Africa

A selection of the week's best photos from across the African continent.

Mahrang Baloch during a public appearance. The 30-year-old has emerged as a prominent figure in the Baloch movement. Credit: Mehrab Khalid/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
ROME, Jul 4 2024 (IPS)

A 30-year-old woman speaks before tens of thousands gathered in southern Pakistan. Men of all ages listen to her speech in almost reverential silence, many holding up her portrait and chanting her name: Mahrang Baloch.

This took place on January 24 in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, 900 kilometers southwest of Islamabad. The large, predominantly male crowd that gathered to welcome a group of women was unexpected for many. However, the reasons behind it were compelling.

They were welcomed back home after leading a women’s march towards Islamabad that lasted several months, demanding justice and reparations for missing Baloch people. In a phone conversation with IPS from Quetta, Mahrang Baloch provides the context behind what became known as the ‘march against the Baloch genocide’.

“For two decades, Pakistani security forces have been conducting a brutal military operation against political activists, dissenters, journalists, writers, and even artists to suppress the rebellion for an independent Balochistan, resulting in thousands of disappearances.”

Divided across the borders of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, the Baloch people number between 15 and 20 million, with their own language and culture.

Following Britain’s withdrawal from India, they declared their own state in 1947, even before Pakistan did. However, seven months later, that territory was annexed by Islamabad. Today, they live in the country’s largest and most sparsely populated province in the country, also the richest in resources, yet plagued by poverty and violence.

Mahrang Baloch, a surgeon by profession, recalls being fifteen years old when her father, an administration official known for his political activism, was arrested in 2009. Two years later, his body was found in a ditch after being savagely mutilated.

“There is no Baloch family that has not lost one of their own in this conflict,” says the prominent activist. Remaining silent, however, doesn’t seem to be an option for them.

“We at the Baloch Unity Committee (BYC) will fight against the Baloch genocide and defend Baloch national rights with public power in the political arena. However, we will continue our struggle outside the so-called parliament of Pakistan, which lacks a true mandate from the people and facilitates the Baloch genocide,” explains the mass leader.

 

Sammi Deen Baloch in Dublin after receiving a human rights award last June. She has not heard from her father since his kidnapping in 2009. (Photo provided by SDB)

 

Harassment

International organizations such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch have consistently accused Pakistani security forces of committing serious human rights violations, including arbitrary detentions and extrajudicial executions.

Pakistani authorities declined to respond to questions posed by IPS via email. Meanwhile, the Voice for Missing Baloch People (VBMP), a local platform, cites more than 8,000 cases of enforced disappearances in the last two decades.

The secretary general of that organization is Sammi Deen Baloch, a 25-year-old Baloch woman who led last winter’s march to Islamabad alongside Mahrang Baloch. Baloch is a common surname in the region. The two women are not related.

Sammi Deen also participated in previous marches conducted in 2010, 2011 and 2013. Her father disappeared in 2009, and she has not heard from him ever since. “Fifteen years later, I still don’t know if I am an orphan, and my mother doesn’t know if she is a widow either,” says the young activist.

Last May, Sammi Deen travelled to Dublin (Ireland) to collect the Asia Pacific Human Rights Award, which is given annually to outstanding human rights defenders.

However, bringing Balochistan into the international spotlight always comes at a cost.

“They resort to all kinds of strategies to silence us, from smear campaigns to threats which are also directed against our families. They even file false police reports against us constantly,” Sammi Deen Baloch told IPS over the phone from Quetta.

Mahrang Baloch visited Norway last June after receiving an invitation from the PEN Club International, a global association of writers with consultative status at the UN. Even in the Scandinavian country she was harassed during her stay, forcing the Norwegian police to intervene on several occasions.

Despite the pressure endured by these women, Sammi Deen points to “significant progress” in the attitude of her people after the last march.

“Until very recently, most of the thousands of affected families remained silent out of fear of reprisals, but people massively joined the last protest. Today, more and more people are raising their voices to denounce what is happening,” claims the activist.

 

Khair Bux Marri at his residence in Karachi in 2009. Until his death in 2014, he was one of the most influential and respected leaders of the Baloch people. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

 

Thirst for Leadership

Baloch society has historically been organised along tribal lines. Some of its most charismatic leaders, such as Khair Bux Marri, Attaullah Mengal or Akbar Khan Bugti, eventually paid with imprisonment, exile and even death for their opposition to what they saw as a state of occupation by Pakistan.

Muhammad Amir Rana is a security and political economy analyst as well as the President of the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies. In a telephone conversation with IPS from Islamabad, Rana points to a certain “need for leadership” as one of the keys behind the massive support for Baloch activists.

“The problem is that all those historical leaders are already dead, and those who remain in Balochistan are seen as people close to the establishment by a large part of Baloch society. They no longer represent their people,” explains the analyst.

He also highlights the presence of an “emerging” Baloch civil society structured around the Baloch Unity Committee (BYC), the Baloch Students Organization (BSO Azad ) or the VBMP.

“Mahrang Baloch is a young woman with an academic background who has managed to put the issue of the missing Baloch people in the spotlight, but who also brings together the feelings of her people and seems to be able to channel that into a political movement,” says the expert.

 

Karima Baloch used to hide her face for security reasons. The student leader went into exile in Canada, where she died in 2020 under circumstances not yet clarified (Photo: BSO Azad)

 

It’s an opinion shared by many, including Mir Mohamad Ali Talpur, a renowned Baloch journalist and intellectual.

“The mainstream parties often try to supplant the civil society but they, with their limited aims, are too shallow to take up the mantle. As for the tribal chiefs that remain, they are stooges of the government and their power stems from the governmental support and from the tribes,” Talpur tells IPS over the phone from Hyderabad, 1,300 kilometres southwest of Islamabad.

He also highlights the changes the last march led by women produced.

“Since the last march, all abductions have resulted in protests which include blockades of roads and other similar actions. Mahrang and Sammi have a charismatic aura and emulating them is considered honourable in both urban and tribal sections of society,” explains Talpur. He also stresses that both women give “continuity to Karima Baloch´s legacy.”

He refers to that Baloch student leader forced into exile in Canada, where she died in 2020 in circumstances that have not yet been clarified. The BBC, the British public broadcaster, even included her in its list of “the 100 most inspiring and influential women of 2016.”

As for the more pressing present, Talpur is blunt about the social impact of the women-led march:

“The most significant change is that people have realized that remaining silent about the injustices perpetrated against them only allows things to worsen.”

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Girls at Dabaso Girls School in Malindi, Kenya, pose with a ball during break time. Universal secondary education could virtually end child marriage and reduce early childbearing by up to three-fourths, according to an African Union and UNESCO report. Credit: Courtesy of Stafford Ondego for the EDT PROJECT

By Maina Waruru
NAIROBI & ADDIS ABABA, Jul 4 2024 (IPS)

Investing in teachers and school leaders in Africa is the most important factor in promoting educational opportunities for girls, keeping them in school and ending child marriage, ultimately reducing gender inequality through education.

Having more female teachers in schools and having more of them lead the institutions is even more important for keeping the girls in school beyond the primary level and providing them with role models to motivate them to continue learning.

While low educational attainment for girls and child marriage are profoundly detrimental for the girls, their families, communities, and societies, investments in teachers and school leaders are also key in ending lack of learning, identified as the single biggest cause of school dropout for girls, besides traditional factors including social and cultural ones.

Despite data showing that less than a fifth of teachers at the secondary level for example, are women in many African countries, and the proportion of female school leaders is even lower, the teachers have been proven to improve student learning and girls’ retention beyond primary and lower secondary school.

As a result, better opportunities must be given to women teachers and school leaders in order to bring additional benefits to girls’ education, as women often remain in teaching for a longer time, a report by the United Nations and the African Union says.

The absence of the above has led to high drop-outs, resulting in low educational attainment, a higher prevalence of child marriage, and higher risks of early childbearing for girls across Africa, according to the report, Educating Girls and Ending Child Marriage in Africa: Investment Case and the Role of Teachers and School Leaders.

“Increasing investments in girls’ education yields large economic benefits, apart from being the right thing to do. This requires interventions for adolescent girls, but it should also start with enhancing foundational learning through better teaching and school leadership,” the document tabled at the 1st Pan-African Conference on Girls and Women’s Education taking place July 2–5 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The lack of foundational learning is a key cause leading to drop-out in primary and lower-secondary schools, it finds, further noting that while teachers and school leaders are key to it, new approaches are also needed for pedagogy and for training teachers and school heads.

“Targeted interventions for adolescent girls are needed, but they often reach only a small share of girls still in school at that age; by contrast, improving foundational learning would benefit a larger share of girls (and boys) and could also make sense from a cost-benefit point of view,” it adds.

Parents in 10 francophone countries who responded to household surveys cited the lack of learning in school—the absence of teaching despite children attending classes—for their children dropping out, accounting for over 40 percent of both girls and boys dropping out of primary school, it further reveals.

The lack of learning, blamed on teacher absence, accounts for more than a third of students dropping out at the lower secondary level, meaning that improving learning could automatically lead to significantly increased educational attainment for girls and boys alike.

“To improve learning, reviews from impact evaluations and analysis of student assessment data suggest that teachers and school leaders are key. Yet new approaches are needed for professional development, including through structured pedagogy and training emphasizing practice. Teachers must also be better educated; household surveys for 10 francophone countries suggest that only one-third of teachers in primary schools have a post-secondary diploma,” the survey carried out in 2023 laments.

It calls for “better opportunities” for female teachers and school principals, noting that this would bring additional benefits as women also tend to remain in teaching for a longer time compared to men.

Better professional standards and competency frameworks are also needed for teachers to make the profession more attractive and gender-sensitive, it finds, revealing that countries have not yet “treated teaching as a career” and lack a clear definition of competencies needed at different levels of the profession.

Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, just over two-thirds of girls complete their primary education and four in ten complete lower secondary education explains the study authored by Quentin Wodon, Chata Male, and Adenike Onagoruwa for the African Union’s  International Centre for the Education of Girls and Women in Africa (AU/CIEFFA) and the UN agency for education, culture and science, UNESCO.

Quoting the latest data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, it reveals that while nine in ten girls complete their primary education and over three in four complete their lower secondary education globally, the proportions are much lower in Sub-Saharan Africa, where slightly over two-thirds of the girls—69 percent compared to 73 percent boys—complete their primary education, and four out of ten girls—43 percent compared to 46 percent boys—complete lower secondary education.

Providing girls and women with adequate opportunities for education could have large positive impacts on many development outcomes, including higher earnings and standards of living for families, ending child marriage and early childbearing, reducing fertility, on health and nutrition, and on well-being, among others.

It observes that gains made in earnings are substantial, especially with a secondary education, noting that women with primary education earn more than those with no education, “but women with secondary education earn more than twice as much, but gains with tertiary education are even larger.”

Each additional year of secondary education for a girl could reduce their risk of marrying as a child and having a child before the age of 18.

“Universal secondary education could virtually end child marriage and reduce early childbearing by up to three-fourths. By contrast, primary education in most countries does not lead to large reductions in child marriage and early childbearing,” it declares.

The organizations make a strong case for the importance of secondary education for girls, explaining that universal secondary education would also have health benefits, including increasing women’s knowledge of HIV/AIDS by one-tenth, increasing women’s decision-making for their own healthcare by a fourth, helping reduce under-five mortality by one-third, and potentially lowering under-five stunting in infants by up to 20 percent.

In addition, secondary education while ending child marriage could reduce fertility—the number of children women have over their lifetime nationally by a third on average—slowing population growth and enabling countries to benefit from the “demographic dividend.”

Other benefits include a reduction in “intimate partner” violence, an increase in women’s decision-making in the household by a fifth and the likelihood of registering children at birth by over 25 percent.

To remedy the crisis, there was a need to improve the attractiveness of the teaching profession as one way of getting more females heading schools, Wodon, Director of UNESCO’s International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA), said during the report’s launch at the conference.

“Virtually all teachers are dissatisfied with their job, meaning that there is a need to improve job satisfaction in the profession besides improving salaries,” he noted.

While retaining girls in school lowered fertility rates by up to a third in some countries, the study’s aim for advocating for more education for girls had nothing to do with the need for lower fertility but was in the interest of empowering girls and women in decision-making.

Empowering girls through education places them in a better position in society in terms of power relations between them and males, observed Lorato Modongo, an AU-CIEFFA official.

“It is a fact that we cannot educate girls without challenging power dynamics in patriarchal settings, where men make decisions for everyone,” she noted.

Overall, the report regrets that gender imbalances in education and beyond, including in occupational choices, result from deep-seated biases and discrimination against women, which percolate into education. It is therefore essential to reduce inequality both in and through education, acknowledging that education has a key role to play in reducing broader gender inequalities in societies.

“While educating girls and ending child marriage is the right thing to do, it is also a smart economic investment.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Umang Dhingra
NEW DELHI, India, Jul 4 2024 (IPS)

As the temperature soars to new heights in India, so does domestic violence. It’s a well-established correlation that is largely left out of the climate change discussion, but the gap is glaring and needs to be bridged.

For the third summer in a row, temperatures in India are breaking historical records. The recent record high of 52.9° C (127.22° F), has resulted in loss of livelihood, water rationing, health impacts, and even death. The heat affects some more than others. As people are advised to shelter at home, those in lower economic strata contend with cramped living situations, lack of air conditioning, and power cuts.

Women bear the worst impacts. New Delhi’s Heat Action Plan (HAP) registers their greater vulnerability – noting, for example, that they’re more susceptible to falling sick from the heat compared to men, the heightened risks for pregnant people, and greater expectations of women to be caretakers. But it fails to note the increased threat of violence.¬¬¬¬¬

It is well-documented that temperature extremes lead to an increase in domestic violence cases, with low-income women bearing the brunt. In South Asia, for every degree that the temperature rises, domestic violence increases about 6%.

As India grapples with its large carbon footprint, rising temperatures, and growing population, intimate partner violence can be expected to increase drastically. P¬¬ar¬¬¬ticularly if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t regulated effectively, India could see a spike in domestic violence of more than 20% by the end of the century.

Extreme temperatures are associated with frustration, aggression, and disruptions in people’s daily routines. Researchers theorize this is the reason why heat has a such a strong influence on rates of intimate partner violence.

For low-income daily wage laborers in India, heat may result in loss of livelihood and income. Economic stress and resultant anxiety can significantly increase domestic violence risk.

In addition, women are expected to be caretakers for the family, which gives them little chance of escape from abusers and increases their vulnerability under extreme conditions. This phenomenon was prevalent during Covid-19 pandemic, when the “shadow pandemic” of domestic violence affected women across India.

The pandemic also revealed strong patterns of economic abuse of women due to unequal power dynamics within the family.

Despite research demonstrating this, the spike in domestic violence during heat waves remains hush-hush. New Delhi’s Heat Action Plan (HAP) does not mention gender-based violence even once across its 66 pages.

While it acknowledges women as a vulnerable group and deals with increased risk during pregnancy, other risks to women remain shrouded in the vagueness of “social norms” and “gender discrimination.” Failing to address the threat of intimate partner violence explicitly leaves out a key piece of the puzzle.

The omission has manifold impacts. It lets policymakers shy away from confronting the issue, creating a gap in policy at the highest level. It sets up government workers tasked with implementing the plans such as New Delhi’s HAP on the ground for failure.

With no guidance on how to deal with the predictable increase in domestic violence during extreme heat, government can offer little support for women who need it. Mahila Panchayats (“women’s councils”) and grassroots non-profits often help rural and low-income women find support and community, but extreme weather can cut them off from these resources.

Forced to stay indoors and unable to access help, women have little recourse or respite. In theory, India’s laws protect them. But in practice, implementation is spotty, and they remain vulnerable.

India’s climate policy must not leave women out in the cold. New Delhi’s Heat Action Plan and other policy initiatives must protect women and offer them accessible support. First responders and government workers must be given the tools they need to help support those at risk for domestic violence, not only during heat waves but year-round.

Finally, India’s problem with domestic violence might be exacerbated during the summers but is not unique to them. India needs a suite of policies and concrete actions to contend with rising intimate partner violence, starting at the grassroots level and prioritizing education, employment, economic stability, and family planning for all.

Heat waves and the stressors they bring might be unforeseeable in a sense, but rising temperatures and rising domestic violence are completely predictable effects of climate change. There’s no excuse for failing to redress them.

By leaving women vulnerable year after year, we are doing a disservice, both to women who need help and to the institutions that they place their trust in.

Umang Dhingra is a Duke University undergraduate and a Stanback Fellow at the Population Institute, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that supports reproductive health and rights.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Jewel Fraser
PORT-of-SPAIN, Trinidad , Jul 3 2024 (IPS)

Global South countries did get one benefit from the COVID-19 pandemic. A professor at St. George’s University in Grenada describes it as the pandemic’s “silver lining.” He was referring to the widespread use of next-generation genomic sequencing technology to identify, track, and trace the numerous variants of the Sars Cov-2 virus. Researchers and scientists in the Caribbean, Africa, and elsewhere have been eagerly harnessing genomic sequencing technology to develop resilience and greater self-sufficiency in numerous fields, ranging from health surveillance to agriculture and beyond.

In this podcast, IPS Caribbean correspondent Jewel Fraser speaks with Professor Dr. Martin Forde at St. George’s University in Grenada about a research paper published in The Lancet that he coauthored looking at the Caribbean’s use of genomic sequencing technology.

To be fully transparent, we recorded this interview in early 2023, and it’s possible that new developments have occurred since then. Also, Forde and his colleagues’ paper relied solely on the data available in the GISAID database.

Music credit: https://www.fesliyanstudios.com/

 

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By Anis Chowdhury
SYDNEY, Jul 3 2024 (IPS)

Fifty years ago on 1 May 1974, the Sixth Special Session of the General Assembly (April–May) adopted a revolutionary declaration and programme of action on the establishment of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) “based on equity, sovereign equality, interdependence, common interest and cooperation among all States, irrespective of their economic and social systems”. The hope was that a NIEO would “correct inequalities and redress existing injustices, make it possible to eliminate the widening gap between the developed and the developing countries and ensure steadily accelerating economic and social development and peace and justice for present and future generations”. Alas, what evolved is far from what was envisioned or called for.

Anis Chowdhury

Failed aid promise

The NIEO resolution reaffirmed the minimum target – originally defined in the strategy for the second Development Decade – of 1% of the gross national product (GNP) of each developed country to be transferred to developing countries, out of which 0.7% of GNP would be as official development assistance (ODA).

But, ODA steadily declined from around 51% of GNI in the early 1960s to around 32% during 2017-2021. Oxfam estimated that 50 years of broken promises meant a US$5.7 trillion aid shortfall by 2020. Only five countries met the ODA target of 0.7% of GNI: Denmark (0.70%), Germany (0.83%), Luxembourg (1.00%), Norway (0.86%) and Sweden (0.90%).

 

 

Unreformed international monetary system and financing of development

The NIEO resolution called for (i) full and effective participation of developing countries in all phases of decision-making at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank; (ii) adequate and orderly creation of additional liquidity through the additional allocation of special drawing rights (SDRs); and (iii) early establishment of a link between SDRs and additional development financing.

None has materialised. Despite repeated commitments, and notwithstanding some minor improvement between 2005 and 2015, the representation of developing countries in international financial institutions, regional development banks and standard-setting bodies, e.g., OECD’s international taxation, has remained largely unchanged. The governments of the largest developed countries continue to hold veto powers in the decision-making bodies of these institutions.

The unchanged mechanism for allocating SDRs in proportion to countries’ IMF quota shares meant that most of the latest SDRs allocation of (about US$650 billion) in 2021 went to advanced economies; developing countries received only about one third, the most vulnerable countries receiving much less. While both G7 and G20 called for a voluntary rechannelling of US$100 billion worth of unused SDRs, only a fraction has actually been rechannelled to developing countries.

Increased indebtedness

The NIEO resolution envisioned “appropriate urgent measures …to mitigate adverse consequences for … development … arising from the burden of external debt”. These included debt cancellations, moratorium, rescheduling or interest subsidisation, and reorientation of international financial institutions lending policies.

Failure to fulfil aid promises and reform the global financial architecture, including the IMF quota-based SDRs allocations, forced developing countries to borrow from commercial sources at exorbitantly high interest rates with shorter maturity terms and no mechanism for restructuring. This has exacerbated the debt crisis. Almost 40% of all developing countries (52 countries) suffer from severe debt problems and extremely expensive market-based financing.

Only after extensive lobbying by civil society organisations, did the IMF and the World Bank jointly take the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative in 1996, supplemented by the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative in 2005. Despite the IMF’s debt service relief, and some limited G20 debt service suspension during the Covid-19 pandemic for low-income countries (LICs), the debt crisis worsened, with 60% LICs already at high risk of or in debt distress.

Rising food insecurity

The NIEO resolution called for the accumulation of buffer stocks of commodities in order to offset market fluctuations, combat inflationary tendencies, and ensure grain and food security.

Developing countries are far from attaining food security. Even before the Ukraine war, food insecurity around the world was rising. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimated that in 2022 approximately 30% of the global population (2.4 billion people), did not have constant access to food. Among them, around 900 million people faced severe food insecurity, and an additional 122 million people have been pushed into hunger since 2019. World Bank projections show that by 2030, over 600 million people will still struggle to feed their families.

Meanwhile, Africa turned from a net-exporter to a net-importer of food since the adoption of NIEO resolution. While developing countries had an overall annual agricultural trade surplus of almost US$7 billion in the early 1960s, “since the beginning of the 1990s they have generally been net importers of agricultural products, with a deficit in 2001, for example, of US$11 billion.”

Deindustrialisation

The NIEO resolution called for “all efforts … by the international community” for “the industrialization of the developing countries”.

Except for a few countries in Asia, deindustrialisation has become the unfortunate fate for developing countries. For Africa, the GDP share of manufacturing declined from around 17% in 1990 to around 11% in 2019, and Africa remains the least industrialised region in the world. In most central Asian countries, manufacturing’s GDP shares declined from around 20% in the early 1990s to less than 10% in 2015. Large Latin American countries, e.g., Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico also witnessed declines in manufacturing’s GDP shares.

The deindustrialisation has seen increasing specialisation in commodities, resource-based manufactures and low productivity services. Thus, majority of developing countries remain vulnerable to commodity price swings.

Even late-comer Asian developing countries, including China, face the risk of premature deindustrialisation. Some, e.g., Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, are already are in a ‘middle-income trap’.

Trade and technology barriers

The NIEO resolution asked for “improved access to markets in developed countries through the progressive removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers and of restrictive business practices”.

Yet, there has been a resurgence of protectionism in OECD countries since the late 1970s. The trade protectionism under different guises, such as health and sanitary standards, persisted even after the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The World Bank has warned, “protectionist measures are on the rise… [and] detrimental policies have been outpacing trade-liberalizing policies”.

The NIEO resolution also emphasised that developing countries needed to be given “access on improved terms to modern technology and to adapt that technology, as appropriate… and … adapt commercial practices governing transfer of technology to the requirements of the developing countries”.

Still, strengthened intellectual property rights, reinforced in the WTO’s agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), have raised the costs of acquiring technology, reducing technology transfers, raising transnational corporations (TNCs)’ monopoly powers. Developed countries refused to relax TRIPs to allow developing countries’ access to Covid-19 vaccines, drugs and testing technologies.

Unabated power of transnational corporations

The NIEO resolution demanded “permanent sovereignty of States over natural resources”; and “regulation and control over the activities of transnational corporations… to prevent interference in the internal affairs of the countries … to eliminate restrictive business practices…to conform to the national development plans and objectives of developing countries, …to transfer …technology and management skills to developing countries on equitable and favourable terms; to regulate the repatriation of the profits … and to promote reinvestment of their profits in developing countries”.

The UN Commission on TNCs, a body created in 1974 for the purpose, struggled to agree on the draft code of conduct on TNCs, and in 1994 was replaced by a Commission of the Trade and Development Board of UNCTAD.

TNCs continue to influence and mould domestic and international politics to their interests. TNCs have governments at their beck and call – witness their consistent success at dodging tax payments. Stringent WTO’s TRIPS was adopted at the behest of TNCs, especially to protect monopoly profits of big transnational pharmaceutical companies.

TNCs exert political influence to liberalise trade and investment; obtain subsidies; reduce their tax burdens; dilute working conditions; relax environmental protection. As Dani Rodrik noted, the WTO is heavily influenced by major banks and TNCs. Through the World Economic Forum (WEF), the TNCs are now setting global economic agenda.

Diminished States

The NIEO resolution contained the Charter on Economic Rights and Duties of States. However, neo-liberalism promoted by US President Reagan and UK Prime Minister Thatcher sees State as a problem. Privatisation, liberalisation and deregulation have significantly eroded the State from its customary intervention in regulating economic growth and promoting redistribution. The erosion of the State as an institution is visible in underfunded social programmes, a smaller public sector, weakened regulatory structures, foregone infrastructure projects, public assets sales and continued privatisation.

Questionable legitimacy of global economic governance

The NIEO resolution demanded that the United Nations, in particular the Economic and Social Council, be entrusted with the responsibility of setting global economic agenda and coordinating it as the most inclusive organisation with legitimacy. Besides the TNC takeover of global economic agenda setting through WEF, non-inclusive informal country groupings, e.g., G7 and G20, with questionable legitimacy and formal bodies, e.g., OECD and Bank for International Settlements, are acting as norm-setters. Thus, developing countries remain unpresented and disadvantaged.

Opportunity lost

The NIEO resolution was initiated in the wake of the collapse of the post-World War II Bretton Woods System in 1971, aimed at supporting development aspirations of developing and newly decolonised countries. However, the developed world failed to see that more orderly world growth and prosperity of developing countries would have benefited them too.

Instead, they engaged in protected negotiations dragging on for about two years. The resolution was adopted by a divisive majority vote (123 for, 50 against and 1 abstention) amidst fierce opposition from developed countries.

The United States took the position that “it cannot and does not accept any implication that the world is now embarked on the establishment of something called the New International Economic Order”. The NIEO effectively went into oblivion after President Reagan declared in 1981, “We should not seek to create new institutions”.

Thus, the developed world ensured NIEO’s failure while the global economy continues to struggle under a “non-system”. The world economy has also become more crisis prone; we had the Latin American debt crisis in the 1980s, the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, the 1998 Russian financial crisis, the 2000 Turkish lira crisis and the 2002 Argentine crisis within a short span of two decades. And the global financial and economic crisis showed, a crisis originating in one corner of the globe can quickly engulf the whole world.

Yet, we still do not have a global financial governance mechanism to deal with such crises fairly. What is most disappointing may not be the failure of the NIEO as such, but the hope that it inspired.

A bleak future?

Initiated by Progressive International, delegates from over 25 countries of the Global South assembled in Havana on 27 January 2023 to declare their intent to build a NIEO fit for the 21st century, countering the TNCs’ global economic agenda setting behind the WEF. The signatories of NIEO-Mark II seek to rebuild the collective power of emerging and developing countries for fundamentally transforming the international system, and for alternative ways to respond to global crises.

NIEO-Mark II is essentially, a call for shared and differentiated responsibilities for equitable development. Developed countries acknowledge the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’, formalised at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. But they have failed to meet their financing commitments and reneged on various targets to address global warming.

Amidst ongoing global challenges, including the climate emergency geopolitical conflicts, public health crisis, global food insecurity, outstripping the response capacity of the UN, the UN Secretary-General has called for a Summit of the Future – Our Common Agenda to be held on 22-23 September 2024.

The Summit of the Future is expected to find multilateral solutions for better tomorrow; resulting in an inter-governmentally agreed “Pact for the Future” to tackle emerging threats and opportunities.

What is the chance that the nations would agree to the “Pact for the Future”? To what extent the Pact will accommodate NIEO-Mark II?

The world now is more divided than it was in the 1970s when NIEO-Mark I was first proposed. Yet, plagued by ideological conflicts, NIEO-Mark I failed, making the world more crisis prone. One can only hope that the rising ideological and geo-political tensions do not lead to a bleak future.

Anis Chowdhury, Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney University (Australia). Served as a senior official at the UN Department of Economic Social Affairs (UN-DESA, New York) and UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP, Bangkok) between 2008-2016.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Crerdit: STR/AFP via Getty Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Jul 3 2024 (IPS)

Myanmar’s army, at war with pro-democracy forces and ethnic militias, must know it’s nowhere near victory. It recently came close to losing control of Myawaddy, one of the country’s biggest cities, at a key location on the border with Thailand. Many areas are outside its control.

The army surely expected an easier ride when it ousted the elected government in a coup on 1 February 2021. It had ruled Myanmar for decades before democracy returned in 2015. But many democracy supporters took up arms, and in several parts of the country they’ve allied with militia groups from Myanmar’s ethnic minorities, with a long history of resisting military oppression.

Setbacks and violence

Army morale has collapsed. Thousands of soldiers are reported to have surrendered, including complete battalions – some out of moral objections to the junta’s violence and others because they saw defeat as inevitable. There have also been many defections, with defectors reporting they’d been ordered to kill unarmed civilians. Forces fighting the junta’s troops are encouraging defectors to join their ranks.

In response to reversals, in February the junta announced it would introduce compulsory conscription for young people, demanding up to five years of military service. An estimated 60,000 men are expected to be called up in the first round. The announcement prompted many young people to flee the country if they could, and if not, seek refuge in parts of Myanmar free from military control.

There have also been reports of army squads kidnapping people and forcing them to serve. Given minimal training, they’re cannon fodder and human shields. Rohingya people – an officially stateless Muslim minority – are among those reportedly being forcibly enlisted. They’re being pressed into service by the same military that committed genocide against them.

People who manage to cross into Thailand face hostility from Thai authorities and risk being returned against their will. Even after leaving Myanmar, refugees face the danger of transnational repression, as government intelligence agents reportedly operate in neighbouring countries and the authorities are freezing bank accounts, seizing assets and cancelling passports.

Conscription isn’t just about giving the junta more personnel to compensate for its losses – it’s also part of a sustained campaign of terror intended to subdue civilians and suppress activism. Neighbourhoods are being burned to the ground and hundreds have died in the flames. The air force is targeting unarmed towns and villages. The junta enjoys total impunity for these and many other vile acts.

The authorities hold thousands of political prisoners on fabricated charges and subject them to systematic torture. The UN independent fact-finding mission reports that at least 1,703 people have died in custody since the coup, likely an underestimate. Many have been convicted in secret military trials and some sentenced to death.

There’s also a growing humanitarian crisis, with many hospitals destroyed, acute food shortages in Rakhine state, where many Rohingya people live, and an estimated three million displaced. Voluntary groups are doing their best to help communities, but the situation is made much worse by the military obstructing access for aid workers.

International neglect

In March, UN human rights chief Volker Türk described the situation in Myanmar as ‘a never-ending nightmare’. It’s up to the international community to exert the pressure needed to end it.

It’s by no means certain the military will be defeated. Adversity could lead to infighting and the rise of even more vicious leaders. One thing that could make a decisive difference is disruption of the supply chain, particularly the jet fuel that enables lethal airstrikes on civilians. In April, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution calling on states to stop supplying the military with jet fuel. States should implement it.

Repressive states such as China, India and Russia have been happy enough to keep supplying the junta with weapons. But democratic states must take the lead and apply more concerted pressure. Some, including Australia, the UK and USA, have imposed new sanctions on junta members this year, but these have been slow in coming and fall short of the approach the Human Rights Council resolution demands.

But the worst response has come from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Ignoring reality and civil society’s proposals, ASEAN has stuck to a plan it developed in April 2021 that simply hasn’t worked. The junta takes advantage of ASEAN’s weakness. It announced compulsory conscription shortly after a visit by ASEAN’s Special Envoy for Myanmar.

ASEAN’s neglect has allowed human rights violations and, increasingly, transnational organised crime to flourish. The junta is involved in crimes such as drug trafficking, illegal gambling and online fraud. It uses the proceeds of these, often carried out with the help of Chinese gangs, to finance its war on its people. As a result, Myanmar now ranks number one on the Global Organized Crime Index. This is a regional problem, affecting people in Myanmar’s neighbouring countries as well.

ASEAN members also have an obligation to accept refugees from Myanmar, including those fleeing conscription. They should commit to protecting them and not forcing them back, particularly when they’re democracy and human rights activists whose lives would be at risk.

Forced conscription must be the tipping point for international action. This must include international justice, since there’s none in Myanmar. The junta has ignored an order from the International Court of Justice to protect Rohingya people and prevent actions that could violate the Genocide Convention, following a case brought by the government of The Gambia alleging genocide against the Rohingya. The UN Security Council should now use its power to refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court so prosecutions of military leaders can begin.

China and Russia, which have so far refused to back calls for action, should end their block on Security Council action, in the interests of human rights and to prevent growing regional instability.

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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A child waits to fill water containers in Gaza. Credit: UNRWA
 
In its latest update last week. the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, reported “especially intense” airstrikes in central Gaza in recent days, particularly in Bureij, Maghazi and Nuseirat refugee camps and eastern Deir Al-Balah.
 
Meanwhile, the Israeli military’s ground offensive “continues to expand”, UNRWA noted, particularly in the southern regions of Gaza City and eastern Rafah, causing further suffering and further “destabilising” humanitarian aid flows.

By James E. Jennings
ATLANTA, Georgia, Jul 3 2024 (IPS)

Zionism is broken. It is finished as a political philosophy and cannot long survive. Having earned the visceral opposition of multitudes of people and countries around the world for engaging in vast overkill in Gaza, that historical reality will likely become clear to the Israeli people over time.

Still, how could the most powerful state in the Middle East, the most flourishing economically, with the strongest superpower backing, become defunct? It cannot—unless somehow its chief raison d’etrê, its founding philosophy, collapses. That has already happened.

In the wake of the October 7 attack by Hamas, the visceral racist core of Zionism has become evident in the indiscriminate slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, including many thousands of children.

No reason of state can ever excuse that. Israel’s righteous anger against HAMAS for its obscene October 7 attack transitioned quickly into racial hatred, ending in, if not genocide, then certainly war crimes and crimes against humanity. Netanyahu and his Likud allies have not hidden their racism for decades. Now it is explicit in full view of the world.

The Zionism of Netanyahu and his supporters must be repudiated by the Israelis themselves. Israel’s leaders from Menachem Begin to today have long endorsed statements lauding Israel uber alles.

Zionism can only be rehabilitated if it separates its reason for existing from the current triumphalist military identity that is determined to kill, kill, and kill again until the utter destruction and suppression of all every tangible and ideological enemy.

In a recent CNN interview, former Shin Beth Director Ami Ayalon, was very explicit: he said “The toxic leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu” [in pursuing an endless war] will “lead to the end of Zionism.” In that case, he said, “We cannot be secure and we shall lose our identity.”

Ayalon was preceded by a number of courageous Israeli thinkers and writers who warned of the same outcome—Israel was founded in 1948 but in their opinion, Zionism had already failed ideologically by the mid-1960s. They included Hebrew University professor Israel Shahak (1933-2001), who wrote, “It is my considered opinion that the State of Israel is a racist state in the full meaning of the term.”

He insisted that, “You cannot have humane Zionism. It (too) is a contradiction in terms.” Uri Avnery (1923-2018), a decorated Israeli soldier and later a publisher and politician, published a book in 1968 titled Israel without Zionists.

Many of the original Jewish colonists had utopian dreams, but their leaders would probably not recognize the grim, revengeful militarism of today’s Israel. A few tiny orthodox religious parties in Israel have never bought into the military machine that is the Likud Party’s pride and joy.

Some have steadfastly refused even to serve in the Israeli army because they don’t believe in the Israeli state. Now even they are being conscripted.

The original dream of Zionism from Theodore Herzl to Chaim Weizmann to David Ben Gurion, although containing seeds of a today’s hob-booted military identity, nevertheless also expressed a grandiosely humane, even a universal, goal—to become a “light to the nations.” In that, Israel has signally failed.

Like HAMAS and most Palestinians, Israel’s people—and Israel as a country—has become increasingly and deeply racist. Now racism—hatred of others for their differences—has become racial-ism, which is even worse, a doctrine of race superiority, which was the Nazi credo.

The Israel of Benjamin Netanyahu and his thuggish coalition has succumbed to such race hatred that Zionists from pre-1948 Palestine would not recognize it. A Jan. 6, 2024 opinion article in the Jerusalem Post urges Israel to reform its politics along better Zionist lines and take power away from the extremists now in charge. Commendable, but not nearly enough.

What if Abraham Lincoln had countenanced America’s original sin of slavery by merely taking half steps? We might still have “slavery lite.” No, Israel’s race-based philosophy must change to the democratic ideal: a single state in Israel and the occupied territories for Muslims, Christians, and Jews. One person, one vote.

When Palestinians are treated as human beings—as real people instead of enemies to be eradicated en masse—people everywhere would soon see how quickly peace would come to the Middle East.

James E. Jennings, PhD, is President, Conscience International
www.conscienceinternational.org
conscience@earthlink.net

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A child watches as bodies are recovered from under the rubble of a house in the Al-Nasr neighborhood, east of the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. Credit: UN News/Ziad Taleb

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 3 2024 (IPS)

The US gun lobby justifies the unfettered American gun ownership in the US on a misguided premise: Guns don’t kill people, it’s bullets that kill people.

The accusations of genocide and war crimes in Gaza have been directed firstly, at Israel, for the killings of more than 37,700, mostly civilians, and over 86,000 injured, in retaliation for the 1,200 killed by Hamas last October, according to estimates from Gaza health officials, as cited by Cable News Network (CNN) last week.

And secondly, the blame is also squarely on the United States, the unrestrained supplier of arms, including the devastating 2,000-pound unguided bombs, to the Netanyahu government.

But a group of UN human rights experts is now blaming a third force: US arms manufacturers who are accused of implicitly killing people, along with financial institutions that fund most of these weapons suppliers.

“The transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws and risk State complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide, the UN experts said last week, reiterating their demand to stop transfers immediately.”

In line with recent calls from the Human Rights Council, the UN experts are calling for halt to the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel by US arms manufacturers – including BAE Systems, Boeing, Caterpillar, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Oshkosh, Rheinmetall AG, Rolls-Royce Power Systems, RTX, and ThyssenKrupp.

The experts say these defense contractors should also end transfers, even if they are executed under existing export licenses.

“These companies, by sending weapons, parts, components, and ammunition to Israeli forces, risk being complicit in serious violations of international human rights and international humanitarian laws,” the experts said.

This risk is heightened by the recent decision from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah, having recognised genocide as a plausible risk, as well as the request filed by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) seeking arrest warrants for Israeli leaders on allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“In this context, continuing arms transfers to Israel may be seen as knowingly providing assistance for operations that contravene international human rights and international humanitarian laws and may result in profit from such assistance.”

Dr Ramzy Baroud, a journalist and Editor of The Palestine Chronicle, told IPS the UN experts’ statement is important, as it highlights the complex role of the US in supporting, sustaining, and benefiting from the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

“Quite often we call on, demand and implore the US to end its support of Israel, so that the genocide may come to an end. The experts, however, are reminding us that the US involvement is not confined to that of the White House, and direct or indirect US military and logistical support to Israel”, he pointed out.

Indeed, he said, US support is channeled through multiple players, those who manufacture, transport, assemble and maintain the weapons and munition — a multi-billion-dollar military machine that has harvested the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians.

These companies must be named, shamed, boycotted and held accountable in every possible way. They must understand that there are legal repercussions to their action, as they are complicit in the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, said Dr Baroud, a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA).

These companies are, as the experts said, ‘knowingly’ providing direct assistance to Israel in its genocidal war. They are fully aware of the extent of these crimes as articulated in the South African case against Israel at the ICJ, and the call for arrest warrants by the chief prosecutor of the ICC.

The next rational step is for these companies to be taken to task. They seem to have no moral threshold. Their quest for profits by far exceeds their concern that their weapons are killing thousands of children, women and civilians in Gaza, and throughout occupied Palestine. They must face justice as participants in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, declared Dr Baroud.

Norman Solomon, executive director, Institute for Public Accuracy, told IPS it’s difficult to draw any clear distinction between the U.S. government and the arms makers that sell to it.

“The two are so intertwined that differentiating between them is often a distinction without a difference. The revolving door for individuals, in both directions, places weapons executives in pivotal government positions and vice versa”.

The magnitude of the military profits, he pointed out, is overwhelming in the nation’s political economy and culture. The multibillion-dollar corporations that depend on selling weaponry to the government are directly participating in a routine process of literally making a killing on behalf of massive profit-taking.

To call these firms “defense contractors” is a misnomer, since what they sell has little to do with defense in any meaningful sense, he argued.

“The stepped-up weapons sales and gifts to Israel are continuations of a partnership between the U.S. government and arms suppliers with the purpose of aiding an ally and reaping still more massive profits. In tandem, the U.S. government and the companies are providing Israel with the means to continue mass murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The core of the problem is lack of democracy and vastly excessive corporate power”.

In moral terms, the culpability is far-reaching. Yet, in a sinister way, he said, the military contractors are doing what capitalism provides for them to do — seek to maximize profits regardless of the consequences for human beings and the natural environment.

In contrast, within a democratic system, government is supposed to be responsive to the informed consent of the governed — conditions that certainly do not exist in the United States.

Meanwhile, in terms of international law and human decency, the U.S. government and its arms suppliers are guilty of horrendous crimes, which assist and compound those of Israel, declared Solomon, who is also national director, RootsAction.org and author of, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine”

A report from the Human Rights Council in mid-June details six emblematic attacks involving the suspected use of GBU-31 (2,0000 lbs), GBU-32 (1,000 lbs) and GBU-39 (250 lbs) bombs from 9 October to 2 December 2023 on residential buildings, a school, refugee camps and a market.

The UN Human Rights Office verified 218 deaths from these six attacks, and said information received indicated the number of fatalities could be much higher.

“The requirement to select means and methods of warfare that avoid or at the very least minimise to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in Israel’s bombing campaign,” said High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.

The report says the series of Israeli strikes, exemplified by the six incidents, indicates that the IDF may have repeatedly violated fundamental principles of the laws of war. In this connection, it notes that unlawful targeting when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, in line with a State or organisational policy, may also implicate the commission of crimes against humanity.

Financial institutions investing in these arms companies are also called to account. Investors such as Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung, Amundi Asset Management, Bank of America, BlackRock, Capital Group, Causeway Capital Management, Citigroup, Fidelity Management & Research, INVESCO Ltd, JP Morgan Chase, Harris Associates, Morgan Stanley, Norges Bank Investment Management, Newport Group, Raven’swing Asset Management, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance, State Street Corporation, Union Investment Privatfonds, The Vanguard Group, Wellington and Wells Fargo & Company, are urged to take action.

Failure to prevent or mitigate their business relationships with these arms manufacturers transferring arms to Israel could move from being directly linked to human rights abuses to contributing to them, with repercussions for complicity in potential atrocity crimes, the experts said.

“Arms initiate, sustain, exacerbate, and prolong armed conflicts, as well as other forms of oppression, hence the availability of arms is an essential precondition for the commission of war crimes and violations of human rights, including by private armament companies,” said the experts.

The experts paid tribute to the sustained work of journalists who have been documenting and reporting on the devastating impact of these weapons systems on civilians in Gaza, and human rights defenders and lawyers, among other stakeholders, who are dedicated to holding States and companies accountable for the transfer of weapons to Israel.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By External Source
Jul 2 2024 (IPS-Partners)

 
Christina Lamb is Chief Foreign Correspondent at The Sunday Times and one of Britain’s leading foreign journalists as well as a bestselling author. She has been awarded Foreign Correspondent of the Year six times as well as Europe’s top war reporting prize, the Prix Bayeux, and was recently given the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Society of Editors and the Outstanding Impact Award by Amnesty International.

She is the best-selling author of ten books including Farewell Kabul, The Africa House, and The Sewing Circles of Herat and co-wrote the international bestseller I am Malala with Malala Yousafzai and The Girl from Aleppo with Nujeen Mustafa. Her book Our Bodies, Their Battlefields about sexual violence in conflict won the first Pilecki Institute award for war reporting and was shortlisted for Britain’s top non-fiction award, the Baillie Gifford Prize, as well as the Orwell Prize, the Kapuscinski Prize and the New York Public Library Bernstein award.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an Honorary Fellow of University College Oxford, an International Board member of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, an Associate of the Imperial War Museum, and was made an OBE by the Queen in 2013.

Christina was a key-note moderator and participant during Education Cannot Wait’s “Spotlight on Afghanistan” session at last year’s High-Level Financing Conference in Geneva. In June 2023, Christina Lamb was appointed as an ECW Global Champion.

ECW: The 14th of June 2024 marked 1,000 days since the ban of girls’ secondary education in Afghanistan. On that tragic milestone, ECW launched phase two of its global #AfghanGirlsVoices advocacy campaign. In addition to the campaign, how can the world further activate political leadership and how can global partners – UN, CSOs, Governments and the public – help support a return to schooling for all girls in Afghanistan?

Christina Lamb: We should all feel ashamed that there is a country on the planet in 2024 where girls are not allowed to go to school. Yet, three years after the Taliban takeover, sometimes it feels as if the world has just moved on. Meanwhile girls in Afghanistan are losing hope. Unfortunately, the Taliban is a reality, but no one I know in Afghanistan wants their daughters imprisoned at home. This needs to be called out as what it is – gender apartheid. I think any engagement with the Taliban by the international community should be conditional and all global partners should be doing everything to put pressure on them, if not directly, then through others that the Taliban listen to, such as leaders from the Islamic world and influential clerics. Personally, I raise the issue at every platform I can. In the meantime, we should do everything we can to support girls through online learning, by providing books and materials to the brave activists running home schools, and by sharing #AfghanGirlsVoices.

ECW: You are a leading, credible and authentic voice on girls’ and women’s rights, a best-selling author, and a tireless advocate for the world’s most vulnerable people. Why do you do what you do, what stories of girls caught in crisis and denied their right to education have inspired you most, and why did you decide to become an ECW Global Champion?

Christina Lamb: I started my career really wanting to be a novelist, but found real life stories so compelling, perhaps particularly as the first place I went to as a foreign correspondent was Afghanistan, a land of oral tradition and great storytellers. I see my job as telling stories for those who have no platform and have always been motivated by exposing injustice.

I have now been a foreign correspondent for 36 years and wherever I have worked – from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe – it has always seemed clear to me that the single biggest thing that changes people’s lives is education, and particularly girls’ education. Teaching girls leads to improved health and raises family income – statistics bear out what I have seen for myself.

As a mother, it also makes me so sad that there are millions of children out of school. Education is a right, not a privilege – yet, shockingly, there are currently more than 224 million crisis-affected children and adolescents who urgently need education support, so anything we can do to raise awareness and change that, we should. For all these reasons, I am very happy to be an ECW Global Champion.

Though I spend much of my time in dark places, it’s in those places I often find inspiring people. Perhaps because I am a woman, they mostly seem to be women. I was lucky enough to work with Malala, who was shot by the Taliban simply for wanting to go to school and helped write her book I Am Malala. And Nujeen Mustafa, a girl from Aleppo who never went to school in Syria because she has cerebral palsy and couldn’t walk yet taught herself fluent English from watching the American soap opera Days of Our Lives and can recite all the kings and queens of England, not to mention the Romanovs.

ECW: We live in challenging times. Overseas development assistance is shrinking, while armed conflicts hit inflection points in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and beyond, and climate change impacts continue to increase – all impacting vulnerable children’s right to education. Why should public and private sector donors provide increased funding for education in emergencies and protracted crises?

Christina Lamb: We certainly do live in challenging times and my job as a war correspondent has never been so busy, for we have fewer correspondents yet more conflicts than at any time since World War II. Sadly, we don’t seem very good at focusing on more than one or two issues at a time, so conflicts like Afghanistan, Sudan and Ethiopia are being forgotten. Moreover, many people in developed nations are suffering cost of living crises, seeing their own healthcare systems unable to cope, and want to close their borders to desperate people coming in. That’s exactly why we should help people in their countries, to help them find employment and their rights be protected at home. Public and private sector donors can play an important role by increasing their funding for education in emergencies.

ECW: Your book Our Bodies, Their Battlefields, takes us closer than ever to the stark reality facing girls and women during armed conflicts. How can access to the safety, hope and opportunity of quality education safeguard human rights and provide new opportunities for girls and women everywhere?

Christina Lamb: As a female war correspondent, I’ve always been most interested in what happens to women in war, a story that long went untold. To me, women are the real heroes of the war as they are the ones keeping life together, educating and protecting children and the elderly. But there is also a dark side – the use of sexual violence and rape against women and girls, something that seems to be happening more and more, most recently in Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet the use of sexual violence is the world’s most neglected war crime, where accountability is the exception, not the rule. Access to quality education teaches girls about their rights – but also the boys. From what I have seen, there is very little point of making women aware of their rights if you don’t do anything to change the male mindset.

ECW: Millions have read your best-selling books I Am Malala, Nujeen, Our Bodies, Their Battlefield and The Prince Rupert Hotel for the Homeless. We all know that ‘readers are leaders’ and that reading skills are key to every child’s education. What are three books that have most influenced you personally and/or professionally, and why would you recommend them to others?

Christina Lamb: I read all the time – non-fiction about issues I am covering, but also novels for enjoyment and to switch off in traumatic situations. Usually my favourite book is the one I have just read. But three books that stand out for me are: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini; The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexeivich; and The Picnic by Matthew Longo.

 

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