Africa

By External Source
Dec 12 2022 (IPS-Partners)

A joint mission to Ethiopia by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), and Norway’s International Development Minister has drawn attention to one of the world’s largest education crises that have left 3.6 million children out of school. The number of out-of-school children has spiked from 3.1 million to 3.6 million, according to UNICEF. However, ECW-funded schools provide children with ‘whole-of-child’ interventions, including school feeding, psychosocial support, teacher training, school materials, accelerated learning, gender transformative approaches, and the construction and rehabilitation of school facilities.

 

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The author is Executive Director, Financial Transparency Coalition

By Matti Kohonen
LONDON, Dec 12 2022 (IPS)

The European Court of Justice on November 22, 2022, made a ruling that reversed much of the progress we have made in a decade in the fight against corruption, economic and natural resource crimes, tax abuses and other forms of illicit financial flows across the world. In the ruling, the court declared invalid the part of the European Union’s Anti Money Laundering Directive that allowed public access to registries about companies’ beneficial owners (that is, the real people who own or actually control them).

Matti Kohonen

This has a direct impact in the fight against environmental crimes, particularly illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing which is devastating the world’s fisheries resources, accounting for up to one-fifth of global catches.

The financial secrecy surrounding the owners of vessels is a key driver of IUU fishing as secrecy makes it harder to catch the real perpetrators of this illegal trade. In a report published by the Financial Transparency Coalition in October 2022, we discovered that among the top 10 operators of vessels reported to be engaged in this illicit practice, one was based in Spain while a total of 30 vessels were flagged to Italy, making it the highest European flag jurisdiction for IUU fishing. In total, we found that 12.8% of all vessels engaged in IUU fishing were flagged to a European country.

The ECJ ruling makes it impossible for a member of the public to investigate these linkages further. In Spain and Italy, the commitment to open up the registry was made in principle but remains unimplemented. This decision takes all pressure off to implement open beneficial ownership registries in these two countries that are most responsible for IUU fishing in the continent.

This is a welcome present to owners of IUU fishing vessels who often use complex corporate structures to hide their identities and evade punishment. Underscoring this problem, in our investigation we found the individual shareholder data was only available for 16% of industrial and semi-industrial vessels engaged in IUU fishing.

But the ECJ’s ruling impact will be felt well beyond Europe’s borders. Most of the world’s IUU fishing takes place in Africa which loses US$11.5bn in illicit financial flows linked to IUU fishing every year. A significant proportion of this illicit catch in Africa is caught in West Africa, with US$9.5bn losses in this region alone, with much of the fish caught there by foreign fleets ending up in Europe. In total, the European continent imports some US$14bn worth of seafood from the global South each year, making it a key market for seafood products.

The court’s decisions rested on a narrow interpretation of the purpose of the beneficial ownership registry, limited to fighting money laundering and terrorist financing. Fishing related offences are not yet recognised as ‘natural resource crimes’ by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global anti-money laundering regulator, while illegal logging and illegal wildlife trade (IWT) related offences are already included in their definition of what constitutes money laundering. If this were to be upgraded by FATF, we could claim most, if not all, IUU fishing offences as money laundering crimes.

The ECJ decision also rests on a narrow interpretation of the ‘right to private life’ as a fundamental civil right as subscribed in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union that partly lays the legal foundation for the EU. Worryingly, the court did not consider any evidence of the benefits of public access to beneficial ownership information in both fighting money laundering and terrorist financing, let alone the risks that natural resource crimes pose to other rights, such as the right to a healthy environment recognised as a human right by the UN General Assembly in 2022.

Ultimately, the real winners of this ruling are the thousands of companies engaged in IUU fishing and other environmental crimes across the world, and which benefit from money laundering at the tune of billions of euros per year. The ruling undermines collective action to make the money trail of these crimes more traceable, at a time when countries especially in the global South are desperate for funds amid a cost of living crisis and high inflation.

Reacting to the ruling, the European Council signalled that member states should ensure that any natural or legal person demonstrating a legitimate interest has access to information held in the beneficial ownership registers, including especially journalists and civil society organisations as long as they can demonstrate legitimate interest in relation with fighting money laundering and terrorist financing.

However, this is insufficient since this will likely only apply to journalists and civil society in the same country as the registry, and application processes generally take a long time. Also one will need to know the company of interest before accessing any information, blocking the option of looking through public registries to spot risks and red flags.

The EU Parliament should be expected to start negotiations on a new anti-money laundering directive next spring. It must not allow the ECJ ruling to stand, for everyone’s sake.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The author is Executive Director, Financial Transparency Coalition

Credit: United Nations

By Anwarul K. Chowdhury
NEW YORK, Dec 12 2022 (IPS)

Three weeks have gone by since the much-ballyhooed mega-gathering of the 27th Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), generally known by its easy-to-say-and-remember title – COP27, concluded at the resort city Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt.

This year the annual rotational hosting of COP was the turn of Africa attended in total by 33,449 people, including 16,118 delegates from Parties, 13,981 observers, and 3,350 members of the media.

Think of the carbon footprint logged by the onrush of this huge crowd! Last COP26 in Glasgow in the United Kingdom – delayed by one year due to Covid – was the turn of West European and Others turn and the next one – COP28 – will be Asia’s turn and host would be the United Arab Emirates’ wonder-city Dubai.

ELUSIVE LOSS AND DAMAGE FUND?

Overshooting the scheduled date of closure on Friday 18 November by two days, COP27 finally ended on Sunday 20 November. This unusual delay was needed to pressurize the industrialized countries, the so-called developed nations, which finally gave up their three-decade long unjust, irrational, and steadfast opposition and agreed to creating a fund to help countries ravaged by consequences of climate change.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury

Citing legal implications for using the easily understandable term “compensation”, the foot-draggers prefer to call it a “loss and damage fund”. Yes, that is the in-principle agreement to use the term “fund”. That has been touted by the media as a breakthrough, a major success, a first-ever agreement, end of the deadlock.

Knowledgeable observers of the COP negotiations are of the opinion that such high-octane excitement – regret the use of this fossil fuel related term – was simply naïve and could have been a tactic of the fossil-fuel lobby to divert attention away from the failure of COP27 to include the much-needed agreement on serious measures to cut in the emissions.

HEARTBREAKING INDIFFERENCE:

While COP27 outcome is overplayed highlighting the agreement to create the Loss and Damage fund. On the other hand, there is an uncanny silence about the decision taken on women and climate change issues. A totally different picture emerges on this core issue, may be not considered by the media as well as country delegations and their leaders worthy of attention.

Some NGOs observed that while the media was flashing the agreement on the “compensation” fund as “Breaking News”, for them the total indifference to the relevance of gender and climate change was “Heartbreaking News”.

EARTH SUMMIT INITIATED CLIMATE ACTION:

The international political response to climate change began with the 1992 adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It sets out the basic legal framework and principles for international climate change cooperation.

The Convention, which entered into force on 21 March 1994, has 198 parties. To boost the effectiveness of the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in December 1997. In December 2015, parties adopted the much-highlighted Paris Agreement.

The first Conference of the Parties of UNFCCC (COP1) took place in Berlin in 1995.

GENDER ACTION PLAN:

At COP25 in 2019 in Madrid, Parties agreed a 5-year enhanced Lima Work Programme on Gender and its Gender Action Plan (GAP). In 2014 the COP20 in Lima established the first Lima Work Programme on Gender (LWPG) to advance gender balance and integrate gender considerations into the work of Parties and the UNFCCC secretariat in implementing the Convention and the Paris Agreement so as to achieve gender responsive climate policy and action. COP22 in Marrakech decided on a three-year extension of the LWPG, with a review at COP25, and the first GAP under the UNFCCC was established at COP23 in 2017 in Bonn.

Gender inequality coupled with the climate crisis is one of the greatest challenges of our time. It poses threats to ways of life, livelihoods, health, safety and security for women and girls around the world.

CLIMATE CRISIS IS NOT GENDER NEUTRAL:

Women are disproportionately impacted by climate change but are also left out of decision-making. They are overwhelmingly displaced by climate disasters and are over 14 times more likely to be killed by climate-linked disasters, according to the UN Human Rights Commission. In spite of their vulnerability to climate insecurities, women are active agents and effective promoters of climate adaptation and mitigation.

In a recently published book, ‘Climate Hazards, Disasters and Gender Ramifications’, Catarina Kinnvall and Helle Rydstrom examine the gendered politics of disaster and climate change and argue that gender hierarchies, patriarchal structures and masculinity are closely related to female vulnerability to climate disaster.

The climate crisis is not “gender neutral”. Women and girls experience the greatest impacts of climate change, which amplifies existing gender inequalities and poses unique threats to their livelihoods, health, and safety.

CLIMATE CHANGE AS THREAT MULTIPLIER FOR WOMEN:

Climate change is a “threat multiplier”, meaning it escalates social, political, and economic tensions in fragile and conflict-affected settings. As climate change drives conflict across the world, women and girls face increased vulnerabilities to all forms of gender-based violence, including conflict-related sexual violence, human trafficking, child marriage, and other forms of violence.

In March this year, the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) considered for the first time questions of gender equality and climate change. It recognized that in view of the existential threat posed by climate change, the world needs not only global solidarity, but also requires concrete, transformative climate action, with women’s and girls’ involvement at its heart.

UN WOMEN ASSERTS GENDER EQUALITY CENTRAL TO CLIMATE ACTION:

In her remarks at the Conference, UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous asserted that “UN Women is here at COP27 to challenge the world to focus on gender-equality as central to climate action and to offer concrete solutions.” She highlighted pointedly that “Climate change and gender inequality are interwoven challenges. We will not meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal, or any other goal, without gender equality and the full contribution of women and girls.”

Ms. Bahous rightly underscored at COP27 that “Eighty per cent of all people displaced by climate emergencies are women and girls. The impacts of the climate crisis have a distinctly female face.”

COP27 UNDERPERFORMS FOR GENDER:

But this articulated and substantive core of the issues in UNFCCC and COP did not get the needed attention. There was a basically housekeeping decision titled “Intermediate review of the implementation of the gender action plan” with many paragraphs beginning with “Notes with appreciation”, “Also notes with appreciation”, “Welcomes”, “Encourages”. The decision reads as if Parties are more beholden to the UNFCCC secretariat than to women and girls of the world.

COP27 took a so-called “cover decision” during extended period on 20 November on the “intermediate midterm review of the GAP” underscoring the need to promote efforts towards gender balance and improve inclusivity in the UNFCCC process by inviting future COP Presidencies to nominate women as UN High-Level Champions for Climate Action (embarrassingly, both the current Champions are men nominated by COPs 26 & 27 Presidents); and requesting Parties to promote greater gender balance in national delegations, as well as the Secretariat, relevant presiding officers, and event organizers to promote gender-balanced events.

It also encourages parties and relevant public and private entities to strengthen the gender responsiveness of climate finance. The decision also requests the Secretariat to support the attendance of national gender and climate change focal points at relevant mandated UNFCCC meetings.

The decision ends with the paragraph 22 which says that “Requests that the actions of the secretariat called for in this decision be undertaken subject to the availability of financial resources”. What an awful paragraph to be included in the decision on the implementation of the Gender Action Plan (GAP). Some participants quipped that the paragraph was reflecting the ubiquitous gender GAP at every aspect of human activity.

The cover decision on gender at COP27 showed starkly that since the GAP was adopted at COP23 in 2017, nothing much has progressed in terms of gender balance, inclusivity, and representation in the climate change context.

The omnibus cover decision titled “Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan” encouraged “Parties to increase the full, meaningful and equal participation of women in climate action and to ensure gender-responsive implementation… including by fully implementing the Lima Work Programme on Gender and its Gender Action Plan …” It also invited “Parties to provide support to developing countries for undertaking gender-related action and implementing the Gender Action Plan.”

If the record of COPs is considered on gender and climate issues, there is no scope, no hope for optimism. To make this contention plausible and widely accepted, this opinion-piece quotes extensively the civil society leaders whose organizations have credibility, expertise, and experience.

MEN & GENDER ADVOCATES OUTRAGED:

The Women and Gender Constituency (WGC), the platform for the civil society working to ensure women’s rights and gender justice within the UNFCCC framework, has been one of the most vocal entities on the decisions of COP27.

In a press release after its conclusion on 20 November 2022, the WGC said that “As feminists and women’s rights advocates strategized daily to advocate for gender-just and human rights-based climate action, negotiators once again ignored the urgency of our current climate crisis.”

The WGC is a coalition of NGOs established in 2009 and is recognized as official observer by the UNFCCC Secretariat in 2011. It is one of the nine stakeholder groups of the UNFCCC, consisting currently of 33 women’s and environmental civil society organizations and a network of more than 600 individuals and feminist organizations or movements.

The WGC asserts that “Together we ensure that women’s voices are heard, and we demand the full realization of their rights and priorities throughout all UNFCCC processes and Agenda 2030.”

Calling COP27 outcome as failed talks, the civil society activists for gender and climate change, expressed their disappointment in strong terms about the exclusive negotiations, saying that “We condemn the fact that negotiators played politicking and wordsmithing at the cost of substance and action to deliver climate justice. “

“COP27 gave us crumbs, with some concessions here and there. But these come at a very high cost of sacrificing the healing of the planet with no real carbon emissions reduction from historical and current emitters. This is unacceptable!” said Tetet Lauron of Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Philippines in a public statement.

As COP27 was the platform for the scheduled mid-term review of the UNFCCC Gender Action Plan, the WGC left COP27 “deeply disappointed with the process and outcome.”

Marisa Hutchinson of the International Women’s Rights Action Watch (IWRAW) Asia Pacific, Malaysia articulated this publicly by saying that “The WGC recognizes an eleventh hour decision under the Gender Action Plan but we remain deeply frustrated with the total lack of substantive review that occurred here and in the lead up to COP.

Gender experts and women’s rights advocates were left out of the rooms while Parties tinkered at the edges of weak and vague text that failed to advance critical issues at this intersection, nor deliver adequate funding. We demand that the social protection of women and girls in all their diversity be at the forefront of the gender and climate change negotiations of the UNFCCC.”

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury is former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations, former Ambassador of Bangladesh to the UN and former President of the Security Council.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

Part One of Three

At the 17th Internet Governance Forum (GF) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which concluded December 2. Credit: Daniel Getachew/UN ECA

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 12 2022 (IPS)

The digital divide – between the world’s rich and poor nations —remains staggeringly wide.

For over 2.7 billion people, many of them living in developing and least developed countries (LDCs), meaningful connectivity remains elusive, according to a UN report released during the 17th Internet Governance Forum in Addis Ababa, last month.

“Bridging the gap will be a catalyst for advancing an open, free, secure and inclusive Internet, and achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “

Africa is one of the regions which is the least connected, with 60 per cent of the population offline, due to a combination of lack of access, affordability and skills training.

Africa’s burgeoning youth population, however, holds the key to transforming the region’s digital future. There is immense potential in empowering youth to thrive in a digital economy and leapfrogging technologies, says the UN.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres says. “With the right policies in place, digital technology can give an unprecedented boost to sustainable development, particularly for the poorest countries”.

This calls for more connectivity; and less digital fragmentation. More bridges across digital divides; and fewer barriers. Greater autonomy for ordinary people; less abuse and disinformation, he declared.

While COVID-19 accelerated digital transformation in some sectors like health and education, it also exacerbated various forms of digital inequality, running deep along social and economic lines, says the UN report.

Globally, more men use the Internet (at 62 per cent compared with 57 per cent of women). And in nearly all countries where data are available, rates of Internet use are higher for those with more education.

Besides the digital divide– between the world’s “haves and have-nots”– there is also a marked increase in “gender divide”. In Africa, only 21 % of women have access to the Internet. The gender divide starts early as Internet use is four times greater for boys than for girls.

Emma Gibson, the Campaign Lead, Universal Digital Rights, for Equality Now, told IPS challenges in our digital society, including unequal access to digital technology and platforms, online gender-based and sexual violence, internet shutdowns, and AI and algorithmic biases, profoundly affected those with the least power and privilege.

“Women, children, and people in other groups facing discrimination are all disproportionately impacted”, she said.

“Widespread patriarchy and misogyny found in the physical world are being replicated, exacerbated, and facilitated in the digital realm, with violence against women and children perpetrated online on a huge scale”.

Offenders are rarely held to account, and this is unsurprising considering that there is currently no universal standard for ending online sexual exploitation and abuse.

“From the explosion in online violence towards women and girls to the threats posed by internet shutdowns, it is clear that there is an urgent need to bring in a new global agreement to protect our human rights in the digital world”.

“All of us have a right to safety, freedom, and dignity in the digital space, and the Internet needs to work in our interests, not against them”, declared Gibson.

The increase in Internet use has also paved the way for the proliferation of its dark side, with the rampant spread of misinformation, disinformation and hate speech, the regular occurrence of data breaches, and an increase in cybercrimes, according to the UN.

“Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition documented 182 Internet shutdowns in 34 countries in 2021, an increase from 159 shutdowns recorded in 29 countries in 2020, demonstrating the power governments have in controlling information in the digital space.”

The theme of Addis Ababa Forum, “Resilient Internet for a Shared Sustainable and Common Future”, called for collective actions and a shared responsibility to connect all people and safeguard human rights; avoid Internet fragmentation; govern data and protect privacy; enable safety, security and accountability; and address advanced digital technologies.

“The Internet is the platform that will accelerate progress towards the SDGs. Our collective task is to unleash the power and potential of a resilient Internet for our shared sustainable and common future,” said Li Junhua, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, during the Internet Governance Forum.

Gibson of Equality Now said in developing solutions, it is important to acknowledge the continuum of injustices, power imbalances, and gendered violence that predate technology and which manifest and multiply online.

The root causes of these need to be addressed when developing and implementing policies to ensure universal, secure, and safe access for all.

“A human-centered and resilient digital future not only includes ensuring affordable access but meaningful and secure access to digital technologies.”

“We need a universal approach to defining, upholding, and advancing digital rights so that everyone has universal equality of safety, freedom, and dignity in our digital future,” she noted.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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ECW Director Yasmine Sherif Statement on Human Rights Day

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Dec 10 2022 (IPS-Partners)

As we commemorate Human Rights Day, let us recall the opening preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948: “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world… “

Yasmine Sherif

I dare to categorically state that the very first step to achieve this aspiration is to empower every child and adolescent to access an inclusive quality education. We have a special responsibility to do so for the 222 million children and youth already left furthest behind in armed conflicts, forced displacement and climate-induced disasters. In failing to provide them with access to an education, we are failing to empower them to claim, exercise, promote and protect human rights – both for themselves and for others, for their nations and for our world.

Our investment in the education and #222MillionDreams of these crisis-affected children and youth is our investment in human rights and the inextricably linked Sustainable Development Goals. Education is our investment in human dignity, freedom, justice and peace.

With today marking the kick off of a year-long celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we must hold true to the imperatives enshrined in the Declaration and the tenant that “Everyone has the right to an education,” and that “education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

As the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, it is Education Cannot Wait’s firm conviction that education is essential in achieving, protecting and promoting universal human rights.

Join us in ensuring the inherent human right to a safe, inclusive, quality education at next year’s ECW High-Level Financing Conference taking place in Geneva on 16-17 February 2023. This ground-breaking conference – hosted by ECW and Switzerland, and co-convened with Colombia, Germany, Niger, Norway and South Sudan – offers world leaders the chance to recognize the inherent dignity and inalienable rights of all members of the human family as the foundation of dignity, freedom, justice and peace in the world as put forth in 1948 with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Today 222 million children and adolescents are enduring armed conflicts, climate disasters and forced displacement. In the 21st Century, we urge governments, private sector, foundations and high-net-worth individuals to empower them with an education to experience and protect their human rights. They deserve no less.

 

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Excerpt:

ECW Director Yasmine Sherif Statement on Human Rights Day

Fans have partied in the centre of European capitals, but some of the celebrations have turned ugly.

Emilio Godoy, Inter Press Service (IPS) correspondent in Mexico and a specialist in environmental and climate issues, won the prestigious award in that area given by the United Nations Correspondents Association. He is pictured here during his work in the field. CREDIT: IPS

By IPS Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 9 2022 (IPS)

Inter Press Service (IPS) correspondent in Mexico Emilio Godoy has won the prestigious Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Award for coverage of climate change, biodiversity and water, awarded by the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA), receiving a gold medal.

UNCA stressed that Godoy “has covered the ramifications of the climate crisis in Mexico while holding the government accountable, and reported on critical mangrove restoration projects carried out without state support, insufficient measures in the fight against methane and a dangerous focus on liquefied gas.”

Among Emilio’s many journalistic reports, UNCA selected for the award first and foremost the successful story of mangrove conservation and restoration led by the coastal community of San Crisanto, in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatan.

Along with that story, it highlighted another on the contrast between the Mexican government’s focus on extracting gas and using fossil fuels, leaving aside its commitment to an energy transition to decarbonize domestic consumption.

Emilio said that “I am deeply honored by this award” and expressed special gratitude to his family “and also to the media who have supported my sometimes wild ideas.”

“But above all, this award is for the local communities, like San Crisanto, who protect ecosystems, because their livelihoods depend on them; it also goes to environmental defenders, who are at great risk around the world, and to my fellow journalists in Mexico, who suffer threats and harassment,” he said.

“I say it loud and clear: Stop destroying the planet! No more violence against journalists in Mexico!” he added during his speech at the UNCA awards ceremony on Friday Dec. 9 at U.N. headquarters in New York.

The IPS Spanish language service issued a statement noting that “the award given to Emilio is a source of pride for IPS, because he is a highly committed and diligent journalist regarding the multiple aspects and consequences of the climate crisis, and an excellent researcher of the impacts it has on people.”

The award “also testifies to the importance of climate change in the production of IPS content, through its valuable and sensitized group of journalists,” the statement added.

“As an international news organization, IPS provides very valuable and innovative coverage of the climate emergency, from the perspective of the developing South and its societies, bringing this crucial issue to a very diverse readership,” it said.

Born in Guatemala and based in Mexico since 2002, Godoy has been an investigative journalist and correspondent for IPS since 2007. He writes mainly on the climate crisis, environment, human rights and sustainable development, from the perspective of the developing South, and with its people and communities as the main actors.

Dedicated to his profession since 1996, he has worked with media in Mexico, Central America, the United States, Belgium and Spain, and his articles have been cited in books and specialized magazines.

In 2012 he won the Journalism Prize for Green Economy and Sustainable Development and in 2017 the Seventh Annual Energy Journalism Feature Reporting Award.

This year, UNCA also rewarded the Prince Albert II Award, with silver and bronze medals, respectively, to Kourosh Ziabari of Asia Times, for his work on the water crisis in Iran, and Samaan Lateef of the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, for his reports on the climate crisis in India and Pakistan.

Another UNCA distinction, the Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize, which honors a journalist for The Boston Globe who died on assignment in Iraq, was presented with a gold medal to Francesco Semprini, correspondent for the Italian daily La Stampa, for his coverage of the war in Ukraine following the invasion by Russian forces.

The silver medal went to Michelle Nichols of Reuters for her breaking news on developments within the UN, and the bronze medal to freelance journalist Stéphanie Fillion for her coverage of Germany’s efforts to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.

UNCA, made up of 200 correspondents who cover the UN, honored U.S. actress Kate Hudson, Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations World Food Program, as its guest of honor at the award ceremony.

Morocco stand on the brink of World Cup history for Africa, as the well-supported Atlas Lions hope to become the continent's first semi-finalists.

A dog trained under Africa Wildlife Foundation's Canines for Conservation programme looks content with its handlers. Sniffer and tracker dogs deployed in six African countries have contributed to the arrests of over 500 suspects in the long-running fight against poachers and traffickers. Credit: Paul Joynson-Hicks

By Guy Dinmore
London, Dec 9 2022 (IPS)

Elephant populations are starting to recover in parts of Africa as law enforcement agencies and local communities turn the tide in their long-running battle against wildlife poachers and traffickers.

But criminal gangs are constantly shifting tactics and exploiting other species, while the greatest threat now is posed by the severe drought devastating swathes of East Africa, displacing hundreds of thousands of people, threatening famine in Somalia, and killing off wildlife and livestock.

“Poaching of big game is going down in most countries,” says Didi Wamukoya, senior manager of Wildlife Law Enforcement at African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), noting that poaching in Kenya and Tanzania of large iconic species for the international wildlife trade is now very rare. Elephant population numbers in those two countries are now increasing. It is a particularly dramatic turnaround for Tanzania, which lost some 60 percent of its elephants within a decade.

Elephant population statistics. Credit: AWF

Wamukoya, who heads AWF’s capacity training of law enforcement agencies to prosecute cases of wildlife trafficking, warns that criminals adapt. While elephants are faring better – also in part because major markets such as China have banned domestic trade in ivory — gangs trafficking to Asia are switching to other species, such as lions for their body parts, pangolins, and abalone.

Pangolins, which have been identified as a potential source of coronaviruses, are the most trafficked wild mammals in the world.

Combating cybercrime and enhancing the use of digital evidence in courts have become a key elements of AWF’s work as criminals adapted to Covid-19 lockdowns. “Criminals live in society and are part of us, and they moved online too,” Wamukoya told IPS in an interview, referring to social media platforms like Facebook used to market animals and wildlife products.

Much illegal wildlife trade – estimated by international agencies to be worth over $20 billion a year globally – has moved online, but the actual poaching and transporting of smuggled animals and products across borders is the target of AWF’s Canines for Conservation Programme, headed by Will Powell in Arusha, Tanzania.

Powell and his team train sniffer and tracker dogs as well as their handlers selected from ranger forces across Africa, including most recently Ethiopia.

“We are having to raise standards of our operations with dogs at airports as smugglers try to adapt and hide stuff in coffee, condoms, screened by tinfoil. First, rhino horn and ivory were the main target but now pangolin scales are the biggest thing, so dogs are trained on this,” he tells IPS.

Trafficking in lion bones and teeth for Asian ‘medicine’ has also gone up as criminals switch from tigers. “We have to be sure dogs are up to date,” he says.

Powell previously trained dogs to sniff out 32 kinds of explosives in the Balkans and says over 90 percent of dogs can refind a smell after a year without exposure to it. A new smell can be introduced with just hours of training.

“Ivory is a range of smells from freshly killed to antique pieces. Dogs are amazing at how they figure it out, for example, by not responding to cow horn but picking out tortoises,” he says.

A sniffer dog trained by AWF works in a Kenya airport. They are trained in wide ranges of smells and can learn to detect a new one within hours as traffickers constantly change their smuggling methods. Credit: Paul Joynson-Hicks

AWF canine teams currently work in Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya,

Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda. All staff are local nationals. Since 2020 teams operating in Manyara Ranch and Serengeti National Park in Tanzania have made over 100 finds, resulting in multiple arrests.

No elephants in the Serengeti have been lost to the international wildlife trade since the canine teams have been in place.

AWF says that dog units across the six countries have uncovered over 440 caches that led to the arrest of over 500 suspects. Finds have included over 4.6 tonnes of ivory, 22kg of rhino horns, over 220 lion claws, 111 hippo teeth. Seven live pangolins were recovered, and over 4.5 tonnes of pangolin scales.

Dogs and their handlers are also impacting corruption among officials and law enforcement agencies.

“Dogs are an incorruptible tool,” explains Wamukoya. Dealing with corruption is part of training for rangers and handlers. The transparency of their work and with handlers trained to send photos of seizures high up to authorities, corruption is made more difficult.

“Corruption is not zero but we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel,” she says.

Tanzania has been known as the world’s elephant killing fields, but a crackdown on poachers and traffickers in recent years has halted a horrendous decline in elephant numbers. On December 2, a Tanzanian high court sentenced to death 11 people for the murder of Wayne Lotter, a well-known South African conservationist who was shot in a taxi in Dar es Salaam in August 2017. The sentences are likely to be commuted to long jail terms.

Compiling accurate estimates of Africa-wide populations of various species, including big beasts such as elephants, is widely recognised as extremely difficult. So is the gathering of statistics on poaching and seizures of trafficked animals. The 2020 World Wildlife Crime Report by the UNODC attempts to unpick and track the trends since its 2016 edition, noting that lockdown measures taken by governments during the Covid pandemic forced organised criminal groups to “adapt and quickly change their dynamics”, possibly resulting in “illicit markets going even deeper underground, additional risks for corruption and shifts in market and transportation methodologies in the longer term”.

It estimates some 157,000 elephants were poached between 2010 and 2018, an average of about 17,000 elephants per year. Data suggests a declining trend in poaching since 2011 but rising again slightly in 2017 and 2018. While elephant numbers are growing in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya, there is a worrying decline in ‘critically endangered’ forest elephants in Central and West Africa because of loss of habitat and poaching.

The UNODC said a “trafficking trend of note” was more mixed seizures containing both ivory and pangolin scales together, singling out a container coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo on its way to Vietnam in July 2019, found to hold nearly 12 tonnes of pangolin scales and almost nine tonnes of ivory. The consignment was declared as timber.

“It is possible that ivory traffickers, facing declining demand, are taking advantage of their established networks to move a commodity for which demand is growing: pangolin scales,” the report said.

Save the Rhino International, a conservation charity, says poaching numbers have decreased across Africa since the peak of 1,349 in 2015, but still at least one rhino is killed every day. South Africa holds the majority of the world’s rhinos and has been hardest hit by poachers.

A consignment of illegally trafficked pangolin scales and elephant ivory seized in Kenya. Pangolins are the most trafficked wildlife mammal in the world. Dogs trained by AWF have sniffed out a total of 4.5 tonnes of pangolin scales in six countries. Poaching of elephants and rhinos in Kenya is now rare as the government, local communities, and NGOs step up efforts to stop wildlife trade. Credit AWF

These are hard-fought gains against wildlife traffickers that still need to be reinforced through support and training of law enforcement agencies, greater participation of local communities in conserving wild areas and wildlife, and reforms of legal systems.  Support from governments outside Africa, particularly in Asia, is vital to tackle shifting markets and trading routes.

But now, the most devastating and immediate threat in East Africa is the worst drought in 40 years. Four consecutive seasons of drought over the past two years have taken a dramatic toll on people, livestock, and wildlife.

In early November, the Kenya Wildlife Service reported the deaths of 205 elephants, over 500 wildebeest, 381 common zebras, 49 endangered Grevy’s zebras, and 12 giraffes within nine months. Rangers are removing tusks from dead elephants to stop poachers taking them.

“It is a tragedy despite all our efforts,” says Wamukoya. “Wildlife is not dying for poaching but it is drought and affecting the human population. Pastoral cattle communities no longer have pasture or food. Livestock are dying.”

IFAW, a global non-profit that helps people and animals thrive together, quoted Evan Mkala, program manager for Kenya’s Amboseli region, as saying he has never seen anything so devastating.  “You can smell the rotting carcasses all around the area.” He says poaching is back on the rise as people lacking food security are desperate for money to buy water and hay for their cattle.

The Horn of Africa is described by the UN World Food Programme as “a region at the intersection of some of the worst impacts of climate change, recurring humanitarian crises and insecurity”.

It says over 22 million people face a severe hunger crisis in a swathe of territory covering parts of Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, northern Kenya, and South Sudan. Over one million people have been displaced by drought; seven million livestock have died. A poor start to the October-December rains has initiated a fifth consecutive season of drought.

“This is the worst drought, the driest it’s ever been in 40 years. So, we are entering a whole new phase in climate change,” said Michael Dunford, WFP regional director for East Africa. “Unfortunately, we have not yet seen the worst of this crisis. If you think 2022 is bad, beware of what is coming in 2023. This means that we need to continue to engage. We cannot give up on the needs of the population in the Horn.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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COP15 negotiations aim to conserve at least 30 percent of the world’s diversity by 2030. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
Montreal, Dec 9 2022 (IPS)

The long-awaited 15th Convention of United Nations Biological Diversity (CBD COP15) finally started this week in Montreal, Canada. After four years of intense negotiations and delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, nations have gathered again for the final round of talks before adopting a new global treaty – the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

The GBF aims to conserve at least 30 percent of the world’s biodiversity by 2030. But even as the negotiations intensify, the job appears extremely tough, with many bottlenecks that make a clear outcome highly unlikely.

CBD COPs: A String of Failures

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was first adopted in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, alongside the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. There are 196 member nations with the glaring exclusion of the United States. In 2010, at the CBD COP10 in Nagoya, Japan, countries adopted a set of 20 targets called the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. These targets were expected to stop the loss of biodiversity by 2020. But by 2020, various assessments made it clear that none of these targets had been met. Now more ambitious and emergency measures are needed.

The failure of the world to achieve the Aichi Targets makes it crucial that the world adopts a new treaty, and the GBF has more ambitious targets with adequate financial support to implement them. It should support groups already leading action on the ground, especially Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC), and ensure more accountability for regularly monitoring the collective progress. This is what makes Montreal COP so crucial, especially when it’s already 2022, and the world now has only eight years left (out of the ten allotted years) to achieve the targets.

Expectations vs Reality

At the last Working Group meeting of the CBD COP held in Nairobi, Kenya, in June this year, IPS reported that the progress was far lower than expected. To put it into perspective, only two of the 21 targets of the GBF had clean text after the Nairobi meeting. The rest of the texts remained within brackets – 1800 in total, indicating the enormous amount of negotiation left to reach an agreement on the draft agreement.

On December 8, the second day of the negotiations, David Ainsworth – head of CBD Communications, said that in addition to the 1800, there were another 900 newly-added brackets. To ease the uphill task of cleaning this text through different stages of negotiations, a slew of contact groups had been formed, with each group being responsible for working on one of the most contentious issues. Little details were shared about these Contact Groups except that each would hold several rounds of negotiations with the parties – presumably those who raised the brackets – and find a headway. These meetings are closed to media and non-parties, including NGOs and other participants.

However, various civil society organizations, including the leaders of the IPLC, have criticized the groups’ formation because they are barred from participating.

“With the Working Group meetings, we could at least know what is going on. But the contact groups are having closed-door meetings; we don’t even have permission to enter these rooms,” said Jennifer Corpuz, an indigenous leader and a prominent voice for indigenous rights from International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity.

“It was always difficult for us Indigenous peoples to make our voice heard before, but now it’s impossible for us to be included in the discussion and know what is going on.”

The Missing Enthusiasm 

On Tuesday, at the opening ceremony of COP15, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “Every leader must tell their negotiator to bring this ambition (conserving 30%of the world’s land and water) to their table as we reach a final framework over the next two weeks.”

Trudeau also announced an additional 350 million dollars for international biodiversity funding by Canada. The announcement and the speech were both received with thunderous applause.

However, three days since then, the mood has quickly changed, with little visible progress. “We see the delegates’ mood going down, together with their energy and hopes that this can have any great outcomes. And we hear the frustration: for many delegates, what took them to pursue such careers was, in essence, a love for the environment, for our peoples, and for the planet. We must dig in to find that motivation that helped many of us start this journey 10, 20, and for many over 30 years ago in Rio,” says Oscar Soria, director of Avaaz, a global advocacy group keeping a keen eye on the developments within COP15.

The ‘Paris Moment’ That May Never Come

Adoption of the GBF and achieving clear, strong results at COP15 was touted by many as the biodiversity’s ‘Paris moment’ – a reference to reaching a crucial global consensus on the conservation of the earth’s biodiversity and scripting a crucial diplomatic victory as it was done in the climate change COP 15 in Paris under the leadership of UNFCCC.

However, at the moment, the chances of this ‘Paris moment’ seem quite bleak. Only two of the 21 targets are for adoption. There are several bottlenecks in the ongoing negotiations, including Digital Sequencing Information (DSI), Access and Benefit Sharing and Resource Mobilization.

In the resource mobilization sector, pledges have overshadowed actual contributions, just as in the recently concluded COP27. For example, a paltry 16 billion US dollars of the expected 700 billion US dollars per year has been contributed so far.

In addition, donors are introducing different “false solutions” that are more populist than effective. These include carbon credits, carbon removals, net zero, net gain or loss, and Nature-positive or Nature-based Solutions (NbS), according to Simone Lovera, Policy Director of the Global Forest Coalition (GFC).

“Alignment of these financial flows with the new global biodiversity framework must be at the heart of the negotiations if it is to have any chance of succeeding. Commercializing biodiversity, making it market-dependent, or allowing offsetting are pathways to failure,” Lovera says.

Others allege that financial institutions dealing with implementation are still stuck in old models and have yet to align their practices with sustainable development. Most financial corporations still fund projects that don’t align with sustainability goals, while debt servicing suffocates the budgets of many developing countries. Continuation of these practices would also destroy that ‘Paris moment’ in Montreal, even if multilateral negotiations here are successful.

The Path Ahead

Clearly, creating a ‘Paris moment’ at COP15 will require a full-scale course correction and far greater leadership and urgency than we have seen from the UN and governments to date. The CBD held emergency working group meetings immediately before COP15, but the discussions failed to achieve significant progress, leaving a successful and ambitious outcome of COP15 in jeopardy.

In a statement yesterday, Campaign for Nature – a global group that focuses on advocacy, communications, and alliance-building effort to help achieve CBD’s 30×30 goal (which calls for 30% conservation of the earth’s land and sea in protected and other area-based conservation measures.)

It laid out the steps that are needed to get past the bottleneck on finance: “The agreement must contain a package which should include a commitment by all governments to increase domestic spending on biodiversity and end subsidies that are harmful to nature, redirecting these funds to protecting and restoring nature; an increase of at least 60 billion USD in new public international biodiversity finance in the form of grants as well as directly to Indigenous Peoples and local communities.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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