Africa

The Republic of Congo received just over 300,000 doses of the COVID vaccines through the COVAX Facility in August 2021. Credit: UNICEF/Aimable Twiringiyima

By Ahunna Eziakonwa
NEW YORK, Dec 21 2021 (IPS)

We are about to start a third year of living with COVID-19. The world’s humanity and solidarity are now at its further test – and yet the implications of the absence of solidarity keep us all in the boat of mutations, lockdowns, quarantines and delayed SDGs – denied prosperity for all. 2021 has unearthed a new expression of global inequity: “vaccine nationalism” – which itself competes high with socioeconomic downturns, jobless growth, the climate crisis, and rising poverty.

As the pandemic ravages on, with Omicron on the scene, the futility of hoarding takes centre stage as even the heavy supply of boosters in advanced economies has not shielded them from the vicious cycle of pandemic-living.

While about 60 per cent of the population in the US and 76 per cent in Canada are fully vaccinated, in Africa – a continent that is home to 1.3 billion people – the number barely reaches 8 per cent.

Many have argued that vaccines’ short shelf life, hesitancy and logistic challenges weigh in. Granted. But the main issue remains the absence of global solidarity – where the rich hoard, and the weaker economies deal with vaccine famine – awaiting their turn…

Vaccine Inequality is also manifest in vaccine affordability. For high income countries to vaccinate 70 per cent of their population it will take raising their health care spending by 0.8 per cent. Lower income countries must increase health care spending by over 50 per cent, on average – to do the same.

Vaccines delayed is development denied. Estimates show that vaccine delays cost Africa up to $14 billion in lost productivity each month and making recovery more challenging – and dragging out the first-in-a-generation recession the continent is facing.

African governments have responded quickly to contain the spread of the virus – but success is overshadowed by the pandemic’s socioeconomic consequences. In 2019, Africa was witnessing record growth numbers in various sectors – like tourism, where Africa had the second-fastest growing tourism sector in the world, contributing 8.5 per cent of the continent’s GDP.

However, with the pandemic, tourism has come to a standstill, and the continent recorded a 2.1 per cent decline in economic growth in 2020. Other accompanying challenges have included general exchange rates depreciations, food insecurity and increased job losses.

Vaccine delays will cost Sub-Saharan Africa 3 per cent of the region’s forecast GDP in 2022-25. UNDP research reveals that recovery rates are strongly correlated to capacity to vaccinate – with a $7.93 billion increase in global GDP for every million people vaccinated.

Low-income countries that are severely impacted by the pandemic do not have the fiscal and financial leeway available to wealthy countries. They risk enduring the pandemic longer if they do not gain early access to COVID-19 vaccines.

This places an inordinate burden on national budgets at a time when the pandemic has decimated fiscal revenues and when higher spending is needed from governments to protect their people and cushion the socioeconomic shock caused by the pandemic.

There is a risk of seeing African countries’ budget deficit widen and it is urgent for us to support countries in developing alternative financing sources. Vaccine famine is putting millions at risk of infection, constraining economic productivity and jeopardizing socioeconomic progress.

The key question today is: Can the world afford such blatant inequality in the face of a pandemic that is sparing no region?

The path to recovery will remain long and uncertain unless we take urgent measures to overhaul the current system of vaccine production, distribution, and financing. Below are some ideas on how to get there fast – building on a consensus emerged from the recently concluded African Economic Conference in Sal, Cabo Verde.

• Development financing in Africa requires an out – of – the – box architecture. Africa will need an additional $425 billion in external funding between now and 2025 to fully recover from the pandemic. It is daunting, but not impossible. It is equivalent to the amount African countries lose to illicit financial flows over a five-year period. Economic governance and creativity can be applied: by, for instance, re-directing investments by pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and similar institutions.

• Leveraging the continent’s natural resources is urgent. Africa’s financial presence in the international system does not reflect its real wealth. Better management and use of extractive industries is critical. Resources like energy, oil, natural gas, coal, and uranium are worth between US$13-14.5 trillion and US$1.7 trillion of potential wealth. Further resources can be harnessed from production in six key sectors: agriculture, water, fisheries, forestry, tourism and human capital. Mobilization of these resources requires governments seriously addressing deficiencies in banking and governance systems to stem illicit financial flows out of the continent. Central banks have a key role to play in unlocking idle resources and channeling them into productive investments. Over $1 trillion of excess reserves could be used to finance Africa’s development.

• International finance systems could be reviewed to become more equitable. Concessional financing should consider countries’ multidimensional vulnerabilities beyond what is reflected in their income levels. The allocation of a record amount of $650 billion SDR issued by the IMF to its country members in August 2021 is a step in the right direction. But more can be done to better support countries that need financing the most. Africa only received $21 billion of SDRs from the total envelope. Such international mechanisms could be reviewed to redress current inequalities.

• Reforming Africa’s financial system. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical role that financial systems have to play in supporting Africa’s development. Improvements in the quality, quantity and efficiency of financial systems are crucial for Africa’s sustainable development. More effective financial systems across the continent can promote resource mobilization and better allocation of savings to productive investments by shifting incentives for the banking system toward the core functions and advancing financial inclusion for individuals and microenterprises.

• Digital innovations are a game changer for Africa’s development financing. Financial systems that harness digital technologies and free and fair competition will be fundamental in revitalizing African economies. The pandemic has proven that digital technologies present enormous opportunities for Africa. They stimulate innovation, economic growth, and job creation in critical economic sectors by allowing better interconnection of African markets with the rest of the world. They can also increase market access and financing for the marginalized population usually excluded by the formal financial systems. However, digitization also has the potential to exacerbate inequalities and we must ensure that the means are sufficiently inclusive for no one to be left behind.

• Sustainable financing will be key. African financial institutions have a role to play in enabling Africa to transform its natural resources advantages, by leveraging blue-carbon markets, and green financing mechanisms. Climate risk-sensitive investment, de-risking, impact investment, environmentally sustainable projects, sustainable energy investment are among critical issues for sustainable financing development. Thus, the financial sector has a key role to play in re-orienting investments towards more sustainable technologies and businesses and fostering low-carbon, climate-resilient, and circular economies.

• Boosting intra-African trade is a gateway to recovery. The transformative power of the AfCFTA must be brought to bear in servicing the needs of 1.3 billion people. If effectively implemented, the AfCFTA will accelerate the continent’s path towards structural economic transformation through value – addition – based industrialization of both goods and services. Investment in trade facilitation reforms and using Regulations as a Stimulus will bring even greater dividends, saving governments money in efficiencies while placing billions directly in the hands of intra-African women and youth – led exporting enterprises.

2022 must be a year where collective global action prioritize vaccine equity and ensure a shot for all. Omicron has reminded us that there is just no other way to build forward better.

Ahunna Eziakonwa is UN Assistant-Secretary General, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Director, Regional Bureau for Africa.

 

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Anglo American is testing a hydrogen-powered giant truck in a bid to make its business greener.

Covid variants may be mutating inside people with suppressed immunity.

Credit: UNHCR

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Dec 20 2021 (IPS)

A bit of fiction. Or maybe not. If things keep going the way they are, the result will be that such a massive flux would create instability and tensions, impact the global markets, cause record prices of fossil fuels, food and everything else, and the bankruptcy of big private financial corporations…

Already seven years ago, a former director general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), William Lacy Swing, estimated that the number of climate migrants and refugees could reach one billion humans by the year 2050.

Such a scenario could well happen given the rapid growth of the ongoing climate emergency.

“Hazards resulting from the increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, such as abnormally heavy rainfall, prolonged droughts, desertification, environmental degradation, or sea-level rise and cyclones are already causing an average of more than 20 million people to leave their homes and move to other areas in their countries each year.”

What would Europe, the US and other rich countries do then? Shall their politicians –and the growing far-right– fuel once more the fear of the “invasion” of migrants and refugees, saying that they include criminals and terrorists, will occupy the homes of honoured citizens, take all their jobs away, rape their daughters and, consequently militarise their borders?

Shall they send them to third countries in exchange for some money, like what already happens with Turkey? Or shall they just force them back to their countries of origin, which they had to flee due to floods, storms, tsunamis and famine, provoked by a climate disaster they did not generate?

 

Climate change and disaster displacement

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says that climate change is the defining crisis of our time and disaster displacement is one of its most devastating consequences.

“Entire populations are already suffering the impacts, but vulnerable people living in some of the most fragile and conflict-affected countries are often disproportionately affected.”

Refugees, internally displaced people and the stateless are on the frontlines of the climate emergency, it reports, adding that many are living in climate “hotspots”, where they typically lack the resources to adapt to an increasingly hostile environment.

UNHCR urges all countries to combat the growing and disproportionate impacts of the climate emergency on the most vulnerable countries and communities — in particular those displaced and their hosts.

 

1 Person Is Forcibly Displaced Every 2 Seconds due to conflict, persecution

These displacements are the result of conflict or persecution. At mid-2021, their number already reached 84 million. And there are 10 million stateless people, half of them under the age of 18.

Coincidentally, most of their countries of origin are also among the most hit by poverty and climate emergency.

 

Climate crisis is a human crisis

“The climate crisis is a human crisis. It is driving displacement and makes life harder for those already forced to flee.”

The impacts of climate change are numerous and may both trigger displacement and worsen living conditions or hamper return for those who have already been displaced.

Limited natural resources, such as drinking water, are becoming even scarcer in many parts of the world that host refugees. Crops and livestock struggle to survive where conditions become too hot and dry, or too cold and wet, threatening livelihoods, UNHCR adds.

 

Climate change, a threat multiplier

In such conditions, climate change can act as a threat multiplier, exacerbating existing tensions and adding to the potential for conflicts.

“Hazards resulting from the increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, such as abnormally heavy rainfall, prolonged droughts, desertification, environmental degradation, or sea-level rise and cyclones are already causing an average of more than 20 million people to leave their homes and move to other areas in their countries each year.”

On this, the Global Compact on Refugees, affirmed by an overwhelming majority in the UN General Assembly in December 2018, directly addresses this growing concern. It recognises that “climate, environmental degradation and disasters increasingly interact with the drivers of refugee movements”.

“We need to invest now in preparedness to mitigate future protection needs and prevent further climate caused displacement. Waiting for disaster to strike is not an option,” says Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

 

Every second 1 person is displaced by disaster

More than five years ago, in july 2016, IPS reported that, in fact, “every second, one person is displaced by disaster,” the Oslo-based Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) reported, adding that in 2015 only, more than 19.2 million people fled disasters in 113 countries.

“Disasters displace three to ten times more people than conflict and war worldwide.” See: Climate Victims – Every Second, One Person Is Displaced by Disaster

“On average, 26 million people are displaced by disasters such as floods and storms every year. That’s one person forced to flee every second.”

Further on, IPS wrote: Imagine a world with as many as one billion people facing harsh climate change impacts resulting in devastating droughts and floods, extreme weather, destruction of natural resources, in particular lands, soils and water, and the consequence of severe livelihoods conditions, famine and starvation.

Although not yet based on definite scientific projections, the proven speed with which the process of climate change has been taking place, might lead to such a scenario by 2050. If so, 1 in 9 human beings would be on the move by then, it added.

“Currently, forecasts vary from 25 million to 1 billion environmental migrants by 2050, moving either within their countries or across borders, on a permanent or temporary basis, with 200 million being the most widely cited estimate, according to a 2015 study carried out by the Institute for Environment and Human Security of the United Nations University.”

This figure equals the current estimate of international migrants worldwide.”

For its part, the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) forecasts 200 million environmental migrants by 2050, moving either within their countries or across borders, on a permanent or temporary basis. Many of them would be coastal populations.

In an interview to IPS, the former IOM Director General, William Lacy Swing, explained that political crises and natural disasters are the other major drivers of migration today.

“We have never had so many complex and protracted humanitarian emergencies now happening simultaneously from West Africa all the way to Asia, with very few spots in between which do not have some issue.” See: Q&A: Crisis and Climate Change Driving Unprecedented Migration

 

Droughts, Desertification

Another warning comes from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which estimates that some 135 million people may be displaced by 2045 as a result of desertification.

Up to 12 million hectares of productive land become barren every year due to desertification and drought alone, which is a lost opportunity to produce 20 million tons of grain, adds the Bonn-based Convention secretariat.

Meanwhile, the increase in droughts and flash floods that are stronger, more frequent and widespread is destroying the land – the Earth’s main freshwater store, according to UNCCD.

 

The killing drought

“Droughts kill more people than any other single weather-related catastrophe and conflicts among communities over water scarcity are gathering pace. Over 1 billion people today have no access to water, and demand will increase by 30 percent by 2030.”

Africa is particularly susceptible since more than 90 percent of its economy depends on a climate-sensitive natural resource base like rain-fed, subsistence agriculture.

“Unless we change the way we manage our land, in the next 30 years we may leave a billion or more vulnerable poor people with little choice but to fight or flee.”

For its part, the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), reports that extreme weather events – from floods and storms, to heatwaves and drought – are already displacing an estimated 41 people each minute, and as temperatures continue to increase, climate extremes will worsen, sea levels will rise, and the world’s most vulnerable will bear the brunt.

 

Hunger and the climate

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reports that the world produces enough food to feed everyone, yet, about 800 million people suffer from hunger. That is one in nine people. 60 percent of them are women.

And that about 80 percent of the world’s extreme poor live in rural areas. Most of them depend on agriculture.

“Hunger kills more people every year than malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS combined.”

Most importantly: “No other sector is more sensitive to climate change than agriculture.”

The above-cited causes of massive displacements just add to the fast-growing climate crisis, which will evidently greatly increase the number of migrants and refugees.

No matter if they will be one billion or 500 million or even 100 million. They are humans and victims of circumstances they have not created. What will rich countries do?

 

Various states, and many environmental campaign groups, suspect that carbon markets weaken the overall effort to reduce emissions. Credit: Bigstock.

By External Source
Dec 20 2021 (IPS)

One surprise from COP26 – the latest UN climate change conference in Glasgow – was an agreement between world leaders on a new set of rules for regulating carbon markets. This would allow countries to trade the right to emit greenhouse gases.

Carbon trading is part of how countries intend to meet their obligations for reducing emissions under the Paris Agreement. Unfortunately, the manner in which countries agreed these rules may hobble the Agreement in its goal of averting catastrophic warming.

Carbon markets were central to the design of the Paris Agreement’s predecessor, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which created three different mechanisms for trading carbon. Developing countries had become accustomed to attracting investment via one called the “Clean Development Mechanism” (CDM) which allowed industrialised countries to invest in projects to reduce emissions in developing countries and count them against their own targets under the Kyoto Protocol. Many industrialised countries wanted to retain this sort of flexibility in how they met their own treaty obligations.

As a result, most governments were keen to keep carbon markets as part of the Paris Agreement. In Paris in 2015, the bare bones of mechanisms similar to those in the Kyoto Protocol were agreed, but without the details needed to put them into practice.

Why then did it take six years to agree the rules which would govern these markets? This was more than the four years it took countries to do the same in the Kyoto Protocol and, in effect, they were recreating the same mechanisms. The problems in reaching an agreement this time were three-fold, and they weren’t satisfactorily resolved in Glasgow.

 

Going backwards from Kyoto

Various states, and many environmental campaign groups, suspect that carbon markets weaken the overall effort to reduce emissions. As climate change has accelerated over the past decade these concerns have become more acute. Why trade emissions if everyone is trying to get them to zero? There is considerable evidence that carbon offset projects – such as wind farms, which emissions trading can fund – have failed to deliver a reduction in overall emissions. A 2017 study led by the EU Commission found that 85% of projects funded by the CDM hadn’t reduced emissions.

There are also fundamental design issues in the Paris Agreement that make setting up carbon markets under it much more difficult. The Kyoto Protocol expressed the obligations of industrialised states to reduce their emissions as targets. These could be translated into a fixed number of emissions allowances that provided carbon markets with a clear set of accounting rules and indicators of market demand.

No such set of rules exists in the Paris Agreement. Instead, all states submit their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – national plans for reducing emissions. They may or may not have an emissions target and they vary in how they account for emissions or which sources of emissions they include in their plans.

How can a market function if there is no clear way of measuring what is being traded? And how should a country trading with another adjust its own NDC to avoid double-counting, when the design of each country’s NDC varies so much?

And what should countries do with all the credits created in the Kyoto Protocol’s system? Should they just be rolled over to be used in the new markets? Should they be simply abandoned? Or is there some way of allowing them in but controlling their use? A lot of CDM credits in particular remain, and they could flood the new markets and undermine the integrity of the NDCs.

 

A cop out

In the first week of COP26, it looked like these issues would continue to dog the negotiations. India supported unrestricted use of CDM credits in the new mechanism while the Solomon Islands (representing the Least Developed Countries group) opposed using them at all. In week two, these issues were either fudged or hastily agreed. The carbon traders were happy, as were the managers of the COP26 process – the UN secretariat and the UK government. We can now see the cost of failing to grapple with these thorny issues.

The Glasgow decisions on both Article 6.2 and 6.4 of the Paris Agreement are extraordinarily unclear compared with the equivalent ones for the Kyoto Protocol. Specialists in this field are still decoding precisely what they mean in practical terms. It’s likely that states will be able to use this opacity to double-count and claim credit for the same emissions-reducing activities.

Countries are supposed to set new NDCs regularly. At the same time, countries will be negotiating individual emission trades. The possibility for a country to game its NDC – making it appear more ambitious than it really is by counting already agreed trades within them – is impossible to avoid. It’s hard to see how this doesn’t fundamentally weaken the ambition of countries when updating their NDCs.

Monitoring how these mechanisms work in practice and whether they have the desired effect will be important over the coming years. While heralded at the time as a breakthrough in implementing significant tracts of the Paris Agreement, the Glasgow pact on carbon markets might instead be remembered as its undoing.

Matthew Paterson, Professor of International Politics, University of Manchester

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

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The biodigester and part of the biogas plant of the Cocal company, surrounded by a sugarcane plantation on all sides, in the municipality of Narandiba, in the west of the southern Brazilian state of São Paulo, where sugarcane has replaced cattle ranching as the main economic activity. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
NARANDIBA, Brazil , Dec 20 2021 (IPS)

First came sugar. For four centuries, it was the main sugarcane product in Brazil. But since the 1970s sugarcane has grown and diversified as a source of energy: ethanol, electricity and biogas.

“Sugarcane is the green oil,” said André Alves da Silva, commercial and new products director of Cocal, as the company Comércio Indústria Canaã Açúcar e Álcool Ltda. is better known, which started large-scale production of biomethane, i.e. refined biogas, a renewable and clean equivalent of natural gas.

“We have a biofactory here,” he told IPS in an interview in the Cocal plant in Narandiba, a municipality located in the west of the southern state of São Paulo.

Referring to the plant whose scientific name is Saccharum officinarum as “sugarcane” has become obsolete in this region.

In addition to sugar and ethanol, electricity is generated from sugarcane bagasse, and biogas and other by-products are also created, such as biofertilizers, carbon dioxide gas and dried yeast, leftovers from alcohol fermentation, which, when processed, serve as protein-rich animal feed.

Biomethane in place of gas

The big novelty is biomethane, produced since June, as the starting point of a project that will bring gas to three closely grouped cities: Narandiba, Pirapozinho and Presidente Prudente, with a combined population of 264,000 people.

GasBrasiliano, a company of the state-owned oil conglomerate Petrobras, will be in charge of distribution and is building a 65-kilometer gas pipeline, which is scheduled to be inaugurated in June 2022.

“It is our first biomethane project, the first among many,” Alex Gasparetto, director-president of the distributor that holds the concession for piped gas in the west and north of São Paulo state, an area encompassing 375 municipalities and 9.2 million inhabitants, told IPS.

São Paulo, the richest and most populated state in Brazil, home to 46 million of the 214 million inhabitants of this enormous country, accounts for more than half of the national sugarcane production, in more than 150 agroindustrial sugar or ethanol plants next to sugarcane plantations, most of them in the GasBrasiliano concession area.

Sugarcane is the “green oil”, says André Alves da Silva, commercial and new products director of Cocal, an agroindustrial company located in Narandiba, in southern Brazil, which uses almost everything from sugarcane to produce electricity, biogas, biomethane, biofertilizers, yeast as animal feed and other gases, in addition to sugar and ethanol. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

“The potential is huge, sugarcane biomethane can replace all the diesel and liquefied petroleum gas (for cooking) consumed in the state, a privileged situation,” said Alessandro Gardemann, president of the Brazilian Biogas Association (ABiogás).

“Cocal is a demonstration project, which goes from sugarcane cultivation to the final consumer with the supply of biomethane for the entire year,” he told IPS by telephone from Londrina, a city in the southern state of Paraná where his technology services company, Geo Biogas & Tech, which promoted biogas in the sugar-energy sector, is headquartered.

Solution for seasonal limitations

Geo’s technological contribution was decisive for the Cocal biomethane project to take off. It has long been known how to make biogas from vinasse, but this liquid residue from the ethanol (or alcohol) distillery can only be used during harvest season, generally from April to November.

The vinasse is bulky and smelly, impossible to store for many days in the ponds built to collect it before it is put into the horizontal biodigesters where the organic material is broken down in an anaerobic process that produces biogas.

To ensure a year-round supply, Geo adapted a German technology to incorporate into biodigestion another waste product, cachaça or filter cake, a dark sludge resulting from the processing of sugarcane juice to make sugar. Cachaça, for Brazilians, is the name for sugarcane brandy.

A treatment process that removes impurities and part of the moisture converts this waste, which used to be discarded, into raw material for biogas. It has “10 times more organic matter than vinasse,” which is why it is more productive, Eduardo Baptista, supervisor of industrial production at the Cocal biogas plant, told IPS.

A sea of sugarcane plantations flood Narandiba and its neighboring municipalities in the southern state of São Paulo, where the agroindustrial company Cocal grows it as the raw material for its biofactory for energy, fuels and agricultural inputs. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

This innovation made it possible to overcome seasonality, as it is stored in four open-air tanks next to the two vertical biodigesters, specifically for the cachaça. “During the harvest, we use the vinasse and between harvests, the cachaça,” avoiding interruptions in the production of biomethane, explained Alves, the company’s commercial director.

A second factor in favor of the project, he said, was that there is local demand for gas that could not be met by the GasBrasiliano pipeline, whose nearest point is more than 100 km from Presidente Prudente, the main city in the region, with a population of 230,000.

Extending the existing network to this limited market would not be economically viable, but a 65-kilometer gas pipeline from Cocal is, said Gasparetto, GasBrasiliano’s director-president.

The third factor is environmental. With biomethane, Cocal seeks to reduce the greenhouse gases emitted in its ethanol production. Replacing diesel with green gas decarbonizes the activity by 95 percent. Additional reductions can be obtained with the new fuel in trucks and agricultural equipment, an alternative that is currently being tested.

In addition, the waste from which the biogas is extracted is converted into clean biofertilizers, which emit 75 percent less carbon than chemical fertilizers, said Cocal’s commercial director.

Lastly, the decision was also based on the dual use of biogas: electricity or biomethane.

“Having two options reduces the risks,” the proportions can be modified according to demand and prices, Alves said. Currently, 53 percent of the biogas is refined into biomethane and 47 percent is used for electricity generation.

The vinasse pond at the Cocal plant, in the Brazilian municipality of Narandiba, feeds the biodigesters that produce biogas, later purified and refined for use in electricity generation or conversion into biomethane, a renewable and clean fuel equivalent to natural gas. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Cocal has also been generating energy by burning bagasse since 2002. Today it can supply electricity to a city of 730,000 inhabitants, the company reports.

Social contributions

For all this energy production, Cocal has two industrial units, each with its own sugarcane fields around it. The first was installed in 1980 in Paraguaçu Paulista, 135 kilometers from Narandiba.

It employs a total of 5,500 workers in 22 municipalities and has 125,000 hectares planted to sugarcane, mostly on land leased under 20-year contracts, according to Alves. The harvest reached 8.7 million tons of cane last year.

Narandiba currently has about 6500 inhabitants, after 2000 arrived, attracted by the local operation of Cocal, inaugurated in 2008, said the town’s mayor, Itamar dos Santos Silva, who estimated at 600 the direct and indirect employees of the sugar and alcohol plant a year ago – almost 10 percent of the population.

The municipality, which had stagnated when cattle ranching dominated its economy in the last decades of the last century, has prospered again. “Sugarcane totally changed the social and economic situation in the region,” the mayor said in a meeting with IPS in his office.

Deposits of cachaça or filter cake, a residue from sugar production, proved advantageous in the generation of biogas at Cocal’s two plants in western São Paulo state, in southern Brazil. The reason is that the residue contains a lot of organic material and is available when there is a lack of vinasse between sugarcane harvests. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

In addition to offering more jobs, Cocal pays even the lowest-earning employees double what a ranch worker used to earn, he said. With the rise in purchasing power, “every day a new house is built in Narandiba” and commerce and the demand for schools, health services and recreation has grown, Dos Santos Silva said.

Tax revenue also increased, but it lagged behind the immediate demands created by the influx of new residents, lamented the mayor, whose plans include attracting industry and stepping up the training of young people for the new supply of technical jobs in the sugarcane agro-industry.

Environmental sustainability was the main motive for Liane, a company that makes food products such as biscuits and pasta, to sign the first contract for the purchase of biomethane distributed by GasBrasiliano in Presidente Prudente.

Biomethane does not pollute like fossil fuels and probably has lower costs than “the natural gas that comes to us by truck from far away,” Mauricio Calvo, Liane’s industrial director, told IPS by telephone from the company’s headquarters.

Initially, biomethane will go to companies, fuel stations, shopping malls, hotels and large restaurants, i.e. large consumers.

The supply of piped gas to households remains a long-term goal, Gasparetto told IPS by telephone from GasBrasiliano’s headquarters in Araraquara, a town 280 kilometers from São Paulo.

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Dec 20 2021 (IPS)

Countries in the Asia-Pacific region are trying their best to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic by rapidly rolling out vaccination programmes and putting in place public health interventions to reduce its impact. At the end of November, there were 262 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 5.2 million deaths globally. About 60 per cent of all COVID-19 cases and half of all COVID-19 related deaths were in Asia and the Pacific. About 7.8 billion vaccines have been administered globally, and vaccine supply is generally improving.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

However, the pandemic has exacerbated inequities between and within countries and communities in the region with regard to access to vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics. Many countries, particularly lower income countries, are lagging in vaccinating their populations, with less than 1-in-5 of the total population fully vaccinated. This vaccine inequity is prolonging the pandemic in both developed and developing countries. The recent emergence of a new strain of the virus capable of spreading faster, threatens to derail recent efforts to open economies and borders.

We recently brought together leaders and experts from across the region to examine the reasons for the large inequities in access to vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics, and the ways to close the gap. The Regional Conversation on Equitable Access to Vaccines, Diagnostics and Therapeutics also highlighted some important factors and pre-requisites for ending the pandemic and preventing future ones.

Firstly, while noting the many initiatives supporting countries’ efforts to contain the spread of the virus, inequities had arisen due to procurement and stockpiling of vaccines by higher income countries across the world well in excess of their requirements. Vaccine production was concentrated in selected countries (mainly developed), and “vaccine nationalism” was spreading, coupled with a lack of effective mechanisms to transfer knowledge, technology and other resources. Multilateral mechanisms like COVAX, which had emerged as a lifeline for many lower- and lower middle-income countries, had not been provided adequate vaccines or resources. For the inequity to be narrowed, it is imperative that multilateral mechanisms like COVAX be transformed from a market and charity model to a global public investment and global public goods model.

Second, vaccines and health technologies for fighting pandemics should be recognized as global public goods. Discussions and promotion of this idea at subregional and regional levels could help advance it before elevating it to the global level. At the regional level, procurement of vaccines could be pooled, and regional hubs built for the development and manufacture of vaccines; where these centres already exist they should be strengthened. Public-private partnerships in vaccine development, manufacturing and distribution must be increased. Exchanges and transfer of knowledge, know-how, technology and resources between countries, using North-South and South-South principles, must be stepped up to achieve vaccine self-sufficiency. Promoting policy coherence through regulatory and normative systems to achieve quality and set standards should be part of regional cooperation. WTO member States are discussing the possibility of intellectual property rights to certain health technologies during health emergencies like pandemics, and this needs to be expedited and supported.

Third, having efficient and well-structured vaccination programmes at the national level, with a clear and transparent strategy for reaching population groups in vulnerable situations, was critical to achieving vaccine equity within and between countries. In many high-income countries with abundant supply of vaccines, vaccination rates were lagging due to “vaccine hesitancy” because of misinformation and a lack of trust. In this context, vaccination programmes need to be rooted in strengthened health systems and universal health coverage, with equal access to high quality, comprehensive and affordable health care. More agile, anticipatory and adaptive health systems also must be developed. There should be multisectoral action for health that puts primary health care at its center. Synergies with other sectors should be harnessed to advance public health objectives and to increase public health care funding.

Building on these concrete suggestions that focus on the Asia-Pacific region, we will revisit this subject at our annual session of the Commission in May 2022, when countries will have an opportunity to consider these ideas. Until then, I remind member States and stakeholders in Asia and the Pacific that no single country will succeed in defeating the pandemic on its own. Our only chance is to work together. We require trust and solidarity within and between nations. Without these essential elements, no regional or global arrangements will hold water or succeed.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of ESCAP

 

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By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Dec 20 2021 (IPS-Partners)

In 2021, COVID-19 continued to plague the world – a world already burdened by armed conflicts, climate-induced disasters and forced displacement. Communities, nations and people struggled to maintain normalcy in the midst of the abnormal. This was especially notable in the education sector – a sector that is the very foundation for achieving all human rights and all Sustainable Development Goals.

Yasmine Sherif

Countries affected by existing crises also suffered the absence of infrastructure and the omnipresence of extreme poverty, while conflicts raged all around. In 2021, with little, if any means, these countries had to rise to the occasion. Teachers, parents and students sought to protect lifesaving, continued and inclusive quality education for children and youth to sustain hope in the future.

It was a most difficult year for millions of crisis-affected children and adolescents around the world. More children and adolescents were pushed out of school. While we celebrated Human Rights Day a week ago under the theme of “equality”, one can only lament the stark reality: today, over 128 million girls and boys are being denied their basic right to education due to violent conflicts, forced displacement and climate-disasters wreaking havoc around the world.

In recent months, I witnessed firsthand the impact attacks and disruptions in education are having on the human dignity and well-being of children and adolescents caught in crises as diverse as Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, and just a few weeks ago, Cameroon.

In Cameroon, Jan Egeland, the Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, and I met some of the more than 700,000 children and adolescents affected by deliberate attacks on education and by school closures in the North-West and South-West regions. The Far North region and eastern parts of the country are also impacted by the Lake Chad Basin conflict and the refugee influx from neighboring Central African Republic, respectively.

They reminded us that we all must rise to the occasion, now. Working with our in-country partners in governments, communities, civil society, the United Nations and amongst strategic donors, ECW will launch a Multi-Year Resilience Programme in these three crisis-affected areas of Cameroon in early 2022. With this in mind, we urgently appeal to all ODA, private sector partners and foundations to fully fund this humanitarian life-saving and sustainable development investment in Cameroon and across another 35 crisis-affected countries. In doing so, we need to place the rights of girls upfront.

In Cameroon and elsewhere, I heard tragic stories of despair and lost opportunities, in particular for adolescent girls. As the UK Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Girls’ Education, Helen Grant, stresses in ECW’s latest interview, when crises hit, girls are more likely than boys to miss out on education. Meanwhile, we know that girls’ education is the foundation to creating healthier and more peaceful, prosperous societies, or as the World Bank states, ensuring all girls’ education will contribute with US$12 trillion to the global economy. Together with all our partners, ECW will continue to put girls at the forefront of all our investments and pursue affirmative action with a target of 60% girls and adolescent girls in all our investments.

Thanks to our partners in civil society, communities, host-governments, strategic donors, the UN system, regional organizations and the World Bank, the Education Cannot Wait community has mobilized $845.3 million in contributions to the ECW Trust Fund and leveraged over $1 billion aligned with ECW’s investments in joint programmes. Our latest Annual Results Report highlights our collective impact in reaching nearly 30 million children and youth in response to COVID-19, and an inclusive, whole-of-child quality education approach for close to 5 million children and adolescents, half of whom are girls.

This has brought us hope. As 2021 draws to a close, our hope was further fueled at the RewirEd Summit 2021, convened by Dubai Cares during Expo 2020 last week. The global education community was on fire. It came together in full force to steer the dramatic shifts needed in education globally. It laid the ground for the United Nations Secretary-General’s Summit on Education in 2022, as well as the development of ECW’s new Strategic Plan in 2022 with an expected funding requirement of $1 billion at minimum.

Indeed, we shall rise to the occasion, again and again. This is what education in emergencies and protracted crisis is all about. To learn from those we serve despite the odds they face: the 128 million crisis-affected girls and boys in the world’s toughest contexts. Every morning they bravely rise up to learn.

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

Cricket South Africa will formally investigate allegations of discrimination and racism against director of cricket Graeme Smith and head coach Mark Boucher.

By Andrés Arauz
MEXICO CITY, Dec 20 2021 (IPS)

In a ceremony in early October, the president of Ecuador and my opponent in the presidential elections, Guillermo Lasso, issued a warning to those “daring who seek to scrutinize” his assets. He was referring to the Pandora Papers published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which revealed how dozens of world leaders – including Lasso – hid billions of dollars to avoid paying taxes.

His threatening words were directed primarily at me, because of my knowledge of the offshore underworld and my determination to investigate him despite receiving death threats.

In 2017, Ecuador approved an anti-corruption law prohibiting public servants from holding assets in tax havens, directly or indirectly. This term was there to avoid the use of opaque and complex financial structures like trusts, foundations or partnerships. Last year I formally challenged Lasso’s candidacy for that reason, but he then signed an affidavit in which he claimed not to have properties in tax havens and the electoral commission agreed with him.

That led me to drop this issue and when I lost the election in February, I even gave a concession speech and spoke by phone to congratulate him. He offered me to put an end to the political persecution against progressives that former president Lenín Moreno had started.

However, the Pandora Papers revealed that Lasso had in fact transferred shares in limited liability companies representing 130 Florida properties from Panama to two trusts in the state of South Dakota. Lasso also recognised the existence of 14 entities that had been hidden from the Ecuadorian tax authorities.

Lasso denied having ties to these entities before assuming the presidency, including Banco Banisi in Panama. However, an investigation by the Latindadd organisation revealed that Lasso, a day before signing the affidavit, transferred his shares from Banco Banisi to the Banisi International Foundation, a new private interest foundation where his children are nominal beneficiaries but without any decision-making powers.

After the Pandora Papers were released, a large majority in parliament ordered an investigation. Official institutions cooperated little or nothing, claiming that it is confidential information while Lasso refused to attend the hearings. When the parliamentary commission approved the report linking Lasso to tax havens, his government immediately attacked the commission, and the Prosecutor’s Office launched a criminal investigation against the parliamentarians.

Soon afterwards, I started receiving threats and intimidation, not for having been a presidential candidate, but for insisting in investigating Lasso and speaking in the media about this case as an economic expert in offshore banking. Government supporters then launched coordinated troll attacks on social media, spreading false news about me, death threats, and insults.

A member of parliament linked to Lasso accused me of money laundering based on a false meme widely disseminated on social media. And criminal investigations were launched against me based on false news, also involving my retired parents and all former progressive candidates. Dozens of national and international civil society organisations, including the Financial Transparency Coalition, published a statement of support which I deeply appreciate.

But unfortunately, nothing has changed.

On December 8, the Comptroller General concluded that Lasso had no offshore interests since it did not consider South Dakota a tax haven, despite being widely recognised for this. But the blockade of the investigation against Lasso did not end there. That same day, a majority of the National Assembly of Ecuador decided not to impeach the president, referring their investigation to other state institutions, but asked him to go to parliament and give an explanation, which he refused to do.

Ironically, Lasso – along with the presidents of other countries such as Kenya and Chile, whose leaders were also revealed in the Pandora Papers to have hidden assets in tax havens – was invited to the recent ‘Summit for Democracy’ organised by the United States. During the summit the creation of a beneficial ownership registry was announced, including for South Dakota trusts, as well as anti-fraud measures on real estate which could impact Lasso, but it’s still uncertain whether these commitments by the US and other countries will become reality.

In total, $7 trillion is hidden in secret jurisdictions and tax havens, equivalent to 10% of global revenues, according to the UN High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity. Meantime especially developing countries are fighting the resurgent Covid-19 pandemic and its economic impacts, struggling to provide basic social protection to its citizens and purchase vaccines.

So clearly the problem of tax evasion and financial opacity, and money being funneled by powerful individuals to tax havens, is an issue that not only affects my country, but affects everyone. Fighting for financial transparency is a fight for truth and social justice that we cannot afford to give up.

Andrés Arauz is an Ecuadorian economist and candidate for President in the 2021 elections, currently based in Mexico City where he is a Doctoral Fellow at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM.

 

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Nineteen-year-old Adeoye Fawaz is the 2021 champion of the Chess In Slums tournament in Lagos.

By A .H. Monjurul Kabir
NEW YORK, Dec 20 2021 (IPS)

The UN’s 76th anniversary in 2021 arrived at a time of great upheaval and change. If the world is to transition from COVID-19 and we are to deliver on our promises to future generations – to secure a world where everyone can thrive in peace, dignity, and equality on a healthy planet – then 2022 must be the year we change both gear and discourse.

We need a multilateral system that is inclusive, networked but accessible, and effective. Member States have identified many areas of action that can only be addressed through reinvigorated multilateralism. However, such multilateralism must be backed by inclusive regional and cross-regional good practices and lessons learned.

To achieve this, we must think big – whether inside or outside the boxes! We need to reset the foundations and reaffirm the core values that underpin collective action. Shedding light on the complex interplay between global, regional, and national forces which have transformed the Asia-Pacific [hereinafter ‘Asia’] continent into one of the most vibrant and economically successful regions in the world, often does not tell the story. It certainly draws a picture of Asian success.

On top of it, Innovation, according to Asia’s key stakeholders, is often seen as ‘the process of creating new and novel solutions to fulfil unmet client needs.’ Asia is perceived by many as dominating the global scene for innovation However, such success – with or without innovation – is not without its share of challenges and constraints.

UN-ANDI is a global network of like-minded Asian staff members of the UN system who strive to promote a more diverse and inclusive culture and mindset within the UN. Credit: UN-ANDI

As we examine deeper, Asia and its relations with multilateralism and multilateral institutions is not a monolithic discourse. Like other regions, there is often no ‘one Asia’. Differences and diversity added complexity to the understanding of the Asia.

The business case for diversity and inclusion in Asia region is even stronger because it is a highly diverse region comprising a mosaic of many different sub-cultures. Diversity is the region’s strength.

However, they have to be real. It is also important to note here, that tokenistic diversity and inclusion doesn’t help anyone. It is time to move beyond viewing inclusion through a monochromatic lens. Too many organisations and groups consider diversity and inclusion to be only about gender diversity or only about non-local talent.

These are indeed pressing issues, considering that the Asia Pacific region consistently doing better than others in terms of gender roles at the workplace, and considering that the cultural make-up of numerous Asian countries is multilingual.

We must remain vigilant that the diversity can carry forward with it both equality and inclusion agenda. Without them, neither equality including gender equality, nor income equality can be achieved.

As a member of broader UN fraternity, we must be aware of the challenges posed for multilateralism by many factors so that we can add our voice to innovative solutions, growing Asian Knowledge Based Economy (KBE). And Asia can be a learning hub for the world:

• Innovative solutions for more voices to be heard in policy making and implementation;
• Innovative solutions for equitable and effective service delivery;
• Pragmatic solutions for more equitable distribution of power and wealth [i.e., progressive tax reforms etc.) to reduce poverty;
• Effective solutions for achieving gender equality and gender parity,
• Mainstreaming disability inclusion to give real meaning to SDG principle ‘Leave No One Behind’ (LNOB);
• Ensuring accessibility to address exclusion and digital divide;
• Innovative solutions for inclusive and lasting peace process and peacebuilding;

It is clear there are multiple ways in which the region is pursuing its knowledge-based economic development for growing prosperity. The first is learning from the KBE journey of advanced economies (i.e., Japan, Korea, China etc.) and making appropriate investments and policy reforms. Large and populous countries of the region (i.e., India, Bangladesh, China etc.) are also demonstrating examples of scaling-up innovation and lessons learned.

Another successful strategy is exploiting the unique strengths and endowments of the region by pursuing strategies that amplify core regional and sub-regional strengths. The last but not the least is leveraging game-changing trends in technology and business processes that can enable emerging economies to leapfrog technology development cycles and catch up with the latest.

And Asia can contribute more, Asians can do more to promote South-South and Triangular Cooperation, they just have to harness the full potentials of the youth, women, and our committed workforce. Take gender-responsive budgeting, for example.

UN Entities like UN Women are facilitating exchange of knowledge, lessons learned and good practices from Ministries of Finance across LDCs, SIDS and beyond so that countries in the south can benefit from mutual support initiatives and integrate gender equality in national budget planning.

This means that women and girls will benefit from inclusive sectoral budgetary allocations that actually meet their specific needs and priorities. This can apply further to ensure women with disabilities can benefit for inclusive sectoral budgetary allocations.

As UN Charter pledged in its preamble, ‘WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED. to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, we must also remain united to save succeeding generations from inequal impact of public policy making whether that is the roll out of the COVID-19 vaccination and public health support, reducing poverty, achieving gender party, ensuring accessibility and informed participation of the poor and marginalized communities in public policy and governance, access to justice and social services, or creating equal access to jobs and opportunities for both women and men.

Let us walk the talk, and, reinvigorate our journey for inclusion, equality and accessibility in 2022 and beyond.

Dr. A.H.Monjurul Kabir, currently UN Coordination Global Adviser and Team Leader for Gender Equality and Disability Inclusion, with UN-Women HQ, is a political scientist and senior policy and legal analyst on global issues and Asia-Pacific trends. For policy and academic purpose, he can be contacted at monjurulkabir@yahoo.com. He can be followed at mkabir2011

The blog is based on the speech delivered by the author in his personal capacity at an event commemorating the UN’s 76th anniversary organized by the UN-ANDI based in New York. UN-ANDI is a global network of like-minded Asian staff members of the UN system who strive to promote a more diverse and inclusive culture and mindset within the UN.

 

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Tigray forces have left Lalibela, a town famous for its rock-hewn churches.

By Paul S. Teng and Genevieve Donnellon-May
SINGAPORE, Dec 20 2021 (IPS)

While the COVID-19 impact has been predominantly negative, the pandemic appears to have sparked increased interest in developing agricultural technology (agtech) to improve the efficiency of food systems, from input supplies through farming and processing to delivery and retail.

Paul S. Teng

The COVID-19 pandemic has admittedly upended economic activity in the Asia-Pacific region, but a recent event in Singapore (Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit, 16-18 November 2021 — https://agrifoodinnovation.com/ ) showed that, in the case of agriculture and food, it has greatly spurred investments in technology to scale up food production sustainably. During 2020-21, momentum has been building up among financial institutions such as venture capital companies to invest in startup companies that produce technological innovations to address the shortcomings in food production and food supply chains. The UN Climate Summit COP26 further spurred activity before and after it was held, to focus on farming with reduced carbon footprints, reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and valorization of food waste, all aimed at promoting more sustainable and circular food systems.

During the pandemic, the international media highlighted phenomena like farmers dumping milk and feeding quality produce to cattle, vegetables rotting in fields due to lack of labour to harvest, increased food waste in urban environments, delays in supply of inputs for growing crops or feeding fish, and supermarkets with empty shelves. The pandemic has highlighted the need to produce more food locally and to use techniques which both minimize the use of labour and avoid a high carbon footprint. Governments have responded to some of these through policies and action. The private sector has responded even quicker, having detected investment opportunities to support solutions to these problems. Venture Capital funds like AgFunder and Yield Lab have set up their Asian bases in Singapore to support initiatives throughout the Asia-Pacific.

Some of the exciting new agtech developments deal with ensuring new sources of inputs for farming crops and fish. This is exemplified by waste valorization to extract valuable elements from water and biowaste that can be used to grow plants. Many new ventures use the Black Soldier Fly, a ubiquitous insect that feeds on food waste, to harvest larval protein directly or indirectly for use as feed supplements for fish and chicken. Countries like Singapore and Malaysia, which import almost all their agricultural inputs, have provided incentives to spur these activities so that they have more resilience in their supply of fertilizers and animal feed.

Genevieve Donnellon-May

For on-farm production, digital farming is another area which has seen much progress during the pandemic to safeguard food production. Applications of remote sensors for environmental factors such as temperature, light and water quality increased. These sensors included both stationary and mobile sensors mounted on drones. Many now utilise cloud technology to send data back to a centralized processing facility which, among the more “intelligent” sensors, further have capabilities to take action. In Indonesia, one new company in Java has implemented among several hundred shrimp farmers an “Internet of Things” (IoT) system which not only monitors the water in which the shrimps grow for any danger signs, but also the growth of the shrimps and ultimately links the farmer to a potential buyer. In Singapore, Camtech Diagnostics has created Aquafarm, a remote water management tool for aquaculture farmers, which uses wireless sensors to maintain optimal water quality for their stocks. The remote monitoring and wireless communication system allows farmers to monitor the water quality in real-time, reduce labour costs, and increase the yield rate due to the prevention of stock loss. In India, likewise, a startup company has enabled several hundred fish farmers with ponds and indoor tanks to optimize their stocking density of fish and therefore increase their final harvest with minimized mortality. This company also helps the farmers secure credit from banks by providing risk profiles of the fish farmers. These startups are run by relatively young “agropreneurs” and illustrate the growing phenomenon of younger graduates entering farming by providing value-added services.

There are also exciting developments to help farmers make better use of increasingly scarce or expensive inputs like water and fertilizer. Precision technologies, such as drip-irrigation which are supported by the monitoring of soil moisture and plant water status, are now available in several countries. One company has even developed technology to supply chilled, oxygen-enriched water to stimulate plants growth in the tropics.

In land-strapped countries like Singapore, the number of high tech vegetable and fish farms using vertical farming technology with multiple stacks of vegetables or fish tanks, and supported by digital tools to monitor the growing environment, and plant and fish growth, has increased dramatically during the pandemic. The Singapore government in fact enacted a “30 by 30” strategy to produce 30% of its nutrition needs (vegetables, fish and eggs) by 2030 and incentivized an accelerated research and development programme (called the Singapore Food Story) with some Singapore $144 Million to create new technologies that enable high-density farming. This follows on achievements in other Asian countries, notably Japan, China and South Korea, to increase their share of controlled-environment farming using indoor plant factories, a form of “Smart farming”. Moving forward, these indoor plant factories will also allow countries to address weather patterns attributable to climate change.

One of the significant set of activities precipitated by the pandemic has been on e-commerce – using telecommunications and the internet to link farmers to retailers, manufacturers to traders and food and beverage outlets to consumers at home. The growth of this sector has been spectacular in Asia as movement control measures to reduce the spread of the virus encouraged households to use the internet to order raw and cooked food. It is likely that this practice will continue even after the pandemic has become an endemic.

Apart from agtech, there has been similar growth in fintech and foodtech. Using digital technology and the widespread use of mobile phones and other portable personal devices, even giants like MastercardTM have entered this space of providing financial services to small farmers. Others have linked financial services to marketplace information. Likewise, foodtech is providing food processors and ultimately consumers with many new offerings, such as extending the shelf-life of vegetables and fruits with environment-friendly sealants and packaging are now in use. Precision fermentation technology has also seen an upsurge to produce more diverse plant-based protein, and in the near future, also cellular meat. Concern for the negative effects of producing animal protein on the environment and climate have spurred innumerable startup companies to venture into the “Alternative Protein” space. Furthermore, nutrition-enhanced food, such as with vitamin and essential minerals, is also likely to see an increase in the marketplace.

It can be argued that all the above would have happened even without the stimulus provided by the pandemic. But the pandemic has convincingly increased awareness on food security worldwide, and coupled with the COP26 climate summit urgings, has led to this increase in activity to use modern agtech, fintech and foodtech in sustaining our food systems.

Paul S. Teng is Adjunct Senior Fellow, Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies at Nanyang Technological University Singapore and concurrently Managing Director of NIE International Pte. Ltd. Singapore. He has worked in the Asia Pacific region on agri-food issues for over thirty years, with international organizations, academia and the private sector.

Genevieve Donnellon-May is a research assistant with the Institute of Water Policy (IWP) at the National University of Singapore. She is also a master’s student in Water Science, Policy and Management at the University of Oxford. Genevieve’s research interests include China, Africa, transboundary governance, and the food-energy-water nexus.

 

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Patients wait for their COVID-19 vaccination at a health centre in Kabale District, Uganda. More than 5.7 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered globally, but only 2% of them in Africa, says World Health Organization (WHO) chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Credit: UNICEF/Catherine Ntabadde

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 20 2021 (IPS)

The 21-month-long corona virus pandemic has triggered three new phrases in the UN lexicon: “vaccine famine, vaccine apartheid and vaccine nationalism”.

And the largest number of victims facing the triple threats are from developing countries, mostly in Africa, as reflected in grim statistics.

Dr Richard Mihigo, coordinator for the WHO’s Immunization and Vaccines Development Programme in Africa, is quoted as saying that high-income countries are administering more booster doses than even vaccines that are being given in developing countries.

“Remember that we only have 8% — 8% — of people who have been fully vaccinated in this region,” he said, referring to Africa. “This represents around 103 million people in a continent of 1.3 billion.”

Achim Steiner, Administrator, UN Development Programme (UNDP), says that vaccines delayed is “development denied” for Africa. “Therefore, we must ensure vaccine equity which is the fastest way to end this pandemic”.

Rallying around the unifying strength of the UN, he pointed out, “we need the urgent cooperation of vaccine manufacturers, vaccine-producing countries and countries that already have high vaccination rates to tackle the acute vaccine supply shortage.”

Doing so will help to open-up economic and social opportunities across the (African) continent — boosting GDP and driving forward human development,” Steiner told a recent African Economic Conference in Cabo Verde.

Worldwide, says the New York Times, about 73% of shots that have gone into arms have been administered in high- and upper-middle-income countries, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. Only 0.8% of doses have been administered in low-income countries.

Dr Djibril Diallo, President & CEO of the African Renaissance and Diaspora Network Inc, told IPS Article 25 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, ratified in 1948, recognized that the right to health is a human right.

“Now is a time when nations claiming to respect and uplift human rights are being tested. But, more so, it is in their own national interest to pass the test,” he said, pointing out that low inoculation rates are a root cause of the mutation of COVID-19 into new variants.

“From our experience with Delta, and now Omicron, we have seen, in our globally connected world, how swiftly and uncontrollably new variants spread’.

“It is a political fiction to believe that these variants can be contained before they reach a nation’s shore. Instead, we need to shift towards reducing the risks of new variants developing by ensuring that no one is left behind in receiving vaccines,” said Dr Diallo.

As a new COVID-19 variant has just been discovered, says UNDP, flights are being cancelled, travel bans are reinstated, and several countries are closing their borders, African countries are once again most directly affected by the impact of the pandemic has on economies, particularly most vulnerable people.

Despite calls from various international institutions, African countries are still facing critical inequality regarding access to COVID-19 vaccines, leading to what many have called a “COVID-19 vaccine famine”.

According to the World Bank, African countries are still struggling to inoculate all eligible citizens, and vaccine delays are costing Africa $14 billion in lost productivity each month.

When they need additional resources to protect their citizens and plan for a post-pandemic recovery, the cost of borrowing for African countries has increased. African countries pay more than five times more in interest payments for commercial lending than the rest of the world.

“There is an increasingly looming risk of losing more than a decade of efforts to strengthen African countries’ economies and human capital”, the UN agency said.

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters December 14:

• 77 countries have now reported cases of Omicron, and the reality is that Omicron is probably in most countries, even if it hasn’t been detected yet. Even if Omicron does cause less severe disease, the sheer number of cases could once again overwhelm unprepared health systems.

• Let me be very clear: WHO is not against boosters. We’re against inequity. Our main concern is to save lives, everywhere. It’s really quite simple: the priority in every country, and globally, must be to protect the least protected, not the most protected.

• There remains a vast gap in rates of vaccination between countries. 41 countries have still not been able to vaccinate 10% of their populations, and 98 countries have not reached 40%. If we end inequity, we end the pandemic. If we allow inequity to continue, we allow the pandemic to continue, he warned.

Asked about WHO trying to have 60/70 percent of the world population vaccinated by next June, and whether this is possible?, British Ambassador Barbara Woodward told reporters December 13: “I think it is possible. As we’ve discussed before, there’s really three elements to this.”

“The first is the manufacture of vaccines, and we are seeing that come on stream now much faster. The second is shipping the vaccines and that is happening, although sometimes with quite short lead-in times”.

“Then the third is the simple logistics of health systems getting needles into people’s arms. And that’s an area where we still need to accelerate work. But again, an area where we can work with UN agencies and with NGOs to help that happen,” she declared.

In a statement released November 29, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres commended the Government, scientists and the health community of South Africa for acting early to identify the emergence of a new COVID-19 variant.  

He is deeply concerned about the isolation of southern African countries due to new COVID-19 travel restrictions.   Low vaccine rates are a breeding ground for variants

“The people of Africa cannot be blamed for the immorally low level of vaccinations available on the continent – and they should not be penalized for identifying and sharing crucial science and health information with the world,” Guterres said.

He appealed to all governments to consider repeated testing for travellers, together with other appropriate and truly effective measures, with the objective of avoiding the risk of transmission so as to allow for travel and economic engagement.

Samantha Power, Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) told a virtual meeting on December 6 that for the past year, the story of COVID-19 around the world has been a struggle for vaccine equity—rich nations replete with doses while poorer nations fought to secure vaccines for their people.

But thanks to the efforts of many people and many institutions and nations, including the United States, thanks to the tireless work of COVAX, the African Union, and other regional leaders, that story is now changing fast, she said.

Over the past year, she pointed out, the United States has committed 1.2 billion vaccines to partner countries and delivered more than 290 million of those.

“We have invested in vaccine production capacity in countries like India, South Africa, and Senegal, so that in the future, fewer people would have to depend on vaccine donations from wealthy countries. All of this has been done with no strings attached or expectations—we do it because it is the right thing to do but it is also, we know, the smart thing to do.”

Today, at this critical inflection point, Power said: “I’m pleased to announce that the U.S. is building on this work by introducing a new effort to get a shot in every arm: the Initiative for Global Vaccine Access”.

“We’re going to spend an additional $400 million to double down on our efforts to help countries raise vaccination rates and save lives. This money will speed efforts both to get shots in arms and to support vaccine manufacturing in low-and-middle-income countries,” she declared.

 

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North Africans love the Cup of Nation but for some, their African identity is open to question.