Africa

Thousands attend a service in South Africa for 21 children who died mysteriously at a nightclub.

Nigeria forward Asisat Oshoala will miss the rest of the Women's Africa Cup of Nations with a knee ligament injury.

Violence in the eastern part of the DR Congo has escalated in recent months, reporter Joice Etutu explains why.

Brighton defender Tariq Lamptey and Athletic Bilbao forward Inaki Williams are among five players switching their international allegiance to Ghana.

Zambia captain Barbra Banda has been ruled out of the Women's Africa Cup of Nations after failing gender eligibility tests.

Morocco forward Rosella Ayane says the Women's Africa Cup of Nations hosts will not look too far ahead despite reaching the quarter-finals with a game to spare.

An Ethiopian migrant describes the abuse he faced at the hands of traffickers in Somalia and Yemen.

Sylvie Djacbou, Exchanging with indigenous communities and somes civil societies around the Impact of Cameroon growth and employment strategy through structural projects like Agro-industries on Indigenous communities. @inside their sacred forest, Assok/Mintom, South Region Cameroon

By Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue
YAOUNDÉ, Jul 6 2022 (IPS)

A few years ago, I found myself in the Baka indigenous sacred forest in Assok, in Cameroon in the course of my work in supporting them to preserve their forest against land grabbers. We were building a forest hut using only leaves and the knowledge of our indigenous partners.

I was skeptical when we started. “What about rain,” I thought. But the leaves were placed in a way that the rain simply flowed down the sides. Inside was warm and dry.

Indigenous forest peoples are recognized as the first inhabitants of the forests around the world. For millennia Indigenous People have lived symbiotically with nature – gathering fruits and insects; hunting, and protecting the environment they rely upon.

I’ve seen the power of Indigenous Peoples’ ancestral knowledge and wisdom about forest and biodiversity sustainable management. If we embrace this expertise we will be taking the most cost-effective ways to reduce poverty, preserve biodiversity, halt deforestation and contribute to reducing the harmful effects of climate change

In the Congo Basin, around 50 million Indigenous Peoples depend on forests yet they are the most vulnerable, the most marginalized and the poorest inhabitants of a region that stretches across some five countries including Cameroon, Gabon and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I have interacted with various indigenous people over the last decade as part of my work as an environmental advocate. In Cameroon, where I live, the Indigenous World 2022 Report estimates Baka, Bagyeli and Bedzang peoples represent 0.4% of the total population while the Mbororo pastoralists make up 12%. These interactions include numerous field visits to their ancestral land where I have admired their solidarity and harmony in living with nature.

Over the generations, Indigenous People have developed their own codes of forest conservation, including preventing overhunting with methods that include rotational hunting and harvesting. For instance, the Baka don’t hunt in sacred sites, at a place where a newborn has been circumcised and nor do they hunt large mammals. They eat only fresh meat so hunt only that which can be consumed.

I am amazed by their extensive knowledge of forest medicinal plants and their uses. Prior to the expropriation of their ancestral land by logging and Agribusiness companies, they hardly went to the hospital. While COVID-19 and deforestation have changed that, we still have much to learn from them. For them, forest conservation is not an isolated, compartmentalized concept but an integrated part of their lives.

Yet their very rich traditional culture-and often their lives are at risk: experts say up to 10 indigenous linguistic identities are at risk of disappearing. Embedded in that language is identity and their cultural knowledge, which will also disappear.

When we mark International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on August 9, we can expect politicians to invite them for photo ops and public appearances. But we have to ask what will be done to really prevent them and their language and expertise from disappearing?

I’ve seen the power of Indigenous Peoples’ ancestral knowledge and wisdom about forest and biodiversity sustainable management. If we embrace this expertise we will be taking the most cost-effective ways to reduce poverty, preserve biodiversity, halt deforestation and contribute to reducing the harmful effects of climate change.

Globally, this is a powerful path forward for responding to climate change, improving the environmental, and advancing justice. Indigenous Peoples make up about 6.2% of the world’s population, but they safeguard 80% of the planet’s biodiversity. Their sophisticated knowledge of the natural forest – documented by scientific research worldwide – allows forests and biodiversity to flourish. Their sustainable land use fights climate change and builds resilience to natural disasters and pandemic.

Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue

Among the recommendations made by Indigenous leaders at the last COP 26 global climate conference, was the recognition of the rights and land tenure of Indigenous Peoples’ to land, forest and water and that Indigenous Peoples, as knowledge holders, should be able to participate directly with their own voices in the UN process to ensure that their “rights, cultures, lands and ways of life” be respected. US$1.7 billion was announced during the last COP 26 to help Indigenous and local communities protect the biodiversity of tropical forests that are vital to protecting the planet from climate change, biodiversity loss, and pandemic risk. 

Little has changed on the ground, despite another recent paper further confirming that traditional ways of using and managing biodiversity are grounded in progressive principles of sustainability. In short, indigenous knowledge and management systems represent critical yet frequently untapped resources in global conservation efforts.

Despite this evidence and policy recommendations, it is business as usual where conflict, insecurity, lack of recognition of Indigenous Peoples land rights, expropriation, lack of inclusion and participation in the decision-making process continues.

COP27 will take place in Egypt, an African country, this year. It is my hope that a delegation from the Congo Basin will not only be there but will influence climate change policies and decisions.

Indigenous Forest Peoples cannot assume the burden of global conservation and climate mitigation challenges without our support. 

My question to the global climate leaders and government authorities is this: what has happened to the COP 26 IPLC forest tenure Joint Donor Statement that pledged for support indigenous people’s land tenure rights and guardianship of the world’s forests? 

Business as usual will not save us. If we don’t act to preserve our forest guardians and their knowledge and properly involve them in our conservation effort, we will lose their rich wisdom and knowledge.

Without healthy, thriving forests, we will never see the sustainable future we are aiming for.

 

Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue is a 2022 New Voices Fellow, Co-Founder of Youth in Action (YouAct) and Greenpeace Africa forest Campaigner. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Tomasa Chávez, bundled up against the cold of the southern hemisphere winter, works at the Central Market in Buenos Aires, where she was hired in 2021 to separate edible waste that can be recovered. Until then, she went there daily on her own for 30 years to look for food and other recyclable materials among the waste that has now been given new value. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Jul 6 2022 (IPS)

For 30 years, Tomasa Chávez visited the Central Market of Buenos Aires and rummaged through the tons of fruits and vegetables that the stallholders discarded, in search of food. Today she continues to do so, but there is a difference: since 2021 she has been one of the workers hired to recover food as part of a formal program launched by the Central Market.

“Before, I used to come almost every day and collect whatever was edible and whatever could be sold in my neighborhood. Food, cardboard, wood… Now I still come to separate edible food, but I work from 7:00 to 15:00 and I get paid some money,” the short, good-natured woman told IPS.

The Central Market of the Argentine capital is a universe that seems vast and unfathomable to those who venture into it for the first time.

Covering 550 hectares in the municipality of La Matanza, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, it is full of life; to describe it merely as a central market that supplies fruits and vegetables to a metropolis of 15 million inhabitants would be an oversimplification.

In the market there are large companies and small businesses, streets, avenues, warehouses, buildings and even areas taken over by homeless people and a rehabilitation center for people with substance abuse problems. In some places people are crowded among crates of fruit and the noise is overwhelming, but there are also large empty areas where everything is quiet.

Nearly 1,000 trucks enter the Central Market every day to pick up fresh food that is sold in the stores of the city and Greater Buenos Aires. Every month, 106,000 tons of fruits and vegetables are sold, according to official data.

There is also a retail market with food of all kinds, attended by thousands of people from all over the city, in search of better prices than in their neighborhoods, in a context of inflation that does not stop growing – it already exceeds 60 percent annually – and which is destroying the buying power of the middle class and the poor.

View of one of the 12 bays where the fruits and vegetables that supply the 15 million inhabitants of the Greater Buenos Aires region are sold wholesale. The activity begins at 2:00 a.m. and every day some 1,000 trucks enter the market and some 10,000 people work there. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

As a reflection of the social situation in Argentina, where even before the COVID-19 pandemic the poverty rate exceeded 40 percent, a common image of the Market has been that of hundreds of people like Chávez rummaging through the waste, looking for something to eat or to sell.

But since August 2021, much of that energy has been poured into the Waste Reduction and Recovery Program, which is based on two main ideas: to use food fit for consumption for social assistance and the rest for the production of compost or organic fertilizer to promote agroecology.

“There was a social and environmental problem that needed to be addressed. Today we have fewer losses, we provide social assistance and create jobs,” Marisol Troya, quality and transparency manager at the Central Market, told IPS.

 

Coping with the crisis

The 12 gigantic bays where fruits and vegetables are sold wholesale are the heart of the Central Market, which employs 800 people and where a total of 10,000 people work every day.

At 2:00 a.m. the activity begins every day in the market with frenetic movement of crates containing local products from all over Argentina and neighboring countries, which are a festival of colors. Each bay has 55 stalls.

Three people look for food in a container of discarded products at the Central Market of Buenos Aires, where more than 100,000 tons of fruits and vegetables are sold every month to supply retail stores in the Argentine capital and its suburbs. With the recovery program, the Market seeks to provide environmental and social solutions. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

 

“The search for food among the Market’s waste was spurred by the economic crisis and the pandemic,” said Marcelo Pascal, a consultant to the management. “We realized very quickly that there was a lot of merchandise in good condition that was discarded for commercial reasons but could be recuperated.

“There were even small stands that used vegetables found in the garbage. A lot of edible products were recovered, but the process was disorderly, so an effort was made to organize it,” he told IPS.

From August 2021 to June 2022, 1,891 tons of food were recovered for social aid, while 3,276 tons have been used to make compost, according to official figures from the Central Market, which is run by a board of directors made up of representatives of the central, provincial and city governments.

“We have reduced by 48 percent the amount of garbage that the Market was sending to landfills for final disposal, which was 50 tons a day,” agronomist Fabián Rainoldi, head of the Waste Reduction Program, told IPS.

Fabián Rainoldi, head of the Waste Reduction and Recovery Program of the Central Market of Buenos Aires, stands in front of one of the mountains of organic waste that are used to produce compost, which serves as fertilizer for agroecological enterprises. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

 

Orderly recovery of edible products

Justo Gregorio Ayala is working in an esplanade next to one of the wholesale bays. In front of him he has a crate of bruised tomatoes, impossible to sell at a store, but many of which are ripe and edible. His task is to separate the edible ones from the waste.

“I live here in the Market, in the Hogar de Cristo San Cayetano, and six months ago I got this job,” Ayala said, referring to the rehab center for addicts that opened in 2020 inside the Market itself.

“There were always a lot of products to recover in the Market, but now we do it better,” added Ayala, who is one of the workers hired for the Program.

He clarified, however, that the scenario varies depending on the temperature. “In summertime, because of the heat, the fruits and vegetables last much less time and the stallholders throw away more products. Now in winter we don’t find so much.”

The workers work in eight of the market’s 12 bays. There are a total of 24 workers, divided into groups of three, who separate the merchandise that the stallholders are asked to leave in the center of the bay.

The recovered goods are loaded onto trucks that are taken to a huge warehouse in the Community Action section of the Market, where they are prepared for use in social aid projects.

Justo Gregorio Ayala is one of the 24 workers who select edible fruits and vegetables discarded by vendors at the Buenos Aires Central Market. Since August last year, almost 19,000 tons of food fit for human consumption have been recovered and have gone to soup kitchens and other kinds of social assistance. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

“We deliver food to 700 soup kitchens, according to a weekly schedule: about 130 per day,” said Martin Romero, head of the Community Action section, where 22 workers perform their duties, as the first vehicles begin to arrive to pick up their cargo.

“We also put together eight-kilo bags, with whatever we have available, which we deliver to 130 families,” he added to IPS.

What is not fit for human consumption ends up in the composting yard, a plot of land covering almost three hectares, where the process of decomposition of organic matter takes about four months.

“The organic waste is mixed with wood chips made from the crates, which absorb water and reduce the leachate that contaminates the soil. The organic compost is donated to agroecological gardens which use it for fertilization and the recovery of degraded soils,” explained Rainoldi.

The goal is a Central Market that makes use of everything and does not send waste to the dump. It’s a long road that has just begun.

The ongoing financial crisis in Sri Lanka has also triggered a sharp drop in the value of the country’s currency.

By Neville de Silva
LONDON, Jul 6 2022 (IPS)

When Ceylon- now Sri Lanka- gained independence from Britain in 1948 after almost 450 years of colonial rule under three western powers, it was one Asia’s most stable and prosperous democracies.

Today, after years of misrule, rampant corruption by the ruling class and a politicised administration, the country is bankrupt, its economy on the verge of collapse, and society in disarray while a discredited president still clings to power and manipulating the political system, determined to serve the rest of his term.

While the original 18th century Beggar’s Opera was a satire on the injustice in London society of the day and Prime Minister Robert Walpole’s corrupt government, Sri Lanka has not turned to opera but to begging and possibly borrowing if any international lending institution is willing to lend to a country that has recently defaulted on debt repayment for the first time in its post-independence history.

That speaks volumes for the fiscal and monetary policies of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government, and its unthinking and ill- considered actions in the last two and a half years, that has “collapsed” the country’s economy— as the prime minister told parliament the other day.

Under the 10-year rule of elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa (2005-2015), the government borrowed heavily from China for massive infrastructure projects. That included a huge international airport at Mattala in nearby Rajapaksa territory in the deep south. Some of them continue to be white elephants.

A joke at the time and resonating now and then was that even herds of roaming wild elephants in the area spurn the airport because of the colour bar!

Since Gotabaya Rajapaksa came to power in November 2019 and a year later brother Mahinda led their Sri Lanka People’s Party (SLPP) to a parliamentary victory, the Rajapaksas, now at the helm of power, strengthened their already close relationship with Beijing at the expense of ties with the West and international lending institutions and alienating UN bodies such as the UN Human Rights Council.

But in the last few months it has been a begging-bowl ‘opera’ as Sri Lanka scoured the world for loans after its foreign reserves started dipping drastically and leading international rating agencies took to downgrading the country’s sovereign rating.

Eventually the Rajapaksa government reneged on its debt repayments, humiliating Sri Lanka which had never defaulted in its 74-year history.

Trapped by a plunging economy Sri Lanka turned to Bangladesh to save it from emerging bankruptcy. Nothing could be more ironic. In its early years Bangladesh was perceived as a recipient of financial support, not a lender.

At that time Sri Lanka’s economy seemed stable enough despite its near 30 years of war against Tamil Tiger separatists.

In early, June Bangladesh agreed in principle to another currency swap of US$ 200 million. This is in addition to last year’s currency swap of $200 million whose repayment date of three months was extended to one year at Sri Lanka’s request last August.

Today, the country’s 22 million people are almost without petrol, cooking gas, kerosene, food, medicines, powdered milk, and other essentials as the government has no foreign currency to import them.

A common scenario in many parts of Sri Lanka are queues of people-men, women and even children- spending many hours and even days to buy the essentials that are scarce and a food shortage is predicted in the coming months.

As I sat down to write this, news reports said the 12th man died seated in his vehicle at a queue for fuel. A few days later the Sunday Times Political Editor upped the death toll to 16.

Meanwhile physical clashes are becoming common at filling station where thugs have muscled in. The other day a soldier was caught on video assaulting a policeman.

Such is the tension building up in society that the Sunday Times Political Editor reported of concerns among local intelligence services about national security.

While the long-drawn out covid pandemic did cripple the tourism industry, a major foreign currency earner, much of the blame rests on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s short-sighted policies as well as those of some of his ministers and close advisers whose arrogance and ignorance brushed aside warnings sounded a year or two ahead by reputed economists, former Central Bank professionals, academics and trade chambers.

Rajapaksa having denied any culpability for these errors of judgement ultimately conceded his responsibility but only when mass protests erupted in Colombo and elsewhere in the country with even the peasantry-a vital support base of the Rajapaksas- took to the streets castigating him and his government for creating shortages of essential fertilizers for agriculture.

After almost two months, thousands of anti-government protestors who set up camp on the seaside promenade opposite the presidential secretariat in the heart of Colombo, are still there raising their clarion call which has now spread across the country- “Gota Go Home”-demanding that the president return to whence he came.

While Sri Lanka struggles to survive and the Rajapaksas gradually reappear into public view, there has been a perceptible change in the government’s world view. Though Chinese leaders have often declared that Beijing is Colombo’s “all weather friend” it has been slow to come to Sri Lanka’s aid at a time of real crisis.

An appeal to China by the Rajapaksa government to restructure its loans as one of its biggest lenders had not produced the expected reaction from Beijing. Nor had there been a positive response at the time for another credit line of US$ 1.5 billion when Colombo’s foreign reserves were fast drying out.

Even President Xi Jinping’s birthday greeting to President Rajapaksa last month made no mention of any concrete assistance except references to the long-standing Sri Lanka-China relations.

Observers claimed that China was coaxing-if not actually pressuring- Sri Lanka to distance itself from India, its competitor for political positioning and an expanding stake in the strategically- located island.

While the immediate target was India, Beijing was also pointing its finger at Sri Lanka’s growing ties with the US and international institutions such as the IMF.

The fact that since January India has provided assistance to Sri Lanka with currency swaps, credit lines, loan deferments and humanitarian assistance to meet the mounting crisis and supported Colombo’s call for IMF aid, appeared unwelcome news to China which has been trying to persuade Sri Lanka to enter into a trade agreement with it.

In late June, a high-powered Indian delegation led by Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra made a quick few- hour visit to Colombo to meet President Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and discuss further strengthening of Indo-Lanka ties and bilateral investment partnerships including infrastructure and renewal energy.

New Delhi pointed out that this unprecedented recent economic, financial and humanitarian assistance including medicines and food valued at over US$ 3.5 b was guided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Neighbourhood First” policy.

Had it not been for the Indian central government and the Tamil Nadu state government responding fast with generous assistance Sri Lanka would have been struggling to find scarce food, fuel and medicines.

Meanwhile a nine-member team of senior IMF officials spent 10 days in Sri Lanka in late June to assess whether it could come up with a reform package to restore macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability.

Since Colombo approached the IMF for a bailout programme early this year the international lending institution has been monitoring the country’s economic and political situation, neither of which presented much confidence.

It is not only sustainable economic reforms that the IMF is after. It seeks substantial efforts to improve governance and a stable corruption-free government that the IMF and other lending institutions such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank and donor nations could have confidence in.

The current government of bits and pieces could hardly provide evidence that it is fighting corruption when one of its stalwarts who was convicted the other day on extortion and sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment but suspended for five years was reappointed to the cabinet by President Rajapaksa and made chief government whip in addition.

It is the need for clean government that causes concerns with President Rajapaksa reneging on promises he made to introduce constitutional amendments that will substantially prune the plethora of powers he grabbed on coming to power.

This is hardly likely as the world will see when the new 21st constitutional amendment is gazetted in a few days.

Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who held senior roles in Hong Kong at The Standard and worked in London for Gemini News Service. He has been a correspondent for the foreign media including the New York Times and Le Monde. More recently he was Sri Lanka’s Deputy High Commissioner in London

Source: Asian Affairs, London

IPS UN Bureau

 

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When the UN votes by secret ballot... Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 6 2022 (IPS)

A 2.0 version of an ancient Biblical saying reads: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a woman to become the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

The male/female ratio for the Secretary-General stands at 9 vs zero. And the Presidency of the General Assembly (PGA), the highest policy-making body at the UN, is not far behind either.

“Out of its 193 Member States, only four women were elected as the Assembly President,” Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, a former Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN, told IPS.

The score stands at 73 men and 4 women as PGAs– even as the General Assembly elected another male candidate, as its 77th President last month, and who will serve his one-year term beginning September 2022.

https://www.un.org/pga/76/election-of-the-77th-president-of-the-general-assembly/

Since 1945, the only four women elected as presidents were: Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India (1953), Angie Brooks of Liberia (1969), Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa of Bahrain (2006) and Maria Fernando Espinosa Garces of Ecuador (2018).

Foreign Minister María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés of Ecuador, who was elected President of the 73rd Session of the General Assembly in 2018—only the fourth time a woman candidate was elected. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

The General Assembly last month adopted a resolution—by consensus– to commemorate every June 24 as “International Day of Women in Diplomacy” (IDWD).

https://www.un.org/press/en/2022/ga12427.doc.htm

But how significant is this resolution? And will it help usher in the UN’s first woman SG or trigger more women PGAs? Or is this resolution another exercise in political futility?

Introducing the resolution, the Maldives Ambassador Thilmeeza Hussain stressed that “women’s participation in decision making is absolutely vital”.

She also added that yet, far too often, as women climb the diplomatic ranks, they are outnumbered by their male peers, including at United Nations Headquarters, where they represent only one fifth of the Permanent Representatives.

Currently, there are only 44 women Permanent Representatives compared to 149 men holding that post.

All permanent representatives are nominated by their respective governments—and each member state takes it turn, in geographical rotation, to field a candidate, mostly permanent representatives and occasionally foreign ministers.

A former UN diplomat told IPS that PGAs are some of the strongest advocates of gender empowerment— while in office.

But none of them, he pointed out, were politically generous enough to decline their nominations and convince their respective governments to nominate a woman for the post.

Meanwhile, in a letter to President of the International Association of Permanent Representatives (IAPR), Ambassador Chowdhury said: “I recall proudly that in September 2012, I and the IMPACT Leadership 21, issued a joint “Call to Action” to world leaders gathering at the UN asking for urgent action in four areas:

1. Appointment of a Woman as the Next UN Secretary-General. In its 77 years of existence, the world body has failed miserably to elect a woman to that post. It is truly an embarrassment.

2. Nominations of Women as Future Presidents of the General Assembly. Out of its 193 Member States, only four women were elected as the Assembly President.

3. Election of More Women as Heads of Various UN Governing Bodies, and,

4. Appointment by Member States of More Women as Ambassadors to the UN in New York and Geneva.

On the first International Day of Women in Diplomacy, he said last month, “let us commit to achieving these objectives to make the observance of the IDWD truly meaningful and worthwhile.”

“Reflecting the unfortunate reality, not much attention has been given to those so far,” said Ambassador Chowdhury, a former Senior Special Adviser to the President of the UN General Assembly (2011-2012).

Purnima Mane, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) and Deputy Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA)., told IPS a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution which acknowledges the contribution of women globally in any sector is always a major milestone and to be applauded especially when it is unanimously passed by consensus by the UNGA.

That the Maldives which proposed the resolution had 191 co-sponsors is laudable and is apparently a record for the current session of the UNGA, she pointed out.

“While this acknowledgement of women in diplomacy is more than welcome, many will wonder at the timing of this acknowledgement especially because the UN is grappling with a multiplicity of crises on the global scene.”

Clearly the world will have to unpack what exactly this celebration of women in diplomacy means and what the aspirational goals are in the current scenario of the many challenges the UN is facing and in the context of UN reform, said Mane, an internationally respected expert on sexual and reproductive health who also served as the President and CEO of Pathfinder International.

She said the language used to explain this celebration states that it is to celebrate women at all levels of decision making who work for the achievement of sustainable development, peace, and democracy.

“Women are currently under-represented at most levels among national delegations and in the UN diplomatic corps but especially so in the senior levels,’ she said.

While the representation of women ambassadors is said to have gone up from 16 to 22 percent since 2018, the numbers are appallingly low to begin with and women continue to be grossly under-represented in diplomatic positions in most countries.

Canada and Sweden, she pointed out, have achieved equality of representation in the diplomatic corps and as per available records, UK, Norway and South Africa are not far behind but there is extensive catching up to do for most countries.

To that extent, this commemoration might wake up countries to take the matter of representation of women in diplomatic roles more seriously and also focus on providing them an enabling environment in which to work, a matter in which significant lacunae are known to exist, she declared.

Ambassador Chowdhury said the burst of applause that followed the adoption of the resolution proclaiming the annual observance of this very meaningful day in the UN’s calendar was very energizing in view of the priority accorded to the global objective of ensuring “active participation of women, on equal terms with men, at all levels of decision-making…”.

Given its energy and relevance as well as the high-level support of the UN’s top echelons, he said, it was very disappointing to accept in any case, the inclusion of a sentence in the same resolution stressing that the cost of all activities by the UN that may arise from the observance of the Day “should be met from voluntary contributions”.

For the paltry sum of resources needed for the observance, the relevant department of the UN is always in a position to accommodate the expenses from its existing budgets.

“Also, I believe that the regular budget of the Department of Global Communication should always include the observance of the international days as proclaimed by the General Assembly,” said Ambassador Chowdhury, a former UN High Representative.

Referring to the new GA resolution declaring IDWD, Mane said “this brings us back to the question why women in diplomacy was seen as a relevant priority at this point of time in the UN’s history”.

Is the major motivator of this resolution the push to alter the reality that one of the highest positions in the UN, that of the Secretary General, has never been occupied by a woman and that only 4 women have held the position of the President of the General Assembly as compared to 73 men?, Mane asked.

“Or does it come from a desire to acknowledge the vast and significant contributions of women in all diplomatic processes and an aspiration to push all parts of the UN and governments to do more?”.

Hopefully the inspiration comes from both these motivators and will lead to visible change and greater accountability within governments and the UN to pay even more serious attention to the representation and role of women in diplomacy, she declared.

Meanwhile, at a news briefing in March last year, US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield was asked by a reporter about American support for a future woman candidate for Secretary-General.

“You represent an administration which is pledging a need for diversity and change and gender rights and a whole panoply of different things. You have arrived in time for the selection of a Secretary-General, whether it will be a renewal or a new candidate”.

“Speaking in your national capacity and speaking as a woman, don’t you think after 76 years it’s time for more than half the population in the world to be represented at the United Nations by a woman as Secretary-General?,” the reporter asked.

Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield: That’s a loaded question, and I will take it as a loaded question (Laughter). We will support the most qualified candidate for the job, but we absolutely believe in and support diversity”.

“We want to support gender balance, and we will look at the candidates who are presented to us and review them accordingly,” she declared.

Thalif Deen, Senior Editor at the UN Bureau of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, is the author of the recently-released book on the UN titled “No Comment—and Don’t Quote Me on That” (2021). The book, available on Amazon, is a satire peppered with scores of political anecdotes—from the sublime to the hilarious. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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The south-east African country's annual inflation rate stood at more than 190% in June.

Two trans women in Amsterdam are planning a refuge in Kenya for trans people at risk all over the world.

People are losing faith in democracy to deliver economic stability across Middle East and North Africa, according to a major new survey.

Ghana will appeal against a $100,000 fine and ban imposed on the country's women's Under-17 football team for age-cheating.

By Stephen Akester and Daud Khan
ROME / LONDON, Jul 5 2022 (IPS)

Over the last past several decades marine fish stocks worldwide have been under intense threat. There have been many high sounding declarations and agreements to reduce catch effort, to use more environmentally friendly fishing gear, to prevent illegal fishing and to impose “closed seasons” to allow stocks to recover.

However, these declarations have often been disregarded and ignored, particularly when it comes to the open oceans that are beyond national jurisdictions and are the common heritage of all mankind. And the main culprits have been the developed countries, with their large and sophisticated fishing fleets and super market consumers which instead of being cutback, continue to receive political support and public subsidies.

The story of the yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean well illustrates what has been happening.

Stephen Akester

The Yellowfin tuna is one of the most majestic fish in the oceans. It can grow to 1.8 meters in length and up to 150 kgs in weight living 10 to 14 years. It is a top predator and moves with a grace and elegance that is sheer poetry in movement.

As juveniles, Yellowfin normally hunt in surface waters in packs although, when they mature, they change their habits and tend to be solitary. They live in tropical and sub-tropical waters and there used to be large stocks in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. But that was before Europeans, Asians and Americans discovered tinned tuna was cheap, and before the Japanese developed technology to very rapidly freeze freshly caught tuna for the Sashimi market in Japan where prize cuts can go for up to hundreds, if not thousands, of US$ per kilo.

During the 1970s and 80s the Europeans, Americans and the Japanese overfished the Atlantic tuna stocks. Their fishing fleets, mainly Spanish and French with several vessels flying “flags of convenience” – then moved to the Indian Ocean. These boats are floating factories with modern radar, sophisticated fishing gear and huge freezing capacity. Over time, more aggressive techniques are being introduced such as drifting Fish Attracting Devises (FADs) -small floating rafts that facilitate the growth of algae and seaweed and which in turn attract surface swimming tunas, skipjack and juvenile yellowfin. FADs, make it easier to increase catches and reduce costs but also are highly destructive as not only facilitate the catching of skipjack, the target species, but also young yellowfin tuna.

The overfishing of yellowfin tuna has triggered various attempts to reduce effort and introduce better management. Spearheading this effort in the Indian Ocean is the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), set up by FAO in 1996 to ensure, the conservation and optimum utilization of tuna stocks in the Indian Ocean. However, the IOTC is not well designed for handling the complexities and political pressures that stand in the way of equitable and sustainable fishing effort in the Indian Ocean. In particular, key aspects such as its membership and distribution of catch entitlement among countries, are deeply flawed.

Daud Khan

The Commission is “open to any state that has coasts within the Indian Ocean region” – this is fine and as it should be. But it is also open to states that have coasts on “adjacent seas”, “as well as any state that fishes for tuna in the Indian Ocean region.” This wording has allowed membership of the IOTC of non-coastal countries such as South Korea, China, Japan, Spain, France and the UK, as well as the EU.

Moreover, the division of allowable catch is based on how much each country fished in the past. This results in the poorer coastal states getting a small proportion of the allowable catch as compared to the richer countries that have been operating large, modern vessels capable of overfishing in the Indian Ocean since the mid-1980s. The outcome of this highly inequitable strategy is that 45% of the allowable catch of yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean is allocated to the EU. And the developing coastal countries have not only seen their national fisheries impacted by competition from the developed countries, they are not even entitled to any license or royalty fees from oceanic fisheries adjacent to their Exclusive Economic Zones.

Furthermore, the IOTC has been given a hamstrung decisions making process. Decisions are by consensus which prevents fundamental reforms such as limits on purse seiners or on drifting FADs. And when coastal state attempt is made to push matters to the vote, such as was the case for a proposal to ban drifting FADs, procedural issues prevent them for being adopted.

And so it goes on. Rich countries take the lion’s share of the allowable catch of yellowfin tuna, depriving the coastal states and their artisanal fishing communities of all but crumbs. They also systematically sabotage attempts to place restrictions on fishing and introduce more eco-friendly fishing practices.

As in many other areas, from climate change to the use of coal and the transition to green energy, there is much rhetoric from developed countries but efforts to change the system are not yet working.

Stephen Akester is an independent fisheries specialist working in Indian Ocean coastal countries for past 40 years……

Daud Khan works as consultant and advisor for various Governments and international agencies. He has degrees in Economics from the LSE and Oxford – where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from the Imperial College of Science and Technology. He lives partly in Italy and partly in Pakistan.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Women’s rights groups have questioned the legal provision requiring doctors to collect records on all pregnancies, saying it could be used to monitor abortions.

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Jul 5 2022 (IPS)

Women’s rights groups fear a new legal provision in Poland requiring doctors to collect records on all pregnancies could create what they have described as a ‘pregnancy register’ to monitor whether women are having abortions.

Poland has some of Europe’s strictest abortion laws with terminations allowed in only two instances – if the woman’s health or life is at risk and if the pregnancy is the result of either rape or incest.

Until last year, abortions had also been allowed in cases where the foetus had congenital defects, but this exemption was removed following a legal challenge by members of the ruling right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which some critics accuse of systematically suppressing women’s rights.

Rights groups and opposition MPs say that in light of the tightened abortion legislation, they are worried that the pregnancy data could be used in an unprecedented state surveillance campaign against women.

“A pregnancy register in a country with an almost complete ban on abortion is terrifying,” Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, an MP for The Left (Lewica) political alliance in Poland, said on Twitter. “Even today, Polish women avoid getting pregnant out of fear that they will be forced to give birth in every situation. There are even more reasons to be scared now,” she added.

The new provision was approved by Health Minister Adam Niedzielski on June 3 and will come into effect in October when medical staff will begin collecting additional information from patients, including data on pregnancies. This will then be entered into the country’s central Medical Information System (SIM).

Critics question why this data is being collected now, and who will have access to it, pointing out that information about pregnancies is already available in medical records, while some Polish lawyers have claimed that police and prosecutors will be allowed access to the data under certain circumstances.

Mara Clarke of the international group Abortion Without Borders said that while the collection of the information may not appear harmful in itself, against the background of the recent tightening of already very strict abortion laws, the move will only increase fears among women in Poland over their reproductive rights.

She told IPS: “There is a difference between information being gathered in a free, democratic country, and being gathered in a state with a regime suppressing women’s rights. Any talk of a pregnancy register cannot be construed as anything other than an attempt to again attack women’s rights. It will only promote more fear among women.”

Some doctors agree, saying patients have already expressed fears about what the data collection could mean.

Michal Gontkiewicz, a gynaecologist at a district hospital in Plonsk, central Poland, told local TV station TVN 24: “As a tool in itself this is not dangerous, but patients may fear it will be used as a tool of the regime. Women are afraid that if they experience a spontaneous miscarriage, which is already a huge trauma for them, someone will accuse them of terminating the pregnancy, multiplying their trauma.”

The Health Ministry has rejected claims that it is trying to create a ‘pregnancy register’ and said the provision is being implemented as part of requirements to meet EU health regulations on patient data.

A spokesman for the ministry told IPS: “We are not creating any register, only expanding the reporting system based on recommendations of the European Commission. Only medics will have access to the data.

“Information about pregnancy is important for medics, because, for example, pregnant women should not undergo a number of medical procedures, and certain medicinal products cannot be prescribed to them.”

Some local doctors have also sought to play down the significance of the data collection, pointing out that bodies such as state social insurance institutions can already check up on pregnancies and that law enforcement agencies can already access medical data in certain instances if approved by a court.

But with questions over the country’s judiciary – Poland has already been censured by the European Commission over a lack of judicial independence – critics of the provision worry the existence of the register will only make an already bad situation worse.

The Polish rights group, Women’s Strike, claims police are already involved in questioning women whose pregnancies have ended, often after being contacted by angry partners.

“Given the current state of the judicial system in Poland and the threat of investigation in cases of undelivered pregnancies, this raises a lot of concerns,” Wiktoria Magnuszewska, an activist with Lex Q, a Polish LGBT+ advocacy organisation, told IPS.

Before the provision comes into effect, activists are trying to reassure Polish women that the provision does not represent a change to legislation on terminations.

Under Poland’s abortion laws, it is not illegal to have an abortion, but it is illegal to help someone do so. Many women in Poland who want an abortion self-administer pills bought online from abroad, or travel to neighbouring countries with less restrictive legislation, such as Germany and the Czech Republic, for terminations.

“Our Polish helpline has already had a few calls from women concerned about what the situation would be if they wanted an abortion. The good news is that there is no danger that women will no longer be able to self-administer abortions,” said Clarke.

However, the fear of how the ‘pregnancy register’ could be used already appears to be driving Polish women away from the country’s doctors.

Eva Ptaskova of the Ciocia Czesia volunteer organisation in the Czech Republic which helps Polish women access reproductive services, including abortions in local facilities, says her group has already been contacted by clients looking not for terminations, but gynaecologists who will treat them during their pregnancy because they do not want their details recorded in Poland.

She told IPS: “The situation in Poland is beginning to look more and more like something from The Handmaid’s Tale. What we are seeing is women with concerns that this [pregnancy register] could open the door to investigations of pregnancies that are ‘no longer’.

“This could deter women from seeking medical care, for instance, post-abortion care, which could then be very dangerous to their health. I worry it will get to the point where women will be scared to go to a gynaecologist at all because the information will be recorded that could one day be used against them.”

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