Africa

By Shyam Khadka
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Apr 4 2022 (IPS)

India began its journey as an independent nation in 1947 with fresh memory of the Bengal Famine of 1943 which claimed 1.5 to 3 million lives. Against this backdrop, the First Five Year Plan (1951-56) prioritized agriculture which, however, shifted to heavily industrialization in the second Plan.

Shyam Khadka

The mid-1960s was a difficult time when consecutive droughts hit food production and India had to import about 11 million metric ton (MMT) of wheat per year – about 15% of its domestic food grain production – under US Public Law 480. With the availability of high yielding miracle seeds of wheat and rice accompanied by increasing use of chemical fertilisers, provision of minimum support price (MSP) for rice and wheat, expansion in irrigated area, and gradual mechanization of farms, Indian agri-food system fortunately took a definitive positive turn beginning late 1960s. As a result, India has become the largest producer of milk (187.7 MMT in 2019-20) and cotton (37.5 million bales in 2019-20) and the second largest producer of rice (117.5 MMT in 2019-20) and wheat (106.2 MMT in 2019-20), fruits (97.97 MMT in 2018-19) and vegetables (183.17 MMT in 2018-19). India today is not only food self-sufficient but also a net exporter of agricultural produce. In short, the success of Indian agriculture in last six decades has been nothing less than spectacular.

The success, however, has come with significant costs. The resource intensification that the Green Revolution requires has adversely affected natural resources and environment. India pumped 245 million cubic meters – about 25 percent of total groundwater withdrawn globally – for irrigation in 2011. As a result, ground water in 1,034 blocks (16% of total blocks) are over-exploited. Worse, ground water table has become critical in 4% and semi-critical in 10% of the blocks. Similarly, some 37% of land area in the country (120.4 mn ha) is affected by various types of land degradation. Subsidy policy-induced non-judicious use of fertilizers has led to the chemicalization of soil and pollution of water through leaching and run-off. Despite abundant supply of food grains, in 2020 41.7% of under-5 children suffered from stunting. India is home to 208.6 million – or over a quarter – of world’s undernourished people. Other challenges that Indian agriculture faces today include uneven regional growth, rising fiscal constraints, mounting and unsustainable level of subsidies, small holding size and further fragmentation of holdings and accompanying land tenurial issues, and low resource use efficiency, particularly of water. These factors act as serious impediments for sustained agricultural growth and farmers’ livelihoods.

Amidst the success and emerging challenges NITI Aayog, the apex public policy think tank of the Government of India and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) decided to facilitate a national dialogue among key stakeholders including government agencies, academia, civil society organisations, farmers, private sector, international organizations, media and others to articulate a vision for 2030 and pathways for the remandating of agriculture in India. To this end, 10 thematic papers were commissioned from distinguished professionals. A 3-day national dialogue entitled, ‘Indian Agriculture Towards 2030: Pathways for enhancing Farmers’ Income, Nutritional Security and Sustainable Food and Farm Systems” was held in January 2021. NITI Aayog and FAO have now come up with a publication with the same title (Chand, R., Joshi, P, and Khadka, S., Editors (2022), Springer).

In addition to the challenges enumerated above the books also deals with issues of climate change and its impact on agricultural production and farmers’ incomes and the strategies to mitigate such change; growing incidence of pests, pandemics, and transboundary diseases and threat to biosecurity affecting agricultural production; and alternative farming systems for transformative and sustainable agroecology and biodiverse future. The role of science, technology and innovation is identified as key to sustainable and resilient agriculture. Similarly, role of structural reforms and governance are discussed in detail and the role of price policies, market reforms and institutions are being highlighted for an efficient, inclusive and sustainable agriculture.

The National Dialogue identified pathways for transformation with emphasis on remandating Indian agriculture in a way that makes it more productive, efficient, resilient, resource conserving, nutrition centered and globally focused. These transformational outcomes are to be achieved by focusing on following pathways:

• Increasing investment in agriculture, first to reverse the declining trend and then achieving ‘efficient’ growth rather than growth alone, increased adoption of improved technology, reorienting agricultural science, technology and innovations, applying digital solutions and artificial intelligence, better use of information and communication technology, application of One Health concept;
• Making Indian agriculture globally-focused, shifting attention from self-sufficiency to adding value through increased processing and achieving a high rate of export growth
• Enhancing the efficiency of the water and other resources, mainly by correcting distorted water pricing, adopting water conserving technologies and agro-ecological approach, changes in the cropping pattern, and reversing neglect of rainfed areas;
• Making agriculture climate resilient, by adopting several no-regret technological and institutional options as well as by undertaking more targeted research, use of big data analytics, and adoption of a science-based and green growth approach;
• Tackling nutrition and food safety, by diversifying diet, reducing post-harvest losses, encouraging bio-fortifications, empowering women, enforcing food safety standards, improving water sanitation and hygiene, and promoting food safety awareness and nutrition education;
• Focusing sharply on innovations, incentives and institutions that contribute to enhance productivity, enhance resilience to climate change, incentivize water and energy conservation, and by adopting more conducive regulatory environment such as for exploiting ground water; and
• Adopting appropriate policies and improving governance such as by reducing distortion caused by the MSP, accelerating rural infrastructure creation, ensuring greater engagement of the state governments, enhancing access to credit and extension services, and expansion of contract farming.

As emphasised by Honourable M. Venkaiah Naidu, Vice-President of India in his foreword, the book ‘provides a sound basis for reflection because they distil important lessons and present an array of policy options for the government to choose from’.

Shyam Khadka is a former senior official of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations who served as representative in India (2015-18) and was Senior Portfolio Manager in United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (1997-2014). An international development professional, Khadka works on policies, programs and projects that aim at developing agriculture, ensuring food security, and reducing poverty globally.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Brasil Biofuels' biodiesel plant in Envira, Amazonas state. The company foresees investments of 1.8 billion reals in a biorefinery in Manaus that will begin production in 2025 (Image: Brasil BioFuels)

By Monica Prestes
MANAUS, Brazil, Apr 4 2022 (IPS)

Oil palm, known as dendezeiro in Brazil, can produce up to ten times more vegetable oil per hectare than other crops, but it is regularly condemned as harmful to the biodiversity of tropical forests in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Now, its cultivation looks set to advance in the Brazilian Amazon.

In December, Brasil BioFuels (BBF) and Vibra Energia – the country’s largest distributor of biofuels – announced plans to build a biorefinery for “green diesel” in Manaus, the capital city of Amazonas state. Produced from soybean and/or palm oil, the fuel is seen by many as desirable for low-carbon futures, as it is less polluting than fossil-based diesel.

“This is the crop with the most devastating potential in the world being implemented in the heart of the world’s largest tropical forest,”

Lucas Ferrante, researcher at the National Institute for Amazonian Research


The refinery is currently in the study phase, and is still without an environmental license or deadline to start construction. But with planned investments of 1.8 billion reais (US$378 million) and a start of operations in 2025, the venture could produce up to 500 million litres of diesel per year.

To reach this volume of production, BBF plans to plant 120,000 hectares of oil palm by 2026, in areas yet to be defined. This would increase the area devoted to oil palm in Brazil by about 60%, with the crop used in a variety of consumer products already occupying 201,000 hectares in the country, according to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

Brazilian law states that oil palm should only be cultivated in areas that were deforested before 2007. BBF’s president, Milton Steagall has assured that the crop already follows these sustainable standards, and also contributes to carbon sequestration in previously degraded areas.

“Oil palm does not occupy forest space. We are talking about areas that were ‘anthropised’ before 2007, and which would be difficult to recover, because frequently they have already turned into pasture,” Steagall told Diálogo Chino. “We take degraded areas and make a perennial crop, which is not mechanised, does not require much fertiliser, and produces for 35 years.”

Steagall added that the refinery will help to power 20 thermoelectric plants in operation and another 14 being planned in the Amazon. For this reason, he said, it will be vital to offer a source of clean energy to the region’s thermoelectric plants, which currently operate with fossil diesel.

However, researchers and environmentalists have criticised the expansion of infrastructure for the production of palm oil in the Amazon.

“This is the crop with the most devastating potential in the world being implemented in the heart of the world’s largest tropical forest,” said Lucas Ferrante, a researcher at the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA). He described oil palm as “a proven predatory crop, which causes enormous loss of biodiversity”.

There are multiple impacts that the advance of oil palm plantations can have on tropical forests – which have mainly been seen in the palm hotspot of Southeast Asia, where habitat loss has put at least 193 species at risk of extinction. And according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, only 15% of species that inhabit tropical forests can survive in oil palm plantations.

 

Palm oil in Brazil goes against the world

In 2010, the Brazilian government launched the Sustainable Palm Oil Production Programme with the expectation of leveraging Brazilian production and developing in the Amazon region, but the programme has not taken off. Less than 3% of Brazil’s biodiesel today comes from oil palm, according to the National Petroleum Agency.

Palm oil uses

From soaps to margarine and biofuels, palm oil is used in almost everything, including in the generation of the electrical energy we use. It is the world's most widely used oilseed product
Even though more than 90% of the crop’s planting is in the states of the Amazon, it has not brought the expected benefits to the region, partly due to the weak action of environmental agencies, says Carlos Rittl, a specialist in public policies from the Rainforest Foundation.

“There is no way to fulfil the commitment of only producing in an already deforested area without governance, without control and without enforcement of environmental laws,” says Rittl, reinforcing that, even though oil palm contributes to sequestering carbon by replacing degraded pastures, it stimulates new deforestation. “Oil palm is pressuring cattle ranching into new areas of native forest,” he adds.

This is occuring, Rittl recalls, amid the ongoing dismantling of environmental protection agencies in Brazil and successive record years for deforestation and invasions of protected areas. Between 2019 to 2021, the average annual deforestation in the Amazon was 56.6% higher than the 2016 to 2018 period.

Although palm oil has little share in Brazil’s fuel matrix and it is not even self-sufficient in that it requires imported oil. Cultivation of oil palm has almost doubled in the last decade in the country, according to IBGE, driven by fiscal stimuli that helped attract agribusinesses to the Amazon.

But while Brazil invests in oil palm to target biofuel and energy markets, growing international pressures are leading two major buyers – Europe and the United States – to discuss import barriers.

The EU also hopes to eliminate palm oil-based fuels by 2030 – five years after the Brazilian refinery goes into operation – while Germany has announced the end of the use of palm oil for the production of biofuels as of 2023.

In China, there are discussions aimed at reducing the import of palm oil without certification, says Rittl. The certification body, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), has been working to reduce the environmental impact of the country’s procurement, as it is also a major importer.

“If we have an expansion of production in Brazil beyond domestic use, there will soon be no room in the market,” says Rittl.

 

Expropriation of land for oil palm plantations in quilombola communities has generated conlfict (Image: Negritar Produções)

 

Palm oil impacts on traditional Amazon communities

The advance of palm oil has already had negative impacts on traditional communities in the Amazon, according to André Carvalho, a professor at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA). “Studies confirm the almost complete loss of character of the way of life in the region, food insecurity, besides the expropriation of land and violence in the field, including murders,” he told Diálogo Chino.

Did you know...?

Brazil is the world's tenth largest palm oil producer. In Latin America, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Ecuador are also major producers. 11 companies account for Brazil's production
This is the case for Acará, a municipality in the northeast of Pará state, where Afro-Brazilian quilombola communities claim an area from which they say they were expropriated by Agropalma, a palm oil producer with RSPO certification.

José Joaquim Pimenta, president of the association that brings together six quilombola communities, said that the expropriation occurred more than three decades ago. At first, Agropalma’s expansion occurred “on a small scale”, Pimenta says, through land purchase. But starting in 1987, the company acquired a farm and went beyond the limits of the property.

Pimenta says the company “invaded traditional territories, initiating grilagem [land grabbing]. Between 1987 and 1990, it cut down a very large natural reserve area to plant oil palm.” In 2015, the legal fight to return to these areas began.

In 2018, the Federal Court suspended the registration of two Agropalma farms on suspicion of illegal occupation, falsification of documents and notary fraud, following a request from the State Public Ministry of Pará (MPE-PA).

Agropalma argued that the lands were “acquired in good faith”. After the Federal Court confirmed the irregularities, the company said it “did not oppose the court decision to cancel the registrations” and is waiting for the land title to be regularised.

However, even with the registrations suspended, Agropalma continues to occupy the area, and conflicts with the quilombolas have been intensifying. “Recently, we have been prevented by Agropalma from accessing part of the forest, stretches of the Acará river where we used to fish, and even cemeteries where our ancestors are found,” says Pimenta.

In February, the restrictions “almost led to a confrontation” against armed Agropalma security guards, Pimenta says. At the time, quilombolas were camping in the disputed area as a protest against the company’s failure to comply with a recommendation by the MPE-PA to allow access to the site. Human rights organisations have been trying to mediate the dialogue between them.

 

Quilombola communities are resisting the encroachment of oil palm plantations onto their territories (Image: Joaquim Pimenta)

 

Oil palm reduces Amazon biodiversity

Oil palm already brings harmful consequences to biodiversity in the Amazon. Alexander Lees, a researcher at Manchester Metropolitan University, is one of the authors of a paper warning of the loss of bird habitat in the municipalities of Moju and Tailândia, in northeast Pará, where there are extensive oil palm plantations.

“Oil palm is an extremely predatory crop for Amazonian biodiversity,” Lees told Diálogo Chino. “While in primary forest, we easily find more than 300 species of birds, in the midst of oil palm this number is around 20. It is even lower than in pastures.”

Incompatible with family-based agriculture, the palm also ends up competing with subsistence crops such as cassava, an important source of income for small farmers, according to Auristela Castro, researcher at the Federal University of West Pará. She explains that oil palm generates “an atmosphere of uncertainties and threats” to the quality of life of small farmers.

“Oil palm production practices are still far short of the pillars of social equity and environmental sustainability,” adds Castro.

Asked about the environmental impacts and the intensifying land disputes related to palm oil, Steagall replied that the company seeks to “respect the rules and plant only within the zoning areas [intended for oil palm]”.

 

Palm oil or renewable energy

Despite palm oil’s high yield per hectare, and even though it guarantees a cleaner fuel than those from fossil sources, Lees believes that the best way forward is to reduce its demand in the market. “Exchanging fossil fuels for biodiesel in thermoelectric plants and cars is very good, but even better would be to replace thermoelectric plants for solar and wind energy, replace cars for bicycles and electric buses,” he says.

The researcher adds that replacing palm oil for others derived from vegetables would not solve the deforestation problem. This is because the production of a tonne of palm oil requires 0.26 hectares of land. Though this is less than for soybean oil, for example, which demands at least two hectares, according to a WWF survey, it is not insignificant.

Carlos Rittl agrees that it is necessary to prioritise renewable sources over thermoelectric plants, currently the main end use of palm oil from the Amazon. For him, photovoltaic energy is the best bet for Brazil: “In 2025, it will be the cheapest energy in the world.”

 

This article was originally published by ChinaDialogue

It will take another decade for an African team to be crowned World Cup winners, according to Morocco coach Vahid Halilhodzic.

Pooja Shukla may have lost an election, but the 25-year-old activist is determined to ensure the poor are catered for and women are protected. Credit: Mehru Jaffer/ IPS

By Mehru Jaffer
Lucknow, India, Apr 4 2022 (IPS)

Pooja Shukla, 25, a socialist candidate, has lost her maiden elections to the provincial parliament in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India. But Shukla is no loser.

A day after the results were announced on March 10, Shukla was back to a rousing reception in her constituency in North Lucknow to thank her supporters for polling 1,04,527 votes for her.

She was with the people again on March 18 on Holi, the festival of colour held annually to celebrate the end of winter and in anticipation of new beginnings.

Shukla told the IPS that she was hoping to win. Of course, she is disappointed, but electoral defeat would not stop her from continuing her struggle to get economic and social justice for the people of her constituency.

Although Shukla belongs to the upper caste community of Brahmins, she has worked hard to develop a personal connection with a cross-section of those who live in North Lucknow, one of the city’s nine constituencies. Lucknow is the capital of UP, the country’s largest, but economically and socially, it is one of its least developed states. More than 400,000 voters are registered in North Lucknow, nearly half of whom are impoverished women.

The constituency is home to Muslims, upper-caste Hindus and thousands of impoverished people belonging to communities who have been living for decades in makeshift shanties, often on the bank of open drains. Some are daily wage earners, and others are without paid work.

Shukla won hearts because she has knocked on every door in North Lucknow and continues to spend time with citizens.

“I have visited every single home in every single neighbourhood in North Lucknow. I will continue to do so as I really care for members of all communities that reside within my constituency,” Shukla adds.

This first-time contestant had faced Dr Neeraj Bora, a seasoned politician from the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), a right-wing party. Despite the formidable challenge, Shukla was leading on the day the votes were counted. She was ahead before her rival finally defeated her by 33,985 votes until noon.

Out of 403 seats in the UP-state parliament, the socialists won 111 seats. The Samajwadi Party (SP) of socialists came a distant second to BJP’s 255 seats, but the party has emerged as the largest opposition party in UP.

This was a golden opportunity to strengthen democracy by converting the numbers won by the SP into a viable opposition to the ruling party, Shukla believes. A well-meaning, vocal opposition is needed, she says, when the ruling party seems to want to wash its hands of all its social responsibility in favour of outsourcing businesses and privatising even essential services like education, health, and employment opportunities.

“Democratic values strengthen when the opposition to the ruling party is strong,” says Shukla, who believes that elections are held to elect representatives who will provide affordable homes, education, and health facilities to voters.

Shukla feels that socially conscious people don’t have to be Marxists to dream of justice in society. The desire to want to see all citizens cared for fairly and equally by the state is a desire of all decent human beings.

Shukla was the youngest candidate in the polls, nursing a constituency that is a sprawling, chaotic cluster of college campuses, traffic jams, markets spilling from every corner and rows of slums with open drains that overflow and swallow up lives during rainfall.

Her dream is to invite educationists to open model public schools for the majority of the poor people in her constituency. She wants low-cost houses for the poor and free health services. She says that time is on her side. She will find many more opportunities to contest elections.

“To win elections is important for me as I want to be a lawmaker and make sure that people-friendly legislation is passed in parliament to protect the interest of the most vulnerable in the country,” Shukla says.

Until she makes it to parliament, she plans to work tirelessly to raise literacy in her constituency and lower the poverty rate. She wants clean drinking water, cleaner drains, and better roads. Women’s safety is her priority, as is a regular and fair wage for the many communities of artisans like potters and weavers.

Shukla has witnessed the police lathi-charge citizens who dared to ask the government for jobs. Social activists have been jailed, kicked around, and beaten in lockdown for participating in protests and questioning the government in UP. There are countless incidents of gruesome crimes perpetrated against women.

Most political parties want women’s votes but are reluctant to share power with them. Therefore, politics in UP today is a constant struggle for any woman who joins the male-dominated world of politics. Shukla’s biggest strength is her belief in herself.

The daughter of a small property dealer, Shukla, learnt to be fearless from Beena, her mother. At first, Beena wanted her to marry a suitable Brahmin boy. However, the constant cry to marry died down after she decided to contest the elections.

Her parents suggested that Shukla choose a more respectable profession like teaching instead. The parents were pained when she was jailed in 2019, and countless criminal cases were filed against her for participating in street demonstrations.

Shukla is the eldest of three sisters, and she feels responsible for her siblings. The family reminded her she was a role model, but she refused to give up her politics. Her determination to remain engaged in public life is less frowned upon now. At least her immediate family members and neighbours are supportive. She is no longer considered a black sheep within the Brahmin community that sees itself as exceptionally respectable.

Shukla has been in the limelight since 2017 when she and fellow students waved black flags at the motor convoy of those in power. She was part of a group of students protesting against the use of Lucknow University funds for a political party event.

She was angry when jailed for protesting peacefully. After 20 days in jail, the University refused her admission for postgraduate studies. Shukla started a hunger strike and forced the University to allow all the students to continue their studies.

Today she is a youth icon. She has emerged as a leader and a role model not just for her siblings but for thousands of other youngsters, students, women and some male members of society.

Shukla says that she stands for a democratic, secular and inclusive India. How will she realise her dream in the cutthroat political culture where all that matters is power and money?

There is no substitute for commitment and hard work, she says with a smile.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Students eating lunch at Shivbhawani Primary School, Deulekh, Bajhang, Nepal. Credit: Marty Logan

By Marty Logan
KATHMANDU, Apr 4 2022 (IPS)

When Canada and Nepal are used in the same sentence it’s usually because the former is supporting development efforts in the latter. Not when it comes to feeding children at school.

Worldwide 388 million students, or 1 in 2 schoolchildren, received at least one meal or snack per day at school before the COVID-19 pandemic in what the World Food Programme (WFP), quoting the World Bank, calls the world’s “most extensive social safety net.”

When Covid-19 hit and schools shut their doors, roughly 370 million students in 161 countries went without education and a meal or snack, “suddenly deprived of what was for many their main meal of the day”

Nepal is in a unique position because it is poised to completely take over school feeding from the WFP, which still serves some remote areas of the South Asian country, by 2024. Canada is also being watched because it is just now taking steps to create a centrally-managed programme, the last G7 country to do so, to buttress current patchwork provincial initiatives.

Motivations for governments to launch school feeding programmes vary, but are not solely linked to socioeconomic status, says Donald Bundy, Professor of Epidemiology and Development and Director of the Global Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition, at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK.

“Nearly all countries view the programmes as providing a safety net for the most in need,” writes Bundy in response to email questions. “Many view the programmes as contributing to the creation of good health and education, and thus human capital. A substantial group recognize the local economic value to the agricultural sector. A small but increasing number view the contribution to environmental sustainability as important.”

When Covid-19 hit and schools shut their doors, roughly 370 million students in 161 countries went without education and a meal or snack, “suddenly deprived of what was for many their main meal of the day” says WFP’s report State of School Feeding Worldwide, 2020.

In response, governments, development agencies, donors, academia, the private sector, UN agencies and civil society organizations launched the global School Meals Coalition. Its main goals are to restore by 2023 the school feeding programmes lost worldwide because of the pandemic and, by 2030, to launch new ones to feed the 73 million students globally who lacked school meals before Covid-19.

So far, 60+ countries have joined the coalition, including Nepal but not Canada. Its success will depend on the choices that governments make, says Bundy. “Since Covid has affected economies, there has been a contraction of fiscal space which makes getting back to the original situation more difficult… It would seem that countries are prioritizing this investment in their future generations, as indicated by the creation of the coalition, but this has yet to be seen in practice.”

Nepal demonstrated its commitment to school feeding before Covid-19. From 2017 to 2020 the school meals budget almost quadrupled (from $20 million to nearly $70 million), and external funding fell from $4.2 million to $2.8 million in 2020), according to the WFP report.

 

Lunch time at Janajagriti Basic School in Dhangadhi, Nepal. Credit: Marty Logan

 

Interestingly, there have been no evaluations in Nepal of the impact of school feeding on students’ nutritional status, says WFP. The country’s School Sector Development Plan (2016-2022) calls for “midday meals in schools to reduce short term hunger among schoolchildren, and address micronutrient deficiencies through multi-fortified foods and diversifying the food basket, including with fresh and locally produced foods.”

While Nepal has drastically cut malnutrition in children under five in recent decades, progress has slowed in the past few years. For example, the 36% rate for stunting (too short for age) in 2016 was greater than the developing country average of 25% and the Asia average of 21.8%.

Today the government’s diya khaja (midday meal) programme covers 71 of 77 districts and WFP is scheduled to hand over operations in the remaining districts (which are already co-funded by Kathmandu) by 2024.

While media reports highlight examples of problems, such as schools handing out dry food to students instead of cooking a hot meal and possible corruption in handling money, reactions at schools recently visited in Nepal’s Far West Province were mainly positive. Officials, teachers and parents stressed attendance had risen, and that pupils were remaining for the entire school day instead of leaving for lunch and staying at home.

Ten local food menus—based on seasonally available foods in particular regions and designed to meet nutritional targets—were credited for the change. “Students are more satisfied now because the meals change daily. With the WFP system there was only one item,” says Headmaster Dev Bahadur Chand at Nanigad Basic School in Baitadi District.

Chand was the only person we spoke to who was satisfied with the programme’s budget of 15 rupees (US$0.12) per meal per child (20 rupees in five remote districts). Others said that while the amount could cover food costs it didn’t leave enough to pay a cook or fuel and transport fees.

At the Nepal Government office that manages the burgeoning programme, the Centre for Education and Human Resources Development (CEHRD), Director Ganesh Poudel acknowledges that issue. “Each child is allotted only 15 rupees; this is the main challenge. This amount is very low—prices are increasing day by day and there are management costs. How can we survive? We have very limited resources,” he says in an interview in his office.

The other major challenge, says Poudel, is human resources. “Nearly one million people are involved in preparing and delivering the school meal programme, directly and indirectly. Some will cook, some will manage, some will pay… How can we prepare them? It requires a big amount of money and preparation.”

While WFP will no longer implement a school feeding programme from 2024, it will remain a partner in the effort, says Nepal Representative and Country Director Robert Kasca. Today, it’s working with the government to upgrade physical and human resources for school feeding in Nuwakot district, a two-hour drive from Kathmandu. Kitchens are being renovated, menus developed and an SMS-based system tested to monitor how the Rs15 allocation is spent.

“Our plan in the next five years will be to try to replicate it around the country,” says Kasca. “If we only do it in Nuwakot it’s not going to automatically happen around the country. We need to do it in many more places to start gaining momentum.”

 

Students at James S. Bell Community School in Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada where they have a salad bar style lunch programme, first developed in southern California. Credit: FoodShare/Laura Berman/Greenfuse Photography

 

In Canada, the issue is not launching more school meals programmes but getting the central government to play a guiding role, says Debbie Field, Coordinator of the Coalition for Healthy School Food. Why now? “Basically every country in the North comes up against a new crisis, which is the crisis of fast food and the crisis of health problems related to an industrialized food system,” says Field.

“First and foremost for me, it is a crisis of food and the way in which parents of all incomes are really struggling to feed their children healthy food.” Compared to 1948, when the federal cabinet last discussed school meals, “we have a vast difference of women’s participation rates in the workforce and a complete shift in our school day—most schools have a half hour a day for lunch,” adds Field.

In a written response to questions, Karina Gould, Canada’s Minister of Families Children and Social Development, wrote that the school food policy being developed would “provide access to healthy, diversified and balanced food as a matter of equity, which is essential to addressing food insecurity, reducing the risk of chronic disease and enabling every child to reach their full potential.”

Thirty-five percent of publicly-funded schools in Canada offered a programme in 2018-2019, covering 21 percent of students, from junior kindergarten to Grade 12, found a recent survey. But coverage varied immensely, with one province covering at least 90 percent of schools another just 10 percent.

Field says she is expecting the government to announce C$200 million in the upcoming budget to develop the framework for the eventual programme. But her coalition wants some of that money allocated to existing programmes in the provinces and territories. Eventually, says Field, the central government should provide $2.7 billion, or half the cost of a universal programme, with the provinces and territories contributing the rest.

“We want (the central government) to take a leadership oversight role and provide a federal framework that will allow for development of the best school food programme in the world. We want them to be visionary… and they’re responding well to this idea.”

This work was supported by a Global Nutrition and Food Security Reporting Fellowship from the International Center for Journalists and the Eleanor Crook Foundation.

There were widespread reports over the weekend of hundreds of demonstrators demanding the resignation of the family-run Rajapaksa government. Credit: Sunday Times, Sri Lanka

By Neville de Silva
LONDON, Apr 4 2022 (IPS)

With the economy in freefall and basics such as food and fuel in dangerously short supply, there is mounting public anger against a failing and desperate government in Sri Lanka.

‘O tempora, O mores,’ said the Roman orator Cicero in a plaintive cry, denouncing the political and social norms of Rome in 70 BC.

Unlike the Romans, the people of Sri Lanka have not left it to politicians or orators to berate what they perceive as their rudderless rulers. They have taken on the task themselves, going into the streets to decry their government in words more telling and malignant than any Cicero might have employed.

They watch as their once ‘Resplendent Isle’ hurtles downhill while confused rulers try desperately to halt its economic and social collapse.

Never in the history of modern Sri Lanka have its citizens queued up for hours to purchase one or two cylinders of cooking gas or a few litres of petrol or kerosene, while a wide range of other shortages continue to plague the country.

If in Ukraine civilians are dying because of the indiscriminate and inconsiderate shelling and bombing by Russian forces, in Sri Lanka they are dying on their feet, some having waited for pre-dawn hours for gas or kerosene to cook what little food they could muster to feed hungry families.

As I write this in late March, reports are pouring in of four people from different parts of the country dying within 48 hours. That is not surprising at a time when the Covid pandemic still persists.

But these four died while waiting in gas or petrol queues, three of then possibly of exhaustion after standing for many hours, and the fourth of stab wounds during an altercation at a filling station.

Today, history is being made. But it is not in the manner the country’s rulers –the powerful Rajapaksa family from Sri Lanka’s south, whose political antecedents go back to the 1930s–ever expected.

Today, the wheel of political fortune has inexorably turned.

It was over a decade ago that two of the Rajapaksa brothers, Mahinda and Gotabaya, were hailed as national heroes for their roles in defeating the dreaded Tamil Tiger separatists in May 2009, after a war that lasted nearly three decades.

Mahinda was then Sri Lanka’s president and Gotabaya his defence secretary.

In April 2019, a couple of days after jihadist terrorists suicide-bombed three churches and three luxury hotels on Easter Sunday, killing some 270 locals and foreigners and wounding another 500, Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced his presidential ambitions.

Politically untested, the former military officer promised enhanced national security, peace, political stability, economic recovery and preservation of Sri Lanka’s 2500-year Buddhist heritage.

In November that year he won the presidential election with 6.9 million votes and in August 2020 Mahinda Rajapaksa led the Sri Lanka People’s Party (SLPP) to victory at the parliamentary election with a near two-thirds majority.

But today, the wheel of political fortune has inexorably turned. Last month in a Gallup-style opinion poll conducted by a local think tank, Veritḗ Research found that only 10 per cent of those queried said they approved of the current government.

Rudderless Rulers

Such is public antipathy that long queues of people spending hours to buy a packet or two of powdered milk booed the president as he passed by.

Some days later busloads of women, led by a former MP whose politician father was shot dead by a rival, who was convicted of murder, sentenced to death but then pardoned by President Gotabaya last year and given a state job, demonstrated outside the president’s private residence.

Teachers, health workers and other trade union-led employees have gone on strike at various times. Farmers have taken to the streets, protesting against the overnight ban last May of chemical fertiliser that saw some rice fields and other agricultural land abandoned and export-earning tea and rubber plantations affected.

Over the past months effigies of the Agriculture Minister have been burnt and posters of the Rajapaksas (four of the brothers are cabinet ministers and so is Mahinda’s eldest son) have been torn or otherwise defaced in blatant displays of public anger and lack of faith in a government that has failed to provide uninterrupted supplies of basics such as electricity, gas, petrol and kerosene, and essential foods and medicines.

It has been said that even the dead have no peace. Some crematoriums have stopped functioning unless they can be certain of continuous electricity.

Outages lasting several hours have often brought factories to a halt. Thermal power stations and other power providers cannot operate continuously for lack of fuel and coal.

Fast depleting foreign reserves have forced the government to slash imports of food, fuel, diesel and gas, compelling many restaurants, bakeries and wayside eateries, as well as other enterprises, to close or restrict their business.

Meanwhile, prices of food and domestic essentials and transport costs have skyrocketed, driving many families, particularly daily wage earners, into penury and starvation.

With foreign reserves at the end of February down to a perilous US$ 2.3 billion and some $7 billion in sovereign debt and loan repayments due this year – including a $1 billion repayment in July – the Rajapaksas turned from their traditional friend and ally China, which that has extended financial help over the years, to neighbouring nations.

A currency swap was arranged with Bangladesh, and last month Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa flew to New Delhi for meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, urging help to rescue Colombo from its foreign exchange crisis.

Never in the history of modern Sri Lanka have its citizens queued for hours to buy fuel

New Delhi extended a $1 billion credit facility to enable the purchase of food, medicines and other essentials. This brought Indian assistance this year to $1.4 billion, which included a $400 million currency swap, besides another half a billion-dollar line of credit for essential fuel imports, and the deferring of a $500 million loan and.

Meanwhile China is considering another $2.5 billion in fresh assistance, China’s ambassador to Sri Lanka stated while turning down the deferment of a loan.

Even as Sri Lanka turns to Asia’s two leading powers, both vying for larger footprints in Sri Lanka, with its strategic location in the Indian Ocean, Colombo has finally turned to the IMF for belated assistance due to internal dissension in the ruling coalition.

President Rajapaksa recently sacked two ministers from minor coalition partners for criticising government policy and attacking Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, who has dual Sri Lankan-US citizenship, for bending backwards to satisfy American interests.

Some other state ministers have resigned or been removed as internal squabbles begin to take a toll on stability in the 11-party coalition.

With the economy in tatters and mounting public wrath against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, with calls of ‘Gota Go Home’, he summoned an all-party conference late last month in the hope of showing a friendly face and seeking solutions to the country’s economic catastrophe.

While some minority Tamil parties which had long sought a meeting with the president and some other parties attended, two of the leading opposition parties, which recently launched anti-government demonstrations, boycotted the conference.

It started on a sour note, with many-time prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe putting the Governor of the Central Bank Nivard Cabraal in his place for unwanted political remarks, for which President Rajapaksa apologised to Mr Wickremesinghe.

To the average Sri Lankan who has witnessed such conferences over the years, including ones to bring racial peace to a divided country, they are an exercise in political waffling and time-wasting.

With Sri Lanka’s biggest national celebration, the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, in mid-April, the working and middle-class families now struggling to survive wonder whether there will be anything to celebrate. Even if families can get together for the traditional meals, will they be able to cook them for lack of gas and kerosene?

Will this April be the cruellest month?

Source: Asian Affairs, London

Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who held senior roles in Hong Kong at The Standard and worked in London for Gemini News Service. He has been a correspondent for foreign media, including the New York Times and Le Monde. More recently, he was Sri Lanka’s deputy high commissioner in London

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A resident of conflict-hit Tigray gives a rare insight into life there after 17 months of war.

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By Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
SINGAPORE, Apr 1 2022 (IPS-Partners)

One of my great joys, if present in America on Independence Day, has been being out at the fireworks on the Fourth of July with my daughter, son-in-law, and my two grandchildren. The glorious denouement of the event has often been a final spray of brightly lit colours against the azure sky, with delighted crowds cheering along with the resounding crescendo of the volley of cannon-fire, the flamboyant finale of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture! Can those happy moments of such experience be at the risk of being altered or even eliminated from our lifestyle?

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

They very well may be. Particularly if one is to go by the logic of the prescriptions of the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra in Wales in the United Kingdom. On 18th of March at the City’s St David’s Hall a concert of the Russian composer was scheduled to be held. It was to have included his famous 1812 Overture that was composed to commemorate the battle of Borodino that managed to halt, albeit temporarily, another invasion at that time. It was that of Napoleon’s Grand army, which was fiercely opposed by the Imperial Russian forces of Czar Alexander. Tchaikovsky and his historic piece celebrating that occasion, were considered inappropriate for the programme in Cardiff at this time, given Russia’s current military operations in the Ukraine. This was although the composer, who had lived in and was much loved in the Ukraine, had striven to ‘westernize’ Russian music, and was never known to have been a nationalist. Furthermore, Tchaikovsky, who also gifted the world, apart from classical music immortal ballets like the ‘Swan Lake’ and the ‘Nutcracker’. Sanctioning Tchaikovsky, who died in 1893, over the current crisis in the Ukraine would surely be taking the war a tad too far!

Incidentally, this is not the first time Tchaikovsky has been banned. It happened once before: By the Nazis in Hitler’s Germany. Understandably this blatant weaponization of music drew immediate flak. The former British Member of Parliament George Galloway called it “fascistic book burning. The Bloomberg commentator Martin Ivens said: “Banning Tchaikovsky is not the way to win a war! “The Cardiff Orchestra authorities did offer an explanation though, about a member of their team having family directly involved in the Ukraine war, which was perhaps factually correct but lame as an excuse for the action. It is somewhat ironical that Tchaikovsky himself was a critic of this overture, whose fame reflected public fascination for the theatrical over quality. The composer had remarked thus about his composition: “very loud and noisy, completely without artistic merit”. But the Cardiff Philharmonic did not base its decision on this account.

Tchaikovsky was by no means the only victim of the cancellation culture that occurred in the wake of the Ukrainian conflict. The Munich Philharmonic dismissed the Russian Valery Gergiev from the position of its conductor on the plea that the artist had failed to condemn the Russian action. Some other Russian artistes are confronting similar fate. As yet, however, things have not reached the level of what the English author, Graham Greene, described at the start of the First World War. It was that in a display of near-comical jingoism and fierce anti-German sentiments, the author’s neighbors in England stoned a dachshund dog in his local high street!

But conflicts have brought out courage among ardent lovers of the arts as well. Also, during that war, the British conductor Sir Henry Wood informed the government that he would continue to perform Richard Wagner whose eulogies to the German blond-haired blue-eyed heroic legend was said to have inspired the ideas of Aryan racial supremacy. This noble spirit has also prevalent among common humanity during periods of stresses. My mother-in-law, a German, left a war battered country as a teenager to find solace and succour in England, among English friends. Years later she would hum the tune of the Marlene Dietrich version of “Lilli Marlene “, a German song about war-time love that had brought comfort equally to both Allied and Axis troops.

Art, music and literature have no nationality. They only serve to provide conduits of connectivity between peoples, even when divided and separated by conflict and war. Yes, unarguably there are products of artistic predilections that can do society harm, but the human intellect must be allowed to separate the wheat from the chaff. John Milton has made this telling point in the golden pages of his “Areopagitica”, an immortal paean of praise to the freedom of expression.

History demonstrates that whenever the political institutions of the polity has sought to intervene to judge the arts nothing good has come of it. Alas, as the adage goes, the one thing we learn from history is that there is nothing that we learn from history. Yet we fervently hope that the day would never come when we must hide our copy of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” for fear that they may come to take it away from us and burn it!

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.

Didier Drogba believes he can improve the state of the game in Ivory Coast if he becomes the new boss of the country's football federation.

By External Source
Apr 1 2022 (IPS-Partners)

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) refers to a broad range of conditions.

Each person with autism has a distinct set of strengths and challenges.

Sometimes, they show as challenges with social skills.

Sometimes they manifest in repetitive behaviors, speech or nonverbal communication.

There is no one type of autism, but many.

According to the WHO, about one in 100 children has autism.

Boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed than girls.

Approximately 1 in 44 children in the U.S. are diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.

In South Korea, that number is closer to 1 in 38.

Major progress has been made towards increasing access to education generally, as well as for persons with autism specifically.

However, the COVID-19 Pandemic impacted more than 90 per cent of students worldwide.

The disruption has reversed years of progress and has exacerbated inequalities in education.

Many students with autism have been especially hard hit.

They have been disproportionately affected by disruptions to routines, as well as services and support they rely on.

This year’s World Autism Awareness Day addresses inclusive education.

Inclusive education is the key to the transformative promise of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

 

By Saima Wazed and Zain Bari Rizvi
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Apr 1 2022 (IPS)

When is too much Autism awareness still not enough? This thought recurs every April as we near World Autism Day on April 2, and parents reach out to me after reading enthusiastic and well-meaning news and journal articles – which are actually harmful and hurtful.

Saima W. Hossain

In 2008, along with a few dedicated parents and professionals, we began our effort to raise awareness around Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We eventually came together to form an advocacy, capacity-building, and research-based not-for-profit organization (Shuchona Foundation) established in 2014.

Today, we feel our work in Bangladesh, through effective national and international partnerships with equally dedicated parents and professionals, has impacted the country. Professional training, extensive awareness activities, and inclusion in social situations are demonstrable. The best part is that parents no longer view themselves as victims punished by fate for having a child with a disability.

Despite all the efforts in educating people in the many sectors of our country, including the formulation of a detailed National Strategic Plan, it is shocking to still find blatant disregard for the truth. I have, therefore, requested a parent, a former Shuchona Foundation head of operations and now a member of our executive board, to share her thoughts. Nothing speaks the truth louder and stronger than the person who has been on the receiving end of the discriminatory, hurtful, and unethical behaviour than the parent who hears it over and over again.

Here below excerpts of what I learned from Zain Bari Rizvi

If I had a Taka (Bangladesh currency) for each time someone said: ‘But he looks so normal,’ when I share that my son is on the Autism Spectrum, I would have been able to take early retirement at a villa in the Maldives!

Zain Bari Rizvi

I do not blame these mostly well-meaning people and their lack of awareness when widely read, and circulated dailies choose to use photos of children with Downs Syndrome to illustrate what children with Autism look like. Autistic traits cannot be captured with a still photograph, and most individuals with ASD look just like any other typical peer.

This sort of misrepresentation is not innocent and borders on dangerously harmful.

Deliberately associating a congenital genetic condition with a neurodevelopmental one will confuse the readers into thinking they are the same. This may also prevent parents and caregivers of children with Autism from seeking early intervention services that could potentially improve outcomes because they will have the false sense of comfort that their child ‘looks normal’, aka neurotypical.

There is no one true face of Autism because it is a not-one-size-fits-all spectrum disorder. It stays true to this famous quote by an Autism Advocate and Autistic person, Dr Stephen Shore: “If you’ve met one individual with autism, you’ve met one individual with autism.”

I am not a psychologist nor an expert, but as a parent who had the privilege to be educated and used my spare time and resources to do research, this incorrect and harmful visual misrepresentation enrages and upsets me.

Bangladesh has made considerable strides in Autism advocacy and policy changes due to extraordinary efforts by the leadership team at Shuchona Foundation. The Foundation has selflessly spearheaded the job of educating and opening the minds and hearts of people about what it entails to be on the Autism Spectrum. Because of their single minded dedication to this cause, we, in Bangladesh, are finally having a discourse on what Autism is and acknowledge and accept the differences in our children with Autism. We also have access to world-class services like early interventions such as ABA therapy and parent/caregiver engagement without shame or guilt.

And if there is one thing I learnt working closely with Shuchona Foundation, the key to making a difference is “to acknowledge that people will not always get it right but to look out for whether they want to learn to make it right”.

As World Autism Day on April 2 nears, my humble request to journalists and mainstream media is to do your duty of imparting factual and medically sound knowledge and information. Learn from your mistakes and ensure your stories and visual representations are accurate because media has the power to help or harm.

As I watch my feisty, opinionated and uber affectionate ASD child thrive in a typical school and social setting thanks to early childhood interventions and therapy, I shudder at the thought of what could have been our reality if I had paid heed to the photos of what Autism looks like in Bangladesh media.

I hope those reading this will take heed. Autism is a complex state of being, and no two autistics are alike. Every time I meet and spend time with someone with Autism, I am amazed at how unique, creative, and what a gift they are to the world. I want to change how we treat those we deem to be different, not change who they are.

For centuries all we have done is find creative ways to separate the majority from the minority. I hope the two years of the global pandemic will finally make us realize that when one group of people mistreat another, be it through military, financial or social power, we all suffer, not just the ones we discriminate against.

Saima Wazed Hossain is Advisor to the Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO), on Mental Health and Autism. She is Chairperson, National Advisory Committee for Autism and NDDs, Bangladesh and Chairperson, Shuchona Foundation. She is a specialist in Clinical Psychology and an expert on Neurodevelopment disorders and mental health. Her efforts have led to international awareness, policy and program changes, and the adoption of three international resolutions at the United Nations and WHO.

Zain Bari Rizvi is a Board Member of Shuchona Foundation, an Operations and Finance professional who is a passionate advocate for people with Autism and a mother of two children.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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In India, nearly one-fourth of women aged between 20 and 24 were reported to have been married before 18. Credit: Jaideep Hardikar/IPS

By External Source
NEW DELHI, Apr 1 2022 (IPS)

On December 22, 2021, the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which seeks to raise the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21, was sent to a parliamentary standing committee for further discussion.

The bill is built on the assumption that raising the age of marriage will eradicate the practice of child marriage. However, this rationale doesn’t have any prior evidence to support it, because even when the legal age was set at 18, child marriages continued to take place without any fear of the law. This begs the question: Can legislation alone possibly curb child marriage?

 

Prevalence of child marriage

In a patriarchal society such as India, girls are often raised with the ultimate goal of marriage. They are confined to the household and not educated or expected to enter the workforce. Thus, until they are married, they are seen as a financial burden by the families, and marrying them off early is not only consistent with tradition but also more economically feasible

Child marriage, according to UNICEF, is defined as “a marriage of a girl or boy before the age of 18, and refers to both formal marriages and informal unions in which children under the age of 18 live with a partner as if married”. It is a consequence of deep-rooted socio-cultural norms and entrenched gender inequalities, which end up disproportionately impacting girls.

In a patriarchal society such as India, girls are often raised with the ultimate goal of marriage. They are confined to the household and not educated or expected to enter the workforce. Thus, until they are married, they are seen as a financial burden by the families, and marrying them off early is not only consistent with tradition but also more economically feasible.

The risk of an extramarital pregnancy—which can endanger marriage prospects and make the girl a financial liability for an indefinite period—also makes child marriage seem to be a solution instead of a problem for many Indian communities.

Thus, even though they’re illegal, child marriages have wide societal sanction. This is evident from the recently released fifth round of the National Family Health Survey, according to which nearly one-fourth of women aged between 20 and 24 were reported to have been married before 18.

The decrease is marginal from the last round of the survey conducted in 2015–16, despite the fact that the existing child marriage law has been in place for over four decades. While there was an impressive drop in child marriages from 2005–06 and 2015–16, this might be attributable to better educational opportunities and other factors rather than the law.

 

Concerns about the proposed legislation

The proposed legislation to raise the legal marriage age for girls to 21 can have several harmful consequences.

 

1. Possible misuse of the law

According to a survey by Partners for Law in Development, 65 percent of the cases under the existing child marriage law were in response to elopement (not necessarily involving marriage) and were filed by disapproving parents or families.

These cases would be wrongfully filed to harass the couple, their age or legality of the marriage notwithstanding. Increasing the age to 21 will bring more consenting adults who choose to marry under the threat of such harassment, and could become a tool for people to oppose inter-religious and inter-caste marriages.

 

2. Disempowerment of women
A 2008 Law Commission report on reforming family law recommended a uniform age of marriage for boys and girls at 18 years and not 21. The reason: If all citizens can vote, enter contracts, be guardians, tried as adults for crimes they commit at 18, why shouldn’t they be allowed to get married as well, regardless of their gender? The new law could curtail the freedom of choice of a greater number of women.

 

3. Possible increase in sex-selective practices
The current socio-economic system makes people want to marry their daughters as soon as they can or choose not to have a daughter at all. Increasing the legal marriage age without changing patriarchal social norms can result in parents feeling even more ‘burdened’ by what they view as additional responsibility of the girl child, which in turn could lead to an increase in sex-selective practices.

 

Recommendations

There are several strategies that have worked globally in reducing the incidence of child marriages. Some solutions that might work in the Indian context are discussed below.

 

1. Bringing about parity in the legal age of marriage

We endorse the recommendation of the 2008 Law Commission to make the legal age of marriage for boys and girls uniform at 18 years and not 21. When individuals can vote at 18, they should also be allowed to choose their partners at this age.

 

2. Investing in girls’ education

There is clear evidence that allowing girls to complete their education delays marriage and provides them with the opportunity of being financially independent. According to the NFHS-4, the median age of marriage increases from 17.2 years for women with no schooling to 22.7 years for women with 12 or more years of schooling. Education enables them to fulfil their aspirations and live a life of dignity, and affords them the agency to uphold their sexual and reproductive rights in their choice to marry.

Child marriages are closely tied to low levels of education, poverty, and rural residence. The NFHS-4 reveals that girls living in rural areas with little or no education and belonging to the lowest wealth quintile are more likely to be married before they turn 18.

The government must address the barriers to girls’ education by providing a safe environment, improving the quality of education, and making girls’ education a more useful investment for parents.

 

3. Economic and social empowerment of girls

Investing in the capacity and skill building of adolescent girls is critical for them to realise their economic potential. Financial empowerment often gives individuals a greater say in their households and their own future. It can give girls the ability to say no to early marriage, and the family won’t see them as a liability. Greater attention to creating safe opportunities for paid work among women and girls is also required.

 

4. Targeted social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) campaigns

To end child marriage, we must make investments in targeted SBCC. Social norms that exclude girls and boys from marriage-related decision-making need to change.

Evaluation findings from the Population Foundation of India’s flagship SBCC initiative ‘Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon’ showed that reinforced messaging brought about increased awareness of the perils of child marriage and a positive shift in the attitude of girls and parents exposed to the programme.

We need more comprehensive SBCC initiatives that are supported by local leadership—including elected representatives, community, and religious leaders—to transform gender stereotypes of submissiveness and institutional discrimination that denies women agency.

 

5. Policies and programmes that reach the most marginalised

Marginalised communities are more vulnerable to early marriages. According to the NFHS-4, general category women tend to get married at a later age, with the median age of marriage for women aged 25–49 being 19.5 years. This figure is 18.5 years for women from other backward castes, 18.4 for scheduled tribes, and 18.1 for scheduled castes.

We need more policies and programmes that connect girls and young women, and their families, especially from marginalised communities, to financial institutions, education, information, health (including sexual, reproductive, and mental health), and nutrition services.

 

6. Ensuring registration of marriages

Despite a Supreme Court ruling making registration of marriages mandatory, state governments have done little to implement the verdict. The governments must develop a mechanism to ensure that all marriages (including civil, religious, and customary unions), births, and deaths are mandatorily registered through a system, as a means to track marriages and the age of marriage.

Moreover, action should be taken against those authorising and facilitating child marriages in rural areas.

Any approach to end child marriage needs to be geared towards securing the rights of girls, especially those vulnerable to early marriage. We have to think beyond punitive measures and legislations and transform the patriarchal socio-economic system that fosters child marriages.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Martand Kaushik works as a media and communications specialist at the Population Foundation of India.

Alok Vajpeyi is the lead for knowledge management and core grants at the Population Foundation of India.

Poonam Muttreja is the Executive Director of the Population Foundation of India

 

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

Anila Noor, Founding member of the European Coalition of Migrants & Refugees & European Lead of the Global Refugee-led Network (GRN)

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Apr 1 2022 (IPS)

It has been a month since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has now created one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times. More than 3.7 million people have left the country, in what has become the fastest exodus globally since World War II.

According to this statement by UNICEF, one month of war in Ukraine has led to the displacement of 4.3 million children – more than half of the country’s estimated 7.5 million child population. This number includes more than 1.8 million children who have crossed into neighboring countries as refugees and 2.5 million who are now internally displaced inside Ukraine.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency has said, intense fighting could continue to trigger further displacement, as an estimated 13 million people remain stranded in conflict-affected areas or unable to leave their homes due to lack of alternative options or safe routes out.

At a recent press briefing, UNHCR’s Representative in Ukraine, Karolina Lindholm Billing, said “a massive humanitarian crisis that is growing by the second. The seriousness of the situation cannot be overstated. Overnight, lives have been shattered and families torn apart. Millions are living in constant fear, with many sheltering in bunkers from indiscriminate shelling and heavy bombardments,” Billing said.

Most have fled to neighboring countries such as Poland, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, while a few have moved towards various other European countries. The “situation looks set to become Europe’s largest refugee crisis this century”, UNHCR said.

While early responses to refugee displacement address urgent functional and practical issues, such as meeting basic needs, resettlement efforts, security, food, living or just basic human survival, over the course of time, the humanitarian disaster needs a much broader and a more strategic response which would be most useful to people experiencing the displacement.

Anila Noor, one of Founding members of the European Coalition of Migrants and Refugees and European Lead of the Global Refugee-led Network (GRN) in an exclusive interview given to IPS says, while there have been normative shifts towards the inclusion of refugees and the value of Refugee-led organizations in international processes regarding refugees, but much work still needs to be done.

Last December, the international community gathered virtually (due to Omicron) for the High Levels Officials Meeting (HLOM), which was the two year check in on the progress the international community has made towards implementing the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). While Refugee participation was largely relegated to the side and lead-up events, voices of refugees were largely absent from the actual HLOM itself, says Noor. “For every small gain, we have numerous battles, before this meeting was converted to a fully virtual format only 10 of the 500 people in the room were going to be refugees.”

“There was some positive progress, as both the US and Germany had refugees on their delegations for the first time, and Canada for the second time. The US signed onto our Refugee participation pledge, which is a commitment to meaningfully include refugees in discussions and policy making,” said Noor.

Currently there are at least 82.4 million people around the world who have been forced to flee their homes. Among them are nearly 26.4 million refugees, around half of whom are under the age of 18. More than 56 percent of refugees came from three countries: Syria (6.7 million), Afghanistan (2.7 million), and South Sudan (2.3 million). Adding to these numbers will be displacement due to the ongoing war, which has already left an estimated 3.7 million leave their country.

While resettlements become the most urgent priority, what follows is often a system that disenfranchises the refugees, depriving them of civil and political rights – which often leads to being excluded from multilateral arenas by their host country and/or their country of origin.

Through advocacy and appeals, GRN has been working towards pushing the international community for meaningful engagement of refugees, inclusion in international and domestic conversations and policy decisions. “UNHCR should commit to 25% refugee participation in the 2023 Global Refugee Forum and create a refugee seat in UNHCR’s governing body, EXCOM, by 2023.

“We have lived the experiences we are seeking to influence, these are our personal experiences of displacement, the fact that we have come this far is directly attributable to the strength of our fight and the truth of our message. We know what type of help would be most useful to people experiencing displacement, and we know how to get this help directly to them,” says Noor.

These large scale humanitarian crises come with the challenge to international laws and state responsibility with their roots in political and diplomatic failure, when laws of war are breached, it sets a bad precedent, impunity increases refugee flows and displacement, which in itself is a source of instability. Addressing the causes calls for a shared political agenda and a need to introspect and work towards a more humanitarian inclusive approach, keeping in mind the most vulnerable are always women and children.

As countries continue to open their borders for this large-scale ongoing global humanitarian crisis – from Afghanistan to Ukraine to Syria, this is also a reminder that without taking into account the rights and needs of refugees, internally displaced and stateless people, the common goals of those who have committed to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which offers a universal, integrated, transformative and human rights-based vision for sustainable development, peace and security will remain an unfinished business.

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Credit: UNESCO

By Pawan Ghimire and Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Apr 1 2022 (IPS)

The International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, which will be commemorated on April 6, is a day that celebrates the positive effects that sports can have on the society.

The humanity needs to confront existential challenges but few remember that in September 2019 the United Nations declared the then upcoming decade as the ‘Decade of Action”, ten precious years where the world would act at unison to achieve the Agenda 2030.

Then the international community could not imagine that a devastating pandemic was about to come and the consequences of Covid-19 are still being experienced throughout the world.

The suffering and painful experiences that many of us have been going through in the last two years show that the vision enshrined in the Agenda 2030 is still a far cry from being realized.

The United Nations Secretary General’s response to these daunting challenges is called “Our Common Agenda”, a blueprint for a stronger, fairer and more inclusive multilateral world.

In this special day we need to ensure that sports can play a significant role in putting such bold plans into action, turning ambitious goals into a real opportunity to mobilize millions of people.

This is the power of sports and it is key that we think of sports for development and peace not as a standing alone sub-area.

Rather our efforts should be to turn the entire sports industry into a tool for social change.

Credit: United Nations

Certainly, when we talk about sports for development and peace, we refer to thousands of not-for-profit organizations, the vast majority of whom, despite their small in size and budgets, are active on the ground, trying to offer solutions to myriad of problems at local level.

For example, sports can bring people together and be an enhancer of a society that is more equal and just where women, vulnerable groups can have a stronger voice and agency.

If we think about disability, we know that millions of persons with disabilities in the developing world, still face multiple problems that deny them their rights to have a dignified life.

Investing in inclusive sports practices can be a powerful tool that can bring people together, persons with disabilities but also persons without disabilities.

It can be an important advocacy tool for a better level playing field, allowing people without disabilities to think and reflect about their privileges and the lack thereof for their disable peers.

In short sports can be a glue that connects people but it can also be a potent platform where disadvantaged persons can train their skills and fulfill their ambitions.

Let’s call this the uniquely transformative power of sports.

We know many stories of sports celebrities, champions admired throughout the world that could find their path to glory because of their achievements in the field of sports.

That’s why this special day should not be just celebrated as a day for committed advocates and practitioners alone but rather as an opportunity to push for a better leveraging of sports to help those left behind and at disadvantage to find a way forward in life.

For this to happen, we need a comprehensive strategy able to attract the interest of all stakeholders involved in sports.

The true is that, while sports for development and peace is more and more recognized worldwide as a social innovation, there is still huge divide between such practices and the mainstream sports industry.

Many global sports clubs with resources and phenomenal outreach are doing their bit to promote a positive use of sports within local communities but we need to be more ambitious.

What it is indispensable is to reach a new global understanding on the transformative role sports can have.

That’s why the United Nations Secretary General needs to elevate sports at the core of his Our Common Agenda, ensuring that sports can be, not only the unifying factor, the glue but also the toolkit that can bring the required change.

United Nations agencies should do a better job not only at mainstreaming sports in their programs but also enabling partnerships with professional sports as well, engaging and working with clubs and leagues to truly harness sports for the common good, not as just a nice “add on”, through the usual CSR projects, but as a key strategy for their success.

The Our Common Agenda envisions a series of global gatherings and initiatives focused on different themes, including education and the future of job market and gender equality.

Interestingly, within this blueprint, there is a commitment to do more to involve and engage youth meaningfully.

The ideal goal for Secretary General Guterres would be a different United Nations that can do a much better job to prioritize youth’s needs and aspirations, putting them in the driving seat.

It will certainly take a lot of effort to shift gear and move from words to deeds in making the United Nations more youth centric.

Starting truly investing in sports, bringing them at the center of the development and social agenda in the developing as well higher income countries, is certainly one of the best ways to implement the Agenda 2030.

It will bridge the generational divides and allow more and more youth to be in the “game” not as spectators but as key protagonists.

If you think about, there is really no better way to get into actions in this decade.

Pawan Ghimire is chairman – Cricket association of the blind Nepal and treasurer of World Blind Cricket Limited, UK

Simone Galimberti is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE. He can be reached at simone_engage@yahoo.com

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