Africa

A host of by-elections present a key test for the new opposition and the country's democratic credentials.

Two of Africa's biggest football rivals Nigeria and Ghana go head-to-head for a place at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

The Kenyan presidential candidate insists he is independent of President Kenyatta's influence.

The judgement highlights how important compliance with standards is as clean air is confirmed as a constitutional right. Credit: Bigstock

By External Source
PRETORIA, Mar 23 2022 (IPS)

A court in South Africa has confirmed the constitutional right of the country’s citizens to an environment that isn’t harmful to their health. This includes the right to clean air, as exposure to air pollution affects human health. Air pollution also affects land and water systems, and decreases agricultural yields.

The case, referred to as the “Deadly Air” case, was brought against the government by two environmental justice groups – groundWork and the Vukani Environmental Justice Movement in Action. They were represented by the Centre for Environmental Rights. The case concerned air pollution in the Highveld Priority Area. The area includes one of South Africa’s largest cities, Ekurhuleni, and a large portion of the Mpumalanga province.

Air pollution levels in the area are often over the legal thresholds specified in the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. These standards are set to protect health. Exceeding the threshold therefore indicates a health risk. There have been some small improvements in air quality in the area, but not enough to ensure that it’s in compliance with the established standards.

The fact that the standards were exceeded was a key aspect of the case and the judgement. The judgement declared that the poor air quality in this area:

is in breach of the residents’ section 24(a) constitutional rights to an environment that is not harmful to their health and well-being.

The case is important for a number of reasons. The first is that there was no penalty if air quality standards weren’t met even though the standards are set to protect health. The judgement highlights how important compliance with standards is as clean air is confirmed as a constitutional right.

The second is that the court’s finding that air quality is a constitutional right underscores the urgency with which South Africa needs to act. The hope is that the ruling will help unlock many of the challenges that have hindered improving air quality in this region and across the country.

 

Air pollution sources and solutions

The sources of air pollution in South Africa are diverse and complex. Managing them therefore requires a multi-sectoral approach.

When it come to pollution in the Highveld Priority Area, the focus is often placed on industrial emissions, especially from large emitters such as the state utility Eskom and chemical giant Sasol. But they aren’t the only sources of pollution in the area. And in many instances, the concentrations that South Africans breathe at ground-level are driven by other, closer sources. These include vehicles, veld fires, mining, waste burning, and burning of fuels such as wood or coal for cooking or heating.

The pollution levels are often highest in low-income settlements, urban areas, and areas close to large industries. Often, the highest levels of pollution are in vulnerable communities.

While it’s true that there are different sources of pollution across South Africa, most of the emissions are from the burning of fossil fuels. Approximately 86% of South Africa’s primary energy supply is from fossil fuels. In 2018, the total primary energy supply from renewable energy was 6%.

The contribution of fossil fuels to air pollution levels varies by place and time of year. But in many urban and industrialised areas, air pollution levels are dominated by emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

The decarbonisation of South Africa’s energy system would therefore have large and rapid benefits to air quality.

A number of steps should be taken to get the process on the road.

 

What needs to be done

To improve air quality, the emissions of pollutants from a variety of sources must be decreased. This needs the involvement of different levels of government and coordination across numerous sectors and stakeholders.

Inadequate coordination among sectors has been a huge challenge in air quality management. This is due in part to the fact that improving air quality falls within the mandate of national as well as local government environment departments. But the sources of pollution and where policies and action are needed to decrease emissions, such as industry, mining, transport and energy, fall under other parts of the government to regulate.

To improve air quality, the active involvement of departments such as transport, mineral resources and energy, for example, are needed. In addition, local sources of pollution are often under the control of local government while regional sources such as large industries and pollution from highways are under provincial and national government.

Issues with local service delivery and waste management can lead to burning of waste that releases toxic pollutants right at ground level where people breathe. Thus effective air quality management stretches across sectors and levels of government.

This means that the various tiers of government need to be working in a co-ordinated way, which isn’t happening.

Another important step that needs to be taken is ensuring robust information on air pollution, especially the amount that is emitted, is available. This isn’t the case at the moment, which makes it difficult to track the trends of pollution.

For example, industrial emissions from regulated sources are collected by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment. But information on the amount emitted and the emission-reduction technologies that industries are using aren’t available. The importance of these data are highlighted in the court judgement.

This kind of information could make communities aware of the levels of pollution being emitted near them. In addition, scientists could use it to:

• better simulate current air quality levels
• assess the impacts of policies and interventions on air pollution
• interpret the long term trends in the concentration of pollutants.

Experiences from other countries have shown that improving air quality takes dedication, resources and time but has large health, environment and economic benefits.

I’m hopeful that this court decision can help improve coordination and dedication across sectors in the development, implementation and enforcement of policies to improve air quality. This is urgently needed as South Africa tries to forge a path towards a just energy transition, which involves moving away from its heavy dependence on fossil fuels in a way that manages the negative effects on jobs and communities.

South Africa has stated its commitment to a just transition through its domestic plans and international partnerships.

At the time of publishing, the government hadn’t indicated whether it would appeal this landmark decision. As the decision can act as a catalyst for improved air quality in South Africa, it would be a shame if the government did appeal.

Rebecca Garland, Associate Professor, University of Pretoria

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah are something of an odd couple, international adversaries, rivals to score goals but friends who work together for Liverpool.

The women's husbands were executed after protesting against pollution caused by oil leaks.

Access to clean, affordable and safe drinking water is far from universal across Africa. Credit: Joyce Chimbi

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Kenya, Mar 23 2022 (IPS)

Joan Waweru was among villagers on their regular trek to the river to fetch water when they discovered a neighbour’s dead body, believed to have committed suicide by drowning in river Kamiti.

She was thirteen years old and recalls how even after the traumatizing incident, the village, and many others along river Kamiti, which runs along coffee plantations in Kiambu County of Kenya’s Central region, continued to rely on the river as their primary source of water for all domestic purposes.

Ten years on, she tells IPS that the river is still the primary water source for her family and many other households in Kiaibabu village.

“My mother still walks about three kilometres to the river and back, one trip in the morning and another in the evening. So, in total, she walks six kilometres every day to fetch 60 litres of water. She carries a 20-litre container on her back and two 5-litre containers on each hand,” she says.

“River Maing’oroti is about a kilometre away from our house, but over the years, the river has become a small stream, and it takes a lot of time to fill up a 20-litre container.”

The UN estimates show that just like Waweru’s mother, the average woman in rural Africa walks six kilometres every day to fetch 40 litres of water. Kenya is classified as a water-scarce country as only approximately 56 percent of the population has access to clean water.

As the global community marks World Water Day on March 22 under the theme ‘Groundwater: making the invisible visible’, UN research predicts water scarcity in Africa could reach dangerously high levels by 2025.

With one in three people in Africa facing water scarcity, access to clean, affordable, and safe drinking water is far from universal across the continent.

On average, people in sub-Saharan Africa travel 30 minutes daily to access water. According to UN estimates, the sub-Saharan Africa region loses 40 billion hours per year collecting water.

In the absence of clean and easily accessible water, research shows families and communities, particularly in rural Africa and informal urban settlements, will remain locked in generational poverty.

In August 2021, UNICEF revealed that “nearly nine of 10 children in North Africa live in areas of high or extremely high-water stresses with serious consequences on their health, nutrition, cognitive development and future livelihoods.”

Against this backdrop, the World Health Organization says that there is an economic gain or return of between three to 34 US dollars for every dollar invested in water sanitation.

The capital cost required to secure safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene for all people in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI) estimates, is 35 billion US dollars per year.

Experts in natural resources such as Simon Peter Njuguna from Kenya’s Ministry of Water, Sanitation and Irrigation say securing safe drinking water for all requires exploring, protecting, and sustainably using groundwater.

Groundwater, he says, is critical to human survival and in adapting to climate change because it holds vast quantities of water and feeds springs, rivers, lakes, wetlands, and oceans.

Home to 677 lakes, Njuguna tells IPS that Africa has the largest volume of non-frozen water and that two-thirds of sub-Saharan Africa rely on surface water from lakes, rivers, wetlands and even oceans.

Despite large volumes of surface water, WRI research shows 400 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to basic drinking water and that African countries face some of the highest water risks in the world.

Water scarcity in Africa, Njuguna tells IPS, is largely driven by a lack of investment in water infrastructure such as piping to bring water closer to the people.

In Kampala and Lagos, for instance, WRI estimates show only 15 percent of city residents have access to piped water.

“Water scarcity is also a consequence of changing weather patterns including unpredictable rainfall, low rainfall and rising temperatures,” he says.

Nairobi based food safety and security expert Evans Kori tells IPS that water drives Africa’s GDP and is central to food security.

WRI estimates show for 90 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s rural population, agriculture is the primary source of income. Water stresses due to changing weather patterns spell doom for the region because more than 95 percent of farming in sub-Saharan Africa relies on rainfall.

Kori says water is a major and critical factor of agricultural production and stresses that escalating water insecurity is as much a health and nutrition issue as it is a development issue.

“Serious investment in water-related infrastructure is urgently needed to ensure all people, and more so the most vulnerable households, have access to clean water. In Kenya, for instance, despite rivers increasingly becoming crime scenes where murdered people are dumped, for many rural households, the river is the only option,” he says.

He references river Yala which rises from the Rift Valley region and flows for approximately 219 kilometres into Lake Victoria in Kisumu County.

In January 2022, more than 20 bodies in various states of decomposition were retrieved from the river Yala after locals saw bodies floating on the surface.

“Yala is not an isolated incident. In June 2021, for example, more than 15 bodies were found in rivers within Murang’a County, and for many locals, these rivers are a primary source of water. Urgent intervention is needed because this is a health disaster,” Kori observes.

Even though surface water is considered unfit for human consumption unless first filtered and disinfected, safety is not a priority for millions of poor and vulnerable households across the African continent.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Timothy A. Wise
BOSTON, Mar 23 2022 (IPS)

• A scathing new analysis of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) finds that the program is failing at its objective to increase food security on the continent, despite massive funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the US, UK, and German governments.

• On March 30, critics of AGRA will brief U.S. congressional aides about why they think it is doing more harm than good.

• As fertilizer and food prices spike with rising energy prices from the Russia-Ukraine war, African farmers and governments need the kind of resilient, low-cost alternatives that techniques like agroecology offer, a new opinion piece argues.

A critical new donor-funded evaluation of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has confirmed what African civil society and faith leaders have claimed: “AGRA did not meet its headline goal of increased incomes and food security for 9 million smallholders.”

The evaluation should be a wake up call, and not just for the private and bilateral donors that have bankrolled this 15-year-old effort to the tune of $1 billion. It should also rouse African governments to repurpose their agricultural subsidies from the Green Revolution package of commercial seeds and fertilizers to agroecology and other low-cost, low-input approaches. They have been providing as much as $1 billion per year for such input subsidies.

Failing Africa’s farmers

Carried out by consulting firm Mathematica, the evaluation confirms that the Green Revolution has failed to achieve AGRA’s stated goal to “catalyze a farming revolution in Africa.”

Wambui Mwihaki, a farmer from central Kenya, takes stock of her thriving maize crop following adoption of agroecology. Credit: David Njagi for Mongabay.

The assessment was funded by AGRA’s primary sponsor, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, on behalf of other lead donors in AGRA’s Partnership for Inclusive Agricultural Transformation in Africa (PIATA): the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office; the Rockefeller Foundation; the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. The evaluation includes a summary of findings, a statistical appendix, and AGRA’s formal responses to the findings, all available publicly.

Such transparency is welcome. AGRA has been plagued by a lack of accountability since its founding in 2006. I undertook my own assessment of AGRA in 2020 when I could find no comprehensive analysis, from AGRA nor its donors, of its progress toward ambitious goals to double yields and incomes for 30 million small-scale farming families while halving food insecurity by 2020. Using national-level data, I found little evidence of progress, with meager productivity increases, little progress on poverty, and a 31% increase in the number of undernourished people in AGRA’s 13 focus countries.

The new evaluation is far from comprehensive. It covers only AGRA’s last five years of work, ignoring its first 10. It reports on results in just six of AGRA’s current 11 focus countries. Its data on yields is almost exclusively on maize and rice, to the exclusion of the many other staple food crops crucial to Africans’ sustenance. And it fails to incorporate or address the concerns raised publicly by African civil society and faith leaders in public letters to AGRA’s donors.

Agroforestry is a kind of agroecology where crops are grown in combination with trees, like this pumpkin that Eunice Manyi raised among fruit trees in Kenya. Credit: David Njagi for Mongabay.

Still, the findings about poor outcomes for farmers should raise concerns for private and bilateral donors to AGRA’s PIATA strategy and for the African governments that are active partners – and funders – in that effort.

Quoting from the evaluation:

• “PIATA improved maize yields in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Nigeria, but not in Tanzania, Burkina Faso, or Kenya.” Maize is AGRA’s most heavily supported crop, so the failure to achieve yield growth in half the countries studied is alarming.
• “Across these six countries, only farmers in Burkina Faso experienced improved maize sales as a result of PIATA.” This raises serious questions about the Green Revolution “theory of change.” Even when yields rose, they failed to translate into rising incomes for farmers.
• “Farmers who adopted improved inputs and experienced yield increases were typically younger, male, and relatively wealthier…. productivity and income gains were also concentrated among these relatively high-resource farmers.” This finding directly contradicts the stated goals of USAID and other bilateral donors to ensure that their assistance programs benefit and empower women.
• “AGRA’s next strategy could formally recognize that agricultural technologies and practices—such as fertilizer use and rice cultivation—can negatively impact environmental conditions and greenhouse gas emissions.” Evaluators fault AGRA on a wide range of environmentally damaging impacts, including a lack of attention to helping farmers adapt to climate change.
• “AGRA surveys are currently not suited for rigorous impact analysis.” Evaluators offer many criticisms of the initiative’s poor monitoring and evaluation methods.

Time to rethink Green Revolution model

Evaluators gave AGRA credit for some of its work, saying it “was successful in developing key policy reforms, mobilizing flagships and partnerships, and reaching farmers with extension and seeds,” and it helped “incentivize private sector engagement in the production and delivery of improved seeds in some countries.”

But these intermediate objectives, carried out with substantial funding over 15 years, have thus far failed to further the goals of improving farmers’ productivity, incomes, and food security. When one’s development successes fail to produce the intended results, after 15 years and one billion dollars in donor funding, it is time to reconsider the efficacy of the initiative. It is time to rethink the Green Revolution model.

See related: Push-pull agroecology method debugs organic farming’s pest problem in Kenya

Farmers with seeds in West Africa. Image courtesy of Grassroots International.

AGRA’s management responded to the evaluation saying, “We must therefore rethink our models and focus our support, and that of our partners, on building resilience and adaptation specifically for smallholder farmers.” But there is little sign AGRA intends to pull back from its costly input-intensive Green Revolution model. AGRA president Agnes Kalibata recently defended the status quo in a Q&A with the East African.

Hopefully donors and African governments will take the new evaluation more seriously. African civil society and faith leaders have urged donors to shift their funding to agroecology and other low-cost, low-input systems, which were endorsed last year by the U.N. Committee on World Food Security as a key strategy for climate-resilient development. Such approaches have shown far better results, raising yields across a range of food crops, increasing productivity over time as soil fertility improves, increasing incomes and reducing risk for farmers by cutting input costs, and improving food security and nutrition from a diverse array of crops.

USAID was quick to reject any change in aid priorities. A spokesperson told US Right to Know, “USAID reviewed the findings and recommendations and is satisfied with the independence and rigor of the [Mathematica] evaluation. We appreciate AGRA’s response to the report conclusions and concur with their proposed next steps to improve performance outcomes.”

That will not satisfy African civil society and faith leaders, who were not consulted for the Mathematica evaluation. They plan to take their complaints to the U.S. Congress, which this year has to reauthorize funding for AGRA through its Feed the Future initiative. On March 30, they will brief congressional aides in a closed-door session to explain why the supposed beneficiaries think AGRA is doing more harm than good. As evaluators acknowledge, the main beneficiaries are wealthier male farmers, an outcome at odds with the stated goals of U.S. development policy.

As fertilizer and food prices spike with rising energy prices from the Russia-Ukraine war, African farmers and governments need the kind of resilient, low-cost alternatives agroecology offers. Kenyan farmers report today that the biofertilizers they make themselves from locally available materials cost one-quarter the price of fossil-fuel-based fertilizers.

African governments should recognize that continuing to subsidize increasingly expensive synthetic fertilizer is a losing proposition, especially when that and other Green Revolution inputs are producing such meager results.

It is time for private and bilateral donors – and African governments – to stop throwing good money after bad and recognize that their 15-year effort to “catalyze a farming revolution in Africa” through Green Revolution seeds and fertilizers has fallen short. Fortunately, more promising alternatives are proving their efficacy all over the world. They deserve support.

Timothy A. Wise is a Senior Research Fellow at Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute. A detailed analysis of the recent evaluation of AGRA is available from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), where the author is a senior advisor.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
SINGAPORE, Mar 23 2022 (IPS-Partners)

Coral Bell, the great Australian political thought-leader had lucidly described in the 1970s how a “crisis-slide” could become unstoppable as it morphs into a catastrophe: “Gradually, imperceptibly but inevitably there is a build-up of events”, she writes, “rain falls in ever increasing volumes …becomes progressively more irresistible… until the dam breaks”. Ideally, the crisis management process should have been put in place as soon as the relevant observer notices the rains grow heavy, she argues; the disaster of the bursting dam was owed to the delay. A simple but profound metaphor, so apt for crises in international relations, also underscoring the challenge of the choice of appropriate timing for leaders.

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

The conflict in Ukraine is fast becoming the torrential rainstorm threatening to immerse peace and stability, in Europe and in the world. This became evident last weekend when the Russian military took the battle to NATO’s doorstep by launching a ferocious missile attack at a large army training base in western Ukraine, less than 25 km from the border with Poland, a NATO member. Russia has alleged that the base provides training for mercenaries and transhipment for ‘foreign’ (read NATO) military ware in support of Ukraine. The incident has put NATO on a knife edge. Any spillage of this incident into Polish territory would have triggered the famous Article 5 of the NATO pact. It is the application of the ‘Three Musketeer-ian’ principle of “All for one and one for all”, in other words, a war against one is a war against all. NATO would then directly collide with Russia, which President Joe Biden of the US has with incontrovertible logic defined as “World War 111”.

We are in a situation far past the point of initial detection of a possible major “crisis-slide” in the Bell proposition. On this occasion the key protagonists are so powerful that potential crisis-managers, or a peace-maker, with the necessary clout and influence would be in short supply. President Emmanuel Macron of France, President Recep Erdogan of Turkey and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel took turns in having a go at it but were unable to make the cut. Clearly a heavier weight with greater influence was required. Eyes are already beginning to turn towards a candidate which seems to be fitting the bill. And that is China.

But why so?

There are several reasons. First, with the world’s largest population of 1.4bn, the second largest economy of US $ 18.1 trillion (after the US) and objectively the third strongest military (after the American and Russian), China is the fastest growing nation in power terms in the globe. Its “Zhang Guomeng “or “China dream” sees itself as a soon-to-be peer of the US. Its “Belt and Road Initiative” has carried its influence to much of the world’s nook and corner. China’s demonstrated resilience across many spheres, including its handling of the pandemic, has proved its administrative skill and efficacy. Despite many challenges, China has set for itself an ambitious 5.5 per cent target for economic growth this year. Despite its democratic deficit and doubtless authoritarian governance, it has earned for itself plaudits if not praise, albeit oftentimes grudging, from most global actors.

China is also in the unique position of enjoying a very close proximity to Russia. Their leaders Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have met each other thirty-eight times. In February, when Putin visited Beijing for the inaugural of the Winter Olympics, he and Xi signed a 5000 word document pledging “no limits” support to each other, at a time when the Ukrainian crisis was brewing. Indeed, received wisdom has it that Putin delayed his so-called “Special security operation” to humour Xi who did not want any major impediments to the smooth progress of the games, already under the West’s diplomatic boycott. The animus of the West was driving China obviously into Russia’s bearhug. Furthermore, the added attraction was that in this partnership the Chinese dragon was the senior vis-à-vis the Russian bear. The Chinese, as they usually do, must have thought through this at length having weighed all the pros and cons. They are not normally wont to take such major decisions in a fit of frenzy. Nor are they likely to backtrack from it easily, again without studied reflection.

Second, the sanctions slapped on Russia are hurting. But not Russia alone. Both sides of the divide, the West and Russia are being affected. Should Russian oil and gas supply to Europe stop in its entirety, energy price in Europe would skyrocket: “Currently there is no other way (apart from Russian sources) to secure Europe’s supply of energy to generate heat , for mobility, and for power supply” , German Chancellor Olof Scholz has said. The absence of Russian and Ukrainian wheat would translate into rapid rise in food price. Just as necessity is the mother of invention, compulsion is the driver of change. Blocking Russia out of the global financial system would mean it would be forced to create alternatives. Though difficult, with Chinese help it could be possible. A group of sanctioned countries would be happy to join up the alternative arrangements. China, already under western sanctions though not decoupled as yet from the western system would be interested in building up requisite resilience. Moreover, sanctions hit the poor more, and so if the purpose is to turn the populace against government, history shows so far it has caused people to turn the other way. Squeezing Germany at the +Versailles Treaty after the first World War was undeniably a major cause for the Second.

It has been said, the sanctions could put the Russian economy back thirty years. That may not be cause for rejoicing. It could push the Russian authorities to desperate actions, and when a country with a nuclear arsenal as large as Russia’s is driven to that point, the consequences could be enormously unsettling. It would be worse were Russia were to be joined by a disgruntled China, with North Korea in tow.

Third, despite the signing of the February accord between Putin and Xi, China has behaved with cool and hard- nosed circumspection. At the United Nations Beijing has abstained on voting on the resolutions condemning Russia, rather than oppose it. Part of the reason could be China may have while negotiating on the drafts helped tone down the language. But it was mainly because it did not wish to convey that there was no daylight between Beijing and Moscow. By such actions as these China was, apart from not impacting too negatively on its economic ties with Europe which it values, retaining a manoeuvrability in dealing with the crisis. The Chinese, who always tend to see the big picture, are deeply concerned about the broader implications of the war. Premier Li Keqiang has said that “the most pressing task now is to prevent tensions from escalating and getting out of control. A pragmatic China needs a conflict-free world to reach its goal of a “new kind of relationship between the two big powers” (i.e., China and the US).

The American structural realist John Mearsheimer, normally seen as a strong right-wing voice in the US foreign policy circles once said in Beijing that he was happy to be with “his own kind”, in acknowledgment of Chinese policymakers’ (according to him) penchant for realism. A constructive role in the resolution of the current crisis, rather than using it to deepen anti-western nationalist sentiments in China will enable Beijing to calm their neighbourhood in Asia in general and South China Sea in particular. Even with India, the common position at the UN could be translated into a better understanding, though too much need not be read into it. Already Ukraine itself has reached out to China. At Kyiv’s request Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba phoned his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi. Thereafter the China’s Xinhua News Agency reported that Kuleba has said Ukraine “stands ready to strengthen communication with the Chinese side and looks forward to China’s mediation in achieving Ceasefire”!

These factors suggest China would be in a sweet spot to undertake the effort to facilitate de-escalation. This is not to say it would do so, unless it sees the initiative, in line with any other country, as being in consonance with its perceived national self-interest. In a previous essay I have argued that we may be heading for a tripolar world which will likely be led by the US, China, and Russia. China as a potential newcomer in such a role will need to be doubly careful. The end of the Ukrainian war will not be the end of the crisis. China will need to prepare for the possibility that after Russia, it could be its turn. It, too, has a red line: Taiwan. In that scenario, it is not the West but to Russia it will need to turn for solace and succour. Beijing could, therefore possibly have a two-fold goal: first, in the short term help to put out the conflagration in Ukraine; second, in the long run prepare to combat the greater contradiction that it will likely face in the unfolding of history.

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.

The official programme of the 2022 Financing for Development Forum will be complemented by side events which will be held in parallel to the Forum on 25 – 28 April 2022. Side events will provide additional space for sharing experiences and promoting concrete actions to advance the financing for development agenda. Side events should be aligned with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.

By Pooja Rangaprasad and Tove Maria Ryding
NEW YORK, Mar 23 2022 (IPS)

This week, exactly 20 years ago, world leaders adopted the United Nation’s Monterrey Consensus. They committed to “Confronting the challenges of financing for development” with a global response and to creating a fully inclusive and equitable global economic system.

The Consensus included the critical recognition that in a globalizing interdependent world economy “National development efforts need to be supported by an enabling international economic environment”. This was the birth of the UN’s Financing for Development (FfD) process which now – 20 years down the line – is as important as ever.

The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated core problems that the Financing for Development process was created to solve, including skyrocketing inequalities both within and between countries and genders, and lack of public resources to combat poverty and finance sustainable development.

The pandemic came after a decade of soaring public and private debts globally. It heightened the debt vulnerabilities in most countries, leading to the highest global debt levels in half a century. More than half of low-income countries are in, or at risk of, debt distress.

Very limited fiscal space, particularly in global south countries, is undermining the prospects of tackling key challenges such as the climate crisis and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. The pandemic has also served as a stark reminder of why truly global solutions are needed to resolve key economic challenges such as large-scale international tax dodging and unsustainable and illegitimate debts.

The 20th anniversary of the Financing for Development process is an important moment to remind governments of the commitments they have made to providing such solutions.

In the Monterrey Consensus world leaders, for example, stressed that: “To promote fair burden-sharing and minimize moral hazard, we would welcome consideration by all relevant stakeholders of an international debt workout mechanism, in the appropriate forums, that will engage debtors and creditors to come together to restructure unsustainable debts in a timely and efficient manner”.

A global debt workout mechanism – under the auspices of the UN – is still today a central part of the solutions that civil society organisations are calling for. So why is it that even today – 20 years after Monterrey – we still do not have such a mechanism?

The hard fact of the matter is that the ambition and will to cooperate, which governments displayed in Monterrey, started to fade shortly after the summit. In particular developed countries continued to keep discussions about economic issues in non-inclusive forums such as G20, OECD and the Paris Club, where most developing countries cannot participate on an equal footing.

In the years that followed, numerous additional governmental initiatives, groupings and forums have continued to shoot up and multiply in rich country capitals around the world. In Orwellian style, the forums outside the UN have sometimes been given names such as “global forum” or “inclusive framework”. But globally inclusive is exactly what these forums are not.

The United Nations remains the only body where all countries are able to participate on a truly equal footing, and developing countries have consistently called for this to be the place where global economic governance takes place. Ironically, rich countries often respond to these calls with the argument that this would be a duplication of the processes taking place in the non-inclusive bodies.

The hard lessons that led to the Monterrey Consensus are still very valid, namely that non-inclusive decision-making leads to an incoherent, unfair and ineffective global economic system and never-ending political power struggles between countries. And although the impacts of the breakdown of global economic cooperation is hardest felt in developing countries, the price is paid by citizens all around the world.

One powerful example of the price of failed cooperation is on international taxation. Hundreds of billions of dollars are lost to public budgets every year due to the blatant failure to stop large-scale international tax dodging by multinational corporations and the wealthy elites.

The most recent changes to the global rules – including the new minimum corporate tax rules – were carried out by the OECD-led so-called “Inclusive Framework”. Once again this resulted in an outcome that is not only ineffective, but also includes strong biases against the interests of the poorest countries.

Over one-third of the world’s countries were never part of the OECD-led negotiations, and four of the developing countries that did participate decided not to support the outcome document. Global tax governance is now also faced with a very familiar problem, as it looks impossible to reach anything near global implementation of the new rules.

The result will be a global tax system that continues to be a patchwork of thousands of bilateral and multilateral treaties, multiple different standards and a range of more or less creative unilateral tax solutions. In other words – an ineffective mess that will continue to cost countries billions of dollars due to international tax dodging and fail to ensure fairness.

Especially in light of the impacts of the Covid-19 crisis, it is clear that this is unsustainable. A number of concrete proposals for fair and inclusive global solutions to these problems have been tabled. This includes specific civil society proposals for a debt workout mechanism and a UN Tax Convention, that build on long-standing calls by developing countries.

What we need now is political will, and in particular the richest countries need to show a real will to cooperate in a truly inclusive forum.

As we mark the 20th anniversary of the cooperative spirit of the Monterrey Summit, civil society organisations are calling for a Monterrey+20 Summit on Financing for Development to negotiate and adopt global solutions to confront the challenges of financing for development.

The spirit of Monterrey was a will to engage in truly global cooperation to address the financial and economic challenges we face. It is high time to bring that spirit back.

Pooja Rangaprasad is Policy Director, Financing for Development, Society for International Development (SID); Tove Maria Ryding is Tax Justice Coordinator, European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad)

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The struggle of Uganda's Batwa people three decades after they were forced from their ancestral home.

"Today the poverty rate in Syria is an unprecedented 90 percent; 14.6 million people in Syria depend on humanitarian aid.” Credit: Zak Brophy/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 22 2022 (IPS)

“Hundreds of thousands have been killed, more than half of the pre-war population – somewhere in the order of 22 million – have been displaced. More than 100,000 are missing or forcibly disappeared….

“Syria’s cities and infrastructure have been destroyed. Today the poverty rate in Syria is an unprecedented 90 percent; 14.6 million people in Syria depend on humanitarian aid.”

This is how one of the top UN-appointed human rights investigators on 9 March 2022 described the Syrian unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.

Presenting the latest UN Human Rights Council-mandated report on the 11-year-old conflict, Paulo Pinheiro, Chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, talked about the “devastating” impact on communities.

In Syria’s northwest, many Syrians forced from their homes “are still living in flimsy tents, stuck in snow, rain, mud,” Pinheiro added.

 

In the abyss

“Make no mistake that violence against civilians continues across the country, from bombardment in the northwest, north and northeast, to targeted killings, unlawful detention and torture…These are the abysses faced by the Syrian people.”

According to the report, covering the period July to December 2021, there were increased bombardments in the northwest of the country and skirmishes between the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) and the Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast.

The Commission documented “grave violations of fundamental human rights and international humanitarian law by parties to the conflict, including war crimes and ongoing patterns of crimes against humanity.

“In Idlib and western Aleppo in the northwest, residential areas were also shelled indiscriminately from the ground by pro-government forces.”

 

140 percent inflation

Previous reports by the Commission of Inquiry have warned about a worsening humanitarian situation across Syria because of fighting and insecurity, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February has heightened concerns that critical wheat imports may now be affected, said Commissioner Hanny Megally: “We’re already seeing inflation at 140 per cent at the beginning of this year (and) it’s gone up.

“We’re seeing the State already beginning to ration. We’re seeing the prices of commodities, basic commodities and fuel going up…Most of Syria’s imported wheat is coming from Ukraine or Russia, so we are very concerned that the war in Ukraine will have a bad impact on Syria.”

 

Teetering on collapse

With Syria “teetering on collapse”, the Commissioner urged a review of sanctions imposed on Syria on a country-by-country basis.

“Sanctions …should facilitate humanitarian assistance (but) this is not really working very well,” said Megally, who warned that many countries were so fearful of breaching the embargoes that they were practising “overcompliance”, leaving Syrian communities short of essential commodities.

 

War in Syria, a carnage

Last year, marking its tenth year, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, classified the war in Syria as a “carnage.” This year, Guterres said that Syria’s 11 years of brutal fighting has come at an “unconscionable human cost”, subjecting millions there to human rights violations on a “massive and systematic scale.”

“The destruction that Syrians have endured is so extensive and deadly that it has few equals in modern history.”

 

Healthcare under attack

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that only half of the 550 health facilities in the region remain open nearly a decade after the war began.

“Syria represents one of the worst cases of healthcare being affected by conflict, according to the agency, with a total of 494 attacks recorded between 2016-2019, mainly in the northwest.”

During that same period, 470 people were killed in attacks on health facilities.

“What is troubling is that we‘ve come to a point where attacks on health – something the international community shouldn‘t tolerate – are now taken for granted; something we have become accustomed to. ”, said Richard Brennan, WHO Regional Emergency Director in the Eastern Mediterranean. “And they are still taking place”.

 

12 million Syrians into food insecurity

As the Syrian war has driven poverty and hunger to levels higher than at any previous point, UN Special Envoy Geir Pedersen told the Security Council on 25 February 2022.

“After 10 years of crisis, life is harder than ever for displaced Syrians. Millions of Syrians have been forced to flee their homes since 2011, seeking safety as refugees in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and beyond, or displaced inside Syria. As the crisis continues, hope is fading. With the devastating impact of the pandemic and increasing poverty, every day is an emergency for Syrians forced to flee.”

 

Largest refugee crisis in decades

According to the UN Refugee agency (UNHCR) already last year millions of Syrians have escaped across borders, in what has become “the world’s largest refugee crisis in decades.”

Turkey hosts the largest number of registered Syrian refugees – more than 3.6 million.

“The vast majority of Syrian refugees in the neighbouring countries live in urban areas, with only 1 out of 20 accommodated in a refugee camp. In all neighbouring countries, life is a daily struggle for more than a million Syrian refugees, who have little or no financial resources.” UNHCR added the following:

• Many lost employment since the COVID-19 pandemic has broken out. In Lebanon, nine out of ten refugees now live in extreme poverty,
• There are no formal refugee camps and, as a result, Syrians are scattered throughout urban and rural communities and locations, often sharing small basic lodgings with other refugee families in overcrowded conditions.
• In Jordan, over 660,000 men, women and children are currently trapped in exile. Approximately 80 percent of them live outside camps, while 128,000 have found sanctuary in refugee camps such as Za’atari and Azraq.
• Many have arrived with limited means to cover even basic needs, and those who could at first rely on savings or support from host families are now increasingly in need of help.
• In Jordan, about four out of five Syrian refugees (close to 80 percent ) were living under the national poverty line even before the pandemic, surviving on about US$3 a day.
• Iraq also is a main host country for Syrians, with some 244,000 registered refugees, while in Egypt UNHCR provides protection and assistance to more than 130,000.

 

The tragic frustration of the Arab Spring

“Today, March 15, marks the 11th anniversary of the start of the Syrian revolution. It was on this day in 2011 that Syrian government forces opened fire on peaceful pro-democracy protesters in the southern town of Daraa,” Human Rights Watch reminded.

“The violent crackdown sparked nationwide protests and growing demands for the resignation of Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad. As the unrest spread, the government crackdown intensified, eventually descending into civil war. It’s a war that has been largely forgotten, although it bears similar hallmarks to the horrors inflicted on Ukraine in Russia‘s renewed invasion,” the international human rights defender organisation added.

“Yet, while the US and Europe responded with unprecedented urgency to the crisis in Ukraine, waiving visa regulations for people fleeing the conflict and welcoming Ukrainian refugees with compassion and open arms, people fleeing other wars and crises like the one in Syria have been facing unlawful and violent pushbacks at borders.”

Nevertheless, Syrian activists and refugees have often been among the first to demonstrate solidarity with other people facing crisis, offering to volunteer in Ukraine, too, said Human Rights Watch.

“So, even though the world largely abandoned Syrians to face down attacks from multiple abusive armed actors, this day [15 March 2022] should be a reminder that Syrians’ experience of violent rights violations is the same as Ukrainians’, and they deserve the same continued protections and support too.”

Tragically, the hopes of the Arab Spring have been crushed. Authoritarian regimes still reign in the region. And massive local and foreign military attacks continue, with weapons pouring in Syria. Confusing reports circulate about the key actors–Russia, Turkey, Iran, the United States and Europa. All that has failed. Yet, the brutal killing of civilians goes on.

Nigeria-born football coach Obi Ojimadu says his children were traumatised after fleeing Ukraine following the Russian invasion.

A water point near a water tank providing clean water to school children in Demnat Khadeer district of Taiz governorate. Credit: Fayad Al-Derwish/Oxfam – 2022

By Fayad Al-Derwish
IBB Governorate, Yemen, Mar 22 2022 (IPS)

As Yemen enters its 8th year of an escalating conflict, 21.7 million of my fellow Yemenis are forced to rely on humanitarian assistance to survive. The conflict has left a trail of devastation in its wake – the country is in economic freefall, and families face intensified violence, hunger, and disease.

As we also mark another World Water Day on March 22, within Women’s History Month, it is a time to reflect on the immense water and sanitation crisis that continues to take countless lives – and how it impacts women and girls so acutely. The destruction of the country’s health and water infrastructure has left Yemen acutely vulnerable to multiple epidemics including malaria, diphtheria, dengue, cholera, and COVID-19.

Due to the conflict, as well as a long history of under-development, Yemen was already the poorest country in the region long before the conflict broke out. Yemen suffers from an acute shortage of functioning irrigation systems, water points, and sanitation facilities.

This leaves the Yemeni people at risk of life-threatening diseases like cholera and typhoid and limitations regarding hygiene against COVID-19. In late 2021, Yemen experienced a third wave of COVID-19 infections.

As of August 2021, officially confirmed cases of Covid-19 had reached 8,265, with 3,252 associated deaths according to the World Health Organization, but the true numbers are likely much higher with the country having the poorest testing capacity and reduced influx to medical facilities due to economic barriers.

Improved water, sanitation, and hygiene services— like reliable access to clean water and access to functioning latrines in particular—isn’t simply a matter of convenience. It’s central to survival, especially for those already most vulnerable.

Women and girls often walk distances on foot, being responsible for fetching water using a rope to raise water from an open well. In some remote areas, some households still don’t have latrines and so follow cultural norms that force many women, who have no choice but to relieve themselves in the evening, while no one is watching.

All of these actions put women and girls in great danger of being attacked by predatory men or animals. Less than 10% of displaced people (80% of whom are children and women) have access to safe latrines. Additionally, waiting until nightfall to defecate increases the possibility of making themselves sick.

Credit: Wael Al-Gadi/Oxfam

This lack of water and sanitation infrastructure also impacts girls’ health and education. When there is no infrastructure at schools that allows girls to study with comfort and also maintain their personal hygiene, particularly during their menstrual cycle, many girls leave school at puberty.

Girls’ inability to manage their menstrual hygiene in schools results in school absenteeism, taboos, and stigmas attached to menstruation leads to an overall culture of silence around the topic, resulting in limited information on menstrual hygiene. Such misinformation can have severe impact on girls’ health.

One promising sign of change I’ve noticed is that society has begun to accept that menstruation is a very natural thing, thanks to the continuous work of organizations promoting awareness of the importance of this issue.

To response to the water, and sanitation, and hygiene crisis, aid organizations have launched services that play an essential role in saving lives and promoting gender equality. Unfortunately, these crucial efforts are severely underfunded – as seen at the disappointing pledging conference last week, where allocated funds for Yemen have sharply dropped again.

Accessing some of the hardest-to-reach areas in the country, Oxfam provides vulnerable communities with safe water, prioritizing schools and camps for displaced people. We also build latrines—both communal and in family homes—and make sure that local populations are given the skills they need to earn an income, amplifying the benefits of the intervention long after the organization departs from the area.

During the construction of the public sewage network constructed by Oxfam, with a total length of 2.4km. Credit: Mohammed Ghazi/Oxfam – 2021

Our work in water infrastructure extends beyond simple projects. Indiscriminate drilling of wells and the unrestricted use of groundwater during earlier periods of extended drought have left some rural areas with no safe sources of water and so forcing planners to consider new solutions.

In parts of Ibb Governorate, where rainfall is one of the heaviest in the country, we found that capturing, or “harvesting” rainwater is a viable option. We have built four harvesting tanks and a massive pumping solar system to more than five locations in both Taiz and Ibb Governorates.

We formatted around 12 water user committees and provided them with all they need to manage the water solar system properly, as well as including several women in these committees.

To improve the sanitation situation in the IDP camps in parts of Taiz governorate, we have constructed and rehabilitated more than 250 latrines that have been connected to the main sewage system project Oxfam constructed in Al-Howban City, Taiz Governorate, benefiting near to 13,000 individuals including displaced and hosts communities.

In the face of these many challenges, I’m proud of the role I’m able to play within Oxfam as WASH Team Leader, tackling what I can. After a challenging start in life – having faced autism, I feel like I truly beat the odds, and I feel fortunate I can now earn a living through helping others.

In my role, I manage all aspects of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions from assessments, analysis, design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation in Taiz and Ibb governorates, in the South and North of the country.

Oxfam has been present in Yemen since 1983 and continued to work on development projects, empowering women and the vulnerable until the of conflict escalated early 2015. Now, Oxfam works across Yemen to provide clean water, sanitation and hygiene.

We provide affected communities with cash assistance, and help people earn a living. We also work to ensure that civilians are well protected, and work with civil society organizations to ensure that the voices of women and youth are heard and engaged including in the peace processes.

With the arrival of the Coronavirus in 2019, Oxfam refocused its work in Yemen to respond. Across Yemen, we have trained community health volunteers to spread the word about coronavirus and the importance of hygiene and hand washing.

The opportunity to save lives and provide relief to so many, brings hope and purpose to a wide range of people—including humanitarian workers like myself. Such work brings great meaning to our lives for those of us who are involved in delivering, managing, and distributing assistance.

But as Yemenis leading this response, we need to see progress. I hope to mark future World Water Days and Women’s History Months with more progress towards more peaceful, stable, and healthy futures for all Yemenis.

Fayad Al-Derwish is Team Leader Water and Sanitation Hygiene (WASH) for Oxfam in Yemen.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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There is a fear that the crackdown on NGOs in Zimbabwe could impact the observer status during the upcoming election. Other areas that could be affected include access to sexual reproductive health, food aid, and education. This picture was taken during the 2018 elections. Credit: Commonwealth Observer Mission

By Ignatius Banda
Bulawayo, ZIMBABWE , Mar 22 2022 (IPS)

Zimbabwe is pressing ahead with a controversial bill that critics say seeks to criminalise the operations of nongovernmental organisations working in the country.

Zimbabwe is pressing ahead with a controversial bill that critics say seeks to criminalise the operations of nongovernmental organisations working in the country.

According to senior government officials, amendments to the Private Voluntary Organisations Act is designed to stem illegal money coming into the country under the guise of NGO funding but is allegedly used to push political agendas and political lobbying.

The country’s ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front), has been suspicious of NGOs, routinely accusing them of working with hostile foreign countries to push what it calls a “regime change agenda”.

In recent days, members of the public have been invited by parliament to share their views on the proposed amendments, but violent interruptions have marred these public gatherings by what rights groups say are ruling party activists eager to see the bill passed into law.

This comes as a senior government official, Larry Mavima, said in early March that the country does not need NGOs as Zimbabwe was not at war, advising that NGOs should “go to Ukraine” where their services are needed.

“How long should we continue relying on other people? There was a time when NGOs were necessary, but we to get out of this mentality,” Mavima told a public gathering in the country’s Midlands province devastated by cyclical droughts and where humanitarian needs continue to grow.

The remarks were quickly met with widespread condemnation from the humanitarian sector in a country where millions of people survive on NGO assistance, including sexual reproductive health, food aid and education.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, before the emergence of Covid-19, more than 7 million people in both rural and urban areas required food assistance, with the World Food Programme noting that the numbers grew with poor harvests during the 2020-21 and 2020-22 cropping seasons.

However, there are concerns about the proposed amendments of the law timing on the eve of elections slated for 2023.

NGOs involved in civic education have especially been targeted with a government minister alleging that the public, voluntary organisations working, especially in the rural areas, were straying from their mandates and politicising villagers.

“The banning of NGOs will have a bearing on the upcoming elections because it will undermine the ability of civic society organisations to observe, cover and monitor the elections,” said Carine Kaneza Nantulya, Human Rights Watch Africa Advocacy director.

“Active NGOs and civil society organisations are fundamental to an open, free, and democratic society because of the role they play in protecting and promoting human rights and the rule of law. The PVO Act amendment is a disturbing development that takes place against the backdrop of a broader crackdown on civic space in Zimbabwe.” Nantulya told IPS by email.

This is not the first time Zimbabwe has escalated efforts to muzzle NGOs.

In July last year, the capital city Harare’s provincial development coordinator Tafadzwa Muguti demanded that already registered NGOs seek approval from his office before carrying out any programmes.

The announcement was met swift protests from civic society groups who challenged the directive in court and won, with a high court judge questioning the legality of such demands.

The attempts to muzzle the NGOs also attracted international attention. The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights added its voice and issued a statement calling on the Zimbabwean government to “stop interfering with NGO operations.”

NGO groups have indicated they will challenge the amendment of the PVO Act in court if passed into law.

A joint report, authored by the Southern African Human Rights Defenders Network, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum and the Accountability Lab Zimbabwe, looked into the possible economic impact of the PVO amendment bill. The report, released in February, raised concerns about the far-reaching impact of outlawing NGO work in Zimbabwe.

“Any disruptions in NGO activities and financing will likely worsen the poverty situation and threaten the development gains that have been made to date. Importantly, in Zimbabwe, there has been no instance of terrorist financing in the NGOs sector,” the researchers wrote.

“The country’s economic situation, human development indices, and progress towards meeting SDGs show that the country needs all the help it can get,” McDonald Lewanika, lead of Accountability Lab Zimbabwe, told IPS.

“The fears around NGOs supporting materially political parties are unfounded in this environment where there has been donor flight and fatigue and where some NGOs have lost funding from big donors on suspicion of the same. It is not in the interest of NGOs to be partisan,” Lewanika said.

Zimbabwe had in the past made numerous calls for assistance, so it is not clear what has changed now for the authorities to declare NGOs are no longer welcome.

“No country can claim that it doesn’t need NGOs, when we know that NGOs, especially in Zimbabwe, are at the forefront of service delivery for communities. For instance, women and reproductive rights and HIV AIDS organisations provided critically needed services to the communities,” Nantulya said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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UN Secretary-General António Guterres briefs reporters on Ukraine. The latest developments in Ukraine are testing “the entire international system”, he said at a media stakeout, adding “we must pass this test.” “Our world is facing the biggest global peace and security crisis in recent years – certainly in my tenure as Secretary-General,” he added. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Kul Chandra Gautam
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Mar 22 2022 (IPS)

In an opinion piece published in PassBlue on 15 March 2022, historian Stephen Schlesinger asked, “Where is the UN’s Guterres?” as Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked war on Ukraine has been dominating the world’s headline news.

Schlesinger is a good friend and close observer of the UN, and author of the award-winning book: “Act of Creation: The Founding of The United Nations”. Like Schlesinger, many of us who are strong supporters of the UN and who watch the deliberations at the world body closely, do know the answer to his rhetorical question about the whereabouts of the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

He is currently between a rock and hard place faced with the blatant violation of the UN Charter by a powerful Permanent Member of the UN Security Council. Many of us consider Guterres as a highly qualified statesman and the world’s top diplomat with impeccable credentials and a sober leadership style.

Understandably, he had to be extra cautious and could not take bold initiatives during his first five-year term, as he had to tread carefully in a world dominated by an erratic and dangerous Donald Trump in the White House, a devious Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, a resurgent Xi Jinping in Beijing and several other populist demagogues and autocrats like Jair Bolsonaro, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Boris Johnson with their antipathy towards multilateralism.

Now in his second term, Guterres is freed from the fear of not being re-elected and can afford to be more courageous and visibly proactive when the stakes for the UN’s credibility and effectiveness are high, given the threat to international peace and security posed by Putin’s war of choice in Ukraine.

To his credit, Guterres did not mince words in deploring the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a violation of the UN Charter both at the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. He even warned that the prospect of nuclear war was now back within the realm of possibility. And, he pleaded with Putin to stop the war and offered his good offices to help resolve the crisis peacefully.

It is understood that Guterres has also been in close contact with leaders of China, France, Germany, India, Israel and Turkey, among others, on mediation efforts to bring an end to this horrific war. This is all commendable.

But in an era of the 24/7 news cycle and the pervasive social media, the UN Chief’s remarks from his UN perch and his quiet diplomacy with influential member-states are necessary but not sufficient. The world’s general public – and especially the people of Ukraine and Russia – don’t see the UN leader being visibly proactive outside the glasshouse of UN headquarters in New York.

Guterres has been outspoken in highlighting the catastrophic humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine and has taken a leadership role to mobilize international support for humanitarian assistance.

In an opinion piece entitled “War on Ukraine also an Assault on World’s Most Vulnerable People and Countries” published by the IPS News on 15 March 2022, Guterres warned about the grave consequences and negative ripple effects of the war in Ukraine on the world economy, and in particular, the developing countries.

His plea to world leaders to resist the temptation of increasing military budgets at the expense of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and climate action, are also right on the mark.

The UN’s humanitarian agencies like UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, WHO, etc. are doing a heroic job to provide life-saving assistance both inside Ukraine and in its neighboring countries deluged with millions of refugees. These UN agencies and many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have honed their skills to mobilize resources and implement humanitarian assistance quite effectively over the decades.

Where the S-G’s leadership is needed most and is being tested publicly is not so much on humanitarian assistance, but in preventing and ending wars that are the root causes of the humanitarian crisis.

The global public sees and judges the S-G’s effectiveness on what it considers as his job number #1, “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. Guterres is no longer the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, but the world’s top diplomat and guardian of international peace and security.

There have been many wars in the 76-year history of the UN, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine stands as the gravest challenge to the post-World War II international order as one of its guardians and a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council has struck at the heart of its architecture by threatening a nuclear conflagration and a potential World War III in the ramparts of the Second World War.

The UN has played an important role in mediating peace processes, organizing humanitarian ceasefires, helping to maintain peace through peacekeeping and peacebuilding missions in many inter-country and regional wars and conflicts.

But it has so far appeared helpless when the vital interests of its most powerful veto-wielding superpowers like Russia and the US are involved.

The Big Powers – the P-5 – often see the S-G as merely the “Chief Administrative Officer” of the UN, and as such subservient to world leaders, foreign ministers and ambassadors as the “governors” of the organization in the GA and SC.

However, “We the peoples of the world” regard the S-G as a world leader and the world’s top diplomat in his/her own right. After all, according to Chapter XV of the UN Charter, the Secretariat led by the S-G is akin to the principal organs of the United Nations. And the Charter gives the S-G sufficient leeway to take initiatives.

Apropos the old debate on whether the S-G is merely a “Secretary” or a “General”, the world’s Big Powers may see him as just a “Secretary” but “we the peoples of the world” wish to see him as an unarmed, Pacifist “General” and a world leader.

In an era of shuttle diplomacy, when we see Macron, Scholz, Johnson, Erdogan, Naftali Bennet, Blinken, et. al. conferring in Moscow, Brussels, Berlin and Washington, why don’t we see Guterres there, or hear about him calling or writing to Putin, Biden, Xi Jinping and Zelensky?

If the leaders of Poland, Czech Republic and Slovenia dare to risk visiting Kyiv in the midst of shelling to show their solidarity, surely Guterres, the world’s top peacemaker and coordinator of humanitarian assistance should be seen there too.

Guterres’ invisibility seriously undermines his and the UN’s credibility at this time of the greatest international security crisis since the founding of the UN in 1945, and certainly during his tenure as S-G.

I am pretty sure that in similar circumstances some of his more courageous predecessors like Dag Hammarskjold, Kofi Annan and even the otherwise quiet U Thant and the voluble Boutros Boutros-Ghali would have been more visible and outspoken.

We are all mindful of the limitations and constraints that the UN leader faces in dealing with crises involving strong vested interests of the world’s veto-wielding superpowers. The S-G can do nothing about changing the veto-power structure agreed and understandable in a different era, but which has now become an indelible birth defect of the UN Charter.

However, in the case of the Ukraine crisis, the S-G can and ought to be bolder and visibly more proactive, taking strength from the fact that the aggressor power is completely isolated and has become a virtual pariah.

Not even a single other member-state in the Security Council supported Putin’s justification for his attack on Ukraine. And in the “Uniting for Peace” resolution at the UN General Assembly, an overwhelming majority of 141 states denounced the Russian invasion and called for immediate end to the war, with the aggressor getting the support of only four notoriously autocratic pariah regimes.

These UN resolutions, and the world’s public opinion, give valuable moral mandate for the S-G to play a proactive and visible role as the world’s premier peacemaker.

I have no doubt about Guterres’ competence and commitment. But sometimes I worry about his (lack of) courage. Even if his efforts fail, he should dare to go down in history as someone who took the utmost risk for peace, rather than someone who was too timid to the point of making the UN appear like totally impotent or irrelevant.

There is always a place for behind the scene, quiet diplomacy in international relations. But that is not good enough for the UN’s credibility in this day and age when the world’s eyes are on Ukraine and people all over the world are asking “Where is the UN?” when its very raison d’être is being rudely challenged by one of its major founding member-states.

Kul Gautam is a former Assistant Secretary-General of the UN; Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF; and author of “My Journey from the Hills of Nepal to the Halls of the United Nations”. (www.kulgautam.org).

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Nigerian students in Ukraine plead for help leaving Kherson as food, medicine and water run low.

Credit: SADC Groundwater Management Institute.

By James Sauramba
PRETORIA, South Africa, Mar 22 2022 (IPS)

Groundwater is invisible and yet its impact is visible everywhere – this infinite resource provides almost half of all drinking water worldwide. About 40% of water for irrigated agriculture and about 1/3 of water required for industry is from groundwater resources. Despite these impressive facts, groundwater remains invisible and less prominent compared to surface water.

This year, 2022, the World Water Day puts groundwater resources on the spotlight as the day is celebrated under the theme: “Groundwater – making the invisible visible”. As we celebrate World Water Day, it is important that we pause and ask ourselves this question, “what are we doing to ensure the sustainable development and management of this precious resource or are we doing enough?”

Used sustainably, groundwater could provide potable water for the estimated 40% of the SADC region’s estimated 345 million inhabitants that currently lack access to safe drinking water and sanitation services. It could also alleviate pressure on the region’s surface water and help communities endure the nowadays very frequent and severe dry spells

Groundwater plays a critical role in providing water and food security and improving livelihoods of many in the SADC region, especially vulnerable communities in the rural areas and in the poor urban settlements.

“With the worsening impacts of climate change, we need to recognize that groundwater could be a catalyst for economic and social development in the SADC region. Furthermore, groundwater could play a significant role in sustainable development and building resilience – if sustainably developed and managed” says Eng. James Sauramba, SADC-GMI Executive Director.

The Sustainable Development Goal 6 underpins ensuring access to water and sanitation for all. If sustainably developed, groundwater could be instrumental in the achievement of SDG 6 as set out in the United Nations agenda 2030.

Eng. Sauramba continues to say, as climate change impacts intensify and many people turn to groundwater for their primary water supply, it becomes even more critical that we work together to sustainably manage this precious resource.

Used sustainably, groundwater could provide potable water for the estimated 40% of the SADC region’s estimated 345 million inhabitants that currently lack access to safe drinking water and sanitation services. It could also alleviate pressure on the region’s surface water and help communities endure the nowadays very frequent and severe dry spells.

Communication pertaining to groundwater related issues is key to making groundwater visible. Stakeholder participation, shared knowledge, and informed decision-making are integral cornerstones of good water governance and can never be over emphasized.

It is important that we seek innovative ways to create awareness and communicate groundwater issues. Although some progress has been achieved in this area in the last five years, more still needs to be accomplished.

The SADC region’s estimated current extraction rates of around 2,500 m3 per capita per year represent only 1.5% of the renewable groundwater resources available. This means that groundwater remains largely untapped at a time when the gap between water demand and availability is growing drastically.

The Earth’s population of nearly 8 billion in 2020 is expected to reach 11 billion by 2100. Humans will have to learn to produce sufficient food without destroying the soil, water, and climate. This has been dubbed the greatest challenge humanity has faced. Sustainable management of groundwater is at the heart of the solution.

 

Credit: SADC Groundwater Management Institute.

 

SADC-GMI strives to making groundwater visible

SADC Groundwater Management Institute (SADC-GMI) as the centre of excellence in promoting equitable and sustainable groundwater management in the SADC region since 2016 has to date implemented various impactful small scale infrastructure development projects in 10 SADC Member States to support the development and management of this finite resource.

The projects ranged from groundwater monitoring and evaluation systems, community water supply schemes, exploration of deep aquifers, and groundwater mapping and development. These projects contributed to enhancing water security and improved livelihoods for the benefiting communities. Approximately 93000 beneficiaries (of which 53% were women) across the SADC region benefitted from the interventions.

Transboundary cooperation among Member States sharing groundwater resources was also promoted through undertaking research to generate knowledge in six of the estimated 30 transboundary aquifers in the SADC region.

Three new boreholes were drilled in Chongwe to promote sustainable groundwater development and reduce the devastating effects of water shortage for approximately 12,000 residents. The project augmented the existing cluster of boreholes while easing the water shortage in the area.

Again, SADC-GMI implemented a similar project in Muchocolate in the Matutuine district of Maputo Province where safe and clean drinking water was provided for approximately 2 000 people and their livestock. Another milestone was recorded in the Kingdom of Eswatini where a groundwater monitoring project was completed. The project involved 10 monitoring sites, four of which use renewable energy to pump the water.

 

2nd Phase – Sustainable Groundwater Management in SADC Member States

Since mid-November 2021, SADC-GMI embarked on implementation of the 2nd Phase of the Sustainable Groundwater Management in SADC Member States project that will again put groundwater on the spotlight.

As the results, SADC-GMI will continue to engage SADC Member States to sustainably develop groundwater resources in the region to improve the livelihoods of the vulnerable communities, especially those heavily dependent on groundwater and address groundwater challenges facing the region.

Excerpt:

Eng. James Sauramba is Executive Director of the SADC Groundwater Management Institute. 

A Pakistani child receives a dose of the oral polio vaccine (OPV). Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Matshidiso Moeti
BRAZZAVILLE, Mar 22 2022 (IPS)

In the outskirts of Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, just beyond where paved roads transition to dirt, an undiagnosed polio infection paralysed a three-year-old girl. From one day to the next, the child’s life was changed forever.

Among Africa’s public health community, we had looked at our successes against wild poliovirus as a cause for optimism. In the 1990s, the disease paralysed more than 75,000 African children every year. But following extensive immunization campaigns coupled with strong surveillance, the wild poliovirus was officially kicked out of sub-Saharan Africa just under two years ago.

We went from 300,000 cases in 1985 to zero in 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic struck. In Malawi, there had been no case of wild poliovirus since 1992, and for many, the disease had become a distant memory.

The four-month suspension of polio vaccination campaigns in more than 30 countries in 2020, coupled with related disruptions to essential immunization services, led to tens of millions of children missing polio vaccines. Including the three-year old girl in Malawi who is now paralysed for life

Polio is a viral infection that causes nerve damage and, in some cases, paralysis that can lead to permanent disability or even death. It is transmitted mostly through contaminated water or food, and its symptoms—fever, sore throat, headaches, pain in the arms and legs—are so generic that an active infection is often difficult to diagnose until paralysis strikes.

While polio remains endemic to Afghanistan and Pakistan, with a few dozen cases identified every year in each country, it has been eradicated just about everywhere else. The Americas were declared polio-free in 1994; China, Australia, and the Western Pacific countries in 2000, Europe in 2002; and Southeast Asia in 2011. The last cases in Africa were in Nigeria, in 2016, in the north of the country where the horrors of armed conflict had upended immunization efforts.

But over the past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted efforts to combat vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio, in many other places. The four-month suspension of polio vaccination campaigns in more than 30 countries in 2020, coupled with related disruptions to essential immunization services, led to tens of millions of children missing polio vaccines. Including the three-year old girl in Malawi who is now paralysed for life.

We know a lot about wild poliovirus now, enough to trace the case in Malawi to a strain of the virus originating in Pakistan. While this new detection does not affect the African region’s wild poliovirus-free certification status, it has set the world back in its efforts to eradicate the disease.

And if transmission is not stopped within the next 12 months, the continent’s certification status would likely be revisited. This disease creates far too much devastation, on a personal and health system level, for us to allow that to happen.

We can detect the presence of the virus, along with its genetic origins, through sampling urban sewers—and so we have launched surveillance efforts in Lilongwe and cities in neighbouring countries. We’ve also deployed healthcare workers to go door-to-door in Malawi, identifying families whose children have unexplained paralysis, and securing samples for testing to see if polio was the cause.

With support from international and local partners, governments in the region have now launched an intensive immunization campaign, with the intent of vaccinating more than 23 million children in Malawi and its neighbours Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique, as well as Zimbabwe.

The vaccine needs to be administered in multiple doses, so the logistics of reaching out to both urban and rural locations, with trained staff who carry sufficient numbers of doses, has to be well planned and executed. Luckily, we are benefiting from lessons learned from experiences in Syria and Somalia in recent years, where the polio programme quickly stopped the spread of imported wild poliovirus, despite challenges posed by on-going conflict and insecurity.

Dr Matshidiso Moeti, World Health Organization Regional Director for Africa

It was no coincidence that the African Region achieved its wild polio-free status two years ago. This only happened because of the decades of commitment by governments, communities and partners, and we are now leveraging the wealth of experience and expertise we have built in the region to move quickly to bring this outbreak under control.

The payoff is immense. Globally, eradication efforts have saved the lives of an estimated 180,000 people and spared an estimated 1.8 million children from disability. The economic benefit for ending polio have been projected at upwards of US$50 billion by 2035, with the vast majority of these benefits accruing to low-income countries freed from having to handle such a terrible health threat.

Eliminating polio is about more than an economic stimulus, of course. We do it because it is a source of suffering that we can remove from this world, because every child paralysed by a polio infection is one child too many. Wild poliovirus cases around the world are at an all-time low, and we have a historic opportunity to stop the transmission of the virus for good.

To achieve this, we need governments throughout Africa—especially the southern nations—to join these efforts, step up surveillance, vaccinate their children, and get back on track to wipe this virus off the planet.

Excerpt:

Dr Matshidiso Moeti is the World Health Organization Regional Director for Africa.