Africa

The former president was sentenced to life in a landmark trial for crimes against humanity.

By Alison Kentish
NEW YORK, Aug 24 2021 (IPS)

In 2020, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia faced their worst drought in half a century. The Atlantic Basin saw 30 named storms – the most recorded in a single year. Two category 4 hurricanes achieved an unprecedented feat by making landfall in Nicaragua.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says events like floods, droughts, and heatwaves account for over 90 percent of all disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean in the last 20 years.

It adds that warns that climate change impacts are likely to become more intense for the Region.

The Organization, in collaboration with the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), launched the ‘State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2020’ on August 17 at a high-level conference ‘Working Together for Weather, Climate and Water Resilience in Latin America and the Caribbean.’

According to the Report, increasing temperatures, glaciers retreat, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, coral reefs bleaching, land and marine heatwaves, intense tropical cyclones, floods, droughts, and wildfires have impacted the most vulnerable communities, among them many Small Island Developing States.

“Accurate and accessible information is crucial for risk-informed decision-making, and the ‘State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean’ is a vital tool in our battle for a safer, more resilient world,” said Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and Head of UNDRR.

While the report lays bare the devastating impact of a changing climate on the Region, it is also heavy on solutions and urgently needed mitigation and adaptation initiatives.

Leaning on Sustainable Development Goal 13, which calls for ‘urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts,’ the WMO wants nations to strengthen their national multi-hazard Early Warning Systems.

While agencies like the WMO and ECLAC say those systems are underutilized in the Region, Coordinating Director of the Caribbean Meteorological Organization Dr Arlene Laing told the virtual event that recent disasters in the Caribbean, including the eruption of the La Soufriere Volcano in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, have underscored the importance of early warning systems to reduce disaster risk and impacts on lives and livelihoods.
“The meteorological service in St. Vincent, for example, supplied weather forecasts to the University of the West Indies Seismic Research Centre for planning their onsite activities. There were red alerts given to fisherfolk, who were advised of poor visibility due to volcanic ash. There was constant communication with the National Emergency Management Organization and the local water authority on heavy rainfall which would lead to rain-soaked ash,’ she said.

Haiti, beleaguered by poverty and political turmoil, has also faced numerous disasters in the past decade. In 2020, Tropical Storm Laura claimed 31 lives in the country, while its citizens and farmers bore the burdens of severe drought. According to the WMO report, Haiti is among the top 10 countries experiencing a food crisis.

“Haiti presents a much more extreme need for this kind of early warning system and cooperation, as they have been experiencing in succession Tropical Storm Fred, an earthquake then Tropical Storm Grace,” said Dr. Laing.

Many Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Caribbean know the importance of adaptation and mitigation measures. The problem lies in financing for those initiatives.

Chairperson of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) Dr Walton Webson told IPS that in the absence of climate finance reform, these nations which contribute so little to global greenhouse gas emissions but bear the highest burden of climate change impacts, will be unable to undertake the projects they need for survival.

“Only 2 percent of total climate finance provided and mobilized by developing countries was targeted towards SIDS from 2016 to 2018. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated our financial challenges and placed us in a fiscally precarious situation. Our needs have multiplied, and we continue to take on debt as our economies are hit and the avenues for concessional finance close for many of us,” he said.

The AOSIS Chair says the Alliance is leading reforms to ensure targeted financial flows to the most vulnerable. This includes developing a ‘multidimensional vulnerability index to address eligibility.’

He added that the Caribbean small island states of Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago no longer have development assistance.

“Imagine that these climate-vulnerable islands, hit by hurricanes, flooding, and drought, must now find loans at commercial interest rates to invest in early warning systems, water resources, and other climate resilience! We need strong political support at the Highest Level to adopt a multidimensional vulnerability index,” he said.

The release of the ‘State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2020’ closely follows the publication of a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned that ‘human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land,’ leading to extreme heatwaves, droughts, and flooding.

Latin America and the Caribbean are already reeling from the impacts of a changing climate.
With 2020 among the three hottest years in Central America and the Caribbean and 6-8 percent of people living in areas classified as high or very high risk of coastal hazards, the WMO says the way forward must include collaboration among governments and the scientific community, bolstered by strong financial support.

 

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Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

By Elena L. Pasquini
ROME, Aug 24 2021 (IPS)

It is a metallic sound, harmless. It lasts just over a second, but it can become as sharp as a machete blade or as devastating as the burst from an assault rifle. It is a beep, just the beep of a phone notification. A woman is on the ground, her belly open, her intestines exposed and her severed head resting on her arm. A pagne of colorful fabric still girds her hips. Where? Why? Then, a video. Do you hear those voices? It happened there, in that village. It was them who did it, it was them.

Forwarded many times, the message overwhelms anyone who has enough courage to look at it. However, here, in Ituri, in the East of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, looking at horror is not a choice. Even so, with just a beep, terror spreads. It grows at each sharing, like water swelling along muddy roads. An instant and it is everywhere, ready to be turned into hatred.

In the villages, as in Bunia, the provincial capital, everyone seems to know who those “them” are. Yet no “them” is ever equal to another in a war that is stubbornly narrated, at home and abroad, as the eternal struggle between Cain and Abel, between the Lendu and the Hema, a war between farmers and herders.

It is said to have started again with the death of a Catholic priest in December 2017—a mystery for many, like the mystery hiding the reasons and hands behind a conflict that is blood from an open wound. Ituri has forgotten peace. It remembers only fragile truces.

“We fled because our brothers made war on us,” says François. “The bandits, whom we always consider our brothers, always our brothers, came to us,” says Jean de Dieu. “We shared meals, and the same market,” Emmanuel recalls. They fled, joining the over 1.7 million internally displaced people in this province of just over 65,000 square kilometers in the Great Lakes region.

Michael Barongo Kiza doesn’t use the word Lendu. Sitting with his hands on his legs and wearing a large golden watch, which shines against his brown trousers, he lives in the IDP camp of Kigonze, on the outskirts of Bunia: “The problem is the CODECO who kill people. When I was the chief of Fataki, almost twenty-seven people were killed at the minor seminary, including a priest from Jeiba.”

Irumu. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

The Ituri war is one of armed groups, a guerrilla war. Irregular fighters, rebels, sometimes hidden in the forest, increasingly confused among their people. The CODECO, Cooperative for the Development of the Congo, is an association of militias founded in the 1970s and described as a sect where animist rituals and Christianity fade into each other. To the CODECO is ascribed most of the violence in the North, in the territories of Djugu and Mahagi. The majority of its militiamen belong to the Lendu ethnic group.

The ADF, the Allied Democratic Forces, an Islamist formation that is threatening North Kivu, began operating in the South, in Irumu. However, Irumu is the territory of the FPIC, the Patriotic force and integrationist of Congo. It is a group related to another tribe, the Bira, and its organization is still obscure. Its main target is the Hema community, which would constitute the majority of the fighters of Zaïre—a militia to which a limited number of attacks have been attributed. However, the geography of the conflict is much more complex: Mai Mai in the Mambasa area, factions, self-defense groups, dissidents of the FRPI (the Front for Patriotic Resistance in Ituri, which, in February 2020, concluded a peace agreement with the government), and many others. What they share is the strategy: targeting civilians.

That’s who “them” is—the perpetrators. That’s the easy narrative of violence generated from ethnic hatred. Yet, in the ISP camp of Bunia, Jean de Dieu Amani Paye looks out of his earthen house. He just knows that had to flee, suddenly. He farmed the land and taught at a school in a rural center, but he can’t say why it happened. “We lived well,” he says. “Someone you were with yesterday is now burning your house. It wasn’t easy. Searching for the cause was difficult for us. What prompted them to do so? We would like to ask them this question so that they can answer and we are reassured.”

Jean de Dieu’s question leads to a look into the eyes of a “many-headed monster,” as this war of multiple roots could be defined, according to Rehema Mussanzi, executive director of the Center for Conflict Resolution in Bunia. “If you go within the communities, communities will tell you different things depending on what has affected them most,” he explains. However, the roots lie in the wounds inflicted by an uninterrupted chain of conflicts.

Before the Congo became a possession of Leopold II, King of Belgium, in 1885, the tribes who migrated in Ituri had a history of clashes over land and resources that time had taught them to manage. It was the white colonizer, with his racist system, who laid the foundations for the hatred that would fuel future violence. It was said that there were superior and inferior races—races that would receive power and races for menial jobs; friends and enemies of Belgium. An “encyclopedia of the black races” crystallized the discrimination.

In 1998, the Second Congo War—the bloodiest contemporary war since the Second World War, with its more than five million deaths and the involvement of eight African countries—brought tension between ethnic groups to the boiling point. The following year, and up to 2003, it would have been a massacre. Then, there were new waves of acute violence until 2007. The victims of those conflicts are only estimates.

Irumu. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

Even in the village of Sombuso, people died, and Emmanuel Kajole does not know why. “We lived very well with them. They suddenly came to attack us without us knowing what was the problem. … They kill us for no reason,” he says, sitting on a low stool, his hat on his head even though his shelter in the IDP camp of Kigonze is only half-lit.

A draped sheet separates the slightly raised mat from the corner, where the coal burns to cook the food. Emmanuel had a large house in Sombuso, with a living room and three bedrooms. He was a tailor and carpenter, but also the head of a small Hema community, traditionally herders. Seventy-six people raised goats, cows, and other animals, with someone fishing or trading. It was up to the elderly to ensure harmony between the generations. “Our ancestors ate sorghum and corn with meat. If you have a guest, you have to welcome him with meat, so kill an animal and offer him Malofu, a tea,” he says. “Life was too good before this war because the best meat in the region came from us,” he adds.

Traditionally farmers, instead, the Lendus. Today, however, shared lifestyles and intermarriages have caused one culture to fade into another to the point that, even more than in the past, what unites is now greater than what divides. Communities that in the North speak the same Central-Eastern Sudanese language, that have trod the same land for centuries, traded products, and lived with the same frugality that makes this region a place where everything is taken care of as if it were the most precious. A house, a field, or a road.

Joshua Marcus Mbitso has no doubts: “The world today talks of inter-ethnic conflict and that is what we have always rejected.” Joshua is the president of Lendu youth; he lives in Bunia, and the militiamen who perpetrate what the United Nations believes could be crimes against humanity belong mainly to his ethnic group, to his people. “We live together,” explains Joshua. “The Hema and Lendu chiefdoms are side by side, they are like leopard skin: a Lendu entity, then a Hema entity, and so on.”

Joshua talks about how it is easy to generate a fire. He tells of a young Lendu on his way to the market, stopped by the Congolese army at one of those “barriers” that can cost a headshot to those who do not pay. The soldier asks for 200 francs, but the young man has a 500 note—barely twenty cents of euro—and wants his 300 back. “There were young Hema at the barrier because it was in a Hema village. When the young Lendu claimed his 300 francs, he was mistreated by the soldier and the young Hema. They beat him … Do you understand what’s the problem?” he asks. Nobody was punished, Joshua says.

“(The war) began with individual problems. Some young people from our community and neighboring communities—I am talking about the Hema community—have had issues (with each other),” he explains. A trigger, like the death of Father Florent, a Lendu priest who died in circumstances never clarified, according to the Lendu community. The suspicion that he was murdered by a Hema member would have ignited violence. A war built on a chain of retaliation and the actions of armed groups with vague claims: “self-defense,” integration into the army, defense of the nation from “balkanization,” the protection of minerals.

Irumu. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

“We didn’t know they were planning a war. We lived with them in goodness. In just three days, we have seen changes: No one went to the fields or to the market.” François Mwanza Lwanga talks while his son, still a child, looks at him intently, with his legs curled up. His wife sits silently beside the empty dishes in the small house at the IDP camp where they have found shelter. The space is so small that clothes are hanging from the ceiling and every object can only be neatly stacked. François explains that in 1999, the same thing happened and so, when killings began, they fled. Seventeen died in his village. The ethnicity of the authors: again, Lendu. Yet, he, like Jean, Michael, Emmanuel, and Joshua, refuses to call it an ethnic war, even though the victims are for the most part Hema, to the point that the word “genocide” has been invoked.

“It is an international media campaign (aiming at saying that) in Ituripeople are being killed for ethnic reasons,” says David Mambo Kiza, a lawyer who defends the victims, almost all of Hema, but also Mbisa and Nyali. There is no war between rival groups, only a runaway community, killed by a militia that is a “well-organized mafia, a mafia of criminals.”

The Lendu, unlike the Hema, are not targets of such widespread violence, but they live a different form of suffering in a land where their name is the one given to the slaughters. Christian Ngabo Micho is a young Lendu and lives in a small town in the Djugu area, in the region from which the Hema flee while they remain, sometimes forced to move in search of help in other villages of their community. “It is very difficult to find community members in large sites for internally displaced persons … NGOs and humanitarian workers also find it difficult to understand that the Lendus are suffering … This is why they are confused, they fail to understand that (our) community is also a victim of this war … We are really suffering and the world should know,” he says.

Militias that bring death and devastation to the villages would not be an expression of the communities to which their members belong, as happened in the previous conflicts. However, they find shelter or impose silence in those communities. “The armed groups in some cases live within these communities even when the communities attempt to distance themselves from the armed groups,” explains Rehema. They are still their children, husbands, and youth, but first of all, they are armed. “Even communities and chief of villages, in Djugu in particular, have been targeted by some of these armed groups whenever they tried to advocate against the use of force to retaliate against the other community. In many cases communities are against them, but they have very small bargaining power to convince them otherwise,” he adds. “Often (the militias) say: “We are fighting (for our community) …. This is why we are taking arms. But do they have a mandate from the community to do it? No,” says Josiah Obat, head of the Monusco of Bunia, the UN peacekeepers who have been in Ituri since the early 2000s.

The word that would explain a conflict of an ethnic nature that, however, is not ethnic, is the one that is on everyone’s lips, the one that stirs up the anger of those who do not hold a Kalashnikov or brandish a knife: “manipulation.” Those who want chaos would blow on the burning embers of ancient tribal grudges, fueled by recent wars and the memory of a colonial past that would have rewarded one tribe with spaces of power to the detriment of another—the Lendus. “If the conflict were ethnic, we would not have had to live with them since the wars of 1999,” explains François, who fled with his family, abandoning his village where he was a pharmacist and cultivated a small patch of land. “We ask ourselves whether behind these conflicts there are string-pullers who hide to create conflicts”, says Jean.

It is a genocide armed by “black hands,” internal and foreign. Wilson Mugara Komwiso, provincial deputy elected in Irumu and a notable Hema who works with the youth of his community, wants his message to reach the world. His is a cry: The narrative of the ethnic war would move the attention from the deep reasons for the violence and from finding those “black hands” that use the ancient hatred to incite fighting.

People know the Roman adage “divide et impera,” but here it becomes “divide and extract.” In Bunia, shops facing asphalt-free streets sell all kinds of goods, mostly cheap plastic, imported from China. They arrive along the road that leads to Uganda, the dirt road where trucks raise dense dust and challenge the insecurity of the region to supply a city that is an expanding bubble—the bubble of a war economy. From that street, where rickety and loaded scooters whiz by and women let colored fabrics sway over their bodies, gold reaches international markets, passing through the Emirates. “There are people who may not want the conflict to end because they are profiting from it. They are using their capability to have ammunition to exploit mineral resources.” This is from Joseph Obaith, at the head of the blue helmets.

Leaning against the entrance of one of those shops, three men wait. They lead the way to a small bare office in the back. There is little or nothing on the walls, a plastic tablecloth with geometric designs on a table, chairs also made of colored plastic. And a scale. The deal is silence; don’t even register a sigh. “Gold is brought to us from artisanal mines, small quantities at a time, always the same people,” says one of the three. Sitting down, he takes a plastic bag out of his wallet, inside crumbs of what lives under the thin crust of Ituri. No one speaks. They almost seem to hold their breaths while the camera shoots two suspended saucers with a few coins and a little gold. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the men ask to clear the room.

You need a license to sell gold, but it is often a façade. A little of its trade goes to the state, and much more ends up in the pockets of a few. Buying it without a trace is now a habit. In 2019, Ituri and North and South Kivu declared just over 60 kg of artisanal gold production. The United Nations estimates that 1.1 tons were smuggled, in Ituri alone. “It is quite easy for gold to illicitly … leave the country into Uganda or into Sud Sudan, or going south into North Kivu and taking the road to Rwanda,” explains Rehema.

Monusco soliders. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

This is a country where everyone digs if they can and where borders have always remained only pencil drawings on a map. That pencil has never been able to draw the right boundaries even inside, on that land under which gold never seems to run out, and which Hema and Lendu must take care of to produce meat, cheese, fruit, and cereals. It is the same land that the Belgian colonizers divided and distributed among the ethnic groups in a semi-feudal system that after independence changed the actors, but remained the same. Even for those boundaries and for their control, Ituri dies: “To my knowledge, there is no formal land registry for customary land. It is just known that the boundaries of certain collectivities are here, but formally it is really difficult to find a piece of paper that clarifies that this is land belonging to such and such tribe. Actually, it is just historical because those tribes settled on those lands,” explains Rehema.

That is the same land that Bile Luchobe cultivated. Surprised by the war, she fled to Bunia, too. “We lived in peace and security. The CODECO members knew us very well. We do not know where they got the thought of killing us.” The blue mask is lowered on her chin and she has a handkerchief on her head, as do almost all the women here, like those who return home along the road that runs to Uganda. She wears a necklace framed by the ruffles of a pink and yellow dress. “We lived in peace with our brothers. We even went to the market with them without any problems and now they are starting to kill us with machetes and guns.”

She sits in a crowded hangar with other women and children at the IDP camp. She waits to go back home. “I can’t live with them anymore. I can’t live with people who kill like that. But after the war, in peace, we will live together.” Bile is sure of that. Still, however, it is a beep that turns pain into terror and spreads a hatred fed by hunger and misery. These, too, are the heads of the monster that arms men and snatches childhood from children, leads them to pick up rifles and set houses on fire when killing seems the only way to live.

THE FORGOTTEN WAR OF ITURI
Fleeing war, weaving life in IDP camps of Bunia
Between horror and hope in the villages of Ituri
“Don’t call it ethnic. Ituri confict is a mystery”

This feature was first published by Degrees of Latitude

Akilimali Saleh Chomachoma as producer and Sahwili interpreter

 

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A mother and her child in the Haji camp for internally displaced people in Kandahar, Afghanistan. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on Taliban militants to “immediately halt” their offensive against Government forces and return to the negotiating table in good faith, “in the interest of Afghanistan, and its people.” Credit: UNICEF Afghanistan

By Rahul Singh
NEW DELHI, India, Aug 24 2021 (IPS)

As I write this, India has just celebrated the 75th anniversary of its independence from British rule (Pakistan celebrated it a day earlier). But there is little cause for celebration. A dark shadow looms over both countries, indeed over much of the world as well.

I am referring to the astonishingly swift takeover of Afghanistan by the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban. For the past two decades, the Taliban had confronted the 14,000 troops of the USA and its NATO allies. These troops and their advisers had been trying to arm and train 300,000 soldiers of the Afghan National Army (ANA) which, it was hoped, would eventually be able to hold its own against the Taliban, and continue Afghanistan on its democratic path.

That hope was cruelly shattered with the announcement by US President Joe Biden that all American troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of this month. Even then, it was expected that the ANA would be able to resist the Taliban. That expectation has also been belied.

First, the rural military outposts held by the ANA surrendered without a fight. Then, the main districts, including towns and cities like Herat, Mazhar-e-Sharif, and Kandahar, fell, with hardly a shot being fired. The capital, Kabul (population: six million), which was surrounded by what had been described as a “ring of steel”, was expected to repel the Taliban, and perhaps even take the initiative against them.

However, the resistance simply melted away and, incredibly, within a day, Taliban fighters were roaming the city and even reached the airport, stopping all commercial flights out of the country. Images of helicopters ferrying Americans from the embassy to the Kabul airport were eerily reminiscent of a similar evacuation in Saigon in 1975.

The desperation of Afghans to leave their country, clearly because they fear reprisals from the vindictive Taliban, was evident from TV footage of hundreds on the runway of the Kabul international airport, trying to get on to departing planes. Incredibly and tragically, two of them were shown falling to their death after the plane had taken off.

How will the Taliban treat the thousands of Afghans who were, in some way or the other, partnering the Americans and their allies in trying to rebuild the country? Will they be seen as collaborators of the “enemy”, against whom punitive action needs to be taken, or will they be left alone?

That is the troubling question many Afghans must be asking themselves. Then, there is the issue of refugees. Quite a few scared Afghans are bound to try and flee to surrounding countries, like Iran in the West and Pakistan in the south, across porous borders.

Afghanistan has no land border with India, but hundreds of Afghans have been thronging the Indian Embassy, trying to get visas to enter India. Will they be permitted to leave Afghanistan? And will India, as well as Pakistan and Iran, accept them?

India and Pakistan have had close ties with Afghanistan. In fact, Afghanistan was part of the Sikh Emperor, Ranjit Singh’s kingdom in the early 19th century. Thousands of Afghan students have been to Indian colleges.

Hundreds of diplomats from many countries, personnel of the United Nations, of other international organisations, and those who had been working in non-governmental organisations (NGOs), helping to re-build the shattered nation, also find themselves stranded and abandoned, not knowing when and if they will be able to leave Afghanistan.

Perhaps most tragic of all, Afghan girls and women who had been able to go to schools and colleges, and to work, during the past two decades, don’t know if they will be able to do so now. Reports from Herat say that when girls turned up at schools, they were turned away and told to stay at home.

If that is a sign of things to come, all the gains that women had made in the country since 2001 may be nullified. Some of the worst aspects of Islamic Shariah law, such as the barbaric stoning to death of women found guilty of adultery, and the amputation of hands and feet of those guilty of theft, which was prevailing when the Taliban were in power from 1996 to 2001, might now be reimposed.

How has Afghanistan come to such a perilously sorry situation?

For an answer, we need to go back into Afghan history. The region first came to world attention at the time of Alexander the Great of Macedonia, three centuries before Christ. He married a princess of Bactria, an area which is now part of Afghanistan.

In his attempt to expand his empire, his all-conquering army went from present-day Greece eastwards, through what is now Turkey and Iran, then Afghanistan and Pakistan, right up to north-west India. His exhausted troops, threatening to mutiny, refused to go further.

But while returning, he left commanders of his army behind, to rule over and govern some of the regions he had conquered. Hence, even after his death, the Greek influence on Afghanistan survived for several centuries, in art and culture. This is still known as “Gandhara” art, named after the Afghan city of Kandhara.

After the Greek impact, came Buddhism. The sixth century gigantic images of the Buddha carved into the mountainside in Bamiyan, are testimony of the Buddhist influence (they were blown up and destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001).

Buddhism was replaced by Islam, which is when the Afghans became formidable fighters. They also formed a loose federation of various clans and tribes, ruled by warlords.

When the British gained control over India, Afghanistan became a buffer zone between India and Russia. This was the era when “the great game” was played. It was also the time that Afghanistan became a fiercely independent country, resenting all foreigners.

Nadir Shah was the last Iranian ruler who was able to take his army through Afghanistan, on his numerous raids to plunder the treasures of India, including the sacking of the rich Somnath temple in western India.

A revolt against Iranian rule eventually culminated in the establishment of the Durrani Afghan Empire under Ahmed Shah Durrani in 1747. After the collapse of the Durrani Empire in 1823, Afghanistan became a kingdom. Its last King, Mohammed Zahir Shah was deposed in a 1973 coup, and the country became a Republic.

Since 1978, however, it has been in constant political turmoil. The Russians occupied Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, when it felt its interests were being threatened. Big mistake. They should have learnt from the British.

The occupation drained the resources of the Soviet Union to such an extent that it partly led to the Soviet collapse and break-up. Not without reason has Afghanistan been called “the graveyard of empires”. The British had tried to occupy it in the 19th century and suffered a catastrophic defeat.

The withdrawal of the Russians in 1989 left Afghanistan under the control of the Mujahideen (freedom fighters), who had been armed and financed by the Americans. “Charlie Wilson’s War”, a Hollywood film starring Tom Hanks, graphically describes how the conflict between the Russians and the Mujahideen (who were aided by the Americans) resulted in the Soviet defeat.

The Americans, their objective accomplished, withdrew from the scene. The ensuing vacuum was filled by a medley of battle-hardened fighters, many of them jihadists from other countries, armed to the teeth with American and Russian arms, with no enemy to fight against.

They would soon transform into the Taliban (which ironically means “students”) and become radicalized, believing in a fundamentalist interpretation of the Islamic Shariah law. Quite a few of them crossed the porous border into Pakistan, creating a Pakistani Taliban. Not knowing how to cope with so many jihadist fighters, Islamabad sent them to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, to join the separatist movement there.

Meanwhile, within Afghanistan, a churn was taking place within the Taliban and out of the churning emerged El Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Toiba, the world’s foremost terrorist outfits. This was the prelude to 9/11, the infamous 2001 attack on the New York World Trade Centre.

The conspirators, led by Osama Bin Laden, may mostly have been of Saudi Arabian descent, but the conspiracy was hatched in Afghanistan, which is where they holed themselves up after the attack.

The retaliation against the perpetrators of 9/11 and subsequent two-decade-long occupation of Afghanistan by American and NATO troops may have subdued El Qaeda and the Taliban, but they were never really defeated.

Their opportunity to rise up again came with the announcement by Joe Biden that all American troops would be withdrawn by the end of this month. The withdrawal was unplanned and American intelligence failed to gauge the strength of the Taliban and the weakness of the Afghan army. It was a colossal miscalculation, the consequences of which are being felt now.

A huge sum of one trillion dollars has been spent by the American tax-payer to rebuild Afghanistan, and to finance 14,000 combat troops for two decades, while training and arming 300,000 troops of the Afghan army. Much of that money has probably gone into the pockets of corrupt Afghan politicians and officials.

The former President of Afghanistan is reported to have fled with a plane loaded with hard cash. As for the army which was meant to resist the Taliban, it simply handed over its arms, and either surrendered or disappeared into the shadows.

As I write this, fear and foreboding fills the Afghan air. This is evident from what is being shown on all the news channels. Fear of what the Taliban, now clearly in control of the whole nation, will do, especially to the girls and women, who had enjoyed the right to education and to work, since 2001. And the foreboding is over the heavily armed Taliban, its main enemy, the US and NATO troops, no longer confronting them.

Basically, the USA has been defeated, as it was in Vietnam, and it has left Afghanistan in a mess, as it did with Iraq. What will the triumphant Taliban do now? The situation parallels that of 1989, after the Russian defeat and the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan, leaving the Mujahideen in full control.

The vacuum then had led to the creation of El Qaeda, 9/11, and world-wide terrorism. Will history repeat itself? The world is holding its breath.

Rahul Singh is a writer and journalist. A former editor of Reader’s Digest, Sunday Observer, The Indian Express and Khaleej Times (Dubai), he has also contributed to the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, Newsweek and Forbes.

 

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 24 2021 (IPS)

Instead of a health system striving to provide universal healthcare, a fragmented, profit-driven market ‘non-system’ has emerged. The 1980s’ neo-liberal counter-revolution against the historic 1978 Alma-Ata Declaration is responsible.

Alma-Ata a big step forward
Neoliberal health reforms over the last four decades have reversed progress at the World Health Organization (WHO) Assembly in the capital of the then Socialist Republic of Kazakhstan, now known as Almaty.

Anis Chowdhury

Then, 134 WHO Member States reached a historic consensus reaffirming health as a human right. It recognised that heath is determined by environmental, socio-economic and political conditions, not only medical factors narrowly understood.

The Declaration stated, “Governments have a responsibility for the health of their people which can be fulfilled only by the provision of adequate health and social measures”. Also, “The people have the right and duty to participate individually and collectively in the planning and implementation of their health care”.

Countries committed to the fundamental right of every human being to enjoy the highest attainable standard of healthcare without discrimination. They agreed that primary healthcare (PHC) is key to addressing crucial determinants of health.

Alma-Ata eschewed overly ‘hospital-centric’ and ‘medicalised’ systems, instead favouring a more ‘social approach’ to medicine. In the Cold War divided world, the Declaration was a triumph for humanity, promising progress for global health.

It recognised the crucial contributions of multilateral cooperation, peace, social health determinants, health equity norms, community participation in planning, implementation and regulation, and involving other ‘sectors’ to promote health.

Primary healthcare
Some developing countries – e.g., China, Costa Rica, Cuba and Sri Lanka – had already achieved impressive health outcomes at relatively low cost, raising life expectancy by 15 to 20 years in under two decades.

Instead of just curative medicine and clinical care, prevention and public health were given more emphasis. Basic health services, improved diets, safe water, better sanitation, health education and disease prevention became central to such initiatives.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Mainly rural community health workers (CHWs) were trained to help communities address common health problems. Differences in national government approaches, contexts and needs have also shaped PHC outcomes, reach and efficacy, e.g., in delivering healthcare to the poor.

But despite reversals elsewhere, some efforts have continued, even expanded. Even in the 21st century, large-scale PHC efforts have made remarkable health gains, e.g., Brazil’s Programa Saude da Familia and Thailand’s Universal Coverage Scheme.

Lalonde Report turning point
Thus, Alma-Ata inverted health policy priorities, as 90% of health problems were recognised as due to lifestyles, environments and human biology, with only 10% due to the “healthcare system”, as noted by Canada’s 1974 Lalonde Report.

The Lalonde Report reaffirmed WHO’s basic approach. Its 1946 constitution had affirmed, “Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.

The Report’s multidimensional approach to human health marked a turning point, reshaping policy approaches. Similar health assessments, with more holistic understandings, were also influential.

Reports from the UK, USA, Sweden and elsewhere also challenged the dominant medicalised approach to healthcare promoted by big pharmaceutical and other health-related businesses.

Neo-liberal ascendance
Developments since the 1980s have set back and reversed the Alma-Ata commitments. Latin American and other debt crises paved the way for the neo-liberal ‘Washington Consensus’ counter-revolution.

‘Rescue packages’ from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, especially structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), demanded public spending cuts. These reduced social spending, cutting funding for health.

Thus, many PHC, including CHW programmes did not last. Citing cost recovery, SAPs pressed to impose user fees and privatise health services. The outcomes betrayed Alma-Ata’s promise of greater health equity, and ‘Health for All’ by 2000, undermining prospects for universal health coverage.

The World Bank’s 1993 World Development Report, ‘Investing in Health’, also undermined Alma-Ata. Justifying state healthcare provisioning cuts, it promoted for-profit health financing and other private solutions.

Healthcare financing key
In neoliberal dialect, strengthening health systems meant “enhancing public-private partnerships” among other such interventions. The Bank provided substantial financial support to fund its recommendations.

Despite Alma-Ata, the WHO’s 2000 World Health Report (WHR 2000) criticised developing countries for “focusing on the public sector and often disregarding the – frequently much larger – private provision of care”. It argued, “Health policy and strategies need to cover the private provision of services and private financing”.

Addressing health progress became more ‘siloed’ with the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) indicators’ focus on curing and preventing particular diseases. Neither WHR 2000 nor the MDGs reiterated Alma-Ata’s emphasis on social justice, equity and community participation.

Instead, that era saw more healthcare privatisation, public-private partnerships and contracting out of services. After this neo-liberal eclipse, WHO’s attempted U-turn, starting over a decade ago, has emphasised universal health care (UHC) and socio-economic determinants, but the Alma-Ata betrayals prevail.

Thus, the Bank’s International Finance Corporation has been promoting private investments in healthcare services and infrastructure. Deploying billions, it buys public policy influence in Africa, India and beyond.

Philanthropy rules
Unsurprisingly, cash-strapped governments have welcomed financial support from supposed ‘do-gooder’ philanthropists. Many states have to cope with fragile, even crumbling health systems, often overwhelmed by old killers and new epidemics.

Such MDGs-inspired support has typically been via ‘vertical funds’ targeting specific diseases – contrary to Alma-Ata. With more money than WHO’s paltry budget, corporate philanthropy has been remaking policies the world over.

Thus, the policy and ideological prejudices of the Gates Foundation, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation and Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria have obscured Alma-Ata, also reshaping national health priorities.

COVID-19 has unveiled some more effects of various profit-driven healthcare inequities, chronic under-investment in PHC, and over-investment in profit-driven healthcare. They have not only hastened the retreat from ‘health for all’ and UHC, but also made the world more vulnerable to epidemics.

Worse, the interests and priorities of corporate philanthropy have not only raised the costs of, and thus delayed containing the pandemic, but also reversed much of the modest and uneven progress of recent decades, besides worsening inequalities.

 

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Organic vanilla farmer, Shelley Burich, works on her farm at Vaoala. Credit: FAO.

By Keni Lesa
APIA, Samoa, Aug 23 2021 (IPS)

A woman farmer in Samoa is using innovation and technology to overcome economic hardship as the Pacific Island nation seeks ways to adapt to the challenges resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Although Samoa, with a population of less than 200,000, remains one of a few countries in the world without a positive Covid-19 case, its border closed in March 2020 after the government declared a state of emergency, dealing the country’s economy a decisive blow.

The woman farmer from Samoa will soon share her story with the world in a bid to inspire others who have found themselves in a similar situation. Burich’s innovations will be among the solutions showcased at the Small Island Developing States Solutions Forum, scheduled for 30-31 August 2021

Tourism, regarded as the mainstay of the economy, has been crippled by the absence of foreign visitors for nearly two years. Hotels, restaurants and tourism-related businesses have had to shut their doors and look elsewhere to make ends meet. But it’s not just the inner circle of the tourism industry that has been affected. Domestic growers and farmers, who had relied on the steady and frequent influx of visitors, suddenly found themselves on the back foot.

Among them is Shelley Burich, the owner of an organic vanilla farm, which profited from the tourism industry. Burich’s farm and business, perched on the cool heights of Vaoala, overlooking Apia, the capital of Samoa, was booming prior to the pandemic.

“Before Covid I was relying a lot on tourists that would be coming to the islands,” said Burich. “I was getting people looking to come and tour the vanilla farm, and a lot of my business was word of mouth. So when the borders closed, that stopped.”

Like other farmers, Burich needed to be innovative to survive. She did not sit idle. Days of studying social media and innovation gave birth to her new baby, “Long Distance Vanilla.”

“I make my own composting and mulching to feed the vanilla, and from the vanilla beans we export our premium beans, which are the grade ones and twos,” she explains. “From the other beans I make value-added products like vanilla syrup, vanilla extract and vanilla powder.”

Outside-the-box thinking and digitalization were critical to transforming her fortunes.

“I decided to go full-time into the social media realm. I created an online store, and I had to figure out a way to keep my business generating products and getting it out of Samoa. My products are now being sold to Ireland, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the (United) States and all over.”

While Covid is an unwelcome challenge, Burich said it forced her to diversify. “And now I am doing a lot more on the social media platform. Even though I am sitting here in Samoa, I am actually building an online store for customers in Canada.”

But this woman farmer is not done — she has big plans in the pipeline.

“My dream is really to use (my experience) as a training farm, to get people more into growing and also teach them how to build a business online.”

The woman farmer from Samoa will soon share her story with the world in a bid to inspire others who have found themselves in a similar situation. Burich’s innovations will be among the solutions showcased at the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Solutions Forum, scheduled for 30-31 August 2021. She will share the stage with other success stories from SIDS around the globe.

The forum will create a space for government leaders, development partners, farmers, fishers, community development practitioners and leaders, entrepreneurs, women and youth to discuss, share, promote and encourage home-grown and imported solutions to respond to the challenges posed by Covid-19, and others that existed before the pandemic.

The ultimate goal is to accelerate the achievement of the agriculture, food and nutrition-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in SIDS.

 

Excerpt:

Keni Lesa works on SIDS Solution Platform Communications for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Samoa

Increasing agricultural output and consumption of nutritious food are major priorities in small island developing states in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Central food market, Apia, Samoa. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia, Aug 23 2021 (IPS)

The urgency of finding solutions to the most pressing development challenges of our times has increased as the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to reverse the global momentum in recent years toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). And small island developing states (SIDS), with their physical remoteness, restricted land and resources and dependence on trade and tourism, are experiencing growing hardship caused by closed borders and plummeting economies.

Boosting food security and better nutrition, which falls under SDG 2, is a priority in the current crisis and imperative to succeeding more widely to raise living standards and economic growth. By 2019, the year before the COVID-19 outbreak, the Pacific Islands had made few advances on this goal. Now, the sub-region will be the focus of a high level virtual international conference, the SIDS Solutions Forum, 30-31 August.

The forum initiative is driven by the belief that each SIDS already has many solutions and innovations that are either home grown or generated from similar situations elsewhere, and have the potential to be scaled up. With increasing access to the internet, there are other opportunities for innovation and knowledge sharing

Takayuki Hagiwara, FAO

“The forum initiative is driven by the belief that each SIDS already has many solutions and innovations that are either home grown or generated from similar situations elsewhere, and have the potential to be scaled up. With increasing access to the internet, there are other opportunities for innovation and knowledge sharing,” Takayuki Hagiwara, Regional Programme Leader at the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in Bangkok, told IPS.

The two day event, co-hosted by FAO and the Fiji Government, will bring together heads of governments, public policy makers, non-government organizations, private sector leaders, farmers, and community representatives to explore how ‘digitalization and innovation’ can fast-track gains in sustainable agriculture, food, nutrition, environment and health in island states.

Many of the issues to be discussed are not new. For instance, declining agricultural output and low levels of food processing and value addition have been problems for years. And Pacific Islanders have suffered from lack of food following natural disasters, such as cyclones and earthquakes, for generations. In 2019, the FAO reported that 5.9 million people in Oceania, or 50 percent of the region’s population of about 11.9 million, were suffering moderate to severe food insecurity. Meanwhile 20 percent of people in the Pacific and 16 percent in the Caribbean were undernourished.

Initiatives have already begun at the national level. In the Cook Islands, the government launched the SMART Agritech Scheme in July last year as part of the country’s response to some of these issues.

“Targeting commercial farmers and agribusiness ventures, the scheme’s objective was to encourage investment in technology and smart processes to improve yield, efficiency, and profitability… The scheme has approved a range of applications including honey production, establishing temperature-controlled greenhouses, aquaponics, and the processing of agricultural produce. I am excited for the future of this important sector,” Hon. Mark Brown, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, told IPS.

SIDS account for just under 1 percent of the world’s population. Among them are UN member states Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Singapore, Seychelles, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Experts point to food insecurity associated with loss of incomes and lower availability of affordable food in the Pacific Islands following the pandemic as a major issue. Post-harvest losses of farming produce are expected to rise, too, because of disruptions to transport networks, supply chains and inadequate storage options.

The present high rates of malnutrition in SIDS, including under-nutrition and obesity, and the overwhelming burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as diabetes, could also worsen. For decades, increasing reliance on imported food has occurred alongside higher consumption of processed sugar-laden foods and beverages. The majority of Pacific and Caribbean nations import more than 60 percent of their food, while one-third of adults in the Caribbean are obese and 75 percent of all adult deaths in the Pacific are due to NCDs, reports the FAO.

The forum’s hosts believe that indigenous and introduced innovative ideas to address problems at any stage in the value chain, from pre-harvest to market access, can be enhanced and optimized by digital tools.

“Not only is it pertinent, the emphasis on ‘digitalization and innovation’ at the forum is crucial for the needed technological transition of the region’s collective effort towards enhancing current and future agriculture and food systems,” said Mani Mua, Plant Health Field Coordinator, Land Resources Division, at the regional development organization, Pacific Community, in Fiji.

In Papua New Guinea, the use of blockchain technologies, involving the RFID (radio frequency) tagging of livestock pigs, which are then monitored through a computer database, is ensuring the tracing of pork and other food products, a vital process for meeting food safety standards. Meanwhile, a mobile application developed in Fiji enables users to quickly analyse the nutritional value of meals captured on camera. And digital payment platforms, an enormous asset for farmers and businesses, are being supported by mobile providers in Samoa, Fiji and Vanuatu.

But promoting digital-based solutions has its challenges in countries where infrastructure and connectivity can be poor. While 73 percent and 49 percent of people in Antigua and Barbuda and Fiji respectively have access to the internet, this falls dramatically to 11 percent in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and 3.9 percent in Guinea-Bissau, according to the World Bank.

“The digital divide is a developmental challenge in SIDS, but also in many developed countries… FAO is working with governments, the private sector, development partners and communities to pursue an incremental approach by leveraging the current connectivity to improve the livelihoods of those with access, and then linking their success with remote farmers. If digitalization helps urban food processors and handlers to earn more, chances are that the remote producers will also earn a bit more while digital access is being gradually improved,” Joseph Nyemah, Food and Nutrition Officer at the FAO Pacific Sub-regional office in Samoa, told IPS.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a key partner in delivering the forum, is also working to guide and implement the Smart Islands initiative, an integrated strategy with governments to upgrade affordable broadband access and expand digital services in island nations.

Bringing digital tools into the households and businesses of Pacific Islanders will require large-scale investment by international donors and partners. However, David Dawe, a Senior FAO Economist in Bangkok, believes that: “Much of the investment should come from the private sector. The pandemic has increased demand for digital services and expanded their customer base, so these companies should see an opportunity in the current situation.”

During the forum, a SIDS Solutions digital platform will be launched. It will be a virtual space in which stakeholders, from government ministers to local entrepreneurs, can continue seeking out ideas from around the world and pulling together the support and resources for those that successfully match nations and their needs.

Ultimately, “new partnerships will be built and, more importantly, local innovations in SIDS that are not always spoken of will be brought to the front and leveraged to catalyse the achievement of the SDGs,” declared Nyemah.

The country's first female president recently told the BBC about facing gender discrimination.

There are calls to include migrants and other vulnerable groups in the vaccine rollout programmes in the Southern Africa region. Credit: UNICEF/Nahom Tesfaye

By Kevin Humphrey
Johannesburg, South Africa, Aug 23 2021 (IPS)

Migrants across the Southern Africa region are massively disadvantaged as they find themselves excluded from vaccine programmes – even when the global vaccine initiative COVAX often funds these programmes.

This is the latest in a long list of struggles migrants have experienced since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Migrant is a catch-all word that includes a diverse set of people, including non-citizens, asylum seekers, refugees and those who have acquired permission to dwell in the country they have settled.

However, vaccines are just one of the issues faced by migrants. Border shutdowns, travel restrictions and lockdowns have severely restricted large swathes of the region’s economic activities. Relationships between friends, family and social, religious, and other groups have also suffered.

Experts believe that ending the pandemic can only be achieved if vaccines are available in all countries – to all populations, including refugees and displaced people fleeing conflict and other crises – but this regional cooperation is not yet on the region’s agenda.

“In terms of the Southern African region, we are currently not seeing a conversation in place around a regional response,” Public health researcher and Associate Professor and Director of the African Centre for Migration & Society at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, Jo Vearey told IPS.

“In a region of such high levels of population mobility, we need to ensure that our response to COVID-19, in access to vaccinations and testing and other related issues, can reflect the forms of movement that people undertake in the region.”

The Southern African Nationality Network (“SANN”) has called on governments in the South African Development Community (SADC) region to ensure all have access to vaccines. The group advocates for equitable treatment for vulnerable groups such as refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaces persons, undocumented persons, and stateless persons. They also asked authorities to “enable irregular migrants, undocumented persons and stateless persons to access health care without fear and risk of arrest or detention”.

Vearey agrees, saying that “if a person is in a location other than their normal place of residence, we need to ensure that they can access vaccines easily and safely regardless of documentation status. We need firewalls to be in place – where the firewall acts as a legal provision so that undocumented people have no fear of penalty should they be accessing COVID services”.

She says extraordinary measures were needed. National departments of health, home affairs, foreign affairs, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) should ensure a smooth and inclusive rollout.

“There are, however, questions about the capacity of the SADC structures,” Vearey says.

“There are also issues around how we respond appropriately to the myths and assumptions around the movement of people. We know foreign nationals tend to be scapegoated and blamed for various issues. There is also the issue of giving out numbers of foreign nationals in a given country, particularly South Africa, often inflated. We know that immigration, in particular, is a heavily politicised issue. Some political leaders make use of rhetoric to blame foreign nationals for failures in delivery by the state.”

It was time to set aside differences, and there was no place in this pandemic for xenophobia.

“This is a pandemic, it affects everyone, and obviously, a pandemic by definition doesn’t respect borders, doesn’t care who someone is. It works by moving from person to person. Unless we effectively break that train of transmission, we won’t get a grip on the pandemic and will probably see more variants emerge, which will lead to more ill-health and fatalities,” Vearey says.

“It will also mean a further impact on people’s livelihoods because of more lockdowns and restrictions. Migrant labour is so important in the region through various forms of employment, both formal and informal. Particularly in the sectors of mining, agriculture and construction work. The sooner we can get everyone vaccinated, the sooner we will return to some semblance of normality.”

Traditional forms of migrant labour in the region were established during the minerals super boom in South Africa during the colonial era. Kicked off by the discovery of diamonds (1867), a handful of mining magnates accumulated enough capital to develop deep level gold mining on the Witwatersrand (1886) which is now part of modern-day Gauteng province. This history still exerts massive influence and attracts people with expectations of jobs and business opportunities.

Covid 19 has interfered significantly with these economic crosscurrents.

Senior economist at Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS), Dr Neva Makgetla, former lead economist for the Development Planning and Implementation Division at the Development Bank of Southern Africa, among many other roles, told IPS significant impacts of the pandemic were on tourism and mining.

“International and regional tourism has collapsed, and mining has seen a run-up in prices. According to the World Bank, tourism accounted for 9% of South African export revenues in 2018, which is a real blow.

Mira Gaspar outside her studio in Kempton Park, South Africa talks about the devastating impact of COVID-19 on her and her business. Credit: Kevin Humphrey

“The recovery will depend above all on the rollout of vaccinations, which has made good progress but is expected to reach the majority of adults only toward the end of 2021,” Makgetla said.

“The loss of tourism revenues has, however, to date been offset by mining prices, which rose to 2011 levels this year. The question, of course, is how long they will remain so high; the answer depends in part on monetary policy in the global North, and in part on Chinese growth prospects.”

Down at street level, Mira Gaspar, a single mother (originally from Mozambique but now, after many years of struggle, has a South African permanent resident status), tells of her earth-shattering experiences since the COVID-19 Tsunami hit the world and her neck of the woods.

“I had managed to open up a hair salon in a part of Kempton Park where I did not have too much competition. I basically had a reasonably sized area where I was the nearest salon. It was not easy to establish the business, but I did manage to build a steady clientele of women and girls and even went into men’s hair. I added to my income by working with a close friend to import and export items between Johannesburg and Maputo,” Gaspar said.

She sold hair extensions – and even prawns from Mozambique to make a living.

“It was hard, but it worked. COVID wrecked it. The big lockdown took my salon. The border closures took my import-export business. Now I am slowly trying to pick up the pieces, but I have used any money I had for my daughter and me to survive during this time. It is hard, but God will help us through this time.”

 

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Delegates from Asia and Africa met during a two-day conference to discuss ICPD25 programme of action. Credit: APDA

By Cecilia Russell
Johannesburg, South Africa, Aug 23 2021 (IPS)

Politicians from Asia and Africa shared activism anecdotes demonstrating their determination to meet ICPD 25 commitments. They were speaking at a hybrid conference held simultaneously in Kampala, Uganda, and online.

Ugandan MP Kabahenda Flavia dramatically told the conference that women parliamentarians in her country “stampeded the budget process” to ensure there was potential to recruit midwives and nurses at health centres. Another told of a breastfeeding lawmaker who brought her child to parliament, forcing it to create inclusive facilities for new mothers.

Yet, despite these displays of determination, there was consensus at the meeting, organised by the Asian Population and Development Association and Ugandan Parliamentarians Forum of Food Security, Population and Development, that the COVID-19 pandemic had set the ICPD25 programme of action back, and it needed to be addressed.

In his opening remarks, former Prime Minister of Japan and chair of the APDA, Yasuo Fukuda, commented that the pandemic had “dramatically changed the world. It has exposed enormous challenges faced by African and Asian countries, which lack sufficient infrastructure in health and medical services.”

With only nine years until 2030 to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Fukuda told parliamentarians they needed to respond to the swift pace of global change.

His sentiments were echoed by Ugandan MP Marie Rose Nguini Effa, who said in Africa, the pandemic had “affected the lives of many people, including the aged, youth and women. Many young people lost their jobs while girls’ and young women’s access to integrated sexual and reproductive health information, education and services have plunged.”

Addressing how parliamentarians can make a difference, Pakistani MP Romina Khurshid Alam intimated legislation was not the only route.

Other actions were needed to achieve SDGs, especially those relating to women. For example, the act of paying women the same as their male counterparts would more than compensate for the estimated $264 billion costs over ten years of achieving SDG 5 on gender equality.

Alam, who is also the chair of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians forum, quoted figures from the World Economic Forum, which had looked at the benefits of pay equity. Each year the discrimination “takes $16 trillion off the table”.

“If we just started paying women the same amount of money that we pay men for the same job. Your country will generate that GDP. We will not have to beg anyone for that money,” she said.

The ‘shadow pandemic’ also threatens to destroy any progress made on agenda 2030, Alam said.
People were put into lockdown to prevent the spread of the disease – but not all people live in three-bedroom houses. Overcrowding in poor areas, the stress of lockdowns led to a 300 percent increase in violence.

Flavia said in Uganda, women’s issues were taken extremely seriously – their role, she said, should not be underestimated.

“Women don’t only give birth. They are the backbone of most economies,” she noted, adding that more than 80 percent of the informal sector is made up of women. She listed various laws created to ensure women are accorded full and equal dignity, including article 33 of the Ugandan constitution, which enshrined this.

Women parliamentarians saw their role as custodians of the ICPD 25 programme as action – and were prepared to act if their demands were not taken seriously, including holding up the budgeting process until critical health posts were funded.

Constatino Kanyasu, an MP from Tanzania, called for collective action.

“Developing countries should merge those efforts with other issues, by addressing Covid-19 together with ICPD+25 commitments horizontally,” she said.

In a presentation shared at the conference, Jyoti Tewari, UNFPA for East and South African regions, showed some progress indices since the ICPD conference, including a 49 percent decrease in maternal mortality before the pandemic.

However, he said there was still a long way to go, with 80 000 women dying from preventable deaths during pregnancy. However, the lockdowns during the two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic had prolonged disruptions to SRHR services.

It was necessary to “sustain evidence-based advocacy to promptly
detect changes to service delivery and utilization, and support countries to implement mitigation strategies,” Tewari said.
Ugandan Deputy Speaker Anita Annet Among expressed concern that one in five adolescent girls falls pregnant in Africa – many of whom drop out of school. With schools closed, the situation had worsened.

She called on parliamentarians to be the voice of the voiceless and ensure “you make strong laws that protect the women and youth. Ensure the appropriation of monies that support these marginalized people.”

A declaration following the meeting included advocating for increased budgets to meet the ICPD 25 commitments, including sexual and reproductive health services for all and contributing to the three zeros – preventable maternal deaths, unmet family planning needs, and eliminating gender-based violence.

• The meeting was held under the auspices of the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) in partnership with The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and hosted by Ugandan Parliamentarians Forum of Food Security, Population and Development (UPFFSP&D).

 

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Mozambique's biggest corruption scandal led donors to cut funding and an economic crisis.

María Santos Hernández, 66, poses outside her home in the village of Huisisilapa, municipality of San Pablo Tacachico, in central El Salvador, on Aug. 17, a day before leaving for the United States, in her case with a visa and by plane, to reunite with three sons who live in the town of Stephenson, in the state of Virginia. A fourth son is on his way through Mexico to try to enter the country as an undocumented immigrant and join his family. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN PABLO TACACHICO, El Salvador , Aug 23 2021 (IPS)

The Joe Biden administration’s call for undocumented Central American migrants not to go to the United States, as requested by Vice President Kamala Harris during a June visit to Guatemala, appears to have fallen on deaf ears.

In towns in countries such as El Salvador, people continue to set out every day on their way to the U.S. in search of a better future. But there are no hard numbers to indicate whether the flow is larger or smaller than in previous years.

It remains to be seen whether the number of undocumented Salvadoran migrants has significantly decreased as a result of the public policies implemented since June 2019 by the government of Nayib Bukele, as his administration claims, said experts interviewed by IPS.

What is clear is that people continue to undertake the journey that could offer them an opportunity for a better future, given the poverty and social exclusion they face in this country of 6.7 million inhabitants, as well as in the rest of Central America, especially Guatemala and Honduras.

Oscar left on Aug. 14 for Stephenson, a small town in Virginia, a state on the east coast of the United States, from his native Huisisilapa, a village in San Pablo Tacachico municipality in the central Salvadoran department of La Libertad.

“I don’t know where in Mexico I am right now, I’m going with the guide,” Oscar told IPS in a WhatsApp conversation on Tuesday, Aug. 17, asking to be identified only by his first name.

A photo of Oscar and his son Andrés, when they lived together in Huisisilapa, a village in central El Salvador. Five years ago the boy left with his mother for the small town of Stephenson, Virginia, and now Oscar is making his way across Mexico as an undocumented migrant, with the aim of living in the U.S. with his son, who is now eight years old. CREDIT: Courtesy of the family

The 27-year-old peasant farmer who used to mainly grow corn undertook the journey with the aim of being reunited with his son Andres, who is now eight and has been living in that town since his undocumented mother took him with her to the United States five years ago.

“It’s dangerous, but my desire to be with him outweighs my fears of the trip,” Oscar added.

Irregular migration of Salvadorans to the United States skyrocketed in the 1980s with the outbreak of the civil war, which left some 70,000 people dead between 1980 and 1992.

An estimated three million Salvadorans live in the U.S., many of them undocumented, contributing enormously to the economy of this Central American nation, sending home some six billion dollars in remittances.

The decades that followed the 1992 peace agreement saw a rise in crime, especially gang activity, which spurred another surge in migration to the United States.

El Salvador became one of the most violent countries in the world, with rates sometimes exceeding 100 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

A picture of the main street in the village of Huisisilapa, San Pablo Tacachico municipality in the central El Salvador department of La Paz. Many undocumented migrants set out from farming towns like this one, where there are few possibilities of finding work, heading to the United States in search of the “American dream”. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Has “Bukelismo” reduced undocumented migration?

Bukele became president in June 2019 at the age of 39, after a landslide victory in the February elections when he wrested power from the former Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas, who were in power since 2009.

Just two years into his term, Bukele, described as a millennial populist who governs through tweets, has achieved a significant decrease in crime rates.

Since he took office, the homicide rate has plunged from 50 per 100,000 population to 19 per 100,000 – a drop that the president attributes to his Territorial Control Plan to crack down on crime.

According to the government, the programme has also reduced the numbers of Salvadorans heading to the United States.

“Don’t ask me if the territorial control plan is really a success, or if the government’s plan to generate jobs has worked, because most likely neither has been that good,” analyst Oscar Chacón, of Alianza América, told IPS in a telephone interview from Chicago, Illinois.

He added, however: “But a good percentage of people want to believe that there is hope that things are going to get better in El Salvador; that is what I call the hope factor.”

Bukele achieved his overwhelming victory by arguing that the parties that preceded him, the leftist FMLN and the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), which governed from 1989 to 2009, plunged the country into crisis during three decades of corruption and failed policies.

Lito Miranda, a relative of María Santos, husks ears of tender corn in the Salvadoran village of Huisisilapa to prepare the tamales that the mother of three young Salvadorans living in the United States insists on bringing them to enjoy at their family reunion. Some three million Salvadorans live in the United States, many of them undocumented. The flow of migrants from the country continues, despite the administration of Joe Biden’s plea urging them not to come. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

But more and more information is coming out that some of his officials may be involved in embezzlement, and the president’s style of governing, always at loggerheads with the opposition and social movements, has not created a climate of stability.

In any case, the hope factor should make Salvadoran families less likely to leave the country than families from Guatemala and Honduras, Chacón said.

In April, El Salvador’s ambassador in Washington, Milena Mayorga, said in a tweet that, thanks to the government’s policies, there has been an “unprecedented” reduction in migratory flows to the United States, since only 5.11 percent of the total number of migrants arriving at the southern U.S. border are Salvadorans.

However, the diplomat did not offer more data, nor did she mention the source of her information.

In March, Mayorga reported in another tweet that, in the case of unaccompanied minors, the number of Salvadorans reaching the southern border was lower than the numbers of Guatemalans, Hondurans and Mexicans so far in fiscal year 2021 (which began in October 2020).

But other data indicates that the influx may actually be growing.

Local media reports, citing U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures, have indicated that 12,643 Salvadorans were apprehended at the southern border in July. That represented a 9.2 percent increase over the 11,575 apprehensions reported in June.

Pieces of chicken that formed part of the filling of the tamales cooked in the home of María Santos Hernández, on Aug. 17, in the village of Huisisilapa in the central Salvadoran municipality of San Pablo Tacachico. She flew out the next day to join her sons in the small town of Stephenson, Virginia, carrying with her 60 tamales: 30 filled with chicken and 30 stuffed with corn, to remind them of the land they left behind in search of a better future in the United States. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

“It seems so simplistic to me to say that the government is doing things right and that’s why fewer people are supposedly leaving,” migration expert Karla Castillo told IPS.

Irregular migration is a complex phenomenon with many different facet, she said, and has to do with structural causes that cannot be solved in one or two years.

Chacón said that overall, U.S. authorities have reported 1.24 million people apprehended at the southern border from October to date, but he stressed that the figure was not entirely reliable.

That is because the number counts “events” rather than people, since the same person may be arrested and deported several times.

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t say that there is an accurate measurement method, because we only have partial measurement units,” Chacón said, adding that “we have no way of counting the people who make it in undetected. It’s as simple as that, we just don’t know.”

Some of the 60 tamales made in the home of María Santos Hernández, which she successfully brought with her to the United States, where she traveled by plane with a visa on Aug. 18 to visit three of her sons who live in a small town in the eastern state of Virginia. A fourth son, Oscar, is currently making his way up through Mexico as an undocumented migrant, to try to join his mother and brothers. CREDIT: Courtesy of the family

Taking tamales to Virginia

Oscar is hopeful that he will make it. While he was crossing Mexico, his mother, Maria Santos Hernández, was packing her bags at her home in Huisisilapa to also travel to Stephenson, Virginia, on Wednesday, Aug. 18.

But she travelled by plane with a temporary visa, planning to return home after spending some time there. Her son Walter, who emigrated 13 years ago and “already has papers,” arranged her visa a few years ago.

Maria Santos also has two other sons living in Stephenson, but without documents: Moises and Jonathan.

“We are praying that Oscar will make it through so we can all be reunited there,” the 66-year-old told IPS, adding, “I have a mixture of feelings: the joy of seeing my three sons who live there, and concern for Oscar, who is making his way through Mexico right now.”

Maria, her husband Felipe, and their children lived in Huisisilapa after they were relocated to their land there at the end of the war. And they were able to build their home thanks to the remittances sent back by their sons.

In her suitcase she was carrying 60 tamales that she made on Tuesday the 17th, to celebrate the family reunion in Stephenson with Walter, Moises and Jonathan, and later with Oscar, who is still en route.

“They love tamales, that’s why I’m bringing them,” María told IPS, who was with her on her last day at her home, as she stirred with a large wooden paddle the liquid that bubbled inside a huge pot on the stove.

Tamales are a kind of corn cake with savory or sweet fillings, which are wrapped in banana leaves or corn husks. María was making two different kinds of fillings: chicken and fresh corn.

And as IPS learned, the tamales made it through customs and her family in the United States is enjoying them – though they have saved some for Oscar, who everyone is waiting for.

Barakat, or blessing, is the first film in Afrikaaps - a dialect of Afrikaans spoken in Cape Town.

Credit: Goma, North Kivu. Elena L. Pasquini

By Akilimali Saleh Chomachoma
GOMA, NORTH KIVU, DRCongo, Aug 23 2021 (IPS)

On May 6, 2021, after a decision by President Félix Tshisekedi, a state of siege was established in Ituri and North Kivu, two provinces that are located in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and that are in the grip of endless violence.

Earky this month the National Assembly voted on a fifth extension of the measure. Under the state of siege, local administration – including justice and security – is in the hands of military authorities, and local deputies are suspended from their duties.

Bunia, as well as Goma’s airports, experienced enthusiasm and popular jubilation when the new military authorities arrived. Almost three months later, however, mistrust is growing.

“Three months after the declaration of a state of siege in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri, the violence coming from negative armed groups and elements of the army has intensified, the rights of citizens are more and more trampled and the local administration is completely at a standstill, the citizens’ movement Lucha, movement Lutte pour le changement, notes in a press release.

The pro-democracy movement indicates that since its establishment at least 533 people have been killed in the two provinces, an average of six civilians killed per day. A measure without expected results despite the financial efforts made.

The FARDC, the Congolese army, is still plagued by “businessism” and the consequent lack of logistical and financial support from the government. As a result, the army “only helplessly witness the killings of civilians which, to date, have spread to geographic areas that were once calm.” As it happened in town of Kalunguta, in the territory of Beni, which suffered its very first murderous attack on July 15, 2021, or the town of Beni, which was attacked again on 01July 2021, after nearly 15 months of relative calm.

Among those who support the measure is Jordan, a student. “The province of North Kivu has been scarred for too long by politicians in need of opportunities. This has to be changed quickly. Putting aside politicians will mean a lot for restoring peace, and putting them aside will help the military to act in sovereignty and then restore peace,” he says. Joseph Ombeni does not share this vision. “We see how people are being killed in the town of Goma even during the state of siege. So far, I don’t see any change on the security front. We must strengthen the local authorities for administrative and political affairs and then strengthen the military with the means to search for (criminals). The state of siege is just a waste of time for the country,” he explains.

On July 22, the Study Group on Congo released a publication entitled: “State of siege or state of dysfunction in North Kivu.” The think tank considers that “the relationship between the new executive and the suspended animators of the provinces is not no longer regulated. The military officials, all from other provinces and sometimes without much knowledge of the environments in which they are assigned, are free to consult or not those they are temporarily replacing, and who will normally have to take over the management of their respective entities at the end of the state of siege. The suspended governor of North Kivu is reduced to a passive role of a ‘mere notable’ in the province. The suspended provincial deputies, now deprived of their immunities from prosecution, are more cautious.”

Provincial deputies broke their silence. In an open letter to the President of the Republic, seventeen elected members of provincial authorities denounced the disregard of the state of siege and a plot against them by the government of Kinshasa: “In view of the discourteous, humiliating and degrading remarks made towards the provincial deputies by the military governor, the latter seems to have come with heavy prejudices and presumption according to which the notabilities and social layers of North Kivu would be involved in the destabilization. Everything suggests that there would be a plot against the provincial deputies of North Kivu.” No military authority has received the deputies despite their multiple requests, according to the letter.

Several elected officials in the country hardly support the state of siege any more. Ayobangira Sanvura calls for the “return of the civil administration” and says that “the military [should] concentrate on the security aspect only” for more efficiency. The same applies to Jean-Batiste Kasekwa, elected from the city of Goma.

In a video that went viral, one of the officials responsible for customs declarant people in North Kivu decried the abuse of the new authorities: “We have a blatant case today. Five vehicles that were collected from Bunagana. This merchandise was taken care of to be transferred to the customs of Goma … to be cleared in Goma where the economic operator is located. The customs declarant who was responsible for this commodity began to be worried by the military administrator of Rutshuru. The administrator changed the destination of the goods to Rutshuru territory. This is a serious customs violation,” he said.

“Now is not the time to say that (the state of siege) has succeeded or failed. Rather, now it is the time to make recommendations and exercise maximum vigilance so that the state of siege does not distract those in power and start to become something else,” said Hubert Furuguta, the national deputy elected from Goma.

The fifth extension, voted on last week, was preceded by an assessment demanded by the deputies of the two provinces. According to them, everything is in place to ensure that the state of siege achieves the expected objectives. However, it emerged that despite the efforts made, several security, administrative, and financial problems persist.

Responding to the criticism, Brigadier General Sylvain Ekenge highlighted, to the local press, the work that the army has carried out. Above all, he admitted that the state of siege will not end a conflict that has lasted for over three decades. “Do you think that it is with the state of siege that we will put an end to all the insecurity? No,” conceded the general. “The state of siege will reduce violence, and the army and the police will continue their action for stabilization and achieve total pacification of the country. The state of siege has been put in place so that the violence is reduced as much as possible.”

This article was first published by Degrees of Latitude

 

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A man selling fresh produce in a green market in Skopje, Macedonia. Credit: FAO/Robert Atanasovski

By Ruben G. Echeverría
WASHINGTON DC, Aug 23 2021 (IPS)

A population of more than 9 billion people, hotter temperatures, decaying ecosystems and increasingly severe natural disasters. That is what our world is facing by 2050 because of climate change.

Even before the addition of some two billion people, the world still struggles to ensure enough food for all, with around 700 million people going hungry worldwide today.

An ever-growing population demands an intensification of agriculture to provide greater amounts of food if we are to avoid the spectre of an even greater hunger crisis.

In low-income countries, where investment in intensification is most needed, less than five per cent of agricultural output is spent on innovation, accounting for $50 to $70 billion. Of this, only seven per cent of investment is dedicated specifically towards more sustainable forms of intensification.

Therein lies our problem. Without new ideas, methods, and innovation, intensification means expanding agriculture onto finite uncultivated lands, such as rainforests, and placing an even greater burden on essential resources like water.

This tension between sustainability and productivity is the dilemma at the heart of our twin hunger and climate challenges, both of which demand a solution, but neither of which can be tackled alone. Solving this dilemma is the answer to a $15 billion question.

A new study has revealed an annual investment gap of US$15.3 billion to fund the research and technologies that can help farmers worldwide produce more food without eating up more natural resources.

By increasing our current levels of investment by at least 25 per cent, and channelling it into targeted areas for maximum impact, we can help alleviate global hunger and climate change at once.

But investing our time, energy, and money smartly and efficiently requires understanding which existing practices already work, where there are gaps in our knowledge, investment, and research, and how best we can fill them.

Crucially, the research also shed new light on the areas where investment can have the greatest impact on productivity while minimising the environmental footprint of food and agriculture.

For example, by investing in new technologies that allow farmers to use water more efficiently, it is possible to increase crop yields while bringing down agricultural water use by 10 per cent by 2030. These kinds of technologies can help increase profits, reduce food prices and save farmers – and the planet – water.

The clear benefits of improving the efficiency of water use for agriculture warrant an additional investment of $4.7 billion, which is all the more critical given that only seven per cent of existing investments target environmental outcomes.

Secondly, investing in better training and learning services for smallholders in developing countries, would provide more equitable access to the latest agricultural knowledge and support.

More knowledgeable and efficient farmers will then be empowered to produce more safe and nutritious food, potentially lifting as many as 140 million people out of poverty and hunger.

Currently, around half of the private sector’s investments into developing countries focus on agricultural inputs such as seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers. Complementary public investments in technical assistance would equip farmers to deliver healthier and greener food for their communities.

Finally, investing in smallholder finance will meet the unmet demand among farmers in developing countries for more capital with which to acquire the technologies and systems for a more efficient and sustainable agricultural intensification.

Investing into new and emerging financial mechanisms for agriculture offers the unique proposition of providing critical lines of credit and finance for farmers while also incentivising more sustainable practices, through green and blue bonds, or payments for ecosystem services.

For example, an additional $6.5 billion a year by 2030 would be enough to subsidise the uptake of innovations that would bring down greenhouse gas emissions to deliver a mitigation trajectory in line with the Paris Agreement.

There is no escaping from the problems posed by the future. As the population of the world grows, so too do the pressing challenges of climate change and hunger. But investors should not settle for solving one problem without addressing the other and should look to the agricultural innovations that make decisive action on both fronts possible.

With smarter investment in new agricultural technologies and policies we can feed the world without harming it, addressing our dual climate and hunger problems at once, and providing a healthier and greener world for future generations.

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is Chair of the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture Intensification (CoSAI)

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