Africa

Angeline Akai Lodi describes her experience as a blind voter in the Kenyan general election.

Having younger or multiple dependants at various educational stages and the demands of home schooling had a negative impact on the outputs of women academics. Credit: Bigstock

By External Source
Aug 9 2022 (IPS)

The under-representation of women in research is well documented. Emerging evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this inequality and disrupted the research enterprise globally.

But none of these studies, mainly from the global north, provide detailed explanations for the scale of this decline.

Our research offers the first comprehensive study to shed light on the complex reasons for the decline in research during the pandemic-enforced lockdown.

The single most important factor affecting the academic work of female academics appears to be having younger or multiple dependants in the home. Overall, the pandemic has most affected academic work among women with children

We surveyed 2,029 women academics drawn from 26 public universities in South Africa. Other studies have shown that there are heightened expectations that women take on the role of primary care giver in families and sacrifice parts of their careers due to this role. Similarly, women in the academy are expected to fulfil this role in caring for students, taking on greater teaching and learning responsibilities compared to men.

Overall our findings showed that having younger or multiple dependants at various educational stages and the demands of home schooling had a negative impact on the outputs of women academics. Competing roles such as teaching online and caring for students, together with the sharp increase in teaching time, placed a massive burden on female academics. Their research outputs suffered.

Women also acknowledged the lack of emotional support they got as working academics.

 

What we found

The single most important factor affecting the academic work of female academics appears to be having younger or multiple dependants in the home. Overall, the pandemic has most affected academic work among women with children. Of the respondents in our study, 54% indicated they had children living at home with them.

From our study, it’s evident that the age and educational stage of the children was a significant contributor to the decline in productivity among female academics. The demands of caring for toddlers and the schools’ expectations of homeschooling took their toll. Academic mothers were caught up in the demands of competing roles. These included teaching online, nurturing vulnerable students, comforting anxious children, taking care of toddlers, and finding time to do research and writing.

A key finding in our survey was the sharp increase in the demands on teaching time during lockdown. This took up time that female academics would have spent on research. Academics perform many different roles, including teaching, research, grant-proposal writing, administrative duties, and other tasks depending on their rank and discipline. Our survey showed that the distribution of teaching and research was not at all even.

Our study suggested that the pandemic affected researchers differently according to their disciplines. Those in the “bench sciences”, such as chemistry, biological sciences and biochemistry, were explicit in stating that the closure of laboratories or facilities affected their research productivity. Disciplines that are less lab and equipment-intensive were also affected. But these cases were often related to individual circumstances such as the ability to do fieldwork in particular social science fields.

Most women (75.1%) indicated that doing their academic work (teaching and research) was “somewhat” to “extremely” difficult during the lockdown. About 16% reported that it was easier. In further analysis of participants who indicated that work was easier, it became evident that these perceptions were correlated to the following factors: having children, and their ages; career stages; commuting conditions; and work arrangements prior to lockdown.

Overall, a total of 40.5% of the participants indicated they needed much more – or significantly more – emotional support as working academics to cope with the demands of the job. Several respondents expressed feelings of unending exhaustion. This reduced their ability to focus and to be productive. The feeling of despair and a sense of the unfairness of workload distribution was a key theme that emerged from our data.

The lockdown has had a profound effect on women’s academic productivity – 31.6% reported having made “no progress”. Over a fifth indicated they’d made “some progress” towards completing a significant academic product. This will likely affect the prospects of academics for promotion and advancement.

 

Career prospects

A large number of women in our study (48.1%) indicated that the lockdown would negatively affect their academic career prospects. This points to the need for institutions to track the effects of the pandemic, and provide support.

Leaders in academic institutions need to be aware that female academic staff view the lockdown as yet another barrier to equity. They also need to consider the effects of the pandemic on career challenges in recruitment and promotion decisions.

A major theme that emerged was how women academics’ role as nurturers played a critical part in the intersecting functions of caring for their students and their families during the pandemic. Our study showed how the emotional, psychological and educational needs of students drew academic women into extensive nurturing roles, beyond caring for their families. This had a negative impact on academic work.

It also showed the workings of the symbiotic relationship of giving care (by women academics) and requiring care (by students) in a pandemic. Furthermore, the study highlighted the precarity of academic women’s work under pandemic conditions.

 

Going forward

Although the respondents in this study were based in South Africa, it’s evident from this – and prior research – that the pandemic has had an effect on the academic enterprise globally.

The pandemic poses a lasting threat to gender equality in academia. We call on institutional leaders, science councils, academic societies and funding bodies to implement policies to mitigate the career risks that female academics encountered during the enforced lockdown.

It’s not only the introduction of new policies but the attitudes towards those policies that needs attention. Achieving gender equality in the academic enterprise requires institutional commitment, as well as knowledge and competence to achieve organisational change.

Cyrill Walters, Research fellow, Stellenbosch University; Armand Bam, Head of Social Impact and Senior Lecturer, Business School, Stellenbosch University, and Patrizio Piraino, Economist, University of Notre Dame

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

Wydad Casablanca of Morocco will begin the defence of their African Champions League title against either Nigeria's Rivers United or newcomers Watanga of Liberia.

By External Source
Aug 9 2022 (IPS-Partners)

Holothurians, also known as sea cucumbers, are an important source of income for coastal communities in the Pacific. Their exploitation has grown over the past decades, targeting international markets. In some parts of the world, they are considered a delicacy where they can fetch very high prices consequently, they are being overfished in some areas of the Pacific region.

In 2021 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) added two of the highest value sea cucumber species to its Appendix 2 list, which means that exporting countries are now required to prove that these species are fished in a sustainable way otherwise exporting them is prohibited.

Organised by the Pacific Community (SPC), in the framework of the PROTEGE project, two training sessions on the identification of sea cucumbers, and particularly of the two CITES-listed species, were organised for New-Caledonian local authorities on 18 and 19 July, with representatives of the Fiji Ministry of Fisheries assisting with the training.

The training included a presentation of the provisions of the environment code relating to sea cucumber fishing in New Caledonia, explanations by the Veterinary, Food and Phytosanitary Inspection Service (SIVAP) about the implications of a CITES listing of species, and a step-by-step process to correctly identify 14 species of sea cucumbers, in their live and processed forms. The training is one of the actions held by SPC’s Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability (CCES) and Fisheries Aquaculture and Marine Ecosystems (FAME) Divisions to promote sustainable ecosystems management.

The training was held at a local exporter’s processing plant, which allowed participants to handle and observe the sea cucumber species they should be able to identify. To further assist, an identification guide produced by SPC for New Caledonia was distributed to each participant. A test to validate the knowledge acquired was organised at the end of the day. Its success rate reached 100%!

Sea cucumbers are vital to many communities in the Pacific Islands region, providing a rare opportunity for cash income, particularly in remote areas. They also play a critical role in the health of the marine environment by cleaning the sediments from which they extract their food. They support the development of seagrass beds, which are refuge and food for marine organisms such as fish, dugongs and turtles. For all these reasons, the proper management of this resource is of paramount importance.

The Pacific Community will organise other training sessions in New Caledonia in September and will develop similar trainings for the region in coming months.

Know more about holothurians of commercial interest in the tropical Pacific: https://bit.ly/3oEWVHw

Would you like to learn more about how to identify holothurians? Watch these video tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cWawjqWVLU

About PROTÉGÉ

PROTEGE (“Pacific Territories Regional Project for Sustainable Ecosystem Management” or “protect” in French) is an initiative designed to promote sustainable and climate-change-resilient economic development in the European Pacific overseas countries and territories (OCT) by emphasising biodiversity and renewable resources. Implemented by the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), PROTEGE is a regional cooperation project that supports the public policies of the four Pacific OCTs, i.e. New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Wallis & Futuna and Pitcairn.

South African former umpire Rudi Koertzen dies at the age of 73 following a car accident.

Fatou Njie has trained, around 80 female students how to install solar panels in her community in Gambia.

With African football's governing body having lost nearly $50m in the last financial year, will the Super League help or hinder the organisation's bank account?

More international events should follow the Commonwealth Games and host Para-sports alongside able-bodied competitions, says Namibian runner Bradley Murere.

Dr Svetlana Alexandrova, Medical Director of the Chernihiv Psychoneurological Hospital, and Yevgen Skydan, Technical Specialist, walk Todd Bernhardt and his team through the basement where patients and staff were sheltered during the Russian invasion. Credit: International Medical Corps

By SeiMi Chu
Stanford, Aug 9 2022 (IPS)

During Todd Bernhardt’s visit to Ukraine’s conflict zones, he encountered untold damage to hospitals, healthcare clinics, and communities. The Senior Director of Global Communications at the International Medical Corps also encountered enormous courage.

On one of his visits, Bernhardt met Dr Svetlana Alexandrova, Medical Director of the Psychoneurological Hospital in Chernihiv, a city about two hours northeast of Kyiv that saw fierce fighting during the early weeks of the invasion.

He said Alexandrova was a defiant and committed leader who was not afraid to confront Russian soldiers and tell them to stop destroying the hospital, which treats critically ill patients. Hospital staff proudly told Bernhardt that as the soldiers were getting ready to retreat, they told the staff members that they had a “tough boss.”

“The patients in this hospital have developmental, mental health, and physical challenges that have led to them being hospitalized. In some cases, they are quite old and frail. And during this time, they had to shelter in the hospital basement—a damp and dark place where you would not want to live,” Bernhardt said. He described how hundreds of patients with 30-40 staff were trapped in the basement during the Russian bombardment.

They had to stay in this basement for 40 days and 40 nights without access to water, heat, and electricity. The staff occasionally went out and managed to forage for food during lulls in the fighting. In fear of being shot, they would cook over open fires during the day while being undercover.

A destroyed residential building in Dnipro. Credit: World Food Programme

International Medical Corps’ involvement with Ukraine goes back to 1999 when it provided medical training to doctors and medical supplies and equipment. Now International Medical Corps operates hubs in seven Ukrainian cities—Chernihiv, Dnipro, Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Stryi, and Vinnytsia—that provide relief services and training across the country.

International Medical Corps’ mission is primarily to be a first responder. A big part of its approach is to work within an existing health system, support it, and strengthen it. It also provides medicine or medical equipment, trains doctors, staff, and clinicians, and builds water and sanitation systems.

“We are a first responder. We go in, respond to the disaster, and stay to help strengthen existing systems, to make sure that the community is left stronger than when we first came in,” Bernhardt said, elaborating on International Medical Corps’ mission.

During the Russo-Ukrainian War, International Medical Corps so far has helped 122 hospitals, delivered more than 136,000 water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and non-food items (NFI), provided 53,661 medical services to healthcare facilities, provided 46,592 health consultations, and trained 914 people in psychological first aid.

“We’re trying to provide services to support the most vulnerable populations who suffer during a conflict. That can be children. That can mean the elderly. That can mean the disabled. It especially, unfortunately, means women and girls. We are working as hard as we can to ensure these vulnerable populations get the services they need. And, of course, we’re doing everything we can to ensure that we prevent that kind of violence from occurring in the first place,” Bernhardt said.

Another organization working within the war zones is the World Food Programme (WFP). It focuses on the broken commercial food supply chains providing food, supporting people with cash so people can make their own choices when buying food, and stabilizing and restoring public and private institutions and services.

People gather to receive food from World Food Programme’s food distribution. Credit: World Food Programme

In June, they assisted 2.6 million people in Ukraine through food distributions or cash where markets are functioning. Since March, WFP has transferred over 200 million US dollars in cash and cash vouchers to vulnerable Ukrainians. Fifty-five million US dollars of this was provided in July to close to 800,000 people. Internally displaced people receive 75 US dollars per person for up to three people per family.

WFP has also helped more than 115.5 million people in over 120 countries and territories. They were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in ending hunger.

“At this time, one in three households in Ukraine is food insecure, and the existing systems in Ukraine that feed tens of millions of people are falling apart. Our goal is to see an end to this conflict. Our job as humanitarians is to feed people and save lives. We’re willing to stay there as long as it’s needed to support the population and the most vulnerable people in Ukraine,” stated Kyle Wilkinson, Communications Officer for the WFP.

Kerri Murray, President of ShelterBox, was part of the organization’s first team in Kraków, Poland. ShelterBox provides emergency shelter and essential items to set up households, such as temporary shelters, mattresses, blankets, water purification, tools, solar lanterns, and hygiene supplies.

The Ukraine war has internally displaced nearly 6.5 million people, and ShelterBox focuses on projects to meet the needs of internally displaced people. It also has a project that is helping refugees who fled to Moldova, which has received the most refugees per capita of any European country.

ShelterBox has provided hygiene kits to displaced families – mainly women, children, the elderly, and the disabled. During this displacement crisis, it also provides cash to families fleeing Ukraine into Moldova to buy food, prescription medicines, and basic necessities.

ShelterBox has supported tens of thousands of people in Ukraine and hundreds of families in Moldova.

“Rapidly launching this response in Ukraine was challenging,” Murray said, noting that securing a supply chain and delivering aid into the country was difficult. “But we were absolutely committed to helping these families.”

Artem and Maksim play hockey in Hungary. Credit: Katie Wilkes, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

As the crisis unfolded and intensified, Red Cross supported more than 15 million people in Ukraine and surrounding countries. By teaming with several groups, such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Red Cross helped the wounded with medical care and provided first aid training in Ukraine. Red Cross also had a cash voucher assistance program.

“More than 700 ICRC staff are working in 10 locations across Ukraine to deliver relief items to people displaced from their homes, providing medicines and supplies to health care facilities, restoring water supply for millions of people, and other lifesaving activities,” Susan Malandrino, Communications Lead at American Red Cross. “For its part, the American Red Cross has contributed over 50 million US dollars to Ukraine crisis relief efforts and an additional 7.5 million US dollars to partners on the ground to provide meals and medical supplies within Ukraine.”

Malandrino recalls how a colleague on site met two young brothers from Kyiv, 15-year-old Artem and 10-year-old Maksim. When the war started, Artem and Maksim were at a hockey tournament.

They are currently living in one of the Red Cross shelters.

“While here, they play hockey to take their minds off the stress of missing family left behind in Ukraine. Artem says he talks to his father and grandmother daily and misses walking his dogs, including his favorite small highland terrier,” Malandrino explained.

The Hungarian Red Cross ensures each room has a small refrigerator, private bathroom, clean and fresh sheets, and provides wholesome meals from its restaurant.

“Because of Red Cross support, Artem and Maksim have a comfortable place to live and, for a few moments each day, play hockey and just be kids.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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View of a bridge in severe disrepair on the BR-319 highway, in the heart of the Amazon, which the Brazilian government plans to repave along the 405-kilometer central section, out of a total of 885 kilometers, because it has deteriorated to the point that is impassable for much of the year. Those who venture along it take three times the normal amount of time to drive the entire length, with the risk of seriously damaging their vehicles. CREDIT: Tarmo Tamming/Flickr

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 9 2022 (IPS)

The mandatory initial permit granted by Brazil’s environmental authority for the repaving of the BR-319 highway, in the heart of the Amazon jungle, intensified the alarm over the possible irreversible destruction of the rainforest.

The 885-kilometer highway is the only overland route to Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas with a population of 2.25 million in south-central Brazil. The road runs to another Amazon rainforest city, Porto Velho, capital of the state of Rondônia, population 550,000."Restrictions arose that limited the public hearings to evaluate the studies as early as 2021, and so far there has been no solution to these problems. In addition, the participation of affected populations was limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the difficulties in attendance, especially for indigenous people." -- Carlos Durigan

The highway emerged as part of the plans of the 1964-1985 military dictatorship to integrate the Amazon rainforest with the rest of the country, through several highways crossing the then almost unpopulated jungle and the promotion of massive internal migration from other regions.

Due to heavy rains and frequent flooding many sections of the road and a number of bridges have fallen into disrepair. Twelve years after its inauguration in 1976, BR-319 was recognized as a largely impassable road, undermined by neglect.

Local interests tried to repave the road and obtained the support of the central government from the beginning of this century.

However, in 2008 and 2009, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) rejected three environmental impact studies, whose approval is essential in Brazil for projects that affect the environment and that have a social impact.

But a fourth study, presented in June 2021 by the National Department of Transport Infrastructure, was approved and the required initial permit was granted by IBAMA, despite criticism from environmentalists.

In recent years IBAMA’s credibility has suffered due to the openly anti-environmental far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro, which weakened the environmental agency by cutting its budget and appointing officials lacking the necessary qualifications.

The Brazilian army always deploys members of its engineer brigade to repair roads in remote areas, such as the Amazon rainforest. But in the case of the BR-319 highway between Manaus and Porto Velho, millions of dollars in investments and costly maintenance services are necessary, which prevent its concession to private companies. CREDIT: Brazilian Army

Doomed project

“Restrictions arose that limited the public hearings to evaluate the studies as early as 2021, and so far there has been no solution to these problems. In addition, the participation of affected populations was limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the difficulties in attendance, especially for indigenous people,” said environmentalist Carlos Durigan.

The environmental impacts assessed were limited to the vicinity of the road, without considering the entire area of influence of the construction work, the director of WCS Brazil, the national affiliate of the U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society, told IPS by telephone from Manaus.

Moreover, no prior and informed consultation was held with the indigenous peoples and traditional communities that will be affected, a requirement under Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), he said. This incompliance is likely to lead to lawsuits.

The initial permit was obtained under promises of greater protection, inspection and oversight of protected areas – not very credible at a time of weak public authority in environmental questions, with low budgets and reduced human resources, said Durigan, a geographer from southeastern Brazil who has lived in the Amazon rainforest for two decades.

These and other criticisms form part of the evaluation carried out by the BR-319 Observatory, a coalition of 12 social organizations involved in activities in the road’s area of influence. The 14-point review identifies irregularities in the permit granted by IBAMA and the violated rights of the affected population.

The proponents of the BR-319 highway tried to avoid the requirement of impact studies under the argument that it is only a matter of repaving an existing road, with no new impacts. But the courts recognized it as a complete reconstruction.

In fact, of the 885 kilometers, 405 kilometers will have to be repaved and bridges and animal crossings will have to be rebuilt. The remaining 480 kilometers – the two stretches near Manaus and Porto Velho – are already passable.

But the rains and floods that have occurred since last year have broken down the asphalt on many stretches near Manaus, leaving large cracks and holes. Even without repaving, many people venture to travel along the BR-319 in cars, buses and trucks. But it takes two or three days to drive, and often causes damage to vehicles.

One of the potholes in the BR-319 highway, where the asphalt laid in the 1970s has disappeared. Inaugurated in 1976, the Amazon artery became impassable a decade later and attempts to repave it have so far failed. CREDIT: Tarmo Tamming/Flickr

More deforestation

Environmentalists fear that deforestation, illegal occupation of public lands and the invasion of indigenous lands, which are already occurring along nearly 200 kilometers of the southern section, will spread along the entire highway and its surrounding areas.

This region close to Porto Velho is the area where deforestation in the Amazon has grown the most in recent years.

A usable BR-319 would spread environmental crimes, forest fires and violence generated by land disputes in the middle section of the highway, activists warn.

In fact, 80 percent of Amazon deforestation occurs along the highways that are the arteries leading to the settlement of the rainforest, along with smaller roads branching off from the highways, environmentalists say.

Such effects are already well-known along other Amazonian highways in areas that are more populated and deforested than the territory between Manaus and Porto Velho, bathed by the Madeira and Purus rivers, two of the major tributaries of the Amazon, both of which have their headwaters in Peru. The Madeira basin also extends through much of central and northern Bolivia.

A stretch of the BR-319 highway with an ironic sign pointing to the nearby town of Realidade (Reality). The 885-kilometer road that runs between the Amazonian Madeira and Purus rivers requires high maintenance costs due to frequent flooding, since most of it is located on land that floods in the rainy season. CREDIT: Alberto César Araújo/Amazonia Real

Doubtful economic feasibility

BR-319 faces another uncertainty, which is economic viability. It crosses what is at least for now a sparsely populated area, except for Manaus. The cost of repaving is not small, as the effort includes many bridges and earthworks to stabilize land that floods during the rainy season along many stretches, even though the road is located on higher ground between the Madeira and Purus rivers.

The highway also needs continuous upkeep, as is already the case in the stretch near Manaus, where the necessary repairs have not yet been completed after flooding caused by heavy rains that lasted from October 2021 until well into this year, Durigan pointed out.

Even so, the demand for the repaving of the central section of the highway is very popular, enjoying almost consensus support, the activist acknowledged. The argument in favor of the road is that Manaus is isolated by land, and depends on air or river transport to connect with the rest of Brazil and to be able to export its industrial production.

Since the 1960s, Manaus has had an industrial park and a free trade zone, supported by large subsidies that are regularly extended and will remain in force at least until 2073. These benefits shore up the electronics, motorcycle and beverage industries in the city, despite its remote location and distance from the main domestic markets.

In addition to a reduction in the city’s isolation, the population of Manaus hopes to see a drop in food prices, thanks to a workable road that would allow better access to products from Rondônia, an Amazonian state where agriculture and cattle raising have been developed.

But the beneficial effect of agriculture 900 kilometers away is doubtful. Other Amazonian cities, such as Belém, capital of the eastern Amazon jungle state of Pará, also pay dearly for their food, particularly fresh produce, because they have not developed horticulture.

New anti-Amazon wave

Along with the repaving of BR-319, Brazil’s Amazon rainforest faces other threats from infrastructure projects.

Another resurrected plan is a road through a conserved forest area on the border between Brazil and Peru. It would cross the biodiversity-rich Serra do Divisor National Park.

This plan also looks unfeasible because of its questionable economic viability and due to the severe environmental restrictions it would face.

Three railways are also planned for exports from Mato Grosso, the southeastern Amazonian state that is Brazil’s largest producer of soybeans, corn and cotton, and small and medium-sized hydroelectric plants are projected, especially in the states of Rondônia and Roraima, the latter on the border with Venezuela.

In addition to resistance from environmentalists and indigenous peoples, these projects now face a new stumbling block, or a new counter-argument: climate change, said Sergio Guimarães, coordinator of the Infrastructure Working Group, a network of 47 social organizations.

This is a variable that requires at least a review of all these projects, he told IPS by telephone from Cuiabá, capital of Mato Grosso.

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A woman paints a mural for Peace and Reconciliation in Colombia. Credit: UNMVC/Jennifer Moreno

By Alexander Kozul-Wright
GENEVA, Aug 9 2022 (IPS)

For the first time in its contemporary history, Colombia has a left-wing government. The presidency of Gustavo Petro, who took the reins August 8, marks a significant break from the political status quo. He also represents a stiff test for U.S. influence in Latin America.

Colombia is Washington’s most enduring ally in the region, and in recent years their relationship has been built around combatting the nation’s drug cartels. But despite major efforts to curb supply, Colombia remains a top source of cocaine for the United States.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) recently estimated that Colombia’s cocaine harvest hit a record high in 2020. On the back of new coca varieties (the base ingredient for cocaine) and better cultivation techniques, Colombia’s potential output reached 1,228 tonnes in 2020. This was triple the 2010 level and four times greater than in the early 1990s, when Pablo Escobar was at the height of his infamy.

Since launching its controversial ‘war on drugs’ in 1971, successive Republican and Democratic administrations have supplied more than $13 billion in military and economic aid to Colombia. To little avail.

According to a 2021 United States’ Drug Enforcement Agency report, over 90 percent of the cocaine seized in the U.S. originates from Colombia. The U.S. remains the biggest consumer market for Colombian cocaine.

Petro is among those who have denounced the U.S.’s counter-narcotics strategy as counterproductive. In particular, he’s taken aim at US-backed aerial fumigation campaigns to destroy coca fields.

He favours expanding crop substitution programs that provide credit, training and enhanced land rights to rural farmers. For Petro, tackling Colombia’s violent drug trade is bound up with the county’s historic land ownership inequality.

He has also been an ardent critic of Colombia’s free-trade agreement (FTA) with the U.S. for pushing farmers into coca production and for exacerbating Colombia’s over-reliance on fossil fuel and coffee exports.

At the same time, imports from America’s highly subsidized agricultural sector have displaced whole segments of Colombia’s agrarian economy, forcing thousands of farmers into coca production.

Petro’s election campaign called for “smart tariffs” to protect Colombia’s rural farmers from U.S. imports and, by extension, criminal activity. “The free trade agreement signed with the United States handed rural Colombia to the drug traffickers,” he told the Financial Times in May. What’s more, he noted that “agricultural production cannot be increased if we do not renegotiate the FTA.”

An ex-member of the M-19 guerrilla group, Colombia’s new president has vowed to tackle asymmetric trade relations in line with land reform and the drug trade. But he will likely face severe opposition from the armed forces, who themselves fought leftist guerrilla movements during Colombia’s 52-year civil conflict.

Further, the military have a longstanding role in the U.S.-led war on drugs. For his part, Petro has accused Colombia’s top brass of corruption and human rights abuses, even since the Government-Farc peace treaty of 2016.

Elsewhere, the President faces a divided congress and deep hostility from landowning elites. It will require skilful manoeuvring to unite a fractured country around his domestic policies. And even if Petro can generate sufficient national support around his policy aims, he would still need to convince the Biden administration to back-track on the U.S.’s ideological commitment to free trade.

So, what cards can Petro play?

His opening gambit is likely to be a financial argument. While cocaine overdoses claim far fewer lives than opioids, the fiscal costs associated with interceding cocaine into the U.S. are staggering.

Navy and Coast Guard seizures alone cost American taxpayers US$56 billion in 2020, to say nothing of land border expenditures. State funds are also used for cocaine-linked policing, incarcerations and medical treatment.

The current geopolitical landscape may also provide Petro with an unlikely Trump card. Given President Joe Biden’s condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he will be careful avoid pushing Colombia (which he has described as a security “linchpin”) into a closer embrace with Cuba and Venezuela, who are diplomatically aligned with the Kremlin.

To isolate Russia even further, Biden will likely soften America’s stance in renegotiating its FTA with Colombia.

Last month, senior representatives from the Biden administration met with Petro to discuss, among other things, the FTA. While the U.S. has taken tentative steps towards renegotiating the deal, Petro should be wary of a favourable result.

Over the past twenty-five years, an intricate web of government and military bureaucracy has been constructed around U.S.-Colombian counter-narcotics operations. It will be difficult to disentangle.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is a Geneva-based researcher for the Third World Network

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 9 2022 (IPS)

The world economy is on the brink of outright recession, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Ukraine war and sanctions have scuttled recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over 80 central banks have already raised interest rates so far this year. Except for the Bank of Japan governor, major central bankers have reacted to recent inflation by raising interest rates. Hence, stagflation is increasingly likely as rising interest rates slow the economy, but do not quell supply-side cost-push inflation.

Anis Chowdhury

IMF U-turn unexplained
The IMF chief economist recently advised, “Inflation at current levels represents a clear risk for current and future macroeconomic stability and bringing it back to central bank targets should be the top priority for policymakers”.

While acknowledging the short-term costs of raising interest rates, he has never bothered to explain why inflation targets should be considered sacrosanct regardless of circumstances. Simply asserting inflation will be more costly if not checked now makes for poor evidence-based policy making.

After all, only a month earlier, on 7 June, the IMF advised, “Countries should allow international prices to pass through to domestic prices while protecting households that are most in need”.

The Fund recognized the major sources of current inflation are supply disruptions – first due to pandemic lockdowns disrupting supply chains, and then, delivery blockages of food, fuel and fertilizer due to war and sanctions.

US Fed infallible?
Without explaining why, US Federal Reserve Bank Chair Jerome Powell insists on emulating his hero, Paul Volcker, Fed chair during 1979-87. Volcker famously almost doubled the federal funds target rate to nearly 20%.

Thus, Volcker caused the longest US recession since the 1930s’ Great Depression, raising unemployment to nearly 11%, while “the effects of unemployment, on health and earnings of sacked workers, persisted for years”.

Asked at a US Senate hearing if the Fed was prepared to do whatever it takes to control inflation – even if it harms growth – Powell replied, “the answer to your question is yes”.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

But major central banks have ‘over-reacted’ time and again, with disastrous consequences. Milton Friedman famously argued the US Fed exacerbated the 1930s’ Great Depression. Instead of providing liquidity to businesses struggling with short-term cash-flow problems, it squeezed credit, crushing economic activity.

Similarly, later Fed chair Ben Bernanke and his co-authors showed overzealous monetary tightening was mainly responsible for the 1970s’ stagflation. With prices still rising despite higher interest rates, stagflation now looms large.

North Atlantic trio
Most central bankers have long been obsessed with fighting inflation, insisting on bringing it down to 2%, despite harming economic progress. This formulaic response is prescribed, even when inflation is not mainly due to surging demand.

Powell recently observed, “supply is a big part of the story”, acknowledging the Ukraine war and China’s pandemic restrictions have pushed prices up.

While admitting higher interest rates may increase unemployment, Powell insists meeting the 2% target is “unconditional”. He asserted, “we have the tools and the resolve to get it down to 2%”, insisting “we’re going to do that”.

While recognizing “very big supply shocks” as the primary cause of inflation, Bank of England (BOE) Governor Andrew Bailey also vows to meet the 2% inflation target, allowing “no ifs or buts”.

While European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde does not expect to return “to that environment of low inflation”, admitting “inflation in the euro area today is being driven by a complex mix of factors”, she insists on raising “interest rates for as long as it takes to bring inflation back to our [2%] target”.

April Fools?
Much of the problem is due to the 2% inflation targeting dogma. As the then Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand – the first central bank to adopt a 2% inflation target – later admitted, “The figure was plucked out of the air”.

Thus, a “chance remark” by the NZ Finance Minister – during “a television interview on April 1, 1988 that he was thinking of genuine price stability, ‘around 0, or 0 to 1 percent’” – has become monetary policy worldwide!

Powell also acknowledged, “Since the pandemic, we’ve been living in a world where the economy has been driven by very different forces”. He confessed, “I think we understand better how little we understand about inflation.”

Meanwhile, Powell acknowledges how changed globalization, demographics, productivity and technical progress no longer check price increases – as during the ‘Great Moderation’.

Bailey’s resolve to get inflation to 2% is even more shocking as he admits the BOE cannot stop inflation hitting 10%, as “there isn’t a lot we can do”.

Although it has no theoretical, analytical or empirical basis, many central bankers treat inflation targeting as universal best practice – in all circumstances! Thus, despite acknowledging supply-side disruptions and changed conditions, they still insist on the 2% inflation target!

Interest rate, blunt tool
Central bankers’ inflation targeting dogma will cause much damage. Even when inflation is rising, raising interest rates may not be the right policy tool for several reasons.

First, the interest rate only addresses the symptoms, not the causes of inflation – which can be many. Second, raising interest rates too often and too much can kill productive and efficient businesses along with those less so.

Third, by slowing the economy, higher interest rates discourage investment in new technology, skill-upgrading, plant and equipment, adversely affecting the economy’s long-term potential.

Fourth, higher interest rates will raise debt burdens for governments, businesses and households. Borrowings accelerated after the 2008-09 global financial crisis, and even more during the pandemic.

Monetary tightening also constrains fiscal policy. A slower economy implies less tax revenue and more social provisioning spending. Higher interest rates also raise living costs as households’ debt-servicing costs rise, especially for mortgages. Living costs also rise as businesses pass on higher interest rates to consumers.

Policy innovation
The recent inflationary surge is broadly acknowledged as due to supply shortages, mainly due to the new Cold War, pandemic, Ukraine war and sanctions.

Increasing interest rates may slow price increases by reducing demand, but does not address supply constraints, the main cause of inflation now. Anti-inflationary policy in the current circumstances should therefore change from suppressing domestic demand, with higher interest rates, to enhancing supplies.

Raising interest rates increases credit costs for all. Instead, financial constraints on desired industries to be promoted (e.g., renewable energy) should be eased. Meanwhile, credit for undesirable, inefficient, speculative and unproductive activities (e.g., real estate and share purchases) should be tightened.

This requires macroeconomic policies to support economic diversification, by promoting industrial investments and technological innovation. Each goal needs customized policy tools.

Instead of reacting to inflation by raising the interest rate – a blunt one-size-fits-all instrument indeed – policymakers should consider various causes of inflation and how they interact.

Each source of inflation needs appropriate policy tools, not one blunt instrument for all. But central bankers still consider raising interest rates the main, if not only policy against inflation – a universal hammer for every cause of inflation, all seen as nails.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The female guardians of Venezuela’s Imataca Forest Reserve | An FAO-GEF project, which also aims to increase gender equality in the forestry sector, has continued supporting the Kariña women in actively leading the development of their territories and the conservation of the area’s biodiversity. Credit: FAO

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Aug 8 2022 (IPS)

Nothing –or too little– has changed since Hollywood started producing its spectacular western movies. Rough men, ranchers, mercenary killers, saloons, cowboys, guns, gold fever, the ‘good sheriff’… and the ‘bad indians”. Those movies were anything but fiction–they were real history.

Add to this mix, the deeply-rooted, widely dominating culture of the so-called “white supremacy.”

Consequently, the hollywoodian production has constantly depicted the “indians” as savage and ruthless, uncivilised people who devastate the lands of well-intentioned colonisers, burn their homes, steal their horses, kill them, and hang their skulls as trophies.

Asia has the largest concentration of Indigenous Peoples with 70.5 %, followed by Africa with 16.3 %, and Latin America with 11.5 %. In Canada and the United States of America, Indigenous Peoples represent 6.7 % of the total population

The show goes on. And the victims are the same ones: the Indigenous Peoples.

Century after century, the indigenous peoples have been living in their lands in a perfect harmony with Nature, on which their life dependens. They know how to guard precious natural resources and are the custodians of 80% of biodiversity.

But, tragically, the very richness in natural resources which the original people of Planet Earth have been keen to conserve and preserve, soon stood behind their dramatic fate.

 

The modern cowboys

Exactly like in those movies, the world’s biggest modern, intrepid cowboys–the giant private corporations, have been systematically depleting those natural resources for the sake of making profits.

The current world ranchers and their cowboys appear to be the big business of timber, livestock, intensive agriculture, mono-culture, mining, carbon, oil, dams, land grabbing, luxurious resorts, golf camps, wild urbanisation, and a long etcetera.

The consequences such depletion are, among many others:

 

• While humanity used to cultivate more than 6.000 plant species for food, now instead fewer than 200 of these species make major contributions to food production, now only 9% account for 66% of total crop production. Once depleted, big business supplants Nature with synthetic food.

 

• Over the last 50 years, the global economy has grown nearly fivefold, due largely to a tripling in extraction of natural resources and energy that has fuelled growth in production and consumption.

 

• Three quarters of the land and two thirds of the oceans are now impacted by humans. One million of the world’s estimated 8 million species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction, and many of the ecosystem services essential for human well- being are eroding.

 

• Around one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction.

 

• The Planet is losing 4.7 million hectares of forests every year – an area larger than Denmark.

 

They are the ancestors

The number of indigenouos peoples is estimated at nearly 500 million, similar to the combined population of the European Union’s 27 member countries, or the total inhabitants of two of the world’s biggest nuclear powers–the United States and the Russian Federation.

The figure refers to those who identify themselves as being indigenous or indegenous descendents. Many others opt for no admitting themselves as such, due to worldwide growing wave of xenophobia.

According to the United Nations, Indigenous Peoples consider 22% of the world’s land surface their home. They live in areas where around 80% of the Planet’s biodiversity is found on not-commercially-exploited land.

And at least 40% of the 7,000 languages used worldwide are at some level of endangerment. Indigenous languages are particularly vulnerable because many of them are not taught at school or used in the public sphere.

 

Key facts:

 

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that:

 

• There are in fact more than 476 million Indigenous Peoples in the seven socio-cultural regions of the world, in 90 countries, belonging to more than 5,000 different groups.

 

• Asia has the largest concentration of Indigenous Peoples with 70.5 %, followed by Africa with 16.3 %, and Latin America with 11.5 %. In Canada and the United States of America, Indigenous Peoples represent 6.7 % of the total population.

 

• Indigenous Peoples make up 6.2% of the global population with the majority living in middle-income countries.

 

• Indigenous Peoples represent more than 19% of the extreme poor.

 

• Indigenous Peoples’ territories encompass 28% of the surface of the globe and contain 11% of the world’s forests.

 

• Indigenous Peoples’ food systems have high levels of self-sufficiency ranging from 50 % to 80% in food and resources generation.

 

Abused also by job markets

 

Meanwhile, Indegnous Peoples are considerably abused also by the job markets. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO):

 

• Globally, 47% of all Indigenous Peoples in employment have no education, compared to 17% of their non-indigenous counterparts. This gap is even wider for women.

 

• More than 86% of Indigenous Peoples globally work in the informal economy, compared to 66% for their non-indigenous counterparts.

 

• Indigenous Peoples are nearly three times as likely to be living in extreme poverty compared to their non-indigenous counterparts.

 

Indigenous women

Indigenous women are the backbone of Indigenous Peoples’ communities and play a crucial role in the preservation and transmission of traditional ancestral knowledge, states the 2022 International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples (9 August)

They have an integral collective and community role as carers of natural resources and keepers of scientific knowledge. And many indigenous women are also taking the lead in the defence of Indigenous Peoples’ lands and territories and advocating for their collective rights worldwide, the UN further explains.

“However, despite the crucial role indigenous women play in their communities as breadwinners, caretakers, knowledge keepers, leaders and human rights defenders, they often suffer from intersecting levels of discrimination on the basis of gender, class, ethnicity and socio-economic status.”

 

Poverty, illiteracy, no sanitation, no health services, no jobs…

Indigenous women particularly suffer high levels of poverty; low levels of education and illiteracy; limitations in the access to health, basic sanitation, credit and employment; limited participation in political life; and domestic and sexual violence, reports the World Day.

Besides, their right to self-determination, self-governance and control of resources and ancestral lands have been violated over centuries.

Small but significant progress has been made by indigenous women in decision-making processes in some communities, achieving leadership in communal and national roles, and standing on the protest frontlines to defend their lands and the planet’s decreasing biodiversity.

“The reality, however, remains that indigenous women are widely under-represented, disproportionately negatively affected by decisions made on their behalf, and are too frequently the victims of multiple expressions of discrimination and violence.”

In short, the world’s human ancestors have systematically fallen defenseless victims to subjugation, marginalisation, dispossession, exclusion, stigmatisation and discrimination.

Simply, claiming their due rights implies losing business profits.

Former Olympian Patrick Sang coaches world record breakers such as Eliud Kipchoge and Faith Kipyegon.

A child has her teeth examined remotely. The Daktari Smart technology means children in rural Kenya are linked to specialist care in big centres. Credit: Daktari Smart

By Wilson Odhiambo
Nairobi, Aug 8 2022 (IPS)

New telemedicine technology, Daktari Smart, aims to mitigate the gap between child patients and medical specialists in rural Kenya.

Officially launched in November 2021, the system was built to help sick children have easy access to medical specialists minus the cost of being physically present (remote/digital access). According to them, this will help optimise the delivery of healthcare systems.

Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentist Board estimate that the current patient-to-doctor ratio is 6,355 to 1. These statistics highlight the difficulty that patients have in accessing qualified medical personnel and specialists. Patients from rural and marginalised areas are especially disadvantaged, with some dealing with a total lack of adequate facilities. Others are left to contend with referrals that see them delay treatment.

Daktari Smart thus comes in as the “haven” that these patients had been waiting for, targeting over 32,000 children in Homabay, Samburu, Baringo and Lamu counties in its first phase of operation.

“Daktari Smart is a telemedicine device that offers connections between different counties or locations and the provider of the services,” says Olivia Achieng, program coordinator at Gertrude’s Hospital Foundation.

“This telemedicine system involves electronic medical devices connected to form a platform that enables the clinical workers at the different counties to interact directly with the specialists and sub-specialists in Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital.”

Like many developing countries, Kenya is characterised by limited health facilities in rural areas. Most health specialists and special care facilities are located in the city, mainly Nairobi. Kenyatta National Hospital, Nairobi hospital, and Aga Khan Hospital are among the largest and most reputable hospitals in Nairobi, Kenya, but are over 400 kilometres from Lamu, Homabay, and Samburu counties.

Specialists include paediatricians, surgeons, psychiatrists, and neurologists – the list is long.

“The poor doctor-to-patient ratio makes it hard to get specialists in far-flung areas, making it hard for these patients to get the quality care they deserve. To get the specialist care they need, they will need to travel to cities like Nairobi, Kisumu, Eldoret or Nakuru, which is expensive and time-consuming. This is the gap that Daktari Smart is trying to bridge,” Achieng explained.

Rather than send the patient to a different facility or hospital, the referral process will now be able to be done within the same facility. The patient will be booked and referred over the telemedicine platform.

According to Achieng, the system comprises several electronic devices such as a stethoscope, vital sign monitor, derma scope, electrocardiogram, and ultrasound machine, among many other medical devices assembled to form the telemedicine platform.

Children in rural Kenya can now benefit from a full health assessment without travelling for miles to urban centres. Credit: Daktari Smart

All these devices are attached to a monitor, which allows the specialist to see the patient’s information in real-time. This means that the specialist doesn’t have to rely on second-hand information or someone else’s interpretation of the patient’s condition because they can see everything as it is transmitted first-hand.

Anyango said that once the specialist in Nairobi is done attending to the children he is with, he can then go to the telemedicine room and see whether he has any bookings from Lamu, Samburu, Homabay or Baringo county.

“It is also important to note that this is a paediatric referral platform which means that before a child is referred, he or she has to be properly assessed by the health worker to determine whether or not the case requires a specialist’s attention,” she said.

The M-PESA Foundation invested over Ksh 168 million (about 1.4 million US dollars) in the project, with the expectation of bringing on board two more needy counties and ensuring they can help as many patients as possible.

“One of our main pillars under M-PESA Foundation is healthcare. For this particular telemedicine program, we have partnered with Gertrude’s Hospital Foundation, Gertrude’s Hospital and Safaricom PLC,” said Karen Basiye, Director, Sustainable Business, Social Impact and M-PESA Foundation.

“Our aim is to address the delays in receiving adequate healthcare in rural and underserved areas through telemedicine, starting with Samburu, Homabay, Baringo and Lamu Counties. Two other counties will be brought on board in the next phase of this program,” Basiye told IPS.

“Patients, who have children aged up to 21 years, who would otherwise have to spend a significant amount of time and money on travelling long distances to urban areas to seek care, will now be able to receive specialist care from their local health facility. As a foundation, we are the program’s main funder, investing over Ksh 168 million towards the initiative over the next three years,” added Basiye.

Basiye said that the bandwidth requirement for the system is low, ranging from 512kps to 2Mbps, which makes it suitable for use in rural areas with poor internet connectivity.

“The mission and vision for Gertrude’s Hospital Foundation are to ensure the poor and the needy in the community are taken care of. We noted that the hard-to-reach areas in Kenya are underserved in terms of medical specialists, and this project thus enables us to offer the health part, while M-PESA Foundation helps with the financial side,” Anyango continued.

Dr Alex Owino, Medical Superintendent, Katulani Sub- County hospital, Kitui, agrees that Daktari smart is a great initiative given the few specialist doctors who handle delicate and complex medical cases.

“Most of these specialist doctors are found in major towns, which makes access to specialist care by patients from rural areas very difficult as they have to use a lot of resources just to get to them,” Owino told IPS. “The whole of Kitui county, for instance, has only three paediatricians serving it, which means that general practitioners like ourselves will have to cover the gaps”.

“Having specialists use technology to provide care for patients in hard-to-reach areas will thus lead to better health outcomes as it cuts the need for movement for patients who need help and health workers who may need training,” Owino said.

Owino explained technology is quickly revolutionising medicine with various gadgets and applications being introduced to help improve areas of weakness that have mainly been witnessed in developing countries.

“This technology will not only help the patients but also be very useful in helping improve the knowledge and skills for the health workers in those areas,” Owino concluded.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Students protest in Porto Alegre, a city in southern Brazil, against budget cuts in education. Black students, generally the poorest, suffer the most from the deterioration of schools, the reduction of scholarships, the shrinking of school meal programs and the loss of opportunities to study. CREDIT: CPERS- Fotos Públicas

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 8 2022 (IPS)

The battle against racism and inequality will be a long one in Brazil, because a prejudice against the intellectual capacity of blacks is a problem rooted in the national culture, and even in the minds of Afro-Brazilians themselves, as well as highlighted in the country’s official history.

The basic idea spread is that Brazil is the creation of its Portuguese colonizers, especially with regard to everything that requires brains, lamented Luciana da Cruz Brito, professor of history at the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia (UFRB).

Few recognize Machado de Assis, considered the greatest Brazilian writer, and Mario de Andrade, another great writer and leader of the modernist movement of a century ago, as black.

“Most believe that the Rebouças were white, whose last name is on a Rio de Janeiro tunnel and avenues in São Paulo and Porto Alegre, which pay homage to them,” Brito told IPS by telephone from Cachoeira, a city of 33,000 inhabitants in the state of Bahia, where the UFRB’s Center for Arts, Humanities and Literature is located.

The brothers André and Antonio Rebouças were the first black engineers in Brazil, responsible for the construction of several ports, railroads and highways. The former was also prominent in the Paraguayan War or the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870, which united Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay against Paraguay) and in the movement for the abolition of slavery.

Brazil was the last Western country to put an end to slavery, by a law signed by Princess Isabel de Bourbon e Bragança, daughter of Emperor Pedro II, on May 13, 1888. The Brazilian monarchy would fall 18 months later, to a military coup that proclaimed the country a republic.

Highlighting the step taken by the princess as a decisive and even unique measure is part of the whitening of the history of Latin America’s largest and most populous country.

This official history seeks to conceal or downplay the role of abolitionists and of the black movement, which celebrates Black Consciousness Day every Nov. 20, the date of the assassination of the hero of the black struggles, Zumbi, in 1695.

Ignoring black history

White historiography, in which indigenous and black people are not counted as full subjects, is a great barrier to the struggle against racism, and to reducing Brazil’s notorious inequality, Brito said, recalling the conclusions of another black woman historian, Beatriz Nascimento, who was shot dead in Rio de Janeiro in 1995, at the age of 52.

From abolition to the first decades of the 20th century, the Brazilian elite deployed a campaign of “white supremacy, which considered blacks an obstacle to the vision of European nationhood and the mixing of races a sabotage to Europeanization,” she said.

The whitening policy included the promotion of European immigration to replace slave labor in the coffee harvest and other agricultural and industrial activities.

Black participation in the most productive agricultural sectors, in industrialization and the emergence of a national bourgeoisie, with the rise of artisans to entrepreneurs, was ignored, and this strengthened their exclusion, wrote Joel Rufino dos Santos, a historian and writer who died in 2015, in his book “El Saber del negro” (The Knowledge of Blacks).

But the whitewashing of history, with the systematic erasure of black knowledge and talent in the construction of the nation, is “a perverse and effective policy” in neutralizing anti-racism efforts and will therefore prolong the problem, said Brito.

Brazil’s history ignores blacks even though they make up 56 percent of the population. Among other forms of discrimination, it limits their participation to brute, dehumanized labor, destroys self-esteem and hinders the progress of people of African descent by spreading the belief that blacks are intellectually less capable. CREDIT: Courtesy of Luciana Brito

Epistemicide

“It destroys self-esteem and instills in the minds of black students the message that they are not capable of learning, of being creative. It’s a barrier to learning, children go to school out of obligation, not to learn,” she said.

It is “epistemicide,” said Natalia Alves, a history teacher who volunteers at Educafro (Education and Citizenship of Afrodescendants and the Destitute), a non-governmental network of educational centers that facilitate the inclusion of the poor, especially blacks, in universities, through scholarships and preparatory courses.

Epistemicide is the systematic destruction of rival forms of knowledge, or the suppression or death of forms of knowledge of peoples considered marginal by the colonial or dominant culture.

Blacks are treated as “abject objects” and the fact that the first universities were founded in Africa is ignored, as is the fact that the arrival of enslaved Africans contributed to Brazil’s agricultural development and to the gold mining boom that enriched the current state of Minas Gerais, she told IPS by e-mail from Rio de Janeiro.

The gold boom in southern Minas Gerais, which began at the end of the 17th century and peaked in the following century, owes a great deal to people from Africa. This golden period saw the birth of historic cities such as Ouro Preto, initially Vila Rica and today a tourist center whose ancient churches give a central place to sculptures of Antonio Francisco Lisboa alias Aleijadinho, a black man.

The Portuguese colonizers did not know much about mining and metallurgy, so they brought slaves with knowledge of these activities from the Gold Coast, an extensive area along the coasts of present-day Benin, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo, Laurentino Gomes wrote in the second volume of his trilogy “Slavery”.

Gomes is a journalist who became a highly successful writer of books on Brazilian history.

Brazil’s official history erases the intellectual contributions of people of African descent to the construction of the country, condemning them to precarious jobs and marginalization in Brazilian society, according to Natalia Alves, a volunteer history teacher at Educafro, a non-governmental network of centers that facilitate access to university for black and poor people. CREDIT: Courtesy of Natalia Alves

Black protagonists made invisible

There are many examples of the intellectual, technical or artistic protagonism of Afro-descendants who are largely invisible or neglected. This is the case of important black women writers, such as Carolina Maria de Jesus, who recounted her life in a favela or shantytown in the 1960s, and Conceição Evaristo, both now belatedly recognized, according to Alves.

In addition, the teaching of the history of African and indigenous cultures in primary and secondary schools, as required by a 2008 law, is not implemented as it should be, and the media “reinforce stigmas” by reporting on police massacres in the favelas, which occur frequently in Rio de Janeiro, she said. Poverty ends up becoming the culprit.

The advances achieved by Afro-descendants and the poor include university entrance quotas started by the State University of Rio de Janeiro in 2000 and made mandatory nationwide by a 2012 law.

This type of affirmative action, aimed at reducing inequalities, is effective, according to data and studies.

In the United States, where affirmative action measures began to be adopted in the 1970s, blacks have reached the presidency – Barack Obama (2009-2017) – and the position of secretary of state – Colin Powell (2001-2005) and Condoleezza Rice (2005-2009) – in addition to achieving prominence in film, music and sports.

“The civil rights movement exposed U.S. racism to the world in the 1950s and 1960s, then quotas produced that number of prominent blacks, even though they are a minority,” just 13 percent of the U.S. population, stressed Brito, who specialized in the study of slavery in Brazil and the United States.

In Brazil, Afro-descendants (including blacks and people of mixed-race) make up 56 percent of the country’s population of 214 million, according to the official census. But they are still a minority (38 percent) in the universities and have the worst indicators in poverty, unemployment and murders, totally disproportionate to their share of the population.

However, the country adopted university quotas for blacks and the poor four decades after the United States. The results should emerge in a few more decades, the professor hopes.

But “what does a black body raised to the power structure actually change, if it does not change the structure of racism, which continues to provoke violence and where recent murders of young black men sparked the massive ‘Black Lives Matter (#Blacklivesmatter)’ protests?” asked Alves.

The 50 percent quotas in public universities for high school students from public schools, where the majority are black, do not take into account the reality of areas such as the Recôncavo region of Bahia, where 80 percent of the population is black, said Professor Brito.

In addition, the budget cuts imposed on them by the current far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro have reduced scholarships and resources, mainly to the detriment of poor students, she stressed.

On the airwaves - DJ Ulu, Mama Nessa and Mama Trina (left to right).

By External Source
TONGA, Aug 8 2022 (IPS-Partners)

Tonga was still picking up the pieces after the Hunga volcanic eruption and tsunami waves when the pandemic reached its shores.

The volcano’s ashfall had damaged roads, polluted water and destroyed crops. The tsunami waves battered homes and strewn debris inland. The telecommunications services connecting people to their families were just coming back online as news of the first COVID-19 cases broke.

A lockdown was swiftly announced to curb an uncontrolled spread of the virus. Though a critical public health intervention, it was an additional blow to the island nation – compounding the issues for many people already struggling to rebuild after Hunga.

In response, the Talitha Project – an NGO committed to empower young women ages 10 to 24 to make informed decisions through informal education, lifeskills and development programmes in Tonga – took to the airwaves.

The new radio programme Tui ha’o Sei ‘Amanaki Lelei (Positive Sei) aims to support young people through this challenging time. A significant 55% of the population of Tonga – more than half are young people under 25.[1]

“We saw that the people’s confidence was low because they were traumatised by these unpredictable crises,” explained Vanessa Heleta, Founder and Director of the Talitha Project in Tonga. “We decided to create a radio programme particularly targeting youths to direct their focus to find positiveness in the midst of all the chaos.”

“It’s a part of our recovery process that, even though we had these major climate disasters and now a health crisis, we need to realise that life has to go on with a positive direction. Even if it’s a little step, we have to reboot and reorder because there are so many great things ahead and we really want to see our young people become the best version of themselves.”

Vanessa, Katrina and Alokoulu

Vanessa is joined by colleagues from the Talitha Project including Mama Trina (Katrina Ma’u Fatiaki), Funky Mary (Mele Fonua) and DJ Ulu (Alokoulu) and the team makes for easy and inspiring listening.

“It’s been great to hear from youth and also parents who say ‘we love your show its real, authentic and you talk from the heart’,” shared Katrina. “Feedback like this continues to remind us about our purpose as agents of change.”

“The show has helped lift the morale and self-esteem of youth. With the circumstances we are in – from natural disasters to pandemic – it’s times like this, we need to uplift each other and support each other which is what the show is all about”.

To date, the hosts have discussed a range of issues including the importance of cultivating a positive attitude, healthy relationships and making the right choices. Many of these topics have been listener requests – a positive sign, according to the team, as they want to ensure that the programme is engaging for young people.

Although there have been calls for a daily radio spot, Tui ha’o Sei ‘Amanaki Lelei has been a weekly, one-hour show since it started on 22 February. Vanessa hopes to see the radio programme continue as long as it is needed.

“We are in lockdown and people are recovering at different stages,” she said. “We have been supporting one another at this time and need to continue doing so. This lockdown can be a blessing as well for families to reconnect and also taking into account the different abuses in households during this time. “

The Tui ha’o Sei ‘Amanaki Lelei programme is airs Wednesdays from 8 to 9pm on 88.6FM and livestreamed on the Talitha Project’s Facebook page.

The Talitha Project is supported by the Pacific Girl programme – funded by Australia and managed through the Pacific Community (SPC) Pacific Women Lead.

[1] 55,270 of Tonga’s 100,651 population (55%) according to the Tonga 2016 Census of Population and Housing. This figure is the sum total of: Less than 1 year of age; Children aged 1-14; and Youth aged 15-24.