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Egypt once again faces the prospect of a poor tourism season due to the Ukraine crisis. The region accounts for about six million tourists each year. Credit: Hisham Allam/IPS

By Hisham Allam
Cairo, Egypt, Apr 6 2022 (IPS)

Tourism to Egypt’s GDP is as vital as the Nile to its people. After Egypt’s tourism sector began to recover following the Russian plane crash in 2015. Then COVID hit, and now the Ukrainian war shot a bullet through its heart.

The protracted Russian conflict with Ukraine threatens several tourist destinations that rely on Russian visitors. Turkey, Uzbekistan, the UAE, Tajikistan, Armenia, Greece, Egypt, Kazakhstan, and Cyprus are among the top 25 countries for outbound Russian tourism by flight capacity, according to Mabrian Technologies, an intelligence platform for the tourism industry.

Egypt’s economy is also heavily reliant on tourism from Russia and Ukraine, with the two countries accounting for roughly one-third of all visitors each year. In 2015, Russia imposed a slew of punitive measures against Egypt in the tourism sector, wreaking havoc on the industry and its workers.

Due to the suspension of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian flights, the decline has become very apparent recently, especially in Sharm El-Sheikh, where occupancy rates are less than 35 percent, compared to 40 to 45 percent in Hurghada, according to industry insiders.

Egypt’s Travel & Tourism sector’s contribution to the nation’s GDP fell from $32 billion (8.8%) in 2019 to $14.4 billion (3.8%) just 12 months later, in 2020.

Egypt member of parliament Hany Alassal stressed that the opening of new tourism markets would help mitigate the effects of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which harms the global and Egyptian tourism sectors.

“Russian tourism amounted to roughly 3.2 million Russian tourists in 2015, and it was anticipated to reach approximately 400,000 Russian tourists per month before the outbreak of war, whilst Ukrainian tourism amounted to roughly 3 million Ukrainian tourists in 2021,” Alassal said.

“The impact of the Ukraine crisis on Egypt’s tourism cannot be overlooked, especially in Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada,” Faten Ibrahim, a tour guide, told IPS.

In comparison to beach tourism, which accounts for about 90% of Egypt’s total revenue from this sector, cultural tourism accounts for less than 5% of total revenue.

“We experienced a difficult period of stagnation with the emergence of COVID-19, specifically from March 2020 to March 2021. Since then, most workers in the tourism sector have worked for half the salary,” Ibrahim says.

“I can measure the impact of the absence of Russian and Ukrainian tourism on museums and historic sites through my daily work, as the number of tourists visiting these sites has nearly halved,” she adds.

Ibrahim, who has worked in the tourism industry for 28 years, points out that the situation significantly improved in October and November of last year, but the emergence of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus in December resulted in large cancellations of reservations, so the situation worsened dramatically in January.

According to WTTC research, COVID-19 sparks a 55% collapse in the sector’s contribution to Egypt’s GDP. The travel and tourism sector is also a major employer in the country, with a workforce of 1.25 million.

In 2017, the total contribution to the GDP was 374.6 billion EGP. It was forecast to contribute approximately 601 billion EGP to the Egyptian economy by 2028.

Amr El-Kady, the head of the Egyptian Tourism Promotion Board (ETPB), says that the Egyptian authorities are assisting stranded tourists from Russia and Ukraine, either to stay safe or return to their homes, in collaboration with the private sector.

“We’re going through a difficult time, but we’re handling it impressively,” El-kady tells IPS.

“It is a powerful propaganda campaign for Egypt, emphasizing that it is not only a tourist destination but also a country that looks out for its visitors in difficult times.”

He explains that the (ETPB) is currently working to open new tourism markets, particularly in Germany, England, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Switzerland, following the lifting of travel restrictions to Egypt.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By External Source
Apr 6 2022 (IPS-Partners)

 

ECW: The International Disability Alliance (IDA), Government of Norway and Government of Ghana hosted the second Global Disability Summit in February. At the summit you called on partners to commit to ensuring children with disabilities can access their inherent human rights, including the right to education. How can we transform the delivery of education in emergencies to ensure no child is left behind?

Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim: UN Member States have committed to leave no one behind in their implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Ensuring no one is left behind also means inclusion of persons with disabilities. We have to make sure that children with disabilities are given access to quality education and assure their safe and meaningful participation. As a minimum this requires 1) disability-disaggregated data, 2) combatting stigma and discrimination, and 3) meaningful engagement of persons with disabilities in decision-making processes. For education in crisis and emergencies, it is vital to strengthen the capacity of teachers, ensure universal design of learning environments and materials, and provide linkages between education services and other support services such as health and protection, as well as to assure that education provides a safe space. The success of this work depends on close collaboration between states, multilateral organisations, civil society organisations, organisations of persons with disabilities, and a wide range of partners.

ECW: Norway is a leading donor and key strategic partner of Education Cannot Wait. Why is investing in education in emergencies and protracted crises important for our world? And why is it important for the people of Norway? What message do you have for other potential donors, including the private sector, who are considering investing in education through ECW?

Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim: Education is essential to live healthy and productive lives. We need to assure that all children get a quality education, also children affected by crisis and conflict situations. Assuring the right to a quality education is a basic principle for the welfare system in Norway, and we would like to contribute to assuring this fundamental human right elsewhere. We are not going to achieve SDG4 if we do not assure that children affected by climate crisis can continue their education. I am concerned about the crisis situation facing millions of children in Ukraine, and I am glad that ECW has recently launched a programme to support the children in the country.

Norway is glad to be a co-convener of Education Cannot Wait’s replenishment conference. I urge all donors and private sector to rally around, and contribute to, the replenishment conference.

ECW: COVID-19, brutal conflicts and other emergencies are pushing children’s mental health and well-being to the limits, as they live through the unspeakable trauma of war, displacement, gender-based violence and other grave violations. How can psychosocial support and mental health services be applied to protect children and accelerate our work to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals?

Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim: In emergency situations, education is definitely an important factor in the mental and physical protection of children and youth. Education can offer learners protection through a safe, stable environment in the midst of crisis, and help restore a sense of normality, dignity, and hope by providing routine and structured activities that help build children’s social and emotional skills. To assure education is included in humanitarian response, and to assure schools are protected from attack, has been a priority for Norway for many years. This is why the Safe Schools Declaration is so important. We encourage all states to endorse and implement the Safe Schools Declaration. 114 countries have endorsed the declaration so far. Norway also calls for the implementation of Security Council Resolution 2601 (2021).

Ensuring that mental health services and psychosocial support are included in primary health care is important, especially during and after humanitarian crisis. Mental health is one of the most neglected areas of health. Teachers must be given training on how to best support their students and that students are provided with psychosocial support and mental health services. In addition, it is important to remember that teachers might themselves be affected by the emergency and be traumatized and might therefore also need to receive adequate support to manage the situation.

ECW: You previously served as Norway’s State Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development. How can the Grand Bargain Agreement’s Localization Agenda help improve the delivery of education in the world’s worst humanitarian crises?

Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim: Our government has as one of its priorities to improve coherence between humanitarian and development efforts and to contribute to sustainable solutions. In this regard, strengthening local and national capacity to respond to humanitarian and protracted crises is important and should be given priority. In order to protect education in emergency situations it is an important principle that schools should not be used for military purposes. It is important that people affected by a crisis should be able to participate in and influence decisions. With regards to the education sector this should include involving and listening to the perspectives of students, parents as well as teachers and other education staff. The role of national organizations must be acknowledged. Such organizations can, for instance, play an important role in advocating for the right to education and making sure that the voices of affected populations are heard. They know the situation on the ground best, and it is crucial to involve them I all processes.

ECW: An estimated 64 million crisis-impacted girls are being denied their right to continuous quality, inclusive education. Recent analysis indicates that as many as 20 million girls may never return to school due to COVID-19. Why must we ensure every girl on the planet has access to continued quality education? How can we ensure education continuity from early childhood education through university?

Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim: First of all, education is a right – for all children and young people, regardless of their gender. We know that girls and women who have been in school live healthier lives, have higher incomes and can take better care of their children. Women who are educated also play a stronger political and economic role in their own societies. Therefore, ensuring that girls get an education is paramount; it is valuable for each and every girl but also for society. I am appalled by the current situation in Afghanistan where girls, after a certain age, are denied the chance to get a secondary education.

Education systems, from early childhood to university, must be inclusive, and they should provide education that is gender transformative and of good quality. In many countries, girls drop out when they reach adolescence. Girls are not always in charge of their own bodies, and they must learn about gender equality, rights and reproduction to be able to uphold their rights. That is why comprehensive sexuality education is a priority in Norway’s development policy. It is also important that policies and practices that are pushing girls out of school are removed, for instance when girls are prevented from attending school when they get pregnant or after giving birth.

ECW: Around the world, we are seeing how the climate crisis is triggering conflict, displacement and disrupting progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. How can we better connect climate, education and sustainable development in most-affected regions, like the Sahel, where its impact is particularly strong?

Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim: We are only beginning to fathom the impact of climate change. Extreme weather is increasing in severity and occurrence. Climate change and environmental degradation impact access and quality of education in numerous ways. Through increased migration, through poverty and though malnutrition; as well as through the direct impact on school infrastructure and supplies. In many contexts, girls and women are disproportionally affected by crisis and displacement. We must have a special focus on protection of girls and on girls’ education when addressing the impact of climate crisis.

Climate change not only affects education delivery. The relationship is also the other way around as education is of essence to climate change prevention and emergency preparedness. Quality education enables children and their families to make informed choices and to become part of the climate change solution. It is positive that Education Cannot Wait has, for instance, provided support to countries such as South Sudan, Somalia and Haiti, which have all been affected by natural disasters. We must also focus on the Sahel countries, where the impact of climate change is particularly strong. I believe education and climate change needs to be put higher up on the international agenda.

ECW: Our readers would like to know you a little better on a personal level and reading is a key component of education. Could you please share with us two or three books that have influenced you the most personally and/or professionally, and why you’d recommend them to other people to read?

Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim: I love reading. One of my favorite books is Growth of the Soil (Norwegian Markens Grøde). To me it’s a love song to nature and I truly love spending time outdoors when off work. The author, Knut Hamsun, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Another favorite is Ben Okri. I love everything he writes. If I was to highlight some of his writing I would choose the poem titled “A New Dream Of Politics.” Not only because it challenges us as politicians but also because it is a salute to idealism.

About Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim

Anne Beathe Tvinnereim is Norway’s Minister of International Development. The Minister of International Development is responsible for international development efforts in countries outside the OSCE, the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan. She is also responsible for development cooperation under the auspices of the UN system, the World Bank, the regional development banks and other global funds and programmes. In addition, she is Minister for Nordic Co-operation and responsible for Norad, Norec and Norfund. Learn More

A man photographs an apartment building that was heavily damaged during escalating conflict, in Kyiv, Ukraine. Credit: UNICEF/Anton Skyba for The Globe and Mail

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Apr 6 2022 (IPS)

Prime Minister Bennett’s “neutrality” in the Russian war against Ukraine is outrageous and contemptable. It runs contrary to every moral principle that Israel is supposed to stand and fight for. Bennett must join the Western alliance in opposing Putin — a merciless tyrant who is committing crimes against humanity and must pay for it

Righting the Wrong

One cannot help but feel outraged by the conduct of Israel’s PM Naftali Bennett. He, like millions of people around the world, is witnessing the unfolding horror of the Russian invasion of Ukraine but chooses to remain neutral. Neutral in the face of a shattered country that sought nothing but to be free, and neutral in the face of indiscriminate bombing raining death and destruction.

How can a prime minister of Israel remain neutral in the face of cities being reduced to ashes and millions of refugees petrified of what tomorrow will bring? As a father, how can he maintain absurd neutrality when children are dying in the arms of weeping mothers and helpless young girls cower in fear with no place to hide?

How can a devout man no less exhibit such sickening aloofness when he sees the wanton destruction of schools, hospitals, and institutions and the ruthless defiance of human rights, when ten million Ukrainians became refugees or internally displaced, and when so many innocents are on the verge of death from thirst and starvation?

One might ask, what does it mean to be neutral? If you are neutral, what does this really translate to in the context of the unspeakable crimes Putin is committing against innocent Ukrainian citizens?

In this case it simply means that while these crimes against humanity are happening in broad daylight, Bennett refuses to condemn the Russian butcher because of cold-blooded political calculations, which he justifies in the name of Israel’s national security.

Whether Bennett’s decision to assume neutrality is because he wanted to act as a credible interlocutor between Ukraine and Russia or because he wanted Russia’s continued cooperation in Syria to bomb Iranian military installations or because he wanted to elicit Russian support against a new Iran deal or a combination of all three, Bennet has gravely betrayed Israel’s founding moral principles.

Bennett’s absurd position of neutrality has profoundly disappointed Israel’s allies, especially the US, which is the only credible power that has committed itself to Israel’s national security, be that against Iran or any other foe. In light of what is happening we should examine Bennett’s reprehensible behavior from two perspectives: Israel’s moral standing, and Israel’s relations with the United States.

Israel’s moral standing: Can Israel, given that its founding is intertwined with the Jews’ long and troubled history, assume a neutral posture when war crimes of such magnitude are occurring for all to see? How can Bennett abandon Israel’s basic moral tenets presumably because of national security concerns over Iran’s nuclear weapons program?

By maintaining “neutrality,” Bennett is siding with a thug and a ruthless killer, who has become a pariah and war criminal who dishonors everyone who has not condemned him in the strongest terms.

When the Prime Minister of Israel does not rise to the fateful cry for help and do what is morally right by standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel’s democratic allies and save the lives of thousands of innocent civilians, he is dangerously compromising the country’s international standing both on moral and political grounds.

With the indiscriminate bombardment, missile strikes, and drones killing thousands of people, the summary execution of civilians, and the flattening of whole cities, the invasion of Ukraine is itself a horrendous crime against a sovereign nation and a gross violation of international law.

Mass graves discovered in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, confirm that Russian forces have indeed committed war crimes. Civilians were executed with their hands bound and their bodies placed in shallow graves containing hundreds of bodies.

These war crimes are a further trespass against humanity, a compounding of Russia’s transgression of all that we hold dear and sacred – including the dignity of human life and the right to live free from violence, brutality, and cruelty.

With all that unfolding horror, Bennett still refuses to provide air defense systems to stop these atrocities. Indeed, by refusing to offer such systems which can intercept projectiles without killing Russian soldiers, which, understandably he wants to avoid, he has become indirectly complicit in the horrifying death and destruction.

Israel’s detractors rightfully raise the question: has the decades-long Israeli occupation and the harsh way the Palestinians are treated made Bennett so morally numb and apathetic to the growing tragedy of the Ukrainian people?

It is no wonder; Bennett was born only five years after the occupation began; to him and many others, the oppressive and cruel occupation is simply a natural phenomenon. Bennett and his followers should recall what the philosopher and theologian Abraham Heschel once said: “Who is a Jew? A person whose integrity decays when unmoved by the knowledge of wrong done to other people.”

Bennett must remember, politically or otherwise, Putin will vanish sooner or later, but Israel’s moral failure under his stewardship will haunt it for decades to come.

Israel’s relations with the United States: For Bennett to openly and repeatedly express total opposition to the US’ efforts to strike a new Iran deal, and by refusing to heed President Biden’s call to aid Ukraine militarily, Bennett has effectively defied the only significant power that is unshakably committed to Israel’s national security.

Although Biden made it abundantly clear that the US will never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, Bennett asserted, like his predecessor, that Israel will act against Iran as it sees fit, as if Israel can take on Iran’s nuclear program entirely on its own, which is an illusion.

This is where Bennett has demonstrated acute shortsightedness. America stood by Israel through thick and thin and never wavered. As the philosopher Cornel West observed, “We have to recognize that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty…”

It is America, not Russia, that provided massive economic and military aid in the tens of billions of dollars over the last decade alone. It is America, not Russia, that shielded Israel politically on every international forum and vetoed scores of anti-Israel resolutions at the UNSC and neutralized any threat to its national security.

Bennett seems to forget that the US, not Russia, will come to Israel’s aid on every front when needed, especially if it became necessary to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, which Israel can never do alone with all that might imply. And finally, it is the US, not Russia, whose strategic alliance with Israel stood the test of time.

Thus, when Israel does not join the US in support of Ukraine in this desperate hour of need, Israel is opening itself to the questioning of its loyalty and strategic relevance to America when nearly all the democracies in the world stood by the US and mobilized their resources against Putin’s evil design.

The disaster which is being inflicted on Ukraine by Putin also raises the question as to whether Israel deserves better treatment from the US, especially now that it has rebuffed Biden’s call to aid Ukraine in a meaningful way to save lives.

Although the US continues to support Israel publicly, as Secretary of State Blinken recently expressed while visiting Israel, the Biden administration hopes that Bennett will change his mind by offering to help and coming on board with NATO and the EU.

Bennett must answer the desperate plea of Ukraine’s President Zelensky by providing air defense systems, such as the Iron Dome, to intercept the bombs and missiles that are turning Ukrainian cities into piles of rubble.

Bennett’s betrayal of Israel’s moral foundation because of cold-blooded political calculations will haunt him and leave him morally naked in the eyes of Israel’s friends and foes alike. Bennet must also realize that Israel’s fate is tied to America’s and the closer he ties it, the better it is for Israel.

There must be no daylight between them, especially in the way of dealing with Iran’s nuclear threat. That is where Israel’s ultimate security rests while still remaining strong to deter any enemy. This may well be Bennett’s last chance to redeem himself and put Israel on the right side of history.

The whole world is watching.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU). He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies for over 20 years.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Guitarist Moss Hills helped evacuate a sinking cruise liner after some of the crew jumped ship

Businesses and livelihoods are destroyed in a huge blaze in Somaliland's capital.

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About 300 people were killed during an operation against militant Islamists, a rights group says.

This year’s World Health Day launched a new warning: more than 13 million deaths around the world each year are due to “avoidable environmental causes”. Credit: Bigstock

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Apr 5 2022 (IPS)

While the world’s top scientists and experts continue their arduous work to finally submit to politicians at the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt (7-18 November 2022), a new alert now emerges: the climate crisis has already become the single biggest health threat to humankind.

But this new alert should be no surprise: it rather constitutes the logic, expected consequences of the more and more intensive pressure of the life-keeping and life-saving natural resources.

No wonder: there are too many chemicals, lead, mercury, microplastics and a long etcetera, poisoning the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, the oceans, the soil, the forests, the indispensable biodiversity and now also the world’s large reserves of water in both the North and South Poles.

Several of these consequences are visible –though apparently unwanted to be seen: destructive floods, deadly droughts, unprecedented heatwaves, the Earth’s lungs are suffocated, biodiversity is lost. And there is an increased risk of new zoonotic diseases transmitted between animals and humans.

This year’s World Health Day, marked on 7 April, launched the new warning. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 13 million deaths around the world each year are due to “avoidable environmental causes.”

This includes the climate crisis which is “the single biggest health threat facing humanity.” “The climate crisis is also a health crisis.”

 

The impacts

The world body reminds of the following facts:

• Over 90% of people breathe unhealthy air resulting from burning fossil fuels.
• Polluted Planet increases diseases like cancer, asthma, heart disease.
• A heating world is seeing mosquitoes spread diseases farther and faster than ever before.
• Extreme weather events, land degradation and water scarcity are displacing people and affecting their health.
• Pollution and plastics are found at the bottom of our deepest oceans, the highest mountains, and have made their way into our food chain.
• Systems that produce highly processed, unhealthy foods and beverages are driving a wave of obesity, increasing cancer and heart disease while generating a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.
• Floods can cause poisoning
• Climate change makes wildfires more likely
• Above 40 degrees, heat strokes might happen, causing organ failure and even death
• Wildfires can cause death and injury from suffocation.
• Wildfires can cause trauma impacts on mental health
• Climate change is making floods more dangerous
• Zoonotic diseases – those diseases that can spread between animals and people – continue to have major impacts on human health. Every year, nearly 60.000 people die from rabies, and other zoonotic diseases such as avian influenza, Ebola or Rift Valley fever constitute additional threats.

 

2 billion people lack safe drinking-water globally, and 3.6 billion people lack safe toilets. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

Half of humanity already lives in danger zone

In spite of these and other dangers, the world is visibly doing too little, not to say almost nothing. In fact, the goal to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, highlighted in the Paris Agreement on climate change, and driven home in last November’s COP26, gathering in Glasgow, is now on “life support” and “in intensive care,” the UN chief told the Economist Sustainability Summit on 21 March 2022.

The United Nations’ Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted some of the progress made at COP 26 last year but pointing to “the enormous emissions gap” conceded that “the main problem was not solved – it was not even properly addressed.”

 

Worsening

According to current national commitments, however, global emissions are set to increase by almost 14 percent during the rest of the decade.  Last year alone, global energy-related CO2 emissions grew by six percent “to their highest levels in history,” Guterres said, as coal emissions surged “to record highs.”

With the planet warming by as much as 1.2 degrees, and where climate disasters have forced 30 million to flee their homes, Guterres warned: “We are sleepwalking to climate catastrophe.”

 

“This is madness”

If we do not want to “kiss 1.5 goodbye…we need to go to the source – the G20” (group of leading industrialised nations), the UN chief said.

Noting that developed and emerging G20 economies account for 80 percent of all global emissions, he drew attention to a high dependence on coal but underscored that “our planet can’t afford a climate blame game.”

“Countries could become so consumed by the immediate fossil fuel supply gap that they neglect or knee-cap policies to cut fossil fuel use,” Guterres insisted. “This is madness.”

As fossil fuels reliance continues to put the global economy and energy security at the mercy of geopolitical shocks and crises, “the timeline to cut emissions by 45 percent is extremely tight.”

 

No cure in sight

In spite of all the feasible remedies indicated by the world scientific community –and the visible effects of the ongoing climate emergency– there is no actual cure in sight.

 

See what is at stake:

Politicians subsidise fossil fuel with six trillion dollars in just one year. In fact, they have spent such a huge amount –six trillion US dollars– from taxpayers’ money to subsidise fossil fuels in just one year: 2020. And they are set to increase the figure to nearly seven trillion by 2025.

Moreover, governments will double the production of energy from these very same, highly dangerous, global warming generators.

Carbon dioxide is the single most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, accounting for approximately 66% of the warming effect on the climate, mainly because of fossil fuel combustion and cement production

There are more lethal gases and fewer, weaker sinks

With one million species endangered, the web of life is at risk of extinction

Half world’s population, exposed to floods, storms, tsunamis, by 2030

The “Kidneys of the Earth” Are Disappearing, as Wetlands, which are considered as a natural solution to the global threat of climate change. They absorb carbon dioxide, help slow global heating and reduce pollution, hence they are often referred to as the “Kidneys of the Earth”. Specifically, peatlands alone store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests combined

Projection indicate that there will be a severe water stress, absolute scarcity for 2 to 4 billion humans by 2025

Meanwhile, the too harmful march of salt and plastics continue unabated on world soils

And there is another major consequence: millions of humans are attempting to escape the devastating impact of the climate crisis, fleeing their homes as migrants and refugees. What would Europe, the US, do with one billion climate refugees?

 

Pandemics fueled by climate change

Should all the above not be enough, please also know that the World Health Organization has just launched a global bug-busting plan to prevent new pandemics, which are feared to be fueled by climate change.

The plan is aimed to stop the spread of common, mosquito-borne diseases – known as “arboviruses” – which threaten more than half the world’s population. And the main target of the initiative is four of the most common arboviruses: Dengue, Yellow fever, Chikungunya, and Zika.

The World Health Organization poses some sound questions: Are we able to reimagine a world where clean air, water and food are available to all? Where economies are focused on health and well-being? Where cities are liveable and people have control over their health and the health of the planet?

Up to you to judge!

Migrant encampment in the border town of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Credit: Adam Isacson.

By Adam Isacson
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 5 2022 (IPS)

“The migrants try to organize themselves to stay safe,” a humanitarian worker told me as we stood near a town square in Reynosa, Mexico, steps away from the U.S. border. More than 2,000 people from many countries, blocked from asking for asylum in the United States, were packed into this square block, living under tents and tarps, amid port-a-potties and cooking fires. Children were everywhere.

“They move the women and children to tents closer to the center of the square, to protect them from kidnappers.” Many nights, men raid the square, guns drawn, taking people away and holding them for ransom under brutal conditions.

It was my fourth day of a mid-March visit to the Texas-Mexico border region, and my second day visiting Mexico’s easternmost border state, Tamaulipas. Part of me was beginning to wonder whether the United States’ border and migration policies were somehow being designed with input from the Mexican organized crime groups that prey on migrants. It would be hard to devise a system that benefits these “cartels” more than the current one does.

Part of me was beginning to wonder whether the United States’ border and migration policies were somehow being designed with input from the Mexican organized crime groups that prey on migrants. It would be hard to devise a system that benefits these “cartels” more than the current one does

Tamaulipas is a large state, bordering more than 200 miles of Texas from Laredo to the Gulf of Mexico. Of Mexico’s six border states, it is the only one to have a level-four “Do Not Travel” warning from the U.S. State Department, “due to crime and kidnapping.”

Two cartels, and smaller factions, fight frequent running gun battles with each other and with security forces—while also corrupting and penetrating government institutions so thoroughly that the population has long ceased to view them as protection.

Given all this, one might expect migrants to try and avoid Tamaulipas and its dangers. Though many do, for the past nine years this has been the busiest part of the U.S.-Mexico border. The U.S. Border Patrol apprehends more migrants in south Texas’s Rio Grande Valley (McAllen, Brownsville, and surrounding towns), across from most of Tamaulipas, than it does in any other of the nine sectors into which it divides the border.

As Texas dips down far to the south here, this is the closest point on the border to Central America, so the agency encounters tens of thousands of Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, and Nicaraguans here each year, along with Mexicans displaced by violence elsewhere in the country.

Many are parents with children. I also met some of a growing number of migrants now coming from Colombia, Haiti, and Venezuela. The vast majority hope to turn themselves in to U.S. authorities and ask for a chance to petition for asylum in the United States, claiming threats to their lives if returned.

This is also a busy route for migration because Mexican organized crime has locked down the routes across the border. Those who can pay several-thousand-dollar fees, selling everything they own and borrowing the rest, cross with cartel-sanctioned smugglers. It’s a huge moneymaker for organized crime, and for the corrupt Mexican security and migration officials who get paid to look the other way.

I was struck by the level of control that organized crime has over the lives of residents, and especially of migrants, in the Tamaulipas border cities of Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, and Matamoros. Cold War-era East German officials would be impressed.

Nobody is allowed near the Rio Grande: riverfront parks sit empty. Those who try to cross without having paid a fee are beaten, or worse. Those who lack a “password” or other proof that they have paid cartels’ exorbitant fees are kidnapped.

Migrants, including parents and children, get held in fetid stash houses, while their captors text terrifying videos to relatives in the United States, instructing them to transfer ransom payments in the thousands of dollars. If nobody pays, they are disappeared, enslaved—forced to perform labor for the cartels—or even killed. Mexican security forces almost never come to the rescue.

In Nuevo Laredo, groups of kidnappers circulate in vehicles near the bridges from the United States, looking for recently removed migrants lacking the right “passwords,” whom they then kidnap. (Five days after my visit to Nuevo Laredo, Mexican soldiers arrested the cartel leader who had maximum control over the city’s criminal activity, unleashing days of mayhem with burning vehicles, shootouts, and grenades lobbed at the U.S. Consulate.)

In Matamoros, I asked whether “maybe 20 percent” of migrants waiting there had been kidnapped before. “Oh, it’s higher than that,” a humanitarian worker replied.

And every day, though the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is aware of the dangers and the consequences, the U.S. government delivers more victims to the criminals. The “Title 42” pandemic policy, which the Trump administration launched in March 2020 and the Biden administration is prolonging until May 23, has expelled non-Mexican migrants into Tamaulipas roughly 250,000 times since Joe Biden’s inauguration, without giving them a chance to ask for asylum in the United States.

Mexican citizens were expelled into Tamaulipas 160,000 times during that period. To them, we must add 25,000 Mexican deportees, mostly migrants whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested in the U.S. interior.

After Customs and Border Protection (CBP) leaves them at the bridges, kidnappers are often waiting. Meanwhile, with the pretext of reducing COVID exposure, Title 42 closed the official border crossings to asylum seekers, making it impossible to exercise the right to ask for protection as laid out in U.S. and international law.

Those expelled, and the adults and children bottled up waiting for a chance to approach the ports of entry, are among the most vulnerable populations in the Western Hemisphere, and they’re just steps from the U.S. border. In February, researchers from the University of Texas estimated that roughly 9,500 people were waiting in Tamaulipas border cities for an opportunity to ask for protection in the United States.

Border-wide, Human Rights First has collected evidence of at least 9,886 cases of kidnappings, torture, rape, and other violent attacks on asylum seekers whom Title 42 has stranded since 2021. In Tamaulipas the count of abuses is greater than the statistics indicate, because the security situation makes data collection so difficult.

This is why it feels as though the current U.S. policy was designed to benefit the cartels. If migrants who fear return to their countries could safely cross Mexico, then report to a port of entry and have their cases processed, considered, and adjudicated as quickly as due process allows, the cartels’ business model would implode.

But instead, closing the ports of entry and delivering migrants to danger have created ideal incentives for that business model.

This vulnerable population can’t wait for the rule of law to arrive in Tamaulipas. The U.S. government must act to take the business away from the criminals preying on migrants. What it needs to do is already laid out in U.S. law. No new legislation is required.

Since 1980, U.S. immigration law has made clear that the official ports of entry are a proper place for asylum seekers to approach and express to CBP officers their fear of return to their countries. For more than two years, though, Title 42 made it impossible to approach a port of entry.

Once Title 42 ends in late May, asylum seekers must be able to come to a port of entry, not pay criminals’ “tolls” to cross the Rio Grande. Then they should be processed—checking backgrounds and health records, beginning asylum paperwork, evaluating the credibility of fear claims—in facilities with the space and manpower to do it quickly.

Robust alternatives-to-detention programs can keep people in the system. Years-long adjudication backlogs can be shrunk by adding asylum officers, and by rebuilding and rethinking the creaky immigration court system.

While working toward these reforms, the administration must immediately curtail unsafe removals of migrants, which enable violent abuse and provide money-making opportunities to organized crime. Deportations, expulsions, and other removals to border cities must minimize the likelihood of kidnapping.

That means avoiding removals at night, avoiding removals when no Mexican authorities are present, helping Mexican migrant shelters meet their needs including security, and avoiding “lateral” removals that send migrants into territory controlled by different criminal organizations.

Failing to take these steps will enrich cartels and feed terror, with Tamaulipas being the most extreme and riskiest example. Ending Title 42 and building up the sort of asylum process that our own laws envision isn’t just humane.

By draining away the profits along with the cruelty, it’s one of the smartest counter-organized crime strategies the U.S. government can pursue at its southern border.

 

Excerpt:

Adam Isacson is Director for Defense Oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America

Zimbabwe has been urged to invest in road safety including improving its poor road infrastructure. Credit: Busani Bafana/ IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Apr 5 2022 (IPS)

When driving at night in Zimbabwe, watch out for a pair of eyes on the road and slow down. You may hit a giraffe inside a pothole. So goes an often-told joke.

It may be an unflattering hyperbole about the quality and safety of Zimbabwe’s roads, but it is not far from reality.

Zimbabwe’s roads are not famous for their aesthetics, nor quality and least of all, their safety. Last year more than 2000 people died on the country’s roads, and scores of others were injured.

About five people on average die every day in road crashes in Zimbabwe, according to a review report on the country’s road safety launched in January 2022. However, the World Health Organisation reckons the realistic figure is three times more.

The discrepancy may result from the government counting only deaths on the scene of the crash. In contrast, global practice counts deaths within 30 days after the crash, says Lee Randall, an occupational therapist and road safety researcher, explaining that many countries in Africa have poor statistical systems and do not generate timely and accurate crash data.

Zimbabwe’s road safety review, conducted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in partnership with the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the government, sought to reduce road crash deaths and injuries in the country.

High road crashes, a toll on the economy

Road traffic crash deaths in Zimbabwe rose by 34 percent between 2011 and 2019, while fatalities rose from 1 836 deaths in 2016 to an average of 2 000 deaths per year between 2017 and 2019, the report found. Bus drivers and passengers accounted for 50 percent of the fatalities.

Road crashes, blamed mainly on a combination of human error, poor road infrastructure and defective vehicles, take a toll on lives and the economy in terms of health care costs.

Launching the review, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Executive Secretary Vera Songwe noted that the cost of road crashes is heavy on the African economies, especially as they try to rebuild amidst the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Anything that takes away from Africa’s GDP growth becomes important because we need every bit of it to move forward better,” said Songwe. “The request by the Zimbabwe authority to review their transport and safety is encouraging given the dire road safety situation in the country but also the economic context that is very difficult.”

Research in 2018 by the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe indicates that the country experiences an average of 40 000 road traffic crashes which cost about US$406 million annually, and these account for an estimated 3 percent of Zimbabwe’s GDP at $14 billion.

“Zimbabwe is the only one of the SADC countries that have called for this kind of road review and good for the government for doing it because it is a big step towards rectifying the situation of road crashes,” Randall told IPS. “It is a wake-up call to see these grim realities of road crashes for countries especially low- and middle-income countries where crashes consume a huge proportion of GDP that could instead be used for development and alleviating poverty.”

Even the Global Economy’s Survey rates Zimbabwe’s roads poorly with a score of 2.8 in 2019 compared to the world average for quality of roads based in 141 countries at 4.07 points.

After Cameroon, Ethiopia and Uganda, Zimbabwe is the fourth African country to launch a road safety performance review report that takes stock of progress in implementing the first United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011–2020. The Second Decade of Action for Road Safety targets to reduce road traffic death and injuries by at least 50 percent by 2030.

Randall, who has researched widely on the bioethics of road safety, believes that road crashes should not be happening in the first place because most are avoidable and could be minimised with proper attention to the overall road traffic system.

Enforcement of road rules is critically important, and robust, well-resourced enforcement systems are important, but Randall said you cannot have traffic cops on every kilometre of every road every hour of every day.

“We have to appeal to our inner traffic cop, which is our moral sense that rests on a good level of insights into what the crash risks are and into human behaviour and literal training on what the laws are in a particular country. We need to drill road safety concepts into people at an early enough age to influence their behaviour in the road traffic system over their lifetimes,” said Randall. He is a founder of the Road Ethics Project, a non-profit company that engages people in ethical conversations and recognises individuals who have effectively contributed to reducing road crashes, injuries and deaths.

Second-hand cars and poor safety checks

Songwe also noted an increase in the importation of second-hand vehicles in Zimbabwe and other African countries, urging for a reduction in the importation of cars that are not up to standard that cost lives and are detrimental to economic development.

“As a continent, we need to take off importation of vehicles that are not up to standard that end up costing lives and are detrimental to economic development,” Songwe said.

Zimbabwe imports vehicles worth over $340 million annually, according to figures from the national data agency, Zimstat.

In 2021 Zimbabwe, through a Statutory Instrument, banned the importation of second-hand vehicles ten years and older. But that has not stopped the grey imports, which ordinary Zimbabweans can afford to drive, a sharp contrast to the top-end luxury vehicles government splurges on.

High deaths, low investment in road safety awareness

The review made several recommendations for Zimbabwe to improve road safety, noting that the country had the worst road crash mortality rates among its neighbours.

Jean Todt, United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety, said Zimbabwe could reverse its high crash deaths rate if it implemented the review report’s recommendations.

Todt said 90 percent of people and goods in Africa are moved by road and that transport and mobility can only be sustainable if it is safe. Africa has the highest road fatality rates per 100 000 people. Globally 1.3 million people are killed every year from road crashes, and over 50 million are injured.

It was recommended that Zimbabwe establish a road Crash Database and improve its statistical indicators and disaggregated data while implementing a post-Crash Care Response and Coordination System. Currently, Zimbabwe does not have a single national three-digit emergency call number to facilitate timely road crashes and response reporting.

The review report also recommended developing a 10-year national road safety strategy and action plan to improve road safety in Zimbabwe by 2030 and the establishment of a Road Safety Fund.

Speaking at the launch of the review report, Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care, John Mangwiro, said the country was committed to road safety by implementing recommended actions, including opening a crash and emergency reporting institution.

Poor medical health systems had meant that many survivors of road crashes died when they reached hospitals owing to the lack of post-crash care.

The review had good news. Zimbabwe can accelerate road safety and reverse road crashes by investing in public education on road safety, implementing effective policies and improving the road system infrastructure.

On the road to better roads

Last year the government declared the country’s road network a state of disaster. It announced an allocation of $400 million to fund road rehabilitation and upgrading through the Emergency Roads Rehabilitation programme. The Zimbabwe government recently announced an ambitious road development plan to rehabilitate the country’s road network, which covers more than 78 000 km. Some of the roads are more than 30 years old.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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During the last couple of decades, the mountain gorilla population in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park has steadily increased to more than 400. Credit: UNEP / Kibuuka Mukisa

By Leslé Jansen
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Apr 5 2022 (IPS)

On the battleground that has become African wildlife conservation, rural communities find themselves in the middle of a tug-of-war that is bound to the past on one side, and their future, on the other.

And judging from political developments in former colonial power, Britain, these communities – the custodians of wildlife in several southern African countries – are holding fast in their fight to secure a future in which the power to use their natural resources for their own good, rest firmly in their hands.

The UK government intends passing anti-hunting legislation containing a ban on British hunters bringing their trophies home. For African communities that rely on so-called trophy hunting as a major source of income, such bans not only undermine their right to sustainably use and manage their wildlife, which includes hunting, to their benefit but also threaten their livelihoods.

And there’s evidence, as in the case of Kenya, that they harm conservation as well.

According to reports, the government no longer intends to introduce its Animals Abroad Bill in the current parliamentary session, citing a lack of parliamentary time. Similar planned legislative restrictions in the United States, intended to undermine hunting tourism in Africa, have also failed to materialise. There also now appears to be legislation proposals with a similar objective in the making in Italy and Belgium.

The hunting trophy import ban represents a conflict between two distinct schools of thought on conservation. One is an approach supported by African governments’ policies and international conservation authorities, which holds up the sustainable use of natural resources practices by hundreds of communities across several African countries.

The other, which has become increasingly popular in western nations and urban areas where people no longer have a direct link to the natural environment, holds animal rights and welfare as paramount, even to the detriment of the rights and welfare of the people responsible for the conservation of that wildlife.

While the legislative attempts in the UK, US and possibly now Europe as well, aimed at curbing so-called trophy hunting in Africa might reflect current Western notions of animal rights, they are way out of touch with current African thinking, international conservation bodies and treaties.

This broader view takes cognisance of the key role that indigenous people and local communities play in conserving their environment, and how ignoring their rights and customs has contributed to our current environmental crisis.

Rights that have been won the hard way are not easily relinquished. Current African governments that have successfully overturned colonial laws in favour of their citizens can therefore be expected to strongly resist all attempts to undermine these policies.

In the field of conservation, these policies include recognising the rights of rural African communities to use their wildlife sustainably. Sustainable use includes developing wildlife-based industries – including hunting and photographic tourism – that links these communities with global, high-value markets for African wildlife.

Colonialism decimated traditional systems, which existed for centuries, in which African communities lived with wildlife and used it in sustainable ways. These people suddenly became poachers of animals that overnight were no longer their property to use freely anymore.

Restoring the rights of rural communities to their natural resources is by no means straightforward. Many communities have been displaced from their former territories and in some cases need to rebuild their social and cultural norms and learn to work within modern policy frameworks.

Traditional relationships with nature have been disrupted as a consequence of historical upheavals and modern urbanisation trends. Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is therefore a journey that communities and southern African governments have embarked upon in post-colonial era, towards the future of African conservation. Given the complexities of modern-day Africa, this journey will not be short or easy.

These devolution of rights efforts were given a recent boost from the African Union’s human rights agency, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, in the form of Resolution 489, which calls on African states and non-state actors to both recognise and support the rights of local communities to manage and use their resources sustainably.

This resolution was taken within the context of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights that affirms the rights of all peoples to “freely dispose of their wealth and natural resources” (Article 21) and their right to “economic, social and cultural development with due regard to their freedom and identity” (Article 22).

This hand of support comes at a time when this concept is being threatened on many fronts. The Namibian CBNRM programme, as the most advanced of its kind on the continent, has become a special target for those who seem to prefer the former colonial methods of animal protection that were imposed on Africans.

Similarly, the proposed anti-hunting legislation in the UK and the US focused on animal protection, while ignoring the rights of local communities to practice their approach to conservation.

The over-emphasis on hunting caused by this ideological battle detracts from the real issues that need to be urgently addressed if conservation in Africa is to succeed. As expressed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the global authority on the status of the natural world and measures needed to safeguard it, world authority and the African Commission, local communities are in desperate need of support from all stakeholders, especially in the wake of COVID-19.

Rather than poking holes in community conservation efforts or trying to impose romanticised ideas about animals on people living with wildlife, time and money would be far better spent on finding solutions to the many challenges faced by rural people.

Ultimately, the future of African wildlife will be determined by African people – especially those living in rural areas. These communities have faced human rights abuses and marginalisation for decades, so it behoves all state and non-state actors to provide the kind of support they need to fully exercise their rights.

Further, none of these supporting stakeholders should dictate how these rights should be exercised, but rather create an enabling environment that allows for democratic, informed decision-making at the lowest possible levels of governance.

Rather than opposing African nations that have active hunting industries, global North could become true partners in African conservation by supporting community conservation efforts. While African states must heed the call of Resolution 489 by enacting and implementing their own community conservation policies, this would be easier if the UK, the US and other governments supported them in these endeavours.

Given the current environmental crisis and the history of colonialism in Africa, creating barriers to community-based conservation is both counter-productive and unjust. Despite its many detractors, African community conservation is here to stay.

The only question that external stakeholders must answer is: Are you willing to put aside ideology in order to support African communities conserve their wildlife for the good of us all?

Leslé Jansen is CEO of Resource Africa Southern Africa, an NGO that supports rural African community efforts to secure their rights to access and sustainably use their natural resources in order to sustain their livelihoods.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Menghestab Haile
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Apr 5 2022 (IPS)

Food systems are under severe stress around the world now. The thresholds of tolerance are already exceeding limits with millions facing acute food and water scarcity throughout all continents. Over a quarter of Africa’s population are facing hunger and food insecurity. Conflict, droughts, flooding, rising unemployment, inequality, economic crises, and the impacts of Covid-19 pandemic have been ravaging the Continent on an unprecedented scale.

Menghestab Haile

In Southern Africa, the food systems are heavily dependent on traditional small holder farmers who are mostly women and old men and is largely reliant on rainfed agriculture which is highly vulnerable to climate change. These are compounded by very high youth unemployment and unfortunately the youth are not interested in working in agriculture in its current form.

Evidence points out that more than 50 million people are acutely food insecure, mostly women and children with 36 million of them in Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) 3 and 4. Weather extremes that disrupted recent growing seasons are again wreaking havoc. The last quarter of 2021 was one of the driest for 40 years in southern Madagascar, southern Tanzania, northern Mozambique, southern Angola, Namibia and most of Malawi. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world’s biggest hunger emergency, home to Africa’s largest population of IDPs and biggest source of refugees, a staggering 26 million children, women and men are acutely food insecure. The impact of the worst drought in four decades in Southern Angola has left 1.6 million in misery and destitution. In Mozambique 1.9 million are experiencing hunger and acute food needs. These statistics are based on the field assessments of international partners.

Rural and urban populations are equally affected. In Zimbabwe, severe poverty and food insecurity has increased in urban areas representing 2.4 million people or 42 percent of the urban population. There is an increase in internally displaced people within the region. In February this year we have witnessed how recurrent powerful storms have battered coastal areas on Madagascar and Mozambique causing dozens of fatalities, forcing hundred of thousands people from their homes, knocking out power and crippling other infrastructure. Added to these is recurring levels of acute and chronic malnutrition among children.

It has dawned upon us that there is a global food crises and supply chains are badly affected throughout continents. There is an awareness that food systems are interconnected between sectors- i.e, directly linked to energy supply (fuel, fertilizer), health, education, economy, water shortages, infrastructure, social services, climate adaptation and transportation. The Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGS) are challenged.

To address this unprecedented alarming situation, where needs are competing, this imperative must be addressed with focus on every continent equally. In the Southern Africa region we require immediate support to help the exhausted communities.

National governments are central to country both in humanitarian and development spheres. The best way is to support the government plans. This is the time to revisit and realign priorities with clearly defined goals. Strong political will and leadership are required. A combination of both international and national assistance should focus on supporting government priorities. Resources, both national and international are necessary. Impact can be better when International organizations, including UN agencies, regional financial and development institutions, together with NGOs commit to support national priorities with enhanced coordination and collaboration.

With a multi-dimensional and targeted approach gains can be achieved. The Southern Africa Development Agency (SADC) plays an important role both regionally and extending to the Continent. In this context, the African Union (AU) Heads of state has endorsed the outcomes of the Third Africa Rural Development Forum (ARDF-3) in Kinshasa held in January this year recognizing the imperative for a multi-dimensional and a holistic food systems approach. The Region is endowed with vast lands and water resources for agriculture and other natural resources. With urgent investments good gains can be realized in the immediate term in food production. In the medium to longer term, with climate adaptation and support to resilience building activities, there is hope for recovery and stability.

Prosperity and progress will show their full faces when the dignity of women, children and the youth, together with other vulnerable is recognized and accorded due place in the society. Development will be meaningful when their roles are accommodated into every activity. The future generation needs to be well nourished, preserved in an integrated and inclusive way.

Advocacy and a holistic engagement are the requirements to address hunger, food insecurity and nutrition with the provision of evidence based data and information in the Southern Africa region. Technical support to data collection and analysis through the use of latest technologies and tools will ensure evidence driven decision making. Strong political will can help formulate appropriate policies and programs that create conducive environment for development. Innovative solutions can be developed through South South collaboration building on good practices and with the support of development partners.

There is certainly hope in overcoming the current situation in the region by strengthening the nexus between humanitarian and development. To attain results a “Culture of Cooperation” must be forged.

Dr. Menghestab Haile, is the Regional Director for the Southern Africa Region for the UN World Food Programme. With a background in meteorology, Dr. Haile has been integrating climate and weather analysis into food security systems in many parts of the world.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 5 2022 (IPS)

The world is sailing into a perfect storm as key leaders seem intent on threatening more war, albeit while proclaiming the noblest of intentions. By doing so, they block international cooperation to create conditions for sustainable peace and shared prosperity for all.

Anis Chowdhury

Monetarist counter-revolution
The 1970s saw Milton Friedman disciples’ monetarist counter revolution blaming stagflation on ostensibly Keynesian economic policies. In 1974, Nixon replacement President Gerald Ford declared inflation “public enemy number one” and US “determination to whip inflation”.

Monetarists wanted tighter monetary policies to fight inflation. Curbing rising prices was deemed urgent, even though it would increase joblessness. They advocated abandoning expansionary fiscal measures for more growth and jobs.

But US Federal Reserve Bank chair Arthur Burns still considered ensuring full employment his top priority. For Burns, addressing inflation ‘head-on’ – as urged by his detractors – was too costly for the economy and people’s wellbeing.

Nevertheless, the monetarist ascendance was confirmed when the 1946 Employment Act was replaced. The successor 1978 Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act is better known as the Humphrey-Hawkins Act for its sponsors, including the Democrats’ 1968 presidential nominee.

In early 1980, Burns’ Fed chair successor, Paul Volcker insisted, “[M]y basic philosophy is over time we have no choice but to deal with the inflationary situation because over time inflation and the unemployment rate go together.… Isn’t that the lesson of the 1970s?”

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Thus, ‘fight inflation first’ became the clarion call in 1980. This was the pretext for sharply raising US interest rates, while claiming that reducing inflation would somehow eventually create many more jobs. The UK and many other industrial countries followed, deepening recessions and raising unemployment.

By post-1950s’ Western standards, the 1980s saw very high unemployment. Unemployment in rich developed OECD countries averaged 7.3% during 1980-89, compared to just under 5% during 1974-79, and under 3% during the 1960s.

Debt crises, lost decades
The sharp US interest rate spike triggered debt crises in Poland, Latin America and elsewhere in the early 1980s. Earlier, US commercial banks had enjoyed windfall gains following the two oil price spikes in the 1970s.

The US government had long provided concessional low interest rate loans to allies to secure support during the Cold War. Flush with deposits from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members in the 1970s, they pushed loans to borrowing governments, many in Latin America.

With the interest rate spikes, borrowing countries suddenly faced liquidity crises, also creating systemic risks for their US and UK bankers. Successive US Treasury Secretaries, James Baker and Nicholas Brady, came up with various debt restructuring schemes to contain the problem, with the latter adopted.

Meanwhile, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank financial support was tied to short-term stabilization programmes and medium-term liberalizing reforms, packaged as structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) with explicit policy conditionalities.

The liquidity crises were due to the sudden sharp interest rate increases. But instead, these were portrayed as solvency crises stemming from weak ‘economic fundamentals’, blamed on ‘over regulation’ and protectionism.

Although African countries were generally not able to borrow as much, they too faced problems as commodity prices collapsed with the growth slowdowns. Many were forced to seek financial support from the IMF and World Bank, and thus obliged to implement SAPs as well.

The liberalizing and deregulating SAP reforms were supposed to usher in rapid growth. Instead, however, both Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa experienced “lost decades of development”.

Stagflation in Europe
Stagflation in our times is expected to be initially most severe in Europe. This has been caricatured as fighting for Ukraine until ‘the last European’ as it bears the brunt of NATO imposed sanctions on Russia. Besides oil and gas, they will pay more for imported wheat, fertilizers and other Russian exports.

But other economic trends will likely make things worse. First, some rich economies – particularly the UK and the US – are weaker now, having lost much of their manufacturing edge. Others have been experiencing declines in productivity growth since the mid-1970s.

Second, low wages – due to labour market deregulation and ‘off-shoring’, i.e., relocating production abroad – have meant less productive activities have survived. Very low interest rates – due to ‘unconventional’ monetary policies since the 2008-09 global financial crisis – have allowed unviable ‘zombie’ enterprises to stay alive.

Third, the declining labour income share has increased income inequalities, lowering aggregate demand. But demand has been sustained by rising household debt. Low, if not negative real interest rates have also encouraged more corporate debt, but with less used for productive new investments.

Fourth, the pandemic has raised all types of debt – household, corporate and government – to record levels. Fifth, countries, especially smaller ones, are now far more internationally integrated – via trade and finance – than in the 1970s.

Therefore, small interest rate increases can have devastatingly large impacts on household, corporate and government finances. Advanced countries are thus likely to see severe economic contractions and rising unemployment.

Meanwhile, more racism and intolerance in recent decades show little sign of receding. Worse, these are likely to worsen as political elites compete in the ethno-populist league to blame Others for their problems. The recent European decision to privilege Ukrainian refugees is a poignant reminder of what is in store.

But impacts on developing countries are likely to be far worse due to capital outflows, declining development finance and aid, as well as slowing world trade after decades of globalization. Increasing inequality since the 1980s and declining growth since 2014 – now worsened by the pandemic – will not help.

Thus, instead of striving to ensure sustainable peace, necessary to improve conditions for all, the world seems set for sustained conflict. This has involved easy resort to sanctions, namely war by economic siege, hurting all. We all thus risk the prospect of mutual destruction instead of shared prosperity for all.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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