Africa

Ons Jabeur sweeps past a below-par Petra Kvitova to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals and set up a repeat of last year's final against Elena Rybakina.

The shortages of days in the classroom and teachers, and the poverty of their schools and living conditions, provide for a very poor education for Venezuela's children and augur a significant lag for their performance in adult life and for the country's development. CREDIT: El Ucabista

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jul 10 2023 (IPS)

Hundreds of thousands of children and young people, and thousands of their teachers, drop out of regular schooling in Venezuela year after year, and most of those who remain go to the classroom only two or three days a week, highlighting the abysmal backwardness of education in the country.

“Why continue studying, to graduate unemployed and earn a pittance? We prefer to get into a trade, make money, help our parents; there are a lot of needs at home,” Edgar, 19, who with his brother Ernesto, 18, has been gardening in homes in southeastern Caracas for three years, told IPS."The education crisis did not begin in March 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic. These are problems that form part of the complex humanitarian emergency that Venezuela has been experiencing for many years." -- Luisa Pernalete

A study this year by the non-governmental organization Con la Escuela (With the School), in seven of Venezuela’s 24 states -including the five most populated- found that 22 percent of students skip classes to help their parents, and in the 15-17 age group this is the case for 45 percent of girls.

In the school where teacher Rita Castillo worked, in La Pomona, a shantytown in the torrid western city of Maracaibo, “for many days in a row there is no running water, there are blackouts, and it’s impossible to use the fans to cool off the classrooms,” she told IPS.

The classes in the school are divided into 17 to 25 children each: the first three grades of primary school attend on Mondays and Tuesdays, the next three grades on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and Fridays make up for whoever missed class the previous days. That is in the mornings; secondary school students attend during the hot afternoons.

These are the first steps towards the definitive dropout of students: 1.2 million in the three years prior to 2021 and another 190,000 in the 2021-2022 school year, with 2022-2023 still to be estimated, with no signs of a reversal in the trend.

“The dropout rate is also high in secondary schools in Caracas, and the students who remain often pass from one year to the next without having received, for example, a single physics or chemistry class, due to the shortage of teachers,” Lucila Zambrano, a math teacher in public schools in the populous western part of the capital, told IPS.

Authorities in the education districts are increasingly calling on retired teachers to return to work, “but who is going to return to earn for 25, 20 or less dollars a month?” Isabel Labrador, a retired teacher from Colón, a small town in the southwestern state of Táchira, told IPS.

Currently, the monthly food basket costs 526 dollars, according to the Documentation and Analysis Center of the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers.

 

The infrastructure and equipment of many schools is seriously affected in different areas of Venezuela, and its recovery is essential as a space not only for students to obtain knowledge but also for the socialization and coexistence of students, teachers and representatives. CREDIT: E. Carvajal / CPV

 

Teachers held colorful street protests in the first few months of 2023, demanding decent salaries and other benefits acquired by their collective bargaining agreement, and these demands remain unheeded as the school year ends this July.

Teachers earning ridiculously small salaries, high school dropout rates, rundown infrastructure, lack of services, loss of quality and a marked lag in the education of children and young people are the predominant characteristics of Venezuelan public education today.

But “the education crisis did not begin in March 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic. These are problems that form part of the complex humanitarian emergency that Venezuela has been experiencing for many years,” Luisa Pernalete, a trainer and researcher at the Fe y Alegría educational institution for decades, told IPS.

 

Numbers in red

In the current school year, enrollment in kindergarten, primary and secondary education totaled 7.7 million, said Education Minister Yelitze Santaella, in this country which according to the National Institute of Statistics has 33.7 million inhabitants, but only 28.7 million according to university studies.

The difference in the numbers may be due to the migration of more than seven million Venezuelans in the last decade, according to United Nations agencies – a figure that the government of President Nicolás Maduro considers exaggerated, although it has not provided an alternative number.

The attraction or the need to migrate, in the face of the complex humanitarian emergency – whose material basis begins with the loss of four-fifths of GDP in the period 2013-2021 – also mark the desertion of students and teachers.

In the three-year period ending in 2021 alone, 166,000 teachers (25 percent of the total) and 1.2 million students (15 percent of the number enrolled at the time), dropped out, according to a study by the private Andrés Bello Catholic University (Ucab) in Caracas, ranked as the top higher education center in the country.

Con la Escuela estimates that at least 40 percent of the teachers who have quit have already emigrated to other countries.

Educational coverage among the population aged three to 17 years continues to decline: 1.5 million children and adolescents between those ages were left out of the education system in the 2021-2022 period. The hardest hit group is children between three and five years of age, where coverage amounts to just 56 percent.

 

Public school teachers, whose basic salary barely exceeds 20 dollars per month, have held massive protests in Caracas and other cities in the country demanding a living wage and compliance with the provisions of their collective bargaining agreement. CREDIT: M. Chourio / Efecto Cocuyo

 

According to official figures, there are 29,400 educational institutions in the country, of which 24,400 are public, with 6.4 million students and 542,000 teachers; and 5,000 are private, with 1.2 million students and 121,000 teachers.

They cover three years of early education, six years of primary school and five years of secondary school. It was decreed 153 years ago that primary education should be free and compulsory.

According to Ucab and Con la Escuela, 85 percent of public schools do not have internet, 69 percent have acute shortages of electricity and 45 percent do not have running water. There are also deficiencies in health services (93 percent), laboratories (79 percent) and theater or music rooms (85 percent).

Surveying 79 public schools in seven states, Con la Escuela found that 52 percent of the bathrooms are in poor condition, 35 percent of the schools do not have enough bathrooms, and two percent have no bathrooms.

In 19 percent of the schools classes have been suspended due to the damage to the toilets, and 34 percent do not have sewage pipes.

“Water is the service that generates the most suspension of classes in Venezuela,” Pernalete said. “Classes can be held without electricity in the school, but you can’t do without water, and if the service fails in the community or in the whole town, then it’s hard for teachers to go to work or the families don’t send their children to school.”

 

The backpack decorated with the tricolor Venezuelan flag, which is given to primary school students in the country’s public schools, is often carried by immigrants, such as these walking along a Colombian highway, as many students and teachers, in addition to dropping out of school, go abroad. CREDIT: JRS

 

Con la Escuela also found that 36 percent of the classrooms are insufficient for the number of youngsters enrolled, 44 percent of the schools have classrooms in poor condition and 50 percent reported desks in poor condition.

Moreover, the Ucab investigation found “ghost schools”, which appear in the Education Ministry figures but are actually only empty shells.

“We have gone to the field with the list of these schools and we have found that they no longer exist. There are just four walls standing,” said Eduardo Cantera, director of Ucab’s Center for Educational Innovation.

 

From precariousness to backwardness

If the salary of a new teacher in a public school is 20 dollars a month, those who are five levels higher in the ranks do not earn much more, just 30 or 35 dollars, although they do receive some bonuses that are not part of the salary.

In Caracas, private schools – which serve from kindergarten to the end of high school – a teacher earns about 100, maybe 200 or more dollars, depending on seniority, hours of work, and the families’ ability to pay.

The drop in wages cuts across the entire labor spectrum. The basic minimum is around five dollars a month, although there are food bonuses, and the average salary of formal sector workers is around 100 dollars.

It is a difficult figure to reach for many of those who work in the informal sector of the economy – 60 percent of the country’s workers according to the Survey of Living Conditions that Ucab carried out in 2022 among 2,300 households across the country.

 

A view of the María Auxiliadora school in a middle and upper-middle class area of Caracas. In private education, families must make extraordinary contributions to improve teachers’ salaries and thus hold onto them. CREDIT: Oema

 

It is a consequence of the gigantic setback of the Venezuelan economy – GDP shrank by four-fifths between 2013 and 2021 – compounded by almost three years of hyperinflation between 2017 and 2020, and depreciation that liquefied the value of the local currency, the bolivar, and led to a costly de facto dollarization.

Although public education is formally free, parents must contribute a few dollars each month to help maintain the schools. In private schools, prices are raised under the guise of extraordinary fees – the only way to obtain funds that make it possible for them to hold onto their teachers.

Pernalete says that in the interior of the country many teachers have to walk up to an hour to get to school -there is no public transportation or they can’t afford to take it-, not to mention the lack of water or electricity in their homes, or the absence of or the poor quality of internet connection, if they can afford it, or the lack of other technological resources.

And if they do have internet, that’s not always the case for their students.

Damelis, a domestic worker who lives in a poor neighborhood in Los Teques, a city neighboring Caracas, has three children in school. Some teachers, she told IPS, assign homework through a WhatsApp group, but in her home no one has a computer, internet or smartphone.

What is the result? The initial reading assessment test that Ucab recently administered to 1,028 third grade students nationwide showed high oral and reading comprehension (82 and 85 percent, respectively), but low reading aloud and decoding skills (43 and 53 percent).

More than 40 percent of the students only read 64 words per minute or less, when they should read 85 or more. Con la Escuela applied the test to 364 students in Caracas and the neighboring state of Miranda, and the children only read 48 words per minute.

There is also discouragement among teachers. The main public teaching university in the country has almost no applicants. In the School of Education at Ucab, the first two years have been closed due to a lack of students, despite the fact that the university offers scholarships to those who want to train as teachers.

What can be done? “The physical recovery of schools should be one of the first steps to guarantee their fundamental function: to serve as a center for socialization and meeting of teachers, students and representatives around the teaching-learning process,” said Cantera.

“Otherwise, the consequences will be very serious for the country’s development,” he said.

Labrador said she observes “a gradual privatization of education, it is no longer truly free,” and the disparity between public and private education is increasing inequality in a country where in the second half of the 20th century public education stood out as the most powerful lever for social ascent.

Pernalete said it is a matter of complying with the 1999 Constitution, which stipulates that workers’ salaries must be sufficient to live on and establishes the government’s commitment to the right to education, as it states that education and work are the means for the realization of the government’s goals.

Mozambique's ex-finance minister is to be tried in the US after five years in a South African jail.

For the first time in over a decade, snow and sleet have fallen in the city of Johannesburg.

Credit: United Nations

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jul 10 2023 (IPS)

A quick glance at the current European political map would clearly show how far the extremist ideology has been installed in European countries –those who still wave the French Revolution’s flag of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.”

According to the Napoleonic French Revolution’s three pillars, Liberty means freedom for an individual to do what he/she wants to do without harming others’ Liberty. Equality means equal opportunity to all the citizens irrespective of their caste, religion, race, gender.

Fraternity means an environment of brotherhood among the citizens of a nation.

 

“Not true” that “all humans are equal”

The extremist ideology promoted by Europe’s right and far-right politicians is pushing –either openly or surreptitiously– for the suppression of many of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established in the worldwide adopted 2030 Agenda under the principle: Leave No One Behind

These concepts have also been clearly reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the actual umbrella of all the other international laws and agreements, such as the 2030 Agenda, which was adopted in 2015 by all countries -including the richest ones, those who now violate their own principles.

Instead, the extremist ideology promoted by Europe’s right and far-right politicians is pushing –either openly or surreptitiously– for the suppression of many of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established in the worldwide adopted 2030 Agenda under the principle: Leave No One Behind.

A compilation of all the extremist ideology postulates, which are now spreading like wildfire in Europe, would require drafting a long book or more. Therefore, this report is based on the most shared right and far-right doctrines in the continent.

 

“Gender violence does not exist“

To start with, one of the Agenda 2030 Goals: Gender Equality, has been gradually breached by the European far-right parties, by either directly or indirectly claiming that women should stay at home, caring for children, as the only way to prevent the ‘disappearance of families.’

Some of them even start advocating for the separation of students by gender, e.g., classrooms for boys and others for girls.

 

‘Penis matter’

In Spain, for instance, the conservative party– Partido Popular (PP), has adopted such a far-right party VOX doctrine in all those regions where they rule in coalition with the PP: to replace the concept of gender violence with “intra-family violence.”

Not only that: one VOX leader, Gabriel Le Senne, who now chairs the Balear Islands regional Parliament as part of the pact between VOX and the PP, says that “Women are more belligerent because they lack a penis.”

 

Migrants, “that big threat”

Migrants have further been targeted by European extremist ideology, which assures those who flee former European colonies, those who have fallen victims of externally-induced wars and severe climate change’s impacts.

In their hate speech, the far-right claims that migrants come to Europe to “steal our jobs, destroy our social fabric, threaten our civilisation, our faith, kill our innocent citizens,” and a long etcetera.

The very same far-right leader, Gabriel Le Senne, also stated that “In Spain, between Hispanics and Africans it is not clear where the thing will end, but it is clear that the natives are increasingly in danger of extinction.”

 

“Labour exploitation does not exist“

Meanwhile, alongside other European extremist political groups, the two Spanish right and far-right parties, PP and VOX, show reluctance to a European Commission directive aimed at preventing labour exploitation and child labour.

Reason: the proposed directive intends to penalise large companies that benefit from labour exploitation. A high number of the exploited children are migrant descendants.

 

Islam is “terror”

In a related hate speech, the European extremist politicians continue to target the world’s Muslim for all sorts of “terrorism,” and criminality.

For example, the leader of the far-right party VOX, Santiago Abascal, has indirectly blamed ‘radical Muslims’ living in the European Union of fuelling and masterminding the already week-long social unrest in France, following the assasination by a French policeman of an Argelian-descendent 17 years old Nahel.

This growing anti-Muslim trend goes against all international laws and agreements, including the worldwide adopted Agenda 2030, let alone the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

For instance, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief report launched ahead of the International Day to Combat Islamophobia (15 March 2023), warned that, motivated by institutional, ideological, political and religious hostility that transcends into structural and cultural racism, it targets the symbols and markers of being a Muslim.

According to this United Nations report, the outright hatred towards Muslims has risen to ‘epidemic proportions.’

 

“Climate change does not exist”

Climate change is another key target of European extremist ideology, which not only negates its existence, but it also refuses regulations and policies that aim to reduce both its causes and worldwide devastating impacts, Europe included.

In this, they deny what two authoritative specialised bodies, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, have warned on 19 June 2023.

 

“Not true” that Europe is the fastest warming continent

Europe is “the fastest warming continent of the world, doubling global average,” WMO and Copernicus warned in their joint report: The State of the Climate in Europe 2022 report.

“The year 2022 was marked by extreme heat, drought and wildfires. Sea surface temperatures around Europe reached new highs, accompanied by marine heatwaves. Glacier melt was unprecedented.”

Such a fact is easily verifiable: around one third of European crops have been already lost, and the sources of water, both for humans, irrigation, and livestock, are rapidly drying up.

Already in May 2022, the UN Children Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that from insufficient drinking water supply to contamination by sewage overflow and disease outbreaks from improper wastewater treatment, “existing risks from climate change to water, sanitation and hygiene in the pan-European region are set to increase significantly.”

 

“No” to a European Nature Restoration Law

In spite of all this, a dozen of the European Union’s member countries oppose a proposed Nature Restoration Law. According to its detractors, such a law would harm the market and financial interests of the agri-food business in their countries.

In yet another negation of the SDGs’ key pillar: Leave No One Behind, the ultra-right parties in Europe, also deny the rights of the lesbians, gays, bi, trans and intersex (LGBTI) people, who, according to the UN, “continue to face widespread stigma, exclusion and discrimination, including in education, employment and health care.”

Let alone refusing the right to euthanasia, abortion, and a very long etcetera.

The aid group Walking Borders says many children are on board the missing boat, which departed from Senegal.

By Daud Khan
ROME, Jul 10 2023 (IPS)

There seems to be no end in sight to the war in Ukraine. On the contrary it continues to escalate. The latest ratchet up has been the decision by the USA to supply the Ukrainian army with cluster bombs. These are nasty weapons which scatter and explode over a wide area. They are specifically designed to kill people rather that destroy infrastructure, military installations or communication hubs. They also have a sting in the tail – some of the bomblets remain unexploded, effectively becoming anti-personnel mines. These can turn wide swathes of territory into virtual no-go areas.

Daud Khan

In recognition of the awful nature of these bombs, their use, transfer, production, and stockpiling has been prohibited under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, an international treaty signed in 2008 by 108 countries. However, several major military powers, including the China, Russia and the USA have not signed the Convention, as did not the Ukraine.

Cluster bombs have been used by both sides in the current war. This has not only caused high human casualties but already turned many areas into a minefield that will take decades to clear up. But reportedly stocks of such bombs in the Ukraine are running low and the decision of the USA would effectively help them continue a flagging counter-offensive. In particular, it is expected that they would help dislodge Russian forces that are dug in inside Ukrainian territory.

The latest move once again raises awkward questions – what is this war about, how long will it last and will anyone come out a winner.

As in all wars, there are many short-term proximate causes. Depending on the lens which one uses, the war is about protecting the rights of Russian speaking people in the Donbas; or about the rights of all Ukrainians – Russian or Ukrainian speaking – to follow their desire to be part of a liberal democratic Europe. But there are also long-term interests at play. Depending on one’s political views this war is about an irredentist and power hungry Putin. An alternative view is that the war is about Russian resistance to the continued eastern expansion of NATO and the creation of a well-armed, albeit denuclearized, Ukraine – a thorn in the side of Russia.

Whatever view one wishes to take on various causes, this is undoubtedly an existential war for the Russian state as it is now, for the Ukraine state as it is now, and the unipolar, US dominated world as it is now. If the Ukrainians win, it would be the end the Putin regime. It would also signal the end to his aspirations for a Greater Russian, to his dreams of making Russia once again a global power, and to his hopes of using Russian energy and other mineral resources to build domestic prosperity.

If on the other hand, should the Russians win it would be the end of Ukraine aspirations to be a part of a liberal democratic Europe, to be part of the EU and a member of NATO. Russian victory would also mean a serious blow to the USA, its allies and to the existing world order.

The very high stakes implies that none of the major protagonists can afford to walk away without a clear cut victory. This is in contrast to other recent wars such as the Afghan wars that Russia and the USA fought. Strategic interests were at stake even in these wars – Russia wanting access to a warm water port on the Indian Ocean and the USA wanting a friendly regime in Kabul to contain Islamic terrorism. Walking away from those wars certainly involved giving up these strategic objectives as well as a major loss of prestige. But the stakes were nowhere as high as in the current Ukraine Russia war.

And so it is unlikely we will be seeing any serious attempt towards a ceasefire, even less a convening of parties around a negotiating table. Unfortunately the most likely scenario is that the war will continue. Not only that, it is likely to escalate as it has over the last year from an initial dispatch of “defensive weapons”, to dispatch of long range missiles, modern tanks, and now cluster bombs. The next step will most likely be the dispatch of modern airplanes such as the F-16 on which Ukrainian pilot are already being trained. And then? Maybe some use of some sort of battlefield nuclear weapons.

And while the war in Europe drags on and escalates, there is an elephant in the room – China, the archenemy of the USA. How will they behave as the USA and its allies supply increasingly sophisticated weapons to Ukraine? Will they try and bolster Russia with who they have a “friendship with no limits”? Or would they be tempted to make a grab for Taiwan while the USA is tied up in the Ukraine.

There are dangerous and uncertain times ahead.

Daud Khan works as consultant and advisor for various Governments and international agencies. He has degrees in Economics from the LSE and Oxford – where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from the Imperial College of Science and Technology. He lives partly in Italy and partly in Pakistan.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Some people in parts of Uganda have depended on small-scale charcoal production for livelihoods, but the trade has been taken over by illicit charcoal traders. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, Jul 10 2023 (IPS)

At Kampala’s Nakawa market, Lovisa Nabisubi scoops charcoal from a bag and packs it into tins ready for customers. Her bare hands, feet, and clothes are stained black from hours of dealing in this popular household fuel which some equate to “black gold” not just in Uganda but in most of East Africa.

The sizes of Nabisubi’s measuring tins have been shrinking as charcoal gets scarcer and more expensive. While the price of charcoal is getting out of reach for some residents in Kampala, Nabisubi tells IPS that she may lose her only source of income if the situation persists.

“It is becoming difficult to find the suppliers of charcoal. We have been buying a bag of charcoal at ninety thousand shillings. The suppliers sell at one hundred and ten thousand shillings ($32). Sometimes I don’t get any stock, so I stay at home,” she said.

Charcoal is a popular source of cooking energy for urbanites in Uganda and most of East Africa. It also has immense social-economic importance, but it is getting scarce and expensive.

A household study by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) in 2021 found that charcoal provides the primary energy of up to 80% of Kampala’s population. While charcoal, wood, and other forms of biomass together provide more than 90% of the total primary energy consumed in Uganda.

Most of the charcoal supplies to Uganda’s capital Kampala, neighbouring municipalities, and districts have been from formerly war-torn Northern Uganda, but there has emerged pressure against it over environmental concerns.

In February this year, a former member of Parliament, Samuel Odonga Otto, and others mobilised vigilantes to enforce bans on charcoal burning and illegal trade in a region which has a tree cover relatively better compared to other parts of Uganda. The vigilantes would intercept trucks loaded with charcoal cutting off supplies to markets like Nakawa and others.

“Cutting (down) any trees should stop. It should stop if we are to protect our environment. You can see the rainfall patterns. We will not turn to politics; this is environmental,” said Odonga Otto.

As the vigilante group got more sympathizers, President Yoweri Museveni swiftly responded by issuing an order banning commercial charcoal trade in northern Uganda and districts bordering South Sudan and DRC and Kenya to the northeast of Uganda.

While the ban was celebrated by some in the region, a number of questions have emerged. What alternatives to charcoal? How can governments address the conflict between the charcoal ban versus lives and livelihoods?

Only 1.7 million of about 8 million households in Uganda are connected to grid electricity while small-scale charcoal burners, like Cypriano Bongoyinge, wondered how else to survive as the ban took effect.

Bongoyinge told IPS that traders from cities and towns should have been cut off because they were fueling large-scale production.

He told IPS that the traders from Kampala pay between $400-800 to clear an acre of land covered with trees and then hire labourers to burn into charcoal for transportation to the cities or across the borders.

Like Bongoyinge, Ceaser Akol, a politician based in Uganda’s northeastern district of Karamoja, told IPS that communities in the region were burning charcoal at a small-scale level, but they were invaded by large-scale commercial charcoal burners. “While the president came up with a ban, the challenge, as usual, is on enforcement and, of course, corruption.”

Denis Ojwee, a journalist based in northern Uganda’s Gulu city, told IPS that “Our ancestors used to use firewood for cooking but not charcoal. One tree cut for firewood would last longer. So fewer trees were cut for firewood than it is for charcoal.”

Ojwee said the war in northern Uganda may have saved the trees from unsustainable harvesting and that the times of peace have come with a negative impact on the region’s tree cover.

“As much as people died during the war, the environment got saved. But now, trees are getting finished. They have finished other types of trees now they are cutting shea nut trees (Vitellaria paradoxa). Rare species of tree which take very long to grow,”  said Ojwee.

Charcoal from Uganda’s Acholi and Karamoja regions is not only sold to cities in Uganda. It gets through the porous borders and is smuggled to Kenya and beyond.

The Wasteful Archaic Method of Making Charcoal

Charcoal in most of East Africa is produced under anaerobic conditions. That method cannot efficiently regulate the oxygen supply, leading to a lot of wastage.

Xavier Mugumya, a forestry expert, told IPS that the high demand for charcoal had escalated the levels of destruction of trees because people look at it as a source of income.

“If you take a thousand kilograms or a ton of wood and you want to convert it into charcoal using the methods which we normally see, you will only get 100 kilograms of charcoal. That means you are only able to utilize 10% of the original wood. Meaning that 90% of the trees go to waste and become carbon dioxide and ashes,” explained Mugumya.

Corruption and the Role of Organized Crime in the Charcoal Value Chain

The Global Initiative Against Transitional Crime 2021 released the findings of the study investigating the charcoal market in Kenya, Uganda, and South Sudan. It produced a report titled “Black Gold The charcoal grey market in Kenya, Uganda, and South Sudan”.

Michael McLaggan, one of the co-authors of the report, said they found what he described as “a classic grey market, where laws or regulations are flouted at some point in the value chain.”

“There are more organized criminal elements in the charcoal market. And while it is not pronounced in other trades such as drug trade or markets for animal parts, it is present,” said McLaggan

The report found that loose groupings headed by charcoal dealers or people with influence in charcoal value chains commission clandestine production of Charcoal to stay in the market.

Nyathon Hoth Mai, a South Sudanese Climate and natural resources expert, told IPS that small-scale charcoal is produced predominantly by the armed forces in South Sudan, while foreign traders were involved in large-scale production.

“We have seen a lot of traders that come from Sudan, Uganda, DRC, Ethiopia, and Eretria. And they exert a lot of pressure on forests. And then as well how this has the potential of corruption practices,” she said.

Can Charcoal Prohibitionist Policies Work? 

Kenya has since 2018 used sporadic bans on charcoal production. In Uganda, a number of bylaws against trade in charcoal have emerged, but there has not been a national moratorium. There exists a national moratorium in South Sudan on the export of Charcoal, but this has hardly been enforced.

The main shortcoming with prohibition, according to McLaggan, is that where there exists a commodity for which there is a sizable demand, that demand doesn’t disappear upon the commodity being outlawed.

“We noticed that when charcoal gets banned in a certain county, production shifts to another county. Or from one country to another country. So the problem is merely displaced,” he said

 Sustainability Interventions in the Charcoal Sector

At the end of March, the FAO released a study report, Are policies in Africa conducive to sustainability interventions in the charcoal sector? It assessed forestry, environmental and energy policies related to charcoal in 31 African countries.

The report found that more than half of the 31 countries assessed do not have policy frameworks that would encourage sustainable interventions in the charcoal sector.

In other countries, existing policies and regulations tended to be inconsistent and risk creating a confusing and unconducive environment to increase the sustainability of the sector.

The study found that five countries – Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and Uganda – provide favourable policy frameworks for interventions that would improve sustainability.

Another study, “Cross-border charcoal trade in selected East Central and Southern Africa Countries: A call for regional dialogue”, said although several governments in Africa have banned the cross-border trade of charcoal, making it effectively illegal, markets in border areas and beyond remain vibrant.

“Therefore, the issue of sustainable charcoal production and trade remain critical and must be addressed as part of broader efforts to manage forest-agricultural landscapes across national borders,” it suggested.

While policymakers and environmentalists lobby for change, those trying to make a living from it have uncertain futures.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Persons with disabilities have been disproportionately affected by the events of recent years, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: UNDP Honduras

By Ulrika Modéer and Jose Viera
NEW YORK, Jul 10 2023 (IPS)

This year marks halfway towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an ambitious agenda which set out to transform our world.

We have always known that the goals cannot be realized without the inclusion of persons with disabilities. From poverty to inequality, climate to health the promise to leave no-one behind is the bedrock of the SDG call to action.

Unfortunately, the midway indicators should give us all cause for concern. The UN Secretary-General recently announced that progress on 50 percent is weak and insufficient and we have stalled or gone into reverse on more than 30 percent of the goals.

And what can this lack of SDG progress tell us about disability inclusion?

Worryingly, very little. While the SDGs include persons with disabilities, this does not fully extend into the monitoring. Only seven out of 169 targets specifically address disability inclusion and only 10 of their 231 indicators explicitly require disability data disaggregation.

However even without specific SDG data, the extent of progress must be called into question when we see that, in 2023, the 1.3 billion people worldwide who experience significant disability, still face a range of barriers to inclusion.

While specific actions to progress disability inclusion undoubtedly need reinvigorating, it is also important to remember that we are living in unprecedented, testing times.

The COVID-19 pandemic, the largest cost of living crisis this generation has ever seen, climate change and increasing conflicts are placing pressure on communities all over the world at a ferocity and speed which we have rarely seen before.

And while everyone may be affected by these interconnected crises, they are not affected equally. The most vulnerable always bear the greatest burden and persons with disabilities have been disproportionately affected by the events of recent years.

Yet despite these challenges, across the world, disability inclusion has been gathering greater momentum. Even in the most challenging of crisis settings, such as the war in Ukraine, we have seen that early assessments such as the one UNDP carried out – looking at how to improve the accessibility of information and notifications in crises, and the specific difficulties persons with disabilities face during evacuations – have brought together persons with disabilities, civil society and government partners to help bring about change.

These joint efforts also give recognition to the importance of not only taking into account the needs of persons with disabilities as beneficiaries of aid, but also their engagement as key actors in humanitarian response planning.

An increased understanding of intersectionality and recognition of the multiple factors which affect people’s lived experience is also taking hold, and it is awe-inspiring to see the extent to which organizations of persons with disabilities are driving forward this change.

But it is time for global and country level policy commitments to catch up. At a global level monitoring of the SDGs must include greater involvement of organizations of persons with disabilities, and this should be matched with investment for these groups, to ensure capacity building programmes around the SDGs can scale up.

Without this, the disability community and underrepresented groups will continue to struggle to take part in national SDG plans.

The collection of disability-specific SDG data is also a priority. Persons with disabilities are often excluded from participating in data collection processes, leading to an under-representation of their perspectives.

Data collection mechanisms designed by and with persons with disabilities and their respective organizations, including disaggregated data on disability types, age and gender, are vital yet currently missing.

At a national level, we must fast track implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which sets out to promote, protect and ensure the human rights of persons with disabilities.

Significant progress has been made since 2008, when the convention came into force, but more must be done to develop policies and legislative frameworks in close consultation with persons with disabilities and their respective organizations, and to couple this with strong political will and the necessary resources.

UNDP and the International Disability Alliance (IDA) are working together with global partners to advance this work, recognizing that it is a prerequisite to achieving the SDGs.

But much more remains to be done. Because we cannot truly claim progress when in large parts of the world, persons with disabilities are still unable to equally and meaningfully participate in the world around them.

When they remain unheard and unseen in programmes designed to meet their needs, and when systemic barriers to their full inclusion and participation in society still exist.

This year offers an important moment for reflection, to take stock of what has been achieved but also – critically – to course correct. Persons with disabilities are some of the most marginalized and excluded in the world.

Righting this wrong is one of the ways that we can get the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda back on track. This is not a task for one group or one country. It will require cooperation across the board, political will and perhaps most importantly – real collaboration with persons with disabilities and their representative organizations – recognizing that they are the ones who stand to benefit or lose the most from the progress being made.

Ulrika Modeer is UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy, UNDP; Jose Viera is Advocacy Director, International Disability Alliance.

SOURCE: UNDP

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Experts continue to debate where insurance belongs in climate financing. Credit: Peter Richards/IPS

By Jamie Cummings
CHAPEL HILL, NC, USA, Jul 7 2023 (IPS)

Small Island Developing States (or SIDS) have been talking about loss and damage in an insurance context since the creation of the UNFCCC. The original 1990s outline of the UNFCCC included the proposal for an international insurance fund that would compensate low-lying countries for losses from rising sea levels in the future, however, this fund was never adopted in the final text.

The 2023 Climate Conference COP27 in Sharm put loss and damage clearly on the political agenda with the agreement to set up a Transitional Committee to seek to establish a fund for Loss and Damage and to look at other ways to help countries and people address disasters.

Today the conversations around insurance in regard to loss and damage have shifted. Some argue that insurance comes up short when addressing loss and damage. For example, one idea of an insurance fund would require all parties, including those from the Global South, who have contributed the least to global emissions, to buy in and share the risk burden.

Prevention is critical but fails to address the question of losses and damages which have already occurred. If vulnerable communities are faced with climate disasters, they must have community resilience (i.e., resources), which can be secured through accessible insurance

This idea negates the historical responsibility of the Global North as leading polluters. Experts continue to debate where insurance belongs in climate financing and this article intends to highlight some critical thinkers in the space.

Paul Hudson, a lecturer of Environmental Economics at the University of York and frequent contributor to the International Science Council, contends that insurance can still be a useful tool for addressing natural hazards and climate impacts if its function in the private or public sector is previously determined.

“In order for society to have a great degree of adaptive capacity we still need to work out what is the actual role we expect insurance to achieve,” Hudson said.

According to Hudson, the ideas of insurance in the public and private sectors are in contention. In discussions around insurance, people often use the language of private responsibility in relation to a compensation fund but what may be more necessary is for people to simply have an accessible and affordable means of compensation, which is the role of a public good.

An additional fear is that countries fall back on the private insurance sector too often when they have yet to provide the funding for adaptation and mitigation, which puts the commitment to losses and damages in question. Still, perhaps there is a role for the private and public insurance sector despite its shortcomings.

Experts are considering ways to integrate both private and public solutions so the most vulnerable populations are protected from climate-induced losses and damages.

Raghuveer Vinukollu, Senior Vice President and Climate Resilience and Solutions Lead at Munich Reinsurance America, Inc., argues that an integrated approach could provide a sustainable and affordable solution to the question of insurance. Vinukollu supports a bottom-up and top-down process to address resiliency.

Resilience from both angles aims to mitigate the protection gap caused by high costs. Such a model underscores the importance of community resilience as well as risk prevention, promoting the whole of society’s safety from risk rather than the few who can afford a premium.

Again, prevention is critical but fails to address the question of losses and damages which have already occurred. If vulnerable communities are faced with climate disasters, they must have community resilience (i.e., resources), which can be secured through accessible insurance.

Waterfront Alliance is a company that strives to build community resilience in part through education. Joseph Sutkowi, the group’s Chief Waterfront Design Officer, explains that it is critical to standardize aspects of design and make such knowledge accessible.

In this way, architects and engineers from around the world can create infrastructure built for the community and will be resilient in the face of natural disasters. Additionally, spreading awareness about flood risk–or other climate hazards–can in turn raise awareness around purchasing insurance that could be critical to forming communities that can recover from disasters.

The crucial piece of this argument on the implementation of insurance mechanisms is that they must not exclude the most vulnerable groups, including low-income communities. Here, Mathieu Verougstraete, Lead on Disaster Risk Reduction Financing and Infrastructure Resilience for UNDRR, suggests countries from the Global North have a role to play.

Verougstraete asserts that international cooperation would allow donor countries to step in and provide a mechanism to ensure that insurance remains affordable and still provides the protection the vulnerable countries need.

Brandon Mathews works directly with these vulnerable nations to meet their needs. Mathews is the head of the Vulnerable 20 (V20) Sustainable Insurance Facility within the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The facility funds insurance for micro, small, and medium enterprises which are the “cornerstone of economies.”

Aligning with vulnerable groups means giving them ownership. Oda Henriksen, Climate Risk Manager for Food Security as a Financing Advisor at United Nations World Food Program (UN WFP), has highlighted ownership as a key finding based on case studies in Belize and Nicaragua with insurance programs.

UN WFP argues that local government and private sector contributions, as well as consumer empowerment, are essential for a sustainable approach to insurance in disaster risk reduction.

Held on June 1st the Insurance Development Forum signed an agreement to advance the Global Resilience Index with the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) to “help countries, financial institutions and investors, map and quantify their current and future climate and disaster risks and demonstrate the benefits of investing in resilience.”

With Loss and Damage now near the center of the political preparations for the upcoming Climate Summit COP28 in Dubai in December then a menu of approaches will be explored. Within this menu perhaps there is a role for the insurance sector (in either a private or public sector capacity) if done the right way.

A strong insurance system should examine all of the stipulations raised by experts in the field. The system must also be continuously revised to meet the evolving demands of vulnerable climate communities. With livelihoods at risk, potential solutions must be critiqued and considered from all angles.

Jamie Cummings is part of a Belmont Forum-funded grant, Re-Energize Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience for Sustainable Development. She was the climate change focal point for the recent UNFCCC Bonn Climate Conference for the Sendai Stakeholder Engagement Mechanism. With additional support from Rene Marker-Katz and Cameron Mcbroom-Fitterer, Associate Researchers with Re-Energize DR3.

 

A view of the Canoas Wind Farm, owned by Neoenergia, the Brazilian subsidiary of Spain's Iberdrola. Several wind farms with hundreds of turbines have already been built in the mountains of the Seridó mountain range, which vertically cross the state of Paraíba, in the Northeast region of Brazil, and are continuing to expand. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

By Mario Osava
SANTA LUZIA, Brazil , Jul 7 2023 (IPS)

“Anxiety, insomnia and depression have become widespread. We don’t sleep well, I wake up three, four times a night,” complained Brazilian farmer Roselma de Melo Oliveira, 35, who has lived 160 meters from a wind turbine for eight years.

Her story illustrates the ordeal of at least 80 families who decided to hire a lawyer to demand compensation from the company that owns the Ventos de Santa Brigida wind farm complex in Caetés, a municipality of 28,000 inhabitants in the state of Pernambuco, in the Northeast region of Brazil."We are not against wind energy, but against the way these large projects are implemented, without studying or avoiding their impacts." -- Roselma de Melo Oliveira

Dozens of other families affected by the proximity of the wind towers have not joined the legal action, largely because they fear losing the rental income from part of their land where one or more wind turbines have been erected.

The company pays them about 290 dollars for each wind tower, which represents 1.5 percent of the electricity generated and sold, according to Oliveira. Those who were not offered or did not accept the lease are left with the damage and no profits.

Built in 2015 by the national company Casa dos Ventos and sold the following year to the British corporation Cubico Sustainable Investments, the set of seven wind farms, consisting of 107 wind turbines 80 meters high, has a total installed capacity of 182 megawatts, enough to supply 350,000 homes.

The wind energy boom has intensified in recent years in Brazil’s Northeast region, which accounts for more than 80 percent of the wind electricity generated in the whole country.

 

Severino Olegario, a small farmer impoverished by a plague that destroyed the local cotton crop, took advantage of the arrival of the wind towers on his family’s mountainous land to become the owner of an open-air restaurant, now a tourist attraction in the municipality of Santa Luzia, in the Northeastern Brazilian state of Paraíba. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

 

Wind power boom

This expansion will be accelerated by plans to produce green hydrogen, which requires a large amount of renewable energy for electrolysis, the technology of choice. The region’s enormous wind and solar potential, in addition to its relative proximity to Europe, the great consumer market of green hydrogen, puts the Northeast in a strong position as a supplier of the so-called fuel of the future.

As a result, large energy projects are proliferating in the region, which is mostly semiarid and almost always sunny. The giant parks have triggered local resistance, due to the social and environmental impacts, which are felt more intensely in the Northeast, where small rural properties are the norm.

Brazil currently has 191,702 megawatts of installed capacity, including 53.3 percent hydroelectric, 13.2 percent wind and 4.4 percent solar. The goal is for wind, solar and biomass to contribute 23 percent of the total by 2030, with the Northeast as the epicenter of the production of renewable sources.

“We are not against wind energy, but against the way these large projects are implemented, without studying or avoiding their impacts,” Oliveira said. Renewable sources are not always clean and sustainable, say activists, especially movements led by women in the Northeast.

“Because they are considered low-impact, wind and solar farms obtain permits for implementation and operation more quickly and at a low cost, without in-depth studies,” said José Aderivaldo, a sociologist and secondary school teacher in Santa Luzia, a municipality of 15,000 inhabitants in the semiarid zone of the Northeastern state of Paraíba.

 

The Neoenergia company’s Renewable Complex; in the background can be seen a small part of the solar panels and the wind farm. The synergy between the daytime sunshine and nighttime winds generates enough electricity for 1.3 million homes in the Northeast region of Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

 

“But solar energy has a greater impact, it is more invasive. A wind farm has little impact on livestock, which do lose a lot of space to solar, more extensive in terms of the land it occupies,” he told IPS.

His field of observation is the Neoenergía company’s Renewable Complex, a project that combines wind power, with 136 wind turbines in the Chafariz complex in the mountains, and 228,000 photovoltaic panels in the Luzia Park on the plains. The former generates more electricity at night, the latter during the day.

In total, they cover 8,700 hectares in Santa Luzia and three other neighboring municipalities and can generate up to 620.4 megawatts, most of it – 471.2 megawatts – coming from the wind in the mountains. They can supply electricity to 1.3 million housing units and avoid the emission of 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide gas, according to the company, a subsidiary of Spain’s Iberdrola.

One of the impacts was a reduction in the local capacity for the production of cheap protein from livestock farming adapted for centuries to the local ecosystem, in addition to extracting rocks for the construction of wind towers and damaging local roads with trucks for their transport, lamented João Telésforo, an engineer and retired professor from the public Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte.

“Neoenergía carried out all the socio-environmental impact studies rigorously in accordance with the country’s current legislation and global best practices. The distance between the homes and the wind turbines is in compliance with the law,” the company responded to IPS in writing, in response to questions about criticism of its activities.

 

Marizelda Duarte da Silva, vice-president of the Esperança Rural Workers Union, is one of the leaders of the women’s resistance to the installation of wind farms in the mountains of the Borborema Plateau, coveted for its strong, regular winds, in the state of Paraíba, in Brazil’s Northeast region. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

 

“In addition, it only leases the land, without purchasing it, which means people stay in their homes and in the countryside, and owners receive payments according to the contracts, with transparency, contributing to income distribution and local quality of life,” it added.

 

Local complaints

But Pedro Olegario, 73, laments that the remuneration has declined, explained by the company as a result of a drop in the energy generated. “The wind is still blowing the same,” he protested.

His wife, Maria José Gomes, 57, complains about the noise, even though the nearest wind turbine is about 500 meters away from their house. “Sometimes I can only fall asleep in the wee hours of the morning with the window tightly closed,” she said.

The couple lives on their share of a 265-hectare property, inherited and divided between the widow and 17 children of the previous owner, on one of the mountains of the Seridó range, part of Santa Luzia.

The 18 family members split the income from four wind towers installed on their land.

 

Not everyone is unhappy

On the other hand, Pedro’s brother Severino Olegario, 50, has a positive view of the Canoas Wind Farm, which also belongs to Neoenergia. The 2019 construction made it possible for him to open a restaurant to feed 40 technicians of the company who installed the mechanical components.

 

On the horizon can be seen one of the hills of the Borborema Plateua, whose occupation by wind turbines faces resistance from the Women’s Movement, which began holding annual marches for agroecology and in defense of the land in 2010. Nearly 5,000 women mobilized this year in opposition to wind farms in the Northeast region of Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

 

“I sleep despite the noise and the remuneration is low because we had to divide it among a very large family,” he said. He also improved the road, which brings tourists to his restaurant on Sundays, after the construction work ended, and slowed the local exodus of people from the region.

About 1,000 families used to live in the three communities up in the mountains, due to the high level of production of cotton. But the cotton boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis) plague in the 1990s destroyed the crop and the value of the land.

“Today there are less than a hundred families left,” said Severino, who continues to grow some of the food that he uses to serve meals at his restaurant.

His perspective differs from the picture described by Oliveira to IPS by telephone from her rural community, Sobradinho, in Caetés, the result of a wind farm authorized before the government’s Brazilian Environmental Institute issued new rules in 2014.

 

The state government’s wind map points out mountain ranges favorable for wind energy. In red are the areas of greatest potential. The longest is the Seridó mountain range, to the west, already covered by dozens of wind farms. About 100 kilometers to the east, the second largest area, Borborema, has a women’s movement that aims to keep it free of wind farms. CREDIT: Government of Paraíba

 

Damage and unfavorable contracts

“There are cases of allergies that we believe are caused by the dust from the wind turbine blades, which also contaminates the water we drink, as it falls on our roofs where we collect rainwater in tanks,” Oliveira complained.

The alternative would be to buy water from tanker trucks which “costs 300 reais (62 dollars ) – too expensive for a family with two children who only harvest beans and corn once a year,” she explained, adding that growing vegetables and medicinal herbs is impossible because of the polluted water.

In addition to the audible sound, vibrations, infrasound (considered inaudible), shadow flicker (the effect of rotating turbine blades causing varying brightness levels and blocking the sun’s rays) and microparticles cause symptoms of “wind turbine syndrome,” according to Wanessa Gomes, a professor at the public University of Pernambuco, who is researching the subject with colleagues from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil’s leading academic public health institution.

Local families have also been living in fear since a blade broke and fell with a loud bang. Many take medication for sleep and mental illness, according to Oliveira, whose testimony aims to alert other communities to the risks posed by wind energy enterprises.

On Mar. 16, she took her complaints to the Women’s March for Life and Agroecology, organized by the Polo de Borborema in Montadas, a municipality of 5,800 people, about 280 kilometers north of Caetés.

The Polo is a group of rural workers’ unions in 13 municipalities in the Borborema highlands in the state of Paraíba, whose windy mountains are coveted by companies.

The women’s movement, with the support of the non-governmental Consultancy and Services for Alternative Agriculture Projects, mobilized 5,000 women this year, in its fourteenth edition, the second one focused on opposition to wind farms.

“Our struggle is to prevent these parks from being installed here. If many families refuse to sign the contracts with the companies, there will be no parks,” Marizelda Duarte da Silva, 50, vice-president of the Rural Workers Union of Esperança, a municipality of 31,000 inhabitants in the center of Borborema territory, told IPS.

“The contracts are draconian, up to 49 years and renewable by unilateral decision of the company,” said Claudionor Vital Pereira, a lawyer for the Polo union. “They demand unjustifiable confidentiality, charge fines for withdrawing and make variable payments for the lease depending on the amount and prices of energy generated, imposing on the lessor a risk that should only be assumed by the company.”

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Aerial view of the town of Soufriere in the south of Saint Lucia. Sea level rise is threatening coastal areas of small island developing states (SIDS) in the Caribbean. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
SOUFRIERE, SAINT LUCIA, Jul 7 2023 (IPS)

The World Meteorological Organization says adaptation efforts and the switch to renewable energy must increase for regions like Latin America and the Caribbean to face the challenges of a changing climate.

The United Nations Weather Agency released its State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2022 report this week.

It states that storms, rainfall and flooding in some areas, along with severe drought in others, resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars in economic losses and placed a ‘significant’ burden on human lives and wellbeing throughout the reporting period.

It adds that North and South Atlantic sea levels rose at a higher rate than the global average – threatening coastal areas of several Latin American countries and small island developing states (SIDS) in the Caribbean.

While the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season recorded 14 named storms, a near-average number, nine of those cyclones affected land areas, with Fiona and Ian becoming major hurricanes. Hurricane Fiona led to 22 deaths and caused an estimated US$2.5 billion in damage across Puerto Rico, making it the third costliest hurricane on record there. Hurricane Ian drenched Jamaica with 1,500 mm of rainfall that impacted local communities before striking Cuba as a category 3 storm which destroyed over 20,000 hectares of land for food production.

According to the report, temperatures have increased by an average of 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade over the past 30 years, which represents the highest spike since records began.

“Many of the extreme events were influenced by the long-running La Niña but also bore the hallmark of human-induced climate change. The newly arrived El Niño will turn up the heat and bring with it more extreme weather,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

The second most disaster-prone region in the world, Latin America and the Caribbean must now bolster climate change adaptation and mitigation measures, particularly in agriculture, food security and energy. This is also where Early Warning Systems (EWS) come in.

“There are major gaps in the weather and climate observing networks, especially in the least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing States (SIDS); these gaps represent an obstacle to effective climate monitoring, especially at the regional and national scales, and to the provision of early warnings and adequate climate services. Early warnings are fundamental for anticipating and reducing the impacts of extreme events,” Taalas said in the foreword to the 2022 report.

The WMO is leading the United Nations Early Warnings for All initiative and its Executive Action Plan launched by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres during the World Leaders Summit at the 2022 Climate Change Conference, COP27. The Action Plan aims to protect everyone on earth with early warning systems within five years.

“Only half of our members have proper early warning services in place,” said Taalas. “In order to more efficiently adapt to the consequences of climate change and the resulting increase in the intensity and frequency of many extreme weather and climate events, the Latin American and Caribbean population must be made more aware of climate-related risks, and early warning systems in the region must employ improved multidisciplinary mechanisms.”

According to the report, multi-hazard early warning systems (MHEWS) with the ability to warn of one or more hazards increase the efficiency and consistency of warnings through coordinated and compatible mechanisms. It adds that the Latin America and Caribbean Region experiences considerable early warning challenges. For example, in South America, only 60% of people are covered by these systems.

Over 15 research organizations and 60 scientists contributed to the 2022 report. They are calling for widespread education campaigns on the deadly risks of climate-related disasters and to reinforce public perceptions of the need to react to natural hazard alerts and warnings issued by national institutions.

“The ultimate goal is to ensure that responsibilities, roles and behaviours are well described and made known to everyone involved in the identification and analysis of risks related to weather, water and climate extremes and the early warning providers and recipients.”

This is the WMO’s third annual report, and its release coincided with the hottest day on earth.

With the confirmation that extreme weather and climate shocks are becoming more acute in Latin America and the Caribbean, coupled with global warming and sea level rise, the organization says multi-hazard early warning systems are needed to improve anticipatory action.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

The World Meteorological Organization launched its State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean report this week. Amid above average sea-level rise, drought and global warming, the new publication is calling for ramped up adaptation action to save lives and livelihoods.

Credit: UNICEF/Aleksey Filippov
 
“The war in Ukraine has created a humanitarian and human rights catastrophe, traumatized a generation of children, and accelerated the global food and energy crises,” said Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, addressing the UN Security Council. June 2023

By Roland Bathon
BERLIN, Jul 7 2023 (IPS)

The Wagner uprising – despite its short duration – has demonstrated the vulnerability of Putin’s power system.

In the past, the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin seemed like a dark, mysterious figure somewhere from the depths of the Kremlin’s web of secrets. This also has to do with the fact that he did those ‘jobs’ for the Russian government that took place in a semi-official grey area — such as mercenary assignments in Syria or Africa, or even before that the operation of the Petersburg troll factory with a network of fake media and disinformation machinery.

As his mercenary army PMC Wagner – to which he only openly professed his allegiance at a very late stage – gained considerable combat experience in more and more wars, his personal military power continued to grow. The Wagner fighters, in fact, are his personal soldiers.

This was to become evident in the recent military uprising led by Prigozhin, as the soldiers immediately occupied the large city of Rostov on his orders, advanced on Moscow and simply ignored orders from the Russian authorities to arrest Prigozhin.

As Wagner is the largest Russian-based mercenary formation – according to the British Ministry of Defence, it grew to up to 50,000 soldiers in January – Prigozhin became a real power factor in Russia.

Roland Bathon

Military versus political power

In the purely political sphere, however, Prigozhin was by no means as powerful of a factor to the extent as it was repeatedly interpreted abroad on the basis of his mysterious aura. The pool of media under his control was much smaller than that of ‘businessmen from Putin’s immediate entourage’, Russian journalist and Kremlin expert Andrey Pertsev noted in an analysis after the start of the war. In polls on the most important Russian politicians, his name never appeared in the results, and his earlier calls for a general mobilisation were met with zero sympathy from the Russians.

For Putin, the interactions with Prigozhin never had any special status until his open revolt. According to the Russian political scientist Tatyana Stanovaya, the oligarch was never close enough to the head of state to entrust him with an important political office. Prigozhin’s tasks always remained informal — he used the niches that official state organs could not or would not fill. Thus, he was never integrated into the front row of Russian politics.

Yet, it was precisely this lack of integration that led to the emergence of a dual structure which turned out to be dangerous for the overall structure of Russian power. Prigozhin increasingly staged himself as a counter-elite – even though he himself came from this social class – and progressively engaged in power struggles with the official military hierarchy around the Russian Ministry of Defence. This also succeeded because officially, he always remained a ‘private citizen’ without an office in the top political ranks.

The military leadership countered by wanting to subordinate all volunteer units such as Wagner back to its own command through contractual structures. Prigozhin refused. But here, too, his political isolation and weakness within the Russian apparatus became apparent.

All other leaders of such units, such as Chechen strongman Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov, bowed to the order. Putin himself put his foot down in favour of his Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, who was repeatedly criticised by Prigozhin, and described the contract closures as necessary.

The uprising

Hope was fading away for Prigozhin, a fact that could also become dangerous for him as a person. And so, it came to his uprising – a surprise for all observers. After harsh criticism of the entire war conduct in Ukraine, he mobilised his mercenaries, captured the headquarters of the Russian Southern Forces in Rostov in a coup d’état and sent an advance detachment of Wagner fighters on their way to Moscow – an open military uprising.

Yet, here, too, the great discrepancy between Prigozhin’s military and political influence became immediately apparent. His soldiers quickly advanced up to 200 kilometres on Moscow, destroying initial resistance from government troops on the way, for example, by shooting three helicopters and an aeroplane out of the sky.

His mercenaries followed his orders unconditionally, refused to arrest Prigozhin as ordered by the domestic intelligence service FSB and secured power in Rostov with a massive military presence.

But Prigozhin’s lack of political influence was equally evident. One after another, regional governors declared their loyalty to Putin, and Kadyrov even provided troops to push Wagner PMC out of Rostov.

No one from the presidential administration voiced criticism of the leadership – instead, they united behind the Kremlin. Prigozhin acted militarily quickly and thus gained situational advantages over the sluggish state apparatus. But it was clear that a prolonged armed conflict would consolidate the shaken apparatus and – in case his uprising failed – Prigozhin would face a quick death or a long imprisonment.

The fact that the Kremlin did not take the chance and commissioned Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko to mediate was again due to military uncertainties. For no one knew to what extent war-weary Russian army units would actually fight their mercenary compatriots or perhaps would even partially defect.

After all, the Wagner fighters were able to move into Rostov without any significant resistance, and no one knew how many military officers shared Prigozhin’s anti-establishment populism. The quick end of the revolt also superficially brought back to the Russian hinterland a central element of Putin’s rule: stability.

As a result, both sides in the conflict came to a surprisingly quick agreement. Prigozhin was able to leave for Belarus with Putin’s guarantee of free passage, his entourage obtained immunity from prosecution and retreated to the rear of the Donbass combat zone. An uncertainty remains for the oligarch in that he could still be ‘secretly’ killed.

‘This is the style of the current government’ notes historian Nikolai Svanidze. The FSB also seems to be investigating Prigozhin. But all of this is still better than the almost certain death that would have awaited him and many of his men if the uprising had continued.

For the Kremlin, this action meant damage control, even if the image of being a guarantor of security and stability in Russia was tarnished. Prigozhin thus achieved more than he could have hoped for – if only because he escaped abroad unharmed.

The uprising will leave a lasting mark on the Putin system. Prigozhin and his Wagner army were his personal project, notes Maxim Trudolyubov, editor-in-chief of the exiled Russian newspaper Meduza.

In his view, Putin also used Prigozhin in the war against Ukraine to humiliate those generals who had been unsuccessful in his personal campaign. Now, the ‘PMC uprising’ – despite its short duration – shows the vulnerability of Putin’s power system.

Roland Bathon is a freelance journalist. He writes mainly about Russia and Eastern Europe.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS), published by the Global and European Policy Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin.

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