Africa

Dr Mohsina Chaklader, a doctor with Humanity Auxilium, walks through Cox’s Bazar. Chaklader says while physical conditions in the refugee camps that house more than 900,000 more needs to be done. Credit: Humanity Auxilium

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Aug 25 2022 (IPS)

It has been five years since the forced exodus of the Rohingyas from Myanmar, and their plea for justice and accountability continues.

On August 25, 2017, “Myanmar military began a sweeping campaign of massacres, rape, and arson in northern Rakhine State”, said Human Rights Watch in its latest report, Myanmar: No Justice, No Freedom for Rohingya 5 Years On: Anniversary of Atrocities Highlights International Inaction.

Today, this day is marked as Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day, the day that forced almost 750,000 Rohingyas to flee to Bangladesh, while about 600,000 remain under “oppressive rule” in Myanmar.

Patients throng the Humanity Auxilium medical centre in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. More than 900,000 Rohingyas from Myanmar live in the refugee camps in the region. Credit: Humanity Auxilium

“No one has been held accountable for the crimes against humanity and acts of genocide committed against the Rohingya population. This anniversary should prompt concerned governments to take concrete action to hold the Myanmar military to account and secure justice and safety for the Rohingya in Bangladesh, Myanmar, and across the region,” the report said.

For the hundreds and thousands of Rohingya refugees who entered southern Bangladesh through beaches and paddy fields in 2017, “they brought with them accounts of the unspeakable violence and brutality that had forced them to flee,” UNICEF said in this report.

“Those fleeing attacks and violence in the 2017 exodus joined around 300,000 people already in Bangladesh from previous waves of displacement, effectively forming the world’s largest refugee camp,” the report said. As of August 2022, about one million Rohingya live in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.

Dr Mohsina Chaklader, a doctor with Humanity Auxilium, in an exclusive interview with IPS, said: “Rohingya refugees arrived with physical and mental trauma that were directly attributable to the offenses from the Myanmar army – which includes physical violence, deaths of loved ones, many days of journey with no food.”

Humanity Auxilium is a health-based NGO that provides health care and training to the world’s most marginalized communities.

Chaklader said she treated visible wounds and deep psychological trauma.

“The conditions I witnessed included fractures, deep wounds, malnutrition, infections, and post-traumatic stress disorders. Rohingya women and girls comprised more than 50 percent of the population that came to these camps. They faced unique challenges as many were tortured and gang-raped during the genocide, and many gave birth to children as a result of those rapes. These victims were also rejected by their husbands due to the rape and assault. These days women are worried about the future of their children who are born in these camps.”

While there have been improvements, the Rohingya refugees’ conditions are still dire.

“From my very recent visits, I saw greater structural organization, but camps still continue to lack infrastructure – proper drainage systems, toilets, safe, clean water supply, and mudslides across the camps hinder mobility. The challenges are still enormous. Medical care is not sufficient to meet the demands of a population living in cramped and unhealthy conditions,” Chaklader said.

About half a million Rohingya refugee children are exiled from their home country. Many born into this limbo today have little access to education.

According to a study by the Norwegian Refugee Council, approximately 96 percent of surveyed youth aged 18 to 24 are currently unemployed, and 9 out of 10 aged 18-24 are in debt, having borrowed money within the last six months. Ninety-nine percent of women aged 18 to 24 are unemployed.

“In the absence of a political solution and resettlement of refugees in third countries, it will be important to develop economic self-sufficiency within the camps,” says Chaklader.

“While Bangladesh has been generous in receiving the refugees, the government can do more to provide educational and economic opportunities to the people in the refugee camps. Bangladesh, being a developing country, needs more urgent cooperation and funding from the international community in order to deliver to the needs of the refugees,” said Chaklader

Earlier this year, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet met with religious leaders and women and visited camps in Cox’s Bazar housing Rohingya refugees during her first visit to Bangladesh.

The High Commissioner reiterated the importance of ensuring that “safe and sustainable conditions exist for any returns and that they be conducted in a voluntary and dignified way. The UN is doing the best we can to support them, we will continue doing that, but we also need to deal with the profound roots of the problem. We need to deal with that and ensure that they can go back to Myanmar –  when there are conditions for safety and voluntary return”.

In Myanmar, however, most Rohingyas have no legal identity or citizenship, and statelessness remains a significant concern. Rohingya children in Rakhine State, meanwhile, “have been hemmed in by violence, forced displacement and restrictions on freedom of movement”.

Until the conditions are in place in Myanmar that would allow Rohingya families to return, they continue to remain refugees or internally displaced persons living in overcrowded and sometimes dangerous conditions.

With looming evidence of human rights violations committed by Myanmar security forces against ethnic minorities in Myanmar, in November 2019, the Gambia initiated proceedings against Myanmar based on the Genocide Convention, invoking state responsibility for Myanmar’s self-described “clearance operations” in 2016 and 2017 against the Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority in Myanmar.

Based on this application filed in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in 2020, the court issued a provisional measures order pursuant to Article 41 of the ICJ Statute ordering Myanmar to prevent the commission of genocidal acts; to ensure its military, police, or any other irregular force supported or directed by it or under its control not commit genocidal acts, and to submit a status report every six months until a final judgment by the Court.

Dr Mohsina Chaklader, a doctor with Humanity Auxilium, pictured here in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, says she has Rohingyas refugees for physical and psychological wounds after they were forced to flee unspeakable brutality in Myanmar. Credit: Humanity Auxilium

In February 2022, court hearings were held to consider Myanmar’s objections to the jurisdiction of the ICJ and the admissibility of the case filed in January 2021. The court rejected Myanmar’s four contentions prima facie in the 2020 provisional measures order.

Welcoming the progress at the ICJ despite concerns regarding the military representing Myanmar at the ICJ, Asia Justice Coalition, in a press statement, said: “The case provides an opportunity to see the junta respond to allegations of genocide before an international legal forum and to fight against entrenched impunity in Myanmar. The proceedings before the ICJ are a significant means to hold Myanmar accountable for the mass atrocities against Rohingya.”

Garnering some momentum for justice and to end the rampant culture of impunity in Myanmar, in March 2022, the United States government formally determined that the Myanmar military committed crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity against ethnic Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State.

While human rights groups have welcomed these efforts, there is still a rising concern about the migrant flow into South Asian and Southeast Asian countries, as these regions continue to see an increase either in anti-Muslimism, anti-refugee, or uneven refugee protection sentiments. It would also be necessary for governments to adhere to international conventions regarding refugees when addressing these ongoing migration and mass humanitarian crises.

With Myanmar’s unstable state since the military seized power in February 2021, conditions for safe repatriation to this region are not yet an option. On the fifth anniversary of the Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day, any further delay in international justice processes for genocide, reporting of gross human rights violations, or lack of the much-needed humanitarian support from neighbouring countries, funding, and international community support, we are only going to continue prolonging the plight of the most persecuted minority in the world.

They have already lost their homes, they have been unable to claim citizenship in a country as it refuses to recognize them, are living in camps, fleeing on boats, and have been beaten, raped, abused, displaced, and many killed. In any international legal discourse, human dignity always performs a central role. It is time the world gives the Rohingya the one thing that has been stripped off them: their right to human dignity.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Hanadi (far left) and family at her father, Abu Kareem’s, home in Za’atari refugee camp, Jordan. Credit: Toby Fricker / UNICEF

By Toby Fricker
ZA’ATARI REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan, Aug 25 2022 (IPS)

“I think I’m making a difference. I’m really helping,” Hanadi tells me, as she reflects on her work in the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan.

She is teaching computer skills to a class of Syrian children aged 11 to 16. The students are animated and engaged by Hanadi’s lesson as she walks them through some basics.

“I teach them enough to get a start,” she says.

I first met Hanadi in 2013 – eight months after Za’atari camp opened in response to the huge refugee influx from across the border in Syria. She was 17 years-old and attending a similar vocational training centre in the camp, which is supported by UNICEF.

She had arrived at Za’atari three months before, having fled with her family and whatever they could carry from their home near Damascus. Back then, she told me about her relief that she could return to school and the desire to keep learning.

Fast forward almost a decade, and it’s inspiring to see how Hanadi has gone from student to teacher. Like so many of her peers, Hanadi has experienced things in her young life that no one should. But despite the immense challenges, she persevered and now dedicates her life to creating a better future for the next generation.

Hanadi teaches Syrian children computer skills at a UNICEF Jordan supported Makani centre in Za’atari refugee camp. Credit: UNICEF/Toby Fricker

Unlike many young people in the camp who struggle to find meaningful opportunities as they leave high school, Hanadi completed her education, went to university and earned a degree.

Now she’s married to Tariq, is bringing up two delightful children and is encouraging young Syrians to develop the practical skills needed to help them achieve their full potential.

Still, fleeing war and a decade of life in a refugee camp for 80,000 people inevitably takes a toll. “My hope is to get back [home],” Hanadi told me in 2013, tears in her eyes. That hasn’t happened, and her own children have never lived in a house, let alone set foot in the family home.

A life in limbo

There’s little shade from the brutal midday sun as we approach the home of Abu Kareem, Hanadi’s father. The camp looks much as it did during that first year, when families moved out of tents into large containers, and school compounds sprang up, run by the Ministry of Education with UNICEF support.

Gone are the queues at water points, from which women and children once lugged heavy jerrycans in the extreme heat of the day. Instead, an innovative and environmentally-friendly water and sanitation system has fully replaced the need for the water trucks that used to stir up dust storms as they navigated narrow desert paths across the camp. Now, water flows from a tap into Abu Kareem’s kitchen.

The services on offer for children and young people, from learning support to vocational training and sports, are today largely managed by Syrians themselves, providing much-needed income and ensuring a more sustainable, community-owned operation.

This has been critical as funding has decreased in the wake of multiple global crises that are vying for the world’s attention.

“We’re dealing with young people who have grown up amidst the trauma of war and are now transitioning to adulthood at a very uncertain time when opportunities can seem limited,” Tanya Chapuisat, UNICEF’s Representative in Jordan, tells me.

“In the rush to provide lifesaving services to refugees fleeing the border ten years ago, I’m not sure that any of our UNICEF colleagues could have imagined that we would be here a decade later,” she says.

This uncertainty clearly weighs on Abu Kareem’s mind. His family have transformed their home, watering the courtyard to create some welcome green space and expanding the structure as the family has grown over time.

It’s impressively homely, as it always has been. But the impact on his family of living within the confines of a camp is an ongoing concern.

“Our children have only lived in the camp,” he says. “It’s a wider world out there, [but] they don’t know how it works.” Life beyond the camp’s perimeter remains a distant dream.

Staying afloat

A five minute drive away, on the edge of the camp, we meet Abu Thaer, who is finishing a shift at one of Za’atari’s schools. We first met when the school – the third one in the camp – opened in 2013. Abu Thaer has played a key role in its growth, with some 2,200 children now attending classes.

His daughter, Omaima, now 21, attended the school. Like Hanadi, she is an inspiration to other young people in the camp. Omaima is the only Syrian refugee studying at the Law Department of a nearby university and her sole focus now is ensuring her studies are a success.

“I don’t have time to even make friends. The days at university I’m so tired, I can’t do anything else,” Omaima says. She received a scholarship to help her move into higher education, although Abu Thaer continues to do what he can to support his five children.

“I want to keep my family floating. I want to give the children a start in life,” he says. Over a delicious Majboos (a chicken and rice dish) at the family home, Abu Thaer reflects on a decade in the camp.

“We’re still safe and have adjusted to the circumstances and we are grateful for that,” he says. “The kids have grown up in this set-up and we don’t know what the future holds. That’s the most negative thing.”

The hospitality, generosity and warmth of Abu Kareem, Abu Thaer and their families – indeed of everyone I’ve ever met in Za’atari – never ceases to amaze me. But as the eyes of the world have shifted to other emergencies, a generation of children in Za’atari are transitioning into adulthood and raising their own children.

While I was in Romania and Ukraine a few weeks earlier, I couldn’t help but think of children like Hanadi and Omaima. As another war forces children into refuge and upends young lives, we owe it to them to continue to provide them with the opportunities they need to survive and progress. Especially when a distant home remains out of touch, for now at least.

Toby Fricker is Chief, Communication and Partnerships, UNICEF South Africa.

Source: UNICEF Blog

IPS UN Bureau

 

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About the Podcast

Regarded as one of the modern world’s icons of diplomacy, what is Kofi Annan’s legacy today? What can we learn from him, and how can we prepare for tomorrow, based on his vision for a better world?

In this exclusive 10-part podcast, Ahmad Fawzi, one of Kofi Annan’s former spokespersons and communication Advisor, will examine how Kofi Annan tackled a specific crisis and its relevance to today’s world and challenges.

Kofi Annan’s call to bring all stakeholders around the table — including the private sector, local authorities, civil society organisations, academia, and scientists — resonates now more than ever with so many, who understand that governments alone cannot shape our future.

Join us on a journey of discovery as Ahmad Fawzi interviews some of Kofi Annan’s closest advisors and colleagues including Dr Peter Piot, Christiane Amanpour, Mark Malloch-Brown, Michael Møller and more.

Listen and follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and SoundCloud

Brought to you by the Kofi Annan Foundation and the United Nations Information Service.

 

Kofi Time: The Official Trailer

Join us as we take a journey of discovery about Kofi Annan’s leadership style and what makes it so relevant and important today.

Kofi Time: The Podcast · Kofi Time: The Podcast | Official Trailer

 

Multilateralism: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Lord Mark Malloch-Brown | Episode 1

In this episode, Lord Malloch Brown shares insights with podcast host Ahmad Fawzi on how Kofi Annan strengthened the United Nations through careful diplomacy and bold reforms, and how significant advances were made during his tenure as Secretary-General. He comments on the state of multilateralism today, as the organization is buffeted by the crisis in Ukraine and the paralysis of the Security Council.

Kofi Time: The Podcast · Multilateralism: Then and Now | Kofi Time with Lord Mark Malloch-Brown

 

Making Peace: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Christiane Amanpour | Episode 2

In this episode of Kofi Time, host Ahmad Fawzi interviews renowned journalist Christiane Amanpour. Together, they discuss a world in turmoil, and what would Kofi Annan – who did so much for peace – do today?

Christiane shares her thoughts on the ‘Kofi Annan way’, the difficult job mediators and peacebuilders face, and the courage they must show. With Ahmad, they deliberate whether there is a type of ‘calling’ for those who work in this field.

Kofi Time: The Podcast · Making Peace: Then and Now | Kofi Time with Christiane Amanpour

 

Health Crises: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Dr Peter Piot | Episode 3

In this episode of Kofi Time, our special guest is Dr Peter Piot. Dr Piot discusses how he and Kofi Annan worked together to reverse the HIV/AIDs tide that swept through Africa in the 1990s, through patient but bold diplomacy, innovative partnerships and an inclusive approach that brought to the table previously marginalized communities. Dr Piot and podcast host Ahmad Fawzi discuss whether this approach be replicated today as the world enters the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic and must prepare for future heath emergencies.

Kofi Time: The Podcast · Health Crises: Then and Now | Kofi Time with Dr Peter Piot

 

Fighting Hunger: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Catherine Bertini | Episode 4

In episode 4 of Kofi Time, our special guest is Catherine Bertini. Ms. Bertini discusses how she worked with Kofi Annan to fight hunger and malnutrition around the world. Not only is access to food far from universal, but it is also severely impacted by conflicts and climate change. As food prices increase and access becomes even more challenging, how can we replicate Kofi Annan’s approach to improving food systems to make sure no one gets lefts behind on the path to food security globally?

Kofi Time: The Podcast · Fighting Hunger: Then and Now | Kofi Time with Catherine Bertini

 

Leadership: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Michael Møller | Episode 5

In episode 5 of Kofi Time, host Ahmad Fawzi interviews diplomat Michael Møller on Kofi Annan’s special kind of leadership. A respected leader among his peers and the public, Kofi Annan served the people of the world with courage, vision and empathy. Embodying moral steadfastness and an acute political acumen, his leadership was one of a kind. What drove him, and how can we emulate his leadership style to face today’s global challenges?

Kofi Time: The Podcast · Leadership: Then and Now | Kofi Time with Michael Møller

 

Human Rights: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Zeid Raad Al Hussein | Episode 6

In episode 6 of Kofi Time, our special guest is Zeid Raad Al Hussein. Zeid discusses his friendship with Kofi Annan and how they worked together to protect human dignity and promote human rights. Through the creation of the Human Rights Council and International Criminal Court, Kofi Annan played a critical role in establishing the mechanisms that we have today to protect human rights and fight impunity. How can we uphold Kofi Annan’s legacy and ensure that respect for human rights is not just an abstract concept but a reality?

Kofi Time: The Podcast · Human Rights: Then and Now | Kofi Time with Zeid Raad Al Hussein

 

Podcast Host & Guests

 

Ahmad Fawzi Kofi

Time Podcast Host

Mr Fawzi is the former head of News and Media at the United Nations. He worked closely with Kofi Annan both during his time as Secretary-General and afterwards, on crises including Iraq and Syria. Before joining the United Nations, he worked for many years in broadcast journalism, as a news editor, reporter and regional news operations manager. From 1991 to 1992, he was the News Operations Manager for the Americas for Visnews — now Reuters Television. Also with Reuters Television, Mr Fawzi served as Regional News Manager for Eastern Europe, based in Prague, from 1989 to 1991 — a time of tumultuous political change in that region. Concurrently with his assignment in Prague, he coordinated coverage of the Gulf war, managing the war desk in Riyadh, as well as the production centre in Dahran, Saudi Arabia. In 1989, Mr Fawzi was Reuters Television Bureau Chief for the Middle East, based in Cairo. Prior to that, he worked in London as News and Assignments Editor for Reuters Television. Previously, he was Editor and Anchor for the nightly news on Egyptian Television.

 

Lord Mark Malloch-Brown

Episode 1 Guest

Mark Malloch‐Brown is the president of the Open Society Foundations. He has worked in various senior positions in government and international organizations for more than four decades to advance development, human rights and justice. He was UN Deputy Secretary‐General and chief of staff under Kofi Annan. He previously Co-Chaired the UN Foundation Board. Malloch-Brown has worked to advance human rights and justice through working in international affairs for more than four decades. He was UN deputy secretary‐general and chief of staff under Kofi Annan. Before this, he was administrator of the UNDP, where he led global development efforts. He covered Africa and Asia as minister of state in the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office. Other positions have included World Bank vice president, lead international partner in a political consulting firm, vice-chair of the World Economic Forum, and senior advisor at Eurasia Group. He began his career as a journalist at the Economist and as an international refugee worker. He was knighted for his contribution to international affairs and is currently on leave from the British House of Lords. Malloch-Brown is a Distinguished Practitioner at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, an adjunct fellow at Chatham House’s Queen Elizabeth Program, and has been a visiting distinguished fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.

 

Christiane Amanpour

Episode 2 Guest

Christiane Amanpour is a renowned journalist, whose illustrious career has taken her from CNN where she was Chief international correspondent for many years, to ABC as a Global Affairs Anchor, PBS and back to CNN International for the global affairs interview program named after her. She has received countless prestigious awards, including four Peabody Awards, for her international reporting and her achievements in broadcast journalism. She served as a member of the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists and a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Freedom of Expression and Journalist Safety. She is also an honorary citizen of Sarajevo and was made a Commander of the British Empire in 2007 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.

 

Dr Peter Piot

Episode 3 Guest

Dr Peter Piot co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire in 1976. He has led research on HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, and women’s health, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Peter Piot was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1995 until 2008. Under his leadership, UNAIDS has become the chief advocate for worldwide action against AIDS. It has brought together ten organizations of the United Nations system around a common agenda on AIDS, spearheading UN reform Peter Piot was the Director of the Institute for Global Health at Imperial College; London and he held the 2009/2010 “Knowledge against poverty” Chair at the College de France in Paris. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and was elected a foreign member of the National Academy of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences.

 

Catherine Bertini

Episode 4 Guest

An accomplished leader in food security, international organization reform and a powerful advocate for women and girls, Catherine Bertini has had a distinguished career improving the efficiency and operations of organizations serving poor and hungry people in the United States and around the world. She has highlighted and supported the roles of women and girls in influencing change. She was named the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate for her transformational leadership at the World Food Programme (WFP), which she led for ten years, and for the positive impact she had on the lives of women. While in the US government, she expanded the electronic benefit transfer options for food stamp beneficiaries, created the food package for breastfeeding mothers, presented the first effort to picture healthy diets, and expanded education and training opportunities for poor women. As a United Nations Under-Secretary-General, and at the head of the World Food Programme for ten years (1992 to 2002), she led UN humanitarian missions to the Horn of Africa and to Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. During her time serving with WFP, Catherine Bertini was responsible for the leadership and management of emergency, refugee, and development food aid operations, reaching people in great need in over 100 countries, as well as advocacy campaigns to end hunger and to raise financial resources. With her World Food Prize, she created the Catherine Bertini Trust Fund for Girls’ Education to support programs to increase opportunities for girls and women to attend school. At the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, where she is now professor emeritus, she taught graduate courses in humanitarian action, post-conflict reconstruction, girls’ education, UN management, food security, international organizations, and leadership. She served as a senior fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation early in its new agricultural development program. Bertini is now the chair of the board of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). Concurrently, she is a Distinguished Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She has been named a Champion of the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit. She is a professor emeritus at Syracuse University.

 

Michael Møller

Episode 5 Guest

Mr Møller has over 40 years of experience as an international civil servant in the United Nations. He began his career in 1979 with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and worked for the United Nations in different capacities in New York, Mexico, Iran, Haiti, Cyprus and Geneva. He worked very closely with Kofi Annan as Director for Political, Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Affairs in the Office of the Secretary-General between 2001 and 2006, while serving concurrently as Deputy Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary-General for the last two years of that period. Mr Møller also served as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Cyprus from 2006 to 2008 and was the Executive Director of the Kofi Annan Foundation from 2008 to 2011. From 2013 to 2019, Mr Møller served as Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva as well as Personal Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General to the Conference of Disarmament. He currently is Chairman of the Diplomacy Forum of Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator. A Danish citizen, Mr Møller earned a Master’s degree in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University, and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the University of Sussex, in the United Kingdom.

 

Zeid Raad Al Hussein

Episode 6 Guest

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein is IPI’s President and Chief Executive Officer. Previously, Zeid served as the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2014 to 2018 after a long career as a Jordanian diplomat, including as his country’s Permanent Representative to the UN (2000-2007 & 2010-2014) and Ambassador to the United States (2007-2010). He served on the UN Security Council, was a configuration chair for the UN Peace-Building Commission, and began his career as a UN Peacekeeper in the former Yugoslavia. Zeid has also represented his country twice before the International Court of Justice, served as the President of the Assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court from 2002-2005, and in 2005, authored the first comprehensive strategy for the elimination of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in UN Peacekeeping Operations while serving as an advisor to Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Zeid is also a member of The Elders, an independent group of global leaders working together for peace, justice and human rights, founded by Nelson Mandela. Zeid holds a PhD from Cambridge University and is currently a Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.

 

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An International Labour Organisation report found that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted youth employment more than any other group. Credit: Dominic Chavez/World Bank

By Juliet Morrison
United Nations, Aug 24 2022 (IPS)

When COVID-19 prompted economic shutdowns across the globe, many analysts predicted that youth would be especially at risk. This is because young people tend to have fewer economic assets and limited experience in the labor market.

A recent International Labour Organisation (ILO) report published on August 11, 2022, confirmed this vulnerability. The Global Employment Trends for Youth 2022 found that the pandemic set employment rates for youth back more than for any other age group.

Certain regions struggle with youth employment more than others. High-income countries would see their youth employment rates back to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year, the report revealed. In Africa, however, the decline would only serve to worsen a state of affairs that was already growing perilous.

Africa hosts the world’s youngest population. Seventy percent of Sub-Saharan Africans are under 30. But, only 3 million jobs are available for the 10-12 million young people on the market each year.

One in five African youths were not in employment, education, or training in 2020, according to the ILO.

Young people across Africa face both unemployment and underemployment. Both situations have potentially serious long-term consequences for young people.

In South Africa, the unemployment problem is acute. The current rate for youth is 63.9 percent.

Dr Lauren Graham, Director of the Centre for Social Development in Africa at the University of Johannesburg, explains one of the underlying challenges is the nation’s high bar labor market.

“Much of the challenge sits on the demand side – high levels of unemployment are related to low job growth over many years – insufficient to absorb the large numbers of work-seekers. Young work-seekers often enter the labor market at the back of the labor market queue with limited experience and qualifications.”

Elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, young people are more likely to be underemployed. Unable to find formal jobs, many end up in the informal economy, engaging in precarious work to earn a wage.

Limited economic opportunity for youth can pose significant problems for societies. It can often lead to an increase in alcohol and drug abuse and crime. Academics have pointed out that swathes of unemployed youth have also led to political turmoil, the most notable example being the Arab Spring.

In its report, the ILO issued several recommendations for governments around the world to boost youth employment. Prime among them were investing in the blue (activity involving the marine environment) and green (activity aimed at reducing environmental risk) economies.

Such investments could generate up to 8.4 million jobs globally for young people, per the ILO. This has been a particularly loud cry for Africa, given the breadth of its natural assets.

The ILO also suggested governments support youth-led entrepreneurship—a position that Carleton University professor Dr Tony Bailetti echoes.

“The immediate task that lies ahead for all of us is in formulating and executing actionable policies at the country and regional levels. The most effective policies will be those that leverage cross-border, digital and inclusive entrepreneurship to transform the future of young people.”

Many NGOs in Africa are also supporting the entrepreneurship idea. One, Junior Achievement (JA) Africa, has found considerable success with its entrepreneurship education program.

The organization partners with ministries of education in 13 different countries to bring programs around work readiness and skills development to students. So far, they have reached more than 300,000.

Senanu Adiku, JA Africa’s communications, and marketing officer told IPS that the company believes it can make an impact in tackling Africa’s youth employment problem.

“JA Africa sees entrepreneurship education as the solution to this gap, not only to create entrepreneurs but to skill young people for the few jobs that are actually available because they need upskilling,” he said.

This education also has ripple effects, he added. Empowering one student to start a business will lead other students to be employed by the business. More students will also be inspired to create their own enterprises.

Over 72 percent of students who participated in JA Africa’s program went on to create businesses, according to a company survey. Most of these initiatives also gave back to their community.

“These usually create businesses that are community-oriented, looking at addressing some of the serious issues in their communities, like plastics, plastic pollution. They look at youth empowerment themselves. They try to bring solutions to some of the things that they see around them. So really, we are creating solution providers, who are also going to go on and help others.”

The organization has goals to expand to 20 countries, reaching a million young people across the continent.

Closing its report, the ILO noted that the COVID-19 recovery presents opportunities for governments to pursue policies that boost youth employment.

“What young people need most is well-functioning labor markets with decent job opportunities for those already participating in the labor market, along with quality education and training opportunities for those yet to enter it,” Martha Newton, ILO Deputy-Director General for Policy, stated in the report’s press release.

On South Africa’s unemployment problem, Graham stressed that no matter what policies get selected to tackle the crisis, policymakers should consider poverty-related barriers that may hinder young people’s ability to access employment.

“Young people in [South Africa] also struggle to transition into the labor market at the same time as they face multiple forms of deprivation including food and income insecurity, care responsibilities, and in some cases strained mental health.”

The suggested policies were all necessary and welcome, Graham told IPS, but they will need to be evaluated to see how young people fare in their wake to measure their true impact.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Anne Wafula Strike was effectively cast out of her village in Kenya after contracting polio, but became an elite wheelchair racer.

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM, Aug 24 2022 (IPS)

When I was a child, a friend asked me: “How would you describe a tree to someone who has never seen one?” I looked at the trees surrounding us and realised it was impossible, considering their versatility, beauty and utter strangeness. Since that time, I have often wondered about trees, as well as I have been worried by the indiscriminate destruction of trees and forests.

Trees are a prerequisite for life and intimately connected with humans’ existence. In these times of climate change, many of us are becoming increasingly aware of the life-promoting function of trees. How they produce oxygen, fix the carbon content of the atmosphere, clean and cool the air, regulate precipitation, purify the water, and control the water flow.

Throughout history, humans have been intertwined with the trees. Our shared cultural history bears witness to the fascination humanity has felt when it comes to the power and mystery of trees. Trees are present in many mythologies and religions: – Yggdrasil, the cosmic tree of Nordic mythology, Yaxche, the Mayan peoples’ Tree of the World, the Sycamore, Isis’ (godess of all feminine divine powers) sacred tree in ancient Egypt, Asvattha, the sacred fig tree in Southern India, the Bodhi tree, Tree of Awakening, among Buddhists, the Kien Mou, Tree of Renewal, among the Chinese, and the Sidrat al-Muntaha, Tree of the Farthest Boundary, in Islam.

The shape of the tree has for the human mind come to represent logical systems and helped us to bring order into chaos. As thought models we still use trees to depict genealogy, or explain the course of evolution and the grammar and origins of languages. Even our body structure seems to mimic the trees; skeleton, lungs, blood vessels, lymphatic vessels and neural pathways. We breathe through the tree-like network of the lungs – the bronchioles.

A walk through a forest can in a mysterious manner confirm our intimate connection with trees. If we are attentive enough, we might be seized by the feeling of another presence; incomprehensible, though nevertheless mighty and complete. It is as if the forest embraces us, observes us, speaks to us. The wind makes the forest foliage speak. Trees and bushes feed and protect songbirds and other animals. Trees thus contain the miraculous power of music – most musical instruments are made of wood.

There are several indications that our ancestors were arboreal creatures. Something our way of thinking and not least our physical constitution testify to – a flexible spine, extended arms and highly efficient hands. Claws have turned into fingernails and delicate fingertips. Our set of teeth and digestive organs have been adapted to food found among the trees – nuts, fruits, eggs, small animals. We have become omnivores and unlike cattle who feel the solid ground beneath their feet, and whose bodies have been adapted to it, human beings have developed their thinking, hearing, sight, and sense of smell to the unstable reality of tree crowns.

The creatures we descended from were constantly at risk of missteps leading to fatal falls, something that sharpened their minds and made them plan for uncertainty, danger and the unexpected. They learned to notice subtle, environmental changes and observe how other creatures adapted to them. They didn’t feel safe in open landscapes, feared the void, and only felt relatively safe if surrounded by the reassuring enclosure of greenery. We still prefer to walk among trees, rather than along sterile transport routes, filled with noise and air ollution, lined by ugly facades, supermarkets, industries, and parking lots.

The presence of trees pleases and calms us. A forest walk, or a restful time spent in a leafy park, invigorate us. Studies carried out in offices and hospitals have proven that people who do not have a view of and/or access to leafy surroundings are more prone to stress and depression, while sick people surrounded by a sterile environment, without an open view to greenery, recover more slowly than those who perceive the closeness of nature. Perhaps one reason to why older hospitals and sanatoriums generally were surrounded by tree-rich parks and flower plantations. It is energising to find oneself within a natural realm, far away from computer screens, plastic and concrete.

Contrary to humans, who generally exploit nature for their own benefit, trees take and give. They receive power and nourishment from the heat and energy of the sun, which through the photosynthesis is converted into oxygen and organic matter. The root system connects trees to earth’s nutrients, which in the open are converted into leaves, wood, and fertilisers.

Trees make up the main part of the earth’s biomass, both above and below ground. Through branches and leaves they create a maximum contact surface with the air and their wide-spread roots provide them with a firm anchorage, while helping them to assimilate nutrients. Trees support and provide for themselves, at the same time as they support and provide for the entire world.

A tree is never alone, it merges with its environment. It adapts to the atmosphere’s mixture of gases and the earth´s subterranean water. Through a constant symbiosis with its environment a tree contributes to the creation and maintenance of its life- preserving substances.

Each branch and leaf adapt itself to the presence of its neighbours. Plants support each other. They unite death and life. Dead branches and leaves fertilize the soil, while roots and capillaries pump water out of the ground. A life-giving cycle that transforms, regulates and creates. Through evapotranspiration forested areas charge the atmosphere with water vapour and thus create rains, nourishing vegetation and replenishing the groundwater. Leaves capture part of the solar energy, which they transform into organic matter saturated with cosmic energy. The life cycle of trees is determined by the length of the days and varied temperatures. They constitute a living source, which flow of oxygen and nutrients is consumed by animals and humans. Furthermore, trees contribute to the formation of an ozone layer, which protects us from the sun’s excessively strong ultraviolet rays.

Roots intertwine/communicate with other roots. Together with the mycelial threads of fungi, an underground life-promoting biosphere is created—the mycorrhiza, where bacteria fix nitrogen and supply the trees with minerals that otherwise would be difficult to obtain, such as phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, copper, zinc and manganese. If you give the plants nutritional supplements in the form of artificial fertilizers, they stop feeding the symbiotic fungi, which die and disappear. A growing tree becomes increasingly complex. Filled as its crown is with buds and new shoots it is constantly renewed. It spreads out and protects the earth. Flowers, leaves and fruits flourish within its crown. Trees are always directed towards the future. They are never completed, growing and developing in unison with the time
cycles of Cosmos. Quietly, they compromise with the forces surrounding them. The patient adaptability of trees is completely different from humans’ everyday life, which increasingly is built up from fragments in the form of e-mails, text messages and tweets, communication processes that alienate us from life, from closeness to nature and our fellow human beings.

The tree has an inner time, manifested through its annual rings. When we experience how a tree we have planted begins to grow we sense the future and gain confidence in it. Trees adapt to difficult conditions and can provide us with life and beauty. They meet our expectations.

Leaves are the elementary, structural and functional unit of a tree. A large tree carries millions of leaves diligently transforming light and water into matter and not the least fruits and seeds. Trees are firmly rooted in the earth, though that hasn’t hindered them from spreading across the world. Their seeds break free from the anchorage of roots and branches, to be carried away by animals, people, wind and water.

Even though trees sustain life and provide us with joy and inspiration, we do not revere them. Instead, we abuse them, exploit them mercilessly, killing them for personal gain and profit. We have left the geological epoch of Holocene behind and entered Anthropocene (when everything is changed by humans). Even if we, against all odds, were to experience a population decline and if agriculture became dependent on sustainable farming methods, we have irreversibly altered our living conditions – the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and the biosphere. Is there any hope for humanity to survive? Can trees give us hope?

Many of us assume that tropical forests generate their abundance from fertile soil. But the soil they grow upon is generally quite poor and constantly washed by abundant rains. It is not on the ground that we find the greatest fertility, but in the tree crowns. Jungles believed to be primeval forests have often taken over land earlier used for agriculture. Large parts of the Amazon Forest were once populated by farmers who perished and disappeared through smallpox and other deadly diseases brought to them by the Europeans. Many of today’s lush and abundant tropical forests grow upon on land that has been depleted either by rain, or intensive agriculture.

The adaptability of trees is amazing. Deserted land, even if it has been devastated by industrial/harmful mono-cultivation and/or once harboured forests subjected to reckless depredation, have demonstrated a remarkable ability to revive itself, creating hybrid ecosystems where life of the old kind mix with newly introduced plants while adapting to drastically changing environmental conditions. Such regenerated, self-planted forests exhibit an unexpected diversity of species that protect soil and plant life, fix atmospheric carbon, and begin to produce timber, wood and charcoal. For example, in the Brazilian District of Para, 25 percent of the area taken from the Amazon jungle has become forest land again and strangely enough its capacity to bind carbon dioxide is twenty times greater than that of the old forests, while birds and other animals have returned.

However, this cannot mean that we can continue exterminating earth’s essential life-sustainers. i.e. trees and forests. Soon it will be far too late to save them, ourselves and our descendants.

Main source : Tassin, Jacques (2018) Penser comme un arbre. Paris: Odile Jacob.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A man removes debris around a residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine. The war in Ukraine exposes the weaknesses of nuclear deterrence. Instead of opting for a nuclear build-up, the West should advocate for ‘no first use’. Credit: WHO/Anastasia Vlasova

By Caroline Fehl, Maren Vieluf and Sascha Hach
FRANKFURT/BERLIN, Aug 24 2022 (IPS)

This month, the Tenth Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is taking place in New York (and scheduled to conclude August 26). The meeting of states parties, postponed four times because of the Covid-19 pandemic, had originally been scheduled for April 2020.

With Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the geopolitical context has since deteriorated to the point where progress on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation seems almost impossible. The war and Russia’s nuclear threats are fostering a renaissance of nuclear deterrence and rearmament and are threatening to deepen pre-existing fissures in the NPT.

To counter the looming erosion of this cornerstone of global arms control, we need to acknowledge the darker side of nuclear deterrence that the war is exposing. Understanding the current situation as a crisis of nuclear deterrence can open up opportunities for de-escalation, disarmament, and arms control – similar to the transformative effects of the Cuban Missile Crisis during the Cold War.

Despite its overall positive track record, the NPT has also been plagued by disputes and crises since it was signed in 1968. These crises have included regional proliferation crises – North Korea and Iran pushed ahead with nuclear armament even though they had ratified the NPT – but also a lack of substantial progress on nuclear disarmament: During the Cold War, especially in the 1980s, nuclear powers expanded their arsenals dramatically.

Although the arsenals were subsequently reduced again, the number of warheads remained very high (currently estimated at 12,705 warheads worldwide). For this reason, the indefinite extension of the original 25-year treaty was almost in danger of collapse in 1995.

Today, all NPT-recognised nuclear weapon states are pursuing comprehensive modernisation programs of their arsenals and developing new delivery systems. China and the United Kingdom are even increasing the number of their warheads.

The growing attractiveness of nuclear weapons

Russia’s war of aggression exacerbates these problems. From the perspective of many Western policymakers and commentators, the events since 24 February demonstrate the reliability of nuclear deterrence. After all, they argue, the West is not directly intervening in Russia’s war. Others doubt the credibility of NATO’s nuclear deterrent and believe its weakness has emboldened Russia’s aggressive behaviour.

Both assessments result in calls for nuclear (re)armament. In Germany, for the first time, a majority of the population supports NATO’s nuclear sharing and deterrence policy.

At the same time, the war could lead to an aggravation and multiplication of regional proliferation crises. An argument often presented in social networks and media commentary is that Russia’s war of aggression would not have taken place if Ukraine had possessed nuclear weapons.

In fact, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine never had the command over the arsenal stationed on its territory. Nevertheless, nuclear weapons have become more attractive to some states in light of the Russian invasion. The breach of the Budapest Memorandum has shaken confidence in negative security guarantees.

Instead of employing its nuclear arsenal to defend or prevent conventional military escalation, Moscow uses nuclear threats to increase the chances of a favourable outcome of the war and to hedge its imperialist aspirations.

For nuclear-weapon states and their allies, the mutual threat of total annihilation serves to prevent wars and thus guarantee peace and security. In the current crisis, however, it is above all the downsides of nuclear deterrence that are becoming visible.

In the war against Ukraine, Russia is taking the nuclear threat to the extreme by deliberately using nuclear weapons to facilitate war: instead of employing its nuclear arsenal to defend or prevent conventional military escalation, Moscow uses nuclear threats to increase the chances of a favourable outcome of the war and to hedge its imperialist aspirations.

This undermines both the UN Charter’s prohibition of the use of force and the right to individual and collective self-defence.

In 1985 and early 2021, the US and Soviet Union and later the Russian presidents declared that a nuclear war cannot be won and must therefore never be fought. However, the understanding of nuclear weapons as a last resort in the event of a nuclear attack has long ceased to be shared by all nuclear powers.

Tactical nuclear weapons and scenarios of ‘limited’ nuclear warfare have long been gaining importance for Russia – but also for the United States. This broadening of nuclear deterrence, as demonstrated by Russia’s threatening posturing, challenges the nuclear taboo that nuclear doctrines are supposed to reinforce.

This reveals a paradox of nuclear deterrence: the more it is used and the broader nuclear threats are framed, the higher the likelihood of a nuclear escalation.

At present, NATO and Russia have a mutual interest in not extending the war beyond Ukraine’s borders. However, if Moscow fears a comprehensive defeat as the war progresses, it could resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

The war on Ukraine exposes the fragility of nuclear deterrence. After all, in the absence of the necessary common understanding of the conditions under which nuclear weapons would be used, their predictability is lost.

Learning from the Cuban Missile Crisis

What does all this mean for the NPT Review Conference? As the 191 NPT member states gather in New York, they will do so in the long shadow cast by the war in faraway Ukraine. And yet, it is also worthwhile for delegates to look back into the past: the ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ nearly 60 years ago was, like the war on Ukraine, a stress test of nuclear deterrence.

In the fall of 1962, the deployment of Soviet medium-range missiles in Cuba and the subsequent US naval blockade brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. After 13 days, the crisis ended with the withdrawal of Soviet nuclear weapons in return for US concessions (both public and private).

At that time, too, Western analysts and policymakers viewed the crisis and its outcome as evidence that (US) nuclear deterrence was working. Then, too, it was used to justify nuclear arms build-up.

Nevertheless, the Cuban Missile Crisis also became a ‘transformative event’ that was crucial in shaping confidence-building and risk-reduction measures between the two nuclear powers. These included the establishment of direct contacts at the highest military and political levels, as well as dialogues on strategic stability.

At the global level, Russia and the United States cooperated to keep the nuclear order stable, admittedly to their advantage. Examples were the expansion of the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency – and the very NPT whose members are meeting in New York in August 2022.

Transformative potential

The war on Ukraine also holds such a transformative potential if the escalation dangers arising from nuclear deterrence are taken seriously. The Biden administrations and NATO’s de-escalating signalling were steps in the right direction.

Also, the use of highest military contact points to avoid misperceptions have thus far helped prevent an unintended expansion or even nuclear escalation of the war so far. These risk reduction efforts need to be further strengthened and consolidated – including within the NPT framework.

The US, France, the UK, and their allies should take the initiative at the Review Conference to strengthen the nuclear taboo. The most convincing step they could take would be a joint declaration to renounce first use, coupled with a legally binding international commitment not to launch nuclear attacks against states that are parties to the NPT and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons or a nuclear-weapon-free zone.

Reducing deterrence to a minimum – nuclear defence in the event of a nuclear attack – is necessary to end the risky blurring of deterrence of recent years. Since NATO first-use is likely to be ruled out anyway, a public declaration would not mean a loss of military options. Rather, it would allow the West to forge an anti-nuclear war alliance on a global scale without forcing other states to take sides in the ongoing war.

Other major powers (China, India, Brazil, and South Africa) and numerous non-nuclear-weapon states support a policy of nuclear restraint, but do not want to be drawn into a new East-West conflict. A broad alliance against the use of nuclear weapons could increase pressure on Russia to refrain from further nuclear threats so as not to isolate itself.

At the same time, the Western nuclear-weapon states should restore the confidence in negative security guarantees destroyed by Russia and thus bolster the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

Dr Caroline Fehl is a research associate at the Leibniz Institute Hessian Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research (HSFK) in Frankfurt/Main.

Maren Vieluf is a researcher in the Challenges to Deep Cuts project at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Berlin.

Sascha Hach is a researcher in the programme area ‘International Security’ at the Leibniz Institute Hessian Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research in Frankfurt and teaches at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich.

Source: International Politics and Society, Bruxelles, Belgium

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The weekend's deadly hotel siege served as a reminder that the militants remain a potent threat.

A disgruntled youthful population weigh up whether to back the MPLA, in power for more than 40 years.

Displaced children in Burundi wait for class to begin. Credit: ECW/Amizero

By Juliet Morrison
United Nations, Aug 23 2022 (IPS)

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW) issued a wake-up call for the global community to support efforts on facilitating education in crisis areas. She was speaking at the United Nations at the launch of the global fund’s annual report titled We Have Promises to Keep.

The UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crisis chief also cited highlights from the report, which revealed that ECW and its strategic partners had reached a total of nearly 7 million children and adolescents since becoming operational in 2017.

In 2021 alone, the organization raised more than US$388.6 million and helped 3.7 million children and adolescents in 32 countries.

According to the report, half of all children reached by ECW to date have been girls, and nearly 43 percent have been of refugee or internally displaced status.

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, speaks to reporters at the United Nations in New York. Credit: Juliet Morrison/IPS

Sherif noted that 2021 had been ECW’s biggest year for resource mobilization. The organization has had to expand its efforts to try to meet the increased need caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the outbreak of conflicts.

The current amount of those in need is “shocking”, Sherif said.

In 2017, 75 million children and adolescents were deemed in need of educational support. Now, 222 million require ECW’s assistance.

Recent analysis from the organization showed that 78.2 million crisis-afflicted children and adolescents are not in school, and 119.6 million are failing to reach the minimum competencies in reading and mathematics, despite being in school. An additional 24.2 million youth are in school and achieving the minimum proficiency but are still affected by crises and in need of support.

To address this surge, ECW has issued a call to action. The organization’s #222MillionDreams campaign aims to engage governments, foundations, and the private sector to support the organization through financial donations.

Discussing the initiative, Sherif emphasized the importance of education for those in conflict areas.

“222 million youth are not only suffering from armed conflict and COVID-19 and forced displacement but on top of that they are taken away from their last hope—the access to a quality education.”

Access to education is important, she added, as it can not only change the lives of children and adolescents but also the lives of those around them.

Supporting ECW programs was also critical, given the organization provides psychosocial support for those in conflict zones, Sherif noted.

“We are dealing with deeply traumatized children and young people. You can just imagine the excruciating pain of losing your family, being disposed of, running from villages that are on fire, sexual violence […] the human misery up there is so much more than we imagine. The least you can do if you can’t imagine it is to use financial resources, at least, to remove it.”

She noted that the global community had pledged to ensure youth had access to education no matter their circumstances.

“We have made promises through the sustainable development goal 4 and through the human rights convention that every child, even if you are left behind in conflict and emergencies, in climate disasters or as a refugee, we promised them a quality education.”

Sherif told reporters she was confident action to meet the 222MillionDreams goal could be taken. The organization is hosting a High-Level Financing Conference in February 2023 with the Government of Switzerland, and she noted that the conversation would continue with the UN Transforming Education Summit that will take place in September.

Above all, prioritizing education is key to meeting sustainable development goals (SDGs), Sherif said.

“Education is the key to all sustainable development goals. How can we, without education, achieve gender equality and [end] extreme poverty? It’s also the key to achieving all human rights. Without education, how can you have a free and fair trial, freedom of expression, and so forth? Education is the very foundation.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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They say their families were forcibly evicted from fertile land to make way for tea plantations.

Rohingya refugee girl Rohima Akter, 13, is excited about learning to write in the Burmese language in the UNICEF learning centre in Cox's Bazar.​ ​The new curriculum provides Rohingya refugee children with formal and standardized education.​ Credit: UNICEF Bangladesh

By Joyce Chimbi
United Nations, Aug 23 2022 (IPS)

Syrian refugee children are among the most disadvantaged in Iraq. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, only 53 percent of school-aged Syrian refugee children in the country were enrolled.

Across the globe, in Bangladesh, more than 890 000 Rohingya refugees live in 34 congested camps in Cox’s Bazar. COVID, fire, monsoons, floods, and landslides impacted education.

In Nigeria, since the conflict began in north-eastern Nigeria in 2013, at least 2,295 teachers have been killed, more than 1,000 children abducted, and 1,400 schools destroyed.

Yet, Education Cannot Wait, the global fund for United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, believes that progress can be made to prevent the children from Syria, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Chad, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Pakistan, and South Sudan among other regions, from falling off the education system and consequently missing out on lifelong learning and earning opportunities.

“There is no dream more powerful than that of an education. There is no reality more compelling than to attain one’s full potential. We must keep our promise: to provide inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, as enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG4) and Human Rights Conventions,” says Gordon Brown, the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

“While progress is being made, we still have a long way to go. Today, we are faced with the cruel reality of 222 million children and adolescents worldwide in wars and disasters in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South America who need urgent financial investments to access a quality education.”

This progress has now been documented in ECW’s We Have Promises to Keep: Annual Results Report released today. The annual report comes on the back of ECW’s estimates laying bare the plight of crisis-impacted children and adolescents and how this plight remains less visible to the global community.

A young girl in her classroom in Yemen, where an ECW-funded programme is supporting educators and students by improving access to quality education. Credit: Building Foundation for Development Yemen

According to ECW, 222 million school-aged children and adolescents caught in crises urgently need educational support. These include 78.2 million who are out of school and 119.6 million who are in school but not achieving minimum competencies in mathematics and reading.

Worst still, an estimated 65.7 million of these out-of-school children—or 84 percent—live in protracted crises, with about two-thirds or 65 percent of them in just ten countries, including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Yemen.

Conflict, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters, and the compounding effect of the COVID-19 pandemic fueled increased education in emergency needs, with funding appeal of US$2.9 billion in 2021, compared with US$1.4 billion in 2020.

While 2021 saw a record-high US$645 million in education funding—the overall funding gap spiked by 17 percent, from 60 percent in 2020 to 77 percent in 2021, according to the newly-released annual report.

“ECW’s solid results in our first five years of operation are proof of concept that we can turn the tide and empower the most marginalized girls and boys in crises with the hope, protection, and opportunity of quality education. We can make their dreams come true, whether it’s to become a nurse, a teacher, an engineer, or a scientist,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait.

“With our strategic partners, we urge governments, businesses, and philanthropic actors to make substantive funding contributions to ECW to help turn dreams into reality for children left furthest behind in crises.”

Towards delivering the promise of lifelong learning and earning opportunities, the report shows ECW investments with strategic partners reached close to 7 million children and adolescents, 48.4 percent of whom are girls, since becoming operational in 2017.

Despite the ongoing multiple and complex challenges of COVID-19, conflict, protracted crises, and climate-related disasters, the annual report reveals that the fund and its partners continue to expand the response to education in emergencies and protracted crises globally.

In 2021 alone, ECW mobilized a record-breaking US$388.6 million. Total contributions to the ECW Trust Fund are now top US$1.1 billion.

Across 19 countries supported through ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programmes, donors and partners mobilized more than US$1 billion in new funding for education programmes.

Through its strategic partnerships, ECW reached 3.7 million children and adolescents across 32 crisis-impacted countries in 2021 alone, including 48.9 percent girls. An additional 11.8 million children and adolescents were reached through the fund’s COVID-19 interventions that same year, bringing the total number of children and adolescents supported by COVID-19 interventions to 31.2 million, of which 52 percent are girls.

But these highlights are tempered by concerns over an increase in the scale, severity, and protracted nature of conflicts and crises, continued attacks on education, and record-high displacements driven by climate change, conflicts, and other emergencies.

For instance, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly deepened the global learning crisis. In 2020 and 2021 alone, 147 million children missed over half of in-person instruction, and as many as 24 million learners may never return to school, according to UN estimates.

These challenges notwithstanding, the report provides more evidence of progress made by focusing on quality learning outcomes for the most marginalized children in crises. Of all children reached by ECW’s investments to date, half are girls, and 43 percent are refugees or internally displaced children.

Additionally, ECW grants indicate “improved levels of academic and or social-emotional learning; 53 percent of grants that measure learning levels showcase solid evidence of increased learning levels compared to 23 percent of grants active in 2020.”

Overall, the share of children reached with early childhood and secondary education increased substantially. Early childhood education increased from 5 percent in 2019 to 9 percent in 2021. Secondary education increased from 3 percent to 11 percent for the same period.

On inclusivity, estimates show that 92 percent of ECW-supported programmes demonstrated an improvement in gender parity. Today, more girls and boys are completing their education and or transitioning to the next grade or level, with a weighted completion rate of 79 percent and transition rate of 63 percent.

Teachers were not left behind as nearly 27,000 teachers—52 percent female—were trained and demonstrated increased knowledge, capacity, or performance in 2021.

To address the special needs of children and adolescents traumatized by war and conflict, over 13,800 learning spaces now have mental health and or psychosocial support activities. The number of teachers trained on mental health and psychosocial support topics doubled in 2021, reaching 54,000.

Ahead of its High-Level Financing Conference in Geneva in February 2023, the organization called on government donors, the private sector, foundations, and high-net-worth individuals to turn commitments into action by making substantive funding contributions to ECW.

The funding has already made a difference in Nigeria, where since January 2021, ECW partners facilitated 26,775 new school enrolments, an increase of 49.4 percent over the previous year.

In Cox’s Bazar, where 77 percent of children study at home, ECW partners supported the caregivers with bi-monthly visits and through radio broadcasting and the distribution of educational materials.

And in Syria, a consortium of partners was able to significantly improve conditions for children, with 74 percent of children showing an improvement in mathematics.

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Excerpt:

‘We Have Promises to Keep’ – Education Cannot Wait results report shows how investments reach 7 million crisis-impacted children and adolescents in the world’s toughest contexts. However, the report indicates there is still much work to be done as 222 million school-aged children and adolescents caught in crises urgently need educational support.