Africa

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WTO is hoping for an end to fishing subsidy negotiations which have been ongoing for more than 20 years. Fishmonger in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, displays his catch for sale. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
Bulawayo, ZIMBABWE , Nov 11 2021 (IPS)

With subsidies of global fisheries back on the World Trade Organisation’s agenda, experts are calling for African governments to upscale the protection of the sector long plagued by activities that continue to threaten the continent’s blue economy.

The chair of the negotiations, Ambassador Santiago Wills of Colombia, earlier in November 2021 presented a revised draft text on fisheries subsidies. This will be used for discussions aimed at resolving remaining differences ahead of the 12th Ministerial Conference from November 20 to December 3.

The Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala called the subsidies “harmful” when the ministers met on July 15.
She said she was cautiously optimistic that there could be an agreement on how to cap subsidies that contribute to overfishing.

Now she is more emphatic and has been engaging political leaders at the highest level to get their support for a successful conclusion to the highest levels, to get their support for a successful conclusion to the 21-year-long negotiations.

“The eyes of the world are really on us,” she said. “Time is short and I believe that this text reflects a very important step toward a final outcome. I really see a significant rebalancing of the provisions, including those pertaining to special and differential treatment, while, at the same time, maintaining the level of ambition.”

Meanwhile, independent researchers say harmful practices ranging from overfishing and too much reliance on fisheries for livelihoods have to be addressed by African governments.

Researchers at the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies say unfair subsidies go towards inputs such as fuel and larger fishing vessels which often go beyond regulated permits while also pushing out smaller players.

Amid those challenges, African countries still have to compete in global fish markets with rich countries which heavily subsidise the sector. This creates sustainable development gaps that will slow the realisation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SGD) 14, which seeks the sustainable use of marine resources.

Guided by the SGDs, the WTO gave the trade ministers ahead of the July 15 meeting the “task of securing an agreement on disciplines to eliminate subsidies for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and to prohibit certain forms of fisheries subsidies and contribute to overcapacity and overfishing,”

Developing and least developed countries will take centre stage of these negotiations to ensure they get a fair deal, with the meeting at the end of November, according to remarks by Okonjo-Iweala.

According to FAO, Africa is home to thriving artisanal fishing communities, employing more than 12 million people, with global demand projected to increase 30 percent by 2030.

There are concerns that low-income coastal fishing communities face the harshest challenges of depleting stocks as they compete with more sophisticated illegal fishing syndicates.

Experts warn that African countries need to develop strategies that will ensure less reliance on fisheries, ensuring the sector’s long-term sustainability.

Rashid Sumaila of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the University of British Columbia, Canada, says African governments have to do more to see fewer nets cast in the continental waters.

“Governments must remove the incentive to overfish,” Sumaila told IPS.

“They must also improve national fisheries management and push for regional cooperative management of the sector and make illegal fishing unprofitable,” he said.

How African governments achieve that on a continent plagued by low incomes and a thriving informal sector could prove difficult, researchers from the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies contend.

By WTO estimates, global fisheries subsidies stand at around USD35 billion per year.

Citing data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation(FAO), the WTO says fish stocks are at risk of collapsing in many parts of the world due to overexploitation. It estimates that 34 percent of global stocks are overfished, “meaning they are being exploited at a pace where the fish population cannot replenish itself.”

While the WTO has cited what it calls “lack of political impetus” in the past two decades to resolve the contentious fisheries subsidies and protect smaller global players, Alice Tipping, a researcher at the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Sustainable Trade and Fisheries, says despite the challenges of the past 20 years, collective action among both high- and low-income countries is the only way forward.

“The WTO negotiations are both technically and legally challenging because they require collective action from governments, but there is a clear benefit in having rules applied at the multilateral level so that everyone has to contribute to the solution,” Tipping told IPS.

Experts say the two-decade deadlock highlights the weak negotiating clout of African and other low-income countries, with some rich countries insisting on an exemption from the harmful subsidies ban while simultaneously allowing their fishing fleets to operate illegally on African shores.

As DG Okonjo-Iweala put it, “the fisheries subsidies negotiations are a test both of the WTO’s credibility as a multinational negotiating forum.”

“If we wait another 20 years, there may be no marine fisheries left to subsidise – or artisanal fishing communities to support,” Okonjo-Iweala warned.

The African continent finds itself in a bind as the African Union’s Agenda 2063 describes the fisheries as “Africa’s Future,” recognising the sector’s key role as a “catalyst for socio-economic transformation.”

This, however, highlights the continent’s reliance on fisheries when researchers are pushing for the decongestion and up-scaled regulation of artisanal fishers.

“A lot of artisanal fisheries is unreported and unregulated mainly because authorities do not affect enough means to document and manage those fisheries,” said Beatrice Gomez, Coordinator of the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Agreements (CFFA).

The CFFA is a platform of European and African groups raising awareness on the impact of EU-Africa agreements on African artisanal fishing communities.

“It would be better to have the activities of artisanal fishers documented properly to show their real importance for jobs and food security to ensure sustainability and long-term future,” Gomez told IPS by email.

“Ideally, for this work, artisanal fisheries have to be co-managed in collaboration with fishing communities, but it takes money, time and human resources which (African) governments do not have or do not want to devote to this.”

The World Bank says fisheries contribute USD24 billion to the African economy, making it a huge attraction for the poor.

 

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The biofuel from this mini biogas power plant in the municipality of Entre Rios do Oeste, in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná, is supplied by local pig farmers, who earn extra income while the municipality saves on energy costs for its facilities and public lighting. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 11 2021 (IPS)

The number of victims of serious burns, some fatal, has increased in Brazil. Without money to buy cooking gas, the price of which rose 30 percent this year, many poor families resort to ethanol and people are injured in household accidents.

A larger number of poor Brazilians have returned to using firewood, less explosive but also a cause of accidents and of health-damaging household pollution. It is cheaper in the countryside, while in the cities people burn boards and old furniture, not always as widely available as alcohol or ethanol, which can be purchased at any gas station.

In fact, biofuels, such as wood, ethanol, biodiesel and biogas, have been competing with fossil fuels since the industrial use of coal began in England in the 18th century. Economic and environmental factors influence private and public decision-making with regard to their production and use.

A commitment made by 103 countries at the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) on Climate Change, which is taking place in the Scottish city of Glasgow during the first 12 days of November, to reduce methane emissions from 2020 levels 30 percent by 2030, may now give biofuels a new boost.

Replacing oil, gas and coal with other sources will help contribute to that goal.

“In Brazil, the demand for ethanol was imposed for economic reasons: high oil prices; and energy reasons: the risk of shortages,” said Regis Leal, an aeronautical engineer and specialist in Technological Development at the state-owned National Laboratory of Biorenewables.

Ethanol in the seventies

Ethanol is a fuel produced from sugarcane, corn or any vegetable with a high sucrose content, which is mainly used in motor vehicles. Brazil is the world’s second largest producer of ethanol, after the United States.

The National Alcohol Programme (Proalcohol) was created in Brazil in 1975, two years after the first big oil crisis that more than tripled the price of a barrel of oil. Brazil, which at the time imported more than 80 percent of the crude oil it consumed, lost the momentum of an economy that had grown by more than 10 percent per year between 1968 and 1973.

With alcohol or ethanol replacing gasoline or mixed with it, the aim was to reduce dependence on imported oil, while intensifying the search for hydrocarbon deposits for self-sufficiency, which Brazil only achieved three decades later.

This sugar mill and ethanol distillery are in the southern Brazilian state of São Paulo, much of whose territory has been turned into one large sugarcane field. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

In the United States, the use of ethanol began to be fomented in the 1980s, but for environmental reasons, Leal told IPS in an interview by telephone from Campinas, a city in the interior of the state of São Paulo, near the country’s largest sugar and ethanol-producing area.

In cities located at high altitudes, such as Denver, the capital of the western U.S. state of Colorado, at 1,600 metres above sea level, lower oxygen levels lead to incomplete combustion of petroleum derivatives and, consequently, greater carbon monoxide contamination and health damage, he explained.

Mixing in MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether), a combination of chemicals, added oxygen, but because it was a highly toxic product it was soon replaced by ethanol, made from corn in the case of the U.S.

In both Brazil and the United States, biofuel production also bolstered or stabilised the price of sugar and corn by absorbing surplus production.

This is an aspect that is misunderstood by those who condemn biofuel production for apparently reducing food production. This is a false dilemma, because it must be analysed on a case-by-case basis, said Suani Coelho, coordinator of the Bioenergy Research Group (GBio) of the Energy and Environment Institute at the University of São Paulo.

“In Tanzania, a FAO (U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation) study evaluated the production of ethanol from manioc. The hypothesis seemed doubtful, also because the energy balance of cassava is not so good. But in Tanzania there is a surplus of the crop that cannot be exported. So it is worth taking advantage of it to make ethanol,” said Coelho, a chemical engineer with a doctorate in energy.

In Brazil, where ethanol is made almost exclusively from the more locally productive sugarcane, corn was incorporated in the industry in 2017, with a distillery in Lucas do Rio Verde, in the state of Mato Grosso, the country’s largest producer of soybeans, corn and cotton.

Lucas do Rio Verde is in the state of Mato Grosso, the region of Brazil with the highest soybean and corn production, which is crowded with agribusiness warehouses and silos. The first corn ethanol distillery was set up there to take advantage of the surplus corn production. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

“Corn is produced there as a second crop, after soybeans, in the same area, in a volume that is not viable for export. So it makes sense to use it for ethanol,” she told IPS by telephone from São Paulo.

Ethanol led to a great improvement in the urban environment.

In Brazil it has already replaced 46 percent of gasoline, according to the sugarcane industry association (Unica), with an annual production of 35 billion litres. It is used as fuel alone in motor vehicles or as a 27 percent blend in gasoline.

The United States produces 50 to 70 percent more than Brazil, depending on the year. Together, they account for about 84 percent of world production, a level of concentration that hinders free international trade in ethanol.

Biofuels or electrification

Coelho and Leal do not agree with the claim that the electrification of transportation tends to hinder the expansion of biofuels to other countries and major producers.

Developing countries do not have the capacity to make large investments to build new infrastructure, such as electric recharging points for vehicles. Moreover, “Brazil is going through a crisis, it is increasing fossil fuel thermoelectric generation, making the energy mix dirtier, and it has no other way to increase the supply of electricity,” argued Coelho.

Leal said the demand for ethanol can grow a great deal. “Any increase in its blend in the United States, which accounts for half of the world’s gasoline consumption, will have a huge impact,” he said.

The ethanol expert also questions the environmental and climatic advantages of electric vehicles, taking into consideration the entire production cycle, transportation, batteries, employment and other aspects.

View of a vast oil palm plantation in Tailandia, a municipality in the state of Pará, in Brazil’s eastern Amazon rainforest. The intent to turn palm oil into biodiesel did not work out, because the oil serves a more attractive market in the food and chemical industries. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Biodiesel was not as successful as ethanol, but it also improved the urban environment and has a future, with some additional effort.

It is produced from vegetable or animal oils, even used, and other fatty materials.

Its main problem is that it is more expensive and therefore cannot compete with diesel fuel in order to replace it, Leal pointed out. Currently the diesel blend has been reduced from 12 to 10 percent, so as not to further drive up the cost of diesel fuel, the price of which is rising worldwide.

Another biofuel, which has been around for a long time but is now expanding, is biogas.

It is not only clean, but actually helps to reduce pollution, since it is the gas generated from garbage, wastewater, agricultural waste and animal excrement, which is no longer released into the air, thus reducing greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Its use is incipient in Brazil, but it has the potential to replace 70 percent of the diesel fuel consumed in the country, at a lower cost, according to the Brazilian Biogas Association. And big cities and the country’s enormous agricultural sector offer plenty of raw materials.

By means of a simple refining process, biogas is converted into biomethane, equivalent to natural gas and, therefore, a fuel that can even be used to run heavy vehicles. If used for electricity generation, it could meet 36 percent of national demand, the association of companies in the sector estimates.

Small biodigesters produce biogas that could prevent the use of firewood and ethanol, and the resultant accidents and pollution, among poor families, especially in the countryside, noted Coelho.

“Appropriate public policies and low-interest loans for investments” could boost biogas and its environmental benefits, at a time when international financial institutions are cutting financing for coal-fired and other fossil fuel power plants, Leal said.

The two experts stressed that all these biofuels play an important role in making green hydrogen, produced from renewable energy sources, viable and recognised as central to the world’s energy future.

Biofuels have served humanity since its earliest past, not always in a sustainable way. The first was firewood, on which 2.8 billion people in the world still depend, according to an October 2020 World Bank report. But it is environmentally unsound, and leads to deforestation and household pollution.

The oils and resins that illuminated cities and homes in centuries past, before the advent of electricity, were also destructive. Oils extracted from whale blubber and from the eggs of Amazonian turtles are examples, almost driving certain species to extinction.

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The main drivers of antimicrobial resistance include the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials; lack of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene for both humans and animals; poor infection and disease prevention and control in health-care facilities and farms; poor access to quality, affordable medicines, vaccines and diagnostics; lack of awareness and knowledge; and lack of enforcement of legislation. Credit: Bigstock.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 11 2021 (IPS)

The following information is based on investigations and studies carried out by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Antimicrobials – including antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and antiparasitics – are medicines used to prevent and treat infections in humans, animals and plants.

 

What is antimicrobial resistance?

Antimicrobial Resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death

Antimicrobial Resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.

As a result of drug resistance, antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines become ineffective and infections become increasingly difficult or impossible to treat.

 

Why is it a global concern?

The emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens that have acquired new resistance mechanisms, leading to antimicrobial resistance, continues to threaten our ability to treat common infections.

Especially alarming is the rapid global spread of multi- and pan-resistant bacteria (also known as “superbugs”) that cause infections that are not treatable with existing antimicrobial medicines such as antibiotics.

Furthermore, a lack of access to quality antimicrobials remains a major issue. Antibiotic shortages are affecting countries of all levels of development and especially in health-care systems.

 

Change or loose

In other words, new antibacterials are urgently needed – for example, to treat carbapenem-resistant gram-negative bacterial infections as identified in the WHO priority pathogen list.

However, if people do not change the way antibiotics are used now, new antibiotics will suffer the same fate as the current ones and become ineffective.

Without effective tools for the prevention and adequate treatment of drug-resistant infections and improved access to existing and new quality-assured antimicrobials, the number of people for whom treatment is failing or who die of infections will increase.

Medical procedures, such as surgery, including caesarean sections or hip replacements, cancer chemotherapy, and organ transplantation, will become more risky.

 

What accelerates the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance?

AMR occurs naturally over time, usually through genetic changes. Antimicrobial resistant organisms are found in people, animals, food, plants and the environment (in water, soil and air).

They can spread from person to person or between people and animals, including from food of animal origin.

The main drivers of antimicrobial resistance include the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials; lack of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene for both humans and animals; poor infection and disease prevention and control in health-care facilities and farms; poor access to quality, affordable medicines, vaccines and diagnostics; lack of awareness and knowledge; and lack of enforcement of legislation.

 

Present situation

For common bacterial infections, including urinary tract infections, sepsis, sexually transmitted infections, and some forms of diarrhoea, high rates of resistance against antibiotics frequently used to treat these infections have been observed world-wide, indicating that we are running out of effective antibiotics.

 

Drug resistance in malaria parasites

Another example is the case of the emergence of drug-resistant parasites which possess one of the greatest threats to malaria control and results in increased malaria morbidity and mortality.

 

Drug resistance in fungi

The prevalence of drug-resistant fungal infections is exasperating the already difficult treatment situation. Many fungal infections have existing treatability issues such as toxicity especially for patients with other underlying infections (e.g. HIV).

This is leading to more difficult to treat fungal infections, treatment failures, longer hospital stays and much more expensive treatment options.

 

A week to raise awareness

This year’s World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) marked 18 to 24 November was previously called the World Antibiotic Awareness Week.

But from 2020, it would be called the World Antimicrobial Awareness Week to include all antimicrobials including antibiotics, antifungals, antiparasitics and antivirals.

The Week is a global campaign aiming at raising awareness of antimicrobial resistance worldwide and encouraging best practices among the general public, health workers and policy makers to slow the development and spread of drug-resistant infections.

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Extreme weather like widespread drought is causing economic losses amongst farmers in Africa. Credit: UN Photo/Albert González Farran

By Nibal Zgheib
LONDON, Nov 11 2021 (IPS)

Targeted action in agriculture could have a massive impact on climate change, according to a joint brief by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Investment Centre of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), published at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow scheduled to end November 12.

The mitigation potential of crop and livestock activities, including soil carbon sequestration and better land management, is estimated at 3 to 7 percent of total anthropogenic emissions by 2030.

The potential economic value of mitigating these emissions could amount between US$ 60 billion and US$ 360 billion, the two institutions say.

“Agriculture must become the focus of a global coalition for carbon neutrality and we need to support both mitigation and adaptation. We must enable smallholder farmers to adapt and to benefit economically through the provision of environmental services,” said Mohamed Manssouri, Director of the FAO Investment Centre.

“Now is the time to grasp this vital opportunity to reduce emissions and increase carbon sequestration, while restoring biodiversity, supporting health and nutrition and generating new business opportunities through food and land-use systems.”

The brief highlights the huge potential for engaging food and land-use systems in the fight against climate change. It also shows how the agriculture sector is uniquely placed to be part of the carbon-neutral solution by reducing emissions, while maximizing its potential to act as a carbon sink by absorbing more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases. A full report will be published in early 2022.

The agriculture sector generates a high amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with agri-food systems causing an estimated 21 to 37 percent of total global emissions. But agriculture is also a victim of emissions.

Farmers are often among the first witnesses to climate change. Rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and supply-chain disruptions are already impacting food production, undermining global efforts to end hunger.

The EBRD/FAO brief shows how sustainable, targeted investments and interventions will make agriculture part of the climate solution. Reaching carbon neutrality for agri-food systems essentially means lowering GHG emissions throughout the entire value chain, improving farming practices, using agricultural lands for carbon sequestration, promoting sustainable agriculture and avoiding land clearance.

The brief sets out key action areas for policymakers and investors, including the development and enhancement of sound governance mechanisms and the mainstreaming of carbon neutrality in corporate strategies.

Achieving the right policy mix and agreeing on carbon accounting methods can unlock major investments in greening across agri-food systems.

“The investment universe is evolving quickly, as banks align their lending with the net zero objective and asset managers look for opportunities to decarbonise their portfolios while managing risks associated with climate change,” said Natalya Zhukova, EBRD Director, Head of Agribusiness.

One of the main actors in addressing climate change is the private sector. Country policies, strategies and roadmaps are all important in signalling regulatory changes and creating incentives to drive the accurate valuation and pricing of carbon.

While the private sector will be needed to mobilise billions, equally, it stands to gain by reducing costs, mitigating risks, protecting brand values, ensuring long-term supply-chain viability and gaining competitive advantage.

Nibal Zgheib is Communication Adviser, EBRD and former Programme Assistant, World Food Programme

 

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The climate summit COP26 was accompanied by protests by social movements, with demonstrators arriving in Glasgow from all over the world and expressing themselves in their own language or dressing up as dinosaurs to symbolize their criticism. But government delegates did not listen to their demands for ambitious and fair action to contain the global warming crisis. CREDIT: Laura Quiñones/UN

By Emilio Godoy
GLASGOW, Nov 11 2021 (IPS)

One element that runs through all social movement climate summits is their rejection of the official meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the low ambition of its outcomes – and the treaty’s 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) was no exception.

The leaders of the UNFCCC “gladly welcome those who caused the crisis. COP26 has done nothing but pretend and greenwash,” Mitzi Jonelle Tan, a member of the non-governmental organization Youth Advocates for Climate Action from the Philippines, told IPS during a rally at the Glasgow Screening Room, a few blocks from the venue where the official meeting is being held until Friday, Nov. 12.

The COP26 Coalition, the alternative summit to the climate conference, has been a motley crew of organizations and movements whose common demand was a real effort to fight the climate crisis through concrete and fair measures and whose 200 events in this Scottish city included workshops, forums, artistic presentations and protests, which ended on Wednesday, Nov. 10.

Among the demands with which the alternative meeting in Glasgow lobbied the 196 Parties to the UNFCCC were the abandonment of fossil fuels, the rejection of cosmetic solutions to the climate emergency, the demand for a just transition to a lower carbon economy and the call for reparations and redistribution of funds to indigenous communities and the global South.

The movement also called for a gender perspective in policies, climate justice – that those primarily responsible (developed nations) take responsibility and pay for their role -, respect for the rights of indigenous peoples, and a halt to air pollution.

Due to logistical issues and the limitations imposed by the covid-19 pandemic, which postponed the official summit for a year, the parallel sessions of the social movements were held in this Scottish city in a hybrid format, combining face-to-face and virtual participation. Exhibitors and online participants struggled with the quality of their internet connections.

One of the most unanimous and loudest criticisms from non-governmental social and environmental organizations focused on the exclusion of civil society groups from Latin America, Africa and Asia, due to the UK host government’s decision to modify the admission criteria according to the level of contagion in each country and the extent of vaccination.

In addition, they complained about the strict hurdles imposed by the COP26 presidency, held by the United Kingdom, supported by Italy, to the presence of NGO observers at the official negotiating tables, which undermined the transparency of the Glasgow process, whose agreements are to be embodied in a final declaration, which is weakening every day and whose final text will be released on Nov. 12 or 13, if the negotiations stretch out.

The alternative movement also had a formal but unofficial space in the so-called COP26 Green Zone, located in the same area as the official negotiations, in the center of Glasgow.

In the forums parallel to COP26 in Glasgow, indigenous women were major protagonists with their demands for respect for their rights and effective participation in the negotiations. In the picture, indigenous women delegates take part in a forum on women of the forest at the peoples’ summit. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

In-depth solutions

One of their key proposals was for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty aimed at moving towards the end of the era of coal, gas and oil, the consumption of which is primarily responsible for the growing planetary climate emergency.

The initiative, which imitates the name of the treaty against nuclear weapons, demands an immediate end to the expansion of fossil fuel production, a fair phase-out and a just energy transition.

Countries and corporations “continue to invest capital in the extraction of fossil fuels. We need to see efforts to phase them out, to stop the financing, subsidies and exploitation of fossil fuels,” Tzeporah Berman, the Canadian chair of the anti-fossil fuel initiative, told IPS.

The idea for the treaty emerged in 2015 from a call by leaders and NGOs from Pacific island states – whose very existence is threatened by the climate crisis – and it was formally launched in 2020.

So far it has received the support of some 750 organizations, 12 cities, more than 2,500 scientists, academics, parliamentarians from around the world, and religious leaders, indigenous movements and more than 100 Nobel Prize winners.

Climate policies are the focus of COP26 which has addressed carbon market rules, at least 100 billion dollars a year in climate finance, gaps between emission reduction targets and necessary reductions, strategies for carbon neutrality by 2050, adaptation plans, and the working platform on local communities and indigenous peoples.

The International Rights of Nature Tribunal tried the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), parallel to COP26. In the case, Philippine activist Mitzi Jonelle Tan testified to the lack of effective action against the climate emergency. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Indigenous people and rights of nature tribunal in the spotlight

Indigenous people, especially from the Amazon jungle, have been key participants at the latest edition of the alternative summit, with at least 40 activists present in Glasgow to complain about harassment by the government of far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and demand more protection for the rainforest, whose destruction can have dramatic effects on the environmental health of the planet.

“Our main demand is demarcation of our territories,” because this guarantees a number of rights, Cristiane Pankararu, a member of the Pankararu people and leader of Brazil’s non-governmental National Association of Indigenous Women Warriors (ANMIGA), told IPS.

Her organization belongs to the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, whose demands are demarcation, climate solutions based on indigenous peoples’ knowledge and practices, and investment in forest protection.

One of the most symbolic activities of the counter-summit was the Fifth International Rights of Nature Tribunal, which tried the cases of “False solutions to the climate change crisis” and “The Amazon, a threatened living entity”.

In the first verdict, the tribunal, which sat for the first time in 2014 and was composed this time of seven judges from six countries, found the UNFCCC at fault for failing to attack the roots of the climate emergency.

In the second ruling, the jury, composed of nine experts from seven countries, accused developed countries and China, as well as agricultural, mining and food corporations, of destroying the Amazon, the planet’s main rainforest ecosystem, which is threatened by these extractive activities.

Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, listed three serious problems: the role of large corporations, the protection of corporate intellectual property, and the power of corporations to sue states that want to protect the environment, in international arbitration tribunals.

“It is a profound symptom of how the global economy protects the interests of large corporations, especially extractive ones, and that has not been addressed at the COP,” he told IPS.

A dialogue of the deaf has prevailed between the UNFCCC and civil society, as the official summit has ignored the demands of social movements.

“They have not listened to us. We are here to demand action. We don’t need another COP to solve the climate crisis, we need change,” Tan complained.

Despite the obstacles, “we will not stop participating actively. The women’s movement is unifying. It is a slow process, because people are not used to being led by women,” Pankararu said.

IPS produced this article with the support of Iniciativa Climática of Mexico and the European Climate Foundation.

Undocumented people in Italy struggling for money during the Covid pandemic are not entitled to aid.

The planemaker has accepted responsibility, in return families of the victims will not seek punitive damages.

By External Source
Nov 10 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland has appealed to world leaders attending the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 to close the gap in ongoing negotiations this week in Glasgow, with millions of lives and livelihoods on the line in climate-vulnerable countries.

Secretary-General Scotland delivered her statement today to the resumed high-level segment of the conference, hours after a draft outcome document was released by the United Kingdom, as chair of the summit.

She said: “If we lose vulnerable nations who have battled with courage and resilience, we lose the fight against climate change.”

“If the gaps on emissions are not closed, if improved access to climate finance does not materialise, we risk the most vulnerable nations amongst us being subsumed by sea level rises and being engulfed by debt, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

“Do not grow weary and lose heart. Dig deeper, come together, and close the gap in these negotiations.”

More than 2.5 billion people live in the Commonwealth’s 54 member countries, 60 percent of whom are under age 30. That includes 32 small states and 14 of the least developed countries of the world which are facing the brunt of the climate change impacts.

The Secretary-General added: “Millions are already losing lives and livelihoods from the impacts of climate change, but they are fighting. We must too.

“They know that, without action, the force and frequency of violent weather, fire, shortages of food, water and the threat of rising seas will continue to intensify until it overwhelms them. They require inclusive, just and equitable actions.”

Climate-related disasters in the Commonwealth doubled in number from the period 1980-1990 (431) to the period 2010-2020 (815), with economic damages increasing from US$39 billion to $189 billion over the same time frames.

In earlier discussions at COP26, the Secretary-General reiterated the call for developed countries to deliver the promised US$100 billion in annual climate finance to support developing nations, both for adaptation as well as mitigation purposes.

She added that funds also need to be accessible to the smallest and most vulnerable countries, who currently have difficulties tapping into finance due to lack of capacity and data.

She highlighted key Commonwealth initiatives responding to the climate crisis, including the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, the Commonwealth Blue Charter, the Call for Action on Living Lands and the Disaster Risk Finance Portal.

Girls at Malual Agai School in South Sudan are having a lesson about menstrual hygiene. The school is one of the beneficiaries from Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) funded by Education Cannot Wait (ECW). The fund aims to keep girls at school by supporting them and providing them with dignity kits. Credit: ECW

By Charlton Doki
Juba, South Sudan, Nov 10 2021 (IPS)

Ayom Wol sits under a tree in South Sudan in the scorching midday sun. He is a newly-trained teacher, preparing for tomorrow’s lessons. His school principal says he has to prepare while at school because there is no electricity at home.

The 29-year-old Wol teaches English and Science in Mitor Primary School in Gogrial West County of Warrap state. The school is among hundreds benefiting from a Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) funded by Education Cannot Wait (ECW).

Wol is among the teachers who have received teacher training with ECW funding, and the training has greatly improved his skills and capacity to prepare lesson plans and teaching materials.

Education Cannot Wait is the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. In January 2020, it launched the MYRP in collaboration with the South Sudan government and local and international aid and development agencies. The MYRP programme focuses on building resilience within education in South Sudan.

ECW director Yasmine Sherif. Credit: ECW

“With one of the lowest school enrolment rates in the world, children and adolescents in South Sudan continue to bear the heavy burden of the years of conflict that ravaged their country. Girls are disproportionally affected. They represent three-quarters of the out of school children in primary education, and it is even worse at the secondary level,” says Yasmine Sherif, the Director of Education Cannot Wait.

“Together with our partners in the government, communities, civil society and the UN, Education Cannot Wait’s investment in safe, inclusive quality education for the most marginalised children and adolescents in the country can finally turn the tide for the next generation of South Sudanese to thrive and become positive changemakers for their young nation.

The MYRP provides an opportunity for children to access education in six of South Sudan’s ten states: Jonglei, Upper Nile, Unity, Eastern Equatoria, Lakes and Warrap. ECW allocated US$30 million as seed funding to support the three-year MYRP, which targets children in 355 schools and learning centres across the six states. These learning centres include 69 early childhood development centres, 213 primary schools, 21 secondary schools and 52 alternative education system centres, both for ‘Accelerated Education Programmes’ and ‘Pastoralist Education Programmes’.

Out of 117,256 beneficiaries reached by the MYRP during the first year of implementation, 46,010 are girls, and 1,647 are children with disabilities.

A Back-to-School campaign in Riwoto primary school, Kapoeta North County. The school is supported by ECW is working to ensure that all children, including those with disabilities, are able to attend school. Credit: ECW

Even though he has taught for nine years, Wol says, he became a better teacher after attending training supported through the MYRP.

“I now know how to prepare a lesson plan and a scheme of work for any subject,” Wol says. “I have also learned from the training how to support children who are living with disabilities.”

Joseph Mogga, the Education Programme Manager for Christian Mission for Development in South Sudan’s Jonglei state, says the MYRP helps train teachers on how to handle inclusion, especially of children with disabilities, amongst other issues.

“We are going to train teachers on how they can teach in an inclusive setting. Here in South Sudan, vulnerability is more pronounced when the child with a disability is a girl,” he says, adding that this project supports an inclusive and safe learning environment for all girls and boys, including those with disabilities.

The Director-General for Gender Equity and Inclusive Education in the Ministry of General Education and Instruction, Esther Akumu Achire, says that some cultures and traditions in South Sudan deprive girls of their right to education, promoting harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage.

“This is very common among our people, and these are among the cultural barriers we are trying to change.”

Malual Agurpiny Primary School flooded. ECW is at the forefront of ensuring that children benefit from quality education even in crises. Credit: ECW

Long distances to schools and climate-change-induced floods also disrupt education.

“The long distances to get to school scares some parents from sending their children to school because they feel that the schools are too far, and there is conflict and insecurity. Sometimes, you hear about rape which scares the parents for their children.”

Achire says about 2.8 million children remain out of school. She is grateful for the MYRP initiative supporting the education sector in South Sudan.

“The MYRP is doing a good job. We have realised that the girls and the children with disabilities are taken care of. We are now trying to ensure that the girls, even young mothers, are now back to school and that they are learning well.”

Adolescent girls are given dignity kits, and children with disabilities are provided for. “Children with disabilities are given some assistive devices which help them continue learning,” Achire says. “In fact, with awareness-raising on children with disabilities and the importance of girls coming to school, the enrolment is going up.”
A critical aspect of the programme is the teacher training component.

“We could have the girls in schools, but if the teachers are not there or if they do not know how to teach, it becomes a problem. But with the MYRP, teacher training is being conducted,” she says, adding that the training also focuses on reducing gender-based violence.

ECW staff are hard at work despite the flooding to ensure the schools are functional. Credit: ECW

Ayuen Awien, a primary seven pupil at Keen Primary School in Gogrial West County, Warrap state, attests to the benefits of being involved in the ECW programme.

Early and forced marriages are common in her community, so she is considered vulnerable and eligible for support. Awien says the school environment offers her safety.

“I feel secure here because our teachers are against early and forced marriages,” says Awien. “I would probably have been forced to get married if I was not in school.”

Awien says she has received books, dignity kits, playing and learning materials and is quite comfortable in school. In the future, Awien says, she wants to be a doctor.

“I encourage other girls who are at home to enrol and stay in school. If you study, you will have a better life in future, and you will be able to help your parents as well,” she says.

The MYRP programme has distributed 1.2 million textbooks to all targeted counties to facilitate learning for all children targeted by the programme.

According to Mogga, the MYRP is probably the only programme highlighting the plight of children with disabilities.

“In Duk County, wheelchairs, crutches, hearing aids are distributed. Eyeglasses for children who need them so that they can attend classes and be able to see what’s written on the blackboard easily were also donated,” says Mogga.

The MYRP implementing partners are now looking at school infrastructure to assess whether the facilities are accessible to physically challenged learners.

Schools are often in inaccessible areas, but nevertheless, ECW staff ensure that the children get the provisions they need. Credit: ECW

Mogga explains that disruptions to children’s education include conflict, floods, loss of family members and traditional practices such as early marriage. Boys are also expected to look after the cattle when they are supposed to be at school.

“For boys and girls who have been out of school, there was no glimpse of hope,” Mogga says, adding that the ECW-supported programme is a “timely intervention in favour of promoting access to education for out-of-school children.”

To help ensure that girls enrol and stay in school, the MYRP addresses the challenges that force girls and young mothers to drop out.

Programme implementers say the support protects the girls from sexual abuse and exploitation, including sexual exploitation – trading sex to earn money to pay for school fees and meet other basic needs.

“This support also protects girls from early marriages. If a girl is supported with this scholarship, they are happy, and it prevents the risk of early marriage because once they are out of school, the next option is getting married. But by keeping them in school with a scholarship and money offered to them and providing them with basic items like school uniform it prevents them from getting married early,” says Alberto Maker, an education project manager at UNKEA, one of the agencies implementing the MYRP in Gogrial County of South Sudan’s Warrap state.

Implementers of the MYRP stress that several challenges hamper boys’ and girls’ access to safe, inclusive quality education – including climate-impact disasters like floods.

Jacob Masanso, Education Consortium Manager of the MYRP, says recent unprecedented flooding destroyed classrooms in 340 schools across the country, thus exacerbating the shortage of school infrastructure and resulting in health risks.

“Flooding also makes access to target schools and communities hard. For example, some roads are impassable, causing delays in the implementation of certain interventions,” added Masanso.

ECW assisted with COVID-19 preventative equipment so schools could reopen. Credit: ECW

The MYRP also supported school reopening in the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure the safety of children and teachers.

“We provided handwashing facilities and COVID-19 preventive materials when schools reopened officially on 3 May 2021. The MYRP implementing partners worked closely with the Ministry of General Education and Instruction and other stakeholders focused on supporting safe school reopening, community mobilisation and engagement,” says Grazia Paoleri, the MYRP Secretariat Coordinator.

“We did this to ensure that both children previously out-of-school prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 and closure of schools and those who were in-school before COVID-19 return to school and learn.”

Paoleri said the funding gap for the MYRP in South Sudan is estimated to be nearly US$190 million by 2022. The Ministry of General Education and Instruction, together with education partners, have developed a funding strategy that guides resource mobilisation efforts for closing this gap to ensure continued access to quality learning opportunities for girls and boys in the country.

• The ECW-supported Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) in South Sudan is managed by a consortium of Save the Children, Finn Church Aid and Norwegian Refugee Council together with 17 implementing partners, including Christian Mission for Development (CMD), AVSI, SPEDP, Nile Hope, Food for the Hungry, SAADO, Oxfam, Plan International, CEF, Windle Trust, CINA, HESS, World Vision, Mercy Corps, UNIDOR, UNKEA, PCO.

 

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Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

By External Source
Nov 10 2021 (IPS-Partners)

A new toolkit launched in the margins of the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 aims to unlock clean energy investments for small island nations, many of whom rely heavily on imported fossil fuels for power generation.

Small island developing states (SIDS) made a collective commitment in 2019 to achieve 100 percent renewable energy targets by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050. However, they lack sufficient funding to achieve this transition, with private and public funders yet to step up investments in the clean energy sector.

The SIDS Clean Energy Toolkit, developed under a joint project by the Commonwealth Secretariat and Sustainable Energy For All (SEforAll), helps countries translate clean energy transition plans into investable business opportunities.

It supports analysis to help tackle hurdles such as the small size of projects and lack of interest from key international investors, the lack of adequate capital in local financial institutions and restrictive legal conditions for foreign investment. It enables users to carry out cost-benefit analyses and build robust business cases for energy investment in their countries.

Launching the toolkit, Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland said:

“Of the 38 countries classified by the UN as Small Island Developing States, 25 are Commonwealth countries. Despite significant clean energy resource potential, SIDS have a heavy dependence on imported fossil fuels that result in some of the highest electricity costs in the world, along with significant supply chain challenges that put pressure on already-strained economies.

“This toolkit can assist SIDS develop business cases and strategies to facilitate investment in clean energy projects, particularly in the power sector.”

The toolkit is being trialled in Seychelles. Using the toolkit, a country business case has been developed for Seychelles that identifies the scale of investment required to transition to clean energy. It also provides an objective basis for credible strategies to attract and maximise the investment required to achieve its clean energy goals.

Welcoming the opportunity, Minister for Finance, Economic Planning and Trade, Naadir Hassan, said: “I cannot stressed enough that there is an urgent need for us to prepare for the future and unless we invest in developing and exploiting renewable energy sources today, we might face a situation where we become victims of severe energy shortages. The cost of transitioning at that point may be beyond our means. The Call for Action is now.”

The launch event also included a roundtable for investors and financial institutions such as the International Renewable Energy Association (IRENA), the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), who discussed the business case for investing in clean, affordable reliable electricity in Seychelles.