Africa

The thousands who left are now faced with a decision about where to continue their studies.

Charities run by Sir Ian Wood and Lord Sainsbury hand ownership of Mulindi factory to co-operatives.

Leandro Trossard and Christian Benteke are amongst the scorers as an inexperienced Belgium beat Burkina Faso in a friendly.

Ghana reach the 2022 World Cup in Qatar after forcing arch rivals Nigeria to a 1-1 draw in Abuja to qualify on the away goals rule.

A much-changed England side stroll to victory against 10-man Ivory Coast in a friendly at Wembley on Tuesday.

Sadio Mane scores the winning penalty in a shootout against Egypt to put Senegal through to the World Cup finals in Qatar.

Widespread sexual violence against women and girls in conflict is being fueled by systemic impunity, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan reports. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 29 2022 (IPS)

While several politicians -and media– have been viewing the ongoing armed conflict in South Sudan as a “civil war” between rival ethnic groups, so nothing to worry about, there are some key facts that should be considered for the sake of having a wider, more accurate panorama. One of them is that this country is rich in oil.

Many politicians and media have also been blaming the widespread corruption as one main cause of South Sudanese inhumane living conditions while ignoring the evidence that if there are corrupt it is because there are “corruptors.”

Meanwhile, the armed conflict in South Sudan has been having tragic consequences. Women and girls are taken as “war trophies,” subjected to mass rape, forced pregnancy, torture, slavery and a long list of brutalities. In the meantime, the country is rapidly bracing for a devastating famine.

 

A bit of background

South Sudan is the youngest State in the world. It was born in 2011, following accusations of war crimes committed by the then regime of Sudan’s Omar Al Bashir, who served as the seventh head of state of Sudan under various titles from 1989 until 2019, when he was deposed in a coup d’état.

This young State was an integral part of Sudan since the British Empire and European powers distributed the world between themselves during the long era of European colonialism which lasted from the 15th to the 20th centuries. During that period, European powers vastly extended their reach around the globe by establishing colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia.

 

There is oil down there!

Anyway, South Sudan is home to oil reserves, representing more than 80% of the total oil stocks of Sudan, to which it belonged until its precipitated declaration of independence in 2011.

The country ranks third in oil reserves in Sub-Saharan Africa with an estimated 3.5 billion barrels produced annually. However, it is also estimated that 90 percent of its gas and oil reserves are still untapped.

See what Alan Boswell, of ‘The International Crisis Group,’ an independent organisation working to prevent wars and shape policies that will build a more peaceful world, reported on February 2022:

“Oil then laid the groundwork for South Sudan’s secession. A landmark 2005 peace deal granted Juba half of the South’s oil revenues, pumping billions into the new semi-autonomous government.

“But the sudden wealth gravely compromised the country’s stability. By 2013, only two years after independence, the elite scramble for South Sudan’s oil riches helped trigger a fresh war that may have killed 400,000 people while displacing millions.

“Nowadays, despite a 2018 peace agreement and a government of national unity, Juba’s monopoly on oil revenue obstructs a broader political settlement the country desperately needs.

“South Sudan’s leaders siphon off the bulk of the petrodollars, leaving much of the population starved of basic services and, in some parts of the country, on the brink of famine.”

 

‘Hellish existence’ for women and girls

Meanwhile, widespread sexual violence against women and girls in conflict is being fueled by systemic impunity, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan reported on 21 March 2022.

The Commission’s report, based on interviews conducted with victims and witnesses over several years, describes a “hellish existence for women and girls”, with widespread rape being perpetrated by all armed groups across the country.

According to the UN Commission, sexual violence has been instrumentalized as a reward and entitlement for youth and men participating in the conflict.

The goal is to inflict maximum disruption of the fabric of communities, including through their constant displacement, the report continues.

Rape is often used as “part of military tactics for which government and military leaders are responsible, either due to their failure to prevent these acts, or for their failure to punish those involved”, the Commission advanced.

“There, women are taken as ‘spoils of war, a ‘trophy’ for armed men.”

On this, the UN Human Rights Council, in its 49th session (28 February–1 April 2022), has included in its agenda the conflict-related sexual violence against women and girls in South Sudan.

 

Hellish situation

Conflict-related sexual violence against women and girls is widespread and systematic throughout South Sudan. Ongoing conflict across the country has created a perilous situation of great insecurity for women and girls, exacerbated by a lack of accountability for sexual and gender-based violence, says the Council summary document.

The Human Rights Council’s paper explains that sexual violence in South Sudan has been instrumentalized as a ”reward and entitlement” for youth and men participating in the conflict.

“… The objective being to inflict maximum disruption and the destruction of the fabric of communities, including through their constant displacement. This scourge has had the most profound impact on victims, their families and communities.”

“Widespread and pervasive, conflict-related sexual violence against women and girls in South Sudan takes place in the context of persistent conflict and insecurity, drastic gender inequity, and prevailing impunity, which exacerbate its prevalence and contribute to its normalisation.”

The report concludes that conflict-related sexual violence in South Sudan’s conflicts takes many forms: “rape; gang rape and mass rape; abductions and sexual slavery; sexual torture, beatings and cruel and inhuman treatment; being forced to witness sexual violence; forced unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancies; and other forms of violence.”

Conflict-related sexual violence in South Sudan, it adds, has been instrumentalised to destroy the very fabric that binds communities, and as a strategy to displace, terrorise and humiliate civilian populations. This sexual violence is linked to the political and ethnic divisions at the heart of these conflicts.

“Sexual violence is used to humiliate and force opponents to leave a given territory, and thereby plays a critical role as one of the instruments of ethnic displacement.”

 

Pervasive poverty

Such brutal violence and injury, the study goes on, take place in a context of pervasive poverty and extreme gender inequality, reflected in high rates of sexual and gender-based violence outside of conflict, a lack of women’s participation in political and public life, high rates of girl children being subjected to early or forced marriage, the lack of access by women and girls to livelihoods, and poor health outcomes that rank amongst the lowest for women and girls globally.

“The experiences of women and girls subjected to sexual violence in conflict cannot be isolated from wider political violence, which typically involves brutal violations and abuses perpetrated by armed men against civilians, including killings, abductions, torture and forced displacement.”

 

Bodies reduced to ‘spoils of war’

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan report also adds that “It is outrageous and completely unacceptable that women’s bodies are systematically used on this scale as the spoils of war,” as declared by Yasmin Sooka, Chair of the UN Commission.

Sexual violence survivors have detailed “staggeringly brutal and prolonged gang rapes” perpetrated against them by multiple men, often while their husbands, parents or children have been forced to watch, helpless to intervene.

“Women of all ages recounted being raped multiple times while other women were also being raped around them, and a woman raped by six men said she was even forced to tell her assailants that the rape had been “good”, threatening to rape her again if she refused.”

 

Bracing for ‘worst hunger crisis ever’

More than 70 percent of South Sudan’s population will struggle to survive the peak of the annual ‘lean season’ this year, as the country grapples with unprecedented levels of food insecurity caused by conflict, climate shocks, COVID-19, and rising costs, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) in 11 March 2022 warned.

While global attention is focused on Ukraine, said WFP, a “hidden hunger emergency” is engulfing South Sudan with about 8.3 million there – including refugees – facing extreme hunger in the coming months.

As the 2022 lean season peaks, food becomes scarce and provisions are depleted, according to the latest findings published in the 2022 Humanitarian Needs Overview.

“Particularly at risk are tens of thousands of South Sudanese who are already severely hungry following successive and continuous shocks and could starve without food assistance.”

Meanwhile, the oil business goes on.

There is no shortage of pandemics that continue to plague humanity. TB was responsible for the deaths of more than 1.5 million people in 2020, and more than a third of these deaths took place in Sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

By Morounfolu Olugbosi
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 29 2022 (IPS)

As countries around the world—from Kenya to Canada, South Africa to Sweden—relish the prospect of an unofficial transition of COVID-19 from pandemic to endemic and start to ease pandemic-related restrictions, many of us in the tuberculosis (TB) community find it hard to relate. In TB, we know what can happen when a pandemic becomes an accepted fact.

Understandably, people everywhere are eager to return to normal. COVID-19, the thinking goes, has evolved to be milder, so it’s time to stop worrying and get on with our lives. Although the virus is still present, many think it has reached endemic levels and so restrictions are being lifted worldwide, despite warnings from more than a few epidemiologists.

There is no shortage of pandemics that continue to plague humanity. Malaria killed more than 620,000 people in 2020. TB was responsible for the deaths of more than 1.5 million people in 2020, and more than a third of these deaths took place in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Prior to COVID-19, hope was on the horizon that the TB pandemic was beginning to ebb. Over the past decade, case rates and fatalities had been slowly declining while research and development efforts had yielded breakthroughs.

After four decades without new medicines approved to treat TB, three have been approved in the past ten years. New technology can not only diagnose TB more easily and quickly than before, but also determine if the infection has any drug resistance. That counts as progress in the TB world—but there’s always the challenge of getting the technologies to the people who need it. And that’s where the COVID-19 pandemic really hit hard.

Dr.Morounfolu (Folu) Olugbosi

In 2020, the most recent statistics that we have for TB, the number of deaths equals that of 2017, with five years of progress eliminated. An estimated 9.9 million people had TB infections, but only 5.8 million were diagnosed. We lost ten years of progress in this benchmark. And only about one third of the estimated 450,000 people with multi-drug resistant TB or Rifampin-resistant TB started treatment in 2020, a 15% decrease from the previous year.

In Africa, countries like Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda had been making progress against TB, with deaths from the disease steadily declining, but these declines ended—all because of the COVID-19 pandemic and related control measures.

In 2015, the world pledged to reduce deaths from TB by 90% by the year 2030, and we are nowhere close to achieving this goal. Epidemiologists evaluating the impact of this failure found that, before the COVID-19 pandemic began, sub-Saharan Africa had been hit hard by TB, with a heavy economic impact and significant loss of life from failing to meet this ambitious benchmark.

And yet, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that, in sub-Saharan Africa, domestic spending on TB prevention, diagnostic and treatment services has declined over the past 10 years. It is no wonder the pressures of COVID-19 tore apart the TB safety net. We too, in Africa, had decided it was ok to live with a lethal disease.

Yes, overall global spending on the disease is less than half of what it needs to be but for us in Africa, TB is not a disease of somewhere else. It is here and we need to roll up our sleeves and fight back or will never stop plaguing us.

No disease should be tolerated, especially deadly infections like TB and COVID-19. All diseases need to be tackled with new technologies and the outreach needed to make sure they are used appropriately. Endemic is never good enough.

Dr. Morounfolu (Folu) Olugbosi, M.D. is the Senior Director, Clinical Development, TB Alliance. He works with the clinical development of products in the TB Alliance portfolio and helps to oversee clinical trials in TB endemic countries and heads the South Africa office.

Gunmen surrounded the carriages and opened fire - an unknown number of people have been abducted.

Alice Atieno relies on sack farming outside her shanty in the sprawling Kibera Slums in Nairobi, Kenya. COVID-19 reversed gains made in poverty reduction, and the unequal access to vaccines has deepened global inequality. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Kenya, Mar 29 2022 (IPS)

Even as COVID-19 brought Africa’s already fragile health care and economic systems to the brink, wealthy states colluded with corporate giants to dupe people with empty slogans and false promises of a fair recovery from the ongoing health pandemic, a newly released report by Amnesty International report finds.

The global human rights organization says at the heart of the report are revelations of how “global leaders peddled false promises of a fair recovery from COVID-19 to address deep-seated inequalities, despite only 8 % of Africa’s 1.2 billion people being fully vaccinated by the end of 2021.”

Amnesty International Report 2021/22: The State of the World’s Human Rights finds that wealthy nations, alongside corporate titans, have driven deeper global inequality. As a result, African countries are worse off and left struggling to recover from the pandemic against a backdrop of significant levels of inequality.

Grace Gakii, a Nairobi-based gender and development expert, says fall-out from COVID-19 includes “poverty and unemployment, severe food insecurities, increased sexual and gender-based violence as well as a strained and struggling health system.”

According to the World Bank, as early as August 2020, COVID-19 induced economic downturn had already pushed an estimated 88 to 115 million people in the world’s most vulnerable communities into extreme poverty. For the first time in a generation, gains made in global poverty reduction were reversed. For instance, an UN-backed report indicated that extreme poverty in West Africa rose by almost 3 % in 2020 due to COVID-19.

World Bank’s Kenya Economic Update showed that the East African nation gained an additional two million ‘new poor’ as of November 2020 due to the ongoing health pandemic. Many like Alice Atieno in the sprawling informal settlements practice sack farming outside their shanties to put food on the table.

According to Amnesty International, many countries in Africa and the Sub-Saharan Africa region face multiple socio-economic challenges because of the unequal distribution of vaccines in the year 2021.

“COVID-19 should have been a decisive wake-up call to deal with inequality and poverty. Instead, we have seen deeper inequality and greater instability in Africa exacerbated by global powers, especially rich countries who failed to ensure that big pharma distributed vaccines equally between states to ensure the same levels of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s director for East and Southern Africa.

“As things stand now, most African countries will take longer to recover from COVID-19 due to high levels of inequality and poverty. The after-effects of COVID-19 have been most damaging to the most marginalized communities, including those on the frontlines of the endemic poverty from Angola to Zambia, Ethiopia to Somalia, and the Central Africa Republic to Sierra Leone.”

Dr Githinji Gitahi, a medical doctor, currently serving as the Global CEO of Amref Health Africa, tells IPS Africa was first let down when it desperately wanted COVID-19 vaccines. But they were hoarded despite high demand and urgency.

He tells IPS the trajectory has changed because the COVID-19 vaccine supply has significantly improved after rich countries satisfied their need and greed. With this sudden increment, more than 50% of doses in the continent were supplied from November 2021. However, other cracks have appeared and will continue to widen if urgent responsive measures are not taken.

“Africa has major inequalities with regard to COVID-19 vaccine distribution and delivery between urban and rural areas and between rich and poor communities. Whereas the urban centers may have reached up to 50 percent COVID-19 vaccination coverage rate, some rural areas are at below 10 percent absorption rate even in Kenya,” he observes.

He explains that vaccine distribution inequalities exist between countries and within countries because initially, countries in Africa, including Low-Income Countries, were required to buy their vaccines.

This was before COVAX – the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access, which is co-led by GAVI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and the World Health Organization – was able to supply vaccine doses for Low-Income Countries as earlier planned.

“African countries in a position to buy were able to access these vaccines ahead of others. Kenya, for example, bought COVID-19 vaccines with a loan from World Bank. Other African countries could not afford it.”

Gitahi further speaks about the different capacities that countries have to deliver these vaccines once they arrive in African countries, as countries have better health system infrastructures than others.

“Health systems capacities in terms of clinical health workers and the vaccine cold chain that ensures proper storage and distribution of vaccines in a country such as Morocco is not the same as those in South Sudan or even Chad. This creates inequality because of a lack of capacity to deliver the vaccines to the people and more so, in far-flung areas in a manner convenient to them,” he cautions.

“Today, they are sending vaccines in Africa, and it is almost as if they are being dumped, and some of them are short expiry vaccines forcing countries to hold back shipments and demand all arriving vaccines must have at least three months of shelf life. The supply is high, but distribution and convenient delivery are low in communities doing informal work and facilities that open only on weekdays when people are at work.”

Just because a country can and has received millions of doses of vaccines does not mean that people are receiving these vaccines in a manner that fits their daily lives. He says millions of doses arrive three months or six weeks before the expiry date.

Africa, he stresses, needs an ongoing increased supply of vaccines to match delivery capacities so that vaccines are available and easily accessible to all who need them on time – further emphasizing the need to match shipments to absorption to avoid wastage while at the same time working to improve delivery capacity.

In the absence of increased delivery and distribution capacities in African countries, health experts such as Gitahi are raising alarm that Africa will remain ill-equipped to overcome and recover from existing COVID-19 induced challenges and that socio-economic inequality will only widen.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Its membership of the East African Community offers citizens free movement and trade.

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Credit: UN Women

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Mar 29 2022 (IPS)

The 10th edition of the World Happiness Report was recently published and once again the findings raised an array of mixed emotions with many questioning the real foundations underpinning the most discussed aspect of the Report, the World Happiness Ranking,

For example, according to the ranking, Nepal appears to be the happiest place in the South Asia but is it really the case? Many experts from the country doubt about it as it was reported by The Kathmandu Post on the 22nd of March.

In the article, Dambar Chemjong, head of the Central Department of Anthropology at Tribhuvan University simply asks “What actually constitutes happiness?”

This is a complex question to answer but certainly it is fair to wonder how come each time this report gets published, it is inevitable that the richest nations, especially the Nordic ones come up on the top while the poorest and more fragile ones instead are hopelessly at the bottom.

There is no doubt that material prosperity determines a person’s quality of life and the World Happiness Report looks at GDP and life expectancy. In addition, the report also explores other factors like generosity, social support, freedom, and corruption.

These six variables, put together, are central to depict what the report calls “life evaluations” that “provide the most informative measure for international comparisons because they capture quality of life in a more complete and stable way than emotional reports based on daily experiences”.

The ranking is based on the Gallup World Poll, that asks “respondents to evaluate their current life as a whole using the mental image of a ladder, with the best possible life for them as a 10 and worst possible as a 0”.

One of the key findings is that social connections in dire times, especially if we think about what the entire world had to endure following the pandemic, do make the difference.

“Now, at a time of pandemic and war, we need such an effort more than ever. And the lesson of the World Happiness Report over the years is that social support, generosity to one another, and honesty in government are crucial for well-being” says Jeffrey Sachs, one of the major “architects” behind the entire concept of measuring happiness worldwide.

This statement further validates the need to further think more broadly about the importance these social relationships and social bonds have in developing nations.

That’s why analyzing happiness across nations should be considered as a working progress and the goal should be to better picture the complex situations on the ground in many parts of the developing world.

These are all nations that have been experiencing hardships consistently, even before the Covid pandemic outbreak and, therefore, they should be acknowledged for having developed unique forms of social bonds and solidarity.

Instead, these social factors, these connectors and the levels of reliance stemming from them in these “unhappy” nations”, are overshadowed by some of the variables determining the life evaluations.

People in developing nations have less access to public services and they are more exposed to corruption and bad governance. Lack of health infrastructures or unequal job market do have a strong incidence in determining a person’s human development and quality of life.

Yet does the fact that their lives are tougher automatically means people are there are unhappy?

Moreover, should not we consider the stress and mental health often affecting the “prosperous” lives of the citizens living in the north of the world?

Probably the problem is the idea of having a ranking itself. Though desirable and useful, measuring real happiness is a daunting and complex job.

Trust, benevolence, real generosity (not just the extrapolated, like in the report, based on donations during the last month) are all key determinants of happiness.

Yet these same factors have always been strong in developing societies where people rely on mutuality and self-help rather than depending on governments unable to fulfill their duties.

As it is now, the World Happiness Ranking risks to become just a “plus” version of the Human Development Index.

There is still a long way to better decipher and understand the meaning of happiness in the so called South of the World.

There is also a great need for the authors to better explain in simpler terms their methodology of calculating the ranking especially the relationships between the six key variables analyzed and positive and negative emotions that are also taken into consideration.

The fact that the ranking and the science behind the report is still a working process, it is recognized in the report itself.

An option would be to re-consider the variables of “life evaluations” that, by default, underscore the concept of wellbeing from a western perspective.

On the positive side, it is encouraging to see how the report includes also a part on “cross-Cultural Perspectives on Balance/Harmony”, central if we want to have a less westernized approach to happiness.

The 2022 edition of the Report devotes also considerable space to the biological basis of happiness, the relationships between genes and environment, what the report calls “Gene-Environment Interplay”.

Such nexus, affecting a person’s feelings and emotions and all the intricacies coming from these interactions, should make us reflect if it is really worthy to continue pursuing the goal of having an annual global ranking on happiness.

The idea of a ranking on happiness risks defeating the purpose of the gigantic and noble effort of better understanding how we can be happier and how public policies can have a role or not in these unfolding dynamics.

Simone Galimberti is Co-Founder of ENGAGE, an NGO partnering with youths living with disabilities. Opinions expressed are personal.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 29 2022 (IPS)

The spectre of ‘stagflation’ threatens the world once again. This time, the risk is the direct consequence of political provocations and war, and not simply due to inexorable economic forces.

Stagflation?
Stagflation is a composite word implying inflation with stagnation. Stagnation refers to weak, ‘near zero’ growth, inevitably worsening unemployment. Inflation refers to price increases – not high prices, as often implied.

Anis Chowdhury

The term ‘stagflation’ was supposedly first used in 1965 by Iain Macleod, then UK Conservative Party economic spokesperson. He later became Chancellor of the Exchequer, or finance minister, in 1970 for little over a month, the shortest tenure in modern times.

In 1965, he told the UK Parliament that amid “swiftly rising” incomes and “completely stagnant” production, “we now have the worst of both worlds. We have a sort of stagflation situation”.

The term caught on in the 1970s, when high inflation and unemployment ended an economic era dubbed the ‘Golden Age of capitalism’ describing the post-World War Two (WW2) boom.

Normally, in a recession, the inflation rate – i.e., the overall rate at which prices increase – falls. As unemployment rises, wages come under pressure, consumers and businesses spend less, reducing demand for goods and services, slowing price rises.

Similarly, when the economy booms, the labour market tightens, pushing up wages, in turn passed on to consumers via increasing prices. Thus, inflation rises and unemployment falls during a boom.

However, stagflation poses a dilemma for central banks. Normally, when economies stall, central banks try to stimulate growth by cutting interest rates, encouraging more borrowing, and thus spending.

But that could also fuel further price rises and higher inflation. On the other hand, if they raise interest rates to check inflation, growth may slow even more, further worsening unemployment.

1970s’ stagflation
The growth of world trade after WW2 increased demand for the US dollar, the de facto world currency under the 1944 Bretton Woods (BW) international monetary agreement. The US financed much post-WW2 reconstruction to broaden its ‘Free World’ sphere of influence as the Cold War began.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Following post-WW2 reconstruction, demand for the greenback was met by greater US imports paid for with US dollars. As foreign central banks increasingly accumulated dollar reserves, flows were reversed in the 1960s, with net resources into rather than out of the US.

During the 1960s, US economic growth was increasingly sustained by government military and social expenditure. Spending increased for both ‘defence’, especially the Vietnam War, and social programmes, e.g., President Lyndon B. Johnson’s ‘war on poverty’ and ‘Great Society’.

As LBJ was reluctant to acknowledge the rising costs of the Vietnam War, it was difficult to raise taxes to pay for his ‘swords and ploughshares’ spending. Instead, spending was financed by government debt, from selling US Treasury bonds. Thus, the world financed US government spending, including the war.

By January 1967, Johnson was under pressure to cut the growing budget deficit. But it took a year and a half for the US Congress to pass his new budget with tax increases. When finally passed in mid-1968, US federal debt had grown even more as spending for both ‘guns and butter’ did not decline.

US monetary policy was obligingly expansionary. Unsurprisingly, inflation shot up from 1.1% during 1960-64 to 4.3% in 1965-70. Higher inflation also eroded US competitiveness, further worsening its balance of payments deficit.

Inflation also undermined US ability to honour its BW commitment to maintain full convertibility to gold at US$35 per ounce. This obligation did not go unnoticed by foreign governments and currency speculators.

As inflation rose in the late 1960s, US dollars were increasingly converted to gold. In August 1971, US President Richard M. Nixon ended the exchange of dollars for gold by foreign central banks, effectively violating its BW commitment.

A last-ditch attempt to salvage the international monetary system – through the short-lived Smithsonian Agreement – failed soon after. By 1973, the post-WW2 BW international monetary arrangements were effectively done with.

Commodity supply disruptions
Oil exporting, European and other countries which held reserves in US dollars suddenly found their assets worth much less. With Venezuela, the Middle East-led Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reacted by dropping their earlier willingness to keep oil prices low.

In October 1973, ‘nationalist’ Saudi monarch Faisal embargoed oil exports to nations supporting Israel soon after President Anwar Sadat’s attempted reprisal following Egypt’s defeat by Israel in 1970. The oil price almost quadrupled – from US$3 to nearly US$12 per barrel when the embargo ended in March 1974.

This steep oil price rise was paralleled by great increases in other commodity prices during 1973-74. Besides petroleum, other primary commodity prices more than doubled between mid-1972 and mid-1974. Meanwhile, the prices of some commodities – such as sugar and urea – rose more than five-fold.

Commodity supply shocks and higher commodity prices increased production costs, consumer prices and unemployment. As rising consumer prices triggered demands for higher wages, these in turn increased consumer prices. Thus, wage-price spirals accelerated price increases and inflation.

The 1979 Iranian revolution triggered a second oil price shock. The resulting ‘great inflation’ saw US prices rise over 14% in 1980. In the UK – then deemed the ‘sick man of Europe’ – inflation averaged 12% a year during 1973-75, peaking at 24% in 1975, while inflation in West Germany and Switzerland exceeded 5%.

In the 1960s, unemployment in the seven major industrial countries – Canada, France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US – rarely exceeded 3.25%. But in the 1970s, the unemployment rate never fell below that. By mid-1982, it rose to 8%, exacerbated by interest rate hikes, ostensibly to fight inflation.

The 1970s’ growth slowdowns – with rising unemployment and inflation – in major industrial economies caught many economists off-guard. Economic thinking then presumed inflation and unemployment were alternatives.

The Phillips Curve implied low unemployment came at the cost of higher inflation, and vice versa. This crude and static caricature of Keynesian economics enabled a major assault on its influence. The assault on development economics was collateral damage in this ‘counter-revolution’.

Peace is our best option
In October 2021, the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, the US Fed and other such institutions believed the factors driving inflation were transitory. None of these authorities saw an urgent need for interest rate hikes.

But in the last month, the war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia have driven up the prices of commodities such as wheat and oil. This will exacerbate rising inflation in much of the developed world. The threat of stagflation is undoubtedly more real now than six months ago.

By October 2021, Google searches for ‘stagflation’ hit their highest level since 2008. Mention of stagflation in online news stories surged to more than 4,000 weekly by mid-March, up from slightly more than 200 at the start of the year.

This time, ‘stagflation’ is the direct consequence of political choices, especially for war, not unavoidable economic trends. Developing countries are fast learning where they really stand in this unequal world of endless war, e.g., from the European treatment of Ukrainian refugees.

Peace is therefore imperative. The alternative is the barbarism of conflict among big powers in which most of us have no vested interests. Instead, our shared hope lies in ensuring peace, to focus instead on the common challenges facing humanity.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Naureen Hossain
New York, Mar 28 2022 (IPS)

The late-night reversal of a decision by Taliban authorities in Afghanistan to allow girls from grades 7 to 12 to return to school has been met with distress from within the country and internationally – and fear that it could herald further restrictions.

A Taliban spokesperson from the Ministry of Education on March 23 made the announcement reversing an earlier decision that all students would be expected to return to school, including girls.

Local media in Afghanistan reported protests, including one held outside the Ministry of Education building. At least 87 percent of the population favor girls’ education across all levels, even among those who may say they would not expect the girls in their family to attend school but would not oppose government schooling otherwise.

The abrupt decision has also taken humanitarian organizations by surprise. Sam Mort, Chief of Communications for UNICEF Afghanistan, spoke at a press briefing at the United Nations headquarters, revealing that this announcement came late.

“Among our staff, there was collective disbelief… and anxiety,” Mort said, speaking of the reaction of field officers and national staff to the news. “We are just as confused as everyone else.”

The Taliban’s decision has been met with swift condemnation from the international community. UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell in a statement said the Taliban’s decision was “a major setback for girls and their future” and urging them to “honor their commitment to girls’ education without any further delays”.

Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait, the United Nations’ global fund for children’s education, said: “With this announcement, an entire generation of Afghan children and adolescents could be left behind.”

Sherif said that “ensuring that both girls and boys can return to school – including the resumption of adolescent girls’ access to secondary education – is key for the development of the country.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the Taliban’s decision was “a profound disappointment and deeply damaging for Afghanistan”.

UN agencies, their partners, and other humanitarian organizations have been involved in discussions with the Taliban since their rise to power last August. Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis leaves 24.4 million people – or more than half the population – in dire need of aid and protection.

Both sides have been expected to negotiate the involvement of humanitarian organizations and donors in their capacity to provide the necessary services and protections.

The Taliban have expressed their readiness to comply with international organizations in their bid for formal legitimacy. But they have also asserted their code for governance, which they claim would be according to Islamic law and Afghan culture, something humanitarian organizations with education programs are working to adapt. This same reasoning that senior members of the Taliban have used to justify the ban on secondary education for girls. Where was this concern for a standardized curriculum aligning with Islamic law and Afghan culture when boys returned to secondary school in September?

The right to education has been an oft-discussed, critical human rights issue for Afghanistan, especially when it comes to how, or even if, this right is extended to girls. This concern had already been compounded by the forced closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted all school-going children and adolescents. While alternative learning pathways, including Community-Based Education centers based in rural and remote provinces for children to attend, have been available, girls’ education in government schools remained a lingering question.

The Taliban’s rise to power raised the fear that the right to education would be denied to girls indefinitely, if not permanently. It would only signal increasing measures to control women’s rights and mobility beyond the domestic sphere.

The last-minute decision may likely indicate infighting between factions that are divided on the issue of girls’ education.

As Heather Barr, Associate Director of the Women’s Rights Division in Human Rights Watch, notes, there are factions that recognize the steps the Taliban must take to receive the funding and legitimacy they want from the international community, and there are hardliner members who believe that girls beyond puberty should not be allowed out for their studies. Given their handling of the issue, it is only indicative of how unprepared the Taliban are to govern and provide the necessary services to a population where over half the population relies on international humanitarian aid.

Barr also notes that their decision speaks to the ingrained beliefs that view women through a misogynistic and reductive lens. She expresses concern that the Taliban’s decision does not bode well for the state of human rights in the country and may “herald a further crackdown, of girls and women, and human rights generally”. The decision to revoke girls’ access to secondary school education is only among several examples of the recent actions taken by the Taliban to police women’s movements across the country, with stricter, more frequent enforcements occurring in provinces outside the capital.

“We’ve been seeing more and more different restrictions put in place, including new rules on women’s freedom of movement and them being blocked from traveling without a mahram overseas, being blocked from traveling… over certain distances,” says Barr. “Taxi drivers being told that women need to wear a hijab before they are allowed to drive them.”

When it comes to girls’ education, if the ban on girls’ secondary education continues, this could escalate to the restriction of access to tertiary education for girls and women in the country.

What is harrowing is that even as public pressure and condemnation come from both sides, the Taliban continues to act upon the principles which even they cannot agree on. International leaders and experts have reiterated that education for all can only guarantee that developing or impoverished countries can walk down a path of peace and prosperity. For the girls and women of Afghanistan, they may not get to walk down that path without a chaperone.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Climate change is reversing some of Africa's gains in achieving Sustainable Development Goals in food security and poverty alleviation and the continent needed to build resilience against future shocks. Credit: Busani Bafana/ IPS

By Busani Bafana
KIGALI, Rwanda, Mar 28 2022 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic reversed several development gains on the continent, and Africa’s leaders are convinced stronger cooperation in boosting investment in green growth will help Africa meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

African economies took a hit during the pandemic, which governments say has led to reverse progress made in health care, education, poverty alleviation, food security, and industrialisation as part of delivering on the SDGs adopted by the UN in September 2015.

The 8th Session of the African Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (ARFSD) – an annual multi-stakeholder platform system to review and catalyse actions to achieve the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, heard how Africa is on the cusp of opportunity in building better through green investment.

But the opportunity will only be unlocked when African countries cooperate more and deepen political and economic relations.

A springboard and not a setback
“Building the Africa we want is up to us,” said Rwanda President Paul Kagame, who opened the Forum convened in the capital, Kigali. He urged Africa to prioritise domestic resource mobilisation to finance its development, particularly its national health care systems.

“Over the years, Africa had made significant progress in tackling economic challenges. However, COVID 19 has slowed the development gains in some cases reversed progress,” Kagame noted. He called for solid mechanisms to monitor and change the implementation of the SDGs. “We have to own and lead the process and support one another. That’s why these agendas [2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063] are important because it is about achieving the stability and sustainability of our continent.”

Organised jointly by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and host governments in collaboration with the African Union Commission, the African Development Bank and other entities of the UN, the ARFSD was this year convened under the theme, ‘Building forward better: a green, inclusive and resilient Africa poised to achieve the 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063’. The two agendas provide a collaborative structure for achieving inclusive and people-centred sustainable development in Africa.

“We have to look at the silver lining of this [COVID-19]. We can build an Africa that is greener and more resilient in line with the Agenda 2063 … instead of being a setback, the pandemic response can be a springboard to recover human development,” said Kagame remarking that Africa needs bilateral partnerships to strengthen vaccine manufacturing and pharmaceuticals, mobilise domestic financing and adopt suitable technologies and infrastructure.

More than 1800 participants comprising ministers, senior officials, experts and practitioners from United Nations Member States, the private sector, civil society, academia and United Nations organisations and high-level representatives of the Governments of 54 ECA members states participated at the 8th ARFSD.

“The fate of the SDGs will be decided in Africa,” UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed noted. She explained that the pandemic had increased debt distress in some African countries and called for the channelling of Special Drawing Rights allocated by the International Monetary Fund to help countries in need.

“There are big returns to be had in Africa,” said Mohammed admitting that the African continent has faced development and economic challenges which need addressing for Africa to succeed.

Mohamed said in achieving the 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063, Africa must prioritise ending the pandemic and building resilience to future shocks, scaling up climate resilience, with developed countries honouring their pledges and making a fast transition in energy and food systems. She said recovering education losses and supporting gender equality actions were key to winning the development battle.

Africa is winning
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of ECA, Vera Songwe, highlighted that Africa, despite the impact of COVID-19 on Africa’s recovery efforts, the continent has achieved several wins.

Songwe said Rwanda’s vaccination of more than 70 percent of its population was a win Africa can emulate, citing that only 17 percent of Africans have been vaccinated, and 53 percent of African countries have vaccines that are not being used.

“Africa will not open, and our economies will not recover if we do not vaccinate,” Vera warned. “The conversations in most forums like this is about vaccine appetite. But when we stand here today, we talk about vaccine success…. We can win by looking at our neighbours, the seven countries on the continent that have managed to vaccinate – succeeded in vaccinating 70 percent of their population, and that’s the first win.”

Songwe underlined that the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) was another win for Africa to boost trade and spur economic growth. She cited that in 2022, not one economy was going into a full-blown debt crisis in Africa.

Africa had traded more with itself than it has in the five years before COVID-19, essentially because Africa had to rely on itself to begin to trade PPEs, she said.

ECA notes that COVID-19 and climate change have highlighted Africa’s vulnerabilities and food security insecurity. Africa needs an estimated $63.8bn in annual financing needs to meet the SDGs for ten years.

Despite representing just 17 percent of the global population and emitting 4 percent of global pollution, Africa was the worst impacted by climate change.

African economies are losing on average 5 percent of their GDP because of climate change. This has increased to 15 percent in some countries, says Linus Mofor, a senior environmental expert at ECA. He explained that Africa had shown leadership on climate action, with all but two African countries having ratified the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement has ambitious Nationally Determined Commitments that require up to $3 trillion to implement.

Noting the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 and climate change on Africa’s quest to realise the 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063, Director, Technology, Climate Change and Natural Resources Division at ECA, Jean-Paul Adam, said Africa’s current assessments on the implementation progress of the two agendas indicate that most African nations are off-track to achieve the targets and set-goals of the two development blueprints within the set timeframe.

“While a sliver of good news against the COVID-19 pandemic reflects resilience and recovery through vaccines rollouts, health preparedness and responses, Africa has shown its willingness to overcome and prevail over its complex development challenges, Adam told IPS.
IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Thalif Deen
NEW YORK, Mar 28 2022 (IPS)

When hundreds of banks, commercial enterprises, financial institutions and Wall Street investment banks shuttered their offices because of spreading coronavirus infections, Mayor Eric Adams said “You cannot run New York City” – one of the world’s most vibrant cities – “from home”.

The restrictions included vaccine cards at restaurants and mandatory masks in public.

Adams, who took over as the 110th Mayor of New York city on January 1, has been critical of executive heads of thousands of banks, commercial enterprises, financial institutions and Wall Street investment firms, for shuttering their offices and barring their staff from offices because of the spreading new coronavirus infections.

On January 13, Adams told reporters at a news conference outside the Manhattan Civil Courthouse in New York, “Let’s be clear on this, we are winning — and we are going to win because we are resilient.”

According to Cable News Network (CNN), the spread of the Omicron variant is also “putting a strain on health care networks across the US as hospitalizations reach a level not seen since winter.”

More than 141,000 Americans were hospitalized with Covid-19 as of last week, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services. Separately, the agency announced that health insurers must cover the cost of home Covid-19 tests.

This means most people with private health insurance can buy at-home tests online or in stores and have them paid for at the time of purchase, or get reimbursed by submitting a claim to their insurer.

In a message to staffers, CNN said its offices in New York city would remain closed except “to those who absolutely need to be there.”

A survey mid-January by the Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group, found about 22 percent of 187 companies said they could not estimate when their offices would reach even half capacity. The survey included about 215,000 workers in white-collar fields.

Some of the major financial institutions that enforced remote working included Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase Dow Jones (which includes the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones news wires, Barron’s, Financial News and MarketWatch)