Africa

President Macron acknowledges that an Algerian nationalist was killed by the French army in 1957.

A healthcare worker at a testing facility collects samples for the coronavirus at Mimar Sinan State Hospital, Buyukcekmece district in Istanbul, Turkey. Credit: UNDP Turkey/Levent Kulu

By Joe Amon and Christina Wille
PHILADELPHIA, US, Mar 3 2021 (IPS)

In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, at a certain hour of the evening, people in cities around the world opened their windows or stood on their rooftops and banged pots and rang bells. As the coronavirus spread and the number of deaths mounted, it was a moment for people distancing themselves from others to show solidarity and appreciation for the heroic work of health workers. But even as health workers were being celebrated by some, others attacked them.

In 400 incidents last year around the globe, health workers were attacked, clinics, hospitals and COVID-19 testing facilities were targeted, or public health officials were threatened.

Fear, misinformation and conspiracy theories flourished alongside frustration with the actions and inaction by governments to stem the pandemic and address the massive social and economic upheaval that accompanied it. At the same time, police and security forces arrested and assaulted health workers for protesting governments’ inadequate responses to the pandemic.

Health workers were assaulted by people who feared they were spreading the disease, and health facilities treating patients with COVID-19 were targeted

These incidents, and others, are documented in a newly released, interactive map  developed by Insecurity Insight and the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition, with technical support from MapAction. Documenting these incidents and understanding their causes is important so that governments and health facilities can prepare for and prevent such atrocities.

Threats and attacks often arose from opposition to health measures to contain the spread of the virus, such as community-wide lockdowns. Health workers were assaulted by people who feared they were spreading the disease, and health facilities treating patients with COVID-19 were targeted.

For example, in Hong Kong, Molotov cocktails were thrown at four health centers after the government designated them  for COVID-19 treatment. Similarly, in Mexico, three health clinics under construction to fight the pandemic were threatened with or targeted in arson attacks.

Health workers were also threatened, or fired, by their employers, and in some cases arrested, for speaking out against the lack of protective equipment or government misinformation about the pandemic. Health workers were also targeted in settings of ongoing conflict.

For example, in Myanmar, a marked World Health Organization vehicle transporting COVID-19 testing samples came under gunfire, injuring a health care worker and killing the driver.

In Cameroon, a rebel militia destroyed a supply of hand sanitizers. In Libya, a plane reportedly carrying COVID-related equipment was shot down. And in Yemen, armed men in military vehicles stormed a health facility and confiscated COVID-19 disinfecting supplies.

Some of the attacks portray a desperation and despair in communities. In the Brazilian city of Belem, in April, dozens of people seeking medical treatment tore down the gate of a hospital that was reserved for COVID-19 patients and forced their way in.

In Dakar, Senegal, in May, people threw stones at Red Cross volunteers to prevent them from burying a person  who had died from COVID-19 in the local cemetery. In the Mexican state of Guanajuato, in August, a group of people attacked a nurse at a store owned by her family, accusing her of spreading the coronavirus.

The Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition, as its name suggests, has previously focused exclusively on attacks in conflict settings. But 2020 was an exceptional year. The organizations in the coalition, which include academic and independent researchers, international nongovernmental organizations, and human rights, public health and health care associations, collected information on threats and attacks related to COVID-19 globally, from news accounts as well as confidential contributions from aid agencies and professional organizations. 

These types of attacks are not unprecedented. In past outbreaks of SARS, Ebola, and H1N1, there were also attacks on health workers, facilities and ambulances. For example, in 2014, people attacked health workers and the hospital in Guinea’s second largest city, Nzerekore, shouting: “Ebola is a lie!” Violence against polio vaccination workers has halted progress toward elimination in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. 

Although most governments have detailed pandemic preparedness plans, few include measures to protect health workers and facilities. The 103-page “Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Response Guidance for Healthcare Workers and Healthcare Employers” published by the US government mentions violence against health workers in only one sentence. 

More needs to be done to prepare and prevent attacks. Clear and honest communication is key. New, deadly, and poorly understood disease threats understandably cause anxiety and government policies such as quarantines can amplify fear and misinformation.

But communication is not enough. Governments, and health care workers, also have to show that their response is not only based upon the best available evidence, but that it is grounded on human rights principles such as transparency, participation and equity. 

Engaging with the most affected communities early in a pandemic will open lines of communication and trust, as will transparency in demonstrating that supplies (such as PPE) and access to care is available, without discrimination, to those most affected. 

There will be another global pandemic. Hopefully, not soon. But we should learn the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic that we have failed to learn with past outbreaks and anticipate and protect health workers and facilities from threats and attacks.

And governments should  act now to prepare for violence that  may occur around COVID-19 vaccine implementation and to end the COVID-19 related violence still occurring. Banging on pots to show appreciation of health workers is not enough. 

 

Joe Amon is clinical professor and director of global health at the Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University and a member of the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition.

Christina Wille is director of Insecurity Insight. As a member of the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition, Insecurity Insight collates data on violence against health care for the coalition.

 

The post Another Covid-19 Threat: Health Care Workers Under Attack appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Girmay Gebru is freed without charge after being detained in the conflict-hit Tigray region on Monday.

By Raghbendra Jha
CANBERRA, Australia, Mar 3 2021 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic (henceforth pandemic) has women particularly hard. In almost all countries, women constitute the bulk of the labour force in the service sector, which was hardest hit by the pandemic. Furthermore, they also represent a disproportionate share of the work force in particularly vulnerable sectors such as health care. Women also have disproportionate if not sole responsibility for home work including taking care of children.

Raghbendra Jha

In many developing countries where most families are engaged in the informal sector women also had to bear the additional cost of their men folk losing their jobs as workplaces were shut down because of persistent and repeated lockdowns.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/07/impact-covid-19-women-children-south-asia/

Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that during the pandemic, casualization of the work force has increased substantially. Because of their filial responsibilities, women are disproportionately represented in the causal work force. This has meant a further loss in incomes for many women.

When analysing women’s attainments it is helpful to view it as a sequence of two steps. First, one could look at indicators of human development followed by women’s actual attainments in terms of wages, salaries and representation in key positions.

Indicators of human development disaggregated by gender is available in the Gender Development Index (GDI) computed and published annually by the UNDP as part of its Human Development Report.
http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/gender-development-index-gdi

The GDI views disparities women and men in three different dimensions of human development: health, schooling and measures of living standards. The GDI first calculates Human Development Indicators using these three measures for both women and men separately and then takes the ratio of the index for women to the value of the index for men. The closer this ratio is to 1, the more equal is society for both genders.

Every year the UNDP computes this index for 167 countries which are classified into five groups based on the absolute deviation from gender parity in HDI values. This means that grouping takes equally into consideration gender gaps favoring males, as well as those favoring females.

The latest GDI for the world as whole is 0.943, with HDI value of 0.714 for females and 0.757 for males. Women marginally outperform men in the area of life expectancy; they have equal attainment as men in expected years of schooling but fall behind men in key areas of mean level of schooling and gross national income per capita by gender.

Although the GDI is a useful measure, of how much women are lagging behind their male counterparts and how much women need to catch up within each dimension of human development, there are a number of areas in which they are unable to capture key underlying trends. For instance, in the area of nutrition within the family standard measures assume that there is equal access for males and females within the household. Recent literature emphasizes that this may not be the case. Indeed, female children may be discriminated against in comparison to their male counterparts.
https://academic.oup.com/wbro/article/10/1/1/1684910?login=true

Moreover, in some countries although enrolment of females in primary is quite robust, secondary female enrolment in school drops off. See chapter 8 of
http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781349953417

In many countries female students are under-represented in key disciplines of study such as science and mathematics and over-represented in less remunerative areas of study.

When we analyse the second step – women’s actual economic attainment – the conclusions are even less sanguine. For example, in the case of Australia (a country with a GDI of 0.976) women are underrepresented in almost all leadership and management positions.
https://www.wgea.gov.au/women-in-leadership

According to the latest data, women hold only 32.5 % of key management positions, 28.1 % of directorships, 18.3 % of CEOs, and 14.6 % of board chairs.

An international comparison of women’s attainments in some key countries is available in:
https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-management/

Such trends have caused many observers to feel that women face a broken rung in the ladder for leadership in organisations.
https://pragmaticthinking.com/blog/women-in-leadership-statistics/

As if such results were not enough, there is compelling evidence to suggest that men are paid more than women (gender gap)
https://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-and-is-it-real/

In recent years, although the gender pay gap has narrowed this progress has now stalled.
https://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-and-is-it-real/

With this as background, one comes to the conclusion that women are economically worse off than men largely because women’s work is not fully priced in the marketplace. From the family to the frontiers in science, technology, politics and the armed forces women provide absolutely critical services, but these services are not always valued adequately.

The primary reason why such gaps have persisted for so long is attitudinal. From the household to the board room women face attitudes that are inimical to their interests. So, along with legislative and other measures to ensure equality for women all sections of all societies must work on their attitudes towards women.

The author is Professor of Economics and Executive Director, Australia South Asia Research Centre, Australian National University

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The post International Women’s Day, 2021
Women in Leadership Positions: An Economist’s View of International Women’s Day appeared first on Inter Press Service.

In the lead up to International Women’s Day 2021 on 8 March 2021 - ECW, INEE and UNGEI - three partners working together for gender equality in education in emergencies (EiE), have joined forces to launch a toolkit promoting gender-responsive and inclusive education interventions in emergency & protracted crises settings.

By External Source
NEW YORK, Mar 3 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) and the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI), today launched a new toolkit to support stronger integration of gender equality in education responses for children and youth in countries affected by emergencies and protracted crises.

Armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters, health emergencies and other crises increase barriers to safe, quality education, especially for vulnerable children and youth. Girls, boys, women and men experience these barriers to education in different ways, resulting in an exacerbation of pre-existing gender inequalities and vulnerabilities. This is especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic which continues to cause unprecedented disruptions to learning worldwide for millions of crisis-affected girls and boys.

“As the world strives to address and recover from global impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we must apply lessons learnt from previous crises. We know the tragic hardship that looms ahead for millions of girls and other vulnerable children and youth living in crisis settings. We can’t say we did not know. Unless we protect and empower them urgently with the safety, hope and opportunity of quality, inclusive education, we will have failed both them and ourselves. There is no excuse not to act now,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. “In launching this new toolkit with our partners, we appeal to all education stakeholders to join us in putting gender equality at the centre of our collective emergency response to the pandemic. At Education Cannot Wait, we are committed to making girls’ education a reality across our investments, boldly, firmly and passionately.”

Previous health emergencies, like Ebola, Zika and SARS, led to school closures which disproportionately affected girls and women. In crises, adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable and face increased risks of sexual exploitation, gender-based violence, child marriage and early pregnancy. This is proving to be the case with the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysis conducted by UNHCR and the Malala Fund already show that 50 per cent of refugee girls in secondary school may not ever return when their classrooms open. This is why the new ‘EiE-GenKit’ comes as a timely, ground-breaking resource for aid practitioners to ensure education in emergencies interventions are both gender-responsive and inclusive.

“Education plays a key role in redefining gender norms in any situation, but especially in humanitarian situations, where a good education that is gender-transformative can break cycles of violence and promote tolerance and reconciliation,” said Antara Ganguli, Director of the UN Girls’ Education Initiative, “We must harness this potential and ensure that all learners of all genders are able to contribute equally and positively to their communities’ recovery, as a cornerstone of sustainable peace and development”.

When gender-responsive, quality, inclusive education is available to all – including crisis-affected girls and boys – it has the potential to transform children’s futures, build up societies and lead to sustainable peace. The ‘EiE-GenKit’ equips education practitioners with the tools to achieve that vision.

“Now is the time to leverage the power of education in emergencies. Together we can reverse gender inequalities and transform education for women and girls, men and boys. We must commit to leave no one behind,” said Dean Brooks, Director of the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies.

The ‘EiE-GenKit’ was developed over two years through an extensive consultation process involving the review of over 150 existing education in emergencies and gender resources, with contributions from over 80 global, regional and country level gender and EiE experts and other stakeholders.

The toolkit is based on internationally recognised minimum standards and guidelines and is closely aligned with the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Gender Handbook, the INEE Minimum Standards for Education and the INEE Guidance Note on Gender.

The post Education Cannot Wait, the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies and the Un Girls’ Education Initiative Call for Gender Equality to Be at the Centre of COVID-19 Education Crisis Recovery Efforts appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

In the lead up to International Women’s Day 2021 on 8 March 2021 - ECW, INEE and UNGEI - three partners working together for gender equality in education in emergencies (EiE), have joined forces to launch a toolkit promoting gender-responsive and inclusive education interventions in emergency & protracted crises settings.

The post Education Cannot Wait, the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies and the Un Girls’ Education Initiative Call for Gender Equality to Be at the Centre of COVID-19 Education Crisis Recovery Efforts appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: The UN Office at Vienna (UNOV)

By Mwanahamisi Singano and Ben Phillips
NAIROBI / ROME, Mar 3 2021 (IPS)

The greatest danger to the effectiveness of International Women’s Day is that it has become respectable. It is time for it to be day of good trouble again.

It’s become somewhat of a tradition for respectable International Women’s Day commentaries to repeat three establishment talking points: first, that the world is making progress but not fast enough; second, a set of comparisons between men as single group (earning more, represented more, accessing more) with women as single group (earning less, represented less, accessing less); and third, an appeal to those in power to put it right.

This Women’s Day we need to smash all three of those traditions.

We need to stop saying that the world is making continuous progress on gender equality. The COVID-19 crisis is seeing women’s rights go into reverse.

Women’s jobs are being lost at much faster rate than men’s; women are shouldering most of the increased burden of unpaid care for children and elders; girls have been taken out of school more than boys; domestic violence has shot up, and it’s harder for women to get away.

And the fact that as soon as the crisis happened women were pushed so far back shows how insecure and insubstantial were the “good times” – if you are allowed to keep holding onto an umbrella only until it rains, then you don’t really own that umbrella.

The pandemic laid bare the structural inequalities and dysfunctional social and political systems crafted to serve endless wealth accumulation of a powerful few (men) while leaving billions of people in poverty and hopelessness.

The idea of progress has lulled the conversation into an idea that we only need to speed up: it’s now clear that to get to equality we need to change course.

We have to go behind the comparisons between what men and what women have and speak plainly about the intersecting inequalities of race, nationality and class that compound the experience of women.

To give one example, in December last year the US figures showed 140,000 job losses. Then it was revealed that all these job losses were women (men had in fact net gained 16,000 jobs, and women net lost 156,000).

So, the story was that women as a group were losing to men as a group. But then it was revealed that all these job losses amongst women could be accounted for by jobs lost by women of colour – white women had net gained jobs!

As James Baldwin noted, not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

To give another example, every year the annual United Nations meeting on women’s rights – the Commission on the Status of Women – meets in New York (15-26 March 2021) , and every year there is hugely disproportionate representation by women from the Global North and by women representing global North-led organisations.

This is exacerbated by the fact that because the meeting is in New York, the travel cost burden is much higher for women from the Global South, and the US Government needs to approve who can come, and it refuses or fails to approve in time visas for women from the Global South in far higher numbers than women from the Global North.

And the visas for women from developing countries that the US government least often approves for the CSW and other New York gatherings? Those of poor women, rural women, slum dwelling women, migrant women, women with chronic illnesses, women who have been in conflict with the law, women sex workers – the more socially excluded, the more likely you are to be literally excluded.

At last year’s CSW, the Covid crisis saw this reach a peak, with only New York based representatives allowed to participate. At this year’s CSW, it has gone all virtual – great in theory, but it remains fixed to a New York time zone only, forcing participants in Asia to take part through their night or opt out.

Next year it is likely to go back to being live, and the US is likely to require vaccine passports – which 9 in 10 people in the Global South will not have, because the US and other Global North countries are blocking Southern companies from making generic versions of the vaccines.

Once again, women from the Global South will be excluded from the meeting about exclusion, will have no equality in the meeting about how to win equality.

Equality for women will only be realised when all the forms of exclusion holding women back are challenged. When several African countries introduced night-time curfews in COVID-19, they made exemptions for private ambulances, but did not make allowances for those taking informal private transport to hospital – which is how the majority of expectant women, who cannot afford private ambulances, get there.

Likewise, women experiencing domestic violence could leave their houses at night if they went with the police, but if they lacked the social capital to be able to have the police come to accompany them (in other words, anyone not well-off), and they tried to make their own way to a shelter, they found themselves stopped by law enforcement for being out, illegally – indeed, many women told Femnet of fleeing the beatings of their husband to then meet the beatings of the cops.

These were not challenges well foreseen or planned for by well-off men and women who dominate policy making.

It is not enough for the men in power to be persuaded to open a narrow gate in the fortress of patriarchy, through which a small group of the most well-connected or respectable women can slip through to join them.

For all women in their diversity to be able to access decent jobs, equal rights and equal power, the walls must be brought tumbling down. None of this will be given, it will only be won.

As Audre Lorde set out, our task is “to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths.

For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Respectability isn’t working. Equality requires good trouble.

Mwanahamisi Singano is Head of Programmes at the African feminist network FEMNET; Ben Phillips* is the author of How to Fight Inequality

*The link to Ben Phillip’s book, How to Fight Inequality, in paperback, hardback or ebook, here – or at: https://www.amazon.com/How-Fight-Inequality-That-Needs/dp/1509543090

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The post International Women’s Day, 2021
The Problem of the Respectable International Women’s Day – an Appeal for Good Trouble appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day March 8.

The post International Women’s Day, 2021
The Problem of the Respectable International Women’s Day – an Appeal for Good Trouble appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Out of 11 vulture species found in Africa, 7 are on the verge of extinction.

In the past year, more than 20 rangers have been killed defending Africa's oldest national park.

Scientists discover a high rate of people who suppress the virus without taking medication.

Egyptian giants Zamalek will be handed a transfer ban at the end of March unless the club pays its former player Benjamin Acheampong over $1m.

Protests against military coup in Kayin State, Myanmar on Feb. 9. This weekend saw the bloodiest day of protests after the police and security forces fired live ammunition into crowds of protestors. Analysts fear that more bloodshed is almost inevitable. Courtesy: Ninjastrikers/(CC BY-SA 4.0)

By Larry Jagan
BANGKOK, Mar 2 2021 (IPS)

Myanmar activists have called on the international community for help as security forces loyal to the military continue their draconian sweep against the civil disobedience campaign that has brought the country to a standstill since the Feb. 1 coup. The pleas come as analysts, commentators and diplomats who know Myanmar fear that more bloodshed is almost inevitable.

This comes in the wake of the bloodiest day of protests on Feb. 28 after police and security forces fired live ammunition into crowds of protestors in Yangon, Dawei, Mandalay, Myeik, Bago and Pokokku.

According the United Nations human rights office, 18 people were killed and over 30 wounded. Local rights’ groups, however, believe the figure is much higher.

Several eye-witnesses have told IPS that police are invading houses, breaking down fences, doors and windows – whatever stands in their way – to conduct searches and carry out indiscriminate arrests without a warrant. Soon after the Feb. 1 coup, military leaders changed the law to allow unrestricted search and arrest, as well as indefinite detention.

“It’s a total war zone,” Walter Khun, a Myanmar citizen and founding partner with financial advisors based in Yangon, told IPS. “Our associates throughout the country are reporting the same: junta troops terrorising civilians.”

Blistering military crackdown

Over the past two days there have been scores of reports of police systematically looting shops and homes, stealing food from markets and commandeering possessions from private homes.

“They’re turning the country into a massive battlefield,” Zaw Naing, a local Myanmar businessman, told IPS. His statement was echoed by many other sources with whom IPS spoke.

Increased troops and police are being deployed across Myanmar, with convoys of soldiers and sailors being sent in as reinforcements to the strategic towns of Mandalay, Mawlamyine, Monywar, Taunggyi and Dawei.

Ruthless police charges with rifles have been filmed and posted on Facebook. In Kalaymyo – in the Sagaing region north of Mandalay – citizens managed to push advancing police with riot shields and a water cannon back. Skirmishes have also be reported in Mandalay and elsewhere.

Today, Mar. 2, the sound of gunfire was heard irregularly throughout the city of Yangon. Eye-witnesses were unable to distinguish whether it was live ammunition or rubber bullets.

In Sanchuang, in the northern-central part of the city, security forces conducted training exercises on the footpaths with snipers lying on the ground and taking aim with their rifles. Videos of the incident flooded Facebook and other social media outlets. 

Security forces have also erected barricades and blockades at strategic roads and thoroughfares to prevent the protestors fleeing from one part of the city to another. As of today, Mar. 2, authorities have ordered all of Yangon’s major shopping centres, including Junction Square, Capital Retail Myanmar and Myanmar Plaza to close indefinitely.

Many big supermarkets are also closed. Some believe this is part of the security forces control and dispersal strategy to prevent protestors taking refuge inside shopping complexes when the police charge.

Condemnation not enough – please for international intervention

While international condemnation has been swift and strong, the protestors are demanding international intervention.

“Protestors are being shot. We are very angry, we are very upset,” Ma Myint, a 30-year-old young communications graduate from north of Yangon, told IPS. “How many dead bodies does the UN need to act?” she asked after Sunday’s deaths.

Reuters reported that today, Mar. 2, that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations held discussions with the military, urging them to release civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and leaders from her National League for Democracy (NLD).

“The UN is watching, the US is watching, the whole world is watching but when will they act? We need international intervention based on the ‘right to protect,’” young professional, Thiri Kyaw Nyo, told IPS. “The must act otherwise there will be more bloodshed in the coming weeks.”

Dr Sa Sa, Myanmar’s Special Envoy to the UN – who represents the elected MPs — called on the international community to bring the authorities to justice for “crimes against humanity”.

“It’s time for the international community to act to protect our innocent, defenceless people who dare to stand up to these thugs who now controlling our country,” Dr Sa Sa told IPS in an extensive interview.    

Fears that more bloodshed is inevitable.

Analysts, commentators and diplomats fear that more bloodshed is almost inevitable.

According to military sources the security forces standing orders and rules of engagement are to respond if attacked and the use of lethal force is permitted. 

Regional military analysts believe the security forces have been relatively restrained compared to their past practices, including the crushing of the 1988 democratic uprising. The fear is the closer it gets to Mar. 27, Armed Forces Day – the anniversary celebrations for the military — the more they will not tolerate the continued civil disobedience campaign and protests in the street. Some analysts expect the army to deploy its full military might against the protests before then.

The military have been progressively ratcheting up their response – highlighted by Sunday’s tragic events.

Protests will continue

Sa Sa vowed the protests would continue despite the security forces crackdown.

“We must continue to remind the army that we are not giving up, we are not going away, and we will continue to frustrate their efforts to run the country at every turn,” said Sa Sa.

The protest movement is having a dire effect on the junta’s ability to rule. Banks are closed, government offices empty and the country’s fuel supplies are running dangerously low. Hospitals, universities and schools are mostly closed, and most factories have also been idle for the last four months.

Myanmar is virtually at a standstill.    

But Sa Sa insisted the protests must remain non-violent. “We are a non-violent movement, our weapons are our voice, our mobile phones and social media,” Sa Sa said.

“It’s the army that are committing crimes.

“These are the ones who facing real criminal charges and international justice at the Hague [at the International Court of Justice], they are the ones who should be in prison … not our leaders [referring to Suu Kyi and other NLD leaders] … they must be made accountable for their crimes.”

Suu Kyi appeared in court on Feb. 16 on charges of violating import restrictions after walkie-talkies and other foreign equipment were found in her villa compound. She and other senior leaders, as well as human rights activists have been detained under house arrest since the coup.

Protests about more than release of Suu Kyi

On the surface the protests seem to be leaderless and an expression of aspirations of the young – most of the protestors are under the age of 30.

But the civil disobedience movement encompasses more than the street campaigners.

While the movement is largely galvanised around releasing Suu Kyi, and a call for the military to abide by the election results of the November polls that saw Suu Kyi’s NLD convincingly win the majority vote, the campaign is much broader.

Myanmar’s civil servants — the doctors, nurses and health workers who initiated the civil disobedience campaign four weeks ago — are still on strike despite the junta’s threats and intimidation, according to a young doctor heavily involved in the movement in Mandalay.

The doctor, who did not want to be named, told IPS: “They are serious about protecting democracy, and have vowed not to stop till the coup commander is defeated and the culture of coups eradicated forever.”

Myo Win, activist and executive director at Smile Education and Development Foundation, told IPS: “It’s much broader: it’s about completing the transition to democracy, ripping up the 2008 constitution and replacing it with a democratic, federal state, and ending military dictatorships forever.”

The 2008 constitution allows for the military commander-in-chief to take power in extreme cases.

A cat and mouse game between security forces and protestors

Meanwhile, local community neighbourhood watch teams have cordoned off areas in Yangon’s townships, built their own makeshift barriers and mounted 24-hour guard, to prevent the police venturing into their townships and impeding their advance charges.

“It’s a ‘cat and mouse’ game between the security forces and the protestors,” said one of the 1988 protests veterans who is involved in organising logistics — communicating over walkie talkies with protestors.

At street corners in Yangon, protestors are reportedly keeping watch and warning others when police enter nearby streets. Upon alert, many take refuge to wait until the police pass before reemerging, singing songs and shouting.

“They’re organised in small groups of protestors throughout the city and are keeping the revolutionary flame alive,” Nyein Chan Aung, a veteran activist from the 1988 protests, told IPS.    

The campaigners are determined to continue irrespective of what the security forces throw at them.

“This is about our future,” said Ma Myint. “Our future is being taken away from us … we feel like that: we do not want to go back to the darkness. We were looking forward to a brighter future, now suddenly it’s gone dark.”

“I am very sad, and filled with grief for those who have died already in the struggle,” Sakura Ra, a young advertising professional who has given up her job to join the protests every day, told IPS.  “But we’re fighting for freedom and democracy – we are fighting for our future – we are fighting for our children’s future: we will fight to the end, we will never give up,” she told IPS.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Suu Kyi Appears in Closed-Door Court Session Without Lawyer as Protests Continue
• Myanmar Faces Increasing Uncertainty as Opposition to the Military Coup Grows
• China & Russia Throw Protective Arms Around Myanmar

The post Myanmar: Protestors Plea for International Help as Analysts Fear Full Military Might appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Matteo Marchisio
BEIJING, Mar 2 2021 (IPS)

Five years ago, at the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the United Nations, world leaders adopted the ambitious Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. The Agenda was to be accomplished through the achievement of 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030: eradicating poverty, ending hunger, addressing climate change – just to name a few.

Matteo Marchisio

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 suddenly disrupted advancement toward meeting this goal, in many cases rolling back years of progress. The World Bank, for example, estimated that COVID-19 has pushed an additional 88 to 115 million people into extreme poverty last year, bringing back the total number of poor in the world to the level of 2014-2015.

According to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 report, the pandemic may have added between 83 and 132 million people to the total number of undernourished in the world in 2020. It is as if COVID-19 had suddenly brought the world back to 2005, eroding in a few months 15 years of progress in food security.

The measures implemented to contain the COVID-19 spread (i.e. lockdown and movement restrictions) affected the entire food systems, disrupting production, processing, marketing and distribution. Rural communities and smallholder farmers– particularly in developing countries – were the most affected by the implementation of such measures; their livelihoods primarily depend on agricultural production and sales.

Considering that smallholder farmers produce over 70% of the world’s food needs, the impact of COVID-19 on smallholder farmers may possibly have severe repercussions on global food security eventually. It is thus our joint interest (beside our joint responsibility) to support developing countries – and, within developing countries, rural communities and smallholder farmers – to recover from the pandemic.

International development cooperation is an important channel for the global community to support developing countries. Within this framework, South-South cooperation – that is to say cooperation among developing countries (‘the Global South’), has increasingly emerged as a form of international cooperation that complements the traditional North-South cooperation. South-South cooperation enables developing countries to share with each other knowledge, practical experience, development solutions and investment opportunities.

South-South cooperation is a particularly suitable cooperation modality for developing countries, as many developing countries share similar development pathways, and many experiences, solutions or innovations can be relevant or more easily adopted in similar contexts.

What role can South-South cooperation play in supporting developing countries in their post COVID-19 recovery? An interesting example is offered by the South-South Cooperation Facility managed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a UN multilateral development organization whose mission is to promote inclusive rural development in developing countries.

The South-South Cooperation Facility at IFAD was established three years ago with a contribution of US$ 10 million from China to mobilize expertise, knowledge, and resources from the Global South to reduce poverty and enhance the livelihoods of poor people in rural areas.

The Facility finances competitively-selected proposals submitted in response to periodic call for proposals. Since the establishment of the Facility, 15 proposals for a total amount of about US$ 7 million have been approved and are currently under implementation. The proposals promoted cooperation between countries in different regions and covered a broad range of themes, from value chain initiatives among farmer groups and enterprises in Cambodia, China, Laos and Vietnam, to the transfer of sustainable aquaculture technologies in Ghana and Nigeria – just to name a few.

The third call for proposals for the Facility was launched precisely at the time of the COVID-19 outbreak. Given the magnitude of the challenge presented by the pandemic, it was decided that the Facility would be used to contribute to the global response to COVID-19. The remaining funds of the Facility were therefore designated to facilitate the exchange of approaches, solutions, innovations that could be of value for developing countries to build more resilient societies, and recover from the impacts of the pandemic.

Considering one of the major impact of COVID-19 was the disruption of food systems, the Facility intended to specifically support rural communities and smallholder farmers to cope with situations of disrupted access to agricultural inputs or labour, or disrupted markets. The Facility will support activities aimed at diversifying income-generating opportunities, thus reducing the dependence on agriculture as main source of livelihoods, or facilitating access to markets – including through the adoption of innovative digital solutions. The proposals submitted in response to the third call for proposals are currently being appraised, and will be selected soon.

Effectively coping with the impact of the pandemic will require even greater international cooperation. As a complement to traditional North-South cooperation, South-South cooperation is arguably more important today than ever. Knowledge about solutions to COVID-induced problems, such as food system disruptions, are as important as financial support.

Across the world, every country has unique experiences of the direct and indirect impact of the pandemic, and the experiences of developing countries are different from those of the Global North, and may be more suitable to other developing countries. Only by learning from these experiences can effective solutions be found, and the international community successfully deliver the Agenda 2030.

The author is Country Director and Representative for China, and Head of the East Asia Regional Hub and South-South Cooperation Center, UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The post What Role Can South-South Cooperation Play in Post COVID-19 Recovery? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

One year after the pandemic was officially declared, the enormous demographic impact of the coronavirus is becoming increasingly evident as more data are compiled and analyzed. Credit: United Nations.

By Joseph Chamie
NEW YORK, Mar 2 2021 (IPS)

The demographic impact of the coronavirus one year after being declared a pandemic on 11 March 2020 has been enormous. The picture that emerges is one of significant consequences on the levels and trends of the key components of demographic change: mortality, fertility and migration.

In terms of mortality, the reported number of Covid-19 deaths worldwide is approaching 3 million, with nearly 120 million coronavirus cases. However, it is widely recognized that the reported global number of Covid-19 deaths is an underestimate. In the U.S., for example, Covid-19 deaths are estimated to be undercounted by 36 percent.

The ten highest Covid-19 death rates per 1 million population are observed in more developed countries and except for the United States are all in Europe

Applying the U.S. undercount figure to the world yields an adjusted total number of Covid-19 deaths of approximately 4 million. If the adjusted number of Covid-19 deaths were excess deaths, the number of deaths worldwide turns out to be about 7 percent higher than the expected normal annual number.

In the U.S., the country with the largest number of Covid-19 deaths, it is estimated that fatalities nationwide were 20 percent higher than normal, amounting to a half million excess deaths, from 15 March 2020 to 30 January 2021. Estimated higher proportions of excess deaths, approximately 37 percent, have also been reported in England and Wales and Spain.

In terms of the distribution of Covid-19 deaths, the top ten countries, whose combined populations amount to one-third of the world’s population, account for two-thirds of all reported deaths (Figure 1). The U.S., with 4 percent of the world’s population, is in the lead position with 21 percent of all Covid-19 deaths, or more than a half a million fatalities. Following the U.S. are Brazil, Mexico and India with 10, 7 and 6 percent, respectively, which together amount to approximately the same number of deaths as the U.S.

 

Source: Worldometer, 1 March 2021 and United Nations Population Division.

 

Covid-19 death rates provide additional insight into the deadly impact of the pandemic. The ten highest Covid-19 death rates per 1 million population are observed in more developed countries and except for the United States are all in Europe (Figure 2).

 

Source: Worldometer, 1 March 2021.

 

The diversity of Covid-19 death rates among countries is particularly noteworthy. China and India, together representing 36 percent of the world’s population, have Covid-19 death rates that are small fractions of the rates observed in the top ten countries. Also, the U.S. Covid-19 death rate of nearly 1,600 per 1 million far exceeds the rates of Australia (35), Canada (579), Germany (842), Israel (625) and Japan (62).

For most countries with available data men have higher Covid-19 case fatality rates than women. However, in several countries, such as India, Nepal and Vietnam, the case fatality rates of women are higher than those of men. In addition to biological factors, social factors may also be playing an important role in sex differences in Covid-19 death rates.

The risk of severe illness and death from Covid-19 increases with age, with the elderly being at the highest risk. In the United States, for example, about 80 percent of the deaths were to those aged 65 years and older. And among that older age group, Covid-19 was responsible for 14 percent of all reported deaths from all causes from 1 January 2020 to 13 February 2021. U.S. data also indicate that among those aged 75 years and older one in twenty infected with Covid-19 dies.

Provisional data for several hard-hit countries are finding that the pandemic has resulted in significant declines in life expectancy at birth. Data for five provinces of Italy found declines of several years in life expectancy at birth, with males having greater declines than females. Those findings represent the largest decline in life expectancy in Italy after the 1918 influenza pandemic and the Second World War.

In the United States for the first half of 2020 life expectancy at birth declined by 1.2 years for males and 0.9 year for females. Significant differences in life expectancy decline were also observed among major U.S. socio-economic groups (Figure 3). The largest decline in life expectancy at birth was 3 years for non-Hispanic black males and the smallest decline was 0.7 year for non-Hispanic white females.

 

Source: U.S. Center for Disease Control, February 2021.

 

The coronavirus pandemic has also influenced fertility in many countries, but in very different ways. Some developing countries, including as India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Uganda, are reporting beginnings of a baby boom, believed to be largely due to women being unable to access modern contraceptives.

In contrast, many other countries, including China, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, are facing declines in births pointing to a baby bust. In China, for example, it is estimated that fewer babies were born in 2020 than in any year since 1961, when China experienced mass starvation.

Due to the disruptions, lockdowns and uncertainties caused by the pandemic, couples are increasingly deciding to postpone childbearing. And delayed childbearing typically leads to lower fertility. In the United States, for example, around 300,000 fewer births are expected in 2021.

Levels of sexual activity have also fallen. The largest declines in sexual activity are reported among those with young children and school-age children who are not attending schools but are at home.

In their attempts to stem the spread of the coronavirus, governments worldwide closed their borders, issued travel bans, and severely limited migration. Those steps have been largely ineffective in halting coronavirus’ spread across countries and regions.

However, as a result of those travel bans, restrictions and lockdowns, migration across international borders came to a virtual standstill. In a matter of several months, the world experienced the biggest and most rapid decline in global human mobility in modern times.

Many migrant workers were unable to travel in search of work and many headed back to their home countries. Due to the border closings and travel restrictions, however, some migrant workers were stranded abroad and unable to return to their home countries.

In addition to migrants, business travelers and tourists, the closing of borders significantly limited the entry and processing of refugees and asylum seekers. Despite the border restrictions, however, many men, women and children have continued to cross international borders unlawfully without being tested for Covid-19, leading to increased risks of coronavirus transmission in transit and destination countries.

By mid-2020 the United Nations Network on Migration and several human rights groups called on governments to suspend deportations and involuntary transfers. The deportations created health risks not only for the migrants, but also for government officials, health workers and the public in host and origin countries. For example, by late April the government of Guatemala reported that nearly a fifth of their coronavirus cases were linked to deportees from the U.S.

The pandemic has also impacted internal migration. In many countries, both more developed and less developed, the coronavirus has caused a reverse migration from cities to less populated places and rural areas.

With higher effects of the coronavirus closely linked to high density urban living combined with prolonged urban lockdowns and related restrictions, people are reconsidering their decisions regarding place of residence. In various developing countries, including India, Kenya, Peru and South Africa, many urban dwellers are returning to their rural villages.

One year after the pandemic was officially declared, the enormous demographic impact of the coronavirus is becoming increasingly evident as more data are compiled and analyzed. While increased mortality is perhaps the most striking demographic consequence, the coronavirus has also significantly impacted fertility and migration.

With the availability of vaccines, improved public health practices, changes in social behavior and the prospects of achieving herd immunity, the demographic effects of the coronavirus appear to be slowly abating. The daily numbers of reported coronavirus cases and Covid-19 deaths are declining, migration levels and travel are gradually improving and people are becoming more hopeful about the near future.

Nevertheless, serious concerns about the pandemic lie ahead. One concern is the emergence of more contagious and possibly more lethal variants of the coronavirus. Variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus first detected in China have already been reported in Brazil, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. If these variants begin to spread widely, another spike in cases and deaths may occurred in the coming months.

Another concern involves the formidable challenges in ensuring global availability and access to Covid-19 vaccines, especially among low-income nations. While about 225 million doses of vaccines have been administered by the end of February, most of them have been in high-income countries.

And somewhat ironically, there is the concern of large numbers of people in various countries around the world choosing not to take the coronavirus vaccine. Based on more than a dozen country surveys it is estimated that approximately a fifth of people across the world would decline getting a Covid-19 vaccine. High proportions choosing not to be vaccinated threaten the goal of achieving herd immunity and raises the contentious issue of deciding on what activities the unvaccinated will not be allowed to do.

Given these and related concerns, the coronavirus may continue to have a significant demographic impact on the world’s population in the coming years. While numerous things about the coronavirus pandemic remain unclear, unresolved and puzzling, one thing appears certain for the second year of the pandemic: many more people will have Appointments in Samarra.

 

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

The post Demographic Impact of Coronavirus Pandemic: An Overview appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Tower Of The Koutoubia Mosque, owned by the actress, is sold to an unidentified buyer.

By Radhika Coomaraswamy
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Mar 2 2021 (IPS)

As a member of the second wave of the feminist movement who were also the first generation of women to receive positions of leadership, I recall the prejudices and biases that framed our experience. Women rarely were put in charge of “hard” core issues, only what were termed “soft” ones in keeping with their role as nurturer and carer. When they were present in the Board room, they were often silent. When they spoke, they were inevitably spoken over. It was the exceptional woman who could navigate the corridors of corporate culture, male expectations, and a workplace that was unsympathetic to her dual burden.

Radhika Coomaraswamy

For women of my generation the dual burden of striving competitively in the workplace and bringing up a loving home was a defining life experience. Many gave up work altogether or settled into intermediate positions in the workplace and away from the glare of leadership. Managing this dual burden is a major issue for most women. In some countries the social welfare system steps in to provide children with care while their parents work. In others, a network of domestic aides support middleclass women allowing them to excel in the workplace while the domestic aide workers, themselves, have to rely on family or makeshift arrangements causing a great deal of stress and overwork. Increasingly young men share the burden at home with their wives allowing for a more equitable balance between work and home. For generations commitments at home meant women in the workplace did not aspire to leadership and the time and energy commitments that such leadership entails.

Over the last half century things have changed. There have been many impressive women political leaders and CEOs of companies. From Chancellor Angela Merkel to Indra Nooyi, young girls now have role models that have reached the top of their profession. And yet, according to the Institute for Women’s Leadership, globally women hold just 24% of senior leadership positions. Women are only 4% of the S&P top 500 companies. There is still a great deal to be done and the mobilization to get more women into leadership positions should not falter.

As we watch women take their rightful place in the world we can ask ourselves, “is their a distinctive style of women’s leadership”? In the past, many doubters of women’s leadership qualities used to point to women leaders such as Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher as being indistinguishable from the men. But the recent pandemic has brought to the fore a whole group of women leaders who showed us things could be done differently.

Jacinda Arden of New Zealand, President Tsai Ing Wen of Taiwan and Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir of Iceland, the next new generation of women leaders handled the corona crisis in a unique and successful way exposing the inadequacies of what is termed the “strong man” adulation of the decade before. In dealing with the pandemic, they were low-key, focused on the delivery of services, clearly setting goals and standards and staying away from brinkmanship. Interestingly for these young women leaders the family is a natural part of the narrative, giving birth while in office or enjoying their husbands as equal partners in taking care of the children.

But the hope for anyone interested in women’s rights must be the very youthful leaders coming from Generation Z. Globally connected, passionate in their causes and armed with technology and social media they are ready to make sweeping changes. Malala was the first to occupy the global stage with her plea for girl’s education, a millennial goal that has actually been achieved. Then we have Greta Thunberg whose unflinching dedication to the cause of climate change and the preservation of the environment has inspired millions of young people

One such person is Disha Annappa Ravi, a young campaigner in Bangalor, India who was arrested for sharing a toolkit to assist the organizers of the farmers movement that was making demands of the government. Defiant in court she said, “if highlighting farmers’ protests globally is sedition, I am better off in jail.” The Court, inspired by this young woman leader, said in its powerful judgment, “Citizens are conscience keepers of government in any democratic nation. They cannot be put behind bars simply because they choose to disagree with State policies.” It is these young women leaders in many countries around the world who may help us fulfill the many dreams and visions spelt out by generations of women leaders who have fought for equal rights and social justice.

The author is a Sri Lankan lawyer, diplomat and human rights advocate who served as the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict. In 2017, after atrocities against the Rohingya people, she was appointed a Member of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The post International Women’s Day, 2021
To Aspire and Achieve- Women’s Leadership in the 21st Century appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A group of nearly 300 girls are released after they were abducted from their school last week.

Credit: Equality Now, Tara Carey

By Antonia Kirkland
NEW YORK, Mar 2 2021 (IPS)

When the United Nations was founded in 1945, the principle of equality for all – regardless of sex, race, language, or religion – was enshrined in the organization’s Charter.

More than seventy-five years have passed, and during the intervening decades, the UN has played a leading role in advancing gender equality around the world. But there is one significant way in which the UN, through the General Assembly of member states and the Security Council, has failed to live up to its stated ambition, and that is in the selection of its own leader.

To date, there have been nine UN Secretary-Generals. Not one of them has been a woman.

I work at Equality Now, a global women’s rights organization that has been at the forefront of campaigning for a woman Secretary-General since 1996. Twenty-five years ago, there were numerous suitably qualified women who could have fulfilled the role commendably, but none were selected.

And up until the most recent election, hardly any women were even nominated.

In recent years, sentiment that the appointment of a female leader is overdue has swelled and become mainstream. In the 2016 campaign to choose the current head, seven of the final thirteen candidates were women – unprecedented in the UN’s history.

Thanks to successful advocacy by the civil society coalition 1 for 7 Billion and others, a new, more transparent selection process was introduced, including live televised conversations with the candidates.

Alongside this was the “Campaign to Elect a Woman Secretary-General” (WomanSG campaign) as well as a Group of Friends initiative led by Colombia, which also championed the appointment of a woman.

Although it was abundantly clear how eminently qualified the women contenders were, and despite their impressive resumes and breadth of appeal and experience, once again it was a man who was chosen for the top job.

When António Guterres was selected as the incoming Secretary-General, feminists within and outside the UN developed a series of action points for him to advance gender equality within the organization.

This included the need to increase gender parity across UN institutions; provide adequate financing to achieve gender equality within the UN; and strengthen UN Women. The importance of working with women’s rights organizations and holding member states accountable to commitments to achieve gender equality was also highlighted. Encompassing all this was the call to lead by example.

Advances and shortcomings under Guterres’ leadership

During Guterres’ time in office, the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) has been grading his performance in feminist leadership. Their fourth and latest report gives him a “B” and applauds the great strides made in reaching gender parity within the UN’s senior management under his tenure.

However, a neglected concern highlighted in the ICRW report as requiring urgent addressing is sexual harassment and abuse within the UN work environment.

The issues of lack of independence and the accountability gap – acknowledged by even the UN internal justice system itself – cannot remain side-lined if the Secretary-General’s “zero-tolerance policy” on sexual harassment is to be achieved. Member states should support this work as part of their commitment to ending violence against women.

Such commitments must extend to cyberspace. Online sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment have grown exponentially since the onset of the pandemic and there is no reason to think the UN virtual workplace is immune.

Rule of law must be applied in the digital sphere, with protective and preventive measures enacted and enforced to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, including online sexual exploitation and abuse.

UN agencies, governments, big tech, and civil society should work together to develop and adopt international standards that will provide a guiding framework for international cooperation. Incorporated within this is the enactment of laws at a national level that address the gendered and multi-jurisdictional nature of gender-based cybercrime.

Positive law reform at the national level must be encouraged and invested in by and through the UN. Member States that fail to live up to their obligations should be held to account.

Governments must protect women’s and girls’ rights in all spaces and relationships, public or private, to tackle their unequal status. This includes amending or repealing gender discriminatory family laws that underpin economic disadvantage, exploitation and violence, preventing women and girls from participating wholly in society and reaching their full potential.

The Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law, launched by Equality Now and partners in March 2020, aims specifically at the reform of sex discriminatory family laws, one of the biggest obstacles to achieving gender equality.

The UN must actively encourage Member States to repeal or amend all discriminatory laws, implement progressive legal and policy frameworks, and adopt and enforce constitutional provisions that guarantee equality without exception.

A positive demonstration of this can be found in Sweden’s feminist foreign policy action plan for 2021.

Advancing women’s leadership

Over the past decade, impressive gains have been achieved in progressing women’s leadership. A growing number of women are being elected to political office, with various women heads of state receiving praise for their effective handling of the pandemic.

Recently, high profile glass ceilings were shattered with the election of Vice-President Kamala Harris in the USA, and the appointment of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Director General of the World Trade Organisation.

It is time for the UN to follow suit by appointing a woman to its highest position. Focusing now on the selection of the next UN Secretary-General is timely considering the priority theme of the 2021 UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW65) is: “Women’s full and effective participation and decision-making in public life, as well as the elimination of violence, for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.”

In addition, the Generation Equality Forum will be launching an Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership.

Member states should do all they can to live up to commitments made over a quarter of a century ago in the Beijing Platform for Action – to nominate women for senior leadership posts who will promote gender equality, including within the UN itself.

Representation matters at the global level too. Now more than ever, the world would benefit from having a feminist woman as UN Secretary-General, governing at the helm of the most important international body we have.

In numerous countries, COVID-19 has weakened social protection systems and pushed many women and girls into extreme poverty, further widening the pre-existing gender poverty gap. Concerning reports of increases in child marriage, girls dropping out of school, and domestic violence are just a few examples of how women and girls are being adversely impacted by the pandemic.

The UN must continue to champion gender equality as integral to COVID-19 recovery plans and challenge regressive forces attacking women’s rights. This requires member states further strengthening international efforts to empower women economically and socially, directing financial support to boost women’s rights movements, and ensuring feminists from the grassroots through to the highest levels of governance are equal participants in policy-making and implementation.

It seems that the President of the General Assembly is starting the process of selecting the next General-Secretary in the right direction. It is now up to individual UN Member States to nominate strong women candidates, as they were encouraged to do the last time and which was enshrined in a 2015 resolution.

With continued transparency and input from civil society helping to curtail opportunities for old-boy network backroom deals, a woman Secretary-General is much more likely to be selected.

While Guterres has said he is available to continue for a second and final five year term, he must participate fully in the upcoming selection process as if his re-appointment was not a foregone conclusion (as has been the case in past re-elections).

Furthermore, as a self-proclaimed “proud feminist” he should do all he can to pave the way for women to be nominated and selected by member states when he does hand over the reins. To a feminist woman.

The author is Global Lead on Legal Equality and Access to Justice at Equality Now*.

For media enquiries and interview requests please contact Sr. Media Manager Tara Carey at tcarey@equalitynow.org; +44 (0)7971 556 340 (WhatsApp)

*Equality Now is an international human rights organization that works to protect and promote the rights of women and girls around the world by combining grassroots activism with international, regional and national legal advocacy. Its international network of lawyers, activists, and supporters achieve legal and systemic change by holding governments responsible for enacting and enforcing laws and policies that end legal inequality, sex trafficking and exploitation, sexual violence, and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and child marriage.

For details of its current campaigns, please visit www.equalitynow.org and on Facebook @equalitynoworg and Twitter @equalitynow.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The post International Women’s Day, 2021
Feminist Leadership at the United Nations — Gender Equality Within & Without appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, March 8.

The post International Women’s Day, 2021
Feminist Leadership at the United Nations — Gender Equality Within & Without appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 2 2021 (IPS)

After being undermined by decades of financial liberalisation, developing countries now are not only victims of vaccine imperialism, but also cannot count on much financial support as their COVID-19 recessions drag on due to global vaccine apartheid.

Anis Chowdhury

Financialisation undermined South
Developing countries have long been pressured to liberalise finance by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The international financial institutions claimed this would bring net capital inflows. This was supposed to reduce foreign exchange constraints to accelerating growth, creating “a rosy scenario, indeed”.

Globalisation’s claim naively expects “more birds to fly into, rather than out of an open birdcage”. Instead, financial globalisation meant net capital flows from capital-poor developing countries to capital-rich developed countries, i.e., dubbed the “Lucas paradox”. A decade later, flows “uphill” had “intensified over time”.

The past decade saw the largest, fastest and most broad-based foreign debt increase in these economies in half a century. Total foreign debt of emerging market economies rose from around 110% of GDP in 2010 to more than 170% in 2019, while that of low-income countries (LICs) increased from 48% to 67%.

Pandemic woes
Developing countries saw private finance drop by US$700 billion in 2020, while foreign direct investment flows to developing countries declined by 30-45% in 2020. Remittances fell by 7% in 2020, and are expected to fall by another 7.5% in 2021.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Meanwhile, developing countries’ indebtedness increased as total aid flows had long fallen short of even half the long promised 0.7% of donor countries’ incomes. In 2020, when developing countries needed it most, donor governments cut bilateral aid commitments by almost 30%.

With limited access to other finance, developing countries, especially LICs, face much higher borrowing costs, even in normal times. With the pandemic, developing countries have been downgraded by rating agencies, further raising borrowing costs.

Facing falling foreign exchange earnings needed to import essential drugs, vaccines and other vital supplies, including food, most countries have to borrow. In 2020, official foreign debt probably rose by 12% of GDP in emerging market economies, and by 8% in LICs. The pandemic thus greatly worsened developing countries’ debt distress.

Before the pandemic, more than a quarter of official revenue went to servicing debt. With the worst recession since the Great Depression in 2020, as well as declining revenue and foreign exchange inflows, debt is now blocking finance for more adequate relief and recovery in many countries.

Debt relief?
Many – even World Bank Chief Economist Carmen Reinhart, once a ‘debt hawk’ – have called for debt relief, but little has happened. IMF debt service relief of about US$213.5 million for 25 eligible LICs ended six months later in mid-October 2020, as scheduled.

The G20’s ‘Debt Service Suspension Initiative for Poorest Countries’ for 73 mainly LICs for May-December 2020 covered around US$20 billion of bilateral public debt owed to official creditors by International Development Association and least developed countries (LDCs).

The G20 initiative did not provide lasting relief, not even reducing foreign debt burdens and barely addressing immediate needs. It merely kicked the can down the road. Debt still had to be repaid in full during 2022–2024 as interest continues to accumulate. It also offered middle income countries (MICs) nothing.

Also, private creditors refused to join in or help out. UNCTAD estimates that in 2020 and 2021, lower MICs and LICs will pay between US$0.7 trillion and US$1.1tn to service debt, as upper MICs pay US$2.0-2.3tn. Meanwhile, some countries have used US$11.3bn of IMF funds meant “for health budgets and food imports” to service private sector debt.

SDRs to the rescue?
Undoubtedly, distressed developing countries desperately need foreign exchange to cope. But IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva’s call to boost global liquidity with “a sizeable SDR” (Special Drawing Right) allocation was blocked by the Trump administration, who objected that it would give China, Iran, Russia, Syria and Venezuela access to new funds.

The Financial Times (FT) argues that the proposed new SDR1tn (US$1.37tn) issuance – almost five times the US$283bn issued in 2009 – is justified by the scale of the crisis. For the FT, it would be “the simplest and most effective way to get additional purchasing power into the hands of the countries that need it”.

It is now widely agreed that “new issuance of SDRs is vital to help poorer countries”. It would augment the IMF’s US$1tn lending capacity, already inadequate to address the ongoing pandemic and economic crises.

SDRs can only be used to pay other central banks, the IMF and 16 “prescribed holders”, including the World Bank and major regional development banks. Thus, SDRs can help foreign exchange constrained countries, especially if rich countries transfer their unused SDRs to the IMF or for development finance.

The IMF could thus expand two existing special funds for LICs: the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust provides interest-free loans, while the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust pays interest and principal due on their IMF obligations.

But SDRs are not an equitable magic bullet as apportionment reflects the size of a country’s economy. In other words, rich countries would get much more, regardless of need, as during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

US role vital
With 85% of IMF votes required to issue new SDRs, and the US holding veto power with 16.5%, Biden administration support is vital. For SDR issuance under US$650 billion, the White House only needs to consult, rather than get approval from the US Congress.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has urged the IMF and World Bank to do everything “they can to ensure that developing countries have the resources for public health and economic recovery”. She has supported new SDRs despite conservative opposition, e.g., from Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal.

But Fund and Bank resources still pale in comparison with the challenge. With preferred creditor status, they can borrow at the much lower interest rates available to them. By so intermediating, they can help developing countries, especially LICs and LDCs, to more cheaply access desperately needed funds.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Developing Countries Struggling To Cope With COVID-19
• Finance Covid-19 Relief and Recovery, Not Debt Buybacks
• Multilateral Bank Intermediation Must Help Developing Countries’ Recovery
• Covid-19 Compounds Developing Country Debt Burdens

The post Neoliberal Finance Undermines Poor Countries’ Recovery appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Girmay Gebru and four others were taken from a café in the regional capital Mekelle, witnesses say.

Viewers are asking why most contestants in the reality show are white in the majority-black country.