Africa

By Karin Kleinbooi
CAPETOWN, South Africa, Apr 13 2022 (IPS)

Which country do you think best recognises the potential for changes to food systems to reduce emissions? Presumably a developed country, where agriculture is predominantly intensive, heavily subsidised and fuelled by fertilisers and irrigation, and where high consumption of animal proteins is the norm?

Not so, – as we found when we analysed the national climate plans for 14 countries, including the US, UK, China, Senegal and Bangladesh, in partnership with the Global Alliance for the Future of Food.

Perhaps counter-intuitively it was Colombia and Kenya that stood out from the other countries as having submitted plans to the UN climate talks that best took into account the potential for food systems reform to drive down greenhouse gas emissions, and deliver a range of other benefits including improved health and livelihoods, enhanced food security, better gender equality, and wider environmental gains such as clean water and nature recovery.

Conservative estimates suggest that changing the way we produce and consume food could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by at least 10.3 billion tonnes a year – 20% of the cut needed by 2050 to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius and – hopefully – prevent catastrophic climate change.

And yet, none of the countries whose ‘nationally determined contributions’ or NDCs we analysed are currently doing enough to realise the myriad opportunities.

For example, none of the country plans we analysed include specific measures on changing diets, even though this has the potential to reduce emissions by nearly a billion tonnes a year, as well as provide associated health and other environmental benefits.

China’s plan does include a target to promote ‘green and low-carbon lifestyles’, but it does not clarify whether this includes sustainable and healthy diets.

Meanwhile, Germany is the only country that commits to move away from harmful subsidies that prop up intensive agriculture, contribute to higher emissions and degrade nature.

Similarly, none of the countries we looked at fully account for emissions from food imports, particularly those linked to deforestation and the destruction of ecosystems, in spite of commitments made at the last UN climate meeting to end and reverse deforestation by 2030.

Food loss and waste is another big gap in most of the country plans we reviewed. One-third of all food produced in the world – approximately 1.3 billion tonnes – is lost or wasted every year.

But France is the only country whose NDC includes comprehensive measures to reduce it. China passed an anti-food-waste law last April, accompanied by a large-scale “clear your plate” campaign but this is not yet reflected in its NDC.

Globally, women play a central role in food production and children’s nutrition, so any efforts to meaningfully reform food systems to reduce emissions must engage them. Vanuatu, Canada, Kenya and Senegal have all made efforts to ensure their NDCs are gender inclusive.

In contrast, the UK only includes a general reference to ‘gender equality’ and China and the US fail to specifically mention women as a key stakeholder group.

Colombia, Senegal, and Kenya have the most ambitious measures in place to promote more agroecological and regenerative locally-led agriculture, which is less emissions intensive and good for sustainable livelihoods and equality.

Colombia’s plan includes measures to reduce emissions from cocoa, coffee, and sugar production, as well as from livestock including through sustainable management, restoration of degraded grazing areas, and energy generation from waste. In addition, the NDC includes measures to strengthen local agricultural capacities through training and workshops.

Colombia’s NDC also sets out measures to protect, conserve, and recover natural resources and ecosystems as well as strengthen its protected areas. Specifically, the NDC includes commitments to restore, rehabilitate, or recover 18,000 hectares of degraded land in protected areas; conserve paramos, watersheds, mangroves, and seagrass fields; and promote the conservation and restoration of natural ecosystems that have been used for cattle.

The Colombian NDC acknowledges the importance of engaging with smallholders and local communities, and the central role of Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities in preserving the country’s forests.

The involvement of rural communities is seen as essential for transforming agricultural practices, avoiding the expansion of the agricultural frontier, and safeguarding the country’s food security.

Meanwhile, Kenya’s NDC identifies agriculture as one of the sectors most vulnerable to climate change, and also as a key to meeting ambitious adaptation and mitigation targets. It promotes ‘climate smart’ agriculture that sustainably increases productivity, resilience, reduces or removes greenhouse gases, and enhances the achievement of national food security and development goals.

The strategy unites agriculture, development, and climate change and emphasises the need for good coordination.

Kenya’s NDC aims to build the resilience of the agricultural system through the sustainable management of land, soil, water, and other natural resources as well as insurance and other safety nets; and to strengthen communication systems on climate-smart agriculture extension services and agro-weather issues.

The plan also includes measures to build climate resilience for marginalised communities by developing social safety net structures for women, youth, and other vulnerable groups. It promotes access for these groups to enterprise funds, climate finance and credit lines.

There are ways in which both Colombia and Kenya can improve their plans, for example by strengthening commitments on nutritious and sustainable diets. They, along with all the other signatories to the UN process, have the opportunity to do this ahead of the next big UN meeting in Egypt later this year.

The toolkit we have developed with the Global Alliance gives governments the guidance they need to improve the process, content and implementation of their NDCs to realise the huge benefits of food systems reform for the environment, society and the economy. With food prices rocketing and climate change already hitting people hard, there is no time to lose.

Karin Kleinbooi is a Senior Programme Manager at Solidaridad Eastern, Central and Southern Africa. Solidaridad is a civil society organisation that works throughout the whole supply chain to make sustainability the norm and enable farmers and workers to earn a decent income, produce in balance with nature, and shape their own future. Karin is responsible for facilitating policy advocacy through multi-stakeholder platforms with various actors (including farmers, CSOs, the private sector, Government and regional institutions). She currently focuses on value chain transparency, food systems transformation, and creating enabling environments for sustainability.

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Traffickers target unemployed youth in Kenya. While the government is working to combat this crime, COVID-19 impacted their efforts. Here a police officer is in discussion with a community policing committee that works together to combat criminal activities, like trafficking. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Kenya, Apr 13 2022 (IPS)

Ahmed Bakari’s ill-fated journey to ‘greener pastures’ started with a social media private message from a stranger back in 2017. The message said an international NGO was recruiting teachers and translators to work in Somalia.

“I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Communication in 2013. Other than for the odd job here and there, I was mostly unemployed,” Bakari tells IPS.

“My mother raised five of us single-handedly, and I was her hope. Taking loans to put me through university, but it was all amounting to nothing.”

With a starting salary of $500 and additional food and housing allowances, Bakari had no dilemma – he was going to Somalia.

Growing up in Lamu, a small group of islands situated on Kenya’s northern coastline, he knew that Somalia was not far from the border, and the journey there was uneventful.

Upon arrival in Somalia, he says, the unexpected happened. Bakari was taken to a house where he cooked and cleaned for between 10 to 20 men – without pay.

“I do not know what was going on in that house because they would come in and go at all hours. I lived under lock and key for one year. One day there was a disagreement among them, and a fight broke out. During the chaos, I found my chance to leave the house,” he recounts.

“I remained in Somalia for another six weeks until somebody helped me get to the Dadaab border. I crossed over into Kenya like a refugee because I was afraid of telling my story.”

Young people in Nairobi and Kenya’s coastal regions are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking into Somalia. Despite ongoing instability in the horn of Africa nation, many young people are lured with promises of opportunities to work in humanitarian NGOs and as teachers and translators.

Bakari, who now runs an eatery in Mombasa, says criminal groups are particularly interested in young people who can speak Arabic, Swahili, English and Somali.

“Criminals take advantage of historical marginalisation of communities in the coastal region, very high youth unemployment rates and poverty. They also use radical Islamic teachings to lure young and desperate minds,” Abubakar Mahmud, an activist against human trafficking, tells IPS.

“There was a time when the Pwani si Kenya (Swahili for ‘coastal region is not Kenya’) was gaining traction as a backlash campaign against the national government. These are the emotions that terror groups are happy to stir and exploit,”  Mahmud says, adding they also take advantage of the high levels of youth unemployment.

According to the most recent census released in 2020, youth unemployment is a serious issue in Kenya. More than a third of Kenyan youth aged 18 to 34 years are unemployed, and the situation has worsened since COVID-19.

Kenya National Crime Research Centre says this East African nation is a source, transit route and destination for human trafficking victims. People from Uganda, Burundi and Ethiopia are trafficked into Kenya for hard labour. Ethiopians are trafficked into South Africa for hard labour.

The US Department of State 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report finds that the government of Kenya does not fully meet “the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so.”

These efforts include the Counter-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2010, which criminalised sex trafficking and labour trafficking and prescribed penalties of 30 years to life imprisonment, a fine of not less than $274,980 or both.

The government also allocated $183,320 to the National Assistance Trust Fund for Assisting Victims of Trafficking in 2020-2021.

The report finds that “criminals involved in terrorist networks lure and recruit Kenyan adults and children to join non-state armed groups, primarily al-Shabab in Somalia, sometimes with fraudulent promises of lucrative employment.”

For years, Al-Shabab has operated clandestine bases in Somalia just across Kenya’s eastern border, enabling the terror group to expand its operations into Kenya and other East African countries.

“From my experience, they will befriend you and some of your friends and relatives on social media. You will feel safe because you have friends in common. They will even tell you that you grew up in the same neighbourhood years ago. You end up trusting them very quickly and getting involved with them without asking the right questions,” Bakari cautions.

Mukaru Muthomi, a police officer with the National Police Service, says that in 2019, Kenya banned trade between Kenya and Somalia through the Lamu border due to insecurity and combat criminal activities such as existing networks and syndicates dealing in human trafficking.

The Lamu border crossing is one of four that join Kenya and Somalia, and other border points are in Kenya’s Mandera, Wajir and Garissa Counties.

He says the government is vigilant along the Dadaab and Mandera border point routes used by Somali refugees crossing into Kenya. Kenya hosts more than 500,000 refugees from Somalia.

Mahmud says human trafficking is a pressing issue in Kenya partly because criminals are increasingly taking advantage of the large numbers of refugees from Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia to complicate the country’s fight against human trafficking.

In 2019, the government identified 853 victims of human trafficking and another 383 victims in 2020. Mahmud is quick to warn that many cases have gone unreported, and COVID-19 hampered efforts to counter human trafficking. He also says there are not enough officers to combat human trafficking.

Nevertheless, Kenya’s Trafficking in Persons Report shows the country’s investigative capacity of the Anti-Human Trafficking and Child Protection Unit is gradually increasing. Personnel increased from 33 to 37 officers deployed in human trafficking hotspots. There are 27 officers in Nairobi and 10 in Mombasa, with plans to open a third office in Kisumu.

“Increasing personnel is good, but the government must address the root of these problems because human trafficking into and out of Kenya is interlinked with poverty. Find job opportunities for young people,” Mahmud observes.

The census, he says, showed that “3.7 million young people between 18 and 34 years without a job were not even actively looking for work because they have no hope of finding employment in Kenya. This is a ticking time bomb.”

This article is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) http://gsngoal8.com/ is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7, which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalization of indifference, such as exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking”.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Africa has committed to green recovery of COVID-19, now it needs to turn policy into action, analysts say. Credit: Dustan Woodhouse/Unsplash Dustan Woodhouse

By Aimable Twahirwa
KIGALI, Apr 12 2022 (IPS)

Climate change activist Mithika Mwenda, the Executive Director of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), is not reluctant to engage African governments to do what’s necessary to commit to post-COVID-19 green growth strategies.

Through Africa’s post-COVID-19 green recovery pathway, initiated in July last year, governments have committed to reaching the Paris Agreement’s climate change targets and prosperity objectives by adopting eco-friendly measures and doing this amid COVID-19 recovery.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) shows that COVID-19 has triggered the deepest economic recession. The current recovery plan by African governments is centred around climate finance, renewable energy, nature-based solutions, resilient agriculture, and green and resilient cities.

Activists say African countries need to urgently move from talk shops in conferences to implement green commitments.

Africa has committed to green growth strategies in its recovery from COVID-19, but it needs to ensure that the commitments are real, and not just on paper, says climate change activist Mithika Mwenda, the Executive Director of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

Mwenda told IPS that climate actors should not forget the shortcomings manifested by the environmental crisis in terms of biodiversity losses, plastic menace etc.

While tackling the climate crisis, most African countries will require a holistic approach to recovery planning and policymaking. Both climate experts and activists stress that  African governments face an ‘enormous challenge’ even as they seize opportunities of the green transition, which aims to assist developing countries in rebuilding better from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The latest official report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) indicates that by 2050 greenhouse gas emissions associated with plastic production, use and disposal would account for 15 per cent of allowed emissions, under the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C (34.7°F).

It said that a shift to a circular economy can reduce the volume of plastics entering oceans by over 80 per cent by 2040; reduce virgin plastic production by 55 per cent, save governments US$70 billion by 2040, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent, and create at least 700,000 additional jobs – mainly in the global south, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.

While state actors in the negotiations expressed their optimism about the smooth implementation of green economic recovery from COVID-19, some environmental activists believe that much will depend on what is at stake as African countries commit unprecedented resources to green recovery from COVID-19.

“There is one thing resolving (to support international agreements) and another thing implementing it,” Mwenda said while referring to the current situation in most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Creating local green jobs: the United States, Italy and South Africa show the benefits of adopting green solutions, especially job creation. The report identified that improving the energy efficiency of existing and new homes, schools, and workplaces could create 900,000 jobs in South Africa.

“These urban actions would lead to significant emissions reduction that would surpass the South African 2030 climate target, making higher ambition to align with the Paris Agreement possible for South Africa,” the report stated. South Africa is one of the African countries committed to green recovery – although there have been mixed messages by politicians because of the country’s dependency on coal both domestically and for export.

The concerns raised by some politicians mirror concerns of other developing countries. Scientists in a recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that emissions need to be cut swiftly to limit global warming. However, one of the authors, Fatima Denton, warns that if this is done “at the expense of justice, of poverty eradication and the inclusion of people, then you’re back at the starting block.”

The report also warns that it is crucial to ensure that youth, indigenous communities, and workers are on board.

During the fifth session of the UN Environment Assembly, which took place in March in Nairobi, Kenya, the historical agreement on green recovery from COVID-19 was adopted based on three initial draft resolutions from various nations, establishing an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), that has been assigned to complete draft global legally binding agreement by the end of 2024.

According to Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP, this is the most significant environmental multilateral deal since the Paris accord.

The historic resolution, titled “End Plastic Pollution: Towards an internationally legally binding instrument”, was adopted after the three-day UNEA-5.2 meeting, attended by more than 3,400 in-person and 1,500 online participants from 175 UN Member States, including 79 ministers and 17 high-level officials.

“This is an insurance policy for this generation and future ones, so they may live with plastic and not be doomed by it,” Andersen said.

While humanity is facing a pandemic, an economic crisis and an ecological breakdown, African governments were advised to put their countries on sustainable trajectories that prioritise economic opportunity, poverty reduction and planetary health.

The continent holds 30 percent of the world’s mineral reserves and 65 percent of its arable land. It has massive renewable energy sources, according to the UNEP estimates.

According to environmental experts, the best way to tackle these issues simultaneously in Africa is to prioritise green investments in COVID-19 recovery by mobilising assets that back the sustainable use of resources.

Because the economic fallout from COVID-19 accelerated existing inequalities, it is even more critical for countries to rebuild their economies and enhance resilience against future shocks.

While activists agree the green recovery initiative is important for post-COVID-19 economies in Africa, the major challenge for these developing countries is access to these funds.

Faustin Vuningoma, the Executive Secretary of Rwanda Climate and Development Network (RCDN), told IPS that the capacity to develop green projects and meet the required criteria for most countries in Africa could easily hinder the developing world – especially access to resources.

“It is important for African countries to engage development partners with the funding resources and make sure they meet all criteria to access these funding,” Vuningoma said.

“The international partnerships will be crucial in tackling a problem that affects all of us,” said Dr Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya, Rwanda’s Minister of Environment, referring to the landmark agreement in Nairobi.

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By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 12 2022 (IPS)

The evening news programs of the three dominant U.S. television networks devoted more coverage to the war in Ukraine last month than in any other month during all wars, including those in which the U.S. military was directly engaged, since the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq, according to the authoritative Tyndall Report. The only exception was the last war in which U.S. forces participated in Europe, the 1999 Kosovo campaign.

Combined, the three networks — ABC, CBS, and NBC — devoted 562 minutes to the first full month of the war in Ukraine. That was more time than in the first month of the U.S. invasion of Panama in December 1989 (240 mins), its intervention in Somalia in 1992 (423 mins), and even the first month of its invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001 (306 minutes), according to a commentary published Thursday by Andrew Tyndall, who has monitored and coded the three networks’ nightly news each weekday since 1988.

Normally in a war in which the United States is not involved, it would be the default position of the American news media to search for a fair-and-balanced way to present both sides of the conflict. It is to Zelensky’s credit that, this time, the networks had no problem seeing the conflict from his point of view

“Astonishingly, the two peak months of coverage of the [2003] Iraq war each saw less saturated coverage than last month in Ukraine (414 minutes in March of 2003 and 455 minutes in April),” he wrote. “…The only three months of war coverage in the last 35 years that have been more intensive than last month were Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 (1,208 minutes) and his subsequent removal in January and February 1991 (1,177 and 1,033 minutes respectively).”

That was at a time, however, when the network evening news devoted about a third more time to foreign news than it has in recent years when international news coverage has fallen to all-time lows.

Last month’s coverage of Ukraine even eclipsed by a wide margin the three networks’ coverage of the chaotic end of Washington’s 20-year war in Afghanistan last summer. Last August, the month with the most intense coverage, the three networks devoted a total of 345 minutes (or only about 60 percent of last month’s total Ukraine coverage) to the war’s abrupt denouement. Once U.S. forces had fully withdrawn by August 31, network coverage of Afghanistan fell precipitously to a total of just 103 minutes between September 1 and the end of year, despite the desperation of the country’s humanitarian situation that followed (and persists).

While the major cable news networks often receive more public attention, the evening news shows of ABC, CBS, and NBC collectively remain the single most important source of international news in the United States.

On weekday evenings, an average of some 20 million U.S. viewers tune in to national news programs on one or more of the three networks. That’s roughly four times the number of people who rely on the major cable stations — Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN — for their news during prime time. About two million more people watch the network news via the internet, according to Tyndall. The actual news content on each network runs about 22 minutes; in March, the total number of minutes of content for all three weekday evening news shows would have reached around 1500 minutes.

Historically, the amount of news coverage devoted to foreign wars has been positively correlated with the direct involvement of the U.S. military. “Normal expectations are that wars are always more newsworthy in America when American lives are at risk,” according to Tyndall, who noted that the only war in the last several decades to which the networks devoted as much time in one month as last month’s total coverage of Ukraine was in Kosovo in April 1999 (565 minutes) when U.S. aircraft led NATO’s bombing campaign against Serbia.

But the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in late February, “has overturned all normal patterns of journalistic response,” according to Tyndall. He gave most of the credit to the leadership and media savvy of President Volodymyr Zelensky who has largely controlled the narrative conveyed to Americans via the networks.

“It is a demonstration of Zelensky’s perceived newsworthiness that both ABC World News tonight and NBC Nightly News decided to assign their anchors to an extended interview with him, despite the fact that he would not be speaking English, meaning that the audio would consist of the stilted tones of a simultaneous translator,” Tyndall observed.

It also helped that “the overall structure of the coverage has been Kyiv-based,” in part due to Russia’s enactment of strict censorship coverage that, among other things, made it much more difficult to cover Moscow’s views. “Yet, more unusual for the American news media, there has been precious little coverage from Washington,” Tyndall observed. “Normally in a war in which the United States is not involved, it would be the default position of the American news media to search for a fair-and-balanced way to present both sides of the conflict. It is to Zelensky’s credit that, this time, the networks had no problem seeing the conflict from his point of view.”

This has extended even to the networks’ treatment of the refugee crisis provoked by the Russian invasion. “Normally, refugees are a seen-from-both-sides problem: desperate Syrians, or Haitians, or Central Americans clamoring at a border for humanitarian relief — and immigration officials at checkpoints guarding against an untrammeled influx that might overwhelm the host country,” according to Tyndall. “In this case, …there was no doubt that these refugees, mostly women and children and the elderly, were on a righteous ‘unarmed road of flight,’ as the bard puts it.”

The fact that all three networks sent their anchors to Lviv or Poland to cover the displaced and the refugees underlined both the importance of the story and the side that they were effectively taking, according to Tyndall.

In stressing the importance of Zelinsky’s own role, Tyndall noted that last month’s intensity of coverage is not explained by the uniqueness or importance to U.S. national security of Ukraine itself. In all of 2014, when both the pro-Moscow government in Kyiv was ousted and Moscow invaded and annexed Crimea and aided secessionist forces in the Donbas, the three networks devoted a total of 392 minutes, or an average of just over 32 minutes a month. Of course, that invasion resulted in U.S. and Western sanctions against Russia that set relations on a downward trajectory from which they have never recovered.

The networks’ fixation with Ukraine essentially filled to overflowing the “news hole” for international news. Only short snippets, including North Korean missile tests, the China East airliner crash, U.S.-China talks (which also centered around Ukraine), and Venezuela’s release  of two U.S. oil executives were mentioned by one or more of the networks during the month. The economic situation in Russia itself, as well as the sanctions levied against Moscow and the country’s oligarchs — both of which were directly related to Ukraine in any event — were also the subject of discrete stories.

The Ukraine coverage in March also crowded out the latest developments in the devastating humanitarian crises caused by Afghanistan’s collapsed economy and the ongoing wars in Yemen and Ethiopia.

This story was originally published by  Responsible Statecraft

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By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Apr 12 2022 (IPS)

After two years of human devastation, the world is learning to live with COVID-19 while trying to balance the protection of public health and livelihoods.

For countries in Asia and the Pacific, this is challenging not only because national coffers are heavily strained by record public spending to mitigate pandemic suffering, but also due to deeper structural economic issues.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

COVID-19 has exposed a pandemic of inequality in a region which has the world’s most dynamic economies but also half of the global poor. A region where nearly half of the total income goes to just 10 per cent of people while the poorest 10 per cent get just 0.2 per cent.

This failure to grow together meant that the pandemic worsened the circumstances of those left behind. Estimates suggest that more than 820 million informal workers and over 70 million children in low-income households have been denied access to adequate income and education since the outbreak. Even more worryingly, this will leave long-term scars on economic productivity and learning, harming the future earning potential of those already marginalized.

Amid continuing uncertainty over when the pandemic will finally be behind us, the one certainty for the region’s policymakers is that the benefits of recovery and progress must reach everyone.

The prospects of the regional economy are riddled with downside risks related to the pandemic and emerging challenges in the external policy environment, according to the 2022 Economic and Social Survey for Asia and the Pacific released today by ESCAP. The cumulative output loss for the region’s developing economies between 2020 and 2022 is estimated to be nearly $2 trillion. Prolonged pandemic disruptions will further exacerbate the uneven recovery.

Policies for a fairer future

COVID-19 has created a generational opportunity to build a more equitable and sustainable world. As emphasized by the United Nations Secretary-General, this transformation process must be anchored on a New Social Contract with equal opportunities for all.

Countries can pursue a three-pronged policy agenda for laying the foundations of an inclusive stakeholder economy in Asia and the Pacific.

The immediate priority is avoiding fiscal cuts so that the development gains of past decades are not irreversibly lost. Amid fiscal consolidations, developing Asia-Pacific countries must maintain public spending on health care, education and social protection to keep inequalities from deepening and becoming entrenched.

Instead of cuts, “smart” fiscal policies can improve the overall efficiency and impact of public spending and the scope of revenue collection. Public expenditures should be tilted towards primary health care, universalizing basic education and making tertiary education more inclusive while increasing and eventually extending social protection coverage for informal workers. Concurrently, new sources of revenue should be explored, for instance, by bringing digital economy under the tax net. Digital technologies can improve the delivery of health care and social protection services.

Given the fiscal constraints, as the second policy pillar, central banking can move beyond its traditional roles and share the onus of promoting economic inclusiveness, not least because high and persistent levels of inequality can reduce monetary policy effectiveness. Only half of central banks in the region have financial access, financial literacy or consumer protection among their objectives and strategies. This is a missed opportunity.

Conservative reserve allocation strategies deter central banks from deploying part of the region’s $9.1 trillion official reserves towards social-oriented financial instruments. Amendments in central bank laws and investment strategies can make this possible. An appropriately designed central bank digital currency, supported by an enabling digital infrastructure and financial literacy, can enhance financial inclusion among other benefits. Central banks should also promote the use of social impact and sustainability-linked bonds for social purposes.

The third policy pillar addresses the root cause of inequality. Economic structure determines inequality dynamics and the path to “growing with equity”. Thus, policymakers must focus on pre-distributive rather than redistributive policies. Developing countries can learn from the experiences of advanced economies in the region to proactively guide, shape and manage the structural transformation process for inclusive development.

The digital-robotic-AI revolution is increasingly influencing economic transformation with great uncertainties for inclusiveness. To prepare for this, public support is needed to develop labour-intensive technologies, inclusive access to quality education, reskilling, strengthening labour negotiation capacities and social protection floors, among others.

Although COVID-19 is a major setback to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it is also a chance to accelerate investments in people and the planet, and to speed up regional progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

This is an opportunity that we cannot waste.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

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Security Council votes on draft resolution on Ukraine, 25 February 2022. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Martha Kiiza Bakwesegha-Osula
NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 12 2022 (IPS)

While the West has closed its ranks in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the response in Africa has hardly been uniform.

Following Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, various constituencies within the international community have reacted with a mixture of shock, anger, and trepidation as they ponder the invasion’s implications for international security.

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), long regarded as a marginal player in global politics, has been no exception, with Kenya notably issuing a strongly worded condemnation of Russia’s aggression at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

Since then, Senegal’s president Macky Sall, the current chair of the African Union (AU) and Moussa Faki, the chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) have both issued similar condemnation of Russia’s invasion, calling on the latter to ‘respect international law, the territorial integrity, and national independence of Ukraine’.

Despite the statements from Kenya and the AU, the African response has been hardly uniform, with most of the continent’s countries opting to stay mute – possibly for fear of aggravating Russia. Only 28 African states supported a United Nations General Assembly resolution on 2 March condemning the invasion, with 17 abstaining and one opposing the resolution.

The divide within the SSA region becomes even sharper when one considers that, even as Kenya spoke out strongly against the invasion, its neighbour Uganda abstained from the vote, ostensibly in honour of its ‘non-aligned’ stance in global affairs.

At the same time, the Ugandan president’s son and the country’s army commander, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, tweeted comments in which he expressed strong support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Globalised racism

More broadly, traditional roles in international politics have been reversed at least temporarily. Africa, long regarded as a synonym for senseless armed conflict and accustomed to being on the receiving end of condescending rhetoric and projects of conflict resolution, finds itself playing ‘peacemaker’ vis-à-vis its civilisational ‘superior’ – Europe.

Martha Kiiza Bakwesegha-Osula

Western journalists and academics – long steeped in analytical narratives that explain conflict on the basis of ethnicity and other primordial identity factors associated with ‘cultural backwaters’ like SSA and the Arab world – are struggling to explain the carnage, destruction, and displacement in Ukraine.

The current situation should pose as a grim reminder that conflict is fundamentally driven by greed, opportunism, and other materialist pursuits – rather than identity, culture, or atavistic factors.

While SSA has had its fair share of unsavoury, warmongering leaders, who were keen to exploit military power in pursuit of personal aggrandisement, few have been as blatantly dismissive of international opinion as Vladimir Putin.

At the same time, reports of African students attempting to flee from Ukraine and being barred from entering neighbouring countries on the basis of skin colour are a stark reminder that centuries after the end of slavery, racism is still a palpable reality in much of Europe and the western world.

The AU’s statement on 28 February, however, only condemned racism against Africans, even though racism towards Arabs and Caucasians has also been reported. This reflects the geo-provincial lens through which many on the continent regard the Russia-Ukraine conflict – and points to an enduring balkanisation based on racial identity in an era supposedly associated with greater globalisation.

Sub-Saharan relations with Russia

Africa is a large continent comprising 54 countries.

Therefore, any attempt to generalise their experience is inevitably fraught with analytical inaccuracy. Yet for many countries on the continent, Russia’s geopolitical imprint is minor compared to that of the other five permanent UNSC members.

Even as the United States and China loom large in the contemporary imagination, former colonial powers like Britain and France continue to exploit historical, linguistic, and cultural ties as a basis for some (admittedly waning) influence. Russia is just left to scrape the barrel.

With many of the regimes propped up by the defunct USSR having been replaced over the years, Russia’s claim to fame on the basis of Cold War nostalgia has faded and the country has had to develop a new repertoire and framework of relations based on security cooperation, trade and investment ties, and political solidarity (particularly at the UNSC).

Moreover, while some African countries are key importers of Russian agricultural products like wheat, SSA’s trade relationship with Russia is mostly based on exports from the former, rendering the region less dependent on such trade ties in comparison to countries in Europe. In short, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the global response poses a much greater threat to Europe, both economically and geopolitically, than it does to SSA.

What the conflict means for Africa

Against this background, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has at least three implications for its relations with Africa going forward. First, it lends credence to the view that contemporary conflicts, be they inter-state or intra-state, are largely driven by material factors, occasionally masked by identity politics.

Second, the conflict reinforces the notion, long held in Africa, that regional crises are best resolved by regional actors in the neighbourhood of the conflict.

NATO’s and the EU’s strong response in support of Ukraine – even though Ukraine is not a member of either organisation – recalls the view, long promoted by SSA leaders particularly in the lead-up to the NATO-led military campaign that toppled former Libyan leader Gaddafi, that regional crises are best resolved by actors in the near neighbourhood. In other words: European solutions to European problems!

Therefore, the AU and sub-regional bodies like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) should expect less of a challenge when they insist on taking the lead in resolving conflicts within their region, while at the same time learning critical lessons from the swift action taken by NATO allies to protect ‘their own’.

Finally, the Russia-Ukraine conflict is a reminder that even in a world that is supposedly multilateral, international responses to political and economic challenges are moulded more by geo-strategic calculations than by philanthropic ideals.

The media, political, and diplomatic attention accorded to Ukraine during the invasion far exceeds that given to similar conflicts in SSA and other parts of the globe – and it is proof that this is indeed a world of every continent or sub-region for itself.

Martha Kiiza Bakwesegha-Osula is a Global Policy and Peacebuilding Advisor at the Life and Peace Institute in Nairobi, Kenya.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are personal and belong solely to the author and are not attributed to people, institutions and organisations that the author may be associated with in a personal or professional capacity. Any views or opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, organisation or individual.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 12 2022 (IPS)

As China increases lending to other developing countries, ‘debt trap’ charges are growing quickly. As it greatly augments financing for development while other sources continue to decline, condemnation of China’s loans is being weaponized in the new Cold War.

Debt-trap diplomacy?
The catchy term ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ was coined by Indian geo-strategist Brahma Chellaney in 2017. According to him, China lends to extract economic or political concessions when a debtor country is unable to meet payment obligations. Thus, it overwhelms poor countries with loans, to eventually make them subservient.

Anis Chowdhury

Unsurprisingly, his catchphrase has been popularized to demonize China. Harvard’s Belfer Center has obligingly elaborated on the rising Asian power’s nefarious geostrategic interests. Meanwhile, as with so much else, the Biden administration continues related Trump policies.

But even Western researchers generally wary of China dispute the new narrative. A London Chatham House study concluded it is simply wrong – flawed, with scant supporting evidence.

Studying China’s loan arrangements for 13,427 projects in 165 countries over 18 years, AidData – at the US-based Global Research Institute – could not find a single instance of China seizing a foreign asset following loan default.

China has been the ‘new kid on the block’ of development financing for more than a decade. Its growing loans have helped fill the yawning gap left by the decline and increasing private business orientation of financing by the global North.

Instead of tied aid pushing exports, as before, it now shamelessly promotes foreign direct investment from donor nations. Unless disbursed via multilateral institutions, China’s increased lending to support businesses abroad has not really helped developing countries cope with renewed ‘tied’ concessional aid.

Grand ‘debt trap diplomacy’ narratives make for great propaganda, but obscure debt flows’ actual impacts. Most Chinese lending is for infrastructure and productive investment projects, not donor-determined ‘policy loans’. Some countries ‘over-borrow’, but most do not. Deals can turn sour, but most apparently don’t.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

While leaving less room for discretionary abuse in implementation, project lending typically puts borrowers at a disadvantage. This is largely due to the terms of sought-after foreign investment and financing, regardless of source. Hence, the outcomes of most such borrowing – not just from China – vary.

Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port is the most frequently mentioned China debt trap case. The typical media account presumes it lent money to build the port expecting Sri Lanka to get into debt distress. China then supposedly seized it – in exchange for providing debt relief – enabling use by its navy.

But independent studies have debunked this version. Last year, The Atlantic insisted, ‘The Chinese “Debt Trap” Is a Myth’. The subtitle elaborated, “The narrative wrongfully portrays both Beijing and the developing countries it deals with”.

It elaborated: “Our research shows that Chinese banks are willing to restructure the terms of existing loans and have never actually seized an asset from any country, much less the port of Hambantota”.

The project was initiated by then President Mahindra Rajapaksa – not China or its bankers. Feasibility studies by the Canadian International Development Agency and the Danish engineering firm Rambol found it viable. The Chinese Harbour Group construction firm only got involved after the US and India both refused Sri Lankan loan requests.

Sri Lanka’s later debt crisis has been due to its structural economic weaknesses and foreign debt composition. The Chatham House report blamed it on excessive borrowing from Western-dominated capital markets – not Chinese banks.

Even the influential US Foreign Policy journal does not blame Sri Lanka’s undoubted economic difficulties on Chinese debt traps. Instead, “Sri Lanka has not successfully or responsibly updated its debt management strategies to reflect the loss of development aid that it had become accustomed to for decades”.

As the US Fed tapered ‘quantitative easing’, borrowing costs – due to Sri Lanka’s persistent balance of payment problems – rose, forcing it to seek International Monetary Fund help. Some argue borrowing even more from China is the best option available to the island republic.

To set the record straight, there was no debt-for-asset swap after Sri Lanka could no longer service its foreign debt. Instead, a Chinese state-owned enterprise leased the port for US$1.1 billion. Sri Lanka has thus boosted its foreign reserves and paid down its debt to other – mainly Western – creditors.

Also, Chinese navy vessels cannot use the port – home to Sri Lanka’s own southern naval command. “In short, the Hambantota Port case shows little evidence of Chinese strategy, but lots of evidence for poor governance on the recipient side”.

Malaysia
China has also been accused by the media of seeking influence over the Straits of Malacca, through which some 80% of its oil imports pass. Debt-trap proponents claim Beijing therefore inflated lending for Malaysia’s controversial East Coast Rail Link (ECRL).

The Chatham House report notes, “The real issue here is not one of geopolitics, but rather – as in Sri Lanka – the recipient government’s efforts to harness Chinese investment and development financing to advance domestic political agendas, reflecting both need and greed”.

ECRL was initiated by convicted former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak. Ostensibly to develop the less developed East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, it rejected other less costly, but much needed options.

Borrowings are far more than needed – probably for nefarious purposes. Loan terms were structured to delay repayment – to Najib’s political advantage by ‘passing the buck’ to later generations. But such abuse is by the borrower – not the lender – unless Chinese official connivance is involved.

Non-alignment for our times
There is undoubtedly much room for improving development finance, especially to achieve more sustainable development. Instead of mainly lending to the US, as before, China’s growing role can still be improved. To begin, all involved should respect the United Nations’ principles on responsible sovereign lending and borrowing.

After more than half a century of Western donors’ largely betrayed promises, China’s development finance has significantly improved ‘South-South cooperation’. Meanwhile, sustainable development finance needs – compounded by global warming, the pandemic and Ukraine war – have increased.

After decades of the West denying China commensurate voice in decision making, even under rules it made, its role on the world stage has grown. But instead of working together for the benefit of all, rich countries seem intent on demonizing it. Unsurprisingly, most developing country governments seem undeterred.

As the new Cold War and the scope of economic sanctions spread, collateral damage is undermining development finance and developing countries. To cope with the new situation, developing countries need to consider building a new non-aligned movement for our dark times.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Apr 11 2022 (IPS)

Look around the world at this very moment. Whether we look at it in stark numbers and statistics, whether we look at it as a generational loss of basic human rights, including the right to an education, or whether we look inwardly and feel the unspeakable human suffering and devastation taking place, we all agree: we are at a historically low point in our collective humanity.

Yasmine Sherif

The UN Secretary-General has launched several multilateral calls in the name of the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals to change this and to mobilize the international financing and action needed to do so.

Among these, three are of immediate relevance to the delivery of an inclusive quality education to children and youth left furthest behind in emergencies and protracted crises: armed conflicts, forced displacement and climate-induced disasters.

The first call to action refers to the UN Reform, whereby we must end silos and competition, and work together through joint programming, humanitarian-development coherence and local empowerment – with a focus on those left furthest behind.

In this vein, Education Cannot Wait was operationalized in 2017. At the time, an estimated 75 million children and youth were left behind as their education had been disrupted in crisis-affected and refugee-hosting countries. Since then, Education Cannot Wait has transformed from a new start-up fund to a matured United Nations global fund (hosted by UNICEF), with the design and agility to advance UN Reform in how we deliver education in emergencies and protracted crises to those left furthest behind.

The second call to action refers to Our Common Agenda. Once more, the top-priority for the United Nations’ 193 Member States is to leave no one behind and to reinforce the quality of their education and learning outcomes. Due to COVID-19, the number of children and youth left furthest behind in brutal conflict, forced displacement and climate-induced disasters has sky-rocketed to nearly 130 million.

We must remember them as we prepare for the third relevant call for action: the UN Secretary-General’s Transforming Education Summit, to be held during the UN General Assembly week in September. This is our opportunity to focus international financing and multilateral action on these 130 million vulnerable children and youth.

Without an inclusive quality education, these crisis-affected girls and boys will be prevented from claiming their human rights and disempowered from rebuilding peace in their own lives and in their countries. Tragically, they will be reduced only to representing the staggering gap in reaching all the Sustainable Development Goals, not least, SDG4.

By connecting the dots between the UN Secretary-General’s UN Reform, Our Common Agenda and the Transforming Education Summit, we have a unique, historic opportunity to finally reach the millions of children and youth who are today left furthest behind.

As Norway’s Minister of International Development Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, states in her interview of this month’s ECW Newsletter: “UN Member States have committed to leave no one behind in their implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.” In doing so, she concludes: “The success of this work depends on close collaboration between states, multilateral organizations, civil society organizations, organizations of persons with disabilities, and a wide range of partners.”

This is how the United Nations works. This is how Education Cannot Wait – the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises – works to reach those left furthest behind, together with other major financing mechanisms, such as the International Financing Facility for Education (IFFED) and the Global Partnership for Education.

Leonardo da Vinci once said: “Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.” Indeed, every vision, every call for action, every effort for change, is conditioned by our ability – not only to see, but how we see – by connecting the dots. Only then can we hit the real target and produce scaled up results.

Today, we see 130 million vulnerable children and youth without an education struggling simply to survive in armed conflicts, forced displacement and climate-induced disasters – none of their own making. Now is the time to connect the dots between UN Reform, Our Common Agenda and the Transforming Education Summit, by squarely placing the focus and financing on those left furthest behind.

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

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Preschool students stand in a section of the garden at the El Zaite Children's Center, where teacher Sandra Peña teaches them the importance of healthy eating and the advantages of having a vegetable garden, in El Zaite, a poor neighborhood near Zaragoza, in the southern Salvadoran department of La Libertad. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
ZARAGOZA, El Salvador , Apr 11 2022 (IPS)

A group of preschool students enthusiastically planted cucumbers and other vegetables in their small school garden in southern El Salvador, a sign that school feeding programs are being revived as the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although the impacts of coronavirus are still being felt, schools in Latin America, particularly in Central America, have reopened their doors to on-site and blended learning classes.

Gradually, important components of school meal programs, such as vegetable gardens, have begun to come back to life.

“Does anyone know what plant this is?” teacher Sandra Peña, 36, asked the small group of children who had followed her, in line, to the small vegetable garden at the El Zaite Children’s Center, located on the outskirts of Zaragoza, a city in the department of La Libertad in southern El Salvador.

The children responded loudly: “tomato!”, while pointing to a tomato bush, which was already showing some yellow flowers.

With difficulties, because coronavirus hasn’t gone away, schools in Central America are making efforts to continue the school feeding programs, which were making good progress before the pandemic.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), these programs benefit 85 million students in Latin America and the Caribbean. Moreover, for nearly 10 million children, they are one of the main reliable sources of food received each day.

“Students are returning to classes, in a context that is not yet back to normal, but they are gradually returning,” Najla Veloso, an expert with the Brazil-FAO International Cooperation Program, told IPS from Brasilia.

As a result of this cooperation, at the beginning of the pandemic, in 2020, several Latin American and Caribbean countries carried out joint actions to keep school feeding programs active, as part of the Sustainable School Feeding Network (Raes).

These nations were Belize, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Peru, Paraguay, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Raes was created by the Brazilian government in 2018, as part of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016-2025), in order to support countries in the region in the implementation and reformulation of school feeding programs, based on access and guaranteeing the right to an adequate diet.

Teachers Marta Mendoza (l) and Sandra Peña pose with their students at the El Zaite Children’s Center, located in a community that is struggling to get ahead in a context of poverty and violence, like many villages and towns in El Salvador. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

The challenges continue

When the pandemic hit and schools were closed, activity in school gardens and the kitchens where food was prepared ground to a halt. That meant strategies had to be devised to make sure the students had food – not in the schools, but in the homes of families who were under lockdown to curb the spread of the virus.

The stopgap solution was to take non-perishable food to the students’ homes, because meals were not being cooked in the schools.

The FAO expert pointed out that Guatemala and El Salvador did a good job in this regard and, in general, all the Central American countries made an effort to keep their students fed.

“Some countries had to change their laws, because food could only legally be given to students, and with the schools closed they could no longer deliver it to them, and they had to give it to fathers, mothers and the families,” Veloso explained.

The logistics of an already complex program had to be expanded greatly, with components such as local purchases, which involved coordinating the purchase of legumes, grains, vegetables, fruits and other products that were part of the school menus from local farmers.

In some cases, seed kits and farming tools were also provided so that families could plant vegetables in their home gardens, since the school gardens were no longer functioning.

Now that in most of the seven Central American countries schools are open again with a mixture of online and face-to-face learning, food is no longer taken to students’ homes, but rather parents come to the schools to pick up the products.

In the case of El Salvador, the Ministry of Education has invested, for the school year that began in January and ends in November, more than 10 million dollars for the food program to serve more than one million students nationwide, in 5128 public schools.

In this Central American nation of 6.7 million people, two food baskets have begun to be delivered, one containing a 1.1 kilogram bag of corn cereal for breakfast and seven liters of UHT liquid milk, while the other contains rice, beans, sugar, oil, powdered milk and a vitamin-fortified drink.

When IPS visited, parents and teachers at the school in the canton of San Isidro, in the municipality of Izalco in the western department of Sonsonate, were in the process of quarterly delivery of the baskets of items, which for now is replacing the serving of meals at public schools.

The photo shows sprouts planted by students at the El Zaite Children’s Center, in the south of El Salvador, in the school garden that will soon produce vegetables for their school meals again – part of the effort to keep the garden and healthy eating alive, now that schoolchildren are beginning to return to school as the COVID pandemic dies down. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

“We have had to manage to get by during the pandemic, and now we are gradually getting the vegetable garden going again, for example,” said Manuel Guerrero, the school principal.

The school in San Isidro, which has been semi-open since 2021, serves 1,500 elementary and middle school students.

“Teachers are already working with the students in the gardens to make up for lost time,” added the 57-year-old principal.

Before the pandemic, they grew tomatoes, green peppers, yucca, cabbage and a local plant known as chipilín (Crotalaria longirostrata), whose leaves are added to soups for their high vitamin content.

“From our experience, and because I have visited many schools, I would say that the idea of school gardens has been well assimilated from the beginning, and that is why we must work hard to maintain it,” Guerrero added.

A state-of-the-art preschool

At the El Zaite Children’s Center, activities in the kitchen are back in full swing, although not as they were prior to the pandemic, when the cook, Dinora Gómez, took great care to ensure that the menus were to the children’s liking.

Somewhat nostalgically she reminisced to IPS about those days when she toiled away over pots and pans.

“For example, for lunch, I would make them a vegetable mince, with soy meat, tomato sauce and rice,” said Gómez, 50. Other times it was lentil soups and other vegetables.

For breakfast, “I would make scrambled eggs, fried beans and plantains,” she added.

Non-perishable food packages donated by Convoy of Hope, an evangelical organization, are also distributed to the students’ families.

Marta Mendoza and Sandra Peña are part of the teaching team at the El Zaite Children’s Center in southern El Salvador, where they are striving to return to the pre-pandemic standards of education and nutrition. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Now, although the kitchen is still formally closed, Gómez is preparing something to eat for a small group of students whose parents are unable to provide them with a mid-morning snack.

She also occasionally makes a salad from the vegetables grown in the garden.

This small school in El Zaite, which opened in 1984, serves 110 students ages four to six, and has six teachers.

The school is located in a low-income semi-rural community populated by people who settled here in the 1980s, fleeing bombings and military operations during the Salvadoran civil war (1980-1992). It is now home to 563 families.

“We are on land that used to be the pastures for the cattle of the wealthy people of Zaragoza,” Carlos Díaz, director of Patronato Lidia Coggiola, the NGO carrying out community support initiatives in this area, including the school, told IPS.

The school is a community project that falls outside the network of the Ministry of Education, which follows its curriculum as required but puts an added emphasis on topics such as the right to water or taking care of the environment.

In 1999, as part of the Patronato’s activities, a scholarship and distance sponsorship program was launched with support from donors from Italy, France and the United States, to benefit young people from the community who wished to continue their high school and university studies.

One of the beneficiaries of the initiative was Marta Mendoza, who attended preschool at the center, graduated from university and now returned to the center as a teacher.

“We formed the groups, and we are working on reading,” Mendoza told IPS. “The children came out of the lockdown with very energetic behavior.

“Little by little we are getting back to the dynamics we had in the classroom prior to the pandemic,” she said.

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Devka and Krishna Desai on their multilayer farm. They are happy because this method has brought them great success. Here they are with their harvest of bananas and papaya. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
PUNE, India, Apr 11 2022 (IPS)

Even as erratic weather and extremely high temperatures increase pest infestation and affect harvests, a combination of traditional methods, integrated pest management through intercropping and multilayering is helping farmers in Ahmednagar and Aurangabad districts of Maharashtra, India.

Ahmednagar and Aurangabad districts in the western Indian state of Maharashtra are semi-arid regions in the hinterland. Ahmednagar is drought-prone with erratic rains. Aurangabad district lies in the water-starved Marathwada region of Maharashtra. The mean maximum temperature is high, and the area experienced severe droughts in 2012 and 2014. Barring the Godavari, there are no perennial rivers in the region. Farmers have a trying time during the summer months, trying to prevent the soil from cracking due to intense heat. The rains are erratic, with untimely rains further exacerbating the onset of pests.

Yet, both districts lead in the production of pulses, maize, and grams. Since these crops are susceptible to aphids and pod-borers, high temperatures and erratic rains due to climate change have seen farmers resort to increased chemicals to check pest infestation.

This is where multilayer farming using natural organic methods, integrated pest management, and intercropping has proved beneficial to farmers in Gangapur, Shrigonda and Karjat.  Gradually reducing the chemical content in their farms over three full years, farmers are now opting for natural organic farming, with the help of technical expertise from the non-profit Watershed Organization Trust (WOTR) and scientists from WOTR-Centre for Climate Resilience (W-CRES).

The design incorporates a variety of vegetable and fruit varieties planted in limited space. This means using trees and plants of varying heights and maturing time next to one another so that each is dependent on the other. Smaller plants grow under the canopy of tall trees and yield well, even as tall fruit trees shoot up to the sun. It also ensures adequate shade in the summer months to keep the farms cool and congenial for growth. Water consumption is kept at a minimum using a rain-pipe sprinkler that runs around the patch. The method also uses integrated pest management to control pests by choosing the right plants in a cluster, and natural pesticides, without using any chemicals.

W-CRES Senior Researcher Dr Nitin Kumbhar and Junior Researcher Satish Adhe explains: “Integrated pest management works at several levels. It works through the choice of natural and organic methods, natural pheromone traps, intercropping (as per a formula we have developed), and the use of organic fungicides/pesticides that can be easily made by farming households.”

A simple square design is used, wherein bananas are intercropped with marigold, mango, maize, and black gram (urad), and papayas are intercropped with chilli black gram, drumstick, and guava. Onions are intercropped with ginger; tomatoes are intercropped with spinach and pumpkin. Radish is planted in a single row, while ridge gourd, lemongrass, and coriander are grown on the outside flanks of the farm.

Soft-stemmed coriander attracts pests. When attacked, the affected stalks of coriander are easily discarded. Marigold destroys nematodes in the soil through its alkaloid roots and protects crops. It also attracts female moths who lay eggs on the plant (leaving other crops untouched). Maize attracts beneficial insects such as the ladybird beetle, which feeds on the aphids that destroy crops.

Integrated pest management also involves pheromone traps to attract and kill destructive pests. These traps can be used against leaf-eating insects, pod borers, mealy bugs, aphids, sucking pests or fruit flies.

For all crops grown on patches, it is imperative that planting is done in a north-south direction. “This allows the crops to access sunshine throughout the day,” explains Kumbhar.

Once the farmers did away with hybrid varieties and opted for traditional ones, there was less vegetative growth and fewer insect attacks.

“Part of the problem with hybrid varieties is more vegetative growth and softer stems. This makes it attractive for pests to attack. Traditional varieties are hardier and can withstand extreme temperatures that are now common due to climate change. Farmers do not lose their crops easily due to pest attacks,” Kumbhar tells IPS.

Dipali Bankar, whose family owns a 3-acre farm in Ambelohol village in Gangapur (taluka) of Aurangabad district. A Savita Bachat Gat (Savita microfinance group) member, Dipali used her savings to widen the varieties cultivated on her family’s farm, using the multilayer model on a patch.

“Earlier, we would grow cotton from June to October, Jowar in summer, soybeans and pigeon pea in the monsoons, chickpeas, and onion in winter. Limited availability of water-limited our options. In February 2020, I took the advice of experts from WOTR and went in for multilayer farming on four gunthas (400 square metres of our land. We planted papaya, moringa (drumsticks), bananas, mangoes, guava, lemon, figs, tomatoes, brinjal, chilli (curry leaves), and marigold. Despite the Covid 19 -induced lockdown, the family earned a sizeable sum from the fruit and vegetables cultivated. The Bankars had their first crop of chillies in April 2020 and have sold a sizeable amount every 15 days, helping the family earn Rs 15000 so far. Papaya matures in nine months, while bananas bear fruit in eight months, and moringa yields drumsticks in seven months. This helped the Bankars earn Rs 70,000 from papayas, Rs 28000 and Rs 56 000 from two banana harvests, respectively and Rs 40,000 from selling drumsticks. Although markets were shut during the lockdown, the family managed to sell through local grocery shops and used the rest for their consumption. Dipali’s husband, Devidas Bankar, managed to sell part of his produce in Surat and Mumbai, where he travelled once the lockdown eased.

Sindhubai Ramnath Desai of Ambelohol village in Gangapur taluka of Aurangabad was sceptical. She initially opted to experiment on just 100 square metres, planting moringa, bananas, papaya, lemon, mango, figs, tomato, chilli, brinjal, lemongrass, spinach, coriander, curry leaves and garden sorrel. But the earnings were so substantial that she soon revised her opinion on multilayer farming.

“We earned Rs 7000 from bananas, Rs 5000 from papaya, Rs 2000 from drumsticks, Rs 1500 from chillies, and Rs 2000 selling spinach following the first harvest, besides saving Rs 2000 every month using vegetables and fruit for our consumption.”

The Desais used to hire bullocks for their farm – with the extra money earned they bought cattle which they fed with home-grown fodder.

“We have a cow and two bullocks of our own, now. The special fodder bag we now make, using jaggery, salt and (maize) fodder grass, is very nutritious and has helped them yield good milk. The cattle relish it too, as you can see,” she points to her cow, hungrily devouring the contents of the fodder bag from a feeding bucket. The family has now decided to double the land under multilayer farming to 200 square metres (two gunthas).

Sangita Krishna Ballal and her family had been growing cotton as a monoculture crop on their farmland until the recent past. Their fortunes changed once they opted for multilayer farming on a single guntha (approximately 100 square metres). With drumsticks, papaya, mango, guava, figs, lemongrass, coriander, chilli, lemongrass, brinjal, tomato, curry leaves, marigold, spinach and dill to supplement their income, the family fortunes started looking up. Lemongrass proved an excellent cash crop, with factories regularly collecting it to manufacture flavouring essence.

Dipak Dattatraya Mandle and his wife Mangal Mandle of Mahandulwadi in Shrigonda taluka of Ahmednagar district found that apart from other achievements, marigolds were successful.  With marigolds priced at Rs 200 per kg, sales during the festive season in September-October clocked around Rs 7000/ per month.

Kavita and Aruna Bhujbal used the extra money earned to buy cattle.

“We now have 20 goats, in addition to our two buffaloes, and seven cows (four Guernsey and three local breeds). We have been selling the milk to the local dairy. Goat milk is in big demand,” Aruna said. Others are diverting their additional income to diversify into other livelihood options. For instance, Kausar Sheikh has used the money to expand her bangle business, while Mira Mahandule and Sangita Popat Birekar have started rearing goats.

In this, the FarmPrecise app developed by WOTR has been of immense help. A multilingual app, FarmPrecise helps the individual farmer with advice related to the amount of water, fertilizer, fungicide, or pesticide to be used for every crop and at what intervals. The farmers are also instructed on the organic concoctions for stimulating growth and keeping their crops pest-free.

For instance, the farmers use Bengal gram flour, jaggery, cow dung and cow urine to make Jeevamrut fertilizer, while Neemastra is made out of neem leaves, cow dung and cow urine to serve as a pesticide. The Amrutpani spray (pesticide), is made of a mixture of neem leaves, Bengal gram flour, jaggery and cow dung. The Dashaparni spray – a composition using ten different types of leaves along with garlic, chillies, cow dung and cow urine is another useful biopesticide that serves as a pesticide and growth stimulant.

This combination of traditional, time-tested methods and a modern app is helping farmers combat and overcome climate change, the newest scourge on the block.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Families carry their belongings through the Zosin border crossing in Poland after fleeing Ukraine. The number of refugees worldwide has risen markedly in the recent past, reaching a record high in April 2022 of more than 30 million. Credit: UNHCR/Chris Melzer

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Apr 11 2022 (IPS)

Twilight for the 1951 Refugee Convention is becoming a 21st century reality for an increasing number of countries worldwide.

Since the Convention’s adoption, the world’s population has more than tripled and is now approximately 8,000,000,000 people. The planet’s population growth is expected to continue and likely increase to 10,000,000,000 human inhabitants around mid-century. Nearly all of that demographic growth is projected to take place in developing countries, many of which face resource scarcity, difficult living conditions, and socio-political turmoil.

In addition, climate change is forcing increased human mobility, which is projected to worsen with global warming. And non-stop waves of men, women and children largely from developing countries continue attempting unauthorized entry mainly into developed countries.

The world is also experiencing record levels of refugees, asylum seekers and persons displaced across borders. The number of refugees worldwide has risen markedly in the recent past, reaching a record high in April 2022 of more than 30 million.

That global figure includes 21 million refugees under UNHCR’s mandate and 6 million Palestinian refugees under UNRWA’s mandate as well as 4 million people as of mid-April who fled Ukraine due to Russia’s invasion. Today’s global number of refugees is rapidly approaching a three-fold increase since the start of the 21st century (Figure 1).

 

Source: UNHCR.

 

In addition to the more than 30 million refugees, 4 million Venezuelans are displaced abroad. Also, more than 4 million people are asylum seekers, with the global level of asylum claims having increased four-fold over the levels a decade ago.

In the aftermath of World War II and the beginning of the cold war, the Refugee Convention was drafted and signed by the United Nations Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons, held at Geneva from 2 to 25 July 1951.

The Convention and its subsequent 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees provide the foundation for today’s international refugee regime. They are the primary international legal documents that define the term “refugee”, outline the rights of refugees and responsibilities of countries, and indicate the institutions protecting refugees.

Article 1A(1) of the Convention defines refugee as someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.

However, the term “refugee” is often used more broadly and loosely than its legal definition. For example, colloquial and media usage, general public discourse and political remarks often include individuals seeking refuge and a better life but do not meet the Convention’s criteria for a refugee.

A core refugee principle is “non-refoulement”. That principle states that a refugee should not be returned to a place where their life or freedom would be threatened on grounds of race, religion, nationality, and membership of a particular social group or political opinion.

Most of the United Nations Member States, some 149 countries, have signed or ratified either the Convention, its Protocol or both. The remaining 44 countries, many of which are the top refugee-hosting countries, are not parties to them.

However, the actions of nations regarding refugees are not directly correlated with whether they are a party to the Convention or Protocol. In fact, many signatories to the Convention and Protocol do not honor their protection responsibilities regarding refugees, often believing it’s somebody else’s problem. Increasingly, refugee protections are politicized and seen at odds with national interests and priorities.

Closely related to the refugee documents is Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the right to seek asylum. That provision states that “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.” However, to be granted asylum, a person typically needs to meet the standards of the legal definition of a refugee.

Poverty, the lack of employment, housing, education and health care, poor governance, climate change, and crime are generally not considered legitimate grounds for granting asylum. Therefore, in most instances, claims for asylum are denied because they do not to meet the definition of a refugee.

In the United States, for example, approximately two thirds of asylum claims were denied in the past two years. Higher rates of asylum claims in 2020 denied in the first instance occurred in some European countries, such as Hungary at nearly 90 percent, Italy at 86 percent, and France at 84 percent.

Concerns about the record numbers of refugees, asylum seekers, and people displaced across borders led to the Global Compact on Refugees, which was launched in 2018. The Compact was intended to improve and better coordinate responses of the international community and host countries. However, the Compact, which was voluntary and nonbinding, offered promises and suggestions without an implementation plan and clear measures of progress.

The record levels of displacement are straining the international refugee system. Humanitarian agencies and refugee host countries, which are predominantly in developing countries such as Turkey, Colombia and Uganda, and more recently Poland, are struggling to provide the basic daily needs to the growing numbers of men, women and children.

Nearly all of the projected 1.8 billion additional people by mid-century will occur in less developed countries. For example, whereas Africa is projected to add more than 1 billion people to its population by midcentury, Europe’s population is expected to decline by nearly 40 million over the next three decades (Figure 2).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

Economic hardship, poverty, social unrest, and conflicts are also increasing the likelihood of future flows of refugees, asylum seekers, and displaced persons. Many people who have little chance of emigrating legally can be expected to resort to unauthorized migration.

To gain entry into their destination country, many unauthorized migrants claim asylum even though most claims subsequently turn out not to meet the legal standards for being granted asylum. Based on the experiences of the past, growing numbers of unauthorized migrants believe that claiming asylum permits them to enter and remain in the country even if their claim is eventually denied, which typically takes lengthy periods to be adjudicated.

The consequences of such migration are seriously challenging governments. Recent international survey data find that the world is becoming less tolerant of migrants, especially when the migrants differ ethnically, religiously, and culturally from the host country population. Reconciling border security, national sovereignty, cultural integrity, and basic human rights remains a major challenge for the major migrant-receiving countries.

In addition, climate-related migration is expected to become a more critical issue in the coming years. Increasing numbers of people, particularly in developing regions, will be forced to adapt to global warming and changing environmental conditions, with many becoming “climate refugees”. A recent landmark ruling by the United Nations Human Rights Committee found it unlawful for governments to return migrants to countries where their lives might be threatened by a climate crisis.

In general, the responses to today’s formidable migratory challenges of increasing numbers of refugees, asylum seekers, unauthorized migrants, and persons displaced across borders are not encouraging. Those responses include more walls, barriers, and fences, increasing numbers of border guards, sea patrols, pushbacks, and detention centers, strengthening of right-wing nationalists, increasing xenophobia, heightened fears of terrorism and crime, and, importantly, shirking protection responsibilities.

In virtually every major region, governments are behaving as though the 1951 Refugee Convention is outdated, ineffectual, and incongruent with national interests. In brief, in more and more countries, it’s twilight for the 1951 Refugee Convention.

 

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 recent book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”