Africa

A woman holding a child begs at an intersection in New Delhi. Credit: Ranjit Devraj/IPS.

By Srishty Anand
NEW DELHI, Apr 20 2022 (IPS)

Oxfam’s report ‘Inequality Kills 2022’ and its India supplement (hereafter referred to as the report) revealed some shocking facts about the growing gap between the rich and poor. India, which has the third highest number of billionaires in the world, endured one of the longest-lasting COVID-induced lockdowns in 2020. Yet, the same year, the top 10 percent of India held close to 45 percent of the country’s total national wealth.

Concurrently, the number of billionaires in India rose from 102 to 142, while the bottom 50 percent of the population held a 6 percent share in the nation’s wealth. The unemployment rate (which was at 4.7 percent in 2017–18 and 6.3 percent in 2018–19) became 9.1 and 7.9 percent in December 2020 and 2021 respectively.

 

The myth of development by privatisation

Why does the wealth of a few continue to grow against this backdrop? One reason is privatisation. This article specifically looks at the deteriorating state of basic services and state-owned utilities—including education and healthcare—due to privatisation.  Take for example the Aatmanirbhar Bharat package and the four-year national monetisation pipeline.

While globally the ten richest men doubled their fortunes during the pandemic, the incomes of 99 percent of humanity fell; and the richest 98 Indians own the same wealth as the bottom 552 million Indian citizens. This gap has increased over the last decade, as the bottom 50 percent, that held 8 percent of the wealth in 2012, had a mere 6 percent in 2021

Such policies reduce state ownership and control by selling central public sector enterprises to private sector businesses. This results in the state relinquishing decision-making roles (as it no longer holds majority share), abandoning price control, the social mandate of employing the masses, and operating in areas and sectors in which the private sector is unwilling.

One frequently cited motivation to privatise is efficiency—the quality of services offered and the government’s fiscal resources to expand public expenditure are expected to improve. However, this assumption is flawed on two counts: private services are as much liable to be misapplied as public-funded services, and they’re prone to applying commercial value on social services, leading to exclusion of the ‘have-nots’.

For instance, while globally the ten richest men doubled their fortunes during the pandemic, the incomes of 99 percent of humanity fell; and the richest 98 Indians own the same wealth as the bottom 552 million Indian citizens. This gap has increased over the last decade, as the bottom 50 percent, that held 8 percent of the wealth in 2012, had a mere 6 percent in 2021.

 

Recourse to private healthcare as the ‘last resort’

India has one of the highest levels of out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) on health services in the world and the lowest public health spending. OOPE is a major financial burden on Indian households, which spend 43 percent of their total expenditure on pharmacies, 28 percent on private general hospitals, and 7.42 percent on government hospitals. And the private sector dominates healthcare provision, with around 74 percent of outpatient care and 65 percent of hospitalisation care in urban India.

As we saw during the second wave of COVID-19, India’s public health system fell short due to issues of governance and regulatory failure, such as shutdown of elective and outpatient services or indefinite deferring of routine check-ups. In fact, the public hospital systems in many states were overrun during COVID-19.

Those who turned to private hospitals faced problems ranging from non-treatment to swindling. The private health market also carries the risk of overprescription and unchecked selling of drugs, which promotes unnecessary drug use. In response, the government enforced price capping, allotment of beds and so on, but the issues persisted nevertheless. The inaccessibility to public services caused OOPE to increase further, leaving many people untreated because costs and lack of health insurance rendered both private and public healthcare inaccessible.

 

The quandary of education

India has both private and public education providers. In fact, private schools continue to grow as income levels go up. The pandemic saw private schools impose arbitrary fee hikes and grossly overcharge students, with some enrolling in unrecognised institutions.

The report notes that in tertiary education, private institutions are almost twice that of government institutions, and in higher education, public-funded education sees only 32 percent enrolment whereas its private counterparts see 68 percent enrolment.

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which encouraged states to incentivise private/philanthropic activity, proved redundant, as it failed to crowd out the private sector. The report iterates that 35 percent children still couldn’t continue their education over non-payment of fees and 57 percent parents paid additional charges that were not part of the official break-up.

Privatisation also results in the exclusion of marginalised communities, Dalits, Adivasis, and girls because private schools are generally established in places that have good public infrastructure. When society is fractured along different social identities of caste, gender, geography, and religion, marketisation of education widens these gaps.

 

Privatising public goods

India’s expenditure on social security schemes for workers is already low at 0.6 percent of the total union budget. These schemes cover a diverse workforce in the organised and informal sectors. The pandemic affected informal and migrant workers most severely, and the absence of social security for them was more glaring than ever.

By privatising public goods such as education, healthcare, social safety, food, and drinking water, the precarities that certain segments face are deepened.

Even as the extent of public crowdsourcing of financial support and information on oxygen, hospitals, and doctors on social media was exemplary during the pandemic, this temporary social vine was born out of the absence and abandonment of state infrastructure.

A significant population of this country undertook medical debt, suffered from loss of loved ones, reported lower intake of food than before the pandemic, walked the length and breadth of the country to feel ‘at home’, and lost their livelihoods. The private sector functions on a rationalising mechanism that demands value for its services, in contrast to well-being and welfare as outcomes.

 

The way forward

As we’ve already emphasised, public financing cannot be supported by increasing privatisation of state enterprises. Here are some ways to pursue more equitable development.

1. Increase state expenditure

With privatisation, the state eventually loses ownership and control, making the question of public interest non-existent. Taking the example of health, the report, following the Economic Survey 2020-21 argues for an increase in public spend from 1 percent (global average of spending is 10 percent) to 2.5–3 percent of GDP, which can decrease the OOPE from 65 percent to 30 percent of overall healthcare spend. In case of basic rights like education, healthcare, and food security, and given the current disparities, the state needs to strengthen its control and simultaneously recalibrate its relation with the private players to integrate social goals. This can be achieved by introducing more regulations so that these services are not delivered for profits alone.

2. A more balanced private–public role in service provision

Following the recommendation made above, the argument remains that for universal and mass literacy state-funded educational facilities need to continue in India. At the same time, the private players can certainly complement the public school system (as in Bangladesh, Chile, and Colombia) in different ways to not just attain literacy but also an education and skill set that improves employability. The agenda of private education or healthcare can work in tandem with or bolster public services to recast their developmental purpose.

3. Progressive taxation

The government needs to change the tax regime such that the incessantly growing rich of the country pay taxes progressively. Progressive taxation ensures that the tax burden is higher for the wealthy. Through taxes and strong state provisioning, a basic standard of living for lower-income families can be ensured, which will take care of fundamental needs such as shelter, food, health, education, and transportation. The rationale for this system of taxation is rooted in an unequal growth rate of income.1

4. Review and update existing schemes

The case for public provisioning can be strengthened by reviewing the status of schemes where access needs to be improved. For example, the vicious cycle of low income and high OOPE will continue to cause a rift in health inequity if left unchecked and unregulated.

The flagship, Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana—dubbed the world’s largest health insurance plan offering financial risk protection against catastrophic health expenditure to approximately 40 percent of the population—hasn’t provided effectively improved access to health care. Similarly, the debate on living wages needs to be revisited to improve human capital rather than support bare sustenance and increase demand-driven growth.

5. Measure inequality

India needs a more rigorous data base to measure incomes and consumptions levels as well as continuous data collection by the income tax department on tax payers and gross and returned income. This transparency will then facilitate a more democratic dialogue on tax structures for the super-rich, such as a wealth tax, instead of burdening the population with indirect taxes such as GST.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are personal.

Srishty Anand is a research and knowledge specialist on responsible finance at Oxfam India

 

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

Damaris Muthee Mutua is the second female runner to have been killed in the famous Iten athletics base in a year.

Coco shares her experience of living with albinism in Nigeria.

Mohamed Salah's Egypt face a difficult path to the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, while holders Senegal also discover their qualifying opponents.

Viraj from India, in a squat where he has been living for three months near Velika Kladusa, Bosnia. He hopes to join family in Italy. February 2022. Credit: Chiara Luxardo

By Sara Perria
Bihać, Bosnia, Apr 19 2022 (IPS)

Responding to several shouts Viraj emerges from the ruins of his shelter in northwest Bosnia. He is originally from India but is now squatting near Bihać in what remains of a house abandoned since the 1990s Balkans war.

“I was in the bathroom,” says Viraj – although there is no such facility. The building doesn’t even have windows, just gaps exposed to a freezing wind. Collapsing walls are patched with planks. Steps leading up from the road that are not missing shake under the weight of the few people venturing there.

“It’s just us living here now,” adds Sidar, an Iraqi in his late 30s. “We prefer to stay here. People come and go, but we’ll stay until it’s a good moment to cross.”

The two men are among some 2,000 or so migrants waiting for the opportunity to play the so-called ‘game’: the hazardous challenge of evading Croatian police on the nearby border and entering their goal of the European Union, illegally. They often need several attempts to succeed. Many prefer to squat closer to the border for months until spring offers an easier route across mountains.

A long day’s walk away, basic services, health facilities and food are provided in camps for migrants managed by Bosnia and the UN. Yet hundreds like Viraj and Sidar have opted instead for abandoned houses, warehouses and factories fallen into disuse, or skeletons of unfinished buildings surrounded by trash, with open toilets and improvised kitchens. Away from the headlines, they also exist mostly under the radar of humanitarian agencies.

“There are too many migrants in the camps,” says Sidar, citing issues with drug dealers, violence and lack of freedom there. “We can go in and out of this house when we want. In the camps we only have a couple of hours, then we have to go back. There’s more freedom here.”

The kitchen of a squat near Bihać, Bosnia. February 2022. Credit: Chiara Luxardo

Life is a long wait for this migrant population transiting Bosnia. “I get up, eat something and watch a movie,” says Viraj. “Bollywood movies or action movies like Fast and Furious 5.”

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), very few request asylum in Bosnia, aiming instead for countries such as Germany, France or Italy. The Balkan route fell under the spotlight in 2015 during the so-called ‘long summer of migration’ when thousands of asylum seekers from Syria stretched Bosnia’s capacity as a ‘buffer zone’ and the IOM was put in charge of the camps, with the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), a humanitarian non-profit organisation, running healthcare.

Seven years later, management is transitioning to Bosnian authorities, against the backdrop of a complex and fragmented local political structure. Numbers of migrants are much lower now, with occupancy in the formal camps around 1,840 against a capacity of over 5,200.

Almost 90% of migrants are single men, mostly from Pakistan and heading to Italy. But there are also growing numbers of Afghans and some Cubans, Iranians and Bangladeshis. They occupy settlements divided along ethnic lines and clashes are not uncommon, with one death registered this month. Threatening scrawls have appeared on the walls of some shelters.

Laura Lungarotti, IOM’s chief of mission in Bosnia, says the situation has evolved “tremendously” over the past year. Numbers are sharply down and camps have more capacity. For this reason, migration in Bosnia now needs “durable solutions, not emergency ones.” Solutions come from the “inclusion of migrants in the health system, with resources dedicated to migrants used for the local population,” she says. But achieving this balance is not easy as long as many stay outside the formal system.

In another abandoned house, empty cans of energy drinks indicates the presence of migrants. Twenty young men — Pakistani and Afghans from the same Pashtun ethnic group — live in this house guarded by a chained dog. It’s a sign that the dog’s owner is a long term inhabitant and might be working as a smuggler for the others, an aid worker explains. Many have scabies after sleeping on bedding infested by the parasite and then returning to the same places after attempting ‘the game’. One also has an infection caused by a bad burn from cooking oil.

In camps such as the newly-rebuilt Lipa or in Sarajevo, they would have access to food, beds and a range of medical services, including a doctor, medicines, mental health facilities and an isolation room for Covid cases.

As migration experts point out, the international community has become effectively complicit in the ‘game’, which also involves human traffickers. Migrants trying to get to the EU treat the formal camps like Lipa as winter ‘pit-stops’, with the average length of stay just 40 days before moving on.

Professor Claudio Minca of the University of Bologna says this is the result of political ambiguities that have left a ‘gray area’ in the governance of these mobile and ephemeral ‘geographies’ based on information about the Balkan route shared through social media. This includes notes on mountains, rivers and fields, as well as smuggling networks, informal and institutional camps, and NGOs offering food and medical care to migrants.

A young Tajik asylum seeker with his 8 month old daughter in a squat near Velika Kladusa, Bosnia. February 2022. Credit: Chiara Luxardo

“It also reflects, to some extent, a sense of pride on the part of the refugees themselves, related to their determination to succeed not only in just crossing, but also in surviving when they are pushed back in preparation for the next attempt,” Minca and Jessica Collins say in their research paper ‘The Making of Migration’.

This grey area is also a source of tension with local Bosnian communities which sometimes perceive migrants as competing for resources, including health care.

Some migrants’ settlements are known and get support from local and international organisations, with food, portable showers and health checks. Only the UN, Red Cross and DRC are allowed by Bosnia to deliver food however. And migrants are banned from using public transport and taxis under a measure justified by ‘Covid restrictions’.

Healthcare: local versus global

Since migrants are extremely mobile, many pass under the radar. Cases of COVID, other airborne respiratory diseases, tuberculosis, scabies, related infections and antibiotic resistance remain difficult to analyse and detect.

The director of Bihać local hospital, Ademir Jusufagic, says that when the wave of migrants arrived in 2015 it was heartbreaking to see how many children were in need of medical assistance. But fast forward several years and a pandemic, the limitations of the local system stand out, despite some investments by the UN and international agencies to provide the hospital with an X-ray machine and ambulances.

The main challenge, he says, is the lack of finances, especially after an earthquake that heavily damaged the hospital. Low wages make it hard to find and retain doctors and nurses. Most of the young staff go abroad.

“Prevention is down to better investments at a state level. You need to provide higher salaries, especially in places like this,” he says.

From a health security perspective, Jusufagic cites cases among migrants of tuberculosis, which was not present locally, and a high percentage of scabies that can get infected. It is difficult to assess the impact of antibiotic resistance in a mobile population hoping to reach better economic and social conditions. Cases of syphilis and HIV are also reported.

“The first challenge was that there was no control of makeshift camps and no place to surely find people, as migrants were constantly on the move,” he said. “The moving is the biggest issue, as many things go uncontrolled, so we didn’t know what would happen in terms of basic epidemiological prevention in an environment that lacked basic hygiene. So the priority was to provide people the means to clean themselves.”

Meeting in a café along the route to the Croatian border, a well known activist explains how the gulf between local and global perspectives illustrates the source of much of the trouble, as well as the solution for managing healthcare.

“International agencies came having no knowledge of what Bosnia is today and its recent history,” says Ines Tanovic, manager of Kompas 071, an organization that supports migrants on their way to the ‘game’. “The humanitarian industry is a machine and it damages us on the ground with a kind of white-saviour syndrome. Here the focus became only on the migrants but not on the local population.”

As she talks, a group of Pakistanis from Peshawar donate the food they have been donated by an international organization and ask to take a shower “before trying the game.” Tanovic gives them the key smiling and continues to chat.

“People were seeing migrants receiving five jackets each, with no coordination. Then you would see these migrants sell the jackets to Bosnian people with an average salary of 400 euros. It was like seeing capitalism turning the poor against the poor.”

The memory of former Yugoslavia, “where everything was provided for”, also plays a role in the competition for health services, with the downsizing of the public sector in favour of the private, just as local poverty increased.

“Even if the international organisations bought ambulances and some machines, much more could have done for the locals,” Tanovic says.

Contradictions

Migrants’ journeys are notoriously long. Just how long can depend on how much money is paid to human smugglers who guide them through war-time minefields, usually in big groups, according to NGOs. It’s rare not to be caught by the police on the first attempt, so migrants return to the shelters they started from. Many are in bad physical condition after long treks.

“But in the end they all manage it, so attempts by the Croatian police to stop them sound like a waste of money that could be spent better,” comments Silvia Maraone, country coordinator of the Italian NGO Ipsia.

In a hill-top ruin occupied mainly by families from Syria and Afghanistan, a young father holds his 18-month-old daughter. An ethnic Tajik, he says he fled Afghanistan because he feared the Taliban would kill him. Caught in the “grey” zone of the “game”, he explains that his wife and other children are already in Germany but it would take nearly two years for his and his baby’s papers to be processed. “I can’t wait that long, I need to go to my family,” he says.

Names of asylum seekers have been changed or omitted to protect their identities. Additional reporting by Asim Beslija.

*Reporting for this article was funded by the European Journalism Centre, through the Global Health Security Call, a programme supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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');  

Excerpt:

Supported by the European Journalism Centre*

Student Adewale made his dream of owning a motorbike a reality after converting his own bicycle.

The authorities issue a warning after a video alleged to involve schoolchildren goes viral.

By Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
SINGAPORE, Apr 19 2022 (IPS-Partners)

Pakistan’s impossibly debonair and incredibly urbane cricketing star turned politician, Imran Khan, is a man of a myriad parts. Where English is spoken and cricket is played, he remains a hero. Time was when leading his team in many a Test match he caused blood to rapidly pulsate through Pakistani veins. In a nation buffeted by the vicissitudes of misfortune and thirsting for pride, he had fulfilled his people’s dream by winning them the ultimate prize in cricket, the World Cup. But then he switched games and went into politics. The fates, with him for a while, eventually withdrew their favour. He gambled with a tactic that was no more than a political stunt. Alas it failed, and the Courts in his country refused him relief. But this essay is not so much about him. It about the Courts that finally caused his fall. It is also about the role the judicial organ of the State has played along the inscrutable path of Pakistan’s constitutional and political destiny.

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

Since Pakistan’s inception, the higher courts, manned by senior Civil Servants and lawyers schooled in the best of the English legal tradition, have often been politically interventionist, with both liberal and illiberal consequences. An example of the first kind was a judgment (later overturned) of the Sindh High Court in 1954 that at the first instance initially favoured Speaker Tamizuddin Ahmed when he challenged the annulment of the legislature by the Governor General Ghulam Mohammed; of the latter was the rulings of Chief Justice Munir Ahmed, the main propounder of the “doctrine of necessity” a principle that ruled the roost in Pakistan’s constitutional annals for a long time to come.

The doctrine draws upon the writings of a maxim attributed to the medieval jurist Henry de Bracton. It is that, “that which is otherwise not lawful is made lawful by necessity”, rooted in the Latin legal dictum Salus Populi Suprema Lex, meaning “the wellbeing of the people is the supreme law”. This is also embodied in the ‘Second Treatise of Government’ of the philosopher John Locke, often viewed as a great champion of democratic pluralism. Incidentally the doctrine has been cited thereafter in several Courts in the British Commonwealth.

Using this liberal interpretation as a justification, Pakistani military rulers starting from Field Marshal Ayub Khan in 1958, continued to use the concept as a most useful legal tool (Justice Munir strengthened it to justify Ayub’s martial law in his judgment in the case of Dosso versus State where he ruled that a military take-over assumed sanction if there was public, even tacit). To the Supreme Court’s credit, it has attempted to live it down, initially modifying it circumspectly and thereafter boldly striking it down. In a major challenge to it though belatedly, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, on General Ziaul Huq’s take-over in the 1970s, ruled that no judge can offer any support to the acquisition of power by any unconstitutional functionary through modes other than envisaged in the Constitution. That was a great moral blow to any future unconstitutional change.

The death blow came recently. It happened last week when the Court headed by the newly appointed Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial took suo moto cognizance of a controversial dismissal of a “no trust” motion by Deputy speaker Qasim Suri in the Pakistan National Assembly. It had been moved by the combined opposition against Imran Khan and required 272 in an Assembly of 372 members to pass. Because the ruling Coalition had broken down, the opposition had the numbers, but just about. But Suri, then acting for the Speaker, who belonged to Imran’s Tehreek-e-Insaaf party disallowed the motion just prior to voting on 3 April, on alleged grounds that some dissenting parliamentarians had been illegally influenced by a “foreign power”, that is, the United States. Thereafter President Arif Alvie dissolved the Assembly upon the Prime Minister’s advice and called for elections within 90 days. In public, Imran continued to insist on the allegations on US interference and trenchantly criticized what he termed as “treasonable actions” on part of his opponents, even though it placed him at odds with the seemingly all-powerful military and the Army Chief, General Qamar Bajwa.

After three days of mulling over the issues involved, the five-member bench headed by Bandial gave its “short order” ruling, upholding the supremacy of the Constitution at all costs. It also underscored the paramount role of the judiciary in protecting the nation’s basic law. The judges declared the Deputy Speakers dismissal of the motion as “unconstitutional”, as also the consequent dissolution of the Assembly by the President on the Prime Minister’s advice. It reinstated the assembly to status quo ante as on 3 April and ordered that nothing – no action of the President, the Prime Minister or the Speaker- could impede the process of voting and the election of the next Prime Minister which would have to happen by 9 April. When the Speaker, apparently influenced by Imran, appeared to demur, Bandial physically went to the Court at dead of night s presumably to prepare for an eventuality in which he might have had to take anti “contempt of court measures” against government supporters! Consequently, the voting was held as per court order, Imran and the Speaker resigned, and despite the turmoil Pakistan went through a democratic political change, albeit after some hiccups.

The “short order” of the judges drove what was possibly the last nail in the coffin of the doctrine of necessity in Pakistan. It was based on the theoretical perception that nothing should necessitate any action contrary to the tenets of the Constitution, in which the “well- being” of the people resided, and which reflected the people’s choice and will. The Court was reaching out to the highest source of law enshrined in the Latin adage Vox Populi Vox Dei, meaning “the voice of the people is the voice of God”. It was supposedly enunciated as an effective political maxim in English common law as early as in1327 AD by Walter Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury, who used it in a sermon bringing charges against King Edward 11.

While the judges ruling will help correct a practice that had strayed from the original principles of liberal constitutional law, it will not end the woes of Pakistan. Those had resulted from concatenation of circumstances, political, economic, strategic, and historical. Pakistan has a new Prime Minister in Shahbaz Sharif, an experienced hand in governance. As a mark of protest, Imran took his party out of the Assembly and boycotted the election of his successor. The new government in place will face daunting challenges with the elections due in around a year’s time, a broken economy to fix, and a stubborn opponent to resist in the streets. Imran had lingered on the wicket, a tad too long after he was obviously out, which was not quite cricket. But he has the tenacity of a Robert Bruce and could well return to play another innings. But for now, the people of this nuclear weapon state and their neighbours, are heaving a sigh of relief as the immediate political imbroglio somewhat eases. Also, because from the chaos has emerged a strong institution, a guardian of democracy in a turbulent polity, the judiciary, which has established its authority sufficiently to be able to demonstrate Roma locuta, Causa finita, Rome has spoken, the case is finished!

Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is the Honorary Fellow at the Institute of South Asia Studies, NUS. He is a former Foreign Advisor (Foreign Minister) of Bangladesh and President and Distinguished Fellow of Cosmos Foundation. The views addressed in the article are his own. He can be reached at: isasiac @nus.edu.sg

This story was originally published by Dhaka Courier.

Refugees entering Poland from Ukraine at the Medyka border crossing point. March 2022. Credit: UNHCR/Chris Melzer

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Apr 19 2022 (IPS)

“The war in Ukraine is a European …and a Christian… matter… It does not require the involvement of a colourful array of religions or people”. These words were uttered and affirmed by some European Protestant men, working in interfaith circles in Europe. The ‘colourful’ encompassed other than European, mostly Christian – and likely mostly male.

Add this perspective to another one from a seasoned Catholic lay male leader, diplomat and academic, echoing representatives working in various Vatican offices, who maintain that if there is to be any religious engagement [e.g. a meeting with the Russian or Ukrainian senior Orthodox Church representatives] around Ukraine or Russia, “it is the Pope who should be doing this [not any other faith leaders or institutions] …and this is the preference of European governments”.

To these people, the fact that the war in Ukraine (and economic sanctions against Russia), have raised the price of oil, gas, and wheat (and therefore basic staples such as bread) for all other inhabitants of our world, is simply irrelevant.

The important fact appears to that Europe is suffering – and losing face in doing so, one might add. The fact that there are religious minorities in Ukraine also suffering, is not meriting as much attention. The supremacy of the Catholic Pope, who is a leader of but 16 percent of the world’s religious populations, is also apparent in the discourse of many esteemed European male leaders.

Were European governments to see value-added to religious involvement in affairs of state, then it would clearly be the Pope who would merit the role, out of the thousands – if not more – of other faith leaders in (the rest of) the world.

Yet so significant is the war in Ukraine, along with the role of Russia (and perhaps after that China) in geopolitics, and the changing political, financial and economic consequences around a world already damaged by the vagaries of Covid lockdowns and declines in tourism (which was the source of basic income for hundreds of millions of people), that it is a staple of many conversations – outside of Europe.

One such perspective of some seasoned diplomats in the USA, is that “religion and religious institutions have nothing to do with this war nor play much of a role in it. This is one politician’s madness”. Someone must have forgotten to send the memo with the words of a Patriarch of the largest Church in Russia, with over 120 million adherents worldwide, justifying the war – and using a homophobic discourse to do so.

Or maybe we erased the other memo where millions of Russians voted for this one “mad” politician (as millions of others voted for other mad politicians elsewhere in the world).

And yet, as we ponder the rampant ignorance about the intersections of politics and religion worldwide, and the arrogance of some European religious and political actors, and as some of us listen to religious leaders from other corners of the world, it would be wise to ponder a couple of questions: are we sure that all religions would have found the Patriarch of Russia’s language, and its subject, quite so distasteful? And, are we sure that it is one man causing all this carnage and hate (and profit to weapons manufacturers, mercenaries, and all who make money from war)?

There are many forms of this kind of arrogance of ignorance, which have coalesced to bring our world to this point where it would seem that almost every corner of it, is blighted. For some it is the blight of many forms of extremism: from launching war against a sovereign nation and killing its people, to horrific gang violence, to desecrating sacred sites and attacking pilgrims and devotees during their prayers, even during times which are holy to both attacked and attackers.

For others, it is the blight of democracy abused and myriad human rights systematically and deeply violated. For yet others the blight is having to live with various forms of hate speech and hate filled actions, including those with distinct anti-Semitic and Islamophobic blows. Holocaust deniers are reemerging out of many layers of rotten woodwork in all corners of the world.

The semantics of Islamophobia are being argued about in some western government circles, even as veiled women are being openly abused in some streets and denied access to jobs in countries claiming respect for religious freedom, and where even turbaned Sikh men continue to face abuse because they are mistaken as Muslims, and/or because their form of dress is deemed injurious to secular sensibilities.

For others the blight is to have to contend with shootings by lone gunmen of innocents in schools or subways or nightclubs or concerts. All this in the middle of a public health epidemic that has claimed the lives of millions – and we are still counting (where it is possible to have reliable data) – and while climate change is contributing to the largest numbers of refugees and forcibly displaced peoples ever in recorded collective human history.

Yet climate change is still being denied. And as for misogyny, it is the new normal in private and public spaces, everywhere in the world – in Europe too.

But it is not all gloom. The same European country which decried the one million Syrian refugees it allowed in (and subsequently quietly offloaded thousands of them to other countries), has announced no limit to the number of Ukrainians needing to enter it, and sometimes ensuring that some of the newer Ukrainian refugees receive access to homes before other refugees (who had waited longer but now must continue their wait). Another European country which let some refugees die of cold on its borders rather than allow them in, is now providing all manner of support to the Ukrainian ones.

The United States, which a few months ago lost significant credibility as a result of a messy exit after a 20 year struggle against the Taliban in Afghanistan (leaving the country largely back in control of the Taliban), is today resonating with righteous indignation, and crowing that “the West is back”. The European Union too, has seen the error of its ways of being overly dependent on cheap Russian gas, and oil, and is now hastening to rid itself of such a dependency.

The war in Ukraine (albeit apparently not the ongoing horrors in Myanmar, Yemen, Mali, Niger, Cameroon, and Ethiopia – to name but a few) is indeed impacting our world. Like Covid-19, the war will doubtless continue to influence political, financial, and socio-cultural frames for decades. But here is another question: are we sure that the rampant and now fully on display discriminatory arrogance of ethnocentrism, and its appendages, will change?

This April 2022, witnesses another form of coalescing. Bahá’ís celebrate Riḍván, a festival of joy and unity which commemorates the beginning of their Faith. For Hindus and many others also, this month marks the celebration of the Spring festival of the harvest, and the Hindu new year. For Sikhs as well, this April celebrates the birth of the religion as a collective faith.

Jews celebrate Pesach, or Passover, commemorating the exodus of the Jewish people escaping the slavery of the Egyptian Pharaoh. Christians (Western and Eastern) – celebrate the resurrection of Christ this Easter. All while Muslims observe the thirty days of fast known as Ramadan. There are more faith traditions celebrating and/or commemorating. Definitely the best time, then, to pray for – or for those of tender anti-religious sensibilities let us say ‘to reflect’ on: the twin birth of humility and mercy.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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');  

Excerpt:

The writer is Secretary General, Religions for Peace.

A 14-year-old boy shares his story after being separated from his family in the eastern part of the country.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 19 2022 (IPS)

Once deemed a basic human needs success story, Sri Lanka (SL) is now in its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948. Nonetheless, SL’s ‘moment of truth’ now offers lessons for other developing countries.

China scapegoat
SL has just defaulted on its foreign debt for the very first time. Attributing its current predicament to a Chinese ‘debt-trap’ is a new Cold War propaganda distraction – which we will undoubtedly hear much more of.

Anis Chowdhury

In this fable, SL is a country caught in a debt trap due to white elephant projects mooted and financed by borrowings from China. Blaming SL’s debt crisis on Chinese loans is not only factually wrong, but also prevents understanding the origins and nature of its current crisis.

Outstanding SL government foreign debt in April 2021 was US$35.1bn. Policy errors have reduced foreign direct investment (FDI), exports and government revenue, changing the composition of its foreign debt for the worst.

Debt to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), World Bank, China, Japan and other bilateral lenders, including India, came to about a tenth each. Borrowing from capital markets – 47%, or almost half – is mainly responsible for its debt unsustainability.

After all, borrowing from multilateral development banks – mainly the World Bank and ADB – and bilateral lenders are mostly on concessional terms, while debt from commercial sources incurs higher interest rates.

Commercial loans tend to be more short term, and subject to stricter conditions. As sovereign bonds or commercial loans become due, their full value must be repaid. External debt servicing costs surge accordingly.

As of April 2021, about 60% of SL’s debt was for durations of less than ten years. The US dollar denominated debt share rose sharply – from 36% in 2012 to 65% in 2019, as Chinese renminbi denominated loans remained around 2%.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Adding government guaranteed debt to state-owned enterprises, total borrowings from China were 17.2% of SL’s total public foreign debt liabilities in 2019. Meanwhile, commercial borrowings grew rapidly from merely 2.5% of foreign debt in 2004 to 56.8% in 2019.

The effective interest rate on commercial loans in January 2022 was 6.6% – more than double that for Chinese debt. Unsurprisingly, SL’s interest payments alone came to 95.4% of its declining government revenue in 2021!

Deep-rooted problems
Following its 2001 recession, SL recovered, before growth declined again after 2012 and the pandemic contraction in 2020. SL also experienced premature deindustrialization, with manufacturing’s GDP share falling from 22% in 1977 to 15% in 2017.

Government tax revenue declined from 18.4% of GDP (1990-92 average) to 12.7% (2017-19), and a 8.4% pandemic nadir in 2020. Non-tax revenue – mainly dividends and profits from public investments – fell from 2.3% of GDP in 2000 to 0.9% in 2015.

SL’s exports-GDP ratio almost halved from 39% in 2000 to 20% in 2010. This took a big hit during the pandemic, dropping to 17% in 2020. From 2000, FDI inflows into SL were between 1.1% and 1.8% of GDP, before falling to 0.5% in 2020.

During 2012-19, the share of International Monetary Fund (IMF) Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) in SL’s debt stock fell from 28% to 14%, as borrowings ballooned! SL’s debt crisis is clearly due to the policy choices of successive governments since the 1990s.

Crisis-prone
In February 2022, SL had only US$2.31 billion in foreign exchange reserves – too little to cover its import bill and debt repayment obligations of US$4 billion.

Its 22 million people face 12-hour power cuts, and extreme scarcities of food, fuel and other essential items such as medicines. Inflation reached an all-time high of 17.5% in February 2022, with food prices rising 24% in January-February 2022. But economic crisis is not new to SL.

As a commodity producer – mainly exporting tea, coffee, rubber and spices – export earnings have long been volatile, vulnerable to external shocks. Foreign exchange earnings have also come from ready-made garments, tourism and remittances, but their shares have grown little over decades.

Since 1965, SL has obtained 16 IMF loans, typically with onerous conditionalities. The last was in 2016, providing US$1.5 billion over 2016-19. Required austerity measures have squeezed public investment, hurting growth and welfare.

Two recent shocks made things worse. First, bomb blasts in Colombo churches and luxury hotels in April 2019 drastically cut tourist arrivals by 80%, squeezing foreign exchange earnings.

Second, the pandemic has damaged not only economic activity, but also foreign exchange reserves, as it often paid monopoly prices to get COVID-19 tests, treatments, equipment, vaccines and other needs.

Tax cuts galore
The ethno-populist policies of the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government – which came to power in 2019 – have added fuel to fire. Successfully mobilizing majority Buddhist Singhala sentiment – against Tamils, Muslims and Christians – he sought political support by cutting taxes on the ‘middle class’.

His government cut taxes across the board, collecting only 12.7% of GDP in revenue in 2017-19 – one of the lowest shares among middle-income countries. Losing about 2% of GDP in revenue, its tax-GDP ratio fell to 8.4% in 2020.

SL’s value-added tax rate was cut from 15% to 8%, while the VAT registration threshold was raised from one to 25 million SL rupees monthly. Other indirect taxes and the ‘pay-as-you-earn’ system were abolished.

The minimum income tax threshold was raised from 500,000 SL rupees annually to three million, with few earning that much! Personal income tax rates were not only reduced, but also became even less progressive.

The corporate income tax rate was cut from 28% to 24%. With a 33.5% drop in registered taxpayers (corporate and individual) between 2019 and 2020, SL’s tax base shrank.

Thus, even more of the population became exempt from direct taxes, increasing government popularity, especially among the middle class. But tax cuts failed to spur investment and growth – despite old claims by Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump and their ‘guru’, Arthur Laffer.

Successive SL governments thus failed to increase tax collection, squeezing government revenue. To finance budget deficits, they increasingly borrowed from international capital markets – at higher commercial rates, with shorter maturities.

As the government cut tax rates and exempted most from paying income tax, government revenue fell. Due to its falling revenue and deteriorating credit rating, the government had to borrow more, at higher interest rates.

Facing fiscal and foreign exchange constraints, the government declared SL a 100% organic farming nation in April 2021. Banning all fertilizer imports – ostensibly to promote ‘agro-ecological’ farming as part of a larger ‘green’ transformation – compounded the looming ‘perfect storm’.

Dropped in November 2021, the policy drastically cut agricultural output, with more food imports becoming necessary. Falling tea and rubber output also reduced export earnings, exacerbating foreign exchange shortfalls.

Evidently, the SL government addressed the economic challenges it faced with ‘populist’ policy choices. Instead of addressing longstanding problems faced, this effectively ‘kicked the can’ down the road, worsening the inevitable meltdown.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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

• China Debt Traps in the New Cold War
• Most Financial Inflows Not Developmental
• IMF, World Bank Must Urgently Help Finance Developing Countries
• Paltry International Support for Spending Needs Sets South Further Back

Kenya enjoy double success at the Boston Marathon as Evans Chebet wins the men's crown as Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir takes the women's title.

Haneen Hossam was charged with human trafficking after inviting women to earn money by making videos.

Cameroon's Joel Embiid and Greek-Nigerian Giannis Antetokounmpo are named 2021-22 NBA MVP finalists alongside reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Nikola Jokic.

A rainy day in the camps under COVID-19 lock-down, Maina IDP camp, Kachin, Myanmar. Credit: UNICEF/UNI358777/Oo.

By Navid Hanif
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 18 2022 (IPS)

As the world is rocked by a confluence of crises, the global economic outlook for 2022 is becoming ever more uncertain and fragile. Prospects for sustainable development for all and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 are bleak, particularly for developing countries.

The war in Ukraine is adding further stresses to a world economy still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and under growing strain from climate change. These cascading crises affect all countries, but the impact is not equal for all.

While some, mostly developed countries, had access to cheap financing to cushion the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic and invest in recovery, many others did not.

Massive recovery packages in rich countries contrast sharply with poor countries, which had to juggle essential expenditures. For many, education and development budgets had to be cut to respond to COVID-19.

The UN system’s 2022 Financing for Sustainable Development Report: Bridging the Finance Divide, finds that the ‘finance divide’ between rich and poor countries has become a sustainable development divide.

Navid Hanif

Growth prospects are severely constrained in the developing world – even before taking the war in Ukraine and its repercussions into account, 1 in 5 developing countries are not expected to return to pre-COVID income levels by 2023.

This situation is likely to get worse because the fallout from the war is exacerbating the challenges confronted by developing countries. Food and fuel prices are reaching record highs. This strains the external and fiscal balances of import-dependent countries.

Supply chain disruptions add to inflationary pressures, setting up a very challenging environment for Central Banks – rising prices combined with deteriorating growth prospects. Tighter financial conditions and rising global interest rates will make it increasingly difficult, and no doubt impossible for some, to roll over their existing commercial debt.

Many vulnerable countries will not be able to absorb the combined shocks of a disrupted recovery, rising inflation, and sharply rising borrowing costs. Sri Lanka has just defaulted, and more widespread debt distress may well be on the horizon – which is likely to put the Sustainable Development Goals out of reach.

The lack of adequate and affordable financing for developing countries is making timely realization of the 2030 Agenda increasingly difficult. Their governments often have few avenues to raise funds domestically, due to underdeveloped domestic financial markets. But borrowing from abroad is both risky and expensive, with some African countries paying over 8% on their Eurobond issuances in 2021.

As the 2022 Financing for Sustainable Development Report notes, the only way to achieve a more equitable recovery is to bridge this finance divide. It will take determined action, on several fronts.

First, developing countries will need additional concessional public financing. Bilateral providers and the international financial institutions have stepped up in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but additional funding was not enough to prevent this divergent recovery. The fallout from the war in Ukraine is widening financing gaps and countries will need additional support.

Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak

A first key test of international solidarity will be on Official Development Assistance (ODA). Additional support for refugees from the conflict in Ukraine, while important, must not come at the expense of cross-border ODA flows to other countries in need.

Development banks should make available more long-term countercyclical finance at affordable rates, easing financing pressures during crises. Donors should ensure that multilateral development banks see their capital increased and concessional windows replenished generously.

One immediate step development banks and official bilateral creditors could take themselves is to use state-contingent clauses more systematically in their own lending. This would mean automating debt repayment standstills, providing breathing space to countries in crises.

Development banks and development finance institutions at all levels could also work to strengthen the ‘development bank system’. National institutions tend to be smaller and fewer in the poorest countries. They would greatly benefit from capacity and financial support.

Multilateral and regional development banks can in turn benefit from national banks’ detailed knowledge of local markets.

Second, we must improve the costs and other terms of borrowing faced by developing countries in international financial markets. Excess returns for investors hint at market inefficiencies. We must close gaps in the international financial architecture – the lack of a sovereign debt restructuring mechanism adds uncertainty – and improve transparency by both debtors and creditors.

Transparency and better information for investors can help reduce costs. Short-term credit ratings are also an issue. Rating agencies assess a country’s creditworthiness over a very short horizon, often three years. Meanwhile, many public investments in sustainable development – in infrastructure, education, or innovation – only pay off over a much longer period.

Credit assessments are systematically biased against long-term investments. Thus, they poorly serve those investors that have long investment horizons, such as pension funds. Long-term sovereign ratings that take into account such investments, as well as long-term risks such as climate change, should complement existing assessments. Scenario analysis can help overcome the inherent difficulties of such long-term assessments.

Countries can also exploit growing investor interest in sustainable development and climate action. Sovereign green bonds, which can sometimes be issued at reduced cost (“greenium”), are a fast-growing market segment. A commitment to marine conservation recently helped Belize achieve more favorable terms with private creditors in debt restructuring.

Development finance institutions could also help by providing partial guarantees to sovereign borrowers, lowering interest in exchange for commitments to invest in the SDGs and climate action.

Third, many countries will need debt relief to avoid a protracted and costly debt crisis. Once debt has reached unsustainable levels, providing additional credit, even if at concessional rates, will only delay the reckoning.

The current mechanisms to deal with countries in debt distress are clearly inadequate. The Common Framework set up by the G20 in the fall of 2020 was a step in the right direction, but its shortcomings have become all too apparent.

No restructurings have been completed yet; there is no good answer to treating commercial debt; and many highly indebted developing countries are not eligible to approach the Common Framework at all.

The G20 must step up efforts to implement and deliver on the Common Framework more effectively. But as a more widespread debt crisis becomes a frightening possibility, a more fundamental reform of the sovereign debt architecture must be on the table as well.

The United Nations can provide a neutral venue that brings together creditors and debtors on equal footing to advance such discussions.

We at the UN believe that the SDGs can still be met. But without concerted bold action now on all fronts, the road ahead is looking very bumpy. Timely and bold policy choices will get us there.

Navid Hanif is the Director of the Financing for Sustainable Development Office of the United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). He is also the UN sous Sherpa to the G20 finance and main tracks. He joined UNDESA in 2001. He was Senior Policy Adviser in the Division for Sustainable Development and member of the team for the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002. He served as the Chief of Policy Coordination Branch and later Director in the office for Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) support. He was the first head of the DESA Strategic Planning Unit established in 2010.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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 Yucatán peninsula in southeastern Mexico has abundant solar and wind resources, but relies on fossil fuels for electricity generation. The photo shows a wind turbine belonging to the state-owned CFE next to a section of the power grid between Cancún and Puerto Morelos, in the state of Quintana Roo. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MÉRIDA, Mexico , Apr 18 2022 (IPS)

At home, Isabel Bracamontes uses gas only for cooking. “We try to prepare food that doesn’t need cooking, like salads,” she says in the southeastern Mexican city of Mérida.

The 20-kilogram cooking gas cylinder lasts her between three and four months, and by using it less she saves money, since the price has increased in recent months. The electricity in her home comes from plants fired by gas that is essentially methane, which has 86 times more capacity to absorb heat than carbon dioxide over a period of 20 years, hence the danger it poses to the climate.

An environmental activist and mother of one, Bracamontes lives in a middle-class neighborhood where other families face a similar situation to hers with regard to gas.

The southeastern Yucatán peninsula, home to 5.1 million people, contributes almost five percent of Mexico’s gross domestic product (GDP), thanks to agriculture, tourism and services.

Comprised of the states of Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatán, of which Mérida is the capital, Yucatán receives enormous amounts of sun and wind but depends on gas to meet its electricity needs.

Tied to gas

Quietly, this fuel is spreading throughout the peninsula, which is particularly vulnerable to droughts, intense storms and rising sea levels – symptoms of the climate crisis, one of the main causes of which is the burning of fossil fuels.

The peninsula receives gas through the Mayakán pipeline, a 780-kilometer pipeline owned by the Italian company Engie. The gas is injected from Ciudad Pemex, in the state of Tabasco, adjacent to the west of the peninsula, and the pipeline has been in operation since 1999.

In 2020, the Cuxtal I expansion also came into operation, with a 16-kilometer pipeline which connects to the Cactus Gas Processing Complex in the state of Chiapas, to the south of the peninsula.

The government’s Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) purchases gas from the state-owned oil giant Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) to deliver it to its thermoelectric plants Lerma in Campeche, Valladolid and Mérida II in Yucatán, as well as to the private combined cycle plants Mérida III and Valladolid III, which operate with gas and steam.“The big problem is the direction the energy sector is headed. It's not what the transition needs. Climate action is full of false solutions, like trying to fight climate change with gas." -- Pablo Ramírez

The peninsula has a generation capacity of 2455 megawatts (MW), of which combined cycle thermoelectricity contributes 1463, turbogas 368, conventional thermal 314, wind 244, solar 50, and internal combustion 14, according to the U.S. government’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

According to official Mexican data, five solar and wind farms are operating in the state of Yucatán alone. But communities opposed to renewable initiatives have managed to block at least six other projects of this type, due to their environmental impact and the failure to carry out consultations with local indigenous residents.

In December, the state of Yucatán was the sixth of the 32 Mexican states with the highest number of contracts for the installation of residential solar panels of less than 0.5 MW, with 12,458 producing a total of 89 MW. Quintana Roo had 3969 that produced 27 MW, while Campeche was the state with the fewest, with 1515 producing 11 MW, according to figures from the official Energy Regulatory Commission.

The national total amounted to 270,506 producing 2,031 MW.

In the entire peninsula, the CFE requires about 340 million cubic feet of gas per day for its plants in this region, while total demand is about 500 million, including 160 million for industry and commerce, according to the Confederation of National Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism.

A map of the Yucatán peninsula on the Caribbean Sea in southeastern Mexico shows the route of the 780-kilometer Mayakán pipeline, which carries natural gas from the state of Tabasco to the three states of that region. CREDIT: Sener

Running against the current on fossil fuels

Pablo Ramírez, Energy and Climate Change specialist with environmental watchdog Greenpeace Mexico, questioned the expansion of gas in Yucatán and the rest of the country.

“The big problem is the direction the energy sector is headed. It’s not what the transition needs. Climate action is full of false solutions, like trying to fight climate change with gas,” he told IPS from Mexico City.

Mexico is the 12th largest oil producer in the world and the 17th largest gas producer. In terms of proven reserves, it ranks 20th for crude oil and 41st for natural gas, but its hydrocarbon industry is declining due to the scarcity of easily extractable deposits.

In February, 75 percent of electricity generation was based on fossil fuels, followed by wind energy (7.5 percent), hydroelectric (7.0 percent), solar (4.94 percent), nuclear energy (4.23 percent), geothermal (1.56 percent) and biomass (0.07 percent), according to data from the non-governmental Energy Transition Observatory in Mexico.

In decline

Gas production has been declining in Latin America’s second largest economy. In February 2020, according to official data, extraction totaled 4.93 billion cubic feet per day, and had dropped to 4.83 billion 12 months later, and to 4.67 billion in February 2022.

The shortfall forces the country to import gas, especially from the United States, from which it has imported a maximum of 904.6 million and a minimum of 640 million cubic feet every February over the last three years.

For its distribution over a territory of almost two million square kilometers, a network of gas pipelines has been laid in this country of 131 million inhabitants, with 27 state and private pipelines. In addition, the construction of three others has been halted due to opposition from the communities through which they would run.

The recipients of the gas are 50 thermoelectric, combined cycle and turbogas plants, both state-owned and private. In addition, six more combined cycle plants, using two thermal sources, gas and steam, are under construction.

This shows how Mexico has tied itself to gas, despite its climatic effects, and the difficulties of abandoning it in the future, since this infrastructure has a useful life of decades. It also raises questions regarding the increase in international gas prices, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The use of solar energy is still limited on the Yucatán peninsula, despite the high levels of solar radiation. The photo shows a hotel with solar panels on its roof in the city of Playa del Carmen, in Quintana Roo, one of the three states of Mexico’s southeastern region. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Transition halted

In Mexico, the energy transition has been paralyzed since 2019 due to the policies of the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which have favored fossil fuels and hydroelectric power plants, to the detriment of new clean energies.

In September 2021, López Obrador presented a legal proposal to annul the 2013 reforms that opened the power industry up to domestic and foreign private participation, so that the public sector would resume the direction of strategic planning in the industry.

The projected changes favor the CFE and prop up gas as the preeminent source of electricity.

At the national level, in January, the CFE directly awarded the construction of six combined cycle plants that would come into operation in 2024, to provide a total of 4,000 MW, with an investment of 3.4 billion dollars.

In the case of the Yucatán peninsula, the CFE would need 200 million cubic feet of gas per day for two new combined cycle plants in Mérida and Valladolid, with a capacity of 1519 MW, considering the projected annual growth in demand of between 3.2 and 3.5 percent.

Meanwhile, the peninsula is wasting its available renewable resources.

The US-based NREL reports that Campeche has a solar potential of 727,502 MW and wind power of 1599 MW; Yucatán, 757,820 and 6125, respectively; and Quintana Roo, 168,029 and 2035.

For the peninsula, the NREL suggested organizing regional clean energy auctions based on competitive renewable energy zones, introducing energy efficiency programs for government buildings and small businesses, designing energy procurement mechanisms for government buildings, and encouraging the deployment of renewable energy in local communities.

Bracamontes, the Mérida environmentalist and representative of the global youth movement Fridays for Future Mexico in Yucatán, criticized the waste of renewable energy potential.

“There are many alternatives to take advantage of the sun and wind and solid waste, the disposal of which the state has not solved,” she said. “We ignore all that potential. We must analyze what is best for us and what has the least impact. If we are still married to the idea that fossil fuels are the only way, we are wrong. Sunshine is free.”

The local population also faces energy instability under the current energy scheme. For example, the neighborhood where Bracamontes lives, in western Mérida, suffered three short blackouts in one week.

Like other cities on the peninsula, Mérida also has high electricity rates, even with public subsidies, and unstable electricity generation.

Greenpeace’s Ramírez said the winners of the electricity counter-reform are Pemex and the gas companies.

“The possibility of making a transition to renewable sources and distributed generation is erased,” he said. “We are talking about a model that has serious implications for health, air, soil and water pollution, and climate externalities, which are not in the equation.”

Related Articles

• Mexico Sticks to Natural Gas, Despite Socioenvironmental Impacts

KwaZulu-Natal is declared a disaster zone as sniffer dogs are brought in to help search for victims.

A child is vaccinated against the poliovirus. Malawi detected a single case and embarked on a mass vaccination programme against the disease which causes paralysis. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS

By Charles Mpaka
Blantyre, Malawi, Apr 18 2022 (IPS)

One polio case is one too many, global health experts say.

And when Malawi announced in February this year that it had detected a polio case in the country’s capital Lilongwe, the alarm was significant, and the response from both the government and global health partners was swift, if not frantic.

Detected on a 3-year-old child, the poliovirus is described by experts as a significant public health concern for several reasons.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), polio has no cure, and it is a highly infectious disease.

“It invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis within hours,” said WHO in a statement released on February 17, 2022, upon the Malawi Government’s announcement of the outbreak.

Furthermore, Malawi has not registered any cases of polio in 30 years. The country last reported a case of poliovirus in 1992.

In 2005, Malawi obtained a polio-free status.

The WHO further says that the last case of wild poliovirus in Africa was detected in northern Nigeria in 2016. Globally, there were only five cases of wild poliovirus recorded in 2021.

In addition, according to the United Nations health body, Africa was declared free of indigenous wild polio in August 2020 after eliminating all forms of wild polio.

To date, says WHO, polio remains endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and laboratory test results on the case in Malawi showed that the strain was linked to the one found in Pakistan’s Sindh Province.

“As long as wild polio exists anywhere in the world, all countries remain at risk of importation of the virus,” Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, said upon the announcement.

Immediately after the outbreak, the government declared a Public Health Emergency.

It also instituted risk assessment and surveillance measures to contain any potential spread of the virus – but it assured that there was no evidence that the poliovirus was circulating in the community. There are no reports of additional cases of polio thus far.

Within 72 hours, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) Rapid Response Team arrived in the country to support the outbreak response.

These efforts were followed by a mass vaccination campaign, the first of four rounds, targeting 2.9 million children under five.

UNICEF procured 6.9 million polio vaccine doses for exercise.

UNICEF had partnered with WHO and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s Gavi, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotary and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in supporting the Ministry of Health to vaccinate children in four mass campaigns.

The phase ran from March 21 to 26, 2022.

A Poliovirus Outbreak Response Situation Report released by the government on April 4 says 2.97 million children aged between 0 – and 59 months had been vaccinated in the campaign, representing 102 percent administrative coverage.

The Ministry of Health says it is delighted with the campaign’s success.

“We attribute this to the dedicated workforce, the door-to-door approach and low presence of misconceptions, misinformation and disinformation surrounding polio vaccine,” the ministry’s spokesperson, Adrian Chikumbe, told IPS.

But the campaign was affected by some challenges, the Ministry of Health acknowledges in the vaccination campaign review report.

Malawi is reeling from the impacts of cyclones Ana and Gome, which hit the country in January this year, leading to flooding in many parts of the country and displacement of close to a million people. According to the report, the dispersion of the communities due to flooding increased the workload for vaccination teams.

“Polio campaigns with house-to-house strategy have not been conducted in-country in more than ten years, resulting in house-to-house vaccination not being strictly being followed in some areas. Grassroot social mobilisation was also delayed in some communities,” adds the report.

The second phase of the polio vaccination campaign is slated for late April.

“We urge all of us to sustain the gains in the first round of the campaign by making sure no eligible child is left behind in the subsequent rounds of the campaign. That way, our children will be adequately protected against polio which leads to paralysis or even death,” says Chikumbe.

UNICEF says the re-emergence of the wild poliovirus in Malawi, three decades after it was last detected, is “cause for serious concern”.

“Vaccination is the only way to protect the children of Malawi from this crippling disease which is highly infectious,” says UNICEF representative in Malawi, Rudolf Schwenk.

According to UNICEF, as an epidemic-prone, highly contagious disease, polio can spread easily through the movement of people from endemic to polio-free areas.

This polio vaccination campaign comes nine months after Malawi also administered another polio vaccination drive in July last year when the country undertook a week-long catch-up campaign that targeted 1.8 million children who missed the vaccine earlier.

Ministry of Health says the vaccination campaign last year was intended to immunise all children born after the world had switched from the Trivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (tOPV) to the Bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (bOPV). The bOPV is said to protect children against all three types of polioviruses.

Community health activist Maziko Matemba tells IPS that one case of polio is one too many because of the high rate of spread of the virus and the severity of its effects.

“You need a rapid response to forestall its spread. You may not manage it if it slips through, so immunisation is key,” says Matemba, also executive director for Health and Rights Education Programme (HREP), a local non-governmental organisation.

But he says the re-emergence of the case after 30 years in Malawi should remind the government of the need to ensure the health system’s resilience.

He says this resilience can be achieved through adequate funding to the health sector.

“As a country, we need to ensure that our health system is resilient and robust. One way we can make it such is by meeting the Abuja Declaration on Health to allocate at least 15 percent of the national budget to the health sector.

“Twenty-one years after that declaration, we still can’t go past 10 percent in budget allocation to the health sector. Without sufficient funding, outbreaks of this nature can spiral out of control, and we will struggle to contain other health shocks,” Matemba says.

Since the last case in 1992, Malawi has sustained its polio surveillance through an independent committee of experts that oversees and coordinates the country’s polio monitoring and reporting system.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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

• Eradicating Polio Would Eradicate So Much Tragedy
• Endgame for Polio in Pakistan
• Cyclone Ana Floods Choke Malawi’s Water and Sanitation Goals

The home secretary responds after criticism of her refugee plan from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Jonathan Olakunle is fighting for a cleaner society in Osogbo, Nigeria.