Africa

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 22 2022 (IPS)

“If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”. Still haunted by the clever preaching of monetarist guru Milton Friedman’s ghost, all too many monetary authorities address every inflationary threat or sign they see by raising interest rates.

Anis Chowdhury

Friedman’s dictum that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” still defines the orthodoxy. Despite changed circumstances in the world today, for Friedmanites, inflation must be curbed by monetary tightening, especially interest rate hikes.

No central banker consensus
The threat of higher inflation has risen with Russia’s Ukraine incursion and the punitive Western ‘sanctions from hell’ in response. International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warns wide-ranging sanctions on Russia will worsen inflation.

European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde fears, “The Russia-Ukraine war will have a material impact on economic activity and inflation”. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has also acknowledged the new threat.

She recognizes tighter monetary policy could be contractionary, but expresses confidence in the Federal Reserve’s ability to balance that. Meanwhile, US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell has pledged to be “careful”.

Terming Russia’s invasion “a game changer”, with unpredictable consequences, he stressed readiness to move more aggressively if needed. On 16 March, the Fed raised its benchmark short-term interest rate while signalling up to six more rate hikes this year.

But other central bankers do not agree on how best to respond. Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda has ruled out tightening monetary policy. He recently noted, “It’s inappropriate to deal with [cost-push inflation] by scaling back stimulus or tightening monetary policy”. For Kuroda, an interest rate hike is inappropriate to deal with inflation due to surging fuel and food prices.

Friedman’s disciples at some central banks began tightening monetary policy from mid-2021. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the first to adopt strict inflation targeting in 1989, raised interest rates in August for the second time in two months.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The Bank of England (BOE) raised interest rates for the first time in more than three years in December. Going further, Norway’s central bank doubled its policy rate on the same day.

Anticipating interest rate rises in the US and under pressure from financial markets, central banks in some emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) – such as Brazil, Russia and Mexico – began raising policy interest rates after inflation warning bells went off in mid-2021. Indonesia and South Africa joined the bandwagon in January 2022.

Ukraine effect
With inflation surging after the Ukraine incursion, the Bank of Canada doubled its key rate on 2 March – its first increase since October 2018.

The ECB has a more hawkish stance, dropping its more cautious earlier language. Its governing council has reiterated an old pledge to “take whatever action is needed” to pursue price stability and safeguard financial stability.

Following the US Fed’s move, the BOE raised its interest rate the next day. A month before, in February, the BOE Chief Economist was against raising interest rates, favouring a more nuanced approach.

However, instead of kneejerk interest rate responses, Reserve Bank of Australia’s Governor Philip Lowe is “prepared to be patient” while monitoring developments.

EMDE central bankers have also responded differently. Brazil has raised its benchmark interest rate after the Fed, and signalled more increases could follow this year. But Indonesia has been more circumspect.

Interest rate not inflation cure-all
The interest rate is a blunt policy tool. It does not differentiate between activities facing rising demand and those experiencing supply disruptions. Thus, interest rate hikes adversely impact investments in sectors facing supply bottlenecks needing more investment.

In short, the interest rate is indiscriminate. But the prevailing policy orthodoxy of the past four decades does not differentiate among causes of inflation, prescribing higher interest rates as the miracle ‘cure-all’.

This monetarist policy orthodoxy does not even recognize multiple causes or sources of inflation. Most observers believe that current inflationary pressures are due to both demand and supply factors.

Some sectors may be experiencing surging demand while others are facing supply disruptions and rising production costs. All this has now been exacerbated by the Ukraine crisis and the ensuing sanctions interrupting supplies.

Old lessons forgotten
Well over half a century ago, the UN’s World Economic Survey 1956 warned, “A single economic policy seems no more likely to overcome all sources of imbalance which produce rising prices and wages than is a single medicine likely to cure all diseases which produce a fever”.

Addressing ‘cost-push’ inflation using measures designed for ‘demand-pull’ phenomena is not only inappropriate, but also damaging. It can increase unemployment significantly without dampening inflation, warned the UN’s World Economic Survey 1955 as Friedman’s anti-Keynesian arguments were emerging.

Interest rates do not discriminate between credit for consumer and investment spending. In efforts to dampen demand sufficiently, interest rates are raised sharply. Such monetary tightening can do much lasting economic damage.

Declining or lower investment is harmful for the progress needed for sustainable development, requiring innovation and productivity growth. After all, improved technologies typically require new machines and tools.

No one ‘one size fits all’
Dealing with ‘stagflation’ – economic stagnation with inflation – caused by multiple factors requires both fiscal and monetary policies working together complementarily. They also need particular tools and regulatory measures for specific purposes.

Monetary authorities should also create government fiscal space by financing unanticipated urgent needs and long-term sustainable development projects, e.g., for renewable energy.

Governments need to first provide some immediate cost of living relief to defuse unrest as food and fuel prices surge. This can be done with measures that may include food vouchers, suspending some taxes on key consumer products.

In the medium- to long-term, governments can expand subsidized public provisioning of healthcare, transport, housing, education and childcare to offset rising living costs. Such public provisioning – increasing the “social wage” – diffuses wage demands, preventing wage-price spirals.

Such policy initiatives brought down inflation in Australia during the 1980s without causing large-scale unemployment. This contrasted with the deep recessions in the UK and USA then due to high interest rates.

Get correct medicine
But to do so, governments need more fiscal space. Hence, tax reforms are critical. Progressive tax reforms – such as introducing wealth taxes and raising marginal tax rates for high income earners – also mitigate inequality. Governments also need to align their short- and long-term fiscal policy frameworks.

Monetary authorities need to apply a combination of tools, such as reserve requirements for commercial bank deposits, more credit, including differential interest rate facilities, and more inclusive financing.

For example, central banks should restrict credit growth in ‘overheated’ sectors, while expanding affordable credit for those facing supply bottlenecks. Central banks also need to curb credit growth likely to be used for speculation.

Governments also need regulatory measures to prevent unscrupulous monopolies or cartels trying to manipulate markets and create artificial shortages. Regulatory measures are also needed to check commodity futures and other speculation. These increase food and fuel price rises and other problems.

Relying exclusively on the interest rate hammer is an article of monetarist faith, not macroeconomic wisdom. Pragmatic policymakers have demonstrated much ingenuity in designing more appropriate macroeconomic policy responses – not only against inflation, but worse, the stagflation now threatening the world.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Today, plastics are ubiquitous, pervading all aspects of human activity and invading all dimensions of the environment, with the result being the emergence of planet Plastics. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS.

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Mar 21 2022 (IPS)

Planet Earth is increasingly being transformed into planet Plastics. Approximately 400,000,000 metric tons of plastics are produced worldwide annually. Those plastics amount to about 50 kilograms, or 110 pounds, every year for each of the 8 billion human inhabitants living on the unfolding planet Plastics.

The Garden of Eden with all its wonderful flora and fauna did not contain plastics. None of the world’s sacred religious texts refer to or mention plastics. Also, in the great historical works of literature, drama, philosophy, mathematics, science, music, and art, one does not read, think, hear, see, or feel plastics.

Yet today, plastics are ubiquitous, pervading all aspects of human activity and invading all dimensions of the environment, with the result being the emergence of planet Plastics. From birth to death plastics have become an integral part of human daily life and infiltrated the planet’s environment. Without plastics, it is difficult to imagine how human populations would function.

Plastics can be found everywhere on the planet, including oceans, waterways, air, forests, plains, cities, towns, farms, highways, clothing, buildings, furniture, packaging, transport, factories, sewers, beaches, mountains, and animal life. Plastics have also made it to Earth’s upper atmospheres, the Moon, Mars and beyond.

Plastics first appeared on planet Earth at the start of the 20th century and with their discovery began the start of the Age of Plastics. The first fully synthetic plastic was invented by Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland in 1907. His plastic, which he named Bakelite, was a combination of two chemicals, formaldehyde and phenol, made under pressure and heat.

Facilitating the rapid growth of the plastics industries was the utilization of waste materials from the processing of crude oil and natural gas, including ethylene gas. Industrial experimentation lead to various forms of plastics, the most abundant being polyethylene. In brief, plastics are made mostly from fossil fuels, i.e., oil and natural gas, through a process that is energy intensive and emits greenhouse gases.

By the middle of the 20th century the annual production of plastics increased rapidly to about 2 million metric tons. Seventy years later the annual production of plastics worldwide reached approximately 400 million metric tons, or two hundred times the amount of plastics that was produced in1950. And by 2050 the annual production of plastics is projected to be twice the 2020 level (Figure 1).

 

Source: Our World in Data.

 

Plastics have created an alarming global throw-away culture. It is estimated that single-use plastics represent about 40 percent of the annual production of plastics.

The recycling of plastics remains at a relatively low level worldwide. Recycling is estimated to account for less than 10 percent of all plastics produced every year, with more than 10 million metric tons of plastics being dumped in the oceans annually. Moreover, without needed action to address that dumping, the amount of plastic trash flowing into the oceans every year is expected to nearly triple by 2040.

The primary reason why less than a tenth of plastics produced annually are recycled is the cost. For the plastics industries the costs of recycling are far greater than the costs of producing new plastics.

Consequently, the cumulative worldwide amount of plastics is many times more than the annual production. Since the end of World War II, it is estimated that close to 10,000 million metric tons of plastics have been produced globally (Figure 2).

 

Source: Our World in Data.

 

Most of those plastics were produced relatively recently. About two-thirds of all the plastics in the world today were manufactured since the start of the 21st century. In addition, by mid-century the cumulative amount of plastics produced is projected to nearly triple and be equivalent to the weight of all the fish in the oceans.

The consequences of plastics read like a science-fiction doomsday novel. In brief, the novel’s plot involves invisible aliens from outer space taking over planet Earth by encouraging humans to exterminate themselves through the exponential accumulation of plastics.

In addition to being a serious threat to human health and wellbeing, the increasing production and use of plastics are undermining the planet’s natural environment. Plastics are polluting the soil, air, oceans, and waterways, entering the food chain, killing and injuring wildlife and damaging habitats, producing greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, and creating hazardous chemicals (Table 1).

 

Source: Author’s compilation.

 

Most plastics do not biodegrade and therefore remain in the environment for many hundreds of years. Consequently, those plastics often break down into microplastics, which are small pieces of plastics, including fibers, microbeads, fragments, nurdles, and foam. The various forms of microplastics are contaminating the planet’s land, oceans, water, air, food and increasingly living organisms.

The low level of recycling plastics has also resulted in enormous global plastic trash problems that cost the public billions to abate. Attempts to deal with the plastics trash are also contributing to contentious political issues and tensions among nations.

A global agreement adopted by more than 180 countries in 2019 aims at restricting the exporting of plastics trash from wealthy countries to poor countries. However, some countries have been able to get around the restrictions and continue exporting plastics trash.

Also, in March representatives of 175 countries agreed to begin writing a legal binding global treaty aimed at addressing the exponential growth of plastic pollution as well as its impact on climate change and biodiversity loss. In addition to improving recycling efforts and cleaning up plastics trash, the treaty is to include curbs on the production of plastics and may even include a ban on single-use plastics.

At the country level, various actions are being taken to address some of the causes contributing to plastics pollution. Some countries, for example, have banned the use of plastic bags for bagging groceries. Others have also eliminated the use of bottles, cutlery, straws, and coffee stirrers made from plastics.

In addition to the actions and policies of governments, important steps can be taken by individuals to curb the emergence of planet Plastics. People can reduce their use of plastics, particularly disposable plastics, plastic water bottles, and plastic grocery bags and support policies and programs for recycling and reusing plastics.

Public information campaigns can also contribute to responsible behavior regarding the use, reuse, recycling, and disposal of plastics. Educational programs, especially in elementary schools, can be effective in creating awareness about the detrimental effects of plastics on the planet.

Furthermore, with the aim of reducing the growing accumulation of billions of metric tons of plastics and limiting the plastics pollution of the environment, the private sector can produce and use less plastics. And very importantly, the major industries that produce and those that extensively utilize plastics should take the lead in establishing, promoting, and facilitating worldwide programs for recycling and reusing plastics.

The available indicators on the production, consumption, recycling, reuse, and disposal of plastics all point to the same outcome, namely, a ruinous worldwide transformation of the environment. However, it is not too late to take actions to arrest the transformation of planet Earth into planet Plastics and by so doing contributing to an opportunity to return to a semblance of the original Garden of Eden.

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

Ambassador Cindy Hensley McCain, Permanent Representative of the US Mission to the Food and Agriculture Organization on the United Nations (FAO) is pictured here with a community involved in an FAO climate smart agriculture project. Credit: FAO

By Farhana Haque Rahman and Sania Farooqui
Rome, Mar 21 2022 (IPS)

In an exclusive interview with IPS, Ambassador Cindy Hensley McCain, Permanent Representative of the US Mission to the Food and Agriculture Organization on the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, Italy, shares her thoughts on food security, sustainable food systems, the impact of climate change on food production, conflicts and the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, and her plans while working with the FAO, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and World Food Programme (WFP) with Farhana Haque Rahman and Sania Farooqui.

The Biden Administration swore in ambassador Cindy Hensley McCain to serve as Permanent Representative of the US Mission to the UN Agencies in Rome on November 5, 2021.  She has dedicated her life to improving the lives of those less fortunate both in the United States and worldwide. She is the former Chair of the Board of Trustees of the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University, where she oversaw the organization’s focus on advancing character-driven global leadership based on security, economic opportunity, freedom, and human dignity, as well as chairing the Institute’s Human Trafficking Advisory Council.

In addition to her work at the McCain Institute, she served on the Board of Directors of Project CURE, CARE, Operation Smile, HaloTrust, and the Advisory Boards of Too Small To Fail and Warriors and Quiet Waters. She was the chairperson of her family’s business, Hensley Beverage Company, one of the largest Anheuser-Busch distributors in the US.  McCain is the wife of the late US Senator John McCain.  Together, they have four children.

IPS: There has been a dramatic worsening of world hunger since 2020. While the pandemic’s impact is yet to be fully mapped, according to WHO, more than 2.3 billion people (or 30 percent of the global population) have lacked year-round access to adequate food, and malnutrition continues to persist in all its forms, with children paying a high price. What are your concerns on this crisis, and what can be done to achieve food security and improve nutrition within reach of all those impacted?

UN Mission Embassy, Ambassador of the United States to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, Cindy McCain.
Credit: UN/Cristiano Minichiello.

Cindy McCain: In my new role as US Ambassador to the UN Agencies in Rome, my top priority is to bring high-level attention to the urgent food security crisis that you mention, one that is being felt particularly in places like Afghanistan, Yemen, the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, and now Ukraine. I also want to raise the alarm about the broader, far-reaching threats to our global food systems—and to work together with other members of the United Nations to build resilient, sustainable food systems for everyone.

IPS: The FAO has said that the land and water resources farmers rely on are stressed to a ‘breaking point’, and there will be two billion more mouths to feed by 2050. What are your thoughts on this, and what can be done to find sustainable solutions and adapt to these changing climate challenges?

McCain: To meet these challenges, we need to dramatically ramp up innovation and cooperation to both mitigate and adapt to climate change, particularly in agriculture.  Our food systems are vulnerable, and the sector must urgently adapt.

Agriculture must also be part of the solution to climate change.  Food production and food systems, in general, are responsible for a quarter to a third of greenhouse gas emissions. We need new technologies, products, and approaches to food production, consumption, and food loss and waste.

At COP26, the UAE and the United States announced the creation of the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate, or AIM4C, with the goal of accelerating the search for breakthrough solutions in the agricultural sector.  AIM4C is promoting significantly increased investment in support of climate-smart agriculture and food system innovation.

Already, more than 40 countries and over a hundred partners – including Lightworks at Arizona State University – my home state, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization – have joined forces under AIM4C.

Additionally, President Biden launched the Global Methane Pledge at COP26 with the goal of reducing global methane emissions at least by 30% by 2030, the minimum required to keep 1.5C within reach. The Pledge now has over 110 country participants, including six of the top eight emitters of agricultural methane.

We can cut agricultural emissions through measures that also enhance agricultural productivity in developing countries—which has the added benefit of reducing global pressure to convert rainforests to farms. For example, typical US and EU dairy operations produce milk with 1/8th the emissions of typical Indian and African operations.  Increasing productivity in developing countries benefits farmers while tackling climate change by cutting methane emissions and deforestation – it’s a win-win.

IPS: Climate change is threatening food production, which means there is a need for more investments, including creating new jobs to adapt to climate change to help small-scale farmers currently producing food for 2 billion people – or global stability is at risk. What is your view about IFAD’s new investment programme to boost private funding of rural businesses and small-scale farmers?

Ambassador Cindy McCain with women at an IFAD financed women’s cassava cooperative. Credit: IFAD

McCain: Truly sustainable food systems must be economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.  IFAD is right to consider the private sector an indispensable partner in improving smallholder farmers’ access to markets, capital, technology, and innovation – the same tools producers in developed countries rely on.  These partnerships bolster rural resilience in the face of increased conflict, COVID-19, climate change, and other acute and systematic threats. The United States is proud to be IFAD’s largest current and historical donor.  We appreciate IFAD’s focus on the livelihoods of rural, smallholder farmers in the world’s least developed countries, who account for the majority of the world’s poor.

IPS: More than 800 million people across the globe go to bed hungry every night, most of them smallholder farmers who depend on agriculture to make a living and feed their families, many of whom are also women. What can be done to close the present global gender gap in agriculture and build sustainable futures for women farmers?

McCain: Women play a critical and potentially transformative role in agriculture, especially in developing countries where they make up over 48 percent of the rural agricultural workforce. They also make a crucial contribution to nutrition and food security by feeding their families and contributing to their communities.

Nonetheless, women continue to face persistent obstacles and economic constraints.  The FAO notes that, given the same tools as men, women could increase yields on their farms by 20–30 percent. This could raise total agricultural output in developing countries up to 4 percent, and production gains of this magnitude could reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12–17 percent. That’s huge. We need to provide rural women and girls with greater access to the assets, resources, services, and opportunities that are available to men – especially land. Women still account for less than 15 percent of agricultural landholders in the world.

We know the promise women hold in agriculture, and we are acting on it.  Empowerment of women is a strong focus of Feed the Future, the US food security initiative with programs equipping women with the right tools, training, and technology to increase their production, improve their storage, and give them access to markets.

In the same way, all FAO, IFAD, and WFP programs have a strong focus on women.  Gender is an essential component of their work, providing extension services, technical and financial training, helping them to become successful producers, marketers, and entrepreneurs.  If we want to improve our food systems to be more productive and sustainable, we must invest in women farmers.

IPS: According to the World Bank, between 88 and 115 million people are being pushed into poverty due to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. In 2021, this number was expected to have risen to between 143 and 163 million. Millions of people worldwide have been suffering from food insecurity and different forms of malnutrition because they cannot afford the cost of healthy diets. What could be done to build resilience to such shocks?

McCain: To achieve lasting food security for everyone, even the world’s most vulnerable people, we must strengthen and safeguard the entire food system – the land, the local economies, the supply chain, the farmers, and the communities that all depend on one another to thrive.  And we must reach for all the tools in the toolbox to build resilience and give people a chance to not just survive the emergencies but also grow and thrive in their wake.

That includes investing in cutting-edge technology, promoting climate-smart and water-efficient agricultural solutions, capitalizing on private-sector resources, expertise, and partnership, and improving access to financing, training, and markets. Building resilience, making our food systems more sustainable, doing more with less: this is the challenge before us, and it demands a united, global effort.

IPS: Conflict drives hunger. According to WFP data, there are almost 283 million people marching towards starvation, with 45 million knocking on famine’s door. Why do we urgently need humanitarian action towards the ongoing conflicts around the world?

McCain: We must continue to provide urgent humanitarian action to save lives wherever they are at risk.  As you noted, conflict is the biggest driver of hunger around the world today.  Sixty percent of the world’s hungry live in conflict areas. The food security situation is particularly dire in Yemen and South Sudan and in the northern areas of Ethiopia and Niger, where people are facing starvation.  And now we have a rapidly unfolding crisis in Ukraine, to which USAID and the UN agencies are all responding with emergency assistance.

The Ukraine crisis also risks exacerbating hunger in other regions of the world as wheat supplies from one of the planet’s major breadbaskets are disrupted.  That means markets must adjust, driving up the cost of wheat and other staples, which will affect relief operations in other parts of the world where people are desperately in need of food assistance. We must do our best to address and help resolve these conflicts by joining forces with other countries and the UN to push for diplomatic solutions.

IPS: The ongoing crisis in Ukraine is worsening every day, which could push thousands into a state of poverty and hunger. What are your thoughts on this?

McCain: Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified attack on Ukraine was a flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.  It has unleashed a humanitarian crisis in the heart of Europe, with over 2.5 million refugees so far and probably many more to come. We have a longstanding partnership with the people of Ukraine and are very focused on the urgent humanitarian needs there.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has deployed a Disaster Assistance Response Team – our nation’s finest international emergency responders – to the region to support the Ukrainian people as they bear the brunt of Russian aggression.

On March 10, 2022, US Vice President Kamala Harris announced nearly $53 million in new humanitarian assistance from the United States government, through the USAID, to support innocent civilians affected by Russia’s unjustified invasion of Ukraine. This additional assistance includes support to the WFP to provide lifesaving emergency food assistance to meet the immediate needs of hundreds of thousands affected by the invasion, including people displaced from their homes and who are crossing the border out of Ukraine. In addition, it will support WFP’s logistics operations to move assistance into Ukraine, including to people in Kyiv.

The United States is the largest provider of humanitarian assistance to Ukraine and has provided $159 million in overall humanitarian assistance to Ukraine since October 2020, including nearly $107 million in the past two weeks in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This includes food, safe drinking water, shelter, emergency health care, and winterization services to communities affected by ongoing fighting.

IPS: Lastly, what is your take (personal thoughts) on your appointment by the Biden administration? Do you plan to visit some countries where the FAO, IFAD, and WFP are currently working? What are your thoughts on the current crisis in food and hunger, and what do you see happening by the end of your term? Are you optimistic?

McCain: I am honored President Biden appointed me to this role and very proud to be serving my country in my capacity as Ambassador to the UN Agencies in Rome. The work we do on food security here in Rome is crucial, and we need food security to be in the spotlight because, the fact is, everything else depends on it. I will be doing my best to bring the necessary attention to the challenges we are facing.   It is time for food security to take center stage in global security discussions everywhere.

I do indeed plan to do many visits to the field to see FAO, IFAD, and WFP at work.  In fact, I just returned from Madagascar, where a sustained drought is severely affecting the population in the south of the country, and to Kenya to see the work of our UN partners there.

Am I optimistic?  Actually, I am. The momentum around food security right now gives me great hope. At the Munich Security Conference this year, food security was finally recognized as a crucial part of global security. I participated in a food security town hall – a first and definitely not the last – at the conference. The UN Food Systems Summit last fall was an important recognition that food security is a systemic issue, that we all must work together to ensure we have sustainable and equitable food systems. At that summit, the United States committed 10 billion US dollars towards food security efforts at home and abroad, 5 billion US dollars of which we’re investing through Feed the Future, America’s initiative to end hunger and malnutrition.

With the newly released Global Food Security Strategy to guide the United States’ efforts, we’re increasing investments in partnerships and innovation to catalyze inclusive agriculture-led growth, eradicate malnutrition, and help people adapt to the perils of climate change.  There is a renewed focus on the need to address food insecurity, and we are putting tools in place to do just that.

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service and Executive Director IPS Noram; she served as the elected Director-General of IPS 2015-2019. A journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Sania Farooqui is a New Delhi-based journalist, filmmaker, and host of The Sania Farooqui Show, where she regularly speaks to women who have made significant contributions bringing about socio-economic changes globally. She writes and reports regularly for IPS news wire.

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Mathu Joyini, Permanent Representative of South Africa to the United Nations, speaks at the 78th plenary meeting, on the voting and elections for non-permanent members of the Security Council. The General Assembly elected Albania, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates to the Security Council for a two-year term starting on 1 January 2022. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider
 
Meanwhile, the 66th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which begam March 14 is scheduled to conclude on March 25.

By Kingsley Ighobor
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 21 2022 (IPS)

Ambassador Mathu Joyini began her role as the Permanent Representative of South Africa to the United Nations in January 2021, becoming the first South African woman to hold the position.

Representing the African States Group, she is the Chair of the Bureau for the 2022 Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). She has championed causes related to Africa’s peace and security, human rights, women’s empowerment, among others.

In this interview with Africa Renewal’s Kingsley Ighobor, Amb. Joyini discusses her work and career path.

Excerpts from the interview:

What has been your journey to this role?

This place [United Nations] is a centre for global governance, and I think it provides an interesting space for any Permanent Representative to engage to promote their country’s interest, and to promote cooperation between their country and others.

My journey has been an interesting one. It started when I worked in social welfare. And I always go back there because it made me understand the needs of human beings at an individual level, at the community level, and so forth.

Social work grounded me in understanding human needs around poverty, hunger, health—you deal with all these issues in that space. Now, when I look at the SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals], and what we’re trying to achieve, I pay my respects to the social workers out there.

Also, I spent a lot of time in the private sector, which helped me to understand how business and society intersect; how a business makes profits but to what extent are they making profits and at the same time helping build their communities and societies?

Again, when you get here you realize there is a focus on economic development that is sustainable and responsible. You get to deal with issues around financing, sustainable financing, financing for development, and the need for the private sector to get involved in development.

Of course, there is my journey within the Department of International Relations and Cooperation [South Africa’s foreign ministry], over 20 years in different positions at different levels, where I learned more about our country’s foreign policy and international relations.

I always say that democratic South Africa has been good with its foreign policy—its focus and its consistency over the years.

Kingsley Ighobor

What are your top achievements so far here at the UN?

I can give you some highlights. I will start with human rights. As you know, in 2021 we commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, which is a landmark anti-discrimination framework. South Africa was given the responsibility of preparing for that commemoration and facilitating the development of a political declaration.

We were given that role together with Portugal, and I have to commend Ambassador Francisco António Duarte Lopes of Portugal because we managed to put on the table a political declaration that was successfully adopted on the margins of the UN General Assembly High Level Week in September 2021.

Secondly, on peace and security, South Africa and the Peacebuilding Support Office of the United Nations hosted a webinar and initiated a dialogue on how to get the private sector to contribute to peacebuilding. I must tell you it was an interesting webinar.

We looked at how we can make resources available for peacebuilding. We believe that the private sector that benefits from a stable and peaceful society needs to contribute to peacebuilding. And it happens that the private sector is ready to make such contributions. So, we hope to put in place a strategy for private sector engagement.

Thirdly, there are issues that we will always care about. These are not just 2022 issues, but issues that will always be South Africa’s priorities because of our history. One such priority is our solidarity with the people of Palestine and the people of Western Sahara. We also have the African Union’s Agenda 2063, which aligns with the SDGs, and now includes the post-COVID-19 recovery agenda.

Fourthly, we are known for gender equality and women’s empowerment. In 2022 and 2023 South Africa will be the Chair of the Committee on the Status of Women (CSW). We are chairing on behalf of the Africa Group, and we want to make sure that we drive the implementation of agreed conclusions.

Talking about gender equality, you are one of only a handful female Permanent Representatives to the UN in New York. Why do you think that is so?

Governments have the primary responsibility for promoting gender equality; they need to always be reminded to walk the talk. That is not always necessarily the case. When women take leadership positions in public spaces, they’re likely to promote other women. I can say that in my case. But again, I represent my President who is strongly supportive of gender equality.

Gender equality is a huge priority here at the UN headquarters. Is that the case in Africa?

I think so. I know so. Many of the African Union’s instruments focus on gender equality, on women’s empowerment. In fact, the AU might be ahead of many other regional bodies in terms of thinking through issues related to gender equality. If you look at the number of AU protocols and instruments, you will find that gender equality is a priority for our leaders. But there’s a lot to do in terms of implementation.

This year’s CSW is hybrid — both in-person and virtual events. What should African women expect from it?

They should expect two baskets of outcomes. The first basket is the formal one, which is what CSW is there for. Every year, we look at how far we are implementing the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and then come up with recommendations to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment. This year it will be in the context of climate change.

So, the CSW looks at the lived experiences of women. You and I know that the effects of climate change affect women disproportionately. And so, in the agreed conclusions, Member States will make recommendations to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the context of climate change.

So African women should expect that their needs and their challenges are being addressed through agreed conclusions. We need to be aware that it’s not just how damaging the impact of climate change is to women, it’s also to what extent women are involved in mitigation and adaptation activities? Are they funded? Are they engaged?

The second basket is the CSW space, where civil society and the UN system, including the Member States, engage to address pertinent issues. It is fertile soil for learning from each other, for sharing experiences, and for creating knowledge.

So, our sisters and our mothers in Africa can expect to learn and exchange ideas; they will hear how Zimbabwean women, for example, are tackling their challenges, or what women in Pakistan and other parts of the world are doing.

How much impact will the virtual events have on the outcomes?

The women can learn not necessarily by coming here. The experience of the last CSW has shown that they learn very well on virtual platforms. In fact, most people will say that virtual platforms allow many women access.

Those who cannot afford to get on the plane to New York can log on and exchange experiences with others. So, we will have to be sensitive in creating those platforms: how you design topics, the learning spaces, and the exchanges that happen.

What are your views regarding how women can take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which is probably Africa’s biggest project currently?

Absolutely, the AfCFTA is the biggest project. And it is a transformative one. Creating that market of 1.3 billion consumers, you can imagine what it will do for our manufacturing sector, for trading, for agriculture, and so forth. To the extent that the free trade agreement will transform the continent economically, women need to be part of it, if not at the center of it.

We often talk about the economic and financial inclusion of women. If you walk into any market right now in Africa, most informal traders would be women. We need to start thinking creatively about how to include them in a manner that advances their socioeconomic wellbeing.

When we [South Africa] chairing the AU, our President [Cyril Ramaphosa] really became the champion of women’s financial and economic inclusion. Take procurement, for example. If I have two suppliers with equal capabilities, and one of them is a woman, I’m going to give the opportunity to the woman supplier.

So, we need to be deliberate within the free trade area in building capacity and creating opportunities for women. We need to put in place policies and programmes that support women-led small, medium and large enterprises.

I must mention the SheTrades that was initiated by the International Trade Centre and is helping connect African women entrepreneurs to the markets. Such programmes are helpful.

Finally, what message would you like to send to Africans, particularly women?

We are in a continent whose future is bright. Studies show that future economic growth will be in Africa. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the top six of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world were in Africa. It is about how we organize ourselves to recover from the pandemic. And that is currently being coordinated so well by the continent.

If you look at the various initiatives that have been put in place by the continent to coordinate our recovery and our preparedness for future pandemics, you become hopeful.

We have all the frameworks, all the policies, all the opportunities. What we now require is to roll up our sleeves and do the work.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations, March 2022

IPS UN Bureau

 

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One man is challenging Nigerians' belief in magic after a wave of killings that has gripped the country.

Kenya’s road accidents and deaths are on the rise, Africa Eye reveals cracks in Kenya’s road safety systems.

Cobhams Asuquo is now one of Nigeria's leading music figures but started his career behind the scenes.

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Doris Martínez gets ready to start cooking at her food kiosk in Valles del Tuy, an area of small dormitory towns near Caracas. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Mar 18 2022 (IPS)

Doris Martínez was a cook in a Venezuelan restaurant that closed its doors; she emigrated to Colombia, got sick from working long hours standing in front of a stove, and returned to her country where, together with her husband and children, she runs a busy fast food kiosk on a road in Valles del Tuy, near the Venezuelan capital.

Johnny Paredes of Peru was a security guard and employee of a restaurant in Lima until he decided to become a self-employed street vendor selling fancy clothes in the mornings and food and beverages in the afternoons in the upscale neighborhood of Miraflores.

Mexican computer technician Jorge de la Teja works much longer hours in Mexico City than at his former job in a service company, but with forced telework increasing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, his clients and income have grown over the past two years.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, 140 million workers (51 percent of all employed people) work in the informal sector and have been strongly impacted by the pandemic. But, often working on the streets, they take the pulse of the crisis and take on new tasks or ventures to support their families.

Since the pandemic broke out in March 2020, 49.6 million jobs, both formal and informal, have been lost in the region, 23.6 million of which were held by women, according to data from the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) latest labor overview, published in February.

Informality “continues to be one of the most important characteristics of the region’s labor markets,” Roxana Maurizio, an Argentine labor economics specialist with the ILO, told IPS from the agency’s regional headquarters in Lima.

Studies by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) have shown that of the 51 percent of informal workers, up to 37 percent work in the informal sector of the economy, more than 10 percent in the formal sector and four percent in households.

In practice, one out of every two employed persons in the region is in informal employment, according to the ILO, and one third is self-employed, according to ECLAC.

The ILO considers informal employment to be all paid work (both self-employment and salaried employment) that is not registered, regulated or protected by legal or regulatory frameworks. For the workers who perform it, it adds, remuneration depends directly on the benefits derived from the goods or services produced.

Street vending is one of the expressions of labor informality that dominates many streets in the region’s large cities, as in this open-air market in Lima. CREDIT: Courtesy of Johnny Paredes

Faces behind the numbers

Paredes, 46, told IPS from Lima that “in my case it worked out better, because of the independence of having my own schedule and being able to shorten or lengthen it depending on how the workday turns out, and because on the street I earn between 25 and 35 dollars a day, double what I was paid in my previous jobs.”

De la Teja, 37, agrees and explains that in Mexico City he supports his family “comfortably, with regard to food and other day-to-day expenses, because I earn more than 2,000 dollars a month. But extra expenses, such as insurance, or traveling for vacation, are difficult.”

Martinez, a 50-year-old mother of two sons and three daughters and grandmother of three, works as a domestic and caregiver in the mornings and in the afternoons she helps run the family kiosk, the “Doris Burger”, with her husband and two sons.

At the kiosk she earns “about 30 or 35 dollars a day from Monday to Friday, and up to 50 on weekends. Much more than in the jobs I have had standing in front of a stove since I was young, and it’s also better because it brings in money for several members of the family.”

The situation is different for Wilmer Rosales, a 39-year-old “todero” or jack of all trades in Barquisimeto, a city 350 kilometers west of Caracas, who said that “here in the interior (of the country) there is almost nothing to do and when there is, the pay is very low – two, three, or five dollars for a day’s work, at the most.”

Home delivery of food and other products has become a source of informal sector work in Latin American cities, in a sector driven by the COVID pandemic. CREDIT: ILO

Recovery with fewer jobs

In its February report, the ILO showed that the region’s 6.2 percent economic growth in 2021 was insufficient for the labor market to recover, and the regional unemployment rate stood at 9.6 percent.

Of the 49 million jobs that were lost at the peak of the crisis, in the second quarter of 2020, 4.5 million have yet to be recovered, the vast majority of them jobs previously held by women. And in total there are some 28 million people looking for work.

After the onset of the pandemic, the crisis manifested atypically and instead of affecting more formal occupations, there was a greater loss of informal jobs, leaving millions of people without an income.

In Argentina, Mexico and Paraguay, for example, the reduction in informal sector jobs accounted for more than 75 percent of the fall in total employment during the first half of 2020. In Costa Rica and Peru the proportion was somewhat lower, 70 percent, while in Brazil and Chile it was around 50 percent.

The situation has now been reversed, and the countries with available data indicate that between 60 and 80 percent of the jobs recovered up to the third quarter of 2021 were in the informal sector.

Among the factors favoring recovery of the informal sector are the destruction of formal sector jobs due to the pandemic, the greater ease of interrupting an informal salaried relationship, its greater incidence in small businesses and enterprises, as in the case of Martinez, and the impossibility of many informal workers to do telework.

Women are lagging behind in this recovery, due to their greater presence in sectors strongly affected by the crisis that are rallying slowly, such as hotels and restaurants. In highly feminized sectors, such as domestic service work, the rate of informality exceeds 80 percent.

Nor is informality benign to young people, who face greater labor market intermittency, explained in part by the intense inflows and outflows of the labor force; and greater labor instability is associated with their prevalence in informal, precarious, low-skilled activities.

Telework is an informal work option that has thrived during the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America and is a refuge for women, who were especially hard-hit by the abrupt drop in employment during the confinement and shutdown of non-essential activities at the beginning of the health crisis. CREDIT: ILO

Leave no one behind, especially women

Against this backdrop, informality represents a challenge to the need and proposals in the region to produce, at the pace of the pandemic and as a way to overcome it, a sustainable and inclusive recovery, “leaving no one behind”, as the mantra already embedded in the discourse of various international organizations goes.

Maurizio is clearly committed to the formalization of employment. “Today, more than ever, the recovery needs to be people-centered; in particular, the creation of more and better jobs, formal jobs,” she said.

Informality “continues to be one of the most important characteristics of the region’s labor markets. Economic and social recovery will not be possible unless significant progress is made in reducing its incidence,” said the ILO specialist.

A necessary condition is “to advance in a process of economic growth with stability, reconstruction of the productive apparatus and persistent improvements in productivity.”

There must be, according to the expert, “a particular focus on the digital transition and young people; strengthening of labor institutions such as, for example, the minimum wage; care policies that allow women to return to and remain in the labor market; and support for small and medium-sized enterprises.”

Maurizio also called for the extension of unemployment insurance, social protection policies and “income guarantees for the population that continues to be strongly affected by the crisis.”

The gender perspective takes on “a central relevance in the recovery, taking into account the fact that of the 4.5 million jobs still to be recovered, 4.2 million are in traditionally female occupations.”

Among other measures, it is necessary to “facilitate the return of women to the labor market through a policy of investment in comprehensive care services with greater coverage, which at the same time should be a source of formal employment. Also, to support the recovery of economic sectors with a high female presence.”

Precarious working conditions have been a characteristic of informality associated with poverty in Latin America. CREDIT: Marcello Casal/Agência Brasil

Unions for a new working class

In the world of the trade unions, Brazilian Rafael Freire, secretary general of the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA), added the challenge of “having a trade union for today’s working class, which in large part is precarious, outsourced, or working from applications.”

This workforce, “without job contracts, is increasingly part of the informal sector, in large proportions, for example 70 percent in Honduras and 80 percent in Guatemala,” said the leader of the 55 million-member central trade union from its headquarters in Montevideo.

Informality, which is structural in the Latin American social and labor panorama, is a major hurdle for economic recovery and social justice in the region, and while governments design strategies, define policies and take measures, millions of informal workers rely on their resilience to bring home food for their families.

President Ramaphosa says the country has been asked to mediate in the conflict in Ukraine.

Across Yemen, 2.2 million children are acutely malnourished, including nearly more than half a million children facing severe acute malnutrition, a life-threatening condition, according to new IPC report. Credit: United Nations.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 18 2022 (IPS)

Yemen’s already dire hunger crisis is teetering on the edge of outright catastrophe, with 17.4 million people now in need of food assistance and a growing portion of the population coping with emergency levels of hunger, three UN agencies warned on 14 March 2022.

“The humanitarian situation in the country is poised to get even worse between June and December 2022, with the number of people who likely will be unable to meet their minimum food needs in Yemen possibly reaching a record 19 million people in that period.”

This has been the strong alarm launched by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), following the release of a new Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) analysis on Yemen.

At the same time, an additional 1.6 million people in the country are expected to fall into emergency levels of hunger, taking the total to 7.3 million people by the end of the year, the agencies added.

The IPC report also shows a persistent high level of acute malnutrition among children under the age of five. Across Yemen, 2.2 million children are acutely malnourished, including nearly more than half a million children facing severe acute malnutrition, a life-threatening condition. In addition, around 1.3 million pregnant or nursing mothers are acutely malnourished.

 

Situation deteriorating

“The new IPC analysis confirms the deterioration of food security in Yemen. The resounding takeaway is that we need to act now. We need to sustain the integrated humanitarian response for millions of people, including food and nutrition support, clean water, basic health care, protection and other necessities,” said the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, David Gressly.

“Peace is required to end the decline, but we can make progress now. The parties to the conflict should lift all restrictions on trade and investment for non-sanctioned commodities. This will help lower food prices and unleash the economy, giving people the dignity of a job and a path to move away from reliance on aid,” he added.

 

War, the primary driver

Conflict remains the primary underlying driver of hunger in Yemen. The economic crisis – a by-product of conflict – and the depreciation of the currency have pushed food prices in 2021 to their highest levels since 2015, warn the United Nations agencies.

The Ukraine war is likely to lead to significant import shocks, further driving food prices. Yemen depends almost entirely on food imports with 30 percent of its wheat imports coming from Ukraine.

“Many households in Yemen are deprived of basic food needs due to an overlap of drivers,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu.

“FAO is working directly with farmers on the ground to foster their self-reliance through a combination of emergency and longer-term livelihood support, to build up their resilience, support local agrifood production, and offset people’s reliance on imports.”

 

Famine to rise five-fold

An extremely worrying new data point is that the number of people experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger — IPC Phase 5, famine conditions — is projected to increase five-fold, from 31,000 currently to 161,000 people — over the second half of 2022.

“These harrowing figures confirm that we are on a countdown to catastrophe in Yemen and we are almost out of time to avoid it,” said WFP Executive Director David Beasley. “Unless we receive substantial new funding immediately, mass starvation and famine will follow. But if we act now, there is still a chance to avert imminent disaster and save millions.”

WFP was forced to reduce food rations for eight million people at the beginning of the year due to a shortage of funding. With these reductions, households are receiving barely half of the WFP standard daily minimum food basket. Five million people who are at immediate risk of slipping into famine conditions have continued to receive a full food ration.

 

Severe acute malnutrition among children and mothers

Meanwhile, acute malnutrition among young children and mothers in Yemen has been on the rise. Among the worst hit governorates are Hajjah, Hodeida and Taizz. “Children with severe acute malnutrition are at risk of death if they don’t receive therapeutic feeding assistance.”

 

The world’s worst food crisis

“More and more children are going to bed hungry in Yemen,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “This puts them at increased risk of physical and cognitive impairment, and even death. The plight of children in Yemen can no longer be overlooked. Lives are at stake.”

Yemen has been plagued by one of the world’s worst food crises. Parents are often unable to bring their children to treatment facilities because they cannot afford transportation or their own expenses while their children are being assisted.

The ongoing war on Yemen was launched seven years ago by a Saudi Arabia/United Arab Emirates coalition, heavily armed by the United States and Europe with arms deals amounting to an estimated 100 billion US dollars.

 

Other brutal wars

In addition to the dramatic consequences of the Western sanctions on Venezuela, with 95% of Venezuelans living in extreme poverty, hundreds are forced every day to walk to neighbouring Colombia in search of work, as reported on 12 March 2022 by Catherine Ellis on openDemocracy.

But there are other brutal wars. Just two examples:

Syria. 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”, said the UN chief on 11 March 2022], marking yet another tragic anniversary.

South Sudan Bracing for ‘Worst Hunger Crisis Ever: More than 70 percent of South Sudan’s population will struggle to survive the peak of the annual ‘lean season’ this year, as the country grapples with unprecedented levels of food insecurity caused by conflict, climate shocks, COVID-19, and rising costs, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) warned on 11 March 2022.

Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya fall among those countries suffering the dramatic effects on civilian population of the US-led war coalitions.

Shouldn’t ALL wars be condemned?

The BBC's Esther Akello Ogola explains how the lack of safety for women in public spaces in Kenya has been problematic for years.

The Mauritius cycling team are determined to race at the African Road Championships in Egypt despite having 12 competition bicycles stolen in South Africa.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 18 2022 (IPS)

The United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF), which is expected to provide retirement, death, disability and related benefits for staff, upon cessation of their services– has a staggering portfolio amounting to over $81.5 billion ranking far, far ahead of the UN’s annual budget of $3.1 billion and its average peacekeeping budget of over $6.4 billion.

The thousands of UN retirees and their beneficiaries, numbering over 71,000 at last count, who depend on their pensions for economic survival, are relentlessly protective of the Fund—while protesting all attempts at risky investments.

The Coordinating Committee for International Staff Unions and Associations of the UN system (CCISUA), which represents over 60,000 staffers worldwide, is protesting a new proposed plan to “outsource a large part of the pension fund’s investments to Wall Street”.

In a letter to Pedro Guazo, Representative of the Secretary-General for the investment of UNJSPF assets, Prisca Chaoui, the CCISUA President warned last week that the proposed outsourcing “ultimately calls into question the nature of our pension fund.”

“Is it one that continues to be managed prudently by experts employed by the fund, who by being UN staff have a stake in its long-term health, a system that employs the fund’s economies of scale to keep down costs and that has by the fund’s own telling outperformed the private sector up to now?” she asked.

“Or is it one that is outsourced to Wall Street to be the victim of a short-term get-rich-quick bonus culture with little regard to the welfare of beneficiaries around the world?”

“Based on the information that has been shared with us”, says Chaoui, “we fail to understand the reasons behind the move to external management, given the unnecessary and costly duplication of internal capacity.”

“We also believe that your intention to “stop the bleeding” has been addressed by the management changes you have implemented in response to issues highlighted by the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), and through a new Strategic Asset Allocation that significantly reduces our exposure to risky assets”.

Credit: UN Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF)

Given that the pension fund has access to the same financial instruments as Wall Street, and employs equally experienced investment officers, she argues, there should be no reason for a lower performance.

“Indeed, the pension fund’s other portfolios have worked fine under internal management.”

“We stand today at a fork in the road that will decide the future of our fund. We ask that you reverse the outsourcing strategy and keep the management of our assets safely in-house,” she declared.

Meanwhile, a petition currently in circulation among retirees and UN staffers, says Secretary-General Antonio Guterres claims this is a temporary measure that will increase performance.

“However, the plans authorize an increase in outsourcing over a period of three years. And over the long term, our conservative, internally-managed UN pension fund has performed better than many externally-managed final salary funds that have since been forced to close. Indeed, our fund is in actuarial balance,” says the petition seeking signatures.

“Under the proposal, up to 75 percent of the fund’s fixed-income portfolio will be externally managed.”

The Secretary-General is proceeding with the outsourcing despite strong concerns expressed at the February meeting of the pension board, despite a letter of protest from CCISUA (https://www.staffcoordinatingcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/PF-protest-letter.pdf) and despite the UN’s own Board of Auditors noting that the fund is not able to effectively evaluate its external managers.

In 2007, one year before the global financial crisis and the collapse of many financial institutions, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan considered outsourcing to Wall Street. But he wisely changed course following staff protests and kept our fund safe, says the petition.

“By handing our pension fund to Wall Street in these financially turbulent times, it risks becoming the victim of a short-term, greed-is-good bonus culture that has little regard for the welfare of our staff and retirees around the world and little regard for the ethical values of the UN”, says the petition titled “Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: Don’t hand our UN pension fund to Wall Street.”

“By signing this petition, you call on the Secretary-General, to once again stop the outsourcing of our pension fund and keep its management in-house. Please share this with your colleagues across the UN and specialized agencies”.

Responding to the ongoing protests, Pedro Guazo, Representative of the Secretary-General for the investment of UNJSPF assets, said on 16 March the Fund is aware of additional concerns expressed on the temporary outsourcing of part of the fixed income portfolio.

“As presented at the last Pension Board meeting on 24-25 February 2022 (see here) and in my message of 12 March 2022, the investments of the UN Pension Fund are doing very well overall, given the current economic and geopolitical context.”

However, argued Guazo, the Fund can do better in the fixed income portfolio. For many years that portfolio has underperformed against its benchmark, as outlined on the Fund’s website here.

He pointed out that the Fixed Income Team of the Fund’s Office of Investment Management put a proposal to manage part of the portfolio internally (35%) and, temporarily, using an external advisor under the supervision and control by the same internal team (65%).

This 65% of the fixed income portfolio represents around 18% of the total portfolio managed by the Office of Investment Management.

“This proposal has been reviewed by the internal committee, by the Pension Board and the Fund’s Investments Committee, concurring this is a good temporary solution to raise the performance of the fixed income portfolio. The use of temporary external advisors is a best practice in the pension fund industry to address underperforming asset classes,” he noted.

The immediate benefit for the UN Pension Fund, he said, will be additional USD 60 million a year in profits and this solution is only temporary. When the team is ready in some months the Office of Investment Management will again manage the portfolio internally.

“I hope this clarifies the objective and the benefits of this operation, that will, again, be applied only for a limited time,” he added.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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

In 2021, an employee in Chernihiv, Ukraine, exhibits grains of wheat on a conveyor belt as they are loaded for storage in granary tanks. Photo: Anatolii Stepanov/FAO

By Mario Lubetkin
ROME, Mar 17 2022 (IPS)

The effects of COVID-19 over the past two years, in addition to the increase in wars and conflicts, climate change and economic crises, have aggravated global food insecurity, generating serious concerns for 2022.

The main annual report on agrifood insecurity of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) presented in the second half of 2021, the subsequent reports on the crises in areas facing the greatest risk of food insecurity, and the current war between Russia and Ukraine, confirm these pessimistic global trends affecting every region of the world.

In 2020, more than 800 million people were already suffering from hunger. The dramatic effects of COVID-19 projected an increase of 100 million in these past two years, continuing in the negative trend of the last five years.

Around 50 of the least developed countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, with low incomes and large food deficits, obtain more than 30% of their wheat from the area currently in serious conflict

With just eight years before 2030, the date established by world leaders to eliminate poverty and hunger within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), global food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms persist. Insufficient progress is being made to allow us to consider the possibility that these objectives will be achieved within the agreed time.

The COVID-19 pandemic made clear the causes of vulnerability and deficiencies in global agrifood systems – the activities and processes affecting the production, distribution and consumption of food.

The challenge of overcoming hunger and malnutrition in all its forms (including undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity) goes beyond obtaining enough food for survival. Food for people, especially for children, must also be nutritious.

The high cost of healthy diets, which is likely to increase as a result of the war between Russia and Ukraine, will drive a growing number of families around the world further away from the goal of improving nutrition.

The dramatic European conflict that began on February 24th, whose effects are still difficult to understand in its full capacity, suggests that these trends will worsen.

Just think that Russia is the world’s largest exporter of wheat and Ukraine stands as the fifth largest. Together, they provide 19% of the world’s supply of barley, 14% of wheat and 4% of corn, and 52% of the world market for sunflower oil, and Russia is also the main producer of fertilizers.

Around 50 of the least developed countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, with low incomes and large food deficits, obtain more than 30% of their wheat from the area currently in serious conflict.

According to a recent FAO study, food prices started to rise in the second half of 2020, reaching an all-time high in February 2022 due to the high demand for products, input, and transport costs.

The study is still unable to record clear trends in the effects of the war that began in February, but considering the difficult conditions for carrying out the traditional June harvest in Ukraine, the massive displacements in many areas of the country that are causing a reduction in the number of agricultural workers, as well as the difficulty in accessing agricultural fields, transportation, among other aspects, makes us foresee a very complicated situation.

Countries with large populations, such as Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran and Turkey, are the main importers of wheat, buying more than 60% of that product from Russia and Ukraine. Other countries with strong internal conflicts, such as Libya and Yemen, and nations such as Lebanon, Pakistan and Tunisia also depend heavily on wheat from these two European countries.

If the situation continues in this direction, the number of people suffering from hunger will inevitably increase, which in the Middle East reached 69 million in 2020 due, in particular, to conflicts, poverty, climate change, the scarcity of natural resources and the economic crisis, in addition to the effects of COVID-19.

In Asia and the Pacific, during the same period, more than 375 million people were in a situation of hunger, facing high levels of poverty, economic contraction, climate change and COVID-19, among other aspects.

In Africa, the unstoppable increase in hunger continues for reasons similar to those of the other two regions. Latin America and the Caribbean is not far behind, reaching 9.1% of the regional population, slightly below the world average of 9.9% of the population.

Faced with the possible acceleration of this global scenario, aggravated by the war between Russia and Ukraine, FAO´s Director-General, QU Dongyu, called for keeping the world trade in food and fertilizers open to protect the production and marketing activities necessary to meet national and global demand.

He also asked to find new and diverse food suppliers for importing countries that would allow them to absorb the possible reduction in imports from the two European countries in conflict. He also focused his concern on supporting vulnerable groups, including internally displaced persons in Ukraine, expanding social safety nets, and anticipating that around the world “many more people will be pushed into poverty and hunger by conflict”.

QU called on governments to avoid ad hoc policy reactions because of their international effects, “since the reduction of import tariffs or the use of export reduction restrictions could help solve agrifood security problems for individual countries in the short term, but it would push prices higher on world markets.”

He also requested to strengthen transparency on world market conditions for governments and investors, relying on existing instruments such as the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) of the Group of 20 (G20).

Excerpt:

This is an op-ed by Mario Lubetkin, Assistant Director-General of FAO