Africa

Algeria's Fethi Nourine and his coach Amar Benikhlef are suspended for 10 years by the International Judo Federation after withdrawing from the Olympics to avoid facing an Israeli opponent.

Local stakeholders engaged in participatory livelihoods planning in Champasack, Laos. Credit: A Barlis

By Marty Logan
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Sep 14 2021 (IPS)

As incidents of drought and extreme rainfall increase, farmers in Southeast Asia are partnering with experts to develop targeted weather forecasts to work around the threats and, when adaptation becomes too costly, buy specially designed insurance to protect their livelihoods.

Climate impacts are increasing. In 2016, for example, the impact of what is known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) resulted in severe drought and saline intrusion in 11 out of 13 provinces in the Mekong River Delta. This affected 400,000 hectares of cropland, resulting in 200 million dollars in economic losses and food insecurity among farmers. Household incomes dropped 75 percent, pushing vulnerable farmers who had little savings and no insurance deeper into poverty.

Integrated risk management and risk transfer approaches (e.g. innovative insurance solutions) will be critically required for smallholder growers to manage the physical and financial impacts of climate.

A key component of the project, DeRisk Southeast Asia, is to develop a number of adaptation strategies, says Professor Shahbaz Mushtaq, the project’s insurance segment lead at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) one of three project partners. The others are the World Meteorological Organisation and the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, part of the CGIAR.

ECOM facilitator leads the insurance literacy workshop with coffee farmers in Dak Lak. Credit: A Barlis

“So the project is working on improved climate forecasts, new irrigation systems and practices, and improving production systems,” says Mushtaq in an online interview. “The underlying premise is that the smallholder growers need to mitigate their risk as much as they can while developing and adopting suitable adaptation practices.”

“Then, the project also acknowledges that there’s a limit to adaptation,” he adds. “Not all risk is manageable. [It is] when it is no longer economically viable then you need to transfer the risk elsewhere, this is where insurance will play a major role”.

DeRisk, funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, operates in Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia. For example, in a pilot led by the Alliance in one of the provinces in the Mekong River delta, the department of crop production (across levels), extension officers and farmers now sit down with weather forecasters (or meet virtually because of COVID-19 restrictions) to mould a general weather forecast into seasonal and 10-day advisories that target rice producers.

“We really emphasize co-development by multiple stakeholders, integrating information from the hydro-meteorological (‘hydro-met’) experts and the crop experts with the local knowledge of farmers,” says Nguyen Duy Nhiem, DeRISK Country Coordinator in Vietnam.

For example, the representatives will take a seasonal forecast, broken down by month, and generate guidance for specific crops such as: “the best planting date, the best variety to plant and if drought happens, what drought-resistant variety to use,” Nguyen tells IPS in an online interview.

That advice is packaged as a bulletin and delivered using a variety of media, including stationary loudspeakers in villages, paper bulletins or posters and on a smartphone app called Zalo.

The 10-day advisories zero in on daily conditions. “For example, if it’s going to rain on a certain day, farmers are told not to apply fertilizers or pesticides because they would leach into the soil,” explains Nguyen.

He’s happy with the project’s progress. The stakeholders from the hydro-met sector and agriculture sector “understand better each other’s languages,” says Nguyen. “For example, prior to project’s engagement when talking about ‘rainy days’, the agriculture stakeholders and farmers think that rain should be an amount that can be measured in a gauge while for the hydro-met sector that can be any amount above 0.0 mm. The definition of rainy days has been explained during discussions and clearly noted in bulletins.”

Seasonal agroclimatic bullet poster installed at District Agriculture Service Center in Mekong Delta. Credit: Dang Thanh Tai

In addition, Nguyen says the 20,000-plus farmers who have received the advisories in the past two cropping seasons have been very pleased because the information helped them avoid the impact of damaging weather and make more informed decisions better. If plans hold, other districts and provinces in the region will start developing the tailored forecasts in 2022.

Challenges, according to Nguyen, include the lack of capacity of staff in provincial weather offices to develop the tailored forecasts. Another is reaching more farmers. Although many farmers have access to smartphones, not all of them know how to use them to access the advisories in the Zalo group. Possible solutions, he says, include developing an app or partnering with a telecom company to send messages to all customers in project areas.

In neighbouring Laos, agro-climactic advisories are available for the whole country, in monthly and weekly forecasts, says DeRisk Country Coordinator Leo Kris Palao. The implementation of DeRISK in Laos was linked with existing efforts by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to further improve this system with national partners.

The system is automated, he explains in an email interview. Called the Laos Climate Services for Agriculture (LaCSA), the system analyses meteorological and agricultural data from national databases and field-level data collection by local partners. Offices of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry review advisories before being disseminated.

LaCSA can be accessed online through an app (Android/iOS), but for those who don’t use IT tools, the information, as in Vietnam, is also shared via loudspeakers, radio and TV, and community and school posters.

More than 21 000 farmers in Laos have adapted their activities after receiving an advisory. “We are happy with the progress made by the De-RISK project in Laos,” says Palao. “Based on our baseline assessment, most of the responses from farmers receiving the agro-climatic advisories indicated that change in planting dates, use of suitable varieties tailored to the climate condition of the season, and water and fertilizer management were among their adaptation practices.”

Mushtaq says that to further mitigate the ‘residual risk’, which can’t be managed economically through adaptation strategies, his team developed various indexed-based insurance products that are now being tested through a pilot insurance scheme – Coffee Climate Protection Insurance.

“We went to the field and interviewed several hundreds of smallholder coffee growers and industry.” The assessment for the insurance scheme included asking about the biggest risks faced by farmers, whether it be drought, disease, or extreme rainfall, among other hazards. “We wanted to develop products for those risks that are most impactful,” Mushtaq says.

The researcher of USQ adds that if an extreme weather event occurs and a farmer can’t immediately recover from losses, “his production would suffer, it would impact the supply chain, it would impact the roaster, and it would impact coffee production regions. But if farmers could get back on their feet very quickly, it would help the industry, it would the whole supply chain. That’s the underpinning driver for the supply chain industry to co-contribute insurance premiums.”

Mushtaq says he was impressed when coffee growers told him that drought and extreme rainfall are major risks but didn’t want drought insurance because they are able to cope through access to irrigation. “But if there’s extreme rainfall, we don’t have an option to manage that risk, so we want products to cater to it,” the farmers said.

The initial assessment found that farmers have a range of attitudes about insurance — some were willing to pay more than the suggested premium, others would not even consider purchasing, and the majority were in the middle, unsure.

Finally, most agreed on the product. What swayed the doubters was the credibility that USQ and its partners had developed over the years working with the coffee industry represented by the private sector and associations, says Mushtaq. “To me, the most important success factor was the presence of the industry itself. You need to have really solid leadership to drive this agenda. And we were very lucky that we got some really good partners in the coffee industry.”

In stages 1 and 2 of the pilot, farmers and coffee traders will split the costs of the premiums, but in later years, other actors in the supply chain, such as roasters, will have to contribute a portion; the exact division of costs still needs to be negotiated.

Currently, the ‘extreme rainfall’ insurance product is in operation, explains Mushtaq, meaning that if total rainfall exceeds the threshold for the two-month season, payments would be triggered. As the insurance is indexed, the payouts would reflect the amount of protection that farmers chose to purchase.

To get to this point, “we had to run several workshops, and gather a lot of information on how index-based insurance products works,” he says, adding that more needs to be done to increase awareness. Moving forward, the team considers running a campaign to address this, “Awareness is still a problem, and we do need to run a massive campaign.”

DeRISK aims to develop its climate services and insurance products further and work with national partners on policies and strategies supporting smallholder farmers in the region in response to climate risks.

 

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United Nations military personnel are the Blue Helmets on the ground. Today, they consist of over 70,000 troops contributed by national armies from across the globe and help keep the peace in military conflicts worldwide. Credit: United Nations

By Norman Solomon
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Sep 14 2021 (IPS)

Last weekend, U.S. corporate media continued a 20-year repetition compulsion to evade the central role of the USA in causing vast carnage and misery due to the so-called War on Terror. But millions of Americans fervently oppose the military-industrial complex and its extremely immoral nonstop warfare.

CodePink and Massachusetts Peace Action hosted a national webinar to mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11 — the day before Sunday’s launch of the Cut the Pentagon campaign — and the resulting video includes more than 20 speakers who directly challenged the lethal orthodoxy of the warfare state. As part of the mix, here’s the gist of what I had to say:

When we hear all the media coverage and retrospectives, we rarely hear — and certainly almost never in the mass media hear — that when people are killed, whether it’s intentional or predictable, those are atrocities that are being financed by U.S. taxpayers.

And so we hear about the evils of Al Qaeda and 9/11, and certainly those were evils, but we’re not hearing about the predictable as well as the intentional deaths: the tens of thousands of civilians killed by U.S. air strikes alone in the last two decades, and the injuries, and the terrorizing of people with drones and other U.S. weapons. We’re hearing very little about that.

Part of the role of activists is to make those realities heard, make them heard loud and clear, as forcefully and as emphatically and as powerfully as possible. Activist roles can sometimes get blurred in terms of becoming conflated with the roles of some of the best members of Congress.

When progressive legislators push for peace and social justice, they deserve our praise and our support. When they succumb to the foreign-policy “Blob” — when they start to be more a representative of the establishment to the movements rather than a representative of the movements to the establishment — we’ve got a problem.

It’s vital for progressive activists to be clear about what our goals are, and to be willing to challenge even our friends on Capitol Hill.

I’ll give you a very recent example. Two leaders of anti-war forces in the House of Representatives, a couple of weeks ago, circulated a “Dear Colleague” message encouraging members of the House to sign a letter urging the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, Adam Smith, to stand firm behind President Biden’s 1.6 percent increase in the Pentagon budget, over the budget that Trump had gotten the year before.

The point of the letter was: Chairman Smith, we want you to defend the Biden budget’s increase of 1.6 percent, against the budget that has just been approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee with a 3.3 percent increase.

That kind of a letter moves the goal posts further and further to the liking of the military-industrial complex, to the liking of war profiteers, to the liking of the warfare state. And so, when people we admire and support, in this case Rep. Mark Pocan and Rep. Barbara Lee, circulate such a Dear Colleague letter, there’s a tendency for organizations to say: “Yeah, we’re going to get behind you,” we will respond affirmatively to the call to urge our members to urge their representatives in Congress to sign this letter.

And what that creates is a jumping-off point that moves the frame of reference farther and farther into the militarism that we’re trying to push back against. For that reason, my colleagues and I at RootsAction decided to decline an invitation to sign in support.

I bring up that episode because it’s indicative of the pathways and the crossroads that we face to create momentum for a stronger and more effective peace and social justice movement. And it’s replicated in many respects.

When we’re told it’s not practical on Capitol Hill to urge a cutoff of military funding and assistance to all countries that violate human rights — and when we’re told that Israel is off the table — it’s not our job to internalize those limits that have been internalized by almost everyone in Congress, except for the Squad and a precious few others.

It’s our job to speak not only truth to power but also about power. And to be clear and candid even when that means challenging some of our usual allies. And to organize.

At RootsAction, we’ve launched a site called Progressive Hub, as an activism tool to combine the need to know with the imperative to act.

It’s not easy, to put it mildly, to go against the powerful flood of megamedia, of big money in politics, of the ways that issues are constantly framed by powerful elites. But in the long run, peace activism is essential for overcoming militarism. And organizing is what makes that possible.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sep 14 2021 (IPS)

Timely interventions by civil society, including concerned scientists, have prevented many likely abuses of next week’s UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS). The Secretary General (UNSG) must now prevent UN endorsement of what remains of its prime movers’ corporate agenda.

Summit threat
The narrative on food challenges has changed in recent years. Instead of the ‘right to food’, ‘food security’, ‘eliminating hunger and malnutrition’, ‘sustainable agriculture’, etc, neutral sounding ‘systems’ solutions are being touted. These will advance transnational corporations’ influence, interests and profits.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The call for the Summit supposedly came from the SG’s office. There was little, if any prior consultation with the Rome-based UN food agency leaders. However, this apparent ‘oversight’ was quickly addressed by the SG, which led to the preparatory commission in Rome last month.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) was created by the UN-led post-Second World War multilateral system to address food challenges. Later, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) were also established in Rome under UN auspices.

President Donald Trump’s sovereigntist unilateralism accelerated earlier tendencies undermining UN-led multilateralism, especially after the US-led invasion of Iraq. A proliferation of ostensibly ‘multistakeholder’ initiatives – typically financed by transnational agribusinesses and philanthropic foundations – have also marginalised UN-led multilateralism and the Rome food agencies.

Thus far, the Summit process has resisted UN-led multilateral follow-up actions. To be sure, UN system marginalisation has been subtle, not ham-fisted. Besides the Rome trio, the UN Committee for World Food Security (CFS) and its High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) have been casualties.

The CFS has evolved in recent years to involve a broad range of food system stakeholders, including private business interests and civil society. The latter includes social movements – of farmers, other food producers and civil society stakeholders – largely bypassed by Summit processes.

Through the FSS, World Economic Forum (WEF) and other initiatives have been presented as from the UN. In fact, these have minimally involved UN system leaders, let alone Member States. Many refer to the Summit without the UN prefix to reject its legitimacy, as growing numbers cynically call it the ‘WEF-FSS’.

Science-policy nexus takeover
The proposal for a new science-policy interface – “either by extending the mandate of the Summit’s Scientific Group, or by establishing a permanent new panel or coordinating mechanism in its mould” – is of particular concern.

The FSS Scientific Group overwhelmingly comprises scientists and economists largely chosen by the Summit’s prime movers. Besides marginalising many other food system stakeholders, its biases are antithetical to UN values and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Their assessments barely consider the consequences of innovations for the vulnerable. Prioritising technical over social innovations, they have not been transparent, let alone publicly accountable.

Their pretentiously scientistic approach is patronising, and hence, unlikely to effectively address complex contemporary food system challenges involving multiple stakeholders.

Extending the Scientific Group’s remit beyond the Summit, or by otherwise making it permanent, would betray the commitment that the FSS would support and strengthen, not undermine the CFS. The CFS “should be where the Summit outcomes are ultimately discussed and assessed, using its inclusive participation mechanisms”.

Such a new body would directly undermine the HLPE’s established “role and remit” to provide scientific guidance to Member States through the CFS. In July, hundreds of scientists warned that a new science panel would undermine not only food system governance, but also the CFS itself.

Saving UN-led multilateralism
Just as Summit preparations have displaced CFS, the proposal science-policy interface would marginalise the HLPE, undermining the most successful UN system reform to date in meaningfully and productively advancing inclusive multi-stakeholderism.

After the 2007-2008 food price crisis, CFS was reformed in 2009 to provide “an inclusive platform to ensure legitimacy across a broad range of constituencies”, and to improve the coherence of various diverse food-related policies.

Like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the HLPE consults widely and openly with stakeholders on its research assessments and work priorities. Its reports are subject to extensive peer reviews to ensure they serve CFS constituents’ needs, remain policy relevant, and address diverse perspectives.

Last week, several crucial civil society leaders, working closely with the UN system, warned that Summit outcomes could further erode the UN’s public support and legitimacy, and the ability of the Rome bodies to guide needed food system reform.

The group includes UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri, his predecessor Olivier De Schutter, now UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, CFS chair Thanawat Tiensin and HLPE chair Martin Cole.

Their concerns reiterate those of hundreds of scientists, global governance experts, civil society groups, and the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), among many. The main worry is about “the threat it poses to the role of science and knowledge in food system decision-making”.

Mindful of the controversy around the FSS from the outset, the four urge the SG, “In the wake of the Summit, it will be imperative to restore faith in the UN system…A clear commitment to support and strengthen the HLPE and the CFS would therefore be invaluable”.

They stress, “there is much to be done to ensure that the HLPE of the CFS is equipped to continue playing its crucial role at the interface of food system science and policy”. After earlier setbacks, the UNSG must defend the progress CFS and HLPE represent for meaningful UN-led multilateralism and engagement with civil society.

 

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By External Source
Sep 13 2021 (IPS-Partners)

The Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland called for urgent action to ensure improved climate resilience of small states and promised to amplify the concerns of small and other vulnerable states around climate change at the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow this November.

During visit to The Bahamas this week, the Secretary-General said: “Without a doubt, we are living through a global climate crisis which is unfolding with disturbing speed and intensity across the Commonwealth, and the world. The unequivocal evidence contained in the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has only reinforced what small island nations on the frontlines of climate change have been experiencing and advocating for a long time.

“Urgent, decisive and sustained climate action is needed, and the international community must not miss the window to make a real difference at the upcoming COP26 summit. This includes mobilising the financial support needed for vulnerable nations to cope with the impacts of climate change and build long-lasting resilience.

“The Commonwealth Secretariat has dedicated a number of programmes to support member countries to access finance, such as the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, the Disaster Risk Finance Portal and the Commonwealth Blue Charter Ocean Funders Database, but more must be done multilaterally to target the needs of small states, which face an existential threat from climate change.”

The Secretary-General last visited The Bahamas in 2019, in a show of solidarity with the country and region after it was devastated by Category 5 Hurricane Dorian.

On a tour of the Coral Vita coral restoration facility in Freeport, Grand Bahama, yesterday she added: “While they have contributed the least to the climate crisis, small states are most affected by it. But they are also leading the charge in advocating for transformative climate action on a global scale, in addition to developing local solutions, including new innovations as well those drawn from indigenous knowledge.”

The Secretary-General will lead a delegation to the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 to advocate the interests of Commonwealth countries, exchange knowledge and best practices around climate action, strengthen partnerships and mobilise resources to support Commonwealth programmes.

Thirty-two Commonwealth countries – more than half of the membership – are classified as ‘small states’, including 25 small island developing nations.

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By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, US, Sep 13 2021 (IPS)

Raise retirement ages! That’s the simple, clear and unavoidable message that economics and demographics are sending to governments around the world.

The rapidly rising costs of national pension systems are challenging the solvency and long-term sustainability of those retirement programs. The continuing aging of human populations with the relative size of work forces shrinking, growing proportions of retirees, and increasing longevity are the inescapable realities of the modern demographic era that governments are being compelled to address.

The sooner policymakers begin the necessary process of raising official retirement ages, the better it will be for pension funds, current workers, and retired persons. Postponing decisions on raising retirement ages creates financial difficulties for governments, economic uncertainties for financial markets and investors, and worrisome anxieties for workers and families.

Raising the statutory retirement age bolsters government pension programs by reducing the total outlay of benefits and encouraging men and women to work longer. It also increases the size of country’s labor force and reduces the size of the retired population.

Moreover, working longer enhances a person’s potential retirement finances by generating more retirement savings and reduces the number of years spent in retirement. It also plays an important role keeping elderly persons active, mentally engaged and contributes to slowing down the rate of cognitive decline in old age.

The age at retirement for both women and men should be gradually raised to 70 years, without early retirement at reduced benefits. At age 70 the average number of expected years of remaining life for the world has increased from slightly less than 9 years in 1950 to nearly 14 years today and is projected to be close to 16 years by midcentury.

 

Source: United Nations Population Division.

 

In many countries the expected years of remaining life at age 70 have increased considerably over the recent past and are projected to reach even higher levels over the coming years. By 2050, for example, the number of expected years of remaining life at age 70 is projected to be approximately 20 years in many developed countries, including Canada, France, Italy, Japan and the United States, and to be more than 15 years for many developing countries, including Brazil and China.

It is important to recall that the statutory retirement ages of the earliest national pension programs were typically greater than life expectancies at birth. Germany, which was the first nation to adopt an old-age insurance program in 1889, lowered the retirement age from 70 years to 65 years in 1916, well beyond the life expectancy at birth at that time.

For most countries the costs of national pension systems are rising and challenging the solvency and sustainability of those programs. At the same time, the relative sizes of work forces are shrinking, populations are ageing, and the proportions of retirees are increasing with people living longer

Also, when the United States adopted the Social Security Act in 1935, the statutory retirement age of 65 years was several years beyond average life expectancy at birth in the mid 1930s. Similarly, when China set its retirement ages in the early 1950s, people were expected to live slightly more than four decades, which was years less than official retirement ages.

Raising retirement ages is by and large an unpopular measure. In contrast to most bureaucratic changes and administrative adjustments to government programs and policies, revising the retirement age upward is reviled by much of the public.

Rather than raising retirement ages, alternative suggestions have been offered to deal with the raising costs and projected insolvency of pension systems. Those suggestions include increasing taxes on workers and the wealthy, reducing pension benefits and readjusting national government budgets. However, those proposals are typically eschewed by policymakers and opposed by various sectors of society.

As has been observed in the past in many countries, including Australia, Belgium, France, Croatia, Greece, Iran, Russia and the United Kingdom, vocal parts of the public can be expected to object, protest and even strike against even relatively small increases in the statutory age of retirement. However, those objections, protests and demonstrations should not deter policymakers from gradually raising the statutory retirement age to 70 years.

While the official ages of retirement are creeping upward slowly in various countries, the average age when people actually retire is often lower than the statutory retirement age. In many European countries as well as in Australia, Canada and the United States, the average age at retirement is no less than several years earlier than the official retirement age.

Also, it is generally the case that women live longer than men, by approximately five years on average. However, despite the female life expectancy advantage, the statutory retirement age for women is lower than that for men in many countries, including Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Chile, China, Iran, Israel, Poland, Russia, Turkey, and Viet Nam. In China, for example, the retirement age in China currently is 60 for men and 55 for female civil servants and 50 for female workers.

At typical retirement ages, considerable variation exists across countries in the proportion of the population remaining in the labor force. For example, some countries have a sizeable percentage of their populations aged 65 years and older in the labor force, such as South Korea (35 percent), Iceland (32 percent) and Japan (25 percent). In contrast, many countries, especially in Europe, have relatively small percentages of their elderly population remaining in the labor force, including Spain (3 percent), France (3 percent) and Italy (5 percent).

 

Source: OECD.

 

Raising retirement ages from approximately 60 years to 70 years would increase the proportion of the population who would remain in the labor force as well as reduce the proportion of those who would be eligible for retirement benefits. Whereas 13 percent of the world is aged 60 years and older, the proportion aged 70 years and older is half that level, or about 6 percent.

 

Source: United Nations Population Division.

 

In many countries, the percentage of the population aged 70 years and over is also about half of the percentage for those 60 years and older. For example, in 2020 the proportions of the populations aged 70 years and older and 60 years and older are 17 and 7 percent in China, 23 and 11 percent in the United States, and 29 and 16 percent in Germany.

In brief, simply raising the retirement age from around 60 years to 70 years would not only increase the size of the labor force, but it would also substantially reduce the size of the retired population receiving government sponsored benefits. In addition, raising the retirement age will avoid reducing benefits to retirees. Many retired people, especially at lower income levels, are dependent on government pension benefits to meet their basic living expenses.

Political rhetoric, public protests and fairness arguments against raising retirement ages will not alter the fundamental economic, demographic and historical facts surrounding government sponsored retirement programs. For most countries the costs of national pension systems are rising and challenging the solvency and sustainability of those programs. At the same time, the relative sizes of work forces are shrinking, populations are ageing, and the proportions of retirees are increasing with people living longer.

The responsible response to today’s economic and demographic realities is for governments to raise retirement ages gradually to age 70, and the sooner the better.

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”

 

Equatorial Guinea's Malabo King take the final spot at an inaugural league aimed at boosting women's football in Africa.

By Shamsad Mortuza
Sep 13 2021 (IPS-Partners)

In September 2001, soon after the attack on the Twin Towers, the Bangladesh government issued a public announcement to contact the America & Pacific wing of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the whereabouts of Bangladeshi residents. The director concerned was travelling from Barishal to Dhaka that evening; he remained ignorant of the horrible incident that had taken place that day. He came directly from Sadarghat to his office and started receiving a flurry of phone calls from worried relatives. He called in his associate, my wife, and asked: “What’s the deal with the Twin Towers?” My wife briefed him, but he was in utter disbelief. “What do you mean the towers have collapsed? How could that even happen?” he exclaimed. My wife used two pencils and an eraser to demonstrate the incident, only to confuse the man even further. He rested his chin against his hand, and said: “Thank God, I took a photo in front of those buildings during my last visit.”

The emotional turnabout from denial to acceptance can be explained through the Kübler-Ross model of grief management. The same stages can be detected in the American attitude towards 9/11 if we think of the calamitous military withdrawal from Afghanistan as a form of acceptance. Once the anger phase following the initial denial was subdued, there was a series of bargains and depressions that characterise the American response in the last 20 years.

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The disbelief that a terror attack could occur in the American heartland led the Americans to believe that the worldwide War on Terror was needed for the protection of the free world. President George W Bush vowed that they would bring the war to the terrorists, dividing the world into the “us” and “them” camps.

I vividly remember when the first air raid took place; CNN showed pictures of Afghan fighters riding horses, with the commentator saying: “This is the war between the 21st century and the 11th century.” The war exposed the clash of civilisations, as American political scientist Samuel Huntington theorised, and spread to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Pakistan, among other places. Following 9/11, the US narrative started painting the Muslim world with the brush with which their indigenous population was once portrayed: the noble savage and the bloodthirsty savage. Individuals such as Malala would therefore become the good Muslims, while the Taliban were the bad ones. Crediting some Muslims as innocent till proven guilty was the bargain that the US was ready to offer, which justified its trade deals with oil-rich countries.

Then the rise of the number of soldiers in body bags and the trillions of dollars from the taxpayers’ money spent to restore democracy or fix rogue states caused nationwide depression, leading to the endgame officiated by the Biden administration. The Taliban returned to power on the heels of an agreement they had signed with the US in Qatar last year, and the suicide attack at Kabul airport shows that Afghanistan still remains a safe haven for al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Does it mean, after 20 years, we are back to the denial-anger-bargain-depression-acceptance cycle all over again?

Then again, it would be a fallacy to think that these emotional categories exist in watertight compartments. Is it possible for the anger to burn out so easily when so many lives are lost and the national pride is hurt? We have already seen how the slow-burning anger can morph into xenophobia and Islamophobia that allowed President Donald Trump’s illiberalism to flourish.

How has 9/11 changed the world? For brown people like me, with Islam written as the religion on my passport, being routinely pulled out for random checks or getting extra Thai massage at the airport security line has become more frequent than ever. To be honest, such racial profiling does not make me angry anymore. I know many of my friends who live in the US had to change their names to avoid backlash soon after the tragic incident. Now we live in a post-9/11 world where we have accepted such nuisance as normal, just like we have learned to live with surveillance in a Big Brother state.

In defining who the enemy is, America has defined itself too. The arrows and olive branch held by the American icon, a bald eagle, used to traditionally determine the hawkish and dovish foreign policies of different administrations—9/11 changed all that. America no longer wants the puritan belief of being an exclusive indispensable role model for the world. In unleashing its Global War on Terror, America had to change some of its essential values. It started violating its own laws. Illegal confinement and interrogation outside its territories and ghost flights suspending its habeas corpus is a case in point. The post-9/11 America saw most of the global challenges around the world through the lenses of Islamic terrorism and the crusade dictum. Exuberant spending on the War on Terror allowed certain groups to become richer and more influential than ever. The extra funding created mercenary militia and innovative weaponry. The surveillance system became more sophisticated than ever to encroach upon the liberty of every civilian. The system became corrupt. And what’s dangerous is that the US model is being replicated by governments across the world.

Police forces now behave like the military. And the radical terrorists see the reflection of their enemies in totalitarian and dictatorial states. The ground zero has shifted so much that it is no longer possible to pin down on the centre of terrorism or to identify the cocoons of terror. The connect-the-dots investigative journalism of Michael Moore’s documentary, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” argued that the inner circle of the Bush administration used media to cash in on the fearmongering and benefit from the wars. Whether such paranoia is true or not is for the American people to decide.

The US had the world’s sympathy for 9/11. The attacks did characterise the assault on the heart and soul of every freedom-loving soul. When the US went after the perpetrators of 9/11 in the mountainous terrains of Afghanistan, the sympathy remained intact. The democratic changes and the nation-building process in Afghanistan were heart-warming to see. The retreat from Kabul, however, tells a different story. It takes us back to the question: Why did the Twin Towers fall? How did it change not only the US but also the whole world? There are people who would still like to hold on to the image of a pre-9/11 America with its signature skyline.

Shamsad Mortuza is acting vice-chancellor of the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB), and a professor of English at Dhaka University (on leave).

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Credit: United Nations

By Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury
NEW YORK, Sep 13 2021 (IPS)

Today, on 13 September 2021, the UN Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by the General Assembly in 1999 will be turning 22.

You would recall that the 20th anniversary of The Culture of Peace of its adoption by the world’s highest multilateral body in 2019 was observed by the United Nations in an appropriate and befitting manner, as called for by the Assembly. It was an occasion for reiteration and recommitment by us all to create the culture of peace in our world, beginning with each one of us.

After the UN Charter, this is the only major document of the UN which focuses on peace in a most comprehensive manner. We need to pay increasingly more attention to this landmark document for its full and effective implementation.

Last week another integrally-connected milestone gathering – the 2021 UN High Level Forum on The Culture of Peace – took place at the UN General Assembly convened by its President of the 75th session.

This day-long event organized on 7 September 2021 attained a special profile and attention as it was the 10th anniversary of the annual UN high level forums which was first initiated in 2012 during the 66th session of the Assembly by its then President, Ambassador Nassir Al-Nasser of Qatar.

His objective was to create a new platform for the culture of peace at the UN to be held on an annual basis for an opportunity to exchange ideas between the Member States and civil society organizations.

I happened to be his senior special advisor involved in conceptualizing and organizing that very first forum on 14 September, the day after the 11th anniversary of The Culture of Peace.

Ambassador Anwarul K Chowdhury

This year’s Forum was held in a hybrid format, both in-person and virtual platforms. With its focus on the theme “The Transformative Role of The Culture of Peace: Promoting Resilience and Inclusion in Post-Covid Recovery”, the Forum provided the opportunity to the participants and all stakeholders to exchange ideas and make suggestions on how to utilize the values of culture of peace in post-Covid recovery efforts, especially to ensure that the recovery, which unfortunately is yet to happen, is durable, resilient and inclusive.

The President of the General Assembly Volkan Bozkir of Turkey, under whose leadership the 2021 Forum took place, earned the grateful tribute of all stakeholders for his guidance, initiative and encouragement in convening and holding this 10th anniversary forum under extremely challenging circumstances very successfully. The Panel Discussion was a fitting conclusion to this remarkable gathering.

As I was preparing for the Panel Discussion, I ran into the historical perspective that this year will reach the quarter century mark of my close association with and advocacy for the culture of peace at the United Nations. In 1997, I took the lead in proposing along with some other Ambassadors in a letter to the newly-elected UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to include a specific, self-standing agenda item of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on The Culture of Peace.

A new agenda item was thus agreed upon after considerable negotiating hurdles and the new item was allocated to the plenary of the General Assembly for discussion on an annual basis. That is the basis for the annual resolutions on The Culture of Peace by the General Assembly from that year.

Under this item, UNGA adopted in 1997 a resolution to declare the year 2000 the “International Year for The Culture of Peace”, and in 1998, a resolution to declare the period from 2001 to 2010 as the “International Decade for The Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World”.

In the year after that the United Nations adopted its Declaration and Programme of Action on The Culture of Peace, a monumental document that transcends boundaries, cultures, societies and nations. It was an honor for me to Chair the nine-month long negotiations that led to the adoption of this historic norm-setting document by consensus.

As I mentioned Secretary-General Kofi Annan earlier, let me quote his thoughts on the culture of peace – I cite this quote often: “Over the years we have come to realize that it is not enough to send peacekeeping forces to separate warring parties. It is not enough to engage in peace-building efforts after societies have been ravaged by conflict. It is not enough to conduct preventive diplomacy. All of this is essential work, but we want enduring results. We need, in short, the culture of peace.”

Absolutely right – we need “enduring results” and for that we need “The Culture of Peace”. The Culture of Peace is not a hollow phrase – or an empty sentiment. It has a transformational opportunity for humanity – it has the energy and enthusiasm of many of us individually and collectively around the world.

These annual forums are very special in their involvement of civil society. These are the only High-Level Forums in the UN which are fully 50-50 gender balanced in their panel compositions. I am proud to say that this was possible as the Global Movement for The Culture of Peace (GMCoP) which is the civil society partner in supporting the Forum has been very diligent in upholding these values.

The concept note of this year’s Forum forcefully reiterated that “…it is an imperative to inculcate the values of The Culture of Peace among nations, societies and communities, with particular attention to the younger generation, through promotion of compassion, tolerance, inclusion, global citizenship and empowerment of all people.”

The theme focusing on the transformative role of the culture of peace in relation to Covid recovery provided a platform to explore and discuss multiple ways and means for empowering all segments of the society, towards a resilient recovery, including by ensuring vaccine equity, asserting universal vaccination as a public good, bridging digital divide, ensuring centrality of women’s equality and empowerment, harnessing the power of youth and highlighting education, health and overall wellbeing of children.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr. AK Abdul Momen in his pre-recorded video presentation at the Forum articulated succinctly that “We must recognize that rebuilding from the COVID pandemic necessitates a renewed commitment and partnership of all stakeholders. Our efforts should be undergirded by the values of “The Culture of Peace’ as instilling these values contribute to building a resilient, inclusive and peaceful society.”

This year’s Forum heard the inspirational keynote speech by Dr. Beatrice Fihn, the Executive Director of 2017 Nobel Peace Prize winning organization ICAN, International Coalition for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, by calling on all that “On this 10th anniversary of the culture of peace, I am urging you all to continue and strengthen your work to promote education, sustainable and economic developments, human rights, gender equality, democratic participation and international peace and security.

She is the sixth Nobel Peace Prize laureate as the keynote speaker at The Culture of Peace Forums, which also make us proud that all of them are distinguished women Nobel Peace laureates. Complimenting Dr. Fihn for her keynote, I underlined that the essence of her keynote message has now become more pertinent in the midst of the ever-increasing militarism and militarization that is destroying both our planet and our people.

Video message by the activist and globally respected Mayor Kazumi Matsui of Hiroshima, the city which along with Nagasaki bear the scars of nuclear destruction and yearn for global peace, highlighted a major engagement of his world-wide peace organization announcing that “On the 7th of July this year, Mayors for Peace, which I preside over, adopted our new Vision, a set of concrete action guidelines, titled: “Vision for Peaceful Transformation to a Sustainable World.”

One of the objectives set forth by the new Vision is to ‘promote a culture of peace’.” Informing that the foundation of this policy change rests in the ability to build a consensus in favor of the abolition of nuclear weapons, he asserted that “To do this, first cultivating a culture of peace－a culture in which the everyday actions of each person are grounded in thinking about peace－is essential.

It is our belief, that this “bottom-up” approach is the most viable approach to peace, and is in line with the values which prompted the efforts of Ambassador Chowdhury and those in attendance.”

The Mayor’s passionate message included in the Peace Declaration, which he delivered in Hiroshima on 6th of August this year, advocated forcefully that “When like-minded people who seek peace unite for the same purpose, we can bring about a significant change in the world.”

Mayor Matsui encouraged the Forum by informing that “Mayors for Peace consists of over 8,000 member cities in 165 countries and regions around the world. With support from member mayors for our aforementioned cause, we will work to promote a culture of peace by expanding our membership and reaching out to a wider public.”

Often, I am asked how I assess the progress made so far since the Assembly adopted the Programme of Action in 1999. At this year’s High-Level Forum, as the Chair-Moderator of its Panel Discussion, I repeated my concern that lamentably, The Culture of Peace has yet to attain its worth and its due recognition at global and national levels as a universal mandate for the humanity to attain sustainable peace in the true sense.

When people wonder what are my plans to advance the concept in the UN system, my response verges on my advocacy message in general. The Declaration and Programme of Action on Culture of Peace adopted without any reservation is a landmark document of United Nations.

The Organization should, therefore, own it and internalize its implementation throughout the UN system. There seems to be lethargy in that direction because, I believe, the Secretary-General needs to make the culture of peace a part of his leadership agenda.

We should get that attention and engagement from him. Also, the UN entities, at least most of them, are preoccupied with what is known as “active agenda” which is a kind of daily problem-solving or problem-shelving.

That means no opportunities to focus on longer term, farsighted objective of sustainable peace with a workable tool that UN possess in the culture of peace programme adopted by its own apex body, the General Assembly. It is like a person who needs a car to go to work and has a car… but with a minimal interest in knowing how to drive it.

Many treat peace and culture of peace synonymously. There is a subtle difference between peace as generally understood and the culture of peace. Actually, when we speak of peace we expect others namely politicians, diplomats or other practitioners to take the initiative while when we speak of The Culture of Peace, we know that initial action begins with each one of us.

For more than two decades, my focus has been on advancing The Culture of Peace which aims at making peace and non-violence a part of our own self, our own personality – a part of our existence as a human being.

I believe The Culture of Peace is not a quick-fix. It is a movement, not a revolution!

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury is Founder of The Global Movement of The Culture of Peace (GMCoP); former Under-Secretary-General of the UN and the Chair of the negotiations which resulted in the consensus adoption of the UN Declaration and Programme of Action on The Culture of Peace in 1999. He was the Chair and Moderator of the virtual Panel Discussion at 2021 UN High Level Forum on The Culture of Peace on 7 September 2021.

 

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The UN General Assembly. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 13 2021 (IPS)

When the high-level segment of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly opens September 21, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is unlikely to occupy a much-coveted seat in the world body.

But still, it is expected to eventually wind its way to the Assembly Hall, perhaps later this year or sometime next year– provided it has the blessings of the UN’s nine-member Credentials Committee and the 193-member General Assembly.

And more importantly, the Biden administration has to establish diplomatic relations with the Taliban government, whose officials may be on a US sanctions list which bars them from entering the United States.

If the Taliban delegation is denied a US visa, the Biden administration will be in violation of the 1947 UN-US headquarters agreement under which Washington was expected to facilitate — not hinder– the smooth functioning of the world body.

But the agreement does not cover any extremist insurgent groups seeking to enter the UN.

When Yassir Arafat was denied a US visa to visit New York to address the United Nations back in 1988, the General Assembly defied the United States by temporarily moving the UN’s highest policy making body to Geneva– perhaps for the first time in UN history– providing a less-hostile political environment for the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

But as of now, a guessing game is on at the United Nations: Will the Taliban government make it to the General Assembly thereby gaining international recognition and legitimacy?

If it does, it will be one of the first UN member states – or perhaps the only one — which is headed by an extremist insurgent group once designated as a “terrorist organization” by the United States.

Thomas G. Weiss, Distinguished Fellow, Global Governance, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Presidential Professor of Political Science, told IPS that immense uncertainty will surround the Taliban government’s assuming the Afghanistan seat at the United Nations.

Unlike a new member state that requires a Security Council approval, a change in government is normally automatic with the Credentials Committee approving, and then the General Assembly rubber stamping, said Weiss who has written extensively on the politics of the United Nations.

In the case of the Taliban, he pointed out, time is short and, of course, the change was not the product of an election. Given the Taliban’s past and current behaviour, many member states are likely to object, he predicted.

Still, there has to be an alternative government to object, and so it is crucial to see whether (former Afghan President) Ashraf Ghani (who fled to the United Arab Emirates) will come out of hiding and object.

“That is unlikely, but if he does, I think that the historical precedent would resemble Cambodia/Kampuchea and Sihanouk/Khmer Rouge rather than the ongoing discussions about Myanmar”, said Weiss, Director Emeritus, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center.

Laying down her country’s demands, Ambassador Barbara Woodward of the UK, a permanent member of the Security Council, said last week the UK will calibrate its approach to the Taliban based on the choices and actions they now take – namely on safe passage, terrorism, humanitarian access, human rights and inclusive government.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the UN told IPS: “I think the Afghan situation is somewhat more complicated.”

The Taliban government has not been recognised yet by many states– normally a change in government does not need recognition. Also, the new Taliban government has not appointed a Permanent Representative to the UN or asked the UN to accept his credentials, he noted.

There are a number of functional things which need to be sorted out and followed before the Credentials Committee (CC) considers the matter.

“I think the CC would take its time to consider the credentials of the new Afghan representative to the UN and subsequently of its delegation to the 76th session. I am sure UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs is fully seized with the matter and would advise the CC, if asked on behalf of the Secretary-General.’

But much however depends on how the US and other Western countries would like to address the question, Ambassador Chowdhury declared.

Meanwhile, the Credentials Committee may seek an easy way out by deferring any immediate action on the recognition of the Taliban government– as it has done with the military junta in Myanmar which has, so far, unsuccessfully sought the UN seat held by the former democratic government.

Asked about the status of Taliban’s UN membership, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters last Friday: “The recognition of governments is not done by the Secretariat of the United Nations, as you know; it is done by Member States, and is done by the bodies of the UN. But we are permanently engaging with the Taliban, and we believe that a dialogue with the Taliban is absolutely essential at the present moment. “

Asked whether UN Security Council should lift the sanctions on members of the Taliban, some of whom are now representing the interim government, he said: “First of all, I think that what would be positive is to have simultaneously the formation in Afghanistan of an inclusive government — the fact that the government respects international commitments made by the Afghan State, and that a number of the concerns that we have expressed about terrorism, human rights, etc., are taken into account”.

These, he said would lead to a normalisation of the relations of the international community with Afghanistan.

“The Security Council, of course, will have to ponder its decisions, and I think that members of the Security Council will be also looking into how the situation evolves in Afghanistan in order to make their decisions,” said Guterres.

Weiss, author of the “Would the World Be Better without the UN? (2018), pointed out that there will be a new Credentials Committee later this week.

“As merely a majority vote in the General Assembly is required, I would have thought that it would be difficult not to seat the Taliban, especially as China seems to be courting the new government, undoubtedly dangling investment and recognition in exchange for the commitment to steer clear of supporting the Uyghurs”.

If China insists and calls upon its other clients, there will be the required 50 percent. US and Western “silence” (not assent) could probably be secured for guarantees about safe transit for the remaining citizens and supporters trapped in Afghanistan.

Continue leverage will result from the requirement to issue visas to individuals on the list of terrorists, Weiss declared.

Addressing a press briefing in Qatar last week, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said while the Taliban badly wants or professes to want international legitimacy and support, that legitimacy and support has to be earned by their actions.

“And in our judgment, it cannot be earned quickly, it cannot be earned by words alone, or even by some positive first steps, welcome as those may be. It really has to be demonstrated over time”, he noted.

“Needless to say, the names in the caretaker government do not inspire confidence in that last regard. We’ll have to see what emerges in a more permanent government,” he added.

Blinken also clearly laid out the US position last week when he told reporters: “The Taliban says it seeks international legitimacy and international support. And that will depend entirely on what it does, not just on what it says. And the trajectory of its relationship with us and with the rest of the world will depend on its actions”.

Now, the Taliban has made a series of commitments, publicly and privately, including with regard to freedom of travel, with regard to combatting terrorism and not allowing Afghanistan to be used a launching point for terrorism directed at us or at anyone else, including as well upholding the basic rights of the Afghan people, to include women and girls and minorities, to have some inclusivity in government, to avoid reprisals.

And these are very important commitments, he added.

The international community has also set clear expectations of the Taliban-led government. More than 100 countries signed onto a statement that the US initiated on those very commitments. The United Nations Security Council has made clear its expectations.

“And so, for us – and not just for us, for many countries around the world – the nature of the relationship with the government going forward will depend on the actions it takes,” said
Blinken.

 

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