Africa

About 60% of the poorest countries are already at high risk of debt distress or already in distress. Credit: Pixabay.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Dec 14 2022 (IPS)

The external debt of the world’s low and middle-income countries at the end of 2021 totalled 9 trillion US dollars, more than double the amount a decade ago. Such debt is expected to increase by an additional 1.1 trillion US dollars in 2023.

Moreover, the debt-service payments, projected to top 62 billion US dollars in 2022, put the biggest squeeze on poor countries since 2000, according to the World Bank.

The poorest countries eligible to borrow from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) now spend over a tenth of their export revenues to service their long-term public and publicly guaranteed external debt—the highest proportion since 2000

As defined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), debt service refers to payments in respect of both principal and interest.

Actual debt service is the set of payments actually made to satisfy a debt obligation, including principal, interest, and any late payment fees. Scheduled debt service is the set of payments, including principal and interest, that is required to be made through the life of the debt, OECD goes on.

 

High risk of debt stress

According to the World Bank’s report: International Debt Report, the poorest countries eligible to borrow from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) now spend over a tenth of their export revenues to service their long-term public and publicly guaranteed external debt—the highest proportion since 2000.

In addition, rising interest rates and slowing global growth risk tipping a large number of countries into debt crises. “About 60% of the poorest countries are already at high risk of debt distress or already in distress.”

Over the past decade, the composition of debt owed by IDA countries has changed significantly. The share of external debt owed to private creditors has increased sharply. At the end of 2021, low- and middle-income economies owed 61% of their public and publicly guaranteed debt to private creditors—an increase of 15 percentage points from 2010.

 

Unbearable impact

The same day the World Bank’s report was released, 6 December 2022, another international institution: the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), warned that the spiralling debt in low and middle-income countries has compromised their chances of sustainable development.

Rebeca Grynspan, the head of this UN trade facilitation agency, reported that between 70% and 85% of the debt that emerging and low-income countries are responsible for, is in a foreign currency.

“This has left them highly vulnerable to the kind of large currency shocks that hit public spending – precisely at a time when populations need financial support from their governments.”

Speaking at the 13th UNCTAD Debt Management Conference, UNCTAD’s chief explained that so far this year, at least 88 countries have seen their currencies depreciate against the powerful US dollar, which is still the reserve currency of choice for many in times of global economic stress.

And in 31 of these countries, their currencies have dropped by more than 10 percent.

This has had a hugely negative impact on many African nations, where the UNCTAD chief noted that currency depreciations have increased the cost of debt repayments “by the equivalent of public health spending in the continent”.

 

Wave of global crises

UNCTAD’s conference –held online on 6 to 7 December in Geneva– took place as a “wave of global crises has led many developing countries to take on more debt to help citizens cope with the fallout.”

Government debt levels as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased in over 100 developing countries between 2019 and 2021, said UNCTAD.

“Excluding China, this increase is estimated at about $2 trillion.”

This has not happened because of the bad behaviour of one country. This has happened because of systemic shocks that have hit many countries at the same time, Grynspan said.

 

Sharp rise of interest rates

With interest rates rising sharply, the debt crisis is putting enormous strain on public finances, especially in developing countries that need to invest in education, health care, their economies and adapting to climate change.

“Debt cannot and must not become an obstacle for achieving the 2030 Agenda and the climate transition the world desperately needs”, she argued.

UNCTAD advocates for the creation of a multilateral legal framework for debt restructuring and relief.

Such a framework is needed to facilitate timely and orderly debt crisis resolution with the involvement of all creditors, building on the debt reduction programme established by the Group of 20 major economies (G20) known as the Common Framework.

 

Debts to increase to 10 trillion dollars

UNCTAD said that if the median increase in rated sovereign debts since 2019 were fully reflected in interest payments, then governments would pay an additional 1.1 trillion US dollars on the global debt stock in 2023, estimates show.

This amount is almost four times the estimated annual investment of 250 billion US dollars required for climate adaptation and mitigation in developing countries, according to an UNCTAD report.

Indebted countries have reiterated once and again that they have already exceeded several times the total amount of their debts in the form of interest rates they have been paying.

Alongside a high number of economists and experts, they have reiterated their appeals for cancelling those debts.

Uselessly: such a fair –and due– step continues to fall on deaf ears.

 

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Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who leads the UN public health body, says more than 50 others were killed.

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By External Source
Dec 14 2022 (IPS-Partners)

 
Dr. Liesbet Steer is the Executive Director of the Education Commission, chaired by UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of the ECW High-Level Steering Group, The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown. Under Liesbet’s leadership, the Commission has been at the forefront of new thinking in education financing calling for more effective and “progressive” domestic spending, innovative international and private financing (through the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd), the Education Outcomes Fund and Greater Share) and better coordination of external funding (including through her leadership of the Global Education Forum and Save Our Future).

Liesbet has over 20 years of experience in international development and finance across the world – working for the World Bank, IFC, Asia Foundation, ODI and the Brookings Institution. Between 1997 and 2007, she lived in Viet Nam and Indonesia where she worked on economic development in the Asia region. Liesbet has written widely on development finance and education, and presented in a wide range of fora and advisory panels. She currently serves on the Board of Greater Share, the Global Leadership Council of Generation Unlimited (UNICEF), the High-Level Steering Group of the Education Outcomes Fund and the World Economic Forum Education 4.0 Alliance. Liesbet was educated at the Universities of Antwerp and East Anglia, and the London School of Economics. She holds a M.Sc. in Quantitative Economics, and Ph.D. in Development Economics. She is married to Andrew Steer and has two college-age children.

Credit: Ilya Savenok/IFFEd

ECW: At this year’s Transforming Education Summit, UN Secretary-General António Guterres and The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of the ECW High-Level Steering Group, launched the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd). How will the new facility help address the growing global education funding crisis along with other funds?

Dr. Liesbet Steer: The launch of IFFEd in September with the UN Secretary-General was a special moment for all of us involved in the IFFEd journey! We are deeply grateful to all our supporters, including the ECW team!

IFFEd will bring much needed additional finance to address the global education and learning crisis, which has been exacerbated by the global pandemic and other shocks as a result of climate change and conflict. IFFEd aims to unlock an additional $10 billion of concessional low-cost financing for education and skills by 2030.

IFFEd uses a new form of sovereign guarantees and combines these with donor grants to mobilize additional affordable education financing through the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). While guarantees are used to expand the lending capacity of MDBs, grants are used to buy down the interest rates. This combination allows IFFEd to multiply every donor dollar seven times, compared to traditional aid. This is a great deal for donors and partners in the current resource-constrained environment. This is also why IFFEd has been recognized as a major financial innovation for development finance, including in the recent G20 review of the Multilateral Development Banks.

IFFEd fills a gap by targeting the urgent needs of lower-middle-income countries (LMICs), which are home to more than half of the world’s children and youth and host a large share of refugees and displaced young people. In LMICs, 1 in 5 children are out of school and 3 out of 4 young people leave school without the basic skills to thrive. The financing gaps in these countries are too large to be filled by traditional grant aid. IFFEd complements grant-based instruments like ECW and GPE.

ECW: From 2019-2020, 43 donors reduced their bilateral aid to education, and 40% of low- and lower-middle-income countries reduced their education budgets. How will IFFEd work with Education Cannot Wait and other relevant organizations to address the funding gap and build complementary supports to deliver on our collective goal of ensuring education for all by 2030 (SDG4)?

Dr. Liesbet Steer: The long-term future of #222MillionDreams will be determined by our ability to complement the critical short- and medium-term support ECW provides with the longer-term support IFFEd provides to help rebuild and improve systems. While ECW can respond immediately with critical finance in the wake of natural disasters like the recent floods in Pakistan, IFFEd can provide longer-term financing to rebuild and recover.

As LMICs develop or recover from crises, they often have large financing gaps that prevent them from meeting their education needs. They often face a structural finance problem because as LMICs enter middle income status, their international assistance tends to fall faster than tax revenues rise. To fill the gap, they can afford to borrow for education at very low cost, but not at commercial rates which are typically offered to them. IFFEd offers this low-cost finance to invest in education.

Working through the MDBs, IFFEd also encourages countries to increase domestic resource mobilization, which is a key eligibility requirement and an important strategy towards long-term sustainability. In an environment with scarce resources, it is essential to tap all available finance and use it effectively. Like ECW, IFFEd’s results framework is focused on improving learning and skills outcomes with a focus on those furthest behind. Program priorities will be developed based on an assessment of the impact of investments in education or related issues (e.g. health and nutrition) with an impact on learning outcomes.

ECW: As the Executive Director of the Education Commission, you oversee five key transformations that have been identified through The Learning Generation Report, including learning models, education workforce, service delivery, financing and cross-sectoral action. How can these transformational approaches benefit 222 million crisis-impacted children and adolescents who urgently need support?

Dr. Liesbet Steer: We focus on these key transformations because we know they can unlock and accelerate the change needed to achieve a learning generation – including the 222 million crisis-impacted children and youth.

We need more financing, but we also must spend it more wisely. Harnessing technology to enable teaching at the right level, rethinking the education workforce in support of the needs of the whole child, and developing systems that can deliver results are key priorities for future education systems.

As a sector, it would be strategic if we could speak with one voice and rally around a shared effort to prioritize effective solutions and increase education funding as we did in the Save Our Future campaign during the pandemic, which united some of the world’s largest education development organizations around shared priorities!

But education must also become everyone’s business! Many of the transformations needed in education require us to work across sectors and approach challenges using a systems lens. In our recent Rewiring Education for People and Planet report, we called on the global community to collaborate across sectors around six “win-win” solutions that can transform education as well as trigger co-benefits for people and planet.

One of these solutions that could provide concrete and immediate benefits to the 222 million crisis-impacted children is the scaling of school meals and school health interventions to end hunger and improve health and well-being. This is the primary objective of the School Meals Coalition. The Education Commission is working with the Coalition to identify sustainable financing options for countries as they progress towards self-reliance.

Hungry children cannot learn. School meals have a significant impact on learning outcomes, especially for the most vulnerable including in emergency contexts, and from a finance perspective represent outstanding value for money – each $1 spent generates $9 of impact.

ECW: ECW and our strategic partners work in several middle-income countries across Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia – e.g. Bangladesh, Colombia and Pakistan. Many have received large refugee and asylum seeker influxes due to conflict, climate change and COVID-19. How can we work together to deliver across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus to ensure economic and social progress?

Dr. Liesbet Steer: ECW and IFFEd are highly complementary and can work hand-in-hand to deliver impactful support to countries that are recovering from recent conflict, climate shocks, and the COVID-19 crisis.

Together they could support countries’ progress from humanitarian to development priorities. ECW is equipped to provide immediate to medium-term emergency support that allows countries to move towards the rebuilding phase of the recovery more quickly. IFFEd can come in with medium- to long-term support as countries look to rebuild after the initial emergency has passed and invest in their human capital development.

As Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan said recently:

“The recent floods have destroyed over 23,700 schools in our country and have affected 22,000 other schools due to closures, damages, or sheltering families afflicted by the flood damages. The impact on the lives and minds of millions of our children and youth will be felt for years to come. As we work to rebuild from this catastrophe, the new stream of affordable education financing from IFFEd will be crucial to help meet our financing needs to provide an inclusive and quality education for our most vulnerable children and youth.”

ECW: Our readers would like to know a little about you on a personal level and we know that readers are leaders. What are some of the books that have most influenced you, personally and professionally, and why would you recommend them to others?

Dr. Liesbet Steer: As a child I loved reading the Adventures of Tintin (my compatriot) – the brave and inquisitive Belgian reporter who went around the world fighting for justice. I always loved Tintin’s taste for adventure and the positive attitude he brought to challenges.

Another book that inspires me is The Four Loves by CS Lewis. In addition to affection, friendship and romantic love, the fourth kind of love is “charitable love” giving of yourself for humanity – it’s the kind you extend without expectations for anything in return. It’s what is critical for us all to overcome the challenges in this world!

Finally, I loved reading The Human Element this year. A book about how to overcome resistance to new ideas (like IFFEd). It compares innovations to a bullet. It argues that the speed of a bullet is determined by the gun powder (compare that to the strength of the innovation) as well as the resistance as it moves through the air (compare that to headwinds like feelings of inertia, threat, and complexity associated with change).

A positive spirit, charitable love, and overcoming headwinds… that is what’s needed now more than ever!

 

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Sold to a local chief aged 12, Hadizatou Mani spent a decade as a slave before fighting for justice in Niger.

Morocco have drawn football fans' support around the globe ahead of their game against France.

Charlene Ruto's high public profile have led some to call her a "low budget version of Ivanka [Trump]".

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Don’t Gas Africa protest during COP27. Credit: Don't Gas Africa

By Paul Virgo
ROME, Dec 14 2022 (IPS)

One of the knock-on effects of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is that European countries have embarked on a ‘dash for gas’ to find alternatives to Russian energy supplies.

A flurry of deals has ensued with several African States being enticed by the prospect of lucrative energy contracts.

A new report, however, has warned that helping Europe continue its addiction to imported fossil fuels risks having devastating long-term effects for African societies.

The Fossil Fuelled Fallacy: How the Dash for Gas in Africa will Fail to Deliver Development argues the pitfalls are plentiful.

The first is that feeding the West’s fossil-fuel habit will accelerate the climate crisis, which is already having disproportionately severe effects on African communities.

The idea that fossil gas will bring prosperity and opportunities to Africans is a tired and overused fallacy, promulgated by those that stand to benefit the most: multinational fossil fuel firms and the elite politicians that aid and abet them

Drought, wildfires, flooding, disease and pest invasions will increase in their severity and frequency with this ‘new scramble for Africa’, pushing developmental goals further out of reach.

The report, which was presented at COP27, also argues that, even if the planet were not overheating because of human-caused emissions, further facilitating the ‘dash for gas’ would not be wise.

Many African states looking to expand gas production will be building the infrastructure from scratch, so projects will take years, perhaps decades, to become operative, it says.

With renewable energy sources increasingly competitive, the projects are unlikely to benefit from the current favourable prices, so there is a risk they will not be able to operate for their entire intended lifespan, saddling African States with debts, forgone revenues and huge clean-up costs.

“African countries’ plight to help satisfy Europe’s dash for gas is a dangerous and short-sighted vision fuelled by a capitalist utopian dream that has no place in Africa’s energy future,” Dean Bhebhe, the Co-Facilitator of Don’t Gas Africa, a network of African-led civil society organisations that produced the report, told IPS .

“Investment in fossil gas production will lock Africa into another cycle of poverty, inequality and exploitation while creating a firewall for Africa to leapfrog towards renewable energy”.

The reports points out that fossil-fuel infrastructure projects do not have a good track record on combatting energy poverty and advancing development on the continent.

It gives the example of Nigeria, saying that, despite decades of fossil-fuel production, only 55% of the population had access to electricity there in 2019.

It says that jobs in fossil-fuel industries in Africa tend to be short-term, precarious, and concentrated in construction, while green jobs are longer term and have the potential to bring benefits to the entire continent, rather than just a handful of nations with fossil-fuel reserves.

Furthermore, the pollution and environmental degradation caused by expanding gas production would endanger the lives and livelihoods of many, the report says, arguing fossil-fuel infrastructure in Africa has been shown to force communities from their land and disrupt key fisheries, crops and biodiversity.

Among the examples it gives is that of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), which will run from Uganda to Tanzania and is set to force around 14,000 households across the two countries to move.

The report also argues that allowing high rates of foreign ownership of Africa’s energy system would pull wealth out of the continent at the expense of African citizens.

It says that any investment in fossil fuels displaces investment from clean, affordable renewable energy systems that can bring immediate benefits to African communities.

It says, for example, that the potential for wind power in Africa is almost 180,000 terawatt hours per year, enough to satisfy the entire continent’s current electricity demands 250 times over.

“As the UN Secretary General António Guterres said this year, investing in new fossil fuel production and power plants is moral and economic madness” Bhebhe said.

“New gas production would not come on-line in time to address Europe’s fossil-fuel energy crisis and would saddle the African continent with stranded assets”.

The report says that the arguments used by some African leaders and elites to justify expansion in gas production on the basis of climate justice, on the grounds that now it’s ‘own turn’ to exploit fossil fuels to deliver prosperity, are bogus.

The conclusion is that, rather than replicating the fossil-fuelled development pathways of the past,

Africa should opt for a rapid deployment of renewables to stimulate economies, create inclusive jobs, boost energy access, free up government revenues for the provision of public goods, and improve the health and wellbeing of human and non-human communities.

“We need an end to fossil-fuel-induced energy Apartheid in Africa which has left 600 million Africans without access to modern clean renewable energy,”Bhebhe said.

“Scaling up cost-effective, clean, decentralized, renewable energy is the fastest and best way to end energy exclusion and meet the needs of Africa’s people. Policymakers in Africa need to reject the dumping of dirty, dangerous and obsolete fossil-fuel and nuclear energy systems into Africa.

“Africa must not become a dumping ground for obsolete technologies that continue to pollute and impoverish”.

Freddie Daley, the lead author of the report, echoed those sentiments.

“The idea that fossil gas will bring prosperity and opportunities to Africans is a tired and overused fallacy, promulgated by those that stand to benefit the most: multinational fossil fuel firms and the elite politicians that aid and abet them,” said Daley, a research associate at the University of Sussex in the UK.

“Africa has the opportunity to chart a different development path, paved with clean, distributed, and cheap energy systems, funded by African governments and those of wealthy nations that did the most to create this crisis. We cannot let Africa get locked-in to fossil fuel production because it will lock-out Africans from affordable energy, a thriving natural world, and clean air.”

Major roads in the city were submerged as heavy rains continued for hours and several homes collapsed.

Credit: United Nations
 
ESSENTIAL FUTURE STEPS FORWARD FOR COPs PROCESS

By Anwarul K. Chowdhury
NEW YORK, Dec 14 2022 (IPS)

As COP27 was coming to a close, the leader of the Youth Constayituency of UNFCCC declared in an emotion-choked voice that “Incredible young people from the global North and the global South are standing together in solidarity asking for action. We need to look for more than hope. We need those in power to actually listen and implement the solutions”.

Action for implementation is the clarion call of the younger generation to tod’s decision-makers. It would be prudent to listen to the future decision-makers in the best interest our people and planet.

SDGs, G20 & GOAL 5 ON GENDER EQUALITY:

First, G20 Declaration last month in Bali, Indonesia resolved, “We will demonstrate leadership and take collective actions to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and accelerate the achievement of the SDGs by 2030 and address developmental challenges by reinvigorating a more inclusive multilateralism and reform aimed at implementing the 2030 Agenda.”

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury

As we get energized by this commitment of the G20 leadership, a sobering UN Women 2022 research report tells us that the world is not on track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 5 – in fact it is almost 300 years off. Our planet absolutely require the full and equal participation of women and girls, in all their diversity.

Without gender equality, there is no climate justice. Gender equality is the crucial missing link in the achievement of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goal 5. Let us always be deliberate and consistent in ensuring space for young women and girls who have been leading global and national climate movements.

Only an estimated 0.01 per cent of global official development assistance addresses both climate change and women’s rights. The necessary structural measures require intentional, meaningful global investments that respond to the climate crisis and support women’s organizations and programmes. Astonishingly, less than 1 percent of international philanthropy goes to women’s environmental initiatives. That must change.

IGNORANCE OF WOMEN’S CONTRIBUTION:

Second, activists express frustration saying that “Gender is still largely seen as an isolated issue that is discussed in a room away from the main debates about mitigation, financing, and technology. Thus, it does not appear to be an issue integrated within the intersecting policies of different ministries.

This reinforces the ignorant notion that women in all their diversity are neither key actors nor agents of change but merely victims of the climate crisis.” That mindset should go as it results in the continuation of patriarchal hegemony.

Women’s and girl’s full and equal participation in decision-making processes is a top priority in the fight against climate change. Without gender equality today, a sustainable, more equal future remains beyond our reach. Give power and platforms to the next generation of Earth champions. As has been said recently, “Our best counter-measure to the threat multiplier of climate change is the benefit multiplier of gender equality.”

COPs ARE NOT FOR FOSSIL FUEL LOBBY:

Third, the current process continues to fail to meet the urgency and clarity of purpose that science and experience are calling for—a full-scale, just, equitable and gender-just transition away from a fossil fuel based extractive economy to a care and social protection centered regenerative economy.

Globally, for every $1 spent to support renewable energy, another $6 are spent on fossil fuel subsidies. These subsidies are intended to protect companies and consumers from fluctuating fuel prices, but what they actually do is keep dirty energy companies very profitable. We are subsidizing the very behavior that is destroying our planet.

The UN should not allow future COPs to be an open platform for the presence of the fossil fuel lobby. Concrete action is needed to stop the toxic practices of the fossil fuel industry that is causing more damage to the climate than any other industry.

CHILDREN & YOUTH ‘RECOGNISED’ AS AGENTS OF CHANGE:

Fourth, the full impact of climate change on kids is becoming clearer and more alarming. Children’s developing brains and growing bodies make them particularly vulnerable. The very experience of childhood is at risk. Research reports concluded that with the increasing frequency and severity of climate crisis, young children are at risk of severe trauma during the period of life when neural connections in the brain are forming and susceptible to disruption. Reports found that “This trauma can have lifelong impacts on learning, health, and the ability to form meaningful relationships.”

Bearing this in mind, a much-needed step was taken at COP27 by recognizing “the role of children and youth as agents of change in addressing and responding to climate change”. It also encouraged “Parties to include children and youth in their processes for designing and implementing climate policy and action, and, as appropriate, to consider including young representatives and negotiators into their national delegations, recognizing the importance of intergenerational equity and maintaining the stability of the climate system for future generations.”

The decision expressed appreciation to COP27 Presidency “for its leadership in promoting the full, meaningful and equal participation of children and youth, including by co-organizing the first youth-led climate forum (the Sharm el-Sheikh youth climate dialogue), hosting the first children and youth pavilion and appointing the first youth envoy of a Presidency of the Conference of the Parties and encourages future incoming Presidencies of the Conference of the Parties to consider doing the same.” It would be more meaningful if the hard-headed negotiators and fossil-fuel lobby were exposed to the children and youth events at the main conference hall at COP27. Hopefully COP28 would arrange for that to happen.

HUMAN RIGHT TO A CLEAN, HEALTHY, AND SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT:

Fifth, another positive outcome at COP27 is the first multilateral environmental agreement to include an explicit reference to the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. This should open a path for this right to be recognized across all environmental governance and also codified by the United Nations.

STRONG CIVIL SOCIETY PARTICIPATION NEEDED:

Sixth, key civil society leaders were critical of their exclusion complaining that “Observers were consistently locked out of the negotiation rooms for a repeated ‘lack of sitting space’ excuse … We have also witnessed painful orchestration of last-minute decisions with few Parties.” They alerted the organizers and hosts of future COPs by saying that “This needs to be called out and ended.”

Strong civil society organizations are a critical counterbalance to powerful state and corporate actors. They help to keep governments accountable to the people they are meant to serve –– both key to climate action that prioritizes the wellbeing of people and planet.

ECOFEMINISM IS THE WAY AHEAD:

Seventh, bringing together feminism and environmentalism, ecofeminism argues that the domination of women and the degradation of the environment are consequences of patriarchy and capitalism. Ecofeminism uses an intersectional feminist approach when striving to abolish structural obstacles that prevent women and girls from enjoying equal and livable planet. This is a smart and inclusive policy not only for women, but for the humankind as a whole.

Vandana Shiva, one of the world’s most prominent ecofeminist, propounds, “We are either going to have a future where women lead the way to make peace with the Earth or we are not going to have a human future at all.” Any strategy to address one must take into account its impact on the other so that women’s equality should not be achieved at the expense of worsening the environment, and neither should environmental improvements be gained at the expense of women. Indeed, ecofeminism proposes that only by reversing current values, thereby privileging care and cooperation over more aggressive and dominating behaviors, can both society and environment benefit.

FOOD FOR RETHINKING: ELITIST MULTILATERISM CANNOT DELIVER:

Civil society representatives at COP27 verbalized their anger by announcing that “Even as we call out the hypocrisy, inaction and injustice of this space, as civil society and movements connected in the fight for climate justice, we refuse to cede the space of multilateralism to short-sighted politicians and fossil-fuel driven corporate interests.”

Patricia Wattimena of Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development pushes the point further to say, “We can’t keep on negotiating people’s rights at global climate talks. The rich must stop commodifying our rights especially women’s human rights and start paying for their ecological debt.”

With the 2030 deadline for SDGs knocking at the door, the call in the Bali G-20 Summit declaration for “inclusive multilateralism” is a timely alert to realise that current form of multilateralism dominated by rich and powerful countries and well-organized vested interests, on most occasions working with co-aligned objectives, cannot deliver the world we want for all. That elitist multilateralism has failed.

Minimalistic, divisive, dismissive, and arrogant multilateralism that we are experiencing now gives honest multilateralism a bad name. Multilateralism has become a sneaky slogan under which each country is hiding their narrow self-interest to the detriment of global humanity’s best interest. It is a sad reality that these days negotiators play “politicking and wordsmithing” at the cost of substance and action.

Multilateralism – as we are experiencing now – clearly shows it has lost its soul and objectivity. There is no genuine engagement, no honest desire to mutually accommodate and no willingness to rise above narrow self-interest-triggered agenda. It has become a one-way street, a mono-directional pathway for the rich and powerful. Today’s multilateralism needs redefining!

IPS UN Bureau

 

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• COP27 Fails Women & Girls – High Time to Redefine Multilateralism
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Excerpt:

The writer is former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations, former Ambassador of Bangladesh to the UN and former President of the Security Council.

India’s new Chief Justice, Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud has significant challenges ahead as activists hope he will continue with his legacy. Credit: Subhashish Panigrahi and Charmanderrulez

By Mehru Jaffer
Lucknow, Dec 14 2022 (IPS)

India’s new Chief Justice, Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, has a significant challenge ahead – as activists and minorities remain hopeful that he will remain true to his legacy of delivering judgments that enshrined the Constitution, especially on personal liberty.

Sanjay Kapoor, founder editor of Hardnews Magazine and political analyst told the IPS that many of the rulings by Indian courts in recent times have been deeply disturbing.

“In the name of national security, draconian laws are evoked to curb personal liberty. Journalists and activists have been arrested and locked away under anti-terror law without evidence,” said Kapoor.

He gave the example of Siddique Kappan, who has remained in jail for more than two years for unknown reasons. Kappan got bail from the Supreme Court, but anti-money laundering laws were immediately slapped upon him to ensure that he remained in prison.

Kapoor’s main concern is the undermining of courts by the government, which is sure to weaken institutions and harm democracy in India.

Meanwhile, the CJI also warned that he was not here to do miracles.

“I know that challenges are high; perhaps the expectations are also high, and I am deeply grateful for your sense of faith, but I am not here to do miracles,” Chandrachud said after his appointment.

The challenges facing the judiciary include a backlog of cases, delays in appointing Supreme Court judges, and significant inconsistencies in judicial approaches.

Soon after Chandrachud took oath on November 9, Chandrachud expressed concern over the long list of requests before the Supreme Court for bail. He said that district judges are reluctant to grant bail in a fair manner out of fear of being targeted.

Activists say that this is the same reason that media personnel, political opponents, and social activists are languishing behind bars without bail today.

Activist Teesta Setalvad was arrested in June 2021, and her bail plea was only accepted three months later when she was finally released. There are others, like student leader Umar Khalid, who has languished in jail for more than two years.

The judicial system in India is under tremendous pressure. Until last May, countless cases were pending in courts across different levels of the judiciary. Many of the cases were pending in subordinate courts, a large percent in High Courts, while a hundred thousand cases have been pending for over 30 years. Amid the rising trend of litigation, more and more people and organisations seek justice from courts today. However, there are not enough judges to hear the cases. The courts are overburdened, and the backlog of cases is intimidating.

The reluctance to grant bail to especially political opponents has only aggravated the matter. Most recently, Sanjay Raut, senior opposition party leader, said that he had lost 10 kgs while in prison. The legislature was accused of money laundering. He was in jail for 100 days before bail was granted to him in November. He was kept in a dark cell where he did not see sunlight for 15 days.

Raut said that he would not have been arrested if he had surrendered to the will of the ruling party and remained a mute spectator to the politics of the day. He wondered if only those who oppose the politics of the ruling party would continue to be arrested.

The use of the justice system as a political tool and reluctance to grant bail at the district level has clogged the higher judiciary with far too many cases.

“The reason why the higher judiciary is being flooded with bail applications is because of the reluctance of the grassroots to grant bail, and why are judges reluctant to grant bail not because they do not have the ability to understand the crime. They probably understand the crime better than many of the higher court judges because they know what crime is there at the grassroots in the districts, but there is a sense of fear that if I grant bail, will someone target me tomorrow on the ground that I granted bail in a heinous case. This sense of fear nobody talks about but, which we must confront because unless we do, we are going to render our district courts toothless and our higher courts dysfunctional,” Chandrachud said at an event hosted by the Bar Council of India last week to felicitate his appointment as the country’s 50th CJI.

The Supreme Court of India is perhaps the most powerful Court in the world. However, in recent times the judiciary has been criticised for its uneven handling of cases. It is under scrutiny over contradictions found in its functioning. The fact that a former CJI accepted a seat in the upper house of parliament soon after his retirement two years ago had raised eyebrows.

The judiciary’s perceived deference to the present government is a major concern, including the ongoing arrest of political opponents, and refusal to grant bail to those arrested is becoming the norm. On the other hand, ‘friends’ of the ruling party are allowed to get away with murder and rape.

The nation was shocked after a document was made public last October as proof that the premature release of 11 men convicted for the gang rape of Bilkis Bano and the killing of her family during the 2002 Gujarat riots was approved by the home ministry despite opposition by a special court. A Communist Party of India (Marxist) member Subhashini Ali, journalist Revati Laul and Professor Roop Rekha Verma together filed a public interest litigation (PIL) against a remission granted to 11 convicts who were released on August 15, India’s 75th Independence Day celebrations this year on account of good behaviour.

Bano was gang-raped along with 14 members of her family. Her 3-year-old daughter Saleha was killed by a mob in a village in the province of Gujarat as they fled communal violence in 2002. Bano was 19 years old and five months pregnant at that time. Shobha Gupta, the lawyer for Bano has battled for years for the rape survivor to get justice. Gupta told Barkha Dutt, a senior journalist, that she is shattered and unable to face Bano. That after the release of her rapists from custody, Bano is silent and feels alone.

Dutt had interviewed Bano 20 years ago. Today she wrote in her column that an unspeakable injustice is unfolding with brazen impunity. Its legality is dodgy. Dutt said, “Let’s raise hell”.

After the men who raped Bano and killed her child were freed, they were greeted outside the prison with sweets and garlands. This is the story of a very seriously ill nation, columnist Jawed Naqvi said.

“The nation that was baying for the execution of men who raped a young woman in a bus in Delhi in 2012 seemed deaf to Bilkis’s trauma,” Naqvi wrote. The executive has turned its back on Bano. The media is disinterested and civil society has been bullied into silence at a time when principles are passe for most politicians.”

So who will give justice to citizens like Bano?

The Supreme Court?

In a plea filed by Azam Khan last July, the opposition party leader pointed out a new trend amongst the high courts to impose unnecessary bail conditions. Khan said that a high court had ordered the politician to hand over allegedly encroached land as a condition for bail. The ruling was overturned.

Seeking justice these days is tough within the courts and outside.

The 74-year-old Khan has been behind bars since early 2020. Multiple charges have been slapped on him, including corruption, theft, and land grab, in an effort to make sure that he remains behind bars on some charge or the other. However, Khan was granted interim bail last May. A few months later, he was fined and has been sentenced to three more years in prison for a hate speech made in 2019. At that time, Khan was accused of blaming the Prime Minister for creating an atmosphere in the country in which it was difficult for Muslims, the largest minority community in India, to live.

A new report published by the USA-based NGO Council on Minority Rights in India (CMRI) and released on November 20 at New Delhi’s Press Club found that by helping offenders, detaining victims, and failing to register first information reports (FIR) in some cases, law enforcement agencies play a role in furthering hate crimes.

Discussing the legal aspects of persecution, lawyer Kawalpreet Kaur said that minorities are facing the brunt of the state to varying degrees. Cases of the pogrom against Muslims during the Delhi riots have been lying in the high court for the last two years.

“Indian courts need to keep their eyes and ears open; it is not a one-off case of Afree Fatima’s house bulldozed or when the stalls of working-class Muslims were razed in Delhi despite a stay from the court,” she said.

The lawyer called it an attack by the Indian state against its minorities and a campaign of misinformation and Islamophobia witnessed every day.

The release of the CMRI report comes at a time when numerous countries and organisations are calling upon India to take stock of the plight of its religious minorities.

Six international rights groups – the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), Inter­national Dalit Solidarity Network, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have reminded New Delhi in a joint statement that it is yet to implement recommendations of a recent UN report on India which cover topics which include the protection of minorities and human rights defenders, upholding civil liberties, and more.

“The Indian government should promptly adopt and act on the recommendations that United Nations member states made at the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review process on November 10,” the joint statement read.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Aerial view of the Municipal Theater of Boa Vista and its parking lot covered by solar panels, near the center of a city of wide avenues, empty spaces, abundant solar energy and high quality of life compared to other cities in Brazil’s Amazon region. In the background is seen the Branco River, which could be dammed 120 kilometers downstream for the construction of a hydroelectric plant that would flood part of the capital of the state of Roraima. CREDIT: Boa Vista city government

By Mario Osava
BOA VISTA, Brazil , Dec 13 2022 (IPS)

Solar energy is booming in Roraima, a state in the far north of Brazil, to the benefit of indigenous people and children in its capital, Boa Vista, and helping to provide a stable energy supply to the entire populace, who suffer frequent electricity shortages and blackouts.

The local government of Boa Vista, a city of 437,000 people, installed seven solar power plants that bring annual savings of around 960,000 dollars.

“We have used these savings to invest in health, education and social action, which is the priority of the city government because we are ‘the capital of early childhood’,” said Thiago Amorim, municipal secretary of Public Services and Environment.

Solar panels have mushroomed on the roofs of public buildings and parking lots around the city. The largest unit was built on the outskirts of Boa Vista – a 15,000-panel power plant with an installed capacity of 5,000 kilowatts.

In the city, the parking lot of the Municipal Theater, a bus terminal, a market and the mayor’s office itself stand out, covered with panels. There are also 74 bus stops with a few panels, but many were damaged when parts were stolen, Amorim told IPS in an interview in his office.

In total, the city had a solar power generation capacity of 6700 KW at the end of 2020, equivalent to the consumption of 9000 local households. It also promotes energy efficiency in the areas under municipal management.

“Eighty percent of the city is now lit up by LED bulbs, which are more efficient. The goal is to reach 100 percent in 2023,” said the municipal secretary.

The solar energy park about 10 kilometers from downtown Boa Vista has 15,000 panels with an output of 5,000 KW. It is one of the seven electricity generation units built by the city government to save some 960,000 dollars a year in energy and thus increase the social spending that makes Boa Vista “the capital of early childhood”. The plant is located on the plains of northeastern Roraima, an extensive savannah of 42,706 square kilometers, which stands in contrast with the image of the Amazon jungle. CREDIT: Boa Vista city government

The mayor’s office, during the administration of Teresa Surita (2013-2020), was a pioneer in the installation of solar power plants and also in comprehensive care for children from pregnancy to adolescence, for youngsters in the public educational system.

The city’s Welcoming Family program provides coordinated health, education, social assistance and communication services for mothers and children, from pregnancy through the first six years of the children’s lives. The day-care centers are called Mother Houses.

In recent years, students in the local municipal elementary schools have performed above the national average, coming in fifth place in student testing among Brazil’s 27 state capitals.

This was an especially outstanding achievement because the influx of Venezuelan migrants more than doubled the number of students in Boa Vista schools in the last decade.

Despite this, the quality of teaching was not affected, according to the indicators of the Education Ministry’s Basic Education Evaluation System.

A “little Amazon jungle” in the center of the city of Boa Vista with giant animal sculptures is the main children’s park of the three dozen in the city, with animal playground toys and structures. The playgrounds in the capital of Roraima, a state in the extreme north of Brazil, aim to educate children about the Amazon rainforest. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

The results of the local early childhood policy have been recognized by several national and international specialized entities, including the United Nations Children’s Fund, which awarded it the Unicef Seal of Approval in 2016 and 2020.

More visible than the solar panels are the 30 playgrounds of varying sizes scattered around the city, in some cases featuring large playground equipment and structures in the shape of national wild animals, such as crocodiles and jaguars. They are called “selvinhas” (little jungles).

The use of solar power has spread to other sectors of life in Roraima, a state with only 650,000 inhabitants, despite its large area of 223,644 square kilometers, twice the size of Honduras, for example.

In May, there were 705 solar plants in homes, businesses and private companies, in addition to public buildings, in the state, with a total installed capacity of 15,955 KW (just under one percent of the region’s total).

In Roraima there are solar plants in the courthouses in four cities, in an aim to cut energy costs through a program called Lumen.

The secretary of Public Services and Environment of Boa Vista, Thiago Amorim, stands next to a map of the city which shows the areas already illuminated by energy-efficient LED bulbs. They now light up 80 percent of the city, which stands out for its solar energy generation and for programs that prioritize children, coordinating and combining educational, health and social action policies. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

The Federal University of Roraima (UFRR) is also building a 908-panel plant, to be inaugurated by March 2023, with the capacity to generate 20 percent of the electricity consumed on its three campuses.

“The main objective is to save energy costs, and the goal is to expand to cover 100 percent of consumption. But it will also be useful for electrical engineering studies,” Emanuel Tishcer, UFRR’s head of infrastructure, told IPS.

The training of specialists in renewable sources, research into more efficient and cheaper panels, the comparison of technologies and innovations all become more accessible with the availability of an operating solar power plant, which serves the university’s electrical energy laboratory.

Edinho Macuxi, general coordinator of the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR), the largest organization of native peoples in the state, said “the great objective (of solar energy) is to prove that Roraima and Brazil do not need new hydroelectric plants.”

The Bem Querer (Portuguese for “good will”) plant on the Branco River, Roraima’s main river, “will have direct impacts on nine indigenous territories” and will also affect other nearby indigenous areas if it is built, as the central government intends, he told IPS.

That is why the CIR is involved in three projects – two solar energy and a wind energy study – in territories assigned to different indigenous ethnic groups, he said.

A view of the Branco River, some five kilometers upstream of the point where the Brazilian government plans to build the Bem Querer hydroelectric power plant. Because the river has little gradient on the central plains of the northern state of Roraima, the reservoir would flood an extensive area, including part of the capital Boa Vista, which has 436,000 inhabitants. This has triggered heavy opposition to the project, by the local indigenous population as well. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

The government’s hydroelectric plans, which currently prioritize Bem Querer, but include other uses of local rivers, have sparked a renewed debate on energy alternatives in Roraima, which has an installed electricity capacity of only 300 megawatts, since it has almost no industry.

From 2001 to 2019, Roraima relied on electricity from neighboring Venezuela, generated by the Guri hydroelectric plant in eastern Venezuela, the deterioration of which caused a growing shortage over the last decade, until the supply completely ran out in 2019, two years before the end of the contract.

Diesel thermoelectric plants had to be reactivated and new plants had to be built, including one using natural gas transported by truck from the Amazon jungle municipality of Silves, some 1,000 kilometers away, in order to guarantee a steady supply of electricity that the people of Roraima did not have until then.

It is costly electricity, but its subsidized price is one of the lowest in Brazil. The subsidy drives up the cost of electric power in the rest of the country. That is why there is nationwide pressure for the construction of a 715-kilometer transmission line between Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas, also in the north, and Boa Vista.

With this transmission line, Roraima will cease to be the only Brazilian state outside the national grid, and local advocates believe it will be indispensable for a secure supply of electricity, a long-desired goal.

The three members of the board of the Roraima Renewable Energy Forum, Conceição Escobar (L), Ciro Campos and Rosilene Maia (R), which discusses with the local society the energy alternatives that would make it possible to avoid the construction of the Bem Querer hydroelectric plant and the environmental and social impacts of the reservoir. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

To discuss this and other alternatives, a group of stakeholders created the Roraima Alternative Energies Forum in September 2019, to promote dialogue between all sectors, in search of “the strategic construction of solutions to make the use of renewable energies viable in the state.”

“Our focus is energy security. The Forum is focused on photovoltaic sources and distributed generation. But it seeks a variety of renewable energies, including biomass,” said Conceição Escobar, one of the Forum’s coordinators and president of the Brazilian Association of Electrical Engineers in Roraima.

“There is an opportunity for everyone to be involved in the discussion. The construction of transmission lines and hydroelectric plants takes a long time, we have perhaps ten years to develop alternatives,” she told IPS.

“I am against Bem Querer, but the government of Roraima supports it. The Forum listens to all parties, it does not want to impose solutions. We want to study the feasibility of combined sources, with solar, biomass and wind, and encourage the use of garbage,” said biologist Rosilene Maia, who also forms part of the three-member board of the Forum.

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Migrants spotted aboard a sinking dinghy boat somewhere off the Libyan coast. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza / IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
BARCELONA, Dec 13 2022 (IPS)

It was a hellish journey aboard a crammed boat amid three-meter waves. It had started on a Libyan beach, and at the gates of winter. On December 11, the last 500 migrants rescued from the waters of the Mediterranean disembarked exhausted but relieved in the south of Italy. They had all been rescued by vessels run by NGOs Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and SOS Humanity.

It's like a cheating game in which those in charge change the rules as the game progresses ... At sea, on land, in court... You never know what will come next, but you can't just wait in port

David Lladó
The response to the humanitarian emergency in the Central Mediterranean is one of the challenges for the new Italian far-right government led by Giorgia Meloni, its prime minister.

As it happens, a serious diplomatic crisis broke out last November between Rome and Paris after Italy prevented the landing of the SOS Humanity’s ship, the Ocean Viking and diverted it to the port of Toulon, in the south of France.

About the same time, the Geo Barents (run by MSF) refused to comply with a partial disembarkation order from Rome, which would have allowed only some of the 572 rescued to leave the ship. MSF ended up winning the fight and all those rescued finally got to set foot in Catania (Sicily).

“The selective disembarkation does not have any regulatory framework. It is nothing more than a new attempt to block the NGOs,” Juan Matías Gil, head of the MSF Search and Rescue mission in Italy, told IPS over the phone.

However, all those rescued on the 11th landed without facing any further administrative obstacles. Gil cited the recent crisis with France as a possible motivation for the Meloni government finally allowing the ship to dock and let the rescued people disembark.

 

Lunchtime aboard the crowded deck of the Open Arms. Delays in granting a safe harbour only contribute to the exhaustion of those rescued. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza / IPS

 

The Italian Ministry of the Interior claimed it was the weather, “the imminence of a storm and the need not to saturate the reception centres.” There has been no change whatsoever in Rome’s policies, Italian officials stressed.

Successive Italian governments have been the Mediterranean rescued fleet’s fiercest adversary since 2017, two years after it went to sea.

Closed ports, requisitioned ships, judicial processes: Rome has resorted to every tool at its disposal to block a fleet that today has nine ships operated by different NGOs.

“Under the previous government of Mario Draghi, we already had a glimpse to those policies that Meloni subscribes to today, but there was hardly any talk about it,” recalls Gil, an Argentine today based in Rome. “Back then, we could easily spend up to ten or twelve days waiting until we were granted a safe port.”

 

Migrants in Zuwara (Libya), shortly before jumping into a boat and trying to reach Europe. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza / IPS

 

According to UNHCR data updated on December 4, more than 94,000 people arrived in Italy by the sea in 2022. Most departed from Libya, almost always aboard fragile rafts and skiffs run by human traffickers.

Although international law requires the granting of a safe port as soon as possible to any ship with vulnerable people on board, the rescue fleet faces waits that can exceed two weeks.

Gil sees it as yet one more ingredient in a campaign against the rescue fleet.

“On the one hand, there is the use of resources which lack a legal basis, such as selective landing. Making us go to France or Spain means tripling the distances and drastically reducing the time we spend in the rescue zone”, says Gil.

 

Migrants somewhere in the central Mediterranean are contacted by the Open Arms crew. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza / IPS

 

He also points to the “criminalization” of NGOs by the Italian government. They are often accused of collusion with the trafficking mafias, and even of posing a “pull factor”. However, Gil stresses that the fleet as a whole is only responsible for 14% of the landings in Italy, according to data from the Italian Institute for International Political Studies.

“What stings in Rome is that we make the problem visible, that’s all,” said Gil.

 

“A cheating game”

That the vast majority of the rescued arrive from Libya results from instability caused by the absence of a stable government since the 2011 war. Rival factions in the east and west are still fighting for control of the country.

To contain the migratory flow, Europe began training and equipping a Libyan coast guard fleet in 2016. But the force is widely accused of using violence against migrants and being infiltrated by trafficking mafias.

 

Iñigo Mijangos poses next to the Aita Mari, an old Basque fishing boat converted into a rescue boat. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza / IPS

 

NGOs say that many of those migrants returned to land end up being victims of human rights abuses in the same Libyan detention centres managed by the two Libyan governments.

According to International Organization for Migration data, more than 25,000 people have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean since 2014. As the southern border of the European Union turns into a mass grave, the humanitarian rescue fleet faces all kinds of obstacles to avoid more drownings.

Draconian inspections by the Italian Coast Guard can block ships in port for months. With an old Basque fishing boat converted into a rescue ship, Salvamento Marítimo Humanitario (SMH), a Spanish NGO, knows this first-hand.

SMH coordinator Iñigo Mijangos spoke to IPS from Vinarós in eastern Spain, where the rescue ship is currently docked.

“Just missing a fire extinguisher can have an impact on the qualification of the entire Spanish merchant fleet that makes international voyages,” explained the 51-year-old Basque. They undergo inspections by the General Directorate of the Spanish Merchant Marine before leaving port, to prevent problems with Italian officials.

 

The remains of a shipwreck on a beach in western Libya. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza / IPS

 

“As the total calculation is done on a triennial basis, we have postponed our next mission until next January, just after the start of the new year,” Mijangos clarified.

Italian politicians have on occasion faced consequences for overreach against the fleet. Matteo Salvini, who served as Italy’s Interior Minister between June 2018 and September 2019, currently faces a judicial inquiry into his efforts to block a hundred migrants rescued by Open Arms, a Spanish NGO, from disembarking in Italy. They were forced to stay aboard for 19 days, in apparent violation of Italian and international sea laws.

Salvini faces 15 years in prison in a process that started in November 2021 but which defence lawyers have so far managed to stonewall. Matteo Piantedosi, formerly Salvini’s right hand, now has his old job, as minister of Interior in the Meloni government.

From the port of Barcelona, David Lladó, head of the Search and Rescue mission with Open Arms, spoke to IPS while his crew struggle to set sail for the central Mediterranean on December 24.

“We are counting on the delays in granting us a port, so this time we are carrying food for 30 days and 300 people. We don’t know how long they will have us waiting,” said the 38-year-old sailor.

Delays can get even longer when rescue operations are carried out in Maltese territorial waters, which are near Libya. Lladó recalls that the government in Valletta rarely allows rescue ships to disembark— the last time was in July 2020. But international sea rescue protocols dictate that they first try the island, before contacting Rome.

“It’s like a cheating game in which those in charge change the rules as the game progresses,” claims Lladó. “At sea, on land, in court… You never know what will come next, but you can’t just wait in port.”