Africa

The first leg of the 2022 World Cup play-off between West African rivals Ghana and visitors Nigeria ends in a goalless draw.

A fourth-minute own goal is enough to give Egypt a 1-0 win over Senegal in Cairo in their World Cup play-off.

This statement is attributed to Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the UN’s global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

By External Source
Mar 25 2022 (IPS-Partners)

Despite the assurance that they are “committed to the right to education of all citizens,” Afghanistan’s de facto authorities announced this week that they will not allow girls to attend secondary school until further notice.

To support a peaceful and prosperous future for all Afghans, the de facto authorities must ensure the right to education for all children and adolescents across the country. Ensuring that both girls and boys can return to school – including the resumption of adolescent girls’ access to secondary education – is key for the development of the country.

While boys have been able to access primary and secondary school since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, girls’ access to education has been limited to primary school in most of Afghanistan’s provinces. With this announcement, an entire generation of Afghan children and adolescents could be left behind.

Afghanistan faces a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, with over half the population – 24.4 million people – in need of humanitarian and protection assistance. Today, an estimated 8 million school-aged children need urgent support to access education.

This is a crucial moment for the de facto authorities to make good on their commitments. The time has come to fulfill the right to education for all girls and boys in the country. Knowledge is the pillar of any flourishing nation.

ECW has been supporting community-based education in Afghanistan since 2018, together with our strategic partners in the UN system, donors and civil society, reaching children in the most challenging contexts. The ECW-supported Multi-Year Resilience Programme focused on the most marginalized children, including a strong focus on female teachers and girls’ education, with 60% of all children reached being girls.

Tshegofatso Pule was found hanging from a tree, provoking outrage across South Africa.

With the bloody war in Ukraine dragging on, can the G20 still justify procrastination on the global anti-corruption agenda? Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

By Blair Glencorse and Sanjeeta Pant
WASHINGTON DC, Mar 25 2022 (IPS)

The world has quickly transitioned from a global health crisis to a geopolitical one, as the war in Ukraine rages into its second month. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine is just the latest in a long list of challenges that at their heart are either caused by or exacerbated by corruption.

Just this year, think of the protests in Sudan, the coup in Burkina Faso, the nationwide demonstrations in Kazakhstan, or the Portuguese elections, for example- all driven, one way or another, by graft.

While G20 countries have made progress within their national borders, there are often lax laws in offshore tax havens that are under their jurisdictions. Equally, beneficial ownership data should not just be open (to regulators and enforcement agencies), it should be public. Citizens and civil society everywhere should be able to monitor conflicts of interest or relationships between policymakers and corporations, free of charge

Now- countries including the US and Europe– are coming together to freeze the assets of Russian oligarchs, but this is not just about Putin’s kleptocracy. As world leaders meet at the G20 next week, it is imperative that they step-up further to fight corruption both at home and abroad.

The Civil-20 (C20), which engages the G20 on behalf of civil society, has been calling for increased accountability from world leaders on critical anti-corruption issues for a long time. The war in Ukraine has only reinforced the need for a focus on the priorities identified by the C20 this year.

First, combating money laundering and the recovery of stolen assets. There are numerous studies that indicate that as much as 85% of Russia’s GDP is laundered into countries including the UK and the US.

There are networks of enablers in Western countries that facilitate this process- from accountants, to lawyers to real estate agents (known as Designated Non-Financial Business and Professions (DNFBPs).

But according to the data collected by Accountability Lab for the G20 Anti-Corruption Commitments Tracker, not all G20 member countries are compliant with FATF recommendations on DNFBP due diligence.

Similarly, others do not have effective frameworks to disclose information on recovered assets. Recognizing the increased risks to anti-money laundering and asset recovery efforts from such omissions, the C20 has called for verified beneficial ownership data through public registers; and the assessment of the effectiveness of measures adopted by the G20 member countries including sanctions for non-compliance.

Second, countering corruption in the energy transition. The G20 Indonesian Presidency has included a sustainable energy transition as a priority issue for 2022. More and more countries, especially in Europe, are cutting ties with Russian energy supplies, which will lead to a more rapid shift of resources towards renewables- but the potential in this for corruption is huge.

Certain countries and energy companies have a variety of incentives to maintain the status quo in corrupt ways; while the supply chains for raw materials for renewable energy are also wide-open for illicit activities. G20 countries urgently need to better understand the level and types of corruption in renewables; and commit to providing transparent data around licensing contracts and budgets.

In this, grassroots civil society groups can be valuable allies by filling information gaps and closing feedback loops in communities affected by renewable energy related projects.

Third, the transparency and integrity of corporations. The recent sanctions against Russian oligarchs have renewed focus on corporate governance and how corporate compliance on issues like foreign bribery, corruption and conflict of interests- including in state owned enterprises and public private partnerships (PPP)- are effectively enforced.

For instance, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) focuses on anti-bribery and internal controls- and is likely to be further enforced, particularly in countries with close ties to Russia.

But beyond this, G20 member countries must also live up to past commitments to strengthen transparency and integrity in business by criminalizing private sector bribery; enacting whistleblower policies in the private sector; and ensuring accounting and auditing standards to prohibit off-the-book accounts.

Fourth, beneficial ownership transparency. The level of secrecy used by Russian oligarchs to hide assets through shell companies, trusts, partnerships and foundations has been headline news. Concerns around beneficial ownership transparency data (the data on who really owns companies) is not new (see this call to action for example).

While G20 countries have made progress within their national borders, there are often lax laws in offshore tax havens that are under their jurisdictions. Equally, beneficial ownership data should not just be open (to regulators and enforcement agencies), it should be public. Citizens and civil society everywhere should be able to monitor conflicts of interest or relationships between policymakers and corporations, free of charge.

It still costs $40 to access beneficial ownership data in Indonesia for instance- making this far too expensive for the average citizen. All G20 countries should lead by example and commit to open, public beneficial ownership registers.

Finally, Open Contracting. The recent focus on how the Russian military may have misused procurement processes has sadly highlighted again the importance of due diligence and open data. Civil society has unequivocally called on G20 member countries to proactively disclose information at every step of public procurement processes, in line with Open Contracting Data Standards as well as the Open Contracting for Infrastructure Data Standard, and to increase audit and citizen oversight in public procurement.

These reforms are past due. At the same time, successful initiatives like Opentender.net in Indonesia show how civil society can partner with governments to ensure citizen led oversight and the transparency of public procurement.

The Russia-Ukraine crisis is a stark reminder of how corruption issues must be central to any discussion about the causes and solutions to geo-political problems. The C20 has already outlined for G20 leaders how to address these issues- they now have the responsibility to implement these reforms.

Even in peace-time, the economic and human costs of corruption are massive. With the bloody war in Ukraine dragging on, can the G20 still justify procrastination on the global anti-corruption agenda?

Blair Glencorse is Executive Director of the Accountability Lab and is the International Co-Chair of the Civil 20 Anti-Corruption Working Group in 2022.

Sanjeeta Pant is a Programs and Learning Manager at Accountability Lab and leads the G20 Anti-Corruption Commitments Tracker. Follow the Lab on Twitter @accountlab and the C20 @C20EG

WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination Yohei Sasakawa with Mother Theresa of Calcutta in the early years of a campaign to eliminate leprosy and eradicate stigma from those affected by it. Sasakawa has turned this into his life’s work and, speaking at a webinar in support of the ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ campaign recalled how people affected by leprosy continue to be marginalized. Credit: Joyce Chimbi

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Kenya, Mar 25 2022 (IPS)

On a visit to Indonesia’s Papua Province, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination Yohei Sasakawa had dinner with a man forced from his village and living alone because he was affected by leprosy.

Over the years, Sasakawa saw many other desperate and desolate people infected and affected by leprosy. Marginalized, shunned, stigmatized, feared, and relegated to society’s furthest and hidden corners.

“Until I became ambassador, persons affected by leprosy tended to be on the receiving end of assistance. But I felt this was not the solution because this was contributing to self-stigma. I felt it was important for the public to know that they had been cured of their disease and were active,” Sasakawa, also the Nippon Foundation Chairman, says.

“I wanted to speak out, even though they had suffered from severe discrimination for a long time and were afraid that if they spoke up, they would be targeted afresh.”

Sasakawa spoke of his belief that persons affected by leprosy should take the lead in eliminating prejudice and discrimination and of partnerships with NGOs, academic institutions, and many other efforts to eliminate leprosy.

Sasakawa was speaking in support of the ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ campaign webinar series by the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative under the theme, ‘Elimination of Leprosy: Initiatives in Asia.’

Under the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative, the WHO Goodwill Ambassador, the Nippon Foundation, and Sasakawa Health Foundation work in coordination to achieve a leprosy-free world.

“The ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ campaign is significant. COVID-19 took attention away from other diseases, including leprosy. Leprosy continues to be a challenge. We must stay on the mission to detect, treat and eliminate leprosy,” Tarun Das, chairman of Sasakawa India Leprosy Foundation (S-ILF), told participants.

Sasakawa recounted Asia’s journey towards the long-term vision of zero leprosy, zero infection, disease, zero disability, and zero stigma and discrimination. Sasakawa spoke of the many challenges encountered along the way, the triumphs, and the journey into a leprosy-free world.

Triumphs include availability and provision of effective leprosy treatment and particularly the critical role played by the Nippon Foundation in reducing the number of patients with leprosy by ensuring Multiple Drug Therapy (MDT) treatment was available and free to all persons affected by leprosy.

WHO Goodwill Ambassador Yohei Sasakawa speaking during a webinar on ongoing initiatives in Asia to eliminate leprosy. Credit: Joyce Chimbi

Sasakawa also told participants about the Dalai Lama Sasakawa Scholarship with matching funding from the Nippon Foundation in support of children from families affected by leprosy.

“It has not been an easy journey,” he said, but the answer for Sasakawa to solve these challenges is: “We will not know until we try.”

Dr David Pahan, the country director of Lepra Bangladesh, spoke about leprosy as a neglected tropical disease and is least prioritized by the health system.

He told participants that the leprosy program further faced sudden and significant challenges induced by COVID-19, leaving persons affected by leprosy highly vulnerable.

“In response, we provided advice and emergency assistance to people affected by leprosy or acute disability in households threatened by the COVID-19 outbreak in Bangladesh,” Pahan told participants.

Pahan stressed the need for early treatment to prevent the risk of disability and encouraged collaboration with Civil Society Organizations to help fight stigma and improve leprosy treatment outcomes.

Erei Rimon, the National Leprosy Elimination Program Manager, Ministry of Health and Medical Services, Republic of Kiribati, spoke about the small island nation in the Central Pacific Ocean with an estimated total population of 119,490. Registered leprosy prevalence per a population of 10,000 is 12.9 percent.

Rimon reported ongoing efforts, such as the capacity building of health staff to detect and manage leprosy and follow-up of leprosy treatment defaulters, leading to a notable reduction from 241 defaulters in January 2021 to 162 defaulters in December 2021.

Das lauded ongoing collaborations, saying that Asia deserves special attention, especially South-East Asia, an endemic leprosy region. Asia is one of six WHO regions, where 127,558 new leprosy cases were detected in 2020 across 139 countries, including India, Nepal, and Bangladesh – 8,629 of these were children below 15.

Despite COVID-19 disrupting programme implementation and a reduction in new leprosy case detection by 37 percent in 2020 compared to 2019, Asia and, in particular South-East Asia, reported an estimated 84,818 cases out of an overall 127,558 cases.

Against this backdrop, Das told participants that S-ILF is dedicated to the socio-economic integration of people affected by leprosy to pull them out of demeaning dependence and earn their livelihoods with dignity.

S-ILF’s core business is to promote business opportunities, providing small loans for businesses and offering scholarships for children from leprosy-affected families.

The participants in the webinar heard heart-wrenching testimony.

“My name is Maya Ranaware, treasurer of the Association of Persons Affected by Leprosy. I am a woman affected by leprosy and cured. (I have) faced and (am) facing leprosy-related challenges. I experienced the most painful stigma from family, loved ones, and society,” she told participants.

Ranaware said this was the life of women affected by leprosy, most of them poor, unable to read and write, and without psychosocial or other critical support systems. She called for increased social awareness to change this trajectory so that women affected by leprosy are not forgotten.

Ranaware’s views were echoed by Yuliati Gowa, Chair of the South Sulawesi branch of PerMaTa Indonesia, who decried myths and misconceptions around leprosy. Gowa cautioned that these levels of misinformation derail efforts towards a leprosy-free world.

Dr Takahiro Nanri, the Sasakawa Health Foundation executive director, moderated a question-and-answer session between the Goodwill Ambassador and participants. This provided an opportunity to explore whether it was possible to eliminate leprosy by 2030.

While this was a grand vision, Sasakawa said it helped keep the leprosy elimination movement on track.

Despite his relentless campaign to eliminate leprosy, Sasakawa says: “I still do not think I have done enough.”

For so long, he says, “leprosy was thought of as a divine punishment or hereditary or highly contagious. Until MDT transformed treatment, people had this negative image of leprosy that remained in their DNA. We have to do more to remove it.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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• Leprosy Must Not Be Forgotten amid the Covid-19 Pandemic
• Sasakawa’s Epoch-Making Quest to End Discrimination of Leprosy Affected People
• ‘End Leprosy Discrimination Now, For the Sake of Our Children’

Women harvest wheat. Bangladesh. Credit: Scott Wallace / World Bank Photo ID: SW-1BD11010

By Stephen Devereux
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Mar 25 2022 (IPS)

The situation in Ukraine is first and foremost a humanitarian crisis, and the food security and wellbeing of the people of Ukraine should be our immediate concern. However, because of the dominant roles of Russia and Ukraine in global food, fuel and fertiliser markets, there are also massive knock-on effects for people around the world. This is particularly true for the supply and cost of food. Here are three ways that the invasion of Ukraine leads to potential risks to food security in other countries.

1. Decline in global food availability

Ukraine is known as the breadbasket of Europe, and Russia and Ukraine have both become major food exporters in recent years. In 2020 these two countries accounted for one third of the world’s wheat trade and one quarter of the world’s barley trade. Ukraine alone exported 15 percent of the world’s maize and half of all sunflower oil traded globally.

Two likely consequences of the ongoing crisis are reduced exports from Ukraine due to disrupted production and trade, and reduced exports from Russia, due to economic sanctions designed to harm the Russian economy. Commercial exports from major ports in Ukraine like Odessa have already been suspended. So there will be less wheat, maize, barley, and cooking oil available on world markets for the foreseeable future.

50 countries depend on Russia and Ukraine for 30 percent or more of their wheat. Many of these are low-income food deficit countries in North Africa, the Middle East and Asia – such as Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Sudan and Yemen, which is currently on the brink of famine.

2. Rising food prices

Reduced food supplies will cause food prices to rise. This is in addition to the fact that food prices were already rising before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In February, the FAO Food Price Index reached a new all-time high, partly due to recovery in global demand post-COVID-19, and partly reflecting expectations of imminent disruptions to wheat and maize exports from Russia and Ukraine.

Rising oil, gas and petrol prices will drive food price inflation even further, since food and fuel price movements tend to track each other closely. Because poor households spend a higher proportion of their income on food, higher food prices will affect low-income consumers and low-income countries worst. Bread prices are already rising in countries around the world. In Iraq, poor communities already staged protests about food prices in early March following spikes in the prices of flour and cooking oil in local markets, which officials attributed to the conflict in Ukraine.

3. Food production declines in low-income countries

Russia is the largest global exporter of fertilisers and fertiliser ingredients such as potash, ammonia, urea, and natural gas for making nitrogen-based fertilisers. On 2 February, Russia suspended its exports of fertiliser, ostensibly to protect its farmers. Belarus is also a major exporter of potash fertiliser. On 2 March, the European Union sanctioned Belarus for supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These sanctions included a ban on all imports of potash from Belarus.

Dozens of countries depend heavily on imports of nitrogen and potassium fertiliser from Russia and Belarus. Many of these are low-income food deficit countries in West and Central Africa. But reduced fertiliser supplies and higher fertiliser prices will also impact negatively on middle-income and high-income countries that import large amounts of fertiliser, such as Brazil, India, the United States and much of Western Europe. Fertiliser prices in the United States have already jumped by 10 percent. Food production could therefore be compromised in many countries across the world.

How bad will it get?

Just how badly global food security will be affected depends on several things that are not yet known at this time. For now, we are left with several short and longer-term questions – many of which governments and global leaders should be considering as part of food security crisis preparation and response.

Firstly, how bad will the war get, and how long will it last? How badly will Ukrainian exports be disrupted? Will sanctions be applied against Ukrainian exports if Russia eventually assumes power over Ukraine, and when will sanctions against Russia be lifted?

Secondly, how high will food and energy prices rise? For how long will the prices remain high? At what new baseline levels will they stabilise after the conflict?

Thirdly, how resilient are global and national food systems? A resilient food system has the capacity to sustainably provide sufficient, appropriate, safe, and accessible food to all people over time, even in the face of shocks and stressors. Can households and nations afford to pay higher prices for food and energy? How quickly can households and nations diversify away from Ukraine and Russia for food, energy, and fertiliser?

Finally, what actions will governments and international agencies take to mitigate the effects? Governments are already scrambling to reduce their dependence on imports from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. What social protection measures will governments offer to affected farmers and consumers? Will countries aim for food self-sufficiency, and reduced dependence on fossil fuels and chemical fertilisers? This could be one positive side-effect.

We don’t yet know the answers to these and related questions. But one thing is certain: sadly, it will get worse for Ukraine and the world before it gets better.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is Research Fellow at the UK-based Institute of Development Studies and member of its Food Equity Centre.

Young boys stand in front of a damaged vehicle in Sa'ada, Yemen. CRedit: WFP/Jonathan Dumont
 
Airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen that hit a detention facility in the northern city of Sa’ada, killed some 91 people and injured dozens more, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said, citing preliminary figures. January 2022

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 25 2022 (IPS)

When North and South Yemen merged into a single country ushering in the Republic of Yemen back in May 1990, a British newspaper remarked with a tinge of sarcasm: “Two poor countries have now become one poor country.”

Described as the poorest in an oil-blessed Middle East, Yemen continues to be categorized by the United Nations as one of the 46 least developed countries (LDCs), “poorest of the world’s poor” depending heavily on humanitarian aid while battling for economic survival.

But the longstanding conflict with neighbouring countries – and a civil war on the home front – have caused immense devastation to a country which, according to the UN, continues to face “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster”.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said last week that more than 10,000 children have been killed or maimed since the escalation of the conflict, between a pro-Government Saudi-led coalition, and Houthi rebels.

The killings and casualties, UNICEF said, was the equivalent of four children every day. These are just the incidents the United Nations has been able to verify, so the true figure is “likely far higher”, said the agency.

As the conflict enters its eighth year, with no end in sight, the London-based humanitarian organization Oxfam said in a new report released March 24, “escalating death, destitution and destruction has left millions of Yemeni civilians facing widespread misery”.

Oxfam Yemen’s Country Director, Ferran Puig told IPS: “The world must not look away while Yemen suffers. This year’s aid program is currently 70 percent underfunded, providing just 15 cents per day per person needing help. So, it’s vital that countries who are usually very generous to Yemen continue their support – otherwise millions will face terrible suffering. “

At a pledging conference for Yemen on March 16, co-hosted by the United Nations and the Governments of Sweden and Switzerland, only 36 donors (out of a UN membership of 193 nations) pledged nearly $1.3 billion. https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-conference-2022-financial-announcements-last-updated-16-march-2022

At the UN’s daily press briefing on March 17, one of the questions raised was about the woeful lack of Arab donors – with only Kuwait among the 36.

Asked if the Secretary-General was disappointed, UN Spokesperson Stephan Dujarric told reporters: “We can’t speak as to why certain countries gave more, why certain countries didn’t give; you will have to ask them. What is clear is that, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have traditionally been very strong backers of our humanitarian appeals. In Yemen, we’ve always appreciated that partnership.”

Dujarric also said that Martin Griffiths, the UN’s Special Envoy for Yemen, expressed his disappointment that some of our traditional partners did not give.

“I think what needs to be said clearly is that a pledging conference is there to kind of highlight the need and motivate people to give. But it’s not as if people can’t give after the pledging conference. So, we very much hope that those countries who did not give yet, did not pledge, do so”.

“To speak colloquially, the door to the bank remains open. We hope we still get more pledges… and those who have pledged also convert those pledges into cash as quickly as possible.”

Asked if Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, who are involved in the conflict, have a moral obligation to donate funds, Dujarric said: “We believe that there is a moral obligation on a global scale for those who have the means to help those who most need help. There’s an obligation for global solidarity across the board”.

Meanwhile, the Oxfam report warned that the human cost of the war in Yemen is rising sharply as the conflict enters its eighth year, with the number of civilian deaths increasing sharply, hunger on the rise and three quarters of the population in urgent need of humanitarian support.

The international agency said another year of war would bring unimaginable suffering to civilians ―almost two-thirds of Yemenis will go hungry this year unless the warring parties lay down their arms or the international community steps in to fill a massive gap in the appeal budget.

According to Oxfam, the escalating costs of war include:

— 17.4 million people currently going hungry, with predictions this will rise to 19 million by the end of the year (62 percent of the population and an increase of more than 8 million since the conflict started).

— 4.8 million more people in need of humanitarian assistance than in 2015, the first year of the conflict.

Since UN human rights monitoring was withdrawn in October 2021, the civilian casualty rate has doubled, now reaching well over 14,500 casualties.

— 24,000 airstrikes have damaged 40 percent of all housing in cities during the conflict.

— And during the last seven years, over four million people have been forced to flee from violence.

The Ukraine crisis, said Oxfam, has exacerbated the situation, raising concerns over supplies of grain and cooking oil. Yemen imports 42 percent of its grain from Ukraine and Oxfam has been told prices have already started to rise. In Sana’a bread went up 35 percent over the week that fighting broke out (200 Yemeni Rial to 270 Yemeni Rial).

Oxfam’s Puig said: “After seven years of war, Yemenis are desperate for peace – instead they are facing yet more death and destruction. Violence and hunger are on the increase once more and millions of people cannot get the basics their families need.

“People can’t afford to pump water to irrigate their crops and in remote areas where people rely on trucked drinking water, they can’t afford to pay increased prices meaning they have to use water that is not safe to drink. City dwellers in some areas are experiencing electricity cuts of 10-12 hours a day ―those who have them are relying on solar panels to charge mobile phones and supply a small amount of power.”

He said farmers are unable to afford to transport produce to markets, causing prices of fresh produce to rise even further. Buses and motorbike taxis are becoming unaffordable leaving many unable to pay the cost of transport to healthcare facilities and other life-saving services.

“Health facilities across the country could soon be forced to shut off life-saving equipment because of lack of fuel. During the last few days, local media in Taiz have reported that the Al Thawra hospital has stopped its operations due to the fuel shortage”.

Government employees, he pointed out, have not been paid since the end of 2016. The COVID-19 pandemic coupled with new restrictive regulations has reduced the number of Yemenis able to work in Saudi Arabia and send money to relatives at home.

“And a spiralling currency devaluation means that what little income people may have buys less and less every day forcing Oxfam and other aid agencies to regularly increase the cash transfers they provide to support vulnerable families”.

Civilian deaths and injuries in the conflict have doubled since the UN body responsible for monitoring violations of international humanitarian law in Yemen was removed in October of last year, said Puig.

“There have been over 14,554 civilian casualties since recording by the Civilian Impact Monitoring project started in 2017. During the last seven years there have been over 24,600 airstrikes across Yemen.

In the last few months, shifting frontlines have led to an increase in landmine deaths and injuries around Marib where retreating forces lay them to slow down their opponents. Civilians using mined roads or gathering firewood in contested land are often victims”.

Yemenis faced with these problems are forced to resort to cope any way they can. People live in a cycle of debt, increasing numbers are resorting to begging, the reports points out.

“Yemen desperately needs a lasting peace so people can rebuild their lives and livelihoods. Without peace the cycle of misery will continue and deepen. Until then, adequate funding for humanitarian aid is critical,” Puig declared.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Ten African teams meet over two legs to decide which five nations will be going to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar in November.

Most people want their nation to make it to the World Cup, but this is not so for some Cameroonians.

A selection of the best photos from across Africa and beyond this week.

If the desalination plants win the bet, Chile's water delivery trucks, with their unpredictable schedules and high operating costs, will become a thing of the past. The photo shows the small cove of Chigualoco, in northern Chile, with a few fishing boats and the ground covered with black seaweed (Lessonia spicata), macroalgae that the fishermen dry in the sun. The seaweed is not extracted from the small coastal rocks because it is the food for prized mollusks whose harvesting season ends in June. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

By Orlando Milesi
LOS VILOS, Chile , Mar 24 2022 (IPS)

The Pacific Ocean could quench the thirst caused by 10 years of drought in Chile, but the operation of desalination plants of various sizes has a long way to go to become sustainable and to serve society as a whole rather than just corporations.

Some twenty of these plants are already in operation providing desalinated water to small fishing communities, another three to the inhabitants of various municipalities and eight more to large mining companies, all but one of which are concentrated in Chile’s arid North.

The extensive development and availability of solar and wind energy has lowered the operating cost of desalinating and purifying seawater, which offers hope for a stable supply of water in this Southern Cone country with 4,270 kilometers of coastline.

This year, 184 municipalities are under a water shortage decree, 53 percent of the total, affecting 8.2 of the 19.4 million inhabitants of this long narrow country that runs along the western side of southern South America, between the Pacific coast and the Andes mountains.

Three years ago an analysis published in Radiografía del Agua: Brecha y Riesgo Hídrico de Chile (Radiography of Water: Water Gap and Risk in Chile) warned that “freshwater reserves in the basins are shrinking.”

“Seventy-two percent of the data shows that the water level in aquifers is decreasing at a statistically significant rate and all the glaciers studied so far, which are less than one percent of the existing ones, have reduced their areal and/or frontal surface from 2000 onwards, with only one exception (the El Rincón glacier, located on the outskirts of Santiago),” the report states.

Roberto Collao (left), president of the Chigualoco fishermen’s union, and Miguel Barraza, secretary of the organization, stand next to one of the drums that hold desalinated water and next to the plant’s operating hut, located in this small fishing village in the arid north of Chile. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Relief for artisanal fishers

Roberto Collao, president of the fishermen’s union of Chigualoco, a small cove 240 km north of Santiago in the municipality of Los Vilos, told IPS how this technical data translates into reality and how a desalination plant came to their aid.

“We had no drinking water. We brought it from our homes in Los Vilos, 20 minutes from here. The water trucks came every 15 days and a lot of people come here in summer,” he explained in the fishermen’s cove, the local name given to the small inlets that abound along the Chilean coast.

Sitting next to the association’s boats, on a beach full of seaweed laid out to dry, he proudly said that “we are now taking 5,000 liters a day out of the sea and turning it into freshwater for consumption, for washing our diving suits and for cleaning our catch.”

In the recently concluded fishing season, the 30 artisanal fishermen of Chigualoco, who have three managed fishing areas, caught 100,000 Chilean abalones (Concholepas concholepas), a highly prized mollusk or large edible sea snail native to the coasts of Chile and its neighbor to the north, Peru.

Similar small desalination plants were installed in the northern region of Coquimbo where the town is located, financed with public funds.

One of them is in Maitencillo, across from Canela, the municipality with the highest poverty rate in Chile.

But it has not been working for four months because “the pump that extracted the salt water broke down, there were problems with the filters,” Herjan Torreblanca, president of the Caleta Maitencillo union, told IPS on a tour of towns with desalination plants in the region.

“The water we got was so fresh, like bottled water. It produced 8,000 liters a day,” he recalled with nostalgia, expressing hope that the plant would be fixed soon.

Photo of a pipe that carries seawater to the desalination plant installed in the Chigualoco cove, where an association of 30 fishermen operates. The plant’s annual operating cost is approximately 2,500 dollars. Located in the Chilean municipality of Los Vilos, the plant mainly runs on solar power and collects water through a small pipe connected to a pump. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Looking out to sea

The year 2021 was the driest in Chile’s history, and a recurrent water deficit is predicted for the future. As a result, the public and the country’s authorities are looking mainly to the sea to provide water in the future, as well as to the glaciers of their Andean peaks.

In his first press conference for foreign correspondents on his third day in office on Mar. 14, President Gabriel Boric referred to the water crisis and announced the aim to “move forward with desalination, while also taking charge of the externalities it generates. In particular, what to do with the brine.”

“One problem is drought and another is the poor use of water resources and water rights. We have to make progress in the modernization of the area and in better use of gray water,” he added.

In fact, only less than 30 percent of Chilean agriculture uses technified irrigation, in a country whose economy is based on export agribusiness, mining, particularly copper mining, and large-scale fishing. Meanwhile, family agriculture and artisanal fishing are the most affected by the water deficit, despite their importance in labor and social terms.

In Chile, water rights are in private hands. Now water, including sea water, is the focus of debate and would be given a new definition in the new constitution, the draft of which must be completed by Jul. 4 by the members of the constitutional convention and which will be approved or rejected by voters in a September or October referendum.

Minera Escondida, the world’s largest copper-producing mine owned by the Australian-British company BHP, located at 3,200 meters above sea level, uses water piped 180 kilometers from a desalination plant on the coast to the Antofagasta region where it is located.

In late 2019, the Escondida Water Supply Expansion (EWS) was installed, “which allowed us to stop drawing water from the well and to use 100 percent seawater, a unique milestone worldwide,” explained Hada Matrás, the mine´s production manager.

Mining companies in Chile plan to increase their eight desalination plants currently in operation to 15 by 2028.

Miguel Barraza, secretary of the Chigualoco fishermen’s union, which operates the desalination plant they use in that cove in the northern Chilean municipality of Los Vilos. Now that they have water, the fishermen plan to open a restaurant and build a multipurpose building. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Of the three plants designed to supply water to municipalities, the Nueva Atacama plant, operating since December, stands out. Built with a public investment of 250 million dollars and later transferred to a private consortium, it produces 450 liters per second (L/s) and supplies the municipalities of Tierra Amarilla, Caldera, Copiapó and Chañaral, which are located around 800 kilometers north of Santiago.

But desalination will not be confined to the North, where water is most urgently needed. For the first time, a desalination plant, Nuevosur, has also been installed in the south of Chile, in Iloca, 288 kilometers from Santiago.

The investment totaled 2.5 million dollars and the plant seeks to “increase the availability of water and cover the rising demand that occurs mainly in the (southern hemisphere) summer,” the company told IPS.

“The project will be executed in two stages: during the first phase – which has already been developed – the system will allow us to treat 15 L/s and in the second phase we will reach a treatment level of 26 L/s,” said the Nuevosur spokesman.

Pros and cons of desalination

Several associations created the Chilean Desalination Association and defend the process as “an excellent solution to address the water challenges of our country, as it does not depend on hydrology.”

“It is a proven, reliable and affordable technology. This combination of factors has boosted the incorporation of desalination in various production processes and has favored the growth of this industry,” the Association states.

One crucial question is what will be done with the brine left over from the process. Environmentalists fear that large blocks of salt will be dumped in the ocean, affecting the ecosystem and species living in coastal areas.

Small desalination plants produce almost no brine, so the focus is on mining companies and water distributors.

The Pelambres copper mine, with estimated reserves of 4.9 billion tons and owned by the Luksic group and a consortium of Japanese companies, has its storage and loading terminal in the northern part of the Chilean municipality of Los Vilos. From there it extracts water for desalination and use in its operations. There are already eight mines with desalination plants and by 2028 there will be 15. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Liesbeth Van der Meer, executive director of Oceana Chile, told IPS that “desalination is one of the solutions, but there is great concern that it is seen as the only alternative.

“They are really looking to Israel and Qatar for solutions. However, the first thing Europe always focused on was water efficiency and in Chile this has not been worked on,” said the representative of the world’s largest organization dedicated to the defense of the oceans.

Van der Meer explained that the desalination plants that damage the ecosystem “are the ones that range from 500 to more than 1000 L/s, because of the suction and all the salt they throw back into the sea.”

Desalination “has many socio-environmental costs that have not been considered. If the plant is very close to a cove, for example, the brine and substances used to prevent the accumulation of biological species in pipes produce environmental damage in the bays,” she explained.

“You can’t extrapolate from Israel to Chile because our sea has other qualities with the Humboldt Current that goes from south to north bringing nutrients. And getting beyond the Humboldt Current to deposit brine is quite costly,” she said.

As an example of the impacts, Van der Meer said: “We have seen places like Mejillones (a municipality in the northern region of Antofagasta), where there is a large desalination plant, and within a range of five kilometers there are no fish or any kind of life and the water is turquoise – not because it is clean but because there is no life there.”

The environmentalist demanded a national water plan to regulate the construction of desalination plants and called for the protection of the 10 miles of territorial waters “where a large part of the wealth of fishing resources is located.”

Ricardo Cabezas, an aerospace physicist and geomatician, agreed that “legislation is needed to oblige those companies that use seawater to have a monitoring system and oceanographic studies to understand the flow of currents.”

“Temperature differences are not high when desalinating because in the reverse osmosis process there is no thermal plant,” he said.

And with respect to brine, he explained to IPS that “there are experiences at the international level where many minerals are recovered from the salt.”

According to Cabezas, “20 percent of the waste can be optimally managed if you reuse part of the brine by reprocessing it to obtain rare earths, rhenium and other common minerals.

“You can add value to salt and it becomes a raw material rather than a waste material,” he stressed.

Cabezas said that: “If we manage to solve the brine problem, we will make a qualitative leap and the main beneficiary will be the Chilean population because the crucial water problem will be solved.”

The academic pointed out that the Nueva Atacama plant, for example, managed to “attenuate the effect on the sea with diffusers that do not produce a concentration of salt at the end of the pipeline’s route, but instead spurt it out over a stretch of one kilometer.”

Tanzanian opposition leader Freeman Mbowe says the treason charges against him were politically motivated.

The civil war has left millions in need of food aid and none has been delivered to Tigray for months.

Employment guarantees could be a way to combat insecurities associated with dynamic and piecemeal earnings | Picture courtesy: PixaHive

By Abhishek Sekharan
NEW DELHI, Mar 24 2022 (IPS)

According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the unemployment rate in urban India stood at 9.4 percent between January and March 2021, with an even higher proportion of youth unemployment (22.9 percent). In the same time period, more than 11 percent of the urban workforce reported working for less than 36 hours in a typical week.

During the pandemic-induced lockdown in 2020, urban unemployment had reached unprecedented peaks (approximately 21 percent in April–June 2020). Moreover, employment in much of urban manufacturing and service industries tends to be highly seasonal and contractual, with greater casualisation being reported over the last decade.

Gig workers, or platform workers, are increasingly providing crucial services across urban areas as cab drivers and couriers delivering food, groceries, medicines, and other essentials. Therefore, it’s important that we include them in discussions around formulating UEG schemes

Given these facts, an urban employment guarantee (UEG) scheme is imperative to provide livelihood security for the urban poor. The parliamentary committee on labour had recently recommended instituting a scheme in line with the MGNREGA, which would offer income support during lockdowns, mandatory health insurance, and an increased number of maximum work days.

Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Odisha already experimented with versions of UEG during the 2020 lockdown, and Kerala has had one since 2010. Although varying in scope and design, each of these schemes at its core has a shared policy framework that guarantees minimum wage employment to all who demand work for a stipulated period. Reports suggest that this has benefitted a significant proportion of the urban poor.

Gig workers, or platform workers, are increasingly providing crucial services across urban areas as cab drivers and couriers delivering food, groceries, medicines, and other essentials. Therefore, it’s important that we include them in discussions around formulating UEG schemes.

 

Why should gig workers be included in UEG programmes?

Digital platforms such as Ola, Uber, Zomato, and Swiggy are credited with heralding a new age of entrepreneurship, autonomy, flexibility, and formalisation. Despite their booming expansion, the very people who make these platforms work have not been able to reap the benefits of their success. Public dialogue shaped by gig workers has highlighted the dark underbelly of the exploitation and vulnerability they’re subject to.

Due to low base pay, incentive-based payout structures, high commissions, and arbitrary surveillance systems that gauge work quality, these workers spend long hours under hazardous conditions, working or searching for work. Moreover, their status as ‘independent contractors’ forces them to bear several other costs associated with purchasing fixed assets and fuel, without any legal claims to social security benefits.

Even though workers such as delivery partners were deemed to be providing essential services during the pandemic, platforms reduced incentives and changed payment structures, causing many to earn less than minimum wage for 12–15 hour work days. Many also lacked access to insurance, safety equipment, and affordable healthcare.

Research on delivery and taxi-driving sectors has shown that platforms rely on a pool of migrant workers from historically dispossessed communities who already had severely limited claims to social security during the pandemic.

Despite these layers of precarity, platform workers remain ineligible to claim social security under existing schemes, even ones with the most significant coverage such as the PDS. In the case of the PDS, exclusion may have resulted from outdated definitions of urban poverty—households eligible for PHH ration cards under the National Food Security Act must not possess four-wheeler vehicles or internet-enabled laptops/computers. There are other restrictions on families that possess two-wheelers.

This immediately introduces barriers for delivery workers and taxi drivers, who have to self-invest in many of these assets, often by entering into long-term debts, to sustain their livelihoods. These workers, apart from ride-hailing drivers, also did not explicitly figure in any of the targeted relief packages offered by governments. Such conditions pushed many workers into chronic debt.

The Code on Social Security 2020, for the first time, recognised platform workers as eligible for social security benefits, albeit with many limitations. It fails to recognise these workers as employees, and also introduces several exclusionary eligibility criteria for social security benefits. More importantly, the code fails to uphold the accountability of gig platforms beyond a nominal mandatory contribution to the gig workers’ social security board.

Other labour codes, as already implemented, do not mention platform work/workers, thereby precluding their rights to minimum wage, occupational safety, and decent work. Even as gig workers’ organisations continue to struggle to achieve legally enforceable protection, their inclusion in UEG programmes could serve as a step towards short-term measures that safeguard rights. But how can this be done

 

Reimagining urban public works

Public policy responses during the pandemic have encapsulated an expanded imagination of ‘public works’. Urban infrastructure systems were expanded through state–platform partnerships to enhance access for under-serviced neighbourhoods and regions. For instance, the Delhi government partnered with Swiggy to deliver cooked meals to migrants living in temporary shelters during the lockdown. In another move, governments also tied up with Ola and Uber to provide free transportation facilities to frontline workers.

However, these works are rarely included within considerations of ‘public works’ under UEG proposals. Employment in UEG proposals is mainly prescribed under work commissioned by urban local bodies (ULBs); within this framing, platform workers would be forced to work in manual jobs such as building, repair, and renovation. Many are also attracted to ‘professional’ designations. Therefore, manual work as currently proposed under UEG schemes may be unattractive for many gig workers.

1. Addressing on-demand service needs of public institutions and recognised employers

Given the intention to universalise coverage to all who demand work, gig work—particularly in transportation and delivery sectors—should be explicitly covered within these proposals.

This can be achieved by experimenting with the experiences of public institutions such as hospitals and government offices, who relied on platforms for their service needs during the pandemic, ranging from logistics, last-mile delivery, and mobility.

Jean Drèze suggests that other publicly recognised employers such as schools and colleges could be involved in the governance and implementation of the UEG scheme. Many of these institutions have capacities to meet their service needs through engaging gig workers, including demand for services such as cleaning, disinfection, and repair and maintenance of assets.

2. Ensuring flexibility

The promise of flexibility in terms of determining one’s own work and working hours remains a central attraction of gig work. Despite this, research on platform labour has pointed out that this flexibility is seldom instrumentalised due to gamification of work through incentives, ratings, and algorithmic manipulation.

However, lessons from some of the current UEG models can be adopted to restore flexibility and control over work outcomes while expanding coverage to gig workers under UEG schemes. For instance, Drèze’s proposal to cover both part-time and full-time work to accommodate women’s unpaid care responsibilities may be applicable to gig workers. Furthermore, several existing measures under state programmes, such as Kerala’s AUEGS, which stipulates the provision of work within a five-kilometre radius, could be experimented with.

The provision of affordable, quality, and subsidised public transport facilities to UEG job stamp holders through partnerships between states and non-motorised ride-hailing workers is a way in which daily wage workers, such as rickshaw pullers and tuk-tuk drivers, can be covered under UEG schemes.

3. Anticipating benefits and challenges

Employment under UEG stipulates payment of daily minimum wages. But, like many informal sector workers, gig workers have been excluded from such legal assurances under the Code on Wages 2019. Employment guarantees could be a way to combat insecurities associated with dynamic and piecemeal earnings.

As proposed by Drèze’s model, allowing worker collectives to be engaged as placement agencies might offer a solution here. These collectives could set wage floors to ensure that invisibilised costs related to platform work are appropriately taken into account.

ULBs can also consider partnering with platforms in the form of placement agencies for job cards issued by them. This would mean that all workers registered with the platform immediately become eligible for UEG benefits. This must be done alongside setting wage floors and dissociating incentives and work availability from gamification tools such as ratings.

These measures will help tackle multiple challenges that gig workers routinely grapple with, such as information asymmetries, dynamic pricing, and insecurities related to earnings and long working hours, while ensuring availability of minimum wage work. Such ULB–platform partnerships have already emerged during the pandemic and prevented platforms from unilaterally reducing wages by stipulating base pay rates and limiting platform power to charge high commissions and supervise quality of service provision.

4. Ensuring minimum wage considerations

Currently there is no clarity on how gig workers’ wages are determined. Swiggy, for instance, has categorised wages for delivery workers under three heads: per order pay, surge pay, and incentives. Another major determinant of earnings is commissions, which most platforms charge for each task (delivery/trip/haircut), ranging from 10–35 percent.

To replicate the elasticity of minimum wage considerations according to states, development zones, industry, occupation, and skill levels, there is a need for comprehensive public data on earnings and payment structures, which is currently available only with platforms.

Worker unions have demanded that minimum wages be pegged to the number of hours worked in a day, where working time will be calculated by accounting for all time-rated factors, such as waiting time, commute, and total time taken to complete shifts.

While many of these considerations are complex, they are important to determine fair unemployment allowances in cases where such forms of employment guarantees become more feasible.

The inclusion of gig workers within UEG proposals cannot be a substitute for regulatory measures that enforce safeguards such as minimum wages, occupational health and safety, and decent work.

Nevertheless, as experiences from other countries have shown, enforcing such regulations is a long-term process, particularly against the global tide towards greater flexibility and labour precarity. In the interim, schemes such as UEG could be particularly rewarding for gig workers while paving the way for universal social protection.

As we continue to debate the shape that the UEG programme should take in India—whether it should be framed as an employment generation scheme or as a scheme that provides unemployment insurance—we must remember to include gig workers in these discussions.

Aditi Surie, Aayush Rathi, and Ambika Tandon provided critical inputs to this story.

Abhishek Sekharan is a researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a nonprofit research institute working on issues related to technology and its impact on our society

 

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

South Africa qualify for the semi-finals of the Women's Cricket World Cup despite their game against West Indies being abandoned due to rain.

A mother and her children fled conflict in Lashkargah and now live in a displaced persons camp in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan. Credit: UNICEF Afghanistan

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 24 2022 (IPS)

Following 20 long years (2011-2021) of brutal war on Afghanistan by the US-led military coalition, which ended up in delivering the country to the Taliban in August 2021, 23 million Afghans now face severe and acute hunger, economic bankruptcy, healthcare system collapse, unbearable family indebtedness, and devastating humanitarian crisis.

People in Afghanistan are today facing a food insecurity and malnutrition crisis of “unparalleled proportions,” Ramiz Alakbarov, Deputy Special Representative for the Secretary General, reported on 15 March 2022.

“The rapid increase in those experiencing acute hunger – from 14 million in July 2021 to 23 million in March 2022 – has forced households to resort to desperate measures such as skipping meals or taking on unprecedented debt to ensure there is some food on the table at the end of the day.”

“The rapid increase in those experiencing acute hunger – from 14 million in July 2021 to 23 million in March 2022 – has forced households to resort to desperate measures such as skipping meals or taking on unprecedented debt to ensure there is some food on the table at the end of the day”

“These unacceptable trade-offs have caused untold suffering, reduced the quality, quantity, and diversity of food available, led to high levels of wasting in children, and other harmful impacts on the physical and mental wellbeing of women, men, and children,” the UN high official warned.

 

95% of Afghans not eating enough food

In Afghanistan, a staggering 95 per cent of the population is not eating enough food, with that percentage rising to almost 100 per cent for female-headed households. It is a figure so high that it is almost inconceivable. Yet, devastatingly, it is the harsh reality, added Ramiz Alakbarov.

Hospital wards are filled with children suffering from malnutrition: smaller than they should be, many weighing at one year what an infant of six months would weigh in a developed country, and some so weak they are unable to move.

 

80% of all Afghans facing debt

As Afghanistan continues to grapple with the effects of a terrible drought, the prospect of another bad harvest this year, a banking and financial crisis so severe that it has left more than 80 percent of the population facing debt, and an increase in food and fuel prices, we cannot ignore the reality facing communities. Enormous challenges lie ahead, also said the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan.

 

Acute malnutrition

“Acute malnutrition rates in 28 out of 34 provinces are high with more than 3.5 million children in need of nutrition treatment support.”

 

Healthcare system on brink of collapse

“Afghanistan’s health system is on the brink of collapse. Unless urgent action is taken, the country faces an imminent humanitarian catastrophe, warned the UN top humanitarian official, Martin Griffiths, last September, that’s just one month after the US-led military coalition abandoned the country in a sudden, chaotic withdrawal.

“Allowing Afghanistan’s health care delivery system to fall apart would be disastrous,” said Griffiths, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.

“People across the country would be denied access to primary healthcare such as emergency caesarean sections and trauma care.”

 

Combined shocks

The combined shocks of drought, conflict, COVID-19 and an economic crisis in Afghanistan, have left more than half the population facing a record level of acute hunger, according to a UN assessment published at the end of last October.

An Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report co-led by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP), revealed by the end of last October that the lives, livelihoods and access to food for 22.8 million people will be severely impacted.

“It is urgent that we act efficiently and effectively to speed up and scale up our delivery in Afghanistan before winter cuts off a large part of the country, with millions of people – including farmers, women, young children and the elderly – going hungry in the freezing winter”, said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu. “It is a matter of life or death”.

The IPC report found that more than one-in-two Afghans will face Phase 3 crisis or Phase 4 emergency levels of acute food insecurity from November through the March lean season, requiring an urgent international response to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.

“We cannot wait and see humanitarian disasters unfolding in front of us – it is unacceptable”, he added.

 

Children are dying

This is the highest number of acutely food insecure people ever recorded by the UN, during 10 years of conducting IPC analyses in Afghanistan.

And globally, the country is home to one of the largest numbers of people facing acute hunger.

“Hunger is rising and children are dying”, said the WFP Executive Director David Beasley. “We can’t feed people on promises – funding commitments must turn into hard cash, and the international community must come together to address this crisis, which is fast spinning out of control”.

 

Demographic spread

The report revealed a 37 per cent surge in the number of Afghans facing acute hunger since its last assessment in April.

Among those at risk are 3.2 million children under five, who are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition by the end of the year.

Last month, WFP and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned that without immediate life-saving treatment, one million children risked dying from severe acute malnutrition.

And for the first time, urban residents are suffering from food insecurity at similar rates to rural communities.

 

Rampant Unemployment

Meanwhile, rampant unemployment and a liquidity crisis are putting all major urban centres in danger of slipping into a Phase 4 emergency level of food insecurity, including formerly middle class populations.

In rural areas, the severe impact of a second drought in four years continues to affect the livelihoods of 7.3 million people who rely on agriculture and livestock to survive.

“Afghanistan is now among the world’s worst humanitarian crises – if not the worst – and food security has all but collapsed”, said the WFP chief.

“This winter, millions of Afghans will be forced to choose between migration and starvation unless we can step up our life-saving assistance, and unless the economy can be resuscitated”.

This has been the horrifying cost of another brutal war on unarmed human beings.

Women are empowered to take on roles formerly played by men after going through BRAC’s Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI) in Egypt. Credit: Bobby Irven/BRAC

By Hisham Allam
CAIRO, Mar 24 2022 (IPS)

When Suhier Abed’s husband broke both legs after falling two floors while working in construction, the 32-year-old mother of five needed to support her family.

She joined the Bab Amal Graduation program hoping that she would replace the $100 her husband earned a month.

“I started my project with two sheep in the hopes of bettering my living situation, especially given my husband’s medical conditions. Indeed, I was successful in developing it, and within a year, the number of sheep had increased to five,” Abed told IPS.

Abed and her husband’s siblings share one house with three rooms. Each family lives in a room with two beds in the village of Al-Shamiya, Assiut Governorate, 440 km from Cairo.

The village between the Nile’s east bank and the desert is a typical upper Egyptian town, with high school dropout rates, unemployment, and high poverty levels.

BRAC’s Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI) works to help people lift themselves out of extreme poverty worldwide through the Graduation approach — a holistic, sequenced set of interventions developed 20 years ago designed to reach the most vulnerable people. Egypt is one area where BRAC UPGI is working, providing technical assistance on a Graduation program focused on empowering rural households in extreme poverty.

People living in extreme poverty in Egypt face significant challenges due to rising food prices, currency devaluation, and a lack of sustainable employment opportunities in a country where 32.5 percent of the population lives below the national poverty line.

In Upper Egypt, BRAC UPGI partnered with the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (SFSD), Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), Egyptian Human Development Association (EHDA), and Giving Without Limits Association (GWLA) to launch the Bab Amal Graduation program, which works to develop sustainable livelihoods and socioeconomic resilience for the 2,400 participating households.

According to the World Bank’s household survey results for October 2019-March 2020, around 30% of the population lived below the national poverty line before the pandemic coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

COVID-19 is likely to have contributed to an increase in the poverty rate.

“During COVID, BRAC UPGI and its partners had to swiftly adapt their approach to meet participants’ evolving needs — like connecting participants to available public services,” Bobby Irven, Communications Manager for BRAC UPGI, told IPS.

The Bab Amal program started in late 2018 in the two poorest governorates of Egypt: Assiut and Sohag.

“As with any of our Graduation Programs, coaches and field staff are tasked with providing skills training in finance and savings, livelihood development, and ongoing coaching on health, nutrition, education, and more, to help participants carve a pathway out of extreme poverty — helping them meet their most basic needs and beyond,” Irven says.

“To ensure that participants, their families, and even entire communities can weather the storm and move onward and upward from this global crisis, program staff and coaches have put a renewed focus on ensuring that eligible program participants are connected to basic services like health clinics, schools, sanitation facilities, government social protection programs, identification cards and so on.”

BRAC UPGI is committed to combating global extreme poverty, which has increased due to the pandemic in the last two years.

“We believe that to eradicate extreme poverty, which is about so much more than a lack of income, we must invest more heavily in multifaceted approaches that address various challenges people in extreme poverty tend to face – including a lack of food, clean drinking water, regular income, savings and more. Evidence shows that BRAC’s holistic Graduation approach can enable those furthest behind to create a pathway out of the poverty trap,” Irven says.

Abed explains how her small investments grew with the help of this project.

“Following my success with the sheep fattening project, I embarked on my second personal project, handcrafting homemade household detergents and selling them to the women of my village,” Abed says.

Her husband began to recover and obtained a loan to purchase a motorcycle to help with household expenses. Her profits helped him repay a portion of the loan she took out as part of the program.

Women learn various skills including in finance and savings, livelihood development, and ongoing coaching on health, nutrition, education, and more. Through the BRAC UPGI programme women are able to lift themselves and their families out of extreme poverty. Credit: Bobby Irven/BRAC

Suhier aspires to buy a machine that produces household detergents to reduce manual labour and increase production. She also aspires to provide her five children with a good education, which she did not receive.

Another beneficiary, Ibtisam’s situation, was not much better. She began her project with three pregnant sheep in addition to the fodder. Only one sheep gave birth, and the lambs ended up dead in a few weeks, and it appeared that the project would collapse.

“Within a year, my capital declined from $700 to $500, and with the advice of my coach, I decided to sell the sheep and buy a small cow,” Ibtisam told IPS.

Before the program, she did not possess the skills or knowledge to save, especially since her husband did not bring in a steady income. “The coaches teach us to save, a culture we were completely unaware of at the time, but it has become critical in our lives, assisting us in managing our expenses and providing future savings for our children,” Ibtisam says.

Safaa Khalaf is one of the program facilitators who serves 64 families in Shamiya village, where Ibtisam and her family live.

“Once a month, I visit each family and conduct a savings session, as well as follow-up and recording of each woman’s savings and expenses. The second session concentrates on one of the life skills or topics that are important to them, such as female circumcision, early marriage, and family planning,” Safaa told IPS.

Coaches also play a critical role in building connections to financial services and savings for participants. The participants in Graduation programs are often under the assumption that, given their financial status, or lack thereof, they are ineligible to access formal, public financial services like bank accounts or loans, but it is a lack of financial literacy that is the actual roadblock.

“We assist these women in identifying the right project for them and providing the necessary information, training, and tools, such as sewing, handicrafts, and sheep fattening. We also assist their children who have dropped out of school in re-enrolling, paying for school expenses, and navigating government procedures,” Safaa says.

In the village of Al-Shamiya, dozens of successful female role models rebelled against their inherited poverty and neglect and began to turn difficult circumstances into successes. Innovation, like turning a tiny portion of their homes into a grocery store or repurposing a corner as a sewing or handicraft facility, means they can support their families and give their children the education they deserve.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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At a hand pump in Village Mata Devi, Rajasthan, India. Credit: UNICEF/Panjwan

By Aminata Touré
DAKAR, Senegal, Mar 24 2022 (IPS)

At the World Water Forum this week (March 21-26), the international community will raise awareness of the 2 billion people worldwide who lack access to clean water and sanitation. Among them are millions of women and girls, who walk hundreds of miles each year to find water for their families and are blocked from education and economic empowerment also due to poor sanitation services.

For years, we’ve talked about the costs to women and girls if we don’t solve water, sanitation and hygiene issues. But what of the costs to our communities if we fail to act?

Today the world is facing a triple crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate emergency, and struggling economies – all of which have reversed hard won gains on women’s rights.

Twelve years of quality education for women can meet the consequences of this triple crisis head on. Women’s empowerment, gender equality, and sustainability strategies go hand-in-hand. And it all starts with that most basic of human needs – water.

Poverty, gender bias and humanitarian crises are some of the more obvious barriers to ensuring that girls stay in school. However, one of the biggest obstacles is lack of access to water, sanitation, and hygiene.

Every day, millions of children go to school in unsafe learning environments, with no drinking water, no proper toilets, and no soap for washing their hands. Nearly 584 million children worldwide lack basic drinking water services at their schools, while 698 million children lack basic sanitation services, and nearly 818 million children lack basic hygiene.

Sanitation facilities that are shared with other households and open defecation practices place women and girls at risk for sexual assault and impede their ability to manage menstruation with privacy and dignity.

Stigma and social exclusion around periods lead many girls to drop out of school. Without proper sanitation, one in three adolescent girls misses school each month due to lack of privacy and access to water to wash their hands after changing sanitary towels.

Simply ensuring that schools have safe water, toilets and soap for handwashing, increases the likelihood that girls will attend while on their periods.

Better and resilient access to clean water translates into immediate economic improvements. Reducing the time women and girls take to collect water and giving them more time for school and careers. Over the next two weeks alone, women will miss out on 2.5 million working days while fetching water.

A World Bank study estimates that limited educational opportunities for girls cost countries between US$15 and 30 trillion in lost lifetime productivity and earnings. That is the sort of avoidable economic car crash that any decent policy-makers should be rushing to solve.

But the benefits extend far beyond economic gain alone. Take for example, the rising climate crisis which is driving mass displacement, intensifying food insecurity and fueling violent competition over dwindling natural resources in many regions of the world.

Extreme weather patterns have immense impact on women and girls – increasing maternal mortality as pregnant women on the run from climate disasters lack access to vital health services and heightening the risk of human trafficking as women and girls flee to find shelter.

Our humanitarian sectors are desperate for more bright women leaders at the table, with solutions to the problems they face each and every day. And the research is proving that they are more than equal to the task.

A study in India discovered that the number of drinking water projects in areas with women-led councils was 62 per cent higher than in those with men-led councils. More than powerless victims, women are already spearheading transformative change. It is our duty as the international community to remove the barriers in their way.

Young female activists can also become powerful agents of change in their communities if they are given the chance to become educated and activated on environmental issues at school. Consider the power and influence of Greta Thunberg who has revolutionized the way we think about climate challenges.

Indeed, research suggests that girls’ education can strengthen climate strategies in three ways: by empowering girls and advancing their reproductive health and rights, fostering girls’ climate leadership and pro-environmental decision-making, and developing girls’ green skills for green jobs.

If we are truly going to tackle the triple threat of health, economy and climate change, the international community must prioritize the needs of women and girls. We must ensure access to proper water, sanitation and hygiene services, so that they are able to stay in school and focus on their futures.

It is economic common sense. It is a moral obligation. And more than that, it is a legal obligation too. Governments around the world have undertaken a pledge to uphold international human rights, for all people everywhere. It is time we kept our promises.

Looking at this year’s roll call for the Sector Ministers’ Meeting, organized by the Sanitation and Water for All partnership in Jakarta, there is reason for optimism.

For the first time it will bring together ministers of water, sanitation and hygiene with their counterparts responsible for climate, environment, health and economy. Without a genuinely integrated policy approach, we can’t hope to realize the overlapping benefits of something as important as girls’ education.

If we want to contain climate change, if we want economic progress, if we want to hold back the next pandemic, then we need to secure quality education, water, and sanitation for all women and girls, everywhere.

Our future depends on it.

Dr. Aminata Touré sits on the Global Leadership Council of Sanitation and Water for All – a global partnership to achieve universal access to clean water and adequate sanitation. She is a noted human rights activist and former Prime Minister of Senegal.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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