Africa

Police say criminals are taking advantage of the unrest following the former president's jailing.

South Africa captain Siya Kolisi tests positive for coronavirus as his side build up to the series against the British and Irish Lions.

Kenya's president and his deputy had what seemed like a perfect political marriage, until a third partner showed up.

Abiy Ahmed won another five-year term with an overwhelming majority, Ethiopia's election board says.

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The WHO warns of potential outbreaks in countries like DR Congo, while the focus is on Covid-19.

Formula E will race in South Africa next season as part of its 16-race calendar.

Jehan Sadat, whose husband was assassinated in a televised event in 1981, has died at the age of 88.

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

When Turkish- Norwegian writer and filmmaker Nefise Ozkal Lorentzen heard about Seyran Ates’ mixed gender mosque in Berlin, Germany, she immediately decided to make a film on Seyran’s life. It took three years to produce the film, ‘Seyran Ates: Sex Revolution and Islam’ a portrait of a female Imam and her struggles in activating revolution within Islam.

In an interview given to me, Nefise says, “Gender” was the key concept in her quest into the mystery of Islam as a religion. “Seyran Ates is a very powerful woman, but besides being powerful, she is so real, and I found that so fascinating. This film is a journey through Seyran’s life from her humble beginning as a Muslim girl in Turkey’s slums to a female leader daring to challenge her own religion.

“It took me some time to penetrate through the fortifications of bodyguard protections and the thick walls of media interest in her work and to really bring her into “our living room”. Seyran is one of the most police-protected civilian women in our time. Therefore I chose to portray her as a daughter, sister, mother, aunt and also as a good friend,” says Nefise.

Seyran Ates is a human rights lawyer, founder and imam of the Ibn Rushd-Goethe mosque in Berlin, where both men and women pray together, where headscarves are not mandatory and members of the LGBTQI community are welcome. Seyran has been unable to move freely for almost 15 years because of death threats, and has been under police protection from Muslim fundamentalists, turkish-kurdish nationalists and rightwing extremists. One of the main reasons for her attacks, is Seyran’s activism for gender equality and LGBTQI inclusivity in Islam.

“We are living in the 21st century but we are teaching Islam like in the 7th century. Islam needs a sexual revolution,” Seyran says in the film.

Over the past two decades, nefise has produced and directed several documentaries related to Islam. Her trilogy of films entitled, Gender Me (2008), A Balloon for Allah (2011) and Manislam (2014) have covered various topics from islam and homosexuality, women and Islam, power privileges and burdens of masuclinity in Islam and more.

“As a filmmaker, my honesty towards understanding people that I don’t agree with, it gives me an opportunity to build bridges between them and myself. As an artist I have been curious about searching for what is hidden behind reality and how it is interpreted. My cinematographic vision seeks the thin organic lines between reality and memory.

“If Seyran, a girl from the Turkish ghetto in Berlin, becomes the woman who can change the political narrative in Germany, then anyone could make changes in their community. I believe Islam can have a sexual revolution because the youth today can see through it, and they want their freedom, they want to be the drivers of their own lives,” Nefise says.

Nefise’s films have often created a stir because of the topics they has covered, but one can easily say they also opened up discussions, conversations and provided comprehensive treatment to often controversial subject of women, gender, homoseuxality, masculinity in Islam. Religion based social norms and values often go unchallenged and create neverending inequality producing mechanisms, often stemming from deeply rooted patriarchal beliefs.

The struggle in today’s Islamic society is torn between fundamentalists and extremists, often speaking their own narrative or interpretations on Islam and on behalf of Islam, and a pluralist faith which is undergoing its own set of revolutions and changes, most often quietly. “The problem has never been with the text, but with the context.”

By choosing to tell the story of a female Imam living in Germany, Nefise has managed to give a glimpse into the world of revolutionaries, what it takes to not just call for “sexual revolution” in Islam, but also what it takes to stand up for human rights, for gender equality, for LGBTQI rights in conversative and often extremist societies of the world – which are not isolated to just one practise or religion.

Seyran Ates in the film says she does not reject Islam, but she decided to change it from within. The challenge is, can a woman, a woman who fights for inclusivity of the LGBTQI community, who wants men and women to pray together, who believes that women have the right to lead prayers, who is also an Imam, can she act as a bridge between a more compassionate religion and victims of religious extremisms, which also includes racists, white supremists and others.

Reforms take time, and it takes much longer when you are also trying to challenge the given and taught notion of what your religion allows, expects and wants from you. Progressive Islam, in many mainstream Islamic countries is not considered Islam, as it brings about changes and that makes many religious heads uncomfortable. When Seyran Ates as a woman and also as an Imam calls for a sexual revolution within Islam, it definitely triggers Muslim fundamentalists as she has bullet scars to prove that she was attacked for trying to bring these changes.

“It is not only conservative right-wing people who have created many hindrances for progressive Muslim women, but also the left-wing intellectuals who do not dare to take the problems within the Muslim communities seriously. The gender revolution within Islam is highly necessary. I really believe that our film on Seyran Ates will trigger it,” says Nefise.

The author is a journalist and filmmaker based out of New Delhi. She hosts a weekly online show called The Sania Farooqui Show where Muslim women from around the world are invited to share their views. You can follow her on Twitter here.

 

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Huge crowds attend the funeral of influential Nigerian preacher TB Joshua in Lagos.

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait

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

It may be a challenge, but it is also an absolute necessity: bridging the gap between international law and reality and quickly crossing the bridge to reach all crisis-affected children and youth left furthest behind. Inclusive and equitable quality education is the right of every girl and boy and the objective of Sustainable Development Goal 4.

Yasmine Sherif

In fact, there are multiple challenges to overcome: in 2020, in countries of emergencies and protracted crisis – further hit by COVID-19 – the United Nations also registered more than 19,000 grave violations against children, according to the UN Secretary-General’s Report on Children in Armed Conflict, dated 22 May.

This crucial issue was further addressed in the subsequent UN Security Council open debate meeting on 28 June 2021. These grave violations include: the killing and maiming of children and youth; abduction of girls and boys; attacks against schools, their students and teachers; recruitment and use of children as soldiers; widespread sexual violence; and, the denial of access to schools for children and youth.

Despite this, on 5 July, another 150 students were reportedly abducted from a school in Kaduna State, Nigeria. Abductions, attacks against schools and schoolchildren appear to be increasing in frequency and they must end now. We join our strategic partners in calling for the safe, swift return of these girls and boys to their families.

This must be our wake-up call, spurring us to take strong collective action so that every child and youth can enjoy their inherent human right to quality education – without fear of airstrikes, abductions, sexual and gender-based violence and forced recruitment into armed and violent groups.

The numbers are staggering. Last year more than 8,400 children and youth were killed or maimed in ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Another 7,000 were recruited and used as fighters, mainly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Somalia and Syria. Abductions rose by 90 per cent last year, while rape and other forms of sexual violence shot up a staggering 70 per cent.

These numbers represent young people suffering multiple concurrent challenges: COVID-19, armed conflicts and lawlessness, a rise in severity of climate change-induced disasters, forced displacement and underlying issues of extreme poverty, hunger and inequality. Each one by itself is enough to push far too many girls and boys out of school, destroying their hope and stalling progress to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, the full spectrum of human rights, and the commitments of the Safe Schools Declaration.

In emergency and protracted crises contexts, no such challenge comes alone, but rather as combined factors creating a storm of extreme helplessness, unspeakable pain and a loss of hope in the future. The innocent children and youth are the first victims, quickly followed by their families, communities, societies, their countries and indeed the world.

As the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, Education Cannot Wait places physical and legal protection and the respect for international law at the center of its investments in delivering on SDG4 for those left furthest behind. In closing the gap and racing for the Sustainable Development Goals, we must bridge the gap between our commitments in international law and the Safe School Declaration. We need the world’s leaders to look afar and within: to take all measures possible – political, financial, legal, physical – to support a safe and inclusive quality education for all girls and boys enduring daily threats to their lives in emergencies and protracted crisis.

During the June Security Council sessions, nations across the globe stood up to call for expanded support for education in emergencies and protracted crisis. As the most powerful body in the United Nations system, the UN Security Council can and must uphold peace and security and, in so doing, create an environment in which 128 million children and youth in crisis can safely access their right to an inclusive and continued quality education.

As a UN/UNICEF hosted global fund, Education Cannot Wait invokes both fast-acting emergency responses and multi-year resilience programmes in some of the most crisis-affected countries on the globe, such as in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Lebanon and Nigeria. By embracing a new way of working and bridging the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, Education Cannot Wait puts education first – not second, third or fourth – and ensures that protective measures are embedded in all its investments.

Still, we also need the Security Council and all UN Member States and Regional Organizations to translate their political muscle into financial resources and put an end to breaches of international humanitarian law and human rights law. With such powerful support, Syrian girls living with disabilities like Kawthar will have a chance to go to school for the first time. Teenagers like Maraseel Alsaqaf can sit for exams in Yemen and dream one day of becoming doctors and engineers. Ten-year-old Sabah and her friends can return to school in Somalia.

As a global fund dedicated to education in emergencies and protracted crisis, and as a global movement for action, we jointly call on world leaders to make political choices based on legal imperatives and financial abundance. Indeed, our strategic partners: governments, public and private sector donors, UN agencies, civil society organizations, academia and the media stand together in our shared vision for those left furthest behind. Join ECW’s growing global movement to end grave violations and abuses against children and youth so they can benefit from their right to a safe learning environment and quality education. We call on public donors, the private sector and philanthropic foundations to urgently mobilize US$400 million for ECW.

In this month’s ECW Newsletter, we feature a compelling and inspiring interview with Jan Egeland, Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, who is one of our fearless, tireless and passionate stakeholders and global leaders working round the clock to pave the way toward achieving universal and equitable quality education by 2030 in some of the most conflict-ridden parts of the world.

For girls like Kawthar, Maraseel and Sabah, education cannot wait and safe schools cannot wait. With bold, courageous and swift political and financial action, we can reach girls like Kawthar, Maraseel and Sabah with same sense of urgency. By bridging the gap, we can help them, and 128 million crisis-affected children and youth cross the bridge.

 

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Excerpt:

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait

A woman, accompanied by a child, casts her vote during the general elections in Mozambique. Credit: UNDP/Rochan Kadariya

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Jul 9 2021 (IPS)

These days there hasn’t been certainly a shortage of reports portraying the decline of liberal democracy around the world.

With rising popularism and a divisive use of social media, we should not be surprised about a general malaise taking roots in most advanced liberal democracies.

From the Freedom in the World 2021 report published by the Freedom House to the Democracy Index 2020 released by the Economist Intelligence Unit to the IDEA’s Global State of Democracy Indices there is more and more evidence that liberal and representatives’ democracies are under duress.

Could the ongoing debate about a New Social Contract, a concept launched by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, help revive one of the essential elements of any democratic society, people’s interest and participation in the civic life?

If his recent re-election at the helm of the United Nations might have dissipated doubts that this new idea was just a fad, what are the chances for this debate surrounding the New Social Contract to become an opportunity to enhance public engagement at local levels without further dividing the gulf between classic liberal democracies on one side and other nations adopting less democratic, more authoritarian political systems?

Provocatively, could such debate instead help nearing such the gap?

To set aside any doubts, inevitably, the New Social Contract is not about enhancing democracy around the world.

This would clearly a utopian proposition for the Secretary General to embrace but rather an attempt to rethink and improve, regardless of the political system being adopted, the norms between citizens and the state.

Initially coined during the 18th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in 2020, Guterres made the case for a more just and inclusive society centered around the fights against inequalities and discriminations because, he said, “People want social and economic systems that work for everyone”.

Members of the Madheshi community of Biratnagar attend a political rally to demand autonomous federal regions and greater representation in parliament. Credit: UN Photo/Agnieszka Mikulska

“The New Social Contract, between Governments, people, civil society, business and more, must integrate employment, sustainable development and social protection, based on equal rights and opportunities for all”.

As vague as it is in terms of boundaries and ultimate goals, the New Social Contract can be seen as a framework that can, not only revitalize our societies but also build a fairer, cleaner and just economy able to overcome the multiple challenges created by the pandemic.

The Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals attached to it, offer the blueprint upon which such idea can be built locally.

Being still a working in progress, the New Social Contract can offer an impetus not only at re-designing the relationships between social partners, governments, unions and businesses but it can also be a source to generate more interest among the population about public life.

Making sense of it especially from the perspective of youth can be challenging but it is essential doing so because we cannot imagine a renewed citizenry without including youth whose vast majorities are uninterested and disenchanted from the public discourse.

A possible pathway to generate new passions for civic life among youth would start from helping them being more informed about what is happening at local and national levels, something that can evolve to higher forms of deep interests.

The last stage of this continuum would be supporting them into embracing forms of direct engagement.

Engagement is driven by a strong interest for the public life and the willingness to turn such desire to know more into contributions, actions on the grounds.

Last year, UNV came up with a new volunteering framework that fully captures the different features and characteristics of giving your time, energies and skills for the public good.

Indeed, volunteerism with its different forms and dimensions, is one of the best tools to involve people and youth in particular in the public life.

That’s why it is not surprising that the upcoming UNV’s State of the World’s Volunteerism Report, is going to explain how volunteerism can be a true enabler for determinant for the New Social Contract.

More opportunities for public engagement will also generate more trust, an essential trait of any healthy and cohesive society and it is here where the ongoing efforts to localize the SDGs can make the difference by bringing people together for the common good, for achieving the goals at grassroots levels.

Achieving the SDGs at this level is not about just actions, about mobilization of resources of human, in kinds or financial nature. It is also about deliberation and here, after this long detour, I am reconnecting with the issue of democracy.

The design of a New Social Contract as a conducive platform to achieve the SDGs locally by involving people on the ground, can be a tool to elevate the quality of democratic discourse, generating platforms for a new form of shared decision making or shared governance.

Interestingly, while political parties wherever they operate, might become a hindrance to such change because their role as gatekeeper of public participation would be eroded, this conceptualization of shared governance might become of interest to nations not adhering to representative, parties dominated liberal systems.

In the field of political science there is a dynamic movement of social scientists exploring the concept of deliberative democracy that would allow, through different means, including sortition, to have new forms of real, rather than token, forms of public involvement and participation in the decision making.

It’s true that so far, most of the attempts putting in practice deliberative democracy have been applied in the contexts with solid liberal democratic traditions.

A diverse range of “experiments” have been carried out with the most successful probably being the Ostbelgien Modell adapted by the Parliament of the German-speaking Community of Belgium where there is a permanent Citizens’ Council that enable an ecosystem of Citizen’s Assemblies.

Ireland in the past used successfully some aspects of deliberative democracy to involve the general public in discussing and debating key constitutional issues that also helped generating consensus on gay marriage gender equality.

This legacy continues with a Citizens’ Assembly that recently submitted a report, after prolonged consultations and deliberations, on the issue of gender equality.

Iceland has been using a hybrid form of public deliberation, though led by a small number of elected citizens but with ample opportunities for people to crowdsource the nation’s constitution.

Other forms, with vary degree of success and with different level of inclusivity and decision-making power, were tried in two provinces of Canada, British Columbia and Ontario.

Within the growing area of deliberative democracy studies, there is now a great interest on the so-called “deliberative micro public” where a limited number of citizens gather to decide on certain issues of common interest.

If you have seen The Best of Enemies, a movie portraying an exercise of public deliberation about segregated learning in the Jim Crow’s United States in the early seventies, you get the idea about what these might look like.

Many of these lessons learned might also be of interest to policy makers whose political systems have not embraced democracy.

With the discussions still going on how the New Social Contract should look like at local levels and with the agenda of SDGs localization being recognized as instrumental to achieve the Agenda 2030, we could have an opportunity to advance stronger forms of public participation in the decision making locally and everywhere.

This would strengthen the meaning of good governance around the world while also creating new space for deliberations in contexts that normally shut them.

Perhaps deliberative participation, a term that might be easier to sell globally, if properly carried out at local levels, could become a cornerstone of the New Social Contract, reinvigorating classic democracy where already exists while creating space for others political systems to evolve and be more inclusive.

The Author, is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not for profit 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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As the world's youngest nation turns 10, we explore some fascinating facts about its culture.

Food systems, from farm to fork to disposal, account for 21-37% of anthropogenic GHG emissions. Fresh produce at a supermarket. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 9 2021 (IPS)

Before the COVID-19 pandemic upended every sphere of life, the world was lagging on a goal to end hunger by 2030. According to the United Nations, more than 820 million people had already been categorised as food insecure, meaning they lacked access to reliable and sufficient amounts of affordable, healthy food.

The impact of measures to contain the virus, land degradation, climate change and the global extreme poverty rate rising for the first time in over 20 years, make the need for a transition to sustainable food systems more important than ever.

The United Nations Food Systems Summit hopes to bring together the science, finance and political commitment to transform global food systems. The goal is to introduce systems that are productive, environmentally sustainable, include the poor and promote healthy diets.

The Barilla Centre For Food and Nutrition (BCFN) Foundation, a longstanding investor in research, education and high-level events on sustainable food systems has been actively involved in activities in the lead-up to the summit.

IPS interviewed the think tank’s Head of Research Dr Marta Antonelli and dietician Katarzyna Dembska about climate change and diets, successful food systems and the Foundation’s own initiatives to improve education, science and skills for healthy, fair and sustainable food systems.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

========== 

Inter Press Service (IPS):     The UN states that half of all agricultural land is degraded and that with climate change-fuelled desertification and drought, combined with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, 34 million people at risk of famine. How can food systems be protected within this grim context?

Katarzyna Dembska (KD): According to the IPCC, land-use change, land-use intensification and climate change have contributed to desertification and land degradation. At the same time, many land-related responses that contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation can also combat desertification and land degradation, as well as enhance food security. Examples include sustainable food production, improved and sustainable forest management, soil organic carbon management, ecosystem conservation and land restoration, reduced deforestation and degradation, and reduced food loss and waste.

Integrated crop and livestock systems are an example of sustainable food production, that increases efficiency and environmental sustainability with a truly circular approach: for example, manure increases crop production and crop residues and by-products feed animals, improving their productivity. Rice-fish integrated systems, with a long history in many Asian countries, are another example of very integrated systems that also contribute to increased food security.

In addition, sustainable land management practices, implementing a zero-expansion policy which do not require land-use change, especially of new agricultural land into natural ecosystems and species-rich forests, has been identified by the Eat-Lancet commission as a key action to achieve the so-called Great Food Transformation.

IPS:     What should the public know about the linkage between diets and climate change?

Marta Antonelli (MA): Food systems, from farm to fork to disposal, account for 21-37 percent of anthropogenic GHG emissions. The adoption of plant-based healthy and sustainable diets is powerful leverage for climate change mitigation, as well as to promote health, longevity and wellbeing. The Double Health and Climate Pyramid, developed as a tool to inform daily food choices, shows that all foods can be part of a diet that is good for us and the planet, with proper frequency of consumption and serving sizes. Vegetables, fruits and whole grains should be eaten daily; legumes and fish are the preferred sources of protein. There is a huge potential that still needs to be unleashed by establishing compulsory food education in schools; including sustainability concerns, besides health-related, in national dietary guidelines; ensuring enabling food environments that make it easy for citizens to adopt healthy and sustainable diets.

IPS: The UN Food Systems Summit in September hopes to help change the way food is grown, processed, packaged and marketed. What are your hopes for the landmark summit?

MA: The UN Food System Summit (FSS) provides an unprecedented opportunity to energise the global journey towards healthy, safe, fair and sustainable food systems, also to deliver the SDGs by raising awareness of citizens and landing concrete commitments. Agreeing upon a common purpose for global food systems is a fundamental prerequisite of any process of transformation. Nations, cities, municipalities, and communities will be enabled to build their own context and culture-specific vision, inspired by this universal purpose. Last but not least, the UN FSS is a unique opportunity to represent the voices of the millions of women who work throughout the food system from farm to fork, contributing to provide global food security, and to put agroecology and regenerative agriculture to the top of the agenda.

IPS:  The Barilla Foundation has been at the forefront of food systems research. Earlier this year, you unveiled the food systems model that incorporates nutrition and climate. Can you tell me about the Foundation’s participation in the summit?

MA: The Barilla Foundation has been actively contributing to the journey towards the UNFSS through different activities throughout the year, including the release of a report on the EU Food Systems; the launch of the educational hub Seeds; and the release of the Double Health and Climate Pyramid with seven cultural versions. In September, a high-level event on the role of food businesses in food systems transformation will be organised in the framework of the initiative Fixing the Business of Food, with the UN SDSN, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investments and the Santa Chiara Lab of the University of Siena.

IPS: What are some of the successful systems currently being implemented?

MA: The Farm to Fork Strategy, set by the European Commission in May 2020, can be seen as an attempt to create a more integrated food strategy in the European Union (EU). It presents a comprehensive approach covering every step in the food supply chain, for the first time in Europe. It recognises the large contribution that food system transformation can give to achieve the decarbonisation target set forth by the European Green Deal, by setting concrete targets by 2030 that seek to address both environmental and public health concerns. The involvement of farmers, manufacturers, retailers and consumers will determine whether the process set forth by the Farm to Fork Strategy will act as a game-changer in the EU.

 

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South Africa's ex-president turned himself in on Wednesday after being sentenced for contempt.

Dr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim

By Ameenah Gurib-Fakim
PORT LOUIS, Mauritius, Jul 8 2021 (IPS)

June 2021 marked the launch of UN Decade on Ecosystem restoration. This effort aims at reversing the damage that us humans have caused and are still causing to Nature. It is clear that we have to reverse course and spare no effort into making this ‘Decade on Ecosystem Restoration’ a success. Preserving Nature and maintaining its services are critical for our survival on this planet and for our livelihoods.

Unfortunately, the World Bank is already forecasting that in Sub-Saharan Africa, the collapse of ecosystem services will result in contraction of GDP by 9.7% annually by 2030. This dovetails with the seminal work on of Prof. P. Dasgupta entitled ‘The Economics of Biodiversity” which reports that “Humanity now faces a choice: we can continue down a path where our demands on Nature far exceed its capacity to meet them on a sustainable basis; or we can take a different path, one where our engagements with Nature are not only sustainable but also enhance our collective wellbeing and that of our descendants”.

We could ask – How did we get there?

At the heart of the problem lies deep-rooted, widespread institutional failure. The solution starts with the understanding that and accepting a simple truth: our economies are embedded within Nature and not external to it. Yet, every single year, we lose ecosystem services worth more than 10 per cent of our global economic output. A third of the world’s farmland is degraded, about 87% of inland wetlands worldwide have disappeared since 1700, and a third of commercial fish species are overexploited and one million species are on the brink of extinction. Degradation is already affecting the well-being of an estimated 3.2 billion people – almost 40% of the world’s population.

Ecosystem restoration is needed on a large scale as it delivers on multiple benefits and helps us deliver on the sustainable development agenda. Restoration will no doubt curb the risk of mass species extinctions and future pandemics. Restoration of forest landscapes, farming, livestock and fish-producing ecosystems require special care and have to be brought to a healthy and stable state. Reviving ecosystems and other natural solutions could contribute over 1/3 of the total climate mitigation needed by 2030.

For this effort to be sustained on a global scale, institutions require sustained investments and there is growing evidence that it more than pays for itself. Policy makers and financial institutions are only slowly realizing the huge need and potential for green investment.

Agroforestry revival alone could increase food security for 1.3 billion people. Countries like Costa Rica has seen ecotourism grow to account for 6% of GDP by doubling its forest cover.

If by 2030, Mesoamerica and Indonesia could add 2.5BN $ to their economy simply by restoring coral reefs. A restored population of marine fish can deliver a maximum sustainable yield that could increase fisheries production by 16.5 million tonnes, an annual value of USD 32 billion.

Actions that prevent, halt and reverse degradation are needed if we are to keep global temperatures below 2°C. This implies better management of some 2.5 billion hectares of forest, crop and grazing land (through restoration and avoiding degradation) and restoration of natural cover over 230 million hectares.

Large-scale investments in dryland agriculture, mangrove protection and water management will make a vital contribution to building resilience to climate change, generating benefits around four times the original investment.

With careful planning, restoring 15% of converted lands while stopping further conversion of natural ecosystems could avoid 60% of expected species extinctions. Achieving successful ecosystem restoration at scale will require deep changes, including the adoption of inclusive wealth as a more accurate measure of economic progress. This will rest on the widespread introduction of natural capital accounting thus creating an enabling environment for private sector investment, including public-private partnerships.

Progress can be made by increasing the amount of finance for restoration, including the elimination of perverse subsidies that incentivize further degradation and fuel climate change, and also through initiatives that will raise awareness of the risks posed by ecosystem degradation.

Such bold transformations will happen when we start reforming agriculture; by changing how we build our cities; by decarbonizing our economies and by moving to circular economic models.

So far, none of the agreed global goals for the protection of life on Earth and for halting the degradation of land and oceans have been fully met. UNEP report of 2021 reports that only 6 of the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets have been partially achieved. Ecosystem restoration alone cannot solve the crises we face, but it is key to averting the worst of them.

We need to rethink and re-create a balanced relationship with nature, not only by conserving ecosystems that are still healthy, but also by urgently and sustainably restoring degraded ones.

For too long, we have been using the planet as a sink for our waste products, such as carbon dioxide, plastics and other forms of waste including pollution. Degradation is undermining our hard-won development gains and is threatening the well-being of today‘s youth and future generations, while making national commitments increasingly more difficult and costly to reach.

We need to change how we think, act and measure success as transformative change is possible – we and our descendants deserve nothing less.

Dr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim
6th President, Republic of Mauritius

 

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Jacob Zuma achieves political ignominy as the first former president of South Africa to be jailed.

A large part of the oil exploration areas in both Botswana and Namibia falls within the Okavango River Basin which flows into the Okavango Delta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Fracking is banned in some countries and has been blamed for serious water pollution, among others, and threats to the regional water supply are among environmentalists’ biggest concerns.Credit: Servaas van den Bosch/IPS

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Jul 8 2021 (IPS)

Wildlife and environmental campaigners have called for international action as concerns grow over a project to create a massive oilfield in one of Africa’s last wildernesses.

ReconAfrica, a Canadian oil and gas company, has licensed drilling areas in over 34,000sq km of land in parts of northern Namibia and Botswana that overlap with Africa’s Kavango-Zambezi Trans-frontier Conservation Area (KAZA), which includes land in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

A large part of the exploration areas in both Botswana and Namibia falls within the Okavango River Basin which flows into the Okavango Delta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site which supports the world’s largest remaining population of endangered savanna elephants, as well as dozens of other endangered or vulnerable species such as rhinos, wild dogs, and pangolins. It is also home to 200,000 people.

Campaigners fear the project could do untold damage to the delta’s ecosystem, threatening already endangered wildlife, the environment, and the livelihoods of the hundreds of thousands of people who live on the land.

But as international media attention on the project has also grown, some foreign politicians are raising concerns too.

Last month US Senator Patrick Leahy and Congressman Jeff Fortenberry urged senior officials to launch a government investigation of the project under the Defending Economic Livelihoods and Threatened Animals (DELTA) Act, which is designed to protect areas like the Okavango Delta.

And groups working to raise awareness of the project and its potential effects say international co-operation is needed and pressure from outside Africa must be brought to bear to stop the project going ahead for the good of not just the Delta, but the entire globe.

Ina-Maria Shikongo, an activist from Fridays for Future – Windhoek, which has led a public campaign against the project, told IPS: “We have no choice but to get this stopped. Local and international co-operation is needed because this does not affect just us here, but everyone, everywhere.

“ReconAfrica says there is the potential to extract 120 billion barrels of oil from this field. Can you imagine what all the build-up of toxins, from that, the emissions, everything, is going to do to already rising global temperatures?

“Even though we in the global south are feeling the effects of projects like these most, the global north is feeling them now too, with heatwaves. Everything is connected, all over the world. There is only one global carbon budget, and this project will use up a lot of it.”

ReconAfrica began drilling test wells in Namibia at the end of last year and if the tests are successful, hundreds of wells are expected to be drilled in the area.

The company’s own reports have suggested that the oilfield could potentially generate up to 120 billion barrels of oil, making it one of the largest oil finds for decades.

Although the licences were granted in 2015, criticism of the project has  grown sharply over the last 18 months as details of it have emerged, especially suggestions in company promotions to investors that fracking, which involves blasting liquid at high pressure into subterranean rocks to extract oil and gas, could be used.

Fracking is banned in some countries and has been blamed for serious water pollution, among others, and threats to the regional water supply are among environmentalists’ biggest concerns.

Shikongo explained: “The big problem is our water. We have a very fragile ecosystem, we rely on the water that is underground. If that water gets poisoned, what is going to happen?

“Wildlife, local people, they all rely completely on our water, and if it is poisoned then you could destroy the local food system.”

Rosemary Alles, co-founder of the Global March for Elephants and Rhinos conservation campaign group, told IPS: “ReconAfrica has continued to deny that fracking is in the works; however, there is no inevitability that the company will not frack, despite its rhetoric du jour. The concern is legitimate. If fracking takes place, the immediate potential impacts in the context of waterways and air pollution will be devastating.”

Meanwhile, there are serious concerns about the impact operations could have on local wild animals, especially some of the 130,000 elephants which the Okavango Delta supports.

Conservationists point out that vibrations used in the exploratory work for the field, including in seismic surveys, can disturb elephants, while the inevitable rise in construction, road-building, and accompanying traffic in the area could push the animals away from established migratory routes and closer to villages and agricultural areas, creating easier access to hitherto inaccessible elephant habitat for poaching and a potential exacerbation of already growing human-elephant conflict.

One expert at a conservation group in the area, who asked not to be named, told IPS: “If this company is allowed to start drilling for oil in the Delta it will be a major environmental crime with inevitably devastating impacts on the natural world. In terms of what it will mean for elephants: until we know the scale of the operation it’s hard to estimate exactly, but history shows that oil extraction always means environmental disaster and this is right in the middle of the last wilderness in the elephants’ last stronghold: the KAZA.”

The project will also impact local communities and farmers, and there are concerns that these groups have not been engaged properly in consultations over the project.

UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has pointed out that there are hundreds of working farms within ReconAfrica’s drilling area. But in a recent press release, the group said that it was “far from transparent how, or indeed if, these communities are being consulted”.

It pointed out that the public consultations on the oilfield project have been either online or in person, and the vast majority of those living in ReconAfrica’s license area have limited or no access to the internet and the COVID-19 pandemic has severely restricted travel and public meetings. The meetings are also regularly conducted in English, which is not the first language for many locals.

“It is unclear whether their voices are being heard,” EIA said.

ReconAfrica has sought to allay all these fears. It has said it has currently been granted licences for exploratory work which do not allow fracking, and its officials have repeatedly said they are only interested in conventional extraction.

It has also issued official statements saying it believes the regional energy industry can be “developed in an environmentally and socially responsible manner that is accountable and supports the development and delivery of much-needed economic and social benefits….” and has pledged to take measures to address potential issues with noise and vibration affecting local wildlife when doing work.

Critics have questioned the validity and integrity of the Environmental Impact Assessments conducted for the project, but the company has rejected this criticism and any suggestions it is not meeting full legal requirements for the project.

In official statements it has stressed that it is “committed to continuing to work closely with, and under the direct oversight of, the governments in both countries, as well as their regional and traditional authorities, to ensure we continue to comply with relevant laws and regulations throughout all the stages of our operation”.

And it has claimed that its public consultations have been well-attended and welcomed by locals – although this is strongly disputed by many who went to them.

ReconAfrica has also highlighted the local economic benefits of the project, saying it will bring jobs and growth to the region – something government officials have also stressed.

Tom Alweendo, Namibia’s Minister of Mines and Energy, said in an interview with international media earlier this year: “Any volume of oil that is commercially viable will mean a lot to our economy. Not only in terms of employment, but income that would come into the treasury.”

However, environmentalists have questioned both the scale of the claimed local economic benefits and the thinking behind such a project given that only weeks ago the International Energy Agency said no new oil and gas fields must be exploited from this year on to ensure global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were brought down to net zero by 2050 and keep global heating within safe limits.

Shikongo, whose Fridays For Future – Windhoek has dubbed the oilfield a “carbon gigabomb”, said: “This project will only generate an income for a very few, but it will take away the livelihoods of millions of people. The oil needs to be kept in the ground.”

She re-iterated calls for global co-operation to stop this, and similar projects, and said there needs to be a move away from the “neo-colonialism” behind such projects.

“We need to stamp out this neo-colonialist system – Africa cannot continue to be treated simply as a resource for the global north. The global south and global north need to work together on this, because it affects us all. We’re all humans,” she said.

Allen added: “All western governments must apply pressure, particularly the USA and Canada. The DELTA Act could prove to be a means to an end. The possibility of bailing out the Namibian government must be on the front burner – it must be a point of conversation.”

 

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With all the major indicators for Afghanistan’s security and development looking “negative or stagnant” as international troops withdraw, the threats that lie ahead cannot be overstated, Deborah Lyons, Special Representative and Head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) told the Security Council last month. Credit: UNAMA/Freshta Dunia / Kabul, Afghanistan.

By Saber Azam
GENEVA, Jul 8 2021 (IPS)

The Biden administration made a decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan based on the Trump-Taliban agreement. Their last combat soldier may have already left. There is nothing to argue about!

The US had to end its longest war, despite public fear at the highest military echelons of the country that “it would take possibly two years for [the terrorists] to develop [their] capability” and hit back wherever they want.

Simultaneously, NATO member states and their allies have also begun to depart, leaving the population of this war-torn country to face a dramatically uncertain future. It is believed that the withdrawal from Afghanistan is part of the US’s new strategy to reshape its presence in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

They would continue defending their interests but in a different manner. Let us hope that such a move is not a prelude to a more challenging “new great game” with Afghanistan bearing the brunt of it again.

The political and strategic outcome of nearly twenty years of US and NATO military presence in Afghanistan is debatable with contradictory conclusions. However, its financial cost, human loss, and psycho-social effects are terrifying facts.

President Biden and his close advisors have certainly acted in the best interest of the US. The real losers are Afghans. Despite trillions of US dollars poured into their country and extraordinary international support, their leaders could not distance themselves from the old demons.

Soon after they took possession of the country in December 2001, the practice of ethnic and religious discrimination, nepotism, corruption, and inefficiency gangrened the fragile foundation of the regime in Kabul that was essentially a power-sharing system among political traders.

Women carry bundles through a neighbourhood of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Credit: World Bank/Ghullam Abbas Farzami

The rest is a known story! A country ruined with its peoples desperate for peace, security, and livelihood, a forceful come back of the Taliban and their terrorist associates, a questionable outcome of the Karzai and Ghani regimes, a possible new and more ferocious civil war, and a dramatically unstable Southwest and Central Asia region, to name a few significant challenges.

The Taliban have already intensified their brutal attacks on the people and government forces. Their strategy this time around is to occupy the northern provinces of the country first, cut the Central Asian supply routes, and asphyxiate the regime as soon as the last foreign soldier leaves Afghanistan.

Would the terrorist organization succeed? What does the current situation imply for Afghanistan, the Southwest and Central Asia region, and the rest of the world? Of course, no one has a crystal ball, and all prophecies have parenthetically proven unfounded about Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the following assumptions would have reasonable bases.

In Afghanistan, it is clear that the Taliban aim at snatching power by the force of their guns and brutality. Ethnic and religious cleansing would soon follow. The efforts of the terrorist organization to “conquer” the country may temporarily be challenged by the defiance of the Afghan army and the emergence of a new popular resistance movement.

Timid efforts to push for a transitional government with the inclusion of the Taliban and the establishment of another futile power-sharing scheme seem already a dead endeavor, though both Mr. Karzai and Dr. Abudullah dream of leading it.

To safeguard their interests, major regional powers could pressure the beneficiaries of their direct or indirect support in Afghanistan to agree on a “national framework for governance.” This formula would reach its target initially. However, its longevity is not guaranteed.

A chaotic situation could rapidly follow, plunging the country into ethnic and religious rivalries. Some of or all the powers mentioned above may tacitly opt to effectively control parts and parcels of the country by proxy without infringing each other’s “red lines.”

Afghanistan would be divided into pieces. The economic and social survival of the populations in such a scenario would not be sustainable, leading to the collapse of the entire country.

Would another superpower step in to fill the gaps left by the US and NATO! The Russian Federation may have no desire to do so because of the not-so-distant communist and Soviet failure that led to the current state of affairs.

On the contrary, they would probably intervene, should there be any serious threat to Central Asia by the Taliban or their associates. The People’s Republic of China has always pursued a policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries.

However, they would not welcome the Taliban and other terrorist organizations to inspire the Uighur Turkistan Islamic Party, also known as the East Turkistan Islamic Movement. An alliance between the Russian Federation and China cannot be excluded to counter terrorist intrusion and advance.

India may willingly join any coalition that will effectively fight terrorism and extremism. Such a scenario would prolong the “new great game” and the agony of the Afghan populations.

Therefore, the possibility of a new dramatic civil war in Afghanistan with uncalculated consequences is real, leading to severe violations of human dignity and rights, bloodshed, and the destruction of public and private properties. In particular, women, children, human rights activists, and journalists will pay a high cost.

The Southwest and Central Asia region would face a fragile and tenuous condition, affecting several countries’ peace, stability, development, and economic prosperity. The chaotic situation in Afghanistan can easily migrate to Pakistan.

This country has been playing with fire for several decades by hosting and supporting the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist entities. Despite its nuclear status, Pakistan has numerous internal problems that have been curtained due to the Afghan dilemma.

The Kashmir, Baloch, and Pashtun issues would undoubtedly add to the sharp rise of homegrown extremism in this country, jeopardizing its safety and security.

In case of their success, the Taliban and their associates would endeavor to strengthen Central Asian Islamic extremist groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Islamic Jihad Union, Tajikistani Ozod, and Hizbo Tahrir in their effort to carry their “jihadist” perception of Islam further to the north, even affecting the west Chines province of Xinjiang.

The Taliban could turn against the Islamic Republic of Iran too. Saudi Arabia and Iranian-backed militia have been fighting each other in Syria and Yemen in particular. Having bitter memories of their defeats, the Salafists could incite the “religious students” to hit within Iran, endangering the well-being prospects of the whole region.

The claims of independence by some populations that feel suppressed or territorial claims by some states could also be fomented, using religious doctrines, resulting in a dramatically unstable Southwest and Central Asia region.

The rest of the world would greatly suffer from the undeniable political and military successes of a terrorist organization such as the Taliban. In general, other similar groups would conclude that violence and terror would be rewarded, even if they faced superpowers.

This will indeed be a dangerous mindset. Terrorist organizations in Asia and Africa, in particular, could be inspired by the “success” of the Taliban and intensify their brutalities. Furthermore, the destabilization of Southwest and Central Asia implies an explosion of the Middle East.

It would automatically lead to severe clashes between or among those who claim leadership of the region. The oil production and supply chain could be the prime target of adversary powers, affecting mainly Europe.

Despite its devastating effects for Southwest and Central Asian populations, engaging in a “new great game” and making Afghanistan a battleground of proxy wars for the third time would not favor anyone, above all the Western giants.

There seems to be a better understanding between the People’s Republic of China and India, who fear the significant rise and success of terrorism, on the one hand, and the Russian Federation, who has successful experience in fighting extremism on the other. This could instead lead to a “new global alliance” detrimental to Western interests around the world.

Expert views diverge on what could be in the best interest of the Afghan people, the region, and the rest of the world. There is no doubt that peace, stability, and serenity in Southwest and Central Asia will provide remarkable opportunities for reliable and equitable trade, cultural exchange, and mutual understanding among the peoples of the East and the West!

The miracle of the old days’ Silk Road was rooted in the peaceful status of the nations it crossed. From Shanghai and Beijing in China and Bengal in India to Venice in Italy, passing through the grueling land of current Afghanistan, the whole of Central Asia, Iran, and Turkey, the caravans journeyed without hurdle.

It resulted in an extraordinary commercial, economic, and financial boom in Europe. Its revival will only provide new enrichment and development opportunities for all. Afghanistan is the key to such revitalization, notwithstanding that with peace and stability in this country, an essential element of fear in the Middle East would also disappear.

This being said, the Taliban would most probably take charge of Afghanistan in the months to come and establish an Islamic Emirate. However, their regime would not survive for more than a few years.

The solution to the Afghan crisis has national challenges, regional impediments, and international hurdles [https://www.ipsnews.net/2021/03/achieve-peace-afghanistan/]. They must all be addressed at once and through a unique peace process.

Unless the fundamental challenges that divide the Afghan peoples for decades, even centuries, are not addressed adequately by the Afghans themselves, the tragedies would continue on their soil. Authoritarian systems, power-sharing attempts, and any form of wheeling and dealing have not and will never succeed. The Afghan people have been determined to live harmoniously in a peaceful and stable country.

However, Afghanistan’s leadership since long proved to be incompetent. Ethnic and religious bias, corruption, nepotism, hoodlum behavior, and lawlessness of those in power marred the efforts to attain democracy, progress, and respectability. There is no way they would prove different now.

A significant impediment to peace is that actors who were (or still are) vitally involved in the making and shaking of political, military, and economic developments of Afghanistan in the last four decades seem incarcerated in a firm position that their past actions were faultless, ignoring that the nobility of leaders is determined by their humility to recognize own mistakes.

Afghanistan desperately needs a young and incorruptible multi-ethnic team of leaders. They must establish a symbiosis with the populations, create the foundations of a democratic society suitable to all components of the country, address national challenges, agree with regional powers on impediments that create discord in Southwest and Central Asia, and secure the International Community’s support in responding to global hurdles.

For this to happen, youth in Afghanistan need to come together now to save their country in the foreseeable future.

A gain in Afghanistan is a reward for all. To strengthen peace and security in the world, it is vital to support without reserve the emergence of future young leaders from within Afghanistan so that they could take charge of the country upon the demise of the Taliban regime within a few years, something that the International Community and policymakers have systematically failed to do, so far!

* Saber Azam is a former United Nations official, writer, and regular contributor to the IPS. He has so far authored SORAYA: The Other princess, a historical fiction that overflies the recent seven decades of Afghan history through the work of a remarkable woman, and Hell’s Mouth, also historical fiction, summarizing the extraordinary work of humanitarian workers during the First Liberian Civil War.

 

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