Africa

By External Source
Sep 10 2021 (IPS-Partners)

H.E. Dr. Tariq Al Gurg was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Dubai Cares in 2009 and as Vice-Chairman in July 2021.

Al Gurg has been a primary driver behind the organization’s success. He has enabled Dubai Cares to contribute to the evidence-base in education, leverage funding and invest in strategic relationships and programs that support the global education agenda. His focus has been to develop Dubai Cares as a recognized best-case practitioner and a global leader in education program design and innovation that is grounded in a philosophy of continuous monitoring and evaluation and rigorous research.

Globally, Al Gurg has been a key champion of Education in Emergencies, as well as a vocal advocate for an increased focus on youth empowerment. He is a founding member of the High-Level Steering Group of ‘Education Cannot Wait’ – the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies, as well as Generation Unlimited, UNICEF’s flagship youth initiative, where he also sits on its Board of Trustees and Global Leadership Council. Al Gurg is also a high-level Champion of the World Economic Forum’s Reskilling Revolution, a member of the advisory board of UNESCO’s Futures of Education Commission, as well as the Regional Champion of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) in the Middle East. Locally, Al Gurg is a Co-chair of the Global Council on SDG 4, a board member at the Digital School initiative, the Commissioner General of the Dubai Cares pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai and a member of the UAE Committee for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid headed by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MoFAIC).

Since 2009, Al Gurg has been instrumental in a number of key task forces and leadership circles in the global education sector with his contributions having a far-reaching impact. His efforts have been commended by a number of key entities during this period. He was recognized in 2019 as a “Change-maker” by Save the Children during the celebration of their centennial anniversary. In the same year, Al Gurg was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) Degree from Mangalayatan University in Aligarh, India. Al Gurg was also recognized by UNESCO in 2017 and by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) in 2016.

Al Gurg’s past experience includes 12 years at various senior management positions within the consumer and corporate banking at National Bank of Dubai (Currently known as Emirates NBD). He is a Founding Board Member and Deputy Chairman of the UAE Genetic Diseases Association (UAE GDA). He was also a member of the UAE’s National Anti-Money Laundering Committee, chaired by the Governor of the UAE Central Bank.

ECW: At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, close to 90% of all learners around the world were affected by school closures, causing unprecedented loss in terms of learning outcomes. Yet, crisis can be an opportunity for change, and for some, COVID-19 was the occasion to roll out online digital learning solutions at record speed. What lessons do you draw from this unique, global experience?

Dr. Tariq Al Gurg: The COVID-19 pandemic forced 1.6 billion children out of school and put 24 million children at risk of never receiving an education. In light of this, countries around the world scrambled to adopt new technologies for remote learning, with some quickly getting online education up and running while others suffered due to lack of access to meaningful connectivity and limited remote teaching and learning resources, which prevented children in these countries from making a successful transition to remote learning.

In my opinion, one of the biggest lessons to have emerged from the pandemic is that digital connectivity cannot be a privilege that is reserved for only certain segments of the society in certain parts of the world. Just like access to quality education, digital connectivity needs to be a universal right that – together with quality relevant content and access to devices – enables every child on this planet to learn, grow and build a better future for themselves, wherever they are. Without connectivity, exclusion becomes a big concern, resulting in access to fewer learning resources and limited opportunities for the most vulnerable children and youth to fulfill their potential.

ECW: What do you see as the lasting impacts of COVID-19 on education for children and youth caught in emergencies and protracted crises? As a co-founder of Education Cannot Wait and a solid and unwavering supporter of ECW throughout, how is Dubai Cares working with ECW and other strategic partners to address them?

Dr. Tariq Al Gurg: Children and youth living in crisis settings already face a host of complex challenges that prevent them from living a life of dignity and equal opportunity. When a pandemic like COVID-19 is added to the equation, the negative outcomes are amplified even more, particularly for girls.

Dubai Cares has always believed that education in emergencies and protracted crisis settings is one of the most effective ways to provide stability, security and hope to children in these circumstances where nothing else appears to be in their control. Access to education can bring them a sense of normality as they turn to their classrooms, classmates and teachers to learn essential life skills in peaceful settings in an otherwise unsettling environment. Teachers and trainers are also able to offer these children and youth psychosocial support, which becomes crucial for their recovery from the trauma they face.

Our work with Education Cannot Wait and other strategic partners allows us to maximize the impact of our education in emergencies funding as we know that we are contributing to a coherent, coordinated and prioritized approach targeting those most vulnerable and left furthest behind.

Working in partnership with Education Cannot Wait during the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed Dubai Cares to gain in-depth insights into the different educational interventions that will best address their challenges. Equipped with this knowledge, we are then able to tap into our network to deploy the most effective solutions across our portfolio of grants.

ECW: Dubai Cares has been a sector-leading foundation for global education, showing strong support to ECW amongst other partners. ECW is about to embark on its next round of funding requests, urgently seeking millions in new resources to ensure children in the world’s most complex crises can access quality education. What is your message to public and private sector donors, including those who are not yet part of the ECW movement and who may be considering a contribution at the RewirEd 2021 Summit?

Dr. Tariq Al Gurg: COVID-19 has reemphasized the role of education financing in safeguarding the future of our communities. Without sustained and significant investments in education today, an entire generation of children will grow up uneducated and fail to play their role as contributors of economic growth and development. Nowhere is this more true than in countries affected by crisis and conflict.

Dubai Cares’ message to the global education community is clear: Join us at the RewirEd Summit taking place from 12-14 December during Expo 2020 Dubai to raise the alarm on the education financing crisis facing us today, but also to explore ways to collaborate more effectively across actors and sectors in order to drive better and more sustainable impact for the education of children and youth everywhere. This cannot be achieved without focusing on those most marginalized and the most unstable settings, and these children – girls, refugees, IDPs, children with disabilities in places like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, CAR and South Sudan – these are the children and youth that Education Cannot Wait serves. The RewirEd Summit will feature close to 20 separate sessions focusing on education in emergencies across the three days, including an opportunity to make early commitments to the new Case for Investment that Education Cannot Wait will launch. It is an excellent opportunity for new donors to join and make their commitments heard!

ECW: How can we, as a sector, crowd in more resources to support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4 on equitable, inclusive, quality education for every child? In particular, what role can the private sector, high-net worth individuals and foundations play in our efforts to get all children in school and learning?

Dr. Tariq Al Gurg: It is now clear that COVID-19 has further amplified the learning crisis that existed before the pandemic. It has put to risk years of progress that we had painstakingly achieved in the education sector. That said, it has also shined a light on the opportunity for the global education community to join forces under one shared mission to address the challenges through a collective commitment.

Alongside prioritizing funding from national governments and the international community, more can and should be done to engage with new private sector actors through global advocacy, to earmark and mobilize additional funding for education. Dubai Cares is working together with the Global Business Coalition for Education on a strategic engagement framework for global business taking action for education at the RewirEd Summit. Whilst financing is imperative, it is not the only way for businesses to contribute.

Beyond financing, private sector are the largest employers globally and as such should engage with the education sector at large and contribute to informing the design of education systems that will help meet the ever-changing job market needs. Another example is the opportunity that telecoms, big tech and ed-tech companies have to support the connectivity crisis through innovation and new business models.

These are, in fact, some of the key themes and topics that will take center stage at the RewirEd Summit later this year and we are delighted that alongside Education Cannot Wait, we are also working with the World Economic Forum, UNICEF, UNESCO, Global Partnership for Education, the World Bank, World Food Programme, UNHCR, the office of the UN Special Envoy on Education and the OECD as our strategic partners for the Summit. The participation and engagement of all these organizations and many more from across sector and actors will enable us to catalyze meaningful action for the future of education and SDG4.

ECW: Taking place on 12-14 December, the RewirEd 2021 Summit comes as the global community is laying the ground of a post-COVID world. How can the RewirEd Summit help shift the global narrative on education from the impossible to the possible? Can you give us a sneak peek into any of the exciting initiatives you have planned or are working on?

Dr. Tariq Al Gurg: The need of the hour is for all players – from governments to the private sector – to think long and hard about the lessons from the pandemic and leverage them to build the path ahead. Together, we need to place education financing at the top of global agendas through an integrated approach. We must also mobilize additional resources and leverage them in ways that will help us garner more support for education financing. Innovation also plays an integral part, not only when it comes to making an impact in education, but also when it comes to how we develop education models as an interconnected system, delivering pioneering funding models, and innovative partnerships locally, regionally and globally.

Through the RewirEd Summit, we look forward to unlocking new solutions and innovation for the future of education by fostering collaboration between new and unlikely allies, whilst bringing together existing platforms and partnerships to amplify their impact.

Discussions at the Summit will span three key themes namely: Youth, Skills and the Future of Work, Innovation in Education and Education Training. For the first time at a global educational conference, climate change and sustainability will take center stage with a high-level panel dedicated only to this topic, and a number of side events looking at education through this lens. Amongst other things, we will explore new ways of working in the areas of future skills, alternative pathways to secondary and tertiary education, and the opportunities that more holistic locally rooted learning ecosystems can bring. Through a series of high-level plenaries, TED-style talks, workshops, masterclasses and panels, we look forward to encouraging disruptive dialogue that will help us reclaim the foundational role of education in building a sustainable, equitable and prosperous future for all.

ECW: If you had one message for gathering leaders at the RewirEd Summit and Expo 2020 Dubai on the importance of connectivity in education for children caught in emergencies and protracted crises, what would it be?

Dr. Tariq Al Gurg: Meaningful connectivity for learning represents one of the most robust and effective ways to bring access to quality education to children affected by emergencies. As a platform committed to rethinking and rewiring the future of education, RewirEd will put the spotlight on the need for increased investments in connectivity through its second theme: Education Financing.

Dubai Cares had long identified connectivity as a critical enabling factor to ensure learning can continue – even in times of crisis and school closures. To achieve this, Dubai Cares has been working closely with UNESCO and UNICEF since the beginning of the global lockdown in March 2020, to launch a Global Declaration on Connectivity during the RewirEd Summit. The aim of the RewirEd Declaration is to build consensus and commitments through collective collaboration between key stakeholders, address key barriers to connectivity and highlight the need for an ecosystem for meaningful connectivity. By bringing together new and unlikely allies, the Summit seeks to mobilize support from public and private sectors for this Global Declaration that will be a historic step in our efforts to close the digital divide, with an emphasis on those most marginalized.

 

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Excerpt:

Building momentum to the RewirEd Summit, leading education advocate explores new ways to bridge the digital divide and respond to COVID-19.

Students of the Lira Integrated Fish Farm in Uganda, a South-South Cooperation Facility for Agriculture and Food Security, eat their lunch. Credit: FAO/Isaac Kasamani

By Adel Abdellatif
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 10 2021 (IPS)

The 2021 high-level commemoration of the United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation, organized ahead of the opening of the seventy-sixth session of the United Nations General Assembly, provided an opportunity to discuss Southern solidarity in support of a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable future while effectively responding to the global COVID-19 crisis across the global South.

The 2021 United Nations Day for South-South cooperation presented the opportunity for stakeholders to highlight concrete follow-up to the twentieth session of the High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation (HLC), which took place from 1 to 4 June 2021 in New York.

“South-South and triangular cooperation must have a central place in our preparations for a strong recovery”, says Secretary-General António Guterres, reminding us that “we will need the full contributions and cooperation of the global South to build more resilient economies and societies and implement the Sustainable Development Goals”.

The General Assembly High-level Committee (HLC) on South-South Cooperation met in June to review progress made in implementing the Buenos Aires Action Plan (BAPA+40) and other other key decisions on South-South cooperation.

This HLC session considered follow-up actions arising from previous sessions and hosted a thematic discussion on “Accelerating the achievement of the SDGs through effective implementation of the BAPA+40 outcome document while responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and similar global crises”.

The HLC hosted 75 member states – including a Head of State and Ministers from around the world – as well as 23 intergovernmental organizations, 25 UN entities, civil society and the private sector. More than 400 people participated during side events which HLC Bureau Members took the lead in organizing on issues of importance to the South.

Deliberations focused on actions arising from the Report of the Secretary-General to the nineteenth session, which proposed concrete ways to enhance the role and impact of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation, as well as the key measures taken to improve the coordination and coherence of UN support to South-South cooperation.

In terms of important messages and statements, Member States highlighted that COVID-19 has taught the world that South-South development cooperation is critical to an effective response to emergencies.

South-South cooperation was strongly reaffirmed as the means to support countries’ national development priorities, alignment with the SDGs, and the acceleration of achievement toward the 2030 Agenda.

South-South cooperation was also recognized as an effective approach to accelerate and deepen the efforts to build back better, healthier, safer, more resilient and sustainable.

It was emphasized that over the past decade, the world has witnessed the increase in the scale, scope, and diversity of approaches of South-South and triangular cooperation.

Countries of the Global South have strengthened institutional capacities for cooperation by formulating and implementing national development policies, strategies, and agencies, and by developing information and performance management systems for data gathering, expertise and technology mapping, and impact assessment.

With the strengthening of national capacities on South-South and triangular cooperation there is opportunity to collect and exchange evidence of how much South-South and triangular cooperation is being done, how it benefits people, and how to create institutional mechanisms to help countries align South-South collaboration with their national and regional agendas.

As the world fights the COVID-19 pandemic and strives to build back better, international development organizations must offer innovative, timely responses to remain relevant. This includes new forms of coordination based on more “coherent” and “integrated support” capable of unleashing change on the ground.

Traditionally, South-South and triangular cooperation has taken place among governments on bilateral terms. As development becomes more dynamic in nature and unprecedented in scale, South-South and triangular cooperation is now used to source innovation from wherever it is.

Also highlighted was that South-South and triangular cooperation is increasingly recognized as an important complement to North-South cooperation in financing for sustainable development.

UNOSSC will continue to promote, coordinate and support South-South and triangular cooperation globally and within the UN system. It will also continue to support governments and the UN system to analyse and articulate evolving and emerging trends, dynamics and opportunities in South-South cooperation.

Adel Abdellatif. Credit: FAO/Isaac Kasamani

In response to Member States requests, UNOSSC consistently demonstrates strong convening power across the UN system and serves as secretariat of UN Conferences including BAPA+40. UNOSSC has developed research networks at the global level, compiling evidence of good practices in South-South cooperation toward achievement of the SDGs, and created a global network of think tanks on South-South and triangular cooperation. UNOSSC also offers the South-South Galaxy platform for sharing knowledge and brokering partnership. The Office also manages a number of South-South cooperation trust funds and programmes.

Given UNOSSC’s mandate to support South-South and triangular cooperation globally and within the UN system, the Secretary-General requested UNOSSC to coordinate the preparation and launch of the UN System-wide Strategy on South-South and Triangulation Cooperation for Sustainable Development with the engagement of the UN Inter-Agency Mechanism for South-South and Triangular Cooperation, and other stakeholders.

The Strategy’s objective is to provide a system-wide policy orientation to UN entities in order to galvanize a coordinated and coherent approach to policy, programmatic and partnership support on South-South and triangular cooperation and increase impact across UN activities at all levels: national, regional and global. Implementation is governed by each entity individually, based on its own mandate and programme of work.

UNOSSC is also currently developing its 2022-2025 Strategic Framework. It is an opportunity for the Office to catalyze the use of South-South and triangular cooperation to accelerate the speed and scale of action towards achieving the SDGs.

For example, the Office aims to offer a platform whereby: (i) countries of the Global South can exchange knowledge, develop capacities, and transfer technologies to address their own development priorities as well as coordinate and co-design solutions to shared development challenges; (ii) UN agencies, programs, and funds can strengthen their support to SSTC at the global, regional and country levels.

No country is too poor to contribute to South-South cooperation for development, and no country is too rich to lean from the South. All partners have important elements to contribute. So, it follows that triangular cooperation is an important element of our work.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare severe and systemic inequalities.

The pandemic has also highlighted the importance of the digital revolution. Building institutional capacity in sub-Saharan Africa and LDCs through South-South and triangular cooperation is essential for countries to fully harness digital transformation and recovery.

Triangular cooperation is a flexible platform where partners can mobilize different funding capacities in support of developing countries’ priorities.

Triangular cooperation demands horizontality and shared governance approved by all parties. It is based on a clear respect for national sovereignty and the seeking of mutual benefit in equal partnerships.

Recovery from pandemic requires additional support, innovative development solutions and arrangements between public and private sectors. We must facilitate opportunities to expand development cooperation and its processes and to improve the effectiveness of multilateral cooperation. Fostering multi-dimensionality and multi-stakeholders approaches is the way forward to enhance development impact.

During the June HLC Member States highlighted that in the COVID and post-COVID era, the below priority areas for triangular cooperation could be considered: 1) health, 2) data infrastructure, 3) manufacturing capacity and supply chain for relevant medical material and equipment, as well as treatment; 4) solar energy and reducing carbon footprint; 5) a coalition for disaster resilient initiatives; and 6) currency swap arrangements from international financial institutions.

Adel Abdellatif is the Director, a.i., of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation. Before joining UNOSSC, he served as Deputy Director, a.i., and Senior Strategic Adviser in the Regional Bureau for Arab States of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). He came to UNDP following a two-decade career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt.

 

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Central banks in Latin America, such as the Bank of Brazil, whose headquarters is pictured here, should create measures to address the climate crisis, such as a catalog of polluting activities that should not be financed and the magnitude of exposure to climate risks, so that financial institutions in the countries stop financing fossil fuels. CREDIT: BCB

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Sep 10 2021 (IPS)

Despite the impact that their policies have with regard to the climate emergency, Latin America’s central banks continue to avoid applying guidelines in measures that affect the operation of credit institutions, which distances them from compliance with the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Ilan Zugman, director in Latin America of the international non-governmental organisation 350.org, which promotes an energy transition that eliminates the use of fossil fuels, pointed out that central banks have the power to regulate financial institutions to stop providing resources for polluting activities.

Central banks “can tell banks that they can’t make loans to companies that further aggravate the climate crisis. There is a lot of room for a stronger role,” he told IPS from the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba."Industries don't want to leave their activities behind. They put a lot of pressure on governments and bank executives. We need to show more clearly what is happening in terms of climate risks, the losses that governments and central banks could suffer if we don't stop the climate crisis." -- Ilan Zugman

“But so far, that hasn´t been happening in many places, there are very few examples around the world. In Latin America there is nothing like that. They are lagging behind, we see more words than actions,” he argued.

The climate crisis poses challenges for financial bond issuers, investors, insurers, lenders and banking and financial regulators, which means these entities must analyse and provide information about how it affects their business and how their business impacts society and the environment, and in particular the climate.

Latin America is a region highly vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis, such as more intense storms, floods, droughts and rising sea levels, and the cost of failing to take measures is extremely high, as scientists and international organisations have warned.

In this region, only the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) has made some progress – although without yet creating a comprehensive set of rules in this regard – by applying its first regulation on risk management and socio-environmental responsibility, established in 2014.

It launched three public consultations this year on requirements for risk management, reporting and policy on social, environmental and climate responsibility, which were completed in June. The standard will take effect on Jan. 1.

The BCB will implement the disclosure requirements this year, in a first phase addressing qualitative aspects of governance, strategy and risk management, and a second on quantitative facets, such as metrics and targets.

But no Latin American central bank has reported its exposure to the consequences of the climate crisis.

Amaury Oliva, director of Sustainability, Financial Citizenship, Consumer Relations and Self-Regulation at the private Brazilian Federation of Banks (Febraban), said the sector recognises “its role and responsibility” in expanding the financing of activities that contribute to the reduction of polluting emissions and mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

“It is important to continuously improve processes to manage and mitigate the risks associated with climate issues in banks’ activities and in their business with clients, in order to maintain the stability and resilience of the financial sector in this transition process,” he told IPS from São Paulo.

In the view of Oliva, whose federation represents 119 banks, “institutions must work to inform how they are incorporating climate issues into their risk management strategies and processes.”

Over the past three years, central banks around the world have carried out analyses on the need for climate guidelines, acknowledging that the phenomenon can undermine the very stability of the financial system.

In 2020, out of Febraban’s portfolio of legal entities and companies, 51 percent represented a threat to the climate and 44 percent to the environment, according to the green taxonomy used in institutional credit balances. This was an improvement compared to 2012, when 62 percent represented climate and 50 percent environmental threats.

Hurricanes such as Nora, which was intensified by the climate crisis and hit Mexico’s northern Pacific region at the end of August, are leaving heavy economic losses, and central banks could intervene to encourage financing for sustainable activities that do not fuel climate change. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPSHurricanes such as Nora, which was intensified by the climate crisis and hit Mexico’s northern Pacific region at the end of August, are leaving heavy economic losses, and central banks could intervene to encourage financing for sustainable activities that do not fuel climate change. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

In May 2020, the central Bank of Mexico (Banxico) released the results of a survey in which the country’s banks recognised the importance of the issue and the adoption of some measures. But neither Banxico nor the private Association of Banks of Mexico have disclosed their relation to climate risks.

In July, the Financial Stability Board (FSB), which brings together financial and banking authorities from around the world, published a roadmap that focuses on addressing the financial risks of the climate crisis through corporate disclosure of such information, data, vulnerability analysis, and regulatory and oversight tools.

In April, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) of the Bank for International Settlements, a Geneva-based institution that groups central banks from around the world, published two reports on climate risk drivers and their transmission channels to the banking system, as well as financial risks and banking practices in the face of these risks.

In this region, only the central banks of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru belong to the BCBS.

In “Climate-related financial risks: a survey on current initiatives”, carried out in April 2020 and to which only Argentina, Brazil and Mexico responded from this region, the majority of Basel Committee members considered it appropriate to address climate risks.

Most of the central banks that responded stated that they had conducted research to measure these threats but less than half had established guidelines in this regard or were in the process of doing so, without calculating their mitigation in bank capital requirements.

The Basel Committee includes 45 members from 28 jurisdictions, including central banks and industry regulators. It also has nine observers.

In addition, the Financial Stability Board, which brings together financiers, insurers, large non-financial corporations, accounting and consulting firms, as well as credit rating agencies, has created a Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

This group aims to make recommendations that promote informed investment, credit and underwriting decisions, as well as to help stakeholders better understand the concentration of carbon-footprint assets in the financial sector and the system’s exposure to climate risks.

It has issued recommendations on governance, strategies, risk management, metrics and targets, and plotted four scenarios based on a rapid energy transition, a two degree Celsius global temperature rise and a path of climate inaction, estimating transition and physical risks, respectively.

The Paris Agreement was signed in the French capital in December 2015 at the conclusion of the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and its core objective is to keep global temperatures from increasing more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

This goal is considered to be the minimum necessary to avoid irreversible climatic and, consequently, human catastrophes.

But to achieve this, greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by 50 percent by 2030, and to reach this goal it is essential to curb the extraction and burning of fossil fuels.

Against this backdrop, at least four global voluntary standards initiatives on sustainable finance are underway. The most recent is the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, launched in April, which includes 53 banks from 27 countries whose total assets amount to 37 trillion dollars, almost a quarter of global banking assets.

But the banking and financial system continues to provide funds to the fossil fuel sector, especially gas, whose methane makes it even more polluting than carbon dioxide (CO2).

For Zugman, the solution is clear: outlining a classification of activities that excludes fossil fuels from financing.

“We have only seen some promises and agreements, but for 2022 or later. There are no timelines, clear goals or transparency that would enable us to monitor this. There are many mechanisms that need to be improved,” he said.

“Industries don’t want to leave their activities behind. They put a lot of pressure on governments and bank executives. We need to show more clearly what is happening in terms of climate risks, the losses that governments and central banks could suffer if we don’t curb the climate crisis,” he said.

The activist lamented that banks continue to lend to fuel the climate crisis and insisted that they should no longer do so.

However, he pointed out that there are multilateral entities, such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, that have incorporated climate risks in their assessments of global financial stability and in their credit lines.

From 2022, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which groups the world’s richest economies, will use a tool to monitor climate and transitional financial risks towards a low-carbon economy, as well as their potential impact on financial performance, natural capital and sustainable growth.

The question is when these tools will translate into concrete measures to stop the financing of polluting activities, while the climate emergency continues to wreak havoc in the region.

The central banks of Latin American countries should decisively join these policies to work from the financial sector to contain the climate crisis, said Zugman.

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Farmers in Jamaica are already tallying the costs of crop losses from three tropical storms - Elsa, Grace and Ida. Credit: Zadie Neufville

By Zadie Neufville
Kingston, Sep 9 2021 (IPS)

Less than halfway into the 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season, Jamaica and its Caribbean neighbours were already tallying the costs of infrastructural damage and crop losses from the passage of three tropical storms – Elsa, Grace and Ida. And after a record-breaking 2020 season, the region is on tenterhooks as the season peaks.

But while storm and hurricane damage are not new to the Caribbean, these systems’ increased frequency and intensity bring new reckoning for a region where climate change is already happening. According to data, the effects are likely to worsen in the next 20 years or so, earlier than previously expected.

What is more, the launch of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report (AR6) confirmed what regional scientists have said for years: the frequency and intensity of hurricanes will increase, and floods, droughts and dry spells will be more prolonged and more frequent. In addition, sea levels are rising faster, and heatwaves are more intense and are occurring more often.

AR6, the so-called ‘red code for humanity’, offers a frightening look at the global climate and what is to come. It also confirmed that for most small island states, climate change is already happening.

In a bid to bring home the reality of what is fast becoming the region’s biggest challenge, two leading climate scientists broke down AR6 to highlight the issues that should concern leaders and citizens of the Caribbean.

In a document named Caribbean Under Threat! 10 Urgent Takeaways for the Caribbean, co-heads of the University of the West Indies Mona, Climate Studies Group (CSG), professors Tannecia Stephenson and Michael Taylor warned: “We can now say with greater certainty that climate change is making our weather worse. It is affecting the intensity of heatwaves, droughts, floods and hurricanes, all of which are impacting the Caribbean”.

In a joint interview with IPS, Taylor and Stephenson noted, “Global warming has not slowed.”

They reiterated the IPCC’s warning that “The world will exceed 1.5 degrees between now and 2040” and urged Caribbean leaders to collectively lobby for deeper global greenhouse gas reductions at the upcoming 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) of the UN Convention on Climate Change. The gathering of world leaders and negotiators will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, from October 31 to November 12, 2021.

While AR6 offered some hope, in that there is still time to limit global heating to between 1.5 and 2.0 degrees of pre-industrial limits, Stephenson noted that there is an urgent need for more drastic cuts in emissions.

That will not be easy, Taylor added, because although the Caribbean’s contribution to global C02 emissions is already low – according to some estimates below two per cent. “The region must drastically reduce its footprint even further, through greater use of renewables, the preservation of marine and land-based forests and by reducing emissions from waste and transportation.”

The takeaway for the Caribbean, Stephenson said, is that the region will face multiple concurrent threats with every additional incremental increase in temperature. Atmospheric warming and more acidic seas and oceans will impact tourism and fisheries and the future of the region’s Blue Economic thrust.

She added: “The Caribbean must prepare itself to deal with water shortages and increasing sea levels which has implication for low lying areas and the many small islands of the region”.

The 20-country grouping of the Caribbean Community has rallied around the slogan ‘1.5 to stay Alive’ based on the premise that viability of the territories here, is dependent on global temperatures remaining below or at 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. But with global temperatures already at 1.1 of the 1.5 degrees, warming is outstripping the pace of the region’s response.

“If there ever was a time to step up the global campaign for 1.5 degrees, it is now,” said Stephenson, the region’s only contributing writer in Working Group 1, of the AR6.

According to the IPCC AR6 report, net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by mid-century can limit global warming to 1.5 or 2.0 degrees within this century. However, the Climate Studies Group has warned that some individual years will hit 1.5 degrees even before 2040, when temperatures are expected to exceed that target.

The signs are everywhere. Last summer, the CSG reported an increase in the number of hot days and nights in the Caribbean. Forecasts also indicate that in the next ten years, the day and night-time temperatures in the region will increase by between 0.65 and 0.84 degrees.

At the same time, the CSG forecasted a 20 per cent reduction in rainfall in some places and up to 30 per cent in others. Trends are also reflecting an increase in the number of dry spells and droughts. Between 2013 and 2017, droughts have swept the Caribbean from Cuba in the North to Trinidad and Tobago in the South, and Belize, Guyana and Suriname in Central and South America.

Since AR5 in 2014, the abundance of evidence links the catastrophic changes to humans, the scientist noted, adding that the changes from human-induced climate change are visible in the extremes of heatwaves, heavy rainfall, droughts, and tropical cyclones. This past summer, wildfires and extreme rainfall caused deaths and forced evacuations in every region of the world, and a cold snap covered Brazil in snowfall and freezing rain.
These intensity and frequency of heat extremes are quickly becoming a cause for concern for the region as the extremes are likely to impact energy use, agricultural productivity, health and water demand and availability. Stephenson urged leaders to make water security a top priority in their mitigation planning.

Three of the world’s most water-scarce countries are in the Caribbean. Water scarce is the term given when a country has less than 1,000 cubic meters of freshwater resources per resident.

The region has a role in deciding how bad things will become, Taylor and Stephenson said. In their 10-point takeaway, they challenge leaders to intensify efforts to keep the current limits on global warming. They must have collective positions on mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage even as the world has already committed itself to some level of increase and impact.

In the run-up to COP26, regional leaders are not only continuing their support for 1.5, but they have also positioned themselves behind the Five Point Plan for Solidarity, Fairness and Prosperity, which calls for the delivery of the promises made in the Paris Agreement.

If nothing else, the region will continue to be severely impacted and must invest heavily to shore up critical infrastructure, most of which are along the coast, said veteran climate scientist Dr Ulric Trotz.

Using Jamaica as an example, he pointed to the US$65.7 million coastal protection works along a 2.5- kilometre stretch of the 14-kilometre-long Palisadoes peninsula in 2010 after the international airport was cut off from the capital city, Kingston, by back-to-back extreme weather events.

“The Caribbean must be prepared for the ‘new normal’ of climate intensities,” Stephenson said. “The stark message is that everybody has to be part of the solution”.

*The Climate Studies Group, Mona is a consortium member of The UWI’s Global Institute of Climate-Smart and Resilient Development (GICSRD), which harnesses UWI’s expertise in climate change, resilience, sustainable development and disaster risk reduction across all UWI campuses.

 

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By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Sep 9 2021 (IPS)

Wagma Saad, is an Internationally Trained Medical Doctor (ITMD) from Kabul Medical University, Afghanistan, currently living in Canada with her family. Saad graduated in 2016, an education that didn’t come easily to her. With numerous restrictions, blocks and challenges placed at every step, fighting numerous social and political battles, she chased her passion for science and medicine, and after seven years at medical school, she finally got to call herself a doctor.

Wagma Saad

“The time in Afghanistan around the early 2000’s was not very easy, and my parents went through a lot, fought a lot, just to be able to provide me with an education. I think they did a great job in enabling me, and because they took all kinds of risks, it’s also an important point and chapter in my life. I joined medical school in 2009 and completed seven years of my education and finally became a general practitioner.

“Back in Afghanistan, I worked for an under-served community, taking care of the elderly, pregnant women and often performed small surgeries. In 2016, I moved to Cananda for a better life with my family, a country I thought which had no place for discrimination based on gender, race, language or origin,” says Saad.

International migration has become an integral part of global development. This report published by the United Nations, said the number of international migrants globally reached an estimated 272 million in 2019, an increase of 51 million since 2010. According to the estimates released before the pandemic by the United Nations, international migrants comprised 3.5 per cent of the global population, compared to 2.8 per cent in the year 2000.

The World Migration Report 2020 says the world witnessed historic changes at the global level with United Nations Member States coming together to finalize two global compacts on the international manifestation of migration and displacement: the global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and the global compact on Refugees.

The top ten destinations for migrant population in 2020 included the United States of America at the top followed by Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russia, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, France, Canada, Australia and Spain.

In 2020, Canada, where annual immigration amounts to around 300,000 new immigrants, announced its 2021-2023 Immigration Levels Plan, saying it would target the highest level of immigration in its history by welcoming 401,000 immigrants in 2021, 411,000 immigrants in 2022, 421,000 immigrants in 2023. A few weeks ago, Canada expanded its resettlement program to bring more Afghans to safety due to the deeply deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.

This report here says, “ a special program to focus on particularly vulnerable groups that are already welcomed to Canada through existing resettlement streams, including women leaders, human rights defenders, journalists, persecuted religious minorities, LGBTQI individuals and family members of previously resettled interpreters.”

Canada has been extremely generous with its invitation and open calls currently for resettlement of individuals from Afghanistan, but for individuals like Saad, who left Afghanistan for a better and a safer life, just a few years ago, due to the ongoing conflict, political instability, and also mostly because they simply wanted a better life, Canada has been a disappointment and a challenge. “Despite so many risks and restrictions placed towards women in Afghanistan, I had a chance to pursue my higher education, however, I never imagined all the struggles I would face once I migrated to Canada,” says Saad.

“My friends warned me about the difficulty of entering into the Canadian medical system, and I realized that Canada has worked very little in integrating ITMDs into its health care system. I am unhappy about the system and the discrimination we face,” says Saad.

Canada currently has more than 13,000 ITMD’s, and one of the key challenges for ITMDs remains cost associated with licensing examinations, the CaRMS application process is often a barrier for newcomers. According to this report, 47 % of foreign-educated health professionals are either unemployed or employed in non-health related positions that require only a high school diploma.

“When I first started preparing for my MCCEE exam in 2017, I had no idea about so many things, we were not provided or given any study materials, English is my second language, and with no clear guidance or preparatory materials given to us, I simply started preparing on my own. I passed the exam with a low score, not because I have no medical knowledge, but because there is no guidance provided to us on what the MCCEE exam is about. The pathway for ITMDs is uncertain and very challenging,” says Saad.

On the other hand, under very rare and tough circumstances, 30 year old India born and raised in Zambia, Dr. Meenkashi Gupta has been amongst the few ITMD’s who managed to get their residency. Gupta says, “When I first moved to Canada, I met a few senior professionals in Toronto, and initially everyone did scare me, and warned me that only 2-5% International Medical Graduates (IMG’s) get residency, and that it is a very tough path, especially if you have graduated a while back. I completed my medical school in 2012, and then I did my internship, followed by an internal medicine residency program which I completed in 2018.

“I knew I had to write the Canadian licensing exams, but what really frustrated me was the negativity. I wish there was a system in place, people who could guide me, and tell me what I had to do, how to prepare for those exams and enable us to get into residency, rather than saying it’s not possible. As an IMG, I don’t mind putting in the work to get into residency, but not being allowed to do that due to preconceived notions, such as, we are here in Canada to take jobs from others, is very disheartening and discouraging,” says Gupta.

“I have just been lucky to have friends who helped me endlessly during the nights when I was working on my applications or just helping me relax when I used to get frustrated. I moved to Canada in January, 2019 for a better future, so that I would be able to sponsor my parents, and provide them with a good quality of life that I know they deserve. Getting into residency is just one step. There is still a long journey ahead, as an IMG and as a single female,” Gupta says.

ITMDs Canada Network (iCaN) Chair and Global Health Expert Dr. Shafi Bhuiyan says his mentorship and post graduate bridge training support experience has helped several hundreds of ITMDs in Canada from around the world including Dr Saad and Gupta.

Dr. Bhuiyan also a signatory of an open letter written by the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI), members of civil society organizations and other groups have called on the federal party leaders to address long-standing licensure and employment barriers facing internationally educated health professionals, and asked them to commit to Canadians in the 2021 federal elections.

The statement raised its concern towards Canada’s multifaceted crisis in the healthcare system, which includes, burnouts, and exhaustion due to pandemic response efforts, needs of the healthcare system growing as the population is growing. It flags the shortages of health professionals, and how the “Internationally Educated Health Professionals (IEHPs) are core part of the healthcare system and represent a fundamental part of the solution to Canada’s healthcare needs.”

Canada is at the brink where it has the opportunity to tap into its resources, and utilize all the skills and talent it has available to it. Canada has the potential to create an impact in the country’s economic prosperity and influence investment priorities, but also re-think its ideas on truly being an inclusive country, a home to hundreds and thousands of immigrants like Saad and Gupta, who moved for a better life than what they left behind.

 

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Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Sep 9 2021 (IPS)

Described as the “worst terrorist attack ever in the United States”, September 11, 2001 is a moment which has led to multiple transformations, cascading around our world.

US President George W. Bush and his administration described the attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon as an ‘attack on freedom’, an act of ‘evil’, and he quoted a Biblical passage in his first address to a nation in shock, and later described the US position as ‘a crusade’.

Religious language was normal in the political narrative of some leaders in the Middle East and in parts of Africa and even Latin America. But this was an interesting demarcation of the discourse of politicians in the Western world.

The United States clearly saw itself a force of goodness, and there was an evident demarcation of the attackers as evil. Most nations around the world stood in solidarity with the pain of a nation still perceived by many, as a beacon of freedom, and democracy.

But a succession of foreign policy and military decisions by the Bush Administration and subsequent administrations under 4 different presidencies, effectively ended that sympathy, and elicited what is today a major credibility crisis for the United States.

Afghanistan, now referred to as the ‘longest war in American history’, began with US forces allied with warlords of dubious track records in humanity, let alone credibility, and ended with a withdrawal which was heartbreaking and chaotic, albeit rather politely referred to as ‘surprising’ by the US and its NATO allies.

The background to the US series of decisions, is Guantanamo (described as “a beautiful…sunny… island” by Donald Rumsfeld). The symbol of America’s willingness to use any means to counter evil, Guantanamo permanently damaged the US’s own self-image, as are its interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the by now rather farcical “war on terror”.

The dismantling of the Saddam regime in Iraq was akin to a theatre, where the Coalition Provisional Authorities (CPA) made a series of catastrophic decisions. These ultimately fueled within the entire Arab region, a series of conflicts within and among its countries, dealt a massive boost to sectarianism between Sunni and Shia Muslims reverberating around the world, reconfigured regional power politics in the Gulf, and gradually created fertile ground for rampant misogynistic and right-wing discourses globally.

The fact is that in spite of unprecedented global civil protests, wars were carried on. These wars, and their many impacts in and around every corner of the world, including the very legitimacy of so-called ‘just war’ narrated by many religious leaders inside and outside of the United States, ultimately resulted in a loss of confidence in all political institutions.

Whether the US Congress, the Indian Parliament, or the legislatures of Brazil or Russia, political institutions are facing a crisis of legitimacy and efficacy, and political parties, globally, appear to veer from one source to dissonance to another.

We now know that the ‘free press’ of the US (and elsewhere) actively took part in propagating the lies about Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, among many other fallacies, which contributed to the gradual unravelling of the myth of objective media institutions. A myth effectively shattered today by the normalcy of the phenomenon of ‘fake news’ and the ultimate casualty thereof – ‘truth’.

Business corporations are already maligned thanks to one profit-mongering or environmental scandal after another, and the financial institutions took a massive hit with the 2008 financial crisis and its ensuing free market prodigies.

Child sex abuse rocked the world’s largest and oldest religious institutions, and although the present Pope is considered redeeming by many, the fact remains that the Catholic Church today does not leverage nowhere near the same power it used to, just a couple of decades ago.

Instead, it is a Church, or a belief, now strongly rivalled by Evangelical groups in many of the largest countries, and continents, of the world. The collateral damage of this decline of institutional legitimacy is a shrinking civil society space and the near extinction of a form of accountability: Human Rights.

Meanwhile, an interest in ‘religion’ and so-called ‘values’ and ‘values-based’ discourses, is on the rise among policy makers, within multilateral institutions, and think tanks, North and South.

The interest was certainly spurred on by the fear of “Islamic extremism” which seemed to emerge in Western public consciousness with the Muslim outrage about a Salman Rushdie novel and the Danish cartoons (and then Charlie Hebdo), but then grew to be seen through the prism of Al-Qaeda, which now pales in comparison to the so-called Islamic State, Boko Haram, al-Shabab and more. Although less interest is paid to other religiously inspired political and militaristic actors, they exist too.

But this interest in values and religious engagement leads to more attention being paid to religious actors as ‘peacemakers’, ‘mediators’, ‘peacebuilders’, and as developmental and humanitarian partners.

Especially since we see religious organisations serving desperate needs resulting from the Covid epidemic, and natural disasters all over the world. This is an interest I am biased in favour of. But we should not be blinded by it.

Elsewhere I have written of how this interest by supposedly secular politicians and policy makers, if not deliberately multi-religious in nature, and intentionally geared towards energizing – and being accountable to – a vibrant civil society, and which consolidates existing multireligious platforms (rather than trying to build new ones), can be a source of disruption, political instability, a new business and profit-making industry, and cause overall harm.

The rise of ‘religion’ in a world reeling from the collapse of multiple forms of institutional legitimacy, is a double-edged sword. Some religious arguments were used – and still are – to vilify and disenfranchise Indigenous Peoples, to legitimize all forms of violence – from the Apartheid regime, to Nazism and its offshoots today, to the most egregious forms of gender-based violence – and to justify ongoing wars and conflicts between peoples.

So, religion is no panacea. But to avoid a scenario where religions serve as fodder for new ideologies of opportunism, injustice, and violence, requires us to ensure that some of the legacies of September the 11th, 2001 – namely the distrust of the infallibility of institutions, is upheld, while the decline of the observance of human rights as a standard of justice, is reversed.

Our ‘salvation’, and that of our planet, may well be in the upholding of all Human Rights. No one religion, or religious institution, actor, or leader, owns this set of rights, or can realise them alone. Just as no government can and has. In fact, we arrived at the Human Rights Articles precisely by elucidating the values common to all faiths.

For us to uphold all human rights, we must hold all religions and their institutions and their leaders accountable to working together, to serve all peoples.

Professor Azza Karam, Ph.D, is Secretary-General, Religions for Peace International

 

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By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Sep 9 2021 (IPS)

The Taliban takeover of government in Kabul is just days old, and the eyes of Afghans and the world are cautiously watching and hopeful to see them stand by their word and ensure that girls’ education be promoted and protected.

Yasmine Sherif

Twenty years ago, under the Taliban regime which prevailed from 1996 to 2001, schooling for girls was banned, although private home-based classes for girls were allowed in some parts of the country. From 2001 onwards the enrolment of girls and boys in schools saw steady gains in Afghanistan, accompanied by a large intake of female teachers. Yet, despite improvements over the years, a staggering 3.4 million Afghan children, especially from rural areas, remain out of school, and 60 percent of them are girls.

Many educated and working Afghan women, fearful of the future, have understandably taken what chances they had in trying to leave the country during August. In one case an entire boarding school for girls was evacuated. This must not become the norm. Every Afghan knows that girls’ education – females representing half the population – is essential for Afghanistan to recover from over 40 years of conflict and reunite. Every believing Afghan knows the first sura of the Quran, which says “Read” – and that this applies to both girls and boys – and also knows that knowledge is at the heart of Islam.

There are some grounds to hope that we can preserve progress made in recent years, through a combination of international diplomacy and support, and the apparent understanding of this new Taliban administration, and its possible political maturity, that it needs both legitimacy and goodwill to govern a drought-stricken country heavily dependent on foreign aid with 14 million people short of food. UN officials speak of cautious optimism. An encouraging early sign is resumption of UN humanitarian flights.

For more than a year, education in Afghanistan and elsewhere has been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic so it may take time for clarity to emerge over the Taliban’s declarations that education for girls will continue. Of what kind and up to what age are important markers. On 23 August, Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen tweeted a video showing girls going to a village school. The world hopes that this is a signal that the new regime is willing to follow an agreement reached with UNICEF last December.

Under the ‘Helmand Sangin Workplan’, UNICEF secured the agreement of the Taliban to expand community-based education (CBE) classes to “hard-to-reach and conflict zones” in the provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan and Faryab. The CBE model, using community buildings – sometimes mosques – would allow around 4,000 classes that would cater for between 100,000 to 140,000 children.

Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the UN global fund dedicated to education in emergencies and protracted crises, has worked since 2016 to support communities worldwide – including in Afghanistan – in overcoming obstacles to education for all, especially for girls who are often the first victims of a lack of learning options.

The lack of female teachers in Afghanistan was often cited as a barrier to education for girls, and a focus of ECW’s funding work there, together with UNICEF, Save the Children and local partners, has been to ensure that female teachers make up 60 percent of our programs.

Education is not only a basic human right – it also saves lives, communities, societies and a country. Education plays the crucial role of providing communities with safe places for their children to learn, offering the framework to build sound institutions, stronger economies and more peaceful societies. More educated young people earn better livelihoods and are better able to contribute positively to society.

In marking the UN’s ‘International Day to Protect Education from Attack’ on September 9, ECW is aware that there’s no shortage of examples of the challenges ahead. There is a chronic lack of funding for what should be treated as important leverage to dramatically improve people’s lives in war-torn areas. In less than five years ECW and its partners have reached nearly 5 million children and youth in some of the most challenging crisis settings in over 30 countries; and, over 29 million children through its COVID-19 emergency education response. Yet, millions of other girls and boys are still left behind and need urgent support.

The 2020 UN resolution defending education from attack was presented by Qatar and supported by 62 countries to draw attention to the 75 million school-age minors who don’t have access to education and suffer the effects of prolonged violence. In the UN’s General Assembly words: “Governments have the primary responsibility to provide protection and ensure inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels to all learners, especially those in vulnerable situations.”

This past year has provided tragic examples of the impacts of new and old conflicts on education around the world, often further intensified by the global climate crisis and the pandemic.

Already fragile communities in countries such as Afghanistan, Burkina Faso and Myanmar have seen their dreams of an education for their children threatened or shattered under the pressure of too many simultaneous threats.

The military coup in Myanmar seven months ago suddenly tore apart plans for much-needed education reforms, while the pandemic had already left students unable to attend classes. The situation is acute in poorer rural areas. Border regions have seen old conflicts flare anew. Schools have been bombed and children are taking classes in the jungle.

Burkina Faso and the whole Central Sahel region are experiencing fast deteriorating crises on multiple fronts. Currently more than 2.6 million children are out of school and in the six most severely affected regions of Burkina Faso, the primary school completion rate is only 29%. Schools lack infrastructure for students displaced by conflict, teaching materials are missing, and water and sanitation are in a critical state. Some classrooms have tripled in size, now holding over a hundred pupils each.

Education is the key to break the vicious cycle of war and division in a country, and to provide the means to confront these challenges in local and global contexts. And it is important to remember that not all such crises make media headlines, or when they do they quickly fade away to make space for the next. One of the latest ECW interventions is funding for 200,000 children in Iraq and neighboring countries.

Education appeals receive less than 2 to 4 percent of humanitarian funding, but it is the resilience in crisis-affected children and their unbending hope to access a quality education that keeps us going and inspires us to take action.

To support the children of Afghanistan and especially the girls – and all vulnerable girls and boys caught in every crisis zone around the world – ECW urgently calls for more public and private sector donor funding support now. Their education cannot wait. Afghanistan cannot wait, nor can any other country torn apart by conflict and disasters. Time has come for the full respect of every human being. Not the least the girls and adolescent girls. Time has come for unity, peace, stability and humanity.

The author, Yasmine Sherif is Director of Education Cannot Wait

 

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By Mohammad Rakibul Hasan
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Sep 8 2021 (IPS)

Abandoned by family and friends, transgender people in Bangladesh are subject to extensive daily abuse. The existing and continuously growing transphobia and homophobia in society are obstacles in the lives of this group. The people featured here from the LGBTQ+ community share a wide variety of narratives.

The photo story “The Forbidden Love” seeks to elevate and celebrate love. It portrays the transgender community’s desire to live with and within love. The vividness of their expressions, their enchanting bonding with partners, and their honesty – all of these made these photographs possible – act as a catalyst to destroy stereotypes.

This project is perhaps a way to explore the infinite and beautiful gradient of the representation of love. It attempts to redefine love beyond the gender identities and stigmas through the true reflection of their personas.

“The Forbidden Love” is a collaborative photo project with the LGBTQR+ community in Bangladesh. They have been fighting for their fundamental rights to live with and love their chosen partners and equal rights. The interviews with the LGBTQR+ community was source material to recreate their memories and transform them into photographic montages.

“I feel free when I am in nature. I haven’t spent a single day without abuse. People bullied me, hurt me, betrayed me. I was always strong, always. Some days some clients would take me to the jungle for sex and use me badly. I have no complaint with anybody. When I feel alone, devastated, I come to this place. I come here to cry loudly. I cry the loudest cry. I feel free; I feel I can live another day.” – Bobita, a 21-year-old transwoman
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“It was love at first sight. We stared at each other and knew there is something. I was hurt, betrayed, tortured in the past. For a transwoman, love is like poison, and it kills the heart. But my partner left his world for me. We are together for one year now. I know there are days when he misses his family – who have stopped talking to him. He says someday they will accept us. I do not hope for anything. As long as we are together, life is beautiful.” – Ash is an 18-year-old transwoman who had to leave home at the age of nine due to societal humiliation.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“Every day, we fear to lose each other. Being a trans-couple in a transphobic society is hard. We cannot do simple things that a normal couple does. We have no ties with our biological families. Our families abandoned us. For almost four years, we are in a relationship. I feel fragile when I heard how many people are dying from coronavirus (COVID-19). If something happens to my partner, I will not be able to bear the grief.” – Sonia, a 28-year-old transgender woman living with her partner.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“I have learned to love myself in a hard way. Every door I knocked on was closed for me once my identity was revealed. No one wanted me or accept as a woman. When I left home, no one tried to stop me, no one chased me, and no one wanted me to come back home. I was all alone in a city, and it was a strange feeling of not being wanted by anyone. Then I found my community, the people who always stand beside us. They are like me, and they are my original home. But still, my heart bleeds when my past family asks me to go back to them – but as a man. I cannot betray myself,” – Lara, a 23-year-old transwoman who works as a professional dancer.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“Love is a disease. It almost killed me. After seven years in a relationship, my boyfriend disappeared, I searched for him everywhere, but he finally married another woman. He could have told me the truth. Love is not about robbing someone. I was hurt and about to kill myself. It was not because of the betrayal but for the feeling of being unwanted and unloved. I have met many men since then. But none of them conquered my heart. The door of my heart is now closed forever” – Bristy, a 25-year-old transwoman.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“We want to spend our life together; we want to grow old together. Every time I look at his eyes, I know he is my home. Some days it feels hard, but when he holds me tight, I feel we are living in heaven, and the outside world does not exist anymore” – Ash.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“At the age of eleven, I took the longest train ride. I left home to save my parents from social embarrassment. I also left my long-time boyfriend. We have not spoken for eight years or more. A year ago, I first called him during the lockdown in 2020. He picked my call and said, how dare I am to call him. So, I blocked the number and never called again. I am living my life, doing training, and learning new skills every day. I love what I have become, a strong human being. I no longer want to cry; there might be not a single drop left in my eyes to cry for anything. Something big has died a long ago inside me.” – Trisha, a transwoman with her new boyfriend.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“My husband said I am the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. I trust him. Because he deeply loves me. His love has changed my life, healed my wound, and poured my heart. In the past four years, we made a beautiful home together. When he came to our guru to ask my hand, my guru questioned how long he would stay. He said till death and beyond. I never cried in front of him because he could never see me sad. I am a transwoman, I have been through heartache, and I was ridiculed, tortured, and mocked. That is his love that made me believe I am a human being too. Last year my husband went to Kuwait. He wants to build our future; he does not want me to work in a way that could humiliate me in any way. He brought me back to my guru and begged her to keep me safe till he returns. I never knew how beautiful life could be before I met him. His father calls me and visits me with big fish. He calls me daughter-in-law. I have lived all the happiness that was reserved for me in this world. Now I want my husband never to return to me. He should marry a normal girl and have a child of his own. I cannot deprive him more. I have decided to leave. To let him enjoy the life any normal man could live, with no judgment, with a gaggle of small children and respect from the society. The love I already have is enough to spend one life.” – Karishma, a 28-year-old transwoman.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“It could be our last embrace, our last meeting. We might never see each other again. We live with this fear. My partner is leaving for the village. His family asked him to move with them. He has a wife and a child. I do not want to hold him back. But I knew well, no matter how far he stays, he will miss me every time he breathes” – Sakira (25) and Robin (27), a trans-couple in their last embrace.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“Sometimes, I feel like a bird. My feathers fly in the air, so light that it never touches the ground. Or is it my heart that feels like a bird? Yes, my heart moves from place to place, sometimes in transit from present to past. And I have no barrier to cross, neither I had a home to choose. I only stay where my heart wants to belong.” – Konok, a transwoman.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“For us, love is fleeting, temporal, and complicated. Perhaps this is the destiny of a transgender person. Many girls from my group overbreak up to kill their hearts. I have been in love many times. It’s always new, it’s always precious, but it’s always transient. And every time I lose someone I love, I have to accept it. You can never deny the harsh reality of a society where being a transwoman is considered a curse in families. Although there are memories of love and agony that no one can erase, not even I, love is magical” – Lara, a 23-year-old transwoman with her partner.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“I grew up in terrible loneliness. I wanted to talk to someone, but no one was there to listen to me. It was about my body and mind. So, I left home knowing well no one will come to take me back. So, I have never lived a normal life. And love has always been a forbidden venture for me.” – Lara, a 23-year-old transwoman, and a professional dancer.
Dhaka, Bangladesh 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

 

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