Africa

Nigerian authorities are trying to unravel how the governor’s number was compromised.

She was married to the country's third President Levy Mwanawasa, who served from 2002 until his death in 2008.

An Afghan mother holds her daughter, staring at the light from behind her obscured window. Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell

By Alison Davidian
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 2024 (IPS)

I’ve just come back from the north of Afghanistan. I asked the women I met what they want the world to know about their lives.

One woman, Nasima told me: “I was married at 16. I couldn’t finish school. My hope was that my daughter’s life would be better. Now I’m worried her life is going to be worse. To those who are still listening to our voices, please help us fight for our freedom.”

This week marks three years since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

Three years’ worth of countless decrees, directives, and statements targeting women and girls – stripping them of their fundamental rights. Eviscerating their autonomy.

A 31-year-old woman sits by the window. She used to be an entrepreneur before the Taliban takeover. Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell

Our latest publication, launched today, shows trends based on rounds of consultations we’ve done with thousands of Afghan women, from the provincial capitals to the most rural areas since August 2021.

One of the first, most striking, trends is the erasure of Afghan women from public life.

To date, no woman in Afghanistan is in a leadership position anywhere that has influence politically, at the national or provincial level. When Afghan women are engaged in the Taliban’s structures, their roles are largely about monitoring compliance of other women with their discriminatory decrees.

This political erasure is mirrored at the social level. Our data shows that when you take away basic rights, it impacts every area of life. Of the women we surveyed, 98 per cent felt they had limited or zero influence on decision-making in their communities.

It is also reflected in the home. Our data shows that the percentage of women who feel they can influence decision-making at the household level has dropped by nearly 60 per cent over the last year. To give some context, three years ago an Afghan women could technically decide to run for President. Now, she may not even be able to decide when to go and buy groceries.

It wasn’t perfect three years ago. But it wasn’t this.

Linked to the loss of rights, our data points to an escalating mental health crisis. Sixty-eight per cent of the women we consulted report “bad” or “very bad” mental health. And 8 per cent indicated knowing at least one women or girl who had attempted suicide.

What is also clear three years in, is that the Taliban’s restrictions on the rights of women and girls will affect generations to come.

Our analysis shows that by 2026, the impact of leaving 1.1 million girls out of school and over 100,000 women out of university is correlated with an increase in the rate of early childbearing by 45 per cent; and an increased risk of maternal mortality by at least 50 per cent.

In the face of this deepening women’s rights crisis, I am often asked: what can we do to support Afghan women and girls?

My answer is always this one key thing.

We must continue to invest in women. Nothing undermines the Taliban’s vision for society more than empowering the very part of the population they seek to oppress.

Practically, based on UN Women’s work over the past three years, investing in women translates into three main strategies:

1. Allocate flexible and long-term funding to grassroots women’s organizations. This is one of the most effective ways to reach women and girls, respond to their needs, and invest in one of the few sectors where women can still influence decision-making. It’s hard, but it’s possible.

2. Design programmes dedicated to countering the erasure of women and girls, investing directly in their resilience, empowerment, and leadership. Initiatives particularly for education, livelihoods, and entrepreneurship are crucial ways to meaningfully address structural drivers of gender inequality.

3. Finally, it is essential to facilitate spaces where Afghan women can express their concerns and priorities directly. Our data shows that Afghan women want to represent themselves. But one meeting and one participation option will not do. Across any engagement, we need to ask: How can we consult and include Afghan women? What can we do differently to break the pattern of women’s exclusion?

Three years ago, the whole world was watching a takeover that was livestreaming horror after horror.

Three years later, while the world’s attention may have turned elsewhere, the horrors have not stopped for Afghan women and girls, nor has their conviction to stand against the oppression.

When it comes to the fight for women’s rights, we are at an inflection point in Afghanistan, but also globally. The world is watching what happens to women and girls in Afghanistan. In some places, it watches to condemn; in others, it watches to emulate the Taliban’s structural oppression.

We cannot leave Afghan women to fight alone. If we do, we have no moral ground to fight for women’s rights anywhere.

Their fate determines the fate of women everywhere.

What we do – or fail to do – for Nasima, her daughter, and all Afghan women and girls, is the ultimate test of who we are as a global community and what we stand for.

Alison Davidian, UN Women Country Representative in Afghanistan, spoke at the noon press briefing at the UN Headquarters on August 13 about the state of women and girls three years since the Taliban takeover.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug 14 2024 (IPS)

When history repeats itself, the first time is a tragedy; the next is a farce. If we fail to learn from past financial crises, we risk making avoidable errors, often with irreversible, even tragic consequences.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Between rock and hard place
Many people worldwide suffered greatly during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis (GFC) and the Great Recession. However, the experiences of most developing nations were significantly different from those of the global North.

Developing nations’ varied responses reflected their circumstances, the constraints of their policymakers, and their understanding of events and options.

Hence, the global South reacted very differently. With more limited means, most developing countries responded quite dissimilarly to rich nations.

Hard hit by the GFC and the ensuing Great Recession, developing countries’ financial positions have been further weakened by tepid growth since. Worse, their foreign reserves and fiscal balances declined as sovereign debt rose.

Most emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) mainly save US dollars. The few countries with large trade surpluses have long bought US Treasury bonds. This finances US fiscal, trade, and current account deficits, including for war.

Vagaries of finance
After the GFC, international investors – including pension funds, mutual funds, and hedge funds – initially continued to be risk-averse in their exposure to EMDEs.

Thus, the GFC hit growth worldwide through various channels at different times. As EMDE earnings and prospects fell, investor interest declined.

But with more profits to be made from cheap finance, thanks to ‘quantitative easing’, funds flowed to the Global South. As the US Fed raised interest rates in early 2022, funds fled developing nations, especially the poorest.

Long propped up by easy credit, real estate and stock markets collapsed. With finance becoming more powerful and consequential, the real economy suffered.

As growth slowed, developing countries’ export earnings fell as funds flowed out. Thus, instead of helping counter-cyclically, capital flowed out when most needed.

The consequences of such reversals have varied considerably. Sadly, many who should have known better chose to remain blind to such dangers.

After globalisation peaked around the turn of the century, most wealthy nations reversed earlier trade liberalisation, invoking the GFC as the pretext. Thus, growth slowed with the GFC, i.e., well before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Markets collapse
Previously supported by the Great Moderation’s easy money, stock markets in EMDEs plunged in the GFC. The turmoil arguably hurt EMDEs much more than rich nations.

Most rich and many middle-income households in EMDEs own equities, while many pension funds have increasingly invested in financial markets in recent decades.

Financial turmoil directly impacts many incomes, assets and the real economy. Worse, banks stop lending when their credit is most needed.

This forces firms to cut investment spending and instead use their savings and earnings to cover operating costs, often causing them to lay off workers.

As stock markets plummet, solvency is adversely impacted as firms and banks become overleveraged, precipitating other problems.

Falling stock prices trigger downward spirals, slowing the economy, increasing unemployment, and worsening real wages and working conditions.

As government revenues decline, they borrow more to make up the shortfall.

Various economies cope differently with such impacts as government responses vary.

Much depends on how governments respond with countercyclical and social protection policies. However, earlier deregulation and reduced means have typically eroded their capacities and capabilities.

Policy matters
Official policy response measures to the GFC endorsed by the US and IMF included those they had criticised East Asian governments for pursuing during their 1997-1998 financial crises.

Such efforts included requiring banks to lend at low interest rates, financing or ‘bailing out’ financial institutions and restricting short selling and other previously permissible practices.

Many forget that the US Fed’s mandate is broader than most other central banks. Instead of providing financial stability by containing inflation, it is also expected to sustain growth and full employment.

Many wealthy countries adopted bold monetary and fiscal policies in response to the Great Recession. Lower interest rates and increased public spending helped.

With the world economy in a protracted slowdown since the GFC, tighter fiscal and monetary policies since 2022 have especially hurt developing countries.

Effective counter-cyclical policies and long-term regulatory reforms were discouraged. Instead, many complied with market and IMF pressures to cut fiscal deficits and inflation.

Reform finance
Nevertheless, appeals for more government intervention and regulation are common during crises. However, procyclical policies replace counter-cyclical measures once a situation is less threatening, as in late 2009.

Quick fixes rarely offer adequate solutions. They do not prevent future crises, which rarely replay previous crises. Instead, measures should address current and likely future risks, not earlier ones.

Financial reforms for developing countries should address three matters. First, needed long-term investments should be adequately funded with affordable and reliable financing.

Well-run development banks, relying mainly on official resources, can help fund such investments. Commercial banks should also be regulated to support desired investments.

Second, financial regulation should address new conditions and challenges, but regulatory frameworks should be countercyclical. As with fiscal policy, capital reserves should grow in good times to strengthen resilience to downturns.

Third, countries should have appropriate controls to deter undesirable capital inflows which do not enhance economic development or financial stability.

Precious financial resources will be needed to stem the disruptive outflows that invariably follow financial turmoil and to mitigate their consequences.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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