Africa

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"Resistance and Popular Rebellion" reads a banner held by demonstrators in San Salvador in a Wednesday, Sept. 15 protest against measures they consider authoritarian adopted by the government of President Nayib Bukele. The latest was the replacement of the constitutional court judges by the ruling party, which paves the way for Bukele to seek immediate reelection, banned up to now in El Salvador. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR, Sep 17 2021 (IPS)

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has been widely criticised for his authoritarian tendencies, but has said that the changes he plans will be long-term – which to his critics means a further undercutting of the weak democratic institutions that he has already begun to dismantle.

The president gave the commemoration of the bicentennial of Central America’s independence on Wednesday, Sept. 15, a symbolic touch and pledged that his government would not reverse the changes put into motion.

“This country has suffered so much that it cannot be transformed overnight; important changes, real and worthwhile changes, take time, they are not immediate, they are made step by step”, said Bukele, in a nationwide address broadcast on radio and television on Wednesday night.

The opposition, however, sees the changes as an attack on democracy in this Central American nation of 6.7 million people.

Bukele for president in 2024?

Perhaps the most abrupt change pushed through by the Bukele administration since it took office in June 2019 was the removal of the five judges in the Supreme Court’s constitutional chamber.

They were removed on May 1 when the new legislature, controlled by the lawmakers of Nuevas Ideas, Bukele’s party – who now hold 56 of the 84 seats – was installed.

The governing party’s majority allowed the president to appoint like-minded judges to the constitutional chamber, whose first move was to strike down the legal obstacle to consecutive presidential reelection."Apparently we are in democracy, but the president's actions run counter to democracy, he is dismantling the state's institutionality, and is thus attacking the rights of the entire population." -- Loyda Robles

That opened the door for the president to run again at the end of his current five-year term, in 2024, which was prohibited by the constitution until just two weeks ago.

Bukele, a 40-year-old of Palestinian descent from a wealthy business family, first emerged in politics as a popular mayor of San Salvador from 2015 to 2018. He is described by observers as a millennial populist who uses social media to communicate with the public, often announcing his decisions via Twitter.

The constitutional chamber ruled that the country’s president can serve two consecutive terms in office, whereas according to a 2014 ruling by the same court a president could only run for office again after two terms served by other leaders, based on an interpretation of article 152 of the constitution.

But the new constitutional court judges named by the legislature on May 1 reinterpreted this controversial and confusing article of the constitution and ruled on Sept. 3 that presidents can stand for a consecutive term if they step down six months before the election.

The legal ruling, which drew fire from the opposition and global rights watchdogs, thus makes it possible for Bukele to seek a second term in 2024.

President Nayib Bukele gave a carefully staged speech to the country on the night of Sept. 15, addressing public authorities, as well as civilian and military representatives. CREDIT: Presidency of El Salvador

Manual for Latin American authoritarianism

The Salvadoran president is apparently following, virtually letter by letter, the manual used by other Latin American populist presidents with an authoritarian bent, whether on the right or the left, who, by means of rulings handed down by judges under their control, have overturned laws and perpetuated themselves in power.

“If the people grant power, and the people demand these changes, it would be no less than a betrayal not to make them,” the president said in his speech before civilian and military leaders.

The president now controls the three branches of government, with no checks against his style of government where everything revolves around him, a millennial who usually wears a backwards baseball cap and is intolerant of criticism, whether from the media, international organisations, the U.S. government or other countries.

On the morning of Wednesday Sept. 15, thousands of people marched through the streets of the Salvadoran capital to protest the president’s increasing authoritarianism, in the most massive demonstration against Bukele since he came to power.

“I’m marching to defend our rights and to protest against President Bukele’s abuses,” a trans woman who preferred to remain anonymous told IPS.

Bukele won a landslide victory in February 2019 as an anti-establishment candidate riding the wave of voter frustration and disappointment with the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), in power from 1989 to 2009, and the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), which governed from 2009 to 2019.

Holding a sign reading “This government turned out to be more fake than my eyelashes,” a young trans woman participates in the march called by social organisations on Sept. 15 to protest against President Nayib Bukele and his style of government that, since June 2019, has been dismantling democratic institutions in this Central American nation. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

His party then swept the legislative elections in May 2021 and now, having replaced the members of the constitutional court, Bukele pulls the strings of an important segment of the country’s justice system.

He also controls the Attorney General’s Office, after the governing party’s legislative majority removed then Attorney General Raúl Melara on May 1, replacing him with the pro-Bukele Rodolfo Delgado.

“Apparently we are in democracy, but the president’s actions run counter to democracy, he is dismantling the state’s institutionality, and is thus attacking the rights of the entire population,” lawyer Loyda Robles, of the Foundation for Studies for the Application of Law (FESPAD), told IPS.

She added that there were warning signs that El Salvador could be heading towards an even more authoritarian, dictatorial, Nicaragua-style regime.

The president of that country, Daniel Ortega, has already served three consecutive terms since his return to power in 2007, and is heading for a fourth term in 2022. To this end, the judiciary, under his control, has imprisoned almost a dozen opposition candidates who could challenge him at the polls.

Slippery slope of anti-democratic measures

Emboldened by his overwhelming triumph in the 2019 presidential elections, Bukele has taken a series of steps that have angered opposition sectors, because they believe that he intends to undermine all checks and balances and govern at will.

In addition to the removal of the constitutional court judges and the attorney general, the legislature passed a decree on Aug. 31 that forced some 200 judges to retire.

The government claims it is purging corrupt judges, who do exist. However, the process has not been based on investigations but on an across-the-board decision to make retirement mandatory for all judges over the age of 60 or who have worked for 30 years.

Some analysts have interpreted the move as a purge within the judicial system in order to later fill the vacuum with judges aligned with Bukelismo.

The government denies this charge and says the aim is to make way for young lawyers, arguing that judges in El Salvador do not hold lifetime positions.

But all of these moves have set off alarm bells both inside and outside El Salvador.

Demonstrators in Francisco Morazán square, in the historic center of San Salvador, who came out to protest on Sept. 15 against the increasingly authoritarian moves by Nayib Bukele’s government, in the most massive demonstration against the president since he came to power, called by social organisations on the country’s Independence Day. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

However, analyst Dagoberto Gutiérrez told IPS that the struggle between Bukele and his opponents is rooted in a silent struggle between two economic groups: the traditional oligarchy that has pulled the strings of the country’s politics, and new small, medium and even large businesspeople aligned with the president.

Gutiérrez, a former guerrilla commander now close to the president, said the opposition is demanding independence of powers that has actually never existed in the country, since the oligarchy always put in place officials who would maintain the status quo.

That “democracy” touted by the oligarchy, with its fallacies and abuses, is being taken up by another political project, that of Bukele, who stressed that the extent of the transformations he has planned “is yet to be seen.”

For the time being, according to the constitutional court’s recent ruling, Bukele can, if he wishes, seek reelection at the end of his current term. But he would not be able to run for a third consecutive term.

However, lawyer Tahnya Pastor remarked to IPS: “Who can assure us that in the future, by means of another legal precedent, they won’t pull another reelection out of their sleeve? This doubt remains, obviously.”

She added that when all the warning signs are analysed, “we can conclude that we are heading towards the ultimate concentration of power, and history has shown that no concentration of power is good.”

But like Gutiérrez, Pastor criticised the opposition because in the past they have also manipulated, for their own political interests, the same institutions over which they are now crying foul.

“The constitution has indeed been reformed in the past depending on the makeup of the constitutional court, and the jurisprudence has responded to partisan political interests,” she said.

Bukele seems to be confident that, despite the criticism, his policies and vision are welcomed by the majority of Salvadorans, who continue to support him.

According to a survey by the José Simeón Caña Central American University carried out in June, during Bukele’s second year in office, nine out of 10 respondents said the president represented a positive change for the country.

He obtained an overall high score of 8.1, and those surveyed identified the government’s good management of the Covid-19 pandemic as its main achievement.

Not everyone shares this enthusiasm for Bukele, obviously, nor does all the criticism come from academic, political or activist circles.

“It’s not good for someone to govern as he pleases, that’s how things were done when there were kings, but we are no longer in those times,” Hernán Campos, a farmer from the Cangrejera canton in the municipality and department of La Libertad, in the central part of the country, told IPS.

Africa's women's basketballers start the continental championships on Saturday under the shadow of a major sexual abuse scandal.

FAO is working to urgently raise $ 36 million to accelerate support for Afghan farmers. The support aims to ensure that they do not lose their crops, wheat and other winter grains, which could otherwise result in a food emergency that would deepen the crisis in the Asian country. Credit: FAO

By Mario Lubetkin
ROME, Sep 17 2021 (IPS)

The traumatic events that occurred in recent weeks in Afghanistan have once again placed this Asian country at the center of the world’s attention with high-impact coverage and analysis in the media.

Perhaps one of the arguments least addressed in the current situation is the state of agriculture and food in the country and the possible effects on these sectors that, if not addressed in time, could intensify an already very delicate situation.

Failure to face the critical autumn that is approaching, the anticipated drought, the economic crisis, the instability and the COVID-19 pandemic may lead to a devastating scenario of hunger and migratory flows, both internally and abroad

In an extraordinary ministerial meeting held on Monday, 13 September, convened by the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, to discuss the urgent measures to be taken to alleviate the critical humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, the potential issue of hunger, especially suffered by girls and boys, arose in several interventions carried out by numerous countries, donors and international organizations.

Failure to face the critical autumn that is approaching, the anticipated drought, the economic crisis, the instability and the COVID-19 pandemic may lead to a devastating scenario of hunger and migratory flows, both internally and abroad.

The drought threatens the subsistence of seven million Afghans if the support for the season’s harvest does not arrive in time.

In Afghanistan, 70 percent of its population (around 36 million people) live in rural areas, and agriculture guarantees the survival of 80 percent of the population.

The Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, requested an urgent contribution of $36 million dollars to immediately address the agricultural and food situation in Afghanistan, in order to provide relief to 3.5 million people.

FAO currently supports more than 1.5 million people in 28 of the 31 Afghan provinces. Assistance in this sector must consist of technical aid, seed donation, training and small financial aid to guarantee basic nutritional needs.

The projected drought this year will reduce plantations by 20 percent and require an increase in cereal needs of 30 percent, while three million head of cattle will be at risk.

Advances in technology and information technology enable many catastrophes to be anticipated before they take place and cause human suffering increase threats to food security and rural livelihoods in countries in severe crises, like in the case of Afghanistan. Such advances require a massive intensification of these digital instruments.

The Director of Emergencies and Resilience of FAO, Rein Paulsen, considers that given the complexity, frequency and intensity of new countries that add to dramatic food crises, it is not possible to continue resorting to strategies of the past. It is necessary to advance in innovation and more efficient and wiser investments.

In this context, immediate action in Afghanistan must be based on previous experiences and adapted to have better immediate results with lower costs.

In the last five years, the number of people in the world affected by a food crisis has risen to 155 million in 2020 in 55 countries, while another 41 million face emergencies due to food insecurity, thus running the risk of suffering from famine or similar conditions unless they receive immediate assistance to survive.

More than 811 million people go hungry around the world, a trend that has been increasing in recent years.

The increase in humanitarian funding for the food sector – from $ 6.2 billion to nearly $ 8 billion between 2016 and 2019 – has been significant, although it is still not enough to provide basic emergency relief.

In the case of Afghanistan, multiple countries have listened to the request of the United Nations to undertake urgent cooperation with the country, multiplying the humanitarian emergency contributions in a country where half of the national budget depended on the international contribution.

Increasing contributions promptly and using them effectively will reduce costs.

In its new reality, the situation in Afghanistan is a challenge for the entire international community. Resolving it positively will demonstrate that it is possible to reverse negative trends in global food security. Let us be reminded there are less than 10 years to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, the second of which is the eradication of world hunger, set forth in the 2030 Agenda.

Excerpt:

Mario Lubetkin is Assistant Director General at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Women produce more than 50 percent of the food in the world but are disadvantaged when it comes to access to resources such as land and financial services. Credit: Busani Bafana, IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Sep 17 2021 (IPS)

Women, key contributors to agriculture production, are missing at the decision table, with alarming consequences, says Food Tank President Danielle Nierenberg in an exclusive interview with IPS.

Giving women a seat at the policymaking table could accelerate Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and keep the world fed and nourished. This necessitates a transformation of the currently lopsided global food system, she says.

Food Tank President Danielle Nierenberg.

Nierenberg, a top researcher and advocate on food systems and agriculture, acknowledges that women are the most affected during environmental or health crises. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted global food production, affecting women farmers and food producers who were already excluded from full participation in agricultural development.

“We still have a long way to go in making sure that policies are not gender blind and include the needs of women at the forefront when mass disasters occur,“ Nierenberg told IPS, adding that policymakers need to understand the needs of farmers and fisherfolk involved in food systems.

“I think it is time we need more people who are involved with agriculture to run for political office because they understand its challenges,” she said. “If we had more farmers in governments around the world, imagine what that would look like. If we had women farmers running municipalities, towns and even countries, that is where change would really happen.”

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), women contribute more than 50 percent of food produced globally and make up over 40 percent of the agricultural labour force. But while women keep families fed and nourished, they are disadvantaged in accessing critical resources for food production compared to men. They lack access to land, inputs, extension, banking and financial services.

“Until we end the discrimination of women around the globe, I doubt these things will change even though women are in the largest part of the world’s food producers,” said Nierenberg, who co-founded and now heads the global food systems think tank, Food Tank.

Arguing that COVID-19 and the climate crisis were not going to be the last global shocks to affect the world, Nierenberg said women and girls had been impacted disproportionately; hence the need to act now and change the food system. Women have experienced the loss of jobs and income, reduced food production and nutrition and more girls are now out of school.

“It is not enough for me to speak for women around the globe. Women who are actually doing the work need to speak for themselves; they need to be included in these conversations,” Nierenberg said.

“What happens is that in conferences, there are a lot of white men in suits talking on behalf of the rest of the world. But we need the rest of the world, and women included, to be in the room.”

A food system is a complex network of all activities involving the growing, processing, distribution and consumption of food. It also includes the governance, ecological sustainability and health impact of food.

Noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted invisible issues, like the interconnectedness of our food systems, she said it was urgent to invest in regional and localized food systems that included women and youth. Food Tank and the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) work collaboratively to investigate and set the agenda for concrete solutions for resetting the food system.

Divine Ntiokam, Food Systems Champion and Founder and Managing Director, Climate Smart Agriculture Youth Network Global (GCSAYN), agrees. While youth are ready to engage in promoting a just and inclusive transformation of rural areas, it was unfortunate they were rarely involved in decision-making, she said. They are excluded from the household level to larger political institutions and companies and need better prospects of financial security to remain in the farming sector.

“Young men and women need to be given special attention in formulating legislation to purchase land and receive proper land rights,” Ntiokam told IPS.

“International donors and governments need to invest in youth, particularly young women and girls, for their meaningful participation along with the food systems value network,” he said.

“Youth need to have a ‘seat at the table’, as they have at the Summit, in terms of decision-making on where governments and international donors invest their resources to make agriculture and food a viable, productive and profitable career.”

Researchers say current food systems are unfair, unhealthy, and inequitable, underscoring the urgency to transform the global food system. According to the FAO, more than 800 million people went to bed hungry in 2020, and scores of others are malnourished.

Jemimah Njuki, Director for Africa at IFPRI and Custodian for the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Lever of the UN Food Systems Summit.

For food systems to be just, there is an urgency to close the gender resource gap, says Jemimah Njuki, Director for Africa at IFPRI and Custodian for the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Lever of the UN Food Systems Summit.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will, on September 23, 2021 host the UN Food Systems Summit during the UN General Assembly High-Level Week. The Summit is billed as a platform to push for solid support in changing the world food systems to help the world recover from the COVID-19 pandemic while spurring the achievement of the SDG by 2030.

The Summit, the UN says will “culminate in an inclusive global process, offering a catalytic moment for public mobilization and actionable commitments by heads of state and government and other constituency leaders to take the food system agenda forward”.

“They (food systems) must also transform in ways that are just and equitable, and that meaningfully engage and benefit women and girls,” Njuki told IPS. She added that harmful social and gender norms creating barriers for women and girls by defining what women and girls can or cannot eat, what they can or cannot own, where they can go or not go should be removed.

“This transformation has to be driven from all levels and all sectors in our food systems: global to local, public to private, large scale producers to smallholder farmers and individual consumers,” Njuki said.

Leaders should enact policies that directly address injustices – such as ensuring women’s access to credit, markets, and land rights, Njuki said, noting that individual women and men need to confront social norms and legal prejudices and demand changes.

Njuki believes that current food systems have contributed to wide disparities among rich and poor.

“These negative outcomes are intimately linked with many of the biggest challenges facing humanity right now – justice and equality, climate change, human rights – and these challenges cannot be addressed without transforming how our food systems work,” Njuki told IPS.

“We are at a pivotal moment on the last decade before the deadline for the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This must be the decade of action for food systems to end hunger.”

 

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Millets, which grow well in rain-fed regions such as Chhattisgarh, used to be a mainstay for household cultivation and consumption. Credit: Picture courtesy - Neeraja Kudrimoti.

By External Source
Sep 17 2021 (IPS)

Chhattisgarh was one of the first few states in the country to universalise the public distribution system (PDS) and provide ‘Right to Food’ to its people. In order to ensure access to quality foodgrains for its vulnerable population, the state introduced the Food Security Act in 2012. The state has been providing support—35 kg of rice at INR 1 and INR 2 per kg; 1 kg of iodised salt and 1 kg refined oil at no cost; 2 kg of grams at INR 5 per kg—to each eligible family (as defined in the act).

Despite these efforts and others by the state, the statistics on nutrition for children and women in Chhattisgarh, almost a decade since the act, look grim. According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 40 percent of children below the age of five are underweight and 41.6 percent of girls and women are anemic.

Promoting millet cultivation and consumption can be one way to improve nutritional outcomes. The focus on millets stems from the history and significance of millet cultivation in the region, the crop’s nutritional value, its ability to grow well in Chhattisgarh’s climate, and its impact on improved agro-biodiversity

While several factors—access to quality food and health care, livelihood opportunities, and context-specific vulnerabilities—impact health and nutrition outcomes, this piece specifically looks at how promoting millet cultivation and consumption can be one way to improve nutritional outcomes. The focus on millets stems from the history and significance of millet cultivation in the region, the crop’s nutritional value, its ability to grow well in Chhattisgarh’s climate, and its impact on improved agro-biodiversity.

 

A brief background on cultivation practices in Chhattisgarh

Eighty percent of Chhattisgarh is largely dependent on agriculture, which is mainly rain-fed. Additionally, there is a widespread culture of monocropping—growing a single crop every year after year, on the same land. The state is known as the rice bowl of India, as it mainly grows paddy (or rice) under monocropping.

This wasn’t always the case. Over the years, there has been a marked shift towards the cultivation of rice. The Green Revolution, which introduced the use of high-yield seed varieties and chemical fertilisers to boost the production of wheat and rice, played a big role here.

Since then, there has been a push to expand the areas under cultivation through the use of hybrid paddy seeds, and to invest in research and development around the cultivation of paddy. And in 2019, the Government of Chhattisgarh promised its farmers a minimum support price of INR 2,500 per quintal of paddy, thereby encouraging them to focus on rice. The PDS becoming predominantly rice-oriented has also contributed to farmers shifting towards growing paddy. Over time, monocropping has damaged the soil’s nutrient diversity and has led to increased crop vulnerability and dependency.

Prior to the Green Revolution, rice, millets, sorghum, wheat, maize, and barley were the major crops produced. The production of rice and millets was higher than the production of wheat, barley, and maize combined. Many of the indigenous varieties used for cultivation, especially for millets, have been lost. The traditional farming and dietary practices were more aligned with the climate conditions of the region. Millets in particular, which grow well in rain-fed regions such as Chhattisgarh, used to be a mainstay for household cultivation and consumption.

 

Why millets?

Nutritionally, millets are high in protein, vitamins, and minerals. They are one of the highest sources of natural calcium. Older generations of tribal households talk about how a drink made from millets, called ragi pega—ragi cooked in hot water—was especially helpful. The drink kept them full and energised for long periods of time, especially when they had to spend hours, sometimes days, in the forest collecting produce.

Additionally, diets that heavily rely on cereals (such as rice) and pulses—which are heavily subsidised by the government under the current system—can lead to deficiencies in micronutrients such as iron, zinc, calcium, vitamins, and more.1 Therefore, promoting millet cultivation and consumption in the region can help combat issues of malnutrition, especially micro-nutrient deficiencies among children and women in the state.

Cultivating millets is also useful because they are better for the environment. They have a lower water footprint, are climate-smart crops, and are climate-resilient. Moreover, they are ‘farmer-friendly’ because they require a very low input cost. In Chhattisgarh, 21 out of 28 districts are water-scarce. This, coupled with climate change, erratic rainfall, and continued cultivation of water-intensive crops will eventually affect productivity and production, which in turn will affect food availability and price variations. In the long run, this will have an adverse impact on food security in the region.

 

Where are millets now?

Today, tribal households cultivate small quantities of millets, mainly for household consumption, using home-preserved seeds and traditional cultivation methods. Culturally as well, millets are used as offerings to deities or to hang millet cobs in homes on auspicious occasions. Despite the benefits of millets to both farmers and the environment, the crop has not been commercially produced since it has almost no supporting policies or markets.

Today, the area under paddy cultivation is 27 lakh hectares, almost 27 times more than the area under millet cultivation (1 lakh hectares). The Government of Chhattisgarh procured a record-breaking volume of paddy, worth INR 20,000 crore, at the minimum support price (MSP) in FY 2020-21. On the other hand, millets—which are far more nutritious, farmer-friendly, and planet-friendly smart crops—were not procured at all.

Although the state has made some efforts to increase millet cultivation, there was a shortage of seeds under various government schemes for the cultivation of millets. Further, local or indigenous seed varieties have been excluded from these schemes. Given that dietary staples may typically constitute 70 percent of a meal, and are often eaten three times a day, diversifying these staples can have a huge impact on health and nutrition. It would also address the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation, as well as the socioeconomic and political factors that influence food patterns, choices, and access.

 

What needs to be done?

1. Develop an integrated ecosystem
The government of Chhattisgarh has declared procurement at MSP for ragi and kodo and kutki (little millet). However, there is also a need to adopt a comprehensive and integrated ecosystem involving multiple stakeholders—farmers, middlemen, households, markets, government, community-based organisations, and nonprofits. This would entail government support on several fronts—increasing production, promoting household consumption, developing a decentralised processing infrastructure, and developing the local market for millets. The government must also include millets in the PDS, by making them available at local Fair Price Shops.2 This will ensure that there’s diversity in the staples available—currently, only rice and chana (bengal gram) are supported.

2. Land reforms
Ragi, kodo, and kutki should also be integrated into land reforms aimed at shifting to a multi-cropping system, in a traditionally rice-growing state.

3. Processing, infrastructure, and transportation support
Millet cultivation is mostly undertaken by indigenous groups who are scattered across the Bastar region of south Chhattisgarh, and the Sarguja area in north Chhattisgarh. Processes that aid drudgery reduction, produce aggregation, and shortening the local value chain should be encouraged. Such support, especially for small and marginal farmers, communities that benefit directly from the Forests Rights Act (FRA), and Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, will help them bring their produce to procurement or aggregation centers.

4. Strengthen insurance for farmers cultivating millets
Insurance products should also be linked to millet production to provide a safety net, especially at the beginning of the production cycle. This will ensure that farmers are protected against losses during the initial shifting of cultivation to millets, and until production stabilises.

5. Increase consumption of millets
There is a need for formal linkages to welfare schemes, specifically those related to supplementary nutrition. For example, linkages to local fair price shops in PDS, Anganwadis under Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), schools under the Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDM), and tribal hostels under Integrated Tribal Development Agency Business, among others. Such linkages can help secure acceptance and behaviour change in the direction towards the consumption of millets.

6. Invest in research on millets
Investing in research on markets, consumption patterns, transportation and infrastructure support, and traditional crop varieties is essential. This will help build important knowledge around nutrition, quality food, access, capacity, and viability of millets in Chhattisgarh.

7. Capacity building
Building on farmers’ knowledge, strengthening capacity for crop planning, using suitable agronomic practices, and increasing access to tools, subsidies, and registration support for government procurement is crucial. Further, it is mainly women—who are not widely recognised as farmers—who currently cultivate and manage production. Therefore, it is important to develop sustainable livelihood and social support for them such as better access to land, information, capital, and so on.
8. Seed production and preservation techniques

Lastly, another gap that needs to be addressed is the lack of available agro-climatically suitable seeds in Chhattisgarh. Awareness programmes that target seed preservation techniques among the tribals and promote the cultivation of local varieties of millets should be introduced. This will address issues of agricultural biodiversity, climate change, and nutritional concerns.

—

Footnotes:

1. National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB). Prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies. Technical report No.22, National Institute of Nutrition, ICMR; 2003.
2. Fair Price Shops are operated by the government under the public distribution system. They offer daily food and ration products—such as rice, oil, sugar, wheat, matchbox, soap, and so on—for a lower price than the market price.

 

Neeraja Kudrimoti worked as the state program officer for NITI Aayog’s Aspirational Districts Programme in Chhattisgarh. She was a Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellow in Bijapur district, Chhattisgarh. Neeraja advises public sector enterprises as a member of the National Corporate Social Responsibility Hub at Tata Institute Social Sciences. She has worked with state and district administrations on health, nutrition, agriculture, gender, and rural development in conflict-areas of Chhattisgarh. Neeraja holds a MSc in Public Policy from University College, London.

 

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

Venezuelan refugees make their way to the Colombian border town of La Guajira. Credit: PAHO/Karen González Abril

By Sandra Weiss
MEXICO CITY, Sep 17 2021 (IPS)

This is the third serious attempt to inject some momentum in the negotiations between the Venezuelan government and opposition. Negotiations have been taking place in Mexico since last Friday, with Norway acting as mediator.

The failure of the previous attempts at negotiation ended up strengthening Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, who tightened the screws on each occasion. Expectations are correspondingly low this time, especially among the Venezuelan population.

They also have other concerns: Covid-19 has led to hospitals that were already in a desperate state collapsing completely and the vaccination rate of eleven per cent (fully vaccinated) is one of the lowest on the continent, along with Haiti and Nicaragua.

The supply of medicines and food is precarious and inflation, power cuts, and petrol shortages add to the already existing problems. More than six million of the 28 million inhabitants have left their country, shrinking the opposition’s base. Those left behind struggle to survive and many have withdrawn from political life in disappointment.

Economic handcuffs

According to polls, Maduro’s support stands at 21 per cent — which is roughly the number of government employees and military officers directly dependant on the regime. The majority of Venezuelans are in favour of political change. Paradoxically, the opposition proves incapable of capitalising on the societal mood.

Little is left of the euphoria when Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself as president in January 2019, making life difficult for ‘the usurper Maduro’ with mass protests, a military mini-rebellion, and broad international recognition.

Back then, 80 per cent supported him; today, according to a poll by the Meganalisis Institute, only four per cent of the population still back him.This means that he is no longer a direct threat in Maduro’s eyes. Now the head of state wants to free himself from the straitjacket that Guaidó and the opposition have put together thanks to their international backing.

During the last general election in 2020, only 15 to 30 per cent went to the polls.

Venezuela is struggling economically. What still functions, apart from the (ailing) oil sector, is a flourishing underground economy consisting of racketeering, gold, arms, human and drug smuggling.

Criminal groups from all over the world are involved and control large parts of the country, protected by a network of corrupt military and parastate militias. The productive apparatus lies in ruins and cannot be kickstarted again without foreign investment.

But even Maduro’s allies like Russia and China are now keeping their wallets closed, despite their geostrategic interest. The Western embargo, which shrunk the country’s gross domestic product by 80 per cent, has made doing business with Venezuela more difficult and more expensive. And the rampant corruption makes investments seem like a financial bottomless pit.

All this has recently eroded Maduro’s legitimacy. During the last general election in 2020, only 15 to 30 per cent went to the polls. ‘This is a sign of weakness and makes Maduro more dependent on alliances with the military and other not necessarily trustworthy partners’, says political scientist Colette Capriles.

A change of tides

Maduro’s options are therefore limited: Either a flight forward, into ever more authoritarian measures, similar to the development in socialist brother countries such as Nicaragua and Cuba. Or a, at least partial, democratic opening and concessions to ease sanctions, stabilise the economy, and gain legitimacy.

Maduro has opted for the latter. In the face of internal resistance, he recently even made half-hearted concessions to the opposition. And two critics of the government now sit on the five-member electoral council. Opposition leader Freddy Guevara was released, and the opposition alliance MUD, which had handed the ruling party PSUV a bitter defeat in the 2016 parliamentary elections, was also admitted to the regional elections in autumn.

While two similarly strong opponents faced off in the last negotiations in 2019, this time, the opposition is in a weaker position. The 38-year-old Guaidó has lost support within the opposition alliance because of his own mistakes, but also thanks to a clever politics of division, propaganda, and targeted repression by the regime.

Moderate opposition leaders such as Henrique Capriles criticised Guaidó’s unfortunate entanglements in military adventures such as the failed mercenary invasion in May 2020. Guaidó also made unrealistic demands, such as Maduro’s resignation, a condition for negotiations. Capriles’ demand for a gradual strategy recently gained support in the business association as well as in the Foro Civico, the most important civil society movement.

Despite its perceived weakness, the opposition also holds some trumps. One is the support of the US and Europe for a return to a democratic rule. Recovering from Trump’s ultimately empty military threats, the transatlantic bridge seems to have been repaired.

The US has leverage in the form of sanctions. Without the consent of US diplomacy, Maduro will therefore not achieve his goal.

The second trump is timing. The elections in autumn, in which the opposition now wants to take part as one body, offer an unrivalled opportunity to gain power. The cadres of the ruling socialist party PSUV are unpopular. If the opposition succeeds in finding common candidates rooted in the people and in defeating voter apathy, this would be an important step in building a solid base.

Admittedly, Maduro controls the campaign machinery, the electoral council, and the entire logistics of the ballot. But if he wants to achieve an easing of sanctions, he will not be able to play these cards openly.

Enhanced experience

The mediators have also learned lessons from the failure of the previous negotiations, keeping the negotiations secret; none of the parties are allowed to leak content to the press. Both sides have agreed to also accept parts of the agreement, provided they have been sufficiently discussed and their implementation is urgent — even if the rest of the agenda is still open.

This opens the possibility of humanitarian aid deliveries, a release of all political prisoners or a gradual re-institutionalisation of the country and important key bodies such as the electoral council.

The Cubans have enormous influence on Maduro and will therefore sit indirectly at the negotiating table.

The talks are being led by the experienced Danish diplomat Dag Nylander, who has already brought the complicated peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas to a happy conclusion.

This experience inspired new ideas for negotiation points, such as the right of victims to compensation and the inclusion of civil society to place an agreement on a broader foundation of legitimacy.

Russia and the Netherlands are acting as observers. Phil Gunson of the International Crisis Group sees the fact that Russia could be brought on board as positive: ‘Up until now, Russia has tried to prevent strategic advantages for the US and its allies. But an agreement that preserves Russia’s economic interests in Venezuela would also benefit Moscow’.

The negotiations will neither be easy nor move along at speed. It is also not certain that the opposition can maintain its unity nor is it certain that Maduro will be strong enough to push through substantial concessions vis-à-vishis allies, especially in regards to those who are entangled in organised crime and have little interest in a solution.

Another player in the shadows is Cuba. The Caribbean Island is in the midst of its worst economic and legitimacy crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1990s. The deals with Venezuela are one of the last life boats. The Cubans have enormous influence on Maduro and will therefore sit indirectly at the negotiating table.

Nevertheless, there is justified hope. If the last negotiations in 2019 were about ‘all or nothing’, this time politics has returned to the negotiating table as the art of compromise and moderation. The possibility of a transitional government in which both camps share power is at least on the horizon, albeit still a very distant one.

Sandra Weiss is a political scientist and a former diplomat. Until 1999 she worked as editor for the news agency AFP. A freelance journalist, Sandra wrote articles about Latin America for several German newspapers, among others Die Zeit and Die Welt.

Source: International Politics and Society

 

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A selection of the best photos from the African continent and beyond.

A new report, Fixing the Business of Food, advocates the aligning of business practices to the SDGs. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Alison Kentish
Sep 16 2021 (IPS)

In the backdrop of rising hunger, half of the world’s population living on unhealthy diets, a third of agricultural produce lost to postharvest events, and waste, poverty in farming communities, a pandemic that laid bare the vulnerability of food systems to external shocks and unsustainable food production, the Barilla Foundation for Food and Nutrition has published a report which introduces guidelines for the private sector to fulfil its role in transforming global food systems.

The Fixing Food Report was released September 16, 2021, one week before the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), the largest and most urgent forum to date, which brings together representatives in every sector of the food system to make food production, packaging and distribution more sustainable.

The report acknowledges that food companies are a part of a larger, complex system. However, while they cannot solve the food systems crisis alone, these businesses have an important role in food choices, reducing food loss and waste, sustainable food production and poverty elimination.

It adds that they can contribute to food systems transformation by integrating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) into their business practices through a 4-pillar framework. The framework includes beneficial products and strategies, sustainable business operations and internal processes, sustainable supply and value chains and good corporate citizenship.

“Integrating sustainability principles within business goals and activities is not easy. It requires a rethinking of corporate purpose, management systems, performance measurements, and reporting systems,” the report states.

As part of its release, BCFN officials hosted a webinar on fixing the business of food. It brought together some of the world’s leading research institutions and food experts, including the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) at Columbia University, the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN SDSN) and the Santa Chiara Lab (SCL) of the University of Siena.

“To build back better, now is the time for a great reset, and in order to achieve that, we need to reset the agendas of the food industry and the finance sector to help the agri-food sector to become a game-changer for positive impact on the ecosystem and society as a whole,” said Guido Barilla, Chairman of the Barilla Group and the foundation the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN).

According to the report, while food businesses are now recognizing the magnitude of the global food crisis, many governments seem oblivious to this reality. It adds that the UNFSS aims to change this view “with all due urgency.”

“Companies should look inside and align themselves with sustainable practices, including the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Climate Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity, should report on such behaviours, in detail, should adjust internal management systems, promotion systems, compensation systems, evaluation systems, to ensure not just rhetorical alignment in an annual report, but operational alignment in business practices,” said Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

In addition to the 4-pillar framework, the Fixing the Business of Food report also lists 21 standards for more sustainable food systems. Those guidelines include measures for sustainable business operations and accountability.

Managing Director for Food and Nature at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Diane Holdorf, has encouraged food companies to commit to ambitious action on food systems transformation.

The CEO-led Council, which consists of 200 businesses working towards sustainable food systems, has challenged members to sign a business declaration towards this goal.

“For example, business leaders have committed to helping meet food system transformation by implementing actions in their companies, value chains, and the different parts of the sectors that are so important across food and agriculture. To, for example, scale science-based solutions, to provide investments into research and innovation that support the transformation that we need to see.”

Holdorf elaborated that the transformation included every part of the process, “from seeds to fertilizers, farming, processing, selling and trading, transportation, consumption, nutrition and ensuring access for farmers and others across the chain that leads into actions around contributing to improving livelihoods.”

The report makes a case for technical, financial, and other support for small and medium-sized enterprises.

International and European Affairs of the Food, Beverages and Catering Union head Peter Schmidt says this support is essential for the private sector’s successful alignment to the SDGs.

“Most of these initiatives are driven by the multinationals, and that’s okay, that’s great, and we appreciate it very much that is practice. I fully support them, but at the same time, we have real problems explaining SMEs. What does it mean when we talk about the problem of sustainability?” he asked.

“I invited several people from the business sector and asked one CEO from a corporate team, producing organic cheese, ‘Do you know something about the SDGs? The UN Agenda 2030? Do you know about the Code of Conduct that was launched within the Frankfurt strategy from the European Commission?’ and the answer was: not really. I think that shows how important it is that we go deeper in this level. That is the backbone of the food industry, of the processing sector. If we do not take them on board, I’m not sure whether we can have success in the transformation process,” he said.

For over ten years, the Barilla Foundation for Food and Nutrition has engaged in state-of-the-art research, hosted high-level think tanks, and contributed to discussion – and action – on food systems transformation.

Foundation representatives say during that time, they have witnessed a shift in the concept of sustainability, including steps by industry leaders to align with SDGs, but a lot more work is needed to achieve food systems transformation.

“Food is more than a commodity. It is a public good at the heart of our societies, our cultures, and our lives. Food actors can and must play a role in delivering this change,” said Barilla.

 

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Credit: Global Policy Forum

By Jens Martens
BONN, Germany, Sep 16 2021 (IPS)

Policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis have exacerbated rather than reduced global inequalities. On the one hand, the net wealth of billionaires has risen to record levels since the outbreak of the pandemic (increasing by more than US$ 5 trillion to US$ 13.1 trillion from 2020 to 2021), on the other hand, the number of people living in extreme poverty has also increased massively (by approx. 100 million to 732 million in 2020).

These contrasts alone show that something is fundamentally wrong in the world.

In response to the disastrous effects of the pandemic, there was much talk of solidarity with regard to health support, including access to vaccines. But the brutal national competition for vaccines shows that solidarity is embraced by many world leaders merely as a rhetorical flourish.

The World Health Organization (WHO) made an early appeal to countries to agree on a coordinated distribution of vaccines, with available doses distributed fairly according to the size of each country’s population. This has not happened.

By the end of August 2021, more than 60 percent of the people in high-income countries had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, but less than 2 percent have done so in low-income countries.

The European Commission, the USA, the UK, and numerous other countries have signed bilateral COVID-19 Vaccine Agreements with pharmaceutical producers to secure vaccine quotas. By the end of August 2021, more than 400 agreements were concluded, securing over 18 billion doses of vaccine.

The European Commission has so far negotiated supply agreements for 4.3 billion doses of vaccine, equivalent to 8 vaccine doses per capita of the EU population. The UK could vaccinate its population 9 times with the contracted doses, the USA 10 times and Canada as many as 16 times.

Exacerbating the problem for many countries in the global South is the enormous cost of vaccines. The producers do not charge standard prices, but vary their prices depending on the quantity purchased and the bargaining power of the purchaser.

Occasionally, they grant preferential terms to rich countries, while countries in the global South sometimes have to pay higher prices. For example, the European Commission received a batch of AstraZeneca vaccine for US$ 2.19, while Argentina had to pay US$ 4.00 and the Philippines US$ 5.00. Botswana had to pay US$ 14.44 million for 500,000 doses of Moderna vaccine, or US$ 28.88 per dose, while the USA got Moderna’s vaccine at almost half the price (US$ 15.00).

While the vaccine pharmaceutical oligopoly makes exorbitant profits, countries of the global South are confronted with falling government revenues and rising debt burdens. The situation will worsen as regular vaccine boosters become necessary in the coming years.

What is tantamount to a license to print money for the pharmaceutical companies is a massive burden on public budgets. In view of this dramatic disparity, the promise to “leave no one behind” of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development remains an empty slogan.

Insufficient responses to the global health crisis

As an immediate response to the global health crisis, the People’s Vaccine Alliance has formulated “5 steps to end vaccine apartheid“. These are in line with the demands derived from the analyses in the Spotlight Report 2021.

Increasing global vaccine production capacity, lowering market prices, and substantially increasing public financial support are vital, especially for the poor and disadvantaged people in the global South.

One way to overcome the vaccine shortage is to accelerate technology transfer. In May 2020, WHO established the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), designed to pool voluntary licenses, research and regulatory data. But most countries with large vaccine production capacity, such as the USA, Germany, China and India, do not support the initiative. Thus, it has so far remained without any noticeable impact.

Faced with scarce global production capacity, India, South Africa, Kenya and Eswatini applied for a waiver under the TRIPS Agreement of the WTO to temporarily remove patent protection for COVID-19-related vaccines, medicines and devices.

The TRIPS waiver is intended to enable manufacturers in the global South in particular to produce medicines and vaccines more quickly and at lower cost. More than 100 countries support this initiative, including the USA as of May 2021.

The EU, the UK, Switzerland and the pharmaceutical companies and lobby groups based in these countries are particularly opposed and have so far blocked an agreement.

In this context, the more fundamental question arises as to whether medicines vital to realize the human right to health should be patented at all. Should they not in principle be considered global public goods, especially when, as in the case of the COVID-19 vaccines, billions of dollars of public money have gone into research and development?

In another initiative, the WHO and several partners—including France, the EU and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation –launched the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator and its COVAX initiative.

This has shifted the centre of the global COVID-19 response from WHO to a multi-stakeholder initiative with its own governance and decision-making structure, thereby further weakening WHO’s role in the global health architecture.

But with the unilateral approach of the rich countries to vaccine procurement, COVAX has failed in its claim to serve a global coordination function. Its primary task is now to provide COVID-19 vaccines to 92 low- and middle-income countries with the objective to provide at least 2 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses by the end of 2021.

By 14 September 2021, just 270 million doses have been delivered. To date, COVAX has received pledges of US$ 9.825 billion, nowhere near enough to provide sufficient vaccines for about 4 billion people in the 92 countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic has painfully demonstrated the absence of a functioning global health system. This reality has led to the proposal to create a Pandemic Treaty – a legally binding framework and improved global governance structures for pandemic preparedness and response.

Whether it can actually overcome structural weaknesses of the global health architecture, such as the underfunding of the WHO, is very unclear. Depending on its design, it could lead to an actual strengthening of the WHO, or to its further weakening by outsourcing pandemic preparedness and response to multi-stakeholder bodies with limited public accountability.

More transformational steps are needed

Beyond responding to the global health crisis, far more fundamental transformational steps are needed.

An essential aspect of an agenda for change is the shift toward a rights-based economy and a concept of human rights that forms the basis of our vision of economic justice.

To make this systemic shift happen, the trend towards privatization, outsourcing and systematic dismantling of public services must be reversed.

To combat rising inequality and build a socially just, inclusive post-COVID world, everyone must have equitable access to public services, which must be reclaimed as public goods and run in the common interest, not for profit.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has repeatedly emphasized that human rights must guide all COVID-19 response and recovery measures. This should also mean strengthening the rights of those on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis.

First and foremost, that means the millions of workers in the healthcare sector, 70 percent of them women. Most of them experience poor work conditions, low wages and job insecurity.

The situation is similar in the education sector. Research by Education International shows that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers’ workloads have steadily worsened, while salaries have remained the same or even decreased.

The situation has continued to deteriorate as a result of the pandemic. The global teacher shortage, which the UN estimated at 69 million even before the pandemic, will continue to grow so long as teaching remains to be “an overworked, undervalued, and underpaid profession”.

A basic precondition for the adequate provision of public goods and services is that States have sufficient resources. To prevent the COVID-19 pandemic being followed by a global debt and austerity pandemic, governments must be enabled to expand their fiscal space and to implement alternatives to neoliberal austerity policies.

This includes implementing a progressive tax reform, which prioritizes taxes on wealth and high earners.

Over the past year, many UN officials, human rights activists and civil society groups (like in the Spotlight Report 2020) have demanded that the resources of the COVID-19 recovery and economic stimulus packages should be used proactively to promote human rights and the implementation of the SDGs.

During that time, initial studies show that this is rarely the case. A report of the Financial Transparency Coalition that tracked fiscal and social protection recovery measures in nine countries of the global South found that in eight of them a total of 63 percent of announced COVID-19 funds went to large corporations, rather than small and medium enterprises or social protection measures.

Particularly poorer countries, some of which were already facing massive budget shortfalls before the pandemic, need substantial external support to finance additional healthcare and social spending and measures to overcome the economic recession.

In this regard, the general allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) equivalent to US$ 650 billion in August 2021 – the largest distribution ever made by the IMF – has been heralded as a major achievement. However, its distribution will not benefit the countries most in need without rechanneling measures and again illustrates existing imbalances in the global economic architecture.

Only if the world collectively embarks on the path toward transformational policies is there a chance to reduce global inequalities, protect our shared planet and make the proclaimed goal of solidarity a political and institutional reality.

Jens Martens is Director, Global Policy Forum, Bonn, Germany

The Spotlight Report is published by the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), Global Policy Forum (GPF), Public Services International (PSI), Social Watch, Society for International Development (SID), and Third World Network (TWN), supported by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

 

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Masked staffers at voting time at the General Assembly last year. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 16 2021 (IPS)

When hundreds of delegates and diplomats arrive in New York city next week for the new 76th session of the UN General Assembly, they will be pinned down with pandemic restrictions in a city where Delta variant infections have been skyrocketing.

Under strict mandatory restrictions that came into force September 13, no one, not even diplomats, will be able to enter restaurants, bars, Broadway shows, or participate in any other indoor activities in New York city — if they are not vaccinated and cannot produce their vaccination cards.

But the United Nations will be an exception: while the nearly 3,000 staffers in New York will have to produce their vaccination cards to enter the UN cafeteria and wear masks inside the building, diplomats and visiting delegates will have free access both to the café, delegate’s lounge and the delegate’s dining room.

Asked whether vaccination certificates will be mandatory for visiting delegates, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, said: “As you know, the Secretary General’s authority over delegates is one that is limited, at best.”

Under longstanding diplomatic protocol, the Secretary-General is subservient to the UN’s 193 member states who reign supreme inside the Secretariat building.

Asked if the same rules apply in Geneva, the second largest UN city, Prisca Chaoui, President of the 3,500-strong Geneva staff union, told IPS “in Geneva the same rules apply to everybody, be it staff or delegate.”

“We believe that this is the right way to do, as it would be useless to ask staff to wear masks if other visitors, including delegates, are being allowed to take them off,” she noted.

As for dining places, she said, it was only last week the Geneva authorities decided to impose a green pass which has been in force since Monday 13.

“Our management hasn’t taken a decision yet on this issue. We expect that they will be aligned to the host country rules, which has been the case since the beginning of the pandemic. This avoids any unnecessary misunderstanding and tension between staff and management,” she added.

A limited number of world leaders and delegates will be at the high-level meeting of the General Assembly, come September 21. Credit: United Nations

Dujarric told reporters on September 13: “We’re taking efforts to reduce the on site footprint from the Secretariat staff. Member States have agreed to limit their number of delegates that will enter the General Assembly Hall. All persons will be required to attest as a condition of entry that they have not had symptoms or been diagnosed with COVID or close contact with anyone”.

He said it was also important that visiting delegates will be subjected to the Host Country’s travelling and entry requirements, and everyone… “I mean, all delegates that are coming in have also been reminded that basically, to do anything in New York City, you need to be vaccinated, whether it’s to take public transportation, though I don’t want to prejudge anything; not sure they would take public transportation, but to enter restaurants, stores, any sort of activity … you need to show a vaccination”.

“In addition, as we’ve said, the staff that needs to be in the building during the General Assembly high level week, is mandated to be vaccinated. So, that’s where we are”.

And to sit in at the 4th Floor restaurant in the UN building you have to show proof of vaccination. “Yes, like in any other restaurant in New York City,” he noted.

As a gesture of goodwill, however, New York city Mayor Bill di Blasio said on September 15 the city will be opening “a pop-up testing and vaccination site at UN headquarters next week and provide free COVID-19 tests, as well as the single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccines”.

“As we prepare for High-Level week, New York City stands ready to support our partners at the United Nations with testing and vaccine resources,” he said.

“We are proud to join in the ongoing efforts to keep all UNGA attendees and our fellow New Yorkers safe during the pandemic,” he added.

In a joint statement with International Affairs Commissioner Penny Abeywardena, he thanked the General Assembly President Abdulla Shahid of the Maldives for taking the critical step of requiring proof of vaccination for those entering the Assembly hall during next week’s High-Level meeting.

Ian Richards, the former President of the Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA), told IPS Switzerland leaves it to employers to decide their mask policy, and in the Palais des Nations in Geneva, masks are required in common spaces but not at the desk.

Regarding restaurants, he said, the Covid pass is not currently required in workplace cafeterias, although it is in normal restaurants.

“Of course, whatever rules are decided whether in Geneva or New York, they should be same for staff and delegates. Both can transmit Covid in the same way,” declared Richards.

Guy Candusso, a former First Vice President of the UN Staff Union in New York, told IPS the Secretary-General is responsible for the health and safety of all individuals, including diplomats, within the UN complex.

“Unless he is expressly overridden by the General Assembly, I believe he can institute protective measures if the situation requires it,” he said.

Meanwhile, in a letter to UN staffers last month, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said all staff at UNHQ, in consideration of the need to protect one another, will be required to report their vaccination status including through EarthMed with immediate effect.

In addition, any personnel who has been on site and has a positive COVID-19 or Antigen test result must report the results immediately to the Division of Healthcare Management and Occupational Safety and Health through the confidential self-reporting portal (medical.un.org) in order to ensure effective risk mitigation at the workplace.

“I continue to be very grateful to those staff who have been working on premises throughout the pandemic, either because their functions could not be performed remotely or when remote work would have impacted their effectiveness and efficiency,” Guterres said.

“I particularly commend those who did so when we did not have the protection of vaccination. As the presence of unvaccinated staff potentially increases the risk for other staff members, whether vaccinated or not, vaccinations will be mandated for staff performing certain tasks and/or certain occupational groups at UNHQ whose functions do not allow sufficient management of exposure.”

This mandate may be waived where a recognized medical condition prevents vaccination.

Those staff members who will be required to be vaccinated must receive the final dose of a vaccine no later than 19 September 2021.

Any COVID-19 vaccine that is recognized by the WHO, or under routine approved-use by a Member State’s national health authority, is accepted. Affected staff will be notified by their respective offices during the week of 16 August.

“As personnel serving in New York, we are privileged to have access to effective vaccines through local vaccination programmes. In addition to requiring certain staff to be vaccinated, I strongly encourage all personnel who have not already done so to take advantage of this opportunity to be vaccinated to promote your safety and health and all those around you.”

“The situation continues to be monitored and the possibility of additional measures announced will remain under consideration and will be reviewed and adapted as needed,” said Guterres.

 

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Shocking election results reveal how King Mohammed VI has survived the Arab Spring and its aftermath.