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Indigenous people form a human chain in Tangail district, Bangladesh as they demand legal rights to their ancestral forest land. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

By Rafiqul Islam
TANGAIL, Bangladesh, Jul 7 2021 (IPS)

When the Bangladesh Forest Department felled Basanti Rema’s banana orchard, Rema, a Garo indigenous forest-dweller of Madhupur Forest, felt she was living a nightmare.

Rema, from Pegmari village in Madhupur, Tangail district, had cultivated the banana plants on half an acre in the Madhupur Forest. But the Forest Department claimed that the land on which the bananas were cultivated belonged to the department. 

Rema’s story is not an unusual one as in the past the Garo and other indigenous minorities have been evicted from their ancestral land because of a lack of land rights.

“Land dispute is the main problem as the government declared 9,145 acres of land of Madhupur Forest as ‘absolute reserved forest’, putting our living in our ancestral land at risk,” Jonajetra, a member of the Garo community living inside the forest, told IPS.

He said the Forest Department often filed false cases against the indigenous people for allegedly felling trees. Even children as young as seven and eight years old were being sued.

In a gazette notification from Feb.15, 2016, the Ministry of Environment and Forests declared the land of Madhupur Forest as a forest reserve under Section 20 of the Forest Act-1927.

“The Garo people have been facing various problems in the forest. The Forest Department frequently files false cases against us,” Eugin Nokrek, president of Joyenshahi Adivasi Unnayan Parishad, an indigenous peoples’ organisation, told IPS.

“If we want to build a new house and dismantle our old one, the department obstructs our works. If we want to plant banana or pineapple orchards on our fallow land, we get objections from the Forest Department,” Nokrek said.

Fear of eviction

Despite living in the Madhupur Forest for generations, the indigenous Garo and other minorities have no right to the forest land. And drives by the Forest Department to recover land that has been lost to agriculture and land grabbing, has instilled a fear among indigenous community of losing their ancestral land.  

“We are on the verge of eviction from our ancestral land as the government has declared the Madhupur Forest as an ‘absolute reserved one’. We can be evicted from the forest anytime,” said Nokrek, who is also a member of the indigenous Garo minority.

Decades ago, Madhupur Garh, in Tangail district, used to have 122,876 acres of traditional shal forest. It was broken down as follows:

• 45,565 acres in Madhupur,
• 47,220 acres in Sakhipur,
• 21,855 acres in Ghatail,
• 7,576 acres in Mirzapur and,
• 669 acres in Kalihati upazila.

Of these, 55,476 acres were reserved forests.

According to officials at the Tangail Forest Department, about 80,000 acres of the forest have already disappeared because of indiscriminate tree felling and forest grabbing. The process of land grabbing continues, officials said.

Tangail Divisional Forest Officer Dr. Mohammad Jahirul Haque said the department would continue its drives to recover forest land from grabbers. However, he assured IPS that there was no plan to evict the indigenous people from the forest and they would remain on their ancestral land.

According to Sanjeeb Drong, General Secretary of the Bangladesh Indigenous Peoples’ Forum, legally the Madhupur Forest is under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department but the indigenous people claim it as their ancestral land and had evidence to this effect. 

Drong said the Madhupur Forest was home to the Garo, Barman and Koch ethnic minorities and they had been living there for generations.

Keeping a promise

While the country’s current government is considered friendly to the rights of the indigenous population — the 2008 election manifesto of ruling Awami League announced that once elected it would form an independent commission to resolve the land disputes of indigenous minorities — a fear of the actions of past governments still haunt the indigenous community here.

Nokrek said many indigenous families were evicted from the Madhupur Forest during the 2007 to 2008 period when a caretaker government was in office. Nokrek was concerned if there was a change in power, a new, controversial government could evict them.       

“We are the forest dwellers and we demand legal rights to our land where we have been living for generations. We want legal recognition of our ancestral land so that nobody can evict us,” Nokrek said.

“If we have legal recognition, we will get compensation once the government want to acquire our ancestral land for greater interest,” he added.

Land owners are compensated when their land is acquired for government projects. But, the Garo and other indigenous minorities cannot receive compensation as they have no legal proof of ownership of the land.

“The long-dispute over the land right of ethnic minorities is yet to be resolved… the government has not formed the commission yet. The policymakers should take decisions on how to give the ethnic people’s rights to their ancestral land,” Drong said.

In 1956, the then Pakistan government declared the forest a national park and evicted indigenous people to acquire the forest land. And, upon Bangladesh’s independence in 1971, the Madhupur Forest was declared a national forest or reserved forest.  

“Although Garo people had long been living in the forest, the land lords did not give land rights to them after the East Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Act was passed in 1950. That is why they lost their rights to their ancestral land,” Drong told IPS.

Shrinking Shal Forest thanks to Land Grabs

“The majority portion of the Madhupur Forest has already been grabbed by influential people and local encroachers,” Drong pointed out.

Nokrek said the Forest Department was planting Acacia saplings, instead of traditional shal trees, under the social afforestation programme. “If any such project is implemented, the Forest Department, politicians and influential people find business there,” he said.

Noting that due to the pressure of an increasing population, the forest area was dwindling day by day, the indigenous leader said in recent years, factories and industries were established on forest land through the falsification of documents.

Divisional Forest Officer Haque said there was a total of 122,000 acres of traditional shal forest in Madhupur Garh, of which a vast area was occupied by local grabbers and influential people.

The Forest Department has so far recovered about 19,000 acres of grabbed forest land, he said.

As the forest is shrinking fast in Madhupur Garh, the forest official said, the government has taken a bigger initiative to restore the traditional shal forest and the fallow forest land will be brought under green coverage with the planting of new shal saplings.  

 

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According to UNICEF, Pakistan is facing a serious challenge to ensure all children, attend, stay and learn in school, particularly the most disadvantaged. While enrollment and retention rates are improving, progress has been slow to improve education indicators. Credit: UNICEF/Pakistan/ Asad Zaidi

By Mehnaz Akber Aziz and Julius O. Ihonvbere
ISLAMABAD / LAGOS, Jul 7 2021 (IPS)

Never before have so many children been out of school. 1.6 billion children and young people – more than 90% of students worldwide – have been impacted by school closures during the pandemic. Hundreds of millions of those children have gone without any learning at all, deprived of all the benefits that being in school provides.

In our countries, Pakistan and Nigeria, the situation is even worse.

Both countries have the world’s highest out-of-school populations, taken together our countries account for almost a third of the 258 million children who are entirely excluded from education, despite only making up 5% of the global population.

Pakistan is set to lose a larger share of students from the school system than any other country, with close to a million children expected to drop out, according to the World Bank.

In Nigeria, the worsening and widespread insecurity across the country, and particularly in the northern region, is leading to further school closures and population displacement.

Girls are disproportionately affected by these crises, through entering child labour, as well as teenage marriage and pregnancies, compounding all our fears about the increased risk of sexual violence and exploitation when girls are out of school.

In school but not learning

What’s more, millions of children across the world are in school but not learning.

The World Bank’s ‘Learning Poverty’ indicator – which calculates the number of children aged 10 who cannot read an age-appropriate sentence – found that more than half of children in low- and middle-income countries were in learning poverty prior to COVID, and that the pandemic has pushed this figure up to 63%.

In Pakistan, where 75% of children of late primary age were already in learning poverty prior to COVID, we are deeply concerned for their futures as the pandemic continues its destructive path.

The furthest behind face even graver challenges

The pandemic has also further exposed existing inequalities that prevent children from accessing education and further alienate those in school.

Lessons from past crises have shown us that these inequalities, including social and digital divides, mean those furthest behind and most vulnerable, including those facing marginalisation due to gender, poverty and disability, are at greatest risk of never returning to school.

Children in Nigeria are traumatized by abduction and need support, the UN says. Credit: World Bank/Arne Hoel

In Nigeria, insecurity combined with the economic impact of COVID-19 has pushed 7 million Nigerians into poverty, which has a catastrophic impact on education.

Without sufficient household income, and with the additional risk of attacks on schools exacerbated by the internal insecurity, many Nigerian children are no longer able to remain in school and instead roam the streets, often engaging in petty crimes.

We must ensure that as the world recovers from COVID-19 and seeks to address this rapidly growing education crisis, that those most marginalised remain our priority.

Investment is the key to ending the crisis

Many explanations exist as to why we are in this crisis. Ultimately, however, world leaders have made promises but failed to implement them.

In 2015, the world promised to deliver quality education for all the world’s children. To help deliver that promise, countries made commitments to spend at least 4-6% of GDP and/or 15-20% of total budgets on education.

Yet, six years later and one in four countries do not meet either of the benchmarks on national financing for education.

The financial implications of COVID have put national budgets under unprecedented pressure. Two-thirds of low- and lower-middle income countries have cut their public education budgets since the onset of the pandemic.

In Nigeria, the federal budget for education is the lowest in a decade at just 6.3% of the national budget, and in Pakistan, the 2021-22 budget allocates just 1.5% of GDP to education, continuing deeply concerning trends in both countries.

Rather than cutting budgets, we should be investing in education: funding re-enrolment to get all children back into school along with remediation programmes to address learning loss.

A once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform education

World leaders will convene the Global Education Summit in London on Wednesday 28th and Thursday 29th July to raise at least US$5 billion from donor governments and leverage billions more in domestic financing commitments.

Donor governments stepping up to fully-fund GPE remains critical, but the Summit could also provide a turning point for progress on national financing of education.

A call to action on domestic financing for education

President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, who is co-hosting the Summit alongside UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has invited Heads of Government in all GPE partner countries to endorse a Call to Action on Education Financing.

The statement commits governments to maintain spending on education above 20% of national expenditure or to progressively increase spending towards this benchmark over the next five years.

It recognises that by improving the volume, equity and efficiency of domestic resources going to education we can deliver on the promise of education we made to the world’s children and fast-track progress towards achieving all development goals.

Ministers of Education are being invited to make commitments to improve the equity and efficiency of public financing for education. To make best use of both domestic resources and donor support for education, we encourage all governments to undertake strategic and holistic reforms to ensure that education financing is utilised most effectively and equitably.

President Kenyatta also calls for concerted action on debt relief and greater flexibility from the international banks in supporting countries’ liquidity. Without debt relief, our countries will be unable to allocate the necessary funding to public services, including education.

In 2020, the federal government of Nigeria spent the equivalent of 83% of revenue to service debt, money that could and should be spent instead on reducing the number of children out of school and providing them with a quality education.

Parliamentary leadership for education, COVID-19 and beyond

As Regional Representatives for the International Parliamentary Network for Education (IPNEd), we are proud to be leading a global charge to call on world leaders to protect, prioritise and increase financing for education.

The past year has shown even more starkly the realities facing children living in Lagos and Lahore for whom returning to school remains a pipe dream. Financing education provides the route to unlock their future and millions more.

The cost of inaction is catastrophic, the benefits will be immense.

Mehnaz Akber Aziz, MNA – PMLN is a Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan where she was first elected in 2018. She is Chair of the SDGs Committee on Child Rights and is also the International Parliamentary Network for Education’s Regional Representative for Asia. She completed a Masters in Anthropology at the Quaid-i-Azam University and a Masters in Gender and Development Studies at the University of Sussex.

Prof. Julius O. Ihonvbere, is an elected member in Nigeria’s National Assembly representing Owan Federal Constituency in the Federal House of Representatives where he is also Chairman, House Committee on Basic Education and Services. He is also the International Parliamentary Network for Education’s Regional Representative for Africa. Prior to being elected, he served as Secretary to the Government of Edo State and Chairman of the State’s Strategic Planning Team. He was previously Special Advisor to the Nigerian President on Program and Policy Monitoring.

 

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Menstrual health and hygiene management (MHHM) must be integrated into the response to emergencies. | Picture courtesy: WaterAid India/Altaf Ahmed

By External Source
Jul 6 2021 (IPS)

Over the last few years, the world has witnessed accelerated action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 5 on gender equality and women’s empowerment. This has also led to significant interest in menstrual health and hygiene management (MHHM) as a critical factor in girls’ education and women’s participation in many spheres of life. 

In India, this has led to the introduction of evidence-based guidelines and schemes to enable access to menstrual hygiene products. In 2015, the erstwhile Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (currently, the Ministry of Jal Shakti) launched national guidelines for menstrual hygiene management for school-going adolescent girls.

This led to the introduction of state-level operational guidelines in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, and Jharkhand. Odisha and Rajasthan introduced schemes to improve access to menstrual products for adolescent girls from poor and marginalised groups. India has also witnessed innovations that expand menstrual hygiene product choice and deliver sustainable menstrual waste management solutions.

In many disaster settings, temporary or mobile toilets and bathing facilities are established. However, menstrual waste disposal remains a challenge. Some simple, temporary solutions include providing containers with lids in or near toilet stalls to collect menstrual waste and digging disposal pits near women’s toilet facilities

While the progress is encouraging, an area that continues to stymie the work on MHHM is the emergency context. Today, a number of states are confronted with the challenge of addressing menstrual health needs amidst dual disasters: cyclones and/or floods and the continuing COVID-19 pandemic that has been devastating in its scale and impact.

Like other emergencies, COVID-19 has had a differential impact, exacting a heavier toll on women, girls, and sexual and gender minorities. Menstrual health and hygiene is an area that most strongly unmasks this.

‘Periods do not stop for emergencies’ has been a common refrain, especially during the first wave of COVID-19, with organisations and the media highlighting how access to essential sanitary pads was abruptly curtailed due to the lockdown and restrictions on transport and mobility.

Some of these challenges have been addressed this year with essential supplies continuing uninterrupted. Yet, for many women and girls, continued access to safe menstrual products, safe and hygienic sanitation facilities, and information on MHHM remains a challenge.

With the closure of schools—which many girls depend on for access to menstrual hygiene products—girls’ ability to manage MHHM with safety and dignity is at risk. Many poor families facing severe economic stress are having to choose between spending on food and other essentials such as rent and buying sanitary pads.

The challenges are not only about access to menstrual hygiene products. Women and girls from low-income households have also been facing difficulties in managing menstruation in the changed circumstances where family members are present at home for most of the day in small, confined spaces. For women and girls living with a disability, who may not have access to caregivers in these circumstances, managing menstruation has been even more trying.

MHHM must therefore be integrated, as a priority, in the response to emergencies to ensure women and girls’ privacy and dignity. Living with dignity, even during disasters, is a fundamental human right. In 2020, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and WaterAid, in consultation with experts and practitioners in the field of MHHM and disaster response across the country, developed a framework for action on MHHM during emergencies in India.

The framework calls for the integration of MHHM across the continuum of emergency response—disaster preparedness, disaster response, and recovery. It also highlights the need to integrate MHHM into sexual and reproductive health services, and protection services where they exist.

A comprehensive approach to MHHM in emergencies includes:

 

1. Providing essential menstrual products 

Product distribution is the mainstay of relief efforts. This may be accomplished through the provision of hygiene kits with sanitary pads and essential items such as underwear, soap, towel, paper to discard used pads, and usage information; the establishment of pad banks or pad ATMs in relief centres; or cash transfers to facilitate the purchase of menstrual products.

Some interventions have considered reusable cloth pads or cotton cloths to meet the needs of cloth users. In supporting product distribution for relief, efforts must keep in mind the product usage patterns and preferences in a community, the need for support materials such as underwear along with sanitary pads, and whether products will be needed once or on a recurring basis.

For instance, adolescent girls often prefer disposable sanitary pads, while older women may prefer cloth during menses. Cloth users may find sanitary pad use challenging, especially if they are unfamiliar with the product and do not typically use underwear. In some emergency contexts such as floods and cyclones, girls and women may struggle to use cloth pads hygienically due to water shortage, lack of privacy, and climate conditions.

 

2. Disseminating information 

Relief efforts by civil society organisations have indicated that product distribution, accompanied by information dissemination about MHHM is most effective in meeting the needs of women and girls during disasters. Girls and women need to know how to use, maintain, and discard products safely with limited resources. Older women may be unfamiliar with sanitary pads and girls may use a product for a longer duration given limited supplies.

Challenges related to MHHM during emergencies may be further intensified by discriminatory norms and taboos that impose restrictions on women and girls. In many communities, girls and women are considered to be impure during menstruation.

They may be segregated from other family members for a few days, may not be allowed to present themselves in front of male members, or may face restrictions around leaving the home and interacting with people outside the home. Norms and practices related to discreet use and disposal of menstrual absorbents also exist.

They act as a barrier when girls and women access menstrual products in constrained circumstances and may place additional psycho-social stress on them during crises. The stigma and taboos related to menstruation have also prevented an integrated public health response to MHHM for many years in both development and emergency settings. Dissemination of accurate and scientific information is an important tool to tackle the discriminatory norms and stigma associated with menstruation.

 

3. Providing safe sanitation and waste disposal solutions

Gender-sensitive sanitation is another essential aspect of MHHM in emergencies. In many disaster settings, temporary or mobile toilets and bathing facilities are established. However, menstrual waste disposal remains a challenge. Some simple, temporary solutions include providing containers with lids in or near toilet stalls to collect menstrual waste and digging disposal pits near women’s toilet facilities.

These should be marked for menstrual waste to aid appropriate disposal. Long-term relief settings or established relief centres can institute other solutions such as quality incinerators and disposal chutes attached to a deep burial pit or burning chambers. Central to disposal is the need for discrete, usable, and culturally relevant solutions. For instance, it may not be appropriate to introduce incinerator solutions to communities that have strong beliefs around the burning of menstrual waste.

Efforts for MHHM product distribution, information dissemination, and ensuring hygienic sanitation during emergencies can only succeed when frontline responders are sensitised and trained to understand and address the needs of girls and women. This is particularly relevant in light of the culture of silence around women’s sexual and reproductive health, including MHHM needs. Incorporating brief sessions on the needs of girls and women, including MHHM needs, in capacity building initiatives for those involved in disaster response can help make the issue mainstream and strengthen the effort to integrate MHHM into emergency responses.

There is a lot to be learned about integrating MHHM into the emergency response from states such as Kerala, Assam, and Bihar that face natural disasters frequently. These states have demonstrated how the integration of MHHM in disaster preparedness can be done in simple ways: routine MHHM interventions delivered in schools and in communities can impart basic information on menstrual health and hygiene and equip girls and women to manage their menses safely during disasters.

Girls can be given information on making their own emergency hygiene kit with sufficient menstrual materials, underclothes, soap, and other essentials. Schools, anganwadis, and health centres can prepare themselves to be depots for menstrual products that girls and women can access when disaster strikes. Such measures also help in the recovery phase.

Some states, such as Odisha, have initiated vulnerability and capacity assessments before disasters using participatory tools to engage communities to predict, plan for, mitigate, and effectively respond to emergencies that are likely to affect them.

Finally, ensuring appropriate budget allocation is critical for integrating MHHM in emergency response efforts. Funds need to be apportioned for menstrual product distribution and facilities that meet MHHM needs. For instance, if mobile toilets are being installed, the budget must accommodate for a sufficient number of separate toilets for men and women.

Fundraising and mobilisation of in-kind resources must consider the duration of the emergency, whether certain supplies may be required regularly, and the number of girls and women who are in need. Menstrual hygiene supplies, akin to food rations, will be required regularly, not just during immediate relief efforts. They must be factored into budgets for continued support to communities till normalcy is restored.

Ensuring that women, girls, transgender men, and gender-diverse individuals are able to manage menstruation with dignity during emergencies is a matter of human rights. We ask you to join us to commit to ensuring MHHM as a basic right to be protected and advanced, in emergencies and beyond.

 

VK Madhavan has spent fifteen years working in rural India on an integrated development approach. He worked with the Urmul Rural Health Research and Development Trust in northwestern Rajasthan until 1998 and then with the Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (CHIRAG) from 2004 to 2012. In the interim, he worked on policy issues with ActionAid, as an independent consultant, and on women’s leadership and governance with The Hunger Project. Since May 2016, Madhavan has been the Chief Executive of WaterAid India.

Argentina Matavel Piccin is the Representative for UNFPA India and the Country Director for Bhutan. In a career spanning close to forty years, she has been at the forefront of programmes that have focused on the rights and health of women and girls and amplified the voice of youth and adolescents.

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

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The most important goal of a food system or of agricultural production is to increase food production for our increasing population, but nutrition is essential. Produce stall in Harlem, New York. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 6 2021 (IPS)

In three weeks, the United Nations will bring together farmers, scientists, policymakers and civil society for the last major event ahead of the September UN Food Systems Summit.

Billed as ‘the people’s summit,’ the Jul. 26 to 28 event will be hosted by the Government of Italy and adopt a hybrid model, with some delegates on-site in Rome and others online.

Its organisers say scientists will present the latest research in transforming global food systems, while policymakers are expected to discuss financing and action to tackle issues like land degradation, conflict and climate change, which are worsening global hunger and food insecurity.

Earlier this year, the Global Network Against Food Crises reported that acute hunger had risen to a five-year high. With the COVID-19 pandemic, conflict, biodiversity loss and half of the earth’s land classified as degraded, the grouping warned that finance and urgent action were needed to reverse the rising trend of food insecurity.

General Coordinator of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) Million Belay believes that agroecology has a special role to play in hunger eradication.

Belay, a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) and the Barilla Foundation, researches the transformation of food systems in Ethiopia.

While AFSA will not participate in the UN Food Systems Summit, Africa’s largest civil society group has been organising its own events, based on sustainability, indigenous knowledge and science.

Belay spoke to IPS about the importance of agroecology and how systems such as the Barilla Foundation’s Food Pyramid can help to target hunger at its root.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): Could we start with a brief introduction to the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa?

Million Belay (MB): The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa is a movement. It is broad-based – we have farmers, fisherfolk, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, women and youth networks, civil society networks, consumer networks and faith-based institutions.

Out of the 55 African countries, our members work in at least 50 of them and we work with two hands. On one hand, we fight the corporatisation of Africa. We fight for our lands, our seeds, our water and our lives. On the other hand, we propose a solution. Our solution is agroecology.

IPS: In the face of climate change, rising food insecurity and hunger, there has been a push to agroecology. How important is agroecology to tackling some of these critical issues of our time?

MB: Agroecology is a response to many issues on many fronts.

The most important goal of a food system or of agricultural production is to increase food production for our increasing population, but nutrition is essential. We must eat healthy food and this is an area which is very much impacted by climate change.

Also, when we produce food, the food system should not impact the biosphere, which includes our climate, our diversity, our water and our land. Food production should also be respectful of our culture. We have rich culture, which is the result of thousands of years of practices and traditions by our communities.

These are some of the important factors in the food system process.

The right to food is also very important. Everyone has a right to food.

The question is, therefore, what kind of system ensures this? Currently, unfortunately, the system is productivity-based, it is based on chemicals, on ownership of seeds and ownership of our land. Agroecology comes with a totally different paradigm. It ticks all the right boxes. It is basically based on the knowledge of people and the practices of the people, but it has a cutting-edge science to it as well.

Agroecology is also a social movement. That is why we are using it because at the center of agroecology is the right to food and human rights questions are intimately related to climate change, for example.  Climate impacts our food. Climate impacts our water, our land and our lives. So many things are happening because of the problem that we didn’t create.

Agroecology deals with the soil, it deals with biodiversity which is important for resilience, because it’s based on the diversity of crops and the diversity of practices.

I think what climate change brings us as well is unpredictability into the future. What kind of agriculture is important for an unpredictable environment? You have no idea what is going to come tomorrow. Agroecology helps to answer these types of concerns.

IPS: The international community is preparing for the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS). As a food systems researcher, what are your hopes for the summit?

MB: We (AFSA) have already decided to organise a meeting outside of that food summit.

We do not agree with the process of the summit; how is it being handled or controlled or how the agenda is organised. We are not happy and the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa has written a letter to the Special Envoy for the Food Systems Summit Dr. Agnes Kalibata with a range of demands and they have not been fulfilled.

We however have started our own food policy development process which involves a country-level dialogue in 24 of the countries. They are food systems dialogues that we started even before the UNFSS.

Also, at the African Union level, we are trying to develop a food policy framework for Africa which is based on sustainability.

IPS:  What is your role on the Barilla Foundation’s advisory board and how is the Foundation contributing to food system transformation?

MB: The majority of the board members are from Italy, but the issues that they raise have global impact. In addition to the scientific studies, they organise yearly global gatherings where critical issues about the global food system are discussed.

The outcomes of those global talks are very important to any part of the continent. My role primarily is to bring the African perspective, an African view, in my writings and discussions.

What is important to note is that it is not only the African perspective, but also the input of civil society which is not reflected in so many other spaces.

IPS: The Barilla Foundation continues to invest time and resources into the development of sustainable food systems. What are some of the food systems you think have been successful?

MB: The Foundation is forwarding a food pyramid. It is a very interesting concept that is in development. Previously, it was based on the Mediterranean Diet.

The food system indicators that they are developing are also noteworthy. In terms of a framework for the future, that pyramid and those indices are important for other regions. Other parts of the world can use these models to assess their own food systems.

After participating in one of the Foundation’s events, we organised our own event in Africa. We held the African Food System Summit last year. It was a very large activity and served as an example of what is happening in other parts of the globe.

What is really interesting is the composition of the board. There are people who are in touch with how the politics goes in Europe. There are scientists, really high-level scientists who are working on the impacts of a bad food system. There are university researchers who bring a different perspective and I bring the civil society and social movement side.

 

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Excerpt:

The world is facing rising hunger and food insecurity, biodiversity loss and the impacts of a changing climate. Experts are increasingly looking to agroecology for sustainable food production.

Women in El Salvador are participating in an educational program supported by the World Health Organization that teaches safe hygiene practices and food safety. The WHO works in collaboration with El Salvador’s government and other United Nations partner organizations like the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), UNICEF, UNWomen, and the World Food Program (WFP). The program aims to address foodborne illnesses and poor nutrition by educating local women who then pass on their knowledge to other women in the community. Credit: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

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SAN SALVADOR, Jul 6 2021 (IPS)

If you speak to farmers in El Salvador, many will tell you about the time they were driven to head north across Central America towards the US. The routes to the border are many, but the origins are so often the same: desperation and hope that better employment opportunities can be found elsewhere.

The faces you see of those arriving, in what could be the highest influx to the United States in 15 years, represent the reality in rural El Salvador, where so many people escaping poverty find only a dead-end.

Years of reliance on imported food has held back the development of the country’s agricultural sector, on which so many rural families rely. This has created a vicious cycle that suppresses the domestic market, limits job creation and forces rural workers to look to cities and other countries, particularly rural youth, who are reluctant to work in agriculture because they see limited returns.

For my family, producing on the land has been a way of life for generations, and I am familiar with the challenges that farmers face.

I also know that Salvadoran farmers need not face a binary choice of stay and struggle, or risk everything by moving elsewhere. Instead of carrying a bag of belongings to the border, harvesting a sack of vegetables can represent the way not only out of poverty, but into a position of security and even prosperity, and I have seen how this can work.

Agriculture can offer rural families a pathway to upward mobility and, as we believe at Acceso, a social agribusiness I lead in El Salvador, this is best achieved when the food value chain is “reverse engineered” from market demands backwards, prioritizing farmers’ interests.

By investing in small farmers to help improve their production to meet the demands of large local buyers, and developing solutions to aggregate their produce, we have shown how to create new and more secure incomes and livelihoods that offer rural communities a better alternative right here in El Salvador.

Dionel, a young farmer I work with in the highlands of Chalatenango, considered emigrating to the US seven years ago, but changed his mind when he found he was able to sell his produce consistently, and no longer had to rely on unpredictable informal markets.

For him, Acceso’s model created the market structure that provided income security and allowed his family to be empowered financially. For Dionel and others, this kind of investment in rural areas is vital because, as he says, “that is where the communities with the least job opportunities are found.”

Strategic investments into creating sustainable and profitable jobs can go a long way. Efraín, a 57-year-old farmer, knows this all too well. He has been to the US twice, but returned when he heard about improvements in the agriculture sector back home.

Now, he is part of our Acceso farmer network as well, benefiting from training on good agricultural practices and guaranteed market opportunities. The results speak for themselves: farmers have realized crop yield increases of more than 60 percent in just one year, while farmers’ incomes were more than 250 percent higher in 2020 compared to 2017.

It is not just yields that are increasing, but varieties too. Having started off planting chilli peppers, Efraín is now growing many more crops introduced by Acceso, which then aggregates the produce to sell to supermarkets and restaurant chains.

Increasing the number of crops has required more farm workers on his field, so not only has Efraín benefitted from diversifying his farm, others in his community have also been given the chance of a livelihood. Efraín’s goal is to see his business continue to grow, creating more opportunities for jobs, incomes and economic growth – and reasons to stay – for Salvadorans.

High quality, locally-grown produce is stocking the local supermarkets, something that wasn’t possible just six years ago when low volumes of produce were sourced locally by Acceso’s customers like Subway, Super Selectos, and others. Now, with more market structures in place, imports have decreased; for example, for Super Selectos from as much as 90 percent to less than 50 percent.

This has been made possible in part by Acceso’s work with farmers to improve access to quality seeds and affordable credit, which in turn has led to reliability and variety of produce.

New processing facilities have also meant that farmers’ produce can be handled, stored and packaged according to the standards required by major supermarkets and restaurant franchises.

Improving resilience throughout food value chains has proven to be critical. When the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns hit, certain market sectors, including restaurants and hospitality, slowed down.

Yet the continued reliance on supermarkets and stores for essential food meant farmers like Juan Carlos, who has worked with Acceso for seven years, could continue to benefit despite shifts in the market.

This stability means that he has continued to earn a living throughout the pandemic, and Juan Carlos no longer considers migration. For him, “staying in the country is the best option.”

The El Salvador I know is full of hard workers who want to prosper in their home country and see their children grow up and succeed. Ask many of the farmers I work with, who tried to migrate, and they will tell you that border crossings are often the last resort. Given the opportunity, they choose to remain or return to their homeland.

This logic can be applied to countries around the world. Instead of building walls, we should be building connections between farmers and markets for more secure jobs, economies, and prospects for rural families.

The vision of Acceso is simple: invest in opportunities, rather than barriers, and reduce the need for migration.

Acceso El Salvador, the leading smallholder sourcing company in El Salvador that sources more than 60 types of fruits and vegetables, and fish and seafood from smallholder farmers and fishers and sells to the largest national supermarket and restaurant chains.

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is General Manager, Acceso El Salvador

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury
KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Jul 6 2021 (IPS)

As rich countries have delayed contagion containment, including mass vaccination, in developing countries, much weaker fiscal efforts in the South have worsened the growing world pandemic apartheid.

Lessons from first wave
Despite limited fiscal resources and modest external support, government efforts also need to address unsustainability, inequality and other problems due to extant economic, social and environmental arrangements.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Early relief and recovery measures assumed that the pandemic would be short-lived and reversible. Hence, such measures were rarely sustained, let alone expanded in developing countries despite the growing need for them.

Appropriate social protection measures are needed for the longer term beyond those deemed temporarily necessary. The adverse effects of livelihood disruptions should be mitigated with income maintenance for employees and the self-employed whose livelihoods have been severely jeopardised.

Governments must try to maintain family incomes, enabling them to spend to survive, thus keeping the economy ticking and businesses afloat. With effective contagion containment, such programmes enable earlier resumption of economic activities, i.e., recovery.

Sustaining businesses, nurturing economies
A few, mainly developed countries have tried to minimise business destruction, worker layoffs and welfare losses. Developing country governments must also help revive and sustain economies and livelihoods to prevent pandemic recessions from becoming protracted depressions.

Few businesses and sectors can survive without adapting. Business survival options could include redeployment, infrastructure and facility repurposing, and staff retraining. Other options include additional credit to businesses, tax payment deferrals and even social protection.

Many businesses, especially those with less reserves, need help avoiding liquidation and paying employees. Governments may need to consider adapting American bankruptcy law to enable businesses to continue operating to work themselves out of temporary pandemic predicaments.

As early as April 2020, the pandemic had hit many businesses in over 130 countries, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises. Two of three were hard hit globally as well as in Africa, with a fifth expecting to close within a quarter!

Anis Chowdhury

Of course, more lending and tax breaks mainly benefit the better-off, rather than those in greatest need, most vulnerable or adversely affected.

Although policymakers typically insist on targeting and means-testing for the poor, they rarely demand the same for businesses. But some ‘easy’ targeting is desirable to identify needy, but salvageable businesses.

One size cannot fit all
Business disruption has broader implications, threatening national economies. If relations necessary for viable economic transactions – such as trust among entrepreneurs, workers and customers – are disrupted, they will need to be rebuilt, typically requiring much time and expense.

Such ‘transactions costs’ incurred in building trust, seeking and keeping clients and customers, obtaining credit, recruiting workers and sustaining other longer-term relations are typically ignored. Hence, conventional economics is considered a poor guide to understanding the economy and designing policy.

Keynesian economists typically saw governments as the ‘employer-of-last-resort’ in response to economic downturns. But governments can also help by becoming ‘payers-of-last-resort’, enabling businesses to remain solvent, e.g., on condition of keeping, instead of firing involuntarily idle workers.

Conditions for access to policy support should be strict enough to deter abuse, but not participation. Strict verification and correction can wait, even until after the worse is over.

Disbursed state grants or subsidies, later found excessive, can be converted low interest loans. Governments can recover these later, rather than treat beneficiaries as fraudulent criminals.

Economies are certainly not homogeneous, monolithic or unchanging. And COVID-19 slowdowns are unlike previous recessions. As these are invariably uneven in impact, various sectors, industries and businesses are affected differently.

Hence, no single policy can possibly be suitable for all countries, at all times. Much has to be learnt quickly ‘by doing’, i.e., from experience, including those of others. Lessons may be both positive and negative, and rapid learning is crucial for improving policy design and implementation.

Who can we count on?
Without both effective contagion containment and mass vaccination, it will be impossible to control the pandemic. And with little external support, containment, relief and recovery measures in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) will be all the more difficult.

Thus, the worst is yet to come in the global South, which must now brace itself for the dire consequences of delayed pandemic suppression and limited fiscal efforts. Meanwhile, the North seems unmoved by the International Monetary Fund’s warning of a dangerous new economic divergence globally.

The 870 million vaccines that the world’s seven richest large nations (G7) pledged to poor countries last month will immunise half that number, from late 2021. This is only eight percent of the 11 billion doses needed, noted former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

But despite ungenerous rich Western countries, the Fund has called for US$50bn to accelerate vaccination worldwide. It expects this to end the pandemic, enhance global output by US$9 trillion, and yield a trillion in additional tax revenue.

LMICs need to urgently respond to fast spreading pandemic surges. They also need to do so effectively, feasibly and equitably, expecting little help from the North. Domestic borrowing – enabled by central banks, sound policy design and South-South cooperation – will be crucial to success in these circumstances.

Relief, recovery, reform
With delays, new, more dangerous COVID-19 variants will threaten developing countries, as more effective contagion containment and fiscal efforts are slowed by the North. These will exacerbate avoidable tragedies and old inequalities.

Developing countries have no choice but to get the economy going despite reduced fiscal and monetary space and more debt. Greater government spending to address the pandemic can be financed with more domestic borrowing from central banks.

Foreign exchange is mainly needed to service foreign debt and pay import bills. Forex requirements can also be reduced by swap arrangements and restricting non-essential imports. Greater South-South cooperation can also enhance resilience and rebuilding for the future.

Recovery should not simply mean a return to the status quo ante. The decade before the pandemic left much to be desired, and there is little reason to restore it. The unsustainable, financialised and unequal pre-pandemic economy should be transformed to achieve more equitable and sustainable development.

After all, the North now undermines the very globalisation it once imposed on the South. Hence, it is imperative to instead establish new, more equitable, pacifist and principled international relations, under multilateral auspices, promoting cooperation.

 

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President Samia Suluhu has adopted a different approach from her Covid-sceptic predecessor, John Magufuli.

By Saul Escobar Toledo
MEXICO CITY, Jul 5 2021 (IPS)

The visit of the Vice President of the United States to Mexico on June 8 served to address various issues on the bilateral agenda . The media gave importance especially to the migration issue, but Mrs. Harris gave a prominent place , also , to the labor question. Her appointments deserve some comments.

Saul Escobar Toledo

In the meeting she held with labor leaders, activists, and experts as well as in her press conference, the vice president argued that Biden´s government is “one of the most pro worker, pro unions in the US history ” . She publicly pledged to support the organization of unions and collective bargaining in the US and Mexico. She insisted that there is a coincidence with the administration of President López Obrador and that this common vision will bring greater economic prosperity and improve the standard of living of workers in both nations. She argued , to some extent , the benefits of union and collective bargaining since, she said, this leads to ” fair ” results for both parties, employees and employers. Our goal , she added, is that the new approach, settled in the USMCA (United States, Canada and Mexico Trade Agreement that replaced NAFTA) will ” translate into decent jobs on both sides of the border” . Later, a budget addition of 130 million dollars was announced to support technical assistance and programs for the implementation of the Mexican labor reform, and the eradication of child and adolescent labor. This expansion is linked to 610 million dollars that had already been contemplated for those same purposes. Of these, 100 million will be invested in the next six months.

Canada, the third partner of the T-MEC had announced through its ambassador in Mexico, on June 2, that its government will allocate 27 million dollars for programs that allow changes in the labor practices , promote reform and its implementation. That is, he said, to support Mexican workers and the promotion of democratic unions.

US policy has not consisted only in words and money. For now, there are already two complaints for labor reasons that have been formally taken up by the Biden government at the highest level under the mechanism proposed by the T-MEC (USMCA). As the commercial representative, Katherine Tai , in charge of presenting the complaint said, now it is about “defending the workers at home and abroad.”

One of the complaints refers to a conflict in a company called “Tridomex”, an auto parts factory located in Matamoros (a city of the northern border), where, they claim , collective bargaining and free association were seriously affected . The investigation is ongoing and if it were found , indeed, there were these faults , it would have to be repaired or, where appropriate, apply sanctions on the company including additional tariffs or bans on its exports. It must be said that this company is a subsidiary of Cardone Industries , based in Philadelphia , dedicated to the manufacture of auto parts . This is a good example of a maquiladora, the type of sweatshop where for many years there have been systematic violations of labor rights and the absence of representative unions and legitimate collective contracts (supported by the workers) .

This was the second complaint in a month formally filed by US authorities . The first was against a General Motors plant , where more than six thousand people work, located in Silao, Guanajuato. They found, also, serious irregularities committed during a voting process arranged to find out if workers were supporting a contract negotiated by an old and corrupt union. The scandal even reached US Congress; a special commission demanded that the company should not meddle in union affairs.

The new trade policy of the US represents a major shift. During many decades Washington has defended its companies and investors at all costs, supporting repressive measures against workers, direct intervention of the CIA (Central of Intelligence Agency) , and even violence against governments that have tried to be, as Ms. Harris said, favorable to workers and their organizations . The US administration had never shown solidarity for unions and the defense of labor, more so, when workers struggle against the arbitrariness committed by the subsidiaries of the large manufacturing consortiums located outside its territory.

This major change is due to several reasons, including strong pressure from the unions. The vice president clearly alluded to this situation when she spoke with the Mexican labor activists . Apparently, a political gap has opened in that nation, in which either a government with a progressive and pro-labor line is imposed; or there is only the ultra – conservative option of the Republican right whose central figure continues to be Trump. An Obama- or Clinton-style centrism does not seem a good alternative right now.

However, it is not clear how far the new direction of the Biden administration will go. Within his own party there is resistance to some of the president’s proposed changes , such as tax reform. In the case of Mexico , we don´t know yet what the reaction of the companies will be, which, for now, have denied their responsibility in the violation of labor rights. Will the top managers of the companies accept to change their labor schemes and open negotiations with the workers on fair terms, as the vice president said , or will they continue to keep “business as usual” with various legal maneuvers? If sanctions were applied, would they rather decide to leave Mexico and go back to the US? Maybe this last option would be welcome and supported by the US government.

Despite these uncertainties, and the damage caused by the pandemic including a slow recovery of the Mexican economy, the new US trade policy opens an opportunity for Mexico to change its relations with its commercial partners. The so – called “comparative advantage”, based in very low wages and poor working conditions in Mexico, has played up to now an important factor to attract foreign investments. To change this scheme the government of Lopez Obrador must not only carry out enhanced surveillance of labor laws as their commercial partners are claiming and is part of USMCA. In the medium term, it would have to propose a new industrial policy that would make it possible to attract foreign investment, while increasing wages and contractual benefits. For this to happen, so foreign companies would not be tempted to withdraw from Mexican territory, the government would need to offer incentives based on a more modern infrastructure; a better qualification of the workforce ; and more resources for research and development of science and technology.

In the medium and long term, sustained improvement in wages of the Mexican working class would imply a new agreement with the United States and Canada. Much more ambitious than what was already agreed in the T-MEC or USMCA: a new scheme of development cooperation is needed. A new kind of relationship between companies of foreign capital and Mexican workers, based on better jobs, with the support of the governments of the three nations would be viable only if it rests on a sustained increase of productivity . And the latter would require a relevant hike in investment based on modern technologies and production processes .

A change of this magnitude would need time and a favorable political environment in the North American region. New winds are blowing , but it is not clear if they will go far enough.

saulescobar.blogspot.com

 

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Twenty years after the blackout that prompted nine months of rationing to keep the power grid from collapsing, Brazil may see a repeat of the traumatic situation, this time with a more obvious climate change undertone. Scarce rainfall in the October to April rainy season in south-central Brazil reduced to critical levels the flow in […]

South Sudan’s national flag (centre) flies at UN Headquarters following its admission as the 193rd Member State. Credit: UN/E. Schneider

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 5 2021 (IPS)

When the United Nations renovated its building at a cost of over $2.1 billion, as part of a seven-year refurbishing project back in 2014, the seating in the cavernous General Assembly hall was increased from 193 to 204—primarily in anticipation of at least 11 new member states joining the world body sooner or later.

But the pace of new member states joining the UN, primarily from half a dozen breakaway regions dominated by separatist movements, has remained slow.

East Timor, described as the first new sovereign state of the 21st century, broke away from Indonesia and joined the UN in May 2002.

The UN played a significant role in supporting the democratic process in the country, now known as Timor-Leste. The UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) was deployed from 1992 to 2002 to administer the territory, exercise legislative and executive authority during the transition and support capacity-building for self-government.

Meanwhile, the Republic of South Sudan (population: 11.3 million), which seceded from Sudan, was the last of the 193 UN member states, joining the world body in July 2011.

But at least one potential member state— Kosovo– has been knocking at the door trying to seek admission rather unsuccessfully primarily because of opposition from one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC).

The UN’s relatively new member states, beginning in the 1960s, included Singapore (1965), Bangladesh (1971) and six republics, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia, resulting from the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Still, if political fantasies become realities, a lineup of new U.N. member states may include potential breakaway regions, including Kurdistan, Western Sahara, Chechnya, Abkhazia, Catalonia, Scotland and Palestine—not forgetting Tibet and Taiwan whose membership will be shot down by China, a veto-wielding permanent member of the UNSC.

But currently the most likely candidate is Tigray which is moving towards an independent state after nearly eight months of fighting against Ethiopian military forces, described as one of Africa’s most powerful, this time backed by Eritrea.

If it does happen, Ethiopia would have generated two breakaway states: first Eritrea which became independent of Ethiopia in 1993, and now Tigray, with a population of 7.1 million.

The Tigray Independence Party (TIP) has long campaigned for secession from Ethiopia which it described as an “empire”.

Debretsion Gebremichael, the leader of Tigray, was quoted by the New York Times as saying, “even if the conflict ends soon, Tigray’s future, as part of Ethiopia, is in doubt”.

In the Times report on July 4, Gebremichael said “The trust has broken completely. If they don’t want us, why should we stay?”. Still, he added, nothing has been decided because “It depends on the politics at the centre”.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US Ambassador to the UN, told reporters on July 2 the Security Council has held six closed-door meetings “and the situation in Tigray has not improved.”

She said the open meeting last week was the first opportunity to show that African lives matter as much as other lives around the world.

“But an open meeting is not enough,” she said, pointing out that “what we need to see is action on the ground.”

“We need to see a ceasefire that is permanent; that all of the parties agree to. We need to see the Eritrean troops return to their own border. We need to see unfettered access for humanitarian workers. “We need to see accountability for the atrocities that have been committed.”

“And at this moment I just want to express, again, our sympathy for the many losses of lives, including for MSF (Doctors Without Borders) staff who were killed recently,” she declared.

Meanwhile, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) says the Tigray People’s Liberation Front is in control of most of the Tigray region, including major towns.

William Davison, ICG’s Senior Analyst, said the Front has achieved these gains “mainly through mass popular support and by capturing arms and supplies from adversaries.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last week he is deeply concerned with the present situation in Tigray.

“It is essential to have a real ceasefire paving the way for a dialogue able to bring a political solution to Tigray.” He said the presence of foreign troops is an aggravating factor of confrontation.

“At the same time, full humanitarian access, unrestricted humanitarian access must be guaranteed to the whole territory. The destruction of civilian infrastructure is totally unacceptable,” he declared. 

Excerpt:

South Sudan’s independence from the rest of Sudan was the result of a January 2011 referendum held under the terms of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the decades-long civil war between the North and the South.

Egypt agrees a compensation deal with the impounded Ever Given's owners and insurers.