Africa

Inspired by seeing a bagpipe player in his youth, Chukwu Oba Kalu wanted more Nigerians to play.

Although both sides announced a ceasefire, fighting continues on one of Islam's holiest days.

Ayan (25) with her daughter Mushtaq (15 months) in the waiting area of the WFP funded Kabasa MAM Health Center. Credit: WFP/Samantha Reinders.

By Paul Virgo
ROME, Jun 28 2023 (IPS)

Four months pregnant, Ayan was close to dying of starvation when she arrived at the Kabasa camp in Dolow, on the border between Somalia and Ethiopia.

Her 18-month-old daughter, Mushtaq, was so severely malnourished that she weighed just 6.7 kilos.

Drought had forced the family to flee their home in Somalia.

Three years of drought have left more than 23 million people across parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia facing severe hunger, the WFP says. When the region’s long-awaited rains finally arrived in March, instead of bringing relief, the downpours were so extreme they caused flash floods that inundated homes and farmland and washed away livestock

Ayan’s husband died shortly after their arrival.

“We came here as we heard we would get some help,” Ayan said at a health centre funded by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

“We left our home because there was no water and our livestock had died.”

Thanks to nutritional therapy and fortified cereals provided by the WFP, Ayan and Mushtaq are still alive.

Many others do not make it.

Three years of drought have left more than 23 million people across parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia facing severe hunger, the WFP says.

When the region’s long-awaited rains finally arrived in March, instead of bringing relief, the downpours were so extreme they caused flash floods that inundated homes and farmland and washed away livestock.

Consecutive failed harvests and high transport costs have pushed food prices far beyond the reach of millions in the region, the WFP says, with a food basket in Eastern Africa costing 40% more in March 2023 than it did 12 months previously

The limited humanitarian resources are being further stretched by the conflict in Sudan, which has sent over 250,000 people fleeing into neighbouring countries such as Ethiopia and South Sudan, where food insecurity is already desperately high.

“Conflict and drought are devastating millions of Somalis. Children are paying the highest price of all,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain during a visit to Somalia in May. “Nearly 500,000 children are at risk of dying”.

The Horn of Africa is on the front line of the climate crisis.

A study released in April by World Weather Attribution (WWA) said that the drought in the Horn of Africa would probably not have happened without human-caused climate change.

“Climate change has made events like the current drought much stronger and more likely,” WWA said.

“A conservative estimate is that such droughts have become about 100 times more likely”.

The tragedy is also a massive injustice as poor countries like these are responsible for only a tiny part of the global emissions that have caused the climate crisis.

But they are feeling its effects most severely.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said the region is facing an “unprecedented disaster”.

“Many farming households have experienced several consecutive poor harvests and up to 100% losses, especially in the arid and semi-arid areas,” said Cyril Ferrand, the FAO’s Resilience Team Leader for East Africa.

“Some agropastoral communities lost all sources of food and income.

“In addition, 2.3 million people have been displaced across the region in search of basic services, water and food.

“And we know very well that when people are on the move, it is also an issue of security, violence, and gender-based violence, in particular.

“In short, the drought triggered a livelihood crisis that has grown into a multifaceted humanitarian disaster including displacement, health issues, malnutrition and security crisis that has long-term effects on people’s lives and livelihoods”

Ferrand said that pastoralists across the region lost over 13 million livestock between late 2020 and the end of 2022 due to lack of water and feed.

This is important because livestock are not only the main source of income for pastoralist households, but they are also a source of milk, which is vital for healthy diets, especially for children under five.

The loss of animals and the related deficit in milk production, therefore, is a big factor in the region’s high rate of malnutrition.

The WFP, meanwhile, says that it urgently needs US 810 million dollars over the next six months to fill a funding shortfall in order to keep life-saving assistance going and invest in long-term resilience in the Horn of Africa.

The UN agency was distributing food assistance to a record 4.7 million people a month in Somalia at the end of 2022.

But it was forced to reduce this to three million people in April and may have to further reduce the emergency food assistance caseload in Somalia to just 1.8 million by July.

This means almost three million people in need will not receive support.

“WFP’s rapid expansion of life-saving assistance helped prevent famine in Somalia in 2022,” said Michael Dunford, the WFP Regional Director for Eastern Africa.

“But despite the emergency being far from over, funding shortfalls are already forcing us to reduce assistance to those who still desperately need it.

“Without sustainable funding for both emergency and climate adaptation solutions, the next climate crisis could bring the region back to the brink of famine.”

 

Artificial intelligence is developing at a rapid rate and is transforming many aspects of life in Africa.

Zimbabwean women's informal savings clubs have been hit by high inflation and the low value of the country's currency. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Jun 28 2023 (IPS)

For years, self-employed and unemployed women in Zimbabwe formed neighbourhood “clubs” where they pooled money together for everything from buying bulk groceries to be shared at the end of the year to meeting funeral expenses.

But as inflation renders the local currency virtually worthless, with, for example, the price of a loaf of bread reaching ZWD4,000, women rights advocates say this has thrown local saving initiatives into a mind-numbing tailspin.

In recent weeks, the local dollar has been on a frenzied free fall against the greenback, and in one week alone, the parallel market rate went from USD1:ZWD2,000 to anything between USD1:ZWD3,000 and ZWD4,000.  Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency put Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rates at triple digits, with inflation rising 175.8% in June from 86.5% the previous month.

“We cannot buy foreign currency on the street to keep our savings club operating. You can’t plan anything with such an ever-changing exchange rate,” said Juliet Mbewe, a Bulawayo homemaker who sells snacks, sweets and other small items on a roadside not far from her township home.

“It was better when the country was using the USD as the official currency,” she said, referring to the period of the country’s government of national unity between 2009 and 2013.

That period is widely credited with taming  Zimbabwe’s economic turmoil and also helped make savings possible for women such as Mbewe.

Women’s savings clubs contributed monthly instalments of anything from as little as USD5, and from this pool, the club operated as an informal bank or microfinance lender where they issued loans at a small interest.

The accumulated savings were shared at the end of the year, while other such clubs bought groceries in bulk to be shared in time for Christmas.

And this was also a time when local banks encouraged women’s clubs to partner with registered financial institutions to incubate their savings and earn interest at the end of the year.

But with banks not being spared the decades-old economic turmoil, which has seen even banks close shop, financial institutions that remain are not known to offer ordinary account holders interest on their savings.

However, the return of rampant inflation is making the operation of women’s savings clubs increasingly difficult, says Mavis Dube, who formerly led a group of women’s clubs as their treasurer.

“It’s no longer easy because of the unstable currency. It now means having to raise more local dollars in order to buy foreign currency,” Dube said; as the authorities struggle to put breaks on a currency on free fall, these have been upended by inflation and an unsteady local currency.

For those who can afford that, the women are cushioning themselves from this by buying livestock which they say is guaranteed to store value.

International NGOs such as World Vision are assisting rural women navigate increasingly tough economic circumstances, supporting projects such as raising and selling poultry.

However, such projects have not been made available to more women in a country where self-help efforts face incredible odds as inflation gnaws into small enterprises.

While the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development has made efforts to encourage women’s participation in the country’s economic development agenda, it has struggled to keep up with the increasing number of women seeking assistance to start their own businesses.

The ministry recently launched what it says are “Women Empowerment Clubs” with the aim to assist women access funding, but concerns remain that the red tape involved in accessing the loans only enables a cycle of poverty for women.

Rights advocates say the high unemployment rate among women has meant that women have no access to the formal banking sector, where they access loans.

“Most banks and lending institutions require collateral for them to release loans which most women do not have. Profits from the informal sector are so meagre and only allow women to feed from hand to mouth,” said Sithabile Dewa, executive director of the Women’s Academy for Leadership and Excellence.

“In order to address these challenges, the Government must put in place laws and policies that protect women in small businesses, such as discouraging lending institutions from putting too much interest or demanding collateral on women, something they know they do not have,” Dewa told IPS.

While women have attempted to keep up with the volatile exchange rate, it has exposed their vulnerability to poverty at a time when agencies such as UN Women lament that women’s economic empowerment in Zimbabwe has been “impeded by their dominance in the informal sector and vulnerable employment.”

While saving clubs served as a bulwark against such uncertainties, Dewa says contemporary economic circumstances have made it near impossible to run such schemes that hedged against poverty.

“The savings clubs are still there though they have been modernised to meet the changing times,” Dewa said.

“The problems facing these clubs are hyper-inflation, an unstable and unpredictable economy. Those which are still viable are the ones being done using USD, but how many women have access to the foreign currency,” she added.

For now, women such as Mbewe and Dune continue to live hand to mouth, their ambitions to save for a rainy day effectively on pause.

“It’s harder now than ever, and the pain is that there is no sign this will end anytime soon,” Mbewe said, the little she makes selling sweets barely enough to meet her daily needs.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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The pilgrimage to Mecca is becoming increasingly unaffordable for many Muslims across the world.

An Interfaith Moment of Prayer for Peace at UN Headquarters. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
 
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the gathering was taking place at a unique moment: on the last Friday of Ramadan, as Christians celebrate Easter, Jews mark the end of Passover, and Sikhs enjoy the festival of Vaisakhi. “Even the calendar is sending a message of unity,” he remarked. “Today, at this blessed moment of renewal across faiths, let us lift our hearts and voices for peace – our guiding star and our most precious goal.” April 2023

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Jun 28 2023 (IPS)

For the last 30 odd years, I have maintained that religions matter. I noted the reasons for why they matter, and always listed how they matter —as social service providers, as first responders in humanitarian crisis; as mediators in tensions and conflicts, as upholders of common good and the values of humanity; as protectors of children and of the most vulnerable; and even as political actors.

All to name but a few. I still feel amused when some of those I trained among the UN staff and the faith-based NGO community, quote something I said, in public – albeit without even being aware they are quoting (I am trying to be kind here) – such as: “we should not be talking about whether religions matter, but how they matter”.

In 2007, while at UNDP, I was told, more than once, “we do not do religion”. By the time I left the UN in 2020, after building two bodies – an Interagency Task Force on Religion and its Multi Faith Advisory Council – it was clear that almost all UN entities were competing to ‘do religion’. In fact, some UN entities are competing for religious funding.

While I have not lost that faith in faith itself, over the last years, I have grown increasingly incredulous of those who would speak in the name of ‘religion’. It is hard not to feel distinctly bemused, when versions of ‘if religious actors/leaders are not at the [policy] table, they will be on the menu]’, are being told in one gathering after another.

Often by the same kinds of speakers, among the same kinds of audiences, albeit meeting more and more frequently – and often more lavishly — in different cities around the world.

The reason for bemusement, is not disillusion with the unparalleled roles that various religious institutions and communities of faith play. Far from it. These roles are, in short, vast. In fact, they are as impossible to quantify, as they are implausible to assume full comprehension of.

After all, how do you accurately measure the pulse of our individual spiritualities – let alone our collective sense thereof? Religious leaders, religious institutions, faith-based and faith-inspired NGOs (FBOs) – let alone faith communities – are massive in number, and permeate all the world’s edifices, peoples and even languages. Faiths, and expressions of religiosity, are likely as numerous as the hairs on an average head (not counting those who may be lacking vigour in that department).

No, the reason for bemusement is disillusionment with the trend of commercialisation of religion, the business of ‘doing religion’. The emerging marketplace of “religion and [fill in the blanks – and anything is possible]” is reminiscent of not too many decades ago, when so many academics, consultants, think tanks, NGOs, worked on the business of democracy and/or good governance and/or human rights. Then, as now, projects, programmes, initiatives, meetings, and more meetings, were hosted.

A global emerging elite of ‘experts’ in the above (or variations thereof) permeated the four and five-star hotel meeting rooms, gave business to caterers and conference centres as they traipsed the ‘conference circuits’ from north to south, populated proposals to governments, philanthropists and various donor entities.

They defined the missions of for-profit consultancies claiming to enable the strategic capabilities, to inform the media presences, to refine the narratives, to provide the leadership coaching, to jointly express the common values, to uphold the good in public service… And so on.

We are not living in better democracies now, in spite of all that business. Will we have more faithful societies? Will people pray more, for one another and serve more selflessly now that ‘religion’ is in? Somehow, I doubt it.

By the time we realised the extent of the commercialisation of democracy and human rights, the commercial nature had corrupted much of the sagacity – and the necessary courage – there was. Even autocrats bought into the business of doing democracy and human rights, and used the narratives to enhance their respective agendas.

Few democratic actors worked together, and even fewer collaborated to serve – and save – the whole of humanity. As with any business venture, the motive of profit – and power – of some, dominated.

And rather than a consolidated civil society effort holding decision makers accountable for the sake of the most vulnerable, and collectively and successfully eliminating the tools of harm, we are living in the era where money, weapons – including nuclear ones – control over resources, and war (including war on this earth), dominate.

Today, some of the most authoritarian and self-serving regimes, and some of the most power-seeking individuals, and their retinues, are vested in the business of ‘religion’. And why not? It is among the most lucrative domains of financial, political and social influence.

Decades of study, however, point to some simple questions to ask, to distinguish the transactional nature of ‘religious affairs’ claiming to be for the good of all, from those actually serving the common good.

The questions include the following:

How many of those engaged in the work of religion (whether as religious or secular actors) actually give of or share, their varied resources, to/with one another (including those from other/different religions, entities, age groups, countries, races, etc.)?

How many different religious organisations plan and deliver, jointly, the same set of services to the same set of needs, in the same neighborhoods or in the same countries?

How many ‘religious actors’ actually partner with ‘secular’ civil society organisations to hold institutions of political and financial power equally accountable – if need be, at cost to their own welfare. In other words, how many stand on principle, irrespective of the cost?

And, my personal favourite: what are these religious actors’ respective positions on women’s rights, on gender equality and/or on women’s leadership?

The more diplomatic way to frame that is also one of the most powerful litmus tests: which human rights do these actors working on/with/for religion, value more? You see, those who are engaged in transactional practices wearing a religious garb, will invariably prioritise some rights, or some privileges, over others.

The answer to this question therefore, will indicate the difference between a coalition of religious fundamentalists (including secular power seekers and some religious and political leaders), and a multilateral alliance dedicated to serving the common good – for each and all, barring none, especially in the most challenging of times.

Azza Karam is a Professor of Religion and Development at the Vrij Universiteit of Amsterdam and served as a member of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The opposition has complained that the vote tallying was not transparent and have disputed the result.

In the United States and Canada, overdose deaths, predominantly driven by an epidemic of the non-medical use of fentanyl, continue to break records. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jun 27 2023 (IPS)

How come that in a world where technology is -or is about to be- able to detect an ant in a jungle, the traffickers of death continue to carry out their lucrative criminal activities everywhere and in all fields, from weapons to prostitution, enslavement and drugs, to deadly fake medicines, through oil, gas and poisoned food.

In the specific case of Asia, a specialised organisation reports the Asian ‘Golden Triangle’ is where historically opium was grown to produce heroin for export, but where, in recent years, the trade of “even deadlier and more profitable synthetic drugs have taken over.”

Transnational organised crime groups anticipate, adapt and try to circumvent what governments do, and in 2022 we saw them work around Thai borders in the Golden Triangle more than in the past

Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific
In its June 2023 report, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) informs that East and Southeast Asian synthetic drug supply remains at ‘extreme levels’ and diversifies.

The report, “Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia: latest developments and challenges 2023”, confirms an expansion and diversification of synthetic drug production and trafficking in the region, while trafficking routes have shifted significantly.

“Thailand, Laos and Myanmar are at the frontlines of illicit trade in Asia dominated by transnational organised crime syndicates.”

 

Methamphetamine, ketamine…

‘High volumes’ of methamphetamine continue to be produced and trafficked in and from the region while the production of ketamine and other synthetic drugs has expanded.

“Transnational organised crime groups anticipate, adapt and try to circumvent what governments do, and in 2022 we saw them work around Thai borders in the Golden Triangle more than in the past,” said Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

 

‘Unwanted’ to be seen

“Traffickers have continued to ship large volumes through Laos and northern Thailand, but at the same time they have pushed significant supply through central Myanmar to the Andaman Sea where it seems few were looking.”

Douglas added that criminal groups from across the region also started moving and reconnecting after lengthy pandemic border closures, with late 2022 and early 2023 patterns starting to look similar to 2019.

 

Hidden in “legal products”

Moreover, synthetic drugs containing a mixture of substances and sometimes “packaged alongside legal products” continue to be found throughout East and Southeast Asia, with serious health consequences for those who knowingly, or unknowingly, consume the products.

Moreover, the world drug problem is a complex issue that affects millions of people worldwide.

Many people who use drugs face stigma and discrimination, which can further harm their physical and mental health and prevent them from accessing the help they need, the UN warns on the occasion of the 2023 International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking (26 June).

 

“Unprecedented” increase

The increase in the production of synthetic drugs in recent years has been “unprecedented” according to the UNODC Regional Representative.

It is not just drugs which are being trafficked across the region: chemical precursors to manufacture synthetic drugs are being illegally transported into Myanmar in quantities far larger than the drugs that are trafficked out, UNODC further explains.

 

Trafficking also in people, wildlife, timber…

In fact, a myriad of cross-borders issues, including drug and precursor chemical trafficking, migrant smuggling, human trafficking, wildlife and forestry crime, and, in some locations, the movement of terrorist fighters alongside public health and pandemic-related matters.

 

The impact of legalising the use of cocaine

Cannabis legalisation in parts of the world appears to have accelerated daily use and related health impacts, according to the World Drug Report 2022, which also details record rises in the manufacturing of cocaine, the expansion of synthetic drugs to new markets, and continued gaps in the availability of drug treatments, especially for women.

According to the report, around 284 million people aged 15-64 used drugs worldwide in 2020, a 26% increase over the previous decade.

“In Africa and Latin America, people under 35 represent the majority of people being treated for drug use disorders.”

Globally, the report estimates that 11.2 million people worldwide were injecting drugs. Around half of this number were living with hepatitis C, 1.4 million were living with HIV, and 1.2 million were living with both.

Reacting to these findings, UNODC Executive Director, Ghada Waly stated: “Numbers for the manufacturing and seizures of many illicit drugs are hitting record highs, even as global emergencies are deepening vulnerabilities.”

At the same time, mis-perceptions regarding the magnitude of the problem and the associated harms are depriving people of care and treatment and driving young people towards harmful behaviour, said Waly.

 

Key trends by region

In many countries in Africa and South and Central America, the largest proportion of people in treatment for drug use disorders are there primarily for cannabis use disorders. In Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and in Central Asia, people are most often in treatment for opioid use disorders.

In the United States and Canada, overdose deaths, predominantly driven by an epidemic of the non-medical use of fentanyl, continue to break records. Preliminary estimates in the United States point to more than 107,000 drug overdose deaths in 2021, up from nearly 92,000 in 2020.

 

Conflict zones magnets for synthetic drug production

This year’s report also highlights that illicit drug economies can flourish in situations of conflict and where the rule of law is weak, and in turn can prolong or fuel conflict.

Information from the Middle East and South-East Asia suggest that conflict situations can act as a magnet for the manufacture of synthetic drugs, which can be produced anywhere. This effect may be greater when the conflict area is close to large consumer markets.

Historically, parties to conflict have used drugs to finance conflict and generate income. The 2022 World Drug Report also reveals that conflicts may also disrupt and shift drug trafficking routes, as has happened in the Balkans and more recently in Ukraine.

 

A possible growing capacity to manufacture amphetamine in Ukraine

According to the UNODC report, “there was a significant increase in the number of reported clandestine laboratories in Ukraine, skyrocketing from 17 dismantled laboratories in 2019 to 79 in 2020. 67 out of these laboratories were producing amphetamines, up from five in 2019 – the highest number of dismantled laboratories reported in any given country in 2020.”

 

Gender treatment gap

Women remain in the minority of drug users globally yet tend to increase their rate of drug consumption and progress to drug use disorders more rapidly than men do. Women now represent an estimated 45-49% of users of amphetamines and non-medical users of pharmaceutical stimulants, pharmaceutical opioids, sedatives, and tranquillisers.

The treatment gap remains large for women globally. Although women represent almost one in two amphetamine users, they constitute only one in five people in treatment for amphetamine use disorders.

The World Drug Report also spotlights the wide range of roles fulfilled by women in the global cocaine economy, including cultivating coca, transporting small quantities of drugs, selling to consumers, and smuggling into prisons.

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Anti-racism protesters in Brooklyn, New York, demonstrate demanding justice for the killing of African American, George Floyd. Credit: UN News/Shirin Yaseen

By Norman Solomon
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Jun 27 2023 (IPS)

A recent Justice Department report concluded that “systemic” racial bias in the Minneapolis Police Department “made what happened to George Floyd possible.”

During the three years since a white police officer brutally murdered Floyd, nationwide discussions of systemic racism have extended well beyond focusing on law enforcement to also assess a range of other government functions.

But such scrutiny comes to a halt at the water’s edge — stopping short of probing whether racism has been a factor in U.S. military interventions overseas.

Hidden in plain sight is the fact that virtually all the people killed by U.S. firepower in the “war on terror” for more than two decades have been people of color. This notable fact goes unnoted within a country where — in sharp contrast — racial aspects of domestic policies and outcomes are ongoing topics of public discourse.

Certainly, the U.S. does not attack a country because people of color live there. But when people of color live there, it is politically easier for U.S. leaders to subject them to warfare — because of institutional racism and often-unconscious prejudices that are common in the United States.

Racial inequities and injustice are painfully apparent in domestic contexts, from police and courts to legislative bodies, financial systems and economic structures. A nation so profoundly affected by individual and structural racism at home is apt to be affected by such racism in its approach to war.

Many Americans recognize that racism holds significant sway over their society and many of its institutions. Yet the extensive political debates and media coverage devoted to U.S. foreign policy and military affairs rarely even mention — let alone explore the implications of — the reality that the several hundred thousand civilians killed directly in America’s “war on terror” have been almost entirely people of color.

The flip side of biases that facilitate public acceptance of making war on non-white people came to the fore when Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022. News coverage included reporting that the war’s victims “have blue eyes and blond hair” and “look like us,” Los Angeles Times television critic Lorraine Ali noted.

“Writers who’d previously addressed conflicts in the Gulf region, often with a focus on geopolitical strategy and employing moral abstractions, appeared to be empathizing for the first time with the plight of civilians.”

Such empathy, all too often, is skewed by the race and ethnicity of those being killed. The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association has deplored “the pervasive mentality in Western journalism of normalizing tragedy in parts of the world such as the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and Latin America. It dehumanizes and renders their experience with war as somehow normal and expected.”

Persisting today is a modern version of what W.E.B. Du Bois called, 120 years ago, “the problem of the color line — the relation of the darker to the lighter races.” Twenty-first century lineups of global power and geopolitical agendas have propelled the United States into seemingly endless warfare in countries where few white people live.

Racial, cultural and religious differences have made it far too easy for most Americans to think of the victims of U.S. war efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and elsewhere as “the other.”

Their suffering is much more likely to be viewed as merely regrettable or inconsequential rather than heart-rending or unacceptable. What Du Bois called “the problem of the color line” keeps empathy to a minimum.

“The history of U.S. wars in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America has exuded a stench of white supremacy, discounting the value of lives at the other end of U.S. bullets, bombs and missiles,” I concluded in my new book War Made Invisible. “Yet racial factors in war-making decisions get very little mention in U.S. media and virtually none in the political world of officials in Washington.”

At the same time, on the surface, Washington’s foreign policy can seem to be a model of interracial connection. Like presidents before him, Joe Biden has reached out to foreign leaders of different races, religions and cultures — as when he fist-bumped Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at their summit a year ago, while discarding professed human-rights concerns in the process.

Overall, in America’s political and media realms, the people of color who’ve suffered from U.S. warfare abroad have been relegated to a kind of psychological apartheid — separate, unequal, and implicitly not of much importance.

And so, when the Pentagon’s forces kill them, systemic racism makes it less likely that Americans will actually care.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of a dozen books including War Made Easy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in June 2023 by The New Press.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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With the monsoon refugees in the cramped camps in Cox’s Bazar are expected to be impacted by an increase of dengue, which last year accounted for 1,283 cases in the Rohingya camps. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

By Rafiqul Islam
DHAKA, Jun 27 2023 (IPS)

With the monsoon in Bangladesh, Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar have emerged as a dengue hotspot, with the mosquito-borne disease continuing to spread among the stateless refugees.

“A total of 1,066 dengue cases were reported in highly cramped refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar up to May 23 this year, while the case tally was only 426 among the local community there,” Dr Nazmul Islam, Director of Disease Control and Line of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), said.

However, the latest data of the DGHS revealed that 1,283 people were infected with and 26 people died of dengue in the Rohingya camps and surrounding host community in Ukhiya and Teknaf upazilas of Cox’s Bazar from January 1 to June 6, 2023.

Nazmul said the dengue infection rate is highest in the Rohingya camps.

“Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar have the highest number of dengue patients. Last year, over 17,000 dengue patients were identified there. The number of dengue patients is so high this year, too,” he said.

Official data showed that dengue cases increased significantly in 2022 when the monsoon started. Experts fear the dengue situation will be more acute in the Rohingya camps during the monsoon this year.

Bangladesh witnessed its largest influx of Rohingya refugees in 2017 following a military crackdown in the Rakhine State of Myanmar. According to UNHCR, about 7,73,972 Rohingya people entered the country as refugees, totaling nearly 10 million with the previous influxes.

The forcibly displaced Rohingyas took shelter in overcrowded makeshift camps where they lacked access to civic amenities, including education, food, clean water, and proper sanitation, and also face natural disasters and infectious disease transmission.

“Most refugees have no adequate access to clean water, sanitary facilities, or healthcare. The monsoon season also poses a huge threat to thousands of Rohingya families living in makeshift shelters as dengue outbreak emerges in camps during the period,” said Ro Arfat, a Rohingya refugee.

Nazmul said Rohingya refugees live in a limited space in the camps where there is not enough scope to runoff rainwater, so stagnant water creates an enabling environment for the breeding Aedes mosquito, carrier of the dengue virus.

He said the risk of dengue infections climbs in densely populated areas. With the monsoon, the dengue situation could turn dangerous in the refugee camps.

Dr Iqbal Kabir, Professor and Director at the Climate Change and Health Promotion Unit, the Ministry of Health, Bangladesh, said in recent years, environmental changes have been markedly observed throughout the globe, and there is no exception in Bangladesh.

“The nature of the Aedes mosquito is that it must bite five humans to suck blood as per its demand, and an Aedes mosquito lays more than 200 eggs a time. Once they get suitable humidity and temperature, mosquito breeding occurs,” Kabir said.

He observed that dengue spreads very fast, but the authorities have not controlled dengue infections in the highly-crowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.

During the monsoon, Bangladesh experiences spikes in dengue outbreaks. In 2022, 17 refugees died from dengue infections in Rohingya camps.

Despite having a high dengue infection rate in the camps, lack of awareness about the virus and the absence of prompt diagnosis of the disease make the Rohingya refugees more vulnerable.

“An Aedes mosquito can infect many within seconds, and keeping densely populated refugee camps safe from mosquitoes is really difficult. So there is a high possibility of a severe outbreak in the refugee camps,” said Mahbubur Rahman, Civil Surgeon, and Chief Health Officer for Cox’s Bazar.

Urgent Action Needed

The burden of dengue is related to the changes in rainfall patterns. The rainfall pattern has been changed. Pre-monsoon erratic rainfall is linked with the increase of vectors.

Unusual rainfall occurred in Cox’s Bazar area earlier this year, triggering dengue outbreaks in the camps.

Kabir said the dengue national guideline should be revisited to check dengue outbreaks across the country, including Rohingya camps.

He suggested launching a crash programme to prevent dengue infections in Rohingya camps; if clustering could be ensured, it would be easy to deal with the dengue situation there.

Golam Rabbani, head of BRAC’s Climate Bridge Fund, said the Bangladesh government should initiate research and increase the authorities’ capacity to tackle any future outbreak of dengue in the country.

He says the Department of Public Health and the DGHS should identify dengue as one of the most climate-sensitive diseases and improve their disease profile, suggesting the government initiate investment and policy interventions to address the dengue in Bangladesh.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Credit: White House, September 2020
 
Ron DeSantis is considered Trump's biggest rival for the Republican presidential primaries. But for the Florida governor, it's a battle of unequal weapons

By Marco Bitschnau
NEUCHATEL, Switzerland, Jun 26 2023 (IPS)

It’s been seven months since Florida Governor Ron DeSantis celebrated a brilliant re-election victory in the midst of an otherwise mixed Republican midterm performance. He had come in with nearly 20 per cent more votes than Democrat Charlie Crist.

This was an almost surreally good result for a state that, until a few years ago, was considered a veritable swing state – and still is, according to many local media. His fabulous result made Florida’s already successful chief executive the man of the hour overnight.

Every smile, every gesture, every Caesar-like sweep of the crowd by the beaming victor seemed to say: here is someone who could actually challenge Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. Someone who shares many of his strengths but few of his weaknesses.

A steep downward spiral

Today, these scenes seem like something from another world. Trump, who had basically been written off at one point, has now overtaken his opponent in almost all of the major opinion polls: most recently, Trump’s lead according to Quinnipiac was 31 percentage points, (33 at FOX News, 34 at Morning Consult and 42 at Harvard/Harris).

To some extent, the results are even more disastrous for DeSantis at the individual state level. In West Virginia, for example, a poll at the end of May saw him trailing behind Trump by a whopping 45 percentage points, with only 9 per cent thinking he was the right candidate.

Admittedly, even under the best of circumstances, the Harvard lawyer wouldn’t be a good fit for the coal mining towns of Appalachia. But falling below the 10 per cent mark should still wound his ego.

It is unclear what this rapid decline in pre-election popularity can be attributed to. On the one hand, of course, it seems possible that the mid-term election hype surrounding DeSantis was too great and that the situation is simply returning to normal.

On the other hand, it may relate to the criminal proceedings against Trump, his increased media presence as a result and an incipient nostalgia for his time in office. But there is a widespread view that the challenger himself is not entirely free of his own misery.

DeSantis’ presidential candidacy was announced comparatively late, the campaign launch with Twitter boss Elon Musk – in theory, an impressive idea – suffered from technical defects, and the narrative of the valiant fight against ‘wokeness’ also seems to be wearing thin these days. In this case, as so often in life, oversaturation creates frustration.

All the more so, as one should know how to abandon a topic if it threatens to bog down the discourse and to change the branding strategy – a skill that the governor, who tends toward micromanagement, evidently cannot claim as one of his strengths.

For example, when DeSantis threatened to take control of the 100-square-kilometre Reedy Creek Improvement District away from the media company Disney – which had publicly opposed a Florida anti-gay law – it initially went down well with an electorate that was already sceptical about such corporate privileges.

But then, the ensuing exchange of blows did not inspire an image of a confident leader. Instead of being celebrated as a winner, DeSantis escalated the conflict, which has since become a tangle of legal confusion and has led to a freeze on Disney’s investments in the state.

Even if the 44-year-old still gets the legal upper hand in the end, the scratches on his image as ‘a tough man of action’ cannot be glossed over so quickly. They also pose a big risk for him: the impression seems to be gaining ground that, despite all his shrewdness, he lacks a certain something – the assertiveness and the authority of his rival, who is still surrounded by a post-presidential aura.

And nowhere is this difference in image more evident than when Trump and DeSantis refer to each other.

While Trump has been touring the country for months, ranting about ‘Ron DeSanctimonious’ as a nobody ‘who needs a personality transplant’ and owes his success to him alone, people in the DeSantis camp are at a loss as to how to counter this strategy.

Some don’t want to get involved in a mudslinging contest where they can only lose against the Insulter-in-Chief. Others see the greater danger – too much restraint, following the old proverb that ‘the best defence is a good offence’.

Beating Trump at his own game

Trump’s own campaign history is, of course, the best example of how successful this second strategy can be: in 2016, with a deliberately hyper-aggressive manner, he managed to repudiate all of his competitors and redirect existing loyalties to himself.

This Trump was someone who savagely lashed out at his hapless predecessors, Mitt Romney and John McCain – and was enthusiastically acclaimed for it by people who had supported both.

He was someone who openly accused George W. Bush of ‘destabilising the Middle East’ and waging unjust wars – and was met with approval from people who had spent half their lives defending those same wars. Someone who wanted to turn the Grand Old Party into his personal electoral vehicle – and the more brazenly he pursued this goal, the more open doors he charged through.

According to this logic, Trump would have to be ‘out-Trumped’, so to speak, in order to knock him off his pedestal. He would have to be ridiculed, with doubt cast on his assertiveness. Ask him where the promised border wall went, why Mexico didn’t pay for it and why Chinese products are still flooding the US market.

Accuse him of being too soft on criminals and too hard on freedom-loving patriots. Call him a failure because he has proven incapable of carrying out the Make America Great Again agenda. In short: turn his own weapons against him. However, it is hardly to be expected that DeSantis, with his wait-and-see attitude, will rise to the task anytime soon. The fear of prematurely losing support among the Trump supporters who are still to be wooed is likely too great.

The Indian-born biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who is also vying for the Republican nomination and enjoys the advantage of being able to throw his punches from outside the political field of vision, is more skilfull Although he greatly respects Trump, he recently went on record saying that Trump failed in his fight against the cartels and has kept very few of his promises: ‘I think I’m closer to Trump in 2015 than Trump today is to Trump in 2015.’

It’s not a bad move to position himself as an alternative for voters who want to make a distinction between personalities and political positions. It’s a strategy that was successful enough for the unknown Ramaswamy to now rank in the polls ahead of established party figures like Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, whose half-hearted campaigns – both of whom are obviously eyeing the vice presidency – are still struggling.

For DeSantis, whose options are more limited, it remains a fight with unequal weapons – and against time. In order to show that he actually has a real chance, he has to reverse the disastrous poll trend as soon as possible and unite a broad coalition of all those behind him, who have little interest in a third attempt by ex-President Trump.

This includes moderate Republicans who recognise a power-conscious pragmatist behind the rhetorical bombast, the old party establishment just waiting for the right opportunity to free itself from the Babylonian captivity of the last few years, but also various libertarians, evangelicals and grassroots conservatives from the orbit of former presidential aspirant Ted Cruz, who believed that Trump ruled in an overly dirigiste manner, or who don’t consider him sufficiently ideologically sound.

Forging and maintaining such a heterogeneous alliance requires not only political mobility and a strong ground game but also a bulging war chest – and at least in this respect, DeSantis seems capable of scoring.

Despite the botched start, his campaign raised a whopping $8.2 million within 24 hours of announcing his candidacy, while Trump has managed to raise only $9.5 million over the past six months. The fact that this man from the small town of Dunedin has won the hearts of so many donors is more than just a sign of encouragement.

Anyone who has sufficient financial resources on the hellishly expensive US primary election stage can also get through a dry spell here and there without having to fear direct operational collapse. And this much is certain: in his fight against Trump, the eternal comeback kid, DeSantis will need every penny.

Marco Bitschnau is pursuing a PhD in political sociology at the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies (SFM) at the University of Neuchâtel and is a research associate at the Swiss National Science Foundation. His research focuses on migration, populism, democracy and the welfare state.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS)-Journal published by the International Political Analysis Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Hundreds of Sudanese are stuck at the border with Egypt, after the country reversed an exemption allowing women, children and elderly men to cross freely without a visa.

Perla Venegas is one of 1444 female bus drivers in the surface public transport network in Santiago, Chile, which aims at gender inclusion and offers job stability and shift flexibility compatible with family life. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Jun 26 2023 (IPS)

Sexual harassment and discrimination are daily realities for women on public transport in Chile and also an obstacle for plans to expand mass transit in order to reduce pollution in several cities in this South American country.

Santiago, the capital, is the most polluted city based on fine air particulate matter among the large Latin American cities, according to the World Air Quality Report 2022, ahead of Lima and Mexico City, while five other Chilean cities are among the 10 most polluted in South America.

Sexual harassment is the most visible form of discrimination against women in Chilean public transportation, in addition to insecurity due to poorly lit bus stops, inadequate buses, and more frequent trips at times when women are less likely to travel.

Personal accounts gathered by IPS also mentioned problems such as the constant theft of cell phones and the impossibility for young women to wear shorts or low-cut tops when traveling on buses or the subway, the backbone of Santiago’s public transportation system.

To address these problems, the Chilean government and the Santiago city government adopted gender strategies: they put in place special telephones to report harassers and thieves, began installing “panic buttons” and alarms at bus stops, and incorporated more women in driving and security.

“When I was younger I suffered a lot of harassment because I didn’t have the character to stand up to the harassers. Now that I am older, I am able to confront an aggressor without fear, even when he is harassing another person, whether a man or a woman. When I confront them, they run away,” Bernardita Azócar, 34, told IPS.

 

Bernardita Azócar, in a subway station in Santiago, Chile, heads to her job in a collection agency. She says she suffered sexual harassment on public transport in the capital when she was younger, but now she is more alert to any aggression and feels empowered to help others who suffer the same bad experience. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

 

“It happened to me a couple of times when I was younger. They want to grope you or try to touch another girl and now I confront them. I suffer less because I’m more aware and I try not to put myself at risk,” she added during a dialogue at the University of Chile subway station in Santiago.

Azócar, who works for a collection company, said the root cause of harassment lies in education and in Chilean society.

“If you wear a miniskirt or show cleavage, society points the finger at you, as if you were provoking men and it was your fault. And I don’t think that’s why it happens. It’s abuse to be harassed in the public system…or anywhere else,” she said.

Maite, a humanities student at the Catholic University, feels that women are at a disadvantage on public transportation.

“When a woman takes a bus, she tends to sit next to the aisle to have an easier way to flee from any threat. Or she sits next to another woman so as not to travel alone. There are many things that women do that are not explicit. They are behaviors we learn, to get by on public transportation,” said the young woman who, like her friends, preferred not to give her last name.

According to Maite, “women can’t wear shorts or backpacks on the bus, or openly use a cell phone. Every time you get on the bus you have to take a lot of measures.”

Maite and four other classmates told IPS that they take a combination of buses and the subway to go to school and that none of them have suffered harassment on the bus, but they know of several cases that happened to their friends.

“If someone tries to touch me or crowd me too closely I don’t feel so safe,” said Elena, a commercial engineering student.

“A friend of mine had her cell phone stolen. I have not been harassed, but I would never go on the bus or subway in shorts even if I were dying of heat. I wear long pants because wearing shorts is a risk,” added Emilia, a psychology student.

 

The five university students in this group lament the discrimination women suffer on Chilean public transport and recognize that they have a “code of conduct” that they personally follow to avoid problems, such as not wearing shorts or miniskirts or showing cleavage, even in summertime, although it sometimes restricts their personal freedom. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

 

The joys and pitfalls of being a female bus driver

Getting more people to use buses and other public transport in Chile, a long narrow country with a population of 19.8 million, is difficult because 71 percent of households own at least one car.

The incorporation of more female bus drivers is aimed at a friendlier mass transit system.

Perla Venegas, 34, has been working as a bus driver in Santiago’s public transportation system for six years.

“I like my job and driving. The most complicated thing is dealing with cyclists, pedestrians and passengers, who are never satisfied,” she told IPS while parked waiting to pull out on the corner of Santa Rosa and Alameda, in the heart of downtown Santiago.

Her route connects downtown Santiago with the municipality of Maipú, in the western outskirts of the capital.

“I’m on a par with the male drivers, but I’m more cautious, not so aggressive and I’m a more defensive driver. I have been complimented several times, especially by elderly people,” said Venegas, who lives with her two daughters, aged 16 and 8.

“I have female colleagues who have been hit and beaten. I received a death threat from a passenger because when the route ended he wouldn’t get off. He was a homeless drug addict. It was 5:30 AM. In the end I found a carabineros (police) patrol car and I turned him in,” she said.

She added that she has had both pleasant and negative experiences and acknowledged that she is proud that her eldest daughter also wants to be a bus driver “although I would not like her to experience the hard parts.”

 

The Santiago subway is the backbone of the mass transit system in the Chilean capital. It makes it possible to reach 23 of the 32 municipalities that encompass the capital and allows passengers to combine with a bus network to reach any point of the metropolitan region. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

 

Staying alert in the subway, the main means of public transport

On the Santiago subway there are 2.3 million trips on working days. Its tracks cover 140 kilometers on six lines, with 136 stations in 23 of the 32 municipalities that comprise the metropolitan area. Greater Santiago is home to 7.1 million people.

An additional 2.1 million average daily trips are made on surface public transport.

According to official statistics, during the first five months of the year there were 21 pollution episodes in Santiago above the maximum standard level and eight environmental alerts for excess fine particulate matter, so increasing the use of public transport instead of private vehicles is considered a priority for the authorities.

Paulina del Campo, the subway’s sustainability manager, told IPS that gender issues are a strategic objective in this state-owned company.

“We have taken the issue of harassment very seriously. We do not have large numbers, but we do have moments like March 2022 when the issue was raised because of situations in the streets and in universities that included public transportation,” she said.

After meetings with authorities and student leaders, the subway increased the presence of female security guards at stations in the university district.

“One of the things they said is that in a situation of harassment it is much more comfortable to ask for help from a woman than from a man,” explained Del Campo.

The company thus hired a specific group of female guards to receive and respond to complaints.

“Qualified staff respond and are trained to provide support for the victims. We can quickly activate the protocols with the carabineros police. When it happens we can intercept the train and often arrest the people (aggressors) on the spot,” said Del Campo.

In another campaign, a standard methodology designed by international foundations with expertise in harassment was adapted to the situation in Chile.

At the same time, the subway increased its female staff and the number of women in leadership positions.

“Two years ago we had a female staff of around 20 percent and now, in May, 26.5 percent of the 4,400 subway workers are women. In the area of security guards we have a staff of approximately 700 and of these 110 are women,” explained the company’s Sustainability Manager.

 

These two women are security guards at the Plaza Egaña subway station, on line 6 in Chile’s capital. The state-owned Metro company is increasing the number of women in its services as part of a gender policy that even includes the maintenance of trains. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

 

Gender policies in public transportation

The Metropolitan Public Transport Directorate (DTPM) informed IPS that it aims to reduce the male-female gap in public transport.

It also plans to increase the number of women bus drivers.

The Red system, with buses running throughout Santiago, currently employs 1,444 women – only 7.6 percent of all drivers.

“Many women who have entered this field come from highly precarious and unregulated jobs, so this opportunity has allowed them greater autonomy and, on many occasions, to leave violent environments and improve their self-confidence,” the DTPM stressed in response to questions from IPS.

“This has meant an effort to train and generate conditions to keep and promote women who are part of the system,” it added.

Origin-Destination Surveys reveal that women are the main users of public transport and 65 percent of trips for the purpose of caring for the home, children or other people are made by women. They are more likely to make multidirectional trips and in the so-called off-peak hours, with little traffic.

According to the DTPM, waiting for the bus is one of the most critical moments in every trip.

“This is why we installed the panic button at bus stops and real-time information on the arrival of buses to improve the perception of security,” it explained.

The information is available through an application on cell phones, while the panic buttons began as a women’s safety pilot plan in October 2022 at stops in one of the capital’s municipalities. The plan is to extend them to a large number of stops in Santiago.

Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 26 2023 (IPS)

When the United Nations commemorated ‘International Day of Women in Diplomacy’ last week, the President of the General Assembly (PGA) Csaba Kőrösi rightly pointed out the woeful absence of women to hold that position in the UN hierarchy.

“Women have played a central role in the history of the United Nations ever since the signing of the UN Charter,” he said, “but out of the 78 people elected to my role, President of the General Assembly, only four have been women.”

So far, the only four women elected as PGAs in the 78-year history of the UN were: Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit from India (1953), Angie Brooks from Liberia (1969), Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa from Bahrain (2006) and Maria Fernando Espinosa Garces from Ecuador (2018).

The 193-member General Assembly (GA) is described as the highest policy making body at the United Nations – and according to a longstanding diplomatic protocol, the PGA is virtually treated as head of state at international conferences.

At a dinner hosted by a UN ambassador years ago, one of the former women PGA’s told a group of reporters she was at a summit meeting of world leaders in a Middle Eastern capital where all the heads of state were, rightfully, accommodated in the front rows of the hall.

But she was deprived of that honor because she was a woman — and was offered a back row seat – in a country which did not obviously believe in gender empowerment.

“Gender parity?”, one of the journalists at the dinner table remarked, “it’s always a losing battle”.

Kőrösi told delegates only one in 4 Permanent Representatives (PRs) are women – “even if some of them are spearheading this session’s major, and very complicated, negotiation processes”.

He said the latest ‘Women in Diplomacy Index’ shows that, in 2023, only one fifth of all ambassadors in the world are women.

“I extend my gratitude to the women PRs for their strong leadership of some of the most challenging talks, including on the SDG Summit, Financing for Development, or Universal Health Coverage, just to mention a few.”

“In my own Office”, he said,” women account for two thirds of the team, with the same proportion in the management of the OPGA (Office of the President of the General Assembly).“

“For it is only by working together that we will achieve a sustainable future for both halves of humanity”.

According to a new report from the World Economic Forum it will take about 131 years for women to attain gender parity with men – and not until 2154.

Speaking during the commemoration of ‘International Day of Women in Diplomacy’, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield shared a little history.

She said: “US Ambassador Madeleine Albright (1993-97), who was our representative at the Security Council, told me that she created this group called the G7. And it was all of the women that I thought were on the Security Council and I was amazed that there were seven women at that time”.

“And so, I went to see her after I started here, and I said there are only five women on the Security Council now. And she said that’s fantastic – because I was the only woman on the Council (during 1993-97).

Her G7 were all the women in the General Assembly—seven out of 193 ambassadors.

“So, we have made progress. But there’s still more to be made. And I think as women, we are able to bring out those issues that really highlight and amplify women in the Security Council”.

“We ensure that there are women speakers who come to brief the Council. We ensure that issues related to Women, Peace, and Security are amplified in our discussions. And it’s not that men don’t always do it, but they don’t do it enough. As women we’re constantly aware and constantly looking for opportunities to raise women up,” she said.

According to the UN, women have been playing a crucial role in global governance since the drafting and signing of the United Nations Charter in 1945.

“Women and girls represent half of the world’s population and, therefore, also half of its potential. Women bring immense benefits to diplomacy. Their leadership styles, expertise and priorities broaden the scope of issues under consideration and the quality of outcomes”.

“Research shows that when women serve in cabinets and parliaments, they pass laws and policies that are better for ordinary people, the environment and social cohesion. Advancing measures to increase women’s participation in peace and political processes is vital to achieving women’s de facto equality in the context of entrenched discrimination”.

Out of the 193 Member States of the United Nations, only 34 women serve as elected Heads of State or Government.

“Whilst progress has been made in many countries, the global proportion of women in other levels of political office worldwide still has far to go: 21% of the world’s ministers, 26% of national parliamentarians, and 34% of elected seats of local government.”

According to a new UN report, at the current pace of progress, equal representation in parliament will not be achieved until 2062.

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) is the world’s largest yearly meeting of world leaders. While the UNGA has been the setting for several historic moments for gender equality, much has yet to be achieved regarding women’s representation and participation.

The 15-member UN Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. “While women currently represent slightly over a third of the Security Council’s members — far higher than the average — it is still far from enough”, says the UN.

“Historically, diplomacy has been the preserve of men. Women have played a critical role in diplomacy for centuries, yet their contributions have often been overlooked. It’s time to recognize and celebrate the ways in which women are breaking barriers and making a difference in the field of diplomacy”.

At the UNGA’s 76th Session, the General Assembly by consensus declared the 24th of June each year to be the ‘International Day of Women in Diplomacy’.

By its resolution (A/RES/76/269), the Assembly invited all Member States, United Nations organizations, non-governmental groups, academic institutions and associations of women diplomats — where they exist — to observe the Day in a manner that each considers most appropriate, including through education and public awareness-raising.

According to UN Women:

• There are 31 countries where 34 women serve as Heads of State and/or Government as of January 2023.
• Of the five United Nations-led or co-led peace processes in 2021, two were led by women mediators, and all five consulted with civil society and were provided with gender expertise.
• In 2022, the Security Council held its first-ever formal meeting focusing on reprisals against women participating in peace and security processes.
• In multilateral disarmament forums, wide gaps persist in women’s participation and women remain grossly underrepresented in many weapons-related fields, including technical arms control – only 12 per cent of Ministers of Defense globally are women.
• Countries where there are more women in legislative and executive branches of government have less defense spending and more social spending.

Meanwhile, the Related “UN Observances” on Women include

• Gender equality
• International Women’s Day
• International Day of Women Judges
• International Day of the Girl Child
• International Day of Rural Women
• International Delegate’s Day
• International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace
• International Day of Women in Multilateralism
• Women Rise for All

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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