Africa

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Action taken against stall-owners at the Refugees Bazaar in Peshawar. Afghan refugees say they are unfairly targeted by the authorities. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Aug 15 2022 (IPS)

Afghan refugees living in Pakistan face a host of problems, ranging from seeking medical treatment to shelter, business, police harassment and violence. Many of those affected have been there for four decades.

“Whenever we go to the local hospitals for treatment, we don’t get good services. As a result, we bank on unqualified doctors who charge a lower fee, but the treatment they provide us isn’t up to the mark,” Jamila Bibi, 48, told IPS. She lives in the Khyber district near the Torkham border with Afghanistan.

Bibi says she developed a gynaecological problem, but the local hospital denied her treatment.

“Later, we took a loan from our relative and went to a private hospital, but my condition had worsened. Doctors removed my uterus and sent a specimen to exclude cancer as the cause of the complications,” the bed-ridden mother of three said.

Most wealthy Afghans prefer to visit Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of Pakistan’s four provinces, to seek treatment in private hospitals. Many facilities in their home country don’t offer quality treatment because of ongoing conflicts that have plagued the area since 1979.

Afghans living in Pakistan and those seeking treatment and who want to visit Pakistan aren’t satisfied with how they are handled at the border and in the country.

“We reached the border on June 15 to undergo surgery for bilateral kidney stones in Peshawar, but the police kept us waiting for three days. When they cleared our documents and we reached the hospital, we were told that both (of my wife’s) kidneys had been infected and we had to stay for a month to cure the infection,” Muhammad Sattar, a Kabul resident, said.

Sattar, a carpet dealer, says doctors said his wife could have been operated on sooner had she arrived earlier, preventing the spread of the infection.

Dr Umar Amir, who deals with Afghan patients at the border, said that on an average day, 120 patients were allowed to come to Pakistan after checking their medical documents. “There is no delay in processing their documents,” he told IPS.

Pakistan is home to 3.3m registered refugees, most of who arrived after the Soviet Union’s invasion in 1979.

“One million (32 per cent reside in 54 refugees village, and 68 per cent in urban areas across Pakistan,” UNHCR’s spokesman Qaisar Khan Afridi told IPS. In addition to its dedicated refugee programmes, UNHCR has been supporting the Refugee Affected and Hosting Areas (RAHA) initiative, which aims to mitigate the impact of the protracted refugee presence and promote social cohesion between Afghan refugees and their Pakistani host communities.

Since its launch in 2009, the programme has helped over 12 million people (85 per cent of beneficiaries are Pakistanis) across the country through some 4,300 projects worth more than USD 200 million.

Through RAHA, UNHCR has been strengthening the capacity of existing government hospitals and educational institutes.

“We don’t have any option except staying in Pakistan as Afghanistan is in ruins. We cannot go back due to extreme violence, lawlessness, and lack of economic activities,” said Muhammad Suhail (34). A scrap collector in Peshawar’s Karkhano Bazzar (Industrial Market), he says they were looked down upon by host communities.

Most of the refugees do odd jobs. He said they work as vendors, in tandoors (bread baking), rickshaw-driving, fruit, and vegetable-selling.

Only a few wealthy refugees, who own shops dealing in gold, crockery, grocery, cloth and general stores, are happy, and they even send money back home to support their relatives.

“We arrived here in 1988 and have a well-established business of cloth. We have employed 33 Afghans and have no issues with local police and host community,” Said Rehman (62) said. “My three sons and two daughters are married, and their children study in Pakistani educational institutions on seats allocated for Afghan refugees.”

Rehman disagreed with the impression that Pakistani were hostile towards Afghans. “Some residents were friendly, and others weren’t, but can we blame all the local people for disrupting the Afghan’s lives? Many of our relatives have married local men and women,” he said.

In Refugees Bazaar in Peshawar, Afghans say they face harassment from municipal authorities.

“Every day, the officials come and arrest our shopkeepers, which has badly harmed our businesses,” Ghulam Rasool, a cloth merchant, told IPS. Afghans own 95 percent of the shops at the bazaar which specialise in Afghan cultural goods.

“We purchase clothes from the market and get them stitched in Afghan style. We feel convenient in negotiating prices with the Afghan shopkeepers selling cosmetics, foot wears, fruits, meats and so on,” Shaheen Begum, a house woman, told IPS.

“In Pakistani shops, we face difficulties due to language barriers,” she said. “We often find the market closed due to raids by local authorities.”

Municipal officer Javid Khan said that many Afghan shopkeepers and vendors encroach on roads and were arrested for violating the laws. But the vendors were freed when they assured the authorities they would abide by the regulations.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Women receive food rations at a food distribution site in Herat, Afghanistan. Credit: UNICEF/Sayed Bidel

By Sima Bahous
NEW YORK, Aug 15 2022 (IPS)

In the year that has passed since the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan we have seen daily and continuous deterioration in the situation of Afghan women and girls. This has spanned every aspect of their human rights, from living standards to social and political status.

It has been a year of increasing disrespect for their right to live free and equal lives, denying them opportunity to livelihoods, access to health care and education, and escape from situations of violence.

The Taliban’s meticulously constructed policies of inequality set Afghanistan apart. It is the only country in the world where girls are banned from going to high school. There are no women in the Taliban’s cabinet, no Ministry of Women’s Affairs, thereby effectively removing women’s right to political participation.

Women are, for the most part, also restricted from working outside the home, and are required to cover their faces in public and to have a male chaperone when they travel. Furthermore, they continue to be subjected to multiple forms of Gender Based Violence.

This deliberate slew of measures of discrimination against Afghanistan’s women and girls is also a terrible act of self-sabotage for a country experiencing huge challenges including from climate-related and natural disasters to exposure to global economic headwinds that leave some 25 million Afghan people in poverty and many hungry.

The exclusion of women from all aspects of life robs the people of Afghanistan of half their talent and energies. It prevents women from leading efforts to build resilient communities and shrinks Afghanistan’s ability to recover from crisis.

There is a clear lesson from humanity’s all too extensive experience of crisis. Without the full participation of women and girls in all aspects of public life there is little chance of achieving lasting peace, stability and economic development.

That is why we urge the de facto authorities to open schools for all girls, to remove constraints on women’s employment and their participation in the politics of their nation, and to revoke all decisions and policies that strip women of their rights. We call for ending all forms of violence against women and girls.

We urge the de facto authorities to ensure that women journalists, human rights defenders, and civil society actors enjoy freedom of expression, have access to information and can work freely and independently, without fear of reprisal or attack.

The international community’s support for women’s rights and its investment in women themselves are more important than ever: in services for women, in jobs and women-led businesses, and in women leaders and women’s organizations.

This includes not only support to the provision of humanitarian assistance but also continued and unceasing efforts at the political level to bring about change.

UN Women has remained in country throughout this crisis and will continue to do so. We are steadfast in our support to Afghan women and girls alongside our partners and donors.

We are scaling up the provision of life-saving services for women, by women, to meet overwhelming needs. We are supporting women-led businesses and employment opportunities across all sectors to help lift the country out of poverty.

We are also investing in women-led civil society organizations to support the rebuilding of the women’s movement. As everywhere in the world, civil society is a key driver of progress and accountability on women’s rights and gender equality.

Every day, we advocate for restoring, protecting, and promoting the full spectrum of women’s and girls’ rights. We are also creating spaces for Afghan women themselves to advocate for their right to live free and equal lives.

One year on, with women’s visibility so diminished and rights so severely impacted, it is vital to direct targeted, substantial, and systematic funding to address and reverse this situation and to facilitate women’s meaningful participation in all stakeholder engagement on Afghanistan, including in delegations that meet with Taliban officials.

Decades of progress on gender equality and women’s rights have been wiped out in mere months. We must continue to act together, united in our insistence on guarantees of respect for the full spectrum of women’s rights, including to education, work, and participation in public and political life.

We must continue to make a collective and continuous call on the Taliban leadership to fully comply with the binding obligations under international treaties to which Afghanistan is a party.

And we must continue to elevate the voices of Afghan women and girls who are fighting every day for their right to live free and equal lives. Their fight is our fight. What happens to women and girls in Afghanistan is our global responsibility.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women

Dingindaba Jonah Buyoya is this year's winner of the BBC World News Komla Dumor award.

Dozens of people have died, including children, after a fire at a Coptic church in Giza.

Reporters and photojournalists cover an Aug. 11 press conference at the Supreme Electoral Tribunal in San Salvador. Independent media outlets in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua suffer constant persecution and harassment by state entities and government officials in an attempt to silence them and discredit investigations into corruption and mismanagement of public funds. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR, Aug 15 2022 (IPS)

Practicing journalism in Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador is becoming increasingly difficult in the face of the persecution of independent media outlets by neo-populist rulers of different stripes, intolerant of criticism.

The most recent high-profile case was the Jul. 29 arrest of José Rubén Zamora, founder and director of elPeriódico, one of the Guatemalan media outlets that has been most critical of the government of right-wing President Alejandro Giammattei, who has been in office since January 2020.

The union of Guatemalan journalists and the reporter’s family say the arrest is a clear example of political persecution as a result of the investigations into corruption and mismanagement in the Giammattei administration published by the newspaper, which was founded in 1996."The last bastions of the independent press (in Nicaragua) are under siege and the vast majority of independent journalists, threatened by abusive legal actions, have had to flee the country" -- Reporters Without Borders

“I definitely believe it is a case of political persecution and harassment, and of violence against free expression and the expression of thought,” Ramón Zamora, son of the editor of elPeriódico who has been imprisoned since his arrest, told IPS from Guatemala City.

A case out of the blue

The 66-year-old journalist is one of the most recognized in Guatemala and in the Central American region, and has been awarded several times for elPeriódico’s investigative reporting.

Zamora is being charged with money laundering, influence peddling and racketeering, although the evidence shown at the initial hearing by prosecutors “are poor quality voice messages that show nothing,” according to Ramón.

The preliminary hearing ended on Aug. 9 with the judge’s decision to continue with the case and keep Zamora in pre-trial detention. Prosecutors now have three months to present more robust evidence before taking him to trial, while the defense will seek to gather evidence in order to secure his release.

“We are going to clearly demonstrate as many times as necessary that this case was staged, that the evidence, or rather the evidence they have, cannot be stretched as far as they are stretching it,” said Ramón, 32, an anthropologist by profession.

He added that from the beginning President Giammattei showed signs of intolerance towards criticism of his administration.

“We knew he was an angry person, authoritarian in the way he acted, but we never thought he would go this far,” he said.

Since the arrest, Ramón said that his father is in good spirits, upbeat, although he has had problems sleeping, while the newspaper continues to be published in the midst of serious difficulties due to the temporary seizure of its bank accounts and liquidity problems to pay the staff and other costs.

On Friday Aug. 12, elPeriódico gave key coverage to a decree approved by the Guatemalan legislature that gives life to a Cybercrime Law, which could become another governmental tool to silence critics.

The newspaper quoted the organization Acción Ciudadana, according to which article 9 of this law “contravenes free access to sources of information – a right stipulated in the constitution; furthermore, it violates the Law of Broadcasting of Thought, restricting freedom of information.”

Zamora Jr. regretted that in Central America journalistic work is restricted and persecuted by governments and other de facto powers, as is happening in Guatemala with Giammattei, in El Salvador with the government of Nayib Bukele, and in Nicaragua, with that of Daniel Ortega.

“Ortega, in Nicaragua, is a mirror that we all have in front of us in the region, it is worrisome,” he said.

Journalist José Rubén Zamora, editor of elPériódico, one of the newspapers most critical of the government of Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, leaves the courtroom on Aug. 9 after a judge ordered pretrial detention, on accusations of money laundering. But his family, the journalists’ union and civil society organizations maintain that the case is part of political persecution promoted by the government. CREDIT: Courtesy of elPériódico

Press freedom in free fall

In these three countries there is an openly hostile policy against the independent media, whose journalists suffer harassment, persecution, blackmail, intimidation and restrictions of all kinds in the line of duty.

Central America, a region of 38 million people, faces serious economic and social challenges after leaving behind decades of political strife and civil wars in the 1970s and 1980s, specifically in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Further progress towards democracy is undermined by attacks on or harassment of media outlets that criticize corrupt governments, according to reports by national and international organizations.

In this regard, the World Press Freedom Index 2022 report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) points out the decline suffered by Nicaragua, which dropped 39 positions in the ranking to 160th place out of 180, and El Salvador, which lost 30 positions, dropping to 112th place.

“For the second year in a row El Salvador had one of the steepest falls in Latin America,” the report states.

And it adds that since he took office in 2019, Bukele, described as a “millennial” leader with a vague ideology and an “authoritarian tendency…is exerting particularly strong pressure on journalists and is using the extremely dangerous tactic of portraying the media as the enemy of the people.”

According to the Association of Journalists of El Salvador (Apes), from January to July 2022, 51 incidents have been reported against the press, related to digital attacks and obstruction of journalistic work by state institutions, officials and even supporters of the ruling party.

Bukele himself, in press conferences, often accuses the media and even specific journalists, who he names, of being part of an opposition plan to discredit the work of the government.

A number of reporters have left the country to avoid problems.

Of those who have left the country, at least three have done so almost obligatorily because government agencies or officials have pressured them to reveal their sources of information, Apes Freedom of Expression Rapporteur Serafín Valencia told IPS.

“Bukele decided to undertake a wave of attacks against the press, although not against the entire press, but against those media outlets and journalists who have a critical editorial line and try to do their work in an independent fashion,” said Valencia.

With regard to Ortega in Nicaragua, the RSF report states: “Nicaragua (160th) recorded the biggest drop in rankings (- 39 places) and entered the Index’s red zone.”

It adds: ” A farcical election in November 2021 that carried Daniel Ortega into a fourth consecutive term as president was accompanied by a ferocious crackdown on dissenting voices.

“The last bastions of the independent press came under fire, and the vast majority of independent journalists, threatened with abusive prosecution, were forced to leave the country,” says the report.

“You can’t kill the truth by killing journalists” reads a banner set out by press workers following the death of a colleague in Nicaragua, where the government of Daniel Ortega has shut down critical media outlets and forced many independent reporters into exile. CREDIT: Jader Flores/IPS

Guerrilla leader accused of being a dictator

One of the reporters who had to leave Nicaragua was Sergio Marín, who for more than 12 years hosted a radio program called La Mesa Redonda.

“There were very strong indications that my arrest was imminent,” Marín told IPS from San José, the capital of Costa Rica, the country he fled to on Jun. 21, 2021.

Marín said that the situation in Nicaragua was, and continues to be, untenable for independent media outlets and reporters since Ortega returned to power in January 2007, after a first stint as president between 1985 and 1990.

Ortega was a leader of the leftist guerrilla Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) that in July 1979 overthrew the Somoza dynasty’s dictatorship, which directly or through puppet rulers had been in power since the 1930s.

But the FSLN’s progressive ideas of justice and freedom were soon buried by Ortega’s new power dynamics: he forged obscure pacts with the country’s political and economic elites to set himself up as Nicaragua’s strongman, with actions typical of a dictator.

“With Ortega’s return to power in 2007, he began a process of isolation of journalists who ask questions that question power,” said Marín, 60.

Then, according to Marín, the government threw up a “financial wall”: denying state advertising to media outlets that were critical, or even advertising from private businesses allied with the Ortega administration.

That is when the first media closures began to be seen, he said.

The situation worsened with the popular uprising against the government in April 2018, massive protests that were stopped with bullets by the police, military and pro-Ortega paramilitary forces.

Around 300 people died in the repression unleashed by Ortega, said Marín.

These events were a turning point for journalism because, in the face of the crackdown, the media in general, except for pro-government outlets, came together in a united front.

“So the regime identified us as a key enemy, which must be silenced,” Marin added.

Since then, the Ortega government has maneuvered to close down independent media outlets and critical news spaces, such as those directed by veteran journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, who is now also in exile in Costa Rica.

“Now, the newspaper El Nuevo Diario is closed, and La Prensa was taken over by the government and the entire editorial staff is in exile, and in total there are more than 70 journalists who have left the country,” he added.

In the first week of August Ortega stepped up harassment against dissenting voices, and began targeting Catholic priests. Since Aug. 4 police forces have been holding Bishop Rolando Alvarez, of the Diocese of Matagalpa, in the north of the country, in the Episcopal Palace.

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Metallica, Mariah Carey, Jonas Brothers, Charlie Puth, Måneskin, Mickey Guyton and Rosalía set to perform at Global Citizen Festival in New York’s Central Park on 24 September 2022 - Hosted by Global Citizen Ambassador Priyanka Chopra Jonas

By External Source
NEW YORK, Aug 12 2022 (IPS-Partners)

Education Cannot Wait (ECW) – the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises – is proud to support and participate in the 2022 Global Citizen Festival. Participants will call on world leaders at the UN General Assembly – and ahead of the G20 and COP27 in November – to step up and invest $600 million into the future of women and girls, close the annual $10 billion climate financing shortfall, deliver $500 million to help African farmers respond to the global food crisis, and provide relief from crushing debts to End Extreme Poverty Now.

“Decades of systemic and political failures have led humanity into the midst of converging and rapidly deteriorating crises – climate, hunger, health, war and conflict. Millions of lives, and the future of our planet, are at stake. We refuse to just stand by and watch! We demand a secure future for girls everywhere. We demand governments keep their promises on climate funding. We demand relief from debts unjustly crushing economies. And we demand action NOW, while there’s still time to change our collective trajectory,” said Hugh Evans, Co-Founder and CEO, Global Citizen.

Global Citizen calls on world leaders, major corporations and philanthropic foundations to take to the Global Citizen Festival stages and announce new commitments to End Extreme Poverty Now, including to provide critical investments into girls’ education and economic empowerment. In the last two years, more than 47 million women and girls have been pushed back into extreme poverty, and the pandemic has forced millions of girls out of the classroom and into unpaid care work. Donors can change this by pledging $600 million in financial support towards Education Cannot Wait and other partners to support new policies addressing access to education and other related issues.

“The number of crisis-affected, school-aged children requiring urgent education support has grown from an estimated 75 million in 2016 to 222 million today. This is unacceptable at a time when the response to education in emergencies and protracted crises remains chronically underfunded. With global citizens, and through ECW’s new #222MillionDreams resource mobilization campaign, we call on donors, the private sector, philanthropic foundations and high-net-worth individuals to urgently mobilize more resources to further scale up ECW and our strategic partners work to deliver quality education to crisis-affected girls and boys around the world,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director, Education Cannot Wait.

Since it began lighting up Central Park’s Great Lawn in 2012, the Global Citizen Festival has become the world’s longest-running global campaign calling for an end to extreme poverty that unites millions of voices, amplified by the world’s biggest artists, demanding world leaders take action now, and supporting the campaign that led to the creation of Education Cannot Wait. Since ECW’s inception, Global Citizen and Education Cannot Wait have worked together as strategic partners to advance SDG4.

Performers on the Central Park stage will include Metallica, Charlie Puth, Jonas Brothers, Måneskin, Mariah Carey, Mickey Guyton and Rosalía with more to be announced. Global Citizen Festival: NYC will be hosted by actor, producer, author, and Global Citizen Ambassador Priyanka Chopra Jonas.

Marking the 65th anniversary of Ghana’s independence and the 20th anniversary of the African Union, Accra’s iconic Black Star Square will see live performances from Usher, SZA, Stormzy, Gyakie, H.E.R., Sarkodie, Stonebwoy and TEMS with more to be announced.

Tickets to the festivals are free and can be earned by downloading the Global Citizen app or visiting www.globalcitizen.org to take action on the campaign’s issues. For each action taken, users earn points that can be redeemed for tickets to the festivals.

Broadcasting and streaming from New York City and Accra on ABC, ABC News Live, FX, Hulu, iHeartRadio, TimesLIVE, Twitter, YouTube and more. For more information about the 2022 Global Citizen Festival, visit www.globalcitizen.org, and follow @glblctzn on Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitter, and YouTube.

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Food and energy prices have increased to their highest levels in decades. And 62 new food billionaires have been created. Credit: Bigstock.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Aug 12 2022 (IPS)

While often too quickly attributing -quasi exclusively- the world unprecedented hunger tragedy to the current proxy war in Ukraine, other major causes remain hidden in plain sight.

Like the legend of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the modern ones are a mix of combined causes: inequality; speculation; indebtedness, and the crushing impacts of climate emergency.

 

1. Inequality

Further to IPS article: Inequality Kills One Person Every Four Seconds, explaining 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.

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. Food and energy prices have increased to their highest levels in decades. And 62 new food billionaires have been created

And also to its story reporting on how Inequality Tightens Its Grip on the Most Vulnerable, a number of key facts emerge from the accurate findings of one of the major bodies devoted to the fight against inequality: Oxfam International.

Here are some of the major findings of is May 2022 report Profiting from Pain, elaborated by this global movement of people working together with more than 4,100 partner organisations, allies, and communities in over 90 countries:

• 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. Food and energy prices have increased to their highest levels in decades. And 62 new food billionaires have been created.

• The combined crises of COVID-19, rising inequality, and rising food prices could push as many as 263 million people into extreme poverty in 2022. This is the equivalent of one million people every 33 hours. At the same time a new billionaire has been minted on average every 30 hours during the pandemic.

 

2. Speculation

Speculation is the likely engine moving the world’s markets, which is driven by the dominating neoliberal economy.

COVID-19 hit a world that was already deeply unequal, adds Oxfam. Decades of neoliberal economic policies have ripped away public services into private ownership and have encouraged the move toward massive concentration of corporate power and tax avoidance on a huge scale.

“These policies have worked to deliberately erode workers’ rights and reduce tax rates for corporations and the rich. They have also opened up the environment to levels of exploitation far beyond what our planet can bear.”

As COVID-19 spread, Central Banks injected trillions of dollars into economies worldwide, aiming to keep the world economy afloat, the report goes on. This was essential because it prevented a total economic collapse.

“Nevertheless, in turn, it dramatically drove up the price of assets, and with this the net worth of billionaires and the asset-owning classes. An enormous increase in billionaire wealth has been the direct by-product of this cash injection.”

The monopolies of food, energy, pharmaceutical, and technology

On top of soaring billionaire wealth, during the pandemic there has also been a profits bonanza in the food, energy, pharmaceutical, and technology sectors, says Oxfam, adding that corporate monopolies are particularly prevalent in these sectors, and billionaires who own large stakes in companies within them have seen their wealth balloon even more.

“Meanwhile, excessive corporate profit and power are contributing to price rises; in the USA, for instance, it is estimated that expanding corporate profits are responsible for 60% of increases in inflation.”

The blanket energy subsidies

The UN Global Crisis Response Group has recently referred to the “blanket energy subsidies”. In fact, Politicians Subsidise Fossil Fuel with Six Trillion Dollars in Just One Year. And they are set to increase the figure to nearly seven trillion by 2025.

“While blanket energy subsidies may help in the short term, in the longer term they drive inequality, further exacerbate the climate crisis, and do not soften the immediate blow of the cost-of-living increase as much as targeted cash transfers do,” said the report’s author George Gray Molina.

The report shows that “energy subsidies disproportionately benefit wealthier people, with more than half of the benefits of a universal energy subsidy favouring the richest 20% of the population.”

Record profits: 100 billion dollars in just 3 months

“As the war in Ukraine continues to rage, skyrocketing energy prices are compounding an existential cost-of-living crisis for hundreds of millions of people,” on 3 August 2022 warned the UN Secretary-General’s Global Crisis Response Group (GCRG) on Food, Energy and Finance.

Despite this alarming situation, major oil and gas companies recently reported record profits, which UN chief António Guterres called “immoral.”

“The combined profits of the largest energy companies in the first quarter of this year are close to $100 billion. I urge governments to tax these excessive profits, and use the funds to support the most vulnerable people through these difficult times,” he said.

 

3. Indebtedness

Global debt is borrowing by governments, businesses and people, and it’s at dangerously high levels. In 2021, global debt reached a record $303 trillion, according to the Institute of International Finance, a global financial industry association.

This is a further jump from record global debt in 2020 of 226 trillion US dollars, as reported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its Global Debt Database, which explains that this was the biggest one-year debt surge since the Second World War.

An article produced as part of: World Economic Forum Annual Meeting specifies that low-income countries and households suffer the most from high debt levels, experts warn.

External debt is the portion of a country’s debt that is borrowed from foreign lenders through commercial banks, governments, or international financial institutions, they explain.

 

4. Climate catastrophe

The world’s dangerous climate emergency did not start with the war in Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

In fact, it began long decades ago and has been the focus of the world’s scientific community, whose strong and loud alerts did not have the required echo in the so many successive, highly expensive summits and meetings.

One of the harsh consequences of the human-made climate catastrophe is drought. In fact, drought is now pervasive in all regions, including the most industrialised ones, leading to a great loss of harvests, thus less food supplies, mounting markets’ speculation.

All this in addition to the dominating profit-making system of intensive farming, industrial mono-cultures, distribution chains, forest depletion for more farming, livestocks for meat business, etc.