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Lack of disclosure of contracts, payments and socio-environmental impacts characterize Mexico's coal industry. The picture shows workers at the Nueva Rosita coal mine in the northern state of Coahuila. CREDIT: Courtesy of Cristóbal Trejo

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, May 9 2022 (IPS)

In the northern Mexican state of Coahuila the current situation of coal, used mainly to generate electricity, is opaque.

A veil surrounds the industry in terms of production, consumption, inspections, pollution, contracts and the state of the mines that supply coal to two power plants belonging to the governmental Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).

In the southern state of Guerrero, another power plant uses coal from Australia and Colombia.

Cristina Auerbach, director of the non-governmental organization Familia Pasta de Conchos, said there is a veil of mystery surrounding the industry in Mexico.

“The system is not transparent. Sometimes the issue goes unnoticed, because at a global level coal in Mexico is insignificant. But it is so problematic that they can’t make it transparent because they can’t order transparency” in the country, she told IPS.

Her organization was created in 2006, following an explosion caused by methane accumulation that year at the Pasta de Conchos mine in Coahuila, which left 65 workers dead, 63 of whom were buried in the explosion and whose bodies have never been recovered.“With regard to coal…there is no national registry of how many pits there are. There have been complaints about illegal coal mining. The final results are quite poor. We don't know if it is lack of commitment, or a lack of interest in promoting transparency.” -- Sol Pérez

Coal is mined in Coahuila and Tamaulipas, in the north of this Latin American country. In December 2020, according to official figures, Mexico produced 459,414 tons of coal, which is highly polluting and harmful to human health.

But to meet domestic demand, the country imports about nine million tons per year.

Last March, coal-fired generation contributed more than 2,000 megawatts of electricity, three percent of the national total. In Coahuila, there are some 40 underground coal mines.

Ignored

Coal has been left out of the natural resource transparency schemes negotiated between the federal government and international civil society organizations in platforms such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and the Open Government Partnership (OGP).

EITI, created in 2003, brings together more than 50 countries and promotes open and accountable management of oil, gas and mineral resources. Mexico joined EITI in 2017 and is currently undergoing the first review of its compliance with the standards, a process that began last August and whose results are to be published in the coming months.

In Latin America, Colombia, a producer of hydrocarbons and coal, has the most advanced status, receiving a rating of “satisfactory progress” in implementing the EITI standards. The South American nation practices proactive transparency, issuing a biannual report.

Peru, another oil and gas producer, has made “significant progress,” according to the global transparency standard.

Argentina, Ecuador and Trinidad and Tobago are other hydrocarbon producers in the region that are also under evaluation, while Brazil and Venezuela do not belong to EITI.

The José López Portillo thermoelectric plant, owned by the governmental Federal Electricity Commission and located in the northern state of Coahuila, burns coal to generate energy in Mexico. CREDIT: CFE

OGP, founded in 2011, groups 78 nations and hundreds of civil society organizations. In Mexico, the 4th National Action Plan 2019-2021 revolves around 13 topics, including transparency in final beneficiaries of companies in the hydrocarbon and mining sector.

Transparency can help strengthen accountability, the fight against corruption, the evaluation of public policies and informed decision-making by stakeholders, such as local communities.

Sol Pérez, a researcher at the non-governmental Fundar, Centro de Análisis e Investigación, questions the lack of exhaustive information on fossil fuels.

“There is no effective access to information” in the state-owned oil giant Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), she told IPS.

“With regard to the issue of coal, the picture is very similar,” she added. “There is no national registry of how many pits there are. There have been complaints about illegal coal mining. The final results are quite poor. We don’t know if it is lack of commitment, or a lack of interest in promoting transparency.”

The “EITI-Mexico Shadow Report: Progress and Challenges in Socio-environmental Transparency”, published in May 2021, concluded that the government and companies have persisted in their refusal to disclose disaggregated socio-environmental information on the extractive sector.

The report, prepared by organizations participating in EITI, exposed phenomena such as the partial existence of data on royalty payments for the exploitation or use of national waters and the lack of complete files on environmental matters.

Another case addresses the unavailability of geo-referenced oil well locations.

The document found that out of 49 hydrocarbon contracts of EITI companies, only 10 include social impact assessments, while only two contain an environmental impact analysis.

Mexico ranks 12th in the world in oil production, 17th in gas extraction, 20th in proven crude oil reserves and 41st in proven natural gas deposits. But its position in the oil industry is declining due to the scarcity of easily extractable hydrocarbons.

Since 2020, hydrocarbon production has been dropping. In February 2020 oil extraction totaled 1.73 million barrels per day; the following year, 1.67 million; and last February, 1.63 million, according to the government’s National Hydrocarbons Commission.

Gas has followed a similar trajectory, with production totaling 4.93 billion cubic feet per day in February 2020; 4.838 billion cubic feet per day 12 months later; and 4.673 billion cubic feet per day last February.

The lack of sufficient domestic gas makes imports necessary, especially from the United States, which have been on the rise since 2020, after a drop between 2018 and 2019.

Imports of gas grew six percent between 2020 and 2021 – from 853 million cubic feet to 904.6 million. Last February, imports totaled 640 million, more than half the volume of the entire previous year.

View of a service station of the state oil giant Pemex in Mexico City. The company’s activities suffer from a lack of transparency and access to information, despite commitments in this regard made by the Mexican government. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Empty promises

For its part, OGP includes the development of a National Action Plan to drive beneficial ownership transparency and initiate the publication of such data from hydrocarbon and mining companies, with the aim of building a corporate Beneficial Ownership Register by 2023.

Actions included the preparation of a diagnosis of final beneficiaries in Mexico and a pilot project for the dissemination of information, which have been completed.

These examples show how little importance the Mexican government attaches to access to public information and transparency in the extractive sector.

In addition, they highlight the challenges ahead for the government in implementing the regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, in force since April 2021 and known as the Escazú Agreement.

In 2020, CFE purchased 1.58 million tons of coal through 60 direct contracts awarded to producers in the Coahuila coal region, without environmental and social impact assessments, as revealed last November by the non-governmental organization México Evalúa.

Although the country evolved in the Resource Governance Index, developed by the non-governmental Natural Resource Governance Institute, between 2019 and 2021, issues such as governance of social and environmental impacts still need to be improved.

“Governance of local impacts is poor, mainly due to opacity in the disclosure of environmental mitigation plans, which the government considers confidential,” the paper states.

Increased pressure

In 2021 and 2022, EITI priorities in Mexico include providing information about the energy transition, supporting open data, providing information on investment decisions, strengthening revenue mobilization, addressing corruption risks, and measuring impact.

In the design of OGP’s new action plan, which is to be ready in August, civil society wants to include a commitment to transparency in hydrocarbons, mining and electric energy.

Auerbach, the activist, complained that communities have become “sacrifice zones” in exchange for mining.

“They don’t care if we are informed or not, if we protest or not, it changes absolutely nothing,” she said. “There are environmental liabilities from 50 years ago, from 30 years ago or from last week. And that is not included. Whatever the CFE and Pemex say is fine and the rest just go along with it. Under this government, they are untouchable. The Ministry of the Environment says that it is going to review how the area will end up when they finish exploiting the concessions in 50 years.”

EITI’s alternative report suggested publishing information on environmental impact mitigation in priority maritime areas for biodiversity conservation that host oil projects and payments for environmental licenses, environmental taxes, non-compliance with regulations or environmental impacts.

Pérez said the Escazú Agreement offers an opportunity to promote transparency and access to information.

“The ideal conditions don’t exist, but Escazú is an opportunity. On the environmental issue, the lack of information is well identified. The lack of public commitment is worrisome. We can link EITI and Escazú,” she said.

Journalist Jeffery Moyo, with his lawyer, Doug Coltart, outside the Magistrate’s Court, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Moyo faces charges of violating Section 36 of the Immigration Act. His sentencing is expected on May 31, 2022. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, May 9 2022 (IPS)

For international journalist Jeffery Moyo, doing his job could land him in prison if Zimbabwe authorities have their way.

“Journalism is a crime in Zimbabwe, and the regime is reactive to independent journalism,” says Moyo, an international correspondent for the New York Times and the Inter Press Service (IPS).

Criminalising journalism

Moyo (37) has been charged with violating Section 36 of the Immigration Act, based on allegations he made a false representation to immigration officials. This pertains to the accusation of him obtaining media accreditation for two of his colleagues, Christina Goldbaum and Joao Silva, from the New York Times. He faces ten years in jail if convicted of breaching Zimbabwe’s Immigration Act by helping two US newspaper journalists work in the country.

Arrested in May 2021 and detained for 21 days at Bulawayo Prison before being released, Moyo was initially denied bail on the grounds he was a threat to national security.

“I am living in perpetual fear because I don’t know what the regime is plotting against me,” Moyo told IPS in an interview before he was due in court in Bulawayo. “If you are an independent journalist in Zimbabwe, you should always watch your back because somebody might be following you intending to harm you because of your work.”

Moyo lamented that his continued now year-long court ordeal has meant he has little productive time doing his job, which means lost income.

“Any regime that projects itself in this manner has skeletons in its closet. I fear they might at some point harm me at a time the world would have forgotten about me because this is a regime that sees shadows everywhere around itself,” Moyo added.

The journalist’s trial resumed at the Bulawayo’s Magistrate Court last week after the State rejected an application to dismiss his case early this year. The trial started in the week that the world commemorated World Press Freedom Day.

Moyo was charged with contravening a section of the Immigration Act and that he had produced fake media accreditation cards for the New York Times journalists. The defence had applied for the case discharge noting that the State’s case against Moyo was on “shaky grounds”, but a Bulawayo Magistrate ruled that the State had sufficient evidence against Moyo. The court sought to cross-examine Moyo, and he chose to remain silent.

Moyo’s lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, told the court that her client chose to remain silent because the Magistrate had already found that the accreditation cards were fake without referring to any evidence on which the application for dismissal was based.

Mtetwa commented that whether or not Moyo testified, the Magistrate had decided that the accreditation cards Moyo allegedly obtained for two foreign journalists were fake and wanted Moyo to implicate himself – which is against the law.

“He [Moyo] had no onus to testify, and the Constitution says you have a right to remain silent and even the attempt to put questions to someone who has said ‘I wish to remain silent’, for me, is an exercise in futility. If he wants to find him guilty, let him find him guilty on the evidence that the State has led, which in his ruling he (the Magistrate) has completely ignored,” Mtetwa told IPS.

Moyo has pleaded not guilty, and he will be sentenced on May 31, 2022.

Zimbabwe has enshrined freedom of the press in its Constitution, but media advocacy groups say freedom is not guaranteed.

The media rights advocacy group, Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zimbabwe, recorded at least 27 violations in 2021, a decline from the 52 a year earlier.

“When the Constitution is violated, especially by the police who are supposed to enforce the law, then it presents a challenge … to uphold the constitution,” said Tabani Moyo, MISA Zimbabwe Executive Director. He added there was a need for continued consultation with law enforcement agencies in Zimbabwe to come up with workable interventions to prevent harassment of journalists.

More rhetoric, fewer reforms

Despite the government’s commitment to promoting press freedom and the freedom of expression, the continued harassment of journalists and the muzzling of critics tells a different story.

The arsenal of punitive laws meant to restrict fundamental rights of free expression and association point to repression rather than the freedom that the Zimbabwe government espouses.

For example, Zimbabwe repealed the draconian Access to Information and Privacy Act (AIPPA). However, journalists are still harassed and threatened, casting a long shadow on the Zimbabwe government’s commitment to free expression.

“We no longer have serious cases where journalists are harassed, beaten up or killed in this country. What we have is a robust exchange of ideas with journalists,” Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Kindness Paradza, told a  World Press Freedom Day commemoration event in Bulawayo last week.

“There is a lot to celebrate in Zimbabwe because we have done away with AIPPA, which was a bad law. In its place, we have put the Freedom of Information Act, the Zimbabwe Media Commission Act,” said Paradza. He added that the Zimbabwe Media Practitioners Bill is also on the cards.

The World Press Freedom Index notes that there has been an opening of the media landscape in African countries like Angola, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, which moved seven points down the Index ranking from 130 in 2021 to 137 in 2022.

“The media situation in Zimbabwe has improved slightly since the dictator Robert Mugabe’s ouster in 2017. Access to information has increased, and self-censorship has declined,” the Index observed in an analysis of Zimbabwe’s press.

The Index noted that while levels of violence against journalists had declined significantly under the Mnangagwa administration, they remain alarmingly high, and self-censorship is routinely practised to avoid reprisals.

“Acts of intimidation, verbal attacks, and threats (especially on social media) are all still common practices. Cases of journalists being imprisoned and prosecuted are nonetheless now rarer, the most notable case being that of Hopewell Chin’ono, an investigative journalist who spent almost a month and a half in prison in 2020,” according to the World Press Freedom lndex.

Extremely harsh laws are still in effect, and, when new laws have been adopted, their provisions are just as draconian as those they replaced, the Index noted, citing that the amended penal code,  the Official Secrets Act and the new Cyber Security and Data Protection Act continue to hamstring journalism in Zimbabwe.

Commenting on the press freedom in Zimbabwe, Mtetwa said the government indicates right but turns left. She explained that what the government says about complying with the niceties of the law and being seen to be complying with international best practices is different from what is happening on the ground.

“We have had many, many journalists arrested under the second republic. Why is this happening? They are abusing the criminal justice system to harass journalists,” Mtetwa told IPS.

“They arrest you and look for something in the criminal law, knowing there is no case. You have seen the Hopewell Chin’ono cases,” she says. Two of the cases against Chin’ono have been dismissed, but one case is still awaiting a trial date. He denies the charges.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Derived from naturally occurring microorganisms, microbial inoculants offer the same benefits as chemical fertilizers while reducing agricultural systems environmental footprint, according to the author. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, USA, May 9 2022 (IPS)

Around the world, commercial fertilizer prices are soaring, pushing farmers and countries into a frenzy. In addition, soaring fertilizer prices are sparking fears of inflation, food supply shortages and food insecurity. There are several reasons that have contributed to the rising fertilizer prices including the Russian-Ukrainian war and the global pandemic.

To avert the ongoing fertilizer crisis, farmers in developed and developing countries alike, could turn into other alternative products such as microbial inoculants. Derived from naturally occurring microorganisms, including the billions of beneficial bacteria that teem in the soil near plant roots, microbial inoculants offer the same benefits as chemical fertilizers while reducing agricultural systems environmental footprint.

Moreover, scientific evidence, generated over the years including through both long-term studies and short-term studies have shown that these microbes when applied directly to seeds can improve the crop growth, nutrition, and productivity. As an example, a 10-year long-term field study carried in Germany showed that beneficial microbes increase maize plant growth and the availability of phosphorous – and essential plant nutrient – in the soil. In Italy, beneficial soil microbes improved tomato yields. In the US,

Due to their popularity, microbial inoculants are currently valued at $12.9 billion. Complementing their popularity is the proliferation in the number of start-ups and companies developing and commercializing microbial products. These include AgBiome, Indigo, Novozymes, Corteva, BASF, and Bayer.

What’s more is that these microbes can provide other benefits to plants including helping them to tolerate drought and hot temperatures that have increasingly become common with climate change. Further, they can increase plant defenses against crop damaging insects. These products also offer environmentally sustainable integrated crop management.

Cost wise, in the US, for example,  microbial inoculants are relatively priced, from $30 – $100 per gallon.

Of course, there remains a few challenges including the often-cited inconsistent results and  concerns that these products could eventually become invasive.

As fertilizer prices keep escalating, we must invest in understanding and harnessing these naturally occurring microbes to improve crop productivity.

Just like we are investing in producing fertilizers, there is need to invest in science that is aimed at understanding beneficial soil microbes and the mechanisms that underpin microbe facilitated crop growth improvement.

Microbial inoculants could be the next sustainable tools for breaking the dependence on fertilizers.

Dr. Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and a Senior Food Security Fellow with the Aspen Institute, New Voices.

Approximately half of the planet’s habitable land is now being used for the production of food, which accounts for an estimated 70 percent of freshwater consumption. Credit: Bigstock.

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, May 9 2022 (IPS)

People require food, with more people requiring more food and less people requiring less food. Despite that self-evident relationship, most governments appear reluctant to accept the intimate link between the supplies of food and the numbers of people and continue calling for the further growth of their populations.

The world’s population of approximately 8,000,000,000, or more than double its size at the start of the Green Revolution in the mid-1960s, is again facing a food crisis across many countries and areas. And that food crisis is expected to worsen in the near term.

The food crisis in dozens of countries, which are located primarily in Africa and Asia, is largely due to the three Cs: conflict, climate change, and COVID-19. Also, the recent conflict in Ukraine due to Russia’s military invasion has further exacerbated the food crisis.

As a result of the conflict in Ukraine, a growing number of governments are erecting new barriers to stop the exports of food products and other important commodities at their borders. Those barriers are expected to worsen the food crisis with shortages and higher prices for a variety of goods in many food insecure countries.

Today an estimated 800 million people, or 10 percent of the world’s population, are hungry. Also, projections show that the world is not on track to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030, i.e., Sustainable Development Goal 2.

The future growth of world population, which is currently increasing by approximately 80 million per year, is expected to be concentrated in regions that contain most of the countries suffering from hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition.

Of the expected growth of the world’s population of nearly 600 million over the next eight years, Africa, much of which is dependent on imported food, accounts for 47 percent of that demographic growth, followed by Asia at 43 percent (Figure 1).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

Moreover, the projected percentage increases in the populations of Africa’s sixteen food insecure hotspot countries are among the world’s highest and well above the global average. By 2030 many of the populations of those African countries are expected to increase by no less than 25 percent.

The current population of Niger, for example, is expected to increase by 34 percent over the next eight years, i.e., from 26 million to 35 million. In contrast, the projected increase of world population of 7 percent over those eight years is a fraction of the rates of Africa’s food insecure hotspot countries (Figure 2).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

The expected population growth of food insecure countries by mid-century is even more striking. Whereas world population is projected to increase by about 20 percent by 2050, the populations of some African food insecure hotspot countries are expected to double in size by mid-century. A particularly rapid rate of future demographic growth is the population of Niger, which is expected to increase from its current 26 million to 66 million by mid-century.

The future growth of world population, which is currently increasing by approximately 80 million per year, is expected to be concentrated in regions that contain most of the countries suffering from hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition

Another African food insecure hotspot country whose population is expected to double in size is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, increasing from 95 million today to 195 million by 2050. The African country with the largest population, Nigeria, is also projected to increase substantially from its current 217 million to 401 million by 2050, thereby displacing the United States as the world’s third largest population.

Outside of Africa six additional countries, which have been affected greatly by armed conflicts and violence, are also considered food insecure hotspot countries. Those countries are Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen in Asia and Haiti and Honduras in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Following the Green Revolution in the late 1960s, global food production has outpaced the rapid growth of world population during the second half of the 20th century. World population has more than tripled since 1950, from 2.5 billion to 8 billion today.

At present, approximately half of the planet’s habitable land is now being used for the production of food, which accounts for an estimated 70 percent of freshwater consumption. That vital human activity has important consequences for the planet, including contributing to biodiversity loss, pollution, deforestation, and soil degradation as well as to greenhouse gas emissions.

Part of the responses to those consequences for the planet include reducing meat consumption and moving the world’s population to a more plant-based diet. In addition to the improvements to human health, eating mostly plant-based foods would contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions and reduced animal waste.

In many parts of the world, especially those food insecure hotspots noted above, the effects of climate change and environmental degradation are greatly impacting the production, availability, and distribution of food with droughts, floods, high temperatures, wildfires, desertification, pests, rise in sea levels, etc.

In addition to aiming to increase the supply of food and making healthy diets affordable and accessible for populations with low household purchasing power, greater efforts are needed to reduce the overall demand for food by stabilizing the size of populations.

In addition to reducing high morbidity and mortality rates, governments should endeavor to reduce high fertility rates. Expediting the demographic transition in countries with high death and birth rates would contribute considerably to reducing the future sizes of those populations and thereby the projected demand for additional food.

For example, Africa’s future population, which has increased six-fold since 1950, could be markedly less than currently projected if the continent’s demographic transition is expedited. If the future fertility rates of African countries were to follow the United Nation’s low variant projection instead of its medium variant, the population of Africa would be 200 million less by 2050 and more than a billion less by 2100 (Figure 3).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

Reductions in the rapid growth of populations in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere will certainly not resolve the problems of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. Other major challenges need to be addressed, including conflict, climate change, and COVID-19.

However, it is also certainly the case that lower rates of demographic growth will lead to fewer additional people in the future. Such demographic reductions will in turn lead to reduced future demand for food.

As stated at the outset, the relationship between food and people is self-evident. Namely, people require food, with more people requiring more food and less people requiring less food.

It’s well past the time for governments to embrace the relationship between food and people. To do so entails governments adopting comprehensive policies and implementing effective programs aimed at reducing high rates of population growth and stabilizing the size of their populations.

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”

 

DR Congo international Jody Lukoki, who began his senior career with Dutch giants Ajax, has died at the age of 29.

Credit: UNICEF Ethiopia/2021/ Nahom Tesfaye

By External Source
NEW YORK, May 9 2022 (IPS-Partners)

Conflicts in Northern Ethiopia’s regions of Afar, Amhara and Tigray, have pushed children and adolescents out of school and are fueling humanitarian needs in the region. In response to this crisis, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) announced today a US$2 million First Emergency Response Grant that will reach more than 20,000 refugee and displaced, as well as host community children and adolescents. This brings ECW ongoing investments in Ethiopia to over $30 million.

The 12-month grant will be delivered by UNHCR and local strategic partners, focusing on early childhood education, primary education, accelerated learning programmes and secondary education, in and around refugee camps, as well as a settlement in the northern regions of Ethiopia. The interventions are intended to primarily target refugees in the camps of Aysaita and Serdo in Afar, Alemwach site in Amhara, and Mai Aini and Adi Harush in Tigray. Approximately 62% of the people to be reached with this assistance are girls, and 10% are children with disabilities.

As a result of both the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict, children and adolescents in Afar, Amhara and Tigray have missed education opportunities. To date, approximately 13% of previously enrolled refugee children and youth in Ethiopia have not returned to school.

“Refugee and host-community children and youth are in urgent need of safe and protective learning environments. Children and adolescents face high risks of recruitment into armed groups, human trafficking, radicalization and exploitation. They have already lost their homes and loved ones. We cannot allow them to also drop out of school and thereby destroy their very last hope: an education that will empower them to arise from their dispossession and suffering,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

“Education does not only provide protection to children and support them to return to normalcy; it is also beneficial to their mental and psychological health, which are critical for effective learning. ECW’s valuable funding will support interventions to address the educational needs of the affected girls and boys as quickly as possible and will significantly contribute to strengthen the co-existence between the displaced communities and their hosts in Northern Ethiopia,” said Mamadou Dian Balde, UNHCR Representative in Ethiopia.

The ECW investment will further support the construction and rehabilitation of classrooms including temporary learning spaces and latrines to increase access to safe, protective and gender-sensitive learning environments for emergency-affected children. Innovative cash transfers will incentivize families to return their children to school, as part of the wide back-to-school efforts.

The programme also includes the recruitment and training of teachers and school administrators and the provision of individual learning materials. Teacher training will cover subject knowledge, curriculum, planning and pedagogy topics. The funding will also support strengthening of school and community capacity to provide gender and crisis-sensitive education for emergency-affected girls, boys and children with disabilities.

The new funding builds on the impact of ECW’s US$1 million Tigray response, announced in April 2021, along with the Fund’s ongoing Multi-Year Resilience Programme in the country.

Excerpt:

UNHCR and local strategic partners will reach 20,000 refugee and host community children and adolescents impacted by displacement and conflict in Afar, Amhara and Tigray Regions.

A video showing a group haranguing the young women at the Giza pyramids sparked outrage online.

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, May 9 2022 (IPS)

“I first think about my children. They are why we were forced to leave – because our children are always our first concern.”

These are the moving words of Victoria, who fled the brutal war in Ukraine with her two daughters. Her eyes welling up with tears, she recalled their dangerous journey from Ukraine. She and her two school-aged daughters were forced to leave behind everything they have ever known.

Yasmine Sherif

I met Victoria during my recent mission to Moldova, together with USAID, FCDO-UK, UNICEF, UNHCR, Theirworld and civil society senior representatives. Victoria and her girls now live with a host family in Moldova, and despite the hardship and uncertainty of what the future holds for her loved ones still in Odessa, she finds some respite in the fact that her two daughters are attending school. “Here they can continue their education, socialize and take their mind off the war. They can forget about it for a while and just be children again.”

Tragically, the story of Victoria and her daughters is not unique; it is the story of the 5 million Ukraine refugees who have already fled the deadly conflict in Ukraine. It is also the story of over 128 million children and youth whose lives today are shattered by armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters and other crises across the globe: in Africa, Asia, Middle East and South America.

The global loss of childhood and sense of despair have become universal. This is a shameful trend for humanity and the time has come to transform despair into hope. The most cost-effective and efficient way to do so is through urgent, substantive and predictable financial investments in quality education for those children left furthest behind in emergencies and protracted crises.

As Leonardo Garnier, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General for the ‘Transforming Education Summit’ stresses in this month’s high-level interview: “The truth is that education remains one of the most underfunded areas of humanitarian aid, receiving less than 3% of total global humanitarian funding. This has to change.”

To ensure quality education for vulnerable children caught in the midst of crises requires urgent, bold and significantly scaled-up financing by both humanitarian and development actors, as well as the private sector. The European Union is an excellent role model: it invests 10% in education from both its humanitarian and development envelopes.

What kind of financing are we willing to invest to make a transformative change? How much do we value true transformation to ensure that every child and adolescent can access a quality education as their last hope when everything else in their world has fallen to pieces?

This year, as we accelerate our efforts towards the 2030 Agenda deadline, the UN Secretary-General’s ‘Transforming Education Summit’, being convened in September 2022, is our collective opportunity to make a real difference. By transforming the way in which we deliver financing through pooled funding, grants and loans and by transforming financial envelopes into significant, combined humanitarian-development investments for education, we can and we must, transform the lives of girls and boys through education, and thereby deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals and all Human Rights.

Anything less is not the transformation we urgently need today.

Yasmine Sherif is Director, Education Cannot Wait
The UN Global Fund for Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: Iranintl.com

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, May 9 2022 (IPS)

A revised Iran nuclear deal based on the 2015 JCPOA could provide the basis for a new Biden administration strategy that would limit Iran’s nuclear program to peaceful purposes and ensure that Tehran’s public pronouncement that it is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons becomes a de facto reality.

Righting the Wrong

Regardless of how flawed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA; aka Iran nuclear deal) may be, it was by far better than having no deal. Trump’s withdrawal from the deal was most unfortunate as it did nothing but bring Iran ever closer to the nuclear threshold. Despite its public pronouncements to the contrary,

Tehran remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons at some point in the near future; however, it can change its position once it returns to the original deal and together with the US builds upon it. Nonetheless, to change the dynamic of the conflict and determine what it might take to modify Iran’s position, we need to better understand what is behind its nuclear ambitions.

Thus, it is important to first examine the clergy’s mindset and their motivation to acquire nuclear weapons in spite of Western powers’ objections and irrespective of the weighty, if not crippling sanctions that have been imposed on the country over the years.

With a long and proud history, vast natural and human resources (with a population of more than 90 million), rich culture, and geostrategic location, Iran feels that it is entitled to become the region’s hegemon where it can exert considerable influence.

Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has felt threatened and isolated, living in fear of a US-orchestrated regime change. As such, Iran commits nearly $25 billion of its annual budget to the military (an increase of 11 percent from 2020, making it the 14th largest military spender in the world) and over the years it has built a powerful conventional armed forces led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Given however the limitations of Iran’s conventional military power projection, the next phase of its national defense doctrine was the development of a nuclear weapons program designed to achieve three main objectives.

Why Iran seeks nuclear weapons

First, Iran’s determination to realize its ambition of regional hegemony would be substantially augmented by the possession of nuclear weapons. Iran has no intention of threatening or using such weapons against any of its adversaries—especially Israel, which is in possession of second-strike nuclear capability that could wipe out half the country—but the mere fact of being a nuclear power will give it the prestige and regional sway that it desires.

Second, by acquiring nuclear weapons, Iran wants to establish the doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD) and thus deter any nuclear power, such as the US or Israel, from attacking it, knowing full well that no country with nuclear weapons has been attacked since World War II.

India and Pakistan, who fought three conventional wars over Kashmir, have refrained from waging another war since they acquired nuclear weapons. The same can be said about North Korea, and if Ukraine kept its nuclear arsenals, Russia very likely would not have dared to invade it.

Third, as a predominantly Shiite state, Iran seeks to be on par with Sunni Pakistan and Jewish Israel, and cannot allow itself to be overshadowed by either. Moreover, Iran would feel confident that it can shield itself from regime change orchestrated by the US in particular.

Iran’s nuclear weapon strategy

Although Iran has time and again stated that it has no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons and may remain true to its public narrative, based on solid intelligence evidence, Iran is seeking to achieve nuclear latency and produce enough weapons-grade uranium to construct three to four nuclear weapons in short order.

However, it may well take Iran 18 months to two years to miniaturize a nuclear head to be fitted onto a ballistic missile.

Meanwhile, the clergy is prepared to sign off on a return to the original deal provided that their demands are met. This would include removing most if not all the sanctions to get the financial relief they desperately need, unfreezing tens of billions of dollars, and removing the IRGC’s militant arm, the Quds Force, from the US terrorist list, which Iran is insisting upon and should not be a deal breaker.

As things stand now, once Iran returns to the original deal, it will wait for the expiration of the sunset clauses in 2031 to resume its nuclear weapon program; the Iranians are known for their patience, and they feel that time and God are on their side.

For the Biden administration to address Iran’s concerns and dissuade it from taking the final leap to acquire deliverable nuclear weapons, it must develop a three-pronged strategy: a) change its public narrative and convey to the Iranian public that the US has no intention of undermining Iran’s sovereignty and national security; b) craft a renewed JCPOA, build on it, and help Iran to become a constructive member of the international community; and c) establish a regional security architecture that will include all the countries from the Gulf to the Mediterranean.

Changing the public narrative

How the Iranian government and people perceive the US’ intentions matters greatly in shaping their public opinion. Any bellicose statements and threats emanating from the US or Israel plays directly into the hand of the clergy, as they will use these adversarial pronouncements to show their public that the US is Iran’s foremost enemy.

In so doing they not only justify their enmity toward the US but also blame it for the economic hardship the public is experiencing. For the Biden administration to impact Iranian public opinion, it must refrain from using acrimonious rhetoric and make it clear by every possible means that the US holds no animosity toward Iran and is open to settle any and all disputes with the government peacefully and collaboratively.

It should be noted that even after 43 years of reign by the clergy, the majority of the Iranian population, especially the youth, remain Western-oriented and would like nothing more than to restore normal relations with the West, to where they can travel and study.

We should also remember that before the 1979 revolution, Iran was one of the closet allies of the US, and two or three generations has not changed the public’s Western-leaning cultural foundation. Similarly, seventy years of Soviet communist domination did not alter the eastern European countries’ political orientation, which sought to join the Western democracies immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Needless to say, changing public narratives in and of itself will not be sufficient – it must be accompanied by action and sincere efforts to create a new environment not only to lend credibility to the new approach but in fact change the dynamic of the conflict.

Building on the renewed JCPOA

For that to happen, the Biden administration ought to make it clear to Iran that by returning to the original deal it can benefit greatly, not only from the initial phase of lifting the sanctions and unfreezing tens of billions of dollars but also by building on the new deal through:

1. Beginning a process of normalizing relations between Washington and Tehran by establishing initial diplomatic relations;
2. Renouncing publicly any effort to seek regime change, which is a prerequisite for any kind of Iranian cooperation;
3. Starting trade relations between the two countries and supporting Iran in joining the World Trade Organization;
4. Committing to not undertaking military or cyber-attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities as long as its nuclear program remains peaceful; and finally,
5. Creating a joint commission to address a host of conflicting issues to reduce tensions and build trust.

In return, Iran will be required first and foremost to end its nuclear weapons program and agree to unfettered and permanent monitoring of its nuclear facilities, stop threatening other countries, especially Israel, and cease its support of extremist and terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad.

Certainly, given that Israel is consistently threatened by Iran, it should be allowed to give its input regarding these issues through the US, without blowing its national security concerns out of proportion. Since Iran denies being engaged in any nefarious activity, the negotiation about these sensitive issues, including its cruise and ballistic missiles program, ought to obviously take place behind the scenes.

There will be many who would argue that such an approach amounts to nothing more than a pipe dream. They maintain that the Iranian government is religiously fanatic, politically radical, militarily aggressive with grandiose strategic ambitions, illogical, and a major destabilizing force in the region.

Indeed, anyone who listens to the clergy’s denunciations and condemnations of the US and Israel would concur that the Iranian regime is perhaps irredeemable and that only regime change would alter its behavior. One cannot dismiss this argument out of hand as Iran’s conduct in the region and beyond speaks for itself.

That said, the people of Iran want to grow, flourish, and live in peace, and the ruling clergy knows that they cannot achieve this as long as they remain economically hamstrung by sanctions while continuing to treat the US as a mortal enemy. Culturally, the Iranians are known to be calculating and strategically savvy.

To be sure, notwithstanding the leadership’s adversarial public posture and utterances against the US, they certainly prefer normal relations with America than perpetual enmity.

This however, should not preclude the US from pursuing a new Middle Eastern strategy that would effectively compel Iran to choose between two options: either to become a constructive player in the region or a perpetual enemy who must always be constrained by any means necessary, including the use of force.

Establishing a regional security architecture

As the Biden administration embarks on the process of reconciliation with Iran, it should concurrently begin discussions with its Middle Eastern allies—the six Arab Gulf states, Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, and Egypt—to form a regional security alliance.

Such an alliance is more likely to be established at the present than at any other time in the past, especially because of the Abraham Accords, where Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in the Gulf, along with Sudan and Morocco, have normalized relations with Israel. The remaining Gulf states—Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman—are already collaborating with Israel on many fronts, especially on security and intelligence-sharing.

The purpose of such an alliance would be to challenge Iran’s regional ambitions and pose a veiled threat to its national security, compelling Iran to choose between two options. Iran can either gradually moderate its position and become a constructive player in and outside the region, or stick to its ambition to become a nuclear power once the new deal runs its course.

If Iran chooses the latter, the Biden administration should then consider building the infrastructure that would provide a nuclear umbrella to all member states of the alliance, something that was floated by Hillary Clinton when she ran for president.

This strategy may seem far-fetched and undoable simply because of the huge differences in perception and the ultimate objectives of each side. But then we have to admit that since the 1979 Iranian revolution, the enmity and distrust between the US and Iran has only deepened.

Indeed, if there was an opportunity to build on the original deal and create more constructive relations between the US and Iran, it was blown away by Trump’s withdrawal from the deal. This has only further deepened Iran’s distrust of the US, which predates the 1979 revolution and is rooted in the US-backed overthrow of the democratically elected Mosaddegh government in 1953, despite the fact that they continued to maintain good relations from 1953 to 1979.

After 43 years of continuing hostility, it is time for a new approach. Iran is a large and powerful country and is not going anywhere. It occupies one of the most strategic locations in the world and thus it cannot be simply ignored, or written off as an irredeemable enemy that responds only to the threat or use of force.

A return to the original deal offers a perhaps rare opportunity to open a new chapter in the relations between the US and Iran and bring an end to a consuming conflict that will otherwise continue to dangerously destabilize the region.

The US can now change the dynamic of the conflict by offering Iran a promising prospect for economic prosperity and growth while enhancing its national security, or be subject to constant sabotage, crippling sanctions, and potential military attacks on its nuclear facilities, as President Biden and Israel vowed to never allow Iran to become a nuclear power.

The US can make this overture not only because it has nothing to lose, but also because it can demonstrate resolute leadership and be ready to change course by offering a solution from a position of strength, even if it stands only a small chance of success.

Since Iran consistently denies having any ambition to acquire nuclear weapons, this strategy will allow it to forsake its nuclear weapons program without losing face, while leveraging constructively its vast potential as a major regional power.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The global formula milk industry, valued at some 55 billion US dollars, is targeting new mothers with personalised social media content that is often not recognisable as advertising. Photo by Lucy Wolski on Unsplash

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, May 6 2022 (IPS)

The world’s leading health and children specialised organisations have once again sounded the alarm bell about what they classify as “shocking, insidious, exploitative, aggressive, misleading and pervasive” marketing tricks used by the baby formula milk business with the sole aim of increasing, even more, their already high profits.

On this, the World Health Organization (WHO) at the end of April this year explained that formula milk companies are paying social media platforms and influencers to gain direct access to pregnant women and mothers at some of the most vulnerable moments in their lives.

The global formula milk industry, valued at some 55 billion US dollars, is targeting new mothers with personalised social media content that is often not recognisable as advertising.

The formula milk industry uses systematic and unethical marketing strategies to influence parents’ infant feeding decisions and exploitative practices that compromise child nutrition and violate international commitments.

“This report shows very clearly that formula milk marketing remains unacceptably pervasive, misleading and aggressive,” says WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

The new WHO report titled Scope and impact of digital marketing strategies for promoting breast-milk substitutes has outlined the digital marketing techniques designed to influence the decisions new families make on how to feed their babies.

 

Business buys, collects personal information

“Through tools like apps, virtual support groups or ‘baby-clubs’, paid social media influencers, promotions and competitions and advice forums or services, formula milk companies can buy or collect personal information and send personalised promotions to new pregnant women and mothers.”

The report summarises findings of new research that sampled and analysed 4 million social media posts about infant feeding published between January and June 2021 using a commercial social listening platform.

These posts reached 2.47 billion people and generated more than 12 million likes, shares or comments.

 

Three times as much

Formula milk companies post content on their social media accounts around 90 times per day, reaching 229 million users; representing three times as many people as are reached by informational posts about breastfeeding from non-commercial accounts.

This pervasive marketing is increasing purchases of breast-milk substitutes and therefore dissuading mothers from breastfeeding exclusively as recommended by WHO.

“The promotion of commercial milk formulas should have been terminated decades ago,” said Dr Francesco Branca, Director of the WHO Nutrition and Food Safety department.

 

More and more powerful marketing techniques

“The fact that formula milk companies are now employing even more powerful and insidious marketing techniques to drive up their sales is inexcusable and must be stopped.”

The report compiled evidence from social listening research on public online communications and individual country reports of research that monitors breast-milk substitute promotions, as well as drawing on a recent multi-country study of mothers’ and health professionals’ experiences of formula milk marketing.

The studies show how misleading marketing reinforces myths about breastfeeding and breast milk and undermines women’s confidence in their ability to breastfeed successfully.

 

Blatant breaches of law

The proliferation of global digital marketing of formula milk blatantly breaches the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes (the Code), which was adopted by the 1981 World Health Assembly.

The Code is a landmark public health agreement designed to protect the general public and mothers from aggressive marketing practices by the baby food industry that negatively impact breastfeeding practices.

“Despite clear evidence that exclusive and continued breastfeeding are key determinants of improved lifelong health for children, women and communities, far too few children are breastfed as recommended. If current formula milk marketing strategies continue, that proportion could fall still further, boosting companies’ profits.”

 

Industry to stop, governments to act

WHO has called on the baby food industry to end exploitative formula milk marketing, and on governments to protect new children and families by enacting, monitoring and enforcing laws to end all advertising or other promotion of formula milk products.

This is the first time WHO has used a social media intelligence platform to generate insight into the marketing practices of multi-national formula milk manufacturers and distributors.

Social media intelligence platforms monitor social media for mentions of defined key words or phrases, which they gather, organise and analyse.

This industry standard approach “listens” to the billions of daily exchanges and conversations that take place amongst social media users around the world and on other digital platforms, such as websites and forums.

This investigation captured digital interactions that occurred between 1 January and 30 June 2021, referenced infant feeding across 11 languages and 17 countries, which together account for 61% of the global population and span all six WHO regions.

 

Pregnant women, exposed to aggressive marketing

Parents and pregnant women globally are exposed to aggressive marketing for baby formula milk, according to a report launched jointly by two UN agencies last February.

How marketing of formula milk influences our decisions on infant feeding, the first report in a series by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), draws on interviews with parents, pregnant women, and health workers in eight countries.

More than half of those surveyed acknowledged that they had been targeted by formula milk companies.

 

Unethical

UNICEF and WHO maintain that the formula milk industry uses systematic and unethical marketing strategies to influence parents’ infant feeding decisions and exploitative practices that compromise child nutrition and violate international commitments.

“This report shows very clearly that formula milk marketing remains unacceptably pervasive, misleading and aggressive,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, calling for regulations on exploitative marketing to be “urgently adopted and enforced to protect children’s health.”

The report found not only that industry marketing techniques include unregulated and invasive online targeting, but also sponsored advice networks and helplines; offered promotions and free gifts; and influenced health workers’ training and recommendations.

Surprised? Well, nobody should really be, now that the voracious push for making more profits and accumulating more money has already supplanted Nature and whatever is natural.

He fears being killed by Kenyan state agents as is alleged has happened to other terror suspects.