Africa

The British and Irish Lions draw first blood in the Test series against world champions South Africa after fighting back from nine points down at the break.

Tunisia's Mohamed Khalil Jendoubi wins Africa's first medal of the 2020 Olympics when taking silver in the men's taekwondo (58kg).

Zambia striker Barbra Banda becomes first woman to score back-to-back hat-tricks at the same Olympics in 4-4 Group F draw with China.

A renewed surge in fighting has made it ever more difficult for aid to reach areas in desperate need.

Children are still separated from parents, two months after a volcano erupted near Goma in DR Congo.

The British and Irish Lions prepare to face a South Africa side driven to provide hope for their country.

Algerian judoka Fethi Nourine withdraws from Tokyo 2020 after the draw sets him on course for a potential meeting with an Israeli opponent.

Alex residents queued for hours to buy basic foodstuff after shops were looted. The unrest has caused a humanitarian crisis, as has not been seen since the dawn of democracy in South Africa. Credit: Dan Ingham

By Kevin Humphrey
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, Jul 23 2021 (IPS)

Twenty-seven years after South Africa’s first democratic elections, the country finds itself reflecting on the catalysts of a week of looting and destruction of property resulting in more than 200 deaths and US$ 1.3 billion in damage.

President Cyril Ramaphosa described the week-long riots earlier this month as a failed insurrection.

Immediately before the violence, former President Jacob Zuma had handed himself over to prison authorities to begin serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of court for refusing to appear before the State Capture Commission. The commission is investigating widespread corruption in the country.

While there is an apparent link between the jailing of the former president and the looting – most analysts agree that several factors led to what has been described as a perfect storm. Of these many explanations, analysts have highlighted this is a country left ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic, which contributed to an increase in unemployment, endemic poverty that has persisted since 1994, the ruling African National Congress’ (ANC) inability to unite its factions and entrenched racial and ethnic divides.

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has planned hearings on the matter. It says it considers the “events which led up to violent incidents in different provinces, along with the resultant consequences, are complex and multifaceted.”

The SAHRC also stated that it had noted tensions that have erupted within and between particular communities – from Phoenix in Durban, KwaZulu Natal, where communities took up arms against looters, to Alexandra, popularly known as Alex, in Johannesburg, Gauteng.

Alex is an area where tensions and dissatisfaction go back for many years. The area, which has been inhabited since before the infamous 1913 Land Act, which removed land ownership from all black people in the country, was a major site of resistance during apartheid. Its post-apartheid history has been one of many unfulfilled promises, botched service delivery and allegedly corrupt practices in the Alexandra Renewal Project.

Writing for GroundUp, Masego Mafata says activists in Alex say nothing has changed after a protest in the area in 2019.

“As Alexandra is seized by mass looting and protests this week, a report from the Public Protector and the SAHRC following the devastating 2019 protests has revealed persistent failures by the City of Johannesburg and the Gauteng Provincial government. While the recent protests are reportedly linked to the incarceration of former president Jacob Zuma, the joint report suggests that Alexandra’s community is a tinderbox for public unrest.”

Economic hardships and income inequalities, exacerbated by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, are seen as a leading cause of dissatisfaction around the country.

In the recently published International Journal for Equity in Health, Chijioke O Nwosu and Adeola Oyenubi say, “nationwide lockdowns have resulted in income loss for individuals and firms, with vulnerable populations (low earners, those in informal and precarious employment, etc.) more likely to be adversely affected.”

The Congress of South African Trade Unions’ spokesperson Sizwe Pamla also pointed to multiple reasons for the rioting and looting.

“While the current events were triggered by political restlessness and frustration following the arrest of Former President Jacob Zuma, it is clear now that criminal elements have opportunistically hijacked this issue and are using it to loot,” says Pamla.

“This is also a reminder that the problem of unemployment and poverty is real in South Africa. COSATU has been arguing for a long-time that unemployment is a ticking time bomb that will explode in the face of policymakers and decision-makers.”

For individuals like Georgio da Silva, the owner of a car repair workshop in Jeppestown, Johannesburg, xenophobia also appears strongly in the mix of contributing factors. He and others in the area have experience in defending themselves and their businesses against xenophobic attacks.

Georgio da Silva, a car repair shop owner, saved his business in an area vulnerable to xenophobic attacks.

Immediately after Zuma reported to Estcourt prison and violent attacks began, Da Silva told IPS he managed to shut down his workshop but had their property damaged. Later he realised that xenophobia was only one of the motivating factors.

It is imperative that the complex mix of factors contributing to this ‘perfect storm’ of anarchy and insurrection be examined to prevent future occurrences – the political tensions within the ruling party also have to be factored in.

The bitter factional battle going on within the ANC resulted in Ramaphosa’s display of weak leadership. Barely having recovered from a week of violence, South Africans were left confused as even members of his cabinet could not agree on the unrest’s cause.

Police Minister Bheki Cele says he did not get intelligence reports regarding the unrest from the State Security Agency’s Minister Ayanda Dlodlo, which she disputes.

Defence and Military Veterans Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula contradicted Ramaphosa by saying the unrest was not part of a failed insurrection. She had since backtracked from this statement.

Political analyst, author, director of research at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection and emeritus professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, Susan Booysen, told IPS the “signature of factionalism in the ANC is printed all over the recent unrest in the country. While not being completely a root cause of the unrest, factionalism can be seen as the basic trigger that, once pulled, set the series of events in motion. Clearly, a faction of the ruling party was prepared to take part in instigating this kind of behaviour as a way of ‘getting its own back’ in the over politicised atmosphere that currently holds sway in the country.”

Professor Steven Friedman, Research Professor at the Faculty of Humanities, Politics Department at the University of Johannesburg says his “reading of the violence is that factional politics was important but not necessarily in the obvious way.”

While the violence was caused in reaction to the jailing of Zuma, which gave it a factional slant, he doubted the ferocity of violence in KZN  if it had simply been about supporting him as head of an ANC faction.

“My view is that people in political and economic networks, which are part of the faction which supports Zuma became convinced that the balance of power had shifted and that their networks were now in danger of being closed down. This would have ended their political and economic influence, and so they reacted by triggering the violence to protect their networks,” Friedman says.

What needs doing in the wake of this catastrophe is that South Africa deals with the glaring issues that have made this situation possible. These include appalling economic inequalities and a society racked with endemic violence that is the legacy of apartheid and colonialism. The country has democratic foundations, including a widely-lauded Constitution necessary to build a better society.

South Africans do have the capacity to face these challenges and build a country that delivers on its full potential as a thriving nation where there are equal opportunities for all.

–        Kevin Humphrey was an activist during the anti-apartheid struggle and is a freelance writer and editor.

 

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Swimmer Chad Le Clos aims to upset the odds in Tokyo and so be recognised as South Africa's best athlete of all time.

As Nepal faces breaking point amidst its worst COVID-19 outbreak, the United Nations and its partners launched in May 2021 the Nepal Covid-19 Response Plan calling for US$ 83.7 million to mobilize an emergency response over the next three months to assist 750,000 of the most vulnerable people affected by the pandemic. The plan was endorsed by the Nepal Humanitarian Country Team and the Government of Nepal’s COVID-19 Crisis Management Centre and lays out critical areas of support required to complement the Government of Nepal’s response efforts. Credit: World Health Organization (WHO)

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Jul 23 2021 (IPS)

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to reinstall the House of Representatives and appoint– after a prolonged and nasty legal battle– a new Prime Minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, there is high probability that a government of national unity will be put together in Nepal.

After months of uncertainty and utter disregard of the rule of law by former Prime Minister Sharma Oli, whose attempts to remain in power at any costs has severely impacted the country’s response to a more lethal 2nd wave of Covid 19, the new government has the work cut out.

Not only it needs to do whatever it takes to avoid another and much more brutal outbreak but also it must take the responsibility to reboot the entire health system before the next general election.

Though predictability and certainty are not yet common features of this still young democracy that just few years ago undertook an ambitious path towards federalism, if everything will go smooth, the country will still have to wait one and half year before the next vote.

It is enough time for an experienced though not necessarily effective politician like Deuba that he is embarking on his 5th and possibly last term as Prime Minister, to be ambitious and lay the foundations for the establishment of real national public health system.

Certainly, it is going to be a daunting task especially in a country in which the private sector was enable, in the past two decades, to take advantage and exploit a weak regulatory system to its own advantages.

During the 2nd wave there have been multiple cases of private hospitals extracting exorbitant fees from family members of patients affected by Covid.

No matter several tokenistic attempts at regulating the health care costs during the crisis and far from a real crack down of such practices, it wasn’t unsurprising that the Ministry of Health and Population’s perception of a toothless institution was greatly magnified during this second wave.

It did not help that the first doses of vaccines sent by India months ago were distributed with too loose criteria or with no criteria at all.

For example, banks’ workers and many other representatives of the private industries, including those in the tourism sector, the latter mostly unemployed since the first outbreak last year, were included in the list of essential workers deemed as priority.

I am wondering why not then ensuring in such list also streets vendors or small shop keepers from whom the vast majority of Nepalis still buy their daily groceries or why not simply prioritizing only the elders, many of which had to wait for months and months before receiving the 2nd dose?

It is clear that despite certain proven level of expertise, the Ministry of Health and Population could not prevail in the tough process of decision-making regarding vaccine distribution that was centralized by Oli and his advisors, with their quest of power at any costs and with any means topping any public health’s concerns.

Poor governance and disregard of constitution so predominant with the Oli’s administration costed the lives of thousands of people. Deuba does not need to start from scratch.

First of all, while this scriber is writing, it is certainly positive that the new Prime Minister is inaugurating a new vaccination program.

Provided that several pledges of new vaccines will materialize into real inoculations on the ground in few weeks from now, listening to the experts and ensure that scientific evidence prevails over politicking, will be essential.

The scary truth is that, with every aspect of the lockdown being lifted, the second wave did not really die off yet and it soon could metastasize in a much more dangerous contagion.

The infections are increasing day by day and as per yesterday only in the Kathmandu Valley there were almost 500 cases a day, a figure that might be indicative of a worse scenario soon to come. Getting this right and finally prioritize this emergency is going to be essential.

This means finding an agreement, albeit a temporary one, with the private hospitals that must adhere to common national standards in the provision of Covid 19 related care.

The urgency to avoid a third wave might bring some common sense among the private operators that must drastically reduce the cost of their services for all those Covid patients.

Such agreement could become a template for future and much tougher negotiations that would lead to the establishment of a truly cooperative approach where private operators should become an essential though complementary pillar of a national health system.

Similarly, to what happened for the Covid 19, existing regulations on whatever is legit to be charged on the public for any type of health service is not only scarcely regulated but even less enforced.

Linked to this issue is that any new budget provisions should drastically scale up the national health insurance program that has been implemented so far only through a too timid phase in manner that created a spotty map of the places where such service is accessible.

Ask any citizens of the country and there will be high probability that they never ever heard of such provision.

The insurance not only needs to be accessible everywhere in an easy and predictable fashion but also the max coverage allowed should be increased.

As per now with a contribution of 3500 NRS (around $ 30 US), a family of five can be reimbursed up to 100,000 NRS a year, around $ 830 US a year).

This is not barely enough to cover the real expenses of any major operation even in public hospitals which keep charging the public even if they are much more accessible (or just simply less costly) than their private counterparts.

The legal framework is centered on the Health Insurance Act that was approved in 2017 but what is needed is not only a big push towards its implementation.

There is also a need of an amendment for making it on the one hand more inclusive and on the other, mandatory rather than just voluntary in nature like per the current provisions.

Last but not the least, Oli, in one of his “grandeur” decisions, had declared the creation of 396 new public hospitals.

In the budget that was presented by his former Finance Minister just at the end of May, whose destiny is now totally uncertain with a new government in place, there were provisions for this herculean program whose implementation, provided that the resources will be available, risks to be marred by corruption and rent seeking.

Realizing these hospitals, in cooperation and partnership with the provinces and municipalities who are in charge now of public health, would truly provide a big breakthrough to enable the creation of a real national public health system.

Certainly, Deuba and the coalition of parties that will prop him up in the months ahead, including his Nepal Congress, are much keener than Oli towards the implementation of a truly federal state, a very complex undertaking that would never work out without the full support of parties in power in Kathmandu.

With so much at stake, Deuba would better ensure his legacy by effectively starving off a third Covid 19 wave and by building the columns of a more equitable, just public health system in Nepal.

The Author, is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not-for-profit NGO in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives.

 

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A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent and beyond.

By External Source
New Caledonia, Jul 22 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Abundant with diverse coral and fish species, the South-West Pacific reefs play a critical role in the marine ecosystems and economies of Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs). While there is no question that climate change is affecting coral, the level and type of impact is not uniform. To help us better understand why these differences exist, a team of marine scientists from New Caledonia set off on a scientific mission to sample coral species around the mainland of this Pacific Island nation.

It is no surprise that coral reefs are often called the rainforests of the ocean. While covering less than 0.2 % of the ocean floor, Scleractinian corals (hard corals) are essential for the sustainability of up to one third of all marine wildlife. They are a magnet for fisheries and tourism as well as a key resource for Pacific Island people.

When the monthly mean sea surface temperature rises about 1°C above normal for an extended period, coral bleaching occurs leading to starvation and even the death of the coral. Restoring coral reefs by planting fragments of corals onto the reefs is a solution, but the transplanted corals still face the same threats.

However, some corals in certain areas appear to have developed mechanisms to cope with increases in temperature. Today scientists around the globe are examining the genomes of these corals to learn how they have adapted. Coral reef research is attempting to find the molecular markers which indicate which corals are resistant and which are sensitive to heat stress. Such resistance markers will pave the way for selective replanting in areas of coral destruction and could provide new tools for conservation and management actions.

The New Caledonian lagoon, the largest of the world, harbours various environmental conditions, especially with regard to the water temperature. Scientists have taken advantage of this unique ecosystem to identify genetic markers associated with thermal tolerance in corals.

In June 2021, a team of scientists from the Institute of Research for Development (IRD), the French National Centre for Scientific research (CNRS) and the Pacific Community (SPC) embarked on a ten-day research cruise on the Alis vessel* around the New Caledonia mainland (Grande Terre) to identify and sample three coral species at ten sites for various morphological and life traits – Acropora digitifera, Tubastrea coccinea, massive Porites species.

“We had carefully described the environmental conditions prior to this trip through analysis of remote sensing data, measuring variables such as sea surface temperature, salinity, chlorophyl, and current to select the most contrasted sites especially with regard to coral bleaching alert frequencies,” said Dr Véronique Berteaux-Lecellier, the project’s lead investigator at CNRS. “Through coral DNA sequencing and analysis at each site, we hope to uncover coral heat resistance molecular markers to understand if and how they have adapted to local conditions.”

Although the ways in which cells respond to heat-stress have been well-studied, what triggers these responses is not so well-understood. By mapping the genetic characteristics of the coral against the environmental conditions in which they grow, we can start to shed some light on what enables them to be relatively resistant to heat stress.

“This collaborative cruise is definitely boosting our work at SPC and is really promising for marine conservation,” said Pauline Bosserelle, the SPC scientist participating in this research cruise.

The next steps include measuring the range of temperatures these corals with adapted genotypes will tolerate in comparison to the non-adapted coral colonies, and compare that information with projections of sea temperature changes in the coming years. “These adapted colonies could be used to reseed areas which have already been depleted,” Dr Berteaux-Lecellier explained, “regenerating the dependent ecosystems and revitalising the reefs.”

If successful, the information from New Caledonia reefs will provide new coral preservation tools, not only for this Pacific Island, but for coral reef protection efforts around the world.

* Flotte Océanographique Française. ReefAdapt mission.

Source: The Pacific Community (SPC)

A bloody eight-month battle for control of the Tigray region spills over into neighbouring Afar.

Schools in India are not just a source of education but also provide access to health, hygiene, immunisation, and nutritional safety nets. | Picture courtesy: Flickr

By External Source
Jul 22 2021 (IPS)

“The government should open schools, even if it’s for an hour, to facilitate some student-teacher interaction. Most teachers feel that students should be encouraged to come to school.

Neither parents, students, nor teachers are worried about transmission as little has changed in the community habits such as social gatherings, shared resources, intermingling of children, and drinking, among others.

Only schools have closed. What a child can learn by coming to school for two hours a week will be much more than what they learn from online videos, six days a week,” says Deepa Khare*, a pre-primary teacher from a government school in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.

With schools shut, she adds, “We call students from our own numbers and sometimes we receive calls back at odd hours. On top of that, we are expected to distribute ration, uniforms, and teaching assignments in communities. We are doing everything, except teaching.”

Schools in India are not just a source of education but also provide access to health, hygiene, immunisation, and nutritional safety nets. India’s Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDM), one of the largest school feeding programmes in the world, has been widely studied for its positive associations with an increase in attendance, decreased rates of malnutrition, and prevention of stunted growth across generations

With COVID-19 restrictions being lifted across the country, it is promising to see the centre and states focus on the way forward for reopening schools. Many states are planning to reopen schools for Grades 8-12 after a 15-month lockdown—which affected more than 260 million students in India.

While it is important to resume classes for secondary and senior secondary graders, we cannot overlook primary school students, who are at a higher risk of impaired socio-emotional learning and nutritional loss due to school closures.

There is plenty of evidence on how prolonged school closures can result in learning loss, impact mental health, and increase the risk of child labour, early marriage, and nutritional loss for children.

The learning loss has been widely discussed and acknowledged. However, primary school students are likely to face larger risks, such as lack of socio-emotional development and nutritional loss, if schools continue to remain shut.

 

Missing out on socio-emotional development

“My daughter, who is in Grade 2 now, has never met any of her classmates physically since she joined school in April 2020. She has online classes for three hours every day, where she can’t really interact with any of her other classmates.

And so, some of us (parents) have created a WhatsApp group to set up a 30-minute Zoom session for them to interact every evening,” says Asif Hassan* about his elder child, who is seven years old.

His younger child, who is three years old, has formally ‘joined’ pre-school this year. Arif is anxious about how the lack of interaction will impact the socio-emotional learning of his children, given that early childhood learning is critical for overall development. He says, “If the school vaccinates all the teachers and staff, I would be open to sending my children to school.”

What is a child’s first memory of school? More often than not, it is about peers and teachers, who constitute our definition of school—even before academic learning kicks in. Can you imagine school life without reminiscing about your peers and teachers?

These early memories of school play an important role in shaping our socio-emotional learning, which is a process for young children and adults to develop their emotions and identities. And schools are one of the first ecosystems to provide community and authentic relationships with peers and teachers This has a direct bearing on the stress and anxiety levels of children.

Globally, public health experts have stressed that lockdowns have put one in seven students at risk of poor mental health. With primary caregivers of children—both parents and teachers—currently juggling health and economic shocks, children’s needs are being put on the backburner.

Preliminary findings from a survey by ChildFund India across 10 states showed that 78 percent of children were feeling sad and eight percent were feeling anxious because they were not able to meet friends and teachers, access or/and understand online learning sessions, and because they were missing active face-to-face learning.

India’s National Education Policy 2020 also stressed the importance of socio-emotional learning for the holistic development of children. The closure of institutions during the pandemic has resulted in learning gaps, no in-person interactions, and loss of routines for children, which leaves them vulnerable to poor mental health.

 

Risking children’s health due to a lack of nutrition

“I was stuck in Bihar due to a lockdown for six months during COVID-19. When I came back to Delhi and went to take ration as a part of the midday meal for students, they told me that my children’s names had been removed as we were away for 6 months.

We didn’t stay there by choice. In the last 1.5 years, my children haven’t studied anything and I cannot afford tuition,” says Puja Devi*, a domestic worker and parent of two primary school children in Delhi.

Schools in India are not just a source of education but also provide access to health, hygiene, immunisation, and nutritional safety nets. India’s Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDM), one of the largest school feeding programmes in the world, has been widely studied for its positive associations with an increase in attendance, decreased rates of malnutrition, and prevention of stunted growth across generations.

The scheme mandates government schools to provide one cooked meal per day to their students. It is estimated that 115.9 million children in India benefit from midday meals. Schools and anganwadi centres are primarily responsible for the delivery of these hot, cooked, nutrition-rich meals.

As the pandemic led to the closure of schools and anganwadi centres in March 2020, the Supreme Court of India directed states and union territories to disburse midday meals to students in the form of take-home rations, dry rations, or cash transfers. However, the supply and implementation of this have been inadequate.

According to an Oxfam report, 35 percent of children did not receive midday meals in 2020, despite government orders. While closing schools has potentially protected children from COVID-19, it has certainly resulted in a loss of nutrition for children in India.

Here are some facts to be considered while accounting for the health risks for students, resulting from school closures:

• UNICEF estimates a 10-20 percent increase in malnutrition in India, due to COVID-19.
• A survey conducted across 12 states following the nation-wide lockdown found that 83 percent urban and 73 percent rural households were consuming less food than before.
• Poor nutrition in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life can lead to stunted growth; India is home to 46.6 million stunted children.

It is predicted that India will not meet its target of reducing undernutrition and low birth weight by two percent by 2022, under the POSHAN Abhiyaan. The continued school closures will further lead to increased malnutrition in India.

Despite the central government’s efforts to increase the per-child cooking cost and the budget of nutrition-related programmes, the closure of schools—which are responsible for the delivery of hot cooked meals—is disrupting service delivery. Hence, it is important to consider the benefits of reopening schools for primary graders, in relation to the possible health risk caused by nutritional loss.

 

Things to remember when reopening schools

With 141 countries opening schools for some kind of in-person engagement, evidence from reopened schools shows a low risk of transmission—especially among primary and pre-primary students.

Countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy appear to be taking into account the emerging evidence that schools have not been major centres of transmission of the virus, especially for young children. On July 20, 2021, the Indian Council of Medical Research also suggested that primary schools be reopened first, as children can handle viral infections better than adults.

As we look at the possibility of reopening schools in the wake of decreasing COVID-19 cases, it is crucial to prioritise the opening of schools for primary classes (Grades 1-7). This must be done to mitigate the impact of impaired nutrition and to promote cognitive growth. Here are some things we need to prioritise, in the context of reopening schools:

• For India, the midday meal programme must be reactivated in the form of cooked meals. These must be distributed to students in school, with schools taking an ‘eat and play’ approach for the first three months. This would mean focusing on feeding students hot, cooked, nutritious meals and enabling them to play and interact with each other. Opening school playgrounds and/or large halls for 2-3 hours on alternate days to do would help children ease back into schools after a 15-month gap.
• Instead of providing an INR 100 cash transfer to each child’s family under the midday meal scheme, the calorie intake under MDM must be increased for the next 6 months with the addition of more fruits, milk, and vegetables. This is important in order to compensate for nutritional deficiencies and losses incurred due to missed meals in the pandemic, and to account for those vulnerable to stunted growth.
• Teachers must be vaccinated on priority to ensure minimal risk of transmission. Those who have not received a single dose must be prioritised. Partially vaccinated teachers should be given the second dose with a 4-6-week gap—replicating the priority model followed for Indian students going to foreign universities.

UNESCO has issued a framework for reopening schools with a strategic plan and measures such as masking, social distancing, ventilation, health, and academic assessment. The World Food Programme has also released guidelines on how to activate midday meal programmes while reopening schools.

While designing standard operating procedures for the reopening of schools, the state and central governments can refer to these guidelines and adapt them to the Indian context, in order to ensure that all safety protocols are followed.

While most Indian states are focusing on reopening schools for Grades 8-12, primary schools must also be reopened in a staggered manner. While the pandemic was not foreseen, the loss of socio-emotional learning and increasing malnutrition due to school closures could be a human-induced health epidemic, if not acted upon quickly.

*Names changed to maintain confidentiality.

 

Achalika Ahuja works with Indus Action, a policy implementation organisation that works to bridge the gap between law and action. Her area of interest lies in engaging with adolescent girls and women to apply community-based learnings for policy-level solutions. In the long term, she is interested in working towards social justice for underrepresented communities.

Mayurdhar Devolla is the lead of operations at Indus Action, a policy implementation organisation that works to bridge the gap between law and action. He works closely with the state teams at Indus Action and enjoys working with the government. His long-term focus is on building solutions for a positive social impact in education, sanitation, sports, and the environment.

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

Rwanda has introduced mobile dryer machines as part of an innovative solution to reduce post-harvest losses of food Credit: Aimable Twahirwa

By Aimable Twahirwa
KIGALI, Rwanda, Jul 22 2021 (IPS)

Rwanda is trying to reduce post-harvest loss by relying on new technologies to increase the amount of food available for consumption and help smallholder farmers confront some challenges caused by the overproduction of staple crops.

For over 20 years, Cyriaque Sembagare, a maize grower from Kinigi, a mountainous village in Northern Rwanda, had survived on farming to feed his extended family but struggled with the loss of a significant portion of his harvest to rot. High levels of aflatoxin prevent farmers in remote rural Rwanda from selling maize to high-value buyers.

“I have been selling maize on the market, but I was given a low price because of the harvests highly perishable nature,” the 56-year-old farmer told IPS in an interview.

Post-harvest losses are high in Rwanda, with smallholder farmers losing an average of 27.5 percent of their production annually.

A comparison with the global and African scenarios indicates that Rwanda does well on preventing food loss and wastage (72.5 percent). The country is slightly lagging on average in sustainable agriculture (71 percent). It is among the lowest performers while tackling nutritional challenges (71.2 percent), according to the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) sustainability index.

To boost resilience and reduce post-harvest losses, the government and different development partners have supported thousands of farmers facing several barriers, ranging from a lack of knowledge to poor market access.

The initiatives include innovative solutions in post-harvest handling to improve food security in this East African country. The country is ranked 59th among 67 countries on the latest Food Sustainability Index (FSI), developed by The Economist Intelligence Unit with BCFN.

While Rwanda is ranked on top among nine low-income countries, especially in Sub-Saharan African, the country is lagging in addressing food waste.

FSI research by the Economist Intelligence Unit, based on data from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), indicates that in terms of annual food waste per head, Mozambique comes on top of African countries with 1.2kg, followed by Rwanda (1kg).

This high level of waste has prompted the government and partners to promote modern technologies to tackle post-harvest losses, including two types of dryer machines: Mobile grain dryer machines and Cob Dryer machines that tested successfully on maize, rice and soybean.

“The aim was to reduce the risk of crop degradation or contamination by different fungi which occurred when dried naturally and affects the availability of food,” Illuminée Kamaraba, the Division Manager in Post-Harvest Management and Biotechnology at Rwanda Agriculture Board, told IPS.

During the implementation phase, Rwandan researchers had embarked on testing Cob dryer machines on other crops like Roselle (Hibiscus). Some 400kg were dried before samples were taken to the laboratory to verify if the nutrients remained intact. This method focuses on limiting the harvests’ exposure to aflatoxin.

Before expanding the technology countrywide, a study to measure the impact of these innovations, especially the use of dryer machines, is planned for testing this year.

“The new technologies are complementary with some traditional methods for food preservation,” Kamaraba said.

Currently, Rwanda has acquired ten mobile dryer machines for the pilot phase to process 57 to 84 tons of well-dried and cooled cereals per day.

The mobile grain dryers mostly use electricity but could be connected to tractors to run on its diesel-powered burner where there is no electricity supply system.

For the cob dryer machine, its burner and fan depend on the supply of three-phase electricity and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) gas, while the cob container (the wagon) is a tractor-drawn vehicle.

According to official projections, the new technology, promoted through private and public partnerships (PPP), aims to help Rwanda achieve 5 percent of post-harvest losses by 2024 – down from the current 22 percent for cereals and 11 percent for beans.

Jean de Dieu Umutoni, one of the experts from Feed the Future Rwanda, Hinga Weze, a non-government organisation working to increase the resilience of agriculture and food systems to the ever-changing climate in Rwanda, told IPS that the idea behind this innovation was to increase access to post-harvest equipment and solutions

“This has been conducted through different channels such as grants, especially for smallholders’ farmers,” he said.

Both Umutoni and Kamaraba are convinced that for Rwanda to implement the public-private partnerships to reduce post-harvest losses, gaps in knowledge of smallholder farmers, especially in remote rural areas, need to be filled.

So far, Hinga Weze and Rwanda Agricultural Board (RAB) have worked together in developing some guidelines that allow the private sector to use the new technologies. Experts say, however, that the biggest challenge for farmers is that they lack information on how to access suppliers. In contrast, the suppliers lack information on the growers that need the equipment.

Umutoni says that while public-private partnerships could introduce good practices, the government needs to support the technological innovations for them to be scaled up.

“There is a good start with on use of mobile dryers to address food waste reduction, but the private sector needs to be engaged in other crop value chains,” Umutoni told IPS.

While it is the task of the government to initiate solutions, experts argue that the private sector has a role to play in ensuring the technology is sustainable.

One such example is Hinga Weze’s ‘Cob Model’. This project has enabled a private sector operator to assist farmers by using the first sizeable mobile drying machine in Rwanda. It has a capacity for drying 35 metric tons within three hours or about 100 tons per day. The NGO developed guidelines with the Rwandan government for the machine’s use.

Already, there is some indication that these technologies will be successful.

Farmers, like Sembagare, are satisfied.

“Thanks to the adoption of smart post-harvest technologies, I was able to save half the crop that would otherwise have been lost,” Sembagare told IPS.

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Flood damage in Hagen, Germany. Credit: Bärwinkel,Klaus, Creative Commons.

By External Source
Jul 22 2021 (IPS)

Almost 200 people dead and many others still missing. Billions of euros’ worth of damage. Communities devastated. Thousands of homes destroyed and their occupants traumatised.

I am a flood forecaster who helped to set up the forecasting system that was used to predict the recent floods in Germany and surrounding countries. I saw days in advance that they were coming. I read reports of rainfall and river levels rising. And then I watched with growing horror as the death toll surged.

The European Flood Awareness System (EFAS), which I helped to set up, is part of the EU’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service. It provides early information on flooding to national and local authorities across Europe. I work closely with people there in my role as an independent flood scientist at the University of Reading to improve and analyse EFAS data. I don’t work in the team that issues early flood information to authorities, but looking at the data with colleagues, I could see early on just how serious the floods looked.

What is the use of a perfect forecast if the people it is supposed to warn cannot see the danger they are in? Effective flood warnings require people to be able to see into the future and imagine their house full of water, to assess the likelihood of that happening, and to see the multiple paths they could take to keep them, their family, and their property safe.

Forecasts on Friday July 9 and Saturday 10 for the Rhine catchment, covering Germany and Switzerland, had shown a high probability of flooding that would begin on Tuesday July 13. Subsequent forecasts also showed the Meuse in Belgium would be affected. The forecasts in the following days showed that there was little doubt that a major flood was coming.

EFAS sends out bulletins of early information which are designed to be read, understood and acted on by experts. They are not directly available to the public. Public flood warnings come from the national and regional weather, environment and civil protection agencies, and EFAS information needs to be used by these authorities alongside their own forecasts.

The first EFAS bulletin was sent to the relevant national authorities on Saturday July 10. More updates continued over the following days as more precise predictions became available. Formal flood notifications were issued to authorities in Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland and Luxembourg, as well as the Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) of the European Commission throughout Monday and Tuesday.

As the event neared and uncertainty in the forecast shrank, the predicted start of the flooding was pushed to Wednesday for smaller rivers and Thursday for the larger downstream rivers. Around 25 individual warnings were sent out to parts of the Rhine and Meuse.

 The German weather service, DWD, had independently forecast extremely high rainfall too and issued warnings for more than 200 mm of rain in the same areas several days ahead of time, saying that flooding was possible. Regional warnings were also issued, for example by the Environment Agency in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, one of the areas hit particularly hard by flooding.

The floods that did happen matched the scale and distribution of those that were forecast several days before. I was very surprised, therefore, that so many people died, given that authorities knew about the event and had sufficient warnings to get people to safety before the floods began.

 

Where flood warnings fail

Clearly, tragically, the whole system designed to save lives by ensuring people act on warnings before floods arrive, did not work as it should have done. It may be that individual parts of the system worked exactly as they were designed, and it is certainly true that forecasts were accurate, and there were some warnings issued through official channels. In some areas, many authorities did act in time, to evacuate people, erect temporary flood defences, and move vehicles to higher ground. But this clearly did not happen everywhere.

In the middle of an election campaign, some German leaders in national and regional government still seemed to defend the locally-devolved nature of disaster management in Germany, insisting that the warnings were adequate and agencies did their work well. It is like claiming that the maiden voyage of the Titanic was a success because 99% of its engineering worked perfectly throughout. While their arguments may be true on an individual scale, unless those in power admit that the system ultimately failed, they risk failing to learn lessons and put others at risk in the future.

Science, in large part, is about helping people see the invisible. What is the use of a perfect forecast if the people it is supposed to warn cannot see the danger they are in? Effective flood warnings require people to be able to see into the future and imagine their house full of water, to assess the likelihood of that happening, and to see the multiple paths they could take to keep them, their family, and their property safe.

I recently took part in an exercise encouraging scientists, from senior professors to school pupils, to trace the path of water in a river through time using just their imagination. Weeks later, we are seeing what happens when people cannot visualise the threat of a river ripping down their street, or a lake appearing in their house. These are the elements of flood warnings that must improve.

As climate change increases risks from heatwaves, fires and floods, we need to not only slash emissions but prepare ourselves for the problems we already have in store. Even with sufficient decarbonisation measures – which we are still yet to see from any major government – there is no avoiding the consequences of a hotter, more turbulent environment.

Hannah Cloke, Professor of Hydrology, University of Reading

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Religious leaders. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Jul 22 2021 (IPS)

The UN High Level Political Forum (HLPF) came to a conclusion on July 15th. Another HLPF, another series of declaration, and commitments and concerns articulated by governments.

All of which are besieged by the combined pandemics of institutional and systemic failures, increasing violence, global warming which has already led to the deaths of species and humans, and of course, Covid-19 and the utter shame of only the rich getting vaccinated.

And the results of this High Level Political Forum?

Not the dramatic changes that our planetary existence cries for. Not even the radical introspection about each of the governance and civic responsibilities attested to by various human rights and humanitarian catastrophes in almost every corner of the world. In fact, the HLPF, like so many other summits and consultations between and among governments, has ended with more of the same.

But who am I to challenge or hold accountable? What have I done to try to make an iota of difference?

I ask myself that as a human being, as a citizen, as a woman, as a person of faith, as many other things. But most importantly, as the person elected to serve the world’s largest multi-faith leadership and grassroots organization. I ask as a person who has devoted over 30 years of studying and working in and on the intersections of religion with international development, democratization, governance and human rights.

Remember when good governance and democratization were such buzz words? Remember when human rights was not just what the United States tried to claim was critical to its foreign policy, while it was aiding and abetting the same regimes and groups that abused them liberally, and fighting for the triumph of liberalism against communism (which was not supposed to care much for any of those ideals)?

Remember when NGOs sprouted left, right and center, ostensibly committed to realizing good governance, human rights and the attainment of democracy, so that proposals to international development and foreign policy donor entities were replete with “building” and “strengthening civil society”?

And remember the days when “truth and reconciliation” were what the South African bloodless transition from apartheid to democracy, represented (as opposed to the painful turmoil we see in the same country and in most countries around the world)?

Remember those days?

Can we claim, with a straight face – let alone with any data to back this up – that we now have a world where human rights, democracy and good governance reign supreme – or even reign at all in most parts of the world?

If we can claim that, the entire Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) before them, and countless Treatise, Conventions, Agreements, Resolutions, not to mention NGOs, academic centers and disciplines, policy think tanks, evidence gatherers and reams of research, etc., might have been a bit unnecessary – to say the least?

Unless of course, we would maintain that democracy and good governance were not meant to ensure a world where every single form of inequality and inequity, where war and violence, where epidemics and a pandemic – run rampant?

Over the last decade in particular, we started to hear more about the importance of religion, engaging with religious leaders, and the value-added of faith-based work and organisations in terms of community reach, moral standing, trust building, conflict mediation and peacemaking, social service provision (such as healthcare, education, nutrition), and humanitarian relief.

Since the pandemic we are now hearing how houses of worship, and the large public health infrastructure, are so critical to the Covid response, and to vaccine uptake (or lack thereof). Multiple global, regional and national initiatives, in and around the United Nations, regional intergovernmental organizations and bodies, governments, networks, projects, academic degrees, and NGOs, are now sprouting in all corners of the world, all professing to do with religion or faith or interfaith.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, democracy, good governance and human rights almost became a commercial business, with donors competing to fund initiatives and to create their own.

Recipient NGOs and projects – some of them developing in record time with support from governments with a dubious record of democracy and respect for human rights – competed to seek funding from governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental sources.

Millions of dollars were given, and spent. Duplication of efforts – with each claiming to be unique – became the norm. A new global NGO elite emerged, who grew used to meeting each other in different conferences in different locations, racking up airline miles as they globe trotted from one end of the world to the other, offering their wisdom, sharing their ‘lessons learned’, showcasing their initiatives and their respective ‘approaches’ as well as their ideologies.

Members of this democracy and human rights’ community lamented the lack of political will to recognize their unique and necessary value-added, the increasing normalcy of abuse of democracy, the lack of ‘proper’ policies leading to a furthering of authoritarianism and intra-state conflicts, and usually passionately decrying the lack of resources to help their work.

Some of these civil society initiatives competed viciously, sometimes beneath a thin veneer of collaboration and partnership, and even actively undermined one another. Some of these actors compiled and decried human rights abuses in regimes and countries, when they themselves struggled with similar abuses in their own organisations, institutions and networks.

Many demanded accountability, when they themselves were among the least accountable. Few, if any, gave of their own resources to support one another’s initiatives, even when they worked for the same purposes, in the same communities, with the same people. It was each to – usually – his own.

The need for the visibility of the respective organisation or network or initiative, became more important and defining, than the absolute necessity of the collective struggle for democracy and human rights.

Does it sound familiar? It should.

Because faith-based and faith inspired actors, or religion, in various guises, is en vogue today, in the same way that democracy, good governance and human rights, were in the 1990s. And what is happening in the realms of religion, religious engagement, faith-based activity (whatever the nomenclature is), is eerily similar to the above scenarios.

And the catastrophe is that this continues to happen in the midst of a global pandemic which should be dramatically transforming our every thought and action.

In today’s geopolitical reality where authoritarianism and insecurity rules amidst a collapsing planetary infrastructure, the business of human rights and good governance is clearly teetering on bankruptcy. Religions, and faiths, are the sacred realms for most of the world’s populations. None of us can afford the bankruptcy of the sacred.

If Covid is not pushing us to take a deep dive into overcoming every single excuse which prevents us from working together, regardless of the differences between and among our faiths or organisations or races or genders, to serve all, together, then we are looking straight into the abyss of that particular hell – which we are contributing to creating.

 

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Excerpt:

Professor Azza Karam is Secretary General, Religions for Peace
 
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres believes “our solidarity based on the human rights and human dignity of all highlights the crucial role of religious leaders in our communities and beyond”. He cited previous public health crises, including HIV/AIDS and Ebola, noting how spiritual leadership had been a positive benefit in terms of community values, attitudes and actions.

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