Africa

Credit: World Bank

By Andre Hovaguimian
VIENNA, Oct 14 2021 (IPS)

Will the World Bank walk away with $100 Billion IDA20 replenishment without “Walking the Talk” on disability?

The World Bank Group’s (WBG) International Development Association (IDA), the Bank’s low-income lending arm, aspires to raise $100 billion for its early 20th replenishment (IDA20). IDA20’s focus includes “reducing barriers preventing …persons with disabilities…from achieving their full potential”.

In 2019, the World Bank Group mobilised $82 billion under IDA19 to support its global development goals, with disability one of its four key cross-cutting themes.

The World Bank’s 2018 Disability Inclusion and Accountability Framework commits to, “non- discrimination and equality, accessibility, inclusion and participation, and partnership and collaboration.” However, behind this fundraising rhetoric lies another dark reality.

Dozens of staff disabled while employed by the WBG claim that abuse, retaliation, governance failures, lack of transparency, lack of accountability and denial of legitimate disability claims to cut costs are not the exception but the norm.

These issues were first publicly exposed during the 2021 World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings in April in an article by Inter-Press Service (IPS) news agency.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2021/04/disability-discrimination-world-bank-immunity-impunity/

Over the past four years, the number of disability-related internal complaints has risen alarmingly, with alerts to the President of the World Bank. However, the rights of disabled continue to be trampled, under the condoning gaze of the human resources team tasked with oversight.

How can the World Bank circumvent its responsibilities?

The World Bank has immunity under the International Organizations Immunities Act, which means that although headquartered in the US, a few blocks from the US Supreme court, it is not subject to any US laws, nor can it be sued in US courts.

Originally granted to facilitate operations, this immunity has had very serious repercussions for the Bank’s disabled staff, who cannot claim protection under any minimum national or international disability law – such as the American with Disabilities Act or the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It is time the WBG be held accountable under these standards.

WBG unclear rules facilitate discrimination

The World Bank sets its own standards in the form of its Disability and Workers’ Compensation Rules which lack the robustness befitting an international organisation because their vagueness facilitates discrimination, abuse, cronyism, arbitrary interpretation, unequal application and retaliation.

These rules do not require WBG to treat disabled staff fairly, or even equitably.

Under cover of immunity, the WBG can and has changed these rules with impunity. For example, the WBG has removed the pension protection for totally and permanently disabled staff. In response to questions about arbitrary and unfair decisions, the human resources team tasked with oversight refers to “proprietary procedures,” which are kept secret.

The World Bank is expanding operations and increasing staffing in fragile, conflict and violence settings. Unlike its sister UN organisations, the WBG does not provide critical Malicious Acts (MA) insurance to protect its staff.

As early as 2010, these shortcomings were exposed in a report by the US-based Government Accountability Project based on the information provided by a WBG whistle-blower.

Unfortunately, despite continued calls for reforms, this report’s findings about lax security arrangements and “a chronicle of changing policies on claims reimbursements, rotating claims adjustors, increasingly detailed and contradictory demands for information,” and the Bank’s “exceptionally parsimonious” workers compensation programme, remain the norm.

Intimidation and retaliation: Beyond the findings of the Doing Business Report

The recent scandal unleashed by the independent investigation of the irregularities in the Bank’s Doing Business Report (see Observer Autumn 2021) exposed an environment of “psychological terrorism”, bullying and intimidation.

The reported experience of the disabled at the World Bank certainly supports this description. Some of the disabled report psychological harm expressed in attempted suicide, mental breakdown, and hospitalisation due to harassment by the WBG and its handling of the disability programme.

The disabled report feeling powerless and that they have nowhere to turn for support. They have raised their concerns to the World Bank President, David Malpass, and to all 25 Executive Directors of the WBG Board, yet to no avail.

The disabled feel that the World Bank has a culture where those who expose abuses face retaliation. Those who commit the abuses do so with impunity. Whistle-blowers fear retaliation, as the Bank could end their disability coverage, endangering their health and survival.

Many disabled report they have experienced examples of adverse actions that they attribute to whistle-blower retaliation including intimidation by private investigators, arbitrary denial of medical treatments and slander.

The Doing Business external and independent investigation has revealed the internal accountability deficit at the World Bank. Similarly, only an external and independent investigation with full participation of the WBG disabled will reveal the magnitude of the disability issues at the World Bank.

What is required is a structural overhaul of World Bank’s workers compensation and disability schemes, transparency, governance and accountability mechanisms.

Prior to handing over additional taxpayer funds for IDA20, donors have an obligation to uphold human rights and ensure that the Bank can no longer get away with, “Do as I say, but not as I do.”

Andre Hovaguimian, is a former investment director for Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa at the International Financial Corporation (IFC), a sister organization of the World Bank and a member of the World Bank Group (WBG).

 

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A manhunt is under way for Masten Wanjala who confessed to killing more than 10 children.

A worker walks through the facilities of the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes thermoelectric plant in the central province of Cienfuegos. Most of Cuba's thermoelectric plants, almost all of which were built with technology from the now defunct Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist bloc, have a lifespan of 30 to 35 years, and it would take 40 to 80 million dollars to repair and upgrade each one, according to industry executives. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Luis Brizuela
HAVANA, Oct 14 2021 (IPS)

With aging infrastructure and problems with fuel supplies, Cuba is facing a crisis in its electric power generation system, which could accelerate plans to increase the share of renewable sources in the energy mix.

In recent weeks, blackouts have been widespread in the 15 provinces of this Caribbean island nation.

Breakdowns in several of the eight thermoelectric plants and delayed maintenance in 18 of its 20 generating blocks are the cause of the generation deficits, according to the authorities.

In addition, there are malfunctions in the distribution systems – lines, substations, transformers – due to the lack of spare parts.

Cuba produces half of the fuel burned in several of its thermoelectric plants, but a significant portion depends on imports.

Under bilateral agreements, Cuba should receive some 53,000 barrels per day of oil and derivatives from Venezuela. But the collapse of that South American country under the weight of its lingering crisis means that shipments are irregular, according to media reports, although the local government does not provide precise figures."The operating reserves in the power system are low and at times have been below what is required to meet consumer energy demand, which means the power supply is necessarily and inevitably affected.” -- Liván Arronte

There is also a reported decrease in the volumes of natural gas associated with oil, used in facilities on the northwest coast, a deficit that can only be overcome by means of new oil wells, according to industry executives.

“The operating reserves in the power system are low and at times have been below what is required to meet consumer energy demand, which means the power supply is necessarily and inevitably affected,” Minister of Energy and Mines Liván Arronte said on television on Sept. 14.

For Cuban families, the current crisis is reminiscent of the prolonged power outages of the early 1990s, when after the collapse of the then Soviet Union, the island lost its main fuel supplier.

In September 2019, another energy crisis occurred when the administration of then President Donald Trump (2017-Jan 2021) took steps to prevent the arrival of tankers to the island, as part of measures to stiffen the economic and financial embargo that the United States has had in place against Cuba since 1962.

“The U.S. government has dedicated itself to threatening and blackmailing companies that supply fuel to Cuba, and this is a qualitative leap in the intensification and application of unconventional measures against those involved in international transportation, without any legal or moral authority,” stated the 2020 annual report on the embargo.

Authorities in Cuba argue that the sanctions hinder access to credit to purchase parts and other inputs, which delays the necessary maintenance of the thermal plants.

Cuba’s dwindling coffers are in no condition to take on extra expenses, given the effects of three decades of economic crisis and the impact of the covid-19 pandemic that has made it necessary to prioritise imports of medical supplies and food.

The power grid is in critical condition and the still high level of dependence on fuel imports is a factor of vulnerability and undermines the country’s projected energy sovereignty and independence, analysts warn.

A wind farm located near the city of Gibara, in the eastern province of Holguín. Cuba has set a goal of steadily reducing the use of fossil fuels and increasing the use of renewable sources in electricity generation to 24 percent, by 2030. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Aging infrastructure

Cuba has an installed potential of more than 6500 MW/h, but the real generation capacity is only half of that, and when several generator units are disconnected from the National Electric System (SEN), it is impossible to meet peak demand of 3300 to 3500 MW/h.

The country has eight thermal power plants with 20 generation blocks and a total capacity of some 2600 MW/h, equivalent to 40 percent of the electricity that can potentially be generated in this island nation of 11.2 million people.

Several of them are able to handle Cuba’s extra-heavy crude (between seven and 18 degrees API), whose sulphur content of seven to eight percent increases corrosion in the boilers, making it necessary to reduce the time between routine maintenance, to 50 to 70 days a year.

Cuba has an oil and accompanying gas production equivalent to 3.5 million tons per year (22 million barrels), from which 2.6 million tons (16.3 million barrels) of crude oil and approximately one billion cubic meters of natural gas are obtained, according to 2020 data released by the official media.

The network of power plants forms the backbone of a system that is complemented in the 15 provinces with fuel oil engines and diesel generators, which have also been hit by the shortage in spare parts and which use part of the 150 to 200 million dollars a month in fuel imports, according to official reports.

The rest of Cuba’s electricity comes from local liquefied petroleum gas (nearly eight percent), renewable sources (five percent) and three percent from floating units (patanas), which also use fossil fuels, in Mariel Bay, 45 km west of Havana.

With one exception, the thermoelectric plants, mainly built with technology from the defunct Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist bloc, have passed their 30 to 35 year lifespan, and 40 to 80 million dollars are needed to repair each plant, according to industry leaders.

To alleviate the current crisis, the government announced an investment scheme aimed at reactivating currently unused generation potential and prioritising the staggered maintenance programme.

“The strategy’s projects include four thermal generation blocks of 200 MW/h each, which will use national crude oil and … today there are projects in different stages to produce 3500 MW/h from renewable sources, which have been affected by the current crisis,” said Arronte.

The Belgian company BDC-Log Servicios Logísticos y Transporte is optimising its operation through the use of solar panels installed on the roofs of its warehouses in the Mariel Special Development Zone, in the western province of Artemisa. The policy for the development of renewable sources in Cuba, approved in 2014, aims to encourage foreign investment in large and small projects, in order to boost energy efficiency and self-sufficiency. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Renewable energies: ups and downs

In 2014, the Cuban government approved a “Policy for the development of renewable energy sources and efficient energy use by 2030”, which aims to gradually reduce the use of fossil fuels and sets a target for 24 percent of energy to come from clean sources by that year.

The policy is also geared towards fomenting foreign investment, in both large and small local projects, with the objective of improving energy efficiency and self-sufficiency, with installations mainly connected to the national grid.

According to some estimates, more than three billion dollars in financing will be needed in order to develop more than 2000 MW/h of new capacity in renewable sources over the next nine years.

Decree-Law No. 345 passed in 2019 on the development of renewable sources contains incentives to promote self-supply from clean energy, the sale of surplus energy to the national grid, as well as tariff and tax benefits for individuals and legal entities that use these sources.

The law also proposes the installation of the most efficient LED bulbs in public streetlights, the sale of solar water heaters and efficient appliances, as well as public education campaigns on the need to save energy.

Cuba ended 2020 with an installed capacity of almost 300 MW/h from renewable sources, some of whose installations were supported by international projects and institutions.

Studies indicate that the expansion of renewable sources could reduce the use of fossil fuels in electricity generation by 2.3 million tons a year and could cut carbon dioxide emissions by eight million tons.

However, these projections clash with the high cost of technologies to obtain energy from sunlight, wind, water and biomass.

In Cuba, which aims to develop all of these sources, the solar energy programme is the most advanced, in a country with average solar radiation of more than five kilowatts per square meter per day, which is considered high.

In late July, resolutions were published allowing people to import solar power systems, free of customs duties and without commercial purposes, as well as equipment, parts and components that generate or operate as renewable energy sources.

Some chain stores also sell solar panels for more than 1,500 dollars per unit, compared to the monthly salaries of Cubans that range from 87 to 400 dollars.

Although the state can buy surplus energy from private consumers, people consulted by IPS said it was not worth the cost of purchasing and setting up a photovoltaic system and the several years needed to recover the initial investment.

Another pending issue is the technology to accumulate solar energy for use at night.

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Tuvalu’s farmers have watched their crops destroyed by extreme tropical weather. They are now using Funafala 'food cubes' to have greater control over their harvests.

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia , Oct 13 2021 (IPS)

Tuvalu, a small atoll island nation in the Central Pacific Ocean, is one of few countries in the world to have so far evaded the pandemic. But, while it has achieved a milestone with no recorded cases of COVID-19, its population of about 11,931 continues to battle food uncertainties and poor nutrition. These challenges, present long before the pandemic emerged, have been exacerbated by lockdown restrictions and economic hardships during the past year and a half.

In the low-lying island country, people have strived to grow food with “lack of access to land, lack of compost for growing food and, more so, with high tides and cyclones flooding the land with seawater,” Teuleala Manuella-Morris, Country Manager for the environmental and development organization, Live & Learn, in the capital, Funafuti, told IPS.

For years the islanders have watched their food gardens destroyed by extreme tropical weather and disasters, such as cyclones and tidal surges. These factors have contributed to their increasing consumption of imported foods.  But now, the future is looking more certain with the introduction of an innovative farming system on Funafala, an islet situated close to the main Funafuti Island.

The new farming method is based on a modular structure of specially designed boxes, known as ‘food cubes’, which give local food growers greater control over their harvests.

“Tuvalu, as an atoll nation, has a range of agricultural production challenges and also relies on imported food. The pandemic has also affected food supply chains. So, considering such challenges, there was a shift in policy in trying to strengthen food security programs. In the meantime, we were already piloting the food cube system in Tuvalu. It fits perfectly well with the shift in policy focus for food security for the country,” Gibson Susumu, Head of Sustainable Agriculture in the Land Resources Division of the regional development organization, Pacific Community, which is guiding the project’s implementation, told IPS.

Issues of declining agricultural production and persistent malnutrition have existed across the Pacific Islands for decades. Before the pandemic in 2019, 49.6 percent of Oceania’s population of an estimated 11.9 million endured moderate to severe food insecurity, reports the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).  Although stunting afflicts 10 percent of children under five years in Tuvalu, which is well below the regional average, the country carries a heavy burden of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). Eighty percent of men and 83.8 percent of women were classified as overweight in Tuvalu in 2016, cites the Global Nutrition Report, while diabetes afflicts 23.1 percent of adults, according to the World Health Organization.

It is anticipated that the use of food cubes will assist with food security on the atoll island of Tuvalu.

On Funafala, a vast interlocking array of boxes, raised above the ground, creates a patchwork field of green abundance. The ‘field’ contains 80-100 cubes spread over an area of 1.2 acres in which fruit and vegetables are being grown for more than 16 local households. Each ‘food cube’, which is one-metre square and 30 centimetres deep, is manufactured from 80 percent recycled food-grade plastic and designed with features that expose the plants grown within to oxygen and controlled irrigation.

“The Funafala garden has showcased the growing of local foods, like pulaka (giant swamp taro), taro, local figs, cassava, dwarf bananas and dwarf pawpaw trees…It is not only providing more food for the community but has also proven that the food cubes are another way of growing food in areas being flooded with seawater while maintaining soil fertility for more planting. At the same time, it saves water,” Manuella-Morris told IPS.

The ‘food cube’ was designed and produced by Biofilta, an Australian company developing modular urban farming systems six years ago. In 2017, the business won a worldwide competition called LAUNCH Food, commissioned by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to reward new solutions to the global issue of poor nutrition.

“To put it into a food security context, I think those food cubes will be able to produce up to 150 kilograms of vegetables and greens for a year, and that is sufficient to meet the green vegetable requirements for the member households,” Susumu said.

Biofilta claims that the system is “raised, so there is no risk of saltwater inundation, and our wicking technology is extremely water-efficient, using only a fraction of the water needed in conventional agriculture.” These are important features, as Tuvalu possesses no renewable water resources and its point of highest elevation above sea level is only 5 metres. Further, the farm uses compost, specifically tailored to the country’s soil needs by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), which also draws on ingredients from the island’s green waste treatment facility.

Another key partner, Live & Learn, has expanded trials of the farming system on other islands in Tuvalu. The long-term goal is better health outcomes and longer productive lives for islanders. “Because of agricultural challenges, the diet diversity is very low…So, with the diversification of the production systems, it means that the households have more access to healthy diets, and if the surpluses can be marketed, it also supports the income side of the households,” Susumu explained.

The Pacific Community also plans to consult with the government, local communities, and farmers to determine appropriate prices for the commercial sale of surplus fresh produce from the farms so that healthy food remains affordable to everyone.

More widely, the initiative is responding to calls from organizations, such as the FAO, to rethink food systems around the world so that smarter production leads to increased supplies of quality food, reduced pressures on finite natural resources, such as land and water, and the lower impact of agricultural practices on global warming.

The success of the ‘food cubes’ in Tuvalu has sparked enthusiasm by other Pacific Island countries, such as the Cook Islands and Fiji, where it’s also being trialled.

 

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By External Source
Oct 13 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen is the CEO of The LEGO Foundation. Ms. Albrectsen has spent almost 30 years in fields of international development, human rights and diplomacy, most recently holding the position of Global CEO at Plan International since September 2015.

At Plan International, Ms. Albrectsen helped transform the organization by working together with children, young people, supporters and partners to deliver positive impact. Prior to Plan International, Ms. Albrectsen was United Nations Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director for Management at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). She is also co-chair of the Board of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data and a member of the United Nations Every Woman Every Child High Level Steering Group, the Generation Unlimited Global Board and she is the chair of the International Civil Society Centre Board.

ECW: Congratulations on your new appointment as CEO of The LEGO Foundation, a strategic and valued partner of Education Cannot Wait (ECW). Could you outline for us your vision for The LEGO Foundation as we work together to achieve SDG4 through The LEGO Foundation’s focus on early childhood education and Learning Through Play, particularly for children and youth impacted by crises and emergencies?

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen: Thank you, I am delighted to be heading up such an incredible organisation and it is wonderful to continue our longstanding partnership with Education Cannot Wait.

At The LEGO Foundation we promote the development of all children everywhere through playful learning, including children impacted by humanitarian crises and emergencies. We know that play reduces stress, builds resilience, while fostering imagination and hope. We are on a journey to transform the lives of at least 75 million children each year by 2032.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exasperated existing problems faced by children all over the world. Put simply, we are facing a child rights crisis. And it’s only through collaboration that we can achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 to ensure inclusive, equitable, quality education for all children – even in these unprecedented times.

This is why we hope to continue working with our partners, to change systems, attitudes and norms standing in the way of all children reaching their full potential. Because when we team up, great things happen.

ECW: The LEGO Foundation is the leading philanthropic donor to ECW, working closely with us since 2019 to deliver inclusive quality education for crisis-affected children and youth. What message do you have to encourage other private sector donors to support our collective efforts for girls and boys impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate-change induced disasters and COVID-19?

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen: Listen to the children. Children are our role models, we listen to them and so should others.

Education is a top priority for children affected by crisis. When we address learning loss caused by crisis, families and entire communities benefit. Education boosts growth and reduces inequality. It ultimately promotes sustainable development. We simply cannot afford not to invest in children affected by crisis.

As we navigate COVID-19 recovery, we are at a pivotal moment in time to transform where, what, and how we learn. We have seen super smart solutions to education access. Now we must revolutionise education quality. Access to quality education is key to addressing 21st century challenges, including accelerating the fight to end poverty and climate-change.

Working in coalition with other donors is crucial to reaching the most vulnerable and in need children – especially in crisis and emergency situations. This is why we call on the private sector, philanthropic organisations, governments, and others to act now and donate generously to the global efforts for children impacted by conflicts, crises, climate-change induced disasters and the COVID-19 response and recovery.

ECW: The LEGO Foundation generously provided ECW with US$5.6 million in September 2021 in support of ECW’s work in Afghanistan and Haiti, bringing The LEGO Foundation’s total contributions to ECW to $33 million. What returns on investment for girls and boys, and for The LEGO Foundation, are you hoping to see as a result of these contributions to the work in Afghanistan and Haiti?

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen: We know that by partnering with ECW attention is focused on both the immediate and long-term impacts of crisis situations and that two key elements always in focus are access to and quality of education.

The LEGO Foundation believes deeply in the power of Learning Through Play for children affected by conflicts and crises, as is the current situation in Afghanistan and Haiti.

Research proves that play provides comfort, helps children to overcome traumatic experiences, builds resilience and allows a return to the routine and normalcy of being a child. Play can also relieve excess energy, provide emotional catharsis, and express emotions in a non-threatening way, encouraging children to respond to challenges with creative problem-solving.

Our investment in ECW will protect children and promote their learning and wellbeing by providing safe, equitable, locally relevant, and age-appropriate learning through play opportunities. This partnership will also support the mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of all children.

ECW: Play is often underestimated in learning, despite being the most natural way of acquiring essential life skills in early childhood. In emergencies and crisis this is further compounded by lack of resources and stress experienced by children and caregivers. By the end of 2020 ECW had allocated 11.5% of resources to early childhood interventions, exceeding the 10% target. What do you think should be done to raise the profile of the importance of early childhood programmes and learning through play in emergencies?

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen: The investment in the early years of the child’s life is absolutely crucial because the early playful experiences will have benefits that last well beyond the early years. We know that children learn best through play. Play is the most natural way for children to learn to read, write and do math, while also developing physically, socially, and emotionally to think creatively, and to collaborate to solve problems. This becomes even more important for the youngest children in emergencies. Playful learning can help them overcome the stressors caused by traumatic experiences.

Significant, coordinated investment in access to Learning Through Play in the early years is urgently needed to make a greater difference in the lives of children who find themselves in humanitarian crises and emergency situations. But it isn’t all about money. It’s also about using the power of brands like ours to influence others to invest in children’s learning, the development of holistic skills, and working in partnership with like-minded organisations like ECW.

We need policymakers, key decision makers and international leaders to pay attention to the early learning crisis, lending their support and voices to prioritising early childhood programmes. Children are not the future. They are the present!

And together we must ensure the importance of early childhood programmes and Learning Through Play in emergencies is amplified onto the public agenda. It’s only with awareness of the problem that we can work together to transform the education in emergencies ecosystem for the better.

ECW: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a global impact on all areas of virtually everyone’s life, and in many countries affected by emergencies and crises, vaccinations are still out of grasp. How does The LEGO Foundation see the long-term effect of the pandemic on education, particularly for crisis-affected children and youth already impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement and climate-induced disasters prior to COVID-19?

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen: To put it very simply, the COVID-19 pandemic has made already dire situations worse. Overlapping crises of conflict, natural disaster and COVID-19 exacerbate the burdens that children face.

At the peak of the pandemic, 90 per cent of the world’s students were out of school – that’s 1.6 billion children. The impact of school closures and the subsequent learning loss is devastating for children. When children drop out of school, the impacts can last a lifetime. These children may not develop the skills they need to reach their true potential.

We do not yet know the full impact on children after they were deprived of the chance to develop socially and emotionally together. But we do know that the pandemic has widened existing inequalities and increased the insecurity of the most vulnerable, particularly those children impacted by crises and emergencies.

We may see the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for years to come, but it is our joint responsibility to act now, stepping in as soon as possible to prevent further loss of quality education.

We have a unique and unprecedented opportunity to transform education systems, driving Learning Through Play to the forefront of the education agenda and equipping children with the skills they will need to navigate an ever-changing world.

ECW: The LEGO Foundation continues to be an innovative leader in early childhood education and learning through play. What are the three most important achievements you feel have been made in this area as a result of The LEGO Foundation’s work and advocacy on the importance of early childhood education and learning through play in emergency and crisis settings, and what are the most pressing things still to be done?

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen: Firstly, I hope we have helped raise and amplify the voices of children affected by crisis. Lifelong learning through play starts at birth and, can and should take place anywhere. No one should be left behind.

The second contribution is towards generating greater evidence on the importance of early childhood education and Learning Through Play in emergency and crisis settings. Education being an underfunded area also makes it difficult to push for more investment in early education, yet evidence shows that early learning sets children up for success. Our two large investments in promoting and supporting playful learning experiences for children in humanitarian settings are creating, testing, and scaling up new playful early learning interventions, and part of this work is also giving us more evidence on what works and why.

The third, and probably the most important for us, is the impact we have on the lives of children. We are excited about the increase in the number of children reached with Early Childhood Education (ECE) interventions and increase in overall investments in ECE through ECW. We understand that many more Multi-Year Resilience Programmes (MYRPs) developed by governments with support from ECW include ECE or pre-primary education. This is a very positive shift. We want to see how playful learning is used in these programmes and what this does for holistic learning outcomes for children.

ECW: Our readers would like to get to know you a bit better on a personal level and reading is a key component of education. Could you please share with us two or three books that have influenced you the most personally and/or professionally, and why you’d recommend them to other people to read?

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen: What a wonderful question: There are obviously great lessons for all of us in ‘Pippi Longstocking’ by Astrid Lindgren about children’s, especially girl’s, agency and ingenuity. More recent books which have shaped my thinking a lot include ‘New Power,’ by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms which helped inform my ideas about movements. I finally need to mention ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about what it means to be a feminist, and how gender roles and norms are detrimental to both men and women.

 

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Excerpt:

ECW’s largest private sector donor highlights the value of investing in early childhood programming and learning through play to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

When the Beirut blast destroyed a tower block many were missing, including an Ethiopian woman who lived there.

Women sell fruit and vegetables on a sidewalk in the Philippines, where workers in the informal economy are in danger of having their livelihoods destroyed by the impacts of COVID-19. The UN will be commemorating World Food Day on October 16. Credit: ILO/Minette Rimando

By Farah Hegazi and Caroline Delgado
STOCKHOLM, Oct 13 2021 (IPS)

Hunger, violent conflict and the visible impacts of climate change are all on the rise. World Food Day, October 16, is a reminder that we need to talk about the intricate ways that these challenges are connected—and how to tackle them together.

Despite steadily increasing global harvests, more than 150 million people were acutely food-insecure in 2020, and 41 million people were reportedly on the edge of famine this summer. The main drivers of this food insecurity were violent conflict and extreme weather events.

With the number of active armed conflicts at an historic high, the impacts of climate change intensifying rapidly, and the world economy reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to find sustainable solutions to the dangerous interactions between hunger, conflict and climate change impacts could not be more pressing.

Hunger, conflict and climate change: a lethal cocktail

Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Zimbabwe together accounted for the 10 worst hunger crises in 2020. In the preceding decade, they accounted for over 72 per cent of all conflict deaths globally. Most of these countries are also highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

This is no mere coincidence. Both conflict and climate change impact people’s ability to produce, trade and access food, often through complex interactions.

Attacks on food production are a regular feature of war, whether it is placing landmines in fields, burning crops, looting or killing livestock, or forcing farmers to switch away from food crops to more lucrative illicit crops such as coca leaves.

Disruption of transport routes makes it harder to distribute and store food, especially more perishable types. And when food is short and formal markets fail to deliver, black markets can thrive, with profits often going to one conflict party or another and thus helping to prolong the fighting. Not surprisingly, lasting food insecurity is among the principal legacies of war.

Climate change can also disrupt food production—from the immediate damage from floods and droughts, to slower impacts such changing rainfall patterns and rising temperatures that make it harder to grow current crop varieties.

These impacts can devastate the livelihoods of farmers and herders. The risk of conflict breaking out increases as they compete over viable land and water resources or migrate. They may also be courted by armed groups promising security and brighter prospects.

In Mali, for example, nearly a fifth of the population is food-insecure because of greater variability in rainfall and more frequent and severe droughts linked to climate change. Extremist groups have been quick to use this to their advantage, providing people with food in exchange for support and thereby further fueling conflict.

South Sudan is facing a similar situation. In flood-affected pastoral regions such as Jonglei, cattle raiding has become more frequent and more violent.

Combined solutions

On the positive side, these links between hunger, climate and conflict provide entry points for action that addresses all three—and does so more effectively than programmes trying to tackle them separately.

As an example, in a region of East Africa known as the Greater Karamoja Cluster—spanning parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda—there have been violent clashes between groups of migratory herders during protracted drought.

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization have managed to reduce these conflicts, and boost the herders’ livelihoods and food security, by helping them negotiate deals on the use of pasture and water resources.

Even small-scale, highly localized programmes can catalyse wider change. In Colombia, a country highly vulnerable to climate change and scarred by the legacy of a long-running armed conflict, the revival of traditional indigenous knowledge is gaining momentum.

This includes using natural early warning signs like the appearance of certain migratory birds, which can help locals to prepare themselves for climate impacts, as well as reviving sustainable farming, fishing and hunting practices. In the process, it brings together communities fragmented by the fighting.

The rise of hunger and conflict—reversing decades of progress—along with intensifying impacts of climate change all call for urgent action, from the United Nations down. But they are connected issues, compounding each other at dire cost to people and nature.

Although it recognized that conflict and climate are linked to food insecurity, the recent UN Food Systems Summit missed the chance to discuss in depth how these connections work or how to address them.

Another chance for real progress is coming with the imminent UN climate summit in Glasgow, COP26. It is to be hoped that the discussions on climate change adaptation and loss and damage will explicitly look at how to decouple hunger, conflict and climate change.

Dr Farah Hegazi is a Researcher on the Climate Change and Risk programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), where she specializes on environmental peacebuilding. She is part of the research team for the SIPRI initiative Environment of Peace (https://www.sipri.org/research/peace-and-development/environment-peace).

Dr Caroline Delgado is a Senior Researcher and Director of the Food, Peace and Security Programme at SIPRI. Her areas of expertise include conflict, human security and peacebuilding. She is one of the focal points for the Global Registry of Violent Deaths (GReVD).

 

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By External Source
SEOUL, Republic of Korea, Oct 12 2021 (IPS-Partners)

The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) of the State of Qatar have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to formalize their joint cooperation to promote climate resiliency and green growth in the State of Qatar.

The MoU was signed by His Excellency Dr.Abdulla bin Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Subaie, Minister Municipality and Environment of the State of Qatar, and Dr. Frank Rijsberman, Director-General of GGGI. The in-person signing ceremony was held at the GGGI Seoul headquarters. HE Minister Al-Subaie was accompanied by H.E. Khalid Ibrahim Abdulrahman Al-Hamar, Ambassador of Qatar to the Republic of Korea, and several other Qatari dignitaries, and was joined by GGGI’s senior management team.

H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon, President & Chair of GGGI welcomed the Qatari delegation to GGGI and witnessed the signing ceremony. Congratulating MME and GGGI on the occasion, he said, “I am pleased to see this new milestone in GGGI’s growing relationship with Qatar. This demonstrates Qatar’s commitment to environmental sustainability which is linked to the long-term prosperity of every country”.

H.E. Minister Al-Subaie stated that “Today’s ceremony resembles our commitment, not only to the initiatives we are taking domestically but also to international cooperation for contributing to the green transition. I hope that this will be the beginning of many years of cooperation between us which will also benefit communities around the globe.”

GGGI’s Director-General Dr. Rijsberman remarked, “Qatar is a founding member of GGGI, and we look forward to working together with MME in supporting sustainable development in Qatar. This pandemic has highlighted the need for strong international cooperation and the need for green growth approaches for a resilient world for future generations. I am pleased with this strengthening collaboration and look forward to our joint work under the MoU that will benefit both Qatar and encourage other GGGI Member countries as well.”

Qatar is currently a Member of the Council of GGGI. Under this cooperation agreement, Qatar will provide USD 7.5 million for scaling up GGGI’s Doha office operations to support the State of Qatar in green growth policy, planning, and implementation. In Aug 2020, represented by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), Qatar signed a Host Country Agreement with GGGI to formally impart diplomatic privileges and immunities to its Doha office hosted at the MME. GGGI also has a cooperation program with the Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD) and formalized the partnership in October 2020 under which four QFFD-GGGI projects are being implemented to support climate resilience and green recovery in the Pacific, Caribbean, and West African regions.

Moderating the ceremony, GGGI’s Qatar engagement focal Dr. Pranab Baruah thanked involved colleagues at the MME and the Embassy of Qatar in Seoul for their various supports to advance the MoU process to conclusion.

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Women’s Day (Auret March) in 2018. Despite the growth of feminism and activism against gender-based violence, women still fear attacks in public places in Pakistan. Credit: Zofeen T Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
Karachi, Oct 12 2021 (IPS)

The mauling, groping and tossing of a young woman by a crowd of between 300 and 400 men in a park in the eastern city of Lahore, in the Punjab province, may have caused a wave of country-wide disgust, but speaks volumes of how unsafe public spaces are for Pakistani women.

“If I’m not safe in my own city, I can never be safe in any corner of the world,” said the woman survivor, also a TikTokker, in an interview narrating the incident that occurred on Pakistan’s 74th day of independence and was captured on videos that went viral soon after.

Actor Ushna Shah echoed the same sentiment on Twitter: “What else has to happen for every single person to accept the fact that women are not safe in Pakistan. Women are not safe.”

Sheema Kermani says her dancers pack up and leave public spaces when confronted.

“Over the years, public spaces for women in Pakistan have been decreasing,” lamented Sheema Kermani, a renowned classical dancer, and founder of Karachi-based Tehrik-e-Niswan, a women’s rights group. She and her group have had their share of unwarranted episodes, performing in public spaces, even doing street theatre. They have had stones hurled at them or have been asked to stop their performance, in which case they pack up immediately and leave to “avoid confrontation”.

Despite more women joining the workforce and the emergence of young feminist groups that have “actually pushed for making public spaces safe for women,” Kermani observed, “the last couple of years has taken Pakistani society back many hundreds of years” where women are “hated, demeaned, exploited, abused, even raped”. She added: “It is as if their lives are of little consequence.”

And that is what the TikTokker felt when she said: “They [men] were playing with me,” as they ripped off her clothes.

This incident comes just weeks after the beheading of a former diplomat’s daughter in the capital. Another undated video that went viral, following the TikTokker’s assault, showed a man lunging towards two women riding on the back of a rickshaw and is heard kissing one of them. Police are investigating yet another video of a woman being stripped by a group of men in a park.

Prime Minister Imran Khan does not make it easier either when he blames women for these crimes that he says are “spreading like cancer”. “Wearing very few clothes,” he said, will have an “impact on the men unless they are robots”. In 2019, the information minister quoted the Prime Minister for blaming TikTok, a social media platform, for the “growing obscenity and vulgarity in society”.

“But I was not even vulgarly dressed,” the TikTok survivor had said in her interview.

Maria Memon was shaken to the core after experiencing verbal abuse.

“I can well imagine this woman’s trauma,” said TV anchorperson Maria Memon.

She had faced an unruly mob while covering an anti-government protest sit-in by the now ruling Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), in Faisalabad, also in Punjab, in 2014, that had left her “shaken to the core” after being attacked by a volley of verbal abuse.

“They wanted to see me break down,” she said. When that did not happen, they started “throwing empty plastic water bottles and sticks at me,” she told IPS over the phone from Islamabad, the country’s capital.

Seven years later, said Memon, Pakistani women journalists remain “untrained”, “unprepared”, and “vulnerable” to a crowd that can quickly turn violent. While media outlets want to send women to these events, they seldom have a contingency escape plan to quickly evacuate them when things get rough.

In 2018, the London-based Thomson Reuters Foundation ranked Pakistan the sixth most dangerous country and fifth on non-sexual violence, including domestic abuse in the world for women.

Sana Mirza recalls her own humiliating incident and salutes those who report harassment.

“Unless these men are not punished, there will be no stopping them,” said Sana Mirza, Memon’s colleague, who faced a similar situation in another PTI rally in Lahore, just a few weeks after Memon, in 2014.

Unlike Memon, she broke down in front of the camera, “feeling humiliated,” she said, and the episode continued haunting her, and she refused to go out in the field for a good eight months. “I even removed myself from social media as these platforms had become too toxic, and I was unable to sleep,” she told IPS over the phone from Islamabad.

While many women, had they experienced what the TikTokker’s went through, would have kept silent, Mirza said, she saluted this woman “for her courage to lodge a complaint to the police”.

So far, over 60 men have been arrested after they were identified through the video using the national database. The police have geo-fenced 28,000 people and shortlisted 350 suspects, and the arrests continue.

But Mirza remains unconvinced the arrested men arrested will be punished. “They never are. Just look at the statistics!” she said.

According to Karachi-based War Against Rape, while sexual assault and rape cases have increased, the conviction rate is less than 3%. And this figure is about the crimes that are reported.

Amna Baig believes that women should report incidents as non-reporting emboldens the perpetrators.

While the “system may not be perfect”, Amna Baig, an Islamabad-based policewoman, defending the police system by not reporting such incidents was “emboldening” perpetrators. She termed the complaint filing by the TikTok user, albeit three days late, a very “courageous” step.

In her five years of being in the force at various cities in Punjab, she said, she had come across several murders of women by their spouses. Still, neither the deceased nor any family member ever filed a complaint of domestic violence (DV) before the murder.

“You can save so many lives if you report,” she said, adding, “Just lodging a complaint can act as a deterrent because the person knows he will be held accountable”.

Interestingly, Baig feels “safer” and “empowered” in a police uniform than in plain clothes. “I think the uniform exudes both the fear factor as well as respect,” and has never been harassed while on duty.

Still, it is not too late to ensure “women’s choices, voices, and lives count” if you ask Senator Sherry Rehman.

It was time to bring to life the domestic violence bill that she had first introduced back in 2004, as a member of the national assembly, but which she continues to stumble “on the barriers of misogyny and anti-women lobbies”.

The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) is vetting it to ensure it is in tandem with the Shariah [Islamic law].

“Why are only legislations related to women sent to the CII?” asked Rehman. “Like the rest, these too, can be discussed in the parliament, and their fate decided through voting just the way other bills are discussed and passed,” she added.

While she admitted no one law or series of laws would change the game, moving the law is the starting point, not the endpoint for change.

“Without baseline laws against domestic violence, for instance, such as the one in Sindh, the courts won’t have the legal scaffolding to provide the relief even if they are so inclined,” she pointed out.

 

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By Sabina Alkire
LONDON, Oct 12 2021 (IPS)

During the pandemic, we learnt a new word – at least I did: comorbidity. It means that one or more additional conditions co-occur (all happen at the same time for a person) alongside a primary condition – in this case the virus.

And we learnt that when a person has significant comorbidities, the path of the virus can be tragic.

We therefore learned to be highly alert for diabetes, for lung conditions, and medical histories, and to protect vulnerable people in our circles carefully. As time went on, our circle of attention expanded – to handwashing, to overcrowding, to water and nutrition, or informal work – or risks like domestic violence, that make lockdown unbearable.

After a while, this habit of looking into comorbidities felt eerily familiar. Our and other teams working on poverty also scrutinise disadvantages that strike a person all-at-once. Instead of calling these comorbidities, we call them deprivations.

And a large package of deprivations is called multidimensional poverty.

But the idea is really rather similar: those who already have high poverty ‘comorbidities’ (in our language, people who are ‘multidimensionally poor’) are already facing difficulties, and are also most at-risk if a further threat strikes – like the virus.

But just as the virus affected different groups differently, the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating inequalities that poverty data was only just starting to explore before the pandemic hit.

Let me give an example from the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) produced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) this year.

We studied two layers of ‘co-morbidities’. First, we looked at a set of 10 indicators spanning conditions like child mortality, school attendance, electricity, water, and assets, and found out how many people are deprived in at least one-third of weighted indicators.

Second, we looked at poverty across ethnic groups, and through a gendered and intrahousehold lens. Data are pre-covid, but provide the most up-to-date assessment of all-at-once deprivations – of multidimensional poverty – that we have.

Sabina Alkire. Credit: Kiara Worth IISD/ENB

In the first place, looking across 5.9 billion people in 109 developing countries, we found that 1.3 billion were multidimensionally poor. And in terms of the poverty parallel for ‘comorbidities’, one billion lack clean energy; one billion lack adequate sanitation; one billion have substandard housing, 788 million live with at least one undernourished person and over half lack electricity – even to charge a cell phone or turn on at night.

So, the web of co-deprivations is indeed dense and tightly woven. And this dataset – which incidentally is online with all of these details in many forms, because we want people to use it – is disaggregated so you can map 1,291 subnational regions, or look at children, or female-headed households, or rural-urban areas, to see how the level of poverty and the overlaps across 10 indicators, vary. It’s a lot of information.

Next, we probed inequalities. We had some ethnicity data for 2.4 billion people in 41 countries – it’s not perfect, but the topic is too important to ignore. So, we disaggregated the already disturbing condition of multidimensional poverty by ethnic groups.

Disparity across these ethnic groups was astonishingly high – higher than across all 1,291 subnational regions. In Latin America, indigenous peoples stood out. For instance, in Bolivia indigenous communities account for about 44 percent of the population but 75 percent of multidimensionally poor people.

In Gabon and Nigeria, the disparity in poverty rates between ethnic groups spanned 70 percentage points. We did this study not to drum doom, but rather to shine light on ethnic disparities in the hopes that this will spark change.

Then there is gender. We know the vital importance of girls’ education in reducing undernutrition, child mortality, unemployment etc. So, we wanted to see how many of the 1.3 billion poor people don’t have an educated girl or woman in their household.

We used 6 years of schooling as our criterion. When the data came in, it gave us a start. Two-thirds of all multidimensionally poor people – 836 million – lack any educated girl or woman.

So, while there has been progress in poverty reduction, the road ahead is long. To understand more we peered inside the household, to look at boys and men in those households.

And we found that one-sixth of all multidimensionally poor people (215 million) live in households with an educated male, but no educated female – a daily disparity. But half the 1.3 billion MPI poor lacked any educated person. One meets these figures with a heavy heart.

To put that number into perspective, across the 4.6 billion people who were not poor, only 4.2 percent of them lack an educated person. Yes, nowadays we yearn to leapfrog, to expand digital reach. But distressing basics – of education, of nutrition – are still a real part of poverty ‘comorbidities’.

So, comorbidities and multidimensional poverty cover common ground. And just as the Charlston Comorbidity Index among others has been widely used, so too we hope that this uncomfortable profiling of multidimensional poverty, and of structural inequalities by ethnicity, age, place and gender, will contribute to what Pope Francis calls “a global movement against indifference” so that the picture we find from the data for the rest of this decade is not one of a poverty pandemic.

Sabina Alkire is Director, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct 12 2021 (IPS)

The world should now be more aware of likely COVID-19 devastation unless urgently checked. Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced an US$8 billion plan to quickly vaccinate many more people to expedite ending the pandemic.

New WHO plan
Perhaps frustrated after being ignored by rich country governments and major vaccine producers, the new WHO plan is relatively modest, but hopefully more realisable. Supported by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the Vaccination Strategy seeks to reduce vaccine apartheid by inoculating 40% in all countries before year’s end, and 70% by mid-2022.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

had urged governments to vaccinate at least 10% of their populations by September 2021. With almost 6.5 billion inoculations by then, almost a third of the world’s people were fully vaccinated. As noted by WHO Director General (DG) Tedros, “High and upper-middle income countries have used 75 per cent of all vaccines produced so far”.

Worldwide vaccination will also stem emerging new variants. But less than 0.5% of doses have gone to low-income countries, with less than 5% in Africa fully vaccinated. Thus, more than 55, mainly African countries have been largely left out in this ‘two-track’ vaccination effort.

Globally, about 1.5 billion vaccine doses are being produced monthly. The WHO Strategy deems this enough to achieve its targets, “provided they are distributed equitably”. Although more financing is still needed, it implies enough to procure most vaccines needed for poorer countries via COVAX and the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT).

Despite the past, the DG believes the Strategy can succeed if countries and companies supplying vaccines prioritise delivery and donations to COVAX and AVAT. He also urges sharing know-how and non-exclusive licences to spread increased manufacturing capacity.

Intellectual property impediment
Intellectual property rights (IPRs) underlie the world pandemic divide today. Undoubtedly, those who innovate should be rewarded for their achievement. But US law does not prevent price gouging by IP owners. Worse, there are no strong incentives for commercial vaccine suppliers to eradicate the disease.

Unsurprisingly, Pfizer has already revised its business strategy for its main revenue stream to be from selling ‘boosters’ and other COVID-19 needs. WHO and other initiatives to encourage voluntary technology and knowledge sharing have gone nowhere as major companies refuse to share knowledge.

Nevertheless, genome sequencing in China in early January 2020 and the almost free use of crucial techniques to produce mRNA vaccines – such as NIH-owned patents and CRISPR technology – have expedited such vaccine development.

Earlier claims that developing countries are not capable of producing the new mRNA vaccines are no longer credible. South Africa and Brazil have already made them under licence. Independent assessments suggest many more – including others in Africa – can do so.

The October 2020 TRIPS waiver request by South Africa and India goes beyond the 2001 WTO approval of public health flexibilities. This allows production using patent compulsory licensing (CL) in extenuating situations during public health emergencies. But the waiver has been blocked, mainly by rich European governments.

The waiver was not mainly about vaccines. When the request was first made, the only vaccine available was Russian. The waiver request for temporary IPR suspension – only for the pandemic’s duration – is for COVID-19 tests, treatments, equipment, vaccines and other needs, subject to strict conditions.

In the face of a global crisis demanding urgent action, the European Commission position – even a year later – is that TRIPS voluntary licensing (VL) is enough. It insists the waiver – and even CL – are not needed even though both VL and CL require country by country, patent by patent negotiations and licensing.

As affordable COVID-19 supplies are still desperately needed, the scale and scope of the current challenge still need the waiver. But no developing country – or for that matter, patent holder – has either the means or time to negotiate to meet all the needed VLs urgently.

Achieving Global Vaccine Equity
For Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, adequately addressing vaccine equity requires raising output, deemed necessary for a more equitable response. The BU proposal calls for a simultaneous 3-pronged approach to quickly scale up vaccine supplies via:

– the TRIPS waiver to surmount IP constraints to more production;
– requiring vaccine developers to share relevant technology and know-how;
– adequately financing efforts to produce and distribute much more.
The TRIPS waiver would also eliminate all IP barriers to meeting other COVID-19 related needs.

By contrast, CL would still require many separate, often lengthy negotiations and licensing for every patent involved in making needed items.

Massively increasing donations – especially from vaccine-hoarding and producing countries – can get many more doses to the under-vaccinated. Big rich G7 countries are still very far from meeting their own modest billion dose donation target.

COVAX, ostensibly for more equitable access to vaccines, has achieved about 10% of its promise, far less than the two billion doses pledged by year’s end. The proposed WHO moratorium on booster shots should continue until equitable vaccine access has been achieved.

Socio-economic inequalities among and within countries have also frustrated pandemic containment. Unsurprisingly, worldwide vaccine inequalities have exacerbated adverse effects. Sadly, the international community has the means, but not the political will to do the needed.

US missing leadership chance
Half a year ago, President Biden announced the US would support a vaccine patent waiver. His vaccine summit before the UN General Assembly was promising, but again did not deliver much. He can still make a world of difference, uniting the world to defeat the pandemic.

Without White House leadership, urgently needed technology sharing will not occur. As Moderna received federal government funding, the US President is legally empowered to ramp up its output and supplies, e.g., on a cost-plus basis. He could also get Moderna to enable others to quickly make vaccines needed.

Washington can thus ensure Moderna does the needed. If Biden wants to lead the world, he still has a small window of opportunity to lead and win the war against COVID-19. Not doing so will mean millions more avoidable deaths. Only together can we rise to the greatest challenge of our times.

 

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Women are nearly twice as likely as men to suffer from mental illness, including depression. Credit: Unsplash /Melanie Wasser.

By External Source
Oct 11 2021 (IPS)

World Mental Health Day was on October 10, 2021. The theme for this year was “Mental Health in an unequal World”. This is an appropriate focus given the extreme inequities to access to mental health services that exist in our society.

We are three providers committed to mental health equity across the globe-in India, Uganda and the United States. While our countries and contexts may differ, our commitment to equality in Mental Health is the same. We recognize commonalities in the diverse impact that mental illness has on the most vulnerable members of our communities.

While there has been some focus on the poor access to mental health services in high income countries, between 75% to 95% of people with mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries are unable to access mental health services at all

Mental health disorders are considered the second leading cause of disease burden in terms of Years Lived with Disability (YLD) and sixth leading cause of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) in the world. Mental health and substance use disorders are a major source of disability across the globe, regardless of location or income.

While there has been some focus on the poor access to mental health services in high income countries, between 75% to 95% of people with mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries are unable to access mental health services at all. Lack of investment in mental health disproportionate to the overall health budget contributes to the mental health treatment gap.

Mental health is dependent on a milieu of advantages and disadvantages. Adversity, trauma, insecurities, poverty, power disabling environment and physical morbidities, among other factors, all contribute to poor mental health. These issues are all augmented in under-resourced areas and exacerbated among the most vulnerable.

Wealth inequality has impacted general health, including mental health. Women are nearly twice as likely as men to suffer from mental illness, including depression. This gender disparity may relate to social inequalities and living standards across nations.

While public health discourse has begun to address the mental health burden and address it, social inequalities must be understood to achieve any form of equality in the mental health landscape. Addressing disparities in mental health not only involves reducing the stigma associated with mental health diagnoses and treatment but also involves increasing access to care.

According to the United Nations, there are 9 per 100,000 mental health workers for the global population. However, when taking into account low versus high income countries this number varies substantially.

While this shows that mental health services are available, access is important in treating mental illness as well as an understanding of factors such as the social determinants of health that greatly contribute to one’s mental health.

Therefore when we attempt to reduce inequality in mental health, we must also make a worldwide commitment to promote policies that advance equality across gender, wealth, education and participation must be made to achieve the highest possible level of mental health for all people.

Reducing mental health inequalities and their impact on us is one of the most immediate problems that we face and needs urgent action. We suggest four ways to focus on mental health equity locally and globally with a greater focus on effective, pragmatic, scalable solutions that address disadvantages and foster resilience in people.

 

1. We need to co-create mental health services that integrate and not isolate people; options to access services should focus on keeping individuals within their own environment of comfort. Services should be provided to increase accessibility. This includes the provision of services at convenient locations within a community and during times beyond normal work hours, including evenings and weekends. Utilization rates will peak and mental well-being and outcomes will improve drastically.
2. The health care community needs to shift its mind-set to adopting holistic mental health processes and outcomes that embrace openness and creativity. Mental well-being should be normalised in the practice and policy of healthcare provision. This can help reduce the stigma associated with both seeking and providing treatment.
3. Communities should be engaged in grassroots efforts that focus on training members to become mental health gatekeepers and liaise with clinical practitioners. Strong and sustainable examples include Zimbabwe’s grandma benches, healing circles, and Mental Health First Aid education programs that have invested in the community to engage the solutions that best serve their purpose and needs.

4. Mental Health cannot be addressed in isolation since it is centered in a complex socio-cultural context. Solutions to enhance equity have to address the environmental and sociopolitical factors in play in the community and divest from oppressive systems that perpetuate marginalization of mental illness.

 

If the COVID-19 Pandemic and its associated lockdowns has not highlighted the urgent need to promote Mental health, then nothing will. We need to treat Mental health promotion as a public health emergency which needs immediate action necessary to generate equity in outcomes. Awareness is only the first step. High quality, affordable and normalized mental health should not be a privilege but a right, that everyone can claim.

Equal Mental Health Care for all; let’s make it a reality!

Author Biographies:

Shubha Nagesh is a medical doctor and a public health consultant and works at The Latika Roy Foundation, Dehradun, India.

Gabrielle Jackson is a licensed clinical social worker, therapist, and facilitator in private practice at Diasporic Healing LLC in Washington DC.

Rose Mary Nakame is a Registered Nurse, Public Health Specialist, and Executive Director of REMI East Africa in Kampala, Uganda.