Africa

Quality, safe, gender-responsive and inclusive education for Africa’s children increasingly out of reach, say experts. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Nov 24 2021 (IPS)

Kenya’s secondary schools’ administration has been in the eye of a storm since schools reopened in October 2021. Since then, students have set on fire 35 schools and counting, forcing the government to announce an unscheduled break from school – ahead of the planned December 23 closing.

Sarah Kitana, a secondary school teacher in Kathiani, Machokos County, tells IPS that fewer students are in classrooms after a year of COVID-19-driven disruptions and the ensuing prolonged out-of-school period. This is even more evident in rural areas.

“Those that returned are finding it very difficult to cope with the new fast-paced learning to make up for the lost time. Secondary school students take on eight to 13 subjects. Some schools have their students waking up at 3.00 am to be in class by 4.30 am and to end the day at 10.45 pm,” she says.

“These are efforts to help bring some normalcy to a disrupted, restructured and shortened academic calendar. It will take up to January 2023 for Kenya’s school calendar to regain some normalcy.”

Pre-COVID Africa and more so, sub-Saharan Africa was already off-track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

In 2019, UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics indicated that of all regions, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of education exclusion, as, over one-fifth of children between ages six and 11, one-third of 12 to 14-year-olds and 60 percent of those aged 15 to 17 were not in school.

In July 2021, UNICEF announced that at least 40 percent of all school-aged children across Eastern and Southern Africa were out of school due to COVID-19 and other pre-pandemic challenges facing the persistently fragile education system.

UN data shows there are at least 15 countries with active armed conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. Civil war, adolescent girls’ pregnancies, child marriages, access challenges due to disabilities, climate change-induced displacements, COVID-19 economic shocks will only increase the number of out of school children, says Josephat Kimathi, an educationist at Kenya’s Ministry of Education.

Missing out on education can have lifelong impacts. Save the Children’s July 2020 forecasts suggested that children, at that time out-of-school due to pandemic-driven school closures, could lose out on $10 trillion in earnings.

In 16 out of Kenya’s 47 counties, a baseline survey by UNICEF found that more than 27,500 children with disabilities were out of school.

Not only has an entire generation’s education disrupted in the history of humanity, Kimathi says quality, safe, gender-responsive and inclusive education for Africa’s children is increasingly out of reach.

“In comparison, Kenya is a fairly stable country. But the fact that 1.8 million children and adolescents aged six to 17 years are out of school. Another 700,000 small children, aged four to five years, cannot access early childhood interactive opportunities to prepare them for entry into primary school speaks volumes about less stable nations,” Kimathi tells IPS.

One in four children in Africa live in conflict zones. A new analysis by Save the Children of 12 countries at extreme risk of increased school dropouts show that apart from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, the rest are African countries, including Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Nigeria and Senegal.

Across Africa, Kimathi says, the poorest children in rural, drought-stricken, minority and marginalized communities will suffer the most from the devastating effects of the pandemic.

Grace Gakii, a Nairobi-based gender expert, says the pandemic is already pushing even more girls out of Africa’s education system. At least one million girls in Africa may never return to school, according to a 2021 report by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation.

Pre-COVID, nine million girls between six and 11 years, compared to six million boys of the same age, living in sub-Saharan Africa will never go to school, according to UNESCO.

Gakii speaks of escalating challenges in arid, semi-arid and pastoralist communities to enrol and retain girls in school and fears losing gains made.

Elangata Enterit boarding primary school in Kenya’s pastoralist community of Narok South is a perfect example of success. In 2007, the school did not have a single girl sit for the crucial and compulsory Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE).

With intervention, the number of girls sitting for KCPE rose to 30 students in 2016 and continues to grow.

Despite 42 countries in Africa providing free and compulsory primary school education and the Africa Union Member States striving to invest at least 20 percent of their domestic budget in education, before COVID-19, UNESCO data shows that 100 million children were out of school in sub-Saharan Africa.

In July 2020, Save the Children estimated that the pandemic-driven “recession will leave a shortfall of $77 billion in education spending in some of the poorest countries in the world over the next 18 months.”

Kimathi says that Africa will need context-specific education plans to help build resilience against shocks to an already weak education system to get back on track. It will also need money to implement the action plans. Finally, it will require proactive measures to keep children safe and systems to track and ensure that the continent stays on course.

He lauds Kenya’s efforts to accelerate the implementation of the right to education for all children.

This includes the ongoing ‘Operation Come to School Programme’ targeting 16 rural Counties notorious for out-of-school children.

This, he says, is critical to achieving SDG 4, especially in light of dire predictions by UNESCO estimating that 50 percent of children in sub-Saharan Africa will not complete secondary school education by 2030.

 

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LZ is an advocate for women, trans people, and gender minorities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Amidst an “alarming rise in hateful discourse” against transgender people globally, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) warned last month that this community still lacks safeguards against abuse. Credit: UN Women/Dar Al Mussawir

By Cleo Kambugu and Lori Adelman
NEW YORK / KAMPALA, Nov 24 2021 (IPS)

There is a resurgence of anti-trans sentiment right now. It’s not only Dave Chapelle’s toxic rants in his most recent Netflix special: we see it across social, political and cultural arenas including in JK Rowling’s ongoing embrace of trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs); the introduction of bills designed to harm trans kids in the US; Uganda’s Sexual Offenses bill, which violates international human rights; and “gender-critical” academics like Kathleen Stock profiting from their inflammatory rhetoric.

These recent examples are alarming, and their impact is devastating for trans people globally. But transphobia is not new. And we won’t make true progress on gender liberation until we address it head-on, including by reclaiming the feminist movement as unabashedly pro-trans.

Cis and trans people’s liberation are linked. The same logic that drives the policing of trans people’s genders also reinforces the anti-feminist notion that a woman dressing “provocatively” is more deserving of violence; that a Black woman’s natural hair renders her less professional or deserving of respect; or that cis men shouldn’t display emotion or risk being perceived as weak.

Many transphobic arguments promote a kind of reproductive essentialism that could be ripped straight out of a page from the Handmaid’s Tale, insisting, for example, that only people who menstruate and/or have a womb are women.

Beyond reducing women down to their bodies in ways that align deeply with patriarchy, such an approach also misgenders cis women who are infertile or can’t menstruate.

Cleo Kambugu

On the flip side, fighting for the self-determination and bodily autonomy of trans people can help us build a stronger feminist movement that fights and wins on issues like defunding the police/abolitionism, promoting expansive, family-friendly policies and practices, ending workplace discrimination, and gaining reproductive justice for all.

Queer and trans activism can help to defy and free us from deeply engrained patriarchal ideals about what is “normal” or “natural” for women, men, and all of society. And dismantling the gender binary can also help us question other systems that aren’t serving us and imagine a different, better world.

Feminist abolitionist Angela Davis has summed it up thus: “The trans community has taught us how to challenge that which is totally accepted as normal…if it is possible to challenge the gender binary, then we can certainly, effectively, resist prisons, and jails, and police [and on and on].”

Despite these linkages, feminism is too commonly being invoked not as a platform for mobilizing in support of trans rights but as a cover for bigotry. The feminist movement is increasingly co-opted by organized and well-resourced opposition to trans rights, including (majority white women) TERFs who generate swells of attention and sympathy for exploring “debates” like whether trans women are forcing themselves upon lesbians (they’re not) or transitioning too late to deserve our support (also, no).

Even beyond TERFs, plenty of feminists participate in microaggressions; erasures of the trans experience; invasive inquiries about trans people’s bodies; and more. Such ideas and behaviors are entertained in otherwise progressive spaces because they are ostensibly coming from self-identified feminists or voices that have traditionally supported the rights of the marginalized like Chapelle’s own. This has to stop.

If trans lives and identities have long been and continue to be a politically potent rallying cry for people who seem not to care very much for trans people, we need a counter narrative urgently from folks who feel differently.

Lori Adelman

Following the release of The Closer and Netflix’s refusal to remove it as well as their firing of B Pagels Minor, a Black trans employee, for their organizing around the issue, there have been a deluge of articles talking about trans people.

It’s rare to hear from trans people themselves who are fighting not only for survival, tolerance, and visibility — but for the space to thrive. But it’s also too rare to hear from non-trans feminists reclaiming the movement and centering our trans sisters in the work.

Feminists must forcefully counter transphobia and especially the pernicious narrative that we are pitted against each other in the quest for liberation. Affirming trans women as women and trans men as men is a good start, but feminists and all progressives must get beyond tolerance to extend radical support and solidarity to our trans siblings including with funding and across borders.

Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel once said “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” Trolls, TERFS and bigots monopolize so much attention when it comes to trans people and their rights in part because there is no similarly organized and funded corollary within feminism advocating for an alternative view.

This silence is deafening, and directly enables and empowers TERFs and their agenda.

Feminism has its roots in gender liberation, not policing. If we cut our chains, we are free, but when we cut our roots, we die. Just as they would fight misogyny, feminists also need to fight back against transphobia in culture and media (which has real world consequences), in the law, in academia, and in politics.

In the words of the great Angela Davis, feminism should be capacious. A feminist who uses hateful logic to deny trans people rights and resources isn’t a feminist at all. But until we speak up, we will be spoken for.

Cleo Kambugu is a Trans activist, Director of Programmes at UHAI EASHRI and the protagonist of The Pearl of Africa. She is based in Uganda.

Lori Adelman is a Vice President at Global Fund for Women and co-hosts the feminist podcast Cringewatchers. She is based in New York.

 

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Kate Mitchell, who was found dead in Kenya, dedicated herself to helping others, her brother says.

Despite restrictions due to covid, women from various feminist, youth and civil society groups gathered in the central Plaza San Martin in Lima and marched several blocks demanding justice and protesting impunity for violence against women, on Nov. 25, 2020. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Nov 24 2021 (IPS)

Despite significant legal advances in Latin American countries to address gender-based violence, it continues to be a serious challenge, especially in a context of social crisis aggravated by the covid-19 pandemic, which hits women especially hard.

“Existing laws and regulations have not stopped the violence, including femicide (gender-based murders). There is a kind of paralysis at the Latin American level, on the part of the State and society, where we don’t want to take much notice of what is happening, and women are blamed,” said María Pessina Itriago, a professor and researcher and the director of the Gender Observatory at UTE University in Quito.

Pessina, a Venezuelan who lives in the Ecuadorian capital and spoke to IPS by telephone from the university, said violence against women is ageold, and “we are still considered second-class citizens who are not recognized as social subjects.” And this dates way back – to the slaughter of “witches” in Europe in the Middle Ages, for example, she added."It hasn’t been easy to achieve my independence, have my own income and raise my children. I have suffered humiliation and slander, but I knew who I was and what I wanted: to live in peace and have a home without violence." -- Teresa Farfán

“The genocide of women is something that has not stopped and now in the context of the pandemic has become more serious. I believe that, in reality, the pandemic that we have experienced for many years is precisely this, that of gender violence,” she remarked.

Her reflection came ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which is celebrated on Thursday, Nov. 25 and kicks off 16 days of activism up until Dec. 10, World Human Rights Day.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and U.N. Women warned in March that globally one in three women suffers gender-based violence. And that the problem, far from diminishing, had grown during the covid pandemic and the restrictions and lockdowns put in place to curb it.

The study “Global and regional estimates of violence against women: prevalence and health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence”, which analyzed data from 2000 to 2018, is the most far-reaching produced by WHO on the topic.

The report, published in March of this year, stresses that violence against women is “pervasive and devastating” and affects one in three women with varying degrees of severity.

For Latin America and the Caribbean, the study puts the prevalence rate of violence among women aged 15 to 49 at 25 percent.

María Pessina Itriago is a professor, researcher and director of the Gender Observatory at UTE University in Quito. CREDIT: Courtesy of María Pessina

A regional epidemic during the global pandemic

With respect to femicides, the Gender Equality Observatory of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) reports that 4640 women died from this cause in 2019. The organization also called attention to the intensification of violence against girls and women during the pandemic.

The panorama is compounded by the gendered impacts of the pandemic on employment, which reduces women’s economic autonomy and makes them more vulnerable to violence.

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), the region of the Americas experienced the largest reduction in female employment during covid, a situation that will not be reversed in 2021.

Peruvian sociologist Cecilia Olea, of the non-governmental Articulación Feminista Marcosur (AFM), which is made up of 17 organizations from 11 countries – nine South American nations, Mexico and the Dominican Republic – said there have been significant advances in the last 30 years in the fight against gender violence.

Among them, she cited the fact that States recognize their responsibility for the problem and no longer consider it a private matter.

She also pointed out that Latin America is the only region in the world with a specific human rights treaty on the issue: the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women, known as the Convention of Belem do Para after the Brazilian city where it was approved in 1994, which established women’s right to live free of violence and set the framework for national laws to address this violation of women’s rights.

However, Olea said in an interview with IPS in Lima that the legal and regulatory framework has not been accompanied by political strategies to change the social imaginary of masculinity and femininity, which would provide incentives to modify the culture of inequality between men and women; on the contrary, she said, the violence forms part of a culture of impunity.

“Males feel free to oppress and governments are failing in their responsibility to guarantee comprehensive sex education throughout the educational system, in primary school and technical and higher education; this program exists by law but implementation is deficient due to lack of training for teachers and the opportunity to train people in new forms of masculinity is lost, for example,” she remarked.

Olea, a feminist activist and one of the founders of the AFM, said that not only do governments have a responsibility to prevent, address and eradicate gender violence, but there is also an urgent need to ensure health services; justice with due diligence, as the current delays revictimize and inhibit the use of regulatory instruments; and budgets to correct the current shortfall that prevents a better response to this social problem.

Peruvian sociologist Cecilia Olea, a member of the Articulación Feminista Marcosur (AFM), which brings together feminist networks from 11 Latin American countries, takes part in a demonstration outside the Peruvian Health Ministry in Lima, demanding reproductive rights. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Cultural change in the new generations

Raised in a machista home, Pessina rebelled against gender norms from an early age and her constant questioning led her to come up with a new definition of how a good person should act.

“I believe that good people do not tolerate injustice or inequality of any kind, which is why I became a feminist about 15 years ago and I am very happy to be able to contribute a grain of sand with my students,” she said.

Pessina said the challenges to progress in the eradication of violence against women are to provide public policies with a budget to make them work; and to achieve an alliance between the State, civil society organizations and feminist movements to create a road map that incorporates excluded voices, such as those of indigenous women.

“The places where they can file reports are not near their towns, they have to go to other towns and when they get there they often cannot communicate in their own language because of the colonialist view that everything must be in Spanish, and there are no interpreters,” she complained.

Another part of the problem, she said, is that “the State itself blocks complaints and keeps these people marginalized, and they are not taken into account in the countries’ statistics on violence.”

The third challenge was to work with the media in Latin America because of their role in the construction of imaginaries, in order to generate the figure of the ombudsperson focused on gender to ensure that information is treated in a way that contributes to equality and does not reproduce discriminatory stereotypes.

Pessina said that what is needed is a cultural transformation driven by the new generations, in favor of gender equality.

“We see more young feminist women activists mobilizing to make it happen and they will make a turnaround; not now, but maybe in a decade we will be talking about other things. These new generations not only of women but of men, I think they are our hope for change,” she said.

Quechua Indian woman Teresa Farfán, in the foreground, stands with two other rural women with whom she shares work and experiences in her Andes highlands community in Peru. She is convinced that telling her personal story of gender-based violence can help other women in this situation to see that it is possible to escape from abuse. CREDIT: Courtesy of Teresa Farfán

“I wanted a home without violence”

Teresa Farfán reflects the lives of many Latin American women who are victims of machista violence, but with a difference: she left behind the circle of gender violence that so often takes place in the home itself.

She is 35 years old and describes herself as a peasant farmer, a single mother and a survivor of an attempted femicide. She was born and lives in the town of Lucre, an hour and a half drive from the city of Cuzco, the capital of ancient Peru, in the center of the country.

Like most of the local population, she is dedicated to family farming.

Nine years ago she separated from the father of her children who, she says, did not let her move forward.

“He wanted me just to take care of the cows, but I wanted to learn, to get training, and that made him angry. He even beat me and it was horrible, and at the police station they ignored my complaint. He kicked me out of the house and thought that out of fear I would come back, but I took my children and left,” she told IPS during a day of sharing with women in her community.

At her moment of need she didn’t receive the support of her family, who urged her to return, “because a woman must do what her husband says.”

But she did have supportive friends who gave her a hand, both inside and outside her community, as part of a sisterhood of Quechua indigenous peasant women like her in the Peruvian highlands.

“It hasn’t been easy to achieve my independence, have my own income and raise my children. I have suffered humiliation and slander, but I knew who I was and what I wanted: to live in peace and have a home without violence,” she said. A wish that remains elusive for millions of Latin American women.

Excerpt:

This article is part of IPS coverage of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on Nov. 25, which kicks off 16 days of activism on the issue around the world.

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During the pandemic, there was little support from the government when it came to making funding and resources available to the nonprofits that were working closely with communities. | Picture courtesy: Digital Empowerment Foundation

By External Source
Nov 23 2021 (IPS)

From its devastating economic impact and the migrant crisis to the startling death toll, the COVID-19 pandemic in India unfurled one crisis after the other. The glaring gaps in our system, which had always been there, became even more prominent during the pandemic. There is one question at the back of everyone’s mind that still remains unanswered: What went wrong?

No entity can operate in isolation, be it the government, the private sector, or civil society. During times of crisis, the government must ensure that all cogs in the wheel continue to work effectively. Civil society—local communities and nonprofits—must enable delivery of public services up until the last mile. And, finally, the private sector needs to step up in terms of financial resources and leveraging of networks and influence.

Nonprofits in 13 states and union territories were able to provide meals to more people during the lockdown than the concerned state governments - Would a collaborative relationship between the government and the social sector have aided a better response to the COVID-19 crisis?

However, when the pandemic was at its peak in India, these three entities failed to come together and work collaboratively to cushion the devastating effects of COVID-19 on the people.

 

The missing link between the government and the social sector

According to our village-level digital entrepreneurs in the SoochnaPreneur programme at Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), the four essential systems that were massively hit by the pandemic were education, healthcare, finance, and citizen entitlements. When the pandemic was raging, our SoochnaPreneurs reported that all people wanted was food and rations, a device to access online education for their children, the ability to talk to a doctor or health worker to learn how to keep themselves safe, and to make some money to meet their daily needs from the confines of their homes. Ironically, given the stringent nature of the lockdowns, all this needed access to the internet.

However, across the country, lack of access to resources, high levels of digital illiteracy, and the deepening digital divide exacerbated by the pandemic acted as major roadblocks in India’s COVID-19 response. Even as the government announced relief packages—food grains and cash payments—the mechanisms of delivery to beneficiaries at the last mile were unclear.

For instance, common service centres (CSCs), which are supposed to work as access points that enable digital delivery of services such as banking and finance across rural India, were mostly non-functional. During the pandemic, the government claimed that people could use their local CSCs to access various digital services including telehealth and registration for vaccinations. However, like any other office, shop, or business centre, almost all CSCs had closed their operations due to the strict lockdown rules in various states.

With government services not always being available, the social sector stepped up. Whether it was making access to digital tools and digital literacy a priority or the distribution of essentials, nonprofits across the country filled in the gaps. According to one report, nonprofits in 13 states and union territories were able to provide meals to more people during the lockdown than the concerned state governments.

The question that arises is: Would a collaborative relationship between the government and the social sector have aided a better response to the COVID-19 crisis?

For instance, the distribution of food grains could have been made efficient from the get-go if, rather than having long queues of people waiting at shops, organisations with the digital know-how had been allowed to deliver ration at the doorsteps of people with a biometric machine in hand. This synchronisation and management of resources is something that should have been under the government’s purview, while a partnership with civil society organisations could have helped with execution and delivery. Considering that hundreds of thousands of nonprofits working at the grassroots were tasked as frontline workers, the government could have tapped into this already existing infrastructure and network.

The lack of trust between the social sector and the government didn’t help. During the pandemic, there was little support from the government when it came to making funding and resources available to the nonprofits that were working closely with communities. For instance, while local nonprofits worked as service providers during the pandemic, funds lying with local government bodies could have been diverted to their operations to successfully navigate the panic-like situation brought on by the first lockdown when everything came to a halt.

The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2020, also imposed difficult conditions on what could be considered eligible expenses for nonprofit organisations, thus creating more obstacles in raising and distributing crucial aid. Even as the prime minister called for nonprofits to step in, many organisations found their hands tied due to certain rules imposed in the middle of the pandemic.

Moreover, during the first lockdown, there was a diversion of CSR funds to PM Cares. At present, not only is there a lack of transparency on how these funds have been deployed, but this diversion of funds has also been a huge blow to nonprofits who have been struggling to look after their own employees and their organisations while providing relief to communities on the ground.

 

The private sector did not step up either

There was lack of communication and collaboration across business, and a piecemeal approach was adopted. Industry associations could have encouraged CEOs and company heads to interact with each other and solve issues on a larger scale. For instance, industry bodies such as the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), and Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) could have deployed their resources to help manage the mass migration of workers from industrial towns and urban centres more systematically and humanely.

In pre-pandemic times, CSR within corporates would ask nonprofits to work in areas where they have manufacturing facilities and offer localised support. Corporates could have extended this reasoning during the lockdown as well and enlisted the support of their nonprofit partners to help those workers and informal sector migrants who were homebound, while providing the nonprofits with the required monetary and infrastructure support.

There was also a reluctance from corporates to innovate in times of need. Since DEF works on digital integration to fight poverty, we reached out to many CSR funders to provide funds for buying smartphones, tablets, projectors, and other electronic devices to provide digital infrastructure in the villages. However, it took us more than a year to convince some of them to help us offer support to people with no digital access and empowerment through our Digital Daan initiative.

It is important to contextualise the social and economic support at the time of disaster and that can happen only if there is a relationship of trust between the stakeholders.

 

What the social sector could have done better

The onset of the pandemic brought with it uncertainty for most nonprofits. In addition to lack of funding and overstretched resources, many nonprofits had to take up the role of relief workers and divert efforts from their primary objectives, which would have been domestic violence, child protection, water and sanitation, and so on.

One important factor missing in this entire conversation was the inability of many nonprofits to adopt digital tools to improve operations, efficiency, and delivery of services. While webinars became a recurring feature in their calendars, thus creating a space for knowledge sharing, grassroots nonprofits were often not a part of these dialogues. Smaller nonprofits were also overwhelmed with work on the ground due to the needs of their communities coupled with inadequate support from either their funders or governments; hence, many of them had little time or resources to think or build their capacity to go digital.

The pandemic did however push several nonprofits to adopt digital tools for operations and delivery of services. Larger nonprofits with their own networks, adequate funding, and a strong digital presence were able to leverage digital platforms. However, many of the smaller nonprofits and those at the frontlines had to innovate to reach beneficiaries digitally.

Moreover, with the government aggressively pushing Digital India—from telehealth to online education and even the vaccine roll-out—it became imperative for organisations to incorporate digital and technological solutions in their everyday operations. Many nonprofits therefore had to work on building in-house digital capacity and infrastructure during the pandemic, while also serving their communities and raising funds.

In the case of mobilising money, digital platforms could have been a powerful tool for the sector, and they did help many nonprofits raise funds. However, this was not the case for the entire social sector.

According to the India Giving Report 2021 by the Charities Aid Foundation, individual donations were at an all-time high during the pandemic. Crowdfunding platforms such as GiveIndia provided people easy access to donate to various causes. However, this giving may not have been as diversified—the absence of reliable information online acted as a barrier for many givers while donating. Therefore, givers may have chosen to stick to organisations they trusted. And many local nonprofits with limited digital know-how had to rely on local giving or local resource mobilisation.

For example, our colleague Mohamed Arif, whom we lost in the second wave, was in charge of DEF’s digital centre at Nuh, Haryana. He was digitally savvy and active on social media and was thus able to raise approximately INR 25 lakh (in cash and food grains, and other essentials) through his personal Facebook profile and networks.

However, while the pandemic did push many nonprofits to incorporate technology-led solutions, I find that urgency dwindling again. Digital empowerment of the sector requires sustained efforts wherein organisations put aside certain funds every year for digitally upskilling their employees, maintaining digital collaterals, and modifying their approach to include technology in their everyday operations.

I see the pandemic as an inflection point in the future of nonprofits and civil society as a whole. Which organisations survive this period of transition will largely depend on how well they can adapt to these changing times. According to me, one of the key changes the sector will have to make to stay relevant is to become more digitally aligned.

 

Osama Manzar, the author of this article, is the founder and director of Digital Empowerment Foundation. He is a Senior Ashoka Fellow, a Chevening Scholar, and has served on several boards such as the Association for Affordable Internet, Association of Progressive Communications, World Summit Awards, and Down To Earth. He specialises in creating digital models for poverty alleviation and has travelled to more than 10,000 villages. Get in touch with him on Twitter: @osamamanzar

 

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

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UNEP estimates that 50 percent of post-harvest losses occur in vegetable and fruit crops. However, innovative agro-processors have found a way to process Morula fruit into jams and other products. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Nov 23 2021 (IPS)

When Bonolo Montle’s neighbours discarded bucketsful of fallen ripe morula fruit from their backyard, she saw food and fortune going to waste.

Montle took a tasty interest in the fruit of the morula (Sclerocarya birrea), a hardy indigenous tree that grows naturally across Africa. The morula fruit is rich in vitamins and nutrients, with eight times the vitamin C of oranges.

Montle – a serial entrepreneur and agro processor – has turned the morula waste fruit into award-winning, low to zero-sugar preserves and jams through Maungo Craft, a social enterprise co-founded by Montle and Olayemi Aganga in 2017. In addition, the company makes marmalades and sugar-free onion and baobab chutney.

Maungo Craft is helping eliminate food waste while providing delectable food and creating jobs in the agriculture value chain.

“We saw a great opportunity and decided to make preserves with the morula fruit that typically goes unused in Botswana,” Montle, the Managing Director of Maungo Craft, tells IPS.

“Too many people saw morula as a nuisance. We saw an opportunity to come together and have some fun cooking jam,” said Montle explaining that they saw an opportunity to make a little money at the local farmer’s market in the capital city, Gaborone.

“We learned on our journey that when it comes to creating cosmetic morula oil, cosmetic processors go through 300 tonnes of morula fruit pulp to get to 12 tonnes of morula cosmetic oil. We thought to ourselves, what happens to all of that fruit,” Montle recalls.

As the world battles food and nutrition insecurity – more than 280 million people were undernourished in Africa in 2020 – food loss and food waste are a growing challenge.

Food waste is a result of overproduced food during industrial processing, distribution, and consumption. The food is never eaten and thrown away. Food loss refers to food lost at the time of cultivation, harvesting and processing and preservation. This food doesn’t reach consumers.

Factors driving food loss and waste include the absence of or poor agro-processing skills and facilities by smallholder farmers and poor and inadequate storage facilities, which means farmers cannot store perishable food or preserve it for future use.

Hot Sauce made from underutilised morula fruit. Credit: Maungo Craft

Inefficient processing and drying, poor storage, and insufficient infrastructure are instrumental factors in food waste in Africa, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations. The FAO estimates that in Sub-Saharan Africa, post-harvest food losses are worth US$ 4 billion per year – or enough to feed at least 48 million people.

In many African countries, the post-harvest losses of food cereals are estimated at 25 per cent of the total crop harvested. For some crops such as fruits, vegetables, and root crops, being less hardy than cereals, post-harvest losses can reach 50 percent, UNEP says.

Describing morula as an amazing fruit, Montle said the fruit could be used for food and skincare products. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimates the value of the global morula oil market to be worth $56.9 million by 2025 on a return of 4.4 percent.

Food losses for perishable crops such as fruits and vegetables exceed 20 percent, while for certain leafy greens and tropical fruit, the figure is more than 40 percent, according to the projections by the FAO.

A small percent of morula fruit is processed or value-added in Botswana, contributing to food waste.

Maungo Craft works with local vendors, from suppliers of spices to suppliers of fruit pulp, creating jobs for more than 1000 fruit harvesters in the value chain. Aganga explained that the company has mutual relationships with companies that use the seed in the morula fruit to make cosmetic skincare oil, while they use the fruit that would otherwise go to waste.

“Morula is an underutilised fruit also known as ‘orphan crop’ once integral in the food system,” says Aganga, Head of Production at Maungo Craft which has received 13 awards, including an endorsement of one of its products by Martha Stewart’s kitchen, an International Food Celebrity.

“The reintegration into our food system of fruits and crops like morula is integral in fighting and adapting to climate change. This, along with the delicious taste of many underutilised fruits, meant that using such fruit is of prime importance to us.”

Double Pyramid for Africa, food choices and systems that are perfect for people and the planet. Credit: BCFN

The Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) advocates adopting healthier and sustainable diets at local and international levels while mitigating climate change and supporting food companies.

Researchers at BCFN have designed a Double Health and Climate Pyramid that communicates features of a balanced, healthy, and sustainable diet by advising on the appropriate frequency of consumption of all food groups, like prioritising vegetables and fruit adapted to local conditions.

The Double Pyramid highlights the positive impact of nutritional balance on people’s health and protecting the environment. The Double Pyramid shows that foods that should be eaten more frequently are also those that have a lower environmental impact on our planet. On the contrary, foods that should be eaten less frequently tend to have a greater environmental impact. Therefore, within a single model, the relationship between two different but equally relevant objectives can be seen: health and environmental protection.

“Food represents the second most important factor of global sustainability (following the energy industry): it is, therefore, a priority for all concerned in the food production chain to reduce its environmental impact since whoever does not take part in finding a solution is part of the problem,” the BCFN comments.

Montle said the company is expanding into the local market and eying export markets in South Africa and the United States.

“We shall also create new products for our customers to experience those underutilised foods,” said Montle. “We put our ‘Culture in a Bottle’.”

 

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By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 23 2021 (IPS)

Thirty percent of women and girls suffered physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, most frequently by an intimate partner. And more than 70 percent of all sold, bought and enslaved victims of human smuggling and trafficking are women and girls — three out of four of them are sexually exploited.

These are just some of the brush strokes of a gloomy picture on the still prevailing violence practiced against women and girls, one of the most widespread, persistent and devastating human rights violations, which remains largely unreported due to the impunity, silence, stigma and shame surrounding it.

These are figures drawn from recorded cases. Thus, it is not hard to imagine that the numbers and percentages are much higher.

 

Is an international day enough?

Every year, 25 November marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. According to this year’s, in general terms, it manifests itself in physical, sexual and psychological forms, encompassing:

• intimate partner violence (battering, psychological abuse, marital rape, femicide);

• sexual violence and harassment (rape, forced sexual acts, unwanted sexual advances, child sexual abuse, forced marriage, street harassment, stalking, cyber- harassment);

• human trafficking (slavery, sexual exploitation);

Like in previous years, the 2021 International Day will mark the launch of 16 days of activism that will conclude on 10 December 2021, which is International Human Rights Day.

 

Different forms of violence against women and girls

According to the World Day, the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women issued by the UN General Assembly in 1993, defines violence against women as: “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.”

In this, UN Women –which works to develop and uphold standards and create an environment in which every woman and girl can exercise her human rights and live up to her full potential– reports that fewer than 40 percent of the women who experience violence seek help of any sort.

 

Low- and lower-middle-income countries disproportionately affected

UN Women also reports that, globally, violence against women disproportionately affects low- and lower-middle-income countries and regions.

And that 37 percent of women aged 15 to 49 living in countries classified by the Sustainable Development Goals as “least developed” have been subject to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence in their life.

Also, 22 percent of women living in “least developed countries” have been subjected to intimate partner violence in the past 12 months—substantially higher than the world average of 13 percent.

According to this world entity, adult women account for nearly half (49 per cent) of all human trafficking victims detected globally. Women and girls together account for 72 percent, with girls representing more than three out of every four child trafficking victims. Most women and girls are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

In the Middle East and North Africa, 40–60 per cent of women have experienced street-based sexual harassment.

Meanwhile, 1 in 10 women in the European Union report having experienced cyber-harassment since the age of 15.

Also meanwhile, at least 200 million women and girls, aged 15–49 years, have undergone female genital mutilation in 31 countries where the practice is concentrated. Half of these countries are in West Africa.

There are still countries where female genital mutilation is almost universal, where at least 9 in 10 girls and women, aged 15–49 years, have been cut. (See: Daughters of a Lesser God (II) 200 Million Girls Mutilated)

Moreover, 15 million adolescent girls worldwide, aged 15–19 years, have experienced forced sex. In the vast majority of countries, adolescent girls are most at risk of forced sex (forced sexual intercourse or other sexual acts) by a current or former husband, partner, or boyfriend. Based on data from 30 countries, only one per cent have ever sought professional help.

Add to all the above that 1 in 5 women are married before reaching the age of 18. (See: Daughters of a Lesser God (I) 800 Million Girls Forced to Be Mothers).

 

Any hope?

By September 2020, 52 countries had integrated prevention and response to violence against women and girls into COVID-19 response plans, and 121 countries had adopted measures to strengthen services for women survivors of violence during the global crisis, but more efforts are urgently needed.

UN Women also reports that at least 155 countries have passed laws on domestic violence, and 140 have laws on sexual harassment in the workplace.

“However, even when laws exist, this does not mean they are always compliant with international standards and recommendations, or that the laws are implemented and enforced.”

All the above facts and figures are not only shocking; they reflect the scary reality of millions of women and girls in yet another case of the staggering inequalities prevailing in the world.

The planet with 8 billion humans and continuing to grow must be seriously addressed in climate change negotiations, argues the author. Credit: UNHCR

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Nov 23 2021 (IPS)

With world population approaching 8 billion humans, the demographic growth of nations is unfortunately largely ignored by governments whenever climate change is considered.

Government leaders at COP26, for example, did not address limiting the global demand for energy, water, food, housing, land, resources, material goods, machinery, transportation, etc. by reducing the growth of their respective human populations. By and large, the officials as well as their economic advisors are not prepared to acknowledge that population stabilization and degrowth are essential for addressing climate change.

Moreover, many countries, including Canada, China, European Union members, Iran, Israel, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States, continue to push for the further growth of their populations. China, for example, has moved from a one-child policy to a three-child policy to increase its population of more than 1.4 billion.

Many countries, including Canada, China, European Union members, Iran, Israel, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States, continue to push for the further growth of their populations. China, for example, has moved from a one-child policy to a three-child policy to increase its population of more than 1.4 billion

Russia has adopted a number of policies to increase its low birth rate, including maternity capital program, Procreation Day, state funding for new mothers, welfare benefits to families with young children and tax breaks for larger families. The United States relies heavily on immigration, more than one million immigrants annually, to increase its population, which is projected to reach 400 million by around midcentury.

Rather than immigration, most European Union Members aim to increase their populations by raising below replacement fertility levels. The mood in many parts of Europe is reflected in the German poster saying: “Wir können unsere eigenen Babys machen, wir brauchen keine Ausländer” (We can make our own babies, we don’t need foreigners). Hungary, in particular, has been outspoken in its opposition to immigration and foreigners, and straightforward in its policies, programs and financial incentives aimed at helping Hungarians have all the babies they want.

Also, Iran recently adopted a bill that limits sterilization, abortion and free distribution of contraceptives in the public health care system unless a pregnancy threatens a woman’s health, all aimed at raising its birth rate and increasing its population of 85 million by tens of millions over the coming decades. And Israel promotes population growth of its Jewish population and expansion of settlements as a prerequisite for security and economic development and its current population of 8.7 million could increase to 15 million by 2050.

Throughout most of human history demographic growth was relatively slow. The rapid growth of world population is relatively recent, having occurred largely during the second half of the 20th century with record breaking rates of growth and population increases. World population reached 1 billion around 1804, doubled to 2 billion in 1927, doubled again to 4 billion in 1974 and will double again to 8 billion by 2023 (Figure 1).

 

Source: United Nations Population Division.

 

World population’s 10 billion mark is expected to occur around mid-century, with much of the growth taking place in less developed countries. Africa’s current population of about 1.4 billion, for example, is expected to double to 2.8 billion by 2056. Particularly noteworthy, Nigeria’s population, which increased more than fivefold over the past 70 years, is projected to double again, reaching 423 million by around midcentury and displacing the United States as the world’s third largest population.

It’s time to end the charade and acknowledge the disastrous consequences of a world with 8 billion humans is having on climate change. For example, based on the performance to date of Brazil, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, the United States, the top 7 emitters of greenhouse gas emissions accounting for nearly two-thirds of global emissions and half of the world’s population, the world is unlikely to achieve the goals needed to address climate change nor respond effectively to environmental degradation and biodiversity loss (Figure 2).

 

Source: Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

 

Additional insight into greenhouse gas emissions is offered by per capita comparisons of major countries. While in 2018 the world average of tons of CO2 equivalent per person was approximately 6, the United States and Russia had the highest per person levels of 19 and 18, respectively. The per person levels for the world’s billionaire plus populations, China and India, were considerably lower at about 8 and 2, respectively (Figure 3).

 

Source: Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

 

It also appears unlikely that the world will achieve the global goal adopted by 196 parties in 2015 in the legally binding international treaty on climate change, the Paris Agreement, to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels. Moreover, to preserve a livable climate on the planet, the world community of nations will not likely be able to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions net 0 by 2050.

While it is widely recognized that climate change is a global emergency, the international system of nations is failing to deal with this challenge as well as related global problems due to national ambitions. To effectively address this failing, some believe that a new worldview of planetary politics is called for, with the survival of the biosphere to be designated an international objective relevant to all nations. However, moving away from the primacy of national sovereignty to a planetary approach appears unlikely any time soon.

One significant demographic response to climate change is human migration, both internal and international. Increasingly, people are migrating to escape climate change’s disastrous consequences, including rising sea levels, lengthy droughts, deadly heat, polluted air, devastating floods, raging wildfires and violent storms.

The planet is all but guaranteed to see 5 feet of sea level rise in the coming decades. This rise is especially threatening to no less than a dozen island nations, including Fiji, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Seychelles, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. In addition, by the end of the decade approximately 50 percent of the world’s population will live in coastal areas that are exposed to storms, tsunamis and floods.

Also, exposure to extreme heat, which has tripled from 1983 to 2016, now impacts roughly a quarter of the world’s population. Longer and hotter heat waves have become a regular feature of climate change. Low income communities, especially in developing countries, are most vulnerable with more than two-thirds of global households lacking access to air conditioning.

Governments will need to decide on how best to address climate-induced population displacement, which is already a reality for millions worldwide. Over the next several decades, tens of millions of “climate migrants” are expected to be displaced by extreme heat, droughts, sea-level rise, or other severe climate events within and across countries. Some are calling for a United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and climate change.

Other expected demographic responses to climate change are reduced fertility and increased morbidity and mortality. Hot weather, for example, can worsen reproductive health and maternal health outcomes as well as lead to later birth rates and harm to infant survival.

Also, climate change is considered the single biggest health threat facing the world’s 8 billion humans. Changes in the planet’s climate are expected to have serious consequences on the social, economic and environmental determinants of health, including air, water, food and shelter.

WHO reports that between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause 250 thousand additional deaths annually from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress. Also, others estimate that global warming could lead to the premature deaths of more than 80 million people over the remainder of the century.

Whenever climate change is discussed, written about, or mentioned, the demographic growth of nations can no longer be ignored or dismissed by governments. The planet with 8 billion humans and continuing to grow must be seriously addressed in climate change negotiations.

In brief, the stabilization and degrowth of human populations are essential for limiting the ever-increasing demographic created demands for energy, water, food, land, resources, housing, heating/cooling, transportation, material goods, etc. that are responsible for the planet’s climate change, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss.

 

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”

 

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By Lina Taing and Rachel Kaiser
HAMILTON, Canada, Nov 23 2021 (IPS)

The overuse and misuse of antimicrobial medicines and chemicals has become the main driver of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and drug-resistant infections that threaten human health and the global economy.

Given that development, the UN designated November 18-24 as World Antimicrobial Awareness Week, to remind us all to handle antimicrobials with greater care.

Antimicrobials – which range from antibiotic and antiviral medicines to disinfectant and antiseptic chemicals – help prevent or treat human, animal and plant infections and have contributed immensely to health and progress worldwide.

Now, however, common antibiotics, as well as first-line antimicrobials for infectious diseases such as HIV and malaria, are becoming less effective.

The World Health Organization reports that 700,000 people die from drug-resistant diseases every year. If this threat continues unchecked, 10 million people are predicted to die every year and the world will lose USD $100 trillion by 2050.

Most worrying, an estimated 90% of the world’s urban growth is anticipated in Africa and Asia, where populations are most vulnerable to drug-resistant bacteria. Increasingly, multilateral organizations and national governments are adopting measures to reduce unnecessary antimicrobial use by humans, including in our food chain.

From 2000 to 2015, human consumption of antibiotics increased 65%, led by low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where GDP has risen in parallel with antibiotic use, overuse and misuse.

Meanwhile, antimicrobial use in animal farming is nearly triple that of human consumption and is on track to reach 200,235 tons in animals and 13,600 tons in aquaculture by 2030 as producers work to reduce infection and increase animal growth.

Data on antimicrobial use in plants is limited, but the presence of resistant bacteria has been detected on 25% of plant-based foods from all world regions, indicating that food likely is contributing to greater AMR.

The excessive use of antimicrobials in humans, animals, and plants also puts environmental health at risk. But environmental transmission via soil, air, or water receives relatively little attention as an AMR driver.

Depending on the drug, humans and animals can excrete waste with up to 90% of antimicrobial compounds or metabolites still active, which can end up untreated in the environment.

Unsafe disposal of antimicrobials and wastewater from hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers, municipal treatment plants, and farms are recognized as hotspots for the introduction and evolution of more resistant strains (i.e., superbugs).

This pollution can consequently compound human AMR exposure through contaminated soils and water supplies that sustain our environment, or are used to produce food, for drinking, cleansing and recreation.

Increasing access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and raising capacity for wastewater treatment are the primary environmental interventions to reduce the spread of AMR.

However, current statistics paint an alarming picture of whether these efforts are enough to address environmental risks, as a quarter of humanity does not have access to safe water and just over half of the world’s wastewater is treated. Of particular concern are large swathes of Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, which report limited treatment of, or have no data on, domestic and industrial wastewater flows.

At current rates of progress, universal WASH and wastewater treatment is unlikely to be achieved soon, which highlights the need to put into place now additional measures that protect environmental waters from these AMR exposure pathways.

Environmental waters are aquatic environments that can function as both AMR reservoirs and pathways and their protection, therefore, is critical in AMR stewardship. Environmental waters refers to the world’s diverse natural and man-made water bodies, ranging from wetlands that shelter wildlife and nurture local ecosystems, to groundwater and surface waters from which we draw supplies or discharge wastewater into.

One could argue that environmental water AMR protection is inherent in measures that reduce antimicrobial use upstream, and enhance WASH and municipal and industrial wastewater treatment strategies downstream.

But wastewater treatment from a major contributor to environmental pollution – agriculture – tends to be overlooked, despite the facts that this industry uses the largest amount of antimicrobials, 70% of global freshwater, and discharges the majority of its wastewater and runoff untreated into the environment.

The combination of poor WASH coverage and inadequate domestic, industrial, and agricultural wastewater treatment puts half a billion people that rely on unimproved water from polluted environmental waters at greater risk of AMR exposure and infection.

Safeguarding environmental waters represents a major void in current AMR stewardship efforts, despite water protection being recognized in 2018 as the “first step” to reducing environmental AMR pollution.

The UN should support surveillance, regulation and enforcement of water and land protection legislation and development of AMR-related water quality standards – to prevent and mitigate environmental AMR risks, as well as equitably address human, animal, and environmental AMR threats.

Lina Taing is a Water and Health Researcher, and Rachel Kaiser is an Intern at the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), a Canadian-based think tank supported by the Government of Canada and hosted at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. The Institute marks its 25th anniversary in 2021.

 

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 23 2021 (IPS)

The planet is already 1.1°C warmer than in pre-industrial times. July 2021 was the hottest month ever recorded in 142 years. Despite the pandemic slowdown, 2020 was the hottest year so far, ending the warmest decade (2011-2020) ever.

Betrayal in Glasgow
Summing up widespread views of the recently concluded Glasgow climate summit, former Irish President Mary Robinson observed, “People will see this as a historically shameful dereliction of duty,… nowhere near enough to avoid climate disaster”.

Anis Chowdhury

A hundred civil society groups lambasted the Glasgow outcome: “Instead of a multilateral agreement that puts forward a clear path to address the climate crisis, we are left with a document that takes us further down the path of climate injustice.”

Even if countries fulfil their Paris Agreement pledges, global warming is now expected to rise by 2.7°C from pre-industrial levels by century’s end. Authoritative projections suggest that if all COP26 long-term pledges and targets are met, the planet will still warm by 2.1℃ by 2100.

The United Nations Environment Programme suggests a strong chance of global warming disastrously rising over 1.5°C in the next two decades. Earlier policy targets – to halve global carbon emissions by 2030, and reach ‘net-zero’ emissions by 2050 – are now recognized as inadequate.

The Glasgow UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) was touted as the world’s ‘last best hope’ to save the planet. Many speeches cited disturbing trends, but national leaders most responsible for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions offered little.

Thus, developing countries were betrayed yet again. Despite contributing less to accelerating global warming, they are suffering its worst consequences. They have been left to pay most bills for ‘losses and damages’, adaptation and mitigation.

Glasgow setbacks
Glasgow’s two biggest hopes were not realized: renewing targets for 2030 aligned with limiting warming to 1.5℃, and a clear strategy to mobilize the grossly inadequate US$100bn yearly – promised by rich country leaders before the Copenhagen COP in 2009 – to help finance developing countries’ efforts.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

An exasperated African legislator dismissed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use as an “empty pledge”, as “yet another example of Western disingenuousness … taking on the role of ‘white saviour’” while exploiting the African rain forest.

Meanwhile, far too many loopholes open to abuse remain, undermining efforts to reduce emissions. Further, no commitment to end fossil fuel subsidies globally – at US$11 million every minute, i.e., around US$6 trillion annually – was forthcoming.

No new oil and gas fields should be developed for the world to have a chance of getting to net-zero by 2050. Nevertheless, governments are still approving such projects, typically involving transnational corporate giants.

Various measures – e.g., ‘carbon capture and storage’ and ‘offsetting’ – have been touted as solutions. But carbon capture and storage technologies remain controversial, unproven at scale, expensive and rarely cost-competitive.

The Glasgow outcome did not include any commitment to fully phase out oil and gas. Meanwhile, the language on coal has been diluted to become virtually toothless: coal-powered plants will now be ‘phased down’, instead of ‘phased out’.

Offsets off track
Offset market advocates claim to reduce emissions or remove GHGs from the atmosphere by some to ‘off-set’ emissions by others. Thus, offsetting often means paying someone poor to cut GHG emissions or forcing them to pay someone else to do so. With more means, big business can more easily afford to ‘greenwash’.

Carbon offset markets have long overpromised, but underdelivered. As they typically exaggerate GHG emission reduction claims, offsetting is a poor substitute for actually cutting fossil fuel use. Meanwhile, disagreements over offset rules have long stalled international climate change negotiations.

Buying offsets allows GHG emitters “to keep polluting”, albeit for a fee. Highly GHG emitting activities by wealthier individuals, companies and nations can thus continue, after “transferring the burden of action and sacrifice to others” – typically to those in poorer nations – via the market.

For Tariq Fancy – who managed ‘sustainable investing’ at BlackRock, the world’s largest fund manager – the market for offsets is a “deadly distraction”, “leading the world into a dangerous mirage, … burning valuable time”.

Meanwhile, most established offset programmes – e.g., the United Nations’ REDD+ programme or the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism – have clearly failed to meaningfully reduce GHG emissions.

More than 130 countries have committed to achieve net-zero by 2050. But net-zero targeting has actually allowed the world to continue kicking the can down the road, instead of acting decisively and urgently to verifiably cut GHG emissions.

Hence, it is seen as a cynical “scam”, “nothing more than an expensive cover-up for continued toxic emissions”. Trading non-verifiable offsets – supposedly to achieve net-zero – allows continuing GHG emissions with business almost as usual.

Loss and damage?
Vulnerable and poor nations have argued for decades that rich countries owe them compensation for irreversible damage from global warming. In fact, no UN climate conference has delivered any funding for losses and damages to countries affected.

Rich countries agreed to begin a ‘dialogue’ to discuss “arrangements for the funding of activities to avert, minimize and address loss and damage”. Representing developing nations, Guinea expressed “extreme disappointment” at this ruse to delay progress on financing recovery from and rebuilding after climate disasters.

Developed nations account for two-thirds of cumulative emissions compared to only 3% from Africa. Carbon emissions by the wealthiest 1% of the world’s population were more than twice those of the bottom half between 1990 and 2015!

Low-lying small island nations – from the Marshall Islands to Fiji and Antigua – fear losing much of their land to rising sea levels. But their longstanding call to create a ‘loss and damage’ fund was rejected yet again.

South Pacific island representatives have expressed disappointment at lack of funding for losses and damages, and the watered down language on coal. For them, COP26 was a ‘monumental failure’, leaving them in existential peril.

Although historical responsibility for GHG emissions lies primarily with the wealthy countries, especially the US and the European Union, once again, they have successfully evaded serious commitments to address such longstanding problems due to global warming.

Climate injustice
For the UN Secretary-General, “[o]ver the past 25 years, the richest 10% of the global population has been responsible for more than half of all carbon emissions, and the poorest 50% were responsible for just 7% of emissions”.

The World Bank estimates that, if left unchecked, climate change will condemn 132 million more people into poverty over the next decade, while displacing more than 216 million from their homes and land by 2050.

Meanwhile, poorer countries – who have contributed least to cumulative GHG emissions – continue to suffer most. To address climate injustice, rich countries – most responsible for GHG emissions and global warming – must do much more.

Their finance for developing countries ought to be much more ambitious than US$100bn yearly. Financing terms should be far more generous than currently. Also, funding should prioritize adaptation, especially for the poorest countries most at risk.

 

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The private sector and some government agencies have demanded that staff vaccinate, especially in the tourism industry that drives many regional economies. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

By Zadie Neufville
KINGSTON, Nov 22 2021 (IPS)

When face-to-face Cabinet meetings resumed in Jamaica following more than a year of virtual meetings due to COVID-19, Ministers lined up to have their immunisation cards inspected.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness said the Government “has to lead the country towards normality”.

“The way to do it is for every Jamaican to comply with the infection, prevention and control measures that have been established, which will eventually be relaxed the higher the level of vaccination,” he said after the October 12 meeting.

In the current atmosphere, outbreaks, no-movement days that shut down commerce and vaccine hesitancy send ripples through the economy. So, while Jamaica has no national vaccine mandate, private sector companies and some government agencies are already demanding that staff vaccinate.

In addition to several vaccination drives that target employees, Jamaica Private Sector Organisation joined the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce and the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association to put their support solidly behind a campaign for a national mandate.

The groups say that with the low vaccination rates almost two years into the pandemic, Jamaica is being left behind in achieving population immunity, putting the country’s recovery at risk. The groups contend that the social and economic impact will be devastating, and “the ripple effects will continue for years to come”. But even with growing support for a mandate, opposition leader Mark Golding opposes one. Only about 17 percent of the Jamaican population is vaccinated.

Across the region, governments have already implemented mandates. In Guyana, nationals who want to enter any public buildings, including banks, restaurants, supermarkets and schools, must show proof of vaccination. In the twin-island state of Antigua Barbuda, opposition legislators accused House Speaker Sir Gerald Watt of acting beyond his powers after he prevented them from participating in the sitting of the Senate because they did not show proof of vaccination.

With each outbreak, concern for the tourism industry that drives many regional economies grows. Many countries now have vaccination policies for incoming adult travellers. These include Anguilla, Grenada, St. Barts, St. Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, and the Cayman Islands.

And even as governments ponder mandates, they are also bracing for civil unrest and legal challenges from workers. In a recent opinion, the Jamaican Bar Association said nothing was preventing the Government or employers from implementing mandates. The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States outlined its position in a 16-page document titled: “The Legal Dimensions of Mandatory/Compulsory Requirements for COVID-19 Vaccinations, August 2021”.

According to the report, that countries could legally pursue mandatory vaccination laws.
“Having demonstrated … that mandatory vaccination is constitutionally appropriate given the leeway granted in favour of public health imperatives, it is submitted that employers could justify a requirement in a pandemic context, at minimum where the workplace is a high-risk environment, such as health-care, or essential services, or for workers more at risk at the workplace, such as frontline workers interacting with the public,” the document said.

But while public health legislation specifically addresses restrictions in times of pandemic, those who oppose mandates argue that they are a breach of human rights.

President of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions, Helene Davis-Whyte, is expecting a national mandate if efforts to boost vaccination numbers fail. She argued for a comprehensive public awareness programme with consultations before such a step is taken and cautioned that a “draconian approach” could discourage some people.

“We are not necessarily opposed, but what we are saying is that you have to do more work because we don’t think that enough work has been done,” she told journalists recently.

And so, armed with their individual legal opinions, governments have been implementing the rules they say will protect their countries. By October 2021, at least seven governments across the region had instituted COVID-19 mandates for government workers.

In August, in Guyana, police were called to evict staff members in the education ministry’s head office who had entered the building without proof of vaccination. Earlier that month, there were mass protests in St. Vincent and Barbados. And in July, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves was hit on the head and injured by an angry protestor during anti-mandate demonstrations in St Vincent.

Barbados, like Jamaica, has not officially backed a vaccine mandate, but Holness acknowledges he may have to make the decision soon. But even with no national mandate in Jamaica increasingly, civil servants find they must be vaccinated to work.

The Ministry of Tourism has raced ahead to vaccinate the 170,000 people who work in the sector. Already workers who come in contact with cruise ship visitors must be fully inoculated.

And as the country eyes a return to full-time school, it’s the turn of teachers and school staff. Medical workers have already been issued a mandate. In the private sector, more than 80 per cent of staff are vaccinated.

In the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector, where several companies became hotspots during the height of the first wave, vaccination is compulsory. In Jamaica, COVID-19 restrictions and 14-days of lockdown cost the sector US$42 million (J$5.88 billion) in revenue.

But it is in the region’s tourism industry that mandates have become the norm. Hoteliers and other service providers seek to prevent lawsuits and shutdowns by demanding that staff be fully vaccinated. In the Bahamas, workers and visitors must be fully vaccinated. Unvaccinated visitors face a 14-day quarantine. Jamaica is aiming for a 100 per cent vaccinated workforce.

A growing number of countries have instituted vaccination policies for incoming adult travellers. These include Anguilla, Grenada, St. Barts, St. Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, and the Cayman Islands.

Meanwhile, the private sector’s desire for a return to normalcy and increased economic activity could push many toward a vaccine faster than any government mandate could.

 

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