Africa

Campaigners are challenging the Home Office's plan for some cross-Channel migrants.

As the dust settles on the transfer window, BBC Sport Africa take a look at five of the top African movers and their respective challenges.

William Ruto is in a strong position after his election as president was backed by the Supreme Court.

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Sep 5 2022 (IPS)

Most of the 2.1 billion strong workforce in Asia and the Pacific are denied access to decent jobs, health care and social protection but there is an array polices and tools that governments can use to remedy these deficiencies and ensure that the rights and aspirations of these workers and their families are upheld and that they remain the engine of economic growth for the region.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

A new report released today, the Social Outlook for Asia and the Pacific: The Workforce We Need, offers tangible solutions to immediately address alarming trends that both preceded the new coronavirus and were exacerbated by the pandemic.

While 243 million new people were pushed into poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic, half of all people in our region already had been surviving without cash, a third without necessary medicine or treatment and a quarter had gone without enough food to eat. This can lower productivity, which has fallen below the global average, but also tax revenues and future economic output.

With two-thirds of all workers in the region being employed informally, often with low wages, in hazardous working conditions and without a contract, half of our workforce are at the brink of poverty. People in our region are also at a higher risk of being pushed into poverty by health spending than anywhere else in the world, causing inequalities to further widen. With more than half of all people being excluded from social protection, pandemics, disasters economic downturns, or normal life events, such as falling ill, becoming pregnant or getting old often have detrimental impacts on households’ wellbeing and life prospects.

The reality is harsh: our workers are generally ill-equipped to unlock new opportunities, fulfill life aspirations for themselves and their families but also to face ongoing challenges emanating from megatrends of climate change, ageing societies and digitalization.

Climate-induced natural disasters cause businesses to relocate and jobs to disappear, disproportionately affecting rural communities. Digital technologies are bringing disruptive change to the world of work and the digital gap is intensifying inequalities in opportunities, income and wealth. Population ageing means that the number of older people will double by 2050, making policies to support active and healthy ageing ever more urgent.

None of these vulnerabilities are inevitable. With the right policies, our region’s workforce can become more productive, healthier and protected.

First, active labour market policies, through life-long learning and skill development, can support a green and just transition into decent employment and improve access to basic opportunities and adequate standards of living. Harnessing synergies between active labor market policies and social protection can help workers upgrade their skills and transition into decent employment while smoothing consumption and avoiding negative coping strategies during spells of unemployment or other shocks.

Second, extending social health protection to all can significantly improve workers’ health, income security and productivity. COVID-19 demonstrated the weakness of a status quo in which 60 per cent of our workers finance their own health care and receive no sickness benefits. A focus on primary health care as well as curative health protection is needed, also to support healthy and active ageing. People who are chronically ill or live with a disability must be included in health care strategies. Given the large informal economy across the region, extending social health protection is the key policy instrument for achieving universal health coverage in our region.

Third, building on the ESCAP Social Protection Simulator, a basic package of universal child, old age and disability social protection schemes, set at global average benefit levels, would slash poverty in our region by half. Our analysis also shows that social protection helps increase access to opportunities particularly for furthest behind groups. This income security would improve the workforce’s resilience. Extending social protection to all means increasing public spending by between 2 and 6 per cent of GDP, an investment well-worth its cost. The Action Plan to Strengthen Regional Cooperation on Social Protection in Asia and the Pacific can guide action towards broadening social protection coverage.

With this information at hand, there is a long overdue need for action. The policy recommendations set out in the Social Outlook are a priority for most countries in the region. These require bold but necessary reforms. For most countries these reforms are affordable but may require a reprioritization of existing expenditures and tax, supported by tax reform. Decent employment for all and an expansion of social protection and health care should form the foundations of a strong social contract between the State and its citizens. One where mutual roles and responsibilities are clear and where our workforce is given the security to fulfil their potential and be the force for achieving the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Madagascar seal a first appearance at the African Nations Championship but Nigeria and South Africa will miss the 2022 finals in Algeria.

Losing candidate Raila Odinga did not provide evidence of his allegations of fraud, the judges said.

Having harvested and graded their sunflower crop instead of taking it to market, every member of Zikometso Productive and Innovation Centre (IPC) brings their produce to the factory for cooking oil production. The IPC falls under the National Smallholder Farmers Association of Malawi (Nasfarm). The rising cost of cooking oil in the country and the […]

Sizable differences in the levels of children dying persist especially between more developed and less developed regions. Credit: Franz Chávez/IPS

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Sep 5 2022 (IPS)

The chances of a child dying before reaching age five years have dropped substantially worldwide during the recent past. However, a significant divide remains among countries as well as within regions in the chances of children dying.

Over the past fifty years, the death rates of infants and children under age five have declined markedly. Since 1971 the world’s infant mortality rate declined from nearly 100 deaths per 1,000 live births to 28. Similarly, the world’s under-five mortality rate declined from nearly 150 deaths per 1,000 live births to 37 (Figure 1).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

Despite those impressive declines, sizable differences in the levels of children dying persist especially between more developed and less developed regions. In 2021, for example, the infant mortality rate and under-five mortality rate of the less developed regions were about eight times the levels of the more developed regions.

High rates of children dying are even more striking for many developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. While sub-Saharan Africa represented 14 percent of the world’s population in 2021, it accounted for more than 56 percent of the deaths of children under age five. In contrast, more developed regions represented 16 percent of the world’s population but accounted for 1 percent of deaths of children under age five.

In addition, the infant mortality rates of the fifteen highest countries are all located in sub-Saharan Africa. Their rates are no less than thirteen times higher than those of the more developed regions. Moreover, four of those countries, i.e., Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, and Somalia, have rates that are eighteen times higher than those of the more developed regions (Figure 2).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

A similar pattern is clear for death rates of children under-five. The fifteen highest countries are again all in sub-Saharan Africa. They have under-five mortality rates that are at least fifteen times higher than those of the more developed regions. In addition, the rates of Somalia, Nigeria, Chad, and the Central African Republic are about twenty times higher than the levels of the more developed regions.

Important factors contributing to high levels of children dying include neonatal causes, including preterm and low birth weight, asphyxia, infection, pneumonia, malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, measles, and tuberculosis.

The death of mothers is also a major factor associated with high levels of children dying. High rates of maternal mortality are often the result of excessive blood loss, infection, high blood pressure, unsafe abortion, obstructed labor, anemia, malaria, and heart disease. In addition to high rates of maternal mortality, countries with high death rates of children also have high rates of women dying during their childbearing years.

For the fifteen countries with the highest rates of child mortality, for example, female mortality between age 15 and 50 is at least four times higher than the level of the more developed regions. Moreover, in the Central African Republic, Chad, Lesotho, and Nigeria, female mortality between age 15 and 50 is more than seven times the level of more developed regions (Figure 3).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

One of key targets of the Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG 3) is by 2030 to end preventable deaths of newborns and children under five. More specifically, the goals are to reduce neonatal mortality to at least 12 deaths per 1,000 live births and under-five mortality to at least 25 deaths per 1,000 live births.

While sub-Saharan Africa represented 14 percent of the world’s population in 2021, it accounted for more than 56 percent of the deaths of children under age five. In contrast, more developed regions represented 16 percent of the world’s population but accounted for 1 percent of deaths of children under age five

For most of the sub-Saharan countries achieving those desired goals by 2030 appears unlikely. For example, the under-five mortality rate of sub-Saharan Africa in 2021 is 72 deaths per 1,000 live births, or nearly triple the desired goal by 2030. Also, the projected 2030 under-five mortality rate for sub-Saharan Africa is 62, again more than double the desired goal of 25 deaths per 1,000 births.

The situation for the fifteen countries with the highest levels of children dying are even more striking. The under-five mortality rates of those countries are expected to remain far greater than the desired goal by 2030. For example, the 2021 under-five mortality rates for Nigeria and Somalia of about 111 deaths per 1,000 births are projected to decline to approximately 100 by 2030, or four times the goal of SDG 3.

On a variety of developmental dimensions, the countries with high rates of children dying are doing comparatively poorly. Those countries have high levels of poverty, illiteracy, and malnourishment.

Furthermore, on various global indexes, such as the Fragile State Index, the Human Development Index, the Economic Freedom Index, and the Human Freedom Index, those sub-Saharan African countries are doing comparatively poorly, typically falling in the bottom tier. For example, on the Fragile State Index, the rankings of the fifteen high child mortality countries reflect low levels of economic and social development with high levels of political instability.

Moreover, high child mortality countries are facing increasing risks of climate change. Those countries are among the least able to adapt to its consequences, such as high temperatures, droughts, flooding, and extreme weather events. Also, the same countries generally lack the financial and institutional capacities to carry out adaptation programs.

It is certainly the case that child mortality levels worldwide have declined substantially over the past half century. However, despite those impressive declines, a significant divide in the level of children dying remains between the more developed regions and most sub-Saharan African countries and other countries with high child mortality rates.

The major measures needed to address the high levels of children dying are widely recognized, with most of those deaths being due to preventable or treatable causes. According to the World Health Organization, six solutions to the most preventable causes of under-five deaths are: skilled attendants for antenatal, birth, and postnatal care; immediate and exclusive breastfeeding; access to nutrition and micronutrients; improved access to water, sanitation, and hygiene; family knowledge of danger signs in a child’s health; and immunizations.

It is also widely recognized that the financial resources, political will, social stability, and health programs that are necessary to reduce the numbers of children dying are typically lacking or seriously inadequate.

Addressing the significant divide in the rates of children dying represents a major challenge for many developing countries as well as the international community of nations that can offer aid and assistance to those countries. While the challenge is formidable, it is essential to reduce the unacceptably high levels of children dying.

 

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations, and his latest book is: “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”

 

Nigerian club Bayelsa Queens become the sixth side to qualify for the Women's African Champions League after winning their zonal qualifier.

Credit: United Nations

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Sep 5 2022 (IPS)

There are many ways the UN can have a sizeable role in promoting the engagement and participation of youth and helping them becoming a central pillar of a new way of doing policy-making.

After all, if we want to rethink the relationships between the state and citizens, the foundation of a new Social Contract as envisioned by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, youths must be enabled to have a voice and an agency powerful enough to directly influence decision making, locally and globally.

At the former level, the UN can set up UN Youth National Forums or Assemblies wherever it operates. Such entities would be more then tokenistic forums where meetings happen on “off basis” but instead would be structured as permanent mechanisms with a power of not only advising but also monitoring the work being carried out by the UN Country Teams.

Having in place such forums locally would pave the way for bolder action at the higher levels, on the international arena.

It is here where there is a great deal of scope for the UN to model a truly radical change in terms of youths’ participation globally, raising the bar in terms of what youths’ involvement means and what it can imply.

If we truly create pathways for youths to play a more central role and we generate a structure or mechanism for them to fulfill such responsibilities, international politics, while would not drastically change overnight, surely would be impacted.

This is the reason why Guterres should strive for something that, though discussed in the past, was never close enough to be fully considered nor implemented.

I am referring to the idea of creating a permanent UN Youth Assembly that would autonomously act alongside of the established General Assembly and would become a forum where youths from around the world can discuss and set the policy course.

This permanent mechanism could either be linked up with the assemblies or forums that the UN could establish at national level or could simply have a completely different, standing alone nature with its members being selected at national levels through transparent and competitive process.

While we cannot imagine at the moment that such body would yield any veto power, it could, for example, have a symbolic, though powerful role especially in making its voice heard by the major global powers.

For example, it would have access, on consistent basis, to the UN Security Council, the most consequential institution within the international community.

While the official positions of its members, results of government-to-government negotiations behind the curtain, won’t be altered, at least they could be openly challenged.

Imagine some representatives of the UN Youth Assembly addressing, after their own deliberations, the sessions of the Security Council: this would be a powerful reminder to the world leaders that youths can dare to think differently.

The working modality of this envisioned UN Youth Assembly could become a template for participation and transparency where inputs and feedbacks from youths around the world could make such assembly truly owned by all the youths from across the world.

Thanks to the progress of digital work, a permanent online platform could offer themes of discussions for the UN Youth Assemblies in a way that everyone, even those not formally part of the UN Youth Assembly, could participate.

Ensuring a strong connection between this assembly and the youths around the world is as vital as daunting.

The risk is that any bold attempt of creating a new world body for youths to be involved in the decision making could become an elitist platform where only the most connected youths would participate.

Instead of bringing in youths from disadvantaged groups, the “usual suspects”, youths from well off families with access to opportunities, would “capture” their new “toy”.

That’s why it is vital that UN agencies and programs around the world do a better job at promoting civic engagement and participation, enabling innovative pathways for also the less advantaged youths to participate and deliberate.

Setting up national mechanisms for the UN to engage youths at national level could offer a pipeline for a more diverse crop of youths to have a chance to be involved and participate.

Investing in capacity building of youths is more and more critical.

Thanks to innovative partnerships with civil society, trainings, courses, institutes or academies could offer a way for the UN to create a sort of “upward mobility” in terms of opportunities to participate for many youths now excluded.

In addition, the members UN Youth Assembly should be chosen on rotation basis and exercise their duties for short periods like six months or at the longest, one year as such short mandates would give chances to more youths to be in the Assembly.

Moreover, a way to ensure a deep link between this new body and the ground reality, each of its representatives would be supported by a deliberative group at national level, a further connection between local youths and the international arena.

Imagining such body comes with risks.

In relation to its duties and responsibilities, the UN Youth Assembly could be easily become object of derision.

It would be seen as another tokenistic tool that governments could use to promote some forms of reforms that in reality, instead, would continue to legitimize the current status quo in terms of decision making and power relations.

That’s why it is important that UN Youth Assembly is provided with the analytical and research tools that would make it an authoritative source of insights and proposals from a youths’ perspective.

Youths led deliberations should be based on a proper process of accessing to the best available information and through a very structured exercise of deliberative process that would, ultimately, end up with recommendations or proposals, also in forms of policy briefs.

Setting up a UN Youth Assembly won’t preclude other forms of youth’s activism and participation.

For example, we have seen with climate activism, how forceful youths’ actions have to be in order to become visible and noticed.

The Assembly would be just another way, now completely missing, for youths to properly channel their opinions and voices, overcoming the multitude of improvised consultation mechanisms that are often created for major global leaders ‘gatherings whose impacts are close to nil.

Moreover, like the UN Youth National Forums or Assemblies locally, the UN Youth Assembly could be given some limited binding powers in steering the course of the UN agencies and programs, having a clear voice and power in deciding their global strategies and priorities.

The future of youths’ participation aimed at setting the global agenda will be a mix of different and yet complementary actions from the ground and from the top alike.

Peaceful manifestations, including those of civil disobedience, have a place together with other forms of youths’ involvement.

Having a new global platform to express their voices should not be seen as a way to stifle bottom-up initiatives but, rather, as another way to help transform the way political power is exercised.

Simone Galimberti is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not-for-profit NGO in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Thales Motta, director of GNR Fortaleza, stands in front of the biomethane plant located in northeastern Brazil, the development of which required overcoming prejudices, mistrust and misinformation to open up the market for gas generated from garbage. Now biomethane is expanding, making use of landfills and agricultural biomass. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
FORTALEZA, Brazil , Sep 5 2022 (IPS)

The increasing productivity with which humankind generates waste has gained at least one sustainable counterpart: the extraction of biogas from landfills, a growing activity in Brazil.

"There was a great deal of prejudice even among engineers, skepticism in the gas companies. We had to present analyses and quality tests that were more rigorous than the ones required for fossil fuel gas. But we broke down the barrier of discredit and opened a new market, proving that it is a safe, stable gas with predictable prices.” -- Thales Motta
Two small plateaus stand out in the landscape on the outskirts of Caucaia, one of the 19 municipalities that make up the metropolitan region of Fortaleza, capital of the state of Ceará in the Northeast of the country.

Although they look similar, one of the hills receives about 5,000 tons per day of solid waste collected in the metropolitan region of 4.2 million inhabitants. The other, the old sanitary landfill which began to operate in 1991, is already closed, but it is the one that generates more gas.

“We are pioneers in the production of biomethane from garbage,” said Thales Motta, director of Fortaleza Renewable Natural Gas (GNR), a partnership between the private companies Ecometano, of the MDC renewable energy and natural gas group, and Marquise Ambiental, of Fortaleza, which manages the Caucaia landfills.

Biomethane is the by-product of biogas refining that removes other gases, such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide.

GNR Fortaleza produces about 100,000 cubic meters per day of this gas, which is sold to the state-owned Ceará Gas Company (Cegás), which mixes it with natural gas in its pipelines.

“We supply 15 percent of the gas distributed by Cegás, which trusted the quality of our biomethane,” Motta said during IPS’s visit to the GNR plant, inaugurated in December 2017.

This labyrinth of pipes collect biogas from the landfill and refine it to produce biomethane with 95 percent purity. The renewable gas is mixed with natural gas for industrial use, in vehicles and thermoelectric plants, as well as in homes and businesses in the metropolitan region of Fortaleza, in northeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Initial difficulties

Ecometano’s pioneering activity is due to another plant, Dos Arcos, established in 2014 in São Pedro da Aldeia, a coastal city of 108,000 inhabitants, 140 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro. Its capacity is limited to 14,000 cubic meters per day.

“There was no regulation for biomethane then and the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels denied us authorization to sell it,” said Motta, an electrical engineer. There were losses; the sales were made directly to a limited number of customers, such as supermarkets.

But the company persevered and the regulation came out in 2017, shortly before the start of GNR Fortaleza’s operations.

“There was a great deal of prejudice even among engineers, skepticism in the gas companies. We had to present analyses and quality tests that were more rigorous than the ones required for fossil fuel gas,” said the plant manager.

“But we broke down the barrier of discredit and opened a new market, proving that it is a safe, stable gas with predictable prices,” he added.

A view of the new Caucaia landfill, near Fortaleza, capital of the state of Ceará in northeastern Brazil, which receives about 5,000 tons of garbage a day. It already produces biogas, but will do so on a larger scale in a few years. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Advantageous costs

At the beginning, biomethane cost 30 percent more, but today it is 30 percent cheaper than natural gas, in view of the rise in fossil fuels, he pointed out. Its price depends on internal factors, such as inflation, and is not subject to unpredictable oil prices on the international market or exchange rate fluctuations, he stressed.

“Biomethane competes with fossil gas on an advantageous footing today. But even if oil becomes cheaper, the market is predisposed to betting on biomethane” because of environmental issues, he said.

“Cegás decided to distribute biomethane because it considers it strategic to diversify its mix with a cleaner, renewable and sustainable gas, thus contributing to reducing pollution and improving the environment,” the company’s president, Hugo de Figueiredo Junior, told IPS.

“It is also an opportunity to expand suppliers, competition and conditions to offer better prices to the end consumer,” he added.

Cegás, in which the state of Ceará is a majority shareholder, was a pioneer within Brazil in the injection of biomethane into its network, starting in May 2018.

The nearly 15 percent proportion of biomethane in the total volume constitutes “one of the highest percentages of renewable gas injected into the grid by a distributor in the world,” Figueiredo said.

That proportion may expand in the future, but biomethane faces several challenges, he added.

There is a need to disseminate existing technological solutions and facilitate access to them, expand knowledge about potential uses of green gases, and improve regulation and processes for the collection and disposal of solid waste and wastewater, he said.

The old landfill, now covered, still generates biogas that is converted to biomethane by refining, in Caucaia in northeastern Brazil. The dark lake is leachate, a highly polluting waste liquid that is treated before being discarded by sprinkling it on the soil. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Expansion

In terms of production, GNR Fortaleza is now the second largest biomethane plant in Brazil. It is surpassed by Gas Verde, from Seropédica, a town near Rio de Janeiro, which has been producing 120,000 cubic meters per day since 2019.

Many interested parties visit GNR, which has become a reference point for gas generated from waste because it has developed process technologies that make it possible to integrate equipment from different national and international suppliers, “with its own codes that are open” to anyone, said Motta.

Currently, many companies that extract biogas from landfills for electricity generation are preparing to convert their plants to biomethane production, he said.

“We receive visits here from universities and groups of interested parties. We have to build an auditorium for lectures. There was no laboratory for biomethane analysis in the Northeast. Now we have one and research on this gas is mushrooming,” Motta said.

But it is necessary to take a broader view, he acknowledged. Landfills are limited. A minimum of 2,000 tons of waste per day is needed to make a biomethane plant viable, he estimated. Only large cities with at least one million inhabitants generate that much solid waste.

“We have to look for other kinds of biomass,” he said.

Hundreds of trucks travel the roads transporting garbage to the Caucaia landfill, some 20 kilometers from Fortaleza, the capital of the state of Ceará in Brazil’s Northeast region.
About 5,000 tons of garbage are produced daily from the metropolitan region, which has 4.2 million inhabitants. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

This process is already underway, especially in the South and Southeast regions of Brazil, where largescale agricultural production offers a large volume of waste. Sugarcane is the main source of biomass, as it is also planted to produce ethanol, whose consumption in vehicles is on par with that of gasoline.

Livestock manure, especially from pigs, drives the production of biogas for electricity generation, and a growing proportion goes towards conversion into biomethane, especially for use in vehicles.

“Biomethane is a suitable fuel for the energy transition, has more predictable prices (than fossil fuels) and can be produced in regions far from the existing natural gas network,” which in Brazil is concentrated along the eastern coast, Figueiredo, the president of Cegás, said from the company’s headquarters in Fortaleza.

But not having a pipeline nearby can frustrate large projects, Motta said. He gave the example of a sugar agribusiness company that could produce 30,000 cubic meters of methane a day. As this is double its own consumption and the nearest big city is 90 kilometers away, the project was unfeasible.

Harnessing gas from garbage, and from biomass in general, has become an urgent necessity in the face of the climate emergency. Methane contributes more intensely to the greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas, which is used to gauge threats to the climate.

Brazil and other countries pledged to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030, as a crucial step towards keeping global warming to a maximum of two degrees Celsius by 2050.

GNR Fortaleza, located in Caucaia, a city of some 370,000 inhabitants 15 kilometers from Fortaleza, plays an environmental role. But in terms of employment, it generates only 32 direct jobs and an uncertain number of indirect jobs, including outsourced services, temporary consultants and suppliers of certain equipment.

Cegás serves only 24,000 gas consumers in Greater Fortaleza. According to its data, industry accounts for 46.26 percent of consumption, thermoelectric plants for 30 percent and motor vehicles for 22.71 percent. There is little left – just 0.73 percent for households and 1.22 percent for commerce.

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Ethiopian Girl Skaters is a female-only skateboarding group that is challenging stereotypes about what activities Ethiopian girls can and should do.

Haggai Ndubuisi watched videos on YouTube to improve when he began playing American football four years ago, and was signed by the Arizona Cardinals in April.

Al-Shabab militants claim to have carried out the attack in the country's central region.

It has wrongly been described as a prohibition on white people and foreign accents.

A partial view of the city of Punto Fijo, with the Cardón refinery in the background, on the Paraguaná peninsula, projected as a special economic zone overlooking the Caribbean in northwest Venezuela. CREDIT: Megaconstrucciones

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Sep 3 2022 (IPS)

Venezuela is preparing to replicate the experience of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), a mechanism with which more than 60 countries have tried to draw investment and accelerate economic growth, while under its avowedly socialist government a “silent neoliberalism” is gaining ground.

The aim of the SEZs is “to provide special conditions to gain the economic confidence of investors from all over the world, and productive development to put an end once and for all to oil rentism,” said President Nicolás Maduro when he promulgated the Organic Law of Special Economic Zones on Jul. 20.

The SEZs, “90 percent of which are in the global developing South, are a catalyst for economic restructuring processes and go hand in hand with the expansion of the neoliberal economy,” sociologist Emiliano Terán, a researcher with the non-governmental Venezuelan Observatory of Political Ecology, told IPS.

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad), there were 5,383 SEZs in the world in 2019 and another 508 under construction, of which 4,772 were in developing countries – 2,543 in China alone and 737 in Southeast Asia.

In Latin America and the Caribbean there were 486 – 73 in the Dominican Republic, some 150 in Central America, seven in Mexico and 39 in Colombia.

SEZs are mainly commercial, such as free ports or free trade zones, where import quotas, tariffs, customs or sales taxes are eliminated; industrial, with an emphasis on improving infrastructure available to companies; urban or mining ventures; or export processing.

Their main characteristic is that, in order to stimulate investment, especially foreign investment, there are more flexible regulations on taxes, investment requirements, employment, paperwork and procedures, access to resources and inputs, export quotas and capital repatriation.

One of the camping areas improvised by tour operators on La Tortuga, an island with no permanent population where tourist developments are being planned that are triggering environmentalist alarms, as they may severely affect the still almost pristine ecosystem of the island and its surrounding Caribbean waters. CREDIT: Jorge Muñoz/Aleteia

An eye on the environment

In Venezuela, the first five zones decreed are the arid Paraguaná Peninsula, in the northwest; Margarita Island, in the southeastern Caribbean; La Guaira and Puerto Cabello, which are the largest ports, along the central portion of the Caribbean coast; and the remote La Tortuga Island, some 200 kilometers northeast of Caracas.

Paraguaná (an area of 3,400 square kilometers) is home to a large oil refining complex, and Margarita Island (1,020 square kilometers) has for decades been a sales tax-free zone and a tourist mecca for Venezuela’s middle class.

Puerto Cabello and La Guaira are essentially ports for imports to the populated north-central part of the country, whose main exports, oil and metals, are shipped from docks in the production areas in the east and west.

Hotel complexes, airports, marinas and golf courses are being planned for La Tortuga, which covers 156 square kilometers and has no permanent population. Environmental groups warn that its waters, reefs and the island itself are home to five species of turtles, 73 species of birds and dozens of species of fish and cetaceans.

Sociologist Emiliano Terán (R) with economists Luis Crespo (C) and Carlos Lazo (L) take part in a forum at the Central University of Venezuela critical of the announced special economic zones. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

Limited economy

“The environmental issue is a concern, but it is hard to believe that the government has the resources or the investors for the number of hotels planned for La Tortuga,” economist Luis Oliveros, a professor at the Metropolitan and Central Universities of Venezuela, told IPS.

The decreed Venezuelan SEZs “seem more like announcements than realities, and although we like the government to think of growth and development hand in hand with private investment, much more is needed. It has yet to be clarified what exactly the government is pursuing with these zones,” Oliveros said.

In Venezuela “creating SEZs has limitations, such as the sanctions (imposed by the United States and the European Union) and the need to generate macroeconomic stability and legal certainty, which are pending issues,” he added.

After seven years of sharp decline – and three years of hyperinflation – Venezuela’s annual gross domestic product, which exceeded 300 billion dollars a decade ago, now stands between 50 and 60 billion dollars, according to economists.

Oil production, the main lever of the economy and source of tax revenues, has shrunk and is starved of new investments, while the State desperately seeks income by exporting crude oil at a discount or selling gold that is extracted at the cost of great environmental damage in the southeast of the country.

Attracting investment may be an uphill struggle for SEZs that have still not been fully mapped out, considering that, for example, major companies have not knocked on the door to raise oil production – 600,000 barrels per day when a decade ago it was three million – despite the favorable signals sent by the United States.

Since March, informal contacts between Washington and Caracas, prompted by the impact of the war in Ukraine on the world energy market, have explored, without success so far, easing sanctions and other measures to bring Venezuela back to the U.S. oil market with new investments.

Juan Griego Bay in the north of Margarita Island, already half a century old as a sales tax-free zone and tourist mecca for Venezuela’s middle class, is now one of the country’s five special economic zones. CREDIT: Mipci

Neoliberal plan

In the southeast of the country, an area rich in gold, iron, diamonds, coltan and other minerals, the 112,000 square kilometer Orinoco Mining Arc (larger than Bulgaria, Cuba or Portugal) was decreed in 2016 as a “strategic development zone”, and its control and management was handed over to the armed forces.

The Mining Arc “has been a precedent for a new model promoted by the State to attract investments, but with depredation of the environment and restriction of wages and workers’ rights,” warned Luis Crespo, professor of Economics at the Central University of Venezuela, during a forum at that university.

“The special economic zones are part of a silent neoliberal adjustment plan driven forward by the government of President Maduro,” said Crespo.

The Venezuelan SEZ law – enacted by the legislature, which has been boycotted by most of the political opposition – states that its purpose is to develop a new production model, promote domestic and foreign economic activity, and diversify and increase exports.

It also aims to promote innovation, industry and technology transfer, create jobs and “ensure the environmental sustainability of production processes.”

The terminology about socialism or transition to socialism, frequent in the political discourse of the government and the ruling United Socialist Party, is absent from the legislation of the SEZs and from the repeated calls for private capital.

“The example of China is being followed, as it is by other countries, in using the SEZs as a showcase for heterodox forms of capital accumulation, in a process of progressive neoliberalization of the economy, as the oil model of production and distribution of wealth is being exhausted,” Terán said.

He added that “the SEZs cannot be seen only in terms of macroeconomic indicators,” as they become “zones of social and environmental sacrifice, with a new political geography of dispossession, and with the cheapening of labor, especially that of women workers.”

According to UNCTAD, although there are differences in SEZs from one country to another and within countries, their common features include having a clearly defined geographic area, a regulatory regime that is distinct from the rest of the economy, and special infrastructure support for the development of their activities.

A view of the border crossing between Colombia and Venezuela over the Simón Bolívar Bridge (in southwest Venezuela and northeast Colombia), when there was free transit and intense activity before the border was closed and relations between the two countries broke down. Now Caracas proposes to create a binational special economic zone in the area. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

More politics

Venezuela’s SEZs will be guided by a council to be freely appointed by the president, each will have a single authority to be named by the president, and the decree establishing one of the zones must be considered by the legislature within 10 working days or it will be approved, without discussion.

Areas such as the SEZs, the Mining Arc or special military zones in practice modify the political-administrative division of the country, which only in theory is a federal republic with 23 states plus a capital district.

In another political move, on Aug. 23 Maduro publicly proposed to his new Colombian counterpart, leftwing President Gustavo Petro, who took office on Aug. 7, the creation of a special binational economic zone between southwestern Venezuela and northeastern Colombia.

“We are going to propose to President Petro the construction of a large economic, commercial and productive zone between the department of Norte de Santander (Colombia) and the state of Táchira (Venezuela),” Maduro said.

Diplomatic, political, commercial and transit relations between the neighboring countries have been severed since February 2019.

In Táchira, business spokespersons have expressed their support for this Andean state of 11,000 square kilometers to obtain special regimes that favor trade with the neighboring country, and their peers in Colombia are betting on a recovery of bilateral trade, which prospered until the first decade of this century.

Terán described the projected creation of the SEZs as a possible “new pact of elites in Venezuela,” after more than 20 years of acute political confrontation, but warned that “there is an alternative, because although fragmented, dispersed and with a new look, protests against these pacts have never ceased.”

A civil servant recounts his ordeal after being detained by the intelligence services in Tripoli.

By Helen Grant and Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Sep 2 2022 (IPS)

As we approach this year’s Transforming Education Summit, global leaders can and must prioritize expertise and mobilize political will to support efforts to ensure inclusive and quality education for all, especially girls. This is at the heart of Sustainable Development Goal 4 in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as well as the commitments made in the Charlevoix Declaration and the G7 Declaration on Girls’ Education.

Helen Grant

Despite the progress made in recent decades, gender inequality between girls and boys, in all their diversity, is deepening. According to a recent United Nations report, the interlinked crises: of armed conflicts, climate change and COVID-19 are putting the 2030 Agenda in “grave danger, along with humanity’s very own survival.” These multiplying challenges are “creating spin-off impacts on food and nutrition, health, education, the environment, and peace and security, and affecting all the Sustainable Development Goals.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has deepened the global learning crisis. Approximately 147 million children missed over half of in-person learning in 2020 and 2021 and it is estimated that 50% of refugee girls in secondary school may not return, when their classrooms reopen after COVID-19, whilst 222 million girls were not able to be reached by remote learning during the pandemic.

Shocking new estimates published by Education Cannot Wait (ECW) indicate that 222 million school-aged children caught in crises globally are in urgent need of access to a quality education. These include 78.2 million who are out of school – a majority (54%) of whom are girls – and 119.6 million who are in school but not achieving minimum competencies in mathematics or reading.

Yasmine Sherif

Girls impacted by the horrors of war and displacement in places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Ukraine and Yemen face even greater risks, such as gender-based violence, early child-marriage and unwanted pregnancies.

The banning of secondary girls’ education in Afghanistan is especially intolerable. In the past year, girls were estimated to be more than twice as likely to be out of school, and nearly twice as likely to be going to bed hungry compared to boys.

This is the global picture as we approach, Transforming Education Summit, and why it is such a critical moment for girls education around the world.

ECW’s Case for Investment

ECW’s new Case for Investment is our case for humanity. It speaks up for girls’ rights to a 12-year education everywhere, not least in contexts of humanitarian crisis. It is our collective responsibility to deliver on the promise of 222 Million Dreams and the Sustainable Development Goals.

According to ECW’s recent Annual Results Report, conflict, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters and the compounding effect of the COVID-19 pandemic fueled increased education in emergencies needs with funding appeals reaching US$2.9 billion in 2021, compared with US$1.4 billion in 2020. While 2021 saw a record-high US$645 million in education appeal funding – the overall funding gap spiked by 17%, from 60% in 2020 to 77% in 2021.

Financing for education has not aligned with the deepening and growing needs. The gap has only widened.

It is only by closing this gap that we protect girls, support gender equality and empower the next generation of female leaders, teachers, lawyers, doctors and nurses.

Investing in 50% of a country’s population, its girls, is the best investment we can make. For every dollar invested in girls’ education, we see $2.80 in return. And a World Bank study estimates that the “limited educational opportunities for girls, and barriers to completing 12 years of education, cost countries between $15 and $30 trillion in lost lifetime productivity and earnings.”

The United Kingdom is a leading donor to Education Cannot Wait, and its support has allowed Education Cannot Wait and its strategic partners to have reached close to 7 million children and adolescents since 2016. In 2021 alone, the Fund reached 3.7 million children across 32 countries and an additional 11.8 million through COVID-19 interventions. Of all children reached by ECW’s investments to date, over 48% are girls, and 92% of programmes demonstrated an improvement in gender parity.

The Transforming Education Summit, and this year’s UN General Assembly will be a critical moment to address these challenges, and to assess the efficiency, effectiveness, scalability, sustainability and overall return-on-investment of ongoing and new initiatives and works streams as we look to increase girls access to quality education.

Delivering on Our Promise

Hosted by Switzerland and Education Cannot Wait – and co-convened by Germany, Niger, Norway and South Sudan – ECW’s 2023 High-Level Financing Conference offers an opportunity for leaders to turn these commitments into action.

We urge people everywhere to show their support for #222MillionDreams and #Everygirleverywhere with posts on social, individual donations, letters to your elected officials and calls to actions through the broad group of strategic partners.

Now is our chance to deliver on our promise of universal, equitable education. Now is our chance to transform girls’ education to transform the world. Now is our chance to deliver with humanity and for humanity.

About the Authors

Helen Grant is a Member of UK Parliament and the United Kingdom’s Special Envoy for Girls’ Education, leading the UK’s efforts internationally to ensure all girls get 12 years of quality education. Prior to politics, Helen was a children and family lawyer for 23 years.

Yasmine Sherif is the Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. A lawyer specialized in International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law (LL.M), she has over 30 years of experience with the United Nations and international NGOs.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By External Source
Sep 2 2022 (IPS-Partners)

 

United Nations Secretary General António Guterres appointed Martin Griffiths of the United Kingdom as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator in May 2021.

Mr. Griffiths brings extensive experience in humanitarian affairs. Since 2018 he served as the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Yemen. Between 2014 and 2018, he served as the first Executive Director of the European Institute of Peace. Between 2012 and 2014, he served as an adviser to all three Special Envoys of the Secretary-General for Syria, and Deputy Head of the United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS). From 1999 to 2010, Mr. Griffiths was the founding Director of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva.

He also worked in the British diplomatic service and for various international humanitarian organizations, including UNICEF, Save the Children and Action Aid. In 1994 he became the Director of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva and, from 1998 to 1999, served as Deputy to the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator in New York. He has also served as United Nations Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Great Lakes and in the Balkans.

Mr. Griffiths holds a master’s degree in Southeast Asian studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and is a qualified barrister.

ECW: The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has been a trusted partner since ECW’s establishment in 2016. As we look forward to ECW’s High-Level Financing Conference in February 2023 through the #222MillionDreams campaign, how can we best engage partners across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus and enhance coordinated actions?

Martin Griffiths: I am hard-pressed to think of anything more important than ensuring the education of our children. It is fundamental for the progress of society and our future well-being. When I speak with people in the crisis-affected countries where OCHA works, parents are always concerned for their children’s education, and children themselves yearn to go to school. Just think of the girls in Afghanistan who were left in tears outside the gates when the Taliban closed their schools.

Too many children in the world today, especially in crisis settings, are deprived of an education and we have to ramp up investment in this. The Education Cannot Wait initiative is leading the way and it is encouraging that you last year reached the milestone of nearly 7 million children and adolescents – half of them girls – supported since 2017.

COVID-19 lockdowns have taken a heavy toll on education globally, but even before the pandemic, 127 million school-age children and young people in crisis-affected countries were out of school. Despite many schools reopening in 2021, more than 870 million students still face disruptions to their education. If we are to meet Sustainable Development Goal 4 and give quality education to all, we need humanitarian, development, and peace partners to come together and approach the challenges together.

Progress has been made on this so-called nexus approach in the UN system, and among donors and other key stakeholders, and we are seeing better joined-up analysis and planning. But more needs to be done to align decisions in programming and financing with the agreed priorities, also in the education sector.

OCHA is the Co-Chair of the Joint Steering Committee to advance humanitarian and development collaboration in the UN and plays an active role in the Inter-Agency Standing Committee on the nexus approach. We are looking into how basic social services – including education – can best be delivered in crisis contexts.

ECW: According to Education Cannot Wait’s new Annual Results Report, while 2021 saw a record-high US$645 million in education appeal funding – the overall funding gap has spiked. How can we bridge that funding gap and bring new and non-traditional donors on board?

Martin Griffiths: In 2021, the education sector in our global humanitarian appeals was only 22.5%funded, well below the average. Currently, the education sector is about 20.5% funded.

The lion’s share of funding for the UN-coordinated humanitarian appeals, including the education sector, comes from a limited number of donors. We urge more countries and all donors to step up support to meet the ever-growing humanitarian needs.

Thanks to the OCHA-managed Country-Based Pooled Funds, we often step in and help fill some of the most urgent funding gaps. Last year, these pooled funds allocated nearly US$80 million to education in 20 countries.

Development actors should also invest more in education in crises and make full use of new and innovative technology. They could also engage closer with private sector partners. We need everybody to help safeguard children’s right to education and leave no one behind.

ECW: You served as the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Yemen from 2018-2021. How can education for children and adolescents caught in protracted crises – in places like Yemen, Syria, and beyond – support our efforts to build peace and achieve the goals outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development?

Martin Griffiths: Speaking of peacebuilding in countries like Syria or Yemen can be difficult. However, delivering education services that are sensitive to the divisions within societies and the underlying drivers of the conflicts is a good start to overcoming deep-rooted social and political cleavages – or at least promoting a sense of inclusion.

Education is of course literacy and numeracy, but it is also life skills such as problem-solving, conflict resolution, and community building. All these skills are important in for example Syria and Yemen where young people make up around one third of the population. Many have been out of school for years to support their families, join the fighting, some get married early, and so on. Education will offer these children opportunities to feel included, form positive social relationships, and to be empowered in their communities.

ECW: The COVID-19 pandemic has deepened the global learning crisis. In 2020 and 2021, 147 million children missed over half of in-person instruction and as many as 24 million learners may never return to school. What needs to be done collectively so we can build back better?

Martin Griffiths: Prolonged school closures have disproportionately impacted children in low-income households. This leaves them at risk of fewer employment opportunities and reduced lifetime earnings. In the recovery phase after the pandemic, we must ensure all children have access to education, including catch-up learning programmes for foundational skills, especially for children in low-income households.

Girls have faced additional barriers during the pandemic, and we saw more early marriages, pregnancies, and gender-based violence, things that can keep girls out of education. Many girls who left school may not return. Recovery efforts must support girls’ access to education and training. We should also focus on interrelated issues such as girls’ health and protection.

The pandemic revealed the importance of equitable digital access. There is an opportunity now to further invest in digital tools and infrastructure so all children can take advantage of digital learning.

ECW: The LEGO Foundation is ECW’s largest private sector donor, with approximately US$40 million in contributions to date. Why is investment in education by the private sector – especially early childhood education – important not only from a rights perspective but for business and economic stability worldwide?

Martin Griffiths: In their earliest years, children form more than 1 million new brain connections every second – an astounding pace that is not repeated at any other phase of life. Early Childhood Development (ECD) holds an incredible promise to transform the lives of children around the world.

Through quality education in the earliest years, we can set children on a path that will have lifelong benefits for their learning and earning potential. Quality early education is one of the best investments we can make to transform societies and support a more skilled workforce. We face a large challenge to ensure all children have access to universal pre-primary education by 2030. I encourage the private sector to invest heavily in this.

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

Martin Griffiths: I am reading a biography of former SG Dag Hammarskjöld, one which draws heavily on Markings, his journal and record of his values. I have also been reading accounts of the early years of independence in Malaysia and Singapore, the home base of my wife and children. I have been rereading accounts of the US administration of Iraq, including Fiasco by Thomas E Ricks. Hilary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety remains one of the best books I have ever read. It takes us living and breathing into the extraordinary events of the ‘Terror’ in France in the French Revolution, giving us the human picture even of people like Robespierre and Desmoulins. And for light reading, I have just taken delivery of the latest Robert Harris novel, Act of Oblivion, a historical novel set in the seventeenth century.

Two among the several foreign players currently training with the Nagorno-Karabakh squad. Credit: Anush Ghavalyan/IPS

By Anush Ghavalyan
STEPANAKERT, Nagorno Karabakh, Sep 2 2022 (IPS)

“This year the weather in Nagorno-Karabakh is warmer than in my home country, Senegal,” jokes Sow Ababacar, a 22-year-old footballer from the local stadium in Stepanakert, the capital of this Caucasus enclave. Although he once dreamed of playing for the Senegalese national team, the midfielder is currently training with the disputed territory´s national squad.

“Time flies,” says Sow. “It’s already been three years since I arrived.”

Also called Artsakh by the Armenians, Nagorno-Karabakh is a self-proclaimed republic inhabited by an Armenian majority seeking recognition of its independence from Azerbaijan. It’s a territory internationally recognized as part of this country which lies in the southern Caucasus region, very much between Europe and Asia.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a self-proclaimed republic inhabited by an Armenian majority seeking recognition of its independence from Azerbaijan. It's a territory internationally recognized as part of this country which lies in the southern Caucasus region, very much between Europe and Asia

In September 2020, Baku launched an offensive with which sought to seal forever the longest conflict since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a landslide victory for Azerbaijan. Following the Russian-brokered ceasefire in November 2020, Moscow deployed its peacekeepers to territory still under Armenian control.

Although reconstruction is still under way all across the enclave there are hardly any foreign workers and it’s not easy to come across foreigners in the streets of Stepanakert these days. Only Armenian and Russian citizens are allowed to travel to Nagorno-Karabakh, with the corridor connecting this enclave with Armenia under the control of Russian peacekeepers. They have the last word to decide on who gets in. Thus, the Senegalese footballer knows that he attracts a lot of attention in a city where the vast majority of the population is Armenian.

“The attitude towards blacks is the same almost everywhere, not just here. Wherever you go, there will always be people calling you ¨monkey´” Sow tells IPS. It hurts, he admits, but he has learned to cope with it. “Children don’t do that, adults do. I think the problem is that they don’t understand what they’re doing,” explains the young Senegalese.

Connecting with the local people is also far from easy in a deeply conservative society. “I liked a girl and she liked me too, but her parents were against our relationship and we broke up without even trying,” recalls Sow. He swears he hasn’t looked at the local girls ever since. “It’s impossible.”

“The people are friendly and the food is very tasty here, but when it comes to women, we can only watch,” Valdo Junior, a 27-year-old Cameroonian tells IPS. He adds that young players find local women attractive, but that they rarely jump into a relationship.

Junior moved to Nagorno-Karabakh after the 2020 war. “My family knows that I am somewhere in the Caucasus, but I am not sure they can find it on the map,” explains the defenseman. He misses his family, but training and distance are two major obstacles to visiting more often.

 

Starting from scratch

The team is getting set for the CONIFA (Confederation of Independent Football Associations) championship to be held later this year. It is an umbrella football federation for all associations outside of FIFA as well as the only international championship that they can play under their flag since the unrecognized status does not allow the Artsakh national team to reach FIFA.

Actually, Nagorno-Karabakh hosted the last CONIFA European Football Cup in 2019 (the COVID pandemics made it impossible for the next two to take place). Back then, South Ossetia won the tournament after scoring the only goal in the final against Western Armenia.

“We are waiting for CONIFA to set the final date for the championship to finalize the process of obtaining Nagorno-Karabakh citizenship for foreigners,” Mher Avanesyan, the president of the Artsakh Football Federation told IPS from his office in downtown Stepanakert. According to the official, the players are not officially part of the team but they´re training before the international sports event takes place.

Ababacar and Junior are two among a total of eight black players currently playing with different Armenian clubs, and they are not the only foreigners: English, Spanish, French and Russian can also be heard during the training sessions.

“Language differences are not an obstacle to making a good game as a team,” Artashes Adamyan, the coach, tells IPS. “The black players not only understand the local dialect, they can even speak it with some fluency,” he claims. Adamyan can barely hide his pride when he talks about players of color.

“They are an integral part and driving force of the team. We have created all the necessary conditions for them to play and stay in Artsakh.”

The signing of over a dozen foreign players by a de facto republic still struggling to recover from a bloody and still too recent war may look frivolous but, as in many other parts of the world, football here is also much more than a mere sporting event. From his office in the center of Stepanakert, Daniel Mkrtchyan, head of the Sports Department of the Nagorno-Karabakh Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, wanted to highlight the importance of the Nagorno-Karabakh squad.

“The CONIFA European Cup held here in 2019 brought thousands of people from all over the world. Also, many international journalists came to Artsakh to cover the event. Taking part in any international sporting event means making Artsakh known to the world,” Mkrtchyan explained to IPS .

The 2020 war, however, had a devastating impact. Over 10.000 people died in a conflict after which Armenians lost two thirds of the territory formerly under their control. Key infractructures were also severely damaged and Armenians in the enclave have to cope with gas and power cuts almost daily.

“We also lost stadiums, sports schools and infrastructure in regions such as Hadrut and Shushi (both today under Azerbaijani control) and in some places we need to do reconstruction works. For example, in Martuni, the football stadium was bombed in 2020. It took time for the athletes to get back in shape, as they missed training for half a year due to the war and its aftermath,” lamented Mkrtchyan.

“This year we will make history!” blurts enthusiastically Samvel Adamyan, a retired soccer player who has brought his 9-year-old grandson to the stadium to watch the training. The child can’t take his eyes off the players as he waits for the ball to go out of bounds so he can return it to his football stars.

Outside the stadium, there are not many leisure options. “You have to go to Yerevan to have fun,” blurts Tobi Jnohope, a 24-year-old defenseman born in Largo (Florida). He recently moved to Nagorno-Karabakh from Palmese, an Italian football club. The Afroamerican tells IPS he feels the love and recognition of the people when they ask for a photo with him in the streets. And there’s also the surprise element.

“You can get a whole bus of people staring at you with their mouths open. Isn’t that funny?,” he laughs.