Africa

The protected Kent Falls and Park in Connecticut, USA. GLO2 report calls on governments to create parks and restore wetlands to enhance citizens' quality of life. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
DOMINICA, Apr 27 2022 (IPS)

With 50% of humanity affected by land degradation, the world must move to a ‘crisis footing’ to conserve, restore and use land resources sustainably, a major UN report has said.

Released on April 27, the landmark Global Land Outlook by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification provides a sobering account of the state of the earth’s land and calls for ambitious plans for sustainable land use to protect human health.

Compiled over five years, in collaboration with 21 partner organizations, the report is considered the most comprehensive meta-analysis of land issues to date. Known as GLO2, it builds on the 2017 land outlook report, which assessed the consequences of deforestation and widespread unsustainable agricultural practices on human and ecosystem health, food security and stable livelihoods.

“We have already degraded nearly 40 % and altered 70% of the land. We cannot afford to have another “lost decade” for nature and need to act now for a future of life in harmony with nature. The GLO2 shows pathways, enablers and knowledge that we should apply to effectively implement the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework,” said Elizabeth Mrema, Executive Secretary, UN Convention on Biological Diversity

With a reminder that land is a finite resource, the report warns that current management and use are escalating the risk of ‘widespread, abrupt and irreversible environmental changes.’

It also focuses heavily on solutions – particularly land, soil, forest and other ecosystems protection and restoration.

“The report is highlighting the importance of protecting remaining tropical forests, especially of managing wildlife and biodiversity in a much more careful way, protecting and restoring to recover from some of the damage that has been done. It highlights the enormous opportunity globally for restoration of landscapes around the world, the potential for that to contribute to improving the production of food, protection of biodiversity, storage of carbon and the provision of livelihoods. There are enormous employment opportunities related to those activities, and in turn help to make our economies more resilient,” Tropical Forest Ecologist Dr Nigel Sizer told IPS.

Sizer, who is the Executive Director of Preventing Pandemics at the Source Coalition, says the report gives the world the wake-up call it needs to take urgent action to end forest destruction and protect human health.

“Our relationship with nature is so broken. We have heard a lot about climate change and the extinction of animal and plant species. What people did not realize so much is that pandemics are primarily a result of spillover viruses from wildlife, often related to the trade in wildlife species, deforestation and other exploitative aspects of our relationship with nature. This report highlights the massive amount of land degradation, forest loss and loss of biodiversity that is going on globally, and provides a very important call to address those challenges, especially to governments,” he said.

The GLO2 is calling for increasingly ambitious land restoration targets, with the largest emitters of greenhouse gases helping developing countries to restore their land resources.

“As a global community, we can no longer rely on incremental reforms within traditional planning and development frameworks to address the profound development and sustainability challenges we are facing in coming decades. A rapid transformation in land use and management practices that place people and nature at the center of our planning is needed, prioritizing job creation and building vital skill sets while giving voice to women and youth who have been traditionally marginalized from decision making,” said Nichole Barger, report steering committee member, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado.

Sizer agrees.

“We urgently need to see governments committed to protecting what’s left to restore a lot of what has been lost in terms of tree cover forests, wetlands, freshwater systems, coastal ecosystems. This is absolutely key for protecting our food production systems, restoring the soil and providing livelihoods, particularly in rural communities,” he told IPS.

The GLO2 has been released in what is expected to be a watershed year for action on land and biodiversity issues, including the hosting of the 15th Session of the Conference of the Parties of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (COP 15), scheduled for May 9-20 in Côte d’Ivoire. That event is expected to focus on reviving global degraded lands and soils.

“As we come out of the pandemic, building back after the economic impact that this has had as well as the opportunity to create lots of jobs by restoring nature and managing the land and in a more responsible way is a great opportunity to stimulate economies to achieve more sustainability, and recover more quickly from this pandemic as well as reduced the risk of future pandemics,” said Sizer.

And what does failure to act mean?

According to the GLO2, by 2050 an additional area the size of South America will be degraded if the world continues along the current trajectory.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification’s Global Land Outlook warns that only through protection of existing ecosystems and revival of degraded lands and soils will biodiversity loss be halted and pandemic-risk reduction be achieved.

A Ukrainian farmer works on his farm, before the war in his country begins with the invasion of Russia on 24 February. Credit: FAO

By Mario Lubetkin
ROME, Apr 27 2022 (IPS)

Two months after the start of the war, on 24 February, the data on the substantial increase in the cost of food products, the rise in prices and shortages of fertilizers, the destruction of land and plantations in Ukraine, the sanctions, the difficulties with the transport of cereals from the world’s main granary, represented by Russia and Ukraine, and the massive migrations, especially from rural areas, are just a few aspects that confirm the pessimism that had been generated after the outbreak of the conflict.

Data released at the end of March by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) indicated that food prices had increased 12.6% compared to the previous month.

This situation only increases the risk for the 50 low-income, food-deficit countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East that get more than 30% of their wheat from the war zone, which will now have to look for replacement producers to prevent prices from significantly affecting the economies of those countries. Of these 50 nations, 26 get more than 50% of their imports from these two countries in conflict


This monthly increase had never been seen before this century and can only be compared to the increase in the 1980s. Cereals increased by 17.6% in one month and the prices of vegetable oils increased by more than 23%, even meat increased by 4.8% compared to February of this year.

This situation only increases the risk for the 50 low-income, food-deficit countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East that get more than 30% of their wheat from the war zone, which will now have to look for replacement producers to prevent prices from significantly affecting the economies of those countries.

Of these 50 nations, 26 get more than 50% of their imports from these two countries in conflict.

It is enough to think that countries with large populations, such as Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, and Turkey, which are wheat importers, buy about 60% from Russia and Ukraine. Other countries with strong internal conflicts, such as Libya and Yemen, and nations such as Lebanon, Pakistan, and Tunisia are also heavily dependent on these imports.

The dramatic situation in Ukraine, a predominantly agricultural country, has led to a concentrated effort to save as much as possible of the current crops that should be harvested in May/June, and in turn, avoid interrupting the production process and planting new crops in June/July.

FAO technicians pointed out that 115 million USD dollars are urgently needed to prevent further deterioration of the food insecurity situation in Ukraine, to assist its farmers in planting vegetables and potatoes during the European spring and to try to ensure producers have minimal conditions to go to the fields and save the winter wheat harvest.

“As food access, production and general availability are deteriorating in much of Ukraine as a result of the war, efforts to support agricultural production and the functioning of food supply chains will be essential to avert a crisis in 2022 and even in 2023”, said Rein Paulsen, Director of FAO´s Office of Emergencies.

According to experts, if the dramatic situation continues, one third of crops and agricultural land may not be harvested or cultivated in 2022.

The forced displacement of civilians fleeing the war and the recruitment of men into the territorial defense forces are leading to labor shortages and an increased burden on women, as well as reduced access to crucial agricultural inputs for plantations.

The war has led to the closure of ports, the suspension of oilseed crushing activities, and the introduction of export licensing restrictions and bans on some crops and food products. Major Ukrainian cities are being surrounded and continue to be heavily shelled, leaving people isolated and exposed to severe shortages of food, water, and power.

It is difficult to think that other producing countries can replace the production levels of Russia and Ukraine to any significant extent in the face of a disrupted export market.

Just think that Russia is the world’s largest exporter of wheat, with Ukraine the fifth largest, and that together they provided 19% of the world’s supply of barley, 14% of wheat, and 4% of corn, and also accounted for 52% of the world sunflower oil market, while Russia is the world’s largest producer of fertilizers.

As Pope Francis pointed out, without peace the problem of hunger will not be solved, recalling that, in addition to the dramatic nature of this war in Europe, there are serious unresolved conflicts such as those in Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, and others that also condemn many millions of people to starvation.

As FAO Director-General QU Dongyu has repeatedly called for since the start of the conflict, every effort should be made to keep the food and fertilizer trade open, to seek new and diversified food supplies.

The same effort should be made to support the most vulnerable groups, including the internally displaced, with social assistance, avoid special regulatory reactions per country that can harm international markets in the short and medium-term, contain the spread of African swine fever, and strengthen the transparency of markets.

Excerpt:

This is an op-ed by Mario Lubetkin, Assistant Director-General of FAO

If forest loss continues at the current rate, it will be impossible to keep warming below two degrees Celsius as pledged in the Paris Agreement. Credit: José Garth Medina/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Apr 27 2022 (IPS)

In case you were not aware, please know that humanity used to cultivate more than 6.000 plant species for food, but now instead fewer than 200 of these species make major contributions to food production. Out of these, only 9% account for 66% of total crop production.

Also that 33% of the world’s fish stocks are overfished.

And that 26% of the nearly 8.000 local breeds of livestock that are still in existence are now at risk of extinction.

“Many key components of biodiversity for food and agriculture at genetic, species and ecosystem levels are in decline. The proportion of livestock breeds at risk of extinction is increasing. Overall, the diversity of crops present in farmers’ fields has declined and threats to crop diversity are increasing”

And most coral reefs face too many pressures from pollution to overfishing and habitat destruction.

In addition, many species, including pollinators, soil organisms and the natural enemies of pests, that contribute to vital ecosystem services, are in decline as a consequence of the destruction and degradation of habitats, overexploitation, pollution and other threats.

There is also a rapid decline in key ecosystems that deliver numerous services essential to food and agriculture, including supply of freshwater, protection against storms, floods and other hazards, and habitats for species such as fish and pollinators.

All the above facts do not come out of the blue – they, among many others, are based on specific scientific findings provided by 91 countries and 27 international organisations, and contributions from over 175 authors and reviewers, who elaborated The State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture.

 

What is biodiversity for food and agriculture?

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) explains that biodiversity is the variety of life at genetic, species and ecosystem levels. Biodiversity for food and agriculture is, in turn, the subset of biodiversity that contributes in one way or another to agriculture and food production, it says, adding the following:

Biodiversity includes the domesticated plants and animals that are part of crop, livestock, forest or aquaculture systems, harvested forest and aquatic species, the wild relatives of domesticated species, and other wild species harvested for food and other products.

It also encompasses what is known as “associated biodiversity”, the vast range of organisms that live in and around food and agricultural production systems, sustaining them and contributing to their output.

Biodiversity supplies many vital ecosystem services, such as creating and maintaining healthy soils, pollinating plants, controlling pests and providing habitat for wildlife, including for fish and other species that are vital to food production and agricultural livelihoods, adds FAO, while also explaining the following:

Biodiversity makes production systems and livelihoods more resilient to shocks and stresses, including those caused by climate change. It is a key resource in efforts to increase food production while limiting negative impacts on the environment.

It makes a variety of contributions to the livelihoods of many people, often reducing the need for food and agricultural producers to rely on costly or environmentally harmful external inputs.

Biodiversity at genetic, species and ecosystem levels helps address the challenges posed by diverse and changing environmental conditions and socio-economic circumstances.

Diversifying production systems, for example by using multiple species, breeds or varieties, integrating the use of crop, livestock, forest and aquatic biodiversity, or promoting habitat diversity in the local landscape or seascape, helps to promote resilience, improve livelihoods and support food security and nutrition.

“Many key components of biodiversity for food and agriculture at genetic, species and ecosystem levels are in decline. The proportion of livestock breeds at risk of extinction is increasing. Overall, the diversity of crops present in farmers’ fields has declined and threats to crop diversity are increasing.”

 

More than 6,000 plant species have been cultivated for food. Now, fewer than 200 make major contributions to food production globally, regionally or nationally. A sea of soy is seen near the city of Porto Nacional, on the right bank of the Tocantins River, Brazil. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

 

Demolishing our own home

Should this not be enough, please also know that the world’s oceans are getting warmer because of increasing global carbon dioxide emissions.

Also that the world’s best-known coral reefs could be extinct by the end of the century unless more is done to make them resilient to our warming oceans.

In short, “We are wreaking havoc on our own home – the only home we have, the one home we all share,” UN General Assembly President Abdulla, Shahid said on 22 April 2022 on the occasion of the International Mother Earth Day.

 

But who is behind the destruction of biodiversity?

Obviously, those who have been making voracious profits by exploiting the essential infrastructure of all kinds of life on Earth, through their industrial intensive agriculture, the collection of genetic resources of flora and fauna to register them as their own “property”, the production of genetically modified food, and the over-use of chemicals.

They are also the big timber business destroying forests, inducing the waste of huge amounts of agriculture and livestock products to keep their prices the most profitable possible, and a long, very long etcetera.

 

And who profits from such destruction?

A specific, accurate answer to this question may be deduced from the numerous studies elaborated by Professor Vandana Shiva, the world-famous environmental activist from India, who is known for her opposition to big multinationals such as Monsanto for their “nefarious influence on agriculture.”

In her ‘must read’ report, The Corporate Push for Synthetic Foods: False Solutions That Endanger Our Health and Damage the Planet, Vandana Shiva informs that fully artificial food is an increasingly popular trend focused on developing a new line of synthetically produced, ultra-processed food products by using recent advances in synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology.

“These new products seek to imitate and replace animal products, food additives, and expensive, rare, or socially conflictive ingredients (such as palm oil), explains the world-known physicist, ecofeminist, philosopher, activist, and author of more than 20 books and 500 papers.

“Biotech companies and agribusiness giants are seeing the opportunity to move into this promising market of “green” consumption and hence these products are marketed to a new generation of environmentally conscious consumers who are growing critical of the grim realities of industrial food production.

“As a result, meatless burgers and sausages, as well as imitations of cheese, dairy products, seafood, and others, have begun to flood the market, being found anywhere from fast food chains to local grocery stores.

Such products market themselves as ‘eco-friendly’, ‘healthy’, and ‘sustainable,’ says Vandana Shiva, who already three decades ago, founded Navdanya and the Navdanya movement to defend Seed and Food sovereignty and small farmers around the world, as well as the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology (New Delhi, India).

In short: big business has largely contributed to destroying the essential web of life… and big business now supplants Nature by producing synthetic food.

Students eat lunch in the cafeteria of the João Caffaro Municipal School in Itaboraí, in southeastern Brazil. Schoolchildren returned to eating vegetables and drinking natural fruit juices when the school canteens and the supply of family farming products to the National School Feeding Program resumed in April this year, after an interruption brought about by the COVID pandemic. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
ITABORAÍ, Brazil , Apr 27 2022 (IPS)

“I like lettuce, but not tomatoes and cucumbers,” said nine-year-old Paulo Henrique da Silva de Jesus, a third grader at the João Baptista Caffaro Municipal School in the southeastern Brazilian city of Itaboraí.

He and Tainá Cassia Faria, a 13-year-old fifth grader, both dislike yams (Dioscorea spp., a popular tuber), but say they love the food the school serves them. “We eat everything, we don’t leave anything on our plates,” they said in the cafeteria of the public primary school. Noodles, beans and meat are their favorites.

“Today we have cake!” said another excited schoolboy.

This year it has been possible to offer “a greater variety of quality foods, incorporating fruits and vegetables,” with the full reinstatement of the National School Feeding Program (PNAE), said Deise Lessa, the school’s principal since 2011 and a teacher for 35 years in this municipality located about 50 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro.“Many children have their only full meal of the day at school, given the poverty and unemployment affecting the local population.” -- Mauricilio Rodrigues

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the schools in this South American country closed their doors from March 2020 until the gradual return of students to the classrooms began in mid-2021, along with the return of school meals, which ensure adequate nutrition for a large part of Brazil’s poor children.

“The PNAE is fundamental in school life. Many children have their only full meal of the day at school, given the poverty and unemployment affecting the local population,” said Mauricilio Rodrigues, Itaboraí’s secretary of education since the current municipal authorities took office in January 2021.

“Eighty percent of the students in our schools are from low-income families,” he noted during the day that IPS spent at the same primary schools in Itaboraí that we visited in 2015, to check on the post-pandemic school feeding situation.

Two changes were evident at João Caffaro. One was the use of masks by schoolchildren in the classrooms, which are only removed in the dining room and outdoor playground, despite the fact that in the state of Rio de Janeiro, where the municipality is located, masks are no longer mandatory.

Another is that in the dining room, as a measure to curb the spread of the disease, the multicolored tablecloths of the past have disappeared, and now the tables are bare and disinfected before each group of children comes in. Furthermore, the groups are limited in size and are spread throughout the large space which in the past was crowded with schoolchildren. In addition, we were not allowed to enter the kitchen this time, for health reasons.

Lunch is a feast for the children at the João Caffaro Municipal School. They are served food that they rarely have in a single meal at home, with meats, assorted vegetables, fruits, natural juices and even cakes for dessert. The meals are a guarantee of good nutrition that was only partially alleviated by food distribution when schools were closed during the peak of the pandemic, in 2020 and much of 2021. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Alliance between schools and family agriculture

“Many children never miss class because of the lunch we serve,” said the principal of the municipal school with a student body of 450, located in the Engenho Velho neighborhood, where most of the population lives in poverty, in this city of 245,000 inhabitants.

School meals, as an initiative of the Brazilian government, began to be served in the 1940s, when few people went to school. They evolved with the democratization of education, especially after the 1988 national constitution recognized the right of primary school students to a food supplement provided by the government.

To carry out the program, the municipal and state governments receive funds from the National Education Development Fund (FNDE), administered by the Ministry of Education.

In 2009, a new law established a requirement with positive effects on child nutrition and local economies: that a minimum of 30 percent of PNAE purchases in each municipality must be of products from local family farms.

This is what makes it possible for elementary school students in Itaboraí to eat fresh vegetables and a variety of fruits. Banana, orange, tangerine, guava, cassava, pumpkin, sweet potato, lettuce and kale are the most purchased foods from local farmers, said Ana Beatriz Garcia, coordinator of school food programs in the prefecture.

Lunch is a feast for the children at the João Caffaro Municipal School. They are served food that they rarely have in a single meal at home, with meats, assorted vegetables, fruits, natural juices and even cakes for dessert. The meals are a guarantee of good nutrition that was only partially alleviated by food distribution when schools were closed during the peak of the pandemic, in 2020 and much of 2021. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Interruption due to the pandemic

That was not possible in 2020, when schools were closed because of the pandemic and students took classes online throughout the country. An attempt was made to alleviate the closure of school cafeterias by distributing basic food baskets to students’ families, but it was not the same. Perishable fresh produce could not be included.

On-site classes in Itaboraí were partially resumed as of June 2021, with each group divided into two halves that took turns in the classrooms every two days. Thus, regular purchases from family farmers could not be resumed either.

But the mayor’s office promoted fairs in schools, where families could pick up fresh food for home consumption, replacing school meals, said Lessa, the principal of the João Caffaro school.

In this country of 214 million people, most children attend primary and secondary school either in the morning or the afternoon. These public school students are served two meals, lunch and a snack. Children in other schools attend for the entire day, and are served four meals: breakfast, lunch and two snacks.

“Despite the difficulties, we met the goal set by the PNAE, acquiring 36 percent of the food served to students from family agriculture,” said Secretary of Education Rodrigues. This year they expect to reach between 35 and 40 percent during the February to December school year.

“The biggest difficulty is the logistics of getting the food to the network of schools,” he said. There are four or five trucks or vans that carry the meals every day, operated in a joint effort by the municipal secretariats of Education and Agriculture.

Two teachers and several elementary school students work in the vegetable garden at the Jueza Patricia Acioli Full-Time School in the city of Itaboraí, in southeastern Brazil. The aim is both educational and nutritional, to foment the consumption of vegetables and fruits when schoolchildren grow them with their own hands. CREDIT: Secom/Itaboraí

Itaboraí has 35,000 students in its 92 public nursery and elementary schools, in addition to adult education. They include children of preschool age, four and five years old, and first to fifth graders.

In Brazil, the municipalities are responsible for the first five of the nine years of basic education. The states are responsible for the last four years of primary school and the three years of secondary school. They are also required to provide meals in their schools, although compliance is less strict.

To plan purchases, design the menu and provide orientation for the schools, the Itaboraí Municipal Department of Education has a central team of 13 nutritionists, in addition to a nutritionist in each school.

“We have to be flexible in the plans, each product has its harvest time and can be scarce because of too much or too little rain, or can be ready early as is happening with the persimmon harvest this year,” said Larissa de Brito, one of the chief nutritionists.

“That’s why we are in constant dialogue with the farmers,” she added.

“Our relationship with the farmers has improved, because we visit them at the beginning of the year and now accept purchases from individual producers, whereas before purchases were only arranged through their associations,” explained coordinator Garcia.

Alcir Coração, an 81-year-old family farmer, stands next to an orange grove on his farm, where he harvests fruit that he sells to the Itaboraí municipal government for school meals. He lost his entire harvest in 2020 and part of it in 2021, because of the COVID pandemic that forced schools to be closed in Brazil. But this year he expects to do even better than the good sales of the pre-pandemic years. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Recuperating markets

The municipality of Itaboraí is 11 percent rural, and the rural population makes up only 1.2 percent of the total. But there are many family farms, encouraged by the proximity of large markets. Oranges are the star product, due to their renowned quality.

Alcir Coração is the 81-year-old president of the Association of Family Farmers of Itaboraí and Neighboring Municipalities (Agrifami), which has relied on the PNAE since 2009, when the program decided to make family farmers suppliers of at least 30 percent of its purchases.

“This will turn out well,” he predicted at the time. So he decided to expand his production, especially of oranges, on his 10 hectares of land, divided into two farms of 6.5 and 3.5 hectares in size, 10 kilometers from the town of Itaboraí.

He enlisted the support of his 41-year-old son-in-law, Marcio da Veiga, as a partner in the undertaking.

“In 2020 we harvested 3000 kilos of oranges and lost everything, waiting for the demand from the schools that did not arrive,” lamented Coração. In 2021 the loss was smaller; the PNAE orders “arrived late,” but they eventually did.

“This year started well,” with a call for purchases as early as April. It was never done so early and also doubled the limit for the annual sale of each farmer in relation to last year, raised to 40,000 reais (8,600 dollars at the current exchange rate), he said, visibly pleased.

He and his son-in-law produce different varieties of oranges, called selecta, natal and lima, as well as tangerines and lemons. “Lemons are harvested all year round, but their price is low, oranges yield more income,” Da Veiga said, explaining why they decided to expand their orange groves.

From a young age, students grow vegetables for their own lunches at the Patricia Acioli School. As it is a full-day school, where students attend for eight hours, they receive four meals: breakfast, lunch and two snacks. CREDIT: Secom/Itaboraí

Gardening as education

In 2021, some public schools in Itaboraí also started to grow some of their own vegetables. At the Juiza Patrícia Acioli Municipal School, the 265 students plant and harvest lettuce, carrots, kale, cabbages, eggplants and other vegetables.

The aim is educational, to help students learn what the land has to offer, how food is produced and what healthy eating is, school principal Alessandra Wenderroschi told IPS.

“By taking part in growing the food with their own hands, students have more motivation to eat vegetables, even arugula,” she said. It is a “valuable educational activity,” she added.

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Gender equality in the labour force is a significant way to empower women. Credit: Mentor Together.

By Arundhuti Gupta
BENGALURU, India, Apr 27 2022 (IPS)

Today, approximately 19 million young women are accessing post-secondary or tertiary education in India. Yet, such education has not translated into expected gains in female labour force participation. Only 34 percent of women in India with post-secondary education are active in the labour force, compared to 81 percent of men.

Gender equality in the labour force is more than an economic end in itself; it is also a significant way to empower women. Women who work in India have more say in household decision-making and can delay their age of marriage and the birth of their first child.

The relatively low number of women in the workforce includes both women who are employed and those actively searching for jobs. Therefore, I examined the impact of three interlinked factors that uniquely constrain young women’s capabilities or choices to participate in the workforce: a skills deficit, a network gap, and restrictive gender norms.

 

• Skills deficit: Post-secondary curricula rarely address eight of the ten skills  employers currently value most, which relate to problem-solving, self-management, and working with people, and they are seldom built through traditional instructional approaches in classrooms.

• Network gap: Women in India tend to have small professional networks because social norms restrict them from engaging freely. A small network means a lack of role models, which limits aspirations and reduces the likelihood of women breaking gender stereotypes and pursuing career paths where they do not see other women. It can also mean access to fewer job-market opportunities at the time of planning for entry into the labour market.

• Restrictive gender norms: Indian social norms define a woman’s role as primarily that of a caregiver, and thus discourages female labour force participation. In urban areas, women’s participation in the labour force drops off in their early- to mid-twenties—when marriage- and family-related responsibilities tend to increase.

 

In conceptualising the role that mentorship can play to tackle these three challenges, I reviewed more recent research that model mentoring programmes as a context for activities, and not just as a set of one-to-one relationships.

The latter has been the predominant format in which mentoring programmes have emerged across the globe as an effective positive youth development practice. Viewing mentorship as a context for activities recognises the many systems surrounding a young person that also need active shaping or reshaping.

The three to four years of tertiary education offers government, educators, employers, and civil society a unique opportunity to empower young women through supportive skills, networks, and norm changes. The return on investment on 15 cumulative years of education will be much higher when we ensure that young women can transition into and thrive in the labour force

As in this case of female labour force participation, focusing solely on young women’s skills is necessary but insufficient. If we do not increase the opportunities she has access to or the support her family provides her, we cannot meaningfully change her life outcomes.

A newer format of mentoring—digital mentoring—holds promise in tackling all three of these factors collectively. Additionally, it can be accessed by several young women, given India’s exponentially increasing internet user base and shrinking gender gap in mobile phone usage.

I explored three pathways for change in digital mentoring: skills exchange through individual mentoring relationships, opportunity expansion through the transfer of social capital across a large and trusted mentor network, and the role modelling of egalitarian gender norms through new actors who can influence family and community.

 

What evidence exists on this model today?

Data from Mentor To Go—the digital mentoring programme that Mentor Together runs—demonstrates how digital mentoring reached marginalised girls across 10 Indian states.

From March 2020 to April 2021, women comprised 61 percent of the total enrolment of 7,100 mentees in the programme. Female mentees were 89 percent more likely than men to complete all the eligibility requirements to get a mentor, and they resultantly accounted for 70 percent of all mentorships.

The programme saw higher interest from young women in their first two years of college. Most of these women were pursuing engineering degrees and came from low-income backgrounds.

The young women in mentorship experienced changes in their career decision-making, work readiness, self-esteem, self-efficacy, life satisfaction, and emotional regulation skills that were statistically highly significant. Seventy-nine percent of mentees post mentorship scored higher than the average score of the group pre-mentorship in their career decision-making skills.

Similarly on emotional regulation, 70 percent of mentees post mentorship scored higher than the average score of the group pre-mentorship. An evidence-based work readiness mentoring curriculum emerged as important to help them learn and practice these skills with their mentors.

Digital mentoring supported the creation of a large and diverse network of career mentors more than 4,000 volunteer mentor applicants over 13 months. The mentor pool was gender-balanced, with mentors having seven to eight years of work experience on average and speaking more than 10 languages.

The mentor network was created through outreach efforts driven by 26 large corporates. Mentee trust in the network was rooted in mentor screening. Building a large and diverse mentoring network cannot happen at the cost of building trust through processes that vet member identity and intent.

Despite creating a large network, facilitating new information and opportunity exchange was limited to individual mentoring relationships; the mentoring network at large was not tapped into to identify new information for all mentees.

Closing this network gap is vital for young women who lack career pathways through their immediate family or extended networks. The average number of young women who knew someone working in the field that interested them was five to seven.

Only one in five young women had a parent who had studied for a tertiary degree or higher. Only 25 percent of fathers worked in formal salaried jobs, whereas 25 percent were in casual labour or daily wage jobs and 43 percent were self-employed.

When it came to gender norms, the young women in this study lived in two parallel worlds. As tertiary education students in the programme network, their aspirations, career plans, and economic empowerment were championed by mentors.

Meanwhile, their families were planning for more traditional routes of marriage and familial responsibilities. A key question emerged: Could a large network of mentors who champion more egalitarian gender norms discuss the impact of traditional patriarchal norms in mentees’ lives or advocate for such norms to be changed with families, communities, and networks at large?

There is evidence from other countries that negative beliefs held by family members around women working, such as the overestimation of disapproval by others or mistaken beliefs around prevailing practices, can change when countered with correct information.

Additionally, there is promising new evidence that secondary networks of socialisation where new norms are practised—a network of mentors in this case—can facilitate the transmission of new ideas quicker than traditional primary networks.

 

Recommendations for a sustainable digital mentoring practice and policy ecosystem

Developing a digital mentoring policy and practice ecosystem can support young women’s transition to becoming economically empowered women who participate in the labour force.

This ecosystem must include actors in a range of roles with different responsibilities across community, institutional, and regulatory spheres.

The recommendations for different actors seeks to achieve three main goals:

• ensuring access to tertiary education
• promoting inclusive participation of young women in mentoring programmes
• delivering quality digital mentoring at scale

 

Some key recommendations are:

1. Collect and publish data on student income profiles
Leverage the All India Survey of Higher Education report for this, so that financial support needs can be understood and addressed by different central and state scholarship schemes.

2. Include digital access costs in financial support
All tertiary education scholarships should support costs of laptops, mobile phones, and internet access, so that economically marginalised young women can fully participate in virtual learning.

3. Set up a nodal organisation for the state that coordinates all preparation activities for college to workforce transition
Ensure that such a body has a gender focus subgroup that is concerned with the specific needs of young women in tertiary education. Designate such an organisation in each state to disseminate mentoring programmes across higher education institutions (HEIs).

4. Align HEI mentoring programme design with National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) requirements
Work closely with HEIs undergoing the NAAC assessment process so that their mentoring programme is part of their formal assessment.

5. Recognise mentoring as an approved internship in the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) internship portal
Drive greater participation in mentoring programmes through the alignment of the design of mentoring programmes with AICTE internship requirements.

6. Address the work readiness skills gap
Mentoring programmes should closely track emerging skills needs and use evidence-based frameworks to draw up mentoring curriculums that promote the required skills. The targeted skills should transcend those that are narrowly seen as important for work and cover broader aspects, including gender sensitivity, religion and caste sensitivity, and climate change consciousness.

7. Close the network gap
Activate mentor networks and make social capital more real for mentees. This can be done by tapping existing networks, such as LinkedIn, to create more equitable ways for mentees from backgrounds where social capital is limited to be introduced to rich and diverse opportunities and the information present in existing networks of mentors.

8. Act to influence decision-making in the family networks of young women
Leverage the larger mentor and mentee network to influence the immediate families of young women, especially in decisions that typically exclude young women. Mentors can work actively with the families to dispel myths and set positive examples.

9. Transform social norms
Launch nationwide campaigns that champion the notion that women belong workplaces and present the right to work as a human right. Emulate policies and programmes that have contributed to female education becoming acceptable and desirable, such as the Right to Education Act, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, and Beti Bachao Beti Padhao.

The three to four years of tertiary education offers government, educators, employers, and civil society a unique opportunity to empower young women through supportive skills, networks, and norm changes. The return on investment on 15 cumulative years of education will be much higher when we ensure that young women can transition into and thrive in the labour force.

Arundhuti Gupta is the CEO of Mentor Together, a nonprofit organisation in India that provides mentoring relationships and networks to young people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds

 

This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

Socio-economic inequality and job scarcity, as well as unequal opportunity to quality education have created a view that democracy has not delivered a better life for all. Credit: Denvor DeWee/IPS

By External Source
BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa, Apr 27 2022 (IPS)

South Africans believed that the introduction of democracy in 1994 would transform their lives for the better through equality of opportunities. This hasn’t happened.

Socio-economic inequality and job scarcity, as well as unequal opportunity to quality education have created a view that democracy has not delivered a better life for all.

The country celebrates 28 years of democracy at a time when democracy is under threat globally, in the context of growing inequality and mistrust in democratic institutions.

Increasingly, scholars focus on what makes democracy valuable amid its decline. This is important given the global rise in populist and anti-democratic politics and authoritarianism.

The Human Science Research Council’s South African Social Attitudes Survey, conducted annually, show that South Africans are increasingly dissatisfied with democracy. In 2004, when the country celebrated a decade of democracy, 59 % were satisfied with democracy. Now only 32 % are satisfied with how democracy is working in South Africa.

 

Democratic Satisfaction. Constructed from the Human Science Research Council South African Social Attitudes Survey

 

Are South Africans giving up on democracy, as some are asking. And what’s to be made of some political elites who are speaking out against the value of the country’s constitutional democracy?

After almost three decades of democracy, it is important to ask: What meaning do South Africans attach to the idea of democracy? This is important considering that democracies endure when there is an intrinsic commitment to democratic values and principles, even during economic hardship.

Based on my research, as well as the results of recent surveys, it’s clear that there is a sense of disempowerment among South Africans, most notably among young people. This sense of disempowerment is premised on the view that their voice, life choices, and sense of freedom are undermined by a lack of equality of opportunity.

This inequality of opportunity is seen as a form of continued oppression informed by the view that the quality of life has not necessarily improved for most South Africans.

 

Views of democracy

South Africans attach an instrumentalist value to democracy. This is evident in the views that democracy does not deliver, most notably among the youth. Democracy is valued more because of delivering socio-economic goods such as social welfare, housing, and income grants. They don’t necessarily view democracy as having intrinsic value as the best political system to achieve a just society based on human rights, dignity, freedom and equality.

In other words, they value democracy based on what it can do for them, not because they believe it is the best form of government. This is evident in the growing levels of institutional mistrust and growing political disengagement from formal democratic processes like voting.
This creates a weak foundation for the sustainability of the country’s democracy in that in times of economic hardship, the legitimacy of democracy as a political system declines in the public view. Therefore, democracy becomes ‘illegitimate’ because it cannot deliver social and economic goods to create equality of opportunity.

It is not surprising that citizens place a high value on equality as an essential democratic principle given that South Africa is still the most unequal society globally.

Why do South Africans hold a strong instrumentalist attachment to democracy? The answer may lie in the expectations of what freedom and democracy meant in 1994, when apartheid came to an end.

 

Tales of despair

My research shows that the ‘Dream of 1994’ was the restoration of human dignity, something centuries of settler colonialism and apartheid had denied the black majority. Indeed, asked what 1994 meant for them, an interviewee said:

I was very happy. I felt extremely happy because this was the first time that black people gained freedom … And it made me feel free as a person as well. Even just strolling around I felt free; I didn’t have to be so conscious around white people. There was no longer any fear … I felt good, really good. What I was thinking. I was thinking that now we are free. That you can talk with everybody, you can walk with everybody. You know, that you can be friends with everyone that you want to be friends with. I thought that now that the party {the ANC} would take over, they’d know what we had gone through then.

Equality of opportunity was an essential characteristic of what the ‘Dream of 1994’ meant for South Africans. An interviewee reflected:

Talking of expectations, because I grew up in that old era, in that old regime. So my intention was, should Nelson Mandela be free, we would be living in a free country … our expectations were that we would gain free education and that there’d be lots of jobs, that everyone would be employed, things like that. And that everyone would have his or her own house, things like that … and those were the things that we expected, which I expected.

The sense that freedom and democracy remain an illusion was more palpable among the youth. An interviewee said:

I think, in my own opinion for those who lived before 1994, their aim of freedom was to free Mandela, then after it was to have their own black government. But for me, who was born in 1987, the word freedom for me is still an idea … the reason I say that is because for me the word freedom is too big for South Africa. If education was free, then I would say yes, we have freedom.

 

Historical patterns

South Africans see a continuation of historical patterns of exclusion and marginalisation where equality of opportunity is not a lived reality for many. And, given that South Africans may continue to delegitimise democracy on the basis that it has not delivered on the expectations of the Dream of 1994, stronger populist and anti-democratic rhetoric are likely to take root in the future.

Joleen Steyn Kotze, Chief Research Specialist in Democracy and Citizenship at the Human Science Research Council and a Research Fellow Centre for African Studies, University of the Free State

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Actor Ama K. Abebrese is pushing for the Ghanaian government to scrap fees for abuse victims.

In Lebanon, the impact of the Beirut port blasts, a rapidly weakening local currency and the effects of COVID-19 have sent more people into poverty. Nine out of 10 Syrian refugee families in Lebanon are now living in extreme poverty. Credit: World Food Programme (WFP)

By Sami Halabi
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Apr 27 2022 (IPS)

Lebanon is perpetually at a crossroads, one where local, regional, and international interests seem to play against each other—all the more so today with the war in Ukraine.

Now, tiny Lebanon, all too familiar with the ripple effects of global conflicts, has been almost completely cut off from its staple food— wheat — which was almost entirely supplied by Russia and Ukraine before the conflict.

The country has found no viable alternative to affordable wheat and, without it, flour mills and bakers have had trouble supplying Lebanon’s main food, Arabic pita bread.

At the same time, global oil price spikes triggered by the Russia-Ukraine conflict coupled with COVID-era supply chain issues have hammered affordability, and it’s not just bread that has been affected: the price of maize, sugar, vegetable oil, and cooking gas have created an affordability crisis that has precipitated Lebanon’s food security freefall.

Understandably, many fear that a vicious food insecurity cycle —currently in its nascence — could be the death blow for crisis-struck Lebanon, with the country finally entering the realm of failed states beset by conflict.

Lebanon can ill afford another protracted crisis. According to the World Bank, the country’s current economic malaise is one of the most severe crises since the mid-nineteenth century.

In just a span of two and a half years, the economic crisis has caused the poverty rate to rise from 30% to around 80%, and that’s just for the Lebanese. Syrian and Palestinian refugees — who were already poor and food insecure — are faring worse as the prices of basic staple foods have skyrocketed and the government is scrambling to find other, albeit less affordable, food sources.

The government has approached other suppliers such as India and the US to try to secure alternative wheat suppliers. But in a global context where every other state is dependent on Russia and Ukraine for wheat, Lebanon has little bargaining power to secure a sustainable supply, much less outbid larger players.

Perhaps the worst part of the current food insecurity cycle is that it was predictable. For decades, the international community has warned that without a real long-term food and nutrition security strategy, Lebanon’s next food crisis would be deeper and existentially damaging.

Import dependency, stemming from 1990s and early 2000s neoliberal economic policies, meant trade and services were promoted at the expense of agricultural production. The result was an inadequate food security infrastructure and financial policies that benefitted elites over hungry mouths.

Now, a hugely unequal society underpinned by a rentier economy, resilient sectors such as agriculture are so underdeveloped that Lebanon imports many foods that are native to its territory. Even simple measures have been neglected: Lebanon never instituted a strategic grain silo policy, which would have seen the country build and buy stocks (when prices were relatively low) to stave off shocks like the current one.

Such a policy could have taken advantage of the supply capacity of Beirut port’s national grain silos. The silos have now been slated for destruction, while alternative short-term storage alternatives are being patched together. That’s because the country has neither the funds nor the interest in rebuilding the silos—given that their presence stands as a thorny reminder of the incompetence (if not worse) which ultimately led to the Port blast on August 4th, 2020.

The only thing that seems certain at this juncture is that Lebanon’s food security crisis will most likely get worse before it gets better—with no short-term solutions in sight. Right now, coping mechanisms are being employed, both at the individual and state levels. The food insecure are increasingly eating less, skipping meals, borrowing food, and spending less on health and education.

The state and the financial system which supports it have resorted to the last resort: using up the very last of Lebanon’s foreign currency reserves to purchase the bare minimum of food supplies. This month, flour mills went on strike to protest the fact they had not been provided fresh foreign currency from the central bank’s reserves.

The state scrambled to find a credit line, which it eventually did from IMF funds that were supposedly earmarked to deal with the COVID-19’s economic impacts. These reactive policy strategies look likely to stay in place at least until elections are held in mid-May, and most likely until a government is formed many months after that.

In the meantime, price-taker Lebanon will continue to hope the conflict in Ukraine abates alongside higher oil prices—an unlikely scenario given Russia’s renewed focus on the Donbas region. With no huge breakthrough expected for Lebanon’s opposition in the upcoming election, the ruling class will almost certainly retain most levers of power.

Their track record in dealing with food insecurity notwithstanding, the scale of the current crisis compels them to take some action. As usual, that will probably come in the form of piecemeal measures rather than what is truly needed: a holistic solution to the financial crisis, deep economic reform measures, coupled with a sustainable, long-term food and nutrition security strategy. There is, however, some hope.

The contours of an IMF deal have been penned, even if it currently lacks enough substance or support from co-funders to deal with the magnitude and content of key pivotal issues. The programme would be the start of a new process for Lebanon, one where optimists hold that the victory for a significant slice of opposition figures creates a scenario where independents play kingmaker in future parliament quotas.

Under this scenario, the financial crisis would start to be resolved, people would gain more access to their savings, and food insecurity would begin to abate. Pessimists will wager that deeper food insecurity in an electoral season is just the right recipe for national instability—something which the political class is all too adept at creating and taking advantage of to delay elections and deepen patronage amidst people growing more destitute.

Reality is often found somewhere between the best- and worst-case scenarios. Whatever the case, without a clear, fair, and accountable solution to the financial crisis and a real food security plan, Lebanon’s bellies will soon become as empty as its coffers.

Sami Halabi is the Director of Knowledge and Co-founder of Triangle, where he directs the operations of the company’s strategy and knowledge outputs across its three focus areas: policy, research and media. Sami’s portfolio includes work with UN organisations, international NGOs as well as a range of print and broadcast media outlets.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A look into the murky business of the stolen oil, days after a deadly refining accident.

Two decades since the conflict began, deadly raids by Arab militia are becoming more frequent.

Every other Tuesday, a working group of Mayan women meets to review the organization and progress of their food saving and production project in Uayma, in the state of Yucatán in southeastern Mexico. CREDIT: Courtesy of the Ko'ox Tani Foundation

By Emilio Godoy
UAYMA, Mexico , Apr 26 2022 (IPS)

Every other Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. sharp, a group of 26 Mexican women meet for an hour to discuss the progress of their work and immediate tasks. Anyone who arrives late must pay a fine of about 25 cents on the dollar.

The collective has organized in the municipality of Uayma (which means “Not here” in the Mayan language) to learn agroecological practices, as well as how to save money and produce food for family consumption and the sale of surpluses.

“We have to be responsible. With savings we can do a little more,” María Petul, a married Mayan indigenous mother of two and a member of the group “Lool beh” (“Flower of the road” in Mayan), told IPS in this municipality of just over 4,000 inhabitants, 1,470 kilometers southeast of Mexico City in the state of Yucatán, on the Yucatán peninsula.

The home garden “gives me enough to eat and sell, it helps me out,” said Petul as she walked through her small garden where she grows habanero peppers (Capsicum chinense, traditional in the area), radishes and tomatoes, surrounded by a few trees, including a banana tree whose fruit will ripen in a few weeks and some chickens that roam around the earthen courtyard.

The face of Norma Tzuc, who is also married with two daughters, lights up with enthusiasm when she talks about the project. “I am very happy. We now have an income. It’s exciting to be able to help my family. Other groups already have experience and tell us about what they’ve been doing,” Tzuc told IPS.

The two women and the rest of their companions, whose mother tongue is Mayan, participate in the project “Women saving to address climate change”, run by the non-governmental Ko’ox Tani Foundation (“Let’s Go Ahead”, in Mayan), dedicated to community development and social inclusion, based in Merida, the state capital.

This phase of the project is endowed with some 100,000 dollars from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), the non-binding environmental arm of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), formed in 1994 by Canada, the United States and Mexico and replaced in 2020 by another trilateral agreement.

The initiative got off the ground in February and will last two years, with the aim of training some 250 people living in extreme poverty, mostly women, in six locations in the state of Yucatán.

The maximum savings for each woman in the group is about 12 dollars every two weeks and the minimum is 2.50 dollars, and they can withdraw the accumulated savings to invest in inputs or animals, or for emergencies, with the agreement of the group. Through the project, the women will receive seeds, agricultural inputs and poultry, so that they can install vegetable gardens and chicken coops on their land.

The women write down the quotas in a white notebook and deposit the savings in a gray box, kept in the house of the group’s president.

José Torre, project director of the Ko’ox Tani Foundation, explained that the main areas of entrepreneurship are: community development, food security, livelihoods and human development.

“What we have seen over time is that the savings meetings become a space for human development, in which they find support and solidarity from their peers, make friends and build trust,” he told IPS during a tour of the homes of some of the savings group participants in Uayma.

The basis for the new initiative in this locality is a similar program implemented between 2018 and 2021 in other Yucatecan municipalities, in which the organization worked with 1400 families.

María Petul, a Mayan indigenous woman, plants chili peppers, tomatoes, radishes and medicinal herbs in the vegetable garden in the courtyard of her home in Uayma, in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatán. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Unequal oasis

Yucatan, a region home to 2.28 million people, suffers from a high degree of social backwardness, with 34 percent of the population living in moderate poverty, 33 percent suffering unmet needs, 5.5 percent experiencing income vulnerability and almost seven percent living in extreme poverty.

The COVID-19 pandemic that hit this Latin American country in February 2020 exacerbated these conditions in a state that depends on agriculture, tourism and services, similar to the other two states that make up the Yucatán Peninsula: Campeche and Quintana Roo.

Inequality is also a huge problem in the state, although the Gini Index dropped from 0.51 in 2014 to 0.45, according to a 2018 government report, based on data from 2016 (the latest year available). The Gini coefficient, where 1 indicates the maximum inequality and 0 the greatest equality, is used to calculate income inequality.

The situation of indigenous women is worse, as they face marginalization, discrimination, violence, land dispossession and lack of access to public services.

More than one million indigenous people live in the state.

Women participating in a project funded by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation record their savings in a white notebook and deposit them in a gray box. Mayan indigenous woman Norma Tzuc belongs to a group taking part in the initiative in Uayma, in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatán. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Climate crisis, yet another vulnerability

Itza Castañeda, director of equity at the non-governmental World Resources Institute (WRI), highlights the persistence of structural inequalities in the peninsula that exacerbate the effects of the climate crisis.

“In the three states there is greater inequality between men and women. This stands in the way of women’s participation and decision-making. Furthermore, the existing evidence shows that there are groups in conditions of greater vulnerability to climate impacts,” she told IPS from the city of Tepoztlán, near Mexico City.

She added that “climate change accentuates existing inequalities, but a differentiated impact assessment is lacking.”

Official data indicate that there are almost 17 million indigenous people in Mexico, representing 13 percent of the total population, of which six million are women.

Of indigenous households, almost a quarter are headed by women, while 65 percent of indigenous girls and women aged 12 and over perform unpaid work compared to 35 percent of indigenous men – a sign of the inequality in the system of domestic and care work.

To add to their hardships, the Yucatan region is highly vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis, such as droughts, devastating storms and rising sea levels. In June 2021, tropical storm Cristobal caused the flooding of Uayma, where three women’s groups are operating under the savings system.

For that reason, the project includes a risk management and hurricane early warning system.

The Mexican government is building a National Care System, but the involvement of indigenous women and the benefits for them are still unclear.

Petul looks excitedly at the crops planted on her land and dreams of a larger garden, with more plants and more chickens roaming around, and perhaps a pig to be fattened. She also thinks about the possibility of emulating women from previous groups who have set up small stores with their savings.

“They will lay eggs and we can eat them or sell them. With the savings we can also buy roosters, in the market chicks are expensive,” said Petul, brimming with hope, who in addition to taking care of her home and family sells vegetables.

Her neighbor Tzuc, who until now has been a homemaker, said that the women in her group have to take into account the effects of climate change. “It has been very hot, hotter than before, and there is drought. Fortunately, we have water, but we have to take care of it,” she said.

For his part, Torre underscored the results of the savings groups. The women “left extreme poverty behind. The pandemic hit hard, because there were families who had businesses and stopped selling. The organization gave them resilience,” he said.

In addition, a major achievement is that the households that have already completed the project continue to save, regularly attend meetings and have kept producing food.

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Credit: UNHCR

By Lori Silberman Brauner
TEANECK, New Jersey, Apr 26 2022 (IPS)

It was a long, harrowing road for Freshta and Shabaneh, two mothers (their names are pseudonyms) who fled Kabul, Afghanistan, late last summer before eventually settling in the southern New Jersey township of Hamilton.

Shabaneh, 30, the mother of three boys who was then between four and five months pregnant, recalls her flight out of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport on a U.S. army plane under less-than-optimal conditions.

Whatever seats had been in place had been removed from the plane to accommodate all the passengers, and she had no choice but to sit with her kids on plastic bags on the floor. “They were crying and I was nauseous,” she said through a translator. “I was feeling terrible.”

Freshta, 27, a medical student who fled the country with her husband and three kids, was then between two and three months pregnant. Before leaving, she had to pass through checkpoints manned by the Taliban, who questioned her paperwork, hassling her before she bravely told them: “Put your guns away, there are children here.”

The two families were among the more than 84,600 Afghan nationals, American citizens, and Lawful Permanent Residents who (as of Feb. 19) have arrived in the United States as part of Operation Allies Welcome, the coordinated federal government effort to support and resettle Afghan refugees — including those who worked on behalf of the United States — with more than 76,000 Afghan nationals having been resettled across the country, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Both women’s husbands worked for American organizations, which enabled them to come to the United States on Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs): Shabaneh’s at a U.S. NGO, and Freshta’s at an American security company. Both women have parents and extended family left behind in Afghanistan, and requested pseudonyms to protect their well-being.

Through a translator, Sara Abasi, a volunteer ESL teacher who has been tutoring her, Shabaneh said that due to the Taliban takeover “our life was in danger,” so they decided to come to the United States.

The scariest moment before her departure was the morning, Aug. 15, when the Taliban took over Kabul; her husband was at work. “We couldn’t contact my husband,” as the Taliban had shut down the phone system. “I didn’t know if he was dead or alive.” He eventually returned home at 9 p.m. after walking for hours from his office.

Freshta’s family, it turns out, could have come to the U.S. in 2018 through the SIV program, but changed their minds because, as Abasi said, “they had a good life over there.”

But after last summer’s Taliban takeover, because of their connection to the U.S. government (her brother-in-law was also working for them), “their data was in the Taliban’s hands, so their lives were in danger.” Freshta, who had been training as a medical student in Kabul, then had two girls and a boy.

After Shabaneh’s family’s six-hour flight, they wound up at the Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar, where they spent 13 days before coming to the U.S. While “the food was great,” the living conditions were terrible, with no real beds or privacy, Shabaneh said. “We couldn’t sleep.”

It may have been even worse before her arrival — an Aug. 24 report in Axios detailed an email sent by supervisory special agent Colin Sullivan, an official at U.S. Central Command, to his colleagues titled “Dire conditions at Doha,” stating that the base, which had no air conditioning, was awash in loose feces and urine and infested with rats.

Following the revelation, the Pentagon told Axios it had taken concrete steps to improve conditions on the ground, including installing more than 100 toilets and offering 7,000 traditional Afghan meals three times a day.

The next stop for Shabaneh’s family was in the United States, at the Fort Bliss military installation outside of El Paso, Texas. There she had four or five prenatal check-ups and they had pillows and beds to sleep in, but conditions were still far from pleasant. The location had “very big bugs” — cockroaches — according to Lindsey Stephenson, another translator for the women. They grabbed the first resettlement opportunity they were offered, in New Jersey.

Freshta spent eight days in Qatar before coming to the U.S., and three months at the Fort Pickett military base in Virginia. As she tells it, “we didn’t have enough doctors,” only for emergencies, and it was difficult to eat the food while pregnant and nauseous — although she did have two ultrasounds to check on the baby’s health.

By the time conditions had improved, her family had left the base to be resettled in Hamilton, a large Trenton, NJ, suburb.

While the women were finally able to live in real housing, challenges remained for them in terms of accessing health care. Stephenson explained the women’s situation while having their initial post-base check-ups in New Jersey.

Noting that their resettlement agency had a contract with Eric B. Chandler Health Center, a community health center in New Brunswick affiliated with Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Medical School, she said that it was a good 45 minutes away. While pregnant women receive priority, it is still a hassle; and on top of that, “they don’t drive. They have to be driven… and guess what, their kids weren’t in school either.”

Shabaneh, who discretely nursed her two-month-old son while speaking in her apartment — as her kids, Freshta’s kids, and Stephenson’s kids noisily played around them — eventually gave birth at RWJ University Hospital. “They were really kind to me,” she said. From the beginning she chose to breastfeed, although she was offered formula as a feeding option.

Freshta also praised the care she received as a pregnant woman, noting that when she experienced a change in the baby’s movements, she instantly was told to come to the hospital — Capital Health in Hopewell, NJ — where she remained for 25 hours for evaluation.

Yet despite the quality care she received, she still prefers the Afghan medical system. “Our doctors in Afghanistan were more knowledgeable,” said Freshta, who spent considerable time working in a hospital setting as a medical student and could only look on while U.S. medical staff struggled to insert a needle in her arm for routine blood work. As Stephenson noted, “because of the lack of technology, then people actually have to be more skillful with their hands.”

Virtua Health Systems, which has five hospitals in southern NJ, and whose Mt. Holly location is just down the street from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst — the military base where many of the Afghan refugees were housed after coming to the United States — saw some 123 births from this population and over 1,000 encounters “in triage,” said Pamela Gallus, RN, assistant vice president of patient care services, Virtua Mt. Holly Hospital. “And we really early on saw them for a lot of other things other than deliveries. We did a lot of their prenatal care when they first arrived.”

What kind of medical care had these women previously had in Afghanistan? “It was somewhat variable,” said Dr. Michelle Salvatore, medical director, OB/GYN Hospitalists at Virtua Mt. Holly. “Some of the patients had what we would consider regular physician prenatal care prior to coming.

I would say that was not the majority of patients. Many of the patients lived in remote places in Afghanistan and villages and…and hadn’t really had a lot of interface with health care…. So, this was a little bit of a different scenario as we were trying to provide more of a preventative care-type model for them.”

Asked about their physical conditions when they landed in the hospitals, Dr. Nicole Lamborne, Virtua’s vice president of clinical operations-women’s health, said that despite the “incredible amount of stress they were under… physically, I don’t think we saw too many issues of really malnourished [patients], just different nourished.”

While in general, they were thinner patients, “it actually reduces some of our obstetrical complications — they were much more used to walking places. So, I think physically, in a lot of ways, they’re healthier than some of the patients that we have in the United States.”

Afghan women demonstrated interesting cultural patterns for breastfeeding after giving birth. “Every one of them was seen by a lactation consultant,” said Gallus. While only about 40 out of some 120 patients breastfed exclusively, “there were only two or three who [exclusively] formula fed,” Gallus said.

“The rest of them all ‘combo fed,’ where they gave a little bit of formula and primarily breastfed, because that is their culture. But they often felt that until their milk was established…they wanted to be able to give the baby some form of nutrient.”

Does it really matter if a newborn gets just a few bottles of formula? While the milk of women who exclusively formula feed will eventually come in — “it’s just a better supply” if one exclusively breastfeeds, said Virtua Mt. Holly Lactation Consultant Shirley Donato, RN, acknowledging that “it’s helping the baby to learn how to breastfeed and things like that.”

The new moms “came in knowing about formula…I don’t know if they educated them on the base about their choices and to make sure they had formula if they were formula feeding, but they came in knowing that formula was an option,” Lamborne said. “They had formula on the base,” Gallus concurred.

There are recommended practices for the introduction of infant formula into humanitarian settings, said Hannah Tappis, DrPH, MPH, a senior technical adviser at Jhpiego, an affiliate of John Hopkins University, whose expertise focuses on maternal health in crisis situations.

“The best thing you can do for a lot of places is give cash — not to send your old things or to, you know, go to Costco and stock up on formula,” Tappis said. “The best thing to do is to donate to organizations that if that’s what they need they’ll purchase [it].”

But donating formula “in a more global context” is not recommended, she said. “And you know, that doesn’t mean small charities or church charities aren’t doing it. But certainly the big organizations wouldn’t accept it, and it would be generally discouraged.”

At least before the women left the army base, Virtua medical personnel tried to create an atmosphere most conducive to breastfeeding. “One of the things that we always do here is we do ‘skin to skin’ as soon as the baby is born, so we put the baby actually on the chest and the breast,” Gallus said. Virtua also facilitates full-time rooming in with the babies to facilitate bonding; there is no nursery per se where the babies are lined up by bassinets.

In the meantime, Freshta, who was nearing the end of her pregnancy during a reporter’s visit, gave birth to a healthy baby boy on April 6. Although she had had a C-section, according to Stephenson, she was ready to return home after just two nights in the hospital. She chose to breastfeed him.

Lori Silberman Brauner is an award-winning journalist, editor and freelance writer who most recently served as deputy managing editor at the New Jersey Jewish News. She received a B.A. in political science from Muhlenberg College; an M.A. in international affairs from Drew University; and an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is a fellow in the International Center for Journalists’ Global Nutrition and Food Security program.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Mr Musk, who made the shock bid just over a week ago, said he would "unlock" the social media firm's potential.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 26 2022 (IPS)

Curbing capital flight from developing countries is long overdue. New sanctions against Russian oligarchs show this can be done with the requisite political will. Recent research also shows how to more effectively stop capital flight.

Capital flight
Capital flight is widespread, with resource-rich countries more vulnerable. ‘Mis-invoicing’ exports and embezzling export earnings of state-owned mineral companies have been central to such wealth appropriation.

Capital flight is enabled, not only by national conditions, but also by transnational facilitators. Internationally, capital flight is aided by institutions and professional enablers such as bankers, lawyers, accountants and consultants.

Capital should flow to investments yielding the most returns. But economic theory suggests making more depends on appropriating what economists call ‘rents’. These rents may be secured by many means, legal or otherwise.

Developing countries – especially resource-rich economies – are generally more susceptible to abuse. Wealth buys power and influence, enabling further accumulation. Thus, in the real world, natural resource endowments become a curse – not a blessing.

Since the 1990s, the IMF’s sixth Article of Association – authorizing national capital controls – has been ‘flexibly reinterpreted’ by management and staff. Instead of protecting national economies, they have eased transborder capital flows – and flight.

To add insult to injury, advocates falsely claim that more capital will thus flow into, rather than out of developing countries. After all, conventional economic theory insists capital flows from ‘capital-rich’ to ‘capital-poor’ countries.

The reality of capital flowing ‘upstream’ – to rich countries – underscores how mainstream economic textbooks mislead. Clearly, the real world is very different from the one that such economists believe should exist.

Enabling illicit outflows
Unsurprisingly, the wealthy – especially the ‘crooked’ – want to keep their assets abroad – beyond the reach of national authorities, and rivals. As such wealth has often been acquired illicitly, owners want to protect themselves from investigation, prosecution and expropriation.

Capital flight is enabled by transnational financial networks with considerable influence. These involve global banks and financial institutions, auditors and accounting firms, tax lawyers and consulting firms for hire. Along with corporate executives and government officials, they facilitate capital flight, sharing in the spoils.

With both states and markets at their disposal, transnational financial networks successfully overcome national constraints. Prerogatives of national sovereignty are also abused to obscure their transactions and operations from surveillance.

Capital flight is enabled, even incentivized by national environments allowing the wealthy to surreptitiously sneak financial assets offshore. Instead of helping developing countries protect their meagre assets, international financial institutions have facilitated, even worsened the haemorrhage.

Elites influence the law and its enforcement, typically by employing enabling professionals and friendly legislators. After all, laws and governments are neither impartial nor efficient, constantly reshaped by influence, often connected to wealth. Hence, some illicit activities and wealth may be unlawful while others may not be.

National legal jurisdictions have been changed to ease cross-border flows. Rules, norms and practices have been changed to hide wealth transfers from national and international authorities, rules and regulations. Hence, natural resource endowments especially enable capital flight.

Such outflows may even be triply illicit – in terms of mode of acquisition, concealment from tax authorities, and transfer across borders. But not all illicitly transferred flight capital is illicitly acquired. Conversely, illicitly obtained wealth – ‘laundered’ before being transferred abroad legally – is not deemed capital flight.

Some capital flight involves legally acquired wealth illicitly transferred abroad. This may be reported as trade-related payments on the current account – not involving capital account transfers. They may thus bypass, or even contravene capital controls and foreign exchange regulations.

They strive to evade detection, prosecution, litigation, fines, charges and taxes by various revenue authorities. Illicit foreign exchange outflows secretly transferred abroad and not recorded in official national accounts may not be deemed illegal.

Hence, the volume and significance of capital flight estimates tend to be understated. Capital flight is easier from most developing economies – which have become more open in the last four decades with economic liberalization, often demanded by structural adjustment programmes.

Why stop capital flight?
Transnational corruption – across national borders – undermines governance and national resource mobilization needed to enhance productive investments. But many advocates of opening capital accounts justify capital flight by blaming it on allegedly predatory or incompetent governments.

The international financial system features enabling capital flight often also facilitate tax avoidance and evasion by the wealthy. Thus, capital flight doubly undermines domestic resource mobilization by leaching both investible and government resources.

Transborder capital flows avoid or minimize taxes paid, while hiding beneficiaries’ identities and wealth in secretive offshore tax havens. Government finances are also directly hit when externally borrowed funds, or state-owned enterprises and natural resources are embezzled.

Worse, government or public foreign debt has often been abused to directly finance capital flight. Meanwhile, illicit offshore flight capital goes untaxed. This shifts the tax burden to the middle class and domestic businesses unable to sneak their assets abroad, or to otherwise avoid revenue authorities.

Many developing countries continue to suffer significant resource outflows, largely due to illicit capital flight. On the trail of capital flight from Africa: The Takers and the Enablers – edited by Leonce Ndikumana and James Boyce – studies this blight in sub-Saharan Africa. The world has much to learn from their forensic analysis.

The volume estimates haemorrhage from African countries since 1970 at US$2 trillion! Of this, almost 30% has been lost in the 21st century. Adding interest, cumulative offshore assets were US$2.4 trillion by 2018 – more than thrice Africa’s external debt!

The West’s piecemeal approach to sanctions targeting individuals is recognized as costly, time-consuming and ineffectual. Instead, the editors recommend a pre-emptive, across-the-board effort to undermine transnational networks enabling illicit financial flows. This should begin with closing financial system loopholes.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Crossing the Rio Cobre, at a crossing at Tulloch, St Catherine. Water from the Rio Cobre is diverted to the artificial recharge system at Innswood. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

By Zadie Neufville
Kingston, Jamaica, Apr 26 2022 (IPS)

It will take billions of dollars and many years to fix a growing problem that has placed Jamaica into the unlikely bracket of being among the world’s most water-scarce countries due to the unavailability of potable water.

The worsening water crisis of the Kingston and St Andrew (KMA) metropolis results in rationing for months in some years. The lock-offs are exacerbated by droughts, broken pumps and the crumbling pipelines making up the water distribution system. At the same time, in the aquifers below the capital city, more than 104.3 million cubic meters of water, or about 60 percent of the available resource, remained unusable due to pollution.

A 2020 study, Groundwater Availability and Security in the Kingston Basin, found that high levels of nitrates in the city’s main aquifer were making the water unusable for domestic purposes. The study conducted by researchers at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus’ Departments of Chemistry and Geology and Geography, pointed to the contamination by effluent from the septic and absorption pits that litter the city’s landscape and saline intrusion from over-pumping as the cause of the pollution.

Lead researcher Arpita Mandal told IPS via email that the two-year study, which started in 2018, showed no “significant change” in the levels of chloride and nitrates during the period, noting: “The historic data is patchy, but the chloride and nitrate levels have always shown high above the permissible limits”.

The report concluded that there is an urgent need to address the continued contamination of the Kingston Basin, but Debbie-Ann Gordon Smith, the lead chemist in the study, noted that the cleaning process would be extremely lengthy and costly.

According to the study, many of the wells across KSA were decommissioned because between 50 and 80 per cent of the effluent from absorption pits and septic tanks goes directly into the ground. The report said the same was true for many Caribbean Islands, including Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, and Grenada.

Noting the concerns for the quality and quantity of water in the aquifers of the KSA, the managing director of the Water Resources Authority (WRA) Peter Clarke pointed to the existence of several working wells in use by companies that treat the water to potable standards for industrial use.

He said that while the contamination from “200 years of pit latrines” (in KSA) continues to cause concern, “the hardscaping of car parks and roofs” means there is less water available to recharge the aquifer. Therefore, to preserve the continued viability of the aquifer, the WRA, Jamaica’s water management and regulatory body, is preparing to put a moratorium on new wells.

Clarke is confident that the island has enough water and reserves of the precious liquid for decades to come. He noted, however, that in Jamaica’s case, it is the distribution and access that makes water a scarce commodity in some areas.
“It is where the people are, where water is distributed, and access to the water that is important,” he said.

In 2015 the state-owned domestic distribution agency, the National Water Commission (NWC), announced an extensive 15 million US dollar programme to refurbish Kingston’s ageing distribution network. The programme included decontamination and recovery of old wells, decommissioning old sewage plants, and rehabilitation of water storage facilities.

In the process, the water company mended 40,000 leaks, which back then were reportedly costing the city 50 percent of the potable water it produced. They also replaced the ageing pipelines installed before the country’s independence in 1962. The programme continues with the replacement and installation of hundreds of miles and pipelines.

Clarke explained that Jamaica’s groundwater supply is three to four times greater than that which runs to the sea via the island’s 120 rivers and their networks of streams and provides 85 per cent of potable needs. Jamaica uses roughly 25 per cent of its available groundwater resources and 11 per cent of its accessible surface water.

To satisfy the growing demand in the KMA, Clarke said, the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation is considering a new treatment plant in St Catherine among its planned and existing solutions. In 2016, an artificial groundwater recharge system was built at the cost of just over 1 billion Jamaican dollars or 133 million US dollars, on 68 acres (27.5 hectares) of what was once cane-lands in Innswood, St Catherine, to replenish the wells that supply the most populated areas of the metropolis and surrounding areas.

The system currently injects an extra five million gallons of potable water per day to replenish abstractions from the supply wells. The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development announced last month that it is considering similar systems to store excess water for use in times of drought and to reduce evaporation from surface systems like reservoirs and dams in other water-stressed areas of the island,

Both Gordon Smith and Mandal agree that Kingston’s water shortage is worsened by climate variations, increased urbanisation, and the inadequate management of existing resources. In the last few years, a construction boom in the KMA has transformed the KMA, placing increased pressure on the available water supply.

The UWI’s Climate Research Group has warned of increased temperature and extremes in rainfall and droughts. Based on the 6th Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Group warned Caribbean governments to brace for more prolonged and more intense droughts and higher temperatures that will impact, among other things, food production and water supplies.

In the case of the KSA, the NWC has continued to build and upgrade the city’s sewage treatment capacity in the areas affected to end sewage and wastewater contamination of the aquifer. Hopefully, the aquifer will naturally flush itself when the work is complete.

“Jamaica is not short of water,” Clark said. “It’s a distribution issue”.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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