Africa

Police say explosives were detonated outside the Hayat Hotel, before attackers entered and opened fire.

The militant group Al-Shabab says it is "shooting everyone" at the Hayat Hotel in Mogadishu.

The Ethiopian Airlines pilots dozed off at 37,000ft but woke to land the plane, an aviation journal says.

It comes after a court hears ministers were told about the country's human rights record.

Italian club Hellas Verona sanctioned for chants aimed at Napoli's Nigerian striker Victor Osimhen

Newly-wed Robert Kaweesi, from Birmingham, has been missing in Uganda since Wednesday.

Rising inflation and the Ukraine war has added to the woes of Zimbabweans, where even the middle class struggle to buy a loaf of bread. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
Harare, Aug 19 2022 (IPS)

With inflation at 256.9 percent, 49-year-old Dambudzo Chauruka can no longer afford to buy bread despite working as a civil servant in Zimbabwe.

A father of six school-going children, Chauruka earns 126 000 Zimbabwean dollars monthly, the equivalent of 157 US dollars (USD).

Bread now costs 1,30 USD in Zimbabwe, up from 0,90 cents five years ago when former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was toppled from power in a military coup.

Not only that, but the cost of a kilogram of choice beef has risen to 9 USD, while five kilograms of chicken drumsticks now cost 21,000 Zimbabwean dollars, about 22 USD.

“I can’t afford bread every day. If I spend money buying bread every day, I will run out of money to pay rent and buy groceries for my family,” Chauruka told IPS.

In May 2022, the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe said a family of five required 120 000 Zimbabwean dollars a month in local currency to survive, about 300 USD. Still, it could be much higher this time amid ever-rising inflation.

Amidst galloping inflation, petrol price in Zimbabwe has fluctuated, a major determinant in the pricing of basic goods and services here.

From 1.77 USD per liter recently, petrol now costs about 1.60 USD even as it was pegged at 1.41 USD in January before war broke out in Ukraine following the invasion of the East European nation by Russia.

Zimbabwe’s inflation shot from 96 percent to 132 percent in May, with food inflation alone climbing from 104 percent to 155 percent. The country’s monthly inflation spiked from 15.5 percent in April to 21 percent in May.

As a result, for many underpaid working Zimbabweans like Chauruka, starvation has pounced as they grapple with the country’s galloping inflation and subsequent poverty in the towns and cities where they live.

Chauruka and his family are residents of Kuwadzana high-density suburb in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.

Now with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war slowing down food exports to many developing countries like Zimbabwe, many urban dwellers like Chauruka and his family have had to contend with starvation amid rising food prices.

Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, according to the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe (GMAZ), wheat prices have surged from 475 USD to 675 USD per tonne.

As a result, bread for many urban dwellers known for years to afford it has suddenly turned into a luxury.

But come July 22, Russian and Ukrainian officials signed a deal to allow grain exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports.

Key witnesses to the agreement, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said the agreement would help ease a global food crisis.

For urban Zimbabweans who have to party with their hard-earned money to put every morsel of food on their tables, the agreement would import smiles as well.

One Zimbabwean, relieved at the news, is 57-year-old Nyson Mutumwa, a senior government employee.

“Now, I’m optimistic the Russia-Ukraine deal to unblock food passages to countries wanting food imports would relieve many nations of food shortages and cause a fall in food prices,” Mutumwa told IPS.

Russia and Ukraine are among the world’s biggest food exporters, especially wheat, to developing countries like Zimbabwe.

Yet Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this year led to a de-facto blockade of the Black Sea, resulting in Ukraine’s grain exports sharply dropping.

With the new agreement between the warring countries, even retail shop owners in Harare, like 48-year-old Jonathan Gunda in Mbare, the oldest township in Harare, are in high spirits.

“I had suspended the selling of bread and buns. In fact, I had canceled selling off all wheat products, but with the new agreement between Russia and Ukraine, this may mean I will be back in business,” Gunda told IPS.

Yet amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war blamed for causing food shortages and stoking inflation, World Food Program Southern Africa Director Menghestab Haile, in May this year, urged Zimbabwe and surrounding countries to increase food production.

“SADC region has water, has land, has clever people, so we are able to produce in this region. Let’s diversify and let’s produce for ourselves,” WFP’s Haile said then.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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ECW Director Yasmine Sherif in the field.

By External Source
NEW YORK, Aug 19 2022 (IPS-Partners)

As we come together to celebrate people helping people on this year’s World Humanitarian Day, we honor the courageous and remarkable humanitarians delivering on the frontlines to help us achieve our goals for peace, universal human rights, and education for all.

It takes a village to raise and support a child in a humanitarian crisis. In our efforts to deliver on the Grand Bargain Agreements, Sustainable Development Goals and global commitments to ensure human rights, Education Cannot Wait is connecting donors, governments, UN agencies, civil society organizations, the private sector and local non-profits to provide the world’s most vulnerable children and adolescents with the safety, protection and opportunity of a quality education.

In places like Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Ukraine and Yemen, these frontlines heroes are risking their lives because they believe that it takes a village to raise a child, and because they believe education is our most powerful tool in building a better world.

Today, 222 million children and adolescents worldwide are impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters and protracted crises who require urgent educational support. It will take a global village to reach these children.

As we honour the commitment and sacrifice of the 460 aid workers who were attacked in 2021, and the 140 who tragically lost their lives, we call on the people of the world’s global village to rise up against violence, to rise up against oppression, and to unite in our global actions to deliver on our promises of 222 Million Dreams.

This is our promise for a more peaceful world as outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Convention and the United Nations Charter. This is our promise to deliver quality education through local action with global impact for crisis-affected girls and boys left furthest behind.

 

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Excerpt:

World Humanitarian Day Statement by ECW Director Yasmine Sherif

Iêda de Oliveira is the director of Eletra, a pioneer in the production of electric and hybrid buses in Brazil. In July, the company inaugurated a new plant for the production of 1,800 of these buses per year, relying on the expansion of this market in Brazil and Latin America. CREDIT: Courtesy of Eletra

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 19 2022 (IPS)

Brazil celebrated 100,000 electric vehicles in circulation in late July, but this is a drop in the ocean compared to the 46 million combustion vehicles registered in the country and in contrast with the pace of the phasing out of oil in the world’s automotive industry.

The lag is due to several factors, but one is the progress achieved in Brazil by biofuels, especially ethanol, which in its best years, such as 2019, surpassed domestic gasoline consumption.

Much of this consumption is due to the addition of 27 percent ethanol in Brazilian gasoline, a blend that helps reduce urban air pollution. Most of it is provided by fuel made from sugarcane.

Also contributing to the success of biofuels is the “flex car” that has been produced in Brazil since 2003, with engines that consume both fuels in a mixture of any proportion. The consumer chooses gasoline or ethanol according to convenience, generally because of the price difference.

There is a consensus that ethanol makes sense to buy if it costs less than 70 percent of the price of gasoline, because in general its consumption per kilometer driven is 30 percent higher. But some nationalists always choose ethanol, as a genuinely national product.

Thus, the transition to electric vehicles will cost Brazil not only the replacement of the entire fuel production and distribution infrastructure with electricity, but also a probable drastic reduction in its sugarcane industry, which generates one million direct and indirect jobs.

In terms of gas stations alone, for example, Brazil has more than 42,000 distributed throughout its vast territory, the largest in Latin America.

The Brazilian automotive industry, which ranks ninth in the world in terms of production, does not yet produce fully electric vehicles. Its option, for now, are hybrids, which have combustion and electric engines.

In June, of the 4,073 electrified vehicles that joined the national fleet, 73 percent were hybrids – ethanol (44 percent) and gasoline (four percent) – while the so-called plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) accounted for 25 percent and have batteries that are also recharged at specific points.

In the first two cases, the two engines provide propulsion or only the electric one, powered by combustion as electricity generator.

Only two of the 13 assembly plants in Brazil produce hybrids. Fully electric cars, with only batteries charged at plugs, are all imported. They accounted for 27 percent of electrified vehicles registered in Brazil in June.

Adalberto Maluf, president of the Brazilian Electric Vehicle Association, fears that the lack of a national electric mobility policy will affect the competitiveness of the Brazilian automotive industry. He decided to resign from his corporate post to run for Congress, for the Green Party. CREDIT: Courtesy of Adalberto Maluf

Brazil’s hesitation

The industrial sector advocates a gradual transition, which would include greater development and use of biofuels and hybrid vehicles, to avoid or at least delay the end of a sector that represents 20 percent of Brazil’s industrial product.

Arguments such as pollution caused by the production and disposal of batteries undermine support for electrification to combat the climate crisis.

Greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation, a negative factor in countries that depend on fossil fuels, especially coal, do not affect electric mobility in Brazil, where renewable sources account for 85 percent of the electricity mix.

Batteries are also a barrier, as is the higher cost of electric vehicles. But technological advances are expected to make them cheaper and Brazil can benefit from domestic production, if the feasibility of a large lithium mine in the state of Minas Gerais is confirmed, as well as advantages due to the abundance of iron, nickel and niobium, other components, in the country.

Brazil’s reluctance is reflected in the lack of an “electromobility policy,” complained the president of the Brazilian Electric Vehicle Association (ABVE), Adalberto Maluf, at a Jul. 29 debate on the subject in São Paulo.

Without public incentive policies, Brazil could lose international competitiveness and get left behind by the global trend, he lamented.

Maluf, who was also director of Marketing, Sustainability and New Businesses at the Chinese company BYD in Brazil, left his corporate position on Aug. 15 to become a candidate for the lower house of Congress in the October elections for the Green Party. He promises to fight to reduce transportation pollution.

Global progress

The world produced 6.6 million new electrified cars in 2021, more than double the previous year and nearly nine percent of total motor vehicle sales, according to the International Energy Agency.

And the global trend is to go to 100 percent electric or battery-powered vehicles (BVE), rather than hybrids.

Meanwhile Brazil only incorporated 20,427 new electric vehicles during the first half of this year, out of a total of 918,000 cars, trucks, buses and commercial vans.

The automotive sector is facing a decline in production in the last two years, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its peak occurred in 2013 with 3.7 million units produced that year.

The annual total has dropped since then, and has remained below three million since 2015. This year, 2.34 million vehicles with four or more wheels are expected to be produced.

Around the world, the accelerated advance of electrification is confirmed especially in the European Union, which decided to abolish the sale of combustion cars as of 2035. Norway, which is not a member of the EU, set that goal for 2025, viable since these new vehicles reached two-thirds of sales in the country in 2021.

China is also experiencing an electromobility boom, with three million electric vehicles sold last year, or 15 percent of all motor vehicles produced in the country.

In June 2017 the Ministry of Mines and Energy received the first electric vehicle made by Itaipu, the giant hydroelectric power plant shared by Brazil and Paraguay, as an incentive for the electrification of transportation. But little has been done since then for the dissemination of electric vehicles in the country. CREDIT: Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil

Buses reduce the lag

The high price of electric cars, the low investment capacity in infrastructure, the technology gap and the small scale of the market, among other factors, prevent developing countries in the South from following the trend of rich or emerging markets such as China.

But the advance of electric buses helps mitigate that disadvantage, at least in Latin America.

Brazil has the advantage of having companies that produce and export these vehicles which play a key role in mobility in large cities, in addition to a huge market. Its bus fleet exceeds 670,000 units nationwide, which will have to be replaced, since only a few hundred are electric, which is facilitated by the fact that many cities have made electromobility the goal of public transportation.

São Paulo, for example, aims to have 2,600 electric buses in service by 2024 and to eliminate all fuel-powered passenger transport by 2030. Around 15,000 buses serve Brazil’s largest city, a metropolis of 20 million people.

Several companies presented their new public transport vehicles at the Latin American Transport Fair (LatBus), held Aug. 9-11 in São Paulo.

This is the case of Marcopolo, the largest bus body manufacturer in Brazil, which exhibited the Attivi, its first 100 percent electric model for Brazilian cities. The company has already exported more than 350 buses to Latin American countries such as Argentina and Colombia, and Asian countries such as India.

Eletra, which considers itself a “national leader in sustainable transportation technology”, also presented its e-Bus buses in different sizes – 12.5 and 15 meters – fully electric buses that can travel 250 kilometers without recharging the batteries.

The company announced the inauguration of a new industrial plant in São Bernardo do Campo – basically the capital of the Brazilian automotive industry near São Paulo – with an annual capacity to produce 1,800 electric and hybrid buses, and with 1,200 employees.

Kabul, Afghanistan. Credit: UNAMA/Freshta Dunia

By Saber Azam
GENEVA, Aug 19 2022 (IPS)

After the horrendous tragedies of 9/11 in the year 2001, the US intervened in Afghanistan. Promising statements such as “we are going to smoke them [Al-Qaeda and their Taliban protectors] out” and “we are after ending terrorism” received warm receptions.

Even the West’s main adversaries, the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, endorsed the war against radicalism. Dozens of thousands of soldiers, the most sophisticated military equipment, and billions of US dollars began to inundate Afghanistan to smolder the fanatics out of this country and annihilate barbarism. Afghans assumed that after years of wars and calamities, peace, security, and serenity were at their doorsteps.

In the ensuing twenty years, 3,600 foreign soldiers (2,500 Americans) sacrificed their lives, 34,000 (21,000 Americans) were wounded, and dozens of thousands were traumatized. Furthermore, about 70,000 Afghan soldiers, 47,000 civilians, and 53,000 Taliban militants perished. Though the number of wounded and traumatized Afghans cannot be precisely evaluated, the sequels of war affected the entire population.

However, in August 2021, the US and its allies evacuated Afghanistan hastily, handing it over to those they had to “smoke out,” shattering the hopes of respect for human rights, democracy, good governance, progress, and trust in a promising future.

Not only Afghans but the world is now holding its breath as the Taliban are considered unpredictable, unreliable, and dangerous. What instigated the “submission of the West” would be arduous to comprehend at this stage as intervening states retain crucial information for concealment necessities. However, there is an absolute need to understand and draw lessons based on the available evidence.

Despite noticeable improvements in areas such as women’s emancipation in main cities and freedom of expression, many aspects of the West’s intervention and actions between 2001 and 2021 in Afghanistan did not fulfill the objectives. A detailed analysis would not fit the scope of this article. However, the following flaws were indisputable:

A – The Bonn Deal in December 2001

The “Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan” ignored decades of transformation in the country. It did not address the root causes of repeated crises. The assumption that only “like in the past two and half centuries, only Pashtun leaders can govern this country” was erroneous.

In particular, the resistance against the Soviet Union and communist regimes, the Mujahidin tragic era, and the first Taliban rule had generated new realities. Other ethnic groups had significantly gained political, military, and social apprehensions.

In addition, the euphoria of “kicking out the terrorists and their protectors” was such that not only the so-called “legitimate government,” recognized by the International Community since 1992, was sidelined, but the idea of incorporating a few elements of the Taliban, known to the US and its allies, to the negotiating table was disregarded.

At least, it would have split the extremist movement from the onset of the West intervention. As a result, the “broad-based government” was senseless for reconstructing a war-torn country and seemed nothing but a reward to former warlords, Western loyalists, and political traders.

Nepotism, tribalism, rampant corruption, dilettantism, loyalty to foreign interests, and many other flagrant handicaps promptly affected central and provincial governance systems.

B – Afghan Leadership

The pick, by the US, of the Head of Provisional Authority, who then became the Chairman of the Transitional Administration and twice President of the country (2001 – 2014), astonished many. He and his successor (2014 to 2021) were not recognized for any significant contribution against terrorism or political and management skills.

Therefore, the lack of clear strategies to build a nation and forge a promising future marred their administrations. Senior executives and politicians of the country felt “fuehrer” and untouchable, granting all privileges and rights to themselves and little or nothing to the people.

The creation of the General Independent Administration for Anti-Corruption in 2004 was a significant failure; the first head had to resign, and the second was a convicted drug dealer in the US. Its replacement in 2008 by the High Office for the Oversight and Anti-Corruption did not prove helpful as the same “senior officials and staff” remained in place.

Those who wished to prosecute corrupt individuals, including the President’s family members and close allies, were instantly dismissed. Others against whom rock-solid proof of misdeeds existed were shielded.

Efforts by the second President and his Chief Executive as of 2014 did not curb the swindle! The 18 “anti-corruption” organs, headed by their underhand devotees, lacked coordination, and business as usual persisted.

The ousted Taliban began to regroup in Pakistan at the beginning of 2002, strengthen their ties with Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations further, and commit suicide attacks within Afghanistan on military structures and crowded public areas. Many were convinced of the complicity of senior government officials.

C – The US and its Allies

The enthusiasm for “smoking out” Al-Qaeda and their protectors from Afghanistan and “ending terrorism” did not last long in Western capitals. Already as of 2003, they were cognizant of cronyism, kleptocracy, and other appalling realities in the country.

Instead of providing immediate remedies by compelling the inept leaders to accomplish their duties, they let the situation corrode hoping that “it will improve with time!” The establishment of SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) by the US Congress in January 2008 did not change much. Its reports on mismanagement of resources often went unattended.

The state of affairs became worse in 2009 due to election rigging. The silence of the West was a tacit endorsement of the misdeed. Suggestions to opt for a transitional government composed of competent, honest, unbiased, and ethically-bound young individuals, from within the country, were ignored under the pretext that it would be contrary to the constitutional order. However, the election fraud in 2014 was such that the US opted to put aside the constitution. A government based on an unworkable political agreement was founded.

Despite its promising nature, the hurdle relied on the fact that there was no change in the people who run State affairs. The US and its closest allies closed their eyes and ears to the widespread malfunctions, including in the security apparatuses. Such a situation permitted the Taliban to grow in strength, grab more territory, and finally take over the government on 15 August 2021.

D – Other Most Concerned Countries

The Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, and the Islamic Republic of Iran monitored the failure of Western intervention in Afghanistan from its onset. It is fair to say that they rejoiced in the “defeat of the US.” Pakistan maneuvered to manage Afghanistan through the Taliban.

They had learned from the failure of their first attempt (1996-2001) and had conveniently prepared the new generation of Islamic clerics. India and Central Asian countries earnestly endeavored for a peaceful Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia had an ambiguous policy.

While it was part of the International Coalition to fight terrorism, the espousal of Saudi nationals to extremist movements in Afghanistan was undeniable, a fact that the government in Riyadh could have prevented.

E – The United Nations (UN)

The UN’s role seemed the most questionable. Victims of decades of imposed tragedies, the Afghan people expected this organization to stand for them. Unfortunately, it miserably failed to do so. Instead, the UN bogged down in rubber-stamping the desires of the strongest.

In Bonn, it did not push for addressing the root causes of decades of conflict to “save succeeding generations [of Afghans] from the scourge of war,” as its Charter stipulates and endorsed the irremediable provisional agreement. Then, it became the ratifying organ of repeated rigged elections, depriving Afghans of their fundamental rights.

The accusation of Taliban activists benefitting from the “return of refugees” program to settle in the northern provinces of Afghanistan surfaced in some circles. In addition, it assumed the prime role in managing multi-lateral aid to the Afghan people, amounting to hundreds of billion US dollars.

There are accounts of endemic mismanagement, corruption, and inefficiency. However, the UN has not investigated its actions. This is a serious blow to its image and leadership, providing further elements for skeptical to consider it a redundant and unaccountable organization.

F – The Syndrome of Easy Money

Experts believe that the availability of “easy and extirpated money” provided at the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom, which began on 7 October 2001, laid down the foundation of corruption and the future demise of the republic. A few who then became the bigwigs of the regimes profited immensely from its flow.

Most scholars trusted that the West, led by the US, would implement an answerable government model that functioned in their societies. Subsequently, the public pressure on the leaders to use international sympathy and unlimited support in addressing the root causes of the conflicts, building a solid nation based on a new framework suitable to all ethnic groups, and developing appropriate confidence-building measures was weak!

The fact that hundreds of billions of US dollars per year will have an end did not figure in many assumptions. Despite democratic avenues, most remained “infirm” on their leaders’ rampant corruption, nepotism, tribalism, and inefficiency.

With the above in mind, there was no chance for the republic to sustain itself in Afghanistan. The Taliban rule the country again. The question is could they keep it?

Saber Azam is a former official of the United Nations and author of Soraya: The Other Princess, Hell’s Mouth: A Journey to the Heart of West African jungles, and numerous political and scientific articles [https://www.saberazam.com].

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A selection of the best photos from across Africa and beyond this week.

Newly-wed Robert Kaweesi, from Birmingham, has been missing in Uganda since Wednesday.

U20 Women's World Cup: Perfect record for Nigeria but Ghana end campaign winless

In spite of their high preparedness and growing consciousness and activism and their indisputable right to decide upon their present and future, today's youth voice is still far from being heard. Credit: Maged Srour/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Aug 18 2022 (IPS)

A couple of decades ago in Athens, a conversation over a ‘souvlaki’ and wine dinner with a young Greek economist led to talking about democracy. Asked for his opinion, he said “By then, when philosophers like Aristotle formulated their theories about democracy, the society was dominated by the rich.”

When asked “what about the people?,” the young Greek economist took a long sip of wine and answered with a visibly sarcastic smile “The people were their servants.”

Whether this young man’s interpretation of democracy was wrong or right, accurate or not, more controversial or less, is something too long to explain and anyway it is up to you to judge.

 

The poisoned inheritance

Anyway, the pressing question now is if today’s 1.5 billion youth can bear the baleful load that they inherit from the previous generations.

A swift answer would be “yes.” After all, previous and current generations coped with two European-manufactured Great Wars which soon attracted their descendents–the United States, and other military powers like the –also European– Soviet Union, among others.

Not only, these generations had also to confront dictatorial regimes, civil wars, poverty, hunger, destruction, and a long list of hardships.

Another question would be if the current and future generations will be able to fix up the so many horrifying wrongs made by the previous ones, such as the looming threat of a nuclear war, the voracious depletion of natural resources, the dominance of private corporations, the supplantation of human beings by robots…

… Let alone the never-ending game of the world’s top guns –the US, the UK, France, Russia and China, precisely those who hold the unexplainable and unjustifiable power to annulate, through their veto, the decisions made by the world’s over 190 countries. They exercise such a power in their ironically called “Security Council.”

Whatever the future will be, reality shows that the world’s youth now receive a very heavy inheritance, in a scenario already shaped by two George Orwell’s masterpieces: “1984” and “Animal Farm.”

See this dozen facts, selected among so many others, which have been provided on the occasion of this year’s International Youth Day, marked 12 August.

 

The figures

• Half of the people on Planet Earth are 30 or younger, and this is expected to reach 57% by the end of 2030.

• While you read this, 1.8 billion young people, the largest generation of youth in history, are transitioning to adulthood.

• Today, there are 1.2 billion youth aged 15 to 24, accounting for 16% of the global population. By 2030 their number is projected to have grown by 7%, to nearly 1.3 billion. These two figures, combined with the previous one, make an average of 1.5 billion youth.

 

No voice?

In spite of their high preparedness and growing consciousness and activism and their indisputable right to decide upon their present and future, today’s youth voice is still far from being heard, let alone listened to.

A UN Department of Economics and Social Affairs research shows that there are about 1.2 billion youth aged 15 to 24 in the world today. “This is a huge percentage of the global population whose interests and voices have traditionally been overlooked.”

In fact, today’s youth has practically nul participation in national legislative bodies. Globally, only 2.6% of parliamentarians are under 30 years old, and less than 1% of them are women.

On this issue, a survey on the occasion of this year’s International Youth Day, the United Nations specialised bodies revealed that:

• 76% of those under 30 years old think politicians don’t listen to young people

• 8 in 10 people think that current political systems need drastic reforms to be fit for the future

• 69% of people think that more opportunities for younger people to have a say in policy development would make political systems better.

Meanwhile, the average age of those who decide upon the present and future of the world’s youth is as high as 64 years.

 

 No jobs?

The Global Employment Trends for Youth 2022 reveals that those aged between 15 and 24 years have experienced a much higher percentage loss in employment than adults since early 2020.

Also that the total global number of unemployed youths is estimated to reach 73 million in 2022, six million above the pre-pandemic level of 2019.

At the same time, 60 million jobs that will be created by the green economy in 30 years do not even exist yet.

 

No education?

“Unless we take action, the share of children leaving school in developing countries who are unable to read could increase from 53 to 70 percent,” warned UN Secretary General, António Guterres, in his message on the 2022 International Day of Education on 24 January.

In fact, some 1.6 billion school and college students had their studies interrupted at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic — and it’s not over yet, said Guterres.

Today, school closures continue to disrupt the lives of over 31 million students, “exacerbating a global learning crisis.” See: Up to 70% of Children in Developing Countries to Be Left Unable to Read.

 

The climate crunch

Young people bear a disproportionate burden of the environmental crises the world faces today, which will impact their future, reminds the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

“Research shows that many young people feel frustrated and unheard, creating a sense of unfairness that has, in recent years, fueled a surge of climate activism led by youth.”

According to a recent study, children born in 2020 will experience a “two to seven-fold increase in extreme climate events,” particularly heatwaves, compared to people born in 1960.

 

The “Rule of the People”

Meanwhile, another question raises here: has the concept of democracy as the rule of people ever been really practised?

Before you judge, please be reminded of the findings released by the Oxfam International in its May 2022 report Profiting from Pain.

“Billionaires have seen their fortunes increase as much in 24 months as they did in 23 years.”

“Those in the food and energy sectors have seen their fortunes increase by a billion dollars every two days,” adds the research carried out by this global movement of people working together with more than 4,100 partner organisations and communities in over 90 countries.

Furthermore, “food and energy prices have increased to their highest levels in decades. And 62 new food billionaires have been created.”

In the meantime, there are up to one billion hungry humans.

IPS article: Inequality Kills One Person Every Four Seconds explains how deadly inequality is and how it contributes to the deaths of at least 21,300 people each day—or one person every four seconds.

Today’s youth are an unpowered witness to numerous unprecedented crises, which they did not create but are expected to overcome… and hopefully leave a much less baleful inheritance.

Only artisanal fishing is allowed in the waters surrounding the Galapagos Islands, where it is possible to catch large, valuable fish. The area is a marine reserve, a nursery of species for the eastern Pacific and is off-limits to industrial fishing. But its continental shelf is increasingly under siege by the Chinese fleet. CREDIT: MAG Ecuador

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Aug 18 2022 (IPS)

Illegal and excessive fishing, mainly attributed to Chinese fleets, remains a threat to marine resources in the eastern Pacific and southwest Atlantic, as well as to that sector of the economy in Latin American countries bathed by either ocean.

Worldwide, “one out of every five fish consumed has been caught illegally, 20 percent of the nearly 100 million tons of fish consumed each year, and generally in areas closed to fishing,” veteran Venezuelan oceanographer Juan José Cárdenas told IPS.

An emblematic case, said the researcher from the Simón Bolívar University in Caracas, is the Galapagos Islands, 1,000 kilometers west of the coast of Ecuador, surrounded by a 193,000-square-kilometer protected marine area, a hotbed of species in great demand for human consumption.“For several species in the eastern Pacific we are already at the edge of the environmental precipice with legal fishing; a small additional fishing effort, illegal fishing, is enough to affect the sustainability and food security that these species provide." -- Juan José Cárdenas

Galapagos, an archipelago totaling 8,000 square kilometers, is famous for its unique biodiversity and as a natural laboratory used by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) for his theories on evolution.

The Ecuadorian Navy indicated that in June they maintained surveillance of 180 foreign vessels, including fishing boats, tankers and reefers, fishing near the 200 nautical mile (370 kilometers) limit of the Galapagos Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), also known as the continental shelf.

In 2017, 297 vessels were detected, 300 in 2018, 245 in 2019, and 350 in 2020. At the beginning of each summer they fish off Ecuador and Peru, then off of Chile, before crossing the Strait of Magellan and heading up the southwest Atlantic off Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.

In the Pacific they have fished intensively for giant squid (Dosidicus gigas). According to the satellite tracking platform Global Fishing Watch, 615 vessels did so in 2021, 584 of which were Chinese.

Alfonso Miranda, president of the Committee for the Sustainable Management of the South Pacific Giant Squid (CALAMASUR), made up of businesspersons and fishers from Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru, said that this year 631 Chinese-flagged vessels have entered Ecuadorian and Peruvian Pacific waters.

Miranda says that Peruvian fishermen report incursions by Chinese ships in Peru’s EEZ, and he does the math: if Peruvian squid production reaches 500,000 tons, with revenues of 860 million dollars a year, some 50,000 tons taken by the foreign fleet means the loss of 85 million dollars a year.

The giant squid is the second most important fishing resource for Peru, after anchovy, and its catch generates more than 800 million dollars a year and thousands of jobs, which is why the country seeks to prevent incursions into its waters by vessels of other flags, especially from China. CREDIT: Government of Peru

Accumulated problems

Cárdenas the oceanographer pointed out that the area is rich in tuna, of which more than 600,000 tons are caught annually (10 percent of the world total), but posing a serious threat to sustainability, for example with the use of fish aggregating devices or FADs that alter even the migratory habits of this species.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 34 percent of tuna stocks in the seven most widely used tuna species are exploited at biologically unsustainable levels.

For several species in the eastern Pacific, including some whose fishing is banned such as sharks, “we are already at the edge of the environmental precipice with legal fishing; a small additional fishing effort, illegal fishing, is enough to affect the sustainability and food security that these species provide,” said Cárdenas.

Pedro Díaz, a fisherman in northern Peru, told the Diálogo Chino news platform in the port of Paita that “we don’t just want to fish and catch. We want to allow the giant squid to breed and grow so that it can generate employment and foreign currency for the State.

“We also want the giant squid to have a sustainable season, and what will those who come after us, the young people who take up fishing, find?” he added.

FAO fisheries officer Alicia Mosteiro Cabanelas told IPS from the U.N. agency’s regional headquarters in Santiago, Chile that “it is not always possible to measure the impact of a given fleet operating in areas adjacent to the exclusive economic zone of coastal nations.”

This is because “there is not always a stock assessment of the target species, nor is there information available on retained, discarded and incidental catch, or on the number of vessels authorized to operate by the respective flag States and unauthorized vessels.”

In 2017 Ecuador seized the Chinese vessel Fu Tuang Yu Leng after finding in its holds more than 6000 sharks illegally caught in the Galapagos Marine Reserve. CREDIT: DPN Galapagos

Mosteiro Cabanelas noted that “overfishing always has a direct impact on the sustainability of resources, generating a decrease in income for the fishing sector and in the availability of fishery products for local communities and consumers in general. Latin America is no exception.”

And for FAO it is clear that “illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a global problem that compromises the conservation and sustainable use of fishery resources,” said the expert.

It also “harms fishers’ livelihoods and related activities, and aggravates malnutrition, poverty and food insecurity.”

The media in coastal countries also report that fishers in Latin America – citing cases from Brazil, Chile and Mexico – are violating bans and extracting valuable species whose fishing is not permitted. Ecuadorians have exported large quantities of shark fins, after declaring the sharks as bycatch.

Shark fins are highly sought after in places like Hong Kong – where shark fin soup can cost up to 200 dollars – and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates the global trade in shark and ray meat at 2.6 billion dollars.

The Argentine Navy carries out surveillance of a Chinese fishing vessel at the limits of the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone, which is rich in squid, hake and prawns. CREDIT: Argentine Naval Prefecture

Keeping an eye on poachers

Last year, some 350 Chinese-flagged vessels fished during the first half of the year off Argentina’s territorial waters, where there is a wealth of another kind of squid, the Argentine shortfin squid (Illex argentines), as well as Argentine hake, prawns and other prized species.

It is a fleet that, according to Argentine ship captains, commits IUU with unreported transshipments that camouflage illegal fishing, transferring fish between vessels and turning off the transponders that indicate the ships’ location.

A report published in June by Oceana, an international non-governmental organization that tracks IUU fishing, claimed that more than 400 Chinese-flagged vessels fished for about 621,000 hours along the Argentine EEZ between 2018 and 2021, and disappeared from tracking systems more than 4,000 times.

The Argentine government has reported that, in contrast to the 400,000 tons per year of Argentine shortfin squid that landed in its ports at the end of the 20th century, since 2015 less than 100,000 tons per year are caught, with just 60,000 in 2016.

Industry reports in the local media indicate that foreign vessels (Chinese, South Korean, Taiwanese or Spanish) have caught up to 500,000 tons of squid annually, near or within its EEZ – a volume that can represent between five and 14 billion dollars a year.

Fish aggregating devices or FADs are used in the eastern Pacific to facilitate and increase tuna catches, aggravating the threat of overfishing and even posing a risk of altering the migratory habits of the species. CREDIT: WWF

And the problem is not only seen in Argentina: last Jul. 4, the Uruguayan Navy captured in its territorial waters, 280 kilometers from the Punta del Este beach resort, a Chinese-flagged vessel, the “Lu Rong Yuan Yu 606”, dedicated to squid fishing, which was apparently fishing furtively at night in that area.

As the holds were empty, it could not be established with certainty that it was fishing in the Uruguayan EEZ, and the ship was released after payment of a fine for contravening other navigation regulations.

There was no repeat of the 2017 experience in Ecuador with the “Fu Yuan Yu Leng 999”, a vessel that functioned as a large refrigerator to store the catch of other vessels, which was operating illegally in the Galapagos Marine Reserve.

About 500 tons of fish, including vulnerable and protected species, were found on the ship, especially some 6,000 hammerhead sharks.

The Ecuadorian justice system handed prison sentences to the captain of the ship and three crew members for the crime of fishing for protected species, and fined them 6.1 million dollars. As the payment was not made, the vessel became the property of the Ecuadorian Navy.

China has formally banned its fleet from operating in prohibited waters and warned captains that it will withdraw licenses from those who violate these rules, and President Xi Jinping gave assurances to that effect to his Ecuadorian counterpart Guillermo Lasso when the latter visited Beijing in February.

Far from the shores of Latin America, on May 24 in Tokyo, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, U.S. President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD) bloc, agreed on new surveillance mechanisms for the Chinese fishing fleet.

At the same time, Washington is working with countries such as Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Panama on agreements to help monitor the Chinese fleet, the largest in the world, which has 17,000 ships catching 15 million tons a year in the world’s seas.

The U.S. initiative is part of its renewed global confrontation with the Asian giant, the so-called new cold war.

African leaders must recognise the enormous potentials of the continent’s informal workers and begin to integrate them better into their city-building visions and strategies. Credit: Suleiman Mbatiah/IPS

By External Source
Aug 18 2022 (IPS)

African leaders are increasingly aspiring to “modernise” their cities. That is to make them “globally competitive” and “smart”. The hope is to strategically position cities in Africa to drive the continent’s much-needed socio-economic transformation.

But these aspirations tend to marginalise and antagonise the informal sector. The sector encompasses the suite of economic activities by workers and economic units that are – in law or in practice – not covered (or insufficiently covered) by formal arrangements.

We are a team of international scholars researching sustainable cities in Africa. In our latest paper, we explore the dual role played by the informal sector in Africa’s urban economy. On the one hand, it plays a positive role. It provides employment, securing household income and savings, provides household basic needs and boosts civic engagement.

Clearly, the informal sector oils Africa’s urban economy in many important ways. This makes it highly unlikely that any visions of transforming lives on the continent can succeed without taking the sector into adequate account

But the sector also plays a negative role. It contributes to social and gender inequality, insecurity, congestion and pollution.

Overall, we found that the informal sector has a lot to offer the future of African cities. We therefore recommend that public policy focuses more on regularising the sector, instead of displacing it. This is often done to make way for elitist big capital projects.

Also, we warn that ignoring or marginalising the millions of people whose livelihoods depend on the sector could spell a social bloodbath on the continent.

 

The ‘smart cities’ craze in Africa

There has been a resurgent interest in building so-called “smart”, “modern”, “globally competitive” cities in Africa. Some are seeking to build entirely new cities. But, for the most part, most governments want to put cities on the “map” through large-scale redevelopment or by “modernising” existing city districts.

African cities have long been blamed for not serving as engines of growth and structural transformation as their counterparts did during Europe’s Industrial Revolution. This makes it refreshing that leaders on the continent are seeking to turn things around.

The problem, however, is that these visions of city modernisation tend to heavily marginalise and antagonise the informal sector in their design and execution. Some even have a strong focus on displacing informal workers and activities – particularly hawkers and hawking, slum dwellers and slum settlements – from the central business districts of the cities.

For instance, early this year, the authorities in Nigeria sent a combined team of police, military and other law enforcement officials to destroy a Port Harcourt informal settlement that housed some 15,000 families.

Their counterparts in Ghana are currently conducting similar exercises.

These decisions are often justified on the grounds that informal workers and their activities generate “congestion”, “crime”, “filth/grime”, and “disorderliness”.

In other words, they impede sustainable city-making, and hence, must be eradicated.

But is this premise backed by the evidence? This is the question our team recently interrogated.

We conclude that the informal sector is rather the goose laying Africa’s golden eggs.

 

Unpacking the data

We argue in our paper that African leaders must re-think the informal sector as a potential site for innovation and solutions.

Consider its employment creation potential for instance. In 2018, a study by the International Labour Organization (ILO) found that the informal sector employs some 89.2% of the total labour force in sub-Saharan Africa if agriculture is included.

Even without agriculture, the share of informal employment is still significant: 76.8%. In central Africa, without agriculture, the sector’s share of employment hovered at 78.8% and 91% with agriculture. In east Africa, the contributions stood at 76.6% without agriculture and 91.6% with agriculture. The figures for southern and western Africa hovered around 36.1% and 87% without agriculture and 40.2% and 92.4% when agriculture is included.

The informal sector also makes other important contributions to Africa’s economy. In 2000, the gross value additions of Benin, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Togo’s informal sector (including agriculture) hovered around 71.6%, 55.8%, 51.5%, and 72.5% of the countries’ total GDPs.

The sector’s contribution to housing too is substantial. The most notable form of informal housing, popularly called “slums”, provide accommodation to millions of urban dwellers on the continent.

The United Nations’ data suggest that Nigeria’s share of urban population that are accommodated in slums as of 2015 stood at 50.2%. That of Ethiopia was 73.9%; Uganda’s 53.6%; Tanzania’s 50.7%. Ghana and Rwanda’s hovered around 37.9% and 53.2%, respectively.

Clearly, the informal sector oils Africa’s urban economy in many important ways. This makes it highly unlikely that any visions of transforming lives on the continent can succeed without taking the sector into adequate account.

More importantly, the millions of working-class people whose lives depend on the sector have shown consistently that they won’t take their continuing marginalisation lying down. They frequently resist eviction orders.

Perhaps, their most profound moment of resistance was witnessed at the height of the COVID pandemic.

Many African governments imposed lockdowns to limit community transmission of the virus. However, after subjecting informal workers to extensive brutalities, they still refused to comply, forcing many governments to suspend the lockdowns. The pandemic has shown that the continuing systematic marginalisation of informal workers in city-making heralds more trouble for the future.

 

Informality at the heart of city-making

The issue is not that city authorities must allow informal workers and activities to go unchecked. They clearly have a responsibility to deal with the problems in the sector to ensure the security and health of the public. This includes the informal workers themselves.

The problem with current approaches is that they largely dispossess the workers and displace them to make way for big capital projects which serve the needs of a privileged few.

African leaders must recognise the enormous potentials of the continent’s informal workers and begin to integrate them better into their city-building visions and strategies.

The recent integration of informal waste collectors/recyclers – popularly called Zabbaleen – in waste management in Cairo, Egypt’s capital, offers great lessons.

The Zabbaleen had long been neglected for so-called “formal” private companies which, however, continued to prove inefficient and structurally unable to navigate the narrow streets of several neighbourhoods of Cairo.

When Cairo authorities finally recognised that the Zabbaleen are better suited for the job, they changed course and brought them onboard. The emerging evidence suggests that the change is paying some fruitful dividends in improved sanitation.

Cairo’s progressive example paints a powerful image of how the capabilities of informal workers could be seriously incorporated and integrated into building African cities. Hopefully, more of such interventions will be replicated in other sectors of the continent’s urban economy.

Dr Henry Mensah and Professor Imoro Braimah of KNUST’s Centre for Settlements Studies, and Department of Planning contributed to the original article.

Gideon Abagna Azunre, PhD student, Concordia University; Festival Godwin Boateng, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Sustainable Urban Development, The Earth Institute, Columbia University; Owusu Amponsah, Senior Lecturer, Department of planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), and Stephen Appiah Takyi, Senior Lecturer, Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Mask mandates are now over, but health practitioners and scientists say it’s time to use what we have learnt about COVID-19 to manage other epidemics. Credit: IMF Photo/James Oatway

By Fawzia Moodley
Johannesburg, Aug 18 2022 (IPS)

After two years of economic and social upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries, including South Africa, have lifted the tough protocols such as lockdowns, the mandatory wearing of masks and social distancing.

COVID fatigue, the global economic bloodbath, devastating social and mental health impacts, and the hope that large-scale vaccinations provided sufficient herd immunity, persuaded these governments to lift the suffocating protocols.

But experts warn that we should not be lulled into a false sense of security.

According to the Statista Research Service, outbreaks of COVID-19 continue to be confirmed in almost every country in the world. The virus has infected nearly 566 million people worldwide, with the number of deaths at almost 6.4 million. The most severely affected countries include the US, India, Brazil, France and Germany.

Thankfully, the deadly Delta variant is no longer a significant threat. The emergence of Omicron, which is more easily transmitted, has raised concern among scientists because it constantly mutates, as evident from its swift evolution from the BA.2 lineage to Omicron.B4 and B5.

Dr Waasila Jassat of the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) says that South Africa has a high number of Omicron cases but fortunately experienced only a small rise in hospitalisations and deaths during its BA.4 and BA.5 wave. Quoted in the scientific journal Nature, she warns that older adults are still at high risk and that the new strains are more immune to vaccinations.

A panel of experts at a recent webinar in Johannesburg, titled: “Is COVID 19 over? Or is it still lurking in the shadows? An African response to the pandemic”, expressed concern at the unknowns related to the mutating nature of Omicron.

They reviewed the devastating impact of the lockdown measures, the lessons learnt from our handling of the pandemic, and explored alternate and less drastic ways to deal with future pandemics.

Psychiatrist Dr Surenthran Pillay said the pandemic had led to an increase in mental health problems, including depression and anxiety, resulting not only from the illness and deaths but also from job losses and economic fallout.

“The other complication that has to be managed is the associated increase in poverty that comes with COVID. Africa is not the wealthiest region. With COVID coming, we are not giving attention to people’s other needs. We can’t neglect communities’ needs because the anxieties and psychiatric aspect of the lack of food or lack of housing or other economic complications that come from COVID are just as important.”

Pillay also speaks of the impact on children.

“We have a whole generation of kids who spent two years behind masks, and important stages in their lives like recognising facial expressions were lost for them.”

Dr Samantha Potgieter, an expert on infectious diseases from the University of the Free State, says there’s hope that future pandemics will be better managed due to the lessons learnt this time.

“Unfortunately, we certainly can’t say that COVID is over, and if I were to guess what the future holds, I think the hope is that as repeated infections occur and vaccine boosters are fine-tuned, we will continue to see waves of the disease but with less and less disruption of our lives.”

The role of the media also came under scrutiny. Ogechi Ekeanyawu, the Sub-Saharan regional editor of the African Science podcast, speaks about the critical role of the media in disseminating “credible and scientifically backed” information about vaccines and treatment during a pandemic.

In the era of social media, “where anyone can come with a camera or any text that they like to put out,” she says, “it is important that all information is verified and authentic”.

“We’re looking at the science, listening to the scientists, making sure that they have a larger voice; so, sort of centring their voices in our reports so that we are not misinformed at any point in time.”

She also notes that the media had ignored monkeypox, which the World Health Organization recently declared a public health emergency until it spread to Europe and other developed countries.

“It has always existed here, particularly in West Africa in countries like Congo and Nigeria, but all of a sudden, it is now a global concern, and people are now talking about research. Monkeypox existed all the while here, and there was no spotlight on it.”

Dr Subeshnee Munien, an environmental scientist, warns that even if COVID ends, infectious diseases and pandemics are “going to be more frequent than we’d like to believe”.

She says COVID has devastated the poorest of the poor and exposed “what needs to be done for us to be better prepared for the next infectious event.”

The message was clear: This is no time for complacency; we need to learn from our experience of COVID to be able to deal with future pandemics in a more constructive and less disruptive way.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Globally, feminist movements have been some of the biggest drivers of progressive social change. Credit: UN Women

By Angelika Arutonyva and Leila Hessini
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Aug 18 2022 (IPS)

Feminist movements are powerful, and donors who want to contribute to solving the biggest challenges facing the world today, should fund them deeply, and without restrictions. Research by Htun and Weldon back this up, showing that globally, feminist movements have been some of the biggest drivers of progressive social change.

The work of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) helps us understand what this looks like in practice. In 1995, they began working to strengthen women’s rights and address the issue of violence against women. Working across eight countries, SIHA built an informal network of women with very little funding, most of which was project-specific.

The work that feminist movements do is vital, and yet this is work that is severly underfunded. Analysis from the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) shows that women’s rights organizations receive only 0.13% of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and 0.4% of all gender-related aid. Additionally, only 0.42% of foundation grants are allocated towards women's rights.

Once they received their first core funding grant, they had the flexibility to be responsive—and none too soon. When Sudan’s dictatorship fell in 2019, SIHA was ready to respond. They had built trust within the country and knew how to support communities. At a time when other actors couldn’t enter the region and it was difficult to get funding through, SIHA supported feminist activists to respond to threats, especially that of mass sexual violence, as well as the opportunities for impact.

We see similar patterns around a variety of issues within the gender justice umbrella. In 2021, Benin liberalised its abortion law allowing for the termination of pregnancy at up to twelve weeks in cases where a continuation “is likely to worsen or cause a situation of material, education, professional or moral distress which is incompatible with the woman’s interests.”

This is a significant win for feminist movements as it recognises the importance of abortion access for a wide variety of reasons. At the global level, for years, feminist leaders have advocated for the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to pass a treaty that recognises the gendered nature of the world of work.

The result was ILO Convention No. 190, described as the first international treaty to recognize the right of everyone to a world of work free from violence and harassment, including gender-based violence and harassment. This is a major policy win and Governments that ratify the convention will be required to put in place processes to prevent and address violence and harassment in the world of work.

The work that feminist movements do is vital, and yet this is work that is severly underfunded.

Analysis from the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) shows that women’s rights organizations receive only 0.13% of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and 0.4% of all gender-related aid. Additionally, only 0.42% of foundation grants are allocated towards women’s rights.

This is the massive gap that we need a bold new school of philanthropists to fill. To deliver on the promise that feminists and social justice movements hold, we require bold innovators to shift the way the world operates. Daring progressive individuals should invest resources into people who can shift our communities and societies to be better, more accepting and welcoming environments. All that is needed to do this is to provide communities, particularly those led by Black, Indigenous and People of Color with a significant level of resources that allows the freedom to be bold and creative in their work.

Recently, Shake the Table, a feminist organisation that bridges the worlds of philantopy and social justice, teamed up with the global philanthropic advisory firm Bridgespan, to explore how feminist movements can be supported to address systemic oppression, and to realise the transformative change that donors seek.

This initiative is a first – bringing together insights from High Net Worth Individuals and feminist movement leaders. The report calls for new financing for feminist movements – asking for an investment of an extra $1.5billion per year. In their words:

“We set the very minimum of $1.5 billion a year over and above current funding levels as a starting point, to hold ground against the anti-gender movement and gain traction toward a just future for us all. For thousands of individual feminist leaders, organizations, and their collective movements, this investment would represent a game-changing opportunity. Increasing the resources available to feminist movements by an order of magnitude could enable gains (and stave off losses) in reproductive rights around the world, fairer and more dignified wages and working conditions, and climate justice. It could advance work to reduce gender-based violence as well as push back against authoritarianism and protect democracy, countering systemic abuse in communities around the world. It would recognize the transformative, collaborative work of feminist movements across borders and generations. Such an investment will lead to outcomes we can’t yet imagine.”

And yet the outcomes that already exist speak powerfully of the possibilities that could be further unleashed if feminist movements were resourced boldly.

Feminists want to co-create a better world. A world where feminist movements thrive is one where people from all backgrounds live in peace and enjoy a full range of human rights and freedoms. A world where feminist movements thrive centres constituency work done and led by Black and Indigenous people, and People of Color.

This work cannot be done with a pittance. The work of world making requires bold philanthropy from a feminist lens. Significant resources need to be directed towards historically marginalized communities – led by Black, Indigenous, and people of color around the world.

Organizations working at the grassroots need to be trusted and recognised for the deep knowledge they hold on how to create change, and donors need to do what they can do best – give – and get out of the way so that the all important work of social change is accelerated.

Angelika Arutyunova is an Armenian from Uzbekistan, feminist social justice consultant with two decades of experience across regions, movements and sectors.

Leila Hessini is the Vice President, Programs at Global Fund for Women.

Young climate activists take part in demonstrations at the COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. November 2021. Credit: UN News/Laura Quiñones

By Ulrika Modéer and Veronica Winja Otieno
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 18 2022 (IPS)

Today, our world is 1.1°C warmer than it was in the pre-industrial era, and failure to act urgently could possibly result in increases of 1.5°C-2°C between 2026 and 2042. Climate change poses a serious risk to the fundamental rights of people of every age.

Extreme weather such as droughts, floods and heatwaves, and their effects of food and water insecurity, livelihood losses, famines, and wildfires exacerbate inequalities and disproportionately affect vulnerable groups, among them young people and children.

UNDP’s Peoples’ Climate Vote, the largest ever survey of public opinion on climate change, revealed that nearly 70 percent of under 18s are most likely to believe climate change is a global emergency. Other studies show that ‘eco-anxiety’ is increasing, particularly amongst the young.

A global study of 10,000 youth from 10 countries in 2021 found that over 50 percent of young people felt sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and guilty about climate change, while 45 percent said their feelings negatively affected their daily lives.

Countries expressing more worry tended to be poorer, such as those in the south, or those in the north that had been directly affected by climate change.

Young people continue to take on a leading role in influencing, advocating, and demanding for responsible climate behaviour and stronger political will from governments and the private sector. During COP26, young leaders presented a Global Youth Position statement, representing the views of over 40,000 young leaders demanding that their rights be guaranteed in climate change agreements.

School strikes for climate have been recorded in over 150 countries, gaining widespread attention from the public and media. Young leaders have raised awareness in their communities, promoted lifestyle changes and concrete solutions, and advocated for the rights of vulnerable groups, including Indigenous people, who are often excluded from decision-making.

Despite this, young people continue to report ageism is affecting their lives, their employment, political participation, health, and justice. This not only detracts from their wellbeing but it prevents societies from designing inclusive policies and social services that are fair for all ages.

This has translated to a growing sense of hopelessness and mistrust towards governments’ willingness and ability to tackle the eminent climate challenges amongst youth.

As the UN celebrated International Youth Day 2022 (on12 August), this year’s theme was Intergenerational Solidarity: Creating a World for All Ages. Action is needed from all generations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to ensure that no one is left behind.

This is particularly important in addressing climate change, which is considered the most significant intergenerational injustice of our time. It is imperative that everybody, and especially the older generations, work with young people to achieve climate justice.

A systemic change to enhance inter-generational solidarity, is urgently required to address and remove inequalities, and to tackle structural barriers to meaningful youth engagement.

At UNDP, we strongly believe in the importance of meaningful youth involvement in decision-making, both as a demographic and democratic imperative to address youth rights, needs and aspirations. Our Aiming higher guidance explores critical ways to achieve this.

It’s important to listen to the voices of young people and to join them in speaking against climate injustice. The voices of young people must be included in the decisions taken now, and steps taken to ensure that they can hold governments accountable.

As it stands, and rightfully so, all renowned climate change activists are young people. But it is also important that older generations join in the activism and support responsible climate action. This has the potential to improve trust and enhance effective collaboration.

All youth voices should be given a fair chance. Amongst young people, those from rural areas in the global south are further marginalized and affected disproportionately by the effects of climate injustice, yet unlike their urban counterparts have found little voice.

This is due to a number of factors including the digital divide and limited resources, including visa denials, which lock them out of the crucial stages of policy-making. Meaningful collaboration with youth and grassroots organizations provides an opportunity for all voices to be heard.

Education is an important tool. The Peoples’ Climate Vote revealed that the most profound driver of public opinion on climate change was a respondent’s level of education. Policy makers should continue to educate all generations not only on what climate change is and its effects, but even more importantly on protection and mitigation measures.

The incorporation of climate smart education from basic to tertiary levels of education will play a key role in creating awareness and integrating climate solutions across all levels of society.

To inspire hope and further encourage young people towards climate action, it is important that progress is highly celebrated. This plays a key role in strengthening young people’s agency and resilience to continue pushing on and not thinking their efforts are futile.

There are 1.2 billion young people and their collective input will have an impact both now and in the future. Fortunately, there is good news.

Young people played an important role in the Climate Promise. While young people were largely ignored in earlier Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) now 75 percent of Climate Promise countries prioritize youth in developing their NDCs, primarily through consultations, raising awareness and advocacy campaigns.

The cost of solar and wind power and electric vehicles have come down dramatically. Between 2010 to 2019, solar energy costs decreased 85 percent, wind energy by 55 percent, and lithium-ion batteries by 85 percent.

And in the last decade, climate finance has significantly increased, reaching US$632 billion.

The solidarity, mutual respect, and understanding between the young people of the global north and south on climate action, as well as their advocacy for marginalized groups whose voices are not heard is admirable. This emphasizes the important role that solidarity plays.

Young people have been ignored in climate decisions for far too long and can no longer be seen as merely means to an end. It is their present and their future that’s at stake. Their concerns and their solutions must be at the heart of all decision-making.

Empowering young people presents a historic, transformational, and collective opportunity to advance an inclusive green recovery, accelerate progress on the SDGs and to lay the foundation for a peaceful and sustainable future.

Ulrika Modeer is UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy, UNDP and Veronica Winja Otieno is African Young Women in Leadership Fellow & Strategy Analyst, UNDP

IPS UN Bureau

 

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An increasing number of young people in the ex-French colony see English as a universal language.