Africa

UN-GLOBE marches in the 2019 World Pride parade in celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning/queer and intersex (LGBTQI) people everywhere. Credit: UN-GLOBE

By an IPS Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 29 2023 (IPS)

A group of UN experts* on human rights has blasted the Government of Uganda for making homosexuality punishable by death.

“It is an egregious violation of human rights, the experts said, urging Uganda’s president not to promulgate laws that take aim at and further criminalise people identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT), and those who support and defend their human rights.

“The imposition of the death penalty based on such legislation is per se an arbitrary killing and a breach of article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),” the experts said, noting that this advice has been provided on several occasions to the Ugandan State in the past, according to a press release.

The Ugandan parliament recently approved harsh anti-LGBT laws that target and jeopardise the rights of LGBT persons and those who support and defend their human rights. The Ugandan legislation has been criticised as one of the world’s harshest anti-LGBT laws.

“The imposition of the death penalty for same-sex intimacy – including so-called ‘serial homosexuality’ – is an egregious violation of human rights,” the UN experts said.

They warned that the new legislation would exacerbate and legitimise continued stigmatisation, violence, harassment, and discrimination against LGBT persons and impact all spheres of their lives.

“LGBTI persons will constantly live in fear and stress for their life and physical integrity for simply living according to their sexual orientation,” the experts said, highlighting also the mental health-associated risks.

The experts said consistent acts of aggression, intimidation, and harassment and the proposed legislation threatened the physical and mental integrity and health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and other gender diverse persons in Uganda.

“Culture can never be a justification for such flagrant violations of human rights,” the experts said. They recalled the obligation of all stakeholders, including States, civil society and businesses, to promote social inclusion and contribute to stopping human rights abuses.

According to the experts, the Ugandan legislation comes after years of State-instigated and perpetuated discrimination and violence on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The experts repeatedly raised serious concerns about escalating risks to the human rights of LGBT persons in Uganda over the past 15 years, including when other iterations of so-called “anti-homosexuality” laws were proposed in 2009, 2012, 2013 and 2014.

In all cases, the draft bills were assessed as potentially leading to immediate violations to a substantial range of human rights, including the rights to life, liberty and security, privacy, equality and non-discrimination, freedom of association, peaceful assembly, opinion, expression, and the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, not to be subject to arbitrary arrest or detention, and the absolute prohibition against torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

“The new law is no exception and forms part of a worrying trend of intolerance, exacerbating stigma against LGBTI persons without any grounds or evidence,” they said.

The experts recalled that every person has the right to live peacefully and free from discrimination and violence. “We urge the President of Uganda to tread a new path towards respect of human rights and acceptance of difference, and reject the proposed law,” they said.

*The group of experts include: Mr. Víctor Madrigal-Borloz, Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; Nazila Ghanea, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief; Ms. Margaret Satterthwaite, Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers; Dr Alice Jill Edwards, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; Ms. Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences; Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Ms. Miriam Estrada-Castillo (Chair-Rapporteur), Mr. Mumba Malila (Vice-Chair), Ms. Priya Gopalan, Mr. Matthew Gillett, and Ms. Ganna Yudkivska – Working Group on arbitrary detention; Ms. Alexandra Xanthaki, Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights; Dr. Ana Brian Nougrères, Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy; Ms. Tlaleng Mofokeng, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; Mr. Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; Ms. Pichamon Yeophantong (Chairperson), Mr. Damilola Olawuyi (Vice-Chairperson), Ms. Fernanda Hopenhaym, Ms. Elżbieta Karska, and Mr. Robert McCorquodale of the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises; Mr. Gerard Quinn, Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities; Morris Tidball-Binz, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.

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Lesotho is a small mountainous kingdom entirely surrounded by its much larger neighbour.

Finland began construction of a fence along its border with Russia, the Finnish Border Guard (RAJA), announced on February 28th. Credit: The European Conservative

By Élisabeth Vallet
QUEBEC, Canada, Mar 29 2023 (IPS)

In the wake of Finland’s announcement last fall that it will build a barrier along its border with Russia, the discussions surrounding the European Council meeting of 9 February 2023 confirmed that the tide had turned.

Demands for stronger border measures have multiplied and some states have made it clear that they are willing to finance border barriers in other member states on the edge of the European Union.

They are thus projecting their own anxieties beyond their territories: in the midst of a moral panic, Europe now seems to be building what the geographer Klaus Dodds calls a ‘barbed-wire curtain’: a protective bulwark, in the spirit of what Samuel Huntington imagined when he wrote The clash of civilizations.

However, Brussels doesn’t seem quite ready to build a continuous external and concrete border wall itself. Yet.

Europe has a historical yet complicated relationship with walls. At the outset of the millennium, the continent, which had long rejected the idea of border walls as relics of a bygone era, in time would change its tune.

As the European Union expanded, it inherited the fenced-off borders in the heart of Cyprus and on the edge of Lithuania. But these were seen as mere remnants of conflicts from the past.

For in the 1990s, the EU became the champion of a world without borders, a world of free movement and flow. Yet, this was a mirage: the Schengen area abolished internal border controls while the physical barriers on its periphery were gradually hardening — such as Spain, which was walling up its border with Morocco in its two enclaves, Ceuta and Melilla, situated on the African continent. However, towards the end of the Cold War, there were still only 200 km of fenced borders in existence: vestiges of an ancient period, reminders of geopolitical obsolescence.

Breaking ‘the wall’ taboo

The great change towards erecting walls instead of tearing them down in Europe happened in two phases, starting in 2015, when the Syrian crisis led the EU to believe that there was also a ‘migratory crisis’ in Europe.

Then, in the following years, the change in the mindset continued both because of the Russian strategic threat in the wake of the invasion of Crimea and the instrumentalisation of refugee flows by Europe’s cumbersome neighbours.

Thus, in 2023, all over Europe, stretching from Finland to Greece, from Ukraine to Calais in France, there are 17 walled-in dyads. While 1.7 per cent of Europe’s land borders were barricaded at the end of the 20th century, 15.5 per cent are fenced today – 2008 kilometres of walls now scar the continent.

The fact that Europe is fully embracing the walled-in world and its own border limits is effectively breaking a taboo – that of the wall – as explicitly expressed by some heads of government on the eve of the European summit in February 2023. The Trumpian formulae, both gruesome and horrifying, is no longer an exception.

The wall has become an acceptable solution no longer limited to the vocabulary of populism and the Far Right, but rather entering fully mainstream discourse; legitimising exclusion as a tool of identity-based resistance in a world shaken by the winds of globalisation.

Yet, walls, which now represent a lucrative and globalised market with astronomical direct and indirect costs, do not fulfil the objectives for which they are being built. While political rhetoric suggests they are intended to seal and render the border impervious, it fails to recognise that flows shift – both spatially and temporally – when impeded.

Smuggling (whether of drugs, weapons, or people), irregular crossings and insurgency reorganise and become more opaque and thus more difficult to monitor. Flows disappear briefly to reappear elsewhere or in other forms. In the meantime, passage (both legal and illegal) becomes more costly and a magnet for organised crime.

Thus, although border walls sketch a fantasised imperviousness, they are not meant to serve as watertight membranes but rather as mere sieves.

Research shows that not only do walls burden bilateral trade and borderlands’ health, and affect a nation’s image, but they are also limited in effectiveness, as they do not block unwanted flows nor do they significantly increase security. Indeed, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) website has long claimed that the wall serves only as a ‘ speedbump’.

This perspective is shared by Finland’s Border Guard which states that the prototype barrier being tested will ‘slow down and guide the movements of any crowds that form’, adding that ‘even if people skirt the fence, it still fulfils its task by slowing down illegal entry and helping the authorities to manage the situation.’

However, this clear-mindedness doesn’t necessarily spill over into the public arena because border walls, as Trump proved in 2016, are an undeniably effective electoral weapon. An aspect that does not seem to have escaped the Austrian chancellor when he recently called for the erection of a wall along Europe borders – with the upcoming legislative elections in Austria less than a year away.

The wall as a silver bullet?

Just as a wall obscures the other side of the border, it also hides disagreements and opportunities for cooperation between border actors and border security policies. By de-structuring border areas economically, politically and ecologically, border walls amplify vulnerabilities and differences, which in turn accentuate violence. In their subsequent quest for security, states engage in damaging behaviours (such as suddenly shifting funding priorities, militarising border areas and mismanaging labour migration at the expense of local economies and ecosystems) – motivated by the prevailing rhetoric of a visible, theatrical silver bullet: the wall as a panacea.

As a matter of fact, border walls accentuate the global hierarchisation of mobility: a wall isn’t an impenetrable rampart for everyone but a filter that dissociates flows, selecting which is the wheat and which is the chaff. For some, it will impose cruel choices and added difficulties. For others, it will be barely a speck in the landscape.

For a few, it will even be an opportunity to enrich themselves. This unbalancing contributes to the political longevity of the wall-building process while also accomplishing a self-fulfilling prophecy: it becomes the announced remedy to the instability it breeds. Border walling creates a ‘tragedy by design’.

Hence, any transgression of the wall – Professor Scott Nicol calls these barriers ‘ladder magnets’ – becomes a demonstration of its very necessity, despite the fact that the wall itself is the reason some of these activities are now illegal.

By succumbing to the sirens of border fortification, European states are contributing to the normalisation and dissemination of the walling phenomenon. Walls are – above all – an admission of failure (of cooperation – both international and European) and a renouncement of the founding values of the European Union.

The resulting backlash will see an increased rift, accentuated flows, growing incomprehension and fears that are ever more primal, for which only greater cooperation can offer a remedy. For walls do not solve the problems they address. They merely act as a bandage on a broken limb, a smokescreen before increasingly glaring problems that remain unsolved.

Élisabeth Vallet is an Associate Professor at the RMCC-Saint Jean in Canada. She is also the director of the Centre for Geopolitical Studies of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair in Strategic and Diplomatic Studies (UQAM-Canada). Her main field of interest include Borders, border walls and US politics.

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

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A man collects his ration at one of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) collection points. The project, however, has resulted in deaths and injuries as people flocked to the collection points. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Mar 29 2023 (IPS)

The free Atta (flour) distribution scheme launched by the government to assist the inflation-hit communities during the holy month of Ramzan has left at least ten dead and over 100 injured as would-be beneficiaries rush to claim their 10-kilogram bags.

“We have been waiting in long queues to get a bag of flour since morning but to no avail, as the police resorted to baton charging the would-be beneficiaries. At least 20 people, including seven women, sustained injuries because police baton-charged the crowd,” Abdul Wali, 35, a daily wager, told IPS.

A resident of Mardan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Wali said that he had no money to purchase flour and other items for daily use and had pinned his hopes on the free flour scheme. But owing to the rush of people, he didn’t get it. Instead, the injured man was rushed to the hospital.

Wali, a street vendor, said he received first aid at the hospital, where his wounds were bandaged, but he has been forced to rest until he recovers.

On March 8, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced the government would provide 100 million people with 10kg of free flour during Ramzan in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) provinces. He said it would cost Rs73 billion (about USD 257 million) to the national exchequer.

Since the beginning of flour distribution at the designated points, ten people, including two women, have died in their effort to get free bags under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP).

Pakistanis, hit by price-hikes, rush to the points each day, but half of them return empty-handed in the evening due to the number of people trying to claim their food parcels. Stampedes have a problem, especially in KP, where the poverty ratio is higher than in any other province.

“My father stood in a row to get the flour, but meanwhile, stampede started, and he died instantly,” Ghufran Khan, a daily wager in Charsadda district, told IPS. His father, Wakil Khan, 55, an asthmatic, lost his life before he could get his flour ration.

Mismanagement at the distribution places is keeping the elderly and sick people away from points where the young and healthy people get the flour, he said.

On March 26, a tribal Jirga banned women from visiting the distribution points in Bara Khyber District in KP.

“Our women are getting harsh treatment, and therefore, we have decided that only male members of the deserving families would collect the bags,” Shahid Khan Shinwari, a member of the Jirga, said.

According to him, the government should give cash amounts through banks to avoid maltreatment of the beneficiaries.

“As per local traditions, our women don’t venture out in public, but poverty has hit the people hard, forcing them even to resort to begging. Government should take pity on poor people who have no option but to wait in the scorching sun to get flour,” Shinwari said.

The situation in tribal districts located along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is very precarious because of the poverty, he said.

Thousands throng the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) collection points.

Nasreen Bibi, a resident of Peshawar, the capital of KP, is angry about the distribution mechanism.

“For the last three days, I have been visiting the point, but there was no chance of getting the stuff due to the massive crowd. I am scared and have stopped going there now,” Bibi, a housewife, told IPS. A widow, she has to feed her six children. All are unemployed, and her oldest son, a mason, lost his job because the construction activities have come to a complete halt due to Ramzan, she said.

Young people are climbing over trucks loaded with flour and take away bags while the women are forced to be silent spectators, she explained.

Sharif visited several cities after reports of deaths and injuries, but there has been no improvement as the mechanism is problematic. On March 27, he inspected several places in Islamabad, but there have been no improvements so far.

Human rights activists are concerned.

“It is a gross violation of human rights. People are fighting for flour without caring for their well-being and health. I recommend that the government adopt the mechanism of former Prime Minister Imran Khan during Covid-19, where people received Rs12,000 through banks,” Muhammad Uzair, a human rights activist, said.

On rainy days, the situation worsens when the people get wet flour that cannot be used, he said.

“We appeal to the government to realize the gravity of the situation and revert to cash assistance to save the women, children and elderly people from disrespect,” he said.

He said that if the government didn’t pay attention, the crisis may increase, and many people could lose their lives.

Even in Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan, people throng the distribution points early in the morning, but many lose hope and return to their homes.

“The government has enrolled 150,000 families in Islamabad, but the pace of distribution is at snail’s pace, and police have had to intervene time and again to ensure order,” Shah Afzal, 59, said.

Afzal, a dishwasher in a restaurant, lost his job during Ramzan. He said the flour distribution gave the impoverished community hope, but the system is faulty and aged people cannot continue to put their lives at risk.

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By SWAN
PARIS, Mar 28 2023 (IPS)

It’s a new direction for UNESCO, getting involved in movies, so to speak. The United Nations’ cultural agency and Netflix – the global streaming and production company – have partnered to “support” and “promote” Africa’s new generation of filmmakers, and the results will be revealed to the world from March 29, when six short films by young directors will be available in 190 countries via the video-on-demand platform.

The films are the winners of an “African Folktales, Reimagined” competition that was launched by both entities in 2021, attracting more than 2,000 entries, according to UNESCO.

Ernesto Ottone Ramírez, the agency’s assistant director-general for culture, said the joint initiative “pays homage to Africa’s centuries-old tradition, passing wisdom from generation to generation, from elders to the youngest”. He acknowledged that this is a departure for UNESCO whose work with streaming platforms have mostly focused on regulatory and policy issues.

Meanwhile Tendeka Matatu, Netflix’s director of film for Sub-Saharan Africa, said the company believes that “great stories are universal and that they can come from anywhere and be loved everywhere”. He said that what Netflix and UNESCO have in common is the desire to “promote the multiplicity of expression”.

The submissions to the film contest went through a first selection process, before being narrowed to 21 candidates, who presented their projects to an international jury. The judges – including film mentors – then selected six finalists: from Kenya (Voline Ogutu), Mauritania (Mohamed Echkouna), Nigeria (Korede Azeez), South Africa (Gcobisa Yako), Tanzania (Walt Mzengi Corey) and Uganda (Loukman Ali).

Each finalist won $25,000 and a production grant of $75,000 to create their short movie with a local production company, UNESCO said. The films were completed earlier this year, and their streaming (as an “anthology”) will begin with the 6th Kalasha International Film and TV Market in Kenya, a three-day trade fair taking place March 29 – 31.

Speaking at an in-house “advance” showing of the films at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, Ottone Ramírez said the agency was “particularly pleased” that the short films captured “not only the culture of Africa, but also the cultural diversity within Africa”.

Some observers privately expressed concerns, however, that any association with global streaming platforms could lead to formulaic storytelling or could undermine local film ventures – a fear that Ottone Ramírez said was unfounded.

He told SWAN that the filmmakers had complete freedom, and that the films were their own vision. What Netflix “put at their disposal”, he said, was access to an experienced film partner, as well as financial and technical support. (The “Netflix-appointed supervising producer” was Steven Markovitz from Big World Cinema, an African production company based in Cape Town, South Africa.)

UNESCO says the partnership illustrates a “shared commitment to the continent’s audiovisual industries, which generate jobs and wealth” and that the creative industries “are an asset for the sustainable development of the continent”.

The creative industries are also an opportunity for companies seeking to expand into new markets, which could be mutually beneficial, observers say. While Nigeria and a few other countries have well-established filmmaking sectors, many African directors might benefit from international support.

Anniwaa Buachie, a Ghanaian-British actress and filmmaker, told SWAN that “budget” is one of the biggest constraints for independent films. “You cannot go back and re-shoot, money is tight, which also means time is limited. You just have one chance to make sure you get the right shots, the right lighting, etc.”

Some of the industry challenges are highlighted in a report UNESCO produced in 2021 on Africa’s film sector, titled The African film Industry: trends, challenges and opportunities for growth. The report found that the sector could create some 20 million jobs and generate 20 billion dollars in annual revenue on the continent. With the survey, UNESCO could identify the need to create capacity building and to “scale up” efforts by policy makers – using Nigeria as one model, Ottone Ramírez said.

(Read here: The African film Industry: trends, challenges and opportunities for growth – UNESCO Digital Library)

It was on the completion of the report that UNESCO decided on the current project, Ottone Ramírez told SWAN. At the same time, Netflix was also seeking to launch a project in Africa, so talks began on a partnership, with “months” of discussion about the format and the call for applications, he added.

As for “priorities”, UNESCO hoped to include indigenous languages and gender equality in the project, he said. Alongside English and French, the winning films are made in a variety of languages including Hausa, KiSwahili, Runyankole, Hassaniya Arabic, and isiXhosa – reflecting the UN International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032).

Many of the stories also centre on women characters, with topics including domestic violence and the struggle for equality within patriarchal structures.

“It shows us how important this subject is for the young generation of African filmmakers,” Ottone Ramírez said. “I would say it was the main theme in each of the 21 pitches before the final selection. We’re seeing another way of storytelling.”

Part of the aim was equally to boost opportunities for women filmmakers – something that has already been happening with the long-running FESPACO film festival in Burkina Faso – and to focus on directors living in Africa, Ottone Ramírez told SWAN.

During the selection of the winning pitches, UNESCO and Netflix acted as observers, leaving the choice to the international jury, he said.

Aside from being able to produce their films, perhaps the biggest advantage to the winners is that they have access to a global platform, which Netflix said it is “proud” to provide.

“We know Africa has never lacked in talent and creativity” said Matatu, the Netflix director. “What has been in short supply, however, is opportunity. Emerging talents often struggle – they struggle finding the right resources and the visibility to fully unleash their potential and develop their creative careers.”

The winning short films will potentially reach some 230 million subscribers of the video-on-demand platform around the world, he said – an unprecedented opportunity for these young filmmakers. – SWAN

Industry mentors were Bongiwe Selane, Jenna Bass, Pape Boye, Femi Odugbemi, Leila Afua Djansi, and Tosh Gitonga.

 

Flashback to the 2018 general election in Zimbabwe. Press Journalists and media analysts are concerned about press freedom in the run up to the election. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Mar 28 2023 (IPS)

With only a few months to go before national elections in Zimbabwe, press freedom advocates are raising concerns about stringent reporting conditions set by the government.

From exorbitant registration fees to cover the much-anticipated polls to physical harassment of journalists covering ruling party rallies, media practitioners report an escalation of attempts to muzzle press freedom, creating hostile conditions for election reporting.

Zimbabwe’s national elections have a long history of rekindling and escalating hostility towards the press corps, with journalists from privately owned media houses especially being targeted by political activists and members of the security forces.

In recent months, independent journalists have endured physical attacks from President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front), accused of unfavourable reporting.

While these journalists – some from small start-ups and privately-owned media houses to those working for international news agencies – have been barred from covering ruling party political rallies, their colleagues from state-controlled media outlets have been allowed free access, raising concerns from press freedom advocates about access to information for voters.

The media polarisation has also seen retaliatory responses, with state media being barred from covering opposition Citizens for Coalition for Change (CCC) rallies.

The CCC, Zimbabwe’s main opposition tipped by pollsters to unseat the ruling party, accuses state media of biased and hostile coverage while acting as the ruling party’s propaganda arm.

However, these accusations have been dismissed as unfounded by senior editors at outlets that include the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) and The Herald, a government-controlled national daily.

Journalists have also challenged the requirements that they pay what they say are exorbitant accreditation fees to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) when the journalists are already accredited by the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC).

“It’s understandable to accredit foreign journalists to cover the elections, but for local journalists who are already accredited by ZMC, this is an unfair move meant to control and manipulate the media practitioners and, ultimately, the information that gets into the public domain,” said Tawanda Majoni, national coordinator of the Information for Development Trust, a local non-profit working with local investigative journalists.

The Media Institute for Southern Africa (Miss) has also added its voice to the controversy around double accreditation.

“The issue of accreditation is a major concern as we have over successive elections we have approached the authorities highlight the issue of dual accreditation which is tantamount to double taxation,” said Tabani Moyo, MISA regional director.

“Government must rethink this issue as it is tantamount to attempts to deny ordinary people who are voters access to information,” Moyo told IPS.

Pressure continues to mount on the government to create a safe working environment for journalists, but with only a few months before the June national elections, confidence is waning among analysts.

“It seems unlikely there will be conditions in place for equitable media access in media coverage in the run-up to elections. We have not really seen this in any election period,” said Piers Pigou, a senior southern Africa analyst at the International Crisis Group (ICG).

“It is the arena of broadcast media that presents the major challenges both in terms of who gets access and the content of what is put out there. We have not seen proper independence of the media,” Pigou told IPS.

“It is highly unlikely that we are going to see independent media voices operating effectively and the majority of Zimbabweans will able to access crucial information,” he added.

An unfettered press is seen by analysts as playing an important role for international observers to get an informed view of pre-election conditions in a country where the government has not been too keen to allow observers free movement.

“The role of international monitors should be to assess the wider conditions that include issues around access and content of the press. One would expect observation teams to reflect on that, but that will also depend on the teams allowed in the country,” Pigou told IPS.

Concerns about election reporting conditions in Zimbabwe come after Reporters Without Borders reported last year that conditions for working as a journalist in Zimbabwe continue to decline amid the arrest and detention of journalists during the course of their constitutionally protected duties.

“We cannot expect the relevant stakeholders to ensure sufficient reforms in four or so months when not much had been done in four decades,” Majoni said.

“That means we are going into the 2023 elections with a muzzled media. Since the media is severely constrained, it means it’s ill-prepared to cover the elections. In essence, therefore, the elections are already discredited because free media is a necessary condition for democratic polls,” Majoni told IPS.

While UNESCO says “the protection and safety of journalists and media personnel are key to the advancement of democracy and general development of society,” critics contend that Zimbabwe has continued to disregard those internationally recognised benchmarks, raising concerns about the role of the press in free and fair elections.

“We are in the tenth year of the UN Action Plan on the safety of journalists. Those who violate the rights of journalists with impunity and those who have a reflex to attack journalists during elections must be brought to book,” Moyo told IPS.

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Midwives Lucie Banionia and Lydie Mawelo help deliver the future at the General Reference Hospital in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the world's fastest-growing countries. Credit: UNFPA/Junior Mayindu

By Maniza Habib
WASHINGTON DC, Mar 28 2023 (IPS)

International family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) are critical to achieving gender equity, but U.S. investment in them is not nearly sufficient to meet the moment.

The Biden-Harris FY2024 budget request proposes to invest $619.43 million for bilateral FP/RH programs plus $57.5 million for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)– a total of $676.8 million. That’s 11% more than Congress appropriated last year, and it’s one of the only proposed funding increases in the global health sector this year, yet it’s still just a fraction of what’s needed.

The fair-share U.S. contribution, i.e. what it would need to contribute proportionately to ensure the all women of reproductive age in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have their modern contraception needs met, is calculated to be $1.736 billion.

Family planning gives people control over their own bodies and futures. At its core, it’s about empowering individuals to make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive lives, including if, when, and how many children to have, and how far apart to space births.

Access to family planning enables women to pursue their education and participate more meaningfully in economic and political life.

These are all necessary components of gender equality. Yet U.S. funding for international FP/RH has stayed flat for a decade while global population, reproductive health needs, and barriers to access have been growing. It is high time for the U.S. to meet its responsibility to help close the gap.

A group of children smile in Ismail Bhand village in Pakistan’s Shaheed Benazirabad district, Sindh province. Credit: UNICEF/Shehzad Noorani

There are 923 million women of reproductive age in LMICs who want to avoid pregnancy. About a quarter of those (218 million) have an unmet need for modern contraception. They want to avoid pregnancy but are not using a modern method. Reasons for this vary from government restrictions on accessing contraceptives to service providers refusing to distribute them to having to travel daunting distances to the nearest clinic.

These hurdles are compounded by gender-based discrimination. For example, stigma surrounding contraceptives and sex make it particularly difficult for young, single women to access services.

Marginalized groups face discriminatory attitudes in clinics, including in the U.S., where members of the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, and Black, indigenous, and other people of color are often denied services and resources to meet their family planning needs.

The world needs much more robust support from the U.S. to overcome these obstacles and pave the way to achieving global gender equality. Due to the lack of sufficient investment to dismantle barriers to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) worldwide, U.S. support for overarching gender equality goals will inevitably be weakened, a new Population Institute report finds.

Some governments are showing they understand this problem and are changing policies accordingly. For example, President Xiomara Castro of Honduras just lifted a 14-year ban on emergency contraception, which will revolutionize access to FP/RH services. Beginning April 1, the provincial government of British Columbia will provide prescription contraception at no charge.

The U.S. has a responsibility to lead on global SRHR but ceded its leadership in recent years and is getting left behind. U.S. bilateral and multilateral FP/RH programs have been under attack, especially in the wake of Trump-era restrictive policies.

The modest increase in FP/RH funding in the current budget proposal shows the Biden-Harris administration recognizes the importance of global SRHR. But it doesn’t reflect the urgency or level of commitment needed.

At the same time, it undercuts SRHR by including the Helms Amendment, an outdated prohibition on using U.S. foreign assistance funding for abortion as a method of family planning. In practice, implementing the Helms Amendment has meant denying abortions even in instances of rape or incest, or in cases where it would save a woman’s life.

Failure to aim at U.S. fair-share levels of FP/RH funding in the latest budget proposal is a missed opportunity. Let’s not miss any more. Global population recently passed the 8 billion mark, and the need is growing.

We can meet the moment by recognizing the fundamental connections between SRHR, gender equality, and sustainable development, and accepting the obligation of the U.S. to lead on achieving them.

Maniza Habib is Research Associate at the Population Institute, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. that supports reproductive health and rights.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The Puente Madera community, in the municipality of San Blas Atempa in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, is opposed to the sale of land to an industrial park in that town, one of the 10 projects in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Interoceanic Corridor, as demonstrated at a February 2022 protest. CREDIT: APIIDTT

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Mar 28 2023 (IPS)

In March 2021, the community assembly of the municipality of San Blas Atempa, in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, approved the sale of 360 hectares for the creation of an industrial park. But part of the community opposed the initiative due to irregularities, such as the falsification of signatures of supposed attendees, including those of people who had already died.

The facility is one of 10 planned within the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Interoceanic Corridor (CIIT), which in turn is part of the Program for the Development of the Tehuantepec Isthmus that the Mexican government has been implementing since 2019 with the aim of developing the south and southeast of this country of 1,964,375 square kilometers and almost 130 million inhabitants."It is the replica of the maquiladora model, jobs that exploit workers and cheap labor. There are legitimate concerns, like water, and what kind of industries will be installed. The isthmus is not an industrial zone.”
-- Geocomunes

Mario Quintero, a member of the Assembly of Indigenous Peoples of the Isthmus in Defense of Land and Territory (APIIDTT), said the plan is plagued by “land grabbing, exploitation, dispossession, and displacement of peoples.”

“It is a large-scale geopolitical project in a geostrategic region. The system is corrupt. The way this is being carried out is obscene. The government agrees to the lease, but then says it is going to expropriate,” the activist told IPS from the municipality of Juchitán, in Oaxaca, some 480 kilometers south of Mexico City.

The 200-km wide isthmus is the narrowest area in Mexico between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, in the Gulf of Mexico, which has a large indigenous population and is abundant in biodiversity, hydrocarbons and minerals.

In addition to the 10 industrial sites of 360 hectares each in size, called “Development Poles for Well-being” and focused on exports, the CIIT includes the renovation of the ports of Salina Cruz, on the Pacific Ocean in Oaxaca, and Coatzacoalcos in the state of Veracruz.

It also includes the reconstruction of the Tehuantepec Isthmus Railroad, which links Chiapas, in the state of the same name, with Dos Bocas, in Tabasco.

In addition, it involves the upgrade of the Salina Cruz and Minatitlán refineries, in the state of Veracruz, the laying of a gas pipeline and the construction of a gas liquefaction plant off the coast of Salina Cruz.

But this industrial model is criticized for the few benefits it brings the host communities and the fact that the largest economic benefits go to exporters, and due to its environmental impacts. For example, the municipality of Coatzacoalcos is one of the most polluted in the country.

The non-governmental organization Geocomunes, dedicated to building maps for the defense of common goods, provided IPS with a list of effects such as the pollution of rivers and aquifers, as well as poor working conditions.

“Except for the promise of jobs, it’s business as usual. It is the replica of the maquiladora model, jobs that exploit workers and cheap labor,” the organization said. “There are legitimate concerns, like water, and what kind of industries will be installed. The isthmus is not an industrial zone, it implies a change in the traditional economy. It’s important to look at what kind of employment it will bring. Construction means precarious employment.”

The organization also anticipates that the industries will not arrive as soon as promised, since industrial production does not only consist of the installation of companies.

 

The Interoceanic Corridor seeks to connect both coasts of Mexico, the Pacific and the Atlantic, through highways and a refurbished railway, to promote industrial development in the south-southeast of the country and foment exports. CREDIT: Fonadin

 

Appetite for exports

Mexico, the second largest economy in Latin America, is home to more than 500 industrial parks on more than 51,000 hectares, which swell the automotive, electronic, food and beverage, metallurgical, medical, textile and aerospace industries.

Altogether, more than 3,700 companies generate some three million jobs in these industrial parks.

The trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – ​​in force between 1994 and 2020, when it was replaced by the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) – fomented the installation of export assembly plants or maquilas.

They mainly set up shop in northern Mexico, the area closest to the United States, drawn by tax benefits, lower wages and more lax environmental regulations than in their nations of origin.

The northern state of Nuevo León and the central states of Mexico and Guanajuato are home to the largest number of maquilas.

But the socioeconomic conditions in these places have not improved, as demonstrated by the available statistics.

Figures from the government’s National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval) indicate that poverty and extreme poverty increased in Nuevo León, home to some 150 industrial poles, between 2018 and 2020.

Overall poverty rose from 1.07 million people to 1.34 million (from 19.24 percent to 24.3 percent of the population) while extreme poverty climbed from 40,000 to 124,000 people (0.7 percent to 2.1 percent).

In Nuevo León, one of the states with the highest levels of income per person and social development in the country, home to 5.78 million people, the unemployment rate stood at 3.57 percent in 2022, and 35.8 of the workforce was in the informal sector of the economy.

In the state of Mexico, adjacent to Mexico City and home to 113 industrial facilities, poverty grew from 7.04 million to 8.34 million people (from 41.8 percent to 48.9 percent of the population), while extreme poverty rose from 783,000 to 1.4 million people (from 4.7 percent to 8.2 percent).

The state of Mexico, population 17 million, had 4.46 percent unemployment in 2022 while 56.8 percent of the workforce was in the informal sector.

The results are similar in other states where industrial parks have been built.

In contrast, in the southern state of Oaxaca, poverty and extreme poverty declined, from 2.58 million to 2.75 million people (from 64.3 percent to 61.7 percent) and from 868,000 to 860,000 (from 21.7 percent to 20.6 percent), respectively.

Oaxaca, which so far has only one industrial pole, is home to 4.13 million people, with an unemployment rate of 1.28 percent in 2022 and 81 percent of the labor force in the informal sector.

 

The Interoceanic Corridor is part of the Program for the Development of the Tehuantepec Isthmus, covers the southern state of Oaxaca and the southeastern state of Veracruz, and has drawn opposition from local communities who consider it an imposition by the government and a threat to their culture and territory. The photo shows a Mar. 21, 2023 protest against the megaprojects, outside the United States Embassy. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

 

More hydrocarbons

The Program for the Development of the Tehuantepec Isthmus covers 46 municipalities in Oaxaca and 33 in Veracruz, forming an area where 11 of the country’s 69 indigenous peoples live, totaling 17 million native people.

The Corridor revives a set of similar projects that then President Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000) proposed in 1996 but which never were carried out. Now President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in office since December 2018, is recycling them.

The CIIT budget, under the Ministry of the Navy, grew from 162 million dollars in the first year, 2020, to 203 million in 2021 and to more than double that, 529 million, in 2022. But in 2023 it has shrunk to 374 million.

The Corridor divides the 10 projected industrial poles equally between Oaxaca and Veracruz. On Mar. 21 López Obrador announced that the tender for four locations in Oaxaca would be held in early April.

The Tehuantepec isthmus is a region already impacted by the presence of other infrastructure, such as 29 wind farms, most of them private. That installed capacity, plus new wind and solar fields, will fuel the new industrial facilities.

The Mexican government also projects the laying of a 270-km gas pipeline with a transport capacity of 500 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d), between the towns of Jáltipan and Salina Cruz.

The pipeline will complement the 247-km Jáltipan-Salina Cruz gas pipeline that has been operating since 2014 and transports 90 Mmcf/d.

The new pipeline, at a cost of 434 million dollars, will carry 430 MMcf/d to the planned liquefaction plant near Salina Cruz and between 50 and 70 MMcf/d to the industrial parks.

The Federal Electricity Commission, responsible for the project, calculates that it will supply gas to 470 plants and 30 industrial parks.

The communities are fighting it and will seek to build autonomy through local self-management projects, according to Quintero.

“The project is not going to improve the lives of the communities, just as the railroad in the 20th century or the hydroelectric plants failed to do, or the refinery (in Salina Cruz) or the wind farms, because their promises translate into belts of marginalization,” said the activist. “Development and benefits for whom?”

Geocomunes doubts the promise of development. “The land, the water, basic things that are at risk. Who will bear the costs? What is the government going to demand?”

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The median ages of populations are expected to continue rising over the coming decades. East Nanjing Road, Shanghai, China. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Mar 27 2023 (IPS)

Yes, lower the retirement ages! That is the key message that workers worldwide are conveying to their governments.

Rather than increasing retirement ages as many governments are now proposing, men and women worldwide want to stop working well before they reach old age, which is approximately 60 years.

After toiling for years in factories, offices, shops, backrooms, vehicles, fields, etc., most workers around the world want to stop working before they reach old age. That desire translates into exiting the labor force and receiving a government pension at approximately age 55 years.

Government officials, economic advisors, business leaders and many others calling for raising retirement ages will no doubt consider lower retirement ages to be preposterous, verging on financial blasphemy and leading to an economy’s doom. Some have argued that lowering retirement ages places an unaffordable and unfair burden on taxpayers.

The number of young women and men available to work is the largest ever. Whereas the proportion of the world’s population between ages 18 to 59 was 52 percent in 1950 and numbered 1.3 billion, that proportion increased to 56 percent in 2022 and numbered 4.5 billion

On the contrary, rather than leading to an economy’s ruination, a retirement age of 55 years may usher in a “retirement renaissance” resulting in untold benefits to societies worldwide.

The renaissance will enhance and extend the quality of life for those in retirement. It is also expected to decrease unemployment rates, lead to increased motivation among younger employees to continue working until retirement, provide businesses with energetic, healthy, well-trained youthful workers as well as foster cross generational interactions, recreation, hobbies and cultural activities.

In addition, the renaissance may contribute to raising low fertility levels by making childcare more readily available. Today two-thirds of the world’s population lives in a country where the fertility rate is below the replacement level of about 2.1 births per woman.

The retirement renaissance will permit retired men and women with adult children to assist with childcare and related activities. With grandparents available for childcare, young working mothers and fathers can be expected to be more favorably disposed to having additional children.

The protests, demonstrations and objections in Asia, Europe, North America and elsewhere reflect the public’s resistance to working until, as they claim, broken-down and close to near death. Large majorities of workers have clearly conveyed their opposition to their respective government proposals requiring people to work well into old age before they are entitled to receive their promised retirement pensions.

The various projected insolvencies of government pension systems, often cited as justification for raising retirement ages to record breaking high levels, are often dismissed by workers and their supporters as irrelevant. The insolvencies, workers contend, are simply financial excuses concocted by government officials and their wealthy supporters, who object to paying their fair share of taxes, to justify their goal of raising retirement ages and cutting pension benefits.

In addition to higher taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, workers argue that governments have plenty of financial resources at their disposal to permit lowering retirement ages and financing pension programs. Some contend that countries could substantially reduce their defense spending and redirect the substantial savings to retirement pension programs.

Admittedly, it is certainly the case that on average people are living longer than in the recent past and the proportions of elderly are increasing. However, those increases in longevity have not been shared equally across populations.

In general, those with high incomes have experienced longevity gains, while low earners have seen little gain in longevity. Moreover, workers contend that living longer should not translate into working longer and receiving reduced retirement pension benefits.

Both men and women spend decades working at jobs that they don’t particularly enjoy and for bosses they loathe. Many would argue that it only seems fair and reasonable to have several decades available to workers permitting them to do what they desire before they eventually face death. People are largely opposed to working until they are tired, bed ridden and unable to enjoy the remaining years of their life.

It is also the case that women on average live several years longer than men. At age 65, for example, at the global level women live close to three years longer than men. Even larger differences in life expectancy at age 65 between women and men are observed in other countries, such as France and Japan at nearly four and five years, respectively (Figure 1).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

Taking into account those well documented sex differences in longevity, the retirement age for women could be several years greater than that for men, perhaps 57 and 54 years, respectively. Such a difference between women and men would help to ensure gender equality in the number of retirement years.

In addition, neither men nor women should be forced to work beyond the recommended lower official retirement ages for men and women. Of course, exceptions should be permitted and lower official retirement ages should not bar individuals from working in old age if they choose to do so.

Some heads of state, elected officials, government bureaucrats, investors, business owners, academics, the wealthy, entertainers as well as many others are choosing for personal reasons it appears to work beyond official retirement ages. Some current heads of state, for example, are well beyond the official retirement ages of their respective countries with few of their constituents objecting (Figure 2).

 

Source: Author’s compilation.

 

With the world population reaching a record-breaking 8,000,000,000 people, the number of young women and men available to work is the largest ever. Whereas the proportion of the world’s population between ages 18 to 59 was 52 percent in 1950 and numbered 1.3 billion, that proportion increased to 56 percent in 2022 and numbered 4.5 billion.

There’s no denying the fact that the world’s population is older than in the past. Over the past 70 years, the proportion of the world’s population aged 60 years and older has nearly doubled, from 8 percent in 1950 to 14 percent in 2022. However, the increase in the proportion elderly is offset by the decrease in proportion of children below age 18 years from 40 percent in 1950 to 30 percent in 2022 (Figure 3).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

Also, some believe that rapidly improving technologies, including robots, androids and artificial intelligence, can complement and broaden a country’s labor supply. Those technologies are expected to offset reductions in the size of the labor force as people retire at around 55 years of age.

Many governments have enacted or are seriously considering raising retirement ages. Increases in today’s retirement ages are viewed by workers as nothing more than pension benefits cuts.

Proposals for raising retirement ages are viewed by workers as relying on faulty actuarial analyses of bankruptcy, dire warnings of pension insolvency and catchy phrases such as “Vivre plus longtemps, travailler plus longtemps” (“live longer, work longer”).

Moreover, conservative government officials in general are resistant to raising taxes on the wealthy and large corporations. However, many of those officials are favorably disposed to raising retirement ages, which would result in reductions in pension benefits. Also, some government officials have rejected calls to return retirement ages back to 60 years.

In sum, in addition to meeting the wishes of billions of working men and women who want to retire well before reaching old age, lower official retirement ages of approximately 57 years for women and 54 years for men may usher in a “retirement renaissance” that could result in untold benefits to societies worldwide.

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Population Levels, Trends, and Differentials”.

 

Building renewables plants across the Global South is a preferable alternative to generate fewer emissions — but the international community has to date been unwilling to provide the substantial funding needed to construct this type of additional generation capacity at the level developing countries require. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Philippe Benoit
WASHINGTON DC, Mar 27 2023 (IPS)

This year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 28, will be hosted by the United Arab Emirates, which, together with its Gulf neighbors, enjoys abundant solar, natural gas and financial resources. At the same time, many poorer countries are struggling to generate the additional affordable electricity they need to power their development — especially as wealthier nations halted their overseas financing for high-emitting coal power plants.

Unfortunately, the UAE and other Gulf states can’t easily export their solar resources to developing countries. However, they can export their natural gas to support affordable low-emissions power production in poorer countries if combined with donor-financed carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS)-equipped gas-fired power plants.

The lead-up to COP 28 provides an opportunity to explore this mechanism to support low-emissions economic growth in poorer countries — a “gas for poverty and climate” power proposal.

The decision to build more coal power plants reflects the difficult dilemma faced by many poorer countries: They are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and yet they do not feel they can afford to forestall investing in affordable power generation and the shorter-term economic benefits it provides, even if this means building high-emitting coal power plants

As I noted in an earlier opinion piece, the decisions by the G-7, China and others to halt overseas financing for coal power plants serve important climate goals but do not eliminate developing countries’ need for more electricity at affordable prices. According to a February Reuters report, the Pakistan government has decided, in the face of high and volatile natural gas prices, to pivot from building gas-fired plants to more affordable coal-fired ones notwithstanding the higher emissions.

This shift is all the more unsettling given the devastation Pakistan suffered last year from massive flooding with an intensity potentially exacerbated by climate change.

The decision to build more coal power plants reflects the difficult dilemma faced by many poorer countries: They are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and yet they do not feel they can afford to forestall investing in affordable power generation and the shorter-term economic benefits it provides, even if this means building high-emitting coal power plants.

The upcoming COP 28 context might provide a way out, one that leverages the hosting of the event in the gas-rich Gulf region, with the stated interest of wealthier countries and multilateral development banks to support poorer countries in the energy transition.

The proposal has two basic elements: an undertaking by a Gulf producer to provide natural gas at a preferential low price to new “low-emitting” gas-fired power plants built with concessional climate finance in partnering developing countries.

The preferential pricing builds off of three interrelated Gulf state dynamics: the abundance in the region of gas resources, Gulf programs to contribute to the economic development of poorer countries and efforts to lower emissions from petroleum, such as the application of carbon capture technologies. The sales price would be fixed at a concessional level — e.g., notionally at (or even potentially below) the cost of production, liquefaction and transport, rather than generating typical market returns.

The subsidy embedded in this structure would be recognized as a financial contribution by the gas-supplying country to both international development and global climate efforts. This structure could potentially also be used by wealthy gas countries from other regions, such as possibly Norway, interested in simultaneously supporting development and tackling climate change.

The second element is the use of this natural gas in gas-fired power plants equipped with “carbon capture, utilization and storage” technologies to produce “low-emissions” electricity.

Many countries have looked to expand the use of gas-fired plants in part because they emit less than half the carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilowatt hour (kWh) of a coal plant. But their emissions are still consequential, potentially in the order of 350 grams of CO2/kWh according to one estimate —  a significant level when considering the “net zero emissions” targets put out by various countries or embedded in the climate modeling of the International Energy Agency.

CCUS is one tool to substantially further reduce these emissions by 90 percent or more. The potential result is CO2 emissions per kWh that are so low they might even be termed “near-zero emissions.”

Although CCUS technologies have been developed and tested for many years on power plants, they have yet to be deployed at a large scale. One reason is that they are expensive per ton of reduced CO2 emissions. Consequently, their cost would undermine a developing country’s electricity affordability objective.

To overcome this hurdle, the CCUS-equipped gas-fired plant would need to be financed in large part through highly concessional climate funding, to be provided notably by the international donor community. There may also be an opportunity to tap into carbon markets to fund both capital and operating expenditures given the lower (i.e., avoided) emissions from the CCUS-equipped plant as compared to the alternative of a new coal-fired power plant or a gas-fired one without CCUS.

There are, of course, additional complexities to explore. For example, the plant would need to be able to access reasonably priced options for CO2 use or storage. In addition, the greenhouse gases (including methane) emitted in producing and delivering the natural gas to the plant would need to be limited to ensure the produced electricity remains “low emissions” when considering the full value chain.

Further analysis would also be needed on the pricing and other terms to make this structure attractive for the natural gas supplier, the donor community funding the CCUS-equipped plant and the developing country’s electricity consumers.

Building renewables plants across the Global South is a preferable alternative to generate fewer emissions — but the international community has to date been unwilling to provide the substantial funding needed to construct this type of additional generation capacity at the level developing countries require. And, as noted earlier, the technologies don’t yet exist for the Gulf states to export their abundant solar power resources, notwithstanding current discussions about green hydrogen.

The hosting of COP 28 in the Gulf provides an opportunity to think creatively about how to mobilize the gas resources of that region (and elsewhere) to better support both the development needs of poorer countries and the global climate effort. This COP 28 “gas for poverty and climate” power proposal might provide some elements.

(First published in The Hill on March 8, 2023)

Philippe Benoit has over 25 years of experience working in international energy and sustainability, including prior management positions at the World Bank and the International Energy Agency.  He is currently adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and  research director at Global Infrastructure Analytics and Sustainability 2050.

The potential for indigenous crops and plant species to address hunger remains largely untapped even as extreme weather changes threaten to cripple food systems. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Mar 27 2023 (IPS)

Elizabeth Njoroge recounts her poverty-stricken upbringing in Ting’ang’a village in the Central part of Kenya, growing up on a diet heavy on Amaranth and pumpkin.

The 45-year-old speaks about the shame of neighbours finding out the frequency with which her family consumed foods associated with poor and extremely food-insecure households.

“Terere (Amaranth) grew just like weed. We often sneaked into other people’s farms to pick the vegetable because only poor people ate terere and only babies ate pumpkin. Eating pumpkin as a family was considered a sign of poverty,” she tells IPS.

That was then; today, Zachary Aduda, who is an independent researcher in food security, says people’s understanding and appreciation of indigenous foods has grown.

“Native foods that were previously considered only fit for the very poor and vulnerable have been commercialized because of their documented high nutritional value. They include amaranth, which is also a neutralizer for vegetables that are considered bitter such as the black nightshade, locally known as osuga,” he says.

But as Kenya struggles to be free from the grips of the most severe drought in the last 40 years, he says indigenous foods have not been sufficiently utilized to halt the pace and spread of food insecurity and, more so, in the arid and semi-arid parts of the country.

The drought has resulted in the East African nation being considered seriously food insecure, with severe nutrition vulnerabilities leading to high malnutrition levels and poverty.

A UN food security outlook for October 2022 to January 2023 indicated that the number of people in Kenya facing hunger could reach 4.4 million and that 1.2 million people were projected to have entered the emergency phase and are in urgent need of food support.

The potential, Aduda tells IPS, for indigenous crops and plant species to address hunger remains largely untapped. Kenya, alongside a vast majority of the world, relies heavily on three crops – maize, wheat and rice.

Research by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows that the three crop species meet an estimated 50 percent of the global requirements for proteins and calories.

Hellen Wanjugu, an agriculturalist based in Nyeri County, one of Kenya’s food baskets, says native crops and plant species are not only heavy in nutrition but can withstand ongoing extreme changes in weather patterns.

Take, for instance, amaranth: “It is easy to grow, matures fast and when cooked, very rich in nutrients such as calcium, manganese, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, folate, iron, zinc and potassium.”

Maize, wheat and rice production is buckling under the pressure from extreme climate change and pest infestation. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the size of farm acreage planted with maize has declined by approximately a quarter in recent years, an alarming development since maize is a staple food crop.

Aduda speaks of inadequate efforts to support resilience interventions around the production of indigenous foods. He says there is too much focus on fertilizers and little to no focus on the difficulties farmers face accessing and multiplying indigenous seeds.

“Every ethnic group in Kenya boasts of its own traditional crops and vegetables in line with the climate of their region. But there is a problem because our smallholder farmers, who are the backbone of our food system, cannot easily access the indigenous seeds they so urgently need,” he says.

Kenya’s smallholder farmers account for at least 70 percent of the country’s production, and their combined output meets an estimated 75 percent of domestic food needs in the country, according to government data.

“But, a vast majority of these farmers rely on informal seeds system. Traditionally, seed saving and sharing among farmers was a very normal and common practice. This way, farmers largely controlled the seeds system, and they were able to grow native species and promote our agricultural biodiversity until a prohibitive law came into place in 2012,” Wanjugu tells IPS.

The Seed and Plant Varieties Act 326 of 2012 was originally established to protect farmers from being duped into buying unregistered or uncertified seeds. Uncertified seeds are often low yielding and easily succumb to changes in weather and pest infestation.

But the 2012 Act also strongly prohibits the sale, exchange and sharing of indigenous seeds in Kenya. A violation of this law could lead to up to two years in jail, a fine of up to $10,000 or both.

A group of farmers are currently in court with a public interest litigation towards the amendment of the seeds law to allow the saving and sharing of indigenous seeds to boost the production of indigenous foods.

As it is now, farmers are required to buy seeds every planting season, which has placed the cost of farm input beyond the reach of many peasant farmers.

Wanjugu says the seeds law has removed the control of seeds from the hands of farmers and into the hands of multinational corporations, who are slowly dictating what farmers can grow because of the high seed prices.

Exotic vegetables such as cabbages and kale now account for about three-quarters of the total vegetables consumed in Kenya, she added.

She says this aligns with UN research that shows while more than 7,000 wild plants have been documented wild worldwide, either grown or collected, less than 150 of these species have been commercialised. Out of these wild plant species, the world’s food needs are met by only 30 plant species.

“Today, food recipes for indigenous species are available from reputable institutions and organizations such as FAO. Native species taste much better than exotic plants and are more nutritious, but farmers lack the capacity to fully lean on indigenous plant species to meet our food needs,” she emphasizes.

Aduda speaks of Kenya’s recent entry into the era of GMOs after the lifting of a 10-year ban, which he says has created debates that are moving the country further and further away from the critical issues facing farmers today.

He stresses that using indigenous knowledge and seeds, supporting farmers to overcome water stresses, deploying sufficient agricultural extension officers as it were many years ago, and improving connectivity between farm and market will produce the silver bullet to build a food-secure nation.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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The Kenyan capital Nairobi. Credit: UN-Habitat/ /Julius Mwelu

By Gabriel Odima
MINNESOTA, USA, Mar 27 2023 (IPS)

The dark road to democracy began with the manner in which the Kenyan Presidential election of August 2022 was handled. Today, the Church in Kenya is calling for dialogue between the ruling regime and the opposition. The issue here is not about dialogue, but the legitimacy of the President William Ruto. The situation in Kenya reminds me of a similar situation in Rwanda in early 90s.

In 1994, the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation and Africa Council of Churches sent a combined mission to Rwanda. The mission’s findings reported that ” the churches in Rwanda have been discredited by aligning themselves far too much with the former Hutu dominated regime and its tribal politics”.

According to the report, one member of the mission stated, ” In every conversation we had with the government and the church people alike, the point was brought home to us that the church itself stands tainted not by passive indifference but errors of commission as well”. Unfortunately, the church in Kenya today is aligning themselves with the ruling regime.

The Kenyan Tragedy

Seven months after Presidential election in Kenya, every organization, institution and government which had kept silent as if the Kenyan Presidential election were free and fair began to speak. The current crisis in Kenyan could have been prevented.

The attitude adopted by African Union (AU), the international community, governments, international press and human rights organizations after last year’s presidential election made the current situation in Kenya inevitable. In a democracy, except with his own consent, no person shall be hindered in the enjoyment of his or her rights to assemble freely and associate with other persons or to impart ideas.

The Kenyan regime has to come to terms with this realty.

In the 21st century, the forces against the development and sustenance of democracy and the enjoyment of human rights by the citizens of Africa are strong and powerful. A political map of Africa to show states ruled by the gun and states ruled by the ballot, if made, will show only a handful of the latter. Such map will not. however, show the real human tragedy which the gunmen and their supporters and apologists have wrought the African peoples.

In Africa, oppressive regimes, and most of those regimes are illegitimate like the case of Kenya today, is the driving force of conflict. The use of the gun like the current situation in Kenya today is only a short- term remedy and also creates a chain reaction to the problem.

Promoting democracy in Africa does not only serve moral interests of the United States of America but it helps to prevent war, reduce the influx of refugees. Preventing wars in Africa and creating a peaceful democratic society is cheaper than fighting wars.

When General MacArthur conquered Japan, he wrote a new constitution for the people of Japan. This constitution became the pillar of Japanese democracy. The United States and other nations of Western Europe helped Japan build its economy.

Today, Japan is the leading economic power house in Asia. If this worked for Japan, a nation without natural resources, how about Africa with abundant natural resources? General MacArthur did not do it alone, but it took the commitment on part of the Japanese people to rebuild their nation.

In the case of Kenyan’s current crisis, it is important to address the issue Hon. Raila Odinga has raised about the server to bring transparency in the election process. Kenyan people need to address the issue of accountability, corruption and transparency.

The policy makers in Washington should revive an effective policy that will enforce political reforms and curb electoral malpractices across Africa. Overhaul bilateral relationships with individual countries and attached conditions to U.S. foreign aid.

Such conditions should include human rights violations, political reforms, electoral reforms, accountability, good governance and transparency. Washington should emphasize respect of territorial integrity of each nation. No country in Africa should have the power to invade another country for selfish interests. A civilized nation cannot engage in military coups, rebel activities, political assassinations and massive human rights violations.

The United States has a responsibility to promote democracy and good governance across the continent of Africa. For any democracy to develop and mature there should be accountability, transparency and an effective constitution which reflects the will of the people and allows political freedom such as (a) Freedom of speech and expression, which includes freedom of the press and other media. (b) Freedom to assemble and to demonstrate together with others peacefully and unarmed and to petition. (c) Freedom of association which shall include the freedom to form and join associations or unions, including trade unions and political and other civic organizations.

Rev. Gabriel Odima is President & Director of Political Affairs, Africa Center for Peace & Democracy, White Bear Lake, MN 55110 USA
E-mail: africacenterpd@aol.com

IPS UN Bureau

 

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