Africa

World hunger in 2021 reached 828 million people, an increase of 46 million from 2020 and 150 million since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: FAO.

By Mario Lubetkin
ROME, Jul 13 2022 (IPS)

The signs of the last few years indicate a continuous setback towards achieving food security. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ (FAO) annual report, “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI)”, prepared together with other UN agencies and presented on July 6th leaves no doubt about the dangerous situation in which we find ourselves regarding the real possibilities of eliminating hunger and poverty by 2030, as solemnly proposed by the international community in October 2015 in New York.

According to the latest SOFI data, world hunger in 2021 reached 828 million people, an increase of 46 million from 2020 and 150 million since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, showing that hunger has skyrocketed in 2020, after five years of no change or slight improvements. In 2019, the global population suffering from hunger was 8% of the world population, in 2020 it was 9.3% and in 2021 it reached 9.8%.

In 2021, nearly 2.3 billion people were moderately or severely food insecure that is, 350 million more than those who suffered from it before COVID-19. Likewise, around 924 million people, representing 11.7% of the world's population, faced severe levels of food insecurity, a figure that increased by 207 million in just two years

Looking into the future, the report projects that at this rate, even with a global economic recovery, around 670 million people will go hungry, or 8% of the world’s population. This is the same percentage as in 2015 when more than 150 heads of state and government adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to eliminate hunger and poverty worldwide by 2030!

Experts remind us that, in 2021, nearly 2.3 billion people were moderately or severely food insecure that is, 350 million more than those who suffered from it before COVID-19.

Likewise, around 924 million people, representing 11.7% of the world’s population, faced severe levels of food insecurity, a figure that increased by 207 million in just two years. Moreover, the gender gap continued to widen, with women accounting for 31.9% of these dramatic figures, while men accounted for 27.6%.

In 2020, nearly 3.1 billion people could not afford to maintain a healthy diet, 112 million more than in 2019, reflecting the consumer consequences of the effects of food price inflation stemming from the economic implications of COVID-19.

This is without calculating the impact of the war in Ukraine involving two of the world’s main producers of basic grains, oilseeds and fertilizers, and other conflicts around the world.

Clearly, this is disrupting the international supply chains and driving up the price of grains, fertilizers and energy, as well as ready-to-eat therapeutic foods for the treatment of severe malnutrition in children.

An estimated 45 million children under the age of five suffer from wasting. This is one of the deadliest forms of malnutrition that increases the risk of child mortality 12-fold. Meanwhile, 149 million children of the same age suffer from stunted growth and development due to a chronic lack of nutrients necessary for a healthy diet, and another 39 million are overweight, all aspects that will undoubtedly affect the future development of our societies.

One way to contribute to economic recovery when faced with the danger of a global recession with its direct consequences on public income and spending, is to adapt the forms of support for food and agriculture, which between 2013 and 2018 was 630,000 million dollars, and allocate them to nutritious foods where per capita consumption still falls short of the recommended levels for a healthy diet.

The SOFI report suggests that if governments were to adapt the resources they are using to encourage the production, supply and consumption of nutritious food, they would contribute to making healthy diets less expensive, more affordable and equitable for all people.

FAO, through its Director-General Qu Dongyu, insists that, in this complex situation, aggravated by war and climatic factors, investment in countries affected by rising food prices should increase, especially by supporting local production of nutritious food.

Currently, only 8% of all food security funding under emergency aid goes to support agricultural production.

In addition, information tools must be improved to enable better analysis and decision-making on food security and nutrition, in particular by using the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC), which can be a key factor in global responses to hunger.

Specialists say that policies aimed at increasing the productivity, efficiency, resilience and inclusion of agrifood systems should be promoted.

For this to happen, a financial investment equivalent to 8% of the volume of the agrifood market would be advisable, and these investments should focus on value chain infrastructure, innovation, new technologies and inclusive digital infrastructure.

Reducing food loss and waste could feed an additional 1.26 billion people a year, including enough fruit and vegetables for everyone.

In parallel, it would be advisable to ensure a better and more efficient use of available fertilizers for a better adaptation to local agricultural systems, maintaining market transparency, using tools such as the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS), which is important for building confidence in world markets, while seeking to stabilize prices, preserving the open world trade system.

The solutions exist, but we must act before it is too late.

Excerpt:

This is an op-ed by Mario Lubetkin, FAO Assistant Director-General and designated FAO Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean (1 August 2022)

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BRAC celebrates 50 years and has reached over nine million people living in extreme poverty through its Ultra-Poor Graduation program, which introduces a set of sequenced and holistic interventions intended to guarantee sustained financial stability. Credit: BRAC

By Naureen Hossain
New York, Jul 13 2022 (IPS)

As part of the 2022 United Nations High-Level Political Forum, BRAC, with the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the United Nations, and the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Rwanda to the United Nations, hosted a side event this week to discuss development opportunities led by the Global South. The event highlighted the NGO’s achievements over the last five decades in alleviating and eradicating poverty and the interconnectedness between the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their initiatives.

As part of the 2022 United Nations High-Level Political Forum, BRAC and the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the United Nations hosted a side event this week to discuss development opportunities led by the Global South. The event highlighted the NGO’s achievements over the last five decades in alleviating and eradicating poverty and the interconnectedness between the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their initiatives.

The discussion was moderated by IPS Senior Vice Chair and Executive Director, IPS North America, Farhana Haque Rahman. Speakers included BRAC Executive Director Asif Saleh, Ambassador Rabab Fatima of Bangladesh; Robert Kayinamura, Deputy Permanent Representative of Rwanda Mission to the United Nations; Deputy Chief and Senior Programme Management Officer to the UN Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries, and Small Island States (UN-OHRLLS) Susanna Wolf; Oriana Bandiera, Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, and Jaideep Prabhu, Director of the Center for India & Global Business, Cambridge University.

At the high-level discussion commemorating BRAC’s 50 years of eradicating poverty were BRAC Executive Director Asif Saleh; Ambassador Rabab Fatima of Bangladesh and Robert Kayinamura, Deputy Permanent Representative of Rwanda Mission to the United Nations. Credit: BRAC

The event was a commemoration of BRAC’s 50th anniversary. Founded in 1972 by Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, BRAC began as a humanitarian relief provider after Bangladesh’s war of independence ended in 1971. The NGO has since grown in scale and operations, the only one of its size to originate from the Global South. Its programs reach over 100 million people in 11 South Asia and African countries. It aims to provide the tools and strategies for people to graduate from poverty and into more financially stable, resilient lives. Over the last five decades, BRAC has worked to address the pressing socio-economic issues of the times through holistic, solutions-based approaches that have relied on local community involvement in multiple program planning and implementation avenues.

The success of BRAC and other NGOs has also come down to the close collaboration between them and the Bangladesh government. Bangladesh has been celebrated for its economic growth and development, achieving the highest GDP globally from 2010 to 2020. The World Bank has called it a “model for poverty reduction”. This has been possible, as Ambassador Rabab Fatima stated in her opening remarks, because of the government’s “tremendous commitment to achieving the UN SDGs, especially SDG 1: No Poverty – aligning national plans and policy documents with SDG targets and goals and working in close partnership with the NGO sector and other civil society members, including BRAC”.

The forum’s discussion also deliberated on the multi-faceted approach needed for poverty eradication.

BRAC Executive Director Asif Saleh noted that “critical to eradicating poverty is understanding that it is multidimensional.”

“Solutions must address not only income and livelihoods but also education, health, climate, and gender equality – the many interconnected drivers that trap people in the most extreme states of poverty, unable to escape without receiving a significant transfer of assets and tailored support…”

Saleh also remarked that BRAC’s social development and investment approach had been shaped by a “problems-driven approach, rather than a proposal-driven one” and is crucially defined by its founding and establishment in the Global South. The traditional approach to development, as designed and dictated by the Global North, has had the unintended consequence of excluding millions of people from traditional programs and market-led initiatives.

“What we’ve seen is that people in extreme poverty are being left behind in development discussions.”

Deputy Chief and Senior Programme Management Officer to UN-OHRLLS Susanna Wolf; Oriana Bandiera, Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and Jaideep Prabhu, Director of the Center for India & Global Business, Cambridge University. Credit: BRAC

The high-level forum also covered how BRAC’s work and, in turn, Bangladesh’s growth and success demonstrate the SDGs’ interconnectedness, particularly regarding SDG1. Most notably, SDGs 4, 5, and 17 call for equitable and inclusive quality education for all, gender equality and revitalizing global partnerships for sustainable development.

In working with millions of people living in extreme poverty, the solutions put forward by BRAC have been borne from innovation through frugality for the sake of financial viability and social and environmental impact, as Professor Jaideep Prabhu noted.

“Indeed, Bangladesh has pioneered the idea of social business… but instead of returning these profits to investors and owners, you put this wealth back into scaling your social mission and broadening your social impact.”

Prabhu also noted that this approach to business and social development had been adopted worldwide, including publicly listed companies that take responsibility for their performance’s social and environmental impact.

BRAC reached over nine million people living in extreme poverty through its Ultra-Poor Graduation program, which introduces a set of sequenced and holistic interventions intended to guarantee sustained financial stability.

Among their efforts at poverty eradication, a key factor has been to empower women through education and economic independence.

Oriana Bandiera of the London School of Economics remarked: “It is not possible to achieve SDG1 [No Poverty] without advancing economic opportunities for women and their status in society.”

Studies from the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) have shown that investing in women’s economic empowerment can have a meaningful impact on social and economic development. This can be observed in Bangladesh, where it has made significant strides in reducing gender divisions, closing 72 percent of the overall gender gap, and reducing the rates of child marriages, maternal mortality, and family violence.

As was discussed in the forum, this investment in women’s economic empowerment and the long-term impact on poverty eradication can be achieved through community engagement. This has been seen in BRAC’s education programs, first pioneered in 1985. Their model for community-based education programs recruits women, men, and other members of local communities in the most vulnerable areas to provide accessible schooling for boys and girls in one-classroom settings. Today, BRAC has become one of the world’s largest education providers.

Poverty is multidimensional and solutions should not only address income and livelihoods but also education, health, climate, and gender equality, a high-level discussion moderated by IPS Senior Vice Chair and Executive Director, IPS North America, Farhana Haque Rahman heard. Credit: BRAC

BRAC demonstrated the potential for countries in the Global South to proactively lead development initiatives in the region. Deputy Permanent Representative of the Republic of Rwanda to the UN Robert Kayinamura stated that middle-income countries should step up to corroborate and share their knowledge and lived experiences in shaping these initiatives, citing Rwanda’s growth in the development sector.

“We have tried to achieve within our means with the SDGs,” he said. “It has been partnerships, including BRAC, which has brought us to where we are.”

This sentiment and call for partnerships to achieve the SDGs was echoed by Susanna Wolf of UN-OHLLRS, who provided the perspective of international agencies.

“Strong emphasis on building resilience to various shocks from health emergencies to disasters and price shocks, which are all increasingly frequent and disproportionally affect LDCs (Least Developed Countries). To address the multidimensional nature of poverty, all partners are expected to step up their efforts. Social protection has an increasingly important role to play, and other LDCs can learn a lot from the innovative approaches spearheaded by BRAC.”

The systemic inequities that have resulted in and perpetuated extreme poverty have only come in sharper contrast in the wake of compounding global crises such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. The efforts of NGOs like BRAC and the frontline workers that continue to work through these crises to support the most vulnerable communities show their resilience. BRAC has championed people’s resilience, agency, and partnership for fifty years; may it continue for another fifty more.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Mumtaza Bano (centre), is ploughing the field along with other women in her village in south Kashmir. Farmers in the region have experienced a heat wave which has turned much of the area, known for lush green hills, into a dry wasteland. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

By Umar Manzoor Shah
Srinagar, Indian Kashmir, Jul 13 2022 (IPS)

The soaring temperatures this year in India’s northern state of Kashmir are proving calamitous for the region’s farming community.  The place, otherwise known for its emerald streams, lush green hills, and ice sheets, is reeling under heat attributed to climate change this year. The heat wave of such intensity has left most of the water canals dead and dry, plunging the already conflict-torn region into a frightening agrarian crisis.

Perturbed and dismayed, Ghulam Mohammad Mir is trying to sow a paddy crop on his two-acre plot in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal area. Mir says his months of hard work would probably get wasted as the land has almost turned barren due to scorching heat and water scarcity.

“We are witnessing the temperatures spiking as high as 37 degrees Celsius. Such heat wave was otherwise alien to Kashmir. You can see the land looks barren, and if we sow any crop here, we fear it would turn into dry, dead twigs in the coming days. The scenes are scary to imagine. There is little water accumulated by the rain left in the fields,” Mir told IPS.

Ghulam Mohammad Mir is sowing a paddy crop on his two-acre land located in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal area. Mir says his months of hard work will probably get wasted as the land has almost turned barren in the unrelenting heat. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

The farmer, who is in his late 50s, says he has been in paddy cultivation since childhood but has never seen the drying of the land with such intensity.  Mir says the water canals were never as dry as they are today, and in the first three months after spring – from March to June, there was no rainfall, and then it rained heavily for four days, suddenly plummeting the temperatures to mere 15 degrees Celsius.

“And then, the mercury surged again, and within a mere one week, the temperatures surged to almost 37 degrees. Where will we get water to irrigate our fields now? The paddy will burn amid such scorching heat. This is disastrous to the core,” Mir said.

According to the research titled ‘Climate Change Projection in Kashmir Valley’ conducted by the region’s agriculture university, the states of Jammu and Kashmir are impacted by climate change. The state, claims the research, is expected to have a surge in the number of rainy days by 2030.

“Similarly, the annual temperature is likely to increase in the next century compared to the base period of 1970. An increasing trend in annual maximum and minimum temperature, as well as precipitation, has also been predicted for the region under Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES).”

Over the years, the valley has experienced irregular precipitation patterns. In the first five months of 2022, Kashmir saw a 38 percent decrease in rainfall, according to data from the Meteorological Department (MeT) in Srinagar. The data reveals that the Kashmir valley has experienced a significant lack of pre-monsoon precipitation over the years. From March 1 to May 31, 2022, the region got 99.5 mm of rain, a 70 percent down from the average. Comparably, between March and May of each of the following years—2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021—there was a deficit of 16, 28, 35, and 26%, respectively.

Mohammad Iqbal Choudhary, the Director of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Kashmir, told IPS that most irrigation canals have turned dry in Kashmir. As a result, the majority of paddy fields have been left uncultivated.

Dr Arshid Jahangir, who teaches Environmental Studies at the University of Kashmir, said climate models indicate a pretty bleak outlook for the region.

In the future, Jahangir says extreme events will happen more frequently in the Himalayas, which includes Kashmir.

“The Kashmir region has had numerous extreme weather occurrences in the last ten years, including floods, frequent cloudbursts, heat waves, droughts, landslides, and early snowfalls. In Kashmir’s climate history, such occurrences were never typical. These extreme events won’t just keep happening; their frequency will also rise. Aside from the financial losses, everyone’s lives are in danger as a result of this,” he said.

For farmers like Mir, if the situation doesn’t improve, they will have no choice but to abandon farming forever.

“You see, our children do not want to do this work. They ask, ‘what is the fun of toiling so hard only to get losses in the end?’ We could sell this land off and do some other business,” Mir said.

Most Kashmiris are farmers, using various techniques adapted to the region’s environment. Rice is planted in May and harvested in September. The main summer crops are maize, sorghum, millet, pulses, tobacco, and cotton, and the main spring crop is barley.

In south Kashmir’s Pulwama area, Mumtaza Bano was busy ploughing her two-acre land with her husband. However, Bano seems pessimistic about having a profitable yield this year.

“The soil looks hard, and it is tough to plough it through. It is July, and we are without any irrigation facility here. The canals are running dry, and so are our hopes of a good yield. This entire village is considering abandoning farming now and doing some other work. It is just a waste of time now,” Bano said.

Kashmir’s renowned earth scientist Professor Shakil Ahmad Ramsoo, told IPS that action at the global level is needed to resolve the crises prevalent across the Himalayan region.

“Global climate change is a reality. There would be extended dry spells interspersed with high-intensity, long-duration downpours. There is a trend when we look over the past 30 to 50 years. Snowfall in the winter is currently below average. The autumn is becoming dryer. The rainy spring is drying up. This is why the crisis needs global attention so that we can mitigate it,” Ramsoo said.
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Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.
                                                    Michel de Montaigne

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM, Jul 13 2022 (IPS)

During the beginning of the pandemic, people wanted to learn more about COVID-19. Enclosed in their homes they watched with fear and fascination how the pandemic swept over the world, while comparing numbers of affected people and the death-toll in different countries. Watching COVID’s rampage became a kind of horror show. However, already after a few months with death-tolls rising and isolation not being over anytime soon, psychological fatigue set in. Judging from media coverage it now appears as if the pandemic finally is over, which is far from being the case.

A similar phenomenon seems to arise in relation to the war in Ukraine. Media coverage is decreasing, even if Russian troops are advancing while towns and villages continue to crumble under their heavy bombardment. The Ukrainian war came as a shock. Without provocation an independent nation was invaded by a military super-power. However, soon general interest was fading and the war in Ukraine is in the minds of many gradually being transformed into a “traditional” war. Affected by declining endurance and lack of commitment, as well as an audience-adapted media, people have a tendency to “normalise” protracted human suffering.

Relatively safe and comfortable, media audience is now returning to previous internet surfing and TV channel zapping, searching for entertainment and celebrity gossip. The U.S. author Norman Mailer often repeated his view of the “Western World” as a place where people out of convenience and inertia tend to gloss over all complexity, avoiding questions that take more than ten seconds to answer. To form an opinion, they require tangible and upsetting events, while more in-depth analyses tend to bore them.

Superficiality and lack of analysis are evident in emotionally charged and polarizing postings prevailing on social media networks, where propaganda and shallow information are delivered to millions of consumers, distracting them from important issues, while strengthening hatred and bigotry, eroding social trust, undermining serious journalism, fostering doubts about science and furthermore serving as covert surveillance of lives and opinions of individuals acceding the global web.

Young people tend to have significantly better computer skills than older newspaper- and book readers and are accordingly by elders accused of spending too much time within a digital world. Nevertheless, I assume most internet users, no matter their age, have a tendency to enter a limited, personal niche of specific information. Their approach to source criticism is to visit sites they are familiar with, judging such information to be more trustworthy than the one offered by other news outlets.

Social media might make sense of life, though the problem is that they generally deal with other people’s views and lives, seldom with our own. However, this cannot be exclusively blamed on social media. After all, young and old are alike when it comes to assessing an incessant avalanche of information. It is a common human trait that few of us have the time, courage, or interest, to dig deep into our own mind in search of whom we actually are, as well as the origin of our ideas and opinions. Something that might influence a reluctance to take decisions on our own, and if we do so – take responsibility and stand by them.

Nevertheless, there are a few brave women and men who are able to do just that. An example – in 1983, a Soviet duty officer, Stanislav Petrov, did on the early warning system detect intercontinental, nuclear missiles entering Soviet air space. He was supposed to report this to his superiors, who without doubt would have launched a nuclear counter-attack. However, Petrov used his personal reasoning and experience. The radar had only detected five missiles and there was no indication of the U.S. considering a nuclear onslaught. If it really was a nuclear attack, why use only five missiles and not stage an “all-out assault”? Petrov assumed a system failure was more likely than an actual nuclear attack. He decided not to alert anyone and thus saved the world.

With this example in mind, let me return to COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine. Social networks are excellent tools for acquiring knowledge, though at the same time they nurture tribalism and intolerance, spreading damaging beliefs by convincing people to support a common, but bad cause, while avoiding personal, well-thought-out positions. Shared beliefs are the glue of community. In a bewildering and often hostile environment we are in need of a fixed place/position. A sense of belonging makes us feel safe and protected. We are herd animals and some of us consider the defence of rigid and shared beliefs as a matter of life or death, convictions that have to be kept alive and guarded from change, far beyond fact and reason.

Take the anti-vax movement. Due to strong beliefs in vaccines’ harmfulness people are willing to put their own lives, as well as those of others, in danger and even losing jobs and friends. This in spite of a global, scientific consensus that vaccines are safe and beneficent.

Anti-vaxers might be influenced by a lack of scientific knowledge, mistrust of public authorities, insufficient confidence in health care providers, general complacency, and/or misguiding religious/ideological beliefs. Fundamentalist Christians may believe that vaccinations are instigated by the Beast and a overture to the Apocalypse. Adherents to the Waldorf Movement can apply the founder’s opinion that their children’s spirits benefit from being “tempered in the fires of a good inflammation”, while Salafists might consider vaccination campaigns as a means of Infidels to pacify the zeal of the Righteous.

Delusions are fuelled by more than a thousand web sites spreading anti-vaccine misinformation, as well as a host of books and articles clogging social media with misinformation, hindering serious information to reach people already deceived by fake news.

Vaccination campaigns have eradicated smallpox, which once killed as many as one in seven children in Europe alone. With the exception of Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan they made polio disappear from earth. Half a million children were in 2000 dying from measles, ten years later these deaths were down by eighty percent, akin to similar reductions in mortality from diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and bacterial meningitis.

There is a wealth of scientific proof that opposing vaccination campaigns has negative effects. An example – starting around 2008, Somali immigrants in Minneapolis were targeted by organized meetings warning for a “vaccine-autism link”, eight years later the Somali community was in the throes of a serious measles outbreak. The same happened in 2019, when the Orthodox Jewish community in New York was targeted by a campaign comparing vaccines to the Holocaust.

There is no link between vaccines and autism. In 1998, British scientist Andrew Wakefield published, in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, research results suggesting that measles-, mumps-, and rubella vaccines caused behavioural regression and developmental disorders in children. Even if Wakefield’s findings could not be reproduced and proven right, vaccination rates began to drop. After finding that research results had been falsified, The Lancet retracted Wakefield’s article. However, by then the vaccine-autism connection had gone viral on the web. Eventually, Wakefield was barred from practising medicine in the UK and it was found that his research had been funded by lawyers engaged by parents in lawsuits against vaccine-producing companies.

Even if there is no link between vaccines and autism, there is definitely one between plagues and war. The deadly influenza pandemic in 1918 was propelled by troop movements and population shifts. Typhus follows almost every war. Armed conflicts cause malnutrition, poor pest control, sanitation problems, soil and water contamination, and destruction of medical facilities, while vaccination and other mass-treatment programmes falter, or cease.

The current, armed conflict in Yemen has caused the largest cholera outbreak in history, while the disease was absent from this country before the war. Wars in Syria and Iraq led to a resurgence of measles and polio, and the same is occurring in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has severely damaged the health care infrastructure, preventing citizens from receiving medical help. Specialist services are disrupted – HIV treatment and tuberculosis control are impacted. COVID-19 is spreading, as physical distancing are difficult to maintain in underground shelters, while vaccination efforts have been disrupted. They were already low before the invasion, with only 35 percent of Ukraine residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The war has also halted a Government roll-out of polio vaccination.

Considering the intimate connection between war and epidemics, a holding on to the harmfulness of vaccine campaigns, or a justification of wars of aggression, appear to be both absurd and harmful. We need to learn to discern the “full picture”, to compare and listen to different voices/various
opinions and thus avoid to be entrenched in fake and harmful convictions.

Instead of being lured into bigotry, we ought to finally understand that everything is connected, not the least misinformation, war, and disease. This means we have to make a joint effort to refrain from spreading and clinging to fake news and instead try to save our planet from the actual perils threatening it. There is only one Earth and no spare.

Main source: Hotez, Peter J. (2021) Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti Science. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.
                                                    Michel de Montaigne

It comes after Sir Mo Farah revealed he was trafficked to the UK as a child.

Years after the notorious leader's election defeat, his alleged victims are still searching for justice.

By External Source
Jul 12 2022 (IPS-Partners)

 
Isobel Coleman was sworn in as Deputy Administrator for Policy and Programming at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in November 2021.

As USAID’s Deputy Administrator, Isobel Coleman is responsible for program and policy oversight. She guides USAID’s crisis response, and she is also responsible for overseeing Agency efforts to prevent famine and future pandemics, strengthen education, health, democracy and economic growth, and improve responses to climate change.

Ambassador Coleman is a foreign policy and global development expert with more than 25 years of experience working in government, the private sector and non-profits.

ECW: When it comes to education aid funding, why is it important to prioritize the most vulnerable girls and boys – those whose lives are impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters – through organizations like Education Cannot Wait?

Isobel Coleman: At USAID, we know that to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 – equitable, inclusive quality education for all – we must prioritize the unique needs of the most vulnerable children and youth. Half of USAID’s basic and higher education funding is spent in regions experiencing conflict and crisis. But we are well aware that the scale of global need is growing due to crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, rising political instability and climate-induced disasters.

Education Cannot Wait (ECW) plays a vital role in addressing the educational needs of children and youth in acute and forgotten crises. As the only global fund dedicated to education in emergencies, ECW is uniquely positioned to coordinate among donors, the private sector, and humanitarian and development actors to meet the needs of the next generation. The work of ECW is helping ensure this growing population has the skills and abilities to sustain themselves while engaging as productive citizens in their communities.

ECW: Newsweek has named you one of the “150 Women Who Shake the World” and, in your current role at USAID, you are an inspiration to young and adolescent girls. With so many girls being left behind without access to education, why must – and how can we – best empower an entire generation of girls and young women to become the leaders of tomorrow?

Isobel Coleman: Research shows that education is certainly among the most powerful drivers of women and girls empowerment, and critical to achieving development and humanitarian outcomes. According to UNESCO, 15 million girls and 10 million boys worldwide will never set foot in a classroom; refugee girls are half as likely as their male counterparts to be in secondary school.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban’s decision this Spring not to reopen schools for girls above Grade 6 is a terrible blow to the gains in education that girls have been steadily making in that country. It is simply unacceptable that some three million school-aged Afghan girls are out of school due to economic, political and cultural barriers. USAID works to break down gender-related barriers to education so that all learners ¬– especially girls and women – have access to quality learning opportunities from pre-primary through higher education.

Educating girls and young women is an investment not only in them as individuals, but also in their future families, their communities and society at large. The evidence is clear – when a female head of household has an education, particularly a secondary school education, they can more sustainably escape a lifetime of poverty for themselves and their family, even in the face of conflict, crisis or other adversities.

In fiscal year 2020, the U.S. government provided more than 24 million primary and secondary students in 53 countries with opportunities to learn literacy, numeracy and other basic skills; distributed more than 31 million textbooks and other teaching and learning materials; and provided education to approximately 12 million women and girls. In Afghanistan, we are working hard to find ways to sustain access to education at all levels through support to Afghan-owned and operated community-based and private education.

At USAID, empowering women and girls through education is part of a broader approach to inclusion for all marginalized populations. We are working to better understand the root causes of marginalization and focusing our interventions on serving the most marginalized learners, including adolescent girls and those facing intersectional challenges such as disability, displacement and extreme poverty.

I want to emphasize the importance of supporting women to advance and succeed in leadership positions within education systems. Adolescent girls need role models and leaders in both the school and classroom, their communities and in public offices who will advocate for their specific needs with high levels of influence. When women are equitably represented in education leadership – whether at the international, national or even individual school-level – all learners, especially adolescent girls, benefit exponentially.

ECW: In your capacity as USAID Deputy Administrator for Policy and Programming, how do you see the role of multilateralism to steer the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals (in particular, SDG4, equitable, inclusive quality education for all) – particularly given ECW’s new data which shows there are now 222 million crisis-affected children and adolescents who need urgent education support?

Isobel Coleman: The United States has long championed international basic education. We are the largest bilateral funder of international basic education because we understand education is a foundational driver of development and is transformational for individuals and societies.

The U.S. will continue leading in international education through our bilateral and multilateral assistance. Working with all stakeholders, including our multilateral partners, builds resilient education systems, improves learning outcomes, and reaches the most marginalized children and youth. Through our support to multilateral partners, such as Education Cannot Wait, working in concert with our bilateral programs in basic and higher education, we maximize our ability to reach the greatest number of children and youth, and help deliver on SDG4.

A great example of our multilateral and bilateral assistance working together is in northern Mali. Last October, USAID contributed an additional $5 million to ECW’s programs in Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu to ensure continuity of learning opportunities, while USAID programming helped build resilient education systems for conflict-affected communities.

ECW: Why is investing in education in crisis-contexts like the Sahel, Yemen and beyond important for global social and economic security, and why is this important for the American people? Why should the private sector – including leading American companies – invest today in education in emergencies and protracted crises?

Isobel Coleman: Inclusive, quality education can reduce conflict and promote political and economic stability. But who delivers it – and what is taught – is crucial to promote democracy and prevent influence from malign actors. The private sector benefits from increased global stability, so it has not only a social responsibility, but some self-interest in joining international donors to address the educational needs of children and youth and help set them up for lifelong success.

Given the funding gap in education, we need EVERYONE to respond – donors, governments and the private sector. This is not an issue that any one entity can solve alone. The pandemic-related challenges that teachers and students continue to face globally have only expanded existing gaps and highlighted the need for new and non-traditional funding.

ECW: The climate crisis is an education crisis. How can we better connect education – especially for crisis-affected girls and boys – with climate action?

Isobel Coleman: Climate change poses challenges to education infrastructure and learning outcomes. It impacts marginalized populations disproportionately, worsening poverty and exacerbating non-climate stressors. However, strong education systems with emergency response capacity and plans can implement proactive measures to minimize damage and disruption due to climate events, such as droughts and hurricanes. Often after a natural disaster, the opening of schools signals the return to normalcy for both families and businesses, enabling early recovery. Therefore, investing in education during acute crises is also essential for children and the wider community.

Responding to the climate crisis is a USAID priority. USAID recently launched an ambitious 2022-2030 Climate Strategy to better support countries to adapt to climate change, leverage resources to mobilize both public and private climate finance, increase technical assistance to those most at risk of climate impacts, and cut the Agency’s carbon footprint. We are currently developing guidance to articulate how USAID’s programs can advance climate mitigation and adaptation across all levels of education, including by:

• Partnering with Ministries to integrate climate themes in curriculum and trainings
• Supporting education leaders to plan for climate resilience and green infrastructure
• Supporting youth to build skills for green jobs and engaging youth leaders to advocate for improved environmental practices and attitudes in their communities
• Leveraging the capacity of higher education systems to serve as climate action leaders and knowledge generators
• Improving risk management and capacity through training.

ECW: Our readers would like to know a little about you on a personal level and we know that reading is crucial to every child’s (and adult’s) growth and development. What are some of the books that have most influenced you and why would you recommend them to others?

Isobel Coleman: Reading absolutely is critical to personal growth and development! I was, and still am, an avid reader. I devour biographies, read mostly non-fiction, but also love fiction too. So many books have left indelible impressions on me – it’s a struggle to pick a few. But one that stands out is Strength in What Remains, a book by Tracy Kidder about the remarkable Deo who survived genocide and civil war in Burundi, made his way to America and through tremendous hard work, tenacity, perseverance and the kindness of strangers, became a doctor working with Partners in Health. It’s a truly inspirational journey. I’ve had the honor of getting to know Deo over the years and watched with awe and admiration as he’s devoted his life to helping others.

USAID recognizes the vital importance of ensuring that all children and youth have access to quality books in languages they understand to achieve literacy. Along with other donors and partners through the Global Book Alliance, USAID is proud to support the Global Digital Library, an open-source library maintained by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation that makes 6,000+ high-quality reading resources available in 83 languages, including under-published languages. The library breaks down physical barriers to accessing books and is accessible to those with disabilities.

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More than 1.3 million people in Ontario, Canada, the most populous province in one of the world’s wealthiest countries, are food insecure. Credit: Ottawa Food Bank

By Juliet Morrison
Ottawa , Jul 12 2022 (IPS)

Lisa Argiropulos, a single mother of two teenage sons and a resident of Ottawa, Ontario, has been facing food insecurity since 2016, after an accident that left her with chronic pain and disabilities.

Unable to continue working, Argiropulos has been living off disability support and child benefits payments. Yet, her income is insufficient to provide for herself and her family, especially with today’s prices.

“With the prices going up, it’s astronomical. I was struggling before. Now it’s ten times worse. By the time I pay all my bills, my utilities, and any expenses, what’s left over for food is not nearly enough. It’s been really, really hard. You’re always having to look elsewhere for help, weekly, monthly,” Argiropulos said.

In Canada, the cost of food has risen 9.7 percent from April 2021 to April 2022. The high price of other necessities, like gas and housing, has also contributed to food insecurity; people have to spend more of their income on those expenses, which leaves less for food.

Food insecurity occurs when people do not have reliable access to enough nutritious food. Pre-pandemic, it affected approximately 1.3 million people in Ontario—the most populous province of one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

“That really shows how challenging it is for so many in Ontario. It is not everyone’s reality to be able to afford all your basic necessities in a month,” Amanda King, Director of Network and Government Relations at Feed Ontario, said.

Today, the total number living with food insecurity is likely to be bigger because inflation has put more people in precarious positions.

“Food insecurity is something that’s somewhat invisible. That is why it is really important to emphasize the data and statistics that we have. If you look at a classroom, you cannot immediately identify which child did not have breakfast that morning. Statistically, you know there are children in that classroom that have not had breakfast,” King said.

To get by, Argiropulos seeks additional support from her local food bank to stretch her food budget. For her, that is the Barrhaven Food Cupboard, where she’s allowed one visit a month. While she receives a package of food intended to last for seven days, it goes quickly in her family of three, with her growing sons.

Food banks are also feeling the current strain of inflation.

Usage of food banks has increased significantly in the past couple of months as more people are in need. According to CEO George Macdonald, the Barrhaven Food Cupboard has seen a usage increase of 130 percent since last year. Ottawa Food Bank CEO Rachael Wilson noted that they served 52,000 meals across their network in March. Last year, they served an average of 44,000 a month.”

Higher food and gas prices mean that it has become more expensive for food banks to operate. Before the pandemic, the Ottawa Food Bank spent 1.7 million Canadian dollars (about USD 1.31 million) annually on food. This year, Wilson told IPS they were preparing to spend over 4.5m CAD (USD 3.49m).

Though both Wilson and Macdonald were coping with the demand, they noted that further increases in food bank usage could affect their ability to serve their community.

“It’s very stressful. Knowing how we are going to get food on our shelves every day is just a day-to-day stress right now. So far, there hasn’t been an instance where we couldn’t provide the food that is needed. But I honestly don’t know how sustainable it is for us to continue to meet the needs at this level without major change,” Wilson said.

The Ottawa Food Bank, which supports 112 smaller food programs, relies primarily on charitable donations. It receives no regular funding from the provincial or federal government.

The current extent of food insecurity has prompted calls for change in how policymakers address the issue.

Government interventions on food insecurity have mostly been in helping support the operations of food banks.  Provincial relief for food insecurity during the pandemic came indirectly: over 1 billion CAD was allocated in Social Services Relief Funding (SSRF) (about USD 775m) to help municipalities and social service providers, including food banks.  ­­­­

While helpful for short-term relief, Tim Li, research coordinator at PROOF—a program from the University of Toronto working to identify policy solutions for hunger—explained that these interventions do little to address the causes of food insecurity.

“Hunger is not just about not having food. It’s about people’s financial circumstances. It’s about poverty, lack of income, and income security. We’re not seeing action that takes that approach as far as addressing income inadequacy to reduce food insecurity. It goes to show that the safety net is not as robust as we thought.”

Rather than increasing aid to food banks, PROOF advocates for income-based solutions, such as expanding social assistance and increasing the minimum wage. Such moves would require mostly provincial-level action, given the provinces are responsible for both areas.

“Our research really points to policymakers tackling minimum wage, social assistance, and all the other different policies that exist within their toolbox, whether that’s income tax, child benefits. There’s a lot that public policymakers can do. It’s just a matter of them doing it,” Li said.

More than 60 percent of people dependent on social assistance in Canada are food insecure, according to a 2018 study.

The total is presumed to be bigger today, given most social assistance programs are not indexed to inflation. This results in support payments being worth less and less each year as prices rise, potentially leading more people to slip into food insecurity.

Argiropulos is also asking for income-based solutions. Fully supporting herself and her family is simply out of reach in her current state, she told IPS.

Around a year ago, her doctor recommended she apply for a food allowance for those with dietary needs because of medical conditions. The allowance was part of Ontario’s Disability Support Program (ODSP), and Argiropulos qualified because she had type two diabetes.

She was shocked, however, upon realizing how much she was eligible to receive.

“He sent in [the paperwork], and it was only an additional 35 dollars per month for type two diabetes. I had gestational diabetes throughout both pregnancies with my children. So, I know. I’ve seen dieticians. I know how you’re supposed to eat. I know about carbohydrates. I know about all that stuff. Thirty-five dollars, it’s not even doable,” she said.

Argiropulos noted that the reality of living on social assistance and facing food insecurity needs to be emphasized.

“I worked my entire life, and I fell on bad times. And food, nobody should be denied food. We live in a country where we should not be denied food. When you are forced to rely on the system, struggling for food should not happen. It just shouldn’t.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Sandy Recinos Executive Secretary against Sexual Violence, Exploitation and Trafficking in Persons (SVET) from Guatemala - Former congresswoman Rosi Orozco from México - Ann Basham Chief Executive Officer at Ascend ConsultingUnited State.
Mobile Units for the Prevention of Sexual Violence, Exploitation and Human Trafficking “UNIVET”, which allows sharing information, preventing these crimes and also promoting the culture of reporting among its inhabitants. Credit: Rosi Orozco

By Rosi Orozco
MEXICO CITY, Jul 12 2022 (IPS)

This is an alert message: if nothing stops the wave of violence in Mexico, by the end of 2024 the country could exceed the figure of 150,000 missing persons.

Just on May 17, Mexico crossed a the ultimate horror border: officially there are more than 100,000 people who cannot be located. The equivalent of the evaporation of two and a half times the population of Monaco. Most of those people are victims of organized crime.

It is an old problem in Mexico, but it has taken a new turn in recent months: in its most recent report, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances recognized that since 2006 the phenomenon has been concentrated in men between 15 and 40 years, but the pandemic changed that profile. Now, the great national drama focuses on girls and boys from 12 to 35 years old.

The coronavirus opened gaps in inequality and poverty like no other natural phenomenon. Sexual violence, human trafficking, and femicides increased in Mexico, and forced disappearances became an effective means to hide those crimes. Criminals act with a perverse idea: without a body, there is no crime and therefore no punishment.

The problem is so severe that the Mexican government has recognized that the number of girls and women has skyrocketed in recent months to more than 24,600 women waiting to be located. Many of them are not even 10 years old.

One of the latest national sorrows is a young woman called Debanhi Susana Escobar Bazaldúa, 18 years old, who disappeared on April 8 in Nuevo León, México, on a highway that reaches Texas, United States.

Her search kept the country in suspense after a photograph was released where she appeared alone and at dawn waiting for a taxi to return home after attending a party. The image became a symbol of fear and hope.

Magistrate Delia Davila and Former Congresswoman Rosi Orozco after a meeting with specialized judges to deal with human trafficking. Credit: Rosi Orozco

But after 13 days of searching, his body was found at the bottom of a hotel cistern frequented by human traffickers. While she was wanted alive, five more missing women were found. The causes of Debanhi Susana Escobar’s death are still unclear, but the family points to a crime of a sexual nature.

The death of the young woman who dreamed of being a lawyer strucked a chord in a country numbed to the horrors of human trafficking. And amid a pain that seems to make no sense, her father demanded that the life of Debanhi Susana Escobar be a symbol against the wave of missing women.

The mourning of Debanhi Susana Escobar’s family comes at a crucial moment for Mexico if we want to avoid reaching 150,000 disappeared people in the next two years.

On one hand, the Mexican Senate president, Olga Sánchez Cordero, close to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is promoting a series of reforms to the national general law against human trafficking that prevents the sexual exploitation of women in prostitution.

Senator Sánchez Cordero’s intention also seeks to punish whoever maintains a house of prostitution, which includes its administration, lease, or financing. That measure would meant a heavy blow to the human trafficking networks that make girls and women disappear.

This initiative comes as Mexico celebrates 10 years of the general law against human trafficking, promulgated in 2012. This law has been praised by international experts —such as the Spanish prosecutor Beatriz Sanchez, who is already studying Mexican legislation as an inspiration to create a comprehensive law and abolitionist in her country.

There’s another international experience on the southern border in Mexico from which we can all learn: in Guatemala a successful experiment is being carried out to stop sexual and labor exploitation with a novel approach.

For example, leaders like Justice Delia Dávila have taken on the responsibility of training judges to specialize in investigating human trafficking. The judges issue sentences in favor of the victims and work together with civil society, such as the World Vision organization.

In addition, Guatemala has a vehicle project known as UNIVET, which reaches the most remote communities to carry out prevention and education work for vulnerable girls, adolescents, and women.

In this way, Guatemala is at the forefront in Latin America by creating a national strategy against human exploitation, giving it the priority that this crime deserves, which is the second most lucrative globally.

The efforts in Mexico, Spain, France, Guatemala and dozens of countries with an abolitionist approach make us believe that it is possible to achieve what cynical voices tell us will be impossible: stop the trend of violence that will lead us to 150,000 disappeared people.

We have to do it for Debanhi Susana Escobar. For his family and the legacy they want to leave this country. For each missing person, for each survivor, for each future girl. For Mexico.

This is an alert message: we still have time. Let’s be brave and push for the changes that the most vulnerable need.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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