Africa

George Orwell's satirical novel has such resonance it has been translated into the local Shona language.

ECW Executive Director Yasmine Sherif launches the Multi-Year Resilience Programme in Yirol, South Sudan. The three-year programme, delivered by Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Finn Church Aid, in close conjunction with the Ministry of General Education and Instruction and other partners, will reach at least 135,000 crisis-affected children and youth. Credit: ECW/Jiménez

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Jun 24 2023 (IPS)

South Sudan is experiencing one of the most severe crises in the world today, causing fragility, instability, and economic stagnation. While a peace agreement was reached in 2018, sporadic intercommunal violence and climate-induced disasters continue to spur displacement. More than 2.2 million people are internally displaced. Another 2.3 million have fled to neighboring countries as refugees.

“South Sudan ranks the lowest on the human development index. It is the poorest country in the world and will need to catch up across all sustainable development goals and especially in areas such as eliminating extreme poverty, improving the education system, and gender equality. Yet, before COVID-19, 2.8 million children, and adolescents, or 70 percent of school-aged children, were not attending school. The number is now closer to 3 million,” ECW’s Executive Director Yasmine Sherif told IPS.

Sherif was on a field mission to South Sudan, where she met the President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit, and Awut Deng Acuil, South Sudan’s Minister of General Education and Instruction, to assist immediate solutions to the education crisis in a country where only 13 percent of children transition to secondary school. For them, education and conflict are two sides of the same coin. Their joint mission is to ensure no child is left behind, especially in hard-to-reach areas such as Pibor and Abyei.

“Years of conflict and forced displacement, compounded by climate-induced disasters, have taken a heavy toll on South Sudan’s next generation. Now is the time to turn the tide and provide the most vulnerable girls and boys with the protection and hope that only a quality education offers. By working together with the Government, donors, civil society, and across the United Nations, this is the single best investment we can make for the future of this young country and the entire region,” said Sherif when she met with Ministry officials in Lakes State.

At least 135,000 children will benefit from the ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programme in South Sudan. Credit: ECW/Jiménez

ECW is the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises and has supported South Sudan with multi-year investment since 2020. To address these interconnected crises through the transformative power of education, President Kiir and Sherif announced USD 40 million in catalytic grant funding in a function attended by key stakeholders, including the governor of Lakes State, education officials, parents, and children.

From the Lakes State, the fund has launched its second and the largest ever multi-year investment amounting to USD 75 million and has secured two-thirds of that amount, which is USD 50 million. Of this, ECW contributed USD 40 million. The Global Partnership for Education provided another USD 10 million for Education. In addition to the new multi-year investment, ECW also announced a half-a-million dollar First Emergency Response grant to support the immediate education response to the arrivals of refugees and returnees fleeing Sudan.

“We appeal to government donors and the private sector to close the remaining gap of one-third, equivalent to USD 25 million, to fully fund a multi-year investment education program. We say five for five to fully fund the multi-year investment. If five strategic donor partners and private sector (partners) offered five million dollars each, we would have a fully funded multi-year resilience program in the education sector,” she says.

ECW funding in South Sudan now tops USD 72 million, up from the fund’s USD 32 million invested to date – reaching close to 140,000 children, built or rehabilitated over 160 classrooms and temporary learning spaces, and provided learning materials to 50,000 children thus far.

With the extended response multi-year response, children will continue to enjoy a quality, safe, inclusive education. Sherif says there is a special focus on children with disability, especially those with cognitive disabilities, an invisible problem that often goes unrecognized among children in developing countries.

Further stressing that the President and education ministries are fully committed to bringing girls back to school through progressive messaging to the community, policy, and law. The push to keep girls in school and out of reach of child marriages and early child pregnancies is unrelenting.

“The Government of South Sudan is fully committed to ensuring that all children are able to obtain a quality education. Education Cannot Wait’s top-up investment will provide life-saving educational opportunities for tens of thousands of crisis-affected girls and boys across the country,” said President Salva Kiir Mayardit.

“To advance this work, we are calling on world leaders to step up funding for ECW and its in-country partners. This is a critical investment in sustainable development, peace, and prosperity for the people of South Sudan and crisis-impacted children worldwide.”

Closer home, the current conflict in Sudan is fuelling additional needs in South Sudan. More than 100,000 people have crossed the border in recent weeks. Cornered by unrelenting multiple challenges, options for a better future shrink with every new challenge. Unmitigated, an entire generation of children could miss out on lifelong learning and earning opportunities.

“In light of the unfolding Sudan crisis, we will allocate and make an announcement of half a million dollars to support the Government of South Sudan to provide education to arrivals and returnees fleeing the Sudan conflict. Children and adolescents who were already going to school will continue to do so uninterrupted, have school meals, and psychosocial and mental health support,” Sherif said.

The new funding will extend ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programme in South Sudan for another three years. The three-year programme will be delivered by Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and Finn Church Aid, in conjunction with the Ministry of General Education and Instruction and other partners.

It will reach at least 135,000 crisis-affected children and youth – including refugees, returnees, and host-community children – with holistic education supports that improve access to school, ensure quality learning, enhance inclusivity for girls and children with disabilities, and build resilience to future shocks.

Importantly, the new multi-year programme will improve responsiveness and resilience through improved evidence-based decision-making, strengthen coordination and meaningful engagement with local actors, and scale-up resource mobilization.

As the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, ECW collaborates closely with governments, public and private donors, UN agencies, civil society organizations, and other humanitarian and development aid actors to increase efficiencies and end siloed responses.

ECW and its strategic partners are assessing the impacts of the civil war in Sudan on neighboring countries, including the Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, and South Sudan, to provide agile and responsive investments that return crisis-impacted girls and boys to the safety and protection of quality learning environments. The fund urgently appeals to public and private sector donors for expanded support to reach more vulnerable children and youth.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Lucineide Cordeiro loads manure from her two oxen and two calves into the "sertanejo" biodigester that produces biogas for cooking and biofertilizer for her varied crops on the one-hectare agroecological farm she manages on her own in the rural municipality of Afogados da Ingazeira, in the semiarid ecoregion of northeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

By Mario Osava
AFOGADOS DA INGAZEIRA, Brazil , Jun 24 2023 (IPS)

“The biodigester really gives a huge boost to those who have the courage to do things,” said Maria das Dores Alves da Silva, based on her own experience as a 63-year-old small farmer.

She did not hesitate to accept the offer of Diaconia, a social organization of Protestant churches in Brazil, to acquire the equipment to produce biogas on her farm in the rural area of Afogados da Ingazeira, a municipality of 38,000 people in the state of Pernambuco in the Northeast region of Brazil."We seek to promote energy, food and water autonomy to maintain more resilient agroecosystems, to coexist with climate change, strengthening community self-management with a special focus on the lives of women." -- Ita Porto

At first she did not have the cattle whose manure she needed to produce biogas, that enables her to save on liquefied petroleum gas, which costs 95 reais (20 dollars) for a 13-kg cylinder – a significant cost for poor families.

She brought manure from a neighboring farm that gave it to her for free, in an hour-long trip with her wheelbarrow, until she was able to buy her first cow and then another with loans from the state-owned Banco del Nordeste.

“Now I have more than enough manure,” she said happily as she welcomed IPS to her four-hectare farm where she and her husband have lived alone since their two children became independent.

Das Dores, as she is known, is an example among the 163 families who have benefited from the “sertanejos biodigesters” distributed by Diaconia in the sertão of Pajeú, a semiarid micro-region of 17 municipalities and 13,350 square kilometers in the center-north of Pernambuco.

Farmer Maria das Dores Alves da Silva stands between the manure pit and the “sertanejo” biodigester designed by Diaconia, a social organization of Protestant churches in Brazil, which has already installed 713 biogas production plants in eight of Brazil’s 26 states. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Biofertilizer

In addition to using the biogas, she sells the manure after it has been subjected to anaerobic biodigestion that extracts the gases – the so-called digestate, a biofertilizer that she packages in one-kilo plastic bags, after drying and shredding it.

Every Saturday, she sells 30 bags at the agroecological market in the town of Afogados da Ingazeira, the municipal seat. At two reais (40 cents) a bag, she earns an extra income of 60 reais (12.50 dollars), on top of her sales of the various sweet cakes she bakes at home, at a cost reduced by the biogas, and of the seedlings she also produces.

The seedlings provided her with a new business opportunity. “The customers asked me if I didn’t also have fertilizer,” she said. The biodigester produces enough fertilizer to sell at the market and to fertilize the farm’s crops of beans, corn, fruit trees, flowers and different vegetables.

This diversity is common in family farming in Brazil’s semiarid Northeast, but even more so in the agroecological techniques that have expanded in this territory of one million square kilometers in the northeastern interior of the country, which has an arid biome highly vulnerable to climate change, subject to frequent droughts, and where there are areas in the process of desertification.

The Pajeú river basin is the micro-region chosen by Diaconia as a priority for its social and environmental actions.

On Lucineide Cordeiro’s small farm, cotton, corn, sesame, sunflower, cassava and fruit trees are alternated in the fields, as recommended by agroecology, which is on the rise on family farms in Brazil’s semiarid Northeast, which is threatened by longer and more severe droughts due to the climate crisis. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Energy and food security

“We seek to promote energy, food and water autonomy to maintain more resilient agroecosystems, to coexist with climate change, strengthening community self-management with a special focus on the lives of women,” Ita Porto, Diaconia’s coordinator in the Pajeu ecoregion, told IPS.

“The production of biogas on a rural family scale fulfills the needs of energy for cooking, sanitary disposal and treatment of animal waste and reduction of deforestation, in addition to increasing food productivity, with organic fertilizer, while bolstering human health,” said the 48-year-old agronomist.

More than 713 units of the “sertanejo biodigester”, a model developed by Diaconia 15 years ago, have been installed in Brazil. In addition to the 163 in the sertão do Pajeú, there are 150 in the neighboring state of Rio Grande do Norte and another 400 distributed in six other Brazilian states, financed by the Caixa Econômica Federal, a government bank focused on social questions.

“Hopefully the government will make it a public policy, as it has already done with the rainwater harvesting tanks in the semarid Northeast,” said Porto.

More than 1.3 million rainwater harvesting tanks for drinking water have already been built, but some 350,000 are still needed to make them universal in rural areas, according to the Articulation of the Semi-Arid (Asa), a network of 3,000 social organizations that spearheaded the transformative program.

Maria Das Dores examines the biofertilizer that comes out of the biodigester, without the gases from the animal manure. She sells this by-product at the agroecological market in the town of Afogados da Ingazeira, the seat of the municipality where her four-hectare farm is located, which earns her an average extra income of 12.5 dollars a week. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

The value of manure

“One cow is enough to produce the biogas consumed in our stove,” said Lucineide Cordeiro, on her one-hectare farm where she grows cotton, corn, sesame seeds and fruit, in an interconnected agroecological system, along with chickens, pigs and fish in a pond.

She also has two oxen and two calves, which she proudly showed to IPS during the visit to her farm.

“Pig manure produces biogas more quickly, but I don’t like the stench,” the 37-year-old farmer who is the director of Women’s Policies at the Afogados da Ingazeira Rural Workers Union told IPS.

The difference in the crops before and after fertilization by the biodigester by-product is remarkable, according to her and other farmers in the municipality.

She tends to her many crops on her own, although she is sometimes helped by friends, and has several pieces of equipment such as a brushcutter and a micro-tractor.

“It’s the best invention,” says Lucineide Cordeiro, as she shows IPS the seeder created by the Japanese for small-scale farming, which allows her to sow in half a day the land that used to take her two days to plant, on her one-hectare farm in Afogados da Ingazeira, in Brazil’s semiarid Northeast. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

“But the seeder is the best invention that changed my life, it was invented by the Japanese. Planting the seeds, which used to take me two days of work, I can now do in half a day,” Cordeiro said.

The seeder is a small machine pushed by the farmer, with a wheel filled with seeds that has 12 nozzles that can be opened or closed, according to the distance needed to sow each seed.

The emergence of appropriate equipment for family farming is recent, in a sector that has favored large farmers in Brazil.

Female protagonism clashes with male chauvinist violence

For the success of local family farming, the support of the Pajeú Agroecological Association (Asap), of which Cordeiro is a member and a “multiplier”, as the women farmers who are an example to others of good practices are called, is important.

In family farming the empowerment of women stands out, which in many cases was a response to sexist violence or oppression.

Blue flames emerge from the burners of Maria Das Dores’ biogas stove at her home in Afogados da Ingazeira, in Brazil’s semiarid Northeast region. A single ox or cow produces enough manure to generate more biogas than a family requires for its domestic needs. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

“The first violence I suffered was from my father who did not let me study. I only studied up to fourth grade of primary school, in the rural school. To continue, I would have had to go to the city, which my father did not allow. I got married to escape my father’s oppression,” said Cordeiro, who also separated from her first husband because he was violent.

After living in a big city with the father of her two daughters, she separated and returned to the countryside in 2019. “I was reborn” by becoming a farmer, she said, faced with the challenge of taking on that activity against the idea, even from her family, that a woman on her own could not possibly manage the demands of agricultural production.

Organic cotton, promoted and acquired in the region by Vert, a French-Brazilian company that produces footwear and clothing with organic inputs, has once again expanded in the Brazilian Northeast, after the crop was almost extinct due to the boll weevil plague in the 1990s.

In the case of Das Dores, a small, energetic, active woman, she has a good relationship with her husband, but she runs her own business initiatives. Thanks to what she earns she was able to buy a small pickup truck, but it is driven by her husband, who has a job but helps her on the farm in his free time.

“He drives because he refuses to teach me how, so I can’t go out alone with the vehicle and drive around everywhere,” she joked.

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A demonstration in the city of Córdoba, capital of the province of the same name in central Argentina, in favor of legal, safe and free abortion and women's rights. The color green has identified the movement in favor of the legalization of abortion, which was passed by Congress in late 2020. CREDIT: Catholics for Choice

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Jun 23 2023 (IPS)

Viviana Mazur is a doctor at the Santojanni Hospital in Mataderos, a working-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires. She has witnessed the advances in women’s rights in Argentina, where until 2020 abortion was only allowed on two grounds, while it is now available on demand up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.

“Today what we see at the hospital is that most women come in for a consultation very early; in many cases they do so as soon as their period is late. This makes it possible to resolve almost all abortions with medication, in the woman’s own home, with medical advice and monitoring,” she said."(Medical abortion) is less traumatic and less risky for the woman and it's less costly for the public health system." -- Viviana Mazur

Mazur, who is also coordinator of Sexual Health in the Buenos Aires city government, said there are many advantages of medication abortion over the traditional surgical procedures.

“It’s less traumatic and less risky for the woman and it’s less costly for the public health system,” she told IPS.

In Argentina, as a result of years of struggle by the women’s rights movement, since January 2021 abortion has been decriminalized. In the last stage of the fight, mass demonstrations by women – and also men – wearing green headscarves, which has become a pro-choice symbol in Latin America, filled the streets.

Since then, Law 27,610 on Access to Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy allows any woman to have an abortion up to the 14th week of pregnancy free of charge and without having to explain the reasons for her decision.

Until the law came into force, access was severely restricted: a Supreme Court ruling in effect since 2012 authorized what was called Legal Termination of Pregnancy, only in the case of rape or if the pregnancy endangered the woman’s life or health.

Argentina’s Minister of Health Carla Vizzotti (C) holds the green headscarf that is the symbol for the feminist movement that fought for the successful legalization of abortion in Argentina. CREDIT: Ministry of Health

More abortions recorded in 2022

In 2022, the first full year in which the law allowing abortion on demand was in force, 96,664 abortions were performed in the public health system of this South American country of 46 million inhabitants, according to official data. This marked a significant increase over 2021, when the total was 73,847, partly due to the rise in abortions in the public health system.

“More than 85 percent of abortions in 2022 were performed with medication,” Valeria Isla, the national director of Sexual and Reproductive Health, told IPS.
.
“The good news is that today these are safe practices taking place within the health system. In any case, since until recently most abortions were clandestine, we believe it is too early to draw conclusions with respect to the number. The figures have yet to stabilize,” she added.

Isla explained that her office provides training to health personnel from all over the country on how to perform abortions and that medications are distributed, as well as equipment for manual vacuum aspiration, which is a less risky medical procedure in a doctor’s office than dilation and curettage, which is performed in an operating room.

In this sense, since 2022 the incorporation of mifepristone into the Argentine health system, in addition to misoprostol, which has been used for years to perform medical abortions, has been a great step forward.

The combination of mifepristone and misoprostol, called “combipack”, makes abortions more efficient and less painful for women, and in fact the combination of these two drugs for pregnancy termination is one of the techniques recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 2005.

Last year, the WHO ratified both as essential drugs for providing quality health services and backed their efficacy and safety for abortion.

Isla explained that since last year the national government has been distributing mifepristone in public hospitals thanks to a donation from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Since March of this year, mifepristone has been fully available also for the Argentine private health system, since the governmental National Administration of Medicines, Food and Medical Technology (Amnat) authorized its sale in pharmacies.

This has allowed the “combipack” to be used in recent months in the private health system as well, where women now also have easier access to abortion.

“The incorporation of mifepristone has been very important on a day-to-day basis to make abortion easier for women, because it means less misoprostol is used, side effects are reduced and the whole process can be carried out at home, with prior and subsequent checkups,” Florencia Grazzini, a social worker at a primary care clinic in the municipality of Lanús, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, told IPS.

Grazzini began providing support to women who needed access to abortion long before the legalization of voluntary termination of pregnancy. She worked for years at the Kimelú counseling center, formed by feminist activists and serving the southern area of Greater Buenos Aires.

She said that while access to abortion has now been greatly facilitated, for some women termination of pregnancy is still a stigma.

“Despite the fact that with the law there is no need to gjve a reason for abortions up to 14 weeks of pregnancy, the justification for the decision continues to appear in the record of the consultations,” Grazzini pointed out.

She added that, “We are working so that people can share how they feel about their situation, but we don’t want them to feel that they need to explain in order to access an abortion.”

She said the women are told that they do not need to explain why they wish to have an abortion, although psychological assistance is provided to those who request it.

Abortion, however, sometimes encounters resistance from health professionals themselves. This was reflected in May, when the Ministry of Health updated the Protocol of Care and urged the “elimination of all requirements that are not clinically necessary for the safe practice of abortion.”

Specifically, it called for the elimination of waiting or reflection periods and the requirement of parental or partner consent.

A rally at the Ministry of Health in Buenos Aires, where feminist activists showed their green scarves and demonstrated in favor of women’s rights. CREDIT: Ministry of Health

The need for support

More data that shows that the legalization of abortion has not eliminated all the actual barriers is provided by Socorristas en Red (roughly, “Helpers Online Network”), a women’s organization that provides nationwide support for women who need an abortion.

In 2022, the network received 13,292 calls from women who wanted to terminate their pregnancies.

Only 10 percent of them had abortions in the public health system and the rest had abortions that they arranged elsewhere. The organization provided them with psychological assistance, information, instructions, WhatsApp messages, phone calls, and virtual and face-to-face company by “socorristas” or helpers. With all this they found greater comfort than in the health system.

This picture is completed by the visible inequality in access to abortion in different areas of the country.

Although the number of public hospitals and health centers that perform abortions reached 1793 in 2022 – against less than 1000 in 2021 – in some provinces the supply is very limited. For example, in the northern provinces of Santiago del Estero and Chaco there are only eight and nine health institutions, respectively, that perform abortions.

“In some places there is resistance from officials and a lack of knowledge among fellow workers about outpatient treatment with medications,” Ana Morillo, a social worker in the province of Córdoba, in the center of the country, told IPS.

Morillo, who is an activist and member of the Network of Professionals for Choice and the organization Catholics for Choice, said the advocacy work of the women’s rights movement has made Cordoba one of the provinces with the greatest access to abortion, since there are 180 hospitals and health centers that perform the procedure.

“The greatest inequalities are between cities and rural areas, where it is much more difficult to access an abortion. These are the disparities in the country on which we still have to work the hardest,” she said.

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Indigenous activist protesting in Colombia. Credit: Sebastian Barros

By Marianne Buenaventura
PARIS, Jun 23 2023 (IPS)

As the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact unfolds in Paris on 22-23 June, Forus, a global network representing over 22,000 civil society organisations across Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe and the Pacific, calls for the respect of human rights and for meaningful inclusion of civil society in shaping financial systems and structures.

The summit, co-hosted by India, could help find common ground on finance that drives progress at key events later in 2023 and in 2024 – the G20 summit in New Delhi, the COP28 climate talks in Dubai, and the Finance in Common summit with public development banks in Cartagena.

As part of the summit, Sarah Strack, Forus Director, is amplifying civil society’s voices at the high-level Finance in Common event in the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders, to discuss and leverage the role of Public Development Banks in financing the SDGs, scaling up sustainable finance, and supporting inclusion. Forus has been engaging in the Finance in Common initiative since its inception in 2020 with the aim to ensure that a people-based approach to development is pursued.

“If we want to have a chance to tackle the most pressing challenges and the multiple crises of our time in a way that really puts first the interests and needs of people, then a shift of mindset and a new financial framework are absolutely necessary. It is essential that civil society plays a central role in shaping this new paradigm at every stage. Let us not forget the wealth of knowledge and leadership present at the local level. By actively engaging and collaborating with communities, we can genuinely measure our progress and honor the commitments we have made to those most in need,” says Sarah Strack.

Harsh Jaitli, CEO of the Voluntary Action Network India (VANI), is representing Forus as an official respondent in the Summit Roundtable “Power Our Planet: Act today. Save tomorrow”, co-hosted by Global Citizen and CISCO. The event seeks to rally for immediate action on economic, social, and climate justice, engaging both public and private sectors to catalyze renewable energy investment in climate-vulnerable countries to reduce energy poverty and accelerate the low-carbon transition.

Harsh Jaitli of VANI states that the New Global Financial Pact will require improved partnerships and the building of trust.

“Double standards have negatively impacted our collective capacity to deliver on effective development and climate related programmes. In some countries, multinational corporations respect human rights, fiscal and climate regulations, but in other countries decisions are made to violate them. Not only does this send the wrong message that some countries and populations are more important than others, but also jeopardizes our collective efforts to affect change. Multinational corporations should commit to respecting human rights, fiscal and climate regulations in all countries and in a consistent manner. When no strong regulations exist, this is the opportunity for multinationals to be proactive and to apply strong rules, which are coherent with their policies,”says Harsh Jaitli.

Julien Comlan Agbessi, Coordinator of the Regional Coalition of West Africa (REPAOC) emphasizes the importance of multi-stakeholder cooperation. Agbessi explains that cooperation between the private sector and the civil society organisations is possible, since the private sector could leverage hugely on the experience and outreach of civil society. “Many poverty alleviation programs and projects with significant funding implemented over the past decades have failed to deliver for communities. Transformative investments in low-income countries and climate impacted countries require putting the needs of people first,” says Julien Comlan Agbessi.

Lina Paola Lara Negrette, Coordinator of the Confederación Colombiana de ONG (Ccong), states that the New Global Financial Pact must incorporate stronger and more meaningful engagement with civil society.

“Civil society has an important role to play in ensuring the accountability and transparency of both government and private sector actors. Civil society can work closely with governments and the private sector to ensure the delivery of social and environmental needs in all investments, which includes respect of human rights”.

Olivier Bruyeron, President of the French platform of CSOs Coordination SUD, equally emphasizes the importance of partnerships with the public and private sector, “CSOs hold valuable knowledge and expertise on international solidarity needed to construct sustainable global solutions and to link them with local development” adds Olivier Bruyeron.

Marianne Buenaventura is project coordinator at Forus.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The Destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in Ukraine has left thousands displaced and disastrous impacts on the environment. Credit: Ukraine Red Cross/Twitter

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Jun 23 2023 (IPS)

As well as creating a humanitarian crisis, the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in Ukraine has wrought enormous environmental damage which may never be undone, ecologists have said.

The collapse of the dam in the Kherson region on June 6 put more than 40,000 people in immediate danger from flooding and left hundreds of thousands without access to drinking water, according to Ukrainian officials.

The reservoir at the dam, which continued to drain days after the dam’s destruction, held 18 cubic kilometres (4.3 cubic miles) of water – a volume roughly equal to the Great Salt Lake in Utah – and was the source of fresh water for large parts of the south of the country.

The disaster – which Kyiv says was the result of Russian sabotage –  flooded scores of villages, towns and cities along the Dnieper River. Entire settlements were destroyed, with houses washed away or almost completely submerged by the floodwaters.

Although those waters have begun to recede in many places now, and the immediate risk from drowning has largely abated, other grave dangers remain, with Ukraine’s health ministry warning of the threat of water and food-borne diseases as dead bodies, chemicals, landfills, and waste from toilets could contaminate floodwaters and wells.

President Volodymyr Zelensky also highlighted a potential danger from anthrax as floodwaters may have disturbed animal burial sites, and Health Ministry officials told IPS that they were especially concerned about the risk of cholera in the weeks to come.

The death toll was at least 52, with Russia giving 35 in its territory and Ukraine saying 17.

And those who have been evacuated are unlikely to be able to return to their homes for some time, if at all, adding tens of thousands of already vulnerable people to the country’s ongoing crisis of internal displacement.

“There are already 5 million people internally displaced in Ukraine. This will put more strain on already stretched services,” Olivia Headon, spokesperson for the International Organisation for Migration, which is helping with rescue efforts in affected areas, told IPS.

But while the human toll of the disaster is becoming increasingly apparent, so too is its massive environmental impact.

Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrij Melnyk has called the destruction of the dam “the worst environmental catastrophe in Europe since the Chernobyl disaster”, and many local experts believe the ecological effects will be felt for decades to come.

“Some ecosystems could recover within a dozen years from the flooding itself [but] the drop in groundwater level upstream of the dam is permanent – unless the dam is rebuilt – so [some] ecosystems will never recover,” Natalia Gozak, Wildlife Rescue Field Officer in Ukraine for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), told IPS.

The area downstream from the dam – which includes three national parks – is rich in wildlife, some of it very rare.

Local environmental groups estimate that hundreds of thousands of animals have been affected by the dam’s destruction and that tens of thousands have been killed.

They fear a loss of endemic endangered species – areas home to nearly all known locations of the rare ant species Liometopum microcephalum, as well as 70% of the world population of Nordmann’s birch mouse (Sicista loriger), have been flooded.

Meanwhile, ecosystems which were already endangered are now having to deal with either too much or too little water and could disappear.

Ecologists are also worried about a massive loss of bird life while the draining of the reservoir at the dam will also result in major freshwater fish stocks in Ukraine being lost.

The loss of water from the dam reservoir and the major canals it served also spells an end to water supplies for land used to grow crops and other produce which feeds not only Ukrainians but many millions in developing countries too. Forty percent of the World Food Programme’s wheat supplies come from Ukraine.

“In future years, the greatest impact will be seen in southern agricultural areas, which are now left without water supplies. These areas will already have changed next summer depending on what adaptation measures are possible and what action is taken,” said Gozak.

She added that in areas where irrigation channels are no longer being filled from the reservoir, agriculture will stop. “It is possible there will be desertification [of this land],” she said.

The IFAW says this drying of land will subsequently affect local microclimates and cause temperature shifts, while wind erosion will blow sand and soil all over neighbouring areas, impacting both people and nature.

Meanwhile, there are other long-term environmental threats.

Pollution is one as floodwaters have washed an estimated 150 tons of machine oil has been washed as far down as the Black Sea, according to Ukrainian officials. Huge oil slicks have also been seen on the waters in Kherson city’s port and industrial facilities.

And there have been warnings that parts of the river and surrounding lands may now be full of mines.

Some areas of Ukraine have been heavily mined since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion last year, and it is believed the floodwaters dislodged many of them.

While there have been reports of some exploding as they hit debris on their way downstream, many are likely to have remained unexploded and covered in silt and mud or buried under other debris.

International rescue groups say that finding where they are and then demining them would be a very slow process, even without the ongoing war.

“We’re mapping the likelihood of where the mines were and where they might end up. The area around the dam was heavily mined to stop an amphibious assault, and we don’t know precisely how many mines there are. There could be thousands of mines involved, but we hope not tens of thousands,” Andrew Duncan, a weapon contamination coordinator for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told IPS.

“If the fighting stopped and we were able to get into the area, it would be a case of all reasonable effort being made to locate the mines. But this is a very slow process. Any affected land will be out of commission for years,” he added.

But that is not all.

About 150 kilometres upstream from Nova Kakhovka is the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant which draws its cooling water from the dam’s reservoir. The reactors at the plant, which had been under the control of Russian forces since early on in the war, had been shut down prior to the disaster, but they still needed water to cool them and prevent a nuclear catastrophe.

While officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have said that alternative sources, including a large pond next to the plant, can provide cooling water for a number of months, the disaster has highlighted the potential for an even greater catastrophe at the site, others say.

Ukrainian nuclear scientist Mariana Budjeryn, Senior Research Associate at the Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard Kennedy School, told international media: “If the Russians would do this with Kakhovka, there’s no guarantee they won’t blow up the reactor units at the Zaporizhzhia plant that are also reportedly mined – three of the six. It wouldn’t cause a Chernobyl, but massive disruption, local contamination and long-term damage to Ukraine.”

Regardless of what may or may not come to pass at the nuclear plant, the effects of the dam’s destruction will be felt by both people and nature for a long time to come.

Olena Kozachenko*, an office worker from the Korabel district in the Kherson region, told IPS: “We’re all going to have to live with the dangers, such as dislodged mines, for a long time after the flooding.”

Gozak added: “The human toll of the disaster is probably greater than the environmental toll [but] it will take years and years for ecosystems and habitats to get back to how they were if it can happen at all.”

*Not her real name.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Cover photo by Reuters/Stringer via Gallo Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Jun 23 2023 (IPS)

The violence keeps coming in Myanmar, under military rule since February 2021. The junta stands accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, with evidence of systematic use of killings, rape, torture and other gross human rights violations in its attempt to suppress forces demanding a return to democracy.

Even humanitarian aid is restricted. Recently the junta refused to allow in aid organisations trying to provide food, water and medicines to people left in desperate need by a devastating cyclone. It’s far from the first time it’s blocked aid.

Crises like this demand an international response. But largely standing on the sidelines while this happens is the regional intergovernmental body, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Its recent summit, held in Indonesia in May, failed to produce any progress.

ASEAN’s inaction

ASEAN’s response to the coup was to issue a text, the Five-Point Consensus (5PC), in April 2021. This called for the immediate cessation of violence and constructive dialogue between all parties. ASEAN agreed to provide humanitarian help, appoint a special envoy and visit Myanmar to meet with all parties.

Civil society criticised this agreement because it recognised the role of the junta and failed to make any mention of the need to restore democracy. And the unmitigated violence and human rights violations are the clearest possible sign that the 5PC isn’t working – but ASEAN sticks to it. At its May summit, ASEAN states reiterated their support for the plan.

A major challenge is that most ASEAN states have no interest in democracy. All 10 have heavily restricted civic space. As well as Myanmar, civic space is closed in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

It wouldn’t suit such states to have a thriving democracy on their doorstep, which could only bring greater domestic and international pressure to follow suit. States that repress human rights at home typically carry the same approach into international organisations, working to limit their ability to uphold human rights commitments and scrutinise violations.

Continuing emphasis on the 5PC hasn’t masked divisions among ASEAN states. Some appear to think they can engage with the junta and at least persuade it to moderate its violence – although reality makes this increasingly untenable. But others, particularly Cambodia – a one-party state led by the same prime minister since 1998 – seem intent on legitimising the junta.

Variable pressure has come from ASEAN’s chair, which rotates annually and appoints the special envoy. Under the last two, Brunei Darussalam – a sultanate that last held an election in 1965 – and Cambodia, little happened. Brunei never visited the country after being refused permission to meet with democratic leaders, while Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Sen, visited Myanmar last year. The first post-coup visit to Myanmar by a head of government, this could only be construed as conferring legitimacy.

Indonesia, the current chair, hasn’t appointed a special envoy, instead setting up an office headed by the foreign minister. So far it appears to be taking a soft approach of quiet diplomacy rather than public action.

Thailand, currently led by a pro-military government, is also evidently happy to engage with the junta. While junta representatives remain banned from ASEAN summits, Thailand has broken ranks and invited ASEAN foreign ministers, including from Myanmar, to hold talks about reintegrating the junta’s leaders. A government that itself came to power through a coup but should now step aside after an election where it was thoroughly defeated looks to be attempting to bolster the legitimacy of military rule.

ASEAN states seem unable to move beyond the 5PC even as they undermine it. But the fact that they’re formally sticking with it enables the wider international community to stand back, on the basis of respecting regional leadership and the 5PC.

The UN Security Council finally adopted a resolution on Myanmar in December 2022. This called for an immediate end to the violence, the release of all political prisoners and unhindered humanitarian access. But its language didn’t go far enough in condemning systematic human rights violations and continued to emphasise the 5PC. It failed to impose sanctions such as an arms embargo or to refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Civil society in Myanmar and the region is urging ASEAN to go further. Many have joined together to develop a five-point agenda that goes beyond the 5PC. It calls for a strategy to end military violence through sanctions, an arms embargo and a referral of Myanmar to the ICC. It demands ASEAN engages beyond the junta, and particularly with democratic forces including the National Unity Government – the democratic government in exile. It urges a strengthening of the special envoy role and a pivoting of humanitarian aid to local responders rather than the junta. ASEAN needs to take this on board.

A fork in the road

ASEAN’s current plan is a recipe for continuing military violence, increasingly legitimised by its neighbours’ acceptance. Ceremonial elections could offer further fuel for this.

The junta once promised to hold elections by August, but in February, on the coup’s second anniversary, it extended the state of emergency for another six months. If and when those elections finally happen, there’s no hope of them being free or fair. In March, the junta dissolved some 40 political parties, including the ousted ruling party, the National League for Democracy.

The only purpose of any eventual fake election will be to give the junta a legitimising veneer to present as a sign of progress – and some ASEAN states may be prepared to buy this. This shouldn’t be allowed. ASEAN needs to listen to the voices of civil society calling for it to get its act together – and stick together – in holding the junta to account. If it doesn’t, it will keep failing not only Myanmar’s people, but all in the region who reasonably expect that fundamental human rights should be respected and those who kill, rape and torture should face justice.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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The 2012 Cape Town Agreement, adopted by the International Maritime Organization, outlines design, construction, and equipment standards for fishing vessels of 24 meters or more in length and details regulations that countries that are party to the agreement must adopt to protect fishing crews and observers. Credit: The Pew Charitable Trusts

By Peter Horn
LONDON, Jun 23 2023 (IPS)

Long before Hollywood highlighted the dangers of commercial fishing in The Perfect Storm, Deadliest Catch and other programming, governments around the world knew that this was one of the most hazardous jobs, killing thousands of fishers every year.

Until last fall, how many people perish while working in the seafood industry has never been clear. But now, through research commissioned by The Pew Charitable Trusts and conducted by the FISH Safety Foundation, a nonprofit organization in New Zealand dedicated to improving safety at sea, we know the truth: Worldwide, fishing is responsible for the deaths of more than 100,000 people every year, along with a staggering number of life-altering injuries.

And although there is a way to limit some of these risks, namely through the ratification of an international treaty known as the Cape Town Agreement (CTA), there has been little movement to date protecting fishers. But with the CTA, which is the only global agreement specifically designed to tackle the safety of the environment fishers work in, this could change.

This agreement focuses on safety standards for industrial-size fishing vessels and would grant fishers the same structural integrity, safety precautions, and training that have been in place for other seafarers for decades.

More than 3 billion people rely on seafood for a significant source of protein, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) expects that demand to grow.

But although many of us are familiar with the thrill of the chase depicted in media—big fish, bigger boats and even bigger waves—we’re unfamiliar with who is most at risk on the water. The answer is vulnerable and lowest-income people.

People, often the most marginalized, are frequently coerced and even forced to work on unsafe vessels and in conditions that in many cases meet the definition of slavery—long workdays, crowded and filthy sleeping quarters, violent and abusive superiors, insufficient nutrition, little or no safety equipment or medical care, and no chance of escape.

These conditions have been documented throughout the world’s ocean, in both national and international waters, from the largest industrial ships to small subsistence rafts and canoes.

Three intergovernmental bodies share responsibility for fishing, fishers and safety: the FAO, along with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO). But none have full decision-making authority—and all lack the data to expose the dangerous realities of commercial fishing. To make matters worse, coordinated action across these organizations has been missing.

But today, there’s no longer any excuse for ignoring the high death rates at sea. The Cape Town Agreement—coupled with two other treaties—give authorities the leverage they need to protect fishers on large-scale industrial vessels that traverse international waters.

Fisher safety provides a powerful incentive for full ratification of the CTA. And the agreement should not be difficult to implement; many developed nations have already adopted its recommended guidelines for their fleets.

Unfortunately, this fact is being used as an argument against the treaty. Specifically, that because some large fleets already adhere to the guidelines, ratification is unnecessary and will not improve safety for fishers.

But this misses an important point. Ratification will help show leadership and encourage other countries to improve safety standards, which could help the most endangered workers.

The agreement needs 22 countries with a combined 3,600 vessels to go into force. Ratification by three more countries, with a combined 1,500 eligible vessels, will meet that goal.

However, it should have been met already. In 2019, 51 countries committed to ratify the agreement by October 2022, but most haven’t followed through, despite the number of fatalities each year.

Those avoidable deaths should move these countries to act—now. The other two treaties in force are the FAO Port State Measures Agreement, which works to prevent illegally caught fish from entering the seafood supply chain, and the 2007 ILO Work in Fishing Convention C188, which sets standards for working conditions onboard vessels. However, to better protect fishers, more countries are needed to join all three treaties and implement them.

It is time for countries to acknowledge that fisher fatalities are a serious problem, many fishing-related deaths are preventable, and despite the complexity, they want to find effective solutions.

We know for certain that fishers who work each day to bring their catch to tables or the marketplaces around the world put their lives in danger. As people demand more and more fish, we can’t—and shouldn’t—go another year without stronger safety rules for fishing, starting with ratification of the Cape Town Agreement.

Peter Horn, who directs efforts to end illegal fishing as part of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ international fisheries program, has spent more than 30 years in the British Royal Navy, where he reached the rank of commander, and served in the Fishery Protection Squadron.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Yohei Sasakawa, WHO’s Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, speaks at the two-day Bergen International Conference on Hansen’s Disease. The conference coincided with the 150th anniversary of the discovery of Mycobacterium leprae by Norwegian doctor Gerhard Armauer Hansen. Credit: Thor Brødreskift/Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) Initiative

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Jun 22 2023 (IPS)

The 1873 discovery of Mycobacterium leprae, the causative agent of leprosy by Norwegian doctor Gerhard Armauer Hansen, remains one of the greatest paradigm shifts in medical history, a true revolution.

“Before the great discovery, even in the days when communication and transportation technologies were not as developed as today, leprosy was detested by the entire world. Leprosy was believed to be a divine punishment or a hereditary disease; once affected, patients were segregated to remote areas and islands for life,” says Yohei Sasakawa, WHO’s Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination.

Sasakawa, who also serves as chairperson of The Nippon Foundation, spoke during a two-day conference in Bergen, Norway, to commemorate the 1873 discovery. In attendance were over 200 people, including medical, human rights, and historical preservation experts, researchers, NGOs, and organizations of persons affected by the disease.

The Bergen International Conference on Hansen’s Disease, held on June 21 and 22, 2023, was organized by the Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) Initiative and the University of Bergen. It focused on medical efforts against leprosy, human rights, and dignity issues and preserving the history of leprosy for the lessons it can teach future generations. All three are pillars of the Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) Initiative’s activities for a world free of leprosy and the discrimination it causes, in line with the UN’s Resolution on Elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members.

In his speech to delegates, Sasakawa acknowledged the extraordinary advances made by medical professionals since Dr Hansen’s discovery that leprosy was neither a curse nor a punishment from God but a chronic disease caused by a bacillus.

With the 1873 discovery, leprosy went from being a mythological divine disease shrouded in mystery to something one could observe and explain—although it would take more than half a century before a cure was found.

Delegates at the Bergen International Conference on Hansen’s Disease held on June 21 and 22, 2023. The conference was organized by the Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) Initiative and the University of Bergen. Credit: Thor Brødreskift/Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) Initiative

Margareth Hagen, Rector, University of Bergen, said there was a clear shift in the scientific discourse about leprosy before and after the discovery.

Sasakawa said the journey towards a cure started with a single anti-leprosy drug to more effective drug regimens and, ultimately, a recommendation from WHO’s medical team that leprosy patients receive drug regimens consisting of multiple drugs.

“A single anti-leprosy drug tended to increase drug resistance. Since the development of multi-drug therapy, with early detection and treatment, leprosy has become totally curable. About 60 million patients have been cured over the last 40 years,” he said.

Abbi Patrix, the great-grandson of Dr Hansen, now responsible for his great grandfather’s history, spoke about the man behind the science in a session titled, ‘My grandfather, my mother, the documents and me.’

Patrix, a European performance storyteller, talked about the day his mother, the only direct descendant of Dr Hansen at the time, learned that leprosy was named Hansen’s disease after her grandfather.

She was moved and wondered why? His mother was informed that Dr Hansen’s discovery had put a name to a disease that had confounded scientists and society alike and that labeling it ‘Hansen’s disease’ meant freedom for those afflicted because a cure could now be found.

The conference venue was, therefore, a recognition of his renowned great-grandfather because he was born in Bergen, and this was the site for his landmark 1873 discovery at only 32 years of age.

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the audience: “WHO was born halfway between 1873 and today, 75 years ago. Much progress has been made since the two major milestones in the fight against leprosy. But much remains to be done toward our shared goals of zero disease, zero disability, and zero discrimination. Cases of leprosy have decreased significantly in recent decades, but more effort is needed to recover from the health system disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic and move further ahead.”

Ghebreyesus said the WHO was committed to supporting countries in their bid to eliminate leprosy in line with the roadmap for neglected tropical disease for 2021 to 2030.

“So far, 49 countries have eliminated at least one neglected tropical disease, including Human African trypanosomiasis, rabies, and trachoma. With your support and those of our global partners, we can achieve that goal for leprosy too.”

Other dignitaries who spoke at the conference include United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, who said the conference celebrated medical innovations over the last 150 years.

“But when leprosy was eliminated as a global public health problem in 2000, it did not mean that the disease disappeared. Over 250,000 people suffer from leprosy every year, 15,000 of them are children. The actual figures are likely far higher,” he emphasized.

“Around three to four million people who have already been cured still bear varying degrees of impairment. The burden of leprosy is heaviest in countries with the greatest inequality, poverty, and marginalization.”

Türk further said that to better the lives of people affected by leprosy, “We need to address the physical symptoms, but we also need social and behavioral measures to address stigma and discrimination. We need comprehensive strategies with access to quality care, education, and social protection,” and told participants that “together we can make a real difference in ending leprosy, which causes immense preventable and unjustifiable suffering for thousands of people.”

Against this backdrop, Sasakawa stressed that further action is needed to combat stigma and discrimination, pointing out that as many as 130 discriminatory laws against leprosy are still in place in more than 20 countries.

“When respect for human rights is a must, it is unacceptable to leave such a large-scale and serious human rights violation unaddressed,” he said.

As the curtain fell on the Bergen conference of a remarkable journey to end leprosy over the last 150 years, Dr Takahiro Nanri, executive director of Sasakawa Health Foundation, noted that this was the third international conference that the foundation has helped to organize since launching its “Don’t Forget Leprosy” campaign in 2021 to help to ensure that the disease and those affected by it are not overlooked amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“Our purpose in organizing these conferences is to make the world aware that there are still many people who have Hansen’s disease and its consequences; to build momentum for collaboration toward the realization of a leprosy-free world; and to provide a setting for both formal and informal exchanges that can be a catalyst for innovative solutions that we as a foundation are ready to support,” he said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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