cornerstone for sustainable urban development. Global, national and community stakeholders must join forces with the more than 1 billion voices clamoring for greater access to safe and secure homes.

When residents of informal settlements do better, everyone does better. Strikingly, it’s that simple.

Jonathan Reckford is president and CEO of Habitat for Humanity International. Joseph Muturi is chair of Slum Dwellers International. 

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