Africa

Sargassum seaweed envelopes the waterways near the Marigot Fisheries Complex, Dominica Credit: JAK/IPS

By Alison Kentish
DOMINICA, Sep 2 2022 (IPS)

In June 2022, swathes of matted, putrid seaweed took over the shores of beaches across the Caribbean. It was the worst seaweed influx reported since 2011, when ocean currents began depositing tons of the brown seaweed, known as Sargassum, across the region, leaving authorities grappling with the severe ecological and economic fallout.

For the small island of Tobago in the Southern Caribbean, the impacts were felt across sectors and demographics.

“For about six to nine months of the year, you have an influx of Sargassum seaweed appearing on our shores. That not only affects the fishermen, the hotels and businesses in the area, but it also affects the schools near the affected beaches,” Managing Director of Recycling Waste and Logistics Limited, Shawn C Roberts, told IPS.

Roberts is also the Coordinator at Tobago Recycling Resource Initiative (TRRI), the first multiple materials recovery facility in Trinidad and Tobago and a pioneer in green solutions to environmental problems like waste management.

To tackle Tobago’s seaweed woes, Roberts has turned to earthworms. The process is called vermicomposting and involves the breakdown of organic matter by earthworms and microorganisms.

“It’s a controlled decomposition of the seaweed. It’s nature taking care of nature and so far, it is helping to alleviate this annual invasion of seaweed,” he said.

TRRI has launched the Alleviate Sargassum Action Program. Known as ASAP, program officials organize cleanup exercises on affected beaches. They then blend the collected sargassum with the earthworms and other organic materials like shredded cardboard, grass cuttings, and animal manure to generate compost.

Roberts is hoping that other countries will realize the benefits of vermicomposting for seaweed management.

“You don’t really need any major capital input. If you have your shed, or even trees and shade, you can build your compost piles and monitor them. You just allow the earthworms and other microorganisms like soldier flies to do their job.”

Far away from shore, sargassum is an important sanctuary for marine life. When it is deposited by the ton along coastlines, however, it becomes a health and economic nightmare.

The United Nations Environment Programme has warned that the sargassum’s production of hydrogen sulfide erodes air quality and prolonged exposure is harmful, particularly for people with respiratory issues.

“This is detrimental for coastal residents and beach users, whether local or visitors. Beach users who live elsewhere have the option to avoid impacted locations, while residents may be unable to avoid prolonged exposure,” the UN agency said, in a 2021 white paper.

Some countries, particularly tourism-dependent nations like Barbados, spend millions of dollars annually on emergency clean-ups to rid their beaches of rotting seaweed.

As far back as 2015, academics at the University of the West Indies lamented that it would take ‘US$120 million and more than 100,000 people’ to get rid of the sargassum crisis in the Caribbean.

The calamity has spawned innovation, and Roberts’ initiative in Tobago is one of many across the Caribbean.

The University of the West Indies announced last year that it was spearheading a research project to power vehicles with sargassum seaweed and wastewater fuel.

The researchers said the initiative could help Barbados in its goal of becoming fossil fuel free by 2030, while providing relief from the Sargassum seaweed emergency for the tourism sector.

In Saint Lucia, young biotech entrepreneur Johanan Dujon has been converting sargassum into fertilizers, organic fungicides, and pesticides under his Algas Organics brand.

For Roberts, whose program started composting in October 2021, the goal for the region should be cost-effective and long-term green solutions.

“The ability to harvest sargassum in an environmentally safe practice is a challenge. Quick fixes are costly. If you are not careful, the solution can be very expensive and reactive,” he told IPS.

“As much as you need emergency clean-ups using heavy equipment, many authorities wait until the sargassum starts decaying to react. Our approach lies in having a planned harvesting management system where you have regularly scheduled cleanups. When the sargassum is fresh, that is when you have to target it. Stockpiling creates a backlog that is more difficult and has severe odor. Then it gets overwhelming and affects us all.”

According to researchers at the University of South Florida’s Optical Oceanography Lab which produces monthly sargassum bulletins, in July 2022, the amount of seaweed in the Caribbean Sea was comparable to the historic high of the previous month.

“This indicates significant beaching events are still ongoing around the Caribbean Sea nations/islands,” the July bulletin stated.

“Vermicomposting presents a great opportunity for our countries,” says Roberts. “It allows less use of manual labor as it depends on the microorganisms to work, it is affordable, and it is natural.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

The increasingly severe invasion of seaweed is impacting tourism, health, livelihoods, and the economy of Caribbean countries, which are hoping for a mix of solutions to the stubborn problem.

Former Zimbabwe winger Peter Ndlovu made history on 2 September 1992 when became the first African to score a Premier League goal.

The World Health Organization calls air pollution the “single biggest environmental threat to human health" and estimates that 99 percent of the world’s population live in locations that are above WHO thresholds designed to protect human health. . Credit: Malav Goswami/IPS

By Felix Horne
Sep 2 2022 (IPS)

Tarik, age 42, lives in a village adjacent to a decades-old coal power plant in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the day we visited, Bosnian cities were some of the most polluted places on Earth. Describing the devastating health toll the air pollution took each year on the village’s older residents he voiced his fear for his aging parents, who had lived there for over 40 years: “The older people in this village are desperate. They put up with this air for months. They don’t get out, they don’t socialize, they can’t get groceries or medication. It’s a terrible existence.”

An estimated seven million people die every year from indoor and outdoor air pollution. That’s more than died from Covid-19 over the last two years. Often invisible, air pollution receives little attention compared with  other public health emergencies, but the threats to health are every bit as real

Human Rights Watch recently documented the horrific impacts of air pollution in Bosnia and Herzegovina during winter months. People living near some of the country’s five outdated coal-fired power plants told Human Rights Watch about the friends, family and neighbors who had died from cancer or cardiovascular or respiratory ailments that they believe were attributable to or exacerbated by pollution from the nearby coal plants. For them, the danger of air pollution is very real. The country has the world’s fifth highest mortality rate from air pollution.

A reliance on wood and coal for heat, coal for electricity generation in outdated power plants, poorly insulated buildings, an outdated vehicle fleet and natural factors all contribute to the country’s deadly air. Bosnia’s multiple tiers of government have not done enough to tackle the cause of the toxic air. They have failed to mitigate the risks the deadly air poses to human health or even to sufficiently warn the public of the dangers. 

Air pollution affects all of us, but in different ways. People with certain health conditions, pregnant women, children, and older people are the most vulnerable. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, parents told us about their difficulties caring for children with asthma and bronchitis during winter and how their children could not safely step outside without suffering acute respiratory symptoms. 

The International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies is on September 7. It’s an opportunity to take stock of the enormity of the issue and re-double efforts to address the issue. 

Air pollution is a global issue. The World Health Organization calls air pollution the “single biggest environmental threat to human health and estimates that 99 percent  of the world’s population live in locations that are above WHO thresholds designed to protect human health. Ambient (or outdoor) air pollution is primarily caused by the burning of fossil fuels, forest fires, waste burning, other industrial activities and natural factors.

An estimated seven million people die every year from indoor and outdoor air pollution. That’s more than died from Covid-19 over the last two years. Often invisible, air pollution receives little attention compared with  other public health emergencies, but the threats to health are every bit as real. In fact, 94 percent of air pollution deaths are due to noncommunicable diseases – notably cardiovascular disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer. And nine out of ten of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. 

Under international human rights law,  countries have a responsibility to tackle air pollution, which has devastating impacts on a range of human rights, including right to life and health.  Governments are required not only to take steps to limit air pollution by addressing its causes, but also to protect people during the worst air pollution events. This includes adequately monitoring air quality, enforcing rigorous air quality standards, and assessing, communicating, and mitigating risks to human health when pollutant levels are high. 

Air pollution and climate change are directly linked. Burning fossil fuels, responsible for about 80  percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change, is a key driver of outdoor air pollution. Shifting from fossil fuels to clean energy, including wind and solar, is a crucial means to tackle air pollution and the emissions that cause climate change. It can save millions of lives annually, including in places like Tarik’s village. What are we waiting for? 

 

Excerpt:

Felix Horne is a senior environmental researcher at Human Rights Watch

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With the rise in COVID-19 cases fueled by new variants, the number of long COVID cases will keep increasing. Credit: Unsplash/Ivan Diaz

By Ifeanyi Nsofor
ABUJA, Sep 1 2022 (IPS)

More than two-years in, the COVID-19 pandemic rages on with rising cases and deaths every day.  A silent and more long-term pandemic occurring simultaneously is long COVID. The impact of long COVID has serious consequences for the future of humanity and should worry us all.

The recent Household Pulse Survey by the U.S. Centres for Disease Control shows that an average of 14% of US adults report long COVID symptoms. This is staggering because 93 million cases have been reported in the U.S. This implies that 13 million people in the U.S. have long COVID. Long COVID is also a global phenomenon: 2 million people in the United Kingdom, half million in Australia, and more than 100 million people globally.

13 million people in the U.S. have long COVID - Long COVID is also a global phenomenon: 2 million people in the United Kingdom, half million in Australia, and more than 100 million people globally

Long COVID is a group of symptoms which some have who, on the surface, recover from COVID-19 infection. Its occurrence is more frequent in those who had severe illnesses and in people who are not vaccinated. However, even those without COVID-19 symptoms when infected could have long COVID too.

Examples of long COVID include loss of smell, loss of taste, brain fog, difficulty in remembering past events, tiredness on exertion, chest pain, shortness of breath, headache, heart palpitations, muscle pain, change in skin and hair color and lots more.

Long COVID varies in duration. It could last for as short as 2 weeks and as long as many months after recovery from COVID-19 infection.

Research published in the British Medical Journal even documents a female patient with persistent loss in smell 27 months after the initial COVID-19 infection.  Therefore, it is unsurprising that some long COVID sufferers are unable to work. According to the Brookings Institution, long COVID could account for 15% of the  10.6 million unfilled jobs in the U.S.

With the rise in COVID-19 cases fueled by new variants, the number of long COVID cases will keep increasing. This is a wake-up call for global and country-level efforts to mitigate the impacts of long COVID. These are five ways to do so.

First, all global COVID-19 funds replenishment efforts must include plans to support long COVID interventions. These should go beyond COVID-19 prevention activities such as wearing of face masks, washing of hands with soap under running water and COVID vaccination.

Unfortunately, the 2022 “Break COVID Now Summit” co-hosted by Gavi only focused on replenishing funds to enable poorer countries to buy COVID-19 vaccines. Another way to ensure availability of funds for long COVID interventions before the next round of funds replenishment is ensuring that all COVID-19-related funding should include a component on long COVID. Such funding should cover local research on long COVID to determine the burden at country-levels, treatment and care for sufferers.

Second, some long COVID symptoms should be classified as disabilities. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recognises that long COVID can be a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act if it substantially limits one or more major life activities. Other countries should do likewise.

Classifying long COVID symptoms as disabilities would enable sufferers to fully recover while being supported by the government or their employer. It would also protect the rights of sufferers from discriminations and stigmatization. For instance, a worker who has brain fog and difficulty in recalling past events requires time off work and mental health therapy to recover.

Third, update mental health care to include care of those living with long COVID. This should include updating standards of practice for mental health practitioners, mental health policies and laws. In addition, doctors should refer people with long COVID to mental health specialists.

This is relevant globally, especially in low and middle countries with poor awareness and services for mental health care. For example, in Nigeria, public perception of mental health is poor, qualified personnel are few, the law regulating mental health is from colonial times and care of those suffering from mental health disorders is mostly provided by unqualified personnel.

In 2019, I co-led the mental health in Nigeria surgery – the largest mental health survey in the country within the last 20 years. Our result showed that 70% of Nigerians say that mental health disorder is when the sufferer starts running around naked. Such wrong perception delays care and stigmatizes sufferers. One can imagine how long COVID sufferers with mental health disorders could be neglected in Nigeria.

Fourth, prioritise long COVID interventions in children because they are our future and long COVID could tamper with their abilities to be successful in life.

A systematic review of long COVID in children and adolescents shows a prevalence rate of 25.24%. The top five long COVID symptoms in children and adolescents are mood symptoms (16.50%), fatigue (9.66%), sleep disorders (8.42%), headache (7.84%), and respiratory symptoms (7.62%).

The thought of children and adolescents dealing with such conditions is disheartening. Their development and productivity are stifled. Therefore, paediatricians, parents and child social workers should be trained on providing the best long COVID care for children and adolescents.

Lastly, invest in nonprofits providing long COVID interventions because governments alone cannot cater for the huge backlog of sufferers. COVIDAid – the first long COVID Charity in the United Kingdom — has brought long COVID to the front burners of national discuss in the UK. It has provided support to more than 125,000 people via a web hub, held live events on the mental health impacts of COVID-19, launched new free long COVID courses and encourages voluntarism for long COVID.

Nonprofits play important roles in bridging gaps in social development. Having more of these types of long COVID nonprofits would ensure these achievements are replicated in other countries.

Long COVID is an existential threat to humanity. Globally, the 100 million long COVID sufferers are more than the population of Germany. There is fire on the mountain. We must consolidate global efforts to quench the fire.

Credit: Yuryi Abramochkin/RIA Novosti - Creative Commons

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Sep 1 2022 (IPS)

With the death of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last great statesman, and an entire epoch, disappears.

I had the privilege of working with him, as deputy director of the World Political Forum, which Gorbi had founded in Turin in 2003, with a headquarters agreement with the Piedmont Region. The Forum brought together personalities from all over the world to discuss what was happening.

After Gorbachev, politicians lost the dimension of statesmen. They have gradually fallen back to the demands of electoral success, to short-time politics, to the shelving of debates of ideas, and instead turn not to reason, but to the voters' instincts

The greatest international protagonists, from Kohl to Mitterrand, from Jaruzelski to Oscar Arias, would discuss frankly their role and their mistakes. I will always remember an FPM in 2007, in which Gorbachev reminded those present that he had agreed in a meeting with Kohl, to withdraw support for the East German regime, in return for an assurance that NATO borders would not be moved beyond reunified Germany.

And Kohl replied, pointing to Andreotti who was present, that some were not so enthusiastic about a return to creating Europe’s greatest power, a position shared by Thatcher. Andreotti had said: ‘I love Germany so much that I prefer to have two‘. And the American delegation acknowledged this commitment, but complained that Secretary of State Baker had been overwhelmed by the hawks, who wanted to continue to enlarge NATO and squeeze Russia in a straitjacket.

Gorbi’s comment was lapidary: ‘instead of cooperating with a Russia that wanted to continue on a northern-style socialist path, you hastened to bring it down, and had Yeltsin first, who was conditionally yours‘.

But from Yeltsin was born Putin, who began to see things in a completely different way.

Gorbachev had cooperated with Reagan to eliminate the Cold War. It is amusing to see American historiography attributing the historic victory over communism and the end of the Cold War to Reagan. But without Gorbachev, the powerful but dull Soviet bureaucracy would have continued to resist, and would certainly have lost power. But the Berlin Wall would not have fallen, and the wave of freedom in socialist Europe would surely have come after Reagan’s term.

How much Gorbachev was intent, even more than Reagan, on advancing on the path of peace and disarmament, became clear after the 1986 meeting in Reykjavík. Gorbachev proposed to Reagan the total elimination of atomic weaponry. Reagan said that, because of the time difference, he would consult Washington later. When the two met the next morning,

Roberto Savio

Reagan told him that the US proposed the elimination of 40 per cent of the nuclear warheads. And Gorbachev replied to him: ‘if you can do no more, let’s start like this. But I remind you that we can now destroy the planet and humanity hundreds of times over’. Time would prove that disarming nuclear Russia was certainly in the American interest if Defence Secretary Weinberg, who went so far as to threaten resignation, had been able to look far ahead.

Yeltsin did everything he could to humiliate Gorbachev, to replace him. He stripped him of every pension, every perk: bodyguard, state car, and made him vacate the Kremlin in a matter of hours. But with Putin he became practically an enemy of the people. The propaganda against him was crude, but effective.

Gorbachev had presided over the end of the Soviet Union ‘the great tragedy’, and had believed the West. Now the USSR was encircled by NATO, and Putin saw himself obliged, in the name of history, to recover at least part of the great power that Gorbachev had squandered.

Those who had stood by Gorbachev since Yeltsin’s arrival saw how the elder statesman, who had changed the course of history, suffered deeply to see the course it was taking. Of course, the press preferred to ignore the deep corruption of the Yeltsin era, which cost the Russian people terrible sacrifices. Under Yeltsin, a team of American economists issued decrees privatising the entire Russian economy, with an immediate collapse in the value of the rouble and social services.

The average life expectancy fell back ten years in one fell swoop. I had a great impression to discover that my breakfast in the morning in the hotel cost as much as an average monthly pension. It was deeply saddening to see so many old ladies dressed in black selling their few poor belongings on the street.

At the same time, a few party officials, friends of Yeltsin, were buying up at bargain prices the large state enterprises put up for sale.

But how did they do it, in a society where there were no rich people? Giulietto Chiesa documented this in an investigation in Turin’s ‘La Stampa’.

Under American pressure, the International Monetary Fund granted an emergency loan of five billion dollars (in 1990) to stabilise the dollar. These dollars never reached the Russian Central Bank, nor did the IMF raise any questions. They were distributed among the future oligarchs, who suddenly found themselves fabulously millionaires. When Yeltsin had to leave power, he sought a successor who would guarantee him and his cronies impunity. One of his advisers introduced him to Putin, saying that he could tame the uprising in Chechnya.

And Putin agreed on one condition: that the oligarchs would never get involved in politics. One of them. Khdorkowski, did not respect the pact, and opened a front in opposition to Yeltsin. We know his fate: stripped of all property, and imprisoned. It was the only appearance of an oligarch in politics.

Gorbachev is the last statesman. With the arrival of the League in Turin, the agreement to host the World Political Forum was, to his amazement, cancelled. The Forum moved to Luxembourg and then the Italians in Rome Foundation took over some of its activities (very presciently) on environmental issues. Gorbachev’s right-hand man, Andrei Gracev, Gorbi’s spokesman in the PCUS and in the transition to democracy, a brilliant analyst, moved to Paris, where he is the point of reference for debates on Russia.

Gorbi, suffering from diabetes, experienced the war in Ukraine as a personal drama: his mother was Ukrainian. He retreated to a hospital under close supervision where he finally died. The era of statesmen is over, also the era of debates by great protagonists of history.

After Gorbachev, politicians lost the dimension of statesmen. They have gradually fallen back to the demands of electoral success, to short-time politics, to the shelving of debates of ideas, and instead turn not to reason, but to the voters’ instincts. Instincts to be aroused and conquered, even by a relentless campaign of fake news.

A school that Trump has managed to export to the world, from the constitutional vote in Chile on 4 September, to Bolsonaro, to Marcos, to Putin and, consequently, to Zelenski. And I find myself writing my bitterness, my discouragement, not only for the death of one of my mentors (as Aldo Moro was) but for an era that now seems definitively over: that of Politics with a capital P, capable of shaking up the world it encountered, with great risks and with the great goals of Peace and International Cooperation.

And to write uncomfortable truths, known by few, that will be immediately buried by hostile interventions and ridicule. Andrei was right when he said to me a short while ago on the phone: “Roberto, my mistake and yours is to have survived our era. Let us also be careful, because we will end up being a nuisance…”

 

Publisher of OtherNews, Italian-Argentine Roberto Savio is an economist, journalist, communication expert, political commentator, activist for social and climate justice and advocate of an anti-neoliberal global governance. He is co-founder of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and its President Emeritus.

A family from Sachac, a Quechua farming community in the Andes highlands region of Cuzco in southeastern Peru, where Quechua is still the predominant language and where ancestral customs are preserved. When members of these native families move to the cities, they face different forms of racism, despite the fact that 60 percent of the Peruvian population identifies as ‘mestizo’ or mixed-race and 25 percent as a member of an indigenous people. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Sep 1 2022 (IPS)

Banning the use of the same bathroom, insults and calling people animals are just a few of the daily forms of racism experienced by people in Peru, a multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual country where various forms of discrimination are intertwined.

“In the houses where I have worked, they have always told me: ‘Teresa, this is the service bathroom, the one you have to use,’ as if they were disgusted that I might use their toilets,” Teresa Mestanza, 56, who has worked as a domestic in Lima since she was a teenager, told IPS.

She was born in a coastal town in the northern department of Lambayeque, where her parents moved from the impoverished neighboring region of Cajamarca, the homeland of current President Pedro Castillo, a rural teacher and trade unionist with indigenous features.

With Quechua indigenous roots, she considers herself to be “mestiza” or mixed-race and believes that her employers treat her differently, making her feel inferior because of the color of her skin.

Sixty percent of the population of this South American country of 33 million people describe themselves as “mestizo”, according to the 2017 National Census, the last one carried out in Peru.

For the first time, the census included questions on ethnic self-identification to provide official data on the indigenous and Afro-Peruvian population in order to develop public policies aimed at closing the inequality gap that affects their rights.

A study by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) ranks Peru as the country with the third largest indigenous population in the region, after Bolivia and Guatemala.

Teresa Mestanza has experienced discriminatory, if not outright humiliating, treatment because of the color of her skin, as a domestic worker in Lima since she arrived as a teenager from a Quechua community in northern coastal Peru. She defines herself as ‘mestiza’ or mixed-race and believes that this is the reason why some of her employers try to “make me feel less of a person.” CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Before the invasion by the Spaniards, several native peoples lived in what is now Peru, where the Tahuantinsuyo, the great Inca empire, emerged. At present, there are officially 55 different indigenous peoples, 51 from the Amazon rainforest region and four from the Andes highlands, which preserve their own languages, identities, customs and forms of social organization.

According to the census, a quarter of the population self-identified as indigenous: 22 percent Quechua, two percent Aymara and one percent Amazonian indigenous, while four percent self-identified as Afro-descendant or black.

During the Spanish colonial period, slaves were brought from Africa to do hard labor or work in domestic service. It was not until three decades after independence was declared that the country abolished slavery, in 1854.

Indigenous and Afro-Peruvian populations are historically discriminated against in Peru, in a country with traditionally highly segmented classes. Their needs and demands have not been met by the State despite legal frameworks that seek to guarantee equality and non-discrimination and specific rights for indigenous peoples.

This situation is reflected on a daily level in routine racism, a problem recognized by more than half of the population (52 percent) but assumed as such by only eight percent, according to a national survey conducted by the Ministry of Culture in 2018.

Sofia Carrillo is a journalist, activist and anti-racist feminist and Afro-Peruvian proud of her roots, who has faced racism since childhood and despite this made Forbes Peru’s list of the most influential women in the country this year. CREDIT: Amnesty International

“Racism is hushed up because it hurts less”

A journalist, activist, and radio and television host who was chosen by Forbes Peru magazine as one of the 50 most powerful women in the country this year, Sofia Carrillo is an Afro-Peruvian proud of her roots who has faced many obstacles and “no’s” since childhood.

“It was not seen as possible, for example, for me to be a studious girl because I was of African descent, and black people were not seen as intelligent. And that was represented on television and generated a great sense of rebellion in me,” she told IPS in Lima.

Faced with these messages she had only two options. “Either you believe it or you confront the situation and use it as a possibility to show that it is not true. I shouldn’t have to prove myself more than other people, but in a country as racist and as sexist as this one, that was the challenge I took on and what motivated me throughout all the stages of my life,” she said.

In her home racism was not a taboo subject, and was discussed. But this was not the case in the extended family of cousins and aunts and uncles “because it’s better not to be aware of the situation, so it hurts less; it’s a way to protect yourself,” Carrillo said.

“It is not uncommon for people of African descent to even say that they do not feel affected by racism or discrimination, because we have also been taught this in our families: that it will affect you if you identify it, but if you pretend it does not happen, then it is much easier to deal with,” she said.

Her experience as a black woman has included receiving insults since she was a child and sexual harassment in public spaces, in transportation, on the street, “to be looked at as a sexual object, to be dehumanized,” she said.

She has also had to deal with prejudices about her abilities in the workplace. And although she has never stopped raising her voice in protest, it has affected her.

“Now I can admit that it affected my mental health, it led to periods of deep depression. I did not understand why, what the reasons were, because you also try to hide it, you try to bury it deep inside. But I understood that one way to heal was to talk about my own experiences,” Carrillo said.

Enrique Anpay is 24 years old and finished his university studies in Lima last year, where he experienced episodes of racism that still hurt him to remember. In the picture he is seen carrying one of his grandmother’s lambs in the Quechua farming community of Pomacocha, where he is from, in the central Andean region of Peru. CREDIT: Courtesy of Enrique Anpay

Racism to the point of calling people animals

Enrique Anpay Laupa, 24, studied psychology at a university in Lima, thanks to the government scholarship program Beca 18, which helps high-achieving students living in poverty or extreme poverty.

Originally from the rural community of Pomacocha, made up of some 90 native Quechua families in the central Andes highlands region of Apurimac, he still finds it difficult to talk about the racism he endured during his time in Lima, until he graduated last year.

He spoke to IPS from the town of Andahuaylas, in Apurímac, where he now lives and practices as a psychologist. “In 2017 we were 200 scholarship holders entering the university, more than other years, and we noticed discomfort among the students from Lima,” he said.

“They said that since we arrived the bathrooms were dirtier, things were getting lost, like laptops…I was quite shocked, it was a question of skin color,” he said.

During a group project, a student from the capital even told him “shut up, llama” when he made a comment. (The llama is a domesticated South American camelid native to the Andes region of Peru.)

“I kept silent and no one else said anything either,” Anpay said. Although he preferred not to go into more details, the experience of what he went through kept him from encouraging his younger brother to apply for Beca 18 and to push him to study instead at the public university in Andahuaylas.

Afro-Peruvian women participate in a festive demonstration demanding respect for their rights, on the streets of Lima on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2022. CREDIT: Courtesy of Lupita Sanchez

Racism affects the whole country

Racism is felt as a personal experience but affects whole communities and the entire country.

Carrillo said: “We can see this in the levels of impoverishment: the last census, from 2017, indicates that 16 percent of people who self-identify as ‘white’ and ‘mestizo’ live in poverty as opposed to the Afro-Peruvian population, where poverty stands at around 30 percent, the Amazonian indigenous population (40 percent) and the Andean indigenous population (30 percent).”

A study by the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics on the evolution of poverty between 2010 and 2021 showed that it affected to the greatest extent the population who spoke a native mother tongue, i.e. indigenous people.

The percentage of this segment of the population living in poverty and extreme poverty was 32 percent – eight percentage points higher than the 24 percent recorded for the population whose mother tongue is Spanish.

Carrillo considered it essential to recognize the existence of institutional racism, to understand it as a public problem that affects individuals and peoples who have been historically discriminated against and excluded, who have the right to share all spaces and to fully realize themselves, based on the principles of equality and non-discrimination.

She criticized the authorities for thinking about racism only in terms of punitive actions instead of considering a comprehensive policy based on prevention to stop it from being reproduced and handed down from generation to generation, which would include an anti-racist education that values the contribution made by each of the different peoples in the construction of Peru.

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Credit: Pakistan Development Alliance

By Zia ur Rehman
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sep 1 2022 (IPS)

Pakistan has been going through the worst time of its recent history due to unprecedented colossal monsoon rains and devastating floods. The current floods would have been expected less than once a century, but climate experts claim that what we are seeing today is just a trailer of what’s in store for us if we don’t pay heed to climate change. More than 112 districts are currently afffected and around 30 million people; their property and land are totally devastated. Across the country, where hundreds of thousands of cattle died due to the Lumpy Skin Disease, now more than 727,000 have perished due to floods and rains. The number is increasing rapidly.

We were in the countryside conducting a study on the rights of women farm workers, when the Monster monsoon hit the country. We had to cut our field mission short and we are now relatively “safe” here in Islamabad, busy organising emergency relief and rescue operations.

Pakistan and its people are paying the costs of what they are not responsible for. For the past 20 years, Pakistan has consistently ranked among the top 10 most vulnerable countries on the Climate Risk Index. We are facing such climate change aggression and devastation while contributing only 0.8% of greenhouse carbon emissions to global warming. We are squeezed, geographically situtated between titans China and India, who are the top two emitters of greenhouse gases. This impacts the glaciers of the Himalaya. In Pakistan, our 7253 glaciers – more glaciers than almost anywhere on Earth – are melting faster than ice-cream in the sun due to climate change. Since the whole country is situated in the downstream of the Hamalaya, heavy floods have become the norm. To this scenario, you need to add flawed developement interventions, absence of rule of law and the lack of policy priorities towards the management of “everyday” disasters. This results in risks being left undone instead of being treated as full-fledged national security emergencies.

Today, the horrific scale of the floods are not in doubt, but the catastrophe is still unfolding. Rehabilitation and reconstruction activities need to be initiated immediately. Pakistan is already facing food insecurity due to this manmade disaster. In the long run, this crisis will increase poverty, inequality and economic instability in the country if we – supported by the world at large – fail to respond quickly.

Being part of a civil society network I see with my own eyes how civil society is vehementally engaged in rescue, relief and emergency activities through local resources and philanthropic initiatives. The international community and INGOs have not yet initiated their field operations. Although the government has officially appealed for the support of the international community and has levereged restrictions, the intensive regulatory frameworks are still working against rights based NGOs.

I have a message for the international community. Please support flood affected communities as early as possible. Local civil society needs to be strengthened and financed as well, as they are on the frontlines, they are the first reaching affected communities. In the future, there needs to be serious investments on addressing the impacts of climate change, particularly in vulnerable countries such as Pakistan, where climate change adaptation mechanism and infrastructure support should be mainstreamed. Now they are at the periphery, and it shows.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Elvie Gallo's thriving chicken business means she can support her family and put aside savings to build resilience against future shocks. Credit: BRAC/Robert Irven 2022

By Joyce Chimbi
Iloilo, Philippines, Sep 1 2022 (IPS)

Elvie Gallo no longer hangs around her local grocery store, hoping for the odd job to put food on the table. Her hand-to-mouth life has been replaced by a viable chicken rearing and selling business in Iloilo province in the Philippines.

“I have enough for today, and I am saving for my children’s future,” she says. Gallo’s story of growth and transformation is replicated across 2,700 households in Iloilo, Bukidnon, and Sultan Kudarat, three of the poorest provinces in the country.

These households have been reached through the Padayon Sustainable Livelihood program (Padayon SLP). This is a capability-building program for households and communities living in extreme poverty to improve their socio-economic conditions and develop thriving livelihoods. The Padayon SLP program is overseen by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI).

This project builds on two existing government programs, the Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP) and the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), with additional interventions providing access to available government services and resources to households, coupled with supportive coaching and mentorship as well as robust monitoring of household outcomes. This more holistic approach to poverty reduction is often referred to as Graduation, a multifaceted set of interventions designed to address various factors keeping people trapped in extreme poverty within the local context.

Before this most recent program, the government began exploring how to build on their existing cash transfer and livelihood programs to address multidimensional poverty, diversify household income sources, and build resilience to shocks.

Integration of the Graduation approach into the government’s existing cash transfer program was led by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) via a Graduation pilot officially launched in 2018. The pilot worked with 2,400 extremely poor beneficiaries of the 4Ps cash transfer program and administrative systems established for their Kabuhayan (livelihood) program, which provides households with productive assets and technical training.

The program included other Graduation elements to make the interventions comprehensive such as technical training on managing assets, savings mechanisms, coaching by Graduation Community Facilitators, skills building on social and health issues, and linkages to community groups and cooperatives.

 

Corazon Gaylon, a participant of the initial pilot, is comfortably putting her children through school and is no longer in debt. Credit: BRAC 2020

Corazon Gaylon, a participant of the initial pilot, reflected on how much her life has changed in just two years after successfully “graduating” from the program.

“My eldest daughter has been able to finish her college program, my second child is now starting his first year, and my youngest child is fully enrolled in school. I am no longer in debt [to anyone]. Our training sessions helped me a lot during the [COVID-19] lockdowns; I was able to prepare for it and put money aside.”

According to an initial endline impact assessment reported by ADB, despite the many challenges created by COVID-19 and ensuing lockdowns, participants demonstrated more resilient livelihoods and better savings and financial management. 73% of group livelihoods and 60% of individual livelihoods remained fully operational by the end of the program. Likewise, despite some initial dips in savings and new loans taken, by September 2020, 69% of those who reported incurring a debt also reported being able to repay all or part of the loan, indicating improved savings management and a significant decrease in instances of risky financial behavior.

After successfully completing the DOLE Graduation project in Negros Occidental, the government is now on its second iteration of Graduation integration via the DSWD program.

Rhea B Peñaflor, DSWD Assistant Secretary, hopes to see the Padayon SLP program scaled up to become a central part of the 4Ps scheme. This will ensure that people participating in the social protection program will not fall back into extreme poverty.

By integrating these various components, Peñaflor has witnessed drastic changes in the participants. “From livelihood support to social empowerment via coaching, our dreams for these participants are being realized, and they are able to create a more stable and successful future for themselves and their families.”

She stresses that the most significant feature of the Padayon SLP program “is the intensive coaching and monitoring aspects that are mainly facilitated through the coaches. We are also seeing great commitment from the various LGUs (Local Government Units) to oversee the implementation and help participants sustain their livelihoods and progress”.

“Our vision, in particular, is to create self-sufficiency and support the entire household. Extreme poverty should be everyone’s business. All levels of government, top-down and bottom-up, should be involved,” Peñaflor continues.

Every day, you can find Rosalie at the fish market near the docks of Iloilo City, providing customers with quality, freshly caught seafood at a fair price. Credit: BRAC/Robert Irven 2022

Marlowe Popes, Program Manager at BRAC UPGI, says: “The future starts at the local level. We must strengthen the capacity of local government units. They have the most experience working within the local contexts and implementing projects. They have experienced the roadblocks and challenges firsthand and are the real experts.”

Additionally, Popes confirms the need to engage local communities in the adaptation and design, implementation, and measurement of Graduation programs. Emphasizing that monitoring processes are significantly boosted by the participation of the local communities, community members serve as a driver for the success and motivation of the participants.

This level of involvement improves accountability, integration, and community ownership, especially during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our strategy to involve leadership was key to success. Regular updates helped bring them into the fold, allowing them to feel part of success,” Popes concludes.

Meanwhile, Gallo and all other 2,699 targeted households continue their journey of growth and transformation, developing livelihoods of their choice, including agriculture, water buffalo, pig rearing and swine fattening, food carts ventures, convenience stores locally known as ‘sari sari’ stores.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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A worker carries trees to be planted during a reforestation project in Nova Mutum, Brazil, 2020. Latin America is one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change, but adaptation and mitigation projects are increasing in the region (Credit: Alexandre Meneghini / Alamy)

By Alejandra Cuéllar
MÉXICO, Aug 31 2022 (IPS)

Latin America is already one of the world’s regions hit hardest by the impacts of climate change. Extreme weather events such as droughts, heatwaves, tropical cyclones and floods have caused scores of deaths and severe damage to crop production and infrastructure, as underlined in a recent regional report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

As these events have increased in frequency and intensity, they have also driven millions of people to migrate. With the region’s average temperatures projected to rise at rates above the global average, these converging crises are expected to deepen in the coming decades.

As the UN’s next climate summit, COP27, approaches it is apparent that Latin America needs support from the global community. In a region beset by economic struggles, there have long been calls for financial tools that support multi-faceted efforts to combat climate change, at both the local and regional level – calls likely to grow ever louder after many were left frustrated by progress at last year’s COP26 conference.

But a concurrent shift in tone is being seen from some corners in Latin America ahead of the summit, set to be held in Egypt in November, with prominent voices calling on the region to play its own, increasingly assertive role in climate negotiations, and in driving climate action from home.

 

Climate impacts in Latin America

The WMO’s report exposes some alarming data on the impacts a warming world and changing climate have already brought upon Latin America. For example, glaciers in the tropical Andes have lost nearly 30% of their area since the 1980s, increasing the risk of water scarcity for populations and ecosystems in the region – and the risk of flooding for communities in proximity to them.

In 2021, sea levels in the region, specifically on its Atlantic side, also rose at a faster rate than the global average, raising the threats of flooding, freshwater contamination and storm surges in the coastal areas where a large portion of the population is concentrated.

The report also highlight’s Chile’s intensifying mega-drought, which has now entered its thirteenth year, making it the longest and most severe in a thousand years. The worsening drying trend is forcing its authorities to urgently improve water management, as tensions rise in some areas of the country, and address electricity supply issues to account for a shortfall in hydropower output – a source from which it has historically generated a sizeable portion of its electricity.

In South America more generally, droughts contributed to a 2.6% decline in the 2020–2021 cereal harvest, compared with the previous season, the WMO reports. Threats to the region’s agricultural – and by extension economic – output were compounded by heatwaves.

 

 

Upon the release of the WMO’s first edition of its “State of the Climate” report for the region in 2021, the WMO’s secretary-general, Petteri Taalas, had emphasised how Latin America and the Caribbean are “among the regions most challenged by extreme hydro-meteorological events” – an assertion only further underscored by this year’s update.

Taalas pointed to a number of recent extreme weather events, highlighting “the death and devastation from Hurricane Eta and Iota in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and the intense drought and unusual fire season in the Pantanal region of Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina.”

Notable impacts of these events, the secretary-general added, included “water and energy-related shortages, agricultural losses, displacement and compromised health and safety”, all of which “compounded challenges” of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the recovery from it.

 

Standing up in adversity

Latin American and Caribbean nations together account for less than 10% of global annual greenhouse gas emissions, with most of their contributions coming from the energy sector, agriculture and land use change. But in its increased exposure to extreme events and above-average rates of change, the region is bearing the brunt of larger polluters’ emissions.

However, a change in tone was notable among some attendees at the recent Latin America and the Caribbean Climate Week, held in the Dominican Republic in July. Some experts were keen to assure that Latin America would not be entering upcoming climate talks simply as sufferers, but as active participants shaping the direction of action.

Max Puig, executive vice-president of the Dominican Republic’s National Council for Climate Change and Clean Development Mechanism (CNCCMDL), stressed that Latin America and the Caribbean will arrive at this year’s COP with a firm position. “The time to see ourselves as climate victims is over. Although we are, the time to take the helm of the ship has begun,” he said.

“It must be clear to our peoples and to the world that we are serious and that, even in the most difficult circumstances, we are not going to stop. We will overcome the difficulties. This is the message that Latin America and the Caribbean are taking to COP27 in Egypt.”

Some civil society representatives had hoped for more progress at the recent Climate Week, particularly ensuring that climate justice and human rights are put at the centre of discussions. But other figures were more positive about the event’s outcomes in building regional momentum – and steps towards consensus – ahead of COP27.

“After spending several days at this year’s Latin American and Caribbean Climate Week, I have seen that the countries of the region are making progress. I also saw the potential to accelerate climate action,” Ovais Sarmad, deputy executive secretary of UN Climate Change, told Diálogo Chino after the event’s conclusion. “We’ve heard a lot of potential solutions during this week.”

 

Adaptation, solutions and opportunities

Although faced with tremendous challenges, Latin America has also proven to be a hub for innovative solutions to climate change. The region has great potential in renewable energies such as wind, solar and geothermal. There have also been advances in the transport sector, particularly in electric buses in the past decade, and a nascent growth in the uptake of private electric cars, with nations increasingly looking to spark a broader switch to electric vehicles.

Latin America and the Caribbean have also demonstrated a wealth of solutions that promote adaptation and mitigation, many of which may be replicated in other regions according to needs and contexts. Many of these solutions have been seen in the agricultural sector, with some derived from ancestral knowledge and historic practices that promote better management of water, land and energy.

Practices that fall under the umbrella of regenerative agriculture are gaining increased attention in Latin America. Agroforestry for example, which integrates trees into agricultural systems, can enhance productivity, improve and increase biodiversity, and contribute to greater carbon sequestration. Meanwhile, the region’s coastal ecosystems such as mangroves and marshes are now being recognised for their potential to mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon, while providing a range of other benefits.

 

 

Forests are also Earth’s most vital sites of carbon sequestration, but face significant threats – perhaps nowhere more so than in Latin America, where biomes such as the Amazon, Cerrado and Gran Chaco have all witnessed vast deforestation in recent decades.

“With almost half of its area covered by forests, Latin America and the Caribbean represents about 57% of the world’s remaining primary forests, storing an estimated 104 gigatonnes of carbon. Fires and deforestation are now threatening one of the world’s largest carbon sinks, with far-reaching and long-lasting repercussions,” the WMO’s Taalas said at the launch of last year’s “State of the Climate” report. Despite notable progress and declarations at last year’s COP26, the monitoring and prevention of deforestation will likely remain on the agenda heading into this year’s summit.

The WMO’s 2021 report also stressed the need for strengthening early warning systems in Latin America. These are multi-hazard early warning systems (MHEWS) that can warn people about extreme weather events and prevent millions of deaths. These are essential tools for effective adaptation in areas at risk from weather, water and climate extremes, but for many nations, as with many solutions, effectively implementing them may be reliant on increased finance – highlighting once more what is likely to be a key agenda item as Latin America looks towards COP27.

COP27 takes place ​​6–18 November in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

This article was originally published by ChinaDialogue

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